Going In Blind

Kaz opened the door to the his room.

He'd been used to thinking of it as his room ever since the school took his complaint against his former roommate seriously and moved Kaz. For a creature that fed on misery, even Kaz couldn't stand his former roommate, because he'd made Kaz absolutely miserably. All the smoke and microwaving strange substances that he claimed were "chemsitry homework" got to be a bit much.

When he was moved to a new room, Kaz knew it was with the expectation of eventually having a roommate. It was just something Kaz forgot about.

Kaz had a brown paper grocery bag tucked under one arm and he almost dropped it when he saw the other boy in his room. His new roommate looked to be around his age, with tanned skin, Asian features, and close-cropped dark hair that Kaz had a sudden image of himself running his hands through because it looked soft.

That last thought caught Kaz off guard as much as having someone in his room was.

Only now, he remembered, it wasn't his room. It was...our room.

"Hey," Kaz said, heading past the boy and to the opposite side of the room. "You must be Samson. Or, at least, I hope you're Samson, because otherwise it's going to be really awkward in here really fast."

He set his bag of groceries--produce mostly--on the small desk.

"My name is Kazimierz, but please call me Kaz," he said. He didn't immediately offer his hand to the other boy to shake. He'd test the water first to make sure the other boy wouldn't bite him.

It'd happened before.

"Sam then," Kaz said. "It's good to meet you, too."

When Sam said that something had gone bad, probably a tomato, Kaz groaned and started to unpack his bag in a hurry. The lettuce was okay, and so where his cucumbers and spinach but, just as Sam had indicated, one of the tomatoes was mushy on the bottom side.

"Shit," Kaz cursed under his breath.

Kaz sighed and took it out of the bag, wondering if he could salvage any of it, but then he wondered if he should even bother.

"Thanks," he said. "That would have been unpleasant to have discovered later. Yeck."

Kaz hesitated for a moment and then decided to bring it up. While it may not be exactly the most sensitive thing to do, if he and Sam were going to be sharing a room together--Kaz felt a little dizzy at the thought--the least he could do was ask.

"I'm guessing you've got a more sensitive nose than me, so I'm just going to go ahead and ask--any particular smells you don't like? garlic? popcorn? peppers? That sort of deal. I'd like to make living with me as tolerable as possible."

Knowing that there weren't any particular smells that he'd dislike reassured Kaz. Kaz was generally a fairly boring person when it came to food. His sense of taste was a little more sensitive than others, so he preferred fresh fruits and vegetables rather than anything saturated in oils or seeped in sauces.

When Sam said that he was blind, Kaz was surprised. HIs eyebrows shot up, which he might have worried was rude had Sam literally just told Kaz that he couldn't see him.

"Oh," he said. Kaz considered the details about Sam's increased hearing and sense of smell. He said, "Well, I guess that answered my other question of 'are you a werewolf or something' then. "

Kaz frowned and reconsidered that. He said, "Unless you're also a werewolf or something?"

Kaz pulled out his desk chair then and sat down. His bag of groceries now seemed like a challenge he wasn't ready to deal with right now--he'd do it in a few more minutes.

He rocked back a little bit on the desk chair and then stopped himself from going any further back, realizing it might not be a great idea. He was starting to get tired, which was, unfortunately, the result of having a day that went well.

"Anything I should be mindful of then?" Kaz asked. "I mean, for obvious reasons I'll do my best not to leave anything out on the floor. I'd like to think I'm pretty tidy anyway. I do practice guitar, but I don't usually do that in the room, unless there's a rare occasion that the music wing's practice rooms are booked solid."

Kaz returned his dry smile.

"Fair enough," he said, and he was surprised how easily the banter came. Sam might be the most normal roommate Kaz had ever had, and that was just judging by first impressions. He didn't seem like the kind of guy who would create "chemistry homework" explosions that would catch part of the dorm on fire.

"And sure, that shouldn't be a problem, I appreciate you telling me," Kaz said.

He rubbed his face for a moment and then considered his own needs for sharing the room.

"I don't deal well with iron," he said. "Steel and other metals are usually okay. Aluminum is totally fine. But if you have anything that's just plain iron I'd appreciate it if you could avoid keeping it in any common areas."

In Kaz's experience most people didn't haul around pure iron anymore in the modern world, but it was the academy and there were people here stuck in the era they were born in, which could have been the iron age and brought with it an affinity of decorating a room with a hall of horse shoes.

There was a reason Kaz didn't go out to many parties.

"So where were you from?" Kaz asked. "Before you came here, I mean?"

"Yeah, but given how many people on this island have a habit for sticking to old traditions, I figured it's always safer than sorry," Kaz admitted. "Just the other day, I had a guest speaker in one of my classes who still dressed like it was the 1800's. I thought it might just be a costuming thing, but nope. He dresses like that all the time. I guess it's when he died or whatever, but he's not...limited to one outfit. He has a whole wardrobe."

Kaz shook his head and gave a sound somewhere between a snort and a laugh. His adopted parents used to complain about other folks in their town being "stuck in the 80's" but the 1880s?

The smile quickly faded though and he pushed that thought from his mind.

Cast iron, though. Hmmm.

"I'm honestly not too sure," Kaz said. "I'd like to try and avoid finding out the hard way, so if you've got anything that is, just uh...be sure to let me know where you're storing it and I'll keep a wide berth."

When Sam through the werewolf line right back at him, Kaz was surprised by how quickly he returned the other boy's sheepish smile. "That's fair," he said.

"But no, I'm fae," Kaz explained. "Only without the wings and regretfully without most of the cool magic that comes with it."

Kaz didn't know about the urge to fight that went through Sam's head, but he did catch the frown, and realized he might have touched on a sensitive subject. But the other boy answered easily enough that Kaz didn't feel too worried--and the part about criminals barely phased him.

His real parents were magical, child-stealing musicians. It was kind of hard to judge someone with that weighing over his head.

"So i'm going to assume that I'm not your first roommate, then?" Kaz said, sort of a lame attempt at a joke. "You're not my first one, although I didn't live with anyone before I came here, save for adopted parents. Poland first, then here."

Kaz took a deep breath and then exhaled it. Now, he was nervous.

"Listen, my last roommate was...." Kaz tried to think of how to describe the situation. "I don't really care what people do. It's not my business. But if you're going to be catching anything on fire, I'm just going to ask that you do it outside the room. Otherwise, I think we'll probably be okay."

He swallowed.

"I'm uh, looking forward to sharing the space with you," he said.

Sam seemed normal. He seemed nice. He seemed...kind of cute. Which didn't mean anything. Except maybe that cute didn't involve fireballs. He hoped.