The Hand We're Dealt - Chapter 22 (Patreon)

A hand came down on my shoulder.

“We need to talk.”

I sighed. It was a deep, long sound. The kind of sigh someone makes when they know exactly what's happening, exactly who has conspired to make it happen, and why they're not going to enjoy it.

“Qrow,” I answered without looking.

The hand on my shoulder tightened. Not much, just enough to make a nonverbal statement.

“Instructor Qrow,” Emerald began, her red eyes stern and focused on the man invading my personal space. Her hands were already on the daggers at her back even as we stood outside the schoolhouse I'd just gotten done inspecting.

“Don't even think about it, kid,” Qrow rumbled, a trace of amusement in his reply. Though, there was more than a bit of warning in it as well. “I might have taught you everything you know, but you won't be close to my level for another few years. If you're lucky.”

Even as the greenette looked between one of the guild's primary instructors and the person to whom she owed her ultimate loyalty – me – I shook my head. “It's fine, Emerald. Go head off Ruby and Yang while they're finishing up playing with the young orphans. Mr. Branwen wants a private word and he has more than enough standing to ask for it.”

Some of the tension bled from her muscles as she lingered on Qrow's hand before finally nodding. “Very well, Master. Call if you need me.”

“Sweet girl,” Qrow commented just as she stepped out of earshot. “I let go, you're not gonna pull a runner?”

“I wouldn't get very far anyway,” I replied with a snort and a roll of my eyes.

“Somehow I don't believe that,” he muttered back, but released me. “You could have slipped my grip if you wanted to.”

I sighed and shook my head. “If I'd seen any point in it, maybe. But all it would have done was leave you in a more foul temperament than you're – obviously – already in. Which means that whenever you do catch me dead to rights in the future, this little chat gets nastier. So there's little enough point to such games.”

Despite his demeanor, his lip twitched. Just once, but it was there. “That's what I like about you, kid. You're smart enough to see the angles. You might be a little too smart for your own good, though.”

“How about the back of Homer's for our talk?” I asked instead of interrogating the compliment, backhanded as it was. “Even with the morning as cold as it is, I haven't had much fresh air lately and I'd like to take it in while I've got the chance.”

Qrow hummed, then nodded. “Fine, but you're buying.”

I could pay the man's bar tab for the rest of his natural life and it would barely mean anything to my financial situation, so I shrugged. “Fine. Still drinking that gut-rot bourbon?”

“Still drinking that weak cider?” He replied, falling into easy step next to me.

That was the thing about Qrow and I, as I'd come to understand it.

We didn't like each other because we both recognized the fact that we were too alike.

When we looked at each other, we saw a threat before anything else, and that had stayed locked in since our first meeting. Still, our paths intersected and our goals aligned to the point that it would be stupid and irrational to hold that grudge to the point where we couldn't work together. Or, work on the same problems, at least... far apart from each other, if at all possible.

In short order, we'd secluded ourselves behind one of the local bars, a quick word with one of the workers providing us with more than enough alcohol to suit our needs.

Especially before noon.

But one thing magic and aura had in common was their ability to purge your system to a certain extent when necessary. The overall sensation sucked ass and the process wouldn't help all too much if you were black-out drunk, but between my alcohol tolerance having grown by leaps and bounds in this life and that little trick, I felt comfortable enough indulging.

“From the look on your face, this seems like it's personal. Not guild business,” I opened with, pouring myself a glass.

Qrow uncapped the bottle and took a swig straight.

While he did that, I removed a card from my pocket and placed it on the small table between us, tapping it and forcing magical energy into it. The older man took a sharp breath as a small figure in white robes rose from the card as it dematerialized to create her.

“A dome of silence around us,” I ordered. “Let no one overhear our conversation.”

The small, fairy-like figure bowed and energy swirled around us.

Qrow shifted uneasily at the little light show before giving me a mild glare and taking another drink, muttering something uncomplimentary about magicians and sorcerers.

“You wanted to talk,” I nodded at him, raising my glass with an implicit invitation.

“You're trying to shack up with both my nieces,” he accused, glaring at me with his dark eyes.

I leaned back in my chair. “Emerald never would have told you, she's too loyal. Yang's too proud to admit she got herself into a fix. Ruby... wouldn't tell you voluntarily.”

He snorted, the action of an angry bull about to charge. “That's what I meant by being too smart for your own good.”

“You overheard her, then,” I nodded, sipping at my drink and swallowing it carefully to give myself a moment to think. “For what it's worth, you probably have the wrong idea.”

“I doubt that,” he stated firmly, grimly. “You want to walk back to your house instead of being dragged or carried, I'm going to need an explanation. Though if I don't like what comes out of your mouth...”

“Same result,” I nodded, taking another drink before going for broke. “You remember last year? Ruby's first solo hunt?”

Qrow nodded, his eyes narrowed in thought. “She was up near Hanover, needed more provisions. She went to you.”

“After everything went to shit, but before Raven pulled us out,” I waved the rest of the context away, not wanting to get dragged into a discussion over that clusterfuck of a mission again. “I asked Ruby to marry me.”

He'd been going for a drink, the bottle not to his lips yet, and when I finished my declaration, he took a double-gulp of the burning liquid.

I took a longer swig of my cider, too.

We sat in silence for a long moment, contemplating what I'd confessed.

“How'd that, turn into this,” Qrow finally asked.

“Ruby likes me. She said as much, and I believe her. Some of it's romantic, too. A little admiration, some hero worship, but... there's real affection,” I explained, frowning. “But she likes Emerald more than me.”

That little bombshell made the older man blink and sit back, looking as though he'd just had a near miss with a cannon shell.

“Huh.”

“Yep,”

I hummed for a moment, taking another short sip. I could feel the alcohol making me warm, which was a sure sign to slow down a bit and start slowly purging my system. If I did it right, I'd leave just enough in my blood to kill the pain from the ensuing headache.

“Emerald's only got eyes for you,” Qrow stated and, to his credit, didn't seem to care all that much that his niece wanted another woman.

Then again, hunters were an odd bunch.

And as long as you didn't make it obvious, people in this time didn't pry too much when two unmarried women kept each other company in the same house. Or two men, for that matter. There was always someone who couldn't find a husband or a wife and living alone was hard on the soul.

“Therein lies the rub,” I nodded.

“How's Yang factor into this?” He asked, most of the hostility having bled away to morbid curiosity. If the reference would have meant anything to him, I'd compare it to reality television.

“Yang wants a man who'll let her go off and adventure, but keep her in creature comforts when she deigns to come home,” I explained.

“Mhm.” Qrow grunted, looking away. “She's got too much of her mother in her.”

There was a pause.

“Don't tell her I said that,” he grumbled, half plea and half command as he reached up to rub his face.

“Don't tell Ruby I told you about her and we're even,” I nodded, exchanging blackmail for blackmail.

The other man gave me a half-nod, acknowledging the trade.

...and that's what I meant when I said we were 'too alike' to enjoy each other's company.

“Money's tight,” Qrow eventually stated with a fuller nod. “What with the panic and everything. Now with winter running late-”

“Summer's not coming this year,” I interjected before I could stop myself.

He turned a narrowed gaze on me. “What's that mean?”

“It'll snow through the summer,” I replied, scowling into the distance across the field behind the bar and over the forest beyond to where the ocean opened up. “Rivers will ice in June. Crops will fail. People will die. I've been stockpiling grain and drying meat for the last three years to hand it out when the time comes.”

I took another drink.

“It's what I've been doing with the money I won from the national and state banks in those lawsuits,” I explained. “It's... going to be a bad year.”

“How'd you know?” Qrow asked quietly.

“There was a volcanic eruption. I wrote about it in the paper one of my companies own, last year. Mount Tambora, on the other side of the world. It exploded with a force unlike anything you can imagine. Like one of the satans themselves decided to wipe an island off the face of the Earth. It'll be remembered as one of the most violent cataclysms in recorded human history.”

“And that means there won't be a summer?” Qrow asked skeptically.

“Hold your hand out,” I told him, extending my own to catch the weak morning light. Qrow, frowning, did so. “You feel the warm sun on it? That what heats the skies, the oceans, the fields. That's what makes the summers warm and the lack of makes the winters cold.”

“Alright,” Qrow nodded skeptically.

“But if you blow up an entire mountain and throw all of the dust into the sky, high enough that it'll take years for all the tiny little specks to fall back down,” I explained, waving up at the sky. “Then those tiny particles are going to catch just a tiny bit of that sunlight. Not enough to see or really notice individually, but enough that the world around you will. Like... that.”

I nodded towards the sun, which was even now cresting a thin red-orange haze that was lingering in the sky, looking like a cloud made of vaporized rust.

People had been seeing it for a few months now.

They still didn't understand, though.

Qrow was quiet for a long moment, staring up at the stain in the sky and fighting the truth his eyes were telling him was there. He didn't want to believe me, I knew. More than just our little grudge, it meant a lot of people would die. “Don't know if I buy that. Sounds... fantastical.”

I hummed, leaning back in my chair again. “Yeah, that was... everyone else's thoughts. People just laughed when I wrote about it, much less believed me.”

They didn't see it happen.

I'd had to bribe Cleria, make another little deal with the devil to make it happen, but I'd needed to go. More than just to watch history happen. I couldn't rescue the thousands of people who had died that day, but I could make sure the event which caused those deaths was put to good use.

“No one cares until it's too late,” I hummed bleakly, still staring into the distance. At some point, my walking stick and found its way back into my hand from where I'd leaned it against the table when we sat down, my hands busying themselves without my permission playing with the various buttons and dials built into the device.

It makes a great fidget toy as long as I'm not pushing power into it...

I huffed a silent laugh and shook my head.

“It doesn't seem so funny to me,” Qrow commented, his own face dark. Not accusatory, just similarly bleak.

“You're looking five months into the future, when the price of oats – the hardiest of grain crops – will more than hextuple. I'm looking five years into the future, when rural farmers in China have switched over to growing opium instead of food crops so that they can stockpile wealth for another bad year like this one,” I waved him off. “It's not... funny, not in the classical sense, but... it's like I can see just a little bit of how everything is connected. And I either laugh or cry at the awe and wonder of it all.”

“Make me see it, then,” Qrow stated, matching me with another swig of his drink.

“Britain, France, and the United States all ship opium to China to counterbalance the trade in tea, porcelain, and silk,” I explained slowly. “But the demand is... middling, right now. Enough to turn a profit and earn back some of the silver we've been hemorrhaging, but not a source of ludicrous wealth. That changes when domestic sources open up and start flooding the market. Price takes a dive, but people start getting addicted in mass numbers now that even the poor can afford it, so the volume you need to move jumps sky high.”

“How many people are we talking about?” Qrow asked, an edge of curiosity in his tone as he rubbed at his stubble. “Tai's told me a little about the place, what he remembers from growing up, but...”

“Millions,” I replied with a shrug. “And when the problem gets that big, the state starts having trouble functioning. People start noticing. Farmers stop farming, millers stop milling, printers stop printing because all they want to do is chase the dragon's tail all day long.”

“So China is going to fall apart because a mountain blew up, then,” Qrow summarized, sounding unimpressed.

I snorted and shook my head.

He didn't quite get it, still.

“The state will attempt to push back, but that will hurt the bottom line of the trading firms bringing the foreign opium in. They can police the internal supply, but when you start messing with the bottom line of the British Empire...”

“War, then,” Qrow took a breath.

“And war brings refugees, fleeing the country for greener pastures,” I explained slowly. “Chinese immigrants will flood Mexican Alta California, arriving in droves. Interested a little more now that it hits closer to home?”

“A little, but 'story time' is getting a little long, what's your point?” Qrow asked bluntly.

“My point is that I can sit with Ruby and talk for hours about things like this. She pays attention, she listens. Emerald does so out of a sense of duty. Yang tolerates it or pretends for my sake,” I brought the discussion full circle. “But Ruby is curious with a mind sharp enough to back it up. She likes guns and explosives, yes, but anything complicated under the sun is enough to interest her.”

Qrow sighed and snorted, looking away with a bit of disdain in his expression. “You've really got it bad for little red, don't you? So that's why you don't just break little green's heart and settle for Yang.”

“It was what you were going to suggest next, I thought I'd illustrate my point rather than trust you understood it,” I shrugged, looking away and irritated at myself.

“But Ruby's been attached at the hip with Emerald since you sent her here to train as a hunter,” Qrow surmised with a slow nod. “Right there in front of me and I didn't see it. Just thought she was lonely all this time, not having another girl her age in the guild.”

“Probably a bit of that, too,” I nodded.

“So my little niece was the one who came up with the idea for all four of you to shack up together, huh?” Qrow asked, swirling the half-full bottle in his hand.

I took pride in the fact that I wasn't so far gone that my single glass needed a refill yet. “Well it certainly wasn't my idea.”

Goddamn titty anime bullshit harem nonsense.

“Though whatever Taiyang and Summer have going on with Raven certainly put the idea in her head,” I groused a bit, taking a certain amusement in watching the man's face shift as if he'd bitten into something sour.

“They know about that, huh?” Qrow asked, still pulling a face.

I gave him a look of mild disbelief. “You know they're not stupid Branwen. Well, Yang maybe, but only after she's had a few drinks in her.”

Qrow snorted and smirked for an instant before dropping the amusement from his expression. “Yeah, you're right... just thought those idiots would keep it under wraps better than that.”

I rolled my eyes so hard I thought they'd fall out of my skull.

Qrow gave a gusty sigh. “Dammit. I owe Raven money now.”

I blinked, then frowned. “You made a bet?”

Qrow chuckled. “I bet my sister there was no explanation you could give me that wouldn't result in me putting you in a state where you'd have to crawl back to your house or have Emerald carry you.”

I chuckled mirthlessly. “For what it's worth... I don't think I could really break Emerald's heart. Even if Ruby had said yes, she'd have accepted a position as my mistress. Social realities being what they are, a black woman can't serve as hostess for a major New York Gala or the opening of an opera. It'd hurt her, but...”

I shook my head. “Marrying Yang would do more damage. She's a good woman, but she lords her victories over people too thoroughly. She would mean it, but-”

“She'd hurt little green in a hundred different thoughtless ways Ruby never would,” Qrow nodded, looking unhappy with the realization. “And she'd be off hunting months out of the year, running around in the back-country, leaving you alone to raise the kids. Kids that would go to Emerald when they needed something because she was there and Yang wasn't.”

“Something you've seen before, I take it,” I nodded, swirling the last bit of cider in my glass. I didn't want to pour another cup, but if we went much further.

“More than I ever wanted to,” Qrow sighed, sweeping a hand through his hair. “Back before Tai, Raven, Summer, and I settled down here in New York, for the most part. Having multiple wives is still common in all sorts of places, after all. We got to see first-hand how messy it was, sometimes. Helped prevent those three from blowing up, I think.”

“Which is why you were... more than worried,” I nodded, throwing back my glass, “about all of this.”

Qrow grunted, tapping his bottle against the table and looking out into the middle distance. “Yeah... so, this was all Ruby's idea, then?”

I leaned back. “I asked her to marry me, in exchange she wanted a way to make everyone happy. Even if Yang is just in it for the endless hot water, good food, and plush cushions.”

Not remotely honest, but a good joke. Yang wanted someone who could provide for any children, who would let her run around and fight monsters, and whom she could get along with without constantly butting heads. Even accounting for hunters' oddities, that list was a very short one. A wife who could kick your ass might be a fun idea, but once a few years passed, a hunter wanted someone 'woman-ing' the stove at home to come back to, not an empty building and a note that the kids were at their grandparents' house.

The other options were a crippled hunter who couldn't go out on missions anymore. That kind of thing bred resentment and was a bitter emasculating pill to swallow. Or Yang could find a civilian tradesman. Someone who wouldn't understand the life and would, eventually, want a woman that was home with him instead of running around fighting monsters and cheating death. Either she wouldn't come back one day, or she'd come back to find another woman had slipped into her place.

Yang wasn't stupid. Hot-headed, rash, and prone to escalation instead of deescalation... yeah, all those were valid criticisms to make.

But she knew that if I gave her my word, I'd stick to it. She didn't think she could separate me from Emerald, no. She knew better. But the devil you knew was better than the devil you didn't, especially when it came to sharing a spouse. The biggest problem with the match was that it was the worst of all worlds. Ruby was heart-broken and angry at me for reducing Emerald to a mistress when she deserved more, resentful of her sister for interfering in her love's true love, and still forcing Emerald to shoulder all of the burdens of running the household when she got little of the reward.

The other man snorted, then stood.

“You hurt any of them – even little green – I still have that beating tucked away for a rainy day,” Qrow informed me seriously, then paused as he turned to walk away. “Oh, and the girls are going to stay at your place tonight. Raven's back early from her mission and Tai's going to send them over to your place for dinner so they can have some time.”

I huffed and waved my hand, condensing The Silent back down into the form of a playing card.

“I’m too old for relationship drama like this,” he grumbled sourly, talking more to himself than me, but making it clear he was washing his hands of this problem.

I stood up, finished flushing almost all of the alcohol from my system, and took a long pull from the flask of water at my side to clean my mouth out.

Of course, by the time we'd hit the main street, I could see Emerald and a man in a starched white uniform running towards me.

“Master Henry! It's The Quarantine! Dr. Jeffries is back!”

My hand tightened around my walking stick and I felt my lips pull back to show my teeth.

It wasn't a smile.

“Well, I promised I'd break his legs and make him swim back to the city if he ever showed his face on my island again!” I laughed, feeling the imminent release of tension that entirely-deserved violence promised. “Let's not make me a liar!”

~~~

Every now and then, the stars align and I can hammer out a new chapter without any serious complications or difficulties interrupting. That time has come.

Oh, and I did have to do a minor retcon on Chapter 20. Nothing huge, but the 'wendigo mission' now refers to Ruby's first solo hunt, not Yang's. I reviewed my notes and I'd gotten confused when I wrote it the first time around.

Anyway! Hope everyone enjoys some clarification about the relationship mess!

Thank you again for your support and patience! I'll be getting... something out over the weekend. Not sure what. I've got a few options, we'll see what happens.