dear_mun | Homeless for a while

[Eyebrow raise.]

I've gotten better at the planning thing, you know.

[Sees your eyebrow and raises you an incredulous squint]

Spicer? What happened to you? And if it has to do with time travel, I've had all of that I can take for one lifetime.

I suspect it's more to do with alternate timelines than time travel itself. Of course, this place just just takes all that and mashes it together, so maybe it is time travel.

Either way, it's not my fault! So don't give me that look.

Anyway, what happened is... [squints and appears to be reckoning your height with his thumb] ...about ten years or so? Unless you just stopped growing at some point, I dunno.

So...it's not time travel, but it acts exactly like time travel, but it is time travel? Hehe, funny how ten years hasn't changed you at all.

Look, I'm not blaming you. For once. Just surprised. I mean, the last time I saw you, I was kicking "evil boy genius" butt. And now you're here, ten years older and still wearing the same stupid eyeliner.

Ugh. [He is just... going to rub his forehead.] I really hope you get smarter after ten years. Just to make it easier on the people who have to talk to you.

[Not blaming? Yay!] Well, good.

[Then you get to the "stupid eyeliner" bit.] Pfft. Oh please. This coming from a guy who wear pajamas in public.

Hey, ten years sure didn't do much for you. Not that you're not an idiot in every timeline.

And these robes are stylish! I'd take my killer Shoku Warrior robes over your ridiculous goth steampunk outfit any day!

[Disappointed staaaaaaaaare.]

Sooo, do you assume everyone who understands things you can't must be an idiot? And ten years have done a lot for me. I'm a successful businessman now, for one.

[He rolls his eyes.] Yeeeeeeeaaah, see if you can get anyone who's not a monk to agree.

Businessman? Seriously? Huh...I guess selling your robots would be more profitable than having us scrap them all the time. What do you know, that actually makes sense.

Guess I have to ask: You still after the Shen Gong Wu, or did you finally give up on that?

[pffft] Whatever. This outfit screams style to anyone with eyeballs and taste. Too bad you only have one of those.

[He actually grins a little. It's nice to get recognition for doing something right, even if he doesn't exactly like you.]

[Then his grin turns slightly unpleasant.] Oh, oh no. Gave that up years ago. Don't need em.

[Hey, if you want to be a fashion victim, he's not going to argue. He just shrugs.]

[There's no other word for it: Raimundo is surprised. Pleasantly, sure, but still surprised.]

Let me get this straight: You're successful in something, you've quit chasing Shen Gong Wu, and you haven't put "Evil" in front of a single word since I started talking to you.

Wow, ten years really has done a number on you. I wonder if I can get my timeline's Spicer on this path and out of our hair any sooner...

[Well, naturally! Successful villains know their own strengths, weaknesses, and to not constantly broadcast that they're evil.]

[He winces when you get to the last sentence.] Please don't. [What set him on this path was having a mental breakdown and being found catatonic in a corner of his basement. Most of his past ten years had been spent in therapy. He might be happy with the results, but...]

[He doesn't want to explain any of that to you of all people though, so he hurriedly asks:] So, has that reality-breaking incident happen to you guys yet?

[...OK, that reaction is definitely bizarre. This time the surprise is more...well, confused. Jack Spicer not wanting to be successful earlier in his life? Nothing about that makes sense. He'll have to suss that one later.

Plus, there's bigger fish to fry.]

OK, you are gonna have to way more specific regarding reality-breaking incidents.

Hm, my memories of it are kind of all mixed up... Let's see. Hm.

The really, really big one, where we ran into all these alternate versions of ourselves or whatever?

You mean...the time that Omi went back into the past to keep Chase Young from turning evil?

Omi started that? I knew that mess was his fault somehow.

But yeah, Chase Young randomly being Xiaolin, and me being some kind of farmer--yeah, thinking the scenarios match up here. Anyway, I give up on you guys not a whole lot longer after that, sooooo... you really don't have to do anything. In fact, I think you monks had done quite enough already.

Long story, but yeah, pretty much.

Anyway, right, that time...What happened anyway? It's not...well, it wasn't like you to just give up. We kicked your butt in about every corner of the globe and you always came back for more! What could have made you quit going after the Wu?

[Fidgets a bit.] Weeellllll... I guess I... got sick? Yeah, sick. And that gave me some time to figure some things out.

I just wasn't cut out for Showdowns. [He shrugs, trying to look casual.] I found something that was more my style.

[Aka conquer the world first, and then send its armies after his enemies and competition. What you cant beat with quality, overwhelm with quantity.]

..."Sick."

[Sick. The guy who thought he was equal to Chase Young, the guy who showed up to every single showdown dispute being outclassed by everyone he took on. Who was fooled by the worst last minute video of all the villains he admired calling him brilliant the monks could have put together. That guy got sick. And he quit.

Raimundo was not made leader for nothing.]

OK, now tell me what really happened.

I told you! I got sick.

Really sick.

[...Yeah, you're not buying this, are you.]

Like, involuntarily hospitalized sick. That mean anything to you?

...It means that you're talking about more than a simple beat-down.

[Leader Mode: Activated. Comes the dawn, Raimundo has figured out that something really serious went down, and he needs to figure out what it is.]

Oh no, nooooo. Don't get me wrong. Those all factored in too.

It's just. You know all the little things, that never really mean much of anything on their own? Like how all of your "friends" hate you and insist on telling you constantly? Or how the only acquaintances you have that don't hate you beat you up every chance they get? Or how everything you ever do blows up in your face? Or--

Oh no, wait, that's just me.

Well all those little things? [Rant-monologue-mode engaged!] THEY BUILD UP. And one day you just feel kinda off, so you sit down for a minute and the next thing you know you're waking up in some loony bin where you're apparently been for two days, and your parents are forcing you to see a shrink, and he makes you take meds, but you don't, cause you're not actually crazy, right? You just had a little freak out. Nothing weird. Only somehow your parents figure out you haven't been taking them, so they hire a nurse to make you take them, and then it turns out? Those crazy-people pills? They help. So all this time you've been some kind of insane freak and it's no wonder everyone hates you. But at least you're normal now, right? And this is when you--quite suddenly, mind you--realize that you suck at everything. EV. ER. Y. THING.

[Gonna just... pause and breathe for a bit.]

So yeah, I "reevaluated some life-choices" or whatever nonsense that headshrinker said. Big. Whoop. Why do you suddenly care?

[Good question. Why did he care?

Did he care?

There was always something a little off about Spicer, sure, but he had always chalked it up to something less...Well, less serious. Spicer was just an idiot. He had no self-awareness. He was...delusional.

A freak.

Crazy.

It made sense. That was what was the worst part. It made way too much sense.

A distant part of him recognizes that this is probably a moment that a leader should know how to handle, and an even more distant part can tell that he has no idea how. The most he can do is react with an aghast expression and a quiet]

...Woah...

[Jack (rather obviously) forces himself to smile pleasantly.]

So, like I said, sick.

[He can't quite force himself to smile back, but he comes close, at least.]

Wow, Spicer. When you drop a bomb-shell, you sure don't kid around.

[He shrugs awkwardly.] What can I say? I aim to impress.

Now, I'd like to keep the timelines as straight as is still possible, so if you can avoid telling this stuff to any of your little friends, that would be greatly appreciated.

Uh...not sure if that's possible.

Aw c'mon, how is that any of their business? It wasn't any of your business either. I only told you cause I knew you'd never stop bugging me! It's not like the other monks routinely ask you "hey, how's Spicer doing". You don't even have to lie or anything, just not bring it up!

Look, I don't know what you think you just told me, but what I heard is that me and my friends have spent years beating up a mentally unbalanced guy who needed help all that time. You don't think that changes things at all?

Yeah, it makes you guys terrible people.

But what I just heard is that you want to ruin the reputation of the guy whose life you already tore apart, and make him the laughingstock of... everybody.

[Jack: torn between keeping his mental issues quiet and laying on the guilt as thick as possible. Decisions, decisions!]

I'm offering you help, dude! Look, just telling this to me has probably already changed the timeline! You could do it again. Easier. Less painfully.

[Less evilly. More...good but not as annoying as Good!Jack was.]

[Sighs and rubs his forehead. He'd forgotten how annoying the Xiaolin could be...]

Dude, do you realized how long it took them to convince my parents that me being catatonic for two days was serious? And on top of that, how long it took for me to accept it? I am not going to suddenly see the light if one of my enemies walks up and tells me I'm crazy. I'd probably just try to kill you.

And even once I did accept that I needed help, it still took years to fix me. I'm still not normal, never will be.

Besides, like I said before--time you're at? It's way too late to help. ... Other than, y'know, not breaking into my house to see what I'm "planning" or whatever. It was annoying enough with the other Heylin doing it. [He rolls his eyes. SHEESH HE WAS JUST MAD AND TRYING TO MAKE YOU FEEL BAD. Y U HAFTA HELP.]

[It's a Xiaolin thing man. Just all helpful all the time, them Xiaolin monks.]

You really think we'd just go "Hey, you're crazy, deal with it, have a nice life" and leave it at that? If you accepted our help, you'd have something to fall back on. The way I see it, you can go through all of this alone or you can take advantage of a once in a messed-up-timeline opportunity to do it again, and this time, do it right. No blackout. No forced crazy pills. Do it on your terms, not fate's.

And you have no room to talk about breaking into other people's homes.

[UGH THIS IS SO ANNOYING You've got a point though. Maybe it would have been easier with... Xiaolin. Nonononono. Not doing that.]

[He's getting kind of cranky.] Maybe the blackout is "my terms".

[Sighs.] Look, all I know is, if you tell the others, that means telling Omi. I really do not trust that guy to keep something like this quiet. If the Heylin found out my problems were this bad, I'd be toast. Besides, tried the Xiaolin thing before, remember? Did not agree with me. [Also it would be kind of hard for him to build warbots if he had monks breathing down his neck all the time...]

[He shrugs at that last bit.] Whatever. At least you guys figured out what "retired" meant quicker than the Heylin side.

Sure. That's why you didn't take the pills, and totally enjoyed the sudden epiphany that you were lousy at, how'd you put it? Oh yeah, "EV. ER. Y. THING."

Look, Omi wouldn't give away a secret like that on purpose. He may be a little loud-mouth braggart, but if he promised to keep something like that a secret, he'd keep it a secret. And don't blame us for the fact that you couldn't keep your hands off our Wu.

You know, I'm surprised they didn't already know about your..."problems" with all the mind-reading stuff floating around out there, and the fact that evil makes a habit of spying on each other all the time...

Look, I'm pretty sure all that mess was what guaranteed that I'm the way I am now. Doing some other way would... make me not me. I'd be somebody else. I always preferred doing stuff on my own anyway... [LIES]

[The main thing that's got him uneasy is that you're Xiaolin. He can just imagine what kind of a pathetic loser he'd have turned into with your help. He probably wouldn't even want to conquer the world anymore.]

I am strangely uncomforted that you had to add the caveat "on purpose".

I'm pretty sure they all thought I was pathetic enough that they didn't even bother. They only ever came to me when they wanted something I had. The only reason they even knew about me was I kept... bugging them... Actually, I think Bean probably knows. Which is kind of the most terrible thing ever. [Looks really discomforted. Why this had never occurred to him before he doesn't know, but now that he thinks about it, Bean listed off most of his problems the first time they met.]

Uh-huh. [Yep. That's the face of a guy who doesn't buy this at all.] So all that working with Wuya, and Cyclops, and Chase, and Bean you did was...what? Look, I can't force you into anything, but you should at least think about it. How often is this chance gonna come around again? [The phrase rhymes with "stubborn grasshole" and it applies to both of them]

Look, Omi's one of my best friends and all but...have you met him?

Hey, don't sell yourself short! You were also the perfect patsy! []

Actually, I'd bet you the bean dude does know. He tends to make a habit of spying on pretty much everyone. And you know how many places a guy the size of a bean can get into... [But is that paranoia on Bean's part, or part of an actual plan? Sometimes, it gets hard to tell with the Heylin.]

That was totally different! [No it wasn't, Jack.] You're asking me to work with someone and trust them. That's not something H--I do.

Yeah. And that's exactly what worries me.

[He just gives you a look at the patsy remark.] Thaaaaaanks.

Yeah... At least he probably won't tell the others? I mean, Wuya would hunt me down again just to laugh... [And Chase thought badly enough of him already...]

Suuuuure, which is why it surprised you every time you got double-crossed: lack of blind trust. [Sheesh, how could Spicer still be super annoying after 10 years?]

Hey, just saying! Hmmm...And anyway, being the "successful businessman" you are, you're bound to have connections and resources that Bean might think he could use...I mean, just tossing darts in the dark here, but if he knows, which is likely, and hasn't told the others, there's probably a reason.

Odd, I distinctly remember it not surprising me... Sometimes the way they did it wasn't something I expected... [This is in fact how Jack chooses to remember things.]

Hm. [He ponders this for a bit, troubled. If Bean knows what he's up to... What to do about that...]

Homeless for a while

Are you looking for a game?? *hopeful!* :O

Not right at the moment, but maybe later!

Well, when/if ya want one, <user name=witchesreign> already has this guy, so :)

I'll keep it in mind! I didn't expect to find any castmates at all, TBH

Me neither! :D

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1/3

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Haha, sorry for being so prose-y and not very dialouge-y

is cool |D it is a good post :)

Haha thanks!

Re: Haha thanks!

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Are you looking for a game?? hopeful! :O