Oscar sat on the train to Mistral, staring out the windows in an attempt to distract himself away from the earlier events of the day and everything that had happened.
Mostly, he wasn't quite able to shake some of the nervousness (fear would be more accurate, the voice in Oscar's head claimed) that had first arisen when he'd seen that strange man at the train station. The fact that Ozpin wasn't offering him much in the way of answers about who that man was didn't help him. There was too much vagueness about Ozpin's answer.
"He's someone from my past" had been Ozpin's claim.
That didn't actually mean anything though. No matter how much Oscar thought about it, he couldn't bring it to make it mean something in his head.
It just didn't make sense that he would think that the man meant something aside from Ozpin's barely meaningful words.
Why would he feel familiarity towards someone that he'd never seen over the course of his entire life? Why did he feel like he'd seen that man that Ozpin refused to speak about before?
Why did Oscar even care?
That was the worst part.
Oscar found himself in a position where he was sure that he himself was recognizing something about someone, and now he wasn't even sure that he was actually feeling it himself. It wouldn't have been the first time that Ozpin's feelings had bled into his own. It wouldn't have been the first time that Ozpin's memories had merged with Oscar's own.
"You're thinking about that man." Ozpin's voice appeared, and Oscar blinked in his immediate response to them. Why were they talking to him now?
"I felt like I recognized him." Oscar said quietly, shifting and checking that there was nobody else in the train compartment. When he'd boarded, he'd been careful to try and find an area with nobody else around for this reason exactly.
As of yet, Oscar hadn't found any way that he could communicate with Ozpin without speaking out loud or making his skin crawl. He knew better than to give people more reasons to think that there was something wrong with him. Ozpin seemed to understand when it was a bad time to talk though- which Oscar would be glad for.
Although, it couldn't be said that Oscar didn't worry about what would happen when they couldn't stay silent anymore.
It felt like they weren't there, at least for a moment, and finally they spoke. "Did you recognize him?"
Oscar blinked and looked down at his hands, turning them over and letting himself look over the creeping burn scar on his right hand, calloused over as it was from work. It dragged up things that he didn't like thinking about often, feelings that he'd learned to push back long ago.
"I don't know." Oscar said finally, looking back out the window. "He felt familiar but..." He shook his head. "I don't even know whether I know what the headmaster's office looked like at Haven because of you or because I saw it in a book somewhere."
"An understandable feeling." Ozpin answered. "I remember feeling the same way."
Oscar had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes as a response. Ozpin claimed to have gone through this, but rarely seemed to show proper sympathy. It was only one of the things that left him infinitely annoyed by the current arrangement.
Although calling it an arrangement implied that there was some sort of free will involved on Oscar's part, and that couldn't be further from the truth.
"Do you know?" Oscar asked. In the back of his own mind, he was aware of the fact that this was probably the first time that he had ever tried to raise that sort of question to Ozpin. Always it had been a matter of looking to Ozpin for reassurance in hard times.
But now, Oscar needed to hear some words of truth out of Ozpin.
And there was their voice at the back of his mind, as insistent as it always was. "I was telling the truth when I said that he was someone from my past."
Oscar nodded, although the motion did little to make him feel any better about the situation at hand. It would communicate nothing to Ozpin, as far as Oscar knew. Of course, it was possible that Ozpin did know about the fact that he was nodding, but Oscar wasn't sure.
There were so many things about the communication between himself and Ozpin that Oscar still was yet to find out.
"How do you know him?" Oscar asked, staring out the window as the trees passed by. "If he was so bad-"
"He was an old teammate." Ozpin replied, all too calmly. How were they able to stay calm at a time like this, when things were already so confusing? "Not a good man."
Thinking hard on where he could bring this conversation, Oscar pulled out the next question. The very least that he could ask for from Ozpin was context. Although, that was something that he'd been yet to hear a lot of from Ozpin in the past. "What... did he do?"
Ozpin was quiet for far too long, and Oscar couldn't help a momentary flash of fear that he didn't quite understand. There was that thought that Ozpin had somehow left him that he didn't like. Ozpin had stated before that this was a situation that neither of them had a choice in. It wasn't possible for them to leave, but they could go silent.
And Oscar didn't want for them to go so silent, not now.
It was an eternity before Ozpin finally answered. "He's killed a lot of people, Oscar." There was a long pause. "Supposedly he killed his own family but..."
"But?"
"I don't know that I believe that particular story." Ozpin's voice trailed off for a while, and when it came back, they were the one asking the questions. They were the one leading the conversation, and Oscar had no choice but to be dragged along for the ride. "Did you feel like you knew him?"
Oscar felt like his mouth had gone entirely too dry. Why were they turning this around on him so quickly. "I don't know-" he began, shifting uneasily in his seat and even allowing himself to curl up there as best as he could. "He felt familiar like... someone that I knew when I was very young."
There was that silence again, always taunting. It was enough to make Oscar get angry, and he was sure that Ozpin was entirely aware of that. "I just want for things to make sense." Oscar said, much quieter than he normally would have been. "What aren't you telling me?"
"That man-" Ozpin began, and Oscar had never felt more grateful to get a response out of them. In fact, he was sure that he'd never been glad to hear from Ozpin. But now they were there and they were actually making some effort to help him. "I suppose I haven' told you his name yet, have I?"
"No," Oscar groaned. "You haven't."
"His name is Hazel Rainart. When he and I were... well, young we were both on team ORNG together. He was the main muscle of our team, and he was exceptional in that role." Ozpin's voice trailed off. "The last that I'd heard from him before..."
"Before?"
"Before something happened, was that he'd run off, and had started a family somewhere in Mistral. I don't know if they married, but I do know there was a child involved." Ozpin explained quietly. After that, they went entirely silent. Oscar figured that it was because they were just trying to give him the time to savor their words and parse things out for himself. He was glad for it, all in all. It was a courtesy that he hadn't quite been expecting.
The only problem was that it felt like he'd had to sit there eternally to figure it out.
But he took his time to think on every word that Ozpin had said anyways, because that was the only way that Oscar figured he'd be able to understand what they were saying or what they were trying to communicate to him.
When the realization came, it was so violently that he wasn't able to breathe for a moment. It hit him like a freight train, it made his head spin, it made him want to scream or cry or fight something. He curled in on himself more and more with every second following the understanding. Ozpin waited moment by moment for Oscar to calm down, and they said nothing the entire time.
Oscar didn't know whether or not that was a good thing. It was too hard, and if Ozpin said something, Oscar was sure that they may have only managed to make things worse.
His heart ached, and the memory of his mother that had been the one to bring everything to the front of his mind came to mind over and over again.
He remembered his mother, standing in the kitchen of their tiny home and hugging a tall man with dark skin and a growl of a voice as the two of them said their goodbyes. He'd been tall, he'd had large warm hands.
Oscar had last seen him when he was barely any older than a toddler.
He'd missed his father, for a very long time.
But things had changed, Oscar had to remind himself. Regardless of whether or not he'd recognized the man at first. He'd thought that he only had his aunt left for family.
All of a sudden, it felt like his entire universe had somehow managed to flip upside down and inside out.
Ozpin's words had said that they'd thought that Hazel- his father had killed his family. Oscar knew that wasn't the case, but..
If that had happened, then had anything else happened? Why else would Ozpin be so afraid of Hazel Rainart?
Oscar was never more glad to know that he had grown up bearing his mother's name.
Maybe in another life he would have carried his father's name. Maybe in another life things wouldn't have gone this way, and he would have been able to be brought up by that father that now seemed to be little more than a monster, at least by Ozpin's view.
Oscar had to fight the churning feeling in his stomach that told him that he'd made a serious mistake in allowing himself to have any involvement with his father. By talking to Ozpin about what had happened at the train depot, he'd made a mistake.
But still, Oscar couldn't let himself relax all that easily. Even now, he sat there wondering about so many things, the greatest question among them being what could have been.
But another question edged its way to the forefront of his mind easily enough.
"Ozpin?"
"Yes, Oscar?"
Oscar took a deep breath and looked down at his own hands, with their brown skin and the callouses that had been earned over the course of years of farm work rather than fighting. "Do you think that he recognized me?"
"I don't know." Ozpin replied. "Do you intend to find out?"
Oscar paused, unsure of how he wanted to read into Ozpin's question. Was Ozpin expecting that he was going to make some attempt to pursue Hazel at some point? Oscar didn't know how they were able to ask that, not when Oscar had already left his entire life for the sake of Ozpin's requests.
"No." Oscar said, keeping his voice quiet. "Do you think that I'm going to see him again?"
Ozpin went silent again, and Oscar couldn't stand the silence. He found himself pulling the rag off of his belt and Oscar began to twist it and wrap it around his hands in an attempt to distract himself from how bad everything actually was. The fact of the matter was that Oscar didn't think that he was ever going to be able to ignore everything that had happened.
Even if it wasn't Hazel, which oh, Oscar was seriously doubting at this point, how was he expected to keep moving forward.
"I don't know." Ozpin finally said, though this time the voice was much quieter than normal. Oscar curled in against the window a little bit more, and he wished that he had a blanket or was with his mother or his aunt. He wished to be anywhere other than that empty train compartment. "I suppose you'll have to find out in due time, although I pray you won't have to."
Oscar nodded slowly, despite every instinct that reminded him so easily that it wouldn't do anything to nod. "What... was he like?"
"Oscar?"
"What was he like..." Oscar's voice trailed off slightly, "Back when you knew him."
"Oscar, you need to understand." Ozpin said quietly. "He and I were barely anything more than children back then."
"So?"
"When people are young, they're different." Ozpin's explanation was nothing, to Oscar it actually felt more like an excuse than it did anything else. For the first time that night, Ozpin seemed to decide to clue in on Oscar's thoughts.
"He changed, Oscar." They said, insistent as they ever were. "You need to understand that, the boy that I went to school with and called my teammate was nothing like the man that you met at the train depot."
"Why do I feel like there's a but coming?" Oscar muttered, knowing that he sounded a little too frustrated. Had he still been with family, he was sure that he would have met some sort of reprimand for all of it. Of course, it would be a loving one, the kind that people only gave to those that they wanted to be happy.
Why, his aunt would tease him for being grumpy.
"There might be one," Ozpin explained, somehow managing to give a sigh in the back of Oscar's mind. "Bad things happen, Oscar. People grow up and they change. The last that I'd heard from him-" Ozpin paused, for a little too long. "Well, I'd heard that he'd run off, settled down, and had a family between hunting jobs."
"So me and my mother." Oscar said, running his thumb over the patchwork cloth that was starting to remind him so much of his life. "That was the last that you'd heard."
"Yes."
Oscar's heart sank at the revelation, but for what reason he couldn't quite pin down. If Ozpin had truly known his parents back when they were young, then surely they would have been able to offer him something to try and help explain the situation to him.
But Ozpin didn't seem to offer that outright, nor did they seem willing to even talk about or attempt to address what they did know. Worse than that, Oscar didn't know whether or not he found that to be a relief or not. Maybe knowing more about who his father used to be was exactly what Oscar didn't need.
Either way, Oscar didn't know how he felt about it.
He turned and faced himself away from the aisle on the train a little bit more, hoping that he'd be able to find relaxation in something. Maybe it would be there in the passing of the trees as the train flew by them. Maybe it would be the cool glass against his brow.
Regardless, there were things that Oscar couldn't stop himself from coming back to mentally. At the top of that list of things, there was the undeniable knowledge that his father was not only alive, but he was also apparently a bad person and he was out there.
How was Oscar realistically expected be able to reconcile any of that? How did Ozpin think he was supposed to get by all of this? Had they been hoping that he wouldn't notice that there was something off about that man at the train depot that had gotten him a ticket?
And even then, an ugly question that always managed to force its way into the back of Oscar's mind reared its ugly head.
How much could Ozpin, the voice in his head that they were, be trusted? How could Oscar know that they were lying to him? Thus far, there had never been any sort of indication to tell him that Ozpin was lying or dishonest, but there were certain things about the situation that made it more difficult.
Oscar couldn't look for physical cues in Ozpin. He could only rely on Ozpin's words alone.
And that scared him.
Ozpin picked up on it easily enough.
"I think that there's no reason to be afraid, Oscar." Ozpin said in the back of his mind, and Oscar wanted nothing more than to be able to snarl at the voice and tell them to leave him alone or tell him the truth. Oscar grit his teeth and allowed himself to ball his hands into fists as he stared out at the world outside. "If he is aware that it's you, I doubt that he'll bring you any harm."
"And if he finds out that I'm sharing my head with you?" Oscar asked, keeping himself as quiet as possible because if there was any chance that someone was going to start thinking that he was crazy for whatever reason, that question was going to be the one that started it. "I don't think that'll go so well."
Ozpin was quiet again, and Oscar was reminded that this was just going to be the communication pattern of the rest of his life. If he asked a question that Ozpin didn't want to answer, they would stay quiet until they came up with an answer that was convenient enough to give.
When they spoke to them again, it was somehow with a sigh (that didn't make sense, Oscar thought to himself. How can someone without lungs breathe or sigh?) and a deeply worried tone. "If that happens," Ozpin began, "then I fear that it'll have already been too late to save you."
You.
Oscar's stomach clenched and turned over that word alone.
You.
The word alone was infinite in meaning, and when everything that was what his and Ozpin's current arrangement was came into consideration, the subtext was all too clear to Oscar.
If something happened to them, then Ozpin would be able to live on and move on to whoever the next unsuspecting teenage farmhand was.
If something happened to them, Oscar would perish and there would be no chances at a second life after everything was over.
The message read all too loud and clear to Oscar, not that he'd dare voice that and risk making himself unable to sleep as a result of his own worries over Ozpin rather than something else.
He was disposable.
"Oscar, you have to understand me when I say this-" With Ozpin's words, Oscar was once more dragged from his own thoughts and feelings into that space between the two of them. It felt like a void in his mind that had been caused by Ozpin's presence, and Oscar couldn't help but to shift uncomfortably at the the thought.
He didn't like not knowing whether or not the thing that was telling him what to do was his own feelings or thoughts rather than Ozpin's. It was too unsettling, and Oscar was sure that if he made even the slightest attempt to do research on what he was experiencing, he would find nothing that made sense.
At the end of the day, Oscar didn't know what he was going through, but he was sure that he knew what he wasn't going through, and that was ever so important to him.
It was just now he had other worries getting tacked onto it that he hadn't thought about before. Never before had his father being alive been even close to being on his radars.
Maybe once, as a young boy, he had daydreamed of his father coming home to be there for their family.
"What do I need to understand?" Oscar asked, feeling and sounding all too tired for someone of his age. "That I wouldn't be dealing with this if it wasn't for you?"
"Now, now, let's not go pointing fingers." Ozpin answered first before they even bothered to continue with what they were saying. "I know that you may not want to hear this, but it will likely be in your best interest if you..."
"If I?" Oscar asked, even though he doubted that his prompting was going to be enough to make Ozpin finish what they had been saying to him any faster.
Finally, Ozpin finished what they'd been meaning to say. "It may be in your best interest to be sure to avoid him, Oscar." Ozpin said quietly. "I know that this situation is difficult-"
Oh, if Oscar had been able to shoot Ozpin a dirty look for that little statement, he was sure that he would have gone ahead and done it in a heartbeat. He was even sure that Ozpin was well aware of that fact too and just decided not to mention it.
"No kidding." Oscar grumbled. "What else is new?"
"Oscar, you need to understand that no matter how powerful the urge to go after him and understand what happened to your family, you must not." Ozpin finally finished, and Oscar could feel his temper beginning to flare over it already. Them saying that to him alone was beyond frustrating. "What you're going through is difficult, I understand." Ozpin said quietly, still insistent at the back of Oscar's mind but also managing to come off as being surprisingly gentle in the process. Oscar wasn't sure whether he liked it or not.
Oscar looked down at his own hands and turned them, looking down at the callouses that had formed on his palms because of the farmwork. "I don't know that you do." Oscar said quietly. "I've got you to deal with-" Oscar was sure that if he was able to see Ozpin in person, they would have shot him a look in response for it. "-But now I have this and I don't know if I'm ever going to be able to figure out how I feel."
Oscar went quiet for a long time. He balled his hands back into fists, and when he felt his nails cutting into the flesh of his palms, Oscar didn't care. "I want to understand why he left but..." He shook his head and let out a too heavy sigh before he slumped back into his seat. "I don't know if this is something that's even possible to figure out."
Ozpin was too quiet. Oscar was almost glad for it, because it offered him some momentary peace of mind. But at the same time, he wanted to hear from them. He wanted to get comfort, and there weren't any people that Oscar could have reliably gone to for that.
Now, sitting on a train, completely broke, and going to a city that he'd never been to before for the sake of meeting with someone that Oscar wasn't sure he'd never met, Oscar wanted to hear from Ozpin. He wanted any sort of assurance that no matter what, things were going to be okay.
Maybe there was a part of him that wanted to know that he wasn't somehow tainted because of his lineage.
Oscar didn't know how that made any sense, but the feeling was still there and it screamed from the back of his mind to tell him that he could have that. Ozpin definitely wasn't family or a proper friend by any means, but they were all that Oscar had.
If he closed his eyes, Oscar could imagine them. He was sure that the image that he conjured wasn't correct. It was too much like a grandparent and Ozpin sounded too young- they were only Oscar's father's age, at least in theory (given the situation, Oscar wasn't sure about much of anything when it came to Ozpin beyond them being the voice in his head that wasn't his own. There was no way to explain why they would look like some sort of grandparent aside from the fact that that was how Oscar wanted to imagine Ozpin.
Maybe he thought that a grandparent would somehow be better than what he already had.
Maybe Oscar just wanted something that felt familial to make up for what he had so obviously missed out on over the course of his life.
Either way, Oscar doubted that he'd ever have a proper explanation for why he wanted comfort and validation from Ozpin.
The way that Oscar wanted to see that sort of thing happen the most was unattainable though, and he fully knew that. Ozpin would never be family, sure, but they would never be a solid living breathing person either.
More than anything, all that Oscar wanted for someone to reach out and be there for him in more ways than just words in the back of his mind.
"Oscar-" Ozpin's voice picked up, and Oscar could only hope that it was because they had managed to pick up on his train of thought and figure out exactly what he was going to need to be able to get by in a situation like this one. "I need you to know something."
Oscar frowned and wrang the cloth on his belt between his hands again, letting the fabric run over his skin in the hopes that it would somehow manage to comfort him through all of this. It was an old thing that he'd carried on him for some time. In the past, he'd always had it. His mother had claimed that it was patchwork because it was fixed up with scraps of old clothing.
"What is it?" Oscar asked as he stroked his thumb over a green patch of cloth on the rag. Hazel had worn a green coat. Oscar's stomach flipped at the realization of what he was touching. He nearly jerked back like he had been burned, but instead decided to drop the rag. It landed on his lap, harmless and unaware of its meaning.
"I don't hold him against you." Ozpin said quietly. "You had no choice in having him for a parent."
It wasn't much, and it definitely wasn't anywhere near what Oscar had been hoping to hear. However, it was what he felt like he needed when everything was said and done.
Had Ozpin held Hazel against him, then Oscar was sure that the uneasy partnership that the two of them shared would only become much more difficult to deal with. But Ozpin wasn't blaming him for anything, and that was about all that Oscar could have hoped for.
"Thank you." Oscar said finally as he raised a hand to wipe away hot tears that were beginning to bead in his eyes. "I needed-"
"I know, Oscar." Ozpin said quietly, a gentle prodding in the back of Oscar's mind as they always were. "If he is anyone's sin to bear, he is mine."
Oscar swallowed, realizing the weight of what had just been said all too easily.
"If that's the case, then he's both of ours." Oscar replied, knowing that it would offer him nothing. "Seeing as we're stuck together."
"No," Ozpin corrected. "He's mine. You're just sadly stuck along for the ride with regards to everything that went wrong with him."
Oscar let out a final sigh and shifted in his seat one last time. "So if we see him again, what do we do?"
"We try to avoid him." Ozpin answered. "And if he comes realizing his connection to you but bearing no clear ill will..." Their voice trailed off. "Then it will be up to you to decide."
Oscar nodded. "I understand."
"Good." Ozpin said, their voice surprisingly gentle. "You should try to rest before we make it to Mistral."
"Right." Oscar mumbled. "Rest."
He settled back into his seat, and Ozpin went all but silent for a while. When they realized that Oscar was unable to fall asleep, they piped up, but it was only to tell Oscar fairy tales and stories that they seemed to hope would be enough to comfort him.
It was almost like being read to by a parent.
Eventually, Oscar was able to sleep and his parentage was mostly out of his thoughts.