Title: Love or Fear of the Cold
Genre: Fanfiction, Romance, Hurt/Comfort
Fandom: Xiaolin Showdown
Rating: PG-13 for (extremely vague) description of sexual situations.
Pairing: Chai (Chase/Raimundo)
Summary: In a prison outside of time, two enemies find comfort in mutual understanding. Chase/Raimundo.
Notes: HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!
Their pocket of the Yin Yang World is huge and dark and empty. It swallows all sound, muffles all light, chokes out every bit of air, and gives nothing in return.
Raimundo screams until he is hoarse, drumming his fists against whatever invisible, solid surface keeps him trapped, but there is no reply. The only creature around to hear him merely turns his back and remains silent.
It's not fair.
It's not fair, Raimundo insists, forcing the shout from his throat even as his voice runs dry. He'd just been a bystander, caught in the crossfire, thrown into this lightless, featureless, timeless prison without rhyme or reason. He shouldn't be here. He has a team to lead, a world to save, a life to live.
His cellmate tells him to cease his whining. His little friends are most certainly working to get him out as they speak, and in the meantime his infantile shrieking is doing nothing to help their situation.
Raimundo grits his teeth, but obediently steps away from the invisible barrier, sinking to the floor. He curses his rotten luck - not enough to be trapped in this godforsaken void, no, he has to be stuck with Chase Young.
(It could be worse. It could be Jack Spicer.)
(Okay, yes, that would be worse, but not by much.)
He buries his head in his hands, not that it does anything to shut out his chaotic thoughts or brighten the darkness. It's a meaningless gesture, but it's all he can do right now, to hold on to himself and bide his time.
They'll come for him. Any moment now, they'll come.
Any moment.
But then again, moments don't mean much in a place without time.
There is no way to know how long it's been since they were trapped here; Raimundo never feels himself growing hungry or tired, never feels the need to relieve himself, hardly feels the need to breathe.
He sleeps when he is bored, which is often. He always wakes to the same sight of Chase Young sitting motionless a short distance away, deep in a meditative trance. Rai supposes that he's thankful it's not COMPLETELY dark here, as he'd initially assumed, but it's not much better than that. He can hardly see his own hand in front of his face.
Chase has hardly moved since they arrived. He's alive - Rai can hear him breathing, loud and clear in the absence of all other sound - but hasn't said a word or moved a muscle, apart from his admonishments during Rai's initial meltdown.
Rai thinks that maybe he's trying to figure a way out of here. Or maybe he's bored too, and meditation is the only way to pass the time. Whatever the reason, it's eerie.
And by the time Rai has taken enough naps to lose count, he admits to himself that it's kind of sad, too.
Sometimes, he thinks that he'd rather have been trapped with Jack Spicer.
Other times, he wishes that Chase would turn around and talk to him, or summon a giant fireball and bust them out, or just. Do SOMETHING.
He spends his waking moments now staring in Chase's direction and doing nothing in particular. He's not staring AT Chase, not really. Chase is just. Something to look at. Something more than empty black space. Rai's afraid that if he looks away, he'll go blind.
He wakes to a change.
There is a solid weight against his back, a slight warmth that wasn't there before. He opens his eyes and blinks a few times, but there is nothing in front of him. A glance down at himself provides a dim view of his hands; he's not blind yet then.
He sits up and looks over his shoulder - and falls back in surprise. Chase Young is sitting there. RIGHT there; his back just brushing the spot where Raimundo had been lying moments before.
He doesn't say a word, but looks back over his shoulder at Rai sprawled on the ground. It's too dark to see his expression clearly, but something about it prompts Rai to pull himself off the floor and turn to settle back in his spot, his back pressed against Chase's.
Chase's armor is cold, but there is a faint pulse there, a quiet tempo beating through the metal and the cloth below.
By the time he realizes that it's Chase's heartbeat, he's already been lulled half to sleep.
They talk now.
Not often, not at length, but they do talk.
Sometimes it's a conversation. Sometimes one of them will just go on about nothing in particular, not expecting or receiving a response. Sometimes they just sit in silence together.
He tells Chase things he's never told anyone. Nothing important, nothing that Chase could ever use to hurt him or his friends, but little things he never thought worth telling anyone else.
He thinks some of the things Chase tells him might be the same way.
Chase talks about traveling the world, about all the different lives he's lived over the last 1500 years. He doesn't go into much detail, but he has a lot of stories to tell. Rai talks about surfing, about how when he was younger he wanted to be world-famous and win surf competitions all over the world.
Chase says he's never been surfing, never saw the point. Rai says he's never really gotten to travel - flying around on Dojo doesn't count, because they never get a chance to be tourists where they go.
They never talk about what they'll do when they get out of here. Maybe they don't want to remind themselves where they are. Maybe they're afraid to hope. Maybe it doesn't seem to matter as much now.
Their conversations grow longer, more frequent. They discuss hobbies, favorite movies, favorite music. Chase never struck Rai as much of a multi-media guy, and his tastes are predictably out-of-date, but every now and then there's a surprise, a departure from the norm. They get into a spirited argument over rap music and the virtues and failings thereof. They debate the merits of Brazilian telenovellas until their voices are hoarse.
Chase asks him about his family once.
Halfway through, he starts crying and can't stop. It's ridiculous, it's so stupid, but he just sits there, curled in on himself, sobbing like a freaking baby over the sudden, heavy thought that he might never see them again.
There's a warm hand on his back and a solid weight against his side, and he leans into it and lets himself go. Just for a little while. He really shouldn't - Chase is the enemy, he can't be this weak in front of the enemy, he'll never hear the end of this, he's making a huge fool of himself - but for some reason, none of that seems to matter now.
Maybe it's the darkness. Maybe it's the isolation. Maybe it's been coming on for a while. Maybe he just can't bring himself to care anymore. But whatever the reason, there's something to lean against and someone to brush his tear-soaked hair back from his face. It's enough to break down the last bits of restraint and reservations, and they drift away as his choked sobs begin to ease, and Raimundo falls asleep in Chase Young's arms with tears still sliding down his cheeks.
He wakes with salt-stung eyes and a curious lack of dehydration and announces that nothing happened and they'll never speak of it again. Chase says nothing, but Rai can read his silent agreement as clearly as if he'd said it aloud.
Things aren't as awkward as he'd expected after that, but they don't talk as often. That's not to say that they stop interacting entirely; it's simply that their interactions consist more of quiet camaraderie and less of verbal discussion.
Chase mentioned a while back that he's cold-blooded, which must be why he's so fond of sitting near Rai. They doze off at the same times now and wake up pushed together - not entangled, not crossing any major boundaries, but just kind of pressed against each other. There's a comfort in the contact, a reminder that they're both still here.
Raimundo is beginning to forget things, small things like whether or not Clay had freckles, and whether Dojo's scales were green or yellow, and if Master Fung had a beard. He clings to the memories of his friends and tries to burn their names and faces into his mind's eye. Even if he's trapped here forever, he doesn't want to forget them. Their memories are close to the only thing he has now.
At least he has Chase as a reminder that those years at the Xiaolin Temple were all real, not just something he dreamed up.
Chase hasn't transformed into his lizard form once since being trapped here. Raimundo asks him about it once, as they sit back-to-back, and he feels Chase stiffen slightly. When he replies, it's short, clipped, and factual.
His soup-given abilities are bound here. Ordinarily, he would revert to his true form after an extended period of time without imbibing the Lao Mang Long, but here his dragon form might as well be nonexistent. He is, in essence, powerless.
Rai doesn't really know what to say to that, so he just leans his weight a little more against Chase.
From the answering press against his back, he thinks Chase understands.
Their prison seems darker now than before. The air is closer, denser, heavier. The walls press in on them, and they tangle themselves together to brace against it.
They don't speak aloud, not when it's so easy to lose their words in the dark. There's no room for words now, only for hands clasped tight, bodies pressed together - not out of any burning lust or desire, but out of a simple desperation, a need for contact.
Without his armor, Chase feels so much smaller, fragile in Raimundo's arms; like he'll crack if Rai squeezes too tight. He's still solid as ever, but there's a vulnerability there now, something ordinarily hidden and locked away beneath a layer of metal.
He's warm, too; not as warm as Rai, not quite human-temperature but a few degrees below. Still, warmer than Raimundo would have thought. He's grown so used to the chill of Chase's armor that he'd almost forgotten the person under it, with a heartbeat and a pulse now beating strong and steady against Raimundo's ear.
There's something both terrifying and incredible about it, this moment that could last forever in this space without time.
Rai holds on a little tighter.
Their first kiss is no great event. There are no fireworks, no explosions, no sudden end to the spell. It's a slow burning, quiet and almost tranquil in its simplicity.
Neither of them are quite sure who initiated it, but they're not in any great hurry to stop and figure it out.
The burning rises and falls like a smoldering fire, slowly building in strength and intensity. They take their time; there's more than enough time here for anything they could ever want to do.
Rai tells himself that this isn't love, it's merely comfort, and isn't that so much easier to swallow? Seeking comfort from a fellow prisoner, solace from the only other sign of life in this desolate patch of space. There's no betrayal here, nothing at stake. Nothing to lose.
So if he clings to Chase just a little too tightly, if his kisses are just a little too tender and his soft cries of pleasure just a little too sincere, there's nothing to fear from it. It's not like anyone else will ever know.
He drifts away when they've finished, and when he comes back it's to the sight of Chase Young fast asleep, wrapped around him, holding him like he's something important.
Maybe it's the dim light or the afterglow, but Chase's expression seems so tranquil and at peace that it hardly looks like him at all.
Rai feels something shatter at the sight, something small and cold and hard, and tries to convince himself that the resulting surge of warmth is just his imagination.
Now everything is a blur of quiet intimacy and private moments. It's not quite romantic, not quite a love story, but it's enough. It feels like a life, like a routine worth sticking to, and it's just another thing to hold on to here.
Chase hums to him sometimes, when Rai is floating between sleep and consciousness and can write it off as a dream. He hums music both familiar and not, tunes that Rai might have heard when he was very young, songs he's heard Clay pick out on his guitar around a campfire. He never sings the words and his humming is just a little off-key, but it's all a dream anyway, so Rai can't really complain.
Sometimes when Chase is asleep, Rai combs through his hair with his fingers, smoothing out the tangles and brushing it back from his face. He polishes his armor too, though it's something of an empty gesture with no polish and no dirt or passage of time to tarnish the armor in the first place. But it's something to do, at least, and Chase's armor has never been shinier.
He's in the middle of polishing the breastplate when there's a great shudder, a shift in the air around them, and then he's doubled over, eyes clenched shut to shield against the sudden, painful burst of light - bright and sharp and way-too-real.
There are voices, frantic and concerned and half-familiar, and hands on him, dragging him away from where he sits against Chase's side. By the time he's able to place the voices as those of his friends - and Jack Spicer? - he's already moving, set on a seat, whizzing through the air in something too stable and silent to be Dojo. He keeps his eyes closed - opening them even a sliver is more painful than he can bear - and keeps quiet, too dazed to speak coherently.
He's still clutching Chase's breastplate to his chest when they land, and they try to take it from him but he just shakes his head firmly, says he'll only give it to Chase.
There's a long silence, and then they walk away and come back with someone who's become far more familiar to him than his friends ever were, someone with glove-cooled hands and silk-soft hair that brushes over Rai's hands as its owner gently extricates his armor from Rai's grip.
There's a soft, quick pressure on his forehead and then the others are back, babbling about medical wards and Master Fung and can't we get them some blindfolds or something and it's all just a little too much for Rai right now, so he goes away for a while.
When he comes back, it doesn't hurt as much to open his eyes. Maybe they've started to readjust to the light, or maybe it's the fact that the room he's in is completely dark save for the flickering light of a few candlelit lamps. There's no window, and the edges of the closed door are completely dark. It's still brighter than what he's become accustomed to, but bearable.
The air here is clean and flowing, a far cry from the close, stagnant air of the Yin Yang World. The room is large, as far as hospital rooms go - and it's definitely some kind of hospital room, he can see the IV machines and the counters lining the walls. His bed is somewhat large too, a little bigger than he thinks a hospital bed should be. There are blankets and pillows and it's surprisingly comfy.
It's too big. Too empty. He doesn't like it.
Rai curls into the bed and wishes that it was more solid, wishes that it had arms that could hold him back.
Later, there's someone to talk to, and hey, looks like Master Fung does have a beard after all. They talk for a while, and then Master Fung leaves Rai to stare at the speckled tiles on the ceiling and try to process things.
Three days.
They'd only been in there for three days.
But of course, Master Fung had added upon noticing Raimundo's expression, time moves quite differently in the Yin Yang World. For them, it was likely to have felt like many, many months.
He and Chase are both all right physically, save for some sensitivity to light, which the doctors had assured them should pass soon enough. Bean's spell had sapped his energy enough for him to be defeated and contained; he won't be bothering the side of good for a little while at least. And yes, Master Fung was absolutely sure that Raimundo and Chase will both make a full recovery.
Things will go back to normal soon enough.
And they do.
Sure, bright lights still hurt his eyes, and he gets more headaches now than he used to, and sure he gets kind of overwhelmed when there's too much noise and too many things going on, and flying is a little more nervewracking than it used to be, but that's all temporary. He's working through it, getting better every day.
He's not exactly ready to go charging back into battle; he's kind of rusty after all that time sitting on his butt in a godforsaken pocket dimension. Most of his time now is taken up with training, trying to regain the ground he'd lost.
He spends most of his remaining time alone in his bed stall. His friends worry about him, poking their heads in every few minutes to see if he needs anything. He tells them that he's meditating, and it's not really a lie.
He tells them that he's okay, and it's not really the truth.
It takes 10 sleepless nights before he cracks.
Moving silently is the one thing he hasn't forgotten how to do; if anything, he's gotten better at it. It's simpler than simple to slip out of his bed stall without waking anyone else up, to creep to the Wu vault, to strike the chimes in just the right sequence (and thank God he hasn't forgotten how to do that).
Raimundo slips the Golden Tiger Claws onto his hand and is gone within a whisper.
The door he lands in front of is unfamiliar, but he doesn't hesitate. He reaches out, grabs the doorknob, and pushes with a strange sort of desperation.
It's almost completely dark inside, but that's no problem; he makes his way across the room as if he knows it by heart. There's a bed against the opposite wall; it's huge, way too big for just one person, and as he draws near he can see a shape hunched against the headboard, squished up amongst a mountain of pillows.
Chase stirs when he gets close, looking up at him - and whoa, his eyes are glowing, Rai'd forgotten he could do that - and something in his expression shifts, a sort of recognition (relief?) breaking across his face like an incoming wave.
They don't say anything to each other. They don't need to. Just a few fleeting touches - a hand on Rai's wrist, shoulders rubbing briefly as he clambers onto the bed. The only sound is the rustling of the sheets as they arrange themselves, holding each other just a little too tightly to be proper.
Maybe tomorrow, there will be time to worry. Maybe tomorrow, Rai will try to figure out what this means for him as a Xiaolin warrior, as a leader, as the Dragon of the Wind. Maybe tomorrow there will be discussions and planning and time to think about the future.
Tomorrow doesn't matter now.
All that matters now is the darkness, the feeling of Chase's heart beating so solidly and steadily next to his own, the arms wrapped tightly around him, the quiet humming in his ear as Chase sings him to sleep.
For now, Raimundo can drift away in this cocoon of strength and pretend that everything will work out for the better.
And for now, that's all that he needs.