Volume 7: Thirty Seconds Till Midnight
Chapter 1: Full-Bodied
"Uh-oh, guys! I don't know if we can gaslight gatekeep girlboss our way out of this one!"
— 1 —
Yoga pants made Weiss feel like a man trying to score a hot date at a battered women's shelter. Conceptually, if you squinted really hard, it almost made sense. But it completely fell apart with just the barest hint of self-awareness. She pulled on the elastic waistband, and didn't like the way it snapped back. It was like she couldn't quite get it comfortable, like it was trying to leave an imprint on her hips that made her think of stretch marks and the expensive, often invasive ways women in Atlas would try to cover up and remove them.
But when you wanted to go running, you needed to dress for the occasion. And she didn't think it would be smart to go for a morning jog in a skirt. It didn't help shake the feeling that these pants were never designed for fitness, and were in fact a scheme by some man in the clothing industry to make her butt stand out like some kind of baboon.
If Weiss was going to be a baboon, then she was going to be the best baboon!
Wait, no, scratch that. Scratch literally every single bit of that thought. She grabbed her head, forcing air through her teeth to make the mental image go away. Her breath misted in the January morning.
Jaune made a noise in his throat, looking up from where he had been bent over stretching. He had an expression like he needed a moment to process that it was actually her. "What's good, Weiss?"
She tried not to fidget with her waistband again. "Nothing. I live in a constant state of despair."
He pointed to his head. "Well, obviously. Because you're clearly not in a current state of des-hair."
Weiss stared at him. "What?"
Jaune made an inarticulate series of gestures. Behind him and above, someone opened up one of the windows in the Beacon dormitory. "It was a pun. A joke."
She blinked. "No, it wasn't. Jokes are funny. That was the opposite of a joke. You should kill yourself to preserve your family's honor."
He laughed. "Okay, okay. I see you, fierce, independent Weiss with the tomboy haircut."
Aaaand there it was. On the plus side, self-consciously running her fingers through her newly shortened haircut distracted her from constantly fidgeting with her overly tight waistband. Her long hair had gotten filthy and matted through days of tunnel crawling and urban combat. Shamrock had put the idea in her head, and it had kept bouncing in there. When she couldn't wash out all the filth and make her hair look right again, she decided to try to cut it. Go for something sporty. But it still felt alien to have hair that barely went down to her neck.
The weirdest thing about it was that she felt off balance. For the longest time, she had worn her hair with a ponytail on one side. A subtle act of asymmetry. Her hair had been long, almost luxurious. But she hadn't been able to keep it like that once rubber met the road and filth met the tail. Without the nearly imperceptible weight of the ponytail on one side, it just felt like something was missing.
On the other hand, her hair dried itself after mere minutes getting out. That was a new experience.
She fooled her arms. "As much as I usually like talking about my favorite subject, me, can we not?"
He leaned against a raised flower bed, eying her up and down. His gaze settled on her running shoes, far newer and less worn down than the old pair he was wearing. "Well what am I going to talk about, myself? You know it's always a bad idea to get two narcissists in a room together."
Weiss gestured at the sky. "Lucky you, we're not in a room. We're outside our dorms at Beacon. And this is one of your morning runs."
Jaune made a rolling gesture with his hand. "Which brings me to my second point."
She frowned. "Because you basically threatened to drag me along on one of your runs way back when we were fleeing the Grimm with Coco. We've got a couple hours until class begins, and, you know, until the sun actually rises. I figured I'd show up on my own terms before you remembered and dragged me out on yours."
He looked impressed, which somehow offended her. "Explains the weird wardrobe."
Weiss scowled. "According to my research, yoga pants pants are perfectly acceptable for running. Look at you, you're wearing sweatpants!"
"The difference is—"
She stabbed a finger directly into his face. "Don't you dare. If you actually finish that sentence about my butt, I'm going to kill you. And that's not a threat. A Schnee doesn't make threats. We make promises."
The smile was smug and toothy, and she hated him for it. "I was going to say the difference is, I can pull these off without my underwear showing. At least it would if you were wearing any."
Weiss hissed in a breath, acting without thinking. Moving her hands to the crease below her bottom. "Compression shorts! I'm wearing compression shorts like I do under my combat skirt. They go down pretty far. Stop staring. Stop giving me that look, you creep!"
Jaune laughed. "Okay, chill. You have to learn the first rule of running. It's basically advanced leg day. And just like leg day, the purpose is to have an ass you can show off." He stepped past her, giving her a hard pat on the back. "Stick with me and my frankly unhealthy psychological obsession with fitness, and you'll be the envy of all the models on the runway."
Her upper lip contorted. "I don't want to be a model. Do you know what models actually eat?"
"Nothing?"
She threw her hands up. "Ah, yes, how can I have forgotten? It's the same thing you eat!"
Jaune put his hand to his chest. The sheathed sword he was still carrying on his arm rattled slightly. "I, for one, am touched you think I look as good as a model. I think that's the nicest thing you ever said to me. It makes me want to say something nice to you in return!"
"Jaune!" she warned. "I came out here under the banner of truce because I thought it would be good for both of us. Do not make a mockery of my good will."
He shrugged helplessly. "Your new haircut looks nice, no cap. And I'm genuinely touched and excited to have a running partner."
"I—" Her voice hitched. Weiss sighed, slumping her shoulders. "Now why did you do that?"
"Be supportive of something I think is actually really cool?"
"Tch! Yes. I was enjoying my anger. It's the only thing keeping me warm in this thin material." She rubbed her arms, sticking her nose up.
He pulled out his scroll, opening up a map application. "Shame. But I can only tease you for so long before I start getting worried you're going to take it personally."
Weiss made a so-so gesture. "Less than a week ago I was trapped in an alternate dimension with a version of you who wanted to hurt me and make it personal. When you do it these days, I can tell the difference. Took me a while to realize it, but hey, I'm capable of learning how people operate. It's kind of fun."
"I do wish I were capable of character development," he said off-handedly, thumbing through his scroll.
But really, the alternate dimension thing was only half of her problems. Technically, it didn't even really do anything. Everyone had agreed that nothing had really changed, and they were all still together. Sure, Jaune apparently got to have a moment of growth, again, but it was what happened afterwards that mattered. Not the nearly two days of fighting and running and trying to survive. Not some weird background political stuff that this seemed to have caused for the country. Or even how her hair had gotten so matted and filthy she had to shear it off until she had this cut.
And it was just exhausting. Like, mentally. Jaune and Blake nearly killed each other before Weiss dragged them kicking and screaming into admitting they had feelings for each other. They had come dangerously close to something before that White Fang woman had appeared, claiming that somebody up in their hierarchy was looking out for their team. Then, on the eventual airship ride back to Beacon, suddenly Jaune and Blake not only weren't talking, they were also not even looking at each other. As if pretending the other didn't exist.
Weiss was tempted to try smacking them both for being idiots. But the problem was, she knew the two of them. She could count the number of people she actually considered friends on one hand. Sometimes those friends just happened to be completely stupid, leaving Weiss the only sane one left.
Like she said, she knew Blake and Jaune. The boy especially, if you just directly confronted him with a problem, was just going to shut down. And if Weiss had any doubt that something really bad had happened, the fact that Jaune hadn't been eating these past couple of days since they returned from Montluçon pretty much sealed the deal. He had the most suicidal ways of coping with stress.
Jaune turned his scroll around to her, showing a route around campus. "This is about a two mile loop. If we stick together you'll probably have it memorized after that."
"Okay," she said, trying to commit the route to memory. "But why do you run the weird complicated route instead of just using the track in the gym?"
He shook his head. "I get bored and lose interest. This here route got enough little twists and turns and interesting things to look at that you won't even realize you've gone the distance until you're done. I find that makes it easier."
Jaune sat down suddenly. For a puzzled moment, Weiss watched the way he stretched his legs. At first sitting down in a vaguely butterfly position, and then doing something with his knees to stretch out his thighs. She wasn't even entirely sure he was stretching for its own sake. His clothes were tight enough he might actually look less indecent if he was naked. From the way it hugged his chest and drew eyes to his abdomen, to the way it made his back stand out. The sweatpants were loose on the legs, but got tight again around his rear, only made more prominent by whatever weird way he was stretching. She doubted that shirt was the best to run with; she distinctly and uncomfortably remembered him claiming trying to run a marathon had chafed his nipples raw. The veins on his arms still looked a little unpleasant.
Not really knowing what else to do, Weiss just copied him. She just hoped it was for a good reason, not just to try to get her to show her own body off. Performing the motions, she got a sense of the muscles he was trying to stretch out without needing it explained. Part of her training growing up and staying in shape involved knowing how to stretch. It was about making sure the muscles that you were going to use were limbered up to prevent injury. And getting injured would be the worst thing possible. It meant you had failed somehow. You didn't understand the limits of what you could do and, like the tallest blade of grass, were cut down.
But more importantly, getting injured would take you out of commission. You needed a little extra food to ensure a smooth recovery, during which you couldn't work out or do anything. And extra food without exercise to burn the calories off meant you would get fat. And getting fat would smear her family's image of physical perfection and—
Weiss blinked hard. Bad poorly repressed childhood trauma. She had talked about it that one time with Blake and Shamrock, which meant she was completely over it. It both couldn't hurt her nor would it leave any further lasting mental scars. Dangit, she would not collapse into a dread spiral.
"Hey, may I ask a favor?" Weiss asked.
Jaune looked over, nearly lying face down on the ground with one leg curled up and across himself. "As long as it doesn't involve me facing the consequences of my actions, yes," he said candidly.
She tried not to be annoyed. Failed, but tried. "I know this is a run, but can you avoid wearing earbuds or anything? I'd like to be able to talk. Maybe give me advice or other things as we run."
He stood up, putting his hands on his hips. Weiss felt an intense urge to look away and grimace as he said, "Wow. Since when have you been able to look me in the eyes and ask for advice?"
She got to her feet, matching his posture. "Need I remind you that there is a considerable reward for whomever can locate my missing pride?"
"Ooh, what do I get if I find it?"
She looked around before shrugging. "My undying love and admiration?"
He snorted. "I thought you said it was a reward, not a punishment."
Folding her arms, Weiss sighed. "Look, can you run without earbuds or not?"
"Yeah, sure. I don't even bring them when I run in the first place."
"Really? That's surprising," she said. "I thought everyone liked to run with music."
He looked down the campus road, slightly grimacing. "This is finna sound stupid, but I'm awful at keeping a consistent pace. When I listen to music, I go too fast, too slow, depending on what I'm listening to, and it ruins my flow. I prefer to just pick a direction and get lost in my thoughts."
"What do you think about?" she asked, realizing she was unconsciously adjusting the waistband for pants again. The elastic made a slight snapping sound as she released it.
He shrugged, looking away.
"About us? Beacon?" She hesitated. "Past lives?"
Jaune blinked. He raised a hand as if to wave her question away, but paused halfway through the gesture. In the end, he let it fall to his side and said, "Nothing interesting back then. Quit jawin', get joggin'. I'm not feeling like going too fast so hopefully we'll keep pace."
And there it was again. She knew she'd touched a nerve there, which was why he was deflecting and ignoring. Jaune did this.
She wasn't sure she was sufficiently stretched out, but she ran after him. It felt like a sprint catching up to him. He noticed her, and seemed to slow down. He was so tall that what felt like a quick pace to her made him look like he was just shuffling in place.
"You call this being slow?" she asked.
"Yeah. Like I said, I'm not really feeling like I can get too fast today."
Her eyes narrowed. "Because you haven't been eating."
Jaune made the kind of face he always made when someone did this to him. It was an expression that tried to convey that he didn't care, that he wasn't about to change, yet it somehow conveyed that he didn't disagree. She remembered him doing it the last time when she forced him to eat.
"Jaune!" she said.
"I was eating like crap on all of our cave rations and then the day or two in the hospital," he said. "I'm just doing a detox."
"Detox of what?" she scoffed.
"I don't know. Sugar?"
"Jaune, don't be stupid. Because you can be really stupid, but you're not. You know you don't have an excuse. And you know it's killing you."
"I'll be fine; how do you think I lost all that baby and alcohol fat so fast? I mean, would you really rather me look like that skinny fat bastard wearing my face?"
"You're avoiding the issue."
"Because there isn't an issue. I'm gucci, mane."
"Is it because of Blake?"
He stared ahead aggressively and sped up. It wasn't hard to realize he was probably getting particularly lost in thought. Weiss knew she had probably fired too quickly. Jaune could sometimes go on completely stupid rants about any topic once you got him sufficiently riled up. Sometimes you could force him into telling you what was wrong. Other times it required a little bit of finesse before the floodgates opened.
And right now, it looked like it would take running really fast and killing herself.
"Stop flailing your arms; you're running like a girl," he said calmly when she managed to catch back up to him.
She let out a quick breath. "It's comfortable."
"You look like you're late to a date with a fancy rich boy. You're going to hurt your back like that. Remember what I said back in the caves?"
"Something about minimizing blood flow to anywhere but your legs," she said, already feeling her heart kicking up a storm. The chill air made her lungs feel dry.
He reached out a hand towards her. She tensed up. Jaune seemed to realize, and then asked, "Actually, it'll be easier if I do it like this. Can I touch you?"
"Sure," she said, frowning.
Weiss had no idea how he was able to keep that pace while turning his body towards her, almost running sideways. She made a noise in her throat as he put one hand on her stomach, the other hand on her upper back and pushed her shoulders forward. He made a gesture with one hand, shaking it until Weiss was miming it.
"There," he said, turning towards the route. They passed by a fountain currently frozen over. "Some people find it easier if it's almost like you're falling down continuously and just barely catching yourself. I prefer to keep my trunk steady enough, but your hands are like pinching pennies, but they're loose. The way you swing your arms helps keep your momentum forward and constant."
"I know," she huffed.
"Did you run before?"
She inhaled deeply. "Some cardio, not much. Lots of opera and ballet and dieting. There aren't many places to run when you live in a flying city."
"You lived in a flying city?" he asked, turning a corner. He did it quickly, as if he just suddenly jumped to change directions.
Weiss had to stop and pivot to turn as quickly as he did. "Atlas."
"Shrugged."
"What?"
"Atlas Shrugged. It's a book with a really cool title, but then you read it, and it's just dunking on poor people. What was that about a flying city?"
"Atlas flies. Hovers over Mantle. Everyone knows this except you."
"How does it even work, logistically? Can you breathe up there?"
She wiped her forehead, already covered in sweat. It probably would have been way worse if it wasn't so cold out. "A little. Up to a mile high, before you get into the skyscrapers. I grew up there. I have great lungs."
"You seem close to panting now."
"Singing opera and growing up really high doesn't mean I'm good at running. Can we slow down?"
"Do you want to stop?"
"No, it's only been a couple minutes."
He made a face, and then of all things sped up. It once again felt like sprinting to keep up with him.
"Stop. That!" she said. "One of your steps is like two of mine."
"Two of your very loud steps."
"What?" Weiss snapped.
Jaune stopped. It was only a couple steps from high speed to just standing there. Weiss felt like she nearly had to skid to a halt.
They had stopped somewhere near the center of campus. From here, she could make out the major avenues, from the dorms, to the airship docks, all the way to the CCTS Tower. Normally, this place would be packed, but the sun wasn't even up yet. Reasonable human beings were still asleep. Everything was bathed in sodium light, giving everything an eerie quality. Mostly in the fact that it made all of the snow look like someone had urinated in it just mildly.
"Your feet are hitting the ground weird," he said.
Weiss tried to get her breathing back under control. "What's that supposed to mean?"
He frowned thoughtfully. "Did you use those running shoes often?"
"A little bit for sports day in combat class. Why?"
"Don't get the wrong idea, but can I see your feet? Your soles I mean."
She reared her head back in a kind of suppressed scoff. "So exactly what kind of idea am I supposed to get except some weird fetish?"
"Don't flatter yourself; you're not my type."
Weiss eyed him skeptically. "I distinctly remember another version of you telling me that I was very pretty. He went out of his way during our big team moment to hit on me."
Jaune grimaced, hands in his pockets. "Yeah. But then I got to know you. Nipped that little opinion right in the bud."
She scowled at him in silence.
"What?" he asked, almost sounding hurt. "Take it as a compliment. I respect you so much that now I don't want you naked anywhere near me."
"No, it's just—I was expecting something funnier."
His expression sank. "Well, excuse me, princess. You're interrupting me during my most important part of the day. The hour or so I spend running every morning is when I take the time to think of all the ways I'm going to creatively insult you, or demean Shamrock's religion, or send mixed signals to Blake."
There! He actually mentioned Blake all on his own. That was the sign that she was getting through to him, in typically obscure and stupid Jaune fashion. It probably wouldn't take too much of just going along with things until he was so invested in this that he wouldn't be able to shut down.
Weiss sat down on a bench, holding one knee to her chest. "Obviously. Because you're really letting me down this morning. I've been relying on my ever-burning hatred towards you to keep me warm in this weather. If you let me down now, I'll freeze!"
He sat down beside her. "Don't tempt me. There's nothing that gets my rocks off faster than letting a woman down."
"And apparently examining her feet," she said.
He gestured for her shoe, and she reluctantly allowed him to touch it. It felt weird watching him hold it up, examining the sole.
"Your hand looks better," she said. "From where you broke it trying to kill your other self. Doesn't look as gnarled."
"Mm, a bit. Doc Croaker set it and used his Semblance after we got back. Still stings a bit, but doesn't look as fucked up. Wouldn't be able to run without some super medical work. Anyhow."
"Anyhow?"
"Anyhow, I think I'm right about your shoes," he said, gesturing at her foot. "You typically run in your high heels, right? You fight in 'em."
"I do, yes."
He tapped the upper part of the shoe. "You can actually see a little bit more wear and tear here by the balls of the foot. I think that's why your feet kept slapping the ground when you were running with me. I'm not really an expert in foot striking, but do know me that I be a midfoot runner. That's where the wear and tear is on my shoes because I have proper form. Your form isn't very good, so you're expending a bit too much energy, hitting the ground weird, and it's going to impact you. You basically need to unlearn how to run and then try it again. Probably with more specific running shoes."
He let her foot go, and she put it back in the ground. "You know that for a fact?" she asked, genuinely curious.
"Pfft. I'm only assuming biology even works here right," he said. "Ain't nobody could run in high heels like you do where I'm from. For all I know, most people here somehow get away with running like this."
She blinked in surprise. "You don't usually talk about that kind of stuff."
He nodded his head to the side slowly. "Used to be just stuff I thought about. We all decided it didn't matter, but every now and again I still have questions. Like flying cities."
"Like a flying city," Weiss said with emphasis. "There's only one in the world, Atlas."
"And everyone knows about it but me, yeah, I know, I know. Most of the time I just have to use an internet search engine to get this information." He ran a hand through his hair. "Do you know how embarrassing it is to look at children's websites for basic information?"
Weiss put her hands in her lap. "Was it difficult coming here?"
He made a so-so gesture. "I've got a couple extra years of memories and baggage, but I'm Jaune through and through. The wetware comes pre-equipped to just accept the most confusing thing. Everything else you can kind of follow along through context clues or just pretending."
"What do you mean wetware? What's that supposed to mean?"
Standing up, he said, "Biologic stuff. If I were to step back and think about it, really think about it, it's the subtle things that really stood out. I showed up to this place with a foreign culture, an altered language, unfamiliar fashion and religion, entirely different supernatural powers than I was used to, an alien sky—hell, even the gravity is different." He laughed. "I knew jack shit. So, naturally, my first reaction was to get wasted and try to kill myself. That's how I learned that gravity here is a little more forgiving."
She looked at the palms of her hands. As her eyes traced the lines off her palms, she slowly said, "I learned a lot of pretty world shattering stuff too that I think I'm still processing. That you might be a reincarnating soul parasite, that there might be somebody involved with controlling Grimm, and that maybe Dust is tied to things you really can't understand. Some kind of sorcery that's beyond me."
"Oh, I can understand it," he said off-handedly. "I'm just blasé. None of it particularly changes the conditions of my parole, so to speak. Dust is people? Cool, most people still need to fill up their cars with it every morning. There might be a demon that controls the Grimm? Whatever, I'll still be a Huntsman to protect people from them. My fate-twisting ex-girlfriend might have come back from the dead just to fuck with me? So long as she stays away from me and my friends and doesn't ask for nudes, we can be cool. I'm pretty good at not thinking about things that bother me if they're not immediately causing a problem."
Weiss nodded. But again, he was making light of something that was a problem. "Are you familiar with cosmic horror as a genre? I mean, did it exist where you're from?"
Jaune sucked on his lower lip as if he was surprised. "Only insofar at learning what not to name my cat."
She shook her head, presuming that meant he was familiar. "It's a popular genre in Atlas. The idea is that you learn a horrible truth about the nature of your reality, and it drives you mad. That there are great elder Gods who don't care about us. Or perhaps aliens visit Remnant, and the trash they leave behind from their equivalent of a picnic is to us a smorgasbord of wonders and horrors. That we humans are perhaps simply a cosmic accident. I feel like I'm in that position, where for a moment I saw behind the veil, and I don't feel any less sane. I mean," she laughed, "look at whatever you are. By definition you are a cosmic horror the likes of which I don't think I can really comprehend."
"Thanks, I feel the same way about women in general," he said dryly.
"And instead of panicking about that, hiding under my covers with the knowledge that maybe everything I know is somehow wrong, I feel like it had the opposite effect. Seeing demons or magic or whatever we went through, it just made me glad for whom I have in my life. I don't know how to explain it. I thought that by now I would be going insane from the revelations, but instead the only thing I'm thinking about are the people around me, my friends, and even my siblings back home. That's why I came out to run with you. It's not really my thing, but I thought it might be good for you, for me, us as part of a team. Because somehow something so small and stupid just feels like it matters more than ever."
He looked away, up towards the CCTS tower. If Weiss looked closely, she could just barely see the lights in the headmaster's office way up high.
"For creatures as small as we," Jaune said softly, almost hypnotically, "the vastness is bearable only through love."
Weiss touched her hand to her breast. "That was beautiful. I—I think that gets it. I think that's what I mean. Everything I saw and went through, just reinforces that basic fact about human existence. Or faunus too. You know what I mean. That was a good thought, Jaune." She gave him a half cocked smile. "Who'd you steal it from?"
He gave her the same smile back. "The advantage of having been on three worlds is I have the histories and philosophies of three different planets to steal from and pass off as my own."
"Now that is some advanced level plagiarism!"
"Idn't it, though?"
She balled her fist in her lap, scrunching up her yoga pants. "So what happened with you and Blake?"
He pursed his lips. "Are you really doing this to me?"
"Yes!" she snapped. "It's hard not to notice that something obviously happened. It doesn't just affect you. You can't just get lost in your own feelings and not think it won't hurt the rest of us. Shamrock might be too scared to bring it up, but I'm not afraid. Someone has to pull your ear and drag you kicking and screaming towards dealing with your problems. Aren't you supposed to be some kind of ancient immortal adult thing?"
"I don't know how old I am but definitely not ancient and probably not even an adult," he said hesitantly.
"Stop trying to make a joke out of this."
Jaune ran the complete gamut of emotions. She saw it on his face. It looked like the stages of grief. Anger and denial and all those less than savory emotions. He looked like he wanted to run. Then like he was just going to laugh it off. At one point, he looked like he was about to explode on Weiss. It took just a couple of seconds for him to get through it all, before he simply sighed and slumped his shoulders.
"I told her I loved her," he said.
"Because you do," she said simply.
"And she agreed."
"Because you're both so painfully obvious about it."
He pinched the bridge of his nose, screwing his eyes shut. "But I told her that we don't love each other the same way. I'm not in love with her."
"…oh."
Jaune looked down at her with a smile that was on the edges of madness. It made her skin crawl. "Ever seen a grown woman cry because of something you did? Ever seen someone you love have a breakdown because you couldn't lie to them? Watch them try to just end the conversation and slink away, because they know they can't hold themselves together if you're staring at them?"
Weiss jumped to her feet. "Why on Remnant would you do that?!"
"Because you brought it up and we had to talk about it!"
"There's literally a million better ways you could have handled that, I guarantee it, and you didn't!"
"She kissed me and I didn't kiss her back—what else are you supposed to say when she pulls back from that, looking terrified and betrayed?"
"You—you—"
He threw one hand up flippantly. "It's like I said, once I got to know you, I didn't have the hots for you no more. Doesn't mean I don't love you. Not like as siblings or daughters or anything like that. Don't know what to call it. I don't do people I actually know. I don't do people I can't afford to lose."
Weiss made a noise that was equal parts scoff and laughter. "What kind of insane backward logic is that? How are you supposed to have any kind of relationship with that policy? Do you only 'do' one night stands?"
"Maybe I don't define myself in terms of needing a relationship?" he said back, as if this was an actual argument.
"We just had an entire emotional moment about relationships and love!"
"Why are you getting mad at me about this?" he asked, taking a step back. "Why is it so hard to understand that maybe I can love someone without wanting to bend her over a couch?!"
"Ugh!" Weiss groaned, running her hand down her face, pulling at her eyelids. "I can't tell what's worse. The fact that you obviously handled this in the worst way possible, or the way I can clearly hear you making up excuses as you go to justify yourself."
He threw up one hand. "What, so I'm obligated to date someone just because they want me to?"
"Don't be ridiculous. Of course that's not what I'm saying," she said, sighing extra hard. "Honestly, I thought the problem with Blake was maybe you already had a girlfriend on the side. Like you and Coco."
"She and I are just friends, nothing more," he said. "I can be friends with multiple women without wanting to fuck 'em. Perfectly doable without being gay, y'know. In any case, didn't you just a moment ago think I was some kind of immortal reincarnating cosmic horror monster? In what world is any kind of romantic relationship with me healthy and not toxic? I'm the good guy here!"
"You are dumb," Weiss said, holding her hand over her mouth. "You are the dumb guy here. All you know how to do is lift weights, refuse to eat food for days, and fail to read the room. Dumb."
"Yeah, well!" Jaune sputtered. "All girls these days know how to do is eat fast food, charge they scroll, twerk, be bisexual, and—"
"No!" Weiss snapped, putting her finger to his lips. "Don't you finish that sentence, Jaune. There is absolutely no good way that is going to end if you complete that line of thought. And in any case, you're doing that thing again where you completely shut down, get ridiculous, and refuse to actually address the problem. That's not a solution, it's not funny, and it's a pathetic avoidance tactic!"
"But—"
"Jaune!"
He stared her down, as if trying to use his presence alone to make her back down. She saw the Aura burning behind his eyes, in the irises, a color she couldn't describe, and that made her want to blink. She froze her spine solid and met his gaze, refusing to let him win. Even if he was a foot bigger than her and who knew how many pounds above her. If he was angry and irrational and possibly immortal. It didn't matter to Weiss. She just put her hands on her hips and squared herself with a frozen spine.
Because that was the thing with Jaune. He liked to shut down and avoid problems. But if you had him cornered on something he knew he was wrong on, all you needed to do was be stronger than him. Face him down and he'd inevitably break first. But doing it felt like the mouse charging the lion.
Jaune let out the world's longest sigh, breaking eye contact. "Fine. Fuck. What? What idea could you possibly have to make this better other than just waiting for the feelings to settle down on their own?" He kept staring somewhere else. When he spoke, he sounded lost more than anything, the fight seeping out with every syllable. "Because I really don't want any kind of relationship drama or anything. I just—I just want my friend back. I want her to be happy. I want us all to just be happy and be able to be idiots together. And right now, I don't know how."
She let herself relax, to smile just slightly. "Remind me again how you can be a passable team leader but the worst when it comes to people at the same time?"
Jaune made a motion, reaching as if for a cigarette. Only to pause when he realized he wasn't carrying anything in his sweatpants. Looking sheepish, he said, "Oh, I'm great with people."
"Uh-huh."
"It's matters of the heart. Complicated stuff I still haven't worked out. What I want versus what others want, and not wanting to hurt the people I care about. Even the ice queen you are has to understand what it's like to have what feels like a gun aimed at your heart."
"My heart?" Weiss said, leaning forwards, hands primly behind her back. "Why, Jaune, that is my least vulnerable spot."
Jaune looked at her for a long thoughtful moment. Before he broke out into a smile, laughing. "Hey, total one-eighty here, but I'm glad you decided to come out on this run with me. I still don't really know how to handle it, don't really know how to proceed, but I think I'm glad."
Her expression didn't change terribly. "I think you'll be more glad once you can think straight. Which, as everyone knows, you can't do on an empty stomach."
He frowned. "Weiss…"
"Uh-uh-uh!" she said, waggling her finger at him. "No buts. Unfortunately, I don't have any food on hand, so we're just going to have to get breakfast ourselves."
He gestured at one of the sodium lamp posts. "Nothing's open."
"But they will be after we finish our morning run. It'll give me time to think how to solve your mess," she said with a wink. "Let's hit up the bagel place in the student center. My treat, no objections. I'll pay for it and guilt you into shoveling it into your mouth if I have to."
He took a step to the side. "You'll have to catch me first!"
"Oh, don't think that I can't, Jaune!"
— 2 —
"I don't think that I can, Jaune!" she panted, and coughed.
They had been running for nearly an hour and a half along a two mile loop. Long enough that now the sun was starting to poke over the mountains and other students had begun mosing out for the morning before class began. Jaune had insisted five laps would be easiest. According to his insane logic, around the third lap you were at the halfway point, meaning that basically you only had five more miles to go, and you might as well just finish it, meaning going ten miles was easier than six or less.
The first mile had been doable. The second mile, she was feeling it. On the third mile, she couldn't quite keep up the pace. And right now, as she looked at the doors of the student center, which was approximately the ten mile marker, the edges of her vision were fading, and she couldn't breathe.
"What happened to all of your spunk from earlier?" he laughed, stopping just to run a circle around her and then keep going.
"There's a crude sexual joke in here somewhere that I can't—" She coughed. "Oh my god, I see the light. How do you do this every morning!"
It would have been doable if she had used her Aura. She tended to do that during her most painful exercises and regiments back home. It had been her ace in the hole. Recuperate on the move with Aura. Or use it to go faster with the enhanced strength it gave you.
Jaune didn't do that while running. And in fact, he yelled at her when she did, and that really didn't make her feel very good.
"By just doing it!" he said.
"Agh!" she yelled, trying to speed up to keep pace with him. He didn't even look out of breath. He was still occasionally breathing through his nose.
"There's a certain line between mental illness and healthy relationship with fitness that any good runner has to eventually cross."
"I'm going to kill you! How did you talk me into this?"
"Because at this point, the fastest way to stop running is to reach the goal. It's simple math!"
"You failed math class!"
"I told you that information in confidence!"
Weiss tripped, stumbling over herself. Jaune reached out to catch her. And then, with a mocking kind of laugh, just picked her up under his arm like a suitcase.
"Hey, put me down!" she screamed. And then coughed again. She was so sweaty and gross it was amazing he could actually keep a grip on her.
Instead of letting her go, he tightened his grip on her, leaned forward, and broke out sprinting towards the student center. "Finish strong. Finish together! Finish so that I can mooch off your endless bank account for food!"
Despite the distance they had run, he somehow managed to go even faster than before. It was like it didn't bother him. He got fast enough that he actually began breathing quickly, sucking in air, his free hand moving like a knife through the air.
"Door!" she said. "Jaune, You're moving faster than the automatic doors!"
"Then we'll break through them!" he shouted.
"Door!" Weiss screamed.
They barely had enough time to register he was approaching and start open before he was there. He angled his body to the side and jumped through the opening. The wave of room temperature air conditioning hit her like a brick to the face as he kept running, his shoes squeaking on the tile floor. He darted through the early morning crowds with their backpacks, some of them in uniform, but most not, before turning sharply towards the little bagel store.
For some reason known only to idiots, Jaune jumped the last steps, sailing over nothing until his feet made contact with a bit of carpet that marked the bagel store. With a triumphant yell, he set her on her feet, and she nearly collapsed.
"Woo! Check it out, we made it!" He pulled out his scroll, fumbling with it in his sweaty fingers. "My pace app says we managed to just break below nine minutes per mile with that last sprint. You really need to step up your game. My sandbag lazy running pace is at least eight minutes."
Weiss put her hand on his chest, leaning against him, trying to catch her breath. She tried to say something snappy to put him in his place, but all that came out was a garbled mix of syllables. It didn't make any sense how he could do all that running and not be out of breath! She needed to redouble her efforts to gain control over her lungs and—
And that's when she noticed the crowds of people sitting at tables all around the store, the ones waiting in line, and the not insubstantial amount of people who had noticed and were staring at them. A lot of them looked messy, fresh out of bed looking for breakfast, but none of them were like her. None of them were soaked to the bone in tight clothing, smelling disgusting, and barely able to breathe. She felt a hot rush of embarrassment creep over her cheeks, and coughed.
Jaune bathed in the moment of attention, waving. "Hey, y'all! We're runners now. Cardio does not kill gains! Right, Weiss!"
"Agafagar," she sputtered, unable to make words happen. She desperately wanted to double over or sit down and try to collect her breath, but she couldn't do it with so many people watching her. They had gone from pretty much being alone on the run to being surrounded by people, and oh god it was horrible.
Her one point of solace was that people had really low attention spans. Most of them who had glanced at their rather showy entrance went back to ignoring them, checking their scrolls, or just chatting over breakfast. But Weiss didn't miss that a couple groups of people found a new topic of conversation with their arrival.
So did Jaune.
"Hey, that Jaune and Weiss?" "Yeah, guys from the TV." "Cool! I thought they died or something." "Welcome back, guys! Save some Grimm for the rest of us next time, huh?"
Jaune elbowed Weiss. "Why are we suddenly famous?"
She had sucked in enough oxygen to be able to speak again. "Montluçon is still the biggest news in the world right now, and we were front and center on all the news."
"Huh," he said, fishing beneath his shirt and pulling out his little crucifix necklace that had been jingling all throughout the run. "Cool. Last time I was on TV was for accidental domestic terrorism against the federal government. Do you think they actually know any details?"
She wiped her forehead, and then was immediately conscious that she had just flicked dozens of droplets of sweat under the floor. "Don't know. I know the headmaster was apparently holding the after-action interviews with Team CFVY today. I'm sure he'll be asking us next. So all they probably saw was us fighting Grimm and trying not to die horribly for several hours."
Jaune grinned. "Yeah, we survived and now we're back on that sigma grindset! Go Team BASS!" he called out. "Make of that what you will, so long as what you will is us being awesome."
Weiss put her hands up to her eyes like blinders, as if she could use a force alone to make the embarrassment stop. "I do not know this man. I have been kidnapped and am being held against my will. Stranger danger!"
He gave her a pat on the back as he walked past her, and she coughed. "It's true. I'm forcing her to buy me food. I'm the most tyrannical and yet sexy badass team leader on campus. C'mon, Weiss. Or are you just going to stand there and give me an excuse to not eat for another day?"
"Ugh!" she groaned. Every step she took forward made her feel like her knees were about to break. A Huntress wasn't supposed to just run like this without her Aura.
Which was why a couple of steps in she nearly stumbled headfirst into a pair of boys, a blond faunus with a monkey tail and some loser who thought he could actually pull off blue hair. He looked like he was trying too hard to look cool, and the faunus seemed like shopped at the same reveal-all-your-chest pornstar store Jaune did.
The blue haired guy stepped forwards to catch her. "Oh, hey, you're—uh, you're one of those really cool, famous people now, right?"
The boy next to him made a face. "Neptune, I don't know if she's really famous. I think she was just working with Team CFVY and things went wrong. They're the famous ones." He squinted at her. "Have we met before? You seem familiar."
"Huh?" Weiss asked, pushing herself away from Neptune. She didn't miss the drops of sweat she had left on his gloves.
Neptune, with an odd Mistrali style of dress and a pair of goggles cinched up onto his forehead, looked Weiss up and down appreciably. "Dig the style, though. Yoga pants look nice on you! I'm Neptune, by the way. This is my partner, Sun. We're temporary transfer students here for the Vytal Festival."
For some reason, the friendly attitude put her in a sour mood. "Are you hitting on me?"
"Uh, yes? No?" Neptune looked at his partner. "What's the correct answer here? Should I try to play it cool and pretend I'm looking for a partner in the upcoming dance?"
Weiss sighed, and needed to suppress a cough from her ragged throat. "I'm flattered, but now is really not the time. I'm already dealing with enough morons on my plate. Aaand it looks like I've already lost him. Great!"
Sun whistled. "Wow. Harsh. You really are the ice queen they say you are, huh? That's kind of awesome! I respect balls like that on a woman."
She scowled. "Please forward any and all compliments, marriage requests, and unwanted sexual comments to my secretary."
Jaune appeared beside Weiss and took her hand. "Nope!" he said, popping the P. "Not dealing with this. Not dealing with you two. Not dealing with the existential dread!"
"Hey, what?" she asked as Jaune dragged her away deeper into the lair of the Lightsong Bros. Bagels.
Still leading her towards the line for the front counter, he leaned in and whispered, "One of those guys had a skinwalker illusion clone thing in that reality marble whose fingers I bit off and freaked Blake out because of."
She pulled her hand away from his, remarkably easy given how sweaty they both were. "Wait, biting someone's fingers off wasn't just some kind of weird metaphor? Why?"
"The real question is why I did that and Blake still chose to kiss me. I'd had severed fingers in my mouth!"
Weiss… ugh. Weiss just shook her head. She ran her fingers through her short hair, feeling how wet it was. The interior of the student center had good air conditioning, not hot enough that it felt stuffy, but not cold enough that they were freezing with all the sweat.
"You know what?" she asked. "I don't care. I do not care. Categorically, not my problem. That's something for you and Blake to work out once I figure out how to fix your mess."
They got in line.
"Did running them ten miles help you think about that?" he asked, looking the menu over.
She tried to tuck her hair behind her ears, and then found that with this new haircut, she didn't really have enough hair to do that. It was subtly distressing. "I was mostly thinking about dying."
"Understandable," he said blankly.
"But—" Weiss paused, looking around all of the students sitting around and in line. They really couldn't have a private conversation here. And she felt like this wasn't a topic for the open air. Granted, coming here was her idea, but she was mostly just trying to address the symptomatic issue of Jaune stressing himself out to the point of starvation, as he was wont to do.
She glanced over her shoulder at Neptune and Sun as they argued over picking somewhere to sit.
"One of those guys mentioned the school dance was coming up," she said.
Jaune gave her a weird look. "Is your suggestion about the problem of me not wanting to date Blake, to take Blake on a date and go dancing?"
She scowled at him, moving forwards in line. Reaching for her scroll so she could pay for their order with the QR code, she said, "Stop making it sound so hostile. It's a big thing for a lot of people. And maybe it might be a nice gesture. It would prove that even if things aren't what you both wanted, you're still capable of being friends, doing the goofy things you probably would have done. I mean, let's be honest, knowing you, if you hadn't confessed your feelings, you two would have probably both wound up at the dance together anyways."
"I don't think that's true," he said, frowning.
She gave him a level look. "I was convinced you two were sleeping together from the moment after that whole microwave radio burst incident thing that apparently you two somehow caused together. You're basically unhealthily codependent. It's honestly not surprising that you're both falling apart right now, since you two currently aren't attached at the hip. You would have wound up going together as a date one way or the other."
"I'm still really not sure if you're trying to fix our friendship or set us up together," he said.
She shrugged with one hand. "I'm not convinced there's a difference."
And suddenly, they got to the front of the line. Bagel sandwiches and side items, specifically fine-tuned for breakfast. Which meant bagels, eggs, breakfast, and all the beige potato products you could wave a baton at. Honestly, the biggest reason she wanted to go here was to try their bagels, and figure out their secrets so that she could reverse engineer it for her own recipe.
Weiss was the bagelmaster. Commercially mass produced bagels would have nothing on her superior artisan craftsmanship. But the first rule of corporate espionage was to get your hands on your rival's products. The second rule typically had to do with undercutting the market by subsidizing your reduced cost product with your other profitable assets, and then selling at a loss to drive your opponent out of business before ramping up prices to recoup the economic damage.
She was going to set up her first batch with her friends and use them as free guinea pigs for her experiments.
So the two of them basically got pretty much everything on the menu.
The boy working the cashier looked to be a student trying to make some extra money on the side. There was apparently lots of student employment, like the campus café. And with a certain sense of smug satisfaction, Weiss could see the economic fear in his eyes as he had to prepare their massive order. Soon he would be out of a job, or perhaps would find new management as part of the greater SDC Bagel Branch of operations.
"Why do you look like you're about to start laughing maniacally?" Jaune said, taking a nervous step away from her.
"Because while I'm helping you with one hand, I'm plotting the destruction of my enemies with the other," she said primly.
He and the cashier exchanged nervous glances.
Weiss held up her scroll to scan the little QR code on the register. It was a direct link to her bank account, just processing the payment here. The worst part about it was people in Vale expected a tip for their service. That had never sat right with Weiss. It was like they demanded extra money for doing their job.
The register made a beep.
"Uh," the cashier said. "I think your card just got declined."
Weiss blinked. "Is… is this going to be a machine issue?"
"I—I don't know," he said, eyes wide.
Weiss fished into the uncomfortably tight pockets of her yoga pants. Even though she could pay with her scroll, she also had a tight little metal wallet with her actual cards in it, from ways to buy things to her various IDs and passport. Things she never left home without.
Almost frantically, she thrust her card forwards towards the register and slid her card through. It made the same beeping noise. So instead, she inserted it into the chip reader and waited.
The same result.
She and the cashier locked eyes. A dawning sense of horror began to creep up upon both of them. Something about this was intensely wrong. A basic payment that had never failed before in her life was suddenly refusing. And now both of them, her and the cashier, had to deal with the reality that she had ordered food, and now couldn't pay for it, and neither of them knew how to handle this eventuality.
"That's impossible," she said, feeling her heart start to palpitate. The sweat that it only just began drying came back in full force. "I mean, look at me, I'm not broke. I bought these sweatpants like a day ago!"
"Weiss?" Jaune asked, looking from her to the cashier with confusion instead of the appropriate amount of panic that this situation called for.
She tried the QR code again. Then her card, both ways. No new results. Weiss felt her breath hitch and her chest. The edges of her vision started to flutter.
"I have money!" she said. "You know who I am. I'm Weiss Schnee. You know I can't be broke. Stop looking at me like that!"
The cashier held up his hands. "I—I'm not!"
"Then why is it declining my card!" she most certainly did not scream in a panic, because that would be most unladylike and definitely not civilized or proper for a girl like her.
"Weiss?" Jaune tried again, putting a hand on her shoulder as if to reassure her.
"Look, right now I am very invested in this team relationship drama problem, but also now I'm dealing with a new existential threat to my very being. Please let me solve this so that I can get back to calling you an idiot and shoving you towards the obvious solution you probably should have seen miles before this even began. Okay? Okay!"
The cashier suddenly tilted his head. "Wait, are you, uh, from Atlas? Use Atlas banking?"
She scoffed. "What part of Weiss Schnee isn't clear to you?"
He pointed. She followed his eyes to one of the TVs around the bagel shop.
It was a press statement by this kingdom's newest prime minister, Monsieur Kieran LaChance, who up until a couple of days ago was just a politician and her technical former employer as a Huntress. The labyrinthine and unstable politics of the kingdom had somehow allowed a colonial representative to become the leader of the Conservative Party via some kind of election, which somehow meant he was in charge of the country now. This kingdom's government didn't make any sense to her.
But it didn't need to make sense. Because the word scrolling across the bottom of the screen spelled it out for her. Beneath the captions of his current speech from the city of Montluçon, she saw the words, "…PM LaChance has requested payment processors in Vale to cease processing payments from Atlesian banks across the kingdom pending an investigation into General Ironwood's role in the January 18th Riots and subsequent unilateral and illegal actions in Montluçon airspace."
Meanwhile, according to the captions, the prime Minister was saying, "We cannot overlook that the Grimm attacks on my home, the most important source for weapons manufacturing in the kingdom outside Graad, and which saw the senseless slaughter of nearly a thousand Valean citizens, including members of our sovereign government—that those Grimm originated from the Dust rich caverns that the Schnee Dust Company had exploration and excavation rights to. We have a duty to protect our democracy and sovereign nationhood against all threats, foreign and domestic, be they White Fang or white as snow."
She just stared, feeling her already shaky legs get worse. "Those… those idiots just made it illegal for my family to pay for anything in Vale. Rent, our employees, bagels. And they're blaming us! Oh my God, this is economic warfare, and I'm left high and dry."
Jaune was reading the news scroll, and it slowly looked like even he was grasping what was going on. "Weiss? Are you going to be okay? If you need me to pay for this, I have some loose change laying around. It's no biggie; we can get through some dumb politics together."
"No," she said hoarsely. "This is a complete biggie. And I'm not okay."
"Weiss?"
She turned to look him in the eyes and felt herself shiver. "Because I need to call my father."
a/n That's right! I made GirlBoss Tomboy Yoga Pants Weiss real! She can hurt you! Posting this because due to Army reasons, I suspect I won't be able to post this coming Thursday like normal.