Cassian was the first were Matt had ever really met. Sure, he’d had classes with them in school, and there was one on his old soccer team, but he’d never really hung out with them– or they never hung out with him, he wasn’t really sure which. So it was still really strange to be sitting in a dorm room across from one. Of course it helped that Cassian had been homeschooled and was about as familiar with humans as Matt was with werewolves. The two sets of parents had finally left (and it was nice to see someone other than his mom acting overly parental), and they’d finally gotten around to the awkward silence portion of the evening.
“So, um, Matthais–”
“Just call me Matt,” he objected quickly, “I hate Matthais, seriously, my Mom named me after this mouse-thing from a book.”
“Your mom named you after a mouse?” Unlike most of Matt’s previous classmates, Cassian met the revelation with blank confusion rather than mocking.
“Really long story. So, uh, do you go by Cassian?”
“Mostly,” the werewolf shrugged. “I have an aunt who calls me Ian, but she’s the only one.” He looked puzzled. “Why does it matter?”
“I dunno, just, figuring out the ground rules I guess.” Matt leaned back against the wall, trying to shake off some of the nervousness. “You call me Matt, I won’t call you Ian, and maybe we won’t end up taping the room in half.”
Cassian look slid from slightly puzzled to completely clueless and Matt blinked. “You’ve never watched sitcoms?”
“Ah, nope” Cassian shook his head, “didn’t own a TV.”
“Well there we go then,” Matt grinned, “problem solved!”
“Wait, what?”
Matt was already headed for the door. “We have another two hours before the orientation dinner starts. So instead of sitting here trying not to offend each other, we’re going to co-opt the common room TV and I will show you the wonders of the boobtube.”
“I dunno,” Cassian glanced into the hallway where the normal chaos of the dorm was rumbling into gear now that the parents were gone. “There’s a lot of people out there.”
“All of whom will ignore you, I promise.”
Cassian just raised an eyebrow.
“Look, hate to break this to you, but you are lacking the one thing guaranteed to attract the attention of a freshman male dorm.” Matt paused meaningfully. “Boobs.”
Cassian laughed and rolled his eyes, but reluctantly followed Matt out the door.
Where he was promptly ignored (in a friendly manner) by the other freshmen, who were busy settling into the idea of No More Parents(tm) and on the celebratory parties thereof.
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