Chapter Text
Minute was over the end of the Private Murder Company.
At least he thought he was.
Until he knew he wasn't.
Staring at a wound won't make it heal any faster; in fact, it'll just make time trickle slower. Still, the sting won't let you forget. You know to wait. You know to not pick at the scar. But it begs you to. So you do.
Minute feels the gentle warmth of the fireplace seep through the room, the embers sparking as the flame flickers from snowy winds coming in, the crackle of charring wood. And he, for the first time since dying, lets himself be submerged by it all. He lets himself sink back into the soft embrace of last year.
Just this once, he stops chiding himself for not knowing better on the deadliest server.
***
"That Christmas tree might need some work."
Minute was almost (keyword: almost) endeared by the crooked glowstone star, shining even as it wobbled on the precipice of falling, and the messy arrangement of various terracotta baubles. His face gave way a hint of a smile that Clown didn't catch, eyes barely glancing from the box in his hand, mind elsewhere.
"You're back with some more materials?"
He nodded hesitantly. More might not be able to save this mess. He better just do it on his own.
"Yeah...just some baubles, larger tinsel garlands, and stockings. Leo'll be back with some fake snow soon."
The P.M.C base might have been creative and efficient, but it was hardly a pretty sight anyway—the tree would fit right with the rest. Still, Minute was inclined to fiddle with the silver tinsel, untangling the knots carefully back into icicle-like strings, a delicate art he had practiced from all the tedious hours trying to embroider small designs onto the sweaters he had gotten as presents. It would all be hidden under armour and flamboyant (well, Clown's at least) trims most of the time anyway.
It was going to be for the eyes of his fellow teammates, and their eyes only. And he just hoped they liked their gifts enough.
The two of them had everything. Materials, hearts, gapples. How do you fill in a gap that doesn't exist? Give something to someone that has everything? You get them something special to your friendship, something only you could make.
'Friendship' might be a strong word. He hoped it wasn't. In a crevice tucked away deep down, he knew it was. It was a dangerous game to play. It might have been his first season, but it was far from his first day alive.
The things you think you know, and the things you really do are two starkly different things—you only figure out by the time it's too late, by the time you find out you knew nothing at all.
"Done."
Minute went alert at the sudden sound before relaxing.
"You scared me for a second. Done with what?"
"Counting our profits", Clown answered with a sly grin—if he could do jazz hands right now, he would, Minute thinks—holding up an overflowing box of diamonds. Under the Christmas lights, they glistened so brightly Minute could see his own face glowing with a soft smile, knowing that the PMC had proved themself since the days of that embarrassing tab-out death. A vulnerability he'd later regret.
But for now, he was home.
"Nice work."
Clown carefully let the boxes down with a hefty sigh. When he dusted his hands off, he almost relished in the motion, the pride in a job so well-done, handling your riches becomes cumbersome. Suffering from success. Minute chuckled at the uncharacteristic sight. For Clown, surviving on Lifesteal must've hardly been a fear, thriving must've been an expectation rather than something to celebrate.
Yet here he was.
"I didn't think you'd be so happy with the progress."
"Seriously?", Clown's hand inched towards the diamonds again, before Minute gently grabbed him by the wrist.
"You don't need to show me again, look I- It's just...isn't this normal for you?"
Usually all Minute saw was the mask. Facial expressions, hell, even words, were of little use between the three of them. A head nod, a tilt, a single shout was enough to do the job on the battlefield. But this wasn't to do with a job.
"For me", Clown patted his shoulder, "I'm used to being solo. Even in a team we were all just people who happened to work together."
He walked past, admiring the finishing touches Minute had made to the tree before looking back, "Y'know, brotherhood's a first for me. This time, it actually feels like these diamonds and hearts are all ours."
Minute's raised eyebrow gave his puzzlement away, "I thought you weren't fond of sharing."
"Only if it's not deserved; the PMC's the most reliable team I've had."
He grabbed a handful of diamonds—with an uncharacteristic tenderness in hands that had only, up to this point, known the roughness and harsh clench around the handle of an axe—pried open Minute's hand and placed the shimmering crystals on his palm.
"I want you to have these."
"Don't tell me this is a last minute Christmas present."
Minute placed them in a shulker box with a suspicious sort of hesitancy, not taking his gaze off Clown as he did so. He was waiting for the moment where'd he say he was kidding, or change his mind. But the man didn't budge.
Instead, Clown laughed. A real laugh. Not like the manical ones that splattered out in his killing sprees like the blood from his enemies. It was a soft chuckle, as if Minute's slightly narrowed eyes were the most hilarious thing in the world.
"Jeez, I'm hurt, I thought you knew me better than that", Clown joked, "No, no. I've got my own for the two of you."
Just in time, Leo's head popped in through the doorway, then just as swiftly back out. Minute raised an eyebrow. Just exactly what was he up to now?
"Speak of the devil—"
"—Aand he will appear...", Leo said with a mischievous tone that could only be foreshadowing. That was before he promptly, and perhaps expectedly, dumped a pile of snow onto the floor.
Clown and Minute, as if on cue, simultaneously turned to one another.
"This is almost worse than the time you first put on the banana peel armour trim."
"Woah, hey! I still think I looked like a goddamn emperor", Clown retorted with a childish defiance before drawling, "Aaand... you have to admit Minute, they came in handy that one time during the bounty. Man we were so efficient."
Minute huffed, a sign of defeat. He wasn't wrong. That eyesore—or eyecandy as Mr. Pierce would put it—served its purpose well when they were protecting Wemmbu. He would later remember the purple-haired man less fondly.
Regardless, they all had to spread around this snow anyway. Everytime they walked through the room, footprints would be left behind. It was a sort of comforting knowing everywhere you had been, another member was once standing in the exact same spot as you were. Even without the snow, the base was always like this. Items shifted around chests, a new villager in the trading hall, farms looted right before you needed the materials.
Before it was a nuisance.
Little did Minute know, he would later give anything for that to be back.
Every idiosyncrasy, everything Clown or Leo did that gave way to indulging in an eyeroll, everything he found an annoyance would soon be remembered so warmly it was almost painful.
"Finally."
Clown crashed onto the couch in exhaustion. Leo and Minute quickly followed with a great thud, all of them scrambled together like a shaken pack of sardines in the living room, like a pile of bodies after a battle.
"Man...well, I guess it looks nice...enough", Leo shrugged, "We can fix it tomorrow. I'm tired as hell."
Minute felt the urge to emphasise 'enough', but it hardly mattered when his arms were this sore from shovelling snow all over the place. By this point, despite his desperate attempts to save the tree, it was already leaning like the Tower of Piza.
More importantly, something else was just 'enough'.
Honestly, on Lifesteal all you could hope for, dream for really, was 'enough'.
Today, the PMC all being here to celebrate frivolous holiday was enough. The merciful quiet in the air around Lifesteal was enough on a server burning with fight. Not being banned was enough.
He would dream of this moment of 'enough', wish he could swallow it whole and live in it again, drink those hazy memories like ambrosia, feel the sweet nectar drip into the back of his throat, let the past become present and envelop him once more.
Minute would soon grow to be content with enough.
For a while they just laid there, basking in the waning warmth of a hungry hearth calling to be fed with more spruce logs being supplemented by the collective heat of their bodies like a weight blanket of wool. Right then and there, their worries and their walls crumbled gently like apple pie crust in the lullaby of hushed breaths, the comforting sway of each other's chests rising up and down.
By this point, the lazy sun had already slipped beneath the horizon, a small child carried from the backseat to their little bed. The purples and pinks of the dusk sky would darken and mature, falling to the night. Every now and then, a gust of cold winter's air would blow through the base so someone would sniffle or shiver, and this intertwined together, they all felt it. Time was strangely calm before the hustle and bustle that would come on the 25th. It was just the three of them, hearts and souls bound.
The PMC weren't the type to hug each other, let alone fall asleep this vulnerable. Maybe toast to something or put each other in joking headlocks, at most a firm pat.
But that night? It was Christmas Eve.
Tomorrow they'd wake up to each other's presents. Tomorrow they'd invite Branzy to dig into a hearty meal, indulge in the scent of handmade cinnamon rolls. Tomorrow they'd gather under the cherry blossom trees, in the cradle of the mesa biome, with the rest of the server eager for someone to shoot an arrow into a TNT cart in the middle of carols.
Not so many tomorrows later, Minute would wake up. Not from his bed. Not to the crinkle of gift wrapping and the held breath of excited anticipation. Not from Christmas Eve and not to Christmas Day.
He'd wake up from a slumber overdue for its demise.
This fleeting dream, his dream.
His dream that justice was more than an ideal in this wasteland of virtue. His sweet dream where he was in the arms of a brotherhood, his brotherhood, the PMC. Fighting tooth and nail beside Leo and Clown knowing every missed swing would be defended by another, the huddle before rushing into the heat of battle to splash potions.
He'd wake up to more than a betrayal.
He'd wake up to the realisation that this meant so much more to him than it did everyone else.
He'd wake up asking over and over again why they bothered to be the best team he could ask for, only crush it all to dust.
Minute would wake up a fool; he made a fatal mistake, the one they warn you over and over not to do on Lifesteal.
Trusting.
***
Minute opens his eyes again. Even though he wishes not to.
He opens his eyes back to the room around him, the once blazing fire simmering close nothing but cinders and ash.
He opens them back to a world where the PMC are no longer.
An unlikely alliance he made from those days is remains though in the rubble, oddly enough. He remembers the extra heart she gave him. She didn't have to. The deal was done and all. On a place like Lifesteal, altruism is lethal. Yet she took a chance on who, at that point, was a practical stranger. A member of the team literally called the 'Private Murder Company' of all people.
She gave him a heart because she saw how large his was, as much as he regretted it being so.
It was some solace knowing that trust didn't always hurt.
"Hey Minute, don't worry about it! I'll grab the firewood."
Jumper Who. Or just Jumper to the five members of PB&J.
He shakes his head, still not daring to glance backwards, "It's alright. I'll just turn on the heater."
"Oh c'mon! Hey, have a little Christmas spirit."
Minute can't help the sliver of a smile that brings him. Not that he was trying to stifle it in the first place. In times like these, he savours every kind morsel of friendship.
Before it goes.
Because that loss is inevitable. And once it comes, you'll wish you clung on tighter. He made that mistake once, and he'd never make it again.
"Alright, alright. Go ahead. Only if it's not too much trouble for you."
"Eh, I'll be quick. Wouldn't want to leave this place empty with just you on Christmas Day too long, hmm?"
"I'll be—", Minute hesitates about whether to lie, "—fine here."
Something in his voice cracks and betrays him. That feeling was familiar.
"If you say so..."
Jumper's voice trails off, still concerned. She's far too sharp to be deceived by just his back turned towards her. Of course. Jumper has read people to filth, front cover and back page. She's always been able to see through lies, enough to weave a web of her own with the Void Ponies. And Minute supposes another, more kinder one with him today, one that she hopes catches him as he falls.
"I'm more worried about you, Mr. I-Only-Order-Takeout, being the only one with the rotisserie chicken in the oven. This miiight call for supervision. It can't be burnt to a crisp this close to dinner."
"Don't worry, I'm just watching over it. I won't touch anything."
"Exactly. Even that's a risk". He tries to chuckle at her sarcasm, but he thinks if he does, he might choke on what he's holding back. One of her ears flop downward, "Anyway, you sure you'll be alright?"
"I'm sure."
He's not. Yet he knows he will be, because he has to. He says it with the most assured and smooth tone he can muster, because he must. Minute's always been that way.
He can't see it, but he can imagine her frown, the tension in her shoulders loosening, her frame lingering for a split-second before leaving.
He hopes she doesn't worry, even though he knows she will.
Her footsteps are muffled behind the door, but years of training has hardly made that detail a difference (down to the different weight and rhythm of the PB&J members), he still hears the way her feet drag behind her with hesitance. They become quieter, and quieter, and then the exit door hinge creaks.
It's only when Minute hears a lone rocket go off into the afternoon sky, knowing her elytra has long spread its wings taking her soaring far away that he turns his around, facing the closed door.
He did lie.
He wipes away the tear he was hiding.