Chapter Text
There were things he was absolutely sure of. That he knew Belos his entire life, that he was-in the most simplistic sense, a memory of a man he’s never met. That no matter what he did he would be related to a witch hunter.
There were things he would never know. Like how long his life had actually been . What memories were real-and which were planted from infancy. If he had ever been an infant. He will never know most of the things he wishes he did.
There are things he wishes he did not know-things that he recognizes, and feels on an internal level that he wishes he could fight off. That he could convince his brain he does not know. In the mirror, and in his dreams they are there, and they are watching his every move with that same terrifying indifference, as if they are disappointed by his very existence as an extension.
Hunter wakes up almost sure they have come to kill him.
Their faces are the most clear thing he has ever seen, and he fights the knowledge that he knows them. He does not look at some of them. They either rid him with too much guilt, or the clear, violent way they were killed turns his stomach in a way that Hunter can not handle.
On an instinctual level he knows them, and it feels disrespectful to even let the feeling of knowledge linger. He does not want to know them without meeting them. He wants to be his own person, he doesn’t want the knowing they have for him, or the knowing he has for them. He doesn’t even know their names, and one look at their faces-their bare , pained faces is nothing but a reminder that he is not his own person.
He is a witch hunter in a boy's body.
The faces that hover in the room-free of a reflection-standing where he knows they shouldn’t be-are all different, small, ridiculous differences that hardly even count as differences add up until they are all different people. All possible reflections of genetics played out over and over. Despite the breathless horror in finding them here, invading his room, and the nausea at recognizing that some-if not most, appear to be younger than him, he almost laughs when he realizes one of them looks more like Belos than he has any right to.
The man sitting at the end of his bed is not angry. He is not angry, but Hunter will not look at him. Caleb is the worst out of all of them. He is the only one that Hunter knows much about, and it is painfully little. He is not his own man either, he is the shadow of an elder sibling long since betrayed and Hunter truly does look the most like him. Looking at him brings a breathlessness Hunter does not want. He is not angry, but he should be.
Hunter has no right to be the one that lived. Caleb -in a way, should have been the one to live, witch hunter or not. He should have lived, if any of them should.
Any of them could have braved the world better than Hunter.
“I’m sorry .” He can’t truly find any other words to apologize with, but he also knows that his pitiful whispers are not, and can not ever be enough. “I’m so sorry.” Hunter had-mistakenly been under the impression that the ghosts could not move. He had caught their eye in the mirror over ten times-at least…some of them-Caleb especially-and they had been unmoving.
He had been misguided.
He nearly shot out of bed when he touched him. A hand, almost present, squeezing the top-half of his foot. By the time Hunter’s eyes had reached the human’s face, Caleb is giving him a lopsided smile that does not belong on such a tired face.
A voice, echoing behind his ears, is all too loud.
“You did great, lad.” A betraying feeling of warmth seems to creep into Hunter, whether he wants it to or not. This is scary. This is a terrifying moment in which the previous versions of himself curse him for never getting their own chance. This is supposed to be horrific. “ You did so well. We’re all so proud.” For a moment Hunter is sure that this is a fever dream he’s made up to make himself feel better. Even as the other’s monotonous nods stir something deep in Hunter’s gut.
“ You were so brave. ” Hunter, despite knowing better, glances at the all-too-young boy sharing his sentiment. The open head wound makes it especially difficult, speaking as the boy can’t be much older than King-and can’t possibly be as big as The Collector.
“I-I didn’t do anything.” Caleb, despite being unable to grab anything, moves as if to shake Hunter’s foot from the outside of the covers.
“ He’s dead. ” He looks far too jovial for something so morbid. A part of Hunter, as he forces himself to look his…direct ancestor(?) in the face realizes that this is not what he had thought would come of tonight-or any night, for that matter.
He can understand people who had watched as Belos moved on wanting him dead. A part of Hunter had wanted the same, no matter how upset he had become upon finding out it had happened. Still.
Hunter did not contribute to Belos’s death. It had-in all honesty, mostly been King , who had brought down his final moments. Well- they had done the physical work, after what had…apparently been a very inspiring talk from King.
Hunter hadn’t done anything. Instead of doing anything remotely helpful, Hunter had found an isolated spot to beg Darius for consciousness. It hadn’t worked-of course, but he had still done it. He had sobbed over someone who could take or leave him, like he was nowhere near seventeen years old.
He couldn’t admit that to them though, regardless of if they knew or not.
“I-I didn’t do -I couldn’t do that.” The human’s face is all angles, and despite that fact it manages to soften.
“ You’re alive, aren’t you?”
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There are times when being without Flapjack hurts the most. This is one of them. His room is suddenly empty without the eyes of so many spirits on him. It had been terrifying in the moment, and sickening to look on to the people that came before him.
But now they are gone, and Hunter’s skin hurts. In a way this is wrong. He shouldn’t be sitting up at night, worried over ghosts that preceded him. He shouldn’t feel so alone now that the dead had left him.
Still, the last thing said to him bounces around in his head until it stops being anything but a fruitless sound. No more words than the noises one would make while crying. It is nothing but a sound by the time the sun starts to rise outside of Blight manor.
For a moment, he’s sure that there is no way he had been awake that long, that surely The Collector had moved the sun. The time on his clock claims it's a perfectly normal time for the sun to rise.
Hunter almost doesn’t believe it.
His first night over in his mentor’s new place of living was spent sleeplessly.
There is a horrible worry that if he does not run out of bed right now and tell Darius everything he has to say, he will never understand what all those deadmen meant. That the man who knew the last Golden Guard the best will know exactly what Hunter should be thinking of when he is ‘alive’.
Hunter can not afford Alador not liking him-and they already have a rough start.
He’s sure waking him up with the sunrise will not bode well for their relationship. If Hunter can not make sure that Alador likes him, or at the very least has a reason to keep him around, he can not guarantee that Darius will spite his new, tentative family for him.
He does not want to lose Darius over a ghost.
If only he still had FlapJack. At least he would listen.
Hunter has too many thoughts warring with, and against each other in his head, and he has no idea what to do with them. He is thinking of the abomination magic Lilith had taught him about out of pity of his worries, and all of the cooking Miss Camila had taught him while they were up early-and e verything else that has happened in the last few months.
He is alive. Caleb is not wrong about that. He’s not so sure why that’s so important. That the weakest link in a chain of genetically-identical people survived based on pure chance.
On luck.
Darius would happily tell anyone-even if he didn’t think Hunter knew-that he wished his Mentor had survived-whatever Darius thought killed him. Probably not Belos. He should probably tell him about that. Or maybe not.
That wasn’t what was important right now.
What was important was dissecting what Caleb had said.
And how it didn’t make sense.
He had been showing up increasingly-in reflections, and dreams -but now he was here, and maybe Hunter was losing his mind. Maybe it had been another dream he had made up so he could comfort himself with the idea of someone being proud of him for doing nothing.
He should talk to someone -maybe Hooty-he was good at listening and not remembering anythi-
He had thought that Amity -or even Darius would be the one knocking on his door what felt like hours later. Instead, much to Hunter’s surprise, it is Alador, less than fifteen minutes later. They stare at each other as he stands in the doorway, both seemingly as confused as the other.
“You’re awake.” Hunter ducks his head to nod, just to find that Alador is twisting his fingers. “Darius said you get up early.” Hunter didn’t think it was necessarily early -”I didn’t know how -early-I thought sunrise would be okay.” Hunter, belatedly wondered how early Alador usually got up-and how much longer it usually took for Darius or his children to join him. “Is that okay?” Oh.
“I-I’m fine with whenever .”
“Okay.” Alador nodded, looking down at his own hands. There were far too many silent beats between them before Alador sent a glance down the hallway. “It’s nice when the house is quiet.”
“Yeah. It’s nice.” It was never really quiet at the Owl House-Camila’s either-even if it was different types of loud-Hunter’s constantly upended sleep schedule had given him plenty of silent time. No one could be yelling if they were unconscious.
Most of the time.
“Do you like…food?” The man made a face, like what he had said pained him. “We…we have that. Food.” He grumbled something to himself, rubbing his face, somehow avoiding a purple stain across his cheek. “Would you want food?” Hunter went to reply, hardly getting into opening his mouth before Alador swore. “I’m trying to ask if you want me to make you something to eat . I’m making it weird. I just-I’m not good with people.”
Especially not Emperor’s Coven members.
“Sure.” Alador, seemingly confused by the interruption of his long explanation, paused for a moment. Staring either past Hunter, or right through him. Hunter prepared to mentally kick himself for-already, making himself unlikable. Still, before Hunter got the chance to open his mouth, Alador was nodding.
“Right. Kitchen.”