Music Choices: Me and My Friends are Lonely by Matt Maeson, Alligator Teeth by Mother Falcon, Infamous Butcher by Amigo the Devil

Eclipse

Chapter 6

Singe Marks

Present...

Qrow sat on the patchy sofa in Becca's living room. He stared at the carpet, tracing patterns between the little singe marks that told the story of drunken nights and an overactive Semblance. He briefly considered he was dreaming; he'd always had such vivid lucid dreams, ever since he was a kid. However, when he glanced up and met his twin's bloody eyes across from him, he knew he was awake. The truth in them wasn't something his imagination could conjure up.

Oh fuck...

That and the fact that Becca On Her Bullshit Forzani, of all the fucking people in the world, was there mediating. Becca hadn't spoken much once Raven led him into the room, his twin moving like she was an usher at the wake of a funeral. Other than to supply a few answers, Becca had let Raven do most of the talking.

The two women, once the most bitter of enemies, were actively working together; working to right a wrong he was still trying to wrap his head around.

Oh fuck, Sum. Why? Why didn't you say anything?

"So let me...fuck, man," he rubbed his stubble. He felt so tired, and pulled in a dozen directions. "Ok. Becca, how did you really get involved in any of this?"

The brunette gave him a blunt stare, taking a sip from a bottle of bourbon that she and Raven had been sharing intermittently.

How did this chick of all people see what we couldn't?

"I told you already, dinghus," Becca exhaled, wiping liquor from her lips. "But I can spell it out further, if you need it."

Qrow shrugged, his face settling in a habitual sneer.

"If it's not too much trouble," he gestured. "Humor me."

Raven eyed him silently.

"Fine. People come to me these days because I work outside the system," Becca started, moving her fingers in air quotes. "There's a hefty portion of the population that doesn't trust the police or the Hunters that work in law enforcement, more than ever. There's a lot of people on the fringe who've had bad experiences with them, often with records of their own, many of whom are actively trying to find their missing family members. And they're the ones that initially got me interested, because so, so many of them have too much in common. A brother, a sister, a parent, a child, usually one with mental illness or a history of antisocial personality behaviors - someone who is claimed to draw the Grimm with their so called negativity, someone deemed socially undesirable. That person may have been hospitalized, they may have been on the streets, they may have been employed or at school; where they are when they are taken, and they are taken, doesn't matter. Sometimes there are even witnesses, who just conveniently forget what they saw or claim they weren't there. Whatever the case, these people vanish into thin fucking air at a rate that is alarming to anyone paying attention."

Qrow listened, feeling more than a little skeptical. People were hard to keep track of, realistically speaking, especially someone who may have more than one reason to disappear. Kids ran away, parents decided they didn't want to be with their families; people left, and sometimes there wasn't a good reason. There wasn't a good reason for the wreckage bleeding out behind them. Becca and Raven watched his expression together, before Becca continued.

"There's video evidence, in a lot of these cases. But that's not the point. I've done the math, and this shit? It's a fucking epidemic. It's a silent catastrophe, and what's worse, is that the police know about it and aren't tracking it like they should be. Trust me, trying to get the BTF to release an actual list of the missing victims was a real gods damned pain in my ass. Oh, and as for the people who do decide to investigate? People like Arc, people like Summer Rose? Journalists, Hunters, police officers, all of them either suddenly get reassigned, or they disappear or they fucking die. Anyone with half a brain could trace the pattern."

Qrow waited a few moments before speaking, trying to digest this information and his own emotions on the subject.

"Ok. So people are missing, and the folks that look into it are made to go away. You discover this, you realize that Summer and Arc knew about this issue as well, and were both killed under suspicious circumstances. The police won't help, other Hunters won't help, and sooo you come to the decision to go on a months long quest to find...Raven?"

He looked at his twin. It had been a long time since they had really shared a room together, had a gods honest face to face conversation. Sure, Rae liked to check on the girls and on Tai in her second skin, and he always recognized her when he saw her. But they didn't talk in person, just over scrolls; always cold, always annoyed.

He thought about that day, all those years ago, when she'd brought Summer's body back; how all the light in her eyes was just...gone. It was like looking at a stranger. There was a frigid void where his sister had been; and when they had fought, when Tai had begged her to come fucking home to her daughters, there was nothing there but disdain. Qrow had felt like he had lost two people he loved that day.

Right now, though, she looked more like herself than she had in years. Her frame was buzzing, alert, angry. Her eyes had a fire in them that he had truly believed had been completely snuffed out; and he felt more than a little guilty that he had ever really believed that the values that had always made his sister so fucking driven had been replaced solely by self preservation.

"Yep," Becca nodded briskly.

"Can I ask why?" he drawled. "No offense, but you two fuckin loathed each other."

Raven's lip twitched.

"Because I knew she would give a shit," Becca declared, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "And because she's outside the system, too."

Knew she would give a shit, huh?

Qrow took a swig of whiskey, studying the private investigator.

"Again, no offense, but uh. There a still people here that give a shit, too. It just seems like a stretch, is all."

Becca blinked, folding her scarred arms.

"I couldn't be too careful. These people have eyes and ears literally all over the Kingdom," Becca waved, brushing him off.

Meaning Becca did not trust him. Which, really, why would she? She hated his guts. But he had believed that she hated Raven the most out of any of them. It didn't add up.

He opened his mouth again when Becca cut him off.

"Look, I appreciate the point you're trying to get at? But honestly? I think your little family drama is getting in the way of your deductive fucking reasoning," Becca coughed, dusting her hands briskly. "So here's the deal, mmkaay? I'm gonna go pick up some food, because it's gonna be a looong night, and you two are going to talk out your bullshit while I'm gone. Because I am not your family counselor."

Qrow gave the huntress a bleak stare as she waved over her shoulder at him.

"Try not to break any of my things, k?"

The Branwen twins made awkward eye contact once again. The apartment's door slammed shut; the only sound was the torrential rain, pounding against the glass.

Qrow stirred his glass, sighing at length as he leaned his elbows on his knees. His scythe lay propped carelessly besides him.

Raven's eyes peered at him carefully, a familiar expression on her stony face. He could practically envision the numbers floating over her head as she tried to calculate the best approach for this conversation. Qrow had never been much of a math guy, himself.

"Look, Rae," he started. "I know things have been...well, they've been shit between us. So forgive me if I don't know where to start."

Raven's mouth twitched again, just enough. It may as well have been outright laughter. He ignored it, trying to sort through the gulf of issues and emotions that raged between them.

"So I'm just gonna go for the Goliath in the room," he drawled. "Cuz I don't know what else to do. Why did you leave? The first time. Why did you do it?"

Because you would have rather died than explain yourself.

Raven stared at the carpet, her face settling as she wrestled with whatever it was that always made her try to censor herself. She fidgeted with the feathers at her hip.

"Have you ever actually met Salem?" she asked after a long pause.

Her voice was quiet, not the typically terse tone she took when she was trying to overcompensate. There was no barbs, no insinuations. He raised an eyebrow.

"Not yet, no. I've seen plenty of the shit she's made up in that little castle of her's though."

That little castle you were caged in for months. That little castle where mom...

"Salem is," Raven struggled to get the words right. "Something other. She isn't human, faunus. She isn't Grimm. Ozpin's descriptions leave out more than the truth, they make her seem like she isn't in control of herself, like she's just a puppet for powers she can't tame; but she isn't. She's more than that. She is a manifestation of forces. All the dark things we try to hide from, but never actually can."

Qrow's brow furrowed, trying to actually listen, to hear what she wasn't saying.

"Her very aura is. It warps reality. In her presence, you see things as she sees them. Things that she thinks are beautiful. Things that she wants everyone to see as beautiful."

He swallowed, stirring his drink anxiously.

"And I am...connected to that, now. Without Ciara's help, or Set's, I probably wouldn't be able to function. I can feel...the things she feels, through the bond, when it isn't blocked. And I don't think the connection is only one way. She know's how to use my Semblance against me, and she can activate it if I'm not warded."

Qrow stared numbly, feeling a swell of nausea curling up from his stomach.

"Do you understand what I'm saying?" she whispered, meeting his eyes.

Qrow remembered the day she had called him, her voice dead of all emotion; telling him she was going back to Anima. That she was leaving them, all of them. How she had just hung up, with no explanation. How he had found Yang crying in her crib hours later, louder than he had ever heard her yet. Bawling, completely terrified. Yang never got scared like that, even as a baby.

"...I. Raven?" he leaned forward, his voice hoarse. "Why didn't you tell us?"

"What could I have said?" she asked, looking around the room for an answer. "Qrow? What could I possibly fucking say?"

He winced, digging, trying to find words himself.

"That I brought that shit into our house? That I walked into Yang's room after I woke up-" she cut off, her voice raw, her face pained. "And that fucking thing was just...holding her? Smiling?"

He felt cold. His nape was prickling, a thousand images running through his head. Yang's fun loving laughter rang his ears as she sprinted away from her father. Ruby, hanging from her shoulders, trying to pick her ears, giggling riotously. Yang riding a motorcycle for the first time, falling head over heels in love with the metal, speed and freedom it embodied. All those precious memories had very nearly not happened.

Holy shit, fire cracker.

"What...how? How did you get rid of her?" he asked, choking.

"Ha," Raven shook her head. "How could I have? I mean, I was going to try. I remember...trying. Until she, well; in the end, it was just a display. She wanted to make a point, I guess. And she fucking did."

Qrow rubbed his hands through his hair, trying to get a hold of the terror. Raven gave him a hard, knowing look, one reminiscent of Morrigans past.

"That's why I chose," she said, her voice steady. "And even now, after everything that it cost, I can't fully bring myself to regret making that decision at the time. Because I saw what would be if I didn't. And that? That wasn't an option."

He hesitated, ruffling his hair.

"I mean. Can't Ciara like, kill the bond? Or one of the Jiani, can't they help you?"

Raven gave him a dry look, tilting her head.

"You think I didn't try? Trust me, we did," she sighed. "It nearly killed me, more than once. It's different from the others. Like a fucking tumor, a cancer in my head. I take the drugs, I take the chemo, I keep it in check. But one day, brother, it's going to consume me entirely; there is no other outcome. I think that's why..."

She trailed off, before taking up the bottle Forzani had been working on, twisting it in her hands.

"She let us go, to be honest. She wants people out in the world that see things the way she does, feels what she feels. She wants people that acknowledge her," Raven watched the liquid in the bottle, sloshing like waves in an amber ocean. "It makes her happy."

Qrow's lips parted, a cough escaping him. His chest felt tight, as the weight of what Raven was conveying really hit home. He didn't speak for a long time, just held his head, trying to process it.

All these years, and you never even said...

"God damnit," he growled, looking up. "Fuck you, Rae."

Raven's eyebrows cocked, her expression sardonic.

"You should have told us," he continued, angry. "Even if you still made the same decision to leave, you should have still fuckin told us why. You took away our right to chose too, you know that right? Dippin out like that, like you were a Dust damned plague bearer or something, where did you think that was the right thing to fuckin do!"

She stared at him blankly, then the bottle again.

"Tai and Summer were out of their fuckin minds, for months, years! And I get it! You were trying to keep them safe, and Yang safe, and me safe, but fuck you for thinking you could make that Dust damned call without involving any us!" he smacked the coffee table next to himself. The table got a little unlucky, and a leg broke, the already dilapidated furniture keeling over. He didn't bother looking at it.

"That was so, so fuckin shitty of you! I don't care if you randomly combusted into radioactive flesh spiders every month, the least you could have done was said , 'hey guys, this is why I'm fuckin off into the wilderness'!"

"That's it? That's the part you're fixed on?" Raven droned skeptically. "Not the fact that I nearly got the entire household killed in the most horrifying manner possible?"

"Yea! You asshole!" Qrow barked.

Raven made a face, settling back in her chair, looking frustrated.

"How are you not graspin this?!" Qrow exclaimed, tossing his hands. "You aren't this fuckin dense, I know you aren't!"

She glared at him silently, and he glared back. After a brief bout of mutual sneering, Raven glanced off. She took a deep breath, exhaling. She fidgeted again.

"...I'm sorry," she muttered. "I should have, I know that. I wish I had had the strength to do it. But I thought if I told them, they would have tried to fix it. I knew that they couldn't, that they wouldn't want to accept that, and.. I just wanted her to have a better life, than I did. A better childhood. I felt that if I stayed, that there was little chance of that."

Qrow grimaced, rubbing his brow angrily, trying to smooth the lines out. He understood what she was saying, and he hardly knew what the hell he would have done in that situation, but he was still angry; at her, at himself. At fuckin Summer, too. Because it seemed as if Summer had pulled a similar stunt, one that she had ultimately paid the price for.

How did things ever get like this?

He sighed, took another drink of whiskey, and glared at the singe marks on the carpet. Their whole world had burned down, and they were the ones holding the matches the entire time. Now one real question remained: where do we go from here?

"Alright," he grimaced, trying to think. "Alright, so...that's a thing."

"Yep," Raven drawled.

"And this other stuff," he groaned, finishing his drink. "Dust damnit. The girls. How much do they know?"

Raven's face grew even more serious as she leaned forward, mimicking his posture.

"I'm not certain . Maybe as much as Becca and myself; probably less. But considering their natures, we'll need to act quickly," she admitted. "Especially where Yang is concerned."

"Yea, no fuckin kiddin," he rasped. "You said you were going to meet them?"

Raven nodded, her eyes shining with anxiety.

"Ren and Nora are setting up a neutral meeting ground, where we can hopefully get a handle on the situation. The main issue will be getting them to at least concede to do nothing. And to not go around asking questions," she narrowed her eyes in thought. "Which, I confess, I have no idea how to manage that on my own."

Qrow raised an eyebrow, smirking.

"You remember how damn stubborn you were when you were her age?"

Raven snorted.

"Don't remind me."

"Well, fire cracker is like a hundred times worse," he chuckled, shaking his head. "And Rubes is no push over, either. She's just nicer about it. I doubt that will apply to this situation, though, considering..."

"Yea," Raven sighed. "I know."

Qrow scratched his chin slowly, playing out a few possibilities in his head.

"I mean, we could always pull the Vanilla card," he floated the idea. Raven gave him an apprehensive look from her chair. "Tai won't let them get themselves killed. And he definitely deserves to know what happened. He needs to know all of it."

"Wrangling Ruby and Yang is going to be difficult enough," Raven protested, her face pinched. "Taiyang will lose his absolute fucking shit over this. And I frankly can't deal with all these factors at once. I can't hunt down the people responsible, while also worrying about renegade toddlers making a mess of everything, and Ruby and Yang."

Qrow chuckled briefly at the comment.

"He's more mature than you remember, ya know?"

"Maybe," Raven shrugged. "But we need to do damage control, first. Not pour jet fuel on the flames."

He considered her argument, before rubbing his palms together.

"Right. Well, I can assist on the Rubes and Yang front," he nodded. "Once we get that cleaned up, and get further on collecting evidence, then we need to bring Tai in. We owe him that. He's gonna be pissed enough as it is."

Raven acquiesced after a moment, looking like she had swallowed vinegar. He poured her a finger of whiskey and offered it like an olive branch across the singed beige sea between them. Raven huffed, pushing her hair from her eyes and took the glass.

"Drink up, kiddo," he droned. "It's gonna be a long fuckin night."

...

The man sat on the fire escape across the street of the cramped apartment building, watching. Waiting. The rain poured over his dark clothes, but he didn't mind. He liked the feeling.

A door on the ground level opened, and a brunette woman in street attire walked out, rain steaming eagerly off her clothes. She glanced about the street, eyes ghosting over him heedlessly, before scurrying down the sidewalk; she walked with a purpose, the lithe stride of a huntress.

The man watched her go, invisible to the naked eye. He considered tailing her, but was equally curious about the window where she lived, three floors up. The lights were still on, but the shutters were down. Indicating that either she planned to return quickly, or that people were inside. However, Forzani was known to live alone.

He took a drag of damp cigarette, exhaling gratefully through his nose. He was glad she had come back. He'd been truly, bloody bored. He was not a man that handled boredom well. It ended badly for other people.

He sat like a stone, like one of those funny gargoyles up on the royal families castle. He could sit there for days without needing real rest. He didn't need to sleep, because he never grew tired.

The minutes passed, the thunder talked, and he squinted at the window. No movement that he could see; however, he knew if he tried to listen in with other means, he would not be able to do so. He had already tried earlier. Little Becca had either gotten smarter, or she had smart friends. He could attempt using 'technology', but he wasn't that desperate yet. He considered himself a traditionalist.

After what was nearly an hour, he spotted his prey on the street once again, heralded by a blanket of steam. She was carrying several to go bags, a nice haul of cheap Mistralian chow from the joint a few blocks away. His lip pulled in delight. That was too much food for one person, and the woman did not plan ahead when it came to her meals.

Well, that answers one question. Who else is in there with you, sweet thing?

He lit another wet cigarette, watching the smoke curl into the air. The rain had let up, moving on to other parts of the Kingdom; in the distance he could see the sun set turning the clouds crimson and gold. Something nearby scuffled over the fire escape, and his black eyes darted towards the motion instinctively.

A cat was creeping along the walkway, her amber eyes fixated on him. Cat's could always see him, for some reason. They were spooky little rascals, their knowing gazes tracing his movements when no one else could. Despite this, he was rather fond of the little predators. He appreciated how they left people they liked little gifts of feathers and blood. He liked to do that, too.

The calico paused a few feet away, her ears flicking as she watched him. He smiled at her. After a few minutes, the cat slipped away, darting down the stairs to the alley below; off to scrounge up a meal.

His eyes flicked back up to the window. Still no motion behind the blinds; but that was ok. He took another drag, enjoying the burn in his chest contrasted with his wet clothes. They would have to come out into the open eventually.