InsaneJournal

ᴡʜᴏ: Qrow Branwen & Clover Ebi
ᴡʜᴀᴛ: Codependent losers dealing with a little separation anxiety.
ᴡʜᴇɴ: March 16th
ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ: Skylight Park
ᴡᴀʀɴɪɴɢs: Nothing except heightened annoyance brought on by dumb people being dumb



If anyone asked, Qrow wouldn't be able to point to a reason he wasn't really enjoying space. Nothing bad had happened yet. The rooms were nice, there was enough to do that he hadn't gotten around to all of it yet, and his roommate wasn't annoying or anything. She had more to complain about than he did by a long shot.

He wouldn't have been able to point to the reason, but he knew what it was: he missed bunking with Clover. And sure, maybe everyone would understand that. He'd made some acquaintances (or hey, maybe they counted as friends now, Qrow had never been great at figuring out where the line between those was, exactly), but Clover was the only other person on the ship that he actually knew. The problem was that Qrow had a feeling he missed him a little more than someone was supposed to miss just a friend, especially when you could still see that person every day even though you weren't living together. He'd been having trouble sleeping, knowing that there was more than just a wall between the two of them, that he couldn't hear it if Clover had a nightmare and camp out in his room to make sure he was okay.

Couldn't make some kind of excuse to slip in there when he'd had a nightmare, to remind himself that Clover was there and he was just fine.

This, though, this wasn't bad. He'd met up with Clover at one of the exercise rooms where they'd turned off the gravity, gotten in a decent workout; when he'd brought up cooling down with a walk in the park, Clover hadn't seemed like he was dying to get away from him yet. Qrow knew it wasn't exactly fresh air, but the grass, the trees, that was enough to trick his lungs into thinking it was. And, even better, it looked like they were mostly alone up there.

"So, ah. Still getting along alright with your roommate?" Qrow didn't want Clover to hate his new roommate or anything. He just... didn't want him to prefer his new roommate over his old one, and he was stupid enough to prod at that tooth just to see if it was gonna hurt.

Clover didn’t really like being split up from Qrow. It was the part of him that was still pining over him like an idiotic teenager despite him being obviously uninterested in him as anything past friends. He was relieved a little bit to sometimes have the space to not be close to him when the feelings hit him particularly hard. And there were plenty of places to go that weren’t around Qrow. It was just that he was incredibly terrible at not just continuously putting himself around Qrow because he was an idiot. He hated knowing it and feeling it and the lack of action, but he cared more about Qrow and making sure he was comfortable than his idiotic habit of developing feelings for people who didn’t feel the same way for him.

He’d enjoyed getting to put himself into something athletic, though. Getting some of the energy out of his body and focusing on something else. Even if he occasionally still had the fleeting thought about how good Qrow looked and other unfortunately annoying things that made him want to throw himself out a window and into space. Which was why he was halfway still annoyed with himself for agreeing to go to the skypark with him.

“He’s all right,” Clover said after a moment. He didn’t really have a lot of things to say about Fred. He wasn’t bad. Unusual, sure, but nothing that he had any problems with. “How are your living arrangements working out?” This felt like hideously boring conversation, but he didn’t know what else to mention. “Still think everyone would be amazed by this. Also still can’t believe we’re in space sometimes.”

"She's not so bad," Qrow told him. Was Clover really as indifferent about his roommate as he sounded, or was he putting on an act so he wouldn't hurt Qrow's feelings?

He looked up at the false sky while he told himself to cool it. "Maybe we oughta check this place out at night. See the stars."

And as long as Qrow ignored how romantic shit like that was, he'd be just fine.

It was an excuse, too, to spend that much more time with Clover. To delay going to home sweet assigned quarters without him.

Clover didn’t know too much about Qrow’s roommate, but he was glad that she didn’t seem to be causing him any problems at any rate. That was a small kindness. If he was stuck with someone else, they were at least nice.

And then a moment later, he felt like he was being rudely attacked. Either this was a subtle way to ask him on a date - wishful thinking probably - or he was just trying to find something to say. The third option was that he just wanted to see the stars and didn’t want to be alone. Either way, Clover was torn about how to respond. “Yeah. We could do that. I’d like to see whether it’s anything like home or Earth.” And he was also a vastly sad man who couldn’t say no to spending more time with Qrow. He was going to have to figure out how to distract himself from his ever growing desire to kiss the other man, but he was sure he could manage. Maybe.

“We could probably get some coffee and snacks to bring with us. Maybe a blanket, too.” If he was trying not to make it seem more like a date, he was failing miserably.

And there Clover went making Qrow feel like he was going to have a heart attack or something, the way that sent his heart fluttering. If Qrow had needed any more proof he was in trouble, it was this; didn't matter how many attractive people flirted with him, none of them could make him feel sick with wanting like this simple plan with Clover did.

"Yeah." Qrow's voice was a little... not breathy, he didn't do breathy, but maybe a little fainter than usual. Laying out on a blanket under the stars, having some kind of picnic? They'd probably have to get pretty close, too, not like whatever blanket they tracked down would be huge. Qrow would almost be able to pretend that it was something he could have. If he wanted to make himself more miserable further down the line, that was. "Yeah, that sounds good. This is why you're the brains of this operation."

Qrow hadn't been this bad when he was a teenager, pining over someone like this. It'd be safer to say that he'd changed his mind about it, but instead he asked, "When do you wanna do it?"

Tonight, he thought, please say tonight.

Clover noted the way Qrow’s voice sounded when he responded. He glanced over to see if there was any evidence that he was unwell or maybe...but no. He didn’t think that was likely. Qrow was just being Qrow. And he was an idiot. An idiot that was dead set on torturing himself. Still there was something about Qrow’s expression he couldn’t quite place. And then a moment later it was gone. “Just trying to make us more comfortable.”

He considered the next question. The more he thought about it the less certain he was that it was a good idea. If he waited, he’d have time to talk himself out of it. Only he didn’t want to. His hand twitched with wanting to reach out and take Qrow’s hand, to just ignore all the things in his head that told him he it was a bad idea.

“Got a lot of free time, so we can do this whenever. I haven’t made plans for the rest of the day if you wanted to do it tonight, but if you’re doing anything around the ship, we’ll figure it out.”

"I'm all yours," Qrow told him—he wished he was, anyway. What the hell did Clover think Qrow was going to be doing around the ship, if he wasn't doing it with him? Maybe he coulda been hanging out with one of the kids, but... not that late.

Eh. Looking back, still wasn't as obvious as 'they already invited you' had been. He wasn't sure how Clover hadn't figured him out right then, even if Qrow hadn't figured himself out yet. Or maybe he had and he'd been glad he had the chance to walk away, sit through an unpleasant meeting and pretend it never happened.

Before, he wouldn't have thought twice about jostling his shoulder against Clover's. Now that he'd figured out that it wouldn't just be a friendly bump, Qrow made himself keep his distance. "I can take care of the coffee and the blankets. Gotta pull my weight around here somehow."

Clover stared for a moment longer than he intended to. All his. He hated himself a little. He hoped it wasn’t as obvious to see on his face how the words made him feel. Because he wasn’t sure that he’d had it in him to mask it. But he didn’t think making it obvious would help either of them.

The distance between them felt charged and obvious as they walked. Like there was something keeping them apart. He didn’t like it, but it was probably for the best. All things considered.“It’s a date,” he said without thinking about it. But once he did, he almost threw himself in the pond.

“Okay. I’ll bring the snacks,” he said quickly to cover it up. He hoped that Qrow wouldn’t notice and he could continue on like a normal person.

A date. Qrow hadn't had many chances for one of those, and now that he might've had the time, and had someone he'd wanna go on one with, it was just a throwaway comment. A joke. Not exactly what he would've hoped for, but he was pretty used to that.

"You're a cheap date," Qrow said, trying to make it a joke they could both be in on. He was pretty sure he sounded a little faint.

Normal. He could do that. Even when he wanted to grab Clover and either kiss him or shake him. Either way.

Clover was annoyed with himself. It was the stupidest thing that he’d said, but at least Qrow didn’t seem to have gotten upset with him about it. That was a relief. He let out a breath he hadn’t realized that he’d been holding when he called him a cheap date. Then he followed it up with a laugh. “I think you’ll find that I’m incredibly cheap.” He didn’t know what that meant, but he wished he could be a regular human.

He wished desperately that someone would shut him up until he could figure out the words. He’d have accepted either a kiss or a shake at that time. “Or maybe it’s just that I haven’t been on a date for a while.” Which was true, but sounded a lot more sad than funny. “Just easily bought now.”

Brothers, he hated himself.

"Can't imagine that." Qrow meant it too. How the hell could Clover have some kind of dating dry spell? He'd wonder if his dating prospects had seen his arms, but he wasn't exactly shy about showing them off so Qrow knew for a fact everyone in Atlas had. "C'mon, be honest, you're prying them off with a crowbar."

Would it have been better or worse to say he was prying the ladies off? Qrow could've gotten some confirmation that Clover was a women only kind of guy and then maybe all the awkward feelings could start fading away. That, or he'd correct him and Qrow would know that he liked men too and... then what was Qrow supposed to do with that?

"You can definitely do better than me." Qrow sounded more serious about that than he meant to. More like it bothered him.

Clover chuckled softly at that. “You would think so, but I haven’t had much time and the people I like never seem to like me back. Vicious cycle.” And he was convinced that this wasn’t any different from any other time. He felt like he was going crazy and it took everything he had not to immediately assure Qrow he was the exact date that he wanted. He felt like he was going insane and he very much wanted to kiss Qrow just to see what would happen, but he also didn’t want to ruin the only stable friendship he had from home. Especially when he was fairly certain Qrow didn’t want to date him and was just teasing him to be impolite at this point.

“I think you’re an excellent choice,” he said after a moment, not sure if he should have or not. The tragedy of liking someone that very much didn’t like you back was worse than perhaps any other tragedy that wasn’t someone dying. “You should think more highly of yourself. At least don’t be so hard on yourself. Anyone would be happy to date you.” He reached over to awkwardly pat Qrow’s shoulder. “Looks like you’re stuck with me, though. I hope it won’t be too trying for you.”

He was going to have to kill himself to stop whatever was going on. So he moved away again, looking around.

The only thing that was trying for Qrow was trying not to fling himself at Clover like a lovesick teenager... and Qrow had watched Yang and Blake enough to know exactly what that looked like. He was probably worse than them at this point. Yang would be laughing at him so hard she'd be crying.

Qrow felt a little like crying himself, out of sheer frustration. Alright, and a little bit because he was hopelessly pining over a guy who was just trying to be nice to him.

"Rather hang out with you any day," Qrow told him after a few seconds too long of silence. "You're, uh. You might be the best friend I've ever had."

Because that wasn't obvious at all, was it.

Best friend. And that was why Clover was going to do his best not to fuck it over. He was just going to have to deal with it. He could deal with it. He was just thankful that none of his team was around for this. Marrow especially. They’d be impossible.

“Yeah. I’m pretty sure you’re the best friend I’ve ever had, too.” He lightly bumped Qrow’s shoulder. “All right. We should probably get ourselves ready to hang out later. Got some stuff to get before tonight.” And he needed to give himself a little time to psych himself up for it, too.