Work Text:
3 New Notifications
The Bois
Brains: Our Child™ is going to college!
Brawn: She’s so grown up! <3
Bravery: We must protect the chiquita!
Ohmy: Spence, we are the same age! I’m not a kid, guys! Come on.
Brains: Shiz U is a v hard school to get into. And you did it!!!
Bravery: We are proud parents.
Ohmy: Also not my parents.
Bravery: Let us live, chiquita!!
Brawn: #letuslive
Ohmy: You are all being ridiculous.
Brains: Orientation starts soon. You on campus?
Ohmy: I’m in the food court, waiting.
Brawn: Go ahead and go to the theatre and grab a seat. We’ll meet you at the food court when you get out.
Ohmy: Fine, dad.
Brawn: My sweet daughter! <3
Ohmy (Dorothy Gale) is offline
Dorothy Gale powered down her phone as she pushed into the theatre, which was already starting to flood with freshman and transfers who were waiting for the headmaster’s welcome speech. She slipped through a group chattering in front of the door leading up to the balcony and made her way up slowly. A peek into the main seating area gave her enough of an idea that there would be no easy way to find a seat, but the stairs were much less crowded by the new arrivals, and she made her way to a two, seat box along the side of the balcony, dropping her bag into the seat beside her as she settled down.
She took a moment to take in her situation. Shiz University. She had been accepted into the Shiz University! Her heart sped up a bit as she thought about it, thrumming obnoxiously against the inside of her rib cage. She took a deep, practiced breath, trying to calm herself. She had gotten in, now she had to prove how much she could do with this opportunity. She was not going to throw away her shot.
Her eyes drifted to her bag, her eye catching the key chain dangling from the zipper. An old photo she’d made copies of countless times of the four of them back when Dorothy had just moved to the Gale Farm after her parents had passed away. She treasured them. The three boys and her were instant friends, despite them all being older than her, and they had stayed close friends from then until now, with no signs of them drifting apart.
The lights in the theatre flashed in warning and Dorothy watched - more than a little amused - as the floor below her flooded with people trying to find a seat. The balcony soon became just as crowded as students and parents alike realized they wouldn’t be sitting below. Dorothy let out a relieved sigh. She was seated away from the pushing and shoving and shuffling. She didn’t need to squeeze herself into a suffocating row and curl in between two strangers. She was smart, and relaxed against her seat, stretching her legs out. The lights dimmed and the theatre quieted for the headmaster as he stepped onstage.
Dorothy sat through a boring speech, which was followed by an even more boring speech. She began to count the freckles on her arm as a distraction to keep her awake. She got to 347, give or take, when the lights went back up. She startled a bit, just enough to wake up from her bored daze, and grabbed her bag. Others were doing the same, the stairwell crowding with the college’s newcomers. The young woman considered hanging back and waiting for them to clear out, but was swept into the middle of the slowly shuffling crowd before she could slip away.
She was an impatient person, and the slow shuffling of the people around them was beginning to irritate her. She was never a person for sitting still, and being surrounded by others left her no choice to suffer with the claustrophobic sensation building on her chest. She drew the inside of her cheek between her teeth, chewing impatiently.
When she finally broke free of the young swarm of people, she sped up her steps and nearly broke into a full sprint when she spotted the doors to the food court once again, making it inside just before the crowd she had broken free from. The heat of the dining area a welcome change from the biting wind outside.
Spencer jumped up from his seat at the flimsy table and waved to her. “Yo, D! Over here!”
The teen girl smiled back and made her way over to them, hooking her heel around the leg of the remaining empty chair and kicking it out. “Hey, boys.”
Nick reached over and nudged her shoulder with his fist. “You survived orientation,” he cheered. “Lunch is on us.”
“We got you some hot chocolate,” Leoncio cut in, handing the paper cup to her as she finally took her seat.
Nick turned towards the registers and kitchens, “Those lines are insane. We better wait it out.” Spencer and Leo nodded in agreement as Dorothy tried to cool her drink down.
Spencer settled back against his chair and took a quick swig of his drink, “So, how much of orientation did you actually pay attention to?” He asked.
Dorothy barked out a laugh. “Not a bit,” She confessed, raising her cup in a sarcastic cheers and taking a careful drink.
“Did you get your welcome packet?” Leo asked. Dorothy gave a short nod and opened the messenger bag at her feet to pull it out, dropping the thick envelope on the table. Leo made a small grabby hand motion towards it. She rolled her eyes and pushed it towards him. The packet had a basic print out containing the university’s policies and the generic welcome from the dean, as well as some other basic information. But it also had a copy of her class schedule and her dorm mate assignment. She already saw her schedule online, but her roommate was still a mystery. She didn’t care about that, a name wasn’t really something she could judge the person by. She just hoped that they would be bearable to live with. Those were the papers her friends were after. She just knew.
Leo pulled open the packet and riffled through the papers that were inside. He pulled one out, then another, waving them in the air with a triumphant flourish.
Spencer snatched the class schedule from Leo’s hand, laughing. “Let’s see!”
Nick leaned towards him, balancing a plastic hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. “You managed to get Diggs’ class,” he snorts, “Lucky! People have gotten into literal fist fights for the Wizard’s class.”
“The Wizard,” Dorothy echoed with a confused tone.
“The old bat has tenure,” Nick explained. “He sometimes cancels classes on a whim and just,” he pauses and shrugs, “Disappears. Never for too long to cause a big to do, but still.”
She sat back. “Huh. Guess that is lucky.”
“I had him last year,” Spencer hummed, “He gave me taffy. He’s a good teacher when he remembers to teach.”
“Fond of magic,” Leo adds, almost as an afterthought. He was more focused on reading the rest of the schedule Spencer had in his hand. “Look here! Dr. E. Thropp for Gender Studies.”
“No way!” Spencer and Nick’s voices rang in an eerie unison just a bit too loudly, drawing the attention of a few nearby tables. Leo laughed at the other boys as their faces began to heat up.
Dorothy leaned forwards, blowing bronze and coppery hair out of her eyes with a small huff, “What’s so special about Dr. Thropp?”
“She’s heartless.”
“Ruthless.”
“Completely unsympathetic.”
“I think you guys are overreacting.”
Spencer face an unbelieving face, “The student message boards have a running count on how many students she’s scared off in tears.”
“Fun,” Dorothy commented dryly, but began to chew at her cheek once again as she took the information in, wondering just how true the things they were telling her could be.
Nick went through the rest of her classes, making small comments with Spencer and Leo on the other teachers listed, but none of them seemed to be as attention grabbing as Diggs and Thropp.
“Now, for your roommate!” Leo excitedly waved the other paper in her face before Spencer snagged that one from him as well.
The slim man pushed his hair back, “Let’s see.” He scanned over it, “Emerald building - that’s the one Jack advises. Oh! Ooooooooh.”
“What is it?” Dorothy reached across the table to try and take the paper from Spencer’s hands, but he pressed back against the chair, just out of her grasp.
“Roommate: Ozma Lurline!”
“No,” Nick gaped.
Dorothy swallowed thickly. “Ozma Lurline? Like, grandchild of Fae Lurline? Chairman of the University’s Advisory Board Fae Lurline?” She could feel her face pale a shade or two.
“The same,” Spencer agreed.
She chuckled, “But hey, no pressure. Right?”
Leo pat her shoulder gently and offered a quiet “You’ll be fine” that Dorothy only found a bit reassuring.
“You aren’t the one who is supposed to be rooming with the youngest member of the most powerful family in the state.” She bit her cheek again, startling herself when the taste of copper flooded over her tongue.
Leo pinched her arm, “Stop doing that, chiquita,” he chided gently.
“Let’s get food!” Spencer jumped up. “The line’s finally cleared.”
The quartet stood and made their way towards the small kitchens to choose their food. Leo carried the tray that the four of them piled their food on and Spencer insisted on paying for their meals. When they settled back at their table, they divided the food between their respective owners. Dorothy brought up the boy’s schedules. Between bites, the boys shared their classes. Dorothy sat back to listen, mulling in her own mind about her roommate.
When meals were finished, Dorothy fished her phone out of her bag and called her Uncle Henry to bring her clothes and the other items she had left in the bed of his truck that morning. He promised to meet her in the parking lot so that they could get her moved into the dorm and hung up. She stood and bid adieu to her friends before leaving. She felt quite accomplished when she made it to the Emerald Building after checking her campus map once.
Henry was there, true to his word, was waiting for her when she got to the parking lot.
She ran up and hugged him the second he stepped out of the car. “Hi, Uncle Henry!” she said, laughing when he gave her back a pat with his heavy, calloused hand in a way that would probably bruise anyone else. The heavy scent of animals and sweat hit her a bit harshly. She supposed that it was from her lack of exposure, having been away from the farm for most of the day.
“You ready to move in?” He asked her. There was a cheerful tone in his voice, but Dorothy noticed the his tired eyes seemed a bit sadder than they usually were.
It took Dorothy a moment to remember that he and Aunt Emily had never had any children of their own. Until her parents had died and they had taken her in, there was only the two of them and their farm hands. She was the only child they had, and now she was leaving for college. This was a big step. She surged forward and hugged him again, making Henry laugh this time around.
“I need to run in and get signed in so I can get the key,” Dorothy told him. “I’ll be right back.”
She took off into the dorm lobby. A sigh of relief tore itself from her throat when she saw that it was considerably less crowded than it had been when Dorothy had been dropped off that morning for orientation.
A cheerful wave from the ginger boy at the front desk caught her attention and she made her way over to him. “Hi, are you signing in?” Dorothy nodded.
The man introduced himself as Jack, the dorm’s Resident Adviser, hurriedly telling her to come to him if she ever had a problem. Dorothy nodded and took the paperwork she needed and filled it out. The clipboard was passed back to the chipper man, which Jack took and filed away before grabbing a key from a box mounted on the wall. It was new, shiny, and silver capped off with a plastic green topper. “Your room number is on the key. Your roommate is already moved in. Let me know if you need any help. And remember that you need to show your key whenever you come in. Minus today, of course.”
Dorothy nodded and went back outside to help grab boxes from Henry’s truck. Henry already had a box of her school supplies in his arms when she came out. She grabbed a box of clothes and they made their way to the elevator line. As it moved slowly, the two talked about the livestock, what to name the piglet that they’d chosen to be raised as their new prize pig, and Em’s seemingly spontaneous decision to move the flowers in her window box to a new patch of land by the porch to make a garden.
“Em says she’s gonna use the box to grow her some herbs,” Henry explained as they finally stepped into the elevator, chuckling fondly as he recalled his wife’s rare excitement at the idea of the new project.
“That will help, won’t it?” Dorothy asked, “Herbs are getting expensive.”
Henry nodded idly and they settled into silence during the ride up to her floor. When they stepped out of the elevator, they walked around the floor trying to find the number that corresponded with Dorothy’s key. She balanced her box in one arm carefully as she opened the door with a bit of a struggle. The room was short one roommate, but the side of the room closer to the door had already been partially set up with what she assumed were Ozma’s belongings.
Dorothy placed her box on her desk. She was closer to the half-bathroom in their dorm. There was a note on the door in neat red handwriting. ‘Water doesn’t seem to be working. Went to talk to maintenance. Please do not enter. - Ozma’
Dorothy shrugged and went back to the door with Henry. They took a good half hour to move in with the rest of the students. She followed him all the way back to his truck, giving him another tight hug.
“I’ll miss you,” she said as she buried in her face in his chest.
“I’ll miss you, too, Dotty,” Henry confessed quietly, kissing the top of her copper waves and wrapping his arms around her. “We all will.”
The two separated and Dorothy trudged back up to her room after watching him drive away.
She opened the door to her new room to see the physical embodiment of beauty standing in the middle of their room. Dorothy’s face began to burn in embarrassment. This person-Girl? Boy? Dorothy had seen multiple pronoun buttons on their desk-was staring back at her. She continued to take them in.
They were tall. Much taller than Dorothy, with their limbs in lanky proportion to their height. Their hair was a rich, vibrant brown that seemed unnatural, but she believed that their hair had never seen a drop of dye. It was shoved up inside a pale blue beanie with a bright red fake orchid pinned near the brim. Their eyes shone like honey in the sun. Their skin was a soft brown that reminded her of homemade caramel, smooth and warm, just slightly paler than that of their grandmother, whose portrait was hanging everywhere around campus. They were stunning.
Dorothy found herself locking eyes with them and staring, not registering the concerned look they were giving her.
“Um, hello? You okay?” The person asked, breaking the trance Dorothy had fallen in, which caused her to break from their unintentional staring contest. She felt her face burn red in embarrassment yet again.
“Yeah, sorry! I’m, uh, Dorothy Gale. I’ll be your roommate.” She stuck her hand out.
“Ozma,” The person confirmed, shaking her hand. “Pleasure.”
Dorothy tried to think about anything to say to them other than their family, the obvious thing to say. In a slight panic, she blurted it out before she could really process the words herself. “So, pronouns? I feel like I should ask so I don’t make a complete ass of myself and say something stupid.” She cringed at the sound of her southern drawl, suddenly very aware of it.
Ozma blinked owlishly at her before they began to laugh softly. “I’m using he/him pronouns today. Most of the time I use they/them, though. So if you’re ever unsure, just use those.”
Dorothy was sure she’d never heard a laugh so beautiful in her life. She nodded and pressed her hand to her cheek in an attempt to cool down and hide her blush.
Ozma moved to his desk and pulled his student ID out of the top drawer. “I’ll help you unpack tonight. But first, I’m starving. Do you have a meal plan? Do you want to come eat with me?”
Dorothy took a deep breath, nodding quickly. “Yeah, sounds good.” Ozma smiled brightly. Dorothy’s stomach flipped. She followed him out of the dorm, locking behind her.
Dorothy was falling for her roommate, whom she'd just met. She was screwed.