if i think i can figure things out, is that curiosity or arrogance?

The hallway was pretty quiet this early in the morning, but not deserted. There were two teenagers in their pajamas standing outside a friend's door, bearing gifts.

They were givers like that. Just exemplary human beings.

No, really.

"Do you think he even does Christmas?" Topher wondered, moving to the side to let Kenzi knock.

( The fact that they might be waking him up had nothing to do with anything. Nope. )

[[Preplayed with regretiz4suckas and lockestheway, because timezones suck and we wanted A Very Black Hat Trio Christmas, dammit. NFI, OOC welcome, and all good for broadcast except for the talk of Karla, which is NFB.]]

The world hadn't ended. The world was okay and there were people hugging and crying, but the lights were still off in the room across the hall from his, which meant that Topher had only one place to check.

He didn't run, though it was a near thing, and that was mainly because his legs still felt a little shaky after having flown around a freaking mountaintop on a wingless dragon. So he walked, his heart pounding erratically with worry and hope. A nervous habit kicked in, and as he stepped into view of the very tip of the island, Topher brought one knuckle up into his mouth to chew on uncertainly.

Please let him be there, please let him be there...

[[For guess who.]]

Topher did not wish to leave the lab. Really. He was perfectly content to stay there for a good long while. Maybe get a hamster or something. He and Warren could live there forever and grow beards and learn pizza delivery guys by name (if the world didn't end and wipe out pizza delivery guys forever) and he'd learn all about wings and bunnies and hamsters and probably sleep in Tony's suit or something.

However. Supposedly there were things around town that were trying to eat people. So Peter wanted him to move.

And plus, it was probably a good idea to get a change of underwear at some point. And pizza delivery guys didn't get that stuff for you. Not that he'd asked, or anything.

But... lab. Cozy. Comfy. Full of tech that could possibly save the world. And it smelled comforting, like engine grease and Tony. And Warren was here, and and and...

Okay. Yeah. Topher definitely wasn't leaving anytime soon. He was just going to take two steps outside in the direction of the dorms so he could tell Peter he'd tried, then probably hurry back into the lab. That was the best possible plan, right? Right.

[[For them whose services are getting have been requested, and then that girl who knows who she is.]]

Fact: Research sucked.

But here Topher was, doing it anyway. Because Peter had told him to, and that was enough, most of the time, to get him to do things. Sad but true.

And... maybe Topher was a little bit more inclined to do as Peter said this week in particular for another reason too. Which would be the need to appease him in light of the terrifying possibility that maybe, just maybe, Karla had blabbed the contents of their conversation the other day and now Peter wanted to kill him and get a new tech person and not be his friend anymore and and and --

Anyway.

Researching.

It was hard, with the siren call of meta for Skyrim beckoning to him, but Topher was managing.

[[open door, open post]]

After work, and the weirdness that had been his conversation with Ben, Topher was maybe a little eager to get to the lab to go build things. So he went in (knocking was for other people), and... there was a disassembled suit. Really disassembled, actually. Like, it took Topher a minute to even figure out that it was a suit.

What the hell?

"Dude, what happened?"

[[for him whose lab it is, yo, and NFB]]

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.]]

On his way back from that stupid tent yesterday, Topher had stolen cushions from various couches in the dorm building, which meant that there were now several dozen pillows piled up in his bed. (Some were always there. Most of them, not so much.) You could barely even see the Space Battles sheets underneath all of them!

However, he was no longer eating ice cream. That was because ice cream tended to melt if he sat and ate a whole tub all in one go, which was really the only way he wanted to do it. So instead, he had moved on to cake. A cake that had come pre-frosted from the grocery store, sure, but now it had Funfetti on it too.

SHUT UP. HE WAS HUNGRY.

[[Closed door, open post! Was supposed to be up early enough to beat timezone suck, BUT SOMEONE BEAT ME. Whatevs.]]

Okay, so no, Topher had no interest in doing any community service work at any time when it involved hard work. If it was a matter of sending an email or some money, you could probably nag him enough to do it, but when it was building houses? Not so much.

However, in an attempt to prove he wasn't a total dick keep the friends he already had show his good side once in a while, he did make a conscious effort to do one nice thing today: He had just purchased Kenzi a shirt to replace the one he'd destroyed. He had absolutely no idea if it would fit her, but it was red and looked like it was made from some quality fabric (it was polyester), so he was pretty pleased with himself today.

Obviously this break would be easy and painless. Hey, maybe later he could convince Peter to stop by his room to play video games or something!

[[For she who knows who she is! And then the other she, who also knows. And then I guess open.]]

For the first time since that time last week in Tony's room, Topher woke up naked.

Which... was the least of his problems once his memories flooded back. Tony. Ben. Nate. All of the anonymous "clients" from his past. It was completely horrifying, and the memory alone gave him what appeared to be a nervous tic of the neck spasm variety.

He didn't think he'd actually... followed through. He remembered flirting and -- oh god, KISSING, but then it got fuzzy and he remembered things like Kotex and Bounty. Did that mean he had... used those things? That didn't seem to make sense. But that hardly mattered, did it, when he had DONE THINGS! Things with -- guys!

"Oh, god," he muttered. "I was in love with Tony!"

Yeah, he was going to hide in bed today. ALONE.

[[OOC: Door is closed, post is open. I'm actually moving today, holycrapwtf, so expect extreeeeme SP.]]