Lumi waved at the familiar face. "Hey, Yang." That certainly explained where Ruby's family was.
"Hiya," she snagged an empty chair and plopped down at the table. Like her sister, she had bags from the Dust store and Victory's but her bags were considerably fuller.
"Oh, do you go to school together?" Ruby cocked her head to the side. "Are you in the same year?"
"I'm a third year," Lumi sipped her drink. "But yeah, we both attend Signal. She's told me a lot about you, actually."
Ruby side-eyed her older sister. "Yang, what kind of stories have you been spreading about me?"
The blonde snickered but didn't answer.
"YANG? DID YOU TELL HER ABOUT THE THING?" she lifted her hood over her reddening face and groaned. "Ohhh my grimm, you did! Why are older sisters so embarrassing?"
Lumi smiled at the scene and put away her weapon while the two bickered. She waited for a break before she asked, "So why are you two at the mall today? Ruby mentioned something about a training weapon?"
The youngest nodded her head enthusiastically. "Yeah! I've been working on my weapon design for-ev-er and my dad and uncle Qrow are finally letting me work with live metal- but I have to make a prototype to train with first so I don't cut off my fingers or something. Which, pssh like that'll happen."
"I tagged along for fun," Yang folded her arms behind her head. "And to tease Ruby about buying her first real bra."
"Yang, staaaawp," the blush was back with a vengeance.
"It's okay, Ruby," Lumi consoled the younger girl. "My first time buying a 'real' bra, my aunt took me and she made me get a D-cup so I could quote unquote 'grow into it like my mom'." She flexed her fingers for emphasis. "It didn't work, because I'm still a B-cup all these years later, but I guess it was a nice thought?"
"Woah, kid, too much information," a familiar voice rasped from behind her.
"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby squeaked. "Dad! Where did you two go? You left me all alone in there!"
Oh, yeah, Branwen was Yang's uncle and Yang was Ruby's sister. The reference to "Uncle Qrow" suddenly made a lot more sense- also why two teenaged girls would be bra shopping alone.
In Lumi's experience, no matter how "cool" and "nonchalant" a middle aged man tried to be about taking his daughter bra shopping, the minute they walked into the store and the saleswomen descended on them like wolves to the kill, he was gone like the wind with a stack of money left in his wake and a promise to come back in an hour.
"Hey Branwen," Lumi turned in her seat to stare the weapon's instructor in the eye as he completely ignored his niece. "You maybe wanna forget you heard any of that?"
"Do I get brownies out of it like last time?" Branwen quipped while the girl's dad made some excuse about a promotional sale happening on the other side of the mall.
"Yes," she said.
"Deal."
They nodded at each other in unison.
"Ooh, last time?" Yang leaned forward. "What was last time?"
Lumi smiled pointedly at the blonde. "So, what'd you buy at the dust shop?"
Yang deflated, recognizing that the older girl wouldn't give in… yet! "Fire dust so I can make more ammo for Ember Celica. I think Ruby got lightning dust?"
She nodded. "Have you thought about adding dust to your clothes- or maybe fire crystals to your boots for stronger kicks?"
"I told you about that, thief," Branwen cut in.
She ignored him.
"Yeah, I tried that once," Yang rubbed the back of her neck. "It didn't go so well."
"Yang broke through the shed wall," Ruby added with glee. "Then she got stuck in a tree- the actual tree not just the branches!"
Lumi tried to bite back a smile at the mental image as Yang hissed at Ruby. There was a little more small talk and vague threats between the sisters before Mr. Xiao Long clapped his hands on his daughters' shoulders and announced that it was time to go. Lumi waved goodbye to the family, and after promising Yang and Ruby that they would hang out over winter break, collected her bags.
When she arrived home, she stowed her purchases and tied on an apron. Midway through mixing egg into the brownie batter, Ash popped his head into the kitchen with a hopeful smile.
"No."
He frowned and slinked away.
Lumi trudged up the stairs to Saf's dorm room and mentally recited the girl's normal order; two Cola Blasts, four bourbon shots, and six cigarettes. She knocked on the door and shifted the bag she was carrying. It felt heavier than usual, and it was. For some reason that Lumi didn't know or particularly care about, the other girl's longstanding order had changed.
An unsteady, disheveled looking Saf greeted her, drink in hand. "Oh," she sighed and reached into her pocket. "How much?"
She looked rough, but Lumi didn't appreciate when people pried into her life so she extended the same courtesy. She rattled off the pre-agreed upon amount and watched as the blue-eyed girl rifled through her pockets for the second time.
"I just," she groaned and shoved her drink at Lumi. "I know I have it!"
Caught off-guard, Lumi bent at the knees to first lower the bag to the ground then take the drink- but Saf pushed it into her hands without waiting and it splashed on her shirt. Her white and light grey striped shirt, which was just lovely.
Saf kicked aside clothes that littered the floor and picked through random garbage that sat in piles mostly on the right side of the desk and end of the bed. She started opening and closing overfull drawers, muttering to herself before she plucked a random book from her bookshelf and cracked it open. Her face contorted into a glare and she threw the hollowed out book at the wall with a scream.
Lumi took a step back and readied the shadow at her feet so she could escape at a moment's notice. Good money or not, she wasn't going to stick around if Saf got more violent or decided to take her frustrations out on her.
The other girl roughly overturned a shoebox and lien spilled out. "Here, here," she gathered the small pile without counting it and nearly threw it at Lumi. She took her drink and knocked back what was left.
Lumi quickly thumbed through the money, handed back the change then hefted the heavy bag into Saf's unsteady hands; a twelve pack of Cola Blast, a bottle of bourbon, and half a pack cigarettes.
"Thanks, see you next week," she hugged the bag to her chest like it was a precious gift and not full of cheap soda and cheaper alcohol then closed the door with her foot.
Lumi tucked the bills into her back pocket and stepped through a shadow to Branwen's class. There was no reason to walk across campus, or stick around longer than necessary. The drastic change in her longtime customer was almost enough to make Lumi ask what was wrong.
Almost, because a drunk who threw things and screamed was not a drunk she wanted to be around or talk to for any length of time. She let herself into the class and set her bag down then sniffed the wet spot on her shirt. It was more bourbon than Cola Blast and already she could tell it was going to be a pain to get out. She looked around and spotted a roll of paper towels on top of the spare parts cabinet.
She dragged a step stool over and reached- only for the tips of her fingers to knock the roll back an inch. She sighed and threw one knee onto the waist high counter to give herself just a bit more reach.
Before Lumi could contemplate standing on the countertop for the damned paper towels, a long arm reached over her and plucked the roll from its spot. She turned with a grateful smile, ready to thank Branwen, but confusion quickly colored her features when he- sniffed her?
"Wh-"
"You've been drinkin'," he accused and bore down on her, anger and disappointment (?) heavy in his tone.
"I-I haven't?" she stuttered and brought her shoulders up defensively. His aura flared harshly at her denial and suddenly he was way too close for comfort.
"That a question or a statement?"
Way too close, way too close, back up. Her throat felt tight and the air felt heavy and Oum above she wanted to get away or redirect his attention or something.
"Sorry," she murmured out of habit and tried to make herself smaller. The shadows behind and beneath her flickered a shade darker in response to her distress, then deepened sharply when Branwen grabbed her elbow when her gaze turned towards the door.
"Uh-uh," he tsked. "You don't get to run away from this."
Did she somehow fall asleep somewhere between Saf's dorm and coming here, because the whole situation felt very much like a nightmare and she'd like to wake up now, please.
"Were you drinking, Lumi?" he asked.
Every horrible learned reflex from childhood resurfaced and she went nearly limp in his hold. "No, no," she murmured in a soothing tone and settled her free hand on his wrist. "I wasn't; I… brought you brownies. Remember, like I promised?" A soft, shaky smile graced her face even as she stood fully on the ground, never once meeting his eyes.
The difference in height was even more dramatic with the last step down; five foot and change against six plus feet. She pressed her weight against his arm. "They have walnuts on top a-nd chocolate chips, just like you like," she cajoled, and through a series of gentle touches and shifting her body, got him a few steps toward her bag.
Hazelwood was close enough for him to get a strong whiff of alcohol with every movement but her breath was weirdly free of the scent. He came to his senses when he realized that she was leading him, planted his feet, and shook off her hands. "Enough about food, answer the question."
She hesitated in place- part of her screaming that her usual method of dealing with a pissed off Hunter wasn't working so she should run and another part screaming at her to deny it and be done with it all.
"No," she wrapped her arms around herself and looked up with a frown. "I wasn't drinking, Mr. Branwen."
"Were you planning to?" He pressed.
"No, I don't drink," her hands clenched. "I just…"
"Just?"
"I just wanted to make you brownies," her shoulders dropped. "Like we said yesterday, at the mall."
"You made me food and that's why you smell like a bar?" He raised a brow.
"No, no," she stressed and shook her head. "Someone spilled their drink on me, and I wanted to clean up- I didn't drink, I promise."
Even if she was telling the truth, and that was a big if considering that his first notable interaction with her had been him finding her in an alley with a bottle of whiskey, there were a few things wrong with the whole situation.
One: she hung around with someone who was apparently sloppy enough to spill their drink on her at school (which made it drastically more likely that she also drank and didn't exactly help her case). And two: someone in school, someone Lumi knew, either had on hand or had the means to get alcohol and had no problem sharing. Easy access to booze and having people around you drink were two of the biggest factors involved in teen drinking- he didn't need doctors and shrinks with fancy titles to tell him that.
"Who spilled their drink on you?" he crossed his arms.
"I don't know," she murmured and angled her body away from him.
"Bullshit," he spat.
"I don't know," she protested gently and shifted her weight. "I dropped off homework for a friend and when I was leaving I bumped into someone- I didn't see their face, only that they had a blue water bottle- and I came straight here afterwards."
She pleaded with her eyes as best she could. She'd given half-truths at best, but naming her clients didn't exactly look good for her or inspire them to keep her secret. And she needed them to keep her secret or she'd be facing more than just detention.
Qrow pursed his lips and inhaled deeply through his nose. Unlikely that she'd bump into someone and not see their face, but her breath didn't smell like alcohol and while that cooing thing she did was weird as hell (and weirdly effective), he'd seen her do it before so it wasn't like she was acting completely out of character.
He wanted to believe her but his own disposition and their history didn't exactly lend itself to trust and believing her at face value. ("I fell down the stairs" was a shitty excuse and one she'd actually tried to use on him a few weeks back to explain why her lip was busted and her ankle sprained.)
Wanted to believe her, but didn't- couldn't- and yet he found himself saying. "Okay, if you say so."
She visibly relaxed at the statement and smiled shyly up at him.
He knew her well enough after three months of almost daily interactions to recognize that he wasn't getting anything more out of her unless he wanted to pull rank and threaten to expel her. With a last look over his shoulder, he plopped down at his desk and went through the motions of answering his email. At one point, Lumi slid a container of brownies in front of him and then she was gone.
Home, he presumed, but he didn't exactly have enough mental power to dedicate to the problem, too busy pondering why her entire personality had changed when he questioned her, why her voice had become breathy and sweet- young, non-threatening (weird). Despite how- irritated? pissed off? betrayed?- he had felt, the weird cooing and feather light touches had worked what he assumed to be their intended purpose- distraction.
He pulled out his Scroll and opened up the memo titled "Weird Shit Hazelwood Does" which had such things as "hung out roof &stared at water" and "said some1 opened door in hr face" but came no closer to an answer. With a disgusted sigh he threw his phone onto his desk and swiped a square of baked goodness.
It tasted like ash in his mouth so he threw it too.
The weekend came and went in its usual haze of bruised limbs and depleted Aura. Lumi dragged herself out of bed Monday morning with a sigh and a heavy weight in the pit of her stomach. Between Saf's situation (her parents were divorcing, as it turned out), upcoming finals, and Branwen's accusations, it had been hard to focus on the things she needed to. She'd worked out how to deal with a fair bit of it during the weekend, but the situation with Branwen still felt fresh and painful in her mind.
He was taller than she was, bigger too, and had considerable authority despite his lackadaisical demeanor- all of which had been re-enforced on Friday and left her not sure how to proceed. Did she act like nothing had happened? Go back to how she used to be in an effort not to piss him off? Use more of the methods she used on her mother to placate and calm him?
Maybe it wasn't as complicated as she was making it, but it still left her uneasy.
By lunch she had resolved to let Branwen take the lead and act mostly the same as she had been unless he gave any signs that she shouldn't. If things thawed between them by finals, she'd ask him for more tips on using Dust in clothes. Mind made up, she nodded to herself and finished up her meal.
She walked into detention afterschool with a neutral expression on her face and took her usual spot- the table closest to Branwen's desk with her back to the wall so she could see him easily.
Her resolve was tested when he walked in and she reflexively flinched, then again when she asked him how his day was and he merely grunted "fine." Not wanting to bother him and chance anything, she bit her tongue and busied herself with grading.
She flinched again when he appeared at her elbow, holding the tipperware from last week, though she tried to play it off by stretching.
"Oh, did you like it?" she pulled her left arm across her body.
"Yeah," he dropped the container on the table.
That was that. He went back to his desk and she turned her attention back to the papers in front of her. Lumi worried her lower lip between her teeth and thought of how the exchange could have gone over better until her hour was up.
The next day, Lumi planted another anonymous lunch in the class and booked it as soon as the bell rang. Towards the end of lunch, she heard some classmates mention that Branwen found the food and asked whose it was, but no one knew. Someone laughed and said it belonged to the Signal ghost, then someone else cut in with "Idiot! Ghosts don't eat people food; they eat people!" Which sparked a discussion on what ghosts ate (if they ate at all), if they were real, and why there were no "modern" ghosts.
She side-stepped the whole debate and privately thought that no one could really stand a ghost that screamed pop lyrics in the middle of the night, no matter how funny it might be to hear about. By the time she made it to detention, it was common knowledge that the Signal ghost hated sea food (because he had committed suicide by jumping off a cliff into the ocean, duh) and loved Bright Lee Spears' song "Noxious."
Branwen seemed less out of it, which was good, but he was staring at the plain, not booby-trapped container of food suspiciously (not good) while she set up.
"What's that?" she ducked her head closer to the food, papers in hand.
"Someone left a lunch," he said. "Again."
She glanced up at him. "No one claimed it?"
"No," he poked it but the chicken alfredo didn't suddenly grow claws try to attack him.
"Maybe it was meant for you?" she infused her voice with disbelief and stood up with a frown. "My best guess is that someone saw you eating those terrible E-Z Meals and decided they didn't want you to die of high blood pressure."
He raised a brow at her. "Who'd do that?"
She shrugged and walked to her seat. "Nurse Piper? Someone trying to get an A? Someone failing and trying to butter you up so they can pass? Who knows."
She did; she knew, and the answer was none of the ones she listed. But would she come clean? Nope.
Branwen poked at the plastic for a while longer between tasks until his stomach growled at him and he gave in. Lumi internally celebrated and waited until she was sure that he was out of earshot before she smiled and cheered. Just for a moment, though, because she was paranoid about being caught.
He walked in with a fork in his mouth, so Lumi let him finish eating before she queried, "Hey, Mr. Branwen?"
"Hm?" he set the dish aside.
"So, I have a friend," she twirled her bangs around a finger and focused on not-him. "And recently I've noticed that she's been kind of… off. I think she's been drinking, more than she usually does, and I wanted to know if you had any advice for dealing with that?"
She might not be friends with Saf, but she didn't want to see her throw years of schooling away for a temporary problem (or get Lumi caught up in the mess and dragged down too). If that was selfish of her, oh well.
He hummed and said, "Try to slip her water between drinks and get her to eat. Hangovers are a motherfucker and if her life is bad enough that she's drinking that much then a headache isn't gonna help matters any."
"Noted," she started braiding her too long bangs.
"Also, talk her into goin' to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting," he added with a cross of his arms. "That's usually enough to knock sense into people before they get too deep into the bottle."
"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable." Lumi quoted. "Yeah, that's a good idea, thanks." She gave him a warm grin.
Qrow stared at her. She knew step one of the Nine Steps word for word and still decided drinking was something she should pursue? And she was trying to pass it off as it being about "a friend"? What the actual fuck?
"Uh," he began inelegantly- suspiciously, "How do you know the Nine Steps?"
"My mother used to take me to Meetings," she said and unraveled the braid she'd been working on. "Well, me and my siblings. If you go often enough, you learn it without trying." A shrug then she picked up the green pen she used for grading.
What.
"Your mother is an alcoholic?" he asked dryly. And you are too, despite that? Are you fucking kidding me, Hazelwood?
"Yeah," she crossed through a wrong answer and marked the correct one. "I used to think her sobriety chips were coins, like from those fake money sets. I didn't get why she got so mad that we used to play with them- they were just plastic circles to us- until I found her 'intro to AA' books and sat through someone's one year ceremony thing."
"She had a lot of 'sixty days' and 'ninety days' ones, and she didn't really like talking about it," she continued despite her teacher's stunned silence. "We learned not to ask. I didn't see a 'one year' chip from her until I was eleven or so. But AA has to work for some people, right? I mean, if it didn't work at all, why would it still be running?"
Qrow had no words. "Sorry, kid."
She looked at him with a raised brow. "It's not your fault. And anyways, maybe it'll help- my friend."
She smiled at him again and he wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her like a rag doll. He'd come at this problem with the assumption that she was just a lost kid with too much on her plate, who didn't have any help or information on how to get help.
He could deal with that- a little bit of coaxing conversation, hints that he was Responsible Enough to help get her pointed in the right direction and started on recovery, a pep talk from Oz- the works. She'd be set, like the other small handful of kids he'd taken the time to talk to. They hadn't needed half as much work.
They also hadn't grown up with AA and decided that yeah, meeting up with skeevy people in alleyways for booze was an okay thing to do.
Half of him wanted to dump her in Huang's lap and let the counselor deal with it- he was clearly out of his league and wasn't she trained for shit like this? The other half of him rebelled against the idea. He'd spent three months working on Lumi- there was no way he could give up now, not with an hour a day for twelve straight weeks hanging over his head. Not with the day-long trip to Beacon, or the free time he'd spent digging through her records to try and find a pattern to her injuries, or the many talks he'd had with Oz or Tai about dealing with teenaged girls; not after all the work he'd put into trying to understand this clusterfuck of a situation.
Qrow Branwen was nothing if not tenacious and he was going to figure out Lumi Hazelwood's problem if it killed him.
Okay, maybe not kill killed him, but he'd given her six months detention and he was sticking to it so she had his attention until then. Afterwards, he could wash his hands and tell himself that he did the best he could. But before all that, he needed a new game plan. No strategy survived contact with the enemy, but re-evaluating what he knew and tinkering his approach would help speed things along.
He waited until Lumi went home for the day then called up Oz- no better place to start than the wise old man.
Lumi was surprisingly chatty during the rest of the week. On Wednesday, she asked him how his day was going then talked about her father's promise about getting a cat. The man hadn't delivered on that promise because she and her siblings couldn't decide on what kind of cat to get and every tour of an animal shelter ended in a fight.
Part of the argument was about how talkative they wanted the cat to be. Their dad reminded them of an old family dog that barked at the front door opening, the bathroom door opening, cars that drove by, mail being delivered, high pitch whistles, the word "ouch," etc. and that shifted talk away from a loud cat until Ash pointed out that cats didn't bark.
Another argument was about how fluffy the cat should be. Long hairs needed constant maintenance like brushing and picking leaves out of fur while short hairs, in the words of Nocte and Ash, just weren't as cute. Then there was the problem of getting an adult cat or a kitten; whether they should get it from a shelter or a breeder; whether they wanted a mixed breed or a pure breed; whether it should be an outdoor cat or an indoor cat or half indoor and half outdoor. The list went on and on.
He could not fathom how getting a pet could be so difficult, much less a ball of fur and hatred like a cat. His nieces found a dog one day wandering around, named him Zwei and he became a faithful little dog who adored his owners as much as they adored him.
Sure, sometimes he liked to pee on Tai's shoes or chew up the girls' stuff, but he was a dog; that was just expected of him. Nothing at all like cats, who liked to wait around corners for unsuspecting ankles to pass before leaping out, claws sharp and screaming that infernal screech.
(Okay, so maybe he was being biased, but the number of times some cat had tried to make him a meal had been too many to count and even in his human form cats liked to take a swipe at him.)
It was funny, in a way, to have their roles reversed like this, with her talking and him nodding along, but it was also… nice? Granted, he still wanted to throttle her for yesterday's revelations, but apparently getting that off her chest was the catalyst for her to open up and start talking to him instead of it being him talking at her.
He looked forward to seeing how this turned out. Maybe, like he'd hoped so many weeks ago, she'd work through it by herself with minimal input from him now that she'd opened up.
A/N: Hope you all enjoyed. See you next week :)