Chapter Thirteen

"Lara, he bitched out before I could make him apologize, sorry," Jay said sheepishly as he got over to her. He sat down on the bed. Lara would know about the weather, right? She had lived in the Overworld all of her life, so if anyone knew about a storm, Lara would. Besides, she was sensitive to this kind of thing. Wait… she is? How do I know that? I… I just do. I do.

"Anyway, is some strange weather stuff going on?" He asked, watching her as she glanced up at the sky.

Lara closed her eyes as if trying to keep her focus. "It does feel strange. Like… it should be peaceful, but it's not," she told him, "everything is so still and quiet, like being in the eye of a hurricane."

He frowned. "Storm… hurricane…" He shrugged and smirked. "Well, shit, Lara. I think it's a hurricane."

When she opened her eyes, she glanced over at him, a frown on her face. "Maybe… hopefully."

He nodded. "Too bad it's not good for surfing. Anywhoo. Maybe, say, we should find a way to pass the storm?"

"Or maybe," she said, "we relax. After everything that's happened today, if I've learned anything, it's to let the past be the past."

He nodded again. "Still, kisses, though?" He asked innocently, allowing a tiny smile to cross his face. "Jace kinda interrupted us so very rudely."

She walked over to the bed and leaned in closer to him. Just before her lips pressed against his, she gave him a look. "No."

"Meanie," he huffed, groaning and crossing his arms.

It was as though his mind had suddenly switched track. He thought about QuickSilver and Polaris, wondering how they were managing. Polaris had seemed overjoyed to have a companion. QuickSilver had seemed calm enough, but that slightly unnerved him and worried him. Would QuickSilver be able to keep up with the hyperactive dragoness?

"Wait! Let's check on Polly and Silv," he suggested excitedly.

"Silv," Lara echoed, shaking her head. "What is with you and renaming things?"

"Dunno, Lar. Let's go," he urged as he got a running start before quickly flying off, eager to escape the wrath he knew was coming.

"La—" She growled and shot after him. "I will end you!"

He laughed as the wind rushed through his hair. "Okay, okay… 'Ara," he joked, pushing himself faster as he saw Jordan's house come into view.

"It's a good thing your wings have healed. Otherwise, this would hurt more!"

He felt feet ram into his back, between his wings, and suddenly he was falling down toward the water below. He let himself disappear below the waves, though he sunk into the shadows to keep from suffering from drowning. He looked up and watched as Lara hovered above the ocean. She looked nervously around, calling his name.

He teleported behind her, poking her side. "Hey," he greeted, ignoring how he was soaking. "Forgot I could teleport?"

She turned toward him and smiled. Jay locked pinkies with her, smiling. "Not going to leave," he assured before leading her to Jordan's home.

"I didn't think you would," Lara informed.

"Good," he said.

He landed with Lara outside of the house and knocked on the door. As soon as his knuckles hit the door, it opened with a small creek. Jay hummed a bit, concern beginning to come over him as the creaking continued even with the door no longer moving. It was not like Jordan to leave his door unlocked. Despite the usual safety of the Overworld, a lot had recently happened to put everyone on-edge.

"Someone is here," he told Lara, leading her toward the sound.

He heard quiet, muffled sounds as he approached the room that the sound was emanating from. Carelessly and recklessly, he swung the door open, stumbling back with Lara still keeping behind him. "Oh… come on," he shouted.

QuickSilver was sitting on one of the beds with his shirt off. His shirt was lying on the floor, where it had likely been tossed unceremoniously. Straddling the young man was Polaris, who was thankfully fully-clothed. Jay was quite certain that she probably wouldn't remain so for long, if only because she and QuickSilver were so interested in exploring one another's mouths that they paid Jay and Lara no mind.

Lara closed the door quietly, her face red from embarrassment. She looked over at Jay and laughed softly. "We're not the only ones who got noticed today, it seems."

Jay nodded numbly, though he felt frustrated. "The bastard. That would've been us! Where is Jace?"

Lara shushed him and pointed down the hall. "Jordan's probably trying to sleep. Don't be rude," she scolded, "and leave Jace alone. He has enough to worry about with Dianite angry over the storm. You don't need to add to his stress."

"So… you don't deny it could have been us," he teased, wiggling his eyebrows slightly.

"It won't be now," Lara said, "especially after your pitiful attempts at giving me a 'pet name.'"

"Yeah, right. My little ray of sunshine," he retorted, "not like you would give me a better one."

"I'm sure I could eventually think of one given time, Jayden," she teased.

"Hey… don't use my full name," he whined, leading her out of the house.

"Then don't give me a pet name. My name is perfectly fine, thank you kindly," she replied.

He nodded at her. "I agree. The only gal for me is Lara," he confirmed, poking her lightly in the side.

She rolled her eyes affectionately. "You're ridiculous sometimes," she said.

"Maybe so, yet you are still here," he countered in a sing-song voice as they walked.

"Yes," she answered. Her voice slipped into something akin to disappointment, but he presumed it was a joke. She sighed. "Why did I ever bother? My life would've been much simpler if only I'd let you burn in that Nether prison cell for all of eternity. Then I wouldn't have ever had to deal with your foolishness again."

He faked a pout. "But you love my foolishness! It is an amazing, redeeming quality," he pointed out, wings drooping sadly. "Boo-hoo," he joked.

"Or I could've just let you die to your own stupidity and recklessness, instead of save you. Or left you to Chaos, or to the Void," she continued, unfazed by his retort.

"B-But then you couldn't hear my awesome jokes," he whimpered, beginning to wonder whether or not she was being serious.

"And, you know, the gods would probably be happier, which would make life a lot easier. As well as not having to clean up a lot more messes. Oh! And let's not forget how Dianite has burnt my house to the ground in order to get revenge against a certain someone," she added.

"Hey! That's not nice," he scolded.

Lara? Is… Is this actually you? Or… Chaos? He wondered.

Lara looked over at him. "No, what's not nice is coming back from the dead; finding out that not only is the person you love completely out of his mind, but there's a psychotic goddess in your old house and she's practically killing your brother; and all of your friends are dead. That's not nice."

He shrugged, eyes narrowing. She was suddenly being cold to him again. Had his nicknames for her really upset her? She's so petty… "Yeah, you have a point. But what're you gettin' at?"

She walked around behind him and pushed against him shoulders, shoving him forward. "Rebuild my house. Fix your damn mess. Because, if you don't, I'm drowning you in the ocean."

"One minute nice, the next not. What time of the month did your immortality stop aging you?" He asked.

"One."

"What?"

"Two…"

He blinked, confused, and then realized what she was doing. "Oh shit…"

"Exactly," she confirmed. "Now get going. Take responsibility and fix the house."

He stepped forward and started collecting the materials to rebuild the cabin. As he worked, he could not get rid of the sinking anger that was slowly beginning to come over him. What was Lara's problem? How could she switch from being a literal angel, to being awful? One minute she was so nice and cuddly, and the next, she was demanding. He did not enjoy that – but he knew where she was coming from. Her house was another thing she would have had to fix, and Jay technically led to its destruction. It was only fair that he fix it.

A smirk came over his face as he added a few extra additions on to the cabin. He dug out a path and laid down redstone all the way to Tom's door, returning to place a pressure plate connected to the redstone line at the door of Lara's house. Underneath Tom's door was a pile of TNT ready to explode at the light of the redstone.

He flew into the nearby trees and stopped in front of the tree Lara was sitting in, inspecting her wing. It still looked injured to him, but he pushed aside his care for that, which was rather easy to do. "Lara," he called, wary of being attacked despite his perfectly legitimate question earlier.

"Done?" She asked, looking over at him.

He nodded, trying not to show off what he had done with a laugh or a grin. "Yeah."

She hopped down from the tree. "Alright. Show me."

He flew ahead of her and waited outside of the house. "I even replicated the insides," he pointed out.

She walked up the path to the house. He noticed that her left wing was curled closer to her than the right, and wondered absently why he did not care about the fact that she was in clear pain. Maybe because she was not complaining of it, or because he was trying to distance himself from her in case she really had been serious when speaking negatively of him.

"I'm impressed," she complimented. "Aren't you going to show me?"

He nodded and gestured to the door. "After you, I suppose."

She gave him a look. He panicked, wondering if she had seen what he was doing, but she nodded and walked forward. As soon as she stepped on the pressure plates, Jay struggled to hold back a laugh. He could hear redstone power. After a few ticks, his chat-pad beeped and the message SynHD was blown up appeared on it.

Lara looked over at the chat-pad and then up at him. "Really."

"What?" He retorted, feeling strangely offended that she would be so… unimpressed and unamused. "So I did it. And?"

She sighed and shook her head. "I should have expected that."

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Yeah. From the troublemaker. I'll go help him. No more messes, after all," he said coolly, turning to leave.

"Jay, I meant no messing up my things and expecting me to deal with it. If my house gets destroyed because you did something, then fix it. If other peoples' do, then that's a completely different story. I don't mind helping others, but my house has been demolished so many times before you came around. It's getting annoying," Lara informed.

"Yeah, whatever. Point is: never again."

He pumped his wings and flew off, ignoring Lara's protesting noise. He had to ask the Wizards for a favor. He landed outside of their base. "Waglington," he hollered.

"Yes, Jay?" Waglington inquired, appearing behind him.

Jay turned to him. "I need something built."

"What would you like?" The Wizard asked, smiling a bit.

It took the entire night, but the Wizards managed to finish everything. Jay had three floating chunks of land built in the middle of the Mianitees general area. The house was more of a castle. It spanned three islands with interconnecting bridges. The middle had contrasting colors, being both quartz block and nether brick. The nether brick outlined the house, while the main parts of the building were the quartz. It had large walls and a roof that went upwards in a pyramid fashion. Lava flowed at the top, running diagonally down the side of the house. It had a short overhang with pillars supporting it, giving it a courthouse-like appearance. The two bridges connected to towers. Each had the same color scheme as the main and a sign saying "Tom's tower 2.0."

Waglington looked over at Jay when the building was complete. "It's nearly morning," he pointed out, "you should get some rest, Jay. I'm sure Lara won't be too happy to see you away so long."

"I'm not sure she'll even care at all. Goodnight, Waglington," he offered in returned, stepping into the house that had just been built. Even if it was for Tom, he did not care enough not to share it for the night. He would show it to Tom in the morning.

He heard Waglington sigh behind him. "They're miserable with and without each other," the Wizard muttered.

Jay closed the door and walked to a bedroom to sleep. Despite his desire, he felt anxious and restless. Energized like he needed to spend some of his energy. It was an effect of the night, even though it was drawing quickly to its close. It was always difficult to sleep during the night, but it was worse now than it had been ever before. The strange feeling that had been present since hearing of the storm was still there, lingering and growing.

He got out of bed and left the new building, flying to the one person he knew could assist him. "Dec!"

Declan glanced up as he approached. It looked as though the priest had been tending to his garden. It was probably very peaceful with the gods so quiet and the Guardians and Mianitees keeping out of trouble. Jay almost felt bad about bothering him. Almost.

"Dec! Dec," he shouted as he neared the priest. He put his hands on his knees and bent over. It was oddly hard to regain his breath. "Heard… anything… storm…"

"I don't believe so. If the gods have heard anything about a storm, then they're keeping it to themselves," he offered apologetically. "Are you alright, though? You seem like you're having trouble catching your breath."

"Yeah," he managed. "Long day… this storm… don't know if it's affecting me."

Suddenly, it was as though his windpipe had expanded back to its normal size, allowing air to flow freely into his lungs. Despite that, he felt drained and tired. He wondered if he had not begun to suffocate himself with how quickly he had been trying in vain to breathe again. His head felt hazy, though he blamed it on the lack of air.

"Oh, can I speak in your mind?" He asked.

Only gods can do that. I'm not a god, he thought, before giving in to the need to correct himself, I am a god.

Declan stared at him for a moment before answering, "I… suppose so," he replied.

Jay smiled and closed his eyes, reaching out to Declan. There was nothing barring him from reaching into the priest's mind. It was like he was extending a new limb, one that was someone connected to the mortal.

I am so going to fuck with you, he laughed, barely aware of the way his voice sounded slightly maddened.

He kicked off of the ground. "See you later, Dec," he called before leaving.

He stumbled when he landed back at the house he had made for Tom. Mine, his mind growled. He shook his head. The storm was definitely making him feel strange. It felt like he was falling asleep. It was getting difficult to do anything or even think properly. It felt like being sealed somewhere, alone, but he was too tired to bring himself to care, even as he dragged himself to a bed. Sleep was too tempting to resist.

A/N: Nothing to say.