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Ruby Rose, in her senior year of college, takes the initiative to start a branch off of the university’s already established GSA to form the Aromantic Asexual Alliance, or triple-A for short.
(Well, some people call them the Batteries, but that doesn’t matter. They are what they are.)
Half of the GSA is aromantic, asexual, or somewhere on either spectrum, so it doesn’t matter. She was the one who introduced her sister to the concept of asexuality, after all, and Yang took to it like a fish to water. Turns out a lot of the flirting was performative, which is only a little bit surprising to Ruby.
Honestly, it’s more of a surprise when Yang’s girlfriend, Blake, tells Ruby in confidence that she’s quoiromantic, especially when they seem really devoted to each other.
“It was always a conflict with…” Blake says, “with him. I’m polyamorous too, and I knew that long before anything else, if only because I could never decide exactly how I felt about him and my best friend at the time. I guess now that I know the label exists, the person that I am makes more sense. I just don’t know how to tell her…”
“I think Yang will be fine with it. I know her fairly well, she is my sister,” Ruby jokes.
But Ruby has faith that they can work out what exactly it is that both of them want from their relationship.
Weiss was reluctant to accept any form of queerness, dragged to the GSA by Ruby when they were roommates assigned by the university, but eventually managed to accept being aromantic, and when later switching her label to aroflux Ruby was…a little sad, because that means she’s the only end-spectrum aromantic asexual that she knows. (Weiss asking Pyrrha out, in hindsight, isn’t as surprising as it was when Weiss told them all about the switch.)
Everyone else is somewhere on either spectrum — well, Nora is end-spectrum asexual, but not both.
Until Oscar.
Oscar comes in skittish and questioning, but they welcome him with open arms, and Jaune, Ren, Nora, and Pyrrha seem determined to adopt the freshman.
Despite the fact that they’re all adults at this point.
Ruby has never approved of how freshmen are treated like children — she’s not much older than them, even as a senior, and she isn’t treated like a child, hasn’t been treated as such for a couple years.
“Thank you,” Oscar says. “I appreciate the concern the others have shown me, but you’re really nice.”
“I’m younger than them all, despite also being a senior,” Ruby comments. “I’ve…never been a fan of being treated like I don’t know anything just because I’m younger. I might be young, I might still have fun, but I’m still capable. I am no less capable of things just because I’m younger.”
“I would never have imagined. You and your sister do seem around the same age.”
“I’ve had to grow up quickly,” Ruby comments.
“I’ve had to adapt a lot, too. It’s weird, because I was homeschooled, I never thought I’d be here. Let alone finding out that…”
“It’s okay,” Ruby stresses. “You have us.”
“For how much longer?” Oscar asks. “Most of you are graduating.”
“I think…Ren is staying here to get their doctorate, but I’m not sure if Nora and Jaune are staying with him. And I don’t know what’s happening to everyone else, but you can always call me. I was the only end-spectrum aroace here for a while.”
He tilts his head. “You know, now that I consider that, it makes sense.”
A few of the exchange students stumble in every now and then, too, if they know themselves well enough to join. Blake’s other significant other, who also happens to be asexual, comes in one day with her and Yang.
A student working on a doctorate also comes in one day, end-spectrum aromantic, and brings his queerplatonic partners.
She’s still not really sure if she wants that kind of relationship. The desire flickers in and out a lot. She’s considered asking Weiss, Blake, or Jaune in the past. But she never knows for sure if the feelings are all real because as soon as they’re there and acknowledged, they vanish in a flash.
Ruby doesn’t mind that she’s likely to get left behind, between Weiss and Yang both being in romantic relationships and her not having close enough bonds with anyone else.
Theoretically, there is Oscar, she supposes, but she wants him to get a chance to expand the alliance. He’s the legacy of her work as the only member who isn’t a senior, and she knows that she's made the legwork for a more friendly environment at least in the university, but they all have to work together to end the idea that single people are less worthy in society.
Ruby knows that she’s definitely not alone. Anyone in the Batteries wouldn’t contradict that. But she knows that they all have someone (or multiple people) romantically.
Is it too much to hope for? That she and her friends can all live together in a community? She knows that society tends more towards isolation than anything else, making it so the only important person was a significant other and maybe biological family.
Ruby doesn’t like that. Not that she doesn’t love Dad, and Uncle Qrow, and Mom, and Yang — but sometimes she wonders if she loves them because she really does or because she’s expected to.
She loves them anyways even in the midst of her doubt, which means it’s probably closer to reality than expectation but…
Well, to say the least, love is complicated. Ruby certainly wouldn’t be the first to admit it, and she won’t be the last.
She isn’t the one who began the revolution, but she can certainly be a part of it, fight as hard as she can. In some ways, that’s a part of herself, and in others it’s an active choice. Being herself is inherently revolutionary, but she chooses to act in a way that plays into that more.
And she might not finish the fight, and perhaps the fight will never be finished, but she can do everything she can to make progress.
Progress is all they need.