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For all of his other shortcomings, Qrow found himself increasingly well-versed in the art of “tossing and turning” as the years passed him by—and really, he'd told himself, that was just his luck. While the familiar burn of alcohol could once numb the recesses of his mind, such a luxury—or rather, such a poison in the guise of a luxury—was no longer his to fall back on. And so, on such nights as these, he found himself studying shapes lost within ceiling paint at dawnbreak or, in the past week since he and James had moved in together, watching the steady rise-and-fall of his lover's back beside him in the moonglow.
Still, try as he might to dispel such rampant thoughts, no distraction ever seemed quite intense enough to outmatch the fervency of his subconscious mind.
The Apathy, the fall of Beacon, the situation in Atlas, the situation with Salem, Summer Rose, Clover Ebi, Ozpin, Ozpin’s secrets, Ozpin’s mistakes, his own mistakes, so many damn mistakes, the Apathy again…
And that wasn't to mention the more trivial thoughts that also plagued him, ranging from matters of his personal relationships to whether they needed to buy eggs at the supermarket next week. He knew fully well that some nights would be easier than others, but tolerating those where his mind wouldn’t shut up and let him rest was another matter entirely.
All the same, he had finally managed to nod off for thirty minutes or so this evening before a distant rustling sound shook him from sleep.
Rolling over onto his right side, he nestled further towards the center of the mattress and slung an arm purposefully across the bed. But in the expanse where he’d come to expect the familiar warmth of his lover’s skin, his hand instead met a fistful of cotton. Qrow gave a few languid blinks to dispel the sleep from his eyes. Surely enough, as his sight readjusted to the darkness of the bedroom, he found the sheets on the other side of the mattress disheveled and thrown aside; James’s body was nowhere to be found.
With a low groan, he threw a hand over to the nightstand and snatched up his scroll. The screen illuminated the room as he checked the time, and only further punctuated the ache behind his eyes brought on by sleep deprivation. 3:12 am.
As his mind struggled with the numbers staring back at him, a clatter sounded from across the room again; instinct drew fingers down towards Harbinger, which rested underneath his side of the bed. He knew it was unlikely that anything was amiss, but years spent living in a state of high-alert did nothing to snuff out old habits. His neck craned further out for a better view of the opposite wall, and it was only then that he noticed the dim glow of an orange flame pulsing underneath the bathroom door.
What was James doing up at this hour? Granted, he may have been up to something trivial or private, and he was certainly entitled to that. Still, Qrow had been lying awake for some five minutes now, and the concern of his half-conscious mind outweighed the guilt he would have for walking in on his partner using the bathroom.
And so, after mulling over his options for a moment, Qrow rubbed at his eyes a few times and shimmied down to the edge of the mattress. As he swung his legs over the side, a breeze from the overhead fan swept downward to raise goosebumps along his thighs; with a shudder, he ghosted a hand to the floor, searching for the sweatpants he had discarded in haste the previous night. He located them at last, strewn haphazardly across the reading chair in the corner, and threw them on before crossing the threshold to the bathroom.
With a quick fwip, the steel door gave way beneath his hand, and Qrow at last spotted James standing hunched-over in front of the vanity mirror. Visible only in the flicker of dual candlelight, a soaked metal hand was perched on the edge of the countertop. Similar rivulets of water streamed down James’s face, and the hair at the front of his scalp had matted wetly to his forehead. His other hand kneaded at the right side of his ribcage in a steady rhythm, tracing a flesh thumb in circles between metal and skin.
The less-than-couth side of Qrow’s mind couldn’t help but admire what a sight he was to behold, cast in the warm glow of two vanilla-scented candles. It seemed that even in these most joyless hours of the night, the attraction he held towards his dearest friend almost pilfered the breath from his lungs.
As Qrow rapped a knuckle against the doorframe, James’s shoulders lurched upward in a flinch, but he otherwise turned to meet Qrow’s gaze with tired, crinkling eyes. “Qrow... I didn’t wake you up, did I?”
“Haven’t been sleeping well tonight anyway,” Qrow said, offering a small smile of his own. As though serving as a testament to his own exhaustion, a yawn pulled itself up from the back of his throat; his palm lifted to cup his mouth as it passed. “I happened to look over and you were gone.”
“... I see.”
Something in the other’s tone didn’t sit well with him, however, given the unusual circumstances he had found him in. Leaning forward a little, Qrow pressed further. “James, what’s with the candles? It’s kind of a weird time to be setting the mood.”
“I, um…” His throat bobbed in a visible swallow. Wiping his face with a rag, James turned around to face him more fully and parted his lips to speak. But try as he might, the words took a moment longer than usual to form on his tongue, and he opened and closed his mouth twice to no avail.
Finally, with a tone nary above a whisper, he spoke. “Just a nightmare.” His eyes flickered to the floor in what Qrow could only assume was a deeply entrenched embarrassment; the thought made his heart twinge with sympathy. “Candles used to help calm me down at night, after the accident first happened.”
Oh. His teasing felt cruel in hindsight, and Qrow averted his gaze for a moment as well in an unspoken apology. It seemed a certain degree of sleeplessness was endemic this evening, and a part of him wondered whether James’s inner demons and his own mirrored each other in ways beyond what he might have imagined. For all of the differences in their lifelong circumstances, perhaps this was one of many areas wherein they held far more common ground than he had once thought.
“Jim… you okay if I come in?”
James folded his arms across his chest, but otherwise nodded; his stare remained fixated on the floor. “Please.”
As Qrow approached, he held his hand out again, this time motioning towards the washcloth; when James cocked an eyebrow at the gesture, he merely raised a brow back in return. “You missed a spot.”
Training his eyes on the taller man’s face, Qrow plucked the washcloth from his fingers and lifted it upward. As gently as he could manage, he dabbed the driest corner of the cloth against James’s beard and caught the water droplets that still clung to the hairs along his jaw.
Now pinching the cloth between his palm and pinky, Qrow traced the same spot on his jaw with the back of a forefinger and sighed. Visible only in the faint burn of candlelight, red blotches bloomed beneath the crests of either cheek, and the skin under his knuckle burned hot. He could recount the number of times James had cried in front of him on a single finger, but there was no denying the residual signs on the other’s face in this moment. “Nightmares, bad memories... I have ‘em too.”
Qrow saw James lean ever-so-slightly into his touch. James swallowed. “ I... I didn’t mean—”
“Save it.” Any sharpness in his verbiage was betrayed by the empathy in his tone. “Nobody’s ever brought it up with me besides Tai… and you now.”
His finger paused in its motions, and his grip slackened enough to let the cloth fall to their feet. Instead, he readjusted his hand to cup the other’s face more fully in his palm, as though trying to re-fixate James’s attention on himself rather than the hauntings of his night’s mind.
Yet, such hauntings were not limited to only James, and his own nagging thoughts began to gather at the front of his head again; they drew him to flex his fingers a few times against the other man’s cheek. Perhaps this had become an exercise in grounding them both, in some way. “... Night’s been a personal hell for me, too, for what it’s worth.”
With softening eyes, James glanced thoughtfully between Qrow and the open door before responding with another question. "... Do you want to stay here?”
“Don’t have to ask me twice.” Letting his fingers slide one final time down the side of James’s face, he stepped back and lowered himself to sit on the outer lip of the bathtub. James followed suit, sitting across from him on the closed lid of the toilet.
“Thank you.”
“Uh, sure thing. It’s not like I’d just leave you in here like this.”
In place of spoken word, James instead averted his eyes to the fire flickering in one of the jars atop the counter. The flame continued to lap away at string and wax, and from within its hearth bathed their skin in a soothing heat. Though swathed in a sheen of orange, his face was cast in striking light and shadow, and for a moment, Qrow’s attention was entirely enraptured by the glow of his partner’s sharp features in the candlelight.
It was in moments like this that Qrow saw at once the bright-eyed student he had met during the Vytal festival, and the war-weary huntsman he had since become. He wondered if when James looked at him, he was seen in the same light.
At last, James returned his tired eyes to Qrow and scooted forward on the toilet lid; the ends of their knees slotted together as he lessened the gap between them. “Qrow… If you’re not sleeping well, do you want to try sleeping separately? I know neither of us are used to sharing a bed—”
“C’mon, Jim.” Shaking his head, Qrow rested a hand on the metal knee pressed against his own. “It’s got nothing to do with you. Some nights life just... weighs on you more than others.” He grunted. “If anything, having you around gives me something else to focus on, on nights like this.”
Though unable to mask the surprise on his face, James could only nod in agreement at that. In an effort to further punctuate his presence beside him, Qrow gave the metal beneath his fingers a gentle squeeze; James wouldn’t feel much of it, he knew, but he hoped the gesture may help in whatever small way.
“I haven’t dreamt of that day in… a while,” James muttered after a moment’s silence, and lowered his fingers to knead again at the blemished skin of his abdomen. Upon realizing where the topic of conversation had returned, Qrow squeezed the knee in his hand once more; he held his tongue in waiting for James to continue. “I’d thought some part of me had moved past it by now, but... I guess that was foolish, in hindsight.”
James’s eyes narrowed at the thought, and the hand lifted from his abdomen to instead pinch the bridge of his nose. “For what it’s worth, this doesn’t happen often. Not anymore, at least. I’ll get past it.”
Qrow absently traced a fingertip down the length of a wire on his kneecap before tracking an invisible line from one knee to the other. He was never especially good with words when it came to matters that he, himself, hardly had a grasp on. Nevertheless, he willed his tongue to try, especially if it meant providing some iota of comfort to the man he loved.
Loved. The concept felt so foreign on his mind’s mouth. But after all they had endured together, he did, and he did so with a fervor beyond anything he could have comprehended when they first met. For all of their years of bickering, they had come to understand one another more intimately in that time than Qrow thought possible with anyone, lover or otherwise. To this day, he wondered whether Oz had anticipated it—after all, it was by his guidance that they had worked so closely with one another from the start. Unfortunately, he had never gotten the opportunity to ask, and now likely never would.
Regardless, the push to discuss with him their shared troubles this evening, however daunting, brought his mouth running in haste before his mind could catch up to tell him “no”.
“James, you and I both know you’re no fool. Getting over it...” In an effort to calm his now-trembling hands, Qrow preoccupied himself with spelling out the letters of his name on James’s flesh-knee with a calloused finger; he felt the other man shudder beneath his touch as he traced out a ‘Q’. "I wish I knew if we even could.”
Despite each synapse in his mind pushing him to deflect or change the subject, he continued. “Some nights I can’t get them out of my head long enough to fall asleep in the first place. Everything with my team, and Oz, and Clover, and myself …”
He swallowed. “Always hoped going sober would help with that. Figures I’d want a drink more than ever, on nights like this.”
Continuing in his ministrations, he took to writing J-A-M-E-S in the same spot he had “written” his own name. Despite his best efforts, Qrow could think of nothing further to offer on the subject without babbling on about his own insecurities—something he didn’t much want to ramble about, and something he was sure the other man wanted nothing to do with, not really. As he traced the tail end of the “S”, however, James's left hand inched forward to blanket his own, and held his tremorous fingers still.
He let a thumb dust across Qrow’s cold-chafed knuckles. “For what it’s worth… I’m still proud of you, Qrow.”
In that maddening way of his, James always knew what to say to encourage the corners of his lips to twitch upward—though he also suspected that, more often than not, James hardly knew what he was saying himself. All the same, perhaps they also knew each other a bit too well, if this was any indication. He chanced a small, solemn smile despite himself. “Yeah… I know, Jim.”
James set his eyes upon the flame again. “I wish there was more I could do for both of us.”
While there was no denying that Qrow admired his selflessness at times, it was a habit that only seemed to further strain James’s mind and heart, and the thought of being an additional burden on his shoulders made him endlessly uncomfortable. Instead, as he gathered up the words to say, he twisted his wrist atop the other man’s knee and held his hand more fully; palm and palm ghosted across one another from opposite directions. His forefinger slid into the open space beneath James’s wrist, where it was met by rhythmic kisses from a quickened pulse. “This isn’t some fairytale. Nothing we do is gonna make it all go away for each other."
A weary sigh met his ears. "Right."
“But, uh…” Qrow swallowed a lump that had begun to form in his throat. “If you’re good with it, I’ll work through every second of this with you. Good nights and bad... That work?”
The hand atop his stiffened, but a smile sprung up in faint lines at the corners of James’s eyes. “I hope you know that goes both ways.” He returned his attention to Qrow’s face. “Though, I’m guessing we've both had worse nights than this… I know I have. It won't be easy."
"James, what in either of our lives has ever been easy?” He rolled his eyes lightly and leaned forward a bit. “But if you're up for it… I am, too. We're in this together, right?"
"I...” A single chuckle slipped past his lips, and the sleepy, mirthful disbelief with which he met Qrow’s stare was all but infectious. “We always have been, haven’t we?"
And, in hindsight, they had—be it competing against one another as students, coordinating missions under Ozpin’s command, or simply spending an evening over shared drinks and friendly banter. In their many years together, they had, quite possibly, witnessed one another in their respective bests and worsts—a vulnerable intimacy that Qrow allowed a select few people in this world, and something he didn’t think he could ever truly let go of once granted.
He hummed. “Yeah, I guess we have—”
And no sooner had the words escaped his lips than Qrow found himself wrapped up, albeit clumsily, in a firm pair of arms. The gesture was sudden, unexpected in the midst of his own exhaustion, but decidedly far from unwelcome; for all of the gratitude that existed between them, words from tongues could only speak so much.
Qrow shivered. Never could he have imagined the comfort he would find in that metal thumb kneading semi-circles into his back, but the simple intimacy in such a familiar touch had all but rendered him to putty. Returning the embrace at last, he nuzzled deeper into the short salt-and-pepper hairs sticking out from behind his ear. The remedial smell of citrus and musk lingered on his scalp from the previous night’s shower and, coupled with a fresh waft of vanilla smoke, drew forth a vocalized sigh from his lungs.
As the arms encircling his body tightened, he could feel the steady rise and fall of the other’s chest pressed up against his own, half-metal and half-flesh and wholly James, and the tension held captive in his shoulders finally set itself free.
Neither he nor James were ready to discuss the full extent to which their respective demons haunted them. But, he thought, perhaps there was a shared comfort to be found even in that.
Lost to the solace of solid metal and a beating heart, it wasn’t until the low hum of the other’s voice vibrated against his chest that Qrow was lulled back to reality.
“Qrow?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you want to go watch a movie?” came the question in gentle puffs against his ear. “I... don’t know that I’m up for going back to bed yet.”
Pulling back from the embrace for a moment, he re-fixated his eyes on James’s face. “Depends. What did you have in mind?”
“I’m not sure. We did just get a copy of Remnant 5 in.”
“Jim, that’s a musical. If you put in a musical, I’m going back to bed.” He drew his lower lip under his teeth as he thought. “Spice of Autumn.”
This time, it was James’s turn to wrinkle his nose in distaste. “Qrow, you can’t be serious.”
“Serious as a Grimm attack." He smirked now, flashing James a tired, toothy grin. In complete fairness, it was a terrible movie, but after getting such a visceral reaction from the other man, he was adamant.
“We’ve seen that already.”
“Yep, so it doesn’t matter if we fall asleep while it’s on.”
"Qrow."
"Jimmy.”
Chuckling, Qrow cupped either side of his face and tugged him forward to steal a cheeky, smirking kiss. A sigh slipped from his nostrils as he melted against the other's lips; it was chaste, rough only in the pleasant scratch of James’s facial hair against his upper lip, but reciprocated with such sincerity that he found himself lost to every scintilla of love that he had to give. Though the darkest corners of his mind made efforts to push him to ruin, it was in such raw seconds as these that despite everything they had once been and everything they continued to be, Qrow was unequivocally at home.
They would get through roughly an hour of the movie before Qrow, curled awkwardly around the jut of a metal arm, was lost to the luxury of a quiet and fretless sleep.