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There’s an unwelcome feeling of familiarity in the soft sound of the needle piercing through fabric as Darius does his best to replace the old stitches on the piece of clothing he’s currently working on as neatly as possible.
Even though the stitches are all torn and the sweater is threatening to fall apart, there’s no question on if he wants to salvage this or not; it means a lot to Hunter, after all.
Hunter, who’s working by his side as silently as he was the first time he came by his room for the lessons Darius had promised him, posture stiff and far too formal for something as casual as this. He looks as downcast as back then, eyes partially lost on memories that he can only begin to imagine, and yet working as diligently as ever.
Although there are differences as well.
The kid is sitting closer to him, for one, aware that he’s not about to be told off for it, and while he’s not saying anything at the moment, he trusted Darius enough to hand him part of the costume he had made himself at the Human Realm for him to repair, while he focuses on re-attaching the patch on his shirt after it ripped slightly while being thoroughly cleaned. It wasn’t easy to get rid of the smell of swamp, and since it mattered so much for him, Darius wasn’t about to have his kid having to flinch every time he grabbed something that used to represent fun for him.
So here they are, hands holding fabric and a million burdens lying between them, ones they’re both now aware of.
It makes it all simultaneously so much easier and so much harder; on one hand, they can now afford to dwell on the things they couldn’t before, and even if they fall apart while they do, no shadow will be cast over them as the Emperor pulls them apart with the precision of a needle. And yet, after so many years of setting down any personal concerns and problems on a little box and pushing it to the back of their minds in order to even go on through their life, the prospect of finally ripping it open and letting all the ugly truths slip out is nothing short of daunting.
Darius hums softly, threading the needle through a sleeve until the fabric attaches itself together in such a way that makes it seem like no tear was done in the first place. An expert’s job, but of course it is; he has been sewing for the longest time, and he has always had high expectations for himself.
When it comes to helping out your kid with the colossal amounts of trauma he’s carrying in his shoulders, things can be mended that perfectly, unfortunately, but he has never been one to give up even in the most unlikely of situations.
A long time ago, there was someone who quite liked remarking upon that too.
“So,” He starts, breaking the silence and making Hunter startle slightly. He points to the shirt Hunter is holding, “you said those… wolves live in packs?”
It takes Hunter a moment to come back from where it is that his mind had taken him, but as soon as he’s done processing the question, he’s already leaning closer toward him, his eyes practically sparkling with life at the reminder of one of his favorite subjects.
“Yeah! People in the Human Realm have a saying about lone wolves, but in truth they’re very social animals and they take care of each other! See?” He points emphatically to the shirt on his hands and to each individual wolf in the patch he’s been slowly reattaching to the fabric for the last fifteen minutes. “They live in communities, they can’t survive on their own for that long.”
Not that different from direwolves then, though certainly a lot less prone to raise little demons on a whim, Darius should think. Though that very well could be that there aren’t any demons in the other realm.
In any case, Hunter sounds far more wistful about it than even Eber does when talking about their favorite beast of the week, and Darius has the feeling that it’s not only about how much he likes the animals as much as how much he might or not be imagining himself as one of them.
“Did you know they also take care of the sick and injured? Isn’t that amazing?” Hunter continues, rubbing the patch of fabric softly with his fingers. “The big wolves take good care of the wolf cubs too, that’s how they manage to survive and pass down on their knowledge, they don’t let anything happen to the young.”
That’s what we all should do , Darius thinks idly, but Hunter seems far more accepting of the reality of another realm’s animals taking care of each other than his own right to have received care while he was growing up and even now, so he keeps quiet. For now. Having the reference of a creature Hunter admires in order to convince him that it’s not a sin to let himself be cared for can surely come in handy in the future.
“That is pretty amazing, little wolf,” He ruffles Hunter’s hair gently, smiling at the resultant snort, not that the kid actually does anything to move him away, he has always liked that kind of affection it seems.
“Those are all very basic facts though,” Hunter shrugs, though he doesn’t deceive Darius with the slight red painting his cheeks. Looks like he’s more than pleased that he’s being listened to. “Mrs. Noceda let me borrow a documentary she had on them when I showed her my shirt, but I didn’t watch through the whole thing, I wanted to wait for-”
He stops suddenly, all the blood going down from his face so fast that Darius has to actively resist the impulse to put his hands out to hold him in case he has gotten dizzy, in major part bc he has recoiled for Darius
Hunter looks at him, panic and calculations in his eyes as he seems to battle with himself for the right choice to make. Almost as if he were reminding himself not to confess a crime, though considering who he’s talking to and the place both of them used to be, even if that were true, Darius wouldn’t judge.
They all did what they had to do to survive at the time.
And as he looks at Hunter’s wide, scared eyes, he notes that some of them got stuck into that more far more than others.
“Hunter?” He extends one hand toward him, unsure of if the boy event wants to be touched or if he needs some space, but unwilling to make a bet that might very well result in Hunter looking even more alarmed.
The kid looks at the offered hand, mouth slightly open and a mildly blank look on his face as the seconds pass, until he seems to make up his mind and grab it while clutching the shirt clumsily with his other hand.
“... Flapjack.”
“What?”
“I wanted to wait for Flapjack to watch the whole documentary. We started watching it together, the first time,” Hunter whispers, not looking at him but at some empty spot on the wall.
Darius squeezes his hand, and he feels more than sees Hunter clinging to him for dear life, using all of his strength to keep himself tethered to the present instead of dissolving into a puddle of guilt and self-blame. He’s strong, but his grip is far from Eber’s best, and Darius is grateful for that, not so much for himself as for Hunter, who has a bad habit of thinking he hurts everything he touches lately.
As if any of what had happened had been on him in the first place.
“It wasn’t your fault, you know that, right?”
Suddenly the smaller hand is yanked from his with such fierceness that Darius is pulled slightly toward Hunter, enough to see his face up close when Hunter whips his head around to look at him, looking far angrier than he’s ever seen him.
“Like you would know. You weren’t even there,” He snaps, before looking at his right hand as if it has offended him personally. Darius wonders for a moment if he accidentally squeezed too hard earlier and actually hurt him, but then Hunter is speaking again. “I felt it. I felt his body being crushed in my hand.”
His breath hitches in his throat.
“That wasn’t-”
“But it was ! It was me,” It’s a testament of how many times Darius has tried to comfort Hunter about this that he already knew what he was going to say, but that kind of knowledge about each other isn’t exactly positive when it comes down to this. “What’s the difference if I could feel it happen? If I didn’t fight hard enough before B-before he did that?”
He seems to deflate completely, all the angry energy gone as he continues looking at his hands, small and scarred and filled with blood as long as Hunter himself is concerned, though anything Darius is capable of see are the hands of a kid who was forced to endure things that he should have never gone through.
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Hunter mutters, not unkindly. As usual, more of his derision seems to be directed at himself. “You’re… you’re good . You’ve never hurt anyone you care about.”
Darius can’t help it; he laughs. The look Hunter sends him then is nothing short of poisonous.
“Oh, little prince, if only it were so.”
Hunter frowns. “Well, you’ve never killed anyone you love.”
Those are quite the bold statements for someone who has only known Darius for a limited amount of his life, but Darius still nods, conceding the point. “Perhaps not, but that’s not to say there isn’t anything I regret. And I don’t mean picking the wrong flavor of tea, you know?”
He sighs, putting aside his work so it won’t get in the way while they have this conversation. They made enough progress for now anyway, besides… wolves take care of their cubs, don’t they?
“You couldn’t have helped that,” He says, raising a hand as soon as Hunter opens his mouth to protest. “No, let me finish. You couldn’t have. You were being controlled more literally than any of us ever were, and yet you aren’t the only one who ended up with blood on their hands because of him.”
Hunter’s shoulders fall, and Darius offers his hand again. He’s not offended when Hunter seems to just stare at it.
“Most of us have done things we aren’t proud of, and a lot of us have done that while fully on our senses, even if we were misguided. You aren’t evil for something that wasn’t your choice to do, Hunter,” the kid takes his hand again and Darius smiles slightly, rubbing his finger softly through skin in the most soothing motion he’s able to come up with. “There is a lot I did to keep up my cover as a rebel that I’m not proud of, even if ultimately it was done with the Isles’ best interests.”
“That’s different, you didn’t…”
“You’re right, it’s different,” Darius accepts easily. “But I believed I was doing the right thing. You didn’t even have a choice, not then and not before.”
It would be good if he could give Hunter right now, to brace him for the words he’s about to say, but Darius doesn’t ever plan to push him into anything he’s not comfortable with, especially not when Hunter is so obviously conflicted that the frown hasn’t abandoned his face yet. He almost would rather not disturb him any more, but even if it’s hard to hear, there are some things Darius needs him to understand so the kid can stop spiraling in his bursts of self-blame.
“We both know Belos would have killed you,” He says softly.
The silence that follows is so deep that it almost feels like all the sounds from outside have been muted as well.
“Maybe not right away,” Hunter chokes on the words, as if it weren’t still one of the most horrifying possibilities a child such as him could contemplate. “I could have done something, maybe I could have-”
“No,” Darius says firmly, squeezing Hunter’s hand again when he sees him flinch slightly. “You couldn’t have. I knew someone who tried, you can guess what happened to him.”
Hunter’s eyes are alarmed when he looks at him.
“You mean…?”
“My mentor, yes. It’s true that I didn’t realize he had tried to go against Belos until years after he was gone, but I have no doubt that’s how he died,” it sounds quite heroic, and Darius doesn’t plan to stop Hunter if that’s what he chooses to believe too. But he has the impression that his mentor barely had the chance to express his defiance before Belos got rid of him. “In a way, those who obeyed the emperor’s order enthusiastically were the ones keeping themselves the safest, whether they were aware of that or not.”
After all, Belos had a lot of practice with getting rid of ‘nuisances’ as soon as they surged.
“Besides, I wasn’t that much better myself,” He says lightly. “Once I put the pieces together, I wanted to do nothing else but to quit my job or pretend I hadn’t found out anything and just keep going as I had done so far. Sometimes I wonder how much more I could have done if I hadn’t tried to ignore it all for years.
“But you did a lot!” Hunter protests, sounding so offended that Darius almost wants to laugh.
He does smile though, when he feels Hunter scooching closer to him. “Thank you, but my point is I wasn’t always the kind of cool rebel you think I was. You can’t keep blaming yourself for how you acted when you were doing the best you could.”
“I never said you were cool,” Hunter interrupts him hesitantly, tone wobbly but undoubtedly playful, and Darius’ heart feels full with affection for him.
“You didn’t even think it a little? I’m hurt,” Hunter smiles slightly, and he’s pleased to see his own teasing tone was conveyed properly. He would hate for Hunter to think he has done something else wrong. “What I’m trying to say here is that you can’t blame yourself for being unable to act on your good intentions. Sometimes our efforts aren’t enough, but that doesn’t make us bad people, little prince.”
Hunter bites his lip.
“Isn’t it my fault that I’m never gonna see him again?” He murmurs, one hand clutching at his chest. The habit seems to have come with him from the Human Realm, and after hearing the story of what happened, Darius understands where it comes from.
“No, of course not, sweetheart,” He pulls from the hand he’s holding slightly, and soon enough Hunter is close enough that he’s half melting on his side as he’s hugged with one arm. “It feels like that right now, but I promise you it’s not.”
“How do you know?”
Darius rubs the kid’s arm slightly, trying to make up for the comfort he knows his words won’t be enough to bring. “Because I felt the same way when my mentor passed away. Sometimes I think that if he hadn’t gotten so close to me, maybe he could have stayed closer to Belos and he wouldn’t have been killed.”
He shakes his head.
“But that wouldn’t have been how he would have preferred to live, now, would it? It wasn’t my choice to make, and it’s not yours to decide if the sacrifice your palisman did makes sense or not, all we can do is honor the way they lived.”
Hunter doesn’t say anything else, seemingly taking in all he has said. Darius hopes it’s enough to help him feel less guilty, although he’s not nearly naive enough to think that it’ll be all that’s required for Hunter to put this matter to rest.
There’ll still be rough days, rough nights, rough thoughts. It’s hardly a problem, when Darius intends to be here with him for it all.
“You want to know what helped?”
Hunter looks at him with curious eyes and that’s all he needs as an answer.
The pull of the needle is harder to accomplish when his pick of materials for this consists of sturdier fabric than he usually works with, but that merely makes him feel more pleased with himself once he has managed to work the thread through the vest and secured it tightly with only a low grumble.
There’s a soft snicker at his side, where Hunter is holding a jacket that, while still thicker than anything else the kid has worked on, is definitely not as troublesome as Darius’ pick of cloth, and so the other can afford to be a little amused at his guardian’s shenanigans, looking far too amused by the glares that are directed at him whenever he laughs.
The air is surprisingly light, despite how solemn what they’re working on is.
Darius takes a peek at Hunter’s work, the bright red of the patch he’s attaching to his jacket making him smile before taking a look at the embroidering in his own project.
It was his idea, to work on something to commemorate those who have lost, but if he’s to be honest, he didn’t imagine it would raise Hunter’s mood this much. Not to say he isn’t glad about it, of course.
Humming contently, he continues.
“That’s looking good,” Hunter pipes in, approvingly. “I’m not sure it goes with your cape though.”
Darius snorts. He’s right, but it’s sort of an ironic statement coming from him; he has seen the kid look all sparkly eyes over certain outfits in magazines that he personally would have thought more befitting of a clown, though he’s come to admit they mostly look rather nice on the right person.
His kid, of course, is always the right person. His charm can beat even the most mismatched outfit on the realms and make it look like the most elegant piece of clothing created.
“It doesn’t, but I wasn’t planning to wear them together,” He says lightly, though for some reason that seems to stop Hunter on his tracks.
“You weren’t? But… but you always wear that cape!”
Darius chuckles. “You have seen me without it, in fact…” He points at his uncovered shoulder with a dramatic sweep of his hand.
“Well, yeah,” Hunter concedes. “But you always wear it outside, I just thought…”
“Nothing wrong with switching up my style every once in a while,” He shrugs, very aware that Hunter is still staring at him.
“But you said… wasn’t that to honor your mentor?”
“It was,” Darius nods, his earlier tale of his way of commemorating the most important person in his life at the time still fresh in his memory. “But new times come for new things, and besides, this is for him too.”
He pulls more of the pink thread through the fabric. It’s a shame Aleron was never able to actually wear anything pink himself, he always managed to find the way to talk Darius’ ears out about it whenever he saw someone in town wearing something he considered to be fairly fashionable in that color.
It feels just as good back then, to combine their favored colors like this and bring to life something new. To carry around the reminder of someone who brought him to be the person he is today, and to be able to move forward and look at the future without worrying that he’s doing a disservice to him.
He probably would have told him he worries far too much anyway.
They work in comfortable silence for a while, although Darius still checks on Hunter every so often to make sure he’s not feeling burdened by something.
Which is why it takes him by surprise when the kid speaks again.
“Darius?”
“Mhm?”
When there’s no answer, Darius turns to his side and looks at Hunter, whose eyes are downcast, seemingly trying to gather the courage to ask his question.
“Is it…?”
“Yes?” He encourages him gently.
“Is it okay if we watch a soap opera later?”
Darius’ mind blanks, his brain swirling with all the little information he kept close to his heart for years, only revealed lovingly to the two closest people in his life.
“What for?” He’s not against the idea, exactly, but he needs to make sure that Hunter is coming from the right place here.
“I’m just curious, that’s all,” Hunter shrugs, but when Darius looks through his face, he can’t find any trace of the kind of nervous energy he always has when he’s trying and failing at lying, so he lets out the air in his chest slowly.
“Of course,” he takes advantage of his project lying on his lap to pat Hunter’s head lightly. “Though I’m telling you now, they can be quite dramatic.”
Hunter brightens up immediately.
“That’s okay, Mrs. Noceda liked watching telenovelas sometimes. I didn’t understand a lot, but it seemed fun.”
Darius chuckles. “You’ll have to show me those too someday.”
Hunter looks even more delighted at the prospect, starting to plan out loud while he works, his face overtaken by a smile so big that it seems to be getting rid of any traces of the sorrow from earlier. Darius doesn’t think he could feel any prouder of the kid if he tried.
They have made mistakes, some very bad ones even, though he’s at least glad that Hunter is still young enough that he has so much room left to learn to forgive himself and give himself all the chances he needs to live. For now he’ll be okay.
And if someone tries to come around and change that? Well, Darius is sure that Hunter will be very elated to know his parent defending him with all the zeal of one of the wolves from his documentaries.