sakon76

Second Chances
by K. Stonham
first released 28th February 2022

It takes about two weeks before Tim comes up to Jim with news: Douxie's (Richard's) biological father is dead. "Heart attack," Tim says. "About two years after the kid disappeared. He ran away in Atlanta, just so's you know."

"Atlanta?" Jim asks, surprise taking precedence over his guilty relief that at least one of Douxie's bio-parents won't be a problem. "How the hell did he get from Atlanta to L.A.?"

Tim shrugs. "Your guess is as good as mine." And they both go sober, because for an eight-year-old to get all the way across the country by the time he was thirteen... well, few of the options are good ones. "His mom went back to England," Tim says. "I'm working on contacting her, but you know how international stuff goes."

"Yeah." Jim's fortunately only had to work a few cross-border cases, but they are all PITAs. "Any siblings?"

Tim shakes his head. "None by the time she left the country, at least."

Well, that makes things... slightly easier, Jim supposes. Tim's actually met Douxie by now, done the requisite interviews with him, been given the results from his aptitude testing and his doctor's visit. No STDs, luckily. A few other health issues that are going to hopefully clear up with good food, good rest, and some vitamin supplements. Not to mention actual dental care. They're still working on finding a therapist Douxie can trust.

School... is another nightmare. They've had to enroll him in Arcadia Oaks Junior High, in sixth grade, when he should be in eighth. And, honestly, even the sixth-grade placement is stretching it. But the teachers are good, and Douxie's working his ass off, intent on testing into ninth grade by the time fall rolls around. And if Jim and Claire have already been called into two parent-teacher conferences....

Well.

They've come to an arrangement: Douxie stops zapping his classmates with magic if the teachers keep the other students in line.

Between school and magic practice, Douxie sacks out early most nights, exhausted.

Jim takes it as a victory that Douxie doesn't lock his door, though. That the kid doesn't feel he needs to. That he feels safe enough in his own space to not shut them out.

They're working out a rewards system balanced with an allowance. A dollar a week a kid being reasonable is the general consensus around Jim's office, so he and Claire give Douxie thirteen dollars every Friday and pretend they don't know he's hoarding it away somewhere instead of using it to buy burritos or sheet music. The bigger prize he's working on earning is a music player complete with headphones and speakers.

Neither of them are particularly surprised that he's driven by music and magic, the same way the old Douxie was. And if Douxie's suspicious that they're using what they know against him... well, he's not arguing the results very hard. Because he wants that music player.

Still. Claire's got him working on levitation, and he's getting a pretty good handle on it, so she's probably going to move him on to something more complex and esoteric next. Jim doesn't know what, but it's the reason they're planning what they're planning. "Just so you know," he tells Tim, "we're taking him on a trip this weekend. We're going to introduce him to a couple old family friends, stay overnight with them."

"All right. Good luck," Tim says, and that's the end of it.

Except their trip out of town doesn't involve a car. Instead, they show Douxie the hidden basement exit into the tunnels beneath Arcadia, and lead him to the entrance to Old Trollmarket. His eyes go wide as Jim uses a horngazel to carve open the entrance, and then wider as the stone just fractures and disappears. He stares even wider as it reforms once they've stepped through.

Trollmarket is cold, and dead, and musty, so the three of them don't linger on the way to the gyre station.

"This will probably make you sick," Claire warns as they clamber up into the gyre. "It makes everyone sick the first few times. But it'll get us to New Jersey in less than a minute."

"Seriously?" Douxie's expression is skeptical as Jim takes the controls and sets their destination.

"Seriously," Jim tells him, looking over his shoulder at the boy. "Hang on to something," he advises, and waits until Douxie's hands are white-knuckled around the seat rim before he presses go.

Thirty seconds later, they're docked in New Trollmarket and Jim's ears are ringing.

Then he realizes the teenager isn't retching, but is instead whooping. "That was wild!" Douxie cries, eyes shining. "Can we go again?"

With a sinking feeling, Jim realizes the boy is an adrenaline junkie.

"After the visit," he temporizes, helping Claire down. Douxie follows excitedly after, and they round the corner and....

...And Douxie stops stone-still, eyes as wide as can be, staring at the glory of New Trollmarket.

The New Jersey heartstone isn't as large as the one in Arcadia was, but the trolls have more than made up for the lack with neon everywhere. It's huge, and it's bustling, and it's alive.

And one by one the trolls realize they have company, and cries of "It's the Trollhunter!" rise and old friends come to greet him and Claire and puzzle out who the new human is.

Douxie looks momentarily overwhelmed, but it's by the sheer number of people, rather than their species. By now he's had enough exposure to Strickler to not be weirded out by trolls. Well, Jim thinks as one of the striplings raises Douxie's arm and sniffs at his armpit, not weirded out much.

Then Nomura shoves her way through the crowd, a smirk on her face. "Little Gynt," she greets Jim. "It's been a while. How's my little sister?"

"Good to see you, Nomura," Jim greets her. "And Zel's just fine. As you well know."

"Seriously." Claire gives Nomura a hug, which the magenta troll just barely deigns to accept, "you could come visit and see her in person instead of hiding on Skype."

"Ugh." Nomura rolls her eyes. "Spare me." Her gaze lingers on Douxie, surrounded by younger trolls who are, more or less, at his level of maturity. "And who's this?"

Jim and Claire exchange a glance. "That's... a long story," Jim says, just as his own foster father's voice is heard.

"Master Jim!" Blinky cries, pushing to the front of the crowd, followed closely by Aaarrrgghh, as always. "And Fair Lady Claire! It's so good to see you!" There's room in his four arms for both of them to be hugged simultaneously, and they are, Aaarrrgghh's large arms enfolding Blinky's.

Jim smiles, happy. "Hey, Blink. Hey, Aaarrrgghh. Good to see you both."

Aaarrrgghh rumbles happily, then stops and sniffs and releases them all, prowling on all fours over to Douxie. The striplings surrounding the teenager shift back as Aaarrrgghh sniffs Douxie from foot to head, his breath ruffling the black-and-blue hair. Aaarrrgghh sits back, regarding Douxie quizzically, while the boy in turn regards the massive troll with wide eyes. "Wizard?" Aaarrrgghh eventually asks.

"My word." All six of Blinky's eyes are wide as he stares. "Is that...?"

"A long story," Jim tells him.

Blinky glances around them. "Perhaps we should speak privately?" he suggests.

One of the striplings tugs at Douxie's arm. "Come on, want to play?" she asks.

But Douxie's eyes never leave Blinky and Jim. "No," he says. "Whatever they're going to say about me, I want to hear it."

They end up in Blinky and Aaarrrgghh's chambers, drinking coffee that Blinky assures Jim has been filtered only through clean socks. Douxie takes to the beverage like a goblin to a garbage can.

"Great Gronka Morka," Blinky finally says, once the relevant parts of Douxie's life story are out, together with Jim and Claire's belief that he was their other Douxie, once upon a lifetime ago. "Well, it's not as if such things are unheard of," he offers.

"They're not?" Douxie asks, lowering his mug.

Blinky laughs. "Of course not!" he assures the young wizard. "Given the vastness of the cosmos, not all such souls return to our planet, one would assume, but it does indeed happen often enough that we have records of it."

Jim and Claire breathe nearly simultaneous sighs of relief. If Blinky says reincarnation happens, they'll both take his word for it.

Douxie, though, looks troubled. "So what's this mean for me?"

"Absolutely nothing, my young wizard, save that it has enabled you to find old friends who care for you." Blinky leans forward and pats Douxie gently on the shoulder. "I will not attempt to conceal that it was a great loss to us when your previous self departed from the mortal coil, but I see no reason why who you were should be an impediment to us learning to care for who you are now. We all owe the former Hisirdoux a great debt, which we may now repay in part by attempting to help the current Hisirdoux find out who he is this time around."

Douxie turns this over in his mind for a few minutes, then nods. "All right."

"Do you still wish to go play with the others?" Blinky asks him, and gets another nod. "Very well. Reygla and her miscreants are likely at--" The troll rattles off a complicated-sounding set of directions. Douxie seems to follow them, though, because he downs the rest of his coffee, then rises. "Have them bring you back by nine o'clock," Blinky calls after him, and gets a wave in response as the wizard disappears out the door.

Jim waits until he's sure Douxie has to be out of earshot before asking, "Blink, do you know why he came back?"

Blinky shrugs. "In this great karmic washing machine, it may well be that we all come back, one way or another."

"Blinky," Claire protests, exasperation in her tone.

"Very well," Blinky concedes. "Some who reincarnate have spoken of unfinished business, or great love. Some, even, of soulmates they wish to reunite with. Which cause it may be for Master Hisirdoux, I am afraid, however, that I cannot say."

Jim and Claire exchange a look. "Well, the Arcane Order certainly counts as unfinished business," Jim says.

"Or it could be love," Claire offers. "Or even... I don't even know if Douxie has a soulmate. Are soulmates real things?" she asks Blinky, who nods.

"Quite real," he says.

"Rare," Aaarrrgghh adds.

"Hmm." She turns this over in her mind for a minute, then shrugs. "I guess there's no way of us knowing, and it probably doesn't make a difference in the end."

"What does make a difference," Jim picks up the thread, "is who knows."

Blinky arches an eye ridge. "Oh?"

"Do you know where Archie is?" Jim asks bluntly. "If there's anyone who needs to know Douxie's back, it's him."

"Oh, yes, the wizard's familiar," Blinky says, eyes wide. He exchanges his own look with Aaarrrgghh.

"Not easy to find," the Krubera says.

"Indeed." Blinky nods. "The lair of Charlemagne the Devourer is a most closely guarded secret. Part of why Archibald's tactic of hiding Nari there has worked so well."

"Someone's gotta know," Claire presses.

Blinky hums. "I will make inquiries," he finally says. "It may take some time."

"Thanks, Blink," Jim says, and smiles.

The troll striplings have Douxie back by nine o'clock, as promised. And he's as worn out by a day rough-housing and spellcasting with them as he's been by a day of school. It's only six o'clock California time, but he yawns his way through dinner and crashes early.

Jim and Claire stay up a bit longer, catching up with their friends, before going to bed at a more respectable hour. Trolls, of course, need almost no sleep, so Blinky and Aaarrrgghh and Nomura just bid them goodnight at the door to the human suite for guests of Trollmarket. There's real beds there, and indoor plumbing, and if the decor is more like a 1960s motel than one would expect... well, at least New Trollmarket has a human suite. Jim tries to imagine Vendel allowing such a thing in Old Trollmarket, and fails completely.

He wakes in the middle of the night to whimpers and panicked breathing coming from the other bedroom. Jim's up in a flash, Claire right behind him. Going into Douxie's room, it's clear the boy's caught in a nightmare, and Jim thanks god once more that human magic requires conscious use, because otherwise, he's pretty sure, everything in the room would be floating and/or wrecked right now.

He takes one side of the bed, Claire the other, and they each touch a shoulder, shaking gently, calling the boy's chosen name. It takes a minute, but then Douxie bolts upright, eyes blazing with blue light. It's not quite a scream that gets swallowed in his throat, but the cry isn't far off from one either.

Jim doesn't know which lifetime he's dealing with here, but either way it's clear that bad things have happened to this kid, and he doesn't hesitate before pulling him into his arms, holding him close, being warm and comforting and there. It's all he can do as Douxie cries and cries and cries, fists bunching in Jim's shirt as Douxie sobs himself raw.

On Douxie's other side, Claire puts her hand against his back and croons softly. It's something Jim thinks she picked up from mama trolls on their long cross-country journey with them, years ago. Her magic flares low and quiet around her hand and that helps Douxie to relax by inches.

It feels like hours, but is probably only about ten minutes before Douxie quite literally cries himself back to sleep. Jim still doesn't know if he was dreaming of Merlin's death or his birth parents' rejection or something that happened to him on the streets. He's not entirely sure if it matters beyond how they need to find this kid a therapist.

"Do you think it'll help if we can find Archie?" Claire asks softly.

"Maybe. Probably. I don't know," Jim replies, settling Douxie back into bed. His fingers linger, brushing through the young wizard's bangs. Was it the visit to Trollmarket that prompted the nightmare, or was it just a matter of time winding down Douxie's mental defenses?

The next morning Douxie's practically manic, climbing the walls, ready to go out and explore. By the time they let him off his leash, with instructions to come back when he's hungry and to not accept any food from the trolls, no really, trust me, Jim is ninety percent sure that Douxie absolutely remembers his nightmare but absolutely does not want to open up to them about it.

Which hurts a little bit, but Jim accepts that he can't force the boy to confide in him.

He and Claire end up in New Trollmarket's training arena. Neither of them have armor, but Blinky's been inventive with the design so it has even more nasty surprises than the Hero's Forge did, and Aaarrrgghh keeps them both nimble on their feet. It's well past midday by the time Blinky finally calls a halt, and Jim is surprised to see Douxie in the stands with his new friends, watching them with wide eyes, like he didn't realize this was what his foster parents did.

Apparently he thought Jim had Excalibur sheerly from virtue, and not actually for use?

Laughing, Jim and Claire jostle each other all the way to the shower, where they hurry to get washed and clean before the water gets too hot, because apparently trolls heat water via a convenient vein of lava. When they're done and dry and dressed, they emerge, only to find their foster son waiting for them, looking quite distressed.

"Do I... have to learn to fight like that?" Douxie asks eventually, over lunch. "Did I do that in the past?"

Jim shakes his head. "You don't have to. If you want to, we'll teach you. But you don't have to."

"Douxie fought mainly with spells," Claire remembers. "I don't think he was as physical as, well, Jim is. But then Jim's the Trollhunter, not a mage."

"Oh. Good." Douxie deflates, like a worry's been taken off his shoulders.

Jim looks at Claire; Claire looks back. "Doux," Jim says, reaching across the table to rest a hand on Douxie's, "whatever you were, you don't have to be again. You can do what you want."

"Except I am, aren't I?" Douxie asks, a tinge of bitterness in his words. "The magic, the music... everything that was in him is in me, isn't it?"

Jim has no answer.

"Why'd I even come back?" Douxie asks, and leaves, his sandwich half-eaten on his plate.

Jim sighs, and closes his eyes. He wishes he was surprised.

"Jim, what was that?" Claire asks, sounding shell-shocked.

"That was the start of the anger stage," Jim says. He is one thousand percent sure, now, that Douxie remembers whatever it was he dreamed about, and that Douxie wishes he didn't. "He's gotten the space to realize how much he's been hurt, and how unfair it is."

"So?" she asks, not understanding.

"And he's angry about it," Jim explains, opening his eyes and looking at her. "He's angry at the people who hurt him, the people who abandoned him. He's angry at his past self for putting him into this position. He's even angry at us," he tells her, "for not being there sooner, for protecting him only now, and letting him realize how much he hurts."

Claire's expression is appalled.

He hates to say it, but.... "And it's going to get worse before it gets better," Jim tells Claire.

The next week is miserable, because Jim's professional insight proves to be 100% correct. Douxie is sullen, snippy, sarcastic, and refuses to fulfill any of his responsibilities, ranging from taking out the trash to doing his homework. Jim watches Claire grow more and more frustrated with him, and tries explaining to her that Douxie's testing, seeing how far he can push the two of them before they snap and prove themselves to be just as bad as the people he dealt with on the streets.

Douxie wants a reason not to trust them, an excuse for him to leave a good situation that's making him scared, because hope can be terrifying.

Claire tries to reel herself in, but it's hard for her. She's an actress and a shadowmancer: she lives and breathes emotion.

It comes to a head on Friday, when Jim has to leave work early to go to the school. Douxie's gotten in a fight.

The other parent, mother of a boy with a bleeding nose, self-righteously wants Douxie suspended.

Jim glances at the sullen goth boy sitting in a plastic chair, and knows that is exactly the opposite of what Douxie needs. He manages, barely, to talk the principal into agreeing with him. Douxie gets a week's detention and has to write both an apology note and an essay explaining why what he did was wrong.

"It won't happen again," Jim assures both principal and parent, and leaves with his foster son in tow.

He doesn't go home, instead drives to his old neighborhood and parks near the canal. Douxie wants to pick a fight with him too, he can see it, but Jim is not going to allow himself to be goaded by a thirteen-year-old. He outwaits the boy, and eventually Douxie exits the car and follows him down to the canal.

Jim draws the opening to Trollmarket and draws the boy in. The glow of the crystal staircase is faint now, but it's still bright enough for them to find their way down. And from there Jim leads across the ruins of Trollmarket to the Hero's Forge. Without the magic of the heartstone to power it, it's dim and silent. But it's still a vast arena, with the forms of his predecessors watching him.

Jim turns to Douxie. "Hit me," he says.

"What?" There's confusion in the boy's eyes.

"You're angry. You want to hit something. Hit me." Jim spreads his arms wide, making himself an easy target.

Douxie's wary. "What's the trick?"

Jim shakes his head. "No trick. Hit me, and get it out of your system."

Douxie hesitates a moment longer, still mistrustful, then swings at him.

It's not a bad punch, for a thirteen-year-old.

But Jim is thirty, and has been the Trollhunter for longer than this boy has even been alive. It's child's play for him to catch Douxie's fist mid-air and move it aside.

That sparks anger; the kid clearly feels he's being made mock of. He throws another punch, then another and another, until he's breathing hard, his eyes watering from his anger. He's lost in his rage, and still Jim is having an easy time of it.

Finally, Douxie snaps, and a blast of magic throws Jim across the room, slamming him into the stone wall of the Forge.

And, ow, that actually hurt. Jim winces as he rises, testing. He's bitten his lip, so there's blood, and the back of his head feels decidedly tender.

Halfway across the arena, Douxie is staring at him blankly, snapped out of his fury by something actually working. And then comes the fear - fear that Jim is going to retaliate, to hurt him for what he's done.

Jim exaggerates the limp only slightly as he walks back over to the kid. "Got it out of your system now?" he asks quietly.

Douxie looks up at him, eyes wide and terrified.

"I am not going to hurt you," Jim tells him, and puts a hand on Douxie's shoulder. The boy flinches. "Claire and I are never going to hurt you, no matter what you do. Do you understand that?"

And Douxie tries to understand; Jim can see that. But he just doesn't, can't, and that makes Jim so sad. "If you want to learn to fight, I'll teach you," he tells Douxie. "But no more of this fights at school shit, okay? Because it's not going to make us give up on you."

"I just don't--" Words fail Douxie, and he looks miserable.

"Tell you something?" Jim sits down on the floor of the Forge, gesturing Douxie to join him. After a minute, the boy does. "This is where I learned to fight," Jim says, gesturing around them. "Those statues up there?" He gestures at them. "Those are the bodies of all the Trollhunters that came before me. I was just a couple years older than you, thrust into a world I didn't even know existed, and hand-picked for a job that no one got out of alive."

There's silence for a minute, then a murmur of "How did you get out alive?"

Jim shrugs. "Luck, mostly. And insisting that I wasn't going to go it alone. Every other Trollhunter had distanced themselves from their friends and family to minimize the targets for the enemy... and to minimize the pain when they died. But I insisted we were stronger together. And you know what?" He smiles. "I was right."

Douxie snorts and looks away.

"Some people," Jim says, "say anger is only a weapon for your enemy." The hunch of Douxie's shoulders lets him know he's been heard. "They're wrong." Douxie straightens up and looks at Jim, surprise written across his face. "Pointless anger, flailing, like you were doing... yeah, that's a weapon in an enemy's hand. But righteous anger... that's something else."

"What's the difference?"

"You're angry at the world," Jim says, never looking away. "And you have every right to be. But so am I. I've been angry since the day my dad walked out and I had to be the man of the house at five." He lets a glimmer of his fury at James Lake, Senior surface then disappear again. "I buried that anger for years, until Blinky's training brought it back up and I learned how to direct it. You know why I'm a social worker?" Douxie shakes his head. "Because I'm angry at world for failing kids, and I am going to make a difference."

"You... channel it," Douxie sounds out the idea.

Jim nods. "Anger can be a weapon in your hand, Douxie. But it takes control. Precision. Not just flailing about and hitting everything in range. Understand?"

Slowly, Douxie nods. "I think so."

"You want to learn how to really throw a punch?"

Douxie nods.

Jim pushes to his feet, dusts his trousers off, and reaches out a hand, pulling the kid up. "Show me," he says, and then spends a while correcting Douxie's form, showing him how to do it right.

"If you want martial arts lessons," Jim says as they leave, "we can sign you up for those. Or," he offers, "I can teach you how to fight, and we can sign you up for guitar lessons instead."

Douxie stops and looks at the ground, anger twitching across his face. "I don't want them because of him," he spits. Still clearly hating on Douxie1.0.

"Hey." Jim goes back to him, tilts Douxie's chin up with a gentle hand. "Maybe someday we'll know why you came back. Or maybe we won't. In the meantime, are you seriously going to have a hate-on for something you love just because the last person with your name also loved it? Because that seems like a really good way to cheat yourself out of the good things in life."

Douxie looks away. His shoulders hunch in. "I just... he had everything first," he complains. "Won't I ever get something that's just for me?"

Jim doesn't know how to answer that. He honestly doesn't know enough about Douxie's last incarnation to know if there's anything that this Douxie can have that the last one didn't. "I'm sure there's something," Jim says, which is a platitude, but he means it. "We'll just have to find out what it is, won't we?"

And Douxie sniffs, but doesn't resist when Jim puts an arm around his shoulders and leads him back up the crystal stairs.