Dalton Academy One-Shots

Time's Up - Hunter Clarington

AN : I got inspired and wanted to write about Hunter getting kicked out of Dalton. So here we go.

Hunter Clarington was sitting in fourth period calculus, bored out of his mind, when it finally happened. Calculus wasn’t usually something he struggled with, but he’d been distracted recently. As captain of the Dalton Academy Warblers, he was under a lot of pressure, and the current setlist just didn’t seem up to scratch; he knew it needed improving, but that meant working the others twice as hard to perfect the choreography and, as fit as they all were, it was going to take more time than they had. 

In between working through the exercises, mulling over possible choreography for regionals, and quietly asking opinions from Nick, the Warbler who sat beside him, he barely heard the knock at the door.

“Hunter Clarington?”

He looked up at the sound of Mr McCarthy’s voice, squinting a little as he spotted the dorky-looking student messenger standing beside him. 

“Mr Galbraith would like to see you.”

Hunter’s stomach dropped at the mention of the headmaster’s name. This couldn’t be good. Quiet murmurs and whispers now filled the room, as the other students began to speculate. Hunter glanced down at his open workbook, trying to keep his cool.

“Should I take my stuff?” he asked, hopeful. It was only five minutes into the hour long lesson and he didn’t really feel like taking his bag and books with him if he’d only be gone for ten minutes.

The boy beside Mr McCarthy nodded and Hunter had the sinking feeling that he was in deep, deep, irreparable trouble. 

Shit.

Part of him knew this was inevitable. What he’d been doing was wrong; he knew that. It was only a matter of who would turn on him and when. 

He picked up his books and slid them into his bag, glancing up at Nick as he did so. Nick’s expression seemed to match his own. Wide fearful eyes that couldn’t quite mask the realisation that everything they’d worked on was about to come apart. 

Hunter zipped up his bag and strode confidently out of the room, too protective of his reputation to swallow his pride for even a second. He followed the younger student down the hall, all the way to the headmaster’s office, in complete silence, his mind racing with a thousand different possibilities, doing his best to ignore the most likely scenario.

Even then, nothing could quite prepare him for the faces that greeted him when he stepped into the office. 

“Mother? Father?”

He hadn’t seen his parents in months and, usually, he would’ve liked a little more warning before seeing them. Hunter felt like he’d stepped into some strange nightmare; his parents had come all the way from Colorado Springs for this meeting, whatever it may involve. That alone was enough to indicate that this was serious.

His parents were seated across from the headmaster’s desk, and turned to him with a level of disappointment Hunter had only seen glimpses of before.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

To his mother’s left was an empty chair, obviously set aside for him. In the chair beside that sat his deputy captain, Sebastian Smythe, and beside him, Sebastian’s parents, who Hunter had only seen in photos before. 

“Sit the hell down,” Hunter’s father ordered him, without so much as a ‘hello’. 

Hunter marched swiftly over to the empty chair and sat down, tucking his bag underneath him. He glanced at Sebastian, who’d turned as white as a sheet, staring straight ahead at the headmaster’s desk.