Chapter Text
Gus was crying.
Hunter was still trying to wrestle the battle instincts back under his skin. The rain wasn’t helping. He kept flinching, bracing for it to start burning even though he knew rain in the human world didn’t boil. Uncle had (no) Belos (wrong)… Hunter been told.
He could dimly remember the last time he’d cried in front of an audience (Flapjack did not count as an audience), and not behind the safety of a locked door. It had not been well received. Just seeing Gus sobbing now sent an even worse tension creeping up his spine than the rain, a steadily increasing sense of danger.
Gus was so small though. He’d moved up grades. He was just a kid. So it could- should- be excused.
Even so, Hunter was relieved that it was still raining when Luz guided them up a path and to a door. The rain would hide Gus’s lapse.
Mrs. Noceda was like something in the books he’d read as a small child, before he’d been ordered to use his time more efficiently and stop wasting it on nonsense. Someone you could look at and think mom. When Hunter was still young enough that such things could be overlooked, he’d tried to conjure up images of a woman who shared his hair, his nose. He’d grown out of it quickly, guilty for not remembering the mother that Uncle never mentioned and for being so ungrateful to U-to Belos for having raised him. But Mrs. Noceda shared Luz’s warm eyes and the curve of her cheekbones. Hunter could see Luz in her face.
Luz was forcing a smile. He’d never seen her force a smile, not even when it was directed at him while they were still enemies. But it was brittle now, and when her mother reached for her she pulled back slightly. Her hand tightened on Amity’s arm where it was hidden in her sleeve.
Oh. He knew this.
A familiar coldness seeped through him, separate from the strange rain. He had thought- when he’d seen how hard she was trying to get home he’d assumed- but no. That was familiar in a way that made his stomach sink straight to the floor.
Mrs. Noceda-Call-Me-Camila ushered them into the house, and Hunter brought up the rear. He kept close to Gus, eyes flitting over everyone. Blight was limping slightly. Captain was grey with exhaustion, her braids wild and knotted as the vines she used to attack. There was a bruise on her temple from a falling chunk of ceiling he hadn’t been fast enough to block. Failure curdled in his stomach.
Luz looked hollow. She was helping Amity settle on the couch but Hunter suspected that was for her own comfort more than her girlfriend’s.
There was a basilisk in the house. Hunter recognized them from books, but neither Luz nor her mother seemed alarmed and she didn’t attack. Luz even greeted her with a quiet, “Hello, Vee.” Maybe basilisks as a species hadn’t gone extinct? Maybe they’d migrated to the human realm like giraffes? But then Mrs. Noceda-Call-Me-Camila was speaking and Hunter’s attention snapped to her. She was the authority here. He needed eyes on her. He needed to be ready.
“Who’s the worst hurt?”
Bafflingly, most of the people in the room turned to Hunter. He didn’t see why; he was fine. He’d had much worse than this. After the Collector had moved the sun like it was a piece on a chess board stopped the Day of Unity spell he’d gotten use of his arm back. It ached, but in the same way it would after a rough mission.
Maybe they’d never experienced shock before and hadn’t noticed they were hurt yet. The lessons he’d peeked in on at Hexside while hiding there hadn’t looked particularly strenuous. Hunter was starting to doubt any of them had been left on the top of a mountain.
Luckily for them, Hunter had been trained to be a coven leader since- not since birth he’dneverbeenborn as long as he could remember, and he was used to keeping track of subordinates on missions. He was used to assessing injuries.
“Blight’s ankle is twisted,” he said. He kept himself back straight and posture-perfect until her eyes slid over to assess the damage herself. Until it was safe to relax back against the couch. Hunter was shaky with exhaustion and adrenaline, but he couldn’t let her know. It wasn’t safe.
The basi- Vee- fetched a first aid kit, which she handed to Luz’s mother. Dimly, Hunter was aware of her scooting back into the kitchen but his focus had zeroed in on Mrs. Noceda and the kit.
In the castle they would have had to make their report before being dismissed to receive medical attention. But Mrs. Noceda’s hands worked deftly, experienced, as they wrapped Blight’s ankle, and she did it without asking for an explanation for what had beaten them so badly in a fight, so.
That was an unexpected mercy. If she ended up angry when she heard they’d failed, at least there wouldn’t be anything to withhold.
Hunter watched her carefully, but her expression never ticked over into annoyance. Her lips pressed into a thin line but it didn’t change the care with which she handled Amity’s ankle, and then the scrapes she’d gotten in the fall.
Gus had started crying again, silently. Hunter shifted on the couch until he was blocking the smaller boy from view. Just in case she didn’t agree that it could be excused. You- sometimes you couldn’t tell what would be the tipping point. Safer to hid it, until you were sure. While she was distracted, he reached one hand over and tapped out the breathing pattern Gus had shown him on his knee.
For a moment there was silence, then he heard a soft inhale and exhale in time to the rhythm. Gus’s head came to rest against his shoulder blade. When he looked up, the Captain was smiling at him in a way that made heat creep all the way to his ears. He hadn’t done anything worth a smile like that.
Luz had pulled back from her mother on the steps, but she was leaning into her touch now as Mrs. Noceda carefully placed a brightly colored strip of bandage over the cut on her eyebrow. Her mother tried to smile but her expression was pinched. Her thumb brushed over bandage. Luz wouldn’t meet her eyes.
It was out of character for Luz to be so quiet and withdrawn, unfamiliar. It was not unfamiliar to Hunter.
He tried to brush off Mrs. Noceda’s concern when she turned to him again but Gus poked him in the side where Belos’s blade-arm had clipped him before he could teleport away. Hunter just barely managed to claw his reaction down to a hiss. Mrs. Noceda’s lips pursed. His heart rate picked up. “I’ve had worse.” It wasn’t even bleeding anymore. Mostly. For some reason, this made the captain’s expression fall. Gus leaned into him harder. He didn’t have time to check on those responses; quick as a flash Ms. Noceda had frowned and then forced her expression back to neutral.
The rest of his justifications dried up. Excuses, he heard in a low, furious voice, so loud and so close Uncle might have been leaning up to his ear. For a second he could feel his hand on his shoulder, iron hard before it shifted to pulpy and terrible as muck bled through his shirt.
Hunter swallowed down the surge of bile in his throat and took the cue to shut up. His gaze dropped.
“Well, we can’t do anything about the worse ones, but I’d like to take care of this,” Mrs. Noceda said finally, in a determinedly bright voice that frightened him more than a furious one would have. Hunter nodded mutely to show he’d heard.
And his shift to obedience must have earned him forgiveness, because despite the visible signs of displeasure before she was just as gentle in her examination of his side as she’d been with the others. “Not as bad as it looks,” she said after she was finished, and the note of approval in her voice made his stomach unclench. “Now, let me see your head.”
He could see why Luz had leaned into her touch. It had been a long time since Hunter had been able to rely on someone else to treat his injuries. It had been even longer since he’d done something worthwhile enough to earn a touch as gentle as this.
He couldn’t trust it. He’d seen how skittish Luz was. Luz was so tactile, even when he’d insisted they were enemies. She was always doing that ‘hug’ thing, or hooking her arm around someone’s neck. If she was shrinking away from her mother there had to be a reason for it.
Willow hadn’t let him stay at Hexside after they’d taken out Adrian. She’d dragged him to her home and talked her parents into letting him camp out on their couch until Darius had contacted him.
He’d seen her with her fathers. He knew- he was starting to know- that he and Belos hadn’t been a…normal family. But even when the captain had been making a case for him to hide in their house she hadn’t been afraid of her parents. She’d argued with them- once even raising her voice so loud he’d been sure she was going to be punished for it- but she hadn’t ever flinched from them and she hadn’t once pulled back like Luz had done. Like Hunter knew to do.
But Hunter never quite learned, and something childish and weak in him wanted to reach out after that touch when Mrs. Noceda finished patching up the cut on his temple. Instead, he curled his hands into the strange plush material of the couch and mumbled a thank you.
“What about you-” she started to turn to Gus and Hunter’s stomach lurched. The dim lights and shadows could only hide so much evidence, if she got close it would be obvious he’d been crying-
“I can take care of Gus!” Hunter blurted, too-loud, and scooted himself to the side of the couch as a shield.
“Oh, I should-”
“It’s fine!” He yanked the kit off the table. As of right now, she hadn’t given an actual command yet. Hunter wasn’t technically disobeying. As long as he didn’t give her time to actually formulate an order, she wouldn’t be angry about him breaking it. And he was perfectly happy to skate on the thin line of that technicality as long as it meant her hands weren’t anywhere near Gus when she got angry about it.
Mrs. Noceda looked at a loss, which was better than angry. He forced his mouth into a tense approximation of a smile. His palms were sweaty against the smooth, flimsy material of the first aid kit.
“Alright,” she said finally. After a pause she smiled weakly back at him. “Thank you.”
She moved to look over Willow. Hunter wished he could have volunteered for that too, but she was older and he’d seen what she was capable of. She would be fine.
Gus was mostly unhurt. A few scrapes from dodging out of the way, a sleeve that was torn all the way to the elbow, but the only times Belos had really gone after him Hunter and Flapjack had been able to get there first. Hunter felt unaccountably thankful for this with the same swooping, rising giddiness that he felt at the end of a successful mission.
Mrs. Noceda stood up after she had finished with Willow, but she still didn’t demand a report. She handed out bowls and mugs of a spicy stew for them to eat. It was only after they’d all finished that she finally spoke again.
“I’m glad to have you back, mija,” Luz forced another weak smile, but she was curling up like she wanted to hide. Hunter tensed, shifting his weight so he would be ready to move if he needed to. “But this is…cariño, what happened?”
Luz hadn’t spoken since she’d given out their names. She looked up now, with the air of a trapped palisman, the same hunted expression that he hid behind his mask when Un- when Belos said he wanted an explanation for a failed mission. And Mrs. Noceda was waiting with the same level patience that came from the throne.
Luz wasn’t speaking. It was a mission report and she wasn’t speaking and-
“I-” He started, and then the words failed him as her mother turned to him. He was speaking out of turn. His tongue was thick and useless in his mouth. “It. We.”
Luz had tried so hard to help him, even he hadn’t let her. Even when he’d done nothing but prove he didn’t deserve it. And all he could think of in that moment was her expression when he’d been sinking into the mindscape. You’re gonna be ok. You’re gonna be ok.
He- he couldn’t let her get hurt after that.
“It was-” he tried again and couldn’t get further. His hands were shaking. He pressed them into the couch to hide it.
The captain stepped in then, placing a hand on top of his. “I think it would be better to wait until tomorrow,” she said in the same clear, even tones she used to convince her parents that he should come home with them. He could feel the heat of her hand through the glove. Then some of her confidence melted away. “If that’s alright with you, Mrs. Noceda.”
“Call me Camila, cariño,” she said automatically. Then, “And of course. You must all be exhausted, I didn’t realize. Let me get some bedding down for you all to sleep. We can…we can talk in the morning.” She looked at Luz as she said that. Luz looked away.
And then she just…just left. Just like that.
Hunter didn’t know how anyone could ever think the captain was half a witch. Not when she could do magic like that.
Vee was sleeping in Luz’s bedroom. She offered it back to Luz, but Luz turned it down in favor of sleeping in the living room with all of them, and Hunter caught her mother hesitating at hearing that too. But she didn’t say anything against it.
The rules were obviously different here. Hunter hoped he was able to figure them out quickly.
Gus was the youngest. He got the couch. Luz’s mother found something called an air mattress that could fit Willow and Amity. Luz took a large, cushy looking blanket off the couch and dropped it on the ground on Amity’s side. She was avoiding looking at her mother. Hunter trailed them down the hall to retrieve more blankets. Just to make sure that- that there wasn’t anything else. Belos had never- not in front of the other coven members. Just when they were alone. So. When they left the room he followed.
He must have guessed right; Mrs. Noceda was surprised to see him but she held back from whatever she’d been about to ask Luz, who was still determinedly staring at the floor. Instead, she only sighed soundlessly. “Thank you for helping, Hunter,” she said with the kind of smile Hunter wasn’t going to be stupid enough to fall for again. “I’m glad Luz made such good friends in…where she was.”
Against his better judgement, Hunter felt himself flush at the praise. He darted a look at the human. Luz looked the exact way that he always felt right before he snapped.“Luz is easy to make friends with,” he said cautiously. That had to be good, right? It meant that she was able to cultivate political ties. “That’s why she has so many of them.”
Mrs. Noceda’s eyebrows rose. Luz’s head snapped up to look at him. Her stressed expression had taken on a faintly hysterical edge. Hunter shut up before he said something that made everything even worse.
Eventually Luz’s mom recovered. “I’m sorry we only have the one mattress.” It took a minute for him to realize that she was apologizing to him.
“It’s fine,” he said. He was about to mention all the times he’d had to sleep on the ground on missions, but then he remembered the look she’d had at the talk about his injuries. His mouth glued shut. He accepted the blanket from her silently, hoping it wouldn’t come off as ungrateful when he couldn’t thank her.
Luz’s mother looked like her. When Luz was distressed her forehead creased like that too. Hunter swallowed thickly around the lump in his throat, the weakness disguised by the blankets piled up to his nose. But she only nodded once and then said firmly, “I’ll get something at the store tomorrow.”
Slowly, he nodded. Nods were safe. He felt a little more stable behind the blankets, safer. Hunter was used to having something to mask his expression.
Mrs. Noceda was clearly waiting for him to leave so she could talk to Luz. Hunter stood there, ramrod straight, and stared blankly back at them both like he didn’t understand.
She gave up before he did, murmuring about getting her if they needed anything in the night. Hunter was absolutely not going to be doing that. When she turned to Luz one last time Luz’s head jerked back down. Hunter watched Mrs. Noceda’s expression fall. She reached out and carefully took hold of Luz’s shoulder, drawing her into a hug. “I’m so glad you’re back, mija.”
Luz sagged against her. Her arms came up around her mother’s back, clinging.
“I missed you, Mami.”
They stayed by the closet door until she disappeared up the stairs.
“Hunter?” Luz said, still too-quiet, “…Thank you.”
Hunter didn’t know how to do that ‘hug’ thing. He nudged her pile of blankets with his. “Anytime.”
Gus was dead to the world on the couch when they made it back to the kitchen. The captain was on her side, eyes closed. She wasn’t asleep, he could tell that from the tension bracketing her mouth, but he didn’t call her on it. He just pulled a blanket over her and then did the same to Gus. He wasn’t tired either but he lay down anyway and pulled his blanket over his head. He didn’t want to be awake either.
Every time he closed his eyes he could see Uncle’s face. The weight of the battle and failure and why are you hurting me pressed down on his chest until he couldn’t breathe through it. He could hear the noise Uncle had made when he hit the wall. How it felt to step in it.
Hunter shucked off the blanket, clammy with sweat. Luz and Amity were sharing one half of the air mattress. Willow had fallen asleep for real.
Hunter stood. He went to go check the locks.
No one had discussed who would keep watch. He’d forgotten they were still in school, probably had never had to do something like that. That was fine. He was used to pulling all-nighters. With the way he kept seeing Uncle every time he closed his eyes, he wouldn’t be getting much sleep anyway.
Gus woke up an hour after midnight, with a gasp that was only not a scream because he didn’t have the air for it. Hunter had migrated to the entryway to the living room, where he could see the door and the stairs without moving his head. He whirled back around in time to see Gus hit the floor in a flailing sprawl. Blight and Luz knocked heads lurching up and trying to shield each other at the same time so it was Willow who got to him first.
“Gus?”
He scrambled up, clutching at her. Gus was hyperventilating. Hunter could just see his wild, terrified eyes.
“Where- where is he? Whereishehe’sgonna-”
“Belos isn’t here,” Willow started, but Gus only made a wordless, panicked noise of frustration and shook his head. He was almost incoherent, the words jumbling into each other. Hunter cast one more glance at the empty stairwell and then started hurrying back over to the couch. He’d been the one to treat Gus. Had he missed a head injury?
“-gonnahurthim-” he was babbling, and then he saw Hunter edging closer and stopped speaking entirely, staring at him.
Then his whole face crumpled in on itself; Gus closed the gap between them by flinging himself at Hunter, who caught him more out of instinct than anything else. Gus was shaking, still vomiting words.
“-had a knife, and you weren’t- he was gonna hurt you and I couldn’t do anything-”
Hunter looked to Willow, at a loss. The captain smiled at him. “It was just a dream,” she said soothingly, rubbing Gus’s back.
It anything, Gus’s grip tightened. “No it wasn’t!” he sobbed.
He refused to let go of Hunter. Every time Hunter tried to slip out of his grip he would startle awake, panicking again. Eventually Hunter settled against the arm of the couch, his left hand in Gus’s. “I’ll stay here, ok?” he whispered, trying to keep his voice down. It was a miracle that Mrs. Noceda hadn’t noticed any of this. That luck felt fragile as a taut string. He didn’t want to be the one to make it snap. “Right here. I won’t leave.”
Gus sniffed soggily but nodded from where he was lying down. His hand was tight in Hunter’s. “I want my dad,” he whispered like a confession.
Hunter was entirely at a loss for how to comfort him about that. “It’s gonna be ok.”
Gus didn’t look convinced, but the full weight of the battle and nightmare was cresting over him now, exhaustion tugging him back under. He only pulled Hunter’s hand closer and then fell back asleep.
Hunter couldn’t see the stairwell from here. It was making his skin crawl. What if Mrs. Noceda had heard the noise? What if she was upset about being woken up? But no footsteps sounded from above. The stairwell was silent. Slowly, Hunter turned his attention to Gus.
At least he wasn’t crying now if she did come down. Gus was sleeping restlessly, forehead still creased into a distressed frown. His grip on Hunter’s hand had slackened slightly with sleep, but Hunter wasn’t about to risk pulling it out. Besides, it felt nice to be useful. Reassuring. He could do this.
There was a long tear down the side of Gus’s sleeve. Hunter wasn’t sure what to do about it. Darius had never given him the sewing lesson he’d promised.
Of all of the panic and fear and pain of the day, that thought was the one that made tears spring to his eyes. Hunter only barely managed to claw his composure back into place.
It was silly. He’d only earned Darius’s affection a few weeks ago, but…Darius had seemed so relieved to see him after he’d run away. Enough that Hunter had- he’d hoped after the Day of Unity he might be able to…That the kindness might be able to stay.
“Hunter?”
Hunter stuffed the rest of his pathetic, whiny feelings back where they belonged. Willow was sitting up at the edge of the air mattress. She was looking at him. There was something about the glint in her eyes that made his instincts prickle.
“What? I’m fine,” he said, exactly like someone who wasn’t fine.
Her lips quirked up in an attempt at a smile. “Right,” she said slowly, still looking at him oddly.
Hunter sat up a little straighter at her tone. “What is it?”
“…Can I look at your arm?” She was looking at the right one. The one Gus wasn’t holding.
The one with the sigil.
He drew it to his chest instinctively. “It’s fine!”
Willow hesitated, thinking over her next words. Finally, she said, “I’d feel better if I could see for myself,” she admitted.
The idea that the captain had been worried for him made Hunter’s brain temporarily cease functioning. It took a moment to restart it, and even then he thought he must have misheard. But she kept watching him, patient, and eventually Hunter offered up his right arm.
It was fine now. It was fine. The arching, glowing cracks that had made him think of the broken palismen were gone. There was no evidence at all that they had raced over his skin, paralyzing as they went, until he couldn’t use his hand, his arm, his right side. The captain and Gus had needed to carry him out of the Collector’s way, unable to make himself rise.
Now his arm didn’t even hurt. He couldn’t feel the cracks spreading across his skin, constricting his ribs. His hands were still trembling, safely hidden inside the gloves, but there wasn’t a reason for it. It was fine.
If Willow could feel the weakness when she took his hand she didn’t show it. She only pushed up his sleeve, carefully examining his arm. Her fingers traced the sigil branded into his skin. He shivered at the touch. “Does it still hurt?”
He shook his head. It didn’t hurt at all. Part of Hunter wished it did. Pain would prove that it had really happened. As it is, the fight- the Collector- the way Uncle had splattered all over the floor-
It had to be real. They wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t. But it felt so far away from reality.
Her fingers paused. They’d landed on an old scar; one he’d gotten on the way down the mountain in basic training.
He’d never had someone look at his scars like that.
Belos had expected him to be able to take care of himself after missions. Hunter had thought that was proof that his uncle believed in him. Now he wondered if it was because of what he was; if there was something more obvious than a missing bilesac that a healer might pick up on. Some kind of marker that would show what he was.
“I was so scared.” Hunter blinked. Willow was looking down at the sigil. “You couldn’t move your arm. And then it kept spreading, and you couldn’t run.”
Shame rolled in his stomach. Hunter should have been faster, should have been able to push through it. He’d done it every time he’d been injured before. And the one time he was fighting for people who were actually worth it- and then she and Gus had ended up having to carry him out of the way. Useless.
But the captain didn’t look angry. The captain looked haunted. “I was so scared you were just going to- to stop breathing,” she said, voice wobbling slightly. “And I wouldn’t have been able to do anything.”
“You did enough,” he said quietly.
The way Willow grimaced suggested she didn’t agree. “I’m glad you’re safe now,” she said. Even after she finished examining his arm, she looked over the cut on his stomach and the other grazes and scrapes. Mrs. Noceda had treated them with more care than Hunter could ever remember getting from the healer’s wing at the castle, but Willow still carefully studied them as if to reassure herself. Hunter let her, feeling small and strangely fragile.
Hunter hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been carrying herself until her shoulders slumped with relief. Willow carefully drew up one of the blankets and draped it around his shoulders. The way the weight settled felt very familiar, made his back straighten and something in him settle.
“There you are,” she said, “Just like when we met.”
He blushed at the reminder of how he’d tried to force them into the coven, but the captain didn’t look like she was bringing it up to embarrass him. With the secretive grin on her face, she looked like she was sharing an inside joke.
“I know you want to protect us,” Willow said, “But we’re safe now. We should try to get some sleep. No keeping watch tonight, ok?” Because she’d brought him home after Hexside was compromised, and she’d woken up to him patrolling their windows and locks, sure that coven scouts were about to break in.
They weren’t safe. Hunter had seen how Luz had pulled away from her mother. But he couldn’t bear to be the one to take that happiness off her face. So he just said, “Yes, Captain.” And tried not to be consumed with guilt when she beamed at him.
“Thank you.” She nudged him, teasing, “Try to get some rest, anyway. Growing witches need their sleep, you know.”
She fell asleep right there, head on his shoulder, but Hunter barely noticed. The tentative peace was gone now; he felt cold. Gus’s hand was in his, and Willow was next to him. Hunter felt more alone than he’d ever felt before.
She’d said ‘growing witches’. But Hunter wasn’t a witch. He wasn’t a person, and the captain still didn’t know.
Hunter didn’t get any sleep at all. Instead he stayed frozen there with his eyes fixed on the tiny sliver of stairwell he could see.
It was fine. He didn’t need the sleep. He wasn’t a person.