Jaune craned his neck up from where he laid on the couch. "A motorbike ride?" he said.
On second glance, it looked more like a sofa bed shaped like an L, with a small ottoman wedged where the corner formed. The stout seat kept Yang's Scroll level with the rest of her lying form as she browsed her feed. "Ayep," she said with a pop.
"Why?"
Yang jabbed her Scroll. The quiet crack said enough about the gouge her thumb left behind. At least it had a screen protector on. Hopefully. "Do I need a reason to take Bumblebee out for a ride?"
Once upon a time, Yang Xiao-Long christened a yellow-and-black motorbike 'Bumblebee'. The name fit to a T in hindsight; Beacon Academy once had the misfortune of hearing it buzz like one no less than twice a school day.
Then for reasons known only to the other blonde in the household, Bumblebee disappeared shortly before Jaune and its owner became each other's unlikely friend.
So her taking it out on a whim, one fine weekend afternoon... There had to be a reason. Jaune kept his suspicions to himself as he said, "To where?"
A grunt. "Nowhere in particular. We could go to the mall, or the beach, or the park, or anywhere really. We could even roam the streets without getting off Bumblebee at all."
"I'm no car junkie, but I'm pretty sure gas isn't exactly cheap right now."
"Dad has a couple dozen cans of premium doing fuck-all in his garage, we'll manage." Flick. "He'll probably even thank us for taking some off his hands. Don't let the old man fool you: He's a worse road junkie at my age than I ever was." She paused. "Am. Still am! Y'know what I mean."
"I haven't agreed to any of this yet by the way."
Yang set her Scroll face-down on the ottoman and faced Jaune with a smile. He suppressed the tingle on his neck. Nothing good ever came out of Yang placing her full attention on him. The Scroll suppressed her worst parts, in a way. That and his sister. "Like I need any of that when you always tag along anyway," she said. "Right?"
Hold on. "Shouldn't my stomach get a say in thi-"
The smile morphed into a grin. A poop-tasting one, so to speak. "Riiiiiiight~?"
He sighed. There was no winning with this woman sometimes. "I don't have a choice, do I."
"That's the spirit!" Beaming, Yang unwound her legs from his as she sat up. "Anyone ever call you a good friend before?"
"Many times." Most of them emptily, not that she needed to know.
"Then add another one from your ol' pal Yang."
Yang yawned as she stretched her arms and rolled her shoulders. Both hiked up her skin-tight tank top, yellow as the messy hair cascading downwards along the curve of her back and stopping just past her hips. Yang always said she developed earlier than most girls, and she never missed a chance to flaunt the fact (and its curves) at everyone with eyes and horny lizard brains. A little sashay to whet the appetite, a little tilt to sear the valley of her mounds onto unsuspecting thoughts. Then once logic surrendered to primal, less-than-wholesome urges, she would swoop in for the kill with gorgeous lilac eyes and-
"Enjoying the show there, Jauney~?"
"Gah!"
Jaune found both his hands gripping tears on the sofa cushions as the trance wore off. His heart paced a hundred miles as it pumped blood southwards up, no doubt coloring his pale cheeks with a warm, cherry-red flush. Meanwhile, a blonde siren cycled between laughing and gasping for air. "Oh, the look on your face!" she howled.
He scrounged the last of his pride cross his arms and look away. "So I'm a healthy young man," Jaune said. "Sue me!"
"Better," Yang wiped a tear as her laughter ebbed, "better a healthy man than a vegetable, if you catch my drift. Why I'd be disappointed if Jack over there can't get up with these puppies right here!" She hefted both up, as if to make two well-rounded points. The large ones, not the small- Never mind!
Jaune palmed his aching forehead. "There's no shortage of other Jacks for a woman like you anyhow. You'll manage just fine."
"But only a handful Arc-ed the board exams! Get it?" She winked and laughed at her awful pun. Typical Yang. "And some of them don't even have Jacks! Just tiny little Jills that peek out when you spread-"
"I've heard enough nursery rhymes today, Grandma." Jaune shoved his ears and face against a throw pillow, which barely muffled the hyena laughter across him. Here was a woman who flips a coin every time she opens her mouth, then vomit either a pun or a joke Mistrali bookstores would censor into oblivion, with no in-between. So much for his dating prospects, if his taste in women fit only a Yang-shaped hole.
"Wake me up when we're about to leave," he said, though it came out more like muffled yelling in the vague shape of a sentence. Oh well. If the blanket that landed on his back said anything then she caught on to its broad brushstrokes.
Just as he was halfway between waking up and dozing off, a bright, sunny voice hollered from across the room. "Oh right, before I forgot! Pillion or sidecar?"
"Pillion," Jaune mumbled with no hesitation. Gods know what a pillion was, but Yang made sure Ruby entered and left Beacon on a sidecar up until Bumblebee retired. The midget said post-mortem that only her lipstick pink helmet was just as embarrassing. He would rather not be in her tiny shoes anytime soon.
With that settled, Jaune closed his eyes a second time and fell asleep.
...
...
"...the way, you're wearing Ruby's helmet. Hope you like pastel pink~"
Damnit.
If Ruby had trouble deciding between a helmet and a sidecar over which embarrassed her more, Jaune had trouble deciding over which will kill him before the night was over:
A road accident, or heart failure.
"HOW FAST ARE WE GOING?!" he yelled.
On the one hand, Bumblebee ran so fast the world around them blurred away into lines of natural and artificial light. It was like warp speed with a tiny warp bubble, which meant his lips and gums would have been flapping against gale-force winds without the visor on Ruby's stupid pink helmet. Yang either knew nothing about it or cared nothing for it; either way, the speed junkie she inherited from Taiyang found some sadistic glee over breaking the speed limit and dodging traffic enforcers, but what did he know? They were still alive, so she had to be doing something right.
Right?
Speaking of, the junkie in question checked her speedometer. "ABOUT NINETY!" she yelled back.
"MILES OR KILOMETERS?!"
"DOES IT MATTER?! WE'RE OVER THE SPEED LIMIT EITHER WAY JAUNE!"
On the other hand, the swerves and turns were just as fatal for poor, puny Jaune. Every near-miss with a hapless car spiked his heart rate up to triple digits and made a hammering mess out of his chest. At these speeds even a glancing blow would send both of them flying to the moon, to another car, or to the spot of pavement a hundred yards away, whichever comes first and with or without Bumblebee. And the less said about what the First Law of Motion was doing to his stomach, the better.
He will say this: It was just as unhealthy for his heart.
Speaking of- "THAT'S NOT MAKING ME OR MY STOMACH FEEL ANY BETTER!"
So until Yang fully got her inner demon out, or until he died one of two ways (again, whichever came first) Jaune practiced what Mom, Dad, and those obnoxious techbro scammers on TV all loved to preach:
"TOO BAD, 'CAUSE I'M GETTING US PAST A HUNDRED!"
He held on for dear life.
"WAIT WAIT WAITWAITWAIT-"
At least Yang had hard enough abs for his scrawny grip to latch onto. Praise core training for small mercies.
(That was one of Jaune's two last thoughts before he passed out.
The other was that he had never heard Yang laugh this loud for this long until now. She got something out at least—a different demon, less benign than the feminine urge to break the national speed limit on a motorbike.
Another small mercy to smile over as the world went white.)
After surviving Hell on a motorbike, Jaune did what every penitent would do at the end of their trials: Vomit their last meal off a cliff.
Chunky reds, soupy greens and bubbly acid broke the placid waters below as a waterfall, landing with a plop that echoed back. Where the twilight sky and the ocean met shimmered here and there silver crests as they danced with gentle waves. The coast stretched on and on to the east as a canvas from which bloomed a million pinpricks of manmade light, treading parallel to the water's edge.
If he were less busy tarnishing the scene with his lunch, Jaune might appreciate it for the quiet, picturesque reprieve that it was.
A half-gloved hand patted his back as he emptied his stomach. "Easy there pal," Yang said, "Don't go upchucking all your lunch just yet."
He turned to Yang, wiping dribble off his chin, as a water bottle hit his chest. "Or maybe you should," she continued, "then we can hit up a diner before skedaddling back."
"Words can't describe how much my guts hate you so much right now," Jaune said, unscrewing the cap as he leveled a glare at her own frown. He kept it up as he un-parched his throat with hearty gulps.
"Prissy much? The ride wasn't that bad, was it?"
His glare smoldered.
"Okay, maybe the speed dial went a bit overboard."
"'A bit,'" echoed Jaune.
"And maaaaaybe we had to shake off a cop car or two before we got here."
"I counted more than two."
"And maaaaaybe it's getting late and Dad's gonna kill us for wandering off with Bumblebee without telling him."
Wait. "So that's why you set your Scroll to silent mode!" Jaune shook his head. "Unbelievable."
"Can you stop being such a downer for fucking once, Jaune?"
"Stop being so reckless in everything you do, then we'll talk."
The heat in Yang's voice caught Jaune off guard, but the iron in his held firm. It was what she would suggest on any other occasion. She was stacked and he was scrawny, but when pride was on the line they were more alike than either of them would admit. Pride led to moments like these, where he was seconds away from catching a kickboxer's fist with his shoulder.
He closed his eyes, steeling himself from the blows to come. Then he waited.
And waited. And waited some more.
He counted off the seconds in his head; at the thirtieth, feeling not so much as a speck of pain, Jaune opened an eye.
He saw Yang tremble, drawing and letting out heavy breaths, her pose still yet tense as her arms hung limp. Hardly the stance of a fighter preparing a painful strike; on the contrary, it was that of a fighter doing their best to not fight at all. Strange.
"...No punches this time?" Jaune said.
Locking gazes, Yang drew forth with gritted teeth, "I'd break a promise if I do."
"What do you-"
Ah. That promise.
With no pain forthcoming, all tension left Jaune's body in an instant. The same tension that kept his legs up also left, and so he collapsed into a heap on the ground, back resting against the metal posts while he drew deep breaths. Yang fared no better as she leaned against the handrail, a distant gaze trained at the wan moon overhead.
"Did I go overboard?"
A quiet voice broke the silence. Meek, soft, so un-Yanglike that it took Jaune a beat to recognize his friend's voice.
"I'm a grown woman, not some playground bully," she continued. "I can take blows no problem. I can wave them off if I deserve them. So speak your mind, like you always do."
His mind, of course, had plenty of blows ready to let loose. Every gripe and grievance left unsaid piled up like unpaid debts. He incurred more and more for politeness' sake, but eventually the loan sharks will come home to collect. Yang herself said his insults bite just as hard as her punches bruise.
How badly will his outburst bite, then, with the weight of so much debt behind it?
But Jaune was drained, exhausted, and above all concerned. He opted for the safer option. "The whole trip, yeah."
Technically correct, proportional to the damage, and made her flinch as well. Deep within his chest twisted a heart string in guilt. He said no more. Neither did she.
The silence stretched for long, long moments before Yang offered a hand. She dusted stray grass off his jacket after pulling him up. The blond settled against a spot next to hers.
Then he counted the moments before she was comfortable enough to speak. He had lost count when Yang began.
"The last time I took Bumblebee out for this long was... three years ago? Four?" A withered sigh escaped her lips. "Gods, time flies fast."
He quirked an eyebrow. "'This long'?"
"Longer than an hour or two a day. Then Dad put the clamps and all I ever did with it from there on out was shuffle Ruby to school and back. It made sense, looking back. Like you said, gas got too expensive for joyrides and Dad needed every pair of hands in the house after... well." She waved a hand. "That."
Light bulbs flashed in Jaune's head as dates and events slot into place with a satisfying click. "But then your sister started taking the bus," he pointed out.
A wordless nod. "Tonight's the first time I've ridden Bumblebee long and hard in years. First time I've ridden her at all in half of one. She'd have gathered dust and rust and whatever other mecha-STDs a motorbike can catch if it weren't for the two of us."
With that much praise from a woman like Yang who can resist the urge to blush even a bit? Still, "You could've shaken all that out by yourself."
"And you could've left me Yang-ing before I did." Another bad pun, another laugh. "Some banter never kept you from doing whatever you really wanted before, you're blunt like that. I would've whined like a baby all the way, but I'd have let you leave if you really wanted out before we left. I think.
"But here you are, stuck between a bitch and her stupid bike." Yang glanced at Jaune, again with that small smile from the sofa. Smiles were weightless but this felt lighter, if it made any sense. Nothing about their little heart-to-heart did. "That's something I appreciate very much."
Jaune looked away. He should look away more often. Pink spots on his skin were just bull's eyes begging to be pounced on. "Roundabout way of saying thanks, that," he mumbled.
An elbow nudged against his forearm. "Don't get cocky now," said Yang, a little of her boisterous old self creeping back into her voice. "That's all the praise you'll ever get from me tonight."
He scoffed. "Expect nothing less from Ms. Xiao-Long."
"And what's that supposed to mean, bub?"
"Only that you-"
"Your next words will decide whether you ride with me back home or walk."
Gulp. "...When you put it that way-"
"Wrong answer."
Yang moseyed back to Bumblebee, keys jingling with every step. "Enjoy the nature hike, Jauney~" she called past her shoulder.
Jaune broke into a run, and of fucking course she matched his pace. "Hey, w-wait up!"
(Yang held off on starting the engine until she felt two arms wrap around her waist. Lithe but sinewy, a far cry from the twigs they used to be not half a year ago. Idiot always sells himself short, Brothers above.
She also made damn sure the arrow on her speedometer stayed on or below a leisurely 40 for the return trip. Her best friend had enough reckless driving to last him a lifetime. At least until their next joyride.
Assuming he agrees, goes without saying, yadda yadda yadda. She hoped he will say yes—to that, and to a hundred other questions she currently lacked the courage to ask. But their time will come.
She was sure of it.)
Jaune broke the bad news by Red Traffic Light #4.
"On second thought," he said, "maybe we should've gone a hundred miles an hour all the way."
As expected, Yang muttered curse words behind her helmet. "Jaune I swear-"
"Let me explain!"
"You have until the green light before I toss you overboard. You know girls hate mixed messages from their men."
'Their men?' Jaune shook his head. Never mind that, no time for second-guessing. He switched his Scroll on and opened Maps, frantically typing names on a field. "Our last stop before the diner was at Clearview Point right?"
"Yeah, so?"
"That's... 67 miles away from your house."
"We left at half past six, big deal. Though it is getting dark..."
"My point exactly, because unlike you I check my phone. It's 9:23. Curfew's at 10 sharp."
Jaune saw just enough past Yang's visor to catch her eyes as they bulged, before she swiveled towards a street sign. "...Carmine St. is how many miles away again."
"Maps says shy over thirty threeEEEEEEE-!"
"FOR WHAT IT'S WORTH I'M ACTUALLY SORRY FOR GOING FAST THIS TIME!"
"AT LEAST TELL ME YOU'RE FLOORING IT BEFORE YOU DO!"
"YOU UNGRATEFUL PRICK-"
"EYES ON THE ROAD OR THE TEN-WHEELER T-BONES US INTO PASTE!"
They got back a minute before curfew.
(Taiyang held up a padlock and chains when he greeted them on the front porch. Jaune trotted the hell away before he could find out whether those were for Bumblebee or for Yang.)
A/N: It's been a few years, and I like to think I learned a lot more about writing and scheduling since my last post.
For now these are all crossposts from the other fanfiction site, and I'll space out releasing the extant updates from there to here over the course of a few weeks, though once this catches up I'll post new updates on both sites at the same time. Glad to have anyone willing to read these on board for however long the ride will last.
For reference's sake, here's the corresponding Note:
As the title and summary state, this series will be one made of RWBY oneshots which at most will hit rating M. What I didn't say outright is that all of them involve Jaune one way or another, much as it pains me to write that. There's also no guarantee that a oneshot occurs in the canon timeline; it could take place in an AU, or a crossover, or a personal headcanon timeline, so on. There are also better works to follow for lewds, though if I ever feel like breaking that self-imposed restriction for practice's sake (without breaching the rating) I'll give a heads up on a Note or something.
If you still feel like having a look every once in a while, then welcome to my sandbox. I guess.
Suggestions welcome in the comment's section. I am not the most imaginative when it comes to prompts, so having nth opinions for what to write next is always appreciated.
