Chapter Text
“This is all your fucking fault!” Bdubs screamed, glaring at Etho from the passenger seat.
The word “your” was somehow more venomous than the swear, but hey, maybe that made more sense for the situation. Tensions were high as they drove in a snowstorm on some random back road neither of them recognized, and the sky was an ash gray, colored like salt and pepper. The moon was barely visible through the clouds. They were both tired in the sort of adrenaline crash kind of way, and cold, unable to shake away the shivers even with the heater on full blast. This made them overall very cranky, and that had them at each other's throats. Figuratively , for the time being.
“Oh really?” Etho asked sarcastically. “Because I conjured up this snowstorm for fun? Is that it?” He kept up the fake voice, before dropping it lower. “Or because I kindly offered to drive you home on a cold night, instead of leaving you there to sleep on the couch and eat dry cereal for breakfast before calling a cab instead ? Was that so cruel of me?”
“You didn’t have to show up at all, you know.” Bdubs hissed. “You didn’t have to worm your way back into my life like that.”
Etho scoffed, and stepped slightly harder on the pedal. “They’re my friends too, Bdouble-O. Beef invited me to the party.”
“Only because I introduced you to them.” Bdubs said in a whisper, forcing Etho to pay attention to hear it. “You wouldn’t even know them without me .”
The car was buzzing as loudly as the uncomfortable silence would let it, and the air felt thicker than the snowflakes crashing onto the windshield. The silence only made the chill icing their fingertips more apparent, and Bdubs adjusted his hands so his palms could warm up where his hoodie sleeves didn’t reach. He stared forwards, refusing to be seen as “weak” by looking at his lap for longer than a moment. Etho on the other hand was focusing on the road, sure, but was still analyzing Bdubs through the edge of his vision, waiting for Bdubs to move and indirectly signal he was about to argue more.
Both men were at their limits with each other, and the snowflakes were the only thing interesting enough to distract Bdubs from wanting to yell more just yet. He had made his point, and wanted it to sit with Etho before he thought of more to say about how they were lost, and how Etho wasn’t paying attention to signs, and how they should’ve just used the map from the start .
They were on an empty two-way road, no cars to count or people to stare at through non-tinted car windows, and the snow was only getting heavier with each passing minute. It wasn’t piling too much on the actual road yet, the water from the rain the day before melting most of it, but it was still less-than safe. Especially with the sun dipping below the horizon, stealing the last of the light from them.
“Y’know,” Etho started sharply after a painfully long and silent two minutes, because apparently he wasn’t done with the conversation, “Just because you introduced them to me doesn’t mean you own them.” His fingers lifted up stiffly from his death grip on the steering wheel to emphasize it.
“Oh you’re not done arguing.” Bdubs muttered with a breathy laugh that held no joy behind it, glaring at Etho with his arms crossed. “How surprising. You never could just drop a conversation until you won.”
“No, I'm not done!” Etho kept going, voice raising. “You act like you're the only one who can be friends with people! Just because you met them first doesn’t make you better than me.”
“I never claimed to be better!”
“Well you sure act like it!”
“Oh because I'm so clingy and emotional and unbearable?” Bdubs grinned with wide eyes with a venomous stare. He squinted his eyes to look Etho up and down obviously, because he knew Etho couldn’t take his eyes off the road to engage in the little staring contest. “Huh? Because you offered a ride oh so kindly and I decided to accept, I’m the one on a fucking pedastal all the time?”
“Course you would need a pedestal.” Etho teased without any soft intent.
“Stooping low. Big surprise.You’re not even good at insulting, using the same thing every time.”
“No matter how low I stoop.” Etho said casually, which only pissed Bdubs off more. “I’ll never be able to see any more than the top of your head.”
And Etho said it slowly, and Bdubs let him, and more than ever, Bdubs wanted to strangle him. Was this just some fucking joke to him? Etho took merely a moment to glance over to the passenger seat, just to see how red with anger Bdubs had turned. Because it was Bdubs, and the man loved to overreact almost as much as he loved horses, and at one point, Etho had found it cute. It was funnier now instead, and well, if Etho wasn't one to risk everything for a little chuckle sometimes.
He looked over, to see nearly exactly what he expected: Bdubs, red in the face, seething with anger at Etho. It was hilarious, and a little heartbreaking, but Etho tried to find more amusement in it than anything. It was merely a second of looking away from the road, but that was a second too long.
In hindsight, taking his attention off the road was maybe not the smartest idea.
“wHY YOU MOTHER-” Bdubs voice rose back up as Etho looked back at the road.
Glowing eyes stared at Etho from the darkness of the road. His heart stopped and eyes flew open, as he jerked the wheel to the left, slamming the break as hard as he could. Bdubs was screaming distantly next to him, and maybe he was too, but with all of the adrenaline drowning the world out around him, he could only hear his blood pumping in his ears.
“Oh snappers.”
It was cold and the road was slightly icy, which y’know, weren’t those perfect driving conditions. And hey, fun fact, slamming the breaks on an icy road was the fastest and most effective way to lose control of a car! Speedrun that shit!
The car skidded forwards, spinning as it flew off the road and onto the grass, before finally slamming into a tree, jostling them harshly.
The airbags, as shit as the car was, thank fuck, worked . Etho’s ears were ringing as his head was shoved away from where it could’ve slammed on the wheel, and everything was a jumbled mess of panic and adrenaline.
Something- something about leaning away from the steering wheel is safer bubbled up in his memory, and oh- oh fuck. Oh fuck he was so glad he took that advice those years ago and made it a habit. The airbags could’ve killed him if he was pressed up against the wheel. He could’ve just-
The world was spinning, and he took a sharp breath in once he lifted his body away from the slowly deflating air bag. He was dizzy, and maybe car sick, and terrified, and-
And then his mind supplied him a name, and he was jolting upright with eyes blown wide.
“Bdubs.”
His heart was pounding. Bdubs wasn’t moving. Etho reached over with a shaky hand that was struggling with depth perception, and shook his shoulder quickly. Bile was rising in his throat.
Bdubs stirred, a muffled groan reaching Etho’s ears just barely. Bdubs hands twitched around where he had been holding the edge of his seat and relaxed, going limp.
Etho swallowed the bile. Bdubs was alive.
The world spun around him, and Bdubs was in a similar dizzied state, so neither spoke or moved for a solid minute. It was a matter of getting gravity to flip the right way again in their heads, and getting the shock of what just happened to settle enough in their veins so they could breathe steadily again.
At some point, Etho’s eyes had closed, and he noticed his teeth had clamped down so hard his jaw hurt, and his grip on the steering wheel was making his hands sore. The car had completely stopped, and it was eerily silent, apart from the ringing in their ears.
He had to forcibly relax some of his muscles, and then his jaw, if only not to pull something or break his teeth from how they gritted against each other.
“Should we-” Etho swallowed, his voice barely above a whisper. It felt hoarse. He had calmed down enough to talk- mostly . Adrenaline was buzzing in his veins and making his hands shake. “Should we check-?”
“You didn’t hit it.” Bdubs answered before he could finish. Etho noticed his chest heaving as he peeled himself away from the seat he was leaving against to breathe. “I saw the deer run in the bushes.”
“Ok.” Etho breathed out. “Cool.”
The airbag smoke wasn’t really the best to breathe in, so once he had enough barings to do so, Etho grabbed the car door handle and nudged it open with his foot. He noticed a new spiderweb crack in the corner of the glass and decided nope. He would deal with those frustrations later.
He squished the airbag until all of the gunpowder-smelling stuff was out and he could shove the bag back into where it was supposed to go. He wasn’t much of a car expert, but he knew he was going to have to replace those things, and that was absolutely not something he was going to worry about either now. It was a one step at a time kind of moment.
Bdubs looked slightly more dazed than him, quieter and blinking slower than he was.
“Bdubs-” and when Etho spoke, his voice was so much drier than he thought it would be. Maybe he inhaled too much of that gunpowder. “You gotta deflate it outside.”
It took a second longer for Bdubs to process that than normal, and Etho wanted to ask if he was okay, before Bdubs nudged his door open with his foot the same way Etho did and deflated it silently.
Oh right. He was still mad at Bdubs. And Bdubs was probably still mad at him.
The tree they had hit was on Bdubs’s side, but it was nearer the front, so Bdubs had enough room to at least open it a little. Maybe not enough to step outside through that door, but the air bag deflated safely, was shoved in haphazardly, and then it was silent again.
Etho looked at Bdubs side as slyly as he could, trying not to make it obvious. Bdubs paid him no mind, staring blankly ahead, with his head gently resting on his seat behind him. His vision looked unfocused, and if Etho was starting more directly, he would probably notice the little bit of swaying of Bdubs head as he unconsciously rocked in his seat. The glass was much more cracked on Bdubs’s side. A small piece had actually chipped off, and the spider web of cracks spread much further. Etho’s window was ignorable. This one, less so.
But Etho was a little mad at him. For the argument, and for distracting him on an icy road with dangerous weather conditions, so he ignored the cracked glass, and the airbags not tucked in all of the way, and the way the snow was piling outside for a moment. He had no obligation to take charge or responsibility. At least not yet.
They were both just breathing. Hearts not in sync, but beating so fast they could be mistaken as so.
It was seconds, maybe minutes, of sitting there in silence, before Bdubs broke it.
“Oh fuck.” He muttered.
“What?” Etho breathed out, looking at Bdubs, and then to where he was looking towards the dashboard. “What’s wrong?”
“The heater’s not working.”
Etho wanted to glare at him, but Bdubs wasn’t looking in his direction just yet. “Oh you and your comfort-”
“Oh shuddup, I'm not complaining about being comfortable.” Bdubs spat. “We’re gonna freeze to death out here, asshole.” And then he made eye contact like Etho wanted, but Etho had lost his reason to glare now. That was rude of Bdubs; him being reasonable enough not to glare at.
He needed a second to process the words Bdubs was all but shouting, and when it sunk in, his gaze drifted downwards and his body paused.
“Oh.” Etho said softly. “Fuck.”
“That's what I was saying!” Bdubs hissed, and Etho had half a brain not to respond immediately.
Etho sighed defeatedly, and leaned his head back on the headrest.
“What?” Bdubs asked. “What's that supposed to mean?”
Instead of responding, Etho merely exhaled, and sat up, unbuckling his seat and opening his door in one movement much wider than he had before.
He really wanted to kick at the snow, scream and swear at his luck and then- probably throw something. But Bdubs was there. And he wasn’t going to embarrass himself in front of his- in front of him like that.
He went around to the front of the car, fully aware of Bdubs staring eyes, and popped the hood without sparing Bdubs a glance. Smoke bellowed from where he was and he instinctively stepped back, coughing and waving his hand to try to clear some of it.
That was probably a bad sign.
The engine looked fine at a glance, and that was good enough for him, but, well, his heater had already been pretty shit,- it only functioned when it felt like it, or when he smacked some sense into it- and it seemed like the crash had done the trick to force it into an early retirement.
Retirement-slash-funeral, probably.
He might hold a service for that, if they got out of here in one non-frozen piece by the end of the night.
“The engine looks fine,” Etho yelled towards Bdubs. Maybe he had only skimmed the beat up manual when he had gotten the car years ago, but at least he could tell the engine was undamaged and the thing wasn’t going to explode on them probably. “Heater’s dead though. The crash hit some wires or something that I can't really fix without tools.” He decided to leave out ‘or help from someone who knew the fuck they were doing.’ because he wanted to sound smarter about it.
“Nerd.” Bdubs muttered not so quietly from the passenger seat.
“What was that?” Etho called more loudly.
“How's it lookin’?” Bdubs answered. Etho had a suspicion that wasn’t what Bdubs had said at first, because he was pretty sure he heard less syllables than that, even if he couldn’t process the words, but there was no use fighting it or asking prying questions. It would get them nowhere. He knew that.
“Meh.” Etho answered.
“How insightful .” Bdubs muttered. And Etho heard that one.
Taking a better look at the side where the tree was still pressed into the front and right side of the car, Etho winced, finally noticing the headlight punched out with shattered glass sparkling in the dirt. Snow was starting to pile on the side of the road much more heavily, and there were already big patches outside of the trees’ canopy that were thick enough to cover the green of the grass. His mask was protecting his nose for now, but with a busted heater and no more than a jacket and few instant pocket warmers he and Bdubs would have to divide up, things were looking a little bleak.
Etho got back into his seat and tried not to sigh. This was fine. It was going to be fine.
He was a survivor. He had been in worse situations.
Well, that sounded cooler when other people said it.
Bdubs was staring at him, waiting for him to speak or act or do something , and in all honesty, Etho didn’t want to. He wanted to just tighten the strings on his boots and get on his gloves and head out without another word. He was still mad, and also an incredible guilt was starting to seep through him that he just wanted to push away, and adrenaline that hadn’t worn off was doing something to his emotions. He wanted to run away and ignore his mess of an internal state.
But that wouldn’t be fair to Bdubs. Leaving him without another word again would be borderline cruel.
“We need to find somewhere to stay. You’re right. We’ll freeze out here without a heater in this snow storm.” Etho hated admitting that Bdubs was right.
“So what are we gonna do? Keep driving?” Bdubs asked. It was apparent he was terrified, something Etho wasn’t even really thinking about. Sure, Etho had been through worse, but had Bdubs? Etho looked in the distance. It was snowy enough to blur the distance, and make it unclear if there were buildings they could stay anywhere. He made a decision.
“ You are going to stay here, while I go out and look for civilization or somewhere indoors to warm up.” Etho said.
Bdubs started to make a sound to protest, loud and offended, but Etho cut him off.
“I need someone warm and alive if I collapse in the snow, ok?” Etho said, looking in the distance where the snow was starting to pick up even more. “I don’t know how far anything is, but there wasn’t much from where we came, not for miles, so I’m going forwards.”
And sure, it was a sorta risky plan, that depended entirely on luck giving them some sort of civilization in the middle of nowhere, but it was the only plan he had. It was better than going from where they came from, a direction devoid of humans for too long of a walk.
Etho paused, and looked at Bdubs. Something told him to tease Bdubs, make everything a little more lighthearted, and also needed to ease the tension by poking at Bdubs ego.
“Also I don't want anyone to steal my car. You’re my guard dog.” He lied, trying to joke poorly.
“Take the pocket warmers.” Bdubs said, ignoring the last statement. “And an extra jacket, and gloves.”
“I’ll be fine.” Etho breathed out, not letting the smile under his mask show through his eyes. “I got gloves and a thick jacket already. I’ve survived worse.”
“You survived me.”
Etho could see the tiny bit of a painful smirk on Bdubs face as he said it. And maybe it was supposed to be a joke, but Bdubs voice didn’t succeed in carrying that if it was. Etho’s face fell. His eyes didn’t even blink.
“If I’m not back in an hour, try to drive on the road forwards slowly until you see my lifeless body.”
“If I end up paying for the funeral, I'm getting orange lilies and tansies.” Bdubs muttered with a frown. Etho worked in a flower shop for a short time a while back. He knew what that meant. And knew that Bdubs knew that he knew what that meant.
“Won’t that be colorful.”
Etho finished collecting himself, gloves secure and boots tightened, with the ends of his pants tucked back in neatly to keep the warmth in.
“Stay warm.” Bdubs muttered, barely glancing in Etho’s direction. “You’d be a pretty shit Uber if you left me stranded in a freezing broken down car like this.”
“You get what you pay for.” Etho joked, meeting Bdubs eyes for the first time in their conversation. It didn’t feel as much of a fight as it normally did, and was more of some sort of understanding between them. ‘Stay safe. I still care about you. Please don’t die’ .
Etho blinked and looked away, and Bdubs did the same.
“Here, take a hand warmer and try not to get hypothermia.” Etho said, tossing over two of the four.
“What? Dude- no you need these. You’re the one going out.”
“The heater doesn’t work, and the windows are busted. You said it yourself. I’ll be moving and warmer.”
“You got to win most of the arguments before.” Bdubs stated. “I get to win this one. Take them all.”
“Compromise.” Etho chided. “I take 3, you take 1.”
Bdubs glared at him, something venomous that would’ve made Etho wince if he weren’t fully prepared for it. “Fuck you.” Bdubs said, only carelessly throwing one over to Etho, and keeping the last on the dashboard on his side to keep.
Etho dropped them all on his seat, and reached over to the middle compartment to dig through and find a flashlight. It wasn’t wasn’t terribly dark, because the slowly piling snow reflected some light from the blurry moon, but it was likely it could be on his way back, and it'd probably be better if he could see where he was going. He looped his compass on his wrist and tucked it into his sleeve so it wouldn’t fall off easily.
“Don’t die.” Bdubs waved. “I don’t wanna be accused of killing my ex!”
“You’re too short to kiss or kill me.” Etho chuckled. “I’ll be back.”
Bdubs watched him go, understanding that he was staring. Once he was out of sight, thick snowflakes washing away his silhouette, Bdubs sighed, zipping up the jacket he had over his hoodie and turning to lean towards the middle. There was still a tiny bit of heat left from when the heater was functioning, but his body warmth was going to have to put in most of the effort to keep him alive. His eyes glanced towards Etho’s seat and widened.
“Fuckin’ dumbass.”
The pocket warmers were sitting on the seat, forgotten, and Etho was probably going to get himself killed now. Bdubs sighed deeply, and pulled out his phone. He didn’t have much battery left, and decided to save it for emergencies(because ha! This wasn’t an emergency. No of course not.), but he still started a timer for 45 minutes, because yeah- no. Etho didn’t get to also dictate the 1 hour timer.
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Lovely art done by Arbiter!! First link in the notes if you want to check out their super cool Tumblr!
