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Description

Warning: Mentions of drug use | Language
Reader & Levi are 21+

This is the sequel to Miscalculation.

College AU

This is how it ends for me..

A thick coat of fog circled the front of your face as you shivered forcefully beneath the bundles of blankets draped around your form. You were almost one hundred percent certain your hands had become solid blocks of ice, and with each tap on the keyboard an arctic jolt shot up your arms. With a low whine you flopped forward onto your stomach and contemplated slamming the laptop closed on your head. Four hours of writing, erasing, editing, two mental break downs and you still hadn’t finished the first part of your thesis. The rough draft was due in the morning and to make matters worse the heat for the entire building had burnt out in the dead of winter.

Loading yourself up on coffee had seemed like a good idea at first but after the third cup the tiny jitters had morphed into heavy twitching and made your stomach churn. The clock in the corner of the screen seemed to be moving at the speed of light. When you’d begun your adventure down the rabbit hole of English Literature hell it was eleven pm and now the crisp white numbers read two-forty five am. The mouse pad felt like granite beneath the pad of your finger as you scrolled down the few halfway decent pages you’d managed to crank out. You’d partially contemplated writing a bunch of gibberish then using the white out option to create a false word count. Secretly Isabel had taught you that trick and it’d worked once or twice, but a thesis was nearly half your grade and you’d rather not tempt fate for a third time.

You felt frozen to the ground and there wasn’t anything remotely edible left in the fridge. Isabel had promised she would go grocery shopping yesterday but after Furlan had popped the question she opted to spend the weekend at his apartment uptown. ‘Perfect fucking timing’ you thought as you cinched the fabric of the blanket between your ice cold fingers. You’d whined about it dramatically to Levi but he hated grocery shopping so he avoided it completely. ‘If I cook the food you can damn well get off your asses and go buy it’ he’d said as he shimmied his coat over his built shoulders before waltzing out the door. He’d left a few hours before the heat cut out in the middle of the night and hadn’t been home since.

Concentrating in what felt similar to an industrial freezer was hard on its own but the added weight of Levi’s absence made it ten times worse. He’d mentioned during dinner after Isabel gushed over the new ring on her finger that he was going out with a friend from class and you’d already been sulking mentally since dinner. Isabel’s ring hadn’t surprised you, if anything it made your heart flutter at the thought of living with just Levi. That euphoric feeling was shot straight in the head the minute he walked out of the door and left you sitting on the couch by yourself. Drifting back into the depressing existence in isolation was a fear you’d long put to rest, but now with life moving so quickly it seemed you were doomed to replay the events of your adolescence.

Alone, without family, and utterly lifeless.

Rubbing your thumbs along your temples you glanced at the oven clock and groaned. Nearly three in the morning, which meant the bars had closed and Levi was off doing god knows what with the red head from his class. Isabel attempted to pry information from him but he merely shrugged her off and narrowed his eyes when she mentioned the word ‘date’. In the same moment your heart had dropped to the floor but you doubt he noticed. Instead of engaging in the conversation you huddled yourself into your room and began aimlessly typing away in hopes of purging some sort of paper good enough to earn a passing grade. English class was always an axe hanging above your head, one shit grade and your scholarship would vanish but the two year requirement was unavoidable. Levi wasn’t exactly great at the subject either, but he was better than you’d ever hope to be. Half your papers were edited and rewritten with his help, but of course on the one paper that actually held your entire college fate in its stupid metaphorical hands he was out on a date.

“Finishing” a date probably..

The thought made your chattering teeth grind until your jaw locked up.

So this was the end for you, a death brought on by a winter storm from hell, too much caffeine, and a thesis paper that would never be finished. Glancing up at the frosted windows you partially considered going outside and jumping off the fire escape but there was probably enough snow on the ground to break your fall. The bright glow of the computer screen obnoxiously refracted off the cheap reading glasses Levi had tossed your way when he noticed you squinting at your books a few weeks ago in the library. As your headache grew you thought more and more about the chances of you surviving outside in a pile of snow, but it might be more of a hassle for Levi is you died in the apartment. One last bit of revenge before you kicked the bucket. Biting your bottom lip you tugged the plastic off your face and pinched the bridge of your nose. The indents left by the hard material made your nose feel like it had been in a vice grip for the last few hours. Puffing air through your chapped lips lightly you pried one eye open fully and attempted to read what you’d typed up but the change in font size flipped your building headache into a devilish migraine.

“I need a fucking break.” You murmured into the quiet air.

After sliding on your snow boots, acquiring a second hoodie beneath your heavy pea coat and tossing the hood over your tangled hair you trudged towards the lengthy window near the end of the living room. The summer after Isabel and yourself graduated high school Levi had deemed it necessary to find a bigger apartment for ‘all of your girl shit’, and settled on an old brick building near the center of the city. It was close enough to the college for it to be partially covered by your collective scholarships which made the world a lot brighter in terms of finances. The view from the eighth floor was breathtaking even in the middle of the coldest winter on record for the decade. White flecks of snow floated down from the windowsill as you pushed the glass up high enough to get yourself through. Lighter in one hand and joint behind your ear you slid between the gap and wedged a piece of wood beneath the window to keep it from shutting completely.

Surprisingly it was warmer outside than it was in your igloo of an apartment but the bitter wind still nipped at the edge of your nose. Mix matched brickwork left from the buildings original design gave the tall complex an outdated look while the neighboring sky scrapers were decked out with glass windows and steel underlining. A dusty grey blanket had fallen across the horizon from the reflective snow and cut the dark blue sky in half. There were no stars out tonight and the city felt nearly desolate in the silence. As you placed the crumpled paper to your lips and inhaled a reoccurring thought popped into your head. Despite how often you tried to tame the patterns of wild thoughts racing through your mind in the darkened silence of solitude they wouldn’t stop pestering you.

The smoke hued reflection was a spot on match for Levi’s eyes, though they sparked with brightness if you really paid attention. A sullen wisp of chilled wind reminded you of the soft sighs he emitted while he was passed out on the couch with a book on his chest during finals. Even the ivory snowflakes that sprinkled the top of your head from the tree branches reminded you of the time you filled the dishwasher with too much soap and a horde of bubbles flooded the kitchen. You felt yourself smile as you took a second inhale before pulling the joint from your lips. Levi was absolutely livid while Isabel just laughed her ass off from the opposite end of the apartment. All you could think of to say was ‘at least the floor is clean’ before running towards the front door. You made it a quarter of the way there before Levi tackled you to the ground. The weight of his body was almost enough to make your heart stop, even if it was just a memory.

The tip of your boot slid against the black iron beneath your feet as you leaned your back against the wall. The fire escape had been slicked with partial ice due to the jumping temperature over the last few days. One wrong move and you’d be falling to your death, but on the upside it would get you out of that damn paper. Carefully sliding to the side you ran the palm of your hand down the brick siding in search for the edge of the window. Your head was becoming a bit foggy and the high from the pot was starting to kick in. Pinching the cherry of the joint between your fingers you stubbed out the flame and slid the joint into your pocket while lifting the window with your free hand.

“Ouch!”

A rogue splint of wood cut the tip of your finger and you hissed at it like it would scare it into submission. A reasonable person would have sucked it up and kept hold of the window, but reason was not exactly your strong suit at the moment. As you whipped your hand back like a wounded animal the piece of wood holding the window up had slid into off the edge and landed inside the apartment. Eyes widening with fear you shot both hands forward to grip the glass but it was too late. The wetness from the snow and your terrible reaction time had allowed the window to slam shut, and lock. If your tongue wasn’t a frozen piece of waste in your mouth you would have screamed loud enough to wake the entire city. Crossing your arms over your chest you leaned your head against the wall and silently watched the growing snowfall in absolute denial. After sulking in your own dread you slid your hands up to your cheeks and pinched the numbed skin beneath your eyes.

There were a variety of ways you could end your life by attempting to leave, but staying outside in this arctic wasteland could possibly lead you down the same doomed road. Option one included sliding yourself down eight flights of stairs with no gloves on iced over iron bars from a hundred years ago—probable failure. Option two was to tap on your neighbor’s window and wake them up but as far as you knew everyone had vacated the building when the heat went off and in order to even reach their bedroom window you’d have to hold onto the siding and pray you didn’t slip off—highly probable failure. The third option would be to text Isabel and tell her your situation, but she had a habit of using the ‘do not disturb’ option on her phone when she spent the night at Furlan’s—higher probable failure. The final option, a thought that left a bitter taste on your tongue, was to text Levi and inform him of your complete dumbass decisions and have him come home—utter failure.

Or, in all your stubbornness, you could just break the damn window and then say some drunken idiot threw a rock through it while trying to get your attention. Nodding to yourself as if you needed to agree with your own thoughts you began searching the small fire escape for anything large enough to go through the window. Sliding your boots strategically around the ice and snow you moved to the very edge of the escape near the ladder that went up to the ninth floor. Peeking between the thick piles of snow on the steps you spotted a heavy planter holding a dry and barren plant. Grinning to yourself you pushed the snow from the steps and diligently padded your way up the steps as quiet as a mouse.

Your hands burned as the damp snow left needle-like stings around your palms as if they were pushpins, but you made it to your destination. Hesitantly you pushed up on your tiptoes with one hand on the railing and the other swiping at the planter. After a few good grabs your fingertips finally crested the lip of the planter. A few minutes passed as you gradually pulled the planter closer to the edge until you could safely wrap both hands around the ceramic bowl without fear of dropping it or losing your balance. The night seemed to lighten as a whirl of cars passed beneath the street with their off-yellow lighting stretching over the snow. Grey slush stuck to your boots as you scurried towards the window with the planter in your hands. Your stomach twisted a little at the thought of Levi’s angry face, you’d truly seen hell the day you got day drunk with Isabel and made an indoor slip and slide, but you needed to get inside before you turned into a Popsicle. With a heavy breath you raised the planter over your head and counted down from five.

“____? What the hell are you doing outside you idiot?”

Your back stiffened at the echo of his voice. Where the hell was he? Or was this just your mental state fucking with you? Shaking your head you re-gripped the ceramic pot tightly and aimed at the window ready to chuck it until a snowball hit you directly in the back of the neck. Frozen slush dripped down your nape and sunk into your hair making you yelp in surprise and drop the potted plant. A loud crash resonated against the fire escape and shook tiny droplets of snow off the ledge.

“___ I asked you a damn question. Why the hell are you outside in the middle of this fuckstorm? Get your ass inside before you die and I’m stuck paying your quarter of the bills.”

“I can’t get inside genius that’s what the plant was for!” You shouted back.

Levi audibly scoffed, white puffs of smoke circling through the air as he continued to mutter under his breath. He glared at you before slinking his hands in his pockets and trudging towards the front door, gunmetal bouncing between you and the building. His eyes contracted as a warning before he flung the door open and disappeared into the apartment complex. The night felt a bit darker as the snowfall slowly came to a stop. The grey lining the expanding city dwindled into a translucent, smoke like vapor leaving the open sky completely shadowed. You watched the lights flick on from outside the window and flood the apartment with a yellow tinted warmth. Levi’s sigh was audible through the thick glass as he glanced at the pile of blankets on the floor.

He looked completely drained when he walked up to the window and ran his gloved hands beneath the ledge to grip the latch. It wasn’t abnormal for him to look like he hadn’t slept in a month but something had drifted into unknown territory and it made your stomach tighten. With a soft thud the window flew upwards and Levi stepped back with his hand out. Begrudgingly you gripped his hand and tiptoed into the apartment. You could practically feel Levi’s muscles tighten the minute a grey slop of mush fell to the floor from your boots but you were entirely too cold to care. Once inside you flung your shoes off and scurried across the apartment to toss your soaked garments into your bedroom.

“What’d you do to the heat it’s like a god damn ice rink in here.” Levi grated.

“Oh well you know how I’ve always aspired to be a Popsicle so I thought why not.” You shot back as you shimmied into a new pair of sweatpants. “The heat went out like an hour after you left and they can’t do anything about it until tomorrow when the new part arrives.”

“So you decide to build a blanket fort and do what? Watch porn to keep your temperature up?”

If your muscles weren’t arctic piles of mush you would have rolled your eyes hard enough for him to hear. The light from the laptop had been drowned out by the apartment lights but it was still open near your pile of blankets mocking you. Growling in your throat you padded towards your previous ‘homework fort’ and plopped to the ground. You caught Levi in your peripheral as he exited his room with his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. He eyed you suspiciously before dropping to his knees next to you. He looked like a father about to scold his child for drawing on the walls.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a paper due? I would have helped you.”

“You had a date I didn’t want to interrupt that.”

Levi’s head tilted slightly and a long sigh escaped his lips. Quietly moving forward he grabbed one of the blankets and draped it over his shoulder then flung the remaining side over your body. Heat wavered off him as he scooted closer to you and reached for the laptop. A stretch of orange had already broken through the blackened sky and kissed the city with a strip of light. Panic rushed through your body and thawed out every muscle in your body at rapid speed.

“Shit..shitshitshitshit.” You wailed with your hands over your face. “I am so screwed.”

“Hush ____. I’ll look through what you have and help you with the rest. I’m sure your shit brain came up with something acceptable by itself.”

“Your words of encouragement could lead an army into a suicide mission.”

“I won’t hesitate to throw you back into the snow.”

“I’m surprised you even came home, don’t people normally spend the night if they’re already in someone else’s bed?”

Levi glanced at you with a frown before turning his attention back to the computer. You felt like someone had reached into your chest and squeezed your heart rough enough to make it pop. The hum of the computer and Levi’s soft breathing were the only things you could focus on. Your head was spinning and you wanted to kick yourself in the throat. Levi’s personal life wasn’t exactly your business and after everything he’d done for you the best way you could pay him back was to have him do your homework and talk shit about his sex life. Maybe you should have just jumped into the snow.

“Not that it’s any of your damn business but this ‘date’ you and Isabel keep saying I went on was terrible. I only stayed out so late because I needed to get my own work done and I figured you wanted some alone time. I’ve been at the twenty-four hour diner down the street using their Wi-Fi.” He didn’t even bother to catch your glance; he could see it all in the way your shoulders instantly relaxed and the breath you’d been holding blew a crisp billow of smoke into the air. “This isn’t all bad, only a few paragraphs need revised. I’ll stay up with you since we both know you won’t be able to find a job to cover your scholarship unless you become a stripper.”

“I don’t like being alone.” You blurted. “Just..stay..next time. Please.”

You screwed your eyes shut and concentrated on remembering how to breathe. His reaction could go a hundred different directions. You expected silence, maybe a slight tap on your shoulder of reassurance, or him to call you an idiot for expecting him to stay by your side constantly. Instead you felt his hand run beneath your palm and raise your fingers to his lips. They were warm still and soft like silk when they pressed against your knuckles. Before you could even react he pulled you into his lap and wrapped the blanket over the rest of your body.

“I’ll stay.”

Description

Warning: Mentions of drug use | Language
Reader & Levi are 21+

This is the sequel to Miscalculation.

College AU

This is how it ends for me..

A thick coat of fog circled the front of your face as you shivered forcefully beneath the bundles of blankets draped around your form. You were almost one hundred percent certain your hands had become solid blocks of ice, and with each tap on the keyboard an arctic jolt shot up your arms. With a low whine you flopped forward onto your stomach and contemplated slamming the laptop closed on your head. Four hours of writing, erasing, editing, two mental break downs and you still hadn’t finished the first part of your thesis. The rough draft was due in the morning and to make matters worse the heat for the entire building had burnt out in the dead of winter.

Loading yourself up on coffee had seemed like a good idea at first but after the third cup the tiny jitters had morphed into heavy twitching and made your stomach churn. The clock in the corner of the screen seemed to be moving at the speed of light. When you’d begun your adventure down the rabbit hole of English Literature hell it was eleven pm and now the crisp white numbers read two-forty five am. The mouse pad felt like granite beneath the pad of your finger as you scrolled down the few halfway decent pages you’d managed to crank out. You’d partially contemplated writing a bunch of gibberish then using the white out option to create a false word count. Secretly Isabel had taught you that trick and it’d worked once or twice, but a thesis was nearly half your grade and you’d rather not tempt fate for a third time.

You felt frozen to the ground and there wasn’t anything remotely edible left in the fridge. Isabel had promised she would go grocery shopping yesterday but after Furlan had popped the question she opted to spend the weekend at his apartment uptown. ‘Perfect fucking timing’ you thought as you cinched the fabric of the blanket between your ice cold fingers. You’d whined about it dramatically to Levi but he hated grocery shopping so he avoided it completely. ‘If I cook the food you can damn well get off your asses and go buy it’ he’d said as he shimmied his coat over his built shoulders before waltzing out the door. He’d left a few hours before the heat cut out in the middle of the night and hadn’t been home since.

Concentrating in what felt similar to an industrial freezer was hard on its own but the added weight of Levi’s absence made it ten times worse. He’d mentioned during dinner after Isabel gushed over the new ring on her finger that he was going out with a friend from class and you’d already been sulking mentally since dinner. Isabel’s ring hadn’t surprised you, if anything it made your heart flutter at the thought of living with just Levi. That euphoric feeling was shot straight in the head the minute he walked out of the door and left you sitting on the couch by yourself. Drifting back into the depressing existence in isolation was a fear you’d long put to rest, but now with life moving so quickly it seemed you were doomed to replay the events of your adolescence.

Alone, without family, and utterly lifeless.

Rubbing your thumbs along your temples you glanced at the oven clock and groaned. Nearly three in the morning, which meant the bars had closed and Levi was off doing god knows what with the red head from his class. Isabel attempted to pry information from him but he merely shrugged her off and narrowed his eyes when she mentioned the word ‘date’. In the same moment your heart had dropped to the floor but you doubt he noticed. Instead of engaging in the conversation you huddled yourself into your room and began aimlessly typing away in hopes of purging some sort of paper good enough to earn a passing grade. English class was always an axe hanging above your head, one shit grade and your scholarship would vanish but the two year requirement was unavoidable. Levi wasn’t exactly great at the subject either, but he was better than you’d ever hope to be. Half your papers were edited and rewritten with his help, but of course on the one paper that actually held your entire college fate in its stupid metaphorical hands he was out on a date.

“Finishing” a date probably..

The thought made your chattering teeth grind until your jaw locked up.

So this was the end for you, a death brought on by a winter storm from hell, too much caffeine, and a thesis paper that would never be finished. Glancing up at the frosted windows you partially considered going outside and jumping off the fire escape but there was probably enough snow on the ground to break your fall. The bright glow of the computer screen obnoxiously refracted off the cheap reading glasses Levi had tossed your way when he noticed you squinting at your books a few weeks ago in the library. As your headache grew you thought more and more about the chances of you surviving outside in a pile of snow, but it might be more of a hassle for Levi is you died in the apartment. One last bit of revenge before you kicked the bucket. Biting your bottom lip you tugged the plastic off your face and pinched the bridge of your nose. The indents left by the hard material made your nose feel like it had been in a vice grip for the last few hours. Puffing air through your chapped lips lightly you pried one eye open fully and attempted to read what you’d typed up but the change in font size flipped your building headache into a devilish migraine.

“I need a fucking break.” You murmured into the quiet air.

After sliding on your snow boots, acquiring a second hoodie beneath your heavy pea coat and tossing the hood over your tangled hair you trudged towards the lengthy window near the end of the living room. The summer after Isabel and yourself graduated high school Levi had deemed it necessary to find a bigger apartment for ‘all of your girl shit’, and settled on an old brick building near the center of the city. It was close enough to the college for it to be partially covered by your collective scholarships which made the world a lot brighter in terms of finances. The view from the eighth floor was breathtaking even in the middle of the coldest winter on record for the decade. White flecks of snow floated down from the windowsill as you pushed the glass up high enough to get yourself through. Lighter in one hand and joint behind your ear you slid between the gap and wedged a piece of wood beneath the window to keep it from shutting completely.

Surprisingly it was warmer outside than it was in your igloo of an apartment but the bitter wind still nipped at the edge of your nose. Mix matched brickwork left from the buildings original design gave the tall complex an outdated look while the neighboring sky scrapers were decked out with glass windows and steel underlining. A dusty grey blanket had fallen across the horizon from the reflective snow and cut the dark blue sky in half. There were no stars out tonight and the city felt nearly desolate in the silence. As you placed the crumpled paper to your lips and inhaled a reoccurring thought popped into your head. Despite how often you tried to tame the patterns of wild thoughts racing through your mind in the darkened silence of solitude they wouldn’t stop pestering you.

The smoke hued reflection was a spot on match for Levi’s eyes, though they sparked with brightness if you really paid attention. A sullen wisp of chilled wind reminded you of the soft sighs he emitted while he was passed out on the couch with a book on his chest during finals. Even the ivory snowflakes that sprinkled the top of your head from the tree branches reminded you of the time you filled the dishwasher with too much soap and a horde of bubbles flooded the kitchen. You felt yourself smile as you took a second inhale before pulling the joint from your lips. Levi was absolutely livid while Isabel just laughed her ass off from the opposite end of the apartment. All you could think of to say was ‘at least the floor is clean’ before running towards the front door. You made it a quarter of the way there before Levi tackled you to the ground. The weight of his body was almost enough to make your heart stop, even if it was just a memory.

The tip of your boot slid against the black iron beneath your feet as you leaned your back against the wall. The fire escape had been slicked with partial ice due to the jumping temperature over the last few days. One wrong move and you’d be falling to your death, but on the upside it would get you out of that damn paper. Carefully sliding to the side you ran the palm of your hand down the brick siding in search for the edge of the window. Your head was becoming a bit foggy and the high from the pot was starting to kick in. Pinching the cherry of the joint between your fingers you stubbed out the flame and slid the joint into your pocket while lifting the window with your free hand.

“Ouch!”

A rogue splint of wood cut the tip of your finger and you hissed at it like it would scare it into submission. A reasonable person would have sucked it up and kept hold of the window, but reason was not exactly your strong suit at the moment. As you whipped your hand back like a wounded animal the piece of wood holding the window up had slid into off the edge and landed inside the apartment. Eyes widening with fear you shot both hands forward to grip the glass but it was too late. The wetness from the snow and your terrible reaction time had allowed the window to slam shut, and lock. If your tongue wasn’t a frozen piece of waste in your mouth you would have screamed loud enough to wake the entire city. Crossing your arms over your chest you leaned your head against the wall and silently watched the growing snowfall in absolute denial. After sulking in your own dread you slid your hands up to your cheeks and pinched the numbed skin beneath your eyes.

There were a variety of ways you could end your life by attempting to leave, but staying outside in this arctic wasteland could possibly lead you down the same doomed road. Option one included sliding yourself down eight flights of stairs with no gloves on iced over iron bars from a hundred years ago—probable failure. Option two was to tap on your neighbor’s window and wake them up but as far as you knew everyone had vacated the building when the heat went off and in order to even reach their bedroom window you’d have to hold onto the siding and pray you didn’t slip off—highly probable failure. The third option would be to text Isabel and tell her your situation, but she had a habit of using the ‘do not disturb’ option on her phone when she spent the night at Furlan’s—higher probable failure. The final option, a thought that left a bitter taste on your tongue, was to text Levi and inform him of your complete dumbass decisions and have him come home—utter failure.

Or, in all your stubbornness, you could just break the damn window and then say some drunken idiot threw a rock through it while trying to get your attention. Nodding to yourself as if you needed to agree with your own thoughts you began searching the small fire escape for anything large enough to go through the window. Sliding your boots strategically around the ice and snow you moved to the very edge of the escape near the ladder that went up to the ninth floor. Peeking between the thick piles of snow on the steps you spotted a heavy planter holding a dry and barren plant. Grinning to yourself you pushed the snow from the steps and diligently padded your way up the steps as quiet as a mouse.

Your hands burned as the damp snow left needle-like stings around your palms as if they were pushpins, but you made it to your destination. Hesitantly you pushed up on your tiptoes with one hand on the railing and the other swiping at the planter. After a few good grabs your fingertips finally crested the lip of the planter. A few minutes passed as you gradually pulled the planter closer to the edge until you could safely wrap both hands around the ceramic bowl without fear of dropping it or losing your balance. The night seemed to lighten as a whirl of cars passed beneath the street with their off-yellow lighting stretching over the snow. Grey slush stuck to your boots as you scurried towards the window with the planter in your hands. Your stomach twisted a little at the thought of Levi’s angry face, you’d truly seen hell the day you got day drunk with Isabel and made an indoor slip and slide, but you needed to get inside before you turned into a Popsicle. With a heavy breath you raised the planter over your head and counted down from five.

“____? What the hell are you doing outside you idiot?”

Your back stiffened at the echo of his voice. Where the hell was he? Or was this just your mental state fucking with you? Shaking your head you re-gripped the ceramic pot tightly and aimed at the window ready to chuck it until a snowball hit you directly in the back of the neck. Frozen slush dripped down your nape and sunk into your hair making you yelp in surprise and drop the potted plant. A loud crash resonated against the fire escape and shook tiny droplets of snow off the ledge.

“___ I asked you a damn question. Why the hell are you outside in the middle of this fuckstorm? Get your ass inside before you die and I’m stuck paying your quarter of the bills.”

“I can’t get inside genius that’s what the plant was for!” You shouted back.

Levi audibly scoffed, white puffs of smoke circling through the air as he continued to mutter under his breath. He glared at you before slinking his hands in his pockets and trudging towards the front door, gunmetal bouncing between you and the building. His eyes contracted as a warning before he flung the door open and disappeared into the apartment complex. The night felt a bit darker as the snowfall slowly came to a stop. The grey lining the expanding city dwindled into a translucent, smoke like vapor leaving the open sky completely shadowed. You watched the lights flick on from outside the window and flood the apartment with a yellow tinted warmth. Levi’s sigh was audible through the thick glass as he glanced at the pile of blankets on the floor.

He looked completely drained when he walked up to the window and ran his gloved hands beneath the ledge to grip the latch. It wasn’t abnormal for him to look like he hadn’t slept in a month but something had drifted into unknown territory and it made your stomach tighten. With a soft thud the window flew upwards and Levi stepped back with his hand out. Begrudgingly you gripped his hand and tiptoed into the apartment. You could practically feel Levi’s muscles tighten the minute a grey slop of mush fell to the floor from your boots but you were entirely too cold to care. Once inside you flung your shoes off and scurried across the apartment to toss your soaked garments into your bedroom.

“What’d you do to the heat it’s like a god damn ice rink in here.” Levi grated.

“Oh well you know how I’ve always aspired to be a Popsicle so I thought why not.” You shot back as you shimmied into a new pair of sweatpants. “The heat went out like an hour after you left and they can’t do anything about it until tomorrow when the new part arrives.”

“So you decide to build a blanket fort and do what? Watch porn to keep your temperature up?”

If your muscles weren’t arctic piles of mush you would have rolled your eyes hard enough for him to hear. The light from the laptop had been drowned out by the apartment lights but it was still open near your pile of blankets mocking you. Growling in your throat you padded towards your previous ‘homework fort’ and plopped to the ground. You caught Levi in your peripheral as he exited his room with his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. He eyed you suspiciously before dropping to his knees next to you. He looked like a father about to scold his child for drawing on the walls.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had a paper due? I would have helped you.”

“You had a date I didn’t want to interrupt that.”

Levi’s head tilted slightly and a long sigh escaped his lips. Quietly moving forward he grabbed one of the blankets and draped it over his shoulder then flung the remaining side over your body. Heat wavered off him as he scooted closer to you and reached for the laptop. A stretch of orange had already broken through the blackened sky and kissed the city with a strip of light. Panic rushed through your body and thawed out every muscle in your body at rapid speed.

“Shit..shitshitshitshit.” You wailed with your hands over your face. “I am so screwed.”

“Hush ____. I’ll look through what you have and help you with the rest. I’m sure your shit brain came up with something acceptable by itself.”

“Your words of encouragement could lead an army into a suicide mission.”

“I won’t hesitate to throw you back into the snow.”

“I’m surprised you even came home, don’t people normally spend the night if they’re already in someone else’s bed?”

Levi glanced at you with a frown before turning his attention back to the computer. You felt like someone had reached into your chest and squeezed your heart rough enough to make it pop. The hum of the computer and Levi’s soft breathing were the only things you could focus on. Your head was spinning and you wanted to kick yourself in the throat. Levi’s personal life wasn’t exactly your business and after everything he’d done for you the best way you could pay him back was to have him do your homework and talk shit about his sex life. Maybe you should have just jumped into the snow.

“Not that it’s any of your damn business but this ‘date’ you and Isabel keep saying I went on was terrible. I only stayed out so late because I needed to get my own work done and I figured you wanted some alone time. I’ve been at the twenty-four hour diner down the street using their Wi-Fi.” He didn’t even bother to catch your glance; he could see it all in the way your shoulders instantly relaxed and the breath you’d been holding blew a crisp billow of smoke into the air. “This isn’t all bad, only a few paragraphs need revised. I’ll stay up with you since we both know you won’t be able to find a job to cover your scholarship unless you become a stripper.”

“I don’t like being alone.” You blurted. “Just..stay..next time. Please.”

You screwed your eyes shut and concentrated on remembering how to breathe. His reaction could go a hundred different directions. You expected silence, maybe a slight tap on your shoulder of reassurance, or him to call you an idiot for expecting him to stay by your side constantly. Instead you felt his hand run beneath your palm and raise your fingers to his lips. They were warm still and soft like silk when they pressed against your knuckles. Before you could even react he pulled you into his lap and wrapped the blanket over the rest of your body.

“I’ll stay.”