Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction based on multiple existing anime/manga series. The characters and settings used in this story belong to their respective owners and creators, and no copyright infringement is intended. This story is purely for entertainment purposes and is not intended to infringe upon any existing intellectual property. I do not own any of the original works that inspired this fanfiction, and I fully support the original creators and their works.
I'm also exceedingly exceedingly exceedingly rarely chilling in JaxWolf4's (Author of Nah, I'd Adapt and Zenin Days) Discord Server. It's a chaotic lobotomy mess. Not for the faint of heart.
Here's the link:
Disc: HrPrTeam
-Story Start-
Having finished his habitual indulgence, Alex left the bougie coffee shop with a slight dip in his funds and returned to the streets. His feet dragged as he strolled at a leisurely pace through the upper-class area and smoothly reached the commercial district.
The scenery and population density change was drastic, as it always was, as he manoeuvred through the walkways and crossed busy roads towards a specific bus station he had agreed to wait at.
Meanwhile, as he waited, an inquisitive journalist or two approached and tried to ask him questions.
Only to receive their usual dosage of his curt responses or downright neglect. His patience for questioning was limited to reasonable inquirers.
Eventually, as the cast shadow of the looming Amity Colosseum in the sky stretched across most of Vale, a bus arrived with a specific individual Alex had been waiting for.
"Sorry for being late; there was a bit of traffic on the road," Jaune exclaimed sheepishly as he stepped off the bus.
"Don't worry about it, John; let's go." Alex nodded casually as he raised his head towards the direction they needed to go.
Nodding silently, the taller blonde joined Alex's side as they strolled through the streets, heading deeper into the commercial district.
The reason for this rare hang-out?
Alex and Jaune were the only members of their respective teams allowed to leave for the City of Vale, and since a certain Leader's birthday was just around the corner.
The two blonde boys were relegated to logistics.
"Say, now that I'm thinkin about it, couldn't they have paid a little extra for delivery straight to Beacon?" Jaune hummed contemplatively as they turned a busy corner.
"Yeah, but I like walking around. Was planning on buying the gift on foot, so might as well get theirs as well; it's not like this is any different from my usual strolls getting their stuff."
"Wait... you offered yourself?"
"What's the issue?" Alex arched an eyebrow.
Jaune paused momentarily, realization crossing his honest features, "...I didn't even think about the delivery service before agreeing to this!"
"You got scammed, mate." Alex shrugged helplessly.
Jaune's shoulder dropped slightly, but his good-natured smile persisted. "I guess."
Thus, they continued their strangely quiet walk across the city.
Although rare, this wasn't the first time Alex had hung out with Jaune.
Usually, it was mostly the latter enthusiastically talking about improving in combat, 'reminiscing' about his life with a bunch of sisters and other mundane things.
This time, however, Jaune was unusually quiet as they headed to the first shop in their destination - Nora's gift.
Just a minute before reaching the chocolate shop, Alex noticed a familiar look on the silent Jaune, one of conflicted contemplation.
Thankfully, he was the kind of guy who wore his heart on his sleeve, which made anticipating the threat much easier for Alex.
The out-of-place quietude wasn't random.
Alex flashed him a deadpan look as they kept walking. "I don't want to talk about your feelings." His tone casual.
Jaune stopped short. "W-Wait, I wasn't planning on saying anything!" He raised his arms in surrender.
Alex paused just a bit in front of him, as he seemed to catch Jaune in the act. "You wanted to." He turned to him with that same deadpan.
"N-Now I'm not going to!" Jaune admitted, keeping his resigned gesture in place.
Huffing, Alex nodded. "Good."
Thus they continued towards their goals, yet Jaune's silence persisted.
Nora's gift for Ruby was secured first. Then Pyrrha's, followed by the one Jaune had picked out. Ren's soon followed, and now all that was left was just his and Yang's gift, as they paused before the literal workshop that reeked of ozone and metal.
Weiss was a bit low on cash and decided to work on a gift on her own. His and Pyrrha's offer for 'lending' her some money for the sake of her pride fell on deaf ears.
As they stood, a dreadful offer rang in Alex's mind:
"...Can I talk about my feelings?" Jaune articulated meekly, smiling awkwardly at the deadpan Alex as they entered the store.
Alex took a good, long look at him. Staring him down for just a second before his lips parted. "...Fine. If it's something stupid, next time you want to talk about feelings, I'll send you to my therapist."
As he gave his agreement, Jaune visibly brightened up and followed Alex into the store as the latter calmly searched for the requested goods.
The growing collection of bags hardly slowed either of them as Alex searched the shelves for the requested items and his taller blonde comrade was mentally preoccupied.
Alex's eyes traced labels, whilst his ears took in Jaune's words. "I'm... a little scared to ask Yang out for the dance."
He wondered what made him give up on Weiss, but he digressed; there was a more pressing issue with Jaune's words.
Not regarding Jaune and keeping his search, and grabbing a few of the items, Alex answered listlessly. "Are we being for real?"
"W-What?"
Alex sighed as he placed an item in a bag. "I had the impression you were the confident type-"
Jaune cut him off, admitting a bit weakly, "It's fake, man... I mean, I trick myself into it, but-"
"Then what was that back then when she caved your teeth in? That takes some balls." Alex admitted honestly, unconvinced of Jaune's strange self-deprecation.
"T-Those are different." He shook his head, a brave smile on his face. "That was something that I had to do, no other way."
"Then consider this also something that you have to do."
"...That's exactly what Ren said," Jaune admitted with a meek look.
"Then the point stands, you know what you have to do. End of discussion. Next time you come to me with stupid shit like getting cold feet, I ain't listening to you."
"...Roger, thanks."
And so, the shopping continued, this time with Jaune returning to his own talkative and chipper self, though the occasional flicker of hesitation remained painfully obvious.
But from here, it was on him. Alex wasn't going to sing his praises or anything dumb like that.
The sun had set considerably, and they had finally reached their final destination - Alex's remarkably, astutely chosen gift for his Partner and Leader.
They had to make it quick - dinner was on the menu very soon.
Jaune gave Alex's gift a look over; it was a collection of two specific items.
Holding the two labelled goods in his hands, he mumbled aloud, "Umm, perfume and some kind of hair-growth cream?"
"I can't be the only one who smells the constant engine fuel from her." Alex voiced his astute reasoning.
At that, Jaune genuinely deadpanned. "What's wrong?" Alex seemed honestly puzzled.
"Let me give you a piece of advice, as someone who's lived his whole life with seven sisters... It's fine as long as you DON'T give her the actual reason for buying it, like you just told me."
"The engine fuel part? I tell her that all the time; she doesn't mind."
Jaune tilted his head. "Really? Weird... well, it's best you don't mention it either way; Ruby's still a girl." He lectured sharply, seriously.
Noting the rare seriousness in Jaune's warning look, Alex nodded, "...Alright, I hear you." If she asked, Alex would probably still tell her, but he agreed half-heartedly.
Nodding in satisfaction, suddenly being designated as the judge of Alex's gift-picking skills, he pointed at the hair accelerant cream. "What's the idea behind this one? Is she going bald?!"
"She's mentioned she wanted to try and grow her hair out," Alex replied simply.
Jaune hummed, contemplating the reasoning-to-gift ratio. "...Yeah, that works. Nice pick!" He gave a thumbs-up.
To which Alex reciprocated with his own thumbs-up.
A little later, the two boys walked towards their respective urinals, adhering to the code of keeping at least an extra urinal away from each other.
"Oh wow, they've put these up even here." Jaune curiously remarked, lifting his head to see a trio of familiar posters.
Alex did so as well, to give them a look over.
It was the familiar posters of Torchwick and those other collaborators he had stopped back in Mountain Glenn. They were scattered across the corners of Vale rather extensively, sprinkled here and there.
"It's so you associate a piss with a terrorist." Alex retorted with a dull tone.
"Pfft, good one!"
"Thanks."
As the sound of a relieving waterfall echoed in the men's room, Jaune loosely inquired. "If you see them again, what'll you do? Me, I'd beat them unconscious and lock em up, and this time for good!"
"If you can."
"Hey! Not nice!"
Huffing, Alex answered the prior query with a shrug as he ignored Jaune's protest. "Depends on the context, I guess." He hummed, giving it some thought. "If I find them sheep-herding or something in some hidden corner of the world, I'd let them be. But if they're dumb enough to do stupid shit like kidnapping again, I'll just kill them. Prison couldn't hold them; why throw them in again?"
"...I get your point, but maybe a higher security detail?"
"Don't be soft, mate. They know what they're getting into when they run away and decide to be terrorists again." Alex shook his head in disagreement.
"They weren't part of that fragmented White Fang group, though?" Jaune demonstrated exemplary research.
"White Fang, their partners, whatever." Alex waved him off.
Thus, after that conversation, the two blonde boys finished up their day by grabbing dinner from a food cart around the area and headed back to Beacon.
-----------------------------
The next day was Ruby's birthday, and outside of that, it wasn't anything special.
They made ample progress in preparing the ballroom for the upcoming Beacon Dance, including lists of participants, lifting whole refrigerators there for the cooking challenge, and so on.
Violet was still being irritating within reason, Alex supposed. Sun wasn't so insistent on a fight, but he was getting a bit too friendly, and the rest of the foreign students were apparently complaining to Ozpin and their teachers that Alex's participation wasn't fair.
Not much he could really do about that, though.
Though with the nosy people around him, Alex couldn't wait till they flew back to their Academies; it'd bring some sensible peace back around him.
Nevertheless, the day proceeded as usual, with Ruby being distracted by Nora as they prepared the RAWP dorm room for her surprise party, but she already had an inkling of what was going down.
Obviously, he wasn't picked for the distraction; he wasn't quite the distracting type.
""HAPPY BIRTHDAY!/Happy birthday."" They collectively shouted as she was dragged into a shower of confetti and a large cake topped with a sixteen-shaped candle.
Everyone offered their gifts, as Ruby received them with a brilliant, grateful smile. She seemed most excited by Weiss's gift, a stash of long-shelf-life cookies that would last her a whole month.
"Here you go." Alex handed her a neatly decorated gift bag.
Before she took it in her hand, she practically slammed into his chest, wrapping him in a tight bear hug. "Thank youuuuuuuuu!" She squealed as he patted her lightly on the back with a small smile.
"No problem, live long and happy." He genuinely wished for her.
She huffed good-naturedly and let go of the hug. "I'll try." As she took the bag from his hands. "What's in this?"
"Perfume and hair-growth cream."
She blinked as she processed it. "Ohhhhh, thank you, but I decided I wasn't going to grow my hair out~!" A hint of shame crossed her features.
A deadpan met her shame. "Can't you be decisive, woman?"
"Teehee~?"
"Don't teehee me... fine, do whatever with it." Alex couldn't help but shrug good-naturedly.
"I appreciate the perfume, though! Thanks a bunch!" She grinned at him.
The day ended on a warm, nice note as they all played fighting games on their TV and a strategy board game of The Four Maidens... Alex was pretty bad at that one.
But he did have an unfair reflex advantage, even among Huntsmen, in the fighting game, which disqualified his ranking.
"You lot are sore losers." He commented indifferently.
"And you cheat!" Nora accused shamelessly.
"Why should I let the attack hit me if I can see it?"
"Because you've got cheating specs!" Ruby voiced her two cents.
"ALL of us have those when it comes to these kinds of games." Alex waved his controller half-heartedly, looking at all the present members of the little birthday party.
"Yeah? But yours are like ten times our own!" Ruby's whining got a birthday pass.
"Sure." He rolled his eyes.
"I think we should let him keep his ranking." Jaune raised a hand to vote.
"He gets it, but I've given up already," Alex admitted his quick surrender.
It was a rather eventful evening; he didn't dislike it.
And two days later came the much-anticipated day of Beacon Dance, the one they were all 'enthusiastically' preparing for.
To Be Continued!