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battybatzgirl · 3 years

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Crazier Than You

AO3

Summary:

When you're a Shigaraki, it's family first, family last, and family by and by. But introducing your new (normal) boyfriend to your family can cause a few problems--especially if your father just so happens to be Japan's most notorious supervillain.

Chapter 1 | 2

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Despite what the movies showed, not every organ inside your body was mushy and red. Tendons, for example, were a stark white. Fat, a sickly yellow-green. Muscles, though, came in a wide variety of crimson and merlot and currant and maroon--all of them red.

Red like Katsuki’s eyes.

Bet he’d bleed like that too, Izuku thinks hazily.

“Izuku.”

The sound of his name snaps him back into place, making him jolt on instinct. It messes with the stitch he’s currently working on, the thread pulling taut and ripping out of the flesh. He offers a sheepish smile to Dr. Garaki over the corpse on the operating slab.

The doctor eyes the stitch that Izuku ruined and lets out a little tsk. “If you’re going to keep getting distracted, you should head back upstairs.”

Muttering a soft apology, Izuku works on removing the stitch from the forearm he was working on. He normally had so much more concentration when working on nomu. The doctor wouldn’t let him around one of his little projects if he didn’t. For years, he’d protested Izuku even being down in the basement lab, but luckily, Izuku’s father was always keen to encourage his son's morbid curiosities. Whip-smart and a fast learner, Izuku knew he was the best assistant Garaki ever had.

If, you know. He could get his brain to stop thinking about Kacchan.

The doctor seems to notice his offput attitude, so he says, “We can finish this tomorrow. Go get your cousin for dinner.”

With a nod, Izuku pushes away from the operating table and removes his bloody gloves, then starts the trek through the lab. It’s dark in the basement, mainly only illuminated by the glowing vats of Nomu everywhere. Why the doctor liked to work in near darkness never made sense to him—why not put on a light when you’re operating?

Tomura had this theory about him wanting the aesthetics of a creepy villain from TV, but honestly, it wasn’t fooling anyone. Garaki wasn’t creepy. He was too full of himself, and he was within his right, too. He was a genius. Izuku hated how much he liked the man.

He trots up the stairs, making a beeline through the manor to where he knew Tomura would be. He always played a few rounds of whatever videogame he was obsessed with that week before dinner.

Izuku’s hunch is right. He finds his cousin in front of the TV in their sitting room, slumped on the couch with his feet up on the table. If Dad were around, Tomura wouldn’t be doing it, but Izuku was no snitch.

He flops down next to the older boy, grabbing a pillow and squeezing it tight to his chest. He wishes he could squeeze the weird mushiness he’s feeling right now out of him. Or, even better, he wishes he could squeeze Kacchan, tight enough until his face turns blue and he’s gasping for air. Izuku bets he’d look really cute with bruises ringing around his neck.

“Don’t mess up,” he says when Tomura’s character is making a challenging-looking jump.

“Go die,” Tomura responds without missing a beat. The character clears the jump. It’s been years since Izuku’s been able to distract his cousin’s concentration away from a game, but it’s still the thought that counts.

The clacking of Tomura’s thumbs against the controller is driving Izuku crazy, so he starts talking. “I fucked up another stitch on a nomu again.”

Tomura snorts, “Surprised you don’t fuck up everything you touch.”

“It’s because of Kacchan,” Izuku continues, ignoring Tomura’s comments like he usually does. His heart flutters disgustingly when the syllables of Katsuki’s nickname rolls off his tongue. They tasted so sweet. “He’s gotten in my head.”

“Anywhere else?”

Izuku whacks Tomura with the pillow, feeling a treacherous heat rise to his face. “It’s not like that. At least not yet. We’ve only made out.”

The memory of it makes his stomach swoop like he’s flying over a canyon. Katsuki had been arguing with him about something that was so unimportant, but Izuku didn’t like to lose anything, much less arguments. So, he shut the blond up by yanking him forward and mashing their lips together, biting so hard that Katsuki’s bottom lip bled.

“Fuck,” Kacchan swore when he pulled back, his blood staining his teeth and lip the prettiest shade of red. “That’s hot.”

And then the blond grabbed him by the back of his neck and kissed him so hard Izuku saw stars.

Tomura snickers. “You better tell Dad before it gets too serious.”

That snaps Izuku out of whatever rose-colored haze he was in. His body feels cold all over at the idea. “It’s not that serious.” The day he told his father about Katsuki was the day Izuku died. As the baby of the family, his annoyingly overprotective father to treat him like he was six instead of sixteen. In his eyes, Izuku wasn't allowed date until he was fifty.

“Didn’t you say he’s in a fashion course?”

Glumly, Izuku nods. Katsuki was the heir to the Bakugou fashion empire, and Izuku was the son of the Demon King of the Underworld.

Cupid was such a bitch.

This continues to amuse his cousin to no end. He cracks a smile. “Only you would fall for someone normal.”

“He doesn’t act normal, though,” he protests. “He’s loud and mean and—”

“—dreamy,” Tomura sneers, and Izuku’s patience snaps.

He launches himself at the other boy, going straight for Tomura’s eyes. His face was already full of scratches and scars, some of them put there by Izuku himself. Izuku’s nails tear through the skin on Tomura’s cheek before a boot kicks him squarely in the stomach. Instinctively, Izuku tucks and rolls, falling off the couch and landing in a crouch in a surprisingly graceful manner.

“You made me lose a life.” Tomura lets out an annoyed whine, whipping at the blood beading on his skin before turning back to the game. “Brat.”

“Bastard,” Izuku returns, climbing back on the couch. “Okay, but what do I say to Dad? I think he’s noticing that I’ve been going out more, and I can’t keep using the excuse that I’m digging up bodies.”

Raiding a local hospital graveyard for the freshly deceased sounded like an average Friday night for Izuku—because he was small and knew how to make himself cry, he played the part of a poor mourning child well enough for no one to ask questions. But his father didn’t like him to be out for too long, and Izuku has been sneaking out nearly every night this week to hang out with Katsuki. As well as for the past few months.

And it wasn’t his fault, okay? Something about Kacchan was making Izuku go insane. He was used to people fleeing at the sight of bared teeth, not running toward him with a snarl fierce enough to match his own. It gave Izuku a dizzying high that made him want to cut Katsuki open on his knife while grabbing the blond by the hips and grind into him until the marrows of their bones mixed.

God, he had it bad. He was so fucked.

“You’re fucked,” Tomura echoes his thoughts with a shrug, finally pausing the game. He turns his crimson eyes onto Izuku—the rings underneath them looked particularly dark today. He must have skipped his afternoon nap to keep playing his game.

“I’m not gonna cover for you if he asks.” Izuku shoots him a glare—Tomura was such a little goody-two-shoes when it came to their dad. Even though Hisashi technically wasn’t Tomura’s father, he’d raised them as brothers and expected honesty from them both. Tomura gave it to him without hesitation, while Izuku…

Well. As the youngest, there were a few things he could get away with by simply batting his eyes and cooing a love you to get Hisashi to do whatever he wanted. His dad probably knew Izuku was manipulating him—he’d taught him to do it, after all—but part of Izuku still thinks that the Devil of Japan’s Underworld was secretly a soft family man.

But this? Sneaking out of the protected manor to go have secret rendezvous with his frightfully normal boyfriend?? If Hisashi ever found out, Izuku might as well be another body on a slab.

He pouts at his cousin. “You’re no fun.”

“Bite me.”

Izuku nearly does, but he doesn’t know the last time Tomura took a shower, and doesn’t want to have to wash the taste of dirty gamer skin out of his mouth.

Izuku knew he shouldn’t have trusted Tomura to keep his mouth shut.

That night at dinner, Hisashi casually asks how the new nomu experimentations were going.

“One of them has enough shock absorption that it could get hit with a train and walk away just fine,” Izuku reports cheerfully. “It’s not at the strength we want it at yet, but it’s getting there.” The strength they wanted was to take a punch from All Might, who according to his father, could punch with the strength of two hundred locomotives at once.

“Would probably already be there if you weren’t so distracted,” Tomura mutters under his breath. Izuku kicks him under the table with his iron-toed boots, praying his father didn’t hear it.

Unfortunately, the gods of fate aren’t smiling down on him today. “Distracted?” Hisashi repeats. A warm, knowing smile pulls at his lips. “You aren’t one to drop a project mid-construction. Did you find something else to hyper-fixate on?”

Tomura coughs a way that sounds suspiciously like the word someone, and if his father wasn’t looking, one of Tomura’s spidery hands would already be skewered on Izuku’s fork.

“It’s nothing,” Izuku says quickly—too quickly, he realizes too late. He feels his mouth go dry when his father’s eyebrows raise. “I just…” God, should he lie? Play dumb? No, with Tomura being in this kind of mood, doing either of those things would probably dig himself deeper into the hole he was already being thrown into. “I uh, made a friend when I was out excavating.”

“A friend?” Hisashi’s smile has turned into a frown. “Izuku, you know that talking to outsiders is dangerous.”

Izuku hates how the disappointment in his father’s voice makes him want to cringe. He’s heard the warnings hundreds of times; interacting with anyone outside of the Shigaraki clan circles was risky. If a someone discovered they were stealing bodies for Nomu, the police could get involved, or worse—heroes. And of course, Tomura could leave the manor and talk to whoever he pleased, but the older boy never chose to leave unless he was going out to play D&D with Twice and Himiko or killing someone.

Tomura’s homebody tendencies used to drive Izuku crazy when he was younger, but now, he doesn’t feel all that jealous anymore. He really doesn't have a reason to leave. All he could ever want is under his father’s roof—food, shelter, enough nomu experiments and research projects to keep him busy. Izuku doesn’t remember the last time he actually took a trip into town before he met Kacchan.

And really, even meeting Katsuki was purely an accident.

“He’s not an outsider,” Izuku lies. “He’s got Yakuza cousins.”

Did Katsuki have gangster cousins? Well he did now, because that took a bit of the edge off his father’s expression. Still, his eyes were calculating, and that was never a good thing.

“What clan?”

“The Hassaikai,” Izuku answers smoothly, ignoring Tomura’s sharp glance in his direction. He knows Tomura knows all the Hassaikai members thanks to a few deals they’ve done in the past. They’ve proven to be trustworthy to his father. And really, dragging Tomura into his lie isn’t a good idea, but Izuku is bitter and wants revenge.

He and Tomura share a Look over the table. Screw this up for me and I’ll perform an autopsy on your switch, Izuku tries to relay with his eyes. It seems to work, because his cousin sighs loudly and slumps down into his chair. Hisashi looks like he wants to talk about it more, but the tinny sound of one of their lab alerts rings out through the dining room. The doctor only rang that one when he needed Hisashi’s approval for something.

Hisashi was already on his feet, “Excuse me, boys, I have to attend to that. Oh, and Izuku.” His father’s crimson gaze pierces him like a butterfly on a corkboard. “I’m interested to hear more about your friend.”

Izuku has no idea if the horror he feels inside of him shows on his face. With the click of dress shoes, Hisashi exits the dining room.

The instant he's gone, Izuku launches himself over the table, crashing into Tomura so hard he knocks them both backward on the floor. He hears the wood crack from their combined weight hitting the floor, but he doesn't care. He’s got one foot pressing down Tomura’s left wrist onto the floor, both hands throttled around the other boy’s throat.

“You dirty snitch,” Izuku hisses, “You ratted me out.”

Tomura raises the hand not pressed into the ground dangerously close to Izuku’s face. He knows the older boy would never use his quirk against him—at least, not anywhere permanent—but the movement is enough to make Izuku shift back just enough for Tomura to shove him off.

“You were being annoying. And why did you drag me into this? I have other things I need to do besides be your little wingman.”

Like what, plan attacks on high schoolers because one of them made fun of your greasy hair? Izuku can’t even muster the energy to sass, he feels so completely drained at the idea of his father knowing about Kacchan.

He presses his face into his hands. Maybe he could invent something that could reverse time and send him back fifteen minutes before the word ‘friend’ had ever left his mouth. “Just… don’t mention it again. I guess I have to tell him now.”

Tomura stands up with feline grace, grabbing a roll off the table and stuffing it in his mouth. “Good luck with that.”

Izuku doesn’t like to brag, but he knows he’s a genius. As the son of a highly intellectual villain who fostered his analytical mind from an early age, he can solve and destroy most problems that get in his way. Even if those problems happened to be people with annoying quirks.

This problem, of hiding his boyfriend from his father, he doesn’t know how to solve. And most surprisingly, it’s Katsuki that ends up providing a solution.

“They want to what?! "

That doesn’t mean it doesn’t come as a shock, though. Izuku stares, gaping at the blond from across the diner table. It’s one of those 24-hour places near his high school’s campus that is known to have visits from teenagers at odd hours. They’ve met up here a few times, enough that the staff is starting to smile at Izuku when he enters. Kacchan likes it because it’s close and has absurdly spicy noodles. Izuku likes it because no one bats an eye at his all-black and slinky appearance.

Katsuki slurps his noodles obnoxiously. The sound reminds Izuku of how it feels to squeeze a bunch of intestines between his fingers. He’d much rather be dissecting something right now than facing the consequences of what Kacchan has just proposed.

“It’s my hag’s idea,” he says flippantly once he’s swallowed. “She and the old man think since we’ve been seeing each other for a while, it would be good to get to know you ‘nd your family.”

“But isn’t it a little early?” Izuku protests weakly, grasping at anything to get this conversation away from where he knows it’ll end up. “We’ve only been hanging out for a couple of months. And we’re not even technically in a relationship.”

“D’you wanna be?”

“Yes,” Izuku’s stupid mouth betrays him before his brain can catch up. It’s worth the reaction, though—Katsuki’s sharp, satisfied grin sends Izuku’s stomach fluttering.

And truly, it’s not fair. Kacchan is too damn handsome, with his low-hanging sweatpants and black tank top that reveals so much. His muscles were absurdly defined—what did they have fashion students doing these days??—but his skin is what really enchanted Izuku. It was clear, pure, and unscarred. Izuku wants to drag one of his knives over his skin and lick up all the blood.

Christ, now he was sounding like Himiko.

“’Kay,” Katsuki nods, “We’re boyfriends now. And my parents want to meet you and your parents.”

“My mom’s dead,” Izuku says bluntly, “and dad’s out of the country.” The practiced lie rolls off his tongue like water.

“No he ain’t. You were complaining about what he said about your curfew last night. When you were breaking it.”

Izuku bangs his forehead into the table, making the noodle bowl rattle. He hates it when Katsuki gets to prove a point. His voice takes on a more whiney timbre, “You don’t want to meet him, I promise he’s not that interesting. He’s just a boring businessman.” Who just so happens to run the entire underworld of the country, but that was neither here nor there.

“My parents are boring as hell too,” Katsuki shrugs. “But if we’re gonna start doing this for real, they want to make sure the person I’m seeing is a good choice. Or whatever.”

Izuku barely keeps the hysterical laughter bubbling up in his throat down. A good choice? He was the worst choice, but he didn’t want to tell Katsuki that.

“Besides,” the blond reaches across the table and weaves their fingers together. Izuku feels his heart jolt, hitting every one of his ribs in a xylophone. “Can’t show off what’s mine by hiding it.”

Something in Izuku purrs at the possessive in the other boy's tone. He wants to tie Katsuki up and keep him in a locked room on some remote island so they can be together forever.

Before that happens, Izuku supposes that it would be polite to meet his parents. Villain or no, Hisashi taught him good manners.

But Hisashi knowing about Kacchan was bad enough. The idea of his father actually meeting Katsuki is so much worse.

“I- I don’t know,” Izuku says, pulling his hand back. “My dad doesn’t like meeting strangers.”

Katsuki shrugs. “So? Tell him to deal with it. ‘S for you, so he can be man enough to handle one night.”

As absurd as the argument is, he supposes Katsuki has a point. There was little Hisashi wouldn’t do for Izuku when he genuinely wanted something. The perks of being the favorite child did come in handy.

“One night.” He repeats the words slowly, trying to convince himself this was a good idea. It would put his father's suspicions to rest. Still, the rational side of his mind knew this probably wouldn’t go well, but if Katsuki wanted it… “Okay.”

The blond smirks. “Knew you’d be a pushover.”

“I’m not,” Izuku snarls, bearing his teeth and immediately going on the defensive. Katsuki’s personality teetered on a knife’s edge—one moment, he was charming, the next he was sharp as barbed wire. Even though they’d only known each other for a short time, he somehow knew just how to get under Izuku’s skin.

It was intoxicatingly alluring.

“Yeah?” Katuki’s eyes glint with a hunger that made Izuku’s stomach flip. “Prove it.”

He’s barely finished speaking before Izuku grabs him by the collar of his shirt, already towing the grinning blond to the diner’s shitty bathroom. It was a good thing Katsuki liked to snarl, because Izuku liked to bite back and make him bleed.

He had been working on a project when he first met Katsuki.

Well, calling it working might be a stretch. Fixing a mess was probably more accurate.

He had been tinkering with splicing one of Mocha’s genes before the little creature had the audacity to double itself and break out of the tubes that were holding it down. By the time Izuku had stood up the thing was scurrying out of the basement's back door.

Izuku swore in a fashion that would have made his father cut out his tongue, and grabbed a net.

It certainly wasn’t the first time Mocha had run away from him, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. The little thing only preferred Garaki's hands, even though Izuku’s knowledge of quirk splicing was far superior to the doctor’s.

This was the first time Mocha had actually escaped outside, though, which was a Problem.

Izuku doesn’t even bother taking off his goggles, swinging the net over his shoulders as he dashed out the door following the creature. Their manor sat in the middle of a heavily wooded area near a public park, so there were plenty of places the little nomu could hide. The last thing he needed was the creature finding one of the hiking trails and taking a bite out of some poor jogger. It was already late evening, the sun tinting the sky a hazy orange before it disappeared over the treeline.

“Mocha, come here!” Izuku calls sweetly. “I have a special treat for you.” He didn’t, but the nomu didn’t need to know that.

His eyes scan the ground, searching for a hidden fox hole where the little creature could have hidden. It was early August and the late summer heat was making the cicadas go crazy. He started to get nervous, walking farther toward the park area, his attention was so focused on the ground that he didn’t notice the person sliding up next to him.

“Hey.”

Izuku shrieks, whirling around to face the stranger who had spoken. He takes quick note of the man’s long, dark hair, bloodshot eyes, and jumpsuited appearance.

The man’s eyes squint a little as he observes Izuku. “You lost, kid? The trailhead’s back that way.”

I know, I live here, Izuku wants to say, but thinks better of it. “O-oh, I- I’m not lost." He notices the man’s eyes drift toward the net in his hands. “I’m, uh, looking for my cat. The little stinker got out through the back door and ran through the park.”

He isn’t sure if the man buys his lie. “So you dressed up in your Halloween costume to catch it?”

Izuku cringes and feels his ears heat, realizing just how ridiculous he must look to an outsider. He’s still in his lab coat. He subtly hides his hands behind his back, hoping the man didn’t notice the ichor-stained gloves. “Hahaha, ooooh this? It’s just protective measures. He bites.”

“Uh-huh.” Something about this man is putting Izuku on edge, but he can't put his finger on why. The man lets out a tired sigh, eyes finally leaving Izuku to drift to the wooded area around him. “Okay, well hurry up and find them before it gets dark. This area’s had lots of reports of suspicious activity, and we don’t want any civilians out here getting hurt if a villain shows up.”

Izuku suddenly realizes why this man is making him nervous: he’s a hero.

And wasn’t that just the icing on the cake? There’s a hero lurking around on the edge of their property and Izuku lost his fucking nomu. Great, just great.

“I- I’ll keep a lookout,” he promises with a shaky smile, then practically sprints away before the hero can say anything else.

So yeah, his social skills weren’t exactly top-notch, what of it? Izuku barely talks to anyone outside of his family and his brain-dead experiments, he has very little experience socializing. Especially with a hero. That man in particular looked as though he could look into Izuku’s very core, and Izuku didn’t want to stick around long enough for the man to realize the sixteen-year-old in front of him didn’t have a soul.

“Mocha!” He hisses with new fervor, clutching the net a little tighter as his eyes nervously drift around the trees. “Get your butt back here, you little shit!” God, he hoped no other heroes were around. He knows how to kill a person, but Tomura was usually the one who dusted people. Izuku just liked messed with them after they were dead.

A noise on the trail to his right makes him freeze. Without thinking, Izuku jumps out of the bushes, swinging the net out onto the trail and tugging the cord taut. An instant later, there’s an outraged cry and a small explosion fires off. The loud noise makes Izuku jump, and he fights his way through the foliage to see an irritated-looking teenager, caught in a crouch where he had been tying his shoes.

Izuku didn’t catch a nomu. He caught a boy.

The teen looks about Izuku’s age, with spikey blond hair and a face that’s pinched in anger. He's sweaty; must have been pausing on his run to fix his shoelaces. The fabric of Izuku’s net is now singed, the metal pole hanging limply around the boy’s broad shoulders.

The boy shoots to his feet, lips twisted in a snarl. “What the hell do you think you’re—”

Izuku tears off his goggles and drops to the ground, burying his face in his hands with a groan. “Fuck me.” Great, now he’s lost Mocha, interacted with a hero, and ruined his net. Dad was going to murder him while Tomura uses his intestines to play jump rope.

Speaking of, should he go back home and get Tomura? Would adding another person to this rescue mission help find Mocha faster? Or would Tomura go directly to Hisashi and tattle on how terribly irresponsible Izuku was? Would the reprimanding be worth it if they caught the damn nomu before it ate someone and caught the attention of that hero?

The blond, who Izuku honestly forgot was still there, sniffs, “The fuck is a Mocha?”

Shit. Mumbling under his breath was a habit usually his family only had to deal with. Ignoring the way his cheeks felt hot, Izuku stands and faces him. “My cat.” Might as well stick with the lie he already told. The little thing did kind of resemble a cat. If you were squinting at it in the dark and you weren’t wearing your prescription glasses.

The blond snorts, picking at the half-torn net still around his shoulders. “You’re using a net to catch it?”

Izuku frowns. Something about this boy’s sneering makes his fingers itch to claw at it. “You don’t have to tell me how to take care of my pets.” He grabs the net off the boy’s shoulders and rubs the burnt edges of the fabric between his fingers. “What’s your quirk?”

“Hah? Why does it matter?”

“I heard the sound of firework, and this part of the fabric is singed,” Izuku launches into the observed facts. “You have a flammable quirk, but the scent lingering smells like nitroglycerine, which would mean explosions, not fire. Something would have to light that, of course,” he leans in, peering curiously at the boy, who was wearing workout shorts and a black tank top. “Do you carry around matches?”

The boy shoves Izuku away with a growl. “Get off of me! Who even are you?”

Izuku has the right mind to growl back because no one was allowed to touch him without permission, but a sick crunching noise makes both boys look up.

Mocha is in the tree above them, wide mouth clamped down on what looked like a very unfortunate bird.

“No! ” Izuku snaps, “Bad, Mocha. Spit that out!”

The little creature does not, and Izuku lets out a growl before throwing down his net and tearing off his coat, then turns to scale the tree. The nomu didn’t even have a stomach, but has recently become fascinated with the sensory of chomping with its stupidly large mouth.

“Swallow that and your intestines are going to be very upset later. I’ll feel zero pity for you,” Izuku threatens as he swipes at the creature. His fingertips brush on Mocha’s spinal tail, but the damn thing is too far out on the branch, dancing just outside of his grip.

“The fuck,” he hears from below. “That thing is your cat? ”

“Ah—" Izuku hesitates. "It got hit by a car?”

“Better have been a truck. That thing looks like my dead aunt’s ugly stepsister.”

A laugh suddenly punches out of Izuku’s stomach, loud and unexpected. It’s enough of a surprise to make him lose his grip on the branch, and his feet slip. Pain radiates up his spine when his ass hits the ground. He blinks past the stars in his vision to see the blond boy leaning over him with a smirk.

“Dumbass,” he snorts. Izuku shoots up in an instant, hackles raised, hands already curled into fists, but the other boy doesn’t look like he wants to fight. “Here.”

The boy isn’t offering a hand to help Izuku up—which he wouldn’t have taken anyway, thank you—but instead stands on his tiptoes and opens a palm up toward Mocha on the tree. There’s a poppoppop and sparks come to life on his palm, lighting up the semi-darkness with tiny, contained explosions. The noise makes Mocha let out a high whine and jump down from the tree into Izuku’s arms. He’s not paying attention though, too busy being absolutely starstruck by the boy in front of him.

Self-igniting explosions? But that meant the nitroglycerin had to come from somewhere on his skin—was it like a self-secreting mucus? No, because then his entire hand would have lit on fire, not just his palm. Then it had to be a controlled released from his pores somehow!

“Your quirk’s really cool,” Izuku gushes before he can stop himself.

“I know. You’re welcome, by the way.” The blond’s grin is sharp and smug and for some reason, it makes Izuku’s heart skip a beat.

With a rush of sudden fascination, he suddenly has to know everything about this boy. “What’s your name?”

The blond sniffs. “Why would I tell you that?”

“Because if you don’t I can force it out of you.”

The blond throws back his head and barks a laugh. “A scrawny pipsqueak like you? I’d like to see you try. Your quirk ain’t got nothin’ on mine.”

And oh, the adrenaline that rushes through Izuku is absolutely delicious. Something about this boy is making him want to bite and claw and tear into him until they’re both bloody and bruised.

“I don’t need any quirk to kneecap you,” Izuku points out simply.

The boy tilts his head, ruby eyes sizing him up as if to see if he was worth the fight. It makes Izuku want to squirm and snarl at the same time.

Mocha shifts in his arms, burping up some feathers in a much-needed distraction from the other boy’s gaze. Izuku scratches underneath its chin in sympathy, making the creature coo. It was probably going to throw up next, which meant he should probably head back to the lab.

“Katsuki.”

Izuku’s head whips up. “Huh?”

“’S my name.”

“Oh.” For some reason, the boy suddenly looks bashful, but Izuku has no idea why. “Hello, Kacchan.”

“The fuck is a Kacchan?”

“You, you just said that was your name.”

“I said Katsuki, moron, not Kacchan. Don’t call me that.”

“Too late,” Izuku says with a shit-eating grin. It wasn’t like he was ever going to see this boy again. And pushing the blond’s buttons was so much more fun than messing around with Tomura.

“What’s your name, then? I told you mine, it’s only fair.”

Izuku hesitates. He certainly can’t reveal his identity to this random stranger. Admitting he was a Shigaraki was basically asking for that jumpsuited hero to come back and cause trouble. “Deku.”

The blond frowns. “Your name is Deku?”

“It’s a nickname,” he clarifies. It wasn’t a complete lie. Tomura called him that once when he was learning how to read and mispronounced the last kanji of Izuku’s name.

“It fits you,” the blond nods. “You look like a dork.” Then, Katsuki leans forward and flicks him on the nose.

Izuku lets out an indignant squawk and feels his cheeks flush. Katsuki snickers, then calls out a quick see ya and continues on his jog down the trail.

He has half the mind to drop Mocha and chase after the boy to flick him back, but the nomu belches again. This time there’s a foul smell accompanying it, so Izuku pushes thoughts of the blond aside and high tails it back to the lab before he gets covered in half-digested bird bones.

As a scientist, Izuku is very observant. He has to be, to be able to tell when his hypotheses are executed correctly. His father is a much harder subject to read, but over the years, Izuku’s gotten good at that, too.

So, he waits carefully until Hisashi is in a good mood to break the news to him.

His father is in his study, scouring the hero news like he always does this time of day. Apparently, the hero commission has been under a lot of fire recently, so Izuku knows that the ravenous opinions of angry journalists always keep his spirits up.

Hisashi looks up a steaming mug of his favorite tea is placed in front of him.

(Izuku wanted to come extra prepared, shoot him.)

Hisashi leans back in his chair and laces his long fingers together. “Well, this is a pleasant surprise. A visit from my little bundle of malice and a cup of tea? You must want something extra special from me.”

“Wh-what?” Izuku tries to feign innocence. “This isn’t a bribe! Nooo, I just…” Hisashi raises an eyebrow, and Izuku gives up immediately, unable to stand the weight of his father’s gaze. “Don’t be mad.”

Hisashi casually blows on the tea, “You telling me not to be mad before admitting something doesn’t bode well for you.”

“I have a boyfriend!” Izuku blurts out, his nervous mouth vomiting up words before his brain can catch up. “His name is Katsuki and I’ve been seeing him for a few months, but now his parents want to meet you and get dinner together and I’m running out of excuses to tell them no!”

Hisashi blinks. Izuku bites his lip before any other treacherous words can come out, watching as the cogs turning in his father’s head.

“Oh,” he says. “Is this that same friend you mentioned?”

“Yes,” Izuku hangs his head miserably.

“I take it he’s not a Yakuza.”

Izuku shakes his head miserably. “I know I wasn’t supposed to get close to a civilian, but he’s different. He drives me crazy. Whenever I’m around him I want to tear off all his skin and wear it.”

“Hmm.” Hisashi takes a long, agonizingly slow sip of the tea, letting Izuku stew in his anxiety. God, he hated it when his father did that. Izuku’s brain could work itself up into mush if left unchecked for too long. He’s halfway there now, nervous energy making his hands tremble.

So that’s why it surprises him when his father says, “Okay.”

Izuku stares dumbly, the word sounding foreign to his ears. “Okay?”

“I’ll meet them.” Despite everything, Izuku feels an excited grin crack across his face. “I’m interested in getting to know the boy who has enraptured my little Atilla, especially if you’ve been sneaking out to see him.”

Izuku normally would have cringed at the obvious dig, but he’s too happy to care right now. “Great! It’s only one dinner, then you’ll never have to interact with them again. They’re free next Saturday.”

“I’ll tell Kurogiri to start preparing a menu.”

Izuku blinks. “Why would he need to do that?”

Hisashi’s lips pulled up in an amused smirk. “Do you not want our guests to eat while they’re here for dinner?”

It takes a split second for Izuku to put together what his father was saying. When he does, his stomach drops through the floor.

“Wha—Dad, no, they can’t come here! ”

“Why not?”

“The Bakugous are normal! ” Izuku cries, “They’re fashion designers. We’re not exactly…” He trails off, trying to think of a word that would best describe the Shigaraki household. His father was a 200-year-old cryptid, his cousin/brother had a hand fixation, and Izuku experimented on dead bodies for fun.

“…Like that,” he finishes lamely.

His father gives him a funny look. “Izuku, you honestly don’t expect me to go over to a stranger’s home and show my face in society.”

“No one has to see your face. We have Kurogiri! He can just teleport us straight to their house!”

“I haven’t been part of a social party in a century,” his father continues. “If I’m going to get acquainted with this Katsuki of yours, I want it to be on my terms.”

Damn his father and his controlling nature. Izuku can tell when the man won’t be pushed from a decision, and now is one of those times.

Well. At least Hisashi had said yes. And for the most part, their home wouldn't indicate that they were a family of villains. There were a few loose jars of body parts and capes Hisashi kept from past hero conquests, but all that could be thrown in a storage closet. Izuku could lock the door to the basement so no nomu got out, and force beg Tomura to wear those gloves so he didn’t dust anything. Or, better yet, he could lock Tomura in the basement and pretend he was an only child.

Surely their family could pretend to be normal for one night.

He lets out a sigh, “Okay. Thank you.”

“Don’t sound too excited,” his father teases. “You know, as much as it offends me that you kept this a secret from me, I do find myself incredibly curious about this boy. What’s his quirk?”

“He secretes nitroglycerin in his sweat and ignites explosions in his palms.”

Hisashi hums, interest alight in his eyes. “That sounds powerful.”

Fear prickles at Izuku's skin. He knows that look. “Dad, you can’t steal it.”

“Do you think so little of me, my child? I’d put it back before he noticed it was gone.”

“That’s not the point,” Izuku stresses. “Normal people can’t take other people’s quirks.”

“That’s why your precious ‘normal people’ are so boring.”

“Please,” Izuku begs, “don’t be weird about this. Just one night, with no quirk stealing or killing or hero politics.”

The Demon King of the Underworld pouts. “You’re no fun.” But then he leans back in his chair with a wistful sigh. “I can pretend to degrade myself for one evening, I suppose. You’ll have to convince Tomura to go along with your little charade yourself, though.”

Izuku groans. “Can’t I just lock him in a vault?”

Hisashi raises a dubious eyebrow. “Do you think the vault would hold him all night?”

“No,” Izuku grumbles miserably. He’d probably have to subject himself to a beating through Super Smash Bros to get Tomura to agree to do anything. He sighs and scrubs a hand across his face, truly wondering if the Bakugou's knew the hell they were getting themselves into.

#my hero academia fic #fic rec #my fic #bnha fic rec #bkdk fic #@stickereyesan #you inspired me tysm #truly this is based off the addams family musical #this is so self indulgent #what can i say #villain deku #villain izuku midoriya #dad for one #dfo fic #ao3 writer #halloween fic #crack treated seriously #noumu scientist izuku au #scientist izuku

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battybatzgirl · 3 years

Text

Hey Mr. Sandman, You Missed a Spot

AO3

Summary:

It's not that Hunter doesn't ever sleep, Eda's come to realize. It was that he falls asleep sporadically, most of the time in really weird places.

Or: 5 times Eda catches Hunter taking a nap

Part 1 of the Finders Keepers Series

---

Here’s the thing about Eda: she loves naps. Eda likes to be cozy, so usually, that equated to curling up under a blanket, lazing around, and falling asleep. The Owl Beast shared that sentiment, the creature that lived within her constantly wanting to nest. Those animalistic instincts were weird, but when you lived in a house with a demon who also liked to bury himself under a pile of stuffed animals, you kind of got used to it.

Here’s the thing about Hunter: he doesn’t sleep.

The kid has been living with them for only about two weeks, officially replacing Eda as Public Enemy Numero Uno in the eyes of the Emperor. When he’d showed up on Hooty’s doorstep, all bloody and barely conscious, Eda thought it was some kind of cosmic trick. The Powers That Be had to be pulling her leg because this was the second time the leader of the Emperor’s Coven had shown up to the Owl House with nowhere else to go.

Luz had been ecstatic to welcome him in, apparently excited to finally fulfill her dreams of becoming a middle child in their weird little found family. King was less thrilled, but eventually warmed up to the idea of Hunter staying with them as long as he taught King his secrets on how to command an army.

Hunter himself even seemed unnerved at the thought of living with them. He tried to leave a few times when he was still wounded, but his little bird palisman (Rascal, she’s heard him say) effectively herded him back into the house by continuously dive-bombing him and nipping at his ears. And after Belos put out a wanted poster for the kid, making him the Isles’ number one most wanted traitor, leaving wasn’t really an option. Not if he wanted to stay alive.

So eventually, Hunter begrudgingly accepted that yeah, he lived in the Owl House now.

And alright, Eda isn’t heartless. The kid was lost, wounded, and an enemy of the Emperor. She can work with that.

Getting to know him has been a challenge, though. Hunter has a lot of weird quirks. He holds himself so seriously that Eda has a hard time remembering that he’s a teenager and not a fully grown middle-aged man. He hardly ever smiles. He’s jumpy, practically jolting out of his skin every time you walk into the same room. He’s clearly Going Through Some Shit, as Eda so eloquently calls it, remembering how Lily went through the same thing when she slowly broke free of Belos’s freaky subjugation.

But still. The kid doesn’t sleep.

Eda first notices it around day four of his residence. She’s up early to go to the market, stepping into the living room and nearly transforming into her Harpy Form out of pure shock when she sees a figure messing with her bookshelf in the back of the room. Wide maroon eyes lock on hers from across the room and she feels the feathers that sprung to her skin recede.

“Titan, kid,” she breaths, “You nearly killed me. What are you doing up? It’s Saturday, you should be sleeping in.”

“Um…I did sleep in,” Hunter responds, as if it’s obvious.

Eda feels a frown tug at her lips, “The sun isn’t even up yet.”

The kid just shrugs a little lamely, and Eda feels a twinge of concern in her chest. (And ugh, feeling concerned for a guy who dangled you over the Boiling Sea is certainly weird.) If this was sleeping in for him, he couldn’t have rested more than five hours.

She steps closer, taking a second look at what he’s doing. Half the books are spread out on the floor, the other half stacked neatly back on the shelves in some kind of order.

He notices her looking, “I, uh, took the liberty of reorganizing your bookshelf. Or organizing it, since it didn’t really seem to have a system.” The kid ducks his head, the tips of his ears flushing pink. “I- I can put it back the way it was if you want, or organize them in a different way.”

That’s another thing about Hunter: he always has to be doing something. Being useful. Without direction, he crumples. It was always, What do you want me to do now, Miss Clawthorne this and I completed this task, Miss Clawthorne, what’s next that. His brain operated on a transactional level—I do this thing for you, you do this thing for me. And since Eda was housing him, he felt like he had to constantly be doing things for her. Constantly proving himself worthy to be here, repaying her. Hunter couldn’t seem to wrap his head around that she didn’t want him to do anything except stay comfortable.

Eda has thought up a hundred different little tasks for him to do in just his first four days. She’s running out of odd jobs to give him, and if she has to keep telling him what to do she’s going to start pulling out her hair.

“You’re fine, kid,” she says. “Keep doin’ what you’re doin’ if it makes ya happy. But you shouldn’t be up this early. You should at least take a nap later.”

Hunter tilts his head. “But that wouldn’t be accomplishing anything.”

“You don’t hafta be working all the time,” Eda stresses. “It’s okay to sit around and just exist once and a while. Actually, I think that should be your priority. Take a nap, relax, go cloud watching, take a walk—any or all of the above.”

“That sounds like doing nothing.”

“That’s because it is doing nothing.”

His face hardens, taking on that soldier-like seriousness that encompasses his entire demeanor. “Being lazy can’t be a priority.”

“Don’t think of it like that, then,” Eda almost snaps, wishing for a nice hot mug of apple blood. It was too damn early to deal with the repercussions of Belos’s all-work-no-play mindset. “Think of it as acting your age. Did you ever get to take naps as a kid in the Emperor’s Coven? Is relaxing just a foreign concept to you?”

He doesn’t answer, staring at her with those bagged eyes and guarded expression, and Eda throws up her hands in defeat.

She leaves then, her patience running too thin to continue arguing with him. She doubts he’ll actually go back to sleep. He probably goes back to doing whatever he was doing with that bookshelf. Eda makes a mental note to tell King to knock all the books off, just so Hunter can reorganize it later. Just for something for him to keep him occupied.

Eda doesn’t even notice the first time it happens. It was one of Luz’s friends, Gus, who pointed it out.

The kids were gathered at her home after school, spread out on the floor of the living room along with various pillows and blankets. Luz found some card game she knew buried somewhere in the piles of human trash Eda has laying around, and the girl has been spending the better part of an hour trying to explain how it works.

“So the Wild Card doesn’t make you turn into a wild animal?” Willow questions, holding up a black card with looks like a colorful pie chart on it.

“Nope!” Luz says cheerfully. “It just becomes any color you want it to be to go with the rest of your hand.”

“But the card doesn’t actually change color?” Amity asks.

“No, it only represents the color,” Luz clarifies, and Eda has to admit, her girl has a ton of patience. She’s been quietly watching from her place on the couch, half-listening to their conversation, half-reading the Isles’ latest edition of You Gossipy Witch, a tabloid where a writer is speculating about her true form. Apparently, some people think she was raised by feral, wild owls on some far away barrier island, and has come to reside in Bonesborough just because she ran out of mutant rats to eat.

Weird.

But entertaining!

Gus holds up one of his cards, “So are blank cards bad, or—"

King jumps over his shoulder, landing on the deck of cards in the middle of their little circle and making them fly everywhere. “I have taken dominion over ALL YOUR CARDS. All of you must grovel for a taste of my wealth!”

“Actually, the point of the game is to get rid of all your cards,” Luz reminds him gently. “That way, when you get down to one card, you shout Uno! And you win! If no one else makes you draw anymore, that is.”

King deflates a little, apparently put off by the idea of less is more. “Oh.” Luz smiles and pats him on the head, and he brightens up. “Okay, let’s play, because I wanna make all of you draw as many cards as possible! You'll drown in your cards! Choke on them, even!”

As they start gathering up the cards that King threw everywhere, Gus lets out a little gasp. “You guys—is Hunter asleep?”

That immediately draws Eda’s attention away from the magazine. Her eyes flicker to the blond witch, laying on his stomach just on the edge of their group. He was still having a hard time socializing, especially with Amity, but Luz was determined to include him in all friendship activities. She said wanted to teach him how to be a kid, and hell, if anyone could knock some seriousness out of that boy it would be Luz.

Hunter is indeed asleep—his face is mushed into the forearms pillowed under his head, and his red palisman has weaseled its way to nestle in between the crook of his elbow. His breath comes out in soft little sighs, and Eda feels something in her melt.

“Awwww, he looks so peaceful,” Luz croons, mushing her palms against her cheeks. Amity’s already scooched past her, snapping photos on her scroll. Eda can’t blame her. She knows a good blackmail opportunity when she sees one.

Eda’s off the couch and catches King mid-pounce. “Whoa there, none of that buddy.”

“But Edaaaa,” the demon whines, his little arms and legs flailing in mid-air. “I have to conquer him when he least expects it!”

“Ehhh, let the kid sleep. Save your conquests for when he’s awake and can put up a fight.” Eda sets him down in his place in the circle, and the kids all glance at each other before turning back to the cards.

She notices that they’re more mindful to keep their tones softer, probably to not disturb the sleeping boy. And when Hunter wakes himself up about half an hour later, they don’t mention it, seamlessly integrating him back into their game.

The second time it happens, Raine is walking Eda home. It’s early in the evening, and the pair just got done with a fabulous date—a picnic with apple blood and sweet (and stolen) baked goods? Titan, take Eda now, she’s found her perfect match.

She’s still riding that high, not noticing Raine stopping until they tug on their clasped hands. “Hey, who’s that? Is he okay?”

Eda follows where they’re pointing their finger. It’s Hunter, slumped against the base of an oak tree, fast asleep. His chin is tipped forward and a book open on his chest, and even more strangely, there’s a small pile of leaves on his lap.

“Oh, that’s just my—” Eda stops herself, the word catching in her throat. Hunter was a child in her care, yes, but he wasn’t quite her kid. Not like Luz or King. The blond witch was still too jumpy, baring his teeth and snarling at anything that tried to get close to him.

He calls her Miss Clawthorne, for Titan’s sake.

“—Hunter,” Eda finishes lamely.

Raine raises an eyebrow. “Your Hunter?”

“He’s uhhh, one of Luz’s friends who just so happens to be living with us. Not a big thing.”

Raine shoots her a deadpan look but strides forward anyway, kneeling next to the sleeping blond. They keep their voice to a low murmur, “Should we wake him? That can’t be comfortable for his neck. He’ll probably be sore later.”

“Eh, let him rest. This is more sleep than he usually gets.” Eda steps closer, kneeling down on his other side. It’s the side that has his scar, the slightly raised red tissue standing out even more so than usual now that he wasn’t constantly moving. She’s almost asked him how he got it, but he’s clearly sensitive about the subject. She’s seen the similar marks on his arms, and something tells her there are a whole lot more scars that he’s hiding.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who gave them to him.

Still, it’s hard to ignore just how young he looks. When he’s stripped of all of his snappy comebacks, quick defenses, and that guarded demeanor Belos forced onto him, he’s reduced to exactly what he should be:

A kid.

“Oh!” Raine startles in surprise. Eda looks up to see the cardinal palisman fluttering down from above them, carrying a few leaves in its beak. It hops down onto Hunter’s lap and deposits the leaves in the little growing pile on his leg.

A smile worms its way onto Eda’s face. She runs a finger across the little bird’s head, “Trying to keep him warm, huh?” The bird lets out a trilling note of confirmation. She lets the bird be, turning back to Raine, “I think Rascal’s got this covered. If he hasn’t come in before nightfall I’ll come out and get ‘em.”

The bard casts one last glance down at the sleeping boy before they stand. “Y’know, he kind of reminds me of someone.”

“Oh yeah?” Eda weaves her arm through Raine’s as the pair reassumes their walk.

“Yeah,” Raine hums. “He kind of has the same build as someone I met when I was held hostage in the Emperor’s palace. The Golden Guard. Did you hear that he ran away from the palace? There've been rumors that the Emperor himself is tearing apart the Right Arm looking for him.”

“Uh, about that...”

Raine stops, turning to look at her square in the face. Eda gives them a sheepish, toothy grin.

“Oh my god,” Raine says. “You adopted the Golden Guard?”

“Hey now, adopted is a very strong word—”

The bard cuts her off with a delighted laugh. “How am I not surprised?” Eda feels heat rise to her face, but can’t help but return Raine’s infectious smile. “Only you, Eda. Only you.”

The third time it happens, Eda’s passing through the upstairs hallway, intent on curling up into her nest for an afternoon nap of her own. She hears a shuffling noise as she passes by the glorified storage closet that they gave Hunter as a room, and can’t resist a peek inside.

What she finds is definitely…not what she was expecting. Hunter is laying flat on his back on the floor, his feet elevated on the little cot they’d given him. Yeesh, that couldn’t be comfortable. Soft snores woosh past his open lips, his face turned toward a crystal ball that’s playing some cartoon he must have been watching before he fell asleep.

His body is nearly covered in stuffed animals.

“King,” Eda hisses. The horned perpetrator is in the middle of dumping his entire army onto the blond witch’s chest, pinning down his arms with plushies. “What did I tell you about burying people alive?”

The demon pauses from where he’s been slowly arranging his army over Hunter’s sleeping form. “He’s got plenty of room to breathe! I didn’t cover his face,” King protests. “Can’t subjugate someone who’s dead.”

“No subjugating—” your brother, she almost says, “—Hunter.”

King squints at her, but then grumbles and starts slowly taking the stuffed animals off the boy’s body. Crisis averted, Eda slips back out into the hall, mind swirling. That was the second time she’d almost referred to Hunter as hers in passing. The feeling is too raw to speak out loud yet, but there’s a growing warmth in her as she watches Hunter acclimate to his surroundings in the Owl House. With every day that goes by, he’s more comfortable around her, around Luz and King and Hooty, and he’s starting to come out of his shell. He’s growing softer, less quick to snarl, becoming more Hunter and less Golden Guard.

Unconsciously, Eda’s started viewing him as part of their little family. Two weeks ago, that thought would have made her uncomfortable. Now, she welcomes it with open arms.

Ugh, she’s getting so soft.

The fourth time it happens is when Eda’s flying home from visiting Lilith. She’s only been gone for the day, and is hoping that leaving Luz in charge hasn’t led to any freak fires, the resurrection of the dead, or other various natural disasters. Unfortunately, even her most responsible kid is pretty reckless, so Eda’s expectations are set pretty low.

It’s probably sometime around 2 a.m. when she makes it home sweet home. She swoops in close, intent on landing on the front door but stilling mid-air when she sees something on the roof of the tower. Even from up here, it’s not hard to distinguish the form of a looming body.

Eda’s heart leaps into her throat and she takes Owlbert down into a dive. Her body is tense when she lands, her staff already aimed toward the person lurking by the edge of the roof. “Alright listen bucko, you better step back or—wait.” She sees what looks like a lump of feathers sitting on top of the person’s head, and Eda squints in the darkness. She quickly pulls out a light glyph, sending the tiny ball of sun forward.

“Hunter?!” Eda’s tense posture relaxes. The kid doesn’t answer, and it takes her a beat to figure out why. He’s dead asleep, slumped precariously over the telescope they use for stargazing. Eda has no idea how he’s even standing at all. Kid probably had a ton of practice of falling asleep on his feet during long, boring meetings with the Emperor.

“Wakey, wakey.” She places her hand on his shoulder, gently, but he wakes up with a full-body jerk, startling the palisman on top of his head. The cardinal chirps once in irritation, fluttering to rest on Eda’s shoulder instead.

Hunter’s eyes are wild for a moment until he seems to register where he is and who he’s with. He relaxes then, letting out a yawn so huge it would put any lion to shame. “…Eda?”

“The one and only,” Eda says, ignoring how her heart squeezes at the kid finally calling her by her name. “Wanna tell me why you’re up here in the middle of the night?”

“Waitin’ for you,” he mumbles, voice rough with sleep. His eyelids drop and he sways dangerously on his feet. “Wanted to… t’make sure y’got home safe.”

The warmth in her chest expands and eclipses her entire body in that fuzzy feeling she gets whenever one of her kids does something particularly adorable. Thank Titan it’s dark and Hunter is too out of it to notice the smile that spreads across her face. If he was fully awake, Eda gets the feeling that A) he probably never would have admitted that he was worried about her, and B) would have snapped at her for smiling at him like that. “Well, I’m home now, so let’s get you to bed before you topple over.”

Eda wraps her arm around his waist and nudges him along, practically carrying him back downstairs, their palismen following close behind. She doesn’t mind. Someone had to make sure he didn’t fall off the roof.

“Night, kid,” she says, tucking him under the blankets on his cot. Hunter doesn’t respond, already having slipped back into unconsciousness. And if she brushes his bangs tenderly out of his face, no one ever has to be the wiser.

The fifth time it happens, Eda’s gotten used to it. It's not that Hunter doesn’t sleep, she’s come to realize. He just falls asleep in weird places. Why, she has no idea, but honestly, the kid looked so tired all the time, she wasn’t going to question it. They had bigger things to worry about.

The Day of Unity is just around the corner, and Belos has become more irritating than ever.

Eda hadn’t even thought that was possible for him, but apparently, it was. The scouts around Bonesborough have tripled, their captains leading more and more raids, butting into shops to check everyone’s papers, and invading random districts.

Oddly, Belos’s priorities seem to have shifted. He’s still sending out grunts to round up any wild witches, but the guards have been playing a weird sort of hide-and-seek, going beyond just patrolling the marketplaces to actually tearing into people’s homes. From what she’s heard, the guards never take anything, just searching the place top-to-bottom before leaving empty-handed and moving on to the next house.

Belos was looking for something.

And unfortunately, Eda’s got a pretty good idea of what he’s after.

Said thing just so happens to be slumped across from her at the kitchen table, dead to the world. It’s late into the night, and most of the kids have already gone to sleep. Too on edge to lie down, Eda’s been keeping herself busy by concocting more potions while the late-night news plays on her crystal ball in the background.

Hunter, striving to be helpful, volunteered to stay up and help.

It wasn’t long before the kid slowly started to nod off, face supported by his palm as his eyelids started to droop. He’d been in the middle of mixing two ingredients—highly flammable ingredients, mind you—and Eda plucked the vials out of his lax grip just in time. Honestly, it was a miracle the kid never killed himself in the Emperor’s Coven with how randomly he falls asleep.

He probably never got the chance to sleep at all, a voice reminds her. She remembers how dead-exhausted Lily was during her first few days at the Owl House. It was probably safe to assume that the Emperor had a habit of running the head of his Coven into the ground.

Hunter has been picking up on Belos’s tightening grip, too. He’s been getting quieter, more reserved. He’s come to the same conclusion that Eda has: the Emperor was tearing apart the whole of the Isles to get him back.

Why, though, is anyone’s guess. Hunter has long since explained that his uncle always said that the Titan had big plans for him, and it probably has something to do with the Day of Unity, but beyond that, the Emperor had always kept him in the dark. Luz has a crazy theory involving clones and blood magic, but that sounds like it’s a plot point straight out of one of her Azura books. King thinks Belos wants his artificial staff back, and Hooty predicts the Emperor is just sad because all his Coven leaders are leaving him to join Hooty’s superior best friends club.

Whatever the reason, Eda’s made it pretty clear that she’s not gonna bend to Belos’s intimidation tactics and turn him over. That smarmy gold jerk could set the whole Isles on fire and Eda still wouldn’t hand him over. Hunter’s part of the Bad Girl’s Coven now, and Belos can just suck it. And she’s not afraid to say that to his stupid face, either.

So when the cauldron at the end of the table that holds the scrying potion suddenly begins bubbling on its own, Eda may very well get her chance.

She’s up on her feet in an instant, dashing to the other end of the table just as the steam rising off the potion begins to warp into a familiar figure.

“Edalyn,” Belos greets, his voice sharp like a dagger. “I do hope I’m not interrupting your evening, but I needed a word with you.”

Ugh, scrying potions weren’t supposed to work both ways! Belos was too damn powerful. He could probably peer into their lives as much as they could peer into his.

“Sorry, but now’s a bad time,” Eda shoots back. “Why don’t you hang up and call back literally never?”

“It’s come to my attention that you have something of mine,” the masked man continues smoothly as if she hadn’t spoken. “I’d ever so appreciate it if you gave it back.”

Eda’s lip curls back, feeling the itch of feathers poking out of her joints. She wants to shift into her harpy form and leap through the potion to claw out his eyes. “Sorry, Belos,” she says, dripping smug bravado, “We wild witches operate solely under the laws of finders keepers. Your kid? Mine now.”

Eda expects that the Emperor would very much like to vaporize her. “Make your threats wisely, Owl Lady. You have no idea what you’re up against. Everything will be easier for you and your little friends if you just hand the boy back over to me.”

“Fat chance.” Eda throws back her shoulders and shoots him a sharp grin. “Sounds to me like you’re threatening one of my kids, and we weirdos stick together. Going after one of us is basically asking for all of us to bring you down. Remember how well that went last time? How my human cracked your mask and publicly humiliated you during your big let’s-turn-Eda-to-stone ceremony?”

The Emperor looks as though he has some choice words to say, but Eda doesn’t care. Hunter is her kid now. She glowers at him through that mist, voice lowering in with deadly promise. “You’ll have to drag him back to your Coven over my dead body.”

“That can be arranged,” sneers Belos.

“Try me, antler boy.” Then Eda whacks the cauldron and sends it tipping over the edge of the table. The connection is immediately severed as the potion goes splattering over the hardwood, and the resounding CLANG of the bowl makes Hunter shoot violently out of sleep.

“Huh?! Whassit—Eda? What happened? Are you alright?”

“Fine, kid,” she says, swallowing down the rage that’s still bubbling hot in her throat. “’S alright, just got a little clumsy and knocked over a cauldron. Sorry for waking you.”

“Sorry for falling asleep,” Hunter responds. He grabs a towel and hurries to clean up the oozing purple goo.

Eda waves him off, “Eh, I don’t mind. You kids need your rest. Growing bodies and all that.”

Hunter still hesitates, looking at her for a beat too long as if double-checking to make sure she wasn’t really upset. Eda holds back a sigh, a twinge of pity flickering through her that he’d even have to look at her like that in the first place. All the damage from Belos couldn’t be wrapped up in a month, she supposed.

She snatches up the cauldron, still dripping with the ruined potion. Peachy. She’ll have to call Lilith to get her scrying potion recipe. Though maybe not having this in the house was a good idea. Eda doesn’t want to risk His Royal Highness dropping in on any more unexpected house calls.

“Eda?”

She looks up at Hunter. The kid chewing on his bottom lip, wringing the half-soiled towel between scarred hands.

“I just…I wanted to say thank you,” Hunter says shyly. “I know having me here hasn’t exactly been easy—not only because of the fugitive thing, but because I’m…” He flounders for a moment, and Eda can only pretend to know what’s going through his mind right now. “…me,” he finishes finally. “You’ve been so kind and patient with me, it’s so much more than I deserve, and no matter what happens next—”

“Hey, no.” Eda cuts him off with a swift and gentle beratement. She sets the cauldron on the table and crowds closer to him, curling one hand around his cheek. The kid automatically leans into the touch, and Eda can’t help but wonder how Belos could have ever hurt a child who was as sweet as this one.

“You may be one bratty little shit, but you’re my bratty little shit. And Mama says you deserve all the smothering that comes with being a child of the Owl Lady.”

Then, to prove her point, she swoops down and quickly places feather-light kisses on the tip of his nose, forehead, and his scar, until Hunter squawks and shoves her away. He’s practically glowing, flushed all the way to the tips of his ears.

“Gross,” he snaps, rubbing furiously at his face. “I’m never helping you with your potions ever again.”

“I’ll accept your terms. Now get upstairs, it’s way past your bedtime.”

“I don’t have a bedtime, I’m not a baby.” Hunter sticks out his tongue but obeys, slipping out of the kitchen and disappearing into the rest of the house. Eda shakes her head as she watches him go.

Kids. What could ya do with ‘em?

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