Flowers of Chack
By: CrystallicSky
Disclaimer: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown or any of its characters.
Warnings: Language, slight violence, homosexuality, etc.
Anemone-
"Spicer…there is something I wish for you to see."
Jack looked up from his blueprints for a moment to see his lover standing seriously before him and easily dismissed his current project. Standing, he agreed, "Sure, Chase. What is it?"
The warlord offered no answer to the question but instead turned and left the room, trusting the goth to follow.
He did.
The youth was lead through several hallways, in and out of many rooms, and after several minutes, he knew he would never again find his way back from wherever they were now without Chase's help.
It was like he had put…whatever it was he wanted to show Jack so ridiculously out of the way so that no one would ever have even a remote chance of discovering it.
Finally, though, they arrived at a dark room, and were it not for the very bright object glowing in the middle of it, Jack had little doubt he would be able to see nothing at all.
As it was, the object that lit the room was a small flower with bluish petals. It looked…weak; withered, almost, with its stem drooping and a few of its pretty petals already fallen from the pedestal it sat upon. It was encased in glass, and the goth was reminded very strongly of Beauty and the Beast, already beginning to consider just what this flower might be beyond a flower.
"What are you thinking, Spicer?" Chase demanded from beside him.
"Its pretty," Jack immediately decided. "What is it?"
"I'm sure you've already guessed as much," the dragonlord stated simply, as always seeming to know what his lover was thinking without even having to say it. "In addition, it is a flower known as an anemone. Do you know it?"
"Yeah," the goth said. "Isn't it the flower that sprung up when Adonis was killed and his blood touched the Earth?"
"Precisely. And as I've no doubt you must have been thinking, it is also-"
"It's your heart, right?" Jack interjected. "Or, it represents it or something?"
The warlord's facial expression did not change, but his very aura said clearly that he was pleased with his lover. "That is correct: that flower is the physical manifestation of my heart."
"But it looks like its…dying, though," the youth protested. "If we're…it shouldn't be…I thought…"
"What you are seeing," Chase assured him, "is not death. Rather, it is returning from death." When red eyes blinked at him uncomprehendingly, the man clarified, "The plant was dead, or at least very close to it, for many, many centuries, Spicer. It was without petals, and its stem was not even firm enough to support itself. This is the first time I have visited it since you managed to worm your way into a position by my side. Do you see my intention in showing you this?"
The albino looked away from his lover, staring in shock at the little plant. From what Chase was telling him…he made the petals grow back. He made it stand again.
He brought Chase's heart back to life.
"Wow," he muttered, "I…Chase, I really…don't know what to say…"
"You needn't say anything," the warlord assured. "You have done what I thought impossible. You have brought back what I thought was long dead." The man pulled Jack's face close to his for a deep, gentle kiss, and as he pulled back ever so slowly, he breathed, "Thank you…"
Aster-
Chase Young awoke from a light doze when the body atop his stomach suddenly moved substantially, and he cracked an eye to a glittering, golden slit and demanded, "What are you doing, Spicer?"
Jack looked up guiltily, a pale purple flower still held between his white fingers in the motion of being plucked from the earth. "Sorry," he apologized, "I didn't mean to wake you up, I just wanted to-"
The warlord stared hard at his lover, immediately quieting him before he glanced over to the plant the albino had expressed interested in.
It was an aster flower, its thin petals curving upwards toward the sun even as it twined about another of its genus, two purple flowers with their stems curled almost lovingly about each other.
"Contentment," he stated aloud. "Aster flowers are representative of contentment."
Jack was clearly well aware of this fact as he nodded, a shy blush spreading over his cheeks.
To the goth's surprise, Chase plucked both of the flowers and grabbed his wrist, gently knotting the stem into a bracelet. At his obviously confused expression, the man completed the knot and informed, "You are content to be with me," pausing only momentarily to make a second bracelet, this time for himself, "and I am content to be with you."
Jack found himself smiling like an utter sap at the gesture and laid back down upon his lover's belly, gratified to feel Chase's fingers thread soothingly through his hair.
"I have decided that these flowers," the warlord told him, "shall die when the contentment they represent dies."
"Yay, immortal flowers!" the goth joked, secretly hoping that he wouldn't be contradicted.
Instead of contradiction, the man chuckled and said, "My thoughts exactly, Spicer."
White Begonia-
Jack scowled to himself as his idol scoffed at him derisively. "What now, Spicer?" the man haughtily demanded. "Come to try and woo me with a bouquet?"
Having already made his decision and now more angered by the usual jabs than hurt, the goth snarled, "As if, you bastard!"
This immediately got the warlord's attention, who was stunned silent at having been cursed at.
The genius decided to take the opportunity of having the floor to speak while he could and said, "I…have been doing a lot of thinking; hence the begonias, if you hadn't noticed what they were. I've finally taken the time to think about what is and isn't and what I'm doing with my life. What is is you being a total bastard, what isn't is anything happening between us, and what I'm doing with my life is getting the fuck over you. These," he informed coldly, raising the small bouquet of ruffled white begonias, "are my going away present, but I guess I shouldn't have even bothered."
Jack carelessly tossed the flowers to the floor and turned on his heel with the frigid announcement of, "Bye forever, you son of a bitch."
Before he was aware of what had happened, the goth was tackled off his stride and slammed into a wall, pressed there so forcefully that breathing grew difficult. Chase Young loomed before him, eyes glimmering red with his fury and inhumanly-sharp canines bared in warning.
"Clearly," the dragon barely retaining human-form hissed, "you have not thought deeply enough, Spicer! You are not allowed to leave: I forbid it!"
"Oh, and I'm just supposed to do whatever you say because I'm a fucking doormat?!" Jack challenged. "I'm sick of that, Chase! I'm sick of being kicked around and treated like shit with nothing to show for it: sick of you!"
An open palm cracked across the albino's cheek, instantly branding the tender flesh red upon impact, but before Jack could even attempt to give the witty retort he'd earlier prepared about Chase regressing to violence as a petty, final resort, his mouth was silenced in a harsh kiss.
Red eyes went wide as the dragonlord held their lips together with bruising force and his hands came up to the older man's chest, hammering against his armor as he wriggled and struggled in vain to break away.
Chase took the opportunity to slip his tongue past tightly closed lips, and from that point, the goth was fighting a losing battle. How many nights had he laid awake, hoping, dreaming to have this opportunity? And now, now that he had finally forced himself to say, 'enough,' he was being made to experience it against his will! And Chase was so good with his tongue…
Jack surrendered, his fists uncurling and his resistance fading; a low moan escaping his throat at the more than pleasant attentions being lavished upon his mouth by the man of his dreams.
The warlord slowly separated their mouths, leaving only enough room to allow them breath as the albino's eyes slid shut, a shamed blush at being so easily derailed taking his cheeks.
"You are not allowed to leave," Chase softly reiterated, something desperate in his tone. "I forbid it."
Jack looked up the short distance to his idol's golden eyes, seeing…something he hadn't seen there before. "Okay," he quietly yielded.
Forget-Me-Not-
Chase looked up as his lover walked into the room, his aura expressing a nervousness and bashfulness the was severely unlike him. "Are you well, Spicer?" he immediately asked. "You're trembling, and I would say you looked pale if you weren't already white as a sheet."
Jack stared hard at him, forcing down his minute shaking and removing the object he held from behind his back, offering it to the warlord. "Chase," he began, "you're immortal and everything, and I just sort of realized that…I'm not. That's why I wanted you to have this."
A pale blue flower was held in a gloved hand for him to take, and so the man took it, holding it between two fingers as he looked it over. "A forget-me-not, Spicer?" he inquired. "You wish for me to remember you forever?"
The goth's cheeks tinged a very pale pink, but he nodded.
A jolt of magic tingled through Chase's fingers and the little forget-me-not burst into flames, soon nothing more than a black, charred stem that he carelessly released to the floor.
The redhead was devastated by the action, taking the gesture to mean that he didn't mean nearly enough to Chase to be remembered years after his death and his eyes began to sting with tears.
Before he could cry, or force himself not to, however, the dragonlord very casually scoffed, "I've no need to remember you forever, Spicer. You are mortal now, but I shall soon discover how to rid you of that coil. After that, I can't imagine how I could ever forget you when you shall remain at my side until the end of time."
Red Geranium-
Jack tried desperately to get his breathing under control, to stop the tears flowing from his eyes and the snot dripping from his nose (boy, he bet he looked real attractive, right now!), to just stop and suck it up, but he couldn't.
He couldn't suck it up; not when his mom, the first and for an extremely long time only person to ever love him was…
Gone.
He held his pillow closer and cried harder, entirely unable to stop himself and no longer wanting to. Right now, Jack was only interested in crying this out until it stop hurting or he could no longer cry; whichever came first.
This objective was forced to change as a very powerful Heylin aura rippled through his bedroom and he shot up in bed, wiping furiously at his eyes in trying to pass as some semblance of normal. "Sorry, Chase," he sniffled to his lover, "I just…"
Jack trailed off to realize he was still alone in the room, only now, there was another thing that had been previously absent.
A bright red geranium with its many blossoms lay upon the other black pillow on his bed, the contrast stark to his tear-blurred eyes.
Slowly, he reached out for it only to freeze as his fingertips made contact with the stem, a telepathic message having been imbued onto the object for the moment he touched it.
"I am terrible with emotional matters, Spicer," the youth heard Chase speak clearly in his head. "I cannot relate, and I cannot help you. Still, I offer my condolences and pray your mood improves quickly."
Jack sniffled again, a very slow, very small smile taking his lips. Chase said he wasn't good at these things: he was a liar.
While he was still upset over his dearest mother's death, just this small gesture that the warlord hadn't even had to have offered was making him feel a little better already.
Passion Flower-
"Spicer, do you know the significance of that flower over there?"
Jack's red eyes scanned the garden for the plant his lover was gesturing to and upon catching sight of it, he burst out laughing. "Ohemeffgee, that's the stupidest-looking thing ever!"
Chase frowned, announcing, "What you are laughing at is a passion flower, and it represents the passion of lovers."
"I don't care what it represents," the goth cackled, "it looks like a fucking spaceship!"
As his lover doubled over, holding his stomach and chuckling, 'oh, God, it hurts,' the man scowled and huffed, "I was trying to-"
"I know," Jack panted, still smiling, "I know what you were trying to do: you were trying to seduce me with some romantic spiel about how we should make like the flower and get passionate, but-" he cut off with another short laugh, "-it's totally not working. It will work, but only if you pick a different flower or something, Chase, 'cause that one looks like L. Ron Hubbard is going to come and pick up his followers in it and take them to Neptune."
Queen Anne's Lace-
"Man, I always loved those things…"
Chase glanced over his lover's thigh from their position lying upon the grass to see just what Jack was referring to. "The Queen Anne's lace, Spicer?"
"Yeah," the goth sighed, smiling at the plant. "They just look so fragile, like…well, like lace. They're really…beautiful."
"You have always reminded me of them," the warlord quietly confessed. "Both you and the flower are white and beautiful."
"Aww," Jack cooed, clinging to his dragon affectionately. "You're getting laid tonight for sure, now."
Chase wisely kept silent that the Queen Anne's lace plant made him think of Spicer because of more than its color and beauty: it was representative of delicate femininity.
Of course, in the interest of his libido, that would be one fact he kept to himself.
Yellow Tulip-
Jack grinned, snuggled up against his lover as the man barked various orders to his feline servants to prepare for next week.
"Diol," the warlord addressed, seeing the jaguar prowling through the room of busied cats engaging in various activities, "I require you to provide the flowers for the ceremony."
The goth was not in tune with the animals like his lover was, but he was almost positive of what the cat had asked, something like, 'what kind?' because Chase followed up with, "Tulips. I have always favored them the most. There must be purple, of course; I am royalty, after all."
Diol likely then inquired something to the effect of, 'Any other colors?'
The dragonlord 'hmm'ed in consideration before deciding, "Yellow tulips, as well. In fact, most of the tulips should be yellow; at least double the amount of purple. Triple would be preferred, but if that is impossible due to time constraints, I shall find double acceptable enough. I shall settle for no less than double, however, so if that amount is unavailable by the time of my wedding to Spicer, we will have to move the date."
Jack had stopped listening, for the most part, at 'yellow tulips.'
The youth knew for a fact that yellow tulips were indicative of being hopelessly in love, and the fact that Chase must have known that (as he had earlier acknowledged the meaning of purple tulips) and wished to have so many of them present at their wedding made his heart soar.
Chase Young was hopelessly in love with him!
Violet-
Jack idly twirled the violet he held between his fingers, as he'd been doing for the hours since he had been kicked out of the house, when he felt the presence of his lover behind him.
"I didn't cheat," he said quietly.
The warlord settled behind him, the warmth of his body seeping pleasantly into Jack's cool flesh. The goth had been forced outside without his coat and it was nearing the end of autumn in the Land of Nowhere, making it a rather chilly and lonely three hours outside for Jack. "I know that now," Chase replied just as softly, his arms curling around the boy and pulling him close, rubbing his bare arms with his large hands to coax some warmth back into them.
"I can't believe you'd think I would cheat on you," the albino scoffed, nonetheless gratefully leaning backwards into the man's embrace.
"I had to be sure," the dragon said. "I was told-"
"Who told you?" Jack demanded, "Wuya? She's a lying bitch! She'll say anything to cause trouble with us 'cause she's hoping we'll get sick of it and just break up to make her meddling stop!"
The warlord was suspiciously silent at the accusation.
The goth sighed and pulled away from his lover, turning around to face him. "Chase," he said sincerely, "I'm not gonna cheat on you. Ever. If I ever, in the history of ever, have sex with somebody else, it'll be without my consent. Anybody who tells you otherwise is lying their ass off and you're being stupid by listening to them." He raised the violet in his hand, placing it gently behind the man's ear as he promised, "I love you, Chase: I don't want to be with anybody else."
Golden eyes stared at him very seriously for a long moment. Their owner abruptly bent to kiss the albino youth; gently, slowly taking pleasure from Jack's mouth. When the man pulled away, he uttered a phrase the redhead had never heard him say before and likely never would again, "I'm sorry, Spicer."
The goth was pulled to his feet and nudged in the direction of the garden-gate leading back to the dragon's citadel.
"Come," Chase encouraged him, "you had best get inside and warm up."
Yellow Chrysanthemum-
Jack sighed roughly, trudging dejectedly through the front door of his home.
There had been another Showdown today. The result? He'd lost miserably, acquired a more severe beating than usual, and lost the only Wu he'd had, his beloved Monkey Staff.
But really, what had he been expecting?
He wasn't cut out for this: why did he even bother anymore? The most he ever got out of these mystical battles anyways were cuts, bruises, and the occasional limp (as he currently had).
The goth had almost made it through the den when something vibrantly yellow caught his eye and he gasped at the sight he saw upon the eggshell-white couch.
A sheerly massive collection of chrysanthemums was bundled together, what had to be hundreds of the flowers that had oft reminded the youth of miniature sunflowers with yellow in the middle tied together with a silky, black ribbon and propped up against the pale velvet cushions. The gift was made even better as, laid out next to the flowers was the very Shen Gong Wu he'd lost only hours before, the youth's joy at having it back making him momentarily forget the gigantic bouquet and squeal as he traversed the room to grab ahold of the thing.
"I thought I'd never see you again," he grinned, hugging the Monkey Staff to his chest in glee. He paused, however, as his red eyes caught sight of the slip of paper peeking out from amidst the huge bouquet of flowers, only visible now that he was close to it, and he set the ancient object down to further investigate it.
The paper read:
Jack,
I had the thought that these things would cheer you up after your spectacular failure this morning. I do hope you enjoy the gifts.
Tell me, are you aware of the significance of chrysanthemums?
Bronze represents excitement, white represents truth, red represents sharing, and yellow…Yellow chrysanthemums mean a secret admirer.
I hope that your loss today has not made you decide to abandon the entire thing, as I hope to see you at the next Showdown to speak with you more personally. After all, professing affection comes much easier to me through words than doing it through a simple note that cannot possibly contain all that must be said.
In any case, I trust I will be seeing you soon.
Love, Your Secret Admirer
Against his will, Jack blushed and picked up the mass of chrysanthemums, the bouquet so big that he required both arms to hold it.
Well, there was no way he could stop going to Showdowns now: he had a secret admirer!
Praying only that it wasn't Omi or Bean, he hugged the flowers closer as an ear-to-ear grin took his lips. "Wow…" he cooed in anticipation, idly enjoying the scent of the yellow blossoms.
Chase Young watched from his palace through his Eye-Spy Orb, bringing a glass of well-aged wine to his lips with the promising murmur of, "Soon…"
A/N: So! I hereby dedicate this fic to the loving memory of Silvarbelle's magical no-hangover thing, which passed on recently when she was struck with a hangover out of the blue. We'll treasure your memory forever, magical no-hangover thing! D:
I'm not really going to comment on anything of the ones I did here, but I'll list the flowers, along with the meaning as I found it. I would link pictures of the flowers for your convenience, but Fanfiction has never been all that amiable towards links, so if you want to see what they look like, you'll have to Google it on your own; sorry.
Anemone - fragility
Aster - contentment
Begonia - deep thoughts
Yellow chrysanthemum - secret admirer
Forget-Me-Not - remember me forever
Geranium - comfort
Passion flower - passion
Queen Anne's lace - delicate femininity
Yellow tulip - hopelessly in love
Violet - faithfulness
And that's all there is to Flowers of Chack; hope you liked it! :D