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“Mikasa.” The RA’s voice came from just outside the door. “Because of my absolute confidence in your upstanding character I am positive that you would not possibly consider breaking any rules by having a boy in your room at 4 AM.”
The voice sounded very sleepy and a little bit exasperated.
“But if you were to have a boy in there, possibly named Eren Jaeger, I would probably be able to hear his very loud voice through these very thin walls.”
Mikasa looked down from her perch on the bed and shot a glare at Eren. He immediately flopped backward and started rolling under the bed. Mikasa just rolled her eyes in response.
“But because it’s an ungodly hour of the morning and I just want to go the fuck back to bed I’m just going to say this hypothetically. Get him out of here and don’t make me file a student conduct report.”
Eren poked his head out from under the bed.
“Thanks Petra!” He called to her.
“Go home Eren,” came the tired response from the other side of the door accompanied by the sound of footsteps leaving.
“One of these days you’re going to have to either stop breaking the rules or start getting better at it,” Mikasa said, grabbling his backpack off the bed.
Eren pulled himself the rest of the way out from under the bed and rolled to his feet.
“Or they could just figure out that whatever they’re worried about happening in here is never going to happen. Ever.” He grumbled as Mikasa tossed him his backpack.
“They have figured that out,” She said with a grin. “You better believe we’d both be suspended by now if Petra didn’t know how gay you are.”
Eren shrugged his backpack onto his shoulders and waved Mikasa goodbye as he headed out the door. It was probably an accurate assumption on Mikasa’s part. He had always just assumed Petra was a bit of a pushover when it came to certain rules but he had heard horror stories of other RAs. Last year even Armin had gotten in trouble with their hall’s RA for having Mina in their room less than ten minutes after open-house hours had finished. Luckily Eren had been out of the room at the time (ironically because he was in the girl’s dorm) but he had heard about it from Armin and Mina in great length, detail, and colorful language. He’d been told it was ‘a very cruel world where two decent honors college students couldn’t study together in comfort at 10:07 PM’ and he was inclined to agree. Especially when he got kicked out of Mikasa’s room at 4 AM and had to make the long and dark walk back to his own dorm.
He was, however, thankful that it was still the beginning of the semester and although there were plenty of dead leaves on the sidewalks, the summer weather had not completely dissipated yet. The cool breeze almost felt nice as he trudged past the student center then the science building then the rec center. Eren wasn’t often out at this time of the day so the level of desertion on the campus kind of surprised him and, if he was being completely honest, he found it a bit unnerving. He was used to always seeing people running, driving and just hanging around, especially this near the student center. It was also unheard of to see the rec center empty through the giant glass windows but he guessed no one was quite crazy enough— Nope, wait, there was someone in there on one of the workout machines. What the fuck. Was that Ymir?
Some people have unhealthy amounts of motivation.
Ymir nodded at him as as he passed the window of the rec center. He returned it with an incredulous look that he hoped portrayed his absolute disgust for her energetic tendencies. He rounded the corner of the rec building and dug in his pocket for his ID as he approached the card swipe at the entrance to the dorm.
And found nothing there. Where the fuck did he put his ID?
Eren started digging through his pockets of his pants, his hoodie and was about to start investigating his backpack when the image of himself putting his ID on Mikasa’s desk hours ago popped into his memory. He also clearly recalled the last two times he had done the same thing already this semester as well as Mikasa’s tone this morning when she had said ‘Don’t put that there, you’ll just forget it again.’
He was not looking forward to the conversation they would have when she found it there in the morning.
Mikasa wasn’t going to be the only person mad at him though, because now his only option was to call Armin to let him in. He fished in his pockets for his phone, trying not to imagine how much fun this conversation was going to be. It occurred to him how empty his pockets had been when he was looking for his ID and trying not to feel the dread that accompanied that thought, checked his backpack for his phone.
Eren had never had the best luck but this, he thought, was just a bit ridiculous. It wasn’t a complete surprise however because in his last two years at that school he had managed to get in this situation not once, not twice, but five whole times. He hoped that meant he was a pro at it by now.
It wasn’t an impossible situation. All he had to do was wait for anyone with a student ID to come by and get them to swipe him in. He did have to admit though that he had never gotten so completely locked out at such a ridiculous hour of the morning and there did seem to be fewer options of good samaritans traveling across campus.
Eren swung his bag back onto his shoulder and leaned against the wall. A few minutes later he exchanged leaning for rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. It only took a few more minutes for that action to become him bouncing up and down impatiently. He was also no longer enjoying the brisk autumn breeze. A particularly strong gust came through moments later, scooting the leaves across the pavement and causing Eren to oh so delicately face the source of the wind, flip off the sky and plop himself down on the sidewalk to wait. He scooted back until he could lean on the door because he had learned the hard way that if he didn’t completely block the door, people would try to scoot around him and get into the building without him noticing. Someone had done that last semester thinking he was a weird homeless guy and Eren had only noticed as the door was already clicking shut. it had not been the high point of Eren’s evening and he had held it against the kid for a whole semester before he finally let it go. At least he had learned from it.
He leaned his shoulder on the wall perpendicular to the door that held the ID swipe unit in an attempt to make it impossible for anyone entering the building to escape his notice. Then he just silently willed himself not to fall asleep.
Marco and Jean were both compulsive over-sleepers. It didn’t take them long for them to figure out that this was going to seriously effect their studying habits on weekends and Marco had suggested a solution. Every Sunday morning they would drive off campus for a early morning wake-up call and study session at IHOP. At 7 AM.
Although Jean had been the one who was incredibly reluctant to agree to such drastic measures, it was Marco who always ended up sleeping through his alarm almost every weekend. Which is why at promptly 6:45 Marco was jolted awake by a blaring Bees Gees song and barely managed to orient his brain enough to form coherent thoughts of Phone. Jean. That’s my ringtone for Jean. Shoot, is it Sunday?
“Hrggnh?” Marco managed to answer his phone, only momentarily blinded by the bright light.
“Morning,” Jean said routinely. “Breakfast in 15. Be there because you owe me pancakes.”
“Yeah, ok,” Marco managed and ended the call.
He wished he could say that Jean didn’t have to call him every Sunday to wake him up but in reality Marco could count on one hand the number of times he had been fully conscious for that 6:45 wake up call. He stumbled out of bed and tried to go through a mental checklist of a morning routine (Wallet, Phone, Shirt, Shoes, Pants. Oh right, pants. Yeah, I need those) before pushing open the door and moving into the far to bright hallway. It was 7:00 by the time Marco made it down the three flights of stairs to the ground floor and by then his phone was ringing again.
“You didn’t fall back asleep, did you?” Jean voiced an unfortunately very valid question.
“Nope!” It always surprised Jean how Marco only had two modes: basically asleep and very, very awake. “I’m heading out now.”
“Ok, I’ve got a booth in the back.”
“I’ll be there in 5 minutes,” Marco replied. He starting digging for his keys in his pocket with his spare hand and shoved the door with his shoulder, only briefly acknowledging that the door was either sticking or blocked. He pushed a bit harder and managed to send whatever was blocking the door careening against the opposing wall. Marco looked down to find a boy plastered against the wall behind the door.
“Do you want to me order for you or..?” Jean’s voice was still coming through the phone.
“OH MY GOD”
“Marco?“
“JEAN, I THINK I JUST KILLED SOMEONE.”
“You wha-“
”OH MY GOD ARE YOU OK??”
Marco dropped his phone and knelt beside his unintentional victim.
“What the—“ Eren managed to blink back into consciousness, slowly becoming aware of the pain in his face, particularly centralized in his nose.
“I am so sorry!” It briefly occurred to Eren that this guys’ expression looked like he had just accidentally run his car over a puppy. “Are you ok?”
Eren blinked again, “Yeah, I’m fine. But hey, can you swipe me in?”
“Oh my god, you’re bleeding I– Wait, what?” Marco looked confused.
Eren raised his hand to his victimized nose and found that, yes, he was in fact bleeding. “Can you swipe me in?” He asked again. “Lost my ID.”
Marco stared at him for a moment.
“I just broke your face and you want me to swipe you in.”
“Yeah man, it’s the least you can do.”
There was a moment of silence before Marco laughed.
“Yes. It is, quite literally, the least I can do.” His face turned serious again, “But you really should get your nose looked at. I’m not trying to be insensitive here, especially since it is my fault, but it looks awful.”
“It’ll be fine. This sort of thing happens a lot,” Eren said honestly.
Marco was still staring at him.
“This kind of thing happens a lot.”
Eren nodded, “Yeah, so it’s not a big deal.”
There was a moment of silence.
“You fall asleep in front of dorm buildings and get your nose broken by complete strangers at early as fuck hours of the morning a lot.”
“Well not this exactly,” Eren waved the hand that wasn’t clutching his nose in an attempt to explain, “but my nose isn’t even broken. Trust me, I’ve broken my nose enough times to tell.”
This time Marco was actually doubled over laughing.
“You’re certainly a character,” he finally said when he was breathing normally again.
Eren grinned. “That’s what people tell me. But seriously, swipe me in because I have to use my roommates phone to call my friend to get my ID from her room so I can get breakfast because I am dying of hunger.”
”OH MY GOD ARE YOU OK??”
Marco’s voice had come ringing through the phone seconds before the line went inexplicably silent.
“Marco?” Jean tried, then pulled his phone away from his ear to see the call had been ended. He just stared at the phone for a moment before pulling up the messaging app.
From Jean
What happened??
Jean tapped his foot impatiently waiting for a reply. All the possible scenarios of what could have just happened were playing out in his head.
From Jean
Do I need to help you hide a body?
Another minute passed. Then another.
“Hey hon, are you ready to order?” The waitress asked as she made a sweep past the table.
“No, still waiting,” he replied. “I may need to post bail on my date though.”
The waitress gave him a concerned look. He really couldn’t blame her.
“Ok, just let me know when you’re ready.”
Another two minutes came and went before his phone vibrated against the table. He snapped it up immediately and read the message.
From Marco
I made a friend
I’m bringing him to breakfast
Jean didn’t bother replying before he slammed his phone down on the table.