05: IS ROXIE, LIKE, GAY FOR VELMA OR SOMETHING?
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PREDICTABLY, TOBY doesn't come into school the next day. When Allison offhandedly mentions that she might stop by his house after school to check up on him, Lydia smirks wryly.
"What?" Allison frowns at her best friend as they walk to their next class.
"Nothing," Lydia sings. "Just, Toby's seventeen, sweetheart. And he has parents."
"And?"
"That probably equates to you not needing to go over. Checking up on sick boys is usually a job reserved for girlfriends, you know."
Despite herself, Allison flushes. "Lydia, Toby has the mental age of a five year-old. He is not capable of taking care of himself."
"But his parents are capable of taking care of him," Lydia points out smugly. "You seem very worried about him."
"He's my friend!"
"Honey, we're friends. Do you check up on me when I'm ill?"
"You're never ill."
"If I was, would you check up on me?"
Lydia smiles at Allison's silence. "I thought so."
"Well, I think you're seeing things where you shouldn't be. As in, where they don't exist. And that you need to stop. Or..." Allison trails off, grinning. "You could start seeing things where they do exist."
Lydia scoffs. "And where is that?"
"Oh, I think you know," she replies lightly.
Her best friend's eyes narrow. "I don't think I do," she says, a dangerous tone seeping into her voice. "Mind telling me?"
"I'll give you some hints."
"Please do."
"Hint one - he's heading towards us right now."
Only someone very trained in Lydia Huntington 101 would catch the way her eyes widen a fraction of an inch when she notices something and then revert to normal, all in the space of about half a millisecond.
Allison could practically teach Lydia Huntington 101. She catches it - and she also catches that Lydia's playing dumb when she says: "You mean Jake Roberts?"
At first glance, Jake does look like he's heading towards them - but then he gets sidetracked by his boyfriend. And Lydia's busted, because a) Allison wouldn't be suggesting romance between her and a boy who is openly gay and b) Jake moving out of the way leaves the boy who she is talking about in plain view.
"Hey, Emmett!" Allison chirps as he comes up to them. Lydia stays silent, the effect of her glare completely ruined by the faint blush on her cheeks. Allison bites the inside of her cheek to stop herself from smiling - because Lydia never blushes in front of boys.
"Hey, Allison," he gives her a smile before turning to Lydia, who is still glaring extremely hard at the linoleum beneath her high heels.
"Okay, you win," he tells her, ignoring the fact that she is staring at the floor. "We can do your idea."
Lydia's head snaps up so quickly some strands of her meticulous hairstyle fall out of place. "What?"
"I was thinking about it, and your idea sounds pretty good, anyway," Emmett shrugs. "So let's do it."
For a moment - half a moment, even - Lydia hesitates, eyes searching Emmett's face as though he's a puzzle she can't quite work out. But then she blinks, and her facade is perfectly placed once more. Allison is sure that only she caught the split second during which she was thrown off-guard.
"Well," Lydia sniffs. "At least you saw sense. Though I don't know quite why it took you so long to get round to it."
"Yeah, yeah," Emmett rolls his eyes. "I still think my idea has more idealistic merit - "
"Idealism," Lydia snorts. "Because men and their idealism have got us so far, looking at today's society."
Emmett frowns. "I think maybe you're generalising a little too much - "
"Trust me, sweetheart," she cuts him off. "I'm not."
He opens his mouth as if to speak again, but closes it at the sight of Allison's frantic abort mission gestures over Lydia's shoulder. She's seen her best friend debate before, and to put it lightly, she likes Emmett, so she doesn't want to see him ripped brutally apart at the hands of her best friend.
"Whatever," he manages weakly, despite his knowledge that Lydia was fully expecting a strong and well thought out counter-argument.
"Hm, so you listen to Allison," Lydia observes lightly. "And you can even understand those spasmic hand gestures of hers," she muses, her tone almost thoughtful, and she doesn't even bother to glance backwards at Allison, who is half embarrassed and half wryly amused, as though she expected it from Lydia to work out that she was silently helping Emmett out anyway. "I'd say you two make a good couple, but she seems quite enamoured with - "
"Lydia, don't you have a class to get to?" Allison raises her eyebrows, a clear warning in her expression: quit while you're ahead. Before I end you.
"Oh, you're right," Lydia smirks, but has clearly decided to cut her losses. "I'll see you at lunch. Oh, and Emmett? The rules of interaction in public still apply, so I don't expect these casual hallway greetings to become a regular thing. Also, I'd recommend changing your shirt. I've seen dog turd more aesthetically pleasing."
And with that, she walks off to her AP Physics class.
"I didn't know there could be so much hatred in one soul," Emmett mutters as she walks away.
"Oh, I don't think there's much hate at all where you're concerned," Allison retorts wryly as they both walk to their next class.
"And what's that supposed to mean?" Emmett arches an eyebrow at her.
"Whatever you want it to."
✦
"Toby!"
She knocks another time on the door. "Toby..."
"I'm - " his speech is cut off by a sneeze. "Coming!" Another sneeze. He looks surprised to see her when he opens the door.
"Allison," he says, voice nasally from a blocked nose. "What are you doing here?" He pauses, then frowns, as though unhappy with the phrasing of the question. "I mean, not that I mind you being here, I just don't wanna get you sick or..." Sneeze Number Three interrupts his monologue, which Allison suspects wasn't really going anywhere anyway. "Hey," he finishes tepidly.
She rolls her eyes, but can still feel a smile slipping onto her face. "Hey yourself," she replies. "Gonna let me in?"
"This cold is pretty contagious," he warns.
"I think I'll be fine," she shoves past him and kicks off her shoes, heading inside.
"So, why are you here?" he joins her on the couch, making sure to sit further away from her than usual. The distance somehow feels strange, and she doesn't know why.
"Just checking up on you," Allison shrugs. "And to keep you up to date on schoolwork, obviously," she adds, although it's the first time that Toby's school work has even crossed her mind.
"Right," she can't tell if there's a sceptical tone to Toby's voice or if it's just a side-effect of the cold. "Well, you've checked up on me," he points out.
"Oh, yeah," Allison nods. "Right. I'll just...I'll show myself out."
She feels almost disappointed as she heads out into the hallway - as though she were expecting something and didn't get what she wanted.
"Hey, wait, Allison!"
She turns to face Toby, who's caught up with her, and opens his mouth, clearly to say something. There's a pause as she waits expectantly for him to speak, then he lapses into a coughing fit. She rolls her eyes and moves over to clap him on the back.
"Stay," he wheezes. "We can... we can watch Chicago."
She frowns, still patting his back. "Is that the one with the two murderesses?"
Toby heaves a breath and manages to nod.
"It's one of the musicals on the list, isn't it?" she asks, almost rhetorically. Toby nods again.
"Alright, might as well," she sighs, but there's a small part of her that feels a little more full - almost as if...well, as if that was she had been expecting when she knocked on Toby's door.
"I'm okay now," he tells her. She blinks, and realises that her hand is still rubbing circles on Toby's back. She withdraws it quickly.
"Okay!" Allison says, almost too brightly. "Chicago!"
Toby narrows his eyes. "You're excited. Why are you excited?"
Allison fumbles. "I mean...anything's better than Sweet Charity," she says quickly.
"Oh, come on, you totally loved it," Toby says. She feels some relief at his neglect of the previous line of questioning. "Like, Oscar ending up ditching her just as they're about to get married? Classic. And him pushing her into the lake? Comedy gold!"
"Toby, only you found it funny," she tells him, remembering Toby falling off the couch in fits of laughter as she sat, unimpressed, alternating her attention between him and the television.
"Only because you don't have a sense of humour," he replies, pouting childishly.
"Okay," she says, desperately resisting the urge not to roll her eyes. "So, wanna go watch that musical or what?"
"Yeah," he nods. There's a pause. Toby blinks, then - it's weird, actually, but most things with Toby are - he blinks in surprise.
"What?" she raises her eyebrows.
"Nothing," he shakes his head. "It's just...you look really nice today," he says the last part in a mumble, casting his eyes to the floor.
Allison hesitates, momentarily taken aback, but manages to recover with good speed. "Thanks, Toby. I really appreciate the tone of surprise," she says dryly.
In fact, she muses, she's not even wearing something that nice - rather, she's taking advantage of few final warm days that come at the beginning of the fall to wear one of her dresses, a brown thing that ends a little way above her knees, and has thrown a faded jeans jacket over the top - one which almost covers the entire dress in length, and she suspects actually belongs (or belonged) to Daniel.
"You know I didn't mean it that way," Toby protests, jogging her out of her thoughts. "I mean, you always look nice, it's just..." he trails off, managing to confuse himself. She suppresses a snigger.
"And I repeat," she says. "Wanna go watch that musical?"
✦
"Is Roxie, like, gay for Velma or something? Because it's seriously starting to feel this way." Allison declares some way into the screening.
"No, she just really wants to be like her," Toby says, sounding annoyed as he snatches another tissue from the coffee table and blows into it. "Did you not get that?"
"Oh, I did," she assures him. "I just thought now would be a good time to point out her slightly ambiguous sexuality. With them talking about underwear and all."
"Geez, since when are you the chatty one," he groans.
"I'm taking advantage of you not being able to sing along, since you have your cold," she informs him with a grin.
"Should've taken you to see it on Broadway," he mumbles. "Then both of us would shut the fuck up and everything would be better."
It occurs to Allison that this role reversal is strange and almost awkward in nature, but part of her kind of...likes it. The problem is that the rest of her doesn't like that part of her likes it.
"Well, it's still stupid," she says even though she isn't sure she actually means it. "I mean, it's a musical. Plus they're singing about prisons and shit, like what's up with that?"
Part of her wants to take it back at what she knows is Toby's injured silence. Because she knows that even five musicals in, he still thinks he can get her to fall in love with theatre - and he doesn't like the proof that he's failing.
✦
"So!" Toby has gained some energy during the film, it seems, because he manages to slip on the biggest smile she's seen on him the whole afternoon. "Whaddaya think?"
"Better than The Wizard of Oz," she offers.
"It's a start," he concedes.
And it is. It's a start. But as she announces to the video camera that she's doing the log alone this time because Toby's ill and being a drama queen pun semi-intended and doesn't want to film it while he 'looks sick', she wonders - what's it a start of?
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a/n: i feel like this got a lot more feelsy than i originally planned and is also a bit shorter but hey ho
dedicated to findingwords because she likes toby and so do i (✿◠‿◠)
idk if i'm allowed to like my own character but yolo
also ill!toby is literally my favourite thing in the world to write because i can imagine his voice being really cute, especially if he like loses it??? like i'm sorry but when people lose their voices and they speak with that husky much deeper voice than usual it's either really fucking hot or really fucking cute and i think our toby would toe the line between the two dont u
anyway sorry about that lil rant
vote and comment!!!! especially comment!!!! you have a high chance of getting a dedication!!!!! i'm using lots of exclamation marks to emphasise my point!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
and yeah ilu all xoxo
- mariam
ps: if you find you are in a position to do so gO SEE CHICAGO LIVE IT'S STILL RUNNING ON BROADWAY AND IT'S FUCKING BRILLIANT
if you are not in a position to do so waTCH THE FUCKING FILM VERSION IT'S WON BLOODY OSCARS AND YES IT DOES HAVE QUEEN LATIFAH IN IT THESE ARE ALL REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH IT SO GO