The Brink Family Home | Los Angeles, CA | Saturday Fandom Time

[dollpocalypse]

Some boarding school students might have gone home for Christmas. Topher, whose family was not in the slightest bit religious, had spared everyone the need to observe the holiday by waiting a few days to go home, and he brought a guest. The result of this, especially after years of not hearing about Topher's friends at all, was that his highly polite and welcoming parents had been practically bouncing by the time Topher and Billy's portal arrived, and after a few minutes of gushing over both of them, took the boys' things to put upstairs while Topher gave Billy the tour.

"And this is my room," Topher concluded as they reached the top floor of the townhouse. The rest of the house was almost intimidatingly nice, decoration-wise: framed paintings hung on the wall and every inch of floor was covered either in soft carpeting or in marble tiles. As Topher swung his bedroom door open, it became apparent that his room was not quite up to the standard the rest of the house had set, an image best conveyed by the fact that although his room was certainly big enough for a normal, human-sized bed, he'd insisted on twin-size bunk beds, the bottom bunk of which had no mattress and instead contained a TV and some X-Box controllers.

He surveyed the room through the critical lens one tends to develop when examining one's living space with company present. "...There's an air mattress we can bring in, probably."

Probably.

[[for the boyfriend, mostly! phone calls are also okay!]]

Comments

[selfhelphero]

Billy had been more than a little nervous about this trip - meeting parents for the first time was always a little terrifying - but then Topher's parents had turned out to be nice and their home was so normal that he couldn't help but feel safe, and seeing Topher's room look, well, exactly like he expected made lack of sleeping space seem like a small problem. "We'll think of something. We've got time," Billy said, going in and taking a look around. "This is definitely your space."

[dollpocalypse]

"That's good, right?" Topher checked. "I've only been here like one other time since I started at Fandom. It's cleaner than I remembered."

No wires on the floor or anything! This was way less of a fire hazard than his dorm room.

[selfhelphero]

"That's very good. I can see you being here," Billy said, poking through the stuff in the bottom bunk while trying not to actually dislodge anything. "Do you think your mom cleaned while you were gone?" That was kind of sweet, but also a mildly terrifying thought to Billy.

[dollpocalypse]

"...Oh, huh, I guess she probably does that," Topher said thoughtfully, like the idea had never occured to him. "That's, like, a mom thing, I guess."

Okay, Topher. Okay.

"So, sorry there probably aren't going to be any awesome evil robots while we're here," he said, starting to climb up the top bunk. "Unless my parents are robots, which would actually be kind of cool but doesn't seem very likely since they'd be like the most boring robots ever."

[selfhelphero]

"It's actually nice to not have to worry about evil robots for once," Billy pointed out. "Or anything from Fandom smacking us when we don't expect it. I know home isn't exciting for you, but this is for me."

[dollpocalypse]

"If you say so," Topher said dubiously. "When I was a kid, I was, like, obsessed with the idea of evil robots or heroes or whatever showing up in this city. I still think it would've been an improvement."

He patted the space on his bed beside him, because sitting spaces were kind of in a shortage around here. "What's your family like, anyway? Besides the long-lost twin."

[selfhelphero]

Billy laughed as he sat down next to Topher. "Honestly, my parents would probably get along with yours really well. They don't like the evil robot stuff, and wish we had far more normal lives. My old apartment looked a lot like this place. I'm the only mutant in my family, everyone else is normal and boring."

[dollpocalypse]

"Adults are weird," Topher decided. "Non-Fandom adults. Who wants to be bored for fifty years? When I graduate, I probably want to pick an interesting world out of the Portalocity directory and go there."

[selfhelphero]

"Not a dangerous one though, right?" Billy asked. "One that's exciting but relatively safe?"

[dollpocalypse]

"...I don't know about that..."

Funny how he always forgot how scary those types of worlds were, wasn't it?

[selfhelphero]

"Topher..." Billy said, nearly whining. "You can't go anywhere dangerous unless I'm there to rescue you if you get into trouble." Look, he was even being nice and making that an "if" statement and not a "when."

[dollpocalypse]

"You could visit me a lot," Topher suggested, grinning. "Oooh, or I could go to your world and, like, purposefully get into danger just so you could show off by rescuing me. That'd be good for your PR, right?"

[selfhelphero]

Billy snickered and gave Topher a good-natured nudge. "You don't need to do that. I'd never ask you to put yourself in harm's way for me. Not that I don't want you to visit, of course. Maybe when there's real trouble, so you can see how crazy it gets."

[dollpocalypse]

"That'd be awesome," Topher said, grinning. "Probably better than this. Like most places are." He was really attached to that idea, apparently. "Sorry. I'm over it. Mostly. Not."

Anyway!

"Your friends wouldn't mind?"

[selfhelphero]

"I don't see why they would," Billy said. "Kate and Cassie and Teddy are awesome, Tommy... well, he already knows you, and all you have to do is tell Eli you like his costume and promise not to try to take apart the Vision and you'll be all set."

[dollpocalypse]

"Is the Vision a robot?" Because robots were fun to take apart! Fun! "I could just maybe do a little upgrade..."

[selfhelphero]

"He's a robot whose armor is from the 31st century. I don't think he'll need an upgrade for a while," Billy said. "He might let you take a peek. For science and all."

[dollpocalypse]

"Science!" That was pretty much a whoop. "I could be like your guys' tech guy. I could probably learn how to be badass. And I already have a cape, so."

[selfhelphero]

"Do you have a codename? It's kind of required," Billy said, mostly teasing. Eli did get kind of antsy about people's codenames, after all. "You know, something cool."

[dollpocalypse]

"Huh." Topher tilted his head, gave it some thought, and came up with, "Cerebellum."

Yes. Cerebellum. Really.

"It's the part of the brain that coordinates movement and functions and stuff."

No, see, Topher, Billy had specifically requested something cool. Cool.

[selfhelphero]

"I know what it is. Are you sure you want to be called that?" Billy asked. "It's kind of... long."

[dollpocalypse]

It was kind of long, Billy. That was a good point. It was also so dorky that he could not possibly be taken seriously ever.

"Okaaaay," Topher said, stretching out the word thoughtfully. "It's hard 'cause I don't have any actual powers. How about a name of a metal? It works for Tony. I could be, like... Cobalt."

Well, it was shorter, at least.

[selfhelphero]

"That's a good start. And your intelligence should totally count as a power. I mean, Tony doesn't have powers either, right?" Billy said helpfully. "It just seems like it because he's smart enough to make cool stuff."

[dollpocalypse]

"But having an actual power is cooler," Topher pointed out. "Like you. And it helps with picking a name. Do people in your world care if heroes have powers or not?"

[selfhelphero]

Billy had to think about that for a moment, before shaking his head. "It's more about what people do with their powers," he said. "Like, there are lots of people who have powers who use them for evil, and I think everyone would rather have someone without powers running around being heroic than someone with powers running around being evil, you know? Kate doesn't have any powers, and I'd take her over a lot of mutants."

[dollpocalypse]

"Makes sense," Topher said, nodding. This was mostly out of plain curiosity, since he didn't really see himself up and joining Billy's team anytime soon, but it was nice to know more things about Billy's world. "And the bad guys don't pick on her more than the rest of you because she can't do magical healing or whatever? Because strategically that would probably be a good idea for them, but... evil, obviously."

[selfhelphero]

"Not really. They'd have to get to her first, and Kate's awesome with a bow," Billy said kind of proudly. "She demanded a place on the team and we couldn't really say no with how good she was. If I didn't have any powers, she could totally take me."

[dollpocalypse]

"Dude, that's awesome," Topher said, mildly impressed. "I mean, not for you. But I kind of figured people mostly had to have powers in your world to be badass."

[selfhelphero]

Billy shrugged. "It's like here. There's lots of people here who are badass who just, you know, can fight people and stuff."

[dollpocalypse]

"Oh, yeah, I can't really do that either," Topher mused. "Wait, do superheroes have to exercise?"

JUST CURIOUS.

[selfhelphero]

"It depends on the superhero. Most of them probably work out at least every once in a while," Billy said, smiling a little as he imagined Iron Man and Captain America working out together. Shhhh, it was a pretty picture.

[dollpocalypse]

"I am not a fan of doing that," Topher shared, delicately. "But it's optional?"

[selfhelphero]

"Totally optional. Especially if you're just going to be smart and help us out," Billy assured him.

[dollpocalypse]

"Then I am hypothetically in," Topher decided. "Depending on how serious this conversation has been and all that. Good talk."

Topher... really?

[selfhelphero]

"Then I'm hypothetically excited," Billy said, sneaking a peek to make sure there were no parents lurking about before leaning over and giving Topher a kiss on the cheek.

[dollpocalypse]

Feeling a bit bolder than usual, Topher turned his head just in time to catch that kiss on the mouth instead, and promptly grinned with triumph. "I saw that in a movie once," he shared. "This girl was trying to be cool but it was actually really embarrassing for her, but that was pretty good."

[selfhelphero]

"That was very good," Billy said, feeling bold enough to go in for another gentle kiss. "You're getting good at this stuff."

[dollpocalypse]

"You too," Topher said with a grin. "So, I feel like this is the part where I should invite you to participate in my badass team of people who save the world sometimes? I mean, mine is a WoW guild, but in the interest of fairness..."