Chapter Text

Ruby and I spent the next few days apartment hunting. We found a place we could afford to move into with our combined income (she worked at the on campus dining hall, I worked for the student government promoting events), and we decided to rent it. It was small, with what was basically a room that was both a kitchen and a living room, and then a small separate bedroom and bathroom.

Renting it was a tough hit to our financials; the combination of the deposit and the first month of rent bled dry most of the money we’d managed to scrounge together before the break. My job with the student government would be open over the four week span, but Ruby’s job would not. Still, we had a slight cushion of money, and I knew how to budget, so it seemed pretty obvious to me that would be fine.

Moving in took most of a day. Ruby and I both had things to move, and neither of us had a vehicle. This meant we’d have to move stuff by bus, which required many bus trips across town. Luckily, the apartment we were renting already had furniture, which both saved us from absolute financial ruin (there was no way we could afford to buy furniture). It also meant that we only had to move clothes, my computer, Ruby’s laptop (which she carried in her backpack) and our personal possessions.

In practice, this entailed a couple trips to move Ruby’s stuff, and several more to move mine. On one of the many bus rides back and forth between my former dorm and the apartment, Ruby ribbed me about my extensive collection of silverware.

“What were you even planning to use these for?” She pointed to the box that carried, among other things, fifteen cups.

“Maybe I wanted to throw a party for me and my fourteen closest friends!” I blushed, defending that particular purchase. If I was being more honest, I’d talk about the way that my parents had controlled my finances such that not spending money effectively meant losing it to permanent savings they controlled that had I stayed with them, I wouldn’t have even needed. I didn’t, though, because that was pretty heavy shit to throw around.

“Weiss, do you even have fourteen friends?” Ruby smirked, clearly not aware of how close she was to very dangerous territory.

“Ruby, I have like, a hundred friends on Facebook.” The moment the words left my mouth, I realized it was a fairly pitiful defense.

“And how many friends will you have after you update your last name on Facebook, though?” Ruby said, managing to move from ‘mildly risky jokes’ to ‘jokes that were hopelessly unfunny.’

“That’s not funny in the slightest. I glowered, daring her to continue.

Ruby, to her credit, recognized that she might have crossed a line. “Do you actually mean that, or-”

“I mean it.” I glared.

“Sorry.” She apologized quickly.

She certainly looked the part. I knew she hadn’t meant to hurt me, and I couldn’t help but soften a little. Still, I was baffled, “What could possibly have made you think it was a good idea to bring that up?”

“I dunno. I guess I can’t imagine being too sad about the loss of fake friends?”

I shrugged, “Ruby, you have so many real friends that losing fake friends doesn’t cost you anything. Meanwhile, I lose all my fake friends, and I just have no friends.”

“You’ve got me!” Ruby smiled.

“Great. My wife is my only friend.” I frowned.

“Blake probably counts, too.”

“Maybe. Two whole friends !” I snarked.

“Sorry, Weiss.”

During one of the periods when Ruby and I were waiting at the apartment, I set up my computer, and checked my email.

I had a new message from my father.

Dear Weiss,

I’ve just noticed a $700 withdrawal of cash from your account over the period of two hours. This happened roughly two weeks ago. Additionally, it seems that in the same timeframe, two very expensive pieces of jewelry were purchased using money from your account. I called the jeweler, to check if this was in fact you (I was assuming that these transactions were fraudulent), however, he informed that you and a female friend bought to ‘wedding rings’.

I think it is obvious that you are NOT allowed to get married, and definitely not to a woman. You know that it would be very damaging to the family name if you did, and, more importantly, it would be decidedly unbefitting of a Schnee such as yourself. As a result, you will return the ring, and we will have a serious discussion over this winter break about your behavior.

With great concern,

Dr. Schnee

I almost laughed; it had taken him weeks to catch onto something as obvious as me spending a thousand dollars in one day. I spent a little while thinking up my answer, before typing this reply:

Dearest Father,

I would like to apologize that I will not be coming home to what I’m sure would have been an absolutely scintillating discussion of my choices. My wife and I have a home to set up, and we will be quite busy over the break.

I do recognize your opinion that I should not get married, and that you would consider it unbefitting of a Schnee to marry a woman. However, recognizing your opinion and agreeing with your opinion are entirely different things. I must admit, I do not care. Moreover, it’s a little late to complain: Ruby is already my wife.

Likewise, I will not be returning the rings. They are, after all, my wife and my wedding rings.

With all due respect,

Weiss Rose.

PS: You have about $5000 that you said you were “saving for me”. I would very much appreciate that money back, as I worked for, and am taking control of my finances at the money. Thanks!

The postscript, admittedly, wasn’t even a vain hope; for it to be that, after all, there would have had to be a hope. For one thing, I had access to a greater amount of money I hadn’t been allowed to save in the form of an allowance, which he would likely point out; He’d done a fantastic job of simultaneously making it impossible for me to save money, and and yet always having me have money when I wanted it for things that wouldn’t let me tell him to fuck off. For another, I didn’t really have any legal right to that money, and he certainly wasn’t going to support me out of good-will.

I wanted to feel like a total badass in that moment; I’d told that abusive asshole off. I wanted to. But I didn’t. Burning the bridge was relieving, yes, and it made me feel strong, but it hurt like hell. Every positive memory I’d ever made with my parents came whirring past, all the first days at school and the few warm hugs and the days where I’d come back with straight A’s early in my middle school career and get a small smile.

All of that rushed back to me, and then I was crying, a trickle of tears at first, but then a torrent. Then I was shaking, sobbing, having trouble breathing. Ugly crying, crying I didn’t like to do anywhere.

And then Ruby came over and sat on the floor next to me and I wanted more than anything else to stop crying, to not be vulnerable in front of that woman, but I couldn’t. I’d have to deal with her infernally cheery attitude.

“Weiss. What’s wrong?” She asked, soberer than I expected.

“Parents.” I answered. I really didn’t want to have this conversation right now, not with my overly chipper friend.

Much to my surprise, I didn’t the response I expected.

“That… really sucks. Do you want to talk about it? We don’t have to if you don’t want to, I can, I dunno, hug you if that’s not weird, if you’d like, if it'd be comforting. Most of all, I just want you to know that I’m here for you.”

I had no idea how to answer that. She wasn’t the mildly annoying, chipper girl used to. She was… kind. She was being patient, even. Had she asked any differently, I would have told her to leave me alone, but here she was, being a person I’d never seen her be before, because I was distressed. Plus, she was one of the two people I could talk to and tell the whole truth about this to.

“It’s…” A sob broke free, “It’s really stupid. I don’t- I don’t even know what to say. It’s pointless. It’s stupid, I’m stupid. Don’t worry about me.”

“You’re not stupid. I’m sure it’s plenty important if you’re crying, but I can back off if you’d like.” Ruby said, hesitantly.

“No, it’s fine. I’m even down for that hug if you’d like.” I sighed. She sat up and awkwardly put her arms around me, despite the fact that I was sitting in a chair, and she was not, “It’s definitely stupid. I just cut off someone I know has been terrible to me, but every positive thing he ever did winds up being a reason I feel terrible about that. I feel like… I feel like what I did was wrong. Was what I did wrong? Ruby, what should I have done.”

Ruby didn’t respond for a moment. Then, cautiously, she spoke, “Weiss. I think you did the right thing. I mean, I know it’s hard, and I wish I could be more help, but I think what you did? That was the right thing. I’m not just saying that because in cases like this I’d always agree with your decision, because it’s your decision to make, it’s also that I think you did the right thing. Everything you’ve said about ‘home’ makes it sound unsafe, and there was no way you were going to get a chance to be a person you liked if you stayed with them, Weiss. Plus…” the word choice became more careful; Ruby, for once in her life, sounded like she was attempting tact, “Weiss, I don’t know this, but it sounds like someone at home hurt you. I don’t want to push on you on that, but if that’s the case, you really shouldn’t lose any sleep about cutting them off.”

“I… I’m not sure where you would get an idea like that, but…” I trailed off; I wasn’t really sure if I wanted to tell her all of this.

Ruby looked panicked, like she’d crossed some line, and I sighed, and then continued, “Ruby. Promise me you’ll keep this a secret. Promise.”

“Of course.” She whispered

“Before I start, can you tell me how you figured this out?”

“Weiss, you trace the scar on your face sometimes when you talk about home.”

I sighed, it was an obvious tell, now that I thought about it, although Ruby was hardly ever looking at my face, so I wasn’t quite sure how she’d caught it.

“It’s… it’s not like you think.” I insisted, “He only left a scar once.”

“Only left a scar once?” Ruby raised an eyebrow.

“Well, yeah, I mean, he only beat me occasionally, after really bad days when I was kinda a little shit, so… I mean, that’s normal, right?”

“No, Weiss. Beating a child is unacceptable, especially if it leaves a scar, especially if it was out of anger at things beyond a child’s control, like, I dunno, bad days?”

“Ruby, I think you’re underestimating how much of a little shit I could be.”

“I’m gonna fucking kill him.” Ruby muttered.

“What?” I asked, confused.

“I said, ‘I’m gonna fucking kill him.’ Like, seriously. He made you blame yourself for him hurting you, for him leaving you a permanent scar across your face. I’m going to fucking… fly out to Seattle, and I’m going to fucking kill him.”

“Please don’t. I’m pretty much certain I couldn’t stay afloat out here alone.” I admitted, smiling weakly, “I kinda need you to not go to prison.”

“Fine.” Ruby rolled her eyes, much closer to the chipper girl I was used to (although, I was also much more okay with being with that girl right now), “But, I do want you to know: You absolutely did the right thing. What he did to you was terrible.”

“I’ll try to remember that.” I sighed.

Ruby

A couple hours after I had finished comforting Weiss, we sat down to have dinner, or at least, ramen, as I’d had some instant ramen back in my dorm and we didn’t have actual food yet.

“Tonight, we should probably get groceries.” I said.

Weiss nodded, “Yeah, I looked up a bus route to a local food co-op. It’s the…”

“Weiss. We can afford ‘a local co-op’. We should stick to, like, Grocery Outlet.”

“Nah, the local co-op is a way more ethical place to shop. I’m kinda surprised you’re not a huge fan of the idea, given how much of a bleeding heart you are.”

“Weiss, I’d love to shop at a local co-op.” I said bitingly, “we don’t have that kind of money. We’re going to struggle through this break as it is, we can’t spend that kind of money.”

“I can’t believe you. Saving money at other’s expense?”

“We have to make hard choices sometimes.” I responded, as patiently as I could.

“Hard choices? Is that what you call that? Fucking over other people?”

“It’s either that or accumate credit card debt. If you wanted to have a whole shitton of luxuries and fancy-ass groceries, you would have had to take out loans.” I could feel myself starting to get angry at this point, but I tried my best to restrain myself.

“I refuse to sink into debt that I can’t pay. That’s a stupid thing that poor people do.”

“Oh, yeah, those stupid poor people.” And there I went, no longer able to try to pretend to be calm, “Did you, maybe catch on that you are poor right now, Weiss?”

“Not that kind of poor!” She exploded

“No, you don’t get it. You’re absolutely that kind of poor. I don’t know if you caught on, but over break, we are living on only your income. That means less than a thousand dollars a month, most of which will go to rent and utilities. You helped write this fucking budget! How could you possibly have missed ‘huh, that’s not a lot of food money’? Did you just not understand what it meant to not have money?” I exploded right back.

“I understood that I would have SOME say in the budget, you know, as one of the people living on it?”

“Yeah, lemme stop you right there. We don’t have a fucking choice. We’re going to buy food where ‘poor people’” I emphasized the air quotes, “You know, people like you, and people like me, buy food. You know what else? We’re gonna buy really cheap food! A lot of rice and beans for the next couple weeks, Weiss. We. don’t. Have. money.

And let me tell you. The ‘stupid poor people’ bullshit? Yeah, that’s a no go, because, as someone who grew up poor, I’m just a little offended. Did you mean me? ”

“No, Ruby”

“Ah, so you meant my sister? Or perhaps you meant my dad?”

“I…”

“Or, maybe Blake?” I spat.

“Don’t put words in my mouth! I specifically talked about taking out loans.”

“Ah, so like Blake, who is living significantly on loans.”

“Oh fine, if you need me to be your fucking villain that bad, fine. I’m your villain. I don’t give a shit. It’s my budget too, we’ll talk about this later.” She stormed out, slamming the door to the bedroom behind her.

“Yeah, sure, later.” I muttered, grabbing my laptop out of my bag. There wasn’t much I could do right now anyway, so I opened up the laptop, plugged it in, turned it on, threw on a pair of headphones, and loaded up my copy of Borderlands 2.There was something deeply satisfying about first person shooters when I was angry, the chance to kill things, and I’d always had a weak spot for games with lots of possible weapons.

I played into the night; I was hurt, angry, and honestly starting to get hungry, and sick as fuck of ramen. I was also really not sure where I was going to sleep. I wasn’t going back in the room with Weiss, even if we were currently sleeping on separated twin beds. At around 10, my cellphone rang.

I paused my game and looked at the phone. It was Yang. I wanted nothing more than to open my phone and talk to her, but she didn’t really know what was going on, and it’d be hard to explain why I was fighting someone who I’d been “dating” for less than a month. I also wasn’t sure that she wasn’t still mad at me, and I could not deal with my sister’s anger right now. I would just not pick up the phone and call her back another day; I would claim I was asleep, or spending time with Weiss, or any of another million possible explanations.

I let the call ring through. Within a minute, she was calling again. I could pick up, but she’d probably be mad that I let the call ring through the first time. I settled on an excuse in my mind: asleep, ringer off so I could sleep properly.

I threw my headphones back on, and went back to my game. I felt a little bad about ignoring my sister, but there’s was nothing to be done about; I couldn’t deal with her being mad, and I didn’t really have the energy to lie to her right now.

The game was not really fun anymore. It had been fun to kill things when I was angry, but now I wasn't. Now, I was sad, and lonely, and tired. I wanted to talk to my sister. I wanted to eat something proper. I wanted to not be fighting with the person who it most vital I got along with. I wanted to be anywhere but this shitty apartment with someone who apparently thought less of me and my family and the people I cared about because we were poor.

I closed the laptop, and I started to cry. This was the worst. I had known going into this what it was like to not have money; I’d grown up with it when my father had been going through the worst of his depression after my mother died and he hadn’t really been working enough to feed the family. This had been normal during the time when Yang had been mostly raising me.

I didn’t know to deal with the fights, though. I’d watched them, I’d seen Yang and my father fight over money but this wasn’t a thing I knew for myself. I had no practice at this. And the girl I was fighting with had no practice at this, but worse, she didn’t know what it was like to not have money. I had no idea how to teach her to deal with this.

And even if I did, she’d stepped on all my toes about being poor, talking about stupid poor people. I’d watched my family spend time in debt; they hadn’t had a choice. They’d done it to survive, to keep me alive. Did she think that was stupid?

My phone started ringing again, and I just straight up muted it. Yang might have been right, but I couldn’t let her know that. As much of a jerk as Weiss was being, I wasn’t going to make her life impossible.

Weiss

I was woken at 7 AM sharp for my job; I was working three shifts a week, two of them six hours and this one seven hours. I needed to be there at nine. Usually, I’d have woken up at 7:30, but I was still fighting with Ruby, so I’d set my alarm such that I’d have an extra half hour in case we fought this morning.

I hadn’t slept terribly well, I’d been up until two and I was used to sleeping eight hours at least. I got up and got ready. When I exited the bedroom, I noted Ruby, thankfully asleep, across the chair in the living room like space. I wasn’t really sure what to do for breakfast. We didn’t really have any food in the apartment, but we still had a few more packets of ramen.

Frankly, I had had ramen twice in the last twenty-four hours, and I was not particularly keen on eating it again, but I was hungry, and pointedly aware that I probably wasn’t going to get a chance to eat until I got home, and even then, my next meal was uncertain. I’d done some math last night, and while there might be some things we could do, Ruby was at least mostly right about money; we simply couldn’t afford more expensive groceries.

On the other hand, I still wasn’t ready to give up my ethics in regards to food. Moreover, I was angry about how she’d treated me: She’d made me a villain, taken me out of context, and disregarded perfectly reasonable concerns about sustainability and the wages of others.

There was, however, no purpose to being angry now. Ruby was asleep, and I needed to eat something. I set about cooking the ramen. Luckily, it was easy, and the end product was… tolerable.

I wound up leaving a half hour early. I was ready to go, and I didn’t want to wait around until Ruby woke up. We’d have to resolve the fight later, I couldn’t afford to get drawn back into it and be late for work. We both needed me to keep my job.

The ramen carried me to lunch time, but by 1, I was simultaneously hungry, and legally required to take a lunch break. I also had nothing to eat, and no money that I knew I could spend. I spent my break walking around the student offices, not sure what to do. I considered calling Ruby and asking her if we had money I could spend on a bag of chips and a soda, but I wasn’t really sure I wanted to give her the satisfaction of yielding to her on the budget, and I was pretty sure she was still livid with me.

Instead, I found some friends to nab small amounts of food from; a bite of a cookie here, a few chips there, a bite of someone’s interesting salad somewhere else. I told them I had forgotten to bring a lunch and didn’t have free money right now, most of the truth, and while I was embarrassed, everyone else seemed to understand. Ultimately, half an hour later, I was still very hungry, but I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to pass out in the next three hours.

When I got home, I was tired and hungry, and Ruby was on her computer. I almost snapped at her and asked if she’d done anything all day but 1) That wasn’t actually what I was mad about, and 2) She’d have been working if she could. Still, there was a fight we actually needed to have. I said the words I knew would start it, even while I dreaded it.

“Ruby, we should probably go buy groceries.”

“Yeah, we probably should!” She snapped back, “I wish you’d maybe thought of that last night, but I guess now is as good a time as any Weiss. You ready to go to buy groceries from a place we can actually afford?”

“We could probably afford the co-op, if we just bought cheap food. We would have the benefit of being sustainable, and -”

“Probably isn’t good enough, Weiss. It sounds like we’d be cutting it close, and even maybe going over isn’t a thing we can do.”

“Yeah, well, unsustainable isn’t good enough either.”

“Weiss, there’s nothing sustainable about going hungry!”

“Ruby, I refuse to fuck over everyone else just to save a few bucks for myself.”

“Weiss.” Ruby softened, gesturing for me to sit down. I did, although I felt somewhat condescended to, “You talk about things being ‘unsustainable.’ You’ve gotta understand, ‘unsustainable’ isn’t just food that’s been moved too far or produced in wasteful ways. ‘Unsustainable’ is spending money on more expensive food than you can afford. ‘Unsustainable’ is drowning in little fights so that you never fight the big, important ones. ‘Unsustainable’ is risking the money you could use to go to college and make huge positive change because you’re worried about every little thing. ‘Unsustainable’ is forgetting that your well-being matters because you’re too worried about the world.

And that’s the key point. You’re not fucking over everyone else by choosing to live a life you can afford. You’re choosing to live. And that’s your right. That’s something that no one has the right tell you isn’t OK. Weiss, you don’t have to sacrifice yourself to the world like some noble martyr, you have to live.”

I had to stifle the urge to laugh; Ruby hardly had room to talk on taking care of the world at her own expense, given that she’d literally married me. Still, it was hard to be angry at someone saying you need to take care of yourself. But, I did have some fights to have with her.

“I… Alright, look, you’re right. But, I’m still a little mad. You made me into a villain in this fight, and you made me feel like I had no part in controlling my own money and you have to understand: that’s how they controlled me.”

Ruby nodded, “I’ll try to give you more of a say, although I’m not sure what I could have done here. I’ll also try to be more patient, but I need you to not talk shit about poor people, even poor people who you feel deserve it, because they mostly don’t, and you really don’t know yet what they’ve been through, and in a few months, you’ll be free to say whatever you want, but for now you really don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I frowned, that wasn’t quite the answer I wanted. I still felt condescended to, but I would take what I could get, “I’ll… try to hold my tongue about things that I consider errors made by poor people..”

Ruby seemed a little unimpressed, but then, neither of us got a perfect resolution.

“So, Grocery outlet?” Ruby asked.

“Yes.” I agreed.