Work Text:
It should have hurt more.
Etho could see the thorns breaking his skin. He could see blood, desaturated and dark, hear the hissing as it dripped into the soil and shriveled the grass below him. The tips of his fingers were grey and he — stupidly — wondered if they would crush like ashes if he put more pressure on them. He squeezed harder. His gloves (you and your useless clothes, Etho, Bdubs had said. Your coat has no sleeves! Your gloves have no fingers! ) did nothing to keep new thorns from drawing blood. It hurt.
Still, it should have hurt more. Hurt enough to make him stop thinking, even if just for a second. His damned mind. Always thinking.
When Tango and Skizz had seen him sitting atop the watchtower, staring at the stars, they’d whispered, in awe, in anticipation. Etho was the man with a plan. The one who saw every possible outcome and made contingencies for all of them. The one who would get BEST to the end.
The voices were different now, but the words they whispered when they saw Etho were the same. He was Etho, the legend, the survivor, the clever bastard.
Bdubs had thrown a snowball at him.
“Hey, Etho!” he’d yelled. “The netherwart is all grown now, stupid. Get down here and harvest it!”
“Aw, are my fragile flower’s hands tired?” Still, as Bdubs sputtered, Etho clambered to his feet and jumped down to the main walkway level of the castle, cracking his neck with one hand as he pulled a shovel out of a chest with the other.
“Sure, I’m the fragile flower, but grandpa Etho over here needs a shovel to dig four blocks of dirt,” Bdubs grumbled.
Etho smiled. They both knew Bdubs could have picked the netherwart. But they also both knew that, sometimes, Etho needed to do something with his hands. That the roughness of dirt against his skin could save him from the undertow that pulled at his mind. That, yes, Etho was always thinking, but it wasn’t always… productive.
They never voiced any of this. But they knew. They’d known.
‘Fragile flower.’ Bdubs had hated that nickname. (Flowers are strong! he’d protested. They’re only fragile if you suck at taking care of them. Not that I need you to take care of me, obviously.)
Contemplating the flower in his ashy, numbing fingers, the analogy had never seemed more apt. Bdubs was prickly. Annoying, impractical to be sure, but able to grow in the cracks between cold, sharp stones, digging in with grasping roots. A wither rose, but not a withered one.
And still. So, so fragile.
He had nothing. Bdubs had of course disappeared — had no one ever realized that it was worse to have nothing left of a person? They’d discussed it after last time. Scott, shoulders shaking even in Jimmy’s half-embrace, had argued against corpses remaining. He’d stumbled through an explanation of the nightmares he had, months after Jimmy’s third death. Grian had nodded, face pale, eyes pointedly looking away from Scar, despite the other’s obvious concern. At the time, Etho had shrugged and agreed. He hadn’t cared much last season, so he thought it right to go with those who knew how these things went.
Oh, how wrong he had been.
It was supposed to be a shroud for grief. Not a cure, not even an adequate treatment, but it was supposed to make it better. Instead, the lack of a corpse left the grief without a direction, trapped inside with no physical thing to put it into. Pearl and Ren had gone around the server yesterday, making graves for all of them. Jimmy, Mumbo, Skizz, Impulse, Lizzie, Bdubs.
Bdubs’s “grave” was marked by a mossy stone, his name carved alongside a strange flower Ren told him meant “resilience.”
It was beautiful, but it was still just a rock.
Etho had nothing of Bdubs. Their base was annihilated, their plans meaningless. The reds had looted the possessions he left behind, taking everything they could carry and burning the rest. Looking at the ashy remains scattered across the hill, it hadn’t even been anything that would lend a scavenger an advantage.
When Etho had first arrived — a scowl fixed beneath his mask because if he stopped scowling he wouldn’t know what to do — he’d seen the moon reflecting off a circular surface and something in him knew what it was because he’d torn off from the group, ignoring their yells, sprinting towards the dead grass seared dry against the hill like broken veins by the lightning strike of Bdubs’s death.
The clock’s face was mostly intact, despite the glass being shattered, but the backing was fused to a hunk of raw copper ore, marbled with partially melted iron, out of which stuck a stone shovelhead. He tried to pull them apart but only succeeded in breaking the glass further and lacerating the palm of his left hand.
They couldn’t have left him with a single thing.
The others had left at some point, some worried about the reds, some others probably bored by his outwardly muted reaction. Maybe he should be more broken. He should be a wreck, screaming, sobbing: he should at least be able to shed a single pathetic tear for the man he called his partner.
But he could do nothing. Nothing but sit in silence, thinking, thinking, heart too blank and mind too full.
“Hey-”
“Grian.” Etho dropped the wither rose, hand shooting towards a splash potion of harming hanging at his hip. The voice had come from about five feet behind him. Just out of range.
Grian laughed, jagged and cold. Etho wondered if he laughed like that after murdering Bdubs. Void take it, why couldn’t he just stop thinking about it?
“I can’t help but notice that you’re alone, Etho. Pretty confident, huh? Think that you can take me out? Solo, like the Wither?”
That wasn’t me, Etho wanted to say. It was all him. It was always him. “Would you really kill a grieving man? Could you?” It was half a joke and half a dare.
“Want to find out?”
“Nope!” Etho stood abruptly, turning around to face Grian. He raised his shield just in time to block the bolt flying towards his chest. Grian hissed and started to reload his crossbow, having to sheathe his sword to do so. “It’s a bit chilly here, don’t you think? I should be getting home, but nice seeing you!” He raised an ender pearl.
“Bdubs!” Grian shouted.
Etho flinched, botching his throw, and ended up only a couple of blocks away, struggling to regain balance in both his mind and legs.
Etho faced Grian again, all too aware of his own heartbeat. The red smiled: he knew he had him. If Etho had had another pearl, he would have thrown it by now.
“What about him?” Etho asked. It was like gifting an axe to an executioner.
“I found out about that little… deal you made with him.” Etho narrowed his eyes: a warning. He bit the inside of his lip beneath his mask. Don’t break. Not yet. “Take a life, gain a life. Nice idea on your part: whether he succeeded or failed, you get rid of a liability. It’s dangerous to have a red who knows you as well as he did.”
“It was Scott’s idea.”
“Oh, always so modest, Etho.” Grian stepped closer, dead grass crackling beneath his feet. The tip of his crossbow brushed the surface of Etho’s vest. “You know,” he continued, smile not wavering, eyes not leaving Etho’s own, “I’ve killed a red. Three, in fact. I’m sure you’ve heard. Jimmy, Mumbo. Bdubs.”
“I’m aware.” Etho couldn’t do this.
“Give me a life, Etho.” The bolt’s pressure became more insistent, breaching the outer lining of Etho’s vest with a small pop.
“Offer’s closed.”
“Don’t care.”
“It wasn’t for you.” Was this too close to admitting weakness? He was standing on a block hanging above the void.
“Why not? Why only him?”
Etho couldn’t say. He himself barely knew the answer to that question, and it still seemed so fragile that exposing it to air would shatter it.
Grian’s eyes shone with mirth. “He thought you loved him. Imagine that. He was so darn sure — wouldn’t listen to any of us. He thought that to the end, I think. But you, Etho, you’re like me. You see it too, don’t you? They haven’t learned yet, the others. But us, we know none of it means anything! Nothing, no one, matters.”
“You don’t know anything about me, do you?” Etho suppressed the indignation in his voice, passing it off as flippant amusement. He knew they all thought he could turn off his emotions. It was usually in his benefit to let them believe that. Sometimes, he wished it were true.
Bdubs had been all emotion; it had laced his every word, affecting him down to the pitch of his breathing. And that didn’t make him weak, or foolish, or even easy to read. He had always been the stronger between them, in that way and many others. He let himself feel, openly, rawly, and, as such, was able to understand and work through whatever he felt. Etho projected calmness, but when emotions became too much he didn’t know how to put them down.
But that was the thing. It was impossible to put emotions down. Not just for Etho, but for everybody. You could suppress them, true, but there was always a breaking point. And that was fine. Emotions shouldn’t be put down. They should be worked through. Even the bad ones. Especially the bad ones.
Despite the pain it caused him, Etho wouldn’t set down his grief for anything. It helped him remember that he was human, even if no one around him seemed to quite agree. It was a reminder that what he’d felt for Bdubs was real and that it mattered, it was proof that he hadn’t forgotten.
“Oh,” Grian said, the softness of his voice offset by the sharp pressure against Etho’s chest and the sharper smile he wore. “Oh, you’ve fooled yourself, too, haven’t you? I thought you were smarter than that, Etho.”
Etho almost laughed. “Everyone does, apparently.”
“Still, you didn’t ever really love him, did you?”
“I love him,” Etho hissed. “Don’t you dare-”
“If you really loved him, you would have given him a life.”
“I tried, I just-”
“No, no excuses, Etho. You doubted him. He risked — and lost — his life for you and you doubted him.”
Somehow, Etho kept from stabbing the man. He didn’t need to be told he’d failed Bdubs: he already knew all too well, his mind whispering the same words Grian now threw back at him.
“Lizzie’s death message didn’t say it was him, specifically.” It felt like an excuse. “I was worried they were unrelated, and I would be giving Bdubs a life without earning it, which could count as breaking the rules — rules that you made — about alliances.”
Grian gasped in mock horror. “Etho! Blaming everything on me, again? The nerve! That rule didn’t stop you from getting Tango to give him a life.”
“That wasn’t my i-”
“It wasn’t your life, you’re right,” Grian interrupted. “And that’s the thing. It was your life this time, so you couldn’t do it. You didn’t love him.” He finally — finally — let his crossbow fall from Etho’s chest, only to step in closer. “Weren’t you just the slightest bit thankful when he died? You get to stay on your pretty green life, and you rid yourself of a liability. You should thank me, real-”
Etho pulled the instant damage potion from his hip, smashing the glass over the side of Grian’s head. Grian yelped, falling to the ground, and — deliberately or not — his crossbow fired, though the bolt flew wild: a whole block above Etho’s head.
Though Grian’s shot missed, the air was still forced from Etho’s lungs as something struck his back, sending him tumbling a few blocks down the slope until he caught himself, drawing in heaving breaths on his hands and knees. Next to him, Grian was rising, shoving a golden carrot into his mouth with a slightly shaky hand.
“Hm. I honestly thought you’d be harder to kill. Maybe I should have tried earlier. Either way, I don’t think you’re getting out of this one, Etho.”
Etho heard footsteps closing in from every direction. Stupid, so stupid to be alone. He must not have checked the perimeter well enough. He pulled a steak from his pack: he’d need the saturation for the seemingly inevitable fight.
A hand gripped Etho’s wrist and twisted it behind his back sharply, causing the steak to fall from limp fingers. The hold loosened slightly, enough for Etho to wrest his hand from behind him, only for a heavy boot to force his torso to the ground, his limbs flattening with it.
Etho tried to wheeze in as much air as he could before rolling inwards, hearing the person above him swear as their foot slipped off his back to the ground, leaving them standing with one leg on either side of him. Before he even had time to fully process who exactly it was above him, Etho grabbed the back of their calf, holding it steady, before slamming the heel of his hand into their knee.
They cried out, falling backward onto Etho’s legs, where he kicked them all the way off and scrambled to his feet, pressing his back against the steep incline of the hill.
He was surrounded by reds, his only comfort being that he could see them all: Joel — presumably the one who held him down, seeing as he was clambering to his feet — was drawing a diamond axe; Tango wielded an iron sword, his shield still carrying tattered remnants of a banner; Scar was perched on the hill with a diamond sword, looking half apologetic and half nervous; BigB’s arrow tracked Etho’s movements; and the only thing preventing him from shooting was Grian, drawing back another crossbow bolt in the center of their rough circle.
Etho probably only had another couple of seconds before Grian’s crossbow was fully loaded, so he sprinted at Scar, using the slight angle of the ground to his advantage as he pulled the man off balance, catching him against his chest with a sword at his neck, which effectively aborted Scar’s squawk of protest.
Scar let out a strained laugh, his voice shrill with panic. “Etho, wait, hold on, your contract-”
Etho ignored him. “One step closer and it’s over for Scar. Put your weapons down.” His voice didn’t sound as strong as he would have liked, breaths heavy with exertion breaking up his words.
Tango, Joel, and BigB all looked towards Grian. He made no gesture, simply staring at Etho, dark eyes blank.
Grian stepped closer.
Etho dug his blade deeper into Scar’s neck, feeling the slight give that meant he’d broken skin.
“Etho-!” Scar broke off with a gasp as Etho continued to gradually increase pressure. “Grian, please, please, I’m at four hearts, I-”
“What’ll it be, Grian?” Etho tried to shut out Scar’s pleas. He had nothing against Scar, not really. True, he’d threatened Bdubs, but Etho himself had honestly done worse to practically everyone else on the server. It was all fun and games for both of them. It was, Etho thought with a pang of bitterness, until people started dying for real. Even so, he didn’t want to hurt Scar. No one would. Scar was simply the best way to get Grian to-
“Kill him,” Grian said.
Etho felt Scar freeze in his grip. He himself didn’t think he could move: his plan had failed, he was alone, helpless, surrounded by reds, with no leverage. If they knew the Wither had broken his bed, they could have set something up at spawn. It wouldn’t have to be fancy at all: even though all the reds were here, they weren’t that far from spawn and all they needed to keep him from escaping until they could reach him was an obsidian box or, void, even a couple of layers of cobblestone.
“Grian-” Scar coughed slightly, clearly trying to keep as still as possible. “You don’t mean-”
“Do it.”
No, Grian was just calling Etho’s bluff. Etho had seen the way Grian had practically become Scar’s shadow after they returned to Hermitcraft. He’d seen the way Grian stiffened every time Scar died, just for a moment, before taking a breath and slumping slightly. He wondered if Grian felt the same about Scar as Etho did about Bdubs. He wondered if what he was about to do would hurt Grian as much as he had hurt Etho.
Etho slit Scar’s throat.
The man disappeared before any blood could hit the ground, body turning to warm smoke and seeping through Etho’s grip as five communicators pinged in unison. Another death. Lightning seared the air where Scar had been, and Etho thought he smelled his own hair burning. He stumbled backward, blinking rapidly to clear the spidering afterimage of Scar’s ghost from his vision.
Tango took a couple of halting steps forward, eyes wide. BigB pulled out his comm and seemed to be checking if it had been some kind of horrible coincidence. As the rapid flurry of notifications that occurred after every death began, Etho studied Grian’s expression.
Grian’s eyes met his and creased into a lopsided smile.
Grian smiled, the kind of slightly embarrassed smile that should accompany a shrug and a “whoops!” And though it was tight and slightly bitter, it was real nonetheless.
“I really was wrong about you, Etho. You thought I would care? Maybe you thought you’d be getting back at me by taking something I love, hmm? That’s funny. Don’t you remember? I killed Mumbo and Jimmy, and the most tragic death that week was when my dog walked into a cactus. I don’t care about anyone here. It’s the last man standing! And I play to win.”
“What do you gain by winning, Grian?” Etho snuck one hand to his communicator, trying to type something blindly. He tried counting keys from the edge but it was too hard to do that while keeping up conversation. He just had to hope. “What did you gain last time that you want again so badly?” The other reds seemed to be waiting for a command, but Joel would get bored easily, if this took too long. And once he made a move, the others would follow.
“Oh, Etho…” Grian shook his head. “It’s not about gaining anything, not this time. It’s about not losing. Especially not to you.”
Grian lunged forward, diamond sword shining with a beauty undeserving of its function. Etho grunted, taking the strike on his shield. The final threads holding his ‘E’ banner to the shield were severed, the loose fabric slumping to the ground.
Abandoned. Like you did him.
Etho grit his teeth, using his shield — in which Grian’s blade was still embedded — to shunt Grian’s right hand to the side, raising his own sword to strike-
A crossbow bolt caught him square in the chest. He heard Joel cheer.
He fell.
Grian’s weight pressed into his chest a second later, all sharp edges and wiry muscle, driving out what little air Etho had managed to recover.
Etho braced himself for a respawn. He wouldn’t be able to waste time shaking the tingling of the void out of his hands: he needed to start punching his way out of whatever cage the reds had built for him as soon as he died.
An impact, then the slick slide of diamond through flesh. He felt the world fall away, starting with Grian’s weight atop him.
Why wasn’t he dead?
He felt a bottle shatter against his chestplate, and held his breath. Why did they need potions? Surely he was at half a heart. A light slap would be enough to do him in.
But then he could breathe. And there was fuzziness in his fingers, but warm, not void-cold.
Regen?
“Etho, can you hear me?” Scott? “Etho, do you need another?”
I’m good, Etho tried to say.
“Enguh,” Etho said. Now that he was aware of his continued existence, he noticed his chest getting tighter with every breath. That probably wasn’t good.
“Okay, that’s a yes. Do you think you would be able to swallow?”
Etho did his best to grunt in assent.
“Is that a yes? Uh…”
“That’s a yes, Scott,” Cleo called. Who else is here? But the blur of noise refused to sharpen into any more voices.
Something cold touched his lips and he instinctively gasped, choking on some of whatever potion Scott was giving him.
“Don’t- Etho! ”
Another bottle broke across his chestplate and Etho drew a desperate breath into his burning lungs, then proceeded to cough every pixel of it back out. At least he could cough, now. He fought to push himself to an upright position, but as soon as his shoulders left the ground, hands flew to his chest, holding him down.
“Etho, no.”
“I need to-” Etho began, before breaking into another coughing fit. Still, he pushed uselessly at Scott’s grip.
“No, you don’t! The reds are gone.” Stronger arms joined Scott’s, forcing his shoulders fully back to the ground. “Etho, if you sit up, I will murder you.”
“Cleo! That’s the opposite of what we want to do!”
Etho let his head fall back, limp, eyes closed. Someone — Ren? — made a worried noise in the back of their throat, but cut off when Etho started to laugh, silently at first, but then louder and louder until it became riddled with coughs, but he still didn’t stop, laughing and coughing and oh, he was crying as well.
Cleo began to laugh as well. “You stupid, stupid man! You self-sacrificing idiot!”
“Thank goodness you were able to call for help, my dude. I was so worried we’d be too late.” Ren’s voice was rough with exertion and residual anxiety. Etho was finally allowed to sit up, only to be trapped in one of Ren’s signature tight hugs.
“So, wait, you killed all the reds?” Etho looked at his comm over Ren’s shoulder to check.
“Nah, just chased ‘em off,” Martyn said. “Easy enough. They did-” He broke off immediately when he heard a shaky, wet inhale coming from Etho. “Hey, hey, Etho? Are you- what’s wrong? It’s okay, you’re safe. I’m sorry we didn’t kill them all but we didn’t want to risk a full-on fight, and-”
“No, no, it’s just…” Etho held up his comm, gripping it as though it would fly away if he didn’t.
GoodTimeWithScar was slain by Etho
<Smajor1995> :0
<PearlescentMoon> :(
<Renthedog> scar’s out?!
<Smajor1995> boogey??
<InTheLittleWood> did he forget his immortality crystal?
<InTheLittleWood> no, can’t be
<Renthedog> Etho, you good man?
<InTheLittleWood> permadeaths don’t count for boogey, right?
<ZombieCleo> at least he didn’t permadie by drowning
<PearlescentMoon> yeah Etho, you ok?
<Smajor1995> Etho?
<Etho> heel;p
<Etho> grVE
<Renthedog> omw
<ZombieCleo> ???
<InTheLittleWood> grave maybe?
<PearlescentMoon> bdubs grave i think?
<Smajor1995> were coming
Grian was slain by ZombieCleo
“Just… thank you.” It was all Etho could manage to say. He didn’t even know why he was crying so much.
“Of course.” He couldn't tell whose voice that was, but it didn't matter.
Ren’s hug relaxed, but his hands never lost contact with Etho’s back, running up and down, slowly, softly, keeping him grounded. And, finally, finally, Etho’s mind fell into silence.