[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Of Swords and Staffs
Of Swords and Staffs
by K. Stonham
first released 14th April 2023
Jim had the worst timing. Douxie met the young king's eyes over a glowing blue shoulder, his own body balls-deep in Krel's. Shock overwrote everything else on Jim's face. The door didn't quite slam behind him as he turned and ran, but it was a near thing.
"Fuck," Douxie managed to breathe.
"Yes, exactly," Krel said from his position on Douxie's lap. He, clearly, had not noticed Jim. "Come on," Krel whined, impatient, hand fisting in Douxie's hair. Ordinarily he'd have a quip about a royal attitude, but the other king in Douxie's life catching them in the middle of this had split Douxie's mind in two.
But his body wanted, and King-In-Waiting Krel Tarron, hips rocking, was the royal still in the room with him, so Douxie growled, returning his attention to his partner.
Still, he was divided, and it was ultimately unsatisfying. At least for him.
By the time he eased from Krel's body and cleaned the both of them up, Krel was dozing, so at least one of them had gotten full enjoyment. Douxie smiled at the sight. It wasn't the first time Krel had slept in his bed, nor was it likely to be the last. He drew the blanket up over the Akiridion's bare form and left him to his rest.
Douxie himself dressed, and went to find Jim.
A tracking spell led Douxie halfway across the castle, and up into the high tower. It went up, and up, and up, until finally he emerged at the top. Jim was perched in one of the crenels, legs dangling over the side, looking out at the mountains that ringed Arcadia Oaks.
Douxie quietly slipped into the crenel next to his, adopting a similar posture. The merlon between them was crumbled like a rotted tooth, one of the still unrepaired casualties of Camelot's great fall from the skies.
Jim didn't look at him.
Douxie waited.
"So, uh. You and Krel?" Jim finally said. "You're a thing?"
Douxie half-laughed, his hand at the back of his neck. "Sometimes...?"
Now Jim looked at him. "Sometimes?"
"It's... it's not like you and Claire," Douxie tried to explain. "We're not in love or anything."
Jim's eyes were big, and getting bigger. "You're not in love, but you're--" his voice dropped to a whisper, like he was afraid of being overheard, "--sleeping with one another?"
Douxie sighed, disappointed and knowing he really shouldn't be. He drew a leg up and draped his arms around it, looking out at the mountains. "You're very heteronormative."
"Of course I am!" Jim bristled. "I love Claire."
Douxie nodded. "I have no doubt you do. But you have to realize, Jim, that not everyone in the world's like you."
"Of course not," Jim defended himself instantly. "I mean, you're... gay, or whatever. And that's fine."
"I'd call myself pansexual these days, for what it's worth," Douxie told him, studying the distant line of radio and TV relay antennas on the top of Mt. Saddleback. "But that's not what I meant."
Curiosity warred with something else on Jim's face in his periphery. "What did you mean, then?"
Don't say things if you're not ready to explain them to WASPs and preps, Douxie chided himself. Still, he plastered a smile on his face as he turned back to the young king. "Not everyone wants marriage and a white picket fence, Jim."
Jim blinked, then gestured down at the expanse of Camelot. "Not exactly a white picket fence, Doux."
"Not what I meant and you know it," Douxie shot back. "We all know it's just a matter of time until you propose to Claire. Or she proposes to you, if you wuss out."
Jim glared.
"My point is, that's what you want, and that's fine. But it's not what I want, and, for now at least, it's not what Krel wants."
"So you just have sex."
"Look," Douxie said, trying to get his point of view across and not sure if he even could, "Krel and I are good friends. We trust each other. And sometimes we want a little stress relief. That's all it is."
"You don't just have sex with someone you trust, Douxie!"
"No," Douxie said, feeling all the weight of difference between him (punk) and Jim (borderline prep), "you don't. I do."
"But why?" Jim as much as whined before he stopped himself. "Sex is supposed to be this, this beautiful sacred thing between you and the person you love."
He hated Douxie's sly, sad smile before he even answered. "Ever think that's what your mam told you just because she didn't want grandkids before she turned forty?"
Jim saw red. "Do not," he said, "insult my mother."
"I'm not," Douxie said levelly. "I'm pointing out that she, quite sensibly, didn't want you ruining potentially three futures by knocking some girl up before you even got to college."
Jim glowered.
Douxie sighed. "Look, I admit it's a touch different for me--"
"Because you sleep with guys." A horrible thought suddenly occurred to Jim. "You and Krel aren't kissing, are you?"
Douxie recoiled. "Hells, no!"
Jim sighed. "Thank god."
"One handful of interstellar hybrids is quite enough," Douxie said firmly. "I've no desire to end up like Steve. Ever. Though I'm not sure I even could."
Jim made a questioning noise.
Douxie sighed. "Look, I did a spell... rather a long time ago." He fingered his skull pendant, then raised it for Jim's inspection. "I can't father a child or catch a VD, so long as I'm wearing this."
"VD...?"
"Venereal disease. Or is there some other term for them now? Stuff like syphilis, herpes...?"
"Oh." Jim blinked. "STDs. Sexually Transmitted Diseases," he added for clarity. He eyed the skull. "You didn't have that back in the twelfth century."
Douxie smirked. "Didn't I?"
Jim raised his eyebrows, questioning.
Douxie grinned. "It lived on one of my pouches, most of the time. I made it early on, at Archie's recommendation and under Merlin's very begrudging approval."
"Merlin knew you were making--"
"He supervised me crafting it." Douxie twisted his fingers in the necklace's cord, looking at it. What memories were going through his mind, Jim couldn't guess. "In hindsight, probably for much the same reason Barbara warned you off sex. Merlin didn't want me distracted by fatherhood any more than your mam wanted you distracted by it."
"Eww." Merlin and sex were two words that should absolutely never exist near one another.
Douxie snickered, letting the pendant drop back to his chest. "Anyway, I don't just sleep with guys."
Jim was going to regret this, he knew he was going to regret it, but he couldn't stop himself from asking. "Who else do you sleep with?"
"Zoe," Douxie answered easily. "And that's not romantic either, so don't start," he warned.
Jim made a face. "Zoe?" She was all sharp edges and hot temper and derisiveness. He couldn't see why anyone would want to sleep with her. Well, unless they were into that.
Douxie shrugged. "Sometimes either of us gets an itch, or needs to burn off some emotional stuff. Sex's good for that."
"Better you than me." Jim was absolutely sure Zoe had eviscerated people in the past. Both with her tongue and with her razor sharp fingernails. "Anyone else I know?"
Douxie's smile grew deep and sly and Jim knew that he'd made a mistake in asking, he didn't want to know whatever he was about to be told--
"You never met your friend Mary's boyfriend back in your sophomore year, did you?"
Jim blinked. And tried to remember. Something about tight pants...?
Dots connected, and he gaped. "You were Tight Jeans Hank?"
Douxie shrugged and gestured illustratively at his black skinny jeans, which, Jim guessed, were pretty tight fitting. "Who do you think taught her to play guitar?" He sighed. "She never could remember how to pronounce 'Hisirdoux'."
But now Jim was remembering all kinds of things. Including Mary getting detention for making out with, eww, Douxie under the bleachers. "How could you? She was sixteen and you're nine hundred and something!"
Douxie rocked back against the stone like Jim had physically struck him. His eyes were wide; his skin suddenly paler than usual. His mouth opened, but it was a moment before he spoke. But when he did, his voice was harsh. "Is that what you think?" he demanded. His words were venomous. "That I'm an old man, some kind of predator?"
Jim's heart rate ratcheted up. He fought the urge to scramble away from Douxie. He'd never, he suddenly realized, seen the wizard actually angry before.
"I'm nineteen, Jim," Douxie hissed. His gold eyes blazed. "You'll be nineteen for a year. I'm nineteen forever."
Jim swallowed.
Douxie closed his mouth, looked at Jim for a minute longer, then looked away. Slowly the tension bled out of his form. His hands uncurled from where they'd become claws against the stone. "You'll grow up," he said quietly. "I won't. We'll still be friends, Mordax willing, but... you'll outgrow me. You all will." Douxie swallowed. "And then one day you'll die," he said softly, his voice almost stolen by the breeze, "and I'll still be here, unchanging." A sigh that Jim could barely hear. "It sucks."
They were, Jim realized, on the verge of a precipice. And not just the one their feet were dangling over. "I'm sorry," he said. "I wasn't thinking."
"Oh, you were," Douxie dismissed. He wiped an arm over his eyes. His laugh was brittle. "You were just thinking from your own point of view. Not mine. Which is understandable."
He needed to do better, Jim realized. This was one of his friends, Douxie deserved better from him....
"You'll be thirty, and I'll still be dating teenagers," Douxie said quietly. "You'll be fifty, and maybe a grandfather, and I'll still look like this." He smiled, but it was mirthless. "You'll be eighty, gods willing, and assuming you don't mistake me for one of your grandkids, I'll still be... this." Douxie sighed again, looking at the mountains. Which, like him, were unchanging. "This is why it's so hard for immortals to meaningfully befriend mortals," Douxie said quietly. "From both ends of the equation."
"I'm sorry," Jim repeated. "Don't... please don't leave."
Douxie cast him a sideways glance. "I'm not leaving. You're my king, and Claire still needs a teacher. You're stuck with me."
"And Krel'd get mad if you ran out on him," Jim pointed out. "He has too many magitech experiments to do still."
Douxie waved a hand. "Krel can do what he wants." He paused. "Have you ever watched him work?" he asked. There was a small, dreamy smile on his face. "He's got such clever hands, and he's so focused."
Jim groaned and shoved the wizard. "I do not need to know about your competence kink, or whatever."
"Your loss," Douxie informed him, but he was actually grinning, so Jim counted it as a win.
"I guess we're the kind of friends that talk about sex now?" Jim asked.
Douxie shrugged. "If you want us to be. I'm fine with it."
Jim paused for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. "...What's it like?" he asked in a small voice.
Surprised, Douxie straightened. "You and Claire still haven't...?"
Jim glared. "No. And my mom keeps buying me condoms and l-lube, just in case, but the time's never right and what if Claire thinks we should be married first, and I still think her parents don't actually like me, and--"
"Jim." Douxie put a hand on his shoulder, cutting off the rambling. "It's fine."
"It's not," Jim whined. His fingers knotted in his hair before he looked up at Douxie again. "I... maybe it's different for you, because you're all cool and good-looking and you always know the right thing to say because you dumped all your stat points into magic and charm or whatever--"
"Jim." Douxie scooted closer. This clearly wasn't about him, but Jim was using him as a touchstone for whatever issues he himself was having. "Why do you think Claire wouldn't want to have sex with you?"
"It's stupid." Jim looked away.
"If it has you feeling like this, clearly it's not." Douxie waited.
Jim cracked after a minute, as Douxie had known he would. "I'm getting another growth spurt and I feel all gangly, and I've got zits, and I know it's stupid. I hate being a teenager."
Douxie inspected him. "I don't see any zits."
Jim reluctantly brushed aside his bangs, revealing, indeed, a single spot.
Douxie rolled his eyes. "Well, that's easily enough fixed." A touch of cool blue magic to Jim's skin eased the swelling. Within a few hours, the blemish would be gone entirely.
"Thanks," Jim said.
"Jim." He waited until Jim looked at him, his blue eyes as pure a sapphire as the one that was the heart of Douxie's staff. "I've no idea about your dad, but going by your mam's height, I'm not surprised you're still growing. And speaking as someone who's seen a lot of attractive people over the centuries...." Douxie smiled. "I know how you feel inside really influences what you see of your outside, but believe me, Jim, you're gorgeous. And strong, and smart, and kind. I would not kick you out of bed for eating crackers. You have nothing to worry about. So what's this really about?"
Jim sighed and slumped. "It's... I can kill Bular and Gunmar and freaking Bellroc, but I can't even work up the courage to bring up sex with the girl I want to spend the rest of my life with?"
"It's a different kind of courage," Douxie pointed out. "Different kind of sword, too," he added after a second's thought, mostly because he couldn't resist the pun that was even older than him.
Jim glared.
Douxie stifled a laugh. "Look, sex is great. But your first time? I guarantee you, it's going to suck. You won't know what you're doing, you'll come but it'll be early and unsatisfying, you might not get her off, and she'll be frustrated and have to use her own fingers--"
Jim made a whimpering sound.
Douxie ignored him, and continued. "And none of that will matter," he promised. "Because you love her, and, believe me, that girl loves you, and you'll both want to try again, to do better. And it will get better. It's like anything else: skill comes with practice. What happened the first time you tried wielding Daylight?" he asked, knowing the story already.
Jim grimaced. "I got it stuck in a rock."
Douxie nodded. "And then you practiced, and got better, and you're the only Trollhunter in a millennium to have actually succeeded in killing off not only Bular, but Gunmar as well."
"I feel like this sword analogy has gotten off tangent," Jim said.
Douxie chuckled. "You're probably right. But the comparison still stands."
Jim sighed. "What was your first time like?"
"Oh. Um." Douxie had to think back for that. "Oh, I remember. Back in Camelot. There was a scullion girl, named Gerda, I think? Looking back at it now, I think she must've been put up to it by her mates. But at the time, all I remember thinking was that she was awfully pretty, and that it was kind of a rare thing, having anyone not treat me like I had the plague, even though I worked for the king and all...."
"Douxie."
He smiled. "She said she wanted to know if it was true that wizards had magic hands." Which was a come-on line that he still appreciated, centuries on.
"Did you?" Jim asked.
Douxie snorted. "I'm afraid the poor girl found me rather disappointing. She certainly never came around for a second taste."
"Oh." Jim shifted in his seat on the stone. "And you...?
Douxie looked into the distance, focusing on nothing. His hands were clasped into one another. "It was the first time I knew the world could be so quiet."
Jim blinked. Made an inquiring noise.
Douxie sighed. He didn't often tell people this. Zoe knew, and it was likely the source of her occasional indulgence. I should probably tell Krel. "You're free to consider me a libertine if you want, Jim, because objectively, I probably am. But the things is, ah...." He sighed again, and confessed. "My mind is always running. Going. And it doesn't stop, ever. Focusing on someone like that, on making them feel good, and especially that quiet time after sex... it's about the only time outside of sleep that I can shut down and just not think."
"Douxie...."
"I used to run around Arcadia all night, did you know? Dealing with whatever creepies and crawlies were coming out of the woodwork. Didn't cross paths with Kanjigar or you too often - Merlin's orders - but hopefully I lightened your workload some. I've done that all my life, every place I've ever lived, just trying to tire myself out enough that I could sleep." Douxie rubbed his forehead with a rueful smile. "Doesn't always work. I've cried myself to sleep sometimes, tried bashing my head against things just to knock myself out. Used to worry Arch something terrible. My mind just gets spinning, gets stuck in ruts, and I can't stop it." He drew a breath. "I've tried potions, spells, drugs, meditation, music, any number of martial arts... nothing seems to shut it down."
Jim swallowed. "Medication?"
Douxie nodded. "Tried that too. The only ones that worked left me thick as a plank, and I can't afford that. Not if I want to keep breathing." He had a lovely set of griffin claws marks down his back which were a permanent reminder of why he couldn't do that. Thank the gods for Archie being a dragon; he wouldn't have survived the encounter, otherwise. "Sex works, for me. Everything goes quiet."
"Oh." Jim sounded like he was caught between surprise and apology.
He shrugged. "It is what it is."
Jim felt like he was reeling, and in an entirely different - and more important way - than he had been earlier.
Okay, Douxie and Krel were sleeping together. That was one thing.
The fact that Douxie felt like there was a nearly insurmountable gulf between mortals and immortals that was going to make it really hard for them to stay friends? That was something else entirely, and made Jim feel guilty about blowing something as trivial as Douxie's sex life out of proportion. Let alone the fact that apparently he really didn't know Douxie at all. Because the wizard was quiet, and sometimes snarky, but he'd never let on about any of the things going on in his head or in his life....
"Nari made the world quiet," Douxie said softly.
Jim's eyes just about bugged out of his head. "You and Nari...?!"
Douxie whipped around to stare at him. "No!" he instantly denied, shock across his face. "No, never. I don't even know if we could've, let alone if she was interested. Just... being around her was that kind of quiet."
"Oh." Jim felt ashamed of his assumption. "Sorry."
Douxie waved it off. "Maybe it was because she was divine. But Nimue never seemed like that. Bellroc and Skrael certainly weren't," he added in a mutter.
Jim snorted. "Yeah, no doubt." He couldn't picture the two evil sadists ever being quiet to be around.
Douxie was silent for a minute, then said quietly, "Thanks for not freaking out about all this."
Jim blinked. "I kind of thought I was freaking out."
A snort, and Douxie's hand waving dismissively in the air. "Internally, sure. But this is nowhere near as bad as what happened the last time a king of this heap of stones caught a servant of Camelot, ah, fornicating with a foreign prince."
Jim didn't want to know. He knew he didn't want to know. But he wanted to never, ever be like Arthur, so he had to know. Wincing, he asked, "What happened?"
"The prince was sent home in disgrace."
"And the servant?"
Douxie's voice was very level as he answered. "His blood decorated the stones."
Jim swallowed. "You saw it."
"I had to clean it," Douxie said. "The beheading happened in the throne room. The blood was all over the round table." He sighed. "Took me forever to get it out around the focal gems. It taught me a very good lesson about not getting caught, either with a lover, or reaching above my station."
"That's... horrible." Jim didn't have sufficient words for how horrible.
"Arthur made an enemy of Orkney that day," Douxie told him. "Exiling the prince from his court, and killing the prince's lover, even if he was a serf? Prince Mordred hated Arthur for the rest of his life and, I'm told, rejoiced the day he heard of Camelot's fall."
"Well, I'm sure not sending Krel home," Jim told him. "And if you even think I'd think about killing you...."
Douxie waved it off. "I'm sure I'll manage to do many, many things over the course of your life that will make you long to kill me. I'm equally sure you'll never lift a hand to strike me. You're not the vengeful type, Jim."
"I could be," Jim muttered, thinking about the long list of ways he'd imagined to kill Strickler. Who was dead now anyway, and Jim would give about anything to have him back, to make his mom happy again.
Douxie stopped. Looked at him. "I'm certain there are things that could push you around the bend into becoming what Arthur was," the wizard said softly. "I'm equally positive that you've been given enough love in your life that should they happen, you never will." His smile was soft. "Plants show their nature by the soil and water they grow in. Men are much the same."
"Oh." Jim felt humbled. And kind of honored.
Douxie's expression said that he saw all that. "I wouldn't follow you, and fight by your side like I do, if I thought you weren't a good man, Jim."
Jim swallowed.
"That said...." Douxie's smile broadened. "Maybe learn to knock?"
Jim flushed red.
Douxie laughed.
After a moment, so did Jim.
Author's Note: This work was inspired by reading a couple explicit Krexie fics, and an ongoing joke on HoneyxMonkey's Discord server about Jim walking in on Douxie and Carter (Douxie's OC boyfriend from her Half-Bloods and Hunters series) making out. That being said, I do feel that I showed unusual restraint in not titling this story "A Wizard's Staff Has a Knob at the End" and should be appreciated commensurately. :)