Chapter Text

Coco let out a long sigh, taking off her sunglasses to reveal dark bags under both of her eyes. "I think it'd do us some good, help us move on," she finally admitted, sounding defeated, refusing to look up at Ozpin. "Team CFVY it is."

When Ozpin had asked Velvet about skipping a year to take an open spot on a second-year team, she knew her presence might not be welcome. No one had said anything about why there was an open spot, but almost no one left combat school willingly after getting in. On the rare occasion it happened, it didn't leave a team in shambles

"You want us to what?" Coco demanded, fury slipping into her voice. A first-year. Ozpin wanted them to take on a first-year - someone even younger than Forest had been, someone who was just a child.

Her teammates are courteous enough, but there's a tension in the dorm that won't go away - wan smiles that fade too quickly when they see her and quiet discussions that stop when she walks into the room. She doesn't complain about the team name, even though it's clear it was designed with another person's name in mind. The rest of her team doesn't seem to notice the mockery from strangers when they're told she's part of team coffee. Her name doesn't fit into the team's any more than she fits into the team.

Coco shook her head sharply when Ozpin started to talk about changing the team name to something more suited to the new letters. "Team Coffee - C-F-V-Y." She wasn't about to change everything about the team - and the name still fit, even if the spelling was unusual.

Not that they actively try to exclude her - if anything, they go out of their way to make sure she feels included in team exercises.

"What are our other options?" Coco all but begged. Ozpin can't offer any, though. Coco just wanted one last chance to go back to her team with a different answer, even though they'd already said yes to Velvet.

She reminds herself she chose this - she could have attended initiation with the rest of her peers - and reminds herself that there's a reason she chose this when she sees her peers, and shudders to think what could have happened out in the Emerald Forest if she had gone.

"Velvet seems nice enough," Yatsuhashi ventured, speaking for the first time. "I wouldn't mind…" he trailed off, unable to call her partner. "I wouldn't mind," he repeated, mostly to himself.

That was the thing though - she seemed wonderful, like she'd fit in just fine with the rest of the team; there was no reason for any of them to object to her presence, but none of them wanted to say yes because that would be saying Forest was really gone.

A chill had run down her spine when she'd met team CRDL - if she had run into one of them in the forest… She tries not to think about what could have gone wrong there.

"If she says yes, I mean, we don't know what her year-mates are like. I'm not sure I'd feel right leaving her to that," Coco said with an air of defeat. "But it's up to you, Yatsu. It has to be a unanimous decision."

They do their best to make her feel welcome, and in return, she does her best to understand that they're still mourning the loss of one of their teammates.

Sometimes there's an unavoidable accident, though - like when Velvet accidentally dropped her hairbrush on the tile floor. The cracking noise makes her teammates jump, all of them reaching for weapons they don't have. "I'm sorry," she whispers, ears laying back flat against her head.

The room had been silent up until that point, and Coco runs her hand through her hair. "It's okay, Velvs."

The tension that starts up isn't so easily forgotten though - not that anyone is placing blame on anyone.

Coco pulled her knees up to her chest when Velvet left, not even sure how to begin the conversation with Fox and Yatsuhashi. Velvet seemed nice enough - and fit in well enough - there wasn't a reason to say no.

"It just - I don't want to feel like we're replacing Forest. But I think I'd like a fourth person on the team," Fox said.

Velvet stays up late that night - she has a lot of theory to catch up on, even if her combat scores were high enough to skip a year - and she doesn't have to disturb any of her teammates with a light with her faunus eyesight.

There were differences, there definitely were. But she was the same height, had the same soft features, the same gentle smile. And none of them could forget that Forest had been the youngest of the four of them, too.

It's not a sound that draws her attention to Fox, it's just a tiny movement - he's started to twitch in his sleep, tensing and relaxing. Now that she's paying attention, she can see tears leaking out of the corners of his eyes.

"Fox?" she whispers, not wanting to disturb their two teammates. When that doesn't wake him, she gently shakes his shoulder.

He wakes with a startled gasp, blinking up at her, still tense at first as if ready for a fight. "Coco? Did I wake you?" he asks after a moment, rubbing his eyes.

"Velvet," she corrects, "and no, I was still up working on classwork." She reaches behind her to grab the glass of water she'd had for herself and offers it to Fox.

He takes it with a quiet noise of gratitude, head bowed as if to hide the tears. "I'm sorry."

She puts her hand on his. "It's okay, I promise, I was already awake." Seeing that he's still shaking, she sits down on the bed next to him, wraps an arm around his shoulders. "Do you want to talk about it?"

His hands tightened around the water glass tightly enough she's afraid it will shatter. "No, it's okay. Go back to sleep, Velvs." The smile he offers is tight and fades quickly.

"I'll be up for a while yet," she says with a shrug and a brief hug before moving back to her desk. He doesn't take her up on the offer, nor does he lay back down, sitting on his bed with his head bowed.

"She's a child, Ozpin, absolutely not!" Coco paced around the office refusing to even consider it. "I won't take someone else that young into a warzone to die."

"Velvet has had consistently higher marks than - "

She whirled to face Ozpin, voice dropping into an angry hiss. "Do not go there. Forest was a plenty capable fighter, and in the end it didn't matter."

The next time she checks on a teammate, it's not so gentle - she's actually asleep when Coco wakes up the entire room with her scream.

But it's an unfair assessment, as Fox is already awake and Yatsuhashi is nowhere to be found. Velvet goes over to her leader, glass of water in hand. "Coco? You're safe," she offers. It's the only thing she can offer at this hour - some three a.m. or later.

"Fuck," she mutters, taking the glass of water. "Didn't mean to wake you." Her hands tremble so badly water threatens to slosh over the sides of the glass - at least until she sets it to one side and runs her fingers through her hair.

Velvet goes to sit down on the bed, but Coco stands up abruptly, putting on the first pair of shoes she can find, not bothering with beret or sunglasses. "I'm going to go find Yatsu," she says as she stalks out, not quite slamming the door behind her.

Fox just shakes his head before Velvet can even ask, so she just slips into the bathroom to start her day; might as well get a jump start now that she was wide awake.

"Coco, I have a proposition for you," Ozpin said when she arrived. "While your team is more than capable right now, I have an incoming first-year student whose combat scores make her better suited to second-year. I thought she might be a good fit for your team. Her name is Velvet Scarlatina and I think you should at least meet her before you make a decision."

Coco's jaw went slack - Ozpin couldn't be serious.

Her partner is elusive as well - it takes a little over a week for her to realize he's spending more nights away from the dorm than in his own bed.

The next night she sees him slip out, she grabs her shoes and a book and follows him, though she suspects she knows exactly where he's going.

He doesn't acknowledge her presence at all when she settles down next to him in the gym, leaning up against the wall by the punching bag he's trying to demolish. She opens the book she brought to try and read it.

"Velvet, go get some sleep," he says about twenty minutes later, not breaking his pattern of jabs and punches. "I don't need the company."

"I'd like to meet them first," Velvet compromised. "Make my decision then." Ozpin had agreed easily, saying that the rest of the team would also have to agree to her presence as well.

Knocking on the dorm room a little while later, she wondered how welcome she would actually be.

"I don't think I could have slept anyway," she admits, not looking up from her book. The thing is she has her own issues too, her own problems, but she doesn't want to bother her team - they have enough on their plate without her petty disputes with the other first years. (She still thought of herself as one, sometimes, especially when other teams accused her of being stuck up because she had skipped initiation and been placed on a second-year team, as if she'd asked for it.)

"It won't be easy, Velvet, and I apologize for asking this of you, but I think you'd do the three of them some good," Ozpin said. "I have complete faith in you - and your combat skills are more than up to par. You'll have to take some theory classes, but nothing too strenuous."

He pauses at that and wipes his face down with a towel. "Join me for tea, then?" he asks. "Coco will be along in a little while." It's a small kindness on his part, but still a meaningful reach across the gulf that has formed on the team.

It was a weighty question - should she trust Ozpin's judgement or should she risk going through initiation with the rest of the first years? Neither were an appealing proposition, but maybe if she got to meet them first…

Velvet follows him, thankful he didn't try to push her away too. Even though they sit in silence - neither of them voicing what's bothering them - it's something at least.

And when both Coco and Fox come and join them in the wee hours of the morning, both of them with bags under their eyes, it feels like the start of something - of being team CFVY.

"Hello, am I speaking to Velvet Scarlatina?" a voice had asked the moment she picked up the phone. She stammered out a yes. "My name is Professor Ozpin, head of Beacon academy, and I have a proposal for you."