A/N: So this fic is meant to contain many things: shippy cuteness, lone trolldad and cub, Barbara Lake: extreme long distance momming champion, Jim turning into that gif of Troy from Community screaming "MY EMOTIONS! MY EMOTIONS!" slight cannibalistic creepiness (thanks, canon), slowly-building plot, and endless jokes about how terrible NJ is made by someone who actually grew up there.
It's also heavily about travel and the outdoors written by two people who've traveled cross country and love the outdoors.
Warnings for canon's usual cruelty to animals and the trolls dealing with the urge to chomp on some convenient bipedal protein sources like in the Dark Horse comic about their first journey cross country.
Sweet Discourses
by Kate and Kira
Chapter 1: BRB
Sequoia National Forest, California
Claire plucked one of several fire hazards out of her hair. The dry, brown pine needles were sticking pretty badly in her increasingly greasy locks. She'd taken her armor off within minutes of emerging from the tunnels into the woods, but after a week in it, she still felt grimy despite the fresh, open air.
"Really, I feel you," she said idly to the drought-stricken forest, chin resting in her hand as she watched the sunset. "I need a shower about as much as you do."
A tree had fallen that day - right in front of the cave that led to the tunnels sheltering the trolls. It was the first sequoia she'd seen fallen, but not the first she'd heard in her exploration of Sequoia National Forest and its paths. There was no chance she could move it, and no one had answered her calls when she'd shouted through the narrow gap left between the roof of the cave and the massive trunk of the sequoia. Until Jim returned from his trip back into the tunnels to check on the trolls still travelling Northeast towards them, Claire was barred from the underground.
And barred from the small stream of freshwater they'd found there, where she'd intended to wash up in the heat of midday. She hadn't found running water outside of the cave. With the sun going down, and the heat going with it, she'd lost her chance for a shower that day.
That's what she got for peeking ahead on her own.
Oh well. No one was dead, and no one had complained about her human grime. There were far more serious things for all the trolls to worry about as they tried to make their way to the east coast.
Trollmarket's gyre had been intact after Gunmar's invasion, but barely. They'd scavenged what they could before moving on, but many tunnels were damaged or blocked and with the heartstone dead, there was no chance to open or repair them. The tunnels left had been mostly dangerous routes in need of renovation, and the gyre hadn't held up for all the travellers.
The gyre broke down completely 20 miles from the tunnel's end in Sequoia National Forest. The trolls that made it all the way awaited the others in the caverns at the forest's edge. Fortunately, 20 miles was easily within a day's walk for the trolls, who didn't tire quickly. Jim had taken the daylight hours to go back and meet them, while Claire had taken the daylight hours to scout ahead. It would take time for the whole population to rest up and recover from their battle with Gunmar, but it was time Claire could use to find them the safest, most tree-covered route northeast through the forests.
But even this close to sunset, the trolls were deep in the caves, busy with that rest and recovery, and Claire was stuck on the front porch until Jim came to find her after sunset.
That would be soon. The sequoias stood nearly black against the orange sky, the last gleam of pure sunlight glimmered at the edge of a trunk. Claire glanced back through the slot of peephole into the cave system. No more light fell inside the cave, but no familiar blue eyes peered out at her from the shadows yet. She sighed, brushed her unwashed hair out of her face again, and turned back to the setting sun to wait -.
"I wondered where you were."
Claire perked up at the familiar voice behind her, and at the sudden shaking of the tree beneath her. She spun around to see those familiar blue eyes after all.
The tree shook again as Jim tested its weight. "Did this just randomly fall?"
"They fall a lot these days. The rangers at the visitor center said drought and beetles are killing a lot of trees in the park."
"I've got it."
"Are you sure? You're still hurt."
"It's fine, it seems pretty light." Jim ducked out of view and Claire scrambled off the tree, stepping back to a safe distance. "You know," he added, voice muffled by the entire sequoia between them. "For a giant tree anyway."
Jim dug his fingers into the wood with such ease it made the tree look like it was made of butter. He hoisted the trunk from one corner of the cave, levering it up until he got a shoulder underneath, and then enough footing to slide the trunk across his back.
Claire would've been lying if she'd said watching Jim lift heavy things didn't make her heart go pitter pat just a little bit. It had been the same even before he was this strong. Watching him make his magical boy transformation into a knight for the first time and then kill an entire horde of goblins had left her feeling the same tingly awe. Lifting a whole sequoia - even just the top half of a sequoia - was a level up, and almost worth having to wait this long to see.
Jim pivoted the sequoia, teeth gritted with effort as he walked the trunk far enough from the cave that Claire wouldn't have trouble getting back inside. The crash of the landing tree when he dropped it shook the forest, and Jim shook the tension from the lift out of his shoulders.
When he was done, Claire stepped back up and put her arms around his waist, leaning happily into a hug. "I missed you today."
Jim looked down at Claire with a dopey look that she not only had come to expect, but had made an entire habit of basking in. He rested his hands on her back in a hug about as gently returned as he could safely give her while still in his armor.
"Sorry I was gone so long. Everyone got pretty cranky over the hike and Blinky needed some help keeping the peace. There was a lot of unnecessary shoving and tripping." He paused, staring into space with almost a battle-hardened look. "And hair-pulling. And taunting."
Claire giggled. "Fully grown trolls?" she feigned shock. "Resorting to taunting?"
"So many different voices shouting, 'I'm not touching you, I'm not touching you!'" Jim said, rolling his eyes. "So many more shouting 'Stay on your side!' Blinky and I had to tell them that if they didn't stop fighting we were going to turn this pilgrimage right back around."
"Well, if we do have to turn it around, it won't be because we ran out of routes," Claire said, eager to share her own day's work with Jim. While he'd been wrangling a bunch of cantankerous sentient rocks, she'd had the pleasure of a long ramble through the woods, and she wasn't upset about her progress. She stepped back from his hug and took his hand, pulling him along to her backpack and supplies. "Let me show you what I found today."
For a second his four-fingered hand curled entirely around hers, like an envelope. Claire squeezed his hand gently. It was the only unarmored section of his skin she was able to gently touch, apart from his face.
She pressed her lips together and looked at his amulet. "Any luck powering down today?" she asked, trying to make it sound light. As much as she liked hugging Jim under any circumstances, hugging armor 100% of the time was not an ideal - and it had to be even less ideal for him, to be sealed away in a tin can for as many days as he had by then.
Jim drew in a long shuddering breath, as if trying to calm himself down from a fresh wave of claustrophobic anxiety. He shook his head.
"I've tried concentrating on it, I've tried not thinking about it, but nothing's working." He touched the amulet with his five-fingered hand, his fingertips toying with the edges like he was resisting the urge to pluck it out with his fingernails. "Troll digestion must take longer than human digestion so this is a little less uncomfortable than it would be if I were stuck while human, but…" He swallowed thickly. "There's a part of my brain that keeps freaking out. Like, 'What if this is permanent? What if this is your skin now?' But it can't be, right?" He pulled his ungloved four-fingered hand from Claire's and looked at it. "The rest of my skin's tougher than it was but it's not stone like it is for the trolls."
"I'm sure it's not permanent," Claire said. "When you first got the amulet, did it work perfectly every time?" She was genuinely curious. She'd never really asked Jim how long it had taken him to get used to his new magic artifact.
"Oh heeeeck no," said Jim. He sat on a rock as Claire dragged her backpack over and dug inside. "In the beginning, it was a mess. It kept just reacting to my moods whether I wanted it to or not." He thought about it a moment as Claire pulled out her park maps. "I was the one that changed. It wasn't that I got less scared, but I got better at shoving it down and working past it. After that, it's like the amulet went 'Well, newbie, I guess I'll leave the choice whether or not to armor up in the middle of Spanish class because you're nervous about a presentation up to you.'"
"So it's just a matter of time now before you get adjusted again," said Claire, matter-of-factly, because the alternative was too hurtful to even consider being true. She squeezed his hand again. "Remember how long it took me to get good with the Shadow Staff?"
Jim raised an eyebrow.
"Weeks. You got good with it in like the few weeks I was stuck in the Darklands. Weeks."
"There was a lot of practicing you didn't see!" And also an incident of near-drowning in the crushing depths of the ocean that she didn't want to talk about because hearing about it probably wouldn't help him calm down. "Maybe I can help you work on it tonight? After we look over routes?"
"Yeah. Yeah, sure," he said, but rather than smile back down at her, Jim glanced off over the top of her head. "I'd, uh, appreciate the help."
Claire spread a park map open as she sat on the rock next to Jim. "I got a backcountry map from the ranger station. I think I'm on to a good route for everyone to take, at least until we leave Sequoia National and get into King's Canyon."
"Uh huh," Jim said distantly. Claire didn't look up from her map, so she didn't see his gaze still directed elsewhere, his eyes narrowing slowly.
"I mostly went east today, along this ridge. There are some really good shade trees. They're sort of close together for everyone else to move through, but they look like they lead all the way to these hills here. I'd like to do some more scouting, but I bet there are good shelter caves there."
"Yep. Scouting ahead," Jim said. He hadn't looked at the map once. "Good thinking."
"The trick is finding easy enough terrain to walk through that doesn't accidentally cross any trails where everyone will be seen. Not that I've seen many people," Claire said, looking up. "Just some backpackers who were all about as crusty as me -"
She looked up just in time to see Jim tense, collect himself, and launch past her into the underbrush. He was already out of sight by the time she turned around, only the rustling of bushes indicating he'd been there at all.
"Jim?" She stood up. "Jim! Where did you go?"
More crashing in the distance was the only response.
Claire dashed in the direction of the rustling. Jim was always hard to spot in the dim, his blue skin blending with anything moonlit, his dark armor blending with the shadows, but she'd gotten good at spotting movement. There, to her left, he stood up suddenly -
"Jim! What happened?"
Jim's head snapped around and he looked at her with a wide-eyed expression like a kid with a hand caught in the cookie jar. In his actual hands was a trembling, live rabbit, stretched out in his grip, kicking futilely, and wide-eyed with terror.
Claire frowned. "Uuh -"
"Uuuuh," Jim echoed, clearly unsure of how to explain himself. "Uuuuuh."
He looked at the rabbit, then at Claire again. "Are you...are you hungry?"
Claire wanted to say kind of. "Do you know how to kill and clean a bunny?" she inquired, pointedly.
Jim looked at the rabbit as if he were confused about how it had even gotten into his hands. "I - I wasn't thinking about the second part."
The thought of another evening of Fjord Bars for dinner sounded less good compared to a campfire-roasted rabbit, but Claire held fast. Neither of them knew how to roast a rabbit. "You should let the bunny go, Jim."
"Um." He seemed to have trouble with it, like he was fighting some deep urge or instinct.
"Unless you're hungry," Claire added.
But even though she was trying to make it clear she understood, the idea of just eating a live rabbit in front of her clearly didn't sit well with him. "No, it can go. Uh. Get going there, little...little snack friend."
He gently put the rabbit down and it bolted off into the underbrush. Claire saw Jim tense against the urge to take off after it. He crouched down on all fours instead, looking faintly embarrassed, like a puppy caught doing something it wasn't supposed to do.
Most of the time, Jim still carried himself like a perfectly normal human. But he had these moments now - where he moved and postured more like an animal. It was strange for many reasons, but especially because the trolls could be wild, aggressive, and brutal, but they weren't all that animalistic. Most of them walked on two legs. Jim, however -
However Merlin had taken him apart and put him back together magically, he really had become something distinct from a troll or a human. Something distinct from a merging of the two, an entirely the new individual creature.
Something - someone who looked at Claire like he expected her to come at him waving a rolled up newspaper.
Claire strolled up instead and sat next to him, leaning against his arm. "But it was a nice almost-dinner," she said. "A nice thought for another day. When we've gone to a library with some really good field references."
She hoped he'd readjust, sit instead of crouching and let her snuggle up under his arm instead of leaning against it. Just because it was consistent work, reassuring Jim that his new existence wasn't offputting to her, didn't mean it was hard work.
But Jim growled instead, low in his throat. Clearly not at her, but at himself.
"I don't know what I was thinking! Which is the whole problem! It's why I can't get the armor to power down. My brain won't do a single thing I want it to do and it keeps doing things I don't even understand. How can I calm my thoughts if I don't even understand what I'm thinking?"
He scrabbled at the amulet with his nails, suddenly unable to resist the urge to pick at it. He picked up a stick and pried at the amulet's edge, then tossed the stick away angrily when that did nothing.
"I just want to get this stupid thing off!"
The outburst was sudden and explosive, reminding Claire that even with New Jim accepting his friends' and mother's love and his place in the world, his new troll emotions were tumultuous. She reached out to touch his cheek. "Jim -"
He jerked away from her hand. "Sorry. I - I need some time alone. If you need anything, the others are right there in the tunnels."
Claire wanted to protest, but didn't even get his name out before Jim had bolted into the forest.
Frustration washed over her, initially. She'd had Alone Time all day. She'd been looking forward to Boyfriend Time. But, she reminded herself, Jim hadn't had Alone Time. He'd had 'Wrangling A Bunch of Trolls' time, and that had worn him down.
But did that mean Alone Time was what he really needed just then? Claire got up and, just for practice, started following his trail by the disturbed underbrush he'd left. She'd catch up to him slowly enough to give him some alone time this way, but still be close if it seemed like he needed someone.
He'd said it himself. He didn't always know what he was thinking just then. And he'd run off alone to push his loved ones away before even though it wasn't what he really needed. She'd stay close just in case it turned out he needed less alone time than he thought.
Provided she could actually keep up.
Jim bounded through the forest. He didn't have much attention to spare for his surroundings, preoccupied as he was with the anxiety squirming in his chest.
Claire had shaken him out of his instant jump into 'it's wabbit season,' but he was disgusted with himself for falling into it in the first place. The jump had been so instantaneous from "calmly looking at maps" to "hunt, catch, Feed The Girl." He wasn't even hungry, but the urge demanded action.
He came to a stop in a clearing of trees next to a blackberry thicket. He scrabbled in the dirt for a stick and resumed prying at the amulet again, but the stick only broke against his armor. He summoned a glaive and picked with that instead.
"Come on, come on…"
The sharp edge didn't even penetrate a chink. Jim threw the glaive aside, into a tree where it lodged deep before evaporating into nothing.
He'd asked Merlin, earlier, how to make it power down, and even the wizard hadn't given him a helpful answer. Instead he'd just given Jim a vague shrug, a noise that sounded a little like "I'unno" and instruction to, as the modern youths say, 'Chill out.'
Useless.
"Would you please just turn off?!" he begged the amulet in frustration. " The only thing I'm in danger of right now is tearing a chunk of my own chest out with you!"
Somehow, threats of self-harm didn't get the amulet to detach. Jim groaned loud enough to send more rabbits running. The instinct to chase hit him again, overwhelming as a taste flooding his mouth. He'd already run five feet before he managed to stop himself. Panting, he sat back against a tree.
"I've tried deep breathing. I've tried prying you off. I've tried calming mantras. What is it going to take?" He slammed his fist into the ground, breaking a root. "What?! What is it going to take?!"
It didn't surprise him when the amulet gave no answer, and he slumped, defeated, against the tree.
"I really need to go to the bathroom," he said to the amulet, nearly begging again.
That got no response either. He stood up, heaving in a long, deep breath.
"Calming walk through the woods it is," he said. "Calming walk - not chasing rabbits, not attempting to kill anything - I'm just gonna - gonna take the calmest walk a troll - human - whatever - has ever taken. Which will be easy," he muttered, as he stepped through the trail-less woods, "Since I'm the only one of those that's ever done anything."
So he walked on, with what he hoped was a jaunty but calming stroll.
He walked and walked as the sunset started to fade. The night air cooled rapidly, a slight breeze whistling along his neck, reminding him of how refreshing it would be if he could just feel the breeze on the rest of his skin again.
Claire spoke of his amulet powering down like it was inevitable, and thinking of it as inevitable was calming. Not "will I ever feel the breeze again, will I ever hug my girlfriend without feeling like I'm going to crush her again," but "one night, this breeze, not just on my neck."
That would be a relief. He'd never take the breeze for granted again. He'd never taken hugging Claire for granted once, but even so, he'd take that even less for granted now -
The line of thought was good. Jim felt his heartbeat slowing down. His breaths came smoother, he stopped instinctually scenting the air for danger or jumping at every noise. Soon it might be time to try powering down again -
He stepped into another clearing and nearly put his foot down on a black bear cub.
Several rolled around in the brush, wrestling in play. The one he'd almost stepped on ran away, into the pile of the others, and all three perked up to look at him. Jim stopped cold, unsure of what to do. The closest he'd have come to camping was having a sleepover with Toby in a tent in the backyard, eating s'mores made by his mother over the stove. He'd never seriously considered real camping things like "What to do if you meet a bear."
"Hi bears," he said conversationally. "Just...hanging out, I guess?" He squinted at the three cubs. "You're a little young to be alone. Where's your mo -"
A bellow behind him answered the question. Jim turned in time to dodge a claw swiping at his stomach and jumped back just in time to avoid the swipe, but he still stood between the sow and her cubs.
"Hey hey, there's no need to fight! I can get out of -"
The bear stood up on its hind legs and took a swipe closer to his face. Jim sprang up and grabbed the top of a shorter conifer, which swayed under his weight but kept him above the ground. The bear ran for the tree's trunk immediately to climb after him.
"Don't make me hurt you!" Jim begged. "I don't want to hit a single mother!"
Ultimately, there wasn't much of a chance he'd be the one to come out of this scrap hurt, but the bear didn't seem aware of that. Jim looked around for another, taller tree to jump to, hoping the mother would just decide to ditch him and move her cubs elsewhere, but then -
"Jim? What's all that noise -"
Down between two shorter conifers, Claire unknowingly stumbled between the sow and her babies. The bear's attention jerked from Jim to Claire. She let go of the tree trunk and dropped toward the new threat -
The instinct was all-consuming again. There was Danger. Claire was near the Danger. Claire didn't have a weapon with which to channel her natural badassery against a bear. Therefore: Run.
Jim dropped to the ground, scooped Claire up under his arm like a football and bolted at top speed through the trees. Nothing else existed but Claire's weight under his arm and the absolute drive to Usain Bolt her as far from the Danger as possible.
"Jim!" Claire's yelling put a dent in his monofocus. "What the heck, Jim!"
"BEAR!" he shouted. The bear had done as he'd done, and bolted after the running figure. He understood her instincts all too well, but what could he have done other than feed into it? Jim ran until he saw a tree that wasn't a sequoia and actually had some lower branches and took a flying leap at the first one he saw. Claire, not expecting it, screamed under his arm, but Jim hit the branch and stuck the grab, crushing her into his armored side. He looked down.
Below them, the bear stared up in bewilderment. She could climb, but the branch was several dozen feet above the ground, too high to be worth the chase, especially with her cubs left alone so far behind her.
"Jim," Claire said again, her voice strained, reminding him that she was still dangling over a high, high drop that, unlike him, she couldn't survive a fall from.
The sow turned and loped back into the brush, back to her babies. The threat abated - but somehow, that still wasn't enough for his racing panic.
Jim swung up enough momentum to release the branch and jump to another, then to a tree trunk, digging his fingers and heels in to slow his descent, leaving long scrapes in the bark all the way to the ground. He didn't stop when he reached the forest floor. Claire only had time to yelp before Jim transferred her from underarm into a bridal carry and took off with her again.
"Jim, you don't need to -"
But he was running as fast as he could with Claire pressed to his chest, desperate to put more distance between them and the bears. All he heard was the rush of the wind, the thunder of his own beating heart in his ears -
"Jim! JIM!"
The background noise rising above the wind and thunder slowly took shape as Claire, calling out to him.
"You don't need to run anymore. Jim!"
He finally slowed and came to a stop, putting her down, but he still crouched there, hovering over her protectively, clutching her in his arms. He panted raggedly, sniffing the air to make sure nothing dangerous was close.
"Jim, look at me. Jim, you need to calm down now."
Her words barely reached him. He could smell at least three things to be worried about, not overly close but still closer than comfort, but Claire, oblivious, had his face in her hands now -
"Jim, look at me!" she insisted. "Talk to me, please. We've been out of danger for like, a full minute."
Jim finally looked Claire in the eye. The sight of her, still unhurt, broke a chunk out of his panic.
"Jim, I'm sorry," Claire said. "I didn't see the bear -"
A few deep breaths brought him further back. Back enough to remember that he'd been so calm just a few minutes ago, calmer than he'd been in weeks, and yet, seconds later he was halfway up a giant tree, panicked, having panicked his girlfriend, and had almost punched a single mom.
He backed out of Claire's touch, groaning, clutching his forehead and scraping his nails against his horns.
"Jim," Claire said. "Talk to me. Come on."
He just groaned again, too conscious suddenly of the armor that was still there. Might always be there.
Not getting a response was as much of a response as Claire needed. "Okay, Anxious Jim," she said, trying to catch his wandering eye again. "You're not split into ten of you right now but I can tell who's driving. Take some deep breaths until I can speak to Crispy Jim, will you?"
The small snort of laughter was the first noise she'd heard from him since stumbling on the bears that sounded a little more human and a little less wild. But he couldn't keep it up. The joke passed and Jim let out a little whine, all the discomfort and frustrating taking his senses over now that panic and adrenaline were fading. He slumped to his knees, burying his face in his hands.
Claire knelt next to him to embrace him. At her touch on his cheek, Jim leaned into her, trying to bury his face in the small space of her shoulder, his clunky horns getting in the way. Claire leaned her cheek against his forehead, resting one hand in his hair.
"It's okay," she said. "You acted so fast. You always do. You were always so quick to react when something put us in danger, and now you're even faster - that's a good reason to feel more in control, not anxious -"
Jim finally found his words. "My brain is - is - it's like it's primed to react to danger. It's all live circuits, even when I want it to calm down, it just won't - I'm always ready to hunt, or fight, even when I don't want to do either -"
"You'll get there," Claire soothed. "One day you'll remember when this used to be difficult -"
"When?!"
It burst out not as a question, more as a demand. Not of Claire, but in general. It wasn't her fault that he was impatient with the world, with himself. Jim pulled away from her abruptly, suddenly on his feet again, agitated and pacing. "Claire, I almost had it!"
"Had wh -"
"I almost - had - it - off - and then!"
And then the bears.
He let out a loud cry that trailed into a rumbling snarl of frustration, punched a nearby tree and -
Well, it must have been one of the ones that'd suffered from the drought, because the roots ripped right out of the ground. The tree, all hundred feet of it, toppled, ripping branches from other trees, then slamming other trees, crashing in a long, long torrent of noise that shook the forest even after the tree had settled.
Jim felt stupid. It had to be a huge environmental nono to go around punching the wilderness until it broke. His heart pounded out of control even as his shoulders dropped. He didn't look back at Claire. He didn't want to see her looking at him like a toddler having a tantrum - or worse, looking at him with actual fear.
But then she spoke behind him, softly, and he heard it even past his ragged breathing and the pounding in his ears.
"Some say the lark makes sweet division. This doth not so, for she divideth us. Some say the lark and loathèd toad changed eyes. O, now I would they had changed voices too, since arm from arm that voice doth us affray, hunting thee hence with hunt's-up to the day. O, now begone. More light and light it grows."
The new fluttering feeling in Jim's chest was softer and warmer than anxiety, but he still didn't trust himself to talk.
Into Jim's silence, Claire continued, "And then you say 'More light and light, more dark and dark our woes.' And the nurse says 'Madam.' And I say 'Nurse.' And then she says, 'Your lady mother is coming to your chamber. The day is broke; be wary; look about,' because she's really supportive and Juliet should appreciate her more. And I say, 'Then, window, let day in, and let life out!'"
Jim stood quiet for a little longer, took a deep breath, and said, "Farewell, farewell. One kiss and I'll descend."
He turned a fraction, but didn't lean to kiss Claire. Instead, she walked up and stepped on the jagged tree stump to peck him on the cheek. Jim smiled in spite of himself. Claire took him by the hand, gently wheeling him around to face her, and led him over to another fallen tree. She pulled him down to sit next to her.
"Art thou gone so?" She kept her eyes on his, holding him with her gaze. "Love, lord, ay husband, friend! I must hear from thee every day in the hour, for in a minute there are many days. O, by this count I shall be much in years ere I again behold my Romeo!"
His brain had to dig for all the lines. Memorizing them to begin with had been hard enough work, and the play had been months ago. But the work it took was helping him now. Focusing on the lines left his brain less power to focus on new waves of anxiety.
"Farewell," he recited, feeling the pounding of his heart wind down. "I will omit no opportunity that may convey my greetings, love, to thee."
"O, think'st thou we shall ever meet again?"
A reluctant smile curled the corners of Jim's mouth. "Okay, now that you're letting me have my line..." he said, slightly sarcastic, "I doubt it not; and all these woes shall serve for sweet discourses in our times to come."
Claire smiled back, at the tension leaving his voice. "O God, I have an ill-divining soul! Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low, as one dead in the bottom of a tomb. Either my eyesight fails or thou lookest pale."
"And trust me, love, in my eye so do you. Dry sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu." Jim's voice fell to a hush.
"O Fortune, Fortune, all men call thee fickle. If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him that is renowned for faith? Be fickle, Fortune, for then I hope thou wilt not keep him long." Claire reached up and cupped his cheek with a small, gentle hand. He leaned, reflexively, into her touch. "But send him back."
Jim covered Claire's hand with his. For a second he just took a breath - a normal, non-anxious, non-rushed breath - pressing her hand into his cheek.
"Good call," he said, with a soft smile. "Thanks, Claire."
His heart had slowed, and so had his breathing, in that space of having something that wasn't life, death, or the perpetual weight of the armor to focus on.
"Anytime," Claire said, drawing her thumb lightly along his cheekbone.
"I wish it didn't have to be anytime," Jim admitted. "But I, uh, may take you up on that. If this last week is any indication."
"I'll be here," Claire assured him. "Trust me. There's nowhere I'd rather be than here."
"Here running lines I'm terrible at remembering for a play we won't perform again, in the middle of the woods?"
"Than with you."
With another breath, Jim leaned in, his forehead pressed against Claire's. She took his hand as he curled his fingers around hers, and closed her eyes with a sigh as she returned the gentle pressure.
They sat quiet in the waning light, the only sounds the breeze in the sequoias, their own breathing, the occasional rustle of a massive pine cone dropping to the needles on the forest floor. And then…
The quiet clink as the amulet dropped from Jim's chest into his hand. The armor evaporated and faded with its usual faint glow.
That was when most of Jim's clothes fell off.
Fortunately it was only most, so the armor didn't suddenly reappear fueled by a rush of mortified embarrassment, but Jim still drew back with an alarmed exclamation, while Claire's relieved sigh turned into a high pitched giggle.
Merlin's stupid potion hadn't done anything at all to change his clothes. All the running around had ripped just about everything his transformation hadn't. The remains of Jim's shoes fell off the second he lifted his feet, and he quickly examined which seams his pants had split at. Relief flooded him as he realized he still had the basic vestiges of modesty - only the basics - and was left with fashion stylings befitting the Infraggable Krunk. His shirt was shredded -
Ho-ly crap, he was shredded. Jim pulled aside a few scraps of fabric. He was possibly more shredded than his shirt.
"I have abs now!" For half a second he was just… going to look at the bright side of things. "Does this count as a 6 pack or an 8 pack? I never understood how that actually worked. Do the very bottom muscles counts as abs or are they something separate?"
Claire, unblinking, lifted her hand to her chin in thoughtful observation of said abs. "I don't know. I don't have an answer to this question yet. I think this question deserves very careful deliberation."
"Yeah about that." Jim did not give her the time, pocketing his amulet in the one pocket left miraculously intact, rolling off the tree and bounding into the woods. "I'm sorry but there's something I've been, uh, needing to do! Be right back!"
He left Claire behind, sitting and waiting patiently, considering - with what looked like satisfaction - the new question whether her boyfriend had a 6-pack or an 8-pack.
Jim leaped into the woods at Claire's back, sniffing for the nearest water source, to take care of some long-delayed business that had desperately needed to be taken care of for too long.
When he eventually came back, his hands were still wet from lack of intact cloth to wipe them on. He shook them out in the dry air, waiting for the stream water to evaporate.
"Sorry, I, uh, I had to go to the bathroom. Badly. And find a stream to wash my hands in."
Claire giggled again as she looked over her shoulder. "I figured. Did everything -" her eyes suddenly widened, trained on something just over Jim's shoulder. She pointed, more with bewilderment than panic. "Behind you -"
"What?" Jim whirled, and saw nothing. He spun back. "What's behind me?"
He felt it, now, an alien sensation of something at his back, a whisper by his ear as he whirled -
Claire pointed furiously. "Holy shish kebab! Look! Look!"
"What are you talking aboAAAUUUGGH!" Jim turned just in time to see -
Well, it wasn't the worst thing that he could have seen, but he certainly wasn't expecting to see it.
"I HAVE A TAIL!"
Jim grabbed the tail, then dropped it as he felt himself grab it. The shock of sensation in a whole new limb was as weird as the feeling of grabbing something's tail at all, even if it was his own. Jim grabbed the tail again. "Why do I have a tail, Claire?!"
Claire shrugged helplessly. "Some trolls have them? I guess you're half the kind of troll that does?"
Jim examined his tail. It was thinner, more flexible than any other troll's tail he'd seen, with a blue tuft of fur on the tip that matched the rest of his hair. "Other trolls' tails are stubby!"
"It's not really that long."
"It's too long by virtue of existing at all!"
"Maybe it's a mammal thing?" Claire suggested. "Merlin had to make you into a half-troll by cramming a bunch of...parts together. Maybe it's a troll tail the human way?"
"I felt something uncomfortable crammed in my armor while I was fighting but I thought it was just torn up clothing. But this?" Jim gestured at Claire, holding his tail out to her for observation. "This is crazytown banana pants!"
Toby wasn't here to say it, so Jim had to say it for him. He groaned in anxious frustration and clawed the dangling shreds off his remaining Krunk pants to make sure there weren't any other surprises. The shreds of his shirt and sweater, he did away with entirely. There wasn't anything left to salvage of either.
"Okay. Okay," he said, taking a few deep breaths, and calming down as he got a full picture of his new self. "No other surprises. Nine fingers, nine toes. A tail, because I guess that's a thing now." He paused, nine fingers tracing lines of welts all over his body. "And these."
The lines looked almost like…
"Those look like the etchings in your armor," said Claire, standing up from the log to come take a closer look. "Where it glows."
"Yeah, I figured these would be here. When Morgana hit me with her magic, it felt like..." He tried to find the words. "Aside from feeling like a sucker punch, it felt like electricity heating up my armor. I think it conducted the magic a certain way as it absorbed the attack. Maybe it's like how people who get hit by lightning sometimes get burns in the places where they were wearing jewelry."
"Those are your burns?" Claire asked gently. "Well...if they scar, it just means you'll look like Blinky and the others, right?"
"Yeah," Jim said softly. He liked the sound of that. If he had to have scars, ones that made him fit in with the other trolls weren't the worst. "Yeah, I guess I will."
He looked again at the remaining shreds of his pants, and frowned. "How far are we from the nearest Bulk-mart?"
"Pretty far," Claire said.
"Uhhhh." Jim considered the handful of shreds that had once been his sweater. "That's...going to make getting new clothes difficult, isn't it."
"Are you cold?" Claire asked.
"No. I don't get cold or hot as easily as before."
"Then it's okay," Claire said, soothingly.
"But...this is a problem."
"Or maybe it's the opposite of a problem."
Jim was about to ask her to explain her logic, before suddenly realizing there was probably no logic behind it.
Claire's eyes flicked from his - 6 pack? 8-pack? Whatever it was, back to his face, with her lips pressed together in a smile that looked like she was having to work very hard to keep her words in.
"...How opposite of a problem is it?" Jim asked, and he couldn't stop himself from smiling.
Claire let a small giggle escape.
"Greater freedom of movement isn't a bad thing," she said, a perfectly logical answer. Then she gave the perfectly non-logical one, "And let's just say that when I decided to run away with you I was expecting a lot of scenic views. That's the whole point of traveling, right?"
"Are you sure you're not possessed again?"
"Nope."
"Brain-swapped with Mary Wang?"
"Just take the compliment, Jim. It won't kill you. I don't have to be brainswapped with Mary to think my boyfriend's hot. You may have changed but that hasn't. Now come here." She opened her arms, and stepped up on a root, putting herself closer to Jim's shoulder-level. "I get the first hug without armor."
Jim couldn't stop himself from sighing in relief as she wrapped her arms around him. Claire was gentle, avoiding his raw magic burns, and her cheek was warm when she rested her face in his neck. He wrapped his arms around her too, resting his chin on the top of her head, and hugged her as tightly as he could without it hurting too much. She tightened her grip to match.
The worst part about being stuck in the armor hadn't been the claustrophobia, it'd been the lack of touch. He was a pretty affectionate person to be so suddenly cut off from hugs or touches from his mom and from Claire, and even from Blinky and Tobes had been almost painful.
They hugged for a solid minute. Behind Jim came a thwip, thwip of movement as his tail flicked around happily, unconsciously, like the stupid thing had a mind of its own.
It was nice. The way she saw him. The way she didn't talk about his new form as if it were better or worse, the way she just … liked him in either shape. It was nice not to have to miss the way she saw him, when he was still - on some level - missing the way he'd seen himself.
"We should go back to the others," Jim said, at one point.
"Eventually," said Claire. She didn't undo her embrace.
"Right," Jim said, still hugging her back. "Eventually."
It wouldn't kill their traveling companions if he and Claire hugged for five minutes straight.
The next evening, Barbara Lake sat around her dining room table with the Domzalskis, Nunezes, Arrrgh, and takeout.
Barbara had made it very clear Toby was welcome around the house almost any time, He'd already taken her up on that offer multiple times in the week Jim and Claire had been gone, but only as often as Barbara promised that she wasn't going to be the one doing the cooking.
A few times he'd stopped by to talk about Jim with someone that missed him just as much. A few of the other times, it seemed like he was checking up on her at Jim's request, and doing it entirely without subtlety. Far be it from trying to avoid places he and Jim spent time together, Toby seemed to take comfort in occasionally swinging by. Tonight, he'd brought his Nana and Arrrgh in tow.
The Nunezes had come over for similar reasons. They missed their daughter, and Barbara thought it was a good idea for all of them to take some comfort in each other's company.
That comfort was taking the form of listening to Toby's stories about adventures he'd had with Claire or Jim, or heard about from them. One such story that Jim had relayed to Toby was a very familiar one, when Toby retold it to the Nunezes. At the time, Jim's odd behavior had alarmed them, but with Toby's explanation of what really happened, that incident had suddenly become a lot more funny than alarming.
So they spent the rest of the evening regaling the others on their version of events.
"- and each time I turn around, somehow he's acting stranger," laughed Javier, wiping a tear from his eyes. "One minute he's charming the teachers and swanning around the backyard on his tip toes, another time he's cowering under a picnic table! And each time with a different sweater. I'm starting to think this kid has to be on something, especially after trashing our house. Clearly, it's time to get the shotgun."
"Each time he's popping up and being the center of attention, Claire runs up looking like she's about to tear out her own hair, and drags him off, like a game of boyfriend whack-a-mole!" said Ophelia. "She must have been stashing them all in her room! I guess all she could think to do was just round up all her Jims and hide them in her room like she was a squirrel storing them for winter."
"Multiple boyfriends in her room, spontaneously multiplying," continued Javier, pouring his wife more wine. "The waking nightmare of the parents of any teenage girl, trust me."
"So I get up to give my speech to the teacher's union," Ophelia went on. "You know, the usual, about making the city safer. He pops up again, this time in a green cardigan and starts talking like Colonel Discomfort from Empty Steel Magazine, about how he won't be the hero the city needs, but the hero it really deserves, one who will make the tough choices. Then he says he's going to run for Council instead."
"Ophelia was about to lose it, I can tell she's about to blow her top, and I know I should be saying something to the kid or telling Claire he's got to go, but I'm standing there holding Enrique and at this point, the only thing I can think to say is -" Javier paused for a moment for timing "- 'Just how many different colors of the same cardigan do you own'? How many did you bring to this barbecue? Where are you stashing them all?"
Barbara wiped tears from her eyes. Nana Domzalski laughed her bubbly little chortle, Arrrgh! smiled, and Toby hung on Javier and Ophelia's every word, enthralled by the details that Jim had been too embarrassed to tell him.
"Barbara, even if it was just one small part of him that was charming the teachers, if this whole being-their-champion thing gets boring for him, you should tell Jim to look into whatever it is that passes for troll politics." Ophelia looked to Arrrgh. "Do your people have politics?"
"...Ticks?" clarified Arrrgh, confused. "We have ticks. Very big. Eat magic."
"What, like, you have them right now?" Toby asked, edging away slightly.
Arrrgh's explanation was cut off by Barbara's phone, ringing with the tone she'd set up just for Jim's texts.
"Oh, that's Jim!" She quickly pulled out her phone. "He says, 'Hi Mom, making good progress, everyone's doing okay. We're at a gap in the tunnels but Claire was amazing as usual and got us information and maps from the visitor center. We'll ask if we need any help. Also, look what I did!'" Barbara frowned. "'Look what I did?' Oh, wait, he's sending something else -"
Up popped a selfie of Jim and Claire. Claire's face was smudged with dirt and her clothes showed the wear of a week of travel. Jim wore a Sequoia National Park zip d-up hoodie, in what was probably Men's XXXL and a beaming smile.
"He powered down the armor!" Barbara gasped. "Finally. He was having trouble, I was getting so worried."
"He did?" Toby stood on a chair to see over her shoulder, then to take her phone. "He did! And Claire bought him a hoodie. That's a good color on him. Look, Nana, it brings out his fangs."
Nana adjusted her glasses at the screen before her. "Oh, I see. Very handsome!"
"Good color," Arrrgh agreed, gently tapping the screen.
"'PS I guess I have a tail now,'" Toby read. "Um. Okay. Well. He didn't send a picture of that."
Councilwoman Nunez was busy looking at her own phone, which was blowing up with similar texts from Claire. "Claire says the hoodie was expensive." She looked meaningfully at her husband.
Javier sighed and took out his own phone. "I'll log into Pay-pal."
"I'll pay you back, Javier," said Barbara, "let me get my checkbook. "
"Those tourist trap gifts shops do drive up the dollar," Toby observed, sagely