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Weiss kept her pencil at a disciplined angle, the graphite edge clean and narrow as a blade. Professor Oobleck’s voice moved like a metronome over the lecture hall… rapid, cheerful, intolerably awake… while the chalk on the board performed its own frantic dance.
Dust Interaction: Volatile Compounds.
She wrote each heading exactly as it appeared. If she maintained the pace… if she did not allow herself the luxury of thinking about anything except the information in front of her… then she could remain, for the next forty-seven minutes, a person of admirable focus and unassailable composure.
That was the plan.
The knock at the door was not part of the plan.
It was sharp enough to cut through Oobleck’s momentum. Weiss’s pencil paused mid-stroke, hovering above her notebook like a threat. Several students glanced toward the sound; a few, predictably, looked toward her, as though Weiss had personally arranged the interruption.
Oobleck, bright-eyed and delighted by any deviation from the syllabus, turned. “Ah! A visitor!”
The door opened, and Yang Xiao Long’s grin appeared first, wide and gleaming and entirely too pleased with itself. Her hair caught the overhead light like a warning signal. Behind her, partly obscured by the doorframe and by her own preference for existing at the edges of things, Blake Belladonna stood with her arms folded.
Blake’s expression was too calm… the particular stillness she wore when something was about to unfold.
Which meant something had already gone wrong.
Yang leaned in as though they were sharing a secret, shot Weiss an infuriating wink over her shoulder, then said… at a volume that carried very easily across the room… “Hey, Professor! I need to borrow Weiss for a second.”
Weiss felt, with the precision of a trained musician hearing a single note go sharp, every head turn.
Oobleck blinked rapidly. “Miss Schnee? During lecture?”
Yang’s smile did not waver. “It’s kind of… team business.”
Weiss did not look up from her notes. She forced her pencil to continue moving. If she pretended hard enough that the world remained orderly, perhaps it would apologize and correct itself.
Oobleck’s gaze shifted to Weiss with the kind of curiosity that should have been regulated. “Well! If it is team business… and if it is brief…”
Yang lifted two fingers in a jaunty salute. “So brief.”
Weiss’s pencil stopped again.
“Professor,” Weiss said, keeping her tone level, “I assure you nothing regarding my team requires my immediate absence from your lecture.”
“Come on,” Yang stage-whispered. “It’s important.”
Weiss’s mouth tightened. Important. That word had become deeply unreliable in the mouths of her teammates.
Blake’s eyes flicked to Weiss… brief, assessing, almost sympathetic.
That was worse.
Weiss closed her notebook with controlled finality, as if sealing away the last remnants of her peaceful afternoon. She stood, smoothing her skirt, collecting herself piece by piece. Around her, the class resumed breathing.
As she stepped past Oobleck’s desk, he offered, far too brightly, “Do take good notes on whatever… team matter… is occurring.”
“I always do,” Weiss replied.
Yang waited until Weiss crossed the threshold, then grabbed her lightly by the upper arm and tugged her into the hallway with the eagerness of someone escorting a guest to their own surprise party.
The door shut behind them.
The silence of the corridor was immediate and suspicious.
Weiss drew her arm back. “What is this?”
Yang leaned against the wall as if they were merely passing time. “Okay. So.” She lifted a hand, counting on her fingers. “One: nobody’s dying.”
Weiss’s spine did not relax. “That is a bleak opening statement.”
“Two: Ruby is fine.”
Weiss’s stomach performed an unpleasant, swift rearrangement. The name hit a place inside her that reacted faster than logic, faster than pride.
She kept her face carefully blank. “Ruby?”
Yang nodded, the grin still there but edged with something like contained laughter. Blake remained just behind Yang’s shoulder, the shadow to her sunshine, watching as though Weiss was about to provide entertainment.
Weiss forced each syllable into place. “Is she hurt?”
“No!” Yang said immediately, a little too quickly, as though batting the question out of the air.
Weiss’s eyes narrowed. “Then why are you interrupting my lecture?”
Yang’s grin widened. “Because it’s a… situation.”
“A situation,” Weiss repeated, with the careful emptiness of someone echoing nonsense back at the person who had uttered it.
Yang held up both hands in a gesture of peace. “Look, it’s not bad. It’s just… temporary.”
Weiss stared.
Temporary was the word one used for inconveniences. For power outages. For when the hot water in the dorms ran cold and everyone was forced to confront the reality of their own bodies.
Temporary was not a word one used for her girlfriend.
Weiss inhaled, slow. “Temporary what?”
Yang’s eyes glinted. “You’ll see.”
Weiss’s composure, already under strain, creaked. “That is not an explanation.”
“It’s a preview.” Yang pushed off the wall and started walking down the corridor, clearly assuming Weiss would follow. “Come on, Ice Queen. This is one of those things you have to experience.”
Weiss stepped after her before she could stop herself. The alternative… standing here while Yang wandered away with a smile and Blake’s quiet complicity… felt worse.
Blake fell into step on Weiss’s other side, silent, attentive, and entirely unhelpful.
Weiss kept her pace measured. “Ruby was in semblance training.”
Yang made a vague noise of confirmation.
“And something happened.”
“Mhm.”
Weiss’s voice sharpened with each unanswered question. “Something happened to her.”
Yang glanced over her shoulder, cheerful. “Kind of. But like I said: she’s fine.”
“Fine,” Weiss repeated.
“Fine,” Yang echoed, then added, too quickly, “… ish.”
Weiss’s steps slowed for half a beat. The corridor’s fluorescent lights made everything look slightly too clinical, like a hospital wing.
Weiss did not like that thought.
She said, very carefully, “Is she… normal?”
Yang’s grin went bright enough to be a hazard. “Define normal.”
Weiss’s hand tightened around the strap of her bag. “I am going to choose to interpret that as you being flippant, rather than alarming.”
“Oh, I’m definitely being flippant.” Yang’s shoulders bounced with a laugh she hadn’t released yet. “Alarming is optional.”
Blake made a small sound… barely a breath… that might have been amusement. She did not deny anything.
Weiss’s gaze snapped to her. “Blake.”
Blake lifted her brows, politely. “Yes?”
“Are you going to contribute?”
Blake’s mouth twitched. “I’m here for moral support.”
Weiss stared at her. “You are historically terrible at moral support.”
Blake’s eyes warmed, just slightly. “Then consider it growth.”
Yang swung an arm between them as if corralling. “Okay, so here’s the deal. Blake and I have a duo mission.”
Weiss’s attention jerked back, despite herself. “A mission? Now?”
“Now,” Yang confirmed. “It came in last minute. Easy. Quick. We’ll be back before you can draft an official complaint.”
“I don’t draft complaints,” Weiss said automatically.
Yang looked at her.
Weiss corrected, stiffly, “I draft formal concerns.”
Yang’s grin returned in full force. “Right. Anyway, we can’t stay and manage… this.”
Weiss’s stomach sank again. “Manage what.”
Yang stopped in the middle of the hall, turning so Weiss was forced to stop too. She looked Weiss up and down like a tailor assessing fabric for a suit, then said with the infuriating confidence of someone tossing a torch onto a pile of paper, “You’re the only one who can handle her.”
Weiss’s pulse did something uncooperative.
“Excuse me?”
Yang held her gaze for a beat too long, one brow ticking upward like she’d already won. “You two had plans tonight, right? Your little date?”
Weiss’s face went hot enough that she was grateful for the hallway’s chill.
“It is not a little…” Weiss began, then stopped, because correcting Yang’s word choice would require acknowledging the thing she was correcting. Her jaw tightened. “How do you even know that?”
Yang shrugged, unrepentant. “Ruby told me. She was excited.”
Weiss’s throat went inexplicably tight at that.
Ruby’s excitement had become… no. It had a way of sweeping through Weiss’s life whether she permitted it or not. That blew through her carefully arranged routines and left her simultaneously irritated and…
She did not finish that thought.
Yang’s voice lowered, as if she were granting Weiss a mercy. “Listen. She really is okay. Nobody is bleeding. Nobody is in pieces. It’s just… her semblance did a weird thing.”
Weiss’s mind seized on the most actionable part of that. “A weird thing how.”
Yang spread her hands. “Semblances are personal. They get… temperamental. Especially when you push them too hard.”
Weiss stared, refusing to let herself be lulled by generalities. “So Ruby pushed hers, and now she is…”
Yang waited for Weiss to supply the word.
Weiss could not.
Yang’s grin returned, wicked. “Temporary.”
Weiss’s patience frayed at the edges. “Yang.”
Yang held up a finger. “Before you go full-Schnee on me, I need you to promise not to freak out.”
Weiss’s eyes narrowed further. “I do not ‘freak out.’”
Blake’s gaze flicked to Weiss’s hands, as if checking for the telltale tremor of a girl who absolutely did.
Weiss curled her fingers tighter around her bag strap so no one could witness them.
Yang’s grin sharpened into a teasing smirk. “You’ll thank me later.”
Weiss’s mouth went thin. “I have never thanked you later for anything.”
“That’s because you refuse to admit when you’re having a good time,” Yang said easily.
Weiss’s indignation rose on instinct. “I am not going to have a good time managing whatever disaster Ruby has caused.”
Yang’s eyes sparkled. “Sure.”
Blake, quietly, offered, “It’s not a disaster.”
Weiss turned on her so fast her braid swung. “Oh? That’s reassuring. Why not lead with that.”
Blake’s expression remained maddeningly serene. “Because you wouldn’t believe it.”
Weiss’s mouth opened, then closed again. She hated that Blake was correct.
Yang clapped her hands once, decisive. “Okay. Ground rules. You go to the dorm. You see Ruby. You don’t faint.”
“I am not going to faint.”
“You don’t throw ice at her.”
“I am not going to…” Weiss stopped. Would I? She would not. But the fact that she had to consider it was offensive.
“And,” Yang added, leaning in with the smugness of someone locking a door, “you don’t try to fix it yourself. It’s temporary. It will resolve. Just… keep her contained.”
Weiss’s voice came out sharp. “Contained.”
Yang pointed at her like she’d made a clever observation. “See? That tone. That’s why you’re perfect.”
Weiss stared at her. “This is not a compliment.”
Yang’s grin widened again. “It kind of is.”
Blake shifted her weight, gaze sliding down the hall toward the exit. “We should go.”
Weiss’s attention snapped to that, the words finally catching up with the implication. “You’re leaving now.”
Yang nodded. “Mission waits for no one.”
Weiss’s disbelief, which had been simmering, boiled. “So you interrupt my lecture, inform me Ruby has experienced some sort of… semblance malfunction, refuse to explain what that means, and then you leave.”
Yang’s grin turned almost sympathetic, as if she were about to send Weiss into a storm with an umbrella made of paper. “Yep.”
Weiss’s voice went colder with each word. “You are both insufferable.”
Blake’s lips curved slightly. “Thank you.”
Yang stepped forward and… before Weiss could brace… thumped her on the back with the easy affection of someone handing off a burden.
It was not a gentle pat.
It was a send-off.
“Good luck, Ice Queen,” Yang said, bright as bells.
Blake, beside her, offered a small nod that somehow managed to be both apologetic and amused.
Then they were walking away, already talking in low voices about routes and timing, their shoulders angled toward the world beyond the academy.
Weiss stood in the corridor for a moment, very still, watching them retreat.
The air felt thinner.
Ruby is fine.
Fine. Ish.
Temporary.
Definitely normal.
Weiss exhaled through her nose, a controlled release meant to prevent something less dignified from escaping.
She turned toward the dorms.
Each step was measured. She would not run. Running implied panic. Panic implied weakness.
But the closer she got, the louder her thoughts became.
Ruby.
Ruby in semblance training… Ruby with that stubborn tilt of her chin when she decided she could do something, regardless of whether the world agreed. Ruby who looked at Weiss like she had discovered something precious and was determined to keep it.
Weiss’s cheeks warmed again at the memory of Ruby’s hands… too warm, too eager… sliding into hers under the table at dinner the last time they’d managed something resembling a date.
She told herself she was irritated.
She was irritated that Yang had interrupted class.
She was irritated that Ruby had told Yang about tonight.
And yes, she was irritated that the thought of Ruby being wrong in any way… hurt, altered, not herself… had made Weiss’s stomach drop as though the floor had vanished.
That was not ridiculous attachment.
That was… reasonable concern.
Team concern.
She was a responsible teammate.
That was all.
The dorm corridor was quieter than the lecture hall, the kind of hush that made every sound feel intentional. Weiss’s footsteps were too loud. Her own breathing felt like a betrayal.
As she approached the door to Team RWBY’s room, she noticed something she hadn’t expected.
There was no chaos spilling out.
No shouting.
No crash of furniture.
No frantic apology from Ruby through the door.
Only silence.
Weiss stopped a few feet away.
Her hand hovered at her side. She could knock. Knocking was polite. Knocking implied the person on the other side was capable of responding like a normal human being.
Yang had said: You’ll see.
Weiss did not like surprises.
Weiss especially did not like surprises involving Ruby.
Because Ruby’s surprises tended to come with too much eye contact and too many smiles and the kind of earnest affection that made Weiss’s thoughts stutter.
Weiss stared at the door as if it might offer terms.
It did not.
She lifted her hand.
She hesitated.
She told her heart, firmly, to behave.
She told her face, more firmly, to remain composed.
She reminded herself that she was a Schnee, and that she had faced far worse than a teammate’s temporary semblance mishap.
Then she placed her palm on the handle.
Compose yourself, she thought, and hated the way her mind sounded as though she were about to step onstage.
She turned the knob.
And opened the door.
“Hi, Weiss!”
The greeting hit her all at once… bright, eager, perfectly synchronized… three voices braided into a single, impossible sound.
Weiss’s eyes found Ruby.
Then another.
Then…
No. There was a third.
Three red hoods. Three pairs of silver eyes. Three smiles, each familiar enough to be dangerous.
For one suspended moment, her mind attempted to solve it as a trick of lighting. A reflection in the window. A mirror she had forgotten existed.
Then Ruby… one of them… waved with both hands.
Then another Ruby waved, too, but with the kind of flourish Ruby used when she was trying very hard to be charming.
Then the third Ruby hopped in place like she’d been waiting behind the door for this exact punchline.
Weiss’s hand tightened on the knob.
She closed the door.
The latch clicked.
She stood there, staring at painted wood as if it might confess.
“Absolutely not,” she said to the door, to the universe, to Yang.
From behind the door came a muffled chorus.
“Weiss?”
“Weiss, wait…”
“Weiss, come back!”
Weiss inhaled once. Twice. She straightened her shoulders, as though posture could reassert the laws of reality.
She opened the door again.
“Hi, Weiss!”
The same three voices answered her… bright, eager, and horrifyingly coordinated.
They stood in a loose line just inside the room, as if they’d rehearsed. Not even an attempt at subtlety. They had arranged themselves in a way that made it impossible for Weiss’s eyes to land on only one of them.
Weiss’s gaze moved between them, counting, comparing, searching each face for a flaw that would restore order.
They were identical.
Mostly.
One Ruby stood slightly forward, hands clasped behind her back, chin lifted with a counterfeit dignity. Another had her hood pushed back, hair fluffed a little higher, like she’d been attacked by a brush and won. The third leaned against the bunk with her arms folded, expression almost thoughtful… almost.
Weiss took one step in.
All three Rubys leaned forward.
Weiss stopped.
Her throat went tight in a way that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with Ruby’s eyes when Ruby looked at her like she was the only person in the room.
Except now there were three sets of those eyes.
It felt like an ambush.
“Explain,” Weiss said, and was proud that her voice did not crack. “Immediately.”
The Rubys spoke at once.
“It was totally fine!”
“It was a training thing!”
“We were practicing!”
“Yang said you’d be cool about it!”
“She lied!”
“I’m still me!”
“I’m also still me!”
“And I’m…”
Weiss lifted her hand.
The gesture was small.
The effect was immediate.
All three Rubys fell silent as if a cord had been cut.
Weiss’s own surprise flickered through her, sharp and sudden. The Schnee voice… the voice she’d been trained to use, the one that made boardrooms go quiet… had apparently developed the ability to command three Rubys at once.
That was not a comfort.
Weiss stepped fully into the room, closing the door behind her with more force than necessary.
“Thank you,” she said, without softness. “Now. One at a time.”
Ruby… the forward one… raised her hand like she was in class.
Weiss’s mouth twitched despite herself. She killed it immediately.
“Yes,” Weiss said.
Ruby took a breath as if preparing to address a full assembly at Beacon. “Okay! So! We were doing semblance drills because Professor Goodwitch said I needed ‘more control’ and I was like, ‘Yes, ma’am, I am a control-having person,’ and then I did the petals thing and it went really good…”
“It did!” the hood-down Ruby blurted, unable to contain herself.
“And then,” the first Ruby continued, shooting the interruption a glare that looked very odd on Ruby’s face, “we pushed it a little more and it got weird.”
The third Ruby, arms folded, nodded slowly. “It got conceptual.”
Weiss stared at her.
Ruby stared back with an expression that dared Weiss to acknowledge that word.
Weiss did not.
“Weird,” Weiss repeated. “Define weird.”
Hood-down Ruby bounced. “Like… okay… so you know how my semblance is like speed and petals and…”
“It is not ‘like.’ It is speed and petals,” Weiss snapped automatically, then realized she was correcting semantics in a room containing three Rubys. She pressed her fingers to her temple. “Continue.”
Hood-down Ruby continued anyway, undeterred. “Right! So I did the petals and then instead of me being… one me… it was like the petals didn’t know where to go. So they split. Like a fork in the road! And then we…”
“We happened,” the thoughtful Ruby supplied.
The first Ruby nodded vigorously. “Yeah! We happened.”
Weiss held very still.
“Ruby,” she said carefully.
Three faces lit up.
Weiss’s jaw clenched.
“No,” she said, pointing at the Ruby with her hand raised. “You. Ruby.”
“I’m Ruby!” all three said immediately.
Weiss’s eyelid twitched.
“This,” she said, and her voice remained impressively even despite the internal sensation of her brain scraping against the inside of her skull, “is precisely why I asked for one at a time.”
The first Ruby dropped her hand, chastened for half a second.
Then the hood-down Ruby leaned forward with urgent sincerity. “We’re just… out of sync! It’s temporary!”
Weiss’s gaze sharpened. “Out of sync.”
“Yeah,” the thoughtful Ruby said, as if explaining a philosophy problem. “Like we’re all Ruby, but we’re different parts of Ruby, and also the same Ruby, and none of us are lying, but also one of us might be more Ruby than the others, statistically.”
Weiss blinked.
The first Ruby nodded solemnly at Weiss, as if they were colleagues on a complicated project. “It’ll fix itself. Probably. We’re fine.”
“Fine,” Weiss echoed.
“Fine!” hood-down Ruby said brightly.
“Probably fine,” the thoughtful Ruby added, very quietly.
Weiss’s spine stiffened.
She looked between them. “Are you… all right?”
Three smiles. Three nods.
And something inside Weiss loosened, just slightly.
Then hood-down Ruby surged forward with the urgency of a puppy spotting its favorite person.
“We have a date!” she announced.
The first Ruby echoed, “We have a date!”
Thoughtful Ruby, as if struck by a deep truth, added, “We have a date. With Weiss.”
Weiss’s face warmed so quickly she felt personally betrayed by her own blood.
“We do not have a date,” Weiss said.
The three Rubys stared.
Weiss corrected, tighter, “We have… plans. We…” She swallowed. “Ruby and I have plans.”
The first Ruby beamed, triumphant. “Yes! That’s what a date is!”
“It’s not…” Weiss began, then realized she was, again, losing an argument on definition. “That is not the point.”
Hood-down Ruby clasped her hands under her chin. “Weiss, come on. We’re fine. We can go. We can just…”
“Who is ‘we,’” Weiss demanded, and hated herself for the way her voice sharpened on the word.
The thoughtful Ruby’s eyes flicked to her sisters… herself… then back to Weiss. “All of us, technically.”
A breath left her that was not quite a laugh.
The three of them looked at one another as if something unspoken passed between them… then stepped forward together.
“Weiss,” The first Ruby began.
“Please,” hood-down Ruby added immediately.
“We’ve been looking forward to this all week,” Thoughtful Ruby finished, unusually earnest.
They crowded closer without quite touching her.
“I picked the place,” hood-down Ruby said quickly.
“I practiced what I was going to say,” The first Ruby confessed.
“I reorganized the schedule twice to make sure nothing conflicted,” Thoughtful Ruby admitted.
All three pairs of silver eyes fixed on her.
“We just want to spend time with you,” they said… this time not perfectly synchronized, but close enough. “Please?”
“Enough.” She lifted her hand again. “Stop. Everyone. Stop moving.”
All three Rubys froze mid-shift like obedient statues.
Weiss used the moment to reclaim oxygen.
“I am going to say this once,” she said, each word placed like a tile. “We are going to proceed as planned. Because I refuse to let this derail my entire evening by… by turning my girlfriend into a mathematical problem.”
Three identical grins widened at once.
Weiss immediately regretted the word choice.
“However,” she continued before they could pounce, “there will be rules.”
The Rubys leaned forward in unison.
Weiss held up a finger. “Rule one: You are going to stop speaking over each other.”
Three nods.
Weiss held up a second finger. “Rule two: You are not to interact with anyone outside this team. No wandering off. No introducing yourselves. No explaining this to strangers.”
Three pairs of eyes widened with identical intrigue.
Hood-down Ruby raised a hand. “What if someone talks to us first?”
“You will smile,” Weiss said crisply. “And say nothing.”
The Rubys looked stricken.
Weiss pressed on, because if she paused, she might start thinking about why that made her chest feel tight. “And rule three: You are going to wear name tags.”
The silence that followed was not obedience.
It was stunned disbelief.
The first Ruby blinked. “Name tags.”
“Weiss,” hood-down Ruby said, as if she’d just asked Ruby to change her species, “you know our names.”
“Clearly,” Weiss said, “I do not.”
Thoughtful Ruby tilted her head. “Is this an identity thing?”
“This is a sanity thing,” Weiss replied.
The first Ruby nodded slowly, as if she had been convinced by logic. “Okay. Name tags. Sure.” She pointed at herself with decisive pride. “I’m Ruby One. Because I’m the original.”
Hood-down Ruby’s head snapped around. “Excuse you? You don’t get to just… no.” She jabbed a finger at her own hair, which did, admittedly, look especially fluffy. “I should be One. I have the best hair today.”
Thoughtful Ruby raised her hand in the same polite gesture the first Ruby had used earlier. “I propose I be Three. Three is traditionally the number of completion. Also, I feel the most emotionally mature.”
Weiss stared at her.
Hood-down Ruby stared at her.
The first Ruby stared at her.
Thoughtful Ruby held the stare, serenely, as if daring any of them to argue with maturity.
Weiss’s headache, which had been looming, arrived.
“We are not self-assigning titles,” Weiss said sharply.
All three Rubys turned to her.
Weiss took a breath, then another, then spoke with all the chilly authority she had honed over years of being the only person in a room who cared about order.
“You are not going to assign yourselves numbers based on ego, hair, or… whatever that was.” She gestured vaguely at thoughtful Ruby.
Thoughtful Ruby lowered her hand, unoffended. “Enlightenment.”
Weiss ignored that, because acknowledging it felt like accepting reality.
“We are going to do this properly,” Weiss said. “I will make the name tags.”
Hood-down Ruby’s eyes went wide. “You’ll write them?”
Weiss stared at her. “Yes.”
Ruby’s face softened in a way that made Weiss’s heart do something mortifying.
Thoughtful Ruby leaned toward her sisters. “She’s handwriting for us. That’s very intimate.”
Weiss’s ears went hot.
“It is administrative,” Weiss snapped, turning toward her desk before her body could betray her further. “Sit. All of you. On the beds. Do not touch anything that can explode.”
All three Rubys scrambled to comply.
Of course, because there were three of them, they managed to collide with each other on the way.
“Weiss said sit!”
“I’m sitting!”
“You’re sitting on my cape!”
“It’s not your cape, it’s our cape!”
Weiss dug through her drawers with grim precision, locating a stack of blank sticky labels from the time she had attempted to organize her textbooks by subject, difficulty, and likelihood of Ruby spilling something on them.
She retrieved a pen.
She stared at the pen.
Her hand was steady.
Everything else decidedly was not.
She turned back to the trio.
Three Rubys sat on the beds like identical dolls waiting to be assigned roles.
Weiss held up the labels. “I am numbering you. Arbitrarily.”
The first Ruby’s eyes narrowed. “I don’t like arbitrary.”
Hood-down Ruby leaned forward. “Can we negotiate.”
“No,” Weiss said.
Thoughtful Ruby nodded approvingly. “Firm boundaries. Good.”
Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose. “Please do not compliment me.”
Thoughtful Ruby blinked, then smiled gently. “Okay.”
Weiss wrote the first label.
Her handwriting was impeccable.
RUBY #1
She did not look at their faces while she wrote it. Looking at their faces meant seeing Ruby, multiplied, and that made her thoughts trip.
She tore the label free and held it up.
All three Rubys leaned forward.
Weiss pointed at the first Ruby… the one who had raised her hand, the one who had tried to sound responsible.
“You,” Weiss said. “Ruby #1.”
The first Ruby gasped as though she had been crowned.
“Yes!” she said triumphantly.
Hood-down Ruby made an outraged noise. “What! No!”
Weiss slapped the label onto the first Ruby’s chest with swift finality.
The first Ruby looked down at it, delighted. “It’s so neat.”
“It is a name tag,” Weiss said.
“It’s your handwriting,” Ruby #1 said, as if that explained everything.
Weiss turned away to write the second.
RUBY #2
She held it up.
Hood-down Ruby immediately sat taller, fluffing her hair with both hands. “That’s me. That’s definitely me.”
Ruby #1 crossed her arms, suddenly possessive. “You just want it because you didn’t get One.”
Hood-down Ruby pointed accusingly. “I deserve One. You stole it with your teacher voice.”
Ruby #1 bristled. “She picked me because I was being responsible.”
“I was being responsible!” hood-down Ruby protested.
“You were being loud,” Ruby #1 snapped.
Thoughtful Ruby leaned back, watching like this was an educational documentary. “Fascinating. The ego construct is…”
Weiss thrust the #2 label toward hood-down Ruby. “You. Ruby #2. If you argue, I will assign you #17.”
Hood-down Ruby went still.
“Seventeen?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Weiss said, cold. “And you will have to explain it to everyone.”
Hood-down Ruby accepted #2 with solemn resignation. “Okay. Two is fine. Two is… a good number.”
Weiss placed the label carefully on her chest. She avoided looking at Ruby #2’s face when Ruby #2 smiled at her like Weiss had granted her something precious.
Weiss turned toward the third label.
Thoughtful Ruby sat with hands folded, already calm, already waiting, eyes fixed on Weiss with that unsettling steadiness.
Weiss wrote:
RUBY #3
She held it up.
Thoughtful Ruby accepted it with a slow, satisfied nod. “Excellent.”
Ruby #1 leaned toward Ruby #2, whispering loudly, “She likes Three too much. That’s suspicious.”
Ruby #2 whispered back, “It’s because she thinks she’s emotionally mature.”
Ruby #1 whispered, scandalized, “Are we not emotionally mature?”
Ruby #2 whispered, “We cried over a cookie last week.”
Ruby #1 whispered, “It was a really good cookie.”
Weiss slapped the #3 label onto thoughtful Ruby’s chest before she could become involved in a debate about pastry-based grief.
“There,” Weiss said, stepping back as if distance could save her. “Now. You will answer to those numbers until you merge back into…”
She stopped.
Because she did not want to say one.
Because saying one felt like tempting fate.
Ruby #1’s eyes lit up. “Until we merge back into Ruby Prime!”
Ruby #2 gasped. “Ruby Prime!”
Ruby #3’s mouth quirked. “We are not using that phrasing.”
Weiss’s shoulders slumped by a fraction. She did not know how to fix any of this. She barely knew how to stand in the room without being stared at by three versions of the person who had, somehow, started to matter.
“Fine,” Weiss said. “Until you become… normal again.”
Ruby #1 raised her hand. “Define normal.”
Weiss’s gaze went razor sharp.
Ruby #1 lowered her hand.
“Good,” Weiss said. “Now we are going to leave.”
The Rubys popped off the beds as though propelled.
Weiss held up her hand again. “Order.”
They froze.
Weiss pointed at the door. “Single file. Ruby #1 first, then Ruby #2, then Ruby #3.”
Ruby #2’s eyes widened. “Why do I have to be second.”
“Because you are Ruby #2,” Weiss said.
Ruby #2 opened her mouth.
Weiss’s gaze sharpened.
Ruby #2 closed her mouth.
Ruby #3 leaned toward Weiss, voice lowered as if sharing a secret. “If someone asks, what should we say?”
Weiss stared at her. “We are not going to be asked.”
Ruby #3 nodded thoughtfully. “That’s optimistic.”
Weiss walked to the door and opened it, positioning herself as a physical barrier between the Rubys and the hallway beyond.
“Remember,” she said. “No shouting. No… no petal explosions. No touching anything without warning. And if anyone asks questions…”
Ruby #1 saluted. “We lie!”
“We do not lie,” Weiss snapped.
Ruby #2 offered, brightly, “We misdirect!”
“We do not misdirect,” Weiss snapped, then paused, because misdirection was arguably not lying, and she did not like the way Ruby #2’s expression had gone hopeful.
Ruby #3 said, serenely, “We tell the truth and watch them suffer.”
Weiss stared at her.
Ruby #3 smiled, innocent.
Weiss exhaled. “We say it was a training mishap and it will resolve shortly. That is all.”
Three nods.
Weiss stepped into the hallway.
The Rubys followed.
Single file lasted exactly three seconds.
Ruby #2 drifted up beside Weiss with the kind of instinct that suggested she’d been doing that for weeks. Ruby #1 crowded her other side almost immediately, their shoulders nearly brushing Weiss’s arms.
Weiss’s skin went hot where they came near.
Ruby #3 trailed behind for a moment… then, with a mischievous little hum, reached forward and plucked at Weiss’s sleeve.
Weiss stopped dead.
All three Rubys stopped.
Weiss turned slowly.
Ruby #3 looked up at her with a calm that was entirely performative. “Is sleeve-plucking considered touching.”
Weiss’s jaw clenched. “Yes.”
Ruby #3 nodded. “Understood.”
Ruby #2 leaned in, whispering brightly, “She’s learning.”
Weiss looked between them, then down the hall, then back.
Apparently, this was happening now.
She squared her shoulders, drew on the last shreds of her composure like a cloak, and began walking again.
The three Rubys followed… bickering under their breath about whether Ruby #2 was allowed to walk beside Weiss or whether Ruby #1 had seniority, and whether Ruby #3 should be permitted to make philosophical observations in public.
Weiss felt their attention on her like heat.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she said tightly.
Three voices, immediate:
“We’re not!”
“We’re just looking!”
“We’re appreciating.”
Weiss’s face warmed.
She did not dignify that with a response.
She only walked faster.
Behind her, three Rubys hustled to keep up… still arguing, still smiling, still entirely too delighted with the fact that Weiss had not, somehow, fled.
And because order had clearly abandoned her, because structure had decided to take the evening off, Weiss could feel it: the way they orbited her, the way they kept trying to drift closer, the way they fawned as though three bodies meant three times the affection with nowhere else to go.
Weiss reached the stairs.
Ruby #1 grabbed the railing at the same time as Ruby #2.
They both yelped.
Ruby #3 sighed like a long-suffering adult.
Weiss stared at all of them.
Then, with the exhausted dignity of someone accepting a sentence she could not appeal, she descended… one step at a time… with three bickering Rubys trailing after her and fawning over her like she was the only fixed point left in a world that had lost its mind.
The restaurant was all warm gold and polished wood, the sort of place that expected you to know which fork was for what without making a spectacle of it.
Weiss had chosen it on purpose.
It was quiet. It was tasteful. It was controlled.
She stepped through the door first, spine straight, chin level… an attempt at announcing to the world that everything about this evening was normal and appropriate and absolutely not being escorted by three identical girls in red with peeling name tags.
Behind her, Ruby #2 made a soft, awed sound.
Ruby #1 whispered, reverent, “It smells like fancy bread.”
Ruby #3, as if cataloguing evidence for later, murmured, “This place has very high dramatic potential.”
Weiss’s shoulders tightened.
“Inside voices,” she said without turning.
Three obedient, immediate murmurs: “Yes, Weiss.”
The host looked up.
His expression did not change.
His eyes did.
They flicked to Ruby #1.
To Ruby #2.
To Ruby #3.
Then back to Weiss, as if Weiss might offer a key to whatever puzzle had just entered his establishment.
Weiss’s smile settled into something practiced. “Table for four,” she said crisply.
Ruby #2 leaned in too far and stage-whispered, thrilled, “This is the part where we pretend this is normal.”
Ruby #1 breathed, solemn as a vow, “We are very normal.”
Ruby #3 observed mildly, “Statistically improbable, but visually symmetrical.”
Weiss’s smile sharpened.
The host’s gaze dipped… caught on the name tags… and, to his credit, he did not ask a single question.
“Right this way,” he said.
Weiss guided the trio after him like a nervous diplomat escorting three enthusiastic foreign dignitaries through fragile territory.
Rule two… no interacting with others… had become less a rule and more a prayer.
The room was busy, but not loud. Glasses clinked. A low murmur of conversation drifted beneath string music that was trying very hard to be unobtrusive.
Several patrons looked.
Weiss did not look back.
She felt Ruby #1’s presence close on her left, careful and contained. Ruby #2 kept drifting closer on the right as if magnetized. Ruby #3 hovered behind, with the patience of someone waiting for Weiss to forget she had a back.
The host stopped beside a booth near the window.
Weiss exhaled, relief blooming too early.
“Enjoy,” the host said.
Weiss slid into the booth first.
Order. Seating. Control.
Ruby #1 and Ruby #2 immediately slid in after her.
One on each side.
They boxed her in like it was instinct.
Weiss’s breath caught.
Then Ruby #3 climbed in last and… apparently deciding the laws of gravity were optional… flopped directly into Weiss’s lap.
Weiss made a sound that was not a word.
Ruby #3 sighed contentedly and settled her head against Weiss’s shoulder as though she had always belonged there.
Ruby #1’s eyes widened. “You can’t just…”
Ruby #2 hissed, scandalized, “That’s cheating!”
“I am not cheating,” Ruby #3 said calmly. “I am optimizing.”
Weiss stared at the table.
The table did not offer solutions.
“There are rules to sitting arrangements!” Weiss managed, voice thin.
Ruby #2’s grin flashed. “Not when I’m in love, Weiss!”
Weiss’s face went hot so quickly she felt it in her ears.
Ruby #1 nodded vigorously, as if love were a binding clause. “Yes. Love changes seating.”
Ruby #3 lifted her head slightly, grave as a judge, and asked with earnest curiosity, “If I behave, do I get rewarded?”
Ruby #2 choked.
Ruby #1 burst into offended laughter.
Weiss…
Weiss’s brain short-circuited, every careful thought evaporating under the combined weight of Ruby’s warmth and Ruby’s voice and Ruby saying in love like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
She pushed her hands against the edge of the booth and forced herself to stand.
This required shifting Ruby #3.
Ruby #3 made a small noise of protest, like a cat being relocated from a sunbeam.
Weiss rose anyway.
“Out,” Weiss said.
Ruby #2 blinked. “Out?”
“All of you,” Weiss said, more firmly. “Move. Now.”
Ruby #1 scrambled immediately, sliding out with startled obedience. Ruby #2 followed, grumbling theatrically. Ruby #3 lingered, looking up at Weiss with betrayed sincerity.
“Weiss,” Ruby #3 said softly, “I was comfortable.”
Weiss did not look at her eyes.
“Opposite side,” Weiss ordered.
They stared.
Weiss leaned forward, voice dropping into that steel-edged calm she used when something had to happen regardless of feelings.
“I will not be pinned into a booth by three people,” she said. “You will sit on the other side. You will behave. And you will stop trying to win.”
Ruby #2 opened her mouth.
Weiss’s stare held.
Ruby #2 shut it again.
They climbed in opposite her in a tangle of red fabric and whispered arguments.
“That seat is closer to her.”
“It’s a booth, we’re all close.”
“I can be closer emotionally.”
Weiss slid back into her spot alone, reclaiming a sliver of space like it was a conquered territory.
Her lungs finally remembered how to work.
Then Ruby #1 reached across the table and placed her hands flat beside her menu… careful, contained… and looked at Weiss like Weiss was the only thing keeping her from floating away.
“We’re sorry,” Ruby #1 said quietly, fingers curling against the edge of the table like she was bracing herself.
Ruby #2 nodded fast, unusually earnest. “We didn’t mean to ambush you. We just…” She broke off, looking at the other two.
Ruby #3 exhaled softly. “We love you,” she said, as if it were a correction.
Ruby #1’s eyes widened, then she leaned in, words tumbling over each other. “We do. I do. You just… you look so beautiful tonight, and you picked this place, and you were all…” She gestured helplessly at Weiss’s posture. “Like that.”
Ruby #2 pointed at her, almost accusatory with affection. “You walked in like you owned the room. We couldn’t not react.”
Ruby #3 tilted her head, studying Weiss with unsettling calm. “It is statistically difficult to remain composed in the presence of that level of elegance.”
Weiss blinked.
Her carefully reassembled control slipped, just slightly.
Ruby #1 swallowed. “We’re not trying to win. We just… love you. And you’re really, really pretty.”
Ruby #2 nodded vigorously. “Unfairly pretty.”
Ruby #3 added, softer now, “Distractingly so.”
Weiss’s throat went dry.
The booth felt smaller.
She looked down at the menu as if it could become a shield.
A waiter arrived… smiling, professional… and froze for exactly one blink at the sight of three identical faces.
Weiss’s smile returned with practiced perfection. “Good evening,” she said. “We’ll be ordering shortly.”
Ruby #2 leaned forward, eyes shining. “Do you have any recommendations?”
Weiss’s heart stopped.
Rule two.
Weiss cut in without moving her head. “They do not.”
Ruby #2’s grin faltered, then rallied. “Right. Silent. Smiling.” She smiled at the waiter with such intensity it bordered on an apology.
The waiter’s eyes darted to Weiss.
Weiss nodded once, a silent request for him to accept the lie that nothing about this was unusual.
The waiter, blessedly, did.
He placed water glasses down… four… and left them with the kind of speed that suggested experience.
Weiss exhaled.
Across from her, Ruby #1 opened her menu with solemn focus.
Ruby #2 flipped hers open like she expected it to contain a secret treasure map.
Ruby #3 studied hers the way she studied battle plans.
And then…
“Oh,” Ruby #2 whispered, eyes widening. “They have the smoked tomato soup.”
Ruby #1 lifted her head at once. “Weiss likes soup.”
Weiss’s mouth opened.
Ruby #3, before Weiss could object, said gently, “She does. She pretends she doesn’t. But she does.”
Weiss’s face warmed.
She stabbed her gaze back down at the menu.
“This is not a conference about my preferences,” she said.
Ruby #1, earnest as a vow, replied, “It’s a date.”
Ruby #2 pointed at a highlighted section. “Okay, okay. I’m going to order something elegant. Something that says I can do fancy.”
Ruby #1 nodded. “I’m going to order something responsible. Something that says I can be a mature girlfriend.”
Weiss’s pen-straight posture wavered.
Ruby #3, calmly, said, “I will order something that destabilizes the competition.”
Ruby #2 gasped. “No sabotage!”
Ruby #1 looked betrayed. “We said we were being good!”
Ruby #3 blinked, unbothered. “I am being good. I am simply also being efficient.”
Weiss pressed two fingers to her temple.
This was her date.
Her fancy date.
She had dreamt… briefly, privately, and with deep embarrassment… of Ruby dressed nicely, across from her, trying hard, smiling at Weiss like Weiss had won something.
Now Ruby was across from her three times over, trying three different kinds of hard.
Weiss did not know what to do with the tenderness that sparked beneath the irritation.
She kept her eyes on the menu until the waiter returned.
“Are we ready?” he asked.
Weiss looked up. “Yes. Thank you.”
Ruby #2 shot her a pleading look.
Weiss’s gaze narrowed.
Ruby #2 mouthed, Please.
Weiss exhaled slowly.
“Briefly,” Weiss said under her breath, without looking away from the waiter, “you may speak. One at a time. If you embarrass me, I will walk home alone.”
Three identical nods. Three solemn faces. Three attempts at restraint.
The waiter lifted his pen.
Ruby #1 sat straighter. “I would like the grilled chicken with rosemary vegetables,” she said carefully, as if each word had been rehearsed.
Ruby #2, not to be outdone, said quickly, “And I would like the steak… medium rare… and the smoked tomato soup. Please. Because I am… sophisticated.”
Ruby #1 hissed, quiet, “That’s too much food.”
Ruby #2 hissed back, “I’m hungry for romance.”
Weiss’s ears went hot.
Ruby #3 waited until the waiter’s attention turned, then said serenely, “I would like the pasta. With extra mushrooms.”
Ruby #2 squinted. “You don’t even like mushrooms.”
Ruby #3 met her gaze. “I like winning.”
The waiter blinked.
Weiss’s smile tightened. “And I will have the…”
Ruby #1 and Ruby #2 both leaned forward at the same time.
“Soup,” Ruby #1 guessed.
“Salad,” Ruby #2 guessed.
Weiss’s eyes narrowed to slits.
The waiter’s pen hovered.
Weiss said, very clearly, “I will have the soup and the salad. Thank you.”
Ruby #2’s face lit triumphantly.
Ruby #1’s smile widened immediately, triumphant. “I said soup,” she whispered fiercely, as if she’d just secured a victory for their side.
Ruby #3 nodded like she’d predicted it.
Weiss stared at her.
Ruby #3 sipped her water innocently.
The waiter fled.
Silence fell.
It lasted approximately five seconds.
Ruby #2 leaned forward, elbows on the table, as if she could not physically keep her affection contained. “You look really pretty,” she said, the words tumbling out.
Weiss’s fingers tightened around her water glass.
Ruby #1, softer, added, “You do.”
Ruby #3, as if offering a formal statement, said, “It is distressing how pretty you look.”
Weiss choked on air.
“That,” Weiss managed, “is not…”
“Complimentary?” Ruby #2 asked, delighted.
“It’s very complimentary,” Ruby #1 insisted.
“It is an observation,” Ruby #3 said, unhelpfully. “And therefore true.”
Weiss’s face warmed. She looked down, then immediately regretted it because her attention caught on her hands.
Empty.
Not being held.
That should have been a relief.
It was not.
The food arrived quickly… too quickly, as though the universe wanted to keep the evening moving before Weiss could regain control.
Soup. Salad. Steak. Pasta.
Ruby #2 tried to cut her steak with intense, almost reverent concentration.
Ruby #1 ate with deliberate politeness, as if table manners could keep Weiss from noticing there were still three of them.
Ruby #3 twirled pasta with unhurried calm, watching the other two with the patient expression of someone observing predictable chaos.
They competed anyway.
Ruby #1 offered Weiss the best-looking piece of bread from the basket.
Ruby #2 offered Weiss a taste of her steak with a grin that implied this was intimacy.
Ruby #3, after a moment, offered Weiss a mushroom with the quiet confidence of someone who knew Weiss would refuse and wanted the refusal to mean something.
Weiss refused.
Of course she refused.
Her cheeks remained warm.
The conversation was worse.
Ruby #1 leaned forward first, eyes wide and earnest. “Okay, but seriously,” she said, lowering her voice like she was confessing something important, “you look really cool tonight. Like. Cool-cool. If I didn’t already know you, I’d be too intimidated to talk to you.”
Ruby #2 immediately leaned in farther, scoffing. “Intimidated? Please. I’m actively trying not to flirt too hard and I’m still losing.” She pointed at Weiss with shameless admiration. “You did that thing when we walked in… where you just stand there like you expect the world to arrange itself. It’s unfair.”
Ruby #3 folded her hands neatly atop the table, gaze steady and intent. “Your confidence is deeply distracting,” she said calmly. “I am experiencing measurable difficulty maintaining appropriate dinner conversation.”
Her glass clinked too hard against the table.
“This,” she said, gathering what remained of her composure, “is a restaurant.”
Ruby #2 tilted her head. “So we should compliment the chef instead?”
Ruby #1 shook her head quickly. “No, no, focus. Weiss is the main course.”
Weiss choked.
Ruby #3, unblinking, added, “We are merely appreciating the presentation.”
Ruby #2 pressed her chin into her hands again, grinning shamelessly. “If you keep looking like that, I’m not responsible for my behavior.”
Weiss straightened in her seat, which only made all three of them visibly react.
Ruby #1’s voice dropped, reverent. “See? She does that on purpose.”
Weiss wanted… absurdly, helplessly… to reach across the table, tug her closer by the hood, and kiss her quiet just to prove she was very much the problem… and that Weiss liked it. The thought startled her; heat flared at her own boldness.
She did not.
She finished her soup with steady hands.
When the bill arrived, Weiss reached for it out of instinct.
Ruby #1’s hand shot out too, earnest and determined. “I can pay!”
Ruby #2’s hand shot out as well, competitive. “No, I can pay! It’s romantic!”
Ruby #3’s hand drifted over last, calm as a guillotine. “We split it three ways.”
Weiss stared.
Three Ruby hands hovered over the bill like a flock of birds.
“Stop,” Weiss said.
They froze.
Weiss slid the bill toward herself with a kind of grim grace. “I am paying. Because splitting it three ways is still just splitting Ruby’s money three ways, and I refuse to sit here while you argue with yourself about it until morning.”
Ruby #2 pouted. “But…”
Weiss gave her a look.
Ruby #2 swallowed the rest.
Outside, the night air hit Weiss’s flushed face like mercy.
She drew in a breath that tasted like cold and relief.
Behind her, the Rubys clustered close… still not touching, mostly… but brimming with the kind of affection that kept trying to spill over the edges.
They made it half a block.
Ruby #1 moved first.
She stepped ahead, then turned back, taking Weiss’s left hand with a careful gentleness that asked permission even as it happened.
Weiss’s pulse jumped.
Ruby #1 lifted Weiss’s hand… slow, deliberate… and pressed a kiss to her knuckles.
It was brief.
It was respectful.
It was entirely unfair.
Weiss’s breath caught so hard her ribs protested.
Ruby #1 smiled as if she’d done something right.
Ruby #2 made an outraged noise. “Hey!”
Ruby #1’s eyes went wide. “What? It was… nice!”
Ruby #2 turned, grabbed Weiss’s right hand before Weiss could recover, and… without warning… leaned in to plant a kiss on Weiss’s cheek.
Weiss stiffened.
Heat exploded across her face.
Ruby #2 beamed at her like she’d just won a trophy.
Ruby #1 spluttered, offended. “That was not fair!”
Ruby #2 said smugly, “It was faster.”
Ruby #3, behind them, went very still.
Weiss felt it… the shift in attention, the quiet narrowing of focus.
Ruby #3 stepped forward.
Weiss opened her mouth to speak.
Ruby #3 placed a hand lightly on Weiss’s collar, just enough to steady her, and leaned in.
Her kiss was direct.
Warm.
On the lips.
Weiss’s entire world stalled.
Her thoughts vanished, leaving only the sensation of Ruby’s mouth and the impossible fact that Ruby was kissing her and there were witnesses and Weiss was still standing.
Ruby #3 pulled back first.
Ruby #3 looked at Weiss with calm satisfaction.
Ruby #1 made a strangled sound.
Ruby #2 gaped, scandalized. “You can’t… Weiss didn’t…”
Weiss swallowed.
Her mouth was warm.
Her cheeks were burning.
Her pulse refused to behave.
“We are walking,” Weiss said, voice thin, “back to the dorms.”
Three Rubys blinked.
Weiss took one step.
Then another.
“If you do not behave,” Weiss said, each word clipped, “I will walk back alone.”
Ruby #1 immediately straightened, hands clasped, as if summoned to court. “Yes, Weiss.”
Ruby #2 nodded too fast. “Yes. Behaving. So behaved.”
Ruby #3’s mouth quirked, like she found the threat charming. “Understood.”
Weiss did not look at her.
Because if she looked at her, she might remember the kiss.
Or worse…
She might lean in.
They walked.
The Rubys stayed close, but not touching, like three eager satellites forced into a wider orbit.
Weiss kept her gaze ahead.
Her lips still tingled.
She told herself she was furious.
She did not believe herself.
And when the dorms finally came into view… dark windows, familiar stone, the promise of privacy… Weiss felt her composure wobble one last time, not from fear, but from the unbearable knowledge that she had survived the worst date she’d ever been on.
And she wanted it again.
The dorm door clicked shut behind them with the soft finality of a vault.
Weiss stood in the entryway for a moment, hand still on the knob, as if that small contact with the outside world could keep her upright.
Behind her, three Rubys breathed in as one.
“Home,” Ruby #2 sighed like she’d returned from a heroic quest.
Ruby #1 nodded solemnly. “We survived.”
Ruby #3 tilted her head, thoughtful. “We improvised.”
Weiss’s cheeks warmed again, uninvited, as though her skin had decided to hold on to the evening’s humiliations for later study.
“Do not,” Weiss said, turning slowly, “start.”
Three identical faces turned toward her with identical innocence.
“We weren’t starting,” Ruby #1 promised.
Ruby #2 promised faster, louder. “We’re done starting. We’re in the ending now.”
Ruby #3, as if offering an explanation rather than an argument, added, “We are transitioning into the domestic sequence.”
Weiss stared.
“I am going to bed,” Weiss said, because saying anything else might require acknowledging what Ruby #3 had just implied.
Three smiles widened at once.
Ruby #2 clasped her hands. “Bedtime!”
Ruby #1’s voice softened. “Cuddle time.”
Ruby #3 nodded, serene. “Cuddle time.”
Weiss walked past them with stiff dignity, shedding her coat with the controlled motions of someone restoring order piece by piece. Her boots came off. Her hair ribbon loosened. Each small act of getting ready for sleep felt like reclaiming a piece of order.
It lasted until she looked over her shoulder and realized three Rubys had followed her into her space like it belonged to them.
Their name tags were still there.
Ruby #2’s was peeling at the corner. Ruby #1’s was straight. Ruby #3’s sat at an angle that looked intentional, as if even adhesive could be a statement.
Weiss’s gaze caught on them and her brain did a small, tired stutter.
“Take those off,” she said.
Ruby #2 looked wounded. “But they’re official.”
“They are paper,” Weiss replied.
Ruby #1, obedient, began peeling hers carefully. Ruby #2 followed with dramatic reluctance. Ruby #3 paused, then removed hers with slow deliberation… as if undressing a title.
They placed the labels neatly on Weiss’s desk.
For some reason, that made Weiss’s throat tighten.
She ignored it.
“Right,” Weiss said, brisk. “You. All of you. Bed.”
Ruby #2 bounced. “Your bed!”
Weiss’s voice sharpened. “Yes. My bed. There is one of me and three of you! This is not math, this is punishment!”
Ruby #1’s mouth fell open in delighted offense. “It’s not punishment. It’s… bonus.”
Ruby #2 nodded furiously. “Weiss gets three times the girlfriend.”
Ruby #3 considered this. “It is an inefficient distribution of resources, but emotionally compelling.”
Weiss made a sound through her nose that refused to become a laugh.
She pulled back the covers with grim precision. Her bed was not large. It had, previously, been large enough for two people if one of them was Ruby and Ruby pretended she did not take up the entire space simply by existing.
Now there were three.
Weiss stood at the foot of the bed and assessed them like a commander faced with an impossible map.
“Positions,” she said.
All three Rubys brightened.
Ruby #1 raised her hand. “I want to be the big spoon.”
Ruby #2 immediately jabbed a finger at herself. “No, I’m the big spoon. I always am.”
Ruby #1 frowned. “You are not always. Sometimes you are a blanket.”
Ruby #2 gasped. “A blanket is a form of spoon!”
Ruby #3 stepped forward with calm authority, palms raised as if she were about to present a lecture. “I have prepared a proposal.”
Weiss’s eyes narrowed. “You have not.”
Ruby #3’s expression did not change. “Figuratively. Imagine a PowerPoint.”
Ruby #2’s eyes shone. “Ooh! With pictures?”
Ruby #3 nodded once. “Charts.”
Weiss pressed her fingers to her temple.
“No,” Weiss said. “No PowerPoints. No debates. I am assigning.”
Ruby #1 clasped her hands. “Yes, ma’am.”
Ruby #2 clasped her hands too, but her eyes were already plotting. “Yes, ma’am.”
Ruby #3 inclined her head, respectful in the way of someone who planned to comply creatively. “Understood.”
Weiss went to her desk and pulled a piece of paper from her notebook… something clean, something blank, something that had not yet been subjected to their lives.
She drew a rectangle.
She labeled it with ruthless clarity: BED.
Ruby #2 leaned over her shoulder, whispering. “This is so hot. You’re making a chart.”
Weiss did not look at her.
“This is survival,” Weiss said.
Ruby #1 leaned in from the other side, eyes wide. “Can I be the pillow?”
Weiss’s pen paused.
Ruby #3 observed, genuinely curious, “We can assign pillow roles. That expands the system.”
Weiss’s jaw tightened.
“No one,” Weiss said carefully, “is going to be a pillow.”
Ruby #2’s voice went small. “But I like when she uses my shoulder as a pillow.”
Ruby #1 nodded quickly. “Me too. It makes me feel useful.”
Ruby #3 added, softer, “It is an excellent point of contact.”
Weiss’s face warmed.
She drew three small circles on one side of the rectangle and one on the other.
“Fine,” Weiss said, because if she did not move forward she would be devoured by Ruby sentiment. “I am here.” She tapped the single circle.
Ruby #2 immediately reached out as if to tap Weiss instead.
Weiss’s stare snapped up.
Ruby #2 withdrew her hand, chastened, but smiling.
Weiss tapped the first circle. “Ruby #1, left side.”
Ruby #1 beamed.
Weiss tapped the second. “Ruby #2, middle.”
Ruby #2 gasped. “Middle is prime real estate.”
Weiss ignored her.
Weiss tapped the third. “Ruby #3, right side.”
Ruby #3 nodded solemnly. “Acknowledged.”
Ruby #1 raised her hand again. “Who is spoon.”
Weiss looked at the chart.
The chart looked back.
Weiss drew an arrow.
“Ruby #1 is… outer,” Weiss said, and immediately regretted every word that came out of her mouth. “Ruby #2 is… inner. Ruby #3 is… also inner. No spoons. Everyone is simply… present.”
Ruby #2’s grin turned wicked. “Inner.”
Weiss’s voice went tight. “Do not.”
Ruby #3, genuinely attempting to be helpful, said, “Technically, this is a spoon lattice.”
Ruby #1 nodded like she understood. “Yes. A spoon… system.”
Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose.
“This is not a system,” Weiss said. “This is damage control.”
Ruby #2 leaned forward, eyes shining. “We’re your damage.”
Ruby #1 added quickly, “And your control.”
Ruby #3 concluded, serene, “Therefore we are your damage control.”
Weiss made an involuntary sound… half exhale, half surrender.
“Get in,” she ordered.
They moved.
Not in the formation Weiss had so carefully devised.
Ruby #2 lunged for the bed first, then Ruby #1 tripped over the edge of the blanket trying to follow, then Ruby #3 attempted to correct the chaos by lifting a pillow and accidentally bonking Ruby #2 in the face.
Ruby #2 yelped.
Ruby #1 laughed.
Ruby #3 apologized with grave sincerity.
Weiss stood at the foot of the bed with her chart in hand, watching her plan dissolve in real time.
“I made a chart,” she said, as though saying it aloud might shame the universe into compliance.
Ruby #2 rolled onto her back, grinning up at Weiss. “It was a really good chart.”
Ruby #1 patted the space beside her eagerly. “Come here. We’ll behave.”
Ruby #3, already reorganizing pillows like she could restore order through geometry, said, “We can still implement the chart with minor adjustments.”
Weiss’s eyes narrowed. “No adjustments.”
Ruby #3 paused, then nodded. “Understood. Major adjustments.”
Weiss climbed in with the exhausted dignity of someone stepping into a trap she had personally constructed.
The moment she lay down, warmth found her.
Ruby #1 pressed close on one side, cheek brushing Weiss’s shoulder. Ruby #2 tucked in on the other with a sigh like she’d been waiting all day to belong there. Ruby #3 hovered for a second… as if deciding between etiquette and victory… then slid on top of Weiss and wrapped an arm around her waist.
Weiss’s breath caught.
She forced it back out through her nose.
“This,” Weiss said, voice strained, “is suffocating.”
Ruby #2 murmured, pleased, “Weiss is dramatic at bedtime.”
Ruby #1 whispered, adoring, “It’s my favorite.”
Ruby #3, mouth near the back of Weiss’s neck, said quietly, “If you require more space, we can redistribute mass.”
Weiss shot her a look over her shoulder.
Ruby #3 looked back, solemn, as if she had offered a scientific solution.
Weiss sighed and stared at the ceiling.
“I am going to die,” she declared.
Ruby #2 giggled. “In roses.”
“Yes,” Weiss snapped. “I am going to die smothered in roses.”
Ruby #1 made a soft, happy sound and nuzzled closer.
Ruby #2 pressed a kiss to Weiss’s cheek like a reward.
Ruby #3’s hand settled more securely at Weiss’s waist, thumb tracing a small circle through the fabric of Weiss’s sleep shirt with absentminded affection.
Weiss’s body went rigid.
Then… against her will… it softened.
She tried to tell herself it was exhaustion.
She tried to tell herself she was simply too tired to fight.
But the truth pressed in with the warmth.
Ruby’s warmth.
Ruby’s affection.
Multiply that by three and Weiss’s careful, newly established control did not stand a chance.
They kept arguing in whispers as the room darkened.
Ruby #1 insisted she should be big spoon on principle.
Ruby #2 insisted she was big spoon by tradition.
Ruby #3, in a voice that suggested she was narrating slides only she could see, listed pros and cons.
Weiss attempted to interrupt.
Ruby #2 kissed her temple.
Weiss forgot what she was saying.
Ruby #1 kissed her knuckles.
Weiss stared at her own hand as if it had betrayed her.
Ruby #3 shifted on top of her, the press of her body steady and warm, and murmured, “You are doing very well.”
Weiss’s throat tightened.
“I am not,” she whispered.
Ruby #3’s arm tightened gently. “You are.”
Weiss did not have the energy to argue.
Somewhere along the way, the whispering quieted.
Ruby #2’s breathing evened.
Ruby #1’s fingers loosened around Weiss’s hand.
Ruby #3’s hold remained, steady as an anchor.
Weiss drifted, suspended between wakefulness and sleep, in a nest of red fabric and soft heat.
It should have been impossible.
It should have been unbearable.
It was…
Warm.
When she stirred later, it was because the weight had changed.
The bed felt… less crowded.
Weiss blinked into the dark, disoriented.
Her hand reached instinctively for Ruby #1.
There was only blanket.
Her foot brushed the edge of Ruby #2’s leg.
Nothing.
Her breath caught.
Then she felt it.
A familiar warmth at her chest.
Weiss looked down.
One Ruby lay sprawled half across her, head on Weiss’s chest, hair spilling in soft curls over Weiss’s collarbone. Ruby’s arm was draped around Weiss’s waist, loose and trusting. Her mouth was slightly open in sleep, lashes dark against her cheek.
Just Ruby.
Not #1.
Not #2.
Not #3.
The single, whole weight of her… real, steady.
Weiss’s throat tightened again, but this time it did not feel like panic.
Her hand hovered above Ruby’s head.
She hesitated.
Because if she moved, Ruby might wake.
Because if Ruby woke, Ruby might smile.
Because if Ruby smiled, Weiss might not survive it.
Weiss let her fingers sink into Ruby’s hair anyway, careful and slow.
Ruby made a tiny sound, content, and burrowed closer without opening her eyes.
Weiss’s chest went painfully full.
She lowered her head.
Pressed a kiss to Ruby’s forehead.
It was brief.
It was private.
It was entirely against the rules Weiss had been trying to live by this evening.
“I love you,” Weiss whispered into the dark, voice so soft it barely existed.
Ruby did not wake.
Weiss’s mouth twitched.
“You absolute menace,” she added, because she needed something sharp to hold onto.
Ruby breathed, warm against her.
Weiss lay there for a moment longer, listening to the steady rhythm of Ruby’s sleep, counting the rise and fall against her ribs until the mattress stopped shifting and the room settled.
Then, with Ruby on her chest and the room finally still, Weiss closed her eyes.
And let herself drift back under.