Jack stood outside of the entrance to his lab, staring into it and trying to build up the courage to go in. He needed to go back in there. He needed to fix his equipment. He needed to refill his containers of supplies and he needed to work on the metallic microlattice. Why was he so scared to go into his lab? His place. His own area that he can do whatever he wanted. Nothing serious had actually happened the last time he was there, they were just standing close to each other and he's been near the other man multiple times before with no problem. He should have absolutely no trouble going back to his lab and getting back to work. He can handle this. He is a full grown man...kind of.

"Having some difficulties, Spicer?"

"Shit!" Jack cursed and flailed in shock. "I thought I was finally used to you doing that, but apparently not!" He shouted as he patted his chest, trying to calm his racing heart.

"Used to me doing what?" Chase asked.

"Appearing out of nowhere, man! One second I'm all alone and the next, bam!" Jack clapped his hands. "There's you, right next to me with no warning."

"I walked over here like any other normal human would." Chase stated.

"Well, you're not like any other normal human." Jack said under his breath.

"I guess you've got a point." Jack stiffened, realizing that Chase had heard him. "And neither are you." Chase added with a straight face.

"I am kind of a genius." Jack puffed out his chest.

"The more you say that, the less I believe it." Chase lightly smirked when he saw Jack physically deflate.

"Don't insult me." Jack muttered as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of gum.

"I would never dream of insulting you, Spicer. It goes against my nature."

"Hah. Hah. You're hilarious." Jack popped a piece of gum into his mouth.

"What are you chewing?" Chase asked.

"I know that you spend your days sheltered, given your lack of pop culture knowledge, but surely you know what gum is." Jack said, struggling to keep a straight face.

"Are you mocking me?"

"I would never dream of mocking you, Chase. It goes against my nature." Jack walked into his lab as he spoke, using his arms to make over-exaggerated gestures.

"You are mocking me." Chase growled and sprinted over to Jack.

"Oh no." Jack flinched when he saw Chase rushing towards him, preparing himself to get slapped or punched or worse. He was shocked when instead of hitting him, Chase wrapped his arms around him. Jack let out a very girly shriek as he was lifted up and tossed into an empty trash bin. "Did you just..."

"I'm only doing my job, Spicer. Putting the garbage in the bin." Chase grinned at his own joke.

"You son-of-a-bitch." Jack said as he attempted to get out of the bin, but ended up toppling over. Jack muttered soft curses as he got up and patted himself off, looking up when he noticed that Chase was laughing. Actually laughing. Not some small chuckle or a huff of amusement, a real laugh. The younger man couldn't prevent himself from smiling at the sight of the warlord looking happy as he laughed.

"I probably laughed at that a lot more than I should have." Chase admitted when he finally calmed down. "I haven't laughed like that in a while and over what? Some silly wordplay and some physical comedy. I thought I outgrew that. I haven't done that since..." Chase paused for a second, making Jack worry that something was wrong. "Since drinking the Lao Mang Soup." The two men stood there in silence for a while, neither of them moving.

"Chase, I-"

"I've noticed that you've done absolutely nothing with your lab since the last time that I was here." Chase stated, sounding as if he was only speaking to prevent himself from thinking. "I know how much to despise cleaning, so let's finish this up now so that you can fix your equipment and work on the microlattice."

"Um...yeah. Sure." Jack picked up the bin he was in and sat it upright, it being one of the only two empty ones left.

"Depending on how long it takes up to finish, we will either take the bins to the dump that you had mentioned late tonight or early tomorrow morning."

"Okay. Are we going to have any of your warriors helping us or are we going to make two trips?" Jack asked.

"How far away is the dump?"

"About five miles."

"We can make two trips. I'm assuming that you're going to use that flying device of yours to help you carry the bins?"

"Of course. I wouldn't be the evil boy genius I claim to be without it." Jack chuckled, giving Chase a large smile.

"Where did you even get that device or did you make that one as well?"

"My grandma gave it to me when I was a lot younger." Jack slipped off his heli-pack to get a better look at it. "It's what made me want to make my own inventions, actually."

"I see. Where is your grandmother, you've never mentioned her before."

"She's dead." Jack stated, his smile fading away.

"I'm sorry for your loss." Chase looked down and held his hands behind his back.

"Don't be. She passed a couple weeks after giving me the heli-pack, I'm over it."

"Are you really?"

"Maybe. I mean, I've modified this pack, added updates and fixed it whenever one of the monks would dent it or scratch it, but I've never removed this little marking." Jack turned the back around and there was a beautifully written 'J.S.' on it. "My initials." Jack explained. "Grandma wanted me to never loose this heli-pack or have someone take it from me. She'd made sure that only I used it and for whatever means I wanted. Although, I know how she wanted me to. She was a pretty wicked woman herself." Jack's smile returned.

"Is she what made you turn to evil?" Chase asked.

"No. A lot of things happened to me that made me turn to evil, but she showed me that being evil doesn't mean you have to be a completely heartless bastard, that you can enjoy life and other simple things while stealing what you wanted." Jack put his pack back on. "She showed me that you can still love while you hated so many others."

"You're grandmother sounded like a very wise woman."

"She was and she made a killer quiche whenever she wasn't robbing a bank."

"Was it really that good?" Chase asked with some humor in his voice.

"Hell yeah it was! She taught me the recipe and I can almost make it as good as she did."

"Perhaps we can have that for dinner tonight, I'm now a little curious about this 'killer quiche'."

"The quiche takes like an entire day to make, man. She'd only make it for special occasions because of how much time and effort she'd put into it."

"Then you can do that tomorrow and while it bakes we can work on your drawing lessons some more."

"I'm okay with that."

"Now, if we don't get cleaning, you're going to have to get up very early tomorrow to take the bins to the dump." Chase warned.

"I'm not okay with that." Jack quickly started going through the rest of the scraps on the counters.