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Qrow was very tempted to blame their current predicament on his Semblance. The snowstorm came out of nowhere, instantly blocking the road and making it impossible to drive. It was only through a combination of Clover’s good memory and better luck that they managed to get to the small emergency hut before the worst of it hit.
Qrow shivered and wrapped his cloak tighter around himself, listening to Clover rummaging through the cabinets. His shoulder still hurt from trying to find a place to hide in bird form. After he’d transformed, a strong gust of wind threw him into a tree before he got a chance to see anything but the endless white. Clover’s chiding for the recklessness had been fond, but relying on someone else still didn’t sit right with Qrow.
There was an itch of anxiety somewhere in the back of his throat, growing into a nauseous feeling with each passing minute that he didn’t do anything to help. Clover knew the place, knew how to find it and where to look for the dust supply. It made sense to let him take care of it, but Qrow still hated feeling like a burden, even if a rational part of him knew he wasn’t.
A quiet bang tore him out of self pity. Qrow whipped his head up to see flames dancing happily, if a little too brightly, in the fireplace. Clover watched them with a sheepish expression.
“Sorry… I might have miscalculated a bit?” He turned to Qrow, “Come on, grab the blankets and let’s get warmed up.”
Qrow didn’t argue. Both of their auras were low after trudging through the snow fighting off the severe cold, and Qrow wanted nothing more than to sleep. He wrapped two blankets around himself and stumbled over to Clover to lay another one on the wooden floor.
The warmth of the fire was soothing, but the blankets were still cold, and Qrow had to resist the temptation to fling them across the room.
“Come on.” Clover opened his embrace invitingly, and Qrow only hesitated for a moment before flinging off his boots and snuggling into Clover’s side, making a comfortable nest for himself out of the blankets. He pressed his cold fingers and toes to Clover’s arms and legs, giggling at the involuntary shudder it produced. Still, Clover didn’t complain, only took Qrow’s hands in his and held them firmly, gently rubbing the feeling back into them.
Qrow exhaled and let himself fall further onto Clover, relaxing into the welcoming heat. He didn’t feel cold or useless anymore. Lulled to sleep by the low rumble of the fire and the breathing motions of Clover’s chest, the last thing he remembered was a gentle hand carding through his hair.
He woke up to the sensation of a kiss pressed to his forehead, then another one on his cheek, then nose.
“Cloves?” he murmured, not convinced it wasn’t an elaborate dream.
The kisses stopped. “You awake?” Clover whispered into his hair, and Qrow huffed, tugging the blankets tighter around himself and resolutely squeezing his eyes shut.
“Nhhn,” he wrapped his arms around Clover, pulling them closer together. The sound of Clover’s laughter made him smile, and he hid it in the other man’s neck.
“The storm stopped,” Clover kept whispering. Qrow made a vaguely acknowledging sound. This absolutely could have waited until the morning. “Come on, Qrow, wake up, I want to show you something.”
Qrow huffed, feeling Clover’s hair tickle his nose a little. “Can’t it wait?”
“Nope!” Clover’s fingers snuck under his shirt, half-caressing, half-tickling, making Qrow squirm and try to move away in the tight space under the blankets. The chuckling of the fireplace was a steady background noise, reassuring him that they were safe from the Solitas cold. Still, he keenly felt the chilly loss that inevitably comes when you move away from something warm and cozy, and that discomfort made him finally open his eyes, only to be faced with Clover’s brilliant smile.
“Just for the record, if I find it isn’t worth waking up at some ungodly hour, you will be carrying me all the way back to Atlas,” he grumbled with a childish pettiness, already knowing that he was going to like wherever Clover wanted him to see - for no other reason than Clover wanting them to see it together.
Qrow stood up as he was, wrestling one of the blankets away from Clover and wrapping it around himself. Clover didn’t really fight him, looking both amused and excited, and grabbed his arm to tug him outside.
The question of where they were going died on Qrow’s lips as soon as they made it out of the door. He vaguely registered the thud of it closing and the way Clover’s shoulder brushed against his, pretending to be an accident.
The snowstorm was really over, the once thick clouds entirely dissipated. In their absence, the dark velvet of the sky was lit up with hundreds of stars.
It was beautiful.
The trivial statement felt ridiculously inadequate in the face of what greeted them, but Qrow’s brain failed to come up with any more elaborate words. Unconsciously, he reached for Clover’s hand, not for a moment looking away from the gorgeous display.
Qrow was a practical person. He had to be, with the life he’d lead for so many years. He was used to looking down - both at himself and at the world, believing that he could see all the imperfections of both with his bird’s eye view.
Clover squeezed his hand back, a firm and reassuring presence. Maybe the world wasn’t perfect, but there certainly were some things that it got right.
Like the stars. And maybe some people.
“It’s worth it, isn’t it? Seeing it.” Clover breathed out by his ear. It briefly registered in Qrow’s head that this whole time he had felt Clover’s gaze on him from the corner of his eye. He was torn between laughing at the cheesiness of it, or pretending not to notice at all, or turning and kissing the life out of Clover. He ended up smiling and shifting to press more firmly against his side, wrapping the blanket around them both.
“Maybe,” Qrow drawled. “I need a few more minutes to decide.”
“Take as long as you need,” Clover replied, and finally turned to look at the sky, too.
Far from the lights of Atlas and Mantle, they could see more stars than Qrow could have possibly counted. Bright in the cold and clear air, they were mesmerizing, twinkling as the pair kept watching.
It should have been boring. What could be so interesting in looking at the sky for minutes on end, seeing the same patterns no matter how long you stared? And yet here they stood, together, with bated breath, basking in the view before them and in each other. The feeling of peace that came with gazing at the stars along someone he… probably loved, was something Qrow had nearly forgotten in the chaos of recent years.
“They say the stars are brighter here in the north,” Clover murmured, as if afraid to break the mood. “Is it true?”
And Qrow looked at the particularly bright flock of stars, and remembered the brightness of Clover’s smile, and the way his own memories from before coming to Atlas always seemed to be tainted by the fog of rain, or depression, or alcohol.
“Yeah. Yeah, they are. You were right, this… Thank you.”
Clover pressed a quick teasing kiss to his temple and Qrow could feel the grin in it.
“Oh? So you don’t want me to carry you back home?”
A memory flashed in Qrow’s head, one of Tai grabbing Raven to carry her over the threshold of their new home, Raven protesting loudly even though Qrow could see how she secretly loved it. It was a memory of simpler times, but it carried the leftover warmth not that different from what Qrow was experiencing now.
“Maybe another time,” he said. “For now, let’s watch the stars some more.”