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Luz doesn’t know what to think when she walks in on Hunter.
He’s hunched over himself. Head in his hands. Curled up so tightly she doesn’t see him; not at first. When he looks up, his eyes are glassy. Blank. He opens his mouth to say something, and falls short. She doesn’t rush him, she never does. (How can she, when she’s seen him at his very worst?)
“Hey, Luz,” he says, and there’s something almost hysterical in his voice. He’s forcing himself to sound calm, to say calm, but she can see right through him. (She always can.)
There’s a pair of kitchen scissors next to his hip. They’re blunt, Luz is used to seeing her mother use them to cut up carrots and chicken when she’s too lazy to use a knife. The plain white bathroom tiles are scattered with messy clumps of blond hair. It’s everywhere. She’s going to have to sweep it up. She doesn’t know how long it’ll take to get clean, but she can’t think about that right now.
“Hunter,” she says softly. It’s easy to see what he’s done - his hair is a mess, the curl she’s so used to seeing curled over his forehead is missing. She just doesn’t know why he’s done this. If it’s some long delayed need for a change or - something else. (She’s guessing it’s - well. Something. He’s not doing well, clearly.) “What- what happened here?”
She keeps her tone as calm as she can. She finds it’s better that way with Hunter when he gets into one of these moods. He’s fallen into them more and more often since being in the Human Realm, and nothing can ever really tug him out of them. Usually, she helps. Or Willow does. But he just sinks deep within himself, and often all they can do is ride it out. Wait for the storm to pass. It’s hard, though. Watching him disappear like this.
“Hair was getting too long.” He mumbles. He does this, too. Falls into single-syllable sentences. Keeps his words clipped. Luz thinks he’s scared of saying too much.
“I liked your hair like that,” she murmurs, giving him a small, friendly smile. He doesn’t return it. She wasn’t expecting him to. “But if you wanted to make a change, you just had to ask me.”
“You know how to cut hair?” He asks, properly looking up. Some of the dull shine has left his gaze. Luz thinks she just needs to keep him interested, keep him asking questions.
“Well, I’ve never done it on anyone else… ” she says. She used to cut her own hair. Her mami had always been fine with her keeping it short; Luz had just preferred to cut it herself. Saved the price of going to a barber or a hairdresser. Luz had mainly liked it because it meant she didn’t have to tie it back everytime she did something that would result in a mess.
She’s cut the fake plastic hair of her Barbies. Back when she was younger. With nail scissors. She wasn’t ever much good at it, they’d always ended up with messy jagged haircuts that resembled stacks of hay, but she’s sure that whatever she could do would be better than this.
“Okay,” he says, and swallows. He doesn’t make a move to sit up. Luz knows that she should probably get him to move into a better position if they’re going to do this, but he doesn’t look like he can physically move. She’s surprised that he’s responding, to be honest. Sometimes when he sinks into one of these moves he just - he just doesn’t talk. He closes off.
She never does that. She talks too much, too loud, and all at once. She feels like she annoys Amity a lot; talking her ears off with rapid ramblings. What she thinks is happening back in the Boiling Isle. What the Collector is doing. Where Eda is. If King is okay. If Belos is really, really dead, or if it’s just all one of his tricks.
(And often, she doesn’t talk about any of that. She just talks. Talks, and talks, and talks, because mundane conversation is so much better than bitter silences.)
She swallows. Clears her throat. “I’m going to get some scissors,” she has some in her drawer. And a brush. “And a mirror? You can - it might be better if you sit up.”
“Oh,” he says, and looks down, like he didn’t realise where he was, how he was sitting, “Yeah.”
She nods, and leaves the room. She doesn’t want to overcrowd him. As much as she wants to make sure that Hunter is okay, he often doesn’t respond well to too much. She just wants to find that line. The line between rushing him, and keeping him safe.
She ducks into her room. Mercifully, it’s almost empty. They’d claimed her room as some kind of mission-base. There’s a whiteboard propped up, crowded with their latest theories. The pinboard that once held her treasured photos now is staked with post-it notes and photos; every single thread of evidence for who Belos was, every single article on earth mentioning anything to do with the Isle she’d once been close to calling home.
Amity’s sitting on the bed, engrossed in a book. Luz smiles at her, gently.
“Hey,” she says, and because she doesn’t really like keeping secrets, carries on, “I’m just getting some - some hair stuff. Hunter’s done - something.”
Amity raises a brow. “He tried to cut his hair.” She guesses, and Luz solemnly nods, biting her lip.
“It doesn’t look good,” she admits, “I’m going to try and fix it.”
“Do you want me to help?” Amity asks. She raises a hand to gesture at her own hair; admittedly it does look good, newly re-dyed and cut.
Luz thinks for a minute, and wrinkles her nose. “I should be fine, I just need to tidy it up,” she winces, “I don’t think he’d want to see too many people.”
“One of those days?” Amity asks, soft, sensitive, and Luz nods.
“Yeah,” she reaches into one of her drawers, finding the mirror and the pair of scissors she was looking for. “I just - I think this is something for me to handle, y’know? And fix. Because boy, it’s not looking good at the moment.”
Amity laughs at that. (It’s a good thing to hear, it’s been so long since one of them had properly laughed.)
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” she says, and then adds more casually, “What movie are we watching tonight?”
“Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure,” Luz rattles off seamlessly, leaning slightly closer to Amity, “It’s a classic.” They’ve been doing these movie nights whenever they can. Cuddled up on Luz’s bed, laptop propped between them, bowls of popcorn on the bedside table.
Amity smiles back at her. “Looking forward to it,” she murmurs, and for a moment, things seem almost normal.
Bending down slightly, Luz presses a gentle kiss to Amity’s forehead, and steps away again. “See you later,” she says, and ducks out of the room again.
(She feels like she should have said something more. But then again, she’s beginning to feel like she talks too much.)
Hunter isn’t where she left him. He’s sat in the shower now. The water isn’t on. He’s made an attempt to sweep the hair into a clumpy pile in the corner of the room, but it’s futile. Luz gives him a small, small smile. She doesn’t want to startle him - as much as Hunter insists that he’s fine, or at least that he should be, she still treats him gently. Like he’s fragile. Like he could be (has been) broken.
“Ready for a makeover?” She says, and cranks a pair of finger-guns in his direction. She doesn’t want to get too deep into why he’s done this. It doesn’t feel like it’s something she has to find out about; it feels like something that belongs to Hunter, something he wants to hold close to his chest.
He doesn’t smile at her, but he looks up. Gives her a languid thumbs-up, trying to match her mock-enthusiasm. “As I’ll ever be,” he says, and there’s a slight teasing lilt in his voice. It’s something she’s familiar with from back before they were friends, back before they’d become so closely bonded that she sometimes feels like she could trust him with her life, if only he’d do the same.
“Alright,” she says, and crouches down in front of him. Now that she’s closer, she can see he’s been crying. His eyes are red-rimmed, puffy. She swallows, and debates mentioning it.
She feels like she really, really shouldn’t.
But she does anyway. Because she cares, cares so much that it’ll one day be the death of her.
“What…” she picks up the scissors, and starts to trim carefully around his ears to avoid meeting his gaze, “What was this about, Hunter?”
He swallows. She feels as though she can hear the echo of a broken sob.
She doesn’t think he’s going to answer at first. Not that he has any obligation to.
“I just-” he starts, and stops. She still can’t look him in the eye. “I just - I - I wanted to look like myself. I -”
He stops. She doesn’t force him to carry on; she was wrong - he wants to talk about it, but she’s not going to press it.
“So you tried to cut your hair?” She prompts gently. She thinks she’s starting to fix it. Maybe. It doesn’t look as jagged, doesn’t look like someone’s just taken to his head with a hacksaw. It’s not neat by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s better. Not that she’s any fashion expert. (No matter what she told Belos.)
“Yeah,” he mumbles, “Just- I wanted a change. From…” he trails off, “How they looked, I guess.”
He’s talking about that thing that she knows she’s really, really not supposed to tell anyone. Or talk about it with him, either. It’s gone silent and unspoken between them for so long that she’d almost allowed it to fade from the front of her mind.
“Well, you’re not them.” She says bluntly. She has no real way of knowing that, but she knows, somehow, deep down, that Hunter is his own person. Completely. Grimwalker or not, he’s still one of the best (and only) friends she has in this world. And she really, really doubts that the other Golden Guards were anything like Hunter. She’s sure they carry the same features, but she doubts that they get frustrated at moths in the evening like Hunter does. Or that they spent hours pouring over a Lego set. She doubts any of them flip the board when they’re losing at Monopoly, or that any of them share Hunter’s (terrible) fashion sense. “You’re you. Doesn’t matter if you look a little bit similar-”
“No. We look exactly the - exactly the fucking same,” he snaps, and her hand almost slips, “I mean - I know what you mean. I just… I don’t want to just be a copy. I wanted to - to change something.”
“I get that,” she murmurs, and takes another gentle snip of his hair. A curl flutters to the smooth tiles of the shower. “No need to screw up your hair, though. Don’t think Willow is into bald guys,” she teases lightly, because Hunter spluttering with frustrated outrage is far better than Hunter like this.
“I’m not - I’m not bald.” He says, and when she meets his gaze, she has to hold back a cackle because the look of indignation on his face is priceless. “I’m not!”
“I’m just messing with you,” she grins at him, “But - Hunter. You really don’t have to change anything, I promise. We know you’re yourself.”
“But what if I’m not?” he says, and his eyes are soft and wet with tears, “You don’t know that. I don’t know that. I never - I never met any of the others. They could be just - just like me .”
“But they won’t be,” Luz says, “Hunter, I promise. You’re yourself. You’re not some - copy. I really don’t think the other - the others would be anything like you.” She smiles at him, as best as she can, “I promise. You’re yourself. Not them.”
He blinks at her. Chews at his lip. “Thank you,” he says at last, and his voice only shakes slightly, “You mean it?”
“Yeah, of course,” she says, sincere, “You’re you. Not them.”
“I… thank you. I… I just hope so.” he murmurs, and looks back up at her. He swallows. Opens and closes his mouth, considering something. “Do you think I should tell the others…?” he asks.
“About… oh.” Luz shrugs. “Only if you want to, bud. Not my decision to make.”
“I feel like I should,” he admits, “But I don’t… I don’t think I’m ready?” His voice pitches up at the end, like a question.
“Then you’re not ready.” She says finally, firmly. She gently trims the front of his hair, so where he sliced the curl off doesn’t look so extreme. “So you don’t have to tell them.”
“You sure?” He says, and she nods, once. She thinks she’s done. He looks - well, better at the least. She’s improved from where she used to experiment with her Barbies’ hair.
“I’m certain,” she says, and smiles, “I think I’m done, by the way. Mirror’s there.”
Hunter reaches for the mirror, wordlessly, and holds it up. He doesn’t smile at his reflection, but something in his gaze is less hopeless. “You didn’t make me bald,” he mumbles, and Luz giggles softly at his attempt at making a joke, “Thank you.”
“No problem,” Luz says, and goes to stand up. She feels like Hunter probably just needs to be on his own - she’s done her best. Calmed him down. He holds out a hand to stop her. It’s not firm; but she stops dead.
“No, really, I-” he pauses, running a hair through his hair, now much more closely cropped, “Thank you. For everything.”
Luz blinks at him. She doesn’t know how to respond with words, so she tentatively pulls him into a hug, which he returns with a few moments delay. Their embrace barely lasts for a few seconds; but she hopes she says enough with it.
When she pulls away, they stay there. Huddled together on the bathroom floor, hair clumped around them, feeling a fraction more hopeful for what could come next.