Chapter Text

"A round of shots for every Huntress in the bar!"

Velvet winced a little at the jubilant cheers that followed, at the shouts of excitement and boisterous cries of drunken revelers. Normally her second set of ears didn't give her too many problems - problems besides flagging her as a Faunus, of course - but between the pounding beat of the music and the cacophony of a dozen conversations being shouted over it, Velvet was beginning to get a little overwhelmed.

She went against the current, pushing through the crush of bodies making their way to the bar in the hopes of finding a pocket of space for herself. She wasn't claustrophobic - most of her childhood had been spent in one overcrowded building or another - but people became unpredictable in crowds, and doubly so while imbibed. She'd spent most of her life avoiding exactly these kinds of settings, when lowered inhibitions and a posse of friends might push a human to do something they'd only ever fantasized about…

It was unfair - that she should feel so nervous on a day celebrating everything special about her - but she had too many memories to change that feeling anytime soon. Today was the Feast of Youloumain - at least by the new calendar - though for most the 'feast' referred entirely to pub grub and beers. Traditionally, it was a day commemorating Huntsmen and Huntresses and their struggles against the Grimm, albeit one that was mostly an excuse to say a few nice words about the long-deceased and then down a celebratory pint. But with the 'Breach' - as everybody had taken to calling the surprise Grimm attack in central Vale - still fresh in everyone's minds, the festivities seemed to have been kicked up a frantic notch.

"Not taking the free drink?"

Velvet glanced wordlessly at Fox, wondering for the umpteenth time how he knew it was her. Over the past year she'd learned most of his tricks for identifying people - their gait, their perfume, the 'feel' of their Aura - though how he'd picked her out of a crowded, deafening bar was still beyond her.

"Never been one for drinking in public," she admitted, raising her voice slightly to be heard above whatever Achieve Men club remix was being blasted. "And besides, my Father always warned me about accepting drinks from strangers," she said. A grin crossed her face as she caught a glimpse Yang Xiao Long's blonde hair and muscled arms bouncing in the dance floor's sea of humanity. Not hers, evidently. "You?"

Fox grunted. "You've seen how clumsy I am sober, no need to pour gasoline on the fire. Or liquor."

Velvet smiled at that, leaning against her teammate so he could feel her gentle pressure on him. "You're not that clumsy."

Another grunt, though this one had a contemplative note to it. It was true that he moved about far better than most other people with a near-complete absence of vision. Being a Huntsman demanded no less. Rooms and crowds he could navigate well-enough, in the close quarters of a chaotic mêlée the disadvantage seemed at most a minor inconvenience, even less so when he was following the cues of his team. It was mostly the small things that still tripped him up - misjudging the distance of a pen on his desk, stubbing his toe on a carelessly placed textbook. Were it not for his Aura he'd have been covered in a patchwork quilt of scrapes and bruises.

"That was my polite way of saying," Fox began, careful to keep his tone flat, "that I think you and I avoid drinking for the same reason."

In his own admittedly-fairly-limited-experiences, people tended to react to losing their vision in one of two ways. Option A was to open up, to throw yourself out there and trust that humanity on the whole was more benevolent than not. He knew a few people who went through life that way, and some part of the back of his mind was happy that they could make it work. Option B, conversely, was to clam up, to withdraw, to try to hold on to whatever shreds of control you still had and guard them jealously.

Fox's thumb idly traced one of the scars running up his bicep. He certainly wasn't the first type.

"Where's Coco?" he asked, after the silence between them had grown just a little too long. Velvet scanned the crowd with eyes honed by years in the field.

"Other side of the bar, in one of the booths," she answered, a few seconds later. "She's with Weiss Schnee. Both have martinis."

"'Girl talk'," supplied Fox, though the mockery in his voice was mostly feigned. Knowing those two, they were probably swapping notes on hostile takeover strategies. "Yatsu?"

Much easier to spot. "At the bar, between Xiao Long and Nora Valkyrie - the short girl from JNPR. He's either refereeing a drinking competition or trying to keep them from killing each other." She squinted. "Possibly both."

"…Do you want to leave?"

They spoke the same words at the same time, their voices crossing over. Then they stared at one another. Or at least, Velvet stared at Fox, and Fox glanced at what he was pretty sure was Velvet's eyeline. Velvet giggled.

"They seem to be having a good time," she noted, even if Yatsuhashi was looking more haggard by the minute. Still, he was born to play the older brother, and first years made such unruly siblings. "I'd feel bad to spoil their fun."

"Yeah," murmured Fox in agreement, glossing over the fact that they'd both been willing to do exactly that moments ago. He shuffled slightly. "Wanna just slip out for a few minutes?"

"Sure," said Velvet, glancing around the room. "There's a back door by the washrooms, I think it's a shortcut."

"I'll take your word for it," replied Fox, deferring to her judgment in a building unfamiliar to him.

Velvet surveyed the thronging masses between here and there. "Take my hand?"

They were familiar words, part of a ritual Team CFVY had created in the trial-and-error of their first weeks together. Fox required physical guidance far less than most blind men, and in an environment like Beacon he was twice as unwilling to be seen needing it. So when he really did need someone physically directing him, when sound and memory alone would not suffice, they'd settled on holding hands as the best course of action. Yatsuhashi actually did know the accepted technique for guiding the visually impaired, but Fox refused point-blank to remain a half-step behind Yatsu with his hand around the swordsman's arm. But he couldn't really complain about being lead by the hand. Such a method would have been unsafe in most cases, but even blind Fox's balance and reflexes were to the extreme right of the bell curve, and his powerful Aura meant he didn't have to fear a sprained ankle or a bruised arm.

That, and so long as it was Coco or Velvet doing the hand-holding, it was a hell of a lot more discreet.

Fox hesitated for just a fraction of a second. He'd told his teammates time and time again that if he was taking too long to get somewhere they should just give him a yank in the right direction. And they all did, with varying degrees of comfort - mostly Coco when he spent too long groping about for misplaced toiletries - but Velvet never missed the way he tensed up at unexpected contact.

Fox uncrossed one arm a moment later, leaving his hand outstretched as if formally asking for a dance. Velvet took it with a wry grin and a moment later they were off, threading through sweaty bodies like snakes in the grass. Transposition Semblances might have been one-in-a-million, but bloody hell would Velvet have appreciated one right then.

They stepped out into a back alley a minute later, even the miasma of a nearby dumpster doing nothing to diminish the crispness of the evening air. When Velvet forgot to release his hand Fox slipped it from hers, reflexively. Only belatedly did he consider an alternative explanation for her extended hand-holding, followed immediately by an unanticipated pang of regret.

If Velvet was at all disquieted or disappointed, he couldn't tell. "Oh, that's much better," she breathed, massaging the base of her more prominent set of ears. Her voice sounded like she'd just slipped into a hot tub. "Too loud."

"Much too loud," agreed Fox. Sheer volume didn't hurt him the way it did Velvet, but the disorienting effect of a sonic assault was unpleasant enough in its own right.

He heard Velvet's footsteps a few feet away, the light patter of leather shoes on pavement. He trailed behind her, almost unthinkingly.

"The Feast of Youloumain, eh?" mused Velvet, once the ringing in her ears had largely subsided. "You know the whole legend behind it is actually pretty horrifying by today's standards."

"Can't say I ever learned it," replied Fox. It wasn't an uncommon response. Books in Braille had been a scarce commodity in his childhood.

"In the original story there's this Huntsman named - ah, Dust, what was his name again? Oscar-something? 'Youloumain' actually refers to the King, by the way. Anyways, in the story this Huntsman, or proto-Huntsman, is trying to woo the King's daughter, only she's having none of it because she thinks he's unwashed and crude and an all-around pompous arse. Only one day the Grimm attack the Kingdom, and it turns out there's only one Huntsman who can save them." Velvet's hands curled into fists of righteous anger. "So he slays all the Grimm, and everyone is incredibly thankful, and King Youloumain has a big feast for whatever-his-name-is. And at the end of the feast, drum roll please…" Velvet glanced over her shoulder, scowling at the lack of participation from the audience. "The King gives his daughter to the Huntsman as a reward!"

"Isn't that the plot of a kids movie?" asked Fox.

Velvet snorted. "Yup, only the highest-grossing animated movie of all time. Amazing soundtrack. Though I couldn't help but notice that they left out the part where the King's daughter is tied to a chair and hoisted to the bedroom by a band of rapist-enablers."

Splash. Velvet's foot hit a shallow puddle a few feet in front of Fox. He sidestepped it a moment later.

"Feast of Youloumain! Thanks for saving us from the Grimm! Now take your pick of probably-underage women for non-consensual bedroom-"

Thung.

Velvet spun around, turning to face Fox, who was now rubbing his head with a gloved hand. "Ow." His Aura had effectively dampened the collision's impact, but it was jarring all the same.

"Did you just… walk into a fire escape ladder?" While her first instinct would normally have been to rush to anyone else's side, Velvet had long ago learned that Fox preferred to deal with his stumbles by himself.

"Is that what this is?" Fox's hand reached out, fingers curling around the lowest rung of a ladder attached to the wall. "You trying to get me killed, Velvs?"

She scoffed, both at his insinuation and his appropriation of Coco's nickname for her. (Well, one of them, at least). "I was strolling down the middle of the alley. Remnant knows why you were walking pressed up against the wall."

"You stepped in a puddle," Fox offered, still not moving. His fingers strummed the rung. "This ladder go anywhere?"

Velvet glanced up. "Rooftop of the bar we were just in, I'd wager. Or one of the adjacent shops."

"Wanna take a look?"

Velvet rolled her eyes at his choice of words. "Ha-ha. I presume that's private property, Fox."

"Mm." With a short hop he grasped the ladder, pulling himself up in one fluid motion. "But it's the day where Huntsmen do as they please, remember?"

"We're going to get in trouble!" she called out, as he continued to ascend.

"I just want to wander around," Fox shouted back, leaning slightly over the lip of the building. "Don't worry, I'm sure I'll find all the edges by myself."

"Arsehole," mumbled Velvet, sighing heavily. Glancing around to make sure nobody was watching - she'd jumped out of airships with less apprehension than this - she scampered up the ladder as fast as her arms could pull her.

Fox had barely moved from the top of the ladder, idly toeing a leaf that had drifted to the roof, still crisp underfoot. They could still make out the pounding bass of the bar, but it was mercifully muted. The two Hunters wordlessly crossed the length of the building, before Velvet found a well-positioned air-conditioning unit for them to perch on.

"There's a fire in the distance," Velvet noted, though there was no agitation in her voice. She squinted. "Probably burning some Grimm in effigy over where the Breach was."

"You'd think this town would've had enough monsters for a few weeks," mused Fox. He leaned back, staring up towards the sky. Velvet followed suit a moment later, two pairs of legs left dangling.

"I can't see the stars tonight," Velvet said, referring to the thick clouds overhead. The more time she spent with Fox, the more she found herself idly describing her surroundings. Just random details that caught her eye, like the intricate masonry of an old road, or the colors of the leaves on Beacon's grounds. She wasn't entirely sure if he liked it, but he'd never once interrupted her.

"Me neither," Fox replied, earning him a soft punch from Velvet. He grinned a little. "I can still remember them, though."

Velvet turned her head to face him. "The stars?"

He nodded. "Not all of them, obviously. But all the big constellations and a lot of the smaller ones." He propped himself upright, his gaze focused on the horizon. "Which way's north?"

Velvet sat up, casting about. A few Faunus she knew could tell what direction they were facing almost all the time, but she was not one of them. "Beacon's that way so… you're facing it."

Fox nodded softly. "First day of Autumn in downtown Vale…"

His arm jutted out at an angle. "The Wolf, or the Beowolf, whatever you call it." The arm drifted a little. "The Dwarves. The Cursed Prince. The Bears. Or again, the Ursa, depending on where you're from."

His arm drifted a little more, gently brushing against Velvet's. Her heart skipped a beat. With anyone else the gesture would have been an accident, but not Fox. He paid far too much attention to his surroundings to have forgotten where she was, for his choice of extended contact to have been anything but deliberate.

"I still can't see them," Velvet murmured, "but I'll take your word for it." He grinned a little as his usual line was played back to him, wry amusement slipping past a mask of stony stoicism.

"I know you grew up in the Southern Hemisphere so you're probably used to stars that look completely different, and I never learned what they look like so…" He was speaking fast, almost tripping over his words, an incredibly rarity. Then he paused, taking a calming breath through his nose as he did.

Velvet's hand found his, and this time he didn't flinch. His breaths were like thunder to her ears. She listened to each deep inhale, to each long exhale, her hand moving up his bare arm with the utmost delicacy as she did.

Inhale. Exhale.

Her right hand found his face a minute later, and her left quickly came to join it. She played across his features, tracing the contours of his cheekbones, his jaw. They'd done this once before but with the roles reversed, Velvet seated stock-still in their dorm while her newly-assigned teammate brushed over her skin with otherworldly deliberation. Coco had gone first, then Yatsu; she was the last to have Fox's hands on her face. She could still remember his look of surprise as he'd found her leporine ears, his arms straining to reach their tips…

She kissed him first, turning his jaw ever-so-slightly until their lips were in perfect alignment. She felt his hands at her back a moment later, encircling her, pulling them together as their lips locked and parted a dozen times. She closed her eyes, shutting out the sights of the world, her universe collapsing to the pressure of his lips on her face, of his breath on her skin, of his body against hers.

They kissed until the fireworks erupted, until the night sky was pockmarked with celebratory starbursts. Fox could only faintly sense the bright flashes of phosphorescent light, but for once he didn’t mind the absence of Velvet's commentary, enjoying the simple entwining of their hands far more than any description she could have provided.

Their serenity was shattered a few minutes later by the sounds of a scuffle breaking out on the pavement. Velvet peered over the edge at the ruckus two stories below.

"See how fuckin' tough you are without your hammer!" Yang screamed, barely restrained by both Lie Ren and Yatsuhashi. A few feet away one short-haired redhead was gleefully skipping around Yang, a handful of blonde hairs clutched triumphantly in her hand, all while being chased by two more Huntresses desperate to prevent the situation from escalating any further. "I've fucking had it with these fucking tiny menaces! Gimme two minutes, s'all the re-match I need!"

Coco glanced up, somehow sensing their presence, a finger sliding down reflective sunglasses to reveal exhausted eyes beneath.

"Velvs, Fox, get your asses down here," she ordered, her 'Team Leader' voice impossible to miss. "We've got a very tall drunk and a very short drunk. I don't care which one you take, but you're getting somebody into a cab."

Velvet shot him an apologetic glance. "Sorry, Fox," she said, tapping him on the arm before leaping off the building, landing with the grace only a Huntress could manage. He followed suit a moment later.

"We were having a moment," she hissed, mock-venom dripping from her voice as she passed her leader.

Coco grinned, knowingly. "This is why I can't let you out of my sight for a minute, Velvs," she teased. "Who knows what kind of trouble you'd get up to un-chaperoned?"

Velvet glanced at Coco, and caught the unmistakable glint of pride in her eyes. Whatever embarrassment, whatever confusion, whatever uncertainty she'd felt melted away at that.

"Only the best kind."