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It was just a walk in the park. Well, actually, it had first been Qrow wandering the halls of Atlas Academy with a healthy dose of mild insomnia and an urge to move, to travel, to explore. He was a rover at heart, never was able to stay in one place forever without suitable chaos or company to keep him entertained, usually both at once.
So he’d left, not even Atlas’s heating system able to fully take away the bite of the nightly chill. He didn’t mind. It was bracing. He’d walked down the entrance of Atlas Academy, considering turning into a bird just to stretch his wings, when a friendly holler had caught his attention.
Clover had been awake, fuck knows why, and had apparently noticed Qrow’s general lurking. An invitation to grab a hot drink had turned into a nightly stroll around one of Atlas’s many parks, and the largest one had the heating lowered enough for actual snow to fall, creating a permanent winter wonderland.
It was nice, to watch ribbons of colours dance across the night sky like oil paints, the shattered moon hanging above. Trees and lanterns lined some of the pathways, and if Qrow looked beyond them he could see the outline of some kid’s snowman.
He also saw small things moving in the darkness, which he found way more interesting, especially when one white shape darted across the path in front of him and he realised it was one of the snow rabbits that filled this park in droves. It was cute (reminded him of Summer, with her white cloak and shy eyes), a welcome distraction to try spot them as he and Clover chatted about random topics, the conversation flowing in the way only conversations do and never faltering.
It was right when Clover was righteously trying to convince him of some sort of strange, obviously deeply personal argument involving sugar and tea (Clover fell on the side of ‘would rather eat his own hands then have sugar in tea’ and was very emphatic about it), that it happened.
And by ‘it’, Qrow meant his usual stupid luck.
Qrow felt a shiver go down his spine, like cold fingers tracing each vertebrae, Lady Luck’s hand gently raking her nails over his nape, and he did a quick step back on sheer reflex. Good for him, he managed to dodge the sudden weight of snow that had fallen from one of the trees he and Clover had been walking under, the packed powder too heavy to stay on the branch.
Unfortunately for Clover, the Ace Ops captain was now sporting a very fetching cap of snow across his head and shoulders, and on top of the lid of his (incredibly stupid, shamrock-printed, green ) travel mug.
Qrow winced and sipped his own coffee, one hand sequestered safely in his pocket while the other curled tight around the warm beverage. “… Whoops.”
Clover looked over his shoulder, teal eyes almost comically wide as he seemed to be processing what happened, before they twinkled in amusement and he shook himself in an almost-canid motion, the snow in his hair splattering everywhere around him.
Qrow squawked a curse as he moved to shield his mug, the snow hitting his arm instead. “You son of a- what was that for?”
“Apologising,” Clover grinned, his hair an absolute mess that still had melting snowflakes clinging to the brown tufts. “It’s not your fault.”
“It was my semblance.” He knew it for a fact.
That got him a quirked brow. “I thought you said you couldn’t control it.”
“I can’t,” he shrugged, already feeling defensive. “I just-” how to explain. He didn’t remember explaining this to anyone. Raven, Tai, and Summer had been there on this little journey of discovery.
He muttered a few random swears under his breath as he tried to pick the best words, stealing a glance at Clover. Clover was just standing there, with his stupidly open smile, a friendly glitter in eyes like a shallow sea in sunlight, and endless patience to match Qrow’s reticence.
So he took a breath and decided to just say it. After all, if anyone on Remnant could understand, it was this dork of a soldier. “My semblance is passive. But it’s more like… random spikes of misfortune. I can sorta control the frequency, and intensity, but I can’t stop it completely.”
“So… that was one of those uncontrolled ones?”
“They’re all uncontrolled. But if I’m in a fight, I can-” don’t make it sound dumb- “turn the knob, make them more likely. Skew the probability that my semblance will spike and something will happen. But it doesn’t discriminate between me, my allies, and my enemies.” That was the worst thing about it. The liability it made him. He didn’t even go into hospitals, most of the time, because all it would take was his semblance hexing one machine and someone could very well die.
Clover nodded to himself, taking it in and chewing it over, being just as careful with his words as Qrow was. While he thought, he unscrewed the lid of his travel mug and upturned it, spilling the most-likely-spoiled tea out as he flicked snow off the lid.
“So if that was random, how did you jump back so fast?”
Qrow scratched the back of his neck, where the skin still prickled a little bit. “You ever get the feeling that someone walked over your grave? Like the hairs on the back of your neck stand up?”
“Once or twice. I’m sure everyone has.” Clover studiously examined his travel mug before he screwed it all back together and clipped it, with the fucking side attachment, to his belt. Right next to the honest-to-gods rabbit foot. Weirdo. Weird, weird weirdo.
“Most of the time, unless it’s something really small,” a tire popping, a table leg breaking, a window cracking, a log falling out of a fire, “I feel that right before a spike. Split-second warning, I guess.”
“Makes sense,” Clover nodded and fell back into step beside him, hands folded lightly behind his back.
Qrow slouched a bit, taking a swig of his coffee (black, no sugars, double shot) in a familiar motion but without the familiar burn of alcohol down his throat. “Heh. I guess.”
They walked through the park in silence for a minute, a cold breeze whipping a flurry around their ankles and making Qrow’s tattered cape flutter behind him. He glanced at Clover out of the corner of his eye. “Your turn, Shamrock.”
Clover gave him another one of those quirked brows. “My turn?”
“Well, I talked about how my semblance works. Tit for tat, right?” He swirled the coffee in his mug to check how much he had. “I’ll get you a new tea.”
“Well, how could I refuse?” He grinned at him. “Alright. Mine’s random too. It’s usually small things, like Elm happening to have just finished baking something if I drop by, or the television plays the funnier commercials during ad breaks. My favourite chair in the rec room is free, or I find some Lien on the ground when I walk to work.”
“I’m not even jealous at this point,” Qrow chuckled, even if he was a small bit. Sometimes it hurt a little bit, because he was a petty, cranky grump and his heart wasn’t exactly gilt and gold. But Clover’s semblance was just… luck of the draw. They both got it, opposite sides of the coin.
Clover smiled a little awkwardly, a concerned tilt to his brows. “Not my intention. But I can amplify it, somewhat. Same principle as when you flip a coin and hope it’ll land on heads, only it almost always does for me. And before you ask, no. I don’t affect anyone else like you do. My semblance only works for me.”
Qrow noticed what looked almost like guilt sweep across those green eyes for a moment, before it disappeared back under Clover’s armour. “Yours ever tire you out?”
“Only when it does something really crazy,” Clover chuckled. “That’s the only time I can actually tell it was me. For most of the small to intermediate stuff, the only way I know it’s activated is when something fortunate happens.”
Qrow pulled his hand out of his pocket to hide a smile. “Hang on, are you telling me that my unlucky arse has more control over my semblance then you?”
“Would we call a warning system ‘controlled’?” Clover teased, light and airy, unlike the jabs that Qrow usually got from anyone willing to ever mention it.
“You’re just mad cause I got one.” Qrow thumbed at his chest with a cocky smirk.
Clover laughed, deep and real and warm, his head tossed back and his bird’s nest hair outlined by lantern light, and Qrow felt a squishy feeling in his chest that was probably a bad sign.
“Sure, I’d like to be able to know in advance if my semblance is about to drop a meteor on a grimm next time, I nearly passed out from how quick my aura dropped.” Those green eyes locked onto Qrow’s red with a fey-like sparkle and Qrow smirked in challenge.
“A meteor?”
“Well,” Clover grinned sheepishly. “Technically falling debris. But a meteor sounds more impressive.”
Qrow barked a short laugh of his own, the fingers of his free hand brushing daringly against Clover’s for a moment as they walked. “More egotistical, I’d say.”
“A little bit of exaggeration makes a story more interesting, there’s no ego involved.” Clover defended, traces of laughter lingering in his voice.
Qrow snorted. “Keep telling yourself that, Shamrock, maybe one day I’ll believe it.”
Clover’s smile softened. “Maybe one day. I like that.”
The tips of Qrow’s ears warmed slightly and he felt a prickle on the back of his neck, semblance spiking in tandem with his skipping pulse as he tripped over himself. Clover’s hands fastened on his arm immediately, keeping Qrow from faceplanting into the trodden-down snow.
His half-empty mug took the fall instead.
Both men stared at the remnants of the coffee as it leaked sluggishly out into the snow, Clover’s hands warm on Qrow’s bicep. He hadn’t let go and Qrow was in no mood to tell him to.
“… So, more coffee?”
“Ew, no, you owe me tea.”