Room 307, Monday Evening

[dollpocalypse]

After an hour and twenty-five minutes spent trying to trace a text message that had just come in on his phone, Topher was forced to conclude two things: one, it was legit, and two, he sort of wanted to crawl under his bed and never come out ever again.

But there were bags of chips under his bed and he really didn't want to find out if the chips had rodent friends down there, so he had to settle for burrowing under the blankets instead, laptop open in front of him as he vengefully and imprecisely shot at zombies in a video game.

Like this weekend hadn't been bad enough. Like he hadn't gotten a stupid (albeit newly vanished) haircut and a hangover. Like he hadn't made a total moron out of himself in front of Ben and Jello Girl and Peter, then hurt his hand making the world's shittiest piece of technology. Now he'd done something to piss Tony off too, and -- here was the kicker -- he didn't even know what it was. Because Tony already knew about that stupid fanfiction story that that bitch Karla had told everyone about, and he hadn't been mad at him after the whole lap-sitting thing on Thursday night, and their encounter as kids on Saturday hadn't been too horrible, and nothing bad had happened in frat, so... what was it?

For a second, he wondered if maybe Kenzi had said something... but they weren't close, were they? He dismissed the idea and shot furiously at zombies. The volume was up ridiculously high, but he wasn't too bothered by the noise of the explosions right now. Or the gore. Even the stuff that normally squicked him out was fine.

[[Door closed, post wide open. This kid. So much emo.]]

Comments

[dollpocalypse]

Touché, Dave. Touché.

"Fine," Topher mumbled. He seized his phone off the nightstand, opened up the text, and thrust it at Dave.

Pleeeeeease, Dave. Please, for the love of god, ignore that the text had come from a contact saved as Anthony Edward Stark♥.

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"Oh," Dave said, making a point to never mention what the contact was listed as. "Do you need a hug or something?"

[dollpocalypse]

Topher gave him a skeptical look, then appeared to consider it.

"Do you... think... that might help?"

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"I'm from Wisconsin. It's a widely held Midwestern belief that a good hug should at least help a little," Dave said. "And every little bit eventually adds up, right?"

[dollpocalypse]

Topher squinted at him, assessing the chances of this happening.

"Did you shower this morning?"

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"Every day," Dave said. "Including this morning."

[dollpocalypse]

"And you used soap, right?"

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"... Of course I used soap," Dave said. He was starting to wonder if punching Topher wouldn't feel much better than giving him a hug.

[dollpocalypse]

Soap was important! It was what kept the world from dissolving into chaos! And germs! Don't hate on soap, Dave.

Or Topher's face. But if it came down to one or the other...

"Then... okay. I guess. If you have to."

Just check out how insanely tensely Topher was holding himself, Dave. Plus he was squeezing his eyes shut. Hugs were scary.

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"I don't have to if you're not comfortable with it," Dave asked. Now he was starting to wonder how much physical human contact Topher actually had aside from the punches.

Still, he held his arms out and moved in for a hug.

[dollpocalypse]

Then they were hugging! Hey, this wasn't so ba--

And then the overhead lights flickered off and the room was suddenly filled with a bright white light coming from under the opposite bed.

"Um," Topher said, stunned. "Dave!?"

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"Is that your strobe?" Dave asked.

[dollpocalypse]

"It's your bed!" Topher accused, which not only made no sense but also was especially odd considering that they were still hugging.

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"You put it there," Dave pointed out.

[dollpocalypse]

It was dark and they were touching, which was why Topher felt compelled to exclaim, "I put nothing anywhere!"

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"You put the strobe under my bed," Dave said.

He was quoting her. Because that's what she said.

[dollpocalypse]

"Oh." A beat. "Yeah. I did that."

Another beat, then: "Can we let go now?"

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"... Do you feel better yet?" Dave asked.

[lockestheway]

And look, there was someone knocking on his door!

Nothing like turning into your own bratty childhood self to remind you that occasionally you had to at least pretend to be a decent human being to people.

[dollpocalypse]

"...surprisingly not!"

It was dark!

To add insult to injury, they were now being entertained with the noise of zombies ripping his video game character's head off. Fuck.

[dollpocalypse]

Oh, what the fuck.

"Who is it?" Topher asked warily, speaking loudly over the sound of zombies being slaughtered.

[lockestheway]

"It's me," Peter said, and then, realising that not everybody lived on Planet Peter, added: "Peter. Can I come in?"

[dollpocalypse]

You'd have to excuse Topher for tensing slightly. Or, you know, drawing the blankets tighter over himself.

"Yeah," he called, though he wasn't sure if he meant it.

[lockestheway]

Peter mentally weighed the advantages apologising to Topher had versus actually having to apologise again, then... kind of copped to the fact that while yes, salvaging Topher (again) would be useful to him, maybe apologising would just be the right thing to do.

But mostly it was the useful to him part.

He opened up the door after he'd gotten the okay and stepped in. "Hey," he said. "I needed to talk to you."

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"Well, at least you feel bad for more harmless reasons now," Dave said, pulling back from the hug.