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I’ll be coming by in a week or so, Qrow’s letter read, messy scrawl for once legible, and Tai had smiled. And get the extra bedroom ready. I’m bringing a guest, too.
Tai’s at the kitchen sink when it happens. His shoes, already discarded by the propped-open back door, are just as muddy as the hands he sticks under the cold spray. After hours in the Patch summer sun on his knees, the dirt beneath his fingernails from pulling up weeds seems to have burrowed almost deeper as if into his skin. He’s scrubbing at the nailbeds, humming a snippet of some song off the radio under his breath when there’s a sudden crash of claws against hardwood followed by Zwei’s frantic barking. The flap cut into the porch door for him slams like a gunshot.
His head shoots up, heart pounding. Mind jumping straight to the shotgun in the cellar even as he reaches for the drawer to his right with the knives in it, Tai’s deathly-still fingers are closing around the knob when Zwei’s defensive yapping cuts off into a high, happy whine.
An unfamiliar voice chuckles. “That’s the cutest attack dog I’ve ever seen.”
“Attack isn’t exactly the word I’d use,” Qrow’s low voice responds and Tai exhales. Lets his shoulders sag with relief. He releases the knob to the utensil drawer, reaches for the towel on the bar even as he’s making his way to the front door. “He’s more like a glorified, spoiled to hell lap dog with a bark worse than his bite. Or his legs.”
Zwei makes a lolling, pleased noise as the grass ruffles. Tai slings the towel over his shoulder and bites his lip when he rounds the corner to see straight out.
“I think he likes you,” the unfamiliar voice says, shaking from restrained mirth, and Tai can see why.
Just beyond his porch stairs and in the tall grasses of the countryside, Qrow is crouched down and running a hand over the white underbelly of Zwei. A pink tongue lolls from Zwei’s mouth as his teeth flash in what almost looks like an upside-down smile as Tai’s brother-in-law grins. “This? Nah, we secretly hate each other. This mutt actually tried to take off with one of my fingers the last time I was here.”
“Oh really?” Tai chuckles and watches both men look up. He nods through the screen, grinning. “Is that why Zwei is two seconds from wagging his tail off? Wow, Qrow, yeah. He must hate you a lot.”
Qrow’s returning smile is just as wide as he stands. “Shut up old man,” he laughs, dusting off his dark pants as he climbs the porch stairs and Tai pushes open the screen door to envelop him in a hug. “I see you’ve got another line on your forehead. Is it new?”
“And you’re awful grey for a crow. Aren’t they supposed to be black?”
A booming laugh. Qrow slaps at his back before pulling away. “You’re so full of shit, Tai.”
“And you haven’t introduced me to this guest of yours,” Tai shoots back before extending a hand. “I don’t bite, stranger, unlike this cranky bird here. How do you do?”
The man smiles, climbing the stairs to join them. Although he’s in plain clothes like Qrow, Tai can see the muscles of his shoulders underneath the plaid move in a way that speaks to a fellow Huntsman. He quirks an eyebrow at the callouses on the man’s palm when he takes Tai’s extended hand in a hello to the hilt of some weapon, maybe a sword, fingers rough and wide. “Confused. I haven’t been told much. Birds carry too many secrets for my liking-” Qrow’s lips flatten into a line that Tai knows means he’s trying to hold back a smile, “-but you’re Yang and Ruby’s father? That Tai?”
“One and only,” Tai nods, squeezing the stranger’s hand, lets it drop as Qrow’s eyes bounce between them. “And you are?”
“Clover.”
Tai glances at the pin on his plaid shirt. He makes eye contact with Qrow while quirking an eyebrow. “Odd name. Parents feeling lucky that day?”
“You could say that,” Clover snorts as he tucks his hand back into his pocket without explaining anything more. Next to him, Qrow looks even thinner and paler than Tai remembers but lighter than he’s seen his teammate in years.
Happier, too, but he tucks the thought away for later.
“Got out the good china for us?”
Tai snickers, holding the door open. “You wish. As if you’ve done anything to deserve it. First, you show up, barely announced, then with a guest completely in the dark about the favorite member of your Team? Real fine china material right there, sure.”
“Ignore him,” Qrow drones as he follows Clover into the cool interior of the Xiao-Long house, “old man’s been alone except for his so-claimed prize-winning sunflowers for years. And the mutt. He’s obviously forgotten his manners.”
His voice drops into a whisper too loud to be anything but purposefully overheard. “If he ever had any.”
Clover’s shoulders shake with laughter, looking around the living room as Qrow familiarly props his weapon against the wall next to the door before toeing off his shoes. In the doorway of the screen door, Tai watches. Although he catches Qrow’s hand hovering around the curve of Clover’s lower back as they shuffle further into the house after Clover has followed suit with discarding his shoes, Tai files it away for a rainy day with everything else that’s odd about the younger Branwen twin dropping by without it being a special occasion.
Maybe, Tai thinks as he follows them, it is. He just doesn’t know it yet — he hasn’t been told yet.
“Either one of you hungry? I don’t know if Qrow here is nice enough to stop for snacks during road trips, especially because he never was when we were in school. I have some leftover pork buns if you want.”
Qrow, in a spectacularly mature move, sticks his tongue out. “As if you would’ve eaten between bouts of seducing every member on our Team.”
“Works didn’t it?” Tai shoots back, mouth tilting at the corners and moving past the pair as Clover makes a strangled noise in the back of his throat — sounding suspiciously like a muffled laugh — he passes off unconvincingly like a cough. “Too bad I couldn’t get a complete set with you.”
Unable to help himself, Tai punctuates the statement with a wink.
Clover chokes on another snicker.
“Please don’t kill the company before your cooking has the chance to,” Qrow drawls dryly while thumping him on the back. “As if you could’ve handled a third.”
Waggling his finger at his teammate, Tai tsks as Qrow perches himself on the edge of the table. “With an attitude like that, I’ll be sure to make the buns on your plate special. Brothers know it’s easier to wash one set of sheets than two.”
Even as both Qrow and Clover chuckle, there’s another look. It’s quick, charged, electric, buzzing like a summer thunderstorm in his kitchen, and Tai finds himself caught up in the resulting rain. For a moment it’s almost like the old days again — the banter, the smiles, the relaxed shoulders. For a moment it’s almost like they’re not the only two of their Team left.
He turns, busying himself with warming up the food so Qrow and Clover don’t see how his eyes shut, squeezing against memories that rise unbidden. He sees the purple flames of Yang’s eyes, the tears, feels his own knuckles going white against the counter.
“Tai?”
There’s a touch on his shoulder. Qrow’s voice is clear, right next to him and Tai exhales heavily. His smile is shaky at best when he turns. “I’m okay, I’m okay. Just you know…” he trails off before gesturing to his head, “...lonely old men things. I’m not used to guests.”
The look both guests exchange screams their disbelief. Qrow frowns, opening his mouth—
“The food’s gonna take a little to warm up,” Tai jumps in not unkindly, “so Clover if you’d like to go unpack in the meantime, guest room’s up the stairs. Second door to the left. If you need anything, don’t hesitate to shout.”
It’s both a dismissal and an out. After another look Tai can’t decipher between he and Qrow, Clover takes it gracefully, disappearing with a nod and smile.
Silence falls in the kitchen. Tai busies himself with running the towel on his shoulder over the dishes drip-drying next to the sink as Qrow silently watches him. The air is thick, thick enough Tai feels certain he could slice through with the same knife from the drawer he was ready to fight his now-guests, then-strangers and would-be attackers, with.
“Enough, Tai. Spill it. What’s going on?”
Tai tucks the towel back on the rack and turns to start putting away the dishes. Half out of instinct, Qrow reaches for the plates to help but Tai snatches them up first with a teasing smile. “I got it. Wouldn’t want to lose another matching set.”
“These aren’t nearly as ugly as you and Summer’s wedding dishes,” Qrow acquiesces and hops atop the counter instead with a snort, “so maybe my Semblance won’t feel the need to smash two salad plates and bend a fork’s spines.”
“Sure, blame it on the bad luck.”
That same silence is back but the tension has eased a bit, making it easier to breathe. Rather than answer Qrow’s question, Tai reaches for another plate in the stack to put away and asks one of his own. “So...Clover, huh?”
Qrow’s quirked lips thin into a flustered line and Tai tries not to smirk. Hook, line, sinker.
“Nosy old man,” Qrow shoots back instead and crosses one ankle over his knee in feigned confidence. “Maybe I just wanted him to meet Yang and Ruby’s father so he knows why they’re all…like that .”
Tai hums. “Takes one to know one. And like what? I remember you being the one to first teach Yang knife tricks at the ripe old age of nine, you being sloshed drunk, and in the front yard of all places—”
“Once! Once!”
“Yeah, because after that I made sure to lock the silverware drawer whenever you came over.”
They both chuckle and the sound makes the last of the tension sap from the room, even if it’s slightly strained. A beat. Qrow spins a ring around his thumb with his forefinger, watching. Waiting. “Tai.”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out.” Tai snarks. Qrow’s lack of a response is deafening.
“Why’re you here alone?”
Tai places the last plate on the shelf, taking care when he closes the cabinet, and moves on to drying the glasses. “I’m not alone. I’ve got Zwei, and the girls come by often enough—”
“—but not enough. For Brother’s sake, Yang lives barely around the corner!”
“She’s busy,” Tai dismisses and doesn’t say a damn thing when his hand starts to shake, “she and Blake both are, they’re still newlyweds and have Luli now as well as being Huntresses, and Ruby’s in Atlas—”
Qrow groans.
“She’s not doing anything other than puttering around that penthouse of hers with her fiancées! What about Ren, Nora, Jaune? Oscar? You’ve got people in your corner, Tai.”
Tai sets the glass in hand aside, voice steadier than his fingers as he counts them off. “Ren and Nora are expecting the twins soon enough, Jaune is off on missions most times, and last I heard of Oscar he went back to check on his aunt. I get their letters same as you, Qrow. But it doesn’t mean they’re as frequent.”
There’s no malice behind the statement, not really. He knows Qrow was the one there for them during their travels, knows the bonds ones make on the road, knows he wasn’t as there for even his daughters as he would’ve liked to be but the days where he seems too heavy to get out of bed, weighed by grief, are fewer now.
It doesn’t matter, though. Too little, too late. Uncle Qrow, mentions every letter he receives, and even when the now Xiao Long-Belladonnas are over, he’s in every story they tell. Luli gushes about him more often than he.
Qrow bites his lower lip. In the wake the silence nearly kills him.
Rubbing away a fingerprint on the glass’ curve, Tai almost lets it.
After a beat too long Qrow sighs. He slides off the counter and Tai can feel the hand on his shoulder almost before Qrow leaves it there.
“Tai,” he repeats, softer now, and it hurts more. Aches more.
“Are you...happy?”
Despite the burning in his eyes, Tai looks up, blinking. There’s a smile on Qrow’s lips, curving up on one side as if he can’t control even as his eyes are sad, searching Tai’s. “Yeah, I...I am. But Tai—”
The oven beeps, startling them both. Tai squeezes his eyes shut, opens them. On the stairs, he can hear Clover’s feet descending and he crouches to pull the door open before genuinely smiling up at his teammate.
“So am I. It may not be in the way you are or I want but...I’m happy. I have my girls, and their teams, and you.”
Qrow’s shoulders relax. “And me. You have me.”
“I’m guessing me includes you and Uncle Clover now, too?”
He doesn’t need to see Qrow’s face to know he’s smiling; he can hear it in his voice. “Damn. Who let it slip?”
“I have my ways,” Tai teases, standing to set the pan down and sling the towel back over his shoulder. He nods towards the cabinet. “Grab three plates, will you?”
“Who said I wanted any?”
Tai snorts, jabs at him with the spatula. Sputtering, Qrow barely dodges. “Your bony ass did.”
“You admit it! You were looking at my ass!”
The laughter that bounces around the kitchen is loud and true. Clover’s voice floats from the bottom of the stairs. “Having fun without me? That’s hurtful, Qrow.”
“Never!” Qrow calls back and Tai watches the way his entire being seems to soften even at the slightest word from this stranger he’s brought home. “Go wash up before Tai hits you with a utensil, too. I told you he’s got no manners.”
Clover sticks his head in the doorway, fires off a playful salute before ducking away. “Yes, sir.”
Silence settles between them but not like before. This is quieter, more understanding. Two ships at standstill. The pipes in the walls rattle slightly as Clover turns on the sink in the bathroom and Tai scoops two buns onto the plate Qrow’s handed to him.
“No but seriously you haven’t said who tattled on me.”
Tai snorts. “Take a wild guess.”
“Ruby?”
“Ruby.”
For the rest of the week Clover and Qrow stay with him, Tai simply observes. When he passes the hallway on his way to Yang and Ruby’s now-empty room at the end for the weekly dusting, he catches sight of rumpled sheets in the guest bedroom and the closed door of Qrow’s.
Tai smiles to himself, humming as he shuffles the papers on Ruby’s desk before straightening the line of Yang’s comforter. On his way back down the stairs, he passes the picture on the wall he’d spent so many times hiding in his nightstand drawer.
It’s of his bed — their bed — from all those years ago. Captured forever is the sunlight streaming through the windows of the bedroom, illuminating the circles under Raven’s eyes even as Summer’s smile outshines it all. Tai has his arm around Raven’s shoulders, hand on her knee, looking at the bundle in Summer’s arms even as Raven is looking at Summer herself.
Grinning ear to ear, holding the bundle of purple blankets with a small mass of wispy blonde curls spilling out the top, Summer is looking directly at the camera.
Tai traces the frame, the crease right down the middle of the photograph from being folded and shoved into the corner of his nightstand drawer for so long.
It splits Raven and Summer to one side, and he on the other.
Behind the camera, he remembers, Qrow had watched.
“It was nice meeting you, Clover.”
Clover laughs, an easy sound, but no less genuine. He seems like someone quick to mirth and Tai is glad. “You too, Taiyang.”
“Remember to water the bird like you did my sunflowers,” Tai teases and Qrow’s narrowing eyes make him laugh harder, “or on second thought, he’s gotten a little spoiled. Maybe cut down on the watering.”
“Alright, alright,” Qrow grouses over the sound of Clover and Tai laughing and pulls Tai into a hug. “That’s enough. I don’t know why I ever thought bringing the two of you around was a good idea.”
“Your call.”
Qrow frowns playfully. “If Clover starts getting more calls than I do, I’ll fly back down here and kick your ass myself.”
“Do crows even migrate?” Chuckling, Tai pats him on the back before stepping away. Clover is already packing their (admittedly few) bags into the back of the truck. He surveys Qrow up and down.
“Don’t be a stranger.”
Qrow rolls his eyes but he’s smiling. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. You’re like a parasite, Tai.”
“You love me.”
“Doubtful,” Qrow scoffs, knocking his elbow into Tai’s side and snorting as Tai squirms away yelping.
It’s midday, right after noon, and Tai catches the sun glinting off the four-leafed pin on Clover’s breast pocket. He and Qrow’s shoulders brush as they stand on the porch.
Nodding, Tai raises an inquisitive eyebrow. “So, good luck charm, huh?”
He doesn’t need to see Qrow’s face to hear the smile. It’s been so long. “Yeah. You...you could say that.”
Tai grins back, sincere and honest. Thinks of the phone inside, Yang and Ruby’s number, their excited voices on the other end. Hi, Dad! Thinks of Qrow’s smile, Clover’s laugh, what Ren and Nora’s twins will look like, Jaune’s stories, Oscar’s gleaming eyes. Hi, Tai!
Thinks of the ribbon around his arm, Clover's arm, Yang's arm. Thinks of love and family and every iteration of them both.
“Good.”