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"Are you sure you don't want to wear some kind of padding?" Hunter asked again. "Luz said you could use her bicycle stuff."
Willow rapped her knuckles against her helmet. "I put this on, didn't I! My head is protected. If I wear a bunch of padding it's going to slow me down, and it's going to throw my weight and stuff off, right? You said that it's all about muscle memory and I don't want to memorize it wrong!"
"I did say that," he mumbled uncertainly. He gave Flapjack's staff an anxious twirl, needing to do something with his hands to ease the nervousness in his throat. "Promise you'll tell me if something hurts, okay?"
"I already did!"
"Okay, but, can you just do it again?"
"Fine," she sighed, "I promise to tell you if I think you hit me hard enough to do more than leave a bruise. C'mon, Hunter, you've seen me play flyer derby."
"I know, Captain," Hunter groaned. He rubbed the back of his head, pacing in the grass before he took a deep breath and grounded himself, turning to face her. "Alright. I'm going to go slower than usual and telegraph my movements for now. Just remember all the katas I taught you and you'll be okay."
"I'm going to be okay, Hunter," she repeated, "You're not going to hurt me."
"Willow, I'm going to hurt you," he grimaced. "I'm going to hit you at least once, for sure. And it's going to hurt. Are you sure you want to do this!"
"Yes!" she yelled. "Hunter, I want to be able to protect myself when we get back to the demon realm! You shouldn't be the only one who knows how to fight!"
"I know, but–"
"Hunter!" Willow insisted, "Please."
Hunter chewed his lip and then nodded silently, spinning his staff behind him as he moved into stance. Willow followed suit, leading with her right foot, bent slightly as she waited for him to move first.
He watched her for a long moment, eyes focusing intently. She knew that Hunter was different when he was fighting– she'd seen it. There was this whole shift in his demeanor that was hard to miss, where clumsy, timid, boyish Hunter turned into the silent, precise, unrelenting soldier that she knew he was.
Seeing that shift head on, looking right into his eyes, was different. She didn't have the words to describe if anyone ever asked her to, but the word that bubbled up in her throat when she tried was 'wrong.'
He leaned forward slightly, shifting his front foot to the right, indicating he was about to move forward with his left. As he did he spun his staff between his hands so that it landed in his left, and when he brought it down from above, she just barely managed to hold up her own weapon with both fists clutched around it so that his strike landed squarely in the middle and thunked off.
"Good," he said, "But that's an easy way to break your fingers. You only needed one hand to block that, it wasn't a two-handed strike."
"You're stronger than me," she frowned.
"Hardly."
She considered it. "We should arm wrestle."
His lips twitched toward a smile and her heart fluttered. He looked a lot more like Hunter when he did that.
"Later," he agreed, and then withdrew his staff, swinging it in a wide right arc back down.
She fumbled to get her staff down in time, but his sweep collided with her shin and she yelped, skipping backwards and away.
His eyes lit up in surprise and alarm. "Willow!" he cried. "Are you okay? I'm so sorr–"
"Ah-ah!" she yelled, "No apologizing! I told you to swing at me, everything that happens afterward is my fault!"
He shut his mouth, but his expression told her he was very unhappy about it. She glanced down at her leg. No broken skin, but she could tell it was going to bruise badly, even though his swing had been practically delicate compared to the way she'd seen him move before. She cracked her neck and shifted back into stance, gripping her staff two-handed.
"Again," she said firmly.
Hunter looked like he wanted to argue, but then he nodded, his eyes shifting back to that cold focus.
Another moment's pause, and then he swung hard in from his left again, aiming at center mass. She snapped her right arm out to parry it away, then swung back in the opposite direction in an attack.
He quite easily ducked and twisted, staff spinning into his right hand again to knock her overhead strike away like he was swatting a fly.
"How was that?" she asked.
"Good reaction time," he commented, "But you reversed your swing when you attacked, completely losing your momentum. That's when you spin and redirect."
"Right," she nodded. "Okay. Again."
He came in from his right and her left this time, toward her midsection. She grabbed her staff with her other hand and blocked, switched hands and swung in a wide arc up and down toward his shoulder. He blocked without even moving his eyes off of her, then jabbed forward with his own at her chest. She swiveled sideways and it just barely missed, catching wisps of her hair on the way. He kept going, swinging his whole body to slash toward her legs again.
This time she jumped and he missed, but he carried his momentum in a second spin, building up speed as he brought it higher, and then smashed it directly into her gut at full strength.
For Willow, it felt like the world had exploded, like her stomach was full of lava and the rest of her body had suddenly vanished. Her vision went black and burst into stars and when it started to clear she realized she was on her knees, arms trembling as she wheezed and gasped for air.
"Willow!" Hunter exclaimed in horror as he dropped his staff. Flapjack transformed and immediately began tweeting in distress.
Willow's head was spinning and her stomach felt like it was collapsing inward. Just as she thought it would fold into itself it surged back up into her throat and with an undignified noise, she puked all over the grass.
She did weirdly feel better once she'd emptied all her guts, at least. She took deep breaths, until her brain caught up with her enough she remembered how to smell, and that vomit reeked. She sat up and wiped her face on her sleeve with a groan.
"Maybe I should have gone for padding after all," she wheezed. She shook her head and finally looked back at Hunter.
His eyes were wide like dinner plates, bright pink and horrified, hands hovering in front of him and shaking. His ears were pinned all the way back and he looked frozen, like he'd walked into a petrification spell.
"Hunter?" she prompted.
He jerked as if unfrozen and snapped his hands up to cover his mouth. "Oh, Titan, Willow. I am so sorry. I didn't mean to swing that hard, I–"
"I told you to," she groaned. "It's fine, Hunter, I just–" She clenched her jaw against another wave of nausea washed over her, but she resisted throwing up again. "Titan. I think I need some water."
Willow didn't think she'd ever seen him move so fast before, but he scrambled to his feet and sprinted for the back door to the house. He couldn't have been inside for more than a few seconds before he was back out holding a glass.
She momentarily lost focus on how bad her stomach hurt as she watched the glass and realized he wasn't spilling a drop. She wondered how he was doing that. She'd have to ask him later.
"Here!" he cried, shoving it into her hands. She accepted it gratefully and took a big drink.
"Did that help?" he worried.
"Yeah," she said. It hadn't helped that much, but he looked terrified and she really wanted him to calm down. She wished she'd worn padding now, if only because she hated seeing him like this and she'd put him in this position in the first place.
"I don't think we should spar again," said Hunter, his voice warbling with emotion. "I clearly can't control myself. I was trying to go easy on you, but I– I don't know how to pull my punches. This isn't safe."
"I'm fine, Hunter!" she snapped, a little harder than she meant to, "I knew this was the risk when I asked you to show me how to fight!"
"Then you're being reckless!" he insisted. "You can't consider getting hit this hard and acceptable risk! This is more than you can handle!"
She dropped the glass and balled her hands into fists, the grass around her flaring up. "Don't tell me what I can and can't handle!" she yelled, "I'm not some little kid that needs to be protected, I am perfectly capable of deciding what my acceptable risks are and you don't get to decide that for me!" She shook her head angrily. "Don't tell me what to do, Hunter!"
When the flare of anger in her chest died down and she realized how loudly she'd just screamed at her friend, it was too late. He'd already shrunk back and away from her, cowed into himself like a frightened child.
"Oh," she said slowly, "Wait. Hunter, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to yell at you."
"I– I–" he stammered. "I'm sorry. You're right. You can take care of yourself. I know that."
Willow's gut twisted in pain and guilt. "I can, but– I still shouldn't have yelled, Hunter, I'm sorry." She picked up her staff and used it to push herself back to her feet. She offered him a hand up. "Come on. I'm okay. We can keep going."
He stared at her hand, then silently accepted it, standing. He wavered uncertainly, but didn't reach out for Flapjack.
"Hunter?" Willow prompted. She hated this. She just wanted to keep going and forget about this stupid hiccup. She wanted to feel tough and she didn't want to stop after getting hit once. She could take it and she wanted to prove it and she wanted him to stop looking at her like that.
"Hit me," he burst.
Willow stared at him. "What?"
"Hit me," he repeated. "I feel like shit. You want to keep going but I'm psyched out now. I just need to– I need to reset. I hit you, so now you need to hit me."
"Hunter…"
"It's fine!" he insisted, voice rising in pitch. Willow pulled her staff against her chest. "It's fine. You know I can take a hit! I get hit all the time! It just– it will make me feel better."
Willow's lips wobbled and her eyebrows crunched together. "I… I don't know, I don't think I can…"
"You know me!" he laughed nervously. "I freak out over dumb stuff all the time! It's way easier to hurt my feelings than my body. If you hit me I'll feel better and then I'll be okay and we can just be normal and keep going. It'll be fine."
"...Are… are you sure?" she asked dubiously. It put a pit in her already upset stomach.
"I'm super sure!" he said confidently. "I hit you really hard, so I just– I need you to hit me back! And really swing it. If you just tap me I'll still feel bad. We have to be even. If it's even, I'll be fine."
She chewed her lip.
"Seriously," he pressed, "If you don't hit me I'm just gonna stay upset about it and it'll turn into a whole thing. It'll be way easier if you just hit me back."
She fidgeted with the staff in her hands as he threw his arms up and stood back, baring his midsection for her to strike.
She shifted her stance and he nodded encouragingly. She pulled her arms back and he shut his eyes but gave her a thumbs up.
She swung.
If she thought that getting hit in the stomach felt bad, then she didn't have a word bad enough to describe how sickening smashing a staff into her friend felt. How horrible the whimpering grunt he let out made her feel. How awful his expression of pain felt as it was burned into her memory.
He dropped to one knee, clutching his side in his hands as he took deep, rapid breaths, curled into himself.
It was Willow's turn to drop her own staff and cover her mouth in horror.
Hunter's breath whistled through his teeth as he dragged in ragged breaths, a high-pitched, miserable sound warbling in the back of his throat. After a moment he looked up at her with pinpricks of tears in his eyes and a beaming, strained smile.
"See?" he told her. "I'm fine. Now it's fair."
His face fell as Willow started crying.
Before he could say anything else she bolted for the back door, sprinted up the stairs, and locked herself in the girl's room. She crawled under the blankets and pulled them right over her head, scrunching her eyes shut as she desperately tried to exorcize the image of him getting hit, by her, by her hands, out of her brain.
She failed.
When Gus finished book #12 of Cosmic Frontier, he sat up excitedly with the intention of gushing to Hunter about what a cool cliffhanger it had ended on.
Then he realized Hunter wasn't in the basement. Hadn't been, actually, all day. That was fairly unusual– he spent a lot of time down here, reading or sewing usually. Gus had been here for hours without him showing up– where was he?
He set the book down and stood up, stretching his legs with a yawn, before he hopped up the stairs and into the kitchen. Luz and Amity were watching something on TV and Vee was reading a book at the table. It was a comforting picture of domesticity that lulled him into temporarily forgetting the true dire reality of their situation.
He shook away such thoughts. "Have you guys seen Hunter?"
Luz pointed toward the back door without looking up. "He's been training all day."
"All day?" Gus repeated.
"Yeah, with his staff," Vee added. "Spinning it and stuff."
Gus frowned and then turned away toward the back door. He opened it and stepped outside to find that they'd been right; Hunter was running through a complex-looking series of movements on quivering legs. How long had he been at this?
"Hunter!" Gus called. His friend stopped, panting, and leaned heavily on his staff. "You wanna come back in?"
Hunter shook his head.
"Why not?"
"I have to keep training," Hunter answered, picking himself back up.
"Why?" Gus asked warily.
"I have to be at the top of my game when we get back to the Demon Realm," he replied. "I can't go soft."
Gus stepped away from the door to cross the yard, getting close enough that Hunter was forced to stop moving again if he didn't want to hit him. "Yeah. Okay. That's why you go run and do katas every morning. Why are you still training? It's like four in the afternoon. You've been at this since, what– six in the morning?"
Hunter looked away and shrugged.
Gus narrowed his eyes at him. "Something is wrong. What are you so upset about?"
"Upset!" Hunter bleated. "Who said I was upset? What makes you think I'm upset? I'm not upset!"
Gus crossed his arms.
"Okay, so I'm upset," Hunter groused, standing up straight. "So what?"
Gus glared at him in silence.
"Ughhhhh," Hunter groaned. "Fine. Fine!" He dropped his staff and Flapjack fluttered up to land on his shoulder as he crossed his arms. "I hurt Willow's feelings."
"So go apologize."
"I don't…" He bit his lip. "I don't think she really wants to see me right now."
Gus raised his eyebrows. "What did you do?"
"I…" Hunter gripped his arms tighter around his chest and looked away uncomfortably. "I made her hit me."
There was a beat of silence before Gus responded. "What?"
"I made her hit me," Hunter repeated.
"Explain."
"She asked me to teach her how to fight," Hunter went on with visible discomfort, "With a staff. And I didn't want to spar with her but she insisted and then I hit her– I hit her really hard, even though I didn't mean to, and she fell down and threw up and it's so stupid but for a second I was sure I'd killed her and I thought I was going to–"
"Whoa!" Gus burst, as Hunter began to hyperventilate. "Okay. Okay man. Calm down. It's gonna be okay."
Hunter's breathing shifted into short, abortive half breaths until Gus walked him through their by now typical routine. He didn't speak again until his shoulders relaxed.
"She just… she got really upset because she thinks I think she's weak because I don't want to hurt her," he said finally. "She wanted to keep sparring even though– but I was still freaking out but she wanted to move on and so I told her– I told her she had to hit me back, because if she hit me back I wouldn't feel so bad and then we could keep going like she wanted," he finished miserably. "And then she hit me, and then she started crying, and then she ran off and she hasn't come out of the girls room upstairs."
"Is that why I haven't seen her all day?" Gus worried. "Is she okay?" He stopped. "Are you okay?"
"I don't know," he admitted unhappily. "I'm fine."
"Are you actually fine, or are you Hunter-fine?"
"It's just a bruise!" Hunter groaned. "It barely even hurts!"
"Uh-huh," Gus replied slowly. He frowned and narrowed his eyes in thought. "Has it ever occurred to you that you seek out punishment instead of forgiveness?"
Hunter paused, and then looked back at him. "What does that mean?"
"Like when you do something wrong your first instinct isn't to try to make up for it, it's to get someone to punish you or just do it yourself." Gus pointed at where his hands were leaving bloodstains on his sleeves from his blistered palms. He let them fall guiltily to his sides. "You hurt her and then you hurt her more by making her hit you back. That didn't make up for the first thing at all. It didn't help anybody."
Hunter looked incredibly distressed by the revelation. "...I know. I just." He took a deep, shuddering breath. "I keep messing up, and then all you guys just brush it aside and say it's fine, Hunter, no big deal, Hunter, we forgive you, Hunter, and I don't–" He shook his head. "I don't feel any better. I still feel like I fucked up and I don't feel better until– until–"
"Until you get punished for it?"
"Yeah." He swallowed thickly. "I figured I'd just keep training until it hurt. If I can't teach her or anybody how to fight then I have to be good enough to do all the fighting for everyone."
"You know that's crazy, right?" Gus prompted. "Willow is the best plant witch I've ever seen. She can already fight for herself."
"I know."
"Nobody likes seeing you treat yourself like this, man," Gus said gently. "That hurts."
Hunter winced.
"Come back inside and say you're sorry. And let somebody bandage up your hands."
Hunter fidgeted before he finally sighed. "Yeah. Alright."