Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cardin woke up from a dream in which Serena Bronzewing was feeding him grapes with a huge amount of reluctance.
For a moment, he didn't know what had woken him. Then, overhead, he heard the clash of metal on metal again. Pyrrha Nikos and Jaune Arc. Couldn't they just make out like a normal couple? Who flirted with weapons? Trainee Hunters, that's who. He groaned and buried his head under his pillow, but it was too late; he was awake.
He rolled over and sat up. He typically slept shirtless, and right now he was glad. The sun shining in the window made the room far hotter than it was at night. Rubbing his eyes, he blinked around. Sky was somehow sleeping through the racket on the roof, but Dove was sitting on his bed, flipping the pages of a comic.
'Woke you up?' he asked, jerking his head upwards.
Cardin shook his head. 'Who practices swordplay at this time of night?'
'It's almost midday, man,' Dove said dryly. 'I was about to wake you.'
Cardin groaned and rubbed his eyes harder, hoping to simulate bloodflow to his brain. Sleeping in the day always made him wake up disoriented and fuzzy. 'I'm going to have a shower.'
Despite his words, he didn't move. Dove glanced at him. 'Still asleep?'
'Thinking about Russel,' Cardin said bleakly.
'What about him?' Dove asked flippantly.
'Coming to this stupid school was the worst thing that could've happened to me,' Cardin mumbled. 'Stupid empathy…'
Dove actually put his comic down. 'What, you're empathising? With Russel? Are you feeling ok?'
'I just keep thinking about his girlfriend,' Cardin confessed. 'I mean, his parents, fine, Hunters who died when he was a literal baby, and a thousand kilometres away. His grandmother, old age, fine, he was four. But his girlfriend? Right in front of him? With his Semblance?' He shook his head.
'It would have been far too late,' Dove said. 'There's nothing he could have done. By the time he dealt with the Ursa, she'd have been gone.'
'How much do you want to bet that Russel still tried, though?' Cardin asked darkly.
'Russel is tougher than you think,' Dove said.
'I know how tough he is. The answer is not as much as he pretends.' Cardin rose and began pacing. 'You know, when he told me, I didn't believe him for a bit? I honestly didn't. I thought, there are easier ways of killing yourself, plus hunters who kill themselves usually use their own weapons.'
'Sky was telling me about that once. Some psychologist said that we get into a headspace where our weapon is the only thing they associate with death,' Dove said thoughtfully. 'Like our Aura makes us indestructible, but our weapons destroy everything we face, so when we want to destroy ourselves, we use them.'
Cardin shook his head impatiently. 'Yeah, I know. But you get what I mean? I thought that there had to be an easier way of doing it. Why wait until a Grimm attack?' He glanced out the window. 'But then again… I guess maybe there aren't easier ways, when your boyfriend is a healer. You need the Ursa to keep him busy so you can die.' He shook his head again, as if to chase off a fly. 'It feels like I've been kicked in the gut every time I think about it, and I'm the emotional equivalent of a log. Russ actually feels stuff. It's a miracle he never offed himself.'
'I'm guessing you didn't point this out to Russel,' Dove said cautiously.
'Since I'm still alive, no. I clearly didn't.'
Dove glanced down at his page, then looked up again, cautiously this time. 'You know, if Russel wanted to off himself, all he'd have to do is ignore the second part of his Semblance, right?'
Cardin barked a laugh. 'You picked that too, huh?' He shook his head. 'Can't believe he thinks he can still lie to us…'
'He's got a will to live, man,' Dove insisted. 'You can relax, he's not going anywhere.'
Cardin snorted. 'The only way Russel will choose to kill himself is if he decides it's a better punishment than living. He's a moody, mopey bastard who thinks everything that happens is his responsibility and his fault. The problem is, if you look at it sideways, he's right.'
'The fuck, Cardin?' Dove barked, heedless of Sky, who simply rolled over and pulled his blanket over his head. 'The fuck is wrong with you?'
'Shut up and listen,' Cardin ordered. 'You aren't understanding me. I'm not getting what Russel felt, I'm getting what Violet felt. How helpless she must have felt. She wanted to kill herself and she couldn't even do that.' He looked out the window. 'And if I can realise that, how much worse must it be for Russel? I mean, if she had used pills, it would have been awful, but he would have had the comfort of knowing it had been painless. What does he feel, knowing he's the reason his girlfriend had to get mauled by a Grimm? Just to die?'
Dove's mouth dropped open. 'That is not Russel's fault.'
'That's why I said you had to look at this sideways,' Cardin said impatiently.
Dove stared at his comic. Neither of them noticed, overhead, that the clashing swords had stopped.
'He's wrong,' Dove said finally. 'He's wrong if he thinks that.'
'I don't think he does, as much, anymore,' Cardin admitted. 'I think – I think we all gave him perspective. He said something to me, there's no sliding scale of shitty stuff, that it all feels pretty bad when it's happening. That's not really true, though. He can lie almost as well as you can, but Russel's too smart to buy his own lies. What happened to him was a lot worse than what happened to me, but I think that talking to me about it made him get more objective.' He rubbed his eyes. 'I hope so. I'm going to have a shower. Tell Sky we're leaving for the infirmary when I get back.'
He set the shower to barely below boiling, and stayed in there for far longer than he intended. When his skin was crimson, he wrapped a towel around his waist, stepped out, and came to a complete stop. Jaune and Pyrrha were waiting patiently outside the showers, and they had straightened expectantly when they saw him.
'Hel–' Pyrrha began chirpily before her eyes strayed from Cardin's and down over his chest. She stopped dead, went bright red, and glanced away.
Cardin crossed his arms so that his pecs bulged, just to be a dick. 'Help you?'
'Uh, we were wondering if Russel was alright,' Jaune said. He too was determinedly staring at Cardin's face. Jaune was no weakling – not any more, Cardin mused – but few people could build muscle like Cardin could.
'He's fine.' Cardin raised an eyebrow. 'Yang didn't tell you?'
'Yeah, she mentioned something, but we were actually wondering when he was meant to wake up,' Jaune persisted.
Cardin frowned. 'Goodwitch said his Aura was regrowing, so he should wake up in the next day or so.'
'Are you guys going to wait in the infirmary until then?'Jaune persisted.
'Yes! What do you want?' Cardin snapped.
'We want to come and wait with you,' Pyrrha said.
Cardin's arms dropped. 'You do?'
'Well, yeah,' Jaune said.
'Why?' Cardin asked. He knew his tone was too blunt, but he was too surprised to care.
'Russel is – not as unkind as he pretends to be,' Pyrrha said.
Despite himself, Cardin grinned fondly. 'Don't tell him that. He'll deny it.'
'She did. And he did,' Jaune said, also smiling.
'He's a friend. We want to be there when he wakes,' Pyrrha said.
'He might not wake up for days still.'
'Regardless,' Pyrrha said firmly.
Cardin shrugged. 'Ok, fine. I just need to get dressed, then we were going to go over there.'
'Great! I'll go grab Nora and Ren!' Jaune said.
'I'll locate team RWBY!' Pyrrha chirped.
'Wait, what?' Cardin began.
It was too late. They had already disappeared.
For several moments, Cardin didn't move. Then he slowly walked to his dorm room, opened the door, and looked in. 'So RWBY and JNPR are coming with us.' He shrugged at Dove. 'Apparently we're friends now.'
It had taken a lot of hinting and meaningful looks, but Ruby had finally managed to get Weiss and Blake to leave. Yang didn't seem to notice as they made their flimsy excuses and left the dorm room, but she noticed when Ruby rolled onto her side and looked at her. 'Hey, Yang?'
Yang looked up. She had been lying on her stomach, her chin on her hands, looking out the window. Now she turned to look at Ruby. 'What's up, sis?'
Ruby bit her lip. 'Are you in love with Russel?'
Yang rolled onto her side and gave Ruby her undivided attention. 'What are you talking about?'
'You and Russel.' Ruby was bright red. 'Do you – are you in love with him?'
'Ruby, why are you asking me that?' Yang asked.
Ruby wouldn't meet Yang's eyes. 'I just want to know.'
'Why?' Yang demanded, her eyes flashing red.
'Because I want to know!' Ruby yelled. 'Just tell me!'
Yang opened her mouth, then paused. Her sister's luminous eyes seemed shinier than usual. 'Ruby, what's wrong?' she asked.
'Nothing!' Ruby dashed a hand across her eyes. 'It was a stupid question. Forget it.'
Yang sat up, set her feet, and leapt across to Ruby's bed, something she'd wanted to try ever since they remodelled the dorm room. The bed lurched and swung alarmingly, and the ropes suspending it let out a huge shriek of protest, but Yang scrabbled aboard and quickly smoothed her shirt. 'Hem. Come on, Rubes, talk to me. What's going on?'
Ruby fiddled with her blanket. 'I just want to know if you love Russel.'
Yang crossed her arms. 'How about I answer your question and you have to answer mine?'
Ruby shrugged, not meeting her sister's eyes.
'Ok,' Yang said slowly. 'The answer is – I don't know.'
'How can you not know?' Ruby asked resentfully.
Yang shrugged. 'I barely know Russel, Ruby. I mean, I don't know anything about him – because apparently his background is classified like it's got a buncha dead spies in it or something –' she mumbled to herself ' – and we haven't really hung out. But at the same time…' She thought back to him, slumping towards the ground, covered in blood and as pale as the snow and she shuddered. 'I care about what happens to him. I want to spend more time with him. I don't know if that's love. I've never felt it before.' So corny, to say she had never felt like this before – but she hadn't. Still, she suspected that would be counter-productive: in her current prickly mood, Ruby was sure to take it as an insult.
She glanced at her sister. 'Alright, your turn. What's eating you?'
'I don't wanna have to share you!' Ruby burst out. 'I know it's selfish, and I know it's really immature, but you're my sister!' Yang stared at Ruby as her little sister continued, her voice getting faster and more incoherent. 'And I know that's a terrible thing to say, because Russel doesn't even have any family and his girlfriend died and he's got like the saddest back story ever but you're my sister and I don't want to lose you to him, and if you two start dating you'll stop spending time with me and…and…'
'Oh, Ruby,' Yang sighed, wrapping her in a hug. 'We were all going to start dating sooner or later. You knew that.'
'Yeah, but you never did,' Ruby whined. 'All the boys in Patch were totally in love with you and you never even talked about them, but I saw you, Yang, you kept looking at Russel when you thought nobody was looking and I know you were upset when he got hurt!'
'I would be upset if anyone got hurt, Ruby. I've spent time with other people before. I spent time with my friends and you didn't mind. If I get a boyfriend, it'll be like that. And the boys in Patch were immature jerks who were too afraid of Dad to be interesting.' Yang scowled. Her father could chase away suitors by breathing.
'But you love him.'
Suddenly Yang saw what Ruby was getting at. Oh, Ruby. This really hasn't happened to you before, has it? The hazards of being a younger child, I guess. 'Ruby, nothing is going to change. You know that, right? We're still stuck together for the next three years, at least. If we stop spending as much time together after graduation – that would've happened anyway, and it's something we'll deal with if it does. You're never going to lose me, though, Ruby. I'll always be here for you.'
'You can't promise that!' Ruby yelled.
'Yes, I can,' Yang said firmly. 'You're my sister, Ruby, and I love you, and even if we're not together–' They both knew what she was skirting around when she said that – 'I will always be a part of you. Whether you like it or not. Come on, admit it, don't you want to make stupid puns sometimes?'
'Sometimes,' Ruby said grudgingly.
'And sometimes I'll be walking past an armoury shop and desperately want to know how they customised a fire sword to hold a multi-chambered shotgun in the barrel.' She tightened her hold on Ruby. "Sister" probably wasn't enough to describe their relationship, but "mother" was taken by a dead woman, so the daughters of Taiyang Xiao Long had to settle for an incomplete phrase.'You don't get rid of me that easy, Rubes. We're stuck with each other.' She kissed her sister on the top of the head. 'I love you, and I always will. And there's no limit on how many people a person can love. If you find someone new in your heart, it doesn't mean you had to get rid of someone else to fit them in.'
'So you do love Russel!' Ruby crowed.
'I didn't say that!' Yang protested. Though – I guess maybe… I did.
