#ch: ruby

tagged by: @queennymeria to make some ocs in this picrew <3 thank u gabby ilysm!!! tagging: @denerims @chuckhansen @prometheas @jmiacolt @lvllns @mendev @ottobooty @arlathen @arklay @daggerfelt @fenharel @shadowglens @montliyets 

summer camp au with rusim, inspired by my bff @quinlinkin !!

we both decided that ruby would be more relaxed casual with her camp counselor outfits, whereas aasim is definitely more by the books about it.

they also get paired together for walking nature trails with kids bc ruby knows a lot about plants and aasim has a lot of survival tips and tricks!

and, naturally, it’s love at first sight with aasim the moment he lays eyes on ruby lol.

(i’ve also never been good with bgs so please spare me lol)

“You think I’m fucked up?” The Ospreys / Cry Havoc

"Do you?" Aberrant asked abruptly. "Think I'm fucked up, I mean?"

The living rooms diminished, tense chatter came to a screeching, ugly halt. Maru rolled off the couch with a guffaw of surprised laughter, Kingpin narrowly dodging her suddenly flailing limbs as he clambered up into the safety of the vacated cushion with a scowl. Haven turned a profoundly affronted look toward Aberrant with an audible gasp that smoldered with wordless chastisement as he clapped both of his hands over Ruby's ears. In the entrance of the hallway, Aberrant saw Danny's eyes go bright with fire for the span of a second that promised she would have beat the shit out of him if her child wasn't in the room. By the white-knuckled grip on the dishes she was carrying, she was still thinking about it.

Aberrant frowned at them all, realizing too late what everyone was fussing so egregiously about, as if Aberrant had somehow suddenly dragged a dead mouse into the room instead of using a word inappropriate for kids. Personally, he didn't know what the issue was with cussing around them. Ruby seemed mature enough, and Aberrant couldn't even be sure how old she was anyways, only that she was less than ten and more than three.

"Abby," Maru said, stifling a rife snicker, "you can't just go around saying those things in front of kids!"

Aberrant glowered at the use of her unwelcome nickname.

"Why not?" He'd heard way worse than he was a kid. By the time he was Ruby's height, he cussed in three languages and knew how to say he was going to kill someone in way more. "She's going to hear it eventually, anyways. She doesn't live in a bubble."

"Hear what?" Ruby demanded, batting Haven's hands away from his ears and squealing away from him when he tried to replace them again. "I'm big now! I wanna know!"

She ran over to Danny's legs and clung onto them.

"Ma!" Her voice was a bright demand. "I wanna know. Do you—do you think uncle Abby is fucked up?"

She whispered the last part the way all kids did when they used a new word for the first time, not entirely certain of its meaning but knowing it wasn't like all other words they'd learned before. That this one was different, in some sinfully reverent way.

Maru put her palms to her mouth to cover up a laugh that morphed into a hacking cough. Kingpin kicked her between the shoulder blades and she fell over with a witch cackle that split shrieking between her fingers, the tail of her braids flapping around her shoulders as they shook. Haven's face was quickly paling, possibly because he was reliving some moment from his past when he'd first sworn in front of his parents. Aberrant didn't know much about them, but he was certain Haven's da would have beaten any kind of informality out of him from a ripe young age if he ever saw it rear its little head. He was vaguely glad that Diamant was in Danny's bedroom, incapacitated and unconscious. If she were here and on Danny's side, Aberrant was sure she would kick his ass.

Danny smoothed a hand over her daughter's hair and crouched down to place both of her palms flat on Ruby's shoulders.

"That's a very unkind way of asking that sort of question, Ruby," she said very seriously, so the little girl stood a bit straighter and listened intently to what she said. "But we're not unkind people, and we strive not to be mean to others. Isn't that right?"

Ruby nodded her head with the fierce eagerness of a little soldier.

"So we don't say that word," Danny continued with admirable control. "Because it's an unkind word, and we don't want to be rude to people. Especially your uncle Abby, isn't that right?"

"I would never be unkind to uncle Abby," Ruby said, which warmed Aberrant's withered heart a little bit. "Never."

"Okay," Danny agreed. "Promise me, squirt?"

She held out her pinky finger to Ruby, and the little girl gripped her own around her moms and bobbed it up and down three times like a ritual.

"I promise, ma!" Ruby said with a shrieking giggle.

Danny smirked and dragged her daughter around into her chest, ruffling her hair with both of her hands. Quick as an adder, she slipped them down flush over Ruby's ears and looked up at Aberrant with the kind of glare that could send a lesser man straight to hell.

"And for what it's worth, yes Aberrant," she hissed, "Yes, I do think you're fucked up. Get some fucking help, you colossal bitch."

spotlights dim a few moments after the music stops - the sound echoes around the room still, reverb, a ripple in the faceless dark - a blur of lights and flashes of skin, this all ends only to be replaced by whistling, hooting - other sounds. she descends into the crowd, walking the space between tables and booths like pews.

(lift your leg as you walk, the beginning of it all - a long line of muscle, the slope of your calf, the gentle space behind your knee - something to look at, something to touch.) 

she imagines a face she hasn’t seen in months. lights strobe, casting her own a shadow - all the same, everything in the dark. heading backstage to remove her costume - trailing behind her, pink plumed and sequined - to slip into something entirely more intimate for the remainder of the time tonight, another familiar face emerges - one from a different life, a time nearly forgotten. 

(girls in white, the shine of freshly waxed floors, the clicking of heels down hallways, somewhere just out of view - of sunlight and laughter hidden away in rooms where nothing is demanded of them, a wonderland that is long lost.)

Two sassy, ass-kicking, former loners having a bit of fun and getting pissed at folks behind the camera. Two thirds of That's Posse Babey, my oc Lilith (in red), and the ever incredible @duzitmatter with her goddess oc Ruby (in green)!!!

As always, an honor and blast mon ami!

time drifters: ruby bell