Chapter Text
It started slow – so slow, in fact, that no-one noticed at first.
Camila sometimes wondered why there was less food in the pantry than she remembered buying, but in a house containing six teenagers and one adult who no longer cared about her wobbly belly or fat thighs, that was to be expected. When she found her fluffy towels weren’t in the upstairs bathroom, she made do with the older, rougher ones and made a mental note to do laundry. When Luz couldn’t find her beanie hats, she assumed it was just her increased absent-mindedness and Camila watched her sad daughter with fresh worry.
But when Gus discovered the door to the basement locked from the inside, things began to make sense. Or at least, they made sense to those in the household familiar with the Boiling Isles. Which Camila was not.
“Hunter, are you okay in there?” she asked, knocking gently on the basement door.
Gus had shot upstairs, eyes wide, presumably to talk to the girls. They always flocked together when something happened with Hunter; a protective bundle of good intentions and furtive looks when Camila asked questions with answers they didn’t want to give her. Sometimes they were frightened of what her reaction might be, but sometimes they were frightened that the answers weren’t things Hunter would want her to know about him. They hemmed and hawed, telling as much as they could without, actually, telling her anything at all, then excusing themselves to tend to their friend.
That was how Camila had figured out he came from an abusive background, and that until recently he had not had a single friend in the world except his little bird. Her heart ached for the stoic boy who was so eager to help her and look after everyone after a lifetime of no-one helping or looking after him the way they should have; who clearly wanted connections with others but had been trained to think he must cope with life alone no matter what.
And now something was happening again and Camila wanted to make sure he knew that he could ask for help from her if he needed it, even if he didn’t think he did.
“Mijo?”
She heard movement in the basement but it didn’t sound concerning, save for the fact it was happening behind a locked door. “I’m fine, Mrs Noceda,” Hunter replied in a slightly strangled voice. “Totally fine.”
“Hunter, querido, you’ve locked yourself in the basement. Is something the matter?” She prayed he had flipped the lock by accident and was about to dash up the steps and unlock it with an embarrassed chuckle.
“I … I know I have, Mrs Noceda. But nothing is the matter, I swear! I’m totally fine. I just … need to be alone down here for a little while.”
She frowned. “How long is a little while? Would you like one of your friends to come down there and sit with–” She didn’t get to finish her question.
“No!” Hunter all but shouted. He coughed and lowered his voice but she could hear that he was trying to force himself to sound normal. Hunter was many things but a competent liar was not one of them. It was one of his most endearing qualities. “No, uh, thank you. No thank you. It’s – it’s fine, really. I’m fine. Everything is fine. Finer than frog hair. I heard that in one of the movies Luz made us watch on movie night. It was very confusing because I did some research and I can’t find any evidence of Human Realm frogs being hairy at all. Ha ha. But I probably missed something. I do that a lot. Ha ha. Ha.”
“Hunter, I don’t want to alarm you, but you freaked out little Gus. You know you can tell me if something is bothering you, right?”
“I know.” The lie was so obvious that it made her heart hurt. “I’m fine though. Really. This is … I just need some alone time, that’s all. It’s not that I don’t trust the others – I do! I feel really safe with them, honest! I even purred about it just last Saturday! – but … I just … this is something I have to do alone.”
Camila bit her lower lip in thought. Hunter was a Jenga tower of unhealthy coping mechanisms and she always felt like she had shaky hands. “Okay. That’s all right, mijo, really. Everyone needs alone time now and then, so if that’s what you need right now then that is what you need.”
The relief in his voice was palpable. “Thank you, Mrs Noceda.”
“How long do you think you’ll need?”
“Um … about a week?”
Camila blinked. “A … week?” she clarified. “Alone in the basement?”
“Um, yes? I can probably manage on five days though, if that’s too much.”
“Hunter …”
“I’m sorry. I would’ve picked a better place that wasn’t so inconvenient but I didn’t realise this was coming. Everything has been so crazy lately that I didn’t put together the signs until it was too late.”
“Signs?”
“This is … um. This is something that happens … to witches, uh … witches like me … around once a month? Although it’s been a few months since my last, which is why I didn’t realise it was coming.”
Something that happened once a month for five-ish days. Camila’s mouth fell open in sudden understanding. She had suspected Hunter was trans for a while but no-one had said anything, and if there was one thing her research had told her after Luz’s coming out, it was that if a young person wanted you to know, they would tell you themselves and the right thing to do was wait and give them the space to feel safe enough to trust you not to react badly if and when they did. But if Hunter’s cycle wasn’t regular and his period had come unexpectedly …
Luz had explained how Belos was actually some Puritan man from hundreds of years ago who had outlived his time. Camila shuddered to think what kinds of things he had told Hunter about behaviours he had to follow during that time of the month, if the poor boy now thought he had to lock himself away for a week. He had clearly starved the boy, judging by Hunter’s hollow cheeks and toast-rack chest. He had obviously deprived him of sleep too, and worked him so hard that Hunter’s periods had stopped from stress and malnutrition. Now that he was getting regular sleep (if not nearly as much as he should) and nutritious meals, it made sense that they had restarted.
“Hunter, we have this in the Human Realm too, I think.”
She felt the texture of his pause change as it went on. “You … you do?” Rather than comforted, Hunter sounded panicked. “Oh Titan … not here too.”
Her heart broke a little. “Yes. But we have things to help so that we don’t have to isolate ourselves away for one week out of every month.”
“Luz never mentioned any of this about Human Realm. I didn’t think … I didn’t think this would be a problem here.”
“Admittedly, it’s not the sort of thing people start random conversations about, so she probably didn’t realise you’d need supplies.”
“I’m sorry I took the food and towels! I’ll replace the food and wash everything, I promise. And I’ll catch up on my chores when this is over, too. I’ll even do double the amount to make up for it.”
“Ay, chico abnegado,” Camila murmured. “There is no need. You do too much already and I’m happy you’re eating well.”
“I’m sorry I took everyone’s things, too.”
That gave her pause. “Excuse me?”
“I really should have figured it out when I started taking things that smell of my friends. I’ve … I didn’t have friends the last time this happened, so I never thought … I just had my own stuff that smelled of me. Uncle never let me have anything of his for comfort in my nest, so it never occurred to me that I’d want to hoard their stuff during my heat.”
His what? “¿Que acabas de decir?”
“Uh …”
She was stopped from translating her question by the thunder of footsteps behind her. She expected Luz but saw Willow and Amity, closely followed but Gus. All three looked uneasy but trying to hide it.
“Mrs Noceda!” Willow said with false cheer. “Is Hunter okay?”
“He’s fine, sweetheart. I was just talking to him about coming back upstairs.”
Willow winced. It was plain as day even though she tried to hide it. “I think it might be better for him to stay in the basement, actually.”
Camila stared at her. Had Belos’s puritanical views on bodily functions filtered to the whole Demon Realm? “Um, why?”
“He’s nesting,” Amity replied. “He’s better off where he’s taken his comfort items for now. Forcing him away from them in the early stages will just make him anxious. I can’t believe we were so stupid and missed all the signs.”
“He’s older than us so it makes sense that he presented already,” said Willow. “And to be in Human Realm where there aren’t any potions available to ease the symptoms?” Her eyes went to the door, brows creased. “Poor Hunter,” she murmured, so softly that Camila wasn’t sure she was meant to hear that last part.
“Maybe there are Human Realm plants that are similar to the ones used to make the potions back home?” Gus said hopefully.
“It’s worth a try,” said Amity. “Willow can make anything grow, after all.”
“Do either of you know the ingredients for how to make heat-ease potion?”
Regretfully, they shook their heads.
“Damn it.”
“We should have seen this coming,” said Willow, with an air of self-recrimination Camila heard from her a little too often for her liking. Willow tended to take on board all her friends woes and make them her own, neglecting her own emotional wellbeing in the process. She would need to have a word with her at some point about that.
“How?” Amity pointed out. “Until recently he never even purred before. How we were to know he’d presented his secondary gender already?”
“Hold on. Back up please. Presented secondary gender?” Camila stared at their faces in turn. Clearly, she was not getting something here. Was this some new Gen Z way of saying trans? Maybe she really should get a Tic-Tac account after all like Vee had suggested.
“None of us have presented secondary traits yet,” said Gus. “So our senses are still dulled. We couldn’t smell the change in his scent to know this was on the way.”
“And he’s always been a bit odd about food and things,” Amity whispered, which Camila would have taken as a good sign of her respecting Hunter’s privacy if she wasn’t so confused as to what the girl was saying. “I figured he was stealing my scrunchies and Luz’s hats because his hair is getting longer, not because they smell of us.”
“At least he just took those of yours,” Willow said regretfully. “He took my sweaty workout socks out of the laundry hamper. If I’d known his heat was close, I would have given him something less gross to put in his nest.”
Camila raised her hands. “Okay, I’m lost.”
They blinked up at her, then exchanged a look she could not read.
“I suppose the griffin is out of the bag now,” said Gus. “Speaking of bags, you guys should count yourselves lucky Hunter only took small things of yours; he took my whole sleeping bag for his nest.”
Willow scooched her foot on the floor, clearly uncomfortable. “Hunter is an Omega, ma’am.”
Camila blinked at her. “A what?”
“Uh, mom?” Luz was halfway down the stairs, a contrite look on her face. “Can we go into the kitchen for this? You’re probably going to need a mug of tea or something. It’ll take some explaining.” She shook her head. “When Eda explained it all to me, it was a lot to take in.”
Camila frowned at her daughter. Then she looked at the closed basement door. “You’re going to tell me this is something about witches being different than humans, aren’t you?”
“Um, yes.”
“So Hunter isn’t just on his period? Can witches even menstruate?”
“Yes and he will be after his heat is over.”
Ah. Well, that answered one of her longstanding questions. Camila sighed gustily. “Hunter, do you need anything?”
“Just … just for you all to go away for a while, please. I’m so sorry!” he added. “I shouldn’t be asking you to do that in your own home. I can … I can go into the woods until this is over or something–”
“You absolutely will not be doing that,” Luz said firmly through the door. “My dude, you’re fine to stay where you are if that’s where you’re comfortable.”
Hunter groaned. “Is everyone outside the basement right now?”
“Pretty much. Vee is at the store but I’m sure she’ll be able to tell what’s up when she gets back.”
“Basilisk tongues register scents thrice as sensitively as witch noses,” Hunter said glumly. “I’m surprised she didn’t notice already.”
“Maybe she did and she was just being polite by not mentioning it.”
“I would’ve liked her to mention it so it didn’t come as such a shock to me.” Hunter yawned. “Sorry. I just – hnng – get so sleepy around this time.”
Camila felt like she was taking crazy pills but resolutely kept her composure. “So. Kitchen?”
Obediently, the teens trundled away. Camila hesitated before following them. She gave one last tap on the basement door.
“Querido, you will let me know if you need anything, won’t you?”
“I … yes,” he said hoarsely. “But you already gave me too much, Mrs Noceda. This is only my third ever heat but usually I don’t get a whole room to hide in when this happens. Back at the castle, I had to use the closet in my bedroom and barricade the door until the worst was over. Luckily my room was at the top of the tallest tower, well away from everyone else, so no-one could smell me. And after … after things went wrong in the barrack showers during my first ever heat, Uncle let me do solo missions until it was over so I could stay away from the other coven scouts until it was safe for me to be around them again.”
Safe to be around them? A sour sensation roiled in the pit of Camila’s stomach.
“I had to make up for lost time by pulling extra shifts when my heat was over but that was okay. I’m not afraid of hard work.”
No. Just of disappointing people, and of not being useful, and of being replaced, and of anyone touching his shoulder without warning, and of anyone opening the bathroom door for even a moment while he was in the shower. Camila frowned. The more she learned of Hunter’s upbringing, the more she wanted to protect him from the world and make sure he never went without the love and care he deserved ever again. She was beginning to realise that no matter what bad things she had theorised about this boy’s life, the reality was far, far worse.
“Thank you,” he said in a tone made thin with strain. “I’m … I’m going to try to sleep now, if that’s okay?”
“Whatever you need, baby.”
“Mom,” Luz called. “Are you coming?”
Stomach swirling with a strange but increasingly familiar kind of dread, Camila walked away, wishing she could reach through time to wring Belos’s neck before he ever left Gravesfield in the first place.
Side-flings, Homages and Downright Rip-offs
“Ay, chico abnegado,”
~ "Oh, you self-sacrificing boy."
“¿Que acabas de decir?”
~ "What did you just say?"