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“Never have I ever stolen something.” Yang proclaimed, waggling her eyebrows at Blake, who rolled her eyes and took a sip of the soda can in her hand. It lacked the kick of alcohol, but Yang had caved under Ruby’s pleading and the drink drinks had been replaced with PG13 drinks.
Blake blinked when the only other people to sip from their own cans were Ren, Jaune and Ruby of all people.
“Sis!” Yang barked, leaning forward and crushing her soda can in her hand. “You didn’t!”
“It was an accident!” Ruby whined, face flushed as everyone focused on her. “I was trying to reach for a weapons magazine and a cookie packet fell into my basket! I didn’t realise until I was at the cashier.”
“So you paid for it right?” Yang demand, all traces of ‘Cool Girl’ gone and murdered by ‘Overprotective Sister’.
“W-Well I didn’t get them originally because I didn’t have enough Lien.” Ruby answered weakly, hiding herself as best as she could in her hood. “But the shopkeeper was nice and let me keep the cookies. All I had to do was pull a funny face and let him take a photograph.”
“What face?” Yang snarled, eyes flashing red and the soda can turned into mince meat under her hands. The room had gone silent, every other member of Team RWBY plus JNPR listening in absolute, tense silence as they waited for Ruby to answer.
“Yaaaang! It’s embarrassing!”
“Ruby. Garnet. Rose.” Yang uttered, each word more feral than the last. “Pull the face now.”
Reluctantly, Ruby did so. The mood tense mood became murderous as every other person present apart from Ruby herself realised it was an ahegao. Blake’s hands itched for a Gambol Shroud that remained in her weapons locker. Even the usually calm and collected Pyrrha Nikos looked like she was ready and more than willing to kick someone’s ass.
Yang was literally on fire.
“Where is this shop Ruby?” Jaune asked, a worryingly thin smile plastered on his face. “Is it nearby?”
“It’s not far from the docks in Vale.” Ruby replied, looking cautious. “It’s closed now. Do you want cookies too?”
“Like the store went bust or closed for the night?” Jaune continued and Ruby shrugged.
“The second one. Why?” Ruby asked, a confused expression on her face. “Is something wrong?”
“No Ruby.” Ren said reassuringly, everyone meeting everyone’s eyes except Ruby, a silent promise filled with murderous intent being sworn. “Nothing’s wrong at all.”
“W-What about you huh!” Ruby stammered suddenly, bringing the murderous atmosphere back into a light-hearted one now that everyone knew they’d rectify the situation tomorrow. Yang still simmered though. “You stole something. Spill the beans!”
“Yeah Renny!” Nora cheered, nudging her not together-together partner cheekily. “Spill the beans! All over the floor!”
“It’s a simple story.” Ren shrugged calmly. “It was winter, me and Nora were cold so I stole a blanket from a stall. The end.”
“That’s so sweet!” Nora cooed, even though she had allegedly been there. “If anyone knew any better they’d think you cared.”
“Of course I care about you Nora.” Ren replied, not a hint of emotion in his voice. “And my own wellbeing of course.”
“Of course!” Nora nodded, a pleased smile on her face and hint of red across her cheeks. “What about you, Fearless Leader? Whatcha steal and why?”
“Ahhh.” Jaune laughed nervously, sharp contrast to the cool anger he had displayed earlier. “Nothing as emotional as Ren. I was going through a sort of rebellious phase against my older sister, so I stole all her makeup and replaced it with rocks from my other sister’s rock collection so she would think it was her who did it. I think that makeup kit is still buried in my parent’s back garden.”
“Ooh!” Ruby gasped, practically bouncing where she sat, legs criss-crossed on the floor. “That’s a good idea! Maybe I should replace Yang’s shampoo with Blake’s smut collection.”
“It’s not smut!” Blake yelled angrily, face flushing as everyone gave her unconvinced looks.
“Yeah right.” Yang scoffed, before giving Ruby a deadly serious look. “You mess with my shampoo and I’ll go to Patch and bring your baby photos back with me.”
“I’d do the same to you.” Ruby retorted, meeting her sister's warning look. Then they both burst out laughing and holding out their pinkies to swear a truce lest mutually assured destruction occured.
“It’s literature.” Blake whimpered, and Jaune leaned over to pat her hand.
“I believe you.” Jaune said, giving her a sympathetic smile. “I have the same problem with Pyrrha.”
“Really?!” Blake gasped, wondering if she had finally found someone who appreciated and had the same taste in literature as she did. Pyrrha rolled her eyes behind Jaune, who nodded emphatically.
“Oh yeah. She doesn’t think comics count as literature, which is totally wrong. I learned what literature means through comic books for crying out loud.”
And just like that all her dreams came burning and crashing down.
“New round!” Yang called, breaking the din of chatter and waggling her finger before pointing at Weiss, who was sulking on her bed. “You choose Weiss-cream!”
“Never have I ever wanted to smother Yang Xiao-Long in her sleep.” Weiss grumbled, immediately taking a dainty sip of the soda in her hand, which she viewed with a supreme distaste before, during and especially after.
“Hey!” Yang protested, only to notice that everyone else present was also taking a sip from their soda. “Oh come on! Et tu Blake? Ruby?”
Blake made a point to meet Yang’s sorrowful gaze before downing the rest of her drink.
“You guys are mean.” Yang grumbled, crossing her arms under her chest. “And you have no taste in humour. Why do I even hang out with you guys?”
“Because you have to.” Ruby said, smiling at her older sister with a grin that seemed all too happy at being the one to order the other sibling around. “Leader’s order.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Yang sighed, before waggling her finger and pointing it at Pyrrha, who blinked as if she had been broken from her thoughts. “Your turn carrot-top.”
“Erm…” Pyrrha murmured, before her eyes flickered to Jaune. “Never have I ever kissed a member of the opposite sex.”
There was a brief silence before Pyrrha, Blake, Yang, Ren, Nora and Weiss all raised their sodas and took a sip. Then everyone gave amused glances at the two remaining people who were blushed bright red.
“To the socially awkward.” Jaune muttered, raising his soda in Ruby’s direction. Blake’s leader smiled and bumped her can against his before they both sipped from their drinks.
“Awwww!” Yang cooed, like she was looking at a pair of kittens. “Look at the ickle wickle cutie pies!”
“Maybe I would be less awkward and more romantically successful if someone didn’t try driving away anyone who so much as glanced in my direction!” Ruby huffed, and Yang wilted slightly under Blake’s disappointed glare.
“Older sisters are the worst.” Jaune sighed, accidentally cutting off Yang’s defence. “Mine did the exact same to me. The last time I spent time alone with a girl not related to me before Beacon was when I was thirteen years old. My sisters would scare any girls away and because Ansel’s so small word spread that I had cooties or something.”
Yang winced at that, and Blake felt a pang of sympathy as well as jealousy. She wished it could’ve been her who had suffered under overbearing older sisters rather than hoofing out in the wilderness with the White Fang, constantly worrying about whether an Atlas airship would appear and blow them out of the sky.
“I-If you want…” Pyrrha began to say, face red before Nora yelled suddenly, interrupting her teammate by accident.
“This is boring and now its depressing!” Nora moaned, dramatically falling face first onto the floor before rolling over to Yang. “Truth or dare?”
“Truth.” Yang blurted, caught off guard by the sudden change in conversation as well as the sudden invasion of her personal space.
“Boooring.” Nora sang before getting back onto her knees. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
“Nope.” Yang replied, making Nora groan before she plopped onto the floor. Yang turned to Blake and gave her a daring look. “Truth or dare Blakey?”
“Dare.” Blake retorted challengingly, not willing to back down from whatever silent challenge Yang was giving her, even if she knew it would probably be smart if she did just that.
“Hmmm…” Yang hummed, eyes slowly roving around the room before landing on Jaune, who’s eyes widened in nervous horror at whatever humiliation was about to be inflicted on them both. “I dare you to teach Jaune how to kiss a lady properly.”
That got her to raise her eyebrow. She glanced over at Jaune to see him gaping like a fish, Pyrrha sat next to him with a dark look in her eyes as she glared at Blake for something she obviously wouldn’t do.
“No.” Blake replied bluntly, feeling only a small ounce of fear when Yang leaned forward with a gleam in her eye.
“Do you forfeit?” Yang asked cheerily, too cheerily. Blake’s eyes narrowed.
“What happens if I do?” She retorted, and Yang shrugged before tapping a finger to her chin.
“Hmm. What should the forfeit be? Oh I know! You have to request that Professor Port oversees any detentions you have or get for the rest of the year.”
“No!” Blake gasped, having suffered through one detention and only one detention with the annoying man before.
Once. Never again.
She shot an apologetic glance at Pyrrha before pushing herself to her feet and striding over to Jaune, who stared at her with an indescribable look that seemed almost grimace-like. That was just plain insulting.
“Well then Jaune.” Blake said as she kneeled in front of the trembling, pale blonde. “It’s very simple. First you don’t crap your pants when a girl gets within one metre of you.”
Yang snorted, the only sound that came from the tensely silent room. Jaune nodded and swallowed nervously, before sitting up on her knees to replicate her stance.
“Now what?” He muttered quietly, eyes looking everywhere apart from her. His face was starting to grow red at the cheeks, and an impulse compelled her to act and grab one of the flushed cheeks, cupping it gently and feeling it warm up even more underneath her touch.
“Eye contact.” She murmured, feeling an odd, pleasant thrill as his dark blue eyes, brimming with an untold amount of emotion, flickered up and nervously met her own gaze. He showed some resolve, still clearly nervous but maintaining eye contact nonetheless.
“Now what?” He asked again, voice quieter and husky. An amused smile spread across her face to mask the weird feeling stirring in her gut at seeing such an innocent, almost adorable person before her in this scenario. If the parameters of what she was ‘teaching’ changed towards a less PG13 stance, it was almost as if she was living through one of her books.
“What do you think Jaune?” She teased. “You’re supposed to kiss me.”
Then her eyes widened and a soft gasp escaped her as he followed her instructions and leaned forward suddenly and kissed her.
It was insistent, sweet and short. Within a few short seconds his lips pressed up against her before he parted just as quickly as he came with a soft smooching sound.
Blake blinked.
“L-Like that?” Jaune asked nervously, face red. Blake blinked.
“Blake?”
Blake blinked again.
“Oh my god she’s blushing!”
Yang’s words made her blink. She slowly raised her hand to her lips, feeling the place where Jaune had so insistently and so innocently pressed his own soft, plump lips against hers. Her face felt hot, probably the blushing Yang accused her of, and she swallowed, her throat suddenly dry.
That had been…different. Whenever she and Adam had been able to get quiet time in between missions he would be passionate, hard and firm and taking with the ease of a man who only cared for himself. The only other person she had kissed was Ilia, who had offered to teach Blake how to kiss ages ago. It had been awkward and bumbling and more than once they’d scraped their teeth against the others.
Jaune was different. It felt…good. He hadn't even tried using his tongue. It was a sweet, innocent kiss. It was good. It made her feel oddly happy.
Now if only Yang would stop laughing at her and Pyrrha stopped looking like she wanted to kill her.
“Yes.” Blake murmured hoarsely, eyes flickering away from Jaune’s gaze nervously. “Good job.”
Then Blake did what she did best whenever faced with a problem, humiliation or a challenge she did not have the strength to overcome.
She ran.