#dadarius

[dontwear-itout]

dadarius day 7 !!

[dontwear-itout]

dadarius week day 6!!

[dontwear-itout]

dadarius week day 5 !!

[dontwear-itout]

dadarius week day 4!!

[lollytea]

I feel ya pal, I've also been having a time with pain. I hope you feel better soon!

For a Hunter ask, I'd love to hear your take on if you think post-canon and living together for a while Hunter would awkwardly ask Darius "so like... How would you go about trying to impress someone? Y'know, just like. Wondering. No reason." trying so hard to be subtle but it fails really bad. Or if Darius would just casually ask one day over breakfast "So when do you plan to ask your friend Willow out?" & Hunter kinda just short-circuits across from him.

I just adore the big web of dynamics Hunter has established in S2B they all mean a lot to me, esp him & Darius.

(Okay! So!! Teeny tiny fic. I’m pretty sure I’ve included Darius and Hunter’s relationship in brief snippets of stuff I’ve wrote before but never like. Completely delved into the two of them as a dynamic. It is NOT my expertise but I wanted to give it a try. And since you like their relationship and I would do absolutely anything for people who leave essays in the tags on my posts, have this. If I haven’t quite nailed it yet, I might just need more practise.

I like to picture Darius and Hunter as a parallel of Eda and Luz. Like Darius doesn’t quite get the hang of this parenting thing right away. But he’s doing his best. ) 

There was a bump, a clatter, the slam of a closet door and the muffled sound of Hunter's voice traveling loudly from the floor above.

Darius lifted his cup of apple blood to his lips, unfazed, though admittedly curious, as the boy banged around upstairs, the monologue carrying on for minutes on-end.

Now, Hunter was prone to talking. There was nothing suspicious about that. And as long as that bird was around, he would always be chattering away.

But first thing in the morning? It was unlike him to speak to Flapjack in anything more than brief words muttered under his breath. Certainly not ranting and raving, oblivious to volume control, and pacing the length of his bedroom like he was evidently doing right now.

Something had Hunter completely wired and Darius predicated that he was about to be updated on the matter.

He returned his gaze to his penstagram feed as Hunter finally appeared in the kitchen. Despite the obvious emotional torment or whatever in Titan's name had been going on upstairs, he had still managed to dress himself accordingly for school

Darius wanted to sarcastically applaud his efforts but he figured that would come across as patronizing.

This arrangement between the two of them was certainly.....a learning curve. Something that they were both still getting accustomed to.

In all the years he had been an adult, the absolute last adjective Darius would have used to describe himself was paternal. He simply did not care for children of any age, though teenagers were a unique breed that always had him curling his lip in distaste.

Yes, yes, whatever, he was all for their healthy physical and emotional development and was a firm believer in teenage rebellion and the like and blah blah blah but.....he just needed them to have their inspiring coming of age stories far far away from him.

Sweaty, greasy vessels of hormones. Creatures Darius wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

So, you would assume that Hunter was different from other teens, right? That must have been the only way Darius had accepted him into his goo hardened heart.

No, actually.

Hunter was as sweaty and greasy and hormonal as they came. But he was a persistent little hellion, and had somehow managed to reprogram the way Darius's heart operated.

He wasn't quite sure at what point he went from being somewhat endeared with Hunter's surprising spike of defiance against his Coven and happily egging it on via tossing him his own scroll to feeling a cold shock of dread down his spine at the mere idea of this boy being hurt.

Maybe there had been a part of him that had always cared about Hunter. Maybe. However, it was just as likely that he had always detested him with his entire soul. Complicated. It was all a very complicated tangle of emotions that Darius usually shied away from dwelling on too much.

One thing he knew for certain? He remembered how it used to feel to look at that boy, that perfectly obedient soldier with not a spark of rebellion to his name, and recognize that nose, that facial structure, those eyes...

His eyes.

It was like seeing the body of the person he had loved the most possessed by a spirit that went against everything he had once stood for.

But things had changed. Hunter had changed. Darius had changed.

And those bright, curious magenta eyes were no longer a painful reminder that someone he cared for was dead, but a righteous defiant statement of someone he cared for being alive.

Darius cared about Hunter to an outright ferocious extent, sweat, grease, hormones and all.

But admittedly he still had a lot to learn about proper parenting. Which was fine, as Hunter still had a lot to learn about being properly parented. So, at the very least, they were awkwardly navigating this new territory together.

"Morning," Said Darius, as Hunter rummaged around the cupboards for his usual cereal box.

It was the boring plain grain kind that they had stocked up on from their last venture to the Human Realm.

Hunter had always struggled with digesting most of the delicacies on the Boiling Isles, so his options in food had been rather limited. But their current access to the other world had expanded the selection significantly, meaning that Darius had one of the strangest grocery shopping routes of anyone he knew. Two dimensions, two people, one stocked pantry.

Camila had once commented that she had never seen Darius look more like he belonged in the Human Realm than the moment she found him standing in the cereal aisle, one hand on his hip, the other holding a box up to his gaze as he critically assessed the nutritional value.

(Oh, yeah, like he would be allowing the kid to leave the house every morning with a belly full of processed sugary trash. Let's be realistic here.)

It wasn't for another moment or two that Hunter seemed to process that Darius had said something.

"Oh. Yeah. Morning." He muttered, reaching out for a clean bowl off the drying rack. One that he near immediately fumbled with and it escaped his grasp.

But before ceramic could shatter against the kitchen floor, the gelatinous mass that settled atop Darius's head sprung out and swiftly caught it mid-drop.

He had not so much as lifted his eyes from his scroll screen.

"Good reflexes." Hunter commented, impressed.

"I'm offended that after everything you've seen me do, you still sound so surprised." Darius plonked the bowl down at Hunter's chair. "Sit."

Hunter sat.

Flapjack also made himself comfortable, twittering in greeting as he landed at the edge of Darius's plate and got dangerously close to pecking away at his selection of fruit slices.

"Ah bup bup!" Snipped Darius, shooing Flapack away with a wave of his hand. "What did we talk about?"

No birds at the table. Palismen or not. It was unsanitary.

It was rather difficult to enforce this rule, as both Flapjack and Hunter point-blank refused to acknowledge its existence, and Darius had since lost the energy to argue about it. The most he could ask for was establishing his food as off-limits.

Flapjack instead perched himself on the rim of Hunter's freshly poured cereal bowl and...

Darius made no effort to conceal his long, drawn out, exasperated sigh.

Hunter and Flapjack were currently sharing breakfast. Because of course they were.

At the very least, Hunter was eating out of the bowl and using a spoon, instead of his original method of shovelling fistfuls straight from the box so...

Two steps forward, one step back.

"So." Hunter began after a moment of comfortable silence, immediately tipping Darius off that they were working themselves up to whatever his problem was.

Hunter never began a conversation with a forced casual "So." Unless he was sweating absolute bullets. The same could be said for becoming a far bigger clutz than he usually was.

"So." Darius repeated, with an air of nonchalance.

"Hexside, huh?" Hunter's fingers wrung nervously around the handle of his spoon. "You went there."

Darius raised an eyebrow, propping his hand against his cheek.

This was a terrible attempt at being casual on Hunter's part. The topic of Hexside had not been discussed that morning nor was this Hunter's first day. He was pretty much just shoehorning the subject into the limelight.

The art was subtlety was not his forte. Not that Darius could judge. His hair was alive.

"That I did."

"And you were....this awesome abominations prodigy, right?"

Darius hummed. "That I was."

He would certainly not fall into the trap of believing this Titandamned boy actually wanted to hear him brag about his Hexside days. No, this was undoubtedly self motivated.

"Okay so say you're fifteen or fourteen or...or seventeen. Or I don't know, maybe, you're sixteen, not like the age matters," Hunter's chuckle squeaked unsteadily. 

"And you want to really....y'know, wow someone," He emphasized 'Wow' with a jazzy little shake of his palms. "How--....how would you go about doing that...?"

Darius patiently waited for Hunter to dribble all that out, and once he was finished, he could only stare at the boy in front of him, which made Hunter avert eye-contact to gaze into his cereal bowl.

"Are you asking me how to impress someone?" He finally asked. "Is that what's happening here?"

Hunter's features contorted uncomfortably, but he managed another strained laugh. "Sure, yeah, something like that. Figured it'd be an interesting hypothetical discussion, I dunno."

Darius ignored that. "Who do you want to impress?"

Every muscle in the boy's frame clenched. "I said hypothetical!" He spluttered, the slightest pink twinge to his cheekbones.

Yes, because that reaction was absolutely warranted for a hypothetical discussion.

But Darius wouldn't pry.

Yet.

"Hmmmmm...." Darius pondered the scenario, tapping a finger against his cheek.

"I guess that if I wanted to impress someone, I would just establish that I was better, stronger and more powerful than they could ever hope to be." He shrugged.

Hunter's bottom lip fell agape and he slumped miserably into his chair. "That's not gonna work."

"Why?" Asked Darius, casually examining his fingernails.

"Because she's way better and stronger and more--"

Hunter cut himself off so abruptly, the words might have been rocketed back down his throat so fast that Darius wouldn't have been surprised if he choked to death then and there. His hand clapped over his mouth, eyes blown wide with panic.

And if he couldn't have been any more embarrassed, Darius made things a million times worse with a delighted, victorious "Hah!" Which burned Hunter's face alive.

He shot up, utterly aghast, scraping his chair against the tiles that Darius had spent weeks choosing for the kitchen interior. "I-I gotta go!"

"No you don't." Said Darius.

With a lazy spin of his hand, a tendril of abomination goo latched on to the leg of Hunter's chair and ripped it back in against the table, successfully knocking Hunter back into his seat in the process.

Hunter glowered, opening his mouth to fume before Darius cut him off.

"Before you say anything, were you not trying to ask my advice? And now that we're finally getting somewhere, you're running away from it."

"I wasn't asking for your-your...." Hunter's bluster deflated with one look at Darius's expression. He then surrendered any attempt at defending himself and let his face fall into a heap of folded arms.

"I suppose you're not going to tell me who 'She' is."

Hunter did not answer, only wriggled a little in his seat.

Darius rested his entwined fingers under his chin. "Can I guess?"

Still nothing.

Upstairs, in Hunter's room, there happened to be a smattering of photographs across his headrest. Darius had glanced at it on numerous occasions while cleaning out clutter.

They featured the faces of five teenage girls that Hunter was friendly with, along with Perry Porter's rambunctious boy, whom his own kid was inexplicably glued to the hip of.

But guessing which of those girls was the 'She' in question did not take much analytic genius. It narrowed down to three options when you take into account two of them being romantically involved with each other, something Hunter was obviously indifferent to.

There was a girl who made appearances in almost all of these pictures. In group shots, in Flyer Derby team huddles, in trio selfies alongside Infant Perry and most notably....

Hunter had a picture of her. Just her. Separated from the jumbled collage of friends. It was tacked so low down that Darius would have hardly noticed its presence if not for this being the one day that Hunter had forgotten to conceal it behind his pillows.

Of course Darius recognized her. The other kid that Hunter was so deeply attached to. The girl he had watched ruthlessly tear through the air when he attended Hunter's sports games.

(Darius had never been a sports fan. He had avoided grudgy matches while at Hexside. Look at him now! A supportive Flyer Derby Parent, bickering in the stands with other Flyer Derby Parents. He hated the sport but loved the player. Those were the brakes, he supposed.)

The girl who had been among the five children to go missing all those months ago, only to resurface a time later and reveal to have been trapped in the Human Realm.

That girl had been there. On the day Darius began to realize that there was a spark of something in Belos's perfect Golden Guard.

Darius leaned across the table, closer and closer to where Hunter was hiding in his arms and uttered "Your Captain?"

Hunter's head shot up so fast, he nearly whacked Darius in the face with it. Fortunately, he had excellent reflexes and didn't lose his front teeth today.

"Wh--" He floundered, downright short-circuiting as the fiery hue sizzled across his face, reaching the full of his ears.

Hunter was a frequent blusher but when those ears of his were set ablaze, it was a sign he was nothing short of mortified.

His mouth popped open and shut like a funny little fish and Darius's knowing grin only widened.

"You know, I remember the day you ran off to form your little sports team." He mused, with a fond scratch against his jaw. "I'll admit I was stunned to see you putting your neck out there to protect those kids. I had never thought you were capable of caring about someone."

Well. There had been one person that the Golden Guard had cared about. But that name tasted revolting on his tongue and would certainly spoil breakfast. 

"And then there was a moment when you looked back at that girl and I thought to myself "Oh. I think she might be special. He cares about the whole bunch of them but she's special." Was I correct, Hunter?"

Smugness was radiating off of Darius, he could feel it pooling from his smile, and as a stark contrast, Hunter was well and truly the opposite.

His ears really were an extraordinary wonder. One always assumed that they couldn’t possibly get any redder, but they never ceased to amaze. Darius was almost inclined to worry about third degree burns.

He had reached the point of embarrassment where he had been struck completely speechless, not even capable of a half baked stammer or splutter.

And then finally, finally, after what appeared to be the fifth most harrowing internal conflict ever experienced over Darius's breakfast table, Hunter visibly swallowed, cut his eyes elsewhere and allowed the most miniscule nod of his head.

Darius decided that the teasing stopped here.

"What do I do...?" Asked Hunter in a tiny voice, seemingly attempting to tie his fingers into knots. He had tentatively peered up to meet Darius's eye.

It had become evident that, though he hemmed and he hawed, and he kicked and he screamed, this boy was looking for guidance. It was just a matter of asking for it.

Darius too struggled with that sort of thing when he was a boy and it had taken a long while for his pride to let him admit that he didn't know what he was doing.

When Darius had been young and needed guidance, he had only trusted one person.

And now he was looking at those eyes yet again. The striking colour was old and nostalgic but the hesitation and cluelessness was so very brand new.

It was strange to be on the other side.

But Darius couldn't see himself sleeping well if he didn't at least try to be half the witch he had been.

"Would it be cliche for me to say...." He began, after a long sip of apple blood. "Just be yourself?"

Hunter had found his voice in the form of a loud, aggravated "YES!", throwing out his arms and nearly knocking his cereal off the table with those gangly elbows of his.

"Darius, that is exactly the kind of nonsense Luz would spew." He raked a hand through his hair, ripping out a groan.

"Be yourself." He repeated mockingly. "What? I guess you're gonna tell me to eat my vegetables too."

"Well, yeah." Replied Darius, fully accustomed to Hunter's occasional angry rant. "You don't eat as much vegetables as you should."

"That doesn't matter right now." Hunter snapped, far too furious with Darius's "advice" that he seemed to have forgotten that he was supposed to be embarrassed.

"I've been mostly myself for as long as I've known her, Darius. And the thing is I haven't exactly been cool in a really....really long time." He grimaced. "So how am I supposed to impress her just by--"

"Haven't you already impressed her?" Darius asked, feigning polite confusion.

Hunter was so bewildered, he stopped dead mid-rant. "What?"

Now, Darius had no interest in meddling in the romantic lives of fetuses. Frankly, that was a whole universe he would prefer to keep at arm's length. So he certainly wasn't going to expose Miss Sapling's innermost feelings to Hunter, when this was something they absolutely needed to sort out on their own.

But seriously? Seriously? Was she trying to be subtle about it?

Darius had seen the way that little girl smiled at Hunter, all dimples and bright eyes. It was grossly sentimental. Of course, he had to give her credit for her valid attempts at schooling her expression into something subdued and she was honestly better at it than the average teen. But seriously?

Darius was forty-five and was cursed with everlasting wisdom. He could clock a smitten little girl whether he cared to or not.

It was safe to say that Hunter had obliviously snagged her little heart and would not be letting go anytime soon. So Darius has no worries about him getting his feelings hurt in that regard. 

But now he just needed to give him a pep talk about the girl liking him just how he was without being blabbing about everything. 

Hmm...

“I suppose you remember that day clearer than I do.” Said Darius. “When you thought I would hurt them and you threw yourself in front of them. When you shed that ugly cloak of yours and announced that you weren’t worthy of it.” 

Hunter’s eyebrows scrunched together, his expression only growing more and more lost by the second. 

“You were willing to disobey orders. You were willing to go against me. You were willing to throw away everything, just to keep them safe.”

Darius quirked a smile, raising an eyebrow almost challengingly. “You don’t think that girl was watching? You don’t think that might have wowed her,” He playfully mimicked Hunter’s awkward jazz hands. “Just a little bit?” 

“I don’t...” Hunter breathed, his eyes going haywire with the abruptness of the concept presented to him. “I don’t know...”

Darius’s smile widened and he proceeded to speak aloud what he presumed were Hunter’s feelings on the matter. “Well, we can’t say for certain, right? Who knows what she was thinking? It might be a little stupid to get your hopes up over it...”

Hunter nodded, staring at his empty cereal bowl. Flapjack had fully devoured his breakfast by now. 

“Buuuuut....” Darius sing-songed. “I wonder why she was so willing to text you immediately afterwards. Didn’t you two spend days chatting over pensta?” 

Hunter said nothing, but a rose petal bloom across his cheeks confirmed it clear as day. 

Darius reached over and tipped up the dumb kid’s chin so he could meet his eye. 

“Being yourself is what made you and that girl inseparable in the first place. So let me explain this is in a way that impossible little brain of yours will understand.”

He gently nudged Hunter’s cheek with his knuckles, earning a flicker of a smile. 

“Studies have shown that your current methods are successful. Blah, blah, blah, nerd stuff. Conclusion? Keep at it and you might have more luck than you think.” 

Hunter pursed his lips, something thoughtful overcoming his features. Of course, he didn’t have any certain answers. He just had to depend on the data and blind hope. But when the boy’s shoulders straightened in what very well may have been confidence, Darius couldn’t deny that something akin to pride swelled inside of him. 

“You’re serious?” Hunter asked, with only an underlying edge of hesitation. 

“For Titan’s sake, Hunter. How about trusting my wisdom for once?”

“Being old and being wise aren’t the same thing, Darius.” 

“I’m forty-five!” Darius exclaimed, highly offended. “You have more wrinkles than I do.”

A set of those wrinkles made an appearance, crinkling the corners of Hunter’s eyes as he burst into a sudden bout of laughter. The kind that made him snort. That kind that he truly meant. 

“Okay, okay,” Hunter stood up, Flapjack migrating to his shoulder. “I need to get to school.” 

“Yes, go call your teachers old instead and give me a moment of peace. Tell Bump he’s a fossil, why don’t you?” 

Darius stood too, clearing the table and ushering everything over to the sink. 

“Hey. Uh. Darius?” 

When he turned around, Hunter was stood in front of him, in that pitifully awkward stance he sometimes adopted with the rigid arms and fists clenched at his sides. 

“Yes?” 

The boy opened his mouth. Then closed it. Then opened it again. Then closed it. Then his eyes jumped to his feet. Then his already closed fists tightened. 

Darius was about to ask if Hunter was dying and he was the last to hear the news when he was nearly knocked clean off his feet in an extremely aggressive hug. 

Wow. 

Okay. 

Hunter had really psyched himself up for that, huh? 

Darius felt a surprised laugh bubbling out of him. 

A painfully awkward scrappy kid, with a flame of fighting spirit, a knack for rebellion and a gigantic mouth. 

But he was sweet. Darius could never bring himself to say he wasn’t sweet. 

He didn’t remember making the conscious decision to put his arms around Hunter. But maybe doing so automatically was a sign that he was getting used to this. 

“Alright, alright,” Said Darius, after giving him a reassuring squeeze. “I’m wonderful, I know. But you need to get your butt to school and give me space to clean up. Go! Shoo!” 

Hunter made to shoo, sporting a bright grin that was usually reserved for after-school. But just as he was heading out the door, Darius called out

“Hurry up! You won’t impress your little princess by being late!”

Hunter stopped dead in his tracks, hands clamping over his glowing ears. 

“Darius!” He yelped. “Sweet Titan, don’t call her that!” 

“Oh, I’m sorry. Which part do you take issue with? It is the ‘Princess’ part? Or the fact that I called her yours?” 

Hunter let loose a cantankerous groan of eternal suffering to which Darius only  laughed as he turned back to his dishes. 

Alright. He knew for a fact that parents were supposed to harmlessly embarrass their children every now and again.

Darius liked to believe that he and Hunter were making progress.