Chapter Text
Forecheck - A defensive play in hockey which is made in the offensive zone in order to recover the puck after losing control without retreating to the defending zone.
Hockey players are a superstitious bunch.
Little things, mostly. Arslan always puts her pads on in a specific order, and only starts the process after a minute of meditation. Cinder always wears a cutproof neckguard, and always has her skates sharpened before a game. Neo always, without fail, will refuse to touch the ice unless she’s first put down a cup of neapolitan from the ice cream shop across the street from Haven’s campus (even for practice). Reese keeps a band of skateboard tape at the top of her stick’s grip and always puts eye black on her cheekbones - but only for games, never for practice. Seriously, you’d think you’d joined a fucking cult, sitting in the Haven Academy locker room before a match.
The line between ‘superstition’, ‘joke’, and ‘preference’ does get a bit blurred sometimes, but really, the kinds of things you see when you learn how to look at people…well, it can be interesting, if nothing else.
Emerald laces her skates, watching out of the corner of her eye as Arslan breathes out, uncrosses her legs, and looks over her pads with unfocused eyes, as if she’s still halfway in a trance. Next to her on the bench is her helmet. It’s bright red, with a white endless knot painted on each temple. A pair of lion’s eyes glare from over the visor. As far as Emerald knows, the girl painted all of it herself.
A voice, both unpleasantly nasal and unpleasantly close, whispers in her ear, “Does she…always do that?” and it’s only by sheer force of will that Emerald stops herself from either flinching away or elbowing her in the teeth.
Instead, Emerald swallows her annoyance and gives a clipped, “Yeap,” in response. Arslan, unawares, fondly brushes her fingers over the endless knot on her helmet before beginning the complex process of layering her gear, starting with her left leg pad. Always her left first, then the right.
Emerald finishes with her skate, moving to tie her next. She doesn’t have any superstitions of her own, of course, but preferences? Oh, she's got plenty of preferences. Like quiet. Like getting ready without someone whining in her ear. Like having time to focus on what's important: winning.
Of course, that isn’t gonna happen today, because for the past week, she’s been stuck with babysitting duty.
Miltia - one of Haven’s newest recruits - curls her lip. She doesn't bother to hide the haughtiness in her voice, as if sounding like a judgemental gossip could only ever be a good thing, “She’s weird.”
But it's definitely not Emerald's fight, and for as much as she wants to call Militia out on her bullshit, she'd sooner blind herself than throw either of them off their game before this match. “Goalies are always weird.”
That gets a huff out of the new girl, followed by a shrug.
Once she’s sure Miltia’s occupied with her own prep work, Emerald looks up, scanning the familiar and not-so-familiar faces. She skips over Neo - already fully dressed save her skates, sitting cross-legged in her pads with her cup of ice cream like they aren’t about to skate out for the first game of the season - and eventually finds Cinder at the locker room’s full-sized mirror, adjusting her neck guard. They aren't mandatory in their league, but Cinder always wears one, even during practice-- but it's hardly a safety thing. Emerald is one of the very few people privy to that scar on her neck she tries so hard to hide, and there’s a limit to what foundation can cover when you’re sweating like a dog.
Emerald just barely manages to catch her eye in the mirror. Cinder raises a single immaculate eyebrow.
They’ve known each other since high school. In fact, she’s the reason Emerald’s here in this damn academy instead of out somewhere earning a packet. A job’s too plain for her, of course, she needs something with some prestige . No, no, she’s gotta go to college, gotta do something in her life that’ll impress people. Evidently, she’s got some connection in some big company somewhere who plans to give her a job, but Cinder needs a degree first, so no one cries ‘nepotism’ over the rookie hire-- but that’s all Emerald knows about Cinder’s little benefactor. She keeps that weirdly close to the chest, even from her and Mercury. But no, if it weren’t for Cinder, Emerald would be out somewhere working for a living, with a nice little flat, all the food she could want, and a TV big enough to blot out the sun. Instead, here she is, not only working her ass off without pay, but paying to work her ass off!
But…well, she wasn’t just gonna get left behind. They’ve been together for so long, since their cliquey high school days… No, they rely on each other. She couldn’t abandon Cinder. Never. It just wouldn’t be right.
So she’d followed her to college, living the life of instant ramen and Hell Weeks. The only reason she isn’t drowning in debt for Cinder’s sake is because of the skates on her feet. Athletic Scholarships: the saving grace of many a would-be dropout. It’s October of their fourth year now. Fourth and final.
On some level, Emerald really hopes Cinder appreciates everything she’s done for her.
But that’s just not who Cinder is. After all, she was supposed to be the one showing Militia the ropes, but nooo , she just pawned that off to Emerald . Just like her literature essays in High School. Just like her foreign language work in college. Just like her volunteer hours for their sorority. Just like with all her little schemes and plans; anything that Cinder thought was ‘beneath her’ ended up in Emerald’s lap.
Keeping control of your emotions is an art, sometimes, and it’s an art that Emerald's had to master over the years. She wants to huff, wants to glare, but she just rolls her eyes at Cinder, as if to say, ‘Yeah, she’s just as bad as I thought. I see why you ditched her,’ without betraying even a hint of annoyance.
Merc says, sometimes, that their relationship is unhealthy.
And honestly, he’s probably not wrong, but what’s she gonna do? Cinder needs her. She’s earned that loyalty-- for better or worse.
She just smiles at Emerald. That smile has gotten them both into and out of more trouble than Emerald cares to remember. A moment later, her eyes are back on herself, toying with her neck guard for another second or two before reaching down to finger at the capital C on her jersey.
Emerald had gotten their last captain kicked off the team to get Cinder that C. It’s amazing what you can do with a bag of weed and a lockpick.
She just shakes her head and goes back to her skate, suppressing the urge to touch the corresponding ‘A’ on her own jersey and ignoring Militia as she starts whining about something or another. From the sound of it, it’s social drama. Emerald doesn’t usually ignore that kinda thing - knowing what’s going on around campus is, like, half her job when it comes to her, Cinder, and Mercury’s little cabal - but she doubts the new girl has anything interesting to say.
Emerald gives her ankles a wiggle, making sure her skates are on tight enough, but not so tight as to hinder her mobility. Perfect as always.
She stands, gives a long, languid stretch, and then goes about collecting the rest of her gear. Warmups will start soon, and whiny new girl or not, she needs to focus up. After all, for all her complaining about being made to work without pay - both on and off the ice - there’s one thing she hates even more than uncompensated effort: Losing.
And if there’s one thing she hates even more than losing, it’s losing to Beacon Academy.
…It’s losing to her.
XXXX
It’s not the NHL.
College-level women’s hockey is a niche sport at best, and Emerald can count the number of teams in the region on her fingers. They don’t get huge, multi-level stadiums, ten-thousand fan crowds, or sponsorship deals from the big gear companies.
They share an arena with the Haven basketball team, and on a typical game, they fill about three quarters of the seats.
But there are some benefits to having such a small league.
The rivalries are hot.
The scarcity of teams lends a certain intimacy to inter-school competition, highlighting and elevating even the smallest of slights into scathing insults, and everyone - the fans, the people who run Haven and Beacon’s social media accounts, the players, the commentators - all work together to fan the flames. It's heated, and no rivalry in this league is quite as heated as this one.
It’s the first game of the season, and it’s a hell of a starter.
For a few of the Haven Cobras, this is their first game ever at this level.
The thing about hockey that sets it apart from a lot of other sports is that it’s fast.
It’s not just about strategy. It’s not just about smart play-calls by coaches. It’s not about which team has the most money or the best gear. It’s not long, drawn-out matches where nothing happens. At the same time, it isn’t some frantic pointfest where each team ends the match with dozens of scores.
No, every goal has the potential to swing a game, but it’s fast.
The only sounds in her helmet are callouts, her coach’s voice, and her own heartbeat.
Fast, fast, fast.
Emerald’s always been the fastest. That’s why she picked up this sport as a kid. Always the fastest, and the ice rink back home gave free gear rentals to the kids from the orphanages. And when you’re the fastest, the smartest, the most aggressive, you win hockey games. Simple as that.
The puck is a black blur on a white sheet as it fires out of a bramble of legs, skates, and sticks in Haven’s back left corner.
Emerald’s always been good with her hands. Fast fingers can be the difference between affording food and juvie when you’re on the streets, and naturally, dexterity comes with that. A single minute of angle is the difference between snatching control of the puck and deflecting it across the ice, right back into the other team’s possession.
And in hockey, it’s decisions you make and actions you take within the span of milliseconds that decide games.
Before the clack of the puck on her stick even has time to echo over the ice, three things happen at once.
One: Emerald kicks one skate back to send herself sprinting down across the ice towards the Beacon goaltender.
Two: The tangle of bodies explode as everyone in a burgundy jersey disengages Haven to chase after, hoping to stop the breakaway.
Three: In the millisecond it takes for Emerald’s eyes to leave the cluster of compacted players, a single silver disk meets her gaze from within the tangle. Anyone else, and Emerald wouldn’t have spared the look even the slightest thought. Really, between the adrenaline and the tangled colors, she probably wouldn’t have been able to tell which of Beacon’s three forwards she’d just locked eyes with-- but there’s no mistaking that perfect sliver of silver. Like a polished coin.
That millisecond makes all the difference in the world.
And all Emerald hears is her own heartbeat and the hiss of her skates on the ice. The third period is ticking down, and they’re two to two. This could be the game. This could be a win. This could set the tone for the season-- and Emerald would be the one to set that tone.
It’s a dead sprint as she narrowly avoids the two Beacon defenders forming the rearguard of the Beacon forecheck, passing between Scarlatina and Valkyrie with only millimeters to spare. She’s ahead of everyone else now. She’s always been the fastest.
She crosses the blue line into the attacking zone, knowing the others can’t be more than a half-meter behind her-
And ahead of her, Pyrrha Nikos. The Invincible Girl, or so she’s called. Best goalie in the league, and that’s being generous. They say she practices by catching arrows for the Beacon archery team.
But it doesn’t matter how good you are on a breakaway. One forward vs one goalie, and it’s anyone’s game. Everyone’s got a weakness, she just needs to find-
Somewhere, miles away, she can hear a hundred voices shouting at her: Shoot! Most of the voices in the crowd, a few of her own teammates. Maybe even her coach. Every one of them.
But they aren’t her. They aren’t down here in these skates. They don’t see what she sees.
That fast, that close, and her thoughts stop really being thoughts.
She sees an opening. The one-hole, blocker-side, right by Nikos’s temple, right by that golden laurel she’s painted on her helmet. Cocky, if you ask Emerald, like she thinks she’s already won.
Emerald doesn’t stop, can’t stop. If she slows even for a single fucking heartbeat she knows what will happen. She knows she doesn’t have the time for a more perfect shot. Why?
Well, because she’s a liar.
She isn’t the fastest. She hasn’t been the fastest for a long time. She had one year of it, one year of being the best at the college level. But it was just one year, then she came up. No, Emerald hasn’t been the fastest since the very first time she played against her, two years ago.
And she knows if she waits for a more perfect opportunity, if she waits even one more second , then she’ll be all over her, and the opportunity will be gone.
So Emerald takes the shot. A high wrist shot into the one-hole, so fast she could've cracked a piece of plexiglass with the puck.
A black blur, streaking through the air like a bullet-- hits Nikos’s blocker, moving so fast that, for a second, Emerald genuinely wonders if the rumors of magnetic pucks and pads are true.
But hockey is a game all about speed-- speed, and endurance. Persistence.
So if that didn’t break Nikos, she just needs to recover the puck and do it again. Again and again and again until she fucks up. She just needs to recover the-
A red streak blitzes past her, so fast Emerald could’ve blinked and missed her.
And then she realizes what just happened.
By the time she has, the puck’s already been scooped up, the goal circumvented, and then Ruby Rose has streaked past her again, back towards the Haven defending zone.
And in the moment she flashes past, Emerald sees--
Sparkling silver eyes, sweat glittering on her skin, and a pink tongue stuck out behind her face guard.
And then she’s gone, so fast Emerald could’ve fooled herself into thinking she’d imagined it.
She could never have faked the snarl that rips through her throat a moment later, and then she’s chasing the rabbit.
The thing about hockey is that it’s lightning quick.
And when everything is speed, heat, milliseconds, the only part of your brain that can think clearly is sympathetic. It’s fight or flight. It’s fight and flight.
Blood is hot, skin is hot, and the feelings, the sensations, are even hotter.
And it isn’t just Emerald.
There’s certain stereotypes about hockey. Beyond that, there are certain stereotypes about women’s hockey.
It took them literally years to convince the board to allow the same level of contact in women’s hockey as in men’s. Some girls are more eager to make use of that change than others.
And, of course, the fact that it’s Beacon? Oh, it’s practically a grudge match.
They’re a fancy-schmancy private school. Not quite Ivy League, but it’s a full on uniform-mandatory type place with more money than some small countries and academic standards so extreme they only really attract masochists and rich kids. Against that, Haven Academy looks like a community college. Everyone hates them. Well, everyone with sense hates them. Seriously, being a Beacon fan is like rooting for the preppy asshole bad guys in a sports drama.
Hockey is a hot-blooded sport, and hockey rivalries are hot-blooded things.
Ruby Rose is Beacon’s star center - and team captain on top of it, the youngest in the school’s history - and she makes good on her position, firing down the center of the rink, right at Arslan, and right between Cinder and Melanie, who had been scrambling to stay with the play after Emerald’s breakaway. Those powerful legs kick against the ice, smooth but with force, and for a single very frustrating millisecond, Emerald can’t help but stare. But it’s only a millisecond, because if she can see Ruby’s ass, that means they’re about to lose--
Reese and Miltia both throw themselves into her way, desperate to keep her away from Arslan, and for the life of her, Emerald knows she can’t skate fast enough to help. She gives it everything she has, but the most she can do now is grit her teeth so hard they threaten to crack in her mouth. She has to trust Reese and Miltia, has to trust that they can stop the play, has to trust that they can turn this around.
Against everything, they’re fast enough to get in Ruby’s way, and Emerald almost cheers. Anything but that. Anything but letting her get another goal. Anything but losing to her. Anyone but her.
But of course, Ruby isn't alone, and unlike Haven, Beacon never has to rely on lucky breakaways to score..
Ruby’s right winger, Ruby’s right hand, and Ruby’s alternate captain all in one had leapt off the bench at some point in the last thirty seconds for a partial line change, and she weaves through Cinder and Melanie less like a hockey player and more like a figure skater.
Weiss Schnee - yes, that Weiss Schnee - had grown up doing delicate, dainty, ladylike things like figure skating, singing, and ballet. While it’s just a rumor, they say she joined Beacon’s hockey team just to spite her dad.
Emerald has no idea how true that is, but if it’s true, she must really fucking hate the guy, because she plays like a wildcat, and with how often she’s in the middle of a mess, it’s a miracle she still has all her front teeth. Not that it's by her own merit, though. She's built like a pretty little porcelain doll. The only reason no one's shattered her yet is because of her bodyguard.
Emerald calls out the second she notices the brat, because the only thing she wants less than to lose to Ruby Rose again is to lose to Weiss Schnee, but neither of the Haven defenders listen, neither of them move to intercept the pass Emerald knows is about to happen. Then, Schnee’s in position, and the two Haven defenders only have eyes for Ruby.
They must be telepathic, because without so much as a shout, Ruby smoothly spoons the puck into her blind spot to the right, where Schnee is waiting to receive it with a clack.
Speed and skill, though, can only compensate for so much. Despite everything, Weiss Schnee is a small thing. In their skates, she only just comes up to Emerald’s nose. While hockey is a sport predicated on speed, size does matter, because things get physical. It’s really hard to shoot a puck when you're facedown on the ice-- and hey, they finally got the rules changed. May as well use them.
Reese sees the pass, reacts to it. She’s too slow to intercept the puck (which she would have been able to do if she’d just fucking listened to Emerald’s callout) but she guns it for Schnee. No one can dodge and weave around the ice like Schnee, no one can see the gaps in a defensive formation like Schnee, but she can’t do anything if her skates are over her head, and Reese is like a missile on the ice.
But that knife cuts both ways.
Before Reese can get within spitting distance of the tiny girl, she’s trucked into the boards by the second half of Beacon’s partial line change- Yang Xiao Long, Beacon’s beast of an enforcer, and the left winger to Weiss’s right.
“Not today, sweetheart!” She jeers over the banging crash of the boards rocking in their housings, not even having the common courtesy to pretend she’s winded after delivering that hit as Schnee skims by Reese’s prone form, entirely unimpeded. Ruby takes the position opposite her in the left lane, splitting Arslan’s attention. The shot could come from Schnee on the right, or she could snap a pass to Ruby on the left. Arslan is a great goalie, but her attention is divided, and it's a rock and a hard place. This could be the game. This could be a loss. They could lose. Emerald could lose. She could lose to Ruby again-
She pushes herself harder, faster, faster. Just another moment. The distraction at the boards had been all Emerald needed to get back in the fight, she's so close she can see the sweat on Ruby's nose, see the flash of her teeth as she grins. Just one more-
A shrill whistle pierces the air.
“Beacon Number 15, two minutes for boarding!”
Hockey is lightning fast, and sometimes your mouth runs faster than your brain.
“Board- Oh, fuck you, that was clean!” Xiao Long shouts on reflex at the ref, skidding to a stop in front of her arms wide apart.
Emerald slows herself much more gradually, watching the show and trying to calm her still-racing heart as she glides down the ice on still skates, panting for breath.
“I get another comment like that, and you're off the ice,” is the ref’s surprisingly level-headed response considering the five inches Xiao Long has on her.
She opens her mouth again, and Emerald doesn't even bother to hide how much she's loving the sight of the mouthy blonde biting her tongue. Eventually, she just scoffs and kicks off the ice towards the penalty box. “Whatever. Anyone needs me, I'll be in my office,” she calls back over her shoulder with a wave.
Emerald huffs a laugh. ‘Her office’ is right; girl plays dirtier than a hooker on Valentine’s, especially against Haven. Sometimes it seems like she spends more time on the penalty bench than her own team’s, and there’s a rumor going around that their coach put her in the left lane precisely so she’d be closer to the box. Serves her right, the cocky--
A shoulder bumps her own, and a soft voice chirps in her ear, “That was a fun little race.” It's rough and breathy, and the sound sends a shiver down Emerald’s spine, “You almost made me break a sweat!”
She curls a lip and shoves her shoulder right back, refusing to turn and look at the other woman, “Fuck off, I woulda run you over if you hadn't ditched the puck to your little princess.”
She laughs brightly, her breath already even and steadying, and if she’d noticed the bitterness in Emerald's voice, she's deliberately pretending she didn't, “It's a team sport, Em.”
No, wait, she’s getting pissed. Ruby’s trying to get into her head, that's it. Throw her off her game. That’s what this is! Her and her fucking mind games-- No, Emerald won't give her the satisfaction of a response. Instead, she scoffs and kicks forward, away from her and towards the Haven bench. She can’t get in Emerald’s head if Emerald refuses to talk to her.
Only for a stick to cross in front of Emerald’s right ankle, hooking one foot and giving it a playful tug, “Maybe if you guys figured that out, you might be able to win a game or two. Ya know, sometimes.”
Hot blood, hot cheeks, hot ears, and Emerald's temper gets the better of her. She knows better, but she whirls on the other woman, shoving at her with the handle of her own stick. “Keep that stick to yourself!” she spits, her lip curled up, showing her teeth from behind her faceguard.
But looking had been a mistake. Ruby's smiling this cheeky little smile, and those silver eyes are sparkling with amusement behind her visor. Between those eyes is a single lock of red-dyed black hair that'd shaken free of her helmet, glued to the side of her nose by the sweat shining on her face. She laughs again, but softer, and then pushes off the ice away from Emerald, commenting quietly as she glides away, “That's not what you said last time.”
A hot flush creeps up her neck, and it only makes her angrier--
Sometimes, it’s not always the game that makes her mouth run faster than her brain. “Bite me!” she barks at Ruby's back as she skates away.
She realizes her mistake the moment it leaves her mouth. Ruby looks back over her shoulder, her smile much more smug, “Oh, that, on the other hand…”
Mind games. That’s what this is. Mind games. Always Ruby and her fucking mind games!
And it’s working.
Emerald curls a lip and squeezes her stick so hard the composite creaks. She fucking hates losing.
And with Ruby? She always seems to be losing.
With an explosive huff, Emerald kicks away and makes for the Haven bench as their coach swaps the line. Still fuming, she finds a seat next to Neo, who’s leaning back with both arms up on the bench, idly licking her teeth and eying the Beacon girls as they skate towards the face-off circle for the start of the next play. The fact that she’s acting so relaxed immediately pisses Emerald off, and she snaps, “You could at least pretend to care.”
Her heterochromatic eyes slide over to Emerald for a second, then she rolls her eyes. With her hands - bare of her gloves - she signs, “Get bent.”
Emerald scoffs, then falls heavily onto the bench, groping for her water bottle and still seething, staring at that smug little redhead as she calmly skates back to her own bench, stick thrown over one shoulder. Still glaring, she grinds out, “Game’s not over yet.”
A hand smacks her shoulder, and she turns back to Neo. The other girl tosses her ever-present tablet onto the bench, glad to be free of her text-to-speech software for a moment, signing, “I wish you two’d stop flirting and just fuck already. It's getting ridiculous.”
Emerald recoils backwards like she’s been hit, “You’re so nasty, piss off.”
She rolls her eyes again, exaggerating the gesture even harder, and her hands move through the now-familiar motions quickly, “You’re the one eye-fucking her in the middle of a game, but I'm the nasty one?” For a second, her hands still, and then something flashes in her eyes. She puts on a cheshire grin, leaning forward like she’s in on some secret as she signs, “Everyone can feel the tension, Em!”
Emerald curls her lip, but there’s no way in hell she’s entertaining this conversation out loud on the bench in the middle of their whole team. ASL had been what Cinder picked for her mandatory foreign language, and she’d chosen an online course specifically so that Emerald could do it for her. She signs much slower and less fluidly than Neo, but she knows the words and letters well enough. It’s convenient, sometimes, having a way to talk that no one else understands. The fact that Neo is the only other person on their team who knows ASL is a bit of a blessing in disguise, too. They’ve gotten pretty close over the years, and - ironically enough - Neo is the only person Emerald trusts to keep her mouth shut about secrets. Being able to communicate like this keeps things nice and private.
Doesn't stop her from being a little shit though. Emerald shakes her own gloves off and signs out, “You’re such a skank. Get your head out of the gutter, not everything is about sex.”
Neo raises a single eyebrow, obviously not impressed by Emerald’s counterargument. Somewhere, there’s a furious clamor as both teams fight over the puck in the face-off that starts the next play. On some level, Emerald feels an itch to turn and watch, but she can’t let go of this, not right now. ‘Flirting’, gods!
Neo just shrugs, holding up both hands with it, then signs, “Nope, not everything.”
What the fuck does that even mean?
Somehow, it just makes Emerald more angry, so she turns and watches the game. Hopefully they can make something of this power play. Hopefully they can get at least one more goal this period. Hopefully they’ll win this game, send the haughty Beacon players home crying, and then-
She tries to focus on the now. She’ll be back on the ice soon. It’s the waiting that frustrates her the most. Neo smacks her shoulder a few more times - she obviously has more to say - but Emerald doesn’t want to hear it. Not now. She needs to focus.
She can't let Ruby win. Not again.
XXXX
Sixty seconds.
Overtime.
Three on three, plus one goaltender on each side.
First goal takes the match.
One five minute overtime period, and there’s sixty seconds left.
And each team has their best skaters on the ice.
On the Haven side: Emerald Sustrai, Cinder Fall, and Neopolitan - who refuses to wear her legal name on her jersey.
On the Beacon side: Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, and Coco Adel.
Adel is prissy, but she’s an all-around great player. Emerald would’ve been more worried had Xiao Long been on the ice thanks to her uncanny ability to put herself squarely in the way of anything Haven might try to do, but Neo managed to do what she does best. She got under the blonde's skin and goaded her into throwing down her gloves in the last few minutes of regulation play.
It was a dumbass move on Xiao Long’s part, and Ruby looked about ready to throw a stick at her for it, but that referee whistle had sounded like wedding bells to Emerald. They hadn't managed to eek out a goal with the power play (Beacon’s always put the ‘kill’ in ‘penalty kill’), but the Beacon coach has kept the blonde on the bench ever since.
It's a small advantage, but Emerald will take it. She needs to win. For her goddamn pride, she needs to win this game. They haven’t played against each other since the end of last season, it’s the first game of her final season in college play, and she needs to set the tone. She’s only got one more year in this league, and she has to win today. She just has to.
Ice turns to snow as she twists her body, braking hard against her momentum and kicking off the ice an eighth-second after Ruby does, chasing after her and the puck into the left corner of the Haven defending zone. She knows somewhere behind her, Schnee and Neo are dancing around Arslan’s glove side; Schnee hoping to receive a pass from Ruby, Neo hoping to intercept that same pass or, failing that, block Schnee’s shot on goal.
But Ruby’s diving toward the boards. There’s no shot here, the Haven defenders have Beacon’s attackers locked down, and there’s no shot. Emerald knows that. Emerald knows that Ruby knows that. Everything is a blur around them, fire and sound and hot blood, and Emerald’s mind is moving so fast she barely even hears her own thoughts. She knows that even Ruby can’t do anything with this, and Ruby knows that Emerald knows that, and Emerald knows that Ruby knows that Emerald knows that. Knowing all of that, what will she do? What will she do? What will she do?!
But it’s more than just knowing her options. Emerald knows how she thinks.
Emerald’s chasing her into the Haven left corner, trying to get her stick around Ruby’s legs to knock the puck out of her possession. They’re so close - practically front to back - that Emerald can smell her sweat.
The thought is really distracting for a second.
But the fact that it distracts her makes her so fucking angry that--
She sees Ruby shift her weight. Just a touch, just a hair, just a twitch.
And she knows how she fucking thinks.
Ruby has three choices: either gotta dive the boards and skate back behind the goal, hope to attack Arslan as she swings around the right side of the goal; dump the puck down the boards and hope Schnee is there to pick it up again, and just pray that this time they can get through Haven’s defense; shift left, loop around in a circle back out of the Haven defending zone, draw all the defenders and attackers back in to the neutral zone to give it another, fresh attempt.
Emerald needs to make a read on what she’ll do right now. Right now.
Ruby won’t dump the puck, and she definitely won't retreat. She’s going to jink right and try to loop behind Arslan.
So instead of staying at Ruby’s back as they hit the boards, Emerald instead makes a stupid, reckless play on pure instinct- and she throws herself into the boards on Ruby’s right, so hard the boards boom, and when Ruby makes her sharp turn into the boards’ curve, she finds herself visor-to-visor with Emerald.
In the moment before they collide, those silver eyes widen with shocked surprise, and, oh, it’s a fucking delicious sensation. Shock looks so lovely on that pretty pink face of hers.
And then Ruby’s body slams into hers, and they end up tangled together with the puck somewhere between them in a hurricane of skates and sticks and legs and arms. It’s a miracle they don’t spill onto the ice.
They fight for it, a flurry of shoves and swipes and half-spaced checks as they wrestle over the little black puck between them, and Emerald might do this. She might strip the puck from Ruby and they might still fucking win.
Fifty seconds.
And even then, even through the pounding of her heart and the sounds of their sticks clacking together, the high of finally getting one over on her goes to Emerald’s head, and her voice is rough and heavy in her throat, “What, run out of cute little comments?”
Even there, in the tangle and the fight, even with the white-hot blood between them, Ruby has the fucking audacity to smile. Her voice is no less strained, but she chirps, “Aw, you think I’m cute?”
Emerald scoops the puck up, and Ruby’s stick crosses her own, but it’s just enough room to wrist the puck to her left and out of the tangle-
And right into Adel’s stick.
“Fuck me!” Emerald barks, kicking away from Ruby hard, already cursing and spitting and shaking because she’d let Ruby get into her head again and she stopped paying attention to everyone else and she fucked up their one chance to swing this game and it’s gonna go to a fucking shootout-
Ruby breezes past her, laughing at Emerald. She titters like a bird, as if they aren’t in the last minute of the overtime period of the first rivalry game of the season, and she quips, “Only if you ask nicely.”
Emerald almost throws her stick at her head.
And the only reason her temper doesn’t send her right into the penalty box is because, behind Ruby, she watches Cinder dive Adel, her stick out like she’s going for the puck.
Adel is a great skater, and her puck handling is better than anyone on either team. She pulls the puck to her left, out of the reach of Cinder’s stick-
But Cinder hadn’t been going for the puck.
Feigning a steal, she instead slips her stick between Adel’s skates and makes a show of body-checking her. From behind, the ref just sees a clean check.
From Emerald’s perspective, she sees Cinder raise her stick and hook Adel’s right ankle, tripping her as she tries to turn away. Only then does Cinder make contact. It’s a dirty play, and one that would’ve cost Adel any number of injuries if she’d been just a little less lucky.
As it is, Adel is sent sprawling across the ice like she’d been trucked by someone twice Cinder’s size, landing very hard on her right shoulder, and Cinder scoops up the puck and makes a dash for the Beacon goaltender.
It’s hardly the first time she’s seen Cinder make a play like that. It’s gotten Haven a few wins. It’s cost some opponents a few seasons.
From the crowd, an outraged cry rises up from the minority of Beacon fans who made the one-hour drive to attend the away game, but the ref doesn’t call the penalty, so it didn’t happen.
For a second, Emerald bites her tongue. She can’t lose. She can’t fucking lose, but it makes her feel dirty.
It makes her feel dirty, but she can’t take back the dirty play, and she can’t lose. Not against Ruby.
So she kicks off the ice. It’s a race to the other side for Cinder’s breakaway. Ruby will be chasing close-- so, so close. Emerald’s always been slower than her, always been second fastest. She needs to beat her this time, anyway, needs to be first to the other side of the rink, and right now, that means beating Ruby in a race. A stupid thought, she’d sooner out-swim a shark or out-fly a hawk than out-skate Ruby, but who would she be if she didn’t try?
It’s about a fifty meter dash, and she needs to make it, to catch up to Cinder, because at the end of the race is Pyrrha Nikos. They’ll both need to be there. Any one shooter can’t get past her, but with two? Maybe she can divide the Invincible Girl’s attention, or maybe she and Cinder can pass the puck back and forth to keep her guessing, or maybe they can juke her out and Emerald can-
It doesn’t matter. She needs to be there. She needs to beat Ruby there. She needs to win.
So she skates.
She sprints, as fast as she can- no, faster. Faster than she can. So fast she might actually stand a chance to beat Ruby. So fast she might actually win.
Her heart is roaring in her ears, pounding like a drum inside her head, so loud it rattles in her skull. Her thighs burn like her quads have caught fire, her head pounds for want of the oxygen she’s burning in her muscles, and a thick layer of sweat slicks the inside of her pads. The frigid air scores her hot skin, leaving what she's sure must be visible steam behind her as she races forward.
It’s only once she crosses into the Beacon defending zone, shoulder to shoulder with Cinder, that she realizes what she’s done.
She did it.
She beat Ruby across the ice.
She’s the fastest!
She-
No, she can’t let her get into her head, not now.
Now, she needs to focus.
Twenty seconds.
Cinder glances at her.
And Emerald listens.
She kicks off to the left, with Cinder kicking off to the right.
Each in opposing lanes, Nikos pivots her body towards Cinder, lowering herself in the goal, ready to launch herself in any direction to stop the shot, razor-focused on Cinder but casting a single green-eyed glance towards Emerald as if to say ‘I’ve got my eye on you, too’.
But then her eyes slide back to Cinder, and Emerald sees it.
And even sucking for air, Emerald’s breath catches in her throat.
It’s an error.
Nikos is focused on Cinder, entirely. She’s turned too far towards her, and Emerald isn’t in her cone of vision anymore. Nikos is betting on her ability to react to a pass. If Cinder passes the puck to Emerald, and Emerald is ready with a loaded slapshot, she can put the puck into the net without Nikos having time to react, acquire Emerald, and block her shot.
They can win!
For one single moment, Emerald wonders where Ruby is. She’d won the race, but there’s no way she left Ruby behind by this much. Where is she?
But that doesn’t matter right now. It doesn’t. No, now, she needs to win. Everything else is secondary. She can hear the modest crowd roaring, and she's already envisioning that succulent look of defeat in Ruby’s eyes. She needs this. She fucking needs this. And all Cinder needs to do is pass the puck to her.
Cinder knows what it means to play against Nikos too, of course. She knows a direct assault won’t work. She sees Nikos’s mistake. She knows. She’s smart. She wants to win. They’ve done this maneuver hundreds of times in practice. She’ll-
She’s skating forward. Emerald slides to a stop, raising her stick, ready- so, so fucking ready-
She’s in position.
They can win.
And Cinder just keeps skating forward.
Is she-
No.
Shit.
Emerald drops her stick, clacking it twice, loudly, against the ice. The universal call of ‘Me, damnit, fuck, I’m open!’
Cinder’s lips are drawn back, and she brings back her stick.
She’s going to try and shoot the puck herself.
That is NOT going to work! Emerald’s in position, Nikos is distracted, this is their in! They can win this! But Cinder needs to fucking-
She’s going to-
Fuck!
“Cinder!” Emerald barks, and clacks her stick again, not caring if it keys Nikos off to what they’re going to do because they might still have a chance- “Here!”
But Cinder doesn’t even glance at her.
She shoots the puck herself.
It’s a shot like a bullet from a gun, an arrow from a bow.
Nikos kicks out a leg, takes the puck on her pad, and faster than lightning, sticks it down the rink towards Schnee, who scoops it up.
Then the buzzer goes off.
The score is two to two, and they’re going to a shootout.
“Fuck!” Emerald shouts, “Fuck!”
She kicks off the ice, sending herself spinning, and it’s all she can do not to swing her stick into the boards as she realizes they wasted their chance to swing the game all because Cinder needed to be the one to score, needed to be the one to win, needed to be the one to have all the glory, needed to-
And as she skates past Emerald, some part of Emerald expects an apology. Expects an admission of fault. Expects her to acknowledge the fact that Emerald has been playing her fucking heart out to try and win them this game, expects to hear her acknowledge that Emerald did everything she could, that it was her effort that stripped the puck from Ruby, that Cinder cocked up their breakaway, that she knows she should have passed the puck to Emerald so they - together - could have scored the game-winning goal.
Instead, as Cinder skates past her, she hisses, “You shouldn’t have distracted me.”
And then she’s gone.
And with her, Emerald’s fire.
She drops her shoulders, and she isn’t even angry anymore.
She just skates back to the bench.
On the way, she looks back towards the Beacon defending zone, and she realizes that Ruby had stopped to make sure Adel was okay after her fall. That’s why Emerald won their race, of course. She won for the only reason she’d ever be able to beat Ruby: Ruby hadn’t been competing.
XXXX
The coach picked her in the top three for the shootout. Emerald went first. She’d tried to make up for their cockup earlier, tried to score Haven a goal. She’d tried every trick she knew to juke Nikos out, every trick she knew to get around her guard. Nikos had caught the puck in her glove.
Then, of course, Beacon’s coach (The Gunmetal Bitch herself, Glynda Goodwich) had sent up Ruby Rose as her first pick for the shootout.
Forgoing any fancy moves or complex shots, she had simply and directly skated towards Arslan with all the athletic tension of a middle-aged dad teaching his kids to skate on a Sunday, feinted a shot to the left, and sent a high wrist shot into the two-hole, winning Beacon the game.
The locker room had been quiet. Coach had spoken up to remind everyone that they were reviewing tapes on Monday.
Emerald put up her kit brusquely, and the whole while, she didn’t look at Cinder. Cinder didn’t say anything to her.
XXXX
Hockey players are a superstitious bunch.
And so, when Miltia asked her why she was just sitting on the bench in the locker room after the game, she just accepted Emerald’s answer of, “I’m always the last to leave.”
And that was that.
Everyone filed out.
One after another. Cinder left in a huff, never looking back at Emerald. Mercury - who had been sitting in the crowd watching the game - knew not to wait for her. Neo squeezed her shoulder, knowing that losing to Beacon always pisses her off. A few of the new girls made comforting comments to Arslan (not knowing that the girl was far too collected to be overly bothered by a loss, and far too self-aware to believe it to have been her fault).
Eventually, Emerald was alone in the locker room.
The whole time, through the whole process of waiting, she swallowed everything.
The frustration. The anger. The bruised pride. The hate. The constant fucking feeling of--
She’d swallowed it. Sitting on the bench in silence, having peeled off of her jersey, her pads, her skates, and her kit. She sat there in her fucking shorts and tank, feeling the sweat drying on her skin, silently seething in repressed resentment but not betraying anything but a cool indifference to her team.
And eventually, they were all gone. Every one of them, gone home in their cars and trucks and bikes. Finally, Emerald’s alone. Cinder never even glanced at her.
And so Emerald stands up, grabs her bag, and she leaves.
An empty parking lot late at night is a very special place. Uniquely lonely, intimate, and vulnerable. You could say anything you want, in a parking lot at midnight, and no one would hear you. In high school, her, Merc, and Cinder used to hang out in places like this. Cinder learned every single one of her secrets in places like these. Mercury, too, but at least Merc treated those secrets with some respect. Sometimes.
It’s numb. That’s the feeling. Numb. Those words echo in her ears. ‘You shouldn’t have distracted me.’
Like it was Emerald’s fault. Like she was the one who threw the game. Like it never could have been Cinder’s fault. Like the only reason Cinder would ever fail is if there was someone else who had made her fail.
The parking lot of the Leo Arena is dead silent in the middle of the night, like a corpse. The bronze statue of the djinn woman that is Haven’s unofficial mascot stands, lonely, in front of the arena. She’s Emerald’s only company as she makes her way towards where she parked her car.
But Emerald is still wired. Still filled with a bitter, frustrated energy.
Her phone buzzes in her pocket. The blue light burns her eyes after so many hours away from screens. The text is from a phone number with no contact name, and it's just a single word. ‘Again?’
Above it is a chain of similar messages stretching back two years.
And in her head, she knows it’s a forty-five minute drive to the next town over, and that’s after she swings by her own place. She’ll be there no earlier than eleven o’clock at night.
But she’s got no other choice.
She lost. That means it's her drive.
She knows where she’s gotta go. The option of simply not going doesn't even cross her mind.
Some part of her wishes it made her angry.
It doesn't. She knows she’s looking forward to it. A part of her is angry about that.
She types her answer with a few quick taps, then pockets her phone and thumbs her keyfob to unlock the door of her little second-hand green sedan. She opens the driver-side door, tosses her bag across into the passenger seat, then clambers into the driver’s seat. Shutting the door and cranking the car is second nature, as is reaching under her seat to palm around for her .38, making sure no one broke in and stole it. She never leaves home without it, but obviously can't bring it inside the arena or anywhere on campus. She hates leaving it in the car, but what's a girl to do?
Nope, still there. She leans back up, buckles in, and puts the car in drive.
She goes home first. Has a quick shower, blow-dries her hair, then pulls on a pair of jeans and a loose hoodie. Something comfy, but with a hood big enough to hide her face. She takes a moment to dump a packet of electrolyte powder into a bottle of water, idly flicking through her social media feed as it dissolves. The Twitter mill’s already churning out posts about the game. Badmouthing. Bickering. Elevating their own players on pedestals. Someone's already edited together a little hype video of Ruby's performance, featuring both her first period goal and her game-winning score during the shootout.
Emerald scoffs and closes the app. She doesn't have the patience to bear it right now. Instead, she gives her water bottle another shake, then leaves her kitchen.
Like that, she walks out of her apartment and to her car. Forty-five minutes west of the town of Mistral, and she’ll cross the border into Vale.
She’s got a score to settle.
XXXX
College towns tend to be hubs for local tourism. For reasons that are honestly beyond Emerald’s ken, college sports are lightning rods for the upper-middle class, and tons of late forties and early fifties weirdos flock to universities, usually during football season. They're mostly made up of alumni who for whatever reason have a sense of fond loyalty for the school of their youth.
That's another thing that just baffles Emerald. Come on, loyalty to a university? One of the most openly price-gouged, shamelessly elitist rackets on the planet? Nah, to her, the idea of having loyalty to a college is like a cow having loyalty to their favorite milking machine, or a fly being loyal to their favorite peanut-butter-scented glue trap. Loyalty to her team is one thing, but the university itself? Fuck that.
Still, all the weird rich old people are good for one thing, at least. They sure love walking the busy main street alongside campus with their fat wallets and fancy watches practically falling off of them.
Not that Emerald’s still a pick-pocket. She doesn't need to steal to eat any more.
But hey, it's always nice to keep the old skills sharp.
And if it means she can splurge a little at some old bastard’s expense? Well, that's just serendipity, right?
Ah well, Emerald's mind usually tends to drift on these drives. Being a hub of tourism, the city of Mistral is surrounded mostly by suburbs, then countryside, then a drive over a bridge spanning a river, and then she's in Vale.
These dark country roads have a way of sending her mind wandering, and tonight, there are very few places for it to wander aside from pessimistic frustration about the injustice of modern financial institutions and more…personal things.
Cinder, mostly. The road rolls away under her car. They’ve known each other since they were teenagers, and Cinder’s done so much for her over the years, even aside from the day they met, aside from everything that happened that day. Even so, especially after today and that mess on the ice, she can’t help but wonder if she even really likes the woman.
Just thinking that makes her cringe. It feels…disloyal, somehow. Wrong. Like she should like Cinder, like she’s supposed to, and if she doesn’t, then that’s Emerald’s fault, not Cinder’s.
She’s smart enough to recognize the thought as unhealthy, but what’s she supposed to do about it from there?
Her mind drifts to the rest of her little social circle. Mercury, chiefly. They’ve been friends almost as long as she’s known Cinder. He’s chill, and Emerald does like him at the very least. Well, most of the time, anyway. Though, sometimes…
But he’s her closest friend. Unlike Cinder, she does think there’s honest friendship there. Even so, it does sometimes feel like the glue holding the three of them together is less ‘friendship’, and more the simple fact that they’ve been together for so long, and listening to Cinder is the status quo. Sunk-Cost-Fallacy: The Friendship.
Emerald frowns, sparing one hand from the steering wheel to wipe away a lock of hair that’s drifted onto her cheek. Cinder Fall, Mercury Black, and Emerald Sustrai. For a second, she imagines the three of them all making a set of friendship bracelets together, or something equally saccharine. She can’t help but snort. Fuck, she hates the thought, but she keeps wondering why she even still hangs around them. The fact that she even thinks things like that is a little terrifying.
Neo, though, is a different story altogether.
She’s the newest member of their little cabal. Emerald met her freshman year, through the hockey team. Really, she’s a dangerous, devious, gremlin of a woman, but she’s also funny when she isn’t being a pest, and the two of them really hit it off. Honestly, she’d say Merc is her closest friend, but without the benefit of years of loyalty, Neo would probably take that space for one specific reason.
Secrets are like currency in their line of work - both the college-level social maneuvering and the other things they’re mixed up in. Knowing the right thing about the right person can mean the difference between a broken law and a broken neck, sometimes, and Cinder has proven more than once that she is absolutely willing to sell Emerald out if it means a better deal for herself. Sometimes it’s petty things whispered at chapter to turn an Organizational Chair into an ally. Other times, it’s much more serious. Even though Emerald refuses to commit to the idea that Cinder is not her friend, she’s had her arm twisted enough times to know that, at the very least, she can’t trust her. Merc isn’t much better in that regard, but for the opposite reason. He doesn’t out secrets for leverage, he’s just got a big fucking mouth.
But Neo is different. The girl can keep a secret. She’s the only one of Emerald’s social circle who doesn’t seem to revel in gossip, and that’s if she even chooses to ‘talk’ to someone in the first place. No, Neo keeps things close to the chest, likes to be in the know, and loves to be part of little conspiracies. Sure, she gets on Emerald's nerves sometimes, but between all the time they’ve spent together as part of the hockey team? She’s the only friend of Emerald’s that she’s sure she actually likes. Combine that with the fact that Emerald is basically the only person Neo can communicate with without having to jump through hoops? They’re close. Maybe not ride-or-die, but she does trust Neo. Well, she trusts her with secrets, anyway. For the most part.
Emerald shakes her head. This line of thought is putting her in a foul mood, and there are other, better things to focus on at the moment.
Like what's waiting for her on the other side of this drive.
Her hands tighten around the steering wheel of her little sedan, the faux-leather creaking-- but not in anger. No, she's not angry, not even obliquely anymore.
After all, for all her grumbling, she’s been looking forward to this. A lot, honestly, though she won't ever admit that. It's been a long couple of months, and she hasn't-
Nope, not tracking that thought any further.
Still, just because she's already lost the first round doesn't mean she'll lose the second.
No, not with the ace she's got up her sleeve. Idly, she reaches up to fiddle with her shoulder, trying in vain to adjust her bra strap through the thick cotton of her hoodie. That little surprise is sure to drive her up a fucking wall.
She can't help but smile as she approaches one of only three stop lights on this longass country road. Just her luck, damn thing is red. She rolls to a gentle stop, the glow of a gas station on the corner the only light in the early night. Even the moon’s gone tonight, hidden behind a thick layer of clouds. Looks like it might rain, too. A perfect night for secrets, she can't help but think.
Her smile fades into a slight frown, slumping in her seat. These traffic lights only seem to change once for Christmas and once for Midsummer. She'll be sitting here a minute.
Idly, she drums her fingers on the center console, contemplating running the red light. There's no one around, of course, not for miles, and she can see up and down the street crossing the intersection. It'd be perfectly safe. Why bother letting a light bulb tell you what to do when you can see that the path is clear?
But cops like to camp this intersection sometimes, and there might be tripwire cameras. She really doesn’t wanna have to pay a ticket.
Instead, her eyes slide across her dashboard, ending on her cell phone, sat screen-down in the cup holder. She used to need directions to get to the place, but now she knows the route by heart (much to her own annoyance).
Then, as if on queue, the thing buzzes.
Idly curious, Emerald scoops it up, carefully keeping it low enough that the glow of the screen won't be visible on the off chance any cops do drive up.
She frowns. She's got another text from that un-saved number, but there's also a little symbol pulsing in the upper right corner of her phone. That symbol means her trusty little five-year-old android is struggling to download something on mobile data - all two bars of it she gets out here in the middle of nowhere.
She taps the notification.
It's a simple message that just reads, ‘Ok, they're gone’.
More interesting, however, is the big grey box under the message, a progress ring slowly circling in its center. 80% downloaded already.
It's probably nothing, but lacking anything else to focus on, Emerald glances one more time up at the red light, then back down. 83% now.
Knowing her, it's probably some stupid meme or something. She's got a really dumb sense of humor.
Emerald drums her fingers on the steering wheel this time. The radio’s on, of course, but it's just some lame pop song she isn't really into. Cinder’s car has a Bluetooth receiver built into the sound system, but Emerald's car rolled off the line like twelve years ago, so she contents herself with the classics. By which she means 10 minutes of ads for every 5 minutes of music. The joys of radio.
She follows along with the beat for a second before glancing down at her phone just in time to see--
Holy shit.
For a few very, very long seconds, she just stares.
It's a picture, a selfie, taken from above and looking down, and Emerald's eyes ricochet around it faster than she can reasonably process anything she's looking at. Everything seems to take highest priority, and--
It's a selfie. A picture of a woman taken at a steep downward angle, like she'd been holding the phone up above her head in her right hand. The frame neatly cuts off her face above her grinning mouth. That mouth isn't alone, though, no, because she's holding the hem of a dry-fit shirt tightly in the bite of her incisors and canines, and her teeth look shockingly white against the black material.
And below that-
Skin.
She's wearing a black sports bra, one with a zipper down the front between the cups. A zipper which, conveniently, has been completely unzipped, and each pale breast is, at best, half-covered by the loose cups, and shiny with sweat besides. Sweat which runs in visible tracks between the swells of soft skin, down across a sheet of gentle bumps and valleys flexed taught on her toned belly. Emerald swallows dryly, and on some level, she can’t help feeling like some kind of pervert, but come on --
But that thought registers only faintly in the very back of her mind, neatly overwritten by the repetition of that first ‘Holy Shit’.
So instead of stopping, she rakes her eyes lower, drinking it in. The girl in the picture is wearing a pair of grey sweats, the kind of loose and comfortable thing you’d throw on to lounge about on a couch, but they’re low. Barely even hanging off of her hips, low enough that Emerald can see the way her abs dip into a mouth-watering v-line, see the hollows of her hipbones, teasingly tracking down until they disappear under the drawstring waistband of the sweatpants.
And there, with her left hand, the woman is openly cupping herself between her casually spread legs, pressing the loose grey cloth tight to herself-- and with her thumb and forefinger, she neatly frames the outline of a half-hard dick pressed against her inner thigh.
Emerald swallows again, but this time it’s anything but dry. Gods, she’s not even wearing underwear in that picture, is she? Her eyes stay flat on that outline for much longer than she’d ever admit, but c’mon, it’s hardly her fault! Fuck, she looks- It’s a visceral, stupid feeling, but honestly, the first coherent thought Emerald has is the deep, sudden desire to put her fucking mouth on it. She’s only half-hard in the picture, that much is obvious even through the soft cotton, but the shape of her dick is obvious, and the way it’s just- just fucking-
An obvious downward curve makes it look heavy, pinned against her right thigh, and that thing between her legs looks huge from this angle, and that grin makes her look so fucking smug about it -
Emerald makes a noise. She couldn’t put a name to the noise in a thousand years, and would never be shameless enough to try, but it’s a frustrated, angry, horny noise. Fuck, it’s a good picture. It’s a very, very good picture, and she really, really struggles to drag her eyes away from the way her cock strains against those grey sweats.
When she does, her eyes drag to the other really, really important part of the picture.
Her left arm.
More specifically, the fresh half-sleeve of vivid green thorns and bright red roses that are inked on her left forearm. Ink that most certainly was not there last April.
Everything seems to take highest priority, no one thing managing to be anything less than vitally important, and Emerald can only stare. It’s only when she swallows thickly a third time that she realizes - to her shame - she’s literally drooling.
And that shame connects to another, growing feeling.
Her eyes slide back to that tattoo, and she realizes something.
“Fuck!” she barks, cause goddamn it, she's remembered the ace she'd had up her sleeve, and stupidly, she reaches up to palm her right boob as if it might have vanished. She feels it, even through her hoodie and her bra, but it hardly makes her feel any better, because she'd been so excited to surprise her with it, so excited to see the shock on her face. It would've been so funny, would've unbalanced her so much, and Emerald was so looking forward to it--
But no. She went and got a tattoo and - worse - showed it off first! In a picture! Of course, of course she just had to beat Emerald to the punch here too, of course even now Emerald has to come in fucking second place--!
Of course she's mad about it, and she's still really wired from the game, so maybe her emotions are a little volatile at the moment, but she says “Fuck!” again a bit quieter, taking the phone in both hands and cradling it a little closer to her face, because she's pissed again, yet at the same time she can't manage to be that mad because that ink looks really good on her and it's hard to focus on the anger when the picture is just so--
Gods, it’s hot. It’s such a hot fucking picture, and she looks great with that tattoo and in those sweats and that shit-eating, pearly white grin and-
And it’s only then that Emerald registers the background.
Behind her, the familiar pattern of white-painted concrete blocks and reddish bricks of the Leo Arena. She took this in Emerald’s arena, in the guest locker rooms, in Haven’s House .
Fuck.
…Emerald's never gotten a picture like this before. She hangs over it, staring, and she feels like a fucking idiot for it, but she can feel heat creeping up her neck and she's rubbing her thighs together before she even realizes it. It's hot. It's really, really hot and she’s also a little angry still and both of those feelings together are making Emerald so… so-
Another buzz, another message, complete with a corny little emoji. ‘Surprise! Hurry up, I’m waiting <3’
Emerald twitches. All this is new. She's never sent anything like this before. Not the picture. Not the flirty message. No, she usually saves that sorta thing for when they’re face-to-face, where it can’t be leaked, or accidentally seen by someone else, or screenshotted and posted on a Beacon fan forum. It’s new. It’s new, and Emerald's a bit mad, a bit frustrated, but both of those combine together with everything else and the end result is that she just fucking wants her. She wants her so bad, so suddenly. It embarrasses her. She wants to bite into the steering wheel.
Before she can second guess herself, Emerald hammers out a text, ‘You better keep those fucking pants on’.
Less than a second later, so quickly Emerald’s sure the other girl's been sitting here on this screen waiting for a reply, the little typing dots appear. A moment later, another text pops up, ‘Ew, no, I wore those home and they’re all gross and sweaty’.
Emerald is halfway through a message saying she really does not care when a second text pops up, ‘I got another pair tho ;P’ .
A hot flush runs through Emerald. Gods. Gods. She’s such a fucking tease and that’s infuriating , but it’s also-
She leaps so hard her head bangs against the ceiling of her car as a skull-rattling horn blares behind her.
“ Ow- shit!” she shouts on reflex, rubbing the top of her head, dropping her phone into the cup holder and looking up-
The light is green, and there’s an enormous cargo truck behind her.
“Shit!” she repeats, and now her cheeks are hot for a completely different reason. She stomps on the gas and pulls forward quickly. Whoops.
XXXX
An empty parking lot late at night is a very special place. Uniquely lonely, intimate, and vulnerable. You could say anything you want, in a parking lot at midnight, and no one would hear you.
It's half-irrational. No one she knows lives anywhere near here, nor do they have cause to come here. No one would recognize Emerald. She'd gotten the all-clear, no one's home but her, and it’s nearly midnight besides. Emerald has no one to hide from.
But there's always the chance one of the flatmates might rush home to pick up something they forgot, or that someone might recognize her from Mistral’s sports broadcasts, or Cinder might fall from the sky on a fucking shooting star and demand to know what Emerald is doing in Vale in the middle of the night.
There are a dozen ways she could rationalize it, but honestly, it just makes Emerald feel safer to keep her hood up. That's really the only thing that matters.
So she does. She parks her car, takes one last swig of her water bottle, then leaves it in the opposite cup holder to the one she keeps her phone in. This time, she takes her pistol. No reason to leave it unattended in the car here.
She tucks the holster into her belt at the small of her back, throws up her hood, steps out of her car, and presses ‘lock’ on her keyfob until the lights flash and the horn beeps.
She turns towards the apartment building.
It's late. Not very late, but too late for regular folk to be out and about. Everyone ought to be inside by now, so there shouldn't be anyone to see her at all, let alone recognize her. Still, it isn't a bad neighborhood. No, it’s the kind of place where some lunatic might decide to take a walk in the middle of the night, so Emerald doesn't dally.
Ahead of her is an apartment building, tall but not monolithic. Pretty, but not ostentatious. Well-maintained, but not pristine. Some of the doors she passes have welcome mats that read things ranging from ‘Welcome, come on in’ and ‘I hope you brought wine!’ to ‘Come back with a warrant’.
Emerald keeps her hood up.
At the third floor, she steps off the stairs and walks down the balcony walkway, past windows with the lights inside on, and those with the lights inside off. The wind whistles past, carrying the sound of distant sirens and less distant engines as people drive to and from their Friday night entertainment.
And her phone buzzes again.
For a single instant, she thinks it could be another picture, and she can’t help but feel a little ashamed of herself for how quickly the phone flies into her hand.
No luck. It’s not from the unsaved number. It's from Neo.
Emerald rolls her eyes and almost ignores it, but she taps the notification on the off chance it’s an emergency.
Snapchat - Neo’s preference, not Emerald’s - opens up, and Emerald thumbs over to her mostly-empty chats page. Whole lot of nothing worth noting with one message at the top. Red box, fifteen seconds old, and a 628-day streak. Still steadily walking, Emerald clicks on the message.
It’s a picture of Neo’s left eye - the brown one - and two captions, high and low, that read, ‘Cinder pissed me off again’ and ‘I want more smirnoffs.’
Of course. Neo turns 21 this year, which means Emerald still has to buy all her alcohol. She likes these half-decent, half-shitty bottled vodka drinks that are probably half sugar by weight. Emerald thinks they’re gross, but Neo’s sweet tooth is stronger than even the most scathing insults. No amount of mocking can change the little brat’s preference.
Emerald quick-replies with a close-up picture of the green sleeve of her hoodie. Innocuous enough, with no hints that she’s actually in Vale. Almost had a fright with that back in February when they pushed the update that added a fucking creepy-ass tracker to the app. She’s lucky she read that notification and opted out. On the picture, she types her reply, ‘Busy tonight. I’ll buy you more tomorrow’.
She doesn’t make it ten steps before another message arrives on her phone. All the same, she opens it. This time, it’s a full picture of Neo’s face, complete with an aggravatingly smug shit-eating grin and the caption, ‘You’re fucking her aren't you’
Emerald’s hackles raise, and she says, “Oh you- fuck off!” on instinct to no one in particular, closing her phone and leaving Neo on opened. There's no possible way she actually knows, but it's scary how spot on her guess is.
With a fresh scowl, she stuffs both hands into her hoodie’s front pocket and quickens her pace, trying to forget she even knows the little shit.
And then she stops by a specific door, only half her fresh anger burned off.
Despite herself, a sudden fit of nerves causes her hands to tingle. She's a fucked up person, and she knows the social parts of her brain don't all work right, and she always gets nervous right here. She thinks about her car down on the ground floor. Tells herself that she's perfectly free to leave if she wants, that she's under no obligation to do this.
Something about that thought ticks her off.
Like it's surrendering. Like it's giving up. Like it's losing. Like she's letting her scare Emerald off.
And she fucking hates losing.
Besides, a raindrop lands on her wrist. She doesn't wanna get stuck in the rain.
Her knuckles are on the door before she can hesitate. Two raps, then, quickly, they fly back into her hoodie’s front pocket on reflex.
And then the door opens, immediately. Distantly, Emerald wonders if she realizes the fact that waiting by the door makes her seem needy. Most people would maintain some veneer of aloof distance, would at least give it a few seconds before opening the door for appearance’s sake. She wonders if she knows she just betrayed the fact that she'd been sitting by the door waiting for Emerald. She wonders if she even cares about seeming eager.
Emerald looks up, barely peeking from under the hem of her hood.
Ruby Rose looks back, one hand holding the door wide, the other holding one of her several shaker bottles. This one’s black and plastered with little stickers of roses and small dogs. There’s a gossamer of condensation on the plastic. Probably one of those protein smoothies she likes so much. Without prompting, she shares brightly, “The other three are off at Pyrrha’s, it’s just us.”
Emerald doesn’t answer. Instead, her eyes lock onto that cup for a long second, because honestly it’s just the easier target to look at for now. She takes a slow breath and lets herself track that shaker as it swings over to those soft lips, and it's almost an accident when she locks eyes with Ruby from under her hood as she takes two long pulls from the bottle.
Then she lowers it with a rough exhale, and Emerald’s pulse elevates at the sound.
She feels so many things at that moment. An intense but vague feeling of anticipation is the most important, probably, but it’s accompanied by a low, burning anger. Wounded pride is most likely the source of that one - not that knowing that softens the sting any - and the fact that she’s here after such a dirty fucking loss is--
But then she remembers that picture Ruby had sent.
And she remembers riding all the way here with that picture burned into her mind.
Look, let’s not mince words here. She’s horny. She’s very, very horny, and that’s all mixed in with the frustration with her life and with Cinder’s stupid fucking comment, mixed in with her anger at losing to Ruby again, mixed in with the dull heat in her muscles from the game, mixed in with the familiar thrumming in her nerves as adrenaline seeps into her blood. She’s horny, in this stupid hoodie and jeans, rain’s starting to patter against her hood, and Ruby’s smiling this smug grin and it’s so infuriating--
“You like the picture?” is what she asks, and above everything, Emerald is annoyed, because that dumb question sends goosebumps rolling up her arms.
At the prompt, though, Emerald’s eyes finally break from Ruby’s, taking her in. Her hair’s still the same as always, still that slightly scraggly looking punkish undercut, slightly damp, but still subtly spiked up here and there, like she’s got a perpetual head of helmet-hair. She must've only just gotten out of the shower a minute ago. Her eyes track lower, and she's weaning a red tank top now. It looks good on her, and she looks good with her shoulders out, but Emerald's mind is decidedly elsewhere. No, she looks down, down, and-
She’s wearing an identical pair of thin grey cotton sweatpants.
And for as unaffected and smugly casual as she’s acting, it’s fucking obvious that she’s swollen. Not hard, but swollen, and thick, and she can see the bump her package is making in her pants because she’s got her hips cocked out and-
Emerald licks her teeth.
And she looks up. Ruby caught her looking. Her little smile has split into a grin, but her cheeks have also gone all red.
And Emerald knows how she thinks, and in one moment, she sees through the curtain.
The picture. The messages. This pose she's taking with her hips cocked out. Ruby's trying to be seductive. Trying to be a tease. It's something she's never tried to do before. This is very, very far from the first time they've done this, but it's always been a needy, carnal, animal thing with no fluff. Burning energy, feeling good. But now, she's trying to be seductive.
And from that deep red creeping up her neck, she's not used to it. She's nervous. She's embarrassed by how she's acting. She isn’t used to behaving like this outside of sex.
A weakness. Emerald could almost grin.
“That a protein shake?” is what Emerald asks first, the only words left in the barely-restrained roil of her thoughts, and she’s angry, first and foremost. She’s angry at Ruby. She’s angry at Cinder. She’s angry at Melanie. She’s angry at Xiao Long. She’s angry at her Coach. She’s angry at hockey as a concept. She’s angry at the fact that she’s alive. She’s angry at the fact that she’s already wet. She’s so fucking angry at everything and there’s nowhere to put all that anger except--
Hiding your emotions is an art form, really. It’s one Emerald has mastered. Standing out here in the cold of the Autumn night, rain starting to come down, her face doesn’t so much as twitch. She just looks at Ruby, not quite frowning and not smiling. Underneath the baggy forest green cotton of her hoodie, her hands flex open and closed, and her skin is almost feverish with anticipation and anger and this blind, thoughtless, nameless want that she only ever feels with her because this is the only place where she can act like-
She kills that thought there, and just watches as one of Ruby’s eyebrows quirk. She glances at her shaker with a small frown that quickly brightens, “Yeah! You guys gave us a good workout, figure I wouldn't let all that strain go to waste.” As if to complete the sentiment, Ruby lets go of the door and makes a show of biting her tongue and flexing her left arm, showing off the svelte but dense curve of a single well-developed bicep, “This doesn't happen on its own, after all.”
Idly, almost numbly, she scans the curled arm, noting that without a sleeve covering it, the new tattoo curls around her arm from the back of her hand all the way to her shoulder, with no clean ending or beginning. Just a tangle of roses and thorns. The ink is old enough that her arm’s completely healed, but so fresh that it almost looks more like vivid body paint than a tattoo, as if Emerald could lean forward and smell the roses. (She probably could, actually. Ruby’s rather loyal to her body wash.) The tat looks so good on her, even better in person, and that realization blends with her annoyance at being beaten out again, but it’s such a good look that Emerald can’t help but like it more than she hates it. Ruby notices her staring, and whether she assumes it’s at her tattoo or her biceps or both, her grin sharpens.
She hates how good ‘cocky jock’ looks on her, like she's been taking lessons from her sister, but it does. It really, really does, but that also makes Emerald want to wipe that cute little grin right off her face. She resolves to spend some time exploring the ink later - after Ruby’s too blissed out to make any smug comments - but for now she takes another step towards her victory, “You put pre-workout in it?”
Ruby blinks, dropping her arm, then glances at her smoothie like she'd forgotten it was there, “Uh, yeah. I mean, we usually stay up pretty late when we- uh…y’know, so I figured it’d be a good idea. I was kinda pooped after the game.”
Something about the way she’d hesitated and avoided the word is incredibly funny to Emerald, so much so that she almost laughs. The same girl who had sent that fucking picture can’t bring herself to-
The only reason she doesn’t laugh is because her mind is already set. Instead, she nods at the cup and says, “That’s good.” Then, her eyes slide back to Ruby’s, which have gone a bit wide. Seems something came through in her voice. Good. She takes her hands out of her hoodie pocket. “You’re gonna need it.”
Ruby opens her mouth.
Emerald doesn’t give her the chance.
No, she does the one thing she’s wanted to do all fucking night. With every quip, with every goal, with every juke and twist and laugh, every time they checked each other, every time they touched, every time-!
She's been swallowing the urge all night, and now--
Ruby has just enough time to let out an alarmed, “Hey, woah-” as Emerald takes a step forward, into the apartment, into Ruby’s space, and she kisses her like she hates her.