Chapter 9: Weiss is Having Zero of this Knightshade Shit

"The age of consent is like the number of rat hairs you're legally allowed to put in a hotdog. If you have to look it up, you're doing something fucked up and need to stop."

— 23 —

It had been a long day, and Shamrock nearly collapsed onto the cold ground once Team BASS was finally safe. Waking up from what felt like days inside that reality marble, as Jaune called it, had taken a lot out of everyone. But it was mostly mental, mostly spiritual, with the exception of the damage Jaune had caused himself. The fatigue and nausea subsided once adrenaline and Aura caught back up to everyone. Being surrounded by so many Grimm will do that to a body.

And then it had been violence and violence and violence all throughout the day. The news airships hadn't helped much, just recording footage of the action. Watching as streets blew up, as crowds of refugees were evacuated to safe zones, and as the military did its best to restore order. For all the damage in the city of Montluçon, it looked like the human cost would be relatively minor. Faunus too. Montluçon apparently had early warning systems for this kind of event, had several layers of walls throughout the districts like in many bigger cities in more precarious locations like Tesifon, and for some awfully convenient reason the 1st Cavalry was here. Most of the damage to the city was property. Which, at Shamrock was thankful for, meant dealing with far less torn apart bodies and human remains than he might have feared.

But that didn't make safeguarding the city any easier. The team had briefly floated the option of just trying to make it to an evacuation site, somewhere secure, but had quickly discarded that. As injured as they were, they had Aura, and they had the training, and they had a duty to do something however incompetent. Not to mention that team CFVY might be out there, or might still be trapped in the Grimm liquid for all anyone knew. They couldn't just give up and go home. But after a full day of what felt like complete grind?

Okay never mind, Shamrock definitely was falling to the ground. Bleh.

Team BASS had eventually found itself holing up in the ruins of a house somewhere in the nicer part of town. And by nicer, that meant it was a small mansion. But damage from small arms fire, light artillery, and a couple of Grimm, had rendered the place rather open to the snow as evening began. They found somewhere where they could check their corners, block off the exits, maintain easy escape routes, and weren't about to freeze to death.

The kitchen, in other words. Weiss was curled up by one wall, hugging herself. She was dressed for exploration, not prolonged exposure to the cold. Blake, huddled by the kitchen sink, didn't look much better. She kept casting furtive glances toward her partner, who seemed completely unable to get rid of a quiet hum of Aura. Probably meant he was the most comfortable, or realistically speaking, the most injured. He had been limping through most of the day, and would almost certainly need time in the hospital when this was done. His fingers had been bent and broken, and his solution was the overly macho idea of just biting and pulling them until they snapped back into the correct position. Even here, sitting against the fridge with the remains of his sleeping bag as some kind of blanket, he kept fidgeting with his hands, and Shamrock wondered if the boy's fingers would ever properly realign if they weren't treated quickly.

No one was talking. They had made this huge mess and hullabaloo about Jaune and some kind of deep secret he was hiding, and then how it didn't matter, and how they were going to talk about it, and then… so much had happened. It just didn't seem pertinent. But that didn't stop everyone from occasionally looking at each other, then looking at Jaune, and then just kind of giving up. It was almost like Weiss or Blake or even Shamrock himself would have the idea to ask something, but it just felt wrong, or inappropriate, or just silly given the circumstances.

Shamrock looked at Weiss and she shivered slightly. With a force of effort, he stood up just so he could drape his suit jacket over her.

She blinked. "Wha'?"

Shamrock sat down beside her, as much for the close human proximity, as the fact that another human body was pretty warm out in this cold. "It's a suit. It comes with layers. You look like you need it more than me."

The girl looked like she wanted to protest, maybe out of some sense of pride, but just bit her lip and pulled the jacket over her shoulders. "I bet I look like a lot of things."

"None of them good," Shamrock said happily. "You look awful."

Weiss looked almost disgusting in her outfit, sullied with dirt and dust and bits of liquid Grimm. To say nothing of the knots in her hair and all the filth, like someone had turned her white hair into a ticks' nest. The ticks back home in Vacuo were rather large; he recalled once coming across a dead giraffe so covered in the little crawling blood suckers that it almost looked like scales. That was what Weiss' hair reminded Shamrock of. She looked downright ugly. All Weiss could really do was scowl. There was nothing she could say and she knew it.

Shamrock tried to smile. "Hey, look at it this way. If you can't wash it out of your hair, there's always the barber. The pixie cut would look great on you."

She touched her hair, a weak smile on her thin lips. "I've… never worn my hair short. You think it would look good?"

"I mean, the season's been changing," Jaune said. "Maybe we could all use a new outfit. Change up our style."

Blake looked over at him. "Says you. You've been slowly losing part of your wardrobe for months now."

"It's called experimentation," he said with faux wisdom. "And fashion. Get with the program, tights. Theater club is that way."

The girl scoffed. "The word you want is petards."

"Why, yes, I am a retard, thanks for noticing," he said, hand to his breast.

"You're welcome," Blake said dryly, rubbing her shoulders. Part of her outfit had been torn in the fighting.

The two gazed at each other for a long moment, and then laughed. Only to suddenly sense something weird between themselves. They fell silent, looking away.

Shamrock rolled his eyes. "Is that going to become a recurring theme?"

"Is what?" Weiss asked.

He gestured at Blake and Jaune. "Those two. Making some weird, unfunny joke that they both aim to enjoy, gazing longingly at each other, and then awkwardly looking away. Our life came dangerously close to a soap opera today. I don't want it to keep happening."

Jaune grimaced, shuffling his makeshift blanket over himself.

Blake said slowly, "I… it's complicated. I mean…"

Everyone did that thing again. They all took furtive glances at each other, questioning looks, but didn't seem to be able to make the questions appear. Everyone had queries bubbling to the surface of their mind, but no one could make them take the journey down to their tongues. It was like a Vacuan standoff.

But the thing was, Shamrock was from Vacuo. He knew had to handle this kind of thing. And hated teen drama as a rule.

He rolled his eyes, sighing. "You know what? Fuck it. Let's get through this bugbear or destroy the team. Who's with me?"

Jaune swallowed, looking pale as he eyed Shamrock back.

Shamrock made a mocking expression. "Jaune, are you, like, some living saint or godling?"

He snorted. "Ah Jesus Christ, no. I'm not really anything. Just an idiot with catastrophically unfortunate timing. I don't really have any special powers, or really any particular knowledge you couldn't get from just a thorough reading of everyone's HuntsHub page."

Blake was aggressively staring at her feet.

Shamrock asked, "So why didn't you tell us you had this whole weird thing earlier?"

Jaune hesitated. It was different than the way he hesitated back in the reality marble. He wasn't trying to buy time, or talk in circles, more like he genuinely didn't know how to reply at first. "Because I don't know how to explain it. And in some ways, the closer we all got, the less it mattered. It's just kind of a thing, y'know?"

Adjusting his top hat, Shamrock said, "Yeah. A 'thing'. A thing which was incredibly sappy and lame to learn. You could have at least had an interesting secret, like maybe you were a cannibal, or used to be a terrorist, not I don't know what's going on but I still love you guys."

"It's not lame!" Jaune said, sounding genuinely hurt. Which only made Shamrock laugh. "And besides, we all had a super cool coming together team moment. It was a crowning moment of badassery. We all came together to support each other, rejecting nihilism and embracing our love for each other and anti-nihilism. What could be more badass than that?!"

Blake let out a slow breath. "I'm with Shamrock. I can't believe we were all involved in your darkest personal moment, and it was just that lame. Next time come up with a cooler dark and edgy secret."

Jaune looked offended, moving his hands around like he couldn't quite figure out where to put them, and might have fallen down if he wasn't sitting against the fridge. "Weiss, help! I'm being bullied."

Weiss shifted in place, rubbing shoulders with shamrock. "No, they're making a good point," she said, gesturing around the broken kitchen of this random mansion. "All of us, this team, there's nothing normal about us. Maybe this would have destroyed us early on before we really knew each other, before we were, I don't know, a family, I guess. There would have been questions and drama and all that nonsense. But now? I don't think it really means anything. It's almost just like trivia. Something else to add to the conga line of trauma that makes up Team BASS, and not even particularly special. I mean, look at us! We have an ex-terrorist still not over her abusive ex, a gender-indeterminate shapeshifting witchdoctor, and a wannabe pornstar who might be a soul-hopping parasite."

"Hey!" Blake snapped, her hair bow wiggling as her ears probably fell flat like a cornered cat.

"That's actually kinda hurtful," Shamrock said, frowning. He hugged himself in discomfort.

Jaune just removed one of his armored gauntlets to play with his recently reset fingers, hissing in low pain as he touched the joints. He couldn't even muster a proper response.

"Am I wrong?" Weiss asked.

Everyone looked around nervously. Weiss just seemed smug. It was a terrible look on someone who was so filthy.

"Facts don't care about your feelings, guys," Weiss said, folding her arms. "We're all a bunch of weirdos with enough baggage to be an entire luggage claim. So what?"

Shamrock said, "At least I'm not, like, uh—Blake, help me insult Weiss back!"

Blake blinked. She made a weird, confused expression before saying, "At least I never thought I was pregnant with a dog?"

Weiss laughed. "Ha! I've cringed so many times at that memory that it can't hurt me anymore. Do better, sweetie."

Shamrock scowled. "At least I don't have daddy issues!"

Weiss cocked a brow. "You don't even have a dad."

Shamrock made a Vaudou gesture, and then a middle finger. Weiss made a truly hideous face as she returned the gesture.

Jaune stared at Weiss. "At least I don't make subpar bagels."

Weiss gasped. "Alright, that's crossing the line. Too far!"

"Oh hey, look," Jaune said mildly. "I found her weak spot."

Blake jumped up, enthusiastically saying, "Yeah. Actually, yeah! And she can't even bake a cake to save her life."

Weiss scoffed. "Only because you punched me. In my face. I would have figured out the cake without you eventually. Probably."

"It's a definite no because she never said maybe," Jaune said.

With an exasperated look, Weiss said, "Oh sure, yeah. 'I would have figured out how to make a cake yes.' That sounds stupid. You're stupid!"

Jaune gave her a look like she was dumb. "Obviously, you put the maybe in front of the sentence, not after it. It's basic English."

"That's not what this language is even called, you reincarnating buffoon!" She put her face in her hands. "And suddenly I understand why you don't know literally anything about anything. I hate it."

"Luh ya too, boo," Jaune said with a wink.

Shamrock just laughed. It wasn't even particularly funny. Weiss was correct; this was just stupid. None of it even really mattered. And in a way, that was why it was so enjoyable. Here all of them were, at death's door, beaten and exhausted, having just been through a potentially existential and theologically nightmarish situation, and the only thing they could do was give each other shit.

Jaune looked around curiously. "I feel like this is the part where all of us just break out laughing, and then decide to do a group hug."

"Ha!" Blake snickered. "Gay."

The boy blew air through his lips. "There's two girls, one boy, and whatever it is Shamrock feels like at the moment. How is that gay?"

"I'm a boy, thanks for asking," Shamrock said, rolling his eyes. He removed his hat and put it in his lap.

Blake put a fist under her chin, staring intently at Jaune. "Wasn't it you who said that girls were gay by definition, because we like dick? Therefore anything with us makes you gay."

"I said that in confidence!" Jaune put his hand to his cheek, mouth open.

Blake just rolled her eyes, smiling.

"Why do the things that I say have consequences?" Jaune asked, sulking.

"Because we have better memories than a goldfish?" Weiss said dubiously.

Jaune kept sulking. "Goldfish actually have very good memories. You can teach them to do tricks. Y'all are perfectly on par."

For some reason, that seemed to take the wind out of everyone's sails. It wasn't that it was particularly depressing or insightful. It was just that no one seemed to really know how to keep the conversation going after that. Blake shivered, and Weiss pulled Shamrock's jacket over her tighter.

Shamrock met eyes with Jaune, giving him a curious look. He seemed almost to dissociate for a moment, phasing out as he looked back. Until he stood up, drooping his sleeping bag over his shoulders like a coat.

"I don't care if it's gay," he said with a sigh. "Y'all worth it. C'mere."

Nobody moved.

The boy shook his head. "No, not the group hug. Not exactly." He walked over to Blake, who was just staring back at him. Jaune spread his arms cruciform, holding out the sleeping bag.

Blake blinked, and then looked at her feet. "I… I don't know."

"Well, I do," he said, draping the bag over her. He pointed at Shamrock. "Convince your partner to join us. It's goddamn freezing out and I have the only blanket here. It will be just like that time back in the hotel, when we all decided it was better to sleep in the same room as a team, together. Only this time it's to prevent freezing to death. We're all about to collapse and I don't think we can make it any further. Might as well try to survive the night."

Somewhere in the distance, gunfire. The howls of the Grimm.

To Shamrock's surprise, Weiss actually stood up on her own. She held a hand down to pick Shamrock up, who accepted it dutifully.

"I think I dropped my pride somewhere back in the caves," she said. "And I am cold."

"I thought you said the cold didn't bother you anyway," Shamrock said, smiling.

Weiss sank to her knees against the sink, beside Jaune. "I was lying. That's a thing people can do. I hate the cold. I liked it better when it was summer. The seasons in this country are so nice, because it has them. Even summer back home feels dreary. The sun doesn't even entirely set sometimes."

As Shamrock sat down, Jaune managed to drape the entire sleeping bag over everyone else. If they huddled together, shoulder to shoulder, they could all fit snug enough. No one was entirely wrapped up, but the body heat helped. And the thick layers of the blanket kept them warm. He leaned against Weiss for support, and she leaned back. It wasn't the most comfortable position, but it was safe.

Shamrock looked over and saw Blake and Jaune shoulder to shoulder. At first he thought the girl might lay her head over him like they had that night in the hotel. Instead, she just sat rigid, knee to her chest. Neither she nor her partner really looked at each other.

The two briefly met eyes, and then looked away. Shamrock had that feeling like he was watching something intimate about to happen, and almost shouldn't be here. He felt his face changing slightly with that thought. Until they just decided to roll with it, and wrapped their arm around Weiss just to stay tight and comfortable. Weiss gave a quiet noise of surprise, but quickly just settled into the position.

Shamrock might almost have thought it was silent, if not for the distant sounds of monsters and battle. But that would be a problem for tomorrow. Or, more likely, a problem for the next couple of hours, depending on how much sleep they would actually get here.

"Hey, Blake," Jaune whispered.

Blake made a non-committal noise, still refusing to look at him. "I know. A lot of things happened. A lot of things were said."

"You were angry. But you had every right to be. I was in the wrong," he said. "I don't think I made a single good choice these last few days. Mostly just a series of fuck ups I've been making the best out of. But I guess it really didn't click until I saw the hate and anger in your eyes. It… I'm sorry, I guess."

Shamrock tried to fall asleep, but it was hard to do when they wanted to roll their eyes so heavily. It was like every time those two started to talk, it turned stupidly sappy.

Blake turned to face her partner, giving him a weird kind of smile. "This is the part where you ask me, 'But does that really change anything?'" She gave the barest laugh. "You're starting to get predictable. And the answer to that, is I don't know. We—you—I—"

Jaune put his hand on her shoulder, and she shut up. "No. This was going to be the part where I apologize for the worst birthday present in the history of birthdays."

She blinked. "My birthday?"

Jaune nodded. "Yeah. It's today, the eighteenth of January. Happy birthday, Blake."

She touched her cheek. "You remembered… I… huh."

"Nah, I cheated. I put today in my scroll's calendar," he said, smiling softly. "Sorry I couldn't get you anything good. Alternatively, it was the best gift a girl could ask for, the gift of emotional trauma. I understand it's in vogue this season. If you make it out of this, I promise to actually get you something, or take you somewhere, or whatever. Figure it might be fun?"

"Are you…" She sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder. "You know what? This entire year has been a mess. I want a do-over."

"That'll give me time to finally get to know you so I can get you a real gift."

Shamrock and Weiss exchange glances.

Weiss pretended to gag. "God, you two are insufferable. Blake, happy birthday. We'll have a party when we get back and I will absolutely make the cake and it will be the best cake ever, and you shall eat it and taste nothing but despair."

Blake winked, flashing her a thumbs up. "Thanks, best teammate a girl could have. Way better than Jaune. All he gets me is suffering."

"Congratulations on the birth year day," Shamrock said, waving. "Now would you two shut up? I'm trying to peacefully freeze to death in my sleep, not get hypothermia while I'm awake."

"I am physically incapable of closing my mouth due to a genetic defect that keeps me rambling," Jaune said, frowning.

"I believe that," Shamrock said.

"Blake, if you make him shut up right now so we can all go to sleep," Weiss said, "I'll buy you two of whatever gift he gives you for your birthday."

Blake laughed. "Jaune, buy me a pony."

He put his hand to his chest and scoffed. "What do you think I'm made of, money?"

"No," she sighed, getting comfortable as she leaned against Jaune, head resting against him. "I think you're made of bad decisions."

"I'm rubber and you're glue," he singsonged with a pout. "Anything you say to me bounces off and sticks to you!"

"Yeah, I'm also made of bad decisions." She smiled. "It's why I'm still here."

"Wouldn't have it any other way, birthday girl. After everything that happened, you're still okay."

"I can be okay because you're okay," she said, tucking some of her hair behind her ear.

"And there is no one in the world I'd rather be okay with than you," he said.

Blake hummed in thought. "I don't know. I'm still not sold on us as partners. Next time we nearly die and almost time travel or whatever, I'm going to test my options." She gave him a smug little look.

The boy frowned theatrically. "No givesie backsies. You're mine. I called dibs."

She reached her hand up and pushed his face away. "You know what, they're right. Jaune, shut up."

"Make me!"

Weiss gave Shamrock a suffering look. She made a mouth with her left hand and kissed it to her own lips, rolling her eyes. Shamrock snorted.

Which was the exact perfect time for the barricade they had set up by one of the doors to break down. A white gloved hand reached through the hole and opened the door. Shamrock barely had time to register the fact that they were probably fucked, again, before she realized she was looking at that goddamned Humming Lady from the caves, with White Fang soldiers behind her.

"You should really stop lying there. I've come back to help you all," she hummed, her metal whip hanging over her shoulder. Those two black birds with steel on their beaks rested on the shoulders of her bridal gown. The woman was giving an incredibly toothy smile towards Blake. "Sorry about trapping you to die, though. Come along now and I promise it probably won't happen again."

a/n Enter the help Adam has in the area. This lil chapter is dedicated to "Guest" on FF, with your hard-to-parse yet somehow magical use of English. Make an account already and join the Discord. Next chapter, we end this volume, and make a cat cry!