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Any plans I might have had shatter the moment I walk through my door and realize that Blake's been down here the entire time I've been away. Right, because she wanted to ask about White Fang things, and I put it off last night.

It's nice to see her, though, and there's something nice about the way she perks up a little and waves when she sees me.

"Hey."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I completely forgot you were here this morning." I scratch a spot on my neck, internally scolding myself a little more for my forgetfulness.

"It's fine, Ruby told me that a lot happened between you." Blake smiles knowingly as she reclines against the couch, her eyes twinkling as she watches me.

"Ah, y-yes, many things happened." I valiantly fail to suppress a blush. Ah, now I'm really wishing Ruby were within arm's reach. Goddess could I use someone to cuddle after all that.

"Heh. Anyway, if you don't mind filling me in on any plans for the White Fang?" Blake straightens up, giving me an expectant look.

"Yeah. I'll tell you whatever I can." I nod and sit down across from her, steepling my hands. "Although, actually, now that you mention it, I don't have anything concrete yet, only ideas. I'm going to need some sort of divination or mass surveillance to find them in the first place, which I don't have yet."

"Fair enough, I guess." Blake shrugs, though she still looks disappointed. "But when you find them, what are you going to do with them?"

"That's a rough question. It'd be nice if I could somehow just make them all disband, or take control, but I have no idea how I'd even go about that. I'll probably end up getting Oz involved and just turning them in to Vale's custody. It's not like I have any other way to deal with that many people personally." I sigh. "The local branch of the White Fang probably can't be salvaged after Adam doing his thing for as long as he has."

"Yeah, probably not." Blake acknowledges, looking downcast for a moment before forcibly changing the subject. "How about you? What've you been doing lately?"

My heart immediately drops down into my stomach. "I don't want to talk about it."

"Oh." Blake grimaces, the skin around her eyes crinkling. "I know that look."

"What?"

"I've seen it before. Whenever someone new came back from an operation that was being led by Adam. I didn't catch on right away, but..." Blake's tone is perfectly neutral as she fills in the dots all on her own. "That's the look of someone who just made their first kill."

I flinch away, sucking in a breath between clenched teeth as I try to bury myself in this chair. "It was self defense. But I don't want to talk about it."

"I..." Blake shakes her head, her eyes downcast. "No, sorry, I won't press you. It's making me anxious, but I can deal with that. Do you want me to leave?"

Normally I'd probably say no, but right now old habits of isolation and hyperfocus are gnawing at me to say yes, and at the end of the day I'm not quite close enough to Blake to be comfortable with the idea of letting her see me like this. "Yeah. I just need some space, is all."

"Alright. I'll see you."

Without any further ceremony, Blake gets up and leaves. Shortly after, I get up and trudge into my bed, ready to take some time for myself.

It takes forcing through some choice paralysis, but eventually I manage to immerse myself in reading, right up until my scroll goes off with a text notification.

Ruby: Hey, we got sort of interrupted this morning, so you want to go on a date?

Sil: Yes! Absolutely!

Sil: Where

Ruby: Well, our monthly equipment stipends just came in, so I was thinking of going shopping

Sil: ...for gun parts?

Ruby: and ammo

Sil: Alright, soon?

Ruby: Yeah! I'll send you the address

I can't contain myself. I squee in excitement, clutching my scroll against my chest while on the verge of happy tears.

I'm going on a date! More than that though, this is the first time anyone has ever invited me somewhere to spend time with them! It's almost as if my presence is welcome somewhere!

-----------​

Ruby's address leads me to what I would normally call a hobbyist shop, but is actually too big for it to really feel like one, and is filled with nothing but guns, ammo, and gun parts. Maybe half a Walmart worth of floor space. I wouldn't expect a place like this to be profitable back on earth (or even legal), but I guess in a world infested with big scary monsters of darkness that want to kill you it makes sense for the populace to be even more gung-ho about firearms than the collective state of Texas.

I'm the one who ends up arriving first (definitely not because I left my house the moment I finished texting Ruby because I couldn't contain myself even though I knew I would end up being unreasonably early), so I end up waiting for a bit, just listening to music with Amber in my lap (she didn't want to leave me be, and I made her promise not to interrupt anything gay before we left). It's always relaxing to put on a Rush album and just take the time to listen to it with my undivided attention.

Amber's stirring in and subsequent jumping out of my lap eventually drags me back to reality, just in time to catch Ruby running up to me and pull out my earbuds.

"Hey!" Ruby smiles widely at me and offers me a hand, pulling me to my feet and proceeding to keep holding onto my hand, making butterflies appear in my stomach. Only for her to get nervous the next moment. "It's not weird for our first date to be here, is it? I mean, you don't even seem to want a gun, and it's just a shopping trip I was going to make anyway at some point..."

"Absolutely not!" I deny, roused to passion over her concerns. "It's true that I don't have much interest in guns, but! I believe that girls are at their most amazing when they're passionate, and I'm absolutely delighted by the prospect of listening to you ramble excitedly, even when most of it goes in one ear and out the other! Also, your voice is pretty and I like listening to it."

A short giggle bursts past Ruby's lips as she immediately perks up a little, her free hand coming up to contemplatively pose at her chin. "Wow, you're right. You are even cuter when you're all passionate."

"...a..." I freeze up, my eyes wide and cheeks hot as I stare intently at the floor. This isn't fair, I don't know how to respond to being complimented, especially by girls, and I'm definitely not used to actually feeling when I think about that sort of thing.

"Oh, that expression's really cute too." Ruby teases, her free hand coming to pat my head. "Come on then, let's go shopping! I'll make sure to explain everything to you so you can listen to my voice."

Yee goddess, how is she so good at this? Being pet is relaxing though, and it's easy to go along, following by her side as she confidently leads us to an entire wall that's covered in display boxes with small parts in them.

"So, first I need to get new screws for my baby. I need to replace them every few months, which is actually less than I would if I primarily used more corrosive elemental dusts but I usually prefer gravity dust ammo for the mobility and armor penetration, although lately I've been trying some stuff out with Weiss and she said I should practice with ice dust more..."

Ruby's rambling is adorable and entertaining, bordering on enrapturing. It's so much fun to just listen to her explaining things and gushing about finding good parts on sale, things she wants to try with Crescent Rose, and all the combat nuances that come with her weapon's design, and she's so cute when she's all excited about things. I barely speak a word, only ooh-ing and ahh-ing over particularly nice pieces of machinery, and it's nice to not feel like I particularly need to say anything.

By the time she's done she's accumulated two large reusable bags' worth of heavy metal bits and bobs, both of which she hefts with ease.

"Let me carry those for you." I offer, quickly touching the bags and inventorying them for her, making Ruby blink.

"Oh yeah, I forgot you could do that. Great!" She chirps, immediately using one of her now free hands to grab one of mine in an iron grip and start leading me in another direction. "Let's get lunch next!"

I follow, happy to let her take the lead, though I'm a bit surprised by the mention. "Lunch? It's only lunchtime?"

"Yep!"

"Huh. It's been... a long day." Mostly because of the time dilated or time stopped hours I spent fighting robots. However it is that the dungeon works. "I think the rest of it is looking like it'll be pretty good, though."

Ruby shoots me a contemplative look and slows down a bit, linking her arm with mine as we walk rather than leading me excitedly by the hand. "Do you wanna talk about it?"

"Maybe, but not in public." I squeeze her hand appreciatively as her warmth starts to soak into my arm. "It's nice just being with you. On a date." Ah, just saying it out loud makes me feel a little giddy.

"Alright." Ruby stops walking in the middle of the street, looking around contemplatively before turning to me with a serious expression on her face. "I have no idea what to do now."

"Lunch?" I'm very hungry, even if I did occasionally eat in between all that fighting earlier. "I'll cook us something nice."

"Hmm, you always cook whenever you're with someone though." Ruby answers, giving me a contemplative look.

"I like cooking for people. It's nice, like I'm taking care of them a little." I smile gently at Ruby and squeeze her hand, though she doesn't seem quite convinced. My throat suddenly dry, I end up adding a little more. "It makes me feel useful."

"Oh." Ruby closes her eyes and nods solemnly, squeezing my hand back, only to perk up the next instant. "Alright, let's have lunch!"

-----------​

Lunch is quiet. It seems Ruby and I both have a tendency to focus completely on our food when we eat and not really try to have a conversation, which is neat! Being around her is just so comfortable, even when we aren't talking or cuddling.

We end up snuggled together after, letting lunch digest as I cling to her with my head buried in her shoulder as she strokes my hair. It's relaxing, comfortable, safe, and even as I'm relaxing I can feel some of the things I've been desperately holding back bubbling back up and catching in my throat.

It comes out as an erratic, broken up laugh, bubbling like oil as I tremble with the force of it all. It turns into a choked whine as I breathe back in and bury my head further into Ruby in a futile effort to escape my own thoughts.

"I should be dead. Why couldn't I have just stayed dead?"

"What?" Ruby breathes out the word quietly, uncomprehending.

I cackle humorlessly. I have to, because the alternative would be doing something drastic. "I died to get here. Did I mention that? I think I didn't, did I? I died, picked up my powers by chance or whatever, and here I am among the living, despite my best fucking efforts."

"What best efforts?" Ruby asks tensely as she squeezes me tighter into her side, her hand pressed firmly against my back.

"I killed myself. I think so, anyway. I don't remember the act itself, but it's pretty clear based on the last thing I do remember. I absolutely despise the fact that it didn't stick."

"Sil... I... that..." Ruby starts, stumbling tensley over her own words. I feel her take a long, slow breath and a mirroring exhale that seems to help her collect her thoughts. "But you're here now. And things are better than before, right? I'm here, and the others, and you're not alone. That has to be worth something, so please, whatever else it is, just live, okay?"

Some of the tension leaks out of me, the comfort of Ruby's presence taking its place as I close my eyes. "Okay. If you say so."

I can feel Ruby's furrowed brow as she looks down at me. "Just like that?"

"It's easier to do things if someone I like tells me to. I'm just, uh, kinky like that." I'm glad my face is buried in girl, because I'm definitely blushing right now. "And... uh, I'm not as close to the edge as it might have just sounded like I was. Like, I'm maybe a four out of seven in terms of danger to myself, and honestly that's basically been the norm for the majority of my life so I'm relatively stable, just having a bad day and bad thoughts and I've honestly kind of wanted to get this off my chest for a while."

"Okay." Ruby mutters as she gently strokes my back. "You scared me a little, but I think I get what you're saying."

"Okay." I nuzzle into the crook of Ruby's neck, pressing my lips gratefully against soft skin. "I killed a guy today."

"Uh..." Ruby trails off, looking at me uncertainly.

"Oh, sorry, do you want to not talk about that right now? I have kind of unloaded a lot of my emotional baggage on you already, haven't I?"

"No, actually, now that you've said it I think I need to know or it'll bother me."

"Right. So I can do this thing where I travel to another universe slash pocket universe slash I'm not entirely sure and fight things to get stronger quickly. I ended up in a dead world this time. A world that was deliberately wiped clear of all life by one person, who was the only one left alive. I had to kill him to be able to leave." I sigh and stare up at the ceiling, feeling uncomfortably numb. "It's pretty one-sided, and obviously I don't regret it. But... it worries me."

"I'm lazy. Or maybe not lazy, but I take the easiest path a lot, I give up a lot. I don't have a lot of willpower or much of an attention span. It used to be because I was so tired and depressed all the time, but at this point it's basically a habit. I know this about myself. So... when it comes to killing, I ultimately don't really trust myself. I'm afraid that if I get desensitized I'll end up doing whatever's convenient, or making rash decisions, and things like that. Because I hated him so much. And hate is the kind of thing that I'm used to reserving for myself, not others."

"I don't want to feel satisfied about having killed him because I don't want to make a habit of it. But... it was really satisfying. It still is. I'm glad that he's dead." I groan and cling tighter to Ruby's side. "I'm sort of paranoid about it, I guess."

"That's really sensible." Ruby says, comfortingly running her hand up and down my forearm. "It's good to take that sort of thing seriously, even if it sounds like maybe you're a little too worried about it because of, uh, things."

"Yeah. Thanks for listening. It helps to just sort of put it all together and say it." I stare up at Ruby for a moment, just appreciating how close we are before an idea pops into my head. I throw my arm across her, using the momentum to shift until I'm straddling Ruby's lap, my head at about the same height as hers as I look into her eyes. "So, I don't know if the mood might be kind of ruined or something, but you want to-"

Ruby cuts me off by pulling me in and enthusiastically kissing me. She's soft and warm and her scent is so comforting as she pulls me into her, making me melt into her touch and her lips. Our kisses are slow and exploratory as her hand gently rubs my back, both motions sending shivers down my spine.

My eyelids flutter as I pull back, breathing quickly as I stare into Ruby's shining silver eyes. They're so pretty, so deep, I could just... keep... staring...

"Sil?" Ruby asked, waving a hand in front of my face. "Can you hear me?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah, I was just distracted by how pretty your eyes are." I smile at her, then lean forward and rest my chin on her shoulder, clinging to her tightly as she blushes. She's so comfy.

"Ahhhh..." She squeaks a little, adorably. Then she hums, and her hand comes up to pat my head as she laughs. "Kissing is nice."

"Yep! Especially kissing you, 'cause you're so amazing."

"More?"

"Yes please."

The time before she goes back to Beacon is well spent by doing nothing but kiss and cuddle.

Early in the evening someone knocks at my door. Of course, I'm in the basement when they do, so the only reason I know they're there is the information that's being fed to me by my alarm ward. I put down the latest thing I've been working on and head up, slightly surprised to see Weiss standing on my doorstep, staring into the distance with a slightly blank look.

"Oh, hey Weiss. What's up?" I step back from the threshold, giving her space to come in if she wants.

"You... said that you were available to talk about certain things." She scrunches her face as she dances around the subject, looking anywhere but at me.

"Ah. By all means, come on in." I gesture, and she comes in and makes a beeline for the nearest couch, where she takes a seat, albeit stiffly. "Want some tea? Lemonade? Hot chocolate? Cream soda? Water?"

Weiss sighes, heavily. "Not right now."

I don't really know what to say to that, so I settle down and prepare to wait patiently for Weiss to open up. "Take as much time as you need."

And Weiss does, frowning intensely.

"My father called me today. I didn't answer."

"Ah." I nod. "Cutting off contact is a difficult thing to do. But a wise one."

"Is that so?" Weiss looks at me for the first time since she's arrived, quiet and reserved and uncertain.

"Some people can't be reasoned with. Or at least, aren't worth the time and energy it would take to reason with them." My eyes unfocus as my mind turns to my mother. "Sometimes you just have to cut them off. Because the fact is that they'll never actually respect you for being yourself. Never even so much as acknowledge that you're who you are instead of who they insist you are. No matter how much you wish you could have a family that loves you, and grow up in a place that actually accepted you. Instead she just ignores your demands, and there's no room to let that sort of thing fly, because if you do it'll just end in her making you feel guilty, like she's entitled to you, to the ability to dictate who you are, so you cry, lamenting the childhood you never really had and never will, the love you'll never be able to reach, the peace you'll never have. The longing that will never fade away. The loss of someone who should have cared about you but didn't. And no matter how much you tell yourself you don't care about her and what she says, every shitty things still manages to hurt you when you remember it, every last bit of disrespect hurts and makes you angry at the indignity and pain and abuse that was forced upon you by the circumstances of your birth until you well and truly hate her, and yet it hurts to think about anyway, and it'll always hurt because you did care when you were young, and before it got bad, before you even began to understand what was happening. But the worst part is that it's all being done by someone so self-righteous, so utterly self-obsessed that they think they're doing it for your own good, maybe even that they do in fact care about you, which is why they reach out, try to make good, but they're not even capable of understanding what they're doing to earn your ire, their worldview is just so twisted that they can never get better, the only way to try and stay safe is cut them off with a tourniquet and hope that some day the loss will heal."

I'm lost in a series of old emotions for a moment, unfocused on what's in front of me as I try to stop remembering so many nights that I cried myself to sleep, and the few times I made the mistake of trying to make contact. So much so that I don't know how long it takes for me to notice Weiss has gone as still as an ice sculpture, her eyes glassy.

"Weiss? Are you still with me?" I ask, quickly and quietly shoving down issues that I've already gotten as much closure on as I ever will. The thought that it's impossible that I'll ever see my mother again (seeing as how I'm dead back in the world I came from) helps a lot with that.

"You... are probably right." Weiss has a pained look on her face as she looks around the room. At her side, her hand is clenched in a tight fist.

"Yeah... sorry. I didn't mean to go off like that."

Weiss shakes her head. "It's useful information. In some ways you've described my feelings before I could even identify them."

"Ah. Well, want a hot drink? Tea? Hot chocolate?" I pause, awkwardly. "Those are actually the only kinds of hot drink I keep on hand."

"Hot chocolate." Weiss answers, with the kind of tone and thousand-yard stare that makes me imagine Ruby asking Qrow for a drink from his flask.

I pull the chocolate out of my inventory and set it down on a coaster before her without comment. Then I get up and drape a light blanket over her shoulders. "What kind of ice cream do you like? I've got pecan, dark chocolate cherry, salted caramel, rocky road, vanilla, strawberry, and blackberry."

"Ice cream?" For some reason, Weiss looks up and squints at me, her nose wrinkled like I've said something crazy.

"Well, I know that was accidentally kind of somber, and you're probably a bit torn up, but cutting off a toxic family member is something to celebrate! Worry about consequences or whatever tomorrow, today you deserve all the fucking treats and whatever else you want. I will pamper the shit out of you if you let me."

Weiss blinks at me, no response forthcoming for a moment. She leans forward, pressing her palm against her forehead and sighs heavily. "Why?"

"Because no one should have to deal with this kind of shit in the first place? Because I want an excuse to eat a bunch of ice cream? Because I respect you and I want to help you succeed, which means making sure you're not absurdly stressed? Because I don't really know how to support people through words anywhere near as well as through deeds?" I mime an exaggeratedly ponderous expression and shrug. "Lots of reasons, really."

With a subtle roll of her eyes Weiss shakes her head and uses her free hand to pull the edges of the blanket more firmly around her shoulders. "Fine then. Salted caramel." A slight hint of a smile twitches at the corners of her lips, only to be hidden as she takes a sip of hot chocolate.

"Now then..." I rub my hands together excitedly as I pick up my own mug of hot chocolate. "I've been wondering, what's theatre like in Remnant?"

Weiss inhaled with such suddenness that she immediately went into a small coughing fit, roughly pounding at her chest for a few moments until her throat calmed down.

"Is it really that surprising? I could've been a total theatre kid, if I weren't so naturally inclined towards math and science." I harrumph and pout faux angrily at her for effect.

"I suppose you are eccentric enough." Weiss observes. "And pretty enough, too."

My entire body twitches as I make a confused sound. "Aaaaaaaaaaa?"

Weiss languidly raises an eyebrow as she takes a deliberately loud slurp of hot chocolate. "What?"

"I... uh, am not used to being complimented." Oh wow I hope I'm not blushing right now. "How am I supposed to respond to that? That isn't a rhetorical question, by the way, I'm seriously asking."

"Thanks or a return compliment is generally good enough."

Damnit Weiss there's a smug look aimed my direction and it's really cute and is making my brain go to distracting places so now I'm definitely blushing as I pout and sullenly break off eye contact. "Well you're really pretty too."

"I know." Weiss flips her hair, sending it cascading in a nigh mesmerizing waterfall. "Though I do believe you wanted to know about the theatre?"

"Yes!" I snap at her, glad to finally be on an interesting topic. "I wish to absorb knowledge of the arts hailing from a strange land, so by all means, release your full nerdity upon me!"

What follows is an absolutely fascinating discussion that begins with some classical stories, pivots into a discussion of how the banning of tragedies eventually lead to the policies that incited the Great War, and from there to any old oddity of a world besieged by hostile monsters that I happen to find interesting. It's a lot of fun talking to Weiss, and by the time I serve her dinner she seems to have put her father entirely out of her mind, which I consider to be an absolute win. It's only as she's about to leave that I remember one last thing.

"Oh hey, before you go. Do you want a hug?"

It's another one of tonight's questions that Weiss needs some time to think over, visibly debating with herself over what to say until she finally purses her lips and answers. "Yes."

I don't waste a moment's time as I step forward and wrap my arms around her. It takes her a moment to reciprocate, but once she does it's a tight hug, the kind I'm intimately familiar with thanks to how often I've been getting them myself. The hug of someone who's desperately touch starved.

Eventually though, she seems to decide that she really does need to leave, and reluctantly ends it, even though she still has a look of longing. I pat her shoulder as reassuringly as I know how to. "You know Weiss, you're pretty cool."

Weiss' eye twitches, and I just grin dopily at my terrible pun.

"We should do this again sometime."

For some reason, that instills some kind of tension in her, and she hesitantly looks around before shouting her answer. "Fine!" Then immediately runs away.

You do realize she thinks you just asked her on another date, right?​

What? Date? That wasn't a date at all. It would be pretty shitty of me to make some sort of romantic move on her, considering the circumstances she came to me under and all. Besides, I would have said date if I'd meant date, that just doesn't make any sense.

I mean, just because I really like spending time with her, and learning about the things she likes, and talking to her, and pampering her, and I think she's really pretty doesn't mean that I have ulterior motives.

Oh, oops. I guess I have a crush on her now.

This was probably inevitable, but I wasn't expecting it quite so soon.

Congratulations. Anyway...​

[+50 Reputation with Weiss Schnee(80/100) for being there and helping]

Damn, that's a lot. But, well, that was a pretty significant amount of trust she put in me, and it's not like I could ever betray that or do anything less than my best.

Alone in my home, I smile gently to myself. I feel alright. Today's been... a long, complicated day. But at the end of it I can actually say that I like the way my life is going.

Hey, you still haven't used that skill point yet.​

Oh, right, thanks. Well, one last thing before I go to bed then. I browse through my menus as I get ready looking at what they're doing. It turns out that mastering one kind of magic makes other kinds finally become visible, but only those magics that have the mastered magic as a prerequisite. I can now see that biomancy requires geomancy and hydromancy, and necromancy requires geomancy and biomancy.

Although, there are actually multiple different kinds of magic that those terms could refer to.

Biomancy here is magic that affects living things, healing, changing, and controlling them. Necromancy is death magic, so negative energy, corpse animation, and interacting with spirits.​

Ah, in that case I seriously want both of those. Meaning, it's time to put it in hydromancy.

Shame this means I won't be able to make any Earth, Wind, And Fire jokes.

On the other hand, only the Avatar, master of all four elements, something something, I'm too tired to finish that, even in my own head.

Bedtime for me.