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You are Etho Slab.
You grow up uneventfully, fiddling with whatever redstone dust you can scavenge out of your dad's car without him noticing and generally getting underfoot. It's a normal, almost boring kind of childhood. You learn to ride a bike on your own in the alley behind your house, and sketch out cool machines to tie your shoes for you, and let your mom ruffle your head and tell you stories about her and your aunt getting into trouble when they were younger.
Her soulwords are so common— you run into someone saying 'nice to meet you' every other sentence, she reminisces, braiding your hair, white-blond like hers. So she started getting creative with her introductions, until she ran into your uncle Paul saying— gosh, what was it? Something about sails, or windows, or something. He shows everyone at family reunions.
You look at your mom's soulwords. She's soulmates with your dad, and they're stark on her wrist, do you want me to call someone?
It would be easy to ask why you don't have yours yet, but you read a book about it in the library last week, and just continue to let her put bobby pins in your hair with a small hum. It doesn't matter all that much. Maybe you'll like yours. Maybe you'll never get one at all— rare, but it happens. But you're eight and you're much more interested in trying to build a computer, so you don't think about it too hard.
You start wearing a face mask when your words come in just along the edge of your jaw. You're nine. They read, in neat, black lettering, Why the fuck would I be at a Denny's if I was having a fun night?
(You are Canadian. You don't know what a Denny's is until you're nearly sixteen, and you don't go to one until several years after that. You still go very rarely because, y'know. It's Denny's. Your soulmate, whoever they are, is correct.)
Your dad makes you wear the mask because your soulmark has a curse word in it and you don't put up a fuss, even when the teacher gently tells you that the other girls will make fun of you if you keep wearing it, because it's comfortable and people don't make you smile anymore even when you don't feel like smiling.
Time passes.
You fuck up your eye trying to launch a kit rocket when you're fifteen, and only Pause calling the emergency line saves your life. It leaves a nasty scar. You start watching Naruto.
High school graduation is as uneventful as the rest of your life up until now, mostly because you never did anything of note with the high school experience. You're cosplaying Kakashi only because it's so easy. You move out for university, and your dad's increasingly judgemental calls only succeed at making you less and less interested in coming home.
The hopper clock is—
You sort of stumble onto it, after three weeks of sleep-deprived nights when you're twenty-three and officially graduated. The patent kind of sets you for life, though. Every computer manufacturer in the damn world sends you an email about it, and it gets to a point where you start deleting them without looking.
You are still cosplaying Kakashi.
Xisuma is an old forum friend, trading posts about video games and sci-fi movies you watched as kids, and he's the one who eventually whittles you down into moving across the ocean at twenty-five. You settle in the comfortably large city he lives in and spend the next decade busying yourself with an increasingly ridiculous number of friends, reality-breaking nonsense, getting used to mediocre British food, and an even more ridiculously expanding list of hobbies. You have not found your soulmate. You're not looking.
Grian keeps inviting you out to events and you keep saying yes, because you're a bit of a pushover. You are starting to regret giving him a key to your flat, though. He keeps leaving vegetables in your fridge. You do not eat them.
Because your friends are idiots and despite everything, you really do love them, you are dragged out as the voice of reason during a bar crawl. You can't be the designated driver because you never learned how to drive (Cleo asked you once if the bus wasn't a sensory nightmare and you answered honestly that you go into power-saving-mode on the bus and don't remember most of it, which she didn't have a good answer for) but you can pat Mumbo consolingly on the back as he deals with Grian, Scar, Iskall, and Stress in all of their cuddly drunk glory. Beef (who followed you across the ocean, a bruise of a kindness that makes you ache just thinking about it) nurses a single beer because, like you, he is getting old.
Inexplicably, you end up at a Denny's.
In fact, the only Denny's in the whole of the island, which is a bit of a marvel on its own.
Grian's loudly commiserating with some friends of his you've only vaguely met, and it's getting rather loud and overwhelming and, as mentioned, you are getting too old to be up this late, so you escape outside for a second as the table explodes into yelling. There's a man outside vomiting into a trash can. You comment, in your endless awkwardness, having a fun night?
He looks up at you, clearly disgusted and tipsy and not in the mood to be having this conversation, and snipes, why the fuck would I be at a Denny's if I was having a fun night?
Your name is Etho Slab, and you think, in a blinding moment of clarity, oh fuck.
Your soulmate, who you learn is named Joel about a minute and a half later, puts the pieces together a little slower and loudly curses once he does, which leaves both of you sitting awkwardly on the curb as you alternate trying to strike up a conversation and both keep failing terribly.
I'm married , he tells you after about a minute of semi-comfortable silence between you, and maybe it's a little shitty that your immediate response is to let out a sigh you didn't realize you were holding and hide your face in your hands. It makes Joel laugh, though, so you can't have messed this up too badly. I take it you're not all that upset?
You explain to him that you've been in maybe one serious relationship and that one ended with both of you agreeing you were better as friends. The shitty, flickering 24/7 neon lights frame his face in an interesting way as you continue, calmer, that if he expected anything, you're sorry to disappoint.
Joel laughs when he reassures, you're meeting my nonexistent expectations, don't worry . You learn that he's one of Grian's university friends, and that he's a nurse but got suckered into going out too, and that he, like you, is getting too old for this. His soulwords are written where his jaw meets his neck and you don't touch them, or show him your own. He understands.
You trade numbers and the moment you both enter the door, your combined group of far too few braincells in one place manages to break a table in half. As you're all being escorted out of the restaurant, you make eye contact with Joel—
—and he laughs , warm and bright like getting a good faceful of sun, and it strikes you that, in three decades of having better things to think about, this might be kind of nice.
Time continues, in the same plodding way it always has.
You came into the soulmate thing with no expectations, and Joel manages to exceed all of them anyway.
There are growing pains, of course there are, awkward lunches and a few too many lulls in the conversation— but over a few months you start to figure each other out. You go to parks and spin tales about the wildlife and share a food truck sandwich between you and throw the bottom-of-the-bag fries to the little birds. You NPC for one of Joel's LARP things and have a fantastic time repeating the same stock phrases and watching him get more and more annoyed at you the more you do it. Karaoke is a bust, but the open mic night is fun, and when you're shoved up on stage to do some comedy you don't make a total fool of yourself, which is nice.
You meet Lizzie two months in, and your introduction to her involves her wearing blue face paint and glitter scales and hitting Joel with a fake sword while he yelps like a startled puppy. It's hard to not like her after that. She's snarky and funny and bright and you understand, from an objective perspective, why Joel loves her so much. The two of you sip on wine while he wrestles with Sausage. She tells you how they met. She, too, lights up like the sun. You're a little blinded by it.
Joel and you are moving all of the furniture in Grian's apartment three inches off when you realize that you haven't felt this comfortable next to someone since you met Bdubs for the first time. The knowledge settles comfortably between your fourth and fifth rib. Then again— you're soulmates . There's no one better to find comfort in. You adjust Grian's coffeemaker so it's slightly askew, and you don't mention it.
(Grian gets you back about a month later by filling your toothpaste tube with horseradish, and Joel at least has the decency to apologize when you call him, trying desperately to get rid of the burning in your gums. Lizzie laughs at you in the background of the call.)
(You can't quite find it in yourself to be mad.)
Time continues. You learn how to play Catan. You let Lizzie braid your hair when it starts to get long, and let Joel cut it when it starts getting in your eyes and making a mess. You play Hollowknight, and Joel drags you out of your house when you don't answer his texts for 48 straight hours. You and Lizzie try to make him a cake for his birthday and you somehow fuck it up so badly the smell is still there when he comes home two hours later to a store-bought cake on the counter and the two of you in stitches on the couch. They insist you stay the night sometimes when it's late and the buses are unsafe, they insist you leave a change of clothes or two or four in case you need them—
—and for all that you are brilliant, for all of the patents and papers and degrees, for all of the knowledge that let you rebuild your sight, for all that you are brilliant , it takes an embarrassingly long time to realize how much time you spend at Joel and Lizzie's house.
(You don't realize, actually. Bdubs points it out one night when it's the two of you playing Tetris.
You're always so busy now
, he says, and you, mostly focused on Tetris, inform him that Joel has gotten you hooked on crocheting.
Joel? Joel Beans?
Yes? Does he know any other Joels?
We'll get back to the crochet in a second— since when were you friends with Joel?
And in one horrifying moment, you realize you haven't told him.
So you explain, and he laughs in your face, and then as he quizzes you on where the hell you've been you realize that you spend more time with your soulmate and his wife than you spend in your own house. A little worried, you ask if that's weird. Bdubs looks at you, with that goofy smile of his that you don't think you've ever stopped loving even five years after you called it off, and just says, Nah. just nice to see you getting out, is all. )
You don't question it, after that, as the weather rolls into cold and miserable and you end up with Lizzie curled under your chin and Joel pressed, warm, against your back at night. The guest room radiator is broken and you're too old to be sleeping on the couch and, as they insist, it's not a big deal. It really isn't. You keep each other warm, and if you wake up with Lizzie's hair in your mouth some mornings, so be it.
(Christmas was never a big deal in your family, and you don't go home to visit anyway, not when your mom just wants to brush your hair and miss the little girl she used to know, not when your dad keeps asking when you'll grow up from all of this and get a real job, ever since you started cosplaying Kakashi. So you spend Christmas alone now. Beef comes to visit sometimes if you're quiet enough. Grian drops his leftovers in your fridge. You do not eat them.)
You are Etho Slab and you spend this Christmas at Joel and Lizzie's, with Grian and Jimmy and Scott and Gem. It is loud, and warm, and full of getting wine-drunk and throwing pillows at each other, which Jimmy insists is not the way you use throw pillows, Joel, except he doesn't manage to finish the sentence before getting a pillow to the face. You laugh so hard your sides ache.
The three of you are cleaning up after everyone went home for the night, the lights of the tree casting a pleasant light on Lizzie's shiny hair, which you tell her. Once the dishes are washed and the wrapping is shoved into a trash bag and you're just about ready to go to bed, Joel pulls you aside with that smile of his that always makes your brain fuzzy and tells you they have something for you.
Gifts already happened, you tell them, a little confused.
This one's just for you, Lizzie tells you, giggling, and pulls out a box.
It's a ship in a bottle, painstakingly assembled, with tiny string rigging and pretty furling sails and her name written on the side with golden brushstrokes. The Relationship , Joel says, brushing some loose hair behind your ear. Get it, because it's a ship?
And you cry, for the first time in two years, because it's so stupid and it's so thoughtful and they took the time to make you something incredible because they love you. You're holding this stupid bottle with this stupid wooden ship that you know they built themselves, for you , because you mentioned that you thought miniature things were beautiful, and you mentioned that you liked those old fancy ships so much that they brought you out to visit one once, and you can't stop crying, because it's more than you could have ever dreamed of , all of it, all of this kindness, the intentionality of it all.
You end up sandwiched between them the way you always are, wearing a pair of pajamas you already had at their house, cried-out and warm and loved and so, so confused.
You ask Cleo about it. because Cleo is all-knowing and so much smarter than you. They laugh so hard they pull a muscle in their back and have to sit down.
Etho, babe she says condescendingly, still kind of snickering. So not only do you spend some nights at their house, in their bed, snuggling—
It's not snuggling, you inform her. Their room is cold. It's convenient.
Okay, so you're not snuggling, but you do have a chest of clothes at their house, and go grocery shopping with them, and make dinner in their house for the three of you — and you're sure it's just a platonic thing for you?
And you have to take a second to really think about that one.
You'd just gotten the hang of love, you thought. It's one of those difficult intangible things, finnickey and painful and, and— and you'd thought you had it, anyway. You love Cleo! You love Cleo and Bdubs and Beef and Pause and Xisuma and Grian and— but with Joel and Lizzie, it was so easy . You never had to be anything, you knew what you were, you're just Joel's soulmate and Lizzie's friend and it never had to be anything more complicated than that.
—and you love them, of course you love them, so much it collects and bruises and unfolds like a bouquet of flowers every time you see them dancing to some song you can't hear in their kitchen while you make dinner, laughing with each other, beautiful, human, the best thing that's ever happened to you. That's love, right? It has to be. Love is wanting to give them the world. Love is the thud of Joel's heart in his chest, synced up with your own when he falls asleep on top of you after long days at work. Love is Lizzie's pretty singing as the two of you make a game of cleaning, to make it easier. Love is the stupid way their door creaks and the weeds in the garden and the light and the warmth and the— and the—
—and you think of your house, the one you live in, and it's so dark in comparison. It's a row house, sure, so the window options are limited, but—
You turn to Cleo, who's looking at you all bittersweet, and say oh .
Oh , she repeats back, fond. Yeah. Did you never notice? They look at you like you're the whole world, Etho.
You remind her, absently, of your limited experience with these things. They just sigh and watch you shatter into a million pieces. You feel like a stained-glass window that only just realized it was in love with the sun.
You go to your house that night. It is cold and dark and empty, covered in redstone dust and half-finished projects and vegetables in your fridge that you do not eat, and— and you love them so much that you are startled that you never noticed before.
Things get awkward, and it is entirely your fault.
(What do you even say? You love them— both of them, so much you feel like you're drowning in it, and you want to spend forever bickering about crisp flavors with Joel at the corner store and pulling weeds in the garden with Lizzie and watching them gripe and laugh and mock and exist , burning like the sun.)
(The problem with that is that they are married . You told Joel, that year and a half ago, hungover in a Denny's parking lot, that you didn't want anything out of this, and he agreed. He loves Lizzie, and Lizzie loves him, and they shouldn't have to make room in their life for you.)
You stay the night less frequently. You start wearing your mask around the house again, to stop Joel from doing that thing there he brushes against your soulwords with his knuckles. They notice, because of course they do, but you never have a good answer for it.
You can tell us if something's bothering you, Lizzie tells you, so kind and wonderful and a little scary the way she's always been. You tell her that you're fine. You are cutting vegetables. Joel, where he's stirring pasta, informs you that you're not. We're not going to judge you, you know.
You tug your mask to be sure it's covering your soulwords, and tell them you should leave.
Joel catches your hand as you make it to their entry. His fingers and palm are calloused from the gloves at work, and they're so familiar against your own, thin and cold, as he asks you what's going on.
And it—
You've practiced telling them into your mirror, all of the words perfect and normal and in neat lines that make sense. That is not what happens. What happens is that it all comes out in these panicked, nonsensical heaving sobs that you couldn't recreate if you tried, because you love them so much and you are so afraid and you're a stained glass window and they're the sun. You tell them you love them, and you cry, and it doesn't make any sense, and still —
—Joel catches you the way he always has, and Lizzie's got a hand on your back, sandwiched between them like you've always been, and once you calm down, Joel cups your cheeks in his hands and tells you, exasperated, We have been flirting with you this whole time, Etho.
Huh , you say. Eloquently.
Well I just thought, and Lizzie thought too—
That was the joke about the Relationship, Lizzie informs you gently, fighting a smile. What did you think it was?
For fuck's sake, we keep calling you pet names and having you spend the night in our bed and you do all of that cutesy domestic shit with us, and the boat , and the cuddling—
Babe, look at him, I think he's buffering.
You are buffering, as she puts it. You ask Joel if that's what they've been doing this whole time and he snickers at you, which is answer enough, because for all of your smarts you are phenomenally stupid. He rubs a thumb over your cheekbone and you pull your mask down without question, and Joel's hands are on your face and Lizzie's is tangled in the hair at the back of your neck and they love you. You are Ethoslab, and you press your forehead against your soulmate's with a breathless laugh, because you are loved.
(Cleo mocks you about it until you turn forty, and then she mocks you about it some more. Bdubs demands to be best man at the wedding that will probably never be happening.)
(Grian leaves leftovers in Joel's fridge instead, once you move out. This time, you eat them.)