pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
I chased Ruby's bottom lip with hunger and she rolled her fingers through my hair. She giggled against my lips as I sighed in pleasure at the touch of her small hands.
I pinned her down against my unkempt bed with a vigor that made her roll her pelvis up at me and I growled.
"You rascal." I broke off the kiss to look her in the eye but her gray gaze just seemed to say 'who, me?'
Yes you. If it wasn't you, then who?
I ran one frustrated hand under her body and along her back, pulling her close to me. I slid under her shirt and I bodily picked her up off the bed and held her against me as I devoured her lush, full lips with some savagery.
I touched the whole of her curved back with my arm and she heaved up into me with heavy breaths. Her skin just felt so fantastic against my own as I cradled the whole of her small form against my larger one. She let out another noise, one that made me feel like a demigod and she breathed out my name with a tiny mewl.
"Oh, Jaune..."
It left her pink lips like a prayer and I dove back upon them with my own.
It had been weeks since I'd held her so close. It had been weeks since we'd been able to share more than parting looks and careless touches. I could feel her want against my own in a steady rhythmic pulse which only sped up over time. She flushed as red like the tips of her hair as I chased her tongue around her mouth. Then she suddenly closed her lips and sucked on my tongue gently in a way that made my chest heave. It made me throb for her.
Our teeth met briefly and savory, softly clicking together when I deepened our kiss. She moaned, a low sound in her throat I wouldn't have thought the young woman capable of making. It only made me want to devour her flesh more. I kissed down her neck and over her jaw line until I arrived at the dimple in her collar and sucked against her supple skin.
So great was my hunger as I knelt between her legs that I nearly left behind hickies and marked her smooth flesh with my possessiveness. I had to remember not to mark her as she grabbed my face in her arms and moaned again. Gods I would do so fucking much just to hear her moan like that. That was why I did what I did. This is what I fought for. It nearly made the weeks of passing touches worth the wait just to hear her cry out quietly and writhe against the sheets.
Our auras merged and flared like touching candle flames and she hissed beneath me, clawing against my shirt, just searching for purchase. She rubbed against the massive scars the Scorpion had left along my chest and I moaned loudly, almost a deep grunt. Red mixed with gold and flickers of blue flame. Crimson petals drifted from the air around us as the heat of our moment intensified.
Her legs tried in vain to wrap around my waist but my frame was too wide to allow that. She gave a little noise of protest which was absolutely delicious as she failed to pull me even closer to her.
The door to the room burst open.
"Hey Jaune have you seen my- what the fuck!?"
I was hauled off of Ruby by pure main strength and was turned to face Yang. I saw her eyes flash red from violet. I met the heated glare with pure stupid apathy as I was brutishly shoved against a wall hard enough that my head cracked against it.
"Have you seen," she hissed, "My. Sister."
"Yeah," I muttered duly. "She's around." My head cracked against the wall again painlessly. I felt slow, big, and dumb.
"Yang what the hell?!" Ruby shouted from where she sat up on the bed. Her fingers still deep in the sheets as she propped herself up.
"You were having sex!"
"I was super well aware!" Ruby huffed and blew her messy hair out from in front of her eyes. "Will you let him go, please?" Yang released me and I stepped back from the tan wall and away from one of the green plants which lined our Mistrali rental.
"Well. Explain, asshole," Yang demanded her hair burning in orange and yellow. Her enormous mane was inflamed from the heat of her anger.
"Yang I like him," Ruby spouted from behind her sister. "I should have told you, Jaune was helping me keep it a secret."
I nodded dumbly, still half cocked. Blood was flowing from other places back to my brain. I wasn't reacting swiftly to the situation and I wasn't sure there was much I could have said.
"Really? This dumb motherfucker?" Yang turned her gaze around at Ruby.
"Yang!" Ruby sat up straighter on the bed and dropped the sheets she'd still held clutched in those tiny hands. "I. Like. Him. And why not? He makes me feel safe. He makes me feel good. I like him. He always has my back and I love how much I trust him."
Yang staggered, looking at Ruby in disbelief. "How long?"
"A little before we picked up Qrow. Maybe a month." Ruby 'pffted' upwards blowing her hair out of her face again.
"This whole time?" Yang whipped back towards me. "This whole time you've been taking advantage of my sister?"
"I keep telling you it isn't like that!" Ruby protested.
"Then why sneak around about it?!"
Ruby gestured emphatically. "This! This is why, Yang." She turned her head sideways slightly. "I was trying to find the right time to tell you."
"And what? He was all too happy to go along with it?"
"Yes! He does whatever I ask him to do, he's like a big puppy. He's harmless."
"I just saw him murder a bunch of people. Calmly."
"We haven't had the chance to talk recently…" Ruby confessed, sounding meek for the first time. "But that's the job, Yang. Sometimes bad guys die. Roman Torchwhick died. You killed people too. That's the job sometimes. I knew that. You knew that."
"Yeah but I was busted up about it was the difference."
"Jaune was super messed up the first time he killed someone. You weren't there for it. You were back at Dad's. And Jaune had my back. When Tyrion came for me, to kidnap me and take me to Salem, Jaune was willing to die for me! He almost did die for me! How much more ideal and sweet a guy could I have found and you're still not happy with it? What was I supposed to do? No one was going to be good enough for me in your mind."
Yang's hair deflated. Her eyes flicked back to violet as something like shame took her over. If I was a betting man it wasn't over her outburst of anger, but rather over the fact she'd flinched.
"Jaune," I looked up at Ruby, still feeling dazed. "Would you give us the room? Please?"
I nodded along. "Sure. Of course." I walked past the crouching tiger I felt Yang represented within the room and shut the door behind me. I leaned back against it and wiped my hands across my eyes and sighed out loud.
"You got caught." It was Weiss. I couldn't muster up the heat of a glare. I felt too tired, bone deep tired. I met her icy blue eyes, her hair was down around her shoulders and not in its usual ponytail.
"Yeah. We 'got caught,'" I let out. I was leaning deeply against the door such that our eyes were level.
She flushed a little scarlet. "Just kissing or something more?"
"A little of column A and a little of column B."
"Well you're still…" she trailed off pointing downwards. She was only looking out of the corner of her eye with her head turned away, as if to give me a sense of modesty.
I was still half cocked, thank you Weiss. Super appreciative.
It wasn't her fault, though.
I exhaled, hard, and took a few deep breaths. I tried to slow my heart rate back down and get my anatomy under control.
"Yeah well you know," I managed. "It'll go away."
"Is that how it works?"
"Yeah. That's how it works," I spouted stiffly.
"You could have locked the door."
"The doors don't have locks," I said dry as ice. "We figured somebody would knock first."
"And that would have helped?"
"Maybe? Probably? I don't have a plan for everything!"
She snorted at me in a quiet 'ugly' laugh. Yuck it up, Weiss.
I leaned against the door and tried to forget Ruby's pulse between her legs. It was pretty difficult. I was intentionally avoiding the word 'hard' but 'twas also that.
"Seems to me this whole situation could have been avoided if you'd just talked to Yang."
"Wasn't my decision. I'm just the dumb boyfriend. Dumb boyfriends follow their smart girlfriends' orders. Especially where family is concerned."
"What about your family?"
"They'd be amazed I got this far."
"With a girl?"
"Just in general." I crossed my arms over my chest.
Weiss gave me a pleasant smile at that, the sort I would have killed for freshman year. It was warm around the edges, yet firm in the center. Blue eyes glowing softly in the morning light of Mistral. The deep dusk reds couldn't seem to touch Weiss's eyes.
"Coffee?" She asked. "Or were you going to avail yourself of a cold shower?"
"Ha. Ha." I pronounced my 'ha's. "I think I'm good on that shower." I felt confident enough to stand up straight and I followed her down stairs for some of the brown beverage.
Weiss evidently took her's dark. I watched her quietly make it, arms folded in the kitchen over my blue cotton shirt. She handed a cup to me and I guess she knew I was a pussy because she offered me cream and sugar. I availed myself of some; mixing the white with the brown. Just a little though. I wasn't Ruby. I heaved yet another sigh.
"So now the only one who doesn't know is Qrow." She blew over her drink.
"And Oscar, I guess." I cheered her when she offered her mug in my direction."Or Ozpin or whatever they are."
I took a sip and winced at the temperature.
"Careful, it is hot."
"I just about got that memo, thanks. One more just to make it sink in." I took another sip and winced. "Yep, still hot."
"Well don't do it again! You'll just hurt yourself."
I shrugged. "Pretty sure Yang would be on board with the concept of me suffering."
"Well let's not give her what she wants. I'll take it from you, you know. You have to be patient."
I blew over the top of the liquid distinctly impatiently.
"You're worse than Ruby sometimes." She was smiling, though.
"Yeah," I agreed. "How are you holding up after yesterday? Couldn't have been easy on the inside."
"Not sure if you heard or not but the Don picked me to be his escort for the night. He had some lines of hyper laid out on his bedside table, even. For the evening, I suppose. A man of indulgence."
"I hadn't," I prompted.
"I held him down with my semblance and made him talk. On the whole, I'd say I had the easiest job. Not like you boys outside."
"It got messy, I'm just glad none of you got hurt."
"How are you holding up with it?"
"Killing people, you mean?"
She nodded, leaning her head on one hand as she looked up at me from the table she'd taken a seat at.
"I'm alright at it. I think I might even be good at it. Killing people. It does get easier."
"How many?"
"I used to know, used to have a number. Went from one, to two, then five but... But now I've lost count. A bunch. A whole bunch of people."
"I'm sorry, Jaune."
"Sometimes it be like that," I snapped my fingers and pointed off in the distance. She didn't look distracted by my antics so I sighed. "It's what we signed up for."
"I haven't killed anyone, not yet. I probably will at some point, though. Seems inevitable, doesn't it?"
"Some poor sap without aura and then, bam." I nodded. "Even with aura you can't exactly tell how full they are sometimes so you just go right through."
"Gods."
"That's how my first one went. This bandit. I had my semblance and I just spent it and I cut him."
"You're unbelievably strong with your semblance active." Weiss nodded along like she could see it. "The point of Myrtenaster will probably be like that, especially if I have some speed behind me."
"Exactly." I took a sip, the coffee had finally cooled down enough that I could drink some. I almost found myself pounding the drink.
"Well, aren't we chipper?" She sighed.
"Just pragmatic. You didn't actually tell me how you're holding up."
"Didn't I?"
"No. You dodged it."
"Did I now?" She teased with an upwards tilt of her chin.
"You just said you figured you had the easiest job then you changed the subject. You should answer the question I asked you. Just so long as we're both being completely honest with one another."
"And are we?" She wondered.
"If we're not, I want to take back everything I told you since you arrived in Mistral," I blew on my coffee. She gave me a dainty laugh. "So, how are you holding up?" I pressed.
"Not so great," she confessed. "I'm not doing so great. But it wasn't the absolute worst day of my life. So there's that. I didn't have to kill anyone which I'm thankful for. Just torture which I'm not sure is any better."
"It's not. Plus you had to wear those outfits."
"Which you should admit you liked," she fired right back. "It's okay. I saw you stare at Ruby." And you. It went unsaid but she saw me stare at her too. I couldn't… I couldn't really help myself. Her platinum hair went good with the black. And you know me. I've always thought that she was beautiful and talented and smart and a little queerly funny. So yeah. There was that.
"So what if I did? A bit of a nightmare if I ever asked Ruby to wear one. Besides she's sexy enough in one of my shirts or her pajamas." I sipped my coffee.
"Is she really?"
"You ever see Ruby blush?" I asked. "It gets me out of bed in the morning."
"Well, I suppose…"
"You see how Ren's holding up?"
"Nora got him out of the place early. She called it a 'not-date' and left. I think she killed somebody too. Just crushed their rib cage."
"Lords above," I sighed. "Just you, Ruby, and Oscar, now. I suppose, depending on how you wanna cut that Ozpin thing."
She took a long drink of coffee at that, deep in thought and staring out a window onto the little courtyard we trained in.
"So the only thing left to do is get Qrow back up and walking. Job's done."
"Aren't we taking some gang lord's word on that."
"Qrow thinks she'll honor it."
"She? Well, isn't that progressive?"
"I figure Malachite isn't so bad. She seemed to run things clean, or as clean as such things can be run, and Qrow has had past dealings with them."
"You've met some of them?"
"This pair of twins. Evidently they're Malachite's daughters. One in white and one in red. Huntresses, the both of them."
"One on white and one in red huh?" Yang was standing by the banister. "Well I think I know where I heard that name before now."
"We cool?" I asked.
"Yeah. We're cool. Sorry for blowing up on you."
"S'no biggie."
"Kinda. You were there for my sister when she needed you. Needed somebody and I… I wasn't."
"No one blames you for that," I said. "You were hurt."
"So were you, what with Pyrrha and all."
"S'no biggie. It affects us all differently. My motivations to keep going weren't all so pure."
"Join us, Yang," Weiss encouraged. "Coffee?"
"Thanks." She strode into the room. Weiss stood up to pour Yang a mug. "Nora and Ren?"
"Out," Weiss and I said together.
"Ruby?" Weiss asked.
Yang snorted and I heard some plumbing going. "Said she was going to take a cold shower. Thanks," She said, accepting the coffee from Weiss.
"We were discussing yesterday," I said. "What horrific thing happened to you?"
Yang snorted again. "I uh I killed two people."
"How'd that go?" I asked.
"Awful. After Weiss got chosen we started hearing screaming from the 'presidential suite.'" Yang quoted. "Not even the kind you could maybe think was 'the dirty.' That sorta kicked things off. I just reached out and killed a guy. Just crushed his head. I thought he'd have aura."
"And even if he did…" Weiss trailed.
"Right," Yang nodded. "I shot another guy with my gauntlet and Ruby and Nora took care of the other two guys. Then I ripped my way through the locked presidential suite door. Weiss already had things under control by then but…" She trailed off. "Well then we came down the stairs and saw the mess you and Ren had to deal with. Saw you kick that guy."
I nodded. I still remembered the way his head had felt under my boot.
"And the rest…" She gave a shuddering breath and lifted the coffee to her lips. "The rest is history."
"Miserable," Weiss said, shaking her head.
"Some guns went off. You saw the girls who got shot," Yang said. "Just waitresses or whatever."
I nodded.
"And that was my day. How was yours?" Yang asked, sipping coffee.
"Wasn't quite the worst day of my life," I said. "But it's up there. It does get easier."
"Jaune, and I mean this with all politeness, I really really don't want to hear that," Yang said. "It should be hard. It deserves to be hard. It's well… you know."
I nodded like I got it, which I did.
I heard the plumbing shut off and Ruby exiting one of the bathrooms. I just listened.
"So you and my lil' sis." Yang broached. "How'd that happen?"
"She kept saving my life."
Yang let out a low whistle. "Way she told it, it was the opposite."
"You know how modest Ruby is."
She nodded. "You knew about this kerfuffle, Weiss?"
Weiss nodded. "Ruby told me. She- well - she was happy to share it with somebody."
I could have flushed at that.
"And that somebody couldn't have been me." Yang agreed sullenly, Weiss and I shared a look but Yang seemed mostly disappointed in herself. "That day you were also covered in blood. You'd just killed somebody then, too."
Three. Killed three. I even knew two of their names. I just nodded. "Some dumbasses without aura. Needed some information and he and his friend tried to fight me. Over nothing was the worst part. He died for nothing. I mean I went and unlocked his aura but he was already nearly cut in half so I'm not sure if he lived or died. I'm counting it as a death, though."
"You keeping count?" Yang asked.
"Was. Stopped yesterday." I finished off my coffee.
"He says he lost count." Weiss stepped in and refilled my mug. Bless her. She said it like it was the worst thing that could happen to a person and to be fair it really sucked.
"Good gods." Yang sighed. "That'll happen to me too. One day I'll just be like 'was it ten or twelve. I can't remember.'"
"The fight was fast and had a lot of bodies yesterday. You might get lucky. Or unlucky. Whichever."
"Which is worse not knowing or knowing?" Yang laughed.
"Not knowing," I answered.
"You weren't supposed to answer that fast, Jaune." Weiss handed me my mug back.
"Ask me no questions…"
Ruby popped her head down. "Oh, you're…?"
"We 'aight." Yang answered.
"It's fine," I said.
"I have coffee here just for you Ruby." Weiss brushed some spilled coffee grounds into her hand and into the sink. Ruby came jostling down to us and accepted the cup.
Ruby came over and gave me a peck on the cheek. Yang rolled her eyes. "Yeah, yeah. Just get it out and done with now."
"Is that how you think it works?" Ruby asked.
"Oh just because you have a boyfriend now doesn't make you all knowledgeable."
"It might." Ruby responded but there was a quiver of laughter to her voice.
"Please share what it's like with us humble mortals," Weiss said. Ruby fell back and I caught her. I put an arm around her waist and held her close to me.
She leaned her head back against my chest and sighed. "It's nice. It's nice not having to hide it, either."
"Ugh." Yang rolled her eyes but she was smiling. I wasn't sure what they had talked about up there but something must have gotten through to Yang.
"Are Ren and Nora dating yet?" Weiss asked.
"Kinda. More than before but less than you'd think," I answered.
"Figures," Yang said.
"Hey kid," Qrow wheeled up. "What's uh, what's going on here?" He was looking at Ruby in my arms, looking relaxed.
"Jaune and Ruby are a thing." Yang answered. "Sorry you're the last to know."
"I could have guessed," he grunted. "Come on kid. Meeting with the Malachites."
"So just me then. Okay." Yang muttered.
"Will you be okay alone?" Ruby asked me.
I slammed back my coffee and nodded. I would be just fine, I think.
"I'm coming too." Ruby decided. No one argued with her.
pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq pq
-WG