Chapter Text
Hunter stared up at the ceiling blankly, listening to the drum of rain against the house and the distant rumble of thunder. He hated thunder. He hated rain. But he wasn't special for that. Nobody liked rain.
"A perfect opportunity for more endurance training, isn't it, Hunter? Why don't you step outside."
He shivered and tightened his shoulders, rolling onto his side to stare at the little window near the basement ceiling instead. Cold rain struck the glass and warbled the moonlight where it lay across the carpet, wiggly shadows shifting within its domain.
He wondered distantly how the others could sleep hearing it, knowing it was outside. Memories of red, blistered flesh flickered through his thoughts, of skin so sensitive he couldn't even lie down without crying.
Maybe they couldn't. Gus was the only one he shared a room with. Maybe the girls were laying awake upstairs, too, tense and frightened. Maybe he wasn't just a paranoid freak who didn't have any idea what a normal life or fear level was like. It felt like every day he did or said something wrong, and then everyone would look at him with this profound sense of pity that made him feel sick. It hadn't been that bad. Not bad enough to make them look at him like that all the time. The clone thing was bad. The grimwalker thing was bad. The witch hunter thing and the dead golden guards and the whole Belos being evil, that stuff was bad. The Emperor's Coven hadn't been bad though! Maybe none of them liked the idea of waking up before the sun rose, but he did. He hadn't when he was little, but he'd gotten used to it soon enough, and he'd learned how to fall asleep quickly (a skill he seemed to have lost) and how a little apple blood and energy root could wake him right up. The sunrise was beautiful! He loved getting to watch it come up, the sky lit up pink and creamsicle orange. The way the insect chirping and sounds of night creatures would drift away, and birdsong would overtake it with the warmth of morning air.
When he did especially good he could get an extra helping at dinner, and someone would always tell him he did a good job. He'd gotten good grades when he'd been educated and gotten all kinds of nice rewards for it, like books or a little free time or getting to lead the next mission. Someone would always tell him he did a good job and he loved knowing when he'd done a good job. Didn't they like knowing they'd done a good job?
He wasn't just some… some sopping wet kitten they needed to feel bad for all the time. He didn't give them looks like that when they told him they'd never seen a sunrise before, or they'd had to deal with siblings, or they'd get in trouble if they hit someone back even if the other person hit them first. He hated pity. He'd always been good at everything. People either resented him for being better than them, or they were proud of him for being better than everyone else. No one had ever felt sorry for him before.
He rolled onto his back again, chewing the inside of his lip anxiously. He looked over at Gus, who was on his side, face turned into the cushions where Hunter couldn't see.
"Hey," he whispered. "Gus. Are you awake?"
"Yeah," his friend sighed. "I hate the sound of the rain."
Relief washed through him and he laughed nervously. "Yeah. Me too."
"It was really nice getting to play in it here!" Gus said, rolling over onto his back to throw his hands in the air, "But listening to it and trying to sleep? Ugh."
"Definitely," Hunter agreed gratefully. "And it's so loud here. I used to sleep in the castle, you know, and the walls were made of stone, so it was a lot quieter."
"I bet that would make it easier to sleep," Gus sighed. "I used to lay awake trying to remember what I'd left outside that was gonna get ruined."
"I never had to worry about that," Hunter said apologetically, "All my stuff was in my room. Anything outside that got boiled was somebody else's problem."
"I guess living with so many people wasn't all bad," Gus mused. "Everybody had a job, right? So it must have been efficient."
"Yeah, it was. I always knew where I was supposed to be and what I was supposed to be doing. It's really stressful here sometimes, because I don't know what anyone expects from me. All the rules are different now, and I keep messing them up. I'm always doing too much or too little, and it's so frustrating finding out I'm doing something wrong."
The younger boy rolled over to look at him, shifting into his elbow to rest his chin in his hand. "I bet that is really frustrating. I'm really sorry you're going through that."
"I wish there was a book I could read," Hunter groaned, "That could just tell me how to be normal. Or at least, what other people thought normal was, so I would know how to stop saying weird stuff that freaks everyone out."
Gus laughed. "Me, too."
Hunter sighed. "I'm tired. And I'm going to wake up in a couple hours, whether I want to or not, you know. I really should get some sleep."
"Yeah, me too. It's just hard, because I'm really on edge."
"Same." He sat up and kicked the blanket off, fumbling with the button on his pajama pants. "I'm gonna jerk off and try to sleep again."
"Uh," said Gus, "What?"
"You can, too, if you want," Hunter offered, "It's always easier for me if I can watch somebody else while I do it, but you probably have a better imagination than I do."
"Uh. Uh. Wait. Wait, hang on, uh, Hunter, don't– don't do that–"
Hunter stopped at the sound of the rising alarm in his friend's voice and looked back up. "What? What's wrong?"
"We're not–" Gus had sat all the way up now, shoulders tightening and body tense. "At least I'm not– old enough for this stuff, Hunter."
"Yeah you are," Hunter said, puzzled. Why was he looking at him like that? "Your voice has dropped, hasn't it? That means you're old enough."
"I don't think it does, Hunter," Gus insisted. Hunter felt fear begin to bloom in his chest. Why was he looking at him like that?
"But it–" Hunter pulled his legs uncomfortably against his chest. "Why not? I've done it a bunch of times and it doesn't hurt or anything. It feels good. It makes it easier to sleep."
"My dad told me that's– something you do by yourself," Gus said. He was still pressing back against the couch like he wanted to get away from him. Hunter shrunk into himself. He'd said something wrong. He'd done something wrong. He didn't know what it was.
"Me and the other coven scouts did it together all the time," Hunter said in a small voice.
"You did?" Gus squeaked. "Hunter, I don't think that's–"
"Normal?" Hunter burst. The flare of alarm in his chest was beginning to spark and burn. "No, it was, though! One of the other scouts saw it was bothering me when I was like, your age! And he showed me how to do it and said I could wake him up if I ever needed help, and–"
"Mrs. Noceda!" Gus yelled, vaulting over the back of the couch as he sprinted for the stairs. "Mrs. Noceda, wake up!"
"What?!" Hunter yelled, as the smoldering fear burst into a blaze of panic that burned through his ribs. "Where are you going?! Why are you–"
But Gus was already gone, up and out of the basement, and he could hear his feet pounding against the floor above him toward the other stairwell. He scrambled against the floor until his back hit the far wall. He'd said something really wrong. Something really really wrong. That hadn't been pity, that had been fear.
He took in a sharp inhale and looked up at the ceiling as he heard muffled voices and doors opening. Oh, Titan. He'd done something really really really wrong. He'd really gone to get Mrs. Noceda.
His breath began to come sharp and fast. Oh, Titan. He knew what happened when he made mistakes. He knew what it meant to be corrected. Belos had always reminded him that it was for his own good, it was how you learned, when you did something wrong you got punished and that's how you knew not to do it again, but he'd always thought, deep down, he didn't need it because he knew he did wrong and he wanted to do better, he didn't need to be punished to want to do better, he just did, and–
There were a lot of feet coming down from the second floor stairs. Had everyone woken up? Oh, Titan. It was the middle of the night. Mrs. Noceda must be furious. They all had to be furious. They were going to come down and make sure he really understood that he couldn't ever do whatever he had done again, or they were going to tell him they all hated him, because they'd realize how damaged he really was, that he was wasn't just broken, he was broken-broken, that everything he touched broke with him and that he was dangerous to keep around, something toxic, and they were going to throw him out, right now, into the rain, and–
He started gasping for air like his throat was closing, like there wasn't enough in the room, and he was making this awful, pathetic sound he hated. Flapjack picked his head up from where he'd been roosting on the sewing machine with a worried chirp, but Hunter was too busy panicking to tell him what was going on. He heard the doorknob begin to turn and the cold thing in his chest reached into his arms and his legs and he snapped to his feet, reared back his arm and punched through the glass pane of the little window.
He kicked against the wall as he dug his fingers into the mud, clawing his way out. He was barely big enough to fit and the broken glass dug into his skin and through the soft, thin fabric of his pajamas. He wished he had his armour. He wished he was home in the castle where he knew what to say and do. He wished the rain would boil so that no one would come after him. He knew he could stand in it longer than they could.
He scrambled to his feet and sprinted into the treeline behind the house, leaping clear over a felled log and splashing through puddles and through thick mud that sucked at his bare feet and tried to stop him.
He wasn't going to stop, though. He wasn't like the rest of them. When they'd been playing with toys he'd been endurance training, and he knew that he could sprint at his top speed without hurting himself for fifteen seconds or more, and he also knew that if he didn't care about hurting himself (he didn't) he could go for thirty, even forty-five seconds.
Despite that it felt like he was running for hours. His chest burned like fire and his legs hurt like he'd stuck them in the boiling sea. He didn't have to look to know his feet were bleeding.
He finally stumbled and collapsed to his knees, arms shaking with the effort of holding himself up above the mud. His stomach rolled and then surged and he leaned forward and retched, gagging on the taste of fire as he puked his guts out into a puddle. Tears burned in his eyes and he sobbed, whole body screaming at him to give up and die. It all hurt, but it almost always hurt, but he was supposed to be able to handle that, he was supposed to be good at it.
He hugged his arms over his head and curled up into a ball on his side, trying to ignore the rain as it pattered down on him, ice cold but with the memory of fire stinging his skin. He could see blood dripping from his fingers and he wasn't sure he could even feel it, but he was sure he'd broken his hand on the window. It wasn't the first time he'd broken it.
It didn't make sense for endurance training. His body had limits and no matter how many times he stood outside under the downpour, he never made it any longer. It just hurt every time for no reason.
"Hunter!" he heard in the distance, Luz's voice strained and frightened.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he hiccuped to himself. He hated this. These weren't bad memories, they were good ones. It was the only time the other scouts were nice to him. He liked it. It had always felt good and nobody ever made him do anything he didn't want to. It didn't feel like a big deal, it had never felt like a big deal but now everyone was acting like it was so it was a big deal and he didn't know why and he didn't know why he didn't know why. If it was really that wrong shouldn't he know it was wrong? Shouldn't he be able to tell? Shouldn't something in him have nagged at his gut and told him something wasn't right? What kind of awful person must he be to think things that were this not okay were normal?
"Hunter! Hunter, come back!"
That was Willow this time. He curled tighter into himself and began to shake. It was freezing out here, and he was wet and miserable and maybe, if he was lucky, it would get cold and wet enough that he would just die and never have to confront these things, never have to talk about it, never have to figure out how much more fucked up he was than he realized again.
It wasn't fair. He'd already found out most of his life was a lie. It was already infested with terrible memories. Why did even the good ones have to turn out to be bad?
What was wrong with him?
"Hunter!" Luz's voice was much closer this time. He thought he could hear the wind-whip sound of a staff, but he buried himself in the mud and hoped she would just fly by and not even notice him.
He wasn't that lucky.
"Hunter!" Luz cried, her feet hitting the ground nearby. A moment later Flapjack's chirping began rapidly. He squeezed his eyes shut as she jogged over beside him and dropped to her knees. She was probably ruining whatever she was wearing. She was out in the rain and the cold and she was probably going to get sick, too. "Hunter, it's okay!"
"It's not okay," he choked out, "I fucked up again."
"I don't think that was your fault," she said carefully. Walking on eggshells, like always. Because he was so pathetic and fragile and everyone knew it. "Hunter, Gus said that–"
"I know what he said!" Hunter snapped, "I'm the one that told him in the first place, aren't I?!"
He'd been hoping she'd draw back and maybe even leave, but instead he heard movement, and then the rain wasn't hitting him directly anymore. He peered out between his hands to see that she had leaned over him and held her jacket open over her head.
"It's okay to be scared," she said softly.
"I'm not scared," he sniffled.
"Hunter, you're terrified," Luz insisted. "Look at you. You're curled up in the fetal position outside in the rain in a mud puddle." She paused. "And I think you threw up."
"I did. Only once, though."
"You're scared," she repeated, "And that's okay."
"Your mom is going to kill me," he trembled, covering his face again. "She's not going to want me in her house anymore."
"She's not going to kill you. She's not going to make you leave, either."
"Gus is never going to speak to me again."
"That's probably not true either."
"Probably," he repeated miserably. "But you don't know."
"We're all worried about you," she said, noticeably swerving away from responding to that point, "There was so much blood on the window. I think you really hurt yourself."
"Good," Hunter snapped, "I deserve it."
"I don't think you do."
"I don't even know what I did wrong!" he wailed. "Why do I have to keep finding out everything in my life sucks?! Why do I have to keep hurting people that are nice to me?! How could it keep happening like this, over and over, if I didn't deserve it?!"
"Hunter–"
"Mija!"
They both looked up at the voice. Luz's mother stood just at the top of the little ravine he'd collapsed in, panting and holding an umbrella at her side.
"Mamá," Luz cried, and her tone shifted completely from its controlled comforting flatness to a shaky anxiety. "He says–"
"Come up here and stand back with your friends, mija," her mother instructed, "Give us a moment alone."
Hunter flinched and tucked his head back in. He knew what that meant. His uncle Belos never hit him in front of other people, either. He always pulled him aside where no one else could watch. Luz was good. She was smart and kind and not a fuck up. Her mother didn't have to punish her to make her better, but she could see now that he was different, that the only way to make him not bad was to make sure he understood.
"Yes, mamá," Luz said quietly. She stood up and left his side as Mrs. Noceda slid down the embankment and took her place. She opened up the umbrella, but she didn't touch him.
"It's okay, mi niño, you aren't in trouble," she said quietly. "I'm not mad at you."
"Yes, you are," he snapped, and then flinched, waiting for the hit to come for being petulant. It didn't. "Or at least, you should be."
"No, mijo, I shouldn't. I'm worried for you, not mad."
"I don't need to be worried about," he insisted, sniffling, "I don't want to be, either!"
"It's not shameful for people who love you to worry about you," she said gently, "We are all so much stronger together, when we rely on each other for help. You shouldn't have to deal with anything alone."
"But I always have," he said pitifully, "I'm good at it."
"I know you are, nene. You are so good at so much."
"I don't know what I did," he hiccupped finally, "Why is everyone so upset?"
A pause. "Mi ángel, it is not right for grown ups to do things like that with little boys."
"They said it was okay," he sniffled, "They said it was normal. They said everyone did it."
"They lied to you, chiquito. They took advantage of you, because you are trusting, and you didn't know better."
"Then it's my fault for not knowing better," he said miserably, "That I'm stupid."
Her voice was much closer now and fingertips brushed against the back of his hand. "Can you look at me, baby?"
He didn't want to. He was ugly and stupid and dirty and he didn't want to be seen. He wished he had an invisibility glyph, and that he could hold his breath forever. He pulled his hands away from his face to hug his shoulders and looked up, hunched over on his knees and shivering.
Mrs. Noceda's face was not filled with pity, but with worry.
"That was not your fault," she said firmly, "It was not your job to know better."
He sniffled. "I don't know what my job is anymore. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
"You're a child, Hunter. It's your job to be a child." She brushed his wet hair from his eyes, a soft touch with no malice behind it. "I promise you, with my whole heart, that you're not in trouble, and I'm not ever going to hurt you or make you leave. And that even if you can't believe me, one day you will."
He shivered hard. "Will I?" he asked. "it doesn't feel like it."
"Things get better," she assured him, "All wounds close eventually." She touched the scar on his cheek. "Every scar is proof you were stronger than what happened to you. And you are a very strong boy."
He sniffled, and looked down at the ground for a moment, and then back up. "...Can we go back home? I'm freezing, and– and I don't feel good."
"Let's get you dry and warmed up, okay?" Mrs. Noceda smiled. "And if you want to talk about it more, you and me can sit down and you can tell me whatever you want to."
"Can you tell me what I'm not supposed to say?" he asked hopefully. "Can you tell me how to stop hurting my friends?"
"Los siento, mi niño, I cannot give you all the answers. When you love someone, you will always hurt them. People can't be close to each other without hurting each other sometimes. I've hurt Luz, even though I love her more than anything. It's okay. What matters is that you care enough to do better."
"I do," he said earnestly.
"Then we will figure it out together, okay?"
"Okay," he relented. He let go over his shoulders and tried to push himself to his feet, but lightning shot up his legs and he cried out in pain, dropping back to his knees. "I'm– I'm sorry," he stammered. He'd really hurt himself. He wasn't sure he could stand back up. She was going to be so mad…
"That's okay. Can I touch you, mijo?"
He nodded, but he wasn't sure what she was going to do. A moment later he squeaked unbecomingly as he was scooped up like a toddler.
"I'm too heavy to carry!" he burst. "I'm not a little kid, I can walk, it hurts but I can walk–"
"No," she said primly, "All mamás have super strength when her babies are in pain. This is a secret human fact."
"Oh." He hadn't known that. He filed it away for later.
"Why don't you just worry about holding the umbrella, okay?"
His ears pricked and he fumbled for the umbrella handle, focusing on tilting it against the wind at just the right angle. He felt relieved to have something he was supposed to be doing that he knew how to do. He was already starting to feel less anxious and more exhausted.
"I've got you, mijo," she reassured him, "It's going to be okay."
Maybe it really would be.