AN: Oh. Uh. Hi there. Long time, no?
Okay, I do not really have any excuse for it taking this long other than "I didn't feel like writing" or "I got married" or "I had to pass candidacy exams to continue in my grad degree program."
This summer, I had an internship that was taking me away from home and would leave me with nothing to do every evening for two months. It was my goal to sit down and write out the rest of this story. I started off strong by making myself start writing the first scene to this chapter in the second day I was there.
I didn't write anything else until December and instead hyperfixated on Destiny 2 all summer. Still actually haven't fallen out of D2 yet, but my obsession with it always plays out cyclicly.
Anyways, let's get on with it!
The "Why" We Fall Apart
chapter eight
The bullhead ride back after an unsuccessful hunt was a painfully familiar experience. All of the hope that Ruby had built up prior to the hunt, even as tampered with realistic expectations as it was, had fallen away and left only disappointment in its wake. This certainly wasn't the first time Ruby had come home emptyhanded, but it very rarely got any easier. The first few times hurt the worst, and after that things started to get a little better, but after years of off-and-on attempts, now it only got more and more bitter with each time. As Ruby's anger towards her target and her rage over yet another dead end subsided, intrusive thoughts and flashes of old memories took their place, just like every bullhead flight home after a hunt.
Ruby sunk back further into her hood to hide away from the world, and her fists balled as she tried to summon her rage back. Being angry was far better than reliving those happy, bittersweet memories yet again, and the letdown experienced after them. And yet again, like every flight back, her rage fizzled out and memories of her uncle and her friends came back in its place.
As much as Ruby idolized Qrow when she was younger and had countless memories of him being there as she grew up, those weren't the memories that Ruby cherished most, nor the ones that hurt her now. It wasn't memories of big moments that Qrow was there for either – not that there weren't plenty of those. When team RWBY were officially granted their Huntress licenses, Qrow was there to celebrate; when the teams emerged from Salem's fortress victorious to the cheers and celebration of all of Atlas' remaining forces, Qrow was there to cheer; when Ruby received her medal in front of the whole world and the victory over Salem was written into the history books, Qrow had been the one to introduce her team to the cameras.
It weren't these memories that haunted Ruby now, though. No, it was the little moments. A vivid memory where Ruby caught Qrow watching his nieces lead their teams with the greatest look of pride on his face would flash into Ruby's mind and just as quickly vanish. Yang and Qrow matching shot for shot long before she was old enough for Beacon, and the worried look on Qrow's face when he realized his teen niece was giving him a run for his money. The following look of panic when Tai came home and Qrow realized he had solidified his status as the bad uncle for getting his niece hammered. Little moments in spars throughout the years when Ruby could tell by the intensity Qrow's eyes that he wasn't taking it easy on her, and the surprise that flashed there when Ruby pulled out a new trick that Qrow wasn't ready for.
Gods, she would trade any of her medals, awards, accomplishments, accolades, anything—if it meant she could have her uncle back, even just for small moments like these. She had already sacrificed most of her friendships and her team for it, after all. What more was there to give?
At some point, Ruby realized that she had squeezed her eyes shut, and opened them to find she was clutching Qrow's flask, like she always did on these god-damned flights home from failed hunts. Even though the bullhead had no other passengers but her, she was thankful for the privacy that her hood afforded her. She hated that she had to go through this every flight home, but at least no one else had to know. Her uncle Qrow was the source of every regret Ruby held in her life and Ruby couldn't escape that fact.
The bullhead began a landing sequence, and it couldn't come sooner. Ruby had relived the pain her uncle's death caused her, and what always came next was the guilt, and if she could get off this god-damned ship before that came then that would be fantastic.
Ruby didn't feel guilty about Qrow's death. She had found it within herself to recognize that she held no blame, even if she desperately wanted for there to have been something she could have done. What Ruby felt guilty for is what she had done in the wake of her uncle's death. How she had attacked Jaune and split a wedge down the middle of all her friends. For that, she would never forgive herself, no matter what amount of reconciliation she had attempted with Jaune. The fact of the matter is that teams RWBY and JNPR were inseparable and invincible, literally winning a battle thought impossible, and then after that Ruby had broken them apart in under five minutes.
The ramp to the bullhead opened up and Ruby shot off the ship as soon as she could squeeze her Semblance through the cracks. She couldn't spend another second thinking about these things, and to her frustration, leaving the ship didn't stop her from thinking about it.
She needed a distraction. The idea for one came to mind immediately – her go-to distraction after a failed hunt for Emerald Sustrai. Ruby paused for a few moments, considering if the short-term distraction was going to be worth the pain it inevitably dredged up when it was over. Her guilt and need for an immediate distraction won over quickly. Hell, she'd even prefer the consequences of what she was about to do over the guilt she was feeling right now. Trading one pain for another may seem like a net-zero game, but if nothing else it tricked her into thinking she would come out ahead.
Instead of going to her place, Ruby swung by and grabbed some take-out for two. It was late, but not too late for dinner and hopefully that would be a good enough excuse for her.
When she got to her destination, she knocked and patiently waited. She knew he'd be home this time of night; he always was. She detected a hint of motion from behind the door as someone peeked through the peephole. In that moment, Ruby realized that she was in desperate need of a shower, had a rugged camping bag over her shoulders, was wearing her Huntress armor still, probably had slightly red eyes from crying on the flight, and wondered how she looked when you combined all that together. She held up the two take-out boxes in the hopes that would make her look slightly better, and grinned sheepishly.
The door opened, and Ruby received a very uncertain, very pensive look.
"Is Oscar home?"
Oscar eyes met Ruby's. The question had a loaded double-meaning that was lost on neither of them, and instead of avoiding the subject, Ruby had come straight out and addressed it. Whether or not the man in front of her was more the Oscar that she loved or the amalgamation of Ozma's countless lives' worth of lived experiences was a different kind of painful problem that tormented Ruby.
"That depends," Oscar responded with a flat expression. Ruby's stomach started to flop, as she couldn't tell which version of Oscar had opened the door. She desperately fucking needed it to be her Oscar right now. "Is that food for him?"
Ruby's eyes narrowed. Sure, Ozpin – or Ozma, she supposed – was known for having a sense of humor, but that hadn't sounded like an Ozma joke. That had sounded like Oscar messing with her. The longer she stared at him, the more Oscar's flat expression cracked and a smile crept onto his face.
A weight lifted off of Ruby's shoulders. She was in luck tonight.
"It is," Ruby responded with a smile, which Oscar fully matched now. "I even brought him dessert, too."
Oscar opened the door immediately and dramatically at the mention of dessert, which earned a small laugh from Ruby. She immediately walked through the door, and felt Oscar's eyes roaming over her figure as he shut the door. Ruby set the food down on the counter and schluffed off her bag and the sling to Crescent Rose.
"I don't see any dessert."
Ruby looked up at Oscar, with her arms on her hips and one leg slight stuck out towards Oscar in the slightest of a seductive manner. "You're looking at it."
Oscar made a show of looking Ruby up and down, before Ruby's half-naughty and half-silly smirk was wiped off her face by his reply.
"Did you drop my dessert in the dirt or something?"
Ruby's mouth dropped open, before she recovered by grabbing Oscar's take-out box and chucking it at his head. "I oughta drop you in the dirt!"
Oscar laughed as he caught the box, and the moment he moved it out of his vision, Ruby shot across the room into a hug. Oscar reflexively squeezed back and picked her off the ground, to which Ruby kicked him in the shin for doing so, as if it was his fault that he did eventually grow up to be taller than her.
"I heard through Glynda you had another lead. Did it not—"
"Let's not," Ruby cut him off quickly. They both knew why she was here, since this wasn't the first time, and Oscar dropped the subject quickly. Ruby buried her face into Oscar, and she didn't miss how he held her slightly tighter.
They both knew what this was, and how it would hurt when it came to an end. Whereas in the beginning they would go months before the side effects of being Ozma's host were too great to ignore, for the last few years they only got hours, days if they were lucky. Ruby could only take so many mornings waking up next to a millennia-old wizard instead of the boy she loved before she had to break it off, yet things between them always seemed to flicker back to life. And so a vicious cycle repeated of good times and bad endings, which they had both agreed was for the best if they broke it.
It never stuck, and here they were. Ruby had no guarantees about anything except that it would hurt when it ended, and she had no idea how long it could last, but for the night at least, she was going to ignore the consequences. Without saying a word, Oscar understood that and was onboard. For tonight, they were just Ruby and Oscar and were picking up where they left off. Nothing else mattered.
"Okay, but seriously, you do need a shower."
Okay, well maybe that mattered. Ruby laughed bitterly, before pushing her way out of the embrace and leaving a love tap on Oscar's chest with her fist on the way out.
"Fine. I'll be quick. Pick out a movie or something while I'm gone," Ruby called out, walking past her pack without stopping for clothes. She still had plenty she had left at Oscar's place over the years, and the fact she'd never bothered to take them home went to show that neither of them really wanted these brief relapses to stop. "And Oscar?"
"Hmmm?" Oscar called out, already pulling up a library to look for something to watch.
Ruby gave him a deadly glare.
"If you eat without me, you're not getting dessert."
Dread gnawed a hole through Emerald's stomach. It was accompanied by an instinctual panic, as in Emerald's instincts were screaming at her that danger was abound. The room threatened to spin and her nerves were an eternity beyond frayed.
She clamped down on it harder and pressed on. Now was not the time to panic, nor would Jaune trade her in.
But really, he should, shouldn't he? Emerald had no leverage over him, and he could turn her over right now with her being none the wiser. He was meeting General Ironwood face to face. Atlas could have an army mobilizing around the warehouse she and Jaune had taken over and she wouldn't know. Ironwood was pragmatic enough that he'd blow the compound up and never bother to ask Jaune how he knew Emerald was inside.
Jaune had the perfect out. He would be stupid not to.
Emerald's instincts screamed all of this at her, and yet she sat there and forced herself to be calm. Jaune had gone so far out of his way for her so far; it wouldn't make sense for him to undo that all now. Right?
Intrusive thoughts pointed out the sunken cost fallacy of that notion, as well as a dozen other reasons it could make sense. It wasn't out of a sense of rationalization that Emerald stayed put, because her rationalizations all said to run. She trusted him. Even if their little friendship was coming to an end, she still trusted him with her life.
It was terrifying.
Emerald forced herself to sit up and hide her misery and skittishness. When Jaune returned, he found her sitting up on the couch, playing some random level of some random video game they had lying around to pass the time. Emerald hated playing video games alone, and only tolerated playing split-screen with Jaune because she could mess with his character and piss him off. But it looked more normal that lying on the couch and staring at the ceiling.
When Jaune did show up – without the sounds of heavy trucks and soldiers surrounding the building, Emerald noted thankfully – it was everything Emerald could do to not stare at him and to only briefly glance at his face before looking back at the screen. She couldn't read much from Jaune's face, but could tell that he had a lot on his mind. He didn't speak a word and went straight for the work desk that they compiled all of their intel on their targets at.
He was looking for a distraction, or needed to get some work done to clear his head. That was probably good news for Emerald; it meant that, whatever had transpired, Jaune hadn't accepted any sort of offer. It did, unfortunately, hint that there was some sort of offer made that he needed to think about, which would all but end the good thing they had going.
Okay. Fine. The good thing she had going. Jaune got some help taking out criminals in Mistral, and in exchange Emerald got to live off-the-radar with Jaune bringing her supplies, entertainment, and keeping her company. You could shorten that thought to "in exchange Emerald go to live" and it would still be accurate.
She ought to just leave him alone and let him sort whatever it is out. Offering her advice would just be a transparent way to convince him not to take whatever opportunity it was, and she was better off not saying anything than being caught persuading him so obviously.
And yet, before she even realized what she was doing, she had turned off the game and was walking up behind Jaune. She placed a hand on Jaune's right shoulder and leaned around his right side to see what he was looking at.
"Got a lead?" Emerald asked, avoiding the elephant in the room.
"Yup," Jaune replied, turning to accommodate Emerald at the table and invite her to stay. He held out a mugshot from a file he had pulled from their single-drawer filing cabinet. "Well, actually, we've had a lead on this guy for a while, but same difference."
Emerald recognized the photo as one she had asked about going after a couple of different times now, with Jaune having shrugged it off each time. A small time forger with one prior arrest who, rumor had it, had been taking on a larger supply of the document forging work. With all the increased attention on crime by Huntsmen who had nothing better to do, a lot of middling to large criminals had been looking to retire and go underground, and this guy had been rumored to have helped a couple of decently big names disappear. The only real curiosity about it was that Jaune wanted to go after him now, when he had shot down the idea in the past for being too small of a criminal to waste their time on.
Watching Jaune explain what they knew about the forger from their files, it made perfect sense why they were going after him now. The guy was a document forger, the geeks of the criminal underworld. He probably spent his day fretting over ink supplies and stolen laminated paper – he posed almost no physical threat to them. A perfect mark to clear one's head and use as a distraction, without worry that not being focused would bite you in the ass. Jaune was throwing himself into the prep work on this guy not because he needed to, but because it was a good distraction.
Emerald really didn't want to precipitate the conversation he was distracting himself from, so she played along.
They loaded up their stuff and headed out shortly after Jaune finished briefing Emerald on their target, not even bothering for the sun to fully set so they could move around in the darkness like normal. This guy lived in an okay-ish side of town that was decently well-kept, but still wasn't a stranger to maybe occasionally a gunshot going off. His residence was in a condo building that was half-occupied and he lived in the penthouse to it; not so nice of a building as to have really good camera surveillance, but just nice enough to have an intercom and a lock on all entrances.
"What's your plan to get inside?" Emerald asked, arms in the pocket of her hoodie casually.
"This." Jaune walked up to the buildings intercom system and began pressing the button for every single condo, except for their target's. "There's always someone expecting someone for something. Normally they just buzz you in."
They waited for ten seconds. Nothing.
"You sure about that?"
"Positive," Jaune responded, with a hint of doubt in his voice as he hit every button a second time. "Food delivery, packages, family, booty calls… There's always something going on."
Another ten seconds passed, with nothing happening again.
"Damn it, not a single person here is getting laid? No one is expecting a late-night rendezvous?"
"Maybe they're all happily married," Emerald teased, getting a huff out of Jaune. "Maybe that's why they're all too busy to open the door."
"Not even one fat ass waiting for a pizza?"
Emerald rolled her eyes and decided she had waited long enough. She walked forward and pushed the door open with no resistance.
Or, at least, that's what Jaune saw.
"They didn't lock it?" He asked, trying not to be slightly embarrassed, as he walked into the lobby.
Emerald's projection vanished from in front of him, and he looked up to find her standing on the stairs grinning at him.
"Fuck you, that's not cool."
Em's grin widened.
"Did they actually leave it unlocked, or…?"
"Your plan worked on the first try," Emerald revealed, grinning harder once she turned around and kept walking up the stairs, out of Jaune's view.
"Really not cool."
Nine flights of stairs later, and they were at the penthouse. Elevators were more likely than not to have either a passcode needed to go to the top floor or to have a camera, so they did it the hard way.
Jaune pressed his ear on the door, listening for activity. After thirty seconds, he hand-motioned to Em that he didn't hear anyone.
In a flash, Jaune rammed his shoulder through the door. The lock burst without putting up much of a fight, and they rushed in, Emerald keeping behind Jaune who himself kept behind his shield. They were greeted by an empty apartment. Or rather, there were no people in the apartment; the place was full of printers, cutters, computers, and the supplies one would expect to find from an industrial-scale forging operation.
"This guy must have been bigger time than we thought," Emerald called out absently as she started riffling through random drawers.
"Nah, this is pretty much what I expected," Jaune called back. He sat down at what appeared to be their forger's command chair and started messing with the guy's computer. It must not have been locked, because Jaune was no tech wiz and yet it blinked to life right away.
"So, uh, how'd the thing with Atlas go?" Emerald asked, using absolutely zero subtlety. She figured that since their target wasn't home, there wasn't anything left to distract Jaune. Best to rip the bandage off now that they couldn't stall any farther. Plus, her nerves couldn't take the uncertainty any longer; even if it was bad news for her, she at least wanted to know so she could start planning her next moves in her head.
"Uh… good," Jaune called back hesitantly, still typing away at the computer rather than turning to face her. "Offered me a job."
"I figured as much," Emerald responded cautiously. "Either that, or they found your browser history."
"I'd be in more trouble if they found yours and thought it was mine," Jaune called back. "At least porn is legal."
"Uh huh, I'll pretend to believe that," Emerald retorted, though she wasn't particularly proud of the comeback. "So… uh, a job, huh?"
Wow, real subtle, Emerald chided herself.
"Sort of. Ironwood and Weiss are going to do some shading politics and 7D chess and whatever else it is they do, and they're going to make me the commander of Argus base." Jaune paused for a moment, typing away at the computer console. "Hey, how tall are you?"
Emerald's mouth opened and closed again, the words she had been going to say dying in her mouth as she was thrown off by the random question. "Five foot eight."
"No you're not," Jaune called back.
"In heels!"
"What about when measured the normal way?"
"…five-five?" Emerald called back, honestly not certain at the moment. Were her heels three inches or two? "Maybe five six?"
"Five feet, six inches it is," Jaune called back, just further serving to confuse Emerald. "The job is real, but it is also a cover. What hair color do you have the most wigs in?"
"Brunette," Emerald called back, agitated that he was burying the lead and deciding quick answers were the fastest way to get him back on topic, rather than fighting him on it. "What do you mean it's a cover? A cover for what?"
"Would you describe your skin tone as mixed or dark?"
Frustrated, Emerald walked up and grabbed Jaune by the arm, pulling on it until he got her attention.
"A cover for what, exactly?!"
"I'll just put dark to be safe," Jaune mumbled to himself. "It's a cover to hide a Relic at Argus."
Emerald was about to smack Jaune for continuing to bury the lead, and then did a double-take as she processed the information.
"Yeah, I know, really," Jaune said, reading the confused look on her face with amusement. "Ironwood and Weiss are trying to hide Atlas' Relic from Oz, at least for a few years. They want me running the base as a really fancy security system for it."
"So what'd you tell him?" Emerald ask, fighting down the urge to shrink away, even though she dreaded the question and dreaded more the answer.
"Oh, I already accepted," Jaune answered glibly, his words driving a dagger into Emerald's stomach. All of the panic she had fought down earlier returned, and Em did her best to hide it. "I've got about a month before we start anything to get any affairs in order."
Emerald's mind began racing to all of the many, many things she needed to get done now. Going out on her own again shouldn't be as hard as it was previously, since some of the heat had died down now, but then again she sucked at it the first time and Jaune had found her. She tried wracking her brain on where to go. As dumb as going to Vale sounded, there was something to be said for hiding where no one would expect you to go; however, they didn't expect her to go there because she would be dumb to hide in the shadow of Beacon Academy. Vacuo was the obvious choice, but it was so obvious that it was where everyone else would look for her at, and they probably already had an informant system ready there. Mistral was—
Emerald was interrupted from her thoughts by the sound of machines whirring and documents being printed, snapping her back to focus.
"So, we've got a month to get you a permanent hide-out," Jaune finished his thought, with Emerald not following. He grabbed the documents off the printer and handed it to her. "Or at least a rock-solid new identity. What do you think?"
Confused, Emerald looked down at what looked like a passport – no, it definitely was a passport, and it was hers. Fake name, a photoshopped picture of her in a brown wig, but undeniably hers.
"I think it looks like me…?" Emerald stated slowly, her thoughts just not working at all now. "Wait, did we come here just to print me a passport?"
"Well, I mean, we'll get you a full set of documents that would fool even Atlas' systems, not just a passport, but yeah," Jaune replied, returning his focus to the computer to start printing out other things. "We've got a month, and I have a few more leads, but nothing as solid as this. That's still plenty of time to commandeer some lien from some low-level criminal operations and take over someone's safehouse."
Jaune's words were overwhelming and she was struggling to process what was even going on. She had been on the verge of hysteria only a few moments ago and hadn't fully recovered from it yet, but it seemed like he was creating a new identity for her. He wasn't throwing her out now that he had better things to do.
"You're—you've been saving this lead…?"
"Yeah, I didn't know when you'd want to move on from the warehouse, but it never hurts to keep a document forger handy, you know what I mean?"
Emerald let out a few small laughs. Not that it was funny, but if she didn't, she might explode from the swarm of emotions and thoughts in her head. Jaune didn't seem to notice and just thought that what he said was funny. She was supposed to be the criminal here, after all.
"I just figured that with the new thing in Argus, you wouldn't want to try to live in my office on base or anything," Jaune joked sheepishly, standing to grab the last of the documents off the printer. "This is the next best way I can help."
He never made it to the printer. Emerald crashed into him and hugged him for all she was worth, burying her face in his chest. Jaune didn't need to see her face to know she was crying; he could feel her chest heaving slightly once her returned the hug.
"I-I mean, you don't have to move on," Jaune backtracked, not understanding what was happening or why Emerald was crying. She couldn't blame him, it was more emotion than she was used to showing by far, but it wasn't something she could control at the moment. It was a release of tension and fear that had been building for far longer than even Em had realized.
He wasn't abandoning her. He was still protecting her. She was safe.
"I… I guess I could try getting housing off-base," Jaune mumbled, doing his best to fix a problem when he didn't even know what it was. "Yeah, that could work. Soldiers get off-base housing regularly; I'm sure the base commander could pull rank."
Despite the state she was in, Emerald let out a laugh. She could already tell Jaune was getting used to the idea of being in charge and having extra perks. She buried her face even further into Jaune's chest, turning her head ever so slightly to the side so her words could be made out.
"Jaune?"
"Yeah?"
She wanted to be sassy or nonchalant, and tell him to shut up and just to hold her.
"T-Thank you."
Yang had been mostly silent for most of the bullhead flight from Atlas, had been mostly silent when riding to Nora and Ren's house, and had been mostly silent when they showed up. Weiss had done most of the talking for the both of them throughout all of that, and Yang didn't mind in the slightest. The others most certainly would have noticed it too, but they all would make the same assumption about why that is, and Yang was more than fine to let them think that for now so she wouldn't have to do any of the talking. She felt… conflicted about the whole thing, to put it mildly. Yang definitely wouldn't stop Weiss from going through with it, and she was even lending her presence since Weiss thought that would help, but Yang wouldn't be able to bring herself to do it.
"Why does it take major group drama and a crisis session for everyone to get together like this?" Nora exclaimed, not hiding her frustration in the slightest. "Is it because we had to get a sitter? Do you guys think we can't afford to do that more often or something?"
Despite her mood, Yang was able to appreciate Nora's deprecating humor and rolled her eyes at the melodrama. She had a suspicion that they were all sat outside in Nora's – okay, be honest, Ren's – garden not because it was a pretty day, but because inside the house was a tad messy and covered in toys.
"Oh, you have no idea…" Yang mumbled just loud enough to be heard.
"I think we all know why we're here," Sun chimed in from his seat next to Blake, both of whom Weiss had flown in for this meeting, which had been the indicator that this really was an all-hands-on-deck crisis meeting.
Sun's tone felt slightly aggressive towards Yang. Part of her appreciated that Sun would be upset at her on Jaune's behalf, but it didn't do anything to help Yang out of the timidity she had been in ever since… meeting the family.
"Sun." Blake chimed in, the tone in her voice warning Sun to back down and also making it clear that this wasn't the first time she and Sun had had differing opinions on the subject. "It's not her fault."
"I mean, it is," Ren chimed in, very matter-of-fact. "It is not solely her fault, however. Everyone at this table put Jaune in a situation with Yang, Yang didn't want to take no for an answer, and Weiss—" Ren's eyes cut to the woman in question and his tone took on an edge that it hadn't when talking about the others, "—should have prevented all of this when she had the chance."
"Hey, I only deflected towards Jaune when you guys tried to start setting me up on blind dates," Weiss defended herself, apparently not yet willing to reveal the real reason she wasn't to blame for this. "If you guys weren't trying to play matchmaker, none of this would have happened."
"You still shouldn't have used Jaune as your shield for this," Sun jumped in. "What, did you just forget that he was secretly married until after it was too late?"
Weiss sat up a little taller and more stiffly, brooding slightly. Ire over the news she had, she was prepared for, but apparently Weiss wasn't prepared to be chided over this.
"Can we get back to the point?" Blake asked, irritated at Sun. "Yang fucked Jaune. Bickering isn't going to change that. Honestly, I'm not sure what we can do to help other than take the secret to our graves, but Weiss invited us here so clearly she has a plan."
There was a pause as Blake looked to Weiss, almost desperately.
"You do have a plan, right?"
"So." Weiss brought her hands together and rested them on the table, very clearly about to have to gently break news to the group. "I have good news and bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"
Sun and Nora audibly groaned at the mention of even more news from Weiss, but it was Ren to answer first. "Let's get the bad news out of the way."
Weiss opened her mouth to speak, found that any words died in her mouth, and closed it again as she reformulated her thoughts. Yang couldn't help but choke back a laugh at Weiss' expense, which earned her several odd looks from across the table.
"Actually, you're getting the good news first, because I'm not sure how to make it make sense if I do the bad news first. Yang and Jaune never had sex."
Across the table, signs of relief in various degrees from the various parties, though that was quickly followed by looks of confusion and suspicion. Yang had never outright told any of them that sex had happened, and in fact had been very coy about it and frequently told Blake and Sun that it hadn't, but from Yang's reaction the other day they had all heavily inferred it.
"What, like they didn't technically have sex, or…?" Nora asked, her relief dying away quickly to suspicion. "Are we talking about like the whole 'it isn't a sin if its in the other hole' thing, or just that they didn't round all the bases? 'Cause it's still bad if Jaune is going around fingerbanging random sluts while he's married."
There was an awkward beat of silence at the table.
"…no offense, Yang."
"You know, I think I actually am offended by that."
"It's nothing like that!" Weiss interjected, getting everyone back on topic and shooting Nora a glare for the distraction. "Honestly, it's… even weirder than that. Yang thought she had sex with Jaune, but in reality they never touched each other."
"One of those remotely paired dildo/fleshlight combo toys? I mean, they're okay, but they're not as good as the real thing."
Weiss gave Ren the most exasperated help me look, begging for literally any assistance keeping Nora either on task or shut up. Ren's look reminded Weiss that there had yet to be born a person capable of containing the hurricane of inappropriate commentary of all kinds that was Nora.
Yang caught Weiss' eye next, silently asking her what her plan was. This wasn't exactly a smooth start to the conversation, and they hadn't dropped the bombshell yet.
"Gods, this is not easy to explain gently," Weiss groaned, leaning her head into her hand momentarily, before pulling out her scroll. "You know what, I'm going to send you all a photo of Jaune and his wife that should explain this whole thing."
"A photo to explain…?" Nora repeated, confused as to how a photo would explain how Yang thought something happened when it didn't. "What, are they like swingers or are they – what the fuck—?!"
"Is that—?"
"No one knows where she—!?"
Three voices stumbled over their words in their profound shock; Blake just sat there, slack jawed, staring at the photo of Jaune and Emerald.
Yang had to admit that being on this end of the reveal was a lot more fun, and idly wondered what she had looked like to Jaune and Emerald when Em walked outside. One thing was for certain, Yang had absolutely no intention of helping Weiss out in this conversation in the slightest.
"You're fucking with us," Nora announced, leaning back in her chair and forcing herself to laugh. "There's no way that picture isn't photoshopped, right? There's no… way…" Nora trailed off as the look on Weiss' face made it clear this was no prank.
As the realization sank in for the group, the table went silent, save for the light ambient noise of the wind occasionally blowing through the garden. Stunned faces sat back trying to process the bombshell Weiss had just dropped on them. Yang held her breath for the shitstorm that was about to kick off.
It was Blake who first broke the silence.
"How long has this been a thing?" she asked, with a dangerous tone to her voice.
"I don't know when they would say it happened," Weiss answered diplomatically, but not in the kind of way where she was avoiding the question. Her voice was soft, but open and honest, trying to diffuse the situation. "But they approached me about it years ago, not long after Jaune was appointed to Argus."
All four of them began calculating just how long ago that was in their head, as was obvious on their faces by the looks they gave.
"That wasn't very long after the teams split up," Blake responded, her eyes narrowing at Weiss. "Maybe a year or two. This has been going on for almost a decade and you've known about it the whole time?"
Weiss flinched slightly, only noticeable if you had been watching her closely, like Blake and Yang were. "I have, yes."
Yang was preparing for the obvious next line of questioning, which would be grilling Weiss over how she could keep this secret and why not share it with them sooner. Weiss was clearly also bracing for this and Blake looked to be about to ask it, but she paused. The tension in the air was unmistakable.
Blake looked into Weiss eyes' intensely. Weiss returned the eye contact. Something unspoken was said between them, built upon years of trust and hard conversations that were the foundation to their relationship. One a Faunus radical terrorist, the other the heir to the Schnee Dust Corporation. There had been no shortage of conflict and tears between the two over the years, and with that came an incredible amount of mutual trust they had fought to build.
Blake shifted her gaze to Yang, who met it in return. Yang wasn't as convinced as Weiss that what they were doing was a good idea, nor was Yang convinced that keeping it a secret this long was the best strategy, but that wasn't what Blake was silently asking. She was looking to see if Yang supported Weiss right now, and reluctantly, Yang did.
Blake leaned back in her chair and did her best to release the tension in her body she had built up. She had been leaning so far forward that she was barely even still sitting, and now she sunk back into her seat. It seemed likely that she would have trusted Weiss enough on her own, but Yang's added support made it impossible to ignore. Blake forced herself to physically release the tension in her muscles that had built up, and then allow herself to recenter and calm down.
Sun, Ren, and Nora all watched the exchange closely, taking their queues from Blake's reaction. When Blake sat back down and reset her thought process, it made them all consider doing the same. As much of a shock to their systems as it was, at the end of the day, they were forced to consider that if Weiss was as involved in it as she was, then there must have been a reason good enough for Weiss to do it.
Though not an easy idea to come to terms with, the tension in the air had dissipated.
"How did this happen?" Blake asked quietly, clearly still desperate for answers even if she did trust Weiss enough that they would be good ones.
"When Jaune split off to go after Emerald alone, he didn't actually fail," Weiss responded softly, very clearly aware that it was her trust with Blake she was trading on and careful not to disrespect that. "He caught her, but chose to let her go."
"Why would he do that?" Nora jumped in. "That's what Ruby screamed at him for! It split the teams up because he couldn't catch her! That's what we've all thought for years!"
"I… don't know if I'm the one who can answer that," Weiss responded honestly. "Jaune made a different call; he decided Emerald deserved a chance to start over. I didn't know that yet, so when I traced her location again after that, I gave Jaune the first chance at her, hoping it would fix things."
"And since he already let her go the first time?" Sun asked.
"I guess he realized she needed more help than just being let go once," Weiss replied, making it clear it was her own speculation. "For me, I chalked it up to his hero complex. He just needed to save her."
"Dumbass," Nora chided in Jaune's nondescript direction, shaking her head. "Don't get me wrong, I love the guy. It's part of what makes him a great person. But still, dumbass!"
Yang had to turn her head and cough into her arm to hide a small smile. No one else seemed to disagree.
"What else aren't you telling us?" Ren asked pointedly of Weiss. She began to act as if she did not know what he was talking about, but Ren was not falling for it. "That would explain why they kept it hidden, but you're not them. There's something else, isn't there?"
Weiss looked panicked and flicked her eyes over to Yang's. She was apparently trying to keep the last part of the secret hidden for as long as possible, to avoid using children to guilt the group into being okay with everything. Why Weiss now had a problem with using Jaune's kids as pawns when she had literally sent Yang to meet them to manipulate her into helping out, Yang didn't know.
That gave Yang an idea. The tiniest bit of payback to Weiss in a way that wasn't dangerous at all. Just a bit of frustration given back to Weiss by upending her plan.
Yang pulled out her own scroll and found a video Jaune had let her keep, after numerous promises sworn on pain of death and on the honor of Summer's grave that Yang would never let Ruby find it. It was from one of the interior cameras in Jaune's house, and it was a video clip of Yang playfighting with all the kids.
She slid the scroll onto the table to let the gathered group watch, cutting her eyes towards Weiss to see the look on her face. Weiss gave Yang the flat, frustrated look Yang was hoping for.
And then, when Yang turned away to watch the video herself, Weiss allowed herself a small, almost imperceptible smile to a plan well executed.
"So, what did you think?" Oscar asked, trying not to get his hopes too high, but still anxious for feedback.
"It… I, uh—" Ruby started and stopped, crinkling her nose and squinting her eyes in a way that did not seem to be high praise. "It was certainly better than last time?"
"Come on, I'm not that bad at this!" Oscar pleaded. "I still don't know how you disliked it that much last time."
"The whole joke was that he turned himself into a cucumber," Ruby shot back, giving him a flat look. "Look, I'm not going to tell you what shows you have to like if you don't tell me what shows I have to like. But you have terrible taste in media."
"…it was actually a pickle," Oscar mumbled quietly.
"So far, your taste in shows is the only way you've disappointed me tonight," Ruby shifted, giving Oscar a coy look. She had forgone clothes and instead worn a bath robe after her shower, which didn't surprise Oscar in the slightest because it was a bulky robe with a hood – there was no way she would not gravitate towards it. The coy look she gave Oscar was a direct callback to why that robe had been on the floor since long before the started watching Oscar's show. "I'd still say that's pretty good."
Oscar, being a guy and never missing an opportunity, perked up.
"Good enough for second dessert?"
Ruby let out a small laugh, which did not bode well for Oscar's chances, he assumed.
"What, dessert on top of dessert? Gods, that sounds like my diet all the way through… well, I guess it still sounds like my diet."
Despite his singular focus on getting laid again, Oscar chuckled, before catching himself and refocusing on his task. He figured that she hadn't fully shut it down yet, and it was time to break out The Look.
"Stop giving me that stupid look!" Ruby yelled at him, laughing while feeling around for a pillow to smack Oscar upside the head with. "I don't know why you think that's attractive in any way!"
"It works!"
"It's creepy!"
"But it works!"
"It works—" Ruby shot back with a grin, "—because I will do anything to get you to stop making that face!"
"…I'm not above blackmail."
WHACK! The first blow in what was almost certain to be a pillow war was struck, and with enough force to physically knock Oscar onto his back on the bed.
Ruby wasted no time, and in the blink of an eye and a whir of rose petals, she was on top of him. This was 95% of the scenario Oscar had in mind when this whole thing had started. There was only the tiny detail of the fact that she wasn't exactly sitting on his lap so much as she was straddling his face. Again, 95% of the way there, but the pillow she was sitting on top of – the one she was smothering him with – was just slightly in the way.
Oscar yelled out muffled words of surrender, and after a few moments Ruby figured that he was probably giving up and relented.
"So close…" Oscar let out breathily to himself.
"What was that?" Ruby asked pointedly.
"What was what?" Oscar asked in return, playing dumb and fooling nobody, if the flat look he got from Ruby was any indication.
After a few moments of silence as the adrenaline of a preempted pillow battle wore off, Oscar broke the silence again.
"So is that a no to doing anything, or…?"
Ruby let out a frustrated huff and toss herself back on the bed dramatically. "You couldn't have asked before making me watch that stupid show? I have to get up for work in like six hours!"
Oscar swore at himself internally. "Don't you have any vacation days?"
Ruby gave him a sideways look that asked if he was really asking her to burn a vacation day just to stay up later with him, which he returned with a sheepish but unapologetic look of his own. It wouldn't be the first time, after all. "No, I have them all booked out for spending breaks out with dad and then a girls trip with Yang and some stupid function Weiss wants me to go to, and I've already used some this week."
Oscar knew much better than to go any deeper into why Ruby had taken time off this week, as bringing that up would kill any chances of getting laid, not to mention the minor factor of it being mean to bring it up to Ruby.
"Sick days? Unpaid leave?"
"I'm not calling in sick for that," Ruby chastised with a laugh.
"Why not? You could just say that you had a tickle in your throat," Oscar suggested cheekily. "Close enough to the truth, right?"
Ruby's hand reached out and grabbed a pillow again, not yet moving to strike with it but looking up at Oscar with a threatening glare.
"Point taken."
With another aggressive huff, Ruby laid back down on the bed. "I reaaaaaally don't want to go to work tomorrow," she groaned dramatically.
"I… could arrange that."
Ruby looked up at Oscar, raising an eyebrow at him with curiosity.
"Oh?"
Oscar reached over to grab his scroll off the bedside table, pulling it up into a projector mode to use it more like a computer.
"What would you say if you had one more vacation day added to your employee account?" Oscar asked, letting a small but mischievous grin grow onto his face. "Maybe, say, one more vacation day was accidentally gifted to you and added to the days you just took?"
"I would say I would get to sleep in tomorrow," Ruby answered, cutting her eyes at Oscar at the last second. "And I guess I wouldn't feel so bad for staying up a little later tonight."
That was all Oscar needed to hear. He began pulling up a remote connection to Beacon's digital infrastructure. Ruby watched over his shoulder carefully as he bypassed the normal employee log-in screen to a backdoor structure to the entire system.
"Whoa, how did you do that?"
"Ozpin built this entire thing from scratch," Oscar answered, pulling up a new log-in window to log in with full master access to everything digital at Beacon. "Just because Glynda is headmistress doesn't mean she has total control over Beacon. I am able to do just about anything to any device on Beacon's IT system, and no one that isn't me would be able to know I did anything."
"Really?"
"Really," Oscar answered. "Ozpin was a paranoid and controlling despot when it came to running Beacon. Which means, among other things, I can modify your employee file to have one more day of vacation this year."
With a simple keystroke, the change was made.
"What about Glynda knowing I never asked for tomorrow off?"
"Let me guess, she asked you to send her an email about it?"
"Yeah," Ruby replied. "She's meticulous about employees putting things into writing."
"That's a pretty good quality, as far as being an administrator goes. Helps when people want to sue you," Oscar commented absentmindedly while pulling up the email exchange for Beacon's system. Ruby watched closely as he went into the message that she had sent to her boss, and retroactively changed the text to say that her leave ended the next day. With a quick double-check to ensure any metadata wasn't altered, Oscar saved the alteration. "However, when your system was built to have backdoor access you aren't aware of, it's not as helpful."
"Now you're just gloating."
"Yup," Oscar confirmed. He then went into the email Glynda had sent back to Ruby, confirming her leave, and edited Glynda's own email to reflect the change in days off. Gaslighting was but a small burden to bear when the reward was so great.
"You don't think Glynda won't remember giving me the right days off?"
"Oh, I'm sure she will," Oscar responded calmly. "When you don't show up, the first thing she'll do is check what dates you emailed her for. She might think she's going crazy, but it will say right in front of her that it goes through tomorrow."
"Hmmm…" Ruby stared at the screen, lost in thought. "What about her daily planner? What if she checks that first instead of her email?"
With a smirk and a few more keystrokes, Oscar had Glynda's private calendar pulled up in front of them. Sure enough, there was a calendar event reminding Glynda that Ruby was off for her requested period, along with an impressive array of organized and tracked schedule notifications. With a simple click, even that was 'fixed.'
"You have her private account?" Ruby asked, equally impressed and concerned.
"The headmistress' office is connected to the server system that I built," Oscar responded smugly. He recognized that he misspoke immediately – Oz had built it – but they both independently decided to ignore it. Pointing it out would only call attention to the tenuous relationship between Oscar and Ozma, which was the primary factor that drove Oscar and Ruby apart, after all. "I'm more than happy for her to run Beacon day-to-day, but I have more access than she realizes. I don't use it very often, but I have it. Look, I'll show you."
Ruby, for all she started to be concerned, was more than happy to lean forward and watch intently as Oscar dug into the 'hidden' server that 'only' the headmistress' office could access.
"Most of these secret files are things left over from Ozpin, like personnel files for Maiden candidates and intel on Salem's moves, but there are a few new directories." Oscar changed the settings to view directories by their most recent date of activity, which brought up folders obviously written by Glynda. "Our new headmistress is a lot more organized than her predecessor, not that we are surprised by this."
Oscar clicked on the most recently used subdirectory, which was labeled "International Relations." Ruby and Oscar shared a look with each other, each silently asking if the other knew about anything happening recently that would warrant Glynda making a secret file under that heading.
"Council Proposals?" Ruby asked, reading off the name of the sub-directory within International Relations used most recently.
"I assume that is for proposals for the ambassadors of all the nations," Oscar answered to his best knowledge. "Beacon doesn't necessarily get involved with politics so much as it does with international defense and Huntsmen matters, and those things do sometimes stray into political waters…"
"Like how Mountain Glenn was covered up," Ruby finished for him, slightly annoyed to have it explained to her. "Yeah, got it. Ozpin was busy back in his time. It makes sense Glynda is too."
Oscar opened the Council Proposals folder to find numerous different types of documents. Meeting notes, official documents, government forms, email communications, confidentiality agreements, a draft to an amnesty agreement – a whole mess of evidence that whatever Glynda's project was, she had made significant progress in it.
"What does all this mean?" Ruby asked curiously. She didn't sound concerned, as if she was worried Glynda was plotting to take over the world. She was just nosy, and Oscar indulged her because he was too.
"She's reached out to representatives of all major nations at pretty high levels, plus Menagerie. The most likely reason for that is an embargo that's being considered."
That answer didn't sit quite right with Oscar yet. He could tell something else was going on here, but it was his experiences shared with Ozma that made him think that, so he tried to ignore it as much as possible.
"So someone wants something kept quiet?" Ruby asked in summary.
"Based on the number of communications with the SDC, I would say a Schnee wants something kept quiet," Oscar answered, "and that Glynda is the point person for getting it done."
"Ooh, Weiss is up to something?" Ruby asked, almost giddily. "Well, now I have to know!"
With a roll of his eyes, Oscar opened up whatever file he thought would be most promising.
"It does look like Beacon has been asking for a new embargo – among other things – but I don't see what exactly it is trying to hide," Oscar stated idly as he focused on skimming the document. Ruby read over his shoulder equally as intently, her hand resting on his shoulder. "What sort of embargo doesn't list the actual embargo? Oh wait, here it… is…"
Nails dug into Oscar's shoulder so painfully his Aura kicked in. Three words were tucked into the middle of the document like a buried lede.
Emerald Sustrai/Arc.
For a story about Jaune and Emerald's marriage being secret, there are a lot of people learning about it in one single chapter.
And here we get to see both sides of Weiss' ability to scheme in the same chapter. She's doing better at manipulating Yang than even Yang realizes and has now told everyone on the teams about Jaune and Emerald. However, she doesn't yet realized that she has told everyone on the teams, and I guess she has only indirectly told Ruby via Glynda. But still, we'll count it.
I had a decent case of writer's block for a while - and by that, I mean thinking about bringing the disparate threads of the story together into a crescendo has given me apprehension that has slowed by writing pace dating back multiple chapters now. I don't have a definite ending in mind yet. My writing style in the past has been very... indifferent to my own outlines, and as a write I just see threads and possibilities and outcomes that are a lot more exciting than what I thought of while outlining things. Much of this story was outlined ahead of time - the pairing, the backstory, the conflict - but the final shape to it eludes me.
But we draw ever nearer. I see many possibilities for how it all plays out. That's a double-edged sword, because it both means I haven't written an impossible scenario to resolve but also can be paralyzed by too many choices.
I'm considering dragging an old friend of mine into an editor role for the last few chapters. Not really because I think I need an editor, but it will give me someone to bounce ideas off of and also someone to keep me accountable. Maybe he can stop me from taking over a year between uploads...
It's been so long since I uploaded that I got married and almost hit my 1-year anniversary since uploading last. So that's a thing that happened too :D