You Never Did Mention Shananagins - Huntlow🌻

Paternal love - Hunter

- I don't know what to say here. It's homecoming week so I'm hoping to get this chapter out before saturday but you never know with my posting schedule.

happy reading :] -

Luz and Amity were on their honeymoon somewhere in Maine, since Amity wanted to see more of the human realm, but neither of them wanted to travel too far from Connecticut.

The day after Luz and Amity left for Connecticut I was walking back to Darius' place after spending the day at the university for wild magic. 

I opened the front door and called out to Darius who was some where in the house. As a past coven head, Darius had a pretty decent sized house right in the middle of Bonesburrough, so sometimes if I came home and didn't yell that I was home, he wouldn't realize it until hours later.

Darius was just sitting on the couch, his legs up, his scroll in his lap. He waved over at me loosely. "Hi Hunter." He called back, not looking up.

I plopped down on the couch next to him and let out a sigh. College was hard. Even a wild magic college was challenging.

"Hard day?" Darius asked, trying to sound like he couldn't care in the slightest. I knew he did though.

"No." I sighed. "I'm just tired."

Darius finally glanced over at me, a hint of sympathy in his eyes. 

"If college is proving too hard for you I can talk to Eda." He offered, like I was completely helpless. College wasn't that hard.

So I shook my head at him and stared up at the ceiling. I needed some sort of pick-me-up.

"Okay. Do you think you could stay at Camila's tonight? I have some sort off..." He waved his hand and rolled his eyes. "Past coven head meeting to... get rid of the coven status. How it's set up doesn't make sense to me but it's a good cause."

He now fully turned his head to look at me, a somewhat bored, mundane expression on his face.

Darius liked having me around, that's literally why I lived with him half the time, but a lot of the times, he had important things to do, or... other things, and he needed me out of the house.

That was fine too, I had plenty of other places I could stay at. Gilbert and Harvey always welcomed me, but Willow's house was really only a "plan c" if I couldn't be at Mom's or Darius'.

"That's fine. When do I need to be out?" I asked him frankly. Now I was the one avoiding eye contact, staring up at the ceiling blankly.

Darius observed my expression silently. It was obvious he was considering his next words carefully.

Unlike Mom, Darius didn't have a lick of experience with kids of his own. He didn't do a lot of heartfelt conversations or things that had to do with taking care of an actual person.

Darius wasn't cut out to be a father, yet that didn't stop him from being mine.

"...Whenever you want to. You could even.. join the meeting if you wish to. You're old enough and smart enough to put in your thoughts on how you want to go about this whole... fixing the Isles thing."

I smiled at him weakly. "Thank you, Darius. But I'll go." I told him, picking myself up. I needed to stop by Willow's house anyway.

As I began to stretch out and get ready to leave, Darius cleared his throat, what I found living with him, was a means of subtly getting my attention.

"Ahem- uhm, yes- Hunter?" Darius said, getting off the couch as well, touching up his hair lightly. 

He looked like he was struggling to get his next words out, like his words were being restrained inside his throat. He made a peculiar, nervous hand gesture to me as he spoke. "Before you go- you are aware that... you know.. In a paternal.... father-son kind of way that I do.. as a parental figure, love you."