A/N: I haven't written anything in a while. I know it's terrible, so please leave some constructive criticism so I can improve my skills. And thanks for reading.
Part 1 - The Rabbit Hole
Jaune inhaled for four seconds, held his breath. Counted to four, before exhaling. The soft, black leather couch he sat on faced Dr. Peach, who sat in her own, similar chair.
"So how are you today, Jaune?" his psychiatrist asked.
"Good, good," he simply replied.
"Alright," Dr. Peach said after a moment. "Have you had any episodes since our last visit?"
"Not when I'm around her."
"But when you're not..." she trailed off, leaving the obvious question unfinished.
Jaune sighed.
"How's your relationship with your girlfriend going?"
"It's good. We went out to dinner last night."
"Tell me more about the dinner."
Jaune shrugged. "It was just dinner. We talked about our day and stuff."
Dr. Peach took a while before speaking again. "I know you'd be prefer I not... But I feel prescribing something might help you out in this case."
"I really don't think I need it, doc."
She smiled. "If it doesn't do anything by our next session, you can stop taking them."
"...Alright, I guess."
An hour later, Jaune opened the door to his apartment. It was a small thing, with minimal furniture, but he was proud of the fact that he was able to afford it himself. His parents had asked if he needed money after graduating Beacon, but he had been adamant to become as financially independent as possible.
"Hello, Jaune," Pyrrha greeted him, smiling.
Jaune smiled back. He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her, leaning down to rest his chin on her shoulder.
"Hey, Pyr," he whispered.
"So, how was it?"
Jaune sighed. "She prescribed me some drugs. One every morning and evening, starting tomorrow."
"I'll make sure to remind you," she said. Her hand cupped his cheek and she give him a light peck on the lips.
"Thanks," he chuckled. "I don't know how I would survive without you."
"Speaking of your inability to take care of yourself," she took his hand and lead him to the kitchen. "I made dinner."
"Casserole?" Jaune took off and threw his jacket on the couch. "Smells awesome."
The beeping of Jaune's phone woke up the couple. Without slipping out of Pyrrha's hold, Jaune twisted his arm back to grab the offending alarm and turned it off.
Sighing, he gently pulled his arm out from under Pyrrha's head, but she clutched at him, groaning softly.
"Five more minutes," she complained.
"Sorry, Pyr," he leaned down to whisper in her ear. "I have to go to work."
Pyrrha grumbled unintelligibly in her pillow. In response, Jaune wiped away a loose strand a hair from her head to kiss her temple.
"Yeah, I'll set an alarm on my watch to remind me to take them tonight," Jaune said. "But are you sure you don't come to the reunion?"
Pyrrha silently shook her head, frowning but eyes still closed.
"Alright, see you tonight." Jaune kissed her temple again for good measure before finally stepping out of the bed.
Once he dressed himself quietly to not disturb Pyrrha, he headed to the bathroom to open the cabinet and grab his bottle of pills. He shook one out, and washed it down with water from the sink. He wouldn't have time to shower this morning, so he brushed his teeth, washed his face, then took off to work.
Part 2 - Reunion and Reality
"Hey, Vomit Boy," a familiar voice called from behind. "Long time no see."
Jaune spun around the bar stool, not expecting to see the blonde girl at the reunion. She looked exactly the same, except maybe a little taller. Her outfit was more muted though, more pragmatic and less revealing, which Jaune thought made sense. She had been travelling the entire world to search for her partner, Blake, who had been missing for years now.
"Yang?" he asked, incredulous.
"The one and only," she smirked, before bringing him into a tight hug, and Jaune stood up to adjust their awkward positioning.
"I thought you were still..." he trailed off.
"Yeah," Yang sighed, stepping back. "But after so long... I just decided that maybe I should stop chasing a ghost who might not want to be found."
Yang sat down on the stool next to his, so he sat down as well. She grabbed the bartender's attention to order a beer. Jaune did the same.
"Besides," she continued. "I missed you guys."
"Too bad Ruby and Weiss aren't here. They're away right now on a mission."
"I know. I called Weiss to tell her I'm back," she said. "But I told her not to tell Ruby yet. I want to surprise her."
"You want to surprise her, or are you delaying the inevitable as much as possible?" Jaune raise an eyebrow.
Yang laughed. "Maybe- you're not the clueless teenager from Beacon anymore, huh?"
"I guess not," Jaune smiled back.
"Why are you just sitting alone, anyway?" she turned around, leaning back on the bar, and waved around them at the ongoing party. "What about the rest of your team over there?"
Nora and Ren sat in one of the corner booths, talking to members of one of the other teams. He couldn't recall the team's name, but he did recognize them as one that had been in JNPR's year.
"I talked to them earlier," Jaune sipped his drink. "You can go over there if you'd like."
Yang shrugged. "Nah. They seem busy."
"Alright." Jaune shrugged too. "Care to tell me about your adventures around Remnant, then?"
Yang and Jaune talked exclusively to each other for the rest of the night, though several did walk over to welcome her back to Vale. She told him tales of helping out frontier villages from Grimm attacks and natural disasters, of meeting travelers and huntsmen on her travels, as well some of the boring parts of travelling across continents. She mentioned her search for Blake had yielded little result except for discovering the fact that she was the daughter of the chieftain of Menagerie.
"How about you?" Yang asked him.
"What about me?" Jaune asked back.
"I left before graduation, and I had minimal way to contact anybody because of how isolated the place I went were."
"I didn't actually graduate."
"Oh," Yang's eyes widened. "Is that why you're not, uh, socializing with anybody?"
"Yeah. Without Pyrrha..."
Without Pyrrha's help, Jaune wouldn't have graduated- but Pyrrha had been there for him. Jaune frowned when he couldn't remember why he had dropped out of Beacon.
"I don't even know why I came here in the first place," Jaune finally said.
Yang gently placed her hand on his shoulder. "Well I'm glad you're here."
"Thanks."
"We should probably be heading out, though," she said as she looked around. "Almost everybody else left."
So caught up with chatting with her, Jaune hadn't noticed the bar had slowly been emptying.
"Yeah, good call."
After finishing their last glass, the two paid for their drinks and stepped outside into the cold. Jaune put his hands in his pockets.
"Will you be okay?" Yang eyed Jaune, who was a little shaky on his feet.
"I'm good."
Yang took off her leather jacket and wrapped it around his shivering shoulders.
"You're going to catch a cold," she explained, adjusting it to cover him as much as possible.
"I'm not the one without a jacket," Jaune pointed out.
Yang chuckled at that. "I don't need one. I've survived through worse weather than just a chilly night for the past few years."
Still, Jaune tried to convince her to take the jacket back, but Yang simply ignored him, arms crossed, until her cab arrived.
His own cab arrived, taking him home. Stepping inside, Jaune felt the place was oddly cold and empty. In a bout of panic, he ran inside the bedroom. The sheets were neatly made, but empty.
Searching the house didn't produce any results. Pyrrha's things, like the flower she had gifted on their anniversary, or the clothes in their shared closet, had disappeared.
Every minute he kept looking for her slowly broke him down until he was crying by the time he found himself calling Yang's number. He didn't know why her name was the first to pop in his head, just that he needed someone- anyone, to help.
"Hey, Jaune. What's up?"
"She's not here, Yang," Jaune sobbed.
"Whoa, are you okay?" Yang sounded much more sober now. "What's wrong?"
"Pyrrha. She's gone."
"I'll be there in a minute," the sound of rustling clothes and hurried steps could be heard. "Don't go anywhere, okay?" Yang hung up.
Jaune forogt how long he sat on the couch, hands covering his face, hunched over. He couldn't figure out why she had just left without saying anything. Without at least some sort of goodbye- when a voice suddenly cut off his thoughts.
"Jaune?"
He whirled around towards the sound.
Pyrrha was sitting next to him in her night gown. The lamp on the coffee table illuminated the book that she had been in the middle of reading.
"What's wrong?" she asked, concern on her face.
Her hand came up to wipe his tears away.
Jaune, flabbergasted, grabbed her hand with his own trembling one. Her caressed his thumb over it, turned to kiss her palm, just to make sure she was real. New tears flowed down his cheeks, this time from relief.
"Nothing," he choked. "Everything's fine."
The doorbell rung.
Jaune looked down, eyes finding the pages in his hands dotted with fallen tears. He set the book down upside down, under the unlit lamp.
He didn't register the walk to the door. When it opened, Yang stood there, panting and red-faced. She flung herself on him, wrapping her arms in a tight hug.
"I'm so sorry, Jaune," Yang said, her voice muffled in his chest. "When you didn't mention Pyrrha at the bar, I just thought that you had gotten over her. Over her death. I'm so sorry..."
Jaune's automatic reaction was to hug her back. A sudden weight materialized in his pocket. The pill bottle. He had forgotten to set the reminder on his watch.
Part 3 - Blue Pill
The beeping of Jaune's phone woke up the the two bodies in bed. Without slipping out of his sheets, Jaune twisted his arm back to grab the offending alarm and turn it off.
Except it wasn't the alarm. The caller ID indicated it was Yang calling. Jaune looked over across the bed, where red hair poked out on top of her side of the blanket.
Jaune extracted himself out of the bedroom as silently as possible, closing the door slowly, before taking the call.
"Hey, Yang."
"Hey, Jaune. I'm sorry I left you by yourself last night. We were both drunk and neither of us were in a good place, and-"
"No," Jaune interrupted her. "I get it. Thanks for checking up on me last night. I must have been drunker than I thought."
"If you want to talk about her, or anything else... I'm here for you, okay?"
It took a second for Jaune to reply. His hand automatically went in his pocket, fiddling with the pill bottle that was still there. "Thanks, Yang. But I'm better now."
"Um- okay, then. See you around?" Yang asked hesitantly.
"Yeah, see you around." He hung up.
Now, he just had to decide what to do with the thing in his pocket. In the end, he just decided to throw it in the trash.
Walking back in their bedroom, Jaune slipped right behind Pyrrha. His arm snaked around her stomach and his face buried itself in the back of her neck, waking her up.
"'morning, Jaune," Pyrrha mumbled. "Any plans today?"
"Yeah," Jaune replied, snuggled on her back. "But I think I can afford five more minutes."