#it is not betad

[anonimusunnoaniswriting]

Sunday morning Bunny hybrid!reader x owner!Gojo

MDNI 18+

Gojo x reader | 500 something words. | Smut, soft, comfort, fluffy fluffyyyy fluffyyyy, gojo is soft.fuck it's 12:53 I should sleep I have work tomorrow. Umm what else. Established relationship| bunny reader, hybrid. Etc. ok read the story now. Not edited point out typos thx.

Lazy. Lazing. Laze. That's all your morning could be described as. Gojo had only just returned from a mission and having to leave you behind made him extra clingy.

Not that you were any better. Your bed was covered in his clothes. A pile of expensive sweaters and shirts. All which smelled faintly of laundry detergent and of your owner. The same man who returned home the night before and picked you up, crawling into the bed with you in tow – entirely unfazed by the moat you'd created in his absence.

In your sleep, the two of you had managed to push off a good amount of the structure onto the floor, but it didn't matter now. Gojo was here.

You’d met him at one of his missions. You say met but he'd actually rescued you. Being a large bunny breed, your previous owner hadn't expected you to grow to the size you had, and had abandoned you, dropping you off at an abandoned building. An abandoned building haunted by a particularly nasty curse. It was here that you were found by Gojo. He'd picked you up, not minding at all how large you may have been, and taken you home with him. He nursed you back to health, making sure to treat any and all wounds left on you by the curse, and looked after you. After this, you were inseparable. You hated when he'd leave for missions because it meant you couldn't go along. Apart from work, you'd follow him everywhere.

The weak winter sun filtered through the curtains in your bedroom and you felt Gojo nuzzle against your fluffy ear. “Good morning, Bunnie.”

“Good morning, Toru!”

“Did you miss me?”

You nodded your head vigorously in response. “So, so much.” Gojo placed a little kiss on your nose, you couldn't help but blush.

“Look how much I missed you, Bunnie” His eyes moved downwards and yours followed. A large bulge had formed in his boxers and he grinned at you when you looked back up at him. “Think you can take it, bun?”

You nodded again, barely containing your excitement. You ached for him. Even though you had plenty of toys to use, nothing felt as good as Gojo.

He lifted your leg over his waist and carefully prodded at your entrance. Just the thought of having him in you had you feeling ready. But to be safe, he reached over and took out a bottle of lube from the bedside table, generously squirting it over his cock. Then slowly, he pushed in, an inch at a time. He pulled you close and gently kissed your lips.

“Is that alright?” He asked, voice heavy and sleep laden.

“Mmm. More please!” You whispered to him.

He pushed in further, the lube cold for a second on your skin but soon earned by the heat of your bodies. All while Gojo kissed and pecked at your lips. With his free hand, he reached up and cupped a large breast, lightly brushing his thumb against your hardening nipple.

“Feel good, Bunnie?”

“Yes Toru!”

“I'm gonna start moving then, cutie.”

Gojo gently rocked into you. A slow and steady pace. Almost like he was half asleep. His lips found yours again and he sucked on your lower lip nibbling it into a plump red. Then he moved to your neck, nuzzling, kissing, licking.

His slow thrusts gradually grew faster and the room filled with only the wet squelches of your pussy and breathy moans. Gojo turned over on his back, lifting you on with him. His pace didn't once falter as he thrust into you with a new force. Born of desperation and longing his hips moved with minimal spurring; pushing his cock deep into you ready to spill at any moment. He came with a strained groan, empting in you. You could feel it filling you up.

Panting, Gojo asked, “Can we just lay here for five minutes before I clean you up, Bunnie?”

You cuddled into his chest like a giant living blanket. “Mmhmm. Not letting go, Toru.”

The sun had already risen quite high, but Satoru Gojo couldn't deny his sweet little bunny. He cuddled you and felt his eyelids getting heavier. Breakfast could wait…

AN: yeah, sorry this was late. I'm depresso af. Still needed something soft and comforting ok bye.

[elenagoeslightly]

Olvide

Hello!

Lately I've been pondering on how exactly does Rafayel comes to remember mc, so I've come up with a little something! I also took some liberties with a certain abysswalker but it's all in good faith.

Aunt Talia says that all humans are evil, but the girl in his dream is always smiling.

The first time he sees her, it’s a dream, her hair swaying in the wind.

She’s looking at him.

Rafayel tries to speak, tries to ask her 

“Do I know you?”

but the sun blinds him and there’s sand everywhere, it gets in his eyes, in his clothes, in his mouth.

It’s hot, in the desert, too hot and he knows he shouldn’t be here; why is he somewhere where there is no water?

Where has all the water gone?

The sun burns brightly, too brightly, and he feels like he’s being burned alive, whatever it is that he’s wearing sticks to his skin in a way that’a almost painful but-

he knows that is she’s here, than he must be here too.

Her hands move as if to touch him and he can’t help but move toward her fingers, as if she’s pulling a string tide to his ribcage, to somewhere deep inside him.

Just as she comes closer, he wakes up.

Rafayel looks around and she’s there, still, and he blinks one, two times and before he knows it, she’s gone.

At breakfast he wants to ask aunt Talia about the strange woman in his dream, but instead he plays with his food. He takes a small jump to get down from the chair, his legs still too tiny. He knows that aunt Talia will say that his dream don’t mean anything, that he's just a child with a vivid imagination.

For a while, he doesn’t see her, all the way through middle school.

And then, he starts to see her everywhere.

Once high school starts, she’s all that he can see: she’s in every face, every cloud, every drop of water.

Sometimes she looks like a princess, so beautiful that it stops the breath in his throat.

Other times, she’s dressed in all black, and that suffocating feeling comes again.

In dreams, she’s all floating white and pale blue, looking like a vision.

Sometimes she's hidden in a weird place, it looks like a cave, and she's always frowning.

What never changes is him, trying to walk torward her, trying to at least caress her skin, but he never can and she’s never real.

He doesn’t make many friends.

Rafayel tries to draw her, to have at least one way to freeze her in time, to look at her, but the imagine he has of her is always fuzzy, he’s dreams too blurry, too long and not long enough- he just wants to touch her, to know she's real.

Until that night.

He still can remember it as if it was yesterday.

Rafayel went to bed as he did every night, his bed sheet the deepest shape of blue; he doesn’t remember what he dreamt, but he remembers how he woke up screaming, a sharp, unrelenting pain that went from his hips to his heart.

The pain seemed everlasting as he clutches his chest, his thighs, it went in his head, in his blood until he felt it in every single part of his body.

And he knows, he knows it is her, that she did this to him.

Why?

Talia came running to him that night and he clutched at her nightgown as if she could save him.

“Who is she?” he asks, his voice trembling.

He cradled him, as if he was still a child.

She doesn’t answer his question and Rafayel is too tired, but he is afraid of sleeping.

But even so, tiredness had the best on him, and he fell in a dreamless sleep, until he saw her again, in broad daylight, as she stared in horror at her hands, red with blood.

Is it his?

He knows it is.

But it’s the horror in her face that strikes him, as if she regrets hurting him.

He cannot swim without his tail, he cannot live without his heart.

After that, the memories come crashing on him like a flood.

He remembers everything: he remembers the promise they made as children, he remembers saving her from the water, he remembers her touches, the incessant thought of taking her heart; there is not a single piece of his existence that isn’t stained with her presence.

Rafayel betrayed his people, his followers, for her.

But it won’t happen again, it can’t.

He will find her, and he will do what he has to do.

So he starts to search for her, barely seventeen.

It turns out that trying to find someone is not as easy as he thought.

It takes time, it takes patience to play the long game and end up being the winner.

But he does it.

He gets pictures of her, her whereabouts.

She looks younger, carefree.

Rafayel wonders, for a brief moment, if she remembers him, if she too can’t live without seeing him everywhere, without not being able to close her eyes.

The lectures he gives at the University are a clever ruse, but he’s waiting, waiting to see her face in the crowd and one time, he does.

He thought he wouldn’t feel a thing, that he would be reasonable, for once, and do what he has to do.

What a fool he was.

Rafayel’s imagination could never even fathom the emotion he’s feeling right now.

Bride, his mind calls her, his heart.

My beloved bride

He let’s her go, until she’s just a blurred face in the distance, as his plans turn to ashes.

Rafayel knows that he will see her again, that life will never leave them be.

And he does, as she gives him directions, as she catches a fish for her and the irony of it almost makes him laugh but he can’t even breath, how his chest aches, how everything he wants is just in front of him, completely oblivious of who he is.

But then the painting, the metaflux and fate bring her right into his home where she belongs, where she should have been from the beginning.

And he falls on her, not his finest moment.

Rafayel needs to be part of her life, needs it like he needs air, needs it like he needed the sea.

And she’s so carefree, so happy.

The bodyguard idea came on the spot, an absurd life safer; as if the God of the Sea needs to be protected by a human, as if Rafayel needs protection from anyone but her.

 He remembers with vivid clarity as her hands, small and steady, cut off his tail, carved him open; and he remembers how he let her, his fingers around her wrists, but so scared to hurt her that his blood kept dripping on the sand, painting it red.

He remembers, but even so, he loves her, loves her as he loved her in those moment of agony, loves her through space and time, above and under water.

So when tragedy hits her family he tries to console her as best as he can, offers the solace of a old Lemurian ritual hoping it would soothe her broken heart, and hoping, selfishly, that she might remember, but she never does.

But one night, she calls him, and he holds the phone in trembling hands as she admints that she can’t sleep; the fact that she chose to call him makes his heart beat as fast as it can, a smile breaking on his face as the mark on his chest burns brightly.

He was never her friend, they never had the time, but now, now he can be and the happiness it brings him is something that his unknown to him, it gives him hope and so he waits for her, waits through her grieving, waits until the sun shines on her smiling face again; when he sees her smiling for the first time after so many months, he can’t hel but cup her face in his hands, being rooted by how amazed he is by her.

But the more time they pass together, the more his hands tremble.

Even playing kitty cards with her has become something that requires more self-control than he can master, he wants to climb that damned table and kiss her-but it’s not that easy.

She doesn’t know, doesn’t remember, and it’s burning him alive, like those leather garments in the desert.

Rafayel wants her to feel what he feels, wants her to burn like he burns- and she might not.

She might see him as nothing more than a friend, her weird employer, someone she might forget the moment he turns.

“I dreamt you.” she says one day, and the brush falls from his fingers as the world reshapes itself.

[vvachillessongvv]

Hail Mary

Rating: M - Words: 8,616

Wille just needed to do something, say something, anything. A Hail Mary in the dark, a desperate bid for the sweet boy who had taken root in his soul all those years ago.

/

A divergence in which Wille and Simon didn't get back together at the end of season 3 and instead found their way back to each other later in life.

[yurigalactica]

okay so i’ve been thinking and i’m very convinced that in a perfect world toga and shinsou would actually be pretty good friends

because think about it—the nature of both of their quirks has always been considered villainous by others. people who don’t give them a chance see toga as a sadistic vampire and shinsou as a cold-hearted puppet master. they’ve both experienced so much hatred targeted towards them because of who they are. but deep down, behind all of the walls they built up to protect themselves, they hold so much love for others that it hurts.

if canon never happened and toga wasn’t a villain i think they would be besties. they would absolutely talk so mush shit over brunch and you can’t change my mind

[souls-page]

Page 33

“Why do you wish to find out when you die?” Edwin asked Niko, letting himself ask, not because it had been lingering too long in his head, but because it was far simpler just to ask Niko, everything was simpler with her, easier.

Her head rested on his shoulder, her hand holding his arm, he wondered if she could actually feel him, because as much as he wanted to feel her he couldn’t, he felt her weight, and felt her hold on him tighten before softening again, but he doesn’t feel her warmth that he knows she has

“Because I just want to” Niko replied, simple straightforward, he glanced down at her before looking straight ahead again, resting his head on hers, hoping that she could feel him, that him being here brought her comfort,

“I don't really know what I would do if I actually found out when I’d die, but I think it would bring me some comfort to know when” She said, voice soft, somehow even when the topic was heavy, she could find a way to make it feel like it isn’t, he’s thankful for her of that, never once has he said anything he didn’t want to, never once had it been hard for him to say anything to her

Never with her

“That's odd, most people don’t seek out when they die” He said

“Well, I’m not most people” She replied a smile on her lips, tone soft but fond

“No, no you aren’t” He agreed, a small smile on his face before letting the silence stretch, as they both dangled their feet on the edge of the building, letting the wind pass by them, one feeling the coldness of the wind more than the other

The memory is slightly blurred now, two weeks have passed, and somehow it’s still not fully clicking in his head, He still somehow expects Niko to show up at the agency,

This is not possible considering they never told her where it is, but somehow he just does, he expects her to just show up, with that smile of hers

And on nights like these when they aren’t as busy, on when Crystal is asleep in her apartment and he and Charles are left alone in the room with Charlie being out, He can’t help but think of her, and he knows that Charles knows what he’s thinking

Niko’s books are put on the shelves nearest to the desk, at arm's length for Edwin, and on nights like these he doesn’t know whether he’s thankful to see them there, or saddened by the reminder that they offer

But on nights like these, he’ll always reach out and take one of them, and Charles's presence helps, he talks and sits near him, when he’s sitting at the desk or beckons Edwin over to the couch

Sometimes they both read, sometimes Edwin reads while Charles is just there and sometimes Edwin just reads to Charles, and it helps.

Sometimes more than others, the presence of someone while dealing with the loss of another. In hindsight it's weird, he’d never truly gotten this attached to someone else before, no one other than Charles, but now there's Niko, but Niko’s gone.

He closes the book after realizing that Charles has gone to sleep, they never needed it but he always chooses to do so, he looks so peaceful lying down on their couch, and he can’t help but think about when Charles died

He choose to stay with Edwin, but he can’t help but think about how the past thirty years would’ve been if he didn’t. He sighs and shakes his head, too many emotions for today, he sets the book down somewhere near, and for once he closes his eyes letting the quiet lull of the night lead him to sleep.

[hexiewrites]

the only thing i love more than a misunderstanding is a misunderstanding that is ABSOLUTELY going to turn into a threesome 👏👏👏

[thiamblogger]

i saw a post where someone said how todd probably blackmailed jeff at one point into helping him go on a holiday with the perry's

(this in which we pretend mr. perry is worthy of something..)

they added in the tags how knox got dragged on holiday despite his clear disinterested, how meeks and cam actually liked their family, how charlie was rich and wasn't passing up on holidays like his and how pitts just liked being alone during their time off...

anyways.

it got me thinking how their introduction with them and their parents really defined them as a character and how their relationship with their parents come to affect it.

we know how todd and neil's play out because we were given something to work with. we were introduced by neil carrying in one of the flags, him like knox not looking to happy - followed by his father silently nodding at him to stand up and recite the four pillars, except he already knew to do this (he's like a trained dog). todd one the other hand is introduced as his brother's brother, as the new kid, he is no more than a person in a mob, his parents forcing him to smile and include himself because it's what jeff would do (he's not jeff though - this creates a border between them, him never seeing himself as anything more either, never feeling like he could).

meeks and cam's interactions are subtle, yet we can see how comfortable they are, there's no reason to question. we see how they get along with their parents just fine and how they are justified in their relationship.. however cam (as much as we dislike him) is not quite as temperamental as todd, but not as out going as charlie - maybe his parents are unlike the others his safe space, he knows not more?

knox has to go to dinners, go where his father tells him, he's almost a shadow, his father wanting him to become what he is - not because they're poor like the perry's but because his father wants him too. perhaps his father's actions and status is the reason he acts so rational is because he sees how dramatic his father can be and how he gets aways with it.

pitts is pitts, we see nothing more and there's nothing about his future (as far as i recall?).

charlie is also a nothing more nothing less situation, his parents are nowhere to be seen or heard from other than the fact his to become a banker.

two situations two different outcomes.

pitts parents don't hover so he has become calm kept and nwanda a wild child.

[dance-like-an-idiot]

Indefinite and Definitely Dreamed About

vampires and first meetings for @smallchaoscryptid's spiderbit week!

Teen, No Warnings Apply

Fandom: QSMP

Pairing: Cellbit/Roier

Additional Tags: Vampires, Fantasy, Royalty, Vampire Cellbit, Spider Hybrid Roier, First Meetings, Bad Flirting, mostly cause im aro, Romantic Fluff, Worldbuilding, character driven plot

Summary:

Cellbit knows that Mella has ambassadors in every country to keep close relations but he has not once seen the one at their castle. He simply assumed they had been already turned or too scared of getting turned, a very fair assumption for vampires. Though when the Vampiric Advisor introduces Cellbit specifically to a spider insecti telling him this was the new ambassador... Cellbit didn't know what to think, far too wrapped up in his new infatuation.

[unopenablebox]

i need to finally implement the beta changes i was supposed to do on this fic like 3 weeks ago before work presentation prep ate my brain. they kept postponing the work reveals deadline, giving me an excuse to not bother, but i probably shouldnt bank on that happening again in two days even though there does still seem to be an unclaimed pinch hit even now

[kickedin17]

New chapter <3 fluffier one with lots of talking

[livingproofoftbd]

when you look at me like that (my darling what did you expect)

rated G | 2.3K words | oneshot

tags: sickfic, caretaking, dreams and nightmares, established relationship, idiots in love, domestic fluff

first oneshot of 2024 WOOOOOOOO

[someforeignband]

oops pt 2 of my wlw steddie verse <3 (Desire I Want To Turn Into You)

you all asked for more of the DIWTTIY verse so here it is!

[deadlyhuggles6]

Title: Two Months

Words: 11.5K

Rating: T for light swearing

Fandom: Hermitcraft

Pairings: no romantic pairings

Warnings: Minor (okay kinda major, but etho doesn't focus on it much) non consensual body modification in that Etho's body is changing and he Did Not Consent. kidnapping. injury mention, but he's okay. minor body horror specifically around the eyes

Summary:  Etho's the champion of Decked Out. Now that Decked Out 2 is open, he's here to conquer that as well. But Decked Out 2, unbeknown to Etho and its Dungeon Master, has other plans for Etho, and it's not going to let him go now that he's within its walls once more. While racing against the clock to find and save Etho, Tango finds himself falling apart. Can his friends keep him together while saving Etho?

Ao3 link: Two Months - DeadlyHuggles - Hermitcraft SMP [Archive of Our Own]

“And that was the last time we ever saw Etho,” Joe joked.

Tango laughed so hard, and Etho could just barely hear it over the echoing sound of Decked Out 2, “Yeah, see you in December Etho!”

Etho rolled his eyes. “Yeah, it’s gonna take me two months to-” the heavy nether brick doors closed behind him, cutting him off from his friends until he died or completed the course. Tango had a way to contact them of course, just in case something goes wrong, but otherwise he was all on his own.

Etho took a deep breath and began to run through the icy first level of the dungeon.

The ice was slick under his feet, but he’d prepared for this, and his thick-soled boots handled it pretty easily. He slid quickly over the ice, keeping an eye on the compass in his hand, but doing his best to just look around.

Tango had obviously put a lot of work into this place, the feel was entirely different than that of the original. And he’d know, with how much time he spent down there.

He winced a bit as a lot of sounds all went off right in a row. He recognized a few of them from the tutorials Tango had recorded, but were they supposed to go off like that?

He hit a button on the side of his compass, pinging Tango. Tango was keeping an ear and eye out for weird stuff, he’d know what that was. Still, Etho kept moving quickly, he wanted out of here with his victory as soon as he could.

“Hey Etho, is something wrong already?”

“Just a bunch of noises all at once. Sounded like multiple sound effects. Wanted to make sure nothing was broken.”

“Hmm.” Etho could hear Tango shuffling, probably looking through his schematics, “I think you're good, just some bad luck. A lot of hazards all triggering at once.” his voice turned teasing, “I think it recognizes you, power adjusting for the champion.”

Maybe it was just Etho, but the heartbeat seemed to get just a bit more intense, louder and faster as it pounded along with his heart. Etho did his best to school his reactions but found himself wondering if Tango had maybe poured a bit too much of himself into this place. If it really recognized him… he shook off those thoughts and kept running. This would be fine, living building or not.

He laughed nervously, “of course, of course. I think it’s sending me right into a ravager.”

Tango laughed, then the connection with Tango shut down, and Etho was left all on his own again. He sighed and kept running. He just needed to be fast. He ran around the ravager, and kept exploring, noting the number of closed doorways all around him. Those must have been the hazards that went off, slowly cutting off his options.

Pretty soon he found the artifact spot and offered it his compass. The artifact popped up from the floor, and Etho scooped it up and started to run back to the entrance. He was pretty sure he remembered where the exit was, but there were a few ravagers between it and him.

The heartbeat picked up again, and Etho knew he was running out of time. It thundered in his ears so loudly he didn’t hear the stomping feet of a ravager ahead of him. Luckily, it was down a straight path and he saw it running at him.

Etho looked around quickly for a pillar to loop around. He found one, baited the ravager, and looped around, continuing his run for the exit. He swore he could hear demonic giggles from deeper in the icy tunnel, and looking behind him, he could see two small blue and red vex chasing after him. He hissed, and pushed himself as fast as he could go. He was running out of stamina though; he wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer.

The vex chased him through the winding tunnels, and finally he saw something familiar. He pushed himself through one side of a y split only to slam face first into a block of ice with the vex hot on his trail. This must have been one of the hazards that closed, he’d have to find a new path back to the exit.

Etho pushed himself off the ice and past the vex following. One took a swipe at him, but he dodged it in the nick of time, so close he could feel the icy magic. He ran down the hallway, catching sight of the door, but the short way was blocked off with a fence, and it’d take too long to climb over with two vex on his tail.

He pushed himself faster, jumping around the central pillar as quickly as he could. He almost laughed when he ran through the Decked Out door, a deep relief going through him. He dropped down into the next area and collapsed. He could almost still feel his heart thudding in time with the tunnels, fast and angry. That was. Something. He almost didn’t want to try again. He could be happy with his old champion title, right? He didn’t need a new one.

He radioed Tango, still breathing heavily, “Got through. Take that dungeon master.”

Tango’s laugh was delighted, “Amazing! Shouldn't have expected any less from you Etho! Go ahead and relinquish your artifact and head through the shop, we’ll meet you on the surface when you're done!”

Etho went through the shop before letting the ravager in the hole kill him and return to his spawn in the main area. The others were sitting around his spawn and cheered when he sat up in the bed.

“The champion has returned everyone!” Tango cheered, and the others began to cheer as well.

Etho laughed and tried to ignore the deep ache his chest left from the absence of Decked Out’s heartbeat, “I’m back.”

Etho chilled in his nook for a while, trying to get himself to calm down from the experience. In that time Scar managed to also get a win, and a few more of the Hermits did some runs, with no further successes. Finally, he was feeling bad enough that he just slipped out the front door.

It felt like he was leaving part of himself behind, stuck in the depths.

A few hours later he came back, drawn back like a moth to the flame. He’s probably just being dramatic anyway; Tango wouldn’t let anything happen to him in decked out.

He didn’t see anyone in the normal area, so someone must be doing a run right now. He walked over to the bubble elevator to the waiting room that was under construction when he left. It now looked significantly cozier, all wool and soft moss. You can tell Bdubs had his hands in it.

“Etho! You’re back!” speak of the devil and he will arrive.

Etho’s eyes crinkled slightly as he smiled at Bdubs, glancing around the rest of the room. Looks like everyone else was still around.

Including Tango, who got up to greet Etho, “We didn’t think you’d be back! I thought we’d scared off the champion with that level of bad luck!”

“Aw snap, you guys were thinking of me?” Etho fanned himself teasingly, “yeah, I just needed a break. Now I'm back to make another run.”

Bdubs rolled his eyes. “Oh yeah mhm you're hilarious.”

Tango just laughed, “Now now, you're both pretty. Scar’s running right now Etho, but he should probably-”

All of their communicators went off at once, and by the look on Tango’s face, it was a death message from Scar.

“Looks like the building knows you're here. It’ll be ready for a run pretty soon. I’m sure the others would be happy to let you have the next attempt, that’s Scar’s third attempt.”

Etho nodded and settled in to wait for the castle to be ready for them. He could almost feel this castle pulsing around him. It set him on edge, but he was committed to this now. Decked Out could get as mad at him as it wanted, he became the champion once and he could do it again.

Finally, the dungeon announced that it was once again ready for runs, and Etho dropped down to the entrance, Tango dropping down right behind him.

“All ready?”

Etho nodded, stepped into the entrance, set his spawn, and began his second attempt.

He walked through the dungeon slowly, painfully aware of how fast his stamina drained last time. The compass took him along a familiar path through the left side of the dungeon, but strangely free of ravagers. Maybe people had made the ravagers wander off into more obscure areas of the ice tunnels? He picked a few berries from a nearby sweet berry bush as he walked, tucking them into his inventory for later. As he got further into the dungeon than he had last time, he kept his eye out for treasure, and for any ravagers that might be lurking around corners.

His diligence was rewarded as he walked up a set of stairs, only to run face first into a ravager. He fell backwards, not quite managing to keep his balance as he tried to turn back down the stairs. He fell in a heap at the bottom, but quickly pushed himself up and behind the nearest pillar.

“Oh boy,” he murmured, feeling himself over for injuries.

His left ankle hurt pretty bad, even despite his boots. He must have fallen on it wrong. He ate the few berries he’d managed to grab, hoping to kickstart the healing, but it didn’t seem to take. He was suddenly very glad that Tango had put a necessary respawn into the process of getting out of the dungeon, because this would not be fun to heal from. But he’d have to deal with it for now.

He hobbled to his feet, already dreading having to kite this ravager out of the way. He wanted to get out of here and off this ankle as soon as possible. He looked around a bit more, trying to see if there was another option for getting around. He didn’t exactly find one, but he did find a better place to bait the ravager from, where he wouldn’t have to run up and down the stairs with a ravager on his tail.

The heartbeat of the dungeon was slow but steady in his ears, and his ankle throbbed with each pulse. In and out, that’s all he needed right now.

Which is of course when the dungeon decided to screw with him. A screeching laugh rang in his ears behind him, a sharp grating contrast to the slow heartbeat all around him. He spun around, not quite believing his eyes. Vex. Already.

He fumbled with his compass for a moment before managing to hit the radio button.

“Tango I've got vex on me already and a bad ankle!”

Tango sucked in a breath, and it whistled between his teeth, “Oh no. Oh that’s bad with extra bad sauce. That’s really not supposed to happen Etho, just try to get out of there.”

Etho grunted as he tried to dodge around them but took a slice from the vex as his ankle caused him to stumble.

“Aw man, I hadn’t thought of that,” he sarcastically said. “I don't even have my artifact yet!”

“Just get out of there, I’ll give you an extra frozen shard to make up for this run, but if the dungeon is malfunctioning…”

Tango didn’t finish his statement, but Etho understood. Minigames didn’t tend to go wrong on Hermitcraft, but when they did it could get bad. He tried to focus on getting out, but the vex had encircled him. He dove to the right, through an open door into another section of the map, but it slammed in his face, leaving him trapped with the vex right behind him. He scrambled further right, following the right wall to try to find some exit. The vex backed off a bit, and he gave them a suspicious glance, watching as they floated just on the edge of his vision to the left.

He jumped over an ice river, boots splashing against the far bank, and he slipped into it a bit. He shook off the water and moved into the next room, which had a bunch of different ravines crisscrossing the room. He looked behind him again and didn’t see the vex anymore. He tried to slow his breathing, but the heartbeat was going too fast, he couldn’t get it any slower.

He took the moment to radio Tango again, “Doors are slamming in my face, and the vex aren’t attacking anymore. Think they might be herding me. Don’t know where. In a room full of ravines now, not quite sure how to get to the exit again.”

“Oh no. Oh that's very bad, very bad. Get out of that area, there’s a few holes there that I haven’t-”

The heartbeat in Etho's chest and all around him suddenly turned into a crescendo, loud and clashing, drowning out Tango’s words, and a ravager Etho hadn’t noticed before rammed into him, knocking him down towards the ravine. His body slammed against the icy walls and Etho knew no more.

~

When Etho came to, he had no idea where he was. In fact, he could hardly even see where he was, just the impression of darkness and faintly glowing turquoise. His hands felt below him, and he felt scraps of wool and the strangely spongy texture of skulk. Where could he possibly be with wool and sculk?

And then Etho heard a sound that made him freeze.

The whine of a warden.

Etho’s head swung wildly but he still couldn’t see anything. It was a high-pitched sound, so they probably hadn’t realized he was here, but it sounded so close. It was only a matter of time before one of them sniffed and realized he was here.

He tried to shift, pulling his feet up under him, but even tensing his muscles sent shooting pain through his ankle and up into his leg. It felt like his entire foot had been dipped in lava, each twitch disturbing it more and more. He couldn’t help the quiet grunt of pain that rumbled through his chest and throat without his permission.

All around him there were several rounds of clicking and Etho realized just how screwed he was. Unless warden farms were involved, there usually weren't more than one or maybe two wardens around if you were truly unlucky. This was four- five- maybe six or seven all around him, all alerted to his presence now.

But this knowledge couldn’t stop the psychological reaction to the pain his ankle was in. It had probably swelled up under the boot, both held in still and compressed by the thick layers of leather and fur. He let out a quiet whimper and could feel hot tears spilling down the sides of his face.

Suddenly, the thing he had been leaning against shifted, pulling out from behind him. Etho tried to scramble away, but his ankle pulsed painfully as he tried to put weight on it, and he couldn’t go anywhere. Nowhere but falling to the ground, helpless to the warden that had shifted to be in front of him. Etho could just barely see from the light of the souls within the warden’s chest, and he found himself wishing for a quick death. Maybe if he was lucky, he could even get this break to heal in the respawn, though he was quickly giving up hope seeing how he didn’t know how long he’d been out. 

But instead of attacking him, the warden just leaned in and turned its head to the side and gently knocked one of its antlers against his head. For a moment, sounds amplified around him, and his heartbeat thudded in time with the nest around him, drowning out everything, including the pain from his ankle. And then they broke contact, and Etho was left by himself again. He unconsciously jerked up, following the touch of the warden’s antler and searching for that relief. The warden clicked at him and glowed just a bit brighter. More wardens shifted around him, and a low glow was visible over the entire area. Perhaps the work of a sculk catalyst.

Etho took the new light level to look over himself. From the slight swelling at the laces of his boot, he could tell his foot was definitely swollen. He dreaded the idea of having to take off his boot, knowing how painful it will likely be. He decided to ignore it for now, eyes slowly drifting up his body. His clothes all look surprisingly intact, if a bit dirty from skulk spores. Which was definitely good, it was always terribly cold in the dark areas wardens liked to inhabit. And he was glad that he’d remembered his full gloves, not just the fingerless ones. Who knows how cold he’d be with his fingers-

Etho’s thoughts stuttered to a stop, as though put on pause. He rubbed his fingers together, feeling how they felt, before bringing them close to his face to see.

That wasn’t fabric.

After a moment of rubbing things with his fingers he could pretty safely say that it wasn’t frostbite either, he still had his full sense of touch and they didn’t hurt, which made him feel marginally better about this whole situation, but he was still freaked out. There was no reason for your skin to spontaneously turn black and slightly rubbery in texture.

He pulled off his fingerless gloves, tucking them gently into the pockets on his vest, and pushed up his sleeves. The darkness traveled almost halfway up to his elbows before fading into his pale skin. He touched up his face as well, and felt patches where his face felt odd, especially where his mask didn’t cover.

Etho took a deep breath and winced hard. Oh yeah, he’d never finished going over his body for injuries. His ribs ached when he took a deep breath, and, remembering how hard the ravager had hit him, he wouldn’t be surprised if he fractured something. He took a purposefully regular sized breath and forced himself to ignore his racing thoughts and focus on his next step. He needed to get out of here, and to do that he needed to call someone to help.

He felt around his pocket, hoping desperately that the compass was somewhere in one of his pockets or nearby. He knew it was unlikely, he’d been holding it when he fell, but he could always hope.

He checked his pockets first, his vest then his pants, and then started to scan the ground. Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Okay. Calm breaths, his communicator would probably work just fine, it was just a little louder and brighter and might not be able to get through to anyone.

Etho let out a slow breath and summoned his communicator. It turned on the moment it entered his hand.

Etho hissed as bright light flooded the small burrow. It was practically blinding, and it obviously disturbed the wardens as much as it did him. The one that had been chilling next to him groaned loudly and reared away, and several other loud groans went up around him. Etho found himself quite agreeing, and out of instinct slammed the brightness of his communicator against the ground. A moment later he realized that perhaps his only ticket home should not be slammed against the ground of questionable hardness.

He gently lifted part of the screen and desperately turned down the brightness. Even at the lowest brightness it still felt absolutely blinding, but at least he could look at it now. He curled up around it, trying to block as much light as possible from invading the dark space. Thankfully it didn’t look any more damaged than it normally did, just a few cracks in the screen and a familiar chip in the casing.

He felt a bit of hope as he was able to scroll through his comm, first his personal information and- he shuddered, skipping right over his coordinates. It must be broken, there’s no way he was that far down. He just fell through a ravine in the first level, there’s no way he was nearly at bedrock now. Instead, he went straight for his messages.

He had no new messages.

Etho let out a sharp breath but held out hope and clicked onto Tango’s private messages.

Ethoslab: tango help

He watched the icon next to his message circle and load, and something in his chest cracked a little as it greyed out, and a little error symbol popped up next to it.

Ethoslab: please

Even faster this time, the grey came. Etho switched to his messages with Xisuma, messaging so fast that his previous one didn’t even have time to fail.

Ethoslab: help x please

Ethoslab: it hurts so badlt

Ethoslab: pleasse i want to leave

But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing got through. Etho gave up all hopes of dignity and switched to the main channel.

It was deathly still for even a regular day on Hermitcraft, let alone a day like this. The last visible messages were Grian and Bdubs chattering about the game they'd set up in the waiting room, from only a little after he entered the dungeon. No new messages.

Etho was desperate though.

Ethoslab: someone pelase helo

Ethoslab: theres som any wardfens

Ethoslab: my anlke adn ribs are hutrt

Ethoslab: ym coords are so doeep i cantg et out

But one by one, each message greyed out, failing to send. He was well and truly stuck down here, no help was coming. 

So, he’d have to get himself out of here.

He really wanted to get out of here without a respawn. Respawning on old injuries always went badly, especially when you're as old as him. But the longer he waited, the worse whatever remained would be. So, he braced himself, squeezing his eyes shut and tensing his muscles for the oncoming pain, turned to the warden behind him, and shouted as loudly as he could.

His voice cracked and crumbled, but it was still loud enough that it should’ve aggroed something. But instead of pain, there was just a round of low groans from all around him, wardens answering his shout in turn. The ones closest to him began to click, and Etho found himself calming despite himself as the clicking picked up, but he forced himself to focus. Why didn’t they aggro on him? Why wasn’t he respawning at home by now?

Suddenly, he felt a gentle tap against the back of his skull, and everything amplified again. His pain faded, head clear of that constant ringing, and at the same time completely full of the heartbeat that filled his chest. He didn’t think it was his heartbeat, but what else could it really be? His entire person pulsed in time with it.

The warden tried to pull away, but Etho pushed back against it, trying not to lose the sensation of everything and the relief it brought him. The warden clicked, whining at him in a way Etho somehow understood to be gentle, understanding. It knew what it was doing. And it leaned back in, bringing him back into the heartbeat.

~

Etho had no idea how long he’d been down here. It could've been weeks for all he knew. He’s had a harder and harder time bringing himself out of the heartbeat. And even when he could, there was nothing he could do here.

His ankle was still swollen and incredibly painful, though he’d kept it in his boot since it was the most supportive thing he had and he had no way to easily get it off. He couldn’t walk on it, let alone tunnel his way out of here. And the wardens wouldn’t fight him. Even when he hit one, it just clicked at him once and pushed him down with one massive paw before tapping him with its antler and putting him back under.

They treated him like a kit, like he was- was a baby warden. Etho didn’t even know if those existed, this grotto didn’t have one and he’d never seen one before but they’ve gotta come from somewhere, right?

It was hard to tell day and night here. His comm was getting harder and harder to turn on, even on its darkest brightness and screen color settings it was painful to look at. Etho had been trying to jury-rig it even dimmer before it got too much to handle entirely, but he wasn’t too optimistic about that possibility anymore. Even the sculk catalyst was getting too bright for him these days.

But he was having better and better luck seeing in the darkness of the burrow. And he didn’t like what he was seeing. The darkness in his hands and face was spreading. It went up his arms, all the way to his shoulders, and the dark patches on his face had been spreading. At some point he’d shed his mask, and the patches of Not Skin had popped up much faster, spreading until he wasn’t sure he had much normal skin left, and it was invading his scalp, curling through his hair, and down his neck. He even went to sleep once and woke up with patches on his stomach. He looked like he was rotting from the inside out.

He was terrified of what would happen when the rot fully covered him.

~

Etho let out a shuddering gasp as he came out of the Heartbeat, head ringing with pain strong enough to make his vision grow dark. It had been- Etho couldn’t even guess anymore. Time was meaningless. The surface world felt more and more like a dream with every passing day. Etho didn’t know how he was still alive, how he hadn’t starved to death yet. He thought it might have something to do with the rot, which he saw glowed a soft blue when the other wardens touched him. He always felt better after they did that, like they were giving him the magic his body craved.

The darkness covered his entire chest now and was crawling down his legs at an alarming pace. He didn’t feel that scared of it anymore, it was hard to feel anything but numb anymore. There was no escape.

His leg had stopped hurting quite as much, but he still had a hard time walking, and his ribs hadn’t hurt since the dark rot rolled over them. Instead, his head had started to ache, pulsing on either side of his skull without rest. It was an agony that not even the other wardens could relieve, no matter how much they tried.

And how they tried.

Etho couldn’t help a cry of pain as a particularly strong wave of pain crashed over him. He heard a familiar groan beside him, the warden who most often took care of him, and large paws scooped him up, before antlers pressed back against his skull, and he disappeared from consciousness once again.

~

Etho felt like he was floating. He felt like body was barely his, like just an outside observer. The pain radiating in his head grounded him and sent him running from his body at the same time. It was hard to stay conscious now, and Etho found his eyes drifting shut only minutes after waking up.

There was a lot of movement all around him, the kind that made Etho want to stay awake, to know what was happening. The grotto didn’t move like this often, content to stay curled in the little burrow. Was something happening, were the hermits coming for him?

Suddenly Etho’s chest was yanked up, legs dangling in the air. He screamed as the sudden movement jostled his ankle and made his head pound.

Big paws adjusted him, pulling up his legs, and he felt himself be carried by a warden. The warden tried to knock their horns together, but Etho pulled away, trying to see what was happening. It was so hard to see with the pounding in his head and chest, but Etho did his best to pay attention. He needed to know if they were coming for him.

There was more movement, and Etho heard digging under the murmur and clicking of the wardens around him. The room suddenly got much smaller and packed with wardens. Etho’s feet and head brushed either side of the stone walls, and Etho suddenly realized what was happening.

They were leaving the area under Decked Out 2.

Etho kicked his feet and shouted loudly, wordless in his desperation to go back. The hermits had to be so close, they must be looking for him! He couldn’t leave before they found him.

He flailed his legs and screamed his head off, throat already feeling torn and painful, and managed to squirm out of the warden’s paws. He dropped to his feet, landing hard on his bad ankle, and tried to run back to the burrow.

It was no use, one of the wardens caught him effortlessly, pressed their antler to his skull, and he knew no more.

~

Etho couldn’t see when he woke up.

He let out a wordless noise. Usually, sound would make someone light up, give him enough light to see by.

But there was nothing.

He made a louder noise and still no light. Instead, answering groans rang up around him.

Suddenly Etho could make out an impression of the mobs all around him. It was fuzzy but he could sense them. There were 7 of them all around him, curled up in this room, which was slightly larger than the burrow they’d been in, with him in the very center. He was slouched against the largest one, the one who watched over him.

The impression started to fade, until Etho let out another questioning noise, and the big warden responded with a short click, before gently knocking its antler down against him, letting him sink in the heartbeat for a moment. It felt so gentle today, but he felt the knock so keenly, even though his skull didn’t-

The warden hadn’t knocked his skull.

The realization came to Etho so suddenly that he pulled himself fully away from the warden, hands flying to his head.

He had antlers.

They weren’t big, barely more than an inch long, but they stuck straight out from his head, already too big to hide under his hair. The world felt so much duller when Etho grabbed them, even the small vibrations Etho hadn’t noticed not being picked up. He let go and found he could get a decent idea of the burrow now that he was actively trying.

Etho wanted to throw up a bit.

He was becoming a warden. There really would be no escape for him.

Tears came to his eyes, shockingly hot against the coldness of his cheeks. He had antlers, and his body was covered in the black rot that was probably just warden’s skin, and now he couldn’t see.

It was too much, Etho broke down sobbing.

One of the wardens took pity on him, gently knocking their antlers together, and Etho knew no more, his spasming heartbeat added to the collective.

~

The antlers weren’t gone when Etho woke up. Etho could feel them, it felt like they’d only grown longer. Grabbing them felt wrong, so he didn’t, letting the vibrations of the grotto around him flow through them freely. It felt weird, not quite sight but something like it. 

Etho wanted to cry, just thinking about the loss of his sight. How would he build again, making those complex interiors he loved so much with messy but congruent block palettes? How would he manage redstone, and its need for big picture perspective, knowing what each line hopper and repeater were meant to do? How would he do anything that made him a hermit?

He hugged his chest tightly, trying to comfort himself, but that only made his feel worse. He could feel the weird texture of his skin through his clothes, could feel how it had trailed over his entire torso. He pushed his shirt up to feel it and couldn’t stop himself from shuddering as he felt a small bit of peach fuzz over warden skin. He might as well be growing fur at this point! He’d already been changed so much; he might as well be made even more unrecognizable!

Etho was edging on hysterics when one of the wardens gave him a questioning click, and he forced himself to take a deep breath. He didn’t want them to put him back under the heartbeat, forcibly held calm by the overwhelming force of their collective heart rate. He knew they were just doing their best, but he couldn’t lose any more time to this.

Etho couldn’t quite click back at them, the noise came from the softer branches of the antlers, which looked a lot like weird foliage, but seemed to be able to move and swing on command. He hadn’t grown any yet. But he could click with his mouth, and he did his best to imitate their sounds. 

The warden clicked back, then turned away, leaving Etho to his own devices. He sighed and focused on his feet. He needed to get to the surface soon. He needed to get out of the burrow and away from the grotto. And to do that he needed to be able to walk and dig.

Etho clutched his hands together, and wondered if his hands would grow big and strong with tough, curved claws like the other wardens had. As much as he hated the idea of his body changing even more… anything to escape at this point.

~

His antlers grew in quickly, quickly becoming long, curling up at the end. The soft moving bits that felt a bit like branches were also coming in, and Etho found it easy to control them, either to collect more vibrations, or to hit them against each other. Soon Etho was able to click to his heart’s content, though his voice wasn’t quite deep enough to groan and roar like the other wardens did, nor did he have the ability to make a sonic blast. His fur was also coming in long and thick, and Etho was starting to find his vest and turtleneck uncomfortable to wear. He refused to give them up though, refused to give up that bit of humanity.

He didn’t have much of a choice though, as his body began to change more and more. His hands grew claws. At first, he thought his nails were just growing out, without the ability to trim that was normal. But then he tried to tear one short and found it too thick and curved to budge. His fingers also became rougher, a redstoner’s calluses fading away for something closer to pads that he had a hard time feeling through.

At least his ankle had been vastly improving, and while he still limped a bit, he was able to move and get around the new burrow.

Now that he was mobile and could conceivably escape, he was getting restless, and he can tell that his restlessness is affecting the rest of the grotto. He was getting better at understanding them, the heartbeat no longer brought him into that state of nothing, it brought him into a state more like a collective understanding, feelings and knowledge and sustenance traveling from one to another with ease. It scared Etho a bit, how easy it was to understand and lose himself in the collective. What if when he got to the surface, he couldn’t understand them anymore? What if one day he got so lost that he couldn’t come out? That when the hermits found him, he was just another warden to them, and they were just a bunch of vibrations to him?

It was scary, but Etho knew, soon he’d be able to go home. He just had to hope that the hermits were still waiting for him when he got home.

~

Etho knew something was going down when the burrow was pierced by a horrible shriek. He could feel the anger of the other wardens, and it almost swept him away in a wave of rage and discomfort. But he forced himself to stay centered. If this was a shrieker like he thought- shriekers only activated for players. A hermit might be up there, might be able to help him. He’d been looking for an opportunity like this to escape, he just had to stay levelheaded.

He let the rage wash over him and waited. A second shriek came a minute later, only riling up the wardens more. C'mon c'mon c'mon, one of you go up, show him the path to the main chamber. Show him how to get home.

A third shrieker. The anger was almost overwhelming, and even Etho could admit that the sound was absolutely grating on his soul. He calmed himself by imagining which hermit was out there. Maybe it was Beef, good dependable Beef who always knew the best way to draw Etho out of his head, ready to take Etho home and tease him gently about getting kidnapped by a minigame. Maybe it was Bdubs, who didn’t even mean to set off the shrieker but couldn’t help being so loud, come to drag him to bed. Sleeping in a player bed sounded like a dream right now. Maybe it was Xisuma, working relentlessly to save his hermits even when there were no leads. Maybe he’d finally figured out where Etho was from the code and was going to teleport him right out of there and take him home. Maybe- maybe it was Tango. Etho felt sadness well up in him for Tango. Tango, who spent so long working on this minigame, who should’ve been enjoying the hermits’ reactions to his amazing creation but was instead searching tirelessly for the hermit he lost in it.

Etho decided he’d be happy no matter who was out there. He just wanted to go home.

The fourth shrieker. One of the wardens roared, and began to dig up in a specific spot, while the others stayed put. Etho slipped out of the grasp of the grotto and followed closely behind. He’s coming home.

~

 “Doors are slamming in my face, and the vex aren’t attacking anymore. Think they might be herding me. Don’t know where. In a room full of ravines now, not quite sure how to get to the exit again.”

Etho didn’t sound as panicked as he described what was happening in the dungeon, but that only scared Tango more. He didn’t realize the danger he was in. Tango scrambled on his comm, trying to contact Xisuma to give Etho a quick port out of there.

“Oh no. Oh that's very bad, very bad. Get out of that area, there’s a few holes there that I haven’t-” 

There was something like a crash and a shout of pain that cut him, and a series of more crashes before the connection cut off. Tango scrambled to check the main chat, but there was no death message.

-Finished covering.

Tango scrambled, calling Xisuma immediately. The ravines were deep, deep enough to kill at any health, but a few of them had holes in the bottom that led deeper into the dungeon, deeper beyond where the dungeon lay into the deep dark areas below. If Etho didn’t die when he fell- he must have landed somewhere worse.

Tango was deeply attached to Decked Out 2. They weren’t the same but Decked Out 2 had a lot of his emotions and love and hate for things. Including his friends.

He should’ve realized that he was going too far when he told it about Etho, the champion. When he complained and teased and loved Etho where the dungeon could hear him and it responded with curiosity. He should’ve realized that its interest was getting too intense for something that wasn’t ever meant to be alive.

As his comm rang, Tango flew down into the belly of the beast, following the path Etho would’ve fallen.

“Give him back!” he shouted into the belly, radiating anger through the dungeon.

The dungeon growled back, and a blast of cold air came through, nearly knocking Tango out of the air.

“He’s not yours, you can’t have him!”

The dungeon only gave him silence now that it had offered its refusal.

“I’m never going to give you another hermit again. You’re never going to see the light of day.” Tango hissed and landed in the belly under the fourth level.

Xisuma finally answered the call, and before he could even respond, Tango was yelling, “You need to teleport Etho!”

Xisuma sputtered on the other side of the line, “Tango, what?”

“Etho can’t get out and I can't reach him, you need to get him out of there!”

There was silence for a moment, and Tango could faintly hear some clicking from Xisuma’s end of the call. Then the clicking paused, and Xisuma made a concerned noise.

“Tango, what happened?” Xisuma’s voice was serious.

“Did you get him out of there?”

“The system is no longer connecting with his comm or code. Tango, what happened?”

Tango broke down and told him everything.

~

Xisuma helped him rally the hermits to search through the lower levels of Decked Out 2, after shutting off all of the redstone. Tango shut down the entire system, loudly declaring to the dungeon that he’d never turn it back on. He was so angry, he could hardly stand to look at the tunnels of the dungeon, to think about the long hours he had put into all of this and how badly it had been twisted.

The hermits tore through the dungeon with a speed he’d never seen from them before. It was clear everyone was mad about Etho’s disappearance. But there was nothing to be found in the tunnel, and Etho’s comm remained frustratingly out of reach. Finally, people had been forced to take a break. There was nothing more they could do except dig up the entirety of the area under and around decked out, and that couldn’t be done quickly in any way that would be safe for Etho.

Xisuma had privately confided to them that he was scared that Etho hadn’t just been disconnected from his network, but from the network responsible for respawning. If they killed Etho while clearing the area, they might not even know.

Which meant that the hermits, who were already close to the point of running on fumes after 3 weeks straight of searching, would have to dig out those chunks by hand. It would take weeks, maybe even months. So instead, they’d focus on searching the caves, and if that didn’t work, they’d dig it all out. But people had to be patient and take breaks in between cavings.

Xisuma was clear, they weren’t abandoning Etho. But he wasn’t going to let anyone else run themselves to death’s door searching. This was the best compromise to that. Bdubs and Tango were the most resistant to the plans. Tango knew Bdubs hadn’t been sleeping much recently. He was so worried, and Tango couldn’t blame him, finding it hard to sleep himself. The idea of having to go home and rest was unthinkable to the both of them.

Etho’s old home was still in Bdubs’s basement. Tango wondered if it felt as empty as Tango’s starter base did.

Impulse had tried to offer his base, so that Tango didn’t have to go back to the starter area most hermits had abandoned at spawn, but the dwarven fortress felt too close to Decked Out, the blackstone and blue too familiar. He’d already dropped his own visage of the dungeon master, falling into the comfort of red and orange flames and the heat of the world outside. He couldn’t go back to the cold underground.

~

Tango couldn’t stay away from the Dungeon for long though. After 13 months he just-

It was hard to step away from everything he’d worked on.

And that’s how Tango found himself back at his own doorstep, feeling like a stranger in his own house.

He slipped through the massive doors and shivered. His leather vest didn’t keep him warm like the dungeon master’s coat and hood did, but he couldn’t put that back on, couldn’t reclaim possession of this awful place.

“You took him.”

It was a question as much as it was a statement, but there was no answer.

“Are you at least happy with yourself? Happy that you’ve traded him for everything else you could’ve had? They all would have loved you.”

Tango thinks that if the building could’ve purred with satisfaction, it would. He sighed. There really was no use arguing with it, but sometimes he thought that just maybe- maybe it would give him back if it realized.

“When we get Etho back I'm going to let Doc tear you to the ground.”

Decked Out didn’t give him much more as Tango slipped back out of the dungeon, but he got the distinct impression that it was laughing, taunting maybe. When. That really was the big question wasn’t it.

~

They found the entrance to the Deep Dark five weeks and two days after Etho went missing. The entrance to the Deep Dark was pretty small, and a lot closer to bedrock than most Deep Dark pockets were. It was also big. It took another two days to get a team together to search it. In the end, it was him, Xisuma, Zed, and Beef that got to storm the deep dark. Bdubs, who hadn’t been sleeping, got put on mandatory break from searching until his eye bags were smaller than his eyes and he could be around people without hissing at them. Xisuma took his place, hoping he could look for traces of Etho in the code. He said if he could just get a solid hint of Etho he could probably reconnect him to the network.

The deep dark was creepy. Incredibly so. Despite the lore Tango had created for the dungeon, he never actually went down this far to check for the deep dark. He had enough to do, digging out the entire area to bedrock didn’t seem worthwhile. He was cursing himself for it now as they explored. If he’d just taken the few extra weeks and fully cleared the area-

Zed nudged him, leaning in close like he wanted Tango to lean back into him. Tango shook his head and banished the spiral of thoughts. He needed to focus, they needed to save Etho in the here and now, distractions won’t help.

The group did a quick overview of the Deep Dark first, taking out any shriekers so that they wouldn’t trigger a warden, then they split up into pairs and searched the pocket as best they could for any sign of Etho. Zed tugged Tango along towards the upper areas, powerful goat legs and balance helping to propel him up to those dark corners. Tango soon found himself playing bodyguard, as Zed didn’t quite move slow enough for him to follow, but he didn’t move fast enough for the mobs to not take notice of him. Tango took out his bow and got to work shooting down the mob following Zed.

Both of them froze, and tango had to throw his aim to the side to avoid accidentally hitting Zedaph when there was a shout from the ground.

“WE’VE GOT SOMETHING!!!”

A significantly quieter “Oh goodness me,” echoed the shout, so Tango felt safe in an assumption that the shouting was Beef.

He and Zed made a beeline for the other two and found X with his full admin unit out and Beef with his pickaxe out and already breaking some blocks.

“Where are we digging to?” Zed asked, already pulling his pick from his inventory.

“30 blocks down, a little northeast. Terrain generation says there should be a small cave, about the size of a chunk, but we’re down too deep to get an accurate read on if there’s anything living there. About the only other thing I can say is that Etho was definitely there at some point recently.” Before X was even half done explaining, Tango was done beside Beef, digging through the crumbly mixture of stone and skulk.

Between the three of them they quickly broke into a smaller pocket in the rock, full of sculk and patches of wool. After Beef cleared that there were no mobs, they dropped down into the room.

Xisuma planted himself in the center of the room, panels still up, combing through the code for Etho. The other three combed over the room.

The room looked normal, empty and a bit creepy sure, but that’s just how the deep dark was. Tango didn’t realize there was anything more to it until he heard Zed’s strangled gasp. He turned and froze at the sight.

In Zed’s hands was a plain black face mask, with one of the ear straps completely broken off. It had to be Etho’s, he never went anywhere without it.

The rest of the search went by in a blur after they found Etho’s mask. Xisuma confirmed that it was definitely Etho’s, and he’d been wearing it within the last week. There was nothing else to be found in the room, nothing but traces of code. Etho had been in there just a day or two ago. There was no trace of where he went.

Tango forced himself to stay calm until he got home, not wanting to hurt his friends with his rage. His hair was already flickering, going from simple golden blonde to a glowing orange. If he wasn’t careful, he was going to set something on fire.

Even if he was careful- he’d just prefer his friend not be there to see it.

He was so angry!

They were so close!

If they hadn’t waited Etho would be home!

Tango only barely made it to the hard rock of spawn before the rest of his body followed his hair and burst into flames. He’s glad he didn’t make it all the way home, his house had too much wood for this level of rage.

Tango didn’t know how long he spent in that burning anger. At some point he must have fallen to his knees, because when he became aware of himself once more the first thing he became aware of was rapidly cooling stone under his knees and legs.

The second thing he became aware of were soft murmured words, “-okay, we’re gonna get you inside buddy, here just lean on me, let Impulse take care of you.”

He became aware of several things in short succession after that. Warm arms, wrapping around him in a comforting embrace, slowly lifting him up from the ground. The sensation of his head flames slowly extinguishing, dying back past even his normal levels. And cold, biting rain, beating down on his body, driving the warmth of his anger from the entire anger. In the wake of it, Tango felt nothing.

A wall of warmth hit him, not quite as strong as the actual wall of warmth that was holding him, but it felt hollow. He felt hollow. He remained limp in Impulse’s arms, letting him carry him wherever he wanted. It was so cold…

Some traitorous part of him thought of the way his skin froze in the lower layers of Decked Out 2, how cold Etho must be all alone down there. This could only be a portion of what Etho had suffered through at the hands of his creation.

Large, callused hands held his face and Impulse’s voice called out for him, so reluctantly Tango let his eyes flutter open. And there he was, Impulse, soaked to the bone from the rain but still smiling the moment he saw Tango. 

“There you are. When Zed said you stormed off after the raid and never came back, I didn't think I’d find you sittin’ all alone in the rain, man. You’ll extinguish yourself like that.” Impulse was gentle, even with the implied admonishments.

Tango groaned, not feeling up to speaking after the highs and lows of a rage, and turned his head, rubbing his cheek against Impulse’s palm. His skin caught a bit against the dry and cracking edges of his calluses and the heat that gathered in them was almost burning with the temperature difference from outside, but Tango only pushed against him harder. Impulse chuckled but didn’t pull away.

“Oh Tangs,” If Tango was a just more present maybe he could’ve interpreted Impulse’s tone a little better, but for now he was just focusing on how good the warmth felt, “one of these days you're going to remember that you're not alone before we get to this point.”

Their foreheads met and Tango could feel the imp horns jutting out of Impulse’s head. It was familiar and comforting, exactly what he needed right now.

“We’ll get him back buddy. I promise.”

~

It took another two weeks for them to find another lead on Etho. Xisuma had gotten some good information from the traces of Etho’s code he found below the deep dark, but it took a while to parse which direction he was taken in.

But they finally had something, and Tango refused to hesitate.

This time, with more definitive proof, an entire gaggle of hermits showed up. Bdubs was finally back, Beef was here again, False and Gem had both offered their combat skills in case they ran into a warden, and Impulse had refused to leave Tango alone, so he was coming as well.

And Xisuma was coming so that when they got Etho he could make sure he stayed safe.

The lead led them almost ten chunks beyond Decked Out’s borders, to another Deep Dark biome. But it was bigger this time, with an entire ancient city sprawling through it. This was going to take forever to go through, and Tango found himself wishing that they had brought more hermits along, to get through this faster.

False was the first one to make a plan, sitting in the tunnel entrance before the shriekers made it hard to communicate. She split them off into pairs to remove shriekers, leaving Xisuma on his own to try to find Etho. If a warden got summoned, they’d run back here and focus on bowing the warden down.

Tango didn’t know who set off the first shrieker, but the sound of Impulse cursing under his breath was stuck in his head, only barely audible under the echoing shriek. It played on echo in his head for the next minute, ringing in his ears as they searched, until a sculk tentacle took advantage of his distraction and wrapped around his leg, yanking him down off the path of wool they’d been laying down. He landed hard enough for it to send sound shooting off into the distance. A few seconds later, a shrieker went off further in front of them. Impulse sighed, but didn’t say a word, just pulling him back onto the path. They managed to get rid of that shrieker and one other that was nearby without another issue.

The third shriek came from somewhere to the east of them, closer this time. Had it been this hard to avoid the shriekers the last time he raided the deep dark? Maybe there was a reason Xisuma had tried to keep the number of hermits so low.

The clicking of wardens beneath was loud enough to hear now, foreboding and long. Just one more and the warden would emerge, and this searching would get a whole lot more complicated.

Tango watched his steps carefully. Cmon, they had to do this now, they had to get to Etho before he was taken away again. They couldn’t afford a warden right now, Tango wouldn’t let Etho slip through his fingers again!

But, as had been made extremely clear through this entire ordeal, Tango wasn’t the one in control. The fourth shrieker went off somewhere behind them and the sound of roaring and cracking earth followed it.

“Oh jeez," Impulse’s voice was strained from the stress, but he grabbed Tango’s hand and scrambled backwards, his little imp wings flaring to facilitate the fast turn, “Okay- Okay we need to get back to the others. Come on buddy, we need to hurry.”

Tango dug the heels of his boots in, “We aren’t done with this area, he could still be here.”

Impulse looked ready to growl at him, “Or he could be anywhere else. We told the others we’d come back to help fight the warden.”

“They can handle themselves; they’ll all be together. He’s alone.” This was the loudest either of them had gotten since entering the deep dark, and Tango did his best to keep his voice at a hiss instead of getting louder. The wardens were active now, they didn’t need another warden running around.

And then suddenly Impulse was close, practically on top of Tango, “He’s not alone. We’re looking for him. We’ve always been looking for him. But we need to stick to the plan, Xisuma probably knows where he is at this point, or at least a direction to look.”

Tango glared at Impulse, and was ready to pull back, when suddenly Impulse’s thick arms wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms to his side. Tango let out the start of a shriek, before digging his claws into Impulse’s arms, kicking and fighting to get loose.

Impulse didn’t even flinch, even though Tango could feel that he was taking damage. Instead, he turned, carrying Tango back to the others.

“You act like you're handling this alone.” Impulse muttered, “you aren’t the only one who cares about him, the only one looking for him. We’re a team Tangs, don’t push us away.”

Tango hissed at him, but obediently went limp as they got closer to the main area, not wanting to risk triggering anything else. He kept his eyes trained out into the darkness, the familiar pulsing of the darkness effect kicking in as they got closer to the main area and the warden. He could hear voices up ahead, but the darkness came in to totally blind him for a second, keeping him from actually seeing anything. Impulse’s steady gait kept them safe on the wool path though, not straying even though Tango knew he must have been as blind as Tango was. Voices got closer and the glow of a normal torch came into view, cutting through the darkness. The others.

Tango wiggled in Impulse’s grasp, trying to get down before they got to the others, but impulse didn’t budge. The darkness started filtering away as they approached the others and Tango could see that everyone had already made it before them. No darkness pulsed back in, so they must have made it out of range.

Thankfully Impulse dropped him once they made it to the little hole in the wall, and tango took a moment to glare at him before turning back to the others.

“Alright, who summoned the warden?” Impulse teased and even Tango had to laugh as everyone suddenly pointed a finger at Xisuma, who only glared at them.

“It caught Gem and False’s scent, so it’s a bit further away from us right now, but it’s still really close. You’re lucky, I thought for sure you’d get cut off.” Xisuma said.

“We nearly didn’t,” Impulse said, setting one of his hands on Tango’s shoulder, “the darkness got close enough that I thought we were goners for sure. 20 blocks of leeway is not a comfortable distance from a warden, even if we were only in range for a few seconds.”

The others gave some commiserating sounds of distress. The darkness effect was scary just for the blindness, but the implication of closeness that came with it was almost worse.

Craaack

The sudden sound of stone and sculk splitting to another warden cut off further conversation. They all turned to stare at each other. There couldn’t be another warden, not unless something was out there to summon it and sculk had a hard time activating for anything but players. But all of them were already present. The only player who would be anywhere close…

Bdubs came to the realization first, shooting out of their bolt hole like a bullet out of a gun, and Tango wasn’t far behind him.

“ETHO!” he shouted, not caring about the wardens in the frenzy. This was the closest they'd been to Etho in weeks, he wasn’t giving this up. “ETHO WE’RE HERE, WHERE ARE YOU?”

There was nothing but a distant roar, and Tango immediately turned towards it. The second warden would’ve spawned near Etho, so that would give them a good starting point. Unfortunately, that put them directly in the path of the first path, which had wandered closer to the bolt area in search of them. Darkness began to pulse across his vision, to prove the proximity.

In front of him, Bdubs skittered around the edge of the warden’s range, jumping from one wool block to the next, surprisingly graceful for a man of his diminished stature. Tango decided on a more direct path, he didn’t think he could make those jumps, not with the darkness.

‘Just like avoiding an iron golem,’ Tango thought, ‘just a lot bigger and stronger.’

He jumped around the warden’s waving arms, sliding around a hit, just close enough to feel it brush past his netherite armor. Darkness pulsed across his vision again, but he didn’t let it slow him down. He had to get out of range, and he’d be safe to find Etho. In a straight shot a player could easily outrun just about any mob, even the warden. He just needed to get that straight shot first.

Tango pushed his strides just a bit longer, throwing himself out of range as much as he could while staying on his feet, and kept running once his feet hit wool. Behind him the warden roared at the lost prey.

He kept running, soon getting to the central area where Xisuma had been. His eyes caught on the faint glow of a shrieker just beyond the boundaries of the area. That must have been what got him. Now where was Etho?

Tango wasn’t paying attention to where he was running as he scanned his surroundings for Etho or the warden he summoned. So, he didn’t see when Bdubs came to a dead stop right in front of him. They collided like a car crash and only Bdubs’s strong core kept them from falling to the ground.

“What the h-!” Bdubs’s arm flailed up and he slapped his hand over Tango’s mouth, effectively shutting him up. His other hand came up to point across the main plaza area.

Tango looked directly ahead, and the first thing he saw was a teal glow, tall and dark. His brain immediately caught onto the threat, a warden.

Great! Wonderful! That must be Etho’s warden! Why are they stopping?

It took a moment for his brain to see what else Bdubs had seen. The longer he focused in on the warden, the more things seemed off. For some reason there was green.

Tango blinked. There couldn’t be green. Nothing was green in the deep dark, nothing but players. Definitely not a warden.

Tango pulled away from Bdubs and crept closer to the mysterious warden. It was shorter than most wardens, thinner too. It was the standard deep navy blue of a warden, covered in lighter pulsating spots, but there was a lone shock of white on its head. Its back was turned, and it was sniffing the air, but its antler things were smaller than the other warden’s antlers.

The most damning evidence though, was the source of the green. It was hung over the warden’s torso, almost pierced through by the rough white growths on it’s arms. Like they had grown while the warden was wearing it.

Tango came to a horrible realization.

“Etho?”

The warden’s head turned, and Tango was frozen as their eyes locked. Or. Should’ve locked.

Because while he was staring straight at Etho, and he was looking in the direction of his eyes, Etho had no eyes to stare into. Navy and white swirled hair draped long over his face, but Tango could catch glimpses, there was nothing underneath. Only hair and his wide, empty mouth.

“Taaaaannggo?” Etho’s voice was cracked and deeper than Tango remembered, likely from disuse and- everything that happened to him.

Tango stumbled forward, but with the confirmation Bdubs was even faster. He launched himself past Tango, scrambling over the rough terrain to get to Etho. Tango followed a moment later at a slightly more cautious speed.

“ETHO!” Bdubs’s shouting was shrill but warranted as he threw himself into Etho’s arms. Etho stiffened at the sudden noise and touch but relaxed into Bdubs’s arms.

“Beeeeduus.” Etho’s voice collapsed into a crackling drone, but Tango nodded encouragingly.

“Yeah, Bdubs, and Tango, and Xisuma and Beef and others are around here too. We’re going to get you out of here Etho, you’re going to be okay.” Tango said and watched with mild horror as one of Etho’s antlers swung towards him as he talked.

“Beeeefeers?”

Tango nodded, and then hummed in acknowledgment when that got nothing from Etho, “Yeah, yeah Beef’s with us too. So, this is going excellent. They’re being slow, but everyone’s waiting back home for you Etho. Xisuma’s gonna be here soon and he’ll get us all back home.”

“Home.”

It was the most normal sounding word Etho had spoken thus far, and Tango couldn’t help but laugh with relief. “Yeah. Home. Just a little longer Etho.”

~

The two months Etho were gone were the worst, most stressful months of Tango’s life. The two months after he was found were- honestly still pretty stressful, but significantly better.

Xisuma’s fears had been right, Etho had been disconnected from the respawn network, which was Terror of the Fying variety. But after a bit of bug testing and some consultation off world for the coding, he got everything fixed and Etho was now very safe from any more threats.

The wardenification wasn’t so easily fixed. A good scrub and some messing around with the code got rid of most of the staining, though his hair remained pretty stubbornly navy. He wore it long now, without bothering to tie it up. It was striking enough that it made it hard to focus on where Etho’s eyes were supposed to be.

They were just gone. The scar that had crossed over his left eye was still there, but now it continued across the empty expanse of skin over his eye sockets. Etho couldn’t see how unsettling it was, but it was clear someone had let it slip, because he seemed pretty ashamed of it at times.

Xisuma had been contacting people off world for Etho. Both people familiar with warden and hybrid code, and people who specialized in orientation and movement, for blind people. Because that’s what Etho was. Permanently. Etho didn’t seem too bugged by it, mostly just joked about not needing much help with the orientation part, just make a noise and he could orient himself perfectly fine, but Beef had said he was worried about how Etho was getting used to his cane. He was easily overwhelmed by the repeating tap tap tap it made as he used it, and they had yet to find an option that muffled the sound to a good level for him and still let him hear it vibrate against different surfaces.

At least Etho seemed to be liking his Antlers. Apparently, they'd been the last thing to grow in, within the last two weeks of his capture. Tango wanted to feel bad that they couldn’t stop it but honestly all he could feel was relief that the next stage hadn’t started. Etho’s situation wasn’t exactly common, but it wasn’t totally unique either. Tango had done his research when they got Etho back and it, it was bad. Bad with extra badness. After the antlers grow out to a usable length, the chest opens up and the soul emerges, at which point playerhood is unrecoverable. Even a week longer and they would’ve lost Etho forever.

But they did make it on time. And Tango just had to focus on that. They all survived.

Etho was home.

[raspberrysmoon]

richie lipschitz has a life. he quite likes his life. he doesnt need anything more from his friends.

~

aka my first uploaded hatchetfield fic. bam, babey

[portlandwithyou]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: due South Rating: Explicit Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Benton Fraser/Ray Vecchio Additional Tags: Drinking, In Vino Veritas, Love Confessions, First Time, Hand Jobs Summary:

Jesus, this was the most erotic thing Ray had ever done in his life, even if it was just fooling around in a parked car like a couple of teenagers.

[tulipsnflowers]

Oh hey look another Nexomon fanfic I did fan art for, I'm beginning to see a pattern.

Anyway, this is @somepunaboutspace 's A legend reformed fic, it's being rewritten so mind where one should stop for the new version.

Anyway I see new Metta form I click(and good writing), pretty simple.