#hadeandays

Alex leans into Armando’s shoulder and glares across the quad. Logan Howlett is sitting and talking with some of the other professors, and if Armando hadn’t already heard Alex’s complaints about the man he would be honestly baffled.

As it is, he’s still a little baffled,”Why is it you hate him again?”

“There’s only room for one pretty boy lumberjack on this campus. And I was here first.”

Armando thinks it’s probably a good thing that Alex isn’t looking at him because it is taking all his self control not to burst into hysterical laughter and he’s sure it shows on his face. Granted, this is not the most ridiculous thing that Alex has done. Before they had gotten together, Armando had found him asleep in an empty classroom that he had actually locked himself in so they had to wait for the next class to let them out.

Still, he feels that it’s his duty to remind him that even without Professor Howlett on campus, Alex is still not the only one who wears flannel at the University. “Babe, we go to a Liberal Arts school.”

Alex turns towards him, a look of utter betrayal on his face, “That is very far from being the point.”

Armando tugs him closer, and rests his chin on the top of Alex’s head, “If it makes you feel better, you are much prettier. Although I can’t say you look more like a lumberjack, I’m not going to lie to you like that.”

Alex lets out a sigh, but it sounds less exasperated and more fond, “Don’t you have a paper to write somewhere? I thought you were supposed to be an English Major, where did you find ten consecutive minutes of free time?”

He does what is obviously the logical thing, and slips into one of the classrooms that he knows no one uses during this period, pushes a few of the desks together, and falls asleep almost immediately.

 An indiscriminate amount of time later (or, about seven minutes according to his phone) he wakes up to the sound of the door clicking closed. 

In the door way is Armando, who is in at least four of his classes, although they’ve never really talked before. Alex may or may not have been staring at him all semester. 

“Hey man, are you okay?” He asks, and it takes Alex a second to realize that he is usually more composed than this, and taking a nap in a classroom is maybe not the most normal thing to do.

Still, it takes him a moment to remember how the mechanics of speaking actually works. “I just handed in my thesis paper,” he finally croaks, and Armando’s face immediately goes sympathetic, and also amused.

“And you thought the best idea was to take a nap on some desks?”

Alex blinked, because okay, maybe it wasn’t the best idea, “I didn’t want to walk back to my room?”

A smile tugged at the corners of Armando’s lips, and maybe if he had had more sleep Alex would have been offended, but really, it was sort of adorable, and he didn’t have the energy to front right now.

“How about I make sure you don’t keel over on your way back to your building, and then you can take a nap? There’s a class in here in like an hour anyway.”

This seems like a lot to ask, but Armando makes a good point, and Alex would very much like to sleep for more than an hour, so he does his best not to look too put out as he takes Armando’s offered hand and hops off of the desks.

Unfortunately, there is a glaring flaw in this plan. The doors, it seems, have locked behind them. Which means they actually cannot get out of the classroom. Which means Alex cannot go back to his room and take a nap.

Really, his life is a tragedy.

Armando turns to him and says, “I guess that’s off the table then. If you still want to sleep, I’ll probably just get some homework done or something until someone comes along to open the classroom.”

Alex thinks this is an amazing suggestion, and while he’d like to think he said something along those lines, he’s pretty sure he just passes out as soon as he’s slightly horizontal.

…………

An hour later, Armando shakes him awake as some history class files into the room. And Alex, who is about zero percent as well rested as he would like to be, follows Armando back to his dorm building in a daze before crashing again almost immediately.

In retrospect, Alex probably shouldn’t have even ventured out of his dorm room yet. The storm had three hours ago, and while the CVS closest to campus was open, nothing else was. Still, considering the fact that they were technically in a state of emergency, he and Sean had gone through a lot of food these past few days, and if they were going to make it until the dining halls opened at two pm tomorrow, he was going to have to pick up a few things.

Sean, the lucky bastard, was still safely tucked away in their dorm room. Because Alex was a nice roommate, okay? And also he had drawn the short straw between his friends. Because he was lucky like that.

CVS has pretty much been cleared out of anything, because people tend to panic when they think they’re going to lose power. (And yeah, okay the whole campus was without power for like four days, but whatever. It’s still ridiculous.) There’s some bread left though, and peanut butter, which is lucky. Alex has lasted for longer on less, so really, it’s only Sean who’s going to have to tough it out, but that’s okay. He’ll probably sleep most of the time anyway.

He’s started his trek back to the dorm building (and really, the fact that they haven’t shoveled the sidewalk is not making things easier. The snow drifts are taller than he is, and he feels a little bit like some sort of mountaineer) when he notices that, surprisingly, there is another human being out and about in this godforsaken weather. And, of course, just Alex’s luck the only other human being that was stupid enough to consider going outside right now is not just anyone, but it’s Armando, who is in Alex’s philosophy class and who Alex has been staring at for the entirety of the semester.

Which means that of course it’s only after Armando shows up that Alex falls into a snowbank. And no, the two events are obviously not related to each other. He did not fall over just because he saw Armando, even if Armando did look like he stepped out of a photo shoot for winter coats or whatever.

Y’know what? This conversation is over.

Shut up.

And of course, the story doesn’t end there, because Alex is a human disaster and the universe hates him. No, instead of being greeted with the sweet release of death upon falling into the snowbank, he’s greeted with the sound of laughter. Because of course Armando saw that.

Armando is not, however, as much of an asshole as, say Alex himself is, because he comes over to help him out even though he’s laughing at him.

“You okay there?” he says, and there’s still laughter in his voice. Alex resents this probably less than he should, but Armando holds out his hand, which kind of makes up for it.

Alex takes it. “I’m, yeah. Embarrassed, but uninjured. Story of my life, y’know?”

“Nothing to be embarrassed over. The roads are pretty slippery right now,” Armando replies, as he hauls Alex to his feet. Unfortunately, Alex has not become less of a human disaster in the past two minutes, and the action causes him to fall back into the snowbank, albeit in a slightly different spot, and bring Armando with him.

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