Chapter Text
“Aaaaagh!” Noelle quietly squealed, craning her neck back to take in the tall dorm building. “Can you believe it, Kris? We’re really here! Our first day in college!”
“First day isn’t till Monday,” the human beside her deadpanned.
Noelle elbowed them with a huff. “Still! Aren’t you a excited? Or at least a little nervous?”
Kris methodically looked to their left, then scanned right, taking it all in. Monsters of all kinds were bustling around with the chaos and nerves of move-in day. More than a few paused to stare at them—or, more specifically, Kris, Noelle realized. They had been the only human in Hometown, and it was quickly looking like that truth would hold true here, too. If they were bothered by it, they didn’t show it, their shorter stature conveniently allowing their bangs to hide their eyes from Noelle. “Nope.”
Noelle comfortingly threw an arm around their shoulders, having to lean over a bit to do so. Kris had finally gotten their long-awaited growth spurt halfway through senior year of high school, but Noelle still had a solid nine inches on them—more, if you counted her antlers. Which Kris very adamantly didn’t. “Come on, Kris, it’s okay to admit it! At least we’re here together, right? Let’s go!” Taking them by the hand, she tugged them along through the doors, swiping her brand-new student ID across the card reader so they could get into the lobby. After grabbing a little information pamphlet from the front desk, she followed the signs to the elevator, then paused to check the confirmation email she’d gotten about her dorm assignment. “Looks like I’m on… floor five. What about you?”
“Eleven,” Kris answered without missing a beat or having to double-check, then broke free of her grasp to slip into the second elevator when it arrived first. They immediately pressed the button to shut the doors before she could follow, flashing her a peace sign through the shrinking crack.
“Kris?! Wait, Kris!! Why—ugh,” Noelle cried out, then trailed off into a grumble as she pressed the call button again to wait for the other elevator. “So much for sticking together.” She scuffed a hoof against the floor, shuffling out of the way to let a few monsters out when the elevator arrived before stepping inside and hitting the ‘five’ button. She fidgeted anxiously while the elevator rose, straightening her green vest, her white blouse, her poofy red skirt. The white pompoms on her black boots. She considered combing her hair, but the doors were already sliding open with a quiet ‘ding,’ so she settled for just tucking the long blonde strands behind her ears.
She wondered who her roommate would be. Hopefully someone nice. Maybe someone on the quieter side? On the other hand, someone more outgoing would relieve her of having to break the ice. It had always felt easier to make friends when she had Dess’s confidence backing her up. Oh, maybe she got matched with another pre-med student? Then they could study together, and—
She opened the door to her designated dorm room and immediately lost whatever daydream she’d been caught up in.
Her roommate had apparently gotten here first, and one side of the room and then some had already been thoroughly claimed. Clothes scattered around the bed and on the floor, and an unzipped duffel bag took up most of the small table. A purple, reptilian monster with shaggy brunette hair and ripped jeans slouched in the middle of the floor next to an open pizza box, craning her neck back and showing off sharp teeth as she positioned her gaping mouth to catch a long string of melted cheese hanging off the tip of the pizza slice in her hand. “Oh. Yo,” she said around the string of cheese, tearing off a big bite after the fact and continuing with her mouth full. “Hope y’ don’ mind, I got first dibs on a bed.”
Noelle stared, aghast. She leaned back out the doorframe to double-check the room number—no, yes, this was 522, just like it said in the email. She pulled out her phone just to make sure she wasn’t mistaken. “Y-you’re, um… Susie? Susie… Sauria?”
She grinned, and Noelle couldn’t quite tell past the razor-sharp teeth and shaggy bangs whether it was meant to be welcoming or menacing. “That’s the one.”
Noelle hovered by the door, twisting her hands together uncertainly. “Um—I feel like—there must be some sort of mistake? Um, not that—you um, seem nice! It’s just—there was this, questionnaire? That was supposed to match us up with roommates, you know, based on our—um, lifestyle and personality, I guess?”
Susie barked a laugh. “Oh, yeah, that thing.” She downed the second half of her pizza slice in one bite. “Yeah I’m not really a quiz person, so I just sorta picked whatever answers sounded funny.”
Noelle felt her eyelid twitch. When she replied, her voice had gone up half an octave. “Oh. Um! Okay! Faha! That’s—funny, right? I mean—I barely looked at the answers either, faha! I definitely didn’t spend two hours agonizing over my profile to make sure it accurately reflected on me and my preferences, because that—that would be silly! Imagine doing all that only to get paired up totally at random! Ha!”
The other girl watched her with an inscrutable expression, then picked up the mostly-empty box to hold out. “Dude, you need a piece’a pizza?”
She looked down at the two slices left, both loaded up with just about every topping on the menu, including pepperoni, sausage, ham, steak, and bacon.
Oh merciful Angel above, she could not believe this was happening right now.
“I’m vegetarian.”
Susie snorted, still offering up the box. “Ha, yeah, I picked that one, too. Imagine just eating vegetables your whole life. Like, dude, try living a little, am I right?”
Noelle turned around and walked back down the hall to the elevator.
❅
Kris was a genius.
Move-in day was a game of prioritizing. You wanted to get settled into your dorm as efficiently as possible so that you had as much time as possible to unwind and recharge before classes started on Monday. Busy as the mayor always was, Noelle’s mom had other commitments today, so Toriel had driven both them and Noelle up with whatever they could fit into their backpacks and suitcases, along with a couple garbage bags for pillows and whatnot. Later, Asgore would be driving up in his truck with the rest of their belongings, but that wouldn’t be for a few hours yet.
So while everyone else would be busy unpacking all the boring stuff first, like clothes and toiletries and school supplies, they had packed their carry-on with what was actually important.
Their gaming setup came out first: laptop, keyboard and mouse, controller, and horned headphones all carefully arranged on the desk under the one bed they’d requested be lofted and plugged into the power strip. Next the RGB LED strips went up. The snack drawer was stocked with a plentiful supply of cookies, chips, microwave popcorn, and instant noodles. Then they cracked their suitcase open, overflowing with the blankets they’d stuffed into it. The biggest one, a deep blue quilt patterned with silver stars, got one end fastened to the rail of the lofted bed, then stretched out so the other could drape over the second bed on the floor, effectively shutting out the sunlight from the window and turning the central space between the two walls into a fort with built-in mood lighting.
They were halfway through expertly untangling the string lights wrapped up in the remaining blankets when their phone started buzzing incessantly. Picking it up off the desk, they saw it was Asriel video calling them. Rolling their eyes at their big brother’s need to coddle them, they picked up. “‘Sup.”
Asriel was sitting on the couch in his apartment, the sunlight streaming in making his white fur practically blinding on the screen until Kris turned the brightness down. “Hey, Kris! How’s—” He squinted, leaning closer. “Is your video working? All I’m seeing is a black screen.”
Smirking, Kris reached for a small remote and turned on the RGB strips, setting them to cycle through the rainbow.
“Oh wow, you weren’t kidding about the gamer cave, huh?”
Ducking out of the fort, Kris propped their phone on the loft bed’s ladder so their hands were free to continue untangling the string lights. “Jealous?”
Azzy laughed good-naturedly. “For someone who utterly refused to put any personality at all into our room back home, you sure seem to have a vision going.”
Kris paused, expression falling neutral as they glanced up at their phone. “This is my room. It’s different.”
Their brother quirked his mouth, taking on a tone that made Kris bristle up defensively on instinct. “Aw c’mon, Bug—”
Before he could say any more, a high-pitched wail came through the door from the hallway. “Kriiiiiiiiiiis!”
Blinking at the voice, they waved Azzy off dismissively and got up to open the door, poking their head out into the hall.
Noelle was immediately upon them, letting herself in and slamming the door shut behind her. “Kris, there you are! I have an emergency! This is a disaster! A complete, utter disaster—I have the worst luck in the entire history of—” She paused as she finally noticed the state of the room, taking it all in and then looking down at Kris. “How on earth did you get so much decorating done already? It’s only been fifteen minutes!”
They shrugged, only a little smug. “Determination.”
“Hi, Noelle!” Asriel called from Kris’ phone. “How’s move-in going?”
As if reminded of her despair, Noelle went right back at it. “Awful! I need a different roommate! Mine—she—she treated the whole questionnaire as a joke so we got stuck together by chance, and there’s absolutely no way we’re compatible! The room is already a disaster! She was eating pizza off the floor!”
Kris quirked half a grin. “Nice. Can I have some?”
Noelle whirled on them. “No! Not nice! Very not nice!”
“That bad, huh?” Asriel piped up. “Maybe you just need to give her a chance?”
Noelle turned on him, but then she lit up with an idea, spinning around to face Kris again. “Kris! Am I seeing what I think I’m seeing? Did you get a room all to yourself?”
Their eyes widened, and they shook their head. “No. No, no, nope, don’t even think about it. My room. My room. Not sharing.”
“But how come you have a double all to yourself?”
“I think it’s school policy now,” said Asriel helpfully.
Kris was much more blunt about it. “Cuz the last human student they had here got jumped in the middle of the night and had to drop out.”
Noelle’s face dropped.
Azzy cringed. “Yeah, they lived on my floor. I wasn’t there when it happened, but I heard it was pretty bad. It even made the news.”
Noelle reeled for a few seconds, then shook her head. “But, then, wouldn’t it be safer to pair you up with someone you know? Like the buddy system?”
“We are not using the buddy system.”
“That might not be a bad idea, Kris,” said Asriel unhelpfully. “It can be pretty isolating to be the odd one out, and it won’t do you any good to stay cooped up in your room all the time—”
Another voice came over the speaker on Kris’s phone, cutting out a little bit from the distance. “--talkin’ to, Azz? —that Noelle?”
Kris took their chance while Azzy and Noelle were both distracted and darted over to snatch their phone. “Gotta go bye,” they spat out before ending the call.
Behind them, Noelle sputtered in offense. “Kris!”
They spun on their heel, pointing at her and shooting her a dead glare. “If you wanna talk, you better put those noodle arms to use and help me hang these lights.”
She crossed her arms, indignant. “I do not have noodle arms.”
“Built-in stilts, then.”
Noelle had to stifle a laugh, forcing her face into a pout. “Kris!! What, are your stubby little shrimp arms too short to do it yourself?”
They went on staring. She’d clearly spent too much time chatting with Dess lately. “Beanpole.”
“Beansprout.”
“Silly Strings.”
“Tic-Tac.”
They felt their cheeks burn, and they looked away.
“Ha! I win!”
They swept an arm out in a grand gesture. “There’s the door.”
“W-wait! I’ll help, I’ll help!”
They glared at her for another long moment before throwing a pack of command hooks at her. “Two feet apart all around the ceiling.”
Noelle nodded dutifully. “On it!”
For a sacred three and a half minutes of peace, the two of them worked in silence, Kris untangling the rest of the lights while Noelle carefully spaced the hooks around the upper edge of the wall. It could only last so long, though.
“You don’t think they’d let me switch rooms, would they?” asked Noelle. “I mean, it’s clearly not a good match-up.”
“Sounds kinda petty,” Kris pointed out. “Do you really want everyone’s first impression of you to be the girl who whined her way into swapping roommates?”
Fittingly, Noelle whined. “I just don’t know what I’m going to do! There’s no way it will work out having the two of us share a room. She’s messy, and—and—” Clearly grasping at straws, Noelle. “--and she probably hates Christmas!”
Kris just gave her a look.
She deflated with a huff. “Alright, alright. I don’t know if she hates Christmas. But it wouldn’t surprise me.”
Kris sighed, handing up one end of the string of lights and slowly feeding her more as she went back around to each hook. It was an easy, thoughtless task for them—Kris had been roped into helping decorate the Holiday manor for their annual Christmas party more than once, and the two of them had a system by now. “As much as it pains me to say this—and I do mean it’s actually, really, physically painful—maybe Azzy’s got a point on this one.”
Noelle looked back at them hopefully. “About the buddy system?”
They glared. “No, about giving her a chance. You’ve spent what, five minutes with her?”
“But—”
“Just take me, for example. I made a horrible first impression, and look at us now.”
“Kris, the first day we met, you tricked me into eating a worm!”
“It was an apple.”
Her voice jumped up an octave. “WITH A WORM IN IT!”
“Exactly. And now we’re friends. This girl hasn’t even made you eat a worm yet.”
Hanging up the last of the lights, Noelle climbed down off the loft bed and turned to face Kris. “You’re really bad at pep talks, you know that?”
They shrugged. “You came here, remember?”
She sighed. “Won’t you at least come with me? Then you can meet her for yourself and tell me off if I’m being judgey.”
“You’re being judgey,” Kris answered easily. “And no. I’ve got dungeons to raid. Good luck, though.”
“But Kris—”
Stepping around her to plant both hands on the middle of her back, they pushed her along out the door and shut it behind her before she could voice another protest. Then they turned around and brushed their hands off before propping them on their hips, taking in the fruits of their labor. Time to shut out the rest of the world for the next three hours. Noelle was on her own.
❅
When Noelle returned to her dorm, Susie was sprawled out on her bed, phone held up in front of her face as she scrolled. Noelle took in the messy state of the room and forced herself to take a deep breath. She wasn’t judgey. Her mom was judgey, but Noelle—Noelle sees the best in people. Noelle gives them a chance. Just because Susie was undoubtedly not the sort of roommate she’d been expecting, that didn’t automatically mean she was a bad person. She just had to try to get to know her.
“Hi again!” she piped up in a cheerful tone as she came in. “Sorry for running off earlier. I, um, forgot something.”
Susie glanced up at her over the edge of her phone. “Really? Cuz you looked like you were ‘bout to blow a fuse.”
Noelle’s smile strained. “Faha! Well, it is the first day, so I guess my nerves are a little fried. There’s so much to do, you know?” Grabbing the handle of her suitcase from where she’d left it by the door, she wheeled it in and tipped it over at the foot of her bed to unzip. “Like unpacking!”
“Ha, yeah, did that as soon as I got here.”
She glanced at the mess of clothes scattered about the room as she started taking out neatly-folded piles from her suitcase to lay out on her bed. “You’re, um, not going to finish?”
“What do you mean?”
She grabbed a stack of hangers out of the closet on her side of the room to start hanging things up. “Um, putting stuff away?”
Susie lowered her phone, staring at her like she’d just said the sky was yellow. “It’s called unpacking.”
Noelle sputtered, unable to stop herself from letting out a disbelieving laugh. “Well, yes?? You unpack your bag, so you can put everything away where it belongs. Aren’t you worried your clothes will get wrinkled or dirty scattered around like that?”
Susie glanced down at her wrinkled t-shirt and tattered jeans. “Uh, no.” Then she fixed Noelle with a challenging sneer. “Why, ‘s it bother you?”
She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the pointed teeth bared in her direction, the amber eyes glinting with an unspoken challenge from under messy bangs. “I-um. N-no, it’s just, it’s—well, this is a shared space, so maybe—”
Susie stood, stuffing her phone in her pocket without ever taking her glare off her. “Lemme set this straight for you.” She stalked forward, getting right up in Noelle’s space. She was several inches shorter, but she had a stocky build—she probably had more muscle just on her arms than Noelle had in her entire body—that more than compensated for the height difference in the way of making the reindeer feel very, very small. “I live here.” She tilted her head back to hold Noelle’s gaze, then took a step forward, forcing her to stumble back a step with a squeak. “I’m messy.” She took another step, and Noelle pressed her back to the wall, heart racing. Susie didn’t let up, her breath hot against Noelle’s face, her voice a growl. “I take up space. If any of that is a problem for you,”—she jabbed a claw against Noelle’s collarbone—“then you can either find another dorm, or drop. Out.”
Noelle’s stomach flipped as the reptile gave her a grin that was definitely meant to be as menacing as it came across.
“That work for you, Princess?”
She could only manage a meek nod.
“Cool.” Susie finally stepped back out of her space so Noelle could breathe, though she stayed frozen exactly where she was, a deer in the headlights. Susie shoved her hands in her pockets and turned for the door. “I’m gonna go check stuff out. Don’t touch my stuff.”
The door slammed behind her, and the tension left Noelle’s body, leaving her to slide down the wall to the floor in a shaky, noodly pile of limbs.