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

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"Just out of curiosity, what did I do to deserve that?" Dave asked.

He was ignoring what Miley did with the droid baby vomit.

[dollpocalypse]

Mellowing somewhat, Topher tilted his head. "What do you mean?"

He just wanted the general world to suffer, see. Not Dave specifically.

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"Being told I suck and should suffer?" Dave repeated. Since Topher just said it. It was fresh in his memory. "And with the door closed, I'm pretty sure I'm the only one suffering from loud death noises coming from your computer."

[dollpocalypse]

And out came an expression that Dave had never seen on Topher's face before. Because it was an expression of pure, quiet rage.

"I'm. Suffering. Too."

That was maybe a little terrifying.

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"I'd suggest turning the volume down again, but something tells me that's not why you're suffering," Dave theorized. He almost wanted to hide under his bed after seeing that look, but, well, there was that damn strobe.

[dollpocalypse]

Damn that strobe. Damn it to hell.

"No," Topher confirmed, his voice scary-quiet. "It isn't."

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"What happened?" Dave asked.

[dollpocalypse]

Heartbreak. Heartbreak happened.

Topher didn't even know where to start. "Thursday," he said. "Weekend. Now."

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"Do you want to go into any more detail?" Dave asked "Because that doesn't really say much."

[dollpocalypse]

Topher huffed. He was just going to take this one step at a time.

"You know that strobe light?" he asked, deliberately enunciating so Dave could follow. "That was Thursday."

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"Sure. When you went out and left weird messages on my voicemail," Dave said.

[dollpocalypse]

"Right," Topher agreed. "Thursday."

He gave Dave's presumably non-genius-caliber brain a moment to process that.

"Then, over the weekend, the island turned me into an idiot who burnt his hand on a lamp and can't do calculus."

Also known as a child, Topher.

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, that happened to most people. You have a lot of company on that one," Dave said. "And, honestly, I still can't do calculus."

[dollpocalypse]

Topher gave Dave a withering look.

Everyone should be able to do calculus, Dave. Everyone. Never mind that his player had given up and never looked back.

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"Math's never been my thing," Dave pointed out.

[dollpocalypse]

"Sucks."

Topher cared so much about your inferior brain, Dave. Really now.

"And then today," he added, "I got a text that --"

Wait. Why was he sharing this?

"-- never mind."

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"A text that what?" Dave pressed. At least that reaction made it clear what really caused the bad mood.

[dollpocalypse]

"Saidsomestuff," Topher mumbled.

Or, you know. Broke his heart. Whatever.

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

"You know that I'm going to keep asking more specific questions until you either tell me what it said or give me a really good reason to leave," Dave said. "And we've already established that I'm too dumb for calculus, so I probably won't know a good time to leave when I see it."

[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."