Jaune found himself being awoken by a comfortable, much needed bout of sleep by the comfortable, much needed sensation of someone embracing him. Or rather spooning him. And he was the little one for some reason.

He should have opposed that more than he did, but it was what it was. He wasn't going to complain.

Then he realized the only person who could be spooning him, and he slowly tried to turn over in order to try and see Blake.

Only for the black tentacles also wrapped around him to keep him nice and restrained. If Blake's tentacles had been more beige and dusty, he would've looked like a mummy, and the comparison to being a desiccated corpse trapped inside a tomb made the tight way she was holding him seem more menacing than he hoped her intention was.

"Blake?" Jaune mumbled tiredly, only a slight tremble of totally not self-inflicted fear worming it's way into his sleepy voice and making him sound whiny and nasally. "Can you let go a little? I need to go to the toilet. And make breakfast. And shower. And get ready for the Rose's. And call my parents. And get a new door, window and bed. Why life? What did I do to you to deserve such endless tasks?"

"No." Blake mumbled in return. "Sleep."

"Blake?"

There was no other response than the steady sound of her soft breathing. Jaune sighed.

Well…things could be worse. At least it wasn't a life and death situation, and instead he just had to contend with being unwillingly spooned by a cute catgirl with tentacles.

Jaune was no purveyor of the heretical filth known as 'Hen-tai' but he knew enough about it to know he should probably be more worried than he actually was.

Somewhat nervously, Jaune glanced down at the smooth, black tentacle wrapped around his shoulders but away from his neck. Unable to shift his hands, he tentatively lowered his chin and poked it with the caution of a bomb-squad member approaching a suspicious bag in a public area.

It felt…nice? Not nice! Not bad. Yeah. Not bad. Not nice but not bad.

Jaune lowered his chin again. Then he stopped himself.

"Blake, can you please let me get out of bed?" Jaune whined unabashedly, not wanting to venture down the dark path he felt like he would end up trotting down if he kept essentially rubbing his head against her tentacles like he was a dog desperate for it's master's attention.

"No." Blake replied suddenly, nuzzling deeper into the crook of his back. "Don't wanna."

"Blake!"

"No!"

"Please?!"

"No!"

"Pretty please?"

"Fine." Blake sighed, and Jaune tried not to make his sigh of relief as she relinquished her hold over him too visible so as to not insult her. It had been nice until he realised that he had grown up stuff to do and when he woke up he could be a bit of a weirdo apparently. "But I want waffles for breakfast."

"Sure thing Blake." Jaune said, smiling as she quickly fell back to sleep. He rolled his eyes at the laziness of his roommate and hurried to the bathroom, hastily going through the motions and taking a quick shower. Afterwards he went downstairs and went to work preparing breakfast, deciding to treat Blake for being patient enough to deal with his antics and being one of the only people in his life left that wasn't keeping some sort of world-changing secret from him with a few extra rashers of bacon and some sausages that were soon sizzled to perfection.

By the time Blake seemed to appear out of thin air, likely due to her weird space alien mumbo jumbo, two plates of fine food had been prepared and Jaune was sipping from his coffee whilst browsing the news on his Scroll.

"Took you long enough sleeping beauty." Jaune teased, smile on his face as Blake's face flushed prettily. He pushed her plate over to her and set down his Scroll. "Sleep well?"

"The best." Blake answered honestly, and something about her reply and the possibility for the reason why made his heart flutter for some reason that he definitely wasn't forcing himself into denial over due to the fear of losing Blake if she didn't return the feelings he definitely was not growing for her. "You?"

"Slept like a baby." Jaune replied, deciding to change the conversation to something safer than how the both of them felt after another night of platonically sleeping next to one another as friends usually did. "Excited for today?"

"You mentioned…food?" Blake said, tilting her head as she tried to remember what he'd said whilst trying to plead his way out of her warm, totally not-pleasant embrace. "With Agent Rose and her family?"

"That's right." Jaune grinned. "You get to meet my cousin Ruby and my Uncle Tai. Uncle Tai isn't much of a conversationalist, and you shouldn't be offended if he doesn't saying anything to you or even looks at you. He's…distant. If you want to know why ask Auntie Summer, because I sure as hell don't and I'm not about to go digging around my uncle's personal information out of curiosity. You and Ruby should get along fine, but she's the complete opposite of Uncle Tai. Be prepared for non-stop everything, and I mean everything. If I didn't know better I'd assume Ruby was so hyperactive because of some sort of drug addiction to oxygen."

"So they are like…what did you call it? The opposite and the opposite?"

"Yin and Yang." Jaune corrected, and Blake's face darkened.

"I do not like Yang."

"Who-oh…it's just a saying. It's not like that Yang will be showing up at our doorstep…I hope. I really don't understand what's going on between her and Auntie Summer and at this point I'm almost scared of asking. Like if I did ask Yang would burst through a wall and challenge me to another fight."

"I would protect you this time." Blake declared firmly, and Jaune smiled even if his heart palpated in a weird manner at the earnest proclamation.

"I was just joking. Hopefully Yang's…anywhere, so long as it's far away." Jaune said, digging into another bite of breakfast. "Before then I'll need to look into getting a door, a window and a bed."

"A bed?" Blake frowned. "Will we have a guest soon?"

"What?" Jaune blinked, his fork filled with food halted moments away from his mouth.

"What?" Blake blinked, head tilting in a confused manner. "You were the one talking about bed shopping?"

"For you?" Jaune replied, thought it ended up sounding more like a question than a statement due to his growing levels of confusion that were nearly approaching something akin to insurmountable.

"Why would I need a bed? We already share one." Blake responded, eyes wide. "That's cost effective isn't it? Why are you kicking me out? Am I a bad bedmate? I'll stay stiller than a plank of wood! I promise!"

"I'm not-I mean I am-I mean not…okay, time out!" Jaune said, rubbing the temples of his head as a migraine started to form. "Blake, I thought you wanted a bed for yourself. Don't you think it's a little…uncomfortable having to share with me?"

"No." Blake replied quickly, and Jaune looked up at her to see a genuinely upset look on her face. "I spent so long alone, I do not desire to be so again now that I have you."

"I…Well…You…" Jaune tried, unsure of what to do. Was he supposed to put his foot down? Was he supposed to ease her into independence maybe? He was too young for this crap yet he was starting to feel old enough on the insides. "Okay. I won't get you a new bed. I only thought you'd want more space for yourself and to have some privacy. I didn't mean anything by it, okay?"

"Okay." Blake nodded glumly, and Jaune sighed before reaching over and patting her head softly. Blake stiffened, before she purred and started rubbing her head against his hand. Jaune did his damndest to have some semblance of restraint and not pet her ears. "I'm sorry for overreacting."

"It's fine. I didn't know how you felt about the matter but now I do." Jaune smiled, retracting his hand to go back to his breakfast with no small measure of reluctance. "On the bright side I have one less job to do. Considering you totally don't have a fear of the sun I imagine you won't be going outside with me?"

"That would indeed be correct." Blake nodded, in an almost proud manner that was so cute he could almost feel the heart attack coming. Ruby was many things, but chief amongst them was adorable, especially considering she was like a little sister to him and unlike his actual little sisters she seemed to give a damn about his opinion and wanted to spend time with him, but if Blake kept it up he was going to be faced with a two front war of attrition that could only end with him dying from a sweetness induced heart attack.

"Cool." Jaune said, an evil idea springing to mind causing him to smirk. "In that case I suppose you won't mind if I leave you with some housework to do at home?"

Blake opened her mouth then closed it multiple times in quick succession, as if she had an idea on how to get her way out of it before realising it wouldn't work. Eventually she sighed and conceded defeat.

"Sure."

Victory was sweet.

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Victory was less sweet as Jaune attempted to single-handedly carry a door from Ansel's bustling markets to his home. The door, which was his length and width at bare minimum, him having forgot the exact specifications as he focused his mind and body entirely on not bonking senior old age pensioners and rampaging groups of little children and beleaguered parents, moody and gossipy teens and worse of all - people trying to catch the bus.

Jaune was sure they were normally nice people, but the bus people were savage, merciless and would even scowl at divine figures if it stopped them launching themselves onboard the bus. Ansel had a bus service that charged ridiculous prices and couldn't arrive on time to save the lives of the bus drivers and their families, and that and the general business of the markets led to buses being packed. All of which resulted in a stampede of those desperate to get home, unable to drive their own cars due to the limited, also expensive number of multi-story car parks in the markets at the centre of the city. So when one was returning home from work, forced to take a bus that would take another half hour to arrive if you were unable to get on the already jam-packed one starting to pull in, you could be a slight bit viscous trying to get your place onboard.

Jaune would have been the same, but he couldn't afford the price of buses and he didn't live too far away from the city centre and the markets thanks to pseudo-new but also definitely old outskirts of homes his own was located at, asking a walk an annoyance but ultimately better than wasting money for a bus ride where he'd inevitably be glared at like he was the devil or something due to taking up extra room for his door.

So Jaune was stuck weaving through the streets of Ansel with a door that he could barely hold onto. Considering how much Lien it had cost him he was barely willing to let it so much as brush against the ground, as he didn't want a lick of damage on it that might impede its swingingness.

So Jaune was both surprised and desperately clutching onto his door when Ren appeared out of freaking nowhere as if he actually was the ninja he always wanted to be.

"Gah?!"

"Good afternoon Jaune." Ren greeted, only a slight smile showing at the corners of his mouth, the rest of his face otherwise completely neutral apart from the twinkle in his eyes.

Cheeky bastard.

"Ren?!"

"I saw you struggling." Ren replied, stepping forward and grabbing the bottom of Jaune's door. Jaune shifted up until he was holding onto the top, weight evenly spread between them, and his annoyance at Ren intentionally jump scaring him faded as he reminded him why Ren was his best friend. "You could have called, you know?"

"To be honest I didn't know if you were busy doing you-know-what at you-know-where." Jaune explained as they weaved through the crowds together. "Also, and most importantly, I forgot. I've been thinking about lunch today."

"Deep thoughts with Jaune." Ren quipped dryly, and Jaune made a mental note to get him back for that. Somehow. At some point. Then again Ren was helping him, so Jaune wasn't too annoyed. "Something special happening that I'm not aware of? I know it's not your birthday or any of your sisters, so I'm in the dark here."

"Summer, Tai and Ruby are coming over for lunch." Jaune replied. "Summer is hiding something from me and is going to tell me what it is exactly."

"Ah." Ren said. "I understand how you might be feeling but personally, and I'm not just saying this since she's my boss, I don't think it will be anything reality shattering like finding out about you-know-what."

"Maybe. Maybe not. I'm not taking that chance though. I can't…I won't just trust her after everything that's happened." Jaune admitted, and the vocal airing of the doubts he had in his own loved ones sent a shock wave of cripplingly icy coldness dripping down his spine and into his chest, the coldness wrapping around his heart like a boa constrictor wrapping around its prey and suffocating it in a long, slow death where it purposefully went out of its way to keep it alive by not crushing its prey through pressure but purely through suffocation. "I want to. I wish I could…but everyone I know has been lying to me for years. Worse still it was the people I love and trusted. I don't really blame you much. At the end of the day bros don't interfere in each other's lives unless it's to let them know their girlfriends a cheating ho or their life is in danger. You tried to prepare me at least by making me join those kung fu clubs you were part of and I don't doubt for a second there were times you almost told me when I look back in hindsight. But when I look back in hindsight for my family I don't see those moments."

"Maybe they were more hidden." Ren supplied quietly. "They would have spent more time around you and your sisters, time which would have increased the chances of you accidentally finding out about the Supernatural. Jaune, I understand your feelings but the Supernatural world can be violent and cruel, more so than the normal one. They only withheld the truth because they wanted you to avoid that."

"It still hurts Ren."

"I know. I never said otherwise, just that they never meant to hurt you. Your family is one of the most loving yet somewhat functional families I know of. They aren't malicious people."

"That's just a clever front they put on." Jaune teased lightly. "In reality my sisters are bathroom hogging monsters who use me for dress up, my dad is one bad boyfriend away from shooting every other male not related to the family on the planet with a shotgun and my mom is my mom."

"I like how I know what that means despite not being related to you." Ren grinned, and Jaune grinned back. His mom was amazing, kind and loving…but she was also insanely overprotective, a minor control freak and had an obsession with grandchildren that bordered on unhealthy.

"You're not technically related to me." Jaune corrected honestly. "You know you're the brother from another mother I need in life to counter the titanic amounts of estrogen in it."

"I know." Ren admitted, a set gleam in his eyes. "I just like hearing you actually say as much."

They crossed a road and the crowd finally seemed to dwindle away into nothingness as they left the busy markets and hurried along a trash ridden street of abandoned looking buildings that had cars parked in the parking areas inside the lots, indicating that they had entered the area of Ansel that represented the wider Valean economy - struggling. Small business, niche business like a trumpet shop and a wide array of other such places of employment were scattered in neat, orderly areas with the buildings looking like they had been built before the Great War and had seen little in the way of maintenance since then. However it did not take them long to depart from Ansel's miniature Rust Belt and enter the suburban areas once dominated with leisure centers that had seen been replaced with more businesses after the council stopped funding said leisure centers and sold the buildings off due to one of the many economic crisis that had affected the world since the turn of the millennium. Jaune wondered if how he was feeling now was the same sort of things his father felt in the ancient times when he had been a young man.

After the mundane business area they finally entered the suburbs Jaune dwelled. They passed through rough areas, boring areas and not-rough areas, though the rich boring areas were few and far in between and the rough areas starting to outnumber the not-rough areas due to the shambles of the local council, which Jaune knew more than enough of due to his father's complaints about their shoddy work.

Nicholas Arc had expressed a desire to run for the local council numerous times in the past, and Jaune was glad he was eventually talked out of it or was swamped in work to not do so. He would probably win, and whilst Jaune loved his dad he also knew he could be a taskmaster when it came to work. If running the local council became his work, he'd be running Ansel as a mini-dictatorship, and Jaune would rather not be known for being the son of Ansel's very own generic evil tyrant.

They entered House Street, and soon they were at Twelve House Street, which somehow was looking worse than when he'd first bought it. Jaune dreaded to think what the neighbors thought, and was glad the street seemed to employ a policy of mutual ignorance for the people living near cupboard that had served as Jaune's temporary door was removed, and Jaune didn't worry too much considering he could hear Blake moving about inside the house. At least…he hoped it was Blake.

"Thanks for the help Ren." Jaune said, sighing with relief as they set the door down against the wall of his hallway and he slapped his hands together, rubbing them in an attempt to bring life back to them. "I don't think I could've done it without you."

"It was my pleasure." Ren replied, nodding at the door. "Do you need help setting it up?"

"Nah." Jaune said, shaking his head. "I'll manage. Thanks for offering though."

"Alright then. Good luck." Ren nodded, turning to leave. "By the way, I'm going to busy over the next few days. Some of our Agents went missing on a recent mission, and patrols are being increased in case something's afoot. You shouldn't worry, but I won't have the time to see you."

"Good luck." Jaune said sincerely, frown forming out of worry. "Stay safe, okay?"

"I always do." Ren replied, and he turned and left, offering a brief wave from the gate as Blake inched towards the door and waved goodbye with a tentacle.

Jaune, startled by her, was taken aback when she turned to him, a haunted look on her face and disturbed eyes.

"I researched why Velvet was weird Jaune." Blake said ominously, and Jaune felt his face pale. "I…I do not desire to hentai her. What should I do if she makes a request for me to do unspeakable things with my appendages?"

Jaune choked on air, earning a pat on a back from a pair of tentacles that made the both of them flush before Blake retracted them quickly. For a few moments they just stared at the walls behind the other, until eventually Jaune was able to reconcile the fact that what just happened wasn't the worst thing that had happened to him over the past few days and that he might as well respond.

"Say no if you don't want to." Jaune replied, silently begging to all the gods he could think of that such unspeakable things would never occur. "Consent is consent. Yes means yes, no means no. You have the right to make your own decisions and have those decisions respected…unless one of your decisions is to go around killing people, in which case you deserve to be shot. Or something."

"Very well." Blake nodded affirmatively, looking a little less disturbed. "I will inform Velvet there will be no unholy deeds committed the next time we meet."

Jaune nodded, before his Scroll buzzed in his pocket and he sighed explosively. He headed to the kitchen, Blake following curiously.

"Auntie Summer and Tai and Ruby will be around soon." Jaune explained. "I set an alarm to make sure I remembered to get some lunch ready. I have no idea what we're having so you better hope Past Jaune was smart enough to shop for some good stuff before everything turned weird and the Supernatural turned out to be natural."

"Can I assist with the cooking?" Blake asked hopefully, and Jaune nodded, eyeing up her tentacles appreciatively. She could get a lot of things done with what were essentially multiple arms so long as they didn't require something super fiddly, but considering he was just making lunch and not a meal for a five star restaurant then he supposed that wouldn't be a problem.

"Sure." Jaune replied, noting that Blake seemed to flush with happiness at his acceptance of her aid. Maybe he should give her more stuff to do if that was what she wanted? He turned to the fridge and grabbed a bunch of stuff out of it. Salad was on the menu, and he handed Blake a peeler and a carrot after they washed their hands. "Scrape the outer skin from the carrot, like so."

Jaune took her hands in his and led her through the motions of peeling the carrot he placed in her hand with the peeler he had also placed in her hand. He was hyper aware of the fact her eyes were practically burning holes into the side of his face, and that he was all too aware of the fact her hands were ridiculously soft, as if they had been made for hand-holding.

Once the carrot was peeled he showed her how to chop it up and dispose of the remains before moving on to cut some potatoes in half and put them in the oven for a bit along with some bread rolls and chicken slices. Blake worked slowly and methodically, eyes narrowed in concentration and her teeth sinking into her bottom lip with effort, drawing Jaune's attention to just how cute she was, not to mention her plump and kiss-would you look at the time the potatoes were ready?

He hastily scooped the hot food out of the oven, and his Scroll buzzed with a message from Summer. The Rose's were on their way, and Jaune hurried to prepare some veggies and other stuff like cheese and crackers for them to make a well rounded salad that he knew Ruby was barely going to touch. The meat and the cookies he had hidden away were ear-marked for her belly, and Jaune was glad werewolf anatomy was blended enough that Ruby could actually eat chocolate chip cookies.

Jaune doubted the universe could survive a Ruby unable to eat chocolate or any of her favorite treats.

He and Blake hurriedly set the table, and it was whilst he was placing down a fork and knife that Jaune heard an awkward knock against the frame of his door-less entrance.

"Uhm…Jaune?" He heard his Auntie Summer call out. "We're here!"

"Well then." Jaune said, smiling at Blake, who seemed nervous. "Ready to meet the Roses?"

"Are they like your parents?" Blake asked tentatively, and Jaune's grin deepened before he turned around and headed for the hallway leading to the entrance. "Jaune?"

He whistled a jaunty tune.

"Jaune!"