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Merlin’s staff feels weird in his hands.
A distant voice in his head supplies that is because it’s slick with sweat. Strickler finds it curious.
You would think sweating is a somehow rare occurrence for someone who has stone for skin most of the time. Then again, it wasn’t his troll nature who put him in this particular predicament, was it?
He can feel Barbara’s eyes on him, wild and apphrensive. She is undoubtedly scared, but Walter knows it isn’t for her own life she fears.
Her fists are clenched, her forearm trembles under Angor Rot’s unforgivable grip, trying and failing to break free. It’s for his life she is fighting. And for Jim’s - who for all they know is still miles away on another desperate quest or is being sent on a fool’s errand by Merlin, following a silver lining that keeps disappearing before their very eyes at every turn.
Looking for a way to save them all before it’s too late.
The crucial nature of the choice he’s about to make has Walter’s breath catching up in his throat. The way the emerald in front of him glows in the dim light of the cavern reminds him of another weapon, a blade made of pure daylight and suddenly the Trollhunter is all he can think about.
Has it already been that long since that fateful day? When Jim came to him in a hurry, eyes big and hands moving nervously as he tried to make sense of this new reality that presented itself to him without warning, tearing apart all he knew about duty and existence. Strickler recalls in eerie details the way time and space seemed to shift that day inside his office, how the sound of a single wooden chess piece hitting the chessboard resonated like an avalanche in the silence that followed Jim’s confused revelation.
He used to think it was fate the sun rays chose that exact moment to shine upon the amulet’s surface, its glint catching his eyes just in time before his head was turned completely, away from the boy and from all that could have been.
He isn’t so sure anymore. He isn’t sure of anything as of late.
The fall of the Janus Order, his time away from Arcadia left him with few fixed certainties. One of them is that he doesn’t want to go back. Back to when all he craved was to hurt him. Hurt them.
It feels like a lifetime has passed but he remembers the first time he noticed young Domzalski’s eyes burn with undying loyalty every time he looked at his best friend. He remembers wanting to take advantage of that to break him and Jim apart, like you would do with spoiled puppies who refuse to let each other go. How stupid of him, thinking they would give up under such inconsistent and insignificant pressure. As if their friendship wasn’t forged on years of shared experiences and big toothy smiles that were always able to erase any trace of tears, anger of exhaustion from faces way too young to be anything but goofy.
He remembers laughing to himself of the way Jim blushed when Claire’s hand brushed against his. He never gets tired of watching his students struggle with painfully awkward puppy love. When it all inevitably crushes and burns they come out of it changed, more mature in most cases. Walter liked to call it a test of strength: inevitable, simple and always the same.
Until he realized it was anything but.
He isn’t one to obsess on the lives of teenagers who served as his enemies for months but since he got back he couldn’t help but notice something changed in the way those three hold each other close. Toby’s hands are quick to find Jim’s cheeks anytime the other boy looks distressed. He’s also always the first one to notice if something is wrong, he never leaves Jim’s side if he can help it, offering quiet comfort and loud laughter in equal measure. Jim’s fire in combat always doubles when he feels like Toby could be in danger - his old self would have wrinkled his nose at such display, pointing it out as an obvious weakness.
His present self is almost jealous of such love, such unconditional trust and affection. In all his centuries he never got to experience something like that, not even from his fake family who lived in a time where everything was fleeting and destined to die out way too soon, like a moth drawn to a flame. He isn’t sure he’ll ever get to live through something like this now. Lies have taken over his life one time too many and he managed to destroy the only relationship he ever wanted to be more than just an affair of convenience.
“Sometimes deceit is the only option” “Lies may work for you, but not me”
From Claire’s part he saw quick pecks on the nose and other subtle signs of affections that aren’t always physical, her attention never wavers when she’s looking at the other two. He caught her looking at him with steel in her brown eyes more than once when talking to either Jim or Toby. Her face still and hardened by a determination Strickler doesn’t recognize and for all his centuries, that’s something that gives him pause every single time.
All three of them have these moments where they just stare into each other’s eyes for minutes at the time without speaking, lost in their own world. Those are the only times Walter has seen the tense lines marking Jim’s face relax a bit, his gaze becoming less haunted and softer around the edges.
-
He remembers all that and more, things he’s not sure he will ever understand.
And then of course, he remembers slipping cursed totems in Barbara’s tea - linking their lives together. Brutally crushing the pang of guilt who surged forward the second she looked at him with those bright blue eyes. The same eyes Jim has, although clouded with worry and fatigue more often than not.
He doesn’t want to get back to the past - to be the one responsible for that pain again. That frustrated, strangled sound Jim had let out in the backseat of his car, all those months ago, when he realized he had no choice but to leave his mother’s fate at his mercy. That rage that mounted in waves behind Barbara’s eyes when they sat together on her couch and he was laughing and laughing of his fights with Jim, of his cold unforgiving hands around his throat.
“How'd you let this one go, Barbara?” “He tried to kill my son.”
He has done more than just that, Walter knows this.
He stripped Jim of his trust like a lion slices meat from a carcass, claws deep and brutal. A merciless killing that keeps hunting him with its domino of unforeseeable consequences that ultimately led him to this point.
It started small, almost harmless. What was the life of a single boy compared to the glory of Gunmar’s reign on Earth? But the split between Mr. Strickler, high school teacher and occasional confident and Stricklander, traitorous impure who worked in the shadow of Bular’s bloodthirst had been more painful than he expected.
“I called him Young Atlas”
Bular was wearing a devilish grin as he uttered those words. Strickler can still feel the surge of panic rising in his chest, still see his eyes flashing yellow at the crushing, impending thought there was no going back. He used to think that was because if Jim knew, he couldn’t be a double agent anymore (and usefulness is everything when you work for the Lord of the Darklands). But now he knows that ice he felt crawling down his spine was a sign of how everything was changing. For good this time.
He avoided facing the aftermath of that loss like he always did. Choosing boiling rage and defiance in the face of someone who had smiled politely at him just the day before on his way out of class, all sheepish voice and teenage insecurities. He was angry at Gunmar for forcibly tearing the human side of his life apart, angry at Bular for taking that choice away from him and he was angry at himself for not seeing that coming. For thinking that Changelings could ever be more than sacrificing pawns to the eyes of the Gums-Gums lord. But it was another who paid the price for all that harshness, all that deafening loneliness.
Intruding Jim’s home had seemed such a good idea at the time. Watching him squirm, defiling his safe space until it reeked with fear, making him submit. No one had to die, not really. He could just hand over the amulet, abandon any futile resistance and keep his life, his mom and his nightmares. Grow and morph into an adult just like Strickler: bitter and unsatisfied with the state of things. At least he’d be alive.
Oh, but Jim isn’t one to surrender. Never was. Not even then, at the very beginning when the shadows still clung to his light like poisonous vines, wanting him to feel weak and unworthy of such mantle. That night, facing him as the enemy Walter truly made himself to be, the boy had put on a firm gaze and fought with an even firmer hand. Not even his true form, his sharp blades and his cutting words managed to quell the fire in Jim’s eyes. He really had a fierce protection instinct hidden under that meek appearance, who knew.
It was all a blur from there. Memories blended in Strickler’s mind like drops of colors on a canvas: splash of green blood on white walls, echoing voices, burning pain and wet hair. Fear (so much fear, it weighted on him like a blanket made of thorns) and irrational decisions. The path towards his downfall was paved with arrogance and regret.
He’d love to think that past is behind them now. That he gets to choose not to be him anymore. Stricklander the Traitor, Stricklander the Selfish. He can do better, he can be better. But right here, right now - with the fate of the world in his hands, he can’t think of the future either. Not when all he sees is the earth painted Gunmar black and Jim’s lifeless body lying in the dirt, battered and broken.
-
He thinks of the boy fighting Angor Rot. Another threat Walter brought upon him without even caring about the consequences. He thinks of him standing tall, without his sword - his young face scarred by something deeper than a glowing mark. He was confronted with something impossibly old, impossibly powerful and he fought (and won) like there was no other option left but to survive. And there really wasn’t. Not when his friends looked at him like he just hung up the moon every time he smiled and the people he had sworn to protect counted on him to save them all. Leave it to Jim to try standing up to everyone’s expectations while simultaneously proving everyone who ever though ill of him wrong.
“Your idealism is nearly contagious.”
He thinks of Jim taking the blame for himself -wearing it like a cape- before anyone else could even start feeling bad about their own missteps. He wasn’t the one who destroyed Angor’s soul. He didn’t even want to fight. He found himself washed away by the events and he once again did what he had to not to drown.
He was centuries old and he still had come to a 16 years old boy for protection. He had watched as Jim struggled before accepting, a sense of urgency roaring beneath his skin to just make him do it. He was an ancient beast and he was the one with Barbara’s fate’ strings wrapped around his fingers. The Trollhunter would obey him.
“Think of your mother. Think of your friends.”
A low blow that made the shadows under Jim’s eyes deepen but he didn’t care at the time. Strickler was already thinking of himself as way past redemption by then. He was scraping for crumbs, trying and failing to have everything under control again but the more he pushed, the more it all slipped through his fingers, leaving him with ashes and a desperate need to survive. So he bared his teeth and spitted words that were meant to hurt, wearing that cruelty like a second skin.
Jim did think of them. Because of course he never puts himself first. Not even when it means getting almost killed in his own home. The one he shares with his mother. The only place he allowed himself to still be just Jim, with his receipts and his vespa posters that make him dream of a better place. He tried calling for help and Walter mocked him for it, still blind to how his friends made Jim feel safe, made him feel worth of this fight, of his task. He still wonders to this day if maybe a part of him just wanted to make him feel as alone as he was feeling, against a threat too big to confront on his own. He didn’t know that was anything but a new feeling to the boy.
He thinks of Jim taking him out of his cage and offering him his hand to stand. He almost felt Barbara’s blood staining his claws like a physical thing as he took it. Strickler distinctly remembers how fragile the boy’s shoulder felt under his palm as he offered him a second chance. And still he stood. Unarmed, unbent, unafraid.
After that, it was easy to offer the Eye of Gunmar as a last parting gift. Walter had nothing more to lose. He was going far away, unconsciously taking Barbara’s memories and Jim’s peace away with him. He had let a teenage boy protecting him with his body and his promises, but he was still leaving him to fight a battle he started. Still, that felt like the only possible outcome at the time. Not the right one. Not the fair one. Just the only one and Strickler is many things but he knows how to accept compromises.
-
Coming back felt like a fading dream in the wake of morning. All he remembered about Arcadia was still there but slightly changed. There was a new tension in the air that ran like electricity through every interaction, every exchanged look, every sad smile. Gunmar’s presence poisoned the soil like a plague.
The dark circles under Jim’s eyes had somehow gotten even worse. His face was gaunt, his hands still bore the scars he had gotten from wearing his armor for too long while he was in the Darklands and the pale arcadian sun had done nothing to alleviate his pallor. Walter did however, recognize his smile. It was a little dimmed by the events of the last few weeks but still there and that had given him hope. Hope that their plan was going to work. That they could transform this tired little soldier into someone who could face Gunmar.
And survive to live another day.
How stupid of him to think that could be that simple. It actually took a while to notice that the weight Young Atlas bore on his shoulders had only grew in his absence and it was festering with dark, unspeakable things that dug their teeth deeper and deeper into his skin every day. If only Walter hadn’t been so caught up in making their training once again about him, about his desire of redemption, about his need to show Barbara and everyone else he wasn’t the same person who had made them feel vulnerable in all the wrong ways… maybe he would have recognized that infection for what it was. Maybe he would have been able to help sooner, to let Jim know there’s no point in being a hero if you can’t let yourself go from time to time.
If you can’t forgive yourself.
But like all things in Strickler’s life, it had all come to nothing and he hadn’t been able to do anything but watch as Toby, Jim and Claire sunk a little more everyday in the murky ocean that he has known for all his life and that still scares him to death. He had failed the mentor role. Mr. Strickler was no more and there they stand. Him, the woman he loved, the monster under his bed and his Maker, all waiting for him to make the selfish choice once again and let the world fall into chaos.
“You’ve spent so long pretending to be a Fleshling you think you are one. And now, you pull the strings of the Trollhunter himself.”
Gunmar’s voice is filled with scorn but Walter is not afraid. He thinks of Jim and his heavy shoulders, still standing straight as the world is set alight. No string can ever hope to move them away from the path they’ve chosen for themselves (but an ancient puppet player is awakening from his slumber and his strings are made of metal that glows like pure daylight). He takes all the faith he has left and he puts him in Jim because this time there’s no compromise to be made.
“I’m sorry, may the world forgive me. For without you, there is no world!”
He makes his choice as the world is swallowed by a bright green light.
-
When they get back home that day, in the late afternoon they thought it was going to be their last, it’s to a smug old wizard and an empty bathtub. Watching the dark remains of some cursed ancient magic swirling away in the water, all Walter can think of is the world getting bigger and heavier. Mountains starting to crumble, rivers overflowing, pillars made of white marble and black stone coming undone as humans and troll alike hide behind masks of indifference. A slow, agonizing apocalypse, the infection Jim hid on his back reaching his heart.
Until ultimately it is too much, even for Atlas.
Walter rubs the shoulder he used to tear the door down, he listens to Toby’s screams and Claire’s hiccups and he thinks of Jim, one last time. He pictures him trying time and time again to lift his arms, to cry for help as Fate brings down its blade. But the cosmo is silent and he dies without a sound. Another light fading away, leaving them in darkness.