Work Text:
Etho was really starting to regret going on the End expedition with Beef and Doc.
He had been interested when Beef first mentioned traveling to the End to scout out some shulker shells and elytra with Doc. However, Doc’s overt hesitation over any sign of danger as the three of them traveled farther and farther away from the main island gradually replaced his excitement with annoyance, which he expressed through teasing Doc with Beef. The stomach ache that had not only persisted since the night before but seemed bent on worsening wasn’t helping the white-haired hermit’s mood. He had debated calling off the trip, but they had already postponed it several times; he just wanted to get it over with at that point.
“It’s like trying to help a grandma,” Etho poked fun at the creeper hybrid, who was taking baby steps on the bridge he had just built over the void. It earned a laugh from Beef.
“I’m one of the last hermits to not die yet!” Doc reminded for what felt like the fifth time. Etho rolled his eyes in response. His gut cramped again, this time bringing a wave of nausea. He found himself gritting his teeth beneath his mask, resisting the urge to hold his stomach, before resuming his bridge building.
As the trio continued traveling out, Etho found himself contributing to the banter less and less. The ache in his stomach was sapping his energy, which he needed more for building or keeping watch for any aggressive Endermen than teasing Doc. Beef had tossed a quick remark on his change in attitude, but Etho quickly brushed it off as feeling tired. It wasn’t a complete lie, given his restless sleep the night before.
The atmosphere of the End was cool, like the morning of an early spring day, but Etho still felt a sheen of sweat build up on his skin alongside the increasing nausea. He eventually found himself asking Beef to build as his hands began to shake.
“Really not feeling yourself, huh?” Beef commented while taking the role of bridging while Etho stayed back with Doc.
“I may or may not be coming down with something,” Etho admitted, resulting in the already high strung creeper hybrid taking a few steps away from him.
“Great,” Beef huffed with some exaggeration, focusing on building to the nearest island. “If you’re gonna hurl, do it away from me, please.”
When they were in throwing distance of the next island, Beef readied an ender pearl. They tried to use ender pearls whenever they could to save on building material. However, Etho was now dreading the teleport, as doing so always made him a little motion sick on a good day. Beef looked back at the white-haired man.
“You think you’re good to teleport over?” He asked. Etho gave a nod. He didn’t want them using more precious building materials than strictly needed just because he had a stomach ache. The black-haired man hesitated before throwing his pearl, poofing from the bridge and to the island.
Etho dug a pearl from his inventory and prepared to throw it. He took as deep of a breath as he could with the ever persistent pain and threw it. In the blink of an eye, he was pulled to the island. In response, both the nausea and pain in his gut spiked.
His legs became unsteady from the warp and he found himself falling to his hands and knees, one hand quickly pulling down his black mask. The food he had been forcing himself to slowly eat throughout the expedition found itself on the end stone below him. As his stomach fought against him, he felt a calloused hand on one of his shoulders.
“Yeesh, Etho,” Beef remarked from behind him. The sound of a thrown ender pearl hitting the ground filled the air, followed by another pair of steps.
“What’s wrong?” Doc’s voice called out. Etho spit bitter bile from his mouth, pulled his mask back up, and sat up, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. All the while, the cramping in his gut refused to alleviate itself.
Beef didn’t reply to the other’s question at first, instead reaching up and feeling the white-haired man’s clammy forehead with his free hand. Etho heard him hiss.
“Looks like he did catch something,” Beef retorted to the other. It wasn’t hard to catch the concern mixed in his tone. Etho swallowed against the nausea and pain and prepared himself to stand back up. Beef helped him onto shaky legs, one hand moving to hold his aching stomach after all.
“You good?” Doc asked him, head turned downwards to avoid accidentally looking at any of the resident Endermen. Etho, still holding his stomach, gave a shrug in response. Part of him wanted to tell the others that he was fine, to not worry about it, but considering how he just lost his last meal and the fever he had apparently developed, he figured it was a lost cause.
“Maybe we should call it a day,” Beef offered. “Make our way back or try finding a portal back to the main island.”
“Finding a gateway portal might be faster,” Doc said.
“We might find a city while looking for one,” Etho added, much to Beef’s exasperation.
“I think we have some bigger issues than finding a city right now,” Beef said. Etho offered something paralleling a chuckle in response. Beef offered a hand to the ailing man, who hesitantly took it. “C’mon, let’s make our way back to the main island. At least we know where the gateway portal we took from it is located.”
Their city-turned-portal search was much quieter than before; no longer was Doc getting mocked for his overly cautious approach (besides the occasional halfhearted remark from Etho). Complaints over the lack of cities were replaced with ones over how far they had traveled out into the End.
At first, Etho tried to keep up a neutral appearance. He tried to hide his discomfort from the other two, mainly from Doc as to not freak him out more than he already was. However, there came a point where even walking agitated his gut, and he found himself struggling to keep even water down. As his stomach rejected the water, he felt Beef snake an arm around his abdomen to help keep him steady. The innocent gesture was met with a cry from the ill man as the light pressure caused pain to explode throughout his body.
“Sorry,” Beef quickly apologized to Etho, who was now shaking. He helped him to the ground. “I’m sorry, Etho.”
Doc kneeled down beside the shaking man. His once panicked expression from exploring such a dangerous dimension was replaced with one of sternness and a pinch of worry. “Do you feel pain in your stomach?”
Eyes closed, leaning against shaky hands, Etho nodded. He shivered against the cool air on his sweat soaked face.
A pause before Doc continued. “Is it on your right side?” Another nod.
“It’s a really sharp cramping. Here,” he lifted a hand to an area on his lower right gut. Beef supported him with a hand on his back.
“…I think I might know what it is,” Doc said. Etho opened his eyes and met Doc’s. He really didn’t like the apprehension in his voice.
“Well?” Beef asked, impatient.
“His appendix is inflamed,” Doc replied.
A heavy silence fell on the trio, only broken by the distant sound of an Enderman teleporting. Etho felt something drop in his chest. Of course it made perfect sense for why it felt like his gut was trying to break down a piece of red-hot coal. Also made sense that it would be happening in a completely different dimension, given his luck. However, he also knew that it meant unavoidable surgery. He shivered from something other than the fever and pain.
Etho tried to respond, but his brain felt too floaty and overwhelmed, resulting in only a breathy “oh, snap” to leave his mouth. Doc gave a grin in response, quickly followed by an amused huff from Beef.
“Alright,” Beef began, voice steadying. “Let’s get you back to the stronghold. Doc, you and Xisuma built a med center at the spawn island, right?”
Doc nodded. Etho tried to ignore how his heart began to race more than it already was. “I’ll whisper Xisuma to prep a room.”
“Can’t I just respawn?” Etho heard himself asking, voice a little too high. Doc peeked up from typing in his communicator.
“You’d just respawn with the same inflamed appendix, plus the typical complications that come from respawning,” Doc bluntly explained, like it was the most basic thing in the world. Deep down, Etho knew the answer before he asked, but held out hope that maybe he was wrong, that he didn’t have to go under the scalpel.
Beef must’ve heard the panic trying to overtake Etho’s voice, because he felt the butcher’s free hand on his shoulder again.
“Hey,” Beef’s voice was almost unnaturally calm. “You’re gonna be alright. You got the some of the best people around looking out for you.”
Etho briefly wondered if the other included himself in the statement, but didn’t think much about it. Instead, he tried to focus on the hand on his shoulder and taking deep breaths against the nausea and cramps. He wasn’t sure how long they sat there, but eventually Doc spoke up again.
“Xisuma will be waiting for us at spawn,” he announced, standing back up. “Do you want one of us to carry you, Etho? It’ll be faster.”
Typically, Etho would’ve shrugged off the offer. But at that point, he just wanted the pain to stop and to get the inevitable operation over with. He nodded, and Doc volunteered to carry him.
“Better if I carry him given your old bones, Beefy,” Doc teased the other man, who scoffed. A quick laugh escaped Etho, followed by a wince.
With the help of Beef, Etho was positioned on Doc’s back in a piggy back carry. He rested his head on Doc’s shoulder as Beef adjusted Doc’s bag over one of his shoulders. With that, the trio was off, retracing the path and bridges they made beforehand.
Etho continued to focus on steadying his breathing (and trying not to throw up all over Doc). He closed his eyes against the fast walk the hybrid carrying him adopted, Beef leading them ahead with sword in hand in case one of them made eye contact with an Enderman.
It could’ve been a few minutes or a few hours to Etho, but eventually he felt the unmistakable feeling of teleport by gateway portal. He almost felt proud of the fact that he avoided losing the contents of his already empty stomach from the warp. However, whatever pride he had was lost when he leaned to the side to vomit up water and bile after the trio jumped through the bedrock portal and warped back to the stronghold. Doc made a sound he couldn’t quite decipher, but figured it was one of disgust.
The trip became a blur for Etho, eyes closed once more. He tried to focus on Doc and Beef, who occasionally spoke to one another, or just anything he could other than the sharp pain in his gut. At one point, the air around him became arid and hot—the nether—but as soon as it arrived, it vanished in favor of a much more temperate climate. At least travel by nether portal was much more forgiving on his touchy stomach.
He felt himself fall further into a fevered haze. Both Doc and Beef’s voices became muffled. Etho could hardly grasp stimuli around him; it felt as if he were trying to grasp onto water.
He thought he maybe heard a new, soft voice, but he couldn’t register who it was. Etho peeled open his eyes, but could barely make out his surroundings. He let them fall shut again.
-
The first thing Etho noticed was the pain, or lack there of. The horrid sharp cramps in his gut had been replaced with a noticeable but much more manageable ache. He also noted the bed he was now lying on, upper body somewhat elevated. A hand slowly felt the thin sheet below him.
He opened his eyes to a light gray ceiling. The lights were dimmed and a curtain pulled closed to his left, providing some privacy. As he woke up, Etho could still feel the remnants of fever in his bones, but not nearly as bad as before. The nausea had also receded.
Etho’s still floaty mind concluded that he was in the medical center at spawn. He felt his heart begin to speed up at the thought, but relaxed himself. The operation was over with, by the looks of it.
He looked to his right and was met with a figure curled up asleep in a chair beside the head of the bed. He quickly deduced that it was Bdubs, given the white shirt and short brunette hair, who was sleeping in a way that was begging for a crick in his neck. Beef was sat in another chair by the opposite wall, scrolling through his communicator.
Etho noted that his mask was gone, probably removed for the operation, but couldn’t find it in him to care. Both Beef and Bdubs had seen him without his mask before, as did Doc and Xisuma. He cleared his throat, partly to get the man’s attention and partly due to how dry it had become.
Beef looked up, relief washing over his face. He put his communicator away and stood up.
“Hey, man,” Beef greeted Etho. A thread of exhaustion was in his voice. “How are you feeling?”
“Much better,” Etho responded. He felt leagues better, even with the residual pain and fever. He looked around the room from where he laid. “Where’s Doc?”
“He’s resting up in another room,” Beef explained. Both hands were in his pockets. “Xisuma made him get some sleep in an actual bed after they finished up the surgery.”
“Ah,” Etho said. A feeling of guilt leaked into his chest. “Sorry for making you go through that.”
Beef shrugged. “It wasn’t your fault. You can’t really control when your appendix decides to try and pop.” A pause before he added “…maybe we would’ve gotten out of there before it became a problem if we didn’t have Granny Doc with us.”
A soft laugh escaped the bedridden man. Still, he made sure to thank Beef, mentally noting to thank Doc and Xisuma next time he saw them.
As he did, a thought popped into Etho’s mind. On a normal day, he probably wouldn’t have entertained it, yet he found himself asking “…do they still have it?”
“What?” Beef asked.
“The appendix. I wanna see it.”
Beef’s face scrunched up in a look of bewildered amusement. “Uh, no. I’m pretty sure they got rid of it.”
“Darn.” Etho replied with genuine disappointment. Beef let out another amused sound, hand covering his mouth.
It must’ve been loud enough for Bdubs to hear, because the shorter man groaned and blinked his eyes open. Etho turned his head and met the other’s gaze. There was a pause before Bdubs gave a weary smile.
“Well hey there, healthy guy!”
Etho responded with a weak hand shoving the brunette in the face, who followed up with an exasperated “hey!”.
“Should I ask how you found out I was here?” Etho asked.
Bdubs crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, I just happened to be in the shopping district when Doc and Beef came running by with you half conscious.”
Etho hummed. Somewhere, deep down, he figured Bdubs probably would’ve quickly found out even if he wasn’t around at the time, either through Xisuma or Beef.
“So, how long am I stuck here?” Etho asked to no one in particular. Bdubs opened his mouth, but it was Beef who responded.
“A few more days, just to be on the safe side,” he said. “Then bed rest at home.”
“MY home,” Bdubs clarified. Etho lifted a brow, but Bdubs shut him down before he could even open his mouth to respond.
“Oh, you are not recovering in that horror of a base,” Bdubs said. “You don’t even have a roof on it, let alone walls!”
“Since when do I use roofs?” Etho asked, purposefully provoking the master builder. Bdubs took the bait, letting out another loud, exaggerated sigh of partial annoyance. Beef laughed.