Chapter 9: The Unforgiven III

"Change is always painful, because man is marble and sculptor both."

— 19 —

I stare at the haze in front of me, unable to feel anything but the damage of whiskey. I'd taken to cutting my Jack Daniel's with Everclear. A couple shots and I'm wasted just the way I like. Through it all, I still know I have duties before the end of the night. Always do one thing you don't want to do every day, my father had told me: compulsive programming that leaks through the drunken stupor. So I stand over the toilet, trying to brush my teeth, trying to figure out why my hand is covered in toothpaste and empty.

It fell, I realize, looking into the toilet. I can't remember if I'd pissed or not. Drank enough water I can't tell. My eyes are too hazy. I collapse to my knees and fish it out, missing and grabbing at unclean porcelain until I find the brush. I spit out the paste and wash it off in the sink with Dawn dish soap. I can't find the effort to care. I'm too drunk. I'll forget this tomorrow when I brush my teeth like I always do.

This is it, I think to myself. This is the most pathetic moment of my life. Why the fuck am I even alive? Am I at my dad's house? Am I locked up in my barracks after a long week of helping kill people? Am I back in Florida? Why am I bleeding everywhere? I stare at the scar on my arm from where I'd been bitten by an alligator.

Mom asks me what I think of being back home as I drive her somewhere in my old reliable Nissan. I'm scheduled to leave and return to duty the next day. "I don't belong here," I tell her, and instantly know it's the worst thing I could have ever told her. But I can't stop myself. She refuses to look at me. "I grew up here, but this house ain't a home no more. Just a place I fucked up and can't remember nothing but regrets. I don't belong here. I don't belong with you, momma."

She swallows, staring ahead in the road. She can't help but grab the door handle every passenger seat has. The oh shit handles, she calls them.

"Momma, I'm a soldier. I'm a killer. You save lives. This ain't no place for me no longer. I love you, but I also can't wait to leave."

It's the last time I ever see my mother.

I grabbed my face, ignoring the ache from where Nicholas Arc had ruined it. The thoughts were intrusive and hurt worse than the physical damage. Looking down, I couldn't ignore the drops of blood I've been trailing into the snow for miles upon miles of walking. Under the cowling of a shattered Aura, I could barely feel it. My legs had gone numb from hiking.

Something in the snow caught my eye, a pristine white feather. I reached down to take it, feeling the soft down, rolling it between fingers that should have been frozen numb hours ago but weren't.

I knew who this feather came from. Denser than the core of a star, yet nearly as light as air. Something that flaunted its literal physical impossibility with glee.

"Is it really that much better alone, without me?" Simone asked.

I lowered the hand over my eyes to face her, standing there under a tree whose leaves were gone, replaced by clumps of ice and snow. She looked so small, yet so bright. Somehow older and more weary than the bright-eyed teenager I'd strangled to death in a past life that may or may not have ever happened. She was wearing a white dress and boots, a piece of radiance in the dim of the Long Night.

When I reached for the gun at my hip, she put her soft hands on my arm. XO wouldn't tug loose from its holster.

"Would that really solve anything, Eric?" she asked softly, her voice like a silk noose.

"It'd make me feel better," I said, feeling a sudden weight of exhaustion and cold. She felt so warm and inviting in a way that made me sick. A buzzing sensation started in my skin where she touched me, like the night's first shot of whiskey.

"If I let you have this, would you kill me, and then kill yourself like last time?" Simone asked in the tone of a child asking if Santa Claus was real or not. Those gray eyes were so big and inviting. Somehow childlike, even if she and I were both older than the last time we met in the flesh. It had been years, and yet it had only been a couple of months.

I looked out across the dark snowy mess that was the island of Patch. Everything buried under snow and ice. My damaged Aura kept me cozy beneath my winter jacket.

"This is really the worst it's ever been for you, Eric?"

I snorted. "Not by a long shot."

She smiled that same smile I once fell in love with. The one she tried her hardest to make when I killed her. It was so many years ago. It was only a couple of subjective months ago.

"It was worse when you were finally gone." I glanced at my scroll, at the little map application, and continued trudging forwards. "Wasn't much better when I woke up in this body. I tried killing myself back then, did you know?"

"Yeah. I was there."

"No, you weren't. You're not real. You're just a psychological break. I'm having another episode."

"I'm real enough you tattooed me on your arm."

I didn't have an immediate response to that. Just idly rubbing over my unfinished tattoos and the angel on my bicep.

She followed alongside me, reaching out to touch my hand. To touch the feather I was still holding. "For what it's worth, I'm glad you're still alive. Admittedly, that only makes one of us, but beggars can't be choosers."

Simone paused before asking, "So what's the difference between then and now?"

I swallowed. "Because when you were gone, I had nothing left. And when I looked into the mirror and learned I was Jaune, I didn't even have that nothing left. A complete blank slate. I thought if I just got it over with fast enough, I wouldn't get attached. I wouldn't have regrets. I jumped off the roof before learning that gravity and the human body are different in this world. Before those sons of bitches made me care."

I gestured vaguely, getting more snow in my hand. "I don't think people kill themselves because of something coherent. Not some mathematical equation that life has wronged you more than it has righted you. That you've hurt more people than you've helped and the world is worse off for you. It's not even really a feeling of hopelessness. That death just seems so inviting. Blissful oblivion. That's just nonsense. It's more like—it's like jumping from an apartment block on fire. You know what that's like?"

She examined the back of her hand. "I've always been able to catch myself."

"What if you can't? Because at the end of the day for most of us, when the fire is behind you, you've only got two options. You let it burn you to a crisp, cell by cell, roasting and cooking, your eyeballs popping like fritters. Or you take the plunge and jump. And jumping is just as terrifying as it would ever be. But when you look back on it, at the fire behind you, the terror of jumping is the lesser of two horrors. It's not that you want to jump; it's that the alternative is just so much worse, so inconceivably atrocious, that you close your eyes and walk off the ledge.

"That's the thing that people on the street shouting 'Don't jump' can't understand. You have to be exposed to the fire, to see it lick your flesh, scalding and scarring your body before it even touches you, to know what it's really like. To have that sudden moment of irrevocable clarity where jumping is better."

Simone swallowed. "Do you drink to forget that feeling? That clarity?"

"No," I said, licking my lips. "I don't want to forget. I don't ever want to forget the feeling of the fire. The knowing that jumping is the only real option. It puts things into perspective."

"What keeps you from jumping now?"

I crested the hill and saw the little house, the warm lights coming from the windows. It wasn't my destination. "The idea that the fire can't hurt me so long as just one person believes in me. So long as there's one person willing to remember everything I did, and forgive me."

"Blake."

"And Weiss and Shamrock," I said, heaving a sigh. "I have to believe that I can fix everything. I have to believe that I'm somebody worthy of being forgiven. That I can change and be the man I always dreamed of growing up to be. So long as they are out there, the fire can't hurt me anymore. Not even when the fire comes in the name of my flesh and blood, when the tears come crashing down around me because of the shit I've done—I can be better. I can be someone worthy among the worthless."

"I don't know if I like you like this," she said.

"Like what, honest? To thine own self be true, and all that bullshit."

"Self-aware," she said with just the thinnest smile. "I think I liked it better when you were all jokes and humor, not taking the world seriously. Smiling through the pain. Now, you're just total Grimm bait."

I gave a single barking laugh. "Don't use idioms from this world. You make it sound forced."

The girl paused, looking off to the distance. Her eyes narrowed. "I mean that literally. Look." She raised her hand and snapped her fingers. I felt the wave of telekinetic force hit me, and just barely kept my footing in the snow. The encroaching blizzard blew away, a bubble of clean air in the night.

It was there in the thicket, what would have been a hedgerow if the leaves were there. A young beowolf, crouched there in ambush just ahead of where I would have been a couple steps forward.

"Keep up that attitude, and you're going to attract them," she said. "This might not be my world, our world, but I've learned a thing or two about how it operates. Colors and emotions and monsters."

Once upon a time, getting this close to a monster like that would have made me shit my pants. I still recalled scrambling through a net of tarps, strings, and stolen guns back during the Emerald Forest. Where a creature like this had nearly torn me throat to groin. When I let my Aura cowl my whole body, I could feel its presence. I'd been letting it burn loosely to not kill it off in the snow. It was an ethereal sensation, like a spot in your third eye. A cold, empty hollowness of pure malice. It was how Huntsmen could detect these things.

I stared into its red eyes as a low growl emanated from its throat. You would think that up close, they would look somehow leathery. But the black skin of the thing looked more like congealed shadows, some kind of thick, viscous glue dyed black. It didn't stop the outline of strong, sinewy muscles that could rip a man in half. Its bone armor looked like so much papier-mâché. Or maybe that was a reverse Hollywood effect. I had seen trophies of these monsters, but they were supposed to dissolve once dead. So maybe, to my perspective, their armor just looks like the replicated stuff I'd seen in Professor Port's class. Unless there was some way of preserving their body parts I was unaware of.

Didn't matter.

Without Simone to hold my hand, I withdrew my revolver and put a round straight through its skull. The .50 round echoed across the snowy wasteland, reverberating off trees and frozen ponds. I stared dispassionately as the thing died, the smoke trailing from XO. It was all over, from start to finish, just like that. It fell limply, its body held up by the branches, and slowly seeped away into a dark smog.

"What do you think of that, Dad?" I shouted into the air, filled with a sudden sense of anger. "I'm a mother fucking Huntsman! You kick my ass and I'm still going to go out there to be a hero! Probably just indirectly saved some family from a Christmas tragedy. Simone, I—"

But when I turned to look at her, she was gone. I was all alone in the borealis. Even my shadow seemed almost skittish, barely visible through the low light of the moon poking through the dark clouds. The blizzard returned in force.

"Grimm bait," I muttered, feeling like I was coming down off of nicotine high. Look at me, casually doing something badass. Something the me of just a couple of months ago would have probably died trying to do. Before I had connected with Blake; before I had gained that superhuman edge that all of my species possessed. Just enough to make me nearly the bottom of my class.

It didn't feel like victory. But it didn't feel like defeat, either. I remembered defeat, in the back of an ice cream truck with Dinah once upon a time. Defeat tasted like shitty vanilla ice cream and high fructose corn syrup.

I holstered the revolver and kept going. It was a long way back to Five Wives. I had to pop open my second bottle of amphetamine cola to keep on it. The drugs kept the cold away just like my Aura. Gave me the energy I needed to trudge on through the nearly knee deep snow.

Memory is a funny thing. All it is is a highlight reel of life. Take a moment to recall your commute to work. You know the route, of course. You're probably familiar with the traffic patterns. Maybe you even recognize a couple of the cars on the road who all go the same way you do. But that's just it, it's just pattern recognition. Human beings are good at this. Evolution designed us this way. Try to remember your exact commute thirteen days ago full stop. Can you remember switching lanes? Can you remember your individual thoughts during the drive? Hell, can you even remember what was on the radio that day?

Of course you can't.

Memory is just a patchwork of notable events strewn together with habit and vaguely recognized patterns. The moth-eaten quilt of four separate timelines didn't even weave together in my own head. So I had long ago given up on trying to even connect or make sense of them. I just knew the path forward and trudged along. With the help of a handy dandy navigation app.

But I don't really remember much from killing the Grimm to standing out there in the cold, looking through the window of Ruby's house. But I do remember the feeling. The idea that maybe I could circle my way back here, knock on the door, and ask Qrow or somebody for a ride back to town, trying to carefully ignore the questions. It was something of a Hail Mary. An excuse not to walk all damn night to a city I didn't even know, itself along a highway the snow plows were starting to derelict their duties on.

Maybe this was just an effect of all the drugs. A bit of blunt force trauma to the head. Drops of blood still followed me here and there, even as the wounds froze over and my Aura knitted flesh back together.

Their entire family was gathered around the living room, drinking and laughing and just being idiots together. Exchanging gifts, trying out and playing with new ones. Someone was unhappy to have been given clothing, as is custom for any big family holiday. A perfectly happy family in this world's version of Christmas.

"And so, and so!" Taiyang was saying through fits of upstart laughter. "Qrow looks up from his bed as I'm trying to stuff my homework down the garbage disposal. And he goes, 'The worst part about this school is they keep trying to teach the alphabet. D, F, see me after class—what is this bullshit?'"

Ruby, sprawled out on the floor wearing some kind of Santa hat, kicked her legs and laughed. "What do you have to do to have the teachers want to see you after class?"

Qrow looked into his bottle, which appeared distressingly empty. Grimacing, he glanced up and said, "So that's when your dad says, 'Qrow, are you fucking disabled?' Mind you, at the time, I had barely known this man for, like, two days. He doesn't even know who I am. Trying to swear and act all tough and cool and no one's buying it."

Taiyang just broke down laughing. "And so, blowing a strand of hair out of his eyes like some punk rock teenager, Qrow says to me in this tone like I'm the dumb one, 'Yes, Taiyang, I do have a disability. My IQ is too high.' And Summer just completely loses it while Raven is literally dying of embarrassment. I think she broke a blood vessel and we had to take her to the clinic."

I looked down at my feet, out here in the snow. The occasional trickle of blood. What the fuck was I doing? Was I really going to go in there, ruin their holiday just because I'm some depressed sad sack who can't get anything right? Ask for a ride and then just ignore the awkward silence?

I couldn't do that. Watching them enjoying themselves, I couldn't find the monster in me to ruin their holiday and make it all about me. Me, me, me—the boy who mattered least in this world. It wasn't even like Ruby was my teammate. Just a friend, and not one that I hated enough to burden with my bullshit. I didn't have the right to make them worry. To intrude upon a family that actually functioned and loved each other. To drag anybody else down with me.

I pulled up my scroll one more time and punched in the coordinates for Five Wives. It had a setting for walking, rather useful for the Huntsman out on the prowl, where roads were more a casual suggestion along old game trails.

I'm sorry, Ruby.

Alone and into the night. I had a long walk ahead of me, and not nearly enough amphetamines to make the trip.

— 20 —

Qrow tossed the empty bottle into the garbage can. That had been some good scotch, too. And it was gone, just like that. He'd been nursing it all the way since breakfast, just enough so he could be the funny uncle without becoming the wasted uncle. There was an art to day drinking. Especially today, when the day was so short. Once the sun went down, it was a no holds barred fight against his own liver. But really, what had his liver done for him lately? It was only fair.

"Tai," he called out, looking through the cupboards and fridge. There were a lot of leftovers from breakfast in there. "Did you get any more eggnog?"

"Uncle Qrow, I think we drank it all," Yang called out. Of course, for the holiday, they had let the kids drink some of the good stuff. It was one of those days where no one really cared. Yang had handled it decently, but the girl was still a lightweight. She was far from a professional drinker, which was probably for the best. No one but he himself had to share in that vice.

Qrow groaned, fishing out his keys from a coat pocket. "Alright. Crap. Tai, girls, see if you can't finish making dinner by the time I'm back."

Ruby rolled across the floor until she was propping her head up by her elbows. "Wait, you're leaving us?"

Qrow nodded. "Making dinner is far too close to personal responsibility. My therapist advised me to stay away from that for the sake of my mental well-being." He shrugged. "Besides, we're out of eggnog, and I do know the one liquor joint that's still open on the Long Night. The bartender owes me a favor. I'll be back in a jiffy."

"Who the hell says jiffy anymore?" Tai asked.

"I do. I've decided the word is fashionable and I'm bringing it back," Qrow said, going to the front door. "And yes, I'm good to drive, I've only had one bottle today. I wait any longer and the roads are going to be screwed."

"Ooh!" Ruby said. "Fruit punch wine! If they have that, I want some."

Qrow made a sweeping gesture towards the living room. "Anybody else? Requests? Speak now or forever hold your peace."

Taiyang made a face. It was obvious he wasn't happy with Qrow ditching him to finish dinner to go pick up the last night's round of drinks. But really, it was Taiyang's fault for not stocking enough. And in any case, judging by that face, he knew he couldn't stop Qrow. This old bird would be fine as he always was, and would return just as fine, and everyone would ignore the dangerous precedent of buzzed driving out in a near blizzard.

It was to be expected.

Qrow stepped into the frigid night air, closing the door behind him before the house froze over. Really, it was a miracle the power hadn't given out. The locals might have called this a blizzard, but it was just a mild snow storm compared to the things Qrow'd seen. You could actually drive a car in this fairly safely. A true blizzard was a complete whiteout, not something that happened on Patch. He'd experienced one for real during a mission out to the Grass Sea, an endless expanse of flat land and bison where the icy wind stripped flesh from bone when the true blizzards hit.

He looked up at the glow of the moon through the clouds, and then down… Wait, what the fuck?

Footprints. Outside the living room window, there were footprints. He reached for his weapon, only to find he wasn't carrying it right now, just an old reaction of his. He considered going back to warn the family that something was wrong, but that felt like a bad choice. They were happy and warm inside. No reason to alarm them. And in any case, if this had somehow been a Grimm, someone would have sensed it. They were extremely rare on Patch, usually only manifesting when someone was having a particularly bad emotional day, but they were not unheard of. It probably would have attacked, too. So, what, some kind of prowler?

He hunkered down to get a better look at the footprints. About a size twelve, they had come from the forest, seemed to have idled here just beyond the light of the window, and then left towards town. There were a couple of specs of blood, frozen bits of red staining the white. Given how fast the snow was falling, they couldn't have been here more than maybe ten minutes ago? He kicked the snow to bury the blood beneath it in case anyone else came out here and saw them.

For a moment, he debated going back in for his weapon. But that'd just raise questions he didn't want asked. The utility knife strapped to his hip would have to do for now. No, if he wanted to follow this, he couldn't get bogged down. And it wouldn't do to be human.

The old magic was something special. A gift from the old wizard himself to Qrow and his twin sister, Raven. The old man had revealed his power to them, and offered the siblings a boon, a shred of that power. And the two siblings had accepted. While whatever Raven had seen had made her run back home to the tribe, the experiences Qrow had had turned him into the old man's loyal dog.

Activating it was like a muscle he didn't have. Reaching out in the same way one would do for their Aura, or perhaps their Semblance, if Qrow actually had a Semblance he had any control over. The difference between magic and a Semblance was still fuzzy. The way he had figured it was, a Semblance is pure reaction, a self-defense mechanism of the soul. It does one thing and one thing only. Magic didn't do that. It didn't play by the rules. It didn't account for the soul or anything. It just worked, and somehow Oz could shape it.

The hairs on his arms turned into feathers. His bones creaked and cracked as they shrank. Qrow's cone of vision shifted, his eyes changing position as he became a corvid, the most clever of all animals besides man and faunus. You would think contorting your body to become a crow would hurt or take a long time, but that wasn't the case. The process was incredibly quick, and oddly painless. One moment he was a man standing there, at war with his own sobriety. The next moment he was a bird, and was taking to the sky, flapping wings against the oncoming snowstorm.

His eyes made it easy to follow the snow and the blood. Birds were designed for this. They were natural aerial hunters. They could cover ground far faster than a human on foot. And with a little know-how from a professional Huntsman who once trained specifically to kill his own kind for the glory of the Branwen tribe, he had an edge. But even without that, it wasn't hard to follow the sound of a gun. Two quick shots in rapid succession from a heavy caliber weapon. Either heavy anti-personnel or light anti-armor. A similar caliber to the weapon he had helped Ruby design.

There!

At the end of the trail of footprints and blood, in a little forest clearing where he'd played hide-and-seek with a young Ruby and Yang. Someone was standing there, surrounded by Grimm. Beowolves, looking rather young and unarmored. This was one of the reasons Patch was a nice place to raise a family. Some places on Remnant were just like that. The few Grimm that did show up tended to be young, fresh spawnlings, and prey for the Huntsmen who retired here. Seeing so many of them here, and so close to his house, he felt an odd sense of chill beneath his feathers. Which was an interesting sensation, because crows had an entirely different physical nervous system to humans. Even calling it a chill wasn't exactly correct; they didn't have those same psychosomatic feelings.

Trying to get in closer, flying directly into the wind, he watched the boy below him fight. Sword in one hand, revolver in the other. A shield strapped to his arm. One of the monsters lunged toward him. He brought up the revolver and fired, obliterating its center mass. The next shot was aimed to his left, blowing him out of the way of a Grimm trying to get up behind him. He used the inertia from his flight in a sword swing, ripping the arms off another. They fell like wheat before the scythe, all likely young and inexperienced, but there were so many of them.

He brought up his arm to block an attack and stabbed over the shield into the Grimm's mouth. And then of all things, he started to laugh.

"Is this what you fucking wanted, Dad?!" he yelled, voice echoing across the snow. "These monsters out here and you're just smoking meat, and I'm out here smokin' Grimm, you piece of shit!" He brought up the revolver and fired again, killing a Grimm and sliding back over the snow and ice with the recoil. "Stop interrupting me; I'm trying to have an emotional breakdown here, you inconsiderate dick bags!"

Kid was fast. Knew how to move. Obviously knew how to think on his feet. If the Aura didn't give it away, the way he acted would have. A Huntsman. Although not looking like a particularly skilled one like Ruby, one definitely didn't have to be to take on a couple of Grimm. But this was more than a couple.

He aimed to fire, but the round clicked empty. The gun was out. He swore and tossed the revolver into the air, opening the chamber in the same motion. A speed loader shot out with the assistance of some kind of Dust; it went from his bandolier into the midair weapon. Some of the monsters around him glanced upwards to follow it, giving him the chance to stab one in the throat before bashing another with the pommel of the sword.

Showtime.

Right above the clearing, he let his body adjust. Breaking and shedding. Black feathers poured down like rain, getting caught in the wind as his body became human again. When he came back, he was holding his knife, fully dressed again. The old magic might be able to change his body into a naked bird, but it somehow preserved his clothing and items, which he never understood, and would never question.

He landed hard on one of the Beowolves, breaking its skull beneath his boots. Giving it no time, he lashed out and sliced through another. The boy looked up at him in surprise, and Qrow threw his knife at the boy. It sailed right past his head and between the eyes of the Grimm that had been trying to get up behind him.

The gun came back down to earth. The boy extended his knee, catching it and bouncing it back up like a hacky sack. He caught it in his hand and whirled around, unloading the rest of the cylinder into three other Grimm.

"Here!" he said, tossing the revolver to Qrow. One of those speed loaders flew into the empty cylinder and reloaded it. It wasn't a weapon Qrow was exactly a familiar with, but give him any tool of murder, and he could make do.

With one hand, Qrow counted his shots. The boy acted like a tank, like a distraction with his shield and sword. He held back the wave of monsters with his body.

"Ichi," Qrow breathed, pulling the trigger between his breaths. No matter the weapon, knowing how to breathe when you fired was paramount to steady aiming. He was counting in one of the old Mistrali languages, defaulting to old programming. "Ni. San. Shi. Go."

He whipped the revolver towards the last Grimm, trying in vain to break through the boys' defense, to get through his shield.

"Roku," he said, sitting the last bullet straight through the monster.

And then there was silence. They were alone together. Just him, and just the boy glowing with Aura in the dark.

Breathing heavily, the boy put his sword into his shield, and it collapsed into a neat sheath mounted on his arm. Instantly, despite the darkness, he knew he recognized his boy even before he turned around to face Qrow.

"Jaune?" Qrow asked. But, no, something was wrong. Something was dead fucking wrong with the boy. It took him a moment in the darkness, but the vague glow of the full body cowling of Aura helped illuminate the details.

His face was a mess. Bruised and bloody, stitched up in one place. One of his cheeks looked somewhat inverted, like someone had bashed it in with a fire hydrant. That was where all the blood was coming from his face. A face that now lacked the beard he had possessed only this morning, poorly shaved off, the cuts all over his countenance. Why the fuck had this boy been bleeding outside of their house? He was supposed to be at home. He was—

Those eyes.

As Jaune stepped forward to take the revolver back, all Qrow could do was stare into those eyes. Baby blue eyes like so many blonde girls Qrow had fancied, but glowing in the back. That same advanced low burn Aura technique he had seen the first time they had met. The thing was, now that he was looking at it, watching it over his whole body, Qrow for the life of him couldn't tell you what the color was. At first you thought maybe it was some kind of light yellow, or maybe white, or—looking at it was like trying to look at the blotchy spots in your eyes that spotlights left. It was like it didn't stand perfectly still. It was somehow averse to being looked at. And it was in those damn eyes.

The eyes were the window into the soul. Aura was a sheet of plexiglass windowpane. They were intrinsically tied together like that. Aura was the soul in a very real sense, at least according to all philosophy and religion that Qrow believed. And looking into this boy's Aura, he suddenly found his mouth dry and his nose feeling wet, like a nosebleed was coming on. He wanted to avert his eyes, to look away, but he just couldn't. It was so horrifying and so fascinating. Something he couldn't describe.

Something that made him think of Ozpin and the old magic.

The thought hit him with a nearly tactile feeling. That same kind of revelatory force he'd felt when he learned Summer was dead. Like some celestial dice had been rolled and he had succeeded. His sense of the inland empire, that gut feeling of intuition and vague premonition all people had.

This damn kid is the danse macabre Ozpin was afraid of.

And then, a moment later: Oh shit, I was giving him advice on how to fuck my niece!

His first reaction was to go for his weapon. He had let this thing into his house. Let him be friends with Ruby. Taiyang had thought the boy was hot and was terrified of him. Qrow wanted a weapon just to feel safe, only to remember he had left it back at the house and his knife was on the other side of the clearing in the rapidly dissipating corpse of one of the monsters. He licked his lips, and he could feel the vague wetness on them slowly freeze over and make them numb.

"Qrow," the thing said, almost dispassionately. Like he wasn't happy to see the man, but wasn't about to turn him away.

"What are you doing here?" he felt himself asking.

Jaune holstered his revolver. "There were Grimm. Couldn't just sit on my ass and let that be."

Qrow made a skeptical face. "Why the fuck were you outside my house? Were you just watching us like some prowler?"

The boy blinked, like he hadn't expected that to happen. He swallowed and looked away. "I… had a fight with my dad. Thought I could ask you for a ride back to Five Wives or something. Saw you in there enjoying the holiday, and realized it would be a dick move to force myself in there."

"You're attracting the Grimm, aren't you?"

Jaune looked at his boots. He was wearing more armor than the last time he had seen him. It looked rough, the center chest plate buffeted by buckshot. It was a well-worn bit of armor. It had seen combat and violence and death. And it might be the only reason why he was still alive.

Qrow didn't know what to do. That was a rare feeling. Usually he had some answer. And what he didn't know how to do, he could fake it until he made it. That had pretty much been his modus operandi for as long as he could remember. But right now, staring at this kid, this bloody boy, this bloodied monster with an Aura that couldn't possibly exist, that the most powerful man in the world was somehow afraid of—Qrow didn't know.

He reached for his hip flask, only to find it empty. Jaune was staring at him, still glowing. Gods, but was it cold out. The wind was starting to howl. The first signs of what people here considered a blizzard in full effect.

"You…" Qrow tried. He swallowed again. His throat was so dry. He needed a drink so badly. He wanted to get away from this thing as fast as possible and make sure it could never hurt Ruby.

But then again, Ruby liked the kid. She had been open with him about her mother being dead, and she didn't tell that to anybody. It wasn't exactly a secret, but it was just something she kept close to her chest. Something she didn't like to talk about. And for some reason, Ruby trusted Jaune enough to tell him. To go out of her way to help bring him home. This boy that the old man was terrified of to the point he was contemplating killing him just to be safe. Jaune Arc. Ruby's friend. Someone she knew and trusted.

"Yeah?" Jaune asked.

Feeling numb, Qrow walked around the kid to retrieve his knife. He white knuckled it in his hand, staring at Jaune with this blank expression.

Ruby likes him. She'd be heartbroken if he died, wouldn't she?

He looked down at his hands. Who did he trust more? Did he trust the man who had been a mentor to him most of his life? Who had shared within the secrets of the old magic, and made him feel like someone worth having, someone worth believing in? Or did he trust his niece, Ruby, that sweet, dumb, naïve girl who was far more perceptive and deadly than she would ever let on. The girl who was the last remnant of Summer left in this heartless world. Whom he would give his life for in a heartbeat without any hesitation or question.

She had said Jaune reminded her of Qrow. She didn't want him to die or get hurt.

Jaune stared at the man, waiting for him to speak.

In a breathless voice, Qrow croaked out, "You want to get a drink?"

— 21 —

Pa's Grill & Chill was one of the last places still open on the Long Night. Located along the King's Road highway in Boston, the place served mostly as a rest stop for truckers and passersby. The outside lot was filled with trucks idling just to keep the heat on for people sleeping for the night; the working class who didn't have time for family even tonight. They also served one hell of a cocktail mix. It was surprisingly well stocked, owing, Qrow suspected, to his years of patronage and suggestion. More than a couple of times, he had brought the owner, Pa, some rare finds from his travels. It was why the man owed him enough to let him drink for free and occasionally stock up on some of the cheaper bottles he had for the night. He rarely left town without coming here. Partially because of the friendly service, partially because the waitress was one of the few girls he had slept with whom he still kept in some contact with, and partly because the place grilled one mean burger.

"Holy shit, Qrow!" Pa called out from the bar. A couple of the other patrons raised their glasses and cheered his entry.

Qrow held up his hands sheepishly. "Hey guys, it's just me. Back from saving the world and killing monsters with my boy, Jaune, here."

The waitress looked up from the countertop she was wiping. "So your 'latex allergy' really did come back to haunt you, huh?"

Taking a seat at the bar, Qrow laughed. "No, he's not mine. You really think I could have a kid this pretty? He's my niece's friend. Was out killing monsters tonight and could really use a drink. On the house, s'il vous plaît."

Jaune, still fully armed and armored, wordlessly sat down beside Qrow. "Yeah. Grimm."

Qrow clapped the boy on the back, feeling like the entire thing was all for show, all for the crowd. "So thank the kid here for the reason why people out there can actually enjoy the Long Night without getting eaten by monsters. Cheers?"

A couple of the patrons cheered. Most of them seem to be a bit too deep into the drink to really know what was going on. Normally, this would be his kind of crowd. He could blend in as one of the drunks and just enjoy himself without reservation. But right now, he felt like he had more important things to do. Even if he was probably going to be staying out just a little later than he had intended. Tai would forgive him. Not that he was going to explain it. Hell, he wasn't even sure how he was going to explain it to himself.

Pa poured Qrow a glass of his favorite scotch. The cheap, local stuff that didn't even have a brand name. It burned like syphilis but by God did it feel good.

"Kid?" he asked.

Normally, legal drugs were outlawed to minors. Nicotine and alcohol. But much like soldiers, people tended to look the other way if you were a Hunter. People's heroes and champions should be allowed to indulge themselves in slow suicide if they wanted. They were out there trying to kill themselves everyday for your benefit, after all.

Looking somewhat woozy, Jaune said, "No, I'm—I think I'm good."

"Same thing I'm having," Qrow said, holding out his flask.

Jaune looked on unhappily as he was poured a glass. And then mildly confused when Pa filled Qrow's hipflask.

Pa looked like he was trying to ask something. With a somewhat apologetic smile, Qrow gestured for him to buzz off. The old man looked at Jaune, seemed to make some kind of conclusion from that, and left to tend to the other patrons at this late holiday hour.

Jaune stared at his glass like it was an oasis in Vacuo. One filled with local wildlife and monsters just below the surface of the delicious eau douce.

"So," Qrow said, taking his first drink of the scotch. He exhaled with pleasure. Right now, the boy wasn't glowing. He was just himself. Unless you were willing to plunge into the depths of his eyes, which were still faintly glowing in a way which Qrow couldn't bring himself to look into. He really didn't know how to continue this conversation. He really didn't know what he was doing. He really had no idea about anything anymore.

"Your dad?" he tried.

Jaune reached up to his face. To the stitches on his cheek. He put a faint Aura into his hands and grabbed something, and then pulled. To Qrow's immense disgust, he watched Jaune pull a thread of stitching out from his cheek. It was bloody, caked in bits of flesh. The wound didn't fall apart, sealed by the Aura. The boy just stared at the string, like he didn't know how to process it. Qrow did; he simply drank more.

"Dad and me got into a scuffle. He used to be a Huntsman. It was just all yelling and violence. Not even so much as a carry on, my wayward son. So, Mom tried to patch me up," he said, putting down the bloody string on the counter next to the scotch. "And I ran. I didn't know what else to do. I don't think there's anything for me back there. I think maybe I should just block my family's numbers. Forget them. Only thing I have going for me now is Beacon."

Ye immortal gods! Qrow tapped on the counter for a refill.

Jaune looked back at Qrow. His face was still a wreck, but it was visibly healing with the traces of Aura. There would be bruises, there might even be a scar, but Aura would heal it all in time. The curse of the Huntsman was to be able to get back into the fight as soon as possible.

The boy refused to drink.

"I don't know what to say to that," Qrow finally admitted. "Sometimes I feel like I'm not good at this whole adult thing. People expect me to be some responsible adult, some great teacher for the kids, but I'm just kind of winging it. Never really had much of a relationship with my parents. I was raised in a tribe; 'it takes a village' was the policy there. I had a mom and a dad, yeah, but they weren't all that special compared to everyone else in Branwen."

"Did you learn anything?"

"Oh, sure. How to weave baskets and hunt for fish and kill Grimm. My sister was always a little better at it. The killing part. No shit, I actually wanted to be a weaver at one point. I was really good at making baskets and clothes. I actually taught Ruby how to make clothes, but now even the kid is better than me."

Jaune ran a hand through his messy hair, shaking his head. "No, I mean, how to be an adult. How to figure things out in this world. How to function. Because the more I go, the less sure I am I can fucking make it. You can wing it and people believe that shit. I just go ahead and fuck my life up, with people, with friends—girls. Every goddamn time. How the hell did you make it to like forty or fifty?"

Qrow looked away as his glass was refilled. "I'm not that old."

"It's just the liver damage speaking through your face, right?"

Qrow winced. "No. Aura prevents that. Staves off the damage of drugs. Heals the flesh both inside and out. Everything you see on me, that's the kind of scars Aura can't heal. Losing people you've loved. Failing the people who survived. Throwing yourself into work because it's all you have."

Jaune looked at Qrow seriously. And suddenly, in that face, he saw lines of age that didn't belong to a seventeen-year-old boy. Maybe the attempt at a beard had been hiding it. Maybe Qrow just wasn't looking before. But right now, the boy looked just so old, so tired. Like a man who had seen the world before him break apart and could do nothing about it.

Qrow swallowed. He couldn't shake the impression that he was looking into a mirror. Ruby had said the boy was just like him. And now, he could see it, really see it. It was like one of those old movies where a man goes to a time machine and meets his younger self, and tries to give him some advice. Bet on this sports team or play these winning lottery numbers this year. It was this inexplicable feeling of talking to his past self. This thought that maybe if Jaune knew what Qrow knew now, the boy wouldn't turn out like him, some miserable drunk and failure clinging to a family of morality pets that kept him sane.

"When I was your age, I wish I had someone to talk to," he said, and Jaune perked up. "No one really believed in me. The only reason I got so far was because I hitched my ride to my sister, who everyone did believe in. She was always the golden one. I was just the one following along and trying to keep up. The one people thought was funny. The comic relief. No one was willing to really trust me. No one wanted to rely on me. No one was willing to sit me down and just talk to me. Tell me what I needed to know."

"And what would you tell me if I needed to know something?" The kid looked faintly amused, but still wasn't drinking.

"Well," he said, looking around. "If I had a time machine, the first thing I would tell myself is The clitoris is that little thing on the top, the little man in the rowboat."

Jaune suddenly laughed. "What the fuck?"

Qrow nodded seriously. "You have no idea how embarrassing it was not knowing that the first time. You'll thank me later when you finally meet a girl."

That somehow seemed to be the wrong thing to say. The boy reached into his pocket and, of all things, produced a feather. It was a lovely white feather, almost beautiful. Qrow found himself transfixed by it as Jaune just held it in his hands, stroking it with one thumb.

"You can see it too, can't you?" he asked.

"It's almost shiny," Qrow said.

Jaune grit his teeth. "Fuck," he swore under his breath. It was like part of the world was collapsing beneath him, just the fact Qrow could see it. Qrow didn't know what that could mean. But he kept thinking back to the way Oz called him the danse macabre. Suddenly, the feather felt somehow wrong. Like it didn't belong in this world. An alien intruder of superhuman beauty.

Still stroking it, Jaune said, "It's from her. The last girl I ever really loved. We were going to save the world one day. She and I, a pair of heroes. Leading a team. A bunch of stupid kids with stars in our eyes and no idea how to actually do it. I didn't realize she loved me at first. I think part of me didn't want it. A friend of mine, Vista, pointed it out and eventually I couldn't—I was just—" He sighed. "Part of me felt like it was just expected. The role I was in, of course I was going to get the girl, of course she loved me, of course I had no choice but to be hers. Always some fucking role I'm playing. Fulfilling expectations and tropes. So when she told me that she loved me, I was terrified. The girl could have killed me in an instant; you know the type."

"Yeah," he said, looking into his glass. "Huntresses. Beautiful little monsters. Sometimes it's hard not to fall in love with something that deadly—worse for you than whiskey or opioids combined."

"So I told her I loved her. And I did. And we were together. But it was all, just all part of her plan. Her schemes and her thoughts and ambitions, and I was just some candy along the ride. I was almost more like a pet, I kinda reckon."

"What happened?"

He was quiet for a very long time. "I killed her. Or maybe I let her die. Sometimes I can't remember the details. But the details wouldn't change a goddamn thing."

Qrow didn't know how to respond to that. Not at first. "I… I understand."

"Do you?"

The man nodded. "I once loved a girl like that. She was beautiful, smart, and funny, and utterly in love with another man. I was there by her side for years, fighting together. Camping out together, hunting monsters, all that stuff. The day she learned that the man she loved had feelings for another woman, was the happiest day of my life. For the first time, with this girl who I felt understood me, that I understood her, I thought I had a chance. She was suffering, and all I could think about was me. How I could benefit. How I would just swoop in and solve her problems, and she would solve all of mine. I would fix her, and she would fix me."

"Summer?"

Qrow snorted, picking up his glass. "Damnit, kid, I was trying to be subtle and indirect. I don't really want it getting out that I had a thing for Ruby's mom. That kind of complicates and makes creepy the family dynamic."

"Yeah, it would be kind of uncomfortable with you being so close to Ruby, having the hots for her mom, who looked exactly like her."

He made a face. "No, gods no, it's nothing like that. I mean, I could see how people might think that. But that's not how it is. It's more like—normally, a man is supposed to be upset that some jackass is dating his sister. Except that man was Tai, my best friend, and here I was hoping that this relationship would break Summer's heart, and I could sweep in and take her. It was like all the bad luck dominoes were just aligning in my favor for once."

"But she never did love you, did she?"

"She did, but not that way. It just wouldn't work. Yang was born. Something happened to my sister, and now she's gone. Summer stepped in and became super mom to a girl that wasn't hers, to a girl that she was jealous of. And then she had Ruby." He drank from the scotch. "I was beside her. Up until the moment she left on a mission herself and never came back. And I didn't know what to do without her. She was our team leader. She was our best friend. To some of us, she was a wife. The mom to both of my beloved nieces. Even when she was alive, those two kids were my family. Flesh and blood doesn't mean anything. It's the family you choose that matters most. The people who accept you for who you are. Who want to help you and be by your side and will never turn their backs on you. That's what family is and what matters. It's why my sister isn't family. Because family doesn't do that to you."

He found himself gripping the glass tight. He was almost afraid he would break it. "But I think… I don't think I'm family either. I think if I was, I wouldn't have let Summer go on her own. I would have been more insistent. I wouldn't have listened to her when she said she had this covered. I would have been by her side. God fucking damn it, I could have saved her life! Ruby and Yang would have had a mom. I'd just be the funny uncle who came around and was secretly, wistfully jealous of my surrogate brother. Taiyang means more to me than Raven ever will. Fuck, maybe if Raven didn't leave, Summer would be alive too. They were the worst, most toxic friends, but they stuck it out through thick and thin. She saved us, Summer. Me and my sister, we weren't good people. We were a pair of malicious fuck-ups, but her smile, the way she kept believing in us, the way she kept encouraging us—" He ran his hand through his hair. "I don't even know why I'm fucking telling you this."

"Because you're telling yourself this," Jaune said. "You're wishing you could talk to your past, and you see it in me."

"Get out of my fucking head," Qrow said mildly.

"The one thing everyone wishes they could change is the past. I wish I could undo everything I did when I first came to Beacon. I wish I could undo this feather. But sometimes I don't think we ever have a choice. Or, we don't realize we had that choice until we've already made it and we fucked it all up. I always go ahead and fuck my life up, and only then I realize I might could fix it after the fact. Sometimes I can't. Some of my best friends, I have broken and insulted and hurt and betrayed because I was just too busy focusing on myself to care. I didn't listen to them, I didn't give them the attention they needed. I don't want to be that man anymore. I don't want to wake up and see his hungover in the mirror. I don't want to will him into existence. I don't want to give him the chance to talk to and hurt the people I care about. Because when I did, in the end, the people I loved left."

"Just like the girl you loved."

"Just like the girl you loved."

Qrow looked away. "What do you think would have happened if you had saved her?" He didn't know if he was asking about the girl in Jaune's life or Summer. He's supposed it didn't matter. It was like getting an answer for himself in either case.

Jaune held the feather in one hand, and the glass of his scotch in the other. "We had a vision for a future, me and Simone. Now we dead roses. And now here I is. I exist without my consent. Killing myself didn't pan out. And now I have attachments I never wanted, but can't live without."

Qrow swallowed. It's exactly how he felt about the team STRQ. The friendships and loves he had there. Maybe that was the answer in a way. The same kind of shit numerous therapists had said. The past was immutable. He could drink until he forgot his regrets. But whatever happened, it had happened. He had failed and let everyone down, and only he knew how badly he had fucked it up. And now, he had people he couldn't live without. Taiyang, Ruby, Yang—the most important people in the whole world to him. Whose feelings and well-being mattered more to him than his own. He couldn't kill himself because of them. He couldn't give up because of them.

"I don't want to forget her," Jaune said, pushing the glass away. "I don't want to forget the way I feel. But I want to forget who I am, and just be me without reservation. I don't want to be the Jaune Arc people expect me to be, that people have raised. I just want to go forwards and let me speak for me."

Qrow said the only thing he consciously could. "Are you okay, Jaune?"

"No," he whispered.

"Me neither, kid."

The moment between them passed in long silence.

The boy stared hard into the liquor. "The only thing I have is Beacon, Team BASS. Some of them tolerate me, one of them likes me, and I'm just trying to undo the damage I did to them. It's all I really have left. I know I'm going to die in this profession. Give it a year, give it two, I don't last long. I didn't have the balls to kill myself for real when I tried last time. Like I only had one good successful attempt in me throughout my existence. Now?" Jaune spread his hands. "Now all I can hope for is a productive suicide. Saving lives in the line of duty. Protecting the people I love with a beautiful death that's worth it. Finally do one good fucking thing for the people I care for."

"That would break Ruby's heart. And throw away all that progress about undoing the damage you were talking about."

Jaune laughed. "What's one more girl with a broken heart to me?"

What's one more dead child to a man like me? Oz's words echoed through Qrow's mind. Him and this boy had spoken in the same tone, almost. It was like they were two of the same creatures. He had to wonder if maybe they were in a way. If, beneath all the layers and complexity and the secrets and the magic, Jaune and Oz were the same. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

Jaune stared into the tumbler of scotch he had been refusing to drink. "Besides, it's not like it would really matter. Knowing me, I'd still survive. Wake up as another me. And do everything all over again from square one."

"You'd be all alone. I would know. I've been there."

He gave just the smallest smile. "No, you really haven't."

"Starting over from zero. Reinventing your life. Picking up the pieces. I know what it's like, Jaune." Qrow gestured at this and nothing. "It's like a sandcastle sometimes. You build it up and up constantly, but the tide always washes it away in the end. Sometimes it takes away everything. Sometimes you've got the foundation of the castle left over, something for you to build upon and over with experience. So you build it better and stronger this time. The tide comes in and washes it over. And all you can pray for is that you have enough willpower to start over again."

"Is that supposed to be motivational?"

"Life isn't always motivational. Sometimes all it does is grind you down. Wear you to a bloody nub. So you cope. You take drugs and drink to numb the pain. Because it lets you forget just enough of your sorrows for you to pick things back up and move forward."

"I don't want to forget. Not everything. I told you that. Just enough so that I can function." He reached for his necklace, idly stroking the gift that Ruby had given him, the same gift Qrow had given her. "Wake up as the best version of myself. Whoever myself is. Make progress as the real me. Do better by the people I love and have hurt. And maybe achieve that juvenile, almost sexual fantasy of being forgiven."

"If I were her, I'd forgive you."

Jaune sat up sharply. "What?"

Qrow doubled down. "When I look at you, I see some broken wreck of a boy just soldiering on. Refusing to give up. Everything goes to shit for you, and you work on a solution, you try to kill monsters, you try to make it back home, and all you think about is making things right by people you've hurt. Fuck, kid, I wish I had that mentally when I was your age. Maybe I did. Maybe my mirror is giving me advice I've forgotten from all the drinking. But I have to believe if the fuckups I've made have been ignored or forgiven over the decades, and I've done way worse things than you could have ever imagined, then you letting someone you love die—we're in the same boat. And not the clitoris kind. I don't really know you. I know it's awkward. I'm just your friend's uncle, and we really don't have anything going for us. But this, this is something we do. Something we have in common. A lesson we're both learning and forgetting at the same time. But if I ever heard you back then, if I could see you now, struggling and fighting and refusing to give up, then I've got nothing to feel for you but respect. I wish I could do that. I wish I weren't stuck in this fuck-up of a life. I wish I could move past the people I failed. I just wish they would blame me for once so I could get it out of the system."

Slowly, Jaune reached up to put a firm hand on Qrow's shoulder. "Well, I blame you," he said with a slight smile. "You were a complete sucker for a girl who didn't love you, you let her die, and now you're best friends with her daughter. But I still think you were a pretty okay guy. Should probably cut back on the drinking. The people I've hurt, it's all because I was too busy drinking and enjoying myself to care. That's why I don't want to do that anymore. Maybe drink responsibly in the future, but right now, just avoid it. Focus on seeing things clearly. Having the ability to know what I can change, what I can't change, and the sobriety to understand the difference for one of my fucking lives."

Qrow looked at his empty glass of scotch. He wanted to tap the counter and signal for another. But right now, something about that felt piggish and wrong. Like an insult or sending the worst message possible to someone. Maybe to himself or the boy in front of him. He reached out and took his flask from his hip, recently filled and still smelling sweetly of the charcoal-y scotch.

He stared into it for a very long moment, before heaving a sigh and offering it to the boy. "Here. Take it."

"I said I don't want to drink."

Qrow pushed it into Jaune's hands. "Yeah, well, I do. And I think you'll use it better than me. Maybe you'll take a shot and think of me when you decide you do want to drink. Maybe you'll pour it out in my honor. Maybe you'll just relapse and fuck up everything and chug it all at once and be your old self who forgets how to be good to people. I really don't care. I just don't want it. I think you'll do a better job of figuring out what to do with it. Besides." He winked. "The flask is lucky. It helps prevent stupid shit from happening around me sometimes. So I'm pretty sure it'll help you out."

After a very long moment, Jaune took the flask. He seemed to regard it almost like some kind of bomb. Some kind of deadly pathogen. Holding it like at any moment, it might jump up and bite him. Honestly, it was almost a hilarious amount of caution for what amounted to a lucky old flask filled with all kinds of alcohol over the decades. Unhappily, he strapped it to his belt. It somehow looked like it belonged there.

"I think I'm done with this place. Do you know someone who can give me a ride back to the city?"

Qrow stood up, nodding. "Yeah. I think I know a trucker gal around here going that way. Not to the mainland. Gonna have to figure out how to get back to school on your own. Presuming that's where you're going."

"The only people I have left in the world I care about are there," he said. "Would be wrong of me to abandon them just so I can stew in my sorrows out here. I miss them. Even if I never asked to care about them, I do."

Qrow felt so old and tired all of the sudden. Without the flask at his hip, he almost felt unbalanced. Like the constant weight that had been there at his hip for years was gone, and he couldn't walk straight anymore without it.

"Alright," Qrow said. "Let me do you at least one good deed tonight. Aside from being a generally bad influence on the kids these days. Lets me pretend I'm getting my own little redemption arc for something or other."