#i feel like doublelife is one word | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bgech · 2 years

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What's up besties? I'll tell yah, school. Kickin my ass once agian. Whatever. Double life halfslab have my whole heart, this is way more shippy than I intended, enjoy. 3409 words.

Tw for vomit tho, stay safe <3

Sometimes Etho will get skittish and quiet as he sinks into the recesses of the world to sulk or think or do whatever he does when he vanishes.

It seems to be happening now, which is unfortunate because "now" is the middle of a death game.

Etho was fighting off some pillagers and Joel, foolish as he was, thought it'd be funnier if he just sat by and watched. It was funny to Joel ok? Etho is perfectly capable of taking care of a few pillagers and often refuses help if offered in a situation not dissimilar to this. So Joel thought he'd be in the clear with watching his soulbound jump away from most of the arrows and keep on the offensive.

Maybe it was because they were red, maybe it was something else, but even though they never dropped below five hearts -Joel made sure of it- after Etho was done disposing of the pillagers he walked past Joel without a wink of acknowledgement. Immediately Joel stopped his teasing about porcupines and pin cushions to follow Etho into the Relation.

He was too slow up the ladder though, by the time he made it below deck Etho was gone.

It's not the worst thing that can happen, their health isn't going down so he's not in any immediate danger, but even though they have all ten hearts, Etho still got shot. A lot. Healing doesn't pull arrows out of skin, in fact it makes it worse as the arrows are now healed in, granted they're deep enough. Joel can feel the uncomfortable pulling as they're shifted while Etho moves.

He feels a sharp pain on the back of his leg, one that sends him to sit on his bed while it passes. It's not enough to take a heart away so he can't even eat to heal it. Etho's pulling out the arrows somewhere, alone, probably in the dark. Despite his nature to lurk in the deepest shadows and slink away to seep into the void, he hates the dark. Joel knows he hates the dark.

When Etho went with Impulse down into the deep dark he came back with not much enchanted gear and way too many torches. Every square inch of their base was bright as daylight, to the point where Joel couldn't sleep. He asked Etho about it a few days later and got him to confess that he hated dark spots. Still wasn't used to the new spawn patterns of all that go bump in the night.

There was another pain, this one in his shoulder, this one a lot worse. It took a few hearts and when Etho decided that healing was optional, Joel decided to find him. He was going to give him space and time to be alone, etho likes his own company more than anyone else's and is probably the only person Joel knows where it's a better idea to let them isolate. But if etho isn't gonna take care of himself he needs finding.

Now, finding etho is one of those things that doesn't happen. Especially when he vanishes. Etho does not want to be found so he will stay hidden. Joel knows this, everyone knows this. So how is Joel gonna do it? Well he's gonna cheat.

<Smallishbeans> etho's gone

<Grian> that's our problem because...?

<TangoTek> ditched ya?

<Smallishbeans> no, he's gone. like, sunk into the cracks of your server gone.

<ZombieCleo> oh shit!

<Pearlescentmoon> uh oh!!

<Grian> o no, ok, everyone stay put, stay still, joel i'll be right there

He hates to make Grian go all admin mode in the middle of a session but..well even though it's just a game Joel has become quite attached to Etho, and would like him to not be bleeding somewhere in the dark.

Grian does arrive, in all of his purple eyed glory, to ask exactly what had happened to make Etho run off into the night. At which Joel had to look Grian in his many, many eyes and admit that he was being a bit of an asshole while Etho was getting shot, at which Grian just looked..so disappointed. Mostly at Joel, some at himself, but man. A many eyed disappointed stare has a lot more power than the normal, expected, two eye experience.

Joel just feels worse when Grian sighs, rolls his shoulders, and blips away in a flurry of obstructed code and feathers. He decides to just go inside and make sure he has enough bandaids to cover for all the freakin arrow holes Etho is sure to have. So he sits there, twiddling his thumbs until he hears Grian shout something indignant from over the hills and Etho comes skittering in through a window, some arrows still in him.

He freezes briefly when he catches sight of Joel but when Grian's footfalls sound on the deck he scrambles under Joel's bed. Etho's an arctic fox but he's a sewer rat man at his core. He steals, he vanishes, he squeezes into places he Very Much Shouldn't be able to fit in. And, and he lives in the walls, in the basements of the world, so it's no surprise when he chooses to burrow underneath something when push comes to shove.

Grain climbs down the ladder, holding Etho's jacket and looking more out of breath than Joel has seen him during the whole damn game. He tosses the coat at Joel's face, muttering something about fixing his mistakes and Etho being a "slippery little shit when he wants to be". Grian then fucks off to probably fix whatever he broke chasing Etho back home.

They sit for a while in the quiet, the only sounds being the critters outside in the night.

"He's gone," Joel says to the empty air, "you can come out now, I don't bite" Etho shifts under the bed, his fluffy tail brushing against the back of Joel's ankle making him jump.

"Etho I know you hate the dark, and I know for damn sure you're bleeding all over my nice floors under there"

Etho responds with a very respectable growl.

"I know, I was mean to you, shouldn't have been," he dangles a box of bandaids below the bed frame, "I've got batman bandaids," he sing-songs, "and I'll make you some borscht"

Etho snatches the box and tells him to go away, which he does. If Etho wants privacy, then privacy he shall get. Plus he promised him borscht and like hell Joel is going back on that.

Making borscht is not a skill Joel has honed, but living with etho has made him learn how to make a decent pot. He gets through the whole process before he feels Etho pull out another arrow, this one rips at the skin more than he'd have liked to know and he hears a stifled yelp from the window.

Balancing two bowls of borscht, holding spoons, and climbing down a ladder is hard and he's suddenly very thankful that he built the Relation. Unbeknownst to everyone there's a trap door at ground level, which he uses to enter instead of breaking his neck on the way down.

Now, Etho is not a pitiful man. Though he's wire thin, impressively quiet and often alone, he's a very respectable player. He's profound in redstone, great at building and not half bad at pvp, especially in the forever vaguely mentioned "good ol' days". But looking at him now, it is hard to believe. In nothing but his trousers and mask he's struggling to reach an arrow lodged between his shoulder blades, ears pinned to the side of his head, he's really got the Kicked Puppy look about him.

"Etho," he doesn't startle, just turns to look at Joel with mistrust, backing away with his hands slightly raised, "can I get that for you etho?"

"..you actually made borscht?"

" 'course I did, you can eat it while I, y'know, make you less full of holes?"

"mm, ok, fine"

"Thank you, I'll be gentle I promise"

"You don't need to be gentle Joel, I can take a little pain y'know"

"I know just," he takes a breath, "just let me do this for you Etho, think of it like an apology hm?"

Etho's ears perk up for a moment before swiveling like he's misheard. He glances at all the corners of the room, a perimeter check, before taking the offered bowl and spoon and sitting on Joel's bed. Not his own, because it's been overturned to make a nice little cave for him to sleep in.

He reaches up to lower his mask but hesitates, throwing a glance back at Joel who's getting a cloth saturated with warm water and his ears flick back again.

"I won't look Eth, just enjoy the stew"

Etho turns away, lowering his mask and taking a sip, "it's a soup"

"Right right, my bad, soup it is. I'm gonna get this arrow out now, ok?"

"..ok"

With the help of the warm cloth and proper angling the arrow slides out without much protest. His back twitches at the feeling involuntarily but Etho's still happily eating the borscht and Joel can confirm that it didn't hurt too bad. He thought about making a comment along the lines of "isn't that better than ripping em out" but it'd do more harm than good so he keeps it to himself.

He replaces the arrow with a patch and puts a bandaid on top for good measure. There's a few other spots that Etho missed or just didn't have time to get to so he starts on cleaning away the dried blood and patching up those too. By the time that Etho's back is clean and bandaged he's finished his borscht and his head is bobbing slightly.

"You falling asleep etho?"

"Mmm"

"D'you wanna get in your cave or..?"

"..maybe." He leans back, mask back in place, and knocks his forehead against Joel's ribs, "maybe not..?"

"What's got you so clingy?" He asked as brushes his thumb over etho's forehead, sweeping back unruly bangs, "not that I'm complaining but, you've never been..well like this, I suppose"

"You're not dark"

"I'm not what?"

"It's still dark and..well, you're not" it was now that Joel noticed that etho's hands looked to be dipped in black ink, the space around his eyes having the same treatment, like eyeliner on a rainy day. "Can you stay here till it's bright again?"

"Oh, Etho of course I can, just, ok just give me a moment alright?"

Etho, albeit very reluctantly, lets himself be detangled from Joel, who gets up to change into something to sleep in. He also puts away Etho's empty bowl and his still full one to save for later. He contacts Grian that everything is ok, who then contacts the rest of the server saying the session can continue. By the time he returns Etho has decided that waiting up for him was overrated and inefficient. He's commandeered Joel's blanket to wrap around himself with his head under the pillow. That's right, under it.

The left side of the bed is still free and Etho did say he wanted him to stay, so instead of awkwardly trying to disturb whatever peace etho's found, he just climbs in next to him and opens his book to read. Etho curls around him and comes out from under the pillow to shove his masked face into Joel's side. Joel makes the mistake of glancing down after a paragraph only to make eye contact with Etho's best puppy eyes.

Here's the thing about Etho's eyes. They're pretty large in comparison to the rest of his face, maybe it's because of the mask blocking everything else from sight, but fact of the matter is Etho has big, sad eyes and he knows it. He uses it to his advantage at every turn, every moment he can he puts on the Sad Eyes and he'll get what he wants. This is all well and good, except for the fact that Joel doesn't know what he wants.

"What is it?"

Etho whines at him, a very distinctly not human sound.

"Do you want me to read aloud? That it?"

Etho settles back to his previous position, letting his eyes relax into the half closed state they're usually in.

Alright then, he can read out loud. Not well nobody said he was good at it, but it can be done, and if it'll keep Etho calm for the night then who's he to say no?

And though every time he reaches a character name and he has to pronounce it out loud for the first time, failing at least twice, and every time he comes across a word like "grotesque" he has to fight back the urge to say "gro-tes-que", Etho seems to be enjoying himself. How does he know? Well Etho's wrapped himself up in a little burrito roll, every part of him covered, save for his face of course, and the very end of his tail. The end of a tail which is constantly tapping away on the mattress.

As long as he's happy, Joel is happy too.

He gets through a surprising amount of the book before Etho gives it up and closes his eyes. He had been blinking lazily for the past however long, obviously exhausted from whatever run around he did avoiding grian, but trying to stay awake anyway. But now he lay still as a rock, tucked carefully into Joel's side. Joel himself is just as tired so he decides that a nap won't hurt. It's not really a nap now that it's past midnight, it's just sleep, but he has a bit of a sneaking suspicion that the Dark will be making another appearance before the sun rises.

He drifts off easily, how can he not? He's warm and safe and he's got someone curled around him, holding him gently. He doesn't dream, never has, and maybe he never will. It doesn't matter to him.

What does matter is the fact that he's been proven right. He usually likes being proven right because that means he wins, he was correct all along and they were foolish to think otherwise. He does not like being proven right when it's about the dark. They've only been through it once before, etho's first night after the warden shenanigans went down. He had gone under his bed into the cave he'd built, only to wake Joel up when he jolted awake and tried to run. Thing about having a cave for a bed is the escape routes are one way and quite narrow, so in his panic to get out of the dark and away from the warden that he was sure was right there, he ran into just about every corner and wall on his way out.

Needless to say that it hurt and combined with the pain and the noise Joel was awake and at his side fairly quickly. Joel, for all he's worth, is not the greatest at calming people down, he knows this. So in his attempt to stop Etho from suffocating them to death via panic attack, he got them both outside and made etho stare at the sun for a few minutes. It didn't calm him down at all, but the confusion of why he was unceremoniously dragged outside and then forced to look at the big ball of burning gas was enough of a puzzle to get him to breathe again. Maybe the wind and light was what did it, who knows.

It was a big win for everybody involved.

Staring at the sun, while a nice confusion tactic, hurts the eyes and is not actually recommended by anyone of any sorts of smarts. So maybe don't stare at the sun, it'll hurt ur eyes

Anyway, Joel was proven right when at around 3, maybe 4, Etho's subconscious decided that it was no longer a good idea to be asleep. Joel woke up to etho sitting up rather abruptly. In his sleepy haze he didn't realize why and was honestly just annoyed that his pillow had left him.

"Y'aright etho"

He doesn't get an answer, just a wet sounding cough, which is bad for a lot of reasons. Is it blood? Vomit? Just spit stuck in Etho's throat?

"Etho"

He sits up and puts a hand on Etho's shoulder, trying to turn him around to maybe get a better idea of what's wrong. Etho shakes his head and pulls away, coughing into his hand again, sounding worse than before.

"Bucket?"

He nods and coughs again, doubling over as it doesn't stop. Joel gets up from the bed and tries to find a bucket before Etho's willpower loses against whatever is choking him but in all his frantic searching he finds nothing but the empty borscht bowl from earlier. If it's as bad as it sounds the bowl is not going to be nearly enough, he has to find a goddam bucket, or Etho is going to drown in his own misery in front of him and, oh it was staring him right in the face the whole time.

He returns to Etho's side not a moment later and shoves the bucket under him just as Etho's hand moves out of the way and he makes a god awful retching sound. Joel looks away for common courtesy, nobody likes to be looked at when they throw up, but he doesn't move from his post next to Etho. He knows from personal experience that it's good to have something solid to lean on after a long bout of throwing up, and while the wall is there it's probably not very nice to bump into after a go like this.

So he stays while Etho continues to spit and hack into the bucket and he stays when Etho starts to cry in between heaves of sour smelling, bloody looking gunk. He stays a warm presence at his side as Etho coughs and coughs again, trying to rid himself of the Dark that's crawled inside his lungs and infected his stomach. He's there to catch him when Etho finally, finally finishes and crumples to the side. He lets etho recover for a moment before he gets up to get him a wet rag to wipe his face with. He then takes the bucket outside and burns it. And when he gets back from his impromptu bonfire he'll give etho a cold glass of water and make a show of turning around so he can drink.

"Feeling any better?"

"Mm-mm" Etho shakes his head negative

"I sort of figured," Etho huffed a laugh, "but I am sorry that whatever..that..was happened"

Etho didn't respond, just hummed a little and curled his arms around himself in a loose sort of hug. Joel could only see his eyes but he still looked like a sick dog about to be taken out back. He's still not got a shirt so Joel turns to find him one, that'll make him feel better, right? Not so exposed. A harder task than once thought because Etho likes to squirrel away all of his things into little holes and cubbies and containers all around which leads Joel to just give up and give Etho one of his own. With the height difference he was initially worried about it being much too small, but Etho's all legs and bone anyway, he'll be fine.

He dumps the shirt on Etho's head and settles himself back against the headboard, it is his bed after all.

Concerningly, Etho doesn't move for a few moments, somewhere Else to be sure, but he comes back fast enough that Joel isn't worried about him blipping away again. He stops staring at the back of Etho's head and turns his attention to the ceiling, counting and recounting the grooves of the wood, waiting for Etho to make a decision. A decision that's decided when he feels Etho tentatively lay down next to him, on his side, facing the wall. His hands are curled close to his face, which Joel now notes is uncovered by the normal mask. Instead it's tucked under the blanket, held in place by his hands with his nose exposed.

Etho's ears are back to being relaxed atop his head and his eyes are closed so Joel counts his blessings and settles in for more sleep.

I hate how this ends aach but I wanna post it before class is over lmaoo.

Shout out to all the people who stare at the sun during meltdowns, I'm one of u.

#what are the tags help #double life smp #trafficshipping #ethoslab #joel smallishbeans #i feel like doublelife is one word #doublelifesmp #like that #boat boys #smalletho #ok byebye i gotta go to math :(

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