Chapter Text
Some things never change. Jaron had seen multiple versions of Lifesteal, met more Lifestealers than he can count, and witnessed many seasons go by.
He likes to think he’s still the same, as much you can still be yourself after everything he has been through. That’s why after the start of a new season—the first season in a long time he actually gets to play as not just a spectator—he gives Rek a grace period of barely three weeks before barging in on his new base. A new base with new roommates who probably don’t know of the included problems that come with sharing a base with Rek: Jaron, and two of them too.
Look, he can only go so long without stealing from his best friend before he gets antsy. And obviously his counterpart agrees; they bumped into each other around the rough locations of the base and proceeded to burst into laughter, because this wasn’t planned but was perfect anyway.
Angel Jaron at least knocked on Rek’s room before barging in.
“Parker, we demand to be fed.”
“Yeah!” He pokes his head into the room, following his angelic counterpart. Their mutual friend is somehow still in bed, alarmed at the ambush, face falling flat as he realizes what’s happening. “We couldn’t find your fridge so …”
Rek groans. “Jaron.” He sits up on his bed, the speedrunner is normally more patient with the both of them, but they did just wake him up. A slow day for him, it seems, if he’s not even hurrying to shove the blankets away and reach for his shirt. “Ever thought of knocking first?”
“I did.”
“He did.”
A heavy sigh. “Sandwiches?” Both Jarons nod, and Rek looks more awake by the minute, more unhappy about it than ever. “Do I have any choice?”
“No.”
“Nope!”
Some things never do change.
Team Apocalypse's kitchen is still very barebones, but it’s enough for what they need. Angel takes a seat, and he takes the seat at his side like it’s clockwork. The kitchen is silent as they both settle and watch Rek work.
It’s familiar, Jaron has been hanging with this Rek for almost a year now, he has seen these movements again and again for them to be ingrained into his brain, but it’s still just slightly off.
For all that this weird Lifesteal has become home, it's still not what he lost.
The twitching wings on his counterpart's back are a good example. Jaron even got used to the cold air hitting his back before Zam took pity on him and offered to sew the wing-holes in the borrowed clothes shut for him. Zam who is a star, or a sun, or something like that; Zam who is nothing like the Zam he lost yet still acts the same.
Rek isn’t the same, this one is … he’s code, a glitch, familiar with a part of the world that his Rek would never be able to comprehend, but has been part of Jaron’s life since then.
Jaron’s Rek was something, truly, human like Jaron, but turned backwards. The only explanation he ever got was that Rek was once Parker and Parker became Rekrap, and his entire world was flipped—and that happened way before he ever met Jaron. He was good at disguising it, but Jaron knows him and he saw how the man moved, in ways he should and as he shouldn’t. In an odd way it’s weird to see Rek move so fluidly in completely normal, not-wrong ways.
He stares at his hands as he cuts up the sandwiches in even parts, focused on the movement in a way only a strange guy like him could be. They’re shoved two plates and Jaron pushes the second one over to angel boy. In sync, they pick up a half of their sandwich and bite into it, pulling a laugh from Rek.
“Did you guys practice that or something?” he asks as he picks up his own but waits to eat. With his free hand, he rubs the last clinging sleep from his eyes, and Jaron almost feels sorry for him … almost.
They glance over at each other, look back at Rek at the same time, and then shrug.
“Nah.”
“Definitely not.”
“We would never.”
They get a roll of his eyes and a scoff before Parker too digs into his food and leans against the kitchen counter to properly enjoy it. Somehow, the room falls into a rare silence that isn’t broken by any of them while they’re happily munching on their sandwiches. Who knew they could be so peaceful?
Jaron hasn’t been annoying enough, though. He glances around the kitchen. Beyond the basic needs, there isn’t even a good floor. Below their chairs sits deepslate, and not even cut or polished deepslate. The walls and ceiling too, gosh, did they even try?
“When are you renovating this place?” he asks, after swallowing his bite, of course. It’s the perfect preparation for poking fun at Rek.
He sees it coming. Parker takes his sweet time chewing his final bite before he shakes his head. “Our bases keep getting found. We can’t make anything fancy if we’re moving again tomorrow, can we?”
“Ah,” his counterpart replies instead. He’s tapping his fingers on the table, wing lightly tapping against him as he tilts his head and thinks. “Who is it this time? I don’t know any team names.”
Rek’s smile fades a little. “That would be team Bing. Especially Yungy. He’s dead-set on catching us.”
“No, the whole server wants us dead after that first week.”
At the new voice, their three heads whip around to the entrance of the kitchen. There, hands on his sides, chin raised, goggles over his eyes and a penguin beak of a mask hiding away the rest of his face, stands none other than SB737. With their attention on him, he raises his hands to lift the goggles and reveal his eyes. Beyond the obvious grin at his grand entrance, there’s also an exhaustion to them.
“SB!” his counterpart cheers. “There’s my favourite guy to bully!”
Jaron notices immediately that the mask doesn’t follow the goggles and instead stays on. He stores the information away for later—who knows, maybe it’s part of his quirk?
SB gives them each a nod. “Parker. Jaron. Other Jaron.” His eyes do linger on him a second longer, like he’s trying to read him, like he’s searching for something, but he moves on too fast. Instead of lingering on the moment, he drops a shulker on the table on the far end. “How’s it going?”
“Breakfast,” Jaron mumbles in between bites. He tries to be inconspicuous about how he's assessing SB. He’s seen the other around before, but since arriving at this Lifesteal he can't really recollect standing under the same roof as SB, not in a tangible way. “You should try, Rek is a good cook.”
SB stares at the food on the plate for a moment. Then he opens up his shulker and simply moves on. “Eh, I ate some golden carrots, I’m good.” Then he winks at Rek. “Not that I don’t trust your cooking, of course.”
Parker laughs, shaking his head. “You’re scared, I know it. They just have a stomach that’s used to my cooking. Who knows what it could do to you.”
Jaron grins to himself at the interaction. Silently, he messes with the sandwich he has left. He’s come a long way, hasn’t he? He’s eating so much without being full or feeling weird about it. Maybe it’s weird to be proud of, but still. He’s doing good.
“So, how’d your stuff go? Did you sleep at all since we last talked?” Rek asks. He’s messing with some mugs as he makes tea—something he should probably leave up to SB himself, really—but looks up when he asks.
SB doesn’t immediately reply. He glances up at him, then at both Jarons. The shulker is shut and he picks it back up, stepping away from them.
“You know me, Rek. Sleep is for peasants.”
Jaron snorts. “Imagine sleeping, couldn't be me.”
He barely dodges Rek's hand when he tries slapping the back of his head. “Stop being a bad influence.” And it's kinda funny Jaron can’t tell if Rek is berating him, SB or both.
“Yeah, Jaron, how could you?” SB leaves to the other exit in the room. Walking backwards, he shakes his head. “What if Rek starts going to bed late? There will be no Apocalypse member left to have a good sleep schedule!”
Jaron has to wonder what he’s up to when SB steps out. Obviously, very evil schemes from a very evil team, but he’s acting weird, even for this server.
Parker laughs before he can ask. “Trust me, nothing gets in between me and a good sleep. You’d have to knock me out, but I think that kind of defeats the purpose.” He collects their empty plates and drops them in the cauldron he filled with water earlier to start cleaning them up.
“Is he always in such a hurry?” Jaron can't help but be curious, his eyes linger on the passage SB just went through. The urge to follow—to stalk, the universe would correct him if he said it outloud—nags in the back of his mind, but instead he just turns to look at Rek, yawning and stretching his arms up in the air. He could use a nap right now, not any worry about someone who’s not his teammate nor close friend.
He sees Parker glance over at him before following his look to the exit SB left through. He sighs. “Well, kind of. Not always, but he’s busy, y’know? Apocalypse business, I shouldn’t tell you too much.”
“Well you already exploded spawn,” he can't help but point out. “What's the next step, steal the moon?”
It earns him a laugh. Rek piles the wet plates on top of each other, shoots him a look and shakes his head. But even his angel counterpart is giving him puppy eyes, leaning forward to try and get an answer for him. He can’t even get so far as to start drying the plates before he’s sighing and checking both doorways to see if anyone’s listening.
“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” he asks, but the look on his face says he knows damn well they can’t really keep that promise. “We’re reopening the End. Or well, SB is. He’s figuring out how to reopen a portal so we can go to the End just like Divine Intervention did.”
He blinks a bit stupidly at that, his counterpart gasps, looking excited at what was just shared with them, it does sounds fun, and interesting, but Jaron can't help but mentally go through all the ways they could do that without outright cheating, his mind comes back blank, the universe just shrugs when he shoots a look at it.
“Didn't all the portals get destroyed?”
Rek grins, throwing the towel over his shoulder. “They did! But SB thinks he can reset one of them. He’s only just started with his research, but he’s pretty convinced he can figure it out. Don’t ask me how or how he can even do something like that, you’d need to ask him. But it’s pretty cool, right?”
“Dude, that’s impossible. Good luck with that. I don’t think Minute is gonna allow cheating even if he’s on your team, Rek,” Jaron says next to him, speaking his exact thoughts.
And yet, it kind of sits uneasily with him. The way Rek talks about it and what he knows from SB, he’s not the type of guy to cheat in items to reopen the End. Usually, he trusts something to be impossible, but what even is impossible with these guys?