Title: Reality Bites
Pairing: Jedediah/Octavius
Rating: G
Word count: 310
Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to the Night at the Museum movies.
Summary: Jed muses on the consequences of being "real".
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"Hey, Octavius."
"Yes, Jedediah?" Octavius glanced over. The cowboy was leaning forward in the driver's seat of their parked car, hands hanging over the steering wheel as he stared out of the windshield.
Jed turned to look at him. "You ever think 'bout if we were... real?"
"What do you mean?" Octavius was used to his friend bemoaning their small stature, but tonight the pensiveness in Jedediah's voice took him by surprise.
"Y'know - real. Not just big like Gigantor, I mean. Real, like, if we weren't jes' figures in a display but if you lived back in the real Roman Empire and I was in the real Wild West."
"I see." Octavius thought about it. "Hm. No, I cannot say I have ever really given it much thought. I have memories of Rome, and they are real enough for me. Why?"
"I been thinkin' about it a lot," said Jedediah, once again gazing out of the windshield at nothing in particular. "Livin' a real life, in the sun. With Manifest Destiny where there were real progress. Buildin' a railroad what'd actually go somewhere, havin' dynamite what actually worked." His voice turned wistful as he added, "Guns what actually fired."
Octavius, sensing that there was something else, ventured, "But?"
Jed sighed, then looked at him again. "But then I got to thinkin'. If I was a real cowboy, in the real West... then you wouldn't be there. You'd be in Ancient Rome, two thousand years away. And I'd never meet ya, never even know about ya..."
Octavius, hearing the catch in the cowboy's voice, reached across and laid his hand across Jedediah's.
"And?" he prompted, gently.
Jed grinned, sliding their fingers together and squeezing. "Well, I decided it weren't worth it. If bein' real meant not havin' you, then I choose bein' li'l, partner. Every time."
Octavius smiled, and kissed him.