Chapter Text
"You go here, and you go here, and you can go right here," Matt's new roommate, Foggy, said to himself as he arranged something on his desk.
Whatever he was arranging sounded pretty small based on the soft noise they made when he set them down, and they smelled strongly of cheap plastic.
"Ooops! I almost forgot you, Terry! You can go right next to Sara."
"Terry? Sara? What are you doing?" Matt asked, his curiosity piqued by the strange running commentary.
"I'm arranging my dinosaurs," Foggy responded, as if that were a perfectly normal answer, (then again, he chose to call himself Foggy, so maybe in his mind it was).
"Your dinosaurs?"
"Yeah, my little cousin Joey gave me a tiny, plastic dinosaur for my eighteenth birthday. He thinks I'm the cool cousin because I'm always playing with him and the other kids at family gatherings, so he went to the dollar store and bought this little Pterodactyl figurine. He said it was the perfect gift, because dinosaurs are cool and really old, and apparently I'm ancient now that I'm a legal adult."
Matt chuckled.
"Anyway, my family thought that was hilarious, so my parents and all my aunts and uncles each gave me a little dinosaur figure and notecard of advice 'from the family dinosaurs' when I graduated from high school."
"That's really sweet."
Matt felt a brief stab of jealousy. There had been no one to wish him well when he finished high school except a few of the nuns that had liked him, but it wouldn't do to dwell on what he didn't have.
"And dorky, but that's the Nelson clan for you.
You'll see for yourself soon enough. I highly doubt they'll be able to stay away."
Matt chuckled again, thinking that maybe meeting whoever raised the strange but friendly man he found himself sharing a dorm with might not be so bad.
~~~~~~
Over the next few months, Matt and Foggy became fast friends. His roommate was effervescent and warm like sunshine, even with all his awkwardness, and it was impossible to resist his charms.
Furthermore, he seemed to truly care about the people around him. He was considerate about Matt's blindness, but didn't treat him like he was broken or made of glass. He meant it when he asked people how they were doing, and was willing to sit and listen if they didn't have a positive response. It seemed like he was always going out of his way to help other students, and he always did it so cheerfully.
It was that combination of caring and charm that led to Matt spending Thanksgiving with the Nelsons. He had originally been planning to spend the brief break alone in the dorms, but Foggy had insisted, claiming that his mother always cooked enough for an army and would skin him alive if she found out he left his roommate alone in the dorms.
Matt had been hesitant. Everything he knew about the Nelsons pointed to holiday meals being noisy affairs that would likely overwhelm his senses, but in the end he was glad he went. It had been a while since he had had a home cooked meal, and even though they were noisy, most of Foggy's family were as kind and welcoming as he was.
Foggy was met with no resistance when he asked Matt to come home with him for Christmas. The whole thing was bittersweet, since it was the first time he had truly celebrated Christmas with anything more than midnight mass since his father had died, but Foggy seemed to sense he was having a hard time. He made it easy.
Without Matt ever saying a word, Foggy seemed to know what he needed. He served as buffer when things got too overwhelming. He changed the subject when Matt got uncomfortable, and he knew when Matt needed him to be close, and when he needed him to back away.
Matt spent the entirety of winter break with the Nelsons, getting to know them and Foggy really well in the process. He especially learned a lot while crammed onto a twin bed with Foggy at night. They had decided they would rather share the small bed than take turns sleeping on the floor, but the tight sleeping quarters meant they did more talking than sleeping, and the dark seemed to draw truths out of both of them they might never have otherwise admitted.
By the time they returned to their dorm in January, Matt felt like he'd known Foggy his whole life. . . Oh yeah, and he might have been a little in love with him. Not that he was about to admit that anytime soon. Foggy was the first real friend he had ever had, and he wasn't going to risk that over a little crush.