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English
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Part 2 of Qrowtober 2020, but most of it isn't written in october
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Published:
2020-10-30
Updated:
2020-11-09
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2,541
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3/?
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16
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38
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505

feathers on the floor

Summary:

Salem never comes to Atlas. Forced to leave, Team RWBY continues their journey to Vacuo, bringing their friends (and exhausted uncle) with them. Clover stays in Atlas, trying to forget the man he was maybe, sort of, a little bit in love with. That is, until a crow shows up at his window one night and decides to let itself in.

alternate title: local gay clown finds love of his life: its a little gay, but then again who isnt
(thank you to my best friend for the suggestion)

Notes:

(See the end of the work for notes.)

Chapter 1: feathers

Chapter Text

The night is deathly quiet and just as cold, as if all of Atlas has been buried in snow. Clover knows it hasn’t, knows that the silence is only temporary. But until the sun rises, until the halls become the bustling clamor they are in the day, he’ll take this time to enjoy the quiet. That is, if he can stop shivering first.

Somewhere outside his window, a crow caws into the moonlit night. Clover sits up in bed, turning towards the window when he hears the call again, louder this time. He finds nothing outside his window, so he returns to laying down and tries to sleep.

In the midst of his tossing and turning, unable or maybe unwilling to sleep, he hears the softest of creaks at his window. Alert at once, Clover sits up again and turns to stare at the single dark feather that slips onto his floor. He misses the telltale sign of the wind blowing his curtains away from his window as he slides out of bed, too focused on the feather.

The window rattles shut, Clover whirling to look at it. He finds a lone crow perched just inside, and before he can even wonder how it got in, there’s a soft flash and a burst of black feathers.

When the feathers flutter to the ground, he finds Qrow standing where the crow once was. Clover tenses, reaching for Kingfisher before realizing it’s on his nightstand across the room.

Qrow recognizes the gesture and raises his hands immediately, a wary glint to his eyes. “I didn’t come to fight.”

“Then what did you come for?”

The dark-haired man shrugs, still never sitting up straight. “I came to see you.” He offers Clover a small, hesitant smile that does little to mask the nervousness in every line of his face. He remembers that smile, remembers those lips, the same lips he’d once dreamed of kissing. But now...

“Get out,” Clover snaps despite the feelings he had thought were long since buried stirring to life. “Now.”

Qrow freezes, that smile that Clover loves—no, loved so much slowly fading. “What?”

“You heard me,” Clover says through gritted teeth, hand twitching towards Kingfisher on the opposite side of his room. “Leave while you still can.”

“Clover, you’re not going to…” Qrow trails off when he looks Clover in the eye, seeing his intentions loud and clear. “Just listen to me,” he pleads instead.

And despite every rational part of his mind telling him to say no, Clover finds himself unable to. Instead, he just nods. Meets Qrow’s eyes again. Finding no deception hidden in the other man’s crimson eyes, he says, “Start talking.”

“I’m sorry,” Qrow blurts the second the words are out of Clover’s mouth. “I didn’t want to fight you, and gods, I didn’t want Tyrian to—” His voice breaks, and he swallows hard before continuing—”to… you know.” His eyes fall to Clover’s chest where only a thin shirt conceals the metal over his scar.

“But you still fought me, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did,” Qrow sighs, but his eyes are wider and slightly more nervous, sensing the hostility in Clover’s gaze. “Look, it was a mistake,” he says quickly when Clover opens his mouth. “I wasn’t thinking clearly and I… I fucked up, okay?”

Clover studies him, taking in his words. He doesn’t have to be a Grimm to recognize the regret and shame radiating off of Qrow in droves. Though he wants so badly to shut this down now, he can’t bring himself to do it. Seeing this man back in front of him after at least a month of being apart, tired and broken, is making it rather hard to hate him. “You weren’t the only one,” Clover admits with a sigh. “We all messed up.”

“But you’re the one who paid for it,” Qrow murmurs, unable to hide the tremors in his voice.

“At least I’m still alive. I got lucky. Besides, we all paid for it,” Clover insists. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Qrow shakes his head and buries it in his hands. “But it was! If I hadn’t been there, you wouldn’t have had to get lucky. None of us would.”

“Your Semblance isn’t to blame for everything that goes wrong,” he replies. “It’s time you realized that luck doesn’t change everything. Sometimes, bad things just happen, luck or no luck.”

“Easy for you to say,” Qrow mutters. “Your Semblance only brings you good.”

Clover stiffens, both of them feeling the tension returning. “Don’t you dare assume my Semblance has never brought me pain.”

Qrow’s eyes widen, and he shrinks back a little more. “I’m sor—”

Clover turns away. “I think you should go.”

“What?”

“I think you should go,” Clover repeats, harsher this time, so Qrow knows it isn’t a request.

It’s an order.

Qrow opens his mouth to say something. Shuts it. Nodding, he turns and opens the window, vanishing in yet another puff of feathers.

Clover watches him go until his dark form is indiscernible against the night sky. Only then does he shut the window.

Gods, why does Qrow Branwen have to make everything so complicated?

Chapter 2: feathers

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Qrow comes again about a month later.

“Gods, I fucking hate Vacuo,” he says the second the window shuts behind him, his transformation sending a shower of feathers drifting to the floor. “...Sorry. That doesn’t usually happen.”

“It’s fine,” Clover reassures him, even if he is trying to remember where he put the dustpan after Qrow’s last visit. “But if you don’t mind me asking, why are you here?”

Before he gets his answer, the clouds covering the moon shift ever so slightly, sending a soft beam of light through the window and illuminating the sword at Qrow’s back. Did he have that last time? Clover frowns, taking a step back.

Qrow sees the look on his face and frowns slightly, eyeing Clover warily all the while. It isn’t hard to tell that this fragile trust they hang onto is wire-thin and fraying quickly. “I’m just here to talk,” he explains, steadily meeting Clover’s piercing gaze.

Clover scans his every movement, every breath for some sign of a lie, but finds none. “Fine.”

The tension leeches out of Qrow’s shoulders, and he relaxes into his usual slump. “Since I didn’t get shot out of the sky, I’m assuming you didn’t tell James.”

“I didn’t,” Clover confirms, dropping Qrow’s gaze.

Qrow tilts his head rather abruptly, the movement reminding Clover of his crow form. “What I want to know is… why?”

“You didn’t stay for long, you weren’t armed, and you left as quickly as you came. What was there to tell? It would be a waste to dedicate time to shooting down any crow that comes this far north,” Clover answers stiffly.

“You haven’t answered my question,” Qrow says, holding his hand up to stop Clover before he can interrupt. “Sure, that’s your typical logical explanation. But I know you’re supposed to report any and all sightings of me and the kids to James, and you wouldn’t ignore an order without good reason. That wasn’t the real reason you kept this a secret, was it?”

Clover looks away, silently cursing Qrow. Apparently, he’s better at reading him than he thought. “Maybe I just don’t want you to get shot out of the sky,” he says at last, wincing at his words the second they come out of his mouth.

Qrow huffs out what might be a laugh, ducking his head. When he looks up again, Clover finds that those crimson orbs don’t look quite as suspicious of before. “”I’ll take it,” Qrow chuckles with a just touch of teasing in his tone.

“Now that I’ve answered your question, will you answer one of mine?”

He considers it for a brief moment. “Depends on the question,” Qrow replies cautiously.

Good enough for him. Letting out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, Clover asks, “How did you turn into a bird?”

“I had a feeling you’d ask sooner or later,” Qrow snorts. “It was a gift from Ozpin. He needed spies that could travel quickly and discreetly, and besides, he couldn’t resist the pun.” He spits Ozpin’s name with a certain kind of hatred Clover knows well—betrayal.

Clover doesn’t ask what Ozpin did. He knows that their relationship is in no state to be asking questions that would delve too deep into the secrets Qrow guards. “And the feathers? Why do they just…” He trails off and gestures to the scattered feathers on his bedroom floor.

It’s hard to tell in the dim light, but Qrow might be blushing. “Like I said, it normally doesn’t happen. I can stop it entirely if I focus enough, but if I’m even the slightest bit distracted, I tend to drop a few feathers.”

“So you’re very distracted now,” Clover says dryly, eyeing the mess. “But why?”

Qrow coughs. And coughs again. And coughs until Clover’s pretty sure there’s something wrong with him. But just as he’s about to make sure Qrow isn’t about to die, he says, “...That’s not important. Anyway, that was, what, two extra answers you owe me now?”

“I guess,” Clover sighs. He hesitates before asking, “Does that count?”

“It would if you hadn’t asked if it counted,” Qrow smirks.

Clover frowns, processing. “Shit.”

“That’s about right, yeah.”

Opening his mouth to respond, Clover is cut off by the sound of footsteps in the hall. He waits for them to fade away, but just as they grow louder, they stop. Someone knocks on his door.

“Clover, important news,” Winter says on the other side of the door.

Clover almost starts laughing at the disgusted look on Qrow’s face, but he has more important things to worry about. “Hurry,” he hisses, yanking the window open so Qrow can fly out.

“See you next month,” Qrow says, and disappears.

Notes:

the next chapter is no feathers

Chapter 3: no feathers

Chapter Text

Visits pass by in flashes, always once a month. He’s starting to see a pattern—every time the full moon has just started wane, Qrow arrives. Clover doesn’t ask why he chooses that time, and he doesn’t ask how long it takes him to get here. He doesn’t ask why Qrow even bothers with the long journey.

There is one thing he knows about these visits, though. Over the past few months, a pattern isn’t the only thing that’s formed. Where there was once a massive rift between them, there’s now a bridge. One of friendship. Of trust.

“I thought you weren’t going to come,” Clover says when Qrow appears at least two hours later than his normal time. “You usually come earlier.”

Qrow raises an eyebrow. “You’ve noticed?”

He notices a lot of things about Qrow. The way his eyes are such a beautiful shade of red, not glaringly bright but warm and soft, the way his lips quirk up into smiles that are so few and far between that Clover treasures each and every one, the way he always seems to be hastily averting his eyes when Clover looks back at him.

Back when they were undoubtedly enemies, he had an excuse to shove any of these observations away, to pretend they meant nothing. But now, when they’re practically back to the easy friendship they had in the beginning, he has no such thing. And he knows it, knows that he can’t stop his buried feelings from bubbling back up to the surface. Not anymore.

There’s something so magnetic about Qrow that pulls Clover in, even when he fights it, even when he denies it. And maybe, just maybe, if the stars align and Clover is lucky enough, Qrow will feel the same way. But he won’t dare to hope. Not when the world is falling apart around them.

Clover has so much he wants to say, but the only thing that comes out is, “Yeah. I did.”

Qrow studies him, maybe hearing the uncertainty in his voice, and Clover remembers too late that Qrow’s far better at reading him than he lets on. Still, Qrow doesn’t pry. Instead, he just steps forward and offers him a ring.

“No,” Clover blurts, because there’s only one meaning for that ring that’s on his mind right now. And also because he’s an idiot. Mostly the latter.

Qrow frowns until he understands what Clover’s saying. “Clover, I’m not proposing—”

“I know, I know,” Clover interrupts, feeling his cheeks burning. “But what is that for?”

“It’s a promise ring,” Qrow explains, smiling with a sort of fond exasperation. “My teammates and I exchanged them long ago, swearing that we’d always be by each other’s sides. It, uh…” His gaze grows sadder. “...It didn’t work out so well.”

A glance at Qrow’s face tells Clover all he needs to know. He lost someone, possibly even more than just one of his teammates. And he blames himself for it.

“Qrow…”

“Don’t.” Qrow takes a deep breath, and when he looks up again, the shadow seems to have cleared from his face. “That’s not important right now. Look, maybe there’s a pattern of these things not working, but some things are meant to be broken. Like glow sticks. Fortune cookies. Laws.”

“You lost me on the last one,” Clover sighs.

“Whatever,” Qrow smirks. “Either way, I want you to have this. Things are coming to an end soon, whether it works in our favor or not, but I promise I’m not gonna die on you.”

“I never said anything—”

“You didn’t have to.” Qrow meets his eyes steadily, slipping the ring into his hand.

“...Thank you,” Clover says after a short hesitation. “I don’t have anything to give you, but— actually, hold on.” He takes the pin from his nightstand, and before Qrow can protest, he pins it to one of the flaps from his collar.

“This is… you can’t be serious.”

“It’s the best thing I can give you,” Clover shrugs. “And who knows? Maybe it’ll bring you a little bit of luck in the meantime.”

Qrow sits down on top of Clover’s desk, resting his ankles on the chair. “You know what would really bring me luck?” He drawls, his casual tone slightly forced. “You could come with me to Vacuo. We need all the help we can get.”

Clover considers it, he really does. But in the end, he knows he can’t leave Atlas, not when there’s so much to be done here. “I’m sorry,” he says, even if he thinks Qrow can already see the answer in his eyes.

“I knew it was a long shot,” Qrow shrugs. He glances at the clock, eyes widening. “I have to go,” he says, hastily getting to his feet. Qrow opens the window, pausing when Clover calls his name. “What is it?”

I wish I could go with you. I’d go anywhere with you if I could, says his mind. “It was nice to see you,” says his mouth.

Qrow smiles ever so slightly. “You too.” And then he’s gone, the window rattling shut behind him.

Clover watches him go, head falling into his hands the second he’s out of sight. “Gods,” he mutters, paying no heed to the chair he kicks over on the way to his bed. “I need to stop.”

He doesn’t.

Notes:

hi syn sorry im drastically late i blame school

i sat on this for weeks because i couldn't think of a good title. still can't think of one

also thanks honi_laemon for the alt title LMAOW