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sakon76First Romances
by K. Stonham
first released 7th March 2022
Carter goes into detention only to find (1) no supervisory teacher yet, (2) Douxie sitting in one of the other desks, and (3) a box waiting on his usual desk. It's wrapped in white paper and even has a blue ribbon and bow.
He knows a trap when he sees one.
Carter chooses another desk and sits down, waiting.
Time moves on, the hands of the clock inching around. Carter eventually frowns; shouldn't Strickler be here by now?
He looks back at his desk and jumps.
The box has moved, and is now in front of him.
He shoves it off the desk.
It falls, but doesn't hit the floor. A telltale blue glow surrounds it as it hovers in mid-air.
Douxie stands. Carter can't not look at him. "You know what?" Douxie signs, his face really angry for the first time since Carter met him. "Fuck you, Carter." He storms out of the room.
The box falls to the ground.
A few minutes later, Strickler comes in, looks at Carter quite neutrally, and without a word, sits down behind the desk at the front of the room, and digs out a book.
Waltolomew sits quietly, only half his attention on his book. He'd seldom seen Douxie as upset as his step-grandson had been when he'd left. And given how he'd agreed to give the young wizard and his soulmate a few moments alone to hopefully make up....
Well, the fact of Douxie's gift being unopened said everything that needed to be said.
Carter, however, ignores the box at his feet, working instead at his homework.
He isn't as good at pretending to ignore the gift as he thinks he is. Every thirty seconds, like clockwork, Waltolomew can see his attention drift to it, then be yanked back to the book and worksheet at hand.
He is fairly sure Leonora is not going to find Carter's work up to her standards.
Finally, at last, the hour is up. Waltolomew returns his book to his bag and stands, catching Carter's attention. "You're free to go, Mister Howard," he says.
Carter gracelessly shoves his work into his backpack and shoves to his feet.
"Don't forget your box," he reminds the boy.
Carter looks down at it, then scoops it up and stalks forward.
He is about to throw it in the trash basket when Waltolomew grabs him by the arm. "Think before you do that," he instructs, angry on Douxie's behalf. The boy deserves a better soulmate than one who treats him like this. But as this is the soulmate life has granted him, by God Waltolomew is going to do his best to bring Carter up to par.
Carter yanks his arm free. "It's none of your business," he signs insouciantly.
"That is my grandson you're deliberately subjecting to your callous cruelty," Waltolomew informs him. "I think it is very much my concern."
Surprise flashes across Carter's face. What, has he truly never made the connection?
"For the past week, you have been immeasurably cruel to a boy who looks at you like you hung the stars," Walt says, leaning back against the desk. "Tell me your reasoning. I would love to hear it. I would love to know what's turned your love of him to hate. Perhaps I can help Hisirdoux come to terms with his soulmate no longer loving him."
Something dark twists Carter's features. "Soulmates are bullshit," he signs furiously. "My dad said that to my mom. And then he fucked around behind her back and in front of her, and left us. I'm not getting caught the same way she did."
The wood of the desk creaks under Waltolomew's hands. His claws bite into its underside. "Ah, so it's the mere fact of his telling you that he will love you from now until eternity that you mistrust? The fact that his soul perfectly matches yours, and you could have been happy together? Pathetic," he spits with a growl. "Perhaps he's better off without someone who could never give him the loving trust he so craves."
Carter's eyes are widening.
"Since you're an unfit partner for the finest wizard to yet pass through these doors, I will take that," Waltolomew says, reaching for the boxed gift, "and return it to Douxie."
Carter reflexively clutches the gift.
Waltolomew raises an eye ridge. "Or perhaps you would prefer to throw it in the trash after all?" he invites with a wave toward that receptacle. "I'll simply fish it out after."
Carter looks away. "You don't understand."
"I don't understand?" Waltolomew asks. "I, whose people were created and destroyed at the whim of a witch and a monster, do not understand? Who never thought I could have the love of the good woman I am honored to call my wife? Much less the privilege of children and grandchildren?" He reaches forward, carefully tilts Carter's chin so the boy is directly meeting his eyes. "I think it's you who don't understand. One man hurt you and your mother, so you've sealed off your heart, scared to get hurt again. But unless you decide to change, you're going to be stuck like that forever."
Carter's eyes narrow, his expression flashing defiance.
"You have someone who will love you more truly, more completely, than most dare dream of. And you're throwing it away because someone else was unworthy of the devotion he tricked out of you and your mother." Waltolomew shakes his head. "So perhaps you're right, Mister Howard. I don't understand. And I'm sorry you've decided one man's unworthiness is the entirety of the human experience." And so saying, he gathers his bag and leaves, without a single backward glance.
Douxie is theoretically doing his homework. Except he's not really at all, because he's looking at the printout of the photo Strickler had helped him find. He'd bought a cheap frame for it, and it now sits on his desk, which is probably a mistake, but with it nearby, at least he can feel like he has his Carter with him. Freddy. Freddy, who'd loved him the way Carter clearly no longer does.
I had a soulmate, he thinks. And I loved him so much. And Freddy had loved him back, and they'd been as happy as the hell that was the war allowed.
Three and a half months. You can fit whole lifetimes into three and a half months.
To call it bittersweet is the most pathetic description Douxie can imagine. But he's got to hold tight to that time, to that love, and use it to bolster himself against the daily encounters with Carter.
I will not let myself be treated like shit. Never again. I deserve better than that.
Swallowing, he strokes his finger over Freddy's grinning face again, like a talisman, and turns back his Physics homework.
A couple more months until the end of the school year. He probably won't see Carter over the summer; it's easy enough to avoid people when you're not stuck in the same place for several hours each day. Then nine months of senior year. And after graduation, he'll be going with Archie to Charlemagne's lair, at least for a while, while they formulate plans. He'll never see Carter again, which is probably for the best.
He can survive this. He can survive his soulmate.
He has to.
Douxie brushes away the tears, and gets back to work.
Carter sits crosslegged on his bed, glaring at the white box with its blue ribbon and bow.
His room is bigger than Douxie's, mostly by virtue of not being crammed into a basement, but it's also plain rental white. He hasn't got posters up on the wall or anything, really, to differentiate it from a box. Even his sheets and duvet are flat blue, unremarkable.
Forgettable.
Because they don't matter, and neither does Carter.
His closet is filled with boxes stacked high, a remnant of his old life. The one where he'd thought they were a happy family. His mom keeps telling him he should unpack at least one box, add some color to his room, but Carter can't. Because everything in there, his skateboard, his soccer trophies, all of it, has memories of his father attached, and he's the one thing Carter wants to forget exists.
He's always known he was born flawed. It's kind of hard to ignore, when you have to go to special schools and be patronized or ignored everywhere out of them. He sometimes thinks he was the excuse his father was looking for, that it's Carter's fault the bastard walked out on him and his mom--
Carter sucks in a breath and glares at the package.
Fucking Douxie, trying to give him presents. Like Carter hadn't been clear enough in the last week that they were through. Forever is a lie. Soulmates is a lie. Using his stupid magic powers to make Carter see colors that weren't there? A lie.
Douxie, who'd been the first person in this shithole town to learn to talk to him. Who'd convinced half the school how to learn. Who'd showed him magic, and trolls, and kissed Carter like he couldn't believe his luck, like he never wanted to stop.
Douxie, who was anything but forgettable.
He'd wanted, so much, for Douxie to love him. But he'd turned out to be exactly the same sort of lying, manipulative asshole as Carter's dad.
Fuck him, Carter thinks, and fishes his switchblade out of his shoe and flicks it open. He slashes through the ribbon, through the paper, and watches it all fall away.
The cardboard box under the paper is clearly reused, and has Scotch tape holding it shut. Carter pulls it open.
Inside, there's white tissue paper. He peels the top layer off, then stops, because....
That's a knife.
He pulls it out carefully. It's in a gray leather sheath that reminds him of Douxie's bracelet, with neat tooled patterns. There's strings at the top and bottom, like it's supposed to be tied on. The handle of the knife is a creamy ivory white and fits just right in his hand. The carvings give good grip. Carter pulls the knife out of its sheath and nearly drops the blade in shock.
Because that's fucking watered steel and it weighs like nothing.
Wide-eyed, he tests the edge against his thumb and stops as he feels it bite easily through the outer layer of his skin.
Holy shit, I could really do damage with this thing.
He carefully slides the blade back into its sheath and looks back in the box. There's a rectangle of notebook paper, folded into quarters, which he fishes out. He unfolds it and reads Douxie's fancy handwriting.
//Carter,
It's said that the gift of a knife severs a relationship, but I've never believed that to be true. I give you this blade so that you may keep yourself safe. Its name is Little White Hilt, and it belonged to King Arthur. Yes, that King Arthur. Truly. It has some properties of hiding, so you may or may not be able to wear it openly yet have it pass unremarked on.
My love, always,
Hisirdoux Casperan Lake//
Carter sits there, blinking and poleaxed.
His heart starts to hurt. His breathing comes short. And his eyes, traitors, begin to water.
Because what the fuck is he supposed to do with this?
For all that Douxie's a goth teenager with a rough past, he is such a good kid. Jim can't help but feel proud of him, though he knows Douxie's remaking of himself in the last three years is all Douxie's own doing. Jim and Claire have been, at most, a stable platform to support him during it.
Still, Jim can't help how he feels, and somehow he and Claire have lucked out with one amazing, sassy teenager, and he loves his kid. If they can do as well with Theo, he thinks, his life mission will be complete.
"Doux?" he asks, knocking on his bedroom door. "Dinner will be ready in about ten. Can I get you to set the table?"
"Sure," the answer comes from within. But Douxie's voice sounds rough, too rough for just wrestling with homework, and Jim hesitates.
"Can I come in?" he asks.
The door opens for him, and Douxie's standing there, the rims of his eyes red.
"Oh," Jim says, and hugs his boy. Douxie burrows into his shoulder, holding on tight. "Want to tell me what's wrong?"
Douxie shakes his head.
"Carter?" Jim guesses. He'd gotten a string of informative (and angry) texts from Strickler earlier. And he really hopes, for Douxie's sake, that Carter pulls his head out of his ass. But he's not going to step in between the two of them. Parents have no place in romances.
Douxie nods, and Jim sighs.
"I'm sorry he's being a butt, Douxie. I wish I could make him realize what he's missing, but...."
"You can lead a horse to water," Douxie mumbles.
"Yeah, exactly." Jim holds on for a minute longer, then backs off a little, brushing blue-tipped bangs out of Douxie's eyes. He's never told Douxie about his brief encounter with his birth mother because he still doesn't understand how someone can just stop loving their child. But he knows, down to his core, that he and Claire and their daughter will never do to Douxie what that woman did. What Carter is doing. "I know it's not the same, but you know we'll never stop loving you, right? Not me, not Claire, not Theo." The one gift that all children should receive from their parents is love without question, reservation, or end. Jim got that love from his mom and Blinky; it is his privilege to pass it along, like the priceless heirloom it is, to his son and daughter.
Douxie's eyes are clear and easy as he replies, "I know. Dad."
Jim's heart swells. He will never get tired of hearing that word. "Come on," he says. "You set the table, I'll get drinks."
A couple minutes later, as Jim is setting glasses of milk on the table, there's a knock at the front door. He wipes his hands on his trousers and goes to answer it.
The door reveals Carter. His lips are tightly pressed together and his body is held stiff. Jim inhales sharply, glances back at the dining room, then steps out onto the porch, pulling the door mostly shut behind him. "If you're here to hurt him more," he says, enunciating clearly and not signing, because he's pretty sure his low-burning anger would make him mess up the words, "I'm going to have to ask you to leave."
Carter swallows, and shakes his head. Looking at him, Jim notices his eyes, like Douxie's, are red-rimmed. Not as much, but... Carter has clearly been crying.
Making up his mind, Jim pushes the door open and calls, "Douxie! It's for you."
Oh. Douxie stops at the threshold.
"I'll leave you two alone," Jim says, and brushes past Douxie to head back toward the kitchen. His hand rests on Douxie's shoulder for just a second. Long enough to comfort. Then he's gone, and it's just Douxie and his soulmate.
Who looks unusually nervous. "I... um," Carter signs. "Can we talk?"
Douxie wants to be angry at Carter again, to tell him no, to try and share even just a bit of the hurt Carter's dumped on him. But he can't, because what he really wants, more than anything, is for his soulmate to love him again. And that shouldn't be a thing he has to want, it should be a thing that is, that's as freely given and as unremarkable as breathing air.
But here they are.
"Sure," Douxie says with voice and sign. And waits.
"I. Uh." Carter looks down, like he's not sure what he wants to say. "I'm sorry I hurt you," he finally says, looking back up.
Douxie doesn't know what he should say or do. There really aren't social scripts for situations like this. Or, if there are, he's never been taught them. He finally settles on "Apology accepted."
Carter sniffles and looks away. "My... dad," he says. "He used to swear that he and mom were soulmates. That he loved her more than anything."
Douxie doesn't know what to say. "And?"
"And he fucking left us, after we found out he'd been cheating for years!" Carter explodes. "He's the reason Mom didn't re-up. I hate him, and I wish he'd die."
Douxie doesn't know quite what to do with that. He's pretty sure his first reaction of "seems I'm not the only one who could do with some therapy" won't be well-received.
"I'm sorry," he says instead. "I could say I'm not like him, but I have no way of proving that."
"You gave me a knife," Carter says.
"Uh," says Douxie, intelligently, because he's not sure whether that means Carter liked it or not. But Carter's here talking to him, so that must mean something, right? "I thought you'd like it?"
"You gave me a fucking magic knife," Carter says, stepping closer and poking Douxie in the center of his chest. "One that no one can even tell I'm wearing."
"Well, you have your switch knife in your shoe," Douxie says. "I thought you'd like another?"
"You gave me King Arthur's knife."
"My dad has King Arthur's sword," Douxie points out. "It's not as big a deal as you think."
"Shut up," Carter tells him. And then he's kissing Douxie.
Oh, thinks Douxie. Then, I am going to give him every weapon ever invented.
"Jim," says Claire, standing by the window and looking out at the porch, "I think we're going to need to set the table for one more."
After dinner, Carter sits on Douxie's bed while Douxie grabs the picture that shows their last lives.
"Huh." Carter runs fingers over the glass, then signs, "We really do look almost the same, don't we?"
"Yeah. I'm chalking the differences up to being about a few years younger than we were then." Douxie sits down next to him. "Can I ask a question?"
Carter shrugs. "Sure."
"Why'd you change your mind?"
Carter sets the photo down. He reaches down his thigh to where Douxie can just barely tell he has a magic knife strapped to it. Jim, he's sure, missed it entirely. "You gave me a knife."
Douxie blinks, sure that the answer makes sense somehow. In Carter's head. Not in his own.
Carter smiles and draws the blade. The watered steel catches the light. "I don't believe in soulmates. But if you ever do to me what my asshole dad did to my mom, this will carve out the pound of flesh nearest your heart."
Douxie blinks. "So you were paying attention when we read A Merchant of Venice."
"Anti-Semitic piece of bullshit propaganda," Carter agrees instantly.
Douxie lays his hand over Carter's on the knife's hilt. "If that day should ever come, I give you carte blanche. But I swear, on my wizardry, that will never happen."
"I don't believe in promises," Carter tells him.
Douxie smiles. "Then I shan't promise. Only do."
As the blade is put back away in its sheath, and he engages his soulmate in another kiss, Douxie realizes that somehow, this is it. He's got a family he loves, who love him unconditionally. He has a soulmate to prove himself to, time and time again, for both their lifetimes. And maybe someday Carter will even believe Douxie when he says forever and soulmates.
He survived.
And now he's ready to thrive.
He pulls back and opens his eyes.
"How do you feel about immortality?" Douxie asks his soulmate. "And dragons?"
