[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Symbiosis

[sakon76]

Jim has a theory about Douxie's vampirism. Douxie isn't as sure. Sequel to "Fait Accompli."



Symbiosis
by K. Stonham
first released 21st April 2023

"Thanks, Mom."

Barbara sighed as she finished packing away her needle and tubing and the rest of her equipment into the black doctor's bag that had, once upon a time, belonged to Nancy Domzalski's father. She didn't use it at the hospital, but once all the kids had moved up to Camelot... well, it had proven itself useful. She knew Nancy enjoyed seeing the old leather bag being carried around again. It didn't hurt that Douxie had cast a few spells on it, making the bag both lighter to carry and significantly bigger on the inside.

Speaking of....

"Are you sure this is a good idea, Jim?"

Her son looked up from where he sat, nibbling on crackers, with a cup of apple juice by his arm. The cotton ball taped into the crook of his elbow was a clear giveaway of what they'd just done. Ordinarily Barbara approved of blood donation, but....

Well, normally blood donation went to those in medical need.

"No," Jim said. "But I've done my research and I've got my reasons."

Barbara sighed and dropped a kiss on the top of his head. "It's your blood, Jim. You have the right to do with it what you want. Just be careful, okay?"

He nodded. "I will be." He held his bowl up. "Want some Cheez-Its?"

"Sure." She took a couple and sat down across from him, in the great kitchen of Camelot, which had been retrofitted with all the conveniences of a modern kitchen. Including the sous vide machine made by Akiridion hands, in which floated a blood collection bag, keeping the pint within at body temperature.

About half an hour after he'd had a needle stuck in his arm, Jim mounted the steps to Merlin's tower, insulated travel mug in hand. Douxie hadn't so much moved into Merlin's study, with its vast magical library, as he'd holed up in there and refused to leave until he had, at the least, found the other wizard's notes on Lancelot's prosthetic.

Which had, Jim admitted from his very few encounters with the knight, been an entire degree of functionality above what Draal had gotten. He hadn't even realized Lancelot's left arm had been mechanical until well after the fact. If Douxie could find Merlin's notes, and he and Krel could combine their efforts....

Well, Toby would never forget that he'd lost an arm in the final battle against Bellroc. But Jim was pretty sure that whatever Douxie and Krel could come up with together would be as close to having a flesh-and-blood arm as it was possible to get.

He knocked on the door to the study and pushed it open, not waiting for an acknowledgment.

Douxie didn't so much as look up from the book he was fixated on. His lips moved as he silently parsed out its contents to himself.

Jim sighed and rolled his eyes. "Douxie," he called. "Break time."

The wizard blinked once, twice, then looked up at Jim.

"How long have you been at that?" Jim asked, setting the mug on the table.

"Um." Douxie looked at the windows, where the sunlight was illuminating the stained glass. "What day is it?"

"Tuesday," Jim informed him.

"Oh. Probably too long?" Douxie gave a sheepish smile and actually set down the tome. "Pretty sure I've finally got the right volume this time, but... Merlin always made his notes in seventh century Welsh, which is really not the dialect I grew up with. And he certainly wasn't sticking to the Latin alphabet all the time, so...."

"Eugh." Jim made a face as he took a seat. Which meant moving a three-foot stack of books off the chair and onto the floor, joining several other stacks. The room was starting to look like Blinky's library. "Meaning you are possibly literally the only person able to read his books."

Douxie shrugged. "One of the few humans, anyway. I'd ask Blinky to help, but...."

"But Blink's got his own problems to deal with," Jim agreed. They all did, really. "Anyway. I brought you something." He gestured at the cup.

"Blessings upon your house," Douxie said, and picked up the cup, thumbing it open.

He started raising it to his mouth, then stopped. Stared at it. Put it very carefully back down on the table and stood, backing several steps away.

Then he whirled, anger in his expression, to glare at Jim. "Jim--"

Jim held up his hands. "Before you get all upset, sit down and talk with me about this."

Douxie didn't budge. "You know I can't have that stuff."

"No, I don't know that, and neither do you." Jim glared back.

"I will not be a monster," Douxie snapped at him.

"How does drinking something that I give you make you a monster?"

"Because it's addictive! Because every vamp I've ever met who drank human blood was morally questionable at best."

Jim sighed, wishing Claire was here. She was better at debate than him. But.... "Douxie, sit down," he said. And waited, refusing to proceed until the seething wizard finally did so. Jim used the time to order his thoughts.

"First," he said, "I really wish Archie was here for this, because I have the feeling he's got a slightly different perspective on it than you, but... are you sure you're getting correlation and causation correct on that?"

"Yes," Douxie said. No hesitation.

"Uh-huh. So every vampire you ever met who drank human blood was a jerk because of the blood drinking? Not because they were already an opportunistic bastard before they got turned?"

"They weren't... all that bad," Douxie murmured.

"So what makes you think you will be?" Jim asked, leaning forward.

"I can't risk it, Jim," Douxie said plaintively. "I'm a wizard. A master wizard now. If there's even the chance. If drinking that--" he gestured at the cup "--pushes me 'round the bend, who could stop me? I'd be Vlad Dracula all over again, but worse."

"People stopped him," Jim said placidly. "And you kind of do have people who could stop you." He pulled his amulet out of his pocket, rubbing his fingers across the inscription. For the good of all.

Douxie scoffed. "Come on, Jim. Mastery of magic, versus a sword."

"I stopped Bellroc." Jim looked up, met Douxie's gaze. "I could stop you."

Douxie was silent for a minute, then nodded, acknowledging the point.

Jim breathed in and out, and forged forward. "Okay, this next part is going to sound kind of offensive, but bear with me, okay, because I really don't mean it that way."

Douxie nodded again. Waiting.

"Claire told me once that you don't really think you're very good at... this." Jim waved his hand around the study, indicating all the books.

"I'm not," Douxie confirmed.

"And we all know you've got anxiety."

Douxie was wary. "Your point?"

Jim pulled his phone out of his pocket and thumbed it on. "Psychological symptoms of starvation," he read from the web page he'd pulled up in preparation for this discussion. "Depression, anxiety, irritability, increased mood fluctuations, intense and negative emotional reactions, decreased enthusiasm, reduced motivation, impaired concentration, problem solving, and comprehension, increased rigidity, obsessional thinking and reduced alertness." He looked up at Douxie. "That's thirteen things, Doux. I think you have at least half of them."

Douxie's face went through a range of expressions. "What, you think I'm...?"

"I think," Jim said carefully, "that when Claire portaled us all down to that beach in Mexico that time, you didn't take your shirt off when you went in the water."

Douxie was silent.

"Now, it's not that I mind you keeping it on. Trust me, I'd be happier never seeing Steve's birthday suit again. But tell me... if you'd taken it off, would I have been able to count your ribs?"

Douxie remained silent.

Jim sighed, long and low. "Have you ever in your life been not starving?" he asked. It was one of the many things that Douxie clearly preferred to keep private, but Jim wasn't as unobservant as people generally thought. Particularly not when it came to a friend's health. "I remember Archie flat-out said you were, before Merlin took you in."

"I eat enough." Douxie looked away. "You've seen me eat. And I promise I'm not regurgitating it."

"Yeah, but is it the right thing?" Jim asked, gently. "I know you eat food-food. And I know you drink cow blood. But you said it yourself, Doux: it's an inadequate substitute. It doesn't have everything you need."

"Krel hasn't had a chance to isolate whatever it is that makes human blood different."

Jim shook his head. "Krel's tried. If he can't do it, no one can. And I can tell you why he failed." Douxie looked back at him. "It's because food exists in context, in interaction. You can't just say 'oh, it's this one compound that satisfies this requirement,' not when that's not how it exists in nature. Food is a three-dimensional web of various chemicals and compounds, and we need all of it. Trying to isolate a component is like pulling one strand out of a fishing net and trying to catch a school of fish with it. You might get one or two, but enough to feed your whole village?"

"I take it you're not on the 'carbs are evil' train, then," murmured Douxie.

Jim grinned. "Pasta is life. And as much as fat is vilified these days... you need some fat in your diet, or your body can't process your vitamins."

Douxie blinked. "Are you seriously quoting Julia Child at me?"

"I am," Jim said without shame. "But my point is... there's stuff in human blood that you need, Douxie. Not just want, but need. Something that can't be distilled and isolated out of that mesh of interacting molecules. What if that lack is what's keeping you unhealthy and unhappy?"

"You're overthinking things."

"Am I?" Jim asked. "Tell me, because I know you and I know you've talked with other vampires about this. The ones who drink human blood, do they all zero in on it the way you do?"

Douxie's silence was telling.

"Are they as skinny as you?"

More silence.

"I think," said Jim, "that your diet is nutritionally deficient, and your body is trying to tell you what it needs."

Douxie glanced away again, avoidant. "I appreciate the thought, Jim. But I can be neurodivergent without it being a health thing."

"Fine. Then take off your shirt and let me see," Jim said.

Douxie looked at him for a minute, expression unreadable, then took out his phone and started tapping at it.

"What are you doing?" asked Jim.

"I am texting Claire," Douxie replied, "and letting her know that her boyfriend is sexually harassing me."

"What?! No I'm not-- give me that!" Jim lunged for the phone; Douxie held it out of reach, then used his magic to fly it up to the second story of bookshelves, where it tucked itself neatly into one of the emptied alcoves. Jim glared. "Jerk."

"I'm not the one trying to get a vampire to drink human blood."

"No, I'm the one trying to get my friend the help he needs!"

The shout rang in the air.

Douxie drew a shuddering breath, closing his eyes. "Look," he said. "I appreciate your care, Jim, really I do. But this isn't a game. This is my life, and what you're suggesting is dangerous." He opened his eyes, meeting Jim's gaze. "What if you're wrong?"

"I'm not," said Jim evenly. "And I'll tell you why. Outside of battling assholes trying to destroy the world, you haven't got a violent bone in your body, Douxie. Your first instinct, when someone confronts you? Is running away, because you don't want to hurt them. You're that afraid of yourself."

Douxie's gaze darted to where the cup of blood still sat, seeming so innocent, on the table. He looked at it for a moment, then wrenched his gaze away, head dropping. His hands were clasped tightly. "What if the blood changes that?" he whispered, so low that Jim almost couldn't hear him. "What if... what if it really is an addiction? Addictions make people do things that they wouldn't otherwise." His breath shuddered.

"Alcohol doesn't change who you really are," Jim replied. He knew his face was dark. "It just brings it to the forefront. Ask me how I know."

That made Douxie look up. It took a second, but then the wizard's eyes widened in sudden illumination. "Oh. Your dad?"

Jim nodded. "My dad." His breath huffed out as the discussion unwantedly brought up a tangled mess of ugly memories. He ruthlessly shoved them away. Not important right now. "Look, Doux... I am not actually stupid."

"Never said you were," Douxie protested.

Jim waved that off. "I talked to Blinky about vampires."

Douxie's already pale skin whitened several shades further. "You told him?"

"I didn't name names," said Jim. Whether or not his father figure had correctly filled in the gaps in what Jim had been asking about... well, that was another matter. "The thing is, Blinky had a hell of a library in Trollmarket. Most of it's still intact. And the trolls' books? They say something different about vampires than I'm pretty sure what Merlin's do." Jim's wave encompassed Merlin's whole library, mess and all.

Douxie was silent for a minute, lips pressed together. Finally, he asked. "What do they say?"

Jim sighed. "Without discounting your experiences with vampires... we can agree that people differ, right? In attitude, temperament?"

Douxie nodded.

"Blinky's sources," said Jim carefully, "say that a vampire can be a good person, even if they drink human blood."

When Douxie spoke, his words were slow and measured. "Jim... you're asking me to trust the words of a book, written by a member of a species who would never have been in any danger, over everything I've seen."

"I know," said Jim. "But, Douxie, you're on the knife's edge of health. We can both agree on that, right?"

Looking wary, Douxie nonetheless nodded.

"And you've lost a lot of your supports in the last year. Merlin, love him or hate him," Jim listed. "Nari. Archie."

"Archie's not dead," Douxie objected.

Jim nodded. "No, he's not. But he isn't here, either, is he? And if I know one thing, it's that grief and trauma do a number on your ability to self-care."

"Jim...."

Jim looked around the study. "You haven't left this room since the moment Toby got stabilized and you realized there was something you might be able to do to help. Have you even slept?"

"Catnapped," Douxie admitted. He rubbed his neck like he had a crick in it. If he'd been napping in these chairs, Jim couldn't blame him. Medieval furniture was not exactly ergonomic.

"Mm-hmm." Jim was unimpressed. "And if Claire and I hadn't realized that meant you probably weren't eating, either?"

Douxie hesitated, as much as confirming Jim's suspicion. Without Archie to mother-hen him into taking care of himself, Douxie probably had a tendency to forget things. Like sleeping. Or eating.

"I know you've had to be independent, and take care of yourself, for a very long time," Jim said. "But I am seriously scared that if you don't let us help, you're going to accidentally slip into something you might not be able to recover from. Humans are communal creatures, Douxie. We take care of each other. Let us help you with what you need."

But Douxie shook it off. "Jim, even assuming you're correct, and giving me human blood to drink isn't a dangerous proposition... what difference does it make?"

Jim frowned. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I've done the math. And to sustain someone like me...." Douxie shook his head. "You can't do it by yourself. Our team can't do it collectively, couldn't even if everyone was human. And I refuse, on every moral and ethical principle I have, to interfere with the medical blood supply." He spread his hands wide. "Plus, you can't just offer something like that and then take it away later. The knife hidden in kindness, is its absence after it's gone."

Jim huffed out a breath. "You're right."

"So you see--"

"You're right," Jim said again, overriding Douxie, "and you're wrong. Because you're thinking in absolutes, and like with isolated chemical compounds, there are no absolutes."

Douxie was silent, blinking.

"I am not offering you a cure-all, or some magic bullet," Jim told him. "I'm saying, half a loaf is better than none."

He waited, but Douxie, for once, had no sassy retort ready. Like Jim had actually managed to present him with him a concept he'd never had before.

"It's not a perfect solution," Jim said, "but this is the best I have."

"Jim, I appreciate it, but... you shouldn't be wasting your blood on me." Douxie leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. "Donate it to a hospital instead. There's... kids in need, or traffic accident victims," he said. "People like Toby."

Jim sighed. "You're not getting it," he said. "I am a chef. The fact that you're starving no matter how much you eat is inherently offensive to me. This is my blood, and I choose where to give it. I don't have a rare blood type. I'm not a universal donor. Yes, I could donate blood and it would do good somewhere. But I could also do good with it right here."

"Jim...."

"Claire agrees with me on this," Jim told him. "So does Toby, once he gets out of the hospital. Even Steve."

"Steve just got over a rapid-fire alien pregnancy," Douxie retorted, head now in his hands. "He needs to save his blood for his own recovery."

"At least Akiridion babies don't need to breastfeed," Jim said, snickering.

Douxie glanced up. "Do not google male lactation," the wizard warned him. "You will not like what you find."

Jim paused. "Why did you...?"

"It involved Zoe, and a night of ill-advised alcohol consumption," Douxie told him.

"Eww." Jim's face screwed up as his mind unwantedly filled in several gaps.

"Exactly."

"Anyhow." Jim pointed at the cup, still sitting on the table. "That's one cup of blood. There's another in the kitchen freezer. Claire and I looked things up and did our own math. Donation's about a pint each time, six times a year. We have my mom, who's a medical doctor, to do the needle end of things and keep an eye on us for health stuff. So, twelve cups a year, times three of us. Maybe four, but we all know Steve's going to Akiridion-5 sooner or later. Krel would totally donate, but he doesn't actually have blood." Douxie's mouth twitched in a brief smile. "It's maybe not as much as you need," Jim said, "but it's better than nothing."

"Jim...."

"Douxie." Jim leaned forward, placed a hand on top of one of Douxie's. "Take the half a loaf. Accept kindness. You can be an outlier without being a martyr, okay?"

"Fuck." Douxie's head was in his hands, fingers in his hair. Jim had left, patting him on the shoulder.

Jim had left because he'd known he'd won.

"What do I do, Arch?" Douxie whispered to someone who wasn't there. He knew his familiar wasn't dead, but beyond that....

It would be a long several years until Hong Kong rebuilt the bridge over their Trollmarket. Assuming they rebuilt in the same spot, which they might not.

Douxie didn't know what he'd do if they moved the bridge. If he had no way of getting Archie and hopefully Charlemagne out of there.

...Maybe the answer lay somewhere in Merlin's books, he thought, lifting his head. He'd gone through nearly half the shelves at this point, looking for the old man's notes on Lancelot's prosthetic. It sincerely did not help that Merlin's filing system remained, to this day, a mystery. His mentor had had some kind of organization set up, but he had never once clued his apprentice in as to what it was.

Douxie was also fairly sure that somewhere in among all these books was a section dealing with the hows and whys of making a young wizard into a vampire.

He wasn't sure he was ready to find that information.

Maybe I'll burn it, he thought uncharitably.

His gaze caught inexorably on the cup Jim had brought him, and left behind. Inside was blood. Human blood, body-hot.

Jim's blood.

"Fuck," Douxie said again, and reburied his head.

It wasn't like he could just pour it down the drain. That would be a waste, an insult, and the opposite to a solution. He wanted so badly to believe Jim's theory that his was a simple nutrition problem. That everything could be fixed with the wave of a magical red wand. The argument was compelling. Persuasive.

But it wasn't like he had a choice, either. Drink the blood, or give Jim, the literal bearer of Excalibur, a snub from which their friendship might not recover.

(There was a choice. There was always a choice. Hisirdoux knew he was making the one Merlin would never have: trusting in people to be good, over treating them like game pieces to be manipulated and shoved where he chose.)

He trusted Jim.

It was himself Douxie couldn't trust. Because what if Jim was wrong? What if Blinky's ruddy books, written by someone who'd never been in danger from a vampire, were wrong?

"One sip," he murmured. One sip wouldn't hurt, right...?

Except that was a blazingly obvious slippery slope.

He drew a shuddering breath. "If I do this," he said, knowing if meant when, "I have to do it carefully. Consciously. Deliberately." In short, he'd need to have all his impulses locked down under iron control. Because Archie wasn't available to be his impulse control at the moment.

At least Jim had left him alone for this. While Hisirdoux had grown used to drinking animal blood before a certain, select group who knew what he was doing, drinking another person's blood in front of them was beyond the pale.

He closed his eyes and exhaled. "Trust Jim," he murmured. "He can stop you. Trust that he's right about this."

Because even if Jim hadn't fully internalized what the whole pulling Excalibur from the stone thing meant, Hisirdoux had.

For the briefest of instants, he tried to imagine King Arthur ever offering his blood to a liegeman who needed it. To one of his knights. To Merlin.

In all instances, he failed. Because, plain and simply, Arthur would never have done that. Would have recoiled at the thought. Would have ordered the unfortunate vassal killed, assuming he didn't just do the job himself. Not for a friend, not for a mentor, not even for a sister. Queen Guinevere was the only person for whom he might have made an exception.

Jim had done it for Douxie, who was so far from being the center of the Trollhunter's world that it was laughable.

Reaching out, Douxie accepted the cup, and all that it meant.

As he raised it to his lips, he knew two things: first, that he would die for Jim. Second, that he must never let Jim know it. Because that fact would absolutely not be comforting to the Trollhunter.

The blood was so good. The first taste was rich and salty, hot and soothing as it trickled down Douxie's throat.

Gut instinct said to chug it down, to drink it all before it could be taken from him. To gorge himself--

Douxie put the cup back down on Merlin's table.

"I am not an animal," he told himself. "I will not submit to base instincts." That, and he'd seen too many starving people stuff themselves with food, only to vomit it all up only moments later. His hand trembled, and wanted to snatch the cup back; he overruled the urge with iron will. "Another sip in a few minutes," he told himself, and tried to go back to parsing Merlin's raven-quill chicken scratch, even knowing that he wouldn't be able to concentrate on a word of it.

It took the better part of an hour for him to empty the cup. Even then he wanted to run his finger around the inside, to catch up the last few drops and suck them eagerly down.

But he would not have Jim's blood on his hands, in either a literal or metaphorical sense.

Instead, he walked back the cup back down to the kitchens (fortunately empty at the moment) and ran water into it, swirling the vessel until its contents were pink.

He drank every last drop.

The smell of roasting chicken had been filling the kitchen wing of Camelot for hours. Claire walked in at five minutes to dinnertime, her mouth watering, to find Jim and Stuart working together to put the final touches on chicken tostada salads.

Well. Half of them were chicken tostada salads. The other half were made of more dubious ingredients, with crumpled #10 cans forming the shell, and God only knew what taking the place of the frijoles, chicken, lettuce, sour cream, and cheese.

"I'm just saying," Stuart put in, spooning some sort of glop onto the trolls' tostadas, "there is nothing wrong with a spicier salsa."

"Yeah, but not all of us have Toby's heat tolerance," countered Jim.

"Pity," Stuart said, then noticed her. "Ah, good evening, Claire!"

"Dinner smells delicious," she said. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Uh. Maybe take care of the drinks?" Jim asked.

"Sure." She headed for the walk-in fridge. He followed. "So," she asked quietly once they were out of line of sight of Stuart--who was clearly not eavesdropping on them, given his cheerful rendition of a pop song from a few decades back, "how did it go with Douxie?"

Jim reflexively touched the inside of his elbow before reaching up and hauling down a couple gallons of milk, handing one to her. "Okay, I think? He was mad about it to start, but I think I convinced him."

She went on her toes and dropped a kiss on her boyfriend's cheek. "We'll keep working on him," she promised. "So what's this I hear about you sexually harassing him?"

Jim groaned. Claire laughed.

But even after all the food was hauled out to the dining room and everyone came in - NotEnrique scurrying across the ceiling like he was a lizard, wingless Strickler still leaning heavily on both his cane and Barbara's arm - there was no Douxie.

She exchanged a worried look with Jim as everyone ate, and Steve, Eli, and the Akiridions tried with mixed success to keep the septuplets engaged and tidy.

Well, at least magic made the inevitable cleanup easier. Magic and Krel's flying Roombas.

Douxie finally appeared twenty minutes late, bearing a huge leather-bound book. He set it down on the table, between his usual seat and Krel's. "Found Merlin's prosthetic limb blueprints," he said, opening the book to the pages he'd marked with a leather strip.

Krel shoved his dishes aside and hauled the book toward himself, studying the sketches even as Douxie began helping himself to a belated dinner. "What does this say?" Krel asked, pointing at a line.

Douxie chewed and swallowed. "Aerated dragon's tooth iron."

"Aeration!" said Blinky. "Why, that's a trollish metalworking technique."

"Makes lighter," Aaarrrgghh rumbled thoughtfully.

"All right, if you can translate this for me, we can start working on prosthetic limb replacements tomorrow," Krel said, nodding.

"Yes, because my dance card's just filling up, waiting," drawled Nomura. Who had lost her right leg, halfway up the thigh, in the attempt to stop the Earth Titan. Krel had rigged her a floating wheelchair, but everyone could see how antsy she was already about her new restrictions.

"For you, my lady, we shall hurry on with our best speed," Douxie said, sketching a half bow.

Nomura eyed him. "I have questions about your 'best speed' from the living incarnation of 'shows up ten minutes late, bearing Starbucks'."

"Yes, but I also bring results."

"Not as often as I do," Krel muttered, earning himself a shove.

Douxie woke in darkness, suddenly fully and completely awake.

For a moment, he didn't dare move, not until he knew what it was that had shattered his sleep.

Then his stomach growled and he relaxed, thumping his head back against the mattress and mentally calling himself an idiot for being worried about nothing.

Finding his phone, he thumbed it on, finding it was....

"Three in the morning?" he asked himself, dropping his arm over his eyes. "Come on, me, go back to sleep."

Unfortunately, he didn't seem to be inclined to take his own advice.

By rights, Douxie thought sullenly, staring up at the rafters, he should be out like a light right now. He had barely slept for the better part of four days, tearing through Merlin's library in search of one particular set of project notes, because who knew if there was some sort of deadline or expiration point for getting magical prosthetics to work seamlessly for amputees.

His stomach growled again.

Oh.

Douxie stared into the darkness; the darkness stared back.

Rolling fully onto his side, he could just see the border of torchlight leaking around the sides and top of the door to his room. The gap had always been widest at the bottom, so he'd long since taken to stuffing a roll of rags there, just to block the light and the noise. When he'd returned to Camelot, even after centuries away, the entire structure crashing courtesy of the Arcane Order, and being rebuilt courtesy of Krel Tarron, the rag roll had still been in his quarters, waiting. Like he'd never left.

Everyone else probably assumed he was taking over Merlin's rooms.

Douxie wouldn't dare. The thought of moving in to his master's chambers was not a pretty one, on so many different levels.

Instead, he'd come back to the room that had been his for the entire decade he'd lived in Camelot, so long ago. A small wedge of the tower's interior, situated directly between Merlin's workroom and Merlin's storage room, it was big enough to hold a straw mattress and a few pegs from which to hang his clothing, and... pretty much nothing else. The mattress was small - too small, in fact. It was sized for the child he'd been when Merlin had first taken him in, and had never been replaced during Douxie's subsequent growth spurts.

He'd outgrown the room, in so many different ways.

But Merlin's rooms... he just couldn't.

His stomach twinged again.

Douxie sighed and gave up, admitting to himself that he wasn't going to be getting back to sleep any time soon. He stood and pulled his hoodie off the clothing peg, shrugging it on in darkness, then toed the rag roll aside and went out into the hall, where magical torches blazed away the night. For an instant, before his eyes adjusted, the light hurt.

Shrugging off the discomfort, Douxie went to the staircase that spiraled around the tower... and went up, toward the roof, rather than down, toward the kitchen. Because he knew exactly what his body was insisting it wanted, and it couldn't have it.

He knew there was another packet of human blood, frozen, down in the kitchens. He also knew that after that, there was no more. There might conceivably never be any more. So he was not going to waste it on the night after he'd first had any for the first time in centuries.

He shoved open the trapdoor and then closed it behind himself once he got up to the battlements. A wave of his hand extinguished the torches that had automatically lit themselves at his appearance.

Arcadia Oaks, and the greater Los Angeles Basin, glimmered below Camelot, looking like a million jewels of light against the darkness. The cool morning breeze ruffled at Douxie's hair as he leaned against a merlon. The heavens above were hidden behind the glow of the urban light pollution, but it was still beautiful. "Wish you were here, Arch," Douxie murmured, appreciating the view.

After a moment, he seated himself in a crenel - the down to a merlon's up - and summoned his Spellcaster, starting to run through fingering exercises. It had been months since he'd properly performed, and who knew how much longer it would be before he could again. Ash Dispersal Pattern had broken up in the wake of his leaving Arcadia Oaks, and, now, given the town was half in ruins... Douxie didn't even know if his bandmates were still alive, much less inclined to take him back.

He could text them.

It was probably safer for them to remain discreetly anonymous, and unconnected to the wizard who'd helped wreck half the world.

A chord twanged sour, and he realized he was being self-pitying again. Ruthlessly, he plucked the offending thoughts out and set them aside. He would contact his former bandmates... somewhat later in the morning, he decided, and offer an olive branch.

His stomach gurgled again, and Douxie ignored it with the ease of long practice. If Jim had the right of it, he'd spent almost his entire life starving in one way or another; a little discomfort and an urge to raid the pantry should be nothing by now.

Part of him really, really hoped that Jim had the right of it. That it really was just a nutritional deficiency that had led to him being a scatterbrained mess.

Jim's going to be really good at the king thing, Douxie thought, looking out over the night. He told me exactly what I wanted to hear, and got me to do exactly what he wanted me to do.

Because who wouldn't want to hear that it wasn't their fault? That the buck, as it were, could be passed to their master?

That Merlin crippled me, making me into a vampire. That I'm not supposed to be stupid, and slow, and....

Douxie forced himself to take a breath, to relax his fingers on the neck of his guitar.

Because wasn't it so much worse, if that was the truth?

That Merlin, the only father he'd ever had, had almost literally cursed him to a lifetime of depression and anxiety and never being able to gods-damned concentrate on anything?

That there was a solution? And all it would take was giving in to his basest nature and drinking the blood of others?

That....

His thoughts shattered, fracturing away before he could go further down that path.

He felt so warm now, was the thing. Like he'd spent nine hundred years outside in the winter's frost, and had just come in to find a fire and mulled cider waiting for him. Like if he looked in a mirror, his cheeks might be closer to a healthy pink than to chalk. Like he didn't have to stuff down the urge to cry himself to sleep, simply because it wasn't there.

Was this how normal people felt? As though they didn't have to fight everything, every day, just to operate? As though their hard-won veneer of competence and self-confidence might actually be real and not a conman's illusion?

It was gods-damned addictive, if so.

He didn't know how long this feeling would last, how long until the effect of the blood would wear off. But damned if he wasn't going to milk every last bit out of it that he could.

He should go inside. Go back to Merlin's study and reshelve the books before his executive dysfunction kicked back in. Reshelve them in some kind of order, Douxie thought vindictively. Because Merlin was dead, Merlin wasn't coming back, the library was Douxie's now....

And he was so tired of having barriers set before him.

Instead, music spilled out, formless, from his fingers on the magical guitar that was, at its heart, his staff. Music was like magic: something that wasn't physical, but could still shift the world.

Imagine how brilliant I'd be if only there weren't these walls high before me, Douxie thought, and there was a song in that, notes crying out to be put together--

So he did, building a lick of sound, a riff, a motif, running through it again and again, refining, until he thought he had something solid--

"That's pretty," someone said, breaking Douxie's concentration. "Though I still prefer techno."

"Of course you do," Douxie told Krel. Who stood beside the opened trapdoor, glimmering against the night's darkness in much the same way the city lights did. "What's got you up?"

"Eh." The Akiridion shrugged and approached, leaning against the parapet. "I was working and reached a place where I needed to stop. Can't go any further until I get a sample of that aerated dragon iron to analyze."

"Dragon's tooth iron," Douxie corrected reflexively, then winced. He was sounding exactly like Merlin, and that was something he wanted to avoid.

"Anyway," Krel continued, "how are you doing?" His black-sclera eyes met Douxie's neutrally. There was no judgment on his face. "Jim has told the rest of us about the blood thing."

"Jim's out of his mind," Douxie complained. "But... he might be right," he admitted.

Krel shrugged. "How do you find out if any theory is correct? You test it."

"Test it to destruction," Douxie muttered.

"Eh, that's only sometimes," Krel rejoined, waving off the possibility. "Personally? I think you are making too much of this. The Vondarians and Vodalians have no such emotional hangups as you do, and the Vondarians have been consuming the Vodalians' life fluids for millennia."

Douxie's eyebrows raised at the implication there was an entire planet of vampires out there somewhere. "'Life fluids'?"

"I would say blood, but it is closer to what you might consider motor oil," Krel informed him. Douxie knew he must have made a face at that, because Krel laughed. "Actually, on consideration, I might suggest that your role in things is more like theirs than you might think."

"Beyond being a bloodsucker?"

"I am pretty sure that was you being derogatory toward yourself," Krel said. "But my point is this: have you ever considered your condition as one of mutualism instead of parasitism?"

Douxie blinked. "How on Earth could vampirism be considered mutualism?"

"Well, that is your problem. You are considering things with knowledge only of Earth. Akiridions are somewhat more cosmopolitan."

Douxie glared.

"First," Krel said, ticking off the fingers of one of his hands with another, "we like you. You are a good friend, and we enjoy having you around. That is not worth nothing. Second, you are a master wizard. You have knowledge and abilities none of the rest of us do. That is also not worth nothing. Third, you are a musician. And music is worth rather a lot. All of these are good things, and we would not have them without you."

"Which does not give me the right to drink anyone's blood," Douxie argued.

"It does not," Krel agreed. "But neither do you have the right to stop us from offering it as a gift. Well, I say 'we' but I obviously cannot include myself in that, as I do not actually have blood."

"Krel...."

"But I would definitely offer to share mine with you if I had any," Krel said. "Especially as I understand it is a self-renewing resource."

Douxie sighed and slumped, defeated. "It's dangerous," he muttered to the stones of the merlon.

Krel snorted. "Oh, like we are so unused to danger. And as Jim has rightly pointed out, there is a greater danger present: your physical and mental health. Especially now that Archie is temporarily unavailable."

"I'll be fine," Douxie dismissed. "I've been like this for centuries."

"Ah, but you've never been without your familiar before. Scoot over." Douxie obliged, his guitar vanishing in a blue puff and returning to his bracer. Krel budged in next to him; they sat shoulder-to-shoulder, hip-to-hip. "A stabilizing influence has been removed from your life," Krel told him quietly. "None of us want to see you spiral down into some truly dangerous condition. Therefore, as your friends, we are stepping up in his absence to offer you support. Do you truly wish to reject it?"

Douxie studied his own hands. Long fingers, familiar nicks and scars. "I don't want to be a burden," he murmured.

"Friendship is a burden," Krel told him. "It is having to consider, and be considerate of, other people. Yet would you really want to be alone?" He let the question stand for a minute before he continued, "Not all burdens are weights. Some make things lighter."

"Many hands make light tasks," Douxie murmured.

"Exactly!" Krel smiled. "For all the propensity of your people's fiction toward 'grimdark' and 'edgy', I was very glad to find that you generally do not prefer to live by such ideals. Because they are tedious, hopeless, and above all else, pointless. So let us help you, Douxie. You certainly help us enough."

Douxie sighed. "I'm not going to win this one, am I?"

"I'm afraid not. Jim has already organized a blood drive for tomorrow."

Douxie's eyes flared wide. "A blood drive?!"

"Well, ours for you, the rest for the hospital. We are not just going to 'out' you to all of Arcadia," Krel assured him. "Unless you want more than your close friends' blood?"

"I don't want any blood," Douxie said plaintively.

"Well, yes, but given there is no way to un-vampire you, you are just going to have to accept some anyway."

Douxie sighed and let his head drop sideways, to rest on Krel's shoulder. "You're all in on this, aren't you?"

"Absolutely," said Krel. "Well, maybe not Eli and my sister. I have not outed you to them, and I doubt Jim or Claire have either. Maybe Steve has, but I do not know if so."

"Steve can be surprisingly considerate some times, and thick as a brick others," Douxie agreed. He closed his eyes. "I really don't deserve all of you."

Krel patted his head. "You really do. But that is neither here nor there."

Douxie tried to let himself drift. He was still tired, he found, deep in his bones. Not surprising, after the week they'd all been having, trying desperately to put out the various fires that came in the wake of a near world-ending disaster. But he was also still wired, his mind already queueing up everything he needed to do today: help Krel with the prosthetics, reorganize Merlin's library, squeeze in a lesson with Claire, catch up with Zoe, call his former bandmates. See if there was anything on Jim's political docket that Douxie could lend a hand with (he was rather looking forward to telling the Windsors where they could stick it when England inevitably demanded Camelot and Excalibur back, probably wanting to display them in the British Museum right next to everything else they'd stolen)....

As if on cue, Douxie's stomach rumbled again.

Krel laughed. "Come on," he said. "Let us raid the leftovers shelf before anyone else wakes up and gets to it. That and some hot chocolate."

"Sounds good." Douxie forced himself upright, and followed Krel to the trapdoor.

As he made his way down the tower's steps, Douxie added one more item to his to-do list: move into a real bedroom. Maybe not Merlin's. Maybe not even in the tower. But something that was more than a dank hole with a child-sized mattress. And, he decided, wherever in the castle it ended up being, it would need a lot of windows. Because he wanted to retrieve all of Nari's plants from their erstwhile Metro City apartment, and bring them home.

Home. With his friends.