Perceived Realities
By: CrystallicSky
Disclaimer: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown, or any of the characters in it.
Warning(s):As with all of my stories so far(this will be the 3rd), this entails a male-to-male relationship, if this annoys you, well...I don't know, I don't care what you do anymore, do whatever, but don't say I didn't give you a warning before you read it.
Notes: Yeah, another one-shot, get over it, and to Matt, stfu, I'll update Kitavra when I update it, okay?! The more you nag me, the more I won't want to do it, so what should you logically do if you want me to write it? Ahem, to the rest of you, I apologize for any OOC-ness you may find, but this is sort of a different reality, so I pretty much have artistic licence on character here. Still, I apologize for whatever it is in this ficlet that pisses you off for some reason or another, but that won't change the fact that it exists regardless.
The Xiaolin side.
The Heylin side.
Shen Gong Wu.
Hundreds of showdowns.
Vicious golden glares, pure loathing conveyed from just behind the irises.
"You useless worm!"
Jack Spicer shot up in bed breathing hard, fingers clenched tightly in the sheets. It had happened again. He was getting so sick of this! Why wouldn't these...images, memories, almost, leave him the hell alone?!
He sighed deeply, calming his frayed nerves before glancing at the other side of the bed. Fortunately for him, his nightmare hadn't woken up his partner, a very good thing considering how annoyed the man got when woken up this late. Quietly slipping out of bed, he snuck out of the room, walking to the kitchen almost in a daze.
What the hell was bringing on these dreams? He was sure none of the things that occurred in them had actually happened, so why then, would his mind be inventing them and torturing him with them whenever he fell asleep? This had been going on for weeks now, and it was getting ridiculous, not to mention it was robbing him of sleep! At the very least, Jack was grateful it was Friday, and he wouldn't have to go to school tomorrow with a few hours sleep at best.
Ah, yes, school. It was his last year of high school, and he was eager to move on to college by the end of the year, and then maybe get a career in an engineering field. He had a lot of ideas that he wanted available to the general public, if not for the recognition, then the income he could provide from it. He was pretty sick of mooching of his lover at this point, and he was never partial to being a total freeloader. Despite what the man said, he deserved more compensation for the years of financial and otherwise support than whatever it was that he had gotten out of their relationship.
Jack had been disowned by his parents sometime during his sophomore year when they had found out about his...preferences, particularly through 'catching' him with his older boyfriend(one of the worst/most embarrassing moments of his life), who had then invited the sixteen-year-old to live with him, claiming that it was the least he could do after getting him kicked out in the first place. Jack, at the time, not wanting to look a gift-horse in the mouth, quickly took up the offer, though now he had begun to feel guilty about doing so.
Jack was currently seventeen, still a teenager, and as everyone knows, teenagers can be difficult. There had been more than a few times that, in retrospect, he should have been kicked out on his ear, but his partner put up with him anyways, and had asked for nothing in return(this barring any kind of sexual activity, because they were together, and he was bound to ask for that whether or not Jack was in trouble). And soon, Jack would be going off to college, and already his lover had insisted that he would pay his tuition! Granted, the man had a high-paying job, but to do that for him, well, that was too much! Surely, Jack could get at least a portion of the money by selling a few of his tinkerings to private buyers, though. Of course, he wasn't of legal age, so he wouldn't get credit for it if it was mass-produced, but he would get something for it, because, not being cocky, the red-head knew his inventions were good, and would sell high amongst just about any market.
Life seemed complicated for Jack Spicer right now, but as a teenager, everything seems to be(must be that innate teen angst). Although, aside from college, the nightmares, and being underage, there was something going right for him: He was graduating next week, as valedictorian no less! And next week, Thursday to be specific, also happened to be his eighteenth birthday, after which he could legally be doing with his lover what he had been doing since he was sixteen years old.
The little bit of happiness that he was feeling about that fled when burning golden eyes flashed through his head again. Shaking the image angrily away from his mind, he filled a glass with water and laid his elbows on the counter, sipping it lightly.
When would they stop? Would they stop at all? What were they anyways, and why were they coming to him? Yes, he had seen himself in them, along with several others he had never met, all fighting over mysteriously magical objects, but magic? The battle of good versus evil? It was like a cartoon! That kind of thing didn't happen in real life, and half of the time, the situations were so silly, it seemed obvious that it could never happen at all! But then...those eyes...the furious gaze settled directly on him, he was sure...it had seemed all too real.
Groaning in frustration, Jack closed his eyes, folding his hands and laying his head atop them as he sat in complete silence in the dim light from the moon that poured in through the window.
Back in the bedroom, the figure on the bed stirred at the loss of warmth next to him before fully awakening and clearly noting his pale teen's absence. With an annoyed sigh, he wandered off to find his wayward lover.
Jack had no idea how long he sat there in the quiet light of the moon, immersed completely in his thoughts, nor did he notice the figure behind him in the doorway of the kitchen. The man wore only a lose pair of pants for sleeping, while he studied his younger partner from where the boy stood: The red hair, normally spiked up a bit, was limp and mussed up as it fell gently about his face. His pale skin practically glowed in the soft, lunar light, concealed only by the black T-shirt he had borrowed from his partner that was so long on the smaller male that it stopped just short of his knees. The scene was almost breathtaking in it's simple beauty, and the elder of the two in the room was almost unwilling to break the silence, but he knew Jack well, and knew that he should not be unattended at such a time with only his thoughts for company.
Jack's entire body tensed in a primal fear of the unknown when he suddenly felt arms encircle his body, though immediately relaxed when his lover's familiar dark hair fell over onto his shoulders. "Did I...wake you up?"
"No, it was more the fact that you were gone that did it."
"Oh. Sorry." The apology was dull and lacking any real emotion, more of an obligation than an actual plea for forgiveness.
The man frowned. "The dreams again?" Jack merely nodded in affirmation.
"They aren't real, you know."
"I know." It was painfully obvious that he didn't, which was the main reason why they scared Jack so much, because he didn't know that they weren't real. He couldn't know that.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
Silence answered him for a minute before Jack did. "What if...what if they were real? Are real? What if the dreams are the real thing, and, and we're just some sort of fabrication? Or what if it's some sort of parallel universe that I have a weird mental connection to? What if-"
"So what if any of that's true? It's not true for here, Jack, not true for now, because here and now, I love you, and that won't change any time soon, alright?"
The glare faded just a bit in his mind as he leaned back onto his partner's warm chest. "I don't know, maybe your right, maybe I'm just overreacting or something..."
Holding Jack tighter, he lovingly nuzzled his cheek against the teen's, murmuring, "Tell you what: If you have the dream again tomorrow, we'll go see someone about it on Sunday. If not, then we'll just forget you ever had them in the first place. How's that?"
Jack smiled at the contact, nodding acceptingly to the suggestion. The angry stare was barely in the back of his consciousness now, as the older man emptied what was left in the glass of water into the sink before placing it there for future washing, then gently tugging Jack away from the counter.
"Come on, it's late. You might actually need to get more than two hours of sleep for the first time this week." The tone was chiding and almost teasing, but nonetheless caring, and Jack followed him back to their shared bedroom.
Completely pressed up against his lover's front, Jack found himself settling into the warmth and contentment of it all, and despite himself, was almost half-asleep already.
"I love you, Jack."
At that, he looked up at his partner while the golden glower returned to the forefront of his mind at full-force, only to be quickly replaced with the soft, loving look being given to him at that moment by the very same eyes.
"I love you, too, Chase."
After that night, Jack never had the dreams again.
A/N: Once again, don't know what possessed me to write this, but I did, so there. What sucks about this is that it had been raining when I started this, and about two pages in, before I had saved, there was a power outage, and I lost it all! ;.; But, luckily, several hours in the dark later, the power came back on, and much to my delight the program had recognized that it had been exited irregularly, and had backed up what I had written. :D Yay! At which time(11:00 PM), I resumed writing and finished it. I really don't have much to say about it, except that, in case you didn't realize, or don't understand, this story is based off of a hypothetical alternate universe, in which the whole Shen Gong Wu premise doesn't, and never had existed, and Chase had been born a little closer to Jack's time period. This basically means that he was shaped differently as a person due to the inevitably different experiences his life would've had and could actually be open to a loving relationship with another, much less Jack, because there is none of the immortality, magic, evil, or hatred that he would otherwise have. There's no cloud, is what I'm saying, I guess, metaphorically speaking. He can see clearly now, the rain is gone...Ahem, anyways, if you're wondering for what reason Jack had the dreams, or which reality is the real one, that's totally up to you. That's why it's kind of open-ended and not outright explained by me, mainly because I want you to draw whatever conclusions you wish from it and-Holy crud, it's like 1:00 AM! Well, I must be going, and hopefully no more one-shot ideas will drift through my head for awhile so I can actually concentrate on other things, namely Ch. 12 of Kitavra. o////o I'm sorry about that, by the way, I'm working on it, but it'll happen when it happens, really. I say this because Matt's been bugging me about it, so I figured I'd just tell you what I told him for the heck of it. In any case, hope you enjoyed this!