(Swear warning! They're in college, so it makes sense, and sometimes "fuck" is the only one that works. If you're uncomfortable with swears, there will be a little summary at the bottom!)

"Etho!" A German voice called out from inside the apartment, clearly pretty happy. Doc was in his room from the direction of the sound, and just heard Etho coming in the door, not clearly seeing him yet.

Before Etho had even shut the door, Doc started to talk again, slowly walking out of his room as he was cleaning things up minimully. Chip bags on the ground, folding up a blanket, grabbing some sunglasses and carefully putting them on a shelf; That sort of stuff.

"So it went great! Tango didn't show up!" He said too cheerly, before adding, "Which isn't a good thing of course, because he's behind in science and Zed had to help him with a lab, but it was just me and Ren hanging out all afternoon, ya know-" His voice was higher than normal, clearly excited, but paused mid rant when he had finally made it into the living room, and saw Etho standing there, honestly looking like trash with even just a glance.

Before Doc could put a voice to a question, Etho spoke.

"Doc, I fucked up." Etho said, almost a whisper.

"What happened, Etho?" Doc looked Etho up and down, furrowing his eyebrows. Etho's hair was partially wet, and parts of it were dried in weird directions. His eyes were heavy, and so were the eyebags under them. He refused to look Doc in the eyes but it was clear he had been crying, and his shoulders were even more stiff than normal.

"I fuckin' fucked up. Lashed out. Didn't mean- but I was so fucking frusturated. It's ruined, I can get it fixed, but my data, and Keralis and Bdubs- fuck." Etho was starting to breathe a little faster, staggering on his words. It looked like he was going to cry again, and Doc could see his knuckles going white as he clenched his fists by his side.

Doc's eyes went wide with worry, but he put his own expressions on pause to help Etho. He was still confused on what was going on, but calming Etho down was the first priority.

"Etho, calm down." Doc said slowly in a low voice. Ren had said his low voice was calming once, so maybe it would help? It was worth a shot, so he said everything slower and more carefully so Etho could hear him. He considered putting his hand on Etho's shoulder, but Etho wasn't really a physical-touch kinda guy, and that might scare him off, so he didn't.

"Whatever it is, we can fix it. I'm sure it's not as bad as you feel like it is now-" Doc was not sure- "So tell me what happened first, and explain why all of your clothes are soaking on the one sunny day of fall we get." The joke lightened the mood a little, but Etho didn't do more than crease his mouth for a moment and hold back tears as his eyes pinned to the ground. Doc barely saw the movement under his mask, but at least his breathing had slowed, forced or not.

The Canadian took a deep breath and avoided Doc's staring eyes. It was clear he didn't want to talk yet, so Doc didn't prod, only watching his every action to try to piece together what had happened.

Etho pulled out his computer slowly and put it on the counter as carefully as he could manage, not trusting his hand to slam down and shatter the thing if he stopped thinking. Etho looked away and sucked in a breath, trying to stop himself from crying anymore.

It was coated in the cooled coffee, sticky brown splattered on the silver case and the stickers' edges dyed brown. Doc winced but didn't say anything, and reached over to open it.

To the untrained eye, it didn't look much worse. Just powered off and some sticky keys that could be wiped away with some alcohol wipes.

But to Doc, it was clear coffee had spilled onto the keyboard, which was the most vulnerable to liquids, and the dark screen was an attempt at a quick forced shut down. So yes, powered off, in a way, and alcohol wipes could fix the keys, but this was much worse than a quick clean up. As a worse-case-scenario, it was completely fried, and the screen was a short circuit after the inside mechanics broke down. Hopefully-

"How fast did you power it down?" Doc asked, trying to keep his voice calm.

Etho shook his head slowly. "Not fast enough." He whispered.

Doc nodded solemnly and closed it, mostly so Etho didn't have to look at it longer.

"Do you have a backup?"

"Xisuma helped me with one a long time ago. The automatic backup wasn't working so we had to do it manually, but we haven't done it since. We were gonna update it this weekend." Etho's voice started to get softer and squeak towards the end as he realized it all over again.

Doc nodded, it wasn't great, but it wasn't nothing either. "Ok you can talk to him-"

"He's gonna hate me..."

"Who, X? Why would he-" Doc started, But Etho interrupted him.

"He's friends with Keralis. And I fucked up so badly." Etho whispered the second half.

Ah, so, it wasn't just the computer that had him acting like this.

Doc looked at Etho, and then at the mangled computer next to them. There was clearly a story behind it, but before it could be said, something needed to be done first.

Letting Etho stand there, he grabbed a nearby towel by the sink and put it on the counter. The coffee was probably cooled and sticky by now, so there was a low chance this would help much, but he opened the laptop again flipped it upside down, so that the keyboard was on the towel. It was stable enough and they weren't going to touch it so it shouldn't fall, and so he left it there, hoping the towel could soak up any extra liquid.

"I'll talk to X, but you need to tell me why you think he will hate you. And explain everything that happened."

"Ok." Etho replied meekly, staring at the ground.

They shuffled over- or well, Doc walked normally, and Etho shuffled over- to the couch, and sat down.

---

"Ok, Etho, you fucked up." Doc admitted.

Etho didn't say anything, and just nodded. Most of his explaination had been rambles really, but he had gotten the majority of the point across, that he, indeed, did fuck up.

Doc's voice lowered a little, like he was giving a child instructions on how to fix his mistake, it a way, it felt that that. Doc would have laughed at the irony, that once upon a time, he was the one accidentally calling Etho dad to the point it became a joke, and now the tables were completely flipped around(and probably smashed into a wall to emphasize), but the mood wasn't right for laughter.

"Tomorrow morning, you are going to march your ass over to Cleo's Cafe and apologize to both of them. If you don't do it then you're going to chicken out later, trust me." Doc ordered.

"I'll talk to X about your computer and get the backup. You won't have anything from after you backed it up, but at least it won't all be gone. After you apologize, give them some space and just-..." Doc paused to rephrase. "They'll forgive you, they're nice like that-" He almost scoffed at the remark, like Keralis and Bdubs were too nice for their own good. "-but they probably need some time to."

"Ok."

"You feel shitty right?"

"Yes."

"Good, the first step is feeling bad, and the second is making up for it." Doc offered him a slight smile, and Etho returned it slightly. They had been sitting down for a while, and only as Etho shifted, did Doc realize how still he had been during the whole talk. And the guy wasn't a jittery or energetic guy normally, but even this amount of stillness was him.

"You aren't going to put this off, or mope around for the next 5 years, but you do need to take care of yourself at least a little. Go take a shower and eat. And you better get some rest or I'll call Beef over and he'll make you." Doc said, and while it sounded like a joke, there was a sternness and real truth to his words. He would call Beef over to make Etho to rest if he had too.

And actually, he was planning on calling Beef anyways, but maybe he wouldn't tell Etho that yet.

"Thanks Doc. You- you didn't have to."

"We're friends Etho. Stop saying I don't have to help you out."

---

"Listen, I know." Doc held the phone up to his ear and paced the room. Etho had wandered somewhere after the talk, hopefully to take a shower or something calming in his room, and now Doc was dealing with the dirty work of it in the room over from the kitchen. He didn't mind really, Etho needed help, and he was happy to oblige, but it didn't make the conversation easier.

"Keralis came to me crying, and Bdubs was fuming on the phone as he explained what happened." A somewhat static voice said sternly.

"Yes- yes, he screwed up."

"He did more than screw up, Doc. I know Etho has bad days, but that doesn't give him an excuse to lash out at people."

"X, he swore. Etho said fuck, and kept saying it towards himself, with puffy eyes and wet hair, and guilt ridden all over his face. He's normally quiet about his emotions, but I swear once he started to talk he wouldn't stop. I don't think he could even hear me until he was done."

Xisuma didn't say anything in the moment of silence, and Doc kept going.

"He feels like shit. A guilt-ridden mess of- I don't even know what to call him. His computer is ruined and all of his work this year is gone, and I swear he hasn't gotten any sleep in a week either. Please just-, you have the backup. It'll be something for when I fix the thing, if it's even fixable. He feels horrible about it." Doc finished, and the silence hung in the air, even if this was only a phone call.

"He'll apologize to Keralis?" Xisuma said, voice stern, apart from the crack in the connection of the call.

"First thing tomorrow morning. After he gets some rest and food so he doesn't dig himself deeper." Doc stated.

Xisuma sighed and Doc could imagine him rubbing the bridge of his nose in that moment. "Alright. Send me the computer one way or another when you can, and I can get the backup onto it. It'll take a few hours to load so I'll do it overnight."

"Thanks X. He know's he owe's you."

"Etho just needs to say sorry. No "owing" needed, everyone makes mistakes."

Xisuma's voice was a little gentler at the end, clearly torn between two friends if only a little. He was the dad friend, everyone knew it at least a little, and Doc could tell this was stressing him out like a worried parent.

Doc thought it over, and almost started to ask if X knew how he could help Etho take care of himself more, but hesitated. X was busy. And asking how to help Etho would just be an awkward mess for everyone. He could do this himself, probably. Before Doc could think about it again, the voice cracked over the phone again.

"See you soon Doc. You're a good friend you know."

"You are too X, and thanks again."

They hung up, and Doc went back to the kitchen/living room area, where Etho was nowhere to be found.

"Right, he went to his room." Doc remembered and started to walk over there, pocketing his phone.

"If he is trying to do any work at all-... computer or no computer..." Doc trailed off, hoping Etho wasn't trying to push himself again. As smart as Etho was, sometimes he was a complete fool, and Doc could only hope this wasn't one of those times.

"Etho." Doc said as he stepped in his friend's room, to both alert him and get his attention, "You doing work?"

"No, just- thinking."

"Thinking about what?" Doc prompted. He looked around the room, really just a glance, and then looked back at Etho, sitting on the side of his bed with his bank hunched and his arms tucked between his legs. It was almost depressing. What happened to the coffee addict, coder mastermind, cold resistant Canadian friend he'd known so long?

There was a silence in the air when Etho didn't respond right away, and Doc wandered out of the doorway and further into the room.

On the outside, Doc looked pretty calm at it all. Maybe a little stiffer and tired, but calm nonetheless.

On the inside, it was a different story. He wasn't the comfort friend! He usually fully supported bottling up emotions, waiting for the spark to ignite them like a molotov cocktail before he threw it off into the air! His relaxation included working just like Etho, and loading up on coffee, so when that "solution" would only make things worse at the moment, Doc was at an impasse.

Etho spoke, snapping him out of his panic a little. "How quickly it escalated. I know I already told you, but- I feel like I could've avoided it all." Etho paused, and let his ragged hair fall over face even more as he shifted in on himself. "I've never been so- much before."

And maybe that wasn't exactly the word Etho was trying to use, but Doc got the point. Etho had an outburst, and it was something he'd never really felt before. Not to say he hadn't been mad before, or never cried, but it was a rarity, and those times had been pretty quiet from what Doc had seen. This must've been just as confusing as painful, and the hurt was clear in his heterochromatic eyes that shifted down to his lap.

"Oh how would Ren comfort him?" Doc thought out in slight desperation, the silence stretching longer as he tried to figure out what to say.

Etho wasn't in the right.

Doc couldn't say it would be all ok; He didn't know that.

The computer was completely fried from what he had seen, and it wouldn't be an easy or quick fix.

"There there?" Doc tried super awkwardly, patting his friend's shoulder without thinking.

He hesitated when he realized, but Etho didn't pull back, slowly looking up at him properly for the first time all night.

"Pfft-" Etho actually smiled a little. "You have no idea how to comfort someone, huh?" Etho teased a little, voice cracking in exhaustion.

"Hey I'm trying man! You're not the easiest guy to comfort." He retorted back, and despite the fact they were arguing, a bit of tension had cleared.

"D'ya learn the shoulder pat from Beef or Ren?" Etho asked, partially as a tease, partially as a genuine question.

"Eh, Ren mostly, but I guess Beef does it too huh?" Doc's shoulders relaxed and he finally sat next to Etho, making the avoidance of more eye contact less obvious, and provided a bit of a grounding weight.

"Yeah."

"It'd be easier if you were right at least." Doc said, a sigh almost edging his voice before it was replaced by a slight smirk.

"I know."

"Dude, I know you feel like shit, and reasonably so, but just apologize-" Doc glanced to the ceiling with a pause. "-profusely-" He added. "-And I'm sure it'll smooth out eventually."

There was another pause, and Etho smiled a tiny bit as he looked back at Doc, now next to him.

"You learned that word from Cleo's poetic friend, huh? I don't think you've ever said "profusely" in your whole life."

"Oh screw you." Doc laughed a little in a low voice, and Etho brightened up a tad bit. "And Joe might've helped me edit a few essays here and there. You didn't expect me to pass English on my own, did you?"

"Nah,"

There was a more comfortable silence now. Not perfect of course, but breathable, and Doc could relax a little more as the two sat on Etho's bed.

"But really man, you need to take care of yourself. You need to apologize- I'd recommend biting the bullet and doing it the second you get a chance really- but first, you have to make sure you aren't pushing yourself so much that it happens again. Going back sleep deprived and hungry won't do anyone any good. "

Etho took a deep breath in and looked at his lap as he said- slightly more sure of himself than before- "Ok."

"Hey, it's not that late yet." Doc mentioned, glancing at the shadowed clock on the wall. "I'll call up Beef and we can play video games and order pizza like old times? Then he can force you to sleep early, and tomorrow you can sorta stuff out." Doc stood up from the bed, and Etho, still there, sank a little down from the weight being lifted.

"I don't really feel like I should be-" Etho paused, his eyes scrunching. "This sounds stupid, but rewarded."

"You're right." Doc stated. "That does sound stupid. Both ways. You aren't being rewarded, you're just taking care of yourself so you don't fuck up so badly again." He stood in the doorway, and only really noticed then that the lights were off in the room.

"How have I not noticed that yet?"

It wasn't too dark with the light from the hall, but the fact that Etho was sitting in the dark alone and doing nothing before Doc came in-... It spoke louder than words.

"You'll take a shower, I'll call Beef, explain the stuff better than you did, and as long as he's not cramming for an exam or whatever, we can destroy him at some video game." Doc said.

And this time, Etho didn't offer a verbal response, but he looked up at Doc, smiled and nodded.

Doc sighed, whether out of relief or stress, he wasn't sure, but it felt right. He'd have to tell Ren about his successful "comfort friend" level up after this all blew over, and about he didn't totally fuck up a serious conversation. Ren would be proud he assumed, and the thought gave him enough energy to pull his phone out again and make another somewhat tough call.

And to think, all he wanted to do was talk about how his afternoon with Ren went. 

~~~

Summary time!

Etho gets home, looking horrible, and explains to Doc that he screwed up. Doc calls Xisuma, who says he'll back up the computer with the last one he had as long as Etho apologizes. Doc goes to Etho's room, comforts him, and leaves to call beef over so Etho can relax and get good sleep before going to apologize tomorrow, Friday.

(tell me if any of you actually read this instead of the rest of it because of the swears and I'll keep doing them or just cut down on swears. If no one cares then I won't write them.)

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( 3138 words!)

Hey hey what's this? Best buddy Doc getting a perspective all to himself? And it's not completely drowned in thoughts of Ren? Sorry, I just didn't want to write this from Etho's perspective too much because it would be super repetitive and this sorta just spilled out. Also, I can't be the only one who loves dark and intimidating Doc, the actually really good and sorta softie friend man, can I? 

And I'm back baby! Competition's are over, it took a week to catch up in school but I did it, and I got some wireless headphones! How are you guys doing? I hope well! have a great day or night!