Chapter Text
Bdubs is so taken aback by what Etho’s doing that it takes him a full five seconds to process. His brain scrabbles around for something to say and lands, stupidly, on, “I’m not that desperate, sweetheart.”
Etho shrugs, and pulls his hand back from where it had been sitting on Bdubs’s thigh, playing with the inside seam of his jeans. “It was just an idea.”
Feeling flushed, red hot, Bdubs says—again, stupidly—“I didn’t know that you’re a queer.”
Etho just shrugs again, slipping off the block to crack open a chest and rifle through the contents.
Looking back at the conversation, Bdubs can kinda see where Etho might’ve got the wrong idea; it’s late, Bdubs had been complaining about not getting any recently, and they’d been sitting awfully close, thighs pressed up against each other from knee to hip, because Bdubs will admit he gets touchy-feely when it comes to Etho. So— understandable, maybe, that Etho would get the wrong end of the stick. Face still red hot, Bdubs wants to say something else. Why me, maybe. Why’s your gaydar pinging? Do I look like a queer to you?
But Etho’s dropped it and moved on already. Picking it up again and pressing—Bdubs would be the asshole, surely.
“Alright,” he says instead. “I’m gonna go start mining out the ceiling, next room over.”
He waits for an acknowledgement from Etho, and doesn’t get one. A frown clouds over his face and as he walks away, he’s left with the bizarro feeling like he’s the one who’s put his foot in it.
—
It's funny, really—and hey, shouldn't he be flattered? Out of all the guys around, Etho's coming onto him. It's a compliment, right? Etho might be a queer, but he's got great taste in men.
It is flattering, he decides, nodding to himself as he strips off his clothes and climbs into bed that night. Etho's a good looking guy who could probably pull just about anyone who swings that way. Sure, there's the mask and the scar thing to get over, but Bdubs has always thought it lent Etho a sort of sexy cool-guy aura. It'd work for someone, that's for sure. It's a shame Etho's not a girl, because if he was—well, let's just say that the scar certainly wouldn't be a turn off.
He'd make a hot girl, Bdubs decides. He's got that fine-boned face with a distinctive nose, and long hair that's cloud-white and softer than anything. Not that Bdubs goes around touching Etho's hair, but he's felt it brush him every now and again. It's the kind of hair he'd want to bury his hands in, if Etho was a girl. Pull, if he wanted that, or just stroke it if he didn't. Whichever one Etho liked best, he'd moan when Bdubs did it. Or giggle. Yeah, Bdubs thinks, that's it. He can imagine, vividly, Etho giggling underneath him as Bdubs presses kisses against his jawline. Cute. He'd be a real cutie pie.
Bdubs's hand pushes under his waistband and he strokes himself carelessly under the covers, letting his eyes shutter closed.
There's something in that, he thinks. Obviously Etho's not his type, but Bdubs can imagine a world where he is. His mind jumps around: Etho as a girl, laid out in his bed; Etho as a girl in the shower, suds running down his scarred and freckled skin; Etho as a girl in a bikini on the beach, sunshine caressing every inch of him, with salt-messy hair strands at the base of his neck, sea curls, and sweat shining on the planes of his shoulder blades.
Yes. Bdubs's cock twitches at the mental image. Yeah, that'll do. Etho-as-a-girl would look back over his shoulder at Bdubs, hair flicking out of his eyes, and ask Bdubs to redo the sunscreen on his back and, well, Bdubs isn't going to let him burn, is he? He'd graciously agree and straddle Etho, push down the straps of his bikini top to drizzle sticky sunscreen all over his shoulders, grinning as Etho complained about it being cold. Pushing up under the bikini clasp, maybe just undoing it so there's nothing in the way, tracing the freckles running across his spine, joining the dots like a treasure map. Bdubs would just grease up his hands and rub it all over him, warming it up on the beach of his back.
Kneading into Etho's broad shoulders with his hands, feeling the way Etho would relax underneath him. The little noises of satisfaction he'd make as Bdubs worked every muscle in his back loose until he was a puddle. No—until he was in a fever, driven crazy by Bdubs's hands. Yeah, that's it. Bdubs would tease him, run his fingers lightly up and down everywhere, teasing the waistband of Etho’s bikini bottoms (thin, delicate material stretched over the hard muscle of Etho's ass cheeks—the thought of that makes Bdubs groan and stroke himself faster). He'd bend in to lick and kiss his way down Etho's spine and ignore Etho's begging to be touched and his writhing attempts to turn over. Bdubs would peel down the fabric and press into him with his fingers and then with his cock, and fuck him nice and easy, Etho squirming at the feeling—both too much and not enough—and maybe, yeah, maybe Etho would come like that, his cock trapped between his body and the rough beach towel under him. What kind of noise would he make? Whining, maybe—or, no, he'd moan Bdubs's name, high and laboured. Gasping, imagining it, Bdubs comes, spilling onto his sheets.
Instantly, he regrets it—now he has to change them—but he can't help satisfied endorphins flooding him too. It's really kind of a shame Etho's not a girl. Because, man. If he was.
—
“Hypothetically,” he says to Etho, the next day, “if you wanted to suck me off, you could.”
Okay, no—in Bdubs’s defence, it’s not totally out of the blue like that makes it sound. He’s not a lunatic! It’s just, well, look. They’d taken a quick ten minute lunch break, and Bdubs had glanced over at Etho just as he’d tugged his mask down to take a bite of apple, and—
Well. It’s not like Bdubs has never seen Etho’s mouth in the past. But he’s never really stopped to consider it before: his lips are thin and pale, made jagged by the scar cleaving through them, and whenever Bdubs catches him smiling with the mask down, he can catch flashes of canine peeking through between them. Bdubs sits next to him and catches himself staring. Finds himself biting his own lip as Etho’s tongue darts out to lick apple juice that’s spurted onto his hand.
From there, it’s really not that far of a stretch to imagine those lips wrapped around his cock. And from there—hypothetically…
Etho’s head snaps towards him, and he regards Bdubs incredulously. “Uh-huh. So you’re telling me you hit your head on the way in this morning?”
“Hey, I’m not kidding,” Bdubs says. “I was just thinking. I ain’t a queer, but if you’re offering, a blowjob’s a blowjob, right?”
“Right,” Etho says, slowly.
“And it’s mutually beneficial, if you think about it.”
Etho raises a skeptical eyebrow. “Uh-huh. How, exactly?”
“Well, you could jerk off,” Bdubs allows, graciously. “I wouldn’t mind it.”
There’s a second where Etho just looks at him, and Bdubs thinks he’s going to pull his mask back up and walk off. He really looks like he might. Bdubs, without meaning to, holds his breath. Then—
“You really wouldn’t mind it,” Etho says. Not quite a question. And definitely not a no.
Bdubs almost jumps out of his seat. It’s been way, way too long since he got head off anyone; the prospect of getting it now, even if it is only from Etho, makes his dick twitch with anticipation. “What? Dude, no way,” he insists. “Come on. You think I don’t know how to act?”
“Uh-huh.”
Etho’s scrutinising gaze drags over him again, like he’s looking for something. Bdubs has no idea what—whether it’s something Etho wants to find or find lacking. Whatever it is, Bdubs must pass the test because, without warning, Etho slides off the block he’s sitting on and onto his knees.
Heat flares through Bdubs, and he’s hardly aware of his own hands scrabbling to undo his belt. He is aware, though, when Etho shuffles into the space between his legs, nudging his thighs apart and, without preamble, running his knuckles over Bdubs’s crotch. Bdubs shifts, cock pressing tightly against the seam of his pants. When Etho runs his nails up the teeth of his zipper to the pull, his touch is so light Bdubs shouldn’t be able to feel it. But he can. He can feel it. Intensely.
Bdubs lifts his hips so Etho can tug his pants and shorts down and pull his length free. Etho’s broad, bony hand on his cock should be a shock to the system—flashing lights and sirens in Bdubs’s head are going off screaming Hey! Idiot! Pay attention! There’s a dude touching your dick right now! You hear me? Dude! Not supposed to happen!—but Bdubs is too turned on to care. He can feel his pulse in his throat as Etho spits into his hand and starts stroking him slowly.
“You planning on getting down to it any time soon?” Bdubs asks, trying to sound like someone not in the active process of losing his mind.
Etho shoots him a cocky smile. “No one said anything about speedy delivery.”
“No one said anything about three to five business days, either,” Bdubs shoots back, drawing a short laugh out of Etho.
“I was gonna make a joke about you having a fragile package,” Etho teases, still stroking him with one hand, the other tracing a line up the sensitive skin of his inner thighs to his balls, “but I don’t think I want to lose a tooth down here.”
Bdubs snorts. “Blow me, then.”
Etho’s eyes crinkle with a smile. “If you say so,” he says, and Bdubs has just enough time to register sight of the pink of his tongue before he ducks in and—and licks a long, torturous stripe all the way from his balls to the head.
Etho’s mouth is unbelievable. From the second he starts swirling his tongue around the head, licking deliberately over the sensitive spot on the underside that has Bdubs letting out a thin groan, Bdubs knows he’s in for a treat. He’s had some pretty alright head in his time, but—maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. It’s Etho. He’s good at everything. Of course he’s good at this.
He can’t analyse deeply—his brain getting reduced from higher thought to a repeating loop of yes, that, there, more, yes—but still Bdubs can tell Etho’s breaking him down, working him out. Exploring and quickly identify the kind of sensation that makes Bdubs gasp, the speed that feels best when Etho takes him fully into his mouth. When he hits the back of Etho’s throat, Etho doesn’t gag at all—and isn’t that something? Etho doesn’t take him any further than that, but he doesn’t need to. He’s driving Bdubs well out of his mind as it is.
Normally, with a girl, he'd wind his fingers into her hair and hold on or stroke it back so he could see her face. Instead he grips onto the stone he’s sitting on hard enough that his knuckles turn white as his cock glides in and out of Etho’s stretched lips, the sensitive underside dragging obscenely against Etho’s tongue with every pass. His hips shudder with the strain of not snapping forward, grinding deeper. The tight, wet heat of Etho’s mouth is perfect, perfect, exactly what he needs. Exactly, exactly this.
It's not long before a long, drawn-out groan rumbles up from deep in his chest. “Etho, I’m gonna—Etho—”
Etho pulls off and replaces his mouth with his hand just as Bdubs comes, orgasm breaking over him like a wave, flooding him completely. Stripes of come paint Etho’s face—a hell of a visual. And getting to see Etho mussed up, face splashed with jizz, all red lips and blown-wide pupils in the dim, nether-red light, is another level of satisfaction.
Pressing his forehead into Bdubs’s thigh and shoving his hand down his pants, Etho strokes himself fast and shudders to a finish quickly. Bdubs watches the show through half-lidded eyes feeling like he just got his whole brain sucked out the tip of his dick. When Etho sits back on his heels and wipes his face with the cuff of his shirt, he’s got the audacity to look up at Bdubs wearing the smug expression of the cat that got the cream. Literally, Bdubs thinks crazily.
“How about,” Etho says jaggedly, “how’s that for a hypothetical?” His low voice is strained and rough. The sound spawns something a little dark and possessive in Bdubs’s chest—the audible evidence of a job done right. He’s suddenly fiercely pleased that Etho propositioned him and no one else, yesterday. Knowing that Nebris or Pause or any of the others might’ve seen Etho all messy and smug and satisfied like this would be enough to drive him mad.
He reaches out and swipes a pearl of creamy white off Etho’s red, swollen bottom lip with his thumb, then pushes it into his mouth. Etho head cocks just the tiniest bit, and curls around Bdubs’s thumb with his tongue.
Bdubs, at a loss for words, manages, “it’s something.” Then, “thanks. That was—that was something, alright.” He slides his thumb free and pushes Etho’s face back from between his legs. “Now let me up. We got a whole afternoon of building to do, don’t we?”
—
He’s halfway up the half-built frame of the radio tower for Pyropunch’s broadcasting station, sloppily hamming together wooden posts with nails that are probably, really, too short, when it occurs to him that there’s no reason any of all that had to be a one time thing.
It’d been fun, hadn’t it? A good way to blow off steam in the middle of a massive, difficult building project like the nether hub. Sure, the designing had been fun, but the actual nether work itself… Bdubs hates the nether. He hates it. They’re under constant attack from ghasts and will be for at least a couple more weeks until they get the walls closed up, and it’s dark and ugly there, and it smells bad. And at the steady rate they’re going—they haven’t even fully cleared out the netherrack where the domes will go, yet—it’ll be at least another month before they’re done. So why not have a little fun along the way?
Bdubs had got some frankly amazing head. Etho certainly hadn’t had any complaints from the looks of things, and he hadn’t been awkward or avoidant for the rest of the day either. No reason, no reason at all that it couldn’t be a repeat experience.
Grinning to himself, pleased, Bdubs half-assedly hammers another couple of posts precariously together. He’s due to drop off a load of cobble to the nether smelter in the evening. He just hopes that Etho’ll be there to take, he thinks, snickering, another kind of load as well.
—
It’s not as easy as that plan makes it sound. Etho’s not in the nether when Bdubs gets there, and by the time he does Generik’s also arrived with a witch in tow, and they waste an hour giving her the runaround and the dodging poison potions she throws their way. By the time him and Etho see the back of both of them, they’re both pissed and pent up and…
Well. Bdubs, at least, could do with some stress relief.
“You heading out soon?” he asks casually, following Etho up to one of the higher levels of the hub, where all they’ve got so far are stone brick pillars outlining where the portals are going to go.
“I think I got a couple more hours in me. I was gonna start on building these out tonight,” Etho replies.
Bdubs scoffs indignantly. “That’s your priority? Not paying me back for that health potion of mine you just wasted getting hit with poison twice?”
“I wouldn’t have used it if I knew it was only a loan,” Etho says, and giggles.
Man, he’s cute. “Ain’t no bank in the world that’d let you get away with that excuse.”
The corners of Etho’s eyes crinkle—a smile, if Bdubs has ever seen one. “How do you want to get paid back?”
Bdubs grins back. “I’ll tell you, I’m a little pent up right now after all that running around. Was thinking you could help me, uh, blow off a little steam,” Bdubs says. And winks, just in case Etho’s not getting the picture.
Etho snorts. “Which is it? Blowing off steam or me paying you back?”
“It’s whatever you want it to be, boy,” Bdubs says with his winningest smile, and hooks a finger into the collar of Etho’s chainmail shirt. “So? How ‘bout it?”
“Here?”
“Why not?”
A hint of pink flushes Etho’s cheeks, just over the top of his mask, and he glances around the pillar at the centre room where the portals are humming, throwing off plum-coloured light. It’s something Bdubs hadn’t really spared a thought for, the first time around, being walked in on by someone passing through. Maybe he should’ve cared more—it’s not like he wants anyone to see his cock in Etho’s mouth and get the wrong impression that he’s a fag.
If it bothers Etho, it’s not enough to stop him. His eyes darken, and he elbows Bdubs behind a stone pillar so they’re both completely hidden from view of the portals, before reaching for Bdubs’s buckle and pulling his pants open.
He expects Etho to tug his mask down under his chin and then drop to his knees. Or maybe get on his knees first, Bdubs isn’t picky. What he doesn’t expect is for Etho to hold out his hand under Bdubs’s chin and look at him expectantly.
There must be some kind of Vulcan mind meld going on between them, though, because Bdubs is on the same page instantly. And, yeah, okay, maybe it’s not a blowjob, but this works just as good.
He spits into Etho’s hand and lets out a quiet groan when Etho opens his fly and uses the saliva to slick up his cock. Bdubs hardens in his grip quickly. His eyes slip closed. He can almost imagine he’s here with a girl, that it’s some curvy, dark-haired pocket rocket stoking him like a fire with firm, fast strokes. But—but something about Etho’s hands is unmistakable. The way his clever fingers set about finding what Bdubs likes immediately, making Bdubs shudder where he stands and tip his head back against the column at his back. Yeah, that’s the word for it: unmistakable.
A string of mindless encouragement slips out of his mouth: yeah, yeah, that’s it, like that. When precum glistens at his slit, Etho swipes it up with his thumb and rubs just below the head. Bdubs’s heavy breaths hitch as he does, and he breathes, “yeah, that’s—”, and that makes Etho do it again. Bdubs bites his lip and comes hard in his hand. Etho strokes him through it, only taking his hand away when Bdubs’s panting slows.
When Bdubs finally peels his shuttered eyes open, he catches Etho—cheeks pink, pupils blown wide—licking the come off his hand. A curl of heat lashes through Bdubs at the sight even though he’s totally and completely spent, especially when Etho notices him watching and flushes an even darker red.
“You’re a freak, you know that?” Bdubs tells him, grinning.
Etho breathes a short, huffing laugh and starts pulling away, stepping out of Bdubs’s space, and Bdubs thinks, hey, wait a second—
“Hey, wait a second,” Bdubs starts, grabbing onto Etho’s shoulder and wheeling him around so their positions are reversed, Etho with his back to the column and Bdubs right up in his space. “You don’t want me to return the favour?”
Etho’s eyes snap to meet his, glazy and heated. He swallows. “You don’t have to.”
“Yeah, well—” Bdubs tugs Etho’s belt undone and makes short work of his fly. “I’ve got a giving nature.”
He gets a hand on Etho’s cock before he can think too hard about it—about the fact that he’s never touched a cock that wasn’t his before, or the way he doesn’t have the momentum of chasing his own orgasm to carry him along here, or the fact that Etho’s rock hard just from jerking Bdubs off. A dick’s a dick, and if he knows his way around his own then Etho’s can’t be too different. Right?
He hocks a glob of saliva onto his hand before wrapping his fingers around Etho and stroking lightly. “Bdubs,” Etho whines, which surely can’t be a bad thing, so he does it again a bit firmer. Etho jerks against him, thrusting up into his hand and, hey, isn’t that a reaction? Bdubs can get behind that. He starts a rhythm of slow, firm strokes, watching with satisfaction as Etho’s eyes flutter closed and his head tilts back against the pillar. When Bdubs speeds up, Etho’s throat works like he’s swallowing, and Bdubs catches his mask shifting. Imagines he’s biting his lip.
Panting, letting out tiny desperate noises that are going straight to Bdubs’s head, Etho’s hands scrabble for purchase against the stone behind him. “You with me, sweetheart?” Bdubs teases, and Etho’s eyes flick open to shoot him a wild look before he comes with a gasp all over Bdubs’s hand.
Etho takes a few seconds to come down, heaving in long, harried breaths. While he does, Bdubs looks assessingly at the jizz covering his fingers. It’d been hot watching Etho lick his off his hand, but… no. Absolutely not. He wipes it on the leg of his jeans—guess he’ll have to wash them tonight—and wonders if the look he catches in Etho’s eye is disappointment.
“Guess I ain’t half bad at that, huh?” Bdubs says.
It gets a breathless laugh out of Etho. “It was alright.”
“Alright?!” Bdubs flares.
Etho laughs again, loose and easy. It scratches an itch at the back of Bdubs’s mind hearing him so relaxed. Again, there’s that smug, possessive feeling in Bdubs’s chest, because he’s responsible for getting Etho like this. And if all it takes it is getting his hands a little dirty and an orgasm or two? Bdubs thinks—much later, after he’s said catch you later, brother and headed back through the portal to his base—that he could stand to get used to it.