Work Text:
Tommy was not having a good day.
He not only woke up late after only 3 hours of sleep, but the cause of his sleep deprivation was still ever present.
English class.
He knew it was probably easy work, but the class was just so boring! It’s not like he needed to pay attention anyways, Tubbo (who had needed Tommy to help him with English in the years prior) was in a different English class this year. He hadn’t even talked to tubbo in almost a week, which meant Tommy couldn’t hang out with Tubbo for a bit till his friends’ dad went back to being not only a ‘loving parent’, but also a person who didn’t depend on his son for daily comfort due to his very obvious alcohol addiction.
So Tommy hadn’t been paying attention as much as before...
That was a lie, he didn’t pay attention at all. Which meant he didn’t understand anything they were doing in that class, and now he was left with 12 weeks' worth of work to finish before Friday, which was tomorrow.
Due to all the work he hadn’t even bothered leaving his room today for fear of it taking up too much time and being the reason this wasn’t all done by 8 am. It was currently 11 pm, and he was just over halfway done with everything, a stack of papers beside him (all were covered in what Tommy hoped was legible writing) and a computer screen making his vision fuzzy. Still, he kept typing and scribbling down notes when necessary.
His eyes began to water a few minutes later, whether from the computer screen light filling his vision or from the stress, he didn’t know, nor did he care. He kept trying to work but it was difficult when his eyes wouldn’t let his view of the screen return, instead making it as blurry as possible. He kept rubbing the tears away but they were immediately replaced, and though it was a bit annoying it wasn’t that big of an issue.
Until his throat decided to join his eyes in making his night as difficult as possible. He covered his mouth to muffle the sobs but it wasn’t helping much. He decided at this point it was gonna take longer to go away if he tried getting rid of it, instead letting his eyes water and voice cry out freely into his hoodie sleeves. The blond didn’t keep track of the time in his haze but he knew it had to have been a while since his tears had soaked through the thin fabric. He pulled the hoodie over his head and folded it in his lap. Now left in a t-shirt that had been under it, the chill from the temperature change was making him feel slightly less tired and comfortable. He felt the tears slow a bit and his throat tightened, not making noise anymore. For a moment, Tommy thought he could get back to the insane amount of work he still had to do, but halted when a knock sounded on his door.
“Tommy?” the voice asked quietly, “Can I come in?”
‘What? Why is Techno here?’ The tears that had been slowing started up again, and against his will his chest made him let out another sob he failed to muffle. There was another knock. He didn’t respond.
“Theseus, I can hear you crying,” Techno continued. Tommy squeezed his eyes shut, grabbing sections of his hair and pulling slightly in a futile attempt to ground himself. His ears didn’t pick up the slight squeak of the door's hinges as it was pushed open, and his eyes didn’t open to see the concerned face of his oldest brother peek in. Techno took a few steps and reached him, slowly placing a hand on his back. Why is he the only on awake? Should he go get Phil? Should he just leave Tommy alone? He glanced to the desk Tommy was sitting at and his eyes scanned the small stack of papers. Oh, homework trouble. He could work with this then.
“Hey, hey Tommy, it’s okay, Did your homework get frustrating? I can help if you want, it’s alright.” He rushed hopes of calming down the younger. Tommy shook his head and pointed to the screen in front of him, and when Techno looked at where he was pointing to, it appeared to be a small progress bar that was around 75% full, techno guessed that was referring to either his work so far this term, or his grade. Techno assumed it was the former. He grew an understanding look on his face. “Oh, Theseus, it’s okay to not finish every single thing, you’ve done so much work this term already you don’t need to finish everything. Especially not tonight.” He explained softly. Tommy shook his head again and brought his hand away from his mouth, no longer doing anything to quiet the sounds of the sobs wracking his chest.
“No!” He protested, “I didn’t do anything this term!” Techno looked at the screen again and back to him, confused once more.
“But it says-'' Tommy cut him off by pointing at another area of the screen. Techno looked once more at the blinding lit-up screen (he wasn’t surprised Tommy was still crying with how blinding the light of his computer was, techno had to squint to see anything remotely clearly). It showed multiple assignments stating their turn in date of- today? He scrolled down a bit with the wireless mouse, almost shocked at the number of things that had not only been started in the past few hours but also turned in within about ten minutes of their start time. Tommy was still crying as Techno’s face grew more and more upset by the view he was seeing.
“Tommy, did you do all these today?” He asked, though he already knew the answer, trying to keep his voice level but failing. Tommy nodded, more tears following now that he knew techno was mad at him. He was going to either go tell Phil (which Tommy had a feeling would end with his getting the ‘I’m not mad just disappointed’ talk and a scheduled time to do homework cutting him off from hanging out with friends after school. It was that or techno would use this against him, but he honestly didn’t think techno was that bad. It’s not like Tommy didn’t want help, he just didn’t want said help cutting into the already limited time he got to spend with friends. Hence why he was doing this all at 11 pm instead of after school in the first place.
He had around three hours to hang out with tubbo (and Ranboo but no one else saw him so he got to spend the night sometimes.) after school, and if he had a set time to do homework he would have to shorten that time, or worse he’d have to do it right after hanging out with him when he was already tired from the day.
His sleep schedule was bad but Phil didn’t mind as long as he slept and got up on time. Well, on time within 2 hours of school starting.
“Tommy, this is like, at least 60 individual assignments? How did you get this much homework Today?! There’s no way that’s legal!” Techno exclaimed, still shocked at the many assignments filled out full, in what he recognized as his brother's (barely legible) handwriting. Tommy sniffled and Techno looked at him concerned. He might not be great at handling other people's emotions, but that wasn’t an issue when it was Tommy, because instead of waiting for him to guess what happened, Tommy actually said what was on his mind. Most of the time anyways.
“It isn’t from today, it’s,” He paused, “It’s all the work from the entire term…” Tommy whispered. He was waiting for the inevitable anger he could see on Techno's face to turn into either him yelling at Tommy (though he’d never done that before) or for him to silently leave and Phil to take his place. “I put it off till now 'cause.." He paused, "'cause im too stupid to understand it” He continued when techno didn't reply. His crying had died down and was only silent streams of tears now.
Techno sighed sadly, “Tommy,” he began, “Your not stupid just cause you put off your work.” He was about to ask why Tommy hadn't done anything but paused, “Actually, you aren’t stupid regardless, who told you that?” Tommy stayed silent for a moment. Techno just looked at him with the same amount of concern, waiting for an answer. “My teacher. She said if I don’t start doing the work she’ll make sure I don’t get past this year and I’ll have to repeat the year again.” The day that happened, He’d decided to text tubbo instead of staging mindlessly in front of the whiteboard, and his teacher came over and stole his phone since he'd clearly offended her by not paying attention to her precious lesson.
“I mean, I understand saying you’d have to repeat a class if you fail, yeah, but you wouldn’t have to repeat the whole year even once for that? Not in your school anyways.” He frowned and narrowed his eyes at the ground. “Also I'm pretty sure teachers aren’t allowed to call their students stupid. She could get fired for that if that’s a normal thing for her to do.” Techno replied. He was honestly more surprised at the fact that he could see by the look on Tommy's face he wasn’t exaggerating at all (not that he did that about most serious topics, he was serious when he needed to be, but he was still a kid. He liked being loud.)
Techno looked back to the bright screen, promptly closing the computer and standing up. He walked to the door and looked back at Tommy, who was still sitting at his desk. “Are you coming or not?” He asked. Tommy nodded, stood, and followed hesitantly. They ended up downstairs in the kitchen. Techno moved to one of the cabinets. “So...is there a reason we’re in the kitchen?” Techno doesn’t respond, closing the first cabinet and moving to another. There's an uncomfortable silence before techno sighs.
“Great, okay then. Tommy, go grab your shoes by the door and put em’ on.” Tommy blinked at him before deciding it wasn’t even worth questioning it.
—--
After getting in the car and what felt like the shortest trip to the store ever, they were exiting the car and opened the door with the key techno had brought.
They entered to the sound of a guitar and the shape of someone sitting on the couch. Tommy smiled and ran over to them. “Wilbur!” The man in question smiled back, not caring that the blond had just about jumped onto his guitar. “Hey Toms He looked up to techno, who held a grocery bag containing a small box. His twin sent him a questioning glance but techno just walked past the two and into the kitchen. They sat in the living room for a few minutes and heard the sound of popping coming from the kitchen.
Techno comes back with a bowl of popcorn, and explains what happened while Tommy stares at the ground sheepishly. Though he wants to, Wilbur decides against talking about it further (mainly because Tommy looks like he's about to pass out). He instead put an arm around the younger and picked up the remote, pressing play on the title screen. They barely made it halfway through till they were all sleeping in a pile.
And if Phil took a picture when he came downstairs the next morning, and got it printed and framed, no one needed to know.