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Tropical Depression

Chapter 8: The Morning After

Summary:

After a night of amorous activities, Neopolitan and Jaune find themselves thinking about the path that brought them where they are, and where they are headed next.

Notes:

Are we all ready to feel some feelings?

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Jaune let out a soft groan as he felt an unfamiliar pressure and warmth against his shoulder and side. He slowly opened his eyes, looking up to the ceiling of the shelter. He brought his unburdened arm up, rubbing at his eye for a moment before looking down to see what it was that was against his side. He let out a slow and soft breath as he took in the sight of the head of brown and pink hair nuzzled into his shoulder. So. That had been real after all.

There she was, Neopolitan, the girl who girl who’s first action on the island had been to try and gut him with a sharpened seashell. Neopolitan, the girl who’d spent her whole time with him on this island trying to torture him with obviously fake sexual advances. Neopolitan, the girl who, just a few hours ago, he’d been having toe-curling sex with.

He blushed at the memory. That had really happened. He’d really done that. He found himself gently biting on his bottom lip as the naked girl beside him shifted a little bit more into the warmth of his side. Waking up after having sex with Neopolitan had not been a thing that Jaune had ever thought to plan for. He’d certainly never thought he’d ever wake up the morning after with her still naked and snuggling into his side. That certainly wasn’t the kind of person that he’d ever thought Neopolitan to be.

No. Neo was a vicious thief and assassin, and had a long history of not being particularly friendly. Waking up in this situation. Even in the wild dreamworld where he could imagine them having sex, she’d left on a walk of shame by the morning. With how much of her playful teasing he’d endured since getting on the island, it would have made more sense for her to deny that it happened entirely and suggest he’d just dreamt it. Yes. Her relentlessly teasing him and asking him what other naughty fantasies were running around inside of his head sounded more like the Neo that he knew.

Jaune shifted a little bit in an attempt to get a little more comfortable. He was having trouble coming up with a reason that Neopolitan would still be here now that he was awake. It was possible that she was too tired after their activities from the night before. It wasn’t like Jaune had any experience in this so how would he have known. It didn’t seem very likely though, since Jaune had heard tales of women sneaking out while the guy was away. He already kew about the concept of a walk of shame, so clearly women being tired out after a night of exercise wasn’t the rule. Then again, he’d only ever heard of a walk of shame when a woman spent the night unsatisfied. He found himself blushing bashfully at the thought that he had some special skill that had let him leave Neopolitan satisfied. As if.

The most correct answer was probably just that they were stranded on the deserted island. It wasn’t like Neopolitan had anywhere else to go. He briefly imagined her trying to silently slip out of his portion of the shelter and back to hers just a few steps away. It was almost comical when he thought about it like that.

The last option that came to mind was that she was still here because she wanted to be there right away to start the merciless teasing. He could already picture her typing out cracks on her phone about how he was never going to be able to stop thinking about her. He was already composing his side of the back and forth in his head. She’d say something about how he’d be thinking about what they’d done forever, and then use her usual jab at him being a virgin. He’d remind her that after last night he wasn’t a virgin anymore. She’d wiggle her eyebrow at him and then suggest that he needed to do a lot more to not be a virgin anymore. He’d end up silent, awkwardly staring at her, and not knowing what to say. She’d giggle and walk out of his shelter with an armful of her clothes, swaying her hips intentionally as she left him with his own thoughts.

He sighed softly, as he thought about that. The upsetting part of all of this should have been that he’d had sex with Neo. He shouldn’t have been laying there, staring at the ceiling, and feeling disappointed at the thought that she would leave the moment she woke up. He should have been happy at the thought that she might just leave him there rather than let this become some big thing. Worst of all, he should have been feeling guilty about what he’d done, and he wasn’t. He grit his teeth, wondering if now he was going to start feeling guilty about not feeling guilty.

Neopolitan shifted against his side again, slowly lifting her head to look up at him from his shoulder. He swallowed nervously as he looked down into her mismatched eyes. He’d expected to see some big reaction when she realized where she was and what that meant. He’d expected to see her eyes fill with horror, shock, maybe even a little disgust. Instead, she’d just held his gaze for a moment that felt maybe a little too long before slowly blinking and rolling a little bit further into him, hiding her front against his side and the woven mattress beneath them.

She pressed her lips and nose against his shoulder, keeping her eyes locked on his from under the edge of her bangs. He felt a gentle heat radiating from her face, and smiled weakly. Wait, was Neo blushing? He opened his mouth about to ask her, and then thought better of it. He felt her lips twist into a slight smile against his skin, like she was enjoying that she had managed to leave him speechless. It was kind of funny when he thought about it.

“Morning…” He let out a soft chuckle as he looked down at her, not sure that the qualifier of ‘good’ for the morning was accurate just yet.

She shifted again, turning her head away from him. He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh. This would be the start of it. She’d find the exit, make some quick jokes about his performance, and then she’d make her way out and leave him to wallow in it. Of course she would. She couldn’t stop herself.

He sighed and looked down to see her typing away at her scroll. A moment later she held it up to him, still hiding part of her face with his shoulder, [Good Morning.]

A soft smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He had expected the lightly barbed comments to start up right away. He hadn’t expected to look down at her shyly hiding her face to be so cute. He brought his free hand up to rub at the back of his head as he looked down into her eyes. He wished that he could come up with some more small-talk. Given how far their relationship had recently progressed, he wasn’t surprised that nothing was coming to mind.

He closed his eyes and let out a long sigh before letting the only words that came to mind slip out, “So…Should we talk about last night?”

Such a stupid question. At best he was inviting her to slam him with all of those critiques of his proficiency that he’d been dreading. What was he hoping for here? She was the kind of girl who was likely to look at that question, decide he was being too clingy and then tell him she needed some space or something. He felt so stupid. He slowly opened his eyes, looking back down into her heterochromatic gaze as she watched him. She seemed to be enjoying the way he was struggling. At least there was that.

Neo lifted her head and shot him a devilish smile and then tapped away at her scroll. He groaned when she showed him a message that read, [When you blasted me with baby batter?]

“That’s…” He let his head slump back and looked up at the ceiling of the shelter. He had almost forgotten about how their activities had ended. Oh gods. Everyone that had ever taught him about reproductive health would be horrified to hear that he hadn’t pulled out, “There has to be a better way to say that.”

Neo shifted her weight so that she was leaning on his chest. She spent a few moments typing away before turning her scroll to him again, [Gummed up my guts with guy goo?] She wiggled her eyebrow and then scrolled down to show him another line, [Marked me with male mayonnaise?] She stuck out her tongue as she scrolled to another line, [Jammed me full of genital juice?] Her eyes seemed to flicker with a devious and mischievous fire as she scrolled to the next line on her list, [Loaded me with lad lube?]

Jaune brought his hand up to catch hers, stopping her form scrolling any further down her list of possibilities. He’d been on the receiving end of her innuendoes enough times to know that she had enough material to keep going all day. It was only a matter of time until she got to something like ‘knocked me up with nut butter’. He dreaded what would happen if that wasn’t on her list, and it was just something that his brain had come up with on its own.

“You know…” He started as she turned her scroll back towards herself with a look of playful glee on her face, “You’ve got quite the vocabulary for someone who doesn’t speak.”

He grunted as she shifted and rolled over, so that her back was stretched out against his chest. He tried to ignore the pressure of the side of her hip against his quickly hardening manhood. He looked down as her thumb scrolled down to another line that read, [Crammed my cooter with cream?]

His, now freed hand came up to support her hip so that she didn’t slide off of him. He wasn’t sure if he was doing it so she didn’t fall, or because he wanted to hold her close. He decided not to think about it too much, “I’m pretty sure girls aren’t supposed to say stuff like that.”

Neopolitan rolled her eyes and opened a new document before tapping out a quick message for him, [“Oh no. Now who will marry me?”] Even without a voice, he could hear the intended monotone quality to her message in his head.

He caught himself shifting his hand a little bit further around the curve of her hip, but couldn’t find the strength to stop his wandering fingers, “Let me guess, you want me to take responsibility for that."

Her mouth opened in a silent gasp when his fingers prodded against her slightly moist lower lips. She shuddered and shifted against him, casting him an accusatory glare before showing him another hastily typed message, [You trying to get me going again?]

“Maybe just a little.” He smirked softly and then looked up at the ceiling again, “Maybe I’m just trying to get revenge for all of your teasing.” He gently drew his finger over her folds for a moment before pushing just a fingertip into her warmth.

She pouted a little bit at his response but let out another silent gasp when he started pushing his finger into her. She seemed to struggle to stay focused on typing on her scroll, [That’s still a little sensitive.]

He smirked, feeling proud of her reaction. He pulled his hand back and slid his palm over her hip again, “I guess I’ll play nice, even after all of your teasing.”

Neo pouted for a moment, almost seeming disappointed rather than relieved that his teasing fingers had stopped, [I can make you forget all about that.] She shot him a confident wink.

“You have to make it up to me that you stole my first time without even romancing me too.” He chuckled, doing his best to stand his ground. He remembered a similarly cheesy line in one of those Ninjas of Love books that Blake had lended to Norah. Also similarly, the character that had said it had been trying to hold their ground against some rather ceaseless advances.

Neo finally rolled away from his hand. She narrowed her eyes when she followed his gaze to her chest and responded by pressing her chest a bit tighter against his. She flashed the screen of her scroll back up to him and gave him her best cheeky smirk, [Maybe I should’ve set the mood with a Flynt Coal song.]

“Heh. Would you have been able to stop yourself from using your semblance to turn into some sort of ‘Neo Katt’ or something?” He closed his eyes and groaned when he found himself imagining it, “I guess Catgirl cosplay is kind of sexy…”

She batted at his shoulder with the fingers of her free hand curled to resemble a cat’s paw, [Nyaa.] She winked at him, a pair of fluffy catlike ears popping up out of her hair, and a slim furry tail sprouted out from the base of her spine slowly swaying back and forth through the air behind her. It was still most definitely Neo, so what could Jaune really complain about?

He groaned when he looked down at her, watching her shift her hips up by sliding her knees under her between his legs, “Are you trying to get me going now?” The way she was slowly swaying her hips back and forth in the air was almost hypnotic.

She had a mischievous smile on her lips as she tapped out a new message. Through the back of her screen he was pretty sure it read ‘maybe a little’. Her eyes flicked up to his for a moment and he watched as she gently bit on her bottom lip before deleting it for something new, [Is it working?] She slipped her free hand between their bodies in search of him, and then with her scroll in hand covered her mouth as she mimed an exaggerated gasp at finding the answer herself.

He groaned softly as she slowly slid her body a little bit further down his, her fingers never leaving the prize she’d found waiting between his legs. She naturally arched her back to push her hips a little further in the air as she journeyed down his body. He groaned a second time as he looked down at the mute girl with cat ears who was wiggling her eyebrows as she waited for his response, “I thought you were still sensitive.”

She slid a little further down his body as she quickly typed another message out for him. Her eyes flashed up to him when she placed her scroll face down on the middle of his chest, a devilish smile on her lips. Jaune sighed softly and picked up the scroll, looking over the message for a moment, [I’m sure we can figure something out.]

A sharp gasp parted his lips and he nearly dropped the scroll. He pulled it to the side and looked down the length of his body just in time to see Neo settle her body between his knees and dip her head forward so her lips could capture the mushroom tip of his cock. His body shook with a shuddering breath as she locked her eyes with his, wiggled her eyebrow, and then slowly pushed her head forward to take more of him into the warmth of her mouth.

If this was Neo’s plan to make him forget about all of the teasing…It was definitely working. How was he supposed to stay mad? All he could do was lay there and moan as he looked down at the cat-eared Neo as she slowly bobbed her head back and forth, those mismatched eyes never leaving his.

oOoOo

Neopolitan smiled widely as she idly wandered down the length of the beach. She felt lighter somehow. The Neo from before would have chastised her for catching feelings. Was that what this was? She felt like she’d just needed a nice hard screw to get her head back on straight. Jaune had certainly supplied her with that. She bit her bottom lip as her memory brought back his response to her challenge to do his worst.

Anything that he’d lacked in skill, he’d made up for with the stamina of that second round, and enthusiasm. She was sure that eventually the cynic in her would rear its ugly head and suggest that it had only felt so good because she’d been backed up and in need of release. Whatever the reason, at the very least he’d shown potential. She certainly wasn’t averse to spending a few more nights polishing those skills a little bit more.

She blushed as she remembered his response to her attack that morning. She could admit that she’d gotten a little lost in the moment when she’d decided to give him a display of her oral skills. What she’d initially been hoping to get out of it was a mystery lost to time. Maybe she’d been hoping he’d put those manly fingers of his to work. Maybe she’d just been hoping that he really would forget about her teasing and her little display would build up her standing with him a little bit. She certainly hadn’t expected that he’d be interested in reciprocating.

She shouldn’t have been shocked, she supposed. He had a white-knight attitude and he’d been raised in a family with a few too many sisters. Clearly something in his environment had educated him in the importance of returning that kind of favour. Where he had learned the skills to return the favour like that was something a bit more of a mystery. Was it the sort of thing that there were videos online about? Wherever he had learned it, he’d taken the lessons to heart, that was for sure.

After taking some time to catch her breath and getting dressed, they’d parted to do their daily chores. Well, he’d parted to do his daily chores. She’d gone off to fetch water, a quick task, and then she’d decided to spend the rest of her day thinking about what happened next. There were a lot of question as to what might happen next that needed some answering.

Was she going to give up her separate shelter now? It seemed like she really didn’t need it anymore. Without the privacy curtain it seemed like her usual teasing of letting him peek at her while she changed for bed would become more of a nightly thing. It wouldn’t so much be teasing anymore. He might decide that it was more of an invitation or an opportunity. She bit her bottom lip, trying not to listen to the little whisper in her mind that suggested that wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

Down girl. Even if it had felt great, that kind of desperation was how a guy lost interest. She smirked softly as she thought about that possibility. As if. How could anyone lose interest in spending the night with a girl who’s semblance could make her anyone they wanted? He wanted to spend the night with the innocent and enthusiastic Ruby? She could do that. He wanted to be dominated by the cold ice princess Weiss? Not a problem. He wanted to bend Blake over and take her like a cat in heat? Oh baby, she was there. He wanted to fight for the top position with the bruiser Yang? She’d wrestle with him all night long if he wanted.

She took a long breath. The thought of ‘down girl’ was not supposed to transition into a series of wild fantasies. It also wasn’t really something worth thinking about. Jaune had kind of suggested that he wasn’t so interested in her pretending to be someone else while they engaged in more intimate activities. Then again, he hadn’t turned her away when she’d been cat-Neo. She silently giggled as she remembered swallowing down the thick proof that he hadn’t minded her being cat-Neo. Clearly semblance use wasn’t a game-ender.

Clearly her teasing wasn’t exactly a game ender either. He’d pretended that he was upset about all of those fun little innuendos that she’d dropped on him that morning, but a certain part of his anatomy had been enjoying it. When she thought about it, he’d stopped her while she still had some absolute gems in the tank. She was pretty proud of ‘Inlayed my insides with an inception injection’. That one had even rhymed. She slid open her scroll, smirking as she flipped through a few more of her alliterative allegories for their amorous actions. She shook her head and closed it again, realizing too late that she’d started to nervously fiddle with things.

She looked out to the water as the waves rolled up the sand. She felt a gentle twist in her gut as she remembered that first day when she’d fallen into the water and found herself soaked and alone on the beach. Before that they’d been enemies. If they got off the beach and back to that life would they go back to being enemies? Would they have to fight each other again? What would happen if those waves brought them something else? What if the waves brought them someone else? All of her earlier worries about whether Jaune would take her side over one of his teammates came back in a flash.

How had she gotten to the point where she was nervously playing with her scroll like she was some sort of school-girl? She took a long breath and slid her scroll into her back pocket. How had she gotten to the point where she was letting herself fantasize about being Jaune’s partner in the horizontal mambo? She gripped her right hand with her left, gently rubbing the side of her thumb against her palm. How had she found herself in a position where she felt an ache in her stomach at the thought that she might have to leave him if his teammates washed up on the beach?

Fuck.

She’d caught feelings for Jaune Arc. She could lie to herself and say that it was all just her survivor instinct. She’d only slept with him to get her talons into his heart. She’d only spent the night nestled into his side because she wanted him to remember that if they had to fight. She wanted him to hesitate in a way that she never would. She’d only been thinking of ways to keep him interested in her because she was planning for her survival. She could tell herself all of that, but she knew it was a lie. She had gotten close to Jaune, and she didn’t want to let him go. She’d staked her claim, and now she wanted him to be hers.

She didn’t want to fight him anymore. Losing Roman had left a hole in her heart, and it was a hole that she knew that no one was ever going to be able to fill. It was an ache that she knew was going to be with her forever. She knew that when she saw Ruby again, she was going to feel her fingertips twitch as she got ready for a fight. She was no longer sure that she wanted to fight though. Roman was dead, and nothing was going to bring him back. Killing Ruby might have soothed that ache for a little, but now she was thinking of what that was going to cost her. She was thinking about the sad puppy-dog look that would be on Jaune’s face as he begged them not to fight. She felt a chill of fear at the thought that he might rejoin his team in bringing her down.

She let out a sigh that was so long that she felt her body deflate slightly. Her head sunk on her shoulders and she stopped walking, looking down at the beach, and then back over her shoulder. If she went back, how long would that happiness last? Even if she managed to find the strength to keep herself from attacking Ruby for Jaune’s sake, would Ruby also find that kind of resolve? She swallowed nervously at the memory of how crushed Jaune had been over the fate of Penny. She remembered the white hot anger that had taken over her own heart over Roman’s death. She remembered how she’d been desperate to find an outlet, any outlet for all of her rage.

Neopolitan looked back out to the sea. Ruby was going to end up being just like she had been. Lost in the circle of violence, and looking for someone to hurt like she was hurting. With nothing more that a sharpened seashell, Ruby would be the perfect eerie reflection of Neo’s past self. Somehow Neo suspected that it would take more than half of a fish to start the healing of Ruby’s hurt. The only good news was that Ruby probably didn’t know that Penny was dead yet.

Neo looked back to the pure, undisturbed sand that lay before her. She could keep walking. With all of the skills she’d already picked up from Jaune, she could handle water and shelter. With her adventure in catching a rabbit, she could feed herself too. All of the things that she needed to survive, she could take care of. She didn’t even need Jaune to survive anymore. She could just run forward and never have to think about what would happen if Jaune was reunited with his team anymore. With her semblance and her various skills, they’d never find her.

It was the smart move. Her feelings for Jaune were making her weak. She didn’t want him to see her fight Ruby if that came up.She didn’t want him to judge her for the choices that she made in the interest of survival. She didn’t want to think about the possibility that she might have to turn and fight him as well. The happiness of this time that she had spent with him had poisoned her. She knew as well as anyone that life wasn’t some fairytale where all obstacles crumbled in the face of a word starting with the letter ‘L’.

She brought her hand, placing her forehead in her palm. She wasn’t even sure if that was how she actually felt. She turned her head again, looking back over her shoulder at path that stretched out behind her. He’d worry about her if she didn’t go back, wouldn’t he? Jaune being who he was, he’d probably worry that he’d said or done something wrong. She remembered the dark look that had been on his face on that first night when he’d been beating himself up over his losses over the year. If she left him without saying anything it would eat him up inside.

Neopolitan bit her bottom lip and sucked a long breath through her teeth. She wasn’t going to go back just because he was going to worry about her. The weight that her leaving was going to leave on his conscience wasn’t going to get her. She wasn’t going to go running back into his arms like a lost lover because she knew that her leaving was going to ruin him. Him feeling all of those feelings was just the natural order of things. She was amazing, and any boy would beat themselves up if she left them behind. No. She wasn’t going back because of that. She turned and took a step into the sand. She let out a soft sigh and lifted her head high. She was going back for herself.

She’d felt happy that morning, happier than she’d felt in a long time. Maybe it had dulled her edge a little bit. Still, she wasn’t willing to give that up if she didn’t have to, and she didn’t have to. Maybe it would be fleeting. Maybe the tower of cards would all come tumbling down the moment that one of his old teammates showed up. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe Jaune would still keep her around. Maybe this was one of those rare situations where she could have her cake and eat it too.

Jaune would understand all of her worries and concerns if she talked to him. He might not like the part where she admitted that she was still hoping that they never found team RWBY, but Jaune was the kind of guy who would understand that too. She could talk it out with him and maybe, if her streak of odd luck continued, he’d even have an answer or two for her. Hell, she’d already come up with one or two answers herself, like using her semblance to look like a lost Atlas refugee. The point was, there were solutions, and if Jaune was who she knew he was, he’d help her find the best one.

She pulled out her scroll, sliding it open as she slowly followed the path of her own footprints. She flipped through her apps for a moment, opening up a blank document. She wasn’t going to admit to any reasons for it, but Jaune mattered to her. He mattered to her enough that she wasn’t willing to just walk away, even if it was the smart move. She started composting a list of all of the reasons that he should keep her around, even if they found the rest of team RWBY. Sure she didn’t have many bullet points beyond ‘fetching water’ and ‘wild and adventurous sex’, but she’d done plenty of good work with less assets before. Also, she was pretty sure that a few examples of those wild and adventurous sex acts might help out a little.

In the end, she suspected that Jaune would probably fill any holes that came up in her list of reasons to keep her around. That was just the kind of person that he was. She’d known it the moment that he’d decided that instead of killing her, he should give her half of his fish. Jaune was a good person. He was a white-knight. She felt a silent possessive growl deep in her chest as she slid her scroll back into her back pocket.

Jaune was her white-knight.

For the first time in a long while, Neopolitan was headed to a place that she could call home.

Notes:

Did we enjoy it? I hope we did.

Oh man, did a part of me want to slap a horrible little cliffhanger in here as an extra section to suggest what might happen if I come back and do a volume two to this story. I stopped myself because I remembered how much I hate when a TV show is over and everything is wrapped up and then comes back with that last five minutes to remind us that they are pretty sure there is going to be a season two. Anyway, if you were hoping I was going to get people off of the island, you should have known better. I have no idea how I am going to tackle that problem if I come back to this, but that's a bridge I'll have to cross on another day.

For anyone who is curious if I am thinking about making this a series that I add another story to...of course I'm thinking about that, but I'm also thinking about taking a little bit of a break before I jump into that. I did a whole lot of writing over a not very long period of time there, and as anyone can see from my history here, that is kind of how a lot of my writing happens. I remember when I fell off of it for a while some of the people who were following my big series were worried that I'd died, lol.

Anyway, a lot of stuff happened, and I'm sure that it has left you with a lot of questions...but this is the last chapter in this story, so we should probably skip the batman joke this time, right?

...

Okay. If you insist.

Why did the story cut out after the start of that blowjob scene? I mean, the story kind of flows better without a big sex scene right in the middle of it, but wouldn't it have been cool to have it anyway? What would that cliffhanger have been? What happened to team RWBY? Does anyone remember that in the first moments of Cinder's attack, like a dozen Atlas refugees got thrown over the edge by her explosion? What happened to those people? Do you figure that the writers of the real series are going to remember those people? What about Ruby? Will she be the same without Crescent Rose? How about Blake? Her weapon kind of got messed up too, didn't it? Why can't I remember what happened to Weiss' rapier? Do you think that Yang's robot arm is waterproof? For the answers to these questions and many more...Well, I guess we'll have to hope that I write a follow-up story at some point. See you space cowboy...

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