The Shark and the Dolphin
By: Ch4ckSl4sher (AKA, Silvarbelle)
Pairing: Chase Young x Jack Spicer (male x male pairing)
Fandom: AU Xiaolin Showdown
Summary: "Under the liquid sky, where they lived, they were legends to behold." ~ Billie Meyers, The Shark and the Mermaid
Warning: If you can't handle the thought of people of the same gender kissing and/or being sexual with each other, please to be pissing off now. If you read it anyway, and claim to be offended, I'll do my utmost to embarrass you publicly by telling your real-life friends and family what you read and masturbate to.
Acknowledgements: I hereby acknowledge CrystallicSky for her awesome idea of Chase the Megalodon and Jack the Dolphin! Thanks for letting me play in your sandbox, hon! I also acknowledge midnyte-grimm for further inspiration with the recent drawing of MerChack! And thanks also go to RedLioness for giving the story a quick read and pronouncing it good to go as a short story.
Disclaimer: I do not own Xiaolin Showdown or any of the original characters or items associated with it. I am not attempting to make any financial gain from writing this story. Xiaolin Showdown is the property of its creator (Christy Hui) and attendant television networks.
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Chase Young had been a very lonely shark for a very, very, very long time.
He was the last of his kind: a true Carcharodon Megalodon.
He'd been the last Megalodon for 1.5 million years.
The only way he'd kept his hold on sanity had been long periods of hibernation. The power he'd gained from Architeuthis Bean allowed him to deviate from usual shark biology. Instead of being forced to keep moving and moving and moving, Chase could invoke a spell to nap for as long as he wanted.
The first time he'd used the spell, he realized that he was eating out of boredom and had nearly killed off most ocean life – as well as gained several thousand pounds. Deciding that he should let the ocean life come back else he'd starve before too long, Chase had found himself a lovely underwater cave, built defenses at the mouth of it, and had settled in for a really long nap.
He'd awoken to new species of fish and a few species of monkeys were decidedly different looking; longer, leaner, and walking upright on two legs.
The next time he'd gone to sleep had again been because of boredom. He'd tried to find a potential mate among the new dominant shark species that greatly resembled his own, but on a smaller scale. None of them would have nothing to do with him, too terrified of the power and size of him to tolerate his presence.
When he'd woken again, the oceans were starting to stink with rot and heavy oil and the monkeys had shed their fur and begun wearing colorful things he didn't have a name for. He'd investigated and discovered they called themselves "humans" and they wore "clothing" and were starting to create things that required digging up dry and wet land that made the animal life where they dug around suffer.
Since then, he'd swum in all of the warm salt waters of the world and watched as humans advanced. At first, he'd found it vaguely amusing the monkeys' new forms matched the form ocean life took when not hunting or fighting. The peace-forms meant that from the middle to the end was a fish tail of whatever species they were, while from the middle up to the head was a torso with pliant skin; long and muscular appendages that sprouted smaller digits that made holding onto things easy; and a smallish, roundish head on a slender stem that was the throat area.
The humans, he'd learned, called the appendages "arms" and the digits "fingers." The long, silky matter that sprouted from the head in different colors was called "hair." The fish of this modern world mimicked the human names for body parts and even adopted humanish names of their own.
In his effort to keep himself from being bored, Chase had given himself his new name: Chase Young. The one he'd had from so long ago no longer belonged in the world, for so long as everyone knew – fish or human – his kind was long-long gone.
Chase knew himself to be beautiful. He had long, thick black hair that trailed behind him in the water like a banner of silk. His ears – another human word for the knobby protrusions on the sides of the head – were long and pointed; an elegant look, or so he thought. His face was aristocratic and his body strong with muscle. He was leaner than he preferred to be, but in order to maintain his safety he ate less often than he should have. Unfortunately, the humans had machines that were capable of hunting him down and destroying him, which they surely would if he made himself known to them. They would fear him – and rightly so – but in that fear, they would lash out and strike him down before he could visit damage upon them.
Chase sighed as he swam through warm, salty water off the coast of what was known as the Bahamas. He was so bored; so very, very bored. He knew he would probably have to sleep again soon simply to keep himself from going mad. He'd been awake for almost two hundred years by now, and nothing had changed beyond the ocean becoming more polluted with human waste.
Abruptly, he slowed his motion in the water. He opened his mouth to feel with his gums and lips what the skin of his fingers, arms, and torso felt.
The vibration of several organic bodies moving in the water.
The sudden click and screek of Dolphin echo-location pinged against him and he knew he'd been located.
If he wanted to eat, he'd have to move fast; he'd certainly show up on any human detection equipment in the area.
Quickly, he shifted into his Megalodon form and powered forward through the water.
By the time he arrived at a colorful reef near one of the islands, the Dolphin pod was gone.
Chase gnashed his teeth and swayed violently from side-to-side. Damn it, he was hungry, and those blasted sea-dogs had escaped him already. From further out, he sensed their echo-locations again, and heard the taunting tone.
Come get us if you want us, Fin-Fanny!
Suddenly, movement from a bright source of color attracted his attention, and Chase turned to home in on it.
He paused as surprise overpowered his hunger.
A lone Dolphin male, still peace-formed, was swimming slowly through the water. It was tracking the progress of a human machine that seemed entirely unaware of its oddly colored admirer.
In his long life, Chase had never met a Dolphin whose torso skin was pure white, whose eyes were red, and whose gray tail was tinged with a visible pink color.
He had to meet this fascinating creature.
--
Jack Spicer, Dolphin, had no clue that he'd been targeted by a 1.5 million-year-old apex predator.
Humans had sent down an underwater camera. It had a tether line and propellers and Jack became enraptured with studying it even as he kept quickly out of sight of its viewing apparatus. He needed to remain peace-formed in order to study it better.
He was so fixated on the fascinating toy that he never noticed his pod's warning cries that a predator was coming; never noticed as they abandoned him without even attempting to get his attention.
He only noticed when the camera he was studying was suddenly crushed by a gigantic caudal fin that struck the machine so hard, the pressure wave sent Jack rolling and tumbling away.
Jack fetched up against a section of coral reef and winced as the stony substance scratched his skin.
"Owwww!" he whined grumpily, and floated away from the coral. "What the hell—?"
His voice cut off abruptly, simply because he was too terrified to make a sound.
The largest shark he'd ever seen floated not ten feet away from him, watching him intently.
They stared at each other for several moments, and then, to Jack's shock, the gigantic shark shrunk down into peace-form.
The mer-dolphin received his second shock of the day – though this one was a pleasant surprise.
The mer-shark before him was gorgeous. Utterly gorgeous, with a thick cloud of black hair that glinted green in the faint sunlight coming down through the water and gold eyes that looked at him from a face so youthful and lovely it took Jack's breath away in a burst of joy.
Amazingly, the first words that burst from Jack's throat were: "Y-You're a Megalodon."
The gold eyes widened in surprise, and then narrowed with amusement.
"Yes," the mer-shark replied, and Jack wanted to whimper with bliss at how lovely the predator's voice was. "I am a Megalodon. How did you know? No one else of this age recognizes me."
Jack gulped. "I study humans. Well… human technology, mainly. But I listen to humans talk whenever I have the chance. I've heard them discuss sharks before and Megalodons came up, in comparison to the Great Whites; the sharks that are descended from your kind."
A sharp sound of laughter came from a mouth too full of sharp teeth for Jack to be comfortable with.
"Whites aren't descended from my kind, little one," the mer-shark said bitterly. "Mine died out long ago. Whites actually… ah, what's the phrase?... 'leveled up' from a less dominant species while mine was around."
"You're alone?" Jack asked hastily, and then shook his head. "Duh. Right. Sorry. Of course you're alone. There aren't any more of you around… are there?"
The gorgeous mer laughed again, though the sound was more amused than painful this time.
"No need to sound so frightened, little one; I'm the last of my kind."
Jack felt unexpectedly sad. This magnificent creature was all alone in the world? How could it stand that loneliness? Even for a shark that kind of loneliness had to hurt.
Suddenly, Jack realized the Megalodon wasn't the only one alone at the reef. Fearfully, he glanced around, but saw none of his podmates.
"They left you behind," the mer-shark said quietly, and Jack looked up at him through sad eyes. "They cried a warning and then fled. I didn't hear any of them trying to chivvy a straggler."
Jack sighed, sagging in the water. "No… they wouldn't have. Not for me."
"Why not?"
Jack glared at the Megalodon. "Are you blind? Look at me! I'm abnormally colored! I'm a runt! I study humans and their toys! I'm definitely not alpha material!"
Hurting from this swift and painful recitation of truths that couldn't be fixed, Jack hugged himself as he trembled.
"Just… just go ahead and eat me, okay?" he muttered. "We both know I can't get away from you. Do whatever you want with me."
To his utter shock, Jack found strong and slightly yellow-tinted hands curling about his wrists. He was forced out of his huddled position and then pulled close against the mer-shark.
He instinctively gave a tiny squee! of distress when he saw the Megalodon's face lowering to his own.
Instead of feeling teeth ripping into his flesh and savaging him, however, Jack felt lips press carefully against his own.
They stayed like that for several moments, floating easily on the reef current as their lips pressed and stroked gently together.
When the mer-shark drew away, Jack's crimson eyes fluttered open. His lips tingling, he asked quietly, "Why did you do that?"
The Megalodon smiled at him. "You said 'do whatever I want'. I wanted that. I want that. I want you."
"For dinner?" Jack squeaked.
"Forever," the mer-shark vowed, and then frowned. "There is only one problem, my lovely little Dolphin."
"The horrid teasing we're bound to endure for interspecies dating?"
The Megalodon snorted. "Hardly. I'll eat whoever harasses us for breakfast."
"Then… what?" the Dolphin asked.
A surprisingly sheepish smile crossed the beautiful face. "I don't know your name."
Jack grinned. "Oh, that! I'm Jack Spicer."
"I call myself Chase Young."
"Why?"
"I'll tell you all about it later. For now… I'm still hungry."
Jack gave his new mate a wary look.
"If you don't mind too awfully much, I'd like to use your pod's abandonment of you as an excuse to run them all down and snack on them."
The Dolphin gaped at the mer-shark, flustered at the predator's words.
Taking his new mate's silence as assent, Chase pressed a quick and careful kiss to the Dolphin's mouth. "I'll be back in a jiffy, Spicer. Wait here for me. Do not make me come looking for you."
With that, Chase let go of Jack and took off through the darker water, forming into his Megalodon body as he went while Jack stared in stunned disbelief.
Several minutes later, the cries of pain and death that rang out from his former podmates reached him through the sea, as did the triumphant roar of a hunter.
Jack was surprised to find that he didn't feel nearly as bad about it as he supposed he should have.
Deciding that there was nothing he could do about it, he contented himself with examining the wreckage of the submersible camera from the human world.
A/N: Silv wrote a prequel to Rough Waters, in addition to the sequel she already had written; once again, this is ALL her work and I make no creative claim upon it. I only wish to share it with the people here on Fanfiction who watch me and are interested in things directly related to my stories. :)
I hope you enjoyed Silvarbelle's wonderful prequel! :D