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Hunter and Gus stared at each other with wide eyes as the bowl full of batter crashed loudly to the floor.
They had been trying to make a cake, like the one Camila had made when they had stayed with her, however they made an absolute mess of the kitchen because they got measurements wrong ( “Guys why would you put HALF A CUP of baking powder into a cake?” “We can’t read human instructions, Luz! What does “tsp” mean?” “That is going to explode-” ), some ingredients wrong ( “What did you do now?” “Uhm, okay so we had no clue what “milk” was? So we used some snail extract and now-” “LUZ OUR CAKE IS FLYING!” ) and also the cook time wrong ( “Okay stop calling me or I’m killing the crow.” *SQUAWK* “I’m exaggerating. But what happened now?” “Yeah, so it’s on fire?” )
Not only all of that but now Darius’ favorite bowl, had just smashed.
Yeah, they were doomed.
“What if we just flee the realm?” Gus suggested and Hunter groaned. “And go where? Camila would tell Darius where we are!”
“Hey guys- Woah.” Amity paused when she entered the kitchen. “Dad’s going to kill you.” She informed Hunter and he glared.
“I know he is! Can you summon an abomination to help us?” Hunter pleaded and she shook her head.
“Sorry, no can do, Dads and I are linked up with our abominations, they’ll both know when I make one and then I’m gonna get a call asking why I made a service one.” Amity said and Hunter groaned.
“We are soooo dead.” Hunter groaned, trying to clean the broken bowl up.
“Do you want me to ask Ed or Em to help?” Amity asked. “They will make it worse!” Gus accused and Amity shrugged. “Probably. Also Luz said stop calling her or she won’t return Pancake.”
Hunter gasped. “ No.” He said. “Pancake?” Gus asked as he tried scooping some of the cake batter into a trash can.
“It’s a stuffie Darius made me a while back, it’s like a fat Flapjack.” Hunter explained and turned to Amity. “Fine, we’ll leave her alone. Now go so we can handle this!”
Amity nodded and left with a teasing grin as the two boys hurriedly cleaned the kitchen.
It was trashed, a mess, half their kitchen appliances were broken and they were so dead when Darius and Alador returned from their date.
“You know, if you run now, maybe you can be safe.” Hunter told Gus and he shook his head.
“Uh-uh! Darius will tell my dad I left early and my dad will know I did something wrong. I’m in trouble either way!” Gus explained and Hunter groaned loudly before suddenly standing up straight.
“An illusion!” Hunter said and Gus looked at him. “What?”
“Make an illusion! Make it look like the kitchen is fine and then when they leave again, we can finish cleaning! It’ll buy us some time!” Hunter insisted and Gus made a face. “I dunno, my illusions have gotten better but… They can still be broken.”
“Gus, you’re improving a lot, I’m sure Darius won’t even realize. Come on! It’ll help get us out of trouble!” Hunter begged and Gus sighed, grabbing the power booster her had kept from Adrian and making a circle in the air before pushing his hand through it. The kitchen suddenly flickered and then all their mess disappeared.
“Wooh! It worked!!!” Hunter cheered.
“What worked?” A deep voice asked at the kitchen entrance and Hunter and Gus froze and turned to find Darius standing in the entrance.
“Baking!” Hunter lied. Darius walked forward with an eyebrow raised, looking at their “finished” product, which was a severely lopsided cake with frosting haphazardly spread on it. “M-hm.” Darius hummed suspiciously, looking around.
“Anything you want to tell me?” Darius asked, looking right into Hunter’s eyes. The blonde teen swallowed and shook his head. “Nope! Nothing!”
Darius stared at him for longer before lifting his hand and moving to place it on the counter, where Hunter and Gus knew was a giant pile of liquid-y batter. “Absolutely nothing?” Darius asked again and Hunter bit his lip eyes wide as he watched Darius move to place his hand down.
“Okay so we tried making cake like Ms. Noceda taught us but we kept getting things wrong and then we kept calling Luz for help but she told us to stop calling her and so we had to figure things out ourselves and we used the wrong ingredients and the wrong measurements and the wrong cook time and our cake kinda exploded at some point and ka-bloomy all over the kitchen and we tried to clean it before you came back but there was so much to clean up and we also accidentally knocked your favorite bowl off the counter and it shattered and we tried to fix it but we couldn't even using magic and stuff and I am so sorry!” Hunter’s ramble came out in rapid fire pace, so fast almost neither Dairus nor Gus could understand what he was saying.
Darius sighed and brought his hand away from the counter. “Oh thank goodness I just got these gloves, I didn’t want to ruin them.”
“What? You new it was an illusion?” Gus asked. “Is it that bad? Did I do something wrong-”
“No, no, Gus the illusion is fine.” Darius reassured. “You should just probably make sure the person you’re trying to fool doesn’t watch you lay the illusion down.”
“You saw? How long were you there?” Hunter asked. “I came in a minutes or so after Amity left.” Darius explained then straightened up.
“Okay so first off, you boys are going to be cleaning this entire kitchen from floor to ceiling.” Darius informed and Hunter and Gus groaned.
“Yes sir,” They mumbled in unison.
“And you are both never allowed to cook without supervision.”
“Yes sir.”
“And Hunter you are grounded for two weeks.”
“What!?” Hunter shouted. “Why?”
“You’re kidding, right?” Darius asked. “You made a mess, broke one of my favorite plates and maybe I wouldn’t have grounded you if you hadn’t lied about it. We don’t lie to each other, ever, okay?”
Hunter groaned and leaned his head back dramatically and sighed. “Fine! Fine, whatever!”
“That means no Flyer Derby until your punishment is over.” Darius informed and both Gus Hunter screamed this time.
“What?! You can’t do this we need him-” “Dad you are being so unfair right now!” “We have a big game coming up and-” “You want to trap me in my room that’s-”
“Hunter, that is your punishment for lying to me. No Flyer Derby until your grounding period is over. No sleepovers at Gus or Willows, no visiting the Owl House. You go to school, then come home and go to your room. Being grounded isn’t supposed to be fun.” Darius informed and Hunter groaned one last time.
“ Fiiiiine!”
And so the two weeks began.
The first day Hunter thought: This isn’t too bad. Darius had taken his scroll away but Hunter still had Flapjack and all the books and random “toys” in his room to busy him.
By the fourth day he was sick of it.
Darius informed him the whole “Staying in your room” was a bit of an exaggeration, Hunter just wasn’t allowed out of the house without permission so Hunter found himself sneaking to Edric’s room at some point.
“Hey prisoner,” His brother greeted and Hunter glared. “Shut up, do you have anything I can do to keep myself busy? I’m bored.”
“Nothing that Dad wouldn’t take,” Edric said, gesturing to his desk that had tablets, and ipads, and scrolls and crystal balls all over. Hunter frowned.
“Where’d you get all those?” He asked and Edric grinned wickedly.
“Been selling a lot of witchy stuff to some goth humans, they eat it up like it’s candy.” Edric said and Hunter scoffed. “Okay, well do you have any human cards? I could at least play some games Luz taught me?”
And for days five and six Hunter kept himself busy by playing solitaire.
He got bored of that too.
Day seven was spent begging Darius to let his punishment end early but Darius refused to let up, even after Alador suggested he should.
“It’s been a week, I think he’s learned his lesson.” Alador said.
“Oh I so have! I will never lie to you ever again! I promise!” Hunter pleaded and Darius rolled his eyes.
“No, because then you’ll think that if you beg you can get out of things. Go back to your room, study or something.” Darius ordered.
Day eight Hunter laid on the floor of his room, music playing loudly in his room, random songs screaming about unfair punishment and Darius had laughed at him upon hearing one of the songs.
Day nine, and Hunter pulled himself out of his room again to talk to Amity. She painted his nails while he ranted about how unfair this was and she just rolled her eyes.
“You did lie to him,” Amity said. “I didn’t think you did that. Especially not to Darius.”
“It was an eenie meenie tiny little white lie though! We were going to clean the mess up eventually!” Hunter insisted and Amity smiled as she grabbed for Hunter’s other hand.
“I don’t think that’s how Darius sees it though.” Amity said. “You two are close, you’ve never lied to each other of had any distrust between you too. And now you’ve been caught in a lie, he knows you’re capable of lying to him. He’s probably wondering if you’ve lied to him before, or if you don’t trust him anymore.”
Hunter was silent as she finished his nails, capping the polish and he stared at the dark purple on his nails.
“Oh.” He mumbled.
Day ten and eleven Hunter spent at school and then doing homework, which wasn’t that much different than his normal schedule so these days were fine, but Edric and Emira teased him when they got home about some big party he missed and he scowled at them.
Day twelve Hunter laid on his floor again, it was the weekend again and he had nowhere to be. Well, he was supposed to be at their Flyer Derby game, but Hunter was grounded.
Darius knocked on his door and Hunter turned his head, looking at the man.
“Hey, we can still watch their game if you want? They’re streaming it over crystal balls.” Darius said and Hunter scrambled to his feet.
The two sat on his bed, hovering over the crystal ball as they cheered Willow and Gus on. They won the game and Hunter cheered loudly, causing Darius to laugh at his antics, getting ready to leave but Hunter grabbed his sleeve.
“I am sorry for lying.” Hunter said, pulling his hand back and his fists opened and closed. “I just- I thought we could handle it, but I shouldn't have lied to you. It- it was the first time I’ve ever lied, I promise. Minus all those times I said I was fine and I wasn’t… But I won’t do it, ever again.”
Darius huffed and turned back, ruffling Hunter’s hair.
“Apology accepted kid.” Darius said.
“You don’t have to accept it just because I apologized.” Hunter isnisted and Darius smiled, remembering when he had told Hunter exactly that over a year ago. “I know, but I do accept it.”
Hunter got to his feet and hugged his dad tightly, Darius placing the crystal ball down and hugging Hunter back.
They stood in the room, arms tight around each other for a few minutes before Hunter pulled away and Darius released him.
“You’re still grounded though,” Darius said and Hunter rolled his eyes. “I know I know, it’s only two days, I can survive.”
They both laughed and Darius picked up his crystal ball before turning and leaving.
“Glad you learned your lesson though.”