Ruby Rose | Team RWBY (eyesofsilver) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2017-06-04 21:02:00 |
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End of the quarter meant that all the projects were due and then finals and everyone was more stressed. And depending on which day it was because that determined which classes that needed to be attended, that stress could either be super high or not as bad. Today was one of the more ‘super high’ days because of someone who had transferred to the school that year who didn’t like Ruby and kept calling her a first year and didn’t like her progress. Guys in STEM could be real jerks. She didn’t let it bother her, but it did make for tense classes sometimes.
She wasn’t worrying about the upcoming class though. Nope! Right now she had a break in her classes, which meant lunch and going to her uncle’s office to eat as she had never really made friends in her three years at the school. Not the type she’d eat lunch with or anything. Having picked up something from the Student Union market place, the teen made her way to the Humanities building, waving to some of the professors who recognized her from either a GE class or more likely because of her lunches with her uncle.
And there was his office. Knocking, she let herself in.
“Hi, Uncle Qrow!”
The end of a semester was just as busy and at times stressful for the teachers as it was for the students. There were term papers to read, thesis to review, finals to grade, students who needed advising, and final grades to turn in. And now, as a tenured professor, Qrow was expected to sit on certain university committees as well as conduct his own research on top of everything else. Technically he had a TA who was supposed to be doing some of this stuff – Grading the finals for instance – but she had become scarce the last few weeks. That was kind of expected considering it was the final semester before the summer break.
At least he was organized this year. Or…he had been until the breeze from an open window had scattered the term papers he’d collected from that morning’s class not only all over his desk, but on the floor all over his office as well. For a few moments Qrow wondered if it was worth picking them up, or maybe he’d be better off dipping into the bottle of whiskey tucked in the bottom drawer of his desk. It had to be 5 o’clock somewhere.
The decision was made for him when his niece appeared at the door to his office with a smile on her face and lunch in hand. The whiskey could wait. “Hiya, Kiddo,” he greeted with a smile as he got up to start gathering the papers again. “C’mone in.”
No matter how crazy things got at school, Ruby could always count on family. Sometimes she would have met up with Yang before her accident, but Yang had her own friends as well. Even so, she did initially pause until she was given the official okay to enter before bouncing into the office and looking at the piles of papers her uncle had on the desk as she took a seat.
“Have you ever had a student ask you to adopt them?”
And straight off with a random question. Which did make sense in context as one of Ruby’s classmates had asked their political science teacher to adopt them. Which...was weird. Then again, Ruby found said student and her friends weird anyway because of the gushing over the professor who used the room before their political science class. It made her wonder if students said those things about Uncle Qrow which...awkward.
Oh well. Ruby did tend to come in with random questions as it was.
By now Qrow was used to the sudden random questions seemingly out of nowhere. If Ruby had come in and began a conversation by asking something normal like ”how’s your day going?”, that would have concerned him.
“Well, not in so many words,” he answered as he moved around the chair Ruby was in, gathering up the scattered papers and attempting to put them into some kind of order. He found that he couldn’t really do that and pay attention to his niece at the same time, so resorted to just picking up the papers and piling them on his desk again. He’d make an attempt at order later.
His students either loved him or hated him. There was no in-between. Qrow was well aware that no student in the History Department ever said “Yeah, Professor Branwen’s alright, I guess.” He was also very aware of the crushes students sometimes developed on their teachers. Most were harmless, awkward, and short lived. Some though…yeesh. Qrow had heard some horror stories about crushes that had become complete and utter nightmares.
Ruby wasn’t one of those students. In fact, Qrow wasn’t sure if Ruby even knew what a crush was, much less had one herself. Didn’t mean he couldn’t rib her a little bit about it.
“Who’d you ask to adopt you?” He teased his niece with a smirk.
Who needed normal pleasantries around family? Crazy talk. Ruby certainly didn’t, that just made things unnecessarily awkward. Or at least, it seemed that way to Ruby. So instead she picked at her food while Qrow walked around and answered the question. She never had really heard students talk about him but she wasn’t in the history department. Even when she’d needed to go to the building for general education classes, she hadn’t heard the whispers or giggles. Admittedly Ruby could also tune people out fairly easily by just listening to music while waiting for class to start.
Not that she really caught what her uncle meant. Blinking at the question, Ruby tilted her head to the side.
“Why would I need to ask a professor to adopt me when I have dad and you?” Qrow was definitely right that she had no idea what a crush was or had one herself. Yang made weird enough comments, but it was Yang. That’s what she did.
Qrow couldn’t help laughing at the look Ruby gave him. For a smart kid, she could be incredibly naive. It was a trait that he both loved about her and at times concerned him. The world beyond Tai’s house and the university walls was unforgiving and could devour someone so blissfully innocent.
At least this was harmless, or seemed to be. “Don’t worry about it, squirt,” he said as he set the papers back on his desk and leaned over to close that damn window. Last thing he needed was for one or two – or all – of those reports to blow outside.
Work secure (for now), Qrow plunked himself down in one of the other chairs. “Whatcha get me for lunch?” He asked, leaning forward to pick at Ruby’s lunch himself.
Easy enough to do. Ruby saw no reason why something would happen where she would need to be adopted (okay, so she knew anything could happen, what with her mom and all) but it wasn’t the highest priority on her list. Besides, she might be awkward but at least she didn’t ask professors to adopt her to… she had no idea what. This was why she didn’t really connect with her fellow students.
“You could always bring your own lunch.” But they both knew that wasn’t a thing and since Ruby did show up all the time, she usually made sure to bring extra food. Just in case. Such as why she had picked up two of the sushi packets that had been in the marketplace. So even as she made the comment, Ruby was already handing him the extra sushi.
“I could,” Qrow agreed thoughtfully, “but then what would you bring me every day?” Truth of the matter was he actually did have his own lunch. Nothing fancy, just a simple sandwich in a brown paper bag in the fridge in the staff lounge. It wasn’t as if he didn’t enjoy Ruby’s visits, he actually looked forward the daily interruption, but he brought his own lunch every day with the hope that maybe, just maybe, Ruby would have met someone she’d rather have lunch with. For the past three years, said simple sandwich had either been that evenings dinner, or had been fed to the birds congregating outside.
Qrow propped a foot on the opposite knee so he could balance the sushi plate as he ate. “Are you ready for your award?” He asked. “You been practicing with the heels?”
“You’ll have to figure that out when I graduate then.” Because as far as Ruby was aware, her uncle just forgot his lunch. All the time. She often would feel bad if she had to meet up for group projects during lunch as that tended to be the only time she didn’t visit him during the day for lunch. At least the quarter was almost over though so there wouldn’t be any of those for a few months.
“I am.” The one jerk in her class was so used to being the top of his class before transferring that she was excited for it to just be over. She had worked hard for it and his stupid comments were tiring. But she was good at putting him in his place when it came to projects and school. It was just part of the program and he was just jealous. But then the comment about the heels, which was met with an annoyed glare. Which given Ruby wasn’t at all threatening, though it did fade away almost immediately after. “I keep falling into people, but I met a nice person at the bookstore after falling once. And Yang said I can wear fancy flats instead.”
Which really was all the more proof to her that her dad and uncle had been messing with her about the practice instead of just saying she could have gone the fancy flats route.
Qrow smirked at his niece in that teasing way of his. Oh yes, they had been messing with her. Or at least one of them had been. Qrow had a suspicion Taiyang had said what he had about heels in hopes to actually get Ruby in a pair of them for the first time ever. Qrow had just thought it was funny.
“That’s one way to meet people,” he joked before he popped one of the sushi rolls into his mouth. At least the person Ruby had fallen on had been understanding about it. There were plenty of assholes out there who would have reemed the poor girl a new one. Qrow was sure that eventually Ruby would have either taught herself how to balance in the unnatural footwear, or she would have found an alternative. At least she had tried. Ruby always tried.
“How’s your sister doing?” He asked, the teasing quality having dropped from his voice. “I haven’t really had the chance to talk with her recently,” he gestured to the mess on his desk for an explanation as to why. He felt bad about that. Yang was a tough girl, very much like her mother, but not completely like her mother.
“I could do without the yelling when it comes to meeting people, but Blake, that’s her name, she came over and got the guy to leave me alone. So it worked out in the end.” And in typical Ruby fashion, she was going to take the positive of the situation, which was meeting Blake, instead of focusing on the fact that the guy had kept yelling even after she had apologized and tried to help him pick up his books. “Still. Fancy flats are way better since I can’t wear my boots.”
Ruby liked her boots. They were sturdy and she didn’t feel like she was off balance.
As for Yang…
“She’s doing better,” There had been a time when Yang hadn’t wanted to even see her and it had hurt, a lot, and so of course Ruby had been trying to find some way to help her sister but thankfully Yang had stopped avoiding her, “Making jokes and puns again.”
Taking a sip of her water, the teen shrugged.
“I don’t think she’d let me really know if she wasn’t okay though.”
Figures Ruby would focus more on being able to wear fancy flats than meeting someone new. Someone who’d come to her defense and had given her a name. Didn’t necessarily mean anything, though. People were weird. “Right,” Qrow laughed and popped another piece of sushi into his mouth.
He chewed thoughtfully listening to Ruby talk about Yang. His brow furrowing concerned for a moment before relaxing again. No, he didn’t think Yang would necessarily tell her sister if she really wasn’t doing ok, either. However, Yang, like Ruby, had a tendency to wear her emotions on her sleeve. In that regard both were very much like their father. She was a tough one, though. Qrow knew she’d be ok, given enough time. Still...he needed to spend more time with her. Something other than texting movie scripts back and forth.
“Puns are your sister’s life blood,” he grinned. “No idea where she gets that from.”
Ruby didn’t quite know how to explain that there had been something about Blake, a feeling like she was just… supposed to know her. She didn’t even understand it herself. But Blake was promising to be a way to avoid Yang’s more aggressive attempts at getting her to meet people and that was enough.
And footwear that wasn’t out to kill her was definitely super important because it meant that she wasn’t going to die while accepting the award.
Ruby had never been good at masking her emotions, just like she wasn’t good at just accepting she couldn’t do something to try and help. Even if she had failed with Yang because it was beyond what she knew and the whole initially being shut out thing. So she knew that even as Yang was doing better and being back to herself with puns that either went right over Ruby’s head that she completely missed them, or made her want to take back whatever she’d said that led to the pun in the first place. Sometimes the puns were just painful.
“Well not me. But that’s probably because I’m younger and you can’t get things from people who are younger like that.” Then Ruby paused, scrunching up her nose in confusion, “Can you?”
Qrow laughed. “That all depends. Habits you can pick up from anyone,” which was why he put every effort he could to keep his bad habits away from both of his nieces, “but something like painful puns...that just comes naturally.” He’d finished the sushi. Again, the sandwich he’d brought just in case would be that evening’s dinner. He tossed the empty tray into the trash and sat back in his seat, propping a foot against the bottom of his desk. “Glad you figured out the whole flats thing,” he said. “I figured you would eventually.” He gave her another teasing look, “Little disappointed you won’t be teetering your way up to get your award,” he reached over and ruffled her hair, “need to work on your balance, you know.”
Nodding slowly, Ruby finished her own sushi. That did make sense. Given the fact she didn’t have friends to pick things up from, it had never been a thing for her though she had seen it some with others in classes. “They really do. They’re a lifestyle.”
Yang and her puns were a thing of their own.
As Qrow teased her about the heels vs flats and ruffled her hair, Ruby wadded up the unused napkin and threw it at him. The actual reasoning between the two? Up in the air, the result was the same.
“My balance is fine. Just not in stupid lady stilts. Flats are more than acceptable thank you very much.”
A lifestyle. Yup, that pretty much summed it all up, for all of them: Puns. Social avoidance. Drinking. What a weird family they were. Weird, but more functional than many Qrow had seen in his life.
Qrow lifted his arm to deflect the wadded up napkin, letting it deflect off his elbow and onto the floor. “Lady stilts?” He repeated and then laughed. “I’ve heard heels referred to as a lot of things, but ‘lady stilts’ is probably the best.” He leaned back in his chair to reach for the wadded up napkin to toss away. “I could always get you a pair of real stilts to practice on. Once you get the hang of those, high heels will be a breeze.” He assumed.
Picturing Ruby attempting to master a set of actual stilts was just as amusing as seeing her attempt to walk in four inch heels. She’d probably have more fun with actual stilts. Plus the look on Tai’s face while she tried would have been worth it.
They may be a weird family, but they worked and supported one another and that was what family was.
And lady stilts was a perfectly apt description of the walking deathtraps. All wobbly and shaky and ridiculous to walk in. She would never understand why heels were a thing. What was wrong with flats? Or boots? Well, boots with solid footing and not boots with heels and death.
“That could be fun…” Because there was obviously a difference between stilts and heels. But between the two? Ruby would definitely want to at least try stilts. And she had tried the heels but since Yang had mentioned fancy flats, she was going with that. But if she had tried heels, she could try anything.