Owl house short stories!

Hanahaki (A)

TW: Death

I knew a boy once. His name was hunter. I would like to say we always got along but that would be a lie. When I first met him I despised him. He was a clone of my best friend who died way too early. When I first met him all I could think about was my friend and how this kid did not deserve his title but when he finally started opening up and acting like a kid I finally stopped seeing my friend and started seeing hunter.

I took him under my wing after that, and when he got back from the human world with a new interest I was more than happy to hear. Things didn't start going wrong until about a year after he got back. He was a happy kid, and he was happy to allow me to become a father figure in his life while he figured out who he was. Sharing custody with eda was interesting to say the least. The authority battles I would hear would make my day.

"I am older than you!"

"I'm still your great great something!"

"Just because you're my ancestor doesn't mean this isn't my house kid!"

All of it was good fun but very interesting. He was making friends with Eda's kid as well as aladors, Barry's son and my favorite of his friends, willow. She was a sweet but tough girl. She was the captain of his flyer derby team and all of them were helping him learn magic.

He also started learning how to carve palismen. He was finally happy. That's when it started. It started with green petals in the trash.

I thought there was a chance he had it but he always said he was fine. He started talking about willow and asking for advice on how to talk to her. Unfortunately women are not my area of expertise. That did lead to another conversation that I'm glad we had. Hunter had felt comfortable enough to tell me he was bisexual. Thankfully Eda and Raine were able to offer advice on how to talk to women and he started working on his confidence.

(I would like to point this out. with Eda talking about how to talk to women she is mainly telling him her experience with women and herself. not Raine.)

His friends would drop by to see him. The elixir helped for a while but he still couldn't go back to school.

Finally the day came. Willow came over with a gift for him, intending to ask him to Grom. I knocked on his door and spoke with her while we waited. After 10 minutes I knocked again calling his name. Silence. I got scared and warned him I was opening the door. I saw him on the floor. I screamed for Willow to call the healing coven while I grabbed onto his limp body but it was too late.

Hanahaki. An incurable disease. Only immune to the plant coven. The green flower growing from his lungs had suffocated him to death. Willow got checked as well and sure enough had signs of it but her body was actively fighting it.

He was 16.

Willow was announced Grom queen and dedicated her fight to him. The funeral broke everyone. He was finally happy. And now he was gone. Willow never recovered and dedicated her life to his memory. Even naming her adopted son after him. When my own Hanahaki came back I debated whether or not I should let it take me. I would get to see my son again. But I remembered the feeling of seeing Hunter on the floor and all I could remember was the look of terror on aladors face when I almost succumbed to my own disease years earlier. So I did what Hunter would have wanted me to. I told Alador. He was a recent divorcee and we started slowly. We reserved a seat for him at our wedding. And everyone who loved him honored him in some way. Luz got a tattoo of him next to her flapjack tattoo. Amity made a model of his staff and put it on display in the museum. Gus created a memory bored with willows pictures and I kept his favorite wolf shirt in my home.

A statue was made in his honor and as a reminder to how powerful the disease was. And we finally were able to give Willow her closure.

A year after the statue was built, 6 years after his death, during the full moon we brought the statue to life. Allowing willow to give him the gift, a bracelet that turned into gloves for when he wanted to show and hide his hands. The statue gave her one final hug as she sobbed in his arms for a final time.

"And that is the story of hunter clawthorn-deamonne. Any questions?" Darius asked the class he was teaching. A young boy in the back raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"Was he your favorite student?"

"Yes hunter. Yes he was."