Angst

Warmth...

Hisirdoux had always liked warmth. Because before Archie had bonded himself to Douxie's young self and had warmed him from then on with his body and his dragon's own inner fire, he had always been cold. And especially these cold nights of his childhood while living on the streets or in the wild woods still haunted him in some dreams.

Douxie knew that he wasn't asleep though. He was far too aware of his surroundings for that: Zoe was lying next to him on the beautiful dark ceramic bench and Archie had made himself comfortable on the roof of Arcadia's Sauna & Bath, he sensed.

His familiar had never accompanied Zoe and Douxie when they had gone to the sauna late at night so far, giving them privacy in case their togetherness became more intimate than the house rules of the sauna actually allowed.

But frankly, Douxie didn't like the normal saunas that much. They dried out his skin too much, while the intense heat gave him an uncomfortable burning sensation. It was Zoe who loved it, and because he loved Zoe, he went along again and again since the first time she had mentioned relaxing in the sauna after finishing their dates.

This warmth, however...

Wrapped in the steam, he enjoyed this pleasant temperature and willingly opened his body and magical core to absorb the more comfortable heat and store it within for as long as possible so that it could save him from the cold in his sometimes still occurring nightmares.

Douxie didn't know how long they both lay in the steam room. Archie somewhere above them must have dozed off too and so he lost all sense of time for the outside world. But at some point his guts contracted painfully out of the blue and his eyes blew wide, startled.

Something was wrong!

Something… wet stung his right eye and then flowed down his cheek. Nervously, he wanted to swallow the rising feeling of unease, but an unpleasant tingling sensation in his throat made it difficult. Confused, he frowned. What was it that had come over him so suddenly?

In an attempt to shake it off, he tried to sit up, but this caused him to become abruptly aware again of the warm heat that surrounded him from the tips of his toes to the ends of his hair, while the drops of water on his skin felt disturbed and streamed down his body like raindrops all at once. Rain that soaked him through and through, while the flaming inferno in front of him captured his gaze, paralyzed his limbs and froze his thoughts to ice!

Next to him and yet somehow far away, he heard someone calling. But he didn't understand the words. Didn't feel the hands that reached for him and gently shook him. All he saw and heard were her eyes clouded with immense agony in her face framed by burning hair and her fainter calls for him to run and hide.

"Mam..." he whispered, realizing his field of vision was blurring as a feeling of pressure spread through his chest. With effort, he lowered his head and saw that his hands were shaking uncontrollably. At the same time, he suddenly heard breathing that was much too fast, and somehow he realized that it could only be him.

"Dou... xie..."

Gripping his knees, he tried to get the shaking under control. But a few moments later he realized that his whole body was now trembling!

"Douxie..."

What was wrong with his breathing? Fog seemed to gather in his head, growing denser by the moment and he could no longer feel the bench underneath him where he had been sitting for what felt like an eternity.

"Shit! Douxie, come on, wake up! What's going- Archie! Thank Đirona,you're here. I don't know what's wrong with Douxie!"

"Why did you bring him into this damp bath? It's no wonder he's having such a mental breakdown!"

"What? What do you mean?"

The voices next to him sounded loud and panic-stricken, and yet he couldn't really manage to focus on them and shimmy his way back to reality. He continued to see only her blue eyes, from which life was slowly draining away. Her hands, formerly clenched into fists and now burned, had already opened and hung down lifelessly. It was only moments before she would find his gaze one last time before he would see her soul wander on. She-

A sudden pain in his upper arm tore him away from the sight. A pain that manifested itself in a scream that opened his throat and brought his mind to the there and then. Turning his head, he saw Archie just dislodging his teeth from his skin and reflexively he raised his hand to his upper left arm.

"You... bit me?"

"Well, it helped, didn't it?"

"What in Đirona's name is going on here, Douxie? What just happened?"

Zoe's tone was demanding, but he could also hear how startled she was by his behavior, and immediately the seed of a guilty feeling awoke in him. She had been so looking forward to this new steam bath and what was he doing?

"I'm sor-"

He had barely turned his body any further in her direction when more showers of water droplets started to wander on his skin and he felt the memory immediately grasping at him again.

"I need to get out of here..." he groaned, nearly falling off the bench as he tried to leave the room faster than his legs were willing.

Douxie would have to apologize to Zoe tomorrow, because he was just barely able to throw on his clothes as if in a trance and stagger home, where he dropped onto his bed, clinging to Archie and sobbing soundlessly.