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His brother looks tired.
It’s the only thing Ren can think as he listens to Jaune and team RWBY explain what happened. The words are just washing over him, he’s listening but he’s not hearing. He can’t stop staring at his brother.
It was back in Beacon when they first called each other that, and Ren said it partially out of jest. He mostly said it to get Jaune to leave so he could put a gods damn shirt on.
It wasn’t until he was standing next to a screaming-crying Nora and he could see the petals of his own grief swirling in the air where there once was a portal that he really realized what it meant to have a brother.
His brother looks tired.
He’s tall, and he’s confident, and he’s sure of himself, and he looks like a strong wind might bowl him over. There are white streaks in his hair, and his eyes hold an age that Ren has only seen in Oscar’s too-old gaze.
Jaune’s hands won’t stop shaking. Ren can see it, even though his brother is clearly trying to hide it. He keeps clearing his throat when he speaks, looking faintly surprised every time his own voice exits his mouth.
“- and then we were in Vacuo, and you guys found us,” Jaune finishes. His smile is the same as Ren remembers, blinding and sheepish in equal measure.
Ruby is talking about something, but Ren can’t stop staring at Jaune.
He’s never known Nora to be so quiet.
His brother is staring at him.
“Can I…” Jaune interrupts Ruby. “Can I just have some time with my team?” Ruby doesn’t even blink, just nods. The rest of her team follow her out of the room.
Then it’s just the three of them. In a silence so tense he could cut it with his father’s blade.
Jaune is just standing there. He reaches up to brush something out of his eyes, finds nothing there, and drops his hand back to his side. He doesn’t invite them to sit, he doesn’t even sit himself.
It’s like he’s forgotten how to be a person.
“I…” Jaune’s voice creaks into the silence and he trails off. He clears his throat, frowning. Tries his voice on again, like an old coat that hasn’t been worn in years. “I’m sorry I didn’t…” Shakes his head again. “I really missed you guys.”
Ren nods absently. Nora is stiff at his side, her hand as cold as the Solitas tundra in his grasp.
“Were you safe?” Ren asks.
Jaune shrugs, grinning sheepishly. “Mostly,” he concedes, and that’s probably as good as they’re going to get. Bright smile or not, Jaune seems more fragile now than even his spiral in Mistral.
“Were you happy?” And Nora’s hand tightens in his grasp.
Jaune’s eyes widen, and his hand twitches at his side. Ren wonders why he doesn’t grab his sash for comfort as he’s seen his brother do so many times before. When Jaune hesitates further, a shuttered look crossing his face, Ren blinks into grayscale.
Conflict, grief, confusion, joy, rage, sorrow, pain, pain, pain
“I was the Rusted Knight,” Jaune says, stiff as the armor of his title. “It didn’t matter if I was happy.” If I die buying them time, it’s worth it. They’re the ones that matter .
“But were you happy?” Nora asks. Her voice is steady, calm, but her whole arm is shaking in Ren’s grip. Scars from lightning cracking across her shoulder, echoing white streaks in his brother’s hair.
Oh the way a person is marked by thinking they’re only worth what they can do for others.
Was he happy? Was he more happy? Did he wish he was still there? Did he not want to come back? He was the hero he always wanted to be, a literal beacon of valor and bravery. He was making a difference.
Ren knows the story, of course he knows the story. He doubts there’s a child in Remnant that doesn’t.
He always preferred the Cat, personally, (and how that stings now), but the Rusted Knight was adored. In the books scrounged from drop-offs, and the storytime sessions in libraries, he and Nora cheered and wept right along with the other kids for the brave and cheerful knight. You couldn’t find a better storybook role model than him.
How cruel that his brother had to rust away for the character to exist.
“I was alone,” Jaune whispers eventually, voice as rusty as his armor, as if that’s enough of an answer.
And from anyone else it wouldn’t be. But from his brother, who lives and dies for the people he cares about, no sentence could be more telling.