Chapter 7: I Make These High Heels Work

"Are you taken?"

"Yeah, for granted."

— 15 —

Years ago, Jetson Shamrock's mother had told them, No two ways about it. Men are broken women, all mutated with muscle and half the emotions. Fighting, fucking machines. It had been after Dad had left for a younger, pretty model. They supposed that was where things started clicking into place for them. That, and maybe the ezans calling her to prayer back home in her kabile in Vacuo, with all the Şeyh who didn't pay Jetson or her androgenyous child any care now they were officially without a father to give the family any status.

Their Semblance ticked in the back of their mind. And inescapable part of who Shamrock was. She placed her cards down on the table, an illegal circumstance itself back home. "This isn't a hand, it's a foot. You fucked me, Jack!"

Had to be a woman for this, from the brain chemistry down to the flesh. Gender might just be a thing, but sex is real. Chromosomes shifting around always had a pronounced effect on the human physique and psyche. To be a woman carried with it a certain sensory experience you couldn't get as a boy. She suspected maybe it had something to do with ignoring the dangly bit between your legs and a natural competitive drive. Touch and texture pierced a little deeper when you had an extra hole to watch out for, in a way a boy's skin just seemed to ignore as a matter of course. To a man, skin was a barrier, a protection. To a woman, it was an organ of contact.

Wasn't always the most useful of traits. Women could handle pain better than boys, and that's a fact in Jetty's uniquely expert experience. Even if women often got accused of faking it or over exaggerating. Physically, the only time that was really a problem was the menstrual cycle, bringing women down to an all-time low once a moon. That's when Jet or even Jetson was a better choice. But right now?

Jetty Shamrock puffed up her lips, conscious of her chest in a way only male authors writing female point-of-views ever seemed to pay mind to. Another occasional tool. Her own mother wouldn't recognize her. Or him. Or them. Shamrock had made so many minor adjustments in the years since coming to Beacon. She doubted she could figure her old self out, even if her kabile did bother with cameras. Only the Şeyh and Mollas helping sell Dust to the SDC had the money for those luxuries.

The man across the table smiled. He did something with his electric indigo eyes that she liked, and hated the prettyboy bastard for it. He did that kind of thing on purpose to throw her off just as much as she tried throwing him off by shifting her flesh to avoid any recurring tells.

"I appreciate you growing a pair to try to call me out, fille, but them's the wrong kind," he said in that smooth accent reminiscent of an old Valean gangster movie.

Yang threw her cards across the table. "Hold up, he won? He won? Again?"

Shamrock sighed sufferingly, leaning back in her chair. She ran a hand over her face. There was a new beauty mark this time on her left cheek. "I'm fucking dealing next hand."

"Oh, sure. So you can stack the deck," Yang said. The girl had been in an incredibly foul mood the whole night. More than simply losing Lien at cards would explain,

She eyed the blonde. "Well, obviously, letting you shuffle just means Jack wins again."

Yang sat up suddenly. "Count your cards. Everyone check to make sure there's the right number."

"Yeah, agreed," Jetty said.

Jack shrugged innocently.

This had almost been a routine. Shamrock, in some form or other, had met what amounted to the worst group of friends since Team BASS via one student party or another. Every couple of free nights, bar the ones where she was stuck in detention, they got together for cards and other miscellaneous junk. Shamrock of BASS, Yang from VYPR, and Jack from ICWN. Usually they brought friends, who thankfully were all easy marks. Which is why they never invited any of their teammates. Way too likely to destroy a team.

Tonight, one way or another, it was just the three of them playing a hand of talk and just sort of chatting about this and that without much going on. It was good to get away from her team. Even if on some level that was complete heresy. Antithetical to the entire point of a freshmen team, where you had to work with and become friends with people vastly unlike you.

Of course, on counting the cards and suites, it all came up good. Jack was still cheating, of course. Everyone knew it. Jetty cheated too. Same as Yang. It was the real game they played, seeing who could screw the other over and win without getting caught. Everyone did it in their own ways. She'd been hoping with Yang dealing this round of tonk, Jack might've tried something simple and dumb. If you got caught, the Lien got reset.

They very consciously didn't do this when playing with guests. The calling each other out part, that is. That's about the only time they didn't try throwing each other under the bus for their own gain. Playing up in a semi-secluded side room on the fourth floor of the student center, you occasionally got people showing up to join them. It wouldn't do to look like you were all a group of cheaters to potential marks. Kind of defeated the purpose.

"If one of you ladies wins this last hand, drinks on me," Jack offered.

Yang studied him. Before shaking her head and sighing. She reached over to another chair to grab her jacket. "I'm done for the evening. The day was long enough even without dealing with Jaune."

She dropped that name on purpose. Jetty reluctantly took the bait. "I believe there's a class action restraining order for sexual harassment going up on him from the nurses. You want in, then?"

Jack whistled, collecting up his cards. technically you could play tonk with just two players, but where was the fun without at least a threesome? "Sounds like your team lead needs to learn how to keep it in his pants, Shamrock."

"Didn't they just name a new STD after you?" Yang asked with a snort.

"The trademark is pending," Jack said mildly, shaking his head.

Honestly, it was kind of amazing a boy like Jack hadn't actually gone after Jetty. Like with most people, she suspected her Semblance turned them off to the idea. The genderbent chic was definitely not in this season. Still, something like that was how she met her partners in crime, some post-initiation party in an unused part of the dorms reserved for future transfer students or overflow. Jetty had been under the impression that Jack had made a pass at Yang, only to be turned down quite publicly or something. Jack had denied this ever happened, because, and she quotes, "No, I was definitely hitting on a hot chick." In not getting murdered in the aftermath, somehow the two of them had wound up friendly. Enough that the two of them had become instrumental in this little card game scheme with Jetty.

"I'll be sure to commit copyright infringement if I ever get it," Yang said, rolling her eyes.

"Xiao Long, I didn't know you were a VidTube channel!"

Jetty snerked. Honestly, despite the way Yang talked, Jetty had this vague feeling the girl didn't exactly know what she was talking about. Just a sense that she got from the way Yang acted like she knew it all. Almost felt like she was trying to prove something. She was occasionally just a little bit too brash about it. Jetty's own experience as Jetty had given her a sense for how girls tend to operate when they're really like that.

As opposed to Jack, who was currently checking a scroll not of Beacon issue. She wasn't sure why he used some weird civilian model instead of the Huntsmen approved one. What Jetty did know is he probably had learned the hard way how to get cured of an STD at some point. At least he was clean now. Jetty felt like she would know for sure by now, given his penchant for girls who could kill him. Only thing about him that really threw people off was his habit of addressing people by their full names or last names. She wondered if that had something to do with Jack actually being his surname.

Jack saw her looking and cocked an eyebrow. "You're doing that thing where you psychoanalyze people again."

Jetty blinked. "No, I wasn't."

Yang grabbed Jetty's purple top hat off her head. "You were. At least try to look a little less obvious."

Jetty snatched her hat back. Her hat! No one else's. Jet Shamrock stood up, wiping Yang's fingerprints of his hat. It'd been a gift to the young Shamrock not long after he arrived in Vale, from some black Vaudou priest named Cemetaire. Old school Valean cool.

"Yeah, you better run," he groused.

She smiled, running her fingers over Jet's shoulder as she walked past. "Says the guy avoiding his team."

He compressed a sigh. "Can you blame me?"

"I met Jaune, and Ice Queen sounds like a total bitch. So…" She shrugged. "Not really."

"Try having her as a partner," Jet said.

"I'm good, thanks."

Jack kept flicking his hand back and forth, producing and changing playing cards with his magic fingers. That vaudou charm necklace he wore around his neck kept catching the light. Shamrock had asked after it one, and Jack had simply claimed it belonged to his patron deity, the goddess of whores, thieves, and lost children.

"You ever really try reaching out to her?" Jack asked?

Jet side-eyed him. "Yeah. To strangle her."

He stood and shrugged. Jack was tall. Maybe 6'5", lean with a swimmer's build. "She's an aristobrat. Only difference between her types and the Grimm is when they destroy homes and people, least you can legally kill 'em."

Jet snorted. "I hear that. It's just—I don't know. I just feel she thinks she's better than me. Every time we do work together, I get the feeling she's trying to outdo me. Every little pirouette just another flex."

"Find something to show her up with."

"Oh, sure. I do that and she ignores it or thinks it's not important."

He gestured at him with an ace of spades. "You can be anyone. Wear her shoes and ruin her rep."

"The Semblance doesn't work like that, I don't think," Yang said, arms folded.

Jet shrugged. "It's complicated. Besides, even Jaune and Blake at least see eye-to-eye on, like, two occasions. Weiss? I don't know, man."

"Become a billionaire like her?" Jack suggested.

"Ha! I'll get right on that when it rains."

He smiled at Jet. "See? All you had to do was listen to me and all your problems will be solved."

"Don't quit your dayjob," Yang said, rolling her eyes. "I'll see you guys around. Same time next whenever-we're-bored?"

Jack gave her a little two-finger salute by way of farewell.

Jet just sighed, starting after Yang. "Yeah, yeah. Just abandon me to the sand sharks."

And like that, another game night and bitching session over. Jet felt just a little bit better. Still, if Jaune of all retards could level with Blake, maybe he could with Weiss? Somehow. It'd be fucking embarrassing if a fuckup like Jaune outdid Jet at anything, leaving him the odd man out who couldn't get the team together.

Gods but Jaune would never let him hear the end of it.

— 16 —

I was never gonna let Blake hear the end of it. I hung upside down by my legs from one of the library ladders, book in my hands. "He pinned her to the wall, his body against her. In control. She felt helpless, wanted to escape, but couldn't stop from moaning into his mouth when he kissed her," I read, doing upside-down crunches

Sitting at the table below me, Blake gasped, jumping up onto the table. "Jaune—what the—!"

I wet my finger and turned to the next page. Another crunch as I read a copy of the book Blake had been reading in her free time. "She grabbed him, desperate. And instead of shoving him away, pushed his head down to—"

She threw one of the books she'd been studying. It hit me square in the face. I yelped as I lost my footing and tumbled down the ladder straight onto my head. The book went flying, splaying open to one of the illustrated pages. Blake jumped to the ground and kicked the book under the table with a desperate edge. Before she inhaled sharply, seeing me laying upside down in a heap of limbs.

"Crap. Jaune, are you okay?" she hunkered down next to me, face hovering over mine.

I rolled to the side. "Yeah," I groaned. "Didn't think I could keep doing the crunches anyhow. Abs still broken from yesterday's gyming up. Appreciate the care."

She growled. "I don't care. But it'd look pretty awful if I failed because I turned my partner into a paraplegic."

I grabbed the table and hauled myself halfway up. Arms folded under my chin, I eyed her skeptically. "I'mma stop you there right now before you become a tsundere, and just always assume you care now."

As soon as I said it, my look hardened at her. There it was there on full display. Me just being myself. The same myself I thought I was when drunk and fucked up. Dumb humor had always been my go-to. As much a way to make friends as an innate self defense mechanisms

Blake rolled her eyes, sitting back down in her chair. "What are you even doing here, Jaune?"

My heart remembered it was supposed to beat. Relief flooded my every vein. I'd made a joke. I'd been what I felt was my retarded self. But instead of getting angry or offended, telling me to kill myself, she just sort of… accepted it. Not in a defeated way. More like giving shit to a friend kind of way.

"Aside from fucking with you?" I said hopefully, praying I wasn't misreading into things. Yang might be right I was a creep. She must have heard it from Weiss or Blake or someone. But there's this gremlin-like part of me that does like the casual bantz.

It's just for weeks now, my idea of fucking with people had been through the glass lens of a bottle.

You're not funny or charming, J. Shamrock's words came at me in a rush. Back in the school infirmary. You think you are, but you're just an asshole. I know your type and how this story always ends.

I told myself she was wrong. Not entirely. But enough that I could be funny and friendly without making my partner hate me.

"Aside from that, yeah," she said. No heat. No spite. No disgust. It was like Blake was just idly giving me shit for its own sake. Almost like friends are supposed to do.

I found a lopsided little smile tugging at my lips, which earned a curious expression from the girl. I shrugged it off, trying to play it casually. To not overthink it and make it weird.

"Figured you needed a break from studying up on the White Fang."

Her eyes narrowed. "How do you know what I'm reading?"

I froze for a second. That wasn't too far, was it? In a moment of rage I had let knowledge of Yang's mother slip and nearly died for it. Poisoned any hope of good will I would ever have with the first for a fleeting instant of visceral satisfaction,

"Remember when I said I was a fortune teller and it were my bidness to know the unknowable?"

Blake sighed, propping her chin up on her arm. A kind of reluctant acceptance I was more than happy to roll with. "I try to forget most things you tell me. Better for my mental health that way."

"Including tuna sushi?" I asked with a smile. Maybe it was just my mind, but I swear her bow twitched.

She just eyed me mistrustfully. I convinced myself it was still in that vaguely friendly way we were talking. Not exactly liking me, but not offended on a deep level.

"I found a place out in Vale serves half-decent sushi," I said.

"Good for you," she said in the disinterested way only a girl can do, designed perfectly to destroy a man's charisma.

I didn't let her get to me. I don't think she was trying to tell me to fuck off. There's a certain uncomfortable vibe that gives off, and I wasn't feeling it. And unlike the past, it wasn't like I was drunk enough to just maliciously ignore it because I found it funny. My needs did not and could not come before my partner, my… I want to say friend, but even I can't lie to myself that good.

"Sure is, Blake. And I want to take you there. Not a date, stop thinking that. I mean the whole team. Just, like, hang out together as a team and get some food together."

She lifted her head from her arm. "And you can afford this how?"

"I got big large pockets now from pulling extra shifts in the Fishery. Figured I could put me off plastic explosives a lil longer for y'all's sake.

"And what's your sinister ulterior motive?"

I felt a bit of sweat on my back. Of course she'd be suspecting. When had I ever done her something nice for its own sake? Hell, from a certain point of view, I still wasn't. I was trying to teambuild. As much for the sake of my own sanity as a genuine need to set things right with the people I'd hurt worst of all.

That didn't make it sinister, did it? Yang wasn't that right about me.

"You really trust me so little?"

"Uh, yeah?" she said with a no duh, dipshit motion of the head.

I just smiled, feeling more forced than I would have liked. As if pretending everything was okay would make it so. Perception is 9/10th reality and all. "I'm glad you think highly of my scheming. But, I swear, just trying to get the team out of school for a bit. Get away from this all. Just vibe somewhere as people instead of Hunters. Like I said, my treat. How's tomorrow sound?"

"You mean the day we have detention?" she asked pointedly

I knew that. That was the same day I had to meet with Ozpin for that parent teacher meeting bullshit. I was counting on that fact distracting her from giving an immediate no.

So I snapped my fingers. "Good point. Some time next week, say."

"I don't know, Jaune," she said a touch uncomfortably.

I stood up. "You know I ain't taking me no for an answer, girl. We'll make a whole evening of it. Shit'll be fun. A good distraction and finally a good spicy tuna roll."

She pursed her lips to the side, watching me. Every second, my anxious heart pumped hard enough that I felt my body shaking with it. At length she sighed. "I dunno. Maybe."

"Who is a baby who always says yes," I singsonged.

For a blink and you'll miss it moment, I saw it. The barest twitch of a smile on her lips. I think it was the first genuine bit of a smile I'd ever gotten out of her. Not counting her mocking in the bathroom when I offered to show her my skincare routine that one time. As far as a reserved girl like Blake went, that was a fucking achievement.

"You need better material," she said.

"Hmm, nah. I like being cheesy. It's raw and honest, and I'm raw as a dirty needle. I'll need to double down to convince the rest of the team to come with. Countin' on ya to help a boy out, Blake."

All she could do was sigh, sucking in on her thin lips.

Honestly, this was progress. I suspected if I made this offer last week, Blake would have rather viciously shot me down. Not that she was eager. If anything, she was still pussyfooting around me. But I could work with that. I was an acquired taste at the best of times anyhow.

Maybe Ruby's cross really was good luck. Part of me still felt that little edge was the only reason Yang hadn't punched a hole through a skull, a memory that still made my knees weak. I flicked it for good measure. The jingle got Blake's attention. I liked to think it a catlike hunting instinct that got her eyes to follow my drip.

"Where'd you get that?" Blake asked, sounding like she was talking against her will.

"Gift from Ruby for being friend of the year," I said with a wink.

"Oh. You stole it. Great."

"Is it so hard to believe someone out these doesn't hate me? Wait—don't you answer that, girl!"

Knowing amusement danced across her eyes.

Truth be told, I did like the necklace. Back home way, I always wore the little crucifix my dead grandma gave me. A symbol of love from dead family and faith in a higher power. I recalled wearing it one day to group therapy, wearing my skinny black Dockers and a black polo, cross on full display, and the sailors and soldiers all there in uniform had addressed me as sir, thinking I was a priest. I elected not to correct them as long as I could get away with it. Doubted it had any religious meaning in this world. To Ruby, it was a good luck charm from an uncle I presumed she held dearly. To me, it was proof that at least someone might almost like me, which was as precious to me as possible.

Whatever Yang thought, I was starting to think of Ruby as a bratty little sister. Just, one I couldn't pretend to want to protecc, since she could kick my cock inside-out six ways till Sunday. Still liked her. Which were funny, given how I hadn't cared for her too terribly in the show. She was just another action waifu and I was there for the visual spectacle.

I spread my hands at Blake. "Anyhow, I gotta get ready to meet my abusive sister and go punch Ozpin right in his stupid mouth tomorrow. See you at bed or whatever."

"Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out," she said, affecting a boredom I didn't think was genuine.

"Glad to know you're thinking off my ass. Means the squat rack is paying off."