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Qrow could hear the music from his front door.
He had just got home from 4-hour long classes with either very nerd or very bitchy students and he could already hear the emo, teenage music blasting from his daughter’s room.
Usually normal girls would listen to heartbreaking things like Christina Perri and eat ice cream, he thought, but Blake had to blast her feelings out the window with Twenty One Pilots and blacker clothes than she usually wore.
Dropping his things by the door, the professor made a beeline to her room and, of course, bothered to knock on the loudest and most annoying fashion possible. With that music, that was the only way she’d listen.
The music stopped. Blake didn’t open the door. Qrow sighed.
“Ok, Kitty Cat, I gave you two days to mope alone. I said I’d give you one, but yesterday, when I tried to talk to you, it was a complete failure. As much as you’d like not to, we’re talking today. So I’m coming in.” He tried to open the door; it was locked.
Silly cat. He pulled out his keys and, after quietly fumbling through them, found the key to her room, the one he only kept for emergencies, such like that one. Qrow unlocked the door (there was a “huh!?” of surprise and he liked it) and entered the room unceremoniously.
“Dad, what are you doing here?”
“Wasn’t I loud enough through the door? I’m here to talk.” It was impossible she hadn’t heard. She lifted her legs to allow him to sit on the edge of her bed, laying them on his lap quickly.
There was a bottle of water on the nightstand, an empty teacup, a bag of chips, clothes scattered on the floor and not hanging on the door hangers. Her bed was a mess, her hair looked like a rat’s nest and she was wearing one of his old shirts along with old, really short jean shorts.
They stood that way for a while, silently, as Blake breathed in and Qrow breathed out.
“What are you doing, kitty cat?” He started to play with her toes, watching as they reacted to his pulls and tickles. “It’s been two days. Three?”
“Three. I’m…” She turned into her side, curling up in a ball like she used to do after he and Cinder had a fight. “I’m so… So empty.”
Qrow didn’t move yet. He reached out for her hand, black nails contrasting against his ashen-hued skin on the early night light of a cold bedroom.
“He… He just… Yelled at me… In front of a crowd… And I had to do something, I couldn’t let him just scream at me, but… But… That hurt… That hurt so much… Just like my love for him still hurts a lot!” She squeezed his hand tighter, and he did so with the same strength. According to what Blake told him when she stormed into home (and those were the last words he’d hear from her in three days), she had slapped him after he blew up against her and broke up with him.
On the university. On the crowd’s eye. He humiliated her and made Blake take a hasty action.
“My sweet child…” Qrow looked up, trying to find the right words, but suddenly she sighed painfully and he noticed his daughter was crying and that threw him off. “Oh, no, Blake, don’t cry…” Shoes kicked off, Qrow then laid behind her and wrapped his arms around the girl.
There they were, a 39 year old man cuddling with his adopted, 19 year old daughter, while she cried out loud. The things a father would do…
“No, no, no, there, there…” The man petted her hair while she sobbed, face digging on the pillow and she cried and cried. She pulled out her phone from under the pillow and he rested his chin on her shoulder, looking at the screen that she unlocked with expertise born out of practice.
They were the wallpaper. Blake and Adam.
“… Why do you do this to yourself, Blake?” She sniffed, and it broke his heart.
“I love him.”
“I know, baby girl. Dad knows. But you can’t let it tear you apart like this.” Blake gripped the phone tighter, staring at the screen. Then she opened her gallery, clicked on the first cat photo she found, and set it as her wallpaper.
“There.” Qrow smiled. It was a small step, but was a step nonetheless. He sat up and patted her head, watching Blake smile and do something akin to a purr. “This is my kitty cat. I didn’t raise a whiny girl.”
“Hey, dad?“ She asked as she sat up, pulling her knees to her chest, still looking sad, but just a little better.
“Yes?”
“I know you and Cinder didn’t go along well some years after you two adopted me… But…” She sighed and looked to the side. “Did you miss her? Did it hurt like it hurts me now?”
His ex-wife had been pretty much a bitch right before the divorce; out of the seven days of the week, they fought in five of them, and the other two, she was with her lover. What he missed in Cinder was her past self, someone who died some years after they got married, the woman who wanted to adopt Blake, the woman he had really loved.
So he told her the truth.
“It did not. It does not. I divorced Cinder because I couldn’t take her anymore.” He held one of his daughter’s hands between his own. “It would hurt if Winter broke up with me; that’d crush me. That would kill me. But, as long as I have her, and as long as I have you, I’m happy. I’m fine. That is all.” She smiled. “But it also crushes me to see you like this. I won’t be fine, Blake, if you are not fine.” Her smile grew a little shaky and she sniffed again.
“Don’t worry. I’ll be okay, Qrow.” They hugged and Qrow trusted on his daughter a little bit more. She was strong and he was sure she could handle it.
“Take your time to make your decisions and heal, kitty cat. You are the world to me, ok?” She nodded. “I’ll be on my room now. Have some tests to correct. If you need anything, just call me. And, please, don’t blast that music again.” She laughed as he stood and made his way out. “It’s unbearable!”
“It’s how I feel when Winter stays the night!” Qrow laughed back. Sure, Blake always made a point to leave if Winter was staying for something beyond sleeping. Those walls were quite thin…
Blake was going to take a while until she got better, but he would wait. Wait and be there for her. He loved his daughter dearly.
And that was why he punched Adam Taurus square in the face after telling him his daughter wanted some alone time.