Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

It’s not easy, living like this.
Temporary as it may be, Hunter is not at all used to this much sitting around. Sure, he’s had days back at the castle where he had done nothing but lie in bed, but those were days where he was in too much pain to think. Anything else was pushed through. 

And he’s tried to push through, he’s tried to keep his weight off of his broken ankle long enough to do dishes or sweep the floors when no one’s looking, but the Owl Lady always seems to be right there to pick him up by the back of his shirt and deposit him back onto the couch like he weighs nothing. 

The human is no help either, whenever she’s not at school she’s pestering him or out with her girlfriend or friends. She hasn't told them about Hunter’s… residence at he Owl House, at Hunter’s own instance. He’s done enough to scorn both Luz and the youngest Blight, the last thing he needs is for people who care about them to know where he is. He isn't exactly in fighting shape, so if one of them angles for petty revenge there isn't much he can do about it. 

So yeah. Not easy.
He would spend most of his time reading, but the concussion makes that impossible, trying to parse the swimming letters on the pages of Eda’s illegal books either gives him a headache so overwhelming that it knocks him out, or makes him so nauseous that deep breathing exercises are a must unless he wants to vomit all over his only set of clothes. 

So he’s mostly just been sitting and thinking.
With everything that he’s been through in the past couple of days, thinking so much is a recipe for disaster.
He’s had numerous ‘panic attacks’, as the human calls them, though Hunter would prefer to call them ‘slight inconveniences’, because that’s what they are. Nothing to worry abuot at all.
He tries to suppress them when people are home, or at least tries suppress the symptoms. Those attempts at suppression are the times he spaces out and is unable to respond to anyone, which is preferable to the panic attacks in his opinion. The human calls those little moments ‘a catatonic state brought on by disassociation’, which are almost certainly all made-up words. It’s just a fun time where there are both no thoughts at all and also too many thoughts to name or describe. It’s fine. Hunter is fine. 

Today is one of the days that no one is home. Just because Hunter is leeching off of them doesn't mean they can't go about their daily lives, Eda still has a job and usually drags King along with her (King is apparently the name of the dog-demon thing) and Luz still has school. Actually, Eda’s been spending more time out of the house since Hunter arrived, as she needs more snails to buy food to feed Hunter. The thought makes his insides squirm, but he can ignore it. For now. He’ll find a way to make it up to her before he leaves. Probably. 

The Hooty is under strict orders not to let him leave the house, so any plans of escaping are already busted. There’s no way he’s getting past that thing, and getting eaten by it or whatever it does to rulebreakers would be a massive bummer, especially considering all the trouble he’s gone through to stay alive. 

So recently, he’s been talking to himself. 

And singing to himself, which is a little more embarrassing, but it’s not like there’s anyone around to hear it besides the Hooty, and if he talks Hunter can always claim he’s lying. It’s not like the house demon hasn't lied about wilder things before. 

Recently, he’s been taking to nursery rhymes.
There are few that he knows, ones that he vaguely remembers Belos singing under his breath while he worked, though only ever when he didn't know that Hunter was there. The rhymes were strange, and not anywhere could Hunter find a nursery rhyme at all like what he would sing. He had always thought it was strange, that such a serious man would make up songs, but now he knows. They must come from the human realm, from when Belos was Philip and long before Hunter existed at all. 

“Tom he was a piper's son,” Hunter murmurs, not quite remembering the tune, so instead just whispering the words and tapping the beat onto his arm. “He learned to play when he was young, but all the tunes that he could play was ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’. Now-”

“Tom his pipe made such a noise-” Comes a voice from behind him, and Hunter shrieks in terror, for a brief second, the only other person who knew that song was standing behind him. But when he turns, it isn't him. Of course it isn't him. It’s two-forty in the afternoon, Luz is due to be back, he should have kept an eye on the clock.
She is looking at him with a weird expression, and that’s- oh, that’s probably because he screamed when she hadn't even done anything. 

“Hey Hunter, it’s just me. I didn't mean to sneak up on you,” She says, holding out her hand like Hunter is some sort of wild amial. He’s not. He isn't. “Try to take a deep breath, okay?” 

It is then that Hunter realizes he isn't breathing, and yeah, that’s probably a cause for concern. He tries to breathe in, but the air gets caught in his throat and chokes him, and when he tries to release the breath it is nothing but a useless wheeze. He scrabbles at his throat, impact minimized by his gloves, though the lack of damage doesn't stop the fearful look on Luz’s face from growing more and more intense. 

“Hunter, you're okay.” Luz says firmly, but he can't breathe. He knows there’s nothing to be scared of and he still can't breathe. He shakes his head, he doesn't have the words- he doesn't have the breath to explain the enormity of what he’s feeling. How often it comes from nothing. How something as simple as being startled is enough to halt his oxygen. To make him cry. And he is crying, he can feel the way his tears run down his face, following the curve of his cheeks and dripping from his jaw. 

“Uh, now… Now Tom his pipe made such a noise-” Luz tries, but the sound makes something reedy and desperate escape from Hunter’s throat, and then he is curling into himself and covering his ears and all he can hear is Belos’ voice. Belos’ hands on his shoulders, on his back, pushing him forward. Never guiding, always pushing.
“Okay, okay not that song!” Luz says hurriedly. “I- okay, now that I think about it- yeah okay. That song’s banned.” Hunter isn't looking at her, still curled into himself, breath heaving and stuttering, he’s not getting enough oxygen and he’s going to suffocate and die and all the pain he’s been through will have meant nothing. It still means nothing, because he is nothing. Titan please let it have meant something. 

“Hunter, hey, you're okay. You’re at the Owl House. You're safe.”
Hunter shakes his head.
“Are you alright with touch right now?” She asks, and for as much as Hunter wants to beg and plead for someone to just hold him , all he mangages to do is shrug. 

That, apprarenly, is enough for Luz. 

There is a hand in his hair, nails scratching his scalp, and he can't help but melt into the touch, humming something low in the back of his throat.  

“It’s going to be okay,” Luz says, and somehow, Hunter finds himself believing it. “Take a deep breath.”
He does, and it comes- well, not easily, but it doesn't threaten to choke him. It doesn't get caught in his lungs or his throat. He has oxygen again, and he feels marginally better.
“Good job,” Luz says, and though Hunter can do nothing but nod to show that he had heard her, she still looks relived. She doesn't look upset, even though he had made her look out for him when she was probably already tired from school and it was over nothing, and she should be mad, Hunter can't understand why she isn't. He can't understand why no one has hit him yet-

She cards her fingers through his hair again and Hunter bursts into tears.

“Oh Hunter.” Luz murmurs, and then she’s hugging him, and it’s a human thing, it must be because it was only her and Belos who had ever hugged him. Her touch doesn't bring back the memories of him, though. She is warm and soft in all the places his uncle never could be, she hugged him even though he had been weak- she had hugged him because he was weak. He brings his arms up and wraps them around Luz.
She lets him cry into her shoulder, hands never leaving his hair. 

_______________________________

When tears have dried and hot chocolate has been made, they talk about it. 

“Was it the song?” Luz asks, and Hunter barely refrains from rolling his eyes at her guilty expression.
“Yeah, sort of. Belos was the only one… I thought he was the only one who knew it other than me, so hearing it from behind me… startled me.” Hunter explains over the rim of his mug, points of his ears flushing red in embarrassment at his outburst. 

“Yeah, that kind of makes sense. It’s an old human song, probably from around the time… uh, he came here.” 

“How do you know it, if it’s so old? Do people still sing it on Earth?”
It’s Luz’s turn to flush, tapping her fingers on the porcelain of her mug while she hides her face behind it. 

“I heard it in an anime.” She murmurs.
“I don't know what that is.” Hunter says dryly. “But based on your expression I’m not going to pry.” 

“Probably for the best,” Luz sighs. “It would be a lot to explain.” 

There is a beat. 

“So you know how crystal balls-”
“Nope, I’m not doing this.” Hunter says, setting his mug down on the coffee table.
“Aw, what? I was going to explain the plot of Black Butler to you!”
“I could not care less about Black Butler.” 

“You suck,” Luz grumbles. Hunter bites down the dirty joke that he had heard one of the scouts say once, he’s not sure that is age appropriate for either of them.

“What was the-” Hunter says instead, waving his hands around his head, hoping to get the words ‘weird thing you did where you ran your fingers through my hair where I felt so incredibly safe and also very sleepy’. 

“Oh, when I played with your hair?” Luz asks, tilting her head. “Well, with everything we were talking about earlier, with you maybe sorta being… you know. Human. I figured it would be worth a shot.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like- so a long time ago humans evolved from primates and- okay, no. That is going to take too long to explain. Human packs, back before civilization, would groom each others fur- that was back when we still had fur, so now when people play with our hair or scratch our heads it’s really soothing. It can make you feel safe.” 

Hunter cards his fingers through his own hair, frowning.
“Do you want help with the knots in your hair?” Luz asks, and Hunter an appreciate her tact. Offering the exact thing he wants while framing it as something else. She really knows how to preserve what little pride he has left. “It’s going to get matted and then you'll have to shave it off.”
Luz must see the displeasure on his face, because she laughs and motions him to sit on the floor at her feet. Hunter huffs, puts on a whole show of displeasure, but really, he tries to move quickly, afraid that Luz will take this opportunity for comfort away, laugh and tell him it was all a joke, tell him he was gullible for falling for it. He sits on the wooden floor, legs splayed underneath the coffee table, and lets the human slot her fingers into his hair. 

She scratches her nails against his scalp as she unwinds the tangles, and it isn't long before Hunter’s head starts to dip.
“I’ll teach you more human songs,” Luz says suddenly, startling Hunter to wakefulness. “Oh, sorry, were you falling asleep?” 

“No,” Hunter murmurs, already falling back asleep. Luz chuckles. Hunter graciously decides to ignore it. 

“ Oh the night was very dark so you could hardly see ,” Luz sings quietly, just under her breath as Hunter begins to nod off again. “ And the moon refused to shine. Two lovers sitting underneath the willow tree, for love. They pined. The little maid was quite afraid of darkness so she said, I guess I’ll go…” 

Her voice trails off as Hunter drifts, though whether she’s quieting or it is the result of Hunter’s own sleepiness is anyone’s guess.

He’s awoken by a flash of light, and he startles into a sitting position with a snort to see Eda lowering a scroll with Luz giggling behind him. He develops a plan in no time flat, he wasn't the Golden Guard his whole life for nothing. 

“Give me that!” He shrieks, stumbling over himself in an effort to steal the scroll away from Eda, who runs away cackling.
“You!” He says, whipping around to glare at Luz, who is giggling into her hand. “What did you do?” 

“You look cute!” She defends, holding up her hands, and Hunter’s hand instinctively goes up to hsi hair to find… several tiny braids and decorative ribbons. He shrieks in rage and lobs a pillow at Luz, who blocks her face and falls over, shrieking with laughter.
“You are such a jerk! ” He shouts, punctuated with the whacking of the human with a pillow. 

“I know you are but what am I!” Luz cries, muffled where her face is hidden in her arms. Hunter pauses as he processes the strange sentence, but once it clicks he is enraged again, and continues his pillow based assault. 

“Its time to teach you a new human practice!” Luz says from behind her hands. Hunter slows in his attack, suspicious.
“...What?”
“Noogie!” She screams, leaping up from where she was hiding and reaching for him. Hunter shreik and tries to dodge, but his bad leg gets in the way and then Luz is descending on him and rubbing the top of his head with her knuckles.
“No! Get off of me you vermin!” He shreiks, struggling to release himself from this… torment .
“No! You have to say Un- uh, you have to cry for mercy!” 

“Never!” 

Hunter calls up all the horrific, traumatizing training he has ever been through and tries to think of how to get out of this situation. 

He grabs the humans wrist and pins it behind her back, and before she can cry out for help, he is ‘noogie’ing her, whatever that means.
Luz shreiks in feigned teror, but Hunter can hear the laughter in her voice.
“Eda! Help me! He’s fighting back!” She cries, reaching out to the Owl Lady

“Sorry kid,” Eda says from where she leans against the doorway. “You started it. You finish it.”
“Cry mercy!” Hunter shouts, and he can feel the way his cheeks are straining from his smile, but he doesn't even care even though this should be embarrassing, smiling so wide without his mask. 

He’s… having fun. 

“Mercy! Mercy!” Luz shotus, and Hunter lets go before collapsing back onto the couch.
“I win.” He says, smirking.
“Barely,” Luz pouts, rubbing her head. 

“ ‘Barely’ , I am injured and I still won.” He says, puffing out his chest as best he can while slung over the couch. Luz sticks out her tongue. 

“Yup, rules are rules. Hunter gets your serving of dessert tonight.” Eda says sagely from her spot in the doorway.
“Aw what?” Luz whines.
“I’m kidding,” Eda says with a smirk. “Now wash your hands, I want help with dinner.”

Luz doesn't hesitate to trail after Eda. She apparently gets a kick out of everything on the Boiling Isles, even the mundane thing like cooking. Hunter watches her leave, running a hand over his assortment of braids. 

Well, if he leaves them in for a few more hours who’s going to care?