Author's Notes

A RatCrimes first: we've got cover art! That's right, we've got a lovely depiction of the now complete Team Job Security, commissioned from the wonderful KushiroJin. An excellent job by an excellent artist. I held off on using it before, since Velvet wasn't fully introduced, but as of this chapter, she's a full-fledged security consultant, so we can finally drop our cast's profile pics.

Since this site is utter hogwash, you may want to just go to AO3 to see it. Alternative, you can translate the following Nth-dimensional hexadecimal cryptogram and follow the link:

i dot imgur dot com slash 344HfGy dot jpeg

I've been using a mini version it as the small icon for the fic on this sight, but the full one is much better quality and includes Velvet, so be sure to check it out.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!

Chapter 19 – The Truth is Cheaper

Velvet's finally accepted into Team Job Security, the vast business enterprise she's heard so much about from rumors…surely nothing will go wrong.

"Oh my gods," Velvet exclaimed the next day when they met her at the same park. "Oh, this is so exciting! It's my first day!"

Jaune and Blake nodded at her and gave thumbs-ups.

"I mean, I know I did missions before back in Beacon, but…this is the real deal! I'm officially a member of Team Job Security!"

She was dressed in a flashier outfit than her casual clothing yesterday. Blake chose not to wear armor, always preferring the speed that normal cloth gave over the defense that metal came with, but Velvet seemed to have discovered a nice balance of the two of them. Only select parts of her body, mostly joints around her limbs, were covered with some sort of bronze-like alloy, preventing the actual parts that moved from being weight down. Otherwise, it was plain black all over her body covered up by a short brown vest and pair of jeans. The camera, Anesidora, was hanging from a strap on her shoulder like a handbag.

"So, we have a mission, but our go-to airship rental company is currently finishing up its last few inspections following some maintenance," Blake explained. "That means we won't actually be going on a mission until the afternoon…"

"Oh, that's fine." Velvet's smile was far too bright to fade. "I'm just happy to be here on the job. On Team Job, eheheh. Er, provisionally."

She'd agreed to their terms, which included their first mission with her going well before they actually gave her a job offer for real, but it seemed that all three of them knew what was coming. Truthfully, Blake had mostly left that stipulation in rather than actually hiring her on the spot to give herself time to learn how to write up a contract for her.

"So, uh." Jaune looked to Blake, but she really had no idea what they were supposed to do either. "I-If you don't mind me asking, have you been able to find lodging in Vale?"

Velvet nodded. "Yup. I'm officially a renter. My landlady's a nice old ex-huntress who offers apartments at a discount to people who just came out of Beacon in the past six months to help them get on their feet. It's really great, actually."

Damn. Maybe we shoulda stayed in Beacon a little longer to get that discount, because I think Jaune and I could've used something like that.

"Well…uh…s-so, we also have lodging in Vale."

Velvet's head bobbed up and down.

"And it's basically where we're working from at the moment."

"Of course," said the rabbit girl. "Because the office is being renovated."

"So, I only said that because I thought you were a customer," Jaune admitted. "We don't, ah, exactly possess an office at the moment."

The smile disappeared, replaced by a look of innocent curiosity. "Then where do you work?"

Jaune coughed twice. "You remember those lodgings Blake and I have?"

"Velvet, Team Job Security is basically a start-up at this point," Blake explained. "We've only been operating since the year began at Beacon, about a month now. We're still finding our feet."

"But if you work from home and don't have an office, where does the legal team stay?" Velvet asked, blinking innocently.

"Legal team?"

"Yeah. Team Lettuce, they said that you told them you had a bunch of lawyers on hand." Velvet looked at the two teenagers who were both younger and far less experienced than her. "When will I be able to meet the rest of the company?"

Well, isn't this awkward? I guess this is the real world consequence of Jaune basically conning our way past any sticky situations and me smiling as I let him.

If Velvet was to work with them, she would have to know the truth at some point. A client they only saw once in a lifetime could be fooled, no problem, but not an employee who would be seeing the ins and outs of the business.

"As Jaune explained, the company is rather small, at this point," Blake stated as factually as she could. "In fact, it's so small that we three are it."

"The legal team –"

"I sort of bamboozled Team Lettuce," Jaune admitted shily. "I'm kinda good at trickery."

"Really?" Velvet said, eyes wide. "You are?"

Damn it, we're probably going to lose her. Actually, we've probably already lost her. Velvet signed on thinking we were an actual company that knew what it was doing, and she isn't going to want to stick around with a couple of tricksters.

They didn't even have a plan for what to do with the morning. Blake usually just read business books in the library while Jaune dicked around on his scroll and occasionally joined her, the subjects of his books being his missing huntsman education.

"Wait, so it's just you two?" Velvet asked. "And you never graduated from one of the four academies?"

Blake nodded her head in shame.

"Holy flapjacks, that's so cool!"

Well, that hadn't been the expected response. Velvet wasn't frowning at them or looking down upon them in shame. Instead, her eyes were watering as she squeezed her cheeks together.

"I thought you had a bunch of people doing all the missions I've heard about, but it's just you guys? That's awesome! It normally takes a full team of four hunters to go out into the field and get these kinds of jobs done. If you guys can get it done on your own, you must be awesome!"

You know, I can sort of see why she and Ruby might have been close enough friends to chat.

"You're okay with it being just the two of us? Er, three of us?" Blake amended.

"Sure," Velvet said, relaxing. "I'm used to a t…I'm used to being on a small group, so it's fine. If you guys want to go to your home office to work, I can wait or tag along. It's really fine."

"It's really not much," Blake said. "Just a one bedroom hotel room where we keep our stuff."

"One…?" Velvet's eyebrow raised up, and she rapidly looked between Jaune and Blake. "Oh. You two are – oh, that's hot."

"N-No!" Blake quickly corrected. "No, we alternate using a sleeping bag and the bed! Jaune and I are business partners, not partner-partners! It's just to save money on rent!"

Velvet actually looked disappointed at that. "Awwww."

Jaune just laughed. "Try not to sound too disgusted, Blake. Look, how about we head home for the time being? You can draft up a contract, and I can fill Velvet in on the details so we don't have any more mismatched understandings again."

It was kind of cute to watch from the corner of her eye. Blake was fully focused on writing up the paperwork at her desk, but every now and again her view slipped over to the two others in the room, and she couldn't help but grin.

Jaune was going a little crazy with the stories, spinning mostly true but slightly exaggerated tales of how they'd bested hundreds of Grimm with their bare hands and their wits, and Velvet was eagerly eating up every word of it.

"…new type of Grimm, never before seen in all of Remnant! Tentacle-y son of a gun reached out from the surface of the water, wrapped its slimy mutated paws around me, and yanked me right into the water before I could even get a word in edgewise!"

"Wow! How'd you get out of the drink?"

"That's the neat part!" Jaune pointed at her. "I didn't."

"Woah!"

"It dragged me down into its underwater fortress, no doubt intending to do nefarious modes of torture upon its freshly captured prisoner, but our beastly beastie got greedy and decided to bite off more than it could chew."

"D-Did…" Velvet sucked in a breath. "Did it stick its tentacles in your mouth?"

"No, even worse! It tried to use me as bait and tricked Blake into getting too close, then it pulled her into the cave as well."

"Did it stick its tentacles into her mouth?"

"Nope," Jaune said, unphased. "Our epic battle with the Cephalopoid creature lasted only a few minutes, but they were among the most harrowing of my entire life. Blake engaged it in direct combat, slashing its limbs to pieces with Gambol Shroud – that's her sword, B-T-W – and I coordinated the assault using my tactical prowess."

"And you killed it?"

Jaune's grin could have rivaled the Curious Cat's from the story of the Girl Who Fell Through The World. "Tore it to shreds, she did. Ain't no Grimm's a match for our Blake here."

Being called out like that was too much for Blake to not blush a little bit in pride. "It wasn't that much," she called from across the room, but her protests were ignored.

"Oh, Velvet, you shoulda seen her. It was one of the coolest things in the world – the cave was collapsing around us, water was flooding into our little moonpool, the water level was rising and pushing us up into the hungry mouth of the tentaclaceous monstrosity that had plagued that town. Things were at their bleakest, until I had a stroke of unrepentant genius and astounding courage."

Velvet was clearly on the edge of her seat. "What'd ya do?!"

"You see, I knew from experience that Blake was a master combatant, so I expertly had her come up with and execute a plan to collapse the cave while simultaneously imploding the Cephalopoid-dude."

"WOW! Jaune, you're so cool!"

"My leg was nearly torn off in the encounter…I still have the scars, if you wanna see."

Jaune lifted up the leg of his pants, showing off the spot where Blake had accidentally shot him on that mission. She cringed at the memory of hurting him, even unintentionally, but he just winked her way and continued to brag about it to Velvet.

"Sick, innit?"

"Can I touch?" asked the Faunus girl.

Without waiting for an answer, she immediately prodded it with her finger straight on, almost like she was hoping there would be a hole inside for her to stick her finger inside.

"Aw, hell yeah," Velvet shuddered.

"The mission was easily our greatest success," Jaune boasted proudly. "The villagers begged for us to take on the illustrious title of grand heroic champions, but we were most humble and accepted a minor cash reward and some fish for Blake."

Blake nodded at that, never unhappy about reliving a fish-related memory. "The townsfolk sure did know how to pickle a good herring."

It was difficult to tell if Velvet was actually believing Jaune's tall tales at face value, if she could see through them and discern the actual truth, or if she was just playing along to impress the bosses. As a huntress herself on a decorated team, she probably had adventures of her own, but they would probably be Beacon-sanitized missions with zero risk and a teacher looking over Velvet's shoulder at any given time.

Her excitement seems genuine. I think she's a good kid.

She was actually older than Blake, when she thought about it. Weird.

"You heard about the snake fiasco with Team LTUC," Jaune said, quickly brushing over the mission where they succeeded by literally stealing the victory out of the Beaconite's pockets. "And that brings us to our latest mission."

Blake paused on the papers she was drafting, though she pretended to continue. She knew what was coming, and she had no way of telling how Velvet would take it. If she needed to intervene…except Velvet could kick Blake's ass when she wanted to.

Dang it. How am I going to protect Jaune if she takes offense at us having worked for the SDC?

"What did you do this time?" Velvet asked, chipper as her animal trait's origin.

"We were employed by a certain Schnee Dust Company."

This time, Velvet's smile did drop, and it wasn't like before when she'd found out just how small a company they were. Blake could make out the exact moment her awe was replaced by disappointment bordering on disgust.

Jaune saw it, but he'd been expecting it and didn't hesitate to deploy their countermeasures. "Blake, you wanna tell our disciple how we swindled 'em for eight hundred and twenty grand, or should I?"

"Don't forget about the robot of theirs we destroyed," she added.

Instantly, as fast as Jaune had lost Velvet, he got her back, and with a vengeance.

"Y-You're kidding…"

"Nope," Blake said, turning in her chair to face Velvet. Given the severity of the SDC, Blake felt like not providing her full attention would be insulting to her fellow Faunus. "This one's not even embellished. They hired us to stop some bandits, but when we got back their stolen fortune, we donated to the Furs."

Jaune himself hadn't been familiar with the charity Blake had chosen, but Velvet instantly recognized the nickname of 'Funds for Faunus,' or the Furs as it was known by every Faunus. Needless to say, the relatively underfunded organization had been most happy to receive the large and anonymous donation.

"Oh, what I wouldn't have given to have signed onto Team Job just one mission earlier," Velvet said, dropping back onto the bed. "To have seen the look on those Schnee fuckwits' faces."

"Here, I can do an impression of it." Jaune took a second to compose himself and stop maniacally grinning. When he spoke, it was in an obviously put-on, effeminate voice. "Wowzers, Team Job. You guys are so amazing! It's fine about the stagecoach and the missing money, we're too stupid to question you and will believe whatever you say at face value."

"No," Velvet gasped, shocked. "They bought it? You didn't get in trouble?"

"One of our best cons," Jaune said. "That's sort of my thing, you know. Blake's got the best head for business of anyone, but I, and I don't exactly mean to toot my own horn here, but I can kinda sell our clients a big load of horse manure and get them to thank me for the deal."

"That's why I stick to him like glue," Blake explained to Velvet. "Well, that and the free cooking he does."

It was actually good that they could clarify Team Job's internal intricacies to Velvet like this. If she was going to be a part of the team, she would need to know that the reason it was a good place for Faunus to work was because Jaune could act as a buffer for anti-Faunus prejudices.

Better she learn like this, with fun stories told in our hotel room, than on a mission where someone gives her the stink eye and Jaune needs to step in.

But still…

"Neat!" Velvet said. "Then I can be the team's muscle!"

"Well, I'm also sort of the muscle," Blake said.

When she looked Velvet's way, the rabbit Faunus was smirking the most shit-eating smirk of all time.

"Don't," Blake hissed.

"If you want to spar again –"

"Velvet, shut up or I'll tear up this contract right in front of you."

" – for the title of Team Job's muscle –"

"I'm not playing, here."

" – I'm happy to go another few rounds, boss."

Eventually, when Jaune had exhausted his short list of heroic war stories and had fully explained how Team Job operated (their little loophole situation, their website, their slightly complicated relationship with hunters), the time for lunch came.

"Here, I'll heat us up some leftovers," Jaune said, going for their half-sized fridge.

"Jaune!" Blake rebuked. "It's Velvet's first day on the job, and you want to feed her day-old leftovers?"

"Uhhhhmm." Arc's eyes shot to the left, then back at Blake. "Y-Yeah?"

"She's a guest in our home!" Blake stood up and brushed him in the direction of the door. "Go out to the grocery store and fetch some fresh food!"

Velvet flushed. "It's not –"

"Please, I insist," Blake said. "Rather, Jaune insists, because he's not a substandard host and will be taking good care of our guest."

"Fine, fine, okay!"

Jaune hustled out the door.

"I'll be back in a –"

Blake shut it behind him and slid the deadbolt.

"U-Um, Blake." Velvet swallowed uncomfortably and got up off the bed. "I-Is everything okay?"

Taking a few seconds to listen and make sure Jaune was actually gone, Blake allowed his footsteps to fade off as he went down the stairwell. When she knew for certain that she and Velvet were alone, she turned away from the door.

"I wanted to have a talk in private."

"Oh. Um…okay? I-If this is about –"

"It's about the stuff that two Faunus might not want to discuss when a human is present."

"Oh." Velvet sat back down on the bed. "That. Okay."

"This isn't an interrogation or anything. I just want to make sure you're actually going to be comfortable on this team."

Standoffish or not, innocent or not, Velvet was a fellow Faunus sister of Blake's, and she had every intention of seeing to her safety here.

Velvet placed her hands in her lap and nodded for Blake to continue.

"We're in Vale, but we mostly work for the outlying villages and communities in eastern Sanus. That means it's going to be a lot of humans. So far, it's only been humans, as a matter of fact."

"I can work with that."

Blake shook her head. "I tried getting a job in the city before I met Jaune. Trust me, there's a lot more prejudice than you might think. You've gone on missions before and worked for humans, but I'm guessing you were always introduced as the licensed fourth member of Beacon's own Team Caffeine?"

"Team Coffee, but…"

"We don't have that shield to hide behind," Blake explained. "Jaune is our shield, which means you and I are essentially dependent on him. Is that a problem?"

Velvet shook her head vehemently. "No, ma'am. My entire team was humans. I don't have any issues working alongside them."

"It's more than working alongside him. When we're on missions, we have to pretend that he's the one in charge. He's a tall, conventionally attractive, male human, and we're both Faunus women." Blake was voicing thoughts she'd had for a while, though the arrival of Velvet would probably only exacerbate things. "At some point, people will probably assume things about our relationship with him, and we won't have the luxury of telling them off when they do."

"I can live with that," Velvet said. "It won't bother me, Blake."

"Okay." They weren't done yet, though. "In the interests of full disclosure, I want you to know that Headmaster Ozpin of Beacon believes that Team Job and the very idea of us being non-hunter-licensed security consultants is dangerous."

"Why?" Velvet asked, alarmed.

"He thinks we'll cause the public to lose faith in hunters when we inevitably fail."

Velvet blinked a few times. "Whuh…but you haven't failed."

"And he's so worried that we will that he would see us unemployed rather than take that risk."

Velvet blew some air out of her mouth. "Hooo. That is a bit problematic…but I guess he'd probably be like that whether or not I was with you guys, right? I'm unlicensed, and my only career path is consulting security, so it doesn't matter where I'd go."

Blake agreed with her. Ozpin might have had some sort of personal quarrel with Jaune and Blake on account of their attempt to enter Beacon on false pretenses, but she doubted that would be enough to make the incredibly busy man pay a personal visit to their hotel. That meant he'd spent the time and energy it took to track them down, which was no easy feat.

"Do you mind if I ask some questions?" Velvet inquired, shifting to a more comfortable position.

Blake was done with her disclaimers and warnings, so she nodded.

"You and Jaune."

Blake didn't need to hear more of this. "We aren't a couple. Just a couple of close friends and business partners."

Velvet's head turned to look down at the single bed in their shared room.

"We're roommates," Blake said. "It saves us lien, which is a bit of a limited resource at the moment."

"So…" Velvet trailed off, tapping her all of her fingers onto the sheets.

"So?"

"So…he's not attached?"

Blake regarded her cautiously. "Yes, but he's your boss, as am I. Dating him might lead to some problems."

"M'not talking about dating," Velvet said.

Blake's brow furrowed as she tried to figure out how Jaune being single was relevant if she wasn't discussing dating him.

"If you want to pursue him however you want, you can," she said, frowning ever so slightly at the implications in Velvet's words that she had yet to fully comprehend. "That's between you and him. But like your 'problem' from before, just make sure it doesn't interfere with company business."

Please, Gods, if you're real, don't make them a couple. I can barely deal with Arc as it is, let alone his new little rabbit bestie. Babysitting their kids would be the death of me.

Coming Soon: Cost and Scarcity

Sometimes the reward of a job well done isn't as large as the expenses it takes to complete it.

Author's Notes

Bechdel Test achieved them immediately failed, with the talking about racism only to switch to how it related to Jaune, I guess. Don't worry - everyone on the team interacts plenty, so we'll cover it later. Though that's hardly an accomplishment in the RWBY fandom, given, you know, Team RWBY.

Also, uh-oh. We're getting into levels of based that shouldn't even be possible.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!