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“Hold on,” says Pause. “There’s something on your face.” He reaches out and brushes Etho’s cheek, just between their mask and prosthetic eye. Well, it’s not a normal prosthetic right now, but that’s beside the point. Only a moment after making contact, though, Pause’s hand snaps back as if burned.
“Who did your cybernetics?” Pause asks in an odd voice.
“Just some guy I know.” Etho isn’t sure why that’s suddenly relevant. So he wanted to try out being a cyborg. The implant is installed in the eye socket where his prosthetic normally goes, with a few small plates framing it on his cheekbone; it doesn’t give him more vision, exactly, but it’s handy to overlay information over his existing vision, with the ability for quick scans of things around them. “Why?” Etho asks as he reaches up to the touch the spot on his face, feeling it tingle from the aftereffect of Pause’s swift touch.
“You’re leaking redstone.” Etho looks at the red mark transferred to his fingers, rubbing them together and watching it turn to powder.
Yeah, that’s redstone. No, it’s not good. There’s a tingle in his fingertips from even the small amount of it on his skin.
“Well don’t touch it,” Pause snaps frantically, grabbing Etho by the wrist, which only serves to make Etho try and pull away. Pause tightens his grip and Etho thinks about biting him, but refrains and hisses instead. Pause ignores it and drags Etho along behind him, fumbling for his comm. “BEEF.” He shouts. “We have a problem!”
“It doesn’t hurt or anything.” whines Etho.
“Etho, I know you’re lazy about PPE on a good day, but if your cybernetics are leaking redstone, then they need to come out of your freaking head!” Pause insists. He’s right and Etho knows it, but emergency surgery is not Etho’s idea of a fun time, and he starts digging his heels into the ground a bit, literally.
Ten minutes later Beef has Etho pinned to a table coaching them to breath while Pause helps Doc prep.
Beef is pinning Etho down because everyone knows Etho wants to hit the fucking bricks right now, because hiding in the face of real injuries and problems is his preferred tactic. Etho is not trying to rip Beef’s face off with his teeth because despite the roiling panic in his chest at what they’re about to do, he knows rationally that it has to be done.
“Are we sure anaesthesia’s off the table?” Etho asks again, squirming in Beef’s grip.
“You don’t react well to it.” Doc answers again. “You weren’t under for the installation, were you?”
“No. Local only.”
“The local will take too long.”
Etho attempts to surge upwards off the table and Beef grabs him. Against his better instincts, they do try and bite Beef, and Pause has to grab Etho’s face in both hands to stop them.
“Heyheyhey, it’s okay. It’s okay.” Pause soothes, running a hand through Etho’s hair. “It’ll be quick.”
“Maybe quick to you,” Etho snaps, but any real anger evaporates in the face of Etho’s trembling. Pause’s touch gentles, fingers sweeping over Etho’s cheek.
“We’ve got you. I’ve got you, man.”
Pause pushes Etho’s shoulders back down to the table, and Etho lets him. Etho squeezes his good eye closed and takes in deep breaths to avoid seeing what Doc is doing.
There’s a tugging sensation at his wrists that Etho tries to ignore, but when Pause’s hands (because Etho knows them without seeing them, forcing himself to be as steady as possible to not let his anxiety make Etho’s any worse) are putting something across Etho’s forehead, they snap their eyes back open and find out that they’re being tied down.
Etho immediately bucks, wrists, waist and head held down but he kicks wildly at Pause as Pause is going for his ankles and Beef grabs Etho’s legs one by one to help Pause. Etho is shouting at them, but he’s not entirely sure what he’s saying. Probably things he’ll need to apologize for later. His voice feels like it’s coming from somewhere far away.
A cool hand touches Etho’s cheek and Doc says, “It’s going to hurt. I will do my best to make it easy.”
Someone pushes a thing to bite down on between Etho’s teeth, and that’s all the warning they get.
Doc is correct: it hurts. Etho screams and tries to fight, but his head is being held fast and yanking on the restraints on his limbs isn’t getting him free. Someone is holding one of his hands and Etho is probably crushing their fingers in his grip but he doesn’t care. His vision is fracturing and he’s screaming because it hurts and it needs to stop.
The thing about pain is that it never matters that technically, it has a beginning and an end, because being in pain is to become that agony and become subsumed to it. It’s impossible to look forward past the experience of it and all rules bend and snap in the face of it.
There is no place that Etho ends and the pain begins: the edges blur together until all there can possibly be is MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP, MAKE IT STOP —
Etho’s not aware when it does stop. The fight goes out of him slowly, like blood leaking out a half-clotted wound. Adrenaline and fear fades into a grey haze enveloping his body and mind. The hands on him stop mattering. His good eye rolls back lazily, unfocused, and something soft traces circles on Etho’s skin. He’s not entirely sure where he’s being touched, only that he is, and the distant thought of pushing that touch away floats past and vanishes back into the fog.
All is threadless and dull, and when awareness does return, it comes back like being slapped.
The lights are too bright so Etho closes their eyes. Half their body aches and there’s bandages pressing down his face. There’s a biting sensation in his palms, and as Etho’s fingers twitch and awaken, curling in, his nails fit perfectly against those stinging places. His mouth is dry and his ears don’t seem to flick correctly on command. There’s a reason why, Etho knows that, but what the reason is remains out of reach.
He thinks about opening his eyes but everything feels sluggish. Etho flips over one hand, surprised to find it no longer tied down, and smacks haphazardly at the table.
A grip tightens on his other hand. Oh. Etho had somehow missed that entirely. Warm fingers are soothing his wrist, which really hurts, for another reason that is out there somewhere (somewhere not being in Etho’s head currently).
“Hey.” Pause murmurs.
Why are you whispering, Etho tries to say, but an indecipherable mumble comes out. Etho licks at his lips, trying to wet them.
“Sorry, Doc hit you with a pretty good Weakness in there. Hasn’t worn off yet. Give it a few more minutes.”
“Uhmmmm.” Etho manages.
“I’ll get you water.”
Pause pats his arm and gets up, footsteps moving across the floor. Etho focuses on working out control of his eyelids again and is staring up at the ceiling when Pause comes back.
“Your pupil is so blown out. You look like you’re high as a kite.” Pause snickers, bringing the straw up to Etho’s mouth.
Etho would have a really good comeback if not for the fact that it was taking all of his available and firing neurons to not dribble water everywhere. This was stupid. He was going to get Pause later, over — over something. When they figured out what it was, Etho was gonna get him.
They had no idea they were super thirsty until right now and keeps going until Pause pulls it back, saying, “Okay, okay, if I let you drink until you puke then Beef is gonna kill me.” Pause sets the water aside and sits down at Etho’s side again. “How you doing?”
“Better.” Etho is able to make the word this time. He lifts up his arm to look at his wrist and hand. There are half-moon shaped marks on his palms (yes, matching his own nails) and a bruise forming on his wrist.
Etho did that. They did that to themself. The question is why, which Etho ruminates on until —
“Oh, fuck,” Etho exclaims and reaches for his face. It’s not a graceful maneuver and he sort of smacks himself a bit instead, which makes everything sting and he yelps. Pause grabs for his hand, gentle, and pulls it back.
“Woah, woah, woah. All good. It’s all good. You have a couple fresh redstone burns on your face but nothing that won’t heal up. The motherboard in your cybernetics had overheated and cracked. Doc said everything in your eye socket looked fine, though, we got it quick enough. He said he can build something better if you want to go cyborg again after it heals.”
That’s a lot of words, but the Weakness is wearing off and Etho is doing a lot better parsing them. “No. That’s okay. I think being a cyborg is kind of overrated.”
“Whatever you want. Don’t have to worry about it right now.” Pause gives Etho’s fingers a squeeze and Etho squeezes back.
“Sorry about … y’know.” Etho tells him.
“ You’re saying sorry? You’re fine, I think we’re the people who owe you one.”
“No, no. Had to be done. I know.” Etho gives Pause a weak smile. “I think we’re even.”
“Even it is, then.”