"You know… It's nice here"
"You're not supposed to be here."
"But I am here, I can't change that."
"You can, but you're choosing not to."
Ren felt at least somewhat at ease as Nora pressed against him in bed. In the slightly darkened room of the Nikos home, they laid next to each other in silence. As he laid there hearing the soft breaths of his sleeping girlfriend he took a mental checklist of where their clothes came to rest around the room. It was the day after Winter Schnee's funeral and neither of them felt inclined to do much more than enjoy each other as much as they could.
Ren sighed as he pulled Nora closer to him which elicited a tender but slightly annoyed sounding groan from her. Ren took in the scent of the Peach scented shampoo in her hair and the warmth of her body where his bare skin touched his.
"Can't sleep?" Nora's voice whispered out as she didn't so much as move.
"I thought you were napping…." Ren said softly in reply.
"Nah…" Nora just said in reply.
"What's keeping you awake?" Ren asked as he wrapped an arm around her body sliding his arm just under her bare chest.
Nora purred before she chuckled out "I was thinking of that one time… I think it was in the late eight grade. You know the time we all swore Pyrrha and Jaune were going to break up?"
"Oh yeah, I remember that week, Jaune had gone and pissed Pyrrha off pretty damn good at the time."
"I can not fucking believe you Jaune!" Pyrrha shouted out in a rage as she was drying her hair. "What in the actual hell were you thinking!"
Jaune sat on a nearby bench in his swim trunks coughing hard as he was only able to listen to her since he didn't have anything to write with at the time.
Ren and Nora stepped in, Ren in his swim trunks and Nora wearing a peach-orange Bikini "Jesus is he okay?" Ren shouted
Jaune coughed and gave Ren a thumbs up.
"He's a fucking asshole is what he is!" Pyrrha shouted "A dumb one at that"
Nora walked over to Jaune and stood in front of him "What on earth happened in the Pool Jaune?"
Jaune just shrugged as he was still coughing.
Back in the present Nora had started to sit up letting the blanket slip-free as she fumbled around for her clothes as she said: "I can't believe he let Pyrrha talk him into going swimming when he didn't know how to swim…"
"Well Jaune was always kind of an idiot like that," Ren said as he sat up himself.
Pyrrha had pulled Nora into the women's changing room as the pair changed into their street clothes Pyrrha was still raving "that stupid selfish idiot!"
"To be fair, it sounds like he agreed to go to the pool to spend time with you," Nora said still in her Bikini as she had sat Pyrrha down and started to dry her hair to braid.
"I can not believe I am dating the kind of moron that would put his own life in danger for a date!" Pyrrha shouted. "Well I'm not doing this, I'm not going to be the one that kills that boy because he's too stupid to say no!"
"Your overreacting Pyrrha," Nora said. "I'm willing to bet he was thinking he could stick to the shallows"
"Then why in the holy hell did he think it was smart to go off the diving board!?" Pyrrha shouted
"He later told me he went off the diving board because he figured he could just float back up and grab the edge," Ren said as he pulled his pants up and started buttoning them up.
"Didn't Pyrrha dare him to jump?" Nora said
"If I recall yes, for a kiss with some tongue," Ren said.
"Oh lordy yeah that girl was so chaste back then she would turn beat-red from hugs." Nora laughed as she hooked her bra on.
"I mean, I can almost see why Jaune would do it," Ren said
"Seeing his girlfriend in the cute one-piece swimsuit, wet from swimming and telling him she'd shove her tongue in his mouth if he just did one jump from the diving board?" Nora "Shit, I'm surprised Jaune even hesitated before he lept."
"He hesitated because the atrophied remnants of his self-preservation stepped in and told him 'hey stupid, you're going to fuck this up and drown if you do this'" Ren said flatly.
"And yet, that didn't stop him," Nora said with a laugh.
Pyrrha hit the water first out of the circle, she wasn't the strongest swimmer but when she saw Jaune hit the water wrong after he attempted a dive and didn't surface she panicked and dove straight in.
The fact that he was floundering to get surfaced didn't help matters. His desperate efforts to swim where he thought he was up was actually making him go deeper. Pyrrha swam down towards him and wrapped an arm around his chest and slapped him on the back to get him to stop for long enough to get him facing the right direction. Jaune's attempts to swim up actually caused Pyrrha to struggle to swim upwards but she had no way of telling Jaune that.
Seconds later as her lungs started to burn Ren dove down and got the other side of Jaune as he helped her swim upward. As Ren and Pyrrha pushed Jaune up over the water his hands gripped the edge of the pool with a sharp audible gasp as Jaune desperately swallowed Air and spat up water. Ren hopped out of the water before Pyrrha could and dragged Jaune up onto the side of the pool and started hitting his back as Jaune struggled to catch his breath.
"Pyrrha he's going to be just fine," Ren said. "He got a little water in his lungs but he's breathing fine."
Pyrrha shouted "You idiot!" as she walked off in an angered huff leaving a gasping Jaune and ren to exchange uncomfortable glances.
Ren and Nora sat down on his bed with their "Mood music" CD still playing on the CD player in Ren's room as the kept chatting with Ren saying "Yeah, I guess we were all kinda dumb as shit that day."
"Hey don't lump me in with that, I wasn't even part of the conversation at the time," Nora said.
"I'm glad they worked out… it took a couple days…." Ren said.
"Well worked out for as long as they did," Nora said as she rested her head on her boyfriend's shoulder.
"We're going to lose him aren't we?" Ren said as his voice cracked.
Nora nodded "I guess that kinda explains why we've been spending so much time in this bed lately."
Ren chuckled for a second "Well after Pyrrha died and Jaune moved, we spent a bit of time alone like this as well." Ren looked over at Nora "All we ever had was each other."
Nora shook her head and took Ren's hand. "Were not alone though…"
"How do you figure?" Ren asked.
"Well, we have Sam now, she's a lot better than the so-called foster parents we had before them…" Nora answered.
"Yeah that's true I guess…" Ren said unconvinced.
"Hey, you remember when Jaune literally begged Pyrrha to forgive him." Nora giggled out.
Ren looked at her before he broke down laughing himself…
"Just walk away from me Jaune, I want nothing to do with you!" Pyrrha said as she walked through the school towards her history class. Jaune was following her like a lost puppy the entire time.
Jaune just kept walking with a note in his hand trying to get her to take it.
"Jaune it's a lost cause, I'll help you find a new girl… maybe one who's just as brain-damaged as you are." Nora shouted with a laugh as she walked next to Ren several paces behind the unfolding spectacle.
Ren tried to keep a laugh in as he gasped out a restrained "Not helping Nora!" in between barely restrained laughing fits.
Jaune shot a dirty look back at the pair, Ren noted that he should at some point try learning sign language so Jaune could communicate with them in a form other than harsh glares.
Pyrrha turned around and poked him in the chest and stammered out "You're an idiot. What you did was idiotic, your stubborn, you don't think things through, and you legitimately thought what you did was somehow romantic or something." Each point she was making was followed by a hard poke into Jaune's chest. "But I got some news for you, it wasn't. You almost drown, and it would have been on me for daring you to go off the diving board! Did you really want me in the position of blaming myself for your death?"
Jaune looked down and just handed her the note. Pyrrha took it in her hands and read it out loud "Look, your right, I know you are, I was stupid for not coming out and just telling you I didn't know how to swim, I just didn't want to disappoint you."
"God damn, you wrote this like you knew what I was going to say, you know that?" Pyrrha said
Jaune scribbled out on his notepad 'Well I figured what you were going to say was right in this case.'
Pyrrha sighed "Jaune you did disappoint me by lying about knowing how to swim. I wouldn't want you to put yourself in danger for my sake like that."
Jaune looked down and sighed out as he rubbed the back of his head trying to think of something to say. When he realized he couldn't think of a single thing he could say to make things better or smooth things over he just nodded and turned to step away.
Ren and Nora's breathes caught in their throats for a second when they both mutually thought that Jaune was going to give up and walk away until Pyrrha stopped him by grabbing his hand.
"Jaune I said a lot of things in the heat of the moment I'm sorry for saying. I don't think your an idiot" Pyrrha said before she paused "Well your not an idiot normally"
Jaune was still nursing some hurt feelings and didn't look at her instead of checking on his shoelaces. As he handed her another pre-written note 'If you want us to break up, I understand.'
Pyrrha's face turned slightly pale as she held the note in her hand, not reading it out loud before she crumpled it up and Pocketed it. "Damn… you're just going to let me dump like that huh?" Pyrrha paused, "You're going to put up that little of a fight?"
Jaune shaped to look at her and waved his arms around in a way none of the others could make out, it was clear he was in a fluster signing to her, but no one present could understand what he was saying.
Jaune eventually stopped himself and balled his fists up and dropped them to his sides. Ren felt bad for his friend for a moment. It was clear he was frustrated with the situation and his inability to convey his thoughts to Pyrrha.
Jaune took a second and wrote out a note that Pyrrha read out loud 'Look, it's clear I screwed up, I understand that, you looked ready to dump me, and you haven't talked to me in days…'
Pyrrha read the note and giggled uncontrollably "As I said Jaune, I was angry at you, what you did was monumentally stupid, but I understand why you tried."
Jaune straightened up slightly, stopped looking quite like a whipped dog, and hastily scrawled out a note 'So you're not going to dump me?'
Pyrrha shook her head no "I expect you to tell me the truth and if I recommend something you can't do for now on, but I'm not going to dump you."
Jaune practically lept as he wrapped his arms around Pyrrha lifting her off her feet as Pyrrha let out a laugh at her boyfriend…
"You know, it's funny, I still think about how perfect those two were for each other you know?" Ren said back in the present. "Or at least how they both looked at the time."
"Oh lord, I don't even know how they lasted though," Nora said as she rested her head on Ren's shoulder. "We could never see the flaws in their relationship at the time."
"Honestly, I think that even if everything had remained okay, they would have split eventually," Ren said.
Nora lifted her head and looked at him "How do you figure?"
"Well, look how Jaune was around Ruby before they broke up, it was the most naturally at ease Jaune ever was. He could communicate with her in a way that was natural for him." Ren stated, "When he's around Penny, he went back to a state of mostly listening and only being able to occasionally get a point in with his facial expression or a quickly scrawled note."
Nora nodded "that's a good point, I mean-"
"Hey guys, did you all want to go out and get some food?" Sam shouted as she poked her head in before she looked at the pair before she paused for a moment. "Why does it smell like sex and taco's in here?"
Nora blinked and said "I have no idea we haven't had taco's recently." before she realized what she said.
Sam just looked at the pair as Ren just facepalmed into a chuckle as she spoke: "Look, I turn a blind eye to a lot of things that go on under my roof, but at least try to hide it better for my own personal plausible deniability in case I ever have to have a conversation with the state about you two okay?"
"Right, so I'm actually down for Mexican now that you brought it up, Sam." Nora chimed in
"Nora so help me god…" Ren said through his palm
"Alright pack it in you two and let's go get dinner," Sam said as she led the pair out.
So I missed putting out chapter last week as I had slipped into a hard deep fit of Space Engineers with some friends of mine. so I figured I had better get one up this week. Honestly reading back at this chapter kinda makes me upset that I killed off Pyrrha because Pyrrha and Jaune did have a pretty solid if troubled relationship.
I don't admittingly have alot to say about this chapter, it was more or less Ren and Nora coping with current events by falling into each other and reminiscing about the past. I kinda had the realization that I was writing Ren and Nora as almost being two halves of the same character in a way kinda the way they are written in the show as in their minds, they really only have, and may only ever have each other in life. Or at least that's how they see it.
I do appreciate all of you generally liking this take on Weiss's dad, I figured that characters would change dramatically from having a different set of circumstances, and the idea of Jacques being a philanthropist with his money due to losing a brother would stick well. It was still a bit fun tossing canon directly out the window in this case, not that I haven't been doing that since day one.
Retorque, keep fighting the good fight out there. I know that COVID is only getting worse and some states are throwing open the doors, I just hope you're not in one of them.
To everyone else, As always, thanks again for reading, and I hope you all are well. Till next time!
