Work Text:
Etho was very behind on his school work. He had to ask for extensions on projects in two of his classes because he was sick for a whole week.
He was feeling better now, but that meant that he had to face his overdue and current projects. He knew that he would have to pull several all-nighters to finish everything, and he was not excited about it.
To put it simply, Etho felt like he was in Hell. He basically lived at his desk at this point, and it’s only been a day of being back. He only left it for classes and for work and Etho decided that he would continue that trend until he was fully caught up on everything.
Surely that was the best way to go about it.
Etho just finished his shift at work, so he headed back to his desk to work on everything. It was fine. He could handle it. He wasn’t stressed about it at all.
As he approached his desk, he felt relief when he saw Bdubs. Bdubs was sitting at his desk, working on his paper model for studio.
“Hey Bdubs, how’s your model coming along?”
“Etho! Hey! It’s going bad, there's too many pieces and I didn’t add tabs, so it’s way too hard to glue it together. It’s the world’s most miserable puzzle, I tell you. How’s your model coming along, have you been able to start it yet?”
“No, I have to finish everything else from the past week. Bdubs, I am so behind, it’s not even funny. I was at the front desk at the library today, so I was able to work on stuff, but I barely made a dent in anything. It’s so over for me.”
“Oh man, that’s the worst, I’m sorry about that. We only have a few more projects until mid reviews, so they’re really ramping up. I don’t know what I’d be able to do, but if you need any help with anything, let me know.”
“Thanks, Bdubs, I appreciate it. Even if I wasn’t sick, I still would’ve been fighting to not fall behind, so it’s so over for me. But I think if I just don’t sleep for the rest of this week, I’ll be able to get everything done.”
“Etho! You have to sleep. I know you feel better, but you are still recovering from being sick! You have to sleep.”
“I don’t have any better options, I am too busy every other time of the day to get everything done!” Bdubs looked troubled by that.
“Okay. Well then, if you aren’t sleeping, I won’t either.” Bdubs looked at Etho smugly.
“Bdubs, you can’t do that to yourself.”
“I sure can! If you can, I can too. Deal with it. I’m going to finish my model, and then when I’m done, I’ll help you get your stuff done.”
“No, Bdubs, I’m not letting you do that.”
“Well that sure sucks, because you’ll have to fight me for it.” And with that, Bdubs turned back to his pieces of paper and continued gluing.
They both worked on their respective projects for a few hours. Etho tried to come up with ways to convince Bdubs to go home and get to sleep, but wasn’t able to come up with many that he thought would be able to persuade him. If he knew one thing about Bdubs, it was that he was stubborn and Etho wouldn’t be able to change his mind.
“Okay, Etho, I finished my model! What do you want me to do?”
“Your model looks cool, I like it. For your task, I want you to go home and get some sleep.”
“Nope! Not unless you do!”
“Bdubs.”
“Etho.” The two of them stared each other down. It lasted about 5 seconds before they broke into laughter.
“Okay, but seriously Etho, you have some mindless autoCAD stuff that you can pawn off to me. I can do that while you work on the design work for studio, and then when you finish that, we can glue your model together. It’ll go by twice as fast. Please let me help with this.” Bdubs gave Etho his best puppy dog eyes, and instantly, Etho knew he wouldn’t be able to refuse for long.
“Bdubs, please just go home, I’ll be fine. Really, it looks like more work than it is.”
“If it looks like more than it is, then we’ll get to go home even faster. Etho, let me tell you this right now.” Bdubs made direct eye contact and his voice lowered.”There is absolutely nothing you can say to me right now that will get me to not help you with this.” Etho hesitated for a second.
“Fine, I’ll send you the files for you to work on.”
“See, that wasn’t too hard.”
The two of them worked on Etho’s projects until the sun rose. They took a few short breaks to run to the vending machine for energy drinks throughout the night and for Bdubs to ask about how Etho wanted the hatching to be a few times. Besides the few interruptions, the two worked tirelessly until Etho was caught up on all of the overdue projects.
“Okay, Etho, I’ll send you back these files. You can check them over, turn them in, and then we can cut out the pieces and glue together your model, and then we’ll be done. With two of us working on it, we’ll be done in no time. We’ll probably be done before class in-” Bdubs checked his watch, “5 hours.”
As Etho opened the files Bdubs sent to him, he didn’t know what overcame him when tears started forming in his eyes. Bdubs looked over when Etho started sniffling.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Bdubs’ normally loud and harsh voice had turned gentle. “Is something wrong with the files? Let me know what it is and I can-” Bdubs was cut off when he received an armful of Etho. He wrapped the now trembling man into a hug.
“I’m sorry” Etho’s words came out muffled since his face was now pressed into Bdubs’ shoulder.
“Hey no, it’s okay, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, it's just.” Etho sniffled. “Thank you. Really, I really appreciate your help, thank you so much.”
“Hey yeah, don’t worry about it. It’s not an issue.”
They stayed wrapped around each other for a few minutes while Etho calmed down. At some point, Etho realized that Bdubs’ hands were running through his hair. It was nice.
Eventually, Etho pulled back and wiped his tears off his face with his sleeve.
“Alright, Bdubs, are we ready to start on the model?” With that, a smile broke across Bdubs’ face and his voice returned to his usual, loud intonation.
“Of course we are!”
As they worked on the model, Etho thought about his newly found friendship with Bdubs and for the first time, he had the conscious thought that he was really glad that they had become friends.