Acceptance

Even in the busy cafeteria, surrounded by scores of their classmates, Ruby heard absolutely nothing as she stared at the redhead across from her. Silence filled her ears, a panicked dread that pulsed through her like a living thing, running down her veins to settle around her heart. It squeezed and contracted as the fear ran through her, turning her insides to knots.

What if Pyrrha said no? The older girl's hand was still on hers. She hadn't recoiled, hadn't pulled away in disgust or anger. That had to be a good sign. Right? Unless it's just shock. Unless she's completely surprised and has no idea how to tell me no.

Gods, what if Pyrrha said no? What if she wasn't interested in other girls, or if she already had someone else she liked? Ruby had seen the way she'd looked at Jaune their first few months at Beacon, but when he started crushing on Weiss, it looked like Pyrrha had lost interest. What if she didn't? What if this weirds her out and she never talks to me again?

Something tightened around her hand, and Ruby's heart stopped. She looked down. It was Pyrrha's hand, still on hers, squeezing a fraction tighter. That didn't make sense. Was Pyrrha angry with her? That had to be it, the whole white-knuckled fingers-tightening reaction. Pyrrha was trying to keep her temper under control.

Her heart sank, leaving her filled with an emptiness that gnawed at the inside of her chest. Why couldn't she have just kept her mouth shut? This would have all—

Something touched the base of her chin, making her flinch. She wanted to pull back, pull away, and found she couldn't move, trapped by the hand holding hers atop the table. Soft, constant pressure pulled her gaze back up to the redhead across from her, forcing her to look at the woman that right then she feared more than anything.

Gentle eyes as green as grass stared back at her, kind beneath their sculpted brows, perfect enough to have been carved from marble. Her lips moved and Ruby's eyes darted to them, unable to look away. It was obvious why someone had chosen Pyrrha to be their model, why they had picked her to be the focus of their marketing campaign. Someone that beautiful...

"... Ruby?"

The younger girl came to with a start. Pyrrha was watching her, a concerned look on her face as she cocked her head to the side. Shaking her head, Ruby pulled away from the hand still on her chin.

"I-" she started, her voice cracking. "I'm sorry, I-I didn't mean to. I just—" Her voice failed. She needed to get away, to hide, to run back to her room, pull the blankets over her head, and just curl into a ball and forget the world existed.

She tried to stand, her arm jerking as she tried to pull from Pyrrha's grip. She couldn't. The Mistrali girl didn't let go, too angry or surprised to let her leave that easily.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah." Ruby croaked, eyes stinging and trying her best to ignore it. "Yeah, I just ... I need to go."

"Oh." Pyrrha blinked. Her eyebrows creased, just a little, as she looked up at the shorter girl. "O-okay? I guess I'll see you later?"

Pyrrha let go, and in an instant, Ruby found herself away from the table. It took everything she had in her to keep from running for the exit, to bolt before anyone had a chance to see the humiliation plastered all over her face. She mumbled something in the affirmative, and turned, forcing herself to walk at a measured pace towards the double doors.

"Ruby, wait."

Her feet stopped. Ruby told them to move, yelled it in her mind, her entire being screaming at the need to just be gone. They didn't listen, stuck to the ground as surely as if she'd stepped in drying cement. By the time she got them moving again, Pyrrha came up alongside her, looking down as she tried to get her attention.

"I'm free this weekend, if you are."

What?

Pyrrha blinked, her eyebrows arching as she looked down at her. Had she said that out loud? Ruby wasn't sure. She couldn't remember, couldn't think, couldn't focus on anything other than that ache settling deep down into her bones.

"Our date?" Pyrrha said, gently, legs moving in two long strides that took her around in front of Ruby as they walked out through the doors and onto the school commons. "I don't know what you had in mind, but I'm free this weekend if you want to do something. Next weekend should be okay, too, if you're busy."

... what?

"I..." Ruby stammered, tongue tying itself in knots. "I didn't ... you want to go with me?"

"Yes?" Pyrrha said, her head turning slightly to the side, eyes narrowing as if she was trying to figure out some deeper meaning to the question. She looked ... confused, oddly comforting as Ruby stared back in complete disbelief.

"You want to go out with me." Ruby heard the words come from her mouth, but they didn't make sense. Individually, she knew what they meant, each word fell into place in her mind, but somehow ...

Pyrrha nodded, that confused look still on her face as she reached out and put a hand on Ruby's shoulder. "Yes, I do."

"On a date. With me."

"Yes?" Pyrrha's voice pitched up at the end there, her smile starting to fade. "That's what I said ... are you feeling alright? You look a little green."

"No. No, just ..." Just trying to figure out if I'm dreaming. Or dead and damned, and this is my water-always-slipped from your grasp torture. "Uh, this weekend sounds ... fine. Yeah. How's Saturday for you?"

A shy, cautious smile spread over the older girl's lips, making Ruby's insides do somersaults as another wave of awe and terror crashed into her. "Saturday sounds great."

"... okay then." Ruby nodded and had no idea why. "I will ... message you. When I know what we're doing."

"Okay." the older girl laughed, her hand coming down off Ruby's shoulder. For a moment, the two of them just stood there, Ruby still half-in-shock, Pyrrha looking at her with a strange expression on her face, mouth curled in a half-smile that kept tugging at the corner of her mouth. "So ... I guess I'll see you in class?"

"Class. Right. Yup." Ruby nodded again, giving Pyrrha a quick smile as the redhead turned and headed back into the dining hall.

Unmoving, she watched as the door swung back shut, cutting off the trickle of voices through the door. In an instant, she was alone on the school grounds, one solitary figure in the morning quiet while everyone else dragged themselves out of bed and slowly made their way to showers and breakfasts and the usual, plodding crawl of a weekday before class.

Swallowing, Ruby took a breath. And then another. And another.

Pyrrha said yes.

She had to be dreaming. Or hallucinating. There couldn't be any other explanation for what had just happened. She hadn't needed to convince her, or tell her how she felt about her, or admit that she was the one who left the flowers. Pyrrha just ... said 'yes'. It was too easy, too simple, too...

Pyrrha said yes.

Pyrrha said yes. Ruby hadn't really thought about what would happen if she said yes. That meant ... they were dating.Or going out. Or whatever you wanted to call it. Unless it didn't count until after the first date. Did you have to have a couple dates before it really meant you were dating? Was it like the annual thing where it had to happen twice before you could use the word? Would Pyrrha even say they were dating, or would she not want to use labels too soon, or —

Oh, no, she thought, as a her stomach dropped again. She said yes. And I have no idea where to take her.

Slowly, her body moving without her telling it to, Ruby turned and wandered her way back towards her dorm room, mind racing all the while.

Contrary to what Yang told her and the murmurs she half-heard on the way back to her room, the door was not frozen solid into a block of ice. There were no spikes threatening to gore any student who walked by. No ship-destroying iceberg blocked the stairwell up to her floor. Even the door knob seemed fine when Ruby reached for it, if a little chilly.

Swinging it open, she found their room the way she left it that morning. Blake's weekly pile of library books sat at her bedside. Weiss' neat pile of school supplies sat perfectly arranged on her desk. Her own homework still splayed out across her bed, pages crumpled as they met her blankets. There were no signs of the knock-down drag-out fight she'd been led to expect.

Convinced that the room wasn't suddenly about to explode, she stepped inside and closed the door behind her. A sense of safety settled in around her, wrapping around her shoulders like her favorite cloak as she moved into the calm, empty room. More on instinct that anything, she meandered her way to the large red beanbag sitting in the corner by her bed, and let her legs collapse, pitching herself directly into the soft red fabric.

She did it.

She actually did it.

Relief at having finally asked mixed with the joy of knowing Pyrrha had said yes, terror from the knowledge that she had absolutely no idea what she was doing, and the anxiety that she had under a week before she needed to have a date planned for the two of them. A date. A real date. With her and Pyrrha and ... I am so, so screwed.

Something clicked, and Ruby looked up in time to see the door to their bathroom swing open as Yang stepped out, still in the middle of running a wide-bristled brush through her hair.

"Oh. Hey sis," Yang said, smiling over at her, free hand holding her hair in place, then smoothing the strands after the brush passed through them.

"... hey." Ruby tried, and failed, to sound chipper. She managed neutral, probably the best she could expect with how she drained she felt. Like she'd just taken on half their year in Glynda's combat drills one after another. "Didn't see you leave breakfast."

"Blake texted me once she calmed Weiss down. She kinda kicked me out before I had a chance to finish getting ready."

Ruby nodded, still numb. "So, is Weiss okay?"

"She had a ... bad first reaction." Yang sighed and sat down on the edge of Blake's bed. "She's gonna get breakfast with Blake. Cool off a bit. We agreed to ... chat about it during lunch." Reaching over, she set her brush down on her desk, then grabbed for her uniform ribbon. Reaching back, she started tying it around her neck, and shot Ruby a curious look. "How are you doing with all this? You look pale. You eat enough?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." Ruby lied, and from the look on Yang's face, not too convincingly either. "So ... you and Winter, huh?"

"Yup." Yang smiled ruefully as she settled the ribbon into place. "Me and Ice Queen Senior."

"Isn't she a little ... old for you?" Ruby asked, staring up at her sister from the beanbag, trying to remember what Winter looked like the last time she visited Weiss. She and Ruby hadn't talked much, barring a brief introduction from Weiss, but Winter had to be quite a bit older than her sister. That, or she'd inherited every single tall gene her parents had. Or both.

"She's only four years older than Weiss." Yang gave Ruby a shrug that was just a little too casual, exactly the way she always did when she tried to seem indifferent about something. Ruby had seen it often enough when they were growing up: the first time Yang talked to their dad about getting a bike; the day she'd shown Ruby and Qrow the gauntlets she'd designed at Signal; after the first time she brought a date home. "Twenty-two and eighteen ... I mean it's not that bad, right?"

Ruby shrugged back. "I mean, her being older isn't a problem? For you, I mean?"

"It's ... look. Right now, Ruby, we're just having fun. She's busy with the military and I'm training to be a huntress." Fluffing her hair one last time, Yang let it settle around her shoulders, a slight frown curling her lips. "I'll message her in a couple days, maybe try video calls when she has access to CCT. When she can come back to Vale ... well, we'll see what happens."

"And you're sure Weiss is okay with this?" Ruby's eyebrows raised. Considering the way Weiss hero-worshipped her sister, she wouldn't have thought Weiss would be all that 'relaxed' about Winter dating one of her teammates. But if Weiss is okay with it, then maybe Yang ...

"I ... wouldn't call it 'okay'," the brawler grimaced. "She's ... I dunno how she really feels about it. She did the whole disgust-and-horror act at first, but she did eventually unfreeze the door." A diabolic smile spread across Yang's lips. "Maybe she's warming up to the idea."

Ruby groaned, rolling her eyes while her sister laughed. "Does Dad know?"

"Ha." Yang laughed, mirthlessly. "I'm not bringing that up unless ... look, if I end up seriously dating someone, I'll tell him. But Winter and me hitting up a club together isn't the kind of thing I write home about. Plus, think about how Uncle Qrow'd react if he heard I spent the night with a Schnee."

That ... Yang had a point. Once he'd heard who their teammate was, Qrow hadn't exactly been quiet about his dislike for the Schnee Dust Company, or the 'corrupt sack-of-crap family' that ran the place.

"Yang if ..." Ruby paused, trailing off as she kicked her legs, staring at the floor of their dorm room. "If I wanted to date someone, someone older ... that would be okay too, right?"

"So, you're finally gonna talk to me about 'em?" Yang asked, and grinned as Ruby's head snapped up to stare at her. Patting the edge of Blake's bed, she nodded to the spot beside her. "I have eyes, sis. I knew something was up and you didn't want to talk about it. So, how much older?"

Pushing herself up off the beanbag, Ruby made her way over to the bed and slumped down beside her sister. "Just ... someone in our year."

"... if it's anyone from team CRDL, I'll have Dad ground you until you're twenty."

Ruby shuddered. "Eww, no. And I'm pretty sure their team name is said like 'Cardinal'."

"'Curdle' fits them better." Sighing, Yang flopped back down on the bed, blond hair fanning out behind her. "Well, you don't seem to have brain damage from combat practice. That's a good sign. It's not Neptune, right?"

Ruby tried to imagine anyone seriously dating Team SSSN's resident flirt, and failed. "Uh, no."

"Good. Coco?"

Ruby supposed that technically was a closer guess. "I said our year. No."

"... is it Jaune?"

"NO. Yang, come on!"

Grinning, the blonde reached over and gave her sister's shoulder a playful shove. "Yeah Ruby, two years for you should be okay. As long as they're good to you. You gonna tell me who it is?"

"I—" Ruby stammered and stopped. There was a part of her that hadn't actually expected Yang to be okay with it. Apparently, this was a day for surprises, and Ruby kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. "I'm not ... we haven't exactly ..."

With a roll of her eyes, Yang reached over and tugged her little sister close, wrapping her arms around her. "It's okay, sis. I won't pry. Just promise you'll tell me when you're ready."

For a moment, Ruby forgot she was a huntress-in-training, and sixteen. All she felt was that sheer weight of everything on her mind just stop as Yang wrapped her arms around her. For a moment, she was that kid on Patch again, relived to be back in the middle of one of those hugs that always seemed to make everything a little bit better. Leaning into her sister, Ruby thudded her head down onto Yang's shoulder and squeezed her back. She hadn't realized how much Yang's approval would mean to her, how much she'd worried about how Yang would take the idea of her dating.

"... thanks, Yang."

"No problem. I'm just glad you told me." A hand came up to the back of her head, and stroked slowly down her hair. Ruby's eyes fell shut, and for a long moment, they just sat there, Ruby buried in Yang's shoulder as her sister held her.

Finally, when everything seemed a little bit less, Ruby shifted, and Yang pulled away. She was smiling, her eyes sparkling as she rubbed Ruby's shoulder one last time. Then she smiled, and leaned forward to make sure Ruby met her gaze.

"Just know, if they try anything, I'm breaking all their fingers."

"Yaaaang ..."

"Nope. Non-negotioable. It's my job. Big sister rules," the blond smiled toothily and patted Ruby on the head. "I mean, if Blake messed with Weiss, how long do you think it'd take Winter to classify her as a domestic terrorist? Pretty sure she already has Jaune on Atlas' No-Fly list."

"... you're joking, right?"

"Only a little, sis." Yang grinned. "We're big sisters. It's what we do."

Author's Note: If you can, please take the time to leave a review – it lets me know what the reader response is and whether or not I should do more stuff along the lines of whatever I've posted.

So you know, some of these are coming from prompts submitted to my tumblr. If you'd like to see the drabbles before they get compiled, or select your own prompts, please go check it out at redsuitwriter dot tumblr dot com. (Extended sigh for FF's linking policies)