Dragons, by nature, lived for a long time. That was part of the reason why Archie had decided to take Douxie on as a familiar, even though most wizards in Camelot hadn't had familiars, let alone dragons. Archie had known since he was young that if he was going to live for hundreds of years that he wanted a companion. What was the use of living for so long if you were by yourself?
Douxie was the perfect companion. As times changed, Douxie changed with them. He still stayed the same person, but he didn't just lock himself away in a tower or den for centuries like most wizards or dragons would. Douxie never tried to hide from mortals, or use his magic to make his life easier. For the most part, Douxie lived his life as though he was a mortal who just so happened to have magical powers.
Because Douxie didn't age, and mortals would get suspicious eventually, Douxie never spent more than eight or so years in any one place. It had taken the both of them some getting used to, but after nine hundred years it felt like second nature.
They would move somewhere that had rumors of magic. Douxie would get himself a simple job or two, just enough to get by. They would get to know the culture and embrace it. They would look for the local hedge wizards and encourage their practice of magic. When creatures showed up, Douxie and Archie would take care of it. This went on for as long as they could risk without people asking questions before they would suddenly move and start it all over again.
Sometimes Douxie got especially attached to the towns they visited, and he would be incredibly depressed to leave. He would be in low spirits to a year or so before he started to truly warm up to the new town or city. Archie was just glad that Douxie had never gotten that attached to a particular person. He had friends, but Douxie had always been surprisingly okay with saying goodbye to people, probably never seeing them again, and just holding onto his fond memories of them. Archie didn't know if he would be able to deal with a depressed and lonely Douxie.
They'd only recently moved to Arcadia Oaks, and Archie could already tell that it would probably end up being one of Douxie's favorite towns. There was a community of trolls that lived nearby, and they hadn't lived near them since Camelot. Douxie believed that this was actually the same group of trolls, that they must have migrated to Arcadia. The boy had expressed an interest in talking to some of the trolls, talking about the good old days, but Archie had convinced him to wait on it. The trolls were living in secret from the humans, and they didn't know how they would react to Douxie or Archie. Especially since the trolls hadn't had the best relationship with wizards back in Camelot.
Since he couldn't talk with the trolls, and the hedge wizard community in Arcadia was a little slow to trust Douxie, he started to get back into music. Douxie always loved music, and he loved experimenting with the new music trends, but Douxie only dedicated hours upon hours to music when he had the time to spare and not a lot of friends to spend it with.
Archie didn't mind the music. He loved Douxie's singing voice, and the guitar music sounded nice, but it was also loud, and after several hours of it at a time it started to make his ears ring. Archie had come to appreciate the hours when Douxie was at work and he could sleep peacefully for just a few hours. By the time Douxie came back from work he was always tired and in the perfect mood for some cuddles, which Archie always wanted.
While Archie liked it when Douxie came home just a little bit tired, he hated it when he was exhausted or distressed. Douxie still wanted cuddles when he was upset, but Archie hated seeing his friend upset.
When Douxie came home late from his job at Benoit's French Bistro and the first thing he did was groan and collapse on the couch. Archie's ears tilted back as he approached his familiar.
"Tough day at work?" Archie asked.
Douxie made a sound that was just short of a whimper. He turned towards Archie, who jumped onto the couch and nuzzled close to him. "I've been doing this kind of work for more than nine hundred years. One would think that I would be used to the customers treating me like I'm less than human, but no. It hurts even more now than it did before."
Archie stiffened and growled slightly at the back of his throat. He nudged Douxie's face forcefully. "Promise me one thing. Never get used to anybody treating you like that. You don't deserve it. Nobody does."
Douxie gave him a small smile and scratched his ears. "I'll try." Douxie said.
"Tell me about them," Archie said. He was always willing to lend Douxie a listening ear when he just needed to rant. "What happened?"
"I hit the bad customer trifecta tonight." Douxie said. "And all in one group too."
"Let me guess," Archie had heard Douxie talk about bad customers often enough that he had an idea of something they did. "They didn't tip well."
"Between the four of them, my tip was five dollars," Douxie said. "And all of them got steak and their own dessert." Archie still didn't know a lot about human money and pricing, but he knew enough to know that steaks and desserts weren't exactly cheap at Douxie's work, and five dollars didn't sound like it was quite fifteen percent of that.
"If it was just the tip, I wouldn't think twice about it." Douxie said. "Yeah, it's not a good tip, but I've received worse tips, and they're just kids. I'm not surprised they don't understand tipping etiquette. Combined with what else that happened though…" Douxie groaned again. "Do you know how they ordered their steaks?"
Archie didn't say anything. He knew that Douxie didn't need encouragement to say what was on his mind. Sure enough, Douxie soon continued.
"Three of them ordered their steak well-done." Douxie sat up slightly. "Well-done!" Archie cringed. Douxie frequently brought home food from the bistro. The owner didn't want any food to go to waste, so even though it technically wasn't allowed, when they had excess food or a meal was sent back to the kitchen by an unhappy guest, the owner allowed the employees to take what they wanted.
Even after nine hundred years, Douxie had never been one to refuse free food. He even happily took home the food that maybe wasn't so good, because Douxie felt that if he was going to be a proper waiter, he needed to know the good and bad parts of the menu.
Archie appreciated the free food, but he'd tried well-done steak, and it definitely wasn't his favorite. It had the texture of tough leather, and almost tasted like that too. If Archie hadn't had proper steaks before, he would have wondered why humans were so fond of this meal.
"I don't blame them for ordering well-done steaks." Douxie said. "They're just kids, I wouldn't be surprised if none of them have had a steak before. Usually, the customer is always right, even if they're completely wrong, but it looked like they were on a date, and I wanted them to have a good time, so I told the kitchen to cook the well-done steaks as medium rare instead. My supervisor really didn't like that."
Archie whined slightly. "Did you get in trouble?"
"I was scolded for fifteen minutes." Douxie said. "And when I told him exactly what they ordered, I got in even more trouble. He didn't seem to believe that Claire really did order her steak raw, dripping with blood. My supervisor just thought that I was disrespecting him and the customers."
"So you got in trouble for trying to give the kids a good experience, and then you got in trouble for remembering exactly what the customer wanted?" Archie frowned. That didn't sound fair.
"For a few minutes there I thought I was going to be fired." Douxie said. It wouldn't be the first time he'd been let go from a job, but it wasn't something that had happened in quite some time. "The only thing that waved me was the head chef. He defended me, and then it turned into a fight between the two of them, with me stuck in the middle."
"No wonder you're so tired." Archie leaned against Douxie, nuzzling close to him.
"That wasn't even the worst thing that happened." Douxie said quietly. He pulled Archie close. "I thought I was friends with these kids, especially Claire, but she…" Douxie's face crumbled and he looked completely devastated, not just a little tired and upset. This wasn't a normal bad day at work. Something truly terrible had happened.
"What did she do?" Archie asked.
Douxie took a deep breath and seemed to try to sink back into the couch. "She called me a servant."
Archie's fur bristled. This was far from the first time that Douxie had been called a servant or slave. A few hundred years ago there had even been a short period of time where Douxie had been enslaved by a woman who had discovered he had magic. Those had been a rough couple of years.
Archie knew how much Douxie hated being dehumanized like that. It made him feel small and insignificant. Douxie had dealt with it a lot back in Camelot, and it had taken him nearly a century to realize that everything that Merlin, Morgana, and everybody else had said about him hadn't necessarily been true. He'd just been an easy target for them to take their frustrations out on.
Douxie had spent a long time learning how to stand up for himself and believe in his own powers. He was doing a lot better now, but anytime something like this happened, anytime somebody implied that he would never be more than a servant boy, Douxie would regress a little bit. Especially if the person who said it was someone whose opinion Douxie cared about.
"Maybe she was just joking around?" Archie asked, though he didn't have a lot of hope. If it was a joke, it definitely wasn't a funny one.
Douxie shook his head. "She was so cold and didn't even look at me." Douxie let out a shuddered breath and buried his face into Archie's fur. "I just...I really wasn't expecting it, and it hurt. It hurt so much."
"Hey, don't listen to her," Archie said sternly. He didn't know who this Claire girl was, but he wanted nothing more than to find her and scratch her tongue out. Archie wasn't normally incredibly violent, but every once and awhile he couldn't help but let his possessive dragon nature come through. Nobody could get away with messing with something that belonged to a dragon, and Douxie was definitely his.
Archie couldn't quite shove his protective nature back completely, but he had to find a different way to use it. Even if he knew who Claire was, he knew that Douxie probably wouldn't appreciate him attacking her. Instead, Archie had to be content with just laying close to Douxie and keeping him safe like this.
"I hope you know that you're not going out monster hunting tonight," Archie said sternly. "The hedge wizards will have to take care of it on their own."
Douxie looked like he wanted to complain, but Archie just hissed and dug his claws into Douxie's shirt. He wasn't budging on this. He was in a dragon state of mind right now, and he wasn't about to let his wizard familiar out of his sight. The boy wasn't going anywhere, not while he was this protective.
"Alright, alright," Douxie chuckled and pet Archie. "We'll stay in the den tonight."
Archie growled slightly at those words. He knew that Douxie was calling him out for being overprotective and intense. Archie didn't often act like a dragon, and whenever he did Douxie liked to teasingly refer to their home as Archie's den, and their belongings as treasure. It was a little annoying, but Archie actually appreciated it. He liked that Douxie was acknowledging his feelings. The boy made fun of them a little, but he had never gotten mad at Archie or tried to scold him for acting out. Douxie knew this wasn't something he could help.
"Do you want to listen to any music?" Douxie asked.
Archie hummed quietly. "No rock, and neither of us are moving from this spot." Archie knew that maybe it was unreasonable to restrict Douxie like this, especially since music always calmed the boy, but he didn't want to risk anything happening to his familiar.
"I'll figure something out." Douxie said. He leaned his head and started tapping his finger against the arm rest. Archie knew the boy well enough to know that he was tapping to music that he was hearing in his head. Archie waited patiently until the boy began to sing.
The song was a familiar one, though Archie didn't understand a word that was being sung. He loved hearing Douxie sing it though. Archie would never get tired of the accent that Douxie adopted when he sang in Gaelic. It sounded so natural, and it made Douxie feel relaxed every time.
At times like this Archie was glad that he encouraged Douxie to visit Ireland at least once every century. It may not be his homeland, but it was the land of his mother, and Douxie should connect with that part of him.
Archie closed his eyes and listened to his wizard familiar sing. Sometimes he would switch to English lyrics, but he always returned to Gaelic. Sometimes he sang drinking songs, sometimes he sang lullabies, but Archie loved it all, and he knew that Douxie did too.
It took some time, but eventually Douxie's tone lightened as he started to calm down and relax, and Archie knew that his familiar would be okay. Archie allowed himself to doze off, nuzzled close to his wizard. He knew he couldn't protect the boy from everything, and that he couldn't make his pain just go away, but at least for tonight they were both okay, and that was good enough for now.
A/N: I absolutely had to write about this particular Trollhunters Episode. Douxie deserved better, and I just needed to give him some comfort after what had to have been a terrible work experience.
Also, I just wanted to rant a bit about the stupid well-done steak thing. I don't pretend to be a steak expert, but I know enough to know that well-done is just not how you should have steak, and Jim, who is practically a foodie, absolutely should have known this.