Work Text:
Bdubs was building a few small rocks and some bigger boulders while contemplating adding a tree to a corner of his area when the pop of fireworks overhead broke his focus. Glancing up, he smiled at a familiar tuft of white hair belonging to his best friend, Etho, who appeared to be taking the scenic route back to his base.
Spotting him, Etho angled his flight path downwards to swoop smoothly down in front of Bdubs but managed to catch his boot on a protruding pebble, stumbling awkwardly and nearly colliding with the shorter man.
“Heeey Bdubs!” Etho said cheerly, leaning casually against the rock like he’d meant to do that. Yeah right.
“DON’T YOU ‘HEY BDUBS’ ME! YOU COULD- COULDA FLATTEND ME ETHO!” Bdubs yelled, full of anger that he didn’t actually feel.
“Would have had a hard time with that,” Etho said, obviously grinning behind that mask of his, “Probably would’ve gone right over your head.”
Bdubs narrowed his eyes at the thinly veiled short joke, then noticed several specks of brightly colored paper in varying shades of eyesore, standing out sharply against Etho’s snowy white-gray hair. Short joke aside, (He’ll get his revenge later) Bdubs couldn't deny his curiosity about their origins, “What happened to you? Did you win somethin’? In the wrong place at the wrong time? Run afoul of, um, one of Scar’s Party Poppers?”
They both winced. The Party Poppers had become somewhat infamous around Hermitcraft after Scar imported a giant box from off-server a bit back. They were loud, colorful, and honestly terrifying due to the similarity of the sound to that of a creeper or TNT explosion. Scar always seemed to have at least one on him, much to the dismay of the other Hermits who would find themselves with ringing ears and a sea of colored paper scraps littering the immediate area at the slightest provocation.
“You’d think those would sound like fireworks…” Etho muttered, “but no, it wasn’t any of that, see, Gem and Grian decided to throw me a surprise birthday party. Again.” He plucked a scrap of confetti out of his hair and sighed fondly. “You were close with the Poppers though, They- they had so many of those Bdubs! So much flying paper.”
Bdubs burst out laughing, “THEY THREW- AGAIN!? What’s this now, tenth time?”
Etho laughed along with him, “It- it’s not a bad thing, I appreciate the thought they put into it, even though it’s a little embarrassing when they’re wrong about my birthday yet again. It’s nice that they care.”
Etho blinked, seeming to consider something, “I suppose I should tell someone eventually.”
Bdubs shrugged, “You don’t hafta do anythin’ you don’t want to. And if they're makin’ you uncomfortable, then, um, you could just say so. They’d stop I-I think.” He went back to his building, working as he talked.
Next to him, Etho nodded, “Yeah, I know, It’s not like my birthday’s a secret or anything, it's just fun being a little mysterious. Keeps people guessing. I don’t really mind. It’s not like they’re ever going to get it right anyways.”
“Really,” Bdubs said, “You’d better not tell them that it’s some sorta made-up day like- like, um… Neverember Seven- Seventyleventh.”
Etho shifted, standing a little straighter, “Well I wouldn’t say that, they’d see right through it. I’d come up with something much more clever of course.”
“Right, right. Of course,” Bdubs rolled his eyes and added another small rock to the base of his creation.
“You’re actually not that far off though,” Etho continued, taking a step back smoothly, out of Bdubs’ space, “it’s a bit of an interesting story actually, see it all started when-” he cut himself off, then went on, settling smoothly into what Bdubs had nicknamed his “storyteller” voice.
“You see, a long, long time ago, the Universe had a different calendar system, and um, it only had ten months on it with a whole buncha extra days. Then at some point, some update comes along and the whole system changes all of a sudden, just like that, and now there’s twelve months and all the days are in different places, um, it’s pretty different, there's like, a ‘leap day’ sometimes and everything.”
Etho hopped onto the half finished rock and leapt off, gliding with his elytra for a few paces, then climbed a tree stump and did the same thing, going around Bdubs as he spoke. “So, because of the new- new calendar system, everyone’s birthdays needed to get, um, updated to fit the new calendar. Aha. Anyways, that went just fine for most people, and if you can find some really old Players, their stats’ll have a little note thingy in brackets, saying what their original birthday used to be before the calendar change. But, ah, I say most people, because when the whole update thing happened, I guess I was sort of… forgotten? I didn’t notice for a while, but I guess my birthday never got updated right, and it was on one of the days that doesn’t exist anymore, so, you see… yeah. There's no way Gem and Grian are going to guess it.”
“How does the Universe remember to update your age?” Bdubs asked offhandedly, as he stepped back to inspect his boulder. Maybe if he added a bit more on the right…
“It doesn't, I don't think. I checked my stats recently because of- because of all the sudden curiosity about my birthday, and, um, I’m pretty sure my age hasn’t updated at all for the past several hundred years.” Etho said, words starting to run into each other, “It’s not a problem, though, I could get it fixed if I wanted to, I bet, but I don’t mind, really. I think it means I’m immortal, more or less, because I don’t age anymore and with respawns and all in place, it’s not like normal dying is an issue. And bonus! I never have to worry about old age, because I don’t, um, get older, that is.” He sat down on the edge of the rock and stared very intently at a clump of grass in a way Bdubs had come to recognise as slightly embarrassed.
Bdubs considered his own extended lifespan, coming from his close relationship with Time itself, and briefly wondered why he’d never guessed that Etho had something weird going on with his age. Seriously, though, he looked almost exactly the same age as he’d been the day Bdubs had met him…
It had been a long time hadn’t it. A really long time. Bdubs briefly parsed through his memories of years of shenanigans, creating, learning, the years in between where they wouldn’t see each other, but still keep tabs on the other from a distance, meeting new friends, and watching others move away, or, well, On.
He really should have put the pieces together a long time ago. “And you nev- never told anyone?” He pretended to be hurt by the revelation, “Not even me, Etho?”
“It… Never came up?” Etho said, fidgeting with a twig off of one of the trees. Better not’ve messed up my foliage, I worked hard on that.
“Never, not in all- all these years?” Bdubs challenged, even though he knew the answer.
Etho hummed a fairly-neutral hum, but tipping towards affirmative. Bdubs understood.
Bdubs worked in silence for a moment, placing the same blocks again and again in slightly different combinations. It was a familiar sort of silence, each content to just be in the other’s presence.
After a minute, Etho leaned back, tipping his head up to study the sky, “maybe don’t tell anyone what I just told you? I kind of want to see how long this goes on, and I don’t really want everyone to know. Especially ‘cause I’m a little worried one of them might want me to report the glitch. Maybe it’s weird, but I like not having to worry about how much time I have left. It’s peaceful, sort of, knowing that I don’t have a limit on how much of the Universe I’ll get to see, because I have as much time as I could need, plus a little to spare. The worlds are beautiful, and I want to do everything I can, Bdubs, I want to see the whole Universe if I get the chance.”
Bdubs nodded, taking in the gravity of Etho’s words, then shunting it aside in favor of the question he was just dying to ask: “So when’s your actual birthday?”
Etho’s cheeks reddened slightly where they peeked out over the top of his mask, “Can’t tell you that, you know too much already!”
“More like you forgot,” Bdubs teased, flicking an errant pebble in his direction. (Etho dodged it perfectly, of course.)
“Me? Nonono, I remember perfectly,” Etho was definitely grinning that cheeky little grin of his, the way his eyes crinkled betrayed him, “And anyway, I could check at any time, I have the answer right here after all.” He pulled out his communicator, waved it in Bdubs’ direction, then tucked it back away.
Bdubs tapped his foot in a thoughtful sort of way, “So I could ask Xisuma…”
“Aww, that’s cheating! Besides, I doubt that X would tell you, he doesn’t just go snooping around people’s code. He actually might value my privacy even more than I do, which, hmm...”
“You’ve always gotta be the mysterious one, so secret and special,” Bdubs grumbled good-naturedly.
“Nah, not like that, I jus’ think it’s more fun when people don’t know everything, like if Gem and Grian knew when my birthday was, or, well, when it isn’t, then they wouldn’t waste so much time throwing me parties.” Etho chuckled and a scrap of vibrant pink confetti dislodged itself from his hair and floated to the ground, where it stood out awkwardly amongst the precisely placed grasses. He picked it up and stuffed it in a pocket. “I should probably get this stuff out of my hair.”
“Yeah,” Bdubs sighed, “and I have a rock to finish.”
Etho stood, pulling a rocket out of one of his pockets in the same motion, “Nice seeing you though, you’ll visit me soon right?”
“Yeah of course!” Bdubs replied as they walked towards the edge of the forest, “or you’ll visit me. Randomly while I’m tryin’ to build in peace.”
Etho laughed and hopped up onto a tree stump for height, “Mhmm! Bye Bdubs!” With a pop of his rocket, he was off, leaving behind a light dusting of loose confetti.
Bdubs watched Etho’s form arc away and recede to a speck in the distance, gracefully soaring over the lake and off to his own corner of the server. Stupid Etho, distracting me from getting work done yet again, he thought affectionately. How dare he do this all the time! …not that I actually mind, it’s nice when he visits.
Bdubs shrugged, brushed some of the dirt off his sleeves, and studied his boulder. It was coming along, but a few adjustments were in order. He probably wouldn’t get it done today, the sun was already starting to set- almost schreeping time! He never did answer my question over when his birthday was.
Maybe he never will.
Maybe it doesn’t matter.