do it again, a My Last Life AU inspired by @opera25.
chapter 7: Etho tries to buy a board game, Ren gets campaign ideas, Tango has opinions on gifts, and cat backstory is heard.
Etho grabs a box off the shelf and turns it over, just to have something to pretend to read. “You can’t take dreams too seriously.”
“I hope not, because if getting murdered by Bdubs in my dreams every night since he gave me that apology gift thing is for real we are going to start having some problems. Some more problems,” he amends.
Etho hesitates, stuck reading the same line over again. In a time of suspicion and desperate need, the line between right and wrong grows less and less distinct. On second thought, the base game’s fine; no need for this expansion. “It would be pretty crazy if you were dreaming of getting stabbed in the back by my roommate while we were all hanging out.”
Am I still thinking about @opera25's MLL AU Etho? Maybe. Maybe so.
Bdubs put stickers all over his face while he was sleeping, and he complained about it, but of course he took dumb mirror selfies later because he's a giant dork <3
do it again, a My Last Life AU inspired by @opera25. chapter 5: Bdubs dreams of ghosts, tries to get a refund, and decides to give someone a present.
“You always loved a loophole,” says Scar, suddenly fond: soft smile, sharp eyes. He props his chin on his knuckles. “You know, we really could have had a lot of fun together. Me, wheeling and dealing - you, keeping me on track. Possibly undermining me at every turn. We’d keep each other on our toes.”
“You’re keeping me on my toes right now,” Bdubs says and smacks his hand on the coffee table just hard enough to emphasize his point. “You give me enough trouble without being my boss on top of everything too, no thank you. Like this freaking crystal that you keep trying to get out of refunding me for!”
do it again, director's cut edition because i'm procrastinating writing the last part of the last chapter and it's kind of helpful to review. with luck someone else here will enjoy the behind-the-scenes content as well
chapter 1
The little desk Scar has set up right across from the front door of his studio apartment is covered in them, some of them larger and loose, the smaller ones in what clearly used to be ice cube trays.
no joke this detail is because of a New Uses for Old Things feature that used to be in the magazine Real Simple, which was life hacks before "life hacks" was a term. ice cube tray as a jewelry organizer.
There’s an orange one with smooth, straight-cut sides that fits perfectly in his palm.
i really did write this with the intent of it being the courage crystal (formally established later) but I never have gone back once to check whether it's orange. ditto the green danger detection one later. no one's called me out for it though
it'll never get explicitly said in fic, but they each induce the opposite of their intended effect. bdubs' courage crystal makes him extremely paranoid, etho's danger detection lands him in the hospital, and even tango's rage crystal leaves him mellow and avoidant.
We’ll just go up there and put a little tarp over it,” he’d told Etho when their kitchen ceiling had started to drip. “I’m a professional, it’ll be easy, and we won’t get rained on inside while the landlord takes two weeks to get someone out here."
i think about bdubs' tenure as a general contractor a lot, mostly because i know of very few other people who have opinions about roofs they pass while driving.
and Etho’s always been good with a bow –
historically speaking, anyway; the very first indication that LL!bdubs remembered previous timelines as well.
Etho is wearing his ancient, scuffed-up blue sneakers, and only then because it would have been about sixteen different ladder safety violations to wear the socks and opened toed slippers he constantly wears in the house.
another old joke about etho's diamond booties and/or socks-and-sandals depictions in fanart. i imagine the sneakers as diamond blue high tops befitting a guy who's into pop punk.
“Already hid it while you were in the bathroom,” says Etho, extra chipper. “And now that you mention it, a two-person Twilight Imperium game is tempting –"
“I know just enough about that to know you’re just being mean.”
Board games come up again in chapter 2 and 7, but TI usually takes minimum 8 hours to play and is a space-set empire building and turn based strategy tile-building game. I think Tango and Etho are regularly trying to rope friends into playing with them but it's a bit much for most people, and absolutely not viable for a concussed Bdubs. Catan is also stretching it, but I think bdubs has extremely normie board game taste as a path of least resistance.
chapter 2
He knows he died saying Etho’s name, but unlike a normal dream, his death doesn’t wake him up. He has a faint awareness that whatever his death set in motion is still happening out there, somewhere, but he can’t access it anymore, wherever or whenever he is now, in a darkness waiting for the credits to roll. Nothing comes.
the mechanics for what dreams come when, with what level of detail etc., have been winged this whole time. but I definitely struggled to find a way to have bdubs plausibly and selectively remember only the dying, the difficult parts and not his enjoyment of them. there's no hard rules beyond what seems appropriate to the situation - things the crystal might be in synergy with, or bdubs recalling his nether death when he falls from the roof similarly - but I did think about it constantly while writing.
that said, something the characters never fully figure out but bdubs will almost recognize is that the people who were given and gave away the most lives have an easier time remembering:
scar with his crystals and his souls is really unfazed by past life memories (and calls back to hcs7).
tango, who was given many lives for his betting game and was forced to give them away on top of distributing the winnings, reacts on instinct way before he has dreams. when he does, they're messy and violent like bdubs', more tangled with the reality.
etho only ever gave one life for the betting game, and received none. he dreams by proximity and by crystal, by resonance; the dreams contrast and he has mainly good moments.
cleo picks up the dreams easily - her allies also kept bringing her back up to yellow, and she responds at first like tango does, pre-emptively and instinctively. but when she gets a crystal it's off to the races, and it's not so bad because she had a more stable alliance and also she's got joe to call and bdubs to contrast against. she also definitely talks to scott and pearl about it, but it's not relevant for this fic.
bdubs, of course, gave one life and was given several. he had the bad luck to parallel his last life, and so the fic unfolds. you know how it is with past lives
this all probably implies the southlands, post death coffee incident, start having a spate of dreams and skizz and impulse (they are friends, impulse works at the cafe, it's just never been relevant) have a really funny conversation about their parallel friendgroup dramas but i don't feel like i can write most of the southlands confidently, so please use your imagination and possibly tell me about it.
“Say ‘thank you, Bdubs, for graciously offering to buy me coffee,’” hollers Bdubs as he scrambles out of bed. He doesn’t leave any space for Etho to reply. “It’s like I’m not allowed to get a little extra beauty rest now and then, not that I need it of course. If I were any less perfect than I am I’d make them put all that extra crap you hate in there as punishment for your ungraciousness, one of those – what did you call them, Etho, one of those frappucini things –“
I will never let the time Etho said "frappucini appletini" when onboarding Bdubs as a shade-e-ees employee in s7 die. he will never live it down.
Etho hadn’t fought back much, and seemed to enjoy the endless opportunities to accuse Bdubs of photosynthesizing or pretending to mistake him for a large houseplant if he happened to be wearing green, which was often.
this is probably my favorite one-off gag/detail. every single time etho wakes up at noon and walks into the office to see bdubs wearing green and limned in gold by the afternoon sunbeams he makes the exact same photosynthesis plant joke and bdubs reacts exactly the same way and tells him to get a new joke. neither of them ever do.
“You might need to feed Pineapple Pizza for me. And make sure and eat something, will you? Actual food.”
i'm going to be honest, i don't recall whatsoever the rationale for bdubs and etho having a cat is - I inherited it from the original MLL AU posts. but i'm fond of it because bdubs hates cats and etho loves collecting pets and forgetting about them but also practicing talking to himself. she's dear to me anyway
Maybe it’s not fair to resent Etho’s terrorizing when he can look down at his own hands and see someone else’s blood there, dripping from his own sword – but he has never dreamed of hurting Etho.
this bit of hypocrisy was another huge hurdle for writing, lmao. bdubs' kill of tango and insistence he'd never kill etho after killing grian in ep1 show how cavalier he liked to play his own bloodlust, but with imperfect information in this life it's less hypocrisy and more fixating on etho's "killing" of him not because it's murder but because it's betrayal. cleo engages with this deftly later, because she of all people has seen the etho and bdubs trying to kill each other while secretly wanting the other one to survive song and dance more closely than anyone.
“What do you want,” says Cleo, but it’s only her usual level of grumpiness.
“Can’t I call you for no real reason?” Bdubs says, extra-sweet. “Well, one reason, but the reason is I just wanted to talk. I’ve missed you so much!”
“It is one o’clock on a weekday, Bdubs. Not all of us can set our own schedules.”
my headcanon is that cleo is a taxidermist, which is partially a joke about an au i made with a friend like 7 years ago for a different fandom, but i thought it would be funny with her armor stand ksills. i don't know what a taxidermist daily work life is like and i've avoided having to describe it though. i did interior designer a day in the life research for bdubs and have managed to gloss over etho's work details beyond "computer guy" so that's all you're getting.
“Oh, you’re too kind,” Bdubs had laughed as he built a statue and moved his victory point marker around the next corner. “You’d give up anything for a loyal friend like me, right?”
it's the chapter 2 board game: this time it's kingsburg! you roll dice which allow you to gain the favor of courtiers on the board to build up your city; buildings give you materials or other advantages or best yet, victory points, which are tracked with meeples on the outer rim of the board. i think it's bdubs' compromise of choice because of the medieval and courtier-courting and city-building themes AND you can cockblock people's desired resources with your own rolls. and it's not hard but it's fun. skizz also really enjoys it and tango and etho have more fine taste but also are usually down for it. this has been "board games headcanons with peter"
Intellectually, he knows the dream is pulling from what’s on his waking mind, like Tango’s weird aggression and being a little lonelier now that his and Bdubs’ schedules don’t often line up.
honestly this is my own stance on dreams, despite an enduring involuntary belief in signs and omens, but etho is such a rationalist it fits, and paves the way for the 1% flawed convo he has with scar in LL that i steal from later. but it's also transparently a little self-deluding because reality in these worlds is much weirder.
He had a tendency to come off as standoffish and intimidating, but Bdubs had seen right through him and immediately started calling him a nerd and a softie and stuck to his side.
etho's on record as talking about making videos as a way of improving his speaking skills, which really shows if you go and watch his old content! i was also thinking about (or maybe predicting?? i don't want to take too much credit but this was written at the end of 2021) etho in bdubs' netherite hunting stream saying something about how he used to be the timid one and now bdubs is. they don't change, they just take turns ;)
“Can he? I say that with love, of course,” Scar says hastily at the incredulous raise of Etho’s eyebrow. “Bdubs and I, we go way back – not as far back as you two, but still. What a guy. He’s had a hard time of it lately, though, hasn’t he?”
somewhere in this fic tag is the elaborate au of this au in which bdubs accepts scar's job offer and doesn't move in with etho; that one would be circa the 90s and lead into hcs7, so the resonances build in that direction instead of LL. but etho and bdubs go way back, further.
Scar picks up Jellie from the chair behind his desk before settling into it and repositioning her on his lap. “I don’t want to assume since Grian said he didn’t remember the name but the guy was wearing a bright green windbreaker. Terribly inconvenient for a business like mine.”
if, when I'm done, I revise things I'd like to make it more clear here that scar considers his business one of information more than trinkets. the trinkets are a means to an end of getting favors and intel from people! he likes wheeling and dealing more than anything, but the "business like mine" line could be improved. i'm not allowed to revise until it's all published, though.
Etho pockets the little bead. “I’m not signing anything, but if you see Bdubs, will you let him know I held up my end of the bargain?”
a missed opportunity to drive home the resonances here, but this is recalling etho pointedly getting out of signing the contract he makes bdubs sign when he boogey fishing rod kills scar.
Before he can respond, Etho’s phone goes off and Grian visibly startles, hopping back a little bit. Which seems like an overreaction, but Etho does forget how creepy his alarm tone of ominously ringing bells is if you’re not expecting it.
his alarm tone is 13, of course, and it comes up at the board game shop later. incidentally i also for a while set my own feed the cat alarm to 13 when i figured out how to use spotify for phone alarms, and sometimes i still accidentally turn that alarm back on and jumpscare myself irl. i'm very competent.
Bdubs, presumably, will have to come home to sleep at some point and the coffee will ensure Etho is awake to see him. One way or another, they’re going to make this work.
this line is specifically echoing bdubs saying they're gonna make this work during the LL office scene, and will foreshadow what etho does to make things come to a head in the final chapter. but that's spoilers ;)
this is a non-canonical ("") epilogue to do it again, because while i never intended it to go here it was so easy to do that i couldn't rest and write the actual. next chapter until i had this written down. so i think in the actual fic the next world is in hcs9 and in this universe a little to the left the next one is double life. so make of that what you will
“Etho,” says Bdubs, refusing to take the bait. “Do it again, and I’ll never ask. Not in this life.”
He watches Etho’s profile, the closing of his eyes and the long, slow breath in before Etho turns his head and reopens his eyes. Glasses off, in the low light of the single street lamp up the road, the shadows under his eyes are deep but his expression is soft, nostrils occasionally flaring like he’s about to say something. Bdubs keeps waiting; they have time, now.
Abruptly, Etho moves away to square up to him and before Bdubs has a chance to make a joke about dodging the question, Etho’s arms are wrapped around his shoulders and dragging him in, twisting awkwardly, his hands sliding from the front of Etho’s chest around to his back as he re-interprets the gesture not as a threat but as a hug. He rests his forehead against Etho’s collarbone and murmurs, “I do know,” into the darkness between them.
He keeps his eyes open as he waits even though it’s pitch black in the cage of Etho’s arms, focusing on the cat hair from Etho’s sweatshirt tickling his nose and the absentminded movement of Etho’s thumb against the fine hairs at the base of his neck; the faint sounds of cars passing on the main street a few blocks away and Etho’s breath ruffling his hair and the solid feeling of Etho’s back under his own hands, palms spread, not moving, just pressing firmly as if he can hold this moment in place long enough to commit it to memory, so that he can take this moment with him into the next life, too.
Etho’s arms circle him a little tighter. “I’m so glad,” he says, and stops. “I’m so glad you’re my partner.”
Something bubbles up in his chest, knocking a weight loose around his heart that floats up and lodges in his throat. “Etho, it’s fine, you don’t have to -”
“I’m glad you’re my partner,” Etho continues, talking over him like he’s finally gained too much steam to stop, one hand curling around the back of Bdubs’ neck. “I’m just trying not to mess up my one chance, this time.”
Bdubs tears himself away to look up at Etho, the lump in his throat growing - he’s ruined the light mood, their return to normalcy, the last thing he’d wanted.
But as he meets Etho’s eyes and starts to say his name, Etho says, “Bdubs, I love you.”
“Oh,” Bdubs says stupidly, blinking, Etho’s hands gripping his shoulders and his own hand halfway up to touching Etho’s face. It hovers there, frozen. “I knew that.”
That makes Etho crack into a grin, ducking his head, but Bdubs can’t let him look away anymore when he’s seen the way his eyes shined, and before he can stop himself he reaches out and fits his hand on Etho’s cheek to drag his head back up.
“Hey, c’mon,” Bdubs says, smiling back. “I won’t ask again, but not because I don’t wanna hear it. I just know you, I hear you say it quiet all the time. But I’m not gonna kill you if you say it out loud again.”
“Okay,” says Etho, closing his eyes briefly. “In that case.” When he reopens them, there’s a familiar old mischief in his expression. “I love you, Bdubs.”
“Now, hold on a minute,” he says, feeling his ears heat up.
Etho clasps one hand over the one Bdubs has on his cheek, so Bdubs can’t pull away. “I love you.”
Bdubs laughs nervously, eyes wide, certain that even in only moonlight Etho can tell the way he’s flushing right down to his toes. He can’t look away, and with one hand trapped he lifts his other to pinch at Etho’s other cheek, though it doesn’t deter him at all.
“You know it’s true,” Etho says, not even trying to stop Bdubs’ half-hearted assault, just squeezing his hand to watch it make Bdubs falter for a moment. “Love you - in this life, and the last one, and the next -”
“You jerk, stop laughing at me, you smug son of a -”
Etho pulls, and Bdubs pushes, and there’s an ungainly scuffle full of huffed laughter before Etho lands flat on his back again, dragging Bdubs down with him so that Bdubs has one hand braced on his chest and the other hand pinning one of Etho’s to the ground, their fingers tangled together. “Don’t say it,” he says, Etho’s heartbeat thudding under his palm, the heavy rise and fall of his chest lifting him up and down as they regain their breath. Alive, alive, the both of them together. “I’ve got something to say to you, too.”
“Oh really?” says Etho, still too smug for someone who’s pinned down, mask dangling from one ear so his wide grin is perfectly clear.
Something is dawning in Bdubs. He had, perhaps, imagined something similar last time: knocking Etho down to and bringing him to red to reunite them by force if necessary. He had killed others, even their allies, to stay at Etho’s side, but he couldn’t even imagine killing Etho for long. He’s killed him in other worlds, but in that one, he had only wanted them to stay together as long as possible. Now, in a life where he has all that he’d wanted - the two of them partners in a home they made together - he’s shocked to find himself still wanting.
He had always known there were parts of Etho that he didn’t share, but it had never occurred to him that Etho might answer if he wanted to ask. Those doors opened, he wants so much it threatens to bowl him over.
But in this moment, he thinks he knows where to start.
“Can I...?” he says, squeezing Etho’s hand, trusting him to understand.
Etho nods, and when Bdubs leans down to press his lips to Etho’s he can feel Etho’s chin tilt up to meet him, Etho’s free hand coming to rest on his shoulder.
It lasts for all of one long breath, and when Bdubs sits back up, Etho’s hand sliding back down his arm, he says, “I love you.” He grins, half-drunk. “You better know it by now.”
Instead of answering, Etho untangles their fingers and grips his arm hard and levers himself up to sit, his now-free hand looping around the back of Bdubs’ neck and kissing him again, and again.
Later, Bdubs is sprawled across the couch with his head on Etho's lap and feet kicked up on the armrest just because he can, the television playing unimportant noise. "Do you think we'll remember this, in the next one?" He doesn't clarify the scope.
"Maybe," says Etho, not looking away from the TV. His hand moves to Bdubs' hair, and Bdubs sighs. "I think sometimes I remember more than others. They all blur together after a while."
"I mean, do you think we'll be together?" He considers a world without Etho and despite having lived many years in this life apart, it's almost impossible to imagine.
Etho hums in the way he does when he's carefully considering what to say next. "It's different every time, isn't it? I remember you kicking me out of your -"
"Don't say it!"
"- little castle. Not very nice of you."
"I knew it. I knew you were going to say that! It being different is what keeps it fun, you know that stuff doesnt matter. Even then I only did that because you were being such a freaking nuisance. I always want you." A beat too late, he adds, "Around."
"Is that so." It's flat, not a question; Etho blessedly doesn't say anything further after shooting a quick glance down.
Just as Bdubs opens his mouth to try and recover the conversation, the hand in his hair starts to move and it draws a noise not unlike a hiccup out of him, going tense and closing his eyes before the soothing repetitive motion drains all the tension from his body. When he opens them again, Etho is looking down at his face.
"Uh huh," Etho says, all self satisfied, before turning his attention back to the TV.
The conversation doesn't pick up again, and Bdubs can't bring himself to mind the smugness radiating off of Etho as he begins to drift toward sleep, eyes closed, the points of contact between him and Etho the only things that hold his focus. He'll pay for that slip later - Etho has always, in every world, taken great joy in pushing his buttons and getting a reaction out of him in unexpected ways at inopportune moments, every vulnerability a target to poke and prod at.
He’ll play mad about it, of course, the retorts waiting on the tip of his tongue already, but he’s looking forward to it, whenever it comes. They have all the time in the world to find out together.
hi peter^_^as a meta enjoyer and also as someone who cant stop thinking abt do it again i just wanted to know if there was any kind of symbolism or subtext or just anything at all u purposely added that you don't think anyone has picked up on yet? take this as a free pass to ramble as much as u want abt ur writing
oh man this is such an indulgent question to wake up to, oh my goodness. a lot of stuff that comes to mind is stuff I haven't finished writing yet, but a few things:
when Etho says dreams just reflect what's on your waking mind, that's the breaking point for bdubs to thinking Etho's out to get him. he only becomes sure after the stair critique, but re-interprets Etho getting death coffee to stay awake to see him as a threat as well.
Etho's face being lit orange from the courage crystal is my obligatory Blaze Of Glory motif reference
Technically someone called this in a comment but the crystals do work and each do the opposite of what they're intended; the courage crystal is making Bdubs paranoid, Etho goes to the hospital after the danger detection crystal, and [redacted for spoilers]
The people who remember first or most are those who received or gave lives in LL. Scar and Bdubs, obviously, but this is partially why Tango reacts to Bdubs' references without knowing why. Etho never did either, as we all know.
Bdubs' failed flour trap and ineffective fishing rod ploy are nods to his abysmal red traps.
There's a couple things I haven't fully gotten to yet that boil down to the central thesis of the fic, which is more or less the intersection of "How do you know another person?" and "What ties a person to someone else?" So much of the fic is about different kinds of debts, and loneliness, and the sense of knowing someone being a comfort (Cleo) or a ball and chain (Scar) or a possible misjudgement (Bdubs and Etho). In c5, "That’s the problem with putting your heart into one person’s hands: when they’re gone, you’re left heartless. A clock, a life, a question - whatever the promise, he’ll always take it if it means an end to loneliness" is the central problem, and Etho'll have to deal with his own version of it in c6.
It's not a story about destiny or fate, though. I want it to be a story about how the person we are is understood through our relationships to other people, and those relationships are made of all the choices the people involved make. It doesn't have to be unhealthily codependent for it to be true that without each other, Etho and Bdubs have difficulty knowing who they are because they always choose each other in some form or fashion. That's why it matters so little if this iteration ends well; they'll choose a different configuration next time. Point, counterpoint; a compass, a binary orbit, whatever. In each other's absence, they find themselves different people. The weight of all those previous choices might feel like fate now, but it's always been a choice.
posting a preview bc i need to inflict my very specific vision of ren hanging out at the local comic shop painting minis because he's a dnd fiend (character flaw)
The bell above the shop door rings – Ren, not reassured, swings around and waves to the newcomer. It should be more surprising to see the beleaguered Southlands barista waving back, but at this point Etho is finding it hard to be bothered by odd coincidences. When he shoves his hands in his pockets, he finds the little glass bead Scar gave him there.
“Oh, it’s you,” says Grian. “Hey, Ren.”
Ren looks between them both. “I didn’t realize you two knew each other.”
“He almost killed me the other day.” Etho shrugs. “Sorry about all that with Bdubs, by the way.”
“Exsqueeze me?”
“If someone comes in and orders the most caffeinated thing we can make, I don’t think you can blame the baristas if that person is stupid enough to drink it all at once,” Grian says, and then seems to think better of it. “That said, I am sorry you landed yourself in the hospital. I didn’t really get a chance to say so when – Bdubs, was it? – came by. I had no idea either of you would be here, I’m just running an errand for Scar.”
Etho gestures a vague I’ll explain later wave at Ren, who is going to give himself whiplash from jerking his head back and forth trying to follow the conversation otherwise. “Crystal business?”
“No, I’ve managed to avoid that so far. I’ll never understand how he gets anybody to fall for his obvious scams but I’ve learned to stop trying to interfere. Don’t tell me you fell for it?”
Ren laughs. “No, of course not. Haven’t seen him in a little while. And there’s no way a guy like Etho ever world.”
“Well,” says Etho, drawing the word out. “It wasn’t exactly my choice. I did it for Bdubs.” The ominous ringing of bells interrupts his vaguely unsettling statement.
“Dude, you need to change your ringtone. That thing gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
