#traffictober

prompt list by @the-local-pineapple :3

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Canadian Idiot

"Where is Etho? Why hasn't he come home? I'm SO worried…"

🖤  💛  ❤️

Act 1. Scene 2. Introductions are behind them; the Hero's Journey has begun. They balance on the precipice hand in hand, except they're nowhere near hand in hand because Joel has done nothing wrong and Etho's about to bring him crashing down. With a label like Act 1, Scene 2 melting in your brain, you're practically encouraged to overstep; make mistakes. Isn't that a proper story outline? You start by introducing goals. Then faults. 'Tell me one thing your protagonist does wrong…'

It's Etho, not Joel, who does something wrong. Wrong and immoral and without consent, and he's shaking - he's shaking - as he slips his hand above the milk-white bed sheets. He slightly cranes his neck, lifting just a little from his pillow. He's already squirmed closer to Joel more than he'd admit to anyone outside the Boat. Joel's cradled against him, stomachs and knees and hips flush and ticklish and warm. Joel's hand rests atop the blankets. Atop Etho's chest, pretty much.

And Etho's itchy, pain swelling deep inside. His breath's all clogged in the back of his throat. A problem that Joel doesn't have, because Joel's some kind of insect hybrid and he breathes through the spiracles down his torso… which Etho can feel both on the outside of his legs (because Joel is shirtless under the blankets) and threaded through his own body (because they share every flickery touch, even in the way they breathe).

I wonder if Joel ever gets sick of feeling "my" breath in the back of his mouth. That's gotta be a weird feeling when he doesn't have lungs…

In Act 1, Scene 2, Etho initiates the Rising Action. He lays his own hand on the far side of Joel's. His eyes are glowing - the candles and furnaces are glowing too - and it's warm and rosy and golden brown down in the depths of The Relation. Etho's shaking as he nudges Joel's fingers higher up the blankets, from their random flop (is it random?) across Joel's chest and up to Etho's neck. Conflicting pixels bristle when they come into contact. They tense up, even while Joel stays sleepy and mild-mannered. Etho stares down at those gleaming pixels and watches them re-situate themselves, building up their little barrier so they stay firmly Joel's and his own pixels remain firmly Etho's.

There's unwavering trust in the way Joel lets himself sleep, curled against Etho's side. The pixels in their legs blended together long ago, making mermaids out of them. They don't even itch. They're perfectly melted inside each other, heels and toes overlapping as easily as the edges of their hitboxes do.

Etho can feel the easy flutter of mingled bits and pieces shifting between them, pixels bumping and evaluating their neighbors and occasionally switching back and forth. He's got bits that used to belong to Joel in his ankles, probably. The colors have probably already changed over. You wouldn't even be able to tell. It's nothing. It's normal. Everybody does this. They're sharing a bed. They're sharing hearts and health and pain; exchanging pixels during hitbox overlap isn't nearly as weird.

It's not like I'm anxious and 65 anymore. I've got a couple thousand years in me. I've shared my bed before. This isn't weird.

It's not like this in the singleplayer, though, where he sleeps alone.

And it's not like this on Hermitcraft. Where he sleeps alone.

And it wasn't like this in his wool castle on 3rd Life. Where he slept alone.

And it wasn't like this in Last Life. Bdubs slept on the far side of their shared room, his narcoleptic phantom soul knocking him out cold hours before Etho crept to bed. And slept alone.

Etho squirms, which blurs his foot with Joel's and sends a static ripple up his leg. He stops so it won't seize up in the pit behind his knee. His pixels need a minute to orient again, sluggish in their sleep just like the softly breathing Joel. The air is stuffy inside The Relation's lower room. Etho already pulled his mask off before bed; it lies (rumpled and unfolded) on the crafting table to his left. Though dry, the air is cool against his exposed skin. His tongue traces across the curve of each and every pointed tooth inside his mouth.

I have to.

The closest he'll come to voicing it. He tries to fold his hands away. He grips his own wrist, grinding it in the wrinkles of blankets tucked against his stomach. Candles flicker in the edges of his vision. He stares across the captains' quarters, rotating his hand back and forth, forcing it to press his stomach. To calm some kind of hunger that doesn't stem from there.

He does not personify the aggro instincts creeping up his spine. They don't envelop him in words. Offering words to the thought would mean caving in, admitting its strength and hold against him. Etho stares without blinking at the far wall and twists his wrist in that space between stomach and guts. Tight. Unyielding. Firm.

It's never been this bad on-server before…

It's twisted. It writhes in him, like a snake dropped down his pants, spiraled around his leg, and looped to slither up his spine and wrap around his throat. It's a full-body shiver that leaves him opening and closing his hands, palming his knees through the bed sheets. He has really pointy knees. Etho presses, rubbing his hands up and down and all around in circles, but it doesn't help.

He needs to. This. He needs- he just does. He can curl his legs and writhe and grimace all he wants to, but he can't hold it in forever… like Bdubs can't help but lunge when Etho's pushing at the boundary of long nights with no sleep.

Can't.

He sinks down in the pillows, exhaling, and tugs the white covers of the bed up to his chest again. It shifts Joel's arm. Etho can feel it through the blankets. He can feel the touch of soft, carefully crafted wool on the back of that hand as clearly as his own. Joel's expertise with wool leaves absolutely no question that he thrives on the Empires server, weaving banners on a loom. There's no itchiness to the blankets. They're so soft, they may as well be silk or cream.

This ship feels like a cake, lit by the candles on the wooden shelves. As the wind gusts against the outside of their base, it creaks the boards and Etho shivers, shifting one leg a little tighter between both of Joel's. Pillager grunts carry down the hill. He can hear their distant pacing. The constant loading of crossbow bolts. The way they mutter, bending heads.

Do pillagers ever snuggle with their friends late at night? Maybe not. They're just mobs; maybe they aren't programmed with a sleep schedule. He's never charged inside an outpost to find them startled and fumbling out of bed.

prompt list by @the-local-pineapple !!