#nsfwqsmp

Etoiles kept his arms loose, lazily draped over Tubbo’s hips rather than holding him in place.  The eternal summer was dipping from late afternoon into evening.  They came out to this meadow to “talk.”  It was still morning then, and the talk started with a traditional stick fight.  Tubbo was getting better at staying on his feet and not eating dirt.  He was still shit, but Etoiles did also agree that it was an improvement nonetheless.

They hadn’t met like this since before Purgatory.  Etoiles came here without any presumptions.  However, he still had an inkling of what this was about.  Tubbo wasn’t subtle.

And Etoiles also knew Pierre well enough and knew of his promiscuous ways.  Enjoyed them himself when the occasional mood struck.  He learned that Tubbo also indulged.  Through the rough bites into Etoiles thin skin and the tears Tubbo kept insisting weren’t there despite them burning when said tears found their way into the bite marks.

Unlike Etoiles, Tubbo didn’t know better when it came to Pierre.  He didn’t know how to protect his heart while satisfying his other wants.  He didn’t know it was necessary when having sex with Pierre, hate or otherwise.  That sex was sex, unless it was something else, and that something else was actually someone else that Pierre couldn’t have.

Etoiles’ code-infected hand reached up.  His fingers tangled into thick curls, and a hum of energy sparked a sensation like touch.  It wasn’t “feeling,” but it was close.  He could card through Tubbo’s hair and intuit the way his fingers caught-

“You’re ignoring me, asshole.”

“Ah, not ignoring.”  Etoiles let his hand drop back into the long grass.  “You were biting, and I paid attention to that.”

“Freak.”

“We came here to ‘talk,’ not bite.  But the biting is nice, and I’m enjoying it.  What’s the matter with that, Tubbo?”

The young ram couldn’t hide much.  His brows were furrowed, lips pursed, and his cheeks were flushed red under the sheen of tears.  That was a dangerous look.  Etoiles didn’t have a thing for pretty boys that cried, but it did have a certain kind of appeal.

“I hate you so much, dude.”

“I do not think that’s true,” Etoiles said.  His collar was rumpled, and the black fabric down his front and his back was creased and dirty.  Not from Tubbo pushing him to the ground and sitting in his lap but from the earlier stick fight.  “I think you’re lonely, and you’re taking it out on me.”

“Only boring people are lonely!”

Etoiles smiled, full of sympathy.  “I do not think you are boring.”  He meant it.  “You care so much.  I like that kind of thing- passion.  Want.  It is good.  You haven’t given up, and I like that about you, Tubbo.  It’s why I come to see you when you call on me.”

“You’d leave if Phil showed up in the chat,” Tubbo spat back.  “I know how this goes.”

Okay, they were getting somewhere.  This was good, healthy.  Etoiles needed to poke the wound to open it wide enough for the slave to get down to the source of the pain.  Before the infection set in and made Tubbo sick.  It needed to be done.

“Perhaps.”  Etoiles couldn’t outright deny it, after all.  He didn’t make a secret about his love for Phil, or how he would lay down his life in an instant if it was required of him, but he also cared for Tubbo too.  It was a different kind of love, but it was as real and true as anything Etoiles felt for the man sitting in his lap.  “But I agreed to meet you here, got our blood pumping.  Let you say what you needed-”

“Oh yeah?  Then what’d I say?”

“That Pierre won’t talk to you.  That Bad Boy Halo is mocking you- which I think is just how he is.  Teasing and taunting, hoping you will get mad.  Or even.”  Etoiles shrugged.  “He and Pierre are alike that way.  It’s not personal, it’s not about you.”

“That’s fucking stupid, man.”  Tubbo wouldn’t look at him.  The golden light of the sun shone on his messy hair and cut through the blue and green of his eyes.  “I hate it.  What the fuck is wrong with people?”

“They have their reasons, I’m sure.”

Tubbo’s last thread of patience snapped.  “Fuck that!  I got us through Purgatory.  I covered our ass, fixed our mistakes, and kept us from losing our fucking shit-”

“You did.”

“Then why did, why do they keep fucking with me?”

“I told you,” Etoiles said.  “They want a reaction, and they have it.  Well, I have it because you are yelling at me.”

That deflated Tubbo a little.  He probably didn’t notice that he was yelling, much less at who.  Etoiles’ legs were going numb under the dense young man.  It wasn’t any worse than the constant static in his code-ladden arm.  He was glad that Tubbo wasn’t scared to be this close, despite being hurt and angry and lashing out at the one person who came near.

“How can you stand it?” Tubbo asked, quieter.  “How can you stand it when Phil doesn’t respond?  Or the way none of the Feds give us a straight answer.”

Etoiles scoffed at the mention of the Federation.  The rebellion was at a stand-still, no contact from the other members outside of the ones Etoiles had faces and names to.  His friends, his allies against the oppressors holding them hostage on this forsaken island.  As open as he was with Tubbo, though, Etoiles withheld any information about the rebels from him.  The struggles Tubbo had were interpersonal with their own set of stakes that had nothing to do with their freedom.

“If you mean this Fred-”

“I didn’t say shit about Fred.”  He was blushing again, but the tears had dried up.  “I- whatever that was, it’s over.  I’m fine with that.  It… it wasn’t good for either of us.  Probably.”

Which was why Tubbo was so opposed to Fit and Pac’s budding relationship.  Etoiles avoided saying anything about them.  If he had to guess, Tubbo was also avoiding talking about his fellow members of the Morning Crew.  The hurt was even more confusing than his frustrations about Pierre, and to a lesser extent Bad Boy Halo.

Oh.  Well, Etoiles hoped that Tubbo and Bad hadn’t been intimate.  For reasons he wasn’t keen on picking through right then, Etoiles thought that would go worse for Tubbo than being entangled with a Frenchman.

“No, you did not say shit about Fred,” Etoiles finally agreed.  “I’m sorry about that, all the same.  I’m sure Fred felt for you.  What he could feel anyway.”

“Fucking thanks for the reassurance.”

“Tubbo-”

“What?”

Etoiles muttered under his breath, words that he himself didn’t quite catch.  He turned his face away and showed Tubbo his cheek and the scar there.  A yellow line from his ear down to his jaw, which only the two of them knew and understood.  The quiet was interrupted by the chirps of waking night bugs and the chatter of birds settling into the distant trees.  They were alone, more than they had been this whole time.

“It is control,” Etoiles said.  “It is you and me.  When I give you the knife, it is trust.  Trust that you will not hurt me in a way that I can’t come back from.”

“We respawn, dumbass.”

“Yes, but if you do kill me, everyone will know.  It will be out there for everyone to ask about, and we’ll both have to come up with an answer.”

Tubbo wordlessly processed this, biting down hard on his bottom lip.

“Next time we meet, I will bring it with me.”  Etoiles smiled, calm and at peace.  His unmarked hand settled on the small of Tubbo’s back, and his thumb made soothing circles there.  “I always meant for us to continue, but things happened.”  Purgatory, Pierre, Phil, and more than Etoiles cared to keep thinking about.  “My life is in your hands.”

“Dude-”

“Even if you do not use it, never hold it at all, I trust you.”  Etoiles flopped back in the grass.  “That is its own kind of bond, my bro.”

Tubbo stayed seated on Etoiles’ lap.  His voice was faint, breaking in its usual way but somehow more pointed.  “I don’t get you at all, man.  You’re fucking out of your mind.”