Draconic Introspection

By: CrystallicSky

Disclaimer: I don't own Xiaolin Showdown, or any of the characters in it.

Warning(s): Implication of malexmale relationships, AKA homosexual; if you have a problem with that, that's your business. Please don't make it mine. Mild cursing and using God's name in vain.

Notes: This is what happens when I get bored during the summer: I write fanfiction to get some form of attention. It probably doesn't help that I'm rather sick at the moment as well, meaning that it took a bit longer than it should have and might not be up to snuff and/or the level it should be, but I'm not gonna rewrite it, and I want feedback, so if you're actually reading this, please, move on to the actual story! :D

Jack was having trouble sleeping.

Oh, he wanted to very much; it was one of his favorite past times as a matter of fact, right up there with ranting and tinkering around with his bots.

But the issue was that no matter what, he simply could not sleep, no matter what he tried.

Usually, a couple of pudding cups, a glass of warm milk, and mind-numbing, late-night television easily did the trick, but nope, tonight it did nothing for him, and at about two or three in the morning, the TV was off and he stared blankly at the ceiling from the living room couch.

Stupid mom for banging the pool guy in his room...

At the unwanted mental image this called forth, the goth shuddered in disgust; he'd have to have that bed vaporized.

Ah, well, he'd always wanted a bunk-bed. That way, he could say, 'Aw, I'm not gonna sleep in that bunk; I'm gonna sleep in the good bunk,'

The thing that really sucked, however, was that Jack knew exactly what was keeping him up, but he really didn't want to acknowledge it, because then that'd mean he'd have to fight his own common sense (which had happened more than he'd like to admit as a sane young man) tooth and nail to keep thinking the way he wanted to.

Admittedly, he lived in a bit of his own little world, but he really sort of had to in order to keep from becoming a simpering puddle of depression.

Jack Spicer refused to give up his pride, God damn it, and if keeping it took all kinds of delusions of grandeur and fantasies galore, then so be it. He refused to become the stereotypical 'slits-his-wrists' emo-kid everyone seemed intent on making him.

I mean, really, his parents had all but abandoned him, the monks constantly delighted in reminding him how prone to failure he was, Wuya had made it clear that he was no more than a tool, a means to an end to be promptly discarded when its usefulness ran out, and Chase-…oh, crap…

"Ooh, that's a good topic," his common sense chimed in, "let's talk about that!"

"How 'bout we don't and say we did?" the goth whined pleadingly.

"Oh, no, no, no, no, you are not getting out of it that easy; we are gonna talk about this for once."

"Pfft," he scoffed, "yeah, talking to myself about my own love-life; no, that's not at all crazy."

"Hm, 'love-life', 'crazy', those are both good words! Let me try to use 'em in a sentence: you're crazy if you think you have a love-life, much less one that involves Chase Young in any way!"

"Oh, shut up, you," Jack snarled, "he loves me! He just…doesn't know it yet…"

"You cannot believe that," the voice scoffed with a chuckle, "he hates you! You're a genius; how can you not realize how little he feels for you? If it were a number, it would be, like, negative katrillion!"

"…but that's not a real number-"

"Exactly! Really, I just gotta know: what makes you think you have a chance in Hell with him?"

Quickly accessing the databanks of his slightly-warped reality, he answered, "W-well…he calls me by pet-names…"

"Mmhm, I hardly think 'worm' and 'insect' are expressions of affection."

"Um…h-he always lets me into his place!"

"Oh, of course," his common sense drawled, "but only after the oh-so-tender greeting of a door to the face. You gotta be careful with that face of yours, by the way: its your money-maker, even if it's the least likely in the world to be making any money."

"Why do you say things you know will hurt me?" Jack queried dejectedly.

"Okay, okay, I've just got one more question for you, Jackie, m'boy: what've you got to say in his defense for that T-Rex incident? "

At a complete loss on how to put a positive spin on the event, the goth pathetically tried, "Tough love?"

"Oh, for God's sakes, you delusional idiot!" the voice growled, "Wake up and smell the Guatemalan blend! Chase Young hates you, hates you! H-a-t-e, hate! Why can't you understand that?! There is no chance of him waking up one morning and going, 'Golly gee, what was I thinking?' and sweeping you romantically off your feet, so stop waiting for it, dammit!"

"I don't want to stop waiting," the albino whimpered softly, holding back tears now, " 'cause if I do, it'll be like admitting to myself that I'm a complete failure at everything I do and to everyone I know. I…I can't give up; waiting for that is pretty much all I've got to hope for at this point…"

The voice realized it'd gone too far, and its tone became gentler and more consoling. "Jack, no…there…there's more to life than what you're making it. Maybe you should try to be…well, normal?"

"Normal?"

"Yeah, like maybe getting away from all this Shen Gong Wu crap and giving life in the real world a try."

"How the hell would I do that?" the goth questioned, tone still subdued, "I don't know the first thing about being normal."

"Its really not that hard; look, why don't we do this? You could go back to school and finish that before tackling college; I mean, with your brain, it shouldn't take more than a couple of months. Then, your family's got connections, so you could probably break into a military engineering career, like your dad always wanted. You could still work on machines that cause mayhem, but people'd be okay with it, and they'd actually pay you for it, right?"

"Yeah, I guess…"

"And hey, as for your love-life, there's always that Asian guy your dad works with, you know, the one that could conceivably pass as Chase's half-brother or something. He's always giving you the eye and flirting with you when he's around, so he'd probably jump at the chance to be with you, and your parents would totally approve."

"But…he's almost fifty, isn't he? He's old enough to be my father."

"So what? The real Chase is old enough to be your great-to-the-tenth-power grandfather! C'mon, you've always sorta wondered what it'd be like to live an average, ordinary life, ever since a week after meeting Wuya."

"…it feels a lot like I'm settling." Jack replied sadly, absently fingering the hem of the dark blue sheet over him.

"Well," his common sense admitted, "that's what people have to do when their expectations are too high: settle for what they can get."

The goth was quiet for a long moment before somberly surrendering, "Okay. I'll settle. Tomorrow, I give all the Wu I've got back to the monks, dismantle all my bots, pull some strings to get back into high school and…" he swallowed hard, as if trying not to choke on his next words, "I'll forget about Chase."

At the conclusion of the issue, Jack finally felt sleep clouding his mind, and he began to drift off.

"This really is for the best, Jack," the voice attempted to make him feel less upset about his decision, "its better that you take a sensible, reasonable chance to be happy instead of wasting your life waiting for the impossible and ending up miserable."

If that's true, the albino wondered as he fell asleep, then why does it feel like I'm condemning myself?

VVVV

Jack had always been slow to wake up when it was to his own circadian rhythm and not an alarm clock, and so for perhaps ten or twenty minutes of hazy, partial awakeness, he simply lay where he was, enjoying the warmth of the sunlight on his body and nuzzling into his pillow ever so slightly, infinitely content that this moment should last forever.

And of course, he then had to recall the promise he'd made to himself the night before, and a soft moan escaped his throat; talk was talk, but actually going through with it...

"Finally awake, are we?"

It took a second to realize that the voice wasn't in his head and then another second to register the voice was familiar and that his 'pillow' seemed decidedly less stuffed with down than it should have been, and his reflexes acted quickly and sent him clear over to the other end of the couch, squealing, "Chase?! What're you doing here?"

The man smirked at him from his side of the couch, arm draped over the back of it as he disapprovingly clucked his tongue. "Now, that's no way to greet your 'idol', Spicer…"

Somewhat disturbed by Fact A, Chase was not wearing his usual armor but instead fairly casual-looking clothing, Fact B, had invaded his home, and Fact C, had purposefully allowed the goth to sleep in his lap, Jack decided to forgo all manners and warily demand, "What do you want?"

The warlord did not reply to this, instead subjecting the albino to a deeply considering stare, which, of course, had the youth's heart all aflutter, but he really didn't want to think about his hopelessly one-sided crush; it was already gonna be torture trying to leave Chase behind when he could still effortlessly exert so much power over him with nothing but a look.

"You must truly be a genius," he complimented seriously enough to make every brain-cell in Jack's head stop what they were doing and listen, "that can be the only possible way that no one but you saw this coming."

"S-saw what coming?" the teen wondered aloud, utterly flabbergasted.

The look on the man's face was sexy enough to make the fanboy in Jack melt into a puddle as he smirked, answering simply, "This…"

In the space of a second, it seemed, Chase was across the couch, one big hand on the side of the goth's jaw as he forced their lips to meet in a kiss.

Needless to say, Jack was stunned. There was no way this was happening; Chase kissing him? Impossible, unfathomable, inconceivable-

When a powerful arm snaked around his waist and yanked his torso closer to the man's well-built body, the albino snapped back to reality and quickly realized something: this could be his one and only shot at this, and if he didn't take it, he'd probably never get the chance again.

Nearly instantly, his fingers tangled in long, dark hair, kissing back fiercely as he deeply hoped this wasn't some sort of Heylin prank.

This hope was rewarded as Chase's mouth left his and he was gifted with words he'd desperately desired to hear. "I apologize that it took so long, Spicer, but I've been stubborn. I didn't want to want you, but gods be damned, I don't care anymore. I do want you… Can you forgive me for forcing you to wait so long?"

Naturally, he wanted to believe this at face-value, but Jack nonetheless thoroughly searched the man's gorgeous golds for some teensy hint of deceit, one shred of a lie…and saw only honesty. "Don't be stupid," he managed to choke out, half-chuckling as he did so, "of course I can forgive you! Just…kiss me so I know this isn't a dream or something stupid like that…" Tears had begun to make their way down pale white cheeks, but the goth wore an ecstatic smile; this was nothing short of his dream come true!

Chase was more than happy to oblige this demand and claimed the teen's lips once more, feeling a warmth well up in his chest as the albino actively responded, a warmth he'd thought long dead.

Oh, was this feeling of completeness what he'd denied the poor boy all these years? Well, that would not do; he'd make it up to him for being so cruel and stubborn somehow.

Jack really could've cared less as to anything going on around him at the moment (a little busy with the unthinkably surprising reciprocation of his long-time crush), but at a slight twinge in his subconscious, he managed to split his attention in two, half on the man he loved and half within himself.

"What was all that about Chase never waking up one morning and going, 'Golly gee, what was I thinking?' again?"

"Shut up," his common sense growled at him, now without any words of becoming 'normal', "use more tongue."

And for once, the two were in complete agreement.

Fuck settling, Jack Spicer aimed high and stayed persistent, and seeing as it'd apparently won the Chase Young over, he must have been doing something right...

A/N: Basically, the same idea as the original, but with Jack's thoughts, and of course the epilogue.

Other than that, nothing to say about this; I'm tired, still sick, and my hand hurts from writing/typing, so I'm going to go away, now. -.-