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I
Ruby realized she was in love with Blake all at once, revelation crashing over her shoulders in the dim light of a makeshift shelter from the storm raging outside. They were both soaked through their clothes from the rain, huddled in a cave and hoping vaguely that Yang and Weiss had ended up together somewhere else. Or at least Ruby was, since she got the distinct impression that Yang would not let the color in her cheeks when she looked over at Blake tending the fire go pretty much ever.
“We should be safe here,” Blake announced, tucking hair behind her ear as Ruby’s stomach tightened in the grip of the movement’s elegance and beauty. “Hopefully the storm won’t last all night.”
Hopefully. But oh no, that would mean that they would have to sleep here. Together. In a cave barely able to hold both of them and a fire. Oh no.
Ruby was snapped out of that by, of all things, Blake starting to undress. This was way too much for her, she was but one girl, what was she supposed to-
“You need something, Ruby?” Blake asked, pausing in her undressing to raise a single critical eyebrow.
“You,” Ruby started automatically, then very quickly improvised a further “toooo not, uh. To not. Worry! About uh. The rain.” She bought that, right? She must have bought that. Sure, she must have completely ignored the stammering and the blushing and everything. Truly Ruby Rose was herself the very definition of a closed book.
Blake smirked, “Right. That would be why I’m taking my soaking wet clothes off. You should, too.”
“Uh. Are you sure? I’m not that cold.” In fact she found herself strangely a little too warm, if anything.
“Is the blushing helping?”
“The what? What blushing, I’m not blushing! Probably just, y’know, campfire. Light. On my face.”
“Uh-huh.” Blake returned to undressing, and Ruby worked very very hard not to look. At least she was still in her underwear when she finished.
Ruby swallowed, “Okay, so, uh. I have something I should. Say.”
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II
“Ruby,” Blake had asked, eyes hovering above the cover of her most recent book, one brow cocked, “You’re not just taking me to the aquarium because I eat fish, are you?”
“What? No!” Not just, anyway. “I like fish too. Just not, y’know. Eating them. Unless they’re in sticks.”
Blake sighed, dropping a bookmark into place, “Fish sticks don’t count as fish.”
“They do too!” Ruby huffed, pointedly looking towards the window.
“Do not.” Blake tucked the book away in her bag, lips curling into a smirk, “But don’t worry, I’ll get you to appreciate real fish eventually.”
“I may love you, Blake, but I will fight that to my very last breath.” She stood up, the bus shuddering to a stop outside the aquarium, “And that breath will not smell like gross fish!”
“Whatever you say.”
And yet here they were. In the aquarium café and Ruby staring down the barrel of a lunch menu. And the barrel was full of fish.
“This seems kind of rude to the fish that are already here.” Ruby noted, glancing over at the restaurant’s glass wall that stood opposite end of a massive fish tank to the standard observation area, “Like. ‘Hey, this is what happens to the fish we don’t like, so you better shape up. Lots of people think you’re delicious with butter.”
“I doubt they actually serve fish grown here at the aquarium, Ruby.” Only Blake’s eyes were visible over the top of her menu as she watched Ruby scowl at the menu laid open on top of her plate.
Ruby sighed. What the heck was a Mahi Mahi? Was it two Mahis and whoever made the menu had something against counting? The Swordfish was the only one that sounded cool enough to try, but it was also really expensive. “Why not? They have all the stuff to raise fish.”
“Fancy fish, yeah.” Blake sighed, “I can order for both of us if you want. I can find you a fish that doesn’t taste a lot like fish.”
“They all taste like fish, Blake, they’re fish.” Duh.
“Sometimes I don’t know how I put up with you.” Blake replied, sighing, “But seriously, I’ll order. I’ll even get you a steak.”
“They have steak here?”
“Yup.”
It was only after Ruby had fully eaten and admitted that she had enjoyed the steak way more than any kind of nasty fish Blake could have made her eat that her dear girlfriend noted that steaks are not always made of beef. And that was how Ruby accidentally lost her ability to claim she disliked fish.
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III
“I’m sorryyyyyyyy!” Ruby pouted into her ice cream cone, other hand in Blake’s.
Blake sighed, “It’s fine, really. It was an accident.”
“But it was your ice cream! And now I’m the only one eating ice cream and I just look like a jerk. With ice cream!” Another lick and she turned towards Blake, “How does that happen, ice cream is like the least jerk-y food ever!”
Pulled pork is probably the least jerky food ever, really Blake thought before mentally slapping herself for letting Yang get to her like that. “I’ll live.”
“Are you sure you don’t want mine?”
“I’m sure, Ruby. It’s fine.”
“Here, I’ll finish it really quick.” Ruby took a huge bite out of the scoop, ice cream splattering all around her mouth before she reeled back, “Ow, ow! Brain freeze, ow! Teeth crying out in pain, head hurting, vision going dark, tell Yang I love her and Weiss that she was pretty cool I guess.”
Unfortunately for them, Blake noted, they had used up all their napkins cleaning up the cone’s fallen sibling. And given that… “You know what, Ruby, I think I will take some.”
“Here you go,” Ruby said, offering the cone, but Blake pushed it away.
“Just hold still.” Blake moved in towards her girlfriend, free hand keeping the girl’s head steady, and brought her own mouth up right next to Ruby’s.
“Blake, what are y- oh.” Ruby opened her eyes and by the time her face was clean it ended up as red as her cloak. “Oh.”
Blake licked her lips, pulling away, “Thank you.”
“No, uh, thank you?” Ruby blinked, dazed, before absentmindedly trying to get another lick and smearing ice cream over her lips, “Aw man. You… feel like going for seconds?”
A devious shine crossed Blake’s eyes, “I guess I could be convinced.”
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IV
The first thing Blake noted about Patch was that it was surprisingly quiet for the kind of place that had raised Ruby and Yang. She supposed she was quiet for the volume of her upbringing, sure, but there was no real place in particular Blake called home outside of Beacon. So between one being her girlfriend and the other being her best friend and partner, the two sisters had actually managed to convince Blake to spend a break away from school.
“You’ll get to meet dad! He’s awesome, he’ll love you.” Ruby had insisted, holding one of Blake’s hands with both of their own as they disembarked from the airship.
Blake nodded. Right. The dad who, by Ruby’s own admission, was “kind of overprotective I guess sometimes.” Whose daughter she was dating while being, you know, a former terrorist. Meeting the parents was probably easy for some people out there, but nope! Not Blake Belladonna. Even with… only one parent to meet.
Of course, though, when they arrived at the house and Blake had managed to psyche herself up to meet Mr. Xiao Long (not Rose, she had had to repeat to herself many a time on the way over), he was not there. He did not show up until that night, striding in after, apparently, some kind of field trip he had led at Signal, and the meeting went. Okay? It went okay. At least until Taiyang took her aside to talk to her. It was only a few minutes of him talking, sure, and he never raised his voice, but the hair on the back of Blake’s neck stayed erect for the rest of the evening.
After a night spent in a guest room literally across the house from Ruby’s room, unsurprisingly at Taiyang’s insistence, Blake found her next day spent wandering through town hand-in-hand with Ruby. Taiyang had insisted they stay in public areas, and Blake had no doubt he would know if they broke that agreement. Not that she knew how he would know, but he would definitely know.
“And that’s the cool restaurant we went to the first time Yang killed an Ursa, and there’s the shop where Uncle Qrow and I used to go look at weapon mods, and…” The most efficient style of tour-guiding this was not, but Blake did not mind.
“This place is nice.” Blake replied, smiling at her.
Ruby grinned, “I’m glad you like it!”
A walk down the beach (making sure to stay very close to the docks) later, Ruby sighed as she looked up at the sky. “I used to miss Patch a lot sometimes, y’know, back when I started at Beacon.”
“Used to?”
“Well, I mean, so much has happened since then. The Vytal Festival, making all the new friends I have now, and, y’know…” she turned towards Blake, “You.”
“Me?”
“Yup! You. You’re kinda the best thing that’s ever happened to me, I think. Even if you did trick me into liking fish, which I still don’t forgive you for.”
Blake giggled, which was not the reaction even she had expected to have, “I think of it as a badge of honor. But,” her expression softened, “I think you’re the best thing that ever happened to me, too. I wouldn’t brave the ‘meet the parents’ thing for anyone el-“ Wait, shoot, not plural. Shoot and also dang.
Ruby paused for a moment, then smiled. “Hang on a sec.” She let go of Blake’s hand to reach for her Scroll, walking away to make a whispered call of some kind.
Blake looked out over the water as Ruby did, watching the waves go. This was Ruby’s home, and it was just like she imagined a hometown to look. So then what was Blake’s home, exactly? If she had one. Maybe… it was cheesy, but maybe her home was wherever her team was. Wherever Ruby was.
“Alright, cool. Time to head home.” Ruby had returned, tucking the Scroll away.
“Already?” Blake asked, frowning. The sun was just setting!
Ruby nodded, “You and I are taking a day trip tomorrow, and we need to leave early. You brought Gambol Shroud, right?”
“Uh, sure, yeah.” Blake blinked, “Where are we going?”
“Well,” Ruby took Blake’s hand in her own, “You want to meet my parents, right? So I’m gonna take you to meet my mom.”