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He could still remember the first time she messaged him - it had solidified itself in his head as some kind of turning point, the beginning of a tumultuous relationship that mostly consisted of him biting his tongue whenever she said something annoying (which was fucking constantly.)
It was early on a Monday - he’d been in college for a whole entire three weeks, trying his best to put everything about Chris McLean out of his head. He had shit to focus on, after all. His end goal may still be the same as it had ever been (Nowhere to go but up, Topher! Always reach for the stars! And, well, if you can’t quite get it the first time, sit back, rethink, and aim a little higher on the next one.) but. Well, maybe college would be good for him. He’d get some real, important human experiences, some good stories to tell in interviews later.
Also, his parents refused to pay for his apartment if he didn’t get a degree. But whatever. That was irrelevant.
What was important was that Topher would be able to talk about how he’d attended a reasonable amount of frat parties in his college years and still graduated summa cum laude. He would be perfect - the same golden boy he’d always been - this time with a shiny little degree under his belt. Easy peasy.
He was sitting outside the on-campus Starbucks, phone in one hand, drink in the other, his feet resting on the only other empty seat outside the busy coffee shop, ankles crossed. He was fitting in perfectly. Everyone already loved him, of course. Loved him or loathed him for being better than them, but really, it was all the same. Any publicity was good publicity, after all.
The notifications came all at once - beep beep beep beep - four messages in a row, someone rapidfire DMing him on Twitter. Weird, but not like, that weird. He was a popular dude after all.
He flicked through the app as aloofly as he could possibly muster, needing to maintain his status as a guy who didn’t try too hard.
That said, the moment he saw the other person’s twitter handle he felt something warm and strange and familiar (dangerous) well up in the pit of his stomach.
SIERRA!!! <3 : HEY SO
SIERRA!!! <3 : uhh i realize this might b suuuuper weird and outta the blue but w/e i guess weird and outta the blue is kinda the way i work anyways!!! Lol
SIERRA!!! <3 : ANYWAYS!!! Sorry! But like hey whats up im Sierra (obvs) and you’re Topher! THE Topher, Topher of Pahtikew Island fame and like i realize im kinda late 2 the party but W/E I wanted 2 catch up with you if ur not too busy
SIERRA!!! <3 : OBVS Don’t feel obligated to respond altho if u do it’ll totally make my day B) I’ve been trying 2 talk to every past contestant I can get ahold of and u were one of my faves lol
He wasn’t sure what he should say. His fingers had tightened around his drink, compressing the cold plastic - maybe he needed to chill out a little.
Relax.
His jaw was locked tight, mind racing, although none of his thoughts were even close to coherent.
How had she found him, was his most prevalent concern, even though he figured it must’ve been easy. He wasn’t even set to private, and his username was just… Well. His own name.
And he knew Sierra - of course he did. She was a fixture of a lot of things he had considered important before his time on the show, even if she had maybe done a better job of… knowing things than he did. Before she got all stupid and lovesick for Cody (of all people), anyway. What a dumb angle to play. He still figured the producers had put her up to it, but, well. Whatever. This wasn’t about her.
So, sure. He knew her. He also knew she was probably digging for dirt to add to her profile on him, assuming she was still obsessively chronicling everything about Total Drama. A quick glance through her profile made it clear that she was - from the fact that her header was still the original promo image of the first season down to all of her recent posts pertaining mostly to @ing other past contestants - it was obvious she’d continued to stick to her hobbies.
He could admire that in a person. Commitment, yanno?
But how to reply? Should he maintain a cool, aloof attitude? Distance himself? She was essentially press at this point - would potentially repost their entire conversation to her blog - and well… What if something unsavory resurfaced in three years, when he was famous? Hm.
Then again… he didn’t want to be rude. Sierra had always come across as kind of annoying, but he’d be making a mistake by not realizing the value she might have. After all, what if she could get him info on Chris? What if (what if!!!!) she could get him something of Chris’s? Maybe some old photographs, or some of his old shirts, or --
His hand clenched down hard around the thin, condensation-freckled plastic cup suddenly, sending half-melted frappuccino exploding all over his hand and the metal table beneath, splattering all over his (new!!!) shorts and down his upper thigh, leaving a messy puddle underneath him and continuing to spill heavily onto the ground. “Ohmygod. Oh my god! Shit!”
He let out an indignant little shout, standing up so fast that he nearly toppled over, the ankle of his boat shoes getting caught on the seat he’d been resting his feet on, sending him careening sideway, dropping his iPhone face-down onto the concrete below him, one palm slapping clumsily at the table to catch himself. He was causing an absolute fucking scene, face red, hair ruffled, the left side of his body apparently just fucking soaked in awful, stupid, sticky coffee.
The moment he regained his footing, he left the crumpled cup where it lay on the ground, hemorrhaging half-fat mocha and whipped creme, scooped up his phone, and stumbled off away from the coffee shop’s porch like he’d just been assaulted, cursing and flushed.
Maybe it was time to get back to his apartment anyway.
-----
He wound up texting her back around one o’clock in the morning, legs tucked up under himself in bed, illuminated by the blue light of his phone screen. He spent a lot of time like that - sitting in the dark surfing the internet - making active choices to not do things that made him feel weird and jittery (like rewatching his last episode or looking through the weird parts of celebrity artifact auction sites looking for the odd one-off chance at some shitty old cat movie memorabilia that he could add to his small collection.)
Tonight, though, he’d mostly just been sitting there zoning out into his instagram feed, occasionally taking a break so he could eat a few veggie straws. He’d been there since he’d gotten home, the light from the window slowly fading until he was drenched in darkness as he moved, mindlessly scrolling, brain feeling weird and hazy.
What did this whole thing mean? What did she want from him?
More importantly, what did she have to offer?
By the time he’d opened up the chat box for the hundredth time that night, he found himself finally typing out a reply. This one, he decided, he would actually send.
His hands felt sweaty as his thumbs moved, rapidfire clicking the keys, mind far, far away. Autopilot might be the best route anyway. Don’t overthink it, buddy.
TD Topher : Oh! Hey! Haha I didn’t even see this until rn omg! Sorry! But yeah hey how are you doing??? I can NOT believe we haven’t talked before this tbh. We have a lot in common, I think! Haha.
TD Topher : Lol. So what’s up, Sierra? How are u doing??? Lol!
He had to physically fight the urge to delete the messages as soon as he’d typed them out, and pressing “send” made literal bile well up in his throat. Then, of course, the next few minutes (hours, maybe, whatever) were spent staring at his own words, rereading and overanalyzing every piece of punctuation, the fact that he’d added too many fucking exclamation points, said lol or haha every five fucking words, what a mess.
God.
She was probably laughing at him right now, probably blogging about how he was a bumbling idiot whose life was collapsing, sitting around texting people back in the middle of the night. Maybe she’d seen his stupid coffee disaster. Someone had probably filmed it, anyway.
God.
He was ruined. He was a complete and utter trainwreck burnout and he was never going to get anywhere in life because he’d poured coffee down his own pants and said lol too many times in a DM.
By the time he finally put the phone down on his bedside table, his bedroom had started to lighten once more, casting everything in eerie blue light. His eyes burnt and he hated himself for not sleeping sooner, knew for a fact that he was going to have dark circles. Might need to skip class. Just the first one. No big deal. Whatever.
It’d be fine. Everything would work out in the end. It always did.