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A Saturday where Token made it to ten AM without a call from his friends usually meant the day was his for the taking and he could do whatever he wanted. He could play video games, catch up on a new show, read the growing pile of books his dad keeps bringing home for him, go to the zoo — the possibilities were endless!
As Token started to narrow his choices down in his head, a knock came from the door. He frowned. Were Mom or Dad expecting anyone? They hadn't told him. The guard wouldn't let just anyone past the gate, either.
Shrugging, Token jumped off the couch. The knocking grew frantic as he neared the door.
"I'm coming. I'm coming,” he muttered. "Hello?"
Tweek nearly jumped out of his shoes. "Token! I need you!" He grabbed Token by the wrist. "Come on, come on!"
Token dug his bare heels into the carpet, but even that didn't stop Tweek from dragging him down the front walk towards the gate.
"Tweek, dude, stop!" His hand shot out to grab a low hanging tree branch and yanked them both to a stop. "What's wrong?"
Tweek danced nervously from foot to foot, chewing on his lower lip and wringing his hands in his shirt. His hair went out in more chaotic directions than usual and a third of his buttons were messed up.
Tweek hadn't been this stressed out since well before he and Craig started dating.
"I need help, and it can only be you." He pulled at the bandaid across the top of his hand.
"What do you need help with?" Token asked.
"My room," Tweek squawked. "I need help organizing it. I tried to do it by myself and I can't. You don't need to help me pick up, just, like, sit with me in there and don't let me stop cleaning until it's done. Please, Token?"
Token folded his arms and tilted his head. "That sounds like something anyone can do. Why do you need me?"
"Everyone else is too distracting! Clyde ends up talking about something fun and I stop wanting to clean to play and Jimmy makes me laugh too much and Craig..." Tweek shook his head. "It has to be you. You’re the most mature and responsible. Please, Token? I'll give you a free hot chocolate—and a muffin—at Tweak Bro's next time you come in."
Token hummed in thought, stroking his chin. He could make hot chocolate any time he wanted at home, and using much higher quality ingredients than Tweak Bro's could afford, but Tweek was his friend. It wouldn’t be right to leave him hanging like that. Besides, what else did he have to do today anyway?
"Alright, I'll help, but first," He lifted up his foot and wiggled his bare toes, "can I get some socks on?"
Token did not try to hide his cringe at the state of Tweek's room.
It wasn't just a mess. It was chaos.
It looked like a tornado came through and took everything from the drawers and threw it around. Shirts and pants hung off the back of his desk chair. A tower of coffee cups sat on the windowsill. Toys were piled in heaps along the walls and corners. The only clean path led from the door to the bed and to the bird cage in the corner.
Tweek's bird, Polly, flapped around, contributing loose feathers and bird seed to the mess.
"Polly is more stressed about the mess than I am," Tweek laughed. He puttered out when Token didn't join in. "Um, you can sit on the bed while I work. Don't let me stop, ok?"
Token nodded and carefully picked his way to the bed. When he sat, something moved. Gasping, Token jumped to his feet and spun around. With a shaking hand, he lifted up the mattress. A little man with a beard and cone-shaped hat popped out from between the mattress and box spring.
He panted, holding his chest. "Thank God! Freedom!" He cried out in a squeaky voice. "I thought I was lost forever in this room. Thanks, kid." He waved at Token.
The little man walked along the bed frame to the head of the bed then jumped down. As he fell, he threw a powder up from his hand and shrunk even smaller before disappearing behind the nightstand.
Mouth hanging open, Token turned to Tweek to make sure he hadn't imagined that, but Tweek had his back to him near the desk. He started setting papers and lego bricks on his desktop, muttering to himself.
Shaking his head, Token carefully crawled onto the bed. This time, nothing moved. Not trusting that Tweek didn't have a real-life monster under his bed, he pulled his feet up. Tweek would probably wash his bedding when he was done, so it didn't matter if he put his shoes on the blanket.
After watching Tweek clear a pile from his floor, Token asked, "Hey, Tweek? Want me to play some music?" He held up his phone. "I'll let you pick."
Tweek twisted around. "No, no, not a good idea. It'll be distracting! I might start to sing and dance and I won't finish. Sorry. I think I have some headphones on my windowsill. You can use them if you want."
Token nodded and rolled over to his hands and knees to crawl across the bed to the window. Tangled up in the cord for the blinds was a pair of headphones. They were missing an earpiece and a bare patch in the plastic exposed the wires.
Better than nothing, he supposed. When he reached over to untangle the headphones, a rancid smell hit his nose. He recoiled with a gag.
Polly flapped loudly around his cage at Token's reaction.
Token craned his neck to look at the source of the smell. White and green mold grew on the coffee left in the top cup of the highest tower.
Inside the top cup of the second-highest tower, the contents had all evaporated, leaving a thick, brown sludge caked to the inside. In the final towers, top cup was something black that Token couldn't identify.
When he went to pick up the cup for a better look, a swarm of tiny gnats burst out. Despite his best efforts, some of the gnats went up his nose and in his mouth. Token coughed but ended up swallowing some of them anyway.
He shuddered, feeling disgusted, before taking a look inside the cup.
Now that the infestation had gone, Token's best guess at the contents were old ravioli. The mini kind of ravioli from a can, like Craig's mom, made sometimes when he went for a sleepover. But Craig's mom never served it in a coffee cup. Did Tweek run out of clean bowls?
Token's stomach twisted. Once Tweek's room was spick and span, he was going to make him sign a blood oath to never ever bring ravioli into his room again.
"Tweek, when was the last time you took these cups out?" Token asked, setting the ravioli cup down. The moment he did, the gnats returned to congregate on the old pasta.
Tweek's head snapped up. He scrambled to his feet.
"Shit! Cups! Cups! I forgot. I was going to take those out yesterday." Tweek nearly tripped as he raced to the bed. "Hand them to me. Mom's been looking for them all week. We're out of clean cups and have to drink out of paper cups from the shop."
"Ooooo-kay, then," He muttered, carefully grabbing the top and bottom cups of the tallest tower. He passed off the tower to Tweek before reaching for the next one.
"I'll help." He offered.
"No! It's my room. I have to clean it all myself." Tweek spun around. He took two steps, then tripped. The cups, luckily, landed in a pile of stuffed animals and didn’t break. The moldy coffee and assorted sludges spilled on the fake fur.
Tweek put his hands to his hair and let out a scream of frustration. "Nooo! This isn't fair! Why can't I do this?"
Token scooted to the edge of the bed then slipped off to his knees. He moved over and set a hand on Tweek's shoulder.
"Are you doing alright, man?" Token asked. Tweek turned towards him with his lip quivering.
"No, I'm not." He swallowed a sob. "I'm stressed as all hell and I know it's because I let my room get this bad when I shouldn’t have. It's all my fault and everything is terrible, and I hate it!"
Token looked around the room again. His eyes lingered at the spot Tweek was working before he called him over. The pile wasn't in anyway organized, just relocated from the floor to the desk.
"It's not that bad," Token lied. "If you let me help, I'm sure we can fix it."
"It's my fault. I need to do it myself." Tweek sniffled, wiping his nose on his sleeve.
"Why?" Token dropped his hand to his lap.
"Because...you know!" Tweek waved his hands out. "Just because!"
"That's a dumb reason." Token gathered the coffee cups and stacked them into two towers. "You have friends so when you mess up you can get help from them, Tweek."
Tweek tried to argue, but Token held up his hand to cover his mouth.
"I'm helping you clean your room," he told him sternly, falling into his Mom Friend voice. "No ifs, no buts, no coconuts, got it?"
He didn't particularly care to be seen as the ‘Mom Friend,’ but he had to admit it had its advantages in times like this. Tweek wouldn't argue with him now.
Tweek sighed against his palm but nodded anyway. Token bobbed his head back and handed Tweek half the cups.
"Alright, I think we should get all these cups out of your room first, then take your stuffed animals down to wash. After that, we'll make a game plan for the rest of the room." He smiled. "Sound good to you?"
Hopefully, he sounded knowledgeable enough that Tweek wouldn't worry. In reality, Token didn’t know more than the bare minimum how to clean his own room. His family had a cleaning lady who showed up once a week to pick up the slack, after all. He never bothered to learn more, but Token was sure he could handle it.
Tweek carefully stood, holding the cups tightly to his chest. He took a breath then returned Token's smile.
"That sounds great. Thanks, Token."
Once he had a plan, Tweek barely needed Token's help at all. After taking all the window cups, a long with a plate Token accidentally kicked from under a half-empty bag of birdseed, down to the sink, the two gathered up the soiled stuffed animals and took them to the washing machine where Token learned that, apparently, stuffed animals should be washed in pillowcases.
Token laughed and tried to play it off that he was testing Tweek about washing machine practices, but he was pretty sure Tweek didn’t believe him.
When they returned to Tweek's room, Token took a pad of paper and a pen from the pile on his desk. The pen was a Red Racer themed pen with multiple kinds of colored ink, which Token thought might have actually been Craig's, but didn't point it out. Nichole took his jackets and pens all the time too. It just came with the territory of dating. Everything belongs to each other.
With Tweek's help, he made a list of everything they needed to pick up. Then they went to picking everything from that category up in the room. All the clothes first, then the dishes and so on.
All the clothes were agreed to be dirty. Tweek and Token took four trips to take them all down to the washer. By that time, the stuffed animals were finished so Tweek could start a new load.
His room already looked much cleaner with the clothes picked up, so it was easy to find all the dishes and take them to the sink. The toys they piled on to Tweek's bed and started putting every toy where it needed to go, in the closet or on the shelves or toy chest.
Then they repeated the process with everything else on the floor.
While working at organizing the toys, Tweek had fully taken over cleaning duties, so Token sat in the desk chair and watched. He could practically see the waves of stress fall off of his friend as he organized his room.
"Hey, Tweek," Token asked, leaning back in the chair, "Can I ask you a question?"
Tweek stood on his tiptoes to throw an action figure to the top shelf of his closet. Falling to the flats of his feet he replied, "Sure. What?"
"Why didn't you get Craig to help you? He's the most organized of all of us. His room is the cleanest, and he likes to pick up messes — because he's a weirdo like that." Token idly drew a circle on the pad of paper in red ink. He clicked the pen to green and drew another circle inside the first.
Tweek sighed as he picked up a board game. "It's because, um, I don't like how Craig cleans."
"What?" Token dropped the pen. He stared at Tweek in confusion.
Tweek shook his head. "He tried to make my room like his, and I don't like it. My legos and blocks stay in the box by my desk so I can grab them easily when I'm playing, not under my bed. I keep my favorite books inside my nightstand's drawer so I can read them before going to sleep. Craig has all his books on his bookshelf near the door. He has all his underwear in the bottom drawer with his socks. The gnomes took all my underpants, so I don't even have any to wear anymore! How Craig keeps his room drives me bonkers."
Tweek shoved the board game under his bed with the others. "That's why my room got so bad this time. I had to take everything out to find what I needed since nothing was where I keep it."
"So this was Craig's fault." Token chuckled, picking the pen back up.
"Kinda?" Tweek picked up a rope with colorful wooden beads and a little silver bell on it. As he walked to Polly's cage he went on, "Don't tell him though. He'll get moody if he thinks I'm mad at him."
Polly squawked excitedly as Tweek hung the toy up in the cage. The bird instantly landed next to the toy to ring the bell.
"I won't," Token promised. He jumped to feet then picked up some lego men attached to a long flat brick. He held them up before asking, "These go in the box by your desk, right?"
Tweek fell back on his naked bed. The sheets and bedding, the last bit of laundry he and Token washed, were still in the dryer. Token folded the last shirt and set it in the top drawer of Tweek's dresser.
Once he shut it, the room was done--save for the bed, of course.
Token looked around with his hands on his hips and nodded. "We make a good team, Tweek."
Tweek pushed himself up on his elbows. "We do. Thank you again, Token. I'm feeling so much better now without all the clutter stressing me out."
Token flopped down beside him. "No problem, dude. This was kind of fun, actually." He quickly added, "Don't make a habit of it, though."
Tweek laughed and nodded. He rolled over to look at the alarm clock on his nightstand raised his head.
"Do you wanna have a sleepover?" He asked. "Mom and Dad should be home by now, so we can go ask."
Token hummed and looked out the window. There was plenty of light for him to run home and pick up his PJs and a change of clothes.
He jumped to his feet then spun around with a grin. "Of course, but on one condition."
Tweek scooted off the bed as he asked, "What?"
"You promise me on your life, that you'll never bring ravioli into your room again."