Many people believed that water was the most important thing in life.
Those people were morons.
The true driving force of existence was, in fact, spite, and an unyielding hatred for pointless shit.
Now, Qrow, as any self-respecting (he almost believed it too) adult, hated a lot of things. A good dose or seven of good ol' spite and loathing was his way of staying well-adjusted. Enlightened, even. Monk-like. Real zen bastard, him.
For one, Qrow hated airships. And Atlesian bullheads were right up there with his greatest hits of hatred.
No enemies to punch, no exits to jump out of, and not a single goddamn bar to fall into. Just him, recycled oxygen, a rattling hull, and a seat built by someone who had clearly never sat down in their life. He'd had softer landings off damn rooftops. Hell, his last fistfight with a angry bounty hunter /old-acquaintance, which had ended with him thrown down a flight of stairs and bitten by a raccoon, had left fewer bruises on ass.
Worst of all, they gave him too much time to think.
Qrow fucking hated thinking!
It left him alone with his thoughts, and Qrow didn't like being alone with his thoughts. His thoughts didn't play fair. They didn't bring pillows or warm blankets. They made him think of stuff better left unthinkable. They brought names. Faces. Mistakes that looked an awful lot like choices he should have made like choking his dumbass sister in the womb.
Now after hearing his bitching, one would think that by having magical powers to turn into a sexy crow (he was pretty sure Ozpin had been laughing his dusty ass off when he made him a raven and Raven a crow), it would surely be smarter, faster, and way cooler to just fly back to Vale himself.
And it was. It absolutely was.
But Qrow was drunk.
Qrow was very bad with directions when flying drunk.
He was probably also bad with directions when flying sober, but that was mostly a theory. It had been a long time since he'd seen sobriety anywhere other than a lecture or a police report.
So, instead, he'd taken the civilized route. The one that involved fewer midair collisions and less getting shot at by confused and awfully trigger-happy Mistrali border patrols. Jimmy, bless his wrinkled, pension-hunting soul, had probably yelled at some poor schmuck and gotten Qrow a shiny new Bullhead to haul his ass, military-grade, top of the line, practically still had that smug fresh paint smell. It probably cost more than Qrow's liver.
That was the only comforting part about the whole experience.
Because now he could complain. Loudly. Frequently. And directly to Jimmy's face the next time they crossed paths, which was very soon.
He was going to make sure of that.
He was going to look Jimmy in the eye and say, "Thanks for the flying tin coffin, pal. Real thoughtful. Seat's got the lumbar support of a bear trap and I've had more legroom in a coffin. Also, whose bright idea was it to bolt the minibar shut? Is this a war crime?" and then he was going to burp in his face.
Heh.
He was the only passenger on board, which sucked because Qrow hated being alone. Now as previously stated, Qrow hated a variety of things, so he obviously hated being around people.
People like the greenhorn pilot who didn't seem old enough to shave, much less steer a flying tin can through the skies of Vale. Since it was clear Jimmie hadn't taken the time to crush whatever life was in him, the kid tried to make small talk once, but one burp to the face from Qrow shut that down.
A couple of hours later, Vale was finally starting to poke over the edge of the clouds.
'About damn time.'
It wasn't home. Not really. Nowhere had been for a long time. But it was where the ghosts lived. The ones that called him back every time Ozpin sent that cryptic little scroll message like a whisper from the grave: "Come back. We've got a situation."
There was always a situation.
And now, apparently, Jacques Schnee had decided to be the situation.
Because, of course, he had. The Dust Man had the kind of rich guy face you wanted to punch just to see if it cracked into coins.
Qrow sighed and dragged a hand down his face. The only thing worse than dealing with Salem's monsters was dealing with boardroom monsters who thought they were better because they wore suits and didn't cackle.
He reached for the flask in his coat, flipped it open, and paused.
Still full.
He stared at it like it had personally offended him.
"…Am I trying to be responsible?" he muttered.
Then he capped it again and shoved it back into his coat like it was contagious. He'd wait. Wait 'til the mission briefing. Wait 'til he knew just how deep in the mess they were this time. If Ozpin gave him another speech about the tides of fate and eternal struggle, he was going to drink the whole thing mid-sentence just to make a point.
The ship dipped suddenly. Qrow grunted as his skull jostled off the window he'd been using as a pillow.
The pilot buzzed something cheerful over the intercom. Qrow scowled and slouched deeper into his seat, muttering curses toward the cockpit under his breath.
The Bullhead landed with all the gentleness of a concrete kiss.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They say that a person reveals who they are not by what they say, but by what they notice. Or something like that.
Yang wasn't sure who said it. Some philosopher? Some psychologist? Some guy with a Litube account and a podcast mic? Shit, it might as well have been from a song.
So yeah. If noticing stuff was supposed to be a window into the soul?
Then Yang Xiao Long was spiritually bankrupt and legally blind.
Yang Xiao Long prided herself on a lot of things. Her hair. Her right hook. Her hair again. Managing to be both hot and cool at the same time. Her ability to nap through Professor Oobleck's lectures without technically failing.
But nowhere, absolutely nowhere, on that list was "great at noticing subtle emotional cues from my friend and partner of almost a year."
Which, okay, maybe should've been a red flag.
Because last night? Last night was insane.
Blake had trauma-dropped on them like an anvil, and Yang had responded by stepping on a chair and knocking over a lamp.
Also, she was a Faunus.
Blake is a Faunus.
But yeah. Blake. Faunus. Ears.
Yang had seen them. Real, twitchy, black cat ears. They'd moved. They'd twitched. They had expressed emotion.
Why would Blake wear a giant, floppy bow inside all the time if it wasn't covering something? Why would she flinch every time someone mentioned the White Fang? Why would she talk about Faunus rights with the same energy other people reserved for loaded shotguns?
It was all right there.
Ah, fuck she felt like an idiot. But in her defence, no one else noticed, so clearly she was idiot adjacent at worst. Guilt by proximity. Everyone else missed it, too, so really, what did that say about all of them?
Collective dumbassery. Groupthink. Plausible deniability
And gods, now she couldn't stop remembering every dumb thing she'd ever said in passing that might've sounded insensitive. Every joke. Every shrug-off. Every time she'd asked why are you so intense about this, Blake?
Because Blake had lived it. That was why.
Luckily—no, wait, that sounded wrong.
Fortunately?
Nope. Still wrong.
Let's just say: in the eternal race of being the most racially insensitive person in the room, Yang was relieved to know she hadn't taken home the gold just yet.
Because Weiss Schnee existed.
And last night? Oh, boy.
Weiss had taken the scenic route into what the hell is happening and driven straight off a cliff. It was the slowest trainwreck Yang had ever seen. It was beautiful in its awfulness. Like watching a glacier crash into a port-a-potty. Hilarious, but only if you weren't in the immediate splash zone.
What followed could only be described as a top-shelf, Schnee-brand trauma dump. Privilege-flavored guilt with a fizzy neurotic aftertaste. Weiss, already teetering on the edge, had just started sharing. Loudly. Uninvited. With the force of a champagne bottle losing a cork at terminal velocity. There were tears. There was yelling. There was a five-minute rant about mid-sized corporations and hostile takeovers that might have been a metaphor for her dad. Maybe.
And because apparently this was a thing now, Ruby joined in too.
Sweet little Rubes, who hadn't cried about their mom since she was ten, just cracked open like an overripe peach. Somehow, she managed to apologize for her own grief mid-sob.
Naturally, Yang followed suit. Not sharing by that point would've felt like bad manners. By then, the whole room had turned into an emotional potluck, and nobody wanted to be the jerk who didn't bring a dish. Her trauma was basically just a remix of Ruby's. Same dead mom, different coping mechanisms. Less crying, more punching. Plus, a missing mom for bonus angst.
So yeah.
Blake's a Faunus. Weiss has daddy issues. Ruby and Yang have mommy issues. And they're all out of tissues. But hey. At least nobody ran away this time.
Ruby declared they were a stronger team now. Yang had patted her head. Of course they were.
So finally, after a night of shared trauma, half-conscious hugging, and enough tears to flood their bathroom, they all collapsed into an awkward dogpile of emotional exhaustion around four a.m.
Which is why, when Yang finally woke up and opened her crusty eyes to see Weiss Schnee trying to choke Blake to death with a throw pillow, it came as kind of a curveball.
"Apologize!" Weiss shrieked, jabbing Blake in the face with a fluffed corner of plaid rage. "You absolute traitor!"
"Wha—glrk—" Blake flailed, more confused than threatened. "Get off me!"
Yang blinked blearily. "Okay, I need, like, three sentences of context before I decide if I'm intervening."
"She's a traitor!" Weiss just yelled, grabbing Yang's arm and dramatically pointing at Blake.
"Okay. That's sentence one," Yang said. "Can I get two and three?" She looked at Blake.
Blake blinked at her. "I literally just woke up."
"You woke up in betrayal!" Weiss snapped, incandescent with repressed outrage. "While I've been—trying—to get that man to even acknowledge me for months, he sits down for a cozy little therapy session with you?!"
"Wait," Yang blinked, gaze ping-ponging between them. "Who're we talking about?"
"My father!" Weiss barked.
Pause.
Long pause.
Yang turned slowly to Blake. "Wait. Wait! That's why you were drunk last night?"
Blake stared at her blanket. Then the ceiling. Then a very interesting corner of the room. "…It may have contributed."
"Contributed?!"
"I didn't want to talk to him!" Blake flailed her hands, then immediately regretted it as her blanket cocoon unraveled. "He ambushed me!"
"He ambushed you?!" Weiss barked a laugh so scathing it could sand furniture. "The last time I tried to ambush him by sneaking onto an Atlesian bullhead, I got tased by the airport security!"
Yang blinked. "Wait, that was you?"
"It was a tactical error," Weiss hissed. "But not the point! The point is that I have been trying to talk to my father—my own father!—for five goddamn months! And then he just shows up, picks Blake out of a crowd, and suddenly he's vulnerable?! and you didn't have the decency to call me!"
"He wasn't vulnerable!" Blake yelled back. "He was smug! And weird! And he wouldn't stop calling me 'Miss Belladonna' like we were negotiating a divorce settlement! And he called me a moron, an idiot, and threatened to hang me upside down by the ankles!"
There was a beat of silence. "Wait, is that like a kink thing?"
"Yang!" Blake threw a pillow at her.
Yang caught it midair. "What? I'm just saying! Divorce talk, tied ankles, BDSM, you coming back drunk, there were a lot of vibes flying around!"
"There were no vibes!" Blake snapped, ears twitching in mortification. "It was the least vibey conversation I've ever had!"
Weiss looked personally victimized. "Can we please not eroticize my father?"
"Strongly Seconded!" Blake agreed quickly.
And then, as if this whole circus wasn't confusing enough, Team JNPR peeked their heads through the door. They didn't even pretend to be surprised by Blake's ears because they were extremely rude neighbors who had absolutely spent the entire night with their ears to the door shamelessly eavesdropping like the nosy little gossip bastards they were.
Nora, naturally, spoke first. "Hey, are we interrupting a fight, a breakdown, or like… a friendship moment?"
"That's what I'm trying to figure out," Blake muttered into the wreckage of her dignity.
"What happened?" Ren asked, in that carefully neutral tone people only use when they're hoping for maximum drama.
"Blake went to a hotel with Weiss's dad, got drunk, and didn't come back until last night." Ruby, still snuggled under a blanket, mumbled the least helpful summary ever. "They made each other vulnerable or something."
"S-Scandalous!" Pyrrha squeaked, instantly tomato-red and mumbling into her hands.
"THANK you! That's what I said!" Weiss threw her arms in the air.
"No, you said traitor," Yang reminded her.
"It was implied!"
"I mean," Jaune added carefully, clearly trying not to judge Blake the way the rest of his team already had, "a h-hotel's still better than the shady alley we found you… and Mr. Schnee in… leaning on each other and stuff, right, guys?"
Pyrrha squeaked like a torn helium balloon.
"WHAT?!" Weiss, Blake yelled in perfect, horrified harmony.
Yang turned her head so fast, she smacked Weiss with her hair. "So, it was a kink thing!"
"You Harlot!" Weiss shrieked, shoving Yang's hair out of her mouth and lunging at Blake like a girl possessed. "How dare you! First, you betray our friendship! Then, you emotionally bond with my father without my consent! And you're seducing him while I was finally having a real moment with my mother for the first time in years?! ?! Have you no shame?! You..you home wrecker!"
"I didn't seduce anyone!" Blake yelped, crab-crawling backward over the coffee table, "No!! Oh my Gods—no!! Have you met your father?! I wouldn't—HURRGNH—" She slapped a hand over her mouth and gagged while visibly turning green. "I was running away from him, you moron!" she choked out between dry heaves. "Running!! Like a normal person does when a lunatic chases them! You think I want to get within breathing distance of Jacques fucking Schnee!"
"Well, clearly you weren't doing a good job!" Weiss tackled her anyway. "Apologize!! Apologize for Apologize for trying to steal my trauma!"
"You can keep it!!" Blake screeched, Just as the two of them went tumbling out of the room.
Ruby, who had not moved from under her pillow, groaned softly. "Are we fighting? Please don't fight. I thought we trauma-bonded."
Nora dropped onto the couch with a sigh. "Nope. That's a lawsuit moment." She pulled out her scroll and casually added, "But I'm still filming it."
"We did!" Weiss said, voice pitched like she couldn't believe that somehow counted for nothing. "And now Blake has sabotaged the bond! She undermined my narrative arc!"
"Your narrative—okay, I'm vetoing this," Yang said, standing up and clapping once like that'd help. It's what Dad did whenever she and Ruby fought. "Nobody's sabotaging anything. Weiss, your dad is still a tool. Blake, you still look like you lost a bar fight with a hangover. Everyone, go brush your teeth, and then we're getting pancakes."
"I don't want pancakes!" Weiss shouted.
Blake raised a hand. "Can mine come with a side of not getting strangled?"
Despite that, the two of them did stop trying to trip each other.
Some people seemed to take offense at that.
"Did you know," Ren offered serenely, sipping his tea with suspiciously perfect timing the moment things seemed to begin settling. "In most cultures, there's a tradition of tension between the daughter of the first wife and the father's younger concubine? Usually it ends with someone getting disinherited."
"Dude, what the actual hell," Jaune muttered.
"I'm going to puke again," Blake warned.
"She is not my stepmother!"
Ren shrugged. "I'm just saying."
Luckily, and honestly somewhat tragically, Pyrrha finally stopped muttering to herself did what no one else had the moral backbone or basic human decency to do much to Nora's boos.
Face still flushed a deep, mortified red, Pyrrha cleared her throat and gently wedged herself between the tangle of limbs. She placed her hands on Weiss's shoulders and began pulling her off Blake before things could escalate from "dramatic" to "felony."
"Okay, that's enough," she said, trying very hard to sound calm and composed even though her voice wobbled a little. "No more tackling. No more accusations. Maybe… maybe we all just take a breath and sit down?"
Weiss flailed one last time before begrudgingly relenting, while Blake flopped backwards like a dead fish, groaning into the floor.
Pyrrha turned to her, offering a hand with the kind of polite pity. "You don't have to explain anything right now, Blake. Just… maybe next time, try not to end up in a relationship with your friend's father. Especially that friend. Or that father."
Blake opened her mouth. Nothing came out. Then she curled up and groaned again.
Finally remembering that they, too, were supposed to be bastions of maturity, discipline, and basic social skills, the rest of the teams awkwardly began to follow Pyrrha's lead.
Ren cleared his throat and muttered something about water being good for emotional regulation. Pyrrha very conspicuously helped Blake to her feet while avoiding eye contact with literally everyone. Nora sulked over to the couch and dramatically flopped onto it, clearly disappointed that the show ended.
Even Weiss, still fuming and thoroughly dishevelled, allowed herself to be steered toward a chair with only minimal resistance, muttering darkly about emotional treason and father-related betrayal. Blake slumped into a seat as far away from Weiss as spatially possible and rested her head on the table. "If anyone needs me, I'm renouncing civilization."
"You say that every time someone makes a scene," Yang pointed out, rummaging in the cabinets for pancake mix. "You're still here."
"I hate that you're right."
"Okay!" Pyrrha said, too brightly, clasping her hands. "We're going to have pancakes, everyone's going to hydrate, and nobody is going to physically assault anyone else today, right?"
A few grumbles circled the group. Nora raised her hand and asked if non-physical curses were still allowed. Pyrrha ignored her.
"Can I have blueberry, if we're doing pancakes?" And then, just as the mood started to settle into something almost sane, a voice drifted casually from inside Team RWBY's room. Too calm. Too smug. Too adult to even be a part of the farce. "Always wondered how that one tasted."
Blake hissed and was already halfway under the table.
Weiss let out a guttural scream like someone had just keyed her soul.
Jaune, the closest to the voice, made a sound like a dying modem.
Nora hit the floor laughing so hard she wheezed.
Ruby, still half-conscious and wrapped in enough blankets to qualify as a fabric-based life form, slowly turned toward the man sitting at the foot of her bed. She blinked. Then blinked again.
"…Oh. Hi, Mr. Schnee."
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beacon hadn't changed.
Same high ceilings. Same banners that looked like someone's overachieving mother had ironed them daily since the end of the war. Same faint smell of coffee, floor wax, and hormonal panic from a hundred kids pretending they weren't about to flunk a sparring exam. Even the damn windows looked smug.
Qrow tucked his flask a little deeper into his coat. It was still untouched. It was still tempting. The voice in his head that usually told him "what's the worst that could happen?" was quiet. It had already seen the answer in Mistral, and it wasn't interested in running the numbers again.
He passed a few students in the corridor. One of them looked up, did a double-take, and elbowed her friend like she'd just seen a rare bird. He heard the whisper behind him.
"Holy shit, is that a bum? This place really is going downhill."
"No, that's a teacher. I think. Or like, Ozpin's sad uncle?"
Qrow didn't stop walking.
He didn't have to. His Aura was bad, sure, but his hearing was still on point, and his sarcasm gland was still functioning at full pettiness.
Qrow didn't stop. He didn't even flinch. He'd been insulted by teenagers before. He'd been a teenager before, and frankly, he'd been worse at it than they were. Still, his pride (what was left of it, anyway) wasn't about to roll over and die in front of these little shits.
So he slowed down just enough to tilt his head back and say, in the most world-weary, gravel-soaked cool voice he could muster:
"Careful, kids. Stare too long and you'll see your future." He drawled with a smirk. "The world ain't so easy."
The line hung there.
Sharp. Mysterious. A little tragic. It was supposed to land like a dagger in the gut.
"Pfft. Lame."
"What a loser."
Qrow almost tripped.
He actually faltered for half a step, caught somewhere between wounded pride and secondhand embarrassment for himself. He glanced back.
They were already walking away.
Laughing.
He blinked.
"...Wow," he muttered. "Tough crowd."
And then, more quietly: "I used to be cool, right?"
Silence.
Even his flask didn't dignify that with a rattle.
Qrow sighed, shoved his hands deep into his pockets, and kept moving.
"Gods," he muttered, "I'm gonna need to lie about this later."
The hallway smelled too clean, the air was too bright, and the kids were too loud. He'd walked into Beacon expecting ghosts, and instead, he got teenagers with zero reverence for the fall from grace.
Honestly?
Somehow, that was worse.
"Wait, was that Qrow Branwen? My sister wrote a thesis about him."
That stopped him. He turned just enough to stare back at them. "Tell your sister her standards are tragic," he said, trying his damnest not to smile.
Then he turned back and walked on, leaving the smell of unwashed regrets and stale liquor in his wake.
He wasn't sure if that exchange made him feel better or worse.
But at least it meant he was still famous.
Kind of.
Maybe.
Shut up.
Gods, Qrow hated brats.
All smug and wrinkleless and hydrated. Walking around like they'd invented youth. He gave them one last mental middle finger as he trudged deeper into the tower.
And still, he couldn't quite hide the bounce in his step.
Not that anyone saw it.
Not that he'd ever admit it.
Not even under torture.
(Unless the torture involved flattery. Then maybe.)
---------------------------
There was no torture waiting for him.
No dramatic ambush. No mysterious stranger in a cloak ready to drop cryptic truths. No fawning fans. No flattery. Not even a goddamn Atlesian Knight who could break.
All there was… was crusty old Ozpin waiting.
And the harrowing realization that he was early.
Qrow hated being early.
It gave people the wrong idea.
Like you were reliable. Trustworthy. Mentally stable. Worse, it gave you the idea that maybe, just maybe, things would start making sense if you just showed up on time often enough. And that was a terrible thing. That was a gateway drug to hope.
Qrow narrowed his eyes at the doors like they'd personally betrayed him. He considered just loitering outside to preserve the illusion of his own dysfunction, but that felt like giving in, like admitting the universe had won this round.
No. He was already down a thousand to nil. It was about time he got a win. He'd settle for a draw, too.
The door creaked open like it, too, was tired of this crap.
He walked in there, hungover, undercaffeinated, vaguely damp from god knows what mystery moisture clung to Bullhead seats, and he was going to look Ozpin dead in the eye and pretend it was intentional.
Ozpin looked up from his scroll with that unreadable expression in the way only the smugly cryptic people could master. A steaming mug sat in front of him. Of course it did. Probably some artisanal hand-ground blend with flavor notes Qrow couldn't pronounce.
He didn't sit.
Didn't speak.
He gave Ozpin that tried-and-true "what now, boss?" look, the one he'd perfected over years of taking missions no sane man would accept, half because they were important, half because they gave him an excuse to disappear for a while.
Qrow had stepped inside like a man heading into a job interview he'd already given up on, and never wanted to begin with.
Ozpin smiled like Qrow had already aced the interview. His eyes twinkled.
Bastard.
As expected, he found no one else inside. He'd expected Jimmie, and his white shadow to be here early, and Glynda? She was practically a clock with legs, always right on time with that "don't even try it" glare.
But no. Not today. Just him and Ozpin, who had all the time in the world and none of the urgency.
And then, despite himself, a grin tugged at the corner of his mouth.
"Guess I'm the only one who knows how to be professional around here,"