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"Do you think you can get away with letting me do most of the talking?" Weiss asked me.
"I don't see why not. Just let me be your bodyguard for all intents and purposes."
"Think you can pull that off."
"Big, scary, homicidal? Yeah. I really do think I have some experience with it."
"Oh, hush." She hit my chest in my suit jacket. "You're always on about that. You're like 'oh, I'm dangerous, Weiss!' and 'stay away! My soul is a dark place!' You're soft on the inside underneath it all. I can see you. It's okay."
"My soul is a dark place, though."
She smirked her lips up at me and raised a carefully plucked eyebrow. Her lips were scarlet with lipgloss rather than their usual soft pink. Her hair was drawn down into a sort of pony tail except it fell to her waist after scrunching up behind her head. She was wearing a flowing dark blue dress with white and pale blue tassels which matched my own jacket, shirt, and pocket handkerchief. "Quit it." She laughed. "It's not selling. You're soft centered. Just like Ruby."
I hissed at the comparison as though it burned me and it sort of did.
"I'm… I'm really not. I can't get that across to you any harder. But I am trying. So hard. I'm really not so nice."
"Whatever you say, Cloud."
"Clouds are more than balls of cotton. They can be fearsome."
"And you are. But not to me. To me you are fluff," she purred and smiled up at me. I looked away from her gaze. "Huh-uh." She used her finger and dragged me by the chin until I was facing her again. "See?" She whispered when I sank into her touch. "Fluff."
"What did that prove? That proved nothing!"
"It proved everything. You're just a big puppy. I think that's how Ruby described you to Yang. A big ol' puppy dog. So fearsome. So not."
"I'm what I was bred for. Killing things."
"Grr." She mocked me. "Let me do the talking for us and let your Brute, Striker, and mysterious Breaker ratings put fear into their hearts"
We'd rented a car for the evening. My new bike, Fenrir, just wouldn't do for this. It was a nice bike, don't get it twisted. But a car was more elegant in a lot of ways and it stopped dirt from getting in Weiss's long hair. I drove easily. One of those things my father made sure I knew for whatever mysterious purpose he had bred me for. Probably some sort of lab assistant-servant-hitman. That's at least what I figured. Somebody to double check his numbers and run his errands. A slave really. But he had wanted my mind and my body for it so he discarded me when one of those two came out impure. I had been meant to be temporary no matter the case.
I pulled up to the Hei manor. It was… it was massive. As large as the Gainsborough castle with flourishing grounds and gardens. There was a fountain around the entrance roundabout and as I pulled up a man in a red jacket came up to me to take my car keys.
"Name?" He asked.
"Strife," I informed him. He gave me a long look but nodded and took my keys to park my car for us. The manor was in the Mistrali style with terraces and multiple floors but it also flowed into something more modern and white and grey and black near the base and sprawled outward and around the main tower.
The gardens around the place were immaculate and I could faintly hear music from where I was. The man went round to help Weiss out of the car but I beat him to it and waved him off. I opened the door for her and took her by the hand. I easily pulled her to her feet.
"What a gentleman," she murmured as she drifted close.
"I know the basics…" I muttered back slightly defensively. I slipped a hand around her slender waist and above her wide pelvis. Her dress showed off her flat stomach and the curves of her chest and her hips. It had that same slit that ran up the length of her leg as before at the dance and it teased that pale flesh beneath.
She flowed out of the car using my hand as leverage and she walked with a natural sway of her hips that made it seem like she wasn't trying but I felt it around my arm and it was sexy. Her body moved like water dreamed of moving in clear crisp streams all over the world.
"The basics will do," she confessed. "For your job, that is."
"Luckily I brought you."
"Over that lunatic? Was it even a choice?"
"Neo has her upsides. I know you don't like her but there are advantages to her. She's scary."
"You're scary enough."
We walked through the walkways and walled gardens with my arms wrapped around her waist. We made our way to the entrance where a butler bowed to us.
"Good evening Professor Strife. And Miss Schnee. It's a pleasure to have you with us. I shall let know Hei Dono know that you have arrived."
"Please do." Weiss gratified him with a smile that was so genuine and natural I almost believed that she wasn't acting. But I was pretty sure I could only tell because I'd seen the real thing in the time we'd been together. It was good enough to make me pause and wonder whether or not I'd been even getting actual smiles off of her. If she tried hard enough she could probably fool me my entire life. But I'd seen her lay on the ground with my dog and bury her face in it's fur. I'd seen her smile while she was wrapped around me in her sleep. A small thing. A quiet thing. But it was a real thing. What I saw now wasn't that. But it was so dazzling it made me hesitate anyways. Maybe it was just her face that hypnotized me regardless of the expression.
I really wasn't sure.
The entrance opened up into a huge room with a marble floor and high chandeliers. There were waitstaff bustling about and serving food and drinks. There was an open bar and a dance floor. There were tables near the perimeter with white table cloths and flowers in vases in the center. Looking around you would have no idea that these people were the real scum of society for all that they had clean records. But looking at me you wouldn't peg me for some sort of eldritch monstrosity either. I probably had the dirtiest rap sheet in the room and I walked around freely. No wonder I wasn't immediately put off. I was probably the most horrible thing in the room. And if it came down to a real fight I could probably just start ripping and tearing my way out and nobody could really stop me.
In terms of raw power I was the biggest shark in the room. But there were whales here with clean records who had fingers in every pot. They could make me hurt in other ways besides killing my friends and family. It would just be very difficult to do that in a way that wouldn't end with me going and cutting them up. Not impossible, but difficult.
These were the people who really made a profit off of drugs and other schemes. They were rolling in cash and didn't have anything to do with it but besides impress their peers and use it to make more cash. Probably in some legal ways too. Probably in some illegal ones, however. And shady business practices like the show Weiss's father ran were probably right along the lines of any genuine business anyone in this room ran.
They all just didn't care. They felt untouchable and in a lot of ways they were. What were people to do? Arrest people who hadn't visibly committed crimes? Only breaking the spirit of the law without violating the wording wasn't enough. And you had to get caught doing it. Price gouging was illegal but hard to really catch anyone doing it. Especially if everyone is doing it. That's what upper class crime is really like.
I followed Weiss and we were both served champaign by a waitress. I took the glass and held it delicately. Everything in here was made of glass and fragile. From the lights to the paper walls to the little flutes of champagne. I felt like a stupid giant that was doomed to break something on accident. Not an invalid fear with my Brute and Striker ratings.
"Strife!" A familiar voice called my name. I glanced over.
"Aurum?"
"It's been a while." He came up to me and shook my hand firmly. "Heard you became a Professor at Beacon."
"I did. They needed a combat instructor. To teach the kids how to kill people."
"And who better than you?" He wondered. "And who is this?"
"This is my fiancé, Weiss Schnee."
"Schnee? How did you score that?" He asked. "I'm Aurum, just Aurum."
"Always a pleasure to meet one of Cloud's friends," Weiss shook his hand and I took a swallow of champagne.
"I got lucky that she liked me. She's the reason I gave it up in Atlas and started working for their military."
"So you're to blame for that? It was much more profitable for me when Cloud was running the occasional errand on my behalf. But I suppose it can't be helped. Especially if he's tying the knot."
"What can I say?" I wondered. "She makes me her slave."
Weiss hit me with the back of her hand but gave me something resembling a genuine smile. "I do not. You big liar."
"She made me give up greens."
"You liked those."
"I gave them up anyway."
"Well, she'd have to be fierce to manage you. Your business isn't for the weak hearted. You and Neapolitan both. I expected you to bring her to this shindig if you showed up at all."
"I thought about it but Weiss asked me to so I had no choice in the matter."
"What a dog you've become!"
"I was always a dog, Aurum."
"Aren't we all? Then? Say you two want the scoop on this evening?"
"The scoop?" I asked.
"Sure," Weiss interposed. "What's this really for?"
"Well, Junior is probably going to get engaged. Probably to one of the Malachite twins and bring this whole dynasty together. Maybe he'll get lucky and get engaged to both of them."
"The Malachite twins?" I asked.
"Melanie and Miltiades Malachite. They're the daughters of Lil' Miss Malachite and they worked with Junior fairly closely for years. It's been in the making for quite some time but a permanent and stable alliance really helps them both out."
"Oh I know them," I exclaimed.
"How?" Weiss asked.
"I met them in Mistral. While I was wheeling Qrow around. I had drinks with them once."
"They hit on you, didn't they?" Weiss wondered.
"You know I don't know that," I pointed out. "You know I wouldn't know. You know I have no idea."
"You are the worst," she fired. "And tonight they're going to announce the engagement?" Weiss asked Aurum.
"Probably one or the other. Maybe both girls. The twins are fairly inseparable. And they've always been super close. They might share him."
"They don't mind sharing things," I said.
"Excuse me?" Weiss muttered at me slowly and lowly.
"N-no. We met one time and they told me."
"Well, I can't say I'm too shocked at something like that. Sharing, that is," Aurum said.
"I suppose. I'd have never shared someone with my sister," Weiss murmured. She gave me a sideways look that was rich with something green.
"But would you share a man with someone?" Aurum asked.
"We haven't asked the third member of our trio yet to marry us but we expect that she will say 'yes,'" Weiss explained.
"Aren't you a lucky man," Aurum gestured. He clapped me on the back.
"You know I'm really not. This is pretty much the one good thing in my life," I pointed out.
"But it all balances out," he decided.
"Let's hope so. If true, then I have a lot of good things coming my way."
"And marrying two girls isn't good?"
"It's a start…"
"Oh stop it," Weiss hit my chest and took a drink of her flute. "You've had it rough but not that rough. It'll go a lot smoother if you say you're a lucky man and leave it at that."
"I'm a lucky man," I echoed. "Let's leave it at that."
She hit me again and Aurum laughed.
"No-no! I've seen a little into his life. Serious business that you're mixed up in with Merlot. Maybe he really has had it that rough. Maybe he deserves a third girl or a fourth."
"That would not fly," Weiss pointed out as she ran her thumb in a circle on my forearm.
"Oh?" Aurum asked.
"It's Ruby and I or nothing."
"When you put it like that…" I trailed off.
"You know what I meant. Ruby and I are both bi for each other and you. Though, Ruby is probably demi. You can't just add more girls to that sort of structure and expect it to work out."
"Sure I can. They just need to have an attractive enough personality for you both," I joked.
"It won't fly, you dumb blonde. This is your first and last warning on that front."
"Watch out Cloud, she has her hooks in you," Aurum warned. It came months too late. If not years.
"You have no idea."
"You've fallen hard, my friend. What happened to the man who rode into Atlas with Neapolitan and owned the floating city. You were a king! You feared no one!"
"No person, no." Mother didn't count as a person. "Weiss and Ruby always owned me, though. I never stood a chance."
"And when did that start?"
"I wanted Weiss as soon as I saw her when I attended Beacon as a student. But she always shot me down. Then something like nine months after Beacon fell I got together with Ruby. Weiss and I met up again in Mistral and Weiss started to like me there. And we all got together as a trio in Atlas after I gave up doing odd jobs for you."
"They scooped you up," Aurum interpreted. "You got scooped."
"No way. I was in control the whole time. I was the boss," I lied.
"He was not. He can never tell if a girl likes him. He's as dense as a ton of bricks. He's such a liar. We scooped him up, put our hooks in him, however you want to say it. He never saw it coming."
"Came out of nowhere," I supplied. "Blindsided."
"We did not. If you knew anything about girls you would know that."
"They like to tease and drop hints but my dumbass is totally incapable of picking that sort of thing up."
"I always thought you and Neo were sleeping together on the side," Aurum cut in with his confession.
"Hell no. She's totally crazy, dude. She's nuts," I protested.
"She's hot though," he pointed out. He raised his arms in surrender at the look I gave him. "Come on. Like crazy ever overpowered hot. You never once slept with her? For real?"
"Maybe that night I did hyper with you. But I don't remember it," I confessed.
"Well, it would probably be hard to forget. Sleeping with a girl like that."
"Hey why don't you do me a favor and just set me on fire?" I asked. "Save Weiss the trouble. Bro. Help me. You're supposed to be my support but you're digging me into a hole here."
"Nothing I can do about that. It's on you for forgetting and dealing with your engagements."
"You sick bastard. I never slept with Neo."
"So what if you did?" He asked with a shrug.
"Weiss is the jealous type."
"But she's sharing you…"
"With Ruby," I said.
"He misunderstands," Weiss set her palm on my chest and informed me. "Aurum," she addressed. "Cloud is mine. And Ruby is also mine. They're both mine. I'm not sharing anything. I'm not giving anything up."
"Ah," Aurum agreed at once. "I see a touch clearer now." He looked at me. "Do you need help? Do you need me to save you?"
"No, he doesn't," Weiss interjected.
"No. I don't," I mimicked.
"You have it very bad, my friend."
"Not so," I disagreed. "I'm a lucky man. Let's leave it at that."
Weiss hit me with a real smirk. Now that was truly dazzling. And well worth it when she taped my chest with the back of her hand.
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-WG
