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The door to the Beacon locker room creaked open on well-worn hinges, letting in the sound of scuffed boots and tired sighs. Weiss Schnee stepped through with as much grace as she could muster after a particularly grueling training session. Her muscles ached, her braid had half come undone, and there was a smudge of dirt on the sleeve of her combat blouse that she hadn't yet noticed. She was, in short, a mess. And she hated being a mess.
Behind her, Ruby Rose bounded in like she'd won a tournament instead of barely scraping through their last match with an improvised whirlwind of scythe maneuvers and shouted strategy. She was talking excitedly... something about that ridiculous spinning combo she pulled off to knock a Beowolf into a tree. Her words blurred together in a breathless rush, each sentence chased by animated gestures and bright-eyed excitement. She peeled off her gloves with a snap and tossed them into her locker, still halfway reenacting the battle in bursts of movement.
"Did you see that last move?" Ruby grinned, elbow-deep in reenactment. "Right over its head, straight into the branch! I didn't even know it would work... like, I hoped it would, but wow!"
Weiss offered a tight-lipped nod, trying her best to focus on her locker combination and not on the way Ruby's shirt rode up slightly as she reached to mimic the swing. She busied her hands with adjusting the cuff of her sleeve, tugging it straight with unnecessary precision. Professionalism, Weiss. Eyes forward.
But then Ruby stretched.
A full, arms-above-the-head, back-arching stretch that pulled her shirt tight across her abdomen and sent a very inconvenient heat crawling up Weiss's neck.
It was, she assured herself in the privacy of her own mind, simply a natural appreciation of form and function... an entirely rational, academically sound observation of physical conditioning. Perfectly normal. Entirely clinical. Ruby was an athlete, after all. Her build was the result of training and discipline. Weiss was merely acknowledging that.
That... and maybe the way Ruby's biceps flexed just a little as she lowered her arms.
Definitely not ogling.
Beside her, Blake slid onto the bench and began unlacing her boots with deliberate slowness. Her gaze flicked once, dry as a desert breeze, to Weiss.
"You're not being subtle, Schnee," she said without looking up.
Weiss blinked. "Excuse me?"
"The staring."
"I was doing no such thing!" Weiss straightened up so fast she nearly knocked her locker door back open. "I was simply observing a teammate's postural habits after battle... it's called situational awareness. I'll have you know it's a valuable skill in combat settings."
Blake shrugged one shoulder. "If you say so."
"I do say so," Weiss snapped, trying to recover whatever shred of composure she'd had before she'd been caught practically drooling over her partner. She busied herself with unbuckling her boots, very determinedly not watching Ruby now as she laughed and flopped down to sit on the bench across from them.
It didn't help that Ruby was still talking animatedly, her voice bright, her movements big. It also didn't help that every time Weiss risked a glance... a purely accidental glance... Ruby was flexing again. Not on purpose, surely, but her arms moved and her muscles shifted. Weiss needed to leave this room before her soul combusted.
She cleared her throat. "Some of us value decorum in shared spaces."
"Uh-huh," Blake muttered, peeling off her second boot.
Ruby looked between them, utterly oblivious. She blinked twice and tilted her head slightly, expression caught somewhere between concern and curiosity. "Did I miss something?"
Blake didn't even glance up. "Yes."
"No!" Weiss said a little too loudly, voice sharp with alarm. The word echoed in the locker room with far more force than she'd intended, and her heart immediately dropped. That was... unnecessarily loud.
Ruby blinked, confused, and Weiss let her gaze dart back one last time to Ruby's hands... gloveless, calloused, strong... and then immediately cursed herself.
She was not being obvious.
...Was she?
The knowing smirk that tugged at the corner of Blake's lips was damning enough.
Weiss huffed, turning sharply back to her locker. She would not... could not... let this nonsense continue. She was dignified. Composed. Completely and totally unbothered.
She was also absolutely going to have a crisis in about five minutes, but that was a problem for Future Weiss.
Weiss took a deep breath and opened her locker, determined to spend the next several minutes staring exclusively at her clean clothes, her dusty boots, the inside of the metal door... anything but Ruby Rose.
She peeled off her gloves one finger at a time, smoothing each one out before stacking them with deliberate care... a ritual of control she could focus on instead of everything else. Dignity. Composure. Discipline. She repeated the words like a mantra.
Then Ruby pulled off her shirt.
Weiss didn't hear the fabric move so much as feel the shift in the air... the ripple of energy that followed Ruby's casual tug upward, shirt sliding free and fluttering to the bench. Beneath it: a sports bra, firm muscle, and the sort of definition that looked more at home in a classical statue than on someone who made pancake art on weekends.
Weiss's brain promptly threw a white flag and collapsed.
It wasn't fair. It couldn't be fair. No one... especially not someone as cheerful and unassuming as Ruby Rose... had any right to look like that. The soft lighting of the locker room only emphasized it, catching on the sheen of sweat still clinging to her skin, shadows tracing every flex of muscle as Ruby reached up to run a hand through her hair.
How is that fair?
Weiss turned quickly to her locker again, yanking it open with more force than necessary and pretending to be very interested in the alignment of her water bottle and spare hair ties.
Do not swoon. DO NOT SWOON.
She could feel her face heating, traitorous blood rushing up her neck, and... gods above... was she trembling?
"I'm heading out before the secondhand embarrassment kills me," Blake muttered, slinging her bag over her shoulder with all the grace of a departing specter. Her tone wasn't even judgmental anymore, just resigned.
Weiss snapped her head around. "You're... what?"
Blake didn't bother to repeat herself. She raised one brow in a silent good luck and was out the door before Weiss could issue a proper rebuttal.
And then, of course, Weiss turned to go.
Or rather, she tried to go.
Her chin lifted with the determination of someone who was going to walk out of this room with dignity intact. She pivoted, posture perfect... shoulders high, gaze forward... took one step, and walked face-first into an open locker door.
The impact echoed with a dull clang, and the pain bloomed across her forehead like a punctuation mark on her pride.
"Weiss!" Ruby's voice rang out, full of concern and way too much closeness.
Hands... warm, strong, muscular... caught her around the waist before she could stagger backward. Ruby caught her with the practiced ease of someone used to grabbing things mid-fall... only this time, the thing was Weiss Schnee, who let out a squeak so undignified it echoed in her soul.
She was being held.
There were arms around her.
Ruby's arms.
And Weiss's hands? They were braced against Ruby's bare shoulders.
Muscular bare shoulders.
Her brain ceased all operations... a catastrophic system failure in the wake of warm skin, close proximity, and the utter betrayal of her own composure. Dignity, composure, discipline? Please. Her internal mantra had flatlined.
Ruby's face hovered inches from hers, silver eyes wide with concern. "Are you okay?"
Weiss opened her mouth to say something... anything... but what came out was a series of vowels that bore no resemblance to language.
"You really clocked yourself there," Ruby murmured, adjusting her grip slightly. Her thumbs brushed against the small of Weiss's back as she steadied her, and that was very much not helping.
Weiss attempted speech again. She managed a sound this time, though it wasn't entirely human.
Ruby blinked. "Should I carry you to the nurse?"
Weiss made another noise. A noise that might've been a protest if it hadn't been delivered in the tone of someone being actively vaporized by proximity.
Ruby smiled, warm and teasing. "Are you sure? Because, uh... you're kind of doing this melty... swoony... fluster-thing, and I don't think that's normal?"
The world tilted slightly.
Weiss made a noise. A final, high-pitched whimper of overwhelmed circuits and complete composure failure. She was being teased. Teased while Ruby's hands were still on her, while everything... everything... was spiraling.
And then, as if that wasn't enough...
Weiss stared.
Not on purpose. Certainly not for long. But with Ruby holding her like that... close, solid, effortlessly strong... her eyes refused to obey.
The sharp angle of her jaw. The faint flush from the locker room heat. The way Ruby's hair was slightly mussed from her earlier enthusiasm, a few strands sticking to her temple. Weiss's gaze swept over her before she could stop it, catching on muscle, closeness, and the dawning realization that she was in deep, deep trouble.
"You've been staring at me for a while, you know," Ruby said softly.
Weiss blinked. Her heart plummeted.
"W-what?" she croaked, the word escaping like steam from a cracked kettle.
Ruby tilted her head, smiling now in that way she did when teasing someone... gentle, amused, not unkind. "Just saying. I noticed."
Weiss tried to step back, but Ruby's arms were still partially around her, and Weiss's knees hadn't yet agreed to function. "I wasn't... That is... I wasn't staring. I was... simply making sure I wasn't concussed!"
"By staring at my arms like they offered to carry you off somewhere scandalous?"
"I wasn't... !" Weiss smacked a palm to her face. "I am concussed. That's the only explanation. Hallucinations. Delirium. Sudden onset loss of filter..."
Ruby laughed, not cruelly, just delighted... shoulders shaking slightly, eyes crinkling at the corners with barely-contained amusement. "You're really cute when you're flustered."
Weiss froze like she'd just been handed a marriage contract in the middle of a duel... paralyzed, disoriented, and with absolutely no idea what to do with her hands.
That line. That line.
Her hands dropped from her face in horrified disbelief. "I am not flustered," she declared, gesturing wildly with both arms like she was conducting an invisible orchestra of denial. "I am experiencing reasonable physiological reactions to environmental stimuli and an unfortunate collision with a locker!"
Ruby stepped closer, still smiling. "So if I offered to kiss you right now, you'd object?"
Weiss made a noise.
A noise.
It had no proper description in any known language, but it came from somewhere deep in her soul and sounded suspiciously like a startled tea kettle.
Ruby's grin bloomed into something mischievous and brilliant. "I'll take that as a no."
She leaned in slowly... giving Weiss every opportunity to back away, to stop this, to say something. But Weiss couldn't. Or wouldn't. Or didn't want to.
The kiss was gentle. Brief. Testing.
Soft lips, warm breath, and the scent of shampoo and steel... sharp and familiar... wrapped around a sweetness that pulled at something low in her chest, like the promise of something reckless and tender all at once. Weiss blinked once, twice, stunned into stillness, before the kiss ended and Ruby pulled back just slightly, still within whisper-range.
Weiss reached up and touched her lips.
"That was... highly inappropriate," she said, voice faint and eyes wide.
Ruby shrugged. "Totally worth it."
Weiss, still blinking, opened her mouth to reply. Then closed it. Then opened it again.
Then, very quietly, she whispered, "Do it again?"
A/N:
A big thank-you once again to the amazing Sara117_Ao3 for beta reading and letting me bounce ideas around, she and YuriFluff get full credit/blame for putting the image of Weiss thirsting over muscular Ruby in my head until it refused to leave. So here we are.
Weiss is thirsting so hard that Beacon may be experiencing a hydration crisis, and Blake is about two seconds away from requesting a transfer to escape the flustered chaos. This fic is basically 2,000 words of Weiss trying (and failing) to be dignified while Ruby exists shirtless within a three-foot radius. I regret nothing.
Hope you enjoyed the locker room disaster!