It was kind of strange, leaving Canada to visit John in the United States - it felt backwards to the natural order of things - but college was just a weird blip on the residency radar. More traditional relative locations would probably sort themselves out in a few years. But at this moment, John lived closer to Clark’s dad than Clark did. Clark would be headed there next. John wasn’t exactly on the way home, but neither was he a large detour.
Now arrived at John’s college home away from home for the first time, Clark couldn’t help raising an eyebrow at the living arrangement John had procured. The scenery was certainly amazing and it was remote enough to suit his friend (he expected John could enjoy birdwatching from his front flap), but somehow he hadn’t realized John was living in a tent these days. It made his own dormitory in Toronto look downright civilized. John probably didn’t need to deal with the inconvenience of fire alarms going off at all hours though, so who was he to judge?
As he was invited inside, though, he understood his mistake. John definitely had the better deal here. “Oh, it’s a magic tent. That makes sense.” Sometimes Clark ran nose first into a muggle assumption he’d had no idea he’d been making. This was apparently one of those times. John’s place might be cramped, but it had its own bathroom and kitchenette, which was better than Clark had. He had to use common areas for those amenities. “I begin to see the advantage of off campus living.”
Of course, Clark was a more social creature than John was, and he didn’t really mind the undergrad dorm crowding - after spending seven years sharing a room with Oliver Ferguson, having even his tiny postage stamp of a single was basically heaven in the grand scheme of campus living. And with his astronomy classes running late into the night and Quidditch practice scheduled early in the morning, it was definitely more convenient to be on campus.
“This is definitely better that the storage unit dad was living out of when he adopted me.” He cut a sharp glance toward John, suddenly uncertain if that had been something he had ever confided in his friend. As a rule, he carried on the pretense that Dad was his biological father, because explaining that he was adopted was only a short hop skip and a jump to being an alien and having an illegal custody arrangement, and that he was sure he had never told John.
On the other hand, John was adopted, too, so it may have come up once in a sidelong way. “Er, took custody of me,” he amended, not very convincingly, given his delay before making the correction. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust John with the detail. If it was just a matter of being adopted or not, he would have shared that ages ago. But the alien baggage was kind of a big deal and Dad liked to quote the saying that two people could keep a secret if one of them was dead. Clark didn’t think Dad would kill John, if he found out, but . . . it might be best not to give him the temptation. Dad could get scarily obsessive sometimes, especially about that.
“That place was just a square room with books, a computer, a sleeping bag, and a hot plate. He had to walk to the nearest gas station to use the toilet.” He doubted sharing the details of his dad’s inferior college accommodations would divert John from Clark’s slip if it was something he really wanted to know, but he felt at least a token effort to redirect the conversation wouldn’t go amiss.
Then a more diverting thought captured Clark’s attention. “Oh my God. I’m almost the same age Dad was when he found me!”