Archive of Our Own

Atlas had something of a reputation for top-of-the-line prosthetics, and with its other branching technological advances, it was no mystery as to why.

Perhaps no stronger a model for this statement existed than James Ironwood, with his fully-functioning synthetic chest and extremities that only seldom experienced any sort of major malfunction. In the grand scheme of things, he considered himself lucky that the number of times his prosthetics had required extensive repair was small enough to recount each instance almost immediately.

Still, even the most well-oiled machine was prone to an occasional sputter, and no sooner had James reached forward for his coffee cup one morning than his artificial shoulder locked suddenly in place.

Blinking down at the arm atop his desk, he urged the metal limb forward once, twice, and sighed. He should have seen the tell-tale signs of something in his arm loosening up over the past few days. It made sense, thinking back on it—the rattling sound that had echoed off of the shower walls last night, the delayed movement in his sparring with Oscar a few days ago... Both of these should have alerted him to something out of the ordinary.

Come to think of it, he wondered whether the increased sparring time these past weeks was to blame in the first place. He had seen plenty of action over the years since losing half of his body, but certain areas of the prostheses might have been nearer the end of their life cycle than others. It was an aspect of his own body he hadn’t considered much, with far more pressing matters taking up most of his attention as of late, but one that he likely should have paid mind to far sooner.

For the time being, however, his attention was directed at the arm frozen in place in front of him.

Gnawing at the inside of his cheek, he gave his arm and shoulder another once-over. Minor dislocations and wire replacements were nothing out of the ordinary, given the nature of his job and the extent of his artificial body. This likely wasn’t anything that required a great degree of repair, but it was hard to be confident in the nature of the issue without opening up the outer panels.  With a final fruitless attempt to pull the arm back, he slid open one of his desk drawers and withdrew a small screwdriver.

Now if he could only pinpoint the exact spot with the issue…

Using his flesh hand, he pulled back the collar of his coat and undershirt to expose the broken shoulder joint. His neck craned awkwardly to the right, eyelids downcast as he scrutinized the metal plating. This was far from ideal, but there was a select number of people in this world he would trust to tinker with his prostheses beyond… well, himself . And frankly, said select people were few enough in number to count on one hand.

At least, such would be the case if he could even move his fingers right now.

“Jim, you seen Ruby this morning—?”

As his luck would have it, Qrow’s familiar rasp sounded from the doorway. Whether it was fortune or misfortune that brought Ozpin’s old spy his way in this moment, he couldn’t be certain. Nonetheless, he lifted his attention from the malfunctioning arm and instead met a set of questioning red eyes from across the room. A silence settled briefly in the air between them, neither really sure what to say to the other for a pause. Loath as he was to admit it, that had been happening more often lately, since Qrow and the crew arrived in Atlas. His own reasons were evident enough, but generally speaking, Qrow had never been one for much silence in his company. It was peculiar that he would start now.

“... Y’know,” Qrow started, leaning his weight against the left side of the doorframe; James saw his eyes dart between the frozen arm and the now-cold cup of coffee resting inches from his hand. “Atlas tech is good, sure, but it isn’t gonna pick up your coffee for you.”

At that, James could only groan; if his hands weren’t otherwise occupied, he might have pinched the bridge of his nose. As much as he had missed Qrow’s occasional quips since the fall of Beacon, this situation was unfortunate enough for him without jokes at his expense. “Qrow…”

Qrow’s hands rose in front of his chest in surrender. “Touchy subject?”

Letting his gaze linger on Qrow’s expression a moment longer, James finally reached out with his flesh hand and picked up the mug of coffee, setting it aside on the far corner of the desk. His prosthetic arm remained immobile in front of him. “No, I haven’t seen Ruby at all today. Is everything okay?”

“Should be,” Qrow said. “Just wanted to check out something on Crescent Rose. Nora said Ruby was coming up here to see you about something.”

“That’s news to me.” James scratched at his beard a few times. “I can’t think of any reason she would have to see me right now.”

“... Hm. I might know.”

Qrow dropped his eyes to the floor for a second. A flash of something seemed to pass over his face for a moment, but it was gone in the same breath that it had appeared. While James might not have been privy to all that Qrow (and by extension, the kids) was keeping from him, it had always been an unspoken understanding between the two that there were things in their line of work that remained under wraps until the time was right. The current circumstances might be well beyond anything they had anticipated these past years, but he wasn’t going to press anything they weren’t willing to disclose.

His trust in Qrow may have taken years to cultivate, but at this point, he would put his life in the other’s hands if the situation called for it. And had done so, on rare occasion. If there was something crucial to be said, he would wait until it was crucial for him to know.

Qrow sauntered further into the room and gestured at last to James’s stationary prosthetic. “Something wrong with your arm?”

With widening eyes, James found himself tugging his coat collar back up his shoulder; Qrow was no stranger to the scar tissue that melded his skin to the metal, but certain old habits were difficult to break after so many years. “There's… something going on with my shoulder joint. I can't move.”

A soft heat crept onto his cheeks, though he wasn’t sure whether it stemmed from shame at his predicament or the way Qrow’s watchful stare so deliberately bored into his sleeve. This wasn’t the sort of thing that happened to just anyone, after all, and there was a certain vulnerability in being unable to lift the weight of one’s own artificial arm.

Finally, Qrow spoke again, tapping his chin in thought. “So, what’s it need? Oil or something?”

“That’s, um…”

The comment was innocuous enough, but if Qrow wasn’t the direct source of James’s embarrassment before, he was now. An inkling in the back of his mind offered up far too vivid an image that consisted of “Qrow” and “oil”, and this was far from the time to start slithering down those rabbit holes. His old, unspoken attraction to Oz’s spy sure seemed to pick the most inopportune moments to rear its ugly head. 

“No,” he managed, and shook the thoughts from his head. “It isn’t rusting. I think it’s dislocated. I was trying to reach around and check, but...”

A thought crossed his mind, then, as his gaze flitted over to the folded scythe on Qrow’s back. Of course—Qrow was a huntsman, so he definitely had some knack for tinkering. He had also seen the degree of James’s artificial half on a number of occasions, so he might have been more agreeable to the idea of dealing with it up-close. Would it be so wrong for him to ask his colleague—his friend, at that—for a few minutes of help?

Still, a lingering voice in his head dug deeper into his insecurities—why should Qrow want to? Mottled scar tissue and the occasional uncanny bionic movement weren’t easy to stomach for some people, and that didn’t even touch the idea of repairing a functioning part of someone’s body. Qrow had seen that extent of his body in the past, sure, but not on such a close-up level. Besides, while both weapons and Atlesian prosthetics were mechanical, could repairs for a scythe and a shoulder really be so one-to-one?

When he brought himself to speak at last, his voice was a touch quieter than it had been before, as though any words spoken above that note would frighten the other away—or, more likely, frighten himself out of it altogether. “Qrow, I could use your help. If you have a few minutes.”

The request seemed to catch Qrow off-guard, and the way his face faltered and his brows raised made James swallow. He had known it was a long shot, but a small part of him had hoped for the immediate help, if for no other reason than to keep him from calling up someone else who might be less familiar with the extent of his prosthetics.

Much to his surprise, however, Qrow responded at last with a nervous half-chuckle and swiped the screwdriver off of the desk. He rolled it over in his hands a few times, testing the weight before giving it a single flip; he missed the catch and cringed as it loudly struck the desk’s surface. “Don’t know, James. With my luck, your arm might fall off. You sure that’s a risk you want to take?”

“I’m sure,” he said with confidence, and a relieved smile sprung up onto his face. He still wasn’t entirely sure about this, but the fact that Qrow seemed willing enough to help filled him with an odd sense of comfort. “I trust you.”

Qrow’s incredulous stare met his own again. There was a clear sense of disbelief written on his face, but his attention was nonetheless diverted back down to the screwdriver on the desk. 

“So… Uh, where do you need me to look?”

“Up here.” He motioned to the area of his shoulder where his chest and arm were connected. “You’ll probably need to take the plate off.”

Readjusting his grip on the screwdriver, Qrow nodded his head and meandered over to the corner of the room. With his free hand, he latched his fingers onto the top of a chair and hauled it gracelessly over to James’s side; the room filled with the echoes of each leg knocking and dragging against the floor. James rolled his eyes. How Qrow had managed to sneak around anywhere unnoticed throughout the years was still a mystery to him.

Sitting centimeters now from the other’s synthetic half, Qrow lightly prodded his forearm with the end of the tool. “You good to take off your coat?”

“Oh, right.”

With a quick readjustment in his seat, James slid the shoulder of his overcoat down his arm as best as he could. Unfortunately, with what little give the material had, there was no easy way to remove it with his arm frozen in place like this.

Frowning, he shrugged his good arm a few times to shake the sleeve off of that side instead. As he reached out to remove the other sleeve, however, Qrow’s hands caught the loose cloth that had fallen behind him, and in a careful motion peeled the layer completely down his arm and off of his body. The coat was folded neatly and placed aside on the desk, and James let free the breath that had caught in his throat at the unexpected gesture. He could still feel the ghost of Qrow’s touch on his back.

Of the many “worst best ideas” he'd had in recent months, this may have ranked near the top.

No sooner had the notion crossed his mind than Qrow cleared his throat, pointing down at the long-sleeved blue shirt that he had worn underneath the coat. The implication, though nonverbal, was clear enough; that would need to go, too.

“You want help with that?” Qrow finally asked after a moment’s silence. His eyes flitted from the blue shirt to the lightly-armored vest on top of it, as though trying to discern the best way to get to the prosthetic limb without needing to strip him down completely. “Or I could just cut your sleeve off.”

“No, no, it’s fine.” James shook his head, willing away the heat that had begun crawling back up into his face. He hoped dearly it wasn’t showing as strongly as it felt. “Just... help me take it all off.”

In that moment, he thought he saw the other’s adam’s apple bob, as though swallowing down one of his usual smart remarks. Instead, Qrow gave a half-shrug and stood up to move in front of him. There it was again—that uncharacteristic quiet. Had he said something wrong? Sure, that might have been an unfortunate choice of words, but at one point in their working relationship, Qrow would have jabbed at him for it. Hell, when they had first met, Qrow wouldn’t have let him live that down for a week. He had half a mind to ask him about it, and opened his mouth to speak, but otherwise held his tongue and let the other man work before he said something really damning.

Qrow now loomed over his sitting form, reaching across to undo the latches of the vest. For once in his life, James wasn’t sure whether to thank or curse the fact that his clothes were all custom-made to accommodate a missing arm, in case of emergencies like this. It certainly made removing things easier in a pinch, but a tiny part of him wished he had no choice but to cut off a sleeve instead. It would be a small price to pay for his own sanity.

As Qrow tugged the vest off of James’s body, he chuckled once and tossed it haphazardly on top of the coat. “If only Oz could see us now.”

That brought a small, if sad, smile to James’s face. This was the longest stretch of time he had gone without some form of contact with Oz since joining up with the group. Although his younger self might never have believed his eventual dependence on Ozpin, the way that the enigmatic man and his mission had seeped into so many aspects of his daily life and decision-making was no mystery after so long without him. 

He ran his left hand through his hair once at the thought.

“I don’t think he’d believe us if we told him.” A pause. “Though he might have believed that thing about you detaching my arm by accident.”

Qrow smirked. “Heh, yeah. Forget accidentally though. Tell him I'd stolen it in your sleep. Just to mess with you.”

“What?” James shook his head at the idea, distracting himself with the absurdity of the conversation as Qrow began to remove his shirt. Practiced fingers played with the buttons down the front, and with his speed it was any wonder he undid them without popping them off of the thread. Still, quick as his fingers were in their motions, James couldn’t ignore the occasional brush of a blunt fingernail or ring against his skin. He swallowed. “Qrow, I’m military . You would wake me up entering the room.”

“Light sleeper?”

“I have to be.”

Qrow gave a half-shrug. “Wouldn’t wake you up if you left your window open.”

At that, James shot a questioning look at him.

“I can be invisible if I want to, Jimmy.”

“James,” he corrected, and squirmed a little as Qrow struggled with the final button. Then the implication of the other’s words registered. “You think you could take my arm off—without me noticing—and carry it through the window as a bird? ”

“Not really, but I sure as hell want to try now.” He seemed to mull over his thoughts for a moment. “Or I could just steal a screw.”

“What good would one screw do you?”

At that, he heard Qrow snort, and a mischievous glint cast itself in his eyes. James flushed a deeper red. “That’s not what I—why would you take a screw off of my arm ?”

His hands stilled. “‘Cause it would keep you coming back?”

That statement caught James by surprise, and he cocked an eyebrow in the other’s direction at the sudden comment. “We’ve seen each other every day since you got here.”

A long sigh sounded as Qrow tugged one last button free; the gust of breath drifted warmly into the now-undone opening of his shirt. “And ‘cause it would probably annoy the shit out of you.”

Shaking his head, James leaned away from the back of the chair to let Qrow pull the shirt across and over his stiff arm at last. This conversation was going nowhere good and nowhere fast, so he let it wane as the final piece of cloth left his upper body.

It felt… strange, having his full upper prostheses exposed in his office like this. Outside of his personal living quarters, he didn’t often find himself shirtless anymore; aside from keeping up professional appearances, it would draw too many unwanted questions and concerned eyes. Besides, with the year-round cold climate in this region, there wasn’t much need for it beyond his living space anyway.

Still, he couldn’t keep his hand from rising up to cover the juncture between metal and flesh at his neck, where the scarring was at its worst.

Qrow discarded the shirt with the rest of his layers and returned somewhat hurriedly to the chair beside James’s arm. He picked up the screwdriver again but, in his haste, fumbled it into his lap; cursing under his breath, he grabbed it a second time and held it in a vice-grip.

One of James’s eyebrows rose in question at the sudden urgency, and the tiniest part of him thought that he saw red blooming down the other’s neck. It was a peculiar thing, he thought, considering Qrow had seen his body on a number of occasions over the years. Why would seeing it now give him pause?

“So,” Qrow interrupted his thoughts. “Shoulder plate off?”

James nodded, leaning back against the chair and trying to quiet his mind as Qrow began to twist out the first screw. The weight of the other’s touch went mostly unnoticed against the metal of his arm. “I’ll try to talk you through what to do.”

“Right. I guess, uh… let me know if it hurts or anything.”

As Qrow continued to work at the plate screws, he craned his neck forward and trailed the path from shoulder to hand with his eyes. His curiosity made sense, James supposed, given that not many people got to see such an advanced prosthetic this close. Even if Qrow had seen Yang’s over the past few months, the extent of her injuries had been far less than his own, though undoubtedly just as difficult to adapt to. Both physically and mentally adjusting all those years ago had felt like an entire lifetime in its own right for himself, and he had been quite a bit older than she was. He couldn’t imagine the strife she had been through up to this point, and for that he admired her on a personal level.

“There.”

Qrow popped the plate off and set it aside on the desk; a couple of screws rolled loose from their holes and onto the floor, but neither man paid them much mind yet. Instead, Qrow gave a low whistle as he gingerly nudged a blue wire to the left. “There’s way more going on in here than I would’ve thought.”

The chestplate is worse, James thought dryly, but held his tongue. Instead, he reached his free hand over and pointed to a bundle of wires underneath a metal flap.  “There should be a white button somewhere around here. See it?”

Leaning forward a bit more, Qrow squinted his eyes for a better look. “Yeah, I think so. Triangle?”

“That’s it. Press that; the wires should move out of the way.”

Qrow shifted his hand forward to press the button, and in reaching into the socket grazed his palm featherlight across the back of James’s knuckle. Both sets of fingers flinched at the accidental contact, neither sure how to react in the moment; after a few lingering seconds, James hastily withdrew his hand from its spot above the triangle. Remnants of the contact still clung faintly to the nerves under his skin. 

A whirring sound stirred from the innermost chamber of his shoulder, and the bundle of wires gave way to a new section of micro-sized parts. Craning his neck a bit for a better view, James winced. “Does anything look… Obviously broken?”

Qrow rubbed at the back of his neck as he scrutinized the tech in front of him. “I don’t even know what I’m looking at. Actually, wait. You have a pair of pliers somewhere?”

“Bottom drawer on the right.”

Reaching into the desk drawer, Qrow passed over a number of tools before finding a set of needle-nose pliers and lifting them out—and then he froze. His thoughts seemed to take him for a moment, giving way only when James said his name out of concern.

“Qrow?”

James followed his eyes down to the drawer, and at last he caught sight of the unsealed envelope that had given him pause. 

Sliding the door shut, Qrow returned his attention to the repairs at hand and set the pliers in his lap. He opted for the screwdriver again, seeking to remove another inner covering first. A heavy quiet settled between them for a moment’s breath, broken only by the occasional click of the tool against a screw.

When at last Qrow spoke, he did so with a marked hesitation that James had never before heard from him. The sound made his heart sigh. “So, you did get my letter.”

“I…” he stuttered, tongue leaden as he tried to gather his thoughts. “I did. It arrived a few days after you did.”

Qrow shook his head, a small smile on his face as he set one of the screws on the desk. “Postage system is useless.”

“Right…”

As he trailed off, James saw Qrow’s shoulders sink, as though an entire world’s worth of secrets and guilt threatened to bear him down into the ground. Qrow had never been an open book by any means, but Ozpin’s absence and the ensuing chaos that followed seemed to be weighing on him even more than it had on himself.  And really, the more he considered it, it was no wonder—what good was a spy if all of one’s secrets stopped at the source?

Qrow placed a hand on the unoperated area of his shoulder, as though grounding himself. “James, there’s a lot I want to talk about with you. The things we’ve found out, just...”

James’s brow tensed as he looked on at the other man, but Qrow’s voice trailed off to an uncertain silence. A curiosity still sat dormant in his mind, but he knew better than to pry.  “But it’s not your place to say?”

“There’s that,” Qrow said, and paused in his ministrations. “But… I’m also not sure if you’re better off knowing. Some days I wish I didn’t.”

A quiver carried in his voice as he spoke, and James could do nothing but look on in concern. Whatever they had seen or learned these past months had certainly changed them all, and it didn’t take someone like James to notice. The kids had matured into huntresses and huntsmen, but in a way that was far from the luxury of pace or peace of mind they deserved. And Qrow…

Well, if Qrow had been committed to sobriety, then he surely must have seen something that shook his sense of reality. It was a terrible thought, he knew, but Qrow had been either drinking or drunk throughout most of their interactions over the years. Quitting cold-turkey so suddenly wasn’t something he ever would have expected without a catalyst to prompt it.

In an effort to bring the conversation away from things unspoken, James offered him a small smile. “Sobriety is treating you well.”

Qrow only grunted. “Is that how it seems?”

“It is,” James affirmed, perhaps a bit too quickly, and gazed on as Qrow removed the smaller plate from inside his shoulder. As he studied the other’s face, which was currently nose-deep into the repair of James’s arm, he couldn’t shake the thought that Qrow was somehow more attractive without the ever-present flush of alcohol on his cheeks. He still retained the bags under his eyes and the uneven scruff on his jaw, but there was a newfound sharpness in his eyes that James hadn’t seen since they were far younger. Up to this point since their arrival, he hadn’t gotten a close look at the other man, but at their current proximity he wanted nothing more than to take hold of Qrow’s lips and swallow the secrets off of his tongue.

He winced at himself. Since when had his nagging attraction to Qrow become this hard to ignore?

“Always heard that going sober was the best thing I could do for myself.” Qrow wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. “That you’re never better off than when you’ve stopped drinking. And yeah, maybe eventually, but…”

“But it isn’t easy?” James finished with a sympathetic look on his face.

He dug the pliers in further. “It’s like… every mistake you make is ten times worse than it used to be. But this time, you don’t have the liquor to drown it all out.”

Qrow’s fingers slipped suddenly, and the pliers jabbed at a small chip on the side of James’s arm. A shock-like feeling darted up his shoulder and to his head, leaving his mind fuzzy for the briefest of moments. Blinking the sensation away, he craned his neck down at the open section of his arm, grimacing. “I don’t think that was it.”

A part of him expected one of Qrow’s usual retorts, but instead he heard nothing but a soft curse and an apology. Despite the accidental nudge, Qrow’s focus was entirely drawn towards the task at hand now, as though diverting his eyes would keep him from ever fixing the malfunction. “Looks like a wire popped off. Gimme a bit to reach it.”

James nodded, offering a relieved smile. A loose wire was unfortunate, but if that was the only issue, then it was more than fixable without calling up a more practised technician and spending hours immobile in his quarters. “Well… if there’s anything I can do to make it easier, I’ll be here.”

“What, fixing your arm? I kinda figured, Jim.”

“No, going sober. Maybe there’s something I could do to help? If you needed a distraction from it or something.”

He shrugged, mulling over the idea in his head. After all, he had been sparring with Oscar lately as both a means of rattling Opzin out and training him further. Who was to say a sparring session or even a shared morning over coffee wouldn’t be a welcome distraction when Qrow was feeling low? There may have been a couple of selfish motivators for it on James’s part, sure, but more than anything he wanted to help Qrow as much as he could in their time together.

At the suggestion, however, Qrow only laughed shortly and shook his head.

“You distract me enough as it is.”

For a moment, James wasn’t sure whether Qrow had hit another transistor and shorted his brain, or if he had heard him correctly. What exactly was he insinuating? He whipped his stare back to Qrow’s face, but his expression was unreadable, and his focus was once again zeroed-in on James’s arm. 

After a moment of quiet, Qrow’s brows furrowed, and his jaw set in a way that made James stifle back a laugh. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen the other man’s “concentrated” face, but he couldn’t deny it was a little endearing. He was so unused to anyone paying such close mind to him, particularly such a private part of himself, that the sight made his chest flutter a little.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing,” James said, waving his free hand. Still, he couldn’t fight the grin tugging at the corners of his lips, and his mouth started to run a few steps ahead of his mind. “Just, um… You’re funny to look at. I mean, your face. It’s nice. Um.”

Well, that didn’t come out right in the slightest. He cursed whatever part of his brain decided to merge his two competing thoughts—namely that Qrow was nice to look at and that his face at that time had been a bit funny, though handsome in its own right.

The other shot him an incredulous look, and James could hardly blame him for it, but he soon quirked a smile in return. “You know, you’re not exactly in a great position to get on my bad side, Jimmy.”

“You have a bad side?”

“Heh. In a way.” He could all but hear the wink in Qrow’s voice.

“Is that so?”

“One you’ll hope you never have to see.”

“... I wouldn’t say that.”

As his eyes trudged the path from Qrow’s gaze to his lips, he swallowed, drinking in as much of his friend as he could from this angle. Was James flirting? Was Qrow flirting? Granted, his own experience was… limited at best, but this conversation felt far more charged than any of their previous discussions. At a distance, it wouldn’t be unexpected—they were both single men well into their adulthood, and to his knowledge both had heavy leanings towards other men. But that didn’t change the fact that this was Qrow, and that the other had never shown any interest in him up to this point.

Unless he just hadn’t noticed, which… was fair. But if that were the case, then gods how oblivious had he been?

His pulse hammered fervently in his ears.

Rather than snap back with another remark, however, Qrow went quiet again. His eyes flickered hurriedly from James’s face back down to the arm, as though the realization that James was flirting right back had stricken the words from his tongue. Instead, his attention was honed back into the repairs, and it wasn’t long before he returned the conversation to the task at hand.

“Almost have it,” Qrow said, and drew his lower lip under his teeth as he tinkered. 

“... Right.”

But James’s mind was still elsewhere, and as his attention drifted from Qrow’s mouth down to his hands, it was any wonder he could sit still while the other worked. A number of notches and scars marred the skin on his hands, some hidden only by the rings nestled just below his knuckles. Still, they were meticulous in their motions, hesitant to do anything that might further damage his hardware or cause him any pain. Had Qrow ever been so practiced and precise with… well, with anything?  Sure, he might had fumbled through the repair process a bit, but James would be a fool to miss the care with which he had handled the grooves and cavities of his arm.

In short, Qrow continued to surprise him all these years later, and it was for this reason that, despite himself, his affections would never fully fade.

Qrow fastened the wire back in place at last with a punctuated click of the pliers. He exhaled. “That should do it. You good to move your arm?”

James gave a slow nod and craned his neck to the spot Qrow had adjusted. “Which wire was it?”

“White one, over here on the right.” He tapped the wire with the pliers before setting them on the desk. Stretching his fingers a bit, he leaned over the arm again and pointed at the offending wire. “Connection’s still kinda loose, but it’s reattached now, so, uh...”

As James tilted his head for a better look, light puffs of air began to dust across his skin; the sudden feeling sent a thrill down his spine. Had their faces been so close before…?

Qrow seemed to have similar thoughts, for as his eyes darted back down to the open panel, James could hear the breath catch in his throat. He spoke softly now, as though any utterance louder would shatter the space between them; those brilliant crimson eyes moved up to meet his again. “Uh… So, can you move it? Your arm?”

Swallowing, James tore his eyes from Qrow’s for a moment and focused instead on his prosthesis. Surely enough, as he willed his arm upward, it rose and bent as expected; the rattling sound that had plagued him earlier that week was also nowhere to be heard. All in all, Qrow had done as good a job as anyone he might have needed to call, and for that his gratitude was immeasurable.

“It’s good as new.” James offered him a fond smile, and flexed his fingers in front of him in affirmation. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“Right,” Qrow said, with a twinge of uncertainty clinging to the usual rasp of his voice. He absently toyed with one of his rings in his lap, as though doing so would eventually offer up the right words to say.

“I mean it, Qrow. I wouldn’t have asked just anyone to help with this, so… thank you. If there’s anything I can do to make it up to you...” 

Before he could stop himself, James lifted his now-repaired arm and gingerly swept aside the bangs hanging from the other’s forehead.

Qrow’s eyes grew wide at the unexpected contact, though he did not flinch at the sensation. Instead, he looked on at the ground in confusion, in concern, as though pleading silently for James to really consider whatever the hell he was doing. Still, he made no motion to move away, and as James realized his impulse and retracted his hand, Qrow snapped his own hand up to clamp his fingers around the metal wrist. 

“James, I…” 

Spurred on by the other’s voice, James lowered his arm only slightly, and instead opted for dancing his fingertips back along the line of Qrow’s jaw.

When his hand stilled against the other’s face, the grip that clung to his wrist loosened and carefully dragged upward to twine their fingers together. Never had James wished more dearly for his hand to have the full sense of touch now as it had in the flesh. The notion that Qrow may reciprocate anything that he had felt for the other these past years had seemed little more than wishful thinking, but...

As Qrow drifted forward, the tips of their noses grazed one another, and his eyelids slid shut at last. A barely-perceptible utterance of his name spilled again from Qrow’s lips, noticed only in the breathy sigh that flickered from one set of lungs to the next. The sound set James’s nerves alight.

But rather than closing the whisper’s gap that had come to exist between their lips, Qrow pulled back suddenly and, in a gentle motion, lifted James’s hand from his face. He coughed once as the doorbell to the office rang out, face still glowing a brilliant shade of crimson. “I should… go find Ruby.”

James hoped dearly that the disappointment swelling in the pit of his stomach didn’t show on his face as much as he thought it did. Had he done or said something to put the other off? Unable to form the words that his heart so desperately shouted into his ears, he straightened up in his seat with a frown. Clearly, something had turned Qrow off to the idea, and as much as he wanted to hound the other for what that “something” might have been, he knew better than to push him into anything he wasn’t ready for.

“It’s not that I—” Qrow started, and ran a hand through his hair; his eyes wandered about the room, but markedly refused to meet James’s confused stare. As he stood, his other hand absently ghosted over the desk in front of them. “I just… I can’t right now. Can’t do this... with you. Not right now.”

The emphasis on James himself only led to further confusion, and alongside it a pang of hurt that he couldn’t shake. Which aspect of himself was it, then, that Qrow couldn’t make amends with? Was it that they had otherwise been colleagues and friends up until this point, and Qrow was afraid of ruining that? Was it the myriad of choices with his kingdom that Qrow had shown some disdain for in the past? Hell, did it relate in any way to the arm that he had just finished repairing—was the feeling of metal on his skin in a more intimate way the reality check that Qrow needed to avoid a relationship with him?

These and an infinite number of other possibilities rushed through his head, and in doing so, his face must have fallen, for Qrow finally met his eyes and let out a soft sigh. “It isn’t... that I wouldn’t, I just… Not now. I’m sorry, James.”

With his eyes trained on the floor, Qrow took a single step forward, pressed an apologetic kiss to James’s temple, and hastened out of the room.

Dumbfounded and slack-jawed, James stared across the room at the void left in his wake. What exactly just happened? He knew he hadn’t imagined the way Qrow had spoken to him, looked at him, leaned into him. What reality check had hit him so suddenly that he couldn’t even give a proper explanation for why he had hurried away in the first place?

He stood up, and had half a mind to chase after Qrow for some modicum of an answer, but Clover’s sudden appearance in his doorway redirected his thoughts to less personal matters.

Still, a small part of him cursed the fact that Clover’s good luck couldn’t extend to James long enough to give him another few minutes for himself.

“Clover…” he started, and sat back down in the chair. The Ace Operative exchanged a few glances between the General and Qrow leaving down the hall; his mouth opened and closed a few times, but otherwise no words came forth. As such, James raised the volume of his voice. “Clover.”

An almost amused look then sprouted on Clover’s face, and it only took a few moments of the Ace Op eyeing his clothes on the table for the reason to register in James’s mind.

With a low groan, James propped his elbows on the desk and put his forehead in his left hand. The spot on his temple where Qrow’s lips had lingered still prickled warmly. “Clover, did you need something?”

“Just coming to tell you that tomorrow’s briefing got moved to now.” He cleared his throat. “Though, you should… probably get dressed first, sir.”

James only waved his hand in dismissal, and Clover vanished from the doorway soon after.

Falling against the back of the chair, he dragged his fingertips across his scalp and let loose a deep exhale. He knew Clover wasn’t one to gossip much, considering the team’s penchant for keeping their personal and work lives separate. All the same, word always seemed to spread quickly in tight-knit places when it came to matters such as these, regardless of sealed lips.

Well, no matter. He doubted anything would get out to those he didn’t trust, at any rate. 

With a final fleeting glance at the door, he stood up and hoisted his shirt up off of the desk. It was only then that he noticed the metal plates and screws littered across the surface, and the realization struck him that his shoulder was still partially in pieces. His eyes drifted down to his prosthetic arm as he sighed again.

“It isn’t that I wouldn’t” , Qrow had said. What did that even mean ? Was he just saying that so James wouldn’t take his rejection so personally? Or that James was attractive, but he didn’t feel that way about him on an emotional level? Or… Was that Qrow’s strange roundabout way of admitting he did feel the same way?

He sniffed once and got to work refastening the plates to his arm.

Qrow really had done a good job in his repairs… It was a shame he hadn’t stuck around to help him finish.

And “not now”—hadn’t he said that a few times as well? Was it the looming election—the political implications of being romantically involved with someone of James’s status? Was it the stress of Ozpin being gone and Salem plotting somewhere out of reach? Did something that Qrow knew make him hesitant to enter into a relationship at all? Or was the pressure of watching over the kids and running missions and maintaining sobriety and being himself enough to juggle on its own?

Qrow held his secrets close to his chest by nature, and though he rarely outright lied to James—because, quite frankly, he likely knew better—it was plenty evident there were things he wasn’t ready to disclose right now. And that was something James was willing to accept.

But after this morning? The mystery was going to gnaw away at his insides until he had a straight answer. If he hadn’t imagined the way Qrow’s hands lingered longer on his back than they should have, or the way his neck craned to press his face into James’s touch, or the way his eyes hovered for so long on James’s lips, and on his chest... 

It was nothing short of maddening.

And James had half a mind to get to the bottom of it, as much as his time would allow. But then, that was another issue in itself, wasn’t it? The briefings, the mission planning, the sparring, the political dealings… As far as he could tell, his day was all but filled to the brim with non-personal matters as it was.

He chewed on his lower lip in thought, thrice turning over the last plate in his fingers. Try as he might, he would be lucky to find time today to speak to Qrow in private. And that’s assuming the other would even want to—particularly if the best he could offer was a brief discussion in his office or in his quarters that evening.

Besides, to even allow himself the opportunity to talk alone with Qrow, he would need a moment alone to offer it as well, which he wasn’t certain he would get in the foreseeable future. And was it truly wise to let such matters of the heart get between himself and someone with whom he also held a professional relationship?

A dull ache began to settle at the front of his skull. It would seem he had dug himself into another unsolvable dilemma, as he had been apt to do these past months. Still, he was far from willing to give up on this one so easily.

It was only after putting the outermost plate back on that, search as he might, James discovered the absence of a single screw. And despite himself, he reached up to cover the smile tugging incessantly at his lips.

It seemed his mind had been made up for him.