The angry red '104' on Jaune's thermometer could not have meant anything besides 104 degrees. For reference, a healthy body went no higher than 99. More than 104 warranted IV drips in a hospital bed, not some store-bought aspirin and the cooling pad on Weiss' forehead.
The Schnee lay tucked beneath the soaked blankets on her soft mattress, warm to the touch and sweating buckets. A day ago she could at least stand up, if unsteadily. Now only shallow breaths and weak coughs kept Jaune from assuming the worst in his overnight watch.
Yes, he spent the night on a chair by his sick friend's side. Yes, his back hated him for it. No, the hall monitors had not caught him room-hopping yet, mostly because they have either left for the holidays or could not care any less what two teenagers did in their free time.
Not to say he liked the reason for room-hopping in the first place. A healthy Weiss was miles better for his physical and mental health than a sick Weiss. Sadly the gods saddled him with the second after a trip to Vale gone horribly wrong, and while he did have experience dealing with feverish girls, he preferred never having to draw from it at all.
In a mad world ruled by the all-powerful, lesser men had at least the choice over which scapegoats to blame for the problems they face. Jaune was no different when it came to Weiss' condition.
He chose the weatherman.
"...percent cloud cover for most of the afternoon. The Commercial District, including Vermilion, Strawberry, Carmine, Tart, Honeygold, and Auburn Counties will experience light snow and 42 ° temperature throughout the day in addition to fresh 23 mile-an-hour winds due north-northwest. The pleasant weather extends south to-"
A slender finger silenced the weather station radio with a button click.
"As I was saying," said Weiss from her seat, "name one good dining establishment in the city of Vale."
Jaune looked up from his half-finished beanie hat, plain yellow from top to bottom. Weiss thought patterns were too complicated for him yet. To massage his wounded ego, she said Jaune took to knitting quickly. Unusually high praise from a notable hard-ass. "Your standards or mine?" he said.
"It should have some dignity and class for one." Weiss' words slithered into his ears with the "slimy rich people" feel. "Yang may find herself at home in a literal hole in a wall, but Schnees are born and raised with higher standards."
A hundred establishments passed Jaune by like a film reel as he searched high and low for 'dignity' and 'class'.
One beat later, he shrugged.
"Does Burger Palace count? Their checkerboard floors look classy enough."
Weiss sighed as her knitting needles wove loops on each other's tips. "I expected no more from you and I'm still disappointed," she said.
"Better get used to that while I'm around."
"Your ten year-old palate or my disappointment?"
Jaune frowned. "Harsh. But the first part."
"Then I'll keep my disappointment to myself," Weiss replied snickeringly.
The Schnee's own knit was a sky-blue sweater with a thick collar and cuffs. Wavy white bands parallel with the hem zigzagged around the body and sleeves—traditional Atlesian embroidery, she said. At the chest laid a gap large enough to fit its central motif: Two yellow crescents, with one crescent spooning the other. The same device that adorned his shield. It was artisanry from someone who had been knitting for much of her life and it showed in its quality. Quality Weiss said she was making for herself.
So why the moons and not a snowflake?
Jaune settled for a complement instead of a question. Pulling answers from the heiress was like pulling teeth, he learned. "Nice sweater by the way."
Preening, Weiss grew a smug smile. "When isn't it?" she said.
They returned to each other's knits in silence. Making loops for the stitch had become easier since his first attempt, as was making sure the rows were all neat and the ends well-tied. There was something therapeutic about seeing small improvements add up to one big success in the end. No wonder Weiss loved to knit, if it made up even slightly for living most her life as a princess-in-the-tower.
"I suppose it wouldn't hurt to offend my palate every now and then," the heiress said idly.
Talk about a change of heart. "With Schnee levels of fuck-you money I'd 'offend my palate' every day for the rest of my life."
"I don't follow."
"Let's just say you're missing out on a lot and leave it at that."
And boy, was she missing out on a lot . Pizzas, corn dogs, crispy fries, burgers, and chili. Specters of unhealthy, trans-fat goodness danced about his vision, so vivid he could almost savor their scent. Just a little bit closer and-
Needles slammed against a wooden desk. Weiss fixed him with a questioning stare. "Is that a challenge, Arc?"
Jaune hummed. "'I like the way 'friendly wager' sounds better. Twenty creds?"
"Pass."
"Twenty creds says twenty creds is all I need to fill up even the snottiest Schnee, transport fees exclude- Ow!"
Weiss drew her needle away from Jaune's reddening forearm. "Serves a buffoon like you right for calling me snotty."
She paused. "I'm not that picky with what I eat, right?"
He stared.
Her front cracked.
He stared some more.
She wilted.
He stared as he made loops with his needles, judging.
And goading. And daring.
And like a septic tank on a smoke break, she burst.
"Later afternoon, three sharp. Meet me at the hangar exactly then or I'm going without you." Weiss swiped Jaune's cap and needles before nudging him out of his chair. "Now shoo!"
After deciding she will take no more smack from smug blond men, the Schnee unceremoniously sent the Arc packing from Team RWBY's bedroom.
That Weiss had just invited him to town did not quite hit the Arc until a shower head splashed hot water onto his face.
When it did, he felt... Huh.
Not a whole lot different from the usual. Mostly glad that the heiress found some way to stretch her legs—cooping yourself up in a room 24/7 never leads to healthy thoughts. Definitely eager to show the stuck-up hedge fund baby inside her how to have fun eating food as the common man does.
And somewhat pleased that he will spend an afternoon chewing fat with a newfound friend yet again. Moments like these with someone from another team... well, there is a reason this winter break was the first time he had ever seen Weiss the person, and not Weiss the persona. In a little over a month his teammates and hers will return to both their lives, and moments like these will stay only as fuzzy memories he will spend nights either reminiscing or wondering if they ever really happened.
Until then, Jaune Arc's day was only going to get better from here.
Jaune Arc sat on an icicle-ridden bench as a whole inch of snow gathered on his lap. Maybe two, on closer look.
With the howling blizzard and his frost-blinded goggles, his only assurance that Weiss had not made like her sigil and flown with the wind were the shivering arms coiled on his.
Bare arms at that. A certain someone put a little too much trust on the weather station and wore her usual skirt-and-blouse getup to Vale, with only an ugly-looking scarf standing between her and hypothermia.
There was an old lesson to be learned here. It just so happened that Ms. Trust-But-Verify had to learn it again.
"I t-thought the f-forecast said we're only getting l-light snow!" she stuttered over the wind.
"It's not the first time they got it wrong and it won't be the last!" he howled back. Shouting against both a gust and a bandana did no wonders to his voicebox but he gritted through. Thank the gods for throat lozenges.
"Wonderful. Just f-freaking wonderful!"
"It's not too late to head back to the resto!"
"I'll m-manage! We c-can't risk m-missing the Bullhead!"
"But the Bullhead's ten minutes away! You sure?!"
"YES!" Weiss tightened her vice grip on Jaune's padded arm. "Now h-hold still and r-ride out the b-blizzard with m-me!"
Their ride arrived not ten but forty minutes later. In a way, the Bullhead missed them.
"What did we learn today, Weiss?"
Sniffling. Tinier, telltale sounds of leaking snot. "That this is the last time I'm trusting The Weather Network ever again."
"True, but you're missing the forest for the trees."
Cross-armed, Jaune leaned against the chair. Weiss sold her best impression of an oversized burrito with the sheets and blankets of her own bed. They were both cold, and tired, and a breeze away from getting knocked out cold, and fresh off a trundle from hangar to dorm that would make the tail end of a pub crawl look like synchronized swimming.
"My eyes are perfectly fine, thank you very much," said the woman who ignored a blizzard bare naked, for all the good her skirt did.
"Good thing you saw the blizzard before we both froze like popsicle sticks- oh wait."
Jaune caught a throw pillow to the face for his snark.
"So maybe I acted a little too rash by waiting out the Bullhead." Weiss rubbed the shoulder of her throwing arm. "Ow."
He laid the throw pillow on his lap. Comfy. "Good start."
"And maybe I should've brought a coat with me. Instead of just my scarf."
Not this again. "You mean my scarf. By the way, hand it over please?"
Calling the length of cloth wrapped around Weiss' neck a scarf does a disservice to the concept of a scarf. The word implies protection, whether from the cold or from prying eyes. His 'scarf' fails at both jobs, what with its holes and half-assed stitches a grown man can jam his pinky finger through. Forget being a scarf—it was a crisscrossed bundle of yarn pretending to be one. That much Jaune would admit about his first knit.
Weiss's fist shook with the strength with which it gripped the fabric. "Over my dead body," she snarled, matching his glare with hers.
Sighing, Jaune broke off before the standoff went any further. Choose your battles and all. Divert to better topics, like-
"Oh yeah, did I win the bet at least?"
Silence.
"C'mon, Weiss. No need to be shy."
"-ah."
"I'm sorry?"
"Hah..."
"Weiss...?"
"Haaah... HaaaAAAA-"
"-choo!"
Bits of snot splattered against Jaune's Pumpkin Pete hoodie. He dabbed them off with a napkin, then drew another napkin from the nightstand and reached for his friend's face.
"W-What in the Brothers' name are you doing?!"
"What does it look like?"
"I can-" she sniffed, "-do that myself!"
Grunting, Weiss squirmed out of her blanket burrito. Or tried to, at least. From the bedside chair she looked like a dying worm wriggling its last after being skewered alive. A moment later she stopped, no freer from the burrito than when she began but much sweatier and out of breath. Her eyes pleaded Jaune for help.
He held up the napkin on his hand.
A long, tired sigh. "Fine."
Weiss only turned her nose up the next time she sneezed. Jaune took that as a sign of progress.
It takes two flights of stairs and a roughly ten-minute walk to get from Team RWBY's room to the cafeteria. The return trip but with a trayful of food, Jaune found out, took double the time. His tray had not a whole lot, only two bowls of stew (one beef, the other fish), but the risk of toppling their contents mid-trip forced Jaune into a slow, shuffling gait.
An impatient and hungry Weiss greeted him around an hour after he set out. Another problem revealed itself immediately: The sick heiress was too weak to lift her own arms, let alone a spoon or a bowl. Stubborn as she was, she forced herself to scoop a spoonful from her stew, and it was only because of his deft hands and sheer luck that she avoided dousing herself in fish broth seconds later.
That left a desperate measure for Jaune's desperate situation.
"Say aaah..."
Weiss stared at the spoon inches from her nose, then at Jaune. "Do I look like a toddler?"
"I'll pretend this never happened, if it makes you feel better."
Lunchtime lasted an hour and a half. Mostly because Weiss switched between complaining about indignities and slurping spoonfuls of soup.
Yes, slurp. Very noisily. That was a thing in high Atlesian society, apparently. Who knew?
"Carry me."
Jaune set his pencil and pad paper aside. "To where?"
The red tinge on Weiss's face darkened. Without a word, she pointed at the restroom.
"...Ah."
The shame of losing three straight matches of tic-tac-toe to himself drained away, and what followed was a growing sense that he was suddenly way, way out of his depth. He mirrored the heiress' blush with his own.
"Do you, uh, need any help with-"
"No!" Weiss screeched.
Jaune stood guard outside the restroom after hauling her in. There he learned a bit too much about what a girl in the middle of number two sounded like.
It bothered him at first, but then he realized he sounded like that too. Grunts were grunts, curses were curses, and squelches were squelches whether you were a guy or a girl.
Respite finally came when Weiss fell asleep at sundown.
Jaune began his well-earned break by collapsing on the bedside chair. He had powered through nearly two full days with no sleep and it showed on his fidgety fingers, his palpitating heart, his fog-addled brain and a few stray locks of silver hair. It might as well be his everything by now, all but begging the pilot that controlled Jaune Arc to sew his eyes shut and sleep.
And for the first time since Weiss sneezed on his shirt, Jaune agreed. Her temperature had dropped from 104 to a more manageable 101, and she could move her limbs about without complaints. She will recover by the weekend if her improvement holds.
So he breathed easy and let tension seep from his body, muscles slackening, the fog in his brain growing and thickening. Chairs were never his first alternative for a bed but he had already used it as one before. It will have to do-
"STOP!"
Jaune bolted from his chair. Heart pounding, his bloodshot eyes scanned the room. Not an intruder in sight.
Weiss, on the other hand, was twisting and turning her sheets into a crumpled mess. Sweat mingled with tears as both trickled down her cheeks, staining the pillow beneath and the scarf around her neck. Her frail hands rent tears on the covers with how hard they gripped. Half-sobbing, half-murmuring, the heiress wailed her nightmares into the night. The pitiful sounds tugged at Jaune's heartstrings as he clambered onto her side.
"No... Mother... Father..." she whispered. "Please..."
A calloused hand covered her forehead before Jaune knew it—she was warming up, gasping faster. He had dealt with fever dreams before, when his sisters got sick. Experienced one himself. But those were less intense than what gripped his friend now. Mom always said fever dreams were nightmares, and that nightmares were made-up things made from very real fears people keep close to their chest.
Maybe he had no right to know what Weiss's fears were, but he did know how to make nightmares go away.
So it was that Jaune's right hand reached for hers and squeezed it gently. His other hand dug into her flowing silver hair and ran along its silky locks like a comb. Meanwhile he muttered nothings drawn from the fuzzy memories of his childhood, their words mimicking those that had soothed him and his sisters too. 'You'll be alrights' and 'I'm here for yous' faded into the ambiance as the setting sun gave way to the shattered moon.
Eventually—Jaune lost track of time—Weiss calmed down. Handwipes cleared her frame of tears and sweat, and her ugly grimace from before had melted into a soft smile. It fit his friend better than the haughty frown she often wore.
Job done, Jaune made for his chair-
"...Eh?"
-when the hold on his hand tightened. Each pull only strangled more oxygen out of his poor fingers as the sick heiress frowned in her sleep.
Weiss, it seemed, was hell bent on not letting go. What else could he do? Wake her up just to pry her hand off? No chance. He would have to rest where he stood—or rather, laid.
In the end, Jaune fell asleep with his head next to hers.
He will deal with the fallout in the morning.
Jaune's guess was off by a day.
The following afternoon (and after getting off surprisingly lightly), Weiss managed to eat bedside dinner by herself. Jaune did less and less as she recovered until he merely catered to whatever the Schnee had in mind, from cleaning the dishes to delivering cafeteria food.
The day after that, Weiss stumbled to the bathroom and back without his support. Jaune rooted himself to where he sat, which she appreciated.
On Thursday night, the fever dreams were gone for good. Jaune still had to sleep on her bedside however. "Better here than on Blake's," Weiss said, "she can tell if someone else used her bed. And she's not the sharing type."
Jaune offered to return to his own room. Weiss shoved his head against the mattress mid-sentence and kept it there.
Then Friday came, in which he found himself and Weiss knitting as they had before the blizzard. He tugged at one more loop to complete his beanie hat at last.
His second knit was a far cry from his first but in a good way: Rather than holes and hasty stitches, it had evenly spaced rows from tip to rim, not unlike a corn field. Giddy, he turned to Weiss and said, "How's this, eh?"
Looking up, the Schnee returned his smile. "Passable," she said. "You're more than prepared for making patterns, it seems."
"Swell." Jaune slipped the beanie over his head. The fit was surprisingly tight. "Think I made it a size too small," he said.
She sighed. "What did I say about getting your measurements right?"
"That I should get my measurements right?"
"...Hand it over."
Weiss scooted next to him and plucked the beanie out in one swipe.
Fearing the worst, Jaune reached for his hat. She laid an outstretched hand on his frazzled hair to keep him at bay while she looked it over with the other.
Then, nodding to herself, the heiress took off her scrunchie and let her snow-colored hair fall to the small of her back. The yellow beanie hat fit her head perfectly.
"Perhaps it's the right size after all," she said.
Weiss took the beanie hat and sweater with her when they settled their wager that afternoon. Keen on getting his knits back from the perfidious Schnee, Jaune was careful not to call her a walking light strobe the entire trip.
(He never did get his knits back.)
A/N: I wonder if "being able to take care of a friend when they're sick" is a prerequisite for being a good friend. Can you see yourself mothering your friends if they're stuck in bed with 40C temperature, or is that something people expect more from their family than from their friends? Either way, I think such a skill would make any friend with it indispensable. Nothing quite like someone not your relatives watching over you at your weakest to remind you that there are people out there who care for your well-being.
Sidenote, fever dreams are pretty scary. My last one was a vivid description of how the family house would blow up with people inside of it. Can't imagine standing fever dreams as anyone from the Schnee family tree, because at least I'm certain nobody's gonna commit acts of terror where I live IRL on a whim. Weiss... probably isn't.