A/N The first part of this is mostly from a video called "Let's Do Laundry!" from Michael's personal channel, LtMkilla. And it's glorious.

ACT TWO – CHAPTER ONE

Ruby froze when she saw him there.

Michael 'Rage Quit' Vincent Jones, had his phone out in one hand and half of his body inside the washing machine.

It was way too early for any of this.

Dropping her jacket into the basket, she watched in utter disbelief as he poured a bottle of washing liquid onto his jeans. Looking down at the floor, she saw blobs of different assortments of sauce all scattered around spastically.

She was about to back away slowly when Michael spotted her figure in the doorway.

"Hey Ruby! Come and join me!"

Ruby blinked at him, her mouth gaping. He shifted his body so that he could move his camera around to capture Ruby's motionless form. Michael grins, waiting for an answer.

Ruby closed her hanging jaw and approached Michael, almost afraid that he was going to fall into the washing machine and drown.

"I'm cleaning."

She nods, giggling at the absurd position he was in, "I can see that."

"I put the loading size to large and it still won't fit me," Michael whined, putting his ketchup stained hands on the panel of knobs and buttons.

He wiped some tomato sauce onto some of the buttons, effectively turning the machine off.

"Help me get out. I need to clean my jeans."

"Why don't you use the bathtub?" Ruby suggested, holding Michael as he climbed out of the machine. As he did so, water and some weird mixtures of sauces fell to the floor.

Ruby laughed at his expression as he stared at the puddle he made on the floor.

"Oh god. Oh GOD! I'm going to get divorced!"

Looking up at the giggling Ruby, he gave her a look of terror.

"What the fuck!?"

He rubbed down at his jeans, trying to wipe off the weird concoctions. Looking up at his adopted daughter, he whined desperately, "Help me!"

Always willing to help, Ruby crossed the puddle -which was not the color that she was expecting at all- and laughed, half at Michael and half at the shocked faces of her friends.

Weiss stayed back, far away from Michael as Ruby led him to the bathroom. Giving Blake an exasperated look, she followed and stopped in her tracks after seeing a fully clothed Michael lounging on a steadily growing bed of water.

"When there's a problem, there's always a solution! Thanks to my awesome buddy Ruby!" He laughed gleefully.

Looking like it was a normal Wednesday morning, Ruby poured the bottle of clothes soap on top of Michael's jeans as he continued his commentary.

"And here we have our very own homemade laundry machine! Look, it's coming right off!"

"Now we have to simulate the stirring of the washing machine," Ruby said, putting the almost empty bottle of soap on the ground.

Michael started to kick his legs around, splashing water everywhere as he tried to imitate the circular motion of the laundry machine, effectively getting some of the sauce off and making Blake walk out of the bathroom in fear of getting wet.

"Oh shit! I dropped my wedding ring."

Ruby turned the tap off, smiling a bit as he searched for the expensive piece of jewelry with a look of absolute distress. She heard a soft sigh and the telltale sound of face palming behind her.

"I've made a mess in the laundry room, and lost my ring. She's definitely going to divorce me."

With growing amusement, she watched as he stood up in the bathtub, soaking wet, and tried to search for his ring.

"Ru~uby! Lindsay's going to kick me out! Who's going to be your dad now?"

To the future viewers of the video that Michael was inevitably going to upload on his channel, nobody would've payed as much attention to the statement. Ruby, however, caught the careful accentuation in his last sentence.

Matching Michael's casual tone, she replied with a teasing grin and kept her hands out of the bathtub, to Weiss' approval and Yang's dejected "aw".

"Nah," she said. Then burst out laughing when Michael tripped over.

It took so long for Michael to adjust to things.

Sure, he had to cut out a few choice words from every single Game Kids episode, but the fact that there was another human being to take care of in the house was more than enough.

Ruby finally started calling the spare bedroom her room and had to go through many weeks of Lindsay and Michael jokingly telling her to go to her room. Turns out Ruby was more or less a mischievous kid, often going to Gavin and Meg's without permission.

Lindsay shrugged it off, knowing fully well that if Ruby can kill monsters for a living, she can deal with a few roughhouses. Michael, contrast to his camera personality, cared more than he wanted to show.

Michael didn't dare to even mention the word 'Dad' after that one time in the bathroom. Lindsay was the same way, and it was probably a good thing.

Other than a few instances, Ruby pretty much just stayed inside, playing video games with her new mom and dad.

Ruby didn't really have time to play games back in Beacon, too busy with schoolwork and Crescent Rose maintenance to pay attention. A few games of Remnant: The Board Game with team RWBY in their weekends and that was it. She definitely missed playing tournaments of Total Annihilation with her family back in Patch.

"I'm the blue one."

"We know," Lindsay and Ruby groaned as Michael reminded them of the fact again.

"I'm just reiterating!"

"You don't have to do it every single time."

"But I have to!" Michael whined, "It's like tradition at this point."

"Is it also tradition for us to kill you every single time?"

"Yes!" He exulted.

Lindsay shook her head while throwing a punch to Michael's arm. He rubbed the sore spot with a distressed whine.

Castle Crashers had proved to become Ruby's favorite game to play with her new family, often recording bits of their gameplay for Game Kids (with a few technical difficulties to cut out the parts where Michael and Lindsay screamed out a few curses whenever a lone projectile knocked their characters to the ground).

Sometimes Gavin and Meg would come over and play a couple of games of Mario Party where Ruby would just sit back and watch them yell ridiculously offensive things to each other like she wasn't even there.

It was hilarious.

Four grown men and woman, two of which were her parents, acting like children. But then again, you could say that for almost every employee at Rooster Teeth.

"Buh-But Michael!" Gavin squealed when Michael slapped his remote out of his hands with a laugh.

"Eat shit, Gavin!"

After Mario Party, Gavin and Meg decided to stay for a bit. Meg wanted to invite Ryan, but Gavin reasoned that he was busy with his kids, unaware of Michael's snickering.

Lindsay hummed a tuneless song as she drove down the street to grab a couple of pizzas for their impromptu dinner.

"Why?"

Lindsay blinked, turning away from the road to face her surrogate daughter in the backseat. "What?"

"Oh! Um…" Ruby jumped, looking sheepish. "N-nevermind."

Lindsay narrowed her eyes, looking back to the road to make sure they weren't crashing or anything. "You know, if something's bothering you, you could just talk to me." She tried confidently. As most people would tell her, she was someone who would tell the wrong answer in the most confident way possible.

Jeez, this parenting thing was tough. Lindsay was the kind of person who'd not give a fuck, but now she has to be all protective and shit. Weird.

"Well, uh."

"Ruby." She tried again, sounding more sternly.

Her tone must've surprised Ruby because of the "eep" she let out, and the dull 'thunk' in the backseat didn't exactly fill her with confidence.

"Sorry… I'm still a bit new to this whole… fancy parenting thingy. Man, let me tell you. Raising kids are pretty damn tiring. No wonder why Ryan's losing all that hair."

"Sorry…"

"Don't apologize. It's not your fault. At least you're not like a three year-old or something. Just gotta worry about you blowing up a car station."

Lindsay turned back with a smirk. "For the other people that is. I don't think you'll have a problem."

"I don't think I'm allowed to though."

"Are you kidding?" Lindsay spluttered, "Of course you're not. The entire city would probably think that there's another terrorist attack or something. Imagine if you started shooting Crescent Rose in schools, that'll cause an uproar."

"…Can I use Crescent Rose?"

"What do you think?"

"No?"

Lindsay gave her a sound of approval. Ruby pouted and opened her mouth to give her a rebuttal when Lindsay cut her off.

"Gavin and Meg were thinking about sending you on a trip."

"A trip? You're not sending me away?"

"I wish." The smirk on Lindsay's face and the sarcasm that was dripping off her words told Ruby that she was joking.

"A trip to where?"

"Eh, just somewhere around Texas. That way, we'll be there by the afternoon if you blow something up."

Ruby giggled, "You really have no faith in me."

"I trust you!" Lindsay insisted. "Just not with explosives and Crescent Rose. They're think of sending you on a trip with Kara, Arryn and Barbara."

Lindsay heard nothing before Ruby finally made the connection.

"Ohh!"

"Yep."

"Well…"

"It'll be fun. They really want to get to know you better. Not just in the show but for everything else."

Ruby nodded, even though she knew that Lindsay couldn't see it from the front seat. Usually she'd talk with Miles and Kerry, but she always got the feeling that they were looking for ways to incorporate her tendencies into the show.

Not that she didn't like Miles and Kerry, she did like them. They had their own way of talking with each other and never failed to make her laugh.

"Anyways, what did you want to ask me?"

Ruby fidgeted, looking down at her fingers. "Right, uh, heh."

Lindsay waited patiently. It was blatantly clear that she wasn't going to drop the subject, even as the flustered young girl tried to stall for time in the backseat.

"Well… We don't have Grimm right?"

"Right."

"So, uh, why are there wars and stuff? I hear all about it on the news and you mentioned a terrorist attack earlier. Without the Grimm, what causing all of that?"

Jesus Christ, this kid just loves bringing up tough topics, Lindsay thought wryly as she searched for an answer.

"It really shows that even if those guys in Remnant wipe out the Grimm, there's still going to be some negativity. I guess it's just human nature. We fight and complain because we just do. It's the same with Remnant, except it's on a larger range because they've got superpowers and awesome weapons."

Ruby chewed on her lip before replying, "But… Why though?"

"Some questions just can't be answered, Ruby. People are different, we have different beliefs, religions and races."

"But we don't have the Faunus!"

"You know how people look different in terms of color? That's how some people discriminate. Some people think that a white man is superior to a black man. It's complicated."

Ruby spluttered in disbelief, "That's stupid! Why would you do that? It's the same thing with the Faunus too! I'd love to have kitty ears."

Lindsay laughed, "You and me both, kid."

It was often times like this, when she was alone in the house that they would appear.

Michael and Lindsay went to work. Believe it or not, Rooster Teeth still counted as work even with the constant Nerf Gun fights and shading on Twitter.

A pat on the head and a few words of warning, they left the house as early as 8am. Sometimes she'd come, excited at the prospect of seeing her friends in the office.

And sometimes she wouldn't, smiling at her new parents as they drove out the driveway.

It was often times like this when she would question her own sanity. Wonder if she was insane, or crazy.

But it eventually boiled down to one simple reason.

She missed them.

All of them.

"Ya miss me?" Yang's voice rang out from behind her.

Ruby smiled, looking down at her laptop that was now newly decorated with RWBY stickers.

"Yeah," she replied simply. Her sister grinned and sat, cross-legged beside her on the bed. Ruby was silent for a while, wanting to pour her heart out to Yang but still knowing that she was in fact not real.

"There's not much to do here."

"Not really," Ruby agreed.

"Hey, why don't we revisit some of our old times in Beacon, huh? Decorating!"

"Or just me. You know. Since you're like a ghost."

Yang put her right hand through the wall with a grin, "Ooooh, spoooky ghooost."

"Alright, alright." Ruby grumbled.

In true Ruby fashion, her room was pretty much a jumbled mess. Her bed was always the messiest in the dorms back in Beacon and Earth was no exception to her neglect.

Ruby started by picking up a black and red jacket that Gavin bought off eBay. A few rose prints later, and the jacket really seemed like something Ruby would wear.

"That looks pretty awesome. Gavin's been spoiling you since the end of time."

"He's my uncle now."

"Too bad he doesn't have a scythe."

Putting on the jacket after Yang's pressing, Ruby continued forward in rummaging the pile of clothes in her room. Yang disappeared at some point between her fourth and fifth trip to the laundry, but was replaced by someone else familiar.

"I should've known. You bring your mess everywhere."

"Thanks for the confidence boost, Weiss."

"No problem, there's nothing much I can do beside moral support!"

Ruby was about to toss a few shirts in the laundry before Weiss pointed something out.

"Those are clean if I recall. Put it in the closet, I'll get started on the next pile."

Ruby stood there, staring at the ghostly figure of Weiss with her clean Achievement Hunter T-shirt in her hands.

"But… You can't"

The heiress huffed, "Yes I can! How do you think I know where you should put them? It's hard being appreciated when you're a figment of someone's imagination."

Feeling slightly offended, Ruby opened her closet to hang up the clothes inside.

"What's the point of cleaning if it's going to be messed up later on?" Ruby mumbled.

"What's the point of cleaning Crescent Rose if you're just going to fire it? Efficiency and the fact that you don't have to get your hands dirty every single time."

"I haven't used Crescent Rose in a while."

"Really? That's a surprise. You're never without that weapon of yours. Seriously, it's becoming a problem. It's like you made yourself a friend, dolt."

Ruby lifted the lid off Crescent Rose's box, expecting to see the bright red shine of her weapon, only to be greeted by dust and a dull pink color.

"Well that's not sanitary at all."

Ruby looked at her weapon for a while, all of its bits and ammo before closing the lid again.

Hanging up the next few shirts, she turned to see Weiss gaping at her.

"…What?"

"Are you Ruby Rose? What have you done to her?"

"I- uh."

"She's right, you know." Blake said from her spot on the bed, with her book sitting on her lap.

"Um-"

"You've changed Ruby."

"I-I don't understand."

Yang reappeared, leaning against the drawers beside her window.

"Yang?"

"You've grown up so much, Ruby."

Blake only nodded, "You don't need us anymore."

"It's only a matter of time," Weiss sighed reluctantly.

"A matter of time? Before what?"

"Before you forget about us."

Ruby's eyes widened in shock. "What are you talking about? I-I won't forget you. You guys are like my family."

"You have your own family now, Ruby."

"Yeah." Yang smiled sadly.

"B-but you're still here!"

Blake shook her head, amber eyes looking into silver, "We're only here because you want us here. Because you are so hell bent on keeping us. You've let go of Crescent Rose. You've let go of Remnant. It's time you let us go too."

Ruby looked at each of her teammates, before her sister hugged her one last time. The hug wasn't real, it couldn't have been, but Ruby swore she felt Yang's warmth envelope her, the imaginary touch suddenly feeling solid for a moment.

And then it was gone.

It was so sudden.

It didn't feel real.

But then again, it was never real in the first place.

Slight notes:

Ruby refers the inhabitants of Earth as "we" now instead of "them".

That one Let's Play with Lindsay and Michael playing Castle Crashers is beautiful.

The Mario Party idea was from Lindsay, Michael, Meg and Gavin's twitter feeds.

Small Ryan/Meg joke because I'd like to think that Meg and Michael would tease Gavin endlessly because of it :D

Wrote almost all of this months ago as small little snippets. I've only just now found a way to tie them all together, which is probably a horrible way to write since it increases the chance of continuity errors (so don't take after me aha).

Link to Laundry Video: watch?v=H-PyAbMVO48

The idea of Ruby being the messiest person in Remnant was taken from the RTX Australia RWBY Panel, which is amazing.

I'm actually surprised that so many of you have stuck on even with my spastic update rates. Thanks for reading all of this!