It had taken Jim a lot of time to get used to his new body; a process he wasn't sure he would ever really be finished with. He was honestly just glad the new discoveries had slowed down some over the past couple years. But some of those discoveries had been, admittedly, pretty cool.
For instance; using his enhanced night vision to help Claire navigate an unfamiliar cave? That was pretty cool.
He ducked to avoid clipping his horns on the stalactites overhead, and stopped to glance back at Claire. She followed along behind him, her nose buried in a battered notebook. She hadn't noticed the obstacle in front of her yet.
"Careful," Jim cautioned, extending his hand toward her.
Claire blinked and pulled her attention away from her reading. She looked down, finally taking notice of the steep drop in the path.
She grinned and took a hold of his hand. "I'm glad I brought you." Taking advantage of the boost in height, she leaned forward to plant a grateful kiss to his cheek, before hopping down.
Jim beamed, his smile so doofy and smitten that Claire couldn't help but giggle.
He adjusted the strap across his chest that held a large basket against back, taking the opportunity to peak over her shoulder at her journal. "So what is it we're trying to find now?"
Claire held the journal up for his benefit. The pages were full of crude sketches of various plants, next to which were quick descriptions, the details varying from two or three words to full on paragraphs. She tapped one of the drawings; a flower with four triangular petals. "Trollbane."
"Trollbane?" Jim parroted. "What's it supposed to do?"
"It used to be used as a sort of troll repellent, I guess?" Claire responded. "Apparently trolls don't like the smell of them."
"Oh good." Jim made a face, not particularly excited about being the one to carry them back.
"They also," Claire continued, nudging him with her elbow. "Can make a pretty strong endurance potion."
Jim snorted, amused by the implication behind her words. He quirked a brow, a playful grin tugging on his lips. "And what, Miss Nuñez, do you need an endurance buff for?"
She tossed a coy smirk his way. "That's for me to know and you to find out, Trollhunter."
He froze up for a moment before chuckling nervously, his flirty confidence faltering almost immediately at her retaliation.
Claire been wanting to try her hand at potion making for a while. She'd been doing her research, hitting up a couple underground magic circuits around New Jersey. But it wasn't until they crossed paths with Douxie and Archie again that she decided to make the plunge. They were checking out the progress on the new Trollmarket and would be sticking around for a few days.
Having someone with experience available to guide her was a rare opportunity. So, he'd given her a list of herbs that any respectable potions master kept on hand and some idea of where to find them. They weren't as readily available as they used to be, so they'd require a bit of searching, he'd cautioned.
Douxie had offered to go with her, but Claire had decided to take Jim on her scavenger hunt instead; it was a familiar opportunity to double up their trollhunting duties with potential date time.
Their path sloped sharply downward and they half-skid, half-walked until they came into a large open cavern. The air was cool and tasted strongly metallic, from the underground pool across from where they stood. Sunlight filtered down from an opening far above their heads, shining across the still surface of the water.
They split up and began looking around, with Jim keeping to the edges of the cavern away from the sunlight, while Claire searched along the edges of the pool.
They hadn't been searching for particularly long before Jim's voice came echoing Claire's way: "Hey! I think I found it!"
Claire looked up, but couldn't spot him. "Jim? Where are you?"
"Up here," he called, voice reverberating from somewhere above.
Claire found the basket Jim had been carrying, sitting below a natural ledge in the cavern wall- a good dozen feet above the ground. She hopped onto her tip toes and tried to peak over it, but even from what little she could see beyond the entrance of the tunnel beyond, it was pitch black.
She cracked open her notebook again and reviewed the notes she'd taken.
"Douxie said trollbane looks very similar to another flower, but the color is the main give away. They're supposed to be red. Are they red?"
"I mean. I can't really see the color, but they look like your drawing. Hold on, one second."
A couple of beats past and Jim came leaping down from the ledge. He landed in a roll and stopped beside Claire. Sitting back on his haunches, he grinned and presented the flower he'd found. Claire giggled, and accepted it from him.
"I mean," holding up her notebook, she compared it to her drawing and, despite how rough the sketch was, it was still convincingly similar in structure; from the four petals, right down to the upward curving thorns along its stem. "They look really close, but the color's more... orangey? Isn't it?"
Jim tilted his head and shrugged. "Looks pretty red to me. There were a few more up there I can go grab them, you know, for comparison. Hold on-"
Then he was gone, half climbing, half leaping his way over the ledge and back into the dark tunnel.
When he came flying back out a few moments later, he had his sleeve pulled down over the hand he was holding the cluster of identical flowers. He shook his other hand with a wince.
"They kinda tingle when you hold them," he explained. "One's not that bad, but holding a bunch of them is actually really uncomfortable."
Claire "hm"ed and grabbed for them experimentally. There was a noticeable numbness from where her fingers made contact; they vibrated with a very potent magic.
"Do they smell to you?" She waved them under his nose.
Jim jerked back involuntarily, expecting an odor that even a troll would find repulsive, but when he gave them a cautious sniff he shrugged. "I don't really smell anything."
Claire pursed her lips and returned to her notes. "Maybe it's cause you're only half troll? But the color is still off."
"I still think they're red." Jim chimed with a shrug.
Claire paused, thoughtful. "Well," she snapped her notebook closed and grabbed for the basket. "Whatever they are, that magic has got to be good for something."
The sun was setting as they left the cave. Deciding to take advantage of some opportune datetime now that their searching was done, they set up camp in the forest above ground. Claire could portal them both back in the morning.
The wind rustled the trees outside their tent as they sat down for a quick dinner.
Once again, Claire was enraptured by her notebook. She reclined against her sleeping bag as she worked, reviewing and adding to her growing trove of magical information. Jim finished his dinner and tried keeping himself occupied with his phone, but that didn't last for long.
Not when his girlfriend was, distractingly, less than a foot across from him.
Claire didn't object as he crawled to lay across her lap, only lifted her notebook higher to accommodate him. After he'd settled, she brought her arms back down and rested the notebook against his back as she continued to write.
"I'm almost done," she promised, weaving the fingers of her free hand into his scruff. "I'm just trying to write down any questions I have for Douxie before I forget them."
Jim hummed in acknowledgement, leaning into her touch.
Before too long, she closed the notebook and tossed it to the side. She turned her attention to her boyfriend and gave him a sweet little smile. "Hi."
"Hi," Jim greeted back, heart fluttering fondly. He sat up, leaning forward to press his lips to hers.
Claire wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers finding their way into his dense mane of hair. Her fingernails grazed against his scalp and he practically melted into her touch. A familiar growling rumble vibrated throughout his chest- not a purr, as he would always defensively insist, but it was close enough that it always made her giggle.
It started as usual; innocent enough, with shy giggles and playful growls filling the spaces between kisses.
But, as it often did, things grew heated quite quickly. Hands wandered further into risky territory as their lips strayed away from each other and toward the sensitive skin of necks and collarbones.
Claire gasped as his teeth grazed her throat and he traveled further down, nuzzling against her chest. His hands had found their way beneath her sweater, the cool stony skin of his palms chilling her heated flesh as they followed along her sides.
His fingertips brushed against the cotton fabric of her bra he paused, following the band around her ribcage with his thumbs as he worked up the courage to go further.
Emboldened by the idea of further, Claire brought her leg up and pressed her thigh against his groin. Jim rumbled and bucked against her. Claire practically shivered in excitement. He seemed bolder today; maybe he was ready to-
Her hands wandered southward, seeking. She slipped her palm across the growing rigidness below his torso, following his growing length. Jim growled, throaty and deep, definitely into what was happening, before he realised what he was doing and the growl trailed off into a choked half-whine.
Claire felt him retreating, pulling back in on himself before they went too far and she bit back a frustrated sigh.
He was worried, always worried about what she'd think of him; of whatever it was he afraid of her seeing under those clothes of his. She was fairly confident that whatever he had under there was just an, albeit, much bluer version of whatever he'd had before, when he was fully human. But Jim still seemed so self conscious about it. He'd always been somewhat self-conscious to be fair, even as a human, but becoming half-troll had definitely made it worse.
She was ready to go further- they had talked about it, even- but Jim just didn't seem to be there quite yet.
Claire cupped Jim's flushed face between her hands and placed a significantly softer kiss to his lips before he retreated completely. It was important to her that he didn't feel pressured, that he understood that could take his time and she was willing to wait. If there was any person she was more than willing to wait for, it was Jim- her sweet, devoted Jim.
Sure enough, he mumbled something about needing a drink before crawling away and turning toward their bags. Claire exhaled, employing some mental exercises to cool down, as he dug around for the water bottles they'd brought on their trip.
Claire would wait; but she'd be lying if she said she wasn't feeling somewhat frustrated.
"Uh, Claire?" Jim called, the uncertain alarm in his voice enough to grab her attention. "I think something's up with that weird flower."
Claire sat up and Jim turned toward her, one of the trollbane they'd collected earlier in his hand. The petals had turned an alarmly bright shade of red and closed in on themselves until they formed a tightly closed little bud.
"I don't know if that's normal," Claire mused uncertainly. She grabbed for where she'd tossed her journal and crawled toward him
"I mean, it's red now," Jim observed, turning the flower between his fingertips.
"But I don't know what it's doing," Claire flipped pages, searching. "I'm not sure if this is just what they do when they're picked or what."
Jim blinked, nostrils flaring. He made a face, having caught wind of something. "There's definitely a smell now. But it's not... bad?" It was almost spicy, burning his nose as if he'd sniffed pepper. And the smell was getting stronger. "Actually, nevermind, it's kind of bad," he retracted his statement with a cough.
Claire reached out to take it from him. "I guess that answers the question of if we found the right flower or not-"
Her fingers grazed the bud, barely applying any amount of pressure, but that was apparently enough. The petals snapped open, so suddenly they both jumped, and a surprisingly dense cloud of red spores was fired up into their faces.
They sputtered, breaking apart as they tried to escape it. Claire blinked, eyes watering as her nostrils burned. If she could barely stand the smell, she couldn't imagine how intense it was for Jim.
Warmth spilled across her face and spread out to the rest of her body.
Wait, something was wrong.
She shook her head, thoughts suddenly foggy and sluggish. Hot. She was suddenly so, unbearably hot.
She looked over at Jim, who had pressed himself to the otherside of the tent, as far away from her as he could get without pitching it over. His breath was heavy, eyes dark and dilated as he watched her.
He was too far away, came the thought, intruding on the back of Claire's mind. He was too far away, he needed to be closer...
The heady scent of whatever they'd inhaled was stifling, leaving her feeling like she was burning from the inside out. She found herself moving toward him, not entirely aware of what she was doing, and only realising it after she'd already moved, as if watching everything in slow motion.
They need to be closer. Everything would be ok if they were just-
-Closer.
Jim growled, the sound both a warning and a invitation. The sound was exciting and Claire shivered, tingling all over. He tossed his head, as if trying to clear it. But whatever had gotten it's hold on Claire was affecting him too.
Claire reached out for him, not realizing she'd done so until she could already feel his stony skin beneath her fingers.
She wanted to say something, let him know that she was feeling this too. That she was so hot and everything around her was moving so slow.
But when she opened her mouth all that came out was a needy whine-
-And they came crashing together.