All a Matter of Timing – Chapter 3

Ruby wasn't sure what it was she was doing, holding Blake back from leaving. Drei was now safely locked in Yang's bedroom, chomping away at a toy, and when she had returned to the hallway it looked as if the other woman had been fleeing. It wasn't as if she could blame Blake, she had experienced a panic attack before, but now she stood there staring into golden eyes with no idea what to say.

"Please stay." It may have been her words, or perhaps the gentle touch of her fingers that had slid down to grip the edge of a palm, but the other girl stepped back through the threshold of the apartment door. Amber irises were wide and dashing about with fear until they finally settled upon her own gaze, focusing on her as Blake took another step closer.

A shuddering breath escaped the older girl's lips, and pale cheeks colored a darker red at the lack of space between them. "I'm sorry, Ruby, I-I should have told you." Even as she watched, Blake's expression flicked between panic and shame a half dozen times before the girl looked away. "I'm not good around dogs at all."

Ruby let out a short and shaky chuckle in response, as if to say that it was obvious. But the answer drew up further questions. "Then why did you come in looking for one?" A damning silence accompanied further avoidance as Blake still refused to meet her gaze, but the brunette's posture had changed immensely. What had been shaking limbs were now frozen in place, as if fear of a purpose being discovered was overriding the residual panic.

Oh..

Oh!

Ruby couldn't help but perk up a bit at the realization, so worried she had been about Blake coming in for no ulterior reason. This moment, this confirmation, filled her with a sense of happiness, and a clarity that the other girl had still not said anything. It was time for a subject change. "You know what? Yang bought me one of those really cool coffee makers and I have no idea how to use it." Letting a sly smile take over her lips as eyes of brilliant gold glanced back in her direction, Ruby knew she had the girl's attention. "Wanna help me?"

"How do you take your coffee?" Blake released the button on the machine, marveling at how Ruby's description of it had been spot on. It was one of the latest models, even newer than the one she used at work. Whoever this Yang was, they had dropped quite a bit of lien on it. After a long moment of her question going unanswered, she turned to regard the younger girl with a raised eyebrow. "Ruby?"

"Hm?" It looked as though she had caught the brunette with her hand in the cookie jar, so to speak. Silver eyes had snapped up to her gaze as she had turned, but judging from the height that they had been before, she knew exactly what it was that Ruby had been studying. It seemed the other girl thought she had gotten away with it though, as she spoke up with no sign of a blush coloring her cheeks. "Oh. One cream and five sugars, please!"

Donning a devilish and telling smirk as she turned back to scan the wide assortment of creams and sugars that adorned the rack next to the machine. As she leaned over the counter to reach for what she would be adding to the bitter drink, she made a show of swaying her hips as she changed which foot bore her weight. Her reward was a breath that caught in Ruby's throat, immediately followed by an awkward cough to clear it.

Ripping open the packets of sugar all at once, she tilted them until the white grains emptied into the mug, following it quickly with a small cup of cream and a spoon to stir it. Even as she finished with Ruby's, the machine chimed that hers was done, as she turned to offer the mug with a steady hand.

She had never been calmed from one of her 'incidents' so easily, nor as quick as this time had been. It wasn't hard to identify the cause, as it stood right before her. Bangs dyed into a slick red color were brushed from a forehead by an errant hand, revealing a bit more of the wide grin that was being shot her way. The cause was this girl, this person that both trained and loved dogs, that had responded so differently than others had in the past.

Blake knew she was weird, that her reaction to even the littlest of dogs was a sign of some significant mental trauma. Other girls she had been interested in these last few years after high school hadn't pursued her past the discovery of her debilitating fear, most of them just stopped returning calls or texts, but at least one had the decency to tell her she was just too 'high maintenance'. Since then, she had avoided dating, until a certain girl had been walking across the street from the cafe she worked at.

A smile grazed her lips as she turned around with her own mug of coffee in hand, hearing the small noise of pleasure that was coming from the other girl. "Is it really that good?"

"It's amazing!" The brunette chuckled to herself before flashing Blake a sly grin. "Though I already knew you could make a mean cup of coffee."

Letting her eyes drift to her own mug as she stirred in a single packet of sugar, Blake nodded slowly, not thinking much of what the other girl was saying. "How's that?"

"Well you do work at that cafe." Freezing in place, she slowly rose her gaze to regard the younger girl before her. Ruby was rocking back on heels and watching her with the look of the devil in bright silver eyes. "And your coffee is the best I've ever had."

Without elaborating, Ruby tossed her a grin that certainly was marked as a sin in some holy book somewhere, and slipped past her into the living room. Breathing was a task Blake had to remember as she followed, so caught up in studying the pale white legs that led the girl away from her that Blake barely could begin to curse that Ruby had deigned to wear a pair of short shorts on today of all days.

And in the back of her thoughts, her mind still searching for if she had seen the beauty that now held her attention inside her place of work before.

Ruby led the way into what could be considered her apartment's living room. If what lived in there was more than Yang's dirty shirts that were stripped away the moment her sister walked in the door and flung into the room. Clearing away the couch by gathering up a handful of shirts that covered every shade of yellow that she could think of, she sat down and reached out with her free hand to pat the cushion next to her, silently thankful that Yang had had convinced her to get a couch that was really more of a large chair.

Because it was cozy, her sister had reasoned. Ruby knew the real reason, though. Yang was dating their boss, Weiss Schnee. The good doctor had a tendency to be cold, and not just to anything that wasn't an animal or Yang. With a place to sit that left two people so close, it meant that the long movie nights that her sister put Weiss through would almost always end in cuddling, because of the seemingly innate warmth the blonde possessed.

Ruby let out a soft sigh inside her head as she was reminded of how those nights always went from there, as the walls of the apartment were not the best at containing noise. Outside of her thoughts, she donned a bright smile as the gorgeous creature that was Blake Belladonna sat down on the cushion before her. Given the earlier activities of the brunette, she was surprised that the girl was not more disheveled. In fact, with the shining tresses of captivating black that remained perfectly styled as they had been before, Ruby now found herself breathless as pools of molten amber drifted up over the lip of a coffee mug and grazed her form.

Somehow, without seeming to even try, Blake had stolen every thought and inch of air from her body. The quiet hope that had been building between each beat of her heart was among the sensations that were silenced, and her continued inaction brought s nervous laugh from the beauty that had vexed her so. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

It was those words, spoken with that silken cadence, that broke the spell at last. "I was just wondering.." Shaking her head at a slow pace in an effort to clear it, Ruby stumbled over thoughts before her mind righted itself and became coherent. "Can I ask why you're afraid of dogs?"

"I.." A pause accompanied by a split second of teeth grazing a bottom lip made the delay worth it, as Ruby sat enraptured by every movement, studying each little detail as if it was all to be remembered in complete detail. She saw the way the cup held in long fingers shook, the way a brief glance in her direction told of a question of trust, the way a deep breath spoke of a decision. "I had a pretty bad experience with a dog when I was young.."

"You can tell me about it." Her own eagerness surprised her, as she was leaned forward farther than she had wanted, and the words forced from her lips faster than she had planned. "Y-you know if you.. Want to, and all." No answer came in the seconds that followed, and that passage of time seems as it was eternity for Ruby. "Of course you don't have to, if you don't want to. I mean, you barely know me, and I'm totally not even close to a therapist, and-"

Saved from her own runaway mouth by a quiet chuckle and a hand placed on her bare knee, she promptly shut up and watched the other girl in silence. It took a few moments, but those golden eyes stopped searching around the room as Blake thought and once again fixed on her. "I was bitten by a dog, years ago. It was a big one, a bulldog. It did a lot of damage and left a nasty scar, and I guess.. Left me with a lot of baggage."

Ruby held her free hand over her mouth, the other occupied with holding the mug of hot coffee steady as she felt a strange sort of anger bubble up in her chest. "I'm sorry, Blake. I-I-I had no idea, if.. If I had.." She would have put Drei in his cage. She would have tried a whole lot harder to get out of work at an earlier time. No wonder Blake had ran out last week, after Yang had brought in that angry pit bull. Blake must have really wanted to see her to have been willing to go back into the clinic after that. "Sometimes dogs aren't trained properly or area used by their owners and can.. Lash out. Not that knowing why would help.."

Still with a hand on a knee, Blake was grinning like a fool at the way the younger girl was rambling on. It was so odd, so comfortable, and so completely Ruby. It made her feel as if the other girl could speak her mind at ease with Blake, a rare thing. Most people found her quiet personality a little more intense than usual, it was refreshing to not feel as if she was being forced to be more active than she wished in the conversation. "Knowing the why behind the attack would actually be really interesting. I truly do know almost nothing about dogs because of the fear that it left me with."

"Can I.. Can I see the scar?" There was a shakiness to the girl's voice, an uncertainty that told Blake the other was worried that this would deflate the mood. But she trusted Ruby, she trusted that she could bare her truest self without fear of judgment.

Releasing her bottom lip from its prison between her teeth, she leaned to set the cup in her hand down upon a nearby table. From there, she moved to roll up the fabric of her jeans that was covering her right leg. Despite her trust in the dog trainer, Blake could not help the acceleration to her heartbeat, the beginning pangs of fear sending a warning through her system.

Thoughts intruded on her mind, images of a reaction that left her in tears, a rejection that crushed all hopes she had for this meeting. But even as the pants were rolled up to reveal the scar, the decision was snatched from her hands, quite literally. It seemed Ruby had gotten impatient and pulled the leg up into her lap without so much as a warning, or a thought of the strange new position it left them in.

Blake felt her cheeks warm as she was turned and pulled almost into a position where she would be sitting on the other girl's lap, surprised at the lack of personal space that the brunette was concerned with. But all thoughts of protest melted away as Ruby's silver eyes studied the ruined flesh of her calf, the torn skin had mended to be bumpy and rough to the touch, a blight forever marked upon her body. A mar that had dissuaded even herself from seeing the beauty of her own form. For years it had plagued her thoughts like it was a pimple on her face, silently laughing at her as she worried that every person who looked at her as she walked would know of its existence. Sometimes it still did, if she let her guard down.

But the wonder that lay in the argent irises and the expression that dominated Ruby's cute features betrayed no thoughts of disgust or rejection, just pure unadulterated curiosity. After a few long moments of study, Blake felt compelled to say something, to explain herself. "The doctors said I was really lucky, that I didn't lose too much muscle and it would probably only leave a slight limp." The next words that came from her were more a voice thought than anything else. "And it's really ugly."

The reply that came from Ruby set her off guard, with widened eyes as the expression do the younger girl told her nothing. "Do you have feeling there?" A slow nod was all that she could manage, as off kilter as she had become.

A warm hand pressed against the scar, gently ghosting over the rigid bumps that matched the pattern of the bulldog's jaw as if Ruby was cradling a baby and not her ruined skin. In that moment, Blake's attention was captured by the black rose tattooed on the back of that hand, on the petals that were burning away. Then eyes that were as sharp as broken glass snapped to her and demanded her attention, eliciting a gasp based solely upon their piercing quality. "I think it's as beautiful as the rest of you. Because it's a part of you, because it explains you." An awkward laugh that seemed hitched in the throat of the other girl sounded out. "Even a misplaced brushstroke on the canvas is part of the painting, o-or something like that."

The original sentiment had nearly brought tears to Blake's eyes, but the way that Ruby had ended it seemed so unlike the girl that now sat before her. It was such a cold shock that she snorted, temporarily ruining the moment as she tilted her head. "What?"

"I don't know!" Even with a blush so furious that the dyed portions of Ruby's hair were beginning to look much lighter by comparison, the girl was cute. It wasn't fair that this young woman before her could make every word, every expression, and every fidget seem so endearing. It wasn't fair because it decided the war before the battle was concluded, because Blake loved how utterly dorky it was, and how comfortable it made her feel that the other girl was so candid with her. "It's something Yang said to her girlfriend about a scar.. It seemed so friggin' charming coming from her!"

To Blake's disappointment, that hand left her leg and joined another in covering the face of Ruby Rose while she sat nearby laughing in response to the girl's antics. After a long while of relishing the way the moment had been so utterly diffused, a silence took over them both and allowed the feelings form before to filter in and overtake the situation.

Blake let her head tilt as she raised an eyebrow, a smirk spreading over her lips as a flash of silver peeked through fingers. "So." Again, the fingers opened and allowed her a glimpse at those gorgeous orbs. "You think I'm beautiful?"

Author's Note: Hey again! Sorry if this chapter gets a bit too much 'purple prose'. I'm exhausted after the week I've had and when I write tired I tend to get overly descriptive. ..I secretly love it, too. Anywho, hope you enjoyed this chapter and make sure to give a shoutout on Tumblr to Booksandweapons for their adorable Ladybug art! -Fox