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tunastime · 20 hours ago

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On Bone and Heat

In the aftermath of his unsuccessful fight with Welsknight, Helsknight crawls his way back to the Nether, his sanctum and home, equally unsuccessfully. As stubborn as his counterpart, his twin, his clone, he's reluctant to accept help from anyone, especially someone with a steel toe to his bruised ribs. Against his better judgement, Helsknight lets Evil Xisuma carry him home.

so in lieu of stressing myself out about artfight I instead have written a somewhat standalone mirror piece to On Blood and Metal. I hope y'all enjoy :3c (3480 words) (read it on ao3!)

The wide berth of the Nether stretched out in every direction. This was something, much like the overworld, that every player knew. Every living soul, every entity that chose to make either domain their home, knew that the infinite spread of chalky red cliffs, jagged blackstone walls, and bubbling lava pits made the inhospitable wastes a derelict, and endless, stretch in opposition to the world above. Or in mirror to—there was no real above here, which is what Ex hated the most about the term overworld. The Nether wasn’t ever, had never been under the overworld. It was separate. And that was the way he liked it.

Tucked away in his own tower of sorts, his own house, castle, whatever those who saw it might ascribe names or fears to it, Evil Xisuma made his home, away from any hermit settlements, away from, basically anything. Almost anything. On a good day, when the ash-fall was thin and the fog was clear, he could see the jagged spires and dark parapets of Helsknight’s castle. And a castle that one was, for such a knight that roamed its barren halls.

Ex was standing, now, in one of the winding tunnels not far from his own tower. It spanned the length between the two bases in curves, branching off in its wide archways to locations marked off by signs that glowed faintly in the lantern light. Tunneling was pretty much the only way to travel through somewhere so inhospitable for something as squishy as a human-like knight and, well, whatever Ex was, and neither had yet bothered with trying to quarantine their own space on the Nether’s bedrock roof. Ex had little interest—it was easier to squirrel away here, to scheme, to plan evil and not be bothered by the hermits and their ilk.

Ex was standing, and he was looking over the body of Helsknight and his angular, blackened armor. He frowned, instinctually, behind the visor of his helmet. Then he gave Hels a weak kick with the toe of his boot, steel clanking against his netherite armor. It sent a small, thorny shock through Ex’s foot. He did it again.

“Hey,” he said dully. “You alive?”

Hels gave a weak grunt. Of course he wasn’t dead . He was lying here, still in his armor, all of his various accouterments still attached to him, with a smear of red-black against the patterned floor, trailing where he’d fallen. But alive didn’t necessarily mean not dead —at least for them. Alive , in this case, meant: are you getting up, you’re causing a tunnel blockage with your ten-tonne armor. Ex kicked him a third time, and Hels’ hand shot up to grab his ankle, clutching it in his gauntleted fist, threatening to dig in the sharp points of his clawed fingers. The grip was weak, but pointed.

“Look at that!” Ex said, with all the annoyance he could muster. And it was a lot. “You’re awake. D’you mind? You’re blockin’ the tunnel.”

“Shut up,” Hels grit. His voice came raspy and wet, like he was talking through a mouthful of his own blood.

“D’you need help getting up? Or are you just gonna lie there and bleed?” Ex cocked his head to the side. He studied what he could see of Hels’ screwed up face through his slotted visor—which was very little of it. His face and neck were off-white in the low light, but the pale-yellow hue wasn’t anything that Ex would consider healthy by any standards, including his own. He squinted. Hels’ eyes were squeezed shut, brow furrowed sharply together. He could faintly hear the way he rasped as he breathed. It was shallow. It was wet . He could see the shredded fabric against his leg, stained deep red, the way he favored his left hand as he attempted to weakly push Ex back and get a hand under himself. He failed, ultimately, falling back into his own blood and armor with a dull thud. Another wheeze came through the helm.

Ex rolled his eyes through his visor, red eyes that much redder through the tint, before he bent. He pinned Hels’ flailing wrist with one hand and with the other, lifted his shoulder enough to set him upright. Hels let out a brief, but strained groan in protest—his opposite shoulder was slick with blood as Ex pushed him into a sit, and from his new angle, he could see the bent twist of Hels’ knee, right under the gash in the fabric. Ex huffed, restrained another eyeroll, and flung Hels’ arm—his good arm, it seemed, over his shoulder. Then he pulled them both into a stand. Hels made another gurgling noise, longer this time, and spit. Blood coated his mouth, but he didn’t seem to be swallowing any. That was a good sign.

“Can’t even get yourself off the floor,” Ex muttered to himself. He heard Hels laugh and almost felt something stir in the pit of his stomach. “Kind’ve useless, aren’t you?”

“Whatever,” Hels wheezed. Then he fell silent. Ex helped him straighten into a stand and start walking, hobbling beside him. They picked their way through the tunnel in near silence, aside from the wet breaths Hels took in, his huffs in pain, and Ex’s own thunk of armor and plates together as they marched forward.

The door to Hels’ castle—the arch, portcullis, the whole kit and kaboodle of a creation that was his front gate—was thankfully open when they arrived. They shuffled, stumbled, swayed as Hels leaned hard into Ex’s shoulder with the confidence of someone who clearly didn’t know or didn’t care who was helping him through his foyer and up the steps into the main castle. His wheezing had grown worse with each step, until it was pitchy, uneven, and clearly wet, the blood from his nose trickling down into his throat. He’d be lucky not to get an infection by the time Ex was done with him.

With his good arm, Hels beat at his shoulder, trying to stop their momentum. Ex frowned, still walking.

“What?”

Hels hit him again, weaker.

“You’re not stopping here. Not when you’ve got a perfectly good bedroom. Or living room.”

“No,” Hels spit out. “Can’t.”

“Not can’t,” Ex complained. “Won’t. Which we won’t be doing. Should I carry you?”

He paused then, and felt all the weight drain out of Hels body as he sagged into him. Ex jolted, his other hand coming under Hels’ bad knee as it buckled. He swung him up, his own legs straining as he lifted him.

“Fucks sake ,” Ex grit out. “What do you eat?”

Hels said nothing. His head had hit the pauldron on Ex’s shoulder as he’d lifted him and now his helm hung crooked off his face. Ex shifted, let it clatter to the ground, let Hels’ head fall against his shoulder even as it smeared blood across his shoulder pad.

In silence again, Ex carried him up the short flight of stairs, winding around the tower steps until he reached the landing that spilled out into Hels’ sparse bedroom. It was just as decorated as Ex could expect from someone like Hels—utilitarian: a plain, soft collection of blankets and pillows that made up a bed, an armor stand, some storage, a workbench cluttered with sharpening tools, broken knives, bits of armor he wasn’t wearing, shoulder plates that were dented beyond simple repair. He kicked aside strewn clothes as he set Hels against the closest wall with carpet under him, trying to keep the space padded against cold stone and crimson wood. Hels let out a breathless exhale as he was set against the wall. Ex saw him swallow and creak a dazed, unfocused eye at him. His hands pooled in his lap.

“Ex,” Hels said, frowning.

Ex raised his eyebrows. It was almost inconsequential to keep his helmet on now—maybe seeing his expressions would mean something. Maybe not. He kept it on for now, kept that expression obscured. Ex asked:

“You gonna die on me if I leave you?”

Hels gave a weak snort and shook his head. He was smiling slightly. Faintly delirious, maybe.

“Good,” Ex huffed. He folded his arms and stalked out of the room.

He had no intention of leaving Hels without patching those wounds, but with so little to work with in his bedroom, he searched blindly for a place Hels would actually store things in. He wound his way down the spiral stairs until he spilled out into a small common area, well-lit and padded with soft, plush furniture, carpeting, tables, tapestries. He resisted the urge to roll his eyes—only slightly. It would be hypocritical, despite how much he loved to play the hypocrite. He curved through the room, following the wall until it split into another smaller one: a kitchen, and a small storeroom. Despite its panache, he assumed that the rest of the castle was empty—if this was the space Hels found himself entertaining in. Entertaining Ex, at least. He’d been here countless times.

It took a moment for Ex to find a barrel worth his time. Nudging aside empty bottles and dark potions, Ex found the slightly glittery, deep red of a health potion. He gathered up a stack of cloth bandages, a bottle of water, and the health potion in one careful swoop. Hooking his fingers around the spout of the bottle, he stuck the bandages under his arm, and started back upstairs.

Hels was still in the same place he’d left him, thankfully, meaning he hadn’t tried to crawl his way across the room, or out the window, or something equally stupid. He managed to open one eye as Ex stepped into the room and set the potions beside him. Hels’ hand went to one, knocking it over. It rolled into his knee.

“Don’t spill it,” Ex said, turning from him to unhook the helmet from his suit. The gloves would be fine to navigate, but with such limited view close up, he needed to take the helmet off. He took a small breath of stale, Nether air, and the iron scent of blood struck him. He coughed, growled low in his throat. Fixing his hair behind his neck, he frowned and turned back to Hels.

He’d successfully gotten his good hand around the potion bottle at his knee, and was now trying to pull the cork out with his teeth. As he did, he sloshed potion down the front of his armor, spat the cork, and drank, quickly and ungracefully. It must’ve hit the back of his throat because he coughed, licked his teeth, and grimaced.

“Fuck,” he managed in a voice slightly more clear than it had been previously. “That hurts .”

“You’re gonna need to stay still so your hand doesn’t heal wrong,” Ex said, raising his eyebrows. Hels shot him a look as Ex moved to crouch in front of him.

“It’s fine ,” he barked. Ex snorted, flashing his sharp teeth at him.

“It’s not fine. Stay still. I’m getting you out of this armor.”

“You are not ,” Hels said, but didn’t move. His voice had only a fraction of the heat it usually did. He eyed Ex, not like he was sizing up an enemy, but warily, like an animal about to eat from an open hand. His pupils were blown wide, eclipsing the normal dark red-brown of his iris. Ex looked him over, his expression fading into neutrality, into pressing his mouth together in a fine line. They watched each other for a long moment. Then, Hels sighed, slightly strained, set his head back against the wall, and shut his eyes.

Ex took that as his cue.

He folded his legs under him and sat, reaching first to remove his gauntlets, prying his gloved fingers beneath the straps of leather that held them in place over chainmail and gambeson. It was a slow and arduous process, especially with his dominant hand, where the wound that had punched through it was already trying to close. He tugged the gauntlet down and reopened it just slightly. Hels grunted, face screwing up. So Ex started working faster. He peeled back the heavy metal chesplace with both hands, slipped his fingers into the ties of his pauldrons, the braces, even down to the epaulets still hooked into the fabric of his gambeson, the chainmail over his midsection, his boots and greaves. All that distracted him was the faint and heavy breathing Hels managed, the way he hadn’t moved except to crane his neck from side to side, and the still paling color of his face.

Ex flicked his eyes up to watch him as he dampened a cloth. Hels blinked open his eyes, flicked them over his face, and Ex watched his expression visibly soften. He almost bit into his tongue to prevent himself from speaking. Luckily, Hels sighed and weakly held out his hand instead. Ex took it, cradling the back as he began to wipe away dried and drying blood. He worked his way around the wound, careful with the frayed skin, cleaned down the pads of his fingers, along his sword-calloused palm. Every time Hels winced, he paused, let him take a breath, and started again. It felt odd to attempt to soothe him—Hels was a knight, an honorable one, a stupid one, but good at what he did. Good enough. So the idea of patronizing him with niceties while he was in pain just sounded nauseating. He cleaned the wound and dressed it in silence, letting Hels grip his other hand in between the pieces of Ex’s armor at his knee, only pausing to glance up at him once he’d finished.

And once he’d finished, Ex moved immediately to unfasten the heavy, jet-black gambeson. Hels made an immediate, choked sound. Ex blinked.

“What?” he grumbled, more annoyed than upset. Hels huffed.

“D’you have to?”

“Unless you wanna get something nasty happening with that shoulder wound, I suggest it,” Ex shrugged. “Already cut a patch in your pants for your leg, so I saved you that embarrassment .”

He wasn’t sure if Hels had been flushing before, but it grew darker nonetheless. He huffed again, tightening his jaw.

“Fine,” he grit. He tilted his head up and let Ex unfasten the heavy cloth. He peeled the fabric off his linen and skin, the shirt underneath damp with sweat and sticking to his chest. He took his time to carefully pull it from his shoulder, the same with the off-white tunic underneath. Ex tried not to let his gaze linger on the way his shoulders sloped down into his arms, or how his pale skin was littered with scars, jagged, smooth, winding around his arm, tucked under his ribs, across his collarbone, and the sluggishly bleeding puncture wound in his shoulder. He was softly defined, muscle hiding under padding, much like Ex could only expect of his counterpart. His skin didn’t have the same warm paleness, instead was a washed out white-tan, with his stark black hair, scruff, with dotted marks on his face rather than the spray of sun-set freckles he’d expect on someone getting that kind of sunlight everyday. But he was strong, and his jaw was tight with pain and apprehension, and Ex got to work cleaning the puncture in his shoulder.

Much like his hand, it had already begun to heal, but he worked the dried and tacky blood from his shoulder and where it had dribbled down the side of his arm. He was lucky he hadn’t broken any of the bones in his collarbone or shoulder, but the wound was deep, only just beginning to knit back together, slow, shallow. Wrapping the wound, Ex looked over to Hels, and surprisingly, met his eyes. Hels blinked. His cheeks were ever so slightly pink.

“Feeling better, are we?” Ex asked, raising his eyebrows. His eyes drew back to his shoulder as he tucked the bandage back under itself.

“No,” Hels laughed—laughed, mouth in a small smile. “Feel like shit.”

Ex sat back on his haunches. His left foot was asleep. He grimaced, lips pulling back against his teeth, and he heard Hels laugh again. He looked him up and down. Didn’t linger on his chest, or neck, or hand balanced on his knee. He raised his eyebrows.

“What?”

Hels shook his head. It fell back against the wall with a dull thud .

“Nothin. Just stupid,” he scrunched his eyebrows together. “Can’t believe I let that idiot do this to me.”

“Did you win?” Ex asked, still studying his expression. Hels hummed.

“ ‘Course I did.”

Ex snorted, then laughed. “ Sure .”

Hels lapsed into a short silence. Ex cleaned his hands in that time, didn’t look up at him, even though he felt his eyes on him. He scrubbed his gloves clean of the blood that had started to go tacky on his fingers, across the lines of his gloves. He left the cloths in a small pile with the empty bottles, Hels having drunk the last of the dark red potion. As Ex began to rise into a stand, he felt Hels grasp his wrist, skin cold and clammy. Even through the fabric and armor, Ex felt all his nerves light up under his skin, took a soft and fast breath to keep from jolting.

“Can’t,” Hels managed. Ex hummed, frowning. “Can’t stand.”

“Not won’t ?” Ex said, almost amused, under his breath. Hels shut his eyes.

“Can’t,” Hels said, softer, more pained. Ex felt something twist nauseatingly in his stomach. He swallowed, prying Hels’ fingers free of his wrist. Moving carefully, Ex wrapped Hels’ now-bare arm around his shoulders and helped him stand. He adjusted as they took the short handful of steps over to the soft cushions, pillows, blankets of Hels’ bed. Hels’ head immediately fell to his shoulder, the dried blood there flaking against his cheek, his nose wrinkling at the sensation. Ex chewed the inside of his cheek to keep from speaking, clamped his jaw as Hels exhaled against his neck. When he leaned to help lower him into the nest of blankets, Hels pulled away, peeled away, from him slowly, as if the exhaustion had made him want to linger. He was still pink in the face, warm to the touch, eyes still shut. He wormed away the minute Hels unlatched from his neck, skin unexpectedly crawling, itchy, tingling in every place warmth had been. Ex turned away, retying his hair as Hels sank into his pillows with a small, tired sigh.

In the time Ex had finished winding his hair back into its braid, Hels had fallen asleep.

For a short moment, Ex watched him, brow furrowed, mouth in a small, tight frown. Something inside his chest sat heavy and solid, like he’d swallowed chunks of blackstone, or a baby strider was sitting on his chest, or something equally painful and heavy and something he tried to massage out with the heel of his hand. He blew out a slow breath, shoulders deflating. His eyes were still lingering on Hels’ now softening face, the way the typical lines grew soft, the frown around his mouth fading out, his freckles more pronounced across his face and along his nose, dark hair obscuring part of his forehead. He was less pale than he had been when they’d first stumbled in, the color returning to his normally washed-out pallor. He was sharp in all the places Ex knew Wels wasn’t, from what he remembered under that stupid helm with its stupidly obnoxious plume. Hels’ helmet had horns that made it even stupider, made him look that much more dark and sinister, when he was really just someone who slept on millions of fluffy blankets and was small under the armor in comparison to, well, to Ex, who wasn’t small at all. He was just a knight. Just a knight.

Ex shut his eyes.

Fuck .

He was his knight, in a way, their fate twisted in braids with each other in a way that Ex could not even attempt to separate nor did he want to. He hated him. But his chest hurt something fierce seeing the small shape he made in bed.

Slowly, like he might wake him, Ex unbound the leather straps of his armor, stripped down to the skin-tight clothing underneath, gloveless, bootless, stood quietly scrubbing his eyes. Without another word, Ex lied down beside him, folded his arms, and shut his eyes. He did not move. He didn’t even try to breathe.

He was quiet. And he slept.

(And in the dark, Hels turned, curled his tired and aching body around Ex’s shoulder. He set his head there on the sharp of his collarbone, pinned his arm, breathed a sigh against the skin-tight clothes he wore. Neither moved, and neither made a sound, and both slept.)

#exhels #helsex #helsknight #evil xisuma #cw gore #cw blood #cw injury #hermitcraft #hermitcraft fic #mcyt #mcyt fic #text #fics #RIPS EVERYTHING APART WITH MY TEETH #THEY MAKE ME SOME KIND OF CRAZY I COULD NEVER PUT INTO WORDS #well if you wanted an exhels version of that welsno fic boy howdy do i got it for you #AND they're almost more well adjusted than those freaks!!#thanks milo for the reminder!! <33

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