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sakon76Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
first released 27th January 2022
The four of them walked home after grabbing a late dinner at Stuart's taco truck. "You know," Toby said, "at some point we're going to have to tell him we know he's a Durian."
"I was kind of thinking we should wait until Aja and Krel get here?" Jim suggested. "I mean, with his whole 'fan of the Akiridion royal family' thing, some human kids telling him before they're here might make him hightail it out of town."
"You guys do know that some of the trolls are his customers too, right?" Douxie asked them.
"Wait, what?"
"Oh yes," Archie told Toby. "We've seen them placing orders a few times when he's been open past midnight."
"No idea if he thinks they're fellow extraterrestrials or what, but I'm pretty sure Stuart knows perfectly well that Arcadia Oaks is home to more than one odd phenomenon," Douxie agreed.
"Huh." Jim exchanged a look with Toby. "Maybe that's why he's stuck around here, then."
"Yeah. Uh." Toby had stopped and was staring. "Uh, Jim, what's that car doing in your driveway?"
Jim stopped too. "Isn't that... Strickler's car?" he asked.
Douxie blinked a few times. "Seems their date went well, then."
"The, um, the house lights are off," Toby pointed out.
"Oh my," Archie murmured, leaping up onto Douxie's shoulder for a better look. "Do you think they're--"
"Do NOT finish that sentence!" Jim said, whirling and pointing wide-eyed at Archie.
Douxie smirked and chuckled. "I am in awe of your matchmaking skills, Jim."
"Don't even!" Jim cried. He stared at his house. "Should we knock, or...?"
"I could cast a soundproofing spell on her bedroom," Douxie offered, still smiling.
Jim's hands found his hair. "That's not helping!"
"What, did you think they never had--"
"If they did, it was while I was in New Jersey! Or staying with Toby because my room was taken over by babies, Douxie!"
Douxie laughed. "Given that I'm fairly sure you and Claire had relations at some point, and that you've been working so hard to get your mother and Strickler together, I'm pretty sure this is hypocritical, Jim."
Jim was wild-eyed. "I don't care! It's my mom! I don't want to know what she does with Strickler!"
"So, uh...." Toby's glance wavered back and forth between the two of them. "You guys want to have a sleepover tonight?"
"It seems we'll have to," Archie said, glancing again at the darkened Lake house. "And, Douxie, may I suggest you lay that silencing charm tomorrow anyway? On all the bedrooms?"
Jim whimpered.
"Remind me in the morning," Douxie told his familiar, pulling out his phone and tapping in a text. He hit send. "There, I've told her where we're staying for the night. Come on, Jim, let's get you some nice hot chocolate and a soothing distraction or something." So saying, he towed his brother along to Toby's house.
Barbara's phone buzzed on her nightstand.
Still feeling pleasantly dazed, she levered herself up on an elbow to check her messages.
She blinked and laughed a little when she saw what Douxie had sent her.
"What is it, my dear?" Walter's hand drifted down her side as she put the phone down.
She turned back to him. "Just Douxie letting me know the boys are having a sleepover at Toby's."
He was silent for a minute. "Ah. They must have seen my car."
"Mm-hmm." She shifted over so she was laying half on top of him. "I will say one thing, though."
"Oh?"
She grinned. "This means we have the house all to ourselves tonight."
It took a second, but then his smile sharpened in the moonlight. "Indeed. I think we should take advantage of this privacy."
"Oh yes." She let him draw her down into another kiss.
And... other things.
The room was dark and mostly quiet. Even the lights in the dollhouse were turned out, Chompsky bedded down with Sally-Go-Back for the night. He was snoring, the smallest little snork-whistle pattern ever. Sally, of course, slept silently.
"All I'm saying is, I'm preeeetty sure you and Claire got further than third base, Jimbo."
"I'm not telling you, Toby! A gentleman never kisses and tells."
Douxie was laughing into his pillow. Jim sat up, grabbed his own pillow, and whacked him with it. "You be quiet! You're the virgin here."
"And ace," Douxie said, still snickering. "So I'm happy enough to be so."
"Humans," muttered Archie.
"What about you, Archie?" Toby asked. "Any lady dragons ever catch your eye?"
Archie sniffed. "To borrow Jim's words, I don't kiss and tell."
"What about you and Darci?" Douxie asked Toby.
Toby sighed happily, looking up at the glowing stars stuck to his ceiling. "Solid second base. Of course, that's probably still a couple years off from now. But that was... wow. Heart racing city, man."
"Seriously, do you think girls talk about these kind of things at their sleepovers?" wondered Jim.
"Eh, who knows," Toby said. "Women are the great mystery of the world, and one I'm happy to study, in a totally monogamous worship-at-her-feet sense."
"Hey." Douxie straightened up. "Jim, I've got an idea. We should set an alarm early enough to get back home before Strickler leaves."
Jim thought it over. "Mom's immune to embarrassment."
"Ooh, but Strickler's not!" Toby agreed. "And I'm pretty sure you guys could manufacture some without even trying."
"Can we please go to sleep?" Archie begged.
"Fine, fine," Jim said. He grabbed his phone and set his alarm earlier than usual before settling back down.
"This is great," Toby said into the darkness. "We should totally do this more often."
"Just wait until Krel gets here and we can add him in," Douxie agreed.
"Ooh, I don't think we ever did a sleepover with Krel...."
Waltolomew came down the stairs bright and early, fully dressed and dignified, with plenty of time to get back to his apartment and don some fresh clothing for the day, only to find two teenagers and a cat waiting for him.
Jim was in the kitchen, flipping pancakes. The wizard and his familiar were sat at the dining table, perusing the city's weekly paper together. The dining table was set for five, with glasses (or saucers) of milk and orange juice at each place.
Douxie looked up first and his smile somehow managed to be both perfectly cordial and absolutely wicked at the same time. "Good morning, Mister Strickler."
Frozen at the foot of the stairs, Waltolomew had the same sudden sense of irrational panic that he'd experienced when being kidnapped for a college hazing ritual, many years and many miles ago. "Good morning," he managed to reply.
"Sleep well?" Jim asked, with a grin that definitely suggested the eating of excrement.
The dragon just rolled his eyes and went back to reading the paper.
Were they really doing this...? Apparently they were.
Sighing, Waltolomew submitted to interrogation by the sons of the lovely woman he had spent the evening with. "Quite well," he said. "And yourselves?"
"Oh, you know." Jim shrugged. "Not bad. Sleeping bag city at Tobes' place."
"Haven't been to a sleepover in years," Douxie agreed. "It was fun."
"What's 'years'?" Jim asked.
Douxie thought about it for a moment. "Nineteen twenty... six?" he guessed. He looked at his familiar. "Was that it, Arch?"
"Mm, thereabouts." The cat finished his reading and looked up. "It was after we came to America, anyway."
"So." Jim flipped the pancake he was working on onto a plate, then set that in the oven. "Won't you join us for breakfast, Mister Strickler?"
"Oh, please do." Barbara came down the stairs behind him, beautiful with mussed red hair, wearing a long white bathrobe and possibly nothing else underneath, who knew. She pressed a kiss to Waltolomew's cheek. She was practically glowing. "Jim's pancakes are always worth having."
Blinking after her, Waltolomew hesitated... then gave in, following her to the dining room.
"I'll get tea," Douxie said, standing and going to the kitchen.
"For what it's worth," Archie said, "I do apologize for both of them."
He sighed, and sat down in what was becoming his usual chair. "I suppose it is only to be expected."
"We are happy for the two of you, you realize," Douxie said through the kitchen window.
"Yeah, but that doesn't get you out of the, um, loving harassment," Jim agreed, flipping one last pancake and turning the stove off. "That said, do not give me details. I do not want them, and will be happy never to have them."
"You realize, kiddo, you're going to get as good as you give," Barbara told her son. "Consider yourself warned."
"All's fair in love and familial affection," Douxie agreed, returning to the kitchen bearing two mugs of tea in each hand, with a fifth one floating in the air behind him. He settled them all around the dining table with the professional grace of a long-term waiter, then returned to the kitchen and helped Jim bring in the platters of pancakes, sausages, and artistically trimmed and displayed fruit.
"A veritable feast," Waltolomew observed as the boys seated themselves.
Jim grinned. "As if I'd serve anything less."
Barbara picked up her tea, pulling the teabag string to one side, and sipped carefully at it. "And how early did you boys get up to arrange this?"
"Early enough," Douxie said, which was absolutely not an answer. He stacked a few pancakes on his own plate and his familiar's, then added sausage. The dragon got rather more of it than the wizard, Waltolomew noted.
"Mm-hmm." Barbara sipped again. "And how did your trip out to your friend go yesterday?"
Jim grinned and pulled out his phone, thumbing to an image and showing it to his mother. "Oh," she said, taking it and looking. "That's lovely."
"Based heavily on Merlin's design in the old timeline," Douxie said, "with a few magical modifications by myself."
Barbara passed the phone to Waltolomew and he took it curiously. His eyebrows raised as he saw Claire, clad from head to toe in armor. "How very... purple."
Jim grinned and took his phone back. "She picked the color."
"And its durability?"
"It took three direct hits from a battle axe without a ding," Jim reported proudly.
"Hiccup does good work," Archie agreed.
"And your armor, Douxie?" Barbara asked.
Douxie sighed and lowered his fork back down to the plate. "In progress," he reported. "It's a bit of a different style, and he's having to make a million miles of metal wire before we can even start constructing it."
"Metal wire?" he asked before he could help himself. Chainmail flashed through Waltolomew's mind, but surely that wasn't what they intended.
"Layered metal mesh," Douxie said. He stabbed a strawberry and considered Waltolomew. "I understand that changelings don't usually go in for it, but if you want armor, or any weaponry made... or even anything without martial applications... I'd be willing to give you an introduction."
He considered it. "I have no such needs at current," he said finally. "But I will keep the offer in mind. Thank you."
Barbara sighed and rested her chin on her palm. "I remember the days when breakfast talk didn't revolve around armor and weapons," she said, almost wistfully. Her gaze moved around the table. "Though I will admit the company more than makes up for the mayhem."
And Douxie bit down on a response full of innuendo; Waltolomew could see it.
He decided to take pity on the wizard. "The company," he agreed, raising his glass and looking at Barbara, "is indeed fine."
Jim choked.
Barbara blushed.
"All right," said Mary at lunch. "I have totally got an idea for this whole 'spreading the magic'-slash-'movie cover' thing. Hear me out."
Glances were exchanged around the table.
"Uh, like, what?" Darci asked.
"TikTok," Mary said, slamming her phone down on the table. "I've looked through a ton of videos, and there's a format I think we can use. There's this guy who goes through, like, really old cooking recipes and makes them, and his stuff's getting a ton of traffic on lots of different social media sites. I think if we can get Douxie to do something like that, our hits will go through the roof."
"So you're thinking...?" Toby asked.
Mary rolled her eyes. "He's got a million spellbooks in that bookshop, right? Some of them have to have something in them that would be worth filming, Toby."
"Huh. Well, we can bounce it past him...?" Claire said, looking at the others.
"I've got a lesson with him after school," Mary said, "since he had to cancel yesterday for whatever it was you guys were doing. I'll ask him then."
"Um, what were you guys doing yesterday?" Eli asked, pushing his glasses up. "Steve and I went down to Trollmarket with Draal and you definitely weren't there."
"We were meeting with a wizard friend of Douxie's who lives out of town," Claire said easily. "He's a grownup, so that was a little weird, but he was totally cool."
"Yeah, except for the horse," Toby told his lunch bag.
Claire elbowed him. "Be nice. The horse was nice to us."
"A wizard with a horse?" Darci asked, leaning forward.
"A demon horse," Toby emphasized to her. "Like a literal 'ride on my back and die a horrible death by drowning' kelpie horse."
"He's not kidding," Claire said to Darci's shocked silence. "But like I said, once we got introduced, Tannlaus kind of lost interest and wandered off. He's semi-tame, I guess."
"Whoa," Steve breathed. "A demon horse. That's cool."
"Cool until you get drowned," Toby mumbled, but he was ignored.
"So, like, what kind of wizard did you meet?" Eli pestered. "Was he a technomage like Mary, or...?"
"A smith-mage," Jim answered. "He's a blacksmith. Douxie met him at the RenFaire, years ago."
Toby snickered. "Robin Hood."
Claire couldn't quite stifle her snort of laughter. Jim grinned.
"So," Jim said to Steve and Eli, changing the subject, "how goes training with Draal?"
"Jim," Claire whispered to him on the way to class, "when are we going to tell them about the whole future thing? Because we can't keep dancing around it and why we need trips to get me armor, forever...."
Jim risked a glance around them. "When Aja and Krel get here," he said.
"Ooh, yeah." Toby nodded. "There's no way Aja's going to be able to pretend she doesn't know Mary and Darci."
"Let alone Steve," Claire agreed. She winced. "That's... not going to be fun."
"No." Jim was solemn as all three of them thought about Steve and Aja's children, who now didn't exist... yet.
"All right. We can stall them all for another week or two, I guess," Toby said. "And if we get cornered before then, we'll deal with it."
"We've got a plan." Claire gave Jim a peck on the cheek. "And I'm off to Pre-Calc. Catch you guys after school."
"Oh, come on!" NotEnrique whined. "I'm hundreds of years old! Lemme have a sip of tequila."
"Hundreds of years old or not, you are still my son and living under my roof," Javier told the changeling. "And no child of mine is going to be drinking until he is at minimum in college."
NotEnrique pouted for a minute, until he said "Can we at least watch telenovelas?"
"That we can do!" Javier brightened. "It will improve your Spanish. No son of mine is going to be monolingual."
"Ya know I ain't really your son, right?"
Javier crossed his arms and looked down at the little green figure. "You are my daughter's brother. Therefore, you are also my son. And when you are older, I will drink cerveza with you, give you advice about women, and teach you how to perfectly grill chorizo. But for now, we will watch the telenovela and find out if Mariana's sister is back from the convent or not."
"Finally! Some decent entertainment!" NotEnrique said, scrambling over the back of the sofa. "I was gettin' sick of Buenas Noches, Luna."
"Tell you the truth?" Javier sat down next to him. "I was getting sick of it too, mi hijo."
Jim looked down at the Trollish notes on one of the back pages of his notebook. His pencil tapped against the paper.
At this point, given how long it was going to take for Douxie's armor to get finished, they really weren't going to be able to open Killahead Bridge and deal with Gunmar until after Aja, Krel, and Varvatos arrived. Which was okay, he guessed. Toby hadn't been wrong that Aja and Varvatos, at least, would be gleeful about fighting in that battle.
They didn't know the exact date the Akiridion trio were going to arrive, but to the best of his, Toby, and Claire's recollections, they'd been showing the royal siblings around Arcadia and fetching Merlin some changeling femurs and bottled lightning in mid-April. So the Akiridions had to have arrived a few days before that.
And in order to get Killahead opened when they wanted, they needed to give Strickler some prep time to feed Gunmar some false information and let him get ready for his invasion. So Jim needed to get that piece of the bridge back from Blinky and give it to Strickler so he could start communicating with Gunmar--
"Mister Lake!" Miss Janeth stood before him, tall and imperious. Jim blinked and looked up at her. "Can you solve for X?" she demanded.
"Uh...." Jim looked beyond her, at the tangled mess of numbers and variables that was scribbled all over the board. He wasn't sure which part of it he was meant to be solving. "Forty-two...?" he guessed.
She glared. "While I appreciate that forty-two is the answer to life, the universe, and everything," said Miss Janeth, "and thus that you have at least been reading, I am afraid that is not the correct answer to this question. Pay closer attention in class, Mister Lake, or detention will be in your future!"
"Yes, Miss Janeth," he said, cowed, to the sound of snickers.
His teacher stalked off, in search of another victim.
Jim sighed.
"It's so good of you to come visit me on your day off, dearie," Nancy Domzalski said, setting down a plate of brownies that looked nearly as good as Jim's. And Barbara knew that Jim had gotten the recipe for her favorite brownies from Nancy, who had, after all, been the one to teach him how to bake and cook.
What the hell. It was a day for indulgences.
"It's no problem at all," she said, picking up one of the treats and nibbling at the corner as Nancy set down two steaming cups - coffee for herself and a red tea for Barbara. "It's been so hectic. I'm sorry we haven't been able to catch up with one another in a while."
"Pish-tosh." Nancy waved off the apology. "Life gets in the way sometimes. Now, dear, I understand from my Toby-Pie that you had a visitor last night." Her blue eyes sparkled behind her glasses.
Barbara laughed. "I did," she confessed. "Do you remember me telling you about Walter...?"
"Oh, the boys' history teacher." Nancy took a brownie for herself. "I take it things are going well, then?"
"Very well," Barbara felt no shame in confessing. "He's got such a dry wit, and he's clever. He makes me laugh."
"Mmm." Nancy's eyes were knowing. "That's very good. But tell me." She leaned in conspiratorially. "Does he satisfy you, dear?"
Barbara choked, glad she wasn't drinking at the moment. "Nancy!"
The woman's face was merry. "Oh, don't make that shocked expression at me. Physical compatibility is a very important part of a relationship, and as two grown women, we shouldn't be ashamed of our needs and desires."
Barbara briefly wondered if Nancy had been part of the sexual liberation movement in the 1970s; by her words, she really might have been.
"Now, my Horace, god rest his soul, he and I were very well suited to one another, and I can only hope for you to end up in a relationship as fulfilling."
Barbara coughed and had to laugh a little. "It was very good," she confided. "Though don't tell Jim that - he doesn't want to hear anything about what his mother gets up to in bed."
"Boys," Nancy reminisced fondly. "Ralph was like that too, once he was old enough to realize what he was hearing. The walls of our house at that time were very thin."
"Douxie promised to put permanent silencing spells on all the bedroom walls, to save Jim's sanity."
"Oh, what a good brother."
"I will however note," Barbara said, remembering Douxie's smirk as he'd hurried out the door that morning, heading for his job at the bookshop, "that he said absolutely nothing about not teasing Jim about this."
"Well," said Nancy contentedly, taking up her cup of coffee, "that's boys for you."
Author's Note: Mary's "guy on TikTok" is B. Dylan Hollis, and his cooking videos are well worth the watch! Forty-two as the answer to life, the universe, and everything is from Douglas Adams' book The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Nancy's question of "Yes, but does he satisfy you?" is inspired by one of my writing group friend's recounting of her grandmother asking her as a young woman that about her boyfriend.
