catharsis - polysworld fic

Chapter 1

Hey, that was Tom's speaker.

He blinked at Edd, watching the man bustle about the room, wielding a broom and a perky attitude. He was humming along to the music that he had playing at a horrendous volume considering what time it was, sweeping out from where he had turned one of the living room chairs onto its side.

Tom examined the clutter, looking about the organized chaos that was Edd's maintained, sorted piles of little things. Dust bunnies, jumbles of orange and brown hair, bobby pins, hair ties, pocket change, the works. Edd was really going at it today, giving the living room a full deep clean. He had been working room-to-room just about all week, having done the bathroom, the kitchen, the halls, even trying to work his way into Tom and Matt's bedrooms at one point. Tom absolutely did not allow that to happen, and he was sure Matt had a similar issue with the attempted invasion, but he didn't doubt that Edd slipped his way in there when they happened to step out of the house and leave their rooms vulnerable for a bit.

Tom didn't want to question him. He didn't need to, this was a regular occurrence, every bit of it. The ceiling-to-floor clean, the speaker theft, the complete disregard for others' sleeping schedules, all of it.

Except for that smile.

It's not like Edd didn't smile, of course he did. Only nowadays, there wasn't much to smile about. Their days all looked the same lately, a long line of nothing. It had been months since their last 'adventure', and even that was nothing more than them hiding out in a failing, boring little museum where Edd messed around with the exhibits and got himself sick for the next 3 days. After that, it was the usual linear, boring nothingness that Tom sought to escape most nights, taking himself out to do something, anything.

So what was Edd smiling about? And why was he doing his cleaning so late? He usually busied himself with this in the mornings, waking them up with his less-than-interesting taste in music and yelling for them to grab their shit from his piles before he threw it all out. There was typically a frown or a little expression of annoyance. Not a smile.

"Uh..." Tom started, but Edd didn't look his way. He figured the other didn't hear him over the music, and Tom shifted his weight. He wondered if Matt was still up, if he could hear Edd's lame music and if he, too, was confused as to why such a thing was happening at this unusual time. Hmm. "Edd?"

It was a few seconds before Edd looked up, busying himself with sweeping out the dust from under the couch. He straightened up, his hand resting on the top of the broom as he looked over Tom with curious eyes. He was still smiling.

"Hey there, what's up!" Edd chirped, a grin blossoming on his features. He was awfully upbeat. Happy. Not at all bothered that Tom had interrupted him and his cleaning. "You're not in bed yet?"

"Yeah, uh..." Tom cleared his throat, giving an idle glance behind him toward the empty hallway before turning back to Edd. "I just got back from... I heard you in here, and uh, came to see."

Tom's words fell quiet toward the end, and he huffed, turning his gaze off toward one of the piles of swept-up dust. There was a second of radio silence before Edd responded, sweeping the dust he gathered from the couch into a corner.

"I'm just cleaning, I want everything proper today. I got an energy burst earlier since I'm all excited, heh." The tallest of the pair gave out a pleased sigh, leaning the broom against the wall. He clapped his hands together, wiping off any crumbs and dust that had stuck to his palms. He smiled. "Aren't you?"

Tom's brows pinched together, eyes narrowing. "Why would..." He trailed off, letting himself go quiet again as Edd trekked over to the little speaker, turning it down a bit, low enough that they could talk over it without strain. Tom cleared his throat again. "Uh, not really?"