"...Jack Spicer?"
Jack couldn't move. He nearly dropped the figurine in shock, but luckily his shaky hands kept it in his palms.
"Jack Spicah!" Omi declares, unaware of the building panic in their old rival. "De-hand that shen gon wu!"
"Ughh! Omi, it's been years, it's unhand." Raimundo smacks his palm on his forehead. Jack would have laughed at his frustration if he wasn't currently having a crisis.
Jack goes through his morning routine.. He woke up, had breakfast, took his meds. He swore he took his meds. He even had a foolproof system! Everytime he took a dose, the little orange bottle will be turned upside down, and Jack specifically remembers being happy all his bottles ended up on their caps yet again this week.
Every day, every week, every fucking month, Jack had taken his medications as directed.
And yet, here he was, staring at the Xiaolin Monks in all their mix-matched fashion glory.
Clay looks the same. Older, as Jack was older since he first joined- hallucinated the conflict. He towers a foot above Jack, broad shouldered, tipping his hat as he straightens his back in his tight blue plaid button up.
Raimundo still wears his old white sweater, showing signs of wear and tear and all the love of being an overused sweater it came with. He slouches, looking bored, and more than a little ready to knock some street sense into Omi's head. And Omi, he was still the small, half Jack's size cue-ball dressed in his monk robes, ready to charge.
Kimiko, Jack notices last, looks just a tad taller, but not really older. Asian genes, go figure. His mind helpfully supplies him as they lock eyes, both seeming to think the same.
They've changed.
Jack knows he looks different. More normal. He still dressed in near all-black, tight jeans and clunky boots, and a knitted sweater with the NASA logo. He has long since stopped dyeing his hair red, and he bets it looks foreign and alien to the monks to see him with a head of white hair and face bare of makeup.
He can't move. He can't.
The meds were taken, and yet this happens. It has to be real, he thought desperately, there's no other explanation for seeing the monks.
But even if that was so, he mentally tries to smack himself out of his stupor before Omi lurches forward and touches the hummingbird.
"Jack Spicah! I challenge you to a Xiaolin Showdown!" Jack feels his lips move, hears sound come out though he doesn't hear what he says. Most likely, he realizes as Omi's lips move and the world starts to shift, that he accepted.
Jack could blame it on muscle memory, could blame it on someone else controlling his body. He could blame it on his illness.
But how the fuck is he hallucinating a killer mind maze for the hummingbird sitting inside a small cage at the middle of the showdown when he was on anti-psychotics?
"Gon yi tan pai!" Jack voices back, and he doesn't even stop to this that he doesn't even have wu he could have offered up if he lost. He was wu-less, and jackbot-less, and any kind of help-less.
The ground moving the two puzzle blocks underneath him and he yelps, jumping forward onto other uneven floating pieces, trying not to get squashed by the mystical forces of the showdown. He doesn't focus on Omi, barely even focuses on how close he gets to the hummingbird as he tries to keep himself alive.
Jack has two more slots to make it through to the birdcage, ensuring his victory and that he lives when he hears a voice yell, "Fist of Tebigong!" and suddenly pain blossoms in his side and he is thrown into a floating jigsaw puzzle, head colliding painfully with a resounding crack! against the harder than metal piece ready to crush him.
When Jack comes to, it has got to be hours later. His head hurts something fierce, like a night spent drinking too much. It hurt to breathe, like something was crushing his side. And he couldn't for the life of him figure out where the fuck he was. His eyelids were heavy, but he forces them open and hisses at the blood of light, groaning his uncomfort.
"Jack!" Exclaims a girlish voice, filled with concern and relief all at once. He knows that voice.
"Megan…?" He slurs, swallowing the saliva in his mouth uncomfortably. "Where- what happened? Where.. Am I?"
"Jack.." Her voice turns disappointed. "The shopkeeper at the inn called the police. He said you went crazy! Pretended to fight people and kept throwing this around the shop, breaking all the priceless antiques!"
Jack's eyes flew open and he sat up, body protesting and eyes stinging with the light-too much light- and stares wide-eyed at Megan, dolled up like her usual self.
"No!" Jack nearly yells. "I did not do anything like that! They were there, Megan! I fucking saw them!" Megan only pulls her pretty lips into a frown.
"Who did you see, Jack?"
"The fucking monks! Who else?!" He screeches, running his eyes as they throbbed behind his lids.
"They aren't real, Jack… Have you been taking your medicine?" She asks suspiciously and when Jack opens his eyes to look at her she squints her own. He stares, baffled, and then gets angry.
"Of course I fucking take them!" He screeches this time. "Don't fucking look at me like that Megan! I take them every fucking god damn day!" He growls. "That antique shop owner is a fucking liar."
"Then you wouldn't mind if I go to your home and search any place you might've hidden them, hmm?" She asks and if she had her umbrella he swears she would be twirling it. He hisses, glaring holes in her eyes.
"Go fucking knock yourself out."
Jack stays in the hospital as Megan leaves to scope out his home. The doctor comes in, tells him he has a concussion and bruising on his ribs.
Yeah no shit, Sherlock. He thinks bitterly, brows furrowed as he takes the meds from the little cup and downs them all in one go with a glass of water. They scrape the inside of his throat, and he twitches and gulps, holding his thumb in his first to keep himself from gagging. Yuck… He makes a face as he feels them travel down his esophagus and settle in his gut. At least, after a few minutes of terse silence of listening to the stagnant beeping of his monitor, he pain medications started to kick in and he relaxed, going loosey-goosey against the fluffed pillows.
Megan comes back only after the pain meds started to wear off, where he could still be lucid but the pain was still kept at bay. She wore a frown, lips pursed with a disappointed look on her face.
Megan sets a bottle, a water bottle, full of pills on his bedside table. Jack furrows his brows, staring with a raised brow.
"Did you really just put all my meds in a fucking plastic bottle?" They had a bunch in there, more than two weeks worth of medications. He could see the brown pills of Zoloft and the small blue circular pills of his Risperdal. Megan looked more resigned at this point.
"No. I found this in your drawer." She eyes the bottle, as Jack does. Jack's eyes widen, looking between her and the bottle, then back to her, and to the bottle, an endless amount of times.
"No." Jack says, a little bit of hysteria coloring his voice. "No. I took my pills. I took them! Everyday!" Megan doesn't look like she believes him.
"The doctor said you're blood test came back with less than the prescribed dose of your medications." She says, somehow haughty and worried all at once. "How do you explain that, Jack?"
"I…" Jack starts, voice trailing off as he stares at the half-full bottle of pills.
AN: Woot woot~ So, who's right? Is this real life, or is this just a fantasy?
Don't own and what not.