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Hunter wakes up to the sound of a bird singing and the feeling of the sun on his face.
There's a blissful moment in which he lazily opens his eyes, letting them get used to the light slowly, while he hums pleasantly at the little song. He turns his head on the pillow and looks at the cardinal sitting on the windowsill.
In plain sight. At morning.
Panic takes seize of his muscles and he jumps from the bed, ignoring the slight dizziness the action brings with it while he crosses the room in a few fast strides and grabs Flapjack, mentally trying to assess the best place to hide him and the best excuse he could give in case someone saw. It’s normal for cardinals to go to the castle and land on the window of random, unaware scouts to sing unasked-for songs, right? Right?
“Shhhh,” He warns the squeaking palisman, turning around to consider what the best hiding spot would be. And then he freezes.
This isn’t the castle.
He stumbles slightly on the spot at the realization, opening his hand to allow the indignant bird to fly to his shoulder and peck at his cheek before starting to preen his feathers.
“Sorry, buddy,” Flapjack throws him a side look, but his eyes are sympathetic. His shoulders relax; he’s been forgiving already, but he should get the bird a nice treat anyway. “I promise I like your singing.”
He mulls over the incident while he gets ready for the day, debating if he should tell Darius or Eberwolf about it. Probably not. It’s not like he had an actual reason for it, and it doesn’t happen often enough for it to be a problem.
He doesn’t remember what he dreamed about that night, or if he dreamed at all. Maybe that’s for the best.
The house is unusually quiet when he goes down to grab some breakfast. He frowns. Isn’t it later than he normally wakes up? Shouldn’t someone be awake already?
On the kitchen counter, he finds a note. He recognizes Eber’s handwriting instantly, although if he hadn’t, the demonic alphabet would have clued him in on the authorship. He picks it up, reading as he goes to grab some milk from the fridge.
“Eberwolf’s out this morning,” He informs Flapjack, who’s looking at the note with interest. “He was informed about a pack of… huh… what did that mean again?,” He chews on the inside of his cheek, feeling slightly guilty for not having yet mastered the beastkeeper’s written language, and resolving to study it harder at a later time. He kicks the door of the fridge closed since his hands are occupied. “Well, whatever. He won’t be back until later. I guess that explains how quiet it is.”
The note doesn’t say anything about Darius, so he assumes he must still be there. The man likes to have lazy late mornings whenever he has the chance though, so he’s probably still sleeping; it’s his free day after all. He won’t bother him.
He takes his time eating his cereal while he checks his scroll for messages from his friends, making sure to take a picture of Flapjack picking at a piece of cereal to send it to the rest of the Emerald Entrails; they tend to appreciate this kind of pictures the most, the palismen are their teammates too, after all.
When he’s done, he puts his plate on the sink to wash it later once Darius has taken breakfast too and he goes upstairs to get changed. He might as well make good use of his time if there’s nothing scheduled for today.
He makes sure to close the door well when he gets out of the house. He doesn’t think anyone’s stupid enough to want to mess with Darius Deamonne of all people, but waking up to find an intruder in your home sounds like one of the less relaxing activities in the world. It probably would make it worse for whoever tried, but it’s still unfair for Darius.
Flapjack hovers in the air beside him as he stretches and follows him dutifully when he starts running, making some idle chatter about the surroundings as they pass by. They both have gotten very well acquaintanced with the area since they moved here, but something about living on the outskirts of town still feels very exhilarating sometimes. He has just enough freedom to go for a run without bumping into anyone, which is just what he needs on mornings like this.
The door is still locked when he gets back. So Eber’s not back, and Darius hasn’t had the need to go out either or else he would have unlocked it. Unless he’s running some errands.
Well, no use in wondering.
“Darius?” He calls out softly. Silence. He raises his voice slightly. “Darius? Are you there?”
Nothing.
He frowns, looking at the hour on his watch and then at Flapjack, who does an incredible impression of a shrug with his small wings. It’s almost midday. Perhaps he did go out while he was gone… it wouldn’t hurt to check, right?
There aren’t any creaky steps on the stairs, but he still steps on each of them as carefully as he can, just in case.
He hesitates in front of Darius’s door, but one encouraging nod from Flapjack is enough for him to raise his fist and knock.
“Darius? Are you awake?”
There’s no response. He knocks again.
“Darius?”
This means he’s probably not here, right? But there’s nothing wrong with making sure.
“I’m going to come in,” He announces, waiting a few seconds with bated breath. When there’s still no answer, he gulps and turns on the doorknob, peeking his head inside.
Darius is there.
“Darius!”
He’s at his side in a second, putting a hand on the man’s shoulder and shaking him. Darius’s eyes are closed tightly, but the shaking seems to work, because he soon starts scrunching them like he’s either struggling to open them or simply displeased about the current situation; it could be either one with him. His hair, he notices, is lacking its distinctive abomination appearance, and instead, looks pretty much like in the pictures he has seen of him as a child.
He doesn’t stop shaking him until he hears a small groan, and he has to repress the building relief in his chest.
“It’s too early for this, kid,” Darius protests.
“Darius, it’s noon already.”
“What…?” The older witch finally opens his eyes, squinting at the much brighter sun sneaking through the curtains of his room and taking a solid minute to process its meaning. “Huh.”
“Are you okay? Did you not sleep well last night?”
Darius starts to sit up, half-asleep still judging by how uncharacteristically uncoordinated he is, and blinks a few times to get rid of as much drowsiness as he can.
“I suppose I didn’t. I’m surprised Eber didn’t wake me up.”
“He went out to see some, huh, beast. I didn’t quite get that part.”
“Ah. That would do it,” Exhausted as he still looks, it seems like at least he’s not upset that he woke him. “Give me a minute, little prince, and I’ll join you downstairs.”
Hunter nods, stepping aside and watching warily how Darius winces while he moves around to get up. He’ll leave in a moment, he just wants to make sure everything’s alright. Once the man’s standing up, Hunter thinks he probably should leave to give him some privacy, but when he sees him raise an arm to make the motion of a spell circle, curiosity keeps him glued to the floor. Is this how he does his hair each morning?
The circle stays in the air, bright and unassuming, for a second before it fizzles out, without any visible effects on anything around them. His curiosity fades away to concern as fast as it came.
Darius stares at his hand. Feeling like he just swallowed a rock, Hunter notices that it’s shaking slightly.
“Darius…?” He asks softly.
The man snaps his head to him.
“It’s nothing, go downstairs, I’ll be there,” He goes to take a step forward as he speaks, but his knees seem to fail him and he stumbles. Hunter moves on instinct to catch his arm and stabilize his balance, but the man hisses as soon as there are hands on him, causing him to startle so much that he jumps backward, letting Darius to awkwardly fall back on the bed.
They both freeze for a moment.
“Should I call a healer?” His voice sounds strangled to his own ears.
Darius sighs.
“That won’t be necessary,” Hunter looks at him with so much disbelief that he thinks that the feeling has good chances of acquiring its own physical form. The older witch rolls his eyes. “Remnants of the Draining Spell. I’ll probably be fine by tomorrow.”
“Oh.”
He gulps. He knows the man wants some privacy, but he’s not sure if that’s a good idea, considering he seemed to be having trouble walking, and he doesn’t have his magic to help him either.
Suddenly, Flapjacks flies from his shoulder and starts chirping at Darius.
‘Can help! Hold this!’
He transforms into his staff form and Darius catches him out of instinct, looking at Hunter with a puzzled look.
Hunter smiles slightly.
“He said he wanted to help, you can use him as support.”
“Ah,” He looks back at the staff with a considering look. “That’s… thanks.”
Now feeling much more secure in his knowledge that Darius is okay, Hunter walks to the door.
“I’ll be downstairs!”
He gathers that it’s going to take a while for the man to get ready, but he still jumps down two stairs at a time to be in the kitchen as fast as possible. It’s late enough that it technically wouldn’t count as breakfast anymore, but Darius needs to eat something. He isn’t sure if he’s going to want to eat much, so he settles for preparing a salad with some pieces of fresh meat from the human realm; witches are generally better at digesting rotten meat, but assuming Darius’s current predicament has to do with his bile sac, he thinks it’s best if they play it safe.
When Darius finally enters the room, dressed in loose, comfortable clothes and his hair tied back in a low bun, he stares for a moment at Hunter, sitting on the counter with a bag of chips.
Hunter wordlessly points with his head at the prepared plate on the table.
“Get off the counter,” Darius says, but he sits down as indicated. “You didn’t have to do this.”
Hunter shrugs, taking a seat beside Darius and offering a chip to Flapjack, who transforms back to eat his snack.
“I don’t mind, I wanted to,” He says, munching on a chip. “Are you still feeling tired?”
“Just a little,” Darius grabs the fork he put at the side of his plate, examining it for a moment before raising an eyebrow at Hunter.
It’s part of his weighted set of cutlery. Now that he’s under less stressful conditions and generally gets more rest and healthy meals, his hand tremors don’t come as often as they used to, but Darius insisted on getting some things to help whenever it happened. It’s a good moment to return the favor.
He dismissively waves a hand at the man and points at the food in a wordless ‘eat’ command. Hah. It’s been a while since he’s tried to give an order to Darius. The exasperated sigh of the man is still the response he gets, but other than that there are no other complaints, and soon he’s eating the food prepared for him.
Good. He would be a hypocrite not to do so, considering how he’s always going on and on about how it’s healthy to accept the freely offered kindness of others.
Darius remains mostly silent as he eats, and Hunter is content enough to enjoy his packet of chips with Flapjack. It’s a quiet day, but now that everyone is accounted for, he’s happy to simply spend time like this.
Once Darius is done with his meal, he makes sure to take his plate and shoo him and Flapjack to the living room while he does the dishes. Hunter hides a smile when there are no protests to this.
Dishes done, he joins the other on the couch, leaving a good space between them in case Darius’s skin still feels aflame with touch, and makes himself comfortable for an afternoon watching a mix of trashy fashion shows from both realms. Well, at least he thinks they’re a little bit silly, not really understanding the big deal the hosts and audience alike seem to make at some of the outfits, but the older witch always seems to have a very loud, very expressive opinion on what’s happening, which is always twice as fun as the show itself.
Eberwolf catches on quite quickly when he arrives, going from his usual rowdy behavior to a way more muted version of it, and Hunter suspects that something like this probably happened while he was stuck in the Human Realm. He half wants to ask about it, but he supposes it doesn’t matter at the end of the day.
Painful as those times were, they’re long gone.
With Eber now perched on the back of the couch directly behind Hunter’s shoulder, occasionally sitting up enough to rest his chin on the top of his head, they keep watching.
Halfway through the afternoon, Darius sighs.
“And to think I was planning for today to be cleaning day,” He complains, looking unfortunately cozy where he is. “Of course it had to be today of all days.”
“We can do that another day,” Hunter suggests. “We’ll help you!”
“We’ll be very helpful!” Eber agrees.
‘Very helpful!’ Flapjack repeats.
“You’ll be a hindrance, that’s what you will be,” Darius says, but they all can hear the affection in his voice.
Shortly before they decide to have dinner, Darius goes out with Flapjack to take some fresh air, and Eberwolf and him take advantage of the opportunity to draw a bath for him, being very careful to not make a disarray on the bathroom, but still putting all the things Darius might need close by, so he can only worry about relaxing for a while.
As they work, Hunter sneaks a few glances at Eberwolf. His scars are harder to see with all the fur covering his body, but he can still see enough of them for a question to take a front seat in his mind.
“Has something like this ever happened to you before?”
Eber is quiet for a moment.
“Yes.”
“So it’s possible it will happen again?”
“Probably, but don’t worry much about it. It never lasts.”
“You’ll let us help when it happens, right? You won’t try to hide it?”
Eberwolf turns to look at him, a soft smile on his face.
“Of course, pup. We’re a pack. We have each other’s back.”
That’s all he wanted to hear.
While Darius takes his bath, they order some takeout, and Hunter takes the chance to get ahead on his homework, although he doesn’t make a lot of progress, preferring to listen to Eber’s narration of the first half of his day.
By the time dinner comes around, Darius seems to be in a content mood, still not as physically expressive as usual, but seemingly peaceful, and scratching at Flapjack’s feathers now and then while he eats.
“Don’t forget we’re having dinner with the Porters tomorrow,” The man reminds them while they’re making their way to their respective rooms.
“You’ll be up for it?”
“Most likely. I’ll let you know if that’s not the case.”
Hunter smiles. It’s such a simple thing, for the older witch to trust them enough to let them know when he’s not feeling alright, but he knows trust is not something that one should take for granted. It’s one of the most valuable things they have.
He’s grateful that Darius allows them to be there for him as much as he’s always there for them.
Eberwolf hugs Hunter’s leg and gives Darius a purry sort of chirp before retiring for the night. Once he’s gone, Darius holds Flapjack staff up.
“You can go back to our kid now. Thank you for your help, little bird.”
“Are you sure?” Hunter asks, as Flapjack does as he’s told, fluttering his wings close to Darius’s face before going back to his usual perch on his shoulder.
“Resting helped. I’ll be fine,” He assures him. And then he smiles, his eyes so full of fondness that Hunter feels paralyzed for a moment. “Goodnight, Hunter.”
“Goodnight, Darius,” He says. “I love you.”
“I love you too, kid.”