Archive of Our Own

He knows that all he has to do to avert this is to go get Guan and send him after Chase. And he can't. He's tried that. This is the best...no, it's not the best timeline. It's just the least awful. Without Chase's horrible ambition, there's nothing to stand between Hannibal and the end of the world. It still goes down like poison.

He can still keep Guan at his side. He just has to lie. He just has to abandon every plan he's laid out for years because otherwise, he puts the pieces together. He just has to let so many people die. He just has to watch in horror while Chase's fangs tear through Dojo's throat when he puts himself in between him and the beast their friend's become. He'll take centuries and new young Xiaolin Dragons to put himself back together from this. He never recovers from the lie.

There's still a few hours before he needs to start the evacuation. He can't make himself sleep. He hates that he's planned this so perfectly. Years of making different choices and checking the crystal glasses over and over again have given him the least terrible outcome. Nobody dies. The injuries will be minor. The worst of it will be property damage. He knows where to be to save everyone they can't evacuate in time. He knows where to be to save Guan because he's too stunned and horrified by the beast's too human and not human enough eyes to fight back when it pulls him into a death roll.

It's just before dawn and he's telling a frantic Guan to go back to sleep when there's movement from the forest. A pit opens in his stomach. It's too early. He's not ready. Nothing's in place. But it's just Chase.

It's just Chase. Just their beautiful, brilliant, perfectly human Chase. He's so shocked and relieved that he has no witty comment about how it took them long enough when Chase kisses Guan.

What should have been the worst day of his life comes and goes and he feels like he can breathe for the first time in years. The last few years of worrying and impossible choices and setting up the least terrible future feel like a fever dream. He lets the distance he's put between himself and his friends over the last few years close again. Chase seems more sure of himself than he ever has. He and Guan are so damn happy together.

At some point, Chase slips the ying yo-yo back into Dashi's pocket. He wants to ask what made him change his mind, but they're not ready to talk about it yet.

For a few weeks, everything seems so perfect that he doesn't worry about time magic or the fate of the world, because if anybody could give such a massive fuck you to fate, it would be Chase.

And then Chase is grabbing him awake, throwing him out of the dormitory, heat rolling off of him in waves. He looks too much like he was supposed to when he snaps, "He's gone." For just a split second, he thinks he sees slit pupils and too sharp teeth.

He has to physically restrain Chase from going off on his own because it's too late, but Chase is desperate.

"Let me go! It didn't work for me. I can save..." He doesn't have time understand what Chase just admitted. There's brimstone on the air and he needs Chase here for whatever evacuation is possible.

There's not enough time. No one's where they were supposed to be. He barely manages to get the village children onto Dojo's back and he knows what he's supposed to say to stop the dragon's insistence that he'll be back soon to protect his friends and his temple. He had a well reasoned speech about how someone has to protect the kids but there isn't time. There's only one other line that works. It's quick and brutal, but when he shouts, "He's going to fucking eat you!" he hopes Dojo will stay away. Maybe this time, he won't. Nothing is going the way it should.

He doesn't have time to worry. It's all starting too fast. He thought that he was at least ready for this fight, but the creature that bursts through the wall is nothing like what Chase became.

The scorpion-like creature has all of Guan's brutal strength and none of his restraint. He adapts, but not quickly enough. The past, present, and future are all superimposed on each other in the melee. He keeps stumbling, out of instinct and practice going one way when the people who need him are somewhere else. Three villagers are dead in the first few minutes.

He's too distracted by pushing some monks away from falling scaffolding to notice Chase pinned down. When he finally turns to help, Guan has a spine through Chase's side and while he's fighting back, his struggling only tears the wound deeper. He runs faster when he sees the bird swoop down to Guan's shoulder.

"Y'understand now boy? Nobody makes a fool of Hannibal Roy Bean." Chase stops fighting. "Go ahead. Kill'em." Guan raises a claw, but he stops before he brings it down.

"That's adorable. The two of you are almost more trouble than you're worth." Ichor spatters Chase's face as the demon drives a tendril through Guan's eye. Guan shrieks and slams his claw towards Chase's head.

Dashi stops dead in his tracks. He reaches for the water in the creature's body and he pulls. His stomach churns. Bile rises in his throat. It only lasts a few seconds, but it's enough drag the creature off of Chase and turn its attention towards him.

He flows around the creature's strikes and there's something horribly gratifying about the mindlessness of it all. Dodge, kick, punch, flip, respond in whatever purely physical way he needs to keep going.

Despite the chaos, he catches bits of Hannibal still taunting Chase, letting him know in no uncertain terms that he brought this upon his lover. How we wouldn't have given the dumb brute a second thought if Chase hadn't gone back on their bargain. How there was something so wrong with his soul that even the Lao Mang Long soup didn't want it. How there was something so wrong with his soul that he was still jealous, even now, that it worked for Guan and not him.

There was no timeline where Hannibal realized he was making a mistake with Chase.

He backs away, drawing the creature towards the gate, away from the remaining monks and villagers. He's can do this. He's good at this, being a damn annoying distraction. Any time it turns towards another person, he reaches for the water again. It gets easier every time. He drags the creature the last few yards out of the temple.

Then he lets his control slip and the creature lunges. He falls back, sliding to the ground. It brings its bloody claws down at his head.

It misses because of an uncontrolled gout of flame. It shrieks, boiling in its own chitin. The sound is far too human. The creature backs away. Dashi stays down, safe with a few inches of breathable air. The fire doesn't stop. He watches in silhouette as the ying-ying bird drops from the sky in a charred heap and Hannibal leaps for the creature's shoulder.

He can't help but think of what should have happened. The dragon Chase should have been lunged from the temple rafters. Guan knocked it out of the air and leveled his spear at its throat. Out of some poisoned hope that Chase would come back, he couldn't go through with it. But Chase knows what's going on better than Guan did at the time. There's no way back. He's better dead than Hannibal's slave. Dashi almost shouts for him to stop, not because it doesn't need to happen but he knows Chase will not survive this on his conscience. Dashi tries to shout for Chase to stop, to let him end things, but the roaring blaze tears his words away from him.

But Chase can't finish it either. He tries, but in the end, anesthetic rage isn't enough. He's too exhausted, in too much pain, to keep the blaze going for long enough. The creature crashes away into the forest, taking Hannibal with it.

Slowly, Dashi gets to his feet. Chase rounds on him, pinning him to a broken wall. Chase was always a smaller, slighter man, and blood oozes from the wound in his side, but he's furious and Dashi's in stunned horror at the blood and death and destruction.

Dashi stares at a dead monk, only a few feet away while Chase's words break on sentence after sentence, smoke curling from his lips.

"You knew! And you didn't..."

"Why didn't you..."

"Why didn't I..."

"I should have noticed..."

"We were happy! You let us..."

"I should have told him about..."

"Why didn't it work for..."

He's doesn't hear half of it. This was his fault. Everything changed and he was too caught up in relief that he didn't think to see how it altered the future.

He should have talked with Chase about what happened. As soon as he realized the timeline changed, he should have gone to find the crystal glasses. He should have known. Why didn't he see what changed? So many people were dead and dying because he though that the danger was over. So many people were dead and dying and he was going to come out of this with damn scratches.

Why hadn't he worried about Guan too? He never worried about Guan. Why would he worry about rock steady Guan when Chase was right there, playing with dangerous Heylin magic because he was bored? Why would he worry about Guan when Chase taught himself to rip the hearts out of Wuya's minions? Why would he worry about Guan when Chase was never satisfied with perfection?

He just barely snaps back into his own body when Chase spits, "You damn fool." Even Chase doesn't know who he's talking about.

He was prepared for Guan's stony silence, but he's not ready for Chase's white hot rage burning out into sorrow.

Chase lets him go and they both sink down against the wall. Chase buries his face in his hands and knees. Dashi pretends not to see the way his back shakes or the tendrils of steam rising from his hands. He wants to. He wants to offer his friend some comfort. But he knows Chase. He won't accept it. He was done with him the moment he woke up alone.

"I'm sorry," he manages when he can't pretend anymore. Chase goes deathly still and silent.

"I don't care." With that, Chase storms away from the smoke and ruin that was their home.

And in the end, Dashi's future never changes.