Bartholomew
Carl steps into his new dorm room to find chaos.
Granted, it certainly appears to be organized chaos, and it's contained to one half of the room, but it is chaos nonetheless, and in the center of it is what seems to be his roommate—tall, dark, frazzled, and surrounded by books.
In fact, if Carl's eyes aren't deceiving him, the cause of the chaos is that said roommate has unpacked everything but his books, and is currently engaged in mortal combat with his bookshelf in an effort to get them all to fit.
Carl already thinks they're going to get along just fine.
"I hate to burst your bubble, but I don't think you're gonna be able to fit them all," he says, bemused, as he steps over and dumps his suitcase on the empty bed. The rest of his things are on the way down with his parents.
He quietly bemoans how easy it would have been to just stuff everything into an otherspace pocket. Another bullet point on the endless list of reasons to hate the fact that Earth is sevarfrith.
Apparently his new roommate didn't hear him come in, as he jumps nearly a foot in the air and turns faster than Carl though possible.
(Inwardly, Carl's eyebrows go up, appraising. The thought tall, dark, frazzled, and cute, absolutely does not pass through his head.)
"You already look to be breaking the laws of physics there, a little," he continues, and is treated to an eyeroll and his first smile.
"Not breaking, just creatively bending for my own uses," Mr. Roommate says as he vaults himself over the pile of books still on his bed and onto his feet.
Carl laughs and holds out his hand. "I like you already. Carl Romeo, at your service."
A laugh in return, and a firm handshake. "We'll see if you're saying that in a week. Tom B. Swale, at yours."
Carl's eyebrows do actually go up this time. "That doesn't sound encouraging. But you're right, we'll see. What's the 'B' for?"
Another laugh (Carl has already decided he likes Tom's laugh). "Wouldn't you like to know?"
"Uh, yeah, I would, that's why I asked!"
"And I'm sure you're going to keep asking, but you're never gonna find out."
"Oh, we'll see about that."
They continue bantering even as Tom goes back to his books and Carl sets about unpacking what little he brought with him, and that night they get dinner together in the dining hall and Carl is already quite sure he might have made a new best friend.
The fact that he will be forced to hide an entire part of who he is from said new friend doesn't even cross his mind until they are crawling into their respective beds that night and he remembers the book he had earlier tossed into the top drawer of his desk.
It's a thought that saddens him, but when he wakes up in the morning and sees Tom already up and dressed and absorbed in a book, and when the other looks up and smiles and says "Good morning," he thinks it might not matter all that much.
He doesn't notice the fact that Tom has managed to fit all his books until later that night, and when he asks how he did it, Tom shrugs and says "magic," and really, that should have been Carl's first clue but let it never be said that he couldn't be as dense as a brick sometimes.
In fact, as the first week goes by and they start classes, and as the first few months go by, and more and more odd little occurrences keep building up—well, later on, Carl wonders how he could have been so blind.
One of the mysteries of the Universe, he supposes. Or the ironies.
That said, it all comes to a head one night in late December when Carl returns unannounced to their dorm, his trip home having been delayed by a freak storm, and finds Tom standing in the middle of a spell diagram, glittering and golden in the air, peering critically at a particular section of glowing, woven—
—Speech—
Tom has not heard the door open—just as well, Carl had opened it softly, thinking he was asleep. And so Carl can only stand there, and stare, and stare, and stare, trying to process what he's seeing, until at last a particular segment of the diagram catches his attention, and it is that that finally snaps him out of his staring stupor.
"…your middle name is Bartholemew?" he asks, incredulous for half a dozen reasons, and watches Tom jump much as he had all those months ago when he was trying to—
—fit all the books into the bookshelf, and they fit, and those papers that I lost, and when Marie fell down those stairs as we were watching and should have broken something but—and—and—and—for One's sake how could I not have seen!—
Tom's face is comical. In fact, Carl realizes, this whole situation is comical, and yet another bullet point on the list of reasons to perhaps try and strangle the Powers should he meet them soon.
"Carl, I— This—"
Suddenly it seems to dawn on Tom what Carl said, and what it means.
"You can— you're—"
Carl laughs. "Dai stiho, cousin," he says, bemused, and watches Tom's eyes go even wider.
"…we've been stupid, haven't we."
"We have been. And so, I think, have the Powers. But now we know and I can stop having to meet alien emissaries in the basement of Hoover."
"You've been—and here all this time I thought you were meeting a girl."
"Well, some of them have been…girls. I think. Kind of hard to tell, sometimes. …seriously, Bartholemew?"
"You just found out your roommate is a fellow wizard, and all you care about is that—"
"But Bartholemew—"
"Oh, shut up—"
This, Carl thinks, as he dodges Tom's manual flying at his head, might be the beginnings of a beautiful partnership.
Another a-little-over-a-year-old cross-posting from tumblr - and I think the title I gave it there does it more justice than anything else.
"A fic dedicated to the fact that Tom's middle name is Bartholomew.'
Which it is. DD revealed it last April or so. And the whole fandom promptly went oh my fucking god.
Hope you enjoyed!