Chapter Text
It was noon on the sixth day, and Clover was alive.
Penny put the relic back in the vault. She sealed it there. Then she turned toward Qrow and Clover. The General had said she should take them to Ruby, but that first, they would need some time. Penny soon turned away to give them privacy, but it hadn’t taken a long look for her to see how much they did need time.
Clover held Qrow tightly against him, one arm around his waist and one around his heaving shoulders. Qrow pressed his face against Clover’s neck and spoke in fragments as Clover kissed Qrow’s hair and forehead.
Penny tried not to check on them too often. She kicked her legs, listening to the odd sound of the wind as it passed beneath Atlas.
She understood now what the General had done. He had given Qrow and Clover a gift, like Pietro gave her, when she came back to life recently herself. But the General had done what Pietro delicately warned her might happen to him one day, if she died again, and now the General was not coming back.
It didn’t seem fair that anyone ever had to say goodbye. It hurt when people left. It had sounded like the General felt the same way about that. It sounded like he’d rather go away than keep getting hurt himself.
Penny decided she’d be more careful with herself from here on out. That seemed like a good way to protect her friends, and Pietro, too. Surely friends preferred it when someone lived, rather than died, for them. She would discover ways to be there for her friends and let them help her, too, when she was feeling bad. The General always acted like he was protecting her, along with everybody else, but she’d rather everyone be a big family protecting each other.
She saw now that, in his way, the General had loved her. He called himself a guardian to her rather than a parent, but he never hesitated in calling her his daughter. He even taught her how to curl the ends of her hair by demonstrating with his prosthetic hand. She wished he had told her sooner than today that he saw her engineering as a bond between them, not an obstacle.
Maybe if she had known. Maybe if she had asked. Maybe they could have talked about how he was hurting.
She would listen to his last advice; she would not try to see any of this as her fault. But she would still miss him. She saw no contradiction between accepting his decision and being sad about it.
###
Earlier in the morning of that sixth day, Qrow once again found himself roused and dragged into James’s office. Neither of them spoke, at first.
Qrow had gotten his yelling and sobbing out of the way the first morning. And the second one, and the third, and so on. Soldiers walked him over at the start of every day, and Qrow screamed until he collapsed, at which point a doctor would help him back to his cell.
James had accepted everything silently, with a pain as plain as his patience.
Now, Qrow only felt adrift and empty. He couldn’t scream anymore. All he could do was look at James and feel the weight of their long history together.
James stood to one side of his desk with his hands clasped behind him. He wore so many layers, belts, and buckles. He carried so many tools and weapons. The angular folds of his uniform wrapped him up like armor. He’d had a cast on his left arm the first day, but that was gone now. Either the injury had healed, or James was ignoring it.
“You,” said Qrow, and James’s head lifted up. His blue eyes looked hard, like they never cried, but Qrow knew the truth. “You told me once… You said you try to make it easy for people to see who you are. To see what’s important to you.”
“Qrow,” started James. He raised his right hand—then stopped and let it fall. He clasped it again formally behind his back.
“You told me,” said Qrow, calling up the memory of a rooftop and deep blue night sky above them. “You told me… you knew. You knew you weren’t…” He shook his head and let the words drop. More than ever, he felt helpless before the ache, the weight, and the marching, stretching years of their past.
Long ago, James had said he knew he wasn’t naturally expressive. He hated that he was often seen as too stoic, so he tried to at least present himself like a book into which other people would read trust. For the type who liked authority, it even worked.
Qrow never liked authority.
Today, James looked torn in a familiar way. He said, “Go ahead. You can say what you want.”
Always the same circles between them.
Qrow saw now. He had thought they could talk again, get better. Why did it have to turn out like this between them?
“You once told me,” said Qrow, “it’s not easy for you to show people who you are. What are you trying to be for me now, Jimmy? What do you want so bad that you won’t leave me be?”
“At first,” said James, “I wanted you to help me reach Penny. She’s probably with your nieces, and they’d pick up the phone for you. I needed her to come back here and open the relic vault. As for who I am, well. I’m the only one who’s willing to do what needs to be done.”
“Abandoning Mantle.”
“Mantle’s already lost.” James gestured to one side, indicating the view out the window behind him. “Salem is here. We can only defend so much. But that might not be my call for much longer, and maybe that’s for the best. Qrow, I need to tell you something. There’s more to the relic than you know. It holds an incredible power that can turn this situation around, if we use it right.”
“Use it to protect the people.”
“I’m going to do more than that.”
“It can’t ever be easy with you, can it, Jimmy? Why can’t enough just be enough? Leave the magic where it is, and we’ll fight like we always have.”
“We have to fight together,” said James, softly.
“Yeah, well,” said Qrow, “you took that away from me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You better be,” said Qrow. “It didn’t have to be like this.” He clutched at the pin he wore over his heart. “He’s the first person in a long time, that I… I thought I could be happy with him, you know?” He stared at James helplessly.
“I know.” James bowed his head. “I wanted that, too. I do want you to be happy, Qrow, and gods know I could never do that for you.”
“James, that...” That part at least… “That part was never your fault.”
Qrow tried to break down James’s armor, once. He wanted to strip all those layers away and see who James was when he wasn’t so controlled. What was left when there was nothing more that could be taken away, the same way the world took everything away from Qrow. If they both had nothing, Qrow once thought, they could have each other.
Yeah. Qrow burned a lot of bridges with James that way. In a desperate siege against James’s armor of dignity, he had tried to claw his way in closer. James rejected him by turns with fear, patience, anger, and grace.
He remembered sitting on top of a high Beacon tower under the night sky, and James gripping his hands and leaning against his side with an intensity and a need most people reserved for sex. He remembered James sobbing into his shoulder, after Qrow confessed to being in love with him.
That was the last rejection Qrow ever made James give.
There had always been a shame in James’s eyes after that, a guilt in the way he tried to take care of Qrow, and it hurt Qrow to look at that and know he’d done it, so he pulled further and further away, until they hardly saw each other, not for years.
He understood now that the way he’d acted toward James when they were younger wasn’t love. His feelings, yeah, maybe that had been something. But it was hard to say, with how Qrow used to be. In a way, how he still was. Back then, he’d fixated on anyone who showed him the smallest bit of kindness, and James had been the kindest person he ever met. Now that Qrow had got some distance and grown, he understood that tendency and desperation in himself was how he got taken in by Oz so easily. And he understood how much there was in James that Oz could just as easily have harnessed.
Always James’s deep blue eyes, with their way of drifting downward to consider nothing—and then lifting up, as though he found some kind of solace in the sky.
“Qrow,” said James, “we need to talk about something. I wanted to bring it up earlier. On the other days. But it really can’t wait anymore. And it shouldn’t. Something’s changed.”
“Oh, I know. Way ahead of you, Jimmy. Salem’s on your doorstep. Why don’t you just shove me out the front door and see how many Grimm I’m good for before my luck bites me for good?”
“Qrow! How can you say that? Have you lost your mind?”
“I’d rather lose my mind than my heart.”
James flinched.
Qrow rolled his eyes. “Come on. I didn’t mean it like that.”
“After a certain point,” said James, “it doesn’t matter whether you’re cruel or careless.”
Qrow looked away.
“Well.” James sighed. “We don’t have to talk. This isn’t about me. I’ve been working on something I want to show you. There’s something I want to give you. It took a while to get ready. And, since you don’t trust me, it’s best you see for yourself.”
They went down to the vault.
###
The Atlas ball. The open door. The air that felt less sour once he got away from the people, their drinks, and the light.
Qrow leaned against the balcony rail and breathed.
“Hey.” Clover found him, of course. “What are you doing out here? Don’t you like to dance?”
“I just needed some air.”
“Is there something on your mind?”
“There’s just… a lot of alcohol in there.”
“Ah. I get that.” Clover crossed his arms and leaned on the railing beside Qrow. “I’ve been there myself.”
“What?” Really?
Clover nodded. “It wasn’t alcohol. It was something else.”
Qrow felt like his world had tilted under him. He felt that way a lot around Clover. He clung to the railing for support and sneaked a glance at Clover beside him.
Clover looked peaceful, like he was exactly where he wanted to be. He smiled gently at Qrow and shifted one of his hands close enough that Qrow could take it, if he liked. He did that a lot, and although Qrow wanted, he never dared. And somehow Clover didn’t grow tired of offering. Just as he offered himself and his trust right now, through his firm, soft, private voice, in the cool night that they shared.
“When I started out,” he said, “I was doing lower level ops. Dust smuggling den raids. One day, I got dosed. Ever since then… I see the stuff, and I want it. Simple as that. I never broke the law. I never took any of the bricks of it we loaded up, and I always wore a hazmat through the clouds that taste like…” He bowed his head to his chest, squeezed his eyes shut, and groaned. Qrow wanted to hear him groan like that when his heart wasn’t breaking. “It was just one time, but it tasted like heaven. It was for a second, and it was an accident, but I can still taste it. It was so hard to feel like that, to have the temptation in front of me. Every day. Handling it. It never got easier.” He shrugged. “So I got a transfer. Been on the headquarters security track ever since.”
“I never would have guessed. I never would have thought that was possible.”
“How come?”
“I thought you were,” Qrow hesitated. He couldn’t say it. Could he? Could he admit this? “… perfect.”
Clover smiled. “Clearly not, if you don’t want to dance with me.”
Qrow flushed. “I, uh.”
“Maybe next time, partner.” Clover turned from the rail and rested a hand on Qrow’s shoulder. “I’ve got to get back to the meeting.”
Qrow watched Clover walk back into the manor. Toward all these Schnee rooms and hallways, lined and lit with dust. So Clover felt the pangs of an addict, too. He was more than empathetic. He’d been there, and he understood. And he wanted Qrow to understand him, too.
Clover glanced back over his shoulder at Qrow and winked. Open about his interest, as always. Unapologetically himself. A stunning figure against the light. And then he disappeared.
Qrow was trying to understand this. He was trying to feel, and believe.
###
A lifetime ago, when Clover transferred out of the crime-and-drugs side of Atlas service, he took the only position that was open. It was the one that was always open: active outer patrols. It meant hunting Grimm and smoking out organized violent groups in the boreal forest, mountains, and tundra.
The work sounded brutal, but Clover had also heard other things. Something about the management. People who’d served in the place Clover was going to, the specific troop, were afraid to speak of it. He couldn’t get much more about it out of them than warnings not to trust anyone. Keep your head down, they said. Don’t be a hero. Blend into the background. Just survive. Above all, they tried to convince him not to go there.
He could have asked his father, but then his father would have wanted to know about the transfer, and Clover couldn’t explain why he had to go. Couldn’t explain why he abandoned his old team and position. Couldn’t explain what handling or looking at Dust made him feel. He had to get away from that craving, the memory of sweetness and soaring.
His first meeting with his new lieutenant started out all right. They chatted about Clover’s previous team, and the lieutenant seemed to like Clover’s experience. Still, something felt off. Something about the lieutenant’s manner felt strange. Clover wasn’t sure why. He wasn’t sure if it was only in his head. He felt like he was being evaluated anew, checked over for weaknesses. He felt like he did when he knew he was being lied to.
Maybe he shouldn’t volunteer anything.
He got out of there as quickly as he could.
###
The less said about how Clover progressively slid further and further into hell in his new position, the better. The small things. The fractured memories. The moments that bled and piled on top of each other until he couldn’t list or count them anymore. The pressure. The paranoia he’d still feel years later, and that he’d lean on James to heal.
Banned from his troop’s scheduled gym time, Clover did calisthenics outside the barracks in the freezing air. He hoped to work out some of his temper, but as he went through his reps, he got angrier and angrier. He didn’t stop and hardly noticed when the other soldiers came back. They quieted awkwardly as they filed past Clover, then started up their chatter again as they drew away.
Clover knew they didn’t mean anything by it. He understood. They were protecting themselves. But he still hated them, almost more than he hated the lieutenant.
This wasn’t the service he thought he signed up for. How could these conditions exist in the Atlas military-police complex, when he’d just come from a unit that treated him fairly? Why was this allowed to continue? He gritted his teeth and seethed. He’d probably never even find out who he could report his treatment to, and if he did, nothing would be done.
He could see the bullshit now. He was buried in it.
One large shadow lingered over Clover as he finished his routine. Biting back a groan, he pulled one leg forward to kneel and looked up. If this was the lieutenant bringing fresh hell, Clover’s luck might have finally run out on him.
Another soldier in arctic camouflage fatigues stood there with his hands clasped behind his back. He was unusually tall and broad, with dark hair and a full goatee. He looked about thirty-five to Clover’s twenty-eight, and although he wasn’t most people’s idea of handsome, he had a certain gravitas.
Clover coughed. “Sir?” he tried. “Are you an officer?”
“No.” The soldier smiled. It softened his severe, dignified face as he knelt down and offered Clover his hand. “My name is Corporal James Ironwood. I’m an enlisted, non supervisor, Huntsman graduate. I’m fireable, too, since I just transferred from the joint and foreign service track.”
“Are you sure you want to be seen talking to me?”
“I believe in judging people by their friends, and by their enemies. I want to be your friend. And if that gets me an enemy, I’ll be proud of that, too.” His eyes focused abruptly over Clover’s shoulder, and all softness faded from his face.
Clover glanced back, and he wished he hadn’t.
The lieutenant was watching them from across the clearing.
Clover had never felt such a powerful sensation of evil. Not from the dust dealers, not from the killers, never before this moment.
Like a veil being ripped away, like a house falling down, he understood. He used to think evil was a cheap concept. But he saw now that had been short-sighted. He believed in altruism, after all. Why not its opposite? Just as there were people in the world who would go out of their way to help others at great cost and no chance of reward for themselves, there were also people who would go out of their way to hurt others, even when they had nothing to gain by it and at great risk to themselves. He didn’t know what to do with that realization while it had him pinned down under its thumb. He felt like he could never get away.
“Take my hand,” said James.
Clover wrenched his head forward again. The broad hand was still extended to him. He looked James in the eye and asked, “Aren’t you afraid?”
“Of course I am,” said James. “This job is everything to me. But I’m more afraid that if I protect myself now, I’ll regret it forever.”
The evil was too much. The frustration was too much. The impotence of the system that was supposed to be better than the lieutenant was too much. So Clover took James’s hand and let the other man raise them up together, with a strong grip and a steadiness flowing from him into Clover’s body.
“Would you mind spotting me at the gym?” James said.
What? “You mean now?” Didn’t the whole group just come from training there?
“Sure. You look like you can handle what I like to bench. Fair warning, it’s not a formality spotting me. When I have someone I trust, I push until I fail. I’ve really missed doing that.”
From that day on, James stuck by him. They ate together, they went to the gym, they reassembled Clover’s bunk when the lieutenant tossed it twice a day. They sprawled out on the floor and laughed afterwards, throwing rags that bled boot polish at each other until they had to clean up all over again.
That day James reached out his hand, the first time they worked out and went to the showers, Clover hesitated. He wondered if James’s support only went so deep, and if he had hidden reservations of Clover. Of a gay man being around him or seeing him change clothes, or other political touch points like that. But James—energetic and glowing, buzzing with more energy than before he pushed himself on the weights harder than anyone Clover had ever seen—stripped off his shirt as soon as they got in the locker room, faster than Clover could think to look away, while they were still talking. Then James snagged two towels and threw one to a stunned Clover before flipping the switch to get the hot water started in the group bay. When Clover still hesitated, James threw another rolled up towel at him—then another. They got into a full on towel war and were still laughing when they ran out of rolls to throw and had to pick them all up, trying to find two that hadn’t made contact with the forever-suspect floor. By the time they did that, the hot water had run and gone, and the shower Clover had briefly worried would be tense ended up simply being cold, and easygoing, and hilarious, both of them cursing and cracking up all over again.
There was no tension, no pressure, nothing that couldn’t be said. It felt incredible to Clover, like he could breathe again.
As they walked back to the barracks that night, Clover said, “James, I’m grateful, but you don’t have to do this.”
“I want to,” said James. “And anyway, I’d be next. The lieutenant’s been noticing I don’t talk about women. That’s enough evidence for him.”
“He thinks you’re gay, like me?” It felt good to just say it.
“I’ve let him think it just to piss him off. Us running around like this will make him sure of it. But I’m not interested in anyone that way.” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I am. I’ve never met anyone else like me.”
“Maybe,” said Clover, “or maybe you have, and it didn’t come up.”
“People don’t take it well when it does come up.”
“Well, I think that’s a shame,” said Clover.
And he almost said more. He almost told James he was raised by a man who’d said some of the same things with the same distance in his eyes. Dad talked about it, but Clover had been young and focused on himself. He felt a pang of regret. A son ought to know these things. He hoped it wasn’t too late. He and Dad hadn’t been on the best of terms since Clover enlisted. Clover hadn’t even called him since he took this new assignment—or, truly, since he got dosed with Dust.
Did Dad feel as alone as James did about who he was? Surely not. Dad ran the diversity committee. Wouldn’t he be open, be proud about it, like he was with everything? Were these things that easy to miss when you weren’t listening?
He almost told James. But there are some things you don’t do in the pride community, and outing people who might not want you to is one of them. Even to make someone else like them feel better.
There would be time. Surely there would be a good time.
And for the first time since his nightmare on this base began, Clover realized, he was thinking about something after the mess he was in, all because he and James were now in it together.
###
“Ironwood!” yelled the lieutenant. “That was sloppy! Give me ten laps!”
Clover winced. He could see the training field from the roof of the building where he’d climbed to follow most of what the other soldiers did. He saw James duck his head and start running.
James started taking punishment immediately after the lieutenant saw him reach out his hand to Clover. The older man accepted it without complaint, in grim determination. He hadn’t been banned like Clover was from group drill, training, and exercise, but he did get put through the wringer and singled out for made up missteps.
Something flashed across James’s skin as he rounded the field’s worst bend. The something was steel blue veined with silver. Clover blinked, wondering if that was the light, or sweat—but no. He knew what he saw. Was that James’s aura? Was it breaking? Could physical exertion alone cause that?
But James seemed to be picking up speed. He was grinning now, charging like a freight train.
The lieutenant was fuming. “Do you think this is funny, Ironwood?”
“No, sir, lieutenant, sir!” James actually looked like he was enjoying himself.
“Ten more laps!”
“Yes, sir, lieutenant, sir!”
James was unstoppable. Finally, the lieutenant gave up and ordered him to fall back in line, then sent everyone off the field.
Clover met James on the ground as soon as the lieutenant was out of sight. James’s body was gleaming, his goatee soaked with sweat and his clothes drenched and turning to sheets of ice, but he seemed to be in a very good mood. There was a twinkle in his eye as he clapped Clover on the shoulder, turned him around, and started walking with him toward the gym like he meant to push himself to his limits there, too.
“James,” Clover hissed. “It’s okay. We can skip today. You’ve got to be hurt. I saw your aura. What happened out there? Did it break?”
“Oh. No.” James glanced around them. “Keep this to yourself. People around here think I haven’t unlocked my semblance. I want to keep it that way.”
“Oh. So when you…”
“For lack of a better word, it’s sacrifice. It’s specific, but when the conditions are met, it’s powerful.”
“Conditions… like?”
“Pain. Injury. Stress. Fatigue. For a purpose. When I choose it.” James hesitated. “I’d rather not say more. I don’t have a healthy relationship with it. As for the effect, my aura doesn’t recharge, exactly, but I get another kind of energy to use how I like. It can make me stronger—that’s easiest—but it’s quite flexible. I’m building a weapon that can store and fire it as bullets, actually.” He chuckled and ran a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. “Also, it’s quite intuitive. It can have a mind of its own if I’m not prepared and grab it right away.”
“Wow. You’re like a born public servant.”
“I prefer made. Through my choices, every day.” James looked at him with unusual vulnerability. “Please don’t say a word to anyone. I don’t want to be used for it.”
“I understand,” said Clover. “I worry about the same thing. Your secret is safe with me.”
They went to the gym. James really threw himself into it. He went straight for the punching bags and kept knocking them off their chains. They didn’t do anything that required spotting, but Clover felt an odd urge to keep an eye on him anyway. At a certain point, when Clover was walking between machines, he glanced over and saw blood pouring from James’s knuckles. He ran over and seized James’s arms. “Hey, enough!”
The euphoria that suffused James earlier had faded. Instead, his teeth were bared in a grimace. He struggled against Clover, but his arms must have had too little fight left. He ended up leaning on Clover, gasping.
“Hey,” Clover tried to ease him down, “James—”
“IT’S NOT RIGHT!”
The shock of James’s gigantic shout vibrated through them both. Clover froze. Then he let himself and James both fall the last few inches to the mat.
“When you give your life to something like this,” whispered James. “When you trust them to use you for something that’s right...”
“I know,” said Clover.
“It shouldn’t be like this. Someone should be able to help. It has to be someone’s job to fix this. I want to, but I have no power. I can’t… There’s just nothing. All I can do is bleed.”
And he was bleeding. The mat around them was already slick with splatters from James’s hands. It was setting into Clover’s workout clothes, soaking in where James leaned on him.
“I’m so sorry,” said James. “I know this didn’t help. Please tell me what I can do for you.”
“Can we do something for you? Maybe get you cleaned up?”
“Right.” James drew back. “Sorry about your shirt.”
Clover stayed him with a hand on his arm. “Hey. Wait a minute.” He leaned forward and wrapped James in a real hug, over both their ruined clothes, in the overcirculated gymnasium air and through the fatigue setting into him. “I’m glad you’re here with me.”
James seemed shocked for a moment. Then he relaxed and circled his arms around Clover. It was clear he was being careful, maybe futilely trying to salvage their shirts, maybe conscious of his own strength. There was something uniquely comforting about hugging him, and it took Clover a minute to figure out what it was.
He’d never been this physically intimate with someone he wasn’t attracted to, and who he knew for certain couldn’t be attracted to him. He’d never had someone like that who also wanted this, and there was something so freeing about the lack of uncertainty. He didn’t have to second guess or worry. Was it like this for James, too? Had he ever had this with someone who knew about him, and who he knew wouldn’t take it in ways he didn’t intend—wouldn’t press him for more, wouldn’t withdraw when he wouldn’t give that? Had he looked for this but been hurt before?
They probably called him heartless.
Clover tightened his hold and squeezed hard, burying his head in James’s shoulder. “You’ve got the biggest heart,” he whispered, “you know that?”
James stilled. As though he remembered a moment like Clover imagined. “You’d be the first to say it.”
“I mean it.”
Nobody had ever gone so far out of their way to be a friend to Clover like James did.