Not Together-Together

A RWBY fanfic

By

Uriel Godfire

Disclaimer: If I owned RWBY this or something similar would be cannon. I don't.

"Ren," said Nora, trying to get Ren's attention. "Renny Ren Ren, yoo hoo?" Nora was waving a hand in front of Ren's face. It wasn't enough to get through to him, as he sat stoically, just staring at the letter in his hands. It was only a one page letter, less than a page really, but Ren hand been seemingly transfixed by it for the last five minutes. "What's it say Ren? Come on, I'm dying here!" Nora said, dramatically draping herself over Ren. She could have peeked over his shoulder and read the letter, but she knew who it was from, and didn't want to be rude. It didn't mean that she wouldn't keep pestering Ren to divulge its contents.

Pyrrha and Jaune had been watching the whole thing, fascinated. The letter had come for Ren, and Nora had seen the sender. It had surprised them a little to watch as the usually energetic Nora just sat of to the side and silently watched as Ren opened the letter, with just a hint of nervousness on his face, which was a lot for the usually very emotionally controlled young man. They watched as Nora tried to hold herself in check while Ren read to himself. The anticipation bubbling away inside Nora was becoming more and more apparent, until it became too much, and then the pleading began.

"Please, please Ren, just say something!" begged Nora, hanging off Ren. The pouty begging and pleading face Nora was making was becoming more and more dramatic until Ren silently handed Nora the letter. Nora popped up immediately and quickly scanned the letter. Nora let out a giddy squeal, hopping up and down, grinning madly as she handed the letter back to Ren, who began to smile, in that soft polite way that he did when he was truly pleased with something.

"Ok, now you got me curious," said Jaune. Pyrrha nodded in agreement.

Nora looked at Ren, who nodded, apparently he didn't trust himself to speak about it at the moment. With his permission, Nora spoke for him. Still grinning and giddy, Nora giggled, "It's a letter from back home. Ren's fiancé is coming to visit!"

Ren blushed.

"Ren's fiancé?" asked Jaune as he and Pyrrha looked on stunned. Ren had a fiancé? Nora just nodded, still grinning and hugging Ren, who was blushing more and more.

"Ok, I guess I was just mistaken," said Pyrrha, "I thought you two were just in that awkward stage between friendship and something more. I really thought you two looked like you had something together."

Nora just rolled her eyes, "Sheesh! Why does everyone keep saying that? How many times do I have to say that we're not together-together?"

"Well you got to admit, you are very close to one another. And you do seem rather, what's the word? Clingy," said Pyrrha.

"Look, Ren and I have been besties for a long time. As far as being 'clingy'," said Nora, making the finger quotes. "That's just the way I am with my best friends, and there's nothing you can do about this. Trust me, Ren has tried," she said smirking.

"I have," said Ren with and exasperated sigh.

"You see? When it comes to Ren and I, relationship wise, there is nothing romantic about it. I'm his best man!" there was an awkward pause, "or would I be your maid of honor Ren? Best maid? Hmm," Nora struck a thoughtful pose.

"I think they get the idea Nora," said Ren.

"So, Ren has a fiancé, and Nora is his best… whatever," said Jaune, parsing it out in his head. "When are they coming to visit?"

"Arriving on the transport tomorrow morning, right after breakfast. I can't wait for you to meet Ren's fiancé, this'll be great!" said Nora.

The next morning found Nora reassuring a nervous Ren as they walked out to the air transport dock. He'd been like this all morning, fidgety. It was obvious to team RWBY that something was off when they saw a nervous Ren hardly touch his breakfast. Nora had invited them to come out with them to meet Ren's fiancé. This had stunned them into silence, but they followed when breakfast was over, just to see if it was true.

At the dock, the transport was unloading. It was the weekend and there were lots of visitors. Pyrrha, Jaune, and team RWBY looked on, trying to guess which one was going to be Ren's fiancé. Ren was too focused on the offloading passengers, but Nora could hear their friends speculating on who it was going to be.

"Ren!" came a shout from the exit of the transport, in a voice that was not at all what anyone besides Nora and Ren were expecting. Stepping out into the open air was the owner of the voice, an even bigger shock than the voice. The voice was deep, and very masculine, but still soft even as loud as it had shouted, and the voice belonged to a giant of a man. To say he was large was understating things. At least as tall, if not taller than Yatsuhashi, of team CFVY, he was twice as wide at the shoulders. While not cut like a body builder, he wasn't overweight either, with a barrel chested physique. He had deep brown skin, long straight black hair, and a square jaw. Wearing a tight black t-shit, and a tan plaid flannel did nothing to lessen his imposing figure. His broad smile when he made eye contact with Ren did however.

Nora gave a blushing Ren a slap on the ass, "go to him tiger."

Ren ran up to the big man. "Khibetch," he said addressing the man, smiling happily.

"Ren, you handsome devil," said Khibetch as he swept the hair away from Ren's eyes before leaning down and kissing Ren passionately. It lasted nearly a full minuet, and when it was done, Ren was blushing hard, but he didn't let go of the giant. "I've missed you, love."

"I've missed you too," said Ren softly. That's when they both heard the wolf whistles from Nora and Yang.

"You sly dog you," said Yang with a wink.

"Heya Khibetch!" said Nora, waving.

"Nora! It's good to see you again," said Khibetch, "why don't you introduce me to all your friends, and save Ren the trouble."

"Certainly! Everybody this is our good friend, and Ren's fiancé, Khibetch Schut'hwed, he's a doctor!"

"EMT," Khibetch corrected, "Just recently certified."

"Khiby, this is everyone, starting with our fearless leader Jaune and his partner the invincible Pyrrha. They're the other half of team Juniper!" Nora just moved on while pleasantries were being exchanged. "This is team Ruby, our friends. The comedian here is Yang, and that's her partner Blake the bookworm. The princess here is Weiss, and her partner, and their team leader, is Ruby, so fast she got into Beacon early."

Everyone just rolled their eyes and gave a chuckle at Nora's succinct descriptions. The whole group retired to a lounge to swap stories and generally have a good time. After the initial shock of Ren's fiancé being a man, and a huge one at that, wore off, they got to know the easy going giant. It was plain and clear to everyone that he really cared about Ren, and that Ren was head over heels for him. By lunch time they all went their separate ways as Ren showed Khibetch around the school.

That afternoon, Yang found Nora sitting quietly by herself out on one of the balconies just off the main auditorium. "I thought you'd be with Ren seeing Khibetch off at the dock," said Yang.

"Meh, I figured they'd enjoy a little time by themselves before he takes off."

"Well, no one is going to doubt you anymore when you say that you and Ren aren't together-together. I'm pretty sure everyone saw him together with Khibetch as they walked around. The big guy kind of draws attention by his presence alone."

"Yeah, the rumor mill will have a go at Ren now, there's no hiding it any more. Not that he ever really hid the fact that he's gay, he just doesn't bring attention to it, or anything about himself for that matter," said Nora with a light chuckle.

"So, yeah, about that. You clearly knew, and have known for a while now, when did you learn about it?"

"Oh I'd say almost as long as Ren's known. When we were just seven, another boy in our home one day just came up and kissed me. I decked him good of course because boys were icky," the both had a chuckle at that. "Later that week it came up in conversation, apparently Ren had been thinking about it, wondering what it was like. I was teasing when I asked him if he was imagining himself kissing me. He was blushing so hard when he said no, he was imagining that he WAS me. That's how we found out. Of course we didn't understand what that meant until a few years later, we were only seven at the time."

"Aww, that's so cute," said Yang.

"Ain't it though?" said Nora giggling. "Ren had a few crushes, but no boyfriends until about a year before we entered combat school."

"When you guys met Khibetch, right? He talked about that."

"Yup," said Nora. "What I didn't tell everyone was that for the first few months, I was totally jealous of Khibetch. He'd hijacked my best friend! It got to the point where I stalked him and cornered him, told him that Ren was my best friend and that he couldn't have him. Do you know what he told me?" Yang just shook her head, so Nora continued. "He told me that he knew that Ren and I were the best friends. That we had something that he could only aspire to. Apparently Ren talked about me a lot, and he was a little jealous himself. Then he told me something that I'll never forget, he said, 'The most I'll ever be to Ren is his husband, if I'm lucky one day, but you, you're his family, maybe not by blood, but the only family he's ever known. People can fall in and out of love, but family, real family, is forever.' We became friends after that, and the three of us were practically inseparable until Ren and I left for combat school."

Yang was speechless for a moment, "Wow, that's deep."

"Yup,"

"Khibetch really is a great guy,"

"Yup,"

"It doesn't lessen the hurt any though does it?"

"Nope."

Authors Notes: In case anyone was wondering, Khibetch Schut'hwed is my very poor attempt at writing out how his name actually sounds in a way that you can read without extensive pronunciation notes. It's supposed to be based on Lushootseed Salish language (one of the languages of the Native Americans from the Puget Sound area near Seattle) and should mean Black Bear. I apologize to any actual Lushootseed speaker for what is likely an eyesore but, I just wanted to represent the Pacific Northwest in this character. I figured if the RWBYverse could showcase a variety of cultures so well blended, with names in a variety of languages such as Chinese, Japanese, English, German, French, and likely others that haven't occurred to me yet, then why not Native American as well.

There are no plans to continue this directly, but it may be part of a larger continuity if I ever get around to writing more RWBY fiction.