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“Why won’t you kill me?!” Zam flings his blade, aiming for Minute’s head. Minute dodges easily and with a simple swing of his arm, he dislodges the sword from Zam’s grip and it flies out.
It still nicks Minute’s cheek, leaving a clean and bleeding line that oozes with scarlet blood. Zam feels slightly less embarrassed with his futile attempt of an attack at the sight of blood, licking his split lip. He grins manically, a perfectly practiced smile that has grown into his facial muscles. It’s way easier to pull this bloodthirsty façade after days of terrorism – he doesn’t have to think about it anymore! How great is that? Zam’s truly a villain, and once Minute realises that, he’ll finally kill Zam!
Zam’s grin widens and he’s practically drooling for the sword at Minute’s hip, waiting for it to nestle in his neck with painful pleasure.
“I don’t want to kill you. How many times have I told you that?” Minute explains for the thousandth time since they’d begun their dance. Zam’s smile drops, frowning at Minute’s concrete morals. It only makes them more enticing to shatter, though, as Zam circles around Minute, fully expecting the other to show his back.
But Minute keeps their eyes connected and turns around with him. They’re at a standstill – Minute’s inclination to avoid attacking an armour-less Zam pisses the blond off as he knows he can’t take Minute down with his weak punches and kicks. Minute is leagues ahead of him in bladework, movement and basically everything necessary in a battle.
“Oh? Not treating me like a nuisance, now? I pose a threat to you, even when I’m like this?” Zam spread his hands, gesturing to his bloody clothes. “You even killed me a few minutes ago! How, when I'm weaker, can I possibly hurt you, MinuteTech?”
He grins with his bloody, stained teeth. Minute scrutinises him like he always does, but he isn’t looking at Zam. He doesn’t see Zam, the Joker and feared villain of the server. He sees the naïve and innocent PrinceZam from seasons ago, the same one with bright blond hair and sweet honey eyes. It’s not the deceiving brown eyes and dusty blond hair Zam has now, and it’s killing him. Minute can’t look at him like that.
“I’m sure you want to kill me,” Zam holds up a remote controller, watching as Minute’s eyes go wide. The blond laughs, a sharp exhale. “Oh? You recognise this, don’t you?”
“Oh! Already straight to it, ha! Well then, twenty-nine, twenty-eight…” Zam grins. Minute weaves in between placed bundles of tnt, slicing them in half with his axe to sever the connection to the controller.
“What are you going to do if you don’t kill me now? For all you know, the entire server could be laced with tnt and you’d be responsible for letting it blow up,” Zam lightly presses the red button with his thumb, grin widening at Minute’s short breath. Then everything spins and Zam falls to the ground, Minute whisking the controller out of his hand. He catches his head before it hits the ice-cold obsidian, shakily breathing as the world around his stabilises. Minute faces him with the remote held triumphantly in hand, waiting for Zam to make a move.
“Wow! Incredible acrobatics, Mr President! I thought you just sat on that pillar all day every day,” Zam marvels despite the burning pit in his stomach. The raven moves to e-chest the remote before narrowing his eyes. He studies the black object in his hand, flipping it over with his eyes sticking to the red button before turning to face Zam.
“Did you really think I was that stupid?” Minute raises his eyebrows, analysing Zam’s reaction. The blond feigns a shocked expression, gasping incredulously.
“What? No, I could never underestimate you, Mr President!” Zam giggles, patting his cloak down as he stands up.
“It’s Minute,” he states flatly, tossing the remote back into Zam’s hands. “That is not the controller.”
“Oh, how do you know? Is it because you… blew up someone’s base with the real one?” Zam tilts his head, eyeing Minute. The raven stiffens, looking away. His reaction makes Zam laugh uncontrollably, doubling over with the beginnings of tears in his eyes.
He loves it. He loves the shame that flickers in Minute’s eyes at the memory of Poafa’s base blowing up into smithereens. Zam loves the lightly pressed lips as Minute turns around to face him again.
“Zam, why are you doing this?” Minute asks, concern evident in his furrowed eyebrows. Zam only cackles harder, his throat convulsing for air after he’s laughed his lungs into shrivelled raisins.
“Oh, Minute. Oh, sweet Minute. I’ve told you this so many times before!” he giggles in between words, breathing hard as he forces his weak body to stand upright. “In fact, I’ve told you so many times that I’m sure you’re asking that because you want to hear me say something else! You want to hear me let slip a weakness, which you’ll be able to manipulate to kill me!”
Minute opens his mouth but Zam cuts in. “Don’t tell me you don’t want to kill me, because I know you do. I know I’m a persistent roadblock to your peaceful ending and I know you know that killing me is the easiest and best solution to your problems!
“Which makes me wonder, why haven’t you killed me when I’ve whittled your patience down to zero so many times?” Zam steps forward threateningly despite being unarmed, because the thing about villains is that they’re always terrifying, even when they’re regurgitating blood and have nothing to fall back on. “Oh, Minute. Oh, sweet Minute. Instead of you asking me for my intentions, I want to ask you for yours.”
Minute raises his eyebrows in amusement. “You already know them, Zam.”
“No, no no. Not those ones because I have an inkling that you have another reason, especially for not killing me,” the blond steps forward and places a hand on Minute’s shoulder. He flinches at the touch, body twisting away, then he looks back at Zam with the same conflicted eyes as if he wished he’d stayed.
Minute’s quiet for a few moments like he always is, leaving Zam to rethink over his bluff. He has no reason to think what he does, but it’s fun. It’s fun to see Minute think over words that fall silent to Zam’s ears. It’s fun to break someone who appears perfectly put together.
“Do you really want to know?” Minute asks after the deafening silence, and Zam finds that after every silence between them, he likes it better when Minute breaks it.
“Why would I turn down an opportunity to get to know you better?” he raises a hand to Minute’s bloody cheek, wiping the beading blood away. Minute accepts the touch with hesitation, which Zam finds cute, so he presses his palm into the other’s cheek, watching him with attentive eyes.
“It’s because,” Minute raises his eyes from Zam’s feet, and although the blond wants to writhe away at that pitying look, he stays with his hand on Minute’s cheek. “I love you, Zam.”
“I love you, Minute!”
“Love you too then.”
Zam stands there, quietly breathing as those words sink in. Minute lets the hand fall from his face, watching carefully for a reaction. The blond’s eyelashes flutter as he blinks rapidly before coming to his senses.
“Why?” Zam manages to utter, eyes blown wide as Minute steps forward. Zam steps back.
“Why can’t I?” Minute’s voice is low and soft with genuineness, sounding just like a heated weighted blanket being tossed over Zam in bed. He’s cushioned with a fog in his head, unable to think straight all of a sudden.
“You can’t love me.” Zam steps back again when Minute tries to close the distance. He gets the memo though, standing still and instead taking Zam’s hand.
“Why can’t I?” he repeats before Zam snatches his hand away. Is this some sort of ploy to induce a reaction out of him? He shakes his head, staring back at Minute with a blurry vision.
“Look at what I’ve done!” Zam gestures around him at the shattered magenta glass on the floor of the Dragon Egg. “How can you love me when all I’ve done is ruin your lives and your plans on purpose?”
“Because you’re so much more than that.” It’s Minute’s turn to cup Zam’s cheeks with his hands, the genuine kindness in his voice fogging up Zam’s brain. How can his enemy speak to him like that? How, when his teammates can’t?
“You’re wrong. You don’t know me, Minute,” Zam pushes him away despite wanting to get closer, the desire sparking a regretful shame in his heart. He can’t want what he can’t have, because him and Minute are impossible. You can’t make two sides of the coin the same.
“You said you loved me before, so why?” Minute lacks the pleading voice Zam longs to hear, instead phrasing it like an interrogative question.
“Because… I was joking.” He isn’t joking, even if he is the Joker. It is the only real feeling he lets himself keep, and to hear Minute’s sharp exhale at his lie, Zam almost breaks down crying.
“I’ll still love you,” Minute’s voice sounds like he’s a mountain range away. He spins Zam around like a fragile doll, swiping under his eyes. So Zam really was crying. He wasn’t imagining it.
Minute brings their faces closer together, staring into Zam’s eyes with his kind dark eyes that sparks Zam’s hatred. He wishes he can shove it all down and allow himself to savour the moment, eyes traitorously focusing on Minute’s lips. Zam lets the hand under his chin guide him up, lips parting expectantly.
There’s a ghost of a kiss that leaves Zam dizzy, blinking like a doe in headlights. The hand falls from his chin, his own hands moving to chase it, but to no avail. Minute turns on his heels, equipping his elytra and flying away.
Zam’s throat is parched, and when he presses his lips tightly together, he feels they don’t fit correctly anymore.