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While pride might be a sin, Pangi had never really bothered downplaying his abilities unless it gave him an advantage. Normally he wanted his opponent guessing at his strengths, but not underestimating him either. Because he was strong. Well… He used to think he was strong… up until a few days ago at least. Pangi had prided himself on his combat skills, his knowledge, and his experiences from other worlds to close gaps and get him ahead. He had a high kill count for a reason, one really only rivaled by Aimsey and his kills weren’t really the same. They were rarely out of anger, revenge, or the desperate need for survival. Not like his kills had been.
He was the man who stood against Gods and lived. Took down their armor. Made daring escapes. Helped kill a King as a casual favor too.
Even facing down Death hadn’t scared him. Not dying, but going against Bad. Their fight had been a challenge he never imagined he would have to face, more mental than physical. He had been more worried about losing Bad as a friend than he was about killing him, but fighting him hadn’t frightened him at all. Pangi had been willing and able. He even got close to getting his hearts down. If it hadn’t been for Bad’s ability to teleport they would have gotten him.
Gods nor Death nor the destruction of an entire world scared him.
But the death of Lukey had brought him to his knees.
When it happened he had barely comprehended the last thing Bad had said to him, and then Bad teleported away with Newt following behind. Their absence left him alone with all of Lukey’s things littered around the room, the chaos the only sign of the violence that had happened too quickly for him to stop it. Pangi had always prided himself on being able to take action but he was so shocked by having seen Lukey die right in front of his eyes that he was stuck trying to make sense of it. He had seen monstrous things happen. Unspeakable violence and destruction, but nothing had ever left him frozen. It hadn’t occurred to him to try to attack Bad or go after him at that moment. But Pangi can’t even bring himself to speak.
No… In that moment of betrayal, sorrow and confusion he felt every ounce of his strength and bravado leech out of him instead. All his control crumbled and the floor fell out from under him.
He’d failed.
It was his job to protect Lukey from Bad. He knew that Bad wanted to kill him. He knew Pili was the driving force behind it, and couldn’t be trusted even when he swore that he would recall the order. Why would he ever trust anything that stupid cat said? He was so stupid. So incredibly fucking stupid.
“I left him alone for a second…”
Shakily, he stumbled towards Lukey’s items. The stone floor rattled his knees when they made contact. His hands slipped the first time, as he clumsily reached for the helmet. He growled in frustration as his shaking hands failed to take hold of the helmet again. When he was finally able to hold it he held it carefully, still not trusting that what his eyes were seeing was real. Lukey without his helmet was normal. The helmet without Lukey felt like an omen from the times of old that signaled a flood would come to wash away the sins of the world.
Gingerly, he raised the helmet up and touched it to his own, like he had done time again in the past when Lukey had remembered to wear his. If he closed his eyes he could almost pretend that this was normal, and when he opened his eyes again he would be staring back into Lukey’s.
But they weren’t there. Lukey was gone.
He finally let the pained sounds he had been holding back escape him. He sobbed, pulling the helmet to his chest, cradling it in his arms as his body shook and trembled from the pain. Lukey was dead.
His Lukey. The one he had let into his faction, into his bases, into his plans, and into his heart. The one he had gone on stupid dates with, had pissed off Ros to take to a stupid ball, and had tried so fucking hard to keep alive to prevent this exact moment from happening.
“Bad… killed Lukey…” Saying it outloud tears at his insides. It feels wrong, his very soul rejects the acknowledgment. He was supposed to have prevented this. It was his job.
It hadn’t been enough. He wasn’t enough to protect Lukey. Or a good enough teacher to prepare him to defend himself. If he had prioritized stocking Lukey with supplies, instead of trying to make him take care of himself…
What the fuck was wrong with him? He knew better than to let Lukey be alone with Bad.
He had to save Lukey’s things. He crawled to the nearby chest, looking for enough wood to help him make a new shulker box. One by one he placed Lukey’s things inside. His armor, the trident. The elytra wings that were slightly bent and nearly broken. All his tools, in horrible condition.
How had he not realized that Lukey wasn’t taking care of his gear? Was he just too busy with other things to pay enough attention, or had he not realized how dire the situation was?
Pangi swore that for the rest of the time that this cursed world existed he would look after Lukey better. He would have the best armor, potion belts for everything, a brand new elytra with the best enchants. Anything and everything he could think of to keep him safe until he could get a life back from completing the quests.
Pangi froze again. Had that been Lukey’s second life or his last? He couldn’t remember. If it wasn’t his last then he should be back.
He picked up the shulker, and stumbled towards Lukey’s bedroom. His eyes darted around the lab while he walked, trying desperately to find Lukey. Once he made it to the living quarters his eyes locked on the bed.
Nothing.
His heart sank. The room was empty, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t come back.
“He’ll respawn…” He mumbled to himself, trying to believe it.
Maybe it would just take him a little bit, right? Just a few minutes, that’s all. Pangi walked up the stairs, waiting and watching the bed for any sign or hint of Lukey’s return, trying to will Lukey to appear in front of him.
“Come on… Come on…” He mumbled, tears still streaming down his face. He pressed his back against the wall and slowly slid down so he was sitting on the ground. It had been his initial intention to stay there until Lukey got back. “Come on… respawn…”
His head spun with ‘what if’ after ‘what if’ and little things he should have done differently. Lukey could have gone with him to speak to Water. Lukey should have gone first out of the lab. He should have cured Bad weeks ago. But he didn’t because he’s an idiot and now Lukey was dead and he wasn’t coming back, and Pangi was going to have to figure out how to deal with that. But how could he possibly when he still didn’t want to believe it was real…
“Lukey please…” The broken murmur brought a fresh wave of tears.
It had never occurred to him just how badly losing Lukey would hurt him now. He had lost him before, and it had been a bad experience then, but this was excruciating. He felt empty, like everything that mattered had been ripped out of him. He was a teddy bear without the stuffing to give him shape. It wasn’t just that there was a Lukey shaped hole in his chest, or whatever stupid nonsense people usually said when talking about grief. It felt like part of him had died with Lukey.
He looked around the lab, expecting to see him somewhere, but there was nothing.
An empty lab, silent and still without its creator to give it life.
He began to panic. Lukey wasn’t back yet. He tried to rationalize away the thought that this was a reset. Maybe this wasn’t his bed. It was just… maybe he was somewhere else. Like spawn.
He grabbed the shulker that had slipped from his hands and tucked it safely away in his ender chest. He told himself he would just be able to bring Lukey his things and that everything would be fine. Lukey would be at spawn. He had to be at spawn.
The flight to spawn was quick. His landing was haphazard and rushed, but he was starting to get desperate. There had been no sign of Lukey from the air.
“Lukey!” He called. “Lukey, where are you!” He searched the nearby area but there was no sign of him.
His next thought was his own house. Lukey sometimes replaced his beds that Pili stole, maybe he woke up there. He burst in the door, eyes trained on the spot his bed usually sat in.
No bed.
No Lukey.
He screamed in frustration.
What the hell was he doing? Lukey was gone, he wasn’t coming back, and he had been pathetically wallowing in his own feelings instead of fucking doing something about it.
Did Lukey not deserve better? Was he not capable of providing at least a measure of retaliation? Pangi felt pathetic. The Corruption had taken so much from him, but now it had taken Lukey, and that was too far. More than he was willing to overlook. But he had yet to prove it. Not to Bad, or Pili, or the others. Least of all to himself.
He pulled himself together for the moment and contacted Water. Aimsey joined them after, and from there it was a whirlwind of action.
It felt wrong to him somehow. When he had prepared for battle in the past, even the most recent one with Aimsey, Bad had been there by his side. Now he was getting ready to go to war against the friend he had the longest in the realm. The constant reassuring presence had turned into his enemy, their friendship unable to hold on in the wake of Lukey’s death. Because even if he felt a loyalty for Bad that had endured through the history of the factions, it could not survive the weight of his broken heart.
On the other hand… No matter who it was with, preparing for battle felt natural, it felt real, and for a few hours the empty feeling was gone, chased away by methodical preparations, the thrill of combat, and the necessity of pushing the tactician to the front of his mind. He had to focus if he was going to do what needed to be done. This was going to be a lesson for those involved with the corruption, he would not endure their plots quietly. They could not take what was his without retaliation.
Fighting was second nature, and yet felt ultimately futile. It was one of the most unsatisfying exchanges he ever had. Bad couldn’t be killed, and they were uncertain if he could be cured with what they dosed him with. In the end Bad had slipped away with a teleport, and even his stick couldn’t counter what could very well be several stacks of pearls and chorus fruit. So after one last infuriating conversation he had no choice but to let Bad go.
Lukey wasn’t avenged and he hadn’t returned, confirming his worst fears.
Reset. Maybe even a permanent death. And if not, then he wasn’t going to be getting his Lukey back. That was the curse for those who had their lives taken. The cost was more than their skills, and health.
It opened up a whole new kind of suffering. Even if he got Lukey back the chances were he would have an entirely different personality, and he might even be a different person all together.
Would he recognize his Lukey in whoever was going to show up in his place?
Part of him wanted Lukey to just be dead. Maybe Newt could confirm it for him one way or another. They could hold a funeral for him, and have a proper goodbye before he wiped the realm from existence. But another part of him wanted Lukey back no matter what he returned as. He could be corrupted, or sculked up, or have memory loss. He didn’t care. It wouldn’t matter, because it would still be Lukey.
All he wanted was Lukey back.
Pangi would show him that he was able to give him the protection he needed. He could prove that he could do what was necessary. And that would start by picking Lukey over Pili, every time.
He had stacks of tnt in his ender chest, and Pili had a base full of corruption that needed to go. Pangi made a promise to himself and Lukey, praying that wherever he was he could hear him. This would be the last time he ever went into the lair of the creature that ordered Lukey dead.
Placing each piece of tnt felt like a small bit of the revenge his soul had been screaming and clawing inside his head for.
He set it off and left, not bothering to survey the damage.
For the remainder of the day he perched at the top of green castle, keeping an eye out for Bad, and hoping against hope that there would be a sign from Lukey.
He reflected on the day, berating himself for all he had done wrong, and when he ran out of actions to scrutinize he began looking back at his relationship with Lukey in general.
Why had he been so mean to him? His heart lurched at the realization that he had been so harsh with his words and tone with Lukey. It had all been misplaced frustration, he had been worried, scared to his core that Lukey would die. But it had happened anyway. And he had been so critical of him. Why did Lukey even put up with it? How had he not chased him off into the arms of another faction who would have supported him and welcomed him with enthusiasm. Blue would have loved him. Yellow would have been ecstatic to take such a core part of Green. Instead he was stuck with him and Bad, criticising everything he did.
And why hadn’t he asked Lukey on any more dates? Why hadn’t he tried harder? And what in the world had possessed him to invite Pili of all people?
He was quickly coming to the conclusion that the problem wasn’t with Lukey, it was with him. He was the one who wasn’t good enough. He wasn’t strong enough to deserve Lukey. He wasn’t gentle enough. And maybe it was for the best he was leaving.
Lukey’s death was too fresh to let that thought linger. When the sun had set, he flew back to the lab.There was a book written by Newt, but the words disgusted him to the point that he tossed it into the fire.
Lukey’s office felt unwelcoming to him for the first time ever, and the lab halls felt cold. He wandered his way back to the sleeping quarters, back to Lukey’s bed. It was still empty, with no sign Lukey had respawned yet. Pangi hesitated, not sure if he should grab a different bed to sleep in nearby or just…
Right, easy answer.
He shed his armor, and fell onto the black sheets, burying his face in the pillow. It smelled like Lukey. There was the odd ozone smell everyone had from flying, a smokey note from always going in and out of the fireplaces to Newt’s lab, and under that something more masculine mixed with a strange hint of something spicy from all the brewing he did. It was unmistakably him, in a stronger concentration than he was used to. Tears threatened to fall but he had cried enough for one day
Pangi breathed in the scent deeply, trying to imagine that Lukey was there with him. He wrapped himself in the blanket, and tried to imagine that when he woke up Lukey would be there, wondering why he was in his bed. Lukey had to come back. If not today then tomorrow. He just needed to see his stupid handsome face, and then it would be ok.
It was difficult for him to settle down enough to sleep. He kept nitpicking his own actions again. Lukey died not knowing that he would pick him over Pili. Of course he would pick Lukey. At the end of the day, if he had to pick one over the other then he would always pick Lukey. Even though he had known Lukey a shorter amount of time, there was no comparison between them. Lukey was loyal. Above all else, he never had to question Lukey’s willingness to stand with him.
But Pili, even though they were friends, had betrayed him again and again. And maybe he seemed obsessed with Pili, but that was only because he missed his friend. The original Pili, the one who was gone and would never exist again. But he had never acted like this about Pili. He had never spent the night in Pili’s bed, clutching his pillow to comfort himself. Not even after watching him be murdered. He killed others for that, and got into a lot of fights over it. But he never mourned Pili like he was mourning Lukey, because they were on two entirely different levels in his mind and in his life.
And he never made that clear to Lukey, or Pili either for the record. Not in words or actions. And he felt like the realm’s biggest failure for it. Lukey deserved better than that, but he had wanted to be an idiot and keep messing around with Pili. And look where that got everyone.
Lukey also died without them getting married. He had been talking about it for ages, but he let his own fear of commitment get in the way of it. Every little thing Lukey did wrong he had used as an excuse. It was the same for why they had stopped dating. He had set up dates that could only end in failure to make sure that they never got too close. But Lukey had gotten close to him anyway. He made himself familiar, he had made them a home in the lab. Lukey had saved him from the corruption. But there kept being all these little things that at the time felt like huge deal breakers, and now it was probably too late. Even if Lukey came back, how were they supposed to pick up the pieces of their relationship at this point?
His heart ached. Pangi could have had Lukey be his, really his. This bed he was in now could have been his that he shared with his husband. Instead of holding a pillow that smelled like Lukey, he could have woken up to him holding Lukey. He felt cheated. Both by the lack of time they had left, and by him not seeing the bigger picture, those little things were never important. It hadn’t seemed dire at the time. He hadn’t known there would be an expiration date on their relationship, but he guessed there was one on everything now.
And speaking of… Lukey died not knowing that Pangi didn’t really want to leave the realm, but didn’t see a way out of it that wouldn’t send him running back some other time in the future. It wasn’t that he wanted to leave Lukey, it’s that there didn’t seem like a choice. He had been taken from his world against his will, and now that he had a chance to go back he owed it to himself and all his old friends and allies to return. And there was no world in which he could take Lukey with him.
Lukey was needed here, to rebuild the realm, and bringing Lukey to Life Steal would be a disaster. He would be a liability. No survival instinct, no fighting skills, and the overly obvious affection that they felt for each other would make Lukey his biggest weakness. He would be a target from the start, and the fallout from everything that would happen would tear them apart.
He couldn’t make Lukey try to live through that. Pangi didn’t want to live through it either. Seeing Lukey die once had been painful enough, watching him die over and over again until he was no more would destroy him.
Pangi tossed and turned until the early hours of the morning, thinking about every regret he had about Lukey.
Once he was asleep he was plagued by nightmares. In the first one he followed trails of blood in the lab, leading down to the white wool room. When he was inside, he found the white wool had been stained red, with Bad in the middle, covered in corruption crystals, Lukey’s corpse at his feet, and Bad’s mouth ringed with blood.
The next nightmare showed him Lukey come back to life, with purple eyes, corruption purple replacing the white of his normal outfit. Lukey mocked him, promising that he would fail in his task to rid the realm of corruption.
After that he woke up, and was unwilling to try to sleep again right away, haunted by what he had seen in his sleep.
Falling asleep in Lukey’s bed was an experience he was somewhat familiar with. But waking up after a night of nightmares in his bed, and Lukey not being back yet opened up the wounds from the day before all over again. Not only was he on edge, and sleep deprived, but the lab felt cold and lonely, highlighting the absence that had appeared inside him in the time since Lukey had died. Pangi’s mind went into overdrive, analyzing the facts he knew about how Lukey had died. He made a list of places to investigate to try to get more answers. He couldn’t let himself be too emotional about this anymore. A methodical approach would keep things simple.
The first thing he did was try to see if Lukey had appeared in his office, or somewhere else in the lab. But finding nothing he moved on.
The next step was to try to make sense of how Lukey died so fast. He had all morning to think it over, and what he heard, and what he saw hadn’t added up. Plus, Lukey’s boots were missing from the things he collected the day before. After poking around a few of the chests near where Lukey and Bad had been he finally found the boots. They were almost broken, and he couldn’t explain how they got into that chest, except that Lukey had taken them off.
He frowned, pushing down the sinking feeling in his gut. Maybe Bad had put them there after accidentally picking him up, that part he didn’t remember very well. Pangi carefully put the boots into the shulker where the rest of Lukey’s things were being kept, and then left to investigate other places.
Spawn looked a lot more like how he felt at the moment. His house had been blown up, the meteor in front of green castle was gone, and had been thrown through the roof of the Cathedral. It was chaos, and that wasn’t even the worst part.
Seapeekay pointed out a set of signs which could have only been written by Pili that revealed all his plans with Lukey to blow up the world, forcing him to scramble to try to cover his tracks. The lies fell out of his mouth without him really needing to try. And it seemed like the fox bought his stories. That was the good part about Pili trying to expose him, he had no reputation to stand on. Pili targeting him and Lukey looked more like the desperate act of a jealous ex rather than a serious accusation.
The problem would be Aimsey.
He spent the next few days covering his tracks and making stronger allies with Water and surprisingly Aimsey. With both of them on board with blowing up the world, he felt better about his plan. Things were finally turning back his way.
Except… Lukey still wasn’t back, and the initial pain that nearly destroyed him in the beginning had settled into a deep ache. Missing Lukey now felt like he was missing an arm. Something he was learning to live with, but adapting was more difficult than he imagined, and he could admit he wasn’t really trying to adjust either. He was too busy gasping at strings trying to keep his plans together, and despite the promise of more help, he knew he was going to have to work fast. Time was against him.
When he got back to the lab on the second day after Lukey died he had been wary of going back to Lukey’s bed to sleep right away. While he hadn’t had anymore nightmares like the first night, sleep still wasn’t coming easy. Instead he went to the resin farm, and was stunned to see it mostly completed with signs indicating that it wasn’t perfect and to be careful.
All the carefully constructed walls he had been building up crumbled to the ground.
Pangi screamed. “Lukey!” He took off, checking every inch of the lab to try to find him, but he was nowhere.
Gone.
Again.
After he searched the lab a second time and took a flight around spawn he gave up, collapsing in Lukey’s chair at his desk. He couldn’t keep doing this. It wasn’t a ghost that had built the farm, it could have only been Lukey, which meant he had come back, and snuck in while Pangi had been suffering and mourning the loss of him. Lukey was avoiding him. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t keep letting himself be jerked around by his feelings over Lukey like this if he was going to be avoided. While he respected Lukey’s decisions they left him confused and hurt. And he had reached his limit with those. There was too much to do, too much at stake to keep this up.
The thought had been lurking in the back of his mind for the last day or so, but he hadn’t been willing to let it out.
Lukey meant the world to him and he wanted so badly to fix things between them and make it up to him, but he needed to burn this world to the ground to set it free from the corruption, and he couldn’t give himself to both. One would have to come at the cost of the other, because there wasn’t enough of him to go around. And Lukey needed more than he could give. He wasn’t enough.
That was why he needed to go back to Life Steal. He wasn’t strong enough to weather this storm, and give Lukey the love and care he deserved. Pangi knew that things would get too messy. The hold that Lukey has over him would always be there, but the cost to do what is necessary to stay in Lukey’s world came at too great a price to himself. Plus he didn’t think he had the strength to be the man that Lukey needed. He lacked the ability to protect him, the nerve to hold him close, and the power to keep every threat from even considering going after Lukey. Pili and Bad should have never even considered it. He needs to be reforged into a better man, a stronger man, one who deserves all the brilliance that Lukey has in him. He’s going to regret not going sooner every day until he can fix this. But he had business he needed to finish first before he left.
So he makes the decision, right there at Lukey’s desk, tears streaming down his face again at the choices he’s made. Necessary but painful. Like pulling a blade out of a wound.
And he knows what comes next will be just as painful. Until he leaves he’ll have to do his best to put more distance between him and Lukey. That’s the only way he thinks he won’t make a complete and utter idiot out of himself when he sees him. If he holds himself back maybe it will be less painful for all involved when he goes as well. He doesn’t want Lukey to have to suffer more than he has. The only saving grace will be if Lukey can forgive him for it one day.
When he’s finally better, and ready to come back he’ll fall to his knees before Lukey and tell him everything. Every horrible detail, and every painful revelation. He’ll tell him about the nightmares, and sleeping in his bed. He’ll tell him how he wished they had married, and that he hadn’t known what was coming before it was too late. Pangi will tell him that he was loved, but he wasn’t strong enough to cherish him properly. He cared about him, but didn’t know how to care for him. And he would fix it all.
He swears to think about it every day. His pledges his dreams will be of Lukey and the life they will have together. He promises that one day he will come back to the realm and give Lukey his happy ending.
One day, he’ll be able to beg forgiveness for not being strong enough.
Just not now.