Honestly, this story probably could've been called 'Weiss' horrible, terrible, no good, very bad time' and been just as applicable.
Anyways, welcome to I Wanted to Call Him Daddy, Not Father! A title I will literally never spell out again! If you're here because you've read one of my other stories, then you might have known this story was coming! If you're here because you just saw it in the pipeline, then hello! It's nice to meet you, and I hope you enjoy it!
I don't have much to say in the foreword, and honestly, I just don't have much to say in general. I like this story so far, I've reread the first chapter about three or four times, and I think I've liked it more every time. I hope that's the same for you all as well!
Now, without further ado, and whatnot!
I Wanted to Call Him Daddy, Not Father!
Start Chapter 1
"Uh, Jauney, are you listening?"
The ugly truth of the matter is that no, Jaune Arc, licensed and debatably-aged-huntsman, had not been listening.
"S-Sorry," He murmurs under his breath, trying to focus back into the conversation. "What were you saying, Nora?"
Nora isn't the only one staring at him, but he's hoping that by directing the discussion back towards her, she'll continue speaking, and thus take everyone's attention once more. This does not happen, mostly because Nora can clearly see that he's out of it.
"What's up, big guy. You've barely been paying attention to my story!" She says it playfully, but the underlying concern within her statement is hard to miss. Jaune certainly doesn't.
It's not his fault, really.
It's the fault of the pair of Shade students currently balancing precariously atop a nearby ladder, trying to screw in a replacement lightbulb for one that's just blown. They can't seem to get it, and the ladder they're balanced on is, at best, rickety as all hell.
This is bothering him severely.
It's bothering him so much that the topic of conversation – namely, what it is that Nora, Ren, and the rest of the gang have been up to whilst they've been stuck in the Ever After – sort of fades into the background.
This is not the first time this has happened since their return. In the few weeks since Team RWBY and himself had miraculously returned alive to Vacuo – nearly three months to the people of Remnant following their 'deaths' – they had spent almost all their time catching up with their allies, and the people who mattered to them.
Rather simply put, the world had declared them dead. It had been long enough that the reality of the situation had more than dawned on them; it had settled in, and become fact.
Ruby Rose, Weiss Schnee, Blake Belladonna, Yang Xiao-Long, and Jaune Arc had all perished escorting as many of the citizens of Atlas as they could to safety.
Their friends, family, and allies had gone through the terrible process of grieving them, and had been well on their way to trying to move on with their lives.
And then they'd just sort of… showed up one day.
That had to be weird.
And Jaune gets it. It would be weird for the people you thought were dead to suddenly show up one day, alive as could be, wondering how much they'd missed, thinking they might've been gone a few days, at most.
He knows because he'd lived it with Team RWBY.
They'd been in the Ever After a few days. Long enough to need a change of clothes and a shower pretty badly, but ultimately not that much to write home about.
He'd been in the Ever After for two decades.
He'd lived longer in the Ever After than he had his childhood hometown of Domremy. In a very real way, the Ever After and its strange idiosyncrasies had become Jaune's normal. His expectation.
And he had been plopped, rather unceremoniously, back into Remnant, back as his nineteen-year-old self, with his voice a lot higher-pitched than he could ever remember it being, and without that crick in his back that had been slowly driving him insane for the last five years of his life.
Honestly, there's a lot of upsides to the arrangement. Jaune's pretty happy with it in its totality.
There are just… certain elements that make things difficult.
"Just watching those kids over there," He decides to be honest, finally answering Nora's question. "They're… I just can't help but feel like they're going to fall."
"Well, they seem to be students here," Ruby speaks, rubbing at her chin. "I'd say that even if they did fall, they'd probably be fine. They have aura. Worst thing that happens is they have a headache for a few hours."
Jaune's aware of that. He really is. It's the reason he hasn't gotten up and rushed over there.
He's just… pretty used to the feeling of having to save people from themselves these days.
Like he'd said; new normal and all that.
"You're probably right." He concedes, and attempts to smile for his friend's sake. Whether or not they really believe him… well, for the moment, Jaune's got more important things to worry about.
Namely, trying to understand the friends he thought he'd lost forever after half a lifetime apart.
So far, things have been going… not particularly well.
The first few days had been good, of course. Everyone had just been so happy to see them in the first place, so any odd idiosyncrasies had been ignored. But as the days turned to weeks, and life began to become routine once more, it became more and more obvious that the Jaune Arc his friends remembered…
Well, it hadn't been him anymore.
That's not to say he's an entirely different person, because he isn't. His most formative years had, of course, been spent on Remnant. It's often said that a person does most of their growth during their youth, and changes progressively less and less as they grow older, and Jaune… well, he doesn't disagree with that notion, but…
Well, his friends don't seem to agree with it very much.
As the conversation slows to a lull, and their lunch break ends, their groups separate back out. RWBY sticks together, and so do Ren and Nora. There are a few others that Jaune recognizes hanging about the place. Harriet, Elm and Marrow, alongside Winter Schnee, seem to be taking inventory on provisions. Qrow is chatting amicably with a few older folks who are probably staff of Shade, looking like he's gotten a new lease on life ever since Ruby and Yang had showed up alive and well. There are a few others, Emerald and Oscar, Ilia and Whitley, and Team's CVFY and SSSN present in the auditorium as well.
Jaune doesn't really pay any of them much mind. He's… well, he's not busy, per se, but he plans on making himself busy in the near future, if only to avoid any more awkward conversations with his friends.
He sighs as he moves over to the board of odd-jobs for Huntsman that's been posted up at the entrance to Shade – mostly civilians making requests, from the menial to the urgent – and finds one suitable for a single person. It's nothing too complicated, routine Grimm clean-up. Mopping up a pack of Desert Beowolves who've gotten a bit too far into their perimeter. Jaune is a bit bothered by the sound of relief he gives, then, as if having something he can just sink his teeth into and not think during the process of is so good a thing.
…He sighs; his feelings far too complicated for him to parse.
/
The Grimm aren't hard to spot. The desert is, after all, a largely flat stretch of land that goes on for ages and ages. All it really takes for him to catch the beasts on the move is to find the highest dune, surmount it, and look.
He spots them wandering aimlessly in the general direction of Vacuo's capital – likely following the vaguest hints of fear emanating from the city – and cuts them off before they can make it any closer.
It's… odd, seeing the Grimm again.
He'd existed within the Ever After – a land free from the God of Darkness' creations aside from the occasional sightings of the Jabberwalker – for so long that he'd almost forgotten the sight of them.
For just a moment, he feels a kernel of primal fear fill his heart as the lead Beowolf locks its eyes onto him. He can almost see the blood of his ancestor's ancestors upon this creatures' hands, hear their dying screams, smell their decaying flesh. Like the fear of the dark, it is something more instinctual than anything.
His mind might not know, but his body does.
And yet, as the first creature growls and charges him, Jaune feels that fear fade into the background.
Combat… combat is familiar.
He dodges underneath that poorly-aimed first strike, and uses the momentum to drive his blade up and into the Beowolves' exposed armpit. It's a fatal wound, and the creature is disintegrating before it even knows it has erred.
As it fades entirely, the rest of the pack pounces.
Jaune settles into an almost rhythmic dance.
He had not been the strongest of them all that time ago, when he and the rest of Team RWBY had been flung into the Ever After. No, he'd been weak; growing stronger, but still a burden on them all. He'd done his best to minimize such a weight, but there had only been so much he'd been able to do.
Such is not the case anymore, however. Jaune may not have fought all that often in the Ever After, but he'd done it enough. It had become instinctive to him, the movements of his body, the shifting of his weight, the way that he brought his shield up to parry a blow at the same moment he forced his blade between the ribs of a Beowolf…
He barely has to think at all.
The blood of the Grimm pools at his feet for but a moment, before it sinks into the sand, and then further disintegrates entirely, along with the corpses of the monsters themselves. Barely half an hour since he'd started the mission, and he's finished it without much fanfare at all.
Jaune… he can't quite hide the fact that he's almost… disappointed by that fact.
Again, he sighs. He sheathes Crocea Mors – reforged with the help of the local blacksmith, albeit its nothing much more than a patch-job – into its shield, slots it onto his waist, and begins the trek back towards civilization.
He's debating exactly how he wishes to handle the situation of his friends – and isn't that a rather simple way of putting it – when another snarl rings out behind him. He turns, and sees a Beowolf Alpha stood upon its hindlegs, with death in its eyes and sulfur on its breath.
And Jaune finds himself smiling.
At least he can put that off a while longer.
/
A while longer ends up being roughly five minutes.
Jaune would sigh, if he thought there'd be a point.
As things are, he decides to do something he's never once done in his entire life.
He goes to a bar.
It's not a particularly complicated decision in Jaune's mind. It's not like he's going there to get blackout drunk or something. It's more… well, admittedly, a large part of his reasoning is that he's pretty sure a bar is the last place his friends would think to look for him, and he is, no matter how ashamed it makes him to admit it, looking to avoid them.
But he feels that some time alone with a few drinks might be nice. He is, after all, about thirty-eight or so years old – give or take a few years in either direction, he'd not really been able to keep track – and thusly he feels he's owed a bit of alcohol.
Luckily, being a Huntsman means that regardless of any assumptions the bartender might make – it's entirely fair given that he looks and sounds like a complete child – he gets what he asked for, a fruity slushy drink that he hums contentedly about whilst sipping.
He drinks in silence for a while, enjoying the general ambience of the place. It's a quiet bar, no TV's or loud music blaring, which Jaune is definitely a fan of. There's a semi-audible din of conversation that Jaune can just barely make out the occasional word within, but otherwise, he is content to remain entirely silent.
That is, of course, until he spots her.
The way he'd worded that makes it sound like he'd had his breath taken away by some beautiful maiden, and fallen in love with her at first sight. That… is not what happened.
No, he sees a woman with her head down on the bar, surrounded by a half-dozen bottles of wine, and with a full glass sat by her left hand, groaning and massaging the back of her neck.
For just a moment, he thinks about simply ignoring the rather obviously distressed person sat there. After all, most people predominantly don't want strangers to walk right up to them and start a conversation. But…
Well, Jaune had managed to hold himself back from intervening earlier in the cafeteria with those two students, and that had taken nearly all his willpower.
He is fresh out of willpower to resist trying to be of some assistance this time.
Having to constantly be on edge as to any possible problem with the Paper Pleasers had made Jaune… he resents the term overprotective, and the term paranoid even more, but both are probably correct. He'd been a caretaker of suicidal stars made out of paper for nearly a decade after his adventures with Alyx and Lewis – and arguably, he'd been one during his travels with them as well, just with kids in place of stars.
It's hard for Jaune to shake those habits.
Made harder by the fact that he doesn't necessarily want to shake them.
But… that's not worth thinking about right now. What is worth thinking about is…
"Uhm, excuse me, ma'am, are you alright?"
Jaune tries to be as cordial as he can as he takes a seat to the woman's right. Not the chair directly on her right, but the chair one past that. He wants to give the woman some space so as to not come off in any way antagonistic.
The woman slurs something out under her breath, then, but Jaune can't quite make out exactly what it is that she's said.
"I'm sorry, I didn't catch that?"
"'Said go away." She practically spits out, and Jaune… yeah, honestly, he probably should've expected that.
He debates sticking around, trying to power through, but in the end, he decides to go back to his own seat, rubbing at the back of his neck a bit awkwardly. The bartender shoots him a nod, seemingly as if to say he'd tried, and Jaune nods back without any real meaning behind it.
He sits back down, nurses his own drink, and tries to pretend like he's going to be able to do any relaxing with someone so obviously suffering no more than three meters to his left.
He takes a sip of his drink. He looks off to his left. He takes another sip, this time only getting the barest hints of water at the bottom of his empty glass. He looks back off to his left. He sips at nothing. Another look.
The woman raises her head from the bar, and Jaune gets his first good look at her face. He has the sense that he recognizes her, but he can't quite manage to place where from in the moment, and it's been long enough that anyone he'd met in Mistral or Atlas a singular time has long since been forgotten. She has that sort of ageless quality about her that some people possess, where Jaune could be told that she's anywhere from twenty-eight to forty-five, and he wouldn't be particularly surprised.
Her hair is a stark white and her eyes are a pale blue. Currently, however, they're rather bloodshot, and the woman's face is horribly pallid.
She… doesn't look good. Not at all.
And he's pretty sure she's not going to be looking or feeling any better anytime soon given that she flags down the bartender, and orders yet another bottle of a rather fancy-looking chardonnay.
Jaune hesitates. He really, honestly tries to prevent himself from walking over there and trying again to offer some assistance.
He fails. He's far too much of a busybody.
"Excuse me, ma'am?" He says for the second time that night as he takes the same seat that he had the prior time. "Are you okay?"
The woman eyes him warily, which Jaune feels is fair, given the normal reason a man might approach a woman at a bar. She likely thinks he's trying to hit on her.
That… really couldn't be much further from the truth.
That isn't to say that the woman before him is unattractive, to be clear. She's an older woman, assuredly, but she doesn't at all look worser for it, and honestly, Jaune just kind of has a thing for white hair in general.
But concern is really the only thing driving his decision-making at the moment.
"I'm fine." The woman speaks, although her voice has a drunken lilt to it that makes it rather clear she's probably not at all fine.
He thinks about the nicest possible way he could say 'you don't look fine', and settles on just… staying silent but present, in that same seat.
"…What do you want?" The woman hisses out under her breath as she finishes taking a rather large sip of her newest beverage.
"Nothing in particular." He lies, because again, saying he had come over here because he'd been worried she might drink herself into a stupor sounds both demeaning and offensive.
"Hah, right." The woman laughs, but it's a bitter, false thing. "There's always something. Always."
He debates trying to hide his true intentions, but in the end, decides there's not much point. "Well, I guess you seemed like you were uhm… going through something?"
Her laughter this time is a touch more real, but also a touch harsher. "And what gave that way, I wonder?"
He doesn't answer that question, given it feels like trying to would be the equivalent of walking through a minefield.
"I'm fine." The woman reiterates after a while. "And not looking for a conversation right now. In fact, I specifically came here to avoid a conversation."
That… Jaune's not entirely sure if he should be making an effort to empathize with the woman's plight, given that she's essentially just told him to go away a second time, but…
"Actually, it's the same for me." He admits, rubbing at the back of his neck with some shame building in his chest. "I came here to avoid having to talk with some friends of mine about… well, about some rather complicated topics."
She looks over at him, then, and her eyes are narrow. If Jaune had to guess, he'd say she's probably trying to determine whether or not he's telling the truth. He's not really sure how effective such an effort is going to prove given what is likely a rather copious amount of alcohol in the woman's system, but he tries to put on his most honest expression for her sake.
After a moment, she sighs out, reaches up to massage the bridge of her nose, and says, "So I see."
She doesn't say anything else. Jaune groans internally, ready to continue what is rapidly beginning to seem like a fruitless battle, only for the woman to open her mouth yet again and add, "I'm here in order to avoid speaking with my… with members of my family about someone we believed to be lost to us suddenly reappearing into our lives."
Honestly, Jaune has some experience in that particular area as well, although he doesn't bring that up, because at this point, it would sound like he's pulling things out of his ass.
"That sounds difficult." Jaune does his best to empathize, and it's not hard to do so. "I guess I'm currently dealing with something similar, albeit on the opposite end. I was gone a long time, and my friends want to pick things up again like nothing is different, when for me… well, it feels like everything is different."
"A long time," The woman snorts, and Jaune might feel some offense if it hadn't been so clear the woman is, at best, half-there. "What's that mean, a few weeks? You're too young to have been truly absent."
"I look young." Jaune feels the need to say, because despite his voice, and his body, he doesn't at all feel his supposed age.
"Hmph." She laughs, whether at him or at the general situation, he can't quite be sure. "I suppose you do sound older than you look. Not many kids would come over to console some old woman trying to drown herself."
Maybe it could technically be counted as flirting, but sue him, Jaune can't help but want to cheer the woman up a bit.
"Now it's my turn to say you look too young to be saying that."
She practically cackles at that, before coughing into one fist as she seemingly gets some wine down the wrong pipe.
"Oh, Gods. Forget what I said; you must be young, to have a line as bad as that."
He blushes somewhat, but shakes his head amusedly, seeing the wide smile on her face.
"Well, I'm glad you're enjoying laughing at my pain."
The woman tips her glass towards him, before taking another sip of it. She breathes out harshly afterwards, before flagging down the bartender yet again. Jaune is initially worried that she's planning on ordering yet another bottle of the chardonnay she's drinking, yet instead, she asks for something else.
"A second glass, if you wouldn't mind," she says, looking over at him and chuckling under her breath. "For the busybody."
"I resent that." Jaune sighs out under his breath as the bartender – smiling at the situation – places an empty glass in front of Jaune.
"Do you deny it?"
"I didn't say that."
She laughs again, this time fuller, richer, and Jaune feels good to have been responsible for it. He can tell he's made a difference, genuinely helped someone, and to be honest…?
That's sort of the only thing that keeps him going these days.
The Ever After had been so… stagnant. So still. Nothing had changed. Nothing had been different day to day. He'd had a routine, and he'd followed it to the letter for nearly a decade. His travels with Lewis and Alyx had been long enough ago now that he's largely forgotten the nitty gritty of them, and instead can only remember bits and pieces.
The Paper Pleasers had become his life. Helping them; saving them… that had been the only thing that got him up in the morning, really. Else… else he'd have simply vegetated away in his bed, only moving to make sure Juniper had enough to eat and drink.
Hah… he'd had her, too. She'd been a big part of making sure he'd not gone crazy in there.
…He has a feeling he'd still lost it, a bit, regardless of her presence, but then, that's something he can think about later.
He zones back into reality just in time to hear the woman beside him speak again.
"This is quite the interesting chardonnay. Have a glass, why don't you?"
Jaune thinks about declining, but ultimately can't see the harm in it. It's not as if he's going to get drunk all of a sudden, given he's had a fruity drink with little alcohol content, and nothing else.
So, he does as he's been asked to. He lets her pour a glass of the wine for him, and takes a sip.
He's surprised at how delectable it is, in all honesty. He's never really been a straight-alcohol person before.
"This is good."
"I would hope so. It's one of Mistral's most famed wines, from one of their most acclaimed vineyards."
"Wow. I'm surprised they have such a thing here, of all places."
The woman beside him smiles at that, like she knows something he doesn't, but doesn't comment on his words. He lets the semi-strange behavior go with a mental shrug.
The glass is gone within ten or so minutes of quiet chatter between himself and the woman beside him. He's honestly surprised, for underneath her prickly exterior lies a rather passionate woman, who clearly cares very deeply for her family, and those close to her.
"It's simply… I must confess that I had been doing my best up until recently to avoid drinking like this," she tells him as she spins the win around in her glass, idly gazing at the whirling liquid. "But… that person whom I thought we lost was very important to me. In order to… not think about that loss, I turned back to the bottle. And… I've yet to be able to conquer the vice again, even with her miraculous return."
Jaune understands that. His maternal uncle had, unfortunately, been a drug addict for many years of his life. While his family had attempted to reach out and help him to kick the addiction, he'd refused help over and over, saying that he could quit whenever he wanted to.
Then one day… they'd found him having died of an overdose in his bedroom.
And that had been that.
Jaune had been young at the time, but he still remembers the way his mother had cried, the way the whole family had grouped around to support her…
So yes, Jaune has some experience with addiction, albeit not directly.
But he knows what it can do. The way that it can sink its teeth into someone and not let them go.
He almost wants to knock the glass out of the woman's hand, tell her to stop drinking here and now, but… all that would do is satisfy Jaune's own desires. It wouldn't fix the core issue of addiction. Hell, it might cause withdrawal symptoms in the worst case, and that…
Jaune doesn't know a lot about such things, but he knows it's probably not a good thing to force upon someone.
So instead, he just… stays nearby. Tries to offer his advice, to be kind, to be helpful to her. He talks with her about her struggles, and opens up about his own.
Honestly, the thing that surprises him the most is just how much he's enjoying himself.
"You're… an interesting man." She says after what feels like an hour or so of conversation. "What's your name?"
"Jaune." He tells her.
"John?" She slurs out, thought-processing definitely somewhat stilted due to the alcohol running through her system.
He thinks that maybe he could correct her, but honestly, it's close enough, and if he meets her again, he can always correct the simple mistake.
They sound pretty similar anyways. At least she hadn't called him Juan.
One of his childhood bullies had done just that, and for a year, he'd been called Juan by just about everyone in his class. Even his teacher had mistakenly called the name out during attendance one day, and hadn't that been the single worst moment of his childhood life.
That stupid asshole Brennan…
"Yep." He says, doing his best not to think about how much he still wanted to punch that ten-year-old shithead he hadn't interacted with in – for him – three decades. "Short, sweet, rolls off the tongue. The ladies love it."
She snorts rather unbecomingly, and Jaune can't help but smile at that as she covers her mouth, looks both ways, and then glares up at him, saying, "You saw nothing."
"My lips are sealed." He promises.
"But my Gods, that was the worst thing I've ever heard."
If his Beacon-self had been there in that moment, he's fairly certain the boy would've keeled over and died.
"I know." He instead laughs at his own bad intro-line. "I was hoping to get you to laugh again."
"And you've succeeded," She rolls her eyes, before looking up at the clock on the wall near the entrance, and blanching somewhat. "Oh, gods, does that say what I think it does?"
"Uhm… holy crap, it's eleven o'clock!?"
"I told my daughters that I'd–" The woman goes to stop herself, but the proverbial cat seems to have already been loosed from the bag. "Well, now you probably have some idea as to just how old I am."
He puts on his best easygoing smile. "You shouldn't worry so much about something like that. Whether or not you have children doesn't change who you are. And besides, you're gorgeous!"
It had been meant as a sort of pick-me-up line, not necessarily in the flirtatious manner that someone else might've uttered it under. But… well, admittedly, judging by the way that the woman in front of him has a dusting on pink upon her cheeks, and playfully mimes fanning her face, he might not have come across as he meant to.
"Well, it's good to know I haven't lost my touch, apparently," She laughs. "But I really must be going. It's been nice meeting you, John. Perhaps, if we run into one another again…"
"I'd love to speak more with you." He says. "It's been nice meeting you, too…"
"Willow." The woman speaks, seeming somewhat uncertain of something. Or… perhaps it's that she's waiting for him to react to her name?
He's not sure why that would be, but he nods his head, smiles at her, and says, "I hope we get the chance to talk some more another time, Willow."
He's not quite expecting the way Willow brightens immediately, then, as if him not reacting to whatever it is she'd been expecting had been the best possible action he could've taken. He doesn't think too hard about it, to be honest, even if there is some niggling down in the back of his brain that something about this woman is oddly familiar.
Ah, well, he can worry about that later.
Willow makes her exit, and Jaune decides that he might as well do the same. He's spent enough time here, and, admittedly, having spoken with her for most of the night, he's actually feeling quite a bit better than he had been.
So, he resolves that tomorrow, riding high on his successful cheering up of Willow, he'll talk more with his friends.
It seems a completely foolproof plan.
/
They say no plan survives first contact with the enemy.
This is true for his own, but the enemy in this case is one of his friends completely dominating any and all conversation with…
"I can't do this!"
Jaune isn't alone in eyeing Weiss Schnee a bit warily as she throws her head into her hands and groans under her breath as they sit down to eat together for breakfast the following morning.
"…So, are you going to elaborate on that, or…?" Blake asks, raising an eyebrow.
"It's my mother." Weiss sighs, running a hand down her face before reaching down towards her utensils and absently cutting off a piece of egg to place in her mouth. "She… I'm sure I've told you that she has fallen back into old habits as of late?"
"Yeah, you said she was really struggling, right?" Yang asks, balancing on her robotic arm's elbow.
"Yes. My sister and I – and Whitley, I suppose, I'm still not used to including him in statements in a positive manner – have been trying to help our mother with this issue." Weiss says, and Jaune will admit that he's really only half-listening. "The problem is, last night, we were supposed to have this sort of… I don't know how to word this… conference?"
"Intervention?" Blake provides.
"Yes, that," Weiss points a finger at Blake, "an intervention. Only my mother decided not to show up until nearly midnight, she came back entirely inebriated, and worst of all, she apparently spent the entire night flirting with some… some hustler!"
"Huh." Yang mumbles under her breath. "That's uh… yeah, I don't know how to approach that, honestly. Your thoughts, Rubes?"
"Bwuh?" Ruby provides elegantly as she looks away from the video she'd been watching on her scroll between bites of strawberry pancakes. "Uh… that's rough, buddy?"
"Very helpful, Ruby." Weiss shakes her head, sighing all the while as Yang and Blake both hide smiles. "Veeeery helpful."
"I understand why your mother's condition is an issue," Ren speaks up, which has become a more common occurrence than Jaune can really remember it being when he'd last been in Remnant. "But as for this hustler… what is the issue, exactly?"
"The issue is that I think she might actually be into him!" Weiss groans. "And I… I do not need that right now in my life. I have enough things to worry about without my mother going around making kissy-faces at someone our age!"
"Yeah, no, I think I get it." Yang admits, wincing somewhat. "To quote our dearest Rubes; that's rough, buddy."
"Thank you, team. You've been a wellspring of helpful advice today."
"We try our best."
Jaune laughs along with some of the others, even if he himself is perhaps more empathetic to Weiss' pain, albiet in a somewhat different way. While his parents had never tried dating anyone younger than them – they'd been married going on thirty years now – they had always been very… open about their affections towards one another, even while he and his siblings had been present.
As the phrase goes, there's rarely smoke without fire.
Or, in this particular case, there's rarely eight children without a lot of sex.
…That had really sounded a lot better in Jaune's head.
/
Jaune doesn't get up to anything of particular import that day. That's not the most surprising thing, given that there's been no sign of Salem so far on the horizon – the common theory being that while they're preparing their defenses, she's readying her own offense – but Jaune is admittedly a tad bit bored, and so, for lack of anything else to do, he finds himself back within that same bar that evening.
As he'd been silently hoping, Willow is there as well.
Except…
She doesn't seem to be doing any better than she had been the previous night.
If anything, she seems worse.
He sits down beside her a moment later, trying to do so casually; not make a huge deal of things, ease his way into this.
"John?" Willow startles, and he knows he's failed.
"Hello, Willow." He smiles, still not deciding to correct her mistake with his name, given that he's got more important things to be worrying about. "Forgive me for saying so, but… you don't look so good."
"Ah, well…" She gives a weary sigh. "It's nothing worth concerning yourself over. Family matters. You know how it is."
He does, actually. He's got quite the large family, which means he more than understands.
Still…
"Is something in particular wrong?"
"It's… my oldest daughter and I got into an… argument." She sighs, rubbing at her temples, clearly nursing a headache. "It was about my drinking problem, and how I promised to be better, and– and of course, here I am, attempting to forget about said argument by drinking." She laughs, but it's a wan and pitiful thing. "Some mother I am…"
Jaune swallows on his own spittle, trying to buy himself a moment to think on what exactly he should be saying here. The scenario is, admittedly, one he's never encountered before, and it's not as if he knows any of the members of Willow's family.
But he's going to try. He wouldn't be who he is if he didn't.
"You said she argued with you over your addiction… how serious was the argument?"
"…The both of us likely said things we're not proud of." Willow summarizes, not looking at him. "And I… admittedly, I'm hurt by some of what she said to me. I understand that as a mother, I need to be strong for my children, present myself properly, but–"
"You shouldn't have to do that." Jaune interrupts her, feeling a need to correct that attitude. "You should be honest with your daughter. She's your family, isn't she? If she said something, and it truly hurt you, and you said things that you feel were hurtful as well, then you should talk to her about it."
"Easier said than done, I'm afraid. My daughter is a Huntress, or… well, close enough. We rarely have the time to speak for long periods these days, and somehow, I suspect she's going to make a pointed effort to avoid me after what happened earlier today."
Jaune grimaces somewhat. "Then you should try and get in contact with her. Speak with her, tell her that–"
"Thank you, John." Willow cuts him off this time, turning towards him and smiling weakly. "For caring. Really. But I think I'd rather discuss something else."
Jaune debates trying to keep the conversation where it had been, but in the end, he simply doesn't feel like he knows Willow well enough. So, instead, he allows her to change topics as she orders them both a drink.
"It's something fruity, since you said you liked that." Willow tells him, and in truth, it is delicious, even if that being the case causes him to drink quite a few more than he'd really intended.
"So, tell me about your life, John." She speaks, gazing over at him with her elbow balanced upon the bar.
"Ah, honestly, I'm just a run-of-the-mill Huntsman." He admits, rubbing at the back of the neck a tad awkwardly. "Nothing too special."
"I suppose that makes sense." She runs her eyes down his body. "You certainly have the build for it."
He smiles. "Thank you. I'm a lot better at it than I used to be. I ended up getting quite a bit of experience both in Atlas and in a… well, a different place."
"You operated out of Atlas?"
"Yeah, ye– a few months ago." He corrects himself, and Willow doesn't call him out on the slip-up. "Me and a group of my friends had traveled there to try and help out, and… well, I don't know if you're familiar with what happened…"
"I lived there, actually."
"Then you definitely do know." Jaune chuckles a tad weakly. "In the end, we got out. But a few of our friends paid the price for it."
"I'm sorry. I had no idea. My daughter… my younger daughter… we thought we had lost her during the fall of Atlas. That's who I was talking about ended up showing up safe a while back."
"I see. That's great to hear." He's glad that some people got good news regarding what happened back then. "But, like I said, I've been doing missions around here, standard Grimm-cleanup and patrols. Fairly routine work."
"It sounds rather dangerous."
"Well, it can be, if you're not careful, but I like to think I take things seriously." He thought back on how he'd actually been excited when that Alpha Desert Beowolf had showed up. "…Well, most of the time."
Willow chuckles. "Don't we all?"
He has a few more of those fruity drinks over the course of the next hour or so. Really, he and Willow are enjoying themselves quite a bit, even as his vision goes a bit wobbly, and his legs do, too. He can feel himself growing a little bolder – or maybe a little stupider? – as he downs what has to be a seventh or eighth drink?
He's sort of lost track.
"I've had a wonderful time, Jaune." Willow says, blinking slowly, seeming more out of it than he is. "It's getting late, though, and I really should be going."
"Ah… yeah…" He speaks slowly, his thoughts not really coming to him all that well.
"If you'd like, perhaps we could walk back to my dwelling together?"
That sounds nice. Jaune would like getting to talk to Willow more. She really is such a kind person.
He nods his head. "That sounds nice."
He's pretty sure he just thought that. Huh. Weird.
They exit out of the bar together and walk for a while, just enjoying the night breeze. It's surprisingly chilly during the evenings in Vacuo, despite how warm it can be during the day. Jaune's always heard that such is true in the desert, but experiencing it firsthand still feels odd.
He's thinking about such absent things when Willow starts talking again, seemingly out of nowhere.
"It's been so long since I've had so much fun. I can't even remember the last time."
"Really?" Jaune tilts his head to one side.
"Mm. My life has been… it feels like for the last two decades, every day of my life has been the exact same."
Jaune practically freezes in place, the way the words call out to him. Hearing the disillusioned voice of Willow, he can only think back to his own time, spent within the Ever After, slowly wasting away, hoping beyond all hope that his friends would, one day, show up, and that he wouldn't simply die in there.
…It comes back to him, then. Somehow, drunker than he's ever been, it's then that he remembers the nights spent in his bed, praying to any Gods who might listen for his friends to come back to him, for them to somehow appear to him.
They had, in the end. As they always had.
…He needs to talk with them. Soon, preferably, before anything big can come up and throw a wrench into those plans. Luckily, things around Vacuo are pretty calm at the moment – imminent doom at the hands of an eldritch witch from the dawn of the world notwithstanding – so he doesn't foresee anything happening in particular.
Just then, Willow stops, and Jaune realizes that the apartment complex they'd stopped in front of must be hers. Apartment complex, to be fair, probably isn't the right word. He's heard that the refugees from Atlas – and there'd been many of them – had been given older, more rundown homes on the edges of Vacuo, one's that hadn't been in use. Because of how cramped everything had been, those with the means to normally purchase a home elsewhere hadn't been able to.
Still, among the buildings he's seen while out patrolling the city, or on missions, this is certainly the nicest of them. The rooms seem more along the lines of condo-sized, and there are balconies that lead out so that people can enjoy the outside air.
Of course, seeing them from the outside can't really give Jaune an accurate idea of their true scope, but he's working with what he's got for the moment.
On the subject, they Hunters had been able to stay within Shade Academy – the massive ziggurat that towered off in the distant sands – alongside the other students, so such things had not been trouble for them.
Still, Jaune has heard some humorous stories from Weiss about how her own family, so used to the life of riches and splendor, had had quite the difficult time adjusting to the much more… humble living arrangements.
It brings a smile to his face, which Willow asks about.
"Just thinking about a story one of my friends told me, is all."
"I see." Willow speaks, but she's somewhat awkward, and she seems even more so as she fidgets in place, before clearing her throat, somewhat red, and asking, "Perhaps you'd like to come up and see the place? It's not much, admittedly."
"Sure, that sounds nice." He thinks seeing how some of the civilians within Vacuo are living might be a nice learning experience. And he is a bit hungry, honestly, maybe he can pass off some of his lien to Willow in exchange for a pb&j.
Willow seems titanically relieved, given she sighs out rather heavily in the next moment, before catching herself, and dusting her outfit off before telling him to follow along behind her. He does as he's been asked; getting into the elevator alongside Willow as she presses the '7' button, and waits to be taken to her floor.
"It's been… a very long time since I've done something like this." Willow says to him, red in the face. "I apologize if I'm… not quite up to snuff, so to speak."
"It's nothing to worry about," Jaune laughs good-naturedly. "Honestly. I don't think I've done this either in a long time."
When had he last visited a friend's house? Had it been… maybe his friend Jacob back when he'd been eight or nine? Jeez, that's a bit sad to think about now. He'd really been kind of a loser growing up.
It's humorous to think back on now, however, as the elevator door opens, and Willow, swallowing nervously, leads the way.
"That's… reassuring. Then… I hope we'll both enjoy ourselves."
"I'm sure we will."
Willow stops in front of a pretty non-descript door, and spends what feels like too much time unlocking it. But then, they're both a little bit too drunk, so that probably adds up.
"Come in." Willow says, licking at her lips a bit.
Jaune does just that.
The place is, as Willow had alluded to, nothing to really write home about. But then, he'd not expected it do be, so that's fine by him. It's a bit cramped, even for what is clearly a more expensive place than the average refugee is getting access to, and seems to only have the room for a single person to reside within it.
Still, it's nicer than anywhere Jaune's owned – if the shack in the Paper Pleasers village really counts, given they'd built it for him, and he'd essentially paid them back for it by taking care of them.
Or so he'd thought, at least.
"So…" Willow coughs. "Is there anything you'd like to do beforehand?"
Jaune's not really sure what she's referring to, but honestly… "Would you mind if I got something to eat? I'm actually pretty hungry."
"Oh, uhm… no, of course not." Willow seems mildly perplexed by Jaune's decision to walk into her kitchenet and start making a bologna sandwich – Willow had, for some reason, not had peanut butter or jelly in her home, and he's debating whether or not that's grounds to end a friendship or not when she calls to him, "I hate to ask, but… now that you mentioned it, I'm somewhat famished myself."
"Alright. What do you want, I'll make it for you?"
Willow's eyes widen somewhat, as if taken aback, but after a moment, she clears her throat, and lists off a rather complicated sandwich order. Jaune shrugs, but makes it to her specifications.
It's not the most complicated thing on Remnant, really. Turkey, tomatoes, lettuce, and a few dressings – even rather drunk, he still finds himself wondering how she's managed to procure so many expensive ingredients given how tumultuous shipping lanes are in the current climate – sandwiched between two pieces of bread. He plates and brings it out to her a few minutes later, alongside his own meal.
He sets it down in front of her upon the coffee table, then sits down beside her on the couch, and digs into his own sandwich without delay.
Willow seems… puzzled is a good word for it. She seems puzzled by the sandwich she's holding in her hands.
"What is it?" He asks between bites.
"Oh, nothing, really. Just…" She trails off, eventually relenting and taking a bite of her sandwich. "This is… quite good. You seem to have gotten the blend of seasonings correct."
"Thanks. I used to make stuff for my sisters all the time, so I'd like to think I'm pretty alright in the kitchen." He says as he finishes up his sandwich. "Man, I didn't realize just how hungry I was. Should've ordered a burger or something back at the bar."
"I've never tried one."
"One of their burgers? Neither have I."
"That's… not quite what I meant." Willow looks away, seeming somewhat embarrassed. She takes far smaller bites than Jaune, and it seems as if it's going to take her forever to get even halfway through her sandwich before she just sort of… stops.
And then she takes a great big bite of it, before looking around, as if wondering if anyone had seen her.
Jaune has, and he tilts his head in confusion, but ultimately lets the strange action go.
"…I have to remember that I am not being judged every waking moment of my life anymore." Willow breathes as she finishes her sandwich some two minutes later, taking up a napkin and dabbing at her lips. "Thank you for the sandwich, John. It was lovely."
"No problem, Willow." He chuckles, just happy to have made someone else happy. "Now, uh… you seemed to want to do something. Did you want to get back to that, or?"
Willow's eyes widen, and she reaches up and coughs into her fist. She stands, dusts the crumbs off her outfit, and nods her head somewhat sheepishly.
"I… I'm not certain how… it's simply been so long, and I…" She breathes out harshly, as if chastising herself. "…Would you… undress me?"
.
..
…For the first time that evening, it occurs to Jaune that things might be going in a different direction than he'd previously thought.
His brain – inebriated, out of it, and just in general slow on the proverbial uptake in terms of social cues – whirs into motion, trying its best to recontextualize the last thirty or so minutes of his life.
And what he finds there is… huh.
Willow doesn't want to show off how cool her house is to him.
Willow wants to have s–
"John?"
"O-Oh, uhm…" His face is the one that's red, now. He coughs into his hand – he's practically a mirror of Willow from just a minute prior – and tries to get his thoughts in order. "I think that I… that I might've been giving off the wrong impression, uhm…"
He's thinking.
Really, he's trying his best.
They're both drunk. For that sole reason, this is probably a pretty poor idea. And yet…
Well…
It's hard to really admit it, but Willow is…
Now that he's thinking about her in that light, when he turns to face her, sees her blushing face, her tired eyes – a shade lighter than baby blue – her hair – a white like a fresh snowfall – her lips – a dark pink, bordering on red, and he's drawn to them – he finds himself wondering if maybe…
Maybe it's okay to make a few mistakes every once in a while?
Because while this may not lead to anything, might even make for quite the painful conversation in the morning once the two of them are no longer drunk, and actually have to own up to the fact that they'd slept together… well, Jaune thinks it might be worth it.
He likes Willow. He finds Willow sexy, and he thinks, somehow, that she feels the same way about him.
So… does anything else really matter?
He doesn't think so.
And maybe, given all that's happened to him in the Ever After, the problems with his friends, the fact that the world might be ending… maybe he could use something nice for once.
He also realizes that his words have definitely given off the wrong impression, because he's made it sound like he doesn't want what Willow wants, and he's rapidly realizing that's not the case.
He is still a bit nervous about something, though, and he decides to voice that particular fact, rather than keep it to himself.
"I… I guess I told a lie, earlier. I've actually never done this before." He admits, twiddling with his fingers on atop his thighs. "I hope you don't mind?"
Far from minding, it seems as if that admission has entirely soothed Willow. Her smile goes from somewhat nervous to even, and her eyes from skittish to excited.
"Is that so?"
Her voice… suddenly, with everything turned on its head, he finds it captivating. He's hanging on her every word as she leans forward, and runs her hands across his face, past his ears, behind his head.
"Then… it'll be a learning experience for the both of us."
And when Willow kisses him, he thinks that this might just be the best mistake he's ever made.
/
Jaune awakens the following morning feeling like he's going to die.
He doesn't – regretfully – but his head is pounding, his eyes and body are heavy, his muscles are sore as hell, and his right arm is asleep, because someone's currently laying on top of–
He keys back into the fact that there's someone nestled against his chest just as the memories of the previous night come flooding back.
The first and foremost thing on his mind is that he's lost his virginity, and wow, it had been pretty damned great.
The second thing is that his arm really is hurting, like super badly, and if Willow doesn't get off of it, he's pretty sure he's going to need the limb amputated or something.
…Okay, he might be being slightly dramatic, but the hangover – at least, he's pretty sure that's what this is? He's never been as drunk as he'd been the previous night before – has left him completely and utterly drained. He feels he's earned the right to be somewhat petulant when his entire body is currently staging a mutiny against his stomach.
That or the other way around, he's not quite sure yet.
Either way, step one is wait for Willow to wake up, step two is to talk the situation out like adults, step three is… maybe see if Willow would like to go out some time? He knows she's an older woman, likely in her forties, but frankly, Jaune is – at least mentally – somewhere around thirty-eight himself, so he feels this would make for a pretty appropriate coupling, all things considered.
Of course, all those carefully made plans go right out the window when Jaune hears someone knock on Willow's door.
At first, he doesn't think too much of it. Could be someone coming to drop off a package, or a mailman, or some other unsubstantial person coming by. The second round of knocking does get his heart beating a little faster, but honestly, it's probably fine.
All bets are off when he hears the sound of a key jingling in the lock, and his eyes practically bulge out of his head as he hears the sound of the door opening, and then, "Mother? Are you there?"
Oh. Jaune thinks. Well, this is going to be… awkward.
Okay, yes, it would suck. It would be incredibly weird, and he might even be caught quite literally in Willow's bed, snuggled up against her, but at the end of the day, it wouldn't be a world-ending thing, right?
Yes. That's what he tells himself, even as he tries to shake Willow awake, hoping she might somehow have a solution to this problem.
"Mmmm…" Willow groans out under her breath, and then, far from waking up or dislodging herself from him, turns around, wraps her arms around him, and practically strangles him again her bosom.
"Gah! Willow!" He whispers out. "Willow, I think your daughter is here!"
"Mrghl…" The still-sleeping Willow seems unconcerned with this state of affairs.
"Mother?" He hears the voice call out again. "I apologize for doing so, but I let myself in, given you weren't answering when I knocked."
Jaune… he feels he recognizes that voice… where does he recognize that voice?
No, better yet, why does he recognize that voice!?
And why is it getting closer!?
"I… I regret the things I said to you, last night, and have come to discuss things like adults. I… I let my emotions get the better of me. I said things I never meant, to someone who I know is doing there best. I'm sorry. I understand if you might not want to speak with me, but… please, would you open the door?"
Honestly, this is all very touching. Jaune's glad that Willow's daughter wants to patch things up, and she seems to be a very mature woman. On the other hand, Jaune wonders if he could somehow do an accurate rendition of Willow's voice, ala some of the characters he'd seen in his cartoons growing up, and trick her daughter into going away for a while.
He feels the answer is almost certainly 'no'.
"Mother? Are you still asleep? It's nearly twelve-thirty."
That… seriously? They'd slept in that long?
Wait, no, he has to get out from Willow's hold, he has to at least get his clothes back on!
He struggles within Willow's grip – and the way that she's chuckling under her breath at his efforts is NOT helping! – as he hears footsteps rapidly approaching Willow's bedroom.
Well, this is it. He's screwed.
"Mother, it's past noon," The sound of the door opening might as well be the tolling of a cathedral bell, spelling his demise. "You really ought to be awake by–"
Willow's daughter rounds the corner then, both she and Jaune go entirely white in the face as they spot one another, and Jaune Arc puts several seemingly disparate things together to form one very, very inconvenient truth.
The odd familiarity he'd felt when he'd first laid eyes on Willow. The way she'd seemingly waited on baited breath for him to react to her name. The story Weiss had been telling about her mother getting involved with some hustler – and hey! – and even the fact that Willow had had so many expensive and exotic things, from the bottles of chardonnay – which he was realizing she had likely bought herself – to the multiple different dressings and meats.
Most damning, of course, is the fact that Winter Schnee is standing there in the door frame, staring at him with wide eyes, and looking like she's seconds away from siccing a summoned Goliath on him.
Okay. This is no longer seeming like the best mistake he's ever made.
No. It's seeming more like just a normal mistake, now.
"Uh… hey, Winter…" He does his best to somehow diffuse the situation, even as Willow snuggles up against his cheek, oblivious to the entire situation, and starts to snore.
"…Fancy meeting you here?"
End Chapter 1
Welp, that's that for chapter 1!
Not sure in terms of release data as to when chapter 2 will be coming out. Easter weekend is coming up though, so I might be able to get a bunch of writing done for both this and WWUTB. If that's the case, it might come next weekend, or it might be a bit longer than that. Either way, expect a chapter... not this week, but certainly within the this weekend/next week.
As for the contents - this story rapidly became more serious and less crack the more I wrote of it - as stories I write always seem to - so yeah, I guess things are going to still be funny, and this is definitely a straight up romantic comedy, but things aren't going to be totally cracky, either.
Not much else to say. I hope you all enjoyed this story, and I hope you continue to read more of it in the future!