A/N: Kind-of warning for (not really) suicidal actions? More like one character thinks the other character was trying to die, but that's not the case at all (you'll see).
Qrow Branwen was a miserable man.
The many, many desserts Lumi had brought him in sat heavy in stomach and saccharine sweet on his tongue. He didn't even like desserts that much, but two or three times a week his quiet little student brought him a container of something sugary and probably time-consuming to make so he plastered a grin on his face and accepted yet another dense, chocolatey, much too sweet peace offering.
He was raised by bandits and on a good day he vaguely remembered what the word "polite" meant, but whatever bridge he'd built with Lumi was fragile and he was unwilling to cut the rope to point blank tell her he was sick of her baking. The kid looked fragile enough as it was, even if she hadn't come to class with an obvious injury in weeks.
Talking had never been his strong point, but challenging her to a spar to work out his frustrations didn't seem like a smart idea either so he suffered in silence for a couple weeks before he dredged up the courage to ask Tai what he should do.
Taiyang was an idiot, but he was also incredibly reliable so he only laughed in Qrow's face for fifteen minutes before sharing his sage advice.
"Just let her down gently," he wiped a tear from his eye. "It's that simple."
He grunted and his longtime teammate translated with ease- What the fuck does that even mean?
"It means that the next time she brings you something," he placed a hand on his hip and gestured with the other. "Say thank you and tell her that while you appreciate her gifts," he stressed the word unusually hard, "it's a bit too much, and she doesn't have to keep apologizing. You know, water under the bridge and all that."
Ozpin was even less helpful when he asked for advice, and proposed the wild idea that Lumi had a crush on him so he should tread carefully to avoid breaking her tender heart. Qrow downed half his flask at that and prayed on every star he could name that that wasn't the case- things were bad enough between them with just normal mentor-mentee things to worry about.
Wait, were they even mentor and mentee? He'd been teaching Ruby ever since her birthday but that wasn't even close to the same thing he had with Lumi- but he also didn't treat her like he treated every other student who passed through his class, so where did that leave them?
Ugh, the last thing he needed were more complications. The thought was cast aside.
Qrow threw back another swig of whiskey and grimly decided that he was ready to confront Hazelwood. He walked into the workshop with all the self-assurance of a man on a mission, and nearly walked right back out at the sight of Lumi with her face in her hands and her shoulders raised to her ears.
"Hey, kid," he called a little softer than normal.
"Hi, Branwen," she lowered her arms and smiled tiredly at him.
Do it, tell her to stop bringing you food.
"You okay?" he asked and stopped by her seat.
"Yeah," she sighed heavily in a very not-okay way. "I'm… I'll be fine. Thanks for asking."
Tell her.
"No problem," he said instead and plopped down at his desk.
Downtrodden but determined, Lumi graded the stack of work and left that day with another tired smile.
Qrow smacked his head against the desk a few times and berated how soft his nieces had made him. He went home with the persistent thought that tomorrow he'd tell her to stop feeding him. He kept that thought with him the next morning, and held it until detention when Lumi sidled up to his desk and placed a familiar tipperware container on his desk. He could feel the words swell up in chest.
"I know you're probably tired of my food," she said with a self-deprecating grin. "But the freezer's finally clear, so thank you for suffering through it."
The words died a short, painful death. "Don't mention it," he said and passed her that day's work.
When she turned to go back to her seat, he resisted the urge to slam his head against the desk again. All of that suffering, and she'd only been using him to clear the freezer? Did he look like a human garbage disposal?!
Lumi corrected work as usual, ignorant to her teacher's inner turmoil.
Quiet little problem student indeed, he muttered to himself and opened up yet another e-mail from Blossom about supervising a field trip that he was going to "accidentally lose."
The week after the lackluster end of the Baking Fiasco was the start of Field Trip Season, which meant fundraising and that meant at least one bake sale from a club trying to earn a couple more bucks before they set off.
Lumi watched as Branwen turned faintly green when Hyde, an enthusiastic boy in the Sharp Shooter Club, tried to convince him to buy something from the club's bake sale and started listing a mile-long list of things.
Which, yeah, she could relate. For all that she fed Branwen, she and her family had to eat the treats too and there was only so much she could comfortably push into Yang's hands so that meant weeks of baked goods for snacks, dessert and breakfast. She promised herself that the next time she became unbearably stressed she'd try something unrelated to the kitchen. There was no way she could go through the whole ordeal again and not be forever turned away from sugar.
Hm, maybe she'd leave him another lunch as an apology? She toyed with the idea even as her teacher slapped some lien into Hyde's hand and loudly declared that he should give away whatever the money had bought as free samples.
Then Hyde was swarmed with hungry teenagers (hadn't they just had lunch?) who wanted to know what he was selling and if it was any good and Lumi was too busy looking up recipes on her scroll to notice Branwen side-eye her and shudder.
In detention that day, Lumi took out a piece of paper and wrote down everything she knew about Branwen's taste in food. "Greens = not a meal" was written at the very top because he still complained about Nurse Tanner trying to convince him to eat a salad and "nothing sweet" was written right beneath that. He said something about lizard meat (maybe?) so she scribbled that down too then went hunting through her past notes for any other clues.
From what she remembered from her other donated lunches, he liked chicken well enough- fried chicken more than chicken alfredo- so there was probably something there. She jotted down more notes and looked up recipes in-between grading. She left that day with a grocery list in mind and a distracted good-bye.
On Wednesday, she ran into Yang on her way to lunch. The taller girl slowed enough that Lumi could catch up and they chatted amiably as they grabbed a tray and filled it full of food. Lumi waved off the younger girl's invitation to sit with her and her friends with the excuse that she had some homework to finish up and worked best without distractions.
The blonde let her go after wrangling a promise from her that they'd hang out soon. Lumi sat in a quiet spot and ate most of her lunch then purposefully dropped an apple and ducked beneath the table where it rolled to. She quickly grabbed the container with chicken stir fry and rice and slipped into the shadows. She appeared in the fabrication room just across from the weapons workshop.
The door was locked, and only teachers could unlock it, but she didn't need to bother with things like doors with her Semblance. She closed her eyes and focused very hard while she thickened the shadows. Across the hall there was no pinprick of light that signified an active Aura, so she stepped from the room into the workshop and quickly stashed the meal where she was sure it would be found.
At this rate, she might just give up on being a Huntress and become a thief or something secretive like that. Lumi shook her head at her thoughts and crouched into the dark corner between two cabinets then scrambled out from under the lunchroom table with her apple in hand.
No more than three minutes had passed, which she was proud of, so she allowed herself a moment of preening then set to the rest of her lunch (she cleaned off the apple with a napkin and a bit of water before she ate it, of course). She didn't have homework to finish up, but since lunch was an hour long she checked her math anyways then logged onto Timblr until the bell rang.
It paid to be her teacher's unofficial teaching assistant, because she that meant she had access to his lesson plan and could hide a meal for him in the textbook cabinet- which a student opened and hollered that someone had left food sitting around. Lumi unpacked her things as Branwen plucked the container from among the books and plopped it in a desk drawer with a shrug.
Another small flush of pride alighted itself in her chest which she basked in before she got up and grabbed her own book to do the assignment. Later, she trudged to math with a small self-satisfied after turning in her work and by detention she was settled enough not to give herself away.
A third of the way through grading, Lumi called, "Hey, Branwen?"
"Yeah, kid?" he scrolled down a page and typed a few words.
"Do Yang and Ruby have any pets?" she drew a mark through an incorrect answer. "My family still can't decide what kind of cat to get."
"They have a dog," he looked at her with a shrug. "Dunno how much help that'll be."
She hummed, "Alright." She busied herself with papers for moment. "Do you know of anything fun to do on Patch?"
He paused and side-eyed her. "What kind of fun?"
"I don't know," she shrugged. "Like, bowling or something?"
"I can think of a few things," he leaned back in his chair and spun around. "Rock climbing for one."
Lumi scrunched up her nose. "Mm, how something a little more family and civilian friendly?"
"Civilians can rock climb," Branwen shot back. "But alright. How do you feel about indoor trampolines?"
She thought about Nocte's eyes when Lumi was mid-air doing an overly complicated flip. "I've never been but it sounds fun."
"Great, there's a new place that just opened up," he went back to his screen. "June-something… Ah, here we go. 'Junebug Jump House'."
Lumi wrote down the details and smiled widely at him in thanks. He blinked in shock then returned a familiar grin.
Things were okay again between them, it seemed, and not just in the polite but distant way it had been a week earlier.
Lumi walked into detention and didn't see Branwen at his desk, which she shrugged off until she saw a broad-shouldered man in a tank top at the sink (how handsome!), scrubbing vigorously at something in his hands. It was apparently ineffective if the glare he (oh hell that's Branwen- bad brain!) gave the ball of sudsy paper towels in his hand was any indication.
"Hey, Branwen," she shook her head to clear her thoughts and walked up to him.
He grunted in reply, apparently too preoccupied to bother with pleasantries.
She peeked around his elbow and saw that the fabric was actually his shirt, which had a dark splotch at the breast pocket- had his pen exploded again? She thought he would have learned after the last few cases of pens exploding in his pocket, but maybe not. She pulled out her Scroll and Ping'ed how to remove ink stains.
The top result was rubbing alcohol, but some people suggested soaking the stain in milk overnight. Well, rubbing alcohol it was then. She left him at the sink and poked around. A workshop ought to have at least a bottle, right? It was a good disinfectant and a classroom of teenagers with sharp, pointy weapons had plenty or scratches and wounds to go around.
Wrong- the only rubbing alcohol she found was an empty bottle halfway buried in the scrap bin. There went that plan, but maybe… Lumi rifled through the junk on Branwen's desk and found his flask next to his rings and tattered cape. She still wasn't sure if he refused to replace it or get it tailored because it looked cool or because the likelihood of it staying nice-looking was incredibly low so he didn't bother.
She grabbed a little cup from a short stack of others that was probably meant to hold salsa or ranch but that her teacher kept a supply of to put small screws and bolts in. She poured a fair amount of whiskey into it and put the flask back where it belonged.
"Here," she tapped his shoulder and lifted the little cup. "This should help."
"Thanks?" Branwen stared at her like she'd grown another head but took the cup and knocked it back.
It must have been her turn to be bewildered because what the fuck.
"You… you were supposed to use it on the ink stain," she pointed to the blotch and discreetly pinched herself just to make sure she was awake.
"Oh," he said.
They stood there for an awkward moment before Lumi plucked the bit of plastic out of his hands and went back to the desk for a fill-up. It was enough to shock Qrow into rinsing his hands and tossing away the soggy paper towels. Lumi came back with a rag and handed it to him too.
"Please don't eat the rag," she said with teasing grin.
"Hm, I dunno, my only other option is an E-Z Meal," he soaked the spot then dabbed at it.
"Really?" she tilted her head to the side. "Can't you cook?"
"A little," he said. "Better with a campfire than a stove though."
She hummed. "Do you not have time? I know a bunch of quick recipes that I could share, if you want."
"Sure, why not?" he shrugged and the motion did interesting things to the lines of corded muscle along his shoulders and back.
Lumi choked and scurried away to her seat. She didn't know where this sudden train of thought came from but she wanted it to kindly not. She didn't need this kind of stress!
She threw herself into scribbling down a list of recipes and looked up the expected prep plus cook time for each of them just to avoid the possibility of her brain betraying her with images of Branwen's strong arms- fucking stop dear Oum please.
Detention passed tortuously slow as if time itself was mocking her, but she muddled through it by rewriting the list and adding personal notes to each recipe. She rewarded herself with a stop to Stirbucks on the way home and sipped happily on the creamy, frothy hot cocoa as the airbus flew across the bay.
Fortunately for her, Branwen was fully dressed when she walked into the next day's detention. Unfortunately, it was a Friday and while her mother's random messages had dwindled to manageable levels, by Lumi's estimation she would still be hung up about her latest lapse in sobriety.
She sighed, took her seat and pulled out her math homework.
"What's eatin' you kid?" Branwen called from his desk.
"Oh, uh, it's nothing serious," she waved him off. "It's just supposed to rain this weekend, and I'm not looking forward to training in the mud with my mother."
He hummed and scrawled a grade atop a paper. "Where do you train, usually?"
Her teacher didn't seem too invested in the conversation and it had been nearly two months since their argument, so Lumi didn't hesitate before saying, "Forever Fall, but we might go to the Emerald Forest instead."
"Oh?" He looked up from his desk. "Your mom go to Beacon?"
"No," Lumi shook her head and twiddled her pencil. "She's from Mistral and she went to Haven, but she likes to shake things up, fight different types of Grimm, ya know?"
He nodded. "Well, be careful. Oz told me there's a giant Deathstalker out there somewhere."
"Alright," she scrunched up her nose. "You wouldn't happen to know where it was, by chance?" She fixed him a too-bright smile.
Branwen rolled his eyes. "Why d'you want to know- you planning to fight it?"
"No, no," she assured him. "I plan to stay far, far away from it."
"Well, there's a class about Grimm at Beacon, but here's a sneak peek; Deathstalkers like caves," he said meaningfully.
"Avoid caves, got it," she nodded.
They chatted a little while longer then refocused on their work. By the end of the day, Lumi had picked up a few tips about hunting in the Emerald Forest and Branwen learned where he could go to gather in-field data on his quiet little student and her Huntress mother. After five months, he felt it was time to see for himself what was going on.
Like the weather predicted, it was cold and rainy on Saturday morning. Like Lumi predicted, her mother still dragged her onto an airbus to Beacon despite the previous fact and together they trudged into the Emerald Forest.
Once they were under tree cover, the rain turned from a shower to misty patter, which suited the younger Hazelwood just fine. She liked rain, loved it even, but only when she was indoors and curled under a thick pile of blankets.
After a quick warm-up they were on the hunt for Grimm- though it was less of a "hunt" and more of an aimless wander because the amount of monsters the collective emotions a school full of young adults could draw in was staggering but unsurprising. Honestly, once you got deep enough into the forest, the Grimm became pests.
Two or so hours later, Lumi ducked beneath an Ursa's swing and smashed its knee in return. She followed up the hit with an Aura-fueled smack to its other arm then jumped back as another Ursa entered the fight. She cast her eyes for the best position to shoot the two Grimm from and quickly stepped from her spot on the ground to an out of the way tree branch. Polaris, her weapon, easily shifted between baton and bow form as she pulled out three arrows and shot the backs of the unsuspecting Grimm.
The one she'd smacked around disintegrated and it only took another arrow to down the other. She breathed out evenly and directed a smidgeon of Aura to her boots to activate the gravity Dust. With a leap, she bounded from branch to branch until she caught sight of her mother slicing a Nevermore's wing to wispy shreds.
She let the older woman finish off the Grimm before she approached. "Should we break?"
"Might as well," she hefted her halberd over her shoulder.
They marched back to their starting point where their backpacks were safely stashed on a tree's branch and wrapped in a waterproof tarp. Lumi grabbed the bags then rifled through hers for the honey and oats granola bars she favored.
A bird cawed loudly as the rain continued to drum a soothing beat against the leaves. She had to admit that nature was incredibly pretty and soothing- if it weren't for the fact that she'd woken up before the sun and been made to fight literal monsters for two hours, she would have called it a nice morning.
She debated with herself whether or not to heal up her small injuries now, or to save the Aura she had for the fight. In the end, she left the little bruises but made sure to heal her slightly wobbly ankle- it would do no good to lose because her stance was weak.
She took her spot across the clearing from her mother and waited until the other woman called start before she flickered between one shadow and the next to deliver a swipe at her wrist. Her mother countered with her own baton and they were off.
Attack, step, retreat, dodge, jump, press- between one strike and the next Verbena's baton turned to a halberd and Lumi retreated to the trees with her bow. She took aim and shot three arrows laced with fire dust at the ground, then stepped across the clearing and shot at her mother's back when the wall of flames ignited.
The "ding" of an arrowhead being deflected by a metal met Lumi's ears and she frowned. Of course things couldn't be that easy. She drew the shadows closer and stepped into and out of them with every footfall as she let loose more arrows- which were dodged, deflected or cut out of the air. A few managed to hit, including one that was filled with electricity dust to her delight, but it wasn't enough to take her mother out the fight.
She got a few more shots in before Verbena charged her and Lumi flipped over the initial attack. They batted at each other until Lumi took an aura enhanced blow to the leg and crumpled to the ground. The sharp, shiny metal of the halberd swung overhead and she gasped "yield" just before the blade split the earth six inches from her head.
She blinked and re-materialized at the base of a tree where their bags were. With a sigh, she sat up and dragged her backpack over then plucked out a few more granola bars and began shoveling them into her mouth. A bird cawed overhead, but since a Nevermore didn't swoop down and steal her food, she didn't care.
After a quick healing, she struggled to her feet and slung her strap over her back. Her mother led her back to the airbus and the two of them boarded without a word. Muddy and soaked, she didn't dare sit down so she suffered the entire ride back. When they landed in Vale, Lumi nearly sighed in relief. The trek back to her mother's apartment was short, but her throbbing knee and various bruises made the trip mildly hellish.
She showered and changed then stuffed her face with whatever Ash and Nocte set out. She was tired but her mother's temper had cooled in the weeks since the chat with her boss, so Lumi wasn't beaten to a pulp and in need of serious pain pills like some of the other times.
The next day was more of the same though Lumi was sent flying with a smack from a King Taijitu's tail, which she was pretty sure bruised her back in what would later become a spectacular bouquet of purple and blue. Rather than go home and listen to her mother's criticism on ways she could have fought better (even though the older woman could have definitely intercepted the strike and saved Lumi the pain), she convinced her mother to let her head to the Beacon library instead.
Verbena stared her down with sharp violet eyes but nodded. "Fine, be home by two."
Lumi bit back a relieved sigh. Her mother must be mostly over the CPS visit if she was allowing her to go out by herself on a weekend visit, she thought and turned down the main avenue towards the school. While her knee had mostly recovered before today's trip, it twinged the longer she walked so she stepped through a shadow to a familiar building.
The halls were as empty as she remembered from her last field trip, which was a blessing. She didn't need anybody to see her covered in mud and limping to the women's bathroom, thank you very much.
She threw her bag and jacket on the counter then gingerly peeled off her shirt and peered at her slowly darkening back in the mirror. She winced at the sight and lit her hands with the small amount of Aura she still had. Far as she could tell, nothing was broken or even fractured (though a few ribs creaked menacingly when she contorted to drag her fingers across a dark splotch) and the deep ache receded to a general pain.
According to her Scroll, she had almost no Aura left after that, which put a sharp pin in her plan to heal her knee a little more, but she felt well enough to hang around the roof and eat her snacks- that had been her plan to begin with. She felt a tinge of guilt for leaving her siblings with their mother, but the older woman was in a better mood than she'd been in since falling off the wagon (again) so it probably wouldn't be too bad for them. Also, she didn't need all her flaws and missed opportunities shoved in her face.
Also also, she still didn't know who called social services but going home two days in a row limping and wincing would likely get noticed so laying low in a school of students that sported the same injuries as her was just a smart idea.
Lumi wiggled back into her shirt and shrugged on her coat. Smart idea or not, she didn't feel like being around people, per se, so she grabbed her backpack and shadow-stepped onto the roof. The view was just as lovely as the last time- more so considering the heavy clouds and brisk wind that cooled her warm face.
She plopped onto the ledge and pulled out a ham and cheese sandwich. She washed it down with water, which was the only thing she ever brought to drink when training, then munched on an apple. There were a few granola bars left in her bag, but she wasn't really in the mood for honey and oats. The cafeteria ought to be open, right? She gazed at the steady waves in the bay for a while in thought, then got to her feet and leapt from the roof.
While you needed to have an activated Aura to unlock your Semblance, you didn't need aura to use it, so she was happily falling face first towards a shadow that would gently deposit her by the cafeteria when a heavy weight smashed into her ribs. The world flipped and darkened incomprehensibly then came to a grinding stop.
Lumi gasped and struggled in the iron grip of whatever had interrupted her and let loose a quick breathless chant of "ow ow ow ow ow" as the pressure on her poor back tightened just a smidge.
"What the actual fuck were you thinking?" a familiar voice hissed in her ear.
"Ow," was her eloquent response before she plopped through a shadow two feet away and groaned loudly. She caught sight of bright red and craned her neck just enough to catch sight of one very pissed off Branwen before she curled into a ball and groaned even louder. "Kill me now."
A/N: See what I mean? Also, being Qrow is suffering. Thankfully, there are some cute scenes next chapter, so stayed tuned for that.
See you next week!