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Hunter wakes up to an overwhelming sick feeling. He blinks a few times, biting down a whine.
No, he thinks. No no no no This could not be happening.
He sits up in bed, scratching at his arms and biting his lip. He feels awful.
He wants to call for Eda, wants to get help, but he knows he can't inconvenience anyone more than he already has. He whimpers and closes his eyes.
Hunter coughs and feels the rising nausea becoming harder and harder to control and ignore. He shifts uncomfortably in bed. He knows he shouldn't leave his room at night. He’s meant to stay put when it was still dark outside, but he just feels so sick.
Hunter moves out from underneath his covers and sits on the edge of the bed. He feels incredibly dizzy. He chokes on a sob and the next thing he knows, he's retching, throwing up his small dinner and lunch from the day before. It covers his shirt, blanket, and even the floor.
He cries, starting to hyperventilate. "E-Eda," he croaks quietly followed by a sob.
Luz's eyes slowly open to the faint noise across the hall. At first, she dismisses it as King waking up in the middle of the night and scuffling around, but soon, she realizes that it sounds like... crying?
She hears the quiet sob of “Eda!” coming from outside her room.
She slowly creaks open her door to investigate and hears the muffled crying from behind the door to the closet Hunter has been sleeping in. She raises an eyebrow in concern as she lightly knocks on his door.
"Hunter?" she calls quietly, but audibly. "You okay?"
Hunter coughs and cries some more. He doesn't know how to respond to Luz. He tries to quieten himself, hoping that she would just go back to bed.
Luz's concern grows deeper as the crying continues. "What's the matter? Did you have a nightmare?"
Hunter gags but nothing comes up. "N-no."
“Then what's wrong? I'm really worried."
Hunter sobs. He shifts, still covered in vomit.
Luz takes a moment to think. He doesn't seem to want to talk, but she can't leave him alone. "Is it okay if I come in?" she asks.
"O-okay," Hunter agrees after many moments of silence.
Luz opens the door and gasps as she sees the vomit all over the floor. "Oh, Hunter..." she says softly. "Stay right there. I'll get Eda."
Before waiting for his response, she dashes out into the hall.
Hunter shakes, but is grateful in the back of his mind for Luz. He feels utterly weak and disgusting. He hates this, hates that he’s disrupted everyone’s nights and he’s surely going to be punished.
Luz creaks open Eda's door and shakes her awake. "Eda, get up!"
Eda's eyes slowly open as she groggily pushes Luz's hand away and responds, "What? What?"
"Hunter's sick. He threw up all over, well, everything."
Eda's slitted eyes snap open all the way. She's not willing to wake up at 2 am for much, but a sick kid in her care is a no-brainer. "You just go back to sleep. I'll take it from here."
Luz hesitates before nodding. "Okay," she says quietly. She walks out the door and takes one last worried look into Hunter's room before reentering her own.
Following close behind her, Eda takes a moment to stretch and yawn before walking as fast as her tired, achy body can carry her to Hunter's room.
"Whoa," she says. "Luz wasn't kidding when she said you puked on everything. You okay, or do you think there's still some stuff you gotta yak?"
Hunter shakes his head. "I-I don't know."
"Well, either way, we should get you cleaned up." Eda crouches down a bit to his level and hoists him off the edge of the bed- not batting an eye at the puke dripping off of him and onto her nightgown- and carries him to the bathroom.
Hunter clings into her, letting out a relieved breath. He's burning with fever and still feels incredibly sick. "I don't feel good," he mumbles.
"I know, kid," Eda whispers back. "You'll be ok."
When they get to the bathroom, she sets him down on the toilet and runs a bath, dipping her finger into the water to make sure it gets warm.
"First and foremost, we gotta get you cleaned up." She takes a pause. "Er, do you wanna, y'know, undress and get in yourself, or do you need me to help?"
Hunter clenches his eyes closed. "Help please," he chokes. It wouldn't be the first time she had helped him out of his clothes, and probably wouldn't be the last if his constant illnesses continued.
Eda nods and peels off the puke-covered clothes, trying to look away as much as she can so the boy can retain at least some of his dignity, before helping him into the bath. She kneels beside the tub and sits with him. The water going light brown with puke makes her heart break and she looks away again, this time just to keep herself from getting emotional.
Hunter bites his lip and coughs. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
"You've got nothing to be sorry for," Eda says as she squirts some shampoo into her hand and rubs it in. "But I wish you would have come to me if you weren't feeling good."
"I didn't wanna be an inconvenience," he whispers. He leans into her touch, whimpering.
Eda blinks away tears. An inconvenience for being sick... Even as selfless as she was, Luz never worried about being an inconvenience when she was sick. She was never super needy when it happened, but she always made her needs known. It just makes Eda wonder for the millionth time since Hunter started staying with them, what the hell kind of shit has Belos been raising this boy with?
"Baby, telling me you're sick doesn't make you an inconvenience," she says softly. "I don't care how dead tired I am or how ridiculous of an hour it is. I will always do anything you, or Luz, or King need me to do for you, okay?"
Hunter nods slowly after a moment. "Okay," he whispers. "Pinky promise?" he asks. Luz had shown them all a human ritual revolving around promises. He holds out his hand from the water, small finger outstretched.
Eda smiles and locks her pinky finger with his, holding her other hand up in the air. "Pinky promise."
Hunter smiles a tiny bit. The moment fades away and is replaced immediately with nausea for Hunter. He places his shaking hand over his mouth.
Eda knowingly gasps and thinks of guiding him out of the tub and by the toilet, but figures pretty quickly that that will take too long and instead grabs a bucket from under the sink and passes it to him.
Hunter takes it quickly and sets it on the edge of the tub before he begins to gag and retch into it, bringing up mostly bile and stomach water. He rests one arm on the edge, his whole body shaking as more tears stream down his face.
Eda takes the bucket and dumps it out into the toilet before sitting back by the tub and rubbing Hunter's back. "It's okay, baby," she whispers softly. "It's okay."
"M' sorry," he repeats. "I'm so sorry. Wo-n't happen a-again," his voice breaks.
"You don't have to apologize for being sick," she says softly.
"I do," he says. "I d-don't know why you aren't pun-punishing me." He coughs and more tears fall down his cheeks. His skin is pale and clammy with sweat and tears covering every inch as his fever rises.
Eda's blood boils with anger towards Belos, but for Hunter's sake, she holds it back and tries to keep her voice steady as she replies, "Getting sick isn't something you can control, baby. It's a sucky thing that happens to everyone, and when it happens to one of my kids, it's my duty to take care of them. That includes you now."
She swallows the angry bile rising in her throat. "I'm so, so sorry you had to be raised by someone who doesn't believe that."
Hunter leans into the hand she had placed on his cheek. He closes his eyes and whimpers. "S' okay," he mumbles.
Eda smiles softly and rubs his hair. "Don't ever be sorry for being sick."
"I'll try," he says. He looks up at Eda with those big, sad pink eyes. "Can I go back to bed now?" He remembers the vomit covering his floor and bed and cringes.
Eda cringes along with him. "Well, your bed is... kinda out of commission right now. But you can come spend the rest of the night in my nest."
"Okay." He nods a tiny bit. He slowly starts to get up out of the water. After he's wrapped up in their softest towel, he realizes that they had forgotten clean clothes. "Eda..."
"I've got some human realm clothes around your size stashed away in my room somewhere," she says. "Want me to bring ‘em in here?"
He just nods.
Eda runs to her room and grabs a pair of lounge pants and a black t-shirt for some edgy human band she remembers Luz once saying Hunter would like, as well as changes her own nightgown quickly. She returns to the bathroom and sets the clothing on the sink. "There you go, kid. Need help putting them on?"
"No." He grabs the clothes and starts to dress himself, albeit slowly.
When he's finished up, Eda wraps an arm around him, grabs the bucket with her other arm, and walks him towards her room.
Hunter leans into her, exhaustion overtaking him. He collapses with a cry when he trips over the edge of the rug in the hallway. He wants to sob but bites his tongue in fear of waking up Luz and King.
Eda gasps and lifts him up gently by his arms. "Are you okay?”
"Y-yeah," he stutters. Hunter grabs onto Eda's hand to steady himself.
Eda shakes her head and lifts him up. He's not steady and she is not about to watch her boy fall over again. She gently sets him down in the nest and lays next to him, throwing a blanket over both of them. She positions the bucket on the floor just outside the nest near Hunter’s head.
Hunter rolls over and lays his head on her chest, cuddling up to her side. He swallows a pained whine. "Eda?"
"Yeah, baby?" she whispers back.
"Thank y-ou." His voice is broken by a small cough.
"No problem." She turns over and throws one arm over him. "I love you."
Hunter hesitates for a moment. "Love you too," he finally says, closing his eyes. He doesn't think he's ever felt so loved and safe.
And at last, he lets himself relax.