Room 307, Wednesday Afternoon

[dollpocalypse]

Today, incidentally, was not proving to be much better than yesterday or Monday had been. Not even GLaDOS' class had cheered Topher up, which was really saying something, because... GLaDOS. But Topher had had two crappy conversations today and he was still in a bad mood about the whole kid-weekend thing, so even fun experimental science could only do so much.

Now, since brooding on the roof sucked and it wasn't his day at Stark's, Topher was pretty much just hanging out in his room with Broca II under a tent of Space Battles blankets. Not a fort. Just blankets on his bed that also happened to be over his head. There was a difference.

If, from the hallway, people could hear noises that sounded like tires screeching, it was possible that Topher was watching a car chase movie without the aid of headphones. Whoops.

[[door shut, post open!]]

Comments

[selfhelphero]

Billy had some cupcakes left over from his club meeting today, and who better to share them with than Topher? He knocked lightly on the door, and when he heard the noises, he knocked harder.

[dollpocalypse]

Topher paused his movie.

"Are you an angry girl who's gonna complain about feelings?" he called loudly from inside his blanket-tent.

[selfhelphero]

"Not this week I'm not," Billy called back. "I have sugar though!"

[dollpocalypse]

Oh. Well. That was much better, then.

Topher tossed his blanket onto the floor in an effort to look like someone who hadn't just been moping, then called, "Come in."

[selfhelphero]

Billy opened the door and peeked in for a second before coming inside. "Hey, is everything okay?" Losing the blanket meant he had to ask, instead of assuming.

[dollpocalypse]

"I'm having a stupid week," Topher groused, but if Billy was in a good mood and had cupcakes, he didn't know whether he wanted to go into it. "You and cupcakes are an improvement, though."

[selfhelphero]

"Awww, I'd certainly hope so," Billy said, going to scoot in next to Topher and offering him the plate of cupcakes. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

[dollpocalypse]

Topher took his time picking a cupcake, but eventually settled on a chocolate one and proceeded to start by picking off the frosting to eat. "I don't know," he sighed. "Can you make people be less... dickish about how I see stuff?"

[selfhelphero]

Oh, so this was going to be one of those conversations. "I can try. Can you try to be more understanding of how other people see stuff in return?"

[dollpocalypse]

"I don't know," he mumbled. That wasn't really an answer, Topher. "It doesn't seem fair that when I go to apologize to someone, they can, like, kick me out and be a jerk because they don't get how I think and why I was doing it."

[selfhelphero]

"What happened?" Billy asked. It might not have been fair to want to get the whole story before consoling Topher, but it was what made sense.

[dollpocalypse]

Topher shrugged. "I made some girl cry by accident," he said, because that seemed like the most truthful and concise way of getting at it. "There was a whole thing. With watching a webcast she made in the common room. Apparently that's not cool, and she wound up crying, so... yeah."

He picked some more frosting off his cupcake before continuing, "Anyway, I went to say sorry, and I said how I only looked her up to make sure she wasn't going to supervillain Victor in his sleep or something, and she sort of made fun of me and kicked me out."

That was... close to how a normal person would have interpreted the events?

[selfhelphero]

"Well," Billy said slowly, "if you made her cry and she made fun of you, maybe that makes you even? Why were you showing a webcast of her in the common room?"

[dollpocalypse]

"My laptop screen was cracked," Topher sighed. "Stupid Portalocity. They won't even give me a voucher or anything."

That was not the point, Topher.

"Basically I was in the common room already and I had an HDMI cable and I didn't wanna get up and get another one of my computers."

[selfhelphero]

"So, instead of looking for something that might be private say, at Stark's or in my room, you did it in a common room? Was what you found bad?" Billy asked.

[dollpocalypse]

"No, it was just boring," Topher said. "Like, it was a webcast she made herself about how she pretended to date people or something. I wasn't really paying attention; I started playing a game on my phone once I figured out she wasn't going to kill anyone."

[selfhelphero]

Billy wasn't going to facepalm, he wasn't going to facepalm... "If it was boring, why did she get upset?" he asked instead, trying from a different angle.

[dollpocalypse]

"See, that's kind of what I've been wondering," Topher confessed. "The counselor said it's just because it hurt Onion's feelings that makes it wrong, which is weird to me because like, if she was a different person who wasn't as sensitive, then it wouldn't be wrong? That doesn't make any sense." He shrugged. "But when I told Onion I didn't really get it, she didn't give me an answer either."

[selfhelphero]

Billy tried to think about that, ignoring the whole wrong name thing for the moment. "If whatever you found and showed people didn't make her feel bad, then no, you probably wouldn't need to apologize, because she wouldn't be hurt. But she was hurt, so whatever you found must have been upsetting, at least a little."

[dollpocalypse]

Topher started picking at the cake portion of his cupcake now, trying to avoid making eye contact with Billy when he'd obviously messed up. "It's just hard for me to get," he mumbled. "Since she made it herself and could easily take it down instead of letting people find it and then yelling at them."

[selfhelphero]

"Maybe she couldn't figure out how to take it down? Not everyone's as technologically savvy as you are." Compliments might help make Topher feel a little better, right? "And it's not like you accidentally stumbled on it while looking for something random, so I can see why, to someone who doesn't know you well, it might seem more hurtful? Like you were looking to mess with her or something?"

[dollpocalypse]

"But I told her I wasn't," Topher replied, largely to his cupcake wrapper, "and I explained I was just trying to make sure Victor wasn't in danger or anything, and that was when she got mad. I don't get her."

[selfhelphero]

"Well, that makes it sound like you think she's dangerous. Isn't she just, like, a regular person?" Olive had seemed pretty normal to him, at least.

[dollpocalypse]

"Well, yeah, I know now," Topher said, "but I wanted to look her up to make sure, you know? He's all heroey like you, she could've been anyone."

[selfhelphero]

"True," Billy said, because he didn't want to discourage Topher from being a good friend. "Next time you look someone up though, do it privately, in case you find something bad."

[dollpocalypse]

"Yeah. Whatever." Topher was pretty much talking to his hands now. "It's just stupid. Why do we have technology to get information if we're not supposed to use it? It's a dumb rule."

It was possible he was more frustrated by this than he was letting on.

[selfhelphero]

"Because it can be creepy?" Billy said, slipping an arm around Topher's shoulders. "How would you feel if someone looked into like, your school records, or your online habits?" Oh god, what if they found the fanfic, Topher, what then?

[dollpocalypse]

"I don't know, I guess they can if they want to," Topher said, shifting a little closer to Billy because he wasn't sure whether proximity would make him feel better or worse and he thought he might as well experiment. "It'd be... embarrassing, I guess, though."

[selfhelphero]

"Okay, so can you understand why Olive might have been embarrassed?" Billy said, with just a tiny bit of hope. "Maybe a little?"

[dollpocalypse]

"Embarrassed, yes," Topher admitted. "Angry, not really?"

He sighed, then relented, "But she does have red hair. And she's a girl. So... they do that."

[selfhelphero]

"Girls really really really don't like being embarrassed," Billy said. If they could at least prevent Topher from doing something like this again, he'd take it as a win. "And everyone knows you can't trust redheads. It's like, a law."

[dollpocalypse]

"Yeah," Topher agreed, scooting a little closer to Billy now so that his head was practically on Billy's shoulder. "It just would've been better if she could've just said it was about the embarrassment so I didn't have to guess. And make you guess."

[selfhelphero]

"Well, I think I'd be pretty embarrassed if people broadcasted stuff about me in a common room without my permission. But you apologized, and that's good." Billy gave Topher a squeeze to try to make him feel better.

[dollpocalypse]

"Yeah." Topher didn't know how good it was if he'd followed all the protocol and Olive was still angry with him, but he figured Billy knew better than he did. It did raise a question, though. "It's-- like, okay with you that I don't get this stuff, right?"

[selfhelphero]

Billy nodded quickly, wanting it to be clear. "You're not trying to hurt people. You're not trying to make people mad. You're trying to understand how social stuff works. So yeah, I'm okay. I know you can be awesome, and that's what matters to me."

[dollpocalypse]

For that, Topher was going to lift his head off of Billy's shoulder in order to deliver a spontaneous hug. Because he was, okay.

"Thanks," he mumbled.