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This is what Etho loved about Hermitcraft.
Sure, the incredible buildings were amazing to both see and work on with his friends, and he loved working with redstone on a server with some of the most talented redstone engineers ever, but there was just something special about the rush of battle. The Hermitcraft server was often a bit slow and methodical compared to others, but when Etho got to do things like Scar’s mini game for the Turf War, he found that he didn’t mind all that much.
The pace was fast and brutal. Every second or so as Etho dashed through the split arena there was a loud booming explosion from the fireworks off to his side or a flash of bright colours he would have to squint through to see. The terrain was getting torn up from the constant redstone moving and firework explosions. Both teams were basically screaming instructions at each other, trying to be heard over the constant, deafening noise. The air smelled of gunpowder and dirt and burnt grass.
All in all it was absolute chaos.
So naturally Etho was having the time of his life.
He couldn’t help but smile to himself as he fired another barrage and turned to run so he could only hear False yell at him as his firing cut off her path to the flag. Looking around, Etho was quick to assess that False had retreated after her dash and was now hiding behind some bushes close to the midline, Tango was nowhere in site, and Cub was stuck on the mycelium side under heavy fire from Impulse, leaving Etho’s path to HEP’s flag from the right side of the arena he was on completely clear.
With a quick call out of, “cover me” that he hoped at least either Impulse or Grian heard, Etho took his shot. With practised, easy moves, Etho sprinted across the turf, flinching back and ducking away to avoid any nearby explosions without even slowing his pace by a bit.
Etho’s plan to get to the opponent’s wall and begin firing on them from both sides to give one of his teammates time to get there as well was within grasp. Until he was literally meters away from the vault, and he felt a force grab him by the back of his vest and yank him away.
He stumbled a bit but managed to not fall. When he looked up, he had to admit that he was surprised to see that now standing between him and his goal was one Tango Tek. Maybe Etho should have been upset at his near perfect run being interrupted, but what was the fun in easy?
Tango smirked at his opponent as the two faced down in loose battle stances. “Ooh, so close buddy! Better luck next time.”
“Why wait until next time? I can kick your butt now instead,” Etho retorted, the banter light with also a hint of the fiery competitive passion both men had.
Tango narrowed his eyes, though still smirking and having a good time. Before he could respond though, Etho took the opportunity to make a dash to the left in hopes of gaining some distance and maneuvering away from Tango. The sudden movement surprised Tango. For a second he fumbled with his crossbow before finally raising it up with a triumphant grin and pointing it right at Etho.
A brief moment before Tango fired, Etho quickly came to a sobering thought and realized that Tango was only five or six metres away from him. He was way too close to him to be firing the rocket- something Scar had warned them all against at the beginning of the game- and that the rocket was pointed directly at his face.
All he had time to do though was blink and open his mouth in the beginnings of a warning before Tango pulled the trigger and Etho’s entire vision erupted in a sea of flashing, throbbing colours.
Instinctually Etho spun around and curled into a ball on his hands and knees on the ground. His eyes burned like two hot pokers had been stabbed through them, and he couldn’t help but let out a short shriek before grinding his teeth together to try and stay quiet. His whole face and neck lit up like he had stood too close to lava in the Nether, with hot fiery pain making him feel like he had burned a layer of his skin off. Every minuscule movement, every twitch of his muscles made the pain flare up tenfold. Etho tried to stay as still as he could, every breath shortened to make his chest move as little as possible.
And maybe if that pain was all he was experiencing, Etho would be okay, and he would just limp off the arena to get some help, because when you’ve done as much stupid, dangerous stuff as he had over the years, you learn to work through pain pretty easily. But then Etho managed to crack his eyes open just a little and see-
Nothing.
He couldn't see anything.
Well, that wasn’t necessarily true. His vision was made of fuzzy red with white spots dancing around in nauseating patterns he couldn’t trace. That combined with the ringing in his ears that was thankfully fading and the smell of burnt hair and skin around him made his stomach roll, so he squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his hands over his face.
The ringing eventually left, which brought the sound of Tango’s voice into Etho’s consciousness, though he could only pick out bits of the sentences. From his spot facing the ground with his hands covering his eyes and face, he could only guess that Tango was standing roughly behind him, seeing only Etho’s back.
“....so sorry dude… I just…. the trigger early…. too close to it… you okay?”
Once Etho was sure he could talk without yelling through the throbbing burning, he managed to open his mouth and say out in a strained, controlled voice, “Tango, I- I can’t see.”
“... What?”
“Tango,” Etho said a little more urgently this time. “You burnt my face, and now I can’t see anything.”
While he couldn’t tell directly what Tango was doing, Etho could definitely hear him when he paused and inhaled sharply before turning around and yelling over the sounds of fireworks, “Blue creeper! Etho’s hurt bad, blue creeper!”
The sounds of fighting around them came grinding to a halt. Etho could hear people calling out in worry and running over to their area.
Grian was first to arrive, followed shortly by Cub, False and Impulse. Grian exclaimed, “What’s wrong? Etho’s hurt?”
It was Tango who answered, sounding guilty as hell, “I launched the fireworks too close to his face. They burned him, and he can’t see anymore. Etho, I’m so sorry. I just sort of pulled the trigger on instinct, I wasn’t thinking.”
Etho shifted a bit, but didn’t take his hands off of his face. The pain was still consistently there, not fading yet, so he stayed tensed up in a kneeling crouch.
“It’s okay,” he assured, somehow forcing himself to stay calm through the burn, “You just have to promise me a rematch next time.”
Tango let out a stressed, forced chuckle, then the sound of more footsteps came and Scar’s slightly out of breath voice added, “Sorry, I had to climb down to the arena. Don't worry Etho, I planned for an emergency just in case. Here, Cub take these.”
Etho made out the shuffling of fabric and clinking of glass bottles as Scar handed Cub somethings before continuing, “Okay Etho. We have bandages and healing potions. If you can just turn around, we’ll get you patched up in no time.”
And Etho was going to do that; he was going to turn to face them and let them baby him and treat his wounds, complaining about how everyone was probably going to make him take the next few days off to recover.
But then his thoughts came crashing to a halt, so suddenly it almost made him dizzy. His breathing jolted to a stop, and the arena felt that much colder instantly. His previous calm was instantly replaced by shooting adrenaline. Because a single realization came to mind:
He could feel burnt skin under his fingers. He could feel singed hair and residue powder from the fireworks. But he couldn’t feel his mask.
The explosion had burnt his mask off.
He was surrounded by other people, and he wasn’t wearing his mask.
A hand- he obviously couldn’t see who's- touched and gently pushed his shoulder, encouraging him to turn around. But if he did then they would see his face through his hands,
his maskless face,
his face he hadn’t shown to any of them before,
his face that no one could see,
his face-
Through his spiraling panic he managed to scream out, “Don’t touch me!”
The hand yanked away like Etho’s shoulder had shocked it. Impulse, who the hand apparently belonged to, asked, “Etho?
“No no no no no, go away please?” Etho borderline whimpered, and on any other day he’d be embarrassed for everyone to see him acting like that, but all he could think about was how the mask’s protective layer over him was gone. Every comfortable feeling of security and peace he previously achieved with the other Hermits shattered.
Cub asked, “Go away? Buddy you’re pretty roughed up, we can’t just leave.”
A shuffling sound came from the area where Impulse was roughly standing, and a vision of Impulse forcefully grabbing Etho and turning him, ripping his hands out of the way so everyone could see his face came to mind. And Etho knew deep down how illogical that thought was. For Void’s sake, it was Impulse, the man couldn’t hurt a fly. But panic was quickly overtaking all of his logic.
So Etho flinched at the noise and curled up even more on himself. Again he yelled out, “No, please don’t! Leave me alone you can’t see!” The pain was forgotten. Etho was so scared of being seen that every voice, every move from his friends was that of an enemy and set him on edge.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong with him?” Impulse asked, though he also blessedly stepped back a bit at Etho’s clear anxiety.
Everyone seemed frozen, shocked by Etho’s very out of character behaviour. But then Grian faintly mumbled under his breath “can’t see?” and came to a conclusion. “Oh my goodness. Etho, is your mask gone? Is that why you can’t look at us?”
“Yes,” Etho moaned, sounding like he was on the verge of tears and still in incredible amounts of pain, “You can’t see me please go away I can’t Grian I just can’t.”
The entire group was also in fair amounts of panic. Whispers of “what do we do” floated between them. Etho was by far the worst though. He wanted to dig a hole and crawl in and bury himself a thousand feet deep, far away from prying eyes. He felt suffocated but also naked and raw. His face and neck and eyes hurt, and he couldn’t see but none of that mattered. He would take pain thousands of times worse than the burns if it meant the eyes digging into the back of his neck and peeling back the layers of himself would just go away and-
“Etho,” False’s voice was so clear and commanding in that moment that he calmed down just a bit to focus on it. “No one is going to make you show your face, but if your burns are bad enough that you can’t see, they need to be treated, and I don’t think you can do that yourself. So, is there anyone on the server who you’d be okay with helping you?”
For a second no one came to mind, and Etho felt the panic rise up in him again. But then old memories of traveling and adventuring with his two best friends, nights spent sleeping in the same rooms and cooking by the same fires with his mask casually thrown off after years of familiarity surfaced. And Etho gave a weak, watery smile to himself.
“Beef. Beef’s seen me without it.”
False gave a barely-audible sigh of relief. “Thank you. We can message him right now and get him over here.”
“On it,” Tango was quick to reply, “I’ll explain what just happened.”
Cub then spoke up. “Until he shows up, would you be okay with taking this healing potion? Just to help with the pain for now? We would all turn around so no one would be looking at you.”
That was too much, too big of a leap of faith. When Cub saw how his statement made Etho’s breathing pick up close to hyperventilation again and start shaking in fear, he was quickly to assure, “Hey, hey, hey it’s okay. You don’t have to if you don’t want to. Whatever makes you comfortable.”
“Just… please stay away for now,” Etho mumbled. There was a collective shuffling back away from him that lifted his mood a bit.
For a couple of minutes waiting the group all sat in awkward silence, with only little whispers between each other. Etho stayed quiet save for his laboured breathing and pounding heart, trying to not focus on his still red-hot burns, still useless vision, and still panicking from his maskless face.
“Where is he?” a familiar voice called out and broke the tense silence.
Etho could have started sobbing right then and there at the sound of fireworks touching down and Beef’s voice. At the very least his shaking managed to lessen, and he relaxed marginally so he wasn’t on the edge of making a break for it at any moment.
“Over here,” Grian called Beef over.
In no time at all, Beef was kneeling next to Etho, soothingly rubbing his back and subtly shielding him from everyone else. He murmured to Etho under his breath, just to the two of them, “hey, it’s okay. I’ve got you dude, don’t worry.” Etho’s leaned the tiniest bit back against the hand, thankful for the familiar, safe contact.
Etho could hear Impulse clear his throat and then speak up. “Okay, X just messaged the group. He’s on his way too. Doc and Bdubs are also talking about maybe coming by and-“
“Tell them to not bother,” Beef interrupted, his voice cool and focused on Etho.
There was a brief, stunned silence for a moment before Impulse responded, “Umm I don’t know if-“
Again, he was interrupted by Beef. “And actually, I think it might be better if you all leave as well. Give me the potions and the bandages, I can handle it from here.”
“Woah, wait a minute,” Grian’s voice got a bit louder and the sound of movement showed that he was probably stepping towards them, “Beef, he signaled. And he’s hurt. We can’t just abandon him.”
Beef replied, “And you’re not. But this is Etho we’re talking about. I know my best friend- he doesn’t need to be crowded, that'll probably make it worse. Trust me. I’ll take care of him and keep everyone updated in the chat.”
No one really had a response to that. There was a bit of awkward shuffling until Scar cleared his throat and declared in his most authoritative, mayor-like voice, “Okay, you’re right. Cub, give him the supplies. We’ll all leave you two be and message the others to give you some space.”
Though it did seem slow and reluctant, Etho eventually heard the sounds of everyone walking away and firing up their rockets. So quietly he almost missed it, he heard Scar whisper to Beef, “take care of him,” before he too flew away, leaving only the sounds of the breeze and the two men’s breathing in the arena.
Finally Etho felt some of the tension leave his body. He took a deep breath in. Being alone with Beef was nothing scary, was nothing new, so while he still hesitated a bit, Etho was able to shakily take his hands away from his face.
The cool breeze felt nice against the warm throbbing burns licking along his face and neck. The skin there still felt raw and inflamed but less of a seething pain than before. He still couldn’t see beyond the fuzzy red outlines in his vision, and even if he could see properly his eyes were too swollen and stinging to keep open for more than a few seconds at a time. All he could do was turn his head closer to where he could vaguely guess Beef was kneeling next to him and half-heartedly smile. “Hey Beefers. Sorry about all this.”
A large, calloused hand- familiar after years and years of companionship together- gently grabbed Etho by the elbow while the other by the shoulder. Beef guided Etho to stand.
“C’mon. Let’s go sit down on those benches on the side so I can get you patched up. And don’t be sorry, I wasn’t doing anything important.”
With guidance from Beef, Etho managed to stumble his way through the arena, feeling the soft grass and spongy mycelium under his feet.
“What were you doing?”
“Honestly? Pranking Jevin. He’s going to be real surprised to see a couple dozen llamas roaming around his base next time he goes back.”
That dragged a laugh, though short lived, out of Etho. “Damn right he will. I’m not defending you when he comes to exact revenge.”
Beef gave an over-dramatic gasp and exclaimed, “How dare you? I take time out of my busy day procrastinating building my base to help you and this is the thanks I get?”
Again Etho laughed, more full-bellied. Soon after a few seconds of walking Beef told him to stop and helped him get settled on some benches. The medical supplies were set down, and Beef handed him a healing potion to sip on while he got to work methodically pouring small amounts of potion at a time in and around his eyes and bandaging the bigger, blistering wounds.
The atmosphere became serious once again. Etho’s thoughts circled back to how he had been acting earlier, and he felt incredibly embarrassed and frustrated. What was that? Was the thought of his friends of many, many years seeing his face so bad it had sent him into a meltdown? He had even screamed at all of them! He wouldn’t blame them if they were all now talking about how ridiculous he had been. His self-loathing in silence continued until he felt like he was going to burst.
“This is so stupid,” Etho finally mumbled.
“Well yeah, Tango told me what happened- you should have been able to dodge that hit. You’re getting slow in your old age”
Etho scoffed and slapped the area where he guessed Beef was, and momentarily lightened up when he managed to hit his friend’s shoulder and they both chuckled. Then the situation hit him, and he sobered up.
“You know that's not what I meant.”
Beef huffed, and Etho felt a hand gently, lovingly tip his chin up to get a better look at a particularly bad spot on his jaw and continue softly dabbing the sickly sweet smelling potion on it. “I know, but I know what you really meant isn’t stupid.”
Almost childishly, Etho scowled and tilted his head down and out of Beef’s hold. “And how is it not? We’ve known the Hermits for years, they’re my best friends, my family, and I’m still too shy to even show them my face?”
“Yeah, but we’ve talked about this. It’s not you being shy, it’s you having social anxiety. And you’re very transparent about that, basically everyone knows it.”
“But isn’t it supposed to get better at some point? Why haven’t I made any progress with the Hermits? It’s literally been years, and even the thought of showing them my face makes me want to throw up… they deserve better.”
Beef’s movements slowed a bit after that, like he was contemplating something. As he began wrapping the roll of bandages around his eyes and neck, he finally asked, “Would you judge Xisuma?”
That comment was so out of left field, Etho’s mind stuttered to a halt. “... what?”
Beef repeated himself, slowly and calmly. “Would you judge Xisuma if he decided he never wanted to take off his mask?”
“Well, no but-“
“You wouldn’t be mad at him? Feel betrayed?”
“No, I wouldn’t-“
“You’d respect his decision to-“
“Stop, I get it!” Etho didn’t yell, his voice was barely raised at all really, but his tone had a desperate edge, raw and uncharacteristically overemotional. He felt his face get red after speaking and cringed at his own vulnerable feelings. In his mind, he could almost see the pitying, sad look Beef was probably giving him.
“Beef, it’s different… I wouldn’t judge Xisuma, because he’s X. He’s open with the others, he’s always helping them out. They know he trusts them. They know he loves them.”
Etho’s voice cracked a bit at the end of the sentence. There was a lump in his throat and a burn in his eyes that felt more like tears then the pain he had been feeling.
He stopped for a second to clear his throat and gather his thoughts before continuing, though he was sure Beef didn’t miss the waver when he spoke, “They know he loves them, but me? I’m just cold and lonely… they probably think I hate them. Especially after today when it’s obvious I don’t trust them.”
Finally Beef seemed done with the medical work. He set down the empty glass potion bottles and pulled Etho into a warm, unwavering hug. For a second, all Beef did was hold Etho, then he gave him one last squeeze before letting go. He shifted a bit to lightly push some strands of hair off of Etho’s forehead.
“Etho,” Beef softly pleaded, “think about it this way: if the other Hermits really wanted or needed to see your face, they would have tried harder to see it just now considering it’s the first time you’ve been without the mask in so long. But they didn’t. They gave you your space. All they cared about was making sure you were okay. And you know why? It’s because they care more about ‘Etho the person’ then ‘Etho the face.’ Every single one of them does. There’s no pressure for you to do a face reveal. We all would rather have you just as you are. We all know you’re family.”
A single tear fell down beneath the bandages onto Etho’s cheek. He sniffled and reached up to hold hands with Beef. “You’re sure?”
Beef’s other hand that wasn’t being held by Etho came up to cup Etho’s cheek and wipe away the tear. “Of course. You trust me right?”
“Always Beefers. You know I do… thank you. For everything.”
The two sat there alone, just basking in each other’s love before Beef stood up and helped Etho to his feet.
“Okay, well you should be good to go,” Beef stated, “Just keep the bandages on your eyes for the night to give the healing potion time to do its work. You’re gonna be okay.”
And Etho could tell that Beef meant that in more ways than just physical.
“Sure thing.You’re going to take care of me until I have my sight back?”
“Ha! You wish. My plan was to shove you into every single creeper hole on the way home. Good luck, Naruto boy.”
Together they both fell into uncontrolled giggling. Everytime one of them would calm down enough to stop laughing, they would hear the other person still laughing and start laughing again even harder.
Eventually the two friends managed to calm down. Beef took Etho’s hand and began leading him out of the arena while also reassuring him, “C’mon, you can stay at my base tonight. I’ll let everyone know you’re okay, and maybe we can voice chat with Pause if he’s free. That sound good?”
And even though Etho still had slowly healing wounds still on his face and neck, even though he still couldn’t see properly, even though he still had his social anxiety same as before, and even though he hadn’t been able to show his face to the other Hermits, he still felt safe. He still felt comfortable. And he still felt loved.
“Yeah, that sounds perfect.”