Chapter Text

As long as she kept her shoulders out of the water, Velvet rationalized, she probably wasn’t breaking any rules...

Coco rolled her eyes a little, familiar with but not approving of her girlfriend’s line-toeing tendencies. Even when said line being toed was stupid, unenforceable, and more than a little racist. So she leaned back in the hot tub, arms resting on its cheap plastic lip, rolling her neck so she could glare at the signage keeping her girlfriend from properly enjoying the tub.

TELAMON HOTEL HOT TUB RULES:

· MUST BE 18 YEARS OF AGE

· NO ALCOHOL

· NO TOPLESS BATHING

· NO FUR

Only the fact that they’d spent the past twelve hours on two airships kept Coco from starting a familiar argument. She was just too exhausted for that. So she started an unfamiliar one instead.

“You don’t have to come with me, you know,” began Coco, trying and failing to catch Velvet’s eye. Her teammate’s gaze remained focused on her own two feet, which were being gently buffeted by one of the tub’s jets.

“Seems like that’d be rather a waste of an airship ticket to Atlas,” Velvet answered, still staring down at bubbles beneath her.

“I never said you guys had to come to Atlas, either,” Coco replied, her voice softening a little. “Or even should.”

In actuality, Coco hadn’t even told Velvet that she was going to Atlas. She’d packed her bags the night before, while the rest of her teammates were studying in the library, slipped out of the CFVY dorm before either the sun or her roommates had risen. She should have known better, of course, but it still came as a surprise to find the three of them waiting for her in the departure lounge, Fox and Velvet clutching cups of bad coffee like their lives depended on them. How exactly they’d managed to both discover her secret excursion and beat her to the aerodrome was a mystery Coco still hadn’t entirely solved, and they’d all remained rather infuriatingly tight-lipped about it.

“It’s what a good partner would do, isn’t it?” asked Velvet, managing to raise her chin from her chest. Coco felt something quicken inside her as Velvet peered into her with those bottomless brown eyes of hers. Eyes that reflected the sorrow she felt for Coco’s anguish, but also shone with a resolute determination to be there when it mattered. “And besides, I want to.”

“Velvs, I’m going to a dinner with my father which will - in all likelihood - end with him disowning me.” She managed to keep her tone level as she forecasted her own future, not letting any trace of nervousness slip into her voice. “There’s going to be screaming, swearing, someone’s probably going to break something expensive. It will be brutal. It’s…” she paused, hesitating for a moment as Velvet stared unflinchingly down at her, “it’s… not the kind of thing anyone should be subjected to, if they can avoid it.”

“All the more reason for me to be there,” Velvet answered, her tone silk draped over steel.

Coco sighed, heartened and annoyed at her partner’s stubbornness in equal measure. The last thing she wanted was someone as sweet as her Velvs getting dragged into the maelstrom that was her family’s private drama. Velvet usually deferred to her wishes, particularly when they came to matters of privacy, but she’d been rather uncharacteristically insistent as of late. Or rather, as of the time her father had called and not-so-subtly demanded his daughter spend the winter vacation at the family chalet back in Atlas.

Coco had agreed, if only because her father’s ultimatum deserved a proper response. She’d set off on the trip home with every intention of it being her last. Velvet knew that, of course, and was standing close enough to feel the heat of all the bridges Coco was burning. But that a girl who flinched at so much as raised voices was demanding to be present for what promised to be a shouting match for the ages had puzzled Coco. At first. And then she’d clued in as to why exactly Velvet was so insistent on being there, and that warmed her in a way she could never put to words.

“Alright, fine, you can come, Velvs,” Coco finally said, ignoring the positively triumphant grin on her teammate’s face. She rubbed her temples. “Just do me a favor - say hell to the rules and get in the fucking hot tub.”

Velvet's grin vanished, replaced with a disapproving scowl. “I don’t like causing trouble when I can avoid it,” she muttered, kicking her feet just enough to splash.

Coco snorted. “Velvs, you’re enabling me in what will probably be the most newsworthy act of juvenile delinquency since Winter ‘Legally Disowned by her Father’ Schnee. I’m already in trouble.”

She paused, a smile creeping across her face. “Would it help if I took my top off?” she said with a distressingly sultry purr, drifting across the tub towards Velvet. “Join you in your rebellion?”

The Faunus kicked up another splash of water. “Lech,” she shot back.

“I’m not hearing a no…”

A few dozen feet away, in the hotel’s actual pool, Fox was staring up at the ceiling. Or at least, he was damn well trying to.

His nose sunk beneath the surface of the water and he let out a spluttering cough, swinging forward so that the balls of his feet rested on the pool’s floor again. The water only came up to his torso, which was a very good thing given the total lack of progress he’d made with his swimming lessons.

“Just a head’s up,” came Yatsuhashi’s voice, about an arm’s length away from Fox, “I wouldn’t try to go to the hot tub for the next few minutes.”

“Oh, I know,” muttered Fox, rubbing the bridge of his nose in an attempt to dissipate the sensation of chlorinated water having flowed up it. “If you haven’t noticed, Coco has this high-pitched giggle that she only does when she’s…” He let the sentence trail off.

Yatsuhashi returned his attention to the aspiring swimmer. “Do you want to try floating again?” he asked, the water rippling slightly as he took a step towards Fox. “No cheating with your Aura this time, either.”

Fox let out a sigh. “Fine,” he conceded. But not without a moment of snark: “Because if I ever actually do need to swim, it definitely won’t be a situation where I’ll be using my Aura.”

“It’s important to learn how to swim naturally,” answered Yatsuhashi, with that infinite patience of his. “At the very least, it can’t hurt.”

Fox couldn’t swim. That was the end of the story. Growing up almost-completely blind ensured that the slightest athletic activity had terrified his adult guardians. He’d never been in anything deeper than a bath, let alone open water. He’d managed to keep the secret from Coco for the entire year that he’d known her, which had been easy enough since Hyades Academy lacked a pool. But shortly after the two had arrived at Beacon Coco had insisted on dragging him to the cavernous Academy pool, and he’d only been able to come up with delays and excuses for so long before the jig was up.

His lie of omission had won him no favors from his newly-appointed Team Leader, and she’d been her usual, unyielding self in insisting he learn, excuses be damned. He’d endured Coco’s few informal swim lessons more than anything else, even if Velvet was a pretty good teacher when Coco wasn’t distractingher. Hadn’t made any progress, he was quick to note, but Fox had a lifetime of inexperience and bad instincts to overcome first.

And then, Yatsu had taken over…

“This… might be easier… if you took your clothes off,” said Yatsuhashi, with an awkwardness that made it clear that he was aware of his phrasing.

Rather than take the high road and interpret the words as they’d been intended, Fox grabbed the opportunity for teasing. “My, my, Yatsu, you haven’t even bought me dinner yet,” he said with a smirk, one palm finding a home on his partner’s broad chest.

Yatsuhashi frowned. “You know, I actually have,” he answered, making no move to break the contact. “On multiple occasions. Just last week at that wok place downtown.” Yatsuhashi paused. “It’s almost midnight, Fox, just us in the pool and the girls in the tub. I’ll let you know if anyone enters.”

Fox hesitated for a long moment, then shrugged with as much nonchalance as he could muster, conceding both points. “Fine.” After just a fleeting pause he slipped out of the water-logged shirt he’d been hiding under, and awkwardly hopped out of his shorts a moment later. Yatsuhashi collected them and placed them on the tiled deck, lest they drift away.

Fox folded his arms across his chest, his eyelids drifting shut. If Yatsuhashi was at all disquieted by the scars lacing Fox’s torso he’d never given the faintest clue. Coco had let slip a memorable curse when she’d walked in on him changing for the first time, even though she insisted that the scars were very fetching, in a rugged kind of way. Velvet’s soft gasp had been loud as a gunshot in his ears.

“Coco said to bring swimwear,” Yatsuhashi gently chided, as Fox adjusted his underwear. Charitably pretending it was a simple lapse of memory on Fox’s part.

“Yeah, and she also said I should learn to swim. And get laid more,” he muttered back. “How’s that working out?”

Even blind, he knew Yatsuhashi was shaking his head. “Alright, I’m in position. Lean back in three… two...one…”

Fox slid backwards in the water, desperately trying to keep his hips near the surface. Neither Coco nor Velvet had made much progress in overcoming his instinct to contract his muscles and tense up, as he usually did in response to a bodily shock, and Fox had rapidly become annoyed with his own unthinking responses.

Yatsuhashi’s arm drifted beneath him, one large hand splaying wide beneath his lower back. The swordsman’s palm rested there, just above Fox’s waist, where the scars stood out like a dozen jagged seams.

Fox had never told Yatsu how much he liked that his partner didn’t flinch when touching them.

“Deep breaths,” coached Yatsuhashi, helping Fox arch his back slightly. “Air makes you buoyant.”

Fox bit back a quick-witted retort about those filled with hot air, for once choosing instead to simply focus on breathing. Inhale. Exhale. To focus on the sensation of Yatsu’s hand beneath him, even after that hand had drifted away, and Fox was left floating on his own...

“That was much better,” coached Yatsuhashi, after Fox finally returned to his feet. “You need to kick just a little more, but you’ll have that down soon.”

Fox reached out with his arms, trying to remember where the edge of the deck was, but one hand caught on Yatsuhashi’s arm. “Yeah,” he agreed, tilting his head upwards. “I think we’re getting closer.”

A giggled shriek from the hot tub caught Yatsuhashi’s attention, and Fox let go a second later, proceeding to haul himself inelegantly out of the pool.

Thanks to the interruption, Yatsuhashi never had the opportunity to ponder his partner’s choice of words.