178One would think that being an agent against a secret ageless evil threatening humanity would be an exciting career, like being a hero in some fairy-tail. Maybe it had its moments, but for Qrow it just meant that when Ozpin called at two in the morning he couldn't just pretend to not hear the ring and go back to sleep. So here he was; flanking the old man at some ungodly hour looking at a dock turned warzone. Thank god he'd had the foresight to start drinking midday, after the scare that blond kid had given him, so he was closer to hung over than shitfaced at the moment. "So, why are we here, Oz? Couldn't you just get the police report in the morning?"
The old man sipped his coffee, the hour warranting the caffeine, but the amount he usually consumed did make Qrow wonder how many of his hosts had died from heart problems over the centuries. "To be honest I was half expecting some students to be involved, but it seems my fears were unfounded."
"Still here though." He pointed out.
The ancient soul scanned over the scene of emergency vehicles, burning containers, crashed bullheads, and bruised Fang members being carted away. His brow creased subtly; easy enough for Qrow to recognize his longtime leader wrapped up in thought. "See something here besides a failed dust robbery, Oz?"
"Perhaps.".
The hungover huntsman couldn't help but roll his eyes at Oz's typical cryptic antics. If he was going to say more on the matter then it was cut off as two police officers approached their position behind the police tape.
"Councilman." The officer named Grimm, judging by his nameplate, greeted politely. "What brings you here sir?"
"As a leader in the community it's my duty to see to things that affect it, but to be honest I had feared some of my students could have been involved." He replied with practiced politeness.
"Well I can say those fears are unfounded tonight sir." Grimm needlessly explained with the same easy smile that reminded Qrow of a politician. "However I'd be remiss if I didn't express my eagerness to see more of your students move towards the force. Especially with this recent crime wave."
"First time I've ever seen a cop ask a huntsman for help with anything besides grimm." Qrow pointed out; it was pretty common for law enforcement to have rivalries at best and contempt for huntsmen at worst in their respective circles. It came from a bit of macho competition, some resentment from huntsman level criminals that always proved difficult for the police, and a difference in how the two organizations split funding from the Kingdom.
"That alcohol I smell on your breath?" The second cop, Dan, unsubtly challenged.
Qrow him a cocky smile. "Come over and find out officer."
"Gentlemen," Grimm interjected politely. "We are all on the same side here. Let's not let childish rivalries hamper our shared duty to protect this fine city. Counselor," He said, turning to Ozpin. "I will personally make sure the reports on this incident ends up on your desk by morning. In fact, take my number and feel free to reach out if you need anything from my office." He finished as he produced a card for Ozpin.
"My thanks officer, I think I'll be taking my leave now. Have a good night."
"You as well." Grimm replied with his ever present plastic smile. For Dan and Qrow's part they settled on angry glares as their preferred pleasantries.
Walking back to Ozpin's car, Qrow decided they were out of earshot before speaking. "So that was a crock of shit right?"
"Without a doubt." He confirmed.
"Aaaaaand you want me to look into it." Qrow groaned.
Ozpin cracked a smile at his old students. "Without a doubt."
"So this is like a regular thing?' Sun questioned.
"First time," Yang shrugged, "So, same question."
"Yeah, Jaune loves this place." Cardin explained through bites of ramen.
"Love it." He confirmed; the Minstral themed shop from their last case becoming a fast favorite of his.
"Ummmmm… I was talking about the whole dock thing?"
"Oh, no. We do odd jobs that usually…." Cardin paused, choosing his next words.
"Ends with people trying to kill us." Juane finished without looking up from a bowl of ramen he was demolishing.
Mentally Sun noted a solid hell yeah. When he'd told his team he was heading to Vale early via legally dubious means they'd all told him he was a moron, but this was where it was at. One day in town and he was up to his eyeballs in hot girls, badasses, and explosions. From here on out all travel he did in the future was going to be illegal. "Cool. So you guys are huntsmen? You guys look like my age."
Cardin chuckled a bit at that. "Beacon rejects." He explained.
"Really? You guys are kick-ass."
"Don't encourage them." Blake grumbled from behind her own meal. Between the direction the Fang was taking and everything with her and Jaune she didn't find herself in a particularly good mood.
"Ready to talk about why you ran off and thought throwing yourself at the Fang was a good idea?" Yang asked her partner sweetly.
"So you guys were saying." Blake added with a newfound interest.
"Well," Caridn said with a big grin. "Jaune seems to not function without regular threats to his life, and I couldn't let my socially awkward friend choke to death the first time a woman talked to him so here I am."
Everyone except Sun rolled their eyes. "I got busted with forged transcripts and Cardin for a combination of racism and bullying." Jaune explained.
"Well I wouldn't say racism." Cardin laughed nervously.
Sun shook his head. "Not cool bro."
"I'm not racist." The women at the table hit him with looks of disbelief. "I mean I used to be, but I see you people now…. Wait, no. " Sweat started rolling down Cardin's brow. Seeing faunus as people and changing from his previous ideals wasn't the same as deprogramming a lifetime of terminology that he was just now realizing where racist dog whistles. "I have plenty of friends that are faunus." He frantically defended ,poorly, as he looked to the only other faunus for help. "Back me up guys."
Blake suppressed a smile, racist or not he'd talked crap about her not-smut-books and he was gonna pay. " All I remember was you calling us animals whenever you got the chance in class."
Before Sun could look more aghast Jaune stepped in. "Cardin was raised by the biggest criminal human supremacist leader in Vale; last week he brought them down with the help of everyone they wronged. He also sees a faunus, Velvet, to discuss faunus rights."
Yang looked at Caridin inquisitively. "Velvet, the upperclassmen?"
"Uh, yeah; she was a client." Cardin confirmed while rubbing the back of his head absentmindedly. "I didn't know you knew that man."
"You go out all the time, half of our trash is bullhead tickets to Beacon, and everytime you come back you talk to me about how faunus are people like that's something I'm unaware of." He explained.
"Huh. Kinda didn't realize you noticed"
"I think it's good for you. Frankly I think it's impressive that Velvet takes so much of her time solely to get through your thick skull."
"Yep. A lot of nuance." Cardin quickly agreed.
Yang, always one to smell blood in the water, shot Cardin a grin as she went to press him more on his meetings with Velvet, but it seemed Jaune had his own pressing questions.
"So how do you know Blake?" He asked, changing the subject. If Sun was the guy Blake had chosen over him to chase the Fang then they must have history, he reasoned. As much as he wanted to be done with all his sudden baggage with Blake, a nagging voice in his head wondering what made him better than him.
"We just met a few hours ago." Sun supplied helpfully.
He shot Blake a cold look. "Really. I would have thought she would have brought someone she could trust." If he expected her to recoil from his accusation he was sorely mistaken as she met his gaze with her own icy glare.
Unfazed by Jaune's icey gaze, Blake raised an eyebrow in his direction. "How did you find me anyways Jaune? It won't happen to be something self-sacrificing or dangerous by any chance?" It was a shot in the dark on her part, but the wince on his face told her all she needed to know.
"Nope." He asserted unconfidently, his gaze suddenly looking for anywhere that wasn't Blake and his mind trying to not think about his deal with the police.
"Ok what did I miss?" Cardin asked. "You guys fucking now?"
"NO!" Both hollered in anger and disbelief.
"Ok, so why you two going at it like exs?"
"It's nothing," Jaune stated, his tone putting a finality to the conversation being over, until…. "Blake just has some problems making up her mind on who she gets to put in danger." He added passive-aggressively.
Eyes around the table subtly shifted in Blake's direction, a nervous tension falling over the onlookers.
"Oh my mind's made up Jaune, I just can't rely on people whose personal issues make them a liability." Blake clarified without looking to Juane, instead focusing on eating her food nonchalantly.
"But random strangers are fine it seems." Jaune sniped as he suppressed rising anger.
What do you want me to say Jaune? That I'm a terrible person who'll throw people into a meat grinding of my own mistakes instead of the people I care about. That I thought I couldn't care about you but I was wrong again. Maybe she could admit that in her head but she was too much a coward to say it. So instead she went for the jugular. "If they aren't weak." She wouldn't let Jaune be hurt anymore trying to help with her problems. He wasn't going to leave her, he'd proven as much tonight, so she had no other option but to hurt him till he finally let go.
If everyone was awkward before then the air practically hummed with anxious energy after those words. All eyes were on Jaune now, as they waited for an angry retort. For Blake's part, even behind her cold facade, she braced.
Instead of the angry tirade all expected a single, sad, word came from Jaune.
"Sorry."
Surprised, she looked up to him only to instantly regret it. Raw pain etched across his face; burning her core with shame and regret. Internally a voice inside her joylessly complimented her on running away from yet another person in her life.
"I'm sorry I'm too weak." Jaune further hammered stakes into her heart with his words; each syllable dripping with defeat.
Unable to take anymore she tore her eyes away to look at anything other than consequences of her actions. She saw the anger on everyone's angry faces first, all rightly blaming her. Then she saw the door and her brain told her to run. Double down, run away from Juane and Beacon, chase her mistakes in the fang and never look back. It almost felt she was in a dream as she noticed her legs coil to move. Just like all her decisions she knew she was making another mistake and in her head she screamed for something to stop her.
"Enough of that now." Steeled words planted her firmly back into reality.
Pulled from the door she looked back to Juane, her brain doing a double to make sure she was seeing the same boy before. His defeated face set with moist eyes and rasping pained words had vanished like a mirage, Instead his face was cute from granite, his eyes ablaze with life. "Yeah, I'm weak. I've tried to hide it, pretended I wasn't when I could lie to myself. No more. No more running." He declared with words that shamed Blake for her earlier thoughts. "Everyday I've been in this shit hole I've been fighting. Fighting to not be weak anymore. So I can stand with you all. I don't care what it takes, how long, how much of my blood I have to leave on these streets. As long as I'm still alive I'll never stop fighting"
Blake couldn't breath for a moment. Ever the cynic, she couldn't help but remember similar words from subpar fang recruits. It wasn't as if she wanted him to fail or thought he would, she just knew how cheap words were in this life. His words were not what had her so rattled, instead it was how he spoke that had her containing an explosion of emotions she could barely comprehend at the moment. It was the declaration of a man possessed, someone branding reality with raw defiance as his heat, a fanatic. Adam.
"Yeah maybe you start lifting heavy like me and we'll see homie." Cardin playfully joked as he slugged Jaune in the arm.
""Pfffftt, you start doing cardio better than a sickly child first." He responded sarcastically, the partners now laughing; all tension evaporating for the group.
A few more jokes and banter were exchanged between the group, excluding a quiet Blake, till Jaune realized he'd finished his ramen. "Excuse me guys, I'mma burn one." He explained as he left his chair. Turning to leave he heard Cardin get up behind him. Looking to steal one of his smokes, no doubt.
He thought about turning back and making up something that would grant him the solitude he was actually looking for outside. For all of his buddy's jokes he knew he was just saying that to make him feel better after his outburst. Gods, he felt like an idiot. Getting wrapped up in his spat with Blake when he knew he should have just let it go. It wasn't like she really owed him answers.
Obviously he was too weak to help her, just the way he was. He could get mad about facts, take it out on people like he had tonight, but his tantrums wouldn't fix reality. Did he feel like shit about it? 100%, but he still allowed a small smile to form on his face as he rounded the alley.
He may suck now, but that wasn't forever. In the past he'd lived life doing everything he could avoiding reality, but now it was different. Now, out on these hard crime ridden streets he'd fight for himself. Leaning back on an alley wall he thought back to when he'd broken down that crooked lawyer's door all those weeks ago. At the time he knew he was on a dangerous path, one he'd been looking for an exit to. Instead, it seemed he just needed to run even faster now.
Reaching into his coat pocket he fished around for his smokes, his mind still grappling with his decision. Maybe he could bet on himself, but a part of his mind still whispered of failure. That he wasn't strong enough. That it was all just the desperate grasps of a fool unable to just accept his fate as some quiet farmer. He brought his cig to his lips and sparked up his light as he attempted to banish the thought from his head.
"Can I get one?"
His eyes widened in surprise as they jumped from the flame burning the end of his cig to meet Blake's amber eyes. "Umm, sorry." He awkwardly apologized as he fished for his pack again. "I thought you were Cardin."
"I don't think I'm that thick just yet." Blake lamely joked.
"I thought you didn't smoke?"
The mask of normalcy she'd been trying to hold gave out and her features sagged in exhaustion. "It's been a long da- it's been a long week." She explained in a tone that sounded like it'd been a lot longer than a week.
"Yeah." Jaune agreed as he suddenly felt the weight of months of exhaustion settled on him like a ton of bricks. His fingers found his pack and he flicked it open for the pair to see it empty. Before Juane could think of something to say to her he felt a drop if rain hit his neck.
The two shared a miserable look at each other as the sparse drops turned into a downpour in a moment. A small alcove was the only cover the two could find forcing them close.
Jaune raised his trench coat over their heads to cover the only cig from the rain. "Here." He said for no particular reason only to stiffen as he watched Blake's fingers take his lit cig from his mouth.
Foul smoke burned his eyes as she exhaled before returning it to his mouth. He took his own drag, the cherry lightly illuminating the two's faces; both eyes watering. They went on like that for a while, the cig being exchanged instead of words. With each pass Juane felt worse and worse for his words. Did he really do it all for the right reasons or was it really an excuse for his own reckless pursuit to not be weak.
"Blak-"
The cig extinguished with a hiss as it hit the wet pavement.
Her lips crashed onto him. His tongue entered her mouth. Small hands pulled him close as his trench coat fell away. Rain soaked into their hair and washed down their faces as each pulled the other deeper into them.
For Blake, regrets fell away and burned more painful all the same. It was the best moment in her life in a long while; she hated it. It was another mistake, and in the moment, she didn't give a damn.
Juane's mind held no such thoughts, or any for that matter, as he felt his whole world become no farther than the woman in his embrace. It was a palm placed into his chest that brought his mind back to reality and his body staggering back into the rainy alley. His head swimming, as he tried to make sense of what just happened.
"I care about you, and I'm going back to Beacon." Blake spoke somberly. "But you're right about me; I'm running, and I can't stop for you." She couldn't take Jaune getting hurt on her account.
His mouth moved like a fish, a second away from getting something out. Only to watch her brush past him. It felt like he was in a dream as he watched her quickly make it to the end of the alley before turning to face him. "You can't follow me."
Blake turned the corner and just like that he was alone in the waterlogged alley. It took a moment for his brain to finally shrug off the mental equivalent of a flash bang he'd just taken. Finally, the ability to speak returned to him.
"What?"
"You get caught in the rain, I see." Cardin commented as he watched Juane enter their apartment soaking wet.
"Yeah." The blonde absentmindedly agreed, his voice and eyes seemingly a million miles away.
"Want a beer?" He offered.
"Sure, sure…."
"Cool….You good man?"
"Hmmmm?" Jaune mumbled, looking over to Cardin as if he had just noticed him for the first time. "Yeah I'm good, just got a lot on my mind right now."
"Ok man, you do you. By the way you cool with Sun crashing with us for a bit till his place at Beacon is ready in like a week?" He'd talked to the guy a bit while Juane had left and he seemed solid enough.
"Uh-huh" Jaune half agreed as he seemed to slip back out of reality again. Floating in his own thoughts he walked to the fridge and grabbed a beer before crashing on the couch next to Cardin. Soundly he looked over to his partner. "I suddenly feel like I'm forgetting something."
"Eh, it seems like you got a lot on your mind." Cardin shrugged before taking a sip of his own beer. "It's probably not important."
"You're probably right."
Her eye twitched. Five hours late was considered fashionably late, right? Surely, Jaune wouldn't skip their gym battle date. Neo definitely wasn't getting stood up. Cause if that was true, she would need to accept it, cry a bit, and maybe eat a bunch of ice cream before moving on. After flaying Jaune from head to toe before eating his still beating heart of course; healthy girlboss stuff.
Neo looked at her scroll. She'd give him a few more hours, traffic could be rough.
Hey everyone, back again, late as ever. Been busy with life and the fact that I feel like I suuuuuuck at person-to-person interactions in stories, so I rewrote this like 3 different time. But hey, it's been nice to try some stuff in wrighting that I'm less confident on. So, here's hoping this chapter felt came off more satisfying than angsty. Another reason this took forever was because when I plotted this story out all those years ago this is where the sticky notes just said "Profit?", leading me to have to take some time to plat out some more of how this story is going to progress. With this arc leaning more on the dramatic talking side of things I'm happy to have a few upcoming chapters that I feel like are a bit more return to my norm. Anyways, always appreciate the feedback guys, and thank you so much for sticking with this story with all your support.