Blonde Roast, Part 2

Coco's morning usually started in a fairly standard manner; a cup of coffee from the school café and then off to classes. While this still worked just fine for her weekday classes, on the weekends she found herself wanting something a little more. So, after convincing Fox, Velvet and Yatsuhashi to get out of bed (never a dull moment there), the team would make the journey into Vale.

The coffee shop had taken on an almost reverent quality in Coco's mind and her team knew it; she could go on for days about every problem with every cup of java she drank, but not one of them had ever heard her utter a word of complaint when they went to "The Three Bears." Something kept her coming back and something made her ignore the flaws in the coffee, which she undoubtedly had found no matter how minute they might be.

And every time the team visited, they would spend their time racking their brains trying to figure out what it was. It didn't take long, to be honest.

Jaune never uttered a word to them when he was working, though Velvet did find a message scribbled on her napkin one day, reading simply "Don't tell Pyrrha" in surprisingly effeminate script. True to the mysterious napkin's commands, no member of team CFVY ever mentioned Jaune's career choice to any of the others at Beacon.

So it came to be on another Saturday morning that the team found themselves seated at their regular table next to the window, three chatting idly over their drinks while one participated in conversation only sparsely and shot occasional glances to the bar at the far end of the room. Velvet took a sip of her drink and cleared her throat. When that failed to draw Coco's attention she yawned loudly, making a great show of spreading her arms and bringing them down slowly in Coco's line-of-sight. Unsuccessful again, she looked to her teammates for support but Yatsuhashi merely shrugged. She sighed before she noticed Fox standing and walking slowly to the bar.

The shop was going through a lull between rushes and Fox walked straight to the bar, stopping and gazing at Jaune intently. Back at the table, Coco was snapped back into reality by the sight of her partner at the bar. She looked around as if she was confused about where she was before catching Velvet's eye. The Faunus girl cocked an eyebrow and Coco hastily busied herself draining half of her drink, avoiding Velvet's gaze and watching the interplay at the bar.

Jaune finally seemed to notice Fox and raised an eyebrow inquisitively, but didn't speak. Fox looked at the menu as though lost in thought before casually asking, "So why don't you want your team to know you're working here?"

Jaune sputtered for a moment and looked around the shop. Noticing that no others were paying attention to their conversation except for the rest of team CFVY, he pulled up a pen and napkin and began writing. When he was done he passed the impromptu message to Fox, who read over the words several times.

"Shop owner is mob boss; doesn't know I go to Beacon. Who have you told?"

Fox shrugged. "Nobody," he said, "But I do have another question; why don't you ever speak?"

Again, Jaune took the napkin, flipped it and wrote out another message. "You listen better when you don't talk." Fox shrugged. Couldn't really argue with that, he supposed. Still, it was a little strange to be sitting at the counter, swapping messages with the blonde barista like a couple of schoolchildren. He cocked an eyebrow as he phrased his third question.

"Why do you feel the need to be listening?" and Jaune looked prepared as he took another napkin and prepared to write, but a noise from behind him caused him to start and he hastily crammed the two napkins away, discarding the pen and shooing Fox away.

"I'll explain everything later," he whispered and Fox stood for a moment, dumbfounded that the younger man had actually spoken. When Jaune turned and started listening intently to a giant of a man who had emerged from the backroom he turned and walked back to his table. Coco shot him an irritated look and Fox shrugged it off.

"I just had a few questions," he said, answering her question before she asked it. "Like why he never talks to anyone, even us." Velvet leaned in, her ears twitching.

"So what did he say?" she asked and Fox shrugged again.

"He said that he 'listens better when he doesn't talk.' I was going to ask him what he's listening for, but tall, dark and menacing back there interrupted." He jerked a finger at the big man and the group all looked for a moment before returning their gazes to Fox. "He said he'd explain later, but I don't know what that means."

Coco checked her watch. "In any case," she said with just a touch of disappointment in her voice, "We need to get going. Goodwitch is holding a training session for the new students and I want to see what they can do." The team finished their drinks, left the mugs and a few lien lying on the table and departed. Coco left last, taking a long moment to shoot one last glance over her shoulder at Jaune, still absorbed in his conversation, before following the rest of her team.

When Junior finally went back to the back room Jaune let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. When his boss had emerged, he'd been sure that the big mobster would see him talking to Fox and figure things out. He couldn't have Junior knowing that he was associated with Beacon; he couldn't risk it. He was making more money in this job than he'd made in most of his life (which wasn't saying much; it was his first job) and every cent of it was going toward his tuition for his second year.

Fox's questions had brought about a fresh wave of emotions inside him; guilt at not telling anyone about this, nervousness about his… side activities.

Since he started working at "The Three Bears," he'd become quite curious about what Junior did. He knew that the big man was associated with some kind of criminal element, and that he had plenty of money and power. Jaune's revelation came when he discovered exactly what it was that Junior did for the kingdom's crime syndicates. It gave the old adage "knowledge is power" so much more meaning.

He sold information, which at first had seemed like a pretty stupid occupation to Jaune. Who wanted to buy what they could just figure out for themselves? The more he thought about and researched it though, the more he came to realize that few jobs offered as much lien as information brokering. People were always looking for new ways to come out on top of others, be it through physical, mental or, in this case, informational superiority. Their reasons for wanting to come out on top were myriad and irrelevant; what mattered was that people were willing to pay arms and legs for this information. Jaune had found a bunch of news reports, statistics and articles detailing just how big the business was becoming.

And more interestingly to a struggling collegiate, how big the money was becoming.

He was listening instead of talking because when people were sitting in pairs or trios around their morning cups of coffee, they were surprisingly loose-lipped. For whatever reason, caffeine brought out secrets. They were secrets told quietly, privately, but when you shut your mouth and listened, it didn't matter how quiet they thought they were being. Jaune heard everything in this place, and he was waiting. Biding his time until the day when all that information was more than clutter in the back of his mind.

A day would come, he hoped, when he could see just how much money such information could produce.

That was what he had wanted to tell Fox, but what he was becoming more and more certain he couldn't tell Fox, let alone others who were closer to him. On the one hand, he hated lying to people; nothing in his life had torn him up inside as much as the period of time before he had finally revealed to Pyrrha that his transcripts to Beacon were forged. On the other hand though if they knew the truth, that he was yet again breaking the law to secure his future at Beacon, what would they think of him?

Information brokering was illegal under Vale law and custom, but what choice did he have? Even with the money he was making under Junior as a barista, he'd be hundreds of lien short when the time came to pay up to the school. And he would be damned if he had to go to anyone for financial aid; his parents had little enough to spare and there was no way he could go to his team or team RWBY without admitting what he was really up to.

He was thoroughly stuck between an immoral rock and an illegal hard place, and it didn't seem that things would be getting any easier in the near future.

Sighing, he set about using a rag to absentmindedly clean a few already spotless mugs. His thoughts drifted on to other things: a history assignment he hadn't finished, a few absentminded doodles of Blake and Yang he'd rather never fell into the wrong hands and… and a pair of brown eyes gazing at him from over the rims of a pair of designer glasses.

His mind lingered for a moment there; Coco had been coming in more and more since the place opened. Was it the coffee or something else? He blushed involuntarily to himself at the thought and shook his head. No, it was probably just the coffee. Why would it be anyone else— Er, anything else. Besides, he didn't have time to get into the kind of trouble something like that could bring on… His mind disliked his attempts to get off the subject though, and he subconsciously let his mind wander even further into dangerous waters. His brain conjured images of his friends; Blake and Yang, Ren and Nora… not just partners on the battlefield, but off it as well. Then he thought of Pyrrha…

The bell over the door chimed and he breathed a sigh of relief as he settled himself back into the zone that he entered into whenever work demanded it. He couldn't let himself get burdened down with personal stuff like that; especially when he had so many more pressing issues to contend with. Better to focus on the job at hand.

After all, things were so much simpler when all he had to worry about was burning the grounds.

He closed the door as easily as he could, allowing only a brief moment where the light streamed in from the hallway and lit the inside of his room. He saw the familiar picture then; the same picture he saw every time he snuck in like this. Ren tucked firmly in place at his end of the room, the covers seamless as they lay over his sleeping form. Beside him, Nora snored softly; the complete opposite of her partner. The sheets lay in bundles all around her, mussed up like a dog had jumped into them, run around in circles and then jumped out again, taking half the sheets with it. Her pillow was on the floor next to the door and Jaune picked it up easily, placing it at the foot of her bed and starting slightly when she grunted in her sleep, almost as if she was subconsciously thanking him.

Pyrrha was asleep as well, back turned to him as he sat by his own bed. Somehow, his mind wouldn't allow him to recognize that as coincidence as he stripped out of his casul clothes and donned his pajamas. The blue fabric was soft and comforting as he lay down softly on his bunk, trying not to cause any creaking in the bed's aging springs. He stared up at the ceiling for a long time, knowing he needed to get some sleep but unable to fall into unconsciousness.

He closed his eyes one last time and let all his thoughts coalesce before he addressed every hope and fear crowding his mind at once.

Cross the bridge when you come to it, Jaune, he told himself.

Somehow, it seemed to work. Sleep overtook him and he drifted off into dreamless rest, the room dark and quiet.

It took Pyrrha considerably longer to go back to sleep.

AN -Happy holidays! Sorry this one is a little shorter than the last; this will probably end up being the standard length though. It's much more manageable when you're doing things like waiting for your drunken siblings to sober up so you can make it to midnight mass. In any case…

The feedback I got for the last chapter was huge; you guys are awesome and I'm honestly a little intimidated by the amount of faith and support you all have for me. I'm going to do my best to make sure your trust isn't misplaced as I get into the nitty-gritty of the story stuff with this fic. Speaking of the story, I've set myself a plan for "Blonde Roast." I'll be releasing as it's convenient but expect 1-2 chapters per week, as my schedule allows. I'll bang out as many as I can before school starts up again because things will likely slow down again after that. The story itself will probably take maybe 5-6 chapters more; as much as I'm enjoying this one I have plans for some big things I want to do in future projects, which I want to give you guys a taste of as well.

As Jaune has been teaching us though, sometimes it's best to handle these things as they come up. So, until next time…

Favs, follows, reviews and feedback always appreciated! Thanks for reading!