"Hey, you're back!" Josh was looking at her with glee... which steadily dropped as she took her place once more. He looked at her, bearing a more uneasy grin. "Aaaaaand I don't see my bud with you."

She scoffed, rolling her eyes and spitting, "he'll be back soon enough. He just needs to clear his head. And perhaps grow a pair.

But that was neither here nor there. Melanie, through her buzzed state, curiously looked down to her glass, which was oddly full for some reason. Last she checked, it was empty when she left... wasn't it?

"Huh." She picked it up, taking a sip regardless. " Ah, good stuff. Although I was sure I finished this one off."

"You did." Josh piped up, and she curled her brow while shooting him a glance. He was smirking towards her, which at best was irritating, but not nearly as insufferable as his friend. "But I figured you might want another. You're welcome, by the way."

"What? You want a kiss for it?" She shot, and watched as he snorted a little into his arm, with his laughing face calming down after.

"Nah..." And then he shot her a sneaky wink. "Unless you're offering~"

"Nope, now piss off." That got a shrug from him, as she thought it would.

"Ah well, I tried."

Miltia gave him a small pat on the arm, offering her support. "You'll get her eventually~"

Scheming little shit. Melanie noted how her sister was looking at her with a saucy expression, no doubt spiced with ideas for taunts and play. Melanie chose to ignore it for now, as there was no harm in letting Miltia turn her eyes to somebody other than her current obsession. What did she see in that jerk anyway? Jay was a bonafide bastard in her books, someone who, even if he was a cowardly little clown, shouldn't have drawn her sister's eye.

Memories of old slipped in place, unwanted and thorny, and Melanie had to forcefully shove them off. Yeah, Jay may have had the outward and timid innocence of a certain special someone, but that was all surface level. She'd dealt with her fair share of men, and she knew for a fact the guy couldn't be trusted, not really. Whether he knew it or not, his fear and faults were all a swindle of lies, and considering he played it up as if he couldn't tell this himself made it all the worse.

There was no greater evil than that which could not see its own.

"Hey, hey bud!" Josh stood quickly, too quickly, and seeing the startled eyes of her sister, Melanie turned to see someone walking down the club with an unconscious looking individual.

For fucks sake, what did he do now?!

Melanie was not pleased, more so due to the fact he couldn't even pick his ass up from the asphalt without getting into trouble. And now, here he was getting hauled in by the monthly regular who gets carrying on with Junior every so often. Still, as she walked over to the group, she held in her ire. She got what she needed off her chest before, so there was nothing more to say.

Josh, on the other hand, was stopped in his tracks by the man carrying his friend.

"Easy there. He's fine." Qrow propped Jay's body up a bit, and Josh got to watch as his head bobbed with the motion. "Just passed out on the way here. Heh, he must have been pretty hammered to drop as hard as he did."

Again, this made him cringe on the inside, but seeing as the man said nothing outright negative, Josh assumed Jay hadn't opened his mouth beforehand.

"Cool." An awkward tickle went up his spine as he held out his arms to the guy. "So... Can I have my friend back?"

The man merely chuckled, wrapping his other arm around Jay and handing him over. "Yeah, sure, take him. I was getting tired of lugging him around anyways."

"Thank you." With a swing, he plopped Jay over his shoulder, and quite cheekily, gave a light pat to his thigh. "Now if you'll excuse me, Mr?"

"Qrow." The guy replied, smirking and setting a hand on his hip.

"Right, Qrow. I have to get the princess here off to bed, so I'll be back in a jiffy." Qrow, as he dubbed himself, sent a little thumbs up, and Josh took his leave. He knew the route - all one minute of it - and soon settled his friend on the bed.

It was here he allowed his disappointment to drop, sighing and sitting beside his blacked out buddy.

"What have you been up to, hmm?" Eyeing the guy, he felt a tiny tinge of anger, but quickly brushed it off. So far, the others had yet to mention anything hard against Jay, at least in terms of his actions while under the influence. "Yeah, well trust me, I feel that."

Perhaps having an imaginary conversation with your friend wasn't exactly healthy, but Josh could pretty much guess what his buddy would say in this scenario. But then again, he wasn't thinking of this scenario.

"You can go back out, you know? I'm fine on my own."

"I know. But I can't exactly have much fun knowing my bestie is down in the dumps."

"I'm no good at parties."

"No, but it's nice to get out and try to meet new people. Expands your horizons."

"...You know what I'm like with liquor."

"I'm not too worried. You throw punches like a kitten, and I doubt most people can even feel them after all their jumbling about beforehand."

"... I don't... I don't like it though." Even imaginary, Josh could still hear the shaking in his friend's voice. "But… I can't help it. I just... I get so angry... and I don't know why. I'm tired of starting trouble. I just... I just wish I could be forgotten."

And that was what scared Josh the most, especially now after... things happened. Silently, he reached into his own coat pocket, pulling out the one instrument which put everything he thought he knew about his friend into consideration: the gun. He wasn't quite the idiot everyone back home thought him to be, and despite being a bit dull at times, Josh was someone who had the ability to put two and two together. But even with that process in mind, he remained unsure.

Yes, Jay had a hard lot, and got into a bit of trouble with things, but was it really so bad as to devise... what he was looking at right now. It was a gun, plain and simple: a tool designed to incapacitate and kill... or so he saw it. That last thought, one of a memory about a year ago, had now been put into new context with the weapon in his hands. Was Jay... was he really hurting so bad as to...

Josh shook his head. It couldn't be that bad... right? Jay was depressed, like, a lot of the time, but it was never so bad as to imply he would do something like what he was thinking... or was it? Looking over the gun again, another series of questions came to mind, with the key one being: how did he get this thing?

This was a gun, yeah, but it wasn't just any old firearm: it was the exact type of pistol usually wielded by the police around their local area back home - same paint, grip, and everything. Getting this type of thing should have been impossible... and yet, he could theorize a way. A certain deceased police officer back home was missing his gun when the detectives ran their investigation. It was said he died from the animalistic wounds across his body, and that a bullet mark had chipped some of the brick within the alleyway, implying it had been fired.

The only way he could think of Jay having this gun was if he'd taken it from the crime scene, which was entirely possible as several loitering homeless people were seen around the body before it was reported, meaning they couldn't determine much from taking footprints into account - not that they'd do so with an animal attack, but what did he know, really? Nobody touched it, but they were all there, and the gun was theorized to have fallen to the ground during or after the scuffle, so it was possible to take without leaving any excess fingerprints anywhere else.

The only thing powerful enough to provoke a life ending theft would be desperation, and now he wasn't so sure Jay wasn't willing to cut said life short, not when he was looking at a scenario seemingly perfect for it.

The gun itself was just as cartoon-ified as everything else here, although it seemed to have this darker, sketchier look to it, almost as if it was about to lash out. Truthfully, Josh got the creeps just looking at it, especially the shadows clinging to its faces and corners, and instead turned his eyes to his sleeping friend.

Out of habit, and as he did whenever he was truly afraid, Josh reached up to grip the trinket which sat hidden, just beneath his shirt and wrapped around his neck. A special necklace he'd worn since he was a child. Right now, he could use all the courage he could get, because he was deathly afraid of what he was thinking.

Just what is going on?

"Huh, and here I thought you two were tied at the hip." The humm afterwards only added to the fright Josh got as he whipped around to spy Melanie looking at him with crossed arms; eyes scrutinizing his every move. "Doesn't look like there's a silencer on that thing, so how did you plan to escape? Got any tricks we don't know about."

"What?" Josh saw her scowl harden, and then he remembered he was holding a gun in his hands... right over his sleeping bro. Very quickly he got his act together. "W-wait! It's not what it looks like!"

"Then enlighten me." Melanie took a steady step forward, and her face wriggled with disgust. "I'm not a fan of the bitch, but my sister is, so believe me: I won't let you kill him just yet."

"I'm not going to kill him!" Josh went to hold up his hands, and Melanie twitched for a second. Internally he swore, realizing how lucky he was she hadn't acted upon the sudden movement and assumed he was on the attack. Her pause kept her a short distance away as he tried to explain. "He's my best friend! I was watching over him for a bit."

"With a gun to his head?"

"No!" Josh slowly lowered his arms, looking over the thing and then back to Jay. "I was just... thinking." Glaring at the tool, he added, "this isn't mine either, it's his."

"Hmm." To her credit, or perhaps even his own, her voice was a little more laid back. "I see. Figures he'd have one. I bet it comes in real handy when he gets thrashed and needs an easy out."

"What?! No!" That, however, was something he wouldn't stand for. Nobody throws bullshit accusations at his friends. "Jay isn't like that!"

"Really?" She spoke so sly, and to be quite frank, it was somewhat pissing him off. But Josh held his anger back; she didn't know Jay like he did, and from the looks of it, she was letting her anger get the best of her. Jay did that plenty of times, and for each of them Josh made sure he was there to pull his friend back down to his senses.

She was prodding at him, he knew it, but even so; nobody understood Jay like he did, not even his own family.

"No." This he was certain of. "He's..." And yet, even when looking back to see the sleeping face of his friend, Josh still couldn't deny the facts. "He's too afraid." Huffing out a tired exhale, he continued. "Sure, when you get him drunk he loses a bit of his fear, and has quite a bit of unchecked rage. Trust me, we've thought of doing something about that, but therapy is expensive, and neither of us were all that rich. But believe me when I say this, because I want you to remember every word."

Melanie laughed, swinging a wrist to the side. "Alright then big boy, lay it on me."

"I know what you're trying to say, and no: Jay wouldn't kill anyone, for any reason."

"Oooh, scary~" She imprinted a wicked grin across her face. "And if he was pushed back into a corner? If he was staring danger right in the eyes?"

This chipped at Josh's expression, but not for the reasons she may have been expecting. He was almost disappointed with it, but he had to say it, and he did so while sending his bro a sorry look.

"No, not even then." Sighing, he carried on with, "Even with a hefty dose of liquid courage, he'd run from anything super crazy."

Sorry bro, but I can't exactly lie to her face, not when she's so mad, and certainly not over something serious like this. He knew his buddy would understand; he always did.

"Of course~" She followed it up with a laugh… which was countered by nothing, because Josh stayed quiet. Soon after that, her face began to falter. "...You... you're actually serious, aren't you?"

He just nodded, looking down at the gun, and opened up once again.

"I mean, I wish I could say he'd do something cool like pop the suckers in the kneecaps, but that just isn't the case." It really wasn't. Jay's mouth had been a problem plenty of times before, but that was it: all he had on him was a loose lip. One time he'd gotten the ire of some crazy guy who ended up pulling a knife on another patron, and even in a drunk state and despite arguing with the guy, Jay just locked up. It took a few seconds after, but once he could move, he booked it. "Sometimes I tend to think he sees liquor as a buff: a way to pick himself up and make him stronger. It doesn't. It just dulls his fears enough that he's willing to talk shit."

Melanie was looking at him with what he could best describe as pity.

"You really believe every word of that, don't you?" Josh nodded. Maybe she wasn't the same, but he would always have his friends' back, because they'd always had his; even Jay never managed to let him down when it came to important stuff, and he wasn't about to let his buddy down either. Melanie, however, plopped a hand over her face, looking to growl a little, and wore a dark scowl. "Dust's sake."

Seeing her suddenly turn away provoked him to call out. "Hold on, where are you going?"

"To clear my head… ALONE, this time. I bloody need it after this migraine." She slammed the door upon leaving, and now Josh sat alone with his pal as the seconds ticked by. In that time he just continued to think, eventually deciding it was late enough, and left for the room he'd been assigned to by the others.

Despite this fatigue, he couldn't help but wonder about the gun, and even a little of what Melanie's outburst earlier was truly about.

.

.

It was strange to see it, the way everything was shadowed.

Jay stood from his place on the ground, gazing up at the various buildings surrounding him. He was still in Remnant, so at least his fight with Melanie didn't leave him dead. Did he pass out? He couldn't remember, but there was one thing of note that tripped him off on how strange everything was.

The buildings around him were pitch black, outlined in white. It was an animation style he rarely saw put to use; one focused on the implementation of hard shadows. The sky, strangely, was a solid white, with no sun in sight. Looking at it didn't really hurt his eyes like he thought it would, so there was that at least.

Seeing as RWBY never had any moments like this before in its run, he opted to take a peek around. He'd pretty much sobered up by now, as was made apparent by his recollection of the fight with Melanie. But calling it a fight was being disingenuous. It was more akin to a telling off, and one he couldn't exactly say he didn't deserve.

Dammit... I did it again.

He'd claim it a surprise, but that would be a lie: it was his own fault, and he knew it. He was the one to choose alcohol as his method for dealing with what he'd found back with the White Fang, and now he had to reap the consequences. Still, it wasn't like Melanie had much love for him to begin with, and parts of her rant were still a little hazy in his mind. This alone was weird in its own right: his memory was partially hazy not only on it, but what happened leading up to it.

Usually he'd at least recall the most important bits at the very least, but those were gone too.

Jay pushed the thoughts away, figuring it would all come back within a few hours, as most everything did after a hard night. He decided to head back to the club, and at least put Miltia and Rex's minds at ease. If anything, they were probably worried, and he didn't like having that guilt on his chest; there was enough of that already.

Before he could step into the building, a shadow obscured the light above, and as he looked up to see what it was, every inch of his body froze over.

It was a large, almost scribble-like sketch of a human shape, appearing to have been drawn within the sky itself with black crayon, and possessing two oval white spaces for eyes. Its smile was empty as well, merely a white line made from the space not colored in, but left alone from the mass. He blinked, and it was gone.

His heart began to beat again, and Jay was quick to throw himself into the building, backing away from the door and just looking out. What was that thing? Was it even real? He had to calm himself down, and once he began to do just that, he noticed the critical lack of people present to question why he was probably looking so shaken up. Almost every crumb of the sight was wrong now, and in a slight panic he ran for the club deeper in.

It too was monochrome, with hard white lines, and some light taking the shade of white in beams frozen in place as they stretched to the floor. The whole scene looked like a comic panel, drawn with harsh detail, and yet unmoving. It was a still of a scene, lacking even a single person to wake it up from its slumbering state.

"Hello!" He called out. "Guys!? Anyone!?"

But no answer came, and Jay was left to creep ahead. Like a centipede crawling underneath his skin, a vile series of jabs lined its way around him. He'd never felt this level of terror in so, so long, and he was left wondering just why everything was so... incorrect. Shock slid its fingers around the spine of his neck, rapidly tapping at the bottom of his skull from behind. He nearly needed to break his neck to turn around, and there it was again.

The crayoned silhouette.

Before he could do anything the floor fell away, and the world tore itself apart until nothing but white remained. Wires of black shot from his skin all over, taking said pale skin with them, and even the bones. No blood was present, and every limb was seemingly crushed by the threads who'd pulled them away. He looked down, seeing what he assumed was merely his ribs and spine, but they were nothing but a black, lineless mass of shadow, so he couldn't say for sure.

Going to open his mouth and shout, another thread rocketed from the tip of his tongue, righting his head and granting the view of that same shadowed being, now nothing but a head as well. The wire extended to its chin, and the mass squished and shrunk into said line. It popped up again before slurping back into the wire, rapidly, shrinking more and more as it jumped up closer each time, until it was right before his face and of the same size. It molded, twisted, and took on a rough sketch of Ruby.

It smiled innocently, before being flattened from both sides by nothing.

And then his own head was flattened the same.

*Crunch*

.

.

Coughing and wheezing for air, Jay shot up from the floor, tripping over himself as feeling returned to his skin, and oxygen to his lungs. Each breath was ragged, and he had to uncurl himself multiple times as his body just wanted to shrink in on itself.

One he got standing though, his mind began to piece it all together.

A dream! It was just a dream! Although such a thought did nothing to quell his shaking lower lip. He could still feel the chill of its touch, and the spidery webs which spewed from his skin, not in a way that was painful, but more like the feeling of taking a piss - as ludicrous as that sounded. The abstract idea of imagining water running from various holes across your body, only to then pause with a steely cold.

It was something only the irregular insanity of a dream could spin to life.

Jay was, by this point, convinced these dreams were more than they let on. Normal dreams, while just as creative, were never so predictably consistent. The penultimate point of interest was in Ruby Rose herself. Despite being in Remnant, team RWBY wasn't exactly on his mind all that much, so realistically, he'd have few reasons to actively dream of their leader...

At least, not in the ways he was now.

Ruby had, once upon a time, been a character who he'd looked up to. Her kindness and ability to see the good in everything around her acted as a small ideal he'd long ago abandoned. It took a while, but eventually the story had come undone, and RWBY had done not only its core dirty, but also its protagonists as well. The titular teams were supposed to be heroes, using simple methods to bring about hope.

But in the end, the only thing he had learned from that show was that there was no hope.

There was no better example of this than Ruby herself. She had once been the epitome of innocence. Ruby was short-sighted, excitable, sweet, and playfully childish. She'd gush about weaponry while slicing up grimm left and right, and cheer her teammates on, completely blind to their growing frustration - mainly just Weiss. And yet, despite these flaws, she was determined, empathetic, and willing to see when she'd done something wrong. She used to try and be the best she could, attacking any mistakes she made head on with wholehearted vigor, even if the simple act of studying was putting her to sleep.

But that was the thing, she used to be capable of those things.

Ruby Rose was not a character who grew over the years, she was a plot device who switched out her personality on a seasonal basis to fit whatever tone a volume needed. The Ruby Jay admired was the first, and every other iteration was just another cheap knock-off, used to further the plot.

And here he was, dreaming of the only Ruby he ever respected being massacred in various ways. This seemingly universal pin in his dreams was the only reason he could actually look at the whole thing with a critical eye. He was so determined just to see what Remnant had to offer that he hadn't much thought about RWBY themselves unless they'd directly shown up... or, had he?

Then again, why was he dreaming of this to begin with, and why in so many variations?

Dammit... His head was starting to hurt again, beating and pulsing in a kind of retaliation towards his conflicted thoughts and confusion. He was getting himself worked up again, and for what? Dreams? He could almost hear Rex as he imagined the guy blowing the idea off. Dreams were dreams, even here. But… Jay found he couldn't really commit himself to that idea. There was something to this. Similarly, there was something to Remnant itself.

Hell, as he thought more about it, he recalled the brief instance before he arrived. He'd been shot, and probably should have died. Yeah, even if Rex was here, could he really believe his friend, as well as everything around them, was real?

Shaking his head, Jay pressed out into the hallway to abandon both that line of thought and the bedroom as a whole.

This is stupid. He'd already run through the idea that everything was a death dream, and he'd come to the assumption it didn't matter. Until proven otherwise, he'd assume that everything was real, and do his best to keep Rex and the others alive if he could. As for himself, well...

If by some sprout of bad luck he ended up dying, then really, none of it would be his problem anymore.

Keeping his head low and letting all stress and feeling fade away, the boy took his place at the bar. He wouldn't drink, not yet at least. Right now Jay needed the still of nothingness. The comfort of forgetting everything, emotions both good and bad, to achieve a state of impenetrable apathy in his heart: it was his only reliable failsafe to keep his conflicted ideas under lock and chain.

"Hey kid." Following this, a chuckle afterwards brought him back, and Jay was pulled away from everything in his bubble by the sheer shock of Qrow Branwen sitting at his side. The guy wasn't exactly smiling, but there was a grin there. The grin broke, and he spoke. "You sure got hammered last night. Remind yourself not to do that." Qrow paused, taking a swig, and then finished with, "because you won't always have someone like me to bring you back home."

"Y-you... brought me here?" Meeting Qrow, face to face, was not a good sign, and it only got worse as the guy rolled his eyes.

"Yep. But I didn't just do that out of the kindness of my heart." The man's gaze narrowed. "I wanted to talk to you about something."

Jay never made a peep, not when his mind was once again acting up with questions. Taking this as acceptance, Qrow spoke with a low tone.

"I want to know why you look so much like a relative of mine. Perhaps you've heard of her." Qrows gaze kicked it up tenfold, piercing right through Jay. "Ruby Rose."

Author's note

...

Okay, so we get a bit of a weird one this time.

Melanie really doesn't like Jay, but she still seems adamant to keep him alive for the sake of her sister. Josh spends a bit of time reminiscing, caught up in the mystery of the gun, and why Jay had it. Jay himself gets another nightmare, and for perhaps the first time so far, looks to be taking it seriously.

Then again, Qrow's itching for a solid answer, and he isn't about to just let the "creep" in his eyes get away without spilling something. Question is: what can Jay reasonably spill?

Find out next time.

Extra:

This isn't anything too important for most readers, but this may mean something to one solitary person. Everyone else can skip this.

I've read through your review, expressing your wonderings of why most people nowadays choose to write less morally standing protagonists, and all I can say to that is: people enjoy shaking things up. Most self-inserts and OC's over the years used to be the one Mary Sue/Gary Stu heroic type character who shows up to save the day in the same manner every single time - there are hundreds upon hundreds of these stories available for those willing to look, with some even being modern ones.

Although, and this is just a bit of advice so use it or ignore it at your own leisure: tying your view of someone's personal morals to their fictional works is incredibly short sighted. You end up painting an incorrect and often negative picture of someone based on ideas as opposed to facts, and end up making yourself upset for no good reason.

People have an endless number of reasons for writing, and other forms of creative output, that are disconnected from their moral standing.

Actually, I'm curious now. If I might ask: what was bad enough to set you off? Jay never killed anyone that time, so it can't be murder. He tried to kill the faunus trafficker, sure, but failed both times, however you never made a fuss when the serial killer went down. So what, during the break in, was so bad you couldn't stand it?

I ask this because the way your review is written, as well as the assumed problem in question, makes me feel that there might be a bit of mistranslation scuffing something major in one particular chapter. I'm fine with people hating characters, even main ones, but I'd rather it was due to the character themselves and their choices, as opposed to potential issues with translation methods.

You don't really need to answer this, but the option's there.