I, Jaune: Or, Underpowered Alcoholic Makes Huntsman School Noticeably Worse [RWBY]

[Eric d'Orléans]

yo what it just now updated

Click to shrink...

I posted this chapter here hours ago, bro.

Wanna see me do it again?

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

Chapter 2: A More Flawed Gem is a Better Fanfic Than This
"LOWER CASE IS FOR THE LOWER CLASS."

— 3 —​

One of the shittiest ways to know the future is to be self-conscious of your own faults but unwilling to do shit about them due to a kind of personal inertia. Those kinds of insane, typically alcohol fueled fugue states when you decide to write a self insert fanfiction in a world of superpowered teenagers, wherein you accurately call yourself out as being a narcissistic asshole dedicated to doing whatever he wants to the detriment of his friends and those who care about him most.

And then in real life, your narcissistic, asshole tendencies to just walk over your friends in order to do whatever it is you want to do winds up ruining some of your best, most productive friendships. Especially when your self-insert had been brutally made aware of them deep-seated character flaws and was working on them.

Then you write some kind of vague sequel, finding yourself in the exact same shoes, now instead dealing with the fallout of being a narcissistic asshole with an alcohol problem. Eventually winding up getting in administrative trouble for what could conceivably be a felony, and getting forced to go sober and get therapy. And then the exact same fucking thing happens to you in real life.

If I ever find myself in another adventure like this, I'll be sure to focus on being a sex addict whose main problem is sleeping with all the hot anime girls so much they send me to rehab. The sexy kind of rehab. Not the uncool rehab for drugs. Like Amy Winehouse except I don't die and my biggest problem is spreading a curable STD to all your favorite waifus.

Maybe then I'll finally get back into the dating game in real life.

Like I said, it's the shittiest way to be able to predict the future.

In fact… in fact… uh?

I paused at the doors of the cafeteria, and suddenly felt a nosebleed coming. What had I been thinking about again? Fuck, I had completely phased out on my way here. Just zoned out to rap music on my scroll (not a phone), and following directions to get to this place. I miss artists like Denzel Curry or System of a Down. Jaune's music app was mostly filled with playlists of typical anime bullshit that Emperor Hirohito would probably roll over in his grave he heard.

Whatever.

Probably wasn't important.

Unlike my very important goal to find the three people who in theory should be my best friends, but probably hate me more than anyone else in the world.

— 4 —​

Weiss didn't really care for Valean food. Its haute cuisine, though, she could deal with that. That kind of stuff was legendary for its quality and unpronounceability. The more silent letters in your food, the better it probably tasted.

But this? This?

She poked a fork at it. "I think the pig this bacon came from died before I was born," she said. Just looking at it felt like punishment. Having to eat it for breakfast felt like punishment. Everything felt like she was being punished.

Because she was. Her and the entirety of team BASS. Her only source of schadenfreude was the fact that she hadn't seen Jaune since the medic took him away last night. The Headmaster had told her and her teammates that he was being handled. That was pleasant to know on some level, but on another level deeply worrying.

At the higher levels, Huntsmen teams in the academy weren't always a four-man band. Not exactly because of any rules or special allowances or skills, but because one should become a sophomore before going out on missions, there was a possibility of someone dying. But at the freshman level, you didn't do that. You're required to have four teammates at any given moment. Forcing you and three complete strangers to live your every moment together, building each other up, and that kind of generic pep talk bullpucky.

If Jaune was being expelled like he should have been the very moment he showed up at Beacon, that would mean they were legally down a man.

That would mean that they were all failing by proxy.

That would technically mean Jaune had been right all along. And literally nothing in the world could be worse than that. Not even the thought of failing this year and having to repeat it.

Shamrock—Jetty Shamrock today—put her purple tophat on the table and sighed. "I think it's turkey bacon." Only reason why I can eat it. Though… yeah."

Blake kind of just morosely stirred what Weiss thought were biscuits and gravy. Although exactly why anyone would want biscuits with some kind of white sausage gravy was beyond her. It was just plain inhumane.

"Anyone else just not feeling hungry?" Blake asked.

Weiss swallowed. Headmaster Ozpin and Deputy Headmistress Goodwitch had, for a lack of a more polite term, completely chewed their asses out last night. She had nightmares about the entire thing the whole night. Woke up in a cold, dirty sweat.

Vale had some pretty good self-defense laws. Doubly so for licensed Hunters. But the laws didn't exactly protect you if you went out of your way to find trouble. And in any case, they were freshman students. That fact had been made painfully clear. In hindsight, Weiss couldn't figure out how she got convinced to do it. She suspected Jaune, because he was obviously at fault in this for something, but Blake had been the one to actually convince her and Shamrock.

Weiss had just kept thinking about how those dirty animals had been hitting Schnee Dust Company shipments. Hurting the employees of her family with impunity because the local law enforcement were a bunch of incompetent buffoons. Blake had shown them a video she had acquired somewhere, and Weiss thought… she thought…

…she thought it was only a matter of time before they were expelled. Already they had detention in the afternoon Friday after class, and most of her weekends for the foreseeable future.

"I'm not really feeling like eating, either," Weiss said quietly. How could she when all her thoughts were of how she'd killed her dream on a stupid whim because of a stupid teammate convinced her of a stupid plan, and whatever fresh hell awaited her into detention starting today at noon. She'd never been in trouble before. Not any real trouble. Not like this.

The scar over her eye itched. And that was never a good sign.

"So what else are we going to do until then?" Jetty asked, looking into her hat. With a forced smile, she brushed away some of her red and black hair, before producing a deck of playing cards from somewhere. "Anyone want to learn how to play rummy?"

It was a weak, forced offer, and everyone knew it. But it was a kind of distraction. Even if it would be scandalous if anyone caught a Schnee heiress playing cards.

"Please," Weiss snorted, what was a totally very lady like sound coming from her delicate, lady-like nose. "Like I would ever play cards with you two."

Blake raised an eyebrow. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Weiss made a shooing gesture at her. "I don't know. You look like the kind of girl who cheats at cards."

"Rude much?"

"Back outside the dust shop door, you said you could totally pick the lock to the back in case we needed to. It's not exactly the kind of thing someone who doesn't cheat at cards would do!"

Blake hissed, an almost cat like noise. "Like you're one to judge. The only reason you wanted to go was because you thought you could arrest faunus."

"They're thugs and criminals and had it coming. I just wanted to do the right thing!"

"Ladies?" Shamrock said, looking decidedly uncomfortable.

"Ah, yes. Contributing to the prison industrial complex." Blake scoffed. "I've never seen something more noble. I bet your daddy would have loved to see that."

"You leave my family out of it!"

"Did you know forced prison labor isn't illegal in Vale? But, I bet you did, and I bet it doesn't bother you. Half of what your family does in Atlas would probably be criminal in any sane country."

Weiss snarled. "We don't do anything wrong! Those people would be starving on the streets without us anyways. Are you saying we should have never given faunus money? Just sit around on all this Dust and let the world collapse without it? Do you even think before you speak? Why do you have to act like such an entitled little brat!"

"Because those people are just that, Weiss. People. Our school uniforms are made by the Royal Corrections Ministry; they're made by slaves! You don't think it's screwed up how even though, like, only thought they're 13% of the population, faunus make up over 50% of the prison population?"

"Don't do the crime if you can't pay the time," Weiss said snidely. "You're starting to sound like you actually support the White Fang. And can't understand what basic math means, either."

"Ladies," Shamrock tried again, squirming in place.

"I bet you've never worked a day in your life!" Blake yelled, throwing her hands up. It was drawing attention. "How dare you call me entitled!"

"Because you are! This entire thing is your fault! And I let you trick me into thinking—ugh! Why do I even bother? It's not like you ever listen to me."

Someone plopped down into the chair next to Weiss. So suddenly and out of nowhere that Weiss spun, teeth grit, ready to slap their new guest for intruding.

"Can't you see this table is taken?" she snapped, only to meet the blue eyes of Jaune Arc.

Scratch that. Not slap. Claw his eyes out.

The boy was smiling, in a somehow upside down manner. How could he smile at a time like this?! Using his shield as a kind of plate, he was carrying seven cups of piping hot coffee.

"I don't like me what I'm seeing none," he said, like nothing was wrong. "I come all this way to find you, expectin' you to be all heartbroken I was missing. But knows what I find instead? Buncha biddies passing they the goddamn Bechdel test. How's ya boy supposed to trust a team that isn't always talking about me when I'm not around?"

Like every time he spoke, it was like deciphering a whole different language. If it weren't for the fact that this was pretty much the only way Jaune said stuff, she'd think he was screwing with her.

"Jaune, could you just, like for once, just not?" Blake asked softly, side eyeing the coffee. As though she were suddenly coming down from a headache from his mere presence. "And why are you fully armed in the cafeteria?"

The boy only smiled. Nothing was wrong in his insane little world. "Stay strapped or get clapped, Blake. Y'all got no idea the blood sport it were forcing my way to the front of the coffee line. Want some? There's enough caffeine between these cups to kill a small badger."

"What kind?" Shamrock asked suspiciously, shuffling the cards between her hands.

"Iunno. North American? Pa just taught me to kill and gut 'em, not give a taxonomic definition."

"The coffee, Jaune."

"Oh, that? The only kind of coffee I like, Blake, like my teammates."

"Thanks, I hate you too," Weiss said, the truly awful pun making her give up on a spiritual level. Her earlier combativeness with Blake was just withering away, and she hated it. Hated how this boy could just kill her soul. Like some kind of Grimm.

Until she saw Shamrock reaching for one of the cups. Weiss sniffed and sat up straight. "Coffee! What did you spike it with? Jaune, I swear to god—"

Shamrock froze.

He held up his hands placatingly. "Easy, easy. It's just coffee."

"I've got some fire dust we can light up," Shamrock offered, pulling out a vial of the red stuff. "Light it up before his mouth and see how big the flame gets."

He had the balls to look indignant. "Why the hell do you think I'm drunk right now?"

Weiss was at a loss for words. Which she really shouldn't be at this point with him anymore. Making angry little noises that were her attempts at forming a coherent string of sentences together, she angrily gestured all around themselves before finally pointing a finger at him.

"You're you, you degenerate!" she finally managed to get out.

Blake seemed unable to help herself. With a certain cattiness, she said under her breath, "Oh hey, like that's not at all a loaded word."

Weiss ignored her. It was probably better that way. She had far more annoying things to deal with. Emphasis on thing. The only boy currently in their team was less of a human being, and more a loose collection of character flaws.

Jaune got that look in his eyes again. The one he seems to always get. Right before he said something Jaune-like, perfectly calculated to get under her skin. Just seeing it made her want to strangle him.

But somehow, he caught himself and shrunk a bit inwardly. "Alright. Yeah. You're right, Weiss." He took a breath. "Oz the great and terrible is making me go to therapy about it."

"Good," Blake said. "What took him so long?"

He shrugged, looking away. "My guess is they had to set up the infrastructure for routine piss tests. I pop hot and I'm dead. Same goes for pretty much every drug except for regular old amphetamines, because for some reason that's perfectly legal here and is in like half of the good energy drink. I have this pet theory that everyone has ADD or something."

"What's ADD?" Shamrock asked, putting her hat back on. She had this squinty look on her face.

"Don't let him distract you," Weiss said.

Shamrock gave a one-armed shrug, conceding the point.

"So I take it you're all good? Blake, ya looking a frog's hair green," he asked, taking one of the cups and sipping from it. "Because I now officially have third degree burns in my throat."

"Gee, Jaune. I don't know," Blake said sarcastically. She flipped her hand at him. "I guess we'll find out together during the detention today."

He blinked in surprise. "Y'all got detention? What for?"

Weiss' voice hitched in her throat. How could he not know? The mere idea he was getting in trouble for everything and not him, just galled her. Her scar itched so awfully she had to rub it on her sleeve.

Shamrock said, "Because freshman students shouldn't be destroying private property to stop a terrorist organization?"

"Oh." He took another sip. "Figured they'd be happy we were going after Torchwick. We just kind of hurried up the inevitable."

"What does some wanted gangster have to do with the White Fang?" Blake asked. "Girls, I think he's still on something. Did we forget to flush the stuff he was hiding in his boots?"

Jaune scowled. "So that's why I had suspiciously drug-shaped blisters on my feet! Didn't even realize I put shit in there."

Apparently no longer caring about him spiking the coffee, Shamrock grabbed a cup and took a sip. "Dude. You had stuff everywhere."

"Yeah, that sounds like me," he said with an embarrassed grimace, looking away towards Team VYPR's table. He went quiet for a moment, which was a miracle in and of itself. He tried to say something, only to shake his head and drown his mouth in hot coffee. Weiss hoped it deep fried his tongue.

"Hey, good news," Shamrock said. "The coffee sucks too."

"Yeah, I do have that effect on everything I touch," he said.

Blake side-eyed him. "You're thinking about something. I don't like it when you start thinking about things. It usually means one of us is going to get sexually harassed."

The boy rolled his blue eyes. "I told you last night or whenever it was, nothing like that is in the cards for any of us."

Shamrock hissed. "You stay away from my cards!"

"I mean—" Jaune held his hands up. He suppressed a sigh. "Look. When does your detention end?"

"When you die," Weiss snapped. The sheer fact he didn't seem to have it was just—ugh! They were ruining her life, and he got off with just being told to be a normal functioning adult! How was that fair by any metric?

Jaune regarded her evenly. She returned his look with a sour expression. Whenever the manic idiot started looking serious, uh. Actually she didn't really know what to expect. Truth be told, she'd never really seen him do it. But it was definitely a bad sign. She thought she would prefer him trying to undress her with his eyes, as disgusting a mental image as that was. She'd seen him do that for sure.

"I've got three deaths under my belt and counting," he said to her.

"La petite mort and an hour-long shower doesn't count," Blake said, pushing her plate away from herself.

Jaune made a theatric face. "I don't like you sexualizing my showers like that. It creeps me out."

"You creep us all out!" Weiss said. "There's literally not a single moment we've been in your presence we haven't felt perved on."

Shamrock raised her hand. "I never have been."

He gestured his cup of coffee at her. "That's because you sexually conflict me on a deep, emotional level enough as is, you Brendon Urie ass looking motherfucker, and I'm not mature enough to handle that."

"That's kind of even worse," Blake said. "But she is right, you are a creep."

Jaune looked like he was going to fight her on that, in a way which would probably involve talking about her boobs or something. He had that look in his eyes. But, uncharacteristically for the second time in a single conversation, Jaune stopped himself.

Probably had something to do with him leering over at Pyrrha.

He just held up his hands. "Alright. Kinda deserve that. You're right and I'm just making it worse."

"Good!" Weiss huffed, folding her arms.

The boy looked uncomfortable, and thoughtful. Probably because trying to get coherent thoughts through his skull was a painful act of vandalism.

"What can I do to make this never happen again?" he asked, going for a second cup of coffee.

"Stop being Jaune?" Blake suggested.

He shook his head. "Haven't been for like a week or two, hooah." A pause. "Actually, how long has it been since I passed my initial interview to get accepted to Beacon? Time's kinda fuzzy in my head."

"You're not cool or cryptic or mysterious, so stop trying that too," Shamrock said, pretty much vocalizing what everyone thinks every time Jaune says something like that.

He nodded. "Okay. I'm trying here to fix shit. Y'all got detention, and I got forced therapy. But if you think about it, that's all that really happened. Right?"

Weiss got the feeling he was trying to say something else. But she chalked it off to him simply having the memory of an addict.

"No thanks to you or Blake," she said.

"Hey!" Blake snapped. Why did she always get so prissy and annoyed with Weiss of all people?

Jaune just looked stunned. "So no one's told y'all?"

Shamrock took off her hat and pulled out an ace of spades from it. She seemed satisfied by that, but not by whatever the boy was saying. "Told us what?"

An uncomfortable smile started sliding over his lips. And already he had violated his attempts to not be a creep. Good job, Jaune. That lasted a whole three minutes. But to be fair, that was a record by his standard.

The boy stood up suddenly, puffing his chest out like an Atlas soldier standing at attention. "That," he declared. "As the continuing and perpetual leader of Team Bass, it's my job to make sure we all get through this semester with top marks. If we don't, then I get expelled, meaning everyone fails this year."

"What!" Weiss snapped.

He shrugged helplessly. Which was about as much help as he could actually give this entire team. "Part of the condition of my therapy. Be the leader you all deserve to have."

"You're bullshitting me," Blake said. She looked around at her teammates. "We all know he's lying, right? No one actually believes him?"

Jaune started looking manic. The way he did when he mixed his alcohol and amphetamine cola. If he were anybody but Jaune, it might have looked endearing, like a special needs puppy. On him? Well, no. Just, no.

"I ain't bullshitting about being the leader you all deserve to have!"

"Funny," Shamrock drawled, spinning her card around. Now it was a jack of clubs. Wait, no, six of hearts. How was she doing that? "I didn't know I deserved someone else to add to my eventual suicide note."

Jaune laughed once. "This is what I like you, J Shamrock."

"Jetty," she insisted unhappily. "Which you'd know if you paid attention. You know, like a leader should?"

"Just y'all wait! Come Monday when classes begin, we're going to be the goddamn best! We're gonna do study groups, train together, go out and kill those supernatural monsters! Everything fidna be alright. We got over the worst hurdle. They're forcing me into therapy. And I ain't finna rest til y'alls at least tolerate me!"

"Die from exhaustion, please?" Blake suggested.

Jaune finished his coffee, and then grabbed another cup and downed it in a single gulp. It dribbled down his chin unceremoniously. He wiped it away with his sleeve, and came back grinning ear from ear. He was breathing heavy, like after a joke. Shifting back and forth on one foot with enough anxiety it made Weiss feel it by proxy.

"Which is why I'm giving up leadership and all my responsibilities onto one of you guys. Everything bad I do now is your fault until I'm cleared for team lead again by a psych board! Ozpin's ideas, not mine, so blame the old man, ta-ta, got some study prep to do!" he said, spinning away and walking off with a purpose to… somewhere that most certainly wasn't detention.

"Wait!" Weiss called out. "So I'm in charge now? I refuse to take responsibility for you!"

Blake made a face. "Who died and made you queen?"

She laughed, a bitter, mocking sound. "Well, obviously, I'm the only one it could be. We let you lead us last night and now we're all getting detention and barely avoided going to jail."

"Suicide pact," Shamrock said with a desperate edge to her voice, eyes looking this way and that. "Who heard suicide pact?"

Weiss and Blake both raised their hands.

Until Weiss eventually collapsed face first into her palms. "Jaune's going to get me expelled for sure. What did I ever do to deserve this?"

"It was the racism," Blake said, eyes narrow. "I'm pretty sure it started with the racism."

"What's racist about being right? Facts can't be racist, Blake."

Shamrock sighed, rubbing her temples. Looking for all the world like a kid embarrassed by the fact her mother is going off on some poor cashier.

Because that's all it took. Weiss and the little black brat went off on each other again.

a/n: Scene 3 is basically a straight rip of a conversation from our Discord, which you're invited y'all want. Figured it'd be a funny observation, even if Jaune forgets it quickly. Rest of the chapter was me wanting to just try a 3rd person scene. See how it feels for this fic
The Blake-Weiss argument was inspired by the tag on my Army Combat Uniform. Thank you, Federal Prison Industries Inc., very cool.

 

[pingas plight]

sorry about that outburst, sir, my brain has a live memory-pruning service, i forgot the upload was today.

 

[Kell of Twilight]

This level of fucked physiology is hurting my head.

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

Chapter 3: In This Essay I Will Be Exploring the Relationship Between Smoothbrain and Cup Size
"So, how do I laser beam monsters with my eyeballs?"

— 5 —​

I held my hand out in front of my face and watched it shake. It made it impossible to shave this morning, leaving my mug covered in a blonde, downy mess like a newborn chicken. Coupled with the sweat that just wouldn't stop,I felt filthy on every level. Originally I hoped to shower it off, but an hour after a stretch in the hot water, I hadn't completely dried off.

I couldn't deny the reality any longer.

Alcohol withdrawal is a dangerous thing. I had no idea how much I was really drinking before this all began. My therapist had told me that apparently I had absolutely no proper grasp on how to stop drinking. My alcohol use disorder had depended on the fact that I would completely binge myself, and felt like nothing, and considered it just a mild evening. A relic of my college partying days and a current effect of all my friends being functional alcoholics.

Shit like that happens in the Army.

I was just unfortunate enough to get caught.

Whatever. Cold turkey Jaune could handle this.

As usual, I got up way before my alarm at the kind of hour only consummate depressives woke up at. Team BASS still slept.

A blonde girl from Memphis was staring at me from behind when I rubbed the steam off the mirror, this victorious little smirk on her kissable lips. "When I sober up, don't tell Simone about this," she said to me. I spun in an instant, swinging my fists to brain that devious little bitch.

My fists hit empty air. The sudden motion sent me tumbling to the floor. Tore my stitches from Grimmbles the Irish Beowolf, too. The wound bled in somehow smug protest. The sweat wouldn't stop; I gave up trying to get dry enough before applying the gauze over my chest. So, still wet, I had half crawled, half stumbled my way outside into the common area kitchen here in the dorms.

Hands shook too much to get food into my mouth. And actually trying to overcome the feeling just made me nauseous. Not that I had anything in my stomach to throw up besides maybe some coffee. Hadn't really been able to eat anything since going sober.

"Huh. That's not broccoli," a pipsqueak's voice said. "And here I thought I was going to have to burn the microwave."

Covering half my face with my palm, I looked up from the chair I was sitting in. Ruby Rose stood in front of me, leaning forwards to examine me, hands clasped behind her back. How could I miss her coming in the room?

"What's good, short round?" I tried. It came out like a croak.

She stepped back sharply. "Ew. You're not sick, are you?"

I grunted. "Do me a solid?"

"No. Liquid is about as far as I'll go with you."

I allowed myself a smile. "Perfect. Glass of water, please?"

Those silver eyes watched me skeptically. I half expected her to deny me out of hand, but to my vague surprise, a minute later and she was back with a paper cup of water.

"Thank," I said, hoping I'd be able to keep the water down.

"Welc," she replied without thinking.

"All I get is half the word?"

She shook her head. "You only gave me one thank. I require at least two for a full word."

Despite myself, I smiled. "You're a brat."

The little teenager frowned. "And you're bleeding."

Instinctively, I put a hand to my nose. The moisture there was just sweat. Funny, since recently, I kept getting these feelings like I was going to get a nosebleed. Figured it was only a matter of time. Back in the deserts of Arizona, where they trained special forces in preparation for Afghanistan, nosebleeds had been a constant factor of life. I became convinced I was no longer able to produce mucus, only scabs.

Not that I was special forces. I hadn't even signed up for airborne school. The Agency didn't actually have a need for those types, at least not as far as my need to know.

Then again, maybe I was. We all used to say that you had to be at least somewhere on the spectrum if you managed to survive in military intelligence.

Ruby shook her head and tapped herself on the chest.

"Yes, I see. Completely flat. Very impressive."

She scowled. "And you're naked."

"Boxer briefs and bandages on my chest legally count as a full wardrobe," I said with a huff.

"And the blood?"

"I understand it's a natural part of becoming a young woman. Ask Yang."

She pursed her lips. "Stop being a weirdo, Jaune. Your chest is bleeding and you know it."

With a noise somewhere between a sigh and a groan, I looked down. The sudden motion of my eyes made me nauseous again. I had to shut them tight.

Ruby seemed to interpret that with a concerned sound. "Pyrrha says your Aura is borked. You need to see a doctor?"

"Oh, sure, yeah. Just tell everyone I'm a cripple, Pyrrha. Very cool."

"You're not answering me."

"When do I ever give a straight answer?" I bit back with.

The half pint just frowned down at me. "Get up."

"Why?"

"Because you're a lot bigger than me and I can't exactly just drag you across campus." She hesitated, before stepping forwards and offering me her arm. "C'mon, I'll help you. You need to get that looked at."

"Why do you even care?" I said, suddenly angry at her. "I thought we hated each other."

Fuck you, but was that pity in your eyes? Get fucked, short round. I didn't need that from you of all people.

"Jaune!" she snapped.

"You're still in your pajamas!"

She grabbed my arm, the one with the hairline fractures from the dust incident. I suppressed a sudden yelp as she leaned back to pull me to my feet. It made me drop the cup. I practically flinched into a stand.

My legs were shaky. Enough that Ruby had to briefly flare her Aura to catch me from falling and help hold me. The short little thing draped my arm over her shoulder in a way I couldn't help but feel emasculated by.

"Can we just go back to fighting over broccoli and the microwave? I really don't have—I don't—it's a long walk."

"You're a jerk, we have to help each other somewhere, right?"

For a moment, I saw another girl in her face. Actually saw it. Someone I had helped and abandoned in equal measure a lifetime ago. Dinah. Someone I was just as sure as I'd actually never met as I was sure I had.

I blinked hard, willing the image to go away.

"You do seem to get stabbed in the chest a lot," a ghost whispered into my ear in that backcountry Memphis accent, running slender fingers over my shoulders. "Kinda sucks. I'd offer to stitch it up for you, but you know how that went for us last time."

Shut the fuck up, Simone.

"Sink," I said quickly, desperation changing my voice. My eyes shot open. "Sink, now!"

To her credit, she didn't ask. Helping to carry my weight, and still glowing red, she led me to the sink. Or I dry heaved my empty guts out for a solid minute. Spitting into the basin. she turned the faucet on for me, and I washed down the yellow bits of bile and foamy spit. The water had tasted far better going down than it had going up.

"Thank you," I croaked. "I… I mean that, Ruby. You didn't have to. But you, I… owe you. Sorry. For everything. Jesus, I'm such a fuck up and now all this and I don't deserve…"

Something unreadable flashed in her eyes. "You good?" she asked, then shook her head. "Can you stand there for a moment?"

I made a hoarse noise. Only to inhale sharply as the girl disintegrated into a stream of rose petals. I stood there for a moment, hardly able to process what I was seeing. Intellectually, I understood you could do this. But seeing it in person kind of just broke my eyes. Human beings weren't supposed to do this. Trying to play back the image of her flesh twisting into bits of red flowers made me dry heave again.

A moment later, the petals danced into the room and materialized as a tiny girl with silver eyes wearing a face mask.

"Shit. They got Covid here too?" I asked.

"I don't want to catch whatever you got."

Somehow I didn't make a condom joke. I considered that progress. "I think I need a mask too for that to work."

She blinked. Then remove the mask and put it over me. It smelled, predictably, like roses and strawberries. Way too close to food for my comfort.

"My dad once explained it was like pissing on yourself," she said thoughtfully, seeing my face. "If some guy comes up to you and you're both naked and pees, you're both now covered in it. But if he's wearing pants, then at best he does piss himself, and you can just laugh. You're dry and he's not. That's how germs work."

"I'll be sure to piss myself in moderation just in case," I said.

She nodded sagely, as if that was exactly what she wanted to hear. "C'mon, Jaune. Let's get you to the doctor."

— 6 —​

"Ah," the obsequious, Atlesian looking boy manning the office's front desk said. The purple coat over the expensive cut of cloth beneath made me think he was a pimp at first. "Ruby Rose, blood type O negative, registered organ donor. What can I do for today?"

"Hi," I said with a shaky wave, My other arm trapped around Ruby's tiny shoulders. Neither of us had gotten much better dressed, save for some shoes, undershirt, and sweatpants. "Here too."

The boy didn't look much older than me. Too much youthful color in his sandy-blond hair. Was he a student too? I knew they had student employment all over campus. But the physician's office at this hour?

"Yes, I know," he said. "Jaune Arc. Blood type A positive, potential future unwilling organ donor. Your appointment isn't until tomorrow afternoon, and isn't with the physician. Therapy is down the hall. Figured you weren't showing up this early for it."

I frowned. "Okay, Mr. Walking HIPAA violation."

"It's Oleander, and the only HIPAA I am aware of is the hippogriff Grimm. I believe your run in was with a Beowolf." He folded his hands on his desk, atop the book he'd been reading before we showed up.

"Why are the boys in this school a buncha creeps?" Ruby asked.

Oleander shrugged. "I prefer to think of myself as well-researched on my fellow students."

She compressed a sigh. "We're here to see the doctor. His stitches are coming out." She gestured at her chest, then mine after a pause. "Also he's shaky and all sweaty and it's getting on me and that's gross."

He frowned, looking like me actually having a valid reason for being him had pretty much ruined his morning. "I presume you want to see Croaker because the nurses have all filed restraining orders on you?" he asked.

Ruby gave me a look.

"Just, give me somewhere to sit until I can get this fixed," I said.

"He is asleep at the moment. It may take some time to rouse him."

"We're fine with waiting," Ruby said quickly, like she knew he was going to say that. Been counting on it, in fact. "We'll get a note. They won't mind if we come to class late. Or miss it entirely. This is important."

"Ruby," I said slowly. "Whose class do we got first this morning."

"Professor Port's," she said. Then, suspiciously: "Why?"

Ah. Suddenly her bout of altruism made a lot more sense. Kind of had to commend her. This scheme to avoid the worst class in school had several layers going to it.

Oleander eyed us evenly the entire time we spoke. I got the distinct impression he was trying to intimidate us. Well, it wasn't going to work on me! Ruby, if you wanted to get out of class, you only had to say so.

"Fetch the doctor," I said. "We can wait."

"The girl can go to class. I will find you somewhere to sit," he said, standing up. He somehow made it sound like he was reluctantly giving me a favor, instead of his damn job.

I shook my head. "No, she's my plus one to the prom. I need to keep her around because these hoes ain't loyal."

Ruby scowled. "Also he suffered a brain injury and probably can't find his way back without me."

"I choose to believe that," Oleander said.

"Which part?" she asked, slightly desperate. "Because we're not dating. I have a reputation to uphold!"

"Thank you, Ruby," I said. "Very cool."

She stuck her tongue out at me.

Oleander didn't press the issue. Instead, he led us to a room in the back. I took a spot on the examination table or whatever it was, idly looking around at all of the posters warning about common sports injuries and the dangers of smoking.

"But we're not dating!" Ruby insisted as the boy left us alone to find the doctor.

She spun around and pointed at me. "We're not!"

I laid back down on the table. "I'm in some mental gray area between 17 and 25. Way too creepy to consider, kid. I don't even look at you that way."

That somehow seemed to be the entirely wrong answer, judging by her sudden change in expression. Bitches be crazy this time of year.

"I'm cute as heck!" she protested. "My sister told me herself. Only thing cuter than me is Crescent Rose. And that's only because .50 caliber is in this year."

"What's Crescent Rose?" I asked.

"We have combat class together. I say it there all the time. I've only told you like a billion times! You're telling me a boy as fully armed as you can't remember my gun's name?"

I looked down at myself. My weird transforming shield sword combo was still strapped to my arm, my somewhat possibly stolen pistol, XO, holstered at my hip.

"I've only ignored you like a billion times," I said. "Besides, people who name their guns are psychopaths."

"No!" she said petulantly, folding her arms and giving me some kind of pouty face. "I named my gun and I'm the only one of us not going to therapy. I bet you're only going because you're such a weird freak!"

Fuck you, Oleander, and this world's flippant disregard for HIPAA.

"I love Crescent Rose and it loves me. And I'm the only one of us that's normal!"

"Even weirder to name your sex toys."

She gagged. "Ew!"

I sat up. The wax paper on the table stuck to my sweaty back. "You keep talking like that and I'm going to force feed you broccoli! No, no, I'm finna sneak into your room, find your cinnabons, hollow them out, and fill them with broccoli! You'll go to bite them, take a bite, only to have your mouth filled with healthy macronutrients!"

Ruby gasped in horror. She briefly turned into a cloud of roses before reappearing in the corner of the room. "You wouldn't dare!"

"And the best part is, I won't do it to all of them." I jumped to my feet, feeling my chest wound start to suck. "Just some of them. So you'll always be living in terror, never knowing what the next bite entails!"

"Stop it, stop it!" she screamed. She looked about ready to start hyperventilating.

Which was the perfect opportunity for the door to open and the big doctor to enter the room. He wasn't quite as tall as Ozpin, but he sure filled himself out far better than that man. Maybe a couple inches over me, wearing what looked like a white doctor's lab coat over something black.

His dark blue eyes regarded Ruby at first. Lingered on her for a long, uncomfortable moment like he was seeing a ghost, before looking at me. I expected to have to start screaming about this not being what it looked like. Instead, he somehow managed to look tired and bored. A notable change from the expression he'd been suppressing a moment ago.

"Alright, kid," he said to me in the tone of a man who had given up decades ago and was just carrying on through inertia. "Before we can get this show on the road, we need to begin with a couple of preliminary examinations. Starting with a non-negotiable prostate exam."

— 7 —​

Ruby sat in a chair across the room from me, huddled up in a nearly fetal position. One arm wrapped around her legs, the other viciously guarding her prize.

The physician, Croaker, had half-heartedly offered her a bowl of those generic doctor's office lollipops as some form of compensation or whatever for being here. When she asked if there was a limit, the man had shrugged.

She'd stolen the entire bowl.

Whenever I looked over at her and her bouquet of sweets, I half imagined she was going to flip me off victoriously behind the physician's back. I could see it in her silver eyes.

"Your mother," he asked her, going over my paperwork or records or whatever. Ruby perked up. "She have eyes like yours?"

Ruby nodded a touch eagerly, though she didn't look exactly happy. "Yeah. She used to go to Beacon, too. You, uh, you know her?"

The physician didn't reply for a moment. Until he gave a quick nod. "Summer Rose, right?"

She smiled. But I didn't miss she suppressed a slight wince. "Guess you were a student here too, huh?"

"I've been a physician all my life," he mumbled. Somehow I doubted that. At least in part, for some reason.

"Oooh! You ever patch her up, doc?"

The big man shrugged. Honestly, he didn't look old enough for that. I estimated him to be in his late thirties at most. If Ruby was 15, then her mother went here somewhere between 16-20 years ago, by my reckoning. Even presuming he was 40, he'd only be a little older than Ruby's mom at the time. Not nearly old enough to have been the school's doctor.

Ugh. Thinking. This is why I drink, to avoid it. I start reading into things.

"Yeah, you're right. Mom was the best. I bet she never got hurt. You probably just knew her from being so awesome back then."

I cleared my throat. "Uh, hello. Still here?"

Croaker sighed, removing the stethoscope from my breast. His breath smelled of a mix of coffee and the incredibly enticing aroma of cigarettes. "Yeah, yeah, hold your hippogriffs, kid. Honestly, the girl here probably saved your life. Your heart rate and blood pressure is all kinds of bad. Alcohol withdrawal is fucking serious."

"I'm here for the chest wound, not another lecture on poor life choices."

The man eyed me. I didn't like his eyes. They reminded me a little too much of one of my unhinged drill sergeants in basic training, an infantryman always wearing sunglasses to hide his eyes. When he took them off, you could see a broken man with a double digit body count, who talked about shooting children and killing civilians to protect the other brothers he ever knew. He got that look especially when talking about Ruby's mom.

"Sweating, shaking, nausea," he said, ignoring me. "Have you been hallucinating?"

"No more than usual, doc."

He nodded. "Looks like a mild case of withdrawal. Bad enough that I want to keep you for observation throughout the morning, maybe the day. Got a couple of mild treatments to deal with the symptoms, but for the most part you'll just have to wait it out. Mostly I just wanna make sure you don't start seizing up on me."

"And the wound?"

Croaker held up a clipboard. "Says here I'm not supposed to give you any sort of painkillers and should avoid anesthetics. Not to mention I suspect mixing those with your current symptoms would be a touch on the lethal side."

"I don't need them. My lungs are killing me from inhalation, I have a hairline on my arm, and I can barely laugh or talk without bleeding from my chest. Just, do whatever you gotta do."

Didn't look impressed or anything, the doctor. All he did was cast his eyes towards Ruby, who was now on her fourth lollipop. "Are you really trying this bravado schtick in front of her? Hey, girl, are you impressed by how manly he is?"

Ruby gave a single laugh. "No."

He gave me a well there you have it gesture.

I shook my head. "This shit is killing me. I don't care about her or her uncomfortable ability to destroy lollipops in seconds. I don't care if you can't put me out for the thing. Just do something, please?"

Croaker gave me another measured look. "Hey, pajama girl. Take your scroll out. You want to record a video of a teenage boy screaming like a bitch?"

"Will it mean I get to skip class today?" she asked, focusing on the most important detail.

"I'll write you a note excusing you for the whole day if the video is good enough."

Ruby hopped to her feet, lollipop in mouth, scroll in hand. "It's a deal, doc!"

I hated my life.

a/n Ruby for best girl in this fic. She and Jaune had a more combative sibling shtick going on than anything. I kinda dig it. Even if it's a minor thing, him trying to set things better with her is progress.

This chapter brought to you by the music I was listening to at the time. Namely, Violent Pornography by System of a Down.

 

[pingas plight]

man

ruby is more savage than i remember

and i am so here for it

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

man

ruby is more savage than i remember

and i am so here for it

Click to shrink...

I don't know, I've just really liked to emphasize Ruby as being a bratty little sister. She's a lot more fun getting to act like a complete character.

Plus, if there were ever an acceptable target in her life, it'd be Jaune.

 

[pingas plight]

but who would be more acceptable?
alchoholic jaune? or incompetent jaune?

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

but who would be more acceptable?
alchoholic jaune? or incompetent jaune?

Click to shrink...

The distinction hasn't been made yet in the minds of the students. Even Ruby, who views Jaune a bit like a young Qrow. V2 and to an extent V3 are all gonna be about fixing his image and doing the impossible: turning Blake into best girl

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

Chapter 4: I Ran Out of Clever Titles A Long Time Ago
"NORA, I SAID HEADPHONES ON!"

— 8 —​

When I was first in-processing basic training, we were all put together in a shitty barracks awaiting our actual training unit. Our first night there, we discovered that the showers were group showers only. Looking around each other, the boys all concluded that the first person who went there was probably gay, but by going in there and showering first, would instantly make things normal.

In sacrificing yourself on the altar of homosexuality, you made everything straight and finally the men could shower.

We all knew it wasn't really gay. Groups of men showering together is just a fact of life in the army. I mean, I went in first and to this day, my dick be like an accent mark, all about them over-Es. So that clearly put me in the clear.

Now, what probably was gay was when I walked into the occupied gym showers, saw a vaguely Asian looking man with a pink streak in his hair who had to be Ren, meeting his eyes, and in an awkward panic saying the first thing that came to my mind.

"Nice cock, bro."

He looked at me in a blank yet horrified way that I'd only seen on the face of women before. Mostly the ones on my team.

"Did Nora put you up to this?"

I looked down at my naked self. It was just me, myself, and the revolver strapped to my hip. "Nothing's up about me, my man."

Honestly, even if I'd accidentally walked into the girls shower, found Pyrrha and Yang and maybe Weiss, and they all enticingly invited me in to join them, I probably wouldn't have felt any different.

An hour and a half of lifting weights until my muscles just couldn't cope anymore. Followed by a cozy six-mile run on an inclined treadmill for give or take another hour. Then about twenty minutes of crawling to the showers on the jelly like substances that by all appearances should have been my legs. I didn't have any energy left in me.

But by sweet Jesus did that feel good.

For the first time in a long while, I've been able to just put on some music and zone out until my body collapsed. It was as close to Nirvana as I had been in a very long time. With the exception of getting so crossfaded on whatever drugs I could use to shred my liver. Fitness was what I needed. Physical activity the likes I had been unable to accomplish since my original run-in with the Emerald Forest.

Felt like the first step on a road to recovery.

Well, second step. The first step was learning that Croaker had a supernatural ability to heal people only if he was able to doctor their wounds and splint their broken bones. Honestly, I owed Ruby something awful for forcing me to go. Why no one had told me about this in the first place, I didn't know.

Actually, scratch that. The nurses who probably could have pointed me to him if I had begged them, were the same people who kind of hated me. Long story. I wasn't apologizing for it either.

Which was probably my problem. I had to wonder just how many things were holding me back of my own creation. How many problems could I have solved if I had just approached things from a better perspective in the first place, been more cognizant of myself instead of drunk or high or anything else?

I hated character development. Especially when it happened to me.

"Besides," I told Ren, shamelessly naked and setting the water in my shower to Purge the Unclean, "why would Nora want to talk to me?"

The vaguely Asian looking boy refused to even side-eye me. Just intently staring at his loofah as though it held all the answers in the world. "Good point," he mumbled. "She keeps trying to set up matches with you in combat class."

"Yeah. People like her are the reason why at any given moment, I got more bullets on me than a PowerPoint on gun violence."

"Pretty sure she wants to kill you."

"Tell a hoe to take a number."

To my surprise, that got his attention. He fixed me with a cold expression. Which I really couldn't take seriously. His nipples were all hard and pointed at me and everything.

"Don't talk about Nora like that," he said.

I held up my hands, realizing on some level I probably didn't want to make enemies with, like, the only other boy with the name at this entire school. Even if, in my professional opinion, he was completely worthless. I don't think he ever did anything of note. Except that he sounded exactly like Monty Oum. I miss that fucker.

"Sorry, bro. Just trying to be funny."

"You need new material," he said, going back to talking in a quiet voice, refusing to acknowledge me in any other way.

"But new material isn't up to my standards."

"Funny," he said dryly. "You're in no position to have high standards, yet you have them anyway."

Fucking ouch, bro. Not cool.

There really wasn't much else to get out of the boy. He and I didn't get along on a fundamental level. And unlike a cute girl, I couldn't find joy in pushing his buttons. He just kind of silently took most of it anyhow.

Toweling myself off in the locker rooms later, I heard my hotline bling. Took a moment digging through my jeans to find my scroll and check me the texts.

Indigo: sup bitch u have a moment

I stared at the text, not sure who the hell it was from. Indigo? I felt like that name should be ringing bells, but wasn't? Halfheartedly I tried to let go of my thumbs, seeing if I couldn't get some muscle memory response from my sleeve. But no, there was no actual Jaune Arc reaction to any of this. There never was but at the fringes of consciousness and physical conditioning responses.

I shook the water off my hand before trying to explore his contacts. With the exception of Team BASS, it looked like most of the people Jaune been texting before I hijacked his soul were mostly an assortment of random colors or spices. None of which I myself have talked to.

Indigo, Mom, Hazel, Glasses, Saffron, and so on. None of which meant anything in particular to me.

I looked over the contact card, and found a section of previous names. Apparently this texting app did that. In the past, Jaune had intermittently labeled Indigo as Ya Girl, I thought I blocked her, & Weepin' Shades of Indigo.

That last one got me. I recognized it as a quote from Tool's The Pot. But that would imply that, A) Jaune was the king of dude to listen to Tool, and B) Tool existed in this world and I could find their music.

I booted up my scroll's version of Google and tried figuring it out. If I could get that music to play, I would be a happy boy.

She texted me again.

Indigo: u have a moment

Indigo: this is a command from ur mother not an option

Bitch, get out of my way. I'm looking for music I actually like!

You: I wasn't aware I had an abusive MILF sidechick

Indigo: domt b gross Jaune

Indigo: proper grammer ass using bitch

Fuck it.

You: Bruh. New scroll who dis

Indigo: shit the school did give u a new scroll huh

Indigo: same school that called me thinking i was mom u wanna talk about why i had to pretend to be her and why i have to attend a parent-teacher meeting??

Indigo: im going 2 have 2 take off work friday just 2 pretend i pushed u out of my vagina and threatn 2 put you right back in asshole

I blinked. Several thoughts came rushing all together at once. This girl had to be my sister, as I vaguely recalled Jaune saying he had a couple. Second, the school had called her thinking she was my mother? Third, she was coming here!

I looked through my phone documents and found Jaune's beacon application. Sure enough, on the section to include parental contact information, he had listed two phone numbers. One was Indigo, and the other was Saffron. Holy shit, kid, you just saved my life and help me dodge.

You: I know you're my sister and I have to accept you no matter what, but I'm not comfortable with an unbirthing fetish

Indigo: ur gross wtf

Indigo: im going 2 literally rape u u fucking literally owe me it life

You: Good talk

Indigo: luh ya 2 <3

I compressed a breath, and just stood there, thumbing my scroll. It felt like a miracle on one hand, and that I was going to die on the other. I genuinely would not have known how to deal with the people who were supposed to be my parents. They would figure out something was wrong with their little boy. But a foul mouthed older sister who was willing to pretend to be my mother and stick up for me like this?

I had a feeling I could work with this.

But now I had to wonder if Beacon thought I had two moms.

— 9 —​

"Comme ci comme ça, thanks for asking," I told the empty dorm room, setting down onto my bed. Weiss and I were the only ones who actually made our beds, and of the two, mine was better. She didn't know how to do a proper hospital corner fold.

Still, I suppose I respected the effort.

I wondered if the girls and whatever Shamrock was were still in detention. But I swore they told me it was only on Fridays till Sunday. This was late into Monday evening. The sun was down and everything.

On account of being legally hospitalized, I hadn't seen my teammates since I woke up and they were all asleep. It had mostly just been Croaker, Ruby, and occasionally that monotone freak Oleander all day. Although Ruby had pretty much flaked the moment the doctor wrote her a note excusing her from class all day, not that I could blame her.

I disrobed and examined my body. Moving hurt in a good way. The only evidence of my earlier wounds was the rather nasty but well healed scar across my chest from the Grimm. I rested my hand upon it, feeling myself breathe. Relaxed.

Happy.

"You were happy back then, too," she said.

Of course, it couldn't last. It never lasted.

I kept my eyes closed. "Do me a favor, Simone. If ya gonna be my personal demon, I'll fall in love with you all over again so you'll finally leave me like the girls who came before you."

When I looked for her, it was just me. Lingering effects of the withdrawal, I supposed. Too many neurons deep fried in liquor for my own good. The only upside was that I learned that if you dissociate hard enough, you get to eavesdrop on conversations you're a part of. That, and my head was no longer constantly spinning like a starving stripper.

I hadn't had this body long, but that had given me enough time to ruin it considerably. Flexing my arm, I hoped that if whatever was holding me here knocked me loose and Jaune got free, he'd at least inherit some gains and cardio.

Still. Given the internal damage I had done, that was the equivalent of trying to work at Olive Garden because you thought it was the first step to joining the mafia. An uphill battle at best. But this was a start. I felt like I was beginning to take control of my life like an army of stepdads.

Exhausted from a day in the hospital and an evening in the gym, I went to bed for once without the craving for alcohol or nicotine.

— 10 —​

In hindsight, waking up with the hard part. I hadn't exactly realized it until now, but one of the things driving me yesterday were the bennies. One of the most common treatments for alcohol withdrawal are some form of benzodiazepine. Croaker had been a lying piece of shit, claiming he couldn't give me any medication. Or, well, he was very charitably picking his words. He couldn't do anything for the pain, which was now on a video somewhere on Ruby's scroll, but he was somewhat obligated to deal with the symptoms of withdrawal.

Benzodiazepines and his semblance combined to fix my wounds up to the point I can work out, and left me with a lasting feeling of relaxation that helped me just clock the fuck out after I had destroyed my recently healed body up in the gym.

I rolled out of bed and to my surprise found that the girls had shown back up during the night. Or, well, two girls and one extremely androgynous individual covering their eyes with their purple top hat.

Everything hurt in the best way possible. Muscles sore from the gym. An exercise well taken care of. It was a work of art just trying to get to my legs. I was about as shaky as a newborn fawn that had just been ass raped by a Canadian lumberjack.

I tried getting out some morning calisthenics. All that amounted to was me pacing back and forth as quietly as I could for about 20 minutes, listening to music, and stretching out. I can only manage maybe 20 push-ups before my abs refused to work anymore.

I considered shaving. But really, after doing my morning rituals in the bathroom, I couldn't find the effort. Back home, when my whiskers were short, I looked like a blond. And running my fingers over Jaune's stubble, I kind of liked the look. It was a bit more than I would have expected from a twink like him, like myself currently actually. Part of me wanted to see just how far I could take it, especially given this sleeve was only seventeen years old.

Another part of me just didn't like using his straight razor. I'm entirely convinced the only reason he bought it was to flex on somebody. Look at how cool and manly I am, using a straight razor like I'm on that James Bond wave. It was a long, slow process, and then I had to rinse off the sink and countertop to make sure I didn't get any fuzz on the counter. Pretty sure the girls would never forgive me for that.

Putting the finishing touches on my uniform, I padded myself down and gasped.

"Dude, shut," Shamrock called out, sitting up in bed. My eyes went straight to their crotch, trying to figure out what the deal with that was. No matter what they presented as, they always dressed in a sexless kind of way. Night shirt and everything.

Shamrock saw where my eyes went and made a spitting noise as they sat up. "It's too early for this shit, man. What are you doing?"

"Getting dressed for class and thought I forgot something."

There's a saying in the Army. Right time, right place, right uniform, and you can't go wrong no matter how incompetent you are. It's why they say it's the easiest job in the world. And given that I had only been working three days a week, I couldn't argue.

Every time I went outside in my camouflaged monkey suit, I compulsively had to pat myself down as if looking for crab lice. Make sure my military ID was in my left sleeve pocket, make sure I had a pen and pencil in my sleeve. Check for my phone and wallet in my cargo pockets. Room key in my left breast pocket. Car keys in my right pocket. Chapstick, hair comb, and emergency Bic lighter in my right breast pocket. And most importantly of all, some notepads and emergency tobacco in my right sleeve pocket.

The uniform had a lot of pockets, I'm trying to get at. It's kind of why they were mint.

Thus the brain fart. Trying to check pockets this school uniform didn't have for items I no longer carried.

"Only thing you forgot is your brain," they said. "Please retrieve it from the lost and found at your earliest convenience."

"You want to go with me?" I offered. "Help be my wingman, uh, my wing-gender-neutral-term with that Cards girl in the student center?"

They tightened the top hat over their head. "I'm down for community service. Anything to ensure you don't reproduce."

Funny.

Everyone else got up on their own time. And as a TEAM, we went to class. I still walked slightly faster than the rest of them, and liked to pretend I was still in charge, even though actual leadership was up in the air.

Classes ran in a block like my freshman year of college before building my own schedule. History, psychology, tactics, no foreign language, and so forth. I made sure we got the front row seats in all classes during our first day, and we had sort of just rolled with it. History was probably the worst subject. In theory it was fascinating, being that I loved history as much as I did, but I did not vibe with this future fantasy setting. Nothing really worked like my head canon anyways, and so I don't want to talk about it because I don't like being wrong.

It was also very college like. Typical days were nowhere near as long as a day in high school, and the topics were better taught and more condensed, Professor Mustache's class being the exception. It resulted in a lot of free time in the afternoons. At least for the schedule that my team and VYPR had, which were the only two I could concretely identify. Almost everyone else might as well have been shadow people for all I cared.

Lunch was as lunch does. I usually skipped it in any case, only joining this particular day to try to hang with my team and work on becoming an actual human being in their eyes.

To mixed results.

Blake had vanished off to the library. Weiss had snuck off, presumably to be an aristocratic bitch somewhere. And Shamrock was now a couple inches taller and had feathers on his arms. Faunus now. Using those to practice card tricks. Oh yeah, definitely a boy right now by the way.

"Can you teach me?" I asked.

Shamrock gave me a thoughtful look. "Depends. Have any money left to bet?"

I sucked in air through my teeth. "I need to pull a couple extra shifts in the foundry before my wallet's back on that high carb diet."

"In the what?" he said, fanning cards through the feathers on his arms. He didn't seem to have exact control over them. A couple of them fell to the table.

"You know, the place where you can workshop weapons and sell stuff you make."

"The fishery. Artificery. Whatever."

Well, at least I had a proper name for the place now. Shamrock didn't really seem to be inclined to teach me anything if he couldn't win some money in the process.

I passed the rest of the day in an anxious daze. I had an appointment coming up. Therapy. Not that I was going to take it very seriously. I've been through this entire dog and pony show back in DC. I knew what they're going to say, what they are probably going to diagnose me with, and everything between. And apparently had already failed it miserably, given my track record since showing up in this world.

I really wanted a drink right now. At least a cigarette or something. Some snus packets?

"Hey, Jaune!" said pretty much the only girl in the world ever happy to see me.

"Hm?" I grunted, looking up from my scroll. I'd been on my way to the appointment early, carrying my gym bag for some post therapeutic stress relief.

The red-eyed girl with the blue police beret smiled. She waved from the student center help desk. I'd been walking through the building to shave some time, and also because the journey Ruby and I had taken to the doctor's area or whatever had seen us get lost here a couple times and now I didn't know my way without it.

The girl was positively beaming. "Whatcha got in the bag? Anything in there for me?"

"Pretty sure the bag's big enough to carry you, girl."

"Ooh," she said. "Are we going to go down the whole romantic threatening kidnapping angle?"

Honestly, that's my kind of line. But if she was going to start with it, then there was no way I could accidentally overstep my boundaries and offend her.

"Not unless I can convince you to go full tomboy mode and go to this appointment in my stead."

She tilted her head, arms folded. "You sick, you hurt? What appointment?"

I approached the desk, not wanting to just kind of be yelling in the middle of the student center. "Not hurt anymore, thank God. Do have a nasty scar for it though. I mean, I can finally work up a sweat without collapsing to the ground bleeding."

Cards nodded sagely. "I had that problem too when I was thirteen. Five years later and now the only times I'm on the ground bleeding is when my teammates stab me."

"I'm going to assume that's a slutty metaphor. And if so, ask for your Snapchat."

She's snorted. "I wish. Team ICWN—Icon—is just a little brutal when it comes to training. Kind of my own fault. My Semblance is pretty tanky, and I kind of have to not use it on purpose to avoid ruining Goodwitch's class." Cards sighed happily. "It was funny the first three times an innocent bystander nearly got maimed. But then I kept getting in trouble. Which is not funny. Unless it happens to people I don't like. Which usually does include me, but not in this case."

"I like you," I said blankly. "How come you're not on my team and the ex-terrorist is?"

"Aw, don't be like that. You're always invited to hang out with me by the help desk. Provided, if anyone asks, you say that you are working on an extensive review of my awesome work performance, and deny any rumors that I am secretly drawing you naked in my notebook. And then actually write those good reviews if the professors get too nosy. Gotta cover our tracks."

"Ah, Cards. Every time I'm around you I feel like I need an adult."

She winked. "I am an adult." Her smile became forced. "Kinda sucks being the oldest girl in the freshman class. But that just legally means I'm the boss if the teachers are away. Just, my team isn't quite ready to handle that fact yet."

I examined the girl for a moment. Cute butt, thin waist, though not much chest. Tasteless stockings under the too-short-skirt Beacon issues its females. Circular face and tomboyish black hair with a red streak. She did kind of remind me of that one female officer from Resident Evil 2. Jill, I think? Except she was about five foot even and a little too eager to please. And for reasons I legitimately could not place, her voice made me think of a sleepy Ashnikko. Studying her too much kind of hurt. Looking at any girl in this world for too long made me vaguely dissociate.

See, the girls on Remnant were like the pornstar Athena Faris. At first, damn, she got it going on. But then you start staring and see her eyes are a little too wide apart and you start thinking she got fetal alcohol syndrome. And then other things start jumping out at you. At first glance, approval, but if'n you start thinking about it, something feels off. I suppose I got the same sensation in the mirror. Anime bullshit and all.

Would still smash, though.

"Could always just get as naked with me as socially acceptable as my gym partner? I promise to only leer sexually at you when you're looking at me." Shot, fired.

The girl laughed, taking that in good humor, instead of being creeped the fuck out like pretty much anybody else. "Do you promise to accidentally walk in on me in the showers so I can act offended and beat the shit out of you?"

I hesitated. "Sorry. I'm not a sub."

"Ah, all's the same, Jaune. I work here all tonight. Not that I really do anything. Mostly just browse my scroll, try to teach the infestation of parrots to say nice things to me, and get paid twice minimum wage."

Shot, missed?

There was a feeling there was more to that than a simple I'm busy. I could just ask her for another night, or a weekend or something. Maybe she wanted a bit of a chase. But that felt off. A sense that she just enjoyed someone paying flirtatious attention to her more than anything, letting us both feel like we were almost connecting to another human being.

It's the big difference I saw between her and someone like, say, Ruby. Cards could be nice to me in a world where that was hard to come by. But it had this vague feeling of superficiality. Like she'd do this with anyone. After the other night, I don't know. I sort of felt vaguely serious about Ruby. Not in any romantic sense, obviously, but in terms of human connection, I guess.

Still, I felt like it was progress. Which is why I pivoted to a more important topic. "Hey, you know how to activate someone's aura? Got a kid brother wants to visit me who dreams of being a huntsman, and I don't know how to do it for someone else."

That got a curious look. She tugged on her beret. "No. Not really sure I can."

"You could always practice on me until it feels right?"

That got a half grin, her hands on her hips. "Okay, Uncle Jaune."

"I feel like there's something suppressed in that statement."

"Nope," she said happily, like nothing was wrong. "I'm just calling you a creep."

You and every other girl, Cards.

"Well, thanks for hearing me out at least. People seem pretty reluctant to help the kid out."

She looked around, her eyes settling on a couple of students walking by. "Makes sense to me. No one just wants a bunch of random kids running around the city with superhuman abilities. My life here is all ears, and I don't wanna rock the boat with something that irresponsible. Even if I was sure I could do it to somebody, I'm really not feeling like getting arrested for any damages the kid might cause on accident. Most people have to find it on their own, on their own time. I—"

Her eyes narrowed, her beret seeming to lift slightly. "Oh shit, those parrots are back!" The little girl jumped up over the desk and began sprinting towards a flock of brightly colored parakeets currently dive bombing the student center bagel shop.

Hand on my hip, I watched her go poorly attempt to fight a bunch of hungry parrots. I guess the school really did have a problem with them. Still, there went my sneaky chance to get an aura from somebody else who didn't seem to hate me. It left some food for thought. But mostly it left me without any distraction to keep me from going to fuck with my therapist. Whoever he or she was.

 

[pingas plight]

oh god
is the aura going to perform self-destructive protocols in an attempt to get the alcohol out of his blood?
if so, i am ALL FUCKING FOR competent jaune.

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

oh god
is the aura going to perform self-destructive protocols in an attempt to get the alcohol out of his blood?
if so, i am ALL FUCKING FOR competent jaune.

Click to shrink...

Nah, the Aura is something saving for an actual deep character moment. It'd be wasted to just use here and get it. Wouldn't be satisfying.

But competent Jaune? He's working his ass off for that. He wants to do good by those he wronged. But the problem is, he's an idiot. But next chapter, here's to hoping you're happy with the mess Jaune starts with Blake. He almost becomes people

 

[pingas plight]

But competent Jaune? He's working his ass off for that. He wants to do good by those he wronged. But the problem is, he's an idiot. But next chapter, here's to hoping you're happy with the mess Jaune starts with Blake. He almost becomes people

Click to shrink...

He almost becomes people

Click to shrink...

people

Click to shrink...

oh god please dont tell me he almost summoned thousand eyes restrict

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

oh god please dont tell me he almost summoned thousand eyes restrict

Click to shrink...

Jaune is now canonically Alucard from Hellsing. What are you gonna do, stop me? Maybe get that guy who can? What was his name again? Johnny McDoesn'tExist?

 

[pingas plight]

no his name is Golden Ronald

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

Chapter 5: The Power of Being Born Under the Atronach is Making the Cat Cry
"Being racist is a crime and crime is for faunus."

— 11 —​

"It seems like in a way it was—I don't like using the word trauma, that's a loaded word," she says, my Army mandated therapist. She's a social worker, and this is our first private session after a somewhat awkward group therapy session. "But from this young age, you were forced to be an adult. You've always made yourself to be the responsible one."

"Growing up poor, there's no real choice," I half-heartedly tell the woman, staring up past her at the action figure of Sigmund Freud on her desk. He's got Kung Fu grip and only a mild cocaine addiction! "Same way for my father and mother before me. There was a time my grandmother was so high off her ass and abandoned by her family that my own mother had to play mama to that trainwreck of a woman who somehow squeezed her out of her vagina."

I suppress a sigh."I dunno. Mom always wished she could give us a childhood, the same one she never had. But I'd always get panicky every time she had to spend money on me. Money spent for toys or gifts or god-for-fucking-bid doctors on me, was money not spent feeding my siblings. To this day, I get anxious receiving gifts."

The doctor with the same first name as my aunt smiles meekly. "I think that's what I see when you do this. You try to be so responsible, and when you go blackout, the child you've suppressed since you were six years old comes out. You don't have demons, you simply have a child. The child you never got to be."

"So anyways, that's why my Oedipus complex is for dogs," I told the doctor Beacon was providing me, a kindly social worker in her mid-thirties, perhaps, with a name like some obscure Russian color. "It makes sense. See, my mom was a bitch, and I don't want to sleep with my own mother, so the next thing was just to have a thing for dogs. Dog faunus just really do something for me, you know, doc? Actual bitches."

The woman nodded, taking down notes. As much as I tried to push her, she didn't really fight me. She reminded me of my days doing improv theater in college. Yes, and?

It wasn't that I didn't take this seriously. I didn't, but that was beside the point. It was the fact that if I actually tried to explore what drove me to be the way I am, I'd get sent to the loony bin.

See, I was a 19-year-old college student with a pathological phobia of carbohydrates, then I remember being a 15-year-old dealing with superpowers and a bitch that stole my dog. Then I was 24 years old with two years in the Army under my belt. I have absolutely no idea which of these personalities and memories are real, which are false, and which I'm currently just making up to fuck with you. Also all of you are fictional anime characters.

You can kind of see why that wouldn't help me. And why there's pretty much no way to get to the root of what's fucking with my head. This is a problem I basically have to solve on my own, bootstraps and all.

Besides, at least for one of me, I knew the root of my problem. Growing up in abject poverty in Meth Florida, abusive alcoholic father, no male role models growing up, a brief stint as an cringey-as-fuck fascist trying to figure myself out, being an accidental narcissist unable to realize my actions hurt other people, drinking to get drunk just to get away from my own head, and a pathological need for responsibility and the respect of those above me.

Everything else was just some brain fuckery trauma. The kind of shit you're not here to read about it, and I'm not here to discuss unless I can make a joke about it.

"And has your interest in faunus been because you perceive them as being outside of social norms, and yourself never quite fitting in either?"

"Doc, I been with chicks of all colors. Hispanic, Black, Filipina, White. I get along with everybody if you give me the chance. As Huntsmen, you have to learn to fight beside brothers in arms of all colors and fur."

She didn't ask what some of those terms meant. Which bothered me. I was kind of hoping she would. I liked to think that all of these alien terms made me sound foreign and mysterious.

"Which is why the headmaster notes you have such problems getting along with people. I suppose you just get along so well it's on a level they can't understand."

I sat up, no longer kicking my feet up on the coffee table. "Pretty much, doc. Although I really haven't gotten the chance to get to know any faunus. I mean, my partner is, but she doesn't think I know that. She's trying to pretend she's human for some reason and I don't care enough to to argue."

That did seem to catch her interest. But then again, so did the clock on the wall.

"Well, Mr. Arc, I think the day has been rather enlightening in ways you hadn't intended," she said.

I looked her in the eyes. "I know. I fully expect you to interpret my non-compliance in some kind of psychoanalysis way. And then later come back to me telling me that you done learned more about what I didn't say than from what I did. I know how this rodeo goes."

"And that's called metagaming. You're telling me what you think I want to hear."

I snerked. "Please. Save it for our next session. This time next week?"

She frowned deeply. "Yes. But first I want you to report to the laboratory. Get some blood work and urinalysis to make sure you're actually staying clean."

"I'm still good when it comes to amphetamines and benzodiazepine, right?"

She took off her glasses and rubbed them on her blouse. "Croaker informed me of what he had to give you when you went through withdrawal. When we see that in the blood test, we'll know. But more importantly, we want to make sure your liver is healthy."

I stood up and stretched. "Honestly, I'd call it more of it dyinger than a liver. You know I only started drinking like maybe a month or two ago?"

In any case, downstairs there was actually a toxicology lab. Beacon had a surprising wealth of resources when it came to student health, physical and mental. All of it perfectly free to students, and in cases like mine, mandatory. Imagine if I actually had to pay for medical services. That's why I joined the Army, in fact. Ain't like I got no more bread after I blew it all on booze and drugs.

I didn't piss hot when I filled the cup. And when it came to all of the blood work, I sighed and was ready to get my arm stabbed in the bloodworks room.

"And how are you doing this morning?" the lab tech asked, bored. Not that I could expect much from a blood work labbie at this hour.

"I'm alive," I said energetically, using my default response to this age-old dumbass question, "which is my gold standard. Don't know what it's like being dead, but that's why I pray at night—so in case I ever find out, hopefully it do be gucci."

I sat down in the chair before I realized who I was talking to. "Wait, Croaker? But you're the chief doctor!"

"Physician," he corrected, unnecessarily strapping my wrist down with a leather strap. "I don't do enough around here to justify my pay. I like picking up side jobs to stay busy around campus until we know the freshman class isn't likely to just horribly die on us again. Old man Oz won't even let me leave school grounds until then."

"Back that up a second. What do you mean again?"

"Besides, do you really want the nurses who hate you to be stabbing you in the arm?"

"Normally, no. But I don't trust you. You looked at Ruby weird and she's only fifteen."

He held up his scroll. It was showing a picture Deputy Headmistress Goodwitch suppressing an almost sadistic smile. "Would you trust me if I showed you this secret creepshot I took of Goodwitch laughing at the video Ruby took of you?"

"I feel emotionally conflicted on several levels."

"Good. Keeps you on your toes." Croaker stabbed my arm with a little needle attached to surgical tubing. "Never lose that feeling."

"Already starting to lose feeling in my arm. Do you really need that much blood?"

He deliberated for a moment. "There's a couple of tests they want to run on you. In theory they just need one small blood sample. But because my predecessor was an incompetent jackass and I have a clinical allergy to paperwork, technically every single one has to be done with an individually fully-filled blood sample."

I couldn't tell if that was bullshit or made perfect sense. A thought hit me, though. "Same predecessor of yours who was actually here when Summer Rose attended Beacon?"

His dark blue eyes regarded me for a moment. He put another little wire into my arm, taking even more blood out. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"A feeling. No way you were here twenty years ago when Ruby's mom musta been. But you were still awful interested in Ruby."

His expression was even. "If you're implying what I think you are, then no. At my age, there's nothing more disgusting than you teenagers." The sheer gag in his tone convinced me he wasn't lying. Not about that, at least.

"Y'all want me to stay sober, y'all gonna get me a-figurin' things. Why were you lying to her?"

He kept taking more vials of my blood. Jesus just how many tests were they doing? "I simply knew her mother about a decade ago."

"Around when she died mysteriously?"

The big man cocked a brow at me. He hooked up a third needle into my rapidly shrinking vein. More and more blood.

"It was about her eyes. Silver eyes. That's the thing you really pressed her on," I said. Truth be told I didn't know the first thing about what that meant or why it made Ruby special. No joke, I just knew they were probably some anime bullshit because I once joined a RWBY RP and maidens and silver-eyes were banned for being so horribly OP.

"What's eyes got to do with anything?" he said slowly. Dangerously.

"You tell me."

"Nah." More vials of blood.

"Hey, uh, doc? Thassa lotta blood. Like Jesus Lord a' Mussy."

"I believe," he said evenly, "now's a good time to inform you I never swore the Hippocratic Oath, because I never went to medical school."

"Wait, so you're a fraud!"

Blood, blood, and more blood. All these in these cups beside the chair. Croaker kept taking more and arranging them in rows like little soldiers in formation. "The old man hired me because I was the best at practical arts. The battlefield is a hell of a teacher."

He raised that zombie-stitched hand of his and tapped his temples. It was impossible to miss once you got a look at it. The skin was the same dusky olive tone as the rest of him, but it looked like someone had cut most of his fingers off, and part of the hand, and arm, and then sewed them back onto him until they functioned.

"But wus that gotta do with Momma Ruby? It the eyes again?"

"Just a woman who helped me get my semblance," he said. "I simply owe her more than I gave. Figure I'd look after her kid too, since somehow she's here and no one told me."

Finally, he seemed to have enough of my blood. He unstrapped me from the chair. On reaction, I tried to lurch forwards. Everything felt cold. I got to my feet and then immediately collapsed onto my gym bag.

"Gah. Fuck, fuck you, doc. You did this on purpose."

He whistled. "I look forwards to our next session here, Jaune Arc."

"The spots in my visions have spots!"

"I'll ring up one of your teammates to drag you back to the dorms, then."

— 12 —​

Blake sighed, holding Jaune up. While not a big man, he was half a foot taller than her and strapped for battle. Plus he wasn't helping himself much either. He looked drunk, barely able to walk. His eyes rolling around a bit too much.

"C'mon, Jaune!" she grunted.

"Stop being such a baby," Weiss intoned, holding Jaune up by the other arm. "Can't believe just a little bloodwork and you're like this!"

"Hit war mucho sangre, chica," Jaune slurred. "The doc do be on that succ."

"Stop butchering our language. Just say he's terrible, Jaune," Weiss said. Then: "Hey! Watch where you put your hands!"

They were halfway to the dorms and yet a world away.

"No, be verbing is a verb tense y'all don't have in English or whatever we speaking," he said, standing up a little taller. "Habitual Be. Refers, uh, refers to an ongoing state of being or repeated action over time. The doc sucks, he be on the succ. Grammatical difference."

Jaune did that sometimes. He almost sounded like he knew what he was talking about. But, in Blake's experience, it was only about stupid things or something she was pretty sure he made up. This one, though? She did herself sometimes use it, though she had never had it explained to her. It was an occasional faunus thing. Him knowing it and using it struck Blake as just weird.

"If'n helping me offends ya so much, coulda just gotten someone else to do it," he said.

"Shamrock is off playing cards somewhere and we were forced to do it," Weiss huffed. "Teammates, remember? Some-fricking-how."

"Cards? Oh, yeah. Cards girl. Think she likes me. Coulda gotten her to help, too. Though I suspect she'd bad touch me when I passed out."

Blake dragged Jaune forwards. "Her? Ugh. Don't remind me."

"Y'all familiar?"

Her mouth was a slit. "Yeah. First night at school. Tried saying we were sisters in the. Ugh. The 'Itty Bitty Titty Committee.' I locked her out of the building and haven't seen her since. Little creep."

Jaune laughed. "Sounds like her. No wonder we get along."

Blake rolled her eyes. "Yeah, no wonder."

"Kinda girl who'd probably accept an invite to a strip club," Jaune said dreamily. "I still remember going to one with an old Army bro. You gotta go to the nice ones with the hot girls. Were this pair of lesbians came there with us and it was—"

"Jaune!" Weiss snapped. "I don't wanna hear about you and a bunch of naked faunus."

"Why do you just automatically assume they're faunus?" Blake retorted with a sneer.

"We talked about this back at the café. Naked animals dancing for money. It's gross."

"You're gross!" Blake hissed. "Who do you think you are? Those poor girls are so desperate they're on stage, dancing naked for strangers!"

Jaune's head lolled side to side, watching the two argue. "Actually the girl in my lap was a local college student. Bandz a made her dance, and we talked philosophy and tiddy. I bet there's a Huntress here probably doing that to pay for school, too."

"Shut up!" they both yelled at him.

He licked his lips. "It's a class thing. Socioeconomics. We just need to eat the rich and redistribute wealth. Democracy ain't the same as, uh, like whatever this is."

Blake grimaced, looking away at the CCTS tower. "I mean, kinda."

Weiss looked so tired. "Great. You're communists now. You do know a failed economic system is just suicide, right?"

Jaune started wagging a finger. In a singsong, he went, "Down with the bourgeoisie, eat the rich, sodomize the land-owners, impale all people who have more than 25 Lien in their pocket, literally murder all human beings regardless of their political beliefs."

"Ah. White Fang. Now it makes sense," Weiss said, eyes so narrowed they were almost anal. "Now everything makes sense."

Blake coughed. Her cat ears twitched under her headband. She had to use her shoulder to try to readjust it. "That's not what the White Fang are about. At least, not what they were."

"Like you're an expert." Weiss scoffed. "I thought you hated them. You were so insistent we fight them."

"Because they were committing crime and hurting people."

Weiss made a sweeping gesture with her hand, as if to say no fucking duh. It made Blake's skin itch. "My point exactly! Just a bunch of angry animals."

"Stop calling them that!"

"Animals. Animals, animals, animals!"

Blake's blood boiled. She wished she had claws like her father. She'd rip that bitch's throat out. Animal was the worst word some human could say to a faunus. Calling them less than human, instead of equal. Just beasts of burden. Talking to Weiss made Blake almost want to understand Adam and his hatred, that SDC brand that had burned out his eye.

But she was at Beacon to do better. To be a role model to faunus kind. To actually help and save people. You'd never be equal to a people who hated you as monsters and terrorists. Blake wanted to earn respect, earn her place at the table. Not be some house pet or terrorist. That was the third option. Don't bend over for humans, but don't lash out. Be everything they say you can't be and prove them wrong.

But Weiss? Weiss?

"Ugh!" Blake screamed, loud enough to make Jaune wince. "You're such a brat! A prissy little brat raised in an ivory tower. Do you have any idea what it's like to be faunus? How many of them have your family killed in factories and mines, Weiss? Huh!"

"Do you have any idea?"

Blake almost did it. Almost yelled yes! and removed her hairbow headband. Gave up the entire ruse she'd been playing. Her eyes kept twitching, trying to stand at attention and push the headband off. But no. Not here. Not with people like Weiss and Jaune. People who didn't even respect her thinking she was a human, let alone some faunus to subjugate, to get naked at some strip club.

"Thought so," Weiss said primly. "So stop acting like you do. Your bleeding heart will only hurt you, Blake. We have to be better than that as Huntresses. Better than our peers. Above all that. That's what separates us from normal people."

Blake glowered.

Jaune sighed, wrapping the arms around their shoulders tighter as if to bring them together. His stubble scratched at her face. "Blacks and Whites at it again. Cain't y'all just see it's just rich people trying to divide the working class?"

"She's never worked a day in her life," Blake mumbled, staring at anything but her bastard teammates.

"That's rich, coming from you," she said with a mocking laugh. "You'd never last a day in my shoes."

"Oh, yes," Blake said, rolling her eyes. The door to their room was just there. Just a little further. "How would I ever live with all that money and the servants and private tutors?"

"I wouldn't last a day in high heels either," Jaune muttered. "But I can try. I can make them high heels work, biatch."

"Could you not disparage women for just one day, Jaune?" Weiss demanded, fishing for the keycard to their room. "I've literally never met anyone as sexist as you."

"Bitches ain't nuthin' but tricks n' hoes, and I need to spread this gospel," he said with a mocking species of smirk. "But y'all two cool. We should do some more team stuff until you like me."

"You could maybe start by being less of a pig?"

Blake somehow suspected that was anti-faunus.

Shamrock was in their bed when the girls finally got back, frowning down into their wallet. "Yo. Have a good night?" they asked.

"Not now, Shammy. Mmm the waifus are restless right now," Jaune said. He tried to get away from the girls and they let him. He stumbled and fell face-first onto his bed. "It's awful. I'mma need a GoFundMe for new legs 'cause I can't stand these hoes."

"What did we just tell you, Jaune?" Weiss huffed.

"I know what you mean. Bastards cleaned me out of everything I had tonight," Shamrock said, idly kicking their feet. They sensed the mood from Blake and Weiss, and that seemed to bother them. "What's wrong tonight?"

"I need a shower, is what," Weiss said, storming off to claim the bathroom before anyone could stop her. When Blake turned back, Jaune was already half-naked and trying to unravel his tightly made bed.

"Shit's cold," he said. "Too much racial class conflict holy war in the air."

Shamrock gave Blake a concerned look. "Weiss can be a bitch, huh?"

"I heard that!" Weiss shouted through the bathroom door.

"Go back to being naked and leaving us alone!" Jaune shouted back, eyes closed. "And gimme back my skin care products!"

"I don't see your name on them!"

Blake buried her face in her hands as she sat on her bed. Her ears kept twitching. Her partner was a sexist bastard. Her teammates were a genderfluid gambler and a racist rich bitch. Was this really what she wanted? Was this really why she left the White Fang to attend Beacon? Her life had felt like it was falling apart for the longest time. She thought Beacon would fix things. Would put things back together. And now everything was in complete freefall.

This wasn't how it was supposed to be. Nothing was supposed to be like this. It was wrong. Just fucked up! For a moment she was even wondering if Adam had a point, that abusive, manipulative fuck!

Wrong, wrong, everything was just so wrong!

She couldn't hold back the sniffles. The sob was even harder. But she had to be strong. Couldn't let this get to her. She was Blake Belladonna! Gods, what would Dad say if he saw her now? She couldn't stop the image of Adam smiling at her, feeling vindicated. It made her want to hit something so bad. To just run away and—and—and—

She felt Shamrock's arm around her shoulder. She looked up and saw Jaune there instead, looking paler than ever, and naked but for underwear.

"Don't touch me!" she snapped, shoving him away. He fell down easily, laying across the foot of her bed. He looked more confused than he normally did, which was saying a lot for an alcoholic who couldn't even remember her name most days. Blake sniffled and wiped the tears away on her arm.

Jaune sat back up, just sitting beside her. Shamrock was on their bed, looking a couple inches shorter, but giving Jaune dangerous side-eyes. As if they'd snap up and drag Jaune to an early grave if he tried anything.

Wringing his hands in his lap, the boy said in an oddly soft, un-Jaune-like voice, "I… Yeah. I know, Blake."

"Know what?" she half-laughed, half-sobbed.

He shook his head. "Nada, really. I ain't finna pretend I do."

"Then shut up and don't try!"

Jaune regarded her sadly, which somehow only pissed her off more. "We're pardners. Even if I don't know shit, I, like, I gotta do all I can for ya, girl."

"Your all needs a lot of work, Jaune."

His demeanor didn't change. He just looked to the ceiling as if searching for an answer from on-high. "This ain't the life you promised yourself, right?"

She recoiled slightly. "You don't know anything about me or my life."

A sad smile with too many teeth. "Had a buddy try to off heself once. I knew what were going on, but wouldn't ask him about it. He once asked me if I'd be there for him if he needed me after the fact. And I just grinned and told him no. Said that I hoped I could go to his funeral one day, knowing that I coulda done something to prevent this."

"Work on your motivational speaking," she said, scowling.

"Second that," Shamrock said, a dangerous edge to their voice.

He shook his head. "No. Because it got the idiot to break out laughing. First time he smiled in a long time. Had him write a letter to the girl who broke his heart and made him want to end it all. He asked her to read it. She did. Then we shared a cigarette as we burned the letter together. It was so surreal, our different backgrounds, brought together as partners in a combat school. Me a white boy from methland Florida, he a lightskin from Portland. Er, faunus. Half-faunus, I mean. But we still like brothers over shit."

"I know it's different. For us guys, ribbing on and friendly bullying is how we show affection. That's how we care. But sometimes, that's not enough. I just knew he didn't need a shoulder to cry on. I found out he was in the hospital from a chord around his neck when I was in the hospital too. Blackout drunk and claiming I wanted to kill myself because I felt like a failure. I ran away from the problems of home, and failing to deal with them, them same problems followed me in my heart. Broke me for a night too, the moment I let it raise its ugly head.

"So I know what it feels like, Blake. Can't run away from the shit that hurts. You just gotta look it in the eyes, laugh with your friends at it, and kick in the teeth of its stupid, smiling face. And what we all need to get there is different for us all. Helps me to get on my knee and talk to the Man from Galilee. Each of us can do this, but each his or her own way,"

"I don't know what you're saying, Jaune."

He compressed a sigh, and forced a smile. "I don't care what your demons is. I ain't nobody's personal Jesus. Frankly, I don't wanna know if you're not wanting to tell us. But even if you think I'm some sexist fascist, I wanna be by your side for it all. Push me away because I deserve it, but I won't give up on you. Weiss may be a bitch, but she ran away from Atlas too, y'know?"

He was… almost kind of getting to her. Fuck it, but he kind of was. Like a puppy with autism licking the air because it can't figure out you're too far away to lick.

"Doesn't make what she says right. And it doesn't excuse what you do, either."

Jaune shook his head, running his hand through his three-day-old stubble. "Nope. But when the chips were down, she still fought beside you that night at the Dust store. We all did. They was your demons and even if we fought, we were all there. That's a promise I make, chips go down, we're all here for you, Blake. We may not be your favorite people, not even really your friends, but we got your back no matter what. Ain't that right, Shamrock?"

Shamrock nodded slowly. "Jaune's an idiot and you girls never do anything but fight, but, yeah. Team BASS and all that."

"Team BAdaSS," Jaune said, nodding. He hesitated before putting a hand on her shoulder. She fought off the urge to shove him away again. "If shit's too much for you, say it. Run away somewhere safe for a spell if need be, y'know? Ain't nobody gonna fault you doing what you need to do. But never forget at least I got your back, as clumsy as I be. We'll hear you out. Help you out. Care for you not like some child, but as our sister in arms or something."

He looked away, cheeks looking rosy. The blood pooling in them made him look a bit woozy. "We all suck at this. But, yeah. Kinda embarrassing, but there it is, Blake. You and me against the world. Prove those fuckers wrong about you."

Her eyes narrowed. "Wrong about what?"

His smile was just a little knowing. Her cat ears felt hot. She didn't like it. He sensed that and just winked.

"Don't give up on us, and I'll die for you. I mean that. I think we all would. It's the least I can give back at you for not killing me yet."

"Yet."

"That's the spirit," he said, wagging a finger at her. And she noticed she wasn't crying anymore. When had she stopped?

Jaune stood up and stretched, hands at the small of his back. "So. Yeah. Team. We there for you. So long as you at least tolerate us, the extra mile is all for you, girl." He let out a breath, wringing his hands. "Sound good?"

Somehow, she was able to smile. Just the barest thing. Jaune was still an asshole. But, she didn't know. For a brief moment she felt a spark of hope. Like for the first time since being accepted to Beacon, she might have some control over her own life. It wasn't enough that she felt good, exactly. She still really hated Team BASS. But, she didn't know.

"Maybe," she said, noncommittally.

He grinned, eyes wide. "Maybe is a baby who always says yes." A couple steps back and the naked asshole fell back into his bed. He stared up at the ceiling.

"I swear, if your next words are a cheesy pick-up line…"

"Nah. I still hate you and you hate me. Would still die for you, though. Because that is true friendship."

She huffed, rolling her eyes. "Sure thing, Jaune. Sure thing. You're still a piece of shit."

"Would you have it any other way?"

"Yes. Emphatically, yes."

"Attagirl," he said, tucking himself now. He didn't seem able to speak much more than that.

Blake just sighed. It was all she could do.

Tonight had been one hell of a night, and not even for any reason that felt like it should have. Nobody had died. No one had gotten hurt. Or, well, looking at Jaune, she corrected herself to nobody she liked had gotten hurt. Nowhere near as bad as the night of the Dust robbery.

But, yeah.

Helluva night.

She just wanted today to end so she could focus on why she was here at Beacon. Really here. To show the world they were wrong about faunus. Prove them wrong in the best sense, as a true hero, standing up for faunus and the little guy all as a Huntress.

Right now? Stupid and annoying as things were? She didn't know. But she felt like it might be alright.

Just might be alright.

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

Chapter 6: Anyone Else Find It Kinda Weird Miles Luna Thinks Yang is Perfect GF Material?
"Hmm, looks like we have an audience. This must be kind of embarrassing for you, huh?"

— 13 —​

Some hair of the dog felt like it was all I needed this morning. I couldn't tell if I was shaking from the cold or bloodloss. Probably both. Plus the entire ordeal from last night. There's a thing called empathy drain. Emotionally and physically exhausting just to try to feel for other people and help them.

A sick part of me felt smugly happy that the fight between the girls had cracked Blake. For the first time since I met her, I felt like I had something to offer. Not a shoulder to cry on, exactly. But just a way I could connect to her. Try to actually level with her on a real human level. I knew Blake had her problems. Just a little stress and she'd been ready to leave team RWBY and run like she always did. The fact she made it this far with team BASS was a miracle in and of itself.

I just needed to find a way to reach Weiss at some sort of breaking point. Sure, Blake might not like me, but I felt we had connected. I needed something like that to happen with Weiss if I was ever gonna have any hope of at least meeting her halfway.

Really, it just went to show why any romantic future with the girls was both impossible and insanely creepy. Oh sure, I was in anime now. Isekai'd over here. Why shouldn't I use my sexy protagonist powers and intimate knowledge of just how to solve all their problems to get my own harem of supermodels?

Because they were still children. Experiences and trauma aside, my teammates were broken kids. At most, I was maybe 24. Even if my body and hormones were all 17, the sheer experience gap with people I had over them, at least when sober, would make any relationship between us inherently one-sided and abusive. I had more lifetime to draw from than they could possibly have.

Still. Felt good to help Blake. Even though I wasn't the team leader anymore, I had some sense of obligation to them. They were my team, for god's sake. I recall the angriest I'd ever been in my life. Well, angriest I'd ever been while sober. No one had done anything to me, but they were fucking over someone I cared for, that I had a responsibility for.

The lightskin soldier I mentioned in my story. No one had given him guidance once he got to our fort but me. So when he needed someone to go help him get his wisdom teeth removed, I was there for him. The teeth were in so deep they needed to remove part of his jawbone to get at them, and they were hurting him like hell.

The pharmacy on post just happened to be closed that day for an anti-extremism standdown all day, a fact we only learned once we made the long drive back to base. So we go off post to a CVS, only to be told to wait for two hours for them to get my soldier his painkillers. And all this time, the surgery was starting to affect him. He was bleeding all through his Covid mask, the pain mounting. Two hours pass and we get told, whoops, sorry, CVS doesn't take Tricare, the free healthcare provider all soldiers get. So we speed off to a Walgreens, the only other pharmacy in the area.

By this point, my boy is just gushing blood. I practically need to hold him up and walk him to the Walgreens counter. This big fucker is starting to choke on the blood, and is crying with pain. He can't speak. I have to be his voice to the lady at the counter. She can't get the meds for a long time. I nearly murder her trying to demand she deal with this now, first and foremost. The soldier under my care is crying in pain and we're getting a fucking run around all day. I refuse to leave the counter until we get handled. Maybe I was being a bit Karen, but you don't leave your brothers in arms to suffer.

It takes us twenty minutes of glaring and haunting the Walgreens to get seen. My man is in tears. There's blood everywhere. He can't talk. I get him to his room, ensure he gets his codeine, and leave him to go punch holes in the barracks wall.

I had become my sergeant, the man I looked up to most in the Army. The man I wanted to be most like in the world. An NCO who'd kill for you, who'd walk into the captain's office without an appointment, close the door behind him, and chew his commander's ass out. He was this big black man from the LA ghetto, who joined the Army after throwing away his college scholarship after, and I quote, "discovering white women and drugs." He was the kind of leader I wanted to be. The efficient go-getter who can get away with anything and has his officers in mortal terror.

It was funny, in a fucked up way. Where I grew up, how I was raised, I never would have imagined a man like that would be my own personal idol. But someone like him was the leader a team needed. The kind of man team BASS deserved to have. The kind I would be for them just as soon as the Old Man let me.

Fuck you for taking that away from me, Ozpin.

"Jaune?" Blake asked, sitting next to me in class. I'd been whiteknuckling my pen without realizing it. To be fair, hearing even the faintest notes of concern in her voice threw me off. Made me forget entirely what I was thinking about.

I smiled at her. "Just thinkin' how unfair it is there's no good sushi joints around here. Ain't had a spicy tuna roll in ages."

That earned me a skeptical look. I didn't miss the vague twitch of her headband. "Must really like tuna."

Weiss hissed at us to shut up. Being at the front of the class, if we talked, it looked a bit obvious.

Yeah you be a bitch now. We're gonna get along one day as a team even if it kills me. Which it probably will. And I'd deserve it.

Now that I thought about it, sushi actually did seem like a good idea. This world had tuna, but what about other fish? Truth be told, I wasn't even positive what the meat was. I hadn't exactly seen a large industrial chicken or cattle farm anywhere in the show. In person, all I'd basically seen had been the forests around Beacon and the greater city in the distance.

It made me wonder if this world had a unique fish. Sushi bait that would taste even better than the tuna, California rolls, and imitation crab an American like me was used to.

Of course, to get there, I needed money. Sushi wasn't exactly cheap in America. Unless you went to a gas station, but then you got what you paid for. Ain't nobody got time for that AIDS fish.

Money had been the half sane, half drug crazed reason why I had tried to go after the White Fang. A completely incoherent and nonsensical excuse to try to become the protagonist or whatever. The reality was, if I wanted money, I needed to do actual work. Only place I knew how to do that without signing up for a proper nine-to-five was pulling shifts in the Fishery, making more bizarre high explosives and selling them back to Professor Masaryk.

Who was conveniently the teacher heading our last class that evening.

Most every student had come to Beacon with their unique and weird weaponry already built during their time in a combat school or fighting out on the frontier or whatever. The classes in the Fishery were less about how to build new weapons and more about fine tuning and adjustments, giving a sort of free period to be a weapon nut.

Naturally, students like Ruby loved the class.

"There! Faster transformation!" Ruby proudly announced, holding out her gigantic scythe to me. Before my eyes, the weapon shifted forms, becoming a kind of gigantic sniper rifle that by any logical estimation should turn her arms to gelatin if she ever actually used it. Anime logic was a hell of a drug.

Feeling somewhat emasculated, I held out my shield and made it turn into a sheath and then back again. "I made my sword a little sharper."

Her eyes lit up. "Ooh! How?"

"I didn't. But I'm pretty sure if I believe in it hard enough, the Grimm won't be able to tell the difference."

She rubbed her chin, but then slowly started nodding, as if that made perfect sense. The girl was an aficionado, someone deeply passionate about her work. Even if most of the engineering was beyond me, it was enjoyable enough just to be around someone who cared this much about something. She made talking about a tool of mass destruction sound like a comic book geek enthusing about her favorite issue of Spider-Man.

"At least what you got is stylish." I paused. "Crescent Rose, I mean," I said, trying to prove that I actually listened to her. "Fits your goth lolita aesthetic."

"Told you I'm cute!"

I put my hands in my uniform pockets, shaking my head. "And just like that, the good vibes is ruined."

"We could make it better," she said seriously. "Just maybe add a rose or some crosses to your shield and boom! Instant cool and cute mode."

"I could dig a cross, but I ain't the artistic hand."

Ruby examined me a moment, hands on her hips. She snapped her fingers and said, "Then I got the perfect middle ground." Ruby reached into her shirt and I felt a wave of bad vibes. A moment letter she pulled out an honest-to-god crucifix necklace, if at a slight angle that'd make Saint Peter cringe. She held it out to me. "Here!"

"Your necklace?"

She nodded. "Yup! My uncle Qrow gave it to me for good luck, but I think I got everything I can from it. You keep getting hurt, so maybe you need it more than me. Plus then you'll finally be cute and cool like me. We'll almost be matching!" She winked.

The idea of gifts at all still made me anxious. Still, not wanting to ruin the moment, I reached out a hand to accept it. "I… thanks, I guess. This drip mint, girl. I don't really know what else to say."

"Promise me if it doesn't work and you do need to go to that Croaker guy again, you'll take me along. And only when we got Professor Port's class."

I smiled toothily. "It's a deal, pipsqueak."

— 14 —​

When class ended, that was it for the day. I decided to stick around and reserve a workshop and a couple materials. It was a lot easier to operate this kind of thing when you were sober. It was about the only time I was on the level before I'd been banned from my sweet, sweet fire water.

It wasn't hard to make thermite. Not with the materials I was able to check out. Building more of the putty in the workshop I had reserved for myself, I couldn't help shake the feeling like I could probably make a lot more money if I invested Dust into this. The problem was, my chemical knowledge was a schizophrenic mix of the Anarchist Cookbook and the Poor Man's James Bond. A handful of materials I had somehow been able to get away with building back when I was a kid before my mother found out and kicked my ass.

My experience with explosives began in middle school, truth be told. I think I was around eleven. That had actually been an attempt to brew my own homemade alcohol during lunch period. Using only bananas, old Gatorade, and yeast, I had managed to create a dangerous biological weapon that bred E. coli like it was going out of style. The end result was that I destroyed the school bathroom and rendered the boys unable to shit in peace without threat of anal diseases for the next week.

The only reason I hadn't gone into explosives when I signed up for the Army was because military intelligence sounded more bougie. And guaranteed me a lifetime with all ten fingers. Plus EOD was pretty hard to get into, but that's another story.

Mix the right parts up with a bit of water in ice cube trays. Bake for forty-five minutes. Enjoy melting literally fucking everything. Please commit arson responsibly.

I still needed to order pentaerythritol tetranitrate and cyclonite. Which I can only do through a mail order catalog for some goddamn reason. with that, I could get to making plastic explosives. A little sticky semtex would go a long way. And it'd almost certainly sell well back to the school, even if they had genuinely no idea what to do with it. By the time I was done, Beacon would be on the ATF's watch list.

I sighed and took out my earbuds. Wiping the sweat off my forehead, I figured it wouldn't hurt to take a quick water break. Not like there was much I could do with my thermite in the oven. I didn't entirely trust the water from the sink here to drink.

When I opened the door, I nearly ran head first into the chest of a boob goblin. Her lilac eyes widened. I only knew they were lilac and not Targaryen purple because every fanfic author constantly reminded me. She flinched, trying not to drop several vials of Dust and a box of unloaded shotgun shells, and only wound up awkwardly juggling the stuff before grabbing onto them.

"Whoops!" she said. "You didn't see that. I did not almost drop all that Dust and blow up the Fishery. That would be crazy. How dare you accuse me of being crazy!"

Yang Xiao Long. Miles Luna's perfect girlfriend idea. I recalled once reading an author's note in some fanfiction about her. The author was trying to argue that the Yang we see in the trailer and the Yang we see in the show are two completely different girls. The one the audience has the most familiarity with is a lot more reserved than the flirtatious party girl ready to just destroy a nightclub on a whim. Also less dick grabbing.

I regarded her solemnly, trying to figure out which of the two Yangs would be the real one here. Her skin had a look of airbrushed perfection, striking me as somehow racially ambiguous despite the blonde hair. Lips glossed so they looked perpetually moist. Curves in improbable locations that made me seriously worry for the strength of whatever bra was holding them up. She wore a tank tank emblazoned with the logo of some band called "The Wytches," revealing her navel.

It didn't feel to me like she had just been walking by when I opened the door. Wasn't even really dressed for the Fishery. More like she had been looming outside. The hallway was wide enough that you didn't have to be pressed up to the workshop door just to get by. My eyes immediately scanned my surroundings for easy escape routes.

On some level, I felt like I should have returned her tone. Acted the fool or something. Return to my old ways. She kind of felt like the perfect bait for that. But I also knew that she was no Cards, not some fellow weirdo I could easily get along with with a wink and a flirt. Call it a sixth sense.

She smiled up at me. Taller than Blake, though not by much, I still had a good solid hand above her. This close, I was practically looking down at her. I was coming to think at about 6'1-6'2", Jaune was one of the taller students here. Pyrrha only got to 6' in rather high heels. Even Ren, who I always imagined to be pretty tall, was just 5'9". Not even king of the manlets.

The girl spoke first when I didn't, and with a frown. "Where's your shirt?"

"I got hot. I'm sure you know what it's like." It was irresponsible of me, but I had removed it. Trying to work in the heat of the Fishery in the school uniform was a death sentence. That jacket was all scratchy heat. It made me wish for winter.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from her reaction, but the one she gave me caught me off guard. Yang gave me a vulpine grin that reminded me of another blonde I once knew. It didn't look like she was happy. More that she had sensed blood. And judging by the caliber of her teeth, this was a bigger bloodbath than menstruating women fighting for dictatorship of the hot tub.

"I guess you just like to work naked."

I didn't like where she was going with this. And I knew she was going somewhere. This almost sounded rehearsed.

"Call it an unfortunate hobby."

Yang tapped at her cheek, arms still filled with the shotgun shells and dust. "It's a better hobby than most."

"Like doing cocaine or talking to girls."

"Don't say that just yet. Lots of guys been ruined by talking to girls."

I nodded in agreement. "Worse yet, sometimes it results in creating more girls. It's basically a self-defeating task."

Yang laughed. "That's a new one."

"If you think I'm trying to hit on you, I'm not. I'm trying to avoid you. I just want to go to the bathroom." Any time I sounded like the reasonable one, you knew shit was fucked.

Yang didn't move.

I stepped around her and she put her arm on the door to block me. So it was finna be this way, huh? I side-eyed down at her, trying not to scowl. To maintain my manly frame. Those lilac eyes held mine, the smile on her glossy lips like a knife wound. I had a sudden rush of anxious energy, like I got when trying for minutes at a time and failing to tongue out a bit of food stuck in my teeth. I wanted to shove her off, a little flare of temper.

I realized the feeling came in tandem with a sudden nicotine craving. Last time I'd been working the Fishery, when Ozpin came in and pretty much ruined my day, I'd at least been able to stay calm chain-chewing toothpicks and nicotine gum. Only chewable thing I had left was old wintermint.

With a breath meant to calm myself, I reached into my pocket. Yang tensed just slightly enough for me to see. I shook out a stick of gum before offering her the pack. She considered it a moment before accepting. One arm cradling the Dust, it meant she had to open the way for me.

I casually stepped past her and set off down the hall. I half-expected things to end there. I wasn't the type of boy to chase a girl. Wasn't the way you won a girl. Automatically made you look desperate. Yang apparently didn't get that memo. A moment later she was walking beside me, chewing her gum loudly.

"Really just gonna walk away and ignore me?" she asked. The annoyance in her voice made it hard to keep a neutral face.

"I pride me myself on providing babes a unique experience. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back."

"Aww, you do like me!"

"I'd like you better from a distance." I wondered if this was how Weiss felt talking to me. The world was about to break apart at any moment if I kept being the level one.

"Right, right. You only like being naked around kids."

Hold the fucking hotline. She mean Ruby? I stopped to stare at her, a dozen thoughts of what to say stumbling through my head. The winner said trying to defend myself or getting upset would just look guilty. To deny is to admit.

"Lemme guess," I said. "You think I'm a creep, because girls talk. That about sum 'er up?"

"I see you lurking around her," she said, with just an edge of protective hostility. Her eyes kept their color at least. "She tells me last time you met you were naked, and she didn't go to class at all that day."

"The fact a girl didn't elaborate means she got more a sense of HIPAA than Beacon do," I said mildly. "A mite bit sad, that."

Yang scowled. "What's sad is you creeping on my sister. What are you, like, twenty? What are you even doing at Beacon?"

I ran a hand through my stubble. It'd be a beard before long if I didn't do nothing about it. "You and Ozpin axin' boff," I muttered. "Look, I don't fuck wid a bitch in training bras."

She grabbed my arm, tight, and I had to fight down a kneejerk reaction to punch her. She'd just Aura up; it'd probably break my fist. Before she shattered my spine with a punch her own. The flash of red in her eyes convinced me she'd go that far.

"Don't talk about my sister that way!"

"Lemme alone," I said tersely. "I gotta go knock out a piss."

"I'll knock the piss out of you!"

I chewed my gum in thought. "Please," I said, affecting a more collected exterior than I felt at all. Because hoo boy, I felt just a bit fucked. She could lock me in a room and start reaching for her strap-on and I'd be less afraid. "If anything, Ruby is like my bratty adopted kid sister, and that's as far as it go."

"Oh, so she's your sister now? Real imouto type, huh?"

"We live in a world where Fat Morty never wished to make incest porn mainstream, so I think we's good, honeychile."

Yang twisted my arm, shoving me against the wall. I hit it hard. She grabbed me by the chain Ruby had given me, and I bent forwards to prevent her from breaking the clasp. "Listen here, jackass."

"No, you listen here!" I spat. "Kid and me is just friends. Kinda. I guess. Barely even sure she tolerates me. But that's still better than most people! My name taste like sardines to 'em Besides." I grabbed the necklace and her hand, pulling her an inch closer so I could stand back up. "I grew up with, like, seven sisters. Ain't nothing I literally ain't already seen. It's a fucking miracle I didn't turn out gay. Though I do gotta admit Ren's got a nice cock."

The door to a nearby workshop slammed open, and a pint-sized redhead was glaring murder into me. "You keep your hands off my man!"

Yang and I stared at her until she seemed to get the message. Nora Valkyrie blinked at us, drinking in the scene. Before she closed the door and went back to, I don't know, figuring out how to turn pancakes into a grenade round or whatever.

The whole scene kind of ruined the mood. Which I was thankful for. A bit of the fury had left Yang's eyes.

"Just friends? Like a little sister?" she said with mistrust in every syllable.

I snorted. "And I hate my sister," I said, momentarily forgetting I was Jaune and the seven sisters. On Earth, I'd just had the one. "Still got her back no matter what."

She let me go, putting her free hand on her hip as she looked up at me. "And that's all?"

"Please. Only thing I'm tyna fuck be the world."

Her face twisted. "You have a way with words. You know that?"

"I've been accused," I said, looking away.

"Ugh."

That gave me the confidence to say, "Here I was a-thinkin' you'd be happy she finally made some friends."

"With anybody but you!"

That stung. More than it had any right. I thought back to the first time I met Ruby, fighting with her over a microwave. I was still that person, but, I wasn't. Not the same. I was better. Getting better. I had to believe I was.

"Please, like you're some saint," I hissed, fists balling. I couldn't help myself. Not before those judgemental eyes. It was the wrong thing to say and I couldn't stop myself. "I saw me the way you ditched her day one! Just playing Montero with your old friends, leaving your baby sister to her lonesome. You really is your mother's daughter!"

I moved before I'd even consciously recognized how her eyes went red. Old combat conditioning halfway between flinch and pre-emptive dodge. Her glowing fist hit the wall right where my face had been, denting the metal with an audible groan. If I hadn't, I'd be dead. I knew it with a certain chill straight down my spine that made my knees nearly buckle.

Somehow I had the presence of mind to grab the bandolier of Dust she'd dropped before it hit the floor and killed us all.

"How do you know that? How fucking dare you!" she seethed, teeth bared like a Beowolf.

I tried not to hyperventilate. To meet her eyes despite the way my heart made me shudder with every beat. My hands shook like I were going back through withdrawal.

"Because when you care about someone, you fucking pay attention. You listen to them," I said. I swallowed, unable to prevent myself even if it made me look weak. "I made a joke about having parents that loved her, and saw it bothered her. So I asked around. Your old friends knew things. I connected the dots."

It was… plausible, at best.

From her inward hiss of breath, I knew she believed me.

"Them things you done heard about me might be on the money," I said, cold as her fire. I thrust the bandolier of Dust to her. "But I'd never hurt me the kid anymore than you, Yang. If just one person like her is willing to give me a second chance, I owe her everything I could and more. Shit like that I'd sooner die than betray. If I'm lying, then kill me where I fucking stand."

She just stood there, fuming. Breathing hard. Her breath smelled like burning coal, hot and dry.

Yang snatched the bandolier from my hand. "I don't have time for a creep like you!"

I was all too happy to see Yang huff off down the hall. Before I knew it, I was sliding down the wall until I was on the ground, clutching my knees to my chest. I let out a noise I told myself wasn't a shuttering half-sob. The air hitched in my throat. I grabbed and held Ruby's necklace like it were the only thing keeping me alive.

Maybe it was.

I tried thinking something mocking. Imagining scenarios in my head where I got the last laugh. Where I'd played that better and Yang and I came to respect each other as friends because of Ruby. Each fantasy seemed more ridiculous than the last.

It was just that, I couldn't blame her. I wanted to hate Yang so badly it hurt, but I couldn't. She was right about me. Everyone was right about me. But I was working on it, fuckit. I dug this grave but I'm lying in it. Blake, Blake almost seemed willing to listen to me. For fuck's sake, she had asked if I was okay this morning.

Acted like I was a human being.

I'd probably been worst to Blake of all people as her partner, and she was willing to ask. Ruby gave me her necklace as a sign of care. I could do it. I wasn't just some drunken trainwreck in a Jaune-shaped sleeve of human flesh. I could be a fucking person!

Two people were willing to care about me. Willing to believe in me after what I did.

I would do anything for them.

"You said the same thing to me once," Simone said, leaning over and offering me a hand up, the marks where I strangled her still on her neck. "Remember how that turned out?"

I drew XO and fired a round right through her ghost.

Shakily, I got to my feet and holstered the smoking revolver.

I needed to… I needed… I had to…

…finish this batch of explosives to earn the bread I needed to treat my team to something nice.

Baby steps, Jaune. But baby steps were all I could manage.

 

[pingas plight]

yo this thing has more fucking turns than a fucking mobius strip

 

[Kell of Twilight]

yo this thing has more fucking turns than a fucking mobius strip

Click to shrink...

It's like a damn Acordian knot of twists

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

yo this thing has more fucking turns than a fucking mobius strip

Click to shrink...

Jaune fucked up a lot early on while drunk or drugged. Nobody has forgotten this. Least of all Yang, who is still mama bear bitch if you threaten her Ruby.

Jaune might be trying to be a better boy. But people have long memories in the world of RWBY.

It's like a damn Acordian knot of twists

Click to shrink...

But, c'mon, did you never see this coming? Ruby might be nice to Jaune because he said he was sorry and reminds her of her uncle, but Ruby is just a really nice gal. Everyone else still remembers the drunken creep Jaune from just a couple weeks ago.

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

Chapter 7: I Make These High Heels Work
"Are you taken?"
"Yeah, for granted."

— 15 —​

Years ago, Jetson Shamrock's mother had told them, No two ways about it. Men are broken women, all mutated with muscle and half the emotions. Fighting, fucking machines. It had been after Dad had left for a younger, pretty model. They supposed that was where things started clicking into place for them. That, and maybe the ezans calling her to prayer back home in her kabile in Vacuo, with all the Şeyh who didn't pay Jetson or her androgenyous child any care now they were officially without a father to give the family any status.

Their Semblance ticked in the back of their mind. And inescapable part of who Shamrock was. She placed her cards down on the table, an illegal circumstance itself back home. "This isn't a hand, it's a foot. You fucked me, Jack!"

Had to be a woman for this, from the brain chemistry down to the flesh. Gender might just be a thing, but sex is real. Chromosomes shifting around always had a pronounced effect on the human physique and psyche. To be a woman carried with it a certain sensory experience you couldn't get as a boy. She suspected maybe it had something to do with ignoring the dangly bit between your legs and a natural competitive drive. Touch and texture pierced a little deeper when you had an extra hole to watch out for, in a way a boy's skin just seemed to ignore as a matter of course. To a man, skin was a barrier, a protection. To a woman, it was an organ of contact.

Wasn't always the most useful of traits. Women could handle pain better than boys, and that's a fact in Jetty's uniquely expert experience. Even if women often got accused of faking it or over exaggerating. Physically, the only time that was really a problem was the menstrual cycle, bringing women down to an all-time low once a moon. That's when Jet or even Jetson was a better choice. But right now?

Jetty Shamrock puffed up her lips, conscious of her chest in a way only male authors writing female point-of-views ever seemed to pay mind to. Another occasional tool. Her own mother wouldn't recognize her. Or him. Or them. Shamrock had made so many minor adjustments in the years since coming to Beacon. She doubted she could figure her old self out, even if her kabile did bother with cameras. Only the Şeyh and Mollas helping sell Dust to the SDC had the money for those luxuries.

The man across the table smiled. He did something with his electric indigo eyes that she liked, and hated the prettyboy bastard for it. He did that kind of thing on purpose to throw her off just as much as she tried throwing him off by shifting her flesh to avoid any recurring tells.

"I appreciate you growing a pair to try to call me out, fille, but them's the wrong kind," he said in that smooth accent reminiscent of an old Valean gangster movie.

Yang threw her cards across the table. "Hold up, he won? He won? Again?"

Shamrock sighed sufferingly, leaning back in her chair. She ran a hand over her face. There was a new beauty mark this time on her left cheek. "I'm fucking dealing next hand."

"Oh, sure. So you can stack the deck," Yang said. The girl had been in an incredibly foul mood the whole night. More than simply losing Lien at cards would explain,

She eyed the blonde. "Well, obviously, letting you shuffle just means Jack wins again."

Yang sat up suddenly. "Count your cards. Everyone check to make sure there's the right number."

"Yeah, agreed," Jetty said.

Jack shrugged innocently.

This had almost been a routine. Shamrock, in some form or other, had met what amounted to the worst group of friends since Team BASS via one student party or another. Every couple of free nights, bar the ones where she was stuck in detention, they got together for cards and other miscellaneous junk. Shamrock of BASS, Yang from VYPR, and Jack from ICWN. Usually they brought friends, who thankfully were all easy marks. Which is why they never invited any of their teammates. Way too likely to destroy a team.

Tonight, one way or another, it was just the three of them playing a hand of talk and just sort of chatting about this and that without much going on. It was good to get away from her team. Even if on some level that was complete heresy. Antithetical to the entire point of a freshmen team, where you had to work with and become friends with people vastly unlike you.

Of course, on counting the cards and suites, it all came up good. Jack was still cheating, of course. Everyone knew it. Jetty cheated too. Same as Yang. It was the real game they played, seeing who could screw the other over and win without getting caught. Everyone did it in their own ways. She'd been hoping with Yang dealing this round of tonk, Jack might've tried something simple and dumb. If you got caught, the Lien got reset.

They very consciously didn't do this when playing with guests. The calling each other out part, that is. That's about the only time they didn't try throwing each other under the bus for their own gain. Playing up in a semi-secluded side room on the fourth floor of the student center, you occasionally got people showing up to join them. It wouldn't do to look like you were all a group of cheaters to potential marks. Kind of defeated the purpose.

"If one of you ladies wins this last hand, drinks on me," Jack offered.

Yang studied him. Before shaking her head and sighing. She reached over to another chair to grab her jacket. "I'm done for the evening. The day was long enough even without dealing with Jaune."

She dropped that name on purpose. Jetty reluctantly took the bait. "I believe there's a class action restraining order for sexual harassment going up on him from the nurses. You want in, then?"

Jack whistled, collecting up his cards. technically you could play tonk with just two players, but where was the fun without at least a threesome? "Sounds like your team lead needs to learn how to keep it in his pants, Shamrock."

"Didn't they just name a new STD after you?" Yang asked with a snort.

"The trademark is pending," Jack said mildly, shaking his head.

Honestly, it was kind of amazing a boy like Jack hadn't actually gone after Jetty. Like with most people, she suspected her Semblance turned them off to the idea. The genderbent chic was definitely not in this season. Still, something like that was how she met her partners in crime, some post-initiation party in an unused part of the dorms reserved for future transfer students or overflow. Jetty had been under the impression that Jack had made a pass at Yang, only to be turned down quite publicly or something. Jack had denied this ever happened, because, and she quotes, "No, I was definitely hitting on a hot chick." In not getting murdered in the aftermath, somehow the two of them had wound up friendly. Enough that the two of them had become instrumental in this little card game scheme with Jetty.

"I'll be sure to commit copyright infringement if I ever get it," Yang said, rolling her eyes.

"Xiao Long, I didn't know you were a VidTube channel!"

Jetty snerked. Honestly, despite the way Yang talked, Jetty had this vague feeling the girl didn't exactly know what she was talking about. Just a sense that she got from the way Yang acted like she knew it all. Almost felt like she was trying to prove something. She was occasionally just a little bit too brash about it. Jetty's own experience as Jetty had given her a sense for how girls tend to operate when they're really like that.

As opposed to Jack, who was currently checking a scroll not of Beacon issue. She wasn't sure why he used some weird civilian model instead of the Huntsmen approved one. What Jetty did know is he probably had learned the hard way how to get cured of an STD at some point. At least he was clean now. Jetty felt like she would know for sure by now, given his penchant for girls who could kill him. Only thing about him that really threw people off was his habit of addressing people by their full names or last names. She wondered if that had something to do with Jack actually being his surname.

Jack saw her looking and cocked an eyebrow. "You're doing that thing where you psychoanalyze people again."

Jetty blinked. "No, I wasn't."

Yang grabbed Jetty's purple top hat off her head. "You were. At least try to look a little less obvious."

Jetty snatched her hat back. Her hat! No one else's. Jet Shamrock stood up, wiping Yang's fingerprints of his hat. It'd been a gift to the young Shamrock not long after he arrived in Vale, from some black Vaudou priest named Cemetaire. Old school Valean cool.

"Yeah, you better run," he groused.

She smiled, running her fingers over Jet's shoulder as she walked past. "Says the guy avoiding his team."

He compressed a sigh. "Can you blame me?"

"I met Jaune, and Ice Queen sounds like a total bitch. So…" She shrugged. "Not really."

"Try having her as a partner," Jet said.

"I'm good, thanks."

Jack kept flicking his hand back and forth, producing and changing playing cards with his magic fingers. That vaudou charm necklace he wore around his neck kept catching the light. Shamrock had asked after it one, and Jack had simply claimed it belonged to his patron deity, the goddess of whores, thieves, and lost children.

"You ever really try reaching out to her?" Jack asked?

Jet side-eyed him. "Yeah. To strangle her."

He stood and shrugged. Jack was tall. Maybe 6'5", lean with a swimmer's build. "She's an aristobrat. Only difference between her types and the Grimm is when they destroy homes and people, least you can legally kill 'em."

Jet snorted. "I hear that. It's just—I don't know. I just feel she thinks she's better than me. Every time we do work together, I get the feeling she's trying to outdo me. Every little pirouette just another flex."

"Find something to show her up with."

"Oh, sure. I do that and she ignores it or thinks it's not important."

He gestured at him with an ace of spades. "You can be anyone. Wear her shoes and ruin her rep."

"The Semblance doesn't work like that, I don't think," Yang said, arms folded.

Jet shrugged. "It's complicated. Besides, even Jaune and Blake at least see eye-to-eye on, like, two occasions. Weiss? I don't know, man."

"Become a billionaire like her?" Jack suggested.

"Ha! I'll get right on that when it rains."

He smiled at Jet. "See? All you had to do was listen to me and all your problems will be solved."

"Don't quit your dayjob," Yang said, rolling her eyes. "I'll see you guys around. Same time next whenever-we're-bored?"

Jack gave her a little two-finger salute by way of farewell.

Jet just sighed, starting after Yang. "Yeah, yeah. Just abandon me to the sand sharks."

And like that, another game night and bitching session over. Jet felt just a little bit better. Still, if Jaune of all retards could level with Blake, maybe he could with Weiss? Somehow. It'd be fucking embarrassing if a fuckup like Jaune outdid Jet at anything, leaving him the odd man out who couldn't get the team together.

Gods but Jaune would never let him hear the end of it.

— 16 —​

I was never gonna let Blake hear the end of it. I hung upside down by my legs from one of the library ladders, book in my hands. "He pinned her to the wall, his body against her. In control. She felt helpless, wanted to escape, but couldn't stop from moaning into his mouth when he kissed her," I read, doing upside-down crunches

Sitting at the table below me, Blake gasped, jumping up onto the table. "Jaune—what the—!"

I wet my finger and turned to the next page. Another crunch as I read a copy of the book Blake had been reading in her free time. "She grabbed him, desperate. And instead of shoving him away, pushed his head down to—"

She threw one of the books she'd been studying. It hit me square in the face. I yelped as I lost my footing and tumbled down the ladder straight onto my head. The book went flying, splaying open to one of the illustrated pages. Blake jumped to the ground and kicked the book under the table with a desperate edge. Before she inhaled sharply, seeing me laying upside down in a heap of limbs.

"Crap. Jaune, are you okay?" she hunkered down next to me, face hovering over mine.

I rolled to the side. "Yeah," I groaned. "Didn't think I could keep doing the crunches anyhow. Abs still broken from yesterday's gyming up. Appreciate the care."

She growled. "I don't care. But it'd look pretty awful if I failed because I turned my partner into a paraplegic."

I grabbed the table and hauled myself halfway up. Arms folded under my chin, I eyed her skeptically. "I'mma stop you there right now before you become a tsundere, and just always assume you care now."

As soon as I said it, my look hardened at her. There it was there on full display. Me just being myself. The same myself I thought I was when drunk and fucked up. Dumb humor had always been my go-to. As much a way to make friends as an innate self defense mechanisms

Blake rolled her eyes, sitting back down in her chair. "What are you even doing here, Jaune?"

My heart remembered it was supposed to beat. Relief flooded my every vein. I'd made a joke. I'd been what I felt was my retarded self. But instead of getting angry or offended, telling me to kill myself, she just sort of… accepted it. Not in a defeated way. More like giving shit to a friend kind of way.

"Aside from fucking with you?" I said hopefully, praying I wasn't misreading into things. Yang might be right I was a creep. She must have heard it from Weiss or Blake or someone. But there's this gremlin-like part of me that does like the casual bantz.

It's just for weeks now, my idea of fucking with people had been through the glass lens of a bottle.

You're not funny or charming, J. Shamrock's words came at me in a rush. Back in the school infirmary. You think you are, but you're just an asshole. I know your type and how this story always ends.

I told myself she was wrong. Not entirely. But enough that I could be funny and friendly without making my partner hate me.

"Aside from that, yeah," she said. No heat. No spite. No disgust. It was like Blake was just idly giving me shit for its own sake. Almost like friends are supposed to do.

I found a lopsided little smile tugging at my lips, which earned a curious expression from the girl. I shrugged it off, trying to play it casually. To not overthink it and make it weird.

"Figured you needed a break from studying up on the White Fang."

Her eyes narrowed. "How do you know what I'm reading?"

I froze for a second. That wasn't too far, was it? In a moment of rage I had let knowledge of Yang's mother slip and nearly died for it. Poisoned any hope of good will I would ever have with the first for a fleeting instant of visceral satisfaction,

"Remember when I said I was a fortune teller and it were my bidness to know the unknowable?"

Blake sighed, propping her chin up on her arm. A kind of reluctant acceptance I was more than happy to roll with. "I try to forget most things you tell me. Better for my mental health that way."

"Including tuna sushi?" I asked with a smile. Maybe it was just my mind, but I swear her bow twitched.

She just eyed me mistrustfully. I convinced myself it was still in that vaguely friendly way we were talking. Not exactly liking me, but not offended on a deep level.

"I found a place out in Vale serves half-decent sushi," I said.

"Good for you," she said in the disinterested way only a girl can do, designed perfectly to destroy a man's charisma.

I didn't let her get to me. I don't think she was trying to tell me to fuck off. There's a certain uncomfortable vibe that gives off, and I wasn't feeling it. And unlike the past, it wasn't like I was drunk enough to just maliciously ignore it because I found it funny. My needs did not and could not come before my partner, my… I want to say friend, but even I can't lie to myself that good.

"Sure is, Blake. And I want to take you there. Not a date, stop thinking that. I mean the whole team. Just, like, hang out together as a team and get some food together."

She lifted her head from her arm. "And you can afford this how?"

"I got big large pockets now from pulling extra shifts in the Fishery. Figured I could put me off plastic explosives a lil longer for y'all's sake.

"And what's your sinister ulterior motive?"

I felt a bit of sweat on my back. Of course she'd be suspecting. When had I ever done her something nice for its own sake? Hell, from a certain point of view, I still wasn't. I was trying to teambuild. As much for the sake of my own sanity as a genuine need to set things right with the people I'd hurt worst of all.

That didn't make it sinister, did it? Yang wasn't that right about me.

"You really trust me so little?"

"Uh, yeah?" she said with a no duh, dipshit motion of the head.

I just smiled, feeling more forced than I would have liked. As if pretending everything was okay would make it so. Perception is 9/10th reality and all. "I'm glad you think highly of my scheming. But, I swear, just trying to get the team out of school for a bit. Get away from this all. Just vibe somewhere as people instead of Hunters. Like I said, my treat. How's tomorrow sound?"

"You mean the day we have detention?" she asked pointedly

I knew that. That was the same day I had to meet with Ozpin for that parent teacher meeting bullshit. I was counting on that fact distracting her from giving an immediate no.

So I snapped my fingers. "Good point. Some time next week, say."

"I don't know, Jaune," she said a touch uncomfortably.

I stood up. "You know I ain't taking me no for an answer, girl. We'll make a whole evening of it. Shit'll be fun. A good distraction and finally a good spicy tuna roll."

She pursed her lips to the side, watching me. Every second, my anxious heart pumped hard enough that I felt my body shaking with it. At length she sighed. "I dunno. Maybe."

"Who is a baby who always says yes," I singsonged.

For a blink and you'll miss it moment, I saw it. The barest twitch of a smile on her lips. I think it was the first genuine bit of a smile I'd ever gotten out of her. Not counting her mocking in the bathroom when I offered to show her my skincare routine that one time. As far as a reserved girl like Blake went, that was a fucking achievment.

"You need better material," she said.

"Hmm, nah. I like being cheesy. It's raw and honest, and I'm raw as a dirty needle. I'll need to double down to convince the rest of the team to come with. Countin' on ya to help a boy out, Blake."

All she could do was sigh, sucking in on her thin lips.

Honestly, this was progress. I suspected if I made this offer last week, Blake would have rather viciously shot me down. Not that she was eager. If anything, she was still pussyfooting around me. But I could work with that. I was an acquired taste at the best of times anyhow.

Maybe Ruby's cross really was good luck. Part of me still felt that little edge was the only reason Yang hadn't punched a hole through a skull, a memory that still made my knees weak. I flicked it for good measure. The jingle got Blake's attention. I liked to think it a catlike hunting instinct that got her eyes to follow my drip.

"Where'd you get that?" Blake asked, sounding like she was talking against her will.

"Gift from Ruby for being friend of the year," I said with a wink.

"Oh. You stole it. Great."

"Is it so hard to believe someone out these doesn't hate me? Wait—don't you answer that, girl!"

Knowing amusement danced across her eyes.

Truth be told, I did like the necklace. Back home way, I always wore the little crucifix my dead grandma gave me. A symbol of love from dead family and faith in a higher power. I recalled wearing it one day to group therapy, wearing my skinny black Dockers and a black polo, cross on full display, and the sailors and soldiers all there in uniform had addressed me as sir, thinking I was a priest. I elected not to correct them as long as I could get away with it. Doubted it had any religious meaning in this world. To Ruby, it was a good luck charm from an uncle I presumed she held dearly. To me, it was proof that at least someone might almost like me, which was as precious to me as possible.

Whatever Yang thought, I was starting to think of Ruby as a bratty little sister. Just, one I couldn't pretend to want to protecc, since she could kick my cock inside-out six ways till Sunday. Still liked her. Which were funny, given how I hadn't cared for her too terribly in the show. She was just another action waifu and I was there for the visual spectacle.

I spread my hands at Blake. "Anyhow, I gotta get ready to meet my abusive sister and go punch Ozpin right in his stupid mouth tomorrow. See you at bed or whatever."

"Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out," she said, affecting a boredom I didn't think was genuine.

"Glad to know you're thinking off my ass. Means the squat rack is paying off."

 

[pingas plight]

"Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out," she said, affecting a boredom I didn't think was genuine.

"Glad to know you're thinking off my ass. Means the squat rack is paying off."

Click to shrink...

as we all know, d'orleans!jaune is best waifu cause of that tight ass

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

Chapter 8: I'm Getting Tired of These Over Long Title Gags
"If anyone needs me, I'll be in a bad mood."

— 17 —​

The day Indigo had gotten the call from Beacon had been one of the worst days of her life. Second only for the night she dragged her baby brother out of that pool during that party. She still got anxiety chills just thinking about it. Their father had caught Jaune sneaking out behind the house one night, having stolen the family sword Crocea Mors. Trying to practice by himself to sword fighting tutorials on VidTube. Dad had never wanted his only son to follow his footsteps as a Hunter.

When Jaune tried arguing, Dad had activated his Aura and smacked Jaune across the cheek so hard the boy had nearly broken his jaw. The bruise had lasted for weeks.

Indigo thought it might be fun to invite her baby brother out to one of her parties with her friends. You know the kind: loud music, drinking, and a need for spare bedrooms. Her boyfriend at the time had thought it would be hilarious.

And she had stupidly thought it would be perfectly okay to leave her brother unsupervised while she hung out with her friends. Fast forward to everyone gawking at the pool, her boyfriend laughing as a drunken Jaune fell into the water and just kind of let himself sink, staring up at the broken moon. Indigo had knocked a couple of her boyfriend's teeth out before jumping in to save Jaune.

A couple weeks later and somehow Jaune claimed he'd managed to get invited to Beacon for an entrance interview. Dad had been pissed, and Mom had nearly cried. Jaune hadn't backed down and left on his own. He never returned after that. It was the last time she ever saw Jaune.

The boy she was holding in an iron grip, that stupid fucking taller than her asshole she couldn't even strangle to death with her bust, was barely Jaune. He somehow looked a little more lean, like he had shed that last bit of baby fat. He'd cut his hair into a kind of high skin fade. The fuzz on his face was at least over a week old and, if you squinted, you might even charitably call it a beard.

He held out his arms, as if unwilling to touch her. Jackass!

"Uh, hi, Indigo," he said, his tone sounding forced, like someone trying to be very conscientious of a lisp or stutter.

"No. You shut up! You don't get to ruin my smoke break at work, make mom cry leaving home, and scare the living shit out of me like that without me getting to kill you! Fair's fair, asshole!"

"It's—" he tried.

"Yeah, alright?! It's my fault, I admit it. I know I'm a bad influence, but what the fuck were you doing drinking! You can't do this to me! If Dad found out about this he would literally murder you, which I can't let him do, because I have to fucking kill you first!"

He smiled, a thin, warm expression that she somehow hated. "Ain't nobody get to kill me but me," he said. And then quickly amended with, "That is, I'm completely invincible. The power of denial makes me immortal."

She started shaking him, not caring who around them in the school plaza saw them. In fact she hoped everyone saw it and it completely ruined his reputation. "I'll denial you the right to breathe!"

"Denial isn't a verb."

"I'll verb you right across the mouth!"

The smile this time was a little bit more genuine. "Luh yuh too, sis."

She scoffed, and reluctantly shoved him away. Hands on her hips, she looked up at her brother, who was an asshole to have ever gotten taller than her. Just plain inconsiderate. "Okay, so what's the plan."

"Plan?"

Indigo blew a stray lock of hair out of her eyes. "Well, obviously. We have to get our story straight before we do this. Remember last time this happened?"

"Remind me. I've chosen to repress all memories of my childhood."

She tried to kick him, and he had the audacity to jump back. She glared at him. "Look, if you want to get out of this alive, I need to pretend to be all angry and offended. Make the right noises. But we have to keep our story straight. And I don't even know what happened other than it involved alcohol."

"What do you mean, pretend?"

"Abuse is how I show my affection," she said, putting a hand daintily to her breast.

"Okay, Dad," he snorted.

Indigo rolled her eyes. "Where's all this lip coming from you all the sudden?"

"Dunno. I killed a Beowolf. Normal things just idn't as scary anymore once you put it into perspective like that."

Something about that sentence bothered her. Idn't. It was a kind of lazy drawl her brother didn't use. His accent was kind of off, like he had been punched in the jaw recently, and was just very consciously trying to pretend his mouth worked right. Something about that set off alarm bells in the back of her head, but she couldn't figure out what that meant.

"Hold up, you did what now?" she demanded as the rest of the sentence finally dawned on her.

Jaune shrugged, turning halfway away from her. "I didn't get accepted into Beacon for no reason, Indigo."

There again. The way he used her first name like that felt off. He'd usually call her Indie in a more casual way. She couldn't help but feeling like he was very consciously trying to subtly put up a barrier between him and herself. It grated on her.

So she simply huffed at him. "Okay. But what are we going to tell the principal or whatever? You have to at least tell me what happened. Details. Mouth words. Now. Vite-fait."

Jaune paused for a long moment, his eyes looking up at nothing. With his throat exposed like that, she saw the necklace. Some weird little slanted cross. Jaune didn't like necklaces. Said they always made his skin itch. But, maybe in hindsight, that was because the necklaces she and her sisters forced him to wear were meant for smaller necks, or were just plain chokers. Sometimes you needed to test out new accessories on an unwilling participant to know whether or not they look good on you. And Jaune looked similar enough to his sisters to function as a mirror in a pinch.

The boy picked a direction and started walking. Angrily, she powerwalked to keep pace with him.

"They made me a team leader," he finally said. "Wasn't really working out very well. I bought some fire water and cigarettes to help deal."

"I swear to God if you blame that on me, I'll cry at you!" she threatened. "Because I'm not willing to handle that kind of emotional responsibility right now."

He gave her a sideways smile. "Trust me, if you were the problem, my therapist would know you on a first name basis."

They passed by the plaza fountain. "You have a therapist now?"

"Court mandated," he said with a sigh. "See, that Grimm kind of ripped my chest apart. Check it." He lifted his shirt to show her the nasty claw scar running over his heart down to his stomach, disappearing into his waistband. She gasped in horror; how could a boy with that kind of injury not be drowning in women? If not for the inherit ew of it being Jaune, if she saw that in the wild, she'd be tempted to trace the scare down and see where it ended. Her baby brother was way too young to get involved with girls!

"So naturally, mixed with the painkillers they gave me, some amphetamine cola, and whiskey, I hatch this plan to bring my team together by fighting some White Fang terrorists."

"At least I can safely say that's not my fault," she said dubiously. "The terrorist part."

"Long story short, the plan goes horribly wrong. We stop the bad guys, destroy a Dust store, and then old man Ozpin pretty much breaks my balls for a half baked, drunken plan that technically involved committing a felony. My team gets detention, and I get put into drug rehab. Then I guess they call you during your smoke break."

Her brother hesitated. "You got a death stick on hand by the way?"

Without thinking, she produced a pack. Nico Nicotine, a woman's brand. Everyone in Vale smoked. It was just a fact of life in the city. A bad habit everyone shared, and everyone claimed it was their last pack before they quit.

Before she could stop him, he had grabbed one out of the pack and lit it with the Fire Dust ignition patch.

"Fuuuck," he said as a loud groan of pleasure, exhaling a cloud of smoke. "Ain't my cowboy killers, but a smoke be a smoke. You got you no idea how much ya boy needed this. Thanks, Indigo."

She couldn't tell if that weird trace of a foreign accent was back again, or if he was just slurring his words around the cigarette. In any case, scowling, she reached up to snatch it away from him. He grabbed her arm, hard, and just took another drag.

"Ow!" she said, pulling her arm back to rub it. She was half worried it was going to bruise, the way his fingers dug into her. He had never been this forceful before. Especially not to his older sisters.

"Soz," he said, not really sounding sorry at all. His attention went to the giant communication tower at the heart of Beacon. They were standing just outside of it, herself having followed him here.

"Glad you got here early," he said. "Old man wants to meet in maybe half an hour or so. His office is at the top of the tower. And I'd like to go in and have a word with the fucker first."

He was swearing a lot more than he used to. She couldn't figure out if he was just trying to act tough, or being at the school had loosened his tongue. She didn't like it either way. Gave her half a mind to try to throw him under the bus instead of working with him to minimize the damage.

"Say whatever you want when you get up to the tower. Pretend like you're definitely going to take away my allowance, spank me, or put me in a frilly dress."

She folded her arms. "We haven't done that to you in years."

Jaune gave her a weird expression, like that was somehow surprising news to him. "Miracle of miracle these the only fags I like in my mouth, whatcha'll did to me." He shook his head. "Just do whatever and I'll make it up to you as best I can. And don't let Dad know."

Indigo sneered. "Honor among thieves, Jauney-boy."

"Snitches get stitches, Indigo" he agreed, nodding.

— 18 —​

I left Indigo to her own devices with some pocket Lien to burn in the school's café just down the street for the next few moments. Then released a breath I hadn't known I was keeping, exhaling the nicotine cloud all the while. Indigo Arc was hot.

Vale as a culture hadn't yet developed laws against indoor smoking. Nobody inside the base of the giant radio tower castle thing gave me more than a passing glance as I made my way to one of the elevators. The only one that actually could make its way up to Ozpin's office. Hit the button. Take a drag. And ride.

I looked down at my hands and flexed them.

This sleeve, this body, named Jaune Arc was acting up against me. Not to get too cynical, but I like to think I had a unique perspective when I came to wearing new flesh. Human interpersonal connections and family bonding were quite literally only skin deep. Hormones and chemicals in action. If you want that kind of shit to last beyond one body, they need to have traumatized you to really stick around. Indigo Arc did that to me.

On an intellectual level, I realized she was exactly my kind of weakness. The hot overprotective blonde, with this vague party girl vibe. Just the right mix of complete irresponsibility with a sense of duty I couldn't help but emphasize with. Felt like I was the Ruby to her Yang, a thought which left an uncomfortable taste in my mouth, thinking I might have wound up with the hots for Yang under any other circumstance than the bed I made myself. I doubted Indigo could ever make my throat as dry as the thought of Yang's eyes going red could

On a physical level, Indigo kind of grossed me out the way she was looking at me and eyeing my brand new scar. I wanted to be around her, but not with her. Natural human siblings raised together from birth develop a kind of chemical thing together, pheromones if you will, improving family bonding and providing a natural physical aversion to incest.

I really hoped she wasn't going to show up naked in my dreams.

Family dynamics and attraction were two halves of the same innate human biological code. It's partly why I thought I kept having the hots for Weiss when I got too close. Because Jaune Arc did, even though on a human level I found her a distasteful bitch and would literally want nothing to do with her if I hadn't accidentally wound up with her on my team. No feelings for Blake other than generic teenage boy mixed with an angry sense of wanting to protect.

Which was the reason I was coming here so early, truth be told. I dragged on Indigo's cigarette, staring up at the little fisheye camera in the corner of the elevator. I could see the lens within it slowly adjusting. Ozpin was watching me hitch a ride up solo, just a little too early to be showing up. This was an unannounced visit for all intents and purposes.

"If'n ya finna do me sommat, do it now or forever hold your peace," I told the camera around a mouthful of smoke. I let my tongue finally loosen up to say it. I would need to tighten it back up again, feign a more generic Yankee doodle dandy for Indigo's benefit. But for the moment, it felt good to be myself.

The camera only adjusted its lens. I reached the end of my cigarette and stomped it out on the floor of the elevator. Passive-aggressive cigarette butt littering. A problem for the jannies. I was intensely aware of the weight of the weapons I never left at home as the express lift to hell dinged Here.

Ozpin's central nervous system atop the tower was nothing short of some kind of dangerous clockwork, a massive circular room surrounded on all sides by rows of windows like the Seattle Space Needle. Computers and monitors dominated one wall of the room, showing places both on and off campus that were of whatever interest to the great and terrible wizard behind the curtain. The location of the desk on the far side of the room meant once you exited the elevator, it was a long walk to comfortable conversational distance, during which the old man could just silently stare you down and destroy your resolve the whole trip.

He stood off to the side, leaning fractionally forwards on his cane, staring out the window at the vast kingdom of Vale. I knew for a fact he'd literally just sprinted there moments ago. Hard copy, pens, and other administrative debris still dominated his desk, looking just a little hastily reorganized. Abandoned coffee cups rose up like cooling towers in an industrial wasteland, one still piping hot.

I summoned every bit of non-commissioned officer in my spine, balled my fists, and stalked towards him like Mike Tyson. Every step I found my blood boiling just a little more. I was summoning my inner SGT Raney, a man who'd walk into the Captain's office unannounced, shut the door, and rip the officer's asshole apart for failure to his men.

That's what I was here for. Every footstep echoed in this over-empty room. Every echo reminded me of Shamrock, Blake, and even Weiss, angry and bored. Sitting in some dunce room during the detention of their freshman years. All because I had convinced them to join my hairbrained get-rich-quick scheme. A bunch of kids inspired by a literal adult who knew the future. And yet they were suffering, and all Oz did to me was make me act like a functioning human being, as Weiss so bitchily put it.

By the time I reached him, I could have shoved the white-haired giant against the window he was staring out of and strangled him.

Headmaster Ozpin finally acknowledged me, looking over his shoulder with a look of dull surprise I'm sure was meant to disarm me. "Mr Arc, you're early."

"Unless a wizard can send Dorothy here out back Kansas way, drop the man behind the curtain act, sir," I said, accidentally dropping into a form of respect in the end. I kept doing that and couldn't stop.

I expected the reference to go entirely over his head. Just something spat in a moment of anger. Or worse, somehow fuck me over like whewn I said too much to Yang. Instead, he looked more than a little concerned with that frown of his. It felt visceral and real in a way nothing from him ever had before.

Ozpin turned to face me fully, holding his cane before him. He looked down at me through those pea-sized glasses, affecting this expectant expression. "You smell of cigarettes," he said.

I tsked. "My mother smokes."

"Ah," he said, nodding. "And Nicholas drank. Addiction does so often run in the blood."

I squinted with fractional confusion at the name, feeling anxious sweat dripping down my back. Nicholas? My father! The realization made me angry for some reason. Of course he knew my father. Jaune's father, I amended. Jaune did imply he was from a line of veteran Huntsmen. I worried for a moment if that'd mean he'd see right through Indigo's ruse.

The old man smiled at the very margins of perception. In that moment, I wondered with a certain iciness if I was going to have to kill this man. Not right now, of course. Even a simple Huntsman could mop the floor with me, Aura and all. But, eventually at some point. Ozpin wouldn't be the first eldritch puppet master I'd eighty-sixed throughout my three lives.

I threw all those thoughts aside as counterproductive.

"Sins of the father got no bidness ruining the son," I said. "Which is why I'm here, sir. It's about my team. You need to let them go."

Hands folded over the top of his cane, he idly drummed one finger across the back of his other hand. "Oh, I do?" he said, sounding like this was fresh news to him.

I squared my shoulders and nodded. "They really didn't have a choice, not if you think about it. What happened that night. I failed them as a leader. If you want to blame anyone for what happened, pin it all on me. All."

"We all have a choice, Mr. Arc," he said, trying to all be scary and cryptic. But to me, he had all the touch of a time-traveling rapist.

I ran my tongue over my gums, tasting ash. I had to cap my anger. Turn it into a cold, collected fury. I couldn't explode here. I had to maintain frame. "I will not use my grade or position to attain pleasure, profit, or personal safety," I said sternly, reciting it by rote memory. "The Creed of the Noncommissioned Officer. I violated my most basic responsibility as a leader."

He cocked an eyebrow, either alarmed or impressed.

"I preyed on their flaws and weaknesses for my own gain, sir. Weiss and her desire to be a hero and earn Daddy's approval. Shamrock and their desire not to rock the boat. Blake and her—well, I'm sure you know."

"Know what?"

I laughed, a singular barking noise. "I know what you're doing, sir. Get me to say what I presume you know. If I'm right, it says something about me. If I'm wrong, you learn sommat novel and get to pretend you knew all along. Ya cain't say the name Belladonna really means nada to you."

He glanced to the elevator. "It's a common enough surname for faunus," he said, looking back at me. As if seeing if that itself was news to me.

I didn't flinch or back down. It confirmed everything. He nodded once.

"I'm surprised she told you," he remarked.

Credit it where it was due, when caught, he didn't pretend. I think in his shoes I would have played dumb longer, trying to make myself dig my own grave. Then again, from experience, I knew how cathartic it was to reveal information you had no rational reason to know just for reaction. Were I him, I'd be trying to one-up the wet-behind-the-ears pup trying to act like all big man on campus.

I returned his with one all my own. "She didn't."

"Then how?" Surprisingly direct.

"See, there was this whole thing with a genie and a magic lamp," I dismissed, refusing to actually answer.

He drummed his finger on his cane a little faster.

"But I did know. And I used it as a weapon against her," I said, gesturing at myself. "I knew her guilt and regret would help sate my own personal agenda. I lied and got her to help me against the rest of my team. None of them wanted to be there. But I was their leader, and they're just a bunch of dumb kids still thinkin' they can save the world."

"Kids," he said, zeroing in on a single gaff. "You yourself said you were seventeen. About the only accurate part of your transcripts, I had thought."

I spat to the side. "You grow up quick when you grow up poor. Ask my therapist."

"I have," he said mildly. "Pardon the vulgarity, but I quote, 'In my clinical opinion, the patient is fucking with me.' You're not taking my rather even hand very seriously."

"Fucking lack of HIPAA," I groused, rolling my eyes.

He adjusted his glasses. "You should consider thinking before you speak."

"Please. I refuse to be the bitch of my own thoughts."

"Hmm."

"Which is why I didn't think back at the Dust store. I didn't think when I abused those under my care and protection for my own ends. And I didn't think when sending them into harm's way. You can't punish them for that, sir. You have to punish me. I am their leader. The failure of those under me can only be my fault."

"They still chose to follow you."

"What kind of message you sending letting me off this easy, and fucking them over? My fault, not theirs. Leadership isn't easy. We fuck up all the time. But them's the works, and them's our cross to bear."

Headmaster Ozpin studied me for a long moment. His eyes kept going to the necklace Ruby had given me, originally from her uncle Qrow or whatever. I grit my teeth and met his eyes.

"You are no longer their leader."

I snorted. "Hating me is the only thing keeping them from killing each other. You really do know how to build a team, don't you?"

After a moment, he closed his eyes and sighed. Only to open as the office elevator hummed to life. Indigo on her way up. Ozpin walked off towards his desk. I followed after, stalking more than anything, until we were on opposite ends of a desk that probably cost an average year's salary. When he sat down, he was still so big he could probably look most of the girls in Beacon in the eyes. I kept on my feet.

"Very well, Mr. Arc," he said. "You've convinced me."

A weight sloughed off my heart. I saw spots, my legs feeling weak. The lucky cross on my chest burned.

"Yeah?" I said, trying to keep cool. My stomach did backflips.

He regarded me for another moment, the elevator humming. "Blake Belladonna, Weiss Schnee, and J. Shamrock will be excused from detention for time served."

I nearly thanked the man. Nearly.

"In exchange," he said in a harder voice, holding up his finger. "You will serve it in their place, Mr. Arc. Three times over. A full sentence from each of them conferred to you for failing them by every conceivable metric. Mixed with your community service yet to be determined at my discretion."

My heart sank into my balls and came out as the world's worst kidney stone. I balled and released my sweaty hands, mouth dry. The sweating had robbed me of any moisture. "And?" I croaked.

"This in addition to additional punishments to be determined following this meeting from your continued destructive, noncompliant, and generally atrocious behavior," he said, harder this time. "By every conceivable sense of good judgement, I should have you expelled and arrested. You barge into my office like some street punk with an axe to grind, you insultingly spit in my face, waste taxpayer money during what should be therapy, continue to destroy school property, and you litter in my personal elevator, Mr. Arc. I am a considerably lenient, understanding man. But even I have my limits." Real traces of controlled anger there. "And you will suffer for pushing them. Do I make myself clear, Mr. Arc?"

Suddenly, I felt in deeper shit than a man caught in an upside-down porta potty. I hadn't exactly expected to win, but I had expected to give it my all. Show some spine to the old man and maybe earn me some credit in the boxing ring. I mean, the man's a wizard, if his name fairytale is anything to judge by.

But, damn. This wizard got hands. Motherfucker just about casted fist at me.

I collapsed into one of the chairs, slinking low. "Yes, sir."

He took a measured breath. "Very good."

The elevator opened and Indigo nosed into the room, looking around. I just sat there, catatonic.

— 19 —​

"You look rather young for a woman in her thirties, Mrs. Arc," Headmaster Ozpin as she sat down.

For a parent-teacher meeting, there sure weren't many people here. Just the three of us. I supposed I counted that as a miracle. I'd hate if every single possible professor I interacted with was here to see me as the huge fuckup I was. Even if the teachers definitely talked.

Indigo made a face. "Don't you fucking hit on me when my son is in trouble. I have a husband!"

I expected… something mysterious and magic-y. Instead he looked at me, groaned, and dragged his hand down his face.

"I'm fascinated why someone would lie so ineptly to a complete stranger," he said, sounding his age for once.

Oooh, I was fucked.

Indigo folded her arms defensively and huffed. "Look, you really think our parents would ever show up to this? I practically raised the idiot myself. You want someone who cares and can hurt him, here you go. You wanna just fake procedures and feel good, look up Nicholas Arc in a scrollbook."

I genuinely couldn't tell if she was lying or bluffing. If the latter, then she was a lot better at this game than I could have imagined.

The old man regarded her for a moment, and nodded. "I see, then. The purpose of this meeting is to inform the family of ongoing adverse action against Jaune, and bring them into part of this process. We find students in this position rarely tell anyone what's going on, which impairs the recovery process. As a matter of course, we do it for them. These are difficult times for a young man or woman, Jaune more so than some. How much has he told you?"

She made a so-so gesture. "Took to drinking and painkillers. Blew up a Dust store to stop some terrorists. Forced into therapy. About what I would expect from a kid finally free from Dad's influence and under way too much of mine."

He leaned forwards as she talked, covering his mouth with a loose spread of fingers. "You expected this?"

Indigo shrugged. I slunk there in defeated silence. "Give or take. Our older sister, Saffron, ran away to Mistral first chance she had for a reason. Jaune just…" She looked at me and compressed a sigh. "Runs straight into danger to help people and gets himself screwed by not thinking." She reached out and bopped me over the head.

"Hey!" I snapped, and she scowled me back down.

Ozpin nodded. "Were you aware he's been brewing thermite and plastic explosives in his spare time?"

That caught her off guard. "He what?"

"And apparently hacked into our training room to summon and destroy two advanced combat training mechs."

"I didn't hack," I said with more defensiveness than I felt. "Your IT team set their admin passwords there to default. I just googled the OS factory settings and was trying to impress a girl. All the computers there use DHCP. You have literally zero security."

"I presume that relates to how you set up the library computer room to be a cryptomining operation?" he asked.

Oh shit, yeah. Forgot about that. I needed to check my BeaCoin wallet.

Indigo just frowned. "That wasn't Jaune," she said ponderously. "He doesn't know any fancy-shmancy Atlas computer voodoo. Riiight?"

I just kind of shrugged. "I learned it on the internet?"

"In, like, a month?" she asked.

"You're presuming my guilt," I said.

Ozpin stared me down. "You all but admitted it last time we spoke."

I opened my mouth, and closed it. The man had me there.

"Still doesn't sound like my little brother," she said.

"And yet." Headmaster Ozpin spread his hands. "How do you know about our security?"

I recalled the night of the big Beacon dance. Those poorly animated legs jumping over the rooftops and that Cinder or whatever her name was in the Chinese dress jacking into the very tower we were in.

"Every system in the gym is under one oversized C-class subnet. The terminals in the training room are all Cat-5'd into the system. Literally was able to just PuTTy into things, look at nearby jumps, and could pretty much SSH into every system in the gym by guessing the next IPv4 address from the netmask." I grinned viciously. Word salad, meet Ozpin

IPv4 was the common network scheme. Four sets of binary octets translating from 0 to 255 making up an IP, a computer or whatever's unique identity on a network. A netmask is used to subdivide those IPs into subnets, groupings of things on a network basically. Class C means every number can be found in the fourth binary octet, meaning the network has only 255 possible IPs, or 253 usable in practice. A subnet further divides that into smaller groups based on your needs, meaning in practice you can typically guess at the IPs of other systems based on the given range. SSH, or Secure Shell, is just a fancy way of saying "logging into other systems." And PuTTy was just a tool to do so, more or less.

I didn't know if any of these terms were what they used on Remnant by a country mile. I just recognized how the protocols worked. Not that it mattered if I knew the names or not. From everyone's faces, no one else had any idea either. They just grasped that it was a lot to know.

I'm sure if they did, they'd probably call me out for stuff like "that's not actually how SSH operates" or "who the fuck uses cat-5 cable in 2021?" or "no one calls it a Class C, the notation would be like a CIDR /23."

The American Army is older than the United States itself and it shows in the fine details. They've been training IT guys since the 90s, and then forced those grunts to choose between becoming instructors or drill sergeants, and IT intelligence types don't like becoming drills. Most everything I can do, everything I have done here at Beacon, is mostly just me ramming my head against half-remembered lessons, feeling things out entirely by gut instinct instead of professional knowledge. And our jargon evolved from radio/electrical engineers back in Vietnam.

In terms of skill level, I could about do the rain dance and usually got lucky.

The Old Man's face was completely unreadable. A blank canvas that said more than shock or awe could. The clockwork of the tower ticked by, filling the silence as he stared at me. Until he broke the gaze to look at his reflection in his last filled cup of coffee. When he spoke, it was slow, yet oddly determined. Almost a croak, like his mouth had completely dried out in the time it took for me to talk.

"How do you know any of that?" Ozpin asked.

"That meant something to you?" Indigo said.

The old man slowly shook his head. "No. Most all of that was invented while I was busy as a Huntsman or Headmaster here."

"So what does it mean for my little brother?"

He removed his glasses and wiped them off with a little cloth, buying himself time to think. "We're here to keep the family abreast of issues plaguing Jaune. However you want to handle this information, I can't control. What I can is how we're moving forwards. His continued hostility and noncompliance is an issue. At some point, there's nothing I can do to prevent expelling him. Glynda Goodwitch is already petitioning for that."

I grabbed the arms of my chair. Of course golden shower blondie would hate me. Fuck her.

"For the foreseeable future, he will either take his therapy seriously or there's nothing I can do," he said evenly. "But I think I will combine detention with community service."

"How?" I asked suddenly.

He gave me a look for interrupting him. "Letting you wander off on your own would, I feel, be a complete catastrophe. I believe the best course of action is to keep one's enemies close, so to speak. You will not serve detention beyond this weekend with Goodwitch, but rather here with me in the CCTS tower. More specifically, working off your debt to society under my supervision."

"But what do that mean?"

"Your accent's slipping," he said, and even Indigo was side eying me.

"It's because I listen to far too much rap," I explained to her, which… didn't seem to do anything.

Headmaster Ozpin held up his hand. "You will work detention under my supervision where we can keep you out of trouble. Helping the systems you've so flagrantly been destroying until either they function well or we reveal how much of a liar you are with them."

I spat to the side, but quickly shrunk in on myself under his eyes.

"Am I being unfair?" he asked rhetorically.

Indigo shook her head. "No," she said slowly. "Kind of sounds like you're going easy on him, really."

Thanks for the vote of confidence, sis.

The traces of a smile. "How did you explain my head, Mr. Arc? 'An abstract kind of hell'? I see no reason I can't make maximum use of that here."

I just stared at him in petulant silence. He did this to me. Same way he did when I first met him. And again after the Dust store gig. I couldn't argue, even though I wanted to. I simply knew he'd fuck me over worse. I'd dig my grave digger by opening my mouth, a trait I'd been working my ass off to reign in and control since, uh, about ever.

It still rubbed me wrong. Like he was trying to plan around me. And I wasn't named Jonathan Joestar. I doubted I could outsmart his outsmarting. Not without more time to properly fight back.

"That all?" Indigo asked, idly kicking a foot.

He shrugged. "Unless you'd like to say your piece to Mr. Arc in my presence."

Indigo shook her head, her blonde hair messing up from it. "No. Think I'll kick his ass where the staff can't see me."

Again, I had no idea if she was kidding or not. I was afraid she wasn't. I drummed my fingers on my shield.

He gestured to the door. Both Indigo and I stood up. He held up a hand to me. "Mr. Arc, one last word with you. Ms. Arc, feel free to take your leave."

"Anything you can tell my brother, you can tell me," she said, instantly folding her arms. She took a step towards me.

He regarded her for a very long moment, still sitting there. I imagine anyone but Indigo might have backed down. Instead, like me, she just got more annoyed. Refusing to budge in the least.

"I simply want to inform Mr. Arc where he'll be reporting for this weekend's detention before I find work here for him," he said. "There's really no need."

"Cool. Means he can't hide from me if I know where he's going."

He sucked on his lips for a fraction of a second, but I caught it. It felt good to see. So he simply stood up and, to my surprise, offered me his hand.

"I look forward to finding a shred of decency in you, Mr. Arc, even if we have to work it out of you," he said.

I stared at his hand. It felt normal enough. But even when my Commander had forced me to sit in with a meeting between him and my therapist over whether or not I would be diagnosed with alcoholism, he hadn't shook my hand. And that man had liked me. Something about the offered limb just felt dangerous. Some ulterior motive I couldn't trust. More than usually from the old man.

I shook my head. That seemed to be entirely the wrong response. Something I would regret later, somehow, judging from the crease in his brow.

"Please. I insist," he said. "I'd like to keep this civil, no matter how you might feel."

"Handshakes spread germs," I said. "And Ruby told me germs are like pissing on other people. Wouldn't want that, sir."

"She is Taiyang's daughter, it seems," Ozpin said reproachfully. "Very well. I'm sure you can simply follow your teammates to detention tomorrow where you will get to play hero and inform them of my decisions. My secretary will tell you where to be this coming Friday onwards. You two are dismissed."

a/n Oh hey, finally caught up to SB and FF.

 

[pingas plight]

that handshake felt like a loaded action. you fucked either way my dude.

 

[Eric d'Orléans]

Chapter 9: If You Really Think About It, Strap-On Is Just No-Parts Spelled Backwards
"Aren't you supposed to be working?"
"Probably. I'm supposed to be a lot of things, but I live to disappoint.""

— 20 —​

There wasn't much else I could do. As soon as we'd left the tower, she'd grabbed me by the collar and started dragging. Sure, I was bigger than her by a fair margin, but, I don't know. She was in Yang Mode for lack of a better term. She'd been silent the entire ride down from Oz's office, only reacting slightly when I picked up my discarded cigarette butt from the elevator and threw it in an outside ashtray.

Once outside? Hoo boy.

"Here," she said, letting me go. She gave me a push towards the alley wall. "You know there's certain places if I hurt you, the police won't be able to find out about, right? It's not illegal if there's no official report."

I gave her a sideways smile. "I'll scream. You underestimate just how much a bitch I am."

Indigo grit her teeth and stomped. She came up on me with a suddenness, jabbing a finger in my face. "And you underestimate just, uh, how pissed I am at you, Jaune!"

"I hate when people just state how they feel. That makes me feel angry," I said mildly, looking away.

"Are you fucking mocking me?"

"I kinda am, Indigo."

She stepped back, panting. Cheeks red. "What's that about? Why do you keep calling me that?"

"Calling you what?"

"Indigo!"

I folded my arms uncertainly. "It's your name."

"You never call me that!"

My eyes went to the fire escape. We were out behind the school cafe, and everything smelled vaguely of coffee grinds. I took a wild guess at what she meant. "Things is different now, Indie."

Her face scrunched up, and I half-thought she was about to cry. "Why are you drinking yourself into therapy? When did you learn Atlas computer shit? How come your voice itself sounds like someone else? 'Things is,' 'idn't,' and even the Headmaster guy pointed it out. What the fuck is wrong, Jaune?"

I… just kind of stared at her, at a complete loss for words. Trying to speak just made my tongue feel too heavy to move.

Indigo grabbed me, but all I could do was notice the smell of cigarettes. She shook me rapidly. Dumb fuck I was, I held my footing, unable to even shake for her. "Goddamnit, you stupid, sturdy dick! I can't help you if you don't tell me what's wrong!"

I swallowed, eyes wide. I mustered a croak, and that was it.

"That's it? That's it!" she shouted. I looked to the side, worried someone might come upon us. No one was. "I don't know, Jaune! Is it a girl? Is it dad? Is it me?"

I killed your brother and replaced him.

Silently I reached up and took her hands. She disentangled them from me and threw a punch at my chest. I didn't react as it hit my breastbone. It didn't hurt nearly as much as I feared.

"Talk to me, you dumbass!"

For the first time in the nearly two months since becoming Jaune, I felt like an imposter. It wasn't the feeling I first had, that my face didn't belong to me. It was that I was somehow betraying the people who cared for the face. Somehow more real to me than anything of its kind before. Back in Brockton Bay, the man who thought he was my father was radically overjoyed when I took over his son and got obsessed with health and fitness. He was proud and so encouraging that I wasn't the loser his son was. On Earth, I joined the Army because I wanted to earn my father's respect, and graduating as a soldier and doing work for the Agency finally saw him proud of me to the point of bragging.

Every human body had its story. When you hop bodies like I do, you come to learn that. Genetics, past injuries, fitness, and those who care for it.

I put my hand over my mouth, running my hand through the first strands of a burgeoning beard. "I cain't, Indigo," I said, dropping into my native accent just for once.

Indigo sniffled and rubbed her wet eyes. "Please, you jackass. Please. I just want to help you. Don't make me fucking do this, Jaune."

"Do what?"

"This!" she screamed, and the tears were flowing down. She beat her fists against my chest. It all felt so useless.

I tried taking a step back, as if to run away. Only for my ass to hit the wall. I held my hands up like she was some dangerous animal I was trying to avoid touching. Indigo came at me again, and I just took it.

Once on leave, my father tells me, we got into his whiskey. I started talking about why I joined the Army. Said it was to make him proud. We laughed, and we kept drinking. And drinking. And I keep talking, telling him why his approval meant so much to me. Broken household, abusive upbringing while he was in my life, and always feeling like he hated me while I was his son. We stopped laughing, and I kept drinking. I start yelling at him, this old navy veteran who always felt twice my size, twice the man I ever was.

Until I threw the first punch.

I woke up on the floor of the bathroom and spat out the blood. He was in worse shape than me. He was the bigger man by far, but I was the angrier. Until he gave up and curled up in a ball to make me go away.

I grabbed Indigo's arms.

"Let me go, Jaune!"

And hugged her with all my might. Cradling her head against my chest. And just let her hold me back, and cry.

"I'm sorry, Indie," I said softly. "It's... complicated. I can't tell you. There's these demons I got. Always had, really. From my father, trying to be the man he always wished he could be and better. From what feels like another life or two ago. From just being a complete fuck-up trying his best after ruining everything. A girl, too." I forced a smile. "It's everything all at once. I can't blame you. Or Dad. Or even her, not really. I did this all myself. And just knowing you got my back, I know I can make it. If just one person is in my corner, baby sister, then I'll fight tooth and nail until I die to be someone worth believing in."

"Baby?" she sobbed. "I'm like a year older than you."

I booped her nose. "Sorry, can't hear you from all the way up here."

"I hate you."

I just held her, smiling at nothing and everything. "Join the club. There's an official newsletter and everything."

"I want club president."

"Think my partner, Blake, has that position covered."

"She the girl?"

I shook my head. "Her? Nah. I almost think she's starting to like me. I'm apparently an acquired taste. Which is why I need to go, Indie. I… I owe her. Her, Weiss, Shamrock. My whole team. I done fucked up hard with them, trying to be something I'm not. Because I'm better than who I was pretending to be."

"You tryna get rid of me?" she asked, frowning up at me. Her eyes were blue as mine, and shot red. "I come all this way and you just try to get rid of me?"

"Promise I'll keep in contact?"

Indigo sniffed and rubbed her eyes. "You're the worst, Jaune. I fucking hate you. How the hell is a dick like you and a saint like me even related?"

"Don't ask me," I said. "Like eighteen years ago some asshole came in my mom and now I exist without my consent. Forcing me to just do my best in a life I never asked for."

She gave a sound that was almost a laugh. "You're gross, Jaune."

I stuck out my tongue. "If you have the receipt, you can always return me to the store and get a cooler one."

Indigo frowned deeply. "No. I wrote my name on you and that's that. You're a fucking piece of shit and I love you, kid." I let her disentangle from the hug and step back.

"Love you too, sis," I said, feeling like the world's greatest, worst liar.