Chapter Text
Hunter had been living with him for the past month. Darius had already known that living in a house in the woods would be a big change compared to living in a castle with its infinite hallways. But it was probably for the best that Hunter was not in a place with too many a painful memory.
However, Darius seemed to have underestimated just how much Hunter’s personality was shaped around being the Golden Guard. Such as, doing “patrols” outside the house at six in the morning. Or becoming extremely anxious when he had too much free time. Or wearing the same socks days at a time. Or drinking straight from the faucet. Or doing chores without being asked. (Admittedly, the last one was kind of nice, but the abominations were there to do most of it and when Darius was a teenager, he certainly loathed the idea of chores.)
These, however, might be worn down by time in a more . . . stable environment. With a dash of therapy (when Darius would eventually convince him to go). In the meantime, Darius would still find a couple habits of Hunter’s.
Hunter had spent the first week in a troublesome state after the defeat of Belos, then the Collector. He didn’t leave his room much and Darius didn’t want to push too far, so when it came time to eat, he would just place the plate of food on Hunter’s dresser and leave. Sure, it did irk him to leave food in one’s bedroom, but Hunter would eventually sneak down and wash the dishes in the sink before scurrying back to his room, Flapjack at his heels.
He was quick to pick up on Darius’s routine, including meal times, and worked himself around it. Slowly, Hunter started to leave his room more often, do yet another loop around the house, play with Flapjack (and Darius had the secretly-taken pictures to prove it), maybe even start a sewing project or two.
One day, Hunter came down the stairs a bit more chipper and said that he had Flyer Derby practice that day with the Emerald Entrails. So chipper, in fact, that he sat down at the table for dinner for the first time. Which was short-lived when Hunter looked at the clock and realized that he was going to be late just as his plate was set down.
He practically inhaled his food at a frightening speed, swallowed the steak whole, washed it all down with water, then just as quickly ran out the door. Darius hadn’t even sat down.
Darius chalked it up in his stunned silence to just being in a rush for his meet.
He started to notice a trend, however, when Hunter would bring down his empty plate at a much faster rate. Then it all came to a head a week later when Hunter “accidentally” took too long of a nap, hunched over his food like Eberwolf on Tuesdays, and jumped up to do a lap around the house, leaving behind a clean plate.
Darius stared down at the plate for a solid minute, letting out a single “Huh.”
His theory would have to be tested, so the next day, he asked if Hunter wanted to eat in the dining room– a bit earlier than usual, which would catch Hunter off guard. Just as planned, Hunter agreed and they sat down to eat. Which took exactly 23 seconds for him to do.
Hunter looked up to see Darius staring back at him. “What?”
“What in Titan’s name was that?”
Hunter’s eyes flicked to the side. “. . . Me eating?”
“That wasn’t eating, that was a vortex.”
“That’s just how I eat.”
“You didn’t even taste it.”
“Yeah, I did.”
Darius gestured vaguely at him. “Okay, what did I just put on that plate?”
“Uh. . .” Hunter glanced down at Darius’s plate, which Darius picked up and raised over his head to hide its contents. Hunter let out a frustrated hum. “Um, bean violets and Dover eyes?”
Darius put the plate back down. “Try red beans and Serpent’s tail.”
Hunter pouted. “Okay, so I didn’t know exactly what I ate, so what?”
“‘So what’ is that I prefer to actually taste a meal.”
“Well, I just prefer getting the nutrients.”
Darius squinted at him, almost disgusted. “Food is more than just nutrients-”
“Then why eat food at all if it’s not about nutrients?”
“How do you know if you’re getting nutrients if it doesn’t taste good?”
“Oh, like Apple Blood is good for you?”
The two glared at each other, daring the other to break first. Flapjack enjoyed a bowl of seeds to the side.
Hunter was the first to blink. He stood and grabbed his plate. “I’m gonna wash this then go on a patrol.”
Darius called after him as Hunter walked out the door. “It’s called a walk!”
“I’ll call it what I want!”
Darius huffed and looked over at Flapjack, who was pecking at the seeds he scattered across the table. “I hope you’re enjoying yours. . . .”
Flapjack just chirped and flew off to follow Hunter.
The next day, Darius had to leave by midmorning. Reconstruction of a government system was harder than it looked. And as much as Hunter tried to plead his case, Darius wouldn’t let him get mixed up in that fiasco more than he already was.
“Besides,” Darius said, “don’t you have Flyer Derby practice today?”
As if on cue, Hunter’s scroll buzzed. One of his teammates asked if they wanted to hang out before practice, and Hunter furiously typed out “Yes.” Darius watched him fly off with a pleasant smile.
Little did Darius know, Hunter would have choked to death on a Growlnola bar if it wasn’t for Viney giving him what Luz would later describe as the “Heimlich maneuver” because he ate it too fast.
Hunter stared down at the dirt-and-saliva covered Growlnola bar and muttered, “This means nothing.”
The day after that, Darius called Hunter down, which immediately raised suspicions. Hunter stalked down the stairs with narrowed eyes, Flapjack nestled in his hair. “What’s this about?”
Darius put his hands on his hips. “I just want to know if you’re hungry.”
Hunter narrowed his eyes more. “And if I am . . . ?”
“Then I have a delicious meal set on the table.”
“You poisoned it, didn’t you?”
Darius looked back at him, not entirely unsurprised but still worthy of a flabbergasted expression. “No, I did not poison it.”
“Then why are you acting so strange?”
“Just come to the dining room.”
Hunter rolled his eyes and followed to the dining room, where dinner was in fact served, but a series of forks, knives, and spoons laid out on either side of the plates. Hunter blinked. “Is it a special occasion or . . . ?”
“I’m going to teach you some table manners, since you clearly don’t have any.”
Hunter glared daggers at Darius. “I know plenty of table manners, I’m not that dumb.”
“Great, then you won’t mind sitting down and using said table manners.”
Darius would almost regret saying that. Hunter marched to the table and plunked down in his chair. Flapjack flitted off to the bowl of seeds at the side.
Before Darius could sit down, Hunter was already plowing through his food, switching utensils left and right at lightning speed. Darius only took one sip of his drink before Hunter slammed the last fork on the table and presented his empty plate.
“See.”
He had to admit (to himself), it was impressive. But, “At the speed you were going, those manners are null and void.”
Hunter scowled and grumpily folded his arms. “I don’t see how that matters. I got the manners. I got the food. Win-win.”
Darius rolled his eyes and picked up a fork and knife to cut into his roasted giant spider leg. “Not if nobody actually sees it.”
“Well, last time I checked, I’m not going to any fancy dinner parties any time soon.”
“And if you do go to a fancy dinner party?”
Hunter pursed his lips and gave him another of his famous glares. “Guess I won’t eat then.”
Darius raised a brow at that. “That’s just rude if you’re not going to eat anything as someone’s guest. Or, even worse, you’re the host and everyone thinks you poisoned the food.”
Hunter deepened his miserable scowl, but didn’t have anything to say. Instead, he slid out of his chair and gathered up all the utensils onto his plate. “I’m going on a patrol.”
“Walk.”
“Patrol!”
Three days later, Hunter had just got back from a midday patrol when Darius opened the front door. “I have lunch ready.”
“But I already had lunch.”
“A single apple is not lunch. Come on.” Darius waved him inside. Hunter almost rolled his eyes into the back of his skull as he dredged inside.
The dining room table had lunch laid out, though Hunter found it kind of odd to have an ordinary-looking sandwich on a fancy plate. Even more odd to have that sandwich cut into nine squares pinned down with toothpicks.
Hunter glanced over at Darius’s similarly cut sandwich. “What?”
Darius rounded the table to his seat. “Go ahead and eat your sandwich, but the contents are slippery so-”
“Done.”
“What?”
Darius looked up to see an empty glass, a plate that only had toothpicks, and Hunter pressing his finger down on the ceramic to get all the crumbs.
In hindsight, maybe cutting the sandwich into smaller pieces wasn’t the best idea, but that particular type of sandwich had the slipperiest ingredients, so Hunter would have been forced to slow down when trying to eat the blasted thing.
Hunter, ever the snark, licked the crumbs off his fingers, picked up his plate and glass, and strolled out the dining room into the kitchen. “Gotta say, it was pretty delicious .”
The sheer audacity.
“Hunter!”
“What!”
“Dinner!”
Hunter groaned and shuffled out of his room. Flapjack flew downstairs ahead of him, seemingly also knowing the drill.
When Hunter got to the dining room, Darius was already seated, elegantly bringing a spoonful of soup to his mouth and sipping it. Hunter sat down in his chair and gave Darius a rather unimpressed look. “Wow. Soup. My favorite.”
Darius blew on another spoonful of soup. “Yes, yes, I truly am a wonder. And I would prefer not having soup flying across the room, thank you. Be careful, it’s hot- HEY!”
But it was too late, for Hunter had grabbed the bowl and was chugging the entire bowl of soup. Hunter half-heard Darius’s scandalized sputtering until he finished the bowl and set it down. He wiped his mouth with the side of his hand.
“Mmm, yummy,” Hunter deadpanned, ignoring the puff of steam that floated out of his mouth.
Poor, horrified Darius watched the steam cloud rise up and dissipate. Slowly, a scowl set on his face. “That took three hours to make.”
“And it was worth it.”
Darius dropped his head to glare at Hunter. “You little-” but Darius cut himself short when Hunter had already slipped out of his chair and out the door, Flapjack right behind him. Probably to go on another “patrol.”
Darius pinched the bridge of his nose. Hunter was supposed to be careful about eating the soup, therefore slowing down, because it was scalding hot . But again, Darius had forgotten that Hunter was a master at finding the loopholes. And the fact that Hunter had little to no regard for his own well being.
He peered down at his own soup bowl with narrowed eyes.
Desperate times called for desperate measures.
Meanwhile and equally desperate, Hunter crouched behind the house, gulping a water bottle to try to soothe his scalded throat. “Worth it,” Hunter croaked.
If a bird’s picture was added to the dictionary next to the word “unimpressed,” it would have been Flapjack’s at this moment.
Usually, dealing with pompous government leaders took an entire day, but today, they managed to wrap things up by mid-afternoon. Which meant that Darius would be able to catch the tail end of Hunter’s Flyer Derby practice.
Darius strode to the edge of the field and almost immediately knocked off his feet when Hunter and his teammate zipped past. They raced to the top of the Flyer Derby spire where Hunter managed to snag his flag there first. His teammate– Gus, wasn’t it?– snagged his flag a close second behind but cartwheeled midair as an added flair.
“Showoff!” Hunter jeered.
“You’re just jealous!” Gus hollered back.
From the corner of Darius’s eye as he smoothed down his cloak, Hunter’s other teammate, the one with white hair, did a double take, then grinned. “Hunter! Your dad’s here!” Darius elected to ignore that.
“My wha?” Hunter swung his head down and spotted Darius. Hunter’s face and ears immediately turned beet red. “He’s not my- argh.” He and Flapjack descended to the ground then Flapjack turned back to his avian state to sit on Hunter’s shoulder. Hunter sent his snickering teammate the stink eye as he asked Darius in a tone that could be mistaken for accusatory but was just Hunter being genuinely curious, “What are you doing here?”
Darius shrugged. “We finished early today so I figured I’d drop by.”
“Well, we’re basically done, so . . .”
“What? I can’t come and see what the Emerald Entrails are up to?”
“I mean, I guess, but. . . .”
“Hi, Darius!” Willow shouted from in front of the stands, waving her hand in the air.
“Hiya, Goop Face!” Hunter’s other teammate called.
Darius rolled his eyes. “I preferred when your friends were scared of me.”
Hunter snorted.
Gus stood on his palisman’s staff as they idly floated above the field and checked his scroll. “I think I’m gonna go home now. Dad’s making boar chops.”
“Yeah, I better get home, too, it’s almost dinner,” Willow said, checking her own scroll.
“‘Kay, it was nice seeing you guys,” Hunter called over his shoulder. Then his stomach growled, and he stopped dead in his tracks, as if reminded of what was to come. Hunter narrowed his eyes at Darius. “So. . . what’s for dinner?”
Darius held his gaze. “I was thinking Hyacinth goose with chives.”
“Hm, sounds good.”
“Yes, I’m sure it will be. . . .”
A constant ticking poked the silence with a stick as Hunter and Darius stared each other down from their respective sides of the table. Flapjack pecked at his bowl of seeds and berries, placidly watching the exchange.
Darius cut a piece from his roasted goose, then dipped it in the gravy that had spilled over the side of the goose. Hunter just watched with folded arms and a sizzling glare.
A timer dinged. Darius put down his fork and knife to pick up another fork and knife from another plate, cut a piece from that plate’s slab of roast goose, and placed it on yet another plate. He added a slice from the biscuit as well before sliding the plate toward Hunter.
Hunter stared at the plate like it was traitorous. His scowl deepened. “This is dumb.”
“Wow. Cut straight to the core, don’t you?”
Hunter’s lip curled. “Just give me the food.”
Darius gestured with his knife at the plate in front of Hunter. “I just did.”
“Yeah, but not all of it!”
“I’ll give you another piece when this timer goes off.”
“You didn’t even set it!”
“Not until you eat that.” Darius gestured to the portion on Hunter’s plate again.
Hunter’s nose flared. He snapped his head away to look at the wall. The grandfather clock ticked twenty times before Hunter stabbed the goose and biscuit with his fork and ate it.
“There we go.” Darius set the timer for one minute again.
Half a minute went by in silence (except for the ticking). Hunter grumbled, mostly to himself, “I’m not a child.”
Darius mumbled around a half-chewed biscuit, “You’re acting like one.”
Unfortunately for Darius, Hunter’s rage hit another spike with that comment. Darius didn’t even notice the scheming glint in Hunter’s eye as he eyed the rest of his meal, then at the door at the other end of the dining room. . . .
When the timer went off, Darius added another portion to Hunter’s plate and slid it in front of him. Hunter waited a moment before swiping the portion to his mouth. Darius turned to set the timer again.
Hunter lunged across the table, grabbed his meal, then sprinted for the door.
Darius gasped. “You son of a- !” He shot out of his seat and ran down the other side of the table. “I’m going to turn you into porridge and feed you to a family of bears!”
Hunter barreled through the door, stuffing the biscuit down his throat. Flapjack, thoroughly having no idea what was going on, jumped up and flew through the door right after Darius slammed it back open. Hunter ran through the sitting room, tearing through his goose slab. He blurted with a puff of crumbs, “Mmm, it tastes so good!”
“YOU’RE NOT EVEN TASTING IT!” On instinct, Darius jumped over the crumbs that landed on the carpet. “And you’re vacuuming that!”
Hunter reached for the front door’s knob, but abomination goo seeped up through the floor and barred his exit. Flapjack, the loyalest of good boys, turned into his staff form. Hunter grabbed his palisman and teleported through the wall in a spray of golden sparks.
“GAH!” Darius shoved the abomination goo out of the way and ripped the front door open. Just in time to see Hunter trip and roll across the lawn. The rest of his goose slab laid dejected on the grass.
Darius dragged a hand down his face. “See, this is what happens- ARE YOU EATING IT?!”
Hunter had already swallowed the rest of the goose– and a handful of grass. “WASTE NOT, WANT NOT!”
“UGH!” Darius threw his hands in the air and turned back toward the house. He shut the door with a bit more force than necessary so he could fume in peace. After a moment, he peeked through the blinds of the front window, only to see Hunter obnoxiously licking the gravy off his plate as Flapjack looked on, completely confused.
He’s going to drop this kid off at an orphanage. Or an animal shelter.
Evidently, Hunter was not dropped off at any orphanage or animal shelter by the next day. In fact, he was in his room, spending a wonderful five-minutes-before-noon reading a book about potions he checked out from the library. That is, until there was a knock at his door.
“What is it?” Hunter absentmindedly said around his book. Without a second’s delay, Darius barged in, grabbed Hunter’s book, carefully put the bookmark in, then dragged a protesting Hunter out the door by his ankles.
Hunter latched onto the doorframe, digging his nails into the wood. Darius pulled until Hunter lost his grip and his nails scraped along the wall.
Flapjack returned to the window from his skirmish with the forest birds to find an empty bedroom. He chirped in confusion.
“Here’s the deal,” Darius said, after having dragged Hunter down the stairs (softened by abominations), through the kitchen, and wrestled him into his chair, “I have six locked boxes that have pieces of your meal in them and you will wait until this one-minute timer goes off to eat from one box. I’m going to enjoy my meal as we sit here.”
“Oh, yeah, great plan. Starve me, why don’t you?”
“It’s not starvation if you simply have to wait .”
He glanced at Darius’s plate, but didn’t see the boxes he spoke of. He looked up and found them, floating just out of reach. “Seriously?”
Darius primly sat down in his seat and set the timer for one minute. “Yes.”
Hunter groaned, long and suffering.
As the timer ticked away and Darius cut into his meal (which, by the looks of it, was spaghetti and eyeballs), Hunter’s mind tapped into the deepest, most desperate of plans.
The timer dinged. Darius directed one of the boxes to descend in front of Hunter. The box opened up and revealed a small platter of spaghetti and eyeballs, along with a fork. However, when Hunter did not descend upon it like a ravenous direwolf, Darius looked up. Hunter stared at a point just behind him, it seeming to captivate all of his attention.
“Darius, there’s something on the wall. Behind you.”
Darius sighed for the millionth time and went back to twirling his fork in the spaghetti. “Really?”
“No, seriously, it’s hanging on the curtains. It’s almost, like, oozing something. Getting all over the curtains.”
Darius set his jaw and focused all of his attention on his spaghetti. “This is the equivalent of setting branches over a hole in the ground.”
“Oooooooh, it’s awful. It’s burning holes in the curtains, Darius. In your beautiful, spotless curtains.”
“This is the worst plan I have ever been the target of.”
“It’s getting on the floor, oh, it’s staining the carpet. It’s so disgusting, Darius. Almost like this.” Hunter stabbed one of the eyeballs of his spaghetti with his fork and put it in his mouth, where he popped it in his teeth with a sickening squelch. Next, he spun his fork into his spaghetti platter into one big, vaguely-egg-sack-looking lump and stuffed it in his mouth.
Darius kept his face neutral, but his eye betrayed him with a twitch. “Why are you like this?”
Hunter said something around his glop of spaghetti to the effect of, “Like what?”
It took both of them about 12 minutes to finish their meals, much to Darius’s smug satisfaction and Hunter’s defeated irritation. It was the longest amount of time Hunter had ever sat down for a meal. His only consolation was the disgusted looks on Darius’s face as he threw all manners out the window. It was definitely petty, but Hunter was fine with that.