Hi! I'm Emma. Nice to meet you.

So I tend to write long and probably boring author's notes, mostly because I like to hear (or, in this case, read) myself talk (or write. Ugh, I've confused myself already.) I'm working on shortening those author's notes, though, so this is probably going to be my longest one. Just a few things I want to say before the story begins:

1. Pleasanton, California, is actually a real place, and I hated it the one time I visited. Sorry if you live in Pleasanton. Anyway, the Pleasanton in this story is based off my experience in real life Pleasanton, but, as far as I know, none of the street names, stores, or characters are real.

2. I'm almost done with my main fic at the moment so I'll probably have more free time soon, but right now I'm really busy and stressed and stuff right now so I'm not going to even try to set an update schedule. Also, if you're one of my followers from another story, I AM SO SORRY GUYS BUT FOR SOME REASON I CAN'T WRITE SHIT RIGHT NOW EXCEPT THIS FIC + A BUNCH OF WEIRD RANDOM RYDEN FLUFF. 8th grade sucks, man.

3. This fic is rated T because of swearing and people talking about sex. Main characters will also have sex but not graphically because I suck at smut so I'll just skip over it and you can use your imagination.

4. This is kind of unimportant but the title of this fic is a Paramore song, and even though it's really slow and acoustic and I tend to go for faster, louder music, it's really good and it will eventually be mentioned in the story so yeah there's a random fact that you may or may not care about.

5. This story is about Meg 2.0 and Ruby 1.0, because those are my preferred Meg and Ruby's. I guess you could kind of change that in your mind if you want because it isn't super important, just for descriptions and stuff.

Yeah, so I think that's it. Oh, and pleeeease review with your opinions. I'm kind of experimenting with a slightly different writing style here so tell me what you think :) Also it would be nice to know you exist because Meg x Ruby isn't a huge ship like Destiel and Sabriel are, so I haven't come across many fellow Meg x Ruby shippers.

Chuckle.

Moose.

Hors d'oeuvres.

Being the judgemental and eternally irritable person that she was, there were many words in the English language that Ruby Williams despised. In fact, she had an entire mental list. But one surpassed all others in it's repulsiveness. One that, if it were corporeal, Ruby would've strangled on sight, followed by drowning it in a vat of hydrochloric acid and lighting it on fire. One tiny little adjective that stalked her relentlessly, pervading every aspect of her life.

Nice.

Unfortunately, by the power of some great heavenly "fuck you", Ruby was born and raised in Pleasanton, California, which, as far as she was concerned, was the world's greatest capital of Niceness (of course, Ruby had been out of Pleasanton exactly 5 times in all of her 17 years, and out of California only once, she didn't exactly have much to go on).

Pleasanton was a Nice little suburb, with Nice little row houses and a Nice school full of fairly Nice kids that came from Nice homes where they had Nice parents that cooked them Nice meals and taught them how to be Nice. And they all seemed perfectly content with that.

It was this that Ruby was thinking (or, rather, brooding) about one Friday afternoon in October, arms crossed as she stared up at the smooth, off-white ceiling.

Ruby's father worked until 6:00 on Fridays, and her mother was off with her annoying mom friends, fantasizing about well-muscled brazilian men (though they preferred the term "volunteering at animal shelters.") Since she had a count of exactly zero brothers and sisters, this meant Ruby had the Nice little house all to herself.

Being home alone on a Friday may sound exciting in theory, but it really consisted of Ruby stretched out alone on the light green couch (her mother would refer to the color as "sea foam"), holding a bag Cheetos her parents would scowl at her for and playing her one and only Nirvana CD on repeat (she'd bought it from Ash, the 20-something who sold minors the shit they wouldn't normally be allowed to buy, before he'd stopped selling to Ruby in the wake of the great Sam Winchester incident, leaving her with 3 The Smiths CDs, 1 Nirvana, and a severe lack of interesting illegal substances.)

Ruby's gaze eventually wandered over to the wall, which a small, black spider was currently making it's way up. She watched as it scuttled around hurriedly, as if it had somewhere to be. "I should probably kill you," she informed it. When the spider simply continued it's wandering, Ruby glared at it. "I'm going to. Right now. I'll go get the vacuum, and put the arm thing right up there, and you'll get sucked it." The spider went on in it's spidery ways, and Ruby found herself too lazy to carry out the threat. "I won't kill you if you make my mom scream," she offered. The spider kept walking. "Well fuck you, too, then," Ruby sighed, rolling over so she could bury her face in a silk throw pillow so she could continue to brood and contemplate whether or not she was going insane (who the hell talks to spiders?) and the sort of impact insanity would have on her life (after all, an insane asylum had got to be at least a little more interesting that fucking Pleasanton.)

This train of thought was cut off abruptly by a ringing of the doorbell. Ruby groaned audibly, vaguely wondering who would want to visit. Probably one of mom's friends looking for some milk. Or some much-needed life advice. Or a personality.

Although from her current position the journey to the door seemed akin to that of the Jewish diaspora, she knew that if it was one of her mother's friends and and the door, they would probably be able to grasp the concepts of the 21st century long enough to successfully call one of Ruby's parents if the door wasn't opened, which would likely create some sort of epic chain reaction that ended in Ruby getting chastised and her mother coming home early. Because of this knowledge, Ruby forced herself into a standing position and made her way over to the door, mentally attempting (and failing) to recall the names of her mother's friends and match those names to a collection of nearly identical faces.

Ruby was slightly surprised to find that the person standing in the doorway was not, in fact, a 40-year-old lady trying to look 25. No, this was a girl (more like "young woman", really, but that phrase had been used patronizingly on Ruby enough times for it to make the list of words she hated) whom Ruby had never seen before, with heart-shaped face and dark, wavy hair. Though an unfamiliar person was an unusual occurrence in Pleasanton (and unusual could often be a synonym for interesting), judging from the new girl's cream-colored cardigan and thinly-applied eyeliner, she would fit in just fine with all the other Nice young people Ruby had the displeasure of knowing, which gave her a one way ticket to boringtown in Ruby's book.

The girl smiled sweetly, her expression comparable to a cloud of cotton candy dipped in white chocolate and rolled a giant bin of rainbow sprinkles. Blech. "You must be Ruby! Is your mom home?" she asked, stepping forwards in an attempt to peer past Ruby into the house. Her voice was strange, sort of lispy, with some maybe-southern accent Ruby couldn't quite place.

Ruby crossed her arms, keeping her stance in the doorway to block the other girl from getting in. "Since when was anyone under 35 been interested in my mother?"

"I'm Rachel," the girl replied, as if that was supposed to spark some sort of sudden recognition. When it didn't, she held up a large black suitcase. "I'm renting your spare bedroom? Your mom must've mentioned something."

In all honesty, Ruby did vaguely recall her parents mentioning something about taking in a new boarder, but she had an approximate attention span of 6 seconds when it came to speaking with adults, especially when she had her earbuds in. Well I can't just let in some random stranger that may or may not be who she says she is, Ruby reasoned, though most of this sudden sensibility probably came from the fact that she had no intention of giving up her precious alone time for some boring girl and her sensible ponytail, and if she blamed her stubbornness on safety concerns, she wouldn't get in trouble. "How do I know you're not a serial killer?" she challenged.

The girl let out a huff of laughter and raised one well-plucked eyebrow. "Do you get a lot of those around here?" she asked.

I wish. Ruby shrugged. "There's a first for everything, right?"

The stranger continued to smile her Disney princess-esque smile (seriously, if she wasn't careful, that Rachel chick was going to accidentally trigger someone's diabetes just by looking at them.) "I could call your mom, if that makes you feel better," she offered. Ruby spent enough time around typical Nice people to understand their language, and she knew this really meant "I can act like a Kindergartener and tell on you for not letting me in, but I'm going to do it all under the guise of doing it for your safety so you look like the immature one."

Luckily, Ruby knew how to deal with this situation without sacrificing her freedom. If this girl was renting a room, she wouldn't want to upset her new landlords, especially on her first day. "She doesn't like being bothered when she's busy," she replied calmly, which technically wasn't a lie because no one particularly enjoys when their exotic (and perhaps explicit) Brazilian male fantasies are interrupted by weirdly-voiced girls on the phone.

The girl's pleasant expression remained impeccable, even as she sighed out, "I suppose I'll have to wait out here, then," using that tone parents use when pretending to leave the park without their kids in order to get them to stop stalling.

Ruby, as a person over the age of 5, was not impressed by this statement. "I suppose," she emphasized the word in mocking of it's use (honestly, who outside of Pleasanton would ever even think to utter the word suppose in a typical conversation), "you will." And with that, she shut the door and went back to her brooding, placing this Rachel girl under the Nice category, just like all the other forgettable people she loved to ignore. And, as far as she (perhaps naively) considered it, that was that.