#maracamilkshake

Ooh!!!! Thank you for giving me something to make a Fair Game-focused post off of tonight! <3 I thought I wasn’t gonna get to do one because I put all of my effort into the essay, but this is great!

Clover likes Qrow’s...I’ll call it laidback spunk. Qrow has an element of sass to him that Clover finds so fun to bounce off of. He likes how Qrow’s signature brand of snark can go head-to-head with his quips. Additionally, because Qrow has plenty of stories about life outside of Atlas, his lax, yet spunky personality gives his tales an extra layer of vividness that keeps Clover on the edge of his seat. Clover can literally listen to him all day, and an afternoon or two has flown by just by Qrow answering Clover’s dozens of questions in increasingly interesting ways.

// I used 28 and 72. I hope you like a side of baby Ruby and Yang with that BroTP!

Taiyang Xiao Long was a bastard. And an ass. And a cheat, and a liar, and if he wasn’t the father of both his nieces Qrow would have tossed him off the roof of Beacon tower already.

That was still a very tempting thought, actually. Best file that one for later.

“Qrow, you know better than to play card games.” Tai grinned and threw down a two of hearts, then immediately had to grab it before Ruby could chew on it.

Yang pouted; Qrow gave him three cards, all balanced on his middle finger. “Oh, shut up. Got any aces?”

“Go fiss!”

Qrow banged his head on the table. Yang gave the world’s most overdramatic sigh. “Why's Uncle Qrow so bad at this?” she complained.

Go Fish was supposed to be something even the girls could play, but after one too many decks being destroyed by Ruby’s baby teeth (”She’s three, how is she still teething?” “You’re her dad, why are you asking me?”) and a tantrum by Yang (”By the way, we need a new fire extinguisher.”), they decided to split into teams, with the girls rotating between the adults. Right now, it was Tai and Ruby versus Qrow and Yang.

Ruby had protested a bit. So had Yang.

“Because daddy over there got all the luck in the family,” Qrow mumbled from the table. Gods, he wanted a drink. And not the sparkling apple juice resting untouched at his elbow.

“Pfft. You call this luck?” Tai bounced a card lightly off Qrow’s head. “No, this is all skill, baby.”

“We’re playing f--”

“Don’t you dare,” Tai warned.

“--freakin’ Go Fish, Tai! How is there skill in Go Fish?”

“Fweakin’ fiss!” Ruby yelled.

Yang sprayed apple juice all over Qrow’s shirt in a fit of giggles. “Uncle Qrow eats freakin’ fish.”

For a horrifying moment the girls looked at each other, and then suddenly Ruby began jumping up and down on her father’s leg, Yang pounding her fists on the kitchen table, the two singing “Freakin’ fish, freakin’ fish, uncle Qrow eats freakin’ fish~” at the tops of their tiny lungs.

Qrow burst out laughing. “That’s your dad, kiddos,” he snorted under his breath.

“Says the resident sausage eater,” Tai shot back, and kicked him under the table.

The girls paused. “Fiss sassage? Ruby lisped.

Tai looked at Qrow. Qrow looked at Tai. “That’s also me,” Tai grinned.

“Tai.” Qrow started throwing cards at him as the girls resumed their inaccurate screaming. “No.”

“Ow, hey--” He raised his arms to protect his face, throwing them right back in the world’s least deadly shuriken battle. “I mean, they didn’t call me ‘Whole Team’ Xiao Long for nothing--”

“Oh gods.” Qrow thumped his head back on the table. "I hate you so much, you freakin’ fish.”

Ohhhohoho yes

Qrow is obsessed with Tai’s hands. He likes holding them, kissing them, pressing their warmth against his cheek because he is starved for affection. Any time he gets the chance (and the courage), he stands just this side of too close to Tai to brush shoulders while they’re walking, or maybe he’ll creep downstairs in the wee hours of the morning to nestle his forehead against the back of Tai’s neck while he’s putting the coffee on, hands carefully slipping under his shirt to rest his palms flat against the other’s belly…

Despite this craving for touch and affection though, the two of them aren’t big on PDA, even after years of being together. So much so that most people didn’t know they were together until it was mentioned point-blank, far after the fact. Part of this stems from not wanting to make things difficult or strange for Ruby and Yang (”Wait, so your dad is dating your uncle??”) but another large part of it, a part that creeps often into even private moments, is in their fear of being too close, too comfortable. Tai has lost before, had his heart hurt before, and Qrow is… Qrow. He’s terrified of intimacy on any level, and moreso afraid of what his being too close might do to Tai, to their girls. They are both so awfully afraid of seeking out the comfort they find in one another, the comfort they so desperately need.

Hmmmm, that’s a good one. See, I think that they both kind of confessed to each other around the same time, and I’ll explain what I’m thinking.

Like first, imagine Qrow working himself up for weeks. He’s got the whole talk planned out, every possible answer to every possible reaction. He’s practiced in front of the mirror for hours, making sure to even school his expressions as he talks. Of course on the night that he plans to confess, at the last second he chickens out and gets drunk. 

What he doesn’t expect is drunk him making it to Tai’s house anyway. He knocks loudly and practically falls on the other man once he opens the door. Tai, the gracious guy that he is, grabs up this stumbling lug and tries to deposit him on the couch. I say tries because Qrow refuses to let him go. Finally Tai gives up, and sits down on the couch with Qrow cradled in his lap.

From his position Qrow looks up, dreamy eyed with a dopey drunk smile. He cups one of Tai’s cheeks in his hand and says, with a bit of a slur, “God, I love you so much.” He then promptly passes out, leaving Tai a blushing mess trying to figure out if he really meant it, or if Qrow even realized who he was talking to.

What makes it even more awkward is that Tai has already been struggling with his own feelings for his former partner, and this pushes them right to the forefront of his mind. So now he’s the one trying to figure out how to awkwardly confess, as he doubts that Qrow will remember any of this in the morning.

Sure enough, they wake up, and Qrow stumbles to the coffee machine, groaning about his aching head. Tai follows after, asking thinly veiled questions trying to see if Qrow remembers admitting that he loved him, while also trying to figure out if he had just meant platonic or familial love. 

Because damn, does he not want to ruin what they already have just because he think’s he’s fallen in love //again//. He couldn’t do that to Qrow if he didn’t feel the same way, couldn’t push away the one person that he’s got left outside his girls.

Finally though, he just can’t take it. Summer had always said that he was implusive after all. Once Qrow had sobered up a little Tai made his move, taking him into his arms and kissing him deeply, hoping to not be pushed away. Of course the exact opposite happens, and Qrow leans in, passionately returning the sentiment.

When they finally break apart, though they remained in each other’s arms, Qrow asks Tai how long he’d been planning to confess. Tai laughs, replying “Not until you did it first.” Now it’s Qrow’s turn to blush, as he’s starting to peice together just what happened.

 “Did I…?”

 “Oh yeah,” Tai replies, blushing a bit now too, and relying what had happened the night before.

if tai’s having a bad depressive episode, qrow probably takes the time to sit with him and let the man vent/cry/whatever it is he needs to do. he would hold his hand, make sure tai knows that he’s not alone, that qrow’s still there and so are the girls and that none of them are gonna go anywhere. tai’s depression probably makes him shut down pretty bad so qrow would focus on trying to get him back on his feet, doing little self care things and staying lighthearted to encourage a laugh out of him, whether that be through jokes or just doing dumb embarrassing shit. even if it’s those kinda sad laughs it’s improvement and it helps and once qrow’s got an actual genuine laugh out of him it’s totally worth it. even if tai’s still out of it, it at least helps him be a little more optimistic.

if qrow’s got it bad, tai would focus first on grounding qrow and making sure he doesn’t lose himself in all of that, or drink himself to death because that’s gonna be qrow’s first impulse. he’d hold qrow, tell him that everything’s gonna be okay and nothing bad that’s happened is his fault. i feel like, while qrow’s absolutely depressed too, he’s more quick to panic and spiral than tai is, so once tai’s got him calmed down, he’d take the time to do things with qrow and make sure he’s distracted, help him to forget all those nasty horrible feelings before sitting down and actually talking about the issue (if needed). qrow keeps things to himself a lot and it takes a bit of coaxing for tai to get it out of him so those talks are kind of hard, but once all is said and done qrow knows that he doesn’t have to go through these kinds of things alone and it’s very reassuring for him. i imagine he feels like he has to do a lot on his own and that also ties in to his need to be close to people but being afraid to because of his semblance, so the reminders that he’s still loved and supported really help him.

A song you like with a color in the title?

marina and the diamonds - blue

A song that makes you happy?

ninja sex party - unicorn wizard

A song that you never get tired of?