Like Glass (Ruby X Male Reader)

Teaser/Pilot

Ruby, despite her best efforts, could not hide the feelings of joy she had at her reunited team, the smile on her face just wouldn't go away. She had fought so long and hard to get where she was and now, on this rickety old train, she finally thought she was getting somewhere.

Currently, the leader had just left her friends to get more snacks from the concession cart, as they had run out mid-gaming. She had opted to do so mostly because she wanted to pick out the food to intentionally include more of her favourites.

Her train of thought was stopped as she approached a counter and got the attention of a cashier. "Excuse me, sir." She said happily.

The cashier turned from his shelves and looked at Ruby, before returning her beaming smile with his own small one. "How can I help you?"

"Could I get four 'Snapbastic bars', two 'McCreamy bite' bags, three bottles of 'Blu Drank', and three bags of 'Chippy chips', please?" She asked, a little embarrassed at the amount of food she was ordering, seemingly by herself.

The cashier, now amused, nodded. "Coming right up." He said, starting by placing the bottles of 'Blu Drank' on the counter.

Before Ruby could retreat fully into her own thoughts again, her attention was captured by someone leaning on the counter next to her and saying, "Do you want any food with all that sugar?"

Turning to her right, with a very slight jump, she saw a man, around 19, leaning on the counter. He had a brilliant white grin on his face, clearly happy with his introduction, and was waiting for her response. "Uhh…" she managed to spit out. 

"I'll take that as a yes." He continued, as if she had given an intelligent response. "Sir, if you could also add-" he stopped and looked over at her, tilting his head slightly, "Strawberries, I bet you love those. If you could add strawberries to her list, I'll pay for them."

The cashier stopped and looked between the two and then settled on Ruby. "Are you okay with that Ms.?" He asked, wanting her approval.

Ruby, finally collecting herself, nodded frantically before slowing down. "Yes, that would be great, thank you." She responded, glancing at the cashier who nodded and went to get said items. Her eyes then returned to the new man. "How did you know strawberries were my favourite?"

The man smiled at her while standing upright. "I didn't. Complete guess. Dumb luck." He admitted, rather proud. "Although, the dress sense swayed my opinion. I'm (Y/N)." He extended a hand out to her.

Shaking his hand, she smiled sheepishly and said, "I'm Ruby, Ruby Rose." He nodded, as if he was confirming the name mentally before raising an eyebrow.

"Pleasure to meet you Ruby, how long do you normally shake hands for?" He laughed, as she realised she was still shaking his hand. Quickly pulling away, she went to apologise but was stopped by him speaking. "No, no, I didn't mean it in a bad way, it was nice."

For a second Ruby could've sworn her heart had stopped, just for a beat, before restarting like normal. "Oh good, sorry anyway. I'm not always great meeting new people." She relented.

"Well with the amount of food you have, I'd assume you know some people." He pointed, gesturing to the food that had now been laid out before her.

"Well, yea, a couple…" She then looked at the cashier, who was waiting patiently. "Oh right!" She said, pulling out her wallet and handing money over to the cashier, (Y/N) quickly doing the same for the strawberries. "Now to get this back to the room." Ruby mused to herself.

"Do you want a hand?" (Y/N) asked looking over at Ruby, putting away his wallet, before gesturing to the food.

"Ohh, umm." Looking at the food, she now realised she probably would've had to make two trips. "Sure!" She said, before tucking a bottle under her arm and grabbing the three chip bags in one hand and the bite bags in the other.

With a small smile, (Y/N) grabbed ahold of the two remaining bottles, tucking them under his arm, as well as putting the bars into his pocket, before finally grabbing the strawberries. The two then began walking through the carriages, Ruby leading the way, while making idle chatter.

"...so all of us are trying to get to Atlas and figured this was the best way to get there." Ruby had just finished telling (Y/N) why she and her friends were on the train, omitting or changing the critical details, such as magic.

He whistled in response to her tale, impressed. "Well, that is one hell of a group you have there. Must be nice, having so many of your friends with you." Ruby nodded with a smile.

"Yep! Haven't seen them in a while either so it's great! What about you, who are you travelling with?" She asked with earnest, only to grow concerned when he frowned slightly.

"I'm travelling alone…" He said, a deep feeling of sorrow hanging on the last word.

"Why?" The one word question had slipped out of Ruby's mouth before she caught it. 

(Y/N) looked over at her, a deep sadness in his eyes. "My boyfriend, he uh… well…" He cut himself off and cleared his throat. "He passed away. I'm visiting his grave."

Ruby's eyes welled up slightly. "(Y/N), I'm so sorry-" She stopped herself, as he looked at her with a smile.

"It's fine, he wanted me to be happy, so I just remember the good stuff." (Y/N) said, his smile proving infectious as Ruby beamed back.

"Well I'm sure you have many memories to… remember?" She laughed nervously, luckily (Y/N) laughed as well.

"Gods, you sound just like him." Ruby looked slightly worried for a second. "Oh sorry, that's a good thing! Good memories, remember?"

Ruby nodded and stopped at her cart's room door. "Yea! Hey, uh, maybe you could join us? It is a lot of food after all-"

"Oh, no, no. You just met back up, yeah? Take the time to get reacquainted, make good memories of your own." He slid the door open with his leg, putting the food down on the inside while drawing the attention of all the current occupants. "And once you've done that, I'm only two carts down." He winked and walked off towards his cart, leaving Ruby standing there with a slight blush.

Yang was the first to get up, walking over and grabbing the food from the floor and putting it on a table, before pulling her sister inside and taking the snacks from her.
Weiss sighed as she realised no one else was going to ask her, so she might as well. Standing up, she stood in front of Ruby and snapped her fingers, the leader snapping to attention as if almost broke from a trance.

"Remnant to Ruby? Who was that guy?" Weiss asked, even for the socially awkward Ruby she knew, this was new.

Ruby shook her head and smiled at Weiss. "Oh, you know me, just someone I bumped into and made a friend!"

Just like that Ruby was back and ready to kick butt in video games, although the back of her mind still dwelled on her new friend, seemingly unable to get him out of her thoughts.

Meanwhile, (Y/N) walked into his cart room and closed the blinds. The smile on his face slowly faded as he pulled out his scroll, the lock/home screen being of him and another man smiling. Going through to his messages and scrolling, he found the picture of Ruby and her accompanying details once more, having now confirmed they were correct.

He had found his target.