CW: Relationship trauma
There was always a little crackle in the air before it was time for action. Blake well knew the nervous energy that seemed to zap her fingertips as she limbered them in anticipation, how the tips of her ears almost felt a static cling rising up as she shifted her weight from foot to foot. Back then, it had been infiltration and sabotage, at Beacon, she knew how it felt before confronting Roman Torchwick, and here…
It was the same thing.
Social action, not combat, nothing illegal, or even unethical, or even really frowned upon, but the principal was the same. There was a moment, a window of opportunity, and that meant she had to seize it. To execute the plan. To strike.
As she waited for that moment to come, she refreshed her memory, running down how the plan had gone so far. She'd checked with Yang, she'd checked with Pyrrha, and while both of them were more reluctant to act than she'd expected, they'd both given her the tacit go ahead to look into this. Pyrrha was worried that her crush on Jaune was blinding her objectivity. Yang was someone who, at the end of the day, always wanted everyone to get along. But they also trusted her, and so Blake felt there was a whole nother reason to be damn careful on this. She… she wasn't going to let them down. She wasn't going to give them a reason to regret their trust. She was going to do this right.
Observation had gone well so far. Chai had basically attached herself to Jaune's hip since the moment she'd arrived. She had, of course, had him give her a tour of the school, introduced herself to just about everyone as Jaune's girlfriend—he did not correct her—and had managed to handle both Coco and Cardin hitting on her fairly well, simpering and demurring as she clung tighter to Jaune's arm. She'd even managed to put a crack in Ms. Goodwitch's facade, the Deputy Headmistress absolutely not about to praise Jaune when Chai eagerly asked her about his performance as a student… but displaying an unexpected level of mercy by not dressing him down in front of his girlfriend. Perhaps it was because Chai was a civilian and not a student, from a world where Ms. Goodwitch's law wasn't absolute? Or perhaps even she had limits when it came to her willingness to publicly humiliate her students? Either way, it played right into Chai's hand, just like everything else she had been doing that day.
Blake, of course, had been shadowing the pair, watching all this transpire and studying closely every detail she could from both Chai and Jaune, and what she saw…
Once, when Blake was still in the Fang, she had enjoyed what she supposed Ruby would call a Best Day Ever. A day where Adam brought her with him to a meeting with the Senior Leadership of the Fang. Everyone they met, figures who she only knew from a far distance, often just from her parents' stories, was told by Adam what a credit Blake was to the Fang. He praised her, talked her up, distinguished her from her parents, whose name was all but mud in the days of Sienna's leadership, all while Blake did everything she could to seem cool and aloof, disdaining such things as praise when there was work to be done… all while melting on the inside as she felt a smile a million miles wide threaten to burst out at any moment.
In that moment, Adam was practically a living god, a being of a higher realm who now called Blake up into the heavens where she would stand proudly at his side. Anything he wanted in return, Blake was happy to offer, even before he asked, just out of the overwhelming gratitude that someone like him would have time for someone like her. She was going to be deserving of the way he looked at him, she was going to do everything she could to live up to that moment!
She had been 15 years old and she couldn't have imagined anything better.
But Blake had learned from that experience. Learned how to see through when someone's generosity and kindness was for their own ends. Watching Ms. Latte cling to Jaune, seeing her gaze upwards at him in naked adoration while Jaune blushed and stammered out an insistence that it hadn't been that impressive when he'd fought in the Breach, Blake saw now what she couldn't see then. The invisible chains of gratitude and appreciation that rose up to ensnare those who doubted their own self worth, the hidden cost that came with modestly demurring another's praise. And when the time came to call them in and reveal how tied up he was…
By her own measure, Blake had seen enough. Her first impression had only been confirmed by her study, but… she knew it wouldn't hold up to the rest. Something that actually hit a little harder knowing she had Yang's trust, that she wouldn't be rejected out of hand. But Blake's observation told her that while Chai was clearly experienced with leading Jaune around by the nose, she was also sloppy. Too… blunt and overdone in her praise for Jaune and tearful self-recriminations, a sign to Blake that she enjoyed the theatre of it too much to keep her eyes on the prize. Blake could just needle her a little and then…
She would pounce when the opportunity presented itself.
Making her move in front of Jaune wasn't an option—too many variables, too much risk of collateral damage—and Chai was making a point of sticking close to her target. Sloppy or not, she knew what she was doing, and even if she wasn't worried about one of Jaune's friends intervening, Blake figured she didn't want to give him any distance from which he could take a minute and get some perspective.
Fortunately, Blake had Ruby, and no one could prepare for that. She had the hurricane force of her native Patch paired with weaponized adorableness that could, 50/50, kill a Grimm. Plus, Blake didn't even have to bribe her as planned, since Ruby was mostly just down to be part of general schemes and shenanigans. She'd pried Chai away from Jaune and hauled her off to give her the "full tour" that took her all the way across campus to the Armory—Blake hadn't even had to come up with an excuse, Ruby just took it as a given that anyone visiting Beacon had to have a visit to the Armory—and then, as she left the Armory with a visibly overwhelmed Chai in tow and saw Blake…
"Oh, yeah, I totally forgot!" Ruby cried, slapping her forehead, "IGottaGoTalkToDoctorOobleckAboutSomethingOkayBYEEEEE!"
Leaving Chai behind in a whirl of confusion and a flurry of rose petals as Blake moved forward.
"Did she… did she just… leave me here?" Chai asked, thoroughly bewildered.
Blake chuckled, but in a genuine way that wouldn't give away any of her true intentions. "Yeah," she laughed, "You've just met our fearless leader, Ruby. She's… a bit like that. I can get you back to the dorms, though—ours is right across the hall from Jaune's."
At the mention of his name, Chai made a theatrical sigh, half swooning as Blake did all she could not to sneer in disgust.
"He's so dreamy now…" she sighed, "A Huntsman, a real Huntsman, when I saw him on the screen, standing on stage with his sword at his side, I could almost hardly believe it was him!"
There was meaningful information in this, that Chai hadn't seen Jaune actually in combat—or at least, didn't see fit to mention it—in JNPR's pretty embarrassing fight against BRNZ, but she had seen the award ceremony where Pyrrha, alongside her team and Headmaster Ozpin, was presented the Amity Cup. It confirmed some of Blake's less charitable instincts… but she wasn't jumping to conclusions here. Not as Chai looked at her eagerly.
"You're one of his friends, right?" she asked, "Ruby just told me so much about Jaune's experiences at this school—he's slain an Ursa, I've never even seen one that wasn't a stuffed toy! And he didn't even feel like it was something to mention and brag about to me!—and I can hardly believe he's grown so much, he's really filled out since I last saw him!"
Blake felt her ears twitch beneath her bow. Of course you can't believe it, you already thought you'd wrung every last drop you could get out of him, and now you've learned you can get even more.
But Blake didn't give away any of her thoughts. One of the few benefits that came from dating a paranoid military leader: she knew how to put up a facade. So instead, she just smiled airily, as she imagined Yang might do if she was in her place, hearing a small town girl talk up the old Vomit Boy.
"Yep," she said, halfway stepping into a Patch accent, "He's certainly made some strides, but… it's a good school. Beacon really brings out the best in people."
"I know!" she gushed in reply, "This school, it's like a fairytale castle!" Chai exclaimed, throwing her hands up around her as if to remind Blake she was talking about the school they were currently at and not some other school. "I can't imagine what life must be like when you walk these hallowed halls to train to become monster slayers… it just be magical!"
There was a possibility that Blake might gag if she wasn't careful. But… that was an opening for her.
"You went to school with Jaune in Valois, right?"
"Mmhmm," Chai said with a witless smile and nod, "We were high school sweethearts! Jaune had the biggest crush on me when we were little and when he finally worked up the courage to ask me to the Homecoming Dance, well, we were together ever since."
Until you dumped him, Blake mentally added, but wisely opted to keep her mouth shut.
"Jaune was so sweet…" she continued with a dreamy smile, "He used to carry my books for me and he was such a good listener. Not like the rest of the boys at all!"
"A good listener?" Blake asked, eyebrow raised. Telling, very telling…
Chai brightened. "Yep! There was this one time, in Senior year, after I didn't make Captain of the cheerleading squad, and it must have been an entire month where he was on the phone with me every night…"
Blake did her best to hide how her stomach turned at this blatant display of narcissism. Chai had no idea what it was like to be on the other side of those conversations, the "safe port" where one could unload all the stresses that came from more turbulent waters. And when you were someone else's safety and comfort, when they saw you as a service to be provided instead of a person…
Unclenching her fists, Blake realized that the longer she was in this girl's presence, the less and less her composure would hold up. She couldn't keep up the small talk; she had to move.
"Listen," she said as casually as she could, "maybe you should consider that Jaune's just… not that guy anymore? He's… really changed a lot since he first got here. Like, 'a lot' a lot."
But she'd evidently gone too subtle as Chai just smiled and shook her head. "No… he's still my Jaune-"
Blake saw a flash of red.
"-even if he's only now learned to fight with a sword, he'll always be my dashing knight. And he'll always be a country boy, he belongs in Valois, and I'm so glad I didn't miss my chance and let him slip through my fingers!"
If she was doing this on purpose… well, Blake couldn't eliminate the possibility. But it was making it harder and harder for Blake to affect a neutral pose and not give away her real intentions as she felt something hot and angry twitch in her brain just by looking at her.
"He's really changed," she said, careful to unclench her jaw, "I'm just letting you know, everything you've said about him, he's a combat leader now, and maybe the guy who carried your books and had all the time to listen to your problems isn't him anymore."
Chai paused, the vapid smile slipping off of her face as her gaze suddenly sharpened… giving Blake her first glimpse of the real Chai Latte. It was only a flicker, but now that she knew playing the ditz wasn't working, she focused up in a hurry.
"I know he had a significant year here at Beacon," she said her tone turning sharp and pointed, "But he happens to be my boyfriend of three years, so maybe I know a little bit of who Jaune really is, and I can tell you: he hasn't changed a bit, not really."
As far as Blake could tell, Chai had just made a lucky guess on what to say that would really piss Blake off, but it didn't stop her from getting her hackles up. It didn't matter if Blake was only just, at most, a friend of a friend with Jaune, what mattered was the girl in front of her! She narrowed her eyes to match Chai's energy, then took a step forward to advance upon the other girl.
"I'm just saying… if you think this is someone who can be pushed around, you are very mistaken," she said, no longer hiding her glare as she stared down the other girl, "This is a Combat Academy, and Jaune's changed. A lot. So maybe it's wise to think about whether he's going to go backwards for your convenience."
"What, you're trying to… scare me off?" Chai asked, giving an incredulous laugh, "Is this high school? Or do you think you can scare me because I don't carry a gun?"
Blake didn't rise to it. Instead she crossed her arms and glared at her in silence.
"Cause you can't scare me," Chai said, "I don't need aura or training to tell off a judgy bitch who thinks she's better than me! Cause yeah, I see what you're doing here."
"And what's that?"
Blake was prepared for a lot, prepared for allegations and insults, but instead… Chai gave her a long, cold look. A look she knew, a look that made her heartbeat quicken. The kind of look that came before the anger. The kind of look that cut through Blake's facade and made her breath suddenly hitch in her throat. Made her remember that there was a girl beneath the facade, someone who put up fronts because she did not like being seen. And Chai was seeing that girl right now.
"You don't think it's odd you're so interested in my boyfriend?" she asked, her voice sharp and tuneless, "Because you're such good friends with him? Because you know him so well?"
It was a baseless allegation, and an obvious gambit at that. She thought she could throw Blake off of her by alleging Blake was jealous? For Jaune? Amateurish.
But the Blake who could throw off such an accusation for the bluff it was wasn't the Blake Chai was talking to. Her tone, her gaze, all of it reminded Blake of moments in her past, transported her back to the Blake she used to be. This Blake cringed when confronted, deferred to accusation, and was wholly unprepared as Chai pushed her sudden advantage.
"Don't act like you're better than me." Chai sniffed dismissively, "Do you think you would have cared about him back in Valois? He had no prospects and no future, I couldn't count on anything more from him, so our relationship ended. I had to think of my future, you know! But because I broke up with him, Jaune went and made something of himself and suddenly, other girls are now interested in him. Almost like you're all motivated by the same reason I am."
"I'm not-" Blake weakly protested.
In vain.
"Yeah, I'm not falling for it. Play all coy and innocent, say you're just worried about him and how his girlfriend doesn't appreciate him enough, like I never played that before…"
But Chai misplayed her hand. Her words were sharp enough to prick Blake's self-defense, making her suddenly scoff, a little bit of her fire coming back as she remembered that she was talking to some Valean country girl and not… him. He wouldn't have given Blake this opportunity, and her mind was already in motion. She looked Chai in the eye and coldly replied, "You dated Jaune for three years, so since you were 14, when would you have…"
And then the obvious clicked, and the Blake who didn't take shit from anyone came back with a vengeance.
"You're a real fucking bitch, you know that?" Blake spat.
But Chai just gave her a disinterested look. "What? You're going to tell him you think I cheated on him? Think you'll be the shoulder he'll cry on? You think he's going to listen to some… crazy allegations just because they're from you? Because you know him sooooo well, of course."
"Don't," Blake snarled, feeling the anger rise up in her, "Don't you dare try to gaslight me, try to tell me I'm crazy because-"
"Because what?" she shot back, "Because you, what, you'll hurt me? Is that it? I told you: if you think you can scare me because you have a gun or a sword or- or both! You've got a lot of-"
"Because I have the truth!" Blake interrupted, "You can try and play the victim all you like, try and tell Jaune I threatened you, that I'm jealous of you, try and tell him whatever you want, but I know him. I know what kind of man he is, and I know real fucking well the difference between good men and bad men, so when I take my chances with him, you should know that I'm not doing so lightly!"
Chai looked at Blake with a mix of contempt and… and pity. Blake couldn't deny it—her attempt to be noble, to speak of good men and the power of the truth had only revealed how hollow her self-confidence was. If she was clinging to proclamations… she didn't have much else to stand on, and with her facade cracked, her fire went out like a snuffed-out candle.
"I know Jaune," she said, affecting a haughty, condescending tone as she flaunted her status over Blake, a feeling she… she knew all too well. "I've known him his whole life and I know him better than you, so if you think you can get your claws in him, you've got another thing coming," she spat before turning to leave… then turning back around to throw in a last, "And it was just lovely to meet you, Blake!"
With that, she left, leaving Blake, who had fought Atlesian security, White Fang operatives, Roman Torchwick, countless students… to feel her shoulders slump in defeat.
Blake figured that, from the way her head was in her hands when Pyrrha entered, it was pretty clear that things had not gone well with Chai. She heard Pyrrha make a sympathetic murmur as she took her chair and sat down at the table, and Blake was already kicking herself for her sloppiness that she hadn't been able to get herself together before Pyrrha arrived. It was one thing to blow it with Chai, she'd overestimated her distance from this, went too hard, too fast, and it blew up in the heat of the moment.
But here, she had time to compose herself. Something she had abundant practice in with her teammates and now, Pyrrha, a girl she was mostly a polite acquaintance with was seeing Blake in this state and knowing…
"I take it… it didn't go well?" Pyrrha asked as Blake peeked up from her fingers.
But she wasn't helpless. Blake leaned back in her chair and sighed, affecting a posture of someone who was just… overly critical after a defeat, the kind of pose she was… well, actually, she was miming what she'd seen of Jaune in Goodwitch's class, trying to take a loss with maturity and grace and not show that Ms. Goodwitch's criticism stung him deep. It made sense to take a tack like that with Pyrrha, and it seemed to pay off as she saw that Pyrrha's expression wasn't that different after the time Yatsuhashi grabbed Jaune by the hoodie and drove him into the ground before ending the match with a stomp on his chest.
"I got aggressive and I shouldn't have," Blake confessed, bringing her mind back to the business at hand, "I just… misplayed everything, but… she is definitely a manipulative bitch who is definitely using Jaune. But… I got… I got heated and now she knows we're onto her. I should have known better, but… things went sideways."
"That's not good," Pyrrha said, regretfully shaking her head before giving Blake a concerned look, "But that's… that's not like you, Blake. What happened?"
From all the times Blake had watched Pyrrha moon over Jaune, every time the school's Invincible Girl almost walked into a lamppost because she was too distracted by her crush, it hadn't prepared Blake for a moment when Blake would tell Pyrrha that her crush was in danger of falling for another girl and she would immediately prioritize Blake's well being.
There was something about Pyrrha's presence that just made Blake think in terms of combat. Even as easy as it was to forget that the polite, unassuming girl she got breakfast with was a globally ranked combatant, right now, Blake was thinking about how to dodge. To activate her Semblance, to show up a series of baffles and distractions, fake Blakes who'd deflect Pyrrha's care and concern, something that, right now, felt sharper than Pyrrha's spear.
It was something Blake was still struggling with. Her time at Beacon had been a series of hard lessons on trust, learning to trust Yang as her partner, Ruby as her leader, and Weiss as… as her friend. Her actual friend. She had thought her time in the White Fang had taught her about trusting her comrades, but in the cell, the mission, the cause, something else always came first. Or someone else.
But in RWBY, Blake was learning what it meant to be valued, and how it could be an almost unbearable state to be in, to feel someone else shouldering her pain alongside her, putting her first, offering her undeserved grace for no other reason than because they cared for her… Blake didn't like admitting it, but some days, it was a struggle to not look for an exit. She thought about how much her teammates had to deal with because of her and if it wouldn't be better if they had a better teammate, one without her baggage. And now Pyrrha was looking at her with nothing but compassion and it took all Blake had not to bolt before she had another person bound up in her life.
"It's nothing, I got…" Blake began, feeling the weight of what she felt inside. But Pyrrha gave her a kind look, and Blake took a moment to marvel that this was happening with a girl whose face she had first seen on a screen, the global news story of Pyrrha Nikos's upcoming Academy decision. The unimaginable reality that less than a year later, she would be having this conversation with that woman…
She shook her head, a bitter laugh rising up in her throat, "It's stupid, it's…"
"You don't have to-"
"No, I…" Blake's words trailed off, but then her shoulders slumped. Holding back the truth sounded… so much harder than just admitting it.
"I had a bad ex. A really bad one."
"Like Chai?"
Blake was quiet for a moment, then shook her head no.
"Similar… similar in kind, but not degree, if… if that makes sense. He was… he was bad. Very, very bad," she said, her voice conveying that Pyrrha didn't have to ask for more detail. "But when I saw Chai, when I saw how she showered Jaune with affection and told him how sorry she was I… I've been there, Pyrrha. Everything I saw, I've seen before, and I couldn't… I couldn't stay objective."
Pyrrha was quiet for a moment as Blake felt the weight of her words hung heavily in the room.
"If you think this is that bad," Pyrrha murmured, "Then I'm going to go talk to Jaune and-"
Blake shot up. "No!" she gasped, even before she realized she'd just done that. She shrank back down, suddenly feeling embarrassment catch up with her. "I mean, you… you can't tell him, Pyrrha, you…"
"Blake…" Pyrrha softly pushed back, "Jaune's an adult, we don't have to shelter him. I can sit down with him, talk things out, and then he can-"
This… this wasn't… Blake just shook her head. "But you- you'll be the bearer of bad news," she protested, "He'll- you'll put yourself in a spot where he's going to resent you or think you're-"
"That doesn't matter," Pyrrha said, carrying herself with a quiet, but firm dignity that reminded Blake that her friend was a world champion athlete, "I… there are more important things than my crush, and if she's this bad, then I can…"
But Pyrrha's words trailed off, sudden realization glinting in her eyes.
"There's something else, isn't there?" she delicately asked.
The weight of the world was in that question. Blake sighed, eyelashes twitching up and down as she tried not to let the tears rise up beyond the corners of her eyes. There was everything in that question, a history whose weight Blake felt on her neck, pressing down, holding back all the pressure building up inside her as she fought a silent war between two sides of her before, finally, one had to win.
"Because," she said, her voice little more than a haunted echo, "when you tell him, Jaune's going to… he's going to feel stupid and naive and that he deserves this for- for-"
Blake stopped, realizing that Pyrrha's hand was on hers, gently squeezing it to reassure her that it was okay. She blinked, brushing the tears from her eyes as she continued.
"When someone… someone you love has been taking advantage of you… like Chai has been doing to Jaune… it's not subtle. The signs were there, they're always there, and it's… it's so obvious when you stop making excuses that nobody made you do, but… but you did."
He's just passionate.
He's not mad at you, it's just that he's stressed about the operation.
Even if he is bad, you can't leave him—imagine what he'd be like without you there to calm him down. Everything he does once you've left… it'll be on your head. It'll be all your fault.
You're the one who wanted this.
Blake swallowed, trying to banish the demons she'd first exorcised when she had made up her mind to leave the Fang. She had confronted her past before she even came to Beacon, confronted it again and again as she confessed her past to her team, and confronted it literally in fighting her former brothers and sisters in the movement. But this part, this brought it all back in a new way.
"I wanted to be the one to confront her and chase her off so that Jaune could just think things didn't work out," she confessed, "That it wasn't really that he fell for his shitty ex's act all over again, because he's going to feel like… like everything he achieved at Beacon wasn't real because he's still just as gullible, just as… stupid as you were when you were 15."
"Do you think that's… do you think that's what Jaune's going to think," Pyrrha gently ventured, "or are you speaking-"
"I know what I'm talking about," Blake said firmly, then softened. "But it's not just… not just my experiences here. I don't know Jaune as… not nearly as well as you do, but I've seen his time at Beacon. He came here on… on nothing more than a dream, no experience, no qualifications, just a set of faked transcripts…"
Pyrrha blinked, then raised a finger. "You… you knew about his transcripts?"
Blake gave her a weak smile.
"Ruby told Yang, Yang told me," she said, "Nobody's going to tell Weiss for obvious reasons, but… I remember when Yang told me that, she said something like, 'Can you imagine going to Beacon without training?' and… yes, yes I can. I can imagine doing something stupid and reckless because you want to prove something, because you think you can handle whatever the world's gonna throw at you just cause you believe. Pyrrha, when I was thirteen, I was Jaune. Like… everything he did, I just… he wants to live up to his great-grandad, I wanted to live up to my dad so badly. Jaune tried to go it alone rather than get help from you, I said… I said some awful thing to a friend when she tried to warn me about Ad- a-about… him."
Pyrrha gave her hand a comforting squeeze and Blake was struck by how unreal this all was. She was having the first open conversation about her last relationship, the first time she'd truly opened up that would with anyone—anyone!—was with a world renowned celebrity. Maybe that was why she could say it. With Yang it would be… it would be real. She'd be saying it for real and feeling the weight of all her history on her shoulders as she admitted it, but with Pyrrha… Blake pushed herself a little further.
"I want him to succeed, Pyrrha, because I want to believe that someone can succeed," she said, her voice starting to tremble as she forced her nerves down and choked out, "That we're not just stupid to have dreams and take chances. I want to know that someone can mess up so bad, can mess up as badly as I did and still come out of it okay because… because I want to come out of it okay."
She was crying now. Ugly crying, as soon as the tears started to flow they started to stream, pouring down her face as she bared her soul… no, this was uglier. She spilled her guts, every ugly, undigested part of her psyche pouring out without a filter as her throat burned and her body was racked with ugly, choking sobs.
"I- I want th-things to work out, I've been watching y-you and Jaune and it's- it's so ruh-romantic and I just- just- just…"
It was embarrassing. Undignified. She was treating her friend's life like it was a romance novel and then was telling her about it to her face.
But the words had too much weight behind them for Blake, exhausted and worn as she was, to hold them back.
"I just want things to work!" she wailed, "Just work, l-like they do in the stories, where everything is h-happily ever after, wh-where everyone can go home after their adventures and f-feel like they're nuh-not a failure, not a stupid kid who c-can't ever go home again b-because she's so ashamed of herself! I want someone to just come out okay, b-but- but…"
Her head slumped down, her ribbon—her stupid, stupid ribbon!—suddenly making itself so very known as Blake felt how uncomfortable it was to hide her ears. Who was she even hiding it from anymore? CRDL? The school? Or was this from herself, was she only wearing the ribbon so she wouldn't have to explain that she felt she had to hide who she was, confront that she'd hidden something so fundamental to her, something she always said she took so much pride in. Because… what pride did she have le-
"Blake, it's okay, it's okay!" Pyrrha said, her voice cutting through her emotional spiral. Blake felt her hand on her arm, felt her gaze, soft, forgiving, and with an abundant, undeserved grace, fall upon her. "If you- if you want to talk about it, we can-"
"N-no…" Blake shook her head, sniffling as she spoke, "It's not… I'm not in that place, not- not anymore."
It was the embarrassment that now reigned, the realization that she had spilled her guts right in front of Pyrrha… who now no longer felt so unreal and distant and was once more the girl Blake saw most every morning at breakfast. And would see her later this week, first thing in the morning, and remember that she'd heard Blake break down in tears because her relationship with her partner was just so romantic.
Somehow, her day was finding new ways to be worse.
But as much as Blake was mortified to even look at Pyrrha, seeing her kind eyes and the obvious sympathy she felt… it did help her feel a little better.
"M'sorry," she murmured downcast, "I- shouldn't have dumped all my… stuff on you-"
"Blake, it's okay," Pyrrha reassured her, "I'm… actually touched you felt… you know, you could."
Blake looked back to Pyrrha, a quizzical expression on her face.
Pyrrha shook her head ruefully. "It's just… before Beacon, I was never… close to anyone. By the end of my time at Sanctum, everyone around me was… always on their best behavior, always acting like they were afraid I was scrutinizing them. No one would ever dare admit anything in front of me, talk about their… fake transcripts or relationship issues or anything... real. It's… it's a lot lonelier than you'd think. So it's, I don't know, kind of nice to have people who I can have something like this with. I… thank you, Blake. For all of this."
Blake well knew the pain of receiving kindness. She owed debts of gratitude to Ruby and Weiss and Yang, and now adding Pyrrha to her ledger, but… she did feel better hearing that. Three steps forward after two steps back, but… she was doing what she could to accept the small victories in her life.
"And Blake…" Pyrrha offered with a soft smile, "You did come out of this okay. You found a place here at Beacon, you have friends, a team, that would fight the world for you. I… know it might not feel like that, but… it's true. I don't know if you've found your storybook ending yet, but… I think you will. Here. With RWBY."
Blake wasn't sure how to tell Pyrrha how her books typically ended… or how they got to that ending. But hearing Pyrrha's faith in her, her confidence in her future… it was hard not to believe.
"You're really good at this," Blake murmured, "Jaune's really lucky to have you."
"Thanks," Pyrrha said, a blush spreading across her cheeks as her eyes dropped low.
"But no matter how I am…" Blake continued, "That damage has been done. Jaune's the one in actual danger here… and I don't know what to do."
Pyrrha gave her a quiet nod. "You've done your part," she said, "I can take it from here. I'm… not the best at taking the initiative sometimes, but…" she cracked a faint smile, "I am Remnant's best fighter in our age bracket. Have the trophy and everything."
Blake… had to laugh at that. Had she ever, before this moment, heard Pyrrha brag before? It sounded almost ludicrous in her voice, like trying to picture Ren saying, "Go ahead Nora, stick that fork in the electrical socket." She… it was kind of incredible that Pyrrha could be someone so… singular and yet, she could at the same time feel like the most ordinary of them. Not a teenage prodigy, not a prissy billionaire heiress, not all the things Yang would gleefully describe herself as, not… an ex-White Fang operative and First Daughter of Menagerie. Pyrrha was the best fighter currently between the ages of 17 and 21, and after her performance at the Vytal, it wasn't really debatable. And yet… Blake thought of her still, first and foremost, for her kindness, her gentleness, and her compassion. For Jaune, but… now it was for her, and it really did feel more extraordinary than when Pyrrha revealed to the whole world she'd been handicapping herself in every fight when she magnetically locked Penny's swords to the ground and ended the Championship in a hand-to-hand brawl.
"Help Jaune: help you," Pyrrha continued, "And… I think we can do that. Tomorrow night, Jaune and I have training, and no matter what history Chai has with him…" Pyrrha gave a wistful smile, "I know he won't miss it. We can talk then, give him the support he needs, and if it comes down to it… if I have to confront Chai, well, unless she's got something worse than eight telekinetically controlled swords, I'm not sure how she thinks she's going to scare me."
Blake gave her a smile, clasping Pyrrha's hand and feeling like… like things were going to be okay. Pyrrha said a few more words of reassurance, Blake thanked her, and… that was that. But as Pyrrha turned to leave, there was one thing left. One thing Blake felt she had to ask as she called out after Pyrrha and saw her turn around.
"I feel… I feel like I should be asking you," Blake said with a wry, thin smile on her face, "Why are you helping me?"
Pyrrha smiled softly and said, "Because I've always been rooting for you, too. I know what it's like to be the outsider and… not like you do, not like that, but… when I learned about your ears and your bow, I felt like… like I got it. Sometimes it's just… hard to be yourself. And if Team RWBY could help you regain that strength, where you can be yourself and be seen as yourself and to not feel like everything else is crowding you out… well, I thought, maybe I could find the same with JNPR."
"And you did."
Pyrrha's smile grew a little wider.
"I did."
Thanks to Renarde and the members of my Discord for feedback on this work. And thanks for the extremely warm response this fic received last week, I'm very appreciative of all the comments, faves, and follows. Made me remember why I like posting on FFN! And for the comments wondering if Blake was right or just reading her own experience into this... it's a little of both. Blake's instincts were more correct than not, but there's more than a few points where she's not seeing Chai when she looks at her.
This fic started as an excuse to basically write this conversation, since I got struck by the idea of Blake having a good reason to be invested in Jaune's success for all the reasons she gives in the fic. Ruby, Blake, Pyrrha, and Jaune make an interesting quartet of heroism, with our ingenue hero in Ruby as an echo of Pyrrha, who had achieved greatness, but has found it cold and isolating, and Blake, who was once in Ruby's shoes only to get burned for it—and then you have Jaune, the fraud. Initially, was looking at a story primarily on the Blake-Ruby dynamic, but I felt the distance between Jaune and Blake made the whole thing more interesting—and now I've done fics about Pyrrha's friendship with all of Team RWBY!
But that's a lot of talking about Jaune without a lot from the man himself. That ought to be rectified.