Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Still can’t believe they live here,” Gus said as he, Luz, Amity, and Willow approached the Deamonne residence. They made the 10-minute trek from the gate to the front door, ending with a turn to reveal a grand view of the three-story house.

“I mean, he is a Coven Head, it makes sense he lives in a big house,” Amity responded. 

“To be honest, Darius still kind of intimidates me,” Luz said with an abashed smile.

“He’s not that bad,” Willow said.

Once they were at the front door, Luz took the initiative and knocked. After a moment, they heard footsteps walk down the hall and Darius opened the door. He looked as though he was ready to give his unwanted visitors a speech about how he “wasn’t supposed to be disturbed today” or “the sign says no solicitors” but both died on his tongue when he saw the four teens.

“Hi, Darius,” Luz began, with a tiny wave, “We just wanted to see how Hunter was doing after getting his wisdom fangs out and-”

“Marco!” a distant voice called from within the house.

Darius, looking very tired, called back over his shoulder, “Polo!”

Two days ago, Luz had asked if the gang wanted to hang out at the Owl House. Unfortunately, Amity was having a day trip with her father and siblings, Willow had a whole list of errands to run, and Gus had to take Emmiline to the healer’s for her stomachache. So that just left Hunter coming over so the two could sit on the couch upside down together. Flapjack napped on the coffee table.

Hunter had been tapping a pencil in the spaces between his fingers when he hissed, “Ow.” 

Luz turned her head from her upside down position. “What happened?”

Hunter rubbed his cheek. “Something pinched me. Hold on.” He stuck his fingers in his mouth and probed, only to recoil and shake his hand out. “Ow!”

He got up and hurried out of the room. Luz waited a moment before deciding to roll off the couch and follow him.

Hunter stood at the bathroom sink, staring into his open mouth in the mirror. “Uh oh.”

“What’s wrong?” Luz asked.

“My wisdom fangs are coming in.” 

“Witches get wisdom fangs? Humans just get wisdom teeth.”

“I didn’t even know grimwalkers could get wisdom fangs. I thought it was weird when mine didn’t come in.” Hunter started rummaging through the sink drawers. “I saw it in here last time. . . .”

Luz’s brows knitted, and leaned around him to see. “What are you looking for?”

“This.” Hunter pulled out a pair of pliers. 

Luz shrieked and lunged for the pliers. Hunter moved out of range and backed up. “Hey!”

“You can’t pull them out with pliers!” Luz jumped at the pliers again but missed.

“Yeah, I can! The coven scouts did it all the time!”

“You said it yourself that the castle’s healing ward was terrifying!”

“And it costs less to do it myself! I’ll be careful!”

“You don’t know what careful is!”

Hunter held her back with a hand to her face as her arms flailed for the pliers. He pushed her through the door and slammed it. Luz grabbed the knob only to find it locked. She banged her fists into the door. “Hunter!”

She would have ripped the door off its hinges with vines if it wasn’t for the fact that the door and window were both magically reinforced for maximum bathroom security (Hooty didn’t like it when they broke things). There was only one person who could stop Hunter.

Luz raced down the hall, then the stairs, and crashed into the crow phone. “Call Darius!” After a moment, she heard a slam against glass and a startled cry. “Darius!”

“What- Noceda?! What do you want?!”

“Hunter got his wisdom fangs!” Luz yelled into the crow.

“Good for him-”

“And he’s trying to pull them out!”

“He’s WHAT?!”

Hunter angled his head around to find the other wisdom fang. With the limited light he created from a glyph, he could just make out the curling tooth at the back of his mouth. He tried to position the pliers in just the right way for a proper view, but the moment he had the perfect shot, Hunter’s ear picked up an ominous noise. 

Heavy footsteps marched down the hall. Couldn’t be Eda, her steps click-clacked with her heels; nor Luz, who was much too light and quick. So that meant-

“Hunter, you open this door this instant!”

Hunter fumbled with the pliers before they could hit the tile. “You called Darius?!”

Luz’s panicked voice cried through the door, “It was the only thing I could think of!”

Darius yelled, “You have five seconds to open this door!”

Hunter gripped the pliers like they could teleport him out of the house, but unfortunately, he had left Flapjack in the front room. “I said I’d be careful!”

“Five!”

“Uh-!” Hunter frantically looked around the room for any form of escape.

“Four!”

He looked at the shower drain, then the toilet, as if he could even fit in there.

“Three!”

He was doomed.

“Two!”

Hunter spotted the window. 

“One!”

Abomination goo seeped under the door and regathered itself into Darius’s form. And the first thing he saw were Hunter’s kicking legs as he tried to squeeze through the small window.

From the other side of the door, Luz heard the sound of a struggle, as well as, “Are you serious?!” and, “We are going to the Healing Coven!” and then, “What do you mean you already pulled one out?!”

Hunter sulked from his spot on the couch in the Healing Coven’s lobby. Although sigils were no longer necessary (or wanted), the covens were still around as the sigils were permanent. It was certainly still necessary for the Healing Coven to remain, if only to keep idiots like Hunter from doing dumb things. Or patching them up afterwards.

Darius flipped through a magazine next to Hunter. As much as Hunter was tempted to try and yank the wisdom fangs out again in the past two days, he had already been caught. And being caught by Darius once was enough. However, that didn’t stop the misery of the occasional tooth stab, difficulty eating, and tearing through five toothbrushes.

Hunter miserably stroked Flapjack’s feathers, who perched on his knee.

A door opened at the other side of the lobby, and a girl in hot pink pajama pants was led out by a healer and presumably the girl’s mother. Gauze was stuffed in the girl’s cheeks and her eyes stared off a hundred miles away. 

“Okay, sweetie, let’s get you home to your nice bed, okay?” the healer said gently.

The girl lazily smiled, drool dripping down from the corner of her mouth. “Heh-heh, yeah. Be freeeeeeeeeeee. . . .” 

Hunter caught the words printed on her shirt as she staggered past: “Dental Hygienist by Day, World’s Best Mom by Night.” He very much hoped the girl wasn’t a mother already.

Hunter sunk deeper into the couch.

Darius flipped a page. “You’ll be fine.”

Hunter grumbled, “Would have been fine if I did it myself. . . .”

“Pulling out teeth with pliers like a barbarian is not fine .”

Hunter threw his hand into the air. “It’s the same as tying a string to a baby tooth-”

“Wisdom fangs aren’t baby teeth. Do you want nerve damage? Because that’s how you get nerve damage.”

Hunter turned his face away and muttered into the cushion. “Not like I don’t already have nerve damage.”

“You do realize that doesn’t help your case, right?”

Hunter scowled and turned back to petting Flapjack’s feathers. Flapjack hopped from his knee and flew to his shoulder. He twittered something or other to Hunter, who replied, “I don’t know, I just never liked going to the Healing Coven.”

Darius decided to file that information away in the “Should I Be Concerned About This?” mental cabinet.

The same door opened again and a healer with a clipboard walked through. “Hunter?”

“That would be this gremlin right here,” Darius responded as he stood up. Hunter reluctantly stood as well and trudged behind Darius as he followed the healer through the door. They were led down a hall to a small operation room, where Hunter was instructed to sit in the large reclining chair. He obliged, though keeping the frown on his face.

After a few minutes, the lead healer walked in, bespectacled and a big grin on his face, followed by a team of three assistant healers. “Hey there, buddy, are you the troublemaker I heard about?”

Hunter glanced to the side. “. . . Yes.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Lead Healer Stacy and I’ll be yanking out those chompers of yours.”

Hunter looked to Darius as a silent plea to stop this now, but Darius was just squinting at the lead healer in judgemental confusion. Glad they at least agreed on one thing. 

One of the assistants poked a blue wooden stick at the corner of Hunter’s mouth. He jerked back. “Hey.”

“Bite down on this, please,” the assistant said. Hunter sighed through his nose and bit down on the stick. The assistant created a spell circle, which emitted a blue beam, and scanned Hunter’s right cheek, then the left. The assistant then transferred the spell circle onto a neon green stone on the counter. The stone ate up the circle and created an illusion of Hunter’s teeth, tooth gap included.

“Let’s see here,” Stacy muttered. He turned the stone to the side to look at the left side of Hunter’s mouth, and of its remaining wisdom fang. “Yep, you sure pulled that one. Surprisingly clean.”

Hunter sent a smug smile Darius’s way.

Stacy continued with an unnervingly cheerful tone, “But you sure were close to hitting the mandibular branch of your trigeminal nerve. Which would have caused nerve damage. Potentially permanent nerve damage.”

Darius threw Hunter’s smile right back at him.

“Boy, oh, boy, look at those chompers.” Stacy pointed at the top wisdom fang. “That’s quite the twist you got there.” Stacy prattled on about Hunter’s strange teeth, which Hunter started to zone out of. He already did his own research on wisdom fangs, thank you very much. If left untreated, they were likely to burrow through his gums or cheeks, or in one unfortunate case, his ear. They were also popular with night market growth potions for flesh-eating plants. He just wanted to leave this disinfected place. The smell was already burning a third nostril into his nose.

“And one last thing, I’m afraid we can’t allow palismen in the room during operation.”

Hunter jerked up. “What?”

Stacy sent him that cushy smile again. “We don’t want your little buddy getting distressed, now do we?”

Hunter protectively brought his hands close to Flapjack. Flapjack nestled into his cheek and cooed, a small comfort.

Stacy turned to Darius. “Would you like to stay with him?”

Darius, feeding into his constant urge to be sarcastic, asked, “The boy or the bird?”

Stacy laughed. “The boy, silly!”

Darius furrowed his brows at “silly” but chose to ignore it. He turned to Hunter and said, “I’ll make sure that Flapjack is alright.” Because, truth be told, he didn’t want to watch a team of healers digging around in Hunter’s mouth.

Hunter’s shoulders relaxed minutely. He heaved a breath in through his nose and out his mouth. No escape now. “Okay.” Hunter gently took Flapjack and placed him in Darius’s hands. Flapjack trilled sadly as he craned his neck to keep his good eye on Hunter for as long as possible while Darius walked out the room.

“I’ll be okay,” Hunter reassured. Though his nerves didn’t say the same.

One of the assistants closed the door as Stacy put on a pair of gloves. “Alright, let’s get this show on the road.”

Hunter thought, Please stop talking like that.

Another of the assistants approached Hunter with a vial of a clear liquid. “Drink this. It’ll leave you unconscious and numb the pain. You might start to feel woozy pretty soon.”

Hunter steeled his nerves and downed the vial in one go. He smacked his lips to get the slightly unpleasant taste out of his mouth. “I don’t feel woozy.”

Suddenly, the world spun around him and that’s the last thing he remembered for a while.

Darius alternated between scrolling through his Penstagram and flipping through magazines during the half-hour wait. Flapjack remained much more restless, hopping across the couch cushions and Darius’s lap in anxious anticipation for his favorite boy.

“I’m sure he’s just fine, little bird,” Darius said, sneaking a pet of Flapjack’s feathers with his knuckle. Sure, the kid wouldn’t be able to eat solid foods for about a week, and likely complain about it the whole time, but it was a better alternative than getting an infection in his mouth. Besides, Hunter was only supposed to be loopy for a few hours, say some embarrassing things, and blush over it the next day, no harm done.

At that moment, a crash decided to sound from behind the door. Darius paused and listened. A few seconds went by and his eyes drifted back to his scroll. Then another crash sounded. Darius grimaced.

“Please don’t be Hunter, please don’t be Hunter-”

Stampeding steps rang down the hallway. “IMMMAAN INDEPENDEN’ HUNNER!”

“Oh no.”

The door slammed open and a disheveled Hunter stood in the doorway, wild-eyed and drooling pinkish spit. Darius jumped, then grabbed the bird before he could fly into Hunter’s arms. Flapjack pecked at his hand as Darius approached Hunter like one does toward a dog that stole their very expensive boot. “Hunter-”

A fist smashed into his face.

Darius’s hands flew to his nose, dropping Flapjack. Hunter dive bombed for the bird. In a flash of gold, both boy and bird were gone. Before Darius could even think “Where did they go?” a trashcan toppled over from out the front door. He looked out the window and caught a glimpse of Hunter’s boots being dragged away around the corner of a building. 

Stacy and a squadron of healers ran past him and out the front door. “We got a runner!”

Darius brought his hand away from his nose, a wave of relief washing over him seeing no spots of red left on his glove. Then he clenched his fist and hissed, “That boy is grounded. ”

Pedestrians leapt out of the way of the runaway patient. Seeing as how Hunter couldn’t fully sit on Flapjack’s staff, he held tight with one hand while the rest of his body was dragged across the cobblestones. He left a trail of drool as they tried to fly through the streets.

One of the healers summoned a shield at the end of the street. Hunter and Flapjack took a sharp left down an alleyway. Another healer threw a lasso out, but only managed to rip off Hunter’s boot before they flew down the alley.

“Sweet mother of Titans, what did you give him?!” Darius shouted as he caught up with the pursuing healers.

“We gave him the usual!” Stacy said.

“The usual what? Heron Spit?!”

Stacy had the gall to be offended. “Poppy Seed!”

“Ugh, whatever, we are never coming here again!” Darius snapped his fingers and an abomination rose up at the end of the alley. The abomination lunged, but Hunter and Flapjack teleported behind it. A bit higher than planned because Hunter’s foot swung into someone’s ribs. The momentum made Flapjack go spinning; Hunter lost his grip and ragdolled into a small, large-nosed demon. It was hard to tell who let out the squeaky yelp.

Flapjack careened into a small shop and crashed into the various cages on sale. He turned back into a bird, shook his head, and was about to fly to Hunter again when thin, metal bars fell around him. He squawked as the cage was lifted up by none other than Darius.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” Darius said. Flapjack angrily chirped and fluttered at the bars. 

Hunter laid on top of the small, struggling demon, passed out. The healers approached him with caution. One of them crouched at Hunter’s side.

Hunter’s eyes sprung open and he punched the healer in the forehead. He rolled over and chucked the small demon into another healer’s gut. Hunter went to bite the third, but his mouth could only manage half an inch, so he just awkwardly nommed on her arm. She recoiled in disgust then had her legs swiped from under her.

A gargle broke out of Hunter’s mouth as well as, “ALIIIIIIVE!”

Two abominations rose up on either side of him. Hunter leapt up and drove his fist through the left one’s chest, tearing out its gooey heart. Screaming, Hunter shoved the heart in the other’s face.

“That kid’s a monster!” Stacy cried. 

“What did you expect? He pulled out his own teeth!” Darius yelled.

One of the assistants drew a spell circle and frisbeed it at Hunter. Hunter ducked and the spell hit another passerby, knocking them unconscious. Hunter grabbed them by the shirt and flung them at the assistant. They barreled into the assistant and both slid to Darius’s feet. The assistant croaked, “He is surprisingly strong.”

Darius arched his brow. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

Stacy shrilled, “Can’t you use his palisman to calm him down?!”

Darius held up Flapjack’s cage. “I am not negotiating with a drugged teenager that already punched me in the face for this bird.” He didn’t want to waste his breath explaining that Hunter would just use the bird to teleport away again, and that holding Flapjack hostage would only agitate Hunter more. At that thought, Darius grabbed a blanket from the shop and draped it over Flapjack’s cage. Flapjack protested with bird swearing.

It wasn’t like he could bribe Hunter with treats either. In his current state, he’d probably think it was a trick, or poisoned, or both. The best course of action was to wait until Hunter tired himself out. Which could take a while.

Another assistant ran at Hunter head on, only to have his arm grabbed and his whole body thrown into a wooden table. The table broke in half; Hunter ripped off one of the legs to hold in the air and scream. 

“Just do something!” Stacy yelled.

“Ugh, since you can’t handle your patients.” Darius stepped forward and cupped his free hand around his mouth. “Hunter! Aren’t you getting tired?”

Hunter tripped the healer that he threw into the table after he charged at him again. “SLEEP ISH FOR WEAKS!”

Darius shrugged. “Well, I tried.”

Stacy screamed in frustration.

The healers laid in heaps around the street, Hunter at the center in a fighting stance. He blinked one eye at a time, trying to keep awake. He swayed but shifted his feet to stay upright. One good hit from him and he would probably knock himself out.

Hunter’s hand bapped his cheek. He loudly mumbled something incomprehensible then managed, “TEEETHHH.”

Darius glanced at Stacy. A lightbulb sprung over his head. 

“Hunter!” Hunter swung his head in Darius’s general direction. Darius pointed at Stacy. “He stole your teeth!”

Stacy turned on him. “What?!”

With a battle cry, Hunter charged at Stacy. Stacy shrieked and cowered behind Darius.

Hunter’s charge started strong, but slowed, until he was dragging his feet across the cobbles. Hunter staggered to the side, then the other side. “Whooooaaaa, time . . .” Hunter crossed his hands in a T shape. “Time-out.” Then he started tipping forward.

Darius hurriedly placed Flapjack’s cage on an abomination pillar to keep him out of reach and caught Hunter in his arms. He almost worried that Hunter died then and there until he heaved a snore.

Darius breathed a sigh of relief. “Glad that’s over with.” He turned to Stacy, who still slightly crouched away from Hunter. “I’ll pay for the medical expenses that he caused. But only the bare minimum. I suggest getting better protocol for runaway patients.”

“How’d you know that would work?” Stacy asked.

Darius smirked. “I didn’t.”

Someone “ahemed” behind Darius. He turned to see a shop owner, glancing at Flapjack’s cage and holding out his hand expectantly. With a sigh and a roll of his eyes, his abomination hair dropped five gold snails into the shop owner’s palm. “Keep the change.”

Darius carried Hunter’s dead weight through the front door and down the hall, Hunter’s feet dragging under him. An abomination followed close behind, leaving Hunter’s boots at the door then walking down the hall into the kitchen as Darius draped Hunter's body across the chaise in the living room. Darius lifted Hunter’s head up and stuck a machine-washable pillow under.

He straightened back up. “Alright, since you’re out like a light, I’m going to go change. Don’t get into any trouble.”

Hunter responded with a snore. With his swollen cheeks and the gauze at the side of his mouth, it was almost endearing.

Darius turned and walked up the stairs to his room. He closed the door and changed into a comfortable shirt and sweatpants. Just as he put on his left slipper, Hunter’s voice rang out, “Marco!”

Darius paused and furrowed his brow. “Marco?”

Crashing followed soon after.

“AH!” Darius ran out of his room and down the stairs. The coffee table laid on its side, the lamp knocked over. And Hunter flailed halfway out the window. “Hunter!”

“Freedom is miiiine!” Hunter declared.

Darius dragged him back in by the back of his shirt, Hunter struggling all the while. “Why are you climbing out the window?!”

“You didn’t say ‘Polo!’”

“What?”

Hunter twisted around but couldn’t escape Darius’s grip. “When I say ‘Marco,’ you’re shupposed to say ‘Polo!’”

“Okay, okay, Polo!”

Hunter immediately went limp with a resigned grunt. Darius cautiously dragged Hunter back onto the chaise. “Where did you even learn that?”

“Luz taught me.”

Darius sighed and closed the window, locking it for good measure. “Human thing. I should have guessed.”

Hunter nodded self-importantly. “Taught us when we got lost at Oceanmart. Watched the lobsters fight.”

“. . . Uh-huh.” Darius stood the coffee table and lamp back up then sat in the chair opposite of the chaise. “So let me guess, I’m going to have to stay in the room or else you’ll try to escape.”

Hunter opened his mouth like he was about to answer, then furrowed his brows and turned his head into the pillow with a grunt.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

Hunter grumbled something into the pillow.

“What was that?”

Hunter turned his head toward Darius. “Ish no way to treat the Golden Guard.”

“. . . Oh, boy.”

Chapter Text

All four teens shared varying looks of confusion.

Darius rubbed his forehead. “You can come in, just don’t say or do anything that will set him off.”

“Like what?” Amity asked.

Darius waved his hand in the air. “Anything. He thinks he’s back at the castle, with Belos still around and not how . . . things are now. Just-”

“Marco!”

“-Polo! Just don’t do anything.”

“That’s not very specific,” Luz mumbled.

Darius stepped aside and let the four of them, all now concerned and uncertain, walk inside and down the hall. He closed the door behind them.

Luz popped her head around the corner and spotted Hunter lying on the chaise, covered by a blanket. His arm and leg hung over the side.

“Hi, Hunter!”

Hunter quickly tucked his leg back onto the chaise like he'd been caught escaping. He opened one eye and squinted at the corner. “Human?”

Luz jumped into the room. “Yep, that’s me! And I brought friends.” The other three filed in.

Hunter took his time squinting at each one of them in turn. His lip curled at Amity. “Blight.” Then his eyebrows rose in surprise and gave Gus a small smile. “Gus.” Then he gave a slightly goofy grin to Willow. “Captain. . . !”

“I can see who his favorites are,” Amity deadpanned as Willow gave him an amused smile.

Darius walked past behind them, sat down in his chair, and pulled out his scroll. Hunter kept an eagle eye trained on Darius and gestured with a limp hand for the group to come closer. All four glanced at each other as they walked toward him.

Hunter gestured a bit more frantically and whisper-shouted, “Captain.”

Willow furrowed her brow and bent down with her hands on her knees. “Um, yeah?”

Hunter’s eye roamed around until he found Gus. “Gus, you too.”

Gus also crouched. “Uh, okay?”

Hunter cupped a hand around his mouth and said while flicking his eyes between them and Darius, “I’ve been kidnapped.”

Willow tilted her head quizzically. “Uh, no, I’m pretty sure that Dar-”

Hunter put a finger to his lips. “Sshhhhhhh, sh, sh, sh, shush. . . He’s in the room .”

Willow looked over her shoulder to Darius, who rolled his eyes.

Hunter continued, “He’s got me imprisoned here. And won’t let me leave.”

Gus said, “I think that’s a good thing, since you can’t really stand. . . .”

“I can stand just fine!” 

Hunter started to push himself into an upright position, but the others quickly held out their hands to catch him while saying, “No, no, no, no, no!”

Hunter groaned and fell back onto his pillow, his arm bent around his head. He made a chopping motion with his hand as he explained, “I need you to form-u-late a plan.”

“A plan for what . . . ?” Willow asked hesitantly.

“A plan of escape.”

Luz hid a snort behind her hand. Hunter must have noticed since he waved his hand at her. “Human, c’mhere.”

“Oh, okay,” Luz eagerly kneeled down at eye level with Hunter. 

“Luz, don’t encourage him,” Amity said.

“I’m curious,” Luz replied.

He pointed a lazy finger in her face and said very seriously, “Distract Dariush.”

Luz clucked her tongue. “Um, I don’t really think that’s a good idea. . . .”

Hunter clenched his fist and said with a fire in his dazed eyes, “Believe in yourshelf!”

Luz cupped her hands around her cheeks and looked up at the others. “Aww, he’s being supportive!”

Hunter went on, “Talk to him about . . . wild magic. Make him . . . confused.”

“Why wild magic?”

“Cuz you’re good at it and . . . shush.” Hunter placed his finger on his lips again. “Won’t work. ‘Ll make Uncle mad.”

Luz’s smile quickly became tight-lipped. She glanced at the others, who shared her concerned and uncomfortable expression. “Should we . . . ?”

“No,” Darius spoke up, “don’t mention it.”

Hunter’s mouth crumpled into a scowl. “He heard . . . ! Plan B.” He gently smacked Luz’s head out of the way. “Gus, c’mhere.”

“Okay, my turn, I guess,” Gus took Luz’s place and crouched next to Hunter. “What’s up?”

Hunter splayed out his hand and gestured over his whole body. “I need you to create an illusion of Darius so he’ll have to . . . Marco.”

“Polo,” Darius responded.

“Grrr.” Hunter lowered his voice, and Gus had to lean in closer, “He fell for it. Create an illusion of me sleeping.”

Gus nodded. “Yeah, I don’t think that’ll work, buddy.”

“He won’t know the difference, Gus. You’re aMAyzing.”

“Thanks, dude, but, um. . . .”

Amity jumped in, “It’s the full moon, so he can’t create illusions right now.”

Hunter squinted at Amity, the gears slowly turning in his head. “. . . That’s not a thing. . . .”

“No, you’re thinking of the blue moon, Amity,” Gus said with a nervous smile. “I can’t create illusions under a blue moon.”

“Oooohhh, right, right, my mistake,” Amity agreed, with a “gee-golly” arm swing tacked on at the end.

Hunter looked between them as they sweat, then dropped his head back on his pillow. “Dang.”

Gus and Amity sighed in relief.

“Captain,” Hunter mumbled. 

Willow stepped forward. “What is it, Hunter?”

“I need you to . . .” He interrupted himself, “Marco.”

“Polo,” Darius said again.

“I need you to grow some lavenders. It’s Darius’s favorite flower.”

Willow’s brows knitted together. “Oookay. I didn’t know he had a favorite flower.”

“I don’t,” Darius claimed.

“His abominations always smell like lavender,” Hunter explained.

Luz perked up. “Really? Darius, can I smell one of your abominations?”

Darius answered, “No.”

“Quiet, Luz. This is sherious,” Hunter said, facepalming Luz for her. “But, hide sleeping nettles in the lavender, so that when he smells them, he gets sleepy. . .” After a second of processing, Hunter giggled.

“What’s so funny?” Willow asked, trying to keep a straight face.

Hunter giggled a bit longer, then said, “I was just thinkin’ ‘bout the time Luz and I had to fight Kikimora. She got all sleepy and crashed and I had to fight her. She hit my head.” He tapped his temple, recalling the memory with a smile.

The group’s smiles turned distressed again. Darius leaned forward in his chair. “You did what?”

Luz sheepishly shrugged. “Um, she kinda, sorta tried to kill us first?”

The shock barely made it to the surface of Darius’s face as Hunter continued, “Yeah, we were flying and . . .” Hunter’s smile slowly faded and his brows bunched together. Suddenly, he gasped and stabbed a finger at Luz. “You!”

Luz jumped. “Me?”

Hunter dragged his hand across his face. “You did this!”

“Wha-”

“You- You rock- rocked- rock-et-ed me off my own ship! And we crashed and- and- You SLAPPED ME!”

Darius scoffed. “So crash landing ships is required to join your friend group?”

Luz started to explain herself but Hunter interrupted, “You slapped me and-” He gasped again, smushing his hand against his cheek. He whispered, “You knocked out my teeth!”

Luz waved her hands placatingly in front of her. “No, I didn’t take your teeth-”

Hunter growled and drew his accusatory finger like a sword, aiming it directly at Luz. “Conformatorium! Conformatorium for a thousand years!”

Amity came to Luz’s aid. “Hunter, the Conformatorium doesn’t-”

“You heard the kid,” Darius said as he got between Luz and Hunter, shooing her away. “Conformatorium. Off you go.”

“What!” Luz cried. “But he was kidnapping palismen when this happened!”

“Doesn't matter. Shoo.” Darius pushed her into the hall. “Go to the sitting room or something. The last thing we need is for him to get more agitated.”

Luz angrily pouted and trudged down the hall. She turned right into the sitting room and plunked herself down on the couch with crossed arms.

Back in the living room, Hunter furiously shook his fist in the air. “Where is the human?”

“I sent her to the Conformatorium. She’s eating maggots as we speak.”

Hunter dropped his fist. “Hmph. Good. Make sure it’s locked up tight. She already escaped twice.”

Darius glanced at the ceiling in exasperation. “Of course she did.” He glanced at the clock, then pointed at the three remaining friends in the room. “I have laundry. Watch him.” Darius opened a door at the side of the stairs and marched down.

Gus, Willow, and Amity, who had watched Luz’s banishment, looked down at the self-satisfied Hunter with uncertainty. 

Gus tapped his fingers together. “Soooo, Hunter, you wanna tell us about rattle worms or something?”

Luz sang a “do-da-do” song as she waited in the sitting room. She didn’t know how long she was supposed to wait before she was allowed back in Hunter’s presence, but in the meantime, she would just sit and look around the room.

Which quickly became less interesting when her eyes landed on the door at the other end of the room.

She knew that she shouldn’t snoop, but it was just so easy. And she rarely got to be in Darius’s house.

Luz quietly stood up from the couch and snuck toward the door. Since there was no knob, she pushed it open. Inside, she found a long, mahogany table with multiple lavish chairs pushed up to it. A sparkling chandelier hung from the ceiling.

“I guess this is the dining room,” Luz muttered as she meandered down the length of the table. At the other end of the room, she found yet another door. She pushed it open, and found the kitchen and its shining counters. Atop the counter, however, sat a dome-like shape covered with a blanket. Curiosity leading her, she crept toward it.

She lifted the blanket.

In the living room, Gus filmed with his scroll as Hunter explained the daily life of the common rattle worm. “And then the ra’le worm will make a lil ‘scoosh-scoosh-scoosh’ sound and-”

Luz’s voice carried into the room, uttering the forbidden words: “Oh, hi, Flapjack!”

Hunter shot up like a rocket. “MARCO!”

Chapter Text

It was only supposed to take two minutes, three tops. Darius would go downstairs, take the sheets (that Hunter had previously drooled on) out of the dryer, take the clothes out of the washer and into the dryer, then go back upstairs to one highly suspicious Hunter. Simple as can be.

Life, however, liked to kick Darius behind the knees. When he closed the dryer door and set it, he heard a primal yell from upstairs, “MARCO!”

That sinking feeling that only Hunter could cause turned his gut to stone. 

This was a different Marco .

Darius dropped the basket of sheets and scrambled for the living room. “No, no, no, no, no, Polo! POLO!”

When he got to the living room, the kids were already making a mad dash for the kitchen door.

Luz shrieked as Hunter slurred, “HUMAN ESHCAPED!”

“You were supposed to watch him!” Darius bellowed.

“Luz just said ‘Hi, Flapjack!’” Gus replied in defense.

“Ugh, I told her to wait in the sitting room!”

Willow threw the door open and tripped over Luz where she laid on the floor. Gus and Amity stopped just before they tripped over them as well.

Hunter shook the bars of Flapjack’s cage in the middle of the kitchen. “I’LL RESHCUE YOU!” Flapjack stumbled in the cage, becoming increasingly dizzy.

Darius drew a spell circle and a string of abomination suction-cupped the top of Flapjack’s cage. Hunter held on for dear life as it was lifted up.

Gus charged to tackle Hunter, but in the same moment Flapjack’s staff extended from the bars. Hunter grabbed the staff and the pair, cage included, vanished in a blur of gold. Gus ran headfirst into a cabinet.

“Where’d he go?!” Amity yelled.

“He can’t have gone far!” Darius said.

The sound of a chair toppling echoed from the dining room. Darius, Amity, and Willow raced through the door, followed closely by Luz, and less closely by Gus, who was still seeing stars. 

The other dining room door swung back and forth. The company ran down the length of the table and barreled through, catching only a glimpse of Hunter turning the corner into the main hall. They skidded into the hall, only to find it empty.

“When did he get so fast?!” Luz questioned.

The company ran down the hall, Darius at the lead. A door slammed behind them. Darius stopped dead in his tracks, the teens running into his back. They all turned and found Hunter locking the door to the hallway closet with a key.

“Ally secure!” Hunter said, holding a familiar slipper to his ear.

Darius looked down at his feet, where only the right slipper remained. “When did he—?”

Hunter vanished again. 

Darius growled in frustration and turned back toward the living room.

Willow looked up and down the hall. “Where’s Gus?”

“Guys?” Gus’s voice called from the hallway closet.

“Gus!” All three girls cried. 

Willow started to draw a spell circle but Darius interrupted, “Use magic in my house and you’re dead.”

Willow stared at him, incredulous. “Huh?”

Darius pointed at Luz and Amity. “That goes for you two as well.”

Amity questioned, “How are we supposed to catch him without magic?”

“We have to wait until he tires himself out again– but we have to get Flapjack away or else he’ll fly into a tree and knock out more teeth.”

“Guys, I’m still in the closet.”

A crash sounded from the second floor. The group immediately turned and ran up the stairs.

“We’ll come back for you, Gus!” Luz called over her shoulder.

“Wha- Don’t leave me in here!”

They climbed the stairs to the second floor, where a hall held several doors. “Fan out, he’s in one of these rooms!” Darius said.

They each picked a different room and opened the door. Darius found his bedroom empty, so did Amity and Luz with the bathroom and guest room. Willow, however, opened the door to Hunter’s bedroom, and barely caught a glimpse of Hunter’s socks scrambling through the window. Willow hollered, “He’s on the roof!”

Willow ran over and clambered through the window. Hunter crawled across the roof, the birdcage around his palisman scraping across the shingles.

“Hunter!” Willow called. Hunter stopped and looked at her from under his arm. “Hunter, get off the roof. . . .”

“Captain?”

“Yes, it’s me, Captain, just come this way, get off the roof.” Willow frantically waved her hand toward her in a desperate attempt for him to approach.

“Captain, there are enemies nearby.”

“No, no, no enemies, we’re just-”

Luz’s head popped out of the window. “Hunter?”

Hunter gasped and teleported behind Willow. Luz ducked her head back in just as Flapjack’s staff whacked the window frame. 

“Stay here, Captain,” Hunter said.

“Wha-”

Hunter crawled back inside and shut the window behind him.

“Hunter!” Willow tried to lift the window up but he had already locked it. She banged on the glass, not that it would do her much good as she watched Hunter body-slam Luz. Luckily, they landed on a pile of clean clothes that Darius had dumped on Hunter’s bed because he was hogging all the laundry baskets, but Hunter had swept them onto the floor the day before. 

A wheeze escaped Luz’s throat as the wind was knocked out of her. Hunter stood and addressed the slipper in his other hand, “Human neutralized. Come collect—”

Amity ran into the room, followed by Darius. Hunter started to sway on his feet, but still kept upright. His head bobbed, then did a triple take at the wall. He slapped his hand and the slipper onto a little door’s knob on the wall and pulled it open.

“Hunter,” Darius said warningly, “Step away from the laundry chute.”

Hunter pointed his staff at Amity and Darius. “Treason!” And jumped headfirst into the laundry chute.

Amity screamed and Darius swore to the Titan as they surged forward. Hunter had already slipped most of the way into the chute, but Flapjack’s cage was too large to fit. Amity grabbed the cage while Darius tried to pull Hunter back up by his ankles. Amity wrestled Flapjack out of his grip. 

“I got him!” she announced as Flapjack changed back into bird form and twittered in distress.

Hunter kicked Darius in the chin. The shock was enough for his grip to loosen and Hunter’s feet to slide right out of his socks. Hunter’s body banged against the sides of the chute, and all the way down, Hunter cried out, “FLAAAAAPJAAAAAAACK!”

Darius dropped the socks in disgust and looked down the chute. Distantly, there was one final bang and an echoing grunt.

Darius rushed for the door. He ordered as he ran down the hall, “Hide Flapjack!”

“. . . Where though?” Amity wondered aloud.

Luz groaned, causing Amity to gasp. Amity fell by her side. “Luz! Are you okay?”

Luz gave a thumbs up. “Yeah, just a minor concussion. But look, Hunter has socks that look like Flapjack, isn’t that cute?”

Willow knocked on the glass again, which finally made both girls notice Willow’s predicament. Amity hurried and unlatched the window. Willow carefully crawled back in. “I don’t think this is working,” she said.

“Tell me about it,” Amity agreed. 

Flapjack furiously chirped and flapped his wings, glaring at each of them in turn. Luz cringed. “Why do I get the feeling that he’s swearing at us?”

Darius stopped in the doorway of the laundry room, breathing heavily. Unfortunately, the laundry room was empty, the only sound being the dryer’s tossing. He carefully stepped into the room. He checked the space between the washer and dryer, empty. “Hunter. . .” He racked his brain for anything that could possibly coax Hunter out of his hiding place. Flapjack was a no-go, food– the kid once said he survived a week on a mountain on just five bugs– wasn’t likely to work, and Darius himself wasn’t exactly Hunter’s favorite person at the moment. “. . . I just checked out some books from the library . . . very interesting, one’s about . . ." he trailed off as he decided, "oh, this is ridiculous.” 

Darius’s eye caught the hamper directly under Hunter’s laundry chute, where a suspicious lump hid under the pile of shirts and pants. He kicked off his other slipper and crept toward the hamper. “One’s about venomous plant life and the other’s about potions. . .” Darius slowly reached a hand out.

He threw aside the pile of clothes, revealing two pillows.

“What-”

“FOR FLAAAPJAAAACK!”

A sheet suddenly dropped onto his head. Darius fought against the sheet while something wrapped around his torso. Darius heard the frantic scurry of Hunter’s bare feet across the floorboards then up the stairs as Darius wrestled the sheet off his head. What had wrapped around him fell to the floor, which turned out to be a rope made from freshly-washed sheets tied together at the ends.

Darius stared down at it in disbelief. “Did I seriously get outsmarted by a teenager on drugs?”

He walked back up the stairs, and, as expected, Hunter was nowhere to be seen. Darius groaned and dragged both hands down his face.

Hunter was proving to be more feral than any beast on the Boiling Isles.

Beast. . . .

Darius pinched the bridge of his nose. “Oh, he’ll never let me live this down.”

Eberwolf laughed at him over the crow phone for 5 minutes straight. Darius stood on the front porch, along with Hunter’s friends (including Gus, who was finally freed from the closet), tapping his foot as they waited rather (im)patiently for Eberwolf to compose himself. When his laughter finally pittered out, Darius asked, “Are you done?” Which immediately sent Eber into another fit. “Okay, enough!”

Darius could practically hear him wiping the tears from his eyes. “ Oh, Eber wishes could be there! Rich like Selkidomus grits !”

“Oh, then why don’t you just come down here yourself since you are just dying to.”

“ Darius drive hard bargain, but Eber still negotiate with slitherbeasts on Knee. Hard to calm after you-know-what .”

Darius dragged a hand down his face. “Yes, I’m aware. So, how do I . . . handle . . . this situation?”

“ Depends. How long ‘til potion wear off ?”

“I was told it lasts 4 to 5 hours, and it has been 2 hours since his operation.”

“ Hmm, option 1 is wait ‘til then but -”

“I’d much rather not have him tramping around the house or the woods hopped up on pain potion.”

“ So option 2 is set trap. Hunter, though, extra slippery. Managed to lose Eber once, no easy feat. ”

“Well, he had the ability to fly at the time, so . . .”

Eber huffed, displeased. “ Anyway, since Hunter not like Darius right now, Darius have to hide. Mentioned treats might not work, but use just in case. Real kicker, though, is live bait .”

Darius narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean by live bait?”

Judging by his tone, Eber had that infamously mischievous smirk across his face. “ Oh, Darius know what Eber mean .”

Chapter Text

Hunter wasn’t entirely sure how he got up here, but, man, if this wasn’t a good watch tower. Surveying the land like a griffin, he was a griffin, only waaay stealthier. Darius won’t even know what hit him when Hunter descends– because he’ll still have that sheet over his head. Hunter never saw him get it off, so obviously it was still there. What a dummy. Did he say that out loud? 

Hunter couldn’t believe it either when he found his cloak in a basket in some strange room. Why would Darius put his cloak in a basket? Probably for some nefarious, traitorous scheme that involved kidnapping Hunters and Flapjacks. Hunter always knew he was evil.

Hunter clenched his fist when he thought of his bestest buddy in the whole Boiling Isles and Human Realm combined. “I’ll save you, Flapjack.”

Distantly, Hunter heard the front door open. He tensed, prepared to attack.

“Mmm, this sure is some yummy pudding!”

Hunter froze.

Gus?

“Liger’s Blood is my favorite!”

Captain?!

Hunter almost called out to them but stopped. Darius would hear probably. Not only that, Amity was working with him– had Darius made a truce with the Blights to capture Hunter? Does that mean that Luz was also part of their plot? Evil, all of them.

Hunter would have to warn Willow and Gus, before they were pulled into Darius’s crime ring.

The chandelier swung as Hunter carefully lowered himself by its arms. After a second or two, he let go and flopped directly onto the dining room table. He groaned, then rolled off the table onto the floor, knocking over two chairs. With stealth that would make a ghost jealous, Hunter army-crawled under the table, somersaulted across no-man’s land, and bumped into the dining room door. Once in the sitting room, Hunter wriggled under the couch and crawled under the length of it. From under the couch, he could just barely make out Gus’s and Willow’s shadows cast over the wide open front door.

Gus “mmmed” loudly. “We sure do have a lot of pudding! How are we going to eat it all?”

Oh, how was Hunter going to break it to them that Luz was now the enemy?

No, he must remain vigilant. Their lives were at stake.

Hunter squirmed out from under the couch and tried to tuck and roll to the front door, but miscalculated the two steps that connected the hall to the sitting room. His shoulder bonked into the lower step and he toppled to one side. He quickly uncurled himself, clambered up the two steps, slid across the hardwood, and peeked around the side of the door.

Gus and Willow had their backs to him, each holding a pudding cup and spoon. At their feet stood a stack of more pudding cups. Judging by the sides of their faces, they were very much enjoying their respective pudding cups.

Hunter tried to “psst” at them, but with the current state of numbness in his mouth and cheeks, it came out like air escaping from a hole in an airship. “Pssssshhhhhhh. . .”

Gus and Willow slowly turned around, their pleasant smiles unwavering. “Hi, Hunter,” Willow said. “We’re just out here eating some pudding. It sure is scrumptious. You want some, too?”

Hunter smacked his hand on the doorframe to punctuate the severity of the situation. “We don’t have time for pudding!”

Gus licked his spoon. “You sure? This is really good.”

“Captain, Gus, listen! Darius kidnapped me because of treason! And he’s working with the Blights against the Emperor!”

Gus and Willow shared a glance, probably because of the gravity of this news. Willow sucked in her lip. “Okay, um, how did you come to this conclusion?”

“Because Amity is working with him. And Alador is Amity’s father. This must be throughout the whole Abomination Coven. It's a conspiracy—a coup!”

Willow slowly nodded. “I see, so, uh, you wanna talk about it? Over here?”

“It’s too exposed, we have to take cover.” Hunter beckoned them toward the door.

“I don’t think anybody’s around. We’re safe on the porch,” Gus assured.

“Darius has lil abominations, this tall,” Hunter lifted a hand an inch off the floor to specify, “they could be anywhere! And Alador created the Abomatons– Darius doesn’t like ‘em. He always said it was a cheap tactic to make weak abominations stronger.”

“Okay, well. . .” Willow looked down at the stack of pudding cups. “We can talk about it while we have a, uh . . .” She leaned over and whispered to Gus, “What’s the military version of snack?”

“Uhh, rations?”

“While we eat some of our rations,” she said brightly.

Hunter squinted judgmentally up at Willow, then at her pudding cup, then at the stack of pudding cups and said, “Those are pathetic rations.”

“Oh, well, these were the only rations we could scrape together, so . . .”

Hunter gasped and frantically jabbed his finger at the stack. “They could be poisoned!”

“No, no! They’re not poisoned! We’re eating them and aren’t being poisoned, see?” Willow demonstrated by bringing another spoonful of pudding to her mouth and eating it. “Mmm, yummy!”

Hunter narrowed his eyes, which flicked toward Gus, suspicion evident. He dipped his head further behind the doorframe. “Gus is supposed to be safe in the closet. . . !”

Gus squeaked, resolve breaking. “No, I’m the real Gus, I swear!”

Hunter flicked his chin up. “Say something about humans then.”

Gus fumbled with his tongue. “They, ah, uh, humans can’t breathe fire . . . ?”

Willow’s brows bunched and she side-eyed Gus questioningly. Gus held up his hands defensively, almost dropping his pudding cup and spoon. “I panicked! It was the only thing I could think of!”

Hunter turned his head away and whispered to himself, “Dang, he’s good.”

They both maintained strained smiles as beads of sweat gathered on their foreheads. Suddenly, Willow perked. “Oh! Oh, oh, Hunter, guess what?”

Hunter hunched his shoulders. “What?”

“I found this really cool plant! I was wondering if you could help me study it!”

Hunter’s pupils dilated. “Really?”

“Uh-huh! It’s right down here,” Willow said, gesturing down the walkway.

“What kind of plant?”

“Oh, it’s, uh, it’s mint! A new kind of mint!”

Hunter gasped. He looked away as he tentatively brought a hand to his mouth and started rambling, partly to himself, “Mint has multiple magical properties, mostly involved in healing, protection, and luck. It can also be used in potions to strengthen a bard’s diction.”

“See, Hunter? You’re a natural! So you wanna see where it is?”

The side of Hunter’s mouth twitched with excitement, but his head inched further back in the door frame until only half his face was visible. “You’re trying to co-horse me.”

Willow’s smile grew tighter. “No, I promise. Cross my heart.” She emphasized that point by crossing an X over her heart.

Hunter hummed, all but glaring at them. He lifted a fist up, and stuck his pinky out. “Pinky promise?”

Both Gus and Willow held up their pinkies. “Pinky promise,” they said in unison.

“With a cherry on top?”

Slightly out of unison, they repeated, “With a cherry on top.”

Hunter spent five seconds staring each of them down individually. Neither dropped their composure nor their pinkies. Finally, Hunter shifted and pushed himself up to stand. He wobbled on his feet, but placed a hand on the doorframe to steady himself. 

Willow grinned. “Awesome! Come on, I’ll show you where it is.” She walked backwards down the porch steps, Gus close behind. Hunter sauntered forward, as if led by a string. “That’s it. . .”

“Mint usually grows along the Arms. So we must be on one of the Arms,” Hunter stated.

“Wow, I did not know that,” Gus said sincerely.

Hunter took a step down from the porch. Then another. Exposed from the cover of the porch roof. “Yeah, mint counts as an invasive plant, though it’s not as aggressive as kudzu—”

Something fell upon him, and his vision was obstructed. Hunter gasped and screamed, “BETRAYAAAAAAAAAAAAL!”

Hunter sprinted barefoot, knocking over the pudding cups, across stone and grass and soon pine needles. Willow and Gus were calling out his name, but he couldn’t see them. Their voices were starting to sound more distant and muffled. Hunter’s shoulders bumped into tree trunks. He held out his arms and found a tree, hugging it for good measure. 

His mind was starting to slip. He had to fight against it . . . but it was so dark. When did night get here so early? He can’t wait until dawn to . . . to do whatever . . .

Every inch of his jaws throbbed, and he vaguely felt like vomiting.

Hunter groaned and squinted an eye open, to be met with light filtering through a layer of fabric. His hand reached up and pulled the fabric away from his eyes, revealing harsher light streaming through leaves and branches. 

“. . . Where am I?” Hunter rolled his head to the side, seeing more leaves and branches. He looked down, and found himself hugging a large tree limb. Then he watched the blanket he’d just cast aside flutter to the ground at least fifteen feet below.

“. . . How did I get in a tree?” he muttered, still coming out of a daze. Something tugged at his neck when shifted, and he looked down to find a white sheet tied around his shoulders like a cloak. “. . . What?”

A voice called out his name, then another. He made out five distinct voices calling out to him. With a heavy tongue, he called back, “I’m up here!”

There was a pause, then Gus shouted, “Hah! I was right!”

Darius shouted, “Alright, just don’t move! We’ll find you!”

“Okay, I guess!” Hunter responded, looking down from either side of the tree limb. He could get down on his own easily, but everything was confusing at the moment.

Luz started, “Mar-!” which was immediately cut off by Darius’s, “Don’t you dare!”

After a minute or two, Hunter spotted Amity rounding the tree trunk, then doing a double take upon seeing him. “Found him!”

Willow walked up beside Amity and drew a spell circle. The tree creaked and groaned as it bent down. Hunter gripped the tree limb a bit harder as the branches lowered themselves to the ground, leaves and twigs brushing against him. 

Once he was safely at ground level, he swung a leg over the limb, stood, and turned toward Willow and Amity, soon accompanied by Darius, Gus, and Luz. Hunter untied the sheet from his neck. 

“Can anyone explain why I woke up in a tree?”

Darius plucked a leaf out of Hunter’s hair. “Long story.”

“Which I am happy to tell!” Luz said excitedly.

“Wait, are you telling me that you don’t remember anything?” Gus asked.

Hunter squinted and curled his lip, thinking. “Uhhhh, I remember the healer telling me I would get woozy. . .”

“I think ‘woozy’ is an understatement,” Amity said with a huff.

Luz shoved her phone in Hunter’s face, showing him a picture of stone-faced Darius and Amity holding a blanket and looking over the edge of something, a dome-like shape covered by another blanket at Darius’s feet, and Luz’s eye filling up the lower right corner. “Look, this is when we had to hide on the roof to catch you!”

“What?”

Despite the others recounting all that had happened, Hunter remained in utter disbelief. Gus attempted to reason with him by showing him the video he took. “–And if you look closely, you can pinpoint the exact moment you turn from rattle worms to attack mode.”

Hunter squinted as the video played, the last seconds being of him jumping off the chaise shouting, “MARCO!” and the scroll knocked out of Gus’s hands like Luz’s home videos.

And yet, each time, Hunter would just look back at them and say, “There is no way–”

After his friends left, Hunter spent a fair amount of time in the kitchen staring at Darius’s scroll, watching videos of someone that was in no way him be an absolute fool. Hunter’s finger swiped to another video.

The camera focused on the chaise where Not-Hunter laid. Darius bemoaned from behind the camera, “This is what I’ve been dealing with for the past half hour.”

Not-Hunter lifted his head, eyes closed. “Mmmarco.”

Darius deadpanned, “Polo.”

Not-Hunter grumbled and buried his head into the pillow. After a moment, he turned his head over again and slurred, “Hey, hey, Darius. Daaarrrius.”

“What?”

Not-Hunter pretended to look around, pointedly ignoring where Darius sat. “I didn’t say anything.”

Darius let out a long-suffering sigh.

Hunter switched to another video from the same angle. Not-Hunter glared somewhere beyond the camera. Darius asked, “What are you staring for?”

Not-Hunter did a strange shrug-slump with his shoulders and looked away. “I don’ like your hair.”

“. . . That’s unfortunate.”

“Marco.”

“Polo.”

Hunter looked up at Darius, who drank a much-needed herbal tea. “There is no way that’s me.”

Darius lifted a finger from his mug to point at his scroll. “You need more proof, there’s plenty.”

“I’m deleting these.”

Darius snatched the scroll out of Hunter’s hand. Hunter yelped in protest.

“Not after all you put me through. Besides, I already sent these to Eber.”

Hunter growled and stroked Flapjack’s feathers from where he perched on his shoulder. Flapjack nuzzled into his cheek, then sent a stab-worthy glare Darius’s direction.

“Oh, speaking of,” Darius flicked his finger over the scroll’s screen, “your bird was so very intimidating.” He turned the screen back toward Hunter, playing a video of Flapjack in the birdcage. Flapjack perched on the little swing, puffing up his feathers to appear as large and threatening as possible.

Darius’s unimpressed voice said from behind the camera, “Oh, sure, fluff your feathers all you want, I’m not letting you back until he’s lucid.”

Flapjack retorted with a ruffle of his feathers and a furious chirp.

Hunter couldn’t help but snort, earning him Flapjack’s look of betrayal.

Privately, Darius decided that the next time Hunter did something stupid and required surgery, he’d take all necessary precautions. Like distracting him with nature documentaries. And locking the laundry chutes.