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Rek met with Jaron at the bottom of the mountain, out of earshot of the rest of the team, which they now called ‘Team Purple’.
“So, what’s up?” Jaron said as he flew down, making one of the worst landings Rek had ever seen.
“I’ll just get straight to the point,” Rek told him. “I want to do more trial chambers, but I didn’t want to do it alone, or with the rest of the group.”
“So… you’re asking me to come with you?” Jaron confirmed, to which Rek nodded.
“Why me, though?” Jaron asked. “I’m not really the best person to tag along. You could have chosen Clown.”
“Well, we’re friends, and I thought it’d be fun,” Rek shrugged. “And it would add some suspense, you know?”
“Are you saying that because I’m bad at fighting?”
“Maybe…?” Rek gave a sheepish smile.
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter, I’m just hyped to do anything with you, Parker,” Jaron said, though he immediately regretted it, because it sounded a bit too… lovey-dovey.
Though, luckily, Rek didn’t seem to notice. “So, we’ll leave in like 20 minutes, and you just follow me, okay?”
“Do you know where one is?”
“I might..”
“Dude, come on!” Jaron exclaimed.
Rek laughed. “Okay, okay, yes, I do know where one is.” He said. “I found one while I was looking for you earlier.
“Okay,” Jaron nodded. “Then I’ll meet you in twenty and we can get off.”
“Sounds good!”
Jaron and Wunba were talking, when Jaron checked his watch. He noticed the time, which read 12:03 PM. He waited until Wunba was mid sentence and turned around, when he equipped his elytra and fired a firework, flying off.
“Parker, Parker, Parker, Parker!” Jaron yelled, listening out for Rek’s voice.
“Jaron, down here!” Jaron flew into the hole that led underground that was located in the old red base (though, technically it still was if you thought about it).
“Hey, Parker!” Jaron said, landing, but Rek immediately ran off.
“Follow me! Quickly!” He jumped, activating his elytra, using a firework, and flying off. Jaron quickly did the same, fumbling and almost dropping his fireworks, but following Rek.
“You know I left Wunba mid sentence?” Jaron said, launching another firework.
Rek laughed. “Oh my god, really?”
“Yeah, it was so funny!” Jaron cackled. “He was just talking and— boom, I flew away!”
“You know you’re really funny?” Rek said, wiping a tear from his eye from laughing. “I feel like I never say this, but you really are.”
Jaron honestly didn’t know what to respond. Nobody ever really complimented him, except for his viewers, but of course they would. He just never expected one of his friends to do it. “Thanks, Parker..” He responded awkwardly. Jaron could definitely feel a blush spreading across his cheeks, though he couldn’t tell if it was from embarrassment or attraction.
“Dude, of course!” Rek said, turning back and giving a weird half-smile half-smirk. “Your sense of humor is honestly kind of dark at times, but uh.. it gives you this cool flair.” It seemed the pair of them were both as awkward as they could be at this moment.
They flew next to one another in silence. The two boys felt suffocated by the thick atmosphere. There was a lot of tension between them, but not as if they were about to start throwing hands, it felt more like… sexual, or romantic tension.
“Hey so,” Jaron broke the uncomfortable silence. “Are we, uh.. almost there?” He asked.
Rek checked his map and drew along their path with his finger. His nail reached the point he scribbled down to mark the trial chamber. “Yeah, we should be there— oh, right now!” His marker overlapped his marking, and he spiraled down toward the ground. Jaron followed.
“We just have to dig down and we should reach it,” Rek planted his feet on the ground, and glanced around, spotting his marker he placed down (which was just a stack of cobblestone).
Jaron followed, but almost tripped over his own feet. He grabbed a tree for stability, and heard Rek snicker. “You’re so clumsy.” He said.
Jaron rolled his eyes, but he could feel himself blushing again. He pushed himself off the tree and jogged over to Rek, who was walking in the opposite direction. “Theres my cobblestone.” He said. “That’s where we should dig.”
Rek bounced over to the pillar and broke it, picking up each cobblestone block. He started to dig down, and gestured for Jaron to dig next to him. Jaron quickly pulled out his shovel, mining the dirt then switching to his pickaxe after reaching stone.
“It’s not that far down,” Rek told Jaron as he mined down. “We should probably reach it soon.”
Suddenly, Rek fell and hit the floor. He only took one heart of damage, but it still scared him to death, even though he expected it— he literally came here the day before. Jaron followed, falling to the floor. He really had the reaction time of a sloth.
“Ah, yeah— I forgot to tell you to be careful mining into the room,” Rek chuckled, scratching the back of his neck. “Sorry about that.” He pulled out a suspicious stew for himself, and one for Jaron. He threw it over, and Jaron just barely caught it.
“Thanks,” Jaron said, holding the stew with two hands. He stared down into it. This was made by Parker, he could only think. He couldn’t place a finger on why his mind was going wild whenever he heard Rek’s name mentioned, or his voice, or when he saw his hands, oh, his hands. Jaron had quite a thing for hands.
Jaron shook his head and started to eat his stew. He immediately felt better after eating it, perking up and feeling ready to take down whatever was in this trial chamber. But there was still that sinking feeling in the bottom of his stomach.
What if he died? He didn’t want to repeat the same fate that came to him last season. He was just lucky he’d gotten revived, because who knows what would happen if reviving someone wasn’t possible.
Though, another factor was the fact that Rek had survived the last season. That meant he was skilled enough to protect Jaron if he got into any trouble. It also meant that he most likely wouldn’t die, which made Jaron feel better, because he couldn’t stand to think about him dying.
“I’m ready if you are, Jaron,” Rek said, looking over his shoulder back toward Jaron. Jaron nodded, pulling out his sword. The pair ran into the first room, which immediately started spawning cave spiders.
“God, I hate these with a passion,” Jaron said through clenched teeth. He was honestly too scared to get near them, because taking even one heart made Jaron spiral.
But luckily, he had a pal who would do what he couldn’t— Rek marched into battle like a soldier in WWII, landing every strike, hitting every crit. He was just fearless. And Jaron felt small. He wanted to do something, help Rek out in any way he could, but he just couldn’t, even if he tried as hard as he could.
As quickly as it started, the many spiders were gone and they stopped spawning. “Jeez, and that was just the start.” Rek sighed, leaning on his sword as if it was a cane. Jaron thought he looked so cool.
“You wanna help in the next room?” Rek asked Jaron, pointing his sword toward him. Jaron nodded. This was his chance to finally prove he could do something and use his (mediocre) fighting abilities.
“It’s two floors,” Rek observed. “You take this floor, I’ll take the bottom. There’s more spawners down there that I can deal with.”
“Wait!” Jaron cut him off. “Can I take the bottom?” He wanted to finish his sentence with ‘I want to prove myself to you,’ but he was too nervous to even mention how bad he was at fighting. This was good practice anyways.
“Oh, sure!” Rek could 100% tell that Jaron was just trying to impress him. He honestly thought it was cute. Rek didn’t care if he couldn’t fight, he didn’t even care if he couldn’t run, he just liked Jaron for Jaron. “If you need help just call me.”
Jaron nodded and jumped off the ledge, grabbing onto the ladder at the bottom to prevent taking fall damage. From down below, he heard Rek spawn the skeletons and start to fight them. His little quips like ‘Take that, skelly!’ were so endearing to Jaron.
Jaron shook his head. He went over to one of the spawners, and started it. Skeletons started coming out of the spawner and Jaron pulled out his sword. He was never a PVP god like ClownPierce, and he’d never be as good at dodging hits as ManePear was. But at least he was good at one thing— hiding like a little girl in the corner of the room.
But this time was different. Jaron was actually attempting to make an effort at fighting. He kept taking hits, but he felt it was okay because he had a couple instant health potions, a couple golden apples, and some stew left.
But after a while of fighting, and still not having finished any spawners yet, he exhausted all his resources trying to stay alive when he should have been using them when he was low on hearts.
His hands shook as he fumbled for his backpack, frantically looking around for anything that could heal him. He didn’t have anything to make stew, any extra potions, and he didn’t even have any apples on him to make more golden apples.
As the skeletons continued shooting at him, Jaron’s hearts kept getting lower and lower until he was eventually at only 2 measly hearts. He screamed, attempting to block himself up and narrowly avoiding arrows coming from every direction. “Rek!” He screamed, his voice breaking. God, he probably looked like such an idiot right now.
So weak, so fragile. So scared from only a mere skeleton. These thoughts kept racing through Jaron’s mind until they were suddenly interrupted by the sound of bones smashing together, a sword swinging, and then Rek’s heavy breath as he leaned on his sword.
“God, Jaron, you scared me!” Rek sighed, running a hand through his messy blonde hair. Jaron bit his cheek, unable to speak a single word, even unable to let a sound out his mouth.
“Jaron?” Rek said, tilting his head. This broke Jaron out of his ‘trance’ that he was in.
“Oh, sorry.” He chuckled, fixing his trenchcoat and standing up straight, albeit a bit nervous. “I was honestly so scared that I was going to die! I mean, imagine dying in both seasons, huh?” He huffed.
“Yeah, sure,” Rek rolled his eyes playfully and nudged Jaron on the shoulder. Rek definitely saw through Jaron’s facade (if you could even call it that, he was more obvious than 4C being the goatman). But, to be honest, Rek somewhat felt the same.
He was never good with his feelings, and he usually couldn’t tell the difference between romantic and platonic relationships. But this? Nothing about this was platonic. Rek didn’t normally blush around his friends, or subconsciously flirt with them, or think everything they did was cute.
“We should probably get back before they wonder if we’re in danger,” Rek suggested, wanting to change the subject, even though it didn’t really bother him.
“You’re right..” Jaron sighed. “Also we need to get back before the next episode, so we can actually start at the base when recording.”
“Well, take one out of Ash’s book and show up 20 minutes late to every recording session,” Rek joked.
Jaron laughed. He laughed too hard. He wasn’t sure why it was that funny, maybe because they joked about it every session now and it was a running gag of sorts. “Jeez, it wasn’t that funny. I know you’re laughing because it’s me who made the joke.”
“Guilty as charged!” Jaron smirked, giving Rek’s shoulder a playful punch. “Now hurry, we should get back.” Jaron equipped his elytra, took a leap of faith, launched a rocket, and flew up the hole that they dug down to get underground.
Rek followed, but with more grace than Jaron had done his ‘trick’. The two flew home together, joking, laughing, and talking the whole way home. The two obviously felt more comfortable in each other’s presence. Their relationship had definitely improved since the beginning of their adventure.