Noah woke up to the sound of his roommate shouting, "Oh my god, your eye!"
He groaned as he glanced at his alarm clock. "Yes, Penny. I have two." He rolled over to his other side so he was facing the wall, and tried to go back to sleep.
"Don't get cheeky with me," the female omega snapped. "What happened? Did you get jumped? Are you okay?" Right. He forgot about that for a blissful few seconds. Noah rolled back to face the brown haired omega with a pixie cut. Concern was written all over her face.
Penny was a sweet girl. She was his first friend at university. She was one of the only few perks that came with being an omega. Universities housed omega students in a separate building from the alphas and betas for everyone's safety and roomed omegas based on their secondary gender alone. They didn't see male and female omegas as a threat to each other, so they could have co-ed rooms.
Noah loathed Penny when they first met. She was the embodiment of all stereotypes surrounding omegas: shy, naive, submissive, and weak. Shamefully, he ignored her for the first week of the semester. But as he observed her, he realized how wrong he was. What he took as shy was her assessing her peers. Her naivety was actually a façade to give her the upper hand. Once she finally got fed up with him ignoring her, she called him out for being, in her words, a judge mental asshole. After that he cleaned up his act and got to know her. She turned out to be one of the strongest and most loyal people he knew. They had been close friends ever since. Penny kept his behavior in check and Noah helped Penny work on her assertiveness around betas and alphas. Though it appeared that Lucas was the exception as Noah had later learned that the two had been close friends for years and Penny definitely wore the pants in the friendship.
"Well, what happened?" Penny now had a cold wash cloth in her hand and gently pressed it against his swollen eye.
He couldn't tell her the truth, he felt too ashamed. Not to mention she'd tell Lucas and if Lucas found out, he would never let Noah go anywhere by himself again. "Haha, I sorta got into a fight with a lamppost...I lost." He gingerly sat up in his bed and made a punching gesture for emphasis.
Penny stared at him skeptically, "are you lying to me? I swear if your lying—"
"You know me, I'm always running into things," he laughed with a shrug. He barely had time to cover a wince as pain shot through his ribs. Technically he wasn't lying, he considered it a good week if he only ran into something once.
She was still skeptical, "and did the pole take a hammer to your glasses?" She looked pointedly to what was more duct tape than glasses at this point.
As clever as always, he thought fondly. If he said the pole did that she'd have Lucas over here in a heartbeat. He decided to go with the truth, "I wasn't expecting it, they fell off in the tussle and I accidentally sat on them."
This appeared to satisfy her as she smirked, "you realize it's gonna cost you a fortune to send them back to the optometrist to get a replacement, right?" Noah grinned.
"I knowww, I won't be able to get my everything bagels for at least a month," he pretended to faint in horror, making Penny laugh.
"It's your own fault for not getting insurance, Stupid." she chastised.
"I thought I was saving money!"
Penny face palmed in exasperation.
A few hours later Noah was sitting in Anatomy 101. He was adding to his notes as the professor reviewed the previous week's lesson when Lucas slid into the seat next to him.
"What'd I miss?" Lucas asked as he rummaged through his bag for a pen.
"Not much." Noah replied half distracted by the lecture. "You're late. Everything okay?"
A light blush crossed Lucas' cheeks as he murmured, "Danny." This caught Noah's attention.
"As in the beta girl in the architecture department? Sounds like you guys are getting pretty serious." Lucas' blush reddened as Noah continued to tease him. "You better make me the godfather."
Lucas laughed as he playfully shoved him, "shut up, if anything you'd teach them how to run into a lamppost."
"Ah, Penny told you about that...." Guess it was a good thing he lied—bent the truth.
"Of course she did. You're a walking hazard, you know that?" They both laughed.
At that moment the two of them realized how quiet it had become. They looked up to see all eyes on them. The most fierce being the professor's.
Noah whispered, "how long has she been staring at us?" Lucas shrugged nervously.
"Mr. Gardner, Dagosta," the professor spoke in a dangerously soft, "can you tell the class where you are right now?"
"College," Noah murmured. He glanced at Lucas to see him bow his head in embarrassment. He felt a little guilty—not for getting scolded, he was used to that, but for dragging Lucas down too. Lucas never got in trouble...except for when he hung out with Noah.
The professor's voice began to raise. "Exactly, this isn't middle school gentlemen. If you're going to disrespect my class, then get out."
Lucas looked like he was dying of embarrassment. This irritated Noah, he understood himself being kicked out. He was far from a first offender, but Lucas was practically the golden boy!
Noah jumped from his seat, "you're kicking us—no, him, out?! Cmon, don't you think you're being a little drama—" oops.
"Out!" She exclaimed.
"Okay, that came out wrong," he held his hands up as though to calm an enraged animal, which wasn't to far off the mark.
"OUT!"
Noah and Lucas scrambled to grab their bags and dashed out of the class. Once they were a safe distance away, they slid down the corridor wall so they were seated on the cool, yet filthy floor.
"Dammit," Lucas sighed, "we were almost done with the semester. Now what are we going to do?" He continued to mutter as he tried to think of a solution, while Noah began to chuckle.
"Did you see the old bat's face? She looked like she was about to explode! Ha, isn't it time the lady retired?" He grinned as he played back what happened.
"First, that 'old bat' is brilliant. Second, how can you be laughing when we were just kicked out of class?" Lucas was slowly becoming more stressed.
"Ah, don't worry. She'll let us back in next week. I mean don't try talking to her or she'll kick you out again, but you're fine." Noah waved it off without a second. "But that reminds, I got you something." He dug a half crushed candy bar out of his bag, "...as a sorry for last night."
Lucas' worry melted away at the sight of the bar, and love for the sweet took its' place. "By the way," Lucas glanced up at Noah's glasses as he nurtured his candy, "you really should have bought insurance." Noah threw his hands up in defeat, though with a grin on his face.
He savored the feeling of camaraderie as both, Lucas and him, sat in quiet content while they enjoyed the rest of their suddenly freed up schedule. That is, until he received a text message from an unknown number.
Lucas glanced at the screen, "who's that?"
"...." When he didn't get a response he looked over at Noah. His face had paled significantly as he mumbled, "N-nothing. It's no one. Wrong number I think." He stumbled to his feet and began to back away. "Hey, uhm I've got to go...." Noah dashed down the hall, leaving a thoroughly confused and concerned Lucas in his wake.