Hello, all! ^^ I return with my very first arkos-centric fic. Please forgive me if they're a bit OoC, as I've not written much for them before and I do not own RWBY. This is a gift for my sempai for finishing her online class. :3 Enjoy!
The sun was bright - a bit too bright, Jaune thought, squinting up at the sky - but at least the day was a pleasant one. He had been afraid that the temperature would be too high for their outing, but it had cooperated; team JNPR had been able to make a weekend trip to the beach. Originally, team RWBY had planned to join them, but had been forced to remain at Beacon due to an incident involving milk, seven corks, a radio, and a roomful of vanilla-extract-filled water balloons. Zwei was fine; his humans… not so much. Thus, JNPR had taken on the oh-so-rough task of enjoying a day at the beach. They had arrived a few minutes ago; Nora had immediately dragged Ren out into the waves, pausing only long enough to inflate their sloth-shaped floatie and smear on some sunscreen. Pyrrha had apologized before trotting off to find a restroom, as she had not thought to put her suit on prior to their departure for the beach. This left Jaune to spread out their sheet, weigh it down with rocks, and wrestle their lion umbrella into the sand. The mane jutted up, odd wire-supported addition that it was, setting their umbrella apart from the multitude that sprouted from the sand like overgrown mushrooms. He had just managed to get it steadied and was in the act of removing his t-shirt when Pyrrha's voice rang out from behind him.
"I'm sorry about making you set all that up on your own, Jaune! I was just coming back to help."
"Nah, it's fine," he replied, pulling his shirt off the rest of the way and turning to face her. "It wasn't all that - woah." His mouth suddenly seemed to be made of the same substance as the beach; he began blinking rapidly. "I - you - woah," he repeated.
"You don't look too bad yourself," Pyrrha replied, a smirk playing across her lips even as her cheeks colored. "That shade of red suits you - your trunks, I mean."
"Th-thanks." He shook his head as Zwei so often did after bathing. "Yours looks great, too, it's so small - I mean, shiny. It's so gold. Yes. Um. Pattern! The pattern is - cool. It really draws attention to the right areas! Wait, I mean -"
Fortunately, Nora chose that moment to call to the pair, "Oi, lovebirds! Get in the water already!" While embarrassing, this shout saved Jaune the trouble of having to dig a hole in the sand and perform his ostrich impression out of sheer embarrassment.
"It is rather refreshing," Ren added from his position atop the sloth floatie, mere moments before Nora flipped it over. He surfaced, sputtering, before swinging his braid out of his face and - much to the surprise of the lovebirds on the beach - tackling Nora into the water.
"Just give us a minute to put on sunblock!" Pyrrha called back. She then walked over to her bag and bent to get her sunscreen, rendering Jaune incapable of blinking or breathing for several long moments. It was only when Pyrrha snapped her fingers in front of his face that his consciousness crashed back into the realm of reality. "Jaune?"
A nervous laugh spilled out of his mouth. "I totally wasn't staring, why do you ask?"
"I was asking if you would help me with my sunblock. I can't reach my back at all, and this bottle isn't metal, so…." Her mouth twitched, as if she were hiding a laugh.
"Help? As in rub? On - on you?"
"Well, it's not like the sand needs much sunblock," she chuckled, giving in to the laughter. "Yes, Jaune. On my back, please. Unless you don't want to, I could ask someone else."
"Yes, I would love to help you with sunscreen, just - uh - lie down there and I'll smear it all over you - um, I mean - yeah." He took the bottle she handed him, dropped it in the sand, and ducked down to get it, cheeks aflame.
Pyrrha's eyes traced his body unnoticed as she laid down in front of him, propped up on her elbows, face towards him. She knew in some small corner of her mind that this might be overkill, but the reader might understand why she was going so far, given Jaune's usual state of obliviousness. "...Jaune?"
"Y-Y-Yes?" he spluttered, tearing his eyes up to meet hers.
"Sunblock?"
"Right! Sunblock!" Another nervous laugh bubbled out of his throat, and he walked around to kneel next to her, squirting the thick white liquid into his palm as he did so. Pyrrha yelped upon contact. "Sorry!"
"It's fine, it's just a bit cold." She shifted a bit on the towel, and then started speaking again. "Oh! Right, hold on." Having said this, she reached behind herself and untied the back of her bikini top, letting the strings fall onto the towel.
"Wh-Wh-Wh-Wh-What are you doing?" His hands froze inches above her now completely bare back.
"Well, bikini straps move in the water, so I wanted to make sure that I didn't get any weird tans or sunburns from them. That's why I thought it would be best to move them while you're putting on the sunblock," she explained, smiling. "I thought you grew up with sisters?"
"Oh. Yeah, I did. They usually just moved the straps up and down when they glopped it on, is all. I guess I just didn't think." He laughed, running a lotiony hand through his hair. "Aw, man -"
Pyrrha laughed. Jaune could feel the vibrations as he lowered his hands to her back again, marvelling at the way the muscles shifted, at the raw power hidden beneath her soft curves, in each defined line. He pretended that his hands were not shaking as he smoothed the lotion across her skin, rubbing it in small circles. A memory of his father rubbing his mother's back after a long day cut through his mind then, sharp and clear, and took him by surprise; he could easily imagine such a future like that for them, hunting and living together until they could hunt no more, until dust turned to dust. He gave his head a shake, clearing away the image; that was too much to ever hope for, right? They were far too young. They would have years, decades for things like that to happen. All he needed to do right now was finish putting sunblock on her back so they could enjoy their beach day.
"Mmm…"
"Sorry, did I push too hard?"
"No, you're just… really good at backrubs. I need to get you to start doing these after practice."
"Sounds like a good plan." Give me any innocent reason to touch you. "Alright, you're good."
"Thank you, Jaune. Tie me, please?"
"Y-Yeah." He swallowed, fumbling with the too-thin strap; it took several attempts for his slimy hands to form a decent knot. "There you go."
She sat up, and the two spent a couple of minutes getting their own sunscreen rubbed in before he made to stand, only to be stopped by Pyrrha's hand on his arm. "Your turn! It wouldn't do to have you get sunburned after you were so careful with me, would it?"
"Oh, right." He gave her a half-grin and laid down where she had been minutes before. "Then please, go ahead."
"Don't mind if I do," she smiled, and he suddenly felt a weight just below the small of his back.
"P-Pyrrha?"
"I'm sorry, Jaune! I just… you've gotten so big - from training, I mean - that the only way I can reach all of you is by straddling you. Am I too heavy?" He felt the muscles in her thighs tighten a bit as she shifted apprehensively, as if afraid she had gone too far.
"N-N-No, not at all! You're good! I don't mind, you can straddle me any time you want! I mean - ugh…" He trailed off, planting his face in the sand with a muffled groan.
"That's good to know," she hummed, squirting a healthy measure of lotion onto his back. "Maybe I'll take you up on that in the future."
He whipped his head out of the sand so quickly that his neck cracked. "What?"
"Well, if you're giving me post-practice massages, it's only fair that I return the favor, right?" she inquired, working the lotion with her fingers.
"True… mmmmn. You're not half-bad at this either. Much better than my little sisters… they always punched me…."
Her fingers seemed to dance over his back muscles, swirling the lotion over his skin with careless precision, making and erasing patterns in a matter of seconds. She savored the sensation, lotiony as it was, for when else could she be this close to him? But all too soon, the lotion process was complete, and she knew it was time to move. Or rather, she would have moved, had Jaune not asked, "Done, right?"
"Yes, you're all done."
"Then scoot forward a bit, and hold onto my shoulders."
She obeyed, and he attempted to prevent his brain from short-circuiting at the sensation of her bare inner thighs slipping along his lotioned back. "May I ask why - oh!" She let out a startled laugh as Jaune rose to his hands and knees and began crawling towards the water, Pyrrha riding his back like a small child playing horsey. Her laughter only increased when a wave came in, splashing her noble steed in the face; the sound drew Ren and Nora's attention. Nora, grinning, observed as Jaune crawled forward a few more feet before Pyrrha dismounted.
"Man, Pyrrha, riding Jaune in front of everybody? Save it for the bedroom!"
Pyrrha tripped and landed face-first in an oncoming wave.
The four of them swam for some time, bickering over the sloth floatie and taking great joy in swimming beneath it to dump off whoever happened to have it at that moment. Eventually, Ren and Nora swam back towards the beach to start building sand castles, as they had been swimming for much longer than Jaune and Pyrrha had. Jaune held dominion over the sloth floatie; Pyrrha leaned on it at his head so they could talk. Her fingers idly stroked the sloth's painted-on fur as the content pair drifted with the ebb and flow of the waves.
"It's been a long time since I've been to the beach," she sighed, her toes dragging along the sand below the waves.
"Really? Why?"
"I've been too busy training, with tournaments and such. Besides, I never really had any friends to go with, and my mother was never all that fond of the beach." She smiled up at him, leaning her cheek against the warm plastic of the sloth. "So it's nice to be able to go now, with all of you! It's kind of like… being with my family again. It's nice being treated like I'm an actual person."
"W-Well, yeah! You're our Pyrrha! How else would we treat you?" He raised an eyebrow, daring to reach out and run a hand through her hair, grinning. "And as for being family - what else would we be? We're a team, right?"
"Of course!" She returned his grin, leaning into his hand. "Thank you."
"For what?"
At this, she became shy, looking up at him through her damp lashes. "Well… since I met all of you, I've not been lonely. It's… a wonderful feeling. So thank you for being my… my friend."
He swallowed, a bit unbalanced by the sudden change in atmosphere. "Y-Y-Yeah! And you, too! I'm really glad I met you." His hand left her hair to rub the back of his neck; the two descended into an awkward sort of silence.
After a few moments more of floating, Pyrrha slid her elbows off the floatie to duck underneath the water; upon surfacing, she asked Jaune, "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"That clicking - listen."
Click clic-click clic-clic.
"Yeah, I hear it!" he said, sitting up on the floatie. "What is it?"
"I think it might be submarines, communicating in Morse code! I wonder if there's one nearby!"
Click click click-click.
"Cool!" He squinted towards the horizon, as if hopeful that he might see a periscope. "D'you think it's far?"
Click-click-click.
"Maybe," she giggled. "I'm not sure how well sound travels underwater."
Click-click click-click.
"C'mon, let's go investigate," he grinned, holding out a hand to her. "Get on the floatie so we can stick together."
"Alright." She took his hand, letting him help her scramble onto the sloth's back. She set two rocks on it next to her thigh and leaned against his back as he began propelling them deeper into the water with his legs.
"...Huh? I think it stopped."
"That it did," she concurred, her voice shaking with laughter.
"What's so funny?" he inquired, twisting around to face her.
She held up the rocks. "Kind of small for a submarine, no?"
"What?" He blinked.
In answer, she held a rock in each hand, dipped them into the water, and tapped them together.
Click click-click click.
Comprehension dawned on his face, and she burst fully into laughter.
"Pyrrha…!" he growled, lunging towards her and tickling her sides in punishment. "You had me all excited about submarines!"
"I'm sorry!" she gasped, dropping the rocks as she shook with laughter. "Please, mercy!"
"Never!" he declared, tickling her more. "And I'm not wearing any metal, so you can't stop me!"
"We'll see about that!" she laughed, and retaliated.
Eventually, they both fell off the floatie, and calmed down a bit. Pyrrha crawled back onto the sloth and Jaune took her previous position, leaning on its edge. They floated in silence for a few moments, worn out from their exertion. The scent of the water wafted over them, coaxing their eyes to droop a bit; they exchanged a sleepy smile. Pyrrha's hair, which had snapped free of its hair tie during their tickle fight, draped in wet strands over the sloth's head. Jaune ran his fingers through it, marvelling at its shine and texture.
"I don't remember the last time I saw you with your hair down. It's gorgeous."
"Th-Thank you!" Pyrrha stuttered, bright red at this sudden compliment.
"Huh?" Jaune's head snapped up, his own cheeks flaring. "...Did I say that out loud?"
"You did." She gave a nervous laugh, tucking a strand of their topic of discussion behind her ear.
"Oh." He slid off of the sloth and began submerging himself in the water until only his hair was floating above the waves. As she watched, he went completely under, and swam off; before she could look to see where he went, something hit the bottom of her floatie, and she crashed into the water.
She came up, sputtering, to see a sodden Jaune grinning at her. "You dunked me!"
"Yup! Revenge for the submarine!"
"Was tickling me not enough?" she laughed, grabbing ahold of the escaping sloth's back leg.
"Never!" he declared, before sighing. "Want to head in? Nora said something about building a sand castle."
"Sure," Pyrrha smiled, turning towards the beach. "Ah. She seems to have finished it already."
Nora's voice echoed over the water from her perch atop her gigantic sand castle. "I'm queen of the castle, I'm queen of the castle!"
The pair looked at each other, laughed, and struck out for shore, dragging the floatie behind them.
Nora, it transpired, had built a sand castle much larger than she ought to have been able. As a result of the castle's sheer mass, she had also made a moat around it - all that sand had to come from somewhere, after all. The castle had a room within it, where Ren was carefully forming pancakes out of sand - sandcakes. The outside edges and main supports were made of glass - as, after all, when electricity meets sand, it makes glass. Ren, for his part, admired the delicate work that this took, even if Nora had been very particular about the width and thickness of his sandcakes. She had even used her static to turn the edges of his sandcakes 'crispy.' He invited the partners to enter the stronghold, and to mind the glass moat-sloths. They did so, marvelling at their teammates' capacity to collaborate on ridiculous creations.
"Sandcake?" Ren offered, gesturing to the sand-and-glass sculpture half his size.
"No, no, no!" Nora interrupted, dropping through the hole in the ceiling that served as a trap door. "Renny, you didn't put any syrup on it - here!" And she dumped a bucket of water over the top of his carefully crafted sandcakes.
"Nora…."
"Yes?"
Ren sighed, and instead motioned to their picnic basket, which was sitting beneath their lion-shaped umbrella - around both of which the boop troupe had built the sand castle. "Food?"
"Indeed! Let us feast!" Exchanging bemused looks, Jaune and Pyrrha sat with the builders of sand fortifications to do just that.
Ren had truly packed a feast for them: The picnic basket contained an entire watermelon, multiple sandwiches of various types, four each of both bottled water and apple juice boxes, and a bag of grapes. He had also brought a blindfold which he, to the bewilderment of Jaune and Pyrrha, tied around Nora's eyes before handing her Magnihild and pointing her towards the watermelon. A moment later their confusion vanished, as Nora brought Magnihild down upon the watermelon with great vigor, sending great chunks flying towards the glass walls of their sand castle. Ren then untied her blindfold, commented that he was surprised she had hit it with her first shot, and the two then set about gathering up the splattered pieces. Ignoring Jaune and Pyrrha's startled countenances, the boop troupe dumped the pieces in the previously-unnoticed water-filled cooler brought specifically for this purpose.
"Watermelon?" Ren inquired calmly, once their task had been completed.
"Or grapes! They're little packets of energy!" Nora exclaimed, eating several of them at once.
"I think I'll start with sandwiches, thanks." Jaune reached into the basket and pulled out several at once, handing them around. "What type do you want, Pyr?"
Pyr? "Um - peanut butter and jam?"
Sensing her confusion, he corrected himself: "I mean Pyrrha! Pyrrha. Nor Pyr."
"You can call me Pyr if you want to, Jaune," she murmured, accepting the sandwich he handed her. "I've never had a nickname before. I'm glad we're that close."
He gave her a half-grin in return, and as a consequence of his divided attention, he bit into the wrapper on his sandwich. "Blah!"
"Generally, Jaune," Pyrrha laughed, "you unwrap your sandwich before you eat it."
"Right!" Nora declared, jumping back into the conversation and snatching a cheese sandwich. "Plastic is gross! Almost as gross as someone's energy drinks!"
A mildly miffed Ren looked up from his chunk of watermelon. "Excuse me, my energy drinks are delicious and nutritious."
"Sure, Renny, keep telling yourself that." Nora winked at Pyrrha and grabbed a box of apple juice, stabbing the straw through the hole.
Jaune, for his part, was preoccupied with attempting to figure out as many ways as he possibly could to work Pyrrha's new nickname into conversation. "So, Pyr, water or juice?"
"Um - water, please."
"Here you go, Pyr."
"Thanks, Jaune…?" She raised an eyebrow at his antics, wondering if he was doing this on purpose.
"Hmm?" He leaned forward, raising his own water bottle to his lips and taking a slow sip.
"Nothing." She shook her head, taking a bite of her sandwich, and turned to observe Ren and Nora's in-depth discussion of the benefits of making sand castles into glass castles. They continued in this vein until after their sandwiches were long gone and they had collectively moved on to fruit. It was only when Jaune accidentally dropped his watermelon into the sand that he interrupted the discussion.
"Hey, Pyr, I dropped my melon in the sand - will you help me rinse it off with the water from my bottle?" He held up the sandy melon, his face arranged in a deliberately overly sorrowful expression.
She agreed, took his bottle, and began squirting both the melon and him.
"Pyr! Why are you squirting me?"
"Ha!" Nora burst out. "Pyrrha, you squirted!"
Ren chopped her on the head. "Nora… no. Just no."
She gave a sheepish laugh and grinned at a flustered Pyrrha, who squirted her with the rest of Jaune's water bottle.
"What now?" Pyrrha inquired of the other three, sprawling back onto the sand after they had demolished the food and given Ren the proper thanks. Jaune tugged his shirt back on, not wanting too much more sun on his back.
"I saw an ice-cream booth a bit that ways when I was protecting the castle." Nora pointed vaguely towards one of the walls as best she could from her position draped over Ren's back. "Sloth blanket," she murmured, stuffing her face against his damp neck to stifle a yawn.
Ren, too, was yawning. "You two go on ahead. We'll -" he stifled another yawn, already slipping onto his side, "- we'll catch up in a minute."
Jaune and Pyrrha exchanged a fond look before tossing a couple of beach towels to their sleepy friends, grabbing their wallets, and slipping quietly out of the castle. The beach was busier by this time, so they had to weave around a larger number of umbrellas. A few people recognized Pyrrha, creating quite a stir; some people asked for autographs, and others invited her to join them. She refused them all politely, explaining that she was there with her friends. One particularly persistent group of males ignored this, inviting her to desert her friends and come have a good time.
"C'mon, Nikos, ditch blondie - we real men can show you a much better time! I know a great place we all can go, and get away from all these people - we'll be all alone," one leered at her.
"Thank you for your kind offer, but I must decline," she said firmly, giving her best press smile. Jaune looked warily between them, growing slowly more irked. This guy was far too pushy; Pyrrha had turned him and his friends down several times by now.
"C'mon, you're just with your friends, right? You look like you could use some good lovin -"
"No, thank you. If you'll excuse me, I have somewhere to be." She began walking, Jaune at her side and glaring at the gathered men.
"You just think 'cause you're famous, you're better than us, do you, you bitch?" a drunken member of the group called, dropping his beer can on the sand. "What you need is to take that stick outta yer ass - and put a different one in, if you know what I mean!"
No sooner had he said this than had his beer can shot straight upward into a painful location. The man collapsed into the sand with a howl. One of his companions, forgetting to whom he was talking, ran to catch up with Pyrrha and Jaune, growling, "You'll pay for that, you -"
Before his hand could reach Pyrrha, he found his wrist caught by a surprisingly strong hand. "Don't you dare touch her, you piece of shit."
Pyrrha, who had already settled into a fighting position, straightened in surprise. "Jaune?"
"She does not owe you her time, her smile, or any damn thing. She said that she did not want to spend time with you. Grow. Up. Go back to your little group of friends and leave her the hell alone. Got it?" he hissed, giving a slight twist to the man's wrist, sending a sharp jolt of pain down his arm.
"Are you crazy, buddy? Let me go!"
"Got it?" he repeated, now deathly calm, twisting the man's wrist further.
"Ow - yeah, yeah, I've got it! We'll leave her alone! Now lay off!"
Jaune released him, stepping in front of Pyrrha in that same moment. The man, mutter curses and making rude gestures, stormed back to his group of friends in humiliation.
"Jaune -"
"I'm so sorry, Pyr!" he turned around and clapped his hands together, wincing a bit. "I… I didn't mean to lose it like that. I know you can handle them. I… I didn't mean to steal your thunder or anything, I just… snapped. I'm sorry."
She blinked. "It's… fine. Thank you for stepping in, actually. I have a reputation I need to upkeep, and because of that I have to deal with them politely…" A heavy sigh slipped out of her. "So thank you for stepping in. Otherwise they would've kept bugging us all day."
"Seriously?"
She nodded. "They're often too persistent for their own good."
"...Remind me to apologize to Weiss when we get back to Beacon."
She grinned. "That's a great plan. Now shall we go get that ice cream?"
"That plan sounds even better."
Given that it was a brilliantly sunny day, the ice cream booth had quite a long line. The two of them chatted amicably back and forth, drawing shapes in the sand with their toes while waiting. Jaune, noting the length of the line, drew a hangman in the sand. "Want a hint?" he asked, marking out ten dashes in the sand below the initial sketch.
"That would be grand." She smiled, leaning against him and out of the wind. The digesting food in her stomach had chilled her a bit.
"It describes you."
"Me?"
"Yeah, you - it's an adjective… and a pun, too, I guess." He grinned.
"Then… A."
"Correct!" he said, leaning down to trace in the letters with a finger.
A _ _ _ A _ _ _ _ _
"C?" she guessed, after a moment's deliberation. In answer, he leaned down again, tracing another letter.
A _ _ _ AC _ _ _ _
"Umm… R?"
"Can you read minds?" he teased, squatting on the balls of his feet to sketch in another letter.
A _ _ RAC _ _ _ _
Kneeling in the sand next to him, she replied, "I sometimes wish I could, but no. L?"
"Nope!" This time, he traced a circle for the hangman's head, and wrote the incorrect letter to the side of it.
"See? Told you!" She nudged him in the side with her elbow, upsetting his balance and knocking him over sideways into the sand. Between giggles at his sputters, she squeaked, "I'm sorry!"
"Nah, it's fine." He gave her a half-grin, and gestured back to their game.
"O?" It really would be nice to know what's going on inside his head….
"Also no." He wrote that incorrect letter next to the last one, and drew the next part of the hangman's body.
"Then... V?" I wonder if he'll notice.
"Hey, that's right, there is one! I didn't think you'd get this letter until later."
A _ _ RAC _ _ V _
"E?" No, he didn't. But then, he is a bit oblivious at the best of times… it's probably for the best. She leaned against him, her head coming to rest against his left shoulder.
"Y-Yup!" He sketched it slowly, careful not to displace her.
A _ _ RAC _ _ VE
She was silent for a few moments, enjoying their contact too much to fully focus, before murmuring, "T?"
"Yeah," he breathed, dragging his finger through the sand again. "Care to guess it now?"
ATTRACT _ VE
"Attractive?" She sat up, shifting so that she could look at him through her lashes in a facsimile of shyness. "I… thought you said it described me, Jaune."
"Well, yeah! Polarity and all that," he chuckled, scrambling to his feet and rubbing out the hangman with his foot. "Plus…."
"Plus?" She stood as well, brushing off sand and denying to herself that she had hoped to hear a much different explanation for the word.
His cheeks were brightly colored enough to look sunburned. "Well… you're pretty damn attractive, even without the polarity. I mean… y-you're beautiful, and funny, and patient, and -" He cut himself off, his attention snapping over to the ice cream line, which had shortened considerably during their game. "Ice cream! Yeah, ice cream! C-C'mon, Pyr."
Pyrrha, equally red-cheeked, nodded. "Ice cream." As they once more stepped into the queue, she added, "Jaune?"
"Yeah?"
"You're not bad yourself, even if you don't have any polarity." Her smile was bright, if a bit awkward, and the one he returned was equally so in both respects. The line moved, and so did they.
Some short while later, the two were strolling along the beach again, this time in the general direction of Nora's castle. The salty scent of the water mingled with the sweet, creamy flavors melting over their tongues; the sun bounced off the white sand, making them both squint a bit. A seagull flew over them hopefully, but received no handouts; they were far too caught up in their own story to notice such an element of the background.
"Thank you for the ice cream, Jaune," Pyrrha said, after some time. "You really didn't have to buy mine, you know."
"Eh, it's nothing," he replied, licking at his french vanilla. "Besides, you've bought me food before. I was just returning the favor. Your ice cream's dripping on this side, by the way."
"Ah, thank you." She turned the cone, lapping up the rolling streams of strawberry. "It's such a nice day," she said, at length.
"It is," he agreed, burying his tongue in the white cream just as she glanced over at him. "I'm glad that we could all come out here - Pyr?"
Pyrrha had stopped walking, staring transfixed at the deft movements of Jaune's tongue, at the white cream dripping down his face. The evil voice in the back of her mind wondered if he would like to lap up another type of cream. She shook her head sharply, pushing that image to the back of her mind, and hurried to catch up with her partner. "I'm sorry, Jaune! My mind just drifted off into thoughts."
"Anything interesting? You were making some pretty funny expressions," he grinned, his tongue flicking out to capture some stray drops of vanilla.
"Nope! Nothing!" A nervous laugh bubbled out of her throat, and she forgot that she was holding ice cream; when she went to pull her hand to her chest to calm herself, she smashed her ice cream cone against her skin and bikini top. "Oh, no -"
"Ah! Let me help you with that," Jaune yelped, reaching forward with his free hand before he could think. He was halfway through wiping the strawberry cream off one of her breasts before he realized why Pyrrha had gone completely still. "OH - oh dust, Pyr, I'm sorry, I didn't think - SORRY SORRY SORRY!"
"Jaune - Jaune, it's fine, just please stop waving your ice cream around! It's going to fly off the cone - eep!" For the remainder of his ice cream had, of course, flown off of his cone and landed on her forehead, where it began dripping down her face in thick white streams. Despite the copious amounts of ice cream he had previously consumed, Jaune's mouth was once again quite dry as his mind shot into overdrive, his thoughts not all that far from where Pyrrha's had been mere moments before. His eyes raked her torso and face, taking in the streams of white dripping down her face and the sheen of pink cream slicked across her bikini top, accentuating the curves and running in drips down the muscles of her stomach.
His hand drifted up to cover his dry mouth, causing strawberry cream to smear across his face. His tongue flicked out, bringing more of the sweetness into his mouth. He was not aware of Pyrrha's eyes on his tongue as it licked his fingers clean any more than she was of his thought process. She reached up and caught the remainder of the vanilla ice cream in her hands, preventing any from dripping into her eyes. This movement snapped Jaune back to reality; he gestured to the water, suggesting that they go rinse off the now-wasted ice cream. Pyrrha agreed, silently noting that had they not, Nora might have commented on the suspiciousness of sticky hands and faces. Aloud, she added, "We might as well eat what's left of our cones first. It wouldn't do to have them go to waste."
After doing so, they waded out into the salty water. Once they were out far enough, Jaune turned around to guard her while she ducked into the water to rinse the cream off of her chest and stomach. He did his best to think of anything but where her hands had to be, where his hands had been - he found himself suddenly very glad of the low temperature of the water in which he stood. A slim finger tapped the small of his back, letting him know it was okay for him to turn around. The two then helped each other remove the creamy residue from their hands and faces, lest any inappropriate conclusions be drawn.
"Now that that's done," Jaune said as he wiped the last of the cream from Pyrrha's forehead, "what would you like to do now?"
"I doubt that the others will be up yet, so would you like to help me look for seashells? I must admit that I've always wanted to have a collection." She was shy as she said this, glancing up through her lashes in a calculated move. It was with a hidden sense of triumph that she saw his adam's apple bob.
A smile slid across his face, and he offered her his arm. "Well, when you put it like that, how could I say no?" And so they set off to wander the beach for some time at the edge of the water, nudging over shells with their feet and picking up the best of them to create Pyrrha's collection.
"Oh, Jaune, look at this one," Pyrrha gasped, bending down to pick up a shell. "It's purple! My mother loves purple shells."
"Yeah, it's… gorgeous." But he, in typical sap fashion, was not looking at the shell. She straightened, beaming as she held it up for him to observe. "Really breathtaking."
"It's just a shell," she replied, confused, and held it out to him. "If you like it that much, you can keep it."
"No, I - you should keep it. For your collection, yeah?" He gave her a sideways grin, pressing it back into her hands.
"Thank you," she smiled, tucking it into the shell-holder they had fashioned out of Jaune's shirt. "Oh, there's another over there - oh!"
They had both reached for the shell, and in reaching for it Jaune's hand had closed over Pyrrha's; neither of them had actually managed to pick up the shell. This was just as well, as a moment later the shell moved. Jaune jumped backward with a yelp, his hand tightening over Pyrrha's. "It moved!"
"Aww, it's a hermit crab! How cute!" she squatted down, pulling Jaune with her. "Look how sweet it is… oh, and there's another one! And another - wait, why are there so many?"
"Dust, we're surrounded," Jaune whimpered, gripping Pyrrha's hand a bit tighter than necessary. "Wait a sec…" The crabs were moving, scuttling around them to form a shape, pointed at one end and with two rounded areas… and a tune was floating on the air, almost as if it were giving instructions to the hermit crabs. The music grew louder as its source came closer to them, footfalls stirring up sand.
"Ren," Jaune groaned, looking up at his teammate from within the heart of the crabs, "where on earth did you get that crab flute?"
"It's not the flute!" Nora shouted, bounding up behind them and latching onto Ren's back. "I just woke Renny up from his nap, so he's still a bit… crabby."
"Nora…" Ren growled, taking the flute from his lips. Sensing danger, she slipped off of his back and sprinted towards the other end of the beach.
"Can't catch me!"
"Nora!" he yelled, and set out in chase of her. The crabs all raised their claws to their new crab overlord, and scuttled off in pursuit of his quarry. Their shells dragged a bit in the sand, leaving a streaky heart around Jaune and Pyrrha. The partners, left behind in the chaos, looked at each other in confusion before bursting into laughter.
"What was that?" Pyrrha giggled, her free hand coming up to cover her mouth.
"Lie Ren, Supreme Crab Overlord!" Jaune guffawed, raising the shell-filled shirt dramatically and smacking himself in the head with it. "Ow!"
"Poor thing," Pyrrha crooned, leaning sideways to bump shoulders with him. "Want me to kiss it better?"
"If you want, that'd be great. These shells are pointy."
Snickering, she raised herself onto her knees next to him and placed a kiss on his cheek. "Better?"
"You missed," he said, bewildered. "The shells smacked me on the other side of my head."
"Guess I'll have to try again, then," she beamed, her cheeks flaring. This time, she placed a kiss on his other cheek. "Was it here?"
Heat that had nothing to do with the brilliant sunlight rose up his neck. "Not… not there, either. Try again?"
"Hmm… I guess I have really bad aim. Was it here?" she smiled, placing a kiss on the tip of his nose. Her grin grew wider as his cheeks grew redder. "Or here?" She dragged her lips along the line of his jaw, daring to flick her tongue out to touch his neck. "Or what about here?" Her teeth found the side of his neck; she nipped that spot lightly, enjoying the feeling of Jaune's spine straightening at the sensation.
"P-Pyr…." He was quite breathless by this time, and the sound of her name on such a voice snapped her back to reality, to the fact that they were sitting on a public beach.
"Sorry, Jaune, will you show me where it was again? I seem to have forgotten." She pulled back from him, her expression apologetic; he tapped his temple, and she brushed her lips over the spot. "There! All better!"
"Thanks," he smiled, lifting their still-entwined fingers and brushing his lips over her knuckles in return. "I feel loads better already." Standing, he tugged her to her feet and twirled her as if they were dancing. "Now, shall we go drop off our treasure at the castle?"
"That sounds grand." Her fingers gave his a reassuring squeeze as they began their sandy walk back to the sand castle, stopping every so often to pick up a new shell. They encountered no more hermit crabs, as they were all following Ren the Supreme Crab Overlord. Once there, Jaune elected to go inside to stash the shells while Pyrrha travelled back to the bathroom she had seen earlier so that she could use the facilities. However, by the time the Supreme Crab Overlord and his Loyal Sloth had returned (trailed, as they were, by hundreds of hermit crabs), Pyrrha was still not back. Thus, Jaune decided to go look for her, in case the men from earlier had followed her - and to get away from the hermit crabs, as they seemed to have something of a vendetta against him. As he had no desire to be buried in hermit crabs, he exited the castle with great haste.
"Now, how far did she go?" he muttered, glancing down the beach. Stuffing his hands in the pockets of his suit, he began strolling in the direction which she had gone, giving awkward smiles whenever he made eye contact with someone. His mind began wandering down the path of the last book he had read, The Secret Life of Cats. The book had been rather odd, and its factual information was of questionable quality at best, but his youngest sister had given it to him for his last birthday. Besides, cats were pleasant enough creatures - Yang was dating one, for crying out loud! Perhaps he ought to lend the book to her… but no, she might take the various superstitions and myths too seriously. Blake would probably take offense if Yang tried anything out of that book.
"Mrowr," declared a voice from the vicinity of his ankles. He glanced down, squinting a little from the brilliant sunshine reflecting up off of the sand. A pure white cat with one deep blue eye and one bright green eye was twisting itself around his ankles, purring. He huffed out a laugh and stepped back to sit down on the sand. The cat plopped down in front of him, mismatched eyes tracking his hand's movements as he reached out to pet it. Its tail twitched and waved in the salty breeze wafting off the water. The fur was silken beneath his fingers, so soft that he was uncertain if he was actually touching it. The cat shifted its head from side to side before standing and turning around, presenting him with its back and an unspoken command to continue stroking. He obeyed, so absorbed that he did not notice the approach of a second petter until he heard her voice.
"Why, hello there, little kitty! Oh - who's your new friend, Jaune?"
He looked up from the pure white cat's fur, the brilliant sunshine of the day nearly blinding him as his dark blue eyes met a familiar pair of bright green ones, as the myth from the cat book resounding in his head -
If you pass a white cat on a sunny day, you'll meet your true love.
And at long last, that missing piece of the puzzle clunked into place in his head. "Oh." That… explains a lot. I'm in love with Pyrrha. No wonder….
"Jaune?" She crouched down across from him to pet the cat as well, tilting her head to convey her confusion. This slight movement caused a piece of her still-loose hair to slip over her shoulder, the stands shimmering in the sunlight. "Is everything - ?" She cut herself off, for Jaune had removed his hand from the cat's back. His fingers caught the rogue strands of hair, tucking them tenderly behind her ear; his face held a look of awe as he beheld her, a look of comprehension that she had scarcely ever seen before on his face. However, she didn't have long to behold it; his hand slid with deft care from her hair to her jaw, guiding her forward. Her pulse was pounding in her ears in time to the crash of the waves - and then she could not hear anything at all, for her focus narrowed to his hand on her jaw, to his lips on hers. Everything else was unimportant, everything else could wait; who cared that the cat had just shot out from between them with a yowl? Who gave a damn that they were on a public beach with the sun beating down on them? What did anything else matter when after so long, she had finally gotten her dream come true?
Jaune pulled back after several long moments, his breathing unsteady. "I - I'm… I love you. I didn't - realize until… the cat."
"The cat?" she repeated, dazed.
"I read about a myth," he continued, after he had steadied his breath, "surrounding white cats and - well, true love. I know it sounds kind of cheesey, but… I saw the cat, and then I saw you, and remembered the myth. It all just… fell into place. I think… I think I've been falling in love with you for a while now. And I'm sorry for taking so long. And for kissing you without warning. I should've asked."
Pyrrha seemed not to have heard this last part, which is understandable, given her current mental state. "Y-You love me?" she squeaked, after a few moments.
"Yeah. I do." He could not bear to look up, did not dare meet her eyes. "I really do."
"Jaune…" This time, it was her hands on his jaw lifting his face up to meet hers as she clung to him, crashing their lips together as desperately as she might have in another, more dangerous life. This time, their lips tasted of salt, though he could not quite tell if one or both of them was crying, or if the flavor was a mere residue of their earlier watery excursions. Her lips opened, and he no longer cared. The crash of the waves increased in tempo, matching the staccato of their hearts. The cat, having been observing this from a safe distance, gave a solitary swish of its tail and set off down the beach towards the glass castle.
They parted, holding one another and dazed, when they had no choice but to come up for air. Their eyes met, and for a moment they were silent, tracks of salt water glistening on their cheeks. Then they laughed, the sound ringing pure and clear across the white sand, and stood to begin making their way back to the castle. Their linked hands swung between them as they walked along the water's edge, following the trail of hermit crabs.
After Ren had dismissed his loyal hermit crab underlings, the four teammates returned to the water so that they could enjoy the last few hours of sunlight. Nora insisted that they play chicken, resulting in Ren being perched on her shoulders and Jaune on Pyrrha's. This arrangement was a bit backwards from the norm, but as team JNPR rarely conforms to society's concept of normal, they continued their game without comment. The boop troupe, naturally, won. After that, Ren - Ren of all people - began taunting the waves, insisting that his shouts would provoke them into growing large enough for them to bodysurf. He was quite dejected when his brilliant plan did not bear any fruit, but Nora consoled him well enough - the cat had, after all, visited them as well, and Ren had borrowed Jaune's book. Once the chill of the water settled into their bones (and Ren had carried out a blue-lipped Nora, who protested every slothy-back-ride step of the way), the boop troupe retreated to the top of their sand castle to dry off and watch the sunset. Jaune and Pyrrha elected to lie on the warm white sand in front of the castle, wrapped up in one beach towel as they were. The sun had just begun to set, sending pink streaks across the sky.
He ghosted a kiss over her forehead as he tucked her more snugly against his chest. "We'll warm up sooner if we conserve body heat."
"It did get chilly pretty quickly, didn't it?" she hummed, leaning into his embrace. Her arms wound their way around his back beneath the towel.
"Yeah. Not that I mind." He grinned at her, relishing the color that spread across her cheeks. She pressed a kiss to the base of his neck in reply before turning to watch the sinking sun.
Five, perhaps ten, minutes had passed before either of them spoke again. The sky had begun to melt into a rich burgundy hue, shot with bolts of purple. Pyrrha stifled a yawn, snuggling closer to her partner. "Mmm… I could just fall asleep here… wrapped in the arms of the man I love."
"Go ahead," he murmured, pressing a kiss to her hair, wondering if she could hear the rampant thudding of his heart. "I'll carry you back to Beacon."
"No, don't do that," she whispered, her fingers making lazy circles on his back as the sky deepened in hue.
"Why not?" Even the waves were calmer now, the crashing of earlier having slowed to a gentle sloshing against the shore.
"Let's just…" she began, her yawns coming more frequently now as she tucked her head into the crook of his neck, "...watch the sunset and fall asleep on this nice warm white sand - let's just stay here forever."
"Forever?"
"Yeah," she mumbled, now more asleep than awake. "Stay with me… forever."
"I will, Pyr." He ran a hand through her damp hair and pressed another kiss to the top of her head, waves of exhaustion rolling over him. "I promise. Forever."
The white sand slid out of his view as his eyelids shut. The sloshing of the waves grew calmer, quieter, becoming almost a rustling sound, as if they were made out of long-dried leaves instead of water. The scent of the waves grew fainter as he slipped closer to sleep; the tang of salt gave way to a deeper, earthier smell. Even the warmth of the sand seemed to be leaving; the sand itself changed, growing colder, more crystalline, crunching as he shifted. The beach towel was dry and cold, much thicker than it had been moments before, and Pyrrha seemed to be growing softer, colder, smaller….
Jaune opened his eyes to a snowy forest to find his pillow in his arms and cold tears stinging the skin of his face. His heart caved in as he curled around his pillow, the last word she had said in his dream echoing in his head.
Forever….
...I blame my sempai. This is entirely her fault; I wanted to make this a nice, fluffy fic. She shoved the idea for the ending pain at me. Blame her.
Scream at us in a review, please. XD See you next time!
