Fourth Floor Common Room, Monday Afternoon

[hourtohour_notetonote]

"Yes, Mom, I promise that I'm eating breakfast. Most important meal of the day, I know." Simon propped his phone against his shoulder and shifted his pizza boxes to one hand, leaving his other free to open the common room door. "And lunch, and supper. The food's actually pretty okay, and there's a bunch of places in town, too."

... Not that Simon had explored much yet, but he forgave himself for taking a week of mostly only leaving the room for classes while processing the fact that the island was... what it was. He still didn't have answers, but he was pretty sure he could face the weirdness at this point.

"I'm totally making friends! My roommate's awesome. Tip's really had some great advice for getting my feet under me here. And the school assigns 'big siblings', too, to show us the ropes."

He dropped the pizzas onto the coffee table and flopped onto the couch, reaching for the TV remote. "Love you, too, Mom. Look, I've gotta run, okay? I promise, I'll call again later this week. Uh huh, uh huh. Tell Dad and Nora I love them. Bye, Mom." ... "... Bye, Mom." ... ... "... BYE, MOM."

Simon chuckled to himself as he ended the call and slid his phone into his pocket before lifting the lid of the first box of pizza and grabbing a slice.

There was plenty for everyone, because Simon figured: what better way to make friends than with food?

Comments

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Sabine," she nodded. "It's, uh... it takes some getting used to. Where are you from?"

[hourtohour_notetonote]

Simon shrugged a bit. "Earth, but, like, normal Earth? No aliens or zombies or anything like that."

Normal is a relative term, Simon.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Current day?"

She was likely not helping.

[hourtohour_notetonote]

Actually, he'd been prepped for that one! His roommate was very thorough.

"Yeah, same year, same day. How about you?"

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Mandalore," she answered. It was easier than giving her exact homeworld when the word Mandalorian got thrown around. Less explanation that way. "It's another planet."

[hourtohour_notetonote]

Simon blinked, then nodded. "Cool. I've... never heard of it," he added, with a shy smile. "But I haven't really heard of any other planets, outside the solar system, so that's not really surprising."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"That'll change," Sabine said lightly. "There are a few of us here just from my galaxy."

You know, like everyone else in this room.

"Adjusting okay?"

[hourtohour_notetonote]

"I think so?" Simon shrugged. "At this point I'm pretty much just going, like, either this is all real in which case I should just accept it, or I'm having some really weird hallucination, in which case I'd never know the difference anyway, and the first is honestly more reassuring."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"And as one of the people who's definitely not a hallucination, the first option is actually correct," Sabine pointed out.

[hourtohour_notetonote]

"Oh, but see," Simon said, grinning at her, "if you were my hallucination, that's totally what you'd say."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Would your hallucination throw a pizza crust at you?"

She was possibly teasing. Sometimes hard to tell with her.

[hourtohour_notetonote]

"Probably? I don't know, I've never had a hallucination."

He grinned. "Help yourself to more if you want."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Thanks." She was still going to go to the kitchen to look in the fridge, though. She came here for a reason. "I think we've got a couple classes together, too. Wednesdays?"

[hourtohour_notetonote]

"I'm in Health and First Aid, and Mad Kinds and Queens," Simon said, nodding. "I... think I remember seeing you in both of those? They're kind of a trip, I did not think the classes would be anything like this."

He was really not complaining about the biology class.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Today I had a class that had some surprising ideas about alien genitals," Sabine said.

She felt ya, is what she was saying.

[hourtohour_notetonote]

Simon stared for a moment before finally saying, "... I really don't know what to do with that sentence. I... Do I want to know?"

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"No. You don't. And neither do I." And yet!

[hourtohour_notetonote]

"Oooookay," Simon said. "Subject change time! Uh, how different is it here for you from back home?"

[seriesofbaddecisions]

Sabine sort of would have preferred to talk about alien genitals.

"Different in almost every possible way, except for the people I keep finding from my galaxy," she answered. "Is the island the same as your home at all? I mean, you've mentioned the classes and people from different universes being different..."

Deflect, deflect, deflect.

[hourtohour_notetonote]

"Well, the architecture's different," Simon said, with a bit of a smirk. "There's no castles back home. But no, even that's not really abnormal, just not usual for this part of the world. The only big differences are that the classes are kind of unusual and that people come from... elsewhere. Oh, and the gremlins."

Well, and all the other really weird Fandom-specific stuff, but no one had explained that to Simon yet.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Oh, gremlins aren't a usual thing here?" News to her!

[hourtohour_notetonote]

"Nooooo," Simon drawled. "Uh, they're definitely, definitely a Fandom thing. I mean, they're folklore elsewhere? Myths, or whatever. But not real."

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"Huh. Now I wish I had more things to ask you about," she realized.

[hourtohour_notetonote]

"Well, if you have any questions, I'm in 411, with Tip," Simon offered.

[seriesofbaddecisions]

"And if you have any questions, I'm in 210, with Astrid," she returned.