I wrote my double life fic finally are you proud of me? began writing this a few months ago, picked it up yesterday in a fit of inspiration, and then was further encouraged to finish this today because I gotta get it out before the next life series! enjoy <3
at the end - ethubs // double life //2565 words
It’s night out. Here on the edge of the jungle, the air is flat and hot. There’s no breeze, nothing to push at the clouds hanging low in the horizon, blotting out the stars. The only sound is the buzzing of crickets, droning.
Bdubs’ hand is sweating where it’s clasped with Impulse’s. They stand side by side, facing down Etho and Joel.
“Impulse, look at Bdubs right now.” Etho says. His gaze is fixed on Bdubs, tone mocking. Joel is standing at his flank, frowning at the back of Etho’s head. “That’s what he looks like on a green life. When he gets to red life, there’ll be nothing left of that face.”
Impulse bristles at Bdubs’ side and his voice raises in Bdubs’ defense. “He’ll still be beautiful to me!
Etho finally looks away from Bdubs, expression almost derisive. “Get out while you can,” Etho shrugs, nonchalant. “I’m just saying.”
After they’ve left, Impulse brings him inside.
It’s cooler in the house, white snow walls reflecting the dim moonlight. Impulse is like a ghost in the light, taking Bdubs gently by the shoulders. “Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” Bdubs voice is harsh, fraying at the edges. He’s shaking for some reason, heart beating quickly in his throat.
“Hey.” Impulse smiles down at him. His eyes are gentle and full of sympathy. “I meant what I said. You’ll always be beautiful to me.”
Bdubs swallows. He stares into Impulse’s eyes and tries to get lost in his warm gaze. Their hearts are beating in tandem. Impulse would never hurt him. Could never hurt him. Bdubs should feel comfort at that fact, but instead he only feels darkness coiling in his stomach, creeping up his throat.
Impulse leans closer, cupping Bdubs’ face between his hands. “He’s trying to get under your skin,” he whispers. “He’s trying to drive us apart. But whatever he says, it won’t work.”
“No,” Bdubs says, mouth dry. “We’re the homewreckers, not him.”
Impulse chuckles, leaning forward until their foreheads meet. “Exactly.”
The air between them is warm and charged. Bdubs’ chest is tight. He takes a step backwards and Impulse’s hands slide easily off his face. “I’m going out,” Bdubs announces.
Impulse’s forehead creases, a little worry line appearing between his brows. His hands don’t lift from where they have fallen to his side. “What do you mean? It’s late.”
Bdubs drops Impulse’s gaze and pushes past him, grabs the axe by the door. “We need gunpowder, don’t we? I’m gonna hunt some creepers.” The lie falls out of his mouth too easily. He’s had a lot of practice, recently.
“Oh,” Impulse says. He sounds confused, maybe a little disappointed. It’s enough for Bdubs’ hackles to raise, but Impulse doesn’t even try to stop him. “Be safe, then,” he wishes, instead. Bdubs nods, jerkily, and steps out the door. Impulse doesn’t follow him out.
Outside it is still quiet, still calm. Bdubs walks away from the mid-century modern house, head craned towards the sky. He can see stars between the gaps in the clouds, winking in and out of existence. Bdubs wonders what it would be like if gravity flipped, if he fell into the sky and just kept going. He shivers at the thought.
When Bdubs crests the hill, he turns back to look the house. It stands alone against the mountain, its clean lines as beautiful as they are simple. It’s nothing like what Bdubs had built for Etho. The snow fort had been jagged and haphazard. Unfinished, and then destroyed.
Warm light spills out of the windows, golden against the verdant darkness. Impulse must have lit a torch to guide Bdubs’ way home. Bdubs turns his head back around until he can’t see the house, can’t see anything but the endless night stretching before him, hot and flat and still. He walks.
That first day, Etho’s gaze had been cool and even as it moved between Bdubs and Impulse, barely lingering on their intertwined hands. “And is this a happy marriage?” he had asked.
Bdubs hand had tightened on Impulse’s. He had just found him, his soulmate, and there was something heady in feeling Impulse’s pulse under his skin, beating in time to the thrum in Bdubs’ ears. They were tied together, joined. He could never betray Bdubs, never turn on him.
“It’s a fantastic happy marriage,” Bdubs retorted.
Etho continued, unphased. “Or is it, ‘I did the best I could in my life, this is what I’m gonna have to settle with’?”
Bdubs flinched. There was a sick taste in his mouth, like bile. The memory of an arrow in his chest. His hand had gone limp in Impulse’s grasp and Impulse, concerned, tightened his grasp. “E-Etho—“ Bdubs could barely stutter out. The memory of an arrow punching though his lung, of gasping out his life alone in the snow, grew more vivid.
Impulse stepped in front of Bdubs, already protective of their new bond. “We’re an extremely happy soulbound couple!” he spat, and Bdubs was so grateful for him, so grateful that he had steadiness, that he had safety.
Etho hadn’t even glanced at Impulse. His gaze was unmoving on Bdubs’ face.
Bdubs catches his breath by a thicket of birch trees. He’s had to hack his way through some creepers, and the axe is spattered with green blood. He pockets the gunpowder for Impulse, later. It makes him feel better. Makes him feel like he hadn’t been lying.
The night is so still, it’s like the air itself is holding its breath. It tastes like anticipation, the server poised on a knife’s blade. Everything will slide into carnage at the first appearance of a red name.
Bdubs hates it, the anticipation. It prickles underneath his skin, makes him wary and frenzied. He’s survived the past few days by pouring all his excess energy into constructing the midcentury mansion, building until his hands are callused and bleeding.
It had been the same in the other world, too. Maybe even worse. There, the carnage didn’t have to wait for red lives. It could happen anytime, anywhere, maybe even in his own home, maybe delivered by the man he had tied himself to as tightly as he knew how.
“I want Etho,” Bdubs had said, and Impulse hadn’t even flinched
The silhouette of the relation-ship looms out of the darkness.
“What are you doing here?” Etho is nonchalant, expression placid in the flickering torchlight. He leans against the side of the boat, hands tucked into his pockets.
Bdubs takes a deep breath, feeling like he’s surfacing from underwater. He’s crossed the server almost without realizing it, loping through the trees. Etho watches his approach closely.
Bdubs grips the axe. “What’s your game?” He demands, stepping into Etho’s space.
Etho doesn’t budge. “I could ask you the same question.”
“Stop trying to insult me in front of Impulse,” Bdubs hisses. “It’s not going to work. He loves me.”
Etho scoffs. “Right, a happy marriage. And you’re offering me a bed in your house just out of the goodness of your heart?”
“Maybe I feel bad for you,” Bdubs shrugs, “with Joel trashing you behind your back.”
Etho leans forward slightly. His jaw tightens under the mask, visible by a tendon shifting in his neck.
Bdubs feels a thrill at the reaction, a glimpse through the facade.
“You and I both know that didn’t happen,” Etho murmurs, “so why don’t you tell me the truth.”
Bdubs head is spinning. He doesn’t remember the truth anymore. He sees Etho in the past life, standing on top of a hill, surrounded by other greens. “We’ll be back together like buddies again,” he had promised. He had promised.
Etho raises an eyebrow at Bdubs’ non-response. It’s supercilious. Taunting.
Bdubs lunges forward, the axe falling from his hand. He tears Etho’s mask off of his ears. He has a glimpse of Etho’s mulishly set mouth, the scar neatly clipping his lip, and then Bdubs is kissing him furiously, hands fisted in Etho’s jacket. He shoves Etho back against the boat, presses him solidly against the wood.
Etho doesn’t kiss him back. His mouth is firm and unyeilding against Bdubs’, and his hands encircle Bdub’s wrists, grip like iron. Bdubs presses into him, desperate.
Etho wrenches Bdubs off him and Bdubs stands there, panting, the darkness crawling up his throat. Etho’s hands are still tight around his wrists. Bdubs wishes he could disappear, fall into the stars, melt into the darkness.
Etho’s eyes are shining in the starlight.
Bdubs takes a step back but Etho doesn’t relinquish his hold. Bdubs is caught, breath rasping loudly against the quiet night. “The truth?” Bdubs asks. “The truth is you left me to die.”
The words have an immediate effect on Etho. He blinks, taken aback, his expression falling. His fingers on Bdubs’ wrists loosen. It’s gratifying to see the pain spread across Etho’s face without the mask. Bdubs feels sickly smug, like he has scored a point, like he has clawed out some sort of victory.
Bdubs can’t resist twisting the knife. “And Joel? You’ll just do the same to him. Because at the end of the day, you only care about yourself.”
This change sweeping over Etho’s face is less gratifying and more terrifying. His expression shutters, his eyes sharpen. Etho growls and then Bdubs is being swung around, thrown against the boat’s keel so hard that his head bounces against the wood.
Bdubs cries out at the sudden burst of pain, trying to twist out of Etho’s grasp so he can grab up his axe and have a fighting chance, but Etho knows how to leverage his height to its best advantage. He pins Bdubs against the keel easily, and then he is on Bdubs, mouth hot and sharp, hands cradling Bdubs’ face so tightly that Bdubs can feel his jaw bones grinding underneath Etho’s hands.
Bdubs gasps in surprise, mouth falling open, and Etho takes the opportunity to lick into Bdubs’ mouth, tongue confident and possessing. Bdubs whimpers into the kiss, hands scrambling for purchase on Etho’s body, trying to tug him in even closer. He’s desperate. Etho tastes so familiar. He’s missed him so much.
Bdubs kisses back with everything he has, straining against Etho’s hands. He wants this moment to never end. He wants to open Etho up and climb inside. But Etho holds him in place, doesn’t allow for any quarter. He kisses Bdubs intently, cruelly, taking him apart as calculated as setting a trap. As calculated as murder.
Bdubs settles on tangling his fingers into Etho’s hair, hoping the unspoken plea is heard. Stay. Please, stay.
Etho’s teeth run along Bdubs’ lips, uncompromising, then close on the plump flesh of Bdubs’ lower lip. Etho bites down and the answering spark of pain is indistinguishable from pleasure. Bdubs groans into Etho’s mouth and Etho hands tighten around his face before dropping to his hips, cupping Bdubs’ ass. He lifts Bdubs bodily, hoisting him against the wall of the ship. The shiplap, rough-hewn, digs into Bdubs’ back.
Bdubs’ head is spinning. He wraps his legs around Etho’s waist to steady himself but it’s like trying to tread water in a rough sea. The tenor of the kiss has changed, the rhythm has broken. Etho is no longer kissing him with calculated focus, but instead fervently, frantically. They’re pressed so close together there is no room for air. No room for thought. It’s all Bdubs can do to hold on.
The kiss doesn’t last much longer. Etho fists a hand in Bdubs hair, wrenches his head back. Their mouths part and Bdubs is left stranded, gasping for oxygen.
Etho closes back in on him. He laves his tongue and teeth down Bdubs’ neck— sharp, then soothing. Bdubs curls his fingers in Etho’s hair and bares his neck further, encourages Etho to linger. His neck has always been sensitive and Etho has always taken advantage of that fact in the past, sucking and kissing the tender skin until Bdubs was a writhing mess under him.
Now, Etho’s mouth closes on the tender juncture of Bdubs’ jaw and Bdubs moans, the sound embarrassingly loud in the quiet night, unmuffled by Etho’s mouth against his.
They both freeze. The sound seems to echo. The sick smug feeling is back, settling in Bdubs’ stomach. Has Joel heard them?
Etho’s seems to have the same thought. He rips himself away from Bdubs, leaving Bdubs to stumble and fall to the ground. The abruptness of the motion leaves Bdubs shaky, wanting, and his legs threaten to buckle underneath him. The night air is cool against his body where before Etho was burning like a brand against him. Bdubs leans back against the ship. It’s the only thing holding him up.
Etho’s lips are kiss-bitten, swollen and slick. Bdubs finds it hard to look away. “Etho—“ he tries.
“You left me,” Etho interrupts, voice wavering. Bdubs, shocked, glances up. He has forgotten about their conversation.
“You left me,” Etho repeats. His eyes are shining when they meet Bdubs’, accusatory. “I never left you to die, you killed yourself.”
Bdubs searches for some anger at the words but it’s stirring out of reach. He wants Etho back in his arms. He wants the walls of a snow fort to wrap around them, to insulate them so completely from the world that he can forget about everything outside of the wicked gleam in Etho’s eyes.
“You played recklessly,” Etho continues. “You gambled and you lost, and you always expected me to pick up the pieces, always, always, regardless of how I—“ Etho stops, suddenly, mouth snapping shut like a door slamming in Bdubs’ face.
Bdubs reaches for him. “I never—“
Etho backs away, shaking his head. “I know it’s all a game to you, but you…“ his throat works soundlessly. “You left me first.” His voice breaks, and Bdubs realizes with a jolt that Etho’s eyes aren’t shining with anger, but with unshed tears.
Etho had turned to him, that last day, a smile in his eyes. “Can I just say how glad I am you were my partner?”
“You care,” Bdubs says, voice so small it can barely be heard. A comprehension is dawning on him, a match of hope striking in his chest. His voice strengthens. “You cared.”
Etho lets out a choked-off noise and turns away from Bdubs. His shoulders tremble, then still. He brings his hands to his face. When he turns back, he’s tugged the mask back into place, fabric stretching over his nose and mouth. His gaze is measured, despite the tears pooling in his eyes.
“Go back to Impulse, Bdubs,” Etho says. “Play the game.”
Exhilaration is leaping through Bdubs’ veins. He wants to run to Etho. He holds himself back with all his self-control, curling his hands into fists so they don’t reach for Etho. “I’ll find you,” he promises desperately. “At the end. I’ll find you. We can be together again.”
Etho’s eyes soften.
There’s a heat in Bdubs chest, relief mingling with want. “I love you,” Bdubs blurts. The words tumble awkwardly out of his mouth, the emotion is too big to be properly formed.
Etho sways towards him and Bdubs notes Etho’s own hands are curled into fists. “At the end.” Etho echoes. His voice is rough. “I’ll see you then.”
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