Archive of Our Own

Now, at least nothing broke. That was the good part. Unfortunately, one of Yang's errant throws nearly broke Ruby. It was too high and too far. Ruby, with outstretched arms, jumped back and tried to catch it. However, as high as it was, it hit the wall above Ruby's hands.. She followed suit, banging the back of her head hard against the drywall. Zwei, Yang, and Weiss all immediately started running towards her as the ball bounced uselessly away.

"Oww, fuck!" Ruby groaned, sprawled out on the ground and holding her head. While Zwei and Yang dropped down next to her, making sure she was alright, Weiss had stopped in her tracks. She stared open-mouthed at Ruby, playing back repeatedly what she had just said.

"Ruby!" Her shrill scream caught everyone's attention. All eyes were on her, including Blake, who had been idling around before that moment. "You can't say that!"

"Wha? Say what?" Ruby slowly sat up with help from Yang, rubbing the back of her head and looking at Weiss. It always seemed like she was doing something wrong, but she couldn't fathom what she had done this time.

"That word!" Weiss shouted back, telling her absolutely nothing about what exactly she had said that was so wrong. "It's not very ladylike to curse, you know." 'Ohh!' Well, now it all made sense. Ruby immediately started to giggle, which naturally made Weiss's temper rise. "And just what are you laughing at, Ruby?!"

"Are you trying to tell me not to say 'fuck', Weiss?" When Weiss visibly cringed, Ruby burst out into fits of laughter. "Ow ow, my head, ahahaha owowow! Stop it, Weiss! You're making me laugh too much!" 

"Me?! That's your fault for messing around in close quarters! And maybe you deserve that for not listening to me." Putting her hands on her hips, Weiss looked like she had just sucked on a lemon. "Cursing is something uncouth women do, Ruby. It's for lower class people. As our leader, I expect better from you."

"Aww Weiss, there's nothing wrong with swearing." Yang stood up once she made sure Ruby was okay, ambling over to sling an arm around Weiss's shoulder. "Sometimes saying something's good just isn't gonna cut it. You gotta say that it's bitchin', ya know?"

"I do not know," Weiss retorted, sliding out from under Yang's arm and stepping back, frowning deeply. "You're a bad influence on Ruby, you know that? I bet you swear like a sailor in front of her, and she ends up emulating you. You need to improve your vocabulary, Yang. Blake, back me up here."

"What?" Blake, realizing that she was being dragged into the conversation, tried to slip unnoticed back into bed. "Don't bring me into this conversation. I don't care."

"Like hell you don't!" With surprising speed, Weiss caught Blake before she could sneak under the covers, grabbing her arm and forcibly dragging her towards the sisters. "You're of sound mind, Blake. Wouldn't you agree that swearing is for those who have weak vocabularies?"

"Well, I don't personally swear." She could feel herself sweating, thinking about the copious amounts of swearing in some of the more risque literature that she read. If only Weiss knew there were worse things Ruby could be saying than swear words, like what the main character of the most recent book she was reading was doing to their love interest in the back of a train car. She had a feeling someone as stuck up as Weiss would never recover. "But I'm not going to police other people's dialogue."

"Then you are an enabler." Weiss let go of Blake's arm, shaking her head disgustedly. "I'm disappointed in all of you for this behavior. Especially you." She pointed at Yang, who looked visibly shocked.

"Me?! I didn't even swear! That was all Ruby!"

"Wow, way to throw me under the bus, sis..."

"Yes, but I know that you were the one who taught her to curse like that." Glaring at Yang, Weiss grabbed Ruby's arm and took her towards the door. "If you'll excuse us, I have some lessons to teach Ruby about the art of conversation."

"Aww man! Yaaang, help me!" Ruby squirmed in Weiss's grasp, but didn't have the full heart to yank herself away. "At least take Yang instead! She's the bad influence!" When it came to throwing sisters under the bus, what was good for the goose was good for the gander. Whatever the fuck a 'gander' was.

"Yes, but Yang is irredeemable. I can still save you." There was no more room for argument. Weiss pulled Ruby out of the bedroom and slammed the door, Ruby's cries for mercy fading the further away they got.

"Well then," Yang muttered, scratching at her scalp. "I feel like I should be offended by that, but at least I don't have to deal with a Weiss lecture. Maybe being irredeemable has its perks."

"That's one way of looking at it." 

"Alright Ruby, now let's say you're in a situation where you get hurt." Weiss had taken Ruby up to the top floor balcony, where she was attempting to teach her partner proper etiquette. Considering that Ruby had cursed while getting hurt, that seemed like a good place to start. "Instead of saying the f-word like you did, why not try just saying 'Ow'?"

"Aww, but Weiss, I can't help it! If I hurt myself like that, it just comes out, you know?" Ruby really didn't see what the big deal was. Who cared if she said 'fuck' a time or two? She hadn't expected Weiss to be so anal about it. Hehehe, anal... Probably shouldn't say that out loud either.

"That's because you're not trying!" Weiss huffed in frustration, wondering for a moment if Ruby was also a lost cause. No, she didn't believe that. Unlike her uncouth older sister, Ruby was a much nicer, better-spoken girl. There had to be a way to show her the error of her ways, also known as the error of Yang's ways. "Once you stop using curse words, then it will become more instinctual for you."

"I suppose..." Ruby sighed, shaking her head slightly. Why was this such a big deal to Weiss? Her swearing wasn't affecting anyone. Sure, people were sometimes surprised at the mouth on someone as cute and innocent as she looked, but that's what happened when you grow up around people like Yang and Qrow. Besides, they were just words. What was the problem, really? "Don't you ever feel like swearing, Weiss?"

"Of course not! How dare you even insinuate such a thing!" The nerve of Ruby to think she would let such rough words leave her lips. She had been raised better than that. "A proper woman doesn't devolve to swearing when things aren't going her way. That's a lesson you'll need to learn, Ruby."

"That's a lame lesson," Ruby muttered, though she had to quickly take it back when she saw the look on Weiss's face. "Uh, I mean, it's not a lame lesson?" That did not change her expression at all. "C'mon Weiss, this is silly! I'm not as prim and proper as you, okay? Sometimes I swear, and that's okay! Everybody does it!"

"Don't be so broad, Ruby. Not everyone swears. I don't." Ruby was being difficult, but that was normal for her. She had been difficult to deal with since the day they met. That didn't mean it was time to give up, though. Weiss was going to get through to her, no matter how long it took. Well, eventually she would give up, but now wasn't that time.

She spent the next twenty minutes trying to convince Ruby that there were better uses of her vocabulary. Between tips and different words, she threw all of her arsenal at the team leader. Maybe it stuck, but at the moment, it seemed she had still left Ruby unconvinced. At that point, she was tired, and she decided that they would need to reconvene another time.

"Alright, let's go back to the dorm," she sighed, wondering if she had gotten through at all to Ruby. Looking in her eyes, she couldn't tell. Maybe this all was for naught, and Ruby was as far gone as her sister. She would still try, though, at least for a while longer. There were more connections between herself and her partner than there was with her and Yang, anyway.

"Yay!" Ruby hopped up happily -- a bit too happily. Shaking her head, Weiss got up after her, and the two of them headed off of the balcony. However, being distracted by the entire situation made Weiss less cautious than she usually was. Without her eyes fully focused on what was in front of her, she accidentally rammed her elbow into the side of the door, sending a sharp pain right up her funny bone.

"Ow! Son of a bitch!" She cried out and grabbed her elbow, hissing in pain. Barely avoiding hitting Ruby, she hopped around in pain, biting hard on her lip. When she was finally able to calm down and let her pained arm drop down, she noticed that Ruby was staring at her, a huge grin on her face. "What? What's so funny, Ruby?"

"You swore, Weiss." Ruby could barely contain her laughter at that point, her entire body shaking from the effort.

"What?" Weiss blinked, thinking back on what she had just said. When she realized what had come from her lips, her entire face visibly paled. That was saying something, considering how pale she already was. At that point, Ruby couldn't hold back any longer. She collapsed to the ground, holding her stomach as she laughed boisterously. "Stop laughing, Ruby! Stop it this instance!"

"Weiss said a bad word! Weiss said a bad word!" Ruby was howling with laughter, barely able to get any words out. By that point, Weiss was blushing furiously, trying to glare Ruby into silence. It wasn't working. "Wait 'til I tell Yang!"

"You will do no such thing!" Seeing Ruby trying to crawl her way down the hall, Weiss was forced to toss her dignity aside as she dived for her partner. Ruby let out a cry of surprise as Weiss landed on her, pinning her down to the ground. "Don't you dare tell anyone about this! Especially not Yang!"

"Weiss! Get off me!" Of course, Ruby was stronger than Weiss, which made it easy to buck her off. While she wasn't physically strong, Weiss made up for it in dogged tenacity. She held on for dear life, refusing to let Ruby escape with her semblance and tell the world that she swore. That was going to go to the grave with them, even if they both had to die right then and there.

"Not until you promise not to tell anyone!" By that point, Ruby was basically dragging Weiss across the floor. They were both getting their outfits dirty, but there was more at stake than needing to throw them in the wash. 

"Promise not to tell anyone what?" Both of them stopped what they were doing, looking up to find Nora and Pyrrha standing above them. Nora had a big grin on her face, already sensing there was some gossip in the air that she was excited to hear about. As for Pyrrha, she looked somewhat awkward at the position she had found the two of them in, but a bit curious as to what was going on.

"Nothing!" Weiss covered Ruby's mouth before she could blurt anything out that didn't need to be said. "Nothing at all!" Now Nora was the one with an increasing grin, and Weiss didn't like that look. She had been around Ruby, Yang, and Nora enough now to know that whenever any of them were grinning like that, bad things were to follow.

"Ohhh boy, I can't wait to tell Yang that you're trying to get busy with her sister right in the hallway!" With that, she started running down the hall, leaving Ruby and Weiss in her dust. The two of them stared at each other, realizing that this was much different than either of them had anticipated. They both began to blush as they rolled off of each other, jumping to their feet and running after Nora.

"Nora, that wasn't what you thought it was!" "Get back here, Nora!" Ruby activated her semblance, disappearing from view. From her end of the hall, Pyrrha could only hear a loud scream that sounded distinctly like Nora. With a sigh, she shook her head and started to walk in that direction.

"Maybe leaving Mistral was a bad idea."