November 1st, 1999
"Hey Tom? Wake up, we're back."
Tom slowly comes out of his half-asleep state to the sound of Mark's gentle voice, dropping his hand down to find the button to turn the seat heater off and to unbuckle his seatbelt before prying Mark's hands off of his forearm and shoulder. He grabs his alien plushy by its head with one hand and grabs onto Mark's forearm with the other, pulling himself out of the car and stumbling into Mark.
Startled, Mark finds himself unable to support Tom's tired weight as his ankles give out and they collapse to the concrete sidewalk together. They hit the ground pretty hard, and the force seems to wake Tom noticeably.
Mark exclaims "Dude, ow!" and laughs as Tom quickly props himself up over Mark, pressing his stuffed toy against the sidewalk and keeping himself up with the arm holding it, rubbing his face with his other hand as his eyes widen. Mark leans up and closer to Tom as he rubs his head and grins with furrowed eyebrows. "You really gotta get to bed. Are you gonna be able to sleep after this?" Mark asks as he snaps his fingers in front of Tom's face as Tom deliberately keeps his eyes off Mark and on the worn sidewalk, until Mark grabs his forearm and shakes it a little, firmly and quietly telling him "You gotta look at me when I'm talkin' to you." sort of playing into the awkward position they were in.
Mark leaned over a little to try and get Tom to look at him, staring at him with an amused grin on his face as he did. Tom hardly budged, only glancing at Mark for just a moment before averting his eyes back to the sidewalk and the toy in his hand, furrowing his eyebrows and playing with his lip ring. He was frustrated with himself, finding his frustration quickly diffused into upset as ideas he thought had been long destroyed and forgotten were seeming to make an attempt to come back to him.
He wanted to play falling on top of Mark off as some funny accident, but he was so preoccupied with all his worries about his girlfriend, tour, newfound fame, and now this, that he just couldn't bring himself to. He felt too fuzzy and disoriented from having been worked up practically all week that he could hardly even move to get himself off of Mark.
Tom glanced at Mark one more time, the blue moonlight and yellow streetlamp light wrapping either side of his sharp features as he stared at Tom with curious blue eyes, his expression still one of amusement. He then found himself in an unbearable panic out of nowhere and scrambled to get off of Mark, immediately breaking into a sprint toward the bus and clambering his way inside before slamming the door shut.
Mark propped himself up against the cold concrete on his elbows and stared at the bus with parted lips and a raised eyebrow, and though he was amused at first he now found himself not confused but a little worried. He stood up and called out to Tom, trying to keep things light hearted and continued teasing him on his way into the bus.
Mark swung the door open to find Tom was nowhere to be seen at this point, figuring it'd be better to just leave him be for now and that he'd be fine in the morning. So, he proceeded to get undressed and ready for bed, continually amazed by the tourbus as he did. Taking in every little thing, like the design on the tile in the bathroom, how well things worked, generally grateful to just be in there at all. It was a pretty new bus after all, it was nice, even with no comparison of what a nice tourbus looks like.
Eventually, he found his way to his bunk on the bottom across from Tom's- labeled "Fish Guts" -and kneeled down to get inside, pulling the curtain open carefully to find Tom lying in there curled in on himself. Tom flinched when Mark said his name and picked his head up, staring blankly at the wall of the bunk.
"Tom? This is my bunk, buddy." Mark reminded Tom and nudged his shoulder gently, tugging on him a bit as he brought his hand down to try and coax him out.
