RWBY: Siblings Three (Malereader)

Smitten

"So, this is Ozpin?" The question hung in the air of the small, spartan room in the Mistral safehouse. A few days had passed since the carnage at Haven, but the tension hadn't so much dissipated as it had congealed, settling into a thick, uncomfortable layer over everyone.

Y/n leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed, his gaze fixed on the small, dark-haired boy sitting nervously on the edge of a cot. The boy, Oscar Pine, squirmed under the intensity of the stare. This wasn't the curious, awe-struck look of someone meeting a legend. This was the cold, assessing scrutiny of a predator sizing up a new variable.

"Yeah," Qrow confirmed from the corner, his voice gravelly with exhaustion and the dregs of his flask. "That's him. Or... the guy who's sharing his head with him."

A beat of silence. Y/n's eyes, still shadowed with the ghosts of recent violence, didn't waver. He pushed off the doorframe and took a single step into the room, his presence making the space feel suddenly smaller.

"So," Y/n said, his voice low and flat. "The great and powerful Oz, the man with all the secrets, the one who started this whole, millennia-long mess... is currently a kid who looks like he'd lose a fight with a strong breeze."

Oscar flinched.

"Y/n," Ruby said, her voice a gentle but firm warning from where she stood near the window.

Y/n ignored her, his focus entirely on Oscar. "When you die you reincarnate into someone else, so, in other words, Ozpin's been alive for hundreds, maybe thousands of years...called it." He plucked Oscar's forehead, it wasn't mean, or hurtful, it was playful, like the old Y/n.

For a split second, no one moved. No one breathed. Oscar stared, wide-eyed, one hand coming up to rub the spot, more in shock than pain. Ruby's warning died on her lips, her expression shifting from concern to pure, unadulterated bewilderment.

Then, a sound.

It was a choked, half-strangled thing that escaped Yang's throat. It wasn't quite a laugh, wasn't quite a sob. It was the sound of a dam cracking under impossible pressure. Her shoulders shook once, a single, silent tremor of disbelief.

Qrow, who had been mid-swig from his flask, lowered it slowly, his brow furrowed so deeply it looked like a plowed field. He stared at Y/n as if he'd just grown a second head.

Blake and Weiss exchanged a look of pure, uncomprehending whiplash. One moment he was a blood-soaked specter of vengeance, the next he was... plucking a kid's forehead like an annoying older brother.

Y/n, for his part, didn't seem to notice the nuclear reaction he'd just triggered. He was still looking at Oscar, a faint, almost imperceptible smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. It was the ghost of his old, sarcastic self, seen through a dark, distorted lens.

"Thousands of years of wisdom," Y/n mused, his tone light but his eyes still holding that unnerving sharpness. "And you end up as a farm boy who can't even grow a decent patch of strawberries. The irony is just... chef's kiss."

Oscar, utterly bewildered, blinked. "I... we grew... perfectly good strawberries..."

Ruby was the first to fully process it. A tiny, hesitant smile touched her lips, her silver eyes flickering between Y/n's faint smirk and Oscar's utterly bewildered expression. It was like seeing a ghost, but a friendly one, wearing the face of a monster she was still trying to comprehend.

Yang let out another strangled sound, this one closer to a laugh, though it was edged with hysterical relief. "You... you absolute jerk," she managed, shaking her head.

Qrow just sighed, a long, weary exhalation that seemed to come from the bottom of his soul. He ran a hand down his face. "I need a drink. A real one." He pointed a finger at Y/n. "You. Stop confusing everyone. It's been a long week."