Welcome To Our Crib, Please Ignore The Mess

The cool breeze from the open window and the sounds of birds singing brought the girl out of her slumber. Her eyes fluttered open and she let out a relaxed breath before lifting herself up. She raised her hands up high, stretching her muscles out as she gave out a great big yawn.

The girl then relaxed her arms and drowsily blinked her eyes, not noticing the form next to her. Just as she began to register someone besides her, an ear-splitting noise made her jump out of bed and fall on her butt.

“Gah!”

Thump.

Gray sat on Ruby’s bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and held a hand over his mouth. Not because he was a moment away from laughter, no, but because he was bracing himself for the outrage of an uptight princess.

“Good morning, Team RWBY!” Ruby yelled cheerfully after putting her whistle away; the sight of a disheveled Weiss splayed out on the ground giving fuel to her smile. She hopped in front of Weiss and stood with her fists on her hips, looking triumphant.

“What in the world is wrong with you?!” Weiss exclaimed, baffled and confused by Ruby’s behavior.

“Now that you’re awake we can officially begin our first order of business.” Came Ruby’s non-answer.

“Excuse me?!” Weiss asked, getting up off of the floor and brushing herself down. Her eyes still looked half asleep as she squinted and blinked at the odd girl in front of her.

“Decorating!” Yang jumped in, catching the same buzz that Ruby was feeling. When Weiss looked over at her she saw that Yang was pointing at the pile of knick-knacks on her bed. The posters and wall-scrolls, the comics and the cartoon figurines.

“What?” Weiss said, sounding incredulous. And still very much like she had just woken up.

“We still have to unpack.” Blake said besides Yang. She shrugged as if it couldn’t be helped.

Weiss just stood there and glowered at the girls. Gray’s eyes zeroed in on the darker patch on her night gown as she stood there. He smiled from behind his hands and remembered what he did to her last night. The stain seemed to have dried but it was no less obvious to him.

Ruby interrupted his thoughts when she blew her whistle again in front of Weiss, startling her and making her fall over again. She then hopped into the middle of the room and stood, hands on hips, and surveyed the room with a grin.

“Alright! Weiss, Blake, Yang, Gray and their fearless leader Ruby have begun their first mission.” Ruby declared to the room. Gray wondered where that shy, uncertain girl had gotten this energy from but it seemed to be contagious as it had infected both Yang and Blake. With a fist raised up high Ruby called out, “Banzai!”

““Banzai!”” Both Yang and Blake shouted in response while flanking their leader.

Gray noticed Weiss sighing from her position on the floor. She already seemed drained even after having only just woken up from a full night's sleep. He couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for the girl.

However, what followed from there was something that drained Gray of most of his energy too. Just imagine a montage of a group of girls decorating a room exactly to their liking. Something that Gray, as a boy, had very little input with. Even if he were asked for his opinion. Of course, they rarely did ask for his opinion.

Yang put up her posters and wall scrolls of various pop culture. Weiss somehow managed to bring a painting to school in one of her luggage bags. It was a pretty nice piece too. A nice landscape of the Forever Fall Forest. Blake had a lot of books to fill the bookcase with. A lot of books. There were other shelves screwed in the walls above each bed, but they probably would still need another bookshelf to accommodate her tomes of dubious knowledge. Dubious because Gray noticed some of the titles of these books. Ninjas of Love? Was Blake into trashy romance written by old ladies destined for the bargain bin? Yikes.

Good thing she had some normal looking textbooks and fantasy/sci-fi novels too.

Oh, I know this author, Gray thought to himself as he noticed a few books by an author he himself had read from. Nice taste.

Ruby had various objects of interest that she had placed around the room. Some magazines on weapons, armor and anything related to dust were put on the shelf above her bed. Miniature figures of weapons and the creatures of Grimm now sat on her shelves and dresser.

Weiss also had a tea-set set up on one of her imported dressers and a lamp plugged in by the head of her bed sitting on a bedside table. Yang hung up a dart board and a pair of boxing gloves. More of Blakes books were stacked up to the side because they had nowhere else to go and Ruby had a case of dust bullets, that didn’t exactly rival Weiss’ stack of suitcases filled with dust vials, that she didn’t know where to put.

In other words, the room had gotten crowded.

And that wasn’t to mention Gray’s own belongings. Not that he had brought along too much since he liked travelling light. He mostly had his clothes, his school supplies, dust ammunition and maintenance equipment. Most of which he hadn’t bothered to unpack just yet. Gray didn’t want to add to the chaos that was now Team RWBY’s room.

The whole team now stood by the door looking in on the mess. The beds had to be shifted around a lot to fit in Weiss’ extra furniture in her corner. Blake’s corner had a similar issue in that she decided to create a make-shift desk for herself right beside her bed. Her books made up the legs of this desk.

Things that the girls couldn’t figure out a place for were shoved into a corner for later consideration while the beds had yet to be moved back to a more suitable position.

The girls and Gray just stood there and observed the chaos.

“This isn’t going to work.” Weiss said. Exasperation dripping from her pretty mouth.

“It is a bit cramped.” Blake said, sounding doubtful.

“Maybe we should ditch some of our stuff?” Yang suggested.

“Or... we could ditch the beds...” Ruby began to voice. Gray raised his eyebrow at the girl, wondering where she was going with this. Thankfully she finished her absurd sentence... with an absurd solution. “...and replace them with bunk beds!”

She raised her arms in the air as if she had just come up with an amazing idea. Gray, however, had a bad feeling.

“And who’s going to pay for this?” He asked the odd bundle of energy.

“Pay? Don’t be silly, Gray.” Ruby cheerfully answered. “We’ll put these ones on top of each other.”

The short girl pointed at the beds in the room as if he couldn’t see them.

“Ah, well,” Gray mumbled, feeling defeated. That’s what his bad feeling was about. “My bad, I guess.”

“Um, that sounds incredibly dangerous.” Weiss apparently agreed with him. Gray wasn’t sure how he felt about that.

“And super awesome!” Yang seemed on board, what with how she pumped her fist in excitement.

“It does seem efficient.” Blake sai–

It does?! Excuse me what?!

Gray stared at the secret cat girl incredulously.

“Well, I think we should put it to a vote!” Weiss gave a last-ditch effort to reign in her team's nonsense. Gray couldn’t blame her. He was trying to think of a way to stop this too. He didn’t particularly trust the girls with building bunk beds out of their previous ones.

“Heh, I think we just did.” Ruby said smugly.

Blake, and then Yang, both raised their hands in favor of the construction. Weiss and Gray both thought it was a terrible idea. With Ruby’s vote it was three against two.

However, before the enthusiastic girls could spring forward to enact their designs, Gray used his Semblance.

“Stop!”

All four of the girls froze and looked at him.

“We should wait until after I’ve talked with the headmaster after classes.” Gray told them. “I can ask them to replace our beds while I’m getting my room key from them. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

Hopefully that would stop them from making more of a mess. With his powers he was sure he could convince Ozpi– wait. That meant he would have to use his powers on the adults. He remembered saying to himself that he wouldn’t...

Gray sighed in frustration.

Whatever, he thought. I’ll think of something later.

“Besides, we’re already a little late for breakfast. So, let’s hurry and get a quick bite before class.” He finished before turning his Semblance off.

The first thing Gray noticed was Weiss’ sigh of relief.

“Hmm... yeah I guess the beds can wait.” Ruby said.

“Now that you mention breakfast,” Yang started, her tone thoughtful even as a small rumble came from her stomach. Blake nodded in agreement.

“Okay then, breakfast, then school, then Gray will do... whatever it is he’s doing after school.” Ruby declared, as the team leader.

“I’m getting my room key...” Gray reminded her.

“And then bunk beds!” She declared louder, promptly ignoring Gray.

With that final prompt the girl’s gathered their school bags and filed out of the room. Gray got his own bag and followed the girls, their sexy butts covered by their skirts swaying in front of him. He shook his head while thinking of their morning antics and wondered if his life was going to be like that from now on.

Probably, he thought with a dry smile. At least I won’t be bored.

Gray closed the door to his new home behind him.

Gray’s team walked down to the first floor of the dormitory. They had seen a couple other groups of students around but the building was mostly empty. The other students had probably already gone over to the cafeteria.

However, once Team RWBY got to the bottom of the stairs to the dormitory lobby he noticed another group of students by the entrance. Four girls had stopped by a notice board while one of the girls, with long red hair, was reading one of the notices. This group he recognized immediately, and so did Ruby.

“Good morning, Jeanne!” Ruby called out while waving to the blonde girl in the group.

Said blonde girl turned to them at the sound of her name. Her ponytail swayed with the movement. Jeanne also wore the school uniform of a red skirt and dark jacket. There was one difference, however, and that was the white knee-high socks which allowed an enticing look at her thighs between the skirt and socks. The Absolute Territory, Gray had heard it was called.

“Ruby!” Jeanne called back. She walked over to Team RWBY and they met in the middle of the lobby. The rest of Team JNPR followed their leader to greet the other team. Just as Jeanne was about to say something else to Ruby, she noticed Gray was with them. “Gray! You're here too. I was worried when I didn’t see you at the Naming ceremony.”

“Yeah... there was a mix up with the test but the headmaster sorted it out.” Gray explained, wondering if she would accept the explanation the same way that RWBY did. “I’m on Team RWBY now.”

“Cool, that’s a relief.” Jeanne said, actual relief coming from her words as she smiled.

That bright smile caught Gray a little off guard. It was honestly pretty cute. The fact that she cared enough to be worried also felt nice for Gray. It also seemed like Gray being on Team RWBY wasn’t strange for her or the rest of her team as they didn’t really react much.

While Jeanne and Gray talked, Yang and Ruby greeted the other members of Team JNPR. They said hello to Pyrrha first, since they knew her better than the other two.

“Hello again!” The gorgeous and quietly cheerful red-head replied politely.

“Hiya!” The girl with the ginger hair called out cheerfully while waving exuberantly.

The girl with the black hair and pink highlight nodded her head. “Greetings.”

“Are you guys also late for breakfast?” Yang asked.

“Kinda. We forgot to set an alarm,” Jeanne explained. Then she gave a very tired smile while glancing at one of her teammates. “Fortunately, someone’s a morning person and has a natural alarm clock.”

Nora giggled and waved under the attention when everyone looked at her.

“It was still later than we’d like.” Jeanne finished. “What about you guys?”

The girls seemed like they were hesitant to answer so Gray did it for them. “This lot wanted to unpack and decorate the room first before anything else.”

“Ah! We haven’t done that yet!” Nora exclaimed, exaggerating the severity of the issue by clapping her hands to her cheeks in mock(?) horror.

“We stopped before we could be even more late for breakfast.” Weiss chimed in. A bit of her natural haughtiness slipping in. “Perhaps we should head ove–”

Yang's stomach rumbled again. Louder this time.

Everyone stared at the big boobed blonde.

“Eh heh heh,” She laughed awkwardly while blushing. Yang took the opportunity to cut in front and walk to the entrance. “I wonder what they’re serving today!”

Gray and most of the other girls laughed and followed her out.

Though he had already used the cafeteria yesterday morning, Gray still found the dining hall eye-catching.

The cafeteria was a very large room. Walking into the building through one of the double doors, Gray was greeted by a spacious area with an occasional supporting pillar. On one side of this area was the kitchen and service counter. A few students were lining up for their food. On the opposite side to the kitchen stood the toilets, and further along that same wall was a place to leave empty trays and dishes. There were also four vending machines standing against four pillars in symmetry to each other, two on either side of the cafeteria entrance doors and two in front of pillars that led into the main part of the building. The place where all the eating and talking was taking place.

It was huge and students from every year group were present, adding their voices to the din of murmuring that hit Gray’s ears upon entering.

The main seating area had long tables with benches spaced in four rows leading back to the end of the large building. Windows rose up to the ceiling and holographic banners “hung” from fixtures in the ceiling. The banners depicted various things, like Beacon’s surrounding scenery, or one of Beacon’s sports team’s accomplishments. A few banners displayed the faces of students for more individual achievements like slaying a particular kind of Grimm. One banner showed the portrait of a female student in what looked like a school swimsuit and smiling at the camera. Apparently, she had gotten second place at some event.

Her picture only showed her face and the tops of her breasts but Gray’s eyes had zeroed in on her regardless.

“Pyrrha and I had found a Deathstalker sleeping in a cave,” Jeanne was telling him. He had ended up asking her how her initiation had gone while they had walked as a group through the school grounds. “We tried to deal with it there, but it wasn’t exactly the best place to fight.”

“Indeed.” Pyrrha added the other side of Jeanne. “The cave was too dark and confined to coordinate properly.”

Gray tore his eyes away from the big cafeteria to glance at his conversation partners. A deathstalker, huh? Depending on the age, those things could be a real pain to deal with. Heck, even young ones were troublesome.

“So, what did you do?” He asked with interest.

“We ran.” Jeanne said. She said it so simply as if it was the most obvious thing to do, while also sounding light-hearted. She gave the lie away when Gray noticed the self-depreciating smile on her face. She looked a little disappointed in herself.

“When we got outside, we realized that it was really old.” Pyrrha explained. She rubbed Jeanne’s back in comfort. “Old enough that there was moss growing on its carapace.”

“Ooh yeah, I probably would have run too.” Gray admitted. “What happened next?”

The rest of Team RWBY had approached the counter and were picking up trays and plates. Jeanne’s teammates, Nora and Ren followed behind them. Well, Nora was skipping for some reason. Gray got there next and picked up a tray.

“I’d like to say that we lured it away to other students for reinforcements...but...” Jeanne began while setting up her own tray.

“Instead, we ran for our lives and ran into Yang, Blake, Nora and Ren.” Pyrrha said cheerfully.

“And then Ruby and Weiss fell from the sky off of a Nevermore.” Jeanne added.

Gray raised his eyebrow at the sheer chaos they were describing. Just then Gray remembered that Ruby and Weiss were in fact riding on the back of a large Nevermore. He glanced over to the two girls in question. Ruby was talking with Yang as she scooped some food onto her plate. Yang was picking up a slice of toast with some tongs while listening with a grin. Weiss and Blake seemed more focused on picking out food than taking part in the conversation.

Gray told himself to ask Ruby her account of the initiation later today.

“So, your two groups faced off against two Giant– potentially Goliath-class Grimm?” He asked with some skepticism.

“I get it. It sounds crazy to me too.” Jeanne told him with a grin. “But I think it was one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.”

Pyrrha giggled next to her in agreement.

The three of them continued to fill up their plates with food. Gray went with some scrambled egg and sausages with a couple hash browns. While he picked his breakfast, he wondered at how he would stack up against a creature of Grimm with a Danger Rating of three. That particular rating had a lot of variation but Deathstalkers and Nevermores were definitely up there.

“You know, I’m kinda glad that the worst I had to deal with yesterday were Griffons.” Gray said ruefully.

Jeanne and Pyrrha smiled in response. From there the two teams took their food, acquired some drinks, and left to find an open table.