Disclaimer: I don't own anything

WARNINGS: probs OOC (but it is an AU so it's to be expected), bit of swearing, Mana's a little bit crazy, crack

AN: idek, I was just thinking about weird shit to walk in on and somehow this happened. Enjoy?

Allen barely even opens the door and he can hear shrieking. This day was not going to be a good day. Once the door was fully opened all he could do was stare. The room was nice enough, especially for a college dorm. Three beds, a kitchenette nestled in the left corner, and a desk pressed into the right. That wasn't the problem. The problem was that one of his roommates was currently standing on top of the bench, pressed as far into the wall as possible, while the other was under a bed. Said bed was completely askew, the blankets were a mess and Allen was fairly sure the curtains weren't supposed to look like that. The one on the bench simply stares at him, pale as a sheet, while the other wiggles out from beneath the bed.

"I got it!" He crows happily. There's a cup pressed to the floor beneath his hands, and a victorious grin on his face. Was the other afraid of spiders? Allen supposes that's fairly common. Though slightly problematic if he was going to react this badly every time. The one on the floor finally notices him, mouth forming a surprised 'o' before giving him a warm smile.

"Hi! I'm Mana." He chirps. Allen nods in greeting, eyes flicking back to the one on the bench. The other teen blinks and follows his eyes.

"Oh! Neah can't handle bugs and spiders and stuff. Anything much smaller than a golf ball, really…" He explains, still perfectly chipper. Allen stares at the teen while he resolutely looks away. The redhead drops one bag and slowly raises a hand to point. Neah blinks, baffled, and follows his finger, craning his neck to see a sizeable cockroach on the wall next to his head. The teen lets out an ungodly screech, loud and high-pitched, practically falling over himself to get away. He scrambles off the bench and somehow manages to knock one of the cupboards slightly loose from the wall. A flood of cockroaches poor from the new opening like a moving carpet. The noise Neah makes can only be described as that of a dying animal as his entire body tenses and then starts trembling. He's soon screaming again, and scrambling across the room and onto the desk to get away from the new threat. Mana simply sits there despondently.

"I don't think we have enough cups…" He mutters. Allen picks up his bag and leaves. He hears a protesting squeak, presumably from Neah, but keeps walking until he hits the lobby. Lavi's still there, flirting with a random girl, and he perks up when Allen arrives.

"That was quick." He says with a shit-eating grin, like he knew something like this would happen. Allen simply stares. He throws his bags at the redhead, who catches them expertly one after the other, and moves his deadpan gaze to the receptionist. The man looks a little annoyed, especially when Allen throws his key onto the desk. He opens his mouth, but the teen is quick to cut him off.

"I need a new room." The man's eye twitches, but Allen doesn't give him time to respond. "We discovered an infestation of roaches, one of my roommates is currently screaming like a banshee, and the other is sitting on the floor commenting on the lack of cups."

The man's jaw clicks shut. He stares at Allen for a moment, seemingly pondering if he's lying, before reaching over and grabbing the key. He types on his computer, stares for a while and scrolls.

"We have one bed in 304, and two in 106." He says, turning around to grab more keys, handing them over easily. "Tell the other two to return their keys later. I'll send someone about the roaches."

Allen mutters his thanks, taking the keys and turning to Lavi. He's standing there patiently, still with that shit-eating grin. Allen glares, grabs his bags in one hand and tries again. He stops by his would-be room first. Not much has changed. Neah has somehow managed to get higher on the desks cupboards, Mana has moved to the bed and is currently staring down at a cup surrounded by roaches. He looks over at Allen, face blank.

"They're trying to save their brethren." He says, completely seriously, and turns back. Allen momentarily reconsiders his belief on possession. He doesn't bother with greetings beyond that, simply striding into the room without a care for the crunching beneath his feet. Neah looks a little green at that. Allen stops in front of him and the teen tries to scramble even further away. Which is impossible because he's already pushed against the roof. Allen reaches up and grabs him. He shrieks, trying to kick the teen away, but Allen is faster and absolutely not dealing with his shit. He yanks the teen down and over his shoulder, and strides out the door.

"Don't you dare drop me!" Neah shrieks, clinging to him as much as possible to stop himself from falling. Allen gives a noncommittal hum. He hears more crunching when he's out the door, and turns minutely to see the other teen trailing behind them merrily. He's practically skipping. The redhead stares for a brief moment before heading to 106. He drops Neah in front of the door, throws the keys at him and keeps walking.

Allen's next room is comparatively worse than the first. He's greeted by long hair, a nasty scowl and Allen's fairly sure that's a sword. The teen hadn't expect to get into a fist-fight his first day, but that is very much what happens. It ends in a concussion, a cracked rib and a very angry receptionist chewing them out for putting a hole in the wall. Allen gets a new room key and off he goes to try again. Five rooms later and the receptionist looks just about ready to give up. His hand is out before Allen can even speak, and he's already scrolling through the computer. Lavi's sitting at the desk by this point, simply waiting for his friend's seemingly inevitable return. Allen keeps reminding himself of what a good friend the man is by waiting there for him, and tries not to focus too much on the grin.

He drops his bags in the other redheads open arms and the key into the receptionist's waiting palm. Another key is promptly thrown at him with a mutter of 114. He steels himself for whatever's next, ignores Lavi's grin as he grabs his bags, and heads off for his new adventure. When he gets to the room he takes a deep breath. The teen knocks loudly and pushes the door open. He blinks. Mana and Neah blink back. Mana is near the window, stretched out and humming happily, while Neah is rummaging around the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" Allen can't help but ask.

"Debugging the room." Mana answers without looking. Allen shrugs and tries to think. Didn't he drop these two off at 106? Did they get a shitty roommate? Or did they get a normal roommate who couldn't handle them.

"I thought you were in 106." He says conversationally, taking a few steps forward. Mana has moved to the floor and Allen eyes him carefully.

"We were." Neah is the one who answers, seemingly satisfied with the kitchenette. "But the guy was a total neat-freak, refused to move his stuff, and it took a while for the receptionist to find a room with two spares."

"Why two?" Allen asks with a brow raised. He had noticed the similarities between the two, dark hair and bright golden eyes, but family usually weren't that anal about staying together. Mana looks up at that moment and stares at him.

"We mustn't be separated." He says flatly. His smile is friendly as ever, but his eyes are just a little too wide, and the whole thing just really creeps Allen out.

"Right." He says casually. Mana beams, happily going back to whatever he was doing. It seems to involve a lot of glue. Allen turns away and gives Neah a look, the other teen just shrugs and starts making coffee. Allen sighs and drops his bags near the only bed left. At least they haven't thrown anything at him yet. Or yelled at him specifically for being disfigured. He flops onto the bed and slams his hand out to squash the spider on the wall. He swears he hears Neah hiss.

Allen is quick to learn that Neah can't survive without at least three cups of coffee in the morning, and Mana is more affectionate than a lonely puppy. He cuddles up to Neah anytime he can, and whenever either of them are too busy, he'll either sit as close as possible or flop over the teens lap instead. They are extremely good at doing homework whilst perched precariously on the bed. Said beds were pushed together almost immediately so Mana can sleep cuddled up to his brother. Allen is quickly made the designated cook of the group, as Neah makes things that are just barely edible and Mana has already set the kitchen on fire. Twice. Allen's still not sure how, and is still deciding whether the teen is possessed or just weird. He's subtly leaning towards the former.

His classes are hard, but he's getting by pretty well, and Mana hasn't done anything much weirder than sing creepy lullabies while Allen cooks. All in all, things could be worse. Though he will admit… Allen has never been more terrified than the day he woke up to something licking his nose. For one horrifying moment, he had thought it was Mana and that the teen truly was possessed. He had never opened his eyes so fast, and as the scream died in his throat and he registered what he was seeing, he really did want to hit someone.

"Mrow." There was a kitten sitting on his chest. It was cute, really. Gold fur and big eyes, a slightly lighter golden patch on its face in the shape of a cross. It meowed again and licked his nose. He gave it a scratch beneath the chin, which garnered heavy purring. He sighed, aggravated, and picked it up. He didn't care how cute it was, they hadn't even bothered warning him it was going to be here. He picks it up and walks over. The twins are both still asleep, Neah sprawled out languidly, an arm over his eyes, with Mana curled into his side. It's kind of cute. But Allen's mad and feeling just a little bit petty, so he leans down close, right in front of Neah's face, and whispers his name. The teen's arm moves quickly, but he looks more annoyed than surprised. Until Allen shoves a kitten in his face.

"Keep your damn kitten off my face." He says, voice laced with annoyance.

"Timcanpy?" Is the confused mutter, before Neah's face falls into aggravated realisation and he growls. "Mana." Said teen peeks out from where his face is pressed into his brother's side, puppy-eyes in full effect.

"He was lonely…" He whispers. The twins had gone home for the weekend, and their pretty kitten (who turned out to actually be a full grown cat) had been cuddled up with them the whole time. So obviously Mana had to bring him back. Neah's only real reaction is a long, drawn out groan.

Timcanpy will eat anything. And Allen means that quite literally. He has to be careful of what he leaves lying around, and make sure there's always something there for the kitten if he ever feels peckish, lest he lose a shoe. The cat is also a ball of righteous fury. The campus had a series of break-ins one week and the unlucky culprit had the dumb luck of breaking into their room. The man screamed almost as loud as Neah had their first day. Allen figures it was a fair reaction to Timcanpy trying to claw his damn eyes out. The cat managed to tear a reasonable portion of his clothes to shreds before Mana slammed their frying pan over the thief's head. Allen has to stop Timcanpy from eating the guys ear.

Allen wakes up with the kitten curled up on his chest more days than not, and constantly has to remove him to get up and make breakfast. Mana pouts horribly, because he wants cuddles too, and Allen notices that as time progresses the teen gets subtly closer. And Allen does mean physically. Whether it be where the teen stood or sat, he was most definitely inching closer. It gets to the point where Neah is busy doing homework one day, and instead of just sitting close by like usual, Mana flops on top of Allen instead. The teen was lying on his stomach in bed, reading a book when the raven practically threw himself on top of him. He grunts at the impact and cranes his neck to give the teen a look, but Mana's face is buried between his shoulder blades. Allen thinks he might already be asleep. He pins Neah with a glare, but the raven is sitting with his back turned at the desk, furiously working on an assignment. It takes another hour or so for him to realise Mana's not bugging him. He looks around and Allen gives him a very pointed look. Neah just stares for a moment, makes a surprised 'huh' sound, then goes back to work. Allen almost screams.

Hours later and Neah is still working. Mana barely managed to feed him dinner, and Allen is starting to worry. It's late, and both twins are usually in bed by now. Mana's sitting on the edge on their bed, watching quietly. Every now and then he gets up to pester his twin, but more times than not gets ignored. Allen tries a few times to convince the teen to sleep but Neah brushes him off.

"I'm not tired." He says, every time, and Allen really doesn't like this. It's gets to almost midnight before Mana finally makes a decision. He rifles around in his bag and pulls out a bottle of pills. He pops two into a glass of water, waiting until they fizzle out and dissolve. Mana places the glass down on the desk with a harsh clink. Neah stops, but he doesn't look up. There's a moment, where Neah is staring down and Mana is staring at him, a moment where Allen feels he's intruding on something private. But the moment passes quickly and Neah is grabbing the glass with an irritated huff. He swallows the concoction in one go, quickly changing and letting Mana drag him into bed. They settle easily enough, but it's easy to see how restless Neah is. How agitated he is. Allen worries a bit more, but soon enough the other teen begins to get drowsy. He's still agitated, but now there's a sluggishness to his movements that he can't shake. Neah's asleep within the hour, Mana gently watching over him until he's sure, and then curling up and allowing himself to follow. Allen doesn't sleep well that night.

Neah gets bouts of insomnia, Mana explains the next morning, and sometimes he simply can't (won't) sleep without medication. Allen feels like there's something more, but doesn't question them. It's not his business, and he knows what it's like to have unwanted prodding. He just hopes that Neah's okay.

Finals are hell. The redhead decides this quickly, and Lavi's really no help at all. Though the older redhead does manage to help, despite Allen's protests, dragging him out for breaks when he studies too hard and Mana and Neah aren't there to stop him (Mana's worse than Lavi when it comes to the teen's health, but Allen can't say he blames him). It's after one of these breaks that the redhead comes home to a different kind of hell. Mana is sitting on the floor. Not unusual. Still… he edges into the kitchen where Neah is making coffee (his default when he doesn't know what else to do) and Allen simply stares. It wasn't that he disliked Mana or anything, but sometimes…

"You will die for your sins." The raven-haired teen mutters under his breath, putting a shoddily built voodoo doll into a jar of water.

Sometimes he did shit like this and Allen just doesn't know. He turns his head very slightly to Neah, who is now standing unobtrusively close.

"I think your brother's slightly insane." He mentions as casually, and quietly, as possible. Neither of them take their eyes off the other teen, who is now chuckling darkly, still with that sugar-sweet smile, and swirling the voodoo doll about. Allen's fairly sure there is smoke coming off the doll, and he's fairly sure that that's not water at all.

"Yeah…" Neah takes a sip of his coffee. "We're working on it."

Allen somehow doubts it's going well. It's the very next day that the redhead returns from another final to see Mana sulking on the floor. There's a small rug there now (they put one there after realizing how much time the twin spends there) and Mana's sitting there cross-legged and droopy. He looks up at Allen upon his arrival and pouts.

"Neah says I'm not allowed to make voodoo dolls anymore." He informs sadly. Allen works his jaw. His eyes flick briefly over to the other twin, but Neah's either not paying attention or deliberately ignoring him.

"I'm sure it's for the best." Allen reasons. Mana just sulks some more, and god that pout is killing him. Neah is very invested in making his coffee. Allen understands.

After finals finish, the holidays start and the festive season creeps closer. This fills Mana with even more joy and clinginess than before. It's also when Allen gives up on whatever hope he had left of being normal, and lets himself fully descend into the bonds of friendship with his two crazy roommates. Allen wakes up one day face to face with Neah. The other teen is asleep, and Mana is curled up between them. The redhead makes a disgruntled noise and Neah's eyes flutter open. He's not nearly as surprised as Allen thinks he should be, but he looks beyond exasperated.

"Mana, what have I said about drugging people?" Neah's sleeping pills, of course. He only needs them sometimes, but they sure as hell work. The other twin gives the barest shift, and Allen finally notices that the room has been rearranged so that all three beds are pushed together.

"You wouldn't let me move the beds otherwise." Mana mutters, trying to push further into both teens at the same time. Allen sighs, resigned. This is what happens when he befriends people.

~ END ~

AN: Why are tenses so hard? I keep switching, and then I have to go back and change it to one or the other. It ended up present tense this time, because I had written more in present than past.