Durden's Office, Monday afternoon

[tyler_gone]

Tyler had never been sure exactly what teachers were supposed to do during office hours, but he supposed he owed it to his students to hold them.

After an email check and some time spent perfecting his instructions for Thursday's class, he leaned back in his desk chair and started tossing pencils at the ceiling.

The door was open.

Comments

[tyler_gone]

There was a long pause as Tyler connected the name with the person.

A friend. A friend, who had appointed himself a guardian, and then ...

And then.

There was the slight taste of bile in Tyler's throat as he spoke again. "I remember you, Stickbug Cam," he answered.

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"You never know. Your mail said it's been eleven years," Cameron pointed out. "You can forget a lot in that time." The words were friendly enough, but his tone wasn't quite right.

[tyler_gone]

"You can," Tyler agreed. "I did."

Which was true. Not what he had done to Cam -- though he'd blocked it out until Cam's voice made him remember -- but other things.

"How have you been?"

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"I've been gone for about three years," Cameron replied because it was the shorter version. "I only got back a few months ago. I can't say I expected you to turn up at Fandom again."

[tyler_gone]

"Can't say I did either," Tyler admitted. "There was just nothing when I looked for you guys for a long time."

"Then one day I started getting job ads for the place, and I figured if they wanted me, it was time to come back." Which was also the short version, yes. "They're even trusting me as a teacher."

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

Cameron could at least sympathise with the whole island not being there part, the rest... He wasn't sure what to make of it. "Did they make you swear not to blow the school up?"

[tyler_gone]

Tyler snorted back a laugh. Not that it was funny, exactly, just ... he really was back in Fandom.

He quickly sobered. Cam deserved a straight answer, if anyone did.

"Principal Washburn was rather strong on that point, yes," he confirmed.

Then, because apparently it needed to be said: "Cam, I was sick when I left. There are thing I did that weren't entirely clear to me. I'm better now."

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"I know," because somewhere he had tried to remember that, but it hadn't changed the bruises he'd carried days after.

"It doesn't change that I'll come after you if you pull anything like that again." He'd lost too much already to have Fandom get hurt too.

[tyler_gone]

Cam couldn't see this over the phone, but Tyler was rubbing the back of his neck as he spoke.

"Wouldn't expect that to change," he said, but sulkily. "If he -- if I wanted to try anything like that again? We'd plan it as a suicide mission. There probably wouldn't be a me to come after."

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

Cameron frowned and that did make him pause. "You sound so sure about that."

[tyler_gone]

"He's been around since I was 14," Tyler said flatly. "Lot of time to get to know each other real well."

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"But you said you're better now," Cameron pointed out, not sure what he should understand under that.

[tyler_gone]

"I did," Tyler acknowledged, not sure how much Cam had ever understood about his condition. "I am. No losing time, I'm sleeping almost like a normal person, all of that."

"But. I've been better before and gotten worse." He knew he wasn't exactly being reassuring, but he wasn't going to lie.

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I've noticed that," he didn't quite know what else he could possibly say about any of that.

[tyler_gone]

"I thought you might have picked up on it," Tyler answered, voice steady, then rubbed the bridge of his nose before going on. "Look, my wife left just before I came here. If I'm still okay after that, I'm probably going to stay okay. But I know I'd have half the island after me if I didn't."

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"You bet your ass you will," Cameron said and after a slight hesitation. "I'm sorry. About your wife, that is."

[tyler_gone]

Tyler made an exasperated noise into the phone, one directed at the whole situation of his marriage, not at Cam. "Thanks. It wasn't going to last anyhow." The fact it usually did had never made sense to either Tyler or Marla; they just both kept sticking around.

"Did I ever mention her to you? Marla?"

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

He had to think for a moment. "I think you did. Didn't you used to live with her or something?"

[tyler_gone]

"Something like that, yeah," Tyler agreed, and, looking back, he had no idea how the hell he'd gotten away with 90 percent of what he'd gotten away with at that age.

"Anyhow. It's been on and off since then. Now it's off. What about you, is there a Mrs. Mitchell I need to send a toaster to?"

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"No," he replied, and clearly the question wasn't as easy as it should have been. "There's no one. I'm staying with Sam right now."

[tyler_gone]

Tyler could tell that there was something behind Cam's answer, but he wasn't going to pry. It seemed like it had the potential to make a messy conversation even messier.

"Sam Carter?" he asked instead, sounding pleased. "I remember she was awesome. Is she blowing up anything cool these days?"

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"She's still awesome." His tone was lighter now that they were away from the dangerous topics. "She's always working on something, but the building is still standing so far."

[tyler_gone]

"Of course it is," Tyler said easily. "I'm glad to hear she hasn't changed that much."

He tried to think of other news he could give Cam. "Oh, I talked to English a couple days back. He was gonna ask Willow to marry him, and from radio it sounds like she said yes."

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"I know that at a certain age, the people you went to high school with will start getting families and all, but I think they're trying a bit too hard to give a guy a complex here," Cameron joked and he'd have to congratulate Peter then.

[tyler_gone]

"I didn't get married until I was..." Tyler had to think about it for a second. "Twenty-three. And she dared me into it. I can't help it if you guys are all younger than me all of a sudden."

He added, "Madrox is still pretty much the same, except he got an ugly tattoo."

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

That still gave him a little over two years.

"He did? I don't think he had one two months ago, or he didn't show me," Cameron remarked. "And you're just old now."

[tyler_gone]

"It's on his face. You wouldn't have missed it," Tyler answered. "And people keep telling me that. One of the drawbacks of time travel."

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"It's weird," Cameron agreed. "I almost started thinking that maybe I'd made the island up when I couldn't find it again."

[tyler_gone]

"You too?" Tyler asked, surprised. "I was about 80 percent sure it was all a very detailed hallucination. There are some things, like the mummies, that I'm still not sure I'm remembering right."

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"Ferguson kept insisting the jello dragons were too good to be true," Cameron remarked, slightly wistful.

[tyler_gone]

Tyler took a moment, picturing the dragons, and then laughed. "I'd forgotten those until just now," he said. "Somehow."

"Who's Ferguson?"

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"I'll never forget the jello dragons," Cameron insisted. "He's a friend I knew before I went to Fandom. We went to the academy together." Then fought a guerrilla war against aliens, but he left that part out.

[tyler_gone]

"I wouldn't think I would, and yet I did," Tyler returned. "I think they were just too weird for me."

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"I thought the tiny animals were weirder," Cameron remarked.

[tyler_gone]

"Am I making up gnomes?" Tyler wondered. "I'm remembering something with gnomes and pie. That might be weirdest."

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"Mine got drunk," Cameron remembered, sounding like he just managed to dredge up the fleeting memories of a dream. "Are you sure you wanna subject yourself to that kind of insanity again?"

[tyler_gone]

Not really.

"At least this time I know what I'm getting into," Tyler said with a kind of verbal shrug.

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"If you think that will change anything," he replied, not bothering to be reassuring.

[tyler_gone]

"Nah. I'll waste a little less time being surprised, but I never so much bothered with that last tim," he said, remembering.

"Maybe I just like Fandom crazy." It went well with his own, somehow.

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"It's never boring," Cameron agreed and he rubbed a hand through his hair. "I should probably get going."

[tyler_gone]

"Yeah, me too," Tyler answered. He had important pretending to look like he knew what the hell he was doing to do. "Good catching up, Mitchell."

He even meant it.

[cameronmitchell.livejournal.com]

"Yeah," Cameron wasn't sure what he made of it, luckily he was getting used to that feeling. "Try not to blow anything up." It was a joke. Sort of.

[tyler_gone]

Tyler made a slight throat-clearing noise, then seemingly decided not to say what he was going to say.

"Bye."

He hung up.