Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“We’ll wait outside for you to change, Hunter.” Gus said. Hunter gave him a thumbs up and took off his eyepiece as the trio filed out of the shack. Flapjack chirped suddenly in Hunter’s ear, fluttering around his head to get his attention.

“What is it, Flap?”

The cardinal fluttered down to the floor where a patch of slime was—

was it moving ?

Hunter picked up a stick and poked it. It jumped away and Hunter jumped with it, steadying himself against the wall. He had to get something, a box or—

He fumbled around on a shelf, grappling for anything, sending various knickknacks crashing to the floor.

“Hunter, are you OK in there?” Willow called from outside.

He found a burned out glass candle and ripped the lid off. The slime darted at him and he slammed the jar down on it and held it down with his body weight. He could feel the slimeball smacking into the glass with a tiny thunk, thunk, thunk .

“Hunter? Is everything good?” Willow cracked the door open to find Hunter curled around the jar, eyes blown wide like a deer in the headlights. “What are you doing?”

“ He’s here .” Hunter breathed.

“Who is? Whatcha got in the jar?”

Hunter slowly uncurled from around it, still leaning on it with his hands. Inside, the slime flew around violently, smacking into the walls of the jar like a pinball. Coming from the slimeball she could make out an eye and two familiar horns like a beetle, like a certain mask she’d seen before. Her jaw dropped in realization.

“Guys! We have a situation!” she yelled. Amity and Gus came running into the shack.

“What is it?”

“What’s wrong?”

Willow looked up to them from where she was currently looking for something to slide under the jar.

“Belos is back.”

Eventually they did get the lid on the jar and secured it. Secured, in this case meaning Willow had it in her extraordinary demon grip and wasn’t about to let go of it any time soon. Unfortunately it took most of the afternoon to get that far (about twenty percent looking for something to slide under the jar and flip it over so it could be lidded without Belos escaping, the rest was all debate on what to do with him) and Luz was home by then.

“Hey guys. Any luck today?” Luz asked, walking into the shack. Amity stepped in front of Willow, shielding the jar with her body, exclaiming while Hunter simultaneously blurted out,

“Nope! Not a thing!”

“Belos is back.”

Luz blinked.

“¿Por que?”

Amity and Hunter glared at each other, then, drowning each other out,

“It’s fine, we have it handled!”

“He’s in a jar.”

They glared at each other again as Luz shook her head in bewilderment.

“You have…Belos. In a jar.”

Willow stepped forward, pushing gently past the glare-off to display the jar. The slimeball zipped around, slamming into the walls of the jar. Luz looked at it in wonder, taking the jar from Willow’s hands like it was a delicate artifact.

Then she shook the hell out of it.

Faintly, she heard a tiny “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA” that fluctuated in pitch with the shaking. She stopped, and held the jar to her ear.

“Stop SHAKING me, accursed human! I’m going to destroy you all when I get out of here!”

Luz met the several wide eyed gazes looking at her.

“Holy Titan it talks!” Gus pointed at the jar.

“OF course it talks, it’s BELOS—” Hunter sputtered.

“We didn’t have to tell her that! Now she’s gonna get stressed out that Belos is in the Human Realm!” Amity said.

“Oh SHE’S stressed—”

“And what did you wanna do?” Willow demanded. “Tape the jar shut and bury it somewhere? Set it on fire?”

“Setting it on fire is exactly what I planned on doing with it I’ll have you know—”

“We could put him in the microwave!” Gus interjected a little too cheerfully.

“Aprecio tu entusiasmo, pero no. We’re not putting him in the microwave, Gus. I’m pretty sure the microwave would break and mama would be upset.” Luz put a hand on his shoulder. Gus gave a dejected “awww”.

“What do you want to do with him, batata?” Amity asked.

Slowly, Luz broke out into a grin, which split into an ear-to-ear, toothy smile.

“Oh I know exactly what we’re gonna do with him.”

And that was how they ended up back at Luz’s house. Setting the jar on the countertop had resulted in Belos-slime (Slime-os? Slime-os.) ramming into the jar so hard that it rolled over and nearly fell, caught in time by Willow’s quick hand. So they situated the jar on the couch, set on a cushion just so that no matter how hard Belos battered the insides of the jar, he was rendered immobile.

“Here, this oughta keep you busy for a while!” Luz set the ipad down in front of the jar and turned Cocomelon on.

“What is this…black mirror you have set before me—gAAAh WITCHCRAFT!”

“Not witchcraft, RadioShack!” (A/N: dear God is that still a company I haven’t crawled out of my hole in so long can you even buy ipads there? I don’t buy Apple LMAO)

“I don’t know what your RadioShack is and I refuse to have any part in it.”

“You’ll watch it and you’ll like it, now be quiet.”

The bright colors of Cocomelon lit up the screen and several wobbly, humanoid figures appeared. Belos shrieked and began to pray.

“Our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day—”

She left him there for five hours.

Everything was winding down for the night when Luz decided to check in on him.

“How are we doing, Belos? Settling in alright? I thought you might appreciate the more educational videos on the Human Realm.”

“Oh merciful God please make it stop!”

“Aw come on! Don’t you enjoy the music?” She picked up the jar and bounced it. “The wheels on the bus go round and round! Round and round! Round and round!”

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!”

“Mother Titan, is that thing still screaming?” Amity came into the living room. “Can I see it for a second?”

“But of course,” Luz handed him off to her. Amity gave him a once over, then shook the jar full of screaming slime as violently as she could. So the “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!” came out now more like “AAAAaaaAAAAaaaAAAAaaaaAAAHHHHH!!” She handed him back to Luz.

“Done with him?”

“No, I’ll probably do it again later. Among other things.”

“That’s totally fair, batata.”

“Someone should keep watch over him though.”

“Nah, I have an idea.”

Luz took Belos’ jar and put him in one of the many spare bags they had floating around, then hung the bag on a doorknob in her room.

“If he makes so much as a peep we’ll know.” Luz reassured her, stuffing a blanket into the bag.

“It’s fucking dark in here!” Slime Belos yelled. Nobody cared though, because it was him.

“Vete a la mierda a dormir.” Luz deadpanned at the bag.

The girlfriends gave their buenas noches kisses and went to bed. They had a whole mans career to end in the morning.

Chapter Text

Hunter woke up bright and early with the rising sun. While it wasn’t his scheduled six a.m., it was enough to give him some peace and quiet. Luz’s mom had shown him this wonderful technique called meditation to help focus and center himself, and he was going to need all the focus he could get.

After all, today was the day they were going to microwave Belos.

After meditation, he saw Luz off to school (or at least to the bus that would take her to school), then waited for the other witches to wake up. Amity was the first up, followed by Willow.

“Shouldn’t we wake Gus? This was his idea after all.” Willow asked.

“He needs his rest,” Amity replied.

“Let’s get the bones of the plan in the meantime.” Hunter said. “First step we have to acquire a human device called a microwave oven. We don’t want to potentially break the one in the kitchen, so we have to get our own. I was talking to Luz’s mom yesterday and apparently we could get one at this place called a “wall mart”. I will be plain with you all, I have no clue what that is.”

“Noted.” Willow said.

“After that, we have to transport the microwave oven to wherever we plan on using it. I have tried lifting the kitchen microwave and it’s kind of heavy. I think if we use Willow’s plant magic as like a sling and wrap it around the microwave, two of us can carry it on our palismen. Then Gus can cast an illusion over us all, maybe as common birds.”

“Or maybe, two of us could just lift it?” Willow offered.

“That too, that too, let’s keep that in mind.”

“So where do we wanna do this?”

“Probably at the shack. We don’t want to worry Camila with the knowledge that Belos is here.” Amity said.

“Morning guys.” Gus walked in with a yawn, holding the Belos jar wrapped in a blanket.

“Oh damn, there’s still the question of what we do with him.” Amity hissed.

“Me?”

“No, him .” Amity gestured to the blanket.

“Ohh.”

“One of us could watch him while the other two get the microwave.” Willow said.

“That works. Who’s physically strongest here?” Hunter asked.

“Probably me and you.” Willow replied.

“So if Gus casts the illusion, I can babysit the slimeball while we do this,” said Amity.

“Perfect!” said Hunter. “Now all we need is to figure out how to get to the mart of walls!”

“What are you three talking about?”

All three heads turned to look at Vee, who had just walked into the living room and was very, very confused.

“We’re getting a microwave!” Willow said cheerfully. “We don’t know how to get to the wall mart though.” Vee blinked.

“If you guys wanted a ride to Walmart you just had to ask.”

All three witches cheered. Except for Hunter, who had the humility to blush and add, “That would be helpful. Thank you, Vee.”

Luz got to the shack that afternoon to a bizarre sight.

“Que carajo, what are you all doing?”

Wires and glyphs were strewn all about the place, with a brand spanking new microwave sitting in the middle on the ground. Amity looked up from the display and her face lit up.

“Luz! We got a microwave oven from the Walmart! You’re gonna love this!”

It was a very bougie microwave from what Luz could tell, much nicer than the one she and her mom had.

“You guys went to Walmart?”

“Vee drove us!” Willow supplied.

“OK but how did you afford this?” Luz asked, incredulous.

“What?” Amity cocked her head, a bit like a confused puppy.

“How did you guys pay for it?”

Everyone froze. A moment too long passed when Luz finally dared speak again.

“You guys did pay for it right?”

The kids exchanged side-eyes. Hunter looked up from where he was wiring the microwave to a row of hamster wheels.

“So we’ve decided to put Belos in the microwave and see what happens!” his grin was more than a little disconcerting. Luz squinted at him.

“Convenient change of subject. OK, just as long as it’s not mom’s. Let’s nuke that sucka!”

Willow took the Belos jar and opened it into the microwave. The slime shot out and she kicked the door shut before it could escape. Each witch set their palisman running on a hamster wheel to generate power to the nuker. Luz set the microwave for one minute and stood back as it turned on. She could hear muffled yelling from inside the microwave as he began to rotate, but couldn’t make out what exactly he was yelling. Curses and threats probably.

“Aw, look at him spin!” Willow cooed.

“Spin you little fucker, spin!” Luz cheered. A muffled “AAAAAAAAAhHHHH” came from the microwave, to the cheers of the children. Joy was known by all for about thirty seconds, when Gus noticed Belos was beginning to change.

“Guys, something’s happening!”

Eagerly, the kids gathered around to see what was going on.

The Belos-slime had begun to swell.

Then it shrunk.

Now, he was bubbling as he spun, like a pot of water come to boil.

“Everyone back up, hE’S GONNA BLOW!”

SPLAT!

Belos exploded with a POP! all over the inside of the microwave with fifteen seconds left to go.

“Eeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwww!” Gus, Willow and Vee chorused. Hunter, Luz noticed, was watching with wide shining eyes, as if he were watching something magical and not his former supposed uncle slash creator getting exploded to a pulp in the microwave.

The exploded Belos slime obscured the inside of the microwave, so there wasn’t much to do but sit there and watch it hum until time ran out.

Then something less magical happened.

The microwave caught fire.

“JESUS, SHIT THE BED!” Luz jumped up and shoved the people nearest to her back away from the fire, Amity getting right to work scooping the Palismen up and away to safety. Luckily Vee, the only one with the brain cell at the moment, heard shouting and came running with a fire extinguisher, dousing the entire microwave. When the foam subsided, Luz noted a distinct lack of angry screaming.

“Guys, I think we killed Belos.”

Hunter opened the now broken and burnt microwave door. The slime coating the inside did not so much as twitch. It did steam a little though. Freshly baked Belos, alhamdulillah. Carefully, almost reverently, the boy scraped the globs of his former uncle back into the jar from whence he came.

The yard was full of cheers of “Hooray! We Killed Belos!”, except for Hunter, who was just a bit put out by the death of the only family he’d ever known, even if said family was a complete piece of shit person before being turned into a slime. He looked to Luz with big eyes and said in a small voice,

“We should bury him.”

Luz looked to the jar, took the jar and shook it violently, and when the slime didn’t rally, nodded sagely and handed it back.

“I will ask mama if we can dig a hole in the backyard.”

That evening they dug a small hole and planted the jar in it.

“I can’t believe Belos was here and you kids didn’t tell me!” Camila said, leaning on her shovel.

“He’s a lot smaller and deader now so he wasn’t much of a problem. Besides, what was he gonna do, eat the flesh off a deer and possess somebody?” Amity said.

“Would anyone like to say a few words?” Luz asked.

“I will!” Gus volunteered. “Papaya, bones, sky, hair, teeth, blue, oak tree, apple blood, leaf, Texas.”

“Thank you Gus. Anyone else?”

Hunter cleared his throat and stepped knelt by the makeshift grave.

“Rest in pepperonis Belos. You may have been my uncle, but you were a bitch. Please do us all a favor and do not grow back as a Belos slime tree or anything else. We don’t want to deal with you again. Stay dead, goodbye forever.”

They all piled dirt onto the grave and took turns stomping on it to make sure he couldn’t crawl back out, then piled inside the house for dinner and a cover story so they didn’t have to explain to Camila that they stole a microwave for this.