Chapter Text
At first glance, the 800 block stretch of 104th Street that's bordered by Shiganshina Boulevard and Trost Avenue looks like any other slice of suburbia. The lawns are maintained, for the most part, the houses are all roughly the same size, there are old trees adorned with worn wooden swings and bright yellow signs warning drivers about Children At Play, there are barbeques giving off smoke and cars in need of a wash and a tune-up. In many ways, this street is unremarkable – or it would be, were it not for its proximity to Rose University, and were it not for one particular house at the corner of 104th and Trost.
Most of the residents of the 800 block are average citizens, unique in their own small ways. A “Sold!” sign stands in the yard of the newest additions, Gunther Shulz and Erd Gin, who have just purchased their first home, breaking a pact they made years ago to never leave the city. “But it's different now,” Gunther says to Erd's pained expression, “we didn't know we'd have Cassie.”
And Erd smiles down at their baby girl, fast asleep in her carseat, and nods. When she's bigger, he'll build her a treehouse in the oak tree in the backyard.
“Yeah, I guess it's just as well,” he sighs. “Not like we'll be going out much anyways, unless your sister wants to drive down and watch her for a night.”
Gunther gestures down the street. “We're right next to the university. It'll be easy as shit to find a sitter, are you kidding?”
“Yeah, if we need to go to, like, a Town Hall meeting,” Erd snorts. “Ooh, or the Neighborhood Watch. Gotta keep those communists out.”
“You're ridiculous,” Gunther says, rolling his eyes. “It's not that bad. C'mon, let's get Cassie's stuff unloaded first. I've got the pack 'n play in the trunk.”
“I can't believe this is my life,” Erd groans, but he doesn't mean it, and his grip on Gunther's hand affirms as much.
Gunther almost throws his back out trying to set up the pack n' play, and across the street, a neighbor wonders if she should go over and help.
“It's not that I think you shouldn't, it's just that he's like, twice your size, and he can barely do it,” her friend points out. “We should do something for them though. Oh! I'll make a pie.”
“Hmm,” Petra says, as noncommittally as she can. She remembers what happened the last time Hanji tried her hand at baking. “What about some of your famous potato salad? That's what you welcomed me into the neighborhood with, remember?”
“Great idea!” Hanji nods enthusiastically. “I'll whip some up tonight. Oh, no, Bean, don't eat that.” She pulls the shoelace her dog is gagging on out of his mouth. “Oops, I think this used to be a shoe.”
Petra glances dubiously at Bean. He's quite a bit larger than Sawney, and she wouldn't necessarily put it past him to eat an entire shoe. He once ate part of a linoleum floor, which is probably why Hanji's dogs aren't welcome at Levi and Erwin's place anymore, though Hanji says it's because Levi's allergic.
“Do you want to help me take it over?” Hanji asks, tossing the shoelace in the sink. “Or is tonight date night?”
“It is,” Petra says, with something like a sigh. She decided to try internet dating after her last break-up – so far, it's not going particularly well, although she's gotten some good stories out of it. “Ralph again. I've decided to give him one last chance at redemption.”
Actually, she's decided to get one last free meal at that fancy French restaurant he loves out of him, but Hanji doesn't need to know that detail.
“You're a brave woman, Petra Rall,” Hanji declares. She nods in the direction of Petra's house, across the street and down a short ways. “I'll keep watch with the boys. Bean'll take him down if he tries anything funny. Or Levi will.”
Levi once knocked a guy unconscious when he was harassing Petra outside a bar. It's a fond memory for all of them.
Petra laughs. “I'm not worried, but thank you. He's an accountant, I could probably take him if I needed to.”
Hanji nods, satisfied. Petra's a lot like Levi, actually. Doesn't look like much at first glance, but it's not for nothing she's the only Associate Dean at Rose U who has every student ready to lay down their life for her at a moment's notice.
“Must've been quite a party down the street last night,” she says, and Petra knows immediately which house she's talking about. Really, there can only be one. “I've never heard such shrieking.”
The house in question, number 845, stands on the corner of 104th and Trost. It's by far the largest and shabbiest house on the block, so naturally it's always rented to college students. The house has four bedrooms, three bathrooms, and anywhere from three to six cars parked in the driveway at any given time. No one on the street seems to know how many students actually reside in the house, Petra thinks seven, Hanji is sure it's closer to ten.
The actual number of people on the lease is six, and only two of them are awake at the early hour of noon on a Friday. Armin's archeology professor has office hours on Friday mornings, so he's already been out and back, briefly stopping over at the bookstore to pick up a couple recommendations. His room on the first floor of the house used to be an office, which handily provides him with an entire wall of bookshelves, but he's already nearly filled them in a short couple of months. He selects a few that he thinks will be helpful for when Eren and Mikasa come over to study later, and sets them aside.
Bertholdt, the other early riser, has gone to the library to study, as it's utterly impossible to do so with the incessant snoring (and flatulence) of his roommate. Not that he's not used to it by now, they roomed together for the first three years of school and stayed over at each other's houses every weekend for most of Bertholdt's life. It's possible that there's more to it – that even with all the shuffling and farting and snoring, Reiner looks impossibly soft and childlike when he's asleep, that Reiner seems to always be turned towards him, no matter where he is in the room, that the real reason Bertholdt can't focus is because all he can think about is how easy it would be to walk over and touch Reiner's face, smooth his hair and run his fingers down Reiner's chest. It's possible that he's done that, once, when he was drunk and they were in high school and sharing a bed, it's possible that he knows exactly the kind of pleased rumble Reiner would make in his sleep, how his arms would stretch out unconsciously towards Bertholdt and pull him in.
Bertholdt tries not to dwell on the possibilities, however. Reiner's his best friend, and that's all there is to it.
Jean won't be up until the afternoon, the consequences of staying awake until six AM watching The X-Files, a show he's been hooked on ever since Marco mentioned it was his favorite growing up. It's exactly the sort of TV Jean's parents never let him watch, which makes him all the more determined to finish the entire series as quickly as possible. He has the master bedroom at the top of the stairs, complete with his own bathroom which no one is permitted to use at any time, except for him. And occasionally Armin, but that's because Armin is capable of respecting Jean's privacy while in his room, unlike the rest of their housemates. Jean may have also told Mikasa a while back that she could use it if she ever needed to, but that offer was meant with a blank stare – which, admittedly, he might have deserved.
Marco is also permitted to use his bathroom when he's over, of course, but the less said about that the better.
Connie's room is less of a bedroom and more of an oddly placed walk-in closet, sandwiched between Jean's room and the other upstairs bathroom. It has a small window in the back that used to be home to a fire ladder, before said ladder was proved quite unsafe to climb via the diligence of Drunk Safety Inspector Reiner Braun. The state of Connie's room renders the window useless anyways, his twin mattress on the floor is hardly visible for the nest of clothes, homework, and garbage that fills up the rest of the room. Connie has long since given up sleeping there, and can almost always be found curled up in the hammock on the front porch.
Their last housemate, Ymir, does not technically have a “room” to speak of, but she has made up a sort of den for herself in the garage with hanging tarps, a very dubious collection of dumpster furniture, and a space heater with an extension cord that trails back up to the house. They've all poked their heads into the Crack Den, as it is widely known, at one point or another, but no one has ever attempted a return trip – except Christa, for reasons that remain mysterious to everyone. Reiner is equal parts admiring of and troubled by Christa's apparent immunity to the Crack Den.
“Lenz is more of a man that I am,” he complains to Bertholdt. “It's the set of Saw in there and she doesn't even blink.”
Bertholdt isn't sure what he comes up with to assure Reiner of his manliness, but the next time he takes a shower there is a somewhat abstract rendering of boobs on the wall, drawn with shed short blonde hairs. Annie refuses to touch it, so Bertholdt is left with the task of cleaning it off, hoping against hope that all this hair came from Reiner's actual head.
It's really not like they set out to become a party house, and some of them might still staunchly deny that that's what they've turned into. Their neighbors are of a different mind – Auruo calls the cops every Thursday and Saturday like clockwork, which has produced exactly zero results, much like his continued City Council campaigning. More often than not, when the police actually bother to dispatch an officer to the house, it's none other than Officer Erwin Smith, another resident of 104th Street. He approaches the house now, out of uniform, seeing no signs of life except for a girl bent over the engine compartment of a moped in the driveway, banging at something and muttering under her breath.
“Excuse me,” he says, accidentally using his Police Business voice. (It's a hard habit to break, especially after nights when Levi's coaxed it out of him for hours in the bedroom.)
The girl whips around and gapes at him. “Huh?” There's a streak of oil across her cheek, her hands are absolutely filthy. Erwin glances over the machinery and is impressed, she really knows what she's doing.
“There's a family on 105th that claims they're missing a pink tricycle,” he says. “You wouldn't happen to know where I might find it, would you? Their daughter is very distraught.”
The girl looks sideways at a skate ramp that lies on its side in the front yard and says, “Um.”
Erwin waits.
“...Yeah, just a minute,” she says, wiping her hands off on a rag and standing. “That motherfucker.”
“I'll just be here,” Erwin says.
She walks up the porch and kicks the hammock hanging there, causing its inhabitant to squawk and flail. “What the fuck, Sasha?”
“Your scooter's almost fixed, dummy,” she says. “I can't believe you stole some kids trike.”
“I...borrowed it,” the person says through a yawn. “But it was Reiner's idea! It's just back by the garage, we were totally going to return it, I swear.”
She rolls her eyes and moves to walk away, but a hand shoots out of the hammock and catches her wrist. “Hey, thanks for fixing Sugar.”
“She just needed a new oil filter, no big deal.” She grins. “You owe me Chipotle for the week, though.”
“No way. Two days.”
“Six.”
“Four.”
“Five, and I'll skip the chips on two of them.”
There's some indistinct grumbling from the hammock, and then, “Fine.”
She returns with the trike moments later, beaming an apology at Erwin and looking a bit triumphant over her bartering skills. “Sorry about that,” she says. “They're...well.”
“I'm familiar,” he says, taking the trike from her. “For the record, I think you could've gotten six days out of him.”
“Oh, I will,” she smirks. “Counting isn't Connie's strongest suit.”
She's a perfectly nice young lady, Erwin thinks to himself as he walks the trike back to its home on 105th Street. And smart. Perhaps he'll have her look at Levi's car, if his stubborn boyfriend continues to refuse to get it serviced.
It's a beautiful fall day in Rose, California. The sky is dotted with wispy clouds when Eren and Mikasa walk up for their study date, it's warm enough that Eren doesn't concern himself overly when he fails to avoid Petra's sprinklers. Jean wakes up in the early afternoon to a text from Marco, wondering how far he got in his marathon, and Reiner is only marginally heartbroken about the loss of the pink tricycle when he rolls out of bed some time after that.
Friday nights at 845 104th Street are usually a quiet affair, the breath between Thursday and Saturday's general debauchery. Auruo keeps his hand on the phone, just in case.