Room 307, Sunday Morning

[dollpocalypse]

All things considered, there had been worse weeks on this island than just being monochromatic and really really boring. However, most of the other weeks hadn't involved being so mean to Billy (and Topher did realize that he'd been mean to Billy, whether it'd been intentional on other!him's part or not), so this one pretty much ranked as an awkward one.

Plus he was pretty damn sore from all the jogging other!him had been doing, so. There was that as well.

He mulled it over for a moment or two, decided that it was almost definitely excusable in the long run, then settled on his bed with Broca II in his lap and put on a movie on one of his laptops. Meanwhile, he took out his iPad and idly coded while the movie was playing. He wasn't sure what he was doing yet, but so far it had 'this island is batshit' written in binary, so that was a good start.

[[open!]]

Comments

[dollpocalypse]

"The most boring weirdness we've ever had," Topher decided, because that seemed about the easiest way to sum it up. "Think I'll pass. What were you doing with bongos?"

Topher had been a wholesome jock type, which was bizarre enough, but this seemed potentially more hilarious.

[ultron_junior]

"Some beatnik thing," Victor said, shaking his hair out of his eyes in annoyance. "I thought they were awesome. Wore a lot of black, read a lot of poetry. What did you get stuck doing?"

He'd agree with the "boring weirdness" tag too.

[dollpocalypse]

"Thought I was some kind of baseball superstar," Topher shrugged, rolling his eyes. "But I also rescued GLaDOS from angry birds, so there's that."

[ultron_junior]

Victor snickered, just a bit, at the thought of Topher and any sport. "Good," he said. "Wait, how come birds were after her?"

[dollpocalypse]

Hey, hey. Chess was a sport! He played that! And... Pac-Man. That was a sport, right?

"Oh, she was in a potato," he explained. "And I think I was kind of an idiot at her, so there goes that awesome reputation I've been working on building up in gym class."

Riiiight.

"So when you say beatnik, are we talking about the goatee kind? 'Cause you and facial hair..."

[ultron_junior]

Victor groaned. "Hey, my mustache was awesome," he said good-naturedly. "I don't know why the rest of you are, like, too jealous to admit it."

Possibly because it was horrible.

"But nah, no beatnik beard. This time."

[dollpocalypse]

"Okay, whew, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been." That's right, Victor. Deal with that burn. Razor-burn, even. "But Fandom-wise, compared to last December? Kind of a letdown. I mean, last year we got to play D&D in the library while the world almost disappeared, so."

Because that was... fun. Apparently.

"Maybe your facial hair could be like, a portent of an apocalypse or something," Topher mused. "Want to try growing it out again? Maybe we'll get dragon monsters this time."

[ultron_junior]

"What are you going to do with a dragon monster?" Victor asked skeptically. "Also, the whole thing where the world almost ended last year? That still sounds weird every time somebody mentions it, dude."

[dollpocalypse]

"Hey, D&D was great." Because Topher fixated on the important things, clearly. "And duh, I'd make friends with it. What would you do?"

[ultron_junior]

"Try to figure out a way to get it into a cage, then worry about what to do next," Victor shared, looking at Topher sideways. "How are you going to make friends with a dragon? Also, we should play D&D sometime."

[dollpocalypse]

"Dragons are cool," Topher shrugged. "They seem reasonable. And if I was friends with one, it might give me rides."

Because wasn't all friendship about letting people fly on your back?

"And yeah, we should. Soon?"

[ultron_junior]

Rides. Right. Well, Victor supposed this could be a delusion that could be dealt with if and when dragons actually turned up. (Besides, maybe they;d be Lockheed-sized dragons? those would make good pets.)

"Sure," Victor nodded. "Has to be soon to fit it in before break, right? I'm going home for a week or so, don't know about you..."

[dollpocalypse]

"Yeah, Billy wanted to come meet my parents, so me too, probably." Unless he could talk Billy out of that clearly horrible idea, of course. "So yeah. We can grab a common room sometime and get people to come play. It'll be funtimes."

[ultron_junior]

"Tomorrow?" Victor suggested, with a little shrug. "Wednesday?"

He took a few more steps in, leaned against Topher's desk. "Good luck with the meeting the parents thing. Think they'll like Billy?"

[dollpocalypse]

"Wednesday after gym class would work," Topher decided. "And... hard to say. I don't really, like, talk to my parents, because they are morons, so. Who knows? Not me."

The fact that this might be a weird thing to say to a guy whose mother had died not too long ago didn't really register, nope.

"Think you're ever gonna meet Onion's parents?"

[ultron_junior]

"We haven't had a chance to talk about break yet, but Olive's parents were here for parent's weekend." Note the subtle correction. "Her dad was kind of ... off-kilter and intense."

He glanced over, frowning. "Do I want to know why your parents are morons?"

[dollpocalypse]

"They're just all into books and newspapers and not doing math," Topher dismissed with a wave of his hand. "I sometimes do their taxes."

Poorly, but at least the math was right!

"Intense like movie dads, with the whole 'you hurt my daughter and blah blah blah I have a pointy rake' type thing?" Topher wasn't great at coming up with threatening lines, even when he was assigning them to other people. "...That probably isn't the best threat, you could just... magnet the flat end of the rake to your face or something..."

Yeah, he'd managed to distract himself.

[ultron_junior]

"But then I'd have a rake attached to my face," Victor pointed out. "Actually wait, that might be sort of cool for about ten minutes."

"Anyhow," he added, "her dad was nice? He just ... put me sort of off balance. I think he could tell I was into her, or something, and ... it was a weird conversation. Maybe the next one would be less uncomfortable."

[dollpocalypse]

"Rake Face," Topher said thoughtfully. "Could be your superhero name."

That was possibly the worst superhero name ever thought up. Seriously.

"Hopefully my parents won't be too weird at Billy," he added. "Or do the song-and-dance of 'Oh my god, our kid actually has a friend.' Did your mom ever do that? Super annoying."

That was probably a more specific issue, Topher.

[ultron_junior]

"And yours could be Dragon Rider," Victor suggested, since they seemed to be coming up with the worst superhero names ever. "And ... no? I mean, she had a whole thing about me not spending too much time around bad influences, but she didn't like freak out I had friends."

[dollpocalypse]

"Sounds kind of... anime," Topher evaluated. "Not bad."

If he was going to be a hero, he'd do it in a world full of tentacles and disproportionately-sized eyeballs, dammit.

As for the having-friends part... "Huh. Maybe that's just a me thing." Yes, Topher. It probably was.

[ultron_junior]

"Sorry," Victor said, and cleared his throat in embarrassment. "So do they know you and Billy are like ... kissing?"

[dollpocalypse]

"Huh. Good question." Topher thought about that one for a moment or two before ultimately deciding, "Nope. Nope, pretty sure they don't."

Because that would require him to talk to them.

The awkwardness of the situation, however, was completely lost on him. Whoops.

[ultron_junior]

Victor squinted, wondering if Topher intended to go on. "Were you going to tell them? I mean, it's your business, but..."

[dollpocalypse]

Topher squinted right back. "I don't... think so," he said slowly. "Why, do you think it's relevant?"

Oh god, Topher.