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“Look what the demon dragged in.” Adrian’s tell-tale groan of annoyance cuts through his early morning serenity - well, as serene as the atmosphere of 9 cut-throat, sleep-deprived Coven Heads could be at this hour of the morning. Darius closes his eyes in exhaustion as some of the others echo their displeasure and the morning’s round of mockery begins.
“Good morning, Coven Heads!” The bane of their existence in question is none other than a five foot, golden-clad teenager cloaked in the Emperor’s sigil holding a stack of papers in one hand and an artificial staff in the other. He speaks with the deadpan yet condescending command of a teacher to young students, something that piques at Darius’ nerves. “Nice to see you up and early!”
Almost as though children lined up to pin the tail on the pinata, like darts aimed all at the same target, the Coven Heads’ comments and sneers rear in on time. Now, Hunter may have surprised Darius with his little rebellious stunt earlier, but that doesn’t wipe the slate clean from years of resentment and annoyance, and that certainly doesn’t seem to have an impact on the guard at this fateful morning hour for yet another dreadful meeting.
“He’s still around? How have you not died already?” Hettie questions, surprised.
"One can only dream." Kikimora sighs wistfully, side eyeing him.
"Still, it's a wonder the Emperor kept him around after his last failure."
“Perhaps because he knows his golden guard will mess this one up too. Maybe it's just for shits and giggles now, like watching a bunny run into a chainsaw repeatedly.” Adrian wonders out loud, drawing weird looks.
Even though he feels bad about some of the things they say. Darius curls his lip in instinctive contempt, trying not to look at the brat more than he needs to as he plucks a page from the stack and glares at it. He swears to the Titan, someone has been dialling back the clocks - there’s no way he was always okay with getting up this early on this little amount of sleep with these dimwits. He almost misses Lilith - she was the only one he could talk to without constantly examining his boots for a missed arrow or acquiring a migraine. But ever since she left, the Golden Guard had been told to step in as the head of the Emperor’s Coven, something Darius is sure was done to spite him personally.
At his side, Eber grumbles their discontent while Hettie narrows her eyes and waves a mace near their face in threat. “One more time, step on my apron one more time and I’ll-”
“Now, since you decided so graciously to postpone the last meeting without my permission or so much as informing me-” The Golden Guard brilliantly decides to open up as though a flag of meat practically asking for the predators to come eat, interrupting their side conversations. The Coven Heads glare at him back, not appreciating being told off by someone half their height and age, and he’s lucky he wears a mask to brunt off an undoubted comment about his face.
“Emperor Belos thought it prudent we return to the pressing matters at hand and report out coven recruitments per quota.” Hunter spreads the pages out and leans his palms against the desk. “Would anyone do me the honour of beginning, or should I start with the most disappointing number and count up from there?”
From the corner of his eye, Darius notes Mason curling his grip tighter on his hammer. The only thing holding the man back from pummeling the child is the invisible Emperor that looms over all of their heads since the moment they stepped foot in the castle. Everyone knew construction was the least popular coven for the children they had targeted.
Ha. Darius couldn’t relate.
“Knock it off, the Day of Unity is just around the corner!” Vitimir interestingly comes to the man’s defence, and Darius starts to trace back where exactly in his life choices he had thought joining this shithole was a good idea. “What good is it to pester about recruitment now?”
“A few months does not make ‘just around the corner’.” The guard retorts. “We have so much work to do, and we’re already behind because of you.”
Kikimora mutters something under her breath, stilling when the guard turns to her. “Did you say something, Kiki?”
”I said you should do us a favour and throw yourself into the Boiling Sea.” She casually says in her regal, high pitched voice.
The Golden Brat scoffs. “Just ‘cause you failed to do that last week doesn’t mean I need to do your job for you.” Overlooking her fuming form, he turns to Hettie. “Would you like to start, since Mason is…clearly aware of his numbers?” He asks hopefully, trying to seem confident even with the (literal) knife pointed in his direction.
“Did you hear something, Vitimir?” Hettie then says, acting genuinely shocked.
“Don’t think I did. Why, did you?” The man replies, smirking.
“Very funny.” The Golden Brat rolls his eyes - not that Darius can see, but he probably is, underneath that stupid owl-shaped mask. “You have the humour of schoolchildren and none of the cuteness. We still need to get on with the meeting. Ignoring me is just going to delay the inevitable.”
Darius agrees that what they’re trying to do is immature, but it doesn’t stop him from allowing a small, mean smirk when the brat turns to him as though looking to him for defence. He ought to feel guilty, he supposes, because they were on generally better terms than before, and he did resolve to be less scornful around him after that incident with those students from Hexside. But that patient mature Darius was reserved for quiet evenings and sewing lessons, not the brawl that was this morning’s daily dose of Coven Head slander.
Much to his later guilt, Darius would be lying if he said he didn’t feel the slight bit of satisfaction as the brat’s shoulders drop and he continue to stare at him, as though betrayed. Darius can’t really tell because he can’t see behind the mask. Perhaps that’s why the Emperor makes him wear that stupid oversized uniform - he’s easier to pick on like this, swallowed up by a room and position much bigger than him, with no sign or clue to the person buried underneath. An empty vessel, a faceless goon for them to conveniently direct their frustrations and anger onto.
Even if Darius was impressed by his stunt, he would always be careful around the child who saw nothing wrong with upholding the Emperor’s every will.
“If the Emperor’s collared bitch isn’t going to show up, we might as well take the day off. It’s not like he has anything useful to do around here. What do you folks think?” Adrian scorns, laughing. Raine glares, about to open their mouth.
The brat is seething, hands shaking as he watches their conversation warily, fight steadily leaving him. Darius hopes he’ll have to let them go.
“His predecessor wasn’t nearly this clumsy.” Darius decides to cluck his tongue against his teeth, allowing a small smile when some others clamour in agreement. “He had a bit more respect for the title, too.”
The brat’s fingers tighten around his staff, strong enough to turn his knuckles white. As though a breaking point, a voice leaked with sarcastic venom bites out. “Yeah, the previous guard was so great. That’s why he straight-up died and left all his stuff to me. Soo impressive.”
Darius’ blood runs cold. A familiar, raw, uncomfortable anger returns, flooding through him like the barriers he had so carefully put up were nothing but dust. The flood is searing, broiling something deep and ugly underneath a usually calm and calculated composure.
“You watch your tone, brat.” Darius hisses. Raine instantly bites their lip, nervously glancing between them as though looking for the right time to intervene (read: tell Darius to shut up).
The guard stiffens but doesn’t back away, the tip of his staff glowing. “I will when you grow up and do your job, instead of moping over your pathetic ex-boyfriend!”
Little shit.
The only thing that is stopping Darius from transforming into his angry abomination giant, from recoiling at the shock of the cold words and the inevitable lash-out that itches at his bones, is Raine stepping on his foot from underneath the table, sending him a withering stare.
All this time he had been trying to play it as civilly as he could. What good is it, really? The Golden Brat was a spoiled child who blindly obeyed the Emperor’s orders and regurgitated them in that measly, annoying voice. He undermined, degraded, betrayed everything that the previous one stood for. He doesn’t belong here with the rest of them. Everything he does is wrong, out of order, infuriating. He can never read the room, never really regard people’s opinions if they’re not verbatim from the textbook or his precious uncle. That one rebellious stunt was an accident, trusting or liking him was a sorry mistake . He doesn’t deserve to be saved or pitied.
So Darius spits it out with as much hatred and venom as he can, wanting to hurt him in all the way he can’t, all the ways he wishes he could without guilt, in all the ways he knows everyone else wants to. His steel green eyes bore in through the mask, wishing he could see the face underneath.
“ Fucking lapdog .”
The guard’s shoulders drop again, this time in shock. The room freezes, some of the Coven Heads surprised by his rare show of open anger while the others hooted in agreement, laughing more loudly. The guard drops his papers, hands curled at his sides as he turns his heel and leaves the room swiftly. Some of the Coven Heads continue to laugh behind his back, ensuring his exit isn’t done without more gripe.
Darius can feel Raine’s and Eber’s eyes flit to him in a tangible mix of surprise and unease. Raine’s lips are stiff, pressed together as tightly as the fingers on their papers in that disappointed, restrained way they did when they had spent too long allowing a mischievous student to distract themselves during lectures - defensive, struggling to remain composed. “You shouldn’t have said that to him.”
“And he shouldn’t have chosen to bother me today specifically.” Darius retorts, pretending to examine his nails even as a twinge of remorse follows. No, he would not feel guilty for putting the brat in his place. He knows that the teen was stressed, but everyone was stressed thanks to him and his dear uncle. They would probably laugh it off together later. He was fine.
“He’s a kid-”
Darius splutters in offence, scoffing even as his smile holds no mirth behind it. “He’s the golden guard. He’s perfectly capable of understanding his limits, he just wants to choose when he gets to be a teenager and when he doesn’t. Evidently, he’s more spoiled and bratty than your puppy dog eyes can see.”
Raine looks down at the page, closing their eyes stiffly before opening them as though harbouring some kind of psychic patience. Which Darius would appreciate… if he believed in it. “Or he’s just defensive because he’s being picked on by every adult in the room and if he doesn’t, he’s going to be punished by the worst adult outside this room.”
Darius pretends to guffaw, before his face resumes the deadpan stare. “Oh, poor him. The esteemed uncle will finally give him a smack on the wrist.”
“You seriously don’t think the Emperor is hard on him when he reports back to him with the results of our um- fruitless meeting?” Raine questions nervously.
Darius rolls his eyes. “Don’t worry about it, songbird. The Emperor clearly doesn’t think much of him grovelling at his feet like the substandard dog he is.”
“Stop calling him that.” Raine repeats, increasingly saddened. Darius groans, pushing away from the desk as the others begin leaving. “What’s gotten into you? You were just nice to him a few days ago, saying he impressed you and actually had a personality.”
“He’s still a brat.” Darius replies, waving his hand. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I am about to enjoy some much needed time off.”
…
Darius wakes up in the middle of the night to screaming.
Now, he has heard screaming, albeit not very often. He disliked it greatly, often deterred from hurting people for that reason. His abominations were morphed to restrain and retain people, not injure or maim. This, however, was different.
It was angry yelling dialled up to the highest possible volume. Coarse, sharp to its very core like knives cutting through the staunch, thick silence of the castle. Darius knows anger, its familiar grip and poisonous temptation.
Bewildered, the man stares up at the ceiling, trying to ascertain if he was dreaming or really hearing things, and then pondering if he should get up and look. An itch of instinct tells him what it is, but he refuses to entertain it, believe it. Probably a scout being reprimanded over a stupid mistake, it will pass. He finds himself in the corridor, quietly creeping through keeping his back against the walls (why? he lives here!) until he has followed it right to the throne room. He hesitates, before curiosity gets the better of him and he peeks through the crack between the doors.
Darius can't see much, but there are slivers of movement, followed by a blur of green goop dashing across his visual space to hit at something - or someone, from the sound of the small cry that erupts. The unthinking panic grips and grows over his limbs like ice, freezing him to his position, unable to look away as he breathes heavily. Emperor Belos' voice thunders, unmistakable.
“You’re useless, more useless than the others! You’re the only one who isn’t supposed to disappoint me, the one who isn’t supposed to let me down like this-”
The rest of the words are muffled, unintelligible and drowned out by the ambience of a transforming beast. Deep, disgruntled roaring rumbles through Darius’ ears, and the shell-shocked man catches a glimpse of the sight behind the door, hidden away.
There, bowed with his back bared and golden hair matted with fresh, dark blood, is Hunter.
The top of his shirt is torn, scarred with jagged marks so similar to those on his ankles and face (so that’s where he got them from-), and a new purple bruise has blossomed over his left eye. Magenta eyes stare up at his uncle in plea, wide with despair and gleaming with tears.
Darius wrenches himself away, heart nearly stopping as another screech is heard followed by a solid ‘thump’ . Long, terrifying stretches of silence punctuating further by more thumps .
Thump . He imagines Hunter’s limp body hitting the floor. Thump . He imagines a newer, bigger scar gaping through Hunter’s face.
Thump. Thump. In between, he secretly hopes he will hear something else, foolishly wants for the boy to say something, scream something. Something, to excuse Darius running in and - and what? “Save” him from his uncle, who he now just learned physically abuses him?
Darius decides he is the most cowardly man alive. A coward and a hypocrite and a blind utter fool , for doing what he just had.
All remaining sound buzzes fruitlessly in the man’s ears, jostling him to his core as his stomach shrinks and quelches on itself, sickened by what he had just witnessed and is now listening to the aftermath of. A beating he allowed, that he was the cause of, a beating similar to the beatings that had no doubt taken place more often that he had slept oblivious to. How many times had Coven Heads made Hunter's job difficult? How many times had Hunter stumbled into a meeting freshly sporting new bruises? It all turns to self-doubt.
Had he mocked Hunter's voice or commented on his scar the morning after he had received a beating?
Had he slept to the sound of the boys' sobs?
How often did the rest of the castle just sleep and not notice this screaming?
“Thank you, nephew. It pains me to see you like this…but I know this is just temporary. You won’t disappoint me again, will you?”
He hears sniffling, small squeaks, and another, longer stretch of silence. It isn’t until he hears footsteps, slow and sluggish, that Darius panics and translocates the hell out of there.
Pacing in his room, heart hammering in his throat as he runs fingers through his hair, the man swallows thickly before conjuring and sending a small abomination. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do yet, but he knows he won’t be able to rest if he doesn’t see that the boy is still in one piece. He could see through the abomination's eyes like a sixth sense, though its muddled in his panicked conjuring.
The abomination makes it in time to follow the boy from behind, for Hunter’s room door to open and close without a second. The boy is staggering, sinking to his knees and letting out gasps of pain as his cardinal palisman rushes to him in a panicked frenzy, fretting over him.
“It happened again, Flap.” Hunter sighs as though this was no one occurrence. Darius' abomination observes him quietly from the corner of his desk stand. “Why can’t I just…not fail people?” He laments, and much to Darius’ horror, quiet tears stream down his face. “Uncle, Darius, the scouts…even the Coven Heads. I’m finally one of them now, aren’t I? It doesn’t matter, they all hate me. And I somehow have to get all this done with them by the end of the month.” Another breathless sob, shaky and hopeless. “I don’t know - how much longer I can take this, Flap.”
The bird’s chirps become incessant, frantic, and a mirthless, light chuckle escapes Hunter.
“I don’t think I make anyone happy, buddy.” Hunter quietly says, more tears bursting through the brim of his bloodshot eyes, and the sight is uglier than Darius imagined. Perhaps it is because his own vision is blurred with tears, fingers pressed intently into his own teeth. “Uncle used to say I made him pretty proud, but he’s not going to ever again. Not with how much I failed him, I don’t think.” He sounds tired - tired and small, and Darius stares in horror, continuing to listen as the bird lands on his hair to listen closely. “This is gonna sound…so ungrateful, but I miss being loved. I miss it though I don’t deserve it.”
Hunter laughs then, before the laughs descend almost manically into more incoherent sobs.
“I’m nothing but a dog. A stupid, worthless lapdog.” The boy spits out, echoes his words as though he’s mourning them, punctured by a sharp sob. The bird’s comforting pleas and chirping go ignored above, desperately trying to nuzzle into his master. Hunter remains curled, unmoving on the floor he sleeps on for the rest of the night. “That’s all I’ll ever be, to anyone.”
…
“Golden Guard.” The familiar name isn’t spat with the same fierce disgust as Hunter is used to, so Hunter turns around in curiosity, blinking back with wide eyes obscured by the mask. Sometimes he regrets ever (accidentally) showing the Coven Heads his face, knowing now no amount of covering it up will wipe away the memory of a young, tired kid drowned out by the voices in the castle and the cold glare of a stern uncle.
“Hm?” He responds tiredly. Of course Darius of all people wants to bother him this morning.
“How are you today?” Darius asks casually, voice still, and Hunter blinks in bewilderment when that’s not followed up by anything else.
“Uh…fine?” He answers, unsure. He squints suspiciously at him.
Darius nods nervously. “Good, good. Can we talk?”
“We are talking.”
Darius sucks in a sharp breath through his nose. He has to be mature, patient about this before he loses his cool. “About yesterday?”
“No.” Hunter sighs instantly, trudging past him. The audacity . If Darius didn’t feel so bad for him, he would grab him. He wisely doesn’t.
“May I ask why not?” Darius instead asks.
Hunter pauses, before slowly taking off his mask to look at him. Darius winces at the sight of the purple bruise, the depressed eyes. “Look I don’t - I can’t just play cards with the rest of you and slack off at my job. I do enough covering for you, you’re lucky I didn’t tell Uncle about your insolence.” He turns to leave again.
“But that’s the thing! Why didn’t you?” Darius asks, frowning sympathetically.
The boy stops at that, slowly turning around. “Why didn’t I what?” Hunter demands now, frustrated and not caring that he was raising his voice at an elder.
“Why didn’t you just tell him it was my fault? You didn’t tell him that I postponed the meeting without your knowledge or sent you on a wild goose chase, nor did you tell him that Kikimora tried to kill you, nor did you tell him how we…weren’t exactly on topic at the last Coven Head meeting.” Darius lists, stepping closer. A part of Hunter is fearful - is this for future blackmail purposes? To see how much he can get away with? A way to tell everyone this was their free ticket to torment Hunter?
Another part of Hunter barely blinks or betrays the fear, staring up listlessly at him. “How do you know I didn’t?” He asks evenly, and Darius is split between crying and laughing - how many times has Hunter said that to a scout or Coven Head, and they had actually believed him? How many times had he himself believed that Hunter would run and snitch on them at a moment’s notice? “And even if I didn’t…Why do you care?”
That is a decidedly better question.
“Because it’s dog eat dog here!” Darius waves his hands almost frantically in a break of character, before realising Hunter’s startled flinch and calming his movements. He shouldn’t use that word. He’ll never use that word again. “Everyone is looking for ways to sabotage each other or get their foes into trouble! Everyone stabs each other in the back! Why didn’t you?” He hopes Hunter is going to say something spiteful or immature so he can go back to being safely irritated with him, so he can feel justified in complaining about him or scoffing at him at the next meeting.
But then, to his horror, a small smile weaves its way up Hunter’s lips. “What good would that have done me?” He chuckles in exhaustion, allowing that rare, trusted glimpse of vulnerability to show.
“It would have spared you the-” The abuse, the screaming at night, the blood on your clothes, the tears you cried into your floor as you fell into a restless sleep. “The lecture.” Darius decides on lamely.
Hunter’s face contorts at the realisation then, a flicker of shame and self-conscious nervousness lighting up his eyes as he straightens his back and tries to tighten his jaw in response. “I'm sorry if Uncle and I woke you. He must have forgotten to put up the silencing charms last night." He apologises, and Darius wants to tell him to stop, please, stop.
"Don't apologise. Just tell me." He settles on, before a solemn sadness takes over. "I had - no idea he did that to you. Are you okay?"
Hunter raises a brow, surprised at the show of sympathy before narrowing his eyes. "I’m not a child. I can take responsibility for my actions. Blaming other people only makes me look bad.”
“But those weren’t your actions, they weren’t your fault.” Darius insists, now irritated. It’s a plea, almost. He would rather that Hunter just tell Belos of their insubordination and the emperor give them a lecture or even a swat in fair warning then Hunter have to stand and endure the man’s screaming and violent curse all night.
“ But it is . It is my fault.” Hunter says then, and he bows his head slightly, leaning against his staff. He’s tired, Darius realises. Tired of needing to defend himself, of having to constantly think of what others think of him, what Uncle thinks. All that matters is getting this stupid task done so he can curl up when he hopes Uncle isn’t looking and sink under his covers. “If people say all those things about me or do those things to me - it’s my fault. The same way it’s my fault if Uncle misses his tea, or my fault when things don’t go to plan, or my fault that I let Kikimora get away with not-kidnapping palismen. It’s okay, really. If you don’t take your shit out on me, who else would you take it out on?”
Stunned, Darius closes his jaw from where it was unceremoniously dropped. “My abominations? My therapist? Random objects lying close to me?” He replies swiftly. “Not children who don’t need to handle my anger? Not in ways that could get people hurt?”
“If you really thought that way, you wouldn’t have said those things to me. You treat me that way because you think I deserve it.” Hunter explains just as reflexively, voice eerily calm in a way that shuts Darius up almost instantly. “What, are you going to tell me that after years of getting stabbed, sabotaged, and nearly poisoned, you think I didn’t deserve it?” How did that make sense?
Yes . Darius wants to instantly say, but as he always does when things matter most, he stays silent, eyes clicking down in the returning burst of shame and guilt that he disallows from showing in his face or leaking into his voice.
“I’m sorry, little prince.”
Caught completely off guard, it’s Hunter’s turn to stare back at Darius, astonished and speechless as he slowly processes the apology and Darius’ expression. “It -it’s okay, Darius.” He replies quietly, in that crooked rasp aching with exhaustion. “I don’t actually get upset about what you guys do or don’t do. I have more important things to worry about and take away from meetings.”
Yeah, right. Darius was sure that he would never get the image of Hunter sobbing alone in his room, curled up against the floor and quaking in his own blood, out of his head again.
All because of him. He contributed to this. Who knows how many times Hunter had taken the fall for them, lied to his Uncle or just refused to tell him about the awful things they said about and to his face?
“You can take our ideas, sure. Our taxes, our time, our patience. But it’s not…your job to take other people's anger and bitterness, prince.”
Hunter looks offended at that, much to Darius’ greater confusion. He leans forward with beaming eyes, as though trying to convince Darius. “But I can take it, I want to. I’m honoured. I want to work with you all, I want to be considered your equal and I want you to be pleased with me the way I want Uncle to be pleased.”
Oh fuck, Darius wishes he could just rinse his ears with nail polish remover. Perhaps he never should have started talking to Hunter like this to begin with. Every inch of the surface he uncovered about the boy only unravelled more of the white-hot guilt broiling at the base of his gut.
“No, you don’t.” Darius breathes, chagrined.
Hunter frowns, starting to seem annoyed. “Uh, yeah, I do-”
“No, you don’t!” Darius bursts in frustration, fingers pointed to his temple. There he was again, the perfectly trained soldier, conditioned to only accept and take and parrot what Belos told him. “You don’t want another attempt on your life by Kikimora or another day of being shoved around by Adrian and Mason, or poisoned by Terra and Vitimir, or belittled by Eber and I!”
Hunter hesitates, curious eyes following him as the beginnings of that familiar sorrow fracture through. “Yeah, I do, if that means I’m doing my part for the Isles. If that means I’m not purposeless, worthless in this world. If that means I’m a good Coven Head for you guys and a good nephew for Uncle.” His eyes sparkle at the last sentences, ripe with the raw hope carrying his voice as Darius only listens in growing, uneasy horror.
And then another horrific truth hits Darius. If the man was at all stronger, smarter, braver, he wouldn’t let Hunter go. He doesn’t know what the alternative was, but he would have cooperated with Raine on the matter earlier, not dismissed and humiliated him so often, defended him when Belos had taken his anger out on him. He never should have stolen his stupid cloak or deterred the meeting or pushed him around the way he had. He never should have acted like such a child when this actual child had been forced to grow up and act the responsible one.
Hunter shrugs, clearing his throat and composing himself to seem more formal as he folds an arm behind his back. As though he hadn’t just spilt his heart’s sad little desires out for the Coven Head who had gotten him beaten last night. He looks ridiculous, Darius instinctively would have said in any other circumstance. Stop it. Stop acting so seriously. You’re just a kid. “I just have to be smarter and stronger about it. Besides, at the end of the day, nothing you do or say really matters to me. All that matters is that Uncle loves me. Uncle’s words are the only ones that can hurt me.”
"No one can hurt you. You have the soul of a warrior." Darius says, and he means it, he really does. Even if Hunter's eyes light up before falling in distrust, even if they search his own for the hidden joke, the inevitable cruelty. Hunter is stronger than he is because he doesn't take his shit out on him, even if it would mean protection from violent beatings. Hunter is strong because he isn't a coward who stands outside people's doors seeing and hearing them being beaten. "And little prince? If you do get into some kind of trouble...please do not hesitate to mention that I was involved. I mean it. I can take the fall for my own failings." You shouldn't have to.
Hunter regards him warily, before slowly nodding in obedience like he always does. It is with that realisation dawning on Darius that Hunter takes his leave, giving him a quick, curt bow and straightening his back before donning the mask again, inhaling deeply, and entering the dreaded throne room for another day of Belos doing Titan knows what with him.
The resentment he and Lilith had felt over Hunter’s success dwindled, far overshadowed by doubt and a guilt that bites back tenfold. Those few moments of praise from Belos was possibly the only good thing Hunter ever heard about himself ever. Those few seconds of Belos giving him the opportunity to command or praising his intelligence were the closest thing Hunter felt to genuine affection and love, for a man who so coldly glared above him and so readily hurt him.
Horrific images flash through his mind, electric and unbidden.
He had pushed Hunter away. They all had. And he was going to pay for it.
That night, Darius bursts into Raine’s room with a new plan. They were indeed going to take down the Emperor and stop the Day of Unity - by infiltrating his mind. Darius decides he would refuse to be the cold, indifferent man Hunter had come to only expect harm from. He decides that the small unfaltering boy standing all day at the Emperor’s side deserves a future beyond taking what everyone gave him. He decides that - when the time was right and everything improved - he would properly apologise, console him, hold him like he deserved to be held every night he came back to his room weeping. He decides that until then, he'll participate in every insufferable Coven head meeting, endure those squabbles and the early mornings and tired evenings actually finishing paperwork, if it means the boy now wrapped around his heart doesn't return to his room blood-soaked and tear-stained.
The image of him willingly hugging Hunter was something Darius doesn't realise would feel so right, but it settles in his chest far more easily than his hatred ever had.