Work Text:
It's been a while. Nothing has gone wrong for Tommy. It's been perfect. He spends every day with his best friends. They laugh with him, talk with him, spend time with him. So naturally he must be doing something wrong.
Because everyone who actually knows Tommy hates him. He's annoying, selfish, loud, a brat, a nuisance, a bug they can't get rid of. So why, why , is everything perfect? Why do they stay with him?
They must be lying. Obviously.
It's harder than you think, really, to read someone's emotions. Especially when they're just so good at hiding the fact that they want you dead. With everyone else it was easy, because they just said it to his face.
“ I hate you Tommy.”
“ God Tommy, do you ever shut up?”
“ Why are you so annoying Tommy?”
Nobody cares about you Tommy.
Just kill yourself Tommy
They wouldn't even be sad if you died.
Everyone has said that. Always.
He's always been the one to insult, to yell, to push everyone's boundaries until they kick him into the dust. Only to beg for them to take him back.
But with Tubbo and Ranboo it's different. With Tubbo he's fought, been exiled, been pushed away. But he said he didn't mean it, that he was forced into that position.
That doesn't make sense.
With Ranboo it's even stranger. They've never pushed him away. No matter how many insults he hurls at them, no matter how annoying he is, no matter how many times he manipulates them into giving him what he wants.
Why won't they just leave him already?
Because it's so obvious he's manipulating them right?
They're his friends so obviously he's manipulating them into thinking he's a good person.
When Tommy asks for something, half joking, and they just give it over willingly he must be manipulating them, using them.
When Tommy doesn't eat for days on end and let them hear his stomach growl he must be manipulating them.
When Tommy sits under his house, in what used to be a glorious war room, carving the word
“ Bad” into his skin over and over and over again. Only to not cover it up properly in the morning he must be manipulating them.
When Tommy thinks to himself late at night, about how bad of a person he is, about how much he wants to die, about how little he thinks they would care, he must be manipulating them.
When Tommy goes to their work, and hangs around to talk to them, because he misses them, because he's clingy, and gets told that he has to leave, he thinks “ This is where they realise they don’t want me.”
When Tubbo and Ranboo cancel their plans because they're just tired that day, he thinks “ This is where they realise they don’t want me.”
When Tubbo and Ranboo can't hear him because he talks too quietly, so they never respond, he thinks “ This is where they realise they don’t want me.”
When Tubbo and Ranboo have to put up with him being non verbal, he thinks “ This is where they realise they don’t want me.”
And this keeps happening.
Over and over and over and over again.
So why won't they leave him already?
They don't have to keep pretending for Tommy's sake.
He already knows how much his best friends hate him.
Everybody else he's ever called his friend has never thought of him as their friend, and even though they said they were different, promised he was also their friend, he knew it was pity.
If it's pity,
Then why do they keep pretending.
“Please. Please leave.”
He says to himself in the middle of the night, in his kitchen, in their space.
“ I know you don't want me here.”
“ Please leave.”
“ It's okay.”
“ I want you to be happy.”
“ I know you can't be happy with me here.”
“ I know you won't care.”
“ I could kill myself tonight and you won’t care.”
“ I wrote you letters,”
“ But it's okay if you never read them.”
“ It's okay if you throw them away.”
Throw me away please.
Be happy.
I won't be.
But it's okay.