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Ruby looked at the other faunus, wind whipping their hair and canine ears around them. Her finger was ready on the trigger, the tip of her scythe dug far into the concrete below them. “Why are you doing this?” She asked. Once she would have pleaded, but with the end of Roman’s cane pressed against Blake’s temple all she could muster was a cold tone she didn’t know she had in herself.
A chuckle came from the fox faunus and the end of his cigar fell to the ground to be crushed under the toes of his boot. “The world needs to know what we’re made of – that we’re not animals to be laughed at in a zoo.” He answered, just as before, and used Ruby’s snarl as fuel. “See! That right there Red. They’ll muzzle us in time if we don’t do that first to them. We need to act now!”
Ruby shook her head, and for the first time in the stand off she lowered her hand from the rifle’s trigger. She couldn’t hurt him, or risk hurting Blake, yet couldn’t let them go. Crescent Rose folded up and she slung it on its holster behind her, before extending hand to Roman.
“Let her go. Aren’t I better?” She offered and held her stance even as the criminal scoffed. But after a few tense moments the grip on Blake’s arm loosened enough for the cat faunus to escape.
The next moments happened in a flash of sound and energy.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ruby hesitantly took a seat on the hospital chair. It creaked under her light weight, too loud in the room. Roman scoffed, one hand free but the other was handcuffed to the bed frame which clinked the distinctive sound of metal against metal with every movement.
“Do you regret it?” Ruby questioned. She couldn’t look at him yet and instead focused her attention on her own hands playing with the hem of her skirt. How many times had Roman teased her about the impracticality of it? Or how many times had he held her hand while saying she needed to stop biting her nails? She didn’t know the answer.
“Motives? No, and my point still stands Red, even in prison. They will never let people like us be equal.” Roman answered. He couldn’t see a reason to lie when they had already been caught and foiled like some children’s cartoon. It wasn’t elegant at all, especially the side of his face still swollen from Gambol Shroud. “I don’t regret lying to you either, about everything, but it couldn’t be helped. But any other time I’d do it all again without the grand game of things in the background. It was fun while it lasted Ruby.”
The last glance Ruby Rose spared at Roman Torchwick was the faunus looking down at his lap, ears drooped. She would have spared him pity, but couldn’t. She got up and left not five minutes after she arrived.