Higher Education

Levi was caught between being happy that he wasn't completely useless and weirded out that Winston though he could be useful. Some days, he could barely force himself to roll out of bed. Most days, he struggled to do all the things normal people should. Today, Winston asked him to contribute. Sadly, he hadn't seen anything out of the ordinary since they'd made it to the cafe. Well, it probably wasn't very sad. Not seeing anything strange was good because it meant they were safe and nobody would follow them home.

Yet he couldn't shake the feeling that he was letting someone down. He shook his head softly, trying to clear the bad thoughts out of his head. Bad thoughts didn't help him. Action did. If only he could act without agonizing over the decision for far too long. "No, I haven't seen anything since we got here. "
 
"Alright, then." Winston sighed, hopefully not loud enough to be noticed. He hadn't expected a better answer than what he'd gotten, so now it was just a matter of getting back into motion. He took one more sip of his tea for strength, then told Levi "Let's go."

He hardly even waited for the guy to stand before he was weaving his way back through the crowd. It was much easier to get past the throng on his own, he would wait for the guy outside. Hopefully Levi would want to stay at the dorms, and out of danger, so Winston could maybe go back out and complete his task on his own. Or he could just try again tomorrow like a sane person, since neither day had much on his schedule besides 'prepare for classes in every way possible'.
 
Levi nodded, stumbling to his feet as fast as he could. He winced as his thighs peeled off the leather seat with a sickening squelch. God, he hated that sound. By the time he was standing, Winston had managed to weave his way through a thick crowd of people and out of sight. Fuck. Which way were the dorms again?

He struggled through the people, muttering sincere apologies everytime he accidentally pushed someone or stepped on their foot. Luckily, he caught back up with Winston before he managed to work himself into a panic. His roommate was here and he knew where he was going and everything was going to be fine. He really needed to get a grip on himself. "You remember the way back to the dorm, right?"
 
"Well enough." Winston replied, pulling out his phone as soon as he'd scanned the horizon. "We did end up going a bit off-track, but that's why maps exist. I'm not about go back the exact same route we came, so just follow me."

And with that, he pulled up a map of the area (one that wasn't connected directly to a sattelite feed, he'd rather plot his own course than risk getting hacked today) and started walking. The shortest path back was mostly a straight shot through the city, a couple of turns down a couple of blocks but nothing else of note. Just a walk through the city, however long it needed to take. Winston refused to let himself think on the situation any more than that, because he could feel himself starting to overthink everything and the last thing he needed was to jinx himself.
 
Levi followed Winston faithfully, trying to memorize the route just in case he needed to get to the coffee shop and back later. He also might've been trying to keep his mind off the man in the green parka until he got to the safety of his bedroom where he could freak out without disturbing anyone. Except for Winston. Winston who definitely wasn't going to be thrilled to deal with another incident today.

Luckily, Levi could probably make it back to his own bed before paranoia set in, as long as he didn't think about anything too hard. Or think at all. Which was becoming more and more difficult because the more he tried to put this out of his mind, the harder he had to focus on not thinking about it. Which made him think about it. Sometimes he really hated the way his brain worked. "I... How long is it going to take to get to the dorms?"
 
"No longer than it took us to get here." Winston muttered, trying and failing to keep his tone neutral. Sometimes he was just a sarcastic little shit, especially in response to dumb questions he didn't enjoy the answers to. He wanted to be done with the bullshit just as much as Levi did, but life didn't always work that way.

But Levi hadn't been the source of (most of) his problems, and he wanted the anxious man to stay on his side a little longer, so he added "It should only be about ten more minutes. Less if you feel like hurrying."
 
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