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When Barty breezed through the door, Oz was at his desk waiting. Ozpin always had the most waiting waiting face that Barty had ever seen but he didn’t ever look impatient.
Guess that’s what happens when you live long enough to see civilisations rise and crumble, you find a way to pass the time.
“Good evening,” Ozpin said.
“Evening,” Barty smiled, crossing the floor. “How did the landing strategies go today? I wish I had been there to see their little faces. Nothing distills the essence of a person into a single expression like being hurled off the top of a cliff.”
Oz flashed him a particularly choice number from his selection of knowing smiles, “Well, Mr. Arc was of particular interest.”
Barty fought back the urge to become alarmed. Ozpin wouldn’t be sitting there in all his traditional cat-who-got-the-cream glory if the young man had come to an unfortunate end. But that was a timely reminder… “Ah, yes. I’ve been meaning to discuss him with you. You know that I am a person who enjoys the minutia of life and I happened to be looking over the entrance applications of our current cohort and it came to my attention that..”
“The young man may have been slightly less than forthcoming in his paperwork?” Oz suggested.
“…he cheated.”
“Indeed,” Oz smiled.
Barty rolled his eyes, “And you knew. One day I’ll surprise you.”
“You surprise me every day. It’s one of your charms.”
“I’m glad that I have a selection from which to choose,” Barty smiled. Though he trusted Ozpin implicitly to make the right decisions for the students, the teacher in him could not help but double-check. “Are you sure that it’s a good idea to leave him in an elite program designed for skilled fighters?”
Ozpin pushed his chair back and beckoned him, “Come over, I have something to show you. Someone else has managed to surprise me today.”
“Hmmmm?” Barty mused as he walked around the desk. Ozpin took out his scroll and stood up, gesturing to the chair. Barty sat down and opened his arms wide, silently delighting in the fact that this little ritual had become so comfortable, so natural between them. Oz settled again in his lap, tilting the device so they could both see. Barty leaned his chin on Ozpin’s shoulder and enjoyed the sensation of the soft angora of Ozpin’s scarf catching on the 5 pm stubble on his chin.
This is what love is made of… not dramatic moments of revelation, just a thousand tiny, tender moments. The in-between places.
Ozpin caressed his cheek with one hand absentmindedly, “I admit I was a little concerned about our young man so I had a camera fixed on him.”
“So you could watch him splat into the canopy on repeat?” Barty teased. When he had first arrived in Beacon he’d been rather critical of the use of the landing strategy so early in the student experience. Particularly with the addition of spring-boarding the promising youth of today off a cliff… Since then, he had come to rather enjoy it.
Ozpin chuckled, “So I could provide timely assistance, if required.” He pressed play on the scroll and Barty watched as poor Jaune fell screeching through the sky.
“Not terribly dignified but highly expressive,” Oz muttered.
Just when it seemed as if Jaune was destined to become nothing more than an unfortunate rise in their insurance premiums, a golden spear shot through the air and pinned him to a tree. Ozpin stopped the video and grinned.
“Was that Ms. Nikos?” Barty asked.
“Indeed it was.”
Barty wrapped his arms around Ozpin’s waist and laughed, “When you told me how you manage the team allocations, I thought you were mad…”
“I’ll remember that,” Oz said in his amused and playfully threatening way.
“…but as time wore on I realised that there is a lot to say for letting fate play a role in these things. Apparently, fate has decided that our best student is going to be in a team with our uh… least experienced student.”
“I love surprises,” Ozpin beamed. “I have to say I see something in him that we need more of and I’m delighted that Ms. Nikos sees it too.”
“You’re sure it’s not just her natural instinct to help a person in need? I can’t recall ever seeing a student with more natural flair for the life of a huntress.”
“I think if you watch the two of them interact you will find that there is more than one reason why playing the knight in shining armour appeals to her…” Oz mused.
Barty squeezed Ozpin gently, “Ah, young love. It is such a beautiful and complex thing. I’m glad I grew out of it. So many hormones. Parts of your anatomy just defecting at a moment’s notice. Terribly inconvenient.”
Ozpin chuckled, “Sometimes I miss the clarity of it. A world rendered in black and white is comforting.”
“And fictional,” Barty tutted.
Ozpin snuggled back and sighed an appropriately melodramatic sigh, “You could indulge me, you know. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if you allowed me to wallow in fantasy for a few heady moments of bliss…”
Barty shook his head firmly, “I will not be an enabler of wallowing. However, I am fully supportive of blissful fantasy.” He lifted Ozpin’s weight and turned him gently in his lap. One hand rested around Ozpin’s waist and the other caressed his cheek.
“Then would you care to indulge me?” Ozpin asked softly.
“It would be my pleasure,” Barty smiled, as nimble fingers wrapped around his tie and pulled him in sharply for a kiss.
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