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The dorm was four stories tall, old and beat up as hell. Desmond didn’t have a lot to carry in, just his clothes and a few other necessities, but it was more than he could get up the stairs in one go. He looked at the box by his feet, shrugged, and hoped no one would decide to walk off with it before he could come back outside to pick it up.
He had…vaguely glanced at the orientation email that the university had sent out a few weeks before, but the only thing he remembered from it was that he was supposed to check in with the RA at the desk in the dorm lobby. The desk was swamped.
At least this was an opportunity to go rescue his other box. Stashing the first one in the corner, he dashed back out the door and got it, hauling it back across the parking lot and up the stairs into the lobby. Somehow, there were even more people around the desk.
Reluctantly, he joined the fray, managing to make it to the desk eventually.
“Name?” The exhausted looking RA asked, and it took Desmond a moment to realize that she was speaking to him.
“Oh, uhh—Desmond. Miles.” She nodded and flipped a few pages in the list of names in front of her.
She nodded and said. “You’re in room 224, your RA is Ezio and your roommate is Connor Kenway—he’s already here.” She handed him a room key and waved him off with a tired smile.
“Thanks,” he said, and pocketed the key before going back to get the first of his boxes. It was a bit of a struggle, but he got it up the stairs, deposited it in the (much smaller) second-floor lobby, and went back downstairs for the other box, beginning to hate this moving shit already (though, having seen some of the students moving in, with 18 suitcases and furniture and TVs and fucking fish tanks, he supposed he wasn’t going to have a hard time with his two big boxes full of bare necessities). An anxious excitement fluttering. He took the box down the hall to his room, setting it down outside the door and checking to see if it was unlocked—it was; his roommate must be there. Well, time to meet him and pray the horror stories weren't true. He opened the door.
“Where is Charles Lee?” the boy in the room demanded, glaring out at him.
“What?” he returned, surprised, throwing his hands up in a placating gesture. The guy calmed instantly, hackles lowering.
“Oh, I was, um. Expecting someone else. Sorry,” he said awkwardly. Desmond shrugged, and gingerly stepped into the room with his box, keeping a vaguely wary eye on his new roommate. Well, actually—he wasn’t entirely sure this was the guy. He set his first box down on the side of the room that wasn’t occupied by a tall, imposing, pony-tailed human.
“You are…Connor…?” he couldn’t remember the last name that the RA at the desk had given him, so he sort of trailed off lamely.
The guy looked at him again, and wow, he was not prepared for his roommate to be so…intense. “Connor Kenway. You’re…Desmond, right?”
“Desmond Miles,” he replied, prepared to just exchange the usual bro-nod, but there was a hand awkwardly extended toward him, and, hey, he could go with that too. Briefly, he shook it, then made some excuse to go get his other box.
Upon collecting and depositing it next to the first box, he finally took note of something.
His roommate had no belongings, save for the clothes on his back.
“Dude—where’s all your,” he made a general gesture, “You know, everything?”
Connor sighed in reply. “It’s a long story.”
Desmond sat down on the edge of his bare mattress. “I think I have…plenty of time.”
“My father’s assistant, Charles Lee, was supposed to help me move my things into the dorm, but he thought it would be funnier to drive off as soon as I got out of the truck.”
“Wow, dick move! What the hell did he do that for?”
“We share a…mutual hatred of one another. I hate him because he’s an ass, he hates me because he has a hard-on for my father.”
Desmond grimaced. “That is…possibly the most awkward situation I’ve ever heard in my entire life. What are you going to do about all your shit, though?”
Connor shrugged, and made a sweeping gesture at the cell phone sitting on the bed beside him. “I left my father a few messages. Assuming he ever checks his, phone, he can control Charles Lee.”
“God, man, that sucks,” Desmond said, not sure if he should, like, offer to buy his roommate ice cream or something. Mostly because the whole situation did really suck but also because Connor was still kind of intimidating and Desmond wanted to make sure he was on his good side, since they would be sleeping in the same room for a year and all.
However, the decision was taken away from him when the door opened with a bang and a figure strode in confidently.
“Freshmen! Welcome to your new home! I’m your RA, Ezio!” A light Italian accent flavored his words, and he seemed really pleased with his dramatic entrance.
Desmond could sense Connor mirroring his blank stare.
“Uh—hi?” he finally offered.
“I can already tell that you two will be my friendliest and most talkative residents!”
“We aim to please,” Desmond said warily, unwillingly finding himself charmed by Ezio’s outgoing nature. He was as much a people person as Connor…wasn’t.
“Do you do this for all of your residents?” Connor asked bluntly?
Ezio faltered, just a bit. “Uh—no, actually. I live next door to you guys and I got bored since I’m not on the dreaded Desk Duty right now.”
“You’re not going to…lecture us on the rules, then?” Desmond asked, still vaguely confused.
Ezio scoffed. “There is a hall meeting for that later this week; I’ll let the RA’s that actually care talk about all of that boring shit.”
“Wait, what?”
“Freshman whose name I have not yet learned, I am a senior this year. I have run out of fucks to give.”
“Uhh…it’s Desmond.”
“Right, yes. The only rules you need to know for me are to keep your beer and your pot where I can’t see them in case of surprise room checks.”
Desmond and Connor exchanged a look.
“Have I come on too strong?” Ezio asked after a moment of awkward silence.
“Little bit,” Connor said, but Desmond found himself kind of liking the RA, you know, as a person, at least, if not as an…authority…figure?
“Ah. Well. I will take my leave, perhaps harass some of the others.” He looked at his phone suddenly, which had lit up. “Or I will go deal with the suspicious middle-aged man who is unloading boxes by the front door and muttering threatening remarks about someone named ‘Connor.’”
Desmond looked at his roommate.
“Charles Lee?”
“Charles Lee,” Connor agreed darkly.