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dying is easy, young man, living is harder
tommy and toby reunite
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The thing with hiding in the library is that it's really fucking boring.

There's nothing to do, no one to talk to. Shroud and Henry are gone. Clay's--Clay. He  There is so much nothing to do that he tried doing his homework. For fun, because he's not actually going to class until Clay graduates. Twice.

The books are okay, sometimes, but they're mostly also boring. He tears out pages from a particularly boring textbook and uses them to make paper airplanes, which is fun for a bit but also gets boring fast. He's listened to Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Over the Rainbow a lot. For the first two days, he keeps having to pick up and move whenever a mal looks like it might be even a little bit close, but after two days of boredom he's got enough mana that he can fight the smaller mals, which is fun.

He runs to his dorm every night, just before curfew; he doesn't sleep very well, partly because of nightmares, partly because he's hungry, but mostly because some asshole stripped his bed and took his fucking baby blanket. You'd think that if everyone thought he was dead they would have some respect, let a dead man have his baby blanket, but apparently not. 

Speaking of food, he's run out. He could tough it out, graduation's tomorrow and once Clay's gone he can start going to the cafeteria again, but he happens to know that Clay already used up all his snack bar tokens, so he probably won't be there. And other people will be there, which means it's safer, and maybe he can convince some of them to go to the bathroom or water fountain with him, and if nothing else he can try to sneak through their bags and steal shit. Which he hates to admit, but he kind of needs, because he has basically fucking nothing.

This goes approximately perfectly, because Tommy is basically the coolest man alive. He relocates two snack bar tokens from people who aren't appreciating them enough and exchanges them for a bag of Doritos and a can of extremely-old-looking stew. Things are looking up for Big T. He gets to have a long poo! Without being fucking terrified! Back at the snack bar, there are a few new people there, which is awesome, because they're facing away from him. Surely they won't notice if he just checks their bags a little. Oh, hey, this one's got a knife, pog--

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Yeah, no, Toby was friends with Tommy long enough to know when he's being stolen from. He whips around--

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--and freezes.

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"TAKE A PICTURE, IT'LL LAST LONGER, AY!"

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"Wh...?"

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"CLOSE YOUR MOUTH, YOU LOOK UGLY. YOU ARE GOING TO CATCH SO MANY INSECTS."

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"I'm so confused. You're alive?"

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"CAN I HAVE YOUR KNIFE. TOO LATE I AM TAKING IT. GET BETTER REFLEXES, BITCH."

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"And you--and you're--"

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"...Hello Toby."

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"H--Hello????????"

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"You, you are a bitch!!!! You are a bitch! You can't hurt me, bitch! Remember when you told me not to talk to you anymore?"

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"Yeah, I--I also remember, you died--"

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"I didn't fucking die, bitch, I'm alive! I'm fucking, I'm alive and I'm feeling fucking jolly!"

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"What--what happened?"

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"You said I couldn't talk to you anymore and then my friend Clay--was he my friend? this guy Clay, he was, you know, he was something to me, he... I think he helped me at the time, and then I realized he wasn't right for me, or-- it was sort of a love-hate relationship, you know, like, like, Sam and Juliet from the hit show Friends, and basically, what ended up happening was, uh, I am hungry so I am taking your things."

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...Sigh. "Please don't take all my things, I need my things."

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"Do you? Do you really? I think need your things. --Wait, this is my baby blanket! You took my baby blanket?"

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"I thought you died!"

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"Yeah, I didn't, though."

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"Clearly not! Can I--can I have my things back, please."

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"NO." Tommy is going to open his Doritos and eat them as loudly as he can.

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It's... probably fine if Tommy has their knife, he's a bit better than Toby with it anyway. "Can you--please tell me what happened, at least."

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"You told me to--you told me to leave, and go with my friend Clay. I think he was my friend. And I was kind of sad, because you were a huge dickhead, and--it's been a really confusing week. Because he was my friend? And then-- and then I was in the library, and now I'm here, and I don't-- I remember it, but, it was the emotional... emotion-wise it was like, uh, have you ever seen a zig-zag, it was like a big zig-zag that was full of rainbows and also dogshit, like, it was so confusing, and then... I ended up, I realized Clay, though a good friend for a long time, is a wrongun, and I hate him, and I don't like thinking about him because my brain goes all flippy floppy. But! I have two of my cylinders, and you have the third one, it's not in your bag, I want it back please."

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"Yeah, it's--it's in the front side pocket. You'll find it eventually, just keep going through the bag."

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"....Okay."

That was way easier than he was expecting.

"Listen, I don't--don't try and guilt me, I still don't know how I feel about you. Because, you know, you gave me to him, and you haven't talked to me once, and I invited you to my party, alright, I don't want to hear shit!"

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"Your--Clay said it was a prank!"

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"I don't want to hear any of this! Everyone's just fucking--lying to me! You said-- you said I was a bad friend, that I was reckless, and going out and doing things, and-- and being bad, but-- you didn't even stick up for me, you betrayed me, do you know-- do you know what he did to me?"

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"...No."

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"Exactly. Maybe you're the bad friend."

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"I did what was right for--for everyone, not just for you, Tommy!"

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"You gave me to him to die!" He finds the cylinder, grabs it, holds it close to his chest. "This is worth more than you ever were."

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...Tommy crumples to the floor, hugs his knees to his chest, shoves the bag in Toby's general direction. "I-- I'm sorry, Toby. You can have your stuff back."

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"...I'm sorry, too.

 

I'm glad you're alive."

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"...Yeah. Yeah, me too."

Hug?

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...Yeah, okay. Hug.