room thirteen | stuart twombly

introduction

     AFTER SEVERAL ATTEMPTS, Bree Draven huffed out a sigh of relief when the door to Room Thirteen finally swung open after violently shoving the key in for the nth time.

The dorms in Google — hers, in this particular instance — were smaller than she had expected since most of the space was occupied by the two large poster beds pushed on opposites sides of the room. She eyed the disorganized mess lining the left part of the room as she stepped in, along with the boy lying across the bed, his brown messy hair pushed down his forehead by a dark beanie.

His brown eyes, which were fixated on his phone just a moment ago, glanced up at her with a light grunt of acknowledgment. "I'm Stuart," he said, already turning back to his screen. "Stuart Twombly."

"Bree Draven," she replied curtly.

The boy named Stuart Twombly flipped over his bed, his beanie feverishly left on one side as he shifted his long legs to the headboard. He furiously began to tap on to his phone, his lips pulling into a slight smile.

He then remarked quietly after a moment of silence, "Would that be good enough for you, Bree Draven? Or are you just going to stand there until I shake your hand and personally welcome you in?"

Grimacing, Bree trudged inside without responding to his crude remark. She barely even tried to muffle the annoyed sound she let out under her breath before finally closing the door behind her with her foot.

The whole afternoon onwards was spent in complete silence. As she folded her clothes neatly into her drawers, Stuart Twombly of Room Thirteen simply tapped away on his phone the entire time, seemingly invested in whatever was displayed on his screen and looking as if he wasn't interested in engaging in another conversation with her.

Similarly, Bree wasn't jumping on her heels at the idea either, not with the snarky first impression he had just given her. 

Mid afternoon, Bree crawled on to her comforter after everything was either put away in an organized pile out in the open or were temporarily shoved underneath her bed until she found the motivation to continue sorting through her things. Although being accepted into Google's summer internship and getting the very last dorm on campus at the last minute was something she was fairly proud of, the fact that her dormmate turned out to be a person as rude as the boy lounging a couple feet away from her, unprovoked, was a kick in the gut she definitely wasn't anticipating.

Being on internship was already hard enough as it was and having someone like this for a roommate was going to make things a lot more complicated than she needed them to be. Ideally, she would have wanted one she could go to for emotional support on particularly rough days, and Stuart Twombly did not seem like the type who would give her a pat on the back and offer her help based on that three-minute interaction alone.

"Staring is rude, you know."

Bree snapped out of her little bubble with a frown, only to see that Stuart was looking at her with a raised brow. Amusement was smugly written across his face, his eyes glinting behind his glasses as his large hands folded around his phone.

Not long after did Bree realize he was actually waiting for her to answer. "What?" she asked, feeling a bit stupid for not getting his point.

"You've been staring at me for the past five minutes," he pointed out. As if the implication of his comment had suddenly dawned on him, he added, "I'm not interested, by the way."

Bree quickly turned her head away at that, finding the idea funny enough to laugh, albeit dryly. "Good to know we're on the same page then."

"You had me worried," Stuart Twombly mused, the ends of his lips curling just a bit slightly again. "Because for a second there, I actually thought you liked me, Draven."

"Rest assured, you don't have to worry about a thing," Bree told him, matching his tone as her lips pulled back into a sarcastic smile. "So don't flatter yourself too much, Twombly."

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AUTHOR'S NOTE !

and so it has begun :D  room thirteen is officially kicking off from here! hopefully this gave everyone a bit of an idea on how stuart and bree's dynamic will be throughout the first half of the fic and i hope i can pace it properly until the end hng

the official trailer for room thirteen is up in the external link, starring local google dorks of room thirteen! feel free to check it out <3

finally, enjoy!

midnightavern