I, Jaune: Or, The Context-Insensitive Semblance

by Eric d'Orleans

Jaune's new team Gaslights, Gatekeeps, and Girlbosses its way from one mental health crisis to another. A story about self-improvement, failing to live up to your own expectations, cute girls suffering emotionally, and learning how Blake somehow goes from Bland to Best Girl. The ride only stops in case of emergency, and crippling trauma is NOT an emergency!

32. Volume 4, Chapter 1

Volume 4: Ça Ira

Chapter 1: Winter Hiatus

"We're all puppets, my friend. I'm just a puppet that can see the strings."

— 1 —

Of all the places I thought I'd find myself, sitting in the back seat just inches away from Yang wasn't really one of them. And it wasn't like I could turn away. I could, but she was still staring at me, and it made it difficult not to stare back at her. Her eyes remained that same purple lilac color, her expression was kind of stunned blank like she couldn't believe I was there. Her body had this defensive tilt to it, the way she angled herself to me. As usual, I was the only one off-duty fully armed. Neither Ruby in the front passenger seat nor the drunk driver at the wheel, Qrow, were packing heat. Yang seemed somehow smaller when unarmed, a total wristlet without her gauntlets, dressed in a varsity jacket and jeans. Maybe she had toned down the vaguely sexualized look because of her uncle, or maybe she was just buttoning up from all the snow outside.

I recalled the first I'd ever seen snow, really seen snow. I'd been twenty-four, stationed up by the capital, where the Army cancelled literally any work at the first sign of real winter. Snow was a myth in the Florida I'd come from. Global warming meant all I saw during my winter in Knoxville had been ice and sleet. And ruck marching up through the snowy mountains of the Afghanistan-adjacent Fort Huachuca didn't count, since the white stuff never reached down far enough to where I barracked. I didn't know how to dress for the cold. Even now, weapons aside, I was just wearing some tight, overly-pocketed black khakis and an open faced jacket Coco had insisted would look really hot as hell on me; her words, not mine. Like a low-burn of amphetamine, just a touch of active Aura protected you enough from the cold that I could probably go naked outside and not notice it, and I wasn't running anything but the comforting touch I never liked to go long without. Been that way ever since Blake turned mine on.

Weiss had insisted cumbersome furs or Aura were the only way to survive out in Solitas where she was from.

"You should go," Weiss had told me, wearing a white winter coat that made her look kind of like a ruffled hen.

I had jumped, putting my scroll face down on the bed. The guitar I was holding in my lap and practicing Old Town Road with made a protesting noise. "Since when we been comfy enough to get close enough for you to spy on my texts?"

Weiss had looked away. "Your sister, right? If you have a family to go back to, you should go."

"And what will the rest of you do without me to ruin your lives?"

It got the barest hint of a smile from her. Proof of just how far I'd managed to come with her, into the nebulous realm of vague tolerance instead of outright hatred. "We'll manage. Maybe I can take up a hobby without you ruining my day, like vacuuming. Finally figure out how to use the food room."

"Kitchen. It's called the kitchen." I shook my head.

The fact was, I was the only member of my team who actually had somewhere to go home for the holidays, the little winter break between the first and second semesters of freshman year. Blake didn't have anywhere. Shamrock was from way too far away and didn't seem interested in family. Weiss apparently had property out in the city, but didn't want to be anywhere her family owned. It meant they would be staying together for the couple weeks without class during the winter.

So I broke, and asked Indigo to send me my parents' address.

I wasn't sure how, but Ruby had figured out what I was doing. One of the little black spots in Jaune's backstory was exactly where he was from. Plotting the coordinates into my map app on my scroll, I figured out it was apparently on the island of Patch; same place Ruby came from. It was interesting seeing how it was all cartographic, no satellite images. But I supposed that made sense, given that Remnant didn't have even a semblance of a space program. I think Dust didn't work once you got into the high atmosphere or something.

Long story short, she and her sister were going home for the holidays. And since where I apparently lived before becoming a Huntsman was just a little past where they were from, she invited me along for the ride. One over-enthusiastic airship ride down to the city and one meeting with her alcoholic uncle later, and here I was, awkwardly engaged in a staring contest with Yang.

I was winning, naturally. Yang didn't seem able to hold my gaze for long comfortably. Some completely random side effect of using your Aura like I was meant you didn't really have to blink very much, a completely useless bit of trivia unless you were up against an SCP, but there it was. Ruby and her uncle were excitedly talking in the front seats, something about the pop song on the radio. It wasn't really my jam.

At some point, I expected Yang or I to break the awkward silence and get to talking. Finally get things straight between us. Get down to the inevitable heart to heart like I had had with Blake that solves all of our problems with empathy and mutual understanding. But that never happened. We never really talked at all. Just stared at each other with distrust, occasionally looking out at the city. Neither of us had any words to say to the other, only occasionally voicing opinions when Ruby or her uncle asked us a question.

The best I managed to do was ask her, "So. Want to talk about stuff? Work through our issues?"

Yang gave me this look and said in a voice low enough so only I would hear it, "I'd honestly prefer if you contorted yourself into a human dildo and fucked right on out of here."

And then it was back to not talking. It was like that all the way to the harbor.

I expected some kind of fancy cyberpunk science fiction way across the bay to the island out in the distance. Maybe an airship or one of those flying cars I'd seen downtown. Those looked cool. But instead, we just took a car ferry. It felt bizarrely down to earth in a way I just didn't imagine would happen here.

Mercifully, I found myself alone out on the ferry, looking over the ice and snow in the harbor, and at all of the foreign ships still stuck out there on the water due to some labor dispute. I made the universal gesture for a cigarette at one of the passengers, who at first gave me a look and asked how old I was, before his friend pointed out that I was obviously a Huntsman. It seemed like everyone in this country smoked. Lighting one up helped me pass the time alone, leaning against the railing as the city faded into the distance.

The storm of roses that materialized as a fifteen-year-old girl sitting on the railings begged to differ with my plans.

"Hmm, no," Ruby said, plucking the cigarette from my mouth and tossing it over the side.

"Hey, what the fuck! I was enjoying my brooding!"

She held onto the railing, idly kicking her feet. She looked weird in that hoodie and sweatpants, somehow frumpy. "You and Yang have been brooding this entire trip. Do you know how awkward it is trying to talk when you two are both staring murder at each other?"

"For your information, she wouldn't have to stare murder at me to get the point across," I said. "Me and my cigarettes is perfectly capable of committing suicide on my own."

She punched me in the arm. "Go be sad on your own time. This is Ruby time. You're not allowed to be sad on Ruby time."

I tried punching her back, but she just evaporated into a cloud and reappeared on the other side of me, still sitting on the railing. Giving me this intensely smug smile, just to rub it in.

"It's all the snow, right?" she asked. "I used to get pretty down when it got cold, too. Seasonal depression or something. My dad said it was pretty common. He still gets pretty bummed out during the first couple days of summer."

I tried to process that for a moment. "Because of your mom?"

She nodded seriously. "Her and my dad, they were teammates. Huntsmen." Ruby leaned back far enough that I was afraid she might fall, opening her mouth to catch a snowflake on her tongue. "I hope someone misses me like that if I ever die. But I guess it's kind of like the old saying, y'know? We're all meat for the Butcher in the end. Especially super cool Huntresses like me."

I folded my arms uncomfortably under the weight of the sideways smile she was giving me. "I can't tell if that's deep, or deeply worrying."

Ruby laughed. "That's what you sound like."

"I haven't said anything at all this trip!"

The girl smiled. "Yeah, but I can hear your thoughts. They're all mopey and downer-y. Total Grimm bait. Talk to me. What's up? Keeping things bottled up inside is how you spiral into bad places. I have a lot of experience."

"Bottling things up inside?"

Ruby snorted. "Nah. Dealing with people who can't talk about stuff. That was your problem when you first got to Beacon, right?"

I stepped away from the railing. My gut instinct was to tell her to screw off. I wasn't about to talk about this. In a very real sense, I didn't even want to think about it. Not dealing with my problems was my number one solution to dealing with my problems. Ignore them until they go away. Tell everyone everything's fine. If you lie long enough, it eventually becomes true.

I ran my hand through my little beard, neatly trimmed and manly. It had come surprisingly far for a boy my age. And it helped deal with the cold like my very own fur coat.

Coco's words ran through my head, telling me that I was treating things too seriously. Looking at Ruby and the expression she was making, suddenly I couldn't help but laugh. That somehow seemed to upset her. She pouted at me angrily.

"Don't make fun of me!" she said, hopping to her feet. "I'm full of big sister energy! I can be all cool and help deal with adult problems."

I put my hand on the top of her head, and then moved it myself, physically demonstrating how short she was compared to me. "Ain't a world out there where you're a big sister to anybody, short round."

She blew a lock of hair out of her eyes, hands on hips. "I'd be taller if I could wear lady stilts. But every time I try, all I do is wind up making friends with the floor. I will cut your legs off to teach you a lesson about being taller than people!"

"With what weapon?"

"Crescent Rose is in the trunk of my uncle's car! I'll do it. One-vs-one me, right here, right now."

I laughed, pushing her away. "What did I tell you my rule was about fighting girls in training bras?"

She huffed, cheeks red. "I don't wear those! I shop at the adult store with Yang!"

"Thanks. I miss five seconds ago when I didn't know that."

"That's not what I meant and you know it!" Ruby folded her arms protectively. "And you're the one that keeps talking about it, jerk," she grumbled.

"If I'm such a jerk, why did you invite me out here?"

"Because, well! Because jerked chicken can still taste good!"

I snorted in laughter. "What the hell does that even mean!"

She threw her hands up. "It sounded like a really clever metaphor until I said it, shut up!" She shoved me forwards.

I stumbled, still laughing. "You really need to rethink this whole therapy angle. You're not good at it. Stick to killing giant monsters."

Ruby glared, putting on a victorious kind of grin that felt like she was forcing it on to her face. "You're not sad anymore, so I think it worked."

I brought my fingers to the corners of my lips and pulled them down into an impossibly deep frown. "You're right. I'm not sad. Now I'm just depressed!"

She mirrored my expression, pulling even further down on her face. "Depression fight—one, two, three, go!"

"The only person in my family I like is my big sister, nyegh!"

"My big sister sucks at giving gifts, nyegh!"

I pulled down even further, exposing my gums. "I have to face my abusive father, nyegh!"

"My mom's dead, nyegh!"

"I don't even know my family at this point anymore and feel like an imposter they won't love because I'm a fraud, nyegh! Nyegh nyegh nyegh!"

Ruby blinked. "Wait, hold up. Is that why you're feeling like crap? You feel like you're not good enough and, like, they won't love you? The same family you're visiting for winter?"

"No, you hold up, did you just trick me into admitting what's bothering me?"

She returned a toothy expression that somehow impossibly straddled the line between sheepish and wolfish at the same time. "I mean, you kind of just walked into that one."

"What the hell is going on here?" Yang demanded, walking up a little staircase to our corner of the deck.

I realized I was still pulling my face down. Letting it go, I put my hands in my pockets and shrugged. "I was kicking your sister's ass in a depression fight."

"Yang, go away!" Ruby whined. "Dr. Ruby was just making a breakthrough! It was going to be the pinnacle of my medical career."

Her sister somewhat awkwardly tugged on her varsity jacket. She thumbed over her shoulder. "Yeah. Well. Uncle Qrow started a fire to cook up some hot dogs and I needed help to stop him."

Ruby groaned. "Uncle Qrow, not in the boat again!" She spun to me, holding up one finger. "This isn't over. If they're your family, they'll love you for who you are, no matter who you become. You're still their Jaune, Jaune."

"And what if I'm not Jaune?" I asked with all the force of wind leaving a sail. The words just tumbled out. But by that point, she had already evaporated into a storm of rose petals and zoomed off to the deck with all the cars.

Yang spared me just enough time to give me one last dirty look before chasing after her sister.

— 2 —

The ferry docked in the biggest city on the island, some little place called Five Wives. It didn't look like much. Some kind of sports stadium and an academy that Ruby claimed was Signal, also not in session for the winter break. Not that we got to see much of town. Qrow kind of just shuttled us into the car as fast as possible and then sped off before anyone could stick him with the bill for starting a fire on the deck. At least the hot dogs were good.

After that, it was just more awkward staring with Yang in the backseat. I could feel her sucking away my good vibes with every moment that passed. Until I was back in a funk all over again. And while Ruby did occasionally give me vaguely anxious glances in the rearview mirror, she had at least had that common decency not to dig up my dirty laundry in public like this.

Qrow drove us further inland until we could more easily see the massive mountain at the center of Patch. Ruby claimed the mountain made land navigation on Patch hard, since it was so magnetic it affected local compasses and nearly made her fail the first year final field test at Signal. We passed through a lowland known as Caedwun's Scar, whose claim to fame was a tourist trap built around a giant shard of the moon that fell to Remnant. That didn't sound like a thing that could actually happen, but I did suppose the giant crystalline spire rock thing looked kind of moon-like. Reminded me more of aedra from Pillars of Eternity, only white. Apparently there was a pretty kick-ass moon themed diner in the area.

All the while, the snow kept falling from on high. But even with the holidays here, it seemed snow ploughs were keeping the highway clear.

A couple hours went by and Qrow pulled up to a house set apart from a nearby town. Like a lot of the places I'd seen so far on the island, it had an obsequiously English name, such as Leeds, Birmingham, Lincolnshire, and most bizarrely of all Boston. That last one was apparently where Ruby was from by proxy. I didn't like that on a conceptual level. My mother had been a proud Staten Island working class girl and my entire family on that side, as a rule, hated anyone from Boston or Massachusetts. Fuck the Red Sox.

The house itself was surprisingly big. Two stories with a lot of square footage. Definitely more house than anything I'd ever lived in. This place probably even had a basement, an unthinkable concept to a Florida boy like myself. But then again, so was the fact that snow actually crunched under my boots. For some reason, that had never quite struck me as realistic. Qrow popped open the trunk, and I began putting everyone's bags over my shoulders.

"I can carry my own things," Yang said, grabbing her bag from my hands and clutching it almost protectively.

I gave her an even look, the best I could manage. "But if I don't carry things, how am I going to prove I go to the gym? Without bags, I'll just have to resort to my old school tactic of stacking girls and lifting them!"

"Nah, it's cool," Ruby said, materializing at my side. "I've always wanted a manservant. Your new name is Claude."

I gave Yang a well there you have it gesture. It wasn't that I intended to stay here long and get comfy. My own destination was a little further inland. Close enough that part of me wondered if Ruby and Jaune had ever met as little kids.

"Tai isn't in right now," Qrow said, unlocking the front door. "Think he's out trying to fetch dinner or something. Make yourself at home, kid."

"Wait, what about driving me to the town over?" I asked, still shouldering Ruby's bags.

"I've been drinking. I can't drink and drive. That'd be irresponsible!" He gave me a hint of a smile, before suffocating it with a pull of whiskey that I really wished I could have. "Besides, looks we got a snowstorm coming in. I don't want to drive in this. You'll be there for the Long Night tomorrow."

I sighed from the back of my throat.

Long Night, though? Long night of what? Of solace? Or maybe it was the name of the holiday happening tomorrow. The problem with not being a native to this world, was that everyone just assumed I knew what the Christmas equivalent here would be, their nondescript winter celebration. People just inferred it was Christmas from context. And unlike Earth, where Christmas was just one of the holidays at the time, this was just the Holiday. It had gotten so colloquial to the point that I couldn't even ask what the hell it was called, without revealing I was– well, I guess it wouldn't reveal anything, it would just be hella weird. It would be like a grown ass man coming up to you, pointing at a dog, and sincerely asking What's this thing called? You probably wouldn't assume he was an alien or a body snatcher from an alternate dimension, but you would assume he was insane or probably high.

The living room was a lot more like a den than I would have imagined. They had an honest-to-god fireplace. The whole thing was decorated in what I had to assume was the holiday aesthetic, but I couldn't place any of the symbols. Some of them vaguely reminded me of Weiss' glyphs. A couple I thought were just abstract representations of snowflakes and other wintery scenes. Hanging above the door was what looked like prayer beads with bits of paper taped to them, instead of a mistletoe or something. Bits of hot wax were pressed up against the fireplace, melted there and bright red, with symbols that I felt vaguely sure represented Ruby and Yang and I guess Qrow and Taiyang, the name of the girls' father.

It all had this vaguely alien feeling to me. When I was a kid, I had been over eagerly trick-or-treating for Halloween. Rushing on ahead, I had rung the doorbell of a house that had its lights off, a complete faux pas. But I was too young and high on sugar to notice. The girl who answered the door was my age, black, and looked completely terrified of me, like I was some monster out of, well, out of whatever monster movie that I was dressed like.

"We don't celebrate Halloween," she had told me, the interior of her house somehow looking completely foreign despite just being an average house. All wrong for the season and the holiday. Everything in there I could name and place, but it just felt wrong somehow. There was probably some childhood racism in that perspective, if I'm being honest. I suspected in hindsight she was probably Muslim. Yet, I just gave her this baffled look like she was the one in the wrong, not me.

It was one of those memories that always made me cringe to remember. But as I held Ruby's bags over my shoulders, looking around at the completely alien decoration with a vague wintry feeling, that was just the sense I got. I was an invader in this world. And not the cool one that was going to anally probe you and steal your cow. The kind who got hopped up on painkillers and alcohol to cope with the culture shock and the new flesh.

Yang set herself down on the couch with a heavy enough sigh that it took me from my reveries. After fishing around between the sofa cushions, she found the remote to operate the plasma screen. She was completely ignoring me as if hoping that by pretending I wasn't existing and keeping me in the corners of her eyes, I would eventually vanish.

"Zwei!" Ruby called out. "Zwei, where are you, boy!" She huffed. "Guess maybe Dad took him."

"Hey, kid, where'm I putting your stuff?" I asked.

"Oh, that. Just put them in my room. Which, never mind, you don't know where that is. Be really weird if you did."

And so I followed her up the stairs. I dropped off Ruby's bags in front of her door.

Ruby made a face at me. "My bed's like just five feet away, dude."

"I can still feel Yang's eyes on the back of my soul," I said. "Miss me with that going into a fifteen-year-old girl's room for any reason shit."

She rolled her eyes, mouth opening to accentuate the gesture. "You're such a baby, Jaune."

"My name's not maybe."

"What?"

"The only baby I know is maybe, and because I'm not maybe, therefore I'm not a baby. Dig?"

She just stared at me skeptically. "Wow. That was so funny I forgot to laugh."

I didn't reply. Just looked back down the hall.

Ruby punched me. Or tried to in any case. I just passively pulled back my arm and had her hit my scabbard. I was convinced my reaction speed was faster than it would have been a couple months ago, without all of the training with Blake.

"Ow!" she whined, rubbing her hand. "That hurt! Not supposed to do that to me in my own home! Only I get to punch you, if you're being a downer again. That's the rule. I would know because I just made it up."

I rolled my shoulders, hefting my own bag. "It doesn't have to be physical. I can hurt you in other ways. How would you like to be emotionally traumatized?"

She waved her hand at me. "Nah, I already got some. It's the perfect amount."

"Show me where I can put my own stuff down, or I'll do it! It's the trauma conga line from here on till morning!"

She gasped theatrically, slapping her hands to her cheeks. "No, anything but that! Anymore and I'll just get all sad and emo instead of just damaged enough to be kinda quirky!"

I sensed that there was a lot more self-deprecation in that than she was letting on. Like when she told me earlier that she hoped someone would miss her when she died like she missed her mom. Nevertheless, after making an expansive gesture towards a hallway, she did reluctantly bring me somewhere to put my stuff down.

And it was a guest room. An honest-to-god guest room the kind which I only knew from the legends of people who could afford to own property. The whole room looked kind of old and unused, dust on a lot of the services, and smelled vaguely like moths. Ruby didn't seem to want to enter the room, just standing there with her hands behind her back like some girlish version of parade rest.

"You want something?" I asked, putting my bag on the bed.

She blinked at me like she was expecting a whole different line of question. "Oh, uh, no. Let me know if you see a Corgi running around here somewhere. I'm gonna go not be here. Ciao!"

She turned into a cloud of roses and just vanished. I was left standing there, feeling like something was really wrong. I tried looking around to figure out what it was, that nagging sensation. The first thing to catch my mind were the carvings in the door frame, only really visible from within.

Ruby — 1

Yang — 3

Ruby — 2

Yang — 4

It was a way of marking height by age. It ended approximately when Ruby turned five or thereabouts. I walked over to examine the little markings, and shut the door while I was there. I didn't really like snooping around a guest room with an open door.

It didn't particularly mean much to me. Raised more questions than it answered. Just like the weird color of the sheets, which looked color-coded to someone's tastes: white and black, which somehow reminded me of an old checkered suit. I tried to remember whose colors it represented, since that was a big theme here on Remnant. Qrow? That was broadly the color of his outfit. Didn't feel right. Something about this place struck me as feminine, I didn't know why. Summer Rose? But why would she have her own room?

There was nothing on the desk in the room. The chair was old wood, no brand stickers, and had the distinct impression that someone had made it by hand from several cuts on it. There were little grooves on the floor from where someone had been pushing and pulling it into the desk for a long time. No Ethernet outlet anywhere to be found in the room. And from my vague knowledge of American power outlet standards, there were a few too many outlets here. One of them even looked crooked.

Ignoring the closet for now, I decided to poke through the old drawers. One time, when I was being moved to a new base, I was stuck in a quarantine barracks for two weeks straight. The person who had the room before me had been a Marine, and had left a lot of their paperwork in the desk. I had gone through their rank structure, their personal diary, and other miscellaneous details in between bouts of being completely fucking wasted to help pass the time.

I found a literal rat's nest in the bottom right drawer. Lots of torn up paper and receipts, though no signs of old shit or piss. I once let a wild snake live in my car over the summer because I had problems with mice in the glove box and was too busy being in the Army to get my car. I miss you, snake bro. Your skin was a treasure.

I poked through the little nest, until I found a piece of harder paper. It looked like a Polaroid, complete with a couple of notes on the one side. Feeling like some kind of RPG adventurer trying to solve a mystery murder, I sat back on the bed and examined the picture.

Team STRQ, '32, read the flowery script. That was, what, nineteen years ago? Or was it closer to twenty, since this was going to be the eve of year '52. Summer Rose, Taiyang, Raven & Qrow Branwen. I had the distinct impression I wasn't supposed to see whatever was on the front, but that had never stopped me before.

That's how I walked in on my parents fucking that one time, and I was only mildly horribly scarred for life as a result of that.

The picture looked to be from outside the house, except the house was still under construction. Poorly planned and still mostly made of logs and frames. A woman who looked like a checkerboard Ruby was front and center, jumping into the air and splaying her limbs out. To the side was a woman who looked like Yang (Raven), just wearing red and with black hair, looking like she was trying really hard to pretend like she totally wasn't having fun right now, you guys. The next one had to be Qrow, making a dumb face and wearing a disco-ass blazer; he was looking really clean shaven and handsome as a young man, a couple of decades without the damage of vodka and whiskey. The last was the man on the ground, who had apparently been shoved to the ground by the Ruby lookalike who had to be Summer, before jumping back up. I suppose that must have been Ruby's father, Taiyang.

There was graffiti on the picture. Someone had drawn exaggerated angry eyebrows and stink lines coming from Raven. There was a little heart around Taiyang and a label that simply read The Boy. Several cartoon flowers decorated Qrow's outfit, with a speech bubble that said "Disco, baby!" Lastly were little lines of motion and exploding stars surrounded Summer herself.

"I get the feeling you shouldn't be looking at that," Qrow said, his voice muffled by the door.

I jumped, and instinctively sat on the polaroid. "How do you know what I'm doing?"

He knocked on the knob. "I've seen glory holes smaller than this door lock."

"I feel sorry for any woman you fucked through such a small glory hole," I said, making a teensy-weensy measurement between my fingers.

Qrow laughed, just up and opening the door. He just walked in, hands in his pockets. He struck me as being all together far too casual, like he was forcing it. "I guess a couple of her old things keep turning up in this room. Used to be Ruby's mom's, Summer."

"What are you doing here?" I asked, standing up.

The man shrugged. "Tai's apparently coming home with a turkey or something. Ruby was trying to get me to find her, and I quote, 'my Claude' to help her make mashed potatoes. Which I was going to recommend you do quickly, because she's already set the water on fire." He brought his hand from his pocket and made a circular gesture. "But then I figured out that picture you're looking at, and probably should explain it."

"Wait, hold that thought. So you were just looking for me, and were staring through the door lock? What if I'd been jerking off?"

"I would have knocked. Ball's in your corner. What would you have done?"

"I would have stared you down through the door and finished like the man I am."

Qrow laughed. "How the fuck are you the girl's friend?"

"I insisted she needed to brush her teeth and ruined her day by making broccoli," I said flatly. "Genuinely don't know why she tolerates me. But." My hand went up to my little cross necklace, the one she had given me. That I hadn't taken off since. "She's one of the few who do. Kind of means something, I guess."

He nodded, and then pointed to the photo I had left on the bed. "She ever tell you about her mom?"

I folded my arms uncomfortably, taking a step back towards the desk. "Yeah. Summer Rose. I know she's dead. Ruby's talked about it a bit. Told me that she wishes someone would miss her when she dies as much as she misses her mom."

That actually seemed to catch Qrow off guard. "She told you what?"

I made a so-so gesture. "She was being fatalistic. I think she was just trying to mock me because I was in a bad mood."

Qrow shook his head. Running his hand through a stubble, he said, "No, I—I just saw you looking at the old picture of Summer. Had to spend like two minutes trying to think of something dramatic to introduce her with. I didn't actually think Ruby would tell you about her. Kid's usually pretty close-lipped on that."

"So you were staring at me for two damn minutes through the fucking door?"

"In my defense, most of the time was spent drinking." He made a face. "Man, kid, Jaune, would you stop harping that point? I'm trying to actually be a responsible adult for once in my life."

"I'm going to put, like, duct tape on the door so you can't watch me!"

"You know, that's both clever and pretty obvious." Qrow rubbed his chin thoughtfully "Glad Summer never did. She used to sleep naked and—" He shrugged.

"You watched your own goddamn sister be naked?"

He just looked confused. "Wha'?"

"I mean, I'm pretty sure that's how that works. Ruby seems to look up to you a lot, kind of dresses like you, so I figured her mom was probably your sister?"

Qrow threw his head back laughing. "Gods, kid. That's a good one, but no. Yang's my biological niece. Ruby I just kind of adopted like one because, well, she's a good kid. And I figured having two dads was probably the least bad outcome for her after her mom died."

He sat down on the bed, still laughing at himself, rubbing his face. "You know, Jaune, no, fuck it. I actually came here to try to gently inform you of the whole thing with Summer and Ruby's mom. Figured it'd probably hurt the girl if you just up and asked who this chick in the photo was. You look like you were about to do something stupid like that. I was going to bring up how Ruby's father actually built this house, adding rooms and places for the family as we all grew. Summer used to just be one of his friends, his team leader, and this was her room. Moved into the bedroom after Raven left and the two of them got married. It was going to be this whole thing I was planning. I'm a veritable encyclopedia of useless knowledge like that.

"But at this point, I don't even know what the hell we're talking about. Seriously, What's going on anymore? And more to the point, what the hell did you do to Ruby to get her to open up about her mom to you?"

I shrugged, honestly. "I know a doctor at the school brought her up briefly; Summer, I mean. She kind of just told me on her own going from that."

"You sure you two really aren't a thing? Girl really seems to like you."

"My entire goal in life is to make people who used to hate me like me," I said with a sigh. Once again I found my hand on my necklace, the gift she'd given me. "Today Ruby, tomorrow my father. Neither of whom I'm trying to fuck by making them like me."

"Be pretty sketchy if you were trying to fuck your dad," he said mildly. His face said he still had doubt, not about my father, but about Ruby in some way. At least I hoped it was about Ruby and not my dad.

"I got a policy against sleeping with people I know and like," I said flatly, just trying to throw him off with that. And vaguely reassure him about Ruby. "And even if we ignored the fact that she's fifteen and the frankly freaky fact everyone seems to forget that, I don't like Ruby or any other girl I've met at Beacon enough to let her be the girl who fucks my life up."

Instead of anything reasonable, Qrow just nodded. "Ah, so you're at that phase of romantic cynicism. Makes sense. Been there too. It's a fun phase, though I was a lot older than you when I stumbled into that headspace. But inevitably getting syphilis treatment really sucks. Just saying. Not that I'd know."

"Your advice scares me."

"I mean, just the mano-a-mano type," he said. "I sorta dig doing it, really. If you need some advice from an actual pretend father figure, we got a couple hours in the car tomorrow between here and there. I'd be happy to see how good I am at giving advice to a young man instead of a terrifying murder machine pretending to be a young girl."

I sighed. "This conversation somehow feels like I've lost a couple of brain cells. Am I the only one?"

"Zug zug," Qrow said, opening his mouth and giving me the dumbest look possible. He shook his head and the expression away. "Anyhow, since your new name is apparently Claude and you are Ruby's manservant, want to help around with the chores and dinner?"

"If maids get sexy outfits, what kind of outfit do I get for being a sexy manservant?"

"I usually just take off my shirt and let my body do the talking."

"I'll get that in mind once I beat into Ruby exactly how to make mashed potatoes. Y'all get any garlic?"

Qrow shrugged, standing up. "Figure it out yourself. I just occasionally visit here to bum a couple of Lien from time to time."

— 3 —

Taiyang elbowed the door of his '29 Fuselier supercharger shut, jostling the fuzzy disco ball hanging from the rear view mirror, after making sure that the dog, Zwei, got out safely. The car had been one of the first things he bought with the check he got from his first mission ever as a Huntsman. Able to go from rear wheel drive to all wheel drive for that offroading drag racing, and with enough horsepower to rival the entire Royal Valean Dragoons at their height, it was pretty much his first child. Or, well, technically speaking, maybe his second child? Yang was the third, obviously. But the first version of this car, he'd kind of completely fucking annihilated on a mission to the Ivory Mountains, ramping the ride up to two hundred MPH and driving straight off the cliff into the dragon's mouth to save Raven.

Team STRQ had needed to walk back home to Vale. But all four letters had survived, if bloodied. Carrying Raven on her broken leg, she'd smiled at him and held up the only object she'd been able to recover from Taiyang's previous car. It was the super tacky fuzzy disco ball he'd hung from the rearview mirror because Qrow thought it'd be badass and get the two of them hella babes. It was the only part of the car they'd been able to recover. It was what made him realize Qrow's plan had worked, and it had got him the only babe he cared about.

Once upon a time, at least. Once upon a different lifetime. Before she left and Summer confessed to him and…

Oh, and before that great insurance payoff. "Killing Grimm" was actually covered by that. Funny how that worked. Enabled him to get a whole new Fusilier.

The little Patch corgi, Zwei, barked up at him. Somehow sarcastically.

Carrying the turkey and a pack of beers, Taiyang rolled his eyes. His boots crushed the soft, fresh-fallen snow. "Yeah, boy. You can have one of the legs. But you gotta behave. Ruby apparently has some friend over. Remember the last time she had a guest?"

Zwei tilted his head, before shaking the white snow off his black-furred back. He barked and raced off to the door.

Taiyang sighed and opened the door. Instantly the smells of butter, milk, and garlic assaulted his nose. Someone was making potatoes? He had a hard time figuring out which of his family had learned to cook. Then he wondered if it was Ruby's guest. She hadn't brought over a friend for the Long Night just to enslave them to make dinner again, had she?

The dog stormed into the house before Tai could get in.

"ZWEI!" Ruby screamed from the kitchen, out of view from the living room. "YANG, JAUNE, ZWEI'S HERE! DIS MY DOG, ZWEI, AND HE IS THE BEST!"

A boy screamed. A boy. Not a man like Qrow. A boy. Jaune? "Damnit, Ruby, watch the pot!"

"Don't swear at my sister!" Yang called back.

"I'm covered in gravy, thank you very much, Yang," he said. "I know I'm delicious and nutritious, but not this way. Ugh, bordel de merde!"

"No swearing in fancy around Ruby, either!"

"I'm sorry, Jaune!" Ruby said. "Does that hurt?"

"Gravy is a harsh mistress, yes! Where's your bathroom?"

Taiyang had thought it'd be some girl from Beacon or something. But in hindsight, everyone had been kind of vague about it, avoiding pronouns and gender. Oh shit. Taiyang entered defense mode.

Qrow stepped past Tai, closing the door behind him and snatching his beers in a solid motion. The man who might as well be Tai's brother didn't look too bothered, just faintly amused.

"Yeah," he said around the can of beer. "Boy's name is Jaune. Surprise!"

Taiyang grit his teeth. "Qrow, I thought we had a plan for whenever Ruby brings home boys." He grabbed Qrow and shook him. "A plan."

"Why does Ruby get a plan and not Yang?" he asked, sipping beer.

"Because you don't need a plan to deal with Yang breaking a boy's legs," he hissed, shoving his turkey at Qrow. "We just need to help her bury the body when it happens."

Qrow laughed. "She still might kill Jaune all the same. You want in?"

"What did I tell you about trying to involve me in conspiracy to commit murder?" Taiyang pushed away from Qrow, rolling his eyes hard enough his whole body shook with it. He just grabbed his turkey and, he didn't know, supposed he'd at least try to meet Ruby's friend, who was a boy.

He found Ruby in the kitchen, rolling around on the ground with Zwei. Yang was desperately trying to get a hold of a boiling pot of potatoes and another of gravy.

"Dad!" Ruby called out. "Look, I found a dog. He's mine now. Get your own."

Tai felt a lot of his worry fade away as he looked at Ruby and her smile. And then he reminded himself what lengths he went to as a dad to protect that smile. "Nah, I licked him, so that means I own him."

"What if he licks me?" she asked. "Does that mean I'll be his and so have to take him back with me?"

"Maybe. If a bunch of big scary Huntresses really need Zwei." He winks. "But we both know the only thing Zwei licks are his nuts."

"Dad, ew!" Ruby laughed.

His happy thoughts were cut off when Yang yelled.

"Dad, help!"

Tai put the turkey and a couple cans in bags on the kitchen table and rushed over to help his sunny little dragon. He'd give her a hug or something, but from the way she was panicking at the pot of potatoes, now probably wasn't the time. She'd probably flail and punch him.

"How'd you even get here, Yang?" he asked, pushing her aside by her shoulder. He quickly adjusted the burners and stirred away the bubbling foam. Safe at last using his expert dad skills.

"Iunno," Yang said, hands going through his hair. Straightening out her messy ponytail. "Jaune was trying to teach Ruby how to cook, since, y'know." She nodded to the third pot on the stove. It looked like it'd been the site of a bum's tire fire.

Tai sighed. "Yep. Another Holiday, another pot lost. Some things never change."

"I'm sorry!" Ruby said, standing up and wearing Zwei as a hat. "But if it means anything, then I got you a new pot for the Holiday."

"Ah. Preplanned arson and ruining my surprise gift. Awesome." He smiled and tousled her hair. "Love ya too, kid."

Yang rolled eyes, so he tousled hers too. Even harder. As if his sunny little dragon was too old for this. Not a chance!

Which is when he remembered. "Who's Jaune, exactly?"

"Some asshole," Yang said as Ruby happily replied, "My manservant!"

The two girls looked at each other, and despite themselves laughed. Still resting on Ruby's head, Zwei barked happily. Yang dragged the dog off her sister and gave him a nose kiss.

"Hey, boy. Missed you too," Yang said.

Taiyang rubbed his cold hands together. He grabbed a towel from the oven. "Oh, yeah. There's no towels in the bathroom. That's where he went, right? Lemme just, y'know, get him something to dry himself."

They both made agreeable noises, and were just a pair of happy siblings together with the world's best dog.

Qrow met Tai on the other end of the kitchen, drinking his second can of beer and leaning against the door. "Just, be careful."

"Of what?" Tai asked.

"The boy, I guess. Don't know. I think he likes to pretend and act like he's way older than he is. Him and Yang are the same age. I'd call him super edgy, but." Qrow shrugged. "Don't just kill the kid, I guess. Unless you can make it really funny. You do that, I'm all for it." He pulled his head back to drink, before walking into the kitchen. "Zwei–"

Zwei barked.

"You sonuvabitch!"

The dog launched from the girls' grasp and lunged for Qrow, his paw meeting Qrow's hand in a manly full-arm hand-paw clasp.

Tai shook his head, wiping his hands on the dry oven towel, following the sound of the running sink. For some reason, trying to reassure Tai about the boy had only made him more nervous. If the boy was just some friend or whatever, Qrow wouldn't have needed to try to warn Tai. To preemptively reassure him. It was a really bad omen.

But then again, maybe the kid was just a little edgy. Gods know that Ruby looked edgy if you took her outfit out of context when she went off to Beacon. Gothic fashion, the harvest scythe, the crosses, but then the girl wearing it all is Ruby Rose, a complete doll. He would know. He raised the girl as best he could on his own, with only the occasionally awful influence of Qrow. It really was a miracle she had come up so nice and not, well, the female version of himself.

Jaune. That was his name. He wouldn't technically be the first boy Ruby had brought home. Most of them had been classmates to some degree. She was a weird mix of incredibly social and yet really bad with people. The way that seemingly half the kids were these days with their internet and their scrolls. But none of the boys she had brought over had really been a threat, and most had just been study buddies in the earnest sense of the word. Pimply and frumpy and just a painful reminder that he had once looked like that too.

Besides, the boy had apparently tried teaching Ruby how to cook. What kind of dangerous bad boy teaches a girl how to cook in her own home? Honestly, the boy was probably gay. That was the thing some girls liked to do, right? Have a cool friend like in that one musical that Ruby liked to watch as a kid, Glad! or something.

Jaune was probably just some really friendly kid or some loser who would never have a chance. There was no reason to think of him as any kind of threat. Taiyang just found himself getting more and more embarrassed by the idea that he was so worried for his daughter. She was almost an adult, and out there at Beacon she probably was an adult. Living on her own and slaughtering monsters. As her father, he should respect her judgment more.

At least that was the objective feeling. Subjectively, he was always going to be her dad. And the least her dad can do is give her frumpy, possibly gay male friend a warm welcome to their house for the Holidays.

The door to the bathroom was partially open, with steam coming out from the sink.

Taiyang opened it up and froze.

The boy was maybe 6'2". With short and messy blond hair. And the honest to god neatly trimmed makings of a beard that made him look at least twenty. With horror, Taiyang understood why Qrow had to reassure him that Jaune was the same age as Yang. Having removed his shirt to wash off the gravy, he was all there. Lean.

No, not lean. Cut. No stranger to the gym. Not quite ripped but getting there. He looked a little bigger than Taiyang. Almost like he could take the veteran in a fight right here, right now. He reminded Taiyang of himself in the very prime of his young life as a Hunter. But, seriously. The abs. What kind of fucking seventeen-year-old had abs?

He had scars all over his body, a massive claw mark running down from his heart to his groin, shrapnel on his right knuckle, a number of burn scars scattered around his chest, including one that made it look like someone had put out a cigarette on his left breast, like he was tortured. His entire left arm had the outline of a sleeve tattoo in progress, the mixing of black ink in an artistic manner drawing in the eye. Or maybe the framework was the tattoo, making him look somehow mechanical.

Jaune looked like a Huntsman.

He looked up from the sink, over his shoulder at Taiyang. "Mr Xiao Long?" he said in a gruff accent.

Taiyang opened his mouth, and the sheer dread slipped out. He couldn't help himself. His thoughts bubbled to his tongue as he white knuckled the towel.

"OH NO, HE'S HOT!"