The air in the Atlas dorm rooms was normally cool and dry, so much that sweatclothes were the preferred attire. Instead, Jaune, much to his surprise, found that his room was so hot and humid that wearing nothing worked just fine. A good thing, because he was, somehow, wearing nothing.

The door clicked shut as Ren exited– to go shower, he'd told them. Jaune missed him already. And if he missed Ren, then Nora…

Jaune turned to look at her. The sheets in their impromptu bed-for-a-queen covered her torso, giving her some semblance of modesty, not that Jaune really felt there was much left to hide. Not after all the… everything. She was looking up at the ceiling, apparently lost in thought.

Jaune could appreciate that. He was wondering how all this had happened, himself.

Well, he sort-of knew how it'd happened, the physical part of it anyway. They'd come to the dorm after completing their first day as licensed Huntsmen and Huntress. Nora had said something about 'continuing the celebration'. Ren had said something Jaune found odd, something about 'personal sharing'-– words that Jaune never associated with Ren. Then they'd ambushed him.

After that was a lot of grunting and sweating, mouths and hands everywhere, not much in the way of thinking or talking, and even less in the way of clothing.

Atlas had designed its dorms as if it was trying specifically to prevent this sort of thing. The beds were coffin-sized and recessed into the wall in a two-by-two grid. They were simply too small and too cramped to accommodate more than one person per bed, even if those persons were very cozy with each other.

Nora had taken one look at that arrangement, muttered, "Challenge accepted", and set to work. She'd ripped the mattresses to three beds right out of the frames, arranged them on the floor as if they were one larger bed, and then started outfitting the agglomeration with pillows and blankets.

At first Jaune had thought he understood. They'd slept close to each other like this starting in Vale after the Fall. They'd included Ruby in their pile for almost the whole of their road trip across Anima. They'd kept on cuddling tight–- usually without Ruby, after her team's return, but sometimes with her–- in every room they'd stayed in since. In the Mistral hideout, at that cursed, haunted farm, at Saffron's place in Argus…

In each case, he could almost convince himself it was for practical reasons. Space was always scarce. In Vale, there were so many refugees that accommodations were limited. In Anima and then Mistral, where their security was uncertain, staying together was safe. On the farm, they'd needed to conserve body heat. Saffron's townhome was built to house five at most, and they'd stuffed their group of ten into it on top of Terra, Saffron, and Adrian; piling up was the only way to cram them all in.

In all those cases, he could, if pressed, make the argument that JNR sleeping in a loose bundle was the practical choice. Making that argument would also be lying by omission. They'd started cuddling because it felt nice. It was warm and secure and comfortable in a world where those things were hard to come by. They'd kept on doing it until it felt wrong not to, until they craved the certainty of warm, right-smelling bodies by their sides.

Even so, Jaune had never expected it to turn into something like this.

He sat up and looked down at Nora. She was continuing to stare at the ceiling. She seemed, incredibly, winded, a look she never wore outside of the most protracted and desperate battles. A faint sheen of sweat clung to her face. Her always-unruly hair was mussed more than usual.

Somehow, all of that was attractive. Jaune didn't know how to process that.

She was also bizarrely quiet. Between that and the absence of Ren, the room seemed empty. Vacant.

Jaune felt himself being pulled into the gap. "Lien for your thoughts?"

Nora blinked. Her eyes slipped back into focus. "Hey, fearless leader," she said affectionately.

"I didn't lead anything," Jaune said with a blush.

"Not exactly a surprise," Nora snorted. "Ask Ren, he'll tell you I called you as a bottom on day one." Even as her frank words made Jaune twist, it was reassuring to see she still had no filter.

Reassuring… why did Jaune need reassurance?

"Nora," he said, the words stumbling their way out of him, "is all of this… okay?"

Her face scrunched. "All of what? You mean like the part where I put my–"

"No, no," said Jaune, hastily waving her down. "I mean, like… all of it. Um. Everything that just happened? Like, from the moment we came through the door?"

She arched an eyebrow at him. "What did you think was going to happen?"

"I don't know, some sort of… team meeting?" Jaune said, and he could hear how lame he sounded.

"Oh, we had a meeting alright," Nora replied, and Jaune felt like her tone by itself raised the room's temperature two degrees.

"I… suppose," he managed.

"A regular ol' meet-and-greet."

"Right."

"Where we really got to know each other, if you know what I mean."

"I know what you mean, Nora!"

Embarrassed as he felt, as flustered as this made him feel, it was still a warm, comfortable sort of thing, a familiar thing. His teammates teasing him was old hat.

Teammates… was that it?

The warmth faded.

Her cheer slipped away from her. It left her looking pensive– not worried, exactly, but like she was a step away from worried, like she could stumble into worriedness at any moment. Or maybe he was projecting.

"You don't think he's angry at me for… and you're not angry at me for…"

Nora quirked an eyebrow at his broken speech. "Have you ever known me to not let someone know when I'm upset?"

"Of course not," he said, abashed. "I'm being stupid again. But it's not my fault! I'm fried! I've never done anything like this before. I know you and Ren have, of course you're used to it, but I…"

"Less than you think," she interrupted. "Sure, after Kuroyuri, we were ready to boop, but it was hard getting the time and space and mood to actually get our boop on. I'm not saying we never did, we just had to work hard for it." She grinned at him. "Remember when Rennie sent you to the mid-levels to get shrimp paste? And we told you to bring Oscar so that you wouldn't get lost on your own?"

He sighed. "Yeah, I guessed what you two were after, it's why I didn't put up a fight about it. But, see, that's the thing. You and Ren have a… thing. You're partners, you've always been partners, and as far as I can tell you always will be partners. I don't wanna screw that up for you."

She gave him the 'you're being a dummy' look… but he could not help himself. "I'm being a dummy, aren't I?"

Her exasperation was tempered with affection. "Do you really think we woulda done this if we weren't both totally on-board with it?"

His face scrunched up as he thought about it. "Probably not. I guess. Man, I wish I could use more definite language."

"It was Ren's idea, actually," she said.

If Jaune hadn't been sitting, he might have fallen over. "Really? Why didn't he say so?"

She gave him a deadpan look. "Yeah, like all the other times Ren has spoken his mind about his personal feelings?"

Jaune winced. "Good point."

"You're not exactly my type," Nora said. She raked his still-naked body with her eyes. He felt it like a physical touch. "Don't get me wrong, you've filled out in all the right ways since first semester, when I swore I was gonna use you for a toothpick. I wouldn't kick you outta bed– I mean, obviously, since you're here and I didn't kick you outta bed, but you get the idea. Your face looks way better now that your hair isn't covering it half the time, and you're not as frantic these days, you've got the whole "I know who I am" thing going on and it suits you, and…"

Jaune was blushing so hard he thought his cheeks might ignite. With the way his heart was pounding in his ears, he almost missed the way she trailed off. "What's up?"

She'd stopped looking at him, and had turned her gaze back to the ceiling. "It's just," she said slowly, "I guess I… I'm finding you more attractive now because we already booped. Like we got it all backwards. We wanted you to be part of this, and now my head says, Hey, maybe he's hot after all."

"That's the most back-handed compliment I've gotten since Weiss said you don't have to carry me as hard anymore."

"Jaune," she said, and his weak attempt at humor didn't touch her at all, "we didn't sleep with you because you're hot. At least, I didn't."

"So… why did you?" said Jaune, more confused than ever.

"I thought I said. Ren wanted to bring you in."

"That doesn't tell me why you wanted it."

"Sure it does. Because…"

She trailed off. She was still staring at the ceiling. Her eyes had lost all focus. "Because I'm invested in his happiness. Which means that what he wants, I want for him. That's enough."

"Wow," said Jaune after a moment, unable to wrap his mind around it. "That's…"

"Kinda sad, huh?" Nora finished for him. "Ren asks for things so rarely, I just wanna bend over backwards to make it happen when he does. Like there's nothing in the world more important than what he asks for."

"That's not sad," Jaune said. "That's amazing. That's… that's…"

Nora's attention finally shifted to him. "What?"

"That's together together." He found a bit of courage inside him and forced himself to say the word. "That's love."

She nodded. "Yeah. I know. I guess I've known for a while, just never wanted to… say it. Like it was a soap bubble I didn't wanna pop. Like saying it would either make it real and make it scary, or make it go away and have that be, like..." She sighed heavily. "Have you ever felt anything like that?"

He wouldn't be Jaune Arc if he could give a flippant answer to a question that serious. He looked away from Nora's incredible ability to distract and thought hard.

Weiss? That was infatuation. His whole problem had been not respecting what she wanted or asked for. He'd thought, perhaps, that he could bring her to appreciate him… but that was selfish. That wasn't love.

Pyrrha? (It still hurt to think about, but time and distance had dulled the pain some.) Maybe it could have been. Maybe it would have been. It hadn't really gotten there. It was some kind of love, but not this kind.

"I mean, there's Ruby," he said, forcing a chuckle out. "We walked halfway across the world for her."

"Not the same. Don't get me wrong, if Ruby said she was launching an assault on Hell, I'd be right beside her with Magnhild and a bag of ice packs. But that's not this."

Jaune swallowed. "No, I guess it isn't."

"I'm talking about… being a hostage to love," Nora said, scrunching up her face as she tried to put the thoughts to words. "Like having it make you helpless. Like you're chained to it. Not in the kinky way, either."

Her disclaimer came too late for Jaune. That mental image was not going away any time soon.

"I suck at explaining it," Nora said. "I'm trying, but when I say it like that, it sounds like a bad thing, and it's not. It's a thrill. It's a comfort. It's… the best thing I've ever had. More than I ever thought I'd get in this life."

She looked at him with eyes hazy with wetness and a half-grin on her face. "That's what you're part of, now."

Jaune shook from the inside out. She was right. This was different. Things had changed. He wasn't interfering in what Ren and Nora had. They'd brought him in, as completely as they could. What had started that crazy day in the forest, and grew in playful ignorance, and was tempered by sorrow and shame, and hardened with every step along this endless path... it had all come together tonight.

It was terrifyingly comforting. It was comfortably terrifying. He hadn't known he could feel this way, and at the same time it felt like the most natural thing in the world. And even if it was Ren who'd wanted it, Nora had committed to it the only way she knew how.

By giving herself completely to it, and opening to him fully.

And it occurred to him that every word she'd used to describe how she felt towards Ren applied to him now, too.

It was breathtaking.

"Nora," Jaune said, trying his best to keep his voice steady, "if you ever tell me you care only a little bit about something, I'm going to assume you've been kidnapped."

She laughed–- freely, gaily. Jaune all at once wanted to hear that more. He wanted her to have every chance to make that sound. She deserved that and more.

"I think it's one of your most attractive qualities," he said, and was surprised he could manage it. He'd gotten gun-shy about complimenting females (after having overdone it so badly in his previous relationships), but Nora's blushing smile told him he'd done it right. Maybe he could do it more.

She didn't give him the chance. "You mean other than this," she said, and threw the sheets off of her.

That was a whole lot of Nora. Jaune felt his eyes pop open trying to take it all in. "Yeah," he squeaked.

Her smile turned devilish. "You are a stamina-type, aren't ya?"

Even in his addled state, even having been a virgin up until an hour ago, Jaune knew an invitation when he heard one. It was an enormously attractive offer– but not quite what he wanted. "We'll wait until Ren gets back," he said, surprised at his own insight.

"Make him nice and dirty after he just showered," she replied lecherously. "He'll hate that."

Jaune smiled. "I think he'll get over it."

End