Room 307, Tuesday Morning

[dollpocalypse]

Upon finally returning to his room after a five-day vacation, item one on Topher's agenda was to stand on the inside of the door and just have a moment of dorkish glee. He'd been on a whole other planet! And it was awesome! And he'd gotten bitten by a weird giant bug thing and seen mostly-naked girls and half-naked Ben and Ender and almost crashed Ben's speeder, but it was all on another planet so it was awesome!

Once that was taken care of, he composed himself (though he still looked a little overenthusiastic) and started unpacking. He set Kenzi's present on the dresser, tossed his clothes and the stupid, stupid poncho into their rightful places on the floor, and then shoved his luggage under his bed.

And then his room was neatly in order (you know, if you were Topher), which left him to flop down on his bed and grab his laptop.

Specifically, the spybots. They were Peter's, and Topher had let them go entirely too long without repairs. He pulled up the feed he'd set up for Peter to verify that everything was working fine. It seemed to be -- and oh, huh, the faucets were dispensing hot cocoa, who knew? -- but just to make sure, he scrolled through the archives of old footage from the past few weeks.

And saw... wait, wasn't that the day the world had come back? Topher knew Peter was attached to his desk most of the time, but that seemed a bit extreme, priority-wise. Topher thought back to what he'd done that night, remembered seeing people all around the island doing the same things -- then nodded. Yes. Definitely extreme. That was far beyond any normal committment to homework. He had to be something else.

Topher thought for just a second about zooming, seeing just what exactly Peter was even doing on there, but then put that thought out of his mind. That would just get him into trouble. In the meantime, well, the picture quality on one of the bots looked a little shaky, so he grabbed the remote to call it over to him so that he could work.

[[Door is cracked, post is open. Spybots and stuff under the cut NFB, and obviously done with the permission of the marvelous lockestheway.]]

Comments

[dollpocalypse]

"It probably wouldn't fit," Topher said, grabbing some more popcorn and flicking the unpopped kernels across the room to Dave's bed. Just for fun, you know. "But it'd be cool. And way less ugly than Warren's car."

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

"Why, what kind has he got?" Kenzi watched the flicking with amusement. "You missed the Holiday party. And me torturing Butters. Talking to Billy."

Just putting that name out there!

[dollpocalypse]

"It's a yellow -- oh, how's Billy?"

Not that he cared.

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

'Course not. "He's good. Going home to see his parents." Pause. Loooong pause. "Might've said something about liking stuff about you."

[dollpocalypse]

"Oh?" Topher said, slightly higher-pitched than he'd meant to. "Um. What stuff?"

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

"That you're a genius," Kenzi said matter-of-factly. Then a little more amused, "And how impressed you get when someone knows something you don't. I think he appreciates that you appreciate that, you know?"

HINT. HINT.

[dollpocalypse]

"Oh." Was Topher grinning a little down at his hands? No. Of course not. Except that he totally was, okay? Shut up. "Um. Well. It is pretty impressive if someone's smarter than me."

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

"Billy's cool," Kenzi said, smirking a little. "Good to work with on the play. And cute. I'm kinda sorry he's playing for the other team."

Not really. But hello! Obvious was obvious!

[dollpocalypse]

"...team? Oh!" Sports metaphors always took a second with him. Even the obvious ones. "Yeah. Um. He likes Tony too."

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

"Hunh. Well, you both have good taste. Tony seems pretty cool." Hopeless taste, but good taste. "Billy's in PRIDE, we talk sometimes." La la la. "Bet he'd like hearing about outer space."

[dollpocalypse]

SHIPPER.

"You think so?" Topher asked, scratching the back of his neck in a gesture that was not at all awkward-related. "I mean... Tony told me I should go to that. You know. At some point."

Almost there, almost there...

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

LIKE AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER.

"Sure. He knows tech stuff enough to be Stage Manager, he'd probably have even more questions than me." Kenzi popped another kernel of popcorn into her mouth, then threw one at Dave's bed. "Why are we throwing popcorn at Dave's bed?"

[dollpocalypse]

"Only the unpopped ones," Topher said, shrugging. Which... really didn't answer any kind of question at all. "And I meant that club thing. You and Billy both go to that?"

Somehow he'd always thought it was a club full of lame girls.

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

"Sure. Me, Seifer, Petra, Tara, that Marshall guy, hmmm, Miley, Billy... some others. There's usually cupcakes." Which would be a major reason Kenzi went. "Petra organizes cool stuff."

[dollpocalypse]

Topher only recognized about half of those names, but shrugged. "Maybe, um. After break, I could go?"

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

"Maybe?" Kenzi gave this the appearance of consideration, and said, "Why not?"

Petra might kill her a little if Topher acted up, but maybe he'd learn something.

"We should do something fun on break. Not that it will compare to space." No, not getting over that soon. "But still. Free time! Vacaaaation!"

[dollpocalypse]

"Like what?" Topher asked. Holding up a hand, he made sure to note, "No rats."

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

"God no." Kenzi shuddered. "No reminders! Sledding. Or you can make some kind of super-powered engined snowboard thing, right? We can totally do more stuff with no one around to care. Maybe Christmasy stuff. I wonder if Peter's going home?"

[dollpocalypse]

"He just got back," Topher said. "So he's probably sticking arou-- ooh." He tilted his head. "I wonder if that would work."

Not that he had any business snowboarding. Ever. Really, ever.

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

"Cool. Then we can surprise him. And yes!" Kenzi bounced. "If you need parts, I can scavenge for them! This could be awesome!"

Or horrifying. Or both.

[dollpocalypse]

"Yes!" They might need to be rescued. It would be terrible. Topher sprung up, pacing the room as he thought about it. "I'll have to take your measurements and stuff to make sure it'll fit you right and carry you and all that, and you're Canadian so it's, like, in your blood, and --"

Distraction!

"Oh, hey," Topher said, remembering something. "Check that out." He plucked a stuffed animal alien off the dresser and tossed it at Kenzi. "Gotcha that."

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

"EXACTLY!" Someone, somewhere, was shuddering at the possibilities.

Then Kenzi was squeeing. "It's horrible! Look at the teeth! Oh my god I love it!" She hugged it like it was Cthulu stuffie and beamed at Topher. "Awwww. Thank you!" It was not the same as going to spatce. But still.

[dollpocalypse]

Topher was very pleased with himself. He might have terrible, terrible taste in clothing, and hopeless taste in dudes, but at least he could give good presents.

Of course, now he would have to come up with better stuff for actual Christmas. Oops.

"No prob," he said, grinning a little. "That was way better than Peter's reaction when I gave him that one by mistake." Doing his scary-accurate Peter impression, Topher mimicked, "'Do I look like a fifteen-year-old girl to you, kid?'"

[regretiz4suckas.livejournal.com]

Kenzi cackled in glee. "You know, he wonders about that way too much... what did you get him instead?" She considered the blue horror. "What to name you, toothy guy. Hmmm."

[dollpocalypse]

"It's called a Narglatch," Topher said helpfully. "I think it looks like a Charlie."

Thank you, Topher.

"I got him this comlink earpiece thingy. Guess what the first he said was."