A/N: Created 03 April 2015. It's RWBY Relationship Week on Tumblr; the challenge is to take two randomly-selected characters and explore their relationship, whether that be romantic, platonic, parental, mentor-apprentice, sibling, antagonistic, or what-have-you.

Friday's Randomly-Generated Names: Emerald Sustrai, Jaune Arc

Thief of the Knight

Summary: Jaune learns to fight dirty. AU Post-Volume 2.

Note: Another new combination. Erm… Topaz!

Jaune Arc collapsed bonelessly down the wall, and only Pyrrha's weapon, Miló, in its spear form kept him from hitting the floor as it caught at his hood yet again. He sighed.

"Let's call it a night, Jaune," Pyrrha said kindly, raising a hand and using her Semblance to call Miló back to her hand. Deprived of his attachment, Jaune's rear hit the roof they used for practice. He pressed a hand to his forehead. "You've improved a lot," Pyrrha added encouragingly.

"I'm still miles…behind you," he panted, not looking at her.

He could all but see her warm smile. "Your rate of improvement is still accelerating, Jaune. You'll find yourself helping the rest of us keep up with you, soon enough." She ruffled his hair as she passed him, headed inside and presumably for the showers.

Jaune remained on the roof, staring out toward the sea as light bled from the sky. He was gazing into space, apparently looking at the shimmering light that Ruby had told him was her old school, Signal, on her home island of Patch, but seeing nothing. He still wasn't good enough—at anything. During what Team RWBY had taken to calling 'the Breach' the week before, all he'd managed to do was kill one lousy Ursa. He hadn't been able to bring himself even to shout a battle cry to inspire his team—he was pretty sure that was part of a leader's job, but Pyrrha had done it for him.

Jaune bit his lip. Pyrrha did a lot for him, but he couldn't very well resent a girl who was doing so much to help him.

"Oi. Blondie." The voice came from…above him?

Jaune jumped to his feet and backed away from the wall where he'd been leaning, hand reaching for the hilt of his sword. Crouched there, on the higher rooftop directly over where he had been sitting, was a girl he had seen around Beacon on occasion. She was one of the exchange students—from Haven Academy in Mistral, he thought. She had coppery-dark skin and bobbed green hair, with two longer locks falling over her shoulders as she looked down at him with sparkling red eyes. She also seemed to be holding…

Jaune's hand, which had been questing for his sword hilt, closed on air, and he glanced down to find Crocea Mors' sheath was empty. Looking back up with dawning embarrassment, he discovered that the girl was, indeed, holding his sword.

"Be more aware of your surroundings."

"How did you even-" Jaune stammered.

"That'd be telling," she smirked. "Just be glad I didn't take your wallet instead." She tossed the sword back to him, and he caught it awkwardly. "You suck pretty bad for someone who practices so hard," she observed.

"Gotta get better somehow," he mumbled, embarrassed. "Always need experience…"

Jaune stopped talking as the girl hopped nimbly down to the same section of roof he stood on, bending down as she brushed some imaginary dust from the knee of her chaps, and perhaps unwittingly giving him a rather magnificent view down her rather low-cut top. He gulped, but before he could look away, her head shot back up. Jaune could feel himself blushing at being apparently peeping—it had been an accident, honestly!—but an almost predatory smirk spread across the girl's face.

"You've got your Scroll, don't you?" she asked. "Take a picture, it'll last longer."

Jaune shook his head frantically, taking a hasty step back. "I-I didn't mean to-" But she was advancing on him now, and eyeing him up and down; still smiling, and swaying her hips perhaps slightly more than was necessary. "I'm sorry, I-"

"No need to apologize," she drawled, following him slowly around the roof as he backed away, circling so as not to fall of the roof. She cornered him in less than a minute, as his back hit the wall on the other side of the door, and she stepped deliberately into his personal space. She was slightly shorter than him; the top of her head just level with his eyes if he stood up straight…though he rarely did.

"I-uh, I-"

The girl placed her hands on the wall on either side of him, caging him loosely against the wall with her body, and leaning even closer. Jaune very carefully kept his eyes from wandering, but even looking at her face didn't make him feel entirely secure with that knowing smirk.

"What're you running away for?" she purred. "There's no need to play hard to get."

Jaunes brain was rapidly shutting down, but he was far from giving up. He reached for one of her hands, but the girl was having none of it. She caught his wrist instead, slamming it against the wall as she ran her other hand over his stomach, just below his chest plate.

"Nice abs," she growled appreciatively. "I can see someone appreciates the benefits of working out without Aura."

Actually it was more like he simply hadn't had the option of using Aura until Beacon, so there was nothing for it but to pump iron, but this girl nibbling on his neck was making it progressively hard to think and…

Jaune twisted against the wall, but rather than escape, he simply ended up flat on his back with her straddling him, now with both his hands pinned and her teeth scraping his earlobe.

"You said you needed some experience, right?" she hissed, her breath whispery and warm against his skin. She was so warm. "Well, I'm in the mood to give you some. Not every reward has to be hard-won. I'm right here—" she grinded against him "—and I don't hear you saying no."

Jaune groaned deep in his throat, but couldn't contradict her. She was undeniably attractive, and equally undeniably into him, at least for tonight. That…was okay, right?

As though she had read his mind, she breathed, "You want this. I want this. It's allowed to be that simple."

She bit his neck much more roughly than before. As he groaned again, Jaune got his arms free from her grip and wrapped them around her.

A/N: Because sometimes (most of the time, really) Jaune needs things spelled out for him. And honestly, I don't think Emerald would need a better reason than, "Eh, I feel like it." Who knows, maybe it'll help him loosen the hell up around the women in his life.

I'm definitely earning my T-rating here ›_›

I agonized a bit over the pairing name, and I reserve the right to change it if I think of something better. …Really, this was all I had. It's a yellow gemstone. Sue me.