Just Trust Me - White Rose (Patreon)

“Finally made it!” Ruby exclaimed, gesturing widely towards a section of woods that looked no different from the woods they’d driven past for the last half hour.  In fact, the only thing that set this place apart from nondescript wilderness was a small parking lot and an even smaller sign that read ‘Vale Campgrounds.’

“Now the fun begins...” Weiss muttered to herself while following Ruby to the trunk of the car they’d driven here.  The trunk held a variety of supplies they’d loaded into the vehicle this morning - food, clothes, sleeping bags, and a large canvas bag Ruby had gleefully proclaimed to be their sleeping quarters for the evening.

Reaching towards the duffle bag she’d packed with spare clothes, Weiss withdrew her hand in surprise when Ruby slapped it away.

“Nope!  I said I’d do everything, remember?” 

“But I can carry my own bag...”

“Nnnnope!” Ruby repeated, shooing Weiss away from the vehicle.  “I got it!”

Even though Weiss scoffed at the idea of Ruby doing everything herself this weekend, she did as told and watched Ruby sling four bags over her shoulders before struggling to lift the large tent out of the trunk.  Ruby first tried to pick it up in the middle, but it was so long that it would only come out of the trunk at an angle.  But it was so heavy that picking it up from one side was difficult.

After watching Ruby fight with it for several seconds, Weiss decided it was time to intervene.

“Ruby, let me -” she began to say, only to be boxed out the moment she stepped forward to help.

“I got it!” Ruby repeated before pulling one end of the bag with all of her might.

And this time, it worked.  The tent flew out of the trunk, but it was too large for Ruby to hold on her own.  As a result, the bottom half of it clunked against the bumper of the car before dropping to the ground - right on top of Ruby’s foot.

When Ruby let out a small yelp of pain, Weiss rushed over and lifted the bag off Ruby’s foot.

“Ruby!” she exclaimed, dropping the tent on the ground and looking at Ruby’s injured foot.  “Are you ok?”

“I’m fine!” Ruby replied with a grimace.  Contrary to her words, she was holding her foot off the ground in obvious pain, but gingerly set it down a moment later.  

“Totally fine!” she reiterated with a smile.  “Come on - let’s find a spot to set this up!”

Even though Weiss was prepared to take Ruby to a hospital right then and there, she watched in surprise while Ruby picked up the handle of the tent and dragged the bag towards the woods.  She walked with a slight limp now, but other than that seemed none the worse for wear after the inauspicious start to their trip.

“Lord help me…” Weiss whispered while hurrying after Ruby, not wanting her to get too far away.  Not that she could move very fast while laden with so many bags...

“I could at least carry one of them,” Weiss pointed out, following Ruby along a thin trail running through the woods away from the parking lot.

“But that means you’d be helping.”

“Well, yes…”

“Don’t worry, Weiss!” Ruby said, her voice a little more strained than normal due to exertion.  “I got this!”

There was no doubt in Weiss’ mind that Ruby could do this all by herself.  In fact, Weiss had (foolishly) fanned the flames on that desire by making comments about how impressive it would be for Ruby to take care of everything for an entire weekend.  After seeing exactly what that entailed, however, Weiss was having second thoughts.

Ruby was a klutz.  And that was without trying to carry anything or walk on uneven ground.  If she made it through the day without causing herself serious harm, it would be a miracle.

“This spot looks perfect!”

When Ruby unceremoniously dropped the bags on the ground (narrowly missing her feet) and waved towards a decently-sized patch of grass with a small cement fire pit built nearby, Weiss looked at their surroundings and felt her brow furrow.

“How is this spot better than that one over there?” she asked, pointing to an identical patch of grass to their left.  “Or that one over there?” she added while pointing towards the right.

“It just is - trust me!”

Hearing Ruby’s new catch phrase for the hundredth time in the past week, Weiss rolled her eyes and watched her partner try to pull the folded-up tent from its carrying case.

“Do you need help?” she offered when Ruby struggled with the size of it.

“Nope!” Ruby huffed before giving the tent one strong tug.  She promptly fell onto her butt when it pulled free of the bag, but then she hopped to her feet and gestured to the metal and fabric monstrosity.

“Tadaaa!”

“Good job,” Weiss replied with a small smile.  “I’m assuming we set it up now?”

“You mean I set it up!” Ruby said while again shooing Weiss away.  “It’s gonna be so awesome to sleep in a tent!”

“Yes...because we don’t have a nice, well-constructed home to sleep in...” 

“Weissss!” 

Hearing the whine, Weiss sighed and shook her head.

“But that’s the point,” she added, much to Ruby’s delight.

“Exactly!  That’s the point of camping - we do it ourselves!”  When Weiss raised her brow, Ruby hurried to add, “Or I do it for you, because I promised you wouldn’t have to do anything!”

“I believe your exact words were - ‘it’s so easy, I can do it all myself,’” Weiss reminded Ruby.

“And it is!”  Kneeling by the tent, Ruby unbuckled the straps and moved several pieces out of the way.  “Even the tent is super easy!” she explained while she worked.  “Just unwrap it, and it should pop right open!”

From Ruby’s expectant expression, Weiss assumed the tent should have done something spectacular at that moment.  What it did, however, was remain in a pile on the ground.

“Huh…”  

Fiddling around with the metal beams, Ruby pulled on something and suddenly the entire thing popped open.  Yelping in surprise, she leapt away as a massive tent sprang into form, but not fast enough to avoid one of the poles from hitting her in the head. 

“Ow...”

“Ruby!” Weiss exclaimed, rushing over while Ruby rubbed her forehead.  “Are you ok??” 

“Yeah...it just kinda...whacked me in the head a bit...”

After brushing Ruby’s hand away to check the wound - finding a small bump that would surely grow over the next hour - Weiss sighed and held Ruby’s hand.  

“Maybe we should just go home…”

“But we just got here!” Ruby protested.

“Yes, and you’ve already dropped that tent on your foot and gotten smacked in the head.  I think it’s pretty clear that thing has it out for you.”

“But...”

As soon as Ruby’s brow furrowed and her lower lip stuck out in a pout, Weiss relented.

“Ok,” she said before Ruby could add the heartbreaking puppy dog eyes.  “Ok, it’s fine.  We’ll stay.  Just...maybe I can help a little bit?”

When Ruby looked reluctant, Weiss kissed her on the cheek and added “Please?  You know this is my first time camping - I’d like to learn a few things.” 

That sentence ended with ‘before never doing this again,’ but Weiss kept that thought to herself.  She didn’t want to rain on Ruby’s parade any more than the start of this adventure already had.  Fortunately, Ruby nodded and smiled at Weiss’ offer to help.  

“Ok, if you really want to!  It’ll be fun!”

Weiss waited for the words ‘trust me’ to appear at the end of that sentence but, surprisingly, Ruby didn’t add the phrase this time.  Did that mean she was losing her certainty that this would be fun?  Weiss could understand why - if she nearly broke her foot and got a concussion within a few minutes of arrival, she’d question how much fun she was having too.

Inexplicably, the thought made Weiss feel worse - and guilty.  Even though she wanted to pack up and return to civilization (and safety), she also wanted Ruby to have fun.  And Ruby having fun seemed like an absolute certainty just a short time ago, but now felt a little less destined to happen - which was where Weiss stepped in.

“Let’s decorate the inside of our new home,” she suggested while nodding towards the tent.  A wave of relief rolled through her when Ruby’s grin returned full force.

“Yeah!”  Racing over to the pile of supplies, Ruby tripped and practically fell on top of the sleeping bags before picking them up.  “Our only decorations!”

Smiling as she took one of the bags from Ruby’s hands, Weiss ducked into the tent and surveyed their available space.  Supposedly, this tent would serve as protection from the elements and insects, but apparently that was all it was designed to do.  There was really nothing to it but thin material covering every possible side, even the ground they walked on.

Nothing about this experience was within Weiss’ scope of expertise.  She hadn’t even owned a sleeping bag until a few days ago - because why would she ever want to sleep in a bag when there were things called beds and hotels? 

During the packing process, it became clear she would be out of her comfort zone.  Being here now, it was abundantly obvious that this activity was built with another person in mind.

“I’m sorry Yang couldn’t make it this year,” she said while they unrolled their sleeping bags side-by-side.  

“It’s ok.  I know she and Blake had that stuff to take care of.” 

Looking over, Weiss watched Ruby shrug off her sister’s absence for their yearly tradition.

“I’m sure she’ll make it up to you.” 

If Weiss knew anything about Yang, it was that she hated letting Ruby down.  Not that it could be helped in this instance, seeing as how Blake needed Yang’s help with a family commitment - which Ruby had been very understanding of, like she always was.

“l know - she already said we’ll go in a few weeks!  Thanks for coming with me though.  I really appreciate it.”

If only Weiss could capture Ruby’s grateful smile for eternity...because it was more than worth the upcoming misery.  Even though she’d immediately volunteered to take Yang’s place, that was due more to the devastated look on Ruby’s face when Yang delivered the news than due to her personal desire to spend a weekend in the wilderness.

“Ok,” Weiss asked once their two sleeping bags were laid in the middle of the tent.  That had been pretty simple, but she was determined to keep the injury-free, fun train rolling.  “What do we do next?”

“Let’s start a bonfire and make s’mores!”

The instant Ruby pulled out a book of matches, Weiss snatched them from her hands.  Noticing the surprised look on Ruby’s face, Weiss smiled and gave her another kiss on the cheek - suddenly understanding that she would be giving Ruby a lot of kisses this weekend to prevent hurting her feelings.

“Why don’t you let me do that?  And you can get the ingredients ready?” 

When Ruby’s smile returned, Weiss suppressed a sigh of relief.  The two of them left the tent behind, and Ruby rustled through their bags for the s’mores ingredients she packed earlier that day while Weiss walked over to the cement grilling area that had seen its fair share of fires.  

From the ashy remains, she deduced that previous campers had used branches and pieces of wood for their fires.  As fortune had it, a small pile of leftovers was left nearby, which she quickly piled into the fire pit before trying and failing to light the fire.

“Ouch!”

Immediately alarmed, Weiss looked over and watched Ruby stick her forefinger into her mouth - her other hand still holding the box of graham crackers.

“Paper cut…” Ruby said around her finger.

“You brought that first aid kit, didn’t you?” Weiss asked.  After nodding, Ruby set the graham crackers down and searched for a bandaid instead.  

While Ruby did that, Weiss tried and failed several more times to keep the fire going.  Eventually - after spotting tiny remnants of newspaper in the fire pit - she gathered some dry leaves from nearby and used those to get the fire going.

And she had to admit…it was pretty satisfying to build a tiny fire all on her own.  Well, on her own plus a booklet of matches. 

“That looks great!” Ruby said while standing by Weiss’ side - the two of them watching the fire spark to life before their eyes.  “Now let’s make s’mores!”

A few minutes later, they held their marshmallows on sticks over the flames, which were steadily burning the bigger pieces of wood Weiss had piled on top of the bed of smaller twigs.  It was the middle of the day and they were making what could only be considered ‘dessert,’ but it was relaxing in a strange way.  Maybe because it was so quiet out here...with only the sound of wind rustling through the trees, birds twittering up above, and the flames flickering in front of them.

“Ruby...” Weiss mused while they slowly turned their marshmallows over the fire, striving for the perfect golden brown Ruby had told her about.

“Yeah?”

“When you and Yang go camping...does Yang take care of everything?”

“Pretty much.  Why?”

When Ruby’s marshmallow caught on fire and she squealed before frantically blowing it out, Weiss smiled and shook her head.  

“Just wondering...”

That answer explained...pretty much everything that happened so far today.  It also meant Weiss needed to be far more involved than she’d planned on, but maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.  Actually, she knew it wouldn’t be so bad.  It might even be kind of fun.

Just like Ruby said it would be.