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 The journey back to Ruby’s dorm room after their fifth, (sixth if you counted that one date Ruby hadn’t know about, which she didn’t) went by quickly. Like all things did when you didn’t want them to end any time soon and you were high on life and fun. The universe was contrary like that...and so was she. So was Emerald for that matter, as was obvious on their Bullhead ride when the green-haired girl found it hard to keep her hands off of Ruby, and Ruby found it hard to say no to those hands.

It was...new. Different, feeling those hands wherever they went. The small of her back. The side of her neck. Her stomach and thighs through the fabric of her clothing that, all of a sudden, felt much, much too thin...and much, much too heavy and hot for this sort of weather, even if it was still far too early in the spring to feel warm.

Ruby guessed that this was just a different kind of warm...and that it made it okay. As okay as it could be, when Emerald acted like she did. Stealing kisses, here and there. Whenever no one was looking and whenever someone was, completely unashamed in a way that gave Ruby a guilty thrill.

What did these people think of her, think of them going on like this? The giggling. The gentle touches. The soft, tight words spoken under their breaths, all in light jokes and heavy promises that had Ruby’s face turning as red as the tips of her hair.

When Emerald’s lips brushed the side of Ruby’s neck, the younger girl nearly collapsed on the spot. The trail of quick pecks around that spot did drop her, and it was only Emerald’s arm around her waist and seat under her bottom that kept this whole mess from being more embarrassing than it already was.

It was only when they hit the ground that Ruby got a chance for a breather. A moment to herself, to huddle up in her coat and look no one in the eye while Emerald acted like Zwei had that one time he’d got into the fridge. Innocent. Completely innocent. The sort of person that you could leave alone with your most precious possessions without having to worry about a thing.

Ruby was onto her though. Onto her and her tricksy ways… Blake’s books had, on a second read-through with someone around to translate, been a great deal more helpful and that was all she could bring herself to say. Well, almost all she could bring herself to say.

Blake, beyond being a good friend and really sneaky, was really freaking lonely. Really freaking lonely, and stuck with an urge to live vicariously through her friends. She denied it though. Like expected. Blake wasn’t very honest about herself. It was an acquired taste.

“Quit it,” Ruby hissed before she gave Emerald’s wandering hand, just above the younger huntress’s hip a playful swat while she looked for her scroll. “I need my scroll to open the door!”

“That’s right. You do.” Emerald breathed into Ruby’s ear, setting her face aflame as every hair on her body stood on end. “But do you need it right now?”

Ruby looked at the door for a moment. The door right in front of her. The door to her room, in the middle of this empty hallway in the middle of the evening. The door that would take her little more than a second to open if she could just reach… Damn it.

“... Not really.”

“Then let’s take our time.”

Ruby couldn’t complain though. If she hadn’t had anyone to back her up, Yang would have found out that her sister was growing up and things would have been...how did you say it? Up the chocolate river without a paddle? Something like that.

Anyway, another couple of minutes up against the door, making the hinges loudly creak under the stress of their makeout and some bruised lips. Some fumbling. Some random presses at a keypad and the beeps of an invalid later and Ruby was free again. Left to stand on her own two feet at the very doorstep of her room, panting and dizzy. Left alone to feel the chill of spring that Emerald had been pushing away just by standing close. Far too soon. Not soon enough.

“I guess I entered the right code,” Ruby laughed faintly. Awkwardly. So very awkward when Emerald joined in, sounding as if she wasn’t quite sure what she was laughing at. She was in good company, and it was...weird. The feeling of it. Not a bad weird. Definitely not a bad weird...but weird.

No one who had known Ruby for more than an hour would have accused the girl of being all that good at words, let alone herself. Especially not herself. Ruby knew her limits (sometimes) and talking good was definitely one of them. That had been hammered into her quite clearly due to several events that she’d been a part of in her short time on Remnant. Some, more recent than others.

She’d almost died after Weiss had gotten through telling her exactly what she’d done wrong the day she’d met Winter. Really. Her Aura had taken a hit and everything and...where was Weiss anyway?

Ruby looked behind her. Just a peek. She saw no one. Heard not a peep...and then she turned back with a weak smile and a bead of cold sweat running down her forehead as she realized that, without a doubt, no one was home. No one but her.

“Do you want to come in for some hot chocolate or something?”

“Ah...yeah." A bead of sweat ran down Emerald's own forehead then to the bridge of her nose. "Sure.”

Oh thank god. If Emerald hadn’t said yes, Ruby had no idea what she would have done.

==========

Well. Ruby had no idea what she would have done if Emerald had said no...but she now had a pretty good idea of what she’d do if she said yes.

Nothing good. That was all.

Ruby nervously sipped at her near empty mug. Her near empty mug that had been ‘nearly empty’ for the last thirty minutes, after she’d drained most of it in a single go while it was still hot. Pretty much boiling, actually, with only her experience with much worse, well...experiences...with boiling drinks having kept her from screaming like the little girl she wasn’t. It hadn’t been enough, not nearly enough for her to stop worrying about whether or not Emerald had noticed what she’d done, considering she hadn’t exactly been quiet either way...but hope was what made the world go round.

Really. Besides money, which didn’t count, hope was pretty much what kept the world going where it really mattered. If you, you poor thing, didn’t happen to have the light of your soul unlocked and a weapon that happened to eat up more dust than most generators, (which was most people) while on the frontier, you just had to deal with hoping really, really hard that something wasn’t going to eat you that day.

Ruby kicked her legs. The legs she had set to dangling over the edge of her bed a while ago so that she could, in between her internal screaming show Emerald pictures of Zwei as a puppy or something. She wasn’t sure why she’d thought that was a good idea, considering the whole point of this mess was to be an adult...but that was what had come up. Emerald and her, cooing over pictures of a Corgi, Ruby firmly in control of the scroll so that there wouldn’t be any accidents.

Baby pictures and some friendly blackmail. Sensitive stuff. Stuff that, just like Corgis and hot chocolate, wasn’t what Ruby wanted to talk about. Think about. Do anything about but forget, just for a moment, now that everything was as good as it would probably ever get.

Where had her plans gone? Really. She’d had a plan. One that she’d thought up, with some help from Blake, but yes. She’d had one. A plan with the t’s crossed and the i’s hearted even...where had they gone though.

She’d had a really nice date. Emerald and her had had fun. Lunch. The arcade. Movies, dinner, a stroll down to the donut shop to pick up some sweets. They’d come back to Beacon, all affectionate and touchy to find an empty room, thanks to Blake being Blake...that last one was something that Ruby had been told not to ask about, so she hadn’t, even if it was bugging her something fierce… Anyway, everything had been as close to perfect as they could make it. Everything except one thing. Just one, little, problem.

Her. Ruby. She was the problem.

She tightened her hands over her knees, balling up her dress in them. The dress that with, once again, some help from Blake, she’d shortened just enough to make her seem welcoming without making her look too welcoming… A dress that had, suddenly felt far, far shorter than it already was as doubt started to eat away at her. Not just any doubt though. The worst kind of doubt.

Relationship doubt.

Was she ready for this? Was Emerald? Had this ever been a good idea in the first place, or had she just ruined everything in her life by being herself?

… Ruby had always wondered why her dad hadn’t just...moved on. Looked for someone else to make him happy. Now though? She had to wonder how he’d even gotten married, let alone started dating at all.

Her heart. Her poor, poor heart...may her death be quick.

Anymore self-recrimination was cut off by an arm wrapping itself around her shoulders...and to make up for it, the burn in her cheeks went up three-fold. Then four-fold when Emerald started rubbing her arm.

Ruby, instead of saying something intelligible, bleated...and she wondered if anyone would ever find her body if she went out into the Emerald Forest and didn’t come out...no. Backtrack. That was a stupid idea. The school used that place for tests. Having some poor firstie find her would...it wouldn’t be good. Also, that was just a stupid idea in general…and no one that had known Ruby for over an hour would have accused her of being good at thinking about reasonable solutions to her problems while forced to think them up on the spot either.

Whatever though. Emerald was talking.

“It’s okay if you’re not ready,” Emerald said comfortingly as she gave the scroll a swipe, turning the page onto a moment where Zwei, at the age of exactly one, got his birthday gift. Gifts. An unlocked Aura and a pound of steak, medium rare. “I’m not going to push you.”

Ruby swallowed and continued to kick her legs. “... Am I really that obvious?”

“Oh, yeah. So much.”

Ruby groaned.

“I’m not going to push you.” She said as she pulled Ruby a little closer. “I’m not going to bite.”

Ruby stiffly nodded as she took in a deep breath. Took in the smell of Emerald, of Earth and spice and...pumpkins?

“But, of course, the date doesn’t have to end right now either.” Emerald finished as she carefully dropped her mug somewhere out of the way...then started the buttons of her shirt from top to bottom, showing off several new inches of skin that Ruby had resigned herself to not seeing today. Or ever.

Obviously, she’d been wrong...and now she was just stammering. Choking on words, most of them complete nonsense as Emerald continued to strip. The stammering only stopped when she felt faint and, finally, remembered to breathe at the sight of Emerald’s black and green bra...then the second shirt underneath, the only thing separating her from decency and Ruby’s namesake-red cheeks from turning to a deep sapphire blue.

“We can cuddle a little. Share some body heat.” Emerald smirked as she slowly pulled off the first layer of her clothing...then started on the second. “Do a little skin-to-skin bonding?”

Ruby, who wasn’t so much breathing now as existing through sheer force of will, just nodded in agreement. That...was something she could do. Baby steps. She even managed to not faint when she wa—heard, definitely heard Emerald take off her pants.

… Apparently, Emerald was the type to wear boxers. Or, at least, that’s what it sounded like. Ruby wouldn’t have pegged her as the type. Yep.

After some hesitation and awkward, high-pitched giggling, they finally managed to settle down. To just...lay around while Ruby found herself quickly heating up. Not just because of body heat or anything. It was more...you know. The other kind of heating up.

She was curled up next to Emerald’s chest with a single, tanned arm wrapped around her middle to bring her in close. Then the blanket showed up. Made everything a great deal warmer, making Emerald’s scent become something almost overwhelming...and that made Ruby question things.

What did Emerald use for her perfume? Normally, Ruby wouldn’t have been all that concerned about it...but, she couldn’t help but be concerned now. It was kind of relevant. Needful. Anything and everything as that scent continued to fill her nose… Alright. Back off from that. Focus. Focus on what mattered.

Focus on the funny cat videos that Emerald had pulled up on her scroll. Watching cats being cute. Watching cats knock things off of countertops. Watch cats scaring themselves. Classic. Classic enough that Ruby had a thought about getting a cucumber and placing it next to Blake before she quashed it. Not only was that idea, probably, racist… Blake was weird enough that Ruby wasn’t sure if Blake would react the way a cat would.

Most cats didn’t have access to machine guns. No more explanation required.

As the minutes went by Ruby continued to relax into Emerald’s arms, no longer forcing herself to enjoy something that she wasn’t sure she wanted to do. Or that she had to think about. It was the most natural thing in the world, really. Her just laying there, comfortable in her girlfriend’s arms. A sentence that even a month ago she would have...not laughed at. No. Definitely, not...she would have put her hood up though, and that was close enough.

She shifted a little. Just a little. As comfortable as she was, and as much as she didn’t want to interrupt this whole...thing...her arm was starting to go numb. All pins and needles that had her wincing and mentally cursing her Aura because it wasn’t doing its job.

Soon, that ‘just a little’ became ‘just a lot’. Ruby started out with some wriggling to get her arm out from under her. Then, she started doing the closest thing to jumping in place without actually doing it after she found out that being in close proximity to someone made this whole mess a lot harder than it should have been.

After a few seconds of this, Emerald just dropped her scroll somewhere out of the way and tried to escape the hurricane. Too little, too late, but it was the thought that counted when Ruby’s hand encounter something hard.

Now, normally, Ruby wouldn’t have thought anything of it. They were quite literally rolling around in the bed. There were plenty of hard objects and surfaces to touch. Like, say, a knee to the face. Or an old bearing. Or, even, Emerald’s weapon.

Ruby couldn’t have been the only one to go to sleep with their weapon, right? Course not...but, sadly(?) that wasn’t what it was either.

No. What caused her to pause and think was Emerald’s surprised gasping before she slapped at Ruby’s hands...and Ruby came to a conclusion. One that the Ruby of a month ago wouldn’t have thought anything about. That was old Ruby though. This was new Ruby. Ruby 2.0, maybe 2.2, now slightly less naive and more observant.

She didn’t know why she did what she did next, but she did. Be it curiosity, instinct, or whatever other words that could apply to her situation...Ruby flipped around to face Emerald before she pulled the blanket up, only to see something that had come straight out of one of Blake’s Mistralian Doujins.

… And she’d said that girls with dicks were just for the sake of the story. Ruby was going to have to reexamine everything that she’d thought she’d known now. Again. Maybe after a good scream?

Emerald said something. Loudly. Something about her being sorry and how she would explain as her every word fell on deaf ears. Ruby was dead to the world now. Gone. The only thing that still existed was the bulge in Emerald’s boxers. The tent that had already come up to a point at the front where it beat to the frantic pace of Emerald’s heart.

Inside of Ruby’s brain, there was a metaphorical dam. A metaphorical dam that had metaphorically acquired many cracks in its metaphorical foundation during the last month. Just a load of metaphorical happenings that had started at the beginning of the month that had led to some very much non-metaphorical consequences.

Blake’s books. Blake’s explanations. Blake’s help… Ruby appreciated it. All of it. Especially knowing how bad it would be for her if Yang ever found out how she’d weakened the walls that kept Ruby the small, cute girl that everyone knew her as… Weakened, but not broken. The dam had held firm. Had. That was the important part. Had.

The dam had just broken. It’s contents released.

With the type of grace and steadiness only surgeons, snipers, and master smiths had, her fingers tucked themselves underneath the waistband of Emerald’s boxers.

Puberty had been pushed back for far too long, and now it was coming to collect.

A tug down and Emerald was quiet. Completely except for her raspy breathing as her erection was freed. All seven inches of it, a length of dark, pre-oozing chocolate surrounded by a mint-green thatch of hair and...and Blake had been very thorough when it came to Ruby’s education. Slang or otherwise.

She could have been a good teacher if she'd wanted to be...oh well. Now wasn’t the time to be thinking about Blake.

Ruby shimmied down. All the way down. Far enough that all it would take for Ruby to vanish some of that chocolate would be an open mouth and a push forward.

“Oh my god,” Emerald whimpered as Ruby did exactly that. Opened her mouth and took Emerald in past her lips. Just up to the head before she gave that piece of meat a light suck and a lick.