Chapter Text
Hunter ignored the sting on his forehead as he dropped exhaustedly onto his bed, Rascal twittering and fluttering around him worriedly. Hunter dismissed his concern blearily. He shut his eyes, his body screaming at him to just sleep, but he couldn’t. His mind was still awake, heart beating with unneeded fear.
He needed to file out a few files before he went to sleep anyway… One of them was urgent, regarding some small wild witch rebellion at the Elbow… But surely the coven captain situated there was smart enough to make their own educated decisions…? Capture the wild witches, that’s all they had to do, why did Hunter have to sign permission for that…
Hunter groaned and heaved himself up, but he paused, and just sat there, arms holding him up.
He should move… He could see the paperwork on his desk…
But…
Titan. He was so pathetic. He couldn’t even muster up the energy to fill out a stupid piece of paper.
Rascal landed on his shoulder, chirping softly. You need rest.
“No I don’t,” Hunter said softly back, voice barely above a whisper. His throat felt sore. He couldn’t rest until he got everything done… He couldn’t be more of a failure today.
A buzz against his thigh startled him. Instinctively, he knew immediately what and who it was. But he’d completely forgotten that he’d left his scroll laid haphazardly on his bed this morning. He’d learned not to take it with him on mission-heavy days- he got too distracted, far too easily.
mischiefs_other_half: heyyyy bestieee!!!
are you off duty now ? :)
For a moment, Hunter didn’t respond. He’d typed out his response, but then his fingers just hovered over the send button. He didn’t know if he was in the mood to talk to Edric, but… He was sure Edric would just pester him anyway. He always did.
goldie.guard: yes
mischiefs_other_half: GASP
lower-cases??? no punctuation??
who are you and what have you done with my goldie >:(
goldie.guard: Sorry. Just tired, I guess.
mischiefs_other_half: dont apologize! type lowercase more often!! let me corrupt you!!
Hunter struggled to think of a response. He knew he should respond with something snarky or humorous, maybe even flat out mean since Edric never seemed to care when he was deliberately being mean (it’s like he could see right through him). But instead his mind just felt blank. Weak.
He fell back against his bed again, disappointed at himself. Now not only was he not doing his paperwork, but he was boring Edric too.
His scroll buzzed a few times more, but it took him a long minute or two that only dragged on and on before he lifted the scroll to read it.
mischiefs_other_half: goldie?
did u fall asleep?
it says ur still on
r u okay? or did u actually fall asleep?
goldie.guard: I’m awake.
mischiefs_other_half: are you okay then?
you seem off
goldie.guard: I’m okay.
A blatant lie that he knew even Edric would see through. But Hunter couldn’t find the energy in him to think of something convincing.
mischiefs_other_half: as Luz would say: press F to doubt
im pressing F to make that clear, by the way
whats wrong gg???
Hunter didn’t want to tell him. It was stupid. Hunter got punished all the time- he would grow from it. It was necessary. He did something wrong, he got punished, then he didn’t do it again, simple as that. He should go fill out that file so he didn’t get punished for that.
But he found his fingers typing out a response regardless.
goldie.guard: Just tired. I had a mission today from Emperor Belos and it… didn’t end well.
mischiefs_other_half: oh no are you okay dude? you’re not hurt or anything??
Hunter gingerly touched the scar on his forehead, and pulled back his fingers to see blood. The wound wasn’t that deep at all, just a scrape. But it did sting.
goldie.guard: I’m fine. A little beat-up but fine.
mischiefs_other_half: do you need me to kiss it all better <3 ;)
goldie.guard: ...No?
He wasn’t a child, and even when he was a child, he never got ‘kisses for his boo-boos’ like he knew some weaker-willed children did from their parents. Even from a young age, he had been taught to be strong and endure pain on his own. It made him a better fighter, after all, to not be distracted by pain. To be able to push through it.
Besides, Hunter was in no shape to fly to Edric’s house, and, as far as Hunter was aware, Edric didn’t have a palisman on call to fly to the castle. Not that Hunter would advise Edric to do that if he did have a palisman- he’d get put in jail for trespassing and suspicious behavior before he could even blink.
mischiefs_other_half: aw ;(
have a virtual kiss anyway
mwuah <3
Hunter tilted his head, not really sure what to think of Edric’s messages. He was still too tired to decipher them properly. This was probably just another random teenager thing that didn’t mean anything.
goldie.guard: Thank you, I think.
mischiefs_other_half: did it make you feel better??
Oh. That had been the purpose of his message?
goldie.guard: A little. I guess
mischiefs_other_half: :((
do you wanna talk abt it or do u wanna go to sleep lol
i’ll stop texting u if its the second so u can get ur beauty rest
Sleep, Rascal tweeted in his ear. Hunter wasn’t aware that palismen could read, but the little cardinal just kept surprising him.
goldie.guard: I dont think I can sleep.
Despite the exhaustion wearing at him, making the edges of his vision blur, unable to focus fully on anything. His mind felt slow, like it was trudging through mud. But messaging Edric gave him a distraction from just… thinking. About things that just made him feel worse, even though those kinds of thoughts never helped him be better. Just made him sad, upset, tired.
Even now, his mind wandered, full of guilt and hate and self-loathing as he stared at the pile of papers on his desk, untouched. As he remembered his uncle’s anger and disappointment.
mischiefs_other_half: so do you wanna talk about it?
or do you just want me to entertain you ;)
He didn’t want to talk about his failures but… Edric wouldn’t judge him… Yet he also didn’t want to dwell on it anymore, but also it was all he could think of… And he didn’t want to bother Edric with his own problems anyway. Although Ed always said he would be okay if he ‘vented’ to him since he let Ed rant to him all the time…
But what was there to talk about anyway? Edric couldn’t do anything. Hunter deserved his punishment. He was just feeling all mopey about it for no good reason. Feeling ashamed at his failure.
goldie.guard: I don’t know
mischiefs_other_half: oh
thats okay!
hey uhhh
do you like have anyone in the coven?
to like talk to?
Hunter frowned, not sure what, or rather why, Edric was asking.
goldie.guard: Not particularly
Not to talk to, I mean. Personally
I mean, my uncle, I suppose, but not about this kind of stuff
mischiefs_other_half: oh i was hoping that… idk there would be someone for you to t
oops hit send early i was trying to rewrite
sorry im bad at this uhm
is it just you and your uncle? in the coven? you don’t have any other family/friends?
goldie.guard: Just us two, family-wise
mischiefs_other_half: i mean normally i like talk to my sister Em so i was just thinking you could talk to him? cause he’s family?
but it sounds like you can’t talk to him about… uh, whtever happened
what happened by the way?
if ur okay telling me
goldie.guard: It was just a mission gone awry. The details don’t matter. What matters is that I failed it and
Seems like Edric wasn’t the only one sending messages accidentally. He’d started backing out his message, only for his fingers to fumble and hit enter anyway. Was there really no way to delete messages on Penstagram? It was a flaw in their magic programming.
Hunter tried taking a long, steadying breath, but it came out all wobbly and difficult. He felt so stupid and worthless. He should just throw his scroll away, never bother Edric again, curl up on his bed, and starve to death there, since he couldn’t do anything right. Not for Belos, not for Edric.
Dying would be better than living an existence of failure.
mischiefs_other_half: and??
goldie are you okay?
goldie you still there?
golds?
goldie.guard: Sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you I just
I’m not thinking straight right now
Tired, and all
mischiefs_other_half: that’s okay i understand
do you still wanna tell me what happened or is it too much?
goldie.guard: I’m fine. I just got punished for my failure. That’s all that happened, it’s really nota big deal
mischiefs_other_half: punished? punished how?
Goldie.
they didn’t hurt you right?
its just like a ‘go to your room’ punishment right?
goldie.guard: I’m fine, like I said. I’ve had far worse
It’s just a scratch.
Belos’s words hurt more than when his curse lashed out at him. And the mission had left him with more bruises than Belos’s punishment this time anyway.
mischiefs_other_half: just a scratch??
so they did hurt you!
cant you tell your uncle or something?
they shouldnt be hurting you just cause you failed
That… didn’t make sense. Of course Belos hurt him because he failed. How else was he supposed to learn?
goldie.guard: My uncle already knows.
mischiefs_other_half: and he doesnt do anything to protect you??
why are rich kids’ guardians always such a-holes
wait
dont tell me
goldie is your uncle the one punishing you?
Dread pooled in his lower stomach, painfully so. He didn’t know why but now that Edric knew he… that his uncle… So long as he never knew his uncle was Emperor Belos, perhaps that was fine. He didn’t need the boy to think even worse of the Emperor’s Coven. Hunter couldn’t handle that- that he was the reason Ed held more wild witch ideals. Belos would be so upset with him, if that was the case, and he’d punish Hunter more…
If only Edric could understand that his uncle wasn’t hurting him out of malice, but out of love. Out of a desire to help Hunter grow.
goldie.guard: It’s not like that. He’s punishing me to protect me.
mischiefs_other_half: how could hurting you protect you??
goldie.guard: By ensuring I never make that mistake again.
How could Edric not understand that? His parents weren’t lenient with him. Hunter had met the Blights and heard Edric rant enough to know that. He supposed he’d never heard Edric say Odalia and Alador hit him, but they sure put him in the line of fire of abomination machines or trapped him in his room when they needed to punish him.
mischiefs_other_half: there are other ways for him to make sure you dont make that mistake again
like just telling you what you did wrong
goldie.guard: How would I learn it was bad though if I never felt the consequences?
mischiefs_other_half: look my parents punish me to make me obedient too but its not like they lie and say its to protect me or make me better
its legit just to make sure i dont do anything they dont like
or as they’d put it “not ruining the family name”
my parents shouldnt treat me like that and ur uncle shouldnt treat you like that
Hunter didn’t like this conversation anymore. Well, he hadn’t liked it in the first place. But now instead of feeling tired and worthless, he felt anxious and worthless. What Edric was saying didn’t make any sense. Hunter couldn’t wrap his head around it.
His uncle should treat him like that. He deserved it, because he failed. He was happy that Belos didn’t ‘baby’ him; didn’t sugarcoat life for him. Otherwise how would Hunter ever grow and serve the Titan?
goldie.guard: He’s not mean, if that’s what you’re thinking. He cares for me and wants to see me succeed and serve the Titan. That’s why he gives me punishments. He’s not lying about anything.
mischiefs_other_half: my parents love me, or i think they do at the end of the day, and i love them even though they hurt me
but that doesnt excuse that what they do to me makes me feel awful
dont you feel bad when he hurts you?
Hunter huffed, frustrated and angry. Why did Edric even care? This didn’t matter. He wasn’t making any sense either. Getting punished was normal . Edric should know that . Just because it hurt doesn’t mean anything.
goldie.guard: Of course I do. But that’s a good thing because feeling bad motivates me to do better next time
mischiefs_other_half: it just makes me feel sad nd worthless and afraid when my parents punish me
im not motivated, im just afraid of getting punished
‘But you’re not worthless,’ Hunter thought, perplexed. How could Edric think he was worthless? He wasn’t perfect by Belos’s standards, but he was… he was nice and kind and funny and all the things Hunter was not.
Hunter sucked in a breath, feeling his body shake and tremble. It was just too much. He didn’t like being punished but it was important he was punished. Edric just had to understand that. Hunter dragged a hand over his face, pulling at his hair. Rascal chirped but he ignored the bird. He could barely focus on messaging Edric with how… riled up he was.
His eyes hurt and stung but the last thing he wanted to do was be weak and cry.
goldie.guard: Fear is motivation.
mischiefs_other_half: it shouldnt be
goldie i just want you to be okay im not trying to like push you to do anything
i dont want you to get hurt
goldie.guard: You dont have a say in the matter.
Maybe I like getting hurt anyway
Sometimes the pain was nice. It reminded him to keep going. It reminded him to do better. It was helpful.
Hunter’s body shook even when he curled an arm around himself to stop it.
mischiefs_other_half: Goldie
why do you let him hurt you?
That was a stupid question. Why did Edric let his parents punish him? Because they were the authority. They were his superiors. Because they knew what was best for him.
Because he was afraid of them.
Hunter squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, fighting back tears, before he opened them back up with a shaky, gaspy breath and typed a response to Ed.
goldie.guard: Because he cares about me because hes the only person that ever thought iwas special
Why were his hands shaking so much?
mischiefs_other_half: You’re special to me.
Hunter froze, staring at the text on his scroll. Edric didn’t- that wasn’t- he didn’t-
A tremble went down his spine and he bit his lip as it quivered.
Edric thought he was special? But that didn’t make sense. Edric had no reason to think that. In fact, didn’t he have every reason to think the opposite? Hunter had proven himself awkward and nervous and weird and nerdy and annoying and pointless throughout their conversations. He kept messing up, and being too mean, or being too ignorant, or- or just being a nuisance when he babbled about worthless information no one asked for. His uncle hated when he talked about wild magic or the intricacies of beasts of the Boiling Isles or anything that wasn’t pertinent to his role as the Golden Guard. Edric said he didn’t mind, but he just said that because he was being nice- sometimes Hunter managed to convince himself Edric wasn’t lying, wasn’t just being nice - but in the end, that’s all Edric was doing. Just… being nice. Because he was like the human that way. Naive and innocent.
But he used proper capitalization and everything. Edric never did that.
Was he serious?
He thought Hunter was special?
No, no, no, he- he couldn’t- Hunter wasn’t anything- when he wasn’t the Golden Guard, he didn’t matter, if he wasn’t useful, he didn’t matter-
He wasn’t special.
Why did Edric think he was special?
Hunter dropped the scroll and shoved it off his bed so he didn’t have to look at that dreaded message. His heart felt like it was going to burst out of his chest, it was beating so fast, and his body felt all sweaty and clammy and hot, his face was flushed, and were his arms shaking?
He pulled his knees close to his chest and shoved his head onto them, unable to stop his breathing as it became heavier and faster. Distantly, he felt a soft weight land on his arm, but it barely passed his thoughts.
His brain felt like it was going too fast, repeating things like ‘Edric thinks I’m special?’ and ‘Uncle would be so disappointed in me’ and ‘I’m not important; I’m useless; I need to be better’ over and over and over again until he wasn’t sure what he was thinking anymore.
Breathe, a small voice twittered beside his ear. In and out, Hunter. It’ll be okay. Breathe with me. In and out. In…
Hunter struggled to follow the voice- his palisman- Rascal’s instructions, but soon he found himself breathing in deeply and then out deeply. At first it didn’t feel like it was doing anything, but then he realized the world felt a little less heavy, his body just a little less tense. But nothing could calm his swirling thoughts. He just couldn’t make sense of someone thinking he was… special …
People didn’t think he was special. They thought he was spoiled and entitled. They thought he was weak and powerless. And were they wrong? No. He was. He was only special in the eyes of the Titan, and even then, Hunter had no idea what the Titan wanted from him.
At least he knew what his uncle wanted from him.
...Most of the time.
Hunter pressed his palms against his eyes, trying to fight back the tears against his stuttering, gasping breaths. “I’m so pathetic…” he whispered over a sob. ‘Disgusting,’ he told himself as he wiped wet tears away from his burning cheeks.
No you’re not, Rascal said from his knee.
“Shut up,” Hunter hissed under his breath as his body started shaking again. He hated this, he hated this . Tears wouldn’t stop coming. Everytime he started crying, it was like he couldn’t stop and he hated it . And he hated what Edric said, because it wasn’t true.
Rascal chirped again, flapping away, and Hunter yearned for his palisman’s touch again. ‘Stupid,’ his mind whispered. ‘Pathetic, worthless; you don’t deserve that comfort.’ Rascal kept chirping, though, incessantly so, and Hunter attempted to cover his head with his blanket to block the sound out.
But then Hunter heard the sound of ringing. Not like the sound of his scroll buzzing- it was louder and persistent. It was a sound Hunter hadn’t heard in a long time and he slowly lifted his head out of his blanket to stare at his crystal ball, sat collecting dust on his shelf, now glowing blue with the message, “Incoming call from Penstagram user Edric Blight @mischiefs_other_half, CB number: 134-595-888…”
...You could call someone from Penstagram? Since when had that been an update? Wasn’t that a privacy concern?
Hunter just stared at the ball, not knowing what to do. Why would Edric even call him? It didn’t matter anyway, Hunter just wanted to curl up and die regardless…
But Rascal was fluttering around the CB, tapping the screen all over, and it was only a matter of moments before Rascal tapped the accept button rather than the decline. Hunter scrambled out of his bed, fumbling over his blanket as it wrapped around his ankle. He yanked the crystal ball off the shelf and threw it on his bed.
“Don’t-”
Rascal chirped loudly, as though screeching, and he briefly panicked, praying to Titan that no coven scouts were walking past at that moment. The palisman followed after the CB, landing on top of it and hitting the green accept button, staring Hunter defiantly in the eyes.
“ Rascal, ” Hunter hissed with clenched teeth as his heart skipped a beat before thundering in his chest. He hastily rubbed at his eyes, desperately trying to dry his eyes, but then his body just wracked and more tears came spilling out.
‘Edric’s going to think I’m a pathetic crybaby.’ The thought only made him cry harder, even as he bit his lip to stop himself. He made sure he was as quiet as possible. At the very least, if Ed was going to see him cry, he wasn’t going to hear him cry. That would be even more embarrassing.
His body still made a pathetic, strangled, startled noise when Edric’s face appeared on the screen, frowning harder than Hunter had ever seen him. His brows were furrowed and his eyes were just so… open and afraid.
“ Goldie?! Goldie!” Edric breathed a loud sigh of relief. “Oh Titan, you’re okay. You seemed really upset and then you just stopped answering and I was afraid that- I don’t know- that something really bad happened. I guess that was irrational of me, but I’m- I’m sorry I upset you. I didn’t mean to- I just… was worried for you…”
Hearing Edric say that just made Hunter’s eyes sting more and he pressed the side of his hand to the corner of his eyes, even as three drops streamed down his face, warm. ‘Don’t let him see you cry,’ he thought. ‘Don’t let him see you’re weak.’ But his thoughts couldn’t stop his body from shaking, the tears from leaking.
“Are you okay?” Edric asked, voice soft and face openly concerned, his brows furrowed. “Dumb question- of course you’re not. But will you- or, I guess- can I-”
“Did you mean it?” Hunter rasped quietly, sniffling over his words.
“What?”
Hunter shouldn’t have said anything. Now he sounded weak and pathetic and desperate. But Edric was waiting patiently, worriedly, for a response. “Did you mean it? When- when you said that... I was…” It was hard to even force the words out, that was how much he couldn’t believe them. “That you thought I was… special.”
Edric blinked, as though puzzled that Hunter even had to ask, as he softly confirmed, “Yeah, of course.”
A sharp pain shot through his chest- his heart- and his body shook roughly over a harshly choked back sob. Angrily, disbelievingly, he spat, “ Why. ”
“Because…” Edric hesitated, and in that moment all Hunter could think was that he was lying to him. Of course he didn’t actually think Hunter was special. He was just lying in an attempt to comfort him, because he thought Hunter was weak enough to need comfort .
‘Pathetic, stupid, worthless.’
Hunter shoved his palm against his eye, hard enough that it hurt, but at least the pain stopped the tears. He turned his head away so that Edric couldn’t see his other eye, still crying. He took a step back too, wishing he could just run away and hide, but his body wouldn’t let him move.
‘Why would he ever think I’m special?’
“Because…” Edric hesitated, struggling to find the words. Goldie just… was special. He was cool, he was literally the Golden Guard . He didn’t complain about Ed’s clinginess like Emira and Jerbo did. He was funny and sassy yet nervous in that cute way, but also super hot. Edric knew he always got attached too quickly, but Goldie was… he was awesome. He was perfect. A bit rough around the edges, prone to an outburst, emotionally unstable, but, weren’t they all? Goldie always helped him when he had a bad day, and Ed wanted to do the same for him.
He watched as Goldie seemed to curl more in on himself, getting further away from his crystal ball and blocking his face from Ed’s view. Edric’s fingers tightened around his own crystal ball, having grabbed it and situated it in his lap as he sat, stressed, on his bed, leg bouncing slightly. He felt like he was going to start crying too because he was failing Goldie, unable to help him in the way that he needed.
‘I’m such a horrible friend, I made him cry, and I don’t know how to fix it.’ People never liked when Edric tried to ‘fix’ his mistakes because he always did it wrong. He always just left the ‘apologizing’ to people to Emira, because she was so good at it. But Emira didn’t know about this. She didn’t know anything about Goldie. It’s not like he never told her anything about Goldie- it was near impossible for him to not tell his sister something- but he’d kept all the specifics to himself. All she knew is that he had ‘fallen in love with another guy before they even knew each other’ and was ‘moping after him and daydreaming all the time about him’ (her words, not his). All she knew was that he had a new crush that he met with scarcely but texted all the time. (She also said that a relationship like that was doomed to fail. ...Edric guessed she was right, with how him comforting Goldie was going…)
He dragged his fingers through his green hair, pulling at the strands. He had to say something! Goldie probably thought he hated him!
“You just… you are special, Goldie,” Edric attempted, meaning it with all his heart but not knowing if he was really conveying it. Goldie’s head jerked as he spoke, but he still didn’t turn to look at him. “You’re… You’re nice to me.” Ed winced. That sounded kinda stupid. Lots of people were nice to people. Nobody was exactly mean to him, not without reason. “You don’t make me feel like I’m an idiot, and you… when you talk about… I don’t know, whatever, you light up, and it’s just- it’s so cool to see you so happy. You have the nicest smile when you let yourself smile, and I... I love spending time with you, Gold.”
There were a million things Edric was scrambling to say- a hundred little things that he was too embarrassed to say (“I like staring at your ears when you read because they twitch when you read something interesting or confusing,” “You have the prettiest laugh and sometimes I make dumb jokes just to hear it,” “Even though you say you hate wild magic, I see the way you love your palisman, how you pet and cuddle them when you think I’m not paying attention.”), but they died on his tongue when Goldie finally turned his face back to him. He looked so sad , so lost and upset, that it once again nearly made Ed cry too, his eyes stinging.
“My name is Hunter.”
His voice was raspy, low, and distorted from the crystal ball’s signal. But Edric still heard it. ‘That… wasn’t the name I was expecting,’ he thought, testing the name out in his mind, trying to replace all the ‘Goldie’s with ‘Hunter’s, although he’d been calling and thinking of him as Goldie for so long, it was kind of hard. ‘But it… fits him. A soldier is a hunter, and all.’
Swallowing a wave of nerves (both anxious and excited) at Goldie trusting him enough to tell him his real name, Edric nervously smiled and said, “And here I almost thought you didn’t have a name.” When worst came to worst, humor either made everything better, or everything way worse.
Hunter made a strange strangled, crying noise that maybe could have been a laugh, and Ed couldn’t clearly make out his face from the distance he’d put between him and his own crystal ball, but it looked like his lips twitched. Edric was hoping that twitch was upwards.
“My name doesn’t matter,” Hunter said in a defeated tone. “All that matters is being the Golden Guard. It’s- It’s what makes me special, not… not anything else.”
“No,” Edric immediately protested, reminded of how Amity once described her meeting with the Golden Guard- how he tried to dig his own grave because he failed his mission. “You make yourself special, not any dumb title or- or Emperor’s Coven sigil.” Hunter shot him a scowling, frowning look, that was almost comforting because that was one of Hunter’s normal expressions, especially when the Emperor’s Coven was insulted. “And if you still don’t believe you’re special, well… I’ll do all your believing for you, so you don’t have a choice! So hah!”
Hunter made a low, humming-like noise, before sniffling and wiping his eyes again. He didn’t seem to be actively bawling anymore, his tears starting to dry against his blotchy, red cheeks. So… that was good? Edric did something right?
“I don’t think the world works like that,” Hunter said quietly. He looked tired. And sad still. “It doesn’t matter what we believe. We don’t determine our own worth.”
“That’s dumb,” Edric shot back bluntly. “Who does then? The Titan? I mean, I guess, but they don’t, like, know us. Personally. I guess maybe they know you better ‘cause you’re in the Emperor's Coven but…” He huffed at himself, not sure how to word what he wanted to say. “But it doesn’t matter because I think you’re important. And the Titan can’t dictate that , can they?” Hunter was silent, staring at the ground, so Edric continued, “I just mean that it doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks about your worth or whatever, because I’ll always think you’re worth something, even if nobody else does.”
Hunter sniffled again, wiping his eye, but Ed guessed (hoped) it was a happy sniffle. Or a less-sad sniffle, at least. “I still don’t… think it works like that but… thank you, I guess.”
“Of course!” Ed said quickly. “You’re important to me.”
“I’m your enemy.”
Edric frowned, tilting his head. “Not really.” He’d never thought of Hunter as his enemy.
“You support wild witches, I’m a coven official. We kinda are.”
“So we’re Romeo and Ghouliet then.” Edric grinned.
Hunter’s cheeks went red- Edric loved when they did that. “No, we’re- we are not .”
“Are too,” Edric teased.
“Are not.” But Hunter yawned after he said it, rubbing his eyes. He looked like he was swaying on his feet. Also, he had a scar on his forehead and one on his arms, right next to some darkening bruises. What did he say happened? Mission gone wrong? Got punished? And it was so late too… He needed some rest.
“Hey,” Edric called softly. “You should sit down and rest.”
Hunter didn’t even argue before he followed Ed’s instructions. In fact, as soon as his cute butt (Edric had only stared at it a few times, okay?) hit the bed, the rest of his body followed, collapsing against the softness of his blanket. Sheesh, he was really exhausted. Edric felt terrible for him… How could his uncle do such a thing to him?
“You should sleep,” Edric added as Rascal twittered and flew over to their owner, snuggling onto his head of hair like it was a nest.
It was a moment before Hunter’s hesitant, tired answer came. “I can’t. Sleep.”
Ah. Insomniac. Yeah, Edric had trouble getting to sleep too when nobody else was around. Most of his childhood had been spent sleeping in Emira’s room, or even Amity’s room when they were way, way younger. When he was alone, he liked to play a movie or series on the CB, just to have some background noise, or something to focus on until he conked out. Maybe some background noise would help Hunter?
“Well, why don’t I talk about stuff until you can then?” Edric offered. “Then you can let my beautiful voice put you to sleep.”
Hunter snorted, but after a moment, he rolled over and stared at Edric through the crystal ball. Ed’s heart fluttered at the direct eye contact, the way Hunter was so focused on him, but he pushed his feelings away for now.
“...Sure.”
Edric grinned brightly. Now just to find something to talk about… “So you remember Pooka? Well, there was actually this- what did Luz call them? Easter Eggs? Yeah, Easter Eggs, they’re like these hidden things in movies and stuff that the creators put in the background to, like, reference other things. So, anyway, in Pooka there’s this one scene where…”