Work Text:
Three weeks after finding the spell book..
A splash of dark ink spilled onto the wood of Ethan's desk as he clumsily moved around the cramped space of his study.
"Ok, ok....I've got two level eight green scrolls...Shit, I need three..," he muttered thoughtlessly to himself, his brain muddled as if he was trying to read ten books at the same time, all of which were from separate genres. He glanced over to where the rotten spell book was sitting on the corner of his desk, practically glaring at him. This book was the one thing he needed, it's everything he's been looking for his entire life but...now what? What exactly was he supposed to do with it?
He felt like he'd completed a quest with no real reward at the end. Pain with no relief. A side character in his own story. He had his book and his scrolls and possibly everything he needed to rid himself of the sculk so what was the point? He didn't see much of his friends anymore, though it was him who chose not to go and see them. He just had so much to do. Ashlyn was busy with Sheldon a lot of the time and the most he got was a short letter every now and again.
Dear Ethan,
I finally got Sheldon's new enclosure built! It actually keeps him well..enclosed this time. With Desca's help of course, you know I don't mess with red stone but I wanted automatic doors and she said she knew how to help. The tavern is doing okay, as well. Hope everything is good in Grimwyck considering the amount of time you're spending there. When will you come and meet us again? Me and Desca and Eli and the rest. As cheesy as it is to say it, we miss you.
You have your spell book, and if anything bad was going to happen then it would have already happened. Its been weeks. You have no excuse to keep staying locked up in your house all the time. I mean it. I will come to Grimwyck if it means getting you out of there. Come and visit us, dipshit.
Love, Ashe.
That was the letter he'd found last week in the collapsed mail box next to the greenhouse, He'd responded with a short note, spewing some nonsense trying to reassure her that he was taking care of himself and that he was just busy. It was bullshit and he knew it. Ashlyn probably did too. He was in exactly the same state he'd been in before he found his book. Truthfully, Ethan didn't want to see anyone after their last adventure because he was overwhelmed with embarrassment. He had allowed his friends to get involved in something that could've gotten any one of them severely injured or worse. Even Taylor and Andy, though he wouldn't really call either of them his friends. He had allowed himself to accept help from the people closest to him and he never wanted to rely on them again.
So he withdrew. He tried to make himself seem invisible with the logic that if he didn't exist then neither did the stress of figuring out how to deal with the sculk or the constant fear his friends had for his health. The sculk consumed his life. It was feeding into the very magic that his family had been using for centuries and making him stronger, more powerful. His body was just the host and it was being taken over slowly, bit by bit. It rotted his skin and festered in his veins, creeping, lurking, waiting...Until he finally gave himself over. He wasn't at that point yet. Ethan was nothing if not stubborn. He was putting on a brave face, trying desperately to convince himself that everything would be okay.
But still, he was scared. He really was. He often spent his nights tossing and turning, uncomfortable no matter which way he lay and never able to fall into the peaceful break from life that sleep used to be. Though maybe it wasn't the bed's fault and more that he was no longer comfortable in his own skin. He no longer felt like himself. He often woke drenched in sweat, breathing hard as the panic hit like a dagger in his chest. For that split second, his mind would trick him into thinking everything that happened was an illusion. That he'd imagined it. A night terror. But then he blinked a few times and the blue-green tendrils snaking around his bedframe came into focus.
One night he had even cried in his sleep. The tear tracks felt as though they'd been seared into his skin, much like the 'disease' that was now visibly crawling up the side of his neck. The twisted sculk that appeared like tangled veins just below the surface. Just like that nightmare replayed in his head like a horror movie that could never be turned off. The moment Andy had walked into his greenhouse and saw the sculk pouring from his fingertips, seeping into the very ground Ethan stood on. The fear in their eyes, the betrayal...Sometimes he thought he'd felt it, deep inside. Like a thread being cut. Any chance he had with Andy was gone. Just like that, it meant nothing. He may as well just forget every genuine moment they'd shared together because he would never experience it again. It was a whole different kind of yearning. The adventure they went on when it was just the two of them, the food deliveries, the goat horns...
"I will kill you, Ethan..."
Their voice echoed through his very being, it plagued his mind by day and by night.
Sometimes, he wished they would. Sometimes, he hoped there was enough anger and hatred and fear consuming them that Andy would make true of their word. He imagined them going back to Giredale and telling his secret to anyone that was willing to listen, sharing something that wasn't theirs to share. But they didn't. They told who they thought needed to know and after a while, Ethan stopped being so damn angry. After all, he didn't have the right to feel betrayed, not really. What would he have done if he was in their situation? He likes to think he would have stayed and tried to help them rather than threatening bodily harm but all to their own he guessed.. At least if Andy had gone and exposed him to every resident in town then it would have given Ethan a real reason to hate them. A feeling that was definitely hatred instead of this mind numbing back and forth. A pendulum that never lost momentum, until now.
He often tried to relive the adventure that just him and Andy had gone on before it all happened. The calm before the raging storm.
"They're not so bad, I think that we could be friends...eventually."
So. Fucking. Naïve. Good things didn't present themselves to people like Ethan and he should have known. He should've never even entertained it in the first place. And sometimes he couldn't help but wonder what might've happened if not for the sculk. If not for these fuckass circumstances. Oh, what could've been...
It was better this way, he decided after a while, after the screaming and the crying and the physical ache that lingered in his chest. It was better to stay away. To isolate himself. He'd managed to do it for the weeks that he spent locked in with the sculk and he could do it again. Until hopefully everyone forgot about him and his 'situation'.
The sun was beginning to set outside the stained glass window, reflecting a myriad of colours all around his study. The sky was becoming that familiar dusty orange and the sun shone that tiniest bit brighter, bathing the ground in golden light before it dipped below the horizon. Ethan enjoyed watching the sun set. He would sit at his desk, chin resting on his palm and probably drinking some kind of herbal tea. It was one of the few times where he could simply sit back and watch, something he didn't usually do. The view from his study window at golden hour was the exception.
He'd been working up here for hours, joints aching and popping as he moved around. He kept nervously cracking his knuckles and wincing when he tried to crack them again before they'd reset. His study had quickly become muddled, from neatly stacked books in alphabetical order to various scrolls and quills and half used inkwells scattered around him. Some items had even taken residence on the floor now to the point where he was tripping and stumbling at every turn. Surprisingly, he hadn't toppled into one of the many bookcases while pacing around endlessly yet. Hours passed like seconds, the days melting into one another.
This room was the one place that really felt like home. Surrounded by everything he had collected over the years. There was an array of framed butterflies displayed on the wall to his right. Of course, he had found them already dead, laying in the soft grass beyond the greenhouse. They were too beautiful to be left there, he had thought. Old tea mugs sat on every surface possible and stayed there until he ran out of clean ones. They were also the reason for the small, lightly coloured rings that stained his desk around the edges. If anything, he liked the look of them. It reminded him of all the long hours he had spent in there, working himself to the bone instead of sleeping like he should while hot drinks turned cold. It the made the space feel used, familiar.
Dozens of different species of plants grew all throughout the small room. Winding around his window handles, inside and out, up the walls and onto the roof. They would dangle from the ceiling in a jumble of tangled vines and blossoms. Ethan loved every kind of plant and on the lonelier days, would spend his time talking to them. Simple, mundane thing like whether he was going to make green beans or cabbage with his dinner or which wines you should have with certain kinds of fish. He felt like a proud dad when one of them grew a new leaf or began to flower and that really summed up the kind of person that he was.
To his left there were dark oak bookcases, heavy and with thick planks for each shelf. The sort of books that he owned were often centuries old and extremely heavy to the point where they would snap the shelves of any regular bookcase. Old, unorganised scrolls were stacked in every empty corner too. What was the point in tidying them away since he referred to them so much? Why tidy something away if there is a chance you may need it someday? If you've gotten so used to having it near you that putting it away would just make your life harder?
"Where am I going to get another level eight scroll? I bet Andy has one in their collection of fucking green scrolls that they think can be held over my head. I can't go exploring on my own to find another one either...for fucksake.."
Instead, he opted to research a different page of his spell book, poring over pages and pages of miniscule text in massive leather bound books bigger than his torso until he couldn't see the words anymore. He got up to light a few of the many oil lamps strewn about his room as the natural light faded. The flame burst and crackled as he struck a match, the glow illuminating his harsh features for a split second as he brought it to the wick, catching quickly. He had barely lit the lamp when a pounding rattled the front door.
The panic ran through him instantly, similar to an electric shock. From his head all the way down to his toes and into the bulky brown boots he wore. Except it stayed there, weighing his feet down as he turned his head towards the interrupting noise. It took a moment for him to remember that anyone who knew where he lived already knew and there was no need to hide it anymore. He climbed down the ladder with no real sense of urgency and he heard the door go again.
"Give me two fucking minutes!" He yelled, already irritated.
Hurried footsteps and eight metal latches later, he pulled the door open. He'd always thought they were for peace of mind, but right now they felt like a slow-motion countdown. He leant slightly against the doorframe, expecting whoever was on the other side to gently open it. Unfortunately, he was wrong. One second he was undoing latches and the next, the door was swung in his face, only missing the tip of his nose by a few centimetres. Pale blonde and dark hair swept past his face as Ashlyn and Taylor all but shoved their way into his house.
Ethan stood there for a second, hand still on the door handle before he pushed it closed and turned to face his two friends. One looked like she was on the verge of a nervous breakdown and the other looked very prepared to throw hands, or something sharper, coming from the handheld dagger that was very visibly strapped to their belt.
"Hello to you too?" His tone was brittle, a poor disguise to the tightening in his chest.
"Ethan?" Ashlyn's voice was low, like she was bracing for the words she would say next.
"Yeah?"
The pause was heavy enough to press against his ribs.
"Something terrible has happened..."
...
"You told us it wasn't contagious." Ashe had been staring at her shoes until now. She looked up to meet his eyes and Ethan's heart began to beat an irregular rhythm in his chest. His vision went blurry and all he could hear was blood rushing in his ears. The same dizzy heat he'd felt when he first saw sculk leach onto the ground by the cause of his own hands. His skin began to burn and he couldn't get enough air. He swallowed thickly.
"What do you mean?" He right hand twitched, a childhood tic, and Taylor's eyes caught the movement.
"You heard me. Ethan, you told us it wasn't contagious. That it wouldn't effect anyone else. What are we going to do?" She began nervously pacing in front of him, two steps this way and then two steps the in the other. Taylor stood with their arms crossed, a deep frown marring their usually relaxed expression. Ethan didn't think he had ever seen them look so serious. His eyes flicked back to Ashlyn, watching her stumble back and forth until it made his head spin and he finally raised the question,
"What the fuck are you talking about?" His eyebrows drew downwards in confusion.. He really hoped that Ashlyn wasn't saying what he thought she was saying. If she was...
"You, you fuckin' asshole, told us that your little 'problem' wouldn't spread to anyone else. We were only so enthusiastic about getting the others to help because you swore it wouldn't put anyone in danger. We trusted you and you lied to us!" Taylor spat out the last sentence with pure malice, their features tight with resentment.
Ethan stuttered.
"I-I don't....what are you..?" His words caught in his throat. "I never told you-"
"Yes, the fuck you did! Now is not the time to play dumb, Ethan. Do you even understand what you've done!?" Taylor's voice was getting louder and louder as they spoke, notably keeping their distance.
A tense silence filled the room as Ethan let out a shuddering breath, trying hard to make sense of this. His heart picked up speed.
"I don't know why we ever trusted you." Taylor said calmly now.
"I haven't got a clue what you're talking about! Can someone just bloody tell me what-"
"Andy's infected, Ethan! Andy's infected and its because of you."
...
"What do you mean they're infected? Did they tell you? Did you see them? Did you see it?"
Ethan was rushing around his greenhouse, switching out his bulky boots for more light weight ones and struggling rather comically, balancing on one leg and stumbling around.
"Ethan, I don't think it's a good idea to go and see them right now," Ashe said gently.
Taylor had gone back to brooding and was sitting cross legged on the ground, as far away from Ethan as possible. Andy was right, they were thinking. Andy had said from the start that they had a bad feeling about Ethan and they couldn't have been more right. There were so many signs. Taylor was betting on the fact that Ethan had somehow purposefully infected them, for some sick reason or for his own personal gain. Bile rose in their throat at the thought of all the good adventures they'd had together, Ethan and Taylor, all the playful bickering and all the times them and Andy had pranked the stinky fish man. When they'd replaced all the fish in his boat with plastic ones or when they'd thrown emu eggs at the front of his house and he came out yelling like an old man telling kids to get off his lawn. Taylor couldn't deny they enjoyed his company. Used to, anyway. Now, they were trying and failing to not take interest in the tiny plane figurines that were arranged on the cabinet next to them. Ethan could hear them muttering to themself but he paid no mind.
He shrugged his shoulders, "It doesn't matter if they hate me for the rest of the time I spend on this planet, I need to see how bad this is."
"I fear that may already be the case.."
Ethan shot her glare but straightened up. "Maybe, but the stubborn bastard doesn't even believe in magic. You could cast a spell right in front of their eyes and they'd still tell you it was just a trick of the light! They don't have the resources to help themself so I'll do it."
"You mean like how they helped you?"
Ethan decided not to dignify that with a response, though he knew she was right. It was understandable that Andy was freaked out by it at first, and that they still kind of are. But they were under different circumstances now. Ethan didn't know everything about the sculk, no one did, but he knew so much more than he did back then. It was like he had to prove himself to them. He was the most likely person to have the tools which could help them and he physically couldn't bring himself to let them suffer in silence, stowed away in their cabin.
After all, he was the one who dragged them into this in the first place. Unsurprisingly, he was willing to give up any chance he had of ever having Andy to himself if it meant saving them. They weren't made for the world of magic, he could admit that despite the fact that he criticised them for not believing. Perhaps it was just their own way of protecting themself. They didn't deserve this, no matter how much of a delusional prick Ethan thought they were.
And helping them would destroy him, he knew that.
It was his conscience that kept him from climbing back up to his study and slamming the door shut behind him. Lulling himself into a false sense of security for the past three weeks had been cowardly of him, he realised in that moment. People had been hurt and his friends needed him. But what had he done? He'd spent weeks in the top of his greenhouse, as if the world had something against him specifically, as if bad things didn't happen to everyone. He refused to continue being a coward.
"What could they have really done if they'd tried to cure me once they found out? Maybe they could've commissioned me a new wooden desk for my sculk research or something but that's about it," he quipped. Then with a more genuine tone, he muttered, "I appreciate you, Ashe, I really do, but I have to at least go and check on them. This is my fault and I won't let Andy suffer because of my bad decisions."
Ashlyn looked apprehensive to give on that easily. Andy had told her they didn't want to see Ethan's 'dirty, lying face' but she chose not to let Ethan know that. Nothing would change his mind, and so she had two options: Go with him to offer any help she could and go against what Andy asked of her or continue to waste her time trying to convince Ethan to stay and fail to fulfil Andy's wishes anyway. Well, this was easy.
She had her boots back on in only a few seconds, just as Taylor finally decided to get up from their spot on the ground.
"I'm gonna stay back for this one. I don't really want to see whatever angsty outburst this us going to cause but that's besides the point. I know where I'm wanted and I doubt Andy wants anyone to see them like this, knowing how independent they are. Also, I'm meeting Eli in a quarter of an hour to help him repair one of his new plane models after he totalled it again." They sighed.
With complete disregard to Ethan who was standing right next to Ashlyn, they looked at her and nodded, "I'll meet you later?"
"Yeah, of course, Taylor." She agreed easily.
Ethan felt there might be more behind that interaction. Taylor was practically best friends with Andy, why wouldn't they want to come and help? It created this new itch in his brain but he decided not to pry.
...
"This is such a stupid thing to do."
"Most of the things I do are stupid, Ashlyn, you've been enough adventures with me to know that"
"Unfortunately, I have"
There was a tense silence for a few seconds, something neither of them were used to when with each other. Usually, conversation came easily but now...
"You know this won't end well, right?"
Ethan winced, "I know."
At those words, he spotted Lily waddling around the tomato patch and he knelt down to say hello. Ashe slyly plucked a tomato off a vine and munched on it, taking a seat on a moss covered rock a few feet away.
"You've been working really hard while I've been inside all day, haven't you? It's been so long since we've had tomatoes this nice.." He continued yapping away to the little frog wearing a sunhat while she listened intently. Whether she understood him properly or not had yet to be determined but she paid attention regardless. Lily liked the soft tone of his voice as he spoke and she looked forward to the times when Ethan would come out and sit on the ground next to the vegetable garden just to chat with her while she worked. Those moments were less frequent now which only made it all the more special. She beamed at him as he reluctantly stood and glanced at Ashlyn, letting her know he was ready to go. With one final pat on the head from both Ashe and Ethan, they left.
...
They used his way stone to get to Giredale, it would've taken them a few hours if they had gone by foot and they just didn't have that time. Ethan told Ashe about the way stone he'd built in a small clearing behind Andy's cabin but she made the point that it could have spread further from the cabin since she was last there and it was best not to spawn directly into that. He didn't know what she meant by 'spread further from the cabin'. Had it already taken over their house or more? When he'd first found out they were infected, he had pictured Andy with sculk marring the skin of their fingertips, like what had happened to him when it first happened. How long had they been like this?
The thought only surged him on as they arrived in Giredale's town centre, though it was oddly desolate for a Thursday morning.. Usually, the majority of the market stalls would be open by now and the smell of street food would be wafting through the air, but it was quiet save for a few golems trundling around and a gaggle of chorts reeking havoc as usual. A gust of wind blew past them, ruffling Ethan's already messy hair and tugging at the pretty white bow Ashe wore. It interrupted a pile of copper leaves sitting beneath an oak tree, scattering them across the uneven cobblestone pathway.
"Which way was the carpenter's cabin, again?" Ashlyn asked, turning to Ethan who was still slightly dizzy after using the way stone for the first time in a while. He didn't hear her the first time,
"Ethan?"
"Hm? Did you say something?" He mumbled distractedly.
Ashe frowned. "Yeah, which way to the carpenter's cabin?"
"Oh, it's across the bridge. Come on."
The walk through the forest was surprisingly peaceful, for Ethan at least. He had experienced so much emotional pain in his life that he had figured out how to desensitize at times like these. Only for a few minutes. His mind went sort of fuzzy and he could only focus on the constant sounds around him, like the crunch of leaves beneath his boots and the steady rhythm of his heart. He had no idea what he was walking into, he could only hope it wasn't as bad as the vision his brain had already conjured up..
The Universe was on route, too. They both waved as they walked past, snapping out of their thoughts for a moment to nod their heads in greeting. The familiar white bark of spindly birch trees quickly dwindled and faded to the dark chocolate brown of spruce as they went deeper and deeper. Ashe had only just noticed the unsettling lack of birdsong and a shiver ran through her. What she hadn't noticed yet was that Ethan had stopped a few feet behind her and staring at something off to the left. She followed his gaze and-
Her gasp of pure horror could be heard by every tree.
"Oh my fucking god.."