Tai set a warm cup of tea down in front of Qrow, watching him carefully. It didn't go over Qrow's head that this was a test of sorts.
In a different time- not too long ago, he would have pulled out his flask and poured a generous helping of cheap liquor into the cup.
Qrow looked from the cup, to Tai, tilting his head to the side with just the hint of a smirk, a silent acknowledgement of the challenge he'd been given. When he picked up his cup, the trembling of his hands was impossible to hide. It came and went, and right now it made it difficult but not impossible to drink without spilling the hot liquid everywhere.
That smirk of his disappeared, morphing into something of shame and annoyance when he noticed the pitying look Tai was giving him now.
He cleared his throat, setting the cup back down with a graceless clang that left a small pool of steaming tea on the table. Neither of them had said more than a handful of words to each other, someone had to break the silence.
"So, the girls are huntresses now…" Qrow commented, best to acknowledge the Goliath in the room.
The silence lingered after, broken again only by a sigh, Tai's eyes closed as he forced a tense smile. "I heard. Yang wrote to me. They're all so young still but, well, guess they've been through enough. They deserve it."
"Yang wrote to you?" Qrow had expected that Tai would have heard the news already, but normally it was Ruby that wrote letters. Yang had always had the tendency to forget to update people, where Ruby loved recounting all that happened.
"Mhm, got a few letters from her. Keeps me in the loop. Sounds like she's doing so well, I always knew she could bounce back." Tai's pride in his daughter's accomplishments apparent in every word, but laced with worry hidden underneath.
"Both those kids are made of tough stuff. Ha, guess you'll be happy to know Ruby's learned how to throw a punch, no weapons needed." It was a tentative step into dangerous waters between the two of them. Tai wanted to know how Ruby was doing, but Qrow was probably the last person he wanted to hear it from.
Once upon a time, Tai and Qrow were close, trusted each other in and out of battle. Many things strained that bond, Raven leaving, Qrow's devotion to Ozpin's mission, Summer's disappearance. They were never given respite from all that happened, many things were left unsaid, or simmered until they boiled over into harsh arguments. In the end what all but broke the fragile companionship between them was the fate of a little rose.
The heavy blanket of silence once again settled over them, broken only by the scratching of Zwei pawing at Tai's leg. That dog had a keen sense for when Tai was distressed. Zwei was the last peace offering Qrow had offered Tai, soon after Tai finally gave in and let Ruby take the entrance exam for Signal. Tai lifted the dog into his lap, visibly relaxing slightly as he absently ran his fingers through Zwei's fur. Moments like this made sure that Qrow didn't regret bringing that puppy to Patch.
"Look.." Qrow mumbled, floundering with what to say. Having serious discussions with not a drop of alcohol in his system was near foreign to him now. His arms itched, whether it was to reach for a drink or fly away from this, he wasn't sure.
"I know there's things you want to say to me. So just go on and say it, yell at me, fight me, I don't give a damn, just say something." He'd become accustomed to speaking in half truths, for once he craved something straightforward.
Tai blinked, and for a moment it was silent again before he set Zwei gently on the floor. "You told her to go to Haven. You knew she would go. You followed." He tersely laid out those facts.
Qrow bit down the want to deflect, to say that he didn't exactly tell Ruby to go to Haven. That wouldn't be the truth, he knew what he'd been doing that whole time. "Yes, I did."
"I just can't seem to figure it out. Why you seem to want my daughter dead." Tai said, tone startlingly flat. And there it was, the argument they'd had over and over since Ruby was old enough to take interest in stories of Huntsmen and Grimm.
"Tai. That is- that's the last thing I want, and you know it."
"But it is! What is any of this? Train her up, send her to her death? She's got a target on her back and you point her right towards the danger, again and again. If you hadn't encouraged her to be a huntress, if you hadn't trained her, if she didn't go to Beacon so early- she's so young, she could be safe at home." Tai was trembling with the effort to not yell, to not cry.
"I nearly punched Ozpin when I caught wind Ruby was going to Beacon early. If Gynda hadn't been there, I would've. Of course I care. She'd have a target on her either way, I'd rather she have a weapon and know how to use it then," Qrow said.
Tai's hand darted out, grabbing one of Qrow's wrists, nearly crushing it, a demand that Qrow listen to him. "You're still sending her off to her death."
Those words lingered in the air for a moment. It was hard to look at Tai, much harder than ignoring the bruising grip Tai had on him. He gave Tai a curious look. "Do you think she would have been happy?" He asked simply.
"What?"
"When you started teaching Yang to spar, Ruby came to me begging to be trained too, said you wouldn't let her. Kid glued herself to me, stubborn little brat," There was no way to feign annoyance at that with the fondness tinging his tone.
"There was no denying that spark she had though. You saw it too. I know, it scared me too," Those last words nearly whispered, a confession he'd never put to words before.
"I'm pretty sure you remember that day, you completely lost it on me when you found out."
Tai only nodded mutely, his grip on Qrow's wrist loosening.
"Y'know, she snuck out of her room that night, after you put her to bed," Qrow said. "I was half drunk on the couch, and this kid shows up sniffling, saying how sorry she was that she made us fight. Tried to get her to go back to bed but she wouldn't stop sobbing, so I let her stay there. When she finally calms down and is about to go to sleep she says something else. Says she just wants to fight off all the bad guys like me, and her mama and daddy. Says she wanted her daddy to teach her, but he barely even looks at her."
The story was pointedly aimed at Tai, but it was the truth. That wasn't long after Tai had really started pulling himself out of his depression, starting to manage being a single parent with much less help as Qrow went on longer missions. Still, looking at the little girl who was a near mirror image of her mother wasn't easy.
All at once, Tai deflated. His hand that held Qrow's wrist now fell heavily onto the table, his head drooping. "I was so damn jealous of you. I still am." He said, the tremble in his voice matched the tremble of his shoulders.
"Hm?" Qrow didn't quite get what that had to do with any of this.
"You can connect with her in a way I never could. She's always looked up to you, always listened to you- she'd never drink milk before you told her it'd make her grow strong. Before she could even write, if we had an address for you while you were on a mission she'd draw pictures to send to you." Tai explained.
Qrow nodded, though Tai couldn't see him. He didn't say anything, having a feeling there was more the other wanted to say.
"She's… she looks just like Sum- like her mother, and she fights and sometimes acts just like you." It was the closest Tai could get to saying what he was trying to get at.
Tai wasn't wrong in those observations either. Ruby had always gravitated towards her Uncle Qrow to confide in, and picked up on many of his habits, thankfully few of the bad ones. They had no blood relation yet people mistook him to be her father on more than one occasion. Qrow never had any intentions of being a father, not now, not ever, he hadn't even expected to live this long. Yet the pride he felt at every one of Ruby's successes, and the chilling fear of losing her, was all undeniably parental.
"C'mon Tai-Tai." Qrow said lightly, an old nickname rolled off his tongue easily, making Tai raise his head to look at him. "There's a whole lot of you in her, you just aren't looking. The sheer amount of energy that kid has? Or the way she can make a friend without realizing it just by smiling at them. That's all you." He assured.
Despite the tears still trickling down Tai's cheeks, he looked just slightly soothed by that. Still he gave Qrow a doubtful look.
Qrow sighed, running a hand through his hair. "I'm not lying about that stuff. But you want it from me straight? Okay. You did a shit job at bonding with her. You want her safe so bad-and that's not wrong, but you wanted to… well, this is a shit metaphor but you wanted to clip her wings, keep her in a cage." All at once Tai wanted Qrow to shut up, and to continue, this all needed to be said eventually.
"Her being trained by me made sense, she's never going to be a fisticuffs fighter like you, she's fast, needed to learn how to fight in the air, and picked up on using a scythe faster than I did." Qrow pointed this all out just to delay what he knew he needed to say next.
"And I'm not gonna claim I was always good at this… I mean fuck, there was a time where I thought I'd never be able to look at her while sober. But when you look her in the eyes, you see a ghost, Tai. Things got easier the more I could see that kid as her own person. She's not Summer."
The air in the room stood uncomfortably still, like the house itself was holding its breath. Then their eyes met, two men who had lost too much. They both were crying. Tai moved around the table, and reached out. Qrow tensed, expecting a fight, it'd been a long time since contact didn't mean a fight. Yet there wasn't a hint of aggression as Tai pulled him into a hug. So slowly he returned the embrace.
Things weren't okay. There was still so much left unsaid. But for just a moment after acknowledging women they both mourned in their own unhealthy way, and the girls left behind that they both desperately wanted to protect, they could find a hint of comfort.