take this compass, follow it home

all these choices

TW: internalized ableism, mentions of past aggression, medication, the systemic failure of the foster system

Night one is surprisingly much more chill than the day. Tommy attends "family" dinner and stays mostly quiet as Phil asks everyone about their days and Techno and Wilbur bicker. He's excused soon enough and he returns to hole up in his room, playing on the old DS he's managed to hang onto and messing with his new phone.

Day 2 starts off similarly overwhelming. He awakes to a loud beeping and the smell of smoke.

The horrible combination of the two has Tommy launching himself out of bed and racing downstairs. He's right behind Phil, who's going equally fast in front of him.

The minute he gets to the ground floor, the issue is apparent. The kitchen is covered in smoke. At least there doesn't seem to be any fire.

Wilbur's fanning the air desperately as Techno sits at the counter, head down and eyes closed. He has the same headphones on as yesterday and keeps swiping at his face.

Maybe he got smoke in his eye or something.

Phil, confirming that both of them are alright, starts opening windows which dramatically decreases the accumulating smoke. Soon after, the fire alarm stops.

The room falls mostly silent, except for a soft whining noise. Tommy realizes that said noise is coming from Techno.

It's then Tommy remembers what Phil said about Techno not liking loud noises the other day.

Phil approaches him slowly, crouching down to be on Techno's level. He says something softly and Techno shakes his head and flat out hisses at Phil, leaning away. Techno then starts to rock. Tommy's a bit taken aback from the audacity of Techno to actually flat out hiss at Phil. He expects some kind of verbal berating from Phil, but he doesn't seem to mind.

Phil stands, nods in understanding and takes a step back to check on Wilbur. The other boy is apologizing profusely, and Tommy watches as the other boy gets more and more out of breath until he's hardly breathing as he says sorry on rushed repeat.

Phil soothingly comforts him, saying kind words before hugging him close, and Wilbur begins to breathe again.

It's an incredibly strange interaction.

"Sorry Tommy," Wilbur throws over, voice not too loud, "Didn't mean to freak everyone out. I was trying to make breakfast for your first morning."

Tommy blinks. Wilbur tried to make him breakfast? Why? Why is everyone being so nice to him?

Tommy hates not knowing, hates being stuck outside the loop.

Maybe this is their plan, lull him into a false sense of security before going hard.

"Yeah," Tommy says, "my favorite thing about smoke is how incredibly edible it is."

He should have said thanks. So far, all they've been is nice but Tommy can't trust nice, and it's better to protect himself first.

Wilbur ducks his head, face flushing as he fiddles with his fingers.

Tommy shifts his attention back to Techno who has stopped rocking and swiping at his face.

"What's wrong with him?" he asks.

Wilbur immediately bristles, standing tall to his full height.

"Nothing," he hisses out.

So that's a sore spot. Good to know. Tommy can use that if there's ever a need.

"Techno got overwhelmed," Phil cuts in, giving a proper explanation, "There's nothing wrong with him. He's struggling to process sensory input right now."