Work Text:
Maybe it's intuition
But some things you just don't question
Like in your eyes, I see my future in an instant
And there it goes
I think I found my best friend
I know that it might sound
More than a little crazy but I believe
I knew I loved you before I met you
I think I dreamed you into life
I knew I loved you before I met you
I have been waiting all my life
I Knew I Loved You by Savage Garden
With wide honest eyes, she watches. It's what she does, what she's trained to do, and it makes her chest swell with pride. Weiss bends and sways, letting the music move her through her steps, her mouth moving in sync with the beautifully thick Atlassian music that billows through the open studio, and Ruby watches .
It's an uncomfortable position, wedged against the ballet railing across the room from the elegant heiress, and the thick bandages over her bullet wound stick and pull at her healing flesh. Weiss hasn't noticed her yet, still halfway through her dance. She tumbles and trips, groaning in frustration, but she stands again and picks up where the song has progressed. She's distracted.
It certainly wouldn't take a rocket scientist to figure out why. The attempt on the older woman's life haunted Ruby as much, if not more than it affected Weiss herself. On top of that, she had to watch and feel Ruby as the bullet ripped through the taller woman's body, bouncing between ribs and tissue and settling just below her lungs. Wide blue eyes had to watch Ruby struggle to stand, only to stumble and fall in pain, as Robyn ushered both Schnees out of the resort and into heavily armored metal vans. And again she’d watch as Ruby’s body is left on the floor, dependant on emergency vehicles to retrieve her.
Later she'd cry into Ruby's sweat-covered hand about how she thought they had just left her, and that she was gone. The redhead was fine now, for the most part. With only the memories of pain to keep her up at night. Death didn't haunt her, only the thought of what would have happened had she been even a moment slower.
Weiss finishes with a flourish, landing the final twirls with a labored breath. Ruby continues her watch, content in her shadowed corner as the heiress turns to quiet the ringing radio. She nearly jumps at the sight of the disheveled redhead, silent and vigilant in her peripheries.
" Ruby , what are you doing here?" Her voice is a pained gasp, heightened by the sadness that fills bright blue eyes.
"Couldn't stand the thought of you being alone." She replies, uncertain that she could move without wincing.
"You could have sent Penny!" The statement is more worried than angry, but Ruby looks away nonetheless.
"I wanted to see you." She confesses, hands shaking as she wraps her arms around her middle.
Silence blankets the feet between them, and Ruby wonders how they'll get past this. The memory of Weiss's tearful confession sticks to her like sweat in the hot sun, a cooling salve that she can't wipe away.
Several soundless steps bring the socialite closer, pulled by something not quite physical.
"How are you feeling?" Does it still hurt? Several unspoken questions pass between them, but Ruby grunts in reply.
"I'll survive, princess."
Fury lights up Weiss's eyes, but it simmers out in seconds. "Why won't you just rest?" Her voice wavers and falls, and the older woman can't meet her bodyguard’s eyes.
"You can't confess to me my one wish come true, and expect me to stay bedridden, Weiss." Her voice nearly breaks as tearful blues meet determined silver.
Weiss closes the gap between them and pale arms wrap around broad shoulders. To her credit, Weiss only hesitates a moment before pressing a kiss to open lips. Ruby responds easily, wrapping strong arms around her charge's waist, tugging the older woman closer. Weiss sighs into the touch, pulling back slightly to cradle a tanned cheek in her hand as she presses closer.
Calloused fingers find the hem of a rumpled white shirt and press into the warmth beneath it. Weiss gasps at the touch, pulling closer as Ruby angles her head for a deeper kiss.
Her chest feels tight, filled with too many feelings that bounce around her ribs, (like the bullet, but kind.) In the last few years, Weiss had been a source of strength for her, but in the wake of the other woman’s confession, she is weak and yearning.
Pale hands tug at Ruby’s rumpled hoodie as her body curls into her protector’s taller form. Instinctively, Ruby bends to her will, never one to deny Weiss what she wants, but pain surges through her chest and she hisses. The heiress jumps away, and back in, afraid of too much to voice as she frets over her guardian.
“What is it? Did I hurt you? Do you need to go back to the hospital? I knew it! You shouldn’t be up and walking around!” More mumbled questions fill the air between them but Ruby presses a tanned finger to the older woman’s lips.
“I’m okay princess, just a little tinder.” She reaches for Weiss’ shaking hands and holds them to her lips, “I won’t be leaving you.” That calms the silver-haired woman for a moment, but she stays close as if Ruby would vanish if she moved too far away.
Weiss leans into Ruby again, this time only lightly, allowing for the taller woman to catch her breath after the rush of pain. She sighs into the comfortable silence but her counterpart fidgets against her. A low rumble breaks the silence, and Weiss looks up to nervous silver eyes and flushed cheeks.
“When was the last time you ate?”
Ruby swallows audibly, reaching up to run a sweaty hand through disheveled red hair. “Last night, I think.” She murmurs shyly, shifting away from the older woman.
“Ruby Rose!” Weiss yelps, making the silver-eyed woman flinch with a shy smile.
“It wasn’t intentional!”
Weiss drags her guardian out of the dance hall and down a labyrinth of hallways. Distantly Ruby keeps track of the corners, the twists, and turns, the artwork along the walls, but her eyes are glued to flushed pale skin and a determined frown.
The kitchen of the Schnee mansion is as big as you expect it, but not for the reasons you would. Attached to the main kitchen where all the cooking is done is a sizeable alcove with a large oak table and a bar along a serving window. The staff of the enormous home gather here for dinner, security, maids, butlers, anyone employed is welcomed and given a meal at no cost. (Weiss’ idea. At the age of nineteen, she heard her father was charging his employees to eat, despite the long hours most of them took. When she was able, she shortened all the employee’s workdays and mandated free meals while on the clock, with no number cap. Some would eat five small meals a day, or one big one and the turn-around rate for the mansion’s staff dropped exponentially.)
With a light shove, Ruby is seated at the comfortable oak table, and Weiss moves towards the head chef, a vibrant dark-skinned woman with a jovial laugh. She greets Weiss with a hug that the heiress only stiffens slightly at, and smiles. They talk in hushed voices and Ruby flushes when the duo shift to look her way. The chef frowns and places her hands at her hips as she watches Ruby cautiously.
While the chef begins working, Weiss moves back to Ruby’s side, blue eyes watching for any pain Ruby could be hiding behind wide silver eyes. Content, she settles beside Ruby with a sigh and pointedly looks away from her guardian. She’s trying to hide her emotions behind a haughty attitude and firm frown, but Ruby has known Weiss long enough to register the light pink staining her cheeks as out of the ordinary. The redhead smiles and lays her head atop both arms as she watches Weiss. Here in the kitchen, there’s little to no threat, so she lets the stiffened muscles of her back relax, and sighs as her stomach muscles follow.
The dull fluorescent lights would do no normal human any favors, but Weiss’s features are always striking. Her high cheekbones, decorated in a light dusting of freckles, long narrow nose, and wide blue eyes. Every aspect takes Ruby’s breath away, even when the other woman is grumpy.
“You’re beautiful,” She says softly, almost low enough for Weiss to ignore. She doesn’t. Instead, Weiss flushes and turns further away from the bruised bodyguard. Lazily, Ruby lifts a hand to touch Weiss’s silky smooth hair but pauses. “May I?” Weiss doesn’t respond, but she shifts slightly closer, and Ruby takes it as permission.
Prior to the assassination attempt, Ruby would never be so bold. Her feelings would stay locked in her chest, wrapped in plastic and tape, never to be revealed, but Weiss ripped open those coverings and barrelled through the locked doors into Ruby’s deepest hidden feelings, and now she couldn’t contain herself. She could reach out and touch Weiss, hold her hand, kiss her fingertips, and run her fingers through that silky soft hair.
Time ticks away as Ruby threads her fingers in snowy white locks. The contrast between Ruby’s rough tanned fingers and the silvery gleam of Weiss’ hair is astounding, like something from a fairytale, the legend of a princess and her knight.
The chef finishes her work, plating up a heaping steak with a side of steamed broccoli and cornbread before setting it in front of Ruby with a flourish. The light that ignites in those burning silver eyes is enough to make Weiss’ heart stutter and swoon. The taller woman scarfs down her meal, distracted by her lack of sustenance long enough to remove her hands from Weiss, not that the heiress had minded.
The bodyguard had stolen her heart years ago, and without recent events, Weiss might not have been able to voice her own feelings. A blessing and a curse. She watches Ruby as she eats, determined and ginning, as she so often is. The realization that the younger woman would lay down her life for Weiss was too much. She didn’t want that; not of anyone, let alone the woman who made her heart feel like it was made of clouds and sunshine. Ruby was too good to die for someone like her, she didn’t deserve a life resigned to dying for a stuck-up princess.
Familiar feelings of inadequacies surge through the blue-eyed heiress. They’re cold, liquid ice that spiders out in frozen spikes. Pain, sharp and solid, grounds her, and Weiss slumps forward. She pillows her head along her arms and watches sunshine and heat personified as she continues to eat. The cool needles of ice spiral through veins and arteries till Weiss can feel herself shivering, and a tear leaks its way out the corner of her split eye.
Ruby deserves better. She belongs with someone who would never put her in harm’s way. She deserves to be treated like a princess, a goddess of light and joy, and not a hired goon. It’s suffocating being so close, but Weiss can’t move, filled with an ache so deep she can feel it throb with each pulse of her heart. Ruby, Ruby , Ruby .
Silver eyes widen at the sight of Weiss’ tears, and her food is forgotten. Warm, tan hands pull Weiss closer, hold her in warmth and comfort Weiss doesn’t feel like she deserves.
“ Princess ,”
She sobs, open and broken. She’s a wreck and Ruby doesn’t deserve that either.
“I would die a thousand times to see you smile.”
It doesn’t help despite the bright smile and smudge of steak sauce against tan cheeks.
“I don’t want you to die!”
“I don’t want you to die either.” Ruby laughs, tightening her hold on the sobbing heiress, “You are everything to me, Weiss.”
Fractured and crying, Weiss nods. She tries to agree, to tell Ruby she feels the same, but her throat constricts and more tears cover her face.
“I won’t die, not without many years by your side behind us.”
She huddles closer, burrowing into her bodyguard and lover’s arms. It’s enough.
“I’ll accept that.” She murmurs against Ruby’s loose shirt. “ I’ll accept that .”
It’s several minutes before Weiss allows Ruby to take her up to bed. They’re both sluggish and tired, and Weiss tugs her vigilant knight into bed with her. There’s no deep kisses, no long-lost reunion filled with shuttered breathes and heavy petting. Instead, Weiss tugs Ruby into bed and wraps herself around long limbs and lean muscles. She holds close to the woman who would die for her but promised not to, and Ruby does the same. She tightens her hold on shaking pale fingers and presses warm wet kisses to tensed knuckles.
They sleep. It’s deep and heavy with emotions, but they sleep, and in the morning they wake. Every day would be a new hurdle for them, but together maybe they can make the jump to a happier life.