-Tommy's POV-
(Last one in his POV!)
"It hurts, Tommy..."
My best friend clutches at his wrist, teeth gritted tightly. Another wave sends him to the floor, knees scraping against concrete with a sickening noise. He screams again, body trembling as the pain mercilessly floods through it.
'Tubbo take the band off!' I sign to him, tugging at his wrist despite my hand falling through. Coldly grasping at nothing, my state stopping me from interfering.
I want to do something, to be able to remove the band myself and stop him from enduring this. To wrap my arms around him and have them remain there, able to finally embrace him. I'd give anything to be able to help him, to be able to do something as simple as tell him things will be okay.
"Tom, I'm not taking off the band!" he yells, keeping the band firmly against his skin. "If I take off the band, I lose you. I'm not letting that happen."
"It'll stop soon, just trust me."
I sigh, cringing at the fact it's inaudible before reluctantly admitting Tubbo is too stubborn to listen to me. Too preoccupied to even acknowledge my pleading anymore, and I'm forced to stare back at the reflection of my own eye filled with tears, knowing there's nothing I can do about it.
'You don't know that for certain though,' I try to justify, irritated when Tubbo turns away from me, scrunching up his eyes to block me out completely. "Don't care," he spits, voice raspy through gritted teeth.
"Besides, it's not like I'll have this problem for much longer anyway."
A few responses come to me, filled with insults of how pessimistic he's acting, but I can't bring myself to say any of them aloud in a moment like this. Especially not when a part of me deep down seems to already know he's right, no matter how reluctant I am to truly believe it. Admitting it is even harder when I don't know what it means for me, if I'm better stuck this way forever or gone completely.
Bad doesn't think I'll 'survive' the system reverse.
'Well, I'm not exactly alive currently,' I try to joke, but it seems more solemn than sarcastic when the words actually sink in. Tubbo seems to think as much too, a hollow stare fixed on my uncomfortable demeanour. 'But hey, you won't have to deal with the stinging shit anymore! You can finally find the person that'll give you a band with no consequences attached to it!'
The look he gives me now is unreadable, the best explanation I could offer for it being anger. "You still don't get it, do you?" Tubbo mutters, the words catching under his breath. "I don't want a 'real soulmate' Tommy! I want my best friend!" He puts quotation marks around the phrase 'real soulmate', and I think back to Bad's justification of what our bands mean.
Platonic soulmates. Not romantic, and by the system's logic, not true soulmates. But Tubbo has denied any suggestion of this since the very beginning, and I think a part of me knows that Tubbo gave up on his 'real soulmate' a long time ago.
I just don't want to accept that though, and knowing I'm half the reason the entire second system exists in the first place makes it even harder to justify hurting the person who still insists on keeping you around.
'I don't belong here Tubbo, and you know it.' I signal to the band on his wrist, my band, colourless and effectively, lifeless too. Nothing but milky white stares back at me, representative only of the fact that somehow, in some messed up way, I'm still here. 'Maybe at least if I'm gone, I'll find where I do belong. Even if that means the void is my new home.'
"Your home is here, Tommy."
The way Tubbo tries to tug my sleeve so that I'll meet his eyes only adds to the irony, and I don't think I'll ever forget the pained look on his face when he remembers I'm really nothing more than a ghost.
"It's here, alright," he insists, tapping the band on his wrist, then pointing to the floor. "You belong here, and to hell with anyone who tells you otherwise."
'You know you're lying.'
Tubbo glares at the words as I sign them, shaking his head. His mouth opens to protest before I can even finish, but no words come out. I take that as my cue to continue, half wondering if he'll bother to acknowledge it anyway. 'If I belonged here, that band wouldn't sting you.'
"Tommy, I've told you a million times already, I don't care about that!"
'Well I do!'
I'm not sure how well my tone conveys when it's silent, but the flare of anger within me mixed with the flash of fear that crosses his eyes makes me think he knows what I mean. 'Have you ever thought about that?! I know it doesn't bother you, but it definitely bothers me!'
'I'm constantly reminded what that thing does to you, and even more frequently reminded that it's because of me. I'm already half responsible for this system. I'm half the reason it exists, and therefore half the reason people get hurt. That includes what happened to Karl.'
Something far less angry than before causes Tubbo to recoil a little at the mention of that name. "Yeah, and I'm the one left here, quite often alone, when you disappear randomly," he spits, failing to meet my eyes.
"Ever thought about how it must feel to wake up feeling like your body is on fire, screaming so loud you can't hear yourself think? To look across the room and see that once again, your sleeping bag is empty without warning."
Both pale and dark blue begin to glisten, filled with tears that threaten to overflow. "You just leave here, randomly, and I don't ever know if you'll actually come back!"
'Then take the band off,' I spit mercilessly, and I know it's a mistake, but I choke out the last words with just as much venom anyway.
'Take it off. Then you'll at least know for certain that I won't come back.'
Silence.
I'm kind of used to the silence by now, or at least it being quieter, due to the fact there's always one less person speaking than there is listening when I'm around. Some days it's comforting, but most I wish I could disrupt it. I wasn't a quiet person when I still had a voice to use, and I often miss that more than almost everything else.
I'm not sure I'd even recognise my own voice anymore.
Quiet sniffling fills the room gradually, Tubbo covering his face in shame to hide the tears he can't stop. It's enough to disrupt my thoughts, drag me back into the present and realise that even if I've lost most of my friends, I still have a few left. People I should spend less time arguing over the same damn things with and more time appreciating, knowing I most likely don't have long left until I'm the one leaving them behind.
I kneel awkwardly in front of the boy in question, who seems to have resorted to sitting when he can't stop shaking. I click my tongue, click my fingers too before remembering that'll do nothing when he can't hear me. So I resort to waving my hands in front of his face, trying to get back the attention I'm not sure I deserve anymore.
'Toby?'
"Yeah?"
'I'm sorry.'
"I know you are."
That's enough to put the ghost of a smile back on my lips. Bitter, but there, nonetheless. "And I am too. I don't mean to make you feel like a burden." He meets my eyes again to say the last bit, and the sorrow in his is enough to convince me it's genuine. 'I make myself feel like one. It's alright.'
Another silent sigh.
"I just don't want to be alone again," he mumbles, wiping a stray tear from his eye. 'You won't be,' I tell him, filled with a strange sense of hope that there's got to be something good waiting for this boy. 'You have Karl again! You have George too, and everyone else! Techno will always look after you too, okay. You have a good life ahead of you.'
"You should have one too, though." Despite his words, his tone is a little lighter. Laced with a tiny spark of encouragement that fuels the hopeful flames. 'I know, but life is shit like that. Clearly you're the favourite kid of the system god here.' That earns me a laugh, even if it's painfully strained.
"And why's that, Tommy?"
'The system god fears me,' I smirk, using humour, as I always have done, to make light of shitty situations. 'He knows that if he allowed me to live long enough to turn eighteen, I'd be more of a man than him.'
"Well, he certainly fears you now," Tubbo muses, and I can't tell if his tone is meant to be sarcastic anymore. "He's been trying for a while to make me get rid of you, and he might've finally succeeded."
I shake my head at the irony, a bittersweet smile on my lips. 'Hey, I had a good sixteen and a half years before said system god interfered. The world just simply wasn't ready for TommyInnit.'
Tubbo giggles a little at the nickname, mouthing it silently before asking aloud, "TommyInnit? What sort of name is that?".
'Will gave me it,' I explain. 'Something about the way I talk or whatever he thought was funny about it.' Tubbo nods, a small smile tugging at his lips. "Guess someone had to give you a nickname, considering you give everyone else one," he smirks. I grin proudly, remembering who was responsible for Tubbo's nickname. 'Yeah, but mine are cooler.'
Tubbo shrugs, and the fact he even debates me being wrong makes me wish I could punch him. 'Wilbur was an asshole and I'd never fuel his ego by saying it to his face, but people like him made my life worth living, even if it was short. We're like brothers.'
"I get that," Tubbo smiles, and the understanding look he gives me with it makes me think he has a similar bond with someone else. "You two seem like you would've been, based on what you told me. Karl and I are kinda like that."
'Exactly.' That smile widens just a little more, almost as if in realisation, and I find it contagious. Maybe at the memory of what I used to have, or at the fact someone understands what it was worth to me. 'And now you have Karl again.'
'So let me go back to Wilbur.'
—————
Can't tell me Tommy wouldn't say something like that...
Also something I wanted to mention here about the 'platonic devotion' thing mentioned earlier by Bad:
He can't confirm the guessing because plot logic, but I did model the Lost Soul's designs off of the Devotion's, as I actually came up with Devotions first. So yes, Lost Souls basically represent platonic soulmates, and by that logic, Tommy and Tubbo are platonic soulmates.
Isn't that cute at least..?
(Also I remember someone asking me before about what aromantics would do in this world, and I like to believe y'all would be like Tubbo and just have platonic ones instead lol.)
I've always thought of TLS Tubbo as aromantic tbh, so it fits pretty well. :)