Chapter Text
[lizontopoftheworld]: do you ever think we’ve met in real life?
[busstopbilly]: I’d like to think that I would remember that.
[lizontopoftheworld]: what do you mean…
[busstopbilly]: I mean, I’d like to think that I would just be able to tell if I saw you out there in the real world.
[lizontopoftheworld]: so you’re delulu…got it…
[busstopbilly]: Delulu?
[lizontopoftheworld]: fun way to say delusional
[busstopbilly]: It’s not delusional to think I would be able to recognize you.
[lizontopoftheworld]: you don’t even know what i look like
[busstopbilly]: Are you so materialistic? Is that the only way people can recognize one another?
[lizontopoftheworld]: are you insinuating that there is some alternative way unbeknownst to me that people can recognize one another?
[lizontopoftheworld]: i must be living under a rock!
[busstopbilly]: Or you’re just feeble minded.
[lizontopoftheworld]: feeble is crazy btw
[busstopbilly]: :)
[busstopbilly]: I like to keep you on your toes.
[lizontopoftheworld]: OK OH WISE ONE. tell me how you would be able to recognize me with the very limited information you have…
[busstopbilly]: Limited? I like to think I know you very well. You and all of your deep dark secrets.
[lizontopoftheworld]: always one for theatrics…
[busstopbilly]: Nothing as theatrical as buying a replacement of the class fish you killed on the week you were supposed to take care of it.
[lizontopoftheworld]: THAT WAS ONE TIME OH MY FUCKING GOD
[busstopbilly]: Are you insinuating that murder is okay if it was only one time? :)
[lizontopoftheworld]: im just a girl…
[busstopbilly]: I’d be able to recognize you if I saw you out in the real world because I’m pretty sure we knew each other in another life.
[lizontopoftheworld]: :O
[lizontopoftheworld]: :OO
[lizontopoftheworld]: :OOOOOOOOOOOOOO
[busstopbilly]: Are you broken?
[lizontopoftheworld]: ONLY MY HEART :((((
[busstopbilly]: Are you deflecting because you don’t want to say something serious in response?
[lizontopoftheworld]: :/
[lizontopoftheworld]: ://////////
[busstopbilly]: Are you scared to say it back because I make you nervous?
[lizontopoftheworld]: >:(((((((
[lizontopoftheworld]:: >:(((((((((((((((
[busstopbilly]: Liz.
[busstopbilly]: Come on.
[busstopbilly]: Tell me what you really think.
[lizontopoftheworld]: …
[busstopbilly]: It’s just me, you know.
[lizontopoftheworld]: sometimes you say things that i’ve thought for a long time really out loud
[lizontopoftheworld]: i live in my own head sometimes, so much so, that i think that most of the things that i think are outrageous or ostentatious – a complete figment of my imagination that i’ve just made up.
[lizontopoftheworld]: that could never be real.
[lizontopoftheworld]: it just throws me off when they’re coming out of your metaphorical online mouth.
[lizontopoftheworld]: …it reminds me i’m not crazy…because you think those things too…
[busstopbilly]: :)
[busstopbilly]: Maybe that does make you crazy. But maybe the same type of crazy as me.
[lizontopoftheworld]: well either way it’s very comforting
[lizontopoftheworld]: i feel so out of place…almost all the time…it’s nice to know sometimes that it’s not an original thought…that other people do think like that too
[busstopbilly]: So you think we’ve met in another life?
[lizontopoftheworld]: ding ding ding
[busstopbilly]: What do you think we’re doing there?
[lizontopoftheworld]: something cool
[busstopbilly]: I’d be a soccer player.
[lizontopoftheworld]: didn’t u tell me a story about how u literally used to cheat in pe when you were in grade school?
[busstopbilly]: Hence the alternate universe.
[busstopbilly]: Either way, I think we’d be the same as we are now.
[lizontopoftheworld]: such a romantic notion for your canary mate. you know we only know each other bc of an algorithm right…
[busstopbilly]: Wrong.
[busstopbilly]: Defeats the whole purpose of the “we knew each other in another life” notion.
[busstopbilly]: We were always going to meet. It just happened to be an algorithm this time around.
[lizontopoftheworld]: you know, you kind of get delirious around three am…
[busstopbilly]: You love it.
[lizontopoftheworld]: :DDDDD
[busstopbilly]: Good night, Liz.
[lizontopoftheworld]: good night billy boy!!!! <3
--
“i hooked up with my canary mate.”
you feel your eyes widen, as you shoot out of your desk chair and peek over the little divider, to where jean – one of the fellow phd students in your computational neuroscience program – is chatting with connie.
you must make some measure of a strange noise because they look over at you, connie giving you a sweet wave, while jean smirks.
“hear something that tickled your fancy, newbie?” jean asks.
“you hooked up with your canary mate?” you whisper.
“i wish i had a canary mate. we could have started a pyramid scheme together or something.” connie states.
shiganshina university has a weird set of rituals that the student body engages in. dipping into each of the fountains during finals week to get good grades on your exams, eating breakfast at midnight the first day of classes in the student union, and an algorithm that finds you the perfect friend.
canary mates. an old student in the computational data sciences had made it for his thesis project, a preliminary algorithm for a dating website, that would pair incoming students with someone they would be compatible with as friends.
you filled out a simple survey – questions ranging from your favorite color to your philosophies on life. and at the end of it, all of the answers were scored and fed through an algorithm that found you your perfect pair, a fellow shiganshina canary to be friends with.
the usernames remained anonymous to protect participant privacy, though most people tended to reveal themselves upon first message – just to promptly never talk to one another again.
unless you’re jean. you hook up with them instead. or unless you’re you – because you’ve been talking to your canary mate every day for the past nine months now.
“they don’t do that for the staffers?” you ask.
connie is the administrative assistant at the research lab you matched into with the program – the shiganshina interdisciplinary brain research group. he was a recent graduate from marley technical institute with a masters in business administration, who assisted with all the clerical aspects of the lab.
you appreciated connie more than most people. only because the soft skills and things like that were lost to you – the type of things that you can’t google, like etiquette with visiting professors and why you need to network on linkedin — were always the ones connie remembered to explain to you, without shame.
you have a hunch that erwin had asked him to do it. he was freakishly intuitive in that way, though you suppose that’s what made him perfect for his job as the director of the lab. it was part of the job description – reading people, maximizing almost every thing for the best gain– which in his case, was making sure that his phd students knew what they were doing.
“staffers don’t deserve sexy online hookups apparently.” connie states.
a few feet way, you hear an irritated sigh, your line of vision treating you to the most annoying sight known to man – eren jaeger setting up for the day at his desk.
“you know, one day you’ll get reported to hr connie.” eren states.
“jean, are you going to report me to hr?” connie asks.
jean shakes his head.
“y/n, are you going to report me to hr?”
you smirk.
“not without a big fat kiss on your cheek to go with it!” you joke, earning you a laugh from the two of them.
eren rolls his eyes.
“what the hell are you even talking about?” eren asks, setting his bag down as he pulls up the stand up desk and starts connecting his displays.
“jean was talking about how he hooked up with his canary mate.” you state.
eren’s eyes widen.
“you did what?” eren asks.
jean nods, but not before immediately straightening up against the wall and sheepishly rubbing his hand around the back of his neck – a natural response to the sight of mikasa suddenly appearing at his side.
mikasa ackerman was quiet, a cold kind of pretty, and the sweetest lab coordinators that you had ever worked with. she was one of the applicants in the previous round of phd students – and unfortunately, the only one from her close knit group who didn’t make it.
eren, jean, armin, annie, and sasha were all members of the bridge program that linked with the neuroscience undergraduate degree. mikasa was apparently one of the brightest members of the bunch, but for some reason, wasn’t accepted when time came around. she was taking the year to pad her resume before she tried again.
“what are we talking about?” mikasa asks.
“about how jean ho-” connie starts.
“nothing! we aren’t talking about anything mikasa! how was your weekend?” jean asks.
“it was great, jean! thank you for asking.” she responds.
“he was talking about how he hooked up with his canary mate that he got matched with when he linked with the graduate programs.” eren states, not even stopping to look up from his computer.
you watch as jean visibly pinkens at the blunt nature of eren’s words and don’t miss how mikasa’s eye twitches in the slightest, before she presses her laptop closer to her chest. and you’re sure it stings – knowing the guy you liked hooked up with someone else or perhaps even worse, being reminded that you were left out of yet another thing, even something as arbitrary as a canary mate – because you weren’t the only one who was accepted into the program.
the group of them awkwardly shuffle away, connie and mikasa heading over to their meeting in the fishbowl conference room, as jean walks over to the mri imaging room to test out the equipment. and you spare eren one glance – one glance – before he makes his very first irritating comment of the day.
“do you have something you want to say to me, newbie?”
you shake your head.
“i can tell you do. so why don’t you just come out and say it?” eren asks, tone scathing.
you brush the lint off the hem of your skirt. eren always seemed to intrude into space like that. if erwin thought that connie needed to teach you the sleight of hands to interacting with people in a professional setting, you figured that eren would probably need some lessons in keeping his thoughts to himself.
“i thought that was a little bit mean.” you state.
eren scoffs.
“they obviously like each other. and it was clear that he didn’t want her to know, so maybe you should have just kept it to yourself like connie and i did.”
eren averts his gaze from his computer for the first time, piercing green eyes that meet yours, but not as piercing as his words.
“you don’t think mikasa deserves to know if they’re going to talk to each other?”
you scoff.
“they aren’t even together yet. he would obviously divulge that eventually if they were talking for real. you’re kind of nipping them in the bud before they can even get there.” you state.
“why do you talk like that?”
you feel your throat dry.
“like what?”
“the words you use. kind of…maybe…. you don’t sound very confident when you speak.” he responds, his voice flat.
eren hits a nerve. he hits a nerve like he always does, in the way that only he can, and it’s infuriating. so infuriating that you feel the need to fight back.
it had been like that since you met him. on the very first day, you walked up to him – the only person in the phd program that you really knew, because he was the son of world famous neuroscientist grisha jaeger – and introduced yourself. and ever since then, he was always keen on showing you exactly who he was – an egotistical prick.
it drove you crazy. everything about him drove you crazy.
“we can’t all be as arrogant as you, eren.” you state.
eren’s eye twitches.
“and we can’t all be pushovers like you either, l/n.”
you roll your eyes, dragging your feet open to the cubicle as you quickly click to the open tab, fingers coming in fast and hot as you type, a burning sensation tingling in the back of your eyes.
[lizontopoftheworld]: I’M GOING TO KILL HIM
[lizontopoftheworld]: I’M GOING TO TAKE ONE OF THE SYRINGES IN THE LAB AND SHOVE IT INTO HIS EYE SOCKET TILL HE BLEEDS
[lizontopoftheworld]: STUPID ARROGANT PRICK IM LITERALLY GOING TO BE ON THE NEWS
[busstopbilly]: Good morning, Liz.
[busstopbilly]: What a way to start the day. What happened?
[lizontopoftheworld]: STUPID FUCKING IDIOT ANNOYING GUY I TOLD U ABOUT JUST HAD TO BE A FUCKING PRICK THIS EARLY IN THE MORNING
[lizontopoftheworld]: HE WAS JUST DOUBTING ME LIKE HE ALWAYS DOES BC I KNOW HE DOESN’T WANT ME TO BE HERE OR HE THINKS I DON’T DESERVE TO BE
[busstopbilly]: Hey.
[busstopbilly]: You deserve to be there. What the prick thinks doesn’t matter.
[lizontopoftheworld]: i’m so frustrated I WILL KILL HIM
[busstopbilly]: I fear you’re incriminating me as an accomplice to murder.
[busstopbilly]: So very flattered I’ve been chosen as your closest confidante.
[busstopbilly]: I know that you think he has something over you because his family has ties to research and has been in the field for years.
[busstopbilly]: That doesn’t make him better than you.
[busstopbilly]: I’d argue that the spot that you hold is way more important. You actually bring something new to the table.
[lizontopoftheworld]: yeah yeah i know i worked to be here im capable blah blah blah blah
[lizontopoftheworld]: just doesn’t feel that way sometimes
[lizontopoftheworld]: i guess i’ll just put my head down and do the work to prove myself
[busstopbilly]: That’s my girl.
[busstopbilly]: You’ve got this.
[lizontopoftheworld]: i hope ur morning is better than mine…
[busstopbilly]: Quite the contrary. I fear I was told only a few minutes prior that the devil himself will be making an appearance today.
[lizontopoftheworld]: NO WAY
[lizontopoftheworld]: YOUR DAD?
[busstopbilly]: The one and only.
[lizontopoftheworld]: you’ll get through it. it’s just one day.
[busstopbilly]: Quite hopeful of you. We’ll see how it goes.
[lizonstopoftheworld]: HE WON’T STOP U DOCTOR BILLY!!!!
[lizontopoftheworld]: MEDICAL DOCTOR BILLY
it’s the first time eren’s smiled since his early meeting with hange at the coffee shop. he should have known something was strange from the start – his weekly meeting being pushed up to the start of the day, being offered free coffee – sweetness like that only came from hange when they thought it was something that was warranted.
and seeing his dad was no easy feat. unfortunately for him, word had somehow gotten out to his dad that he had deflected to a clinical study with the shiganshina medical school neurosurgery department – something that warranted him coming all the way down here to discuss it with him personally.
he was anticipating the same problem as usual. another check in to make sure that eren was staying focused on his career – his career in academia – and that he was holding up to his family name. he came from a family of sixth generation neuroscientists and he wasn’t going to be the one to break the streak now.
which killed his dreams of being a medical doctor in his tracks. all of the stuff that he got to do in undergrad was afforded to him because his dad thought it was just a phase – him working as a first responder, volunteering at free health clinics – before he was harshly put in line at the end of his senior year.
it was looking rather bleak a year into his phd. but hange was trying to help him as much as they could.
[busstopbilly]: Funny.
[lizontopoftheworld]: :PPPPP
[lizontopoftheworld]: you will do what you want to do or so help me GOD.
[busstopbilly]: Not really how that works, Liz.
[lizontopoftheworld]: eh.
[lizontopoftheworld[: i’ll get you there >:)
[lizontopoftheworld]: you will be a doctor, billy.
[busstopbilly]: You’re very hopeful, Liz. I like that about you.
[lizontopoftheworld]: MARRY ME!
--
“what did you do as an undergrad for research?” gabi asks.
every week, there are two mandatory in person days that everyone has to be present in the laboratory. monday for lab meetings, where everyone cycles through presenting their research or relevant papers, and wednesdays, for team building lab lunches.
part of levi and hange’s grant money is allocated to pay for the lunches every week, as part of team building and more casual discourse about what everyone was working on.
“armin, eren, and i actually did research here. armin and i had been here since our sophomore year but eren joined us when he was a senior.” mikasa states.
“we actually used to be in your spot, if that gives you any hope.” armin offers, giving her and falco a smile.
falco and gabi are the only two undergraduate students who are involved over the summer. there’s usually a set of five or six undergraduate students that assist during the calendar year, but the two of them had applied and been selected to partake in a competitive summer research fellowship, which afforded you their presence now.
falco was going to be assisting you on the magnetic stimulation project that you were working on; you had taken on mentoring him, alongside levi, for the past few months in preparation for the fellowship and his eventual application to a phd program at the end of the year. he was a sweet kid, one that very hauntingly reminded you of yourself, and in a weird way – it almost made you determined to see him succeed.
gabi was working with eren on the new clinical study that he was going to be doing under hange, since she had eventual goals to pursue a career in clinical psychology. she was a sneaky applicant, meaning she didn’t come into it as prepared as falco. and unfortunately enough, eren left her to her own devices to figure things on her own a lot of the time – and you appreciated that she had yet to be discouraged. she was determined to prove herself.
“i used to do research under nanaba in the maternal health lab. i spent all of undergrad doing a research study on the neurological changes that different birth control brands cause.” sasha states.
sasha is the person that you feel closest to in the lab, besides maybe connie. she was definitely the most personable of the group – the most of them being a little more awkward and reserved – and she was always willing to help you out when you needed it.
she was a big personality. and you’re sure that it’s the part of you deep down that’s messed up – that gets jealous, that doesn’t work like a real person – but there are rare moments throughout the day that she makes you feel small. and consequently, disgusting, because you’re unsure how someone sweet could bring out something so sour in you.
it said more about you than it did about her.
“annie and i worked with shadis over in the physical therapy department. they worked with technical eeg sometimes, which was mainly what we were focused in since we knew we wanted to come here eventually.” jean states.
falco looks over at you, offering you a sympathetic smile, as gabi turns over to you, eyes expectant.
“and you?” gabi asks.
you shove your fork deep into the leaves of the salad.
“i didn’t go here for undergrad. you wouldn’t know where i came from.” you state.
gabi gives you a nod, as she dives deep into asking sasha about her experiences with working under nanaba, as you feel your cheeks glowing under the heat. you weren’t embarrassed of it – in fact, very determined to not be embarrassed of it – but sometimes it felt like a stark reminder that you were the only one who got to the same place in a different way.
you quickly type underneath the table.
[lizontopoftheworld]: do you ever feel like you’ll never belong, no matter what you do?
three feet way, at the very end of the table, eren’s having the most uncomfortable conversation amongst the crowd. nestled in between hange and levi, across from his dad and erwin, his brain feels like it’s heavy.
“i just don’t understand the direction that we’re taking with his thesis. this doesn’t really match the psychosocial work that he was doing before.” grisha states.
“he’s just trying something new. it doesn’t have to go in his thesis.” hange offers.
eren watches as his eye twitches.
“my fear here is that this will become the main focus of his thesis. i would just prefer for him to be focusing on his goal here.” grisha asserts.
eren watches as levi clenches his jaw.
“it’s a holistic program, dr. jaeger. we would be doing your son a disservice, as a researcher and neuroscientist, if we kept him so…razor focused on one thing.” levi responds.
“i don’t think eren is even qualified to work with these patient populations. he doesn’t have a license or the experience.” grisha states.
“we have the tools to help him here. that’s a non-issue.” hange offers.
“we appreciate the advisement and the direction, dr. jaeger, and we will keep you updated as things will progress. eren is very bright and motivated, that much is sure, and i can promise you myself that he will be just as successful and fulfilled as you would like him to be.” erwin offers.
it was ironic. but eren knew that erwin was just playing to the role that he had to play here – being the diplomat that he was trained to be. and while the words were laced with politeness, the message was there – that his call was final. and while erwin’s direction alway seemed to place people in the most ideal situations, eren always felt like he was going to get the short end of the deal wherever he went.
he got a clinical study, but his dad will stop him from pursing it too much. the clinical study is close to what he wants to do, but not exactly. he’ll spend his entire life three steps behind where he wants to go and unable to do anything to stop it.
he looks at his phone under the table and it softens the terseness in his chest.
[busstopbilly]: All the time, Liz.
he watches the little typing bubbles appear, before fighting the urge to smile fully.
[lizontopoftheworld]: <3
--
“do you have a minute?”
you look up from the lines of code to find levi – your thesis advisor and mentor – peering over the wall of your cubicle, eyes expectant as they wait for an answer. you give him a nod, following his gesture, as you make the way down to the office.
levi’s stoic. very stoic and sometimes you don’t know how to act. but in a weird way, sometimes that’s what you appreciate about him – that it doesn’t take a lot of effort, that you don’t have to rehearse what it is that you’re going to say to him for small talk in the mirror, because you can almost count on the fact that he won’t oblige to that anyways.
hange and eren are at his desk, eyes pouring over a document on eren’s laptop, as you give them a wave and take the seat next to levi. eren swallows hard – and you note that the rims of his eyes are red – before focusing in on what levi is saying.
“you do have that experience, right?” levi asks.
you look over at him, before giving him an awkward smile.
“sorry, what?”
“you used to be a behavioral technician, right? back in marley?” levi clarifies.
“oh! yes, yes, i did. why do you ask?”
levi nods, before sliding a set of files over to you.
“eren’s working on a clinical study. we talked with the administrators at the hospital and the college about it and they’d prefer if someone who had experience working with similar patient populations was working on this with him.”
you open up the file to see the letters in bright bold lettering, staring back at you. and it makes your throat itch a little bit, as you look back up at levi.
“right, so what do i need to do?” you ask.
“you’ll just accompany eren when he needs to converse with patients, at the minimum. you’re welcome to take on more of a lead role with eren if you would like.”
you look over at eren, who looks deeply unhappy that he has to succumb to getting help from the likes of someone like you, and it’s quite possibly the only reason that you decide you’re going to do it.
and it irritates eren. irritates eren that his dad was able to butt in enough to convice everyone that he needed a babysitter, and that he’d need to be around you more than the allocated two hours that he saw you every week.
“of course.” you offer.
and at the end of the very long day, when eren can finally quietly drive home and settle into his bed, he indulges in the only part of the day that he can enjoy. the one part of his day where he isn’t grisha jaeger’s son or a phd student or a neuroscientist – he was just eren. or billy, if he was going to focus on semantics.
[busstopbilly]: Liz.
[lizontopoftheworld]: no hello? no good evening? no how was your day?
[busstopbilly]: Hello. Good evening. How was your day?
[lizontopoftheworld]: hi billy boy! good evening to you too <3 my day was dogshit
[busstopbilly]: Me too.
[busstopbilly]: Did the prick do anything else?
[lizontopoftheworld]: not rlly
[lizontopoftheworld]: i just don’t get why he doesn’t like me and it drives me crazy. i don’t want to assume that it’s because of my background or anything like that, because i can’t fathom that people would actually be like that, but it can’t help but feel that way :/
[busstopbilly]: Unfortunately, I think he’s just going to be the first of a very long list of pricks that you meet in academia.
[lizontopoftheworld]: yeah…just feels really bleak that my parents and i like…did so much to get me here and i still won’t ever belong
[busstopbilly]: You’ll call the shots one day.
[lizontopoftheworld]: how was the talk with daddy-o
[busstopbilly]: It irritates me that he can weasel his way into everything. I would like to have something that’s just mine.
[busstopbilly]: Like, when I was in school as a kid, when I was an undergraduate student. Even the friends I had…
[busstopbilly]: I hate that he’s everywhere.
[lizontopoftheworld]: was ur dad the guy who created the canary mate algorithm
[busstopbilly]: No.
[lizontopoftheworld]: boom. you have something that’s just yours.
[lizontopoftheworld]: me.
[lizontopoftheworld]: ;)
eren feels his cheeks blush an embarrassing shade of red.
[busstopbilly]: Quit flirting.
[busstopbilly]: I’m going to fall in love with you.
you bite down hard into your cheek, before turning over in your sheets to the cool side of your bed. because this was definitively the best part of the day – the late night talking that you indulged in. because it was the one place where you weren’t you, where he couldn’t hold anything about your background or your past against you, and had to take what you were at face value. you were just you.
[lizontopoftheworld]: that was the plan all along :)