I usually don't use warnings, but I figure it's fair in this case:

This story will deal with themes of a sexual nature. It also has a chance of getting a bit dark.

This story will not contain explicit scenes.

That is all.

Lonely Nights

Consciousness returned to Blake accompanied by a pounding headache.

She tried to open her eyes but found herself too drowsy to do so. Blake frowned as the smell of alcohol, sweat, and something else hit her nose. The girl turned around in her bed, hoping to escape the smell.

She bumped into something. Someone gasped.

It wasn't her.

Slowly, very slowly, Blake opened her eyes.

Jaune Arc's very wide, very panicked eyes stared right back at her.

Time stopped. The two teenagers froze as their minds struggled to comprehend the situation. For a moment, there was silence, utterly perfect stillness. However, it could not last forever. Time resumed with pulling, pushing, and half-finished sounds that never got the chance to become words. Someone screamed like a little girl. Blake was pretty sure it wasn't her.

At some point during the chaos, Blake realized that not only was Jaune naked but so was she. Jaune seemed to realize it at the same time as she did because his face turned as red as his partner's hair.

"Wait!" Blake said at last. By then, Jaune was on the floor with only a pillow protecting his modesty while Blake was on the bed with her back against the wall, a lone sheet held against her naked chest.

"Wait," she repeated before anything else could happen. She took a deep breath. "Let's calm down and think for a second."

Jaune did, or at least, he stopped moving. He still very much looked like a cornered animal about to run at any second. Regardless, some semblance of peace returning to the room gave Blake the opportunity to take in all the details she hadn't noticed before.

For one, she wasn't in her room back at Beacon. There were no bunk beds anywhere to be found, no rose petals littering the floor, and none of those posters Yang liked to put up. Instead, Blake was in a plain room with one bed and one bathroom, most likely a motel of some kind.

Her body was sweaty and sore in various places.

She and Jaune were naked.

Had she… had they… Blake clenched her eyes shut and reminded herself to breathe.

"What happened?"

Blake was not expecting Jaune to answer, but he did anyway.

"T-There…there was a party, I think," Jaune said. His eyes were looking at everything in the room but Blake. "We all went out to Vale."

With those words, Blake started to remember.

"Right. Yang came up with the idea."

It was the last weekend before the new semester started. Yang and Ruby had gone to Patch for the break but had returned early. Yang wanted to do something special before classes began, so she had talked them into a night out. The blonde claimed she knew all the best places. It had started out as a Team RWBY activity, but Nora had gotten wind of it. She and Yang had started talking, and the rest was history.

"We went to a club." Jaune was holding his head. "There was dancing. I remember dancing. Then we started to drink."

"I remember," Blake said. As it turned out, Jaune was an amazing dancer. He and Yang had somehow gotten into a dance-off which he had won. Yang had taken a shot of whiskey as punishment. "After that…"

After that, things started to get… weird.

Yang did not hold her liquor well. One shot was all it took for her to start slurring her words and giggling at everything and anything. By itself, that wouldn't have been so bad, but somehow, a drunk Yang Xiao Long was more dangerous than a sober one. Blake still didn't know how she had convinced everyone to drink so much, but she had.

In less than an hour, Weiss was in the middle of a spirited conversation with an empty chair, Jaune was challenging anyone who came close to him to any competition he could think of while looking more confident than Blake had ever seen him, and Ruby was grouchy and calling everyone lightweights. Then…

"We were going back to Beacon," Jaune said, snapping his fingers. "We had way too much to drink, so we had to call a cab."

"Right." Blake nodded. The motion made her a bit woozy. "There was not enough room for all of us. We sent Yang, Ren, Nora, and Ruby first."

"Yeah, we had to call another cab just for the two of us. Then… Then…"

"Thish ish boring!"

"I knooows…Heyyy, woushdn't it be hilarioush if we like… you know!"

"I knowsh!"

The slurred words came unbidden to Blake's mind. She couldn't remember who said what, but she couldn't deny they had been said. Judging by Jaune's wide eyes, he was remembering as well. The question. The answer. The sloppy kisses that followed.

Asking the driver to take them to the nearest motel.

"Oh." The tiny sound escaped Blake's mouth. Her faced burned with mortification. Of course, what else had she been expecting? She should have realized it the moment she noticed their nakedness. What else could that smell be?

They had sex.

Jaune looked as lost as she felt. "I… we…it happened, didn't it? I'm not remembering wrong or anything, right?"

Not trusting herself to speak. Blake nodded. To her surprise, Jaune chuckled. It wasn't a happy sound by any means. If anything, it was surprisingly bitter coming from the leader of Team JNPR. "My first time and I don't even remember it… great."

Blake pulled the bedsheet tighter around her body. "It was my first time too."

"Oh."

While many in the White Fang would be surprised to hear it, her relationship with Adam had never quite progressed to that point. At first, it had been because she was too young. Even though Blake had been willing to cross that threshold with him back then, it was Adam, surprisingly, who had pointed out the importance of waiting for the right time.

By the time Blake fully blossomed into a woman, it had been Adam's growing mental instability that kept them apart as their arguments over his methods became more frequent. Simply put, the right time had never come.

Now, she had her first time with Jaune Arc, someone she knew but rarely talked with. Not a friend or a lover, but an acquaintance. It was preferable to what Adam had become, but still not quite what Blake had been expecting.

An oppressing silence fell on the room as both struggled to process what had happened between them.

"I think," Blake said at last, "that we should pretend this didn't happen. It doesn't need to change anything between us. Anything that happened in this room doesn't need to leave it. It is best if we just forget about it."

There. That was the most practical way to settle this. If what they had done got out of this room, things would only get complicated. Yang would tease them mercilessly. Pyrrha would… Blake didn't want to imagine what she would do.

Besides, it wasn't like she and Jaune were about to start a relationship or anything just because something like this happened. It was just a drunken one-night stand, a silly mistake born from too much alcohol. Nothing more. There was no need to let something like this make things awkward. Jaune should be able to understand that. Blake honestly believed that.

Which was why Blake was completely surprised by the pained look that appeared on Jaune's face.

It took her a few seconds to understand his reaction. When Blake did, she wanted to kick herself. Of course. What guy would like to be asked to keep his first time a secret by the girl he just had sex with? It could easily be interpreted as the girl being ashamed of him.

Even a confident person risked getting his ego bruised, and Jaune was very much not a confident man. Blake knew that much about him. He had probably jumped straight into the worst possible interpretation of her words. Blake opened her mouth to try to explain herself better when Jaune spoke up.

"So, anything that happens in this room, we don't talk about it ever again?" Jaune asked. The use of present tense confused Blake, but still, she nodded.

"Then…" Jaune opened and closed his mouth multiple times, struggling to find the right words. "Does that mean we can talk about what happened last night before we leave this room? I mean, if you want to."

Blake didn't want to. However, she didn't want Jaune taking that the wrong way. "I guess."

"Alright, then…" Jaune's face somehow managed to grow redder. "Did you… I mean… Did I…" Jaune took a deep breath before blurting out, "Did you finish?"

Silence.

Completely and utter silence.

Blake stared at Jaune, unable to believe he had just asked that. Jaune looked like he wanted the ground to swallow him whole.

"Nevermind," Jaune said, quickly shaking his head and immediately wincing. His head probably still hurt from all the drinking. In fact, that was likely the reason why he had even been able to ask that question, Blake reasoned. He was probably still drunk. That had to be it. "Forget it. That was dumb. I-"

"I don't remember," Blake said.

She was obviously also not quite in her right state of mind if she felt the need to answer that.

"Oh." Jaune looked down. "I only asked because… I have seven sisters."

Blake stared. This time for entirely different reasons.

"Yeah, that's usually how people react." Jaune sighed. "What I am getting at is that they talk. I mean, of course, they do. They are people. People talk all the time-"

"Jaune," Blake cut in before he could start rambling.

"Right. Sorry," Jaune said. "When I say talk, I mean they talk about female stuff. Not just make-up and clothes, but things like that time of the month and how their dates went. With way too much detail sometimes." Jaune shuddered. "It's not like they did it on purpose. No sister goes out of her way to tell her brother how she and her boyfriend got to second base."

Blake suddenly felt glad she was an only child. It was a welcome distraction from the situation she was in.

"It's just sometimes they didn't notice I was in the room. They would talk for a while before realizing I was there. Sometimes, I just happened to overhear stuff. I have heard my sisters talking about guys they have been… intimate with more times than I can count. It was all very embarrassing. Not as much as this, though."

Jaune tried to smile at Blake then promptly looked down once he remembered a bedsheet was the only thing covering her body.

"Something that came up a lot during their talks was that many of their boyfriends didn't make them… finish. I heard that complaint again and again. Hearing that sort of thing, I thought to myself I didn't want to be a guy like that, someone who only cared about getting his."

"So that's why you wanted to know," Blake said. It was cold comfort, but at least, Jaune looked more mortified than she felt right now. "Like I said, I don't remember much."

Kisses. Passionate caresses. Clothes being torn off in their haste. Things got blurry after that.

"It's fine," Jaune said. "It doesn't matter."

The dejected look on his face made it clear that it was not fine and that it did matter. Blake struggled to find something to say. Even though she had said they should pretend this never happened, she had a feeling that was not going to happen, not with Jaune being the way he was right now. She needed to make this right somehow, or else it would linger between them. She needed to say something.

"We could… try again."

That was not it.

Drunk. She had to be. She was obviously still drunk, Blake told herself as her mind caught up with the words that had left her lips. There was no way she would ever have said something like that if she was still sober. Maybe it was the dehydration kicking in.

"You know, try to make a good memory out of this."

What was she even saying!

She needed to say something, play it off as a joke. This was not even remotely what she had in mind when she thought she had to make things right.

"Okay."

The lone word left Jaune's mouth. It was weak, more of a gasp than anything else. Still, it made its way around the room just fine. Blake heard it. Jaune heard it. They couldn't deny it had been uttered. Suddenly, it became hard to breathe. Suddenly, Blake became more aware of her and Jaune's nakedness. Their eyes, which had struggled to look at everything in the room but each other, finally met.

His body had grown, Blake realized. Under the hoodie and jeans, Jaune was in the process of turning into lean, toned muscle, muscle which was now exposed to her, only a pillow blocking her view of what was truly important.

Blake unconsciously licked her lips, now all too aware of how naked she was, how the bedsheet that in her nervousness she had pulled tightly around her body did little to conceal her figure. Judging by the sudden intensity of Jaune's gaze, he noticed too.

She should put a stop to this, Blake told herself as her grip on the bedsheet weakened. She should explain to Jaune that this was a horrible idea. There was no possible way this could end well. They barely knew each other. Once this day was over, they would look back and realize how stupid they were being. It would make things horribly awkward.

She didn't.

She didn't say anything as Jaune moved closer to her and she moved closer to him. She didn't say anything as the sheet fully slipped from her fingers, revealing her body to him once more. She didn't say anything as their lips met, tentatively at first then with growing confidence.

They did it two more times that day and a few more after showering which led to another shower. That day, Blake found that Ninjas of Love had not been exaggerating the beneficial effects of Aura on a man's ability to perform.

And she did finish.

xXx

The break was over. The new semester had begun.

Jaune was in the middle of Combat Class.

He jumped back as Cardin's mace came down on him. The boy's double-handed mace had a longer reach than Jaune's sword. Jaune could continue dodging by keeping himself out of Cardin's range but doing so put him too far away to land a hit. It was a difficult situation. To hurt Cardin, Jaune needed to get close. If he got close, Cardin would have him in mace range before he had Cardin in sword range.

Pyrrha had impressed on Jaune the importance of managing your effective range in a fight. He understood the concept, but he was still having trouble putting it into practice. That was fine, Pyrrha had told him. These things took time.

Jaune understood that.

Jaune really didn't want to lose to Cardin.

Cardin wasn't the strongest or the weakest in their year. If anything, he and the rest of Team CRDL were firmly in the middle. In theory, there was no shame in losing to Cardin. However, Cardin was an ass, an ass who had blackmailed him and tried to have Pyrrha stung by bees. Jaune was not about to lose to him ever again.

Sure, Jaune knew that Cardin had trained for much longer than he had. Unlike him, Cardin had probably gone to combat school or received training from his family, probably both. The odds favored Cardin. Jaune knew that.

However, Jaune was feeling pretty good about himself right now.

Before Cardin could go for another blow, Jaune dashed in. Predictably, Cardin's mace came at him again. A loud clang rang through the classroom as Cardin's weapon hit his shield. Jaune managed to brace himself in time to properly receive the blow. Usually, this would be the part where Jaune backed away to get some breathing room. However, he was feeling confident. Instead of moving back, Jaune grunted, put his weight into his shield, and pushed.

It worked. Cardin was forced to take a faltering step back. Jaune took another step forward and managed to hit Cardin in the face with his shield. At that moment, something clicked in Jaune's mind.

He was stronger than Cardin.

Not stronger in the sense of being more skilled. Cardin probably still had him beat there. However, Jaune's large aura reserves granted him a considerable amount of physical toughness. He had never tried to leverage that properly against Cardin or anyone else. He had always gone into a clash expecting to lose… because that was the way it had always been.

Jaune narrowed his eyes. For once, he had the advantage, and he wasn't about to lose it. He took another step, closing the distance. His sword came from behind his shield to slash at Cardin's side. The shield came next, forcing Cardin back yet again.

At such a close range, Cardin could not properly swing his weapon. Maybe if he had some time to gather himself, he could turn the tables. However, Jaune kept pushing him. He kept pressing his advantage, never giving Cardin a moment's rest. Shield bash. Shield bash. Stab. Shield bash. Repeat. Jaune never lost the momentum.

With one last blow from his shield, Cardin fell.

The Aura meters showed Cardin's Aura was in the red. Ms. Goodwitch announced Jaune as the victor a second later.

Clapping and cheers followed, most of them from his team, especially Nora, but some came from Team RWBY and some from students who did not care much for Cardin and enjoyed seeing him put in his place. Jaune smiled sheepishly, proud of his success.

With his head held high, he waved back at his team. For an almost imperceptible instant, his eyes met Blake's. He nodded at her.

The nod she gave him back was small, almost minuscule. Someone else would not have caught it.

But it was there, and that made all the difference.

xXx

Blake was not having a good day. She was not even having a good week.

The new semester had started out well enough for her. Blake's lack of formal education had hurt her performance in some classes during her early months at Beacon, but by now, she had more than gotten used to things.

Then she had seen the news.

Dust theft after Dust theft. The police blamed the White Fang, and after what she had seen at the docks, Blake couldn't deny how likely that was anymore. It was no secret that the White Fang stole Dust. They had done so even when she had been a member. However, they had never gone out of their way to target random small shops before. There was no merit to it.

The White Fang normally targeted SDC stores. It hurt the company that most abused the faunus and gave the White Fang the resources to continue their fight. It was a win-win situation.

This new dynamic. The alliance with a human thief like Torchwick. No matter how much Blake thought about it, it didn't make any sense to her. There was no cause to it. It was nothing but pure, rampant theft.

It was beneath them.

A different person might have been able to ignore such things and focus on living her new life, but not Blake Belladonna. The White Fang was her responsibility. Her father had been High Leader, and she had been complicit in its transformation. There was no way she could ignore this.

Blake had started investigating. Every day, she went over the news. She scoured the web for rumors, no matter how insignificant they may seem. She looked at old newspapers, hoping she could find clues. She drew a map of Vale in her notebook and marked the locations of every major Dust theft since the beginning of the year.

Sometimes, she would stare at the map for hours, trying to find a pattern. Her performance in class suffered as a result. Blake was barely getting enough sleep. Some nights, she didn't get any sleep at all. Even so, she would not stop.

There had to be an explanation. There had to be a reason.

Blake closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her eyes were tired, and she had a headache. Nowadays, it seemed like she always had a headache. She had caught her teammates trading worried glances when they thought she wasn't looking. Luckily, they hadn't tried to interfere yet. They didn't understand how important this was.

She needed to solve this. She needed to figure it out.

Blake stared at the map. Her nails dug into the table.

Why was she having so much trouble with this?

She had been a member of the White Fang for years! She understood the organization better than most, certainly better than Vale's so far unsuccessful law enforcement. She should be more than capable of solving this.

It was the headache. It had to be. It wasn't letting her think straight! All the stress was messing with her head.

Blake took a deep breath. Maybe she did need some sort of break. When was the last time she felt relaxed?

Blake's eyes widened as a multitude of vivid images came to her mind.

No. The raven-haired girl narrowed her eyes. She did not just think about that. It hadn't happened. It had just been a one-time thing. She hadn't been thinking. It could have ruined everything, and they were lucky no one had noticed anything.

Well, almost no one.

Blake grimaced as she recalled what had happened when she returned to Beacon that day.

xXx

It was already afternoon when Blake returned to Beacon. She and Jaune had taken separate bullhead rides just in case. If someone saw them arrive on the same ride, people might start talking. Such was the nature of Beacon.

Upon arriving, Blake went to the communal showers. She had already cleaned herself up at the motel, but it never hurt to be extra careful. She didn't want to go into her room smelling like sex. Ruby and Weiss might not be able to recognize the smell, but she had a feeling Yang might.

Yang was the last person Blake needed knowing about this. Her teammate would never let her live it down.

After her shower, Blake hadn't gone to her room right away. Instead, she had approached it by the window. She might be clean, but there was no hiding she was wearing yesterday's clothes. She needed to go into the room without being seen, grab some clothes, then pretend she hadn't spent the night outside. She'd need to think of a good cover story, but Blake was confident in her ability to do so.

Blake could see Yang through the window. Fortunately, she was snoring and quite loudly at that. Like a ninja of olden times, the faunus snuck in through the window without making a sound. As she made her way inside, Blake heard water coming from the shower. Someone was using it. No matter. She just needed to grab a change of clothes and-

"Hi, Blake."

Blake totally did not hiss like a cat.

The raven-haired girl looked around for the source of the voice. Yang was still asleep. Whoever was in the shower hadn't come out yet. That left…

"Ruby," Blake said, looking up. The girl was sitting in her precariously balanced bunk bed. Her legs dangled in the air. Ruby did not look like someone who had been out drinking last night. She looked sober and hangover free. Her silver eyes stared right at her.

"Crazy night last night, huh?" Ruby said. Blake went through her words dozens of times before concluding there was no hidden trap there.

"Yes, it was really… something." This was fine, Blake told herself. It was just Ruby. She wouldn't jump to all the worst conclusions like Yang. She wouldn't be annoyingly clever like Weiss. She would just be Ruby. Sweet. Innocent. Ruby.

"So how did things go with Jaune?"

Had Blake been drinking anything, she would have spewed it all over the floor. As it was, she was left making a bunch of nonsense sounds, some of which might have been words.

"I… geh… blah… I… what?"

"You and Jaune," Ruby repeated. "You were going to take the same cab and didn't come back last night. I was worried. I left a message in your scroll."

Blake hadn't taken the time to check her scroll yet.

"Look, Ruby, I don't know what you think happened last night, but we were all fairly drunk. It is normal if you don't remember everything and-"

Ruby rolled eyes. "Blake, I remember everything. I don't get drunk. You want drunk? Look at Yang."

Blake did. Even though they had not been quiet, the blonde showed no signs of waking up.

"Yang could never hold her liquor," Ruby said as if ashamed of the fact. "Not like me. I learned everything Uncle Qrow had to teach me." She looked away. "Well, that and my Semblance helps me burn alcohol pretty fast. It helps me burn through a lot of things. It's why I can eat so many cookies. Alcohol doesn't do much for me unless I want it to."

Blake froze. If Ruby had been sober last night that meant…

"So yeah, I remember everything that happened. You and Jaune were the least drunk of the lot, so I thought it was safe to let you guys share a cab while I took care of the others. You didn't come back last night."

"Nothing happened!" Blake said, her amber eyes wide and full of panic.

"I didn't say that. I thought you had fallen asleep on the cab or something. I was worried!"

"Oh."

Ruby's eyes narrowed. "But now I am thinking something did happen."

"Nothing happened."

"Blake." Ruby's gaze softened. "You and Jaune are my friends. You know that. If anything happened-"

"Nothing happened," Blake insisted.

Ruby gave her a long, searching look before sighing. "Fine."

xXx

That had been one of the most uncomfortable moments in Blake's life.

On the plus side, Ruby had made no attempts to bring up the subject again. She also hadn't told anyone else about it. The only change in Ruby's behavior since that talk were the occasional glances she shot Jaune and her, and even those were becoming less and less common.

Beyond that little hiccup, things had not changed much. She and Jaune had not gotten any closer. Really, there was no reason for them to do so. They just had a one-night stand. Nothing more.

Right. It was just a one-night stand she could barely remember. Then the morning after. That part she did remember. Blake blushed. She still couldn't believe they had actually done all that. However, she couldn't deny the experience had not been bad.

It had been awkward at first, but it had grown to be quite… pleasant. Good, even. She had come out of that motel room feeling completely refreshed. It was as if all her stress had vanished.

It was the exact opposite of what she was feeling now.

No. Blake shook her head. She was not going there. She wasn't even considering it. Whatever had possessed her that night was no more. It had happened once, but never again.

She needed to focus on the task at hand. She had no time for stupid ideas. Time she did not spend working on this was time the White Fang used to accomplish their goals. There could be no excuses. No interruptions. No distractions. If Blake had to go through a couple more nights of minimal sleep, then so be it. She needed to solve this.

Her resolve made, Blake went back to her research.

It told her nothing.

The stress kept building.

xXx

Jaune was on his way back to the dorms when a familiar black ribbon wrapped itself around him. He didn't even have time to yell as he was dragged into an empty classroom. A familiar body pressed itself against him. Soft lips made contact with his. A tongue sought entrance into his mouth. Dazed, he let it.

All too soon, the kiss ended.

"Blake!" Her name left his mouth with awe. Her hair was frazzled. Her eyes were bloodshot. Her appearance spoke of sleepless nights. Even so, she was still one of the most beautiful women Jaune had ever seen.

"I've been thinking," Blake said, her breathing heavy from the kiss. "There is really no reason to keep what happened last time a one-time thing. It could be our secret. Outside nothing changes. We don't talk about it. Here, we can continue where we left off. What do you say?"

Jaune considered this.

Like any healthy teenage boy, he didn't need to consider it for long.

"Okay."

AN: And so, it begins. Jaune and Blake are the best bad decision makers in RWBY so this is going to be a bumpy ride.

This fic is not something I'd normally write, so it's going to be a bit of a challenge. However, I really want to take a stab at this.

Readers of The Jaune-Shots will probably feel disappointed that this was the one-shot I decided to turn into a full-length story first. I know plenty of people were interested in Individual System and even Maybe I'm a Lion. However, I decided to start with this one for two reasons. First, as I was writing it, I also ended up doing the outline for the full fic. Second, this is going to be a short story. It's not going to demand as much time from me as something like ID or MIAL would.

Now, here's how this is going to work. I'm going to try to update this fic on a weekly schedule. Never tried that before, but hopefully I'll be able to do it. To the ones who already read this over at The Jaune-Shots, don't worry. You're getting more content soon enough.

See you all next Friday!