A/N:
Hi friends! Here is a beautiful, funny little Tai and Qrow co-parenting oneshot. It takes place shortly after Summer's death, where Tai is struggling to get back on his feet and be a good dad, and Qrow is consistently drunk.
Enjoy!
Summer was always the one who was good at cooking.
Whenever they went on expeditions, she was the one in charge of food. Her breakfasts were energy-packed, her dinners were incredible, and her cookies could always cheer someone up, even someone as down-in-the-dumps as Qrow Branwen.
In fact, it was these cookies that Qrow daydreamed about now, as he watched Tai scramble back and forth to make dinner for the girls.
"Okay," Tai breathed. Ruby and Yang were playing outside, but he knew they would come in soon complaining of hunger. For too many nights since Summer's death, they had gotten fast food. No more. Tai was putting his foot down. He was determined to be the best single dad he could be. He had already lost two of his loves, he would not lose his daughters to malnutrition or an overdose of delivery pizza.
"You good, Tai?"
Tai nodded. "Yeah," he lied. "Yeah. Thanks for being here for my first home-cooked meal." He smiled at his old teammate. "It means a lot."
Qrow cringed. "I'm not sure you'll be thanking me if my semblance acts up."
Tai rolled his eyes. "It'll be fine. Okay," he clapped his hands together and consulted the instructions in the cookbook he had bought earlier today. "First instruction: boil a cup of water."
A long silence flooded between the two.
"Does it tell you how to do that?" Qrow asked hesitantly.
Tai flipped a few pages, puzzled, and then shook his head. "You would think they'd include specifics. It's not like it's intuitive."
Qrow scowled. "Well, in the Branwen tribe, sometimes we had to boil water to purify it. We normally just put in a pot over an open flame."
"An open flame in the kitchen, are you sure that's safe?"
"Not really."
Taiyang brought a finger up to his chin in deliberation, and Qrow groaned.
"Tai, if we're going to spend this long figuring out how to boil water, the girls are going to starve."
"You're right," Tai said, and his fatherly instincts kicked in. "Bring me some twigs, we'll make the fire on this black thing," Tai offered, gesturing to the stove.
When Qrow returned, Tai had filled one of Ruby's plastic sippy-cups with water.
"Maybe we should put it in a pot first," Qrow advised, dropping his collection of twigs on the stove.
Tai consulted the instructions. "It says a cup of water."
Qrow shrugged, "eh, then the sippy cup's probably fine."
Tai handed the cup to Qrow and took aim at the pile of sticks with his flame gauntlets. He shot out a small blast, and the twigs caught on fire instantly. "Okay, cup," Tai ordered, and Qrow handed him the red sippy-cup, sloshing some of the water as he did so.
When Qrow had gotten the call from Tai "Help, I'm going to make a home-cooked meal for the girls because they deserve it, but I have no idea what I'm doing," he had anticipated a long and chaotic night, so he had prepared for that in the best way he knew how: Drinking. Heavily.
Tai carefully set the sippy-cup of water on the open flame and turned away to consult the directions. "So, once the water boils, we can pour in the pasta. In the meantime, we should probably start on the sauce."
"Saucy," Qrow smirked.
Determined to put some vitamins and nutrients into his children, Tai had bought a wide variety of vegetables from the grocery earlier that day. Tomatoes, peppers, onions, carrots, zucchini, squash, and spinach all covered the Xiao Long kitchen table. Qrow did not much care for vegetables.
"So, the recipe says to cut the vegetables in-"
"Heh, say no more." Qrow pulled out his weapon, Harbinger, and activated it into a scythe. "I've got this, Tai."
The poor judgment that whiskey brought gave Qrow the courage to toss the vegetables into the air. Not just one carrot, or one pepper, or one tomato. No, Qrow scooped all of the vegetables into his hands, flung them up against the ceiling. His plan was to slice each vegetable as it fell back down.
Whoosh. He sliced through the zucchinis.
Whack. He cut up the carrots.
Fwoop. He minced the peppers in midair.
On and on Qrow went, until the vegetables lay in pieces around him. "Ta da,"
Tai shook his head, smiling. "Show off…"
"Hey, you said to cut the vegetables, I cut the vegetables,"
"I said to cut them, not to use them in a martial arts demonstration."
"Well, I'm sorry you're so hard to please, Tai. My apologies. I thought you would've appreciated dinner and a show."
Taiyang rolled his eyes. Most of the vegetables were on the floor, but that was okay. He'd just wash them before he added them to the sauce. His peppers were accounted for, and his carrots, his zucchini, his squash, but… Tai raised an eyebrow. "Qrow, what happened to my tomatoes?"
Qrow looked up at the ceiling, a sinking feeling in his stomach. Somehow, defying all known laws of physics, the tomatoes that Qrow had thrown up had not come back down. They had splattered onto the ceiling, covering it with several reddish-pinkish stains. "They appear to be part of the interior decoration now. Gives this place some color, I would say."
Tai looked up. "Qrow!"
Just then, a loud, sizzling sound came from the stove behind Tai. Tai whipped around, and Qrow raised an eyebrow, concerned.
The sippy-cup of water that Tai had so carefully placed on the fire was now a sippy-monstrosity. The plastic had melted, morphing the object into something bubbling and breathing. All of the water had fallen out, and the twigs were now covered in red, plastic goo.
"AH!" Tai screamed, racing towards his ruined boiling water. "Cool it off! Cool it off! Qrow!"
Qrow stood on his tiptoes to scan Taiyang's abnormally high cabinets, frantically looking for something to cool the melting plastic. In the back of one cabinet, he found an old paper fan. "Tai!" he cried, throwing him the fan.
Tai took the fan and frantically waved it across the flames, trying to cool down the melting plastic. As luck would have it, his attempts were unsuccessful. The fan promptly caught on fire.
Tai gasped, and Qrow's eyes widened.
"Water, water, water, water!" Tai shouted, racing away from the stove to the sink where Qrow stood. As he darted to the sink, one of the tomatoes that clung to the ceiling fell to the floor. Tai slipped on the newly-created tomato puddle, throwing the flaming fan at Qrow in the process. Qrow sidestepped in panic, but it was not enough. The fan brushed against his cape, catching it on fire.
"Tai!" Qrow screamed. He kicked the fan away.
Tai frantically pulled himself up from the ground. "There's tomato on the floor." He stuck a towel under the sink. "I'll clean it up, don't worry,"
"A LITTLE HELP HERE?"
Tai looked at Qrow in concern for a second before he realized. "You're on fire!"
Qrow ripped off his cape, throwing it into the sink. Embers from the cape went everywhere, and he frantically patted out mini-fires on the rest of his clothes. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw something orange rising in the direction he'd kicked the fan.
"The counter's on fire!"
Behind them, the stove gave another loud hiss. Qrow and Tai both snapped to look as the plastic sippy-monstrosity finally gave in to the heat, lighting up in flames.
Tai and Qrow exchanged a terrified look.
"Everything's on fire!" They screamed in unison.
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Yang and Ruby ran into the house, hungry after a long day of playing outside.
"Daaaad!" Yang called.
"Daaaad!" Ruby mimicked.
"I'm hungry!"
"Want food!" Ruby agreed.
"Just a second!" called a strangled voice from the kitchen.
"Can we order pizza?" Yang asked, throwing herself onto the couch.
Ruby stuck her arms up for Yang to pull her onto the couch too. "Pizza! Pizza!"
Their dad emerged from the kitchen, his face covered in soot. Qrow walked out shortly after, looking as though he had just fled a warzone.
"Uncle Qwow!" Ruby cried, jumping down from the couch and running over to hug his leg.
"Why do you look like that, Dad?" asked Yang, climbing over the couch to stare at him.
Tai coughed up ash. "Look like what?"
"Like you just got into a fight."
"Oh, uh…"
"That's cause he did, firecracker," Qrow explained, "we were in the kitchen, trying to make something healthy and nutritious, when the tomato dragon attacked."
Ruby and Yang's eyes widened. "The tomato dragon?!"
"Yeah," Qrow nodded wisely, "if it wasn't for your dad, we'd both be dead."
Ruby waddled over to her dad and hugged his leg. "Thank you, Daddy, for saving Uncle Qwow from the tomato dwagon."
Tai scooped up his daughter and pulled her into a hug. "It was nothing. Your old man takes on plenty of monsters. The old 'tomato dragon' has nothing on me."
"Whoa…" Ruby and Yang gaped up at their father in awe. Qrow stifled a snort.
"Unfortunately, the tomato dragon also ate the dinner I was in the process of making. So… we may have to get delivery pizza again."
"Yes!" Ruby threw both of her hands in the air.
Taiyang looked at her, startled.
"I like delivewy pizza," Ruby said bluntly.
"Me too," agreed Yang. "I could eat pizza every day."
"Well, that's good," said Qrow, flinging himself on the couch and releasing a few more embers into the air. "Because we're not facing the 'tomato dragon' again any time soon. Isn't that right, Tai?"
Taiyang looked hesitant.
"Tai..." Qrow glared at him forcefully.
"Yeah, yeah," Tai gave in, "no tomato dragon for the rest of the night. Let's get pizza."
The girls cheered, and Qrow took a long swig from his flask. It was miracle that he was alive. Of all the Grimm he had fought on long and perilous missions, somehow none of them compared to the danger of cooking with Taiyang Xiao Long. Never again would he pursue such a painful and futile endeavor.
"We'll try again tomorrow."
Qrow spit out the alcohol from his mouth.
"We'll what?"