Work Text:
Darius signs his name with his typical flourish.
“Alright. And uh…” the woman says, squinting at the application. “Hunter. Since you’re 16, you need to sign too. Right here.”
Hunter looks at the form and wishes he had time to read it. But the social worker seems harried, and Hunter needs to sign it either way, so he just signs and hopes that no one snuck anything weird in.
The witch accepts the form back and seals it with a spell. “Aaaand, it’s official. Congratulations Mr. Deamonne, you are now Hunter’s legal guardian until he turns 18.”
Darius nods, looking vaguely ill. “Great. Thank you.”
Hunter isn’t sure whether it makes him feel better or worse to know that Darius is nervous too.
It really isn’t that big a deal. They only did it so that Hunter can get enrolled at Hexside. So it’s not- it doesn’t really matter.
And there are ways out of it if it doesn’t work out.
Hunter distantly wonders whether paperwork in the human realm works the same way. Not that it makes a difference, really. After all, Hunter can pass for a witch a lot better than he can pass for a human. He can’t play flyer derby in the human realm. He can’t practice glyph magic over there. He can’t go to school with Willow and Gus and Amity. He wonders how Vee handles it all, sometimes.
Anyway, this this whole scenario is just kinda dumb. Hunter is perfectly capable of surviving on his own, after all. But everyone acted like that was some big tragedy when he pointed it out, and they all insisted that he has to live with someone, and a bunch of adults offered for whatever reason.
Darius is the one Hunter took the offer up on. Because Hunter knows Darius, and Darius knew Hunter from before everything else, so Darius at least gets why this is dumb. And he did offer, so... why not, right? It's fine. What’s one more adult that Hunter owes too much to?
“Hey Darius, can you sign this?”
Darius blinks at the papers being shoved in his face, affronted. Then he takes them and scans the top page. “You’re… getting a bed delivered?”
Hunter bristles. “It’ll be while you’re at work. You won’t even notice!”
It's true. Hunter could have avoided Darius knowing about this at all if wasn’t for Hunter still ‘being a minor’ or whatever. But it's not like Hunter is doing anything wrong! Darius said that Hunter can do whatever he wants with ‘his’ bedroom anyway.
“That’s not…” Darius trails off, frowning as he flips through the other pages. “Where did you come up with the snails for this anyway?”
“They said I can pay it back later.”
Darius stops looking at the papers to instead gape at him.
“I will pay it back!” Hunter says defensively, because he isn’t stupid. He has it all figured out. “On time, with interest. It’s fine.”
“Nope!” Darius says, lips pressed in a thin line as he sets the papers aside. “Remind me to circle back around to that. But first: why are you trying to buy a bed? Is there something wrong with yours?”
“No,” Hunter says, agitated, because this is what he was trying to avoid. “I just… wanted a different one, is all.”
Darius picks up the top form again, squinting at the product information judgmentally. “This one’s smaller,” he observes.
“...Right,” Hunter agrees.
“You want a smaller bed?”
“Well- that’s not- I mean, it’s not that I’m not, you know, grateful and all,” Hunter hedges, flustered. “It’s just- I don't- who needs a bed that big anyway?” he finally snaps. “I have to roll over just to get out of bed? It’s weird!”
Darius stares at him for a long moment, but Hunter is ready for the argument this time. He’s slept in enough normal-sized beds and sleeping bags by now to know that Darius is absolutely the one being weird about this, thank you very much.
“Is this actually the bed that you want, or just one that you can afford?” Darius asks.
The question throws Hunter off. He shrugs, disconcerted.
“Wonderful,” Darius says mildly, tucking away the forms. “Then we can talk about this while we’re shopping for a bed that you do like. Which I will pay for as your legal guardian,” he adds over Hunter’s forming protest. “And we will buy it from a company that doesn’t try to get teenagers to put themselves into debt.”
Oh. That sounds like the start of a lecture.
It... could have gone worse, Hunter decides.
Hunter glares at the permission slip, agonizing over the wording: ‘Parent signature’.
It’s supposed to say ‘Parent or guardian’. That would already be bad enough. Because Darius isn’t Hunter’s parent. He’s barely Hunter’s guardian. He’s just… the guy that Hunter has been staying with for the past few months while he goes to school at Hexside.
Just the guy that Hunter is staying with, who cooks him meals and comes to his flyer derby matches and asks him about his day when he gets home from school.
That’s all.
“Hey Darius?”
“Yes Hunter?” Darius replies, glancing up from his scroll.
“Can you sign this?”
“Let's see.” Darius takes the form and peers at it. “Oh, a field trip to the salt marshes?”
“We’re helping with the turtle migration,” Hunter offers, happy to keep Darius distracted.
“Ah, yes,” Darius says fondly. “I do remember that one. Alador got the brilliant idea to- well. Well, it was a fun trip, anyway.”
If Darius notices the wording, he doesn’t say anything about it as he signs the form and hands it back to Hunter.
So maybe it isn’t a big deal after all, Hunter decides as he tucks the form in his backpack.
“...What did Alador do?” Hunter asks, unable to help his morbid curiosity.
“Well,” Darius says with a sardonic grin. “Since you asked: Alador got the bright idea to ‘help’ the turtles migrate by building them propellers to fly over the obstacles in their path."
Hunter sits down and settles in, ready for a tale. Between living with Darius and being friends with Amity, Hunter has heard a lot about this particular rivalry, and it’s only ever gotten more ridiculous the more he’s heard.
"Naturally," Darius continues loftily, "Alador proceeded to fit all of the turtles out in his little propellers and then set them all off at once - without any means to control them whatsoever, mind you. So then, of course, there were dozens of turtles all flying through the air, straight into people’s faces, causing complete and utter mayhem. We spent the rest of the field trip rounding up each and every turtle to free them from Alador’s contraptions. It was an absolute disaster - and that is why this trip is now restricted to students on the beastkeeping track.”
Hunter tries to keep a straight face through the entire story. He makes it almost to the end. “Are- are you serious?” he asks. "That’s why it’s a beastkeeping class?”
“Swear to Titan,” Darius claims. “It used to be during the intro to beastkeeping class that everyone takes, but they moved it to one of the advanced classes the very next year. Alador ruined it for everyone.”
Hunter laughs. Amity is definitely going to hear about this one. “I hope you know I’m telling my friends!”
“Good!” Darius says. “Their parents were there, they’ll back me up. I hope Alador never lives it down.”
“Alright,” the therapist says, filing away the consent form Hunter and Darius both signed. “That's the last of the paperwork. Hunter’s first appointment is now on the schedule. Is there anything else you need?”
Darius looks at Hunter. Hunter shrugs.
Darius smiles at the receptionist. “We look forward to seeing you next week.”
An hour a week seems like a lot of time to spend talking about himself, Hunter thinks idly as he and Darius make their way home. But Luz says her therapy is helpful, and Hunter’s friends are all excited for him, so it’s… it’ll be good. Probably.
“So when are you gonna see a therapist?” Hunter asks Darius, just for a distraction.
Darius looks at him strangely. “I… don’t need a therapist.”
Hunter frowns.
“Not that there’s anything wrong with needing a therapist,” Darius adds quickly.
“I know,” Hunter replies, annoyed. Everyone's been telling him that. “But, it’s for the- the trauma, or whatever, right? You’re traumatized, too.”
Darius laughs. “By that measure, everyone on the Boiling Isles is traumatized.”
Hunter gapes at him. Because seriously? Darius isn’t usually this out of touch.
“…Which would explain the waitlist, I suppose,” Darius concedes.
“Yeah. So when are you gonna get on the waitlist?” Hunter pushes.
Darius then does something that can only really be described as fidgeting. “I- well. There are plenty of witches who need it more than me.”
And that one rankles Hunter, because he can read between the lines: Hunter ‘needs it more’. “You were at the center of the draining spell,” he points out.
Darius rolls his eyes. “Oh, that was just-”
“And you were an undercover traitor spy before that!” Hunter says, because that is a ‘chronic stress’. “And you got turned into a puppet after that.”
“Plenty of people got turned into puppets,” Darius responds evasively, shrugging.
Hunter stares at him.
“I’m doing fine!” Darius insists.
And maybe he is. Maybe that should be reassuring.
But it isn’t.
“...Am I not?” Hunter asks, trying not to feel hurt. Because he really did think he was doing alright. But he’s also believed a lot of things before that turned out to be wrong. So.
“No, no, you are!” Darius says, backtracking. “That’s not what I-. All I meant was that you're… you’re young. You, and your friends, and all the other kids. You all need it more. Alright?”
Hunter mulls that over as they continue walking. And it’s… maybe true? He knows that at least some of his friends are on the waitlist - even though they're doing okay. And there are other kids at school who are already seeing therapists. And - but - Luz says that they're not even supposed to be comparing trauma anyway.
“I,” Darius says eventually, reluctant. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to put my name on the waitlist. I could- use it, I expect.”
…Huh. So Hunter was right.
He decides to count this one as a win: if Hunter and all his friends are ‘traumatized’, then Darius and the adults are, too.
It doesn’t bother Hunter. It really, really doesn’t.
Hunter has failed worse before. Or, at least, he’s failed more important things before.
And Darius won’t care. Not in a way that worries Hunter, anyway. He didn’t care about how badly Hunter messed up his mission on the Day of Unity. And Darius failed his Day of Unity mission, too, so it would make him a hypocrite to get upset over this.
And, again, it really does not matter. It is not a big deal. Hunter only feels like it is because Belos made him feel like he had something to prove when he was younger. That’s all. Hunter knows this; he’s talked about it at length with his therapist. He’s seen how his friends react to this sort of thing. He knows that his feelings are just being dumb and irrational.
He just… has to keep reminding himself of it.
So he does.
All. Day.
And when it finally comes down to it, Hunter ends up being too much of a coward to even just own up to his failures anymore, apparently. So he waits until Darius is distracted.
“Heeeey, Darius?”
“Hmmm?” Darius responds.
“Could you sign this for me real quick?” Hunter asks, offering his carefully arranged papers.
Darius hums again, taking the papers. Hunter, in turn, tells his heart to stop racing and resists the urge to drop to one knee.
He sits down on the couch instead, unable to stay standing while Darius is sitting right now.
Darius, in turn, manages to pull himself out of whatever he was reading to actually look at the document, which is unfortunate.
He frowns. “You’re already enrolled in flyer derby.”
“...Yeah,” Hunter says vaguely. “They, uh, they just need us to fill out the form again, because, a new season is starting soon, and they lost the- the old forms.”
Darius gives him a deeply unimpressed look. “What did I tell you about lying, Hunter?”
...Right. Hunter deflates. Why did it have to be Darius? “Elaborating too much makes it less believable.”
The corner of Darius’ mouth twitches. “That’s the spirit.”
“I had a better lie,” Hunter mutters. “I just panicked.”
Darius hums again, flipping to the next page to read that one, because of course he does. It was a pathetic attempt to avoid it in the first place.
“Oh,” Darius says, looking surprised, which is just great. Apparently Darius was somehow under the impression that Hunter isn’t a failure. Joke’s on him! “This… is the first test you failed, isn’t it?”
Hearing it said out loud sets something off in Hunter. “No! I didn’t fail! I talked to the teacher, she said I can retake it, so I haven’t failed yet. It doesn’t count!”
“Okay, okay,” Darius says quickly, and he looks concerned, of all things. “That isn’t- I mean. It really isn’t a big deal to fail one test, Hunter.”
“I didn’t fail,” Hunter insists, and it comes out sounding far more desperate than he meant it to.
“I know!” Darius says all- all condescending, or something. “I’m just saying. If you were to, at some point, fail; it wouldn’t be the end of the world.”
And Hunter knows that. Hunter isn’t stupid. Hunter has been telling himself that all day.
He’s about to tell Darius as much when he sees the deeply chagrined look on Darius’ face.
It takes a second for Hunter to realize why.
Then it clicks.
And it- it isn’t funny. It really, really isn’t. It’s just a common phrase. Darius was being 100% earnest.
It wouldn’t be the end of the world.
Hunter laughs in a startled sort of way.
“Well,” Darius says as if he regrets all of his life decisions. “So you understand my point, then.”
Then Hunter laughs again, harder, and just the tiniest bit hysterical. Once it starts, he can’t quite seem to stop it, which is dumb because it really isn’t funny so much as it’s just- just kind of absurd.
But Darius must get it, because then he starts laughing, too. And the harder Hunter laughs, the funnier it starts to seem.
Because the world did end! They did both fail, and the world did end, and then it went and all got better anyway. It got so much better that Hunter is now back to worrying about things as stupid as failing one little test! And that’s hilarious!
It ends up taking several minutes for both of them to calm down enough to accomplish anything.
“Okay,” Darius says finally, chuckling again. “Okay, that’s- Titan. Okay, ummm,” he says, signing the test where indicated. “Right. Do you… do you know why you got these questions wrong?”
“Yup!” Hunter says brightly, barely even twitching at the word ‘wrong’. “I know too much about this particular topic! I got mixed up about which version of history is the right one.”
Darius gets that vaguely pained look again, and Hunter stifles another laugh.
“Yeeup, that'll,” Darius says, squinting at the test. “That’ll do it, won’t it?”
Hunter shrugs, distantly wondering which version of history Darius knows.
Darius’ brow furrows as he flips through the test some more, muttering under his breath, “not exactly objective either, are they?”
Hunter hums and tries not to feel too vindicated by that.
“Well, the textbook should have the answers anyway,” Darius says as he hands Hunter his now guardian-endorsed failure. “Do you want help studying for the retake?”
It turns out to be a whole convoluted process, actually setting up an apprenticeship.
It shouldn’t be this complicated. Pretty much every student does one their senior year. Everyone agrees that it shouldn't be this hard.
And yet.
There are a lot of forms and a lot of deadlines. If you mess it up, you have to settle for whoever will take you. And Hunter is good at paperwork, but he has also been set on something pretty specific for his apprenticeship from the start, and Darius just-so-happens to actually have experience writing these sorts of nigh-inscrutable applications and legal forms.
So Hunter ends up asking for a lot of help.
Which he’s supposed to do! Asking for help is good. And Darius was helpful, and patient, and all that other stuff.
And now it’s all finally about to start paying off.
“Hey Darius, can you sign this?” Hunter asks casually.
Darius accepts the latest in the extensive paper trail that they’ve created over the last couple of months. He reads the contract, eyes lighting up. “So it’s official?”
“Yup,” Hunter says, equal parts proud and nervous. “The internship starts the first week of the new semester.”
Darius signs it with an extra flourish, grinning broadly. “Well, there you have it! Easy as that, huh?”
Hunter snorts. “Yeah, sure. I just… I really hope it works out.”
Darius’ smile softens. “It will. Or it won’t, I suppose, and we can go from there.”
Hunter scowls.
Darius chuckles and ruffles his hair. “I think it’ll work out. You’ve worked hard for this, Hunter. And it’s obvious to everyone how much you care about the palisman issue.”
Hunter smooths his hair back down, disgruntled. “Yeah, but… what if I mess up? What if I make Dell hate me?”
Darius considers this. “Do you think Dell is going to hate you for making a mistake?”
“...No,” Hunter admits. “I’m just nervous.”
"There you have it," Darius says with a shrug. “And it's fair to be nervous. Starting something new like this is always stressful. And you probably will make some mistakes, because that's part of the learning process. But that's why you start off as an apprentice; Dell knows what to expect. Showing up motivated and ready to learn is more than enough. You can work through everything else.”
It isn't anything Hunter didn't already know, really. But it still helps to hear it from someone else - someone who has a lot of experience with the apprenticeship process.
“Yeah,” Hunter says, rubbing at his chest where Flapjack glows warmly. “It'll be fine. I’ll make it work.”
And he will. Because Hunter knows how to start over - how to start fresh. He knows how to take things one step at a time. And, in the worst-case scenario, he has support from a lot of people this time. So it will be fine.
Hunter is excited to start.
It just keeps nagging at Hunter. It shouldn’t, but it does.
Because the thing is, Hunter turns 18 in a few months.
Once Hunter turns 18, Darius will no longer be his legal guardian.
It doesn’t matter. Or, at least, it doesn’t really change anything. They’ve talked about the future, and Hunter knows that he’s going to keep living with Darius for at least a while after he graduates, and Darius said that there’s no rush, so it’s.
It’s stupid.
And Hunter really didn’t mean for it to get this far. He just... started thinking about it a little. Which led to him reading up on it a little. Which led to him getting a copy of the forms and going through all of them and-
And accidentally filling them all out.
So, yes, the situation has gotten a little out of hand. Hunter clearly should have brought this up to Darius at some point before he got this far.
But he’s bringing it up to Darius now! And, besides, it’s not like anything has actually been set in motion. The courts aren't involved or anything. And Hunter really doesn’t have any particular expectations about how this will go anyway, one way or another, he’s really only- only bringing it up. He’s just- proposing an idea, is all.
He tries to wait for a good moment. But he isn’t really sure what a good moment might look like for this. So he ends up asking on one of the days that Darius gets home after Hunter, because he was thumbing through the pages and dwelling on it again.
“Hey Darius,” Hunter greets as Darius walks in the door.
“Hey Hunter,” Darius replies as he hangs his cloak on the hook. “How was your day?”
“Good, you?”
“The usual.” Darius wanders into the living room where Hunter is sitting with his open backpack. “Working on homework?”
“…No,” Hunter admits, fiddling with the zipper and resisting the urge to just close the backpack and push this off, again and forever. But he steels himself instead and says, “It’s- I wanna… talk to you. Just, when you have time.”
Darius hesitates, and then sits on the couch. “Okay. I have time now. What’s up?”
“Oh.” Hunter tries to figure out what to say next and draws a blank. What he ends up saying is, “I… was wondering if you’d sign something for me.”
Darius looks at him expectantly. Hunter does not elaborate.
“...Probably,” Darius says after an awkward pause. “What is it?”
Right. That is a fair question. Hunter opens his mouth and then closes it again, still unable to come up with an explanation. So, frustrated, he grabs the stack of papers out of his backpack and shoves them at Darius.
Darius takes them.
Hunter can’t read Darius' expression because Hunter can’t bring himself to look away from his backpack now.
It seems to take forever for Darius to respond. They sit in dead silence in the meantime. Darius doesn't even flip through the pages.
“Oh,” Darius finally utters in a tone that sounds important but Hunter can’t quite name. It makes the not-knowing suddenly more unbearable than the knowing, which makes it possible for Hunter to bring himself to actually look at Darius.
Darius is nodding.
Darius is nodding, and his eyes are suspiciously shiny, and that is the only warning Hunter gets before Darius is crying. And that is a little overwhelming because Hunter has never actually seen Darius cry before.
“Yes,” Darius manages to choke out. “That’s - Titan, kid, come here.”
And then Darius is hugging him. Which is nice because it helps Hunter hide the fact that he’s crying a little bit now, too.
That, and it’s also just a nice hug. At least for the first few minutes. At some point, though, Hunter’s emotions start to settle and all the thoughts he had about this before start coming back. So he pulls back and he swipes at his eyes, and Darius squeezes him one more time before letting go.
“Right,” Darius says, clearing his throat gruffly. “I… clearly I should have brought this up sooner.”
Then Darius draws a spell circle, manifesting another set of adoption papers which he offers to Hunter. “I made notes in this version," he explains. "Things you should consider, if you haven't already. We- let's go through it together.”