His father takes his armor and Crocea Mors from him on the airship, along with his scroll, as part of the colossal grounding he is starting the moment he steps foot back in his house. His mother tries to soothe him the whole trip as his father paces, muttering a whole bunch of things about the incompetence of Beacon coupled with a lot of, "What were you thinking?"
Jaune is in such a state by the time they reach the Arc Household, that not one of his four sisters still living at home makes a comment when he sweeps past them all to lock himself in his bedroom. Rawaya makes an attempt to knock on his door, gently, to tell him Gia made stew if he wanted some. When Jaune doesn't answer, she leaves without pressing. Flava comes a little later to ask what the frick did he do because mom and dad have been shouting at each other in dad's study since they got back. Jaune shoves a pillow over his head until Flava gets the hint and leaves him too. Finally, Amarilla comes knocking and doesn't stop knocking.
"Leave me alone, Ama," he calls, hoping his voice doesn't sound as pathetic and tearful as it does to his own ears.
"That is a thing I would love to do if I didn't also live here," she says. She only sounds the regular amount of annoyed, so Jaune goes to unlock the door for her.
Amarilla shuffles into the room, dumping her oversized purse at the foot of the second bed across from Jaune's. As Jaune crawls back into his bed and under his sheets, still in all his clothes, Amarilla sits in their shared reading chair and watches her only brother's mound of sheets rise and fall.
"I didn't tell them," she says awkwardly. "In case that was something you were wondering. There's no way I could've without them figuring out I helped. And Flava obviously didn't know or she'd have been the first to say she told us so." She sits back in the chair, puffing a long strand of plaited blonde hair from her face. "Gia would be required to know coding which, unless she's been hiding that skill from us, she wouldn't—"
"Ama," Jaune mumbles miserably. "I really, really don't want to do this right now."
His sister doesn't say anything for a long moment, then asks, "Was it nice, at least? While it lasted?"
Jaune doesn't answer, only buries himself further in his blankets and wonders how much of a coward his friends must think he is for not fighting the good fight, even if it was rigged against him from the start.
"...I'm gonna put my headphones on, okay?" Amarilla says. "Throw something at me if you want to talk."
Jaune stays in bed for the following week straight. Mrs. Arc keeps a tight orbit around Jaune in that time, checking on him multiple times a day, bringing him food regularly, and sitting on his bed with him. She pets his hair and tells him it's alright to be sad. It's alright and this was for the best. Mr. Arc uses Jaune's lethargy as proof of why Beacon was too much for his son. He calls up the principal of the local school and explains the situation, pulling some professional hunter's clout to ensure Jaune can start the new semester in a few days. Amarilla lies for him and tells their parents and Flava, who's nosey, that Jaune's been reading and eating and showering, all the while keeping a half-joking checklist at her bedside table of all the favors Jaune is going to owe her as soon as he's better. Gia shows she cares by pretending Jaune doesn't exist. Rawaya picks up his X-Ray and Vav comic back issues from their local shop and slips the pile under his and Amarilla's door without a word.
On day nine of Jaune remaining balled up in bed, commiserating on his failure and kicking himself for all the things he should have done to establish and fight for his place at Beacon, Amarilla gets home late from her after-school pre-nursing courses. She leaves their bedroom door open, yanks the covers off of Jaune, and fastball pitches his jeans at his face.
"Wow, Ama, you're such a good sister," she says in a poor imitation of Jaune. She throws his hoodie at him too and beams each shoe individually at his legs. "Thanks so much for talking mom into letting me out of the house, Ama."
Jaune lifts his head blearily. "What?"
"I convinced Flava the lack of hot water was all your sad baths," Amarilla says, scrounging through Jaune's set of drawers for his socks and clean underwear, which she throws at him hastily. "So she helped me convince mom that a night on the town would do you some good before you start classes again. Dad's at a town hall meeting. As long as we don't accidentally run into him downtown, we are golden."
With languid motions, Jaune takes his Pumpkin Pete hoodie and drapes it over the shoulders of his Pumpkin Pete onesie. "I don't feel like going out."
"Too bad," Amarilla says, hands on her hips. "Get dressed or I'm calling Rawa over and we're going to make you wear whatever we want."
Jaune shakes his head and moves the hoodie to block his face from the light. He hears Amarilla sigh. Then there's a dip in the mattress at his side.
"Okay, look, I know… I know I'm supposed to be the head when you're the heart, and vice versa, but you're freaking me out a little, okay?" She puts a hand on Jaune's shoulder. "This was supposed to be an adventure, right? When we tampered with the transcripts and smuggled the stuff out of dad's study, it was just to see what it would be like. We knew mom and dad were going to figure it out eventually. Right? Jaune?"
He pulls the hoodie away from his face and stares up at his sister. "Yeah."
"It was always supposed to be a short-term thing," Amarilla agrees, even though she knows good and well that she never saw her brother as happy as when they snuck up to the hayloft in the barn to open up his Beacon acceptance message.
"Yeah," Jaune says again, staring at the far wall covered in his sister's posters of swimsuit models and human anatomy charts.
Amarilla hesitates, then awkwardly pats her brother's shoulder. "I'm glad you're home," she admits. Then, grabbing his pillow from under his head, she chucks it across the room. "And unless you want me to keep getting sentimental," she says a little more firmly, "then get dressed. I told Flava to be ready in twenty minutes."
Jaune stands in front of the weaponsmith in downtown, looking longingly through the window at the smith hammering out the flat of a blade the size of Yasuhashi's broadsword. He probably looks utterly pathetic, despite Amarilla's attempts to style his hair in a way that doesn't immediately look like he hasn't washed it in a week.
"He's been staring into that shop for ten whole minutes," Flava mutters to Amarilla under her breath.
"Stand a little closer, Flav. The ice from your soul is refreshing in this heat."
Flava sends Amarilla a glare, then grudgingly checks her watch again. "I told my friends to meet me at the drive-in at quarter past." Her icy look jumps up to Amarilla, then touches on the back of her brother's slumped figure a little more sympathetically. "I'm going to go ahead to meet them. Just...make sure he doesn't walk into traffic or something."
Amarilla fake-shivers and Flava flips her off as she departs. Amarilla comes up and takes Jaune by the arm.
"C'mon. I know just the thing to help."
With little effort, his sister pulls him away from the weaponsmith. They walk a couple blocks, past a few other smiths and restaurants, to a modest sized bar with fairy lights zig-zagging across the ceiling. Jaune frowns at the establishment.
"I'm not this depressed," he mumbles. Amarilla ignores him.
They find two seats in the crowded bar and Amarilla orders them beers. She proudly flashes her ID and Jaune's to the bartender who checks that they are indeed seventeen before handing them their drinks. Jaune stares into his mug of beer as Amarilla looks at him expectantly. He sighs and takes a swig. It doesn't taste as terrible as he thought it might. Amarilla orders them pretzel sticks which he enjoys significantly more.
Halfway through their second beers, Jaune has to admit he feels marginally better, though he doesn't know if it's the pretzels or the alcohol. Amarilla suddenly sits up, spotting a muscular girl across the bar with blue hair, and elbows Jaune excitedly. Jaune looks the girl over, and his first and only clear thought is that Pyrrha could probably take her easily in a fight. He gives his sister a weak thumbs up. Amarilla rolls her eyes and grabs her purse, promising to be right back. She crosses the bar towards the girl as Jaune finishes his beer, feeling fuzzy around the edges of his sadness.
"Jaune Arc?" he hears someone say. "I'll be damned."
He turns to the sound of his name and freezes at the sight of the petite girl with red-brown hair leaning up against the bar at his side, looking as surprised to see him as he is to see her. "Carnelia?"
She smiles at him carefully. "Didn't expect to see you around here."
Jaune stares at her, dumbstruck. He'd had a crush on Carnelia since she moved into town when they were nine. He wrote her poetry and daydreamed about her in class and he would have bet lien to lychee that she had no idea he even existed. Except here she was, and she knew his first and last name.
He goes on far too long without answering, not helped by the two beers in his system, but Carnelia only eyes the seat Amarilla vacated and takes it without asking him. "I heard you got into Beacon Academy. Thought you'd skipped town on all us locals."
Blinking rapidly and suddenly feeling too hot in his hoodie, Jaune tries to smile at her. "Oh, well, yeah. That happened. I'm...I'm back now."
"Hunting didn't suit you?"
"No. Um, I had to leave. Sort of."
"Oh." Carnelia's eyes glide to somewhere by the door and Jaune looks over his shoulder to catch a glimpse of a group of Carnelia's friends in a booth whispering to each other. Before Jaune can figure out the next thing to say, Carnelia returns her attention to him. "So how have you been? Other than expelled." Her eyes slowly draw down his body, appraising. "You look...good."
Jaune thinks he might be having a stroke. Drinking alcohol can do that, right? Could you travel between dimensions if you had too much alcohol?
"Uh. Um, you. You too," Jaune stammers.
Carnelia smiles like she knows it and tilts her head a little. "My friends and I are heading to a party after this. Maybe you could come?"
Jaune scans the bar and finds his sister laughing with the blue-haired girl she'd gone to speak with. "I have to check with Ama," he blurts.
Carnelia's face loses some of its coyness at the mention of Amarilla. "Oh," she says. "Well, if she must, she can come too. It's a free—"
"Arc!"
Jaune jumps from his seat and even Carnelia gives a start. They turn to find another one of Jaune's former classmates making a beeline for them from the door. Jaune stumbles a little against the bar until he finds his feet.
"Ashton!" Jaune calls nervously, as the classmate twice Jaune's size walks over. "Hey, long time...long time no see, man."
"We were just talking, Ash," Carnelia says placatingly. "I was inviting him to your party after this."
Ashton looks Jaune over like a territorial Ursa might. Jaune can smell the alcohol coming off the other guy and wishes nervous laughter wasn't his go-to reaction to danger because it seems to be upsetting Ashton.
"What are you doing here? Why are you talking to her?" he demands, putting an arm possessively over Carnelia. "Did your boyfriend ditch you for the night?"
Jaune opens his mouth to hesitantly remind the other boy that despite ten years of Ashton trying to get Jaune to admit it through brute force, Jaune isn't actually gay, but Amarilla appears at Jaune's side as if by cosmic irony.
"Sorry, Ashton," she says briskly, helping Jaune straighten up and use his legs properly. "I think you're in the wrong bar. The 10 and under IQ bar is down the street."
Ashton's glare hones in on the other Arc. He sneers and his hand on Carnelia's shoulder balls into a fist.
Suddenly, Jaune has a very good idea what is going to come out of Ashton's mouth, so he hurriedly digs out lien to pay off his and Amarilla's tab and make a quick exit. "Well, it was great catching up and all. I hope you two live happily heterosexually ever after. Good night!" he blurts, grabbing Amarilla by the arm like she's the one who needed his support and not the other way around.
Jaune feels the weight of the hand gripping his shoulder before he realizes he's not moving forward anymore. Ashton spins him around, making him even more dizzy, and Jaune sees that wounded-pride anger he recognizes from Cardin Winchester. Jaune's drunken reflex is to immediately put as much aura as possible between himself and Ashton's fist as it comes down on his face.
Ashton's knuckles collide with Jaune's nose, and a blinding gold light engulfs the bar.
It takes a moment for Jaune's vision to clear. He's standing exactly where he was, but Ashton is sprawled in a heap against the wall on the complete opposite end of the room. Other than the droning of the TV, the whole bar has gone silent. Patrons are gaping at Jaune as the glow from his aura fades. Carnelia and Amarilla are staring. Jaune thinks he might still be having a stroke.
Ashton scrambles to his feet, looking disoriented but even angrier than before. His fury focuses on Jaune and he grabs an empty beer bottle from the bar and rushes Jaune with a bellow.
With his lag from drinking, Jaune has two seconds to react. In his head, Ren's voice says, Reason with him. Nora's voice says, Break his legs!
But with a split second left, he listens to Pyrrha's voice that says, He's angry, you're not, you have all the power over his momentum.
Muscle memory kicks in and Jaune channels aura to his arms to brace and maneuver, and when Ashton comes down with the swing, Jaune sees Cardin with his mace and —
Ashton goes over Jaune's shoulder. Smashes through the front window of the bar. And skids to a stop in the middle of the street under a shower of glass.
It takes Jaune a good ten seconds to realize why, exactly, it was so easy to throw a drunken bully with no hunter training when he was pretty sure Cardin Winchester would have still creamed him. It takes another few seconds for Jaune to realize he might be in trouble. Then Amarilla is yanking him by the hood of his hoodie and hissing, "Run."
He and Amarilla practically trip over each other to sprint out the door and as far down the street as they can. Jaune turns a corner just at the edge of town to catch his breath and wait for the world to stop spinning. Amarilla eventually catches up.
"That was…" she pants, doubled over against the wall. "Jaune… That was… Amazing!" she finishes, looking up to beam at him. "That thing you did! With the...light show! And Carnelia's face! She—"
"I think I'm gonna vomit," Jaune interrupts suddenly, clutching at his stomach.
Amarilla swears and grabs Jaune to yank him to a nearby tree so he can rid himself of the pretzels and beer and, you know, all that pesky adrenaline.
Authors Note: For those of you who have followed this story on AO3, yes I will be posting until we catch up with the AO3 chapters, and then there will be new chapters. I needed a little extra motivation to get back to writing this story, so every review helps :)
Jaune is "yellow" in French, so it thought it would be neat if that was the common thread with all his sisters. I don't know if that's been done before but I felt really clever when I thought of it. You now know how to say "yellow" in Spanish (amarillo), Italian (giallo), Latin (flavo), and Hausa (rawaya).
Cover Image Courtesy of mrk50 on tumblr!