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The first thing Clover was aware of after he’d startled awake was how his shirt clung to his chest, soaked with a sour-smelling cold sweat that made him feel uncomfortably aware of every point of contact between fabric and skin.
The second thing was how dark it still was outside. As he pulled himself to sit up in his bed, the covers falling and pooling like fluid around his waist, he found that the various furnishings of his room were only indistinct outlines in the dim moonlight that fought its way through the cold-clouded window.
Finally, he registered the uneasy feeling that was ticking away in the back of his mind, like in his academy days when he’d forget to set his alarm before going to bed, and would wake up moments before he was late for some important appointment or test, a rushing dread building steadily within the confines of his skull and ribcage.
Accepting that his instincts were once again taking the reins, Clover forced himself out of bed, yanking his sleep shirt off over his head as he went and relishing in the rush of cold air that immediately attached itself to the tacky skin of his chest. After a brief stop in his private bathroom to splash some water in his face--a vain attempt to free himself of the lingering veil of weariness--he pulled on a pair of sweatpants and snuck silently through the Ace-Ops commons and out into the hallway of the Academy’s upper floor.
Clover glanced both ways down the length of the hallway, contemplating where he should go next. This late at night, there was none of the usual chatter and commotion echoing up from the lower floors--only a still silence that felt almost eerie in how alien it was. He knew that if he went to the right, he’d probably find the General still awake, working himself to the bone in his office by the light of the moon, and while he was tempted to, even if only so he could try to convince his commanding officer to get some much-needed rest, his gut was telling him to go left, and hard experience had taught him not to disobey such urges. So he went.
His intuition guided him to the end of the hallway, then down another and another until he had reached the door to the set of stairs that would take him up to the roof. He gazed forlornly at the handle for only a moment, thinking of his warm bed and the welcoming embrace of sleep, before he sighed and pulled it open.
His sheets were probably damp now, anyway.
The tall metal door that led onto the roof gave way with a rusted clang and an instant, biting buffet of frigid winds that almost made him regret not putting on another shirt before coming up here.
Almost.
And then he saw Qrow.
Sitting small and lonely, hunched over on the roof’s ledge, the man looked only too much like his namesake. He hadn’t reacted to the sound of the door banging open and shut behind Clover, and he wasn’t sure what to think of that--what it meant. Still, the broken moon’s light rained down and trickled over the strands of Qrow’s hair and reflected off the white button-up that the huntsman was wearing, and he glowed like something ethereal and so very old, and Clover’s breath stuttered in his chest even as some sense of foreboding weighed on the slow, hesitating steps he took forward.
“Qrow?” he breathed softly, and the word seemed to leave a stain on the picture of the night, which had been so unmoving and unbroken.
The huntsman startled hard and turned quickly around, hand grasping at the small of his back for a weapon that wasn’t there. He didn’t relax when he saw that it was only Clover--rather, his eyes seemed to look right through him, something broken and strange in his expression.
Clover’s heart froze momentarily when he saw the tear tracks, like the cold of Atlas had seeped its way through his pores and straight into his veins.
Not knowing what else to do, Clover reached out with both hands, holding them where Qrow could see them--weaponless and with no intention to harm--like he was gentling a wild animal. It was a motion he’d performed many times growing up on his family’s farm on the mainland, trying to calm some creature or another, but he couldn’t say that he’d ever done it to a person. For a split-second, he worried that Qrow would be offended by the gesture, but his nerves were almost instantly assuaged by the way that the other man’s shoulders dropped, tension flowing out all at once, like his strings had been cut.
Those red, red eyes (only made brighter by the emotional turmoil that the other man was obviously going through) immediately darted away once their owner realized whom he had been interrupted by. Qrow angled his body in the other direction, until Clover could no longer see where his cheeks had obviously been rubbed raw and dry and painful. He wrapped his arms around himself. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse and scratchy. “Clover.”
Clover dropped his arms and their weight hung awkwardly at his sides. Normally, he was so secure when it came to comforting and dealing with the emotions of others--it was part of what made him a good leader--but here, under the watchful gaze of the moon and the cover of night, he felt entirely out of his element. Like his soul had grown too large for his body, and yet was still trying to cram itself somehow into the ill-fitting form. Like he was about to shake out of his skin.
And so he said what was almost surely the entirely wrong thing, “Are you… okay?”
And winced.
A dry laugh scraped its way through the whistling wind. “Never better, boy scout.”
And the laugh was followed by a sob and Clover’s chest ached with how his heart splintered at the sound.
Slowly, quietly, carefully--he made his way toward the older huntsman with light steps, until he stood over his crumpled body, aware that he was looming, but unable to take the leap of faith and drop down to keep company--unsure if he was wanted.
“Uh--”
“If you’re gonna sit, then just sit.”
Qrow continued to stare down at the glimmering white peaks of Atlas below, like a million artificial pieces of starlight, and offered no other acknowledgement to Clover’s presence. Still, Clover’s limbs took the order like he’d taken every other order from his various superior officers since his military career had begun, and he fell near-painfully to the other’s side, feeling as though he could sooner divert a river from its course than deny Qrow anything in this moment.
They sat for a long time in a quiet that was broken by nothing except for small sniffles and shuddering breaths. Finally, though--
“You ever been in love, lucky charm?”
The question was a punch to the gut. Immediately, Clover was flooded with the same sensations that he imagined he would be if he were thrust with no weapon into a manticore nest. Dangerous territory, likely death around the bend. Tread carefully. He glanced at Qrow’s face for just a second--gorgeous, always breathtaking--and thought for a long few seconds after he refocused his eyes to stare out at the endless tundra beyond the city’s borders--until his vision went fuzzy. Then, “A few times, maybe. Almost.” An ant-sized black dot made steady, lumbering progress across the white in the far distance--a megoliath, probably. Waiting. “I think I’ve nearly gotten there, but I guess there was never really a chance. Never enough time.” His fingers pulled at the drawstring on his sweatpants, tightening them ever so slightly. “Always something more important, I suppose.”
He thought of the warmth that had so often taken up residence in his head and heart as of late. Of how he found himself showing off when it was so unnecessary, so flamboyant, so silly. Of hushed conversations in the back of military transports spread out over the dragging hours of supply runs. Almost, but not yet--and maybe never. There were so many other things happening.
“...Have you?” Clover asked, because it seemed like the right thing to do--the logical progression. But when he looked at Qrow again, there were fresh tears carving their paths down his face, and he regretted it.
Still, “Yeah,” Qrow whispered, voice breaking over that single, simple syllable, and it sounded like a prayer--or a confession.
Clover wasn’t expecting the muffled pain that radiated through his being at that, but he found that he could shove it aside for now. It wasn’t the time for selfishness, or for jealousy. But he didn’t know what to say next--what was right?
Luckily, Qrow took the decision out of his hands. “Long time ago, it started. On and off, for a while. Things ended pretty recently, though.” His face twisted into something wholly unfamiliar and saturated with grief.
“I’m--” Clover swallowed hard, “sorry.”
The upward, sardonic quirk of Qrow’s lips looked so painful and out-of-place that Clover had to turn away. “Heh. Now who’s apologizing for things that aren’t his fault, lucky charm?”
Clover cast about in his mind for a response. He didn’t want to misstep, but he had no idea what Qrow needed right now, and so he was at a loss. Still, Qrow had brought up love. Maybe he just needed to talk about it. So, Clover cleared his throat and said, “Was she--or he--or they--were they… nice?” He cringed inwardly.
A pause, and the answering laugh was fractured. “You know, I don’t think I even know anymore. Isn’t that fucked up?”
Not knowing what else to do, Clover reached out and grasped blindly until he found Qrow’s hand, and almost instantly he found his fingers wrapped up in those of the other man and being squeezed with a ferocity that surprised him. And Qrow’s laughter broke into a heaving sob.
“I gave him my life. Since I met him, he showed me kindness--believed in me like no-one ever had… because I was cursed. He trusted that I could do things right. And in return, I dedicated myself to him--mind, body, soul--all that shit. And just listen to me now, I sound so… so stupid . Like I never stopped being a teenager. And he never did trust me.”
Clover tightened his hold on the huntsman’s hand and closed his eyes, trying to make some sense out of the darkness, and the colors that would bloom when he shut them just a little harder, “I don’t think you’re being fair to yourself.”
“No,” Qrow wheezed, laughing again and crying and chilling Clover to his core, “no, you don’t know . I cared about him so much and now I think about what we had and I don’t even know what it meant. Because I found out a while back that he wasn’t the person I thought he was, and I don’t know if he wanted me because… because he wanted me, or if it was just because he knew that no-one would care if I disappeared during one of his missions.”
A pit opened up in Clover’s stomach, unease stirring like a storm that grew more and more violent with each passing moment, and he found himself so frightened by what Qrow’s words implied. This was so far above his head, he may as well be the Mantle to Qrow’s Atlas, and Qrow’s hand was shaking so hard in his grasp that he felt sure that it would fall to pieces and no amount of rebuilding would be able to put it--or the man it belonged to--back together.
A nursery rhyme from his childhood played tauntingly in the back of his mind.
“And I was so stupid because I thought back then that he and I were equals, but I see now that I never stopped serving him--not once. And I didn’t even start to realize until I found out everything about him, all that he’d been hiding, and suddenly it was like the past twenty-something years of my life had just been some curtain that had been pulled back to reveal nothing behind it. And still, despite everything, I’m sitting up here and just feel--”
He broke off suddenly and Clover was left trying to breathe around the inundation of all of these waves of turmoil, and he was so lost, but also so glad he’d come up here because he couldn’t bear to think about Qrow being left to struggle through this alone. And so he mentally slapped himself in the face to shake off the fog and he finally turned again to look at the other man, who was suddenly staring anywhere except for at Clover with such a dogged determination that Clover knew that whatever he’d stopped himself from saying, it had to be the root of what was keeping him up here so late at night in this solitary cloud of grief--something deeper than the loss and the confusion that he’d already explained.
So with all of the gentleness that he could muster within him, Clover released Qrow’s hand and reached up until he could turn that face toward him, tenderly frame it with both palms and feel how Qrow trembled.
“Feel what?” Clover murmured, trying so hard to keep the man in his hands together against the endless storms through sheer force of will.
--But he couldn’t, and with such a simple question, Qrow seemed to shatter completely, a wounded noise escaping him like years of pent-up sadness had suddenly overflowed from an already-cracked dam, and he hunched himself smaller than Clover had ever seen him until his entire weight was resting against Clover’s chest, and the shards of Clover’s heart embedded themselves in the spaces between his ribs as he listened to Qrow choke on his cries with horrible gasping breaths that tore to shreds what little peace had remained in the once-silent night as the sun began to rise over the tundra, and he could do nothing except smooth his palms over Qrow’s back, feeling each individual bump of his spine under his skin.
Finally, after far too long, when Clover knew that downstairs, his team would be just starting to wake up and look for him, a quiet rasp dragged its way through Qrow’s cracked lips--just loud enough for him to hear.
“I feel so guilty--like I’ve betrayed him --because I can feel myself starting to fall in love with you .”
Clover’s thoughts buzzed out into one long line of blurry nothing. His ears rang like he’d been caught too close to an explosion.
When he came back to himself--and he could never know how long it had been--he found the fingers of one of his hands carding their way through the dark, feather-like strands of Qrow’s hair, while the other simply laid still against the huntsman’s cheek.
Qrow’s eyes were squeezed shut, and he’d almost look at-peace if it weren’t for the wetness that continued to leak out from under his eyelids and the deep-carved tension lines sat between his brows. The clench of his jaw. The hitch of his shoulders.
Obviously, Clover’s autopilot functioning didn’t include speaking, and he had no idea how many minutes had gone by without any sort of response leaving his lips, and he was unsure as to whether that was a good thing or not. So, laying those thoughts aside for the moment, he leaned forward, desperately hoping that he wasn’t doing the wrong thing or taking advantage somehow, and pressed his lips softly to Qrow’s forehead, right where those deep-set wrinkles were making themselves known, nothing more than a breath. “That’s okay,” he whispered.
A minute shake of the other man’s head. “It’s not. I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for.” Clover pulled back a little, but only until his hands were resting on Qrow’s shoulders, where they stayed.
“I do,” and finally red irises were revealed to him, so empty and hurt, “I have so many things to be sorry for. If you knew all the things I’ve done--all of my failures--you’d throw me off this roof yourself.”
Clover tightened his hold. “I would never. You’re a good man, Qrow.”
“Never when it really matters. I couldn’t stop Raven, I couldn’t save Summer, I couldn’t save him,” Qrow reached up to grab onto Clover’s wrists, “and I couldn’t even stop myself from throwing all of this at you tonight. Don’t mistake me for a hero, boy scout. It’s no good for anyone, in the end.”
“You are a hero,” Clover spat, and was surprised by the ferocity in his own voice. Qrow’s eyes widened. “You think those kids would look up to you the way they do if you weren’t?”
“They’re young--”
“--But not stupid .” Clover cut him off firmly. “And I’m not either. I know you’re a good person. The way you’ve pressed on despite everything just so you could try to leave the world in better shape for the next generation is more than enough proof for me of that. We can’t always save everyone. Even… even the people that are most important to us. But that has no reflection on your character.”
He cleared his throat, attempting to pull himself together. Qrow sat silent before him.
“And as for your other point,” he began, meeting Qrow’s eyes for as long as he was allowed, “I certainly don’t need an apology for that, either. You’re allowed to mourn for however long you need, whether you’re grieving for the loss of a person or just what you had with them, and if having someone around to listen helped at all, then I’m happy I could be here for you.”
For a moment, Clover dared to hope that he’d actually said the right thing, but then Qrow was pulling away with a wild light in his eyes and such fervor that it was as though Clover’s mere touch were burning him. He shot to his feet on the roof, pacing back and forth frantically, hugging himself like he wouldn’t be able to hold it all together if he didn’t.
Clover could do nothing but watch, distraught.
Then Qrow whipped around to face him. “I just told you that I think I’m starting to love you!”
“Yes….” Clover stood slowly, scanning the other’s face for clues as to what was going on in that head of his. “You did. And it’s okay.”
“No!” Qrow shouted, and then he was pulling harshly at his hair with one hand while the other fisted at the material of his shirt, crumpling the fabric mercilessly in a white-knuckled grip. “It’s not! I just told you that I’m into you after spending at least two hours crying all over you like a little kid!”
“It’s alright --”
“--It’s manipulative !” Qrow snarled. He deflated a little. “Or… or something. I should never have told you that--”
“--Qrow--”
“--because now you’re going to feel like you have to let me down all gentle-like or go along with it just to spare my stupid feelings because you’re all nice and shit--!”
“-- Qrow --”
“--And that’s still not even going into the fact that it’s fucked up for me to even feel this way in the first place, when it’s barely even been more than a year since Oz-- !” His chest heaved. “I mean, what kind of person--!”
“-- Qrow !”
Qrow finally broke out of his ranting at this, and helplessness threatened to overwhelm Clover as he watched the other man tremor under the sheer force of feeling.
He knew that he couldn’t allow himself to be paralyzed now, though, and so he breathed through the fear until it subsided enough that he felt he could speak without making everything worse. “Qrow,” he said, calmer, “there is nothing wrong with you developing feelings for someone else after losing this person who you were close to. Aside from it being outside of your control, it doesn’t do anyone any good for you to torture yourself like this, especially when it seems like your former relationship has left you more than a little conflicted already.” He sighed, scratching awkwardly at the back of his neck.
Qrow watched him silently.
“To tell you the truth, I’m not really good at this kind of thing. I tend to excel more in the ‘uplifting leader-talk’ and ‘flirting with handsome scythe-wielders’ categories.” An awkward chuckle. “But I’m sure that this man you were in a relationship with--whoever he was--he’d almost definitely want you to be happy. I don’t think he’d want you to beat yourself up just because you’re starting to move on, and… and even if he wasn’t exactly the man that you thought he was, I can’t imagine how any sane person could ever meet you and not become so enamoured by your smile that they wouldn’t do just about anything to keep it on your face. So, yeah. Obviously I never knew the guy, but he’d have to be… he’d have to be a real piece of shit to be okay with you carrying around so much guilt all of the time.”
Somehow, that was enough to startle a laugh out of Qrow, high and loud and abrupt. “I didn’t think you knew how to swear, Special Operative.” But after only a second, his smile faltered and fell. He toyed with his fingers in front of his body. “That stuff about… about my smile. And flirting. Clover…”
Clover shivered at the sound of his name coming from Qrow’s lips. Or maybe it was just the two-hours-worth of uninterrupted exposure to the colds of Atlas without so much as a shirt to shelter him.
Qrow seemed to be struggling to force any more words out. Clover watched his throat work, choking itself around all of the things that he couldn’t bring himself to say. Finally, he settled simply on, “Clover. What are you saying? And don’t bullshit me. I’ve had just about enough of lies and half-truths.”
The sky was resplendent with the pinks and purples and yellows of the northern sunrise over the tundra, and Qrow was awash in all of that light, and Clover knew which he’d rather look at for the foreseeable future.
Maybe not for forever--there was so little time and so much to do.
But for now, he took the few necessary steps forward until he could hold one of Qrow’s hands in his own, rub small circles into the back of it with his thumb. Loose enough that the other man could pull away if he so desired.
“I’m saying that my reasons for being alright with what you said aren’t totally unselfish. I’ve been flirting with you since the moment I tied you up down in Mantle.” Here, he delivered an exaggerated wink, one that had Qrow rolling his eyes, the beginnings of a familiar smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. “If I’m being honest, I think I’m starting to feel something… stronger for you, too.”
But he looked at Qrow and he still saw a tightness in his expression, and tonight certainly wasn’t the night to push--it wouldn’t be for a good while, probably. So he gently relinquished the hand he held back to its rightful place by Qrow’s side.
“But I don’t know that either of us are ready for that yet. You should be allowed the opportunity to work through all of this at your own pace, and I would never want you to feel pressured because of me. But Qrow--”
Their eyes met.
“I highly value your friendship. You’re a lot more to me than just some random romantic interest. So I want to be here for you. If you ever want to talk, I’ll be here to listen. Or if you just want to sit up here for a while. No strings. And if, in the future, you ever decide that you might want to try for something else between us? I think we could revisit. But only if you want to.”
And the rising sun caught like fire in Qrow’s eyes, searing away at all of the night’s many tears, and his small smile was a beacon of its own, even weak as it was.
“Okay.”