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

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.]]

Topher had a brand-new video game and absolutely no further patience for outdoor shenanigans, so as soon as he'd talked to the people who bore talking to (and Kenzi), he made his way to his room to set it up.

It was probably best not to ask where he'd gotten the giant screen or the makeshift console that didn't seem to have a brand name on it. The answer to that came from the enormous mountain of wires and various other pieces of orphaned tech equipment on the floor.

After hooking up two controllers and setting up a giant bowl of food that he'd unceremoniously stolen from the picnic, he flopped down on his bed and started booting up the game. This was way better than meeting newbies, he decided. Unless the newbies were zombies, but he doubted that.

[[Door is cracked, post is open, thread with Tony is chronologically last!]]