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Nothing was normal with Joel this season, no matter how hard he tried to prove players otherwise.
Him and Etho got into a pointless argument. Etho called him out on his facade which left the man quite annoyed. The two hadn’t talked since, and that was a week ago.
It wasn’t even that bad of an argument. Joel was pointing out how unnatural Etho’s base was, and how it needed to feel more “normal”. Etho had argued that it was his base and he could do whatever he wanted and Joel couldn’t force him to go with his stupid Mad Hatter theme.
He’d expected Joel to simply go back to bother him. To get over their pointless, petty squabble and go back to their usual dynamic.
Not straight up knock him unconscious and kidnap him.
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Etho’s eyes flickered open. His head was stinging with pain. His whole body felt sore and his eyes were heavy.
He tried to bring his hands up to rub them, but his arms refused to room. He tugged again yet they remained still. Frowning, he glanced down to see his arms were wrapped with a rope, holding his to a simple wooden chair.
So was his chest. And his legs. Etho was stuck, tied up on a chair in a dark room.
Now much more awake, Etho scanned the area he was in. It reminded him of a large shed, yet he was surrounded by six large vials of…some form of liquid. There was a sphere bobbing in all of them, but after seeing blood leaking from them Etho decided not to look.
Also, his mask was gone for the first time in ages which was definitely a shock. He bit his lip, his sharp teeth piercing and causing blood.
Footsteps. Coming from somewhere above him. There was a railing that wrapped around the room.
“Hello?” He called out. “Who’s there?”
The light suddenly all turned on. The walls were pink and orange, laced with black and grey stripes. Standing on the railings was an average height, brunette man, wearing a white suit, and a mix of blue sleeves with stripes, the other pink with checkers and a comically large hat.
“Hi, Etho!” Joel flashed a toothy smile at him.
“Joel!” He called out. “What’s going on? Did you kidnap me?”i
"Why are you so mad? Do you know how hard it was to bring you here?" Joel complained.
Etho rolled his eyes. "I'm guessing it was really hard? So tricky to escort me like a princess across the server?"
"Yes-don't be sarcastic!" The brunette crossed his arms, Etho letting out a sigh. "You're such a downer."
Joel tapped his foot on the floor for a moment before jumping off the railing. His elytra let him glide over to Etho, landing neatly on the floor in front of him.
“Joel, where am I?” He asked. “And why did you kidnap me?”
Joel walked the rest of the distance to Etho. His face looked like it was in a permanent smirk. “You’re in a very secret place. If you do manage to escape, please do not tell anyone about this.”
“Okay…and why am I here?”
Scratch what he said. Joel’s face dropped into an annoyed frown. “Because you’re not being normal enough. Because everything is fine!”
The smile returned, fast as it had vanished. “And I want to prove to you that everything is normal, everything is fine, and everything is okay!" Joel leaned down, resting an arm on the back of Etho's chair. "And what better way to show you than bring you to my base?"
Etho leaned back (as much as he could in the chair) trying to avoid Joel’s creepy face. “I’m sorry, what?”
“What?” Joel’s face started to look maniac, tilting his head to the left. “What?! It’s easy! I just want to show you how normal and fine and SPLENDID everything is!”
Joel grabbed the chair, spinning it around on the stone floor. There was a large vial shaped like a cauldron in the centre of the room.
“I don’t have time to go along with this, Joel, I’ve got builds I need to work on.”
“So do I! But it’s fine, everything’s fine, Etho! It’s normal, everything’s normal!” He walked behind Etho’s chair, humming quietly to himself.
“Void-are you possessed?! What the actual Hell is wrong with you this season?”
“Nothing’s wrong, Etho!” Joel’s hands wrapped around Etho’s cheeks. “You just need to see that everything. Is. Fine.”
His fingers grabbed Etho‘s eyelids, prying them open forcibly. Etho screamed, shaking his whole body to try and loosen Joel’s grip to no avail.
The large circular pot began to glow. Something was brewing inside of it. Then, a large crackle filled his ears before a huge rainbow erupted from it.
The rainbow’s colours began to flash. They made Etho’s head throb, electric lights and multicoloured flashing in his vision. He cried out as Joel’s fingers gripped tighter.
His vision swayed. It was too much, all the colours, the vibrancy, the lights, he already felt sick. His eyes watered with pain.
Thankfully, Joel eventually let go after who knows how long. Etho’s face began to become wetter as the brunette walked back into his vision, the rainbow colours still swirling flashing behind him.
“Twelve seconds.” Joel leaned forward, but this time it was almost relieving as it blocked most of the colours. “That’s pathetic! I can stare at it for at least twenty minutes.”
How is he not blind? Etho struggled against the rope, the fibres digging into his skin and leaving a burning sensation against his skin. Joel’s hands covered Etho’s mouth, which Etho retaliated and tried to bite him. It was stupid, an impulse done out of sheer panic.
Joel’s hands pulled back, a hiss escaping his mouth. His eyes widened, then narrowed. Etho realised he might’ve messed up.
The two stared at each other in dead silence, Etho in fear and Joel in an unreadable expression. Void, Etho never though he’d be scared of Joel.
The brunette slowly moved in front of Etho again. Etho pushed (or at least tried to) himself upwards.
A flash of silver, then a knife was at his throat faster than he could blink. Etho’s breath hitched as it pressed closer to his neck.
Joel tilted his head again. His mouth was a thin line, showing neither happiness, nor sadness, nor anger.
“Hurt me, and I hurt you.”
Etho nodded as best as he could. Joel shook his head and pulled the knife away, but didn’t pull it back into his inventory. Instead, Joel decided to clamber into Etho’s lap, still holding the knife and gently tracing Etho’s left arm.
“See? Everything’s fine! I don’t hurt you, you don’t hurt me, and eventually you’ll learn everything is okay!”
Etho pushed his legs up. Joel sighed and stood up, but he did not move away. Instead, his hand traced Etho’s jaws, before caressing his head in his palm.
“You really should wear your mask less.” He stated. “You do look good without it.”
Etho felt so uncomfortable. The touch, the looks, the words, everything was just wrong.
“I prefer to keep it on.”
“Why, cause of the teeth or the scars?” Joel used his other hand to trace the marks around Etho’s lips.
“That’s private information.”
Joel sighed. “Ah, the ever mysterious Etho! Y’know, I missed seeing your face since Double Life. Been a while, hmm? It’s really pretty. You’re pretty, Etho.”
The brunette leaned in and pressed an unwanted kiss to Etho’s lips. There was nothing he could do to stop it. He doesn’t reciprocate the kiss, instead trying to pull back.
Joel pressed forward, but Etho fought until the other man pulled away.
“Dude, you’re married to Lizzie.”
“Okay, first of all,” Joel walked behind Etho’s chair again, playing with his hair. “We have an open relationship, as long as we agree on the person, and two, Bdubs.”
“…I’ll give you that.”
“Aw, thanks!” Joel smiled. It almost looked like a normal smile. “See? Everything’s fine! Everything’s fine, everyone’s normal, nothings weird, nothing’s unnatural…”
He ranted to himself as he twirled Etho’s hair while Etho sat, frozen, too scared to make a move but too scared to ask Joel what he was trying to do.
Joel pressed a kiss to Etho’s head again.
“Are you ready for round two?”
His bloodstream froze. He tried to speak again. “Wait, Joel-”
Joel’s fingers forced his eyelids open again. Etho screamed, he shook his body again to get rid of the ropes to no avail.
The colours returned again, even more shiny than before. His vision was full of nothing but rainbow colours that looked as if they were leaking into his eyeballs and into his brain, though that may have been the tears from his eyes being forced open.
It hurt. His head throbbed with pain. Etho felt his head try to fall backwards, Joel holding it in place.
Etho tried to speak, to tell Joel to stop, it was hurting so much, but his throat wouldn’t produce any words.
And it stopped. The rainbows vanished this time instead of Joel simply blocking them, leaving Etho’s head spinning like he was on a rollercoaster. All the colours swirled and remained in his vision.
Then a stab of pain jolted through his palm. Etho’s vocal cords managed a scream as Joel pulled out the knife, dangling the now blood-stained weapon in his vision.
“Seven seconds? That’s worse than last time, seriously!” Joel dropped the knife into Etho’s lap. “Listen carefully, Etho. Every time you get a lower time then the last attempt, or a time under…thirty seconds, yeah that’s fine, then I’ll stab you!”
“Joel…” He groaned. “Let me…go…”
“But you don’t understand!” Joel walked back into his sight again. “Until you realise that it’s all fine, you're staying here! You need to learn, Etho! LEARN that’s it’s fine!”
“You’re making no sense, Joel… Joel this f*cking hurts.” His voice beeped as the Hermitcraft censor played. Joel seemed offended by that.
”No foul language, Etho.” He grumbled. “You know that doesn’t make everything feel normal, does it?”
Etho tried to regain his breathing. He managed a simple nod, which was enough to satisfy the man in front of him.
Joel’s hands began to glow, as he summoned a wattle bottle. Etho nodded with slightly desperation. Joel popped off the lid and pressed the glass to Etho’s mouth.
The water was refreshing. Etho drank as much as he could before Joel took it away, pulling it back into his inventory.
“You ready to try again?” Joel took the knife from Etho’s lap, spinning it in his hand.
Etho looked down. “I don’t have a choice. Do I?”
“Nope!”
This was just horrible. Everything about this situation just made Etho even more terrified. Joel had kidnapped him, tied him up and was now burning his eyes for some stupid idea.
The colours started again, this time without warning as Joel grabbed his eyelids. Tears were already pouring down his face as the colours scorched his eyeballs, a shriek of pain tumbling from his lips. His whole body trembled with overstimulation as Joel’s grip just tightened.
But he couldn’t look away.
Joel would stab him, and he didn’t want to bleed to death here.
So, all he could do was stare until his sight burnt and he began to shake again even more.
The colours spun and sparkled, melting into one splash of radioactive spiral.
It hurt, but…he was getting used to it?
Finally, Joel pulled away. Etho let out a breath he didn’t realise he was holding, slouching forward.
”Excellent! Thirty seconds, right on the dot.” Joel’s voice sounded like it was three different rooms away, echoing in Etho’s mind. “You are getting better! See? Everything’s fine, no need to worry.”
“Everything…is fine.”
He didn’t want to say it. His voice didn’t sound like his, it was hoarse from the screaming, shattered like glass. Tears still rolled down his face, a never ending waterfall. “Every-Everything’s normal, right…?”
“Yup! Everything’s fine, Etho!” Joel sighed happily. “You’re getting it. It’s-oh, you’re crying.”
“My head hurts…”
“Shh, I know.” Joel’s fingers trailed through Etho‘s white hair, an oddly calming sensation contrasting the flooding of colours and pain from the knife wound.
Joel spun the chair around again. His own eyes ripped with colours, and Etho could only assume his were doing the same. Once again, Joel gave Etho another unwanted kiss. It made him feel plain sick.
This was wrong. Everything was wrong.
But… it-it wasn’t, right? That was what Joel was saying. Everything was-Everything was fine…right?
Right?
Joel pulled away again, his eyes opening to reveal a look of insanity. His eyes reflected the rainbows that still flashed in Etho’s mind like mental wounds on his brain.
Hands wiped away the tears of pain that were falling down his cheeks. They trailed down to cup his chin, lifting his head to look directly into Joel’s eyes.
“Jo-Joel-l…” He coughed.
“Everything is fine, Etho.”
Joel spun the chair around again. Again, the colours filled his vision. Again, he yelled and bawled and thrashed with everything.
And yet…
His body relaxed, slumping forward. He couldn’t bring himself to care. At this point, he could almost believe Joel that everything is fine.
Everything is fine.
Everything was normal.
“Everything’s okay…”
”Mhm, Etho. Everything’s okay, keep on looking forward. You don’t need me to help you stare, you just need to know…”
“Everything…”
“Is?”
“Fine.”