Reprogrammed (Hunter Angst)

Two sides of the same coin

The fight to figure out what was wrong was an incredibly brutal and difficult one. At times it was fleeting, and the people in Hunter's life were beginning to believe it would end with the purchase of a tombstone.

After the initial incident, Hunter was not so lucky to be blessed with unconsciousness for long periods of time. For three days, he teetered between delirium, unresponsiveness, and unconsciousness. The kid was combative, angry, morose, and soul wrenchingly confused. He flinched at any and all touch, was apprehensive towards everyone , and was desperate to leave. Darius was lucky that Hunter's body was too weak to support the use of Flapjack's powers.

Test after endless test was done to see if they could find the root of his issues. They performed a stomach endoscopy on him, which revealed a frighteningly large wound within the lining of the organ. Multiple different blood tests were also performed, which finally, finally revealed what was wrong, and explained so many of his symptoms.

It was the Sertraline. A simple misclick had dictated that his medication be raised to the maximum amount. Somehow, despite what seemed like an impossibility, nobody had noticed. He was supposed to be taking twenty milligrams of the drug, the lowest amount one could take, and instead he was taking two-hundred . Because he was already unstable and underweight, Hunter had spent the last several weeks being unintentionally overdosed on the drug that was supposed to be helping him. It had burned a hole in his stomach and wilted his serotonin receptors.

The teenager must've been suffering for so long, and yet he spoke this to no one. Multiple therapy sessions every day, and yet he never talked about any of it. Not even a peep about a headache, no mention of the gut-twisting nausea, and radio silence about the blood.

The worst of his symptoms was the aforementioned delirium. Trying to keep his brain in working condition was an impossibility as he experienced withdrawal, as well as the early stages of serotonin syndrome. Hunter alternated between delusions of grandeur, horrific bouts of paranoia including hallucinations, and amnesia.

Darius spent every waking second with his kid, all while feeling agonizingly awful about everything. It wasn't easy helping Hunter worm his way out of the trenches of his mind. The blonde's brain was a cruel and unforgiving entity. One of their most frequent and repetitive conversations revolved around Flapjack.

Hunter would wake up from short bursts of sleep, sweaty, shaking, and confused. Then, like clockwork, he would ask where Flapjack was.

"I'm sorry, Hunter. Flapjack's not here. He's dead." Darius would force himself to tell the boy, refusing to lie or avoid the truth. Sometimes, if he was lucky, the teenager would accept that answer and sink into a terrible, deep dissociation and depression.

... Sometimes he wasn't so lucky. Hunter would become frantic; searching, rifling, scrambling to get out of bed to find his palisman. He ripped out the IV's in his arms more than once. Other times, he would cry. It was a deep, soul wrenching and ugly sob, one that Darius had not witnessed in several months.  A few hours later, a strange amnesia fog would sink back in and he would forget about the whole ordeal, just to remember it again the next day. Never in his life did he believe that he would be here, in a human hospital, watching the Emperor's former ward lose his fucking marbles.

After the blonde's second bout of mind-crushing paranoia of the day, Darius confided in Camila about his fears that he would never see his kid acting normally again. Camila did her best to reassure him, telling him that the brief research she was able to do had yielded promising results. Serotonin syndrome was a challenging beast, and it would take time to recover, especially alongside Hunter's physical wounds. But recovery was a possibility.

"Your sweet boy is so strong , Darius. He has been through a lot , suffered so much, but I know that he will get through it too. We just have to be there for him." She told him, putting a soft, calloused hand on Darius's shoulder.