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Hunter hadn’t seen Edric all day. It wasn’t unusual to not see his boyfriend, heck, most days they only saw each other in the mornings and evenings since they both worked completely different jobs. But usually once Edric was done teaching for the day, he’d go to Hunter’s carving spot and hang out with him as he finished up for the day.
His last class ended at 3, it was currently 4:30. Where was he?
He decided to pack up early today. Edric hadn’t sent him any messages, and he wasn’t replying to anything Hunter was sending him so he decided to go look for him.
On his way over to the college (Hunter wasn’t sure where else to look for him, Waffle had flown home and reported back saying Edric wasn’t there), Hunter glanced around, noticing Amity standing around by the entrance.
She glanced up, noticing Hunter coming towards her. “Hey, what are you doing here? I thought Edric’s last class let out an hour ago.”
“Yeah, it did. But he’s not replying to my texts, and usually he comes and hangs out with me after his classes, and…” Hunter pauses, and takes a deep breath, “I’m worried about him.”
“Hey calm down, it’s okay,” Amity gives him a small smile, “ever since we were kids, Ed would run away whenever he got overwhelmed or stressed, usually only for a few hours, but he would even avoid Em. Although, sometimes he would be gone for a full weekend and our parents wouldn’t even notice.”
“Do you have any idea where he would be?”
Amity frowned for a moment, thinking, “probably somewhere along the cliffs, the Grom tree seems like a place where a lot of us Blights like to take some time to ourselves.”
She chuckled a bit to herself and Hunter smiled. “Thanks Amity, I uh- I owe you one!” He gave her an awkward thumbs up as he started to move quickly towards the cliffside.
“You really don’t!” she called out as she watched him leave.
~~~
Edric groaned in frustration and chucked a rock into the boiling sea. He watched as it flew and then plopped into the water. Sighing, he sat down onto the ground in front of the Grom tree.
“Damn what did that rock do to you?” Edric looked over at Hunter who had just approached him from behind. “You didn’t come visit me after your class.”
“Yeah, I uh, came here,” Edric looked at the ground as Hunter came and sat next to him.
Hunter nodded, “Well you also didn’t text me and I got worried.”
“Sorry.”
A tense moment of silence, neither knew how to proceed.
“Did I do something? Are you mad at me?” Hunter said quietly.
Edric’s head shot up to look at his boyfriend, “No, no! No it’s not you I just… I'm dealing with a lot right now.”
“Okay, okay yeah thank you,” he let out a light sigh of relief. “Do you maybe want to talk about it? I'm not very good at giving advice but I can listen.”
Edric looked back at the dirt, he picked up a stick from the ground and started digging it into the ground. “So… my parents were never really there growing up, Odalia was always busy with Amity, and my dad was always busy with his abomination stuff. It was just me and Emira against the world!” He gave a dry chuckle, folding his knees into his chest and wrapping his arms around them. “But after my parents divorce, my dad has been trying to reconnect… with everyone except me.”
“I mean he really bonded with Amity over the abomination stuff, and Emira has been helping him with trying to remove coven sigils and I’m…” Edric paused, “I mean I would be surprised if he even noticed I moved out with you. He doesn’t pay attention to any of my interests, and I just… I really, really, want a dad, or at least some sort of parental figure every once and a while since I practically raised myself!”
Hunter let out a hum of acknowledgement, letting Edric know he was listening. He reached out to hug Edric but stopped himself, “can I touch you? Do you want a hug?”
Edric nodded, Hunter reached out and put his arm around him, pulling him closer so Edric was practically laying on his chest. They laid there for a minute, Edric starting to relax at the feeling of Hunter’s chest rising and falling and the sound of his heartbeat.
“When I was in the Emperor's coven, I dealt with a lot of shit,” Hunter ran one of his hands through Edrics hair, gently playing with the strands, “You’ve heard most of it, but hearing you talk about your dad makes me think about it and…” he paused, talking about the Emperor’s coven was still hard, even with his boyfriend.
“You don’t have to talk about it, it’s okay if you don’t wanna talk about it right now,” Edric turned to look up at him.
“No, it’s okay, I’m okay.” Hunter took a deep breath, “He can’t hurt me anymore.”
“You’re right he’s gone, you’re okay.”
He smiled down at his boyfriend, before looking back up at the horizon. “In the Emperor's coven it wasn’t great, but it was all I had and I didn’t realize it was bad until after I left. And like, you know when you think you’re okay, and then you take a step back and then realize ‘oh wait that’s kinda super fucked up’. That slowly set in, but also took a bit because there was a stupid part of me that still believed I could go back and it would be okay.”
“It took me a bit, but I soon realized that yeah, Belos was the main issue, he… wasn’t the only issue. I realized that the coven heads knew what was going on, and didn’t do anything about it? Darius knew Belos was evil, and didn’t really do much to stop him or anything, didn’t even really try to help me. Like yeah, there’s a part of me that understands why he did what he did but-”
“- that doesn’t mean it hurts any less.”
A wave of silence fell over the two, they both listened to the sound of the crashing waves below the cliffside, and the light howl of the wind.
“Hey, we should probably start heading home-” Hunter stopped himself as he heard a sniffle below him.
Edric sat up, wiping his tears away with his hands, “Sorry, I don’t know what came over me,” he sniffled, “I don’t know why I’m crying…”
“That’s okay,” Hunter rested his hand on Edrics cheek, gently wiping his tears away with his thumb, “We should head home okay? We can cuddle and order takeout if that will make you feel better. No dad talk, no weird crazy uncle talk, we’re gonna watch weird human movies and it’ll be great. If you wanna talk more about this later, I’m totally open, but y’know, talk to me instead of avoiding me.”
“I wasn’t avoiding you,” Edric sniffled, closing his eyes and resting his forehead on Hunters. “I just needed a minute, I saw Emira showing my dad around the school as my class ended and I just kind of bolted.”
“That's fair yeah,” he gently rubbed Edrics cheek with his thumb, watching his boyfriend lean into the touch, “Just let me know next time so I don’t worry so much okay?”
“Yeah okay, okay,” Edric chuckled, letting his eyes open to gaze at the love of his life. “But yeah, we should go, takeout and movies sound nice right now, thank you.”
“No problem,” Hunter gently kissed his forehead, before getting up and offering Edric a hand up, “time to go home, our home.”