Atin was relaxing on the bed, just beginning to contemplate sleep, when his door was smashed open, and the smell of cheap whiskey rolled into the room. He sat there, stunned at the sight of Qrow.
"Stop sitting there staring, kid. Come on, I have a lot of work to do with you, and no idea why I have to bother, so I'm not in a great mood right now." Qrow took a pull from his flask and began walking over towards Max's door, presumably to offer a repeat performance. A swift kick broke the door jamb, revealing Max sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at Qrow.
"Dude, what the fuck? For the time I'm living here, that's my door," Max complained. He leaned to the side, noticing Atin's door was also open. "Did you break his, too? Atin, did he break your door?"
"Yes, he did. What I want to know is why, because while I can operate on 4 hours of sleep, it makes me very grumpy and unpleasant. So what do you have to say for yourself? And for your sake, I really hope it's a good explanation, or I'll start following you around all day and just complaining, and you won't be able to get rid of me," Atin groused from his bed, not having gotten up yet.
"I'm gonna be one of your personal trainers, for some fuck-all reason," Qrow replied, walking towards the door of their common room, his voice growing quiet. "So get your asses down to the training hall. Goodwitch wants you two dead from exhaustion by the time two o'clock hits."
Max looked to Atin, who simply looked back, shrugging. As they left their respective bedrooms and approached the front door, Max threw his hands into the air. "That was our front door!"
"We aren't getting paid enough to deal with this torture, Max. It's four in the morning, I'm tired, I'm sore, and my door is broken. Why are we putting up with this again?" His voice floating up from the floor which Atin had decided was his new bed.
Max was sat near him, shaking his head. "He actually killed us with exhaustion...I didn't think he was serious," the young man was mumbling, scratching at his head. After a fresh respawn just moments ago, the two were sitting in their common room after Qrow had run them through intense exercising. Sometime during their hour of death, the Huntsman had left, leaving them to wake up a person short.
"I wish Qrow hadn't found out that us dying removes the effects of sleep deprivation. He hasn't stopped pushing at all this week. I've forgotten what it feels like to not be sore. And he won't even share the whiskey!" Atin yelled from his still door-less room.
"When are we getting a new front door, at least?" Max asked, groaning. "It's been more than five days, already. We put the work order in literally hours after it was broken."
"I've just decided to start telling students we removed it to better embody the concept of an open door policy, because we care about the well-being of our students." His muffled voice came from the interior of the fridge that had been installed because of their faculty status.
Max sighed at the answer. "Best we've got, I guess. At least we have most weekends off. Gives us some time to actually unwind and play catch up on the studies. Never thought I'd be going back to school so soon," he grumbled, resting his head on the table he had moved his chair towards.
"Boy it's a good thing the bathroom has a door, and Crow didn't break that one to just complete the set, otherwise this would have been a problem. Should we get one of those stupid bead curtains for some semblance of privacy though?" Atin wondered to himself, as he made his way over to the table. As he was sitting down, his scroll went off with a message. "Soooooooo, I think we fucked up. Ozpin wants to see us. Now."
"Hmmm...do you think our berating actually fucked up Team RWBY's dynamic? Maybe that's why he's calling us in."
"I mean, it's not like we could have made it worse than what it was. Given that it was a non-existent one. Unless you count aloofness, disdain, and over eagerness as a team dynamic."
"Well, not a healthy dynamic…"
"I mean, it's not like we didn't do anything they wouldn't. We just beat them to it, maybe he's mad that we stole his thunder?"
With a muffled ding, Max's scroll alerted him to a message of his own. Looking at it, he sighed. "Okay, he really wants to see us. Let's get going."
"Sure. After all, what's the worst he can do? Kill us? It'll be a nice excuse to miss Oobleck's next class."
After making their way to Ozpin's office, they stood in front of the Headmaster of Beacon, who gestured for them to take a seat. "Well, gentlemen, the first week of school has come to an end. How do you find yourselves adjusting?" Ozpin asked, his gaze moving between the two.
"Well between culture shock, the stress of a job I am in no way qualified for, early morning torture sessions with your personal attack trainer, and the complete absence of pop-tarts in this world, pretty bad." Atin had gone back to his favorite spot on Ozpin's wall, knowing there was no point in hoping the man would get a second chair.
"On top of having to study the material faster than the students and suddenly being told that the two of us are expected to occasionally handle student issues, in a manner similar to a counselor, and I'm starting to wish I couldn't respawn, something I never thought I'd say in my life," Max added in, taking the only chair that sat on the guest side of the desk.
"And to top everything off, Maintenance still hasn't fixed any of our 3 doors. Qrow broke those like, a week and half ago. This is nuts. At this rate the students might actually think we have an open door policy and care about their well being, and trust me Professor, the last thing you want is me giving life advice to your students. The only thing that would be worse is letting Qrow do it. Scratch that, I wouldn't tell them to solve all their problems with drinking. Just bottling it up and lashing out, but still it really isn't that much of an improvement. Also, we need to talk about this whole laissez faire attitude to teacher and faculty administration. I get that you needed some excuse to keep us around, but we are so unqualified to offer these kids any help. Hell, they have their lives more together than I did. I was repeating a year of college because I liked sleeping too much. Meanwhile these are seventeen-year-olds training to kill monsters. I can't give them any advice other than to knock off the angst."
"Uh...you going anywhere with this point, Atin? Because I think you made it four or five sentences back…"
"I just felt the need to drive home the point that I am utterly, completely, laughably unqualified for this, and I don't even get to cheat and help make things easier for everyone else. Instead, I might as well be trying to steal Jaune's nickname of vomit-boy!" Atin ranted, having begun pacing just to get rid of some his energy.
"It's going well, then," Ozpin finally said when it was clear the two were done.
Max stared at the man with a deadpan expression. "Sure. Why not."
Atin spun on his heel to look directly at Ozpin. "Did you hear anything I said? I'm starting to think people are right. You are actually just a lunatic with no idea what he is doing." Atin stared goggle eyed at Ozpin.
"A reasonable assertion, I assureyou, Mr. Atin." Ozpin took a sip of coffee, while both of the young men dropped their jaws. "However, to date, taking you two on has been...more fortuitous than Glynda and I had believed."
"You're shitting me…" Max looked at Ozpin, fully believing he was lying. Atin was nodding furiously from his spot in the room at Max's comment.
Ozpin chuckled quietly, folding his hands in front of him. "I am not lying or joking here. Bartholomew has mentioned that students are having an easier time with note taking in class than usual. Even our older students are seeing improvements on homework and quizzes, now that they have a, so I've heard, 'translator' in the room."
"Oh come on, he isn't that hard to understand. Sure he talks fast, but at least he doesn't have an accent, and his assignments aren't exactly rocket science. 'Go read chapter 6, summarize'. It's not my fault the kids are lazy. How can they not like history? Philistines. All I started doing was whacking the ones who fell asleep. Jaune learned to sleep with his eyes open after day 2. It felt good to give back to the students." Atin remained in the center of room, still incredulous, and still unable to stop being sarcastic.
"Results speak for themselves, young man. There's also the matter of a much higher than usual participation in Peter's classes. Apparently, many of the students are showing a bit more passion than usual in understanding the underlying lessons within his stories. He believes that you are at least partially responsible for that, Max."
"Well, uh…" Max continued to sit there, trying to find words. "Surely that's an exaggeration, that the students haven't paid near the amount of attention in the past than they do now."
"It is no exaggeration, I assure you. There has even been some progress with Team RWBY. There's...a bit less tension, but there does appear to be an honest effort on each young lady's part in contributing to actually being a team. I feel rather confident now that my choice to have you two tackle the situation was the right one."
Max nearly fell out of his chair, while Atin threw his hands in the air. "But all I did was let Atin rant at them and then offered vague reconciliation!" Max exclaimed, gripping the chair's armrests tightly.
"All I did was yell at them and tell them the blindingly obvious. Anyone not experiencing teenage angst could have done what I did. I bet it was the cookies Max made. Max, what did you put in those cookies?" Atin questioned, popping his head over Max's shoulder.
"Chocolate chips, some eggs, bit of flour, you know, the usual shit you'd put in scratch cookies. Hell, I had a couple myself, just to make sure they tasted right! Nothing happened!" Max scratched his head, earnestly confused now.
Ozpin continued to stare at the two for a moment longer, smiling. "Well, as unbelievable as it may seem to you, you have both had some small impact on the academy in some way. Though if you're that hellbent on failing at your job, you still have another three weeks to screw up in some fantastically overly dramatic way. Though I'd personally like to keep you two on, for the foreseeable future," the headmaster said.
"What do you consider 'fantastically overly dramatic way', coffee man? 'Cause when I screw up, I screw it up hard. Knowing my luck, I'll end up causing horrid psychological damage to one of the teams." Atin's voice echoed slightly as he made his way over to the elevator. "And don't worry, I'm taking the normal way down."
"These students are borderline child soldiers, Mr. Atin." Ozpin's reply froze Atin at the elevator, Max stopping in the middle of standing from the chair. "I don't believe there's much you could do to actually harm them psychologically. Please remember, these aren't 'normal' teenagers you are dealing with. They are warriors, training to protect people. You can shock them. Possibly scar them. But there is very literally you can do to them that will be lasting."
"Normally I would take that as a challenge, but I really have no desire to inflict PTSD on anyone." Under his breath, he muttered, "Anyone at this school anyway."
Max looked between Atin and Ozpin, before shrugging. "Oaky, I'm just, uh, gonna go get ready for the work day. Uh...bye?"