#ummm.... the way i have two ethubs fics and both are about. hot drinks. idk whats wrong with me sry

[minecraftbed]

Hot chocolate (two words technically I’m sorry, does it still count?)

It absolutely counts !!! also sorry this is slightly angsty but its sweet too,.. only slightly. its all good. i hope u like it <3 also i googled how to make hot chocolate from cocoa beans and its a 7 step process so lets pretend etho did not do that

WC: 830

HOMAGE.

The sky above was split down the middle, endless black consecrated by a sepia galaxy. 

It was beautiful. It was terrifying. 

It was just night time.

Bdubs had to look away; gaze falling once again to his hands, studying the new blisters and calluses, poking at a particularly rough patch of skin. The cobblestone house they’d built wasn’t much to look at, with it's colour palette particularly dull and lifeless. It didn’t even have a floor! Ah… he had to remind himself that those things didn’t matter. Everything they did now was about safety and survival. 

Tomorrow it would need walls, towers to shoot from, — any form of defence possible. 

That was tomorrow.

He needed to relax. 

But it was night time. He was supposed to be in bed, tucked up and safe, waiting for the moon to complete her sweep across the world. Instead he was outside, sitting on the wooden balcony, picking his hands further to shreds with every worried glance to the treeline.

It was hard to feel normal after the day he’d had. 

Of course he’d felt what it was like to be a red life before. Bdubs knew all about the insatiable hunger, the want to hunt and kill the people he loved. Third Life was still present in everyone's brains like rot, and yet, here they all were, doing it again. Always falling into place without second thought. Only this time with worse mechanics. Mechanics that he had had the luck to experience on day one. 

Being the boogeyman didn’t feel like being a red life. No, no. It was a quick rush of bloodlust, vs a constant drum. It was scary, really,  what he had felt capable of in the moment; and now that he was free of the curse, Bdubs found himself feeling disconnected from every other player. Not alone… per say, —---- but yes, alone.

Maybe Grian was the only other person who knew how he felt. 

They were the firsts. The catalysts. 

The wooden door creaked open behind him, he flinched. A mug entered his peripheral. He let it hover there for a beat as his mind blanked, before curling his fingers around the handle. It was full of something warm, the porcelain stinging his blisters. He took a sip.

It had no sugar, more water than milk, and the cocoa beans hadn’t been crushed enough, ( who freaking knows where they had even come from, the server did NOT have a jungle. ) Really, it was more a homage to hot chocolate than anything.

Bdubs absolutely loved it.

“Mm,” he didn’t look up towards the supplier. He didn’t need to. To him, Etho was knowable just by sound. By presence. 

“Figured if you were going to sit out here in the cold getting sick, well, —-- I might as well join you.”

“Awh, how brave of ya,----” Bdubs grinned. “----for all you know i’m still feelin’ the effects.”

“The effects?”

“The oooooogyboogey man, Etho,“ he spread his free fingers out and wiggled them, eyes wide with drama.

Etho chuckled, lowering himself down to the platform next to him, legs crossed. His knee rested against Bdubs’ thigh. He had his own mug, steam swirling above it. “Wouldn’t matter. You didn’t kill me in the caves, did you?”

“Alright alright, don’t have to sound so smug ‘bout it.”

“Oh, but I do.”

“YEAH! WELL!---“ Bdubs cut himself short, his voice booming through the clearing. If anyone was nearby, lurking, hunting, waiting… “... Right., right. Quiet.” 

“They wouldn’t come here. We have a trained killer within the residence—” 

Bdubs forced a laugh. 

“-----And we also have you, I guess,” Etho finished, bumping their arms together. Hot chocolate flew from his mug to freckle the ground below. 

“Oh, hah hah, very funny,” truth be told, if someone were to attack them then and there, the cows living in their home would be better defence than Bdubs could ever be. He was tired, in both ways. 

In all ways.

...

“Thank you,” Etho wouldn’t look at him as he spoke. 

“For?”

“Not killing me. You could have done, — many many times. But you didn’t. Thanks, Bdubs.” 

Bdubs sighed, the sound blending into the atmosphere. He waited, letting the sentence stew around them. “Yeah, Well, next time I won’t hesitate. I’ll make you target number one.”

“Nah, I don’t think you will.” 

Bdubs didn’t answer, taking a drink from his cooling mug. He leaned his head on Etho’s shoulder, closing his eyes. Thirty seconds passed before a hand gently took his own, fingers entwined. Etho had bumps and broken skin, too. From building, from mining, from living. He felt it as he pushed their palms together. 

Would Etho remain appreciative? Or would his words soon become an apology for later, when he too experienced the curse and backstabbed him? It was all part of the games, after all. An easy kill was an easy kill, —-- he’d just been too stupid to take it. 

Too something, to take it.

It didn’t matter. That, too, was for tomorrow.

Tonight, they could have their hot chocolate.