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The bar was warm with the press of bodies. Salem couldn’t claim to be surprised considering it was Friday night in downtown Vale. The Maiden on any other night would be dead (It was a hole in the wall tucked away in the back of an alley between a dust shop and a shoe store and thus very difficult to find) but Friday night is enough to overflow even this little haven of solitude.
Salem had tucked herself away in a corner of the Maiden, a stool of a table the only thing between her and a crowd of 20-something bar-hoppers. She idly studies the crowd with distrustful eyes. She nurses her drink and silently hopes that they will grow bored and move on soon. She aims to outlast them and their noise.
“Give me back my quiet bar,” she thinks. She’s had far too long a week to relax on the weekend without first detoxing with a glass of bourbon in the quietude of her favourite bar. So she will stubbornly wait until she gets what she came here for.
Trying to stare down the crowd is the only reason she sees her walk in. Summer Rose. Her old enemy. They went to high school school together. Salem was the queen of Signal High: cheerleading, yearbook, rich, model boyfriend, the whole picture. She had the student body under her thumb. Everyone except Summer Rose and her gaggle of hoodlums. Summer lived on the periphery of popularity: soccer champ, basketball star boyfriend, on the student council. But she and her strays were constant troublemakers. Not just for the school itself but for the entire student body. The Branwen twins were nearly expelled three times for starting fights. They were rabid dogs and Rose held the leash. Her boyfriend wasn’t much better but at least he was personable.
Salem scanned the people around Rose. They were laughing. One slapped Rose’s back and she winced. They weren't the Branwens and they weren't Tai. They’re young. College students by the look of them. Why's Rose with college students? It’s three girls and two boys. The boys had dark hair and were both wearing button-up shirts and jeans. The girls came in a rainbow of dyed hair and seemed dressed up for clubbing.
Salem noticed all of this before she realized why the image looked wrong. And it’s not the reason she first thought. Rose looked exactly like she did in high school. Exactly . So much so that Salem didn’t immediately notice that Rose was around the same age as her and thus should look much older. She thought these college kids were too old for her, but they should be too young. And she looked too young. There’s not a skin routine in the world that would keep her that youthful.
Salem was captivated by the mystery. She watched the girl who could be Summer Rose’s clone follow the group through to the bar. They all ordered, Salem couldn’t hear what over the din of the bar, and each had to present their licenses. The Rose clone had to be nagged into presenting hers. She was sweating bullets as the bartender gave it a glance. How he could give it only a glance Salem couldn’t fathom. The girl looked like she should be in high school. She couldn’t possibly be of drinking age. The bartender didn’t make a fuss, however, and went about making their drinks.
The group celebrated which made Salem all the more sure they weren’t supposed to be drinking. The doppelgänger was curled inwards but smiled up at the others and nervously laughed. Her eyes were wide and her smile was shaky. She looked stretched thin.
It was a look Salem knew well. She had induced it in many of her followers at Signal. It was a look she sometimes still induced today if she wasn’t careful. Clearly, this girl, whoever she is, is the reluctant follower of this group. That alone is proof that this cannot be Summer Rose. Summer Rose was always the leader of her pack.
She was sensitive to that look. She was a better person now and she wanted to never induce that look in people again. She should save this girl. But she couldn’t do that. It wasn’t her place to do that. She —probably— didn’t know this girl. She couldn’t just strut up and kidnap her.
As she thought of this, the bartender handed the group their drinks. They took them and went looking for a table. As they did the facsimile of Rose glanced in Salem’s direction. Salem turned her head back to her table so as to avoid eye contact. It broke the spell the girl had put her under. She came back to reality and realized that she had just spent the last 5 minutes creeping on some college girl. She didn’t think she was so drunk as to lose her common sense but looking down she realized that her drink was down to just a thin pool.
She downed the last of it and stood to get another. She resolved to focus on procuring another drink rather than the mysterious young lookalike. She worked through the crowd, it was a touch thinner than it was earlier, and found a seat at the bar to wait.
She glanced around the room trying to estimate how long it would take to empty. Lots of people with glasses more air than booze. Couldn’t be too long now. As she did she couldn’t help a glance at not-Rose. She looked uncomfortable. The group around her was laughing and she was trying very hard to laugh along.
Salem forced her eyes away before their eyes could threaten to meet again. She turned herself around and focused instead on the way the bartender moved. She caught a lull and quickly placed her order. She received a slight nod in response.
“Uuuh, ah, h-hi!” She heard from behind her. Expecting one of those random, descriptionless 20-somethings, she was startled by the sight of Rose. Or no, for this was surely not Rose. Not only because of the logical progression of time, her belief in which she had been desperately patching the damage to since this girl first walked in the door, but also and maybe somehow more importantly, because of her voice. Rose never sounded this squeaky. Nor, again, so nervous. Rose was like a friendly dog. She was as confident with strangers as with her own family.
“Hello…?” She wondered what could possibly have brought the girl to her. By the look on her face, it wasn’t because she intended to reignite her and Rose’s rivalry.
Looking over the girl’s shoulder she could see the table she had come from. The group she had come in with were watching her like wolves.
As much as she had remained the popular and successful girl she had been in high school, she was most assuredly not the same person. One of those many changes unfortunately made her a good person . So she could not laugh with the wolves at the poor sheep come to slaughter. Instead, she found herself the unwilling farmer.
“W-would you- I-uhhh-“ the girl cut herself off with a mouse-like squeak and her face flushed scarlet.
“Sit.” Salem smirked when the girl shot up straight as an arrow and blushed to her ears. Not quite the same satisfaction as outmanoeuvring Rose, but being able to pull this girl’s strings with a single word did give her a delicious power trip.
When she recovered, the girl’s head spun this way and that searching for a seat. On her second look, Salem followed her gaze. No other seats were free. Of course. But Salem wasn’t about to let herself lose to this girl, even if she wasn’t Rose. She waited to lock eyes with the girl, then firmly patted her thighs, smirking.
She stared down at Salem’s lap, frozen. Then, all at once she looked back at her face, snapped her eyes down to her feet, and hopped up onto Salem’s lap.
Salem restrained her gasp. She hadn’t actually expected the girl to do it. She had just wanted to fluster her a bit, make her squirm before she let her go. She wouldn’t laugh at the girl’s bravery but perhaps Salem wasn’t quite so changed as she professed. Regardless, karma had come along and flipped her teasing back on her. Now she was left with a lapful of mysterious girl that sent her head spinning.
No matter what anyone tells you, she did not think about how warm the girl was. Nor that while her thighs had a soft layer of fat, they had a distinct core of rigid muscle. She definitely didn’t enjoy her power over what was probably a stranger and she by no means appreciated the weight grounding her otherwise spinning head.
“So,” she said, pushing through her stray thoughts “your ‘friends’ sent you over here for what?”
“I-I’m supposed to, uh, a-ask you out.” The girl’s eyes hadn’t yet come up from her lap. Salem’s eyes weren’t allowed to follow. The girl was wearing a form-fitting crimson dress that barely reached mid-thigh when she was standing. After climbing into her lap the hem had ridden up a ways and left a sea of creamy thigh to get lost in. And following the valley between up to the hidden places beyond was absolutely not allowed. That way madness lies.
“Is that so.” She feels the girl slipping down of her lap slowly and so she wraps her arms around her waist, pulling her in until they are connected hip to stomach. “Why do you think that is?”
“Well, you uh… I mean not that I saw anything. You probably didn’t do anything, Quartz likesto jokearoundand pushmybuttonsand stuff somaybeit’snothingbutapperantlyhesaidyouwere… watching me? Or just staring a lot, or… something.” The girl looked up at Salem, whether for approval or reprisal, Salem wasn’t sure. Salem needed to take a moment to decipher the mumbling. The girl took this as rejection and interrupted Salem’s thinking. “Or maybe not! It’s probably nothing. I can just, go. Leave your, uh, lap, hehe.”
“And go back to them?” She nodded towards the group that had sent her over, robbed of this girl’s humiliation they had lost interest and were wrapped up in themselves. “Your so-called friends? I think not.”
“Oh… ok” her face turned back down and Salem wished she could see her face. This girl was under Salem’s skin. She was wrapped up in Salem’s past through a proxy and had placed herself incidentally under Salem’s protection in the present. As much as this girl was an object of fascination Salem knew nothing about her except that she looked like a clone of Summer Rose. So maybe not nothing, but not much. Most pressingly she did not know if her attempt at protection was a wanted one. Perhaps in this moment she too was simply forcing the girl to follow her lead and she would rather return to her friends than be trapped with Salem, a strange older woman in a somewhat seedy bar.
Once again Salem had let them lapse into silence. The girl, just as awkward as she looked, was unable to withstand it and eventually felt the need to speak outweighed her fear of disturbing Salem’s thoughtful expression. And when her nerves had built up enough heat and pressure to leak steam from her ears, words spilt from her lips to relieve the pressure like an emergency release valve had been twisted in her head.
“My name is Ruby,” the girl looks up at Salem with a look of muted terror, like speaking was an involuntary act that she feared would get her killed, “Ruby Rose. I study engineering at Beacon. I like weapons. So, what brings you here?” She shakes her head and mouths “What?”
“Ruby Rose.” Salem tastes the name, rolls the syllables around her mouth as her mystery starts to unravel. Ruby —and just thinking of her name brings her an oh-so-human satisfaction at a pattern recognized— locks her eyes with Salem as she does so and a shiver visibly passes down her spine.
“Tha-that’s me. And you are?”
“You know Summer Rose?” Salem ignores her question for now. She’s not sure if she’s purely overeager to confirm her theory or if she enjoys the power of keeping Ruby as in the dark as Salem had been.
“Uh, yeah?” Ruby tilted her head at Salem, big puppy-dog eyes wide and curious. “She’s my mom. Do you know her?” Salem smiled wide, surveying the girl once more up and down.
“Yes,” she said absentmindedly, “we went to school together.” With a firmer voice she continues, “You look so much like her, I briefly forgot what year it is.”
“Yeah,” Ruby laughs, it's a rhythmic fairy-like thing, “I get that all the time. My dad says she just has very strong genes.”
“I can’t imagine silver eyes is a dominant gene,” Salem says, dubious. Ruby shrugs.
“It seems pretty rare, but my dad doesn’t have any history of it so it's beating his baby blues somehow”
“And the red hair?” Salem gently pinches a crimson tip between two fingers.
“Born with it. No dye necessary. It actually caused a couple problems in school because teachers thought I was dyeing it.”
“I can only imagine. Summer got plenty of it.” Strange as it sounds Summer’s strange hair was partly what made her an outcast. Looking back it was very silly but they all thought she was some form of emo/punk poet which made her definitively on the outside of the social order right from the start. By the time she was on the council and leading the soccer team, things that could have brought her into the fold, she was firmly involved with the other violent outcasts of Signal and had made her position as a rebel very overt.
“Speaking of,” Ruby awkwardly transitioned. “How, exactly do you know my mom?”
“My name is Salem.” She figured that she had strung Ruby along enough and Ruby had given her everything she’d asked for. It would be cruel to drag it on any longer. It was perhaps arrogant how much Ruby’s lack of a reaction surprised her. Why would Salem tell her children about her schoolgirl nemesis? It’s not like Salem has made much mention of it in her adult life. “Me and your mother used to be… rivals.”
“That makes sense,” Ruby says with a thoughtful look. That makes Salem raise an eyebrow.
“And why’s that?” Ruby blushes.
“Ah- w-well, you just look… Put together. Or- I just mean that you look healthy. Not healthy- Not that you don’t look healthy!” Ruby panicked, “I just mean that you look- I dunno… b-beautiful I guess. In control or something. Gahhh, I’m not good at this.” She ruffles her hair with both hands, looking like she’s trying to mould her own brain into the right shape like clay. “What I MEAN, is that my mom likes strays… She’s a hero, but that means that she’s friends with a lot of hurt and healing people. You don’t look like someone who needs healing.”
“I wonder about that,” Salem says. She doesn’t complete the thought. Doesn’t let her myriad problems be poured out into a girl who certainly didn’t need the extra weight. Not her problems now and certainly not her problems from high school. She was lost in memory for a second and when she returned to the present Ruby had a heart-wrenching expression of empathy on her face. Salem cleared her throat and, obvious as it was, she barreled through the emotional moment and steered them towards an easier topic. “You said something about weapons, yes?” Ruby hesitated for a moment, clearly unsure if she should resist the transition.
“Yeah… I’ve always liked them. All kinds really.” Salem breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “It started with martial arts. I was kinda an awkward kid. Still am I guess. We didn’t live in town back then so me and my sister didn’t have a lot of friends our age. My parents wanted us to have that and apparently, they decided karate was the place to start. My sister loved it, but I was terrible at it. I hated those karate classes. But I kept going because on the first day they did a demonstration. They had two of the sensei’s dual. And one of them used a quarterstaff. He pulled out a dramatic flair that would better fit in a Power Rangers Episode, but I was enchanted. I, uh, I’ve always been a fan of fairytales. Even now I love them. But when I was in karate I very often thought about knights wielding staffs and nunchucks. Chopping evil wizards. I tried so hard to dress as a ninja knight that year but none of the costume store’s armour would fit over my gi. I was crushed. Mama Raven wasn’t willing to settle though. She and Papa Qrow grew up real poor so they had thrown together a lot of their costumes themselves. She ended up cutting eyeholes in a literal bucket to make a helmet and painted a trashcan lid to be my shield.”
Salem couldn’t help but laugh at the image. Raven was a demon in school. She was a rabid dog that outdrank the football team and stood as the unbeatable queen of the delinquents. She had gotten in numerous fights on and off campus, was arrested, and was nearly expelled multiple times. There were rumours that she sold drugs to pay for school. She had once heard that Raven had killed someone, though she hadn’t believed it, even back then. To imagine that woman painstakingly painting a trashcan lid for a child’s costume. It just defied belief.
Ruby looked up at her with a slightly nervous expression, a half smile and worried eyes.
“That’s so sweet,” she said in lieu of explanation. Ruby fully smiled, clearly nostalgic.
“Yeah, she’s a sweetheart.”
“It’s hard to imagine. She used to be quite rugged.” She avoided the mention of school for some reason. She chose not to analyze it.
“So she says. But I’m not so sure about that. Mom says she just expressed her love in ways that aren’t always easy to understand. Mostly that just means she’ll give you gifts instead of saying words. We once had a fight… Can’t even remember what it was about, but we were yelling by the end of it. Anyways, it wasn’t like anyone was at fault for it and I got over it in like a day, but two weeks later I find a bookshelf in my room. I think she wanted to apologize for the argument. Hard to know for sure.”
“So she and your mom are still friends then?”
“Is that what they called it in your day? Bed breaking, ring wearing, getting lost in each other’s eyes friends?” Ruby gave Salem an insufferable smirk and Salem blushed ear to ear, embarrassed at her worthless gaydar.
“Oh.” And wasn’t that a picture? Summer Rose and Raven Branwen having a tumble in the sheets. Who topped? Raven had a natural dominance over the world at large, but in their friendship, Summer was clearly the leader of their gang.
“Mmmhm” Ruby snickered. Salem glared at the girl.
“Do not forget that you live on this lap by my beneficence. I can push you off,” she joked.
“You wouldn’t” Ruby’s eyes glared, but her mouth was still smiling.
“Try me.” She leaned in closer, almost bumping noses with Ruby. She was not flirting. She was simply defending her honour. A pretty blush bloomed across Ruby’s face and the fire left her eyes.
“Sorry M-“ she cut off with a full-faced blush. Her eyes were big and sparkling, looking up at Salem through her eyelashes. They looked like glittering coins ripe for a dragon’s hoard. She was the picture of seduction and liquid heat raced down Salem’s body to pool at her core. She might have done something stupid if it weren’t for the heavy clack of the bartender setting down her drink order. They place a second drink next to it that she took to be Ruby’s.
Salem all but flinched back from Ruby, remembering how young the girl was, how she was initially interested in Ruby because she looked so much like her mother. She wasn’t attracted to Summer, she didn’t think, but all the same, it seemed unfair to Ruby. Not to mention how poorly that would reflect on her, to seduce her high school nemesis’s kid. And obviously the age difference wasn’t pretty. She didn’t know Ruby’s age for certain but divide-by-2-and-add-7 doesn’t leave her very close to college age, not without a Masters Program.
She looked back over to her table, miraculously it was still empty. They needed some distance, though Salem was unwilling to abandon their conversation.
“Up.” She encouraged Ruby with a little pull upwards on her midsection. Only because her palm became exposed to cold air in Ruby’s absence did she realise that it had fully splayed across Ruby’s bare thigh somewhere during their conversation. All the better reason to put a bit of space between them. She grabbed both their drinks, keeping her hands occupied lest they wander off on her again. “Come on,” she said, heading to the corner table.
Ruby followed dutifully behind and Salem slipped into the booth side of the table. There was a wire chair on the other side of the table that she thought Ruby would take. Instead Ruby sat directly next to Salem on the booth, looking like she might have gone right back to Salem’s lap if it wasn’t below the table’s edge.
“What were we talking about?” Salem had been so wrapped up in the heated breaths between them that she had lost her place in their conversation.
“Uhm…” and it seemed so had Ruby.
“Weapons. You were originally telling me why you like weapons. Raven had made you a costume.”
“Right. Ninjaknight. So, Karate didn’t work out. It was just too long a road to the one thing I cared about. So I stopped going. Eventually, I got back into just reading fairytales and eventually, I figured out that they had more knight stories in the library. So I started reading everything fantasy. And those are great, but fantasy authors can only do so much with swords and bows. That’s when I started reading reference books. Just pure weapon information.” Ruby absentmindedly sipped on her drink, a fruity concoction she probably couldn’t even taste the alcohol in. “Eventually that branched out into siege machines like catapults. I got really into naval stuff for a while which branched into ships. Then through pirates and cannons, the natural next step was guns.
“So I got really into guns. Not just models and statistics, but parts and construction. I actually started collecting knives and swords in my early teens. When I got really into guns a few years later I wanted to collect those too. My parents weren’t quite as accommodating there. Instead, Papa Qrow took me paintballing. I had a few paintball guns. I got all my family to do it with me eventually but Dad and Mama Raven never really got into it. Mom was really good. She was an angel of death. Raw natural talent. But she didn’t like hunting people so her performance slowly declined. Great at shooting ranges though. Anyways, when I turned 18 I went and got a license for firearms and certification for everything I could think of without actually joining the military.”
“You didn’t want to? It seems like the perfect opportunity for you.”
“Nope,” she said, popping the p just like her parents used to. Somehow it was cute rather than infuriating like it had been on Summer. Perhaps it was always cute and Ruby was just free of her preconceived notions. “As much as I love weapons, I enjoy them more as equipment and feats of engineering than tools. And I’ve never been overly good with structure. I’m a little all over the place,” Ruby laughs. “I’d be a world record on one of those gun-cleaning races in the movies though.”
“Don’t know if those are real sadly.”
“Sadly,” Ruby took another gulp of her drink.
“So is that what you’re in school for? Too, what, make weapons?”
“That’s the hope. I’m in for mechanical engineering, though I might double major in optical to get a second angle on everything. There’s lots of excitement about plasma and magnetics and such though, so electrical engineering might be better there. I’ll need to make the decision in the next few months if I’m going to have the time to do both though.” Ruby’s eyes were foggy, clearly planning as she spoke. Her serious face was odd. She was such an expressive person that the blank look was out of place. Salem wondered what else she would focus on like that.
“Sounds hard.”
“Ah,” Ruby rubbed the back of her neck, her face coming to life again with an embarrassed smile, “It’s not bad.” She looked down at her drink with a thoughtful face. Salem simply watched, unable to bring herself to interrupt. Ruby’s eyes flicked towards her once, twice, before they firmed. “W-what do you do Salem?”
“How rude of me!” Salem laughed at herself. “Here you are laying out your life story and I’m just sat back taking it all in like you’re on the television.” Salem shook her head. “I’ve done a few things. I’m from creative myself, which I presume isn’t too far off from your goal even if the industry is different.” She took Ruby’s measure, trying to guesstimate when Ruby was a child. “I think you’re probably around the right age. Have you heard of Grimm?”
“The plushy monsters?” Ruby asked with excitement.
“Exactly,” Ruby’s excitement was precisely what she was hoping for, and she found herself getting more amped as she told her story. I worked under Godrick O’Dakness when Grimm were first developed and after the first line had been completed and he moved away from the project, he left me in charge of it. I was the lead designer for the second and third wave of Grimm.”
“That’s so cool! I love those plushies, I have like all of them. Oh, wow. Would it be too lame if I like, asked for your autograph.” Salem absolutely preened under the attention. Sure the Grimm weren’t even her most successful venture, but they had been a labor of love. She had drawn many of the initial designs herself and had come up with the concepts behind many others. They were her favorite project even if they only sold for a few years.
“You wouldn’t be the first.” She bit her lip, trying to tamp down on how excited Ruby was making her. “I was once in a movie, you know.”
“What?! What were you?”
“I was a princess. It wasn’t major, mind you, but I had lines. You might even know of it. It was called Sword Hero, one of Ozpin’s first films.”
“Wow! That sounds familiar. He must have talked about it before or something. Let me look it up.” Ruby whipped out her scroll and went to typing.
“You know Ozpin?”
“Uh, yeah,” Ruby said, distracted, “he works with Mom’s charity a lot so they became friends through that. nHe comes over for dinner sometimes.” And somehow that was infuriating.
She had ended her relationship with Ozpin. She had not regretted the decision even a little since they had split almost a decade ago. She did not want Ozpin back. Somehow though, the idea of Summer, a seemingly happily married woman, being friendly with her ex-boyfriend was infuriating. Some silly part of her wanted to scream “What a bitch!” But there was no reason to do so. Logically it was stupid, but emotions so rarely cared about logic.
“Wow.” She looked back to Ruby’s voice and found the girl mesmerized by her scroll. She stared appreciatively for a little while longer before Ruby held the screen up to Salem. “Is that you?! With the blonde hair and the tan?” Salem had to laugh at that. Both because of the stars in Ruby’s eyes, and at the statement itself. She was still quite pale in the film. They initially wanted to use her natural look, but on film, she looked like some spectre, so they had to “tan” her and dye her hair blonde. More yellow blonde rather than her natural platinum blonde to be clear.
“Indeed. It took hours for them to get my skin tone just right with the makeup.”
“They didn’t just have you tan?”
“You think I’m this pale because I want to be? I do not tan in the sun, I mutate into a human-shaped lobster.” They both laughed at that and sipped from their drinks.
“You don’t go to the beach then?” Ruby asked. Why did she sound so disappointed about that? What sorts of thoughts were running through that pretty head.
“Not unless I have someone to really lather me in sunscreen.” She smiled wide when Ruby’s face flushed. Oh, to know the fantasies playing out in her head. Salem’s were all being led in cuffs to the dungeon of bad thoughts to never remember.
“T-that’s tooo bad.” Ruby backed off to Salem’s relief/disappointment. Ruby sipped her drink. “You said you only did Grimm for a few years, right? What did you do after?”
“I got promoted. Godrick got promoted and he, once again, put me in his old position. And again just last year. Currently, I head product development for the Divinity Corporation.”
“Wow. You make the big bucks, huh?” Ruby says, looking dumbstruck. Salem laughs.
“That’s one way to put it. I suppose I’m making my younger self proud.” She smiles wistfully at the thought. It’s easy to overlook things like that when your circumstances change so gradually. She could only dream of having her job when she first entered the industry.
“That musht be nice. I don’t know if I’m really making past-Ruby proud right now.” Ruby takes another sip from her drink, staring down into the almost empty glass. Salem furrows her brow in worry. Here’s another thing she could only dream about when she was young. Something that, if she had dreamed about it, would likely have gone a very different direction. Back in highschool, she would probably have hoped to somehow use Ruby against Summer. But Ruby was darling: a truly endearing girl. Salem couldn’t possibly use her like that, even if it would damage Summer by proxy.
“Why do you say that?”
“I dunno,” Ruby pauses to sigh, “I guess I’m jus’… the same. I wash really hoping that when I got to college I would figure things out. That somehow, magically, I would suddenly know how to be a functional person. That I could prove everyone wrong about me.” Ruby’s head sagged forward. “But I’m not. I’m still just an awkward, shy, kid .” Her breathing shuddered as she completed her list. Her voice whiplashed from mimicking the venomous tones that must have been used against her to restrained sobbing.
Salem was thrown for a loop. The girl had been smiling just seconds ago yet had fallen so swiftly to tears. Her hand half-extended towards the crying girl, but Salem held back. It would be improper, she told herself, to try and physically comfort a near-perfect stranger. Then she thought: fuck that, she has already sat in my lap, the line has been crossed.
“Ruby? Do you- can I touch you?” Salem tilts her head, trying to get a read on Ruby’s expression. The effort is wasted when Ruby slides across the booth seat like it’s greased with shortening and locks her arms around Salem. Her head buries into Salem’s shoulder. She clung to Salem tightly. Salem’s arms hung awkwardly in the air for a moment. Gods, she was bad at this. Hesitantly, they wrapped around Ruby’s shoulders. Ruby stayed there quietly trying and failing to not cry into Salem’s shoulder for a while. Eventually, she got herself under control and pushed herself out of Salem’s awkward embrace. No further than that, however, and their thighs still bumped together occasionally.
“I thought that if would be different. That in a new place, where nobody knows me, I wouldn’ be… a- a freak .” Ruby whispered the last words. Salem wanted to respond somehow, to provide some comfort to her, but she couldn’t find the words. She had been a bully in high school, she knew that now. She knew that she had probably made many girls feel like Ruby was feeling now. She’d gone over version after version of what she would say to those girls over and over again in the quiet minutes before sleep. Here, faced with the next best thing, she couldn’t remember a single word. “Mama was right,” Ruby continued, “I’m just a kid to them. It’s not impresshive or cool to have skipped two years, it’s just annoying. Freak ish.” Ruby took a large gulp of her drink.
“Ruby…” Salem said lamely. Ruby jumped at the sound of her voice, awoken from her troubled mind.
“Ahhaha, ignoreme. That’s waaytoomuch. I don’t even know why I shaid that. Acshully, i’s fine now. I have friens now who talk to me.” Ruby sat up and scanned the bar for her “friends.” They were nowhere to be seen. “O-oh…” Ruby trailed off and slumped down. “Never mind.” Ruby sniffed hard to hold back a fresh wave of tears.
Woof.
“Hey,” Salem put a hand on Ruby’s shoulder, “forget about them. People… people are terrible. Those people especially. I- well, I like you.” She felt a bit silly saying it, but it was true. She’d only known the girl for a short time, but Ruby was quite pleasant. She’d enjoyed their conversation, would even seek it out again if they ran into each other.
“Really?” Ruby blinked up at her with big glittering eyes which seemed to dim the world around them by comparison.
“I do. I think you’re very charming. Definitely the better Rose,” she joked. Not that Ruby had stiff competition.
“I like you too. jYour really nice to me. Anj’our soo pretty.” Ruby’s words slurred and she giggled to herself. Salem’s brow furrowed in concern.
“Are you ok Ruby?” She asked, keeping her hand on Ruby’s shoulder.
“I’m great!… Yang would say that ebvery night wi’h a beautiful woman is a good night. So vis is a very good night.” Ruby giggled again. Salem wondered if Ruby even meant to speak out loud. The drunken slur with which she said it made it sound very sleepy, but the girlish giggle on the end made it feel like a private joke rather than a come-on. If one thing was clear, however, it was that Ruby was on the far side of tipsy.
“How much have you had to drink Ruby?”
“I ‘unno, two? Threee?” Strange. Ruby was a pretty small girl, so it would make sense if her tolerance was a bit low. But her drinks weren’t very large. Hell, Ruby hadn’t even finished this last one, it still had a shallow pool at the bottom. Salem’s eyes unconsciously scan Ruby as she thinks.
“Ruby, haaave you drunk before? Is this your first time drinking?” Salem Asks. Ruby stares at her in silence. Salem can’t quite tell if she’s having trouble processing the question or if she’s not listening at all.
“Are you wearing makeup?” Not listening at all then.
“A little,” Salem replies, “I just got off work.” Meanwhile, Salem is trying to figure out what she should do. She took another look out over the bar just to make sure Ruby’s not-friends were definitely not around to drive her home. They weren’t. Could she just order the girl a taxi or an Uber? And leave her in the hands of a stranger? Yeah, no. Not like she was much better, but she could at least trust her own intentions with the girl even if no one else could.
“These ‘re your work clothes? Jelooouuss.” Ruby’s eyes hungrily crawled along her body. Heat pulsed in Salem’s core in response to the provocative gesture. It went ignored.
Ok, so clearly Ruby’s intentions could not be trusted. But there was little other choice than for Salem to take Ruby home herself. Sooner rather than later.
“Are you ready to go home, Ruby?” Salem couldn’t fathom Ruby needing to stay any longer, but she asked mostly out of habit and just in case the unfathomable had happened.
“Yes, please,” Ruby said with a deepening intonation that Salem took to mean that Ruby thought they were going to go back to hers to shag. Sorry to disappoint , Salem thought.
“Your home,” Salem insisted. Ruby blushed.
“Oh, a’m not sure about that. There’s people home,” Ruby said. Salem cringed. Elucidating was pointless.
“Just give me your address.” Salem took out her phone with one hand, keeping the other on Ruby’s shoulder to help keep her upright.
“Uhhh, Five twenyseven KingdomRoad twosevenfour.”
“Great, thank you.” Salem stood, helped Ruby to her feet, and guided the girl out to her car. The cold night air stung against her skin. Hopefully, it would help to sober Ruby up somewhat. The only place it did not bite was where she and Ruby pressed together, their warmth bleeding into each other and making her all too aware of how Ruby had pressed herself to Salem’s side, every curve of her body moulded to Salem’s skin, trusting herself completely to her guidance and care. Clearly, Salem would have to find someone to fuck because this was just desperate. “Here we are,” she said as they arrived at her car. She helped Ruby into the passenger seat, peeling clingy arms off of her and swatting a wandering hand. If only they could both be drunk and handsy. But no, she has to be sober and responsible tonight. Probably better in the long run to not have that one-night stand, in all sorts of ways.
The drive to Ruby’s home was a quiet one, surprisingly. Ruby had fallen asleep almost immediately and had stayed that way ever since. Only her light snores broke the quiet. It left Salem time to think. The evening was not what she had hoped. Despite that, it had been a good time even with the rocky ending. Ruby was a surprise; that she enjoyed her company, even more of one.
She thought about the past. It was the night for it, apparently. She and Summer’s rivalry had been frankly ridiculous. If they’d been any more level-headed they probably could’ve made good friends. Theoretically, of course. Especially if Ruby was anything to go off of.
For a moment Salem thought about how angry Summer would be if she saw Salem and Ruby talking tonight. She laughed at the image of Summer’s face all screwed up and red with cartoon steam pouring out of her ears. It would almost be worth the tirade she would surely get after.
Salem pulled up to a house in quiet suburbia. Two story, white exterior, a cheery flower garden and a well-kept porch. A tyre swing was wrapped around a large oak out front. The bark of the tree looked like it had been hacked to pieces at about hip height a long time ago. Little decorations from the last holiday still lined the path from the driveway to the porch step. The house looked lived-in, domestic. It was the white-picket-fence life she had always imagined Summer having.
Salem always thought of this life as Summer’s doom. A hell that she would be subject to. But now it looked warm, full of love. It made her feel a little lonely for the first time in a long time. She pushed those feelings aside when she heard Ruby begin to stir. The girl mewled like a kitten and stretched out in the seat.
“We’re here,” Salem said, her voice unexpectedly soft. Ruby blinked sleepily at her. “Do you need some help getting inside?” Ruby silently stared for a little while longer before slowly nodding her head. “Alright.”
Salem climbed out of the car and went over to Ruby’s side. She offered Ruby a hand to steady her as she stood. She began to lead Ruby towards the house, but Ruby didn’t move. She didn’t let go of Salem’s hand.
“Ruby?” Ruby stared at her quietly. Then, in a flash, she pulled a pen from out of nowhere, pulled Salem’s hand towards her and began scribbling on her arm. “Ruby no,” She yelped. As swiftly as she had started, she’d finished. The pen went back into some secret pocket of her dress and Ruby tipped up onto her tiptoes to plant a kiss on Salem’s cheek. By the time Salem had recovered her balance, Ruby was halfway up the driveway. Ruby tripped, fell into a surprisingly competent roll, and scrabbled up the steps on all fours to meet the doorway. It was bewildering, clumsy, and weirdly impressive. She looked back only once as she swung open the screen door and Salem could see the blush making her whole face rosey and alive before she swept into the house and silently shut the door behind her.
Salem stood there, caught between stunned confusion, infatuation, and fluster. She didn’t move for an embarrassingly long time afterwards and once she came back to herself she felt like some silly schoolgirl. She shook it off and looked down on whatever graffiti Ruby had put on her arm.
It was a phone number.
——————————————————————————————————————————
Up in the darkened second-story window of the home, Summer watched the scene unfold. The strange car pull up. Her nemesis step out. Her daughter kissing her nemesis. Her Nemesis watching the door with lovesick puppy eyes. Summer saw it for what it was. Salem had finally found her. And she had just declared WAR.