Work Text:
Gus sat next to Hunter on the porch, both in tank tops and knee-length shorts— given it was near 100°, there’s not much else they could’ve worn without practically melting.
(40° c if ur not usa)
Gus glanced to Hunter’s arms, littered in scars all over, varying in length and colors. Immediately enthralled, he stared at them in wonder.
“Uh—Gus?” Snapped from his gaze, Gus looked up to see Hunter looking back at him with the most confused expression ever.
“Oh! Sorry, your scars just look cool.” Gus stated, he sounded so nonchalant while saying it— his tone sounding so genuine. Hunter— who wasn’t at all prepared for Gus to compliment them, truly expectant of Gus to have the most repulsed reaction ever— looked away, face red with embarrassment.
After a while, they were reduced back to sitting in silence, watching cars drive by and point the occasional bird that would fly over them. (Gus, of course, being able to name most of the bird types with his extensive knowledge of earth’s animal life.)
It wasn’t long until Gus got distracted again— captivated with Hunter’s scars. This time, however, Hunter didn’t notice right away.
or.. maybe he did and didn’t want to confront him?
“Where’d that one come from?” Gus asked, pointing towards a long, dragged out scar on Hunter’s shin. The question came out of the blue— scaring Hunter. Forcing his attention away from a bird that had perched on a neighboring house’s fence, with red feathers making it look suspiciously like Flapjack.
“Hm? Oh. No idea. But,” He paused to roll up his shorts to reveal a series of verticle scars on his thigh that stretched down to beside his knee, “That ones from a baby griffin. It tried to climb me—but out of fear I kicked him off. You can tell it didn’t turn out well.” Gus laughed, imagining The Golden Guard freaking out over a little baby griffin was humorous
“What about the one on your face? Your infamous cheek scar.” Hunter’s ears perked up and his face brightened, though he tried to play it off all cool, relaxing his posture and brushing fingers through his hair quickly, which prompted Gus to think— to know, this was gonna be a good one.
“That old thing? Got it while I was in scout training. That mountain showed no remorse. It’d been day 5, the weak ones had been plucked off with natural selection. I was searching for billtorn berries— the only natural plant that could grow and survive in the extreme temperatures that—“ Hunter was cut off by Gus mimicking snoring sounds.
“Hey! Fine okay, it wasn’t as cool as I was about to describe, but it did happen while I was on the mountain. I wasn’t careful enough with my spear and—“ Cut off once again.
“Hold up, ignoring that you somehow messed up using a spear that hard— a spear?? What year was this? The Cavewitch century? Could’ve used a dagger— or something cool ” Gus received a glare.
“Actually, spears are much better for hunting at a safe distance. You can just throw it, and with enough strength and precision, you could easily take down or at least stun any animal.”
Hunter could’ve gone with a more longwinded explanation on why he chose to make a spear instead of literally anything else, but he knew not everyone wanted to know the science behind why spears were more superior than daggers when it came the circumstances he was in.
Already turning his focus back onto the surrounding scenery once again Gus let out a sigh, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.
No matter how riveting the street was, Gus felt compelled to keep asking sbout the scars, each story he heard only making them more interesting.
“What about those ones? They look collective,”Gus was now pointing towards the lines on Hunter’s inner forearms, a pit grew in the bottom of Hunter’s stomach.
“I— Uhm.. don’t remember?” He knew. He fully knew, and could clearly remember where those scars came from. The shameful past of them weren’t a story worth telling.
Gus could tell Hunter was lying— but he couldn’t tell why. So, he kept pushing, meaning no harm, truly just curious.
“Liar, liar, pants on fire. If you want to lie, maybe try not to avoid eye contact so hard, but seriously, what happened?” Hunter stayed unresponsive, his grip on the unmentioned water bottle tightened.
“Hunter? If— If it’s sensitive you don’t have to tell me. Sorry for prying like that.” Gus couldn’t help but feel bad, what was he thinking? Trying to shove his way into Hunter’s life— honestly, Hunter had a right to be mad at him, he had a right to—
“It’s.. fine. But if you’re still interested in more stories, I got loads of them.” Hunter offered, scooting back into the shade of the overhead a little more before settling into a crisscross position.
“I mean, if you so insist. So what about your torn earlobe?” Gus layed down on his stomach, relaxing into the shade, wasting no time on taking up Hunter’s offer.
Hunter dryly laughed, “Okay— don’t laugh..but I was cutting my hair for the first time—
And their day continued like that, Gus basically interviewing Hunter on his scars until they were called back inside, Camilla deciding she’d rather not have two teens with heatstroke.
Only 2 weeks later would Gus realize where the shallow scars that layed on hunter’s arm had come from, being awoken by the Hunter’s muffled apologies, the only things to break the constant stream of “i’m sorry” being a sob, a gasp for air, or choking from how hard he was crying, Camilla only hushing him, the sounds rushing water and of bandages being cut from the roll.
The next morning at breakfast Gus was see Hunter’s arm wrapped with off-white bandages, red ink staining them. No one mentioned it, but multiple times Hunter caught brief eye contact with someone staring.
Within the later morning Hunter would put on a long sleeve, which only made him receive even more pitying looks from everyone.