The problem, Blake thought to herself one evening while sitting at her desk, wasn’t just asking her out.  She’d had feelings for Ruby for… who knows how long now considering that Yang had figured out Blake’s crush before she had (that had been a fun conversation) but at this point it had to have been almost a year.  No, she was pretty sure that she had enough courage to ask Ruby out once she figured out what to say, and therein lay the problem.  Her feelings towards Ruby were stronger than anything she had felt in the past, and she felt like she needed the exact words that would allow her to express just how strongly she felt.

How Ruby’s incredible optimism in the face of any challenge was always a welcome breath of fresh air, and how her unrelenting drive to make the world a better place refreshed and spurred on Blake’s own.

How reliably Ruby could brighten Blake’s day with just a smile and a few short words between classes.

How Ruby’s beauty and grace in combat and… well… at least her beauty outside of combat never failed to take her breath away.

How easily Blake could find herself getting lost in Ruby’s deep, beautiful eyes until reality or propriety forced her to look away.

How incredible it would be to feel Ruby’s warmth curled up against her as they drifted off to sleep together, to-

Focus Blake, focus she thought to herself, pinching the bridge of her nose.  You were supposed to be using this time to figure out how to ask Ruby out, not fantasize about what could happen if, by some miracle, she says yes.  Now back to work.

And with that Blake started muttering quietly to herself, trying to hammer out the details of just how she would confess - where to ask Ruby, what to say, and how to say it.

Blake was so focused on her task, however, that when the door to the team room gently cracked open and Ruby slipped through, she entirely failed to notice.

Ruby walked up behind the still oblivious Blake and, unused to her faunus teammate being so unattentive, awkwardly shifted from foot to foot for several seconds before finally clearing her throat.

“Hey umm.... Blake? Can I talk to you about something?”

Blake whirled around, eyes already wide with surprise widening further when she saw just who had interrupted her.

“R-Ruby!”

Ruby, equally startled by Blake’s sudden outburst, leapt back and started hurriedly apologizing.

“Eep!  I’m really really sorry I didn’t mean to bother you I can just leave if this is a bad time I’m sorry!”

Without waiting for a reply, Ruby started edging towards the door, repeatedly apologizing and clearly on the verge of panic.  Not wanting Ruby to leave, especially in such a state, Blake forced herself to take a deep breath and put on what she hoped was a reassuring and calming smile.

“No it’s fine Ruby, you just caught me by surprise.  You know I can always find some time to chat with you.”  Thankfully enough, her voice and face combined seemed to calm Ruby down.  Gone was her expression of near-panic, replaced by that beautiful smile Blake had come to love so much.  Suddenly, an unpleasant thought occurred to her.  “Say, Ruby you didn’t happen to hear what I was saying to myself, did you?”

Ruby cocked her head to one side and thought for a few seconds before responding.  “Well… I did hear you say something about the library being good but I didn’t get anything other than that.  Why, is it important?”

Blake let out a quiet sigh of relief.  The idea of Ruby finding out about Blake’s feelings for her before she was ready to tell her was… less than ideal.  “Oh it’s nothing Ruby.  I was just thinking about something.  Now… you said you wanted to ask me something?”

Oddly, this seemed to make Ruby nervous again.

“What?  Oh um… right.  That.  Ooookay just hold on a sec gotta just… yeah.”  

Ruby quickly spun around and started pacing around a little bit, quietly muttering what sounded like self-encouragement.  This was… odd.  Ruby still wasn’t always great at social interactions with people she didn’t know too well but Blake couldn’t remember the last time Ruby had gotten this nervous around any member of the team, let alone her.  Suddenly Ruby whirled around to face Blake, took a deep breath, and started talking.

“Okay so… I’ve been thinking about you a lot recently.  And… you’re really smart and cool and graceful and-and really pretty too!  Like… wow you’re pretty.  And I’ve really loved all the time we’ve been spending together recently and I’m pretty sure that I actually really like you.  Ummm I mean like really like you.  And I don’t know if you like girls or if… y’know… the whole human-faunus thing but I’ve been thinking a lot recently and- and I think I’msortofinlovewithyou and Iwaskindamaybesortahopingwecould gooutonadateonSaturday?”  Although Ruby’s confession had started out reasonably well-paced (for Ruby), as she went on she had sped up, to the point where the last few sentences were only barely intelligible.  In truth, only years of living and fighting together let Blake understand what Ruby had said.

Blake was vaguely aware that she was staring at the extremely nervous Ruby and that her jaw was hanging slightly open, but she couldn’t seem to muster the mental resources necessary to respond.  As it so happened, her brain in its entirety was struggling to process what Ruby had just said.  Blake had never seriously considered that Ruby would reciprocate her feelings - the entire time Blake had known her Ruby had never seemed particularly interested in romance, and to Blake’s knowledge Ruby hadn’t even had a crush on anyone since she got to Beacon.  And here was Ruby asking her out?  And had Ruby said that she loved Blake?  Not that Blake was complaining.  What had just happened was more than she could have imagined in her wildest dreams but… it was all a bit much to take in at once.

After several seconds of tense silence, Ruby launched into speech again, any semblance of reasonable pace or even proper sentence structure abandoned in her anxiety.

“I mean I know that Saturday is usually your ‘you time’ but I just sort of figured that I knew that would be a time where I knew you wouldn’t have any plans and y’know we’ve sort of been spending a lot of Saturdays together anyways so I thought why not just combine the two? I mean it would just sort of be convenient right?  And I just figured that we could go into town and - oh I just remembered!  I found a really nice little bookstore that we could go check out I mean you probably already know about it but it could still be pretty fun.  Oh!  Or umm I heard that some grimm were spotted a bit too close for town and I mean I know that’s not really a usual date thing but I just thought we’re training to be huntresses and I know you like fighting together so I figured that might… be... okay?” she trailed off, seeming to notice Blake’s expression of complete and utter surprise for the first time.

The silence between the two started to drag out, and Blake realized that she should probably say something.

“Ruby, what I’m about to say may sound very cliche, but please believe me when I say that every word of it is true.  I’ve actually had similar feelings for quite a long time now, but I’ve been too worried to actually tell you.  In fact I think- I think I love you too.  So… yes going into town with you on Saturday sounds wonderful.  I cannot think of anything that I would rather do.”

…

Was what Blake intended to say.  Unfortunately, it appeared that at least a few of the pathways between Blake’s brain and her mouth had fused, since what came out was less an eloquent reciprocal confession of love and more half-choked sputtering.

“Ruby!  I… you… l-love… date - you…”

Ruby apparently read Blake’s confusion and surprise as coming from horror and started backing up towards the door.

“H-hey no worries you can totally say no I’ll understand!  Ummm but yeah I- oh shoot door… door!”  Ruby’s frantic apology was interrupted as she bumped into the door, and her panicked attempts to open the suddenly recalcitrant door gave Blake the time she needed to process the situation.

“Wait Ruby that’s not what I meant!” She yelled, leaping out of her chair just as Ruby finally managed to get the door open.

However, Ruby seemed more focused on getting out of the room than on what Blake was saying, continuing her apology as she backed out of the room.

“No no no it’s fine!  It’s fine!  No hard feelings, yeah?  Oh!  I just remembered I gotta go… umm… see you later Blake!” she blurted out, each word faster and less stable than the last.

And with that, Ruby was gone.

Blake had to fight down an immediate urge to try and chase her down.  Even in their first year at Beacon, Ruby had been able to outspeed them all, and she’d only gotten faster since then.  By now she could be anywhere on campus, and the trail of rose petals she would have left behind would be scattered to uselessness as a tracking aid.  It didn’t help that Ruby had gotten very good at finding places to hide on campus in the past couple years due to Weiss’ occasional overzealousness when it came to ensuring Ruby studied enough.

No, there was no way Blake would be able to find where Ruby had run off to, not on her own.  She didn’t even know where to start.

Although…

Blake ducked back into the room and grabbed her scroll, quickly setting it to call Yang.  It took her partner what felt like hours to pick up the call, even though it couldn’t have taken more than a few seconds.

“Hey Blake what’s up?”

Barely waiting until Yang had finished her sentence, Blake launched into her request.  “Yang, I need to know where Ruby’s current hiding spot is.”

“Wow not even saying hi?  Rude.” Yang snorted.  “Besides, I don’t even know where that girl goes these days.”

Blake paused for a moment and grit her teeth.  Normally she found it admirable how much Yang was willing to play dumb about where her sister liked to hide, even under intense interrogation from Weiss, but Blake was not in the mood for this right now.  Collecting herself, she pressed on.  “Yang, this is important.  Ruby asked me out and I sort of froze for a second Ruby thought I was really not into the idea and before I could say anything she ran off.  I need to know where she likes to hide.”

There was a moment of stunned silence before Yang spoke up again.  “Well shit, she finally did it.  Seriously though that girl needs more patience.  Don’t I always say Ruby needs to be more patient?”

Blake bit down a comment about pots and kettles and filed away the implication that Yang knew about both sides of the crush and didn’t say anything for a later date.  “Yang.”

“Alright alright keep your pants on,” Yang chuckled.  “Unless she changed it up without telling me Ruby’s gonna be on the roof of the first-year dorm.  The freshers don’t get roof access so there’s usually nobody up there.”

Blake thanked Yang profusely, but before she could hang up and sprint over there, Yang piped up again.  “Oh and uh Blake?  One more thing.”

“Yes, Yang?”

“Seriously.  Keep your pants on.  If I find out that you’ve been fooling around with Ruby while she’s still underage…” she trailed off menacingly.

By not, Blake had started walking briskly towards the dorm, impatient as she was to find Ruby.  However, at this she nearly tripped and started sputtering as, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks, certain… images came unbidden to her mind.   Yang let this hang for a second before before breaking out laughing and giving Blake a few last words of encouragement.  “Ahhh that was good.  Wish I could have seen your face.  Really though go get ‘er, tiger.”

And with that, Yang hung up.  Blake stared, unbelieving, at her phone for a couple of seconds before a nagging sense of dread settled over her.  As much as being Ruby’s girlfriend (the very phrase still sending a little shiver down her spine) was something she dearly wanted, she realized she was going to have to get used to a lot of teasing.  Shaking her head, Blake put her thoughts back together and set off towards the first-year dorms.

When Blake finally got to the roof access door, she was half-surprised to find it unlocked.  She had figured that Ruby would have skipped the interior and just found a way to get to the roof from above.  Doing her best to focus and shake away her doubts, Blake took a deep breath and opened the door.

And there, leaning against the roof’s wall, cloak gently fluttering in the breeze, was Ruby, staring off into the sunset.  If Blake had been less anxious, the sight would have taken her breath away.  As it was, it only sent a new wash of anxiety through her body.  She took a deep breath, steeled herself, and started to approach Ruby.  

Despite not making any attempt to quiet her footsteps, Ruby still didn’t turn to face Blake as she got closer.  Either Ruby was purposefully ignoring her or she was so wrapped up in thought that she honestly wasn’t aware of Blake’s approach.  Blake wasn’t sure which idea she found more unsettling.

“Hey Blake.”  Blake flinched.  She had intended to start the conversation on her own terms and get the whole speech she had prepared on the run over out before she could trip herself up, and she had already lost the initiative.  

“Look…” Ruby started, pausing for a moment before taking a deep breath.  “I’m really sorry about earlier.  I get that you just don’t like me like that.  We can just pretend it never happened if you want to. I just...” She trailed off, sighing.  Ruby’s words cut at Blake, an effect only amplified by the uncharacteristic melancholy in normally cheerful friend’s voice.   

“Ruby, that’s actually why I came up here to talk to you about.  I’m sorry that I froze up when you asked me out.  The thing is, I actually… feel very strongly about you too and I never really thought you might feel that way about me so I was caught completely off guard.”  Blake silently scolded herself for not saying that she loved Ruby, especially since Ruby had already used the word.  In truth Blake was quite sure that by this point she was truly in love with her teammate, but some lingering internal fear of messing things up even further had stopped her.  Putting the thought aside, she continued.  “So, if the offer still stands I would dearly like to go on a date with you.”  She gave a quiet, nervous smile and, waiting for Ruby’s response, looked up and met Ruby’s eyes.

She hadn’t noticed, but during her little speech Ruby’s face had screwed up into a strange mixture of disbelief and thought.  Then her face hardened into a small scowl and she turned back to look at the horizon.  When she spoke again, her voice had taken another uncharacteristic turn, this time to harsh.  “Blake, you don’t need to try and shelter my feelings.  I like you, you don’t like me, I get it.  Don’t make yourself do something you don’t want to do just to try and make me feel better.  I’m not as much a kid as people think I am.”

Oh no.  To put it mildly, Blake had not expected this.  She could feel any semblance of control and composure she had put together on the way over start to slip away, and knew she needed to do something quickly before this misunderstanding turned into something truly awful.  An idea occurred to her and before she could give it a second thought, she threw it out.  “What if I kissed you?  Right now?”  

Ruby’s face darted back around to look at Blake, confusedly trying to read her face for any trace of insincerity.  “You mean a real kiss?  On the lips?” She asked doubtfully.

“Yes!”  Blake blurted out.  Then, afraid that she had sounded over-eager, she added “if… if that’s what you want.”

Ruby nodded slowly, and slowly started leaning towards Blake.  Looking closely, Blake could still see the doubt in Ruby’s eyes, but there was a spark of hope there too that set her pulse pounding even quicker than it had been previously.  Before she could psyche herself out, Blake leaned in to do something she had been dreaming about for months.

It was awkward.  Neither one of them was entirely comfortable or really knew what they were doing, the situation was hardly ideal, and Blake had leant in a little too quickly, mashing their faces together not quite comfortably before they broke apart and stared at each other wordlessly.

However… at the same time it was sweet and warm and set Blake’s mind reeling.  Despite the fact that it had been a short, chaste kiss on the lips just one step more intimate than any kiss friends would give to each other, she suddenly felt out of breath trying to process what had just happened.  She found herself looking into Ruby’s eyes.  Perhaps it was just the situation, but they seemed to sparkle more than Blake had ever seen.

Suddenly, Ruby darted forwards, her lips almost reaching Blake’s own before jerkily darting back.  Looking at Blake, doubt suddenly back in her face, Ruby quietly asked “can I?”

Not trusting herself to words, Blake hastily nodded and let the warmth and softness flow over her.

A couple of hours later…

Sitting against the wall, Ruby curled up and drifting off in her arms, Blake took a moment to reflect.  If she was being objective, there was a lot for her to complain about.  Sitting on rooftop gravel was hardly the height of comfort at the best of times, let alone with another person’s weight pressing down on her, and although things had been getting warmer it was still a bit too cold to be exposed on the roof at night.  

Additionally, Blake was not looking forward to waking Ruby up and going back to the team’s room.  Yang was either going to ask some very pointed question about what Blake had been doing with her kid sister on a roof… alone… for several hours… at night… or tease her mercilessly about the same.  Blake wasn’t sure which idea she dreaded more.  Of course, given that Yang ostensibly knew where they were but hadn’t checked in on them, maybe she was alright.  Of course, she and Ruby hadn’t actually done anything scandalous.  They had spent their time cuddling, quietly kissing, and just… talking.  About whatever had come to mind.  

Well… there had been a couple of abortive forays into the realms of making out when they had spent a bit too long just kissing, but those had only lasted the very short time it took for one or both of them to get too embarrassed to continue.  Blushing, Blake did her best to put those thoughts out of her mind.  At least for the time being.

No, her position was hardly perfect.  She was uncomfortable, a little cold despite Ruby’s warmth, and she really wasn’t looking forwards to the immediate future.

However… Blake found it difficult to care about any of that.  Because despite all that, the fact remained that Ruby was curled up against her.

And it felt better than she ever could have imagined.