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Hunter was… asleep.
He had laid down on the couch on Eda’s instruction but Luz figured he hadn’t meant to fall asleep. But it didn’t take long before he had succumbed to exhaustion after everything that had happened in the last few hours.
After he had run out of the house in his panic, Luz, in her own growing distress, had been unable to follow. So Eda went out after him and King and Hoody stayed with Luz. They were good companions, enough to calm her down before she worked herself up into a panic.
When Eda had returned, thankfully with Hunter, the boy looked awful. His gloves were covered in dirt and there were scrapes covering his skin. His entire body trembled and by the look in his eyes, he wasn’t all there.
Flapjack sat on his shoulder, twittering softly and pecking at Hunter’s face until he came out of whatever stupor he had fallen into on the walk back. When he realized where he was, Luz figured he was going to bolt by the way he had tensed. He balled his hands into fists, clenching his jaw.
His cloak had remained on the ground after he had discarded it, no one had touched it. Hunter avoided it like the plague.
Eda had done some more things behind the scenes that Luz didn’t catch, she stayed in the living room wrapped in a blanket with one of King's stuffed animals. But during that time, Eda somehow got Hunter to drink something, but he wasn’t trusting enough to accept any food offered. It was better than nothing.
Still filthy and rumpled, Luz had offered him the couch. Her mind was working too fast and she needed to do something about it, if she didn’t she felt like she was gonna explode. Hunter hesitantly sat as Luz stood up.
Her action seemed to make him panic a little bit, his shoulders tensing up as he watched her with wide eyes. Flapjack chittered in his ear and Hunter gave a strained whistle back before slapping a hand over his mouth with a dark blush. His breathing picked up and he looked like he was about to puke.
“It’s okay,” Luz said, exhaustion heavy in her tone, “you can do… whatever that was.” She couldn’t whistle but if she wasn’t as tired as she was, she would’ve tried. But Hunter understood what she was saying, he lowered his hand from his mouth but his jaw was clenched so tightly it looked painful. He said nothing.
Luz returned to her room quickly to grab the books and notebooks that she had collected up there. She needed to write things down, she needed to figure this out. And she believed that if she could write out all her thoughts, then she would be able to understand them better.
But what more was there to figure out? She had the picture pretty well of what was going on. There had to be a way to stop it.
Her trip took less than a minute or two but by the time she got back to the living room, Hunter had curled his knees up to his chest, fingers rubbing against the fabric of the blanket she had left behind. He still hadn’t removed his gloves.
Luz sat across from him on the floor, dumping her books on the coffee table. She busied herself in jotting down what had happened in her notes and she could feel Hunter’s eyes trained on her. He had gone silent, Flapjack chirped and tweeted as the palisman picked at Hunter’s hair, but Hunter said nothing. Flapjack pulled at the little strand of hair that fell in front of Hunter’s face but without trying to get Hunter’s attention. It seemed just like a passive action the way he was picking at Hunter’s hair.
Eda brought in another blanket and a pillow, she also had Luz’s sleeping bag under her other arm as she surveyed the living room. Her expression was unreadable as she seemed to be thinking hard about the sight she was greeted with.
“Don’t stay up too late,” She said to Luz, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders and placing the sleeping bag on the floor next to her, “I’ll be just in the other room if you need me.”
Eda took a step, handing the pillow to Hunter who jumped at the sudden movement. After a few seconds of staring and awkward silence, he accepted the offer. Eda smiled sadly at the both of them, leaving the room and shutting the door behind her.
Luz had no idea what she would be doing in the kitchen. But she had gone back to her notes, shivering despite the blanket wrapped around her. Hunter clutched the pillow to his chest.
They were both exhausted. Well, Hunter always looked a few minutes away from passing out, but now he looked even more so. Like he was practically fighting to stay awake.
Luz wasn’t much better, despite the anxiety and restlessness that ate away at her very being, it was hard to stay awake.
Somehow, she had lasted longer than Hunter. After everything that had just happened, she was surprised he could find sleep. Especially in a new environment like this.
But he had very obviously passed out. At one point while Luz was distracted, he had laid down without her noticing. His hands were clasped over his stomach and his head was resting on the pillow Eda had given him. It was odd to see his expression so relaxed, his mouth hanging open slightly which meant that with every exhale the gap between his teeth whistled. Flapjack tweeted back in his sleep.
The palisman had nestled in Hunter’s hair, his beak tucked under one wing as he settled on the crown of Hunter’s head.
If Luz was more herself at the moment, she would’ve thought the scene was adorable. She might’ve even taken a picture. But her thoughts were moving way too fast for her to think of those things, her hands were shaking too violently and she could barely move from where she was sitting.
So she remained where she was. Her hands rested in her lap as she stared at the scribbled notes she had taken a few days ago. After everything she had found out today, the theories she had made previously seemed so childish and they glared back at her. Luz didn’t know what to do now.
Hunter shifted in his sleep, rolling over onto his side so that now he was facing Luz. The blanket was beginning to slip off his hips and his sudden movement had woken Flapjack. He flapped his wings a few times to keep balanced, resettling atop Hunter’s head. His one good eye stared at Luz as she watched back.
“You keep him safe,” Luz said to the palisman, not even knowing why she was saying things like that. Hunter could take care of himself in most situations, he wasn’t incompetent.
But Flapjack tweeted back, seemingly in agreement but Luz couldn’t understand. She knew that Hunter could understand him.
Luz sighed, running her fingers through her hair causing her bangs to stand up. Flapjack was still watching her instead of trying to go back to sleep.
“Did you know about the day of unity?” She asked, knowing that she needed to be quiet before she woke Hunter. But she kept talking, “did you have any idea?”
Flapjack twittered. She figured that was a no. Of course Flapjack would have no idea, there would be no reason for him to know.
Luz let out a groan, burying her face in her hands. The blanket slipped off her shoulders but she didn’t bother to pick it back up. A chill settled around her as she absently flipped through one of the books on the coffee table. The owl house was strangely quiet, she figured that Eda had gone to bed by now. It was weird for Luz to be up this late.
Her stomach did dangerous flips and a tightness wrapped around her chest, squeezing her lungs and making it hard to breathe. She had helped him.
If it weren’t for her, none of this would be happening right now. She was stupid. How could she have been so stupid?
Flapjack chirped, going back to preening Hunter’s hair. Hunter shifted in his sleep again, his ears twitching as he rolled back onto his back. The blanket he had previously been burrowed under fell off of the couch but he didn’t stir. Flapjack just simply readjusted with little complaint, the scar over his eye facing Luz.
She could barely focus on the texts in front of her, absently running her fingers over the pages as she flipped through them. The words swam around on the paper and tangled her head. A yawn pulled itself from her throat and she rubbed her eyes. Everything that had happened that night started to weigh down impossibly heavy on her shoulders. She felt dirty and felt the need to scrub at her skin with as much soap and water as she could get her hands on.
But she was too tired to stand. Hunter’s whistled breathing was the only noise that filled the air besides Flapjack's absent warbles. Luz wrung her hands, popping her knuckles loudly. The pen that she had previously been using to write taunted her from its dormant spot on the coffee table. How long had it been since she had picked it up? The notes she thought to write no longer came as easily as before.
It was as if her coherent thoughts had suddenly halted, the same sentence echoing in her mind.
You helped him .
Luz swallowed thickly, digging the heel of her palms against her eyes. A headache was beginning to throb in the back of her head and she figured she would wake up with one as well.
Despite the ache in her limbs and the exhaustion that weighed on her bones, Luz pressed her palms against the top of the coffee table, pushing herself to stand. Her knees were trembling so hard she nearly fell back down the moment she straightened.
Flapjack chirped. Luz ignored him.
She dragged her hand over the chair to keep her balance as she rounded the other side of the coffee table. Her feet shuffled against the floor and she could barely keep her eyes open. Hunter somehow hadn’t woken in the time that she had been taking notes.
Luz picked up the blanket that had fallen off of the couch, draping it over his unconscious form with as much care as she could manage. Flapjack hopped down from Hunter’s head, clamping his beak around the hem of the blanket as he seemed to be helping Luz. He flapped his wings and tugged, hopping back a few tiny steps.
“Thank you,” Luz whispered, rubbing her eyes. She stepped away from the couch, suddenly grateful for the fact that Eda had brought her sleeping bag down; she never would have been able to make it all the way up the stairs otherwise.
Flapjack tucked his beak under his wing as he curled up in the center of Hunter’s chest, he rose and fell with Hunter’s breathing but didn’t seem bothered by it. Luz crawled into her sleeping bag, pulling the blanket over top of her to try and hide from the chill that settled in the living room.
She didn’t think she had ever felt this exhausted in her life. Thankfully, sleep came easily.
Luz was woken a few hours later in a cold sweat to the sound of twittering a few inches above her head. Her mind had been plagued with nightmares, repeating over and over. Her chest constricted painfully like she had just been running for miles. She exhaled sharply and opened her eyes to see one beady brown eye staring back at her. Flapjack looked off the edge of the coffee table that Luz had nearly rolled underneath in her moving around during the night. He hopped a few times back and forth, wings flapping.
“Goodmorning,” Luz mumbled, bringing her arm up to cover her eyes. Even though she hadn’t looked outside, Luz could tell that it was still the middle of the night. Her body was still tired and she wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep. But now she was awake, and once she was awake it meant that she would be unable to fall asleep again.
Flapjack chirped again and that’s when Luz realized she couldn't hear Hunter’s sleepy breathing, the distinctive whistle as his mouth hung open slightly. She wedged her arm underneath herself and pushed herself up to a sitting position.
She honestly expected to find that Hunter had left, which made no sense considering that Flapjack was still here. The two were a pretty inseparable package deal.
But Hunter was still on the couch. He had sat up, the blanket bunched up in his lap. It was obvious that he was awake, but he didn’t move when Luz looked over. Flapjack chirped and hopped back and forth once more, fluttering over to Hunter and settling on his shoulder.
Hunter tilted his head ever so slightly, his breathing shaky. His entire body seemed to tremble. In his hand, was one of the pieces of paper that Luz had been scribbling notes on last night, his gaze was trained on it.
“Hunter?” Luz asked, rubbing her eyes. She pushed herself up to her feet, pressing her leg against the coffee table for balance. Flapjack pecked at his cheek, pressing his head against the underside of Hunter’s chin.
Flapjack tweeted a series of sharp notes, repeating it again and again until Hunter finally blinked. His eyes darted up from the piece of paper in his hand, his mouth hanging open slightly. There was a dulled sense of clarity behind his expression.
“Huh?” His breath hitched and for a second the two of them just stared at each other. Flapjack chirped and Hunter whistled back.
Luz sucked in a sharp breath, holding it for a second before she let it out. She sat down on the couch next to Hunter and he jumped, scooting away to make sure there was room between them.
“Are you…” Luz spread her hands in her lap, staring down at her palms with an intense expression, “Are you okay?”
Hunter didn’t respond for a long time, his breathing shallow, “I…” there was clear mistrust in his tone and he cleared his throat, “I’m fine…”
“What we heard in there… if you… if…” Luz fumbled, she was normally so good at these kinds of things, but suddenly her mind turned completely blank, “I’m here if you… need something.”
“I don’t need your help,” he retorted quickly, turning away from Luz and pulling his knees up to his chest. Flapjack chirped and nudged him again. Hunter huffed in response.
He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself tightly and his ears seemed to droop. Even though he had slept for a pretty decent amount of time, he still looked exhausted. After all, not even that much sleep could wash away problems like that.
“You can always stay here… if you can’t go back to the castle,” Luz wanted to reach out, to put a hand on his shoulder, to do literally anything but sit here with nothing to do with her hands. But she didn’t think that Hunter would react too kindly to her touching him, so she picked at her cuticles instead.
Hunter frowned, biting down on his lower lip, “I can’t go back… he… he knows.” His voice raised in pitch and he wrung his hands nervously, “He’ll kill me.”
Luz slumped her shoulders, horrified at the fact that she knew Hunter was being literal. With what they had seen in Belos’ mind and the fact that Belos knew they were in there, Luz had no doubt what the emperor would do to him when he found Hunter.
“Stay here then,” Luz insisted, looking over at Hunter with wide eyes, “we’re great at hiding from the Emperor… er… we’re at least good at keeping away from him.”
Hunter brought his hands up to his face, running his fingers through his hair as he groaned. The dirt on his gloves smeared on his cheeks as he did so but he didn’t seem to notice or care. He curled his hands around the pale blond strands, tugging lightly.
“What if he finds me?” Hunter asked, a hint of desperation in his voice, “I don’t… I don’t want to die.”
“We won’t let him get to you,” Luz insisted, leaning forward until he looked over at her. His eyebrows furrowed, worry filling his eyes. “I promise.”
“Promises don’t mean much,” Hunter’s eyes darted away and he heaved a sigh, “but thank you.”
Luz smiled softly, exhaling sharply as she leaned back against the cushions of the couch. She rubbed her eyes, yawning. Hunter leaned back as well, his eyes slipping shut for a second.
“We should go back to bed,” Luz said, dropping her hands to her lap. She chuckled weakly, tilting her head to the side.
“It’s not morning?” Hunter looked up suddenly, glancing towards the windows which were still shut tight.
“No, I don’t think so,” Luz shrugged, pushing herself up from the couch, “get some more rest.”
She gestured to the blanket in his lap as she shuffled back to her sleeping bag. Not bothering to climb back inside of it, she just wrapped herself in the blanket as she laid down. She could hear Hunter shuffling on the couch as well, Flapjack chirped and he whispered something back.
Luz covered her head with the blanket, curling up on her side as she tried her best to fall back asleep. Her thoughts were whirring even more so than before and she was just hoping not to have any dreams.
She pressed her face into the crook of her arm, using it as a makeshift pillow as the sleeping bag underneath her gave little support. Flapjack’s chirping had quieted down a little bit, only soft warbles filled the room as the palisman idly twittered.
Restless sleep came eventually, plaguing Luz with more nightmares that were sure to haunt her when morning finally came.