Just A Little Bit of Sunshine
I threw around the idea of Jaune being Ruby and Yang's brother. And when I had Qrow be the adult that dies and kept the rest of STRQ together since the adopted Jaune took up the Branwen name (endearing him to Raven) I came up with this little piece. However, despite all the family shenanigans I cooked up, that's all this story turned out to be. Family vignettes with nowhere to go. So without a central theme or a climax, I gave up on the idea.
Jaune doesn't talk about the way Yang gives him strength. As the eldest he's expected to be the source of it, adopted or not, but there are days where he looks at the three month gap between them and it feels like vapor. A span of time that means nothing.
When it's stormy out, Ruby calls on her siblings cause she never wants to show her parents that she's afraid of lightning. That the flashing light curls her little body into a ball just before the thunder in anticipatory dread, and that the noise jolts her entire body awake, never allowed to relax.
Jaune is afraid of it too. It nearly struck him twice when he lost his first family and the fear has etched itself into the twitch of his fingers and dryness of his throat, but he doesn't show it. It took a brave face to weather that storm and find shelter, and he calls on it again whenever he's huddled under the sheets with Ruby and Yang.
Somehow, he thinks Yang knows he's afraid of it too. Every time they're in here with Ruby, Yang always has her cling to him while she holds them both. Ruby listens to his heartbeat and Yang's easy hum. She does this till they're asleep. Jaune never knows for sure if she ever falls asleep with them.
When morning comes, Yang's always the first one awake if she'd slept at all. He peers up at her, sunlight casting over her features till her skin is as golden as her hair, cutting through her skin till some parts glow a little red. Somehow even the tiny red veins in her earlobe seem clean and immaculate. It's like she's carved out of a star and molded under summer's glow.
He loves his sister. And when she glances his way and pretends not to see him looking, he knows she loves him too.