College, a time of freedom and independence. Discovering yourself and getting hammered at parties until you pass out on the floor in a drunken stupor. And Eren Jeager was ready to discover it all. That was, unless you had Mikasa breathing down your neck at all times reminding you of the dangers of alcohol poisoning. It really cramped your style.

"Eren, did you pack sunscreen? You're susceptible to burns, you know."

Eren sighed, staring at his adoptive sister. She was a good half a foot smaller than he was, but what she lacked in height, she made up for in the ability to body slam him to the ground at a moment's notice.

She didn't wait for him to answer her impossibly stupid question and instead reached into her bag, pulling out a gallon of SPF 50 like some sort of 18-year-old Mary Poppins with six pack abs.

"Where the hell do you keep this crap, Mikasa? Did you rob a Costco or something?" Eren asked as she shoved the jug into his arms.

"Preparation is the key, Eren. I don't want you to get sunburned." She answered, like this was perfectly acceptible and logical in all aspects of sanity and life. It wasn't.

Eren stared up at the sky. "It's barely even sunny outside, Mikasa. I think you're losing your mind."

Mikasa rolled her eyes as if Eren was being the unreasonable one. "I didn't bring it just for today." She said. "Although it wouldn't hurt." she added as a second thought.

"You're worse than mom was." Eren snapped, hitching his duffle bag higher and resuming his path towards the dorms.

"Well someone has to be the parent here, and if your dad is going off on business trips every week and a half to get drunk at meetings and call you at five in the morning crying about how he used to love you, I figure I'm next in line." Mikasa said, following behind Eren like a loyal, annoying, overprotective dog.

Eren snorted, yanking open the door and walking into the lobby before turning around to stare down his sister. "I am mature enough to take care of myself, thank you very much."

"Do you know what you had for breakfast today? Five different kinds of cereal with varying and frightening amounts of sugar intake. If you were left to your own devices, you'd go into a sugar coma within two hours."

"I'd rather fall into a sugar coma than hear another rant about the obesity rates of today's youth like I'm some sort of Jerry Springer guest." Eren snapped. "I swear, Mikasa, one day you're going to give yourself a brain aneurysm, and I'm going to just sit back and watch."

Mikasa took a deep breath, closing her eyes. "We're in college now, Eren. The final stretch. If you want to get good grades, you're going to have to buckle down right the hell now."

"I don't want good grades, I want revenge!" Eren cried.

"Not this again, Eren. You fire off more expositional dialogue than a character in Twilight." Mikasa groaned.

Eren ignored her, his eyes blazing in anger. "My mother was robbed and murdered by a band of thugs when I was just eleven years old-"

"Stop. People are staring."

"-I held her hand as she died and promised that I would join the forces of the law and prevent the murder of helpless old ladies like her around the globe-"

"I was there, Eren."

"And I will, gosh darn it!" With this exclamation, he pumped his fist into the air, grinning with pride and a little bit of insanity.

Mikasa grabbed his arm, yanking it down, and glanced around wildly at the rest of the people in the lobby, who had been staring in horror and intrigue for the past minute and a half. "You are single handedly going to make everyone in the building hate you faster than Justin Beiber after his initial climb to popularity."

"Since when do I care what people think?" Eren demanded, breathing heavily.

"I think that happens to be one of your most prominent character flaws, Eren, I wouldn't be proud." Mikasa hissed as everyone resumed their previous activities, talking quietly amongst themselves. Already, Mikasa could feel the beginnings of an Eren Hate Club stirring amongst their peers.

Eren rolled his eyes as someone tried to squeeze past, promptly bumping into his shoulder and unknowingly tipping his precarious mental state. "Who the hell touched me?"

"Holy crap, Eren, please get it together." Mikasa said as the offender turned around.

"Were you talking to me?" they asked, their annoyed and haughty form of speech sounding like they'd practiced it in front of the mirror.

Eren blinked, his initial anger receding. "You look alarmingly like a horse. Has anyone told you that before?"

"You're going to be stabbed in your bed, Eren." Mikasa muttered under her breath as the horse faced gentleman brindled at Eren's comment.

"Actually, they're more akin to saying I'm devilishly handsome, like George Clooney if George Clooney was hotter than George Clooney actually is." he replied, aiming a wink at Mikasa, who gagged.

"If we're comparing you to celebrities, I was going for more of a Secretariat vibe." Eren said, blatantly ignoring the rules of social conduct.

The boy's aloof vibe vanished, and was replaced with almost Eren-level anger. "Now, listen here, punk-"

"Jean, I'm sure they're just kidding." A sunny voice said from his left side, and a shorter, freckled boy with a bright smile and a day-glo orange t-shirt proudly proclaiming it was from the Bodt's 2013 Family Reunion At Disney World, appeared.

"They insulted my face, Marco, no one insults my face." The boy named Jean said in disbelief.

"That's a surprise." Eren commented, clearly feeling like taking his life into his hands today.

Before Jean could lunge out and strangle Eren, Marco stepped into, trying to smooth things over. "I'm Marco Bodt, and this is my roommate Jean Kirschstein. It's so nice to meet you." He chirped, shaking Eren's hand and then Mikasa's. "Please, forgive Jean, he's really very nice."

"I wish I could say the same for Eren." Mikasa replied. "I'm Mikasa Ackerman, and this is Eren Jaeger."

Jean glanced between them. "You know you can't room with girls, Jaeger." He said accusatorially.

"We're not roommates. Mikasa's on the other side of the campus. I'm rooming with Armin Arlert." Eren snapped.

Jean and Marco exchanged a glance. "I know that name. That room is across from ours on the second floor." Marco said.

"You mean that weird kid who was listening to Avril Lavigne as he unpacked his Grow Your Own Fungi kit?" Jean asked.

"That sounds like Armin." Eren sighed.

"Then I guess that makes us across-the-hall neighbors!" Marco said happily, looking as excited as if Eren had promptly got down on one knee and proposed marriage to him.

"Wonderful." Jean and Eren said in unison.

"We should really get going. I want to hang up my mom's handmade curtains before I forget." Marco said regretfully. "I'll see you later, Eren! We'll definitely invite you to our dorm warming party."

"We're not having a dorm warming party, Marco-" Jean was grumbling as Marco dragged him away.

Eren picked up his duffle bag again. "I guess this is where we part, Mikasa." He said, hoping she would take his not-so-subtle hint to scram.

"Really, Eren, I should go with you to your room, to help you get settled." She wheedled.

"I only have this one bag, and you already heard that Armin is making a fool of himself, so he's there." Eren replied, getting annoyed with her clinginess.

Mikasa sighed wistfully. "Call me when you get there."

"It's two flights up the stairs and your dorm is literally across the quad."

"You could trip on the stairs and break your neck, Eren, I've seen you trip on solid ground." Mikasa said.

"Goodbye, Mikasa." Eren said, cutting her oncoming rant short before she gave herself a panic attack.

He figured Mikasa would at least show some sort of emotion at their parting, especially with the way she had been whining about it since they'd woken up, but she just stared him him with her usual blank expression. He figured that was as close as he would get to any sort of farewell and thanked his lucky stars that despite her creepy watchfulness, her emotional content was the size of a grain of abnormally small sand.

ooooooo

"Armin? Are you there?" Eren asked, pushing open the door at the end of the hallway. It hadn't been hard to find, he just followed the sound of whiny early 2000s pop music and desperation.

A small, blond head poked out from behind a large box and Armin waved. "Eren! Hi! I already unpacked most of my stuff, and I gave you the biggest room." Armin said helpfully, standing up and brushing off his sweater vest with careful strokes.

Eren threw his duffle bag to the side glancing around the apartment-style dorm. True to Armin's character, one wall already had his large picture of Einstein and signed Taylor Swift poster front and center, like the beginnings of a nerd shrine.

Armin stood in the center of it all, looking small and nervous as he clutched his Grow Your Own Fungi kit to his chest. "Marco invited us to his dorm warming party later tonight if you wanted to go." Armin continued. He had a habit of blathering on when he felt like the environment was getting too awkwardly charged, as it normally did when he was present.

"Sounds lame." Eren replied, and Armin nodded, his hair swinging uniformly with the movement, like a blonde helmet.

Eren had first met Armin at Shiganshina Elementary when two kids were beating up Armin for his lunch money. Normally, Eren wouldn't have cared either way whether the scrawny bookworm was getting the snot beat out of him, but he figured that if the money was recovered, there would be a little something in it for him, and Armin's grandfather always packed enough for him to get an ice cream bar. Thus, he valiantly saved the day, and Armin latched onto Eren like a socially inept leech. It did have it's advantages at least. Armin continued to fork over his ice cream bars and occasionally his extensive knowledge came in handy when Mikasa forced Eren to play Trivial Pursuit to make him more 'cultured.'

"I might go. My grandfather always says I need to put myself out there and seize the day." Armin said, pulling a crystal formation kit from another box.

"Your grandfather's mental state has deteriorated considerably since the great incident of '09, Armin, I wouldn't take his advice on anything." Eren reminded him.

Armin glanced at the beaten up duffle bag. "You're having your other stuff sent here, right?" he asked.

"What other stuff?"

"Didn't you get the packing list that came with the welcome packet?" Armin pressed, looking fearful.

"Probably. I don't know. Mikasa normally opens the mail." Eren shrugged, pulling a questionable bag of Gushers from one of the side pockets of the bag and ripping it open.

Armin's friendship with Eren was one of the main reasons he had to see a therapist for abnormal stress levels, and sometimes he wondered if this pain was a fair trade off for being able to follow someone cool around all the time.

"I met our other neighbors too. Jean and Marco said you guys already met down in the lobby, but there's this guy named Connie on our right who lives with some journalist major who is literally never home, and then on our left are these two guys named Bertholdt and Reiner, who seemed pretty nice. Oh, and this guy named Marlowe said he lived at the other end of the hall when I ran into him an hour ago." Armin said, making some sort of conversation to cover up the sound of Eren trying to break open fossilized Gushers with his teeth.

"That Marlowe dude didn't happen to have an unsightly bowl cut and was also holding a thick Attack on College Rule Handbook Fourth Edition, did he?" Eren asked.

"Yeah, I think that was it."

"We're avoiding him. I think he's on some sort of weird European drug that I don't want to tangle with."

Armin shrugged. "Oh, hey, Mikasa's coming over later, right?"

Eren snorted. "She's probably using her Spider-Man powers to grapple under our window and listen to our conversation as we speak."

There was a knock at the door that caused both boys to look up just then, and Marco stuck his head in. "Hey! Bad time?"

"No, come on it." Armin said hurriedly, just grateful that it wasn't Mikasa who had arrived. Eren might be stressful and little bit dangerous, but Mikasa terrified him. She was always saying he was too small and trying to force energy bars and power shakes down his throat like a steroid induced celebrity trainer.

"Nice place, Armin, I like your Taylor Swift poster." Marco said pleasantly. "I was just wondering if you had a couple nails I could borrow?"

"No, but Reiner did say he eats nails for breakfast." Armin said helpfully.

"I can't believe you took that seriously, Armin, it's like you never leave your house." Eren piped up after he had effectively unglued his jaw of expired Gusher.

"I'll go ask him. Have a nice day!" Marco waved, letting himself out, and Eren rolled his eyes.

"I think he's on drugs too."

Armin blinked. "Who? Marco? Marco's so friendly!"

"Exactly. No one's that nice! It's weird."

Armin shook his head. "Not everyone is as emotionally handicapped as you, Eren. Some people are actually happy."

Eren shrugged. "I still think that he's on something."

Armin sighed. There was no use arguing with Eren. You either lost, or Mikasa came to your house with a knife and some rope.

ooooooo

Jean watched as Marco pulled yet another batch of cookies out of the miniscule oven that came in the dorm's tiny kitchen. It was about the size of an Easy Bake Oven and worked just as well.

"I'm telling you, Marco, a dorm warming party not only sounds stupid, but will be disappointing without alcohol. This is college, not an elementary school Valentine's party." Jean muttered, rolling his eyes.

Marco just laughed. Honestly, his endless happy vibe was already starting to grate on Jean, and they'd only been roommates for two hours. "People don't need to get drunk to have fun!" Marco berated.

Jean snorted. "Then I guess you've never had a drink of anything stronger than juice."

Marco's eyes widened as he dumped the cookies on a platter. "Never!"

"Not even a sip of beer when you were like nine?"

"No!" Marco cried, as if the idea itself was completely absurd. "My mom says that alcohol is a bad decision in a bottle."

"That doesn't even make sense. It hardly rolls off the tongue."

Marco gave Jean a loving but firm look reminiscent of his mom after he had asked her what weed was for the first time. "My mother knows everything."

"Clearly." Jean muttered after Marco had turned away.

"Armin and Eren seem nice." Marco noted, clearly trying to change the subject.

Jean snorted. "You mean He Man and anger issues? No thanks."

Marco shrugged. "You just have to give them a chance! Eren was very kind, and Armin seemed like a really smart guy."

"I bet Jaeger has about five bottles of bad decisions a day, Marco." Jean said in a faux earnest voice that made Marco wrinkle his nose.

"Well then, what about Reiner and Bertholdt?"

Jean crossed his arms. "Reiner probably kills puppies for fun and Bertholdt looked like he was about to pass out from overexposure to human contact. I swear, Marco, this whole floor makes a drug den look like a chess club."

"Swearing isn't good, Jean." Marco said offhandedly. "I really feel like you're judging them too soon. College is a time for new experiences! To forge lasting friendships that you'll carry with you, even into adulthood!"

"What Forever 21 shirt did you get that one from?" Jean asked, but Marco just shook his head, a smile still plastered on his face. "You know what? I'm going out."

Marco looked surprise. "Did I do something to upset you?"

"No, I just need some fresh air." Jean replied, yanking open the front door to the dorm and stepping out into the empty hallway. "And to get away from the new Care Bears Friendship special that I'll be living with for the next year." He murmured to himself, feeling like this was going to be an even longer year than the last.

ooooooo

"Heads up!" Someone screeched, and a football went soaring over Jean's head, barely missing him by an inch.

"Watch out, idiot!" His friend yelled from the other side, and Jean groaned. He had been looking forward to college basically his entire life, eager to get away from his overprotective mother and the idiots at his old school in Trost, but already, college life pretty much sucked. He had a roommate who was two steps away from going into full out hippie meditation mode, a jerk living across from him, and a Coconut Head cosplayer who played early 2000s music like an emo Twilight fan girl who spent her days Photoshopping her face onto Bella Swan's and writing Sherlock fan fiction.

The only beacon of hope in his craphole of a life was the hot girl he'd met in the lobby earlier. Mikasa? She'd seemed pretty attached to Angry Eyebrows, but obviously that shouldn't last long. Who'd want to date someone like Jaeger anyway? You'd probably have to have joint therapy sessions together just to survive.

Looking up, Jean saw a familiar dark haired individual making a beeline for the boys dorm and he felt like fate had placed this chance in front of him for a reason. "Hey, Mikasa!" He called before she could disappear into the building.

She turned around, a blank look on her face, and he trotted up. "We met in the lobby earlier, remember?" he asked.

"I guess. The guy that Eren called a horse." She said blankly, obviously not caring that what she said would be considered rude in most cultures.

"It's Jean. Actually."

"Jean. Cool. I'll try and remember that." She replied in a way that clearly stated that remembering his name would literally be last on her to-do list.

Jean tried to scramble for something to say before she could walk away. "Is Jeager your boyfriend?" He asked and then winced. Really smooth, Kirschstein, honestly.

"No." She answered, completely expressionless.

"Oh! Cool." Jean choked out, and she nodded. "So I guess I'll see you later?"

"I'm counting down the minutes." She replied sarcastically, walking into the lobby, and Jean grinned.

She was so into him.