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fatefulfaerie · 4 years

Text

Appearances

*delves deep into gelato head canon and then comes up for air to post it* I hope you guys enjoy it!

“Have you ever done this before?” Roman whispered.

Running away from the orphanage was one thing, the freedom it gave them at the naive ages of ten and twelve. But this was something entirely different as they knelt behind different columns, facing each other.

Neo shook her head ‘no’, Roman taking a deep breath.

They slid upward as they stood, their palms against the cold stone and their heads starting to peek around their respective corners.

Roman smirked when he saw the flimsy locks that held the large doors shut, gesturing his head to prompt Neo along.

They walked up the large staircase as the building towered before them.

Neo jumped at a sudden noise, Neo looking behind her to find a family of four. Roman stopped and followed her gaze.

A husband, a wife, and a pair of twin daughters, strolling down the dimly lit pavement without a care in the world.

“They don’t see us,” Roman said quietly near her ear, Neo not even flinching.

Neo narrowed her eyes. The girls had blue eyes, two perfect, matching blue eyes. With blonde hair tucked into pink ribbons they would be adopted in a second.

Their luck had garnered them a loving and accepting family instead, blood relations and all.

“Resent the world later,” Roman added, before pacing to the doors. Neo’s gaze lingered on the family before she followed Roman.

He attempted to open the door, the chain around the handles restricting it from opening all the way.

Foolproof for adult robbers, but for small children it was a piece of cake.

No words needed to be spoken as Neo slid through, Roman following suit with a smirk.

The hallway was large and foreboding as it tunneled along in the darkness, only minimal lighting guiding their footsteps.

A sudden light prompted Roman to instinctively place a hand in front of Neo, them both eyeing a security guard.

Who, of course, passed them without so much of a glance.

If Vale security were any less competent they’d be a pack of beowolves.

They rounded the corner, shelves upon shelves of books opening up before them.

“You take the right half and I’ll take the left,” Roman whispered, Neo nodding in reply.

Parting ways, they strode carefully to the tall bookshelves.

Neo hoped very much that what they meant to steal wasn’t on a high shelf. It seemed as if they were towering over her, bending down, closing her in.

It wasn’t that she necessarily needed Roman around to stall her fear. Being alone was just something she dreaded. The longer Roman was ever away, the more she feared that his support was too good to be true.

Neo scanned to books nonetheless, her eyes soon catching the desired title.

She smiled as she took it from the shelf, gripping it in her hands and clutching it tightly.

“Hey!” A deep voice yelled, Neo looking to her right to see a large guard with a scowl on his face.

She barely made out the rest of his features, a flashlight beaming so bright in her eyes, she could only squint.

Neo clambered to a run in her growing panic, charging in the opposite direction.

“Hey, get back here!” He yelled as she ran, the guard chasing her. “That doesn’t belong to you!”

Neo panted, a red light that read ‘exit’ bobbing up and down as she kept going.

She hoped Roman was okay as she escaped through the door, pushing it open and entering the calm night.

Her back met the brick wall of the alleyway as her panic froze her. It seemed that flight had turned to fright as Neo closed her eyes tightly.

Roman was gone, if she was found, what would they do to her? She wouldn’t be able to defend herself verbally and acting physically would get her arrested. Whatever the punishment was for theft would be surely doubled.

They were part of the real world, the unfamiliar and cruel world that tossed her aside as a baby, that ridiculed her for her looks, for her silence.

She wished more than anything that she were anyone else as her eyes remained shut, someone whose vulnerability wasn’t clear as glass, the first thing people saw.

The door opened quickly, but no words of shouting came. Neo opened her eyes slowly to see the guard in front of her.

Yet, he didn’t seem to pay her any mind, looking down the empty alley way in confusion.

“Hey, little girl,” the security guard barked, finally addressing her. “Did you see where she went?”

Neo must have looked confused, the guard continuing,

“The girl with the colors, what direction did she go?"

Neo panicked, wishing she could go through brick wall entirely as she pressed up against it.

“Hey,” the guard said, his voice softening. He approached her quickly before kneeling before her. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Neo didn’t understand what was happening, the guard smiling.

“You have very pretty blonde hair,” he added. “Your parents must love you so much. Are they close by?”

Neo nodded her head quickly. If she was going to get out of this by some sheer luck, she figured she’d take it.

How dumb was this guard? She didn’t have blonde hair.

The guard stood up.

“Normally, I’d help you find them, but it seems I have a thief to report,” he said. “Are you sure you’re okay on your own? Are your parents just around the corner?”

Neo nodded quickly once more, attempting to add a confidence to her expression.

The guard smiled once more, tussling her hair before going back through the door.

Neo let out a sigh of relief.

But what on earth made him think she was really someone else.

Her hands looked the same when she looked down at them, Neo furrowing her brow when she saw a slight pink glow.

She hurried over to a large puddle, Neo gasping at her reflection, bringing her hands to her mouth.

Blue eyes, blonde hair, pink ribbons, pleated black dress.

How was this possible?

“Neo!” She heard a familiar voice call out, her head popping up from it’s state of denial and shock.

What was she supposed to do? How would she change back?

Roman suddenly appeared in the entrance to the alleyway, his eyes meeting hers.

But there was no familiarity in his green eyes, his forehead creasing with hostility.

Neo held out her hands, yet they curled with frustration with Roman started to run away.

There was an emptiness in her throat as she gave chase, wanting so much the sensation of being able to yell his name.

She teared up as she ran faster and faster after him, any other collection of energy felt in her lungs as she tried to earnest to shout his name.

It seemed her luck had ran out, her voice wouldn’t suddenly come back.

Whatever cruel genie had made her look like someone else was indeed playing fun.

She finally caught up to him nonetheless, tackling him down to the ground face first.

“Get off me!” He exclaimed as she resisted her hold.

Neo flipped him around and mouthed with over-exaggerated lips ‘Roman’.

His head tipped slightly in his confusion.

Neo willed with all her heart that she would change back as she held him down.

She closed her eyes tight, Roman’s eyes widening as descending triangles dissipated the illusion.

Roman sat up as he hugged her quickly, his relief apparent in how he held her.

“What…?” he started breathlessly as he let her go. “W-what on earth…h-how did you…?”

Neo shrugged her shoulders and shook her head, still a fear in her eyes of what she was capable of.

“Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said with a smile. “You’re safe. That’s all that matters. Although that’s not a bad trick to have up your sleeve.”

It all suddenly came together in his head, Roman sighing with closed eyes.

“You couldn’t call after me, could you?”

Neo shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Did you at least get it?”

Neo nodded excitedly before reaching in her backpack and pulling out a book

‘A Comprehensive Guide to Sign Language’

Roman smiled as they looked at the title, yet a drop of rain on the leather-bound book made him look up at cloudy skies.

“Come on,” he said as he stood up, Neo putting the book back in her bag.

——————————————————————————————————

Their home wasn’t much.

Being runaway orphans warranted that they squabble for whatever they could find. The pair of them however, cared greatly for their temporary abode, them taking the small room of an abandoned warehouse in Eastern Vale.

Their clothes and hair were dripping wet by the time they entered it, Neo pulling out the book and sitting down as soon as they came in.

“Careful,” Roman said as she opened the book quickly, rifling though it. “You’ll wet the pages.”

Roman smiled at how quickly she searched through the pages, amused at the way she flipped through them.

Of course, he knew why she did. In a way, she was about to talk for the first time.

She stopped at a particular page, all sorts of hand motions on it neither of them understood.

Neo looked right at Roman, her eyes tearing up as her hand slowly drifted upwards to her chin. It was a tight palm, only the tips of her fingertips at her chin.

Tears came quickly as her hand opened downwards.

“Thank you,” she had signed.

She did the motion again before her hand went completely to her mouth, bawling tears of joy.

Roman quickly moved to sit beside her, without a word placing an arm around her and searching through the pages himself.

His hand moved to her shoulder as he turned to face her, making sure she saw.

The other hand went to his forehead before it curved around to rest under his chin.

“You’re welcome,” he had signed.

Neo let out a great big smile before hugging him around his neck, Roman closing the embrace.

They signed to each other all night long once they let go, all sorts of words with no further meaning.

Fifteen years and their dependency on the other didn’t change, their care, Neo and Roman sitting on an abandoned train car, holding each other.

The job they were wrapped up in now threatened to separate them. Roman was to be captured by Atlesian forces to lull Vale into a false sense of security. Days spent robbing dust shops were long gone, the duo missing taking advantage of Neo’s semblance and laughing about it the nights after. Those days were so much simpler, and now their lives were anything but simple.

But they didn’t want to talk about that, them just sitting in silence.

Neo moved her hand as she changed it’s configuration, her fisted hand closed but for her pinkie and her thumb.

She placed it on Roman’s beating heart, Roman bringing a hand to hers and tracing it with his fingers.

He softly reformed her hand to entangle his and replied,

“I love you, too.”

#rwby #rwby gelato #gelato #Roman and Neo #neopolitan #neo politan #roman #neo #roman torchwick #vale #remnant

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