Chapter 5: Embracing The Inevitable

Hey there, it is I, The Draigg again. Now, considering that this is the first chapter in a new batch of chapters, I figure that I can answer some questions or opinions that a few readers have sent to me. Don't worry, you're not in trouble. It's just to clear a few things off. First of all, yes, this story falls into my mainline Draiggverse stories. Check out my profile info for which stories are, and which ones aren't. Next, in response to some criticism, I don't think my usual author's notes are a bad thing. If anything, it's all part of the meta-story. You'll know what I mean by that if you read the climactic chapters of Team RWBY Gives Back To The Kids. Plus, it's kinda fun writing these things. So, now with that tidbit of information out of the way, let's get to what you really came here for: the story.

xxx

Addiction was a really funny beast.

Not a sort of "ha-ha" type of funny, though. More of the "Seeing an anatomically correct snowman of a creature of Grimm" type of funny. Or in other words, odd.

Back to the point, addiction really did rear up at the most inconvenient and strange times. Like Sunday, for example. Weiss couldn't help but chug down several cans of coffee from the drink pile as she tried to practice the lines from the script. Yet again, it was probably the script material that was driving her to start up her old habit.

It was a real shame, too. Weiss had her issue really under control by then.

Taking a swig of her latest coffee, Weiss projected her line to the dorm room. "When I first started at Beacon, I was a filthy racist. But now, my best friends are Faunus people!"

Nobody on Team RWBY had a comment on that horrible line. Weiss' brow furrowed as she scanned over the line once again.

"…This is slander, right? This is just slander against me," flatly commented Weiss.

"No," Blake tiredly spoke up. "If it's written, it's libel,". Weiss took that news with another swig from her coffee can.

"Maybe you should try a different line?" Ruby piped up, trying to change the dour mood.

"Ruby, ALL of my lines are about racism," Weiss growled, angrily crushing the aluminum coffee can in her fist. She didn't even care that she had gotten coffee all over her hand and onto the carpeting.

Ruby couldn't really argue against that. For some reason, Velvet had written a good chunk of the commercial as a message against racism. Not that it wasn't noble to try and make a stand against something as deplorable as that, but it really did seem like advertising Beacon Academy was more of a secondary goal of this commercial. Yet again, Velvet didn't exactly have the best track record at writing scripts, so none of this should have been a surprise. Kind of how Ruby was disappointed that Weiss fell of the wagon, but also wasn't shocked at all.

"Ahhh…" grunted Ruby. Scratching her head, she tried to think of something else to practice. "Oh, what about practicing the hug?" she suggested.

Both Weiss and Blake rolled their eyes. Why did a hug need to be in the commercial? Wasn't the idea to make an actually good ad? A hug would just seem cheesy. But, it was in the script, so they didn't really have much of a choice in what to do.

Getting up from her spot on the bed, Blake slowly walked over to the desk, where Weiss was sitting. It was if she was trying to drag out the time where she didn't have to do something that dumb.

It took Blake at least a full two minutes to walk over to Weiss, who begrudgingly stood up. The heiress began to walk forward, as if to meet Blake on her own path. …And then walked right past her, over to the drink pile. Grabbing another coffee, she cracked open the can and chugged down half of it. Pausing for a gulp of breath, she then went back to consuming her bitter drink. Without looking, Weiss dumped the can into the trash bin. Suppressing a burp, Weiss said, "Alright, let's get this over with…"

Blake turned around and opened her arms. Hesitantly, Weiss stiffly wrapped her arms around her Faunus teammate. The two of them went in for a rather distant hug, with at least an inch or two still separating them.

Ruby pouted a little at what she saw. "C'mon, hug her like you mean it!" she encouraged. She hugged her own shoulders for emphasis.

Weiss huffed. This was embarrassing for her. And, from what she could tell, the same went for Blake. Neither of them wanted to do this. How had their lives lead to this moment? Where the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company and an ex-White Fang terrorist had to practice hugging each other? Frankly, this whole scenario was awkward and bizarre.

"Really?" Blake muttered under her breath.

"Really," replied Ruby, having heard Blake.

Blake shifted a little closer to Weiss, closing the distance slightly between them. Now they were pretty close, almost like a natural hug. The blush on Blake and Weiss' faces was growing and growing by the second.

"Kiss heeeerrrrrrr!" Yang catcalled from her bunk. That made Weiss immediately shove Blake away and take a few steps back.

"No! No, Yang! No!" Weiss furiously exclaimed.

"Aww, c'mon Yang… It was working…" complained Ruby.

"Eh, you know it would be hot," waved away Yang.

Blake couldn't exactly disagree with that. But still, she had to disagree with her girlfriend on sheer principle. Weiss was Ruby's girlfriend, after all. Plus, she knew that Yang was in her "All talk and no game" mode. It was just her terrible idea of a joke.

"Can we please just get this over with?" Blake pleaded. Turning to Yang, she added, "Without the comments?"

"Fine, fine," Yang said. She made a zipping motion across her lips.

"Thank you," Weiss sneered at the blonde. Turning back to Blake, Weiss opened her arms to try and hug her again.

Blake briefly looked at Yang, to see if she was up to any funny business. All she saw was Yang perched on her bunk, watching the two with some measure of interest. Well, that couldn't have been a good sign. But, Blake still had to go for it anyway. Hooking her arms around Weiss, Blake pulled in the heiress for a rough embrace.

This time, they immediately went for the closer distance they had reached the last time around. At least the hug was softer this time around. Now that she was in the groove of it, Weiss had time to notice how Blake acted up close. Blake could be a soft hugger, if she chose to. And now that her face was past Blake's shoulder, Weiss could smell Blake a little more. She smelled faintly of sport deodorant and what Weiss guessed was violet. Blake must have used some pretty good soap.

Blake, meanwhile, was doing almost the same thing. Since she was a Faunus, her enhanced sense of smell was picking up Weiss' scent much more. To Blake, Weiss almost reeked of vanilla lotion, coconut hair cream, and, not surprisingly, Ruby. The scent of Ruby was unmistakable. The cloaked girl pretty much sweated liquid sugar. Overall, Weiss' scent was very interesting. Very, very interesting.

"That's it! That's perfect!" cheered on Ruby. She was gleefully clasping her hands at the prolonged embrace between one of her closest friends and her girlfriend.

Naturally, that was the cue for Yang to make a comment. "…I think I thought of the cutest couple name for you two," she said, a large shit-eating grin across her face.

That made Weiss pull away and face Yang. "God. DAMN IT! God damn you, Yang Xiao Long!" she loudly swore. Weiss stomped at the floor like an angry, petulant child. If she paid attention to her actions, she would have noticed that this was rather old behavior of hers, from the days back at the Schnee Estate.

Yang chuckled as she kept on going. "I... Hehe… I think Monochrome is a great-HA! Great couple name!"

"Okay, that's it!" Blake declared firmly, before marching over to where Yang lie.

Before Yang could react, Blake rapidly poked her girlfriend in several spots across her back. In less than a second, Yang collapsed face first onto her bed, just as an unconscious person should. Or, to put it in much cruder terms (as Yang would do, if she was still conscious), she slumped over like a sack of dicks.

"Uhh, you sure if that was the right thing to do?" Ruby pointed out.

"Relax. It's not like she isn't used to it already," Blake replied, missing the various glaring issues that come with knocking people out.

"How many times is it now?" asked Ruby. Blake simply shrugged. She had personally lost count of all the times she had to hit her girlfriend's pressure points to get her to stop.

"Does it matter?" Weiss rhetorically asked, grabbing another can of coffee and sitting in the desk chair. "I mean, all the other times she's woken up fine."

"But still…" Ruby trailed off, worried. "…Shouldn't we do something for her?"

"Right," Blake agreed, before walking into the bathroom. Weiss and Ruby heard the sink run for a minute. Blake walked back out, carrying a damp towel.

Striding over to Yang, Blake flipped her over, face up. Yep, she was still unconscious. Without a second thought, Blake placed the damp towel on her girlfriend's forehead and walked back to where she stood before.

"What's that supposed to do?" Ruby cried, absolutely baffled.

"Probably make her feel better," Blake replied coolly. She gave a small shrug. "It's something, at least."

Ruby staggered over to Weiss' bunk to sit down. "Aw, geez…" she moaned, rubbing her eyes. How had this Sunday gotten so bad? Weiss had fallen off the wagon with her coffee, and now her sister was knocked out once again. Ruby knew she should be more used to this type of stuff, but darn, it was still worrying and annoying.

"I think practice is done for now," announced Ruby, lying down on the bunk.

With a heavy sigh, Blake nodded and sat down on her bunk. Weiss continued to sip at her coffee. It was absurd how she was blazing through all through those cans. Yet again, with what had happened within the last hour or so, it was hard to blame her. She needed some escape from the pain, no matter what form it was in. At this rate, Weiss was going to get caffeine poisoning. If she didn't have such an immunity to it already, it was certain that she would have by now.

"Damn this day…" Weiss groaned into her can.

"Agreed," Blake said from her bed.

"Yeah, right…" Ruby replied, before covering her face with a soft pillow. Maybe the goose down could block out the mean and nasty parts of life for her.

Finishing off her latest can, Weiss stood up and tossed it onto the trash. Immediately afterwards, she turned on her heel and marched straight into the bathroom. After all, drinking coffee is going to make someone piss like a fire hose, no matter how much they were used to drinking.

Once the door closed behind Weiss, Ruby sluggishly sat up on the bed. Placing the pillow in her lap, Ruby hunched over it dejectedly. She just had a thought that went against her normal can-do attitude. And, even more worrying, Ruby was wondering if it held true, even in the slightest. "Hey… Blake? Mind if I ask ya something?" she began slowly.

"Sure," Blake sighed in response.

"…Do you regret doing all this? Like, all this show stuff?" posed Ruby.

A brief silence filled the room, as Blake searched for an answer. She was torn between the idealistic response, and the truthful, more cynical answer.

"…Slightly," Blake settled on. That was a good, honest answer. At least it didn't sound too bad.

"Me too…" Ruby swiftly admitted, her head hung down. "It… It sometimes gets to me, ya know? It can be really hard…"

"I won't argue with that," Blake agreed. She fully looked at Ruby. "But, I guess we do these things for a reason, right?"

"Yeah… Our friends need us, right?" Ruby said, picking her head back up. "But still… I'm getting kinda tired."

"All of us are, Ruby. That's why we have you to remind us of why we do what we do. To remind us that we're better than we are. Otherwise, we would have quit a long time ago," explained Blake.

Ruby couldn't help but smile at Blake's kind words. It was really touching to hear someone as drab as Blake come out and say that. "Really?" she asked.

"Really," Blake said with a soft smile. "You're great at being an optimist."

"And you're the best pessimist!" Ruby blurted out happily, before covering her mouth at what she just said. "Ooop! Sorry!" was her muffled apology.

Blake perked up at Ruby's gaffe. "No, no, it's fine. It's just a role to play, I guess. The pessimistic optimist. Heh. How ironic," she smirked.

Ruby loosened up at the sight of Blake's upturned smirk. "Yeah, I guess it is," she half-chuckled, scratching the back of her head. Getting a little more serious, she then asked, "Hey, uh, Blake? Can you not tell Weiss about this? I don't want her to fully doubt doing the show."

"I won't say a thing," Blake replied, nodding.

Ruby exaggerated wiping sweat from her forehead. "Whew, thanks!"

"It's no problem, really," Blake smoothly replied.

"Oh, and one more thing…" added Ruby, now that she thought about it. "Mind helping me with the coffee?" she asked in a lower voice. Ruby jerked her head to the bathroom door, referring to the girl currently inside.

"Right," mouthed Blake silently. Creeping over to the window, she made sure to open it slowly, as to not make any noise.

Following Blake's lead, Ruby got off the bunk and tip-toed her way over to the drink pile. Hefting the skid of coffee cans up, she then made her way over to the open window. With one swift motion, Ruby tossed the cans out of the window, and onto the ground below. She thought she heard a voice that sounded like Cardin Winchester cry out, "OH GOD", be she didn't pay it any mind. It was probably some weird bird squawking.

"That takes care of that issue," Ruby thought aloud, whispering. Blake nodded in agreement.

Settling back into their places, Ruby and Blake went upon their normal business. For Blake, reading, and for Ruby, playing a game on her scroll.

It's odd to think that something good can come out of a crap experience. At least now Ruby knew that she was the heart of the team, and not just its appointed leader. After all, it was the idea of hope that kept things going, no matter what. Plus, a she also got a chance to freely toss out that darn coffee, so that was also a plus. Any more of that coffee, and Weiss would kill herself with that bean juice.

So, with hope in her heart and comfort in her mind, Ruby began to look forward to tomorrow. Maybe things would go great. It was just a matter of patience, a matter of waiting and seeing.

Hope was worth it that much, at least.

xxx

Morals! Everyone loves them. And hey, just because they're in stories as schlocky as this one, doesn't mean they aren't true. After all, comedy is a good way to get morals through to people. It work for a lot of different works, so it should be able to work here. I just hope I don't cross into Broken Aesop territory at some point. But, I doubt I will. I have faith in my writing skills. Anyway, be sure to leave me some feedback! I love getting stuff from you guys.

This is The Draigg, and I'm signing out for now!