[Predictably, Oz doesn't tell him what's on his mind. That doesn't upset Qrow in and of itself; he knows as well as anyone what it's like to viciously stomp your feelings under your heel until they stop insisting on being paid attention to.
The question, then is whether to ask or to accept the deflection offered, to have a pleasant conversation about nothing over cocoa knowing that there's something festering deeper--not daring to disturb it lest the overflow break anything else on the way out. They've done it so many times over the last twenty years it's practically routine. And maybe if it weren't for the secrets he already knows he hadn't been let in on, he'd pick up his role in that familiar dance again. The war is dead and buried, after all. There is no more need for real secrets.
But in Deerington, Qrow had said that he didn't want the reason Oz told him the truth to be simply because he'd run out of things to hide, and that's still true. He wants Oz to be upfront with him because they're friends...because he can count on Qrow no matter what he needs. He is no longer a scared seventeen-year-old boy who needs a safe place to land.
Qrow settles down across from him, taking a sip of the cocoa to buy him time to arrange his thoughts. Then:]
Heh...I never thought I'd live long enough to retire, back in Remnant. It's still weird. Not that Trench hasn't always been less literal in how it likes to rip us open anyhow, I guess.
[He hesitates. Qrow cannot simply ask Oz to tell him what is on his mind. It is coming at a wall with a battering ram, and will only invite a strengthening of defenses. He knows too well that he is the same. And if he wants to climb the wall ... he must be willing to scratch himself with barbed wire on the way up.
Another sip. He lets his gaze drop from the warm russet of Oz's eyes to his own sienna-tinged reflection in the cup.]
...You know, I figured out what my blood magic is. Visions. Of misfortunes, naturally. Just...never in time to stop them. It's how I found you back in November.
[There's no hiding the bitterness in his snort, but it's clear there's somewhere he's going with this, or he would've never brought it up.]
I only bitched about it with Xerx back then, 'cause there was no way he'd know what it means to me. It was easier. And then the next month a glass knocked over and smashed while we were having lunch and I couldn't stop thinking about how the longer I kept up not telling him, the more likely it was Trench'd take the choice from me someday.
[Finally, he looks up, though there's something a little uncomfortable in the set of his shoulders. Like he's breaking an unspoken rule here, making the implication he's obviously making. The way he is asking Oz to be vulnerable with him of his own free will, without actually asking. Without it being a demand.]
He knows now, and it was on my terms. Instead of getting unlucky with the wrong town curse.
[Unlucky. It is, as ever, intentionally phrased. A word he only ever uses when the weight of it is necessary.]
no subject
The question, then is whether to ask or to accept the deflection offered, to have a pleasant conversation about nothing over cocoa knowing that there's something festering deeper--not daring to disturb it lest the overflow break anything else on the way out. They've done it so many times over the last twenty years it's practically routine. And maybe if it weren't for the secrets he already knows he hadn't been let in on, he'd pick up his role in that familiar dance again. The war is dead and buried, after all. There is no more need for real secrets.
But in Deerington, Qrow had said that he didn't want the reason Oz told him the truth to be simply because he'd run out of things to hide, and that's still true. He wants Oz to be upfront with him because they're friends...because he can count on Qrow no matter what he needs. He is no longer a scared seventeen-year-old boy who needs a safe place to land.
Qrow settles down across from him, taking a sip of the cocoa to buy him time to arrange his thoughts. Then:]
Heh...I never thought I'd live long enough to retire, back in Remnant. It's still weird. Not that Trench hasn't always been less literal in how it likes to rip us open anyhow, I guess.
[He hesitates. Qrow cannot simply ask Oz to tell him what is on his mind. It is coming at a wall with a battering ram, and will only invite a strengthening of defenses. He knows too well that he is the same. And if he wants to climb the wall ... he must be willing to scratch himself with barbed wire on the way up.
Another sip. He lets his gaze drop from the warm russet of Oz's eyes to his own sienna-tinged reflection in the cup.]
...You know, I figured out what my blood magic is. Visions. Of misfortunes, naturally. Just...never in time to stop them. It's how I found you back in November.
[There's no hiding the bitterness in his snort, but it's clear there's somewhere he's going with this, or he would've never brought it up.]
I only bitched about it with Xerx back then, 'cause there was no way he'd know what it means to me. It was easier. And then the next month a glass knocked over and smashed while we were having lunch and I couldn't stop thinking about how the longer I kept up not telling him, the more likely it was Trench'd take the choice from me someday.
[Finally, he looks up, though there's something a little uncomfortable in the set of his shoulders. Like he's breaking an unspoken rule here, making the implication he's obviously making. The way he is asking Oz to be vulnerable with him of his own free will, without actually asking. Without it being a demand.]
He knows now, and it was on my terms. Instead of getting unlucky with the wrong town curse.
[Unlucky. It is, as ever, intentionally phrased. A word he only ever uses when the weight of it is necessary.]