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“Joel.”
“Etho.”
“You’re standing pretty close there, Joel.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about, Etho.” Joel says this pleasantly, hooking his chin on Etho’s shoulder.
They’re in the Relation-ship, Etho poking through the chests against one wall in search of string — he’s been making noises about upgrading or repairing his fishing rod or something — and Joel standing right beside him, for no particular reason other than he wants to.
Joel leans his weight into Etho’s side as a reminder that, yes, he is still here, same as he was two seconds ago.
Etho has stopped protesting this type of behaviour since they’ve gone red. Instead, he bears it with all the long-suffering grace of an old family cat, one thoroughly accustomed to having its fur pulled by toddlers. He rolls his eyes and vaguely shifts his shoulder to see if this will dislodge Joel. It does not, and, realizing this, Etho gives up.
“Well, anyway, I was thinking of putting down some carpets. It’s a little chilly in here, don’t you think?”
Joel blinks. “I’m feeling fine. But if you’re asking for cuddles, I won’t say no.” He hums, closing his eyes and digging his nose into the side of Etho’s jaw. It’s horribly annoying that he has to lean up to reach — ridiculous lanky guy — but doing this invariably makes Etho pat him on the head before elbowing him out of the way, a spark in his eyes like they’re in on a joke together.
Oddly, the pat and the elbow never come.
“I want to check something,” Etho says.
“Okay?” Joel starts before his eyes fly open. “Etho—!”
Joel does not squeak. It’s a near thing though, and also hardly his fault because Etho has put his whole hand flat against Joel’s chest, and there’s clothing in the way, sure, but not enough to avoid feeling that heat.
“At least buy me dinner first!” Joel exclaims.
“Aw, Joel, what happened to cuddles?”
Joel snorts. He really much prefers when the amused gleam in Etho’s eye is about a joke meant to be shared, but Etho has his little charms.
“Be quiet, please,” Etho says. “I’m trying to find your heartbeat.”
“You—” Joel clears his throat, squints. “What?”
“It’s fine,” Etho says brightly. “Trust me.”
Does he trust Etho that easily?
Etho puts his free hand over his own chest, as if making a pledge, gaze shifting somewhere to the side as he no doubt starts searching for his own pulse too. He looks bewildered to be unable to find it. There are, at minimum, two layers of clothing between his hand and his chest.
Okay. Yeah. He does trust Etho that easily, apparently.
“What are you even doing?” Joel mutters. He wraps his fingers around Etho’s wrist, lifts it until Etho’s fingertips brush Joel’s neck. “You won’t find a pulse there. It’s easier to find somewhere around here.”
“Oh,” Etho says, and Joel scowls at him for looking even a little surprised.
“How do you not know these things? Aren’t you supposed to be a redstone genius?”
“Redstone doesn’t usually have anything to do with my pulse.” And he’s right back to sounding amused, a tone just as likely to mean trouble for Joel as for any of their rivals in this game.
Joel huffs, and then Etho presses just a smidge too firmly against Joel’s pulse point and Joel has nothing else to say. His thumb brushes snowflake-gentle against the thin skin on the other side of Joel’s throat. Joel doesn’t dare swallow. (Etho will feel it.)
Etho checks his own pulse almost the same way, though now that Joel’s paying attention, he doesn’t look interested in pretending to almost choke himself.
“Huh,” Etho says.
“What,” Joel says, uncertain he can ask anything more specific without his voice doing something funny.
“I thought maybe the soulbound would, uh, mess with our heartbeats too. But yours is going way faster than mine.”
“Ah.” Joel, again, does not squeak.
“You okay?” Etho asks, but his eyes are crinkling like he’s trying not to laugh.
“Fine! Pretty great, honestly.”
“You think so? Even though we’re red?” Etho says mildly.
Joel shrugs, gets back some of his cool as Etho pulls his hand away. “Mostly, I just, you know—” And if there was a rest of that sentence it exits his mind completely the instant Etho reaches over and pats him on the cheek, once, twice.
“This is nice,” Etho says, all smiles and teasing.
Joel squawks, outraged. Sputters something about being patronised to. Notably, does not make any move to get away from Etho’s hand. One more pat, just for good measure — and Etho’s going to tell anyone who asks that it’s because it’s really funny when Joel reacts like that — before Etho pulls back and goes back to searching for materials.
Joel takes this as his cue to plaster himself against Etho’s side again. There is, for all of three seconds, peace. Then:
“Etho,” Joel mumbles. “Are you hungry?”
“Hm.” He is, but not the kind of hunger that can be satisfied with food alone. Comes with territory, though, so he just says, “Are you?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure it’s not the bloodlust talking?” Etho says, though he switches gears, starts looking for food.
Joel makes some kind of grumble and steps toward the furnace, rummaging around to get a meal together. The space he leaves along Etho’s side feels like something has been physically wrenched away, and Etho sighs and puts his hands in his pockets, shuffling over to follow Joel.
…Just in time to watch him pull a piece of meat out of the furnace with his bare hands and flip it back and forth between his palms, hissing and trying to get it to cool.
Etho grimaces, and knocks his knuckles a smidge too hard against the crafting table by his hip. (It’s cramped in here. Feels good though. Etho’s almost hungry enough to believe this place is home.) “I can feel that too, you know,” he says to Joel, crouching beside him on the floor.
“And I can feel that . Don’t be so clumsy,” Joel says, scarfing down a bite of meat still hot enough that Etho feels it burn his throat. He’s got his knees pulled up, boots planted firmly on the planks beneath them.
“All right, I think that’s enough of that,” Etho says, and plucks the food out of Joel’s hands.
Joel makes a swipe for it. “Oi, at least take off your dirty gloves!”
Etho yanks down his mask and sticks the meat in his mouth. Beef. Not cooked all the way through, but tender on his tongue and bringing flooding warmth through his stomach. He opens his mouth to say something else, but gets thoroughly interrupted by Joel lunging at him with a growl.
Etho yelps, but goes instinctively with the movement, landing flat on his back, Joel pinning him by the shoulders. “Easy, tiger,” Etho says, raising his hands above his head, and the next noise Joel makes is no less animal, but much more playful.
“That’ll teach you,” Joel mutters, tugging at where Etho’s mask has bunched up around his neck, as if it will show him where the food has gone. “Gloves. Off. No food with gloves on.”
“We have forks,” Etho tries, half-heartedly. Something in the air has changed, and he’s not sure where they’re headed now. Joel’s eyes are wide and bright, and Etho gives in to seeing where they’ll take him.
Joel wrestles Etho’s hands apart and grabs his wrists, holding him down that way now. Leans in until they’re nearly touching noses. “Don’t need ‘em.”
Etho tilts his head, or tries his best to while he’s pressed against the floorboards. Joel shifts, leans further forward, forces Etho to take more of his weight. “Okay, okay,” Etho agrees. “Let me get my gloves off.”
Joel does not deign to let Etho sit up, just releases his wrists and touches two fingers to Etho’s throat.
Etho gets one glove off, feels that touch, and understands the shape of this game all in one fell swoop. (It is altogether very likely that heat in his stomach isn’t the food anymore.) He reaches up, rests his uncovered palm over Joel’s Adam’s apple.
Joel bares teeth, nostrils flaring. Etho bares his teeth right back, leaning up to snap at empty air, which has Joel reeling back just enough for Etho to get up into a crouch. He grabs for Joel’s hands, but Joel is quick when he wants to be, lashing out with open palms to shove Etho back, letting out a sharp, high cry like a screaming dog.
Etho doesn’t have it in him to actually growl, but he hums, low and angry, and it’s more than close enough, and now they’re both laughing, scrapping like wolf pups, biting at the air near each other’s necks and ears, rolling around as they each try to get the other pinned.
“You still have this glove on,” Joel cries, yanking at the offending hand.
“You’re not making it very easy to take it off!” Etho replies, using his momentum to drive his shoulder into Joel and feeling the dull starburst ache of it in himself.
“Fine!” Joel shouts, and this time, somewhere amidst the flailing, the play-bite lands, Joel’s teeth sinking into the side of Etho’s hand.
Etho pulls away on instinct, which just makes Joel hang on tighter.
“Mmf-mm!”
Etho hum-growls at him again, reaching for spoken language and not finding it. The moment Joel opens his mouth to free Etho’s hand, he tears the glove off as if it’s burning. He realizes he’s panting, just a little. The understated throb of bruises and bumps sustained during their tussle start blooming into his awareness.
“I did this,” Joel says quietly, and the sound of his voice is like slipping into a stream of cool water. Etho raises his head.
Joel has Etho’s bitten hand cradled in both of his, looking a little wonderingly at the teeth marks visible there. He presses on the wound, and both of them stiffen. He blinks at Etho, an abruptly, absurdly apologetic cast to his expression. “Uh—”
“It happens.” Etho means for it to be a lie. He means to say, Well, it was still sort of rude, and Maybe I should bite you too, to make it fair. He means to think his partner is being weird. But he goes looking for the resentment, or the surprise at his own behaviour, or the bewildered horror at what they just did, and finds nothing there. “We probably should get that food in the furnace before it burns.”
Night has fallen proper now, and the windows are haphazard enough that chill gets through easy. Joel is squished against the hot stones of the furnace on one side and Etho, who still emits at least basically-human levels of body heat despite his lankiness, on his other side, and he wants to sink his canines into something.
“You don’t normally keep this off for so long,” Joel says contemplatively, tugging at the mask still resting around Etho’s neck.
“Wanna bite you,” Etho says, and he leans back and chuckles like it was a joke but Joel shrugs off his vest — getting too warm for it anyway, crammed between two heat sources like this — and adjusts so his shoulder is deliberately-but-not- too -deliberately right under Etho’s mouth.
“The food, Joel,” Etho reminds him. He’s been getting steadily quieter since their little… argument? Play-fight? What exactly was that?
Joel fishes the heaping plate of potatoes and chicken out of the furnace. The point is it’s not as easy to tell now if Etho is entertained by how obvious Joel is being or put off. Not so reactive. Oddly languid, even, the air of a mountain lion that has just eaten well. Etho reaches for the plate and Joel bats him away.
“I get first pick. Since you stole my food.”
Etho shakes his head disapprovingly, but otherwise allows the plate to make its way to Joel’s lap. Even briefly nudges Joel’s face with the side of his head. Joel relaxes, the gesture or the anticipation settling something inside him.
Then Etho snaps his teeth in the direction of Joel’s fingers, and Joel jerks in surprise. Joel is not above growling, but the “Hey!” that escapes him sounds more like a bark. Etho giggles.
Joel, glaring vindictively, pops a piece of potato in his mouth, and it’s a bit undercooked but it’s also burning hot and coated in that weird sauce Etho made by whisking a number of important ingredients out of Joel’s hands and taking them outside, saying he needed a campfire for this. It’s really good. Joel repeats this thought out loud, to rub it in.
Etho hums — not his weird almost-growl; just acknowledgement. He puts his chin on Joel’s shoulder, crowding the two of them even closer together in this cramped section of the Relation-ship. Joel shudders at the feeling of Etho’s breath on his skin. He wants, suddenly, very badly, to drape himself over Etho like some kind of bearskin, or an unusually heavy cloak.
Etho huffs, and that’s the only warning Joel gets before Etho ducks his head and steals Joel’s next piece of potato right out of his hand, snagging his prize between his teeth and showing off his teeth triumphantly before he tosses his head back and the potato chunk vanishes down his gullet.
“No!” he says, shoving his clean hand under Etho’s chin when he tries to dive in for another bite. He digs his fingers into Etho’s cheeks to keep him muzzled. Etho squints, displeased.
He manages to say, though he looks ridiculous doing it, “Come on, Joel. I’m hungry too.”
“Get your own food.” He lets go so he can point. “Or sit there and wait.”
Rather thrillingly, Etho obeys. “Whatever you say.” He works his jaw, clicking his teeth together experimentally. “Being on red with a soulbound is interesting.”
“Mhm,” Joel says. He doesn’t need to ask what Etho is talking about. The piece of chicken in his hand is burning his skin the longer he keeps it there, and some of the sauce is dripping down his fingers, but he lifts his shoulder — Etho is sitting so close, pressed so firmly against his side, that he’s certain to feel it — and says, “Etho?”
“Hm?” Etho tilts his head up, allows Joel to shove his face into the underside of his jaw.
“Want this one?”
And because it’s Etho, who takes his cues from Joel just as smoothly as Joel does from him, who dumps weapons and water and armour at Joel’s feet instead of saying anything to him directly, when he says, “Yes,” Joel gives in to the tugging in his chest that might be the soulbound and might just be him, and scrapes his teeth against Etho’s throat.
Etho goes very, very still.
“Let me feed you,” Joel says, aiming for a question and not getting there. He coughs into his free hand. “Please?”
“Well, since you asked nicely…” But there is a steely glint in Etho’s eyes, abruptly, hungrier than Joel has ever seen from him.
Joel holds up the chicken — it has cooled somewhat — for Etho to take between his teeth. Etho tilts his head awkwardly to get it all in his mouth instead of using his hands, which are planted firmly on the floor to hold him up as he looms over Joel.
“It is good. I told you my super secret sauce was important.” He’s right back to sounding flippant, but he’s also leaning into Joel’s face and they are so close Joel doesn’t think he would even have to consciously move to erase any remaining bit of space between them.
Joel picks up a piece of potato next, takes a bite, holds the remainder up to Etho’s mouth. Etho takes it obligingly. They alternate like that: a piece of chicken that Etho bites into first and Joel finishes off, then another potato wedge, then chicken again.
Joel grimaces at the stickiness on his fingers as he picks up the last potato of their meal. Takes his bite, savouring the flavour on his tongue. Holds it up to Etho. Etho swallows his mouthful, then, when Joel doesn’t retreat right away, licks curiously at the pad of Joel’s thumb.
Joel, startled, means to ask Etho what in the world he’s doing, but what comes out is a wordless cry. At Etho’s snickering, he turns Etho’s humming growl back at him. Just to spite him, Joel makes direct eye contact and licks a long stripe up his own palm. Smacks his lips for good measure.
The effect is not as instantaneous as he’d like. Etho cocks his head to one side for a long moment. Then he wraps a hand around Joel’s wrist — what a bizarre flipping of their positions from earlier in the night — and pulls Joel’s hand up to his mouth.
Joel rests, pliant, against Etho’s shoulder, and lets himself be cleaned. The ghost of his own teeth sings as an ache in his skin, in the soulbound.
Joel’s falling asleep fast, apparently totally content to let Etho do all the work, sandwich himself between the cooling furnace and Etho’s body.
“Shameless,” Etho mutters, and Joel utters some type of complaining noise, but it’s mostly muffled into the fabric of Etho’s shirt.
Etho is tempted to follow suit in drifting off, belly full, various more unusual hungers equally sated, the heat Joel’s body gives off alone more than enough to keep him warm. But he’s not that far gone.
He is forced to re-evaluate that assessment almost immediately when he shifts to get up and nearly falls over, caught off guard by how loose-limbed he’s gotten, by how wretchedly uncomfortable disentangling himself from Joel is.
“I think,” Joel starts thoughtfully, blinking up at Etho through sleepy eyes, “we made it worse with all the…” He gestures, broadly, so as to encompass their whole evening. “The soulbound, and being on red, that’s bad enough. All of that too…”
“Too much at once,” Etho agrees. “Yeah.”
“Don’t go,” Joel says. He’s sprawled limply against the furnace, and Etho’s attention is drawn to the way Joel’s fingers twitch, as if they want to lift but don’t have the strength for it. “I know it’s… Just. Don’t go.”
Fortunately, Etho is accustomed to a certain amount of ignoring Joel. He leaves, fighting down a shudder, and comes back with blankets and water bottles and some scrap fabric. Washes Joel’s hands with actual water, mashes his face against dark brown hair. Washes his own hands as Joel starts arranging the blankets around them.
“Don’t go?” Etho mutters, as they curl around each other to sleep. Tugs a blanket over them both. “What kind of cliche is that?”
“You’re my soulmate,” Joel says, same uncanny ease he’s had saying these things this whole time. “I want you to be within reach. Don’t see how that’s anything to laugh at.” He wiggles around, and Etho gets a faceful of bony shoulder.
“Really enjoying this soulmate thing while it lasts,” Etho comments mildly. Prevents Joel from retaliating by saying this with his mouth pressed against Joel’s neck. Joel shivers and goes limp, sighing. Etho, having nothing else to do, copies him.
He doesn’t know or care why the sensation of Joel rolling over to half-drape himself over Etho is so deeply satisfying. It helps him sleep, and that’s all he needs to know.