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pilot-boi · 9 months ago

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Jaune’s friends throw him a birthday party only to find out he has long forgotten his own birthday in the Ever After, never mind how old he technically is.

Jaune’s friends have been acting weird all week.

Of course, he’s not a very good judge of what counts as weird anymore. Living for decades in a world where the brooks would literally babble and time was literally money would do that to you.

But he feels pretty sure that they’re being weird.

They keep huddling in groups whispering to each other, only to see him coming and abruptly change the subject, or just straight up walk away. He might be out of practice reading social cues (and he was pretty abysmal to begin with, let’s be honest here) but even he can notice that.

Are they mad at him? He’s been trying his best to hold himself together since getting back. He’s been talking to Ren and Nora and Ruby when he’s spiring. Oscar has been a HUGE help adjusting to feeling out of place in his own skin. Heck, this morning he didn’t even wake up freaking out about being late! All things considered he thinks he’s been doing pretty okay.

So why are they all avoiding him?

“Do you have…”

“No, Ren’s taking care…”

“Oh good, then you can-”

Ruby and Weiss are lurking outside of an unused classroom, whispering intently to each other over an open notebook. Jaune perks up. “Hey guys! What’re you-”

They both look up at him, immediately cutting off their conversation. Weiss shuts her notebook with a snap. Jaune’s greeting trails off and his smile slips from his face as they stare at him.

“What uh… what are you guys up to?” Jaune asks.

Ruby and Weiss glance at each other. “Nothing you need to worry about,” Weiss responds eventually, Ruby shifting awkwardly behind her

“Are you sure? I could… maybe I could help!” he offers, hating how over-eager he must sound.

“I’m sure,” Weiss replies firmly, and Jaune wilts further. “Besides, we were just going, right Ruby?”

“We were? I mean, yeah! Yeah we were,” Ruby nods, already edging away. Can she really not even stand to be around him? “See ya later, I guess!” And the two of them hurry off down the hallway, already whispering to each other.

Jaune slumps. He thought he was doing better, but if Weiss and Ruby beat that hasty of a retreat at his mere presence? And not even the first one this week? Yeah, they’re definitely mad at him. He just wishes he knows what he did.

He shuffles his way back to the JNPER dorm. The whole time, he’s replaying the conversation in his head, nitpicking every over-exuberance, every awkward moment. He knows he’s out of practice, but he’s trying, really he is. Maybe they’re just finally getting tired of his lackluster performance? Tired of playing nice in the face of his bumbling?

The door is ajar when he returns, and he can hear Oscar and Nora’s voices inside.

“...just hard seeing him this way.”

“I know, it hurts me, too.”

He hesitates, hand hovering over the doorknob. He can’t help it. And yeah, eavesdropping is bad. But they’re talking about him, and if they don’t know he’s there, they will continue to do so. Of course, he might not like what he hears, but at least he’ll have answers. And since when does he do what’s good for him?

“...having trouble adjusting.”

“Yeah. But hopefully this will help!”

“I hope so. It’s been a while, but if we all work together we can make sure he stays away while we-”

Yeah. He’s heard enough.

Jaune shuts the door with a quiet click. Well, he was wrong at least. His friends aren’t mad at him.

No. No, they hate him.

He lets his steps carry him away. He doesn’t much care where he ends up, he knows his friends won’t be there.

If they want him to stay away, he can do that. It was selfish of him (stupid of him) to want to immediately insert himself back into the team dynamic. They spent months grieving him while he was living in fairytale land, and then he shows back up and what? Just slots back in like nothing happened? Like they didn’t just spend the last few months of their lives thinking he was dead?

“Having trouble adjusting” Nora had said, and she’s right of course. It’s no secret that he’s been taking to Remnant like a fish to the desert.

But he’s been trying, gods he’s been trying!

Jaune knows he’s awkward and too loud and too big. Too used to stiffness in his limbs that would slow his movements, too used to a creak and a crack in his voice that would lower his tone. Too used to being alone to fit, like he’s a puzzle piece from a different set thrown in a box it doesn’t belong.

He knows he’s not okay, he’s not right. He knows that as well as he knows his name. (His name or his title? Which one is he anymore?) But to hear it spoken so plainly from a friend’s mouth…

Jaune doesn’t realize he’s crying until his vision blurs with tears.

Weiss and Ruby whispering to themselves about Ren (his teammate, his brother, he doesn’t even know what his brother is doing), saying they don’t need him, and leaving abruptly when he approaches. Nora and Oscar talking quietly about how badly he’s adjusting and how they need him to stay away.

He just wanted to be less alone, but he’s just pushing everyone away again. Too loud, too big, too much. Just like Alyx.

“Hey Arc, what’s with the moping?” Jaune jumps, whirls around, and blinks back into awareness. He’s in a courtyard dappled with the warm tones of sunset (Wasn’t it midday? How much time did he lose?), one of the few places in the city with plantlife. And there, glaring at him from under a palm tree, is Emerald.

He stares at her. She stares back. He can’t tell if she’s giving him time to calm down (stupid crying, stupid trauma, why won’t his lungs just work right) or if she just refuses to ask the question again.

Eventually his breathing steadies as much as it’s going to, and his panic begins to ebb. She’s still just staring at him.

His brain catches up. Right, she asked him a question.

“I’m not-” He swallows. No more bottling things up. He tried that already, and look where it got him. A bowl full of poison and a lake full of tattered paper. “I think everyone is mad at me. I think… I think they’re all just psyching themselves up to tell me that they’re… that they hate me.” Jaune admits, voice getting more quiet as he goes. And wow, he really must be hard up for people to talk to if he’s telling Emerald this.

She scoffs, rolling her eyes. “What? No. No they’re not.”

Jaune blinks, taken aback by her immediate response. “They’re not? But… but they’ve been avoiding me all week! Saying they don’t need me and that they want me to stay away! I just heard Nora, and she said-”

“They don’t hate you, trust me,” Emerald assures, cutting off his increasingly panicked rambling. And somehow, she sounds so sure of herself that he can’t help but trust her. “I don’t think they can hate you. Believe me, I’ve tried, and you’re annoyingly likeable. It sucks.”

“But if they don’t hate me then…” The words won’t come. Why are they avoiding him? Why are they working on something while deliberately not including him? Why do they want him to stay away?

The bewilderment must be plain on his face because Emerald sighs and stands. She mutters something under her breath that sounds like “those idiots can’t even…” but he doesn’t catch the rest.

“Gods damn puppy eyes. They’re just planning a… wait. Actually-” Emerald pulls out her Scroll. Jaune can’t see who she dials, but whoever it is picks up immediately. “Hey it’s me. Yeah. Yeah I know you’re busy but- Yeah I know you’re almost out of time-”

At this, Emerald glances at the sky for some reason and Jaune automatically follows her gaze. The sun is dipping behind the roof of the building, sending cool shadows across the courtyard. Jaune winces, reminded of the time he lost. How long was he wandering around the halls of Shade before he stumbled across Emerald?

“Yeah I know, I KNOW! Listen, Arc’s-” She gets cut off again, clearly growing more and more irritated. It’s probably Yang then, or Ruby. “Will you just shut up and listen?! Arc’s here! He’s here with me, so you can tell the rest of the idiot squad to stop worrying! He’s right here!” Jaune perks up. They were worried about him? But…

“He wandered past me after overhearing one of you… No he still doesn’t know, somehow, but he showed up freaking out and VERY disassociating and I had to calm him down! So if you don’t want a full meltdown on your hands, one of you get over here and get this show on the road, because I swear I am not equipped to deal with Jaune crying.”

Jaune. She called him Jaune.

And earlier she said she doesn’t hate him.

And if she doesn’t hate him then… then maybe she wasn’t lying about the rest of his friends not hating him. It feels like there’s a happy balloon swelling in his chest, and gods dammit he’s starting to cry again.

Stupid high strung emotions, stupid post-meltdown crying, stupid heart caring so stupid much.

Emerald catches his eye and she winces. “Ah shit um… No everything’s fine, Arc’s just crying again. No I think it’s good tears this time, he’s got this big dopey smile on his face. Yeah. Yeah that’s the one. Can one of you get over here now? We’re in the garden off of our room. No the other one. See ya.”

She sighs and tucks her Scroll back in her pocket. “Ruby should be here any second.” Jaune beams at her. She squints at him. “What.”

He shrugs. “You’re a good friend.”

Emerald scoffs, folding her arms and looking away. “Yeah, whatever.”

There’s a burst of rose petals and Ruby materializes next to them. She’s speaking before her feet touch the ground! “-so sorry! Jaune! Oh gods we’ve been looking for you everywhere! Come on, the others are waiting-”

“You have? They are?? Wait what are-” Before he knows what’s happening, Ruby has wrapped herself, himself, and a reluctant Emerald up in her cape. “-you talking about?” Jaune says as soon as they land. And then the nausea hits.

“Oh crap, I forgot! Sorry…” Ruby apologizes, patting his back as he doubles over, breathing shallowly and leaning heavily on hands resting on shaky knees. “You okay?”

“Better than ever,” Jaune replies, chuckling weakly. “Just warn me next time. Please. Airships are bad enough but that was…”

“Horrible??!” Emerald interrupts, looking thoroughly ruffled.

“Intense,” he concludes, straightening with a shudder. They’re standing outside of an unused classroom, the same one as before. But then… why did Weiss and Ruby leave?

“Well? Go inside!” Ruby prods, bouncing next to the door.

Again, weird. But again, he’s no longer a great judge of what’s weird. So Jaune just opens the door and-

-and is immediately hit with a wall of sound comparable to a bomb going off.

They’re all lucky his sword is back in the dorm, or they’d all be nursing a few gashes. As it is, it takes an embarrassingly long amount of time for Jaune to realize he’s not under attack, and that all the yelling is just…

Birthday wishes? Is this a surprise party?

“Is this… for me?” Jaune asks, once his voice finds its way back to his throat.

“Of course it is, we’ve been planning this all week!” Yang hollers, from where she’s standing next to Blake and a pile of haphazardly wrapped presents.

“We wanted it to be a surprise,” Blake shrugs, looking sheepish. “Guess we took the secrecy a bit too far.”

“We didn’t mean to make you worry!” Nora apologizes, from beside the biggest cake Jaune’s ever seen. “I think you might’ve overheard me and Oscar talking earlier and-”

Everything slots into place. The whispering, the planning, wanting to keep him away, not including him in the process, Ren’s key involvement (That cake could only have been made by him), wanting to help him adjust. It was all just them doing… this.

There’s a pile of presents, each wrapped individually and labeled with Yang’s scrawl and Blake’s tidy printing. A banner hangs overhead with “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!” written on it in block letters, and the last few letters of birthday are all smushed at the end. The cake is iced yellow with the double crescents of the Arc crest emblazoned at the top.

And his friends. His friends. All working together for a week to do this, for him, and he can feel his heart tight in his chest, and gods dammit here come the water works. How could ever think they hate him while they were doing this for him??

His friends are alls taring at him anxiously, and he realizes they think he doesn’t like it.

“I love you guys,” he sobs, and holds his arms out for a hug.

They all surge forward and sink to the floor. Oscar tucks himself under one arm, Ruby under the other. Weiss, Blake, and Ren curl around his sides. And on top of it all he can feel Yang and Nora’s exuberance.

They don’t hate him. They don’t hate him. Gods, how could he ever think they hate him?

In the middle of the hug huddle (Hud? Huggle?) Jaune frowns. “Wait… is it my birthday?” he asks nobody in particular.

He can feel someone adjust against his chest. “Course it is,” he feels Oscar’s voice hum through him. The pod loosens so his baby brother can look up at him, and Jaune ducks to avoid his discerning gaze.

“I…” Jaune swallows, and finds that he’s looking right at Ruby. She looks gentle, understanding, and when he glances around he sees the same warmth on all of his friends’ faces. He swallows. No more bottling things up. “I forgot,” he admits.

“You forgot it’s today?” Emerald asks, and of course, she’s sitting cross-legged just outside of the slowly detaching hug pile.

“I forgot it entirely,” he says quietly, and he feels Oscar tuck into his side, and Jaune wraps an arm around him without even looking. “There wasn’t any reliable way to count days after so long, and even if there was… the days just weren’t consistent.” Time flowing away like sand in a shattered hourglass. Days that last minutes, nights that last days, days that last months, nights that last seconds. He shrugs. “So I just… forgot. I forgot a lot of things.”

“You didn’t forget us,” Nora reminds him, thudding her head down on his shoulder.

“I couldn’t let myself,” he says. “You guys…” Jaune takes the time to look them all in the eye. “Knowing I’d eventually get back to you all is all that kept me going.”

“Well, if you forget again, if you fall again… we’ll catch you,” Ruby says simply. “Me, Ren, Nora, all of us. And if that’s not enough, and you forget, and you lose yourself…” She swallows, and Jaune’s suddenly quite certain that he’s not the only one on the verge of tears. “Then we’ll just find you and show you who you are.”

“A million bajillion times,” Nora agrees, muffled against his chest.

“As many times as it takes,” Ren nods, and the others all murmur their assent. And Jaune’s heart swells with love for these people who have walked through hell, and who he would walk through hell for, and who would walk through hell for him.

The presents could be bricks and the cake could be sawdust and he wouldn’t care. This, these friends holding him in their arms… this is the only thing he could have ever wanted for a birthday he forgot but they remembered.

Love.

#rwby #jaune arc #ruby rose #nora valkyrie #oscar pine #emerald sustrai #weiss schnee #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #mine #asks #my writing #anonymous #healing rust au

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