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“Are you trilling?” Qrow ducked his head away from his boyfriend Clover’s inquisitive gaze, of which the full intensity had been turned on him.
“...Maybe.” The shapeshifter muttered.
“ Awwwww .” Clover affectionately carded his fingers through his partner’s hair. “I love when your bird tendencies show.” Qrow nuzzled his face into the taller man’s shoulder in lieu of a reply.
It wasn’t until later that evening when they were standing at the sink together, cleaning up after dinner, that Qrow brought up the subject again.
“So what other ‘bird tendencies’ do I have?”
“Well to start with,” The grin on Clover’s face slipped into his voice. “You do this thing where you’ll kind of brush dust off my shoulders and pick through and ruffle my hair.”
“Preening.” Qrow spoke up, purposely avoiding eye contact in an attempt to hide the blush he could feel flourishing on his face. “It’s called preening. It’s something we--uh, something birds do to our flockmates.”
“I’m your flockmate?” Clover’s beaming gaze was unavoidable now as the taller man turned fully to face him.
“I mean, yeah, we do live together.” Qrow pointed out. “And we’ve been dating for, what, two years now?”
“Oh my goodness, I’m your flockmate!” Clover abandoned the remaining dishes in the sink in favor of picking up the other man by his waist. Qrow let out a startled squawk as he placed his hands on Clover’s shoulders to balance. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” Clover apologised, staying still while Qrow regained his balance by locking his legs behind the brunette.
“No, it’s fine, I liked it. It just caught me off guard.” Qrow reassured him. Clover used one hand to keep the shorter man balanced while shutting off the water with his other. “Not that I’m complaining, but we’ve barely done any of the dishes, Cloves.”
“Don’t worry, flockmate,” Qrow regretted telling Clover this term almost immediately as he could practically hear the smirk on his boyfriend’s face. “We’ll come back for those later.”
The next morning, Clover stood at the sink doing the dishes (they never had gotten around to them last night) when he heard three loud clicks echo through to the kitchen. He whistled four soft notes back and heard a fluttering of wings in response before feeling a brush of feathers against his neck and head.
“Hey, flockmate .” The brunette purred as the black bird rubbed his beak against Clover’s face. Qrow hopped off his shoulder and onto the counter before shifting back to his human form, sporting Clover’s green hoodie which went down to the shorter man’s thighs. His dark hair was still ruffled from sleep and Qrow rolled his maroon eyes affectionately.
“You’re so lucky I love you.”