Jaune wasn't overly surprised when his team came around immediately after breakfast to check on him. Blake must have told them in the cafeteria about her meeting with and taking him to the infirmary, and they looked worried. More worried than they needed to in all honesty. He did his best to assure them everything was fine and that they needn't worry, but he could tell they did anyway. On the bright side, they'd brought him some food from the kitchens. Aura drained or not, he was still ravenously hungry.

"Yang suggested it," said Pyrrha, unable to take any credit when it wasn't fully due. "We were all too worried to think straight, but she said we should bring you some food to cheer you up."

"That was good of her," said Jaune, picking at his bacon. "And you don't need to worry, I'm fine. Doctor Oobleck just thinks my aura is using itself up to fight off an infection. I'm not sick or at any risk. I'm just tired and not good to train today."

"We'll still worry," said Nora. "You're our fearless team leader."

"You should have woken one of us up if you didn't feel well," added Pyrrha.

"It wasn't that I planned to come here or anything." Jaune sighed and set his fork down. "I just wanted a walk to clear my head and Blake was doing the same. It was her who dragged me here and handed me off."

Not much had happened during that. Blake had been quiet. Troubled. He doubted he would have been able to tell if not for knowing what her nightmare had involved, but with that added context her silence made all too much sense. He knew she was happy to take him to the infirmary if only because it gave her an excuse to stay awake and escape her nightmares. A nightmare he had made worse despite his efforts to the contrary.

"If there's anything we can do..." suggested Pyrrha.

"You can take this sick note to the teachers so I don't get in trouble." He handed one over, signed by Oobleck. "Miss Goodwitch almost bit my head off when she found out I was sick before. I think I've got a get out of detention free card from her."

Ren smirked. "I wouldn't test that if I were you."

"Tell me about it." He heard the bell sound. "You should head off. I'll be fine."

"We'll see you later," promised Pyrrha.

He watched them go and then settled back. The pillow was soft and inviting, and it had been for a few hours now. He'd kept himself awake however, afraid to fall asleep with others likely sleeping around Beacon. Now with lessons started he felt safe in closing his eyes.

/-/

If he did dream then he didn't remember it – and that was likely a good sign. He woke again hours later, a little more rested though still slightly out of it. He opened his eyes with a yawn, refreshed but still tired. The infirmary was brightly lit as it always was, but the seat next to him was not empty as it ought to have been. He expected his teammates again but was surprised to see it was a dark-haired girl with an open book in her hands, one leg crossed over the other as she read.

"Blake...?"

Her bow twitched. He didn't think he'd have seen it if he wasn't paying attention. "You're awake," she said, lowering her book. "How are you feeling?"

"Uh. Fine. Well, better." He checked his scroll, which lay on his bed. "I'm at ninety-five per cent aura, so I think I'm good." He couldn't help it. "Why are you here?"

Luckily, she didn't take any offence. "Because Yang and Ruby dragged Weiss and I here, and then the three of them proved incapable of staying quiet and got thrown out by the doctor." There was a slight curl to her lips, and he could just tell it was another argument between Yang, Ruby and Weiss. Those happened all the time. "As the only one capable of keeping my mouth shut around an injured person, I was allowed to stay."

"Being made to sit there while I sleep doesn't feel like a reward."

"I get to read in peace and quiet during my lunch hour. That works for me. You were a good conversationalist as well."

"But I was-" He caught her point and groaned. He'd been unconscious and thus silent. "Very funny. Pick on the sick man. It's cool."

Blake was smirking somewhat. He'd always found her little sarcastic quips funny if he was being honest, but that didn't mean they were close. Far from it. If Yang was the sister of his friend then Blake was the friend of the sister of his friend. About as far into the "acquaintance" category as you could get without being some random on the street. They knew one another by face and name and he might say "hi" and she might nod back, but that was about it. This and last night were honestly some of the longest conversations he'd ever had with her.

"I'm kind of surprised it's you four and not my team visiting me. Not that Nora would have lasted any longer before being kicked out."

"They're planning on coming this afternoon," said Blake. "Ruby begged for a chance for us to visit. It wasn't my idea."

"And definitely not Wiess', I bet."

Blake smiled faintly. "Do you actually want the answer to that one?"

"I don't think I need it. What are her and Ruby fighting about this time? I thought the whole leadership drama was behind them."

"Homework, poor grades and expectations. Ruby scored poorly on a test and Weiss believes she should be studying instead of wasting time visiting you. Ruby disagrees, naturally, and Yang is firmly on her sister's side."

"And you?"

"I didn't have anything better to do."

Other than hunt him down and kill him in a dream. Jaune still couldn't quite get that out his head even though she was smirking beside his bed now. He could remember the horrified look in her eyes when she realised she'd run him through. He could still feel the stinging in his chest as a phantom pain. It tainted the conversation, turned his thoughts dark, and left him even more awkward than he would have otherwise been.

"So..."

"So..." echoed Blake, shifting and uncrossing her legs. It didn't look like she felt much better. "I brought you food from the cafeteria."

He perked up. "You did!?"

"Yang and Ruby did," she corrected, picking up the neatly wrapped bundle. He imagined the kitchen staff had wrapped it up for them. "They left it with me when they made their reluctant exit. I'm told the food here leaves something to be desired."

"Taste for the most part. Texture, too, unless you like your food feeling like plastic, in which case it's great." He hungrily took the tray and opened it up, groaning happily at the sight of chicken nuggets with fries, and a little packet of hot sauce. Unhealthy food. Bad food. The best kind of food in his humble opinion. "Thank you so much!"

"It's not even..." Blake sighed and rolled her eyes. "I've heard it said the way to a man's heart is through his stomach. I never thought it'd be this literal."

"Or you could stab them through their chest."

The words slipped out without thought. Jaune stared down at the chicken nuggets helplessly.

"W... What...?" croaked Blake.

She looked frightened.

Guilty.

Afraid.

"It was a bad joke," said Jaune, laughing weakly. "A really bad joke. Sorry, I don't do good humour when I'm sick. That came out a lot less funny than it was in my head."

"R-Right. I can tell." Blake laughed, but it was awkward and stilted. It wasn't hard to tell he'd killed the mood. Run it through just as she had him. "It's getting on," she said, standing. "I'd best leave you to eat and recover. Ruby wishes you her best. Yang, too," she added, thoughtfully. "I didn't realise the two of you were so close."

"Uh. I think I'm a default friend because of Ruby."

"Probably. I'll leave you to it." Blake moved stiffly to the door. She turned back to smile faintly and wave at him, but the speed at which she slid out the door told him she wanted to be anywhere else. He slapped a hand to his forehead when she'd gone.

"Me and my big mouth." With a sigh, he looked down at his nuggets. "You guys won't judge me for being an idiot, will you?"

The nuggets had no mouths with which to respond, and probably would have screamed "don't eat me!" if they did. Unluckily for them, he wasn't feeling too merciful on that front, and scarfed them down before rolling over to take another nap.

/-/

His team came and spent an hour and a half with him after lessons before Doctor Oobleck arrived and informed them that he would be staying the night in the infirmary "just in case" and that he needed to have a word with Jaune in private. The three reluctantly left, promising to come back right before breakfast to see if he was alright, and then it was just the two of them.

"So," said Oobleck. "What went wrong?"

Jaune kept Blake's name and the specific nature of her dream out the conversation, instead telling him how he'd been in someone's nightmare, and that said someone had, when he tried to intervene, accidentally killed him. Instead of specific faces or events, he gave Oobleck a watered-down depiction of a slasher movie style nightmare, which wasn't too inaccurate all things considered.

"Do you think I take the damage from dreams in real life?" asked Jaune when he was done.

"No." Oobleck's answer was immediate. "Not at all. It's fictional, Mr Arc. Dreams are not real. I think what you've experienced is a hypnic jerk. Or something similar. Tell me, have you ever had an experience where you dream that you stumble or are falling, and you suddenly wake up kicking one leg to steady yourself?"

He had. It wasn't a common thing, but it was enough so that he could remember one or two instances of it. In one case he could even distantly remember he'd been dreaming at the same time. It was weird that he could remember the dream, and also how banal it was. He'd literally dreamed that he was stepping down a single step, and that he tripped. Then he woke up with his left leg jerking so hard he kicked the footboard of his bed. "I've felt that."

"That's called a hypnic jerk. It's perfectly normal – seven in ten people experience them. I believe the leading theory is that they occur when the mind dreams but the body has not yet entered the final stage of sleep, which is where the body becomes paralysed. As such, you are still able to move your body, and your leg kicks out in response to an imagined stimulus, as it would if you were awake and tripped. Here, you experienced a catastrophic wound to your abdomen and your body – or in this case, your aura – responded as it's been trained to. I wouldn't be surprised if you were practically glowing with it in your sleep."

"So, I burned off aura while asleep without realising it because it was trying to shield me from an attack I imagined to be real?" It wasn't the worst idea and it made sense, so he was content to believe it for now. If he really had taken damage from the dream then it probably would have been a lot heavier than some drained aura. "I guess there's no way to train myself out of that?"

"You would not want to. Having your aura react instinctively is a boon to a huntsman. You need it. Yes, it's a frustration now, but I'd rather you learn to control your dream hopping than turn off your automatic defences. One doesn't wake up from a Grimm's claw through the chest as easily as one does a nightmare."

"That's fair. Any advice, then? I feel like I made their dream worse."

"You might have. That's something that's going to unfortunately happen. We don't always succeed in life, certainly not on the first try. At least the stakes here aren't so high. At worst, you've led to someone losing a little sleep. Hardly world ending. You'll get better in time, I'm sure. Practice makes perfect."

And he was going to get plenty of practice. He couldn't stop this happening and he couldn't become nocturnal just because he was afraid of seeing something he shouldn't. "Any advice on what I can do next time I'm in a slasher nightmare, then?"

"Never having been in such myself, I can't say," said Oobleck. "Off the top of my head I'd keep in mind that the nightmare is aimed at the dreamer. You've already discovered that they serve as the epicentre of any dream, but you must keep in mind that the nightmare's purpose is to... well, haunt them. Nightmares aren't greatly understood. Simply put, you should be prepared for the dream to take strange and unusual turns that will all be justified so long as it hurts the victim. In this case, they clearly didn't want to harm you but the nightmare made them. I'd try to intervene more subtly in the future. Placing yourself in the thick of the action rather obviously put you in harm's way. Though I admit that's easy to say in hindsight."

"So, I should have shot the bad guys with a gun?"

"Maybe. Maybe not. What if the person you shot transformed into a loved one of theirs at the last second and you killed them? That would cause them distress. Perhaps you could have made yourself a victim but turned your body to rubber so they could not kill you. Draw the monster's attention and keep it while turning its efforts at frightening the victim into a comedy of sorts. I think..." He paused, hummed, and then continued. "I think that if you're determined to try and help someone having a nightmare then you may need to find a way to lessen its impact. That's not going to be easy unless you know the person deeply. I'd start by trying to decipher why and how the nightmare is targeting them. And in a more specific manner than just saying it's a slasher movie. Why is this person afraid of the slasher? What does it represent? What fear is it targeting?"

How and why. It wasn't hard to look deeper into Blake's and say it was targeting her teammates to make her feel worse. That was easy with hindsight, as Oobleck had said. Discovering that in the heat of the moment wouldn't have been nearly as simple. I think I did the right thing stopping her from catching Ruby and having Blake kill her. I guess I went wrong when I pulled those people off her. It put me on top of her, which startled her.

In a way, he'd done better with Yang. That wagon with its macabre contents had been a thinly veiled attempt to terrify and shock her, and rather than fight it he'd simply ignored it. But her nightmare had been a lot tamer as well. Being stood up by your friends was a miserable experience, but it wasn't quite as miserable as hunting your friends through an abattoir and hanging them on meat hooks.

I feel like I've played a game about that. Maybe I should have crouched rapidly or clicked a flashlight over and over to make her lose her temper and go after me. Amusing as the thought was, their dreams weren't a game and there were no clearly defined rules on how he could win.

"I suggest you sleep normally tonight," said Oobleck. "It might be tempting to try and stay awake and avoid the dreams, but that won't serve you in the long run. Address the problem, face it head on, and come out the other side wiser. Good luck, Mr Arc."

"And pleasant dreams?"

The teacher chuckled. "If you can manage it."

/-/

He was in a house he didn't recognise.

It was a nice house, he supposed. He was on the upper landing balcony overlooking a staircase and the downstairs living room, on a narrow walkway with doors on the left and ahead, turning to where the stairs went down. There were pictures on the wall but they were blurry and indistinct, which didn't let him figure out who he was dealing with. Since he assumed most of his friends had at least grown up at one point or another in a house, it could be any of them.

There was a sound behind him and he turned to see a door creak open. The thin beam of dim light from within was broken by two elongated ears that poked their way out, following be an adorably small head of fuzzy brown hair. It was no one from Team RWBY or Team JNPR, but instead a young faunus girl. He thought he recognised her from Beacon, but only as someone he'd walked by once or twice in the hallways.

I thought Oobleck said I'd only be able to get into the dreams of close friends or associates. I don't think I've ever said a word to this girl.

And she was a child. Again. It was becoming a theme of sorts, and probably represented vulnerability of weakness. First Yang and now... well, he didn't know what her name was. And apparently, she didn't know what his was either, because she looked up at him with big, soulful brown eyes and asked, "Who are you...?"

"I'm..."

He didn't answer. Was it safe to give his name in a dream? Did she even want it? She was dreaming of what he assumed was her house, and her time as a young girl of maybe eight or nine, and he was a stranger in her hallway late at night. The question might be less "what's your name" and more "what are you doing in my house". He decided to play it safe and go with the hope she'd believe whatever she saw or heard in the dream.

"I'm the babysitter."

The girl blinked and opened the door just a crack more. She was wearing cream-coloured pyjamas with little orange carrots dotted across it. Her feet were bare and ridiculously small, as were her hands, all but swallowed by her baggy sleeves. "Mmm. I'm Velvet."

"Nice to meet you, Velvet. I'm Jaune. Your parents hired me."

"Mommy did?"

"Yes." He hoped the lie would stick. A more aware person might ask why he'd been hired or not introduced, or why she should believe him, or why she needed a babysitter who only showed up after she'd gone to bed. Most people weren't that aware of "plot holes" in dreams, however.

It looked like Velvet was the same, as she just nodded her head.

"What are you doing up so late?" asked Jaune, kneeling down. He'd never babysat anyone except his youngest sister, but some of his elder siblings had held babysitting jobs across Ansel, and they'd looked after him when his mom and dad needed a break. He mimicked them now. "Are you hungry? Could you not sleep?"

Velvet shook her head to the first and nodded timidly to the second. "I had a bad dream and wanted to sleep with mommy."

Did kids of almost ten years sleep with their mothers? He couldn't remember, and he supposed it didn't matter. The dream might be playing up her immaturity or making her act out of character, and for all he knew she might still have the mental faculties of her real age.

That was when he heard it. The thump.

It was a muffled sound that continued on again and again along with what sounded like incredibly muted music. The fact it started with zero warning and zero lead up had him sure it hadn't existed a second ago. It had literally just spawned in like a mob in a video game. Velvet looked past his legs with her finger held to her lips. "Is that mommy? It's coming from mommy's room." Giggling suddenly, she ducked around him and went for the door. "Mommy, I had a nightma-"

Jaune scooped her up with his hands under her armpits, brought her back around and set her down again in front of him. Velvet's ears tickled his nose as he did. The girl looked confused, but not overly alarmed. Not like him. Dark home, sounds from mother's bedroom, all the horrible things he'd witnessed in Yang and Blake's dreams. Yeah, he wasn't about to let Velvet run in there on her own as a small and vulnerable child. This was exactly what Oobleck had meant about reading the signs and figuring stuff out ahead of time.

"Why don't you let me have a look first? It could be a wild animal that broke in. Your mom would have my head if I let you get hurt when I'm supposed to be looking after you. You wait here and I'll take a look. Okay?"

The girl blinked owlishly and nodded. "Okay."

Cool. Nice. Cooperation. He breathed a sigh of relief and backed up, keeping an eye on Velvet just to make sure she didn't come after him for one reason or another. The sound of music and banging was louder now, and light was streaming from under the frame of the door. This is a dream and I'm not real here, thought Jaune, nervously. There was nothing he could open the door to that could actually hurt him. He was in no danger. No danger at all. Placing his hand on the handle, he pushed it down and cracked the door open just a little.

What he saw was...

Not what he expected.

It was not horror – not even close – but he supposed it would be horrifying to a girl Velvet's age, or to any child witnessing their parents going at it. Jaune had poked his head into a very loud, very raw and very heavy scene of a man and a woman having sex.

His brain fizzled out.

"Holy shit", was his first thought, followed by, "This is really detailed for a dream" and "I shouldn't be watching" and "Is that Velvet?" and finally "No, it's older. It probably is her mother."

By that point he'd stood there and watched for what felt like a minute, watching shamelessly – or shamefully – as a full-bodied older woman who must have been Velvet's mother stood on all fours on her bed, in front of a huge, dark-skinned man who had her faunus ears gripped in his hands and pulled back harshly. Not violently. Well, yes violently, but more the kind of violence that had tags on certain websites that Jaune definitely had not visited in his bedroom late at night back home, and not domestic abuse kind of violent. Simply put, they were fucking. And they were fucking hard. Sweaty, loud, music blaring, bed rocking, bodies jiggling, mouth open, gasping.

I should really look away...

Science dictated he not. Yes. Science. This was to understand his Semblance better. That was totally it. This, he postulated while watching, must have been a memory from Velvet's youth. It was in such detail that he couldn't think she'd just imagined it up, not unless she was into her mother and father going at it. Instead, he realised this was probably just what it seemed; a young girl having a nightmare, wanting to go sleep with her parents and instead coming upon them in a scene of gratuitous lovemaking that scarred her young mind and probably led to all kinds of embarrassing conversations at breakfast the next morning. He'd never experienced it himself, but he knew Saphron had and she and their parents still went bright red whenever it was brought up. He supposed he was lucky that, after a bunch of children, his parents had gotten skilled at finding moments to go at one another without their many kids having to experience it.

Still, the current scene was almost enough to make him laugh. Sure, it was an embarrassing and likely horrifying dream for Velvet, but it wasn't really a nightmare. Or, well, not of the horrible hunted by monsters kind. Or the deep seated trauma variety. Thank goodness. He'd had enough nightmare for one week, and it made sense that dreams would be varied.

At least this was an embarrassing dream and not a traumatic one-

"-and cut," said another voice in the room, cutting through Jaune's thoughts and his assumptions that this was her mother and father. The man that walked into view had a camera in his hand. He had the dispirited and tired look of a man doing a job and not entirely enjoying it. Then, suddenly, both Velvet's mother and maybe-not-Velvet's father looked the same way. "We need a better angle for the money shot. Can you bend her over backwards, Roger?"

"Do we have to?" whined the woman, panting heavily. Her face was pinched. "It hurts – and can you let go of my ears already? It feels like you're pulling them out my head."

The man with the camera sighed and pulled the cigarette out his mouth. "Look, the fans want what they want, and what they want to see is a faunus housewife broken into a mindless-"

The woman's eyes met Jaune's suddenly. He froze, as did she. "V... Velvet...?" she croaked, horrified. It wasn't, but then it probably had been. In the past. Velvet had stood where Jaune was now and seen this very scene. There were tears in the woman's eyes. "V-Velvet, please. Mommy can explain!"

He slammed the door shut.

Well...

Shit.

"Well," said Jaune, slowly. "Fuck me and my wishes for a normal, non-traumatic dream." The door didn't try and open, so he imagined there was no more to it. The sounds within had faded too. "And there goes my not streak of not finding out deeply personal and terrible secrets from people that would never have trusted me with them."

"Mr. Jaune?" asked the adorable little girl, shuffling coldly in the dark. "Is mommy there?"

Right. Velvet. Babysitting. Honestly, that was probably for the best. Focus on that and get away from what he'd just seen. "It was a stereo left on," he lied, strolling back to her. It was hard not to pity her, or pity her mother, but he decided that treating someone different because of what you saw in their head when they were sleeping was a piss poor way to be a good person. He'd just do his best to ignore it. "Your mom has gone out tonight, which is why she hired me to look after you." He placed a hand on her shoulder and steered her away from her mother's bedroom. Far away. "Why don't we go watch some TV if you're not feeling sleepy?"

"It's past my bedtime."

"I won't tell your mom if you don't."

The girl's eyes lit up. "Okay!"

The house was fully imagined aside from the photos on the walls, which was probably because she'd grown up here. The downstairs was small and cosy with a living room, a kitchen and what he assumed was a pantry or bathroom. Velvet scurried to the TV and started babbling about her collection of children's movies, quickly diving into her favourites and talking while her long ears bobbed above her.

"Have you picked a movie?"

"Mm! This one."

Velvet pushed it into the machine and then crawled excitedly back to him. He was grateful she took the spot next to him on the couch and not his lap because a) she wasn't actually a child and b) she might remember this in the future. The screen came to life and sure enough, The Happy Faunus began to play. He'd seen it once before, like most kids had, but never really enjoyed it all that much. Velvet dreamt of it with such detail that he had to imagine it was one of her favourites as a kid. Or one she'd watched enough times to memorise every single scene.

Jaune settled in next to her with an arm around the back of the sofa. Sitting in a dream watching a movie with a child version of someone he'd never met was not how he planned to spend the night, but it was a whole lot better than running around an abattoir stopping Blake murdering his friends. He'd take it any day. There was also no way this was going to drain his aura, which was good because it was the weekend tomorrow and he didn't want to spend it catching up on sleep.

The front door handle rattled briefly.

Velvet perked up. "Mommy?"

"Maybe," said Jaune, standing. "You stay and watch your movie. Okay? I'll check."

He was in a routine now – and it seemed like a winner. He'd go and check anything the dream threw up and keep Velvet away from it if it was bad. If dreams were personal and subjective then it made sense what was traumatic to one person wouldn't be to him. Okay, Blake's hadn't worked that way, but if this was about scaring a child then he figured he'd be okay. Jaune peeked through the eyehole in the door and didn't see anyone, so he opened it and made to step outside, only to see something small sat on the doorstep.

It was a doll.

A wooden, smiling doll with raggedy red hair and spindly limbs.

And a knife.

"No," said Jaune, voice flat and unimpressed. "I've seen movies and I still don't know in what world anyone buys a doll like you, let alone lets them into their home." He picked it up, took a step out the door, wheeled his leg back and then dropped, kicking forward and punting the probably possessed doll over the next house and into the hazy darkness that marked the boundary of Velvet's dream. "And don't come back!"

Clapping his hands, he went back inside.

"Was it mommy?" asked Velvet.

"No," replied Jaune, walking back to the living room only to freeze. Velvet was sat on the sofa but standing behind said sofa was a clown. Jaune's left eye twitched. "Hey Velvet, how about I make us some popcorn while you keep watching the movie?"

"Mm'kay!"

The girl giggled and sat back down as Jaune scooted past her, around the sofa, and hooked his arm around the throat of the clown.

He dragged it back, its squeaky shoes honking with every step. Velvet didn't hear it. Inside the kitchen, he wrestled it to the backdoor, opened it and kicked the clown out, then waved a kitchen knife he snatched off the side threateningly when it looked like it wanted to come back in. The clown honked sadly and waddled away.

A second later, the phone attached to the wall began to ring. Velvet instantly poked her little head up past the sofa to look. Jaune hid the knife behind his back and waved, then picked it off the hook while Velvet turned back to the TV.

"Hello little girl," whispered an ominous voice. "Are you all alone...?"

"No," said Jaune. "And I'm not a little girl. I'm a huntsman."

"Oh shit! Wrong number!"

The line beeped.

Hanging the phone back up, he quickly peeked around to see if Velvet was in any danger, then willed a bucket of popcorn into his hand. He came swinging back into the room with that, setting the knife down on the side as he did. Velvet cheered happily and stuck a hand in the bucket when he sat next to her. It wasn't real, but then neither were her taste buds, so she had to imagine everything.

"Mmm! So good!"

"I'm glad. So, Velvet." He eyed the stack of movies by the TV. "I take it you like movies?"

"I love movies!" cheered the little girl. "Mommy takes me to the movies all the time. She's a huntress, and the coolest mom ever, but do you want to know a secret?" Her voice dropped excitedly, and before he could even answer that she said, "Mommy is in movies as well!"

Jaune choked on a popcorn kernel. "Y-Yeah?"

"Mhmhmhm." Velvet bobbed her head. "Mom says it's to pay the bills since daddy went to live and work in Atlas. She won't tell me what movies she's in, but I bet they're the best. I bet everyone loves them and she's super famous."

Out the window, the world was blurry, but he could tell it was Vale because of the distant shapes of buildings. Homes in Vale were expensive to buy or rent; he should know because his father, a huntsman, had been forced to buy a home in Ansel when mom got pregnant with Saphron. Even he hadn't been able to afford the rates in the city. Few could. Ruby and Yang had lived on Patch, Weiss came from rich parents and out of everyone he knew at Beacon, no one actually lived in the city. Not until Velvet.

I guess a single mother would do anything to put food on the table and give her daughter a home, thought Jaune.

It was a dark and unwelcome line of thinking, but it explained a lot. It was also much easier to accept that logic when it was someone else's mother and not your own. If Velvet really had stumbled upon that... Well, it was none of his business. None of his business at all.

"I bet she is," he told her, patting her head between her ears. "And I bet she'll tell you what kinds of movies she's in when you're older. And why she didn't want to tell you when you're this young. Some movies have age ratings, you know? They're not for cute little kids like you."

Like every cute little child, Velvet stuck her lower lip out and pouted furiously. "I'm not a baby!"

"You're not an old woman either."

Jaune turned his head to the side and met the gaze of a man in a white mask with a knife. He stared, glared, and held out his right hand, willing Crocea Mors into existence. The large man looked at his own knife, much smaller, and wisely backed away, back into the bathroom, and closed the door behind him.

Wise. Choice.

"I'm sure your mom just wants you to enjoy being young and carefree while it lasts," continued Jaune. "And she's working both jobs to make sure you get to grow up safe and happy here in Vale. Are you happy? How's school?"

"The teachers are nice but some of the other kids are mean. They pull my ears and say nasty things about mom."

He couldn't tell if she was talking about the school she would have gone to at this age or Beacon. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, or that he deserved to. Velvet was a complete stranger to him, and yet he now knew more than she probably felt comfortable telling anyone. This Semblance really did suck at times.

"Speaking of movies, Velvet," said Jaune, idly watching a zombie lurch past the window. "Have you been sneaking out to watch horror movies without telling your mom?"

The ears wilted. Velvet gulped. "N-No..."

"Velvet..."

"I don't like horror movies! They scare me!"

That explained a lot. It really did. "There aren't any scary movies here, Velvet."

He wrapped an arm around her shoulder and pulled her in to lean on him, away from the creepy black alien peeking up over the other armrest. It never once attacked but seemed determined to wait until she'd seen and been frightened by it. He placed his hand over her face, ostensibly to stroke her hair, but also to shield her eyes to the side. Velvet snuggled into him and continued watching The Happy Faunus.

Well, thought Jaune, as he sat on a couch with a young girl while various movie villains and monsters surrounded them on all sides. It wasn't his first idea of a relaxing night, but it wasn't the worst. Velvet really needed to stop watching so many movies, though. It was going to rot her brain. He wondered if she and her team had actually just been watching a horror movie before they went to bed, sort of a "movie night" on a Friday with her team. It wasn't impossible.

He just wished the stupid possessed doll wasn't back at the window with a knife.

"There's such a thing as too vivid an imagination, Velvet."

"Mm?"

"Nothing," lied Jaune, covering her eyes from anything but the screen again. "Feeling sleepy yet?"

"Mmm. A little."

"You can sleep on me if you want to. I'll keep you safe."

"No nightmares?"

He almost wanted to laugh, seeing as they were already in one.

"No nightmares, Velvet. I promise."

The small girl buried her face in his side and slowly drifted off, unaware of the apocalypse happening right outside her window, or the giant, hundred-foot tall spiders creeping around the house and peering in through the back door.

Jaune kept watch through it all.

/-/

And he woke up smiling.

He'd done it. His aura was at full, his mood even fuller, and he sat up in the hospital bed Saturday morning feeling a whole lot prouder than a guy who just sat on a sofa with the easiest babysitting job in the world ought to.

I did it. I babysat a little girl and she didn't die. I win.

It was more of an achievement than it sounded. He'd taken Oobleck's advice and perfectly applied it to figure out what kind of dream she was experiencing, what kinds of fears they were targeting, and to then subvert and conquer those fears without expending his aura drastically changing the dream. It had still been a nightmare but he'd stopped her from seeing the scary monsters.

Mission complete. Job done. Great success.

His team arrived early and were thrilled to see him not only up and about, but grinning and full of life. He let them check his aura, but even they couldn't argue with the 100% brimming number on his scroll.

"I feel great!" he told them. "Better than great, even! Let's go out into Vale today. Let's do something."

"Maybe catch a movie?" said Pyrrha.

Jaune's entire face spasmed painfully. "Something else." he suggested, teeth gritted.

"Are... Are you okay?" asked Ren.

"I'm starving is what I am. And my body is sore from laying in a bed for two nights and a day combined. I want to move around, not sit in a theatre." His explanation seemed to convince them – which was fortunate since he'd scream bloody murder if he had to sit and watch anymore movies. Nora cheerfully suggested they get a head start on suit and dress fitting for the dance, and then some shopping while they were at it. Shopping, the bane of his life, but right now he didn't care. He was too happy and just wanted to enjoy his day. "I'm in." His stomach growled. "After breakfast, of course."

"Of course!" huffed Nora. "I'm not taking one step outside Beacon without pancakes. What do you think I am, Jauney? Some kind of savage?"

"For a second, I doubted."

"Shame on you!"

"Shame on me!" cried Jaune dramatically. "To breakfast!"

Nora and he chattered loudly and animatedly down to the cafeteria, with Ren chuckling and Pyrrha just looking relieved he was okay. She hung close, never speaking but never looking like she was uncomfortable with the fact. Few people could keep up with Nora anyway, and he wasn't usually among that number. He was just in too good a mood to not play along this time. Team RWBY were there, and he caught a wave from Yang, returning it with a grin of his own before taking to the queue for food. Nora stacked her plate with enough pancakes to kill a man, and soon they were slotting in across from Team RWBY.

"Hey," said Yang. "You look a whole lot more alive today."

"I feel more alive," said Jaune. He set his tray down and pumped his arm. There wasn't much muscle, and certainly none that was visible, but Yang was kind enough not to say it. "I've been cooped up in bed for way too long. I'm in the mood to-"

"Owww! Please!" cried a voice. A familiar voice. "Please, that hurts!"

"See? I told you they were real."

Jaune turned, as did JNPR and RWBY. He knew the second voice as Cardin, and he knew the bully well, much to his frustration. As the weakest guy in class, it made sense he'd be the go-to victim for shoulders in the corridor or a towel whipped across his legs or ass in the changing rooms. He hadn't realised Cardin was picking on other people. He completed his turn to see the man, surrounded by his teammates, pulling on the elongated ears of a pretty girl with brown hair and brown eyes.

And bunny ears, clasped tight in his fist.

"Despicable," hissed Yang.

"Some people-" began Blake. He didn't hear the rest.

The girl looked helpless. It was an expression born of more anguish than just the physical pain of someone gripping her ears tight and belittling her; it was born of shame and guilt, mortification... and also fear. Fear of something she'd seen or experienced before, and fear of people finding out today.

A tear slid down Velvet's cheek – and for a brief instant, he saw her as a child.

Jaune's hand hurt.

It hurt so freaking bad.

He looked down at it, curious to see if he'd dug his own fingernails into his palms or squeezed his spoon so hard he'd hurt himself, only to stare in surprise at the blood smeared across his knuckles instead.

Huh. That's odd. How did that get there?

There was no noise around him save the pounding of his blood between his ears. The entire hall had gone silent. Ominously so. Jaune looked up from his hand to a pair of startled brown eyes that were a whole lot closer than they should have been. Less than three feet away. Jaune looked down again, past his hand, to Cardin's stunned face. The boy lay on his back, his lip split and blood running down his chin. He'd been thrown a full four feet away, and he was clutching his jaw.

Jaune's hand hurt.

Oh, thought Jaune, dumbly. That would explain it...

He was so stunned by his own actions that he didn't react when one of Cardin's teammates swung for him. He didn't have to. Yang came flying through the air to plant a haymaker on the guy's cheek mid-air before he reached Jaune, her hair burning bright yellow and her face split into a manic grin.

"Booyah, bitches!" she roared, landing in a skid as Russel was launched over a table. "Jaune! Vomit-boy!" she crooned delightedly. "I don't know when you became my literal favourite guyfriend in Beacon, but you are so meeting the quota right now. Hells yes!"

He wasn't sure if impressing Yang was a good thing or not but it was too late to argue. He smiled back awkwardly and said, "I guess it's true what they say about blondes having more fun."

Yang had little stars in her eyes.

"You're making me look bad for not stepping in," grumbled Blake, coming up on his other side. "I can't believe we're really doing this before breakfast. Ah." She sighed. "But he does deserve it. I suppose it's not too bad."

He could tell why she'd come up because of the heated and hateful look she sent Cardin. Yeah, she was hiding her ears, which he could only imagine was because she'd faced the same kind of discrimination. It hadn't even crossed his mind when he went for Cardin. Not that anything had. The exact moment between him seeing Velvet cry and him finding Cardin laid out on the ground was a red haze missing from his memory.

Nora appeared last. Probably not for any grand reason other than that something was going down and she didn't want to be left out of it. She even had her stack of pancakes in hand and was quickly polishing them off so she could get involved.

"Four on four," said Yang, grinning wildly. "Even odds. Wanna pull on my ears, Cardin?"

The rest of the cafeteria took one look at the scene and responded appropriately. "FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!"

They never did make it into Vale. And Ren had been right about Jaune's "get out of detention free card" not actually working when he tried to cash it in with an irate Glynda Goodwitch forced to levitate an unconscious Cardin out the cafeteria.

Eh.

Worth it.

Jaune: "I will not let anything I see in a person's dreams affect how I treat them or act around them."

Cardin grabs the ears of the girl he just babysat as a child and makes her almost cry.

Jaune: "So, you have chosen death..."