The next two days went way too fast for Tommy's liking. Before he knew it, it was Friday afternoon, and he was waiting for Phil to pick him up from school.

Tubbo was with him, wanting to spend every moment he could with his best friend before they were parted. Tubbo played it up to be much more dramatic than it had to be, making Tommy laugh. "We'll see each other on Monday. It's not like I'm going away forever, big man."

"Yeah," Tubbo whined, "but it feeeeels like it's going to be forever." He flung his arms around Tommy, who pretended to be annoyed and tried to shove him off.

"You're being clingy again," Tommy huffed, even though he rather enjoyed the hug.

"I don't care," Tubbo said still clinging to him. Tommy huffed again but returned the hug. He was going to miss Tubbo too.

They released each other and continued to mess around until Dream came to pick Tubbo up. Tubbo, however, didn't want to leave Tommy until he was also picked up.

"Pleeeease Dream. Can't we just wait until Tommy's picked up?" Dream really wanted to get home, but he also didn't want to leave Tommy by himself, so he agreed, parking his car in the lot and then coming to stand near the two boys, not close enough to be a bother to them, but close enough to keep his eye on them.

It was another ten minutes until Tommy's ride showed up, but it was definitely not Phil. Tommy recognized the car as Techno's and his demeanor immediately changed. "Phil said he was going to pick me up," he mumbled to Tubbo.

Dream picked up on Tommy's sudden change in behavior and walked over. "Hey Tommy, what's wrong?"

"Phil was supposed to pick Tommy up," Tubbo answered for him, "but it looks like one of his brothers is instead." Tommy's expression had darkened, not into like an angry expression, but one that wasn't happy all the same.

"Ah, I see." Dream looked over and saw that it was Techno's car that had made its way to the parking lot where students were normally picked up. "If you want, Tommy, I can bring you home if you're uncomfortable." He was sad at the thought that his friends' brother would be uncomfortable with his family, but at the same time his mind wanted Tommy to be as comfortable as possible, meaning his feelings came before Techno's.

Tommy was quiet for a second before standing up and shouldering his backpack. "No, I'll be fine. I'm a big man after all." He threw them his signature cocky smile, which was just a bit weaker than normal, before turning back to his ride and letting out a breath.

"Alright, but call Tubbo if you are ever uncomfortable and we can come pick you up, okay?" Dream really was starting to view Tommy as a younger brother.

"Okay," Tommy said, throwing him grateful smile. "I'd better get going." Tommy waved to the two as they parted ways and made his way over to Techno's vehicle.

"Hullo," Techno called as Tommy opened the door. Tommy replied with a short 'hi' before settling in and buckling his seat belt. "Phil got caught up in a work call and couldn't get off to come get you," Techno said, supplying the reason for his presence.

Tommy just nodded and looked out the window as Techno drove. He figured it was something like that. Phil rarely went back on promises if he could help it, and if he couldn't it was always for a good reason. "Thanks for picking me up," Tommy said after a while.

Techno was surprised by his brother's words and took a second to answer. "Uh, no problem. Dad was worried about picking you up on time, so I volunteered as tribute."

An involuntary smile crept onto Tommy's face at the mention of one of his favorite books. If Techno noticed, he didn't say anything, though he might of made a mental note of it.

The next twenty minutes of driving were uneventful. Neither spoke, but it wasn't a tense silence. Techno turned on the radio after five minutes, letting the random music fill the car. Tommy hummed along to a couple of the songs, Techno taking note of which ones his brother seemed to like the most.

Phil was still on the phone when they arrived home. Tommy waved to him before heading up to his room to finish his homework. Surprisingly, he didn't have much compared to other weekends, and was done in just over an hour and a half. It was 5:15pm when he finished, and he wandered out of his room to look for things to do.

Which meant he was looking for things his brothers had forgotten to pick up.

He wandered around the entirety of the upstairs but found nothing. Normally the bathroom had some sort of mess, whether it was clothes on the floor or the counter being messy. Not this time though, so he was forced to move on.

He slowly made his way downstairs, his mind not fully grasping that there wasn't anything for him to clean. It had become habit to clean up after doing his homework, then make supper, then clean something else.

At Tubbo's house, Tubbo had him play games until supper and then do homework after, completely rewriting his schedule. As a result, his need to clean hadn't been activated.

Now he was home though, and he needed to clean. He started feeling anxious when he found nothing. He didn't know why he felt that way, thought it was silly actually, but he still couldn't stop it.

He ran into his dad while on his now frantic hunt for something to clean. Tommy stumbled but Phil caught him. "Hey there, slow down." Phil noticed that something was wrong and quickly bent down in front of him, making Tommy look down at him. He used to do this when they were kids to make them feel better. No one liked to look up at someone when upset, it was somewhat intimidating. "Tommy? What's wrong?"

Tommy stared blankly at him for a second before looking around and shaking his head to clear it. "I... I can't find anything to clean." He needed something to clean. It was both a way to keep things nice as well as relieve stress a bit. He found repetitive things like doing dishes or sweeping relaxing.

Phil saw the franticness in his youngest's eyes and sighed internally. Getting him to stop was going to be harder than he thought.

He knew that the twins had made sure to clean up after themselves as of late, which kept things nice. Though, it apparently was upsetting Tommy right now. Phil looked around, trying to think of something he could give Tommy to do, just to calm him down.

Pulling Tommy over to the broom closet, Phil handed him a broom. "Tommy, could you go sweep the entry for me?" Once the broom was in his hand, Tommy seemed to visibly relax and quickly walked over to the entry.

Part of Tommy's mind knew he was being irrational. Why was he so upset about not cleaning? Anyone else would rejoice at not having chores?

The other part of Tommy's mind was glad to have something to do. Sweeping was probably one of his favorite chores, the repetitive pattern somehow calming his mind.

Phil just watched his youngest from the end of the entry, a sad yet relieved expression on his face.

Wilbur came down from streaming just then and completely glossed over Phil as his eyes landed on Tommy who was still sweeping. Before he could get too far and open his mouth, Phil grabbed his arm and lightly pulled him to the living room.

"Why did you stop me?" Wilbur was so very confused on what his dad was doing. Didn't he want to give Tommy a break from chores?

Phil sighed before answering. "Tommy came down from finishing his homework and was pretty worked up. He couldn't find anything to clean. It was stressing him out, so I told him to sweep the entry."

To say Wilbur was shocked might have been an understatement. It was so ingrained into Tommy's daily schedule to clean, that it freaked him out when he couldn't.

"Sh*t."

(1397 words)