Inception {Dreamnotfound}

13 | Fourth Knowledge | 13

-George's POV-

"Where would we even start?"

Clay folds his arms, shaking his head like he can't believe what he's hearing. The movement is enough to cause a stray, dirty-blonde curl to fall into his eyes, and I can't resist the urge to brush it away.

"Thanks, sunshine," he coos quietly, and I watch Tubbo narrow his eyes, lip curling in disgust. "But I still don't understand: why are you so desperate to find Skeppy all of a sudden?"

I shoot Tubbo a glance, knowing what giving an explanation means. It means that yet another person will know about Tommy, which has been reiterated by Fundy over and over to be a bad idea. But this is Clay, I remind myself, and that makes it much easier for me.

For Tubbo, maybe not so much, especially after staying around Techno for so long and hearing his opinion of the person he refers to as 'Dream'.

"Um..." There's a hint of hesitation in Tubbo's eyes, and as much as I want to intervene, I don't. He has to be the one to explain Tommy, only he can. None of this makes sense to any of us, but it'll make the most sense coming from him.

"So um, a teenage boy died about a year ago and he was one of Techno's friends and then Techno met me, and he thought I looked really lonely, and he gave me his friend's band-"

Tubbo lets the words spill from his mouth without stopping, taking a deep breath after. He lets the confusion register on Clay's face, who immediately starts questioning the new information.

"Techno gave you someone's band?" he asks. "Like... someone else's band? You have the band of a teenager?" Tubbo nods after every question, and I watch Clay's eyes widen more with every confirmation. "So you have the band of a teenager, which was left behind for some reason..." he thinks aloud.

Tubbo pulls the sleeve of his shirt up, revealing the white band beneath. He holds the band out in Clay's eyeline, letting him look at it before retracting his arm again.

"Tom, I'm gonna remove the band for a sec," he warns, tugging on the white material lightly and letting it fall open, as if only a bracelet. The black centre of it is now left visible, evident that the owner of it is dead. Yet the white doesn't fade, which only confuses Clay further.

"This is his band," Tubbo explains, and I notice that both of his eyes are once again the same colour. Dark blue, no trace of the pale blue eye left behind in them. "I can take it off and put it back on again, just like any other band."

"Your eyes..." Clay stutters, looking between Tubbo and the band like he's just seen a ghost. "Yeah, it does that," Tubbo shrugs casually. "The lighter eye is his eye. I get one of them when I wear the band, for some reason. Neither of us know why."

My boyfriend shoots me a glance, the pleading look in his eyes begging for an explanation to this. I offer him an awkward wince, unsure what to say in a situation like this.

"Okay..." Clay ponders aloud, resorting to pacing the room when I can't give him any answers. "So what about the teen that died? You get his eye, is that it? What's the point of wearing the band if-"

"I can see him!" Tubbo interjects, much louder than I was expecting. He cuts over Clay's words completely, as if trying to prove a point. "I can see him," he reiterates quieter, less certain than before. "Nobody else can, but I can see him. He can't see anyone else either, or hear them. Just the person who wears his band."

"That's not even similar to a Devotion then," Clay stutters, evidently caught off-guard by Tubbo's outburst. "No," Tubbo agrees. "He can't interact with anything either. It's like he's a ghost. Can see, but can't speak or be heard. So we made up a language to communicate in. Like sign language, effectively."

"How is that possible?" Clay mutters dumbfoundedly, and I don't think he's even expecting an answer at this point. "You two aren't soulmates. Yet you can wear his band, and it allows you to see him. I don't think that should be possible-"

"The system doesn't either," I offer as an explanation. "The band stings Tubbo randomly while he's wearing it. It's like the system is trying to get him to take it off, like it knows it's not supposed to happen."

"Then why don't you?" Clay asks to Tubbo. "The system wants you to take off the band, and wearing it hurts you. So why don't you just take it off? Problem solved."

Something like hurt clouds Tubbo's eyes, and as if to prove the point, he circles the band back around his wrist. He puts the two ends together with far more force than necessary, clearly agitated.

"Because Tommy is my best friend," he mutters, every word laced with spiteful venom. "I've thought about that before, okay. But I was desperate. The comfort I get from knowing that someone is always there for me makes me able to tolerate this world. Getting stung every once in a while seems like a small price to pay."

There's a kind smile tugging at Clay's lips, evident something has clicked in his head. "We do crazy things for the people we care about," he sighs, a hand drifting to the scars littering his face. He traces the outline of a more prominent one, cut deep into the bridge of his nose. It's like the scar smudged the freckles there, leaving some blotchy and others in strange shapes.

"I guess so," Tubbo murmurs back, dramatically quieter than before. There's a nervous shiver mixed into every action of his, leaving every word uttered from his mouth shaky and uncertain.

An uncomfortable moment of silence stretches out between the three of us, one which only ends after I tell Tubbo I'll finish the explanation. Clay waits patiently for him to leave, a guilty look still haunting his eyes.

"That's not even possible though..." he mutters, and I sigh again, remembering how I felt when Tubbo told me all of this for the first time. "Apparently it is," I shrug, trying to make the action as casual as possible. And failing, very miserably, obvious by the gentle hand soon resting on my shoulder. I wrap my hand over Clay's, squeezing it lightly in a silent thanks.

"Tommy can travel between this world and the Pre-Outcast one," I continue, wanting to finish the topic as fast as possible. "Well, he's teleported between them randomly. But he can actually talk to them..."

I spend a few minutes explaining everything to Clay, who remains a lot quieter and asks a lot less questions this time. I tell him about Skeppy's band, then about what Tommy saw the last time he was sent to that world.

"So you think that the person Tommy saw was Darryl?" he asks, and I nod silently, leaning my head against his arm. Which he then moves, wraps comfortingly around my shoulders, cradling my head against his side instead. "And he only has a few days left, so you need to find Skeppy before he fades completely." Another nod.

"That makes sense then, sure," he shrugs, and I breathe a mental sigh of relief before he continues. "So when are we doing this? Tomorrow?" I shake my head.

"Today."

—————

This chapter is basically one big section with everything I've told you about Tommy in one place.
Think of it as a reference chapter, if you will.