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His first soulmate is born slowly.
Not literally, but Phil can feel his soulmate’s soul be built slowly, intricately enough where if he follows one thread, it leads to another, and another, and another.
At 10 years old, Phil receives his first soulmate.
And he knows that it’s not his only one. Where his soulmate takes up space in his heart, there’s room for two more, not yet coming into existence. Phil knows that his first and second soulmates will arrive quickly, the second soon after the first. The last one will take a bit longer, much younger than Phil is—or, they will be younger than Phil by a lot.
Yet Phil can’t yet acknowledge his soulmates, so Phil turns back to the sandbox, ignoring the feeling of a half-completed soul in his body.
Techno comes into consciousness with two soulmates already aware. His fourth is not.
His soul weaves in and out of them both, leaving room for a fourth in their little shared heart. To untwine one of them would be to undo them all, even the fourth.
At 8 years old, Techno has one soulmate that’s 10 years older than him, another a year older, and one that was just born.
He knows that the oldest has years of life experience, trials and tribulations Techno has yet to persevere through. He knows that the second, the one just older than him, has already been through things no 9 year old go through. He knows that the fourth has just breathed their first breath, youth and innocence in every heartbeat.
But this new information that Techno doesn’t want to yet process, so he goes to his babysitter and asks her to read to him, ignoring the feelings of his soulmates.
His youngest soulmate just learnt how to speak.
Wilbur was watching kids’ tv shows when glimpses of somebody else’s life was in front of him instead of cartoons. He feels his other two soulmates startle at the sudden intrusion too, turning their attention to the young child.
At 10 and a half years old. Wilbur has one soulmate a year younger than him, another that’s nine years older than him, and one that just reached 17 months.
He knows all of their exact ages, down to the seconds they’ve been alive. He knows that the oldest has been breathing for far longer than him, and his third has a larger conscience than Wilbur has, even though he's almost a full year older. It’ll be a while until he can fully feel the fourth’s mind, their youth not yet developing.
Even then, Wilbur can hear the fourth’s words ringing through his mind, a ringing cacophony of mama, mama that goes ignored.
Tommy’s fucking pissed off.
All he wanted to do was go on that stupid field trip with his stupid classmates and stupid teacher, but his mother didn’t sign the permission slip.
He waited until the right moment to present the piece of paper to her: a week before the due date and on a day when she came home with a perk in her step. He had waited at the top of the stairs, listening to her heels click on the kitchen tile, nails tapping the counter.
A sick feeling came to his stomach as he walked slowly down the stairs, and it only grew as his mother’s expression changed, her red lips poised in a smile dipping into one Tommy’s more familiar with.
Needless to say, his mother said she’d think about it and then forgot to think about it.
So here Tommy is, sitting on a bench inside the principal’s office, waiting for his entire junior class to come back from the field trip. And Tommy fucking wanted to go to the damn history museum, wanted to run around with his friends while reading every bit of information he could.
Leave it to his bitchass mother to “forget” to leave one measly signature on a piece of paper.
Okay, so it’s not that bad, except he really likes history and really wants to pursue something history after high school. It’s not like he gets completely obsessed with some specific historical event, one after another.
Well, maybe it is that bad.
Anyways, he’s fuming, the perfect picture of a privileged teenage kid not getting what they want. Maybe he’s not exactly privileged, per say, but he still didn’t get what he wants so he’s sitting like a petulant child.
His soulmates know it, too. Tommy’s not exactly… the best, to put it simply, at curving his emotions so they don’t reach his soulmates. It doesn’t help that he hasn’t met them yet, and he read once that meeting your soulmates deepens the bond, allowing more control.
Tommy doesn’t know if he wants to meet his soulmates.
He was born with soulmates already years into their lives, born with them watching his firsts while only being allowed their seconds or thirds or fourths, etc. When he came into consciousness, somewhere around his fifth fall with no help from his mother, his soulmates were there to greet him.
They guided him through all of their minds melding together, through their deeply intertwined souls of green, pink, yellow, and red. The way Tommy describes it in his journal, his artbook, his friends, is like a hub: each soulmate reserving their own space that’s decked out in their own color with a community like center. They can talk to one another, but when one blocks the others out, their fourth grays, and nobody’s able to reach their area. Because of this, they rarely block each other out.
This is one of the times he wishes he could block them out.
Tommy can feel them pushing on his thoughts, into his area, pink and green softly pushing against his mind while yellow demands his attention. He’s got nothing else to do for the next two hours while his classmates are all gone, so he might as well indulge them.
He allows them in, less gracefully than he’d like to admit, but with more control than he thought he had. His amazement is mirrored in green, in proudgoodyes, their praise likewise to a parental figure, something Tommy craves and green knows this. They all ignore the familial love Tommy projects towards green.
Yellow doesn’t stop demanding Tommy to communicate what’s wrong, why Tommy feels anger, disappointment, rage, even sadness and distrust. All the good stuff. Little does yellow know, but Tommy tends to have trouble regulating his emotions, so he snaps fuckyoufuckoff mentally at yellow, taking everything out on his soulmate when all yellow wanted to do was help.
Chiding him, pink reprimands him with badmeanstop, and Tommy wilts, his red soul shrinking back further into his mind area. Pink immediately reassures him with itsokaysorryfine, and Tommy stays where he is, avoiding yellow’s reaching colors. He allows a sorrymyfaultsorry to slip through, and green floats towards him, their parental presence instantly calming him.
God, does Tommy wish green was his mother and yellow and pink his siblings.
Instead, Tommy’s left with a bitch as a mother, someone who doesn’t care for him, and tends to worry whether her lipstick is smudged than if her toddler’s hair has been brushed since last week.
Tommy dodges green, for some reason he doesn’t want to admit. Stayplease projects through the bond, and if yellow had a face, their expression would not be very happy. Pink’s soul dimmers before lighting up not a second later—and Tommy expects this, expects pink to hid their emotions from the people who have seen fucking everything—and green doesn’t stop coming towards him, forcing Tommy to wrap his soul around green’s and bathe in the comfort.
They’re interrupted with tapping on Tommy’s shoulder, gentle tapping that removes Tommy from the peacefulness of his soulmates and he feels a slight twinge of annoyance from pink that he ignores.
“Hmm?” Tommy hums, disorientated from leaving his mind so quickly. In front of him is the desk lady, Puffy or something.
She smiles down at him, soft and gently. Like a mother. “Sorry hun, but school’s out. Can you drive yourself or call someone to pick you up?”
Tommy furrows his eyebrows, unwelcome awareness creeping back in. “Aren’t the buses still here?” Tommy cannot drive as his mother (again) seems illiterate in signing papers.
Puffy smiles apologetically at him, shaking her head. Distantly, Tommy can hear green ask everythinggoodokay. “Buses left 10 minutes ago, you seemed to be sleeping and I was busy in the back offices.”
Tommy slumps into his chair, sighing and sending annoyancewhatthefuck. “I can’t drive. Can I just walk home?”
Licking her lips thoughtfully, Puffy returns behind her desk. “Sure, be safe.” Tommy gathers his shit. Looks like he has a thirty minute walk home. Fabulous.
Phil’s fourth soulmate is in pain.
He can feel their pining for love, from whatever parental figure that’s supposed to be giving them it. And yet, that person is not showing love to his soulmate, his fierce, loyal soulmate.
So Phil tries to overcompensate by being that person for his fourth. It started a bit forced, until Phil genuinely started viewing the red soul as one of his kids.
Wilbur and Techno know it too. They know that Phil’s trying to fix whatever neglect their shared soulmate has endured, and Phil knows Wilbur tries to distract their fourth from harmful thoughts and that Techno tries to ward off any misleading nightmares when their soulmate is sleeping.
It’s tiring, sure, but Phil would continue fighting all the world’s men and all the heaven’s angels if it means his soulmate knows they’re loved.
His mother wasn’t very happy he walked home. Something about how he could’ve been kidnapped or shit. Of course, Tommy recpricated with “shut the fuck up, you don’t even care” and his mother—rightfully, in Tommy’s opinion, not that he’ll tell his mother—told him that he’s a waste of space and shouldn’t deserve everything she does for him.
Tommy’s soulmates weren’t very happy with the argument, and their resentment and anger multiplied his own, causing him to snap at his mother and now he’s being sent to bed with no dinner.
And at the ripe old age of 17 fucking years old. What kind of fuckery is that? It’s like his mother randomly decided to discipline her kid, but she doesn’t know what the appropriate punishment is.
Marching towards the stairs, Tommy yells over his shoulder, “Finally starting to parent, for once!” Damn, does he love pushing buttons.
His mother doesn’t leave the living room, and Tommy’s reminded of why he doesn’t talk back to his mother. “Maybe if you weren’t such a devil of a child, your father would’ve stuck around.” Tommy’s also reminded of how easily it is to pretend his mother’s words don’t strike him in the middle of the heart.
“Fuck you!” He ignores his mother’s gasp at his language and runs up the stairs, slamming his door.
He scoffs to himself, throwing his phone and then his body onto his bed, flopping on top of unmade sheets. Stupid fucking joke of a mother, he thinks, and laughs when pink sends a quick agreed through the bond. Wait. Hold up. Pink heard Tommy’s entire thought, not little snippets. What the fuck. Whatthefuck Tommy sends through, shock in every word.
Green chuckles at him absentmindedly projecting bettercontrolhappens, obviously busy with someone in their real life. Yellow’s not present—their part of the hub not grayed out, but they just aren’t there.
It’s just Tommy and pink, green occasionally supplying their own response. Tommy’s not allowed to leave his room until the next morning so he has plenty of time to think, and those thoughts quickly shift into questions.
Do his soulmates already know each other in real life? Tommy knows he’s the youngest and that pink is 23, yellow is 24, and green is old. Just old. There’s a very real possibility that his adult soulmates have enough independence to reach out to each other and meet up. Tommy isn’t always partial to everyone else’s conversations, just as the others aren’t to his.
Sadly, it’s the weekend, meaning both him and his mother will be home. Not if Tommy can help it, though. He’ll probably escape and go down to the beach, checking out the new boardwalk diner that opened a few weeks ago. Tommy just hasn’t made time to go, and since his mother doesn’t pay much attention to him—the outlier being today, apparently—it’ll be a piece of cake to escape his “grounding.”
He’s bored already, so he grabs his sketchbook from under his bed. His pens and markers are next to his bed, innocent enough his mother wouldn’t suspect anything. Curiosity overwhelms the bond, yellow making their first appearance for the night.
They all know that he has a sketchbook, and that he uses it as some sort of therapy, but he usually does his best to limit his bond when opening it.
Tommy keeps his side completely open this time.
Yellow and pink take advantage of this, crowding around his red soul as he allows them to look through his eyes. According to green, it’s very rare for soulmates to do anything other than the telepathic bond, so for his soulmates to be able to see through each other’s eyes, it’s almost impossible.
The only downside is that words, letters, anything written are blurred, some kind of censoring the universe decided to fuck them over with. It’s weird and picky, sometimes Tommy can draw a symbol and it be blurred out and another time the same exact one be completely clear. It’s weird.
They don’t even look through each other’s eyes often, instead wanting to respect each other’s privacy unless they allow the others in, like Tommy is right now.
Flipping to a new page, Tommy can feel their presence next to him, yellow’s excitement is leaking into his own contentment and pink’s “I’m pretending to not care when I actually really do” amuses Tommy.
Since yellow and pink are currently seeing through eyes, Tommy starts drawing. He wants to meet up with his soulmates, he wants to meet his soulmates and finally find out if it’s him that’s the problem, if it’s him that makes everyone not love him.
Followmecopyme Tommy projects, wanting his soulmates to draw the same thing as him so they have their own reference for tomorrow.
A line here and a line there. Tommy gets lost in his art, barely paying attention to yellow and pink. He shades certain parts he doesn’t necessarily need to shade, and adds details he doesn’t need to add.
A good 15 minutes later, Tommy’s drawing is finished, and yellow and pink seem to be done as well. It’s a drawing of the diner he is meaning to try tomorrow, everything from the structure to random seagulls flying in the background. Even though the drawing is to meet up with his soulmates, Tommy’s pretty proud of it, the feeling amplified by yellow and pink.
Basking in the praise, Tommy feels yescomebethere through the bond and he sends back yeslunchtomorrowthere. He’s finally ready to meet his soulmates, especially since he’s almost ready to leave the house and his fuck up of a mother won’t care (or know) that he’s 18 in a few months.
Tommy’s ready.
Techno’s not sure what to do about his fourth soulmate.
They often can’t control their emotions and when they do, it’s always at the worst time. It’s when Techno’s just hanging out in the mind center, as he calls it, and he feels a spike in anger, resentment, and sometimes, fear that quickly gets closed off, his fourth’s area graying out.
It worries Techno to no extent, that his 17 years old, 8 months, and 15 days soulmate is experiencing shit Techno can’t imagine. The few times he’s allowed through his fourth’s eyes, the parts he wants to see—ones that would lead him to his soulmate’s location—are blurred, not allowed to be seen by the universe. Techno usually curses god out in his head—and he’s an atheist.
But this time, after worrying increases of fear through the bond, Techno’s fourth soulmate is finally opening up, letting him and Wilbur learn how to meet them. They draw a diner, one that Techno has heard of but never been too, but this fills Techno with hope.
Their soulmate is in the same town as them.
Tommy brushes a hand through his hair, nervous jitters all through his body. His hands shake as he drinks his water, and every minute that ticks by makes him nervous.
He spent the morning meticulously picking out an outfit, making sure the shirt didn’t have stains or his jeans had too many rips. Finegoodfine filters through the bond, probably from green, and based off of his soulmates’ reassurances, Tommy thinks he could’ve shown up wearing rags and be fine.
Even then, he stares at the ice cubes in his water, and watches them melt, slowly. At least he thinks he watches them melt; he isn’t very good at staying in place for very long and watching ice melt takes a shit ton of focus.
It feels like hours of waiting, waiting at a table meant for four that is only seating one. In fact, Tommy’s been waiting long enough that the waitress has asked him if he wants to order anything while he waits. Again. Please tell me I’m not getting stood up, he thinks, by my fucking soulmates, no less.
You’re not, shoots through the bond, loud and clear from pink, and Tommy startles. So clear that it has a voice, a tone that’s exclusive to pink, whereas before everyone sounded the same. He yanks his head up from where it was hanging and scans the diner; nobody looks like what Tommy envisions pink or yellow or green to look like. He doesn’t even know his soulmates’ genders, for fuck’s sake. His head twists to his right, towards the door, in hopes of catching three people walking in.
“You’re fine, sunshine,” a voice says to his left, and Tommy’s head whips around to find a tall man with a red beanie and long trench coat, two other men behind him that are noticeably shorter—well, the blond one is. All Tommy can do is stare in silence, mouth dropped open, as the three men pull out their chairs and sit down, the pink haired one, Techno, sitting across from him and red beanie, Wilbur, to his left. Weird bucket hat, Phil, sits diagonally and is smiling at him, similar to how Tommy imagined green would.
Wilbur sticks out a hand, kind of awkwardly considering he’s sitting next to Tommy, but Tommy shakes it, stunned. “Nice to finally meet you, Tommy.”
“Um, yeah.” Tommy starts, then stops. “What?”
Techno raises an eyebrow, “bit of a shock?” At Tommy’s nod, Techno gives a small smile. “Yeah, meetin’ your soulmates for the first time is unnervin’.”
“I knew you’d be scared,” Wilbur teases, leaning an arm on Tommy’s head. Not his damn fault he’s shorter than the tall motherfucker. Tommy shoves the arm off, and Wilbur laughs, just like he did before.
Tommy’s core warms at the sound of his soulmate’s laugh, his brother’s laugh, so he very lovingly shoots back: “Fuck you and fuck off.” So much love in those words.
“Boys,” Phil scolds, “knock it off.” Tommy feels all warm again, more warm than he’s ever been in his life. Phil turns to Tommy. “It’s nice meeting you, mate.”
“Likewise,” Tommy dips his head. God, does he love these people so damn much. “Should we order? I feel like I’ve been fucking sitting here forever.”
Next to him, Wilbur blushes and Phil laughs. Techno informs him of the inside joke. “Wilbur took forever gettin’ ready ‘cause he was nervous you wouldn’t be impressed.”
“I thought you guys weren’t gonna be impressed,” Tommy says, “was thinking you guys wouldn’t really want a seventeen year old soulmate after you meet me.”
“Oh Tommy,” Phil says, eyes soft with concern, “of course we fucking want you. I think I can say we all love you, a lot more than that bitch of a mother.”
Tommy was not expecting Phil to outrightly say that about his mother, but what can he say, Phil likes to keep him on his toes sometimes. So when he gives a shocked laugh, and then keeps laughing, it’s no surprise his soulmates join in.
“It’s true, Toms,” Wilbur says, nudging Tommy’s shoulder gently, “We love you much more than your mother does, so you don’t have to worry about us, you know, abandoning you.”
“She didn’t abandon me if she never had me in the first place. And I love you too, Wilbs.”
Wilbur freezes in place, looking similar to a goldfish.
“I think you broke him,” Techno laughs, unwrapping his silverware. “And the waitress is coming.”
Before the waitress walks up to their table, Tommy looks down at his lap, then looks into each of his soulmate’s eyes. “I think I’m gonna be okay.”
“I think I’m gonna be okay.”