WHO: Qrow & Clover WHEN: Backdated to the end of January (I think the 29thish) WHERE: Clover’s apartment WHAT: Clover’s injured AGAIN, so Qrow goes to check on him and they talk about things TRIGGERS: Mentions of death, lots of feelings, kissing (GROSS)
The awkward silence has lingered between Qrow and Clover for longer than Qrow should have let it... but for someone who could be so clever with words when it came to telling stories, he failed when they really mattered. He hadn't known how to break it. How to unsay the things that he'd said, that they'd both said. And sure, he knew it wasn't either of their faults, but that didn't change the facts.
Clover was sorry he'd almost kissed him on New Year's Eve. And he probably realized by now that Qrow was sorry he hadn't.
Still, there were certain things that were more important than Qrow's wounded pride. Such as the fact that for someone who brought good luck, Clover had a distressing tendency to get injured. Qrow hadn't been with him at the time, avoiding him even then, but now?
It was a strange mirror image, him knocking at Clover's door. It did cross his mind that unlike the last two times they'd been together outside of work, there was nowhere Clover could run off to this time.
Clover wasn’t in the worst pain he’d ever been in, but he did end up with stitches across his chest and a lot of bruising. He had a light t-shirt on and a sweatshirt with a simple pair of sweatpants. He hadn’t been expecting company and he could fairly easily dress his own wounds this time.
He was still feeling poorly about the conversation he and Qrow had had the other day, but he knew he was back to himself now. He just hadn’t known how to broach the subject again and ask forgiveness.
The sound of the knock on the door made him look up and he very slowly got up off the couch, making his way to the door. Maybe it was Dan or one of the other doctors checking in. When he opened it, however, he saw Qrow and he stilled. “Hey.” He cleared his throat. “Uh. Come in.” He moved to gesture inside and winced as the skin around the stitches pulled.
Qrow caught the wince and stopped his hands from going to... he didn't know what he'd planned on doing with them. Tugging Clover's shirt up to get a look for himself?
Yeah, that was going to go over well. The man didn't even want to kiss him. He definitely didn't want Qrow undressing him, even if it was just to get a look at his latest injuries. Instead, Qrow slipped inside and bit his lip on a scolding comment. "How bad is it? I didn't get a look..."
Maybe it was cowardly, sticking to that instead of getting right to the point, but Qrow was genuinely concerned. No matter what else was between them, he liked to think that they'd worked their way back to a friendship. A tenuous friendship, based around not talking about some things that they probably really ought to talk about, but still a friendship.
The best friendship that Qrow had ever had. And here he was, maybe about to mess it up.
Clover shrugged as much as he felt the stitches would allow. “I’ve had worse. Think these things are trying to make a target over time.” He felt the awkwardness of the situation like a suffocating cloud. He didn’t want to make things weird, but he also didn’t fully know what to say.
“Are you…okay?” Because he hadn’t really checked and that was out of some dumb feeling of discomfort he didn’t want to look at too closely.
"I'm fine." Qrow was, physically at least. His luck had kicked in during the fight, just like it always did, but he'd managed to duck its effects. He was used to that by now. Good at it, even, though it was a heck of a thing to be bragging about. "Not a scratch on me."
Unlike Clover, whose movements were stiff and awkward. Qrow hesitated, then demanded, "I want to see."
It was less... something, if he asked to see it instead of easing Clover's shirt up to take a look himself. Less intimate? Maybe that was the word that he was looking for.
That was a relief at least. That he wasn’t hurt. “See. You didn’t even need my good luck to keep you out of trouble.” It felt like a very brittle joke, but he tried all the same. He knew Qrow didn’t like to see him hurt, so he didn’t want to make anything seem too dark.
He felt his stomach drop somewhat when Qrow asked to see it. It was one thing to pull up his shirt in front of someone he didn’t have feelings for. This made him feel self conscious. “Okay.” He carefully pulled up his shirt, trying not to pull anything. “You might have to pull the bandage off if you want to see much more.” He tried not to think about the feeling of Qrow’s fingers on his skin.
He was anxious. He didn’t move, though. “Just be careful.”
"I will be," Qrow promised. Long fingers brushed against the exposed parts of Clover's skin as he gingerly peeled the bandage away; he was warm and the contact made Qrow's skin tingle, even as he started to catch sight of the wound. And what kind of freak was he, getting all tingly over this when Clover was hurt?
The kind that was still wishing he'd gotten a kiss on New Year's Eve, he guessed.
"It's not as bad as I was imagining," Qrow acknowledged. Of course, he'd been imagining a repeat of the wound that had killed Clover, but he guessed there was a difference between this and being run through with Harbinger.
Just as carefully, he put the bandage back on, leaning in close enough that his breath fanned against Clover's skin.
Clover stood still, doing his best not to think too hard about the fingers on his skin and the way he wanted to feel them on his skin for different reasons and he felt guilty thinking about it because he was trying not to make this something it wasn’t. He just didn’t know what to do or how to stop thinking about it. He felt stupid and frustrated.
Letting out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding, Clover tried to act normal, but he felt the words building up. “I’m sorry,” he said softly, letting the silence after it linger before he added. “I did want to kiss you but I…you don’t need that. I know you feel guilty about everything because of what happened before, but that doesn’t mean I can take advantage of the situation and I…didn’t mean to do that.”
He sighed then. “And I’m sorry for whatever weirdness was going on when I came to talk to you about it. I tried to say what I meant, but I couldn’t stop saying the wrong thing. And I know it’s been weird, but I was trying to deal with it on my own, but I’m just…it’s hard.”
Qrow let him finish mostly because he was so dumbfounded by the idea that Clover thought he was taking advantage of Qrow's guilt. Sure, Qrow felt guilty about what had happened to him, but...
"I've felt guilty my entire life, Cloves, and it's never been enough that I would've let someone lay a kiss I didn't want on me." Much less more, which was definitely what Qrow wanted.
"I can't believe you really think... Clover, I wanted you to kiss me," Qrow shook his head, fingers settling against Clover's stomach for a second before he pulled them back. "I've wanted you to kiss me for a while, I think, I was just too dumb to realize what all the feelings meant."
If it hadn't been for that aborted kiss, he might have never put the pieces together. Qrow wasn't good at this, had never been good at it, had only been able to flirt when he was drunk. But this wasn't that. This wasn't some hookup in a bar. This was someone who mattered, someone who he wanted to stay with after the physical part of things was over.
The feeling of Qrow’s fingers on his stomach distracted him just slightly from his thoughts, but he was starting to process words again by the time Qrow mentioned wanting to kiss him for a while. Everything else caught up in his mind a few minutes after. He just stared for a long minute, letting his shirt fall back down and smoothing it over. “I’ve wanted to kiss you since the cave.” It seemed so long ago now. He’d liked him since before they’d fought. He felt like he’d flirted so expertly at that point, luck jokes and everything. Even not knowing Qrow’s abilities.
“But we had too much going on and I didn’t want to press anything. I just thought you weren’t interested. Then I thought maybe you were, but I didn’t want it to be because you felt guilty about what happened.”
He glanced down for a minute before looking back up. “If you’re sure, though, I think you need to kiss me already.”
The cave... had Qrow been interested that long? He thought... probably. From the moment that Clover had saved him from falling, he'd kept Qrow off balance.
"I was so distracted with the kids, I couldn't let myself have anything that I wanted," he admitted. "It was about them. Their mission. Saving the world. There wasn't any time for me, not when I'd wasted enough of it being a drunk mess already. But now..."
Now, no matter what kept getting thrown at them, there were no kids to take care of. There was no imminent end of the world. There was just him and Clover and no end to the possibilities of what could happen between them.
Qrow's fingers found Clover's face, cupped his jaw as he leaned in and pressed his lips to the other man's. It was a tender kiss, gentle, inquisitive. Qrow still wasn't entirely sure that this was alright, that this wasn't going to end up being some joke and he'd be the butt of it, even though he knew Clover better than that. He knew that it wasn't like that.
He knew that this kiss was real.
Clover understood. He’d been there, been dealing with everything just like Qrow and there hadn’t really been time even if he’d thought about it. There was no point in missing time that was already gone, though. He couldn’t change it.
He felt stupid, though, for worrying himself about it and not listening to anyone else’s opinions on the matter. Maybe if he’d listened to Mobius, this might’ve already been dealt with and he wouldn’t have been feeling like he’d royally messed up for this long. But Qrow was kissing him and he felt like a weight was lifted off of him. His hands found Qrow’s hips before he wrapped his arms around the other man’s waist and pulled him closer, only somewhat regretting it when he felt pressure to the injury on his chest.
“I think I might need to sit down,” he said once he pulled back just enough to say the words. “But we should definitely continue this once I do.” Because finally he felt like he was allowed something he didn’t think he was.