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The Owl House is quiet at night.
It wasn’t like that a few hours ago. No, a few hours ago it had been loud. Loud with the rattling of Hunter’s breathing, loud with Luz’s tears, with the Owl Lady's rage and that little rat’s horror. But now, it’s nearly silent, the only noises coming from the nightbirds outside and the weirdly deep snores from that tube demon.
Hunter wishes it were loud again. Then he wouldn’t have to think.
The ceiling of the living room has some weird stain on it. Multiple, actually. They morph with the shadows and shift with Hunter’s hazy, exhausted vision. With how bleary his eyes are, they almost take the form of—
He slams his eyes shut and takes a sharp inhale. Feels the lumpy fabric of the couch underneath him. Runs a shaky hand down Flapjack’s spine, letting the soft feeling of the feathers and warmth ground him. Breathe in one, two, three, four…
He’s here. In the Owl House. Not there. Not with him. But for how long? He doesn’t know if the Owl Lady will let him stay. And Belos could see everything that happened on the isles. If he really wanted to get rid of him, there was no limit to the ways he could.
It was only a matter of time, then.
On the floor, the Owl Lady lets out a snuffling sound. The woman refused to leave him no matter how much he insisted on being alone. She’s curled up on a blanket next to the couch, mouth slung open wide as she snores. It was so embarrassing, to have to be monitored. Like a child. Luz, thankfully, he could get rid of. The human retreated to her room upstairs with King wrapped in her arms, looking just as haunted as he felt.
Now, he just felt numb.
He feels like he should sleep. He feels like he should cry. But he can’t. He’s nothing but a shell. Maybe that’s all that Belos wanted him to be, after all. A servant. A soldier. Someone who listened to orders and never fought back.
A puppet.
His breath gets caught in the middle of his throat. He grits his teeth, putting a large amount of focus into counting the number of stains on the ceiling. On the feeling of Flapjack's little weight on his stomach. Stroking the bird rhythmically, trying to calm his breathing. In for one, two, three…
There’s a sudden stab of pain on his wrist, sharp as though he'd just poked it with a knife. Hunter pulls his hand back and frowns, looking at it strangely. He could have gotten a splinter earlier, from when he was running in the woods. He pushed his way through tons of brambles. He flexes his fingers, feeling the muscle stretch. There’s no more pain. Huh. Must have been a muscle spasm.
He goes back to stroking his palisman, but—the nerves at his wrist light up again, the pain sharper than before, wrapping around his wrist, spreading up through the tendons of his palm to the tips of his fingers. He hisses, clutching his wrist with his other hand. What the hell kind of splinter—
Hunter’s blood runs cold. No. No, it couldn’t be…
Panic bubbles in his throat as he rips off his glove. His worst fear is confirmed—the sigil on his wrist is glowing.
He chokes, sitting up so fast that Flapjack barely catches themselves from getting launched to the other side of the wall. His breath starts to come in quick, rapid pants. His heart pounds like a drum behind his ribs.
He’d forgotten about his coven brand.
Belos could manipulate anyone with them. Sometimes even kill them. Hunter’s seen it done. Oh, Titan. This was it. The Emperor is going to kill him. Burn him up from the inside, incapacitate him so he couldn’t move, order scouts to track him down and shoot him with an arrow to the heart like an animal.
A thrill of primal terror races down his spine. He doesn’t want to die. Please, he doesn’t want to die.
He barely registers Flapjack twittering near his face in concern. He can’t make out what the palisman is saying—he’s too focused on the glowing spidery lines and the pain that radiates out of his veins. His wrist feels like it’s on fire. He didn’t think that he had any more tears left to give, but his vision turns watery with agony.
He had to—he couldn’t just—there had to be something he could do.
He grits his teeth and tries to think. Coven tattoos were magically binding for life. He’d only heard rumors of witches being able to remove them, but that was through—
“Kid?” The Owl Lady’s voice is low and rough with sleep. “Hunter, what’s wrong? Did you have a nightmare?”
Hunter doesn’t respond. The golden lines are stretching faster now. The burn is licking past his wrist and hand, running through his veins like wildfire all the way up to his elbow. Hunter can’t help but let out a tiny cry as the tips of his fingers turn black, like the life is being sucked out of them.
Nausea churns in his stomach. He couldn’t—but he had to.
He bolts up from the couch, shoving past the Owl Lady and sprinting toward the kitchen. He knows there are glyphs here. He saw Luz use one earlier when she made him an ice pack to put on his forehead. His eyes frantically search the moonlit room and they land on a pile of mismatched paper scraps on the kitchen table.
“Hunter!” The Owl Lady calls from somewhere behind him. “Kid, what are you—”
Hunter doesn’t stop. Doesn’t think. He grabs a fire glyph and slams it down onto his wrist, right over the coven tattoo, and ignites it.
Hunter screams. The noise is guttural and animalistic as it tears out of his throat, echoing around the quiet kitchen. It hurts, by the Titan it hurts. The burst of fire is quick, consuming. The stench of burning flesh makes him want to puke. He drops to his knees on the floor, his mangled wrist shaking and twitching with spasms. His fingers are slick with blood. He can’t tell if the tattoo has stopped its magic—the shrieking pain in his wrist overshadows everything else.
“Hunter—Hunter, baby. Oh, baby, you’re okay.” With shaking hands, the Owl Lady pulls him to her. Hunter wants to shy away and snarl, but he just can’t anymore. He feels helpless. Hurt. Tired. So, so tired. He can’t control his full body sobs, the air scraping against his lungs and raw throat. He buries his face in her mess of gray hair and lets the pain roll through him like a boiling tide.
She smells like apple blood, like smoke, like cheap perfume from the night market and…something else. Something that Hunter has only smelled once before. When he was alone in the forests once during a mission, when nothing surrounded him but the trees and the fresh air and the humming magic of the earth underneath his feet.
“I c-couln—n’t,” he tries eventually, his voice shaking so much he’s afraid his throat will close up. The pain is still pulsing with every beat of his heart. “T-the br-rand—”
“I know. You’re okay,” the Owl Lady says into his hair. “You’re gonna be okay.” She draws back enough to look at his mangled wrist. Her face pinches. He doesn’t look at it. He can’t. “I have to clean this.” She looks him dead in the eye, mismatched tones warm with sympathy and tenderness.
“I got you,” she says again. It’s no more than a whisper. A promise.
She quickly helps him into a chair, moving around the kitchen so fast she’s almost a blur of gray and maroon. Hunter is aware of a sudden presence on his shoulder. Flapjack nips lightly at his ear, the nuzzles their little head against his cheek.
He doesn’t watch as the Owl Lady cleans the wound. He tries, but he can’t stop the grunts and gasps of pain that slip past his lips. He feels so vulnerable like this, letting another person dress his wound. It makes him feel sick. He should be better than this. Belos didn’t like it when he was weak.
A fresh wave of tears rolls down his face. The Owl Lady pauses where she’s applying a cooling salve and coos to him.
“You’re okay, Hunter,” she says softly. “I’m right here.” She presses her forehead to his, one of her hands coming to gently cup the side of his face. “Breathe with me, baby. Inhale, one, two, three…”
It takes a while, but his breathing evens out again. Hot shame curls in his stomach, and he’s suddenly unable to look the Owl Lady in the eye. Why was she being so nice? He doesn't understand it. Doesn't get why she touches him gently and calls him baby. He's not one of her children.
He's not even a witch.
She finishes wrapping the bandages and hands him a potion. “For the pain," she tells him. Hunter almost doesn’t take it. Some sick part of him feels like he deserves to feel this way.
He can’t bring it to his lips. He’s shaking too much. The Owl Lady wordlessly helps him, tilting his chin back and letting the purple liquid flow past his lips.
The potion works almost immediately, something Hunter is eternally grateful for. It numbs the fire in his wrist, turning it into a low and dull ache. Exhaustion sinks deep into his bones.
“I’m sorry,” he says finally, his voice cracking like brittle twigs. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
He’s not sure what he expects the Owl Lady to do, but whatever it is, it certainly isn’t for her to laugh. The sound is breathy, more of a chuff than a sound of joy. “Don’t sweat it, kid. I was having a pretty meh dream anyway.” She shoots him a soft smile. The moonlight casts deep shadows on her face. Hunter knows that this night was just as taxing for her as it was for the rest of them.
Together, they head back to the couch. The Owl Lady sits, then pulls him down to lay his head in her lap. He keeps his wrist elevated on her thigh. He can’t see much because of the bandages, but can still tell that the tips of his fingers are still black.
He has no idea if they’ll turn back to their normal color. He doesn't know if he'll heal normally. He wasn’t a witch, after all.
The Owl Lady hums a quiet, mindless tune, running her long fingers through his hair. It makes Hunter’s eyelids flutter with drowsiness. Flapjack curls up on her other thigh, staying in plain view for him to see.
For the first time in hours, he feels his consciousness start to slip, drifting in and out of sleep as a criminal sings him her lullaby. He wonders if things will be different in the morning. He’s not sure if he wants them to be. He could get used to her singing.
“I got you,” she whispers again, this time more to herself than to him. “I got you.”