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It was a joke the first time he said it. At least, that was what it was played off as.
The exact context is lost to him now, but Bdubs made some dumb joke, and Etho must have told him it was dumb, and he replied something about knowing he was hiding a smile under his mask. Which, to be fair, he was. He always was when Bdubs made a dumb joke, or a good joke, or did anything really. It was something unbearably fond that he was glad the other couldn’t see. Otherwise, he would know how Etho felt, and how he still feels all these years later.
“You can’t prove I’m smiling with my mask on,” he’s sure he said, with that very smile evident in his voice. “I could take it off. To show you that I’m totally stonefaced.”
The words left his mouth as he followed his reckless urge. Etho does not consider himself an impulsive individual. His words are all prepared in his head before he says them to make sure he isn’t giving away anything he doesn’t want to. This incident could not be considered a slip up. It was a symptom of a much larger issue, if you want to call it an issue.
Even back then, when they had only known each other for less than a couple of years (which sounds like a lot, but is nothing in comparison to the years that he can’t even keep track of anymore), Etho wanted Bdubs to push the issue. He wanted him to call his bluff.
Instead, he laughed it off. Said he knew Etho wasn’t going to follow through, and proceeded to continue on to a new topic.
He told himself he was relieved that he didn’t take off the mask at that moment, but he couldn’t ignore the bitter feeling in his chest when Bdubs didn’t even ask. Didn’t push even a little, asking with those puppy dog eyes – which were nowhere near as big as they are these days, but still effective – if Etho could take off his mask. Would he have said yes?
The next instance, he recalls better.
It came along with an onslaught of mobs. At the time, they weren’t on Hermitcraft together, so this world had extreme pain that later SMPs wouldn’t. Most of the mobs they were able to handle despite their strange concentration in the area. Then, Etho made eye contact with an enderman. He saw himself reflected in those glowing, violet eyes, and when he glanced down at the damage he’d already taken, Etho knew his death was inevitable.
Against all odds, he and Bdubs were able to kill the creature and box themselves off in a cave. Though, Etho took one hell of a walloping from the enderman. He was pretty sure that it had broken a rib.
Whatever damage it did, he was throwing up blood quite violently. Bdubs set him down, which he needed while unable to keep himself standing, but his mask was essentially waterboarding him when he coughed up blood. Etho alerted his companion that he had to take it off through disgusting gurgles.
Bdubs nodded and turned around.
“You could look if you wanted,” he suggested as casually as he could make his voice while speaking through wheezes and gurgles.
He tossed the bloodsoaked mask to the floor of the cave, which stopped anything from getting in the way of his breathing, but his breathing remained ragged. Bdubs tossed food to him without turning around. With the tang of copper in his mouth, Etho didn’t have much appetite, but he knew he needed it if he wanted to heal from that pathetic fight.
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
Of course, Bdubs didn’t interpret his words as permission, but as an expression of the vulnerable position Etho had put himself in. He knew Bdubs wouldn’t cross that line without permission, but he wanted him to.
Probably. The blood loss was messing with his head, and he hardly looked his most attractive at the moment, so it was for the best that their moment in that cave didn’t end up with him revealing his face. They spend the night back-to-back, Etho leaning his whole weight on the smaller man because of the wounds – which the normally loudly annoyed man didn’t make a single complaint about.
To be clear, he isn’t afraid of getting rejected. Well, he isn’t afraid that Bdubs would say no if Etho dared to ask him out or something equally as embarrassing. It is the ‘after’ that scares him.
He knows that Bdubs has some idea in his mind about their possible relationship. After all, the man has vocally worshipped the ground he’s walked on for years. There is a pedestal Etho’s been sat upon in his mind, and it’s one that he cannot possibly live up to.
Maybe it comes as no surprise, but he isn’t exactly experienced with relationships. As in, he has absolutely zero experience. And he has issues. Oh boy, does he have issues. Almost as many as he has secrets. Bdubs should be his confidante, the one he confesses his deepest feelings to, but he is a coward at heart. Call him risk averse or call him a scaredy cat, but he can’t fathom being truly open with a person. How can he expose himself when there is so much for people to poke and prod and turn their noses up at?
If he asked Bdubs out, he would say yes. But, the problem is that he would be saying yes to the man behind the mask that he built up as someone grander than the frightened, pathetic man he is at his centre. Eventually, he would see behind that mask. While Bdubs is temperamental, he is kind.
There is a solid chance he’d stick around in a loveless relationship in an effort not to hurt Etho’s feelings, or at least feel tied by the sunk cost fallacy of investing over a decade into a romance that never ended up panning out. There’s no question he loves the Etho he perceives. The real him though, the person he has been too closed off to share with a single living soul? That is a more difficult man to love.
… Okay, so he is sort of afraid of being rejected, actually.
That thought slipped his mind on one memorable occasion. This was a more recent incident, and he remembers every detail. Could never forget it, he thinks.
It had been a terrible day. This was a little after they returned from yet another life game. There was a support group formed, where anyone could talk about their experience and hash out any lingering resentments. Bdubs and Impulse really had it out, having something complicated between them after the betrayal in Third Life and their partnership in Double Life (which did not bother Etho in the slightest, by the way), but they came to an agreement.
Or so he heard, anyway, since he wasn’t there. Etho, along with Grian and Scar were the only people who declined to join the unofficial group therapy session led by Keralis. He claimed that there had been no notable side effects, and he was coping just fine. The shaking hands were hard to hide and he is a terrible liar, but he managed.
At least, he managed at concealing it from the others. When it came to managing his rampant paranoia, panic, and all-encompassing sense of dread, he found himself falling flat.
Bdubs came back from the meeting, and Etho was waiting in his living room. That unexpected appearance gave the man a scare that he was clearly gearing up to yell about until he caught sight of the state Etho was in.
In the long tenure of their friendship, he could count the amount of hugs that Bdubs didn’t initiate on zero hands. Shoulder pats were the most intimate he would get with anyone. He could count the amount he cried since he was a kid, much less in front of someone, on the same amount of hands. But every day, Etho had been trying to shove down his feelings about the games, and every day, he failed.
He had been sitting in the dark of Bdubs’ house for more than an hour, just trying to stop the dam from bursting all at once. Once Etho saw his best friend looking at him with those huge, concerned eyes, he knew that he could be vulnerable, just for a second. He stood up from the sofa, took a few steps, and collapsed into Bdubs’ arms.
Immediately, he wrapped his arms around Etho like he had done it a million times rather than the handful he dared to go for.
While he allowed a few tears to escape him, Etho told himself to choke back the outright sobs. That would be too embarrassing, and far more vulnerability than he allotted himself for the night. In response, Bdubs started rubbing little circles into his back and swaying them back and forth. He felt babied, which made him so frustrated that his need to cry only doubled. Or, he would quietly admit to himself, he felt cared for, and he had no idea how to cope with that.
Either way, his machinations worked, and Etho let out a few broken-off sobs.
“Oh, c’mon, there’s no point in bottling all that up,” he said in a faux-calm tone. Behind that collectedness, he was surely freaking out that Etho of all people was crying. “Let it all out, okay?” He phrased it like a request; like he would be doing a favour to Bdubs. Above all, he needed to do what his loved ones asked of him.
Naturally, that meant Etho letting his friend use all of his tiny might to drag them into a comfortable position where he could come completely undone.
It suddenly seemed stupid that he ever tried avoiding this. Sure, it was humiliating, but Bdubs would never judge him for needing someone to comfort him. At least, if he did, he would be a massive hypocrite.
Etho had not hugged someone for so long in… ever. While it was overwhelming, at the same time, he kept pressing against Bdubs to press them closer together, which was physically impossible at that point. He knew he was being obnoxious with his hoarse wailing. Rather than shushing him though, his friend kept telling him to cry as much as he needed. That seemed ridiculous. No one needed to cry, he thought.
“Don’t leave yet,” he begged. It made no sense considering Bdubs hadn’t even suggested he was going anywhere, but he needed to ask.
“Not until you want me to.”
He didn’t realize how dangerous that promise was for a man who never wanted him to leave. That promise soothed his insecurities though, as he wept harder than he ever had in his life.
As he became more aware of anything except the need to expel all his emotions, he could feel how gross his mask had become with all the tears, spit, and snot that had seeped into the fabric. Everything felt awful, from his rubbed raw eyes to the hot, red patches that were stained by his tears. He made an internal note never to cry again.
When he finally summoned up the courage to leave the cozy spot he had made for himself in Bdubs’ chest, he immediately wanted to retreat upon seeing Bdubs’ bug eyes staring into his soul. It would be unreasonable of Etho to expect the man not to have questions. After all, it must have been disorienting at the least – seeing his best friend have a breakdown for the first time in their very long friendship – and a sign of the apocalypse at worst. He didn’t want to explain himself, but it was only fair payment for Bdubs being so cozy.
“I’m not doing great.” His voice cracked and his words held no substance, but Bdubs hummed like he understood everything Etho was trying to get across without having to use words.
“You didn’t come to group,” he commented. Of course he managed to figure out what was bothering Etho. “You said you didn’t need to go because you were doing ‘just fine’!” His tone turned joking, but it didn’t land for Etho, who was suffocating under the weight of lying to Bdubs. The man’s features soften as he sees how his words affect his friend. “I knew something was off. Knew I shoulda checked in.”
His hands are still running through Etho’s hair, and he’s not sure if Bdubs even notices. If he doesn’t, he’s not about to point it out. In fact, he’d prefer more contact if at all possible. That would be greedy to ask of him after Bdubs humoured him for so long, but he couldn’t help craving it.
“That’s not your responsibility,” he retorted. “I should have told someone. Told you.”
Keeping secrets from Bdubs was awful. It made him sick every time he withheld the truth from him, and for what? There were many moments when Etho wondered why he didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve for Bdubs the same way the man did with him. The idea of being real for once made his heart pound so fast he thought he was dying. How could Etho show off the parts of himself he didn’t even like? On the other hand, if there was one thing he could be sure of, Bdubs would accept him no matter what.
He remembers how the mask felt uncomfortable on his face, both physically from the disgusting fluids he mentioned earlier, and from the barrier it presented in his and Bdubs’ relationship. He doesn’t remember what went through his mind at that time exactly, but whatever it was, it ended with Etho being impulsive yet again.
“I could take off my mask for you.” The room fell silent. For once, Bdubs – a man who never even bothered to hide his feelings – wore an unreadable expression. “If you wanted,” Etho tacked on, beginning to get hot under the collar.
Finally, Bdubs smiled. It was not his usual, blinding, toothy smile, but a weary thing that Etho hated looking at.
“It’s not about what I want, Etho. You don’t have to feel obligated or anything. You only do that if you’re ready.” Not ‘when you’re ready’; he said ‘if’. If. Like he fully accepted a reality where he never knew the face of his best friend, and the man he is so obviously in love with. Yet again, he misinterpreted Etho’s words. That never happens – Bdubs always seems to know what he means when no one else does. Only when it comes to the moments when Etho’s trying to be vulnerable does he misunderstand. Possibly because it’s so unexpected.
He can’t be coy about it, Etho realized that day. Nothing other than complete honesty will do. He has to be the one to say he wants Bdubs to see.
Which brings him to his current predicament.
Well, to call it a predicament would make him sound ungrateful. At the moment, he is in Bdubs’ home, which is essentially Etho’s as well at this point, sitting side by side on the couch. There is just enough space between them that there’s still a chance at plausible deniability, but they are soaking in each other’s presence.
Neither of them is saying a word. For him, that’s par for the course, but Bdubs is always prattling on about something. Recently, Etho stopped pretending like the rants annoyed him, though he wasn’t quite letting all his fondness show. They know that if they speak, something will be shattered. On one hand, it would shatter, and they’d go back to their regular interactions – pretending like this moment wasn’t as charged as they made it out to be. On the other, it would shatter and the things they left unsaid would come spilling out.
For once, Etho is hoping for the latter. In theory, that is. In practice, he doesn’t know how to begin breaking the ice.
Always one to go for actions over words, he grabs Bdubs sleeve. Not with any urgency, and he does nothing but fiddle with it, but it’s something. Something is more than he’s done in a long while.
When he looks down, he sees that Bdubs’ fingers are twitching, and when he looks up, he sees that his eye is doing the same. He stifles a laugh, worrying that too could break the atmosphere, and decides to make the next move for him. Their fingers are intertwined before Etho can second guess himself.
He hears a sharp gasp from Bdubs, and he gets cold feet… or sweaty palms, in this case. As Etho tries to pull away, worrying he made the man uncomfortable, Bdubs tightens his grip – preventing him from tugging it away. A clear message: I want this too. Again, he has to suppress a laugh, this time less quietly amused and more flustered and giddy. They’re holding hands, and the thought makes butterflies flutter in his stomach like he’s some schoolboy with a crush.
They breathe in sync, and as a test, Etho changes his breathing pattern just to hear Bdubs try to match the new one as well. He smiles, and he suddenly wishes that his best friend could see it. In the grandest display of bravery, he breaks the silence.
“I offered it because I wanted you to see.” Bdubs looks up at him with sparkling eyes and pure confusion. Once again, Etho curses that the man can’t just read his mind and spare them both the pain of having him stumble through his confessions. “My face,” he clarifies. “I’ve offered to take it off three times now, at least. Probably more. You never – you never took it seriously, but I was always being serious.”
Every word feels breathless, and he fears they can each be used against him. Thankfully, he knows from Bdubs’ stunned expression, the crying fit that was never mentioned after the fact, and the years of friendship they have between them, that he would never use Etho’s most vulnerable moments against him.
“You’ve been sayin’ stuff like that for years now though,” he comments. Etho’s silence is answer enough. “Oh.”
While Etho has planned up until this far, he is at a loss for where to go with this next. It seems that Bdubs is just as out of his comfort zone. He can’t help but laugh at them. They’ve both had years to think about this exact moment, and they still haven’t come up with a single speech or comment. Grade A procrastinators they are, huh? Well, he supposes he can just be direct about it for once.
“I want to show you what’s behind the mask.”
Silence.
Bdubs opens his mouth several times, and closes it just as many times. Beginnings of words and sharp inhales are the only thing that escapes him for a solid minute. While he respects that it may be a lot to take in after all this time, Etho is really being left to stew in his nerves.
“Are you ready for that?” He finally asks, sounding far too serious for Etho’s tastes. It’s a good question, and his first instinct is to say no and put it off for later. But he’s been putting it off for well over a decade now, and it is just getting ridiculous at this point. One of them has to cross the unspoken but very known line, and he’s willing to take one for the team.
“No,” he admits. “But I don’t think I’m ever gonna be ready, y’know? Life, uh, life comes atcha anyway, so… I mean, you can’t be prepared for anything, really.” Despite knowing he sounds like an idiot, Bdubs is nodding along like he’s reciting sacred scripture, which only serves to make him more bashful. “And if life’s gonna happen either way, I’d prefer to have it with you seeing my face… and everything that comes with it.”
Everything that comes with it may be presumptuous of him, but it feels like this is the last barrier between them before they get to the ‘being together’ part. That part he certainly is not ready for, but his eagerness far outweighs his fear.
He unlocks their fingers. Bdubs tugs him back lightly, but he allows Etho to move away after a second.
They aren’t separated for long. Etho doesn’t have much room to face him while sitting on the couch, so he hesitates before deciding to sit right on Bdubs’ lap. There is an exclamation of surprise, but again, no complaint. Etho thinks that he would let him do anything, but he also thinks the feeling is mutual. He takes a deep breath in, closes his eyes, and presses their foreheads together. This time, their breaths are synced up and he can feel it against his face. It might have been awkward if it wasn’t so addictive.
“I need you to promise me you won’t hate what you see, okay? Or if you do, you shut your mouth about it.”
“Etho, you could take off that mask and have a – a lizard face or somethin’, and I would still love it,” he says emphatically, sounding much less serious and much more like himself. Yet again, Etho smiles, and his heart thrums at the idea that Bdubs will be able to see that soon. Maybe he can tell anyway because he gives a gap-toothed smile back.
Despite the anxieties he liked to play on loop in his head to discourage himself every time, Etho can’t help but believe him.
With clumsy hands, he unties the many precautionary ties on his mask that ensures it doesn’t fall off without his say so. Even at home, when he knows all the doors are locked, he rarely takes the thing off. It feels right to do it here.
There is a delay as Bdubs drinks it all in. Etho is sure that if he were still wearing the mask, you could still tell how nervous he is. Then, Bdubs reaches out as if he isn’t even aware of his own movements, and traces his fingers along Etho’s face. He goes over damn near every inch of it, and he can’t help but huff out a laugh at the thoroughness. Finally, he lands on the part he has been dreading, and Etho can’t help but flinch when his skin runs over the sensitive scarring.
“Sorry.” Bdubs retracts his hand as quickly as he can, and he can’t tell whether he should be relieved or disappointed. “Shoulda asked first. That was… inappropriate.” Inappropriate? What constitutes as appropriate in this scenario? He must see Etho’s confusion written on his face (because he can do that now, and isn’t that a little daunting?) as Bdubs reconsiders what made him react so strongly. “Does it hurt?”
That’s not a question he can answer easily. Yes, it hurts every day, but when something hurts every day, it barely registers as pain anymore. There are worse days and better days, but today isn’t all that bad.
“No.” That seems like the more honest answer, seeing as the real question Bdubs was asking is ‘did I hurt you?’, which he didn’t. “It’s just, uh, my left side is not the prettiest part of me, you know?” Etho forces a laugh and cringes at how flat it falls in the dead quiet room.
Bdubs goes a while without saying anything, and Etho is really starting to hate these extended silences. It makes him think that maybe the man is taking him up on the ‘shut your mouth about it’ option that means he hates what he’s seeing, but there is no hint of revulsion in his expression as his eyes flicker between the rest of his face and his scars.
They really aren’t pretty. For the most part, when people see his bad eye, they think it looks cool, even if they were occasionally unsettled by it. Nothing is ‘cool’ about where the scarring spans down to his lips. There’s still some movement capability, but it’s not much. His whole mouth is noticeably slanted – the left side dipping into a near-constant frown. Partial facial paralysis, the doctor had called it, and said it could have been treated better if he had come in earlier. Instead, he relies on masks.
At best, it’s off-putting, and most people can politely put away their distaste, but he always remembers the kid that started crying upon seeing his face.
Etho is snapped out of his spiralling when his friend goes back to touching that side of his face – thoughts going completely blank. Bdubs gives a mock-scrutinizing expression that shocks a laugh out of him.
“Nah, it’s definitely pretty,” he concludes with the air that he had done a thorough inspection. Etho tries to sputter out a response, insisting that he doesn’t have to pretend despite his promise, but Bdubs has already moved on. “I always wondered why only your right eye crinkled when you smiled. I thought you were just smirking all the time or somethin’. This makes more sense.”
It’s hard to decide how to react to that. Part of Etho wants to argue that he’s lying, another part knows he isn’t, another one wants to start another crying session. The part of him that’s in control of his motor functions decides that his best course of action is to plant a kiss right on Bdubs’ lips.
It’s not exactly a surprise when Bdubs kisses him back – he knew the man would never refuse that offer regardless of the situation – but he’s grateful nonetheless.
“Woah,” he exclaims through pants when they part. Bdubs smacks him in the chest. “Where did that come from?” There is genuine surprise in his tone, which Etho didn’t expect. He thought it was a natural progression from where they were. What did Bdubs intend by saying his lips were pretty if he didn’t want to kiss?
Well, judging by his uncontrollable smile, he wanted to, but he didn’t expect it somehow.
“I think it came from my lips,” he quips. The punch to his arm is well-deserved, but well worth it. “I mean, the only reason we haven’t kissed yet is because of the mask, so I figured… okay, it was kinda spontaneous, but you should have seen it coming.”
“That was the only reason why we haven’t kissed before?”
His tone implies that there is a glaring reason that Etho has missed, but he can’t come up with anything even as he racks his brain for an answer.
“Yes…?”
“Etho,” he starts with a gravity that doesn’t fit the position they’re in; tangled up in each other, Bdubs’ hand still cupping his face, and him sitting on the man’s lap. “Are you in love with me?” The first thought that crosses his mind is that Bdubs is fishing for an ‘I love you’, but he sounds like he’s asking a genuine question. All of a sudden, Etho begins to recontextualize the past decade or so. Bdubs didn’t know that he’s been in love with him all this time.
Void, he was not kidding when he said he has zero experience with romantic relationships.
There is a long pause, and he realizes he’s putting Bdubs through the same uncertainty that he was going through. As much as he wants to avoid talking about this, he posed a question that is exceptionally easy to answer.
“Yeah, of course I love you. I thought you knew. I thought we – there has obviously been something between us,and I know that’s not in my head. I mean, you haven’t dated anyone since we became best friends, right?”
“No,” he confirms.
“Not even Impulse?” He snarls, remembering his burning jealousy when they fell so easily into being soulmates with each other.
How they managed to work things out with each when Etho was too much of a coward to even attend the meetings is a mystery to him. Realistically, Impulse is the better option. He’s sturdy in a way Etho can only pretend to be. Truth be told, he holds nothing against his friend, but he wants to be as good for Bdubs as Impulse is. Wants to be his soulmate, despite Double Life being behind them now.
“Impulse? No way! Just ‘cause we were soulmates?” And referred to their union as a marriage on several occasions, but he wasn’t about to say that out loud. “What, were you dating Joel in a secret affair?” He teases.
Etho relaxes at the playful tone. Yeah, it was a stretch to assume the two were ever together, but his mind had been clouded with the anxiety of a possible shift in his and Bdubs’ decade-long routines. He wanted to be on a team with the man – it was a comfort of sorts in these games, even if he knows they occasionally have to be independent of each other.
“Joel wishes.” Bdubs laughs, and falls right into his side. “Anyway, the point is, that makes this basically a common law marriage. We haven’t been with anyone else, and we’ve always been living on the same servers, so that’s basically how it works.” Probably. Admittedly, he knows nothing about the laws on common law marriages, but it is surely a similar arrangement to what he and Bdubs have going on.
Apparently, something about that statement is shocking enough that it gets Bdubs choking on air.
“That was the point?! What are you talking about? I thought the point was supposed to be that you love me, not marriage!”
“I mean, those things usually go hand in hand, don’t they?” Bdubs continues to blue screen, and Etho falls off the man’s lap as he begins cackling. “I don’t mean–” he gasps for breath between his giggling fit. “I didn’t mean right now! Sorry, I got a little ahead of myself. Yeah, the point was that I love you. Probably for… uh, subtract two years off how long we’ve been friends.”
“Twelve years.”
“Seriously? Void, we’ve known each other for fourteen years, then? Way to make me feel old.”
In his head, it felt like a lot less than that. Every day with Bdubs passes so terribly fast that their thousands of hours spent in each other’s presence may as well have been a day. At the same time, it also feels like they’ve known one another for their entire lives. Existence before him felt like some kind of awful fever dream. These are the kinds of thoughts Etho is not nearly cheesy enough to speak aloud, but he indulges them in the privacy of his mind.
“You’ve been in love with me. For twelve years,” Bdubs repeats.
“Honestly, two years was probably overshooting it. I’ve been in love with you for closer to thirteen years, I think, but that’s a nitpick.”
“And how long have you known I’m in love with you?”
That, he does not have as clean of an answer to. If there was some grand realization accompanied by the typical dramatics and brooding, it was so long ago that he cannot recall. More likely was that they had clicked the instant they met, and Etho grew fond of him at a frankly humiliating rate for someone who fancies himself to be aloof. Whenever the development of Bdubs’ romantic feelings clicked for him, it must have felt like it was an undeniable and irrevocable fact of the universe; a parallel to his own fondness. At least, that’s his best bet.
“Too long for us not to be together,” he says instead, which is the most honest answer he could give. Bdubs gives an emphatic ‘uh-huh!’ that sets off Etho’s giggles again, which is soon joined by the other man.
They end up, to no one’s surprise, pressed up together again. Their laughter dies down, and they end up staring into each other’s eyes like total saps – which Etho thinks they deserve to act like after all this time. He doesn’t even shrink into himself when Bdubs stares so intently at the full face he hasn’t seen before today. Not even when his eyes inevitably stray to his disfigured mouth.
To his surprise, rather than looking out of a morbid curiosity, it was with interest if the subsequent kiss is any indication.
The last one was brief and Bdubs broke it off as soon as it started. As far as first kisses go, while the softness matched the tone of the moment, it wasn’t exactly the ‘fireworks’ you would expect for people with the amount of chemistry they had. This one though, is magic. Or maybe Etho’s just very in love and thrilled to finally be making out with the man he has been pathetically in love with for an amount of time that would make anyone go insane with want. Either way, things get heated fast.
“Sorry,” he pants as he forces himself to part from Bdubs. “It’s probably not great on your end ‘cause of the–” Etho gestures at the paralyzed side of his mouth.
There is some kind of exasperated grumble from Bdubs along the lines of ‘oh my gosh, shut up’ and something to do with him being a moron, but Etho does not bother with a retort when their lips connect again.
If he knew this would be the outcome, he would have shown Bdubs his face a while ago.