Chapter Text
Hermes lounged on his bed with his head off the side of his bed. He opened and closed Instagram for the fourteenth time in the last thirty minutes. He checked to see if his brother Apollo had even opened his last message. Last month he may have “accidentally” led his dogs into his car, took them home, and didn’t tell Apollo for about a week. “No response,” Hermes mumbled to himself.
A knock came from the door and Hermes shot up. He had been surprised when his father told him he’d have a roommate. He had figured his father could pull some strings as he always did and let him have a room to himself. But alas, that wasn’t the case. He tossed his phone back and opened the door. “Hello darling-" he paused when he actually took in the man in front of him. His hair was white and braided down to his waist and he kept a simple outfit with a dark teal hoodie and jeans; and sunglasses for some reason. A backpack was on his shoulders but what had caught Hermes off guard was the cane the man was using. His voice softened from his usual energetic tone to a softer one, “Is there anything I can help you carry, darling?”
The man shook his head. “No thank you, I can handle myself; but I appreciate the offer. You must be Hermes, I’m Tiresias.” The man extended his hand.
“It’s great to meet you darling. Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Which bed is yours? The one on the left or the one on the right?”
Hermes paused for a moment contemplating on how exactly he knew where the beds were at. “Mines the on one the right.”
Tiresias nodded and set his backpack on the left bed and propped his cane up against the foot of the bed. Hermes gently shut the door as Tiresias started to pull the contents of the backpack out. First came the laptop which he gently set on the nightstand, but only after he triple checked it was being set down just right and wouldn’t fall. Then came the blanket which he kept folded on the bed. Finally two chargers. One assumingly for the laptop and the other for his phone. “Hermes?”
Hermes snapped out of his focused state. “Yeah?”
“Do you mind assisting me with finding the outlets?”
“Yeah I can look.” In reality, Hermes knew exactly where every outlet was. Somehow, all the dorm rooms had outlets in the exact same places; so it wasn’t hard to memorize the pattern. He waited a few moments before continuing, “I found it. Do you want me to plug in your cables?”
“I can do it myself, but if you don’t mind I would greatly appreciate it,” Tiresias said with a sigh.
Hermes smiled, “Of course I don’t mind, darling.” He plugged the chargers in and placed the ends on the top of nightstand. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“No, but I do truly appreciate your help.”
Hermes flopped back onto his own bed. "Yeah it's no problem, I'm here if you need anymore help."
They sat in silence for a few minutes before the soft pressing of keys came from the left side of the room. Hermes rolled over to look. Tiresias was doing something on his laptop. "How can you type if you can't see?" Hermes internally curses himself for asking aloud in fear of sounding rude but Tiresias didn't seem upset.
"Well I can for two reasons. One, I wasn't born blind. I learned and memorized where all the keys are on a keyboard when I was a kid. Second, I have some braille stickers in case I do forget." Tiresias shrugged.
Hermes got up and peered at they keyboard. Braille huh? "How do you see your cursor though?" Hermes questioned, now feeling more comfortable since Tiresias didn't seem upset with him.
"Look," Tiresias patted the spot next to him and Hermes sat, "I have my cursor set to a neon orange. I'm not fully blind, but my vision is incredibly blurry. Since the neon contrasts so much with the main color scheme of whatever I'm on I can just barely make it out. It's not always easy but it works." Hermes sat in silence for a moment unsure on how to respond. He couldn't remember the last time someone had made him need to take a second before talking. Conversation had always come easy to him, but for some reason, right now it wasn't. "Hermes?"
He snapped back and perked up. "Yeah sorry. That's... actually really cool that you found a way around... being blind."
Tiresias paused before speaking in a softer tone, "You don't need to say it like that. It's not like I'm unaware that I'm blind. It's a fact not some gossip you'd overhear while strolling on campus."
Hermes froze. He hadn't meant to come across as rude. He wanted to have a good relationship with Tiresias. Had he already ruined it? "I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out like that." Tiresias didn't verbally respond but he gave a simple nod. He got up and went back to his own bed. The clock on the wall slowly ticks by. Seconds turn to minutes. Minutes fade into hours. This may be a long year.