A/N: Someone asked me a long time ago for a college AU and I had no idea what to do. I don't think IT help desks are particularly romantic though, but I find myself always having to go there at least once a year because my school e-mail requires you to reset your password once a year but...it also has no way to reset your password so you have to go to the IT help desk. What a trap!
College AU.
As a policy, Levi tries not to work with crying students because his people skills are already mediocre when both parties are emotionally stable. It's also why he tries to avoid working the night shift during finals weeks at the IT help desk, but it's not something he always has control over. He had hoped that Hanji would help him like they said they would, but when a literature major came sobbing to their corner of the room, Hanji simply waved a hand at him, mumbling something about how they were busy studying for their own exam tomorrow, and thus Levi found himself alone with the blubbering mess of a girl.
"Er," Levi says. He looks at the black screen on her laptop, his bewildered expression reflected in its surface, and then looks back at the sobbing girl. He remembers seeing her curled up on one of the couches of the library, furiously typing a paper of hers for the entire time she'd been there. He's pretty sure she hadn't even gone up for a bathroom break because she was so intent on finishing her paper. "May I help you?"
"My p-paper," the girl hiccups. Her eyes are swollen and red, and her nose is running. She hastily wipes her face with a crumpled tissue, but it looks like she's not going to finish crying anytime soon. "My laptop sh-shut down and n-n-now I can't turn it on! My paper was s-saved on there!"
"Okay," Levi says. He should be grateful that she is at least calm enough to let him know what was wrong with her laptop (even if the details are vague), but he can't stand her sniffling and tears, so he only fiddles with her laptop with a moment before accidentally snapping, "Could you quit crying?"
There is a beat of silence – Hanji looking up to see what had happened to make him shout at another student, the girl shocked into a brief moment of quiet, and the rest of the library inhabitants frozen in place to stare at what's happening at the IT help desk. Lastly, there's Levi realizing too late that he's lost his temper over something trivial and thinking that he's finally going to lose his unfulfilling but convenient job at the library.
He thinks for sure that the silence will be broken by the girl wailing even louder, tears falling down her cheeks like a waterfall, but he's wrong. It's so much worse. He knows already that the girl has an impressive pair of lungs from the way she had come up to his desk sobbing her heart out, but it's not until she begins to yell at him that he discovers how loud she can really be. What's worse is that she doesn't even start at her maximum volume; she starts quietly, her voice trembling slightly in barely contained fury, and it only grows from there.
"Excuse me," the girl says coldly. He thought her crying face was frightening enough, but somehow the deadly glare she gives him is even worse. He wishes he had never said anything at all. It's one thing to upset a student during the usual weeks of the school term, but upsetting them during finals week is another thing entirely. Her ginger hair, messy and unkempt, looks like it will burst into flames if she gets any angrier. "I came to you asking for help in my hour of need, to ask you to do something you're paid to do, and excuse me for crying over a paper that I worked my ass off for two weeks only for it to disappear in the blink of an eye that I have no idea how to get it back!"
"I really didn't mean that," Levi mumbles. He looks helplessly over at Hanji who only sniggers at him, one hand over their mouth to stifle their laughter. "It's just been a long night, you know." He doesn't even know why he's trying to backtrack now. It's far too late for that. He can't even apologize properly because she's going off on him without any sign of stopping.
"And I thought you would be nice enough to help me! You even offered, didn't you? If you didn't want to help me, you should have refused me in the beginning!" the girl says, her voice rising to a shrill crescendo. She shuts her laptop angrily, tears beginning to appear again. If she cries again, he doesn't think he'll be able to handle it. "I'll have you know that my night, my whole week probably, is far more unpleasant than yours is, so I don't see how you can even be upset when you're just sitting here doing nothing except yelling at the poor souls who come here for your help!"
"Please," Levi says weakly, but the library receptionists are already there tugging at the girl's sleeve, ready to ask her politely to leave the premises because she's disturbing the customers.
"Oh, let go of me," the girl says, yanking herself away from the poor library workers. She grabs her laptop, holding it against her chest, and storms off, but not before stopping and turning around to give Levi a few last words. "I hope you have a wonderful night, sir, and thank you so much for all your help," she says sarcastically, her words dripping with venom. She turns around and marches off in a huff. It's a good thing the library doors are automatic. He's sure she'd slam them shut and shatter all the glass if they weren't.
Hanji's still giggling after all that. Compared to the girl's yelling, their muffled laughter is hardly a disturbance in this sacred study space, but it's still enough to irritate Levi who's trying his best to forget all of this. Strange how they were too busy to help him with the girl a few minutes ago but has enough time to spend a solid five minutes laughing over the whole thing afterward.
"Are you done?" Levi asks, raising an eyebrow.
"I don't think I've ever seen anyone except your mother yell at you like that," Hanji snickers, wiping a tear from their eye. They sigh, finally done laughing, and grin. "And you didn't even do anything! You just stood there and let her yell at you! Although I do feel bad for the poor kid. I've seen her writing that paper in here for the past couple of days. If it's all really gone, it's probably going to put a dent in her GPA."
"Well, that's not my problem," Levi grumbles. He catches Hanji giving him a funny look and he frowns. "What? It's difficult helping someone when they're crying their eyes out. If you feel so bad, why don't you go and help her?"
"Because I am severely behind on studying," Hanji reminds him, waving their notes in his face. It's littered with equations stuffed into the margins and a myriad of things highlighted in all sorts of colors on all the pages. Levi's not sure how they make sense of anything they've written, but they always manage to pass classes with flying colors, so he's not too worried about them. "And it's not like you have finals to study for since all your exams are open note."
Levi would protest, but it's not like he was going to study for his exams anyway. He usually gets a decent enough grade on homework and midterms that he doesn't need to worry about final exams. He doesn't care too much about his grade just as long as he passes the class.
Hanji nudges him with the tip of their foot. "Don't you feel even a little bit bad though? I mean, you were her Obi-Wan Kenobi. Her only hope."
"If she wrote it once, she can write it again," Levi replies, but he knows even that's cruel to say. The girl is probably burnt out from writing it the first time. If she were to write it again, it would probably resemble her first paper but would be completely riddled with typos and grammar issues because of the stress of not getting it done on time, and she wouldn't have time to proofread it even if she were lucky enough to finish her paper. Before he knows it, he's packing up his things, eyes fixed on the door that the girl had left through.
"Where are you going?" Hanji asks, amused.
"Bathroom break," Levi mutters. He stops before hopping over the IT help desk (which he isn't really supposed to do, but he hardly has the patience to walk out the proper exit in the back) and turns back to ask Hanji, "What other places on campus are open 24-hours this week?"
"The cafeteria isn't but it's open pretty late. The café near the art building is open for 24-hours though," Hanji says with a grin. They lean against the counter, chin resting on their hand. "You know, Levi, you're really not that heartless."
He hops over the IT desk and flips her the finger before leaving, making sure to grab his coffee before he leaves.
He finds her at the café (feeling that the cafeteria wasn't really the place to be completing a paper). Her bright ginger hair makes it easy to spot her. That and the fact that most people have returned to their dorm to sleep since it's way past midnight. There are a couple of people dozing off in the café though, their heads resting on the little café tables as they snore loudly. The girl, however, is still fiddling with her laptop, pressing the power button on and off and seeing no changes in her laptop screen at all. She hardly even notices when he plops down right next to her.
"What are you doing here?" she hisses, but she keeps her voice lowered. It seems that she's far less energetic than she was when she was in the library because she only looks at him in disbelief when he snatches her laptop away from her. "Are you going to yell at me again?"
"You're the one that yelled at me," Levi tells her. He presses the power button again (ignoring her when she says, "I tried that already,") and frowns. "So it won't turn on. Do you what made it shut down in the first place?"
"Well, no," the girl says, "but that's why I came to you guys in the first place except you were so rude –!"
He really wishes she would stop bringing that up. He'd apologize, but he's afraid of coming off as insincere. Maybe if he fixes this, it'll serve as his apology instead. Gritting his teeth, he asks, "Yes, but do you remember what you were doing before it shut down? Did you have any other programs open on your laptop? Was it running slowly? Did you have any issues before?"
She blinks at him, surprised that he's actually offering to help her after everything that had happened before. "Well," she says hesitantly. "No, not that I can say. I had just my word processor on and was playing music in the background. It just suddenly shut off all of a sudden."
"Can I unplug everything?" he asks her. She nods once, and he unplugs her charger, rolling up the cord neatly and setting it aside. Her earbuds have already been unplugged and the only other thing she has attached to her laptop is a USB stick, which he also takes out. He pushes it aside and folds her laptop down, turning it upside down and unlocking the back where the battery is. "How old is your laptop?"
"Er, a year and a half?" she says, unsure. "I got it my freshman year."
"You're not a freshman?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. From her height (although he's not one to talk since he's only an inch or two taller than her) and her panicked outburst earlier, he was sure that she was a first-year student. "Sophomore? Junior?"
"A sophomore," she frowns. "Did you think I was a freshman?"
He doesn't answer. He simply takes out the battery from the back of her laptop and then flips it over again, opening up the laptop. He points at the power button and says to the girl, "Hold that for me for ten seconds, will you?" She's confused, but she does so while he inspects the battery, blowing off some of the dust. After ten seconds have passed, she lets go and he turns the laptop around once more, inserting the battery and sets the laptop down. "Try it now."
The girl frowns but she pushes the power button and the screen finally lights up. "Oh," she breathes. She puts a hand over her heart as if to contain her happiness. "At least that works."
"Eh, I wouldn't worry too much about your paper even if you didn't manage to save it," Levi says. He glances briefly at the screen as she logs in. It says "Hello, Petra!" across a forest background. Her icon is a picture of her and a black and white tabby. "I can get those for you too if you want."
"Would you?" the girl says. She gives him a tired smile. "I'd be so thankful if you did."
"It'll only take a few seconds," Levi tells her. He navigates through her documents, trying not to be startled by the numerous files and folders she has. "You write a lot?"
"You have no idea," she yawns only barely covering her mouth. She rests her arms on the table and uses them as a pillow. "I've had a due every week for two of my classes and that's on top of all the reading I have to do."
"It's what you get for being a lit major," Levi says. He clicks a few times and finally opens a recovered file of her lost paper. He slides the laptop over to her but taps her USB. "Save that in there before you start in case anything else happens so you won't have to start all over if anything else happens."
"Oh, thank you, thank you!" the girl says, smiling sleepily at him. While she looked absolutely terrifying while angry, she actually looks quite nice when she's smiling, Levi thinks. "Sorry I yelled at you earlier. Especially since it's finals week."
"It's fine," Levi shrugs, fidgeting in his seat awkwardly. He's never been good with apologies, giving or receiving them. "I shouldn't have yelled at you when you were already stressed out. My finals are all open note anyway, so it's not like I have anything to worry about."
"Lucky you," Petra laughs. She yawns again and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. She stretches her arms above her head and rolls her neck around before hunching over her laptop once more. "Thanks again. If I had to start this over again, I think I'd go crazy. You were a big help. Good luck with your finals!"
"Thanks, you too," Levi says. He stands up, not quite knowing how to say goodbye but not wanting to bother her anymore. He's about to just walk off and return to his place at the IT desk, but he remembers his coffee and sets it beside her. When she looks up at him surprised, he mumbles, "You've been up for a long time and you still need to finish your paper. That should keep you awake until you finish anyway."
The girl takes the coffee, holding the cup carefully in her hands, and takes a sip. "Oh, jeez. This is really going to help," she smiles. She looks a little more awake already. "Thanks again. Maybe I'll see you after finals?"
"Yeah," Levi says, shifting his bag on his shoulder and shrugging. "See you around." He really doubts that they'll see each other again – they're in different years and in two different majors – but it was a pretty…interesting experience overall.
He gets a few more people asking for help with similar problems – not connecting to wi-fi, recovering lost files, and resetting their passwords to school accounts. Hanji, of course, doesn't help him with any of these things because they have finals to study for until the end of the week.
"Hey," a voice says.
"Can I help you?" he asks. When he looks up, he finds the girl from the other day. Petra, he remembers. "Is your laptop not turning on again?"
"Huh? Oh, no," the girl laughs. She shifts the bag on her shoulder – the oversized thing bursting with papers – and sets a coffee onto the desk in front of him. "I wanted to say thanks for saving my paper the other night. I just realized afterward that I never caught your name. Mine is Petra, by the way. Petra Ral."
He already knows, but he doesn't tell her that. Instead, he says, "Levi Ackerman." Pointing at the coffee she had slid across the desk, he asks, "Is this for me?"
"Yeah," she says. She gives him an apologetic smile. "It's not as good as the one you gave me but…"
He tries not to spit it out once he takes a sip. Hanji always makes fun of him for having such a particular palate, but this tastes like dirt. He manages to swallow it down before coughing, "Where did you get this?"
"From the school café," she giggles. "Is it that bad?"
"It's the worst," Levi tells her. He's not sure he'll finish the rest of it even if she did go out of her way to buy it for him as thanks.
After being unavailable for the past few days, Hanji decides that now is the time to pop up from behind the IT help desk, leaning across the table and looking down at Petra with a seductive grin. "Is this the cutie that you upset the other day, Levi? I didn't have a chance to speak with you the other night, but I hope Levi managed to fix your problem afterward. You know, I was the one who convinced him to run after you," Hanji tells Petra.
Petra seems quite enchanted by Hanji and Hanji gives Levi a look that says they won't think twice about whisking the sophomore away right this minute, so Levi hastily gets his things and walks out of the IT room. Grabbing Petra by the wrist, he drags her away before Hanji has the chance to make the moves on her.
"Where are you going?" Hanji asks teasingly.
"Break," Levi grumbles. "Cover my shift. You owe me for the past few days." To Petra, he says, "You've lived here for a year and a half and you still haven't managed to find a place that sells decent coffee?"
She gives him a sheepish grin. "I was writing papers."
"Come on then," he sighs. "I'll introduce you to the only place near campus that sells coffee worth buying. I'll even buy it for you this time just to make up for the crappy coffee you bought me, but you're buying the next one."
"Sounds good," she says. She smiles again and, Levi decides, her smiling face most definitely more pleasing than her crying one.
A/N: Now that I think of it, I've been at my school for four years (and onto another for my master's) and I have no idea where anything is because I always just sit at the library and then go home, haha. That's pretty sad. I just found out the other day that my kindergarten teacher went there for her master's too! What a small world.
Word Count: 3210