Drinking with Jimmy was always the strangest crapshoot, Qrow idly mused, smiling, as he looked down into the blast crater that they had made - where Ironwood was down on his back as he laughed and laughed, tears running down his dirty face; the hot, salty drops blazing watercolor trails of cleanliness through the black soot that marred his cheeks.
"Good fuckin' job, idiot. You call yourself a General? Can't blame me for this shit, this is all on you." Qrow shuffled his feet in the fine rubble, his balance unsteady and wavering as he found himself getting an unwelcome sense of deja vu. The cement origins of this particular chunk of Beacon's courtyard were at least still evident in the giant hole, which was still smoldering from Jimmy's garbage mixture of misaligned and mismeasured Dust in his ammunition. Not a wholly lost cause, Qrow silently thanked, as he found and kicked a nice, stray rock in Ironwood's direction.
"What do you mean I can't?!" Ironwood wheezed, flailing his once-pristine, engraved pistol vaguely in Qrow's direction. The pistol was equally as covered in soot and debris as he was; the chamber blown out, and the gun's thick top strap peeled upwards, twisted into gnarled silver shrapnel. "I've never, never made a round that was over pressure. This gun has never misfired on me. Never. This is on you and your shit semblance!"
The rock got James square in the chest, and its impact made a sharp, mocking clink. Qrow guffawed, as obnoxiously as he could.
Headmaster-General James Ironwood, of Atlas- Get a few good, high-dollar drinks into him, and he'd either get more deathly serious than anyone had any business ever being, or his thick metal skull would become laughably malleable, and entirely too susceptible to bad, light-hearted suggestions and shenanigans. Like trick-shooting empty bottles at two in the morning.
Qrow wondered if the man ever had a childhood, or if he just bliped into existence; stern, miserable, needing half a bottle of whisky to more convincingly be able to pretend that he was happy. To make himself and others believe that he was actually human through stupid, numb antics like these. Through these half-remembered attempts at mending fragile, trepedatious "friendships".
And Qrow paused, his snide grin flickering into a grimace; he was not drunk enough to escape wondering how he managed to wander so precariously close to being the pot calling the kettle black.
Ironwood groaned, still smiling, oblivious to Qrow's inner toilings and harsh judgements. He wobbled to his feet, and regained his composure; he made an attempt to pat himself down, to dust off his once pristine white uniform - but he found that his right arm was limp, inert, and useless. It hung loose, unnaturally sloped and dislocated, from his shoulder socket.
"Well." Ironwood's smile faded, and he frowned; his teeth bared in a disgruntled scowl. "Still all my fault, Qrow?"
"I mean, technically. I didn't know you when you went and lost half your damn body, you goddamned idiot." It was a bitter reflex; Qrow swallowed, seeing an all too sickeningly familiar look, now, on Ironwood's face; hollow, yearning, pained. Disgusted. All amplified by hampered inhibitions; too drunk for a good mood to ever last, and too drunk for the slightest bad feeling to not suffocate in an instant.
Qrow gave him the smallest panic.
"W-We can get you fixed up, okay." Qrow moved to join Ironwood; to help him climb out of the loose, silt-lined sides of the hole. "I'll get you fixed up, Jimmy."
"Forget it, Qrow." The look on his face was wounded, bitter, spiteful - and his words sounded entirely too sober. "Much better people than you have tried."