Summary: A Schnee can never show weakness, especially in front of their peers. Even if Weiss hates anything scary, she must play the part so her team can never find out her dark secret. If only a certain doofus wasn't around to overhear how much she loved horror movies…

Scary Movie Night

Weiss takes a handful of popcorn before handing it to Jaune.

"Are you scared yet?" she asks.

"No," he says. "Are you?"

"Not on your life."

The two are watching a scary movie. It was the result of a challenge. For the past week, Yang had been talking nonstop about her favorite scary movies: psychological serial killers, witch covens, death cults, vengeful spirits from beyond…

… It just never ends!

They're fun! she said. They're thrilling! she said. They're great! she said.

And what was even worse was that Ruby and Blake agreed with her!

Weiss hated scary movies. She still remembered when her mom accidentally left on a show about a girl stuck in a mirror who pulled unsuspecting victims in. Weiss just wanted to watch cute animal puppets! But, after looking at her team bonding over scary movies… She couldn't show any weakness. It was unbecoming of a Schnee!

So Weiss agreed: she loved scary movies too.

Jaune happened to overhear them.

It turned out that he was a scary movie fanatic.

One thing led to another and now Weiss is stuck next to Jaune watching Death Class VII: After School Massacre. Weiss takes in a deep breath, reassuring herself that the movie is just beginning. Nothing scary has happened yet.

There's the opening credits. It's not so bad.

Then starts off some ominous music.

… a bunch of kids are walking in the school at night. Okay. The music really isn't helping.

"Hey guys! Let's check if Ms. Frazzle is in-"

No! Weiss screams internally. Don't open that doo-

Aaand there's the first jump scare.

A giant pale face of a woman is plastered across the screen. She wears glasses, her mouth is slightly open. Blood dribbles down her chin. A sinister laugh is in the background.

"That's what you get Ms. Frazzle for giving us homework!"

Weiss blinks. That's all she allows herself to wipe away the tears of fear. She doesn't dare close her eyes. She can't let Jaune know just how terrified she is. She glances to the side. He's intently focusing on the film, throwing another round of popcorn in his mouth.

"This isn't so scary," says Weiss, careful to steady her voice.

It is.

"I've seen worse."

She hasn't.

"Yeah," Jaune replies. His eyes never leaves the screen. "I prefer Death Class II: The RIP-cess. That was back when they had the original director. The new guy tries too hard."

He munches on more popcorn.

Weiss nods, her eyes going back to the movie. The brief respite is over.

They're in a flashback now. The school is normal. By the good graces of something out there in that unforgiving universe, it's also daylight. The main characters are sitting around at a lunch table. There's the usual jock, cheerleader, nerd, etc…

This isn't so bad. Weiss checks the time. Her research told her the movie had a 70 minute runtime and it was approximately 5 minutes in.

Weiss smiles.

She's making good pace.

She hopes that the peacefulness would last forev-

THEN A CAR FROM NOWHERE STRAIGHT UP SLAMS INTO THE NERD.

HIS GUTS FLY EVERYWHERE.

HIS FRIENDS ARE COVERED IN HIS GORY REMAINS.

Weiss bites her lip. She tastes blood. She brings her hand down over her skirt to smooth it out. In reality, she's doing it to hide the fact that her knees won't stop shaking.

Meanwhile, Jaune is laughing his head off.

"Oh man! Did you see that!? That was so over the top!" Jaune laughs again before looks at Weiss, a big grin on his face. "That was hilarious right?" He points at the screen like he's watching his favorite Saturday morning cartoons.

Weiss covers her mouth, discreetly wiping off the blood from her lip.

"Indeed."

Jaune nods, a look of understanding in his eyes. "It's probably not proper lady etiquette to laugh during movies, huh?"

Weiss nods. What the heck does he think this!? A comedy!? she screams internally.

"Yes." She lowers her gaze. She's appreciative that Jaune's a talkative movie watcher. It gives her an excuse to break line-of-sight with the screen. "It is very unbecoming for Atlesian ladies to-"

"Oh, sorry," Jaune cuts in. "I keep interrupting the movie. I'll stop talking now."

Weiss stares at Jaune.

She smiles.

She nods understandingly.

"Thank you."

She returns to the movie.

She screams internally.

This idiot!

Keep talking! Keep commenting! I need the reprieve! DON'T DENY ME THIS SWEET RELIEF!

And now this dumb bunch of kids want to honor their dead nerd friend by having a spirit calling ceremony at the site of his death at night!?

IS THIS FOR REAL!?

If one were to look into Weiss' head at this moment, she would be pulling out her hair, crying tears that could fill the oceans.

After a few more jump scares, she closes her eyes. Forty minutes have elapsed. It was an arduous journey but she had passed the halfway mark. She looks over at Jaune who is sunken back in his couch.

A smile is plastered on his face...

… and an empty popcorn tub is on his lap.

"Jaune," Weiss begins, "do you want more popcorn?"

"Huh? Oh yeah! Sure!"

"Okay. Then I'll-"

Jaune reaches for the remote.

Weiss' heartbeat is thundering. "What are you doing?" she asks. She knows what he's doing. She just doesn't want to accept that reality.

"Pausing the movie," he says casually. He doesn't realise that he's sentencing her to purgatory. "Come on, let's go-"

"No."

The rejection makes Jaune tilt his head in confusion.

"No?"

"No," Weiss repeats.

"Uh, we can both go-"

Jaune is silenced by her raised hand. Weiss closes her eyes, channeling thousands of years of Atlesian pride and heritage into her noble voice.

"In Atlas, it's very rude for the movie to be paused. One must be willing to sacrifice their time and skip out on parts of the move to retrieve refreshments. That is the northern way. That is the proper way. That is my way."

"Oh," says Jaune.

Weiss nods solemnly.

Jaune blinks back, still slightly confused.

Weiss remains resolute.

Jaune lowers his gaze, contemplating.

Weiss is screaming on the inside.

There are no such traditions! Not being allowed to pause a movie? Does that mean remote controls in Atlas don't have pause buttons!? Oh no, he'll figure it out. He'll figure out! He'll know I'm a fraud! He'll know I can't stand scary movies and he'll tell the rest of the team and I'll be the laughing stock of the whole-

"Wow! That's really neat, Weiss!"

-school and I'll have to transfer back to Atlas Academ- Wait. What!?

HE BOUGHT IT!?

"Yes," Weiss replies instinctively, even throwing a small head tilt as a bow of subliminal thanks. "Now Jaune, as I am your guest, please allow me to refill your-"

"Oh, no can do," says Jaune as he gets up. "You're the lady. It'd be unchivalrous to-"

Weiss' hand shoots out, grabbing his wrist in her clutch.

"Jaune. I insist," she says with honey-venom dripping from her voice. "In Atlas, it is always the girl who retrieves the refreshments."

Jaune pauses. His eyes tell her he's thinking, slowly.

Then, he finally speaks. "Is that like a dating thing?"

"Yes."

Weiss answered without thinking. Weiss felt really stupid.

Without any protest, Jaune relents the popcorn tub. Weiss cradles it like a newborn baby in her arms as she begins the short-but-now-to-be-very-long-walk to the popcorn machine in the cafeteria kitchen. And once she was there, it would turn out that all the old popcorn they had made earlier had gone stale. How unfortunate! Who could have seen that coming?

As Weiss exits the Team JNPR room, she can hear the movie starting up again as Jaune unpauses it.

The door closes with a satisfying thump!

She walks away slowly with a huge grin on her face.

"Hey, Weiss!"

"Eh?" Weiss turns and sees her happy-go-lucky teammate in her pajamas. "Yang? What are you-?"

Then she sees what's in their arms, looking as yellow as her hair.

"I just got back from the cafeteria!" she says. "Made me some yummy popcorn!"

Yang presents her with a huge tub of popcorn, thick on butter and salt.

She may as well have presented a loaded pistol.

"Funny," says Weiss, gently scooting past her teammates and towards the stairs. "I was just on my there to-"

"Oh! You're watching that movie with Jaune, right?" Yang tosses a few more kernels into her mouth before thrusting her tub towards Weiss. "Take mine! I got a free night so I can just make another batch."

Weiss clicks her tongue in disapproval. Her mind's thinking at a thousand miles a second.

"Uhhh, sorry, no can do," she finally says. "I'm not a fan of butter-"

Yang drops her tub and magically produces another tub from behind her.

"Here ya go! No butter!"

"Ah, but my doctor said I needed to watch my salt too-"

Again, Yang drops the tub of popcorn. It was slowly becoming a popcorn mountain.

"Sans butter, sans salt!"

Weiss blinks at the tub in front of her.

"Your popcorn is overcooked," she manages. "Look Yang, it's fine. You're too generous. I don't mind a short walk to the cafeteria to make some popcorn."

Weiss glances at Team JNPR's closed door.

She can hear a digital scream from the other side.

She needs to burn more time.

As Weiss turns around to leave, Yang grabs her shoulder.

Weiss sees a glowing, devilish smile.

"Here ya go!"

Yang thrusts something heavy into her hands.

Weiss looks down at the machine.

"Y-Yang?"

It's a portable popcorn maker with unpopped kernels.

Before Weiss can get an adequate response, Yang's already opened the door and throws her back inside. The last thing Weiss hears is "Just cook the popcorn in the room! Team JNPR won't mind! Nora does it all the time!"

The door slams shut.

Weiss stares at the closed door.

"Huh? Was that Yang?" asks Jaune. "Do you have the popcorn?"

Weiss turns around to answer.

That turns out to be a mistake.

She sees a bloody torture room on the screen with various disembodied body parts and buckets of blood pouring onto the floor. There's also a pig-masked man wearing the skin and underwear of his slain victims, sharpening his chainsaw over a grindstone.

Weiss closes her eyes.

In her hands, she's cradling a popcorn maker.

In her mind, she's cuddling Zwei.

Unfortunately for her, this is not a fantasy based on reality.

Weiss inhales.

"I will make it."

Weiss calmly sets up the popcorn maker off to the side. She does it quickly, a little too quickly, so Jaune doesn't get suspicious. Unfortunately for Weiss, this is the quick-pop popcorn and it's ready in seconds. She hands Jaune a fresh tub who graciously accepts.

Weiss calmly returns to her seat besides Jaune.

Weiss calmly watches the movie.

Well, she tries to anyway.

Then there's a fast moving shadow creature in the distance and suddenly it's right in front of her face and Weiss is so terrified she can't tell if that's sweat or heaven-knows-what-else drenching her undergarments but she knows that this is bad and it's really bad and she's going to get nightmares and she wants to cry but she can't because Jaune is right there and if she screams then everyone will know she's a stupid scaredy cat who can't sit through one scary movie and her social life will be ruined forever and she'll return back to Schnee Manor in utter disgrace and her family will never respect her or love her and they'll hate her and-and-and…

And Weiss can't use her mouth.

But she must scream.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

She is strong.

She's strong enough to handle this, she tells herself as her lips quiver in fright.

She.

Can.

Do.

This!

"Weiss, are you crying?"

"N-n-n-no," she says. She quickly wipes the tears from her eyes. It only makes it worse. "I-I-I a-am d-d-definitely n-not… n-not… not… crying!"

Jaune blinks at her.

"It's okay to cry."

Weiss blinks back at Jaune.

"Really?"

Jaune nods.

"It's normal to cry."

"R-really?"

Those words felt heavensent to Weiss. Her heart was all aflutter. She feels it thumping, thumping, thumping. Ringing, ringing, ringing.

Weiss feels like she could kiss the fool right-

"I get sad when the movie is about to end too."

-now.

"What?"

"Yeah," says Jaune, returning his attention to the screen. "We're in the final 5 minutes. All the best scares are in the final 5 minutes. Everyone knows that."

Weiss forces a smile.

She hates Jaune with every single fiber of her being.

She turns her head towards the screen.

The main heroine is hiding from the serial killer. She waits patiently in the dark. She only sees shapes and shadows moving about. There might be one. There might be twins. She doesn't know how many. She's mildly undressed from her escape, losing a fair bit of clothing. She's almost naked.

And a pale, dead hand reaches out, stroking her spine gently.

Weiss then feels a cold, wet, fleshy feeling on her back.

"Haha, very funny Jaune," she says, doing her best to compose herself.

Jaune turns towards Weiss. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"Stop pressing your hand against my back like in the movie-"

Weiss stops.

She looks at Jaune's hands.

One hand is holding the tub of popcorn. The other is eating it.

"I'm not touching you," says Jaune. His head slowly turns around. "But… I thought you were touching me."

Weiss raises both her hands.

"I'm not touching you.

"And I'm not touching you."

It takes a second.

SO WHO IS TOUCHING US!?

Then they both unleash the girliest of screams ever heard at Beacon.

They scramble into the closet, slamming it shut. It's barely big enough for both of them. Jaune's in his bunny onesies and Weiss is in her nightgown. She didn't care if the dress was hiked up a bit, making her appear indecent. She didn't care that she was pressed up against Jaune Arc. She didn't care that the closet locks from the outside and there was no way to open it from within.

She just wants to ESCAPE.

"A-are you scared?" Jaune whimpers.

"N-no," Weiss answers stubbornly. She then lowers her head. "O-okay, yes. I'm scared."

"Me too," says Jaune. "Confession time?"

"What is it?"

"I hate scary movies."

Weiss' eyes widen.

"ME TOO!"

Jaune's eyes widen back at her.

"OH MY GODS! TELL ME ABOUT IT!"

"B-but," Weiss thought back to the nights events. "You seemed so calm and into the movie!"

Jaune shakes his head. "I kept thinking happy thoughts! I had to laugh myself through it and keep eating popcorn. I eat to forget, Weiss!"

Weiss lowers her gaze again, stuck in thought.

"But, you told me and Ruby and them that you love scary movies!"

Jaune scoffed. "I only said that because I overheard you saying you liked them! I wanted…" he trails off into a mumble. "I wanted to impress you!"

Weiss looks up at him. Tears are streaming down his face.

"I… hate scary movies," she breathed. "I just didn't want to seem weak, okay!?"

Weiss huffed and puffed.

It felt good to let it out of her chest.

Jaune places a hand on Weiss' shoulder. It's a bit cramped in the closet, so he may have brushed up a bit against her nonexistent chest.

"Weiss. You're the strongest girl I know. It's okay to not like scary movies."

"R-really?" Weiss is in disbelief.

"Yeah," he says.

"T-thank you." She calms her quivering lips. "I… I don't mind it if a guy hates scary movies… I think that's actually kind of attractive."

"Really?" Jaune echoes.

Weiss vigorously nods. "Fear is good. It keeps people alive."

She doesn't specify that the belief has more to do with the fear of death rather than the fear of poorly written horror movies.

Jaune rubs the back of his head.

"So… would like you, uh…" He's hesitating. "Dinner? Have it?"

"Come again?"

In the poor light she can barely see him bring a hand to his face.

"Dinner," he repeats. "Would you like to have dinner with me some time?" He carries on hurriedly. "We can watch a children's movie after, too. I heard great things about My Little Grimm: Rainbow Fun Times Adventure."

Weiss thinks about it. She smiles.

"I'd like that."

They stare into each other eyes. There wasn't much choice. There wasn't enough room to look anywhere else.

After a long moment, Jaune finally speaks.

"So," he says, "how do we get out of here?"

Weiss' eyes widen. She couldn't risk a demon/ghost/poltergeist/whatever still being out there when they exit!

"We're staying in here until dawn!"

"Oh man! That was great!" Yang laughs heartily, wiping away a tear of joy.

"I know right!?" Ruby snorts. "I love the way you had all the popcorn prepared in case she tried to escape!"

They are in the Team RWBY dorm. A live video feed of Team JNPR's room is focused on an empty couch, a forgotten TV, and a locked closet.

"Yeah!" says Yang. "I love that idea where Blake sneaks in and touches both of them in the back!"

Ruby smiles brightly before turning to her other teammate, reading a book on her bed. "Yep! Tactical genius of our generation right here, Ruby Rose!" she exclaims, thrusting a thumb towards herself. "Blake, did you dip your hand in ice water like I suggested?"

Blake doesn't look up from her book.

"I didn't do it at all," she says.

"Ha! All according to pl-!"

Yang and Ruby both blink at Blake.

"Wait," Yang says slowly. " So you didn't sneak into their room and touch their backs?"

"No."

Ruby and Yang stare at each other.

"THEN WHO TOUCHED THEM!?"

Scary Movie Night Fin