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Fitz packing up his things to go home for the night (and attempt to maybe catch a few hours of sleep before Jemma’s cat wakes him up at the crack of dawn), when he sees the other guy. It’s not uncommon for people to sleep in the library, especially during midterms, but most people set alarms or at least woke up when the library gave the ten minute warning before closing.
This guy however was still sound asleep.
Not a school bag in sight.
Probably a homeless person, they came in here sometimes, sneaking in with students, and getting out of the poor weather for a few hours.
He almost ignores him, ready to let the library’s security guard deal with a sleeping student, but as the loud speaker booms, “The library will close in five minutes,” Fitz makes a split second decision.
Really it was just being a good citizen, saving someone else from the wrath of the tired security guards.
“Uh hi, hello, please wake up,” Fitz says, prodding the person (hopefully) sleeping in the library with the tip of his pencil (for safety reasons, of course), “Unless you’re dead- but I’d really prefer you not to - to be…”
He trails off as the person he had been poking cracks an eye open, and looks up at him with this dazed and confused look on his face. As far as waking up goes, this man has it down to an art – whereas Fitz when confronted with the morning flails about and generally refuses to be roused – rising up from his seat in a fluid motion, casual and relaxed just seconds after having been rudely awakened.
A casual grin takes up his face, as he asks Fitz. “Are you an angel, love, because maybe I did just die?”
“I – I’m not, you were – the library’s closing,” Fitz manages to get out, a mess of a sentence that may have made sense in his head but came out all wrong. No doubt he now looks like a complete idiot. The tips of his ears warm in embarrassment, and as fast as possible Fitz is turning around and heading the exact opposite direction of the charming hobo. Muttering, “Smooth, very smooth,” under his breath as he makes his escape.
---
If Fitz had decent luck that would have been the end of it.
He would have gone back to his normal life, completely forgetting about the other student. He would have gone to his labs, studied in a completely part of the library – and that whole thing would have been nothing more than a curious incident one night after too long a study session.
He might confess what had happened later to Jemma while drunk, but that would have been it.
As it was, luck was not on his side.
Not two days past the incident, he had come home to a vaguely familiar form, passed out on the couch that he and Jemma kept in the ‘living room’ of their apartment. The awful leather thing (that had never been comfortable and most people refused to sit on it for too long) was now the home to the person Fitz had unwittingly dubbed as charming hobo.
That is until Jemma, following his gaze says, “Oh, have you met my brother Lance? His apartment’s being renovated and he needed somewhere to stay.”
See here was the thing.
Fitz knew Jemma had a brother, a vague person mentioned once or twice as a graduate student in some humanities department, which Fitz had quickly decided was not worth ever meeting. (After all, what sort of person got their PhD in Comparative Literature?)
So, for that reason the brother had always been this hazy figure in Fitz’s mind, who sometimes left drunk voicemails for Jemma, but otherwise didn’t exist.
Until two days ago apparently.
“Neat – that’s just – neat – nice to meet- uh, I should, I have to study,” Fitz says quickly, ignoring Jemma’s worried gaze, and trying to hurry back to his room. A plan that fails slightly, as he trips and bumps into their end table, cursing as he falls onto the ground, and waking up the sleeping visitor.
The sleeping visitor, who may not have been sleeping at all, judging by the grin on his face, and the easy way he says, “Maybe I should have called you a fallen angel?”
Jemma’s confused, “Did I miss something?” falls on nearly deaf ears, and Fitz can’t seem to bring his eyes away from Lance.
“No,” Fitz says far too quickly, and probably far too loudly.
But thankfully Lance doesn’t bother to correct him, just shrugs his shoulders and lays back down on the couch once more, “Sorry mate, must have been thinking of someone else.”
---
He keeps waiting for Lance to say something, to casually let it slip to Jemma that Fitz…
Well, it’s not like he actually did anything. Really he’d just woken up a stranger and then forgot how to talk, which for Fitz was understandable, he had a condition it wasn’t his fault, and Jemma would understand that.
So really, Fitz had nothing to worry about.
Other than the fact that he was trying his best to avoid the person currently staying in their apartment. The very much shirtless sibling of his housemate, who was currently sitting in the kitchen making a kettle of warm water at four in the morning. A tea that Fitz very much wanted a cup of. (In his defense, he had thought Jemma would be the one setting off the kettle so early in the morning).
Really he blamed the fact that he was standing like a deer in the headlights in the middle of his kitchen, on the fact that this was the first time in a week Fitz had seen Lance actually standing up and moving about instead of just laying around.
“I’m not dead, you know,” Lance says, in a casual almost conversational tone, “Never thanked you properly for checking on me the other day.”
It’s about all Fitz can do to nod his head dumbly, and try not to stare at the way Lance’s arms flex as he pours a second cup of tea out.
When that tea cup is offered out to him a second later, Fitz mumbles out a quick, “Thanks.”
“Figured you needed it, and now we’re even.”
“What do you – that mean – that that’s –“ Fitz stops, and shakes his head slightly, “Even?”
“You woke me up, I made you tea,” Lance explains, “That makes us even, angel.”
“I’m not-“ an angel, was how he intended to finish the sentence, but the words get mixed up, and he ends up just letting out a frustrated groan.
Thankfully Lance is good enough at talking for the both of them, for he just smiles back at Fitz and says, “How about I buy you breakfast? Then we’ll be properly even?”
“That would be a start."