Chapter Text
They're sitting on Ren and Nora’s tiny couch when the deal is struck.
Whenever Ren and Nora host a party, Jaune and Pyrrha always get the tiny (and ratty) couch. Ren had found it one weekend when he and Pyrrha had gone garage sale hunting. It's a hideous shade of puce with weird stains on the back that are covered up with soft blankets most of the time. It smells different depending on the season too. In fall it smells like pumpkin spice, in the winter like pine needles, and so on and so forth. Pyrrha has no idea how Ren does it, but she loves this couch, and she loves the fact that it’s an unspoken rule that during hang outs she and Jaune get to share it even better.
They’re both well past tipsy, but not quite black out drunk, yet. If Nora and her punch get their way, the two of them will be soon, but right now they’re just happy and comfortable. They’re just talking, while the rest of the party goes on around them. Pyrrha and Jaune are best friends, so they talk a lot, but there’s something different about having a good conversation when you’ve had alcohol. Everything is more open and there’s no second guessing themselves.
Pyrrha likes this too, sitting on this good smelling couch, her body right next to Jaune’s because the couch is so small, just talking, punch that’s twenty percent juice and eighty percent alcohol in her hand.
“I’m just saying,” Jaune tells her, waving his cup around. The punch sloshes dangerously, but somehow none of it spills onto the floor. Which is a good thing, because Nora would absolutely make him lick it up, as per the rules of a party foul. She’s done it before, “love sucks, is all.”
Jaune begins staring off into the distance, thinking about Weiss, Pyrrha knows. His crush on her was huge and legendary, and he’s finally realized that he has absolutely no chance, at all.
“It is,” Pyrrha agrees, thinking about how much she likes this dumb boy, who is kind with a good heart, who always tries his best, and cares more about people than he does about who they are and what they do. “Love is terrible.”
Jaune sighs dramatically. “I don’t know how people find their true love in college, you know? You’re fed this, like, narrative, that you grow up, date people in high school, but find The One in college, and eventually marry them and live the rest of your happily ever after with them. But in reality, life is nothing like that.”
“I knoooooow,” Pyrrha says. Though she wouldn’t mind living out that kind of narrative with Jaune. It’s just that he doesn’t notice her, because she’s not his type. Weiss is small and blonde and loud and goes through life like it owes her something, because she chooses to be a part of it instead of the other way around. Pyrrha is none of those things.
That’s how she gets the idea, and also how she knows that she’s really drunk if she thinks that this is a good idea. Still, she takes another sip of her punch anyway, for courage. Worst comes to worst, she can just laugh it off. If it gets really bad she can finish the rest of Nora’s secret vodka stash that she keeps in her underwear drawer, wrapped in a black lace thing that she’d never actually wear, and make sure she doesn’t remember the rest of this night.
“You know what we should do?” Pyrrha says, nodding for no reason.
“What?” Jaune asks, turning towards her. They’re both wearing shorts, so their bare knees brush. Pyrrha’s skin feels so much warmer at the contact.
“If neither of us are in a relationship by the time that we’re thirty, we should get married.” Jaune just stares at her, so she feels the need to go on, “Just for the tax benefits, if nothing else. I mean, there are a lot of great reasons to get married, not even about being in a relationship, and I was just thinking-”
“Pyrrha, you’re a genius!” Jaune says her, his face lighting up. “That’s perfect. We should absolutely do that. Pinkie promise?” He holds out his pinkie to her, and Pyrrha stares at it for a moment, before wrapping hers around his.
“Pinkie promise,” she says, and takes another drink. Jaune does the same, and grins at her over his cup.
“There, now we’re gonna get married. When we’re thirty. If we’re not in a relationship with someone by then.” Jaune frowns suddenly.
“It’ll never work out for you though,” he tells her. “There’s no way you’re going to be single when you’re thirty, Pyrrha. You’re so great. Seriously, one of the greatest people I’ve ever met. That’s why you’re my best friend.”
Pyrrha just laughs, and aches at the word friend. “Oh, you’d be surprised,” she says, and gets up to get more of Nora’s punch.
Pyrrha is sitting on Ren and Nora’s couch again, the next time the marriage pact is brought up.
Their current couch is white, and leather, the soft creamy kind that sucks you in and makes you never want to get up. Now that they’re both successful adults--Nora the CEO of her own multimedia marketing company, Ren a pediatrician with his own practice--they don’t have to buy their furniture fourth hand at garage sales. The couch doesn’t smell like anything, but the rest of their house sure does, in the best way possible.
Nora plops onto the cushion next to her without ceremony. “Has Jaune text you telling you where he is?” Pyrrha shakes her head, and Nora immediately pulls her phone out of her pocket. “This is partly his birthday party, you’d think he’d actually show up.”
“Nora, the birthday party part is a surprise. He thinks this is just a party welcoming me back into town.”
“Which is why he should be even earlier.” There’s an unspoken DUH in Nora’s tone. “When’s the last time he even saw you in person anyway?”
“Three months ago, when I was still living in Chicago.”
Nora clicks her tongue. “That’s still a long time.”
Before Pyrrha can say anything else, or defend Jaune, the front door to Ren and Nora’s house blows wide open. “God, I’m so sorry. Asher was having a crisis, and then Cherry’s mom wanted to talk, and you know she just went on forever and please tell me Pyrrha isn’t here ye-”
“SURPRISE!” everyone shouts, just to cut him off. Jaune’s jaw hits the floor as he takes it all in, but once he sees Pyrrha he zeroes in on her.
“Pyrrha, you’re here!” he says and walks through a crowd of well wishers to hug her. Her picks her up a little when he does, from the force of it. Pyrrha hugs him back just as tightly, and laughs as she does so. There was a time when he wouldn’t have been able to pick her up at all, but then, they’ve definitely grown up. Jaune is an adult with actual arms now.
“You thought it was my party, and you didn’t think I’d be here?” Pyrrha asks, laughing a little.
“I’m just happy to see you,” Jaune says, a little sheepish now, not answering her question. He looks around the room again, and sees how everyone is grinning at them, and flushes. “I need a drink.” He notices Pyrrha’s empty drink and asks, “Do you want anything?”
“White wine, please,” Pyrrha says, handing him her cup.
Nora gets up too, “Let me show you the cake we got you, Jaune,” she tells him, throwing her arm around his neck and leading him to the kitchen.
Pyrrha is more than content to stay on the couch that she’s seated on until it’s time to cut cake. While they had all been waiting for Jaune, she had caught up with everyone, who were all people that she mostly knew from college or that Pyrrha had met while visiting Nora when she went to conferences around the country. This party really is about Jaune, no matter what Nora says.
But when Jaune comes back, her wine and his soda balanced precariously on a paper plate full of party foods, he sits right next to her. He places the plate on the table and hands Pyrrha her wine, which she accepts gratefully.
“So I got us some of Ren’s pigs in a blanket before they run out because, seriously, they’re always the first things to go. And some of those red bell pepper and olive oil on bread tapas things that he used to make in college, remember?”
“I remember,” Pyrrha says, laughing again. “He made all your favorites because it’s your birthday.”
“I’d rather be celebrating you coming back, honestly,” Jaune says, so easily that it makes Pyrrha’s heart twinge in her chest. He was always able to say wonderful things like they were nothing, but in the end it never meant more than what he was saying, “but I don’t mind. Free cake is free cake.”
“Exactly,” Pyrrha says, putting one of the pigs in a blanket into her mouth. They’re so good, and Pyrrha hasn’t had Ren’s cooking in so long. Good thing, too, or else she would’ve tried to move back into the city just to eat it, completely unrelated to her job. “So, how are your students?”
“They’re good,” Jaune tells her. “I’ve got a couple of kids that I’m worried about--standardized tests are the devil, seriously, and completely useless when it comes to measuring intelligence but hey, what do I know, right? I’m just a small cog in the educational machine and not someone that works with students every day instead of in an office, right?--but I think we’re all gonna pull through. Really it’s the parents that give me the hardest time, but hey, it’s all part of the job.”
“I’m glad to hear it.” And she is. She’s always loved hearing Jaune talk about teaching, which he’s always been passionate about.
“So you’re here for good this time, right? You won’t be leaving us in three months for bigger and better places?”
“No, no,” Pyrrha laughs. Nora comes by and puts a bottle of wine on the table between them, and Pyrrha smiles at her before Nora moves on with a wink. She was running low. “I’m the district manager now, and headquarters are stationed here, so I am too. I just finished moving in and putting all my boxes away a few of hours before I came over to help Ren and Nora prep for the party.”
Jaune’s forehead creases. “You should have told me, I would have helped you move.”
Pyrrha waves away his concern. “No, no. You have school and I have looser hours right now, it’s fine. Besides, it was a fast move. I took the job as soon as it was offered to me, pretty much. I signed the contract that same day. I’ve missed everyone.”
“We’ve missed you too,” Jaune says. “It’s good to have you back to stay this time.”
She smiles. “It’s good to be back.”
WIth the bottle of wine between them, there’s no need to get up, so Pyrrha and Jaune sit on the couch and just end up talking, the way they always do when they’re together again. Pyrrha always feels like she could have a hundred conversations with Jaune, a thousand, a million, and she would still feel as though they didn’t have enough.
Everyone seems to accept the fact that Jaune isn’t moving from Pyrrha’s side, so they come up to talk to them both. It’s almost like they’re the hosts of the party and not Ren or Nora, but it’s not weird. It’s more just like they’re doing this together, even though they’re technically not.
Ren brings out the cake to them, by the time they’ve made it through a second bottle of wine together, and when Jaune blows out the candles he somehow manages to fall face first into the back half of the cake. Pyrrha laughs at the icing on his forehead, thick and yellow and buttercream, and laughs harder when he takes some of it and wipes it on her cheek, laughing too.
Their friends, being who they are, get in on this as well, and so they’re all buzzed and sugary by the end of the night. Pyrrha is pretty sure she somehow got icing somewhere under her shirt thanks to the fact that Blake always plays dirty, but she sits back down on the couch next to Jaune anyway.
He still has a little bit of icing on his face, but it’s mostly gone by the time most of the guests leave. Pyrrha and Jaune linger a little, but Ren and Nora don’t seem to mind, or be making any movements to get them to leave even though Ren has already slipped into his pajamas and Nora’s checking her e-mails on her laptop.
Later, much like the first time the deal was mentioned, Pyrrha will absolutely blame the alcohol when she says, “You’re officially thirty now. I’m glad that I was able to come.” She wraps her arms around her legs, feet on the sofa. Her mothers would scold her if they saw her like this, even now, having taught her better than that. But this is always how she felt the most comfortable, especially when she’s feeling loose and free and on the edge between tipsy and drunk.
“Me too,” Jaune says, leaning towards her.
“Do you remember what we said we’d do if we were both single when we were thirty?”
Realization makes its way over Jaune’s face slowly, and his eyes widen. “Yeah,” he says finally. “Of course I do. But I, I didn’t think, are you seriously single?”
“Yes, I broke up with Skylar months ago.” When Jaune apologizes, Pyrrha shrugs. There had been no real feeling there anyway.
“Well I’m single too! So that means that we should get married. Right now!” Jaune stands up, but he wobbles a little before falling back onto the couch. Pyrrha laughs and stretches her body out, this time putting her feet in Jaune’s lap.
“We can’t do it right now. We can’t even drive, and it’s late! But I want you to know,” and now she’s choking up a little, emotion gripping her unexpectedly and just a little too hard. She doesn’t know why she’s suddenly become so upset, “that I do want to marry you.” She wants to say more, but can’t figure out how. Her emotions for Jaune have become so messy and tangled over the years, from her distance and their separate romantic relationships, over the fact that their lives have taken them such different places.
And yet, here they are, on Ren and Nora’s couch again. Still best friends. Maybe things aren’t as complicated as she has always assumed.
“I want to marry you too,” Jaune says. “Let’s do it. Seriously.”
Pyrrha nods. “We did have an agreement. Let’s get married. Soon.” She holds out her hand and Jaune takes it and shakes, once.
There’s a part of her, even while drunk, that hopes that she won’t remember this in the morning.