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When Uncle Qrow was just the right amount of drunk- somewhere between two and four glasses of whiskey- he would often go on rants of varying topics; everything from the lack of good alcohol in Mistral to how stuck up everyone in Atlas was, the usual stuff that world travelers could complain about to their jealous nieces. However, there was a certain cocktail of drinks and events that would guarantee a very specific rant that was as eye-opening as it was unnecessary for Ruby, considering she’d heard it a million times by now.
The ingredients for this specific ranty cocktail? Well...
Ruby had to be there- she looked far too much like her mother for Qrow not to get a bit somber around her when he was drunk. Yang had to be there too- a nice double whammy of a reminder of his sister and her father, should Taiyang be missing from their little party and unable to witness the drunken spectacle. It was always a shame when her dad missed it- despite the topic, it always reminded him of the happier times of his youth.
The final ingredient? Whatever brand of cheap beer typically drunk by underage kids hoping to get a buzz that Qrow could get his hands on. Of course, this drink wasn’t picked for alcohol content- it was just needed for the nostalgia factor.
And the result of this carefully stirred not shaken mix?
“-my sister too? Not only our leader! Unbelievable! The audacity of that man. I’d heard the tales of awkward situations on teams where partners had hooked up but NO ONE!” Qrow made a violent slashing gesture with his hands, “No one else had to deal with anything on this level of intra-team incestuous bullshit!”
He stopped for a breather after a particularly emphatic, self-inflicted point to the chest winded him slightly, causing Ruby to cringe slightly- good thing he was a hunter or else she suspected the could have been bruising. Of course, by this point she was the pretty much the sole receiver of this particular lecture- Yang and their father had dissolved into helpless wheezing into their cheap beers around about 5 minutes into the half hour long circular rant. The cheap beer was bought as a treat to celebrate Yang’s getting into Beacon- not that there had ever really been any doubt in their minds about where the brawler was going to end up. With the occasion, Ruby really should have predicted how likely it was that this conversation topic would come up, especially with how they’d been avoiding the topic of their parents’ days at Beacon for weeks no, bottling up all the anecdotes for a time just like this.
“Be glad you won’t be on a team with your sister Ruby.”
Oh, Qrow had started back on his rant (lecture?).
“That one,” his finger swayed as he pointed at the blonde duo in the corner, not quite managing to stay on his niece, “Is the chippiest chip off the old block I’ve ever seen.”
Her father managed to control himself for two seconds before bursting into breathless chortles of repeated “Chippiest chip!” and promptly choked on his beer as he inhaled in his mirth. It took multiple hard thumps on the back from a similarly giggly Yang to get him breathing properly again but neither of the blondes could contain their unashamed grins, the drink was clearly getting to Yang and Taiyang was just enjoying the spectacle. Qrow brought the attention right back to him.
“Seriously Ruby,” he stared directly into her eyes, “Mark my words- it will start with small things like,” he affected a ridiculously high pitched voice, “Oh Taiyang, I sure love your bulging biceps and rock-hard abs, they must have taken sooo much work,” his voice switched to a deeper tone, a poor imitation of her dad’s voice, “Well when you’re a manly man like me these things just happen and dayum Raven that is a sweet ass!”
Finally, her dad stopped laughing long enough to start rebuking some of Qrow’s personal attacks.
“Okay, now that’s all lies and slander Qrow. One: Raven was the one who instigated it all, despite your desperate attempts to remove it from your memory. And two: you know as well as I do that I would not be sitting here today with two beautiful daughters if I’d ever spoken to your sister like that.”
He paused for a moment contemplating something.
“In fact, I might’ve even ended up dead!”
His outburst was followed by a round of explosive laughter at his own joke as Qrow facepalmed at his friend’s terrible sense of humour.
“Look, long story short kid just count your lucky stars that whoever Yang manages to get with at Beacon you won’t have to deal with them or the crazy relationship drama that inevitably follows these things-”
“We were pretty drama free in school if I remember correctly,” Taiyang helpfully interjected.
“Like I said,” Qrow continued, ignoring his teammate, “You won’t be involved in that drama, in fact, just do what I did- swear off relationships altogether, works like a charm and saves time and money. Plus, makes your life so much simpler.”
He finished this statement with a look Ruby suspected he thought looked like he was a brave man for standing up against “societal norms”, but it ended up with him looking kinda like he was going to sneeze at any point. The room was quiet, maybe taking in what Qrow had said but more likely working out the best way to start mocking him.
Yang got there first.
“Aw did someone get rejected one too many times Uncle Qrow? Not as much of a ladies’ man as you made out yourself to be?” She snorted while pointing her beer at him, “I am- however- glad you are so convinced of my lady-slash-man-killing abilities Qrow, good to know I have your support in any-” A yawn caught her mid-sentence, signaling that it was probably a good time for bed. It couldn’t have come soon enough for Ruby, there was only so much she could stomach of all this relationship talk before it all got too much. With another yawn and a stretch, Yang got up and crossed the room, patting her uncle’s shoulder as she passed him on her way out, “I suppose we’ll just have to see how hot my teammates end up being- then I can go about proving your hypothesis. Night dad, Qrow.” With that and a quick salute and a grin she skipped off up the stairs to her room,
Ruby said her goodnights to her grinning dad and surly uncle before following her sister out of the living room and headed up to her own room. She caught Yang’s eye who grinned as she passed her on the way to the bathroom.
“Don’t worry Ruby, I’m pretty sure these sort of weird relationships skip a generation or something like that, hey who knows? Maybe you can pick up dad’s torch and go running with it!” She deftly swerved the hand set on ruffling her hair and tried to tell her sister no, she was not going to be doing that, but Yang simply laughed her off.
Ruby never thought much about Qrow’s ramblings about her parents and Yang’s mum after that night. Not that she’d really had the time since Yang’s celebration- becoming the youngest person to ever get into Beacon sorta took up a lot of your time and energy and thinking about your slightly bitter uncle wasn’t really the top of your list of things to do. And then once she had arrived at Beacon and got put on a team with her big sister and been made the leader of said team, well the excitement might’ve just pushed any of Qrow’s drunken but dire warnings from her mind. Besides, Blake and Weiss weren’t into girls as far as Ruby could tell; sure she missed the whole “Blake is a faunus thing”, but surely her gaydar wasn’t that bad. Right? Weiss had shown interest in Neptune and Blake had Sun so there was no chance for Yang to swoop in there and ruin Ruby’s happy time at Beacon. Nope, none at all. Exchange students totally don’t have to go home at the end of the festival, resulting in awkward break-ups and slowly deteriorating long distance relationships, leaving you to find comfort in your teammate who happens to give the best hugs. No, that definitely, 100% does not happen.
In fact, she had completely forgotten about Qrow’s rant until around about the start of second year. During the summer break the team had been invited to one of Weiss’ beach houses, because of course she had a beach house, and naturally living with each other 9 months of the year was not enough for Team RWBY. The same level of friendly banter they had at Beacon continued straight on into the beach house, with the four of them having days of exploring and days of training- might as well take advantage of them all being together to test out moves and keep their fitness levels up. Still, you can’t train every day- despite how much Ruby would have loved to- and so they had regular beach days, used by Yang to top up her tan and for the rest of the team to read books in the short bursts of peace the dozing blonde gave them.
It had been a usual, lazy but particularly hot, Saturday afternoon at the beach when she had first noticed the signs, they weren’t anything particularly new, but they were there- hidden amongst the puns from Yang, the faux long-suffering jibes from Weiss and the sarcastic eye rolls from Blake, nose deep in a book. Flirty signs, flirty-more-than-friendly-banter sort of signs.
Despite being at a beach, the monochrome pair had steadfastly refused to enter the water, leaving the two sisters to horse around in the water to cool off for a bit. Not too much of course- even with it tied up Yang’s hair was too precious to dirty with salt water, and eventually one too many close calls left her with no choice but to remove herself from the water. Ruby followed her back and tried very hard to ignore the lingering stares at her sister her teammates were terribly trying to hide behind their magazine and book but come on- she was sixteen, not blind!
Of course, Yang just encouraged the stares as she flopped down on the beach towel between them and let out a low groan.
“It’s so hot today, too hot. And I’m saying that as someone who regularly lights herself on fire.” She rolled over to face Weiss. “Can’t you like, freeze stuff Weiss, I know I’m just naturally hot,” she threw her a wink, “But I really need to cool down,” she sighed loudly and gestured at her skimpy bikini which Ruby had futilely tried to stop her wearing but hey, who listens to their little sister anyway? “I can’t lose any more clothing here.”
Blake had picked an inopportune moment to take a drink of her water and began spluttering into her Definitely Not a Virgin, Sex On The Beach courtesy of Weiss’ dad’s extensive alcohol collection and Yang’s definition of house measures. Doing her duty as team leader and in an attempt to avoid their team having to shorten their name to RWY, Ruby quickly hammered on her flustered faunus friend’s back to help her breathe. Trying to recover some of her dignity she coughed and stood up, dusting herself down with a spare beach towel, Ruby let out an exasperated sigh, totally chill Blake.
“Ahem, well I have just finished my book so if you wanted, I could head up to the house to get more drinks while I grab a new book?”
Yang rolled back onto her stomach and looked up, “Did I ever tell you how much I love you partner? Because I feel like I should say it more.”
Maybe Blake had gotten the sun, maybe she was blushing, but really, who was Ruby to judge her friends on their susceptibility to joking declarations of love from her annoying sister?
She planted a hand on her hip and tried to look disapprovingly down at her partner but with the she scrunched up face due to the sun it just ended up looking kinda adorable. “I’m glad I’m appreciated for my hard work of fetching more cocktails for you, although it’s probably nothing new for you Weiss.”
The girl in question looked over her glasses at her.
“Okay you got me, it’s nothing new. Though,” Weiss’ tone dropped, “I don’t think any of father’s servants could have pulled off a bikini quite as well as you.” Then as if she’d only been stating what the time was, she casually turned back to her magazine, leaving the rest of her teammates dumbstruck by her statement.
Blake recovered first, stuttering out a quick, “Right…” and turning and heading off to the beach house.
Ruby used the slightly awkward silence to start a theatrical retelling of her extremely epic dream involving fighting Torchwick on the top of an airship and Weiss summoning a knight’s arm and- wait, neither of her remaining teammates were looking at her, they weren’t even acknowledging her, frankly incredible, acting out of her dream. They were...
“Hey! Stop staring at Blake’s butt!”
They spun away from watching the disappearing derriere to face their leader; Weiss with a slightly bashful but completely guilt free look on her face and Yang with an unashamed grin.
“I hate to see her go but I must say I love to watch her leave!”
“Yang!”
Weiss rolled her eyes so hard you could see it even with her designer sunglasses on, “So original Yang, where’d that come from, 101 Douchey Pick Up Lines? I thought you could do better than that.”
“Weiss!”
Yang’s face lit up. “Oh, I can definitely do better than that. Buuuuuut you’ve just given me an idea that will prove conclusively how good I am at flirting.”
By the time Blake had come back with the drinks and a new book Yang had searched up a list of the cheesiest pick-up lines the internet could find and was reciting them to Weiss in increasingly over-the-top seductive voices, attempting to show that even weak material could not stop her. Now usually Weiss, the Ice Queen of Beacon, would have simply not put up with her teammates joking attempt at wooing her, she would have shrugged her shoulders and gone back to her magazine. Usually was the key word here- usually Weiss would have. But not in this apparent alternate universe Ruby had fallen into. No, Weiss Schnee was giggling at Yang’s exaggerated accents and cheesy pickup lines.
And then Blake had joined in, throwing out lines from some of the more terrible lines from her guilty pleasure reading pile, and the whole team had been reduced to teary eyed messes, hiccuping from their giggles on the beach towels. Thankfully, any of the “tension” between the three of her teammate dissolved after Weiss had affected the poshest Atlesian accent she could and declared her undying love for Yang, currently pretending to be a poor but ruggedly handsome serving man who was in turn actually a knight undercover trying to protect his lady. After all, there’s was only so many times someone’s “glittering abs” or “rock solid biceps” could be described in painstaking detail before all sense of romance was completely and utterly stamped out. The rest of the trip continued without any such… egregious flirting from her teammates, certainly nothing as obvious as that day anyway.
Of course, Yang’s flirtiness was nothing new to Ruby, she had lived with her throughout her teenage years, if there was one thing she knew it was that her sister had no shame in telling dirty jokes or being that little bit more touchy-feely around friends. But when Weiss and Blake started exhibiting those very same traits? After neither of them would let anyone hug them for most of first year and Weiss still rolled her eyes when she was required to make any physical contact with anyone outside the team? That’s when Ruby’s gut started sending out the warning signals.
Ruby couldn’t imagine it getting much worse, the flirting had plateaued and the weirdly heated stares had, thankfully, finally died down. Sure they were still being odd and, yeah, Blake was being super jumpy and, yeah, Weiss was still saying weirdly innuendo-laden stuff and - yes- Yang had been dragging them off for personal training sessions, which must’ve been pretty intensive considering how tired they were when they got back from them. But all that mattered was that they weren’t doing it around her, whatever it was that they were doing, and that’s just how she liked it. A nice stable, balance, state of calm that worked, no intra-team relationships here, no sir. Of course, being the lovely place that it was, the world just loved to prove her wrong so naturally the next worst thing happened:
It became official. It was a thing- as described by Yang. A thing. A thing that destroyed any hope of her dorm being a safe haven. She could no longer walk freely into her room without her eyes being assaulted by whatever dumb, gay, slightly adorable but that’s beside the point here, thing the three of them had decided to do that day.
Team meetings became almost unbearable for Ruby as their weird flirting and touchy-feeliness escalated and no amount of Team Leader Executive Orders could contain them.
To make matters worse, none of the other team leaders could give her advice on what to do. Jaune had entered an odd sort of comatose state when she’d tried to explain her predicament to him and Coco had tears streaming down her face by the end of the story, eventually needing be carried off by Yatsuhashi, cackling all the way down the corridor, while Velvet tried to apologise for her leader’s insensitivity. Her apology would have been more easily accepted had she not been fighting a grin off the entire time.
Eventually, there was only one thing to do, there was only one person who had lived like this, who had the (mental) scars to prove you could get through it, who had the know how to deal with this, who had the life experience-
“So kid, how’s Beacon life treating you?”
Ruby looked up at her uncle with a grave expression on her face as she tried to block out the giggling of her teammates and the muffled chuckles of her father. Qrow mirrored his niece’s look with the utmost seriousness; this was no laughing matter after all.
“Uncle Qrow, I’m sorry,” she shook her head, “I’m sorry I didn’t believe you before, but I get it, I get why you drink so much now. I can’t take it anymore, they’re unbearable.” She took a deep breath and dragged her hands down her face.
“They’re so fucking gay. All the time. So much. A frankly incredible amount. How is it possible?”
Qrow let out a long suffering sigh and clapped her shoulder.
“I know kid, I know. And I’m sorry to say- it doesn’t get any better. You know what I told you before you got into Beacon:”
He leaned in closer to his miserable niece.
“She’s the chippiest chip I’ve ever seen.”
The scythe wielders stood in solemn silence as their blonde family members promptly lost their composure and broke down in laughter.