The first week on his new medication was the hardest, it took Jaune almost 3 full weeks to actually get on his new medication to begin with. Those three months felt like his mother and Alan were on eggshells around him much to his frustration.
By the end of the month, his vision in his injured eye was blurry but didn't need to be covered anymore, his hand was also out of his cast as well but he still needed to exercise it regularly to rebuild the muscles.
As far as the medication was concerned, The first couple days on it, Jaune merely felt strange, like his mind was still fighting but it was handed a sharper stick to fight with. By the third day, he found himself feeling a strange almost forgotten energy that he didn't even realize he had lost.
By the end of the week he woke up to a world that just felt different, he didn't feel a weight crushing down on him, he didn't feel like there was a war in his head. He felt at peace for the first time in almost a year and a half.
The weeks went on peacefully as everyone settled back into their routines, Today is the 31st of December 1999, the end of the Millenium…
Jaune knocked on the door To Weiss's and Winter's place, they had decided at the last minute to have the party at her place since they had the most open space to ring in the new millennium.
Jaune had a smirk on his face when Weiss opened the door as the pair high fived each other before she invited Jaune in. Jaune set down a large back of Drinks in their kitchen and turned to Weiss signing [Who else is here?]
Weiss shrugs, "Your actually one of the last people to show up, as always" Weiss smirked and said, "You should probably help me in the kitchen for a bit if that's okay."
[What are the others doing?] Jaune signed amused.
"Their playing Uno, you should give it a shot if you're feeling brave but it's already broken down into screams and thrown seat cushions already more than once," Weiss said with a chuckle. "Why do you think I'm out here?"
Jaune gave a thumbs up and nodded his head in the living room where the noises were coming from.
Jaune knocked on the door frame entering as he saw the other six members of his circle all sitting around a table grumbling and setting up for a new round, Most of the others turned and waved welcoming Jaune to the party, The only one to not greet him was Ruby herself though she gave him a knowing wink that he returned with a smirk that none of the others realized was aimed at her.
"You joining in?" Nora asked making a spot for Jaune to sit.
[Yeah sure I'm game, I don't think I've ever really played before.] He signed and smiled [I'll try to go easy on you all.]
Ren tried to explain "Alright smartass Rules are simple, when someone puts down a card with the same number or…" Ren paused realizing something "Or color…"
Jaune signed back [Eh, I'll figure it out as we go.]
Ren shrugged as he dealt out cards to everyone and put one in the middle. Each person took turns until Jaune reached his own turn. After he carefully scanned the cards in his hand he asked with one hand [What color is the card?]
Blake just said "blue…"
Jaune looked at his hand before signing [Okay that was less helpful than I thought it would be] Before he put down a card of what he thought was the same shade.
"That card was green Jaune…" Blake said.
[Shit, okay so what do we do then?] Jaune asked
Ruby chimed in signing [Just shuffle that card into the deck and give him a new one]
"That sounds fair," Blake said as she mixed the card back into the deck and handed Jaune a replacement.
Jaune's second attempt was correct and the game kept going. As the group waited for people to go Weiss who had just came back in and sat down said: "So you all ready for the world to end in two hours?"
"Being realistic if this Y2K thing was going to be a thing, New Zealand would be down already," Ren said.
"I don't know, I read online that terrorists might pull something and crash the internet. Or they might unleash a super computer virus that blows up our hard drives." Nora said as she laid down her card.
Jaune laid down his card and was quickly told "Wrong color again..." by Ren before he laid down a draw four card and signed [Is this the right color motherfucker?] to him.
Ren muttered something about plowing Jaune's mom the other night as he picked up four cards and said: "Nora I do think you're being a bit paranoid though, I mean is it even possible for a hard drive to explode?"
Weiss chimed in "I mean I guess in theory if you somehow cause the hard drive to speed up to fast enough speeds it could rip itself apart."
Everyone looked at Weiss with a look of confusion before she chimed in "Winters boyfriend works in IT, he's told stories."
Everyone seemed to accept the answer and kept playing. Penny chimed in after being quiet for most of the conversation. "My dad once blew up a computer."
Jaune signed to Penny with help from Weiss who interpreted [How in the hell did he manage that one Penny?]
"My dad builds computers for people. He said when he was first learning how to build computers, he was installing the power supply and said he got confused when he had all of these cords still loose in the computer from the power supply so he plugged them into each other." Penny said, "He said that the power supply blew up when he tried turning it on."
Everyone looked at Penny with a look of surprise before Jaune clapped his hands snapping everyone out of it. [I mean as long as I can turn my computer on in the morning and get on AIM I'm good!]
Ren and Nora chuckled, as did Weiss and Yang, Blake gave Jaune a knowing smirk and Ruby chuckled in a subtle knowing way. As the group got back to playing, but not before Ruby caught Penny glancing at Jaune in a less than subtle way. Something about the innocent and transparent was she looked at Jaune made her both smile a little bit and feel an intense frustration at the girl.
No one knew then the game stopped and they all just began sitting around talking. Weiss, in particular, was relieved that no one was tossing things at each other anymore. It was only a few more minutes to midnight and she had spent half the night talking to the people she considered her closest friends as they all talked to each other. As she was washing dishes in her kitchen, she mused over the last year to herself.
"You know, it's hard to believe that this time last year, Jaune and Ruby were a couple, I was still in the closet, and half of the people in this room were not even friends with us yet." Weiss thought to herself as she looked over and smiled seeing Nora half asleep on Ren's shoulder.
"Still, it's not perfect, I'm still not talking to my own parents, Ruby and Jaune haven't said a single word to each other at all tonight, and while Blake seems to be unconsciously being the go-between for the pair, I kinda wish I could drag her off for a little fun but Midnight's coming quick and I'm getting a kiss." Weiss thought.
"Still, I'll take the world we got now, we still have some struggles ahead of us, we don't know why Jaune was attacked. Also even though his new medication has definitely helped him be more like the Jaune that Ren and Nora used to know. We never knew this Jaune, we only knew him as the Stoic inward-looking Jaune, the Jaune that hid his problems from us." Weiss mused. "I don't hate it, but it's just weird."
Weiss was snapped out of her thoughts as she was called over by Blake who was smirking. "Hey, you coming?"
"Well yeah, I just wanted to make sure I got the dishes done since I'm don't think I'm making it much longer tonight," Weiss said as she suppressed a yawn.
"Save a bit of energy for later, I got plans for you once everyone else is sleeping" Blake smirked.
"You can wake me up then, I don't feel like Yang or Jaune are ever going to pass out," Weiss said joking.
"Well if you keep any booze around here-" Blake started to say
"Yeah, no winter and I don't allow alcohol here," Weiss said.
"Your mom, shit sorry babe," Blake said softly.
Weiss kissed her girlfriend on the cheek before she said: "Hey you're okay, let's go join the others."
Yang was chatting with Ruby when she noticed it out of the corner of her eye, Penny grabbing Jaune by the wrist and leading him outside. Yang then took a peek at the wall clock and noticed the time, it was only a few more minutes to midnight.
Yang signed to her sister [Yeah, you might not want to look out at the balcony]
Ruby turned and saw penny leading Jaune out to the balcony. Ruby and yang discreetly walked over to a different part of the room as she put in her implants so she could listen in to their conversation out on the Balcony just barely out of sight of the pair.
Outside Jaune leaned against the balcony writing out on a notepad 'What's up Penny?'
"Uh… I uh… I wanted to talk to you for a second." Penny said.
Jaune smiled and wrote out 'Sure what's up?'
Penny started to rub her hands together and muttered a barely coherent "Well I mean I'm glad your hairs back to normal, and you have been a lot less scary since you got on your medication."
'Well I scare myself a whole lot less since I've been on it as well' Jaune wrote.
Penny glanced at the time "Remember that time a few weeks ago when I was talking about how being around you made me feel? All warm inside?"
Jaune nodded yes thinking "Oh I remember, you kinda confessed you had a thing for me, I just wasn't in any place mentally to do anything about it."
Penny put a hand to her stomach as if the mere act of doing so will push her courage up to her throat so she could say what she wanted to see, a small chill from the cold December air caused them both to shiver. "I… I know what it means now... I didn't want to say this around Ruby."
Jaune "booped" her on the forehead to encourage her.
"Jaune… I… I want to kiss you at midnight, but I didn't want to do it in front of the others." Penny said with a waver in her voice as her neves.
Jaune looked off to the side and started thinking "I mean Ruby is in the other room, but she's been encouraging me to do what I think will make me happy, but then again, we only had that talk before I got on my medication, I don't know how she feels about it now."
As Penny and Jaune started hearing Nora counting down in the other room Jaune made his choice as he reached over and took her hand and gently pulled her close to him.
Penny started blushing hard realizing what was about to happen. As the seconds count down and Jaune put a hand on her hip and tilted her head up so he could lean into her she felt like her whole face would catch on fire.
That's when Jaune kissed Penny. It took Penny a second to process it and when she did she threw her arms around Jaunes neck to keep him from pulling away.
Back inside Yang led Ruby away from the window. Muttering "Uh… sorry, you had to see that," Noticing that ruby was starting to tear up.
Ruby shook her head and signed out [No… It's okay, honestly, I hope she can make him happy.]
Yang signed [Well, he's been coming around slowly the last couple weeks, I'm sure if nothing else you be able to at least get back on friendly terms with him later.]
Ruby inwardly chuckled to herself "My AIM history and my text messages tell a very different story Yang… I'm not crying because I lost him, I'm crying because I really did want him to be happy."
Yang and Ruby glanced over at the surprised expressions of Ren and Nora. Nora tried to grin while looking over at Yang and Ruby for their sakes. "Uh, sorry we shouldn't be excited about it."
Ruby chuckled it off and walked away from the pair with Yang following her. Ruby signed to her sister as they went to the kitchen for drinks [Well let's go toast in the new year and hope it ends better than this year did.]
Around the same time elsewhere in the state, at the local state prison, a man sits alone in the quiet darkness of his cell. Although it was rare that anyone would be allowed outside of their cells at this time of night.
As the man's cellmate walked into the room and sat on the bed across the cell from his, he noticed the shit-eating grin before he spoke up "Hey Adam."
"Mercury…" Adam Taurus said.
"Happy new year." His cell made Mercury said casually.
"I fail to see what's so happy about it," Adam said.
"Do you remember what I talked to you about a month or so ago?" Mercury said to Adam.
"I still don't believe you can pull it off," Adam said.
"Believe it, I just got word from my old associate's back west," Mercury said. "Get ready for it, because by this time next month, you and I are both going to be free men."
Adam mused "Free, we'll both be hunted for the rest of our days if we actually pulled off your plan."
Mercury smirked, "My offer still stands, you can come west with me, join my gang."
Adam flatly stated, "My answer remains unchanged."
Mercury goy close and whispered, "Then let's get out of this place, go our separate ways, and you can go get the thing you want most in this world."
Adam grinned at the idea of it as a single world slipped from his lips.
"Vengeance..."
And with that we are no longer a "Late 90's AU" and were shifting to an "Early 00's" AU. So by this point you might have noticed that I tend to divide the story into generally clean. Astute readers might of noticed that I have been breaking "Over reaching arcs" into 20 chapter increments as I've been writing, and that's kinda intentional. I allways found it easier to mentally break up the stories into "volumes" internally as I write this story, and so far each volume has had a theme to it.
Volume one dealt with Loss and recovery. as well as themes of depression and the effects of suicide
Volume two with Jaunes internal struggles and trying to stop looking backward and just move forward with your life and focusing on what you have, not what you lost.
Volume three delat with the themes of fractures, both in Jaune and Ruby's relationship, as well as as Jaune's mental state due to his mental disorders growing worse.
Volume four in my notes is just titled "Taurus".
You can imagine where that's going to go.
So lets respond to some reviews.
Dragonlord: I don't know if I plan on going anywhere with Jaune's muteness or not, knowing it's at least partially related to a childhood brain injury will open up some options for potentially allowing him to eventually gain his voice back, but i'm honestly 50/50 on that idea at the moment.
cbustroyer: To quote old man steve rogers "No, I don't think I will". They were an item for almost half the story, and I'm leaving my options open. I will add a JauneXPenny tag in now though.
Big Bad Beowulf: Yeah don't I know it, it was rough writing that part out for Blake but it was building up to what's coming next. Also yeah I still get infuriated at the idea that people still think you can "cure" being Gay. I mean i'm practically a boomer and even I know better than that!
As a quick side note, if you want, check my profile as I do now link to my Goodreads Author page and my personal website for writing where I will be talking about my next Novel "Reima" as I try to get it written. In anyrate though, I want to take a moment for once again reading along this far, and I hope you all have a great rest of your day.
