At least it was happening during the day this time, Spoke thought as he jumped down the staircase, two steps at a time. He intentionally stomped on each step in hope to wake Zam before he got to the bottom. Zam liked to sleep in, so he always took extra measures to make sure his base was hidden enough to not be unexpectedly found. Unfortunately for him, Spoke knew where his base was.
Now normally Spoke would leave his friend alone this early in the morning, but he had a day of grinding in the nether planned out and he needed XP bottles for his armor. Zam would definitely have some with all the materials that he had paranoidly stocked up, which is what he did whenever he made himself a decently permanent base. He could handle being woken up a couple hours early, Spoke was sure of it.
Spoke paused on a landing about two thirds of the way down the steps and jumped a few times, boots coming down hard on the stone to make even more noise. If his memory was correct, this landing was right above Zam's bedroom. That fucker better be awake by the time he gets down there.
Spoke skipped down the last few steps, then grabbed onto a pillar to swing himself in a neat right turn. He was shouting Zam's name before he even reached the curtain that separated Zam's bedroom from the rest of his base.
"Zam!" Spoke flung the curtain aside but respectfully stayed out of Zam's room. "Zam, can I get some XP bottles?"
Inside, Zam was stretching his arms, eyes not even open yet. (The stomping had worked!) Spoke immediately noticed there was another person laying on top of him, thankfully still asleep. He internally slammed his head into a wall. God this was awkward, how does this keep happening to him.
"XP bottles?" Zam yawned, blinking one eye open to peer at Spoke. Okay, if he was going to ignore the other person then Spoke would too. Except-
"Is that Pangi?" Spoke blurted without meaning to. He slapped a hand over his mouth but still leaned pointedly into the room. Sure enough, upon further inspection there was an orange scaled tail wrapped around one of Zam's legs.
"I thought you guys weren't teamed this season," Spoke accused. He was going to commit to confronting Zam even if he didn't mean to in the first place, it was only fair. If Spoke had the embarrassment of walking into Zam's bedroom while someone else was there, then Zam had to explain why they were there.
"Hm?" Zam rubbed his eyes. "Oh, yeah no, we're not teamed," he explained. "But sometimes we just can't sleep without each other y'know?" He patted the top of Pangi's head with a smile, a little bit awkward since their heads were pretty much at the same level. Pangi barely stirred at the motion, still fast asleep.
"Hmm," Spoke considered. Realistically, this didn't matter very much, he thought. Spoke figured that what Zam said was a decent enough response for the situation.
"I'll let it slide, just this once..." Spoke narrowed his eyes at Zam playfully, causing him to laugh and roll his eyes. Spoke couldn't exactly hate on Zam for having an unexplainably close relationship. Spoke himself had something akin to that develop rather recently actually.
"Sooo," Spoke pressed his fingers together awkwardly, "XP bottles? Where are they and can I have some?" He intentionally said "where are they" first to imply that he would be stealing, which made Zam laugh again.
"Yeah, sure man!" Zam chirped. "Hold on," Zam's focus immediately shifted to Pangi whose current position was preventing him from getting up. In an effort to free himself, Zam slowly began to roll Pangi to his side, careful not to wake him up.
"Just gotta..." Zam muttered. "Move... him-" Zam's face was scrunched in concentration while he moved Pangi's limbs to the side. Pangi was still completely passed out, which was impressive if you asked Spoke. Had Pangi somehow managed to avoid the classic Lifesteal paranoia? Spoke was aware that this wasn't their normal sleeping pattern, but really, how comfy can you get with a guy? Apparently enough to be moved around by him in your sleep and not wake up. Shits crazy.
"Ha!" Zam celebrated, snapping Spoke out of his thoughts. Looking back at the bed, Spoke noticed that Zam had freed himself and was starting to roll off the bed, saying something about his villagers.
Spoke saw it before he heard it, Pangi's arms reaching toward Zam's body while their owner was still -to the best of Spokes knowledge- asleep. Zam cut off his previous sentence with a choked noise, entire body freezing. While Zam blinked in shock, Pangi wrapped his arms all the way around his body and tucked their knees together. Spoke swore that he saw Zam tear up when Pangi rubbed his cheek against his shoulder blade.
"Um-" Zam coughed, thankfully still cognizant of Spoke in the room, learning on the doorframe. This was gonna be interesting, Spoke thought.
"Umm," Zam continued, blinking rapidly. "He's never done this before."
"Mhm," Spoke nodded, though Zam wasn't looking at him anyway. "Yeah, I can tell."
Zam made some noise in agreement but no other coherent comment. His entire body had gone absolutely slack in Pangi's hold. Bro was feeling brand new emotions.
"Ok," Spoke started. As badly as he wanted to leave Zam to whatever he was feeling right now, he really needed those XP bottles.
"So how about you just tell me where the bottles are and I'll go get them myself," Spoke proposed to a rapidly fading Zam.
"Uhuh," Zam nodded. "Umm, it's the second room on your right, past the villagers, should be in one of those chests."
"Ok," Spoke dragged out the word. "Thanks bro, it'll see you around. Congrats on your little spoon awakening!" As Spoke skipped out of the room he heard an offended yelp from Zam. He snickered into his hand as he moved down the hall, this has got to be one of the most blackmail-able situations he's even been in with Zam and oh boy was he gonna use it later.
Now where did Zam say those XP bottles were again?
