.

When Summer ends

A long Fall follows

Winter is coming

Spring in his step

"I am sorry", said Winter and sat up stiffly. "It appears I am not quite in the mood after all... I should not have come here tonight. I apologise." She started to button up her blouse.

"Relax, Ice Queen", drawled Qrow in his usual gruff tone and moved himself back into an upright position. "Not like we haveto. No pressure."

She glanced at him from the side while she was fixing her bun.

"Of course we don't have to, but it is the point of our meetings, is it not?" Qrow laughed softly.

"Yeah. Doesn't mean we can never do anything else", he said and leaned back on the sofa, zipping up his pants. "We could just watch TV or somethin'. If you want." He shrugged. "Or d'you wanna leave?" Qrow looked at her questioningly and took a sip from the hip flask which had magically appeared in his hand once more. Winter avoided his gaze, her cheeks barely perceptibly flushed.

"I'm not sure", she said finally, then paused. "I think I would prefer your company to going back to the base, but I do not wish to impose."

"You know, it's kinda weird hearing you talk like this", said Qrow with a smirk. "Usually our conversations are confined to things like 'Shut up!' or 'Fuck me, Qrow!'" He winked at her.

He'd expected her to blush. Instead she raised an eyebrow and deadpanned right back at him: "I think you might have gotten confused about who was doing the fucking lately. I am quite sure I was not the one on my knees yesterday." And now he was the one blushing. Damn. Qrow bowed his head in mock defeat and toasted her with his flask.

"Touché, Ice Queen. So, are you staying?", he inquired, switching the topic back to the original question.

"Yes." The hint of a smile was playing at the corners of Winter's mouth and Qrow found himself reciprocating. He nodded.

"Alright then", he said. "Red or white?" Winter considered this for a moment.

"Red", she decided.

"Coming right up." Qrow heaved himself up and went into the kitchen to dust off one of the bottles he kept for occasions like this. "You hungry too?", he called into the living room while he worked on uncorking a wine bottle with limited success. "I could cook us something."

This got him an astonished "You can cook?" from Winter, whose eyebrows had shot up in surprise. Qrow sent her a dirty look.

"Yes, Ice Queen, I'm a grown man who can feed himself. Shocking, I know", he said. Rifling through his cupboards, he added: "On second thought, I'm also a grown man who just got back from a 4-month mission and doesn't have anything at home."

"What was that about being able to feed yourself?", she teased him. Qrow purposely ignored her and instead poured them both some wine. Into proper glasses even. Since he didn't usually bother with these for himself, Winter noted it with appreciation.

"We could order pizza", Qrow suggested when he came back into the living room. He handed her a glass and sat down next to her on the sofa. The specialist frowned. She was still sitting with the same rigid posture, Qrow noted, all straight back and legs locked together.

"I have never ordered pizza in my life", she said sharply. He grinned.

"First time for everything, Ice Queen", he said, placed his glass on the side table and grabbed his scroll to call the usual pizza place; briefly reflecting on whether or not it was pathetic to have it on speed dial. "What is your opinion on pineapple?"

"On a pizza?", queried Winter, completely bewildered. Qrow perked up at this.

"Is that an 'absolutely not' or a 'I have never heard of this'?", he inquired, hoping for the latter. Perhaps he could recruit her to their side before someone with strong anti-pineapple sentiments got hold of her.

Regardless of the pineapple question, Winter still wasn't entirelyconvinced delivery pizza should count as a proper dinner. However, a grumbling stomach could be very persuasive indeed when it came to lowering one's standards. At least for tonight and provided Weiss never found out about it.

Although she did have to admit it smelled delicious when it arrived.

"D'you mind if I get a bit more comfortable?", asked Qrow. Winter furrowed her brow.

"In what way?", she asked back.

"Undressing", said Qrow, vaguely indicating his clothes. "No hidden agenda, I swear", he added and put a hand on his chest sincerely, as if to swear an oath.

"It is your home", said Winter hesitantly. "I can hardly object."

"I don't want you to be uncomfortable", said Qrow calmly and clearly meant it. Winter lifted a hand to her mouth in a pretence of thinking about it while in reality she was hiding her smile. It wasn't like either of them was habitually ignoring the other's boundaries, but it was still an uncharacteristically sweet thing for Qrow to say.

"It's fine", she said eventually. "I haveseen you in underwear before, Qrow. Or less." Her eyes twinkled mischievously when she said this. "Actually", Winter continued with a sigh "If this would be alright with you I am thinking of getting out of this uniform myself. It seems like all bets are off tonight anyway. I have even ordered pizza. I might as well be comfortable." She threw Qrow an indignant look when he burst out laughing.

.

In the end Winter had – after vocally expressing her utter bafflement at the fact that he even owned anything other than dress shirts – borrowed an old T-shirt of Qrow that reached down to her naked thighs. Qrow thought she looked unbelievably hot in it, although the fact that the only other thing she was wearing were her lace panties might have had something to do with it.

They were snuggled together on the sofa. Qrow, in shorts and another T-shirt, was sitting upright with his feet propped up on the coffee table at what he was pretty sure was not a semblance-proof distance from Winter's wine glass. There was a reason he didn't have carpets. He hoped anyway.

Winter herself was resting her head on his lap, the rest of her body wrapped in the very large, very fluffy and very pink blanket his nieces had bought him when he'd moved in. Ruby had been quite firm about the need for fluffy blankets on a couch and Qrow hadn't objected.

"Wait, can you just go back two channels?", requested Winter. Qrow complied without a word and switched back to the program she wanted, playing absent-mindedly with her hair as he did so.

"Would you mind terribly if we watched this?", she asked.

"What, Remnant's Next Top Model? Really, Ice Queen?" Qrow sounded dumbfounded rather than mocking but she felt the heat creep up her face regardless.

"It's my guilty pleasure, Qrow. And since we couldn't find anything else..." He chuckled and lightly tugged on a silver strand.

"Sure, Ice Queen. Whatever." She rolled her eyes.

"Don't call me that."

"Aww, come one. It suits you", he claimed with a cheeky grin.

"Qrow. Not tonight. Please", said Winter softly.

"Fine." He returned an eye-roll of his own, but Winter could tell it wasn't serious. "Is 'Schnee' acceptable then?", he asked.

"You could just call me Winter", she suggested.

"Winter? Naw. That's just weird, Ice- Schnee", said Qrow and she had to admit he was right. Her first name had sounded completely wrong coming out of his mouth.

"Dust help me, but I agree", she said with a sigh and angled for her wine glass. "I suppose Schnee will do."

.

They watched silently for a few minutes until Qrow snorted and loudly complained: "It's not even the latest season! I've seen this one before. That blue-haired kid" – he pointed at one of the teenagers on the screen – "he gets kicked out next round when they're doing the beach shot 'cuz he's afraid of water."

Winter side-, or rather, low-eyed him hard.

"Youhave watched this before?"

If Qrow was embarrassed he was very adept at hiding it.

"When Ruby was younger she and I used to watch it every Friday night", he explained. "Used to be family night before she and Yang went to Beacon. I came over for dinner and then we'd always play video games or somethin'. Tai and I gave up board games pretty quickly because of my semblance. Couldn't be too luck-based, y'see, unless I could cheat. But good luck finding a kid's game that doesn't include dice or some shit. I cheated a lot", he told her.

"I'm sorry, let me get this straight", Winter interjected before he could go on. "You cheated so your nieces would win?"

"Well, yeah?", said Qrow. "I mean, at least sometimes. When they were little."

"That's insane", stated Winter. "They should have learned how to cope with defeat and to try harder the next time! You can't just let them win!" She frowned when he looked at her with a strange expression. "What? It's true! If you let them win undeservedly all the time they will never learn the value of hard work", she told him earnestly.

"They were only games, Winter", he said slowly. She still stared at him disbelievingly and Qrow quickly continued with the story: "Anyway. As Yang got older, 'bout 15 or 16, she started to go out with her friends on the weekends and Tai had a lot of work to do at the time because they were short-staffed at Signal, so it often ended up just being me and Ruby."

"Wait, weren't you a teacher at Signal too?", Winter interrupted him again. "Why didn't you have a lot of work to do as well?"

Qrow wordlessly raised his wine glass.

"Oh. I see."

"Yep. Nobody in their right mind would try to make metake on more responsibilities than absolutely necessary. And I was always running missions for Oz anyway. So I spent most of my Friday nights with Ruby. For a while we played video games together, but I always kicked her butt. Still do, actually. Gotta keep my cool uncle badge."

Qrow was positively beaming now. As soon as he had started talking about his nieces the dark red eyes had lit up like a beacon and the longer he spoke, the more animated he became; smiling and gesticulating with his hands for emphasis. He looked younger that way, thought Winter. Less weary.

"Well, at some point we got sick of video games – or at least Ruby got sick of losing – so we started watching TV together", he continued. "First it was Mysteries of Mistral and then Guns 'n Blades – those guys get so much wrong, you wouldn't believe it, Ruby could rant about 'em for hours – 'n then at some point we landed on Remnant's Next Top Model and for some reason we stuck with it. It became kind of a tradition. Heh, we trash talked the judges all night and then we'd place bets on who'd get to the next round and if you lost, you had to do shots." When Winter looked at him aghast he added hastily: "Juice of course! Jeez, what did you think? I'm not giving alcohol to the kids; Tai would have my head! Though I occasionally spiked my own glass when Ruby wasn't looking..." He chortled at the memory.

"Not that I am suggesting you should have given your minor niece alcohol, but what was the point of doing shots of juice, precisely?", asked Winter dryly and looked up at Qrow with a mildly confused expression on her face. "At least for Ruby. I suppose for you it might actually have been a kind of punishment." The whole thing sounded plain ridiculous to Winter. She suspected it to be some sort of family bonding ritual, but seeing as her experience with family bonding was quite limited she was not entirely sure whether or not it was also considered normal.

Qrow gave a raspy laugh. "I usually made Ruby drink tomato juice. Hates it with a passion", he explained. "But then she'd make medrink water all night if I lost. That girl..." Qrow chuckled and shook his head. "Although that one time-", he began and then had to start over because he couldn't stop snickering. "That one time she really got one over me! Well, almost, thanks to Yang. She – Ruby I mean – she once bought this red berry juice from her pocket money and hid it in her room. The next time I came over she took the bottle of tomato juice from the fridge, poured it all out into the sink and refilled it with the berry stuff. It looked exactly the same!", said Qrow, with a sweeping motion of his hands. "I never even would have noticed! She was drinking it all night, pretending the taste was terrible." He took a large gulp from his wine.

"How did you find out?", Winter demanded to know. The corners of her mouth were twitching. Qrow grinned.

"Ha! You'll love this, Schnee. So, it was getting close to midnight, right, and we were still sitting there yelling at the screen and then Yang came home. Back from dancing with her friends, y'see. So, she comes in, sees the bottle on the table and says…" He made a dramatic pause before he switched into a voice impression of Yang: " 'Oh, is there still tomato juice left? Sweet! I guess Ruby's winning today, eh?' And pours herself a glass. Ruby totally panicked and started shouting!" Qrow pitched his voice another octave to imitate Ruby: " 'Nooo, Yang, you can't have that! We might still need it!'" He waved the pizza slice in his hand around emphatically. Winter tried to stifle another snicker and failed miserably. From what her sister had told her, the impression of his niece was spot on.

"Yang rolls her eyes and is all 'Ruby, relax, I'm having one glass!' and bam, kicks it back before Ruby can stop her." Qrow demonstrated this by emptying his own glass. "And then she just looks at us with this totally serious expression on her face and says" – he sat up straight and put on a frown – "'Ruby. This is berry juice.' And we all just stare at each other until Yang's suddenly shouting at the top of her voice: 'Ruby! Are you seriously cheating against uncle Qrow?!' and Ruby's yelling back 'Yang! How can you betray me like this!' and I justlost it. It was priceless!", he guffawed, his whole body shaking. Tears were streaming down his face. Winter, too, had lost the battle to mad giggling. "We made her drink tomato juice for every breakfast for a whole week as a punishment. And I always checked from then on", Qrow finished the story and tried to wipe his eyes with a hand where he had somehow managed to entangle every single one of his rings in Winter's hair.

"That was quite a story", she said, after they had both calmed down again. Qrow saw the smile still playing around her lips. "You clearly care a great deal about your nieces." Her eyes went distant for a moment. Qrow pretended not to have noticed it, reaching for the pizza on the coffee table instead.

"Family man, remember?", he said and took the last slice. "The girls are everything to me", he added fondly, proffering the piece to Winter, who accepted the offer gracefully. "Even if they drive me up the wall sometimes", he added.

"I found it hard to believe. That you are a family man, I mean", said, Winter though her voice lacked the hardness and cynicism it normally had. "But it turns out you are a tad more complex than I thought." Qrow laughed.

Winter bit into her pizza.

The pineapple had turned out to be surprisingly good.