dollpocalypse | Room 307, Wednesday Evening

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Room 307, Wednesday Evening

As it turned out, it was harder to take stories down from a kink meme than you might think. Perils of posting anonymously and all that -- no easy delete button.

Which was why it was fortunate that Topher didn't need a delete button, and managed with little trouble to not only take the story down, but also to gift the moderators with some thoughtful presents to express his appreciation of their entire stupid system.

Mean, system-disrupty presents. Sorry, ~~Pepper~~ totally anonymous moderators.

At least it felt useful to do that rather than the whole video-game-zombie-killing thing. That was a plus. Once he was finished, he considered working a bit on some of Peter's spybots, since his weetiny self had not been kind to them, but the memory of working on them with Tony put that on a definite hold.

So. ~~Moping~~ Hacking for sport it was.

[[~~for that guy getting a jump start on his career as a heartbreaker~~ actually screw that, i'm bored. door shut but post open.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tony gave him a confused look before shaking his head. "As far as I know, we're still friends."

THE BAD TOUCH LECTURE, HOWEVER...

It didn't make him a dork for his face to just light up at that news. It didn't.

"Oh," Topher said, aiming for cool and casual and failing miserably. "Oh. 'Cause, um. Yeah. That's good."

Tony snorted in amusement and shook his head again. Because Topher was way too easy to cheer up, it seemed. But that could have been due to his natural charisma.

"We're going to have to talk about Thursday sometime soon, though."

When he wasn't half dead. And smelling like he was homeless.

"Yeah, sure," Topher agreed easily, all traces of his emo mood completely gone as he shoved his laptop to the side to make room on the bed. "Do you wanna sit? You look like you have a headache or something."

Plus there was the matter of the dirty clothes, and Topher just so happened to have a shirt of Tony's on hand that he could... probably be persuaded to give up. If Tony asked nicely.

Edited 2011-11-17 02:47 (UTC)

STALKER.

"I'm just stopping by to get some clothes and head back to the lab." To work through his issues in a completely healthy manner. "Got anything caffeinated that I can steal?"

ENABLE HIIIIIM.

Tony. Why you gotta encourage the worshipfulness?

"Yeah, definitely," Topher answered, getting up to grab a couple of Mountain Dews out of the fridge. He tossed one to Tony, then flopped back on the bed and offered, maybe a little too eagerly at the chance to get to help somehow, "You need a shirt or something?"

DON'T DO IT, TONY. NOT UNLESS YOU WANTED IT TO TURN INTO TOPHER'S MOST PRIZED PILLOW.

"Got any that don't smell like death warmed over?"

Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb.

And now Topher was back up again, rifling through his meticulously-organized closet. "This okay?" he offered, holding up a sweater vest.

THERE WAS A NEW LOOK FOR TONY. HOT.

Tony, don't snicker.

"I'll be fine without," Tony assured him. "T-shirts are more my thing."

Well.

Topher winced, then presented an alternative. Which was Tony's shirt from Thursday, because he was weird. "There's this too," he offered reluctantly.

Or they could have that boundaries discussion now. "...is this mine?"

Or that. There was that.

"Maaaaaybe? I think, uh, on Thursday things got kind of mixed up, so I might've, uh..."

STOLEN IT. TO WEAR AND CUDDLE AND OCCASIONALLY SNIFF WHILE PETER WATCHED IN HORROR.

"Topher," Tony started and then stopped to gather his thoughts. It was more difficult than expected. "You know we're just friends, right?"

Well, sure. The problem was that he didn't quite know what that really meant, not ever having had friends before, and all.

"Uh, yeah?" Topher said, trying to make it sound like it was obvious. Too bad he looked just a bit too deer-in-the-headlights for that to really go over very well. "You told me. At the ki-- uh, carnival."

"Just friends," Tony repeated. Because it needed to be. "Friends don't grope or steal clothing."

Or stalk. He had more than enough experience there, thanks.

Oh, god, boundaries. BOUNDARIES HURT SO BAD.

"I know," Topher said again, drawing in closer on himself because, fine, he really hadn't known that. "It was just, like, an accident. With the... drinking. You know."

WORST LIE EVER.

Tony believed that. Look how much he believed that.

"Topher. I'm serious," Tony said, looking down at the ground. "I've had a seriously bad couple of days and don't want to deal with this again."

Topher flinched. It was possible that that rule wasn't entirely news to him. You know, since Peter kept bringing up how it was Wrong to sniff other people's shirts and all. Plus there was that talk from the carnival, and, well. Maybe he should've caught on earlier.

The hurt passed over his face quickly enough, then was replaced by a wide-eyed uncertainty that made it perfectly clear how clueless he felt right now.

"Um," he said. "What, uh, what happened?"

"Something that liked me a little too much did some very bad things," Tony replied carefully. "I know you like me a lot. And I know this is the first time for you feeling that way about someone. But I have a girlfriend who I really like too."

He sighed, feeling all that sleep deprivation hit him behind the eyes like a truck.

"I'm not saying you have to get over it right now, but you do eventually. You'll find someone who can like you back in that way and I'll be there to keep you from stealing their clothing."

Like a good friend.

...well, god, Tony, could you be any gentler about it?

Topher picked at his comforter for a minute, not sure of what to say. Except that he shouldn't've been so obvious. Even if Tony wasn't saying he didn't want to be friends anymore, he was saying that Topher had completely mishandled this, and like all smartass geniuses, he really, really hated to be wrong. But even bigger than that was that stupid, awful, painful feeling like he was going to throw up, and it shouldn't be so much of a surprise because he knew this already, had known this ever since Homecoming, but it still hit him like sudden nausea that this was never going to happen. Because Tony didn't want it to.

"Oh," he said after a long silence, actually managing to lift his eyes almost to Tony's. "Oh. Um."

Stupid fucking pit-of-his-stomach twisty feeling that wasn't going away.

"Yeah. Okay, then."

Maybe it took him this long to finally set Topher straight because he could see a little too much of himself in him. If things had gone differently with his life.

"Just think about it, okay? I--" He sighed, closing his eyes tight to regain focus. "--I know this hurts. Trust me, I've been there. Everyone has been there. But you pick yourself up and move on stronger than you started."

Or brood a lot. While beating up people in a robotic suit of armor.

Except suddenly Topher couldn't get the image of little-kid Tony out of his head, and how confident and sure of himself he'd been, while Topher... had been the kid who was scared enough to hand over his most prized possession over to a bigger kid, just because he didn't want to be teased.

So how could Tony get it?

"Yeah," he said, picking at the blanket some more. "I, uh. I'll get on that." Suddenly he was grateful he'd already taken down that stupid story. "Should I, um. Leave you alone for a while?"

"Do you want to?"

Never.

"I mean. Not really?" he offered awkwardly. "But, um, if you'd rather?"

Tony shot him a look. "You're still my friend, Topher."

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