Rolling over on to her back, Yang blew out a heavy breath of exasperation. She'd gone at least three days without any nightmares, and had been hoping to continue her hot streak, but no, she thought, glancing over at her clock, and the glowing red 3:48AM staring back at her, it just had to go wrong.

Just like everything else she did lately, it seemed.

Well, almost everything.

On that note, she shifted, turning her head to the side as one arm reached out and patted at the empty sheets on the other side of the bed. Seemed like Jaune hadn't been able to stay asleep either tonight.

But as she thought for a moment, Yang realised the sheets weren't even the slightest bit warm. It was as if he'd not been there at all. Had he even tried to sleep? Or had he just waited for her to conk out before slipping off to wherever?

It was hard to tell. Her budding connection with Jaune was about the only wholly good thing Yang had to rely on of late, and that was a daunting thought considering just how messed up the both of them were, especially Jaune. She didn't know what was going through his head half the time, but he'd taken Pyrrha's death a lot harder than Yang herself had taken the loss of her arm.

Yea, she'd laid around at home all depressed for a long time before even trying to get back out there, while he'd been on board with Ruby to go to Haven right away, but Yang could tell, he wasn't handling it any better than her. She'd at least given herself the time to come to terms with her arm being gone, and what that would mean going forwards. Jaune seemed like he was just ignoring it all as best as he could, and eventually, it was going to come crashing down around him.

Well, she decided, sighing and rolling to a sitting position, best go find him. The least she could do for the dummy was drag him back to bed, otherwise he'd sit up all night on his own, brooding. Or worse, eating. Seriously, she never expected to find someone who was a worse stress eater than Ruby, but here he was.

Stupid Arc always doing things that she wasn't expecting.

Getting to her feet, Yang pulled her blanket off the bed as she shuffled across the room, letting the tail of it drag along the floor behind her. She wrapped herself up in it as she opened the door, shivering at the sudden rush of cool air on her skin, a stark reminder of how chilly it got in the mountains of Mistral at night.

She went to the main room first, just in case he'd moved there and fallen asleep on the couch for whatever reason. After that she checked the kitchen, but did not find him stuffing his face with ramen. That crossed out stress eating.

She was about to go check the study, to see if maybe he was reading, when she heard faint noise coming from the stairwell to the training gym. Her eyes rolled involuntarily before she frowned, turning and heading to the stairs, descending them as quietly as she could.

When she reached the bottom, she found her quarry. In the middle of the room, going through motions with his sword wearing nothing but his blue bunny rabbit pajama pants, was the one and only Jaune Arc.

A glance behind her let her know why the house was as cold as it was, since her fellow blond had the sliding doors to the cliff wide open.

Yang then realized she could hear something other than the whoosh of his sword strokes and his own grunts and pants, and her attention turned to his scroll.

Her brow furrowed sadly at the familiar voice coming through the speakers, and she knew immediately what he was listening to. Ruby had mentioned how she'd seen him doing this while they were on the road. She hadn't really thought about it enough to realize how terrible it would feel seeing it now, and as she caught a glimpse of Jaune's face, and the shining of a tear trail running down one of his cheeks, she decided enough was enough.

"What're you doing, doofus?" she asked softly, just loud enough for it to reach Jaune's ears.

He froze, turning on the spot until he was facing her with wide eyes, "Yang?" he asked, voice strained.

She pressed on, "Training in the middle of the night, huh?" she said, "Am I not pushing you hard enough when we work out together during the day, Jaune?" Best not to be direct about the video, or Pyrrha. She didn't want him to clam up on her.

Jaune, for his part, seemed blindsided by the path the conversation had turned. She'd obviously caught him off guard here, as intended.

"Uh, what?"

"Guess we're going to have to ramp up the intensity then, it's no good if I haven't exhausted you enough that you actually need to sleep at night. Besides, you're not getting enough out of this anyways, just swinging your sword around." She added, "Maybe we can get some of the others to spar with you, give you some real challenges if I haven't been up to task. Guess I'll need all the extra hands I can get to keep you in line."

Despite himself, she got Jaune to snort at the jest. He even began to crack a grin, before hiding it away and glancing over at his scroll, and the file still playing on it.

She took the opportunity to walk over, stopping right in front of him and looking him right in the eye when his attention came back to her.

"I know that it's hard Jaune, but this is just torturing yourself for nothing." She whispered, eyes pleading, "You know it, too. What's the point of staying awake to avoid the nightmares when you're subjecting yourself to worse when you're awake?"

"I-" he swallowed, voice thick, "It's all I've got of her, Yang."

She reached up to brush a thumb across his face, wiping away a stray tear, "Nope," she countered, offering him a somber smile, and poking him in the chest, where his heart was, "You have plenty of her right there, and nobody can take that away from you no matter what they do."

Jaune looked down at her silently, as if he had no idea what he could say to her in response to that.

Her gaze happened upon his chest, where she'd poked him, only to realize he was absolutely covered in goose bumps, rippling across his skin.

She almost slapped herself in the head. Of course, the idiot was probably freezing, he'd been out here for who knows how long in nothing but a shirt.

Yang quickly unwrapped herself from the blanket and slung it up around Jaune's shoulders, making him jump at the contact. "There, before you freeze yourself to death." She decided on teasing.

Now Jaune was the one looking down at her with concern, and her grin widened, how sweet.

"But you'll get cold." He protested, making to pull the blanket back off of himself. She reached out to grab the edges and tug them back around him, holding them there. "You need it more, Jaune." She said honestly, despite the chill on her own bare limbs now.

"Unless you're planning on sharing, of course." She prodded with a sideway smile, tilting her head innocently at him.

At long last, Jaune grinned back, and opened up his arms quickly before engulfing her in the blanket, dragging her against him in a big hug.

Yang let out a muffled 'oof' as she was pulled face first against him.

"There," she heard him say, his voice a bit less heavy than before, "Now we can both stay warm."

"Well maybe if your skin wasn't freezing cold, that'd be true." She grumbled, peeling her cheek away from his chest to send him a heatless glare.

"Hey," he protested with mock innocence, "You're the one who suggested I share. I'm just following your instructions."

Much to her agitation, Jaune was right. She hadn't thought about how cold he'd be to hug before running her mouth.

Then again, the little shit thought he had the upper hand on her, and she still had some payback to deliver for his stupid tricks to beat her in sparring. Even if he'd spared her hair, her pride demanded some retribution, even if nobody else would be awake to see it.

So, gathering her strength, Yang squatted down, eliciting a startled squeak from Jaune as his tired mind misinterpreted the motion entirely.

The squeak returned for an encore only seconds later as Yang wrapped her arms around his thighs and hauled him off his feet on to her shoulder like a giant sack.

She smirked, tugging the blanket up and out of the way so that she could see where she was going. Jaune, despite his protesting, helped by pulling it up around himself and away from Yang's face. If only because he didn't want the person carrying him to trip on the stairs and send them both crashing to the floor.

She walked over to the sliding door first, closing and locking it for the night. Then, she retrieved Jaune's scroll, stopping the recording that was still playing and slipping it into the waistband of her shorts, frowning at her lack of pockets.

Not that she normally needed pockets while sleeping, so she wasn't sure this could be called a design flaw.

Then, having gathered everything she came for, she headed up the staircase, bouncing Jaune on her shoulder with each step.

Y'know, just to make sure he didn't fall asleep before she got his sorry butt to bed.

Jaune was quiet as she walked them through the main room and down the hallway to their rooms. As they neared her door, she spoke up.

"Lien for your thoughts?"

She could hear the amusement in his tone when he replied, "Your butt shakes a lot when you walk."

Her cheeks coloured only the faintest bit, before she smirked and turned through her open doorway, 'accidentally' banging Jaune's head against the frame for his quip.

"Ow!" he hissed, trying to keep quiet, "What was that for?"

Her smirk widened, "Sorry, I thought I felt something in your pockets poke my shoulder, caught me off guard."

"I – Wha-" she swung the door to her room closed and then stomped over to her bed, dumping Jaune onto the mattress with a purposeful lack of grace.

He shook his head once the bed stopped shaking from the impact, looking up at her with red cheeks. Apparently he still couldn't take teasing as well as he was starting to dish it out.

"Scoot, you're on my side of the bed."

He gaped up at her, "You're the one who p-" she arched an eyebrow, cutting him off. He wisely pushed himself to the far side of the bed, letting her flop down beside him. Without hesitation she reached out to pull on the blanket, "And stop hogging, it's cold you know."

"Yo – Hey! I was the one in the cold, not you!" he claimed, tugging the blanket back in his own direction with a frown. She held on tight, not letting him take the blanket away from her completely. "Then maybe you shouldn't have been up so late when you were supposed to be sleeping." She scolded, staring back at him seriously.

He sighed, closing his eyes in resignation, "Yang…" he pleaded, and she could hear the unspoken pleading to leave it be.

Yang knew she'd done enough to make her point, so she did just that. "How about we just share it, like we were doing before?"

A tiny smile flitted across Jaune's face, "Just like before?" he asked quietly.

"Yep."

"Alrighty, Yang." He said, before reaching an arm out and pulling her across the bed to rest against him, letting her get another face full of his cold torso.

Yang huffed, "Should have seen that coming."

"Probably." Now it was Jaune's turn to smirk down at her.

It was quiet for a few minutes, Jaune had wrapped his arms loosely around her as they settled in, but neither could manage to get to sleep yet, something in their head's keeping them awake together.

Hesitantly, Yang reached up and pushed gently on Jaune's shoulder, rolling him onto his back, pulling herself up to lie on top of him. He froze as she came face to face with him, her eyes were a darker shade of lilac than normal, almost purple, but the moonlight from the window reflected off of them as she stared at him in silence. His own eyes were wide, like a deer in the headlights.

"Uh," he managed to get out, eyebrows raised at their new position.

Yang's stare bored into him, before she broke eye contact, her gaze darting to the side, unsure.

She took a deep breath, "Can I, " she began, "Just, I wanna try something, to see if I'm going crazy or not, but I don't want you to freak out."

"I freak out over everything, Yang. You'll have to be less picky."

A faint smile crossed her features, "Might be a little worse this time." She said, her eyes tracing across his face before resting on his. Grabbing hold of whatever confidence she had left, Yang leaned in.

Despite how obvious it should have been, Jaune, predictably, had not expected Yang to kiss him. His eyes opened even wider than before, staring up at her in shock. Yang herself had her eyes squeezed shut, lips barely even brushing against Jaune's for fear of his reaction.

After only a second or so, she pulled away, just a bare amount, eyes still shut tight and biting her lip, waiting for the panic, or the rejection, or anger. Maybe all three.

Yang was given none of those.

"Oh." She heard, barely audible the way he breathed the word out, his exhale brushing her cheek.

Without opening her eyes, Yang took that far less adverse reaction as assent and leaned in again, this time with less hesitation. She captured his lips, hands slipping up from beneath the blankets to trace fingers along his jaw, forgetting for a moment that one of those hands was cool and metallic as she indulged in one of the few people left that she trusted entirely.

Jaune, after only a split second's hesitation as she kissed him again, reciprocated, arms tightening around her waist beneath the blanket, hands coming to rest on the warm skin of her back.

Yang's left hand went around to the nape of Jaune's neck as they finally separated, her right hand retreating now that she'd remembered herself.

It didn't get far, however, before Jaune caught it, one of his hands leaving her back to twine his fingers with hers. Reminding her of how little he cared what her hand was made of.

He was surprised though, that when the silence was broken, it came in the form of a choked breath.

Opening his eyes to look up at Yang, he was just in time to watch her heave out a shaky sigh as she opened her own eyes, which shined even brighter than before in the faint moonlight.

"Please don't leave me on my own like that again." She whispered against his cheek, fingers gripping tightly to the hair on his neck as she shook against him.

It was a stark reminder for Jaune, so caught up in all his own problems that he'd almost forgotten the fact that this thing between them had started because both of them needed the other's support. Yang was so good at picking herself up and putting on a smile that he'd fooled himself into forgetting that she had her own problems, even if she was brave enough to put them aside to help him.

He tightened his grip on her prosthetic fingers, pressing a kiss to her temple as his free hand rose from her back to run his fingers through her thick mane, applying gentle pressure to the back of her head and neck with each pass.

"I've got you, Yang." He murmured in her ear, "I was being silly before, but I'm here. How about we take a nice long nap?" he heard her make a vaguely approving noise, shifting to dig her nose into the side of his neck, pressing gentle kisses there, "be th're t'mor'w?" she mumbled back, fatigue finally catching back up to her.

Jaune smiled at her drowsy affection, "Yea, I'll be here tomorrow. Don't worry."

"'Kay" he heard, before her breathing deepened, evening out as she finally fell back asleep.

He continued stroking through her hair with absent fingers, resting his head down on the pillow.

"What did I ever do to deserve this?" he whispered, wondering if he was speaking positively or negatively.