Work Text:
Etho
Let’s see how far we’ve come…
Etho sat atop a recently repaired metal roof in the Depths, gazing upward.
Bedrock had been…a lot of hellish memories. Things buried in mangled teenage years he didn’t think he’d ever properly sorted out.
And now?
Well.
Add one more thing to the pile.
“I dunno…where you fell.” Etho said, his tone almost conversational.
Almost like it had been 23 years ago sitting near this same spot, albeit on a different rooftop. This one having been replaced, having been upgraded, as so much in the under-city was getting fixed.
Being lifted.
Toward a high road?
He exhaled a soft, almost bemused huff through his nose and picked at the fur around one of his pawpads a little bit, straightening the white fluff.
“But I know you did. Even if I spent awhile trying to convince myself otherwise.”
He lifted his gaze, half-seeing, up.
Into the haze, the weight of the city above, the plunge of the foundational towers in their rush to slam up into the bedrock ceiling, like claws scratching at the lid to some forbidden box.
Never to be opened.
But we’ve got the cracks.
“I think I get it now. Why you were fighting so hard. Why you were so cagey…I can’t decide if I should feel bad or not, for not figuring it out sooner. Then again, it’s not like you made it easy. Kept everything to yourself…way to tough for your own good.”
He pulled his legs in, criss-crossing them, and his fox tail beat iself back and forth almost lazily.
His ears swiveled, seeking any motion behind him, always on guard even as he continued his musings.
“I don’t think I should tell the kids. I don’t think I can even really explain it to Doc…though I’m sure you’d tell me I ought too. Say something rude like ‘Y’know, he’s your smarter half, maybe use him’.”
And it must’ve been weird, that he could hear that voice so clearly over two decades on.
He flexed his pawlike hands once, then planted them down against the fresh metal roof and stood. His back protested, his body creaked with an age he didn’t think he’d reach.
A smile pulled up onto his face as he straightened to his full height, which wasn’t tall, no, not at all.
But this little frame had borne the weight of a future.
He was starting to dare to think maybe, just maybe, he’d handled it pretty well.