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A jumble of voices met Clover’s ears as he stepped into the living room, balancing three mugs of tea precariously in his hands. Qrow’s teasing cut across Ruby’s wails as the TV blared out the sound of a game, a man’s deep voice booming out the name of the victor. The rest of the kids and Tai were scattered around the room, chatting and yelling out commentary on the game.
Ruby pulled herself back together quickly, glaring at her uncle as they clicked forward to the next round and stretching her fingers out over her scroll. “I’m gonna beat you this time, Uncle Qrow!”
Qrow huffed in amusement. “Fat chance of that, kiddo.”
“You got this Ruby!” Taiyang called encouragingly from his spot on the sofa, sticking his tongue out at the back of Qrow’s head. Qrow swatted a hand at him in return. Clover had realized early on in his stay at Patch that Qrow and Taiyang brought out the childishness in each other easily and often.
Taiyang’s gaze flickered over to Clover with a smile as he came over, thanking him as he carefully extracted the first mug from his grasp.
Clover turned around to where the players sat and knelt down to hand the second to Qrow, who jerked his head to the side with a grunt of acknowledgement, not removing his eyes from the screen.
“Just put it down there.”
Clover raised his eyebrows at him in amusement but followed the instruction, careful to set it out of the way of flying elbows. He retreated to his usual place at the edge of the sofa to watch and sip from his own mug, breathing over it to cool down the tea as the steam curled up to his face.
“Soaring ninja wins!” said the announcer again to the backdrop of Ruby’s groan of defeat.
Qrow smirked at her, grabbing his mug. “You still got a long way to go before you’ll beat me, pipsqueak.”
Ruby stuck out her tongue at him with an expression not unlike her father’s. She scooted backwards to slump over the sofa, accepting Taiyang’s conciliatory pats on her head.
“Who wants to get their butt kicked next?” Qrow asked.
Nora jumped up, grinning hard enough that Clover worried for the health of her teeth. His alarm increased when she flung out her hand dramatically, her finger pointed directly at him.
“Clover’s the only one who hasn’t played yet!” she declared, most likely correctly, although Clover hadn’t been paying that much attention to who else had gone.
“I’m okay,” he demurred. “I don’t know the first thing about this game. You kids should keep having fun.”
Suddenly Nora was in front of him, leaning into his space. It took every single ounce of his military training to stiffen his spine and stop himself from recoiling instinctively.
“Nope, we are not taking no for an answer!” she said, and tugged him up from the couch as he scrambled to set the mug down, yanking him over to the floor and plopping him down gracelessly.
Qrow turned to smirk at him. “Welcome to the arena. Don’t worry, you won’t be here for long.”
Clover, who had been about to protest again, narrowed his eyes at him instead.
“Really, Branwen? Is that how you want this to be?” he challenged, and Qrow’s smirk only widened as Taiyang laughed.
He looked around at eight kids’ eager expressions and Ren’s neutral one. He turned back to Qrow and raised his eyebrows.
“Guess you’re on.”
Yang pumped her fist in the air as the others grinned in excitement. “Yes!”
Ruby slid next to him, grabbing his scroll and clicking buttons with great focus. “I’ll set it up for you. Just pick a character name and color and you’ll be all set!”
She shoved the scroll back in his hands, and Clover blinked as he looked at the menu of options in front of him. He paused, unsure of what to put.
Qrow rolled his eyes and took the scroll out of his hands once again. He chose the green character, and Clover watched with wary curiosity and then amusement as he typed W-I-S-H-F-U-L-T-H-I-N-K-I-N-G into the name box.
“Isn’t that a little premature?” he asked, raising an eyebrow at Qrow.
“Not if it’s accurate.” Qrow’s grin was wolfish as he submitted the response and handed the scroll back.
Ruby pulled his attention away again, demonstrating where he should put his hands and explaining the functions of all the buttons. Clover nodded at her a bit blankly, most of the information going over his head.
“Just push buttons randomly if you don’t know what to do,” Yang instructed him.
“You see, it’s that kind of disrespect for the game that makes you keep losing, Firecracker,” Qrow said, jabbing a finger in her direction.
She scoffed. “Whatever, old man. You just play this game too much.”
“Hey, don’t-”
“Get to the fight already!” Nora interjected, loudly. Qrow narrowed his eyes and jabbed his finger at Yang one more time before twisting back to face the screen.
“We’ll finish this conversation later,” he tossed over his shoulder back to her. He looked over at Clover next. “You think you’re ready?”
No, he really did not. “As much as I’ll ever be.”
Qrow smirked. A few more button clicks and a countdown appeared on the screen. Clover focused on it, fingers poised over the buttons as he readied himself to start. He heard the cheers of the kids behind him.
The battle was practically over before it began.
Qrow wasn’t an overly cruel player, Clover had to give him that. He gave Clover enough time to work through the function of each button for himself before charging at him with all the mercy of a pissed off Nevermore.
Clover fumbled with the buttons desperately, trying to keep his feet and block the strikes that Qrow’s character was landing on him.
His character’s health dropped to nothing before he could do anything to stop it.
“Soaring ninja wins!”
Clover gaped at the screen to a chorus of groans in the background, more frustrated than he was willing to admit with how quickly he’d been defeated.
Qrow snickered next to him and Clover had to forcefully remind himself that elbowing the other man would not be sporting conduct.
“Don’t feel too bad, Clover. It was your first game, after all. I did warn you.”
“Oh, that is it. Rematch.”
Qrow snorted. “Sure, as many as you want. Nothing’s gonna change.”
We’ll see about that, Clover thought, keeping it to himself.
Qrow hit the ‘replay’ button and the countdown appeared again, the game’s music picking up in pace.
He took a deep breath, keeping just enough focus on the screen to not lose immediately while the rest of him anchored in to his semblance. He carefully stoked the feel of it, waiting for the right moment.
After a few more blows, his character was nearly dead. He hit as many buttons as he could, trying to hold Qrow off. Just as Qrow launched his final strike, he let the power loose, tingling through his fingers as he channeled it into the game.
Right as he swung the character’s sword a hair too early to recover from Qrow’s next strike, the game glitched harshly, the picture frozen on the screen. The glitch lasted no more than a few seconds but it was enough, Qrow’s character having moved forward so that Clover’s sword could cleave straight through his head with a splatter of pixelated blood.
“Wishful Thinking wins!”
Clover, unable to suppress the grin taking over his face, turned toward ten identical gaping expressions and Qrow, who was still staring wide-eyed at the TV. Clover shrugged as Qrow’s eyes slowly slid to his.
“Beginner’s luck?”
Qrow moved as quick as lightening. Clover barely had time to move his scroll to safety and get his arms up before a throw pillow whacked him in the face. Clover laughed, holding his hands up in surrender. Behind Qrow, Ruby, Yang, and Nora had recovered from their surprise and were chanting Clover’s name, glee written on their faces. Penny was clapping along happily.
“Beginner’s luck my ass, you cheater,” Qrow accused, glaring at him.
“Language, Qrow, there’s kids here.” Taiyang chided from behind them.
“We’re licensed huntsmen and huntresses!” came Yang’s answering protest.
“You’re teenagers!”
Clover bit his lip to hold back his laughter as he looked back to Qrow. “I don’t remember a rule saying no semblances,” he said, desperately trying to hold onto a straight face.
He burst back into laughter as Qrow smacked him with the pillow again, not bothering to defend himself this time. He figured he deserved it, anyway.
The twin pillow impacts had ruffled his hair, and he raked his hand back through it quickly to tousle it back into place. He watched Qrow’s gaze follow its path before Qrow forced his eyes back down and scoffed.
“Don’t give me that, you knew exactly what you were doing,” he said with an angry tone, but the twitching at the corner of his lips betrayed him.
“And what did you think I was doing?” Clover said, leaning forward, voice taking on more of a provocative edge. Qrow’s jaw dropped open a bit as the room around them went entirely silent, possibly for the first time since they’d reached Patch. Clover suddenly felt nervous. He’d said things like that all the time back in Atlas, but saying Patch was a different place than Atlas was like saying a Beowulf was different than a dog. Accurate, yes, but something of an underestimation. Maybe what had been okay in Atlas wasn’t okay here.
He flushed a bit under the weight of the silence, worried he had come on too strong.
Qrow grinned at him, out of view of the rest of the group. “Cheating.” He turned around to face the rest of the room with his superior expression back in place. “Which doesn’t count. I’m still the champ around here.”
As the roar of noise started up again, Qrow looked over at him and winked.