Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The whole thing was a blur, really.

Some horrible fever dream that he wanted nothing to do with.

Yet, here he was.

He only remembered it in parts. Shards of a fractured picture frame of their perfect little family that had fallen off the dresser when the big scary people in uniforms smashed the lock on the door with a hammer and opened it up.

For the first time in days, light had spilled into the little closet and for the first time in days, he'd felt a sliver of hope. He'd thought that uncle had finally decided his punishment was over and he could come out again but then unfamiliar faces plastered with horrified looks crowded around the gap in the door and he knew what had happened.

Someone with big strong hands pulled him out of the closet, unfurling his stiff, sore limbs from where he'd kept them tucked in close for days on end by now.

Now that he thought about it, he wasn't quite sure how long he'd been in there for.

He could see one of the people with the worried faces examining the inside of the closet, looking at the swirls of blood on the wall. Uncle didn't like it when he used his blood to try and draw but he'd gotten really bored and the blood hadn't stopped coming. The person with the worried face didn't look angry though, just... well, worried.

He felt a twinge in his leg so swivelled around to see a man in a different coloured uniform examining his mangled leg. Uncle had done that before he'd put him in the closet for bad behaviour again, went in with a hammer, held him down on the floor while he screamed. He didn't even remember what he'd done wrong anymore. All he remembered was the pain and the sound of his leg snapping.

He looked down at his leg, now bent in an unnatural position, bone visibly jutting out through the skin.

There was a slightly frantic voice but it sounded muffled, like it was underwater.

"Gonna have to — sorry kid — gonna hurt — hold him."

There was a woman with long, fluffy, grey hair kneeling down beside him, moving him to sit in her lap, wrapping her arms around him. Before he has the chance to figure out what was happening, his leg was being moved and twisted and he was screaming out in pain, clinging desperately to the woman's shirt and trying to use his good leg to kick the man in the different uniform.

He was being carried by the woman while he sobbed in her arms. Uncle didn't like it when he cried but the woman didn't seem to mind, even if he was getting her shirt wet. In fact, she was rubbing her hand against his back which actually felt quite calming, and she was shushing him, but not in the angry way that uncle did, more like how mothers shushed their crying babies. This woman would be a nice mom, he thought distantly.

As the woman carried him outside, the cold night air blasted his skin, making him shiver. Seeing his discomfort, the woman shrugged off her jacket, carefully manoeuvring to get it off without dropping him, and wrapped it around him like a nice cosy blanket.

Someone was pulling him away from the nice woman. He didn't like that so he kicked at them before yelping in pain when he tried to move his bad leg. The person trying to take him took advantage of his weakness to tug him off of the nice woman and they placed him down somewhere cold.

More people were touching his leg, moving it back into place again but this time, he didn't have the nice woman to hug him and shush him.

Something pricked his arm and he drifted off to flashing lights and the sounds of sirens.

Consciousness came back to him in bits in pieces. Bright lights blinding him from above. A gentle hand brushing through his hair. Another prick in his arm. People in white coats and blue shirts swarming around him. Loud voices fussing over him. Everything being drowned out as he stared at the familiar bible on the side table.

This place was a bit like the closet. Time passed, that he could tell, but he still wasn't sure how long he actually stayed there for.

There were cops here, asking him questions.

Cops were evil sinners, uncle always said.

He didn't like their questions.

He recited the same rehearsed answers he'd practised a thousand times with a whip cracked across his back. He spoke clearly and didn't stumble once. He didn't even need to be all there to say them.

"My uncle is a good man. He goes to work every day and we always eat dinner in the evenings. We go to church every Sunday and he would never hurt me because he loves me."

The officers looked doubtful.

A calm, quiet voice came to talk to him about his uncle.

"How are you feeling?" They asked, "Have you ever had thoughts of harming yourself or others?"

When they mentioned he wouldn't be seeing uncle for a little while, he tuned back out.

The doctors stopped giving him the special medicine that made him sleep at night without having to try.

He stared at the crucifix on the wall until morning.

He was helped out of bed for the first time in weeks, handed unfamiliar clothes and left the change.

Buttoning up the shirt took a while. His fingers were still bandaged and sore after he'd ripped his nails off in the closet. Eventually though, with a bit of concentration, he managed.

As soon as the clothes were on, he wanted to rip them back off again. The material rubbed against his skin and itched even when he scratched. At least the shoes didn't squeeze his feet for once.

The person with the calm voice and the blue hair came back and with a friendly smile, they held his hand and led him outside to a car. It was a much nicer car than uncle's. It didn't smell like alcohol either which was nice.

He gazed out the window and watched as they passed unfamiliar street after unfamiliar street while the person explained to him — for what didn't sound like the first time — that their name was Raine and they were what was called a social worker, someone that helped children like him. And they were a 'they'.

Uncle always said people like that belonged in hell but he decided to keep that thought to himself. All that repeating uncle had gotten him so far were concerned looks.

Finally, the car stopped and Raine helped him out.

Hunter gazed up at the nice little house. It looked warm. It looked cosy.

He didn't want it. He wanted to go home.

Chapter Text

When she finally made the decision to become a Foster parent, Camila had been excited. This was a whole, brand new chapter of her life opening up before her filled with so many different experiences and opportunities. She couldn't wait.

And so far, there'd been ups and downs, bad days and good days, horrible days that had her in tears by the end and brilliant days that had her in tears for a whole other reason. But more than anything, it was rewarding, knowing she was helping these kids and giving them somewhere to feel safe, even if she only knew them for a little while.

So, when she got her next call she was pretty excited! Nervous, very nervous, but just so excited about who she'd be getting to meet next. And then by the end of the call, she realised that this may not be as exciting as first anticipated.

Well, it was still exciting, she couldn't wait to meet this kid, but it was also daunting. From what she'd been told, this kid was coming in Traumatised with a capital T, and now it was up to her to help him recover from all of that.

Sure, she was up for the challenge but that was still a terrifying thought.

The kid that would now be in her care for the foreseeable future was a ten-year-old boy. She hadn't been given much more background than that. Apparently, the social worker didn't know much more than that either since the kid had absolutely no legal documents. No birth certificate, no medical records, no school records, just a deranged, religious nutjob of an uncle who'd originally only been taken into custody on suspicion of possessing illegal substances only for the police to show up at his house and find a half-dead kid in the closet.

She'd been talking over the phone with the social worker, Raine Whispers, quite a bit over the past few weeks. Apparently, the kid had been in hospital since the police had discovered him. He'd been severely injured, his leg broken and half-healed wrong and his fingernails completely torn off, not to mention he'd been so severely malnourished they'd had to tube feed him pretty much the whole time because he'd just throw up any and all of the food he ate, his stomach unable to handle actually being fed for once. They suspected he'd been in that closet for weeks but that was still to be confirmed since they hadn't managed to get the kid to talk yet.

Police, the social worker and even just the staff at the hospital had been trying to get him to talk since he'd gotten there but so far, the most they'd gotten were some very unnatural responses defending his uncle that sounded as if they'd been recited from a pre-written script rather than the genuine opinion of a ten-year-old boy. Other than that, he'd just been zoned out, utterly silent to any attempts at conversation.

He hadn't even told anyone his name. So far they'd been referring to him as 'Caleb' as that was apparently the name his uncle had used when demanding to know what the officers had done with him.

Camila had asked Raine if they would be working towards reunification for this case but they'd said that was... unlikely. Very unlikely. Without even mentioning the sort of things that had been found in the man's home, the police were now heavily leaning towards the belief that he had been abusing his nephew. He'd locked the poor kid in a closet for God's sake, it was no surprise they were coming to that conclusion.

But she still felt bad for the kid. After all the digging the police had been doing, it seemed like this uncle was his only remaining relative. Being taken away from the last piece of family you have and possibly for good must be all sorts of traumatising, and especially on top of what he'd already been through.

And she was probably going to have to break that to him at some point in the near future. The idea made her hands shake.

But for now, she tried to put those what-ifs to the side to focus on the task at hand because she'd just heard the familiar chimes of the doorbell and she was about to meet this boy for the very first time.

Taking a deep breath to compose herself and plastering a friendly smile on her face, she headed to the front door, cracking it open to reveal Raine and a little blonde boy who was currently trying to hide behind the social worker while still clinging to their hand.

"Hi there, it's nice to meet you." She greeted, kneeling down to be on the kid's level instead of towering over him. She kept her voice quiet and calm so as not to make this any more stressful for the boy than it probably already was. "My name is Camila, and you're Caleb, right?"

A small frown pulled at his features and he shook his head. "That's not my name..." His voice sounded hoarse and scratchy and he spoke at a nervous whisper.

Well. Great first impression she was giving here. She stole a quick glance at Raine who looked just as confused as she felt.

"Oh, I'm sorry, darling. What is your name?" She tried to amend.

He was staring at her quite intensely, she realised, and every now and again his gaze would briefly flicker away before he pulled it back to her. Maybe his eye contact wasn't quite as unintentional as she'd assumed.

"Hunter..." He replied, dragging his foot through the little stones that made up the driveway.

"Hunter?" She repeated, adjusting to the new way she would now be referring to him, "That's a lovely name."

He stared blankly at her, leaning ever so slightly back.

"Now, Hunter, would you like to come inside and have a look around? She offered, gesturing to the open door behind her.

All of a sudden, he looked like a dear in the headlights. He finally broke his intense stare from Camila but only for his gaze to flicker over to Raine and then back again, as if silently looking for an instruction on what to do.

"Do you want to come inside? Or we could stay out here to chat for a little bit longer?" She asked again rephrasing the question.

"I—I want to go home..." He muttered, taking a quick look behind him.

He looked ready to bolt.

"Yeah, I can imagine. This is all so new, it must be scary." She sympathised, trying not to let her panic show because she really did not want to have to handle a runaway right now, she'd barely even known him five minutes. "But you're going to be staying with me for a little while, just while everything with your uncle is sorted out, okay?"

He looked a little less likely to bolt but a little more likely to cry now.

"Are they going to put my uncle in jail?"

Camila had had to deal with difficult questions like these in the past but not usually so soon and in such quick succession. Unsure of what to say, she looked over to Raine for help.

They gave his hand a little squeeze, pulling his attention to them. "We don't know yet, that's not for us to decide. However, I promise you that we'll be focusing on making sure that whatever happens will be what's best for you, Alright?"

Hunter nodded hesitantly.

"Okay. Now, why don't we go inside and Camila can show you around?" They suggested.

This time, he obliged and hesitantly followed her into the house.

As soon as he heard the door click shut behind him, he jumped and swivelled around, watching Camila sceptically as she removed her hand from the handle, paying close attention to where her hand went. Camila tried to pretend she hadn't noticed and squeezed past him to get through to the kitchen.

"This is the kitchen, we usually have lunch at about one and dinner about six. Breakfast is just whenever we're up. Anything in this cupboard—" She opened up the snack cupboard to show him "—is fair game, you can take anything from here whenever you want. Same goes for water, juice, milk, and if there's anything you want me to buy, any particular brands, then feel free to ask."

From the look on his face, she could tell he was not particularly interested in asking for anything but she still let him know anyway.

"Through here is the living room, and as you'll see, sitting on the couch, is my daughter." She gestured to Luz who immediately jumped up when mentioned, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

"Can I speak to him now, mami?" She asked, eyes practically sparkling with excitement.

Camila had given her strict instructions to stay in the living room while she introduced herself to the kid and welcomed him in, explaining that he'd had a very stressful few weeks and did not need some stranger crowding him and bombarding him with questions. Although disappointed, she'd agreed to stay out of the way, just while the kid got used acclimatised.

"Yes, mija." She sighed with a fond chuckle.

Luz skipped across the room to Hunter and outstretched her hand to him. "Hi! I'm Luz! It's nice to meet you! Have you heard of The Good Witch Azura?"

Hunter just stared at her hand. "Hunter..." He replied cautiously.

Luz frowned. "Oh. Mami said your name was Caleb?"

"There was a bit of confusion I think. His name is actually Hunter." Camila explained.

"Oh, okay. Nice to meet you, Hunter. That's a cool name, way better than Caleb anyway. So, have you heard of The Good Witch Azura?"

"No. Witches are sinful. They work for The Devil."

Camila cringed a little. Right, religious nutjob uncle.

"Ooookay then," Luz said, slowly withdrawing her hand with a blank smile.

"Why don't we go and look upstairs, hm? I can show you your room!" Camila jumped in quick, trying to change the topic.

He didn't seem too bothered by Luz's reaction, or anyone else's for that matter, and mostly ignored them as he followed Camila back into the hallway and up the stairs.

"So, this is Luz's room, she likes it if you knock first before going in. This is the bathroom, you can use it whenever you need. This one is my room, if you ever need something in the night then you're welcome to come get me. And then, this one here is your room."

She tugged the handle and pushed open the door to reveal the room she'd set up for him. The sheets and cushions on the twin bed were yellow and the rug she'd put out on the floor was red but other than that, the rest of the room was mostly basic with just simple decoration. She'd been planning on taking him to the store so he could pick out his own stuff but she'd probably have to wait till he was a bit more comfortable for that.

However, despite the simplicity of the room, Hunter looked as if she'd just shown him the room of a five-star, luxury hotel. He looked up at her and she tried not to lose her smile as he searched her expression for something, probably looking for a sign that this was some sort of trick.

"For me...?" He asked uncertainly, seemingly just nervous enough asking the question.

"Yeah, this is your room while you're here." She confirmed, "When you're ready, I can take you to the store and you can pick out some stuff to decorate it with."

He looked back at the room, then back at her, then back at the room again.

And then he lowered himself to his knees and bowed his head to her. "Thank you, ma'am, for providing me with shelter."

It took Camila an embarrassingly long time to rewire her brain but after a very prolonged moment, she kneeled down too and let her hands rest in her lap.

"You don't have to kneel, chiquito." She stated simply.

He was no longer staring at her like he'd been doing earlier. Instead, he kept his eyes trained on the carpet beneath him, kneeling incredibly still. In all honesty, it was a little scary how still he was.

She placed a gentle hand in his hair and combed it through, tucking a few loose strands behind his ear. "I'm glad you like the room. I left some books on the bookshelf, there's quite a variety since I wasn't sure what you like. Would you like to come look?"

Still, he kept his head down and his eyes on the floor.

"Do you want to get up?" She tried to coax.

Very hesitantly, he allowed his gaze to flicker up to her, testing the waters.

"You can get up if you want. You don't need to keep kneeling." She tried.

Slowly, he shifted his leg from under him and slowly, he got back to his feet, watching Camila like a hawk the entire time, waiting for her to change her mind. Instead, she helped him stand, seeing that this leg still seemed to be causing him some pain.

"Let's go see those books, hm?" She encouraged, leading him over to the little bookshelf in the corner.

After helping him sit, she gave him a gentle pat on the head "If you want to have a look through these books, me and Raine are going to have a little chat and then I can come back and you can show me what you've found. Oh! And if there are any other books you like or genres in particular, then you can make a note of them and I'll try find them. I've left a journal for you in here that you can use." She pointed at the little welcome basket she'd left on the drawers.

She waited for an 'okay' or even a nod but instead, all she got was that same blank stare so she awkwardly took her leave to go speak to Raine.

After a long discussion about the specifics — plans for school after summer, dietary restrictions, possible court attendance — and a bit of paperwork, she waved goodbye to Raine and headed back upstairs to see how Hunter had done with the books.

As soon as she opened the door to his room, she heard the loud slam of a book closing and the thump as it hit the floor. Upon inspection, she found a book on birds lying suspiciously in the middle of the floor.

She bent down and picked it up, flicking through it a bit. "Oh, do you like birds?"

Again, she was met with a blank stare. Although, she noticed his hands shaking quite a bit this time.

"It's not a trick question, cariño. If you like birds, that's cool!"

He shrugged. She wasn't sure if he was still worried about giving her the 'wrong answer' or if he genuinely wasn't sure whether he liked them or not.

She slid the book back into the shelf and came to sit beside him on the floor. "Find anything you like?"

He considered his answer for a good while. In the end, he settled for: "They're nice books."

"Were there any books you thought of that you'd like that you didn't see here?"

He nodded and grabbed the journal from where it sat beside him, handing it over to her. Excited to see that he'd actually been open to the idea, she peeled back the cover to look at the first place, wondering what book it was he'd thought of.

He'd written two words on the page.

'The Bible'

Chapter Text

The new kid was weird.

And that was saying something because Luz was weird! Super duper weird! Like the biggest weirdo to ever weird the earth!

But this guy was just... a different type of weird.

Like, the type of weird that had been sitting in the corner of the living room for three hours just staring at the carpet while she watched TV.

She had offered him a spot on the couch, asked if there were any shows he wanted to watch but he just gave her a funny look and said he wasn't supposed to watch TV because it was bad for him or whatever and then went back to sulking.

Mami had fostered some kids in the past and ultimately, Luz had gotten on pretty well with all of them! Even if it took a bit of time, she managed to worm her way into their hearts eventually (what could she say, it was a talent). But none of those kids had been like this one.

Mami said he was probably a lot more traumatised than any of the other kids she'd fostered so she had warned her that he might act differently than what she was used to. Luz had thought she'd meant crying or being sad all the time, not staring at the carpet for three hours and calling anything that looked at him wrong 'sinful'.

Like he'd called The Good Witch Azura sinful! Now she wasn't sure if he'd meant the gay part or just the general witchcraft, but still! He sounded like those guys at the church she and Mami had gone to when they'd first moved to Gravesfield, the ones that tried to convince her mami that she was possessed and needed an exorcism just because she liked to do cartwheels and talk to bugs or whatever. Mami stopped going to the church after that.

But anyway, this guy? Major weirdo. She'd tried to talk to him, tried to offer him a seat on the couch for a better view of the TV but he'd denied her every time.

Well. At least she could say she'd tried if mami asked.

And as if on cue, the woman herself appeared in the doorway, poking her head in and frowning when she saw Hunter sitting in the corner.

"Do you not want to sit on the couch, cariño? Watch some TV with Luz?"

"I'm not allowed." He muttered.

"Not allowed to watch TV?" Mami gawked dramatically, obviously trying to be silly to lighten the mood.

It became a little awkward, however, when Hunter just sort of stared at her and responded with a stiff, "No, ma'am."

"Well, in this house you can watch the TV whenever you want." She reassured him, a little more seriously this time.

He briefly looked at Luz on the couch before returning his gaze back to the carpet. Yep, she didn't think he'd be joining her on the couch any time today.

"Anyway, that's dinner ready now. Come through and eat." Mami instructed, waving the two of them over.

Finally, for the first time in hours, Luz saw Hunter get up from his little spot on the floor in the corner and he awkwardly followed after her to the kitchen. Luz immediately rushed to take her usual seat at the table but Hunter hung back by the doorway.

Seeing his hesitancy, Mami offered up one of her best warm smiles that always worked magically on all the kids she looked after, helping to get rid of all their nervousness. She swore her mami was some sort of magical witch with calming powers. That would be pretty cool if she was a witch... "I set your plate and cutlery down in this seat but you're free to sit wherever you want, it's up to you."

Hunter very nervously shifted towards the table and while looking over his shoulder every few seconds as if expecting some scary monster to leap out at him, he sat down where Mami had left his plate for him.

"Now, Hunter, would you like something to drink?" Mami offered, grabbing an empty cup from the cupboard.

Hunter looked as if she'd just asked him to find the solution to world hunger. With wide eyes like a frightened deer, he silently stared at the her.

Mami crouched down beside his chair, Luz noticed she usually bent down to be smaller than the child she was talking to if she noticed they were nervous. She'd said it was to make herself seem less intimidating and so the child would feel more in control of the situation.

"Are you thirsty?" She asked, simplifying her previous question.

Hunter just stared at her. Luz was now noticing he did that quite a lot, actually.

"I can pour you some water? You don't have to drink it, I can just put it beside your plate if you want it?"

"Is it going to make me sleep...?"

Hunter's voice was really quiet. Luz could barely even hear what he'd asked! She made a mental note to teach him how to be just as noisy as her.

Mami frowned at his question, trying to puzzle it out. "Make you sleep? Why would water make you sleep?"

While holding perfect eye contact with Mami he said, "When uncle gives me it, it makes me sleepy. He says it's because he wants me out of the way. It makes me feel sick though."

Luz wasn't really sure what that was supposed to mean but judging by her mother's face, now displaying a look of absolute horror, she guessed it probably wasn't good.

After taking a moment to compose herself, Mami reassured him. "The water here won't make you sleepy, nene. I won't put anything in it, I promise. It's just plain old water."

For the briefest moment, he looked down at the table before suddenly seeming to remember to keep staring at Mami. It put Luz in mind of the time her teacher had forced her to look her in the eye every time she spoke to her, saying she was disrespectful and rude for not doing so. Because of that, for a short while Luz had unintentionally developed a habit of staring at people really intensely because she thought that was just what you did if you wanted to be polite. She wondered if Hunter had ever been called disrespectful and rude before.

Even though he didn't reply, Mami still filled his glass with water and left it beside his plate for him to take if he wanted to.

After dishing out the food, — just simple macaroni since apparently Hunter's social worker said he was still getting used to eating proper food. Luz didn't mind, she liked macaroni and food was food — Mami sat down with them at the table and they started eating. Or well, she and Luz began eating while Hunter sat and stared at his food as if he expected it to grow legs. He really did do an awful lot of staring, huh?

Mami gestured to his food. "Are you not hungry? Do you not like macaroni?"

He looked between them as if they'd just done the most bizarre, most crazy thing he'd ever seen. "We didn't say grace yet."

"Oh! Sorry, do you usually say grace before meals?" Mami asked, quickly swallowing her food and covering her mouth with her hand when she spoke as if that would help anything.

Hunter nodded like she'd just asked him if the grass was green.

"Okay. Well, we don't usually do that but if that's something important to you then we can totally start!"

"Uncle says people that don't say grace all go to burn in hell." He stated.

Luz looked to her mami and yep, she looked just as startled by that as she did.

So, while Hunter mumbled some prayer, Luz and her mother sat awkwardly, shooting each other nervous glances until Hunter finished and looked up at the two expectantly. They took that as their cue to start eating again but for the second time that night, Hunter didn't follow suit.

Slowing down again, Mami checked on him. "Is there something else you want to do before eating?"

He shook his head but offered no more than that.

"Why aren't you eating then? Do you not like it?"

"You didn't give me permission to eat."

Permission to eat?! He thought he needed permission to eat?!

"Oh, cariño... you can eat whenever you want. You don't need to wait for permission here. If you want food, you can just eat it." Mami reassured him.

"Are... you sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure." She stated, "Hey, why don't you follow Luz's lead, she'll keep you right."

Luz wasn't sure how much of a good idea it would be for him to use her as a role model. Don't get her wrong, she was fabulous and amazing, of course, but she had a feeling her mother might have a bit of trouble trying to deal with double the amount of antics. But, she did suppose that another her was much better than a nervous wreck that waited for permission to do everything, didn't know how to answer questions and was also apparently scared of drinking water. Yeah, on second thought, her mother probably would appreciate double the antics.

Hunter looked across the table to Luz and in what she would have seen as a very offensive mockery of her behaviour if she didn't know any better, he began messily shovelling his macaroni into his mouth just like she'd been doing.

Mami cringed a little but wisely seemed to accept that as the best she'd be getting and dug into her own plate too.

After properly chewing his rather large mouthful of macaroni and swallowing it, Hunter's eyes suddenly widened and he looked down at his plate as if he'd just found the next best thing since sliced bread before happily shoving an even bigger forkful of it into his mouth and scoffing that down too, not even needing to look to Luz for guidance.

Luz was barely able to hold back her laughter as she watched him demolish half his plate in about three seconds flat.

"Maybe slow down a bit, we don't want you choking on your first night here." Mami chuckled awkwardly.

Seeing his mood dampen slightly, Luz gave his leg a small kick under the table to draw his attention to her and promptly began to scoff her food too, getting cheese sauce all over her face.

Hunter seemed thoroughly entertained by this and even cracked a small smile as he continued on his own dinner, just as motivated to clean his plate as before.

Luz giggled when he ended up with a bit of sauce on his nose and tried to lick it off, stretching his tongue up as far as he could before giving up and deeming his food more important. Upon hearing her laughter, he laughed a little himself, or at least she assumed it was supposed to be a laugh but what really came out was a strange grunting, almost choking sound. She briefly wondered if he'd ever laughed before. That thought made her eyes sting a little.

"I take it the macaroni is a hit then?" Mami laughed, a lot less awkwardly this time now that she'd seen Hunter actually cheer up a bit instead of sulking.

Hunter nodded eagerly, shaking the hand he wasn't using to hold his fork frantically beside him before seeming to realise what he was doing and shoving his hand under the table.

Oh, Luz was going to be making sure that changed, thank you very much.

She kicked him under the table again so he'd look at her and after plopping her fork back on her plate, she leaned back and flapped her hands excitedly, squeezing her eyes shut and scrunching up her face for emphasis.

Cracking an eye open to look at him, she saw the edges of his mouth quirk up slightly in what could probably be considered a smile if you looked close enough. She'd certainly take it as one.

He gave her a few light kicks under the table and upon finding no real specific reason as to why, she kicked back which seemed to satisfy him as he continued to gently kick her, that small sign of a smile remaining on his face.

Maybe he wasn't quite like all the other foster kids she'd met before and maybe he was a bit of a weirdo but hey, so was she.

She could see him growing on her.

Chapter Text

This house was just weird, honestly.

Sure, it had looked nice on the outside but Hunter hadn't exactly expected it to look just as nice on the inside too.

Uncle's house had looked really nice on the outside, or at least that was what everyone else usually said; he hadn't exactly gotten very many chances to see the outside but he liked to imagine it was as nice as everyone said it was. But the inside? People had some... varying opinions about that.

But Camila's house looked nice on the outside and the inside too which was quite impressive.

Her house was a lot bigger than Uncle's too and it looked very different, felt very different too. It was warmer.

Back at Uncle's house, he'd learned a trick to keep himself warm — or at least, as warm as he could get with what he had — when it got cold, and it got cold pretty often. He'd get under somewhere sheltered, like a bed or a table, and then he'd curl up really small and hug his legs in close and he'd be able to keep just a little bit warmer when he needed to. But so far, he hadn't had to use that trick in this house. If anything, he was a little bit too warm! He was really starting to see the appeal of t-shirts now.

Camila's house didn't have bottles on the floor either, or trash. He was used to hopping around like a ninja! Like when he had to sneak into the kitchen to get food because Uncle forgot about dinner again, and he'd have to be really careful not to knock over the bottles because then they'd shatter and it would make a really loud noise and Uncle didn't like the loud noise and it would get glass all over the floor and stepping on glass was not fun. In Camila's house, however, he could just walk, plain and simple, and Luz certainly didn't seem bothered about watching out for creaks in the floor, thundering around the house like an animal the way she did, and Camila had told him to follow Luz's lead so he supposed he could just forget about the floors for now at least.

So far, he wasn't quite sure what to think about this new place and the new people he'd met who lived here. Luz was nice, he supposed. After dinner, she'd practically dragged him to the couch to watch TV with her, even letting him choose the show they watched which was actually quite kind of her. He didn't usually watch TV so he'd just picked a show that had pictures of wolves on the logo. Sometimes Uncle would call him over and insist he watch the TV with him, usually something about God, and then he'd quiz him on it after. Other than that, he wasn't allowed to watch the TV and certainly not on his own like he and Luz were doing right now but Camila was very different from Uncle, as he'd very quickly come to realise. Camila was a very calm and a very tolerant woman. A very very tolerant woman. Even when Luz talked a lot and ate loud and messy without stopping to say grace and watched the TV on her own and read about witchcraft, she didn't tell her off and she hadn't even hit her once. Hunter wondered if she'd still be as tolerant if it were him doing those things or if it was just because Luz was her real daughter.

Despite the strangeness, dinner had been quite nice! And they gave him so much food! He wasn't sure if Camila had made a mistake when weighing out the portions and had accidentally put more on his plate than she'd been meaning to but he certainly hadn't pointed it out and had instead thoroughly enjoyed his big dinner. And by the end of it, he was actually full! That was a funny feeling, he thought. But nice!

Hunter had been pretty nervous to eat at first, unsure what rules there were and if he was even allowed to eat or if it was just like those times when Uncle's friends would come over for dinner and Uncle would sit out a plate for him but he wasn't actually allowed to eat it, only pretend. One time he'd tried to sneak a bit, thinking nobody would notice but of course, Uncle had, he always did, and once everyone had left, he got a good beating for that one. But tonight, Camila had told him to follow Luz's lead, so he had! He ate quick and messy just like her, not really sure how that could be considered polite but trusting her judgement, but then she'd stopped him and asked him to slow down lest he choke. As soon as she'd stopped him, a wave of panic rushed through him and he wondered if this would finally be where she drew the line and gave him a proper punishment. But to his surprise, Luz jumped in and began to eat even messier and even faster to take the attention away from him. He still wasn't sure if Camila had really intended on punishing him there but nonetheless, he respected Luz for doing that for him.

The two of them had spent most of the meal kicking each other under the table. Not harsh kicks like Uncle did to warn him when he'd spoken out of turn but instead, light kicks that were much more playful. Kicking back and forth like that, it almost felt as if they were having their own secret conversation.

And now, the pair of them were huddled together on the couch watching some show about wolves on the TV. When he'd sat down, Hunter had decided to sit at the opposite end of the couch from where Luz had been sitting earlier, not wanting to invade her personal space, but then that plan had quickly been scrapped when she sat down right beside him and invaded his personal space instead. Not that he really minded though, he wasn't in one of those moods where he didn't want to be touched so it was actually quite pleasant having the warmth and weight of another person leaning up against him.

But actually, now that he was settling down and thinking about it, his stomach sort of hurt... Well, less that it hurt and more that it just felt funny. He shifted a little where he was sitting on the couch to wrap his arms around his middle, squeezing just a little to keep the feeling at bay.

Luz looked at him funny. "You feeling okay?"

He brushed her off with a nod, getting comfortable again and cautiously leaning his head against her shoulder. She smiled happily and leaned her cheek against the top of his head.

He was now just starting to realise just how warm it really was in this house. It was getting less cosy and more stuffy and his shirt was really starting to get on his nerves because of how it scratched against his skin. And actually, the way his hair sat on the back of his neck was really uncomfortable and itchy and the big light on the ceiling of this room was really bright and it was making his eyes hurt and there was an awful lot of saliva in his mouth and every time he swallowed it felt like trying to swallow really thick syrup and he was feeling a little nauseous now and he could feel something coming up his throat—

As quickly as he could, he leapt from the couch and ran in the direction of where he thought he remembered Camila pointing out the bathroom. He made it about halfway up the stairs before he vomited all over himself and all over Camila's nice carpet.

And just as he was trying to sort through his racing thoughts to figure out what he could do, how he could fix this, he heard Camila's voice coming from the kitchen.

"Hunter? Are you alright?"

He looked up and froze as he saw her leaving the kitchen to come and investigate. When her gaze landed on the mess he'd just made of her nice carpeted stairs, the only thought he had was, she's going to hit me so hard, before he burst into tears.

She rushed up the stairs towards him, not seeming to care one bit about the vomit soaking her slippers, and when she grabbed his arm he let out a small squeal, flinching away from her touch. But to his surprise, she didn't hit him. She didn't even push him down the stairs. Instead, she led him up the stairs to the bathroom and helped him kneel down in front of the toilet just as he threw up for the second time.

Camila kneeled down beside him on the bathroom floor and began bunching his hair together in her fist. His first instinct was to brace himself, ready for her to tug it harshly or use it as leverage to shove his face in the toilet but like she seemed to have a constant record of doing, she surprised him and simply held his hair back. It took him a while to realise that she was helping keep his hair out of the vomit.

And actually, through the sounds of his retching and miserable sobs, he could just about make out the sounds of gentle shushing and comforting words. Unintentionally, he found himself relaxing slightly and allowing himself to lean against her.

Once he was finally finished throwing up all of his dinner, Camila turned to Luz who had somehow made it up the stairs, past the puddle of vomit which was now probably thoghrouly soaked into the carpet, and to the bathroom doorway where she had been anxiously waiting for Hunter to stop being sick for the past however many minutes.

"Mija, can you go through to Hunter's room and grab the toothbrush I left for him? It's in the little welcome basket on the drawers."

Glad to have something to do to make herself useful rather than standing there anxiously wringing her hands, Luz ran off down the hall to retrieve the toothbrush just as asked. Hunter wondered if she was just genuinely concerned for him and wanted to help in any way she could or if she was scared of what her mother would do if she didn't oblige.

By this point, Hunter had pretty much gone limp against Camila, exhausted from throwing up so much, not to mention all that had already happened today. However, rather than scold him for slouching against her, Camila held him close and brushed his hair back frown his forehead. He didn't think he'd ever been touched so gently.

Camila sighed softly. "I think that might have been the result of a bit too much macaroni. I knew I shouldn't have given you so much."

Hunter understood that threat and the punishment that would follow. And yet, thanks to all the exhaustion that seemed to have fried his brain, he couldn't help but make one request. "Please don't take my food away..."

From where he was sat, he couldn't see Camila's face, but from the way her voice pitched up, he could imagine her eyes widening. "Oh— no, darling. That's not what I meant. I'm not going to take your food away. That's never something that anyone will do to you here. I just meant that—"

She cut herself off with a sigh, taking a moment to think about how to explain it to him.

"Because you've not been fed as much as you should have in the past, and then you spent so long starving, your tummy isn't used to having so much food. So now, even if it should be good for you, when you eat that much in one go so suddenly, your tummy gets surprised and it doesn't know how to handle so much food so it gets rid of it by making you sick."

"What's gonna happen...?" He asked nervously.

"Well, to help your tummy get used to all that food, I'll start you off with smaller portions and then gradually, over time, we can increase those portions until you're able to eat a normal amount without throwing it back up again."

Oh. That didn't sound too bad, actually. That was hardly even a punishment.

Soon enough, Luz was running back to the bathroom, hastily handing over the brand-new toothbrush Camila had bought for him. That was such a strange feeling, knowing someone had bought something brand new for him. Would she want something in return?

Camila ripped open the packaging to get to the toothbrush, chucking the cardboard pieces into the little bin in the corner. "Now, do you want me to help you brush your teeth, or do you want to do it yourself?"

Something he'd noticed in the limited hours that he had been here was that Camila asked an awful lot of questions. Hunter was not used to questions in the slightest. Usually, Uncle would just make all the decisions for him and Hunter would trust his judgement. There was something comforting about being able to follow along blindly, knowing his uncle only wanted the best for him. But Camila on the other hand asked him questions and expected him to decide. Not that he was criticising her or anything, but he really didn't like that... Whenever she asked him one of her questions, he always anticipated some sort of trick, knowing she was just waiting to catch him out and when all eyes were on him that was a very stressful experience. What if he chose the wrong answer? What if it was a trick question altogether and she didn't actually want him to answer? If he stayed silent long enough, would she get impatient? Would she grab him by the neck and demand he answer, demand he speak up and stop crying like a child and just give her a goddamn answer.

He was crying again, he realised, thanks to the alarmed look taking shape on Camila's face.

"Oh, honey! Um— why don't I just do it for you? And you can stop me if you want."

That sounded a lot better. He was far too exhausted to try and puzzle out her questions right now.

And maybe there was something about the way she dealt with him with such gentleness that made him want her to do this for him... Maybe there was something appealing about going limp in her arms and letting her look after him.

So, he watched curiously as she grabbed the toothpaste from beside the sink and squeezed a small bean-shaped blob of it onto the toothbrush. Then she held his jaw in her hand and gently pulled on it to prompt him to open his mouth, put the toothbrush in, and began to brush.

There was something quite calming about the methodical circles she brushed into his teeth and the toothpaste tasted completely unlike he had expected it to which gave him something small enough to focus on that his brain didn't feel ready to explode.

Back at Uncle's house, he didn't have a toothbrush like this so in all honesty, he was quite unfamiliar with the concept of brushing his teeth which made him all the more thankful that Camila was doing it for him. That way, he couldn't mess it up and she could do it exactly how she wanted him to. It was the perfect plan, even if it had required him crying like a baby to achieve.

Once she seemed to be satisfied by her work brushing his teeth and his mouth was filled with plenty weird minty foam, she helped him stand and instructed him to spit what remained into the sink. He was glad she mentioned that because he had only been a few seconds away from swallowing it which now he was thinking about it, probably wouldn't have been very pleasant.

Camila turned on the tap to wash away his spit from the sink and also ran the toothbrush under the stream to clean it before sticking it in the glass on the counter with the other two brushes — a larger white and green one and a smaller purple sparkly one with what looked to be a picture of a dragon on it — which Hunter wasn't quite sure how to feel about so for the meantime he didn't and simply pushed the thought to the side to deal with later.

Turning back to the doorway, she only just seemed to remember that Luz was also here and needed to be dealt with. "Oh! Mija, can you go get your pyjamas on for me? I'm just going to get Hunter some water and then I'll come tuck you in."

Luz nodded, giving in surprisingly easily and dashing off to go get changed like her mother had asked her to. Hunter felt a little guilty for taking time away from the two of them but he didn't really have time to argue with Camila's decision to prioritise him before she was scooping him up in her arms and carrying him downstairs, carefully avoiding the vomit still on the steps.

Hunter wanted to tell her that he didn't need to be carried, that he was old enough to walk on his own now, but actually thinking about it, his legs were quite shaky right now and he still had a slight twinge in his leg from when it had been broken so he didn't exactly trust himself not to slip and fall on the stairs and that would just make an even bigger mess that would need cleaned so yeah, maybe it was a good idea for Camila to carry him.

She took him through to the kitchen and grabbed a tall plastic cup from the drying rack, gave it a quick rinse, and then filled it with water. She then carried Hunter in one arm and the cup in her free hand to the living room where she sat him down on the couch and handed him said cup.

"Sip this slowly, baby. It'll help you feel a little better. Now, I'm going to go tuck Luz into bed and clean up. I'll put the TV on for you and the remote is right here, you can click this button if you want a different show on." Camila explained, showing him the remote and then sitting it down on the cushion beside him. "Shout me if you need anything and I'll be back in a bit."

And so, Hunter watched as she left, dodging the vomit on the stairs again, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

So far, he hadn't really had much of a chance to sit down and think. There always seemed to be people around him trying to talk to him now. He did have a few hours when he sat down in the corner — he liked the comfort of having a good view of the room and a solid wall behind him so he knew nobody could sneak up on him — but even then, Luz had still tried to speak to him every now and again and she'd had the TV up unbelievably loud so in the end, he'd sort of just zoned out and let time pass.

But finally, he could sit down completely alone and just think.

And there was a lot to think about.

He didn't remember much of what Raine had explained when they'd come to visit him in the hospital. He'd been pretty out of it at the time and it was only today that he felt as if he'd stepped outside for the first time — well, maybe quite literally — and breathed the fresh air. But, he did remember them mentioning 'foster care' and 'foster kid' and 'foster parent' and though he wasn't completely sure what those things meant, in his current situation it wasn't too difficult for him to figure out where those labels went.

Both Raine and Camila had mentioned he'd be staying here until he could go back to Uncle, but how long would that even be? Would he be staying here for a could days or for months? Maybe even years? And what were the qualifications that needed to be met before he could go back to Uncle? Uncle had mentioned in the past that if he spoke to cops, they'd try and take him away from his uncle, that cops were sinners and wanted to tear their family apart. But Hunter had told them exactly what Uncle had told him to! Word for word. He'd told them that Uncle was good, so really, they had no reason to keep them separated. Where even was Uncle? Did the cops take him away? Were they locking him up just like Uncle said they would? Would they want to lock him up too? Hunter didn't want to be locked up, but he guessed if it meant he could see Uncle again then it wouldn't be too bad. And anyway, he had plenty of experience from the times that Uncle had tied him to the table leg or even just from being locked in the closet. He could handle being locked up for his uncle's sake.

But then he wouldn't get to stay in Camila's house again. But was that a bad thing? He wasn't supposed to want to stay here and really, he shouldn't be getting so comfortable. He was supposed to want out of here and he was supposed to want to go back to his uncle. He couldn't let himself be distracted just because these people were nice to him because, in reality, that didn't erase the fact that they were sinners and he should not be wanting to stay in a house with sinners. How would he ever get better?

Uncle said that there had always been a little something inside him, something bad that allowed the devil to influence him. That was why he did that silly flapping thing with his hands and why when the lights were too bright and the noise was too loud that he threw tantrums. It was why he was inclined to look away from people's eyes and why flinched away from his punishments.

That's why Uncle punished him in the first place, to make him better and crush that sinful part of him so the demon inside him couldn't take control. But these people didn't want to punish him and they were just as sinful as him, maybe even more so!

So now that he was apart from Uncle, how was he ever going to get better?

One time, the demon had managed to take control. Hunter had just been so exhausted, so tired of everything that he didn't have the strength to stop it so when everything had gotten too much, the demon had emerged. It had made Hunter scream, it had made him laugh hysterically and slam his head into the wall over and over again until everything got blurry and there was a great big blood stain in the wallpaper. Uncle had tried to stop the demon but it had used Hunter's body to lash out, kicking and hitting the man and shouting at him like a maniac. So, Uncle had formed a plan. He'd filled up the bathtub with water which he'd then blessed before luring the demon upstairs and into the bathroom. Then, Uncle had grabbed him by the hair and dunked his head under the water. The demon had thrashed, trying to attack Uncle but he'd held Hunter's head firm, determined to purge the evil from him. Of course, he'd allowed Hunter up to breathe every now and again so that he didn't drown but he could only afford him a brief second so the demon didn't have the chance to escape before he'd have to plunge his head back under again. Eventually, after enough time, the demon was gone and he was back to normal again. Uncle had saved him.

Would these people be able to do what was needed when the time came?

Hunter only realised just how long he'd been sitting there when someone tapped his shoulder.

He jumped and his head snapped around to look at who had touched him. He found Camila with a guilty look on her face. "Sorry for surprising you, I tried to speak to you but you didn't seem to be listening."

"Sorry." He said quickly. Maybe if she knew that he really hadn't meant to ignore her then she wouldn't be as angry at him. Though, that never worked particularly well as he hoped it would with Uncle.

"Don't worry, cariño. It's not your fault." She said it so simply as if stating a well-known fact. But it is my fault, he wanted to argue. It's my fault for not paying attention and it also has to be my fault that Uncle can't see me right now. There's no other explanation.

He stayed silent. He'd already caused her enough problems today.

"Are you feeling a bit better now?" She asked, "You do have a bit more colour to you."

Why was she asking? Was she making sure she wouldn't have to clean up after him again?

"I don't feel like being sick anymore. I'm sorry for making a mess."

"That's not your fault either, darling. You can't control when you're sick."

Actually, sometimes he could. There had been a few times when he'd stolen food out of the kitchen when he hadn't been supposed to. Uncle had then sat him down in front of the toilet and forced his fingers to the back of his throat to make him throw it back up again. He didn't tell Camila that though. He didn't want her to think he was being cheeky.

Camila sat down beside him, the same way Luz had done earlier, choosing to sit right beside him rather than anywhere else on the big couch. Again, he didn't hate it.

"Now, me and Luz have a bit of a tradition that when she's sick, she's allowed to camp out down here with me and we spend the night watching TV until she falls asleep. It helps take her mind off feeling sick. I was thinking me and you could do that? But if you get too tired or don't feel like it, you can just head up to bed. I'm not going to take offence."

The thought of laying awake in that strange new room all on his own made the nausea return. Staying down here sounded like a much better idea.

Camila switched the TV over to a different show which he didn't really mind. If anything, the loud, whiny voices of the cartoon were becoming a bit irritating.

He tried to pay attention to the show she'd put on, wondering if she was planning on quizzing him on it later, but for whatever reason, none of the words were really sticking in his mind long enough for him to process them. He was hearing the words, sure, but not understanding them.

It took him a rather embarrassing amount of time to realise that the reason he couldn't understand the people in the show was because they were speaking another language.

It was now occurring to Hunter that Camila probably spoke another language. Maybe that's why she called him that word, 'cariño'. He wondered what it meant.

With comedic timing, Camila spoke again. "You know you don't have to try and keep yourself awake, cariño. You can just go to sleep if you're tired. Do you want to lay in my lap?"

One of Uncle's friends had offered him that once. Uncle had been very angry with him for that.

Camila seemed to take his blank look as a no and awkwardly returned her gaze to the TV. Hunter tried to do the same.

Even if she had told him not to keep himself awake, Hunter couldn't help but do the complete opposite. He didn't want to disobey her order but the thought of closing his eyes right now with her so close to him seemed terrifying. Even if she'd shown him kindness so far, he still didn't want to let his guard down. He wouldn't risk making that mistake again.

So even as the hours dragged on and his eyelids seemed insistent on drooping down, he forced them open and willed himself to stay awake.

He didn't miss Camila's frequent worried glances.

Chapter Text

Hunter barely slept that night.

And Camila would know because neither did she.

Her line of thinking had been that she'd just wait for him to fall asleep and then she'd do the same so that she wouldn't be leaving him alone with his thoughts in the middle of the night without someone to keep an eye on him and at least attempt to cheer him up. He'd certainly had a very long and tiring day alright so she had really doubted it would take him very long to just conk out on the couch.

But nope, he sat there forcing his eyes open for nearly the entire night, at one point even using his fingers to physically pry his eyelids apart, and they'd both only gotten maybe about half an hour's sleep in total.

Now, Camila was an adult. She had had her fair share of all-nighters and messed-up sleep schedules in her lifetime. She'd be fine. But Hunter, however, was an already traumatised and very upset young child and a lack of sleep was certainly not going to be helping that. Maybe suggesting he stay up on the couch hadn't been the best idea but on second thought, she doubted he wouldn't have slept much better in his room anyway.

But good night's sleep or not, it was morning now and Camila had to soldier through her exhaustion and get these kids fed and ready for the day. She also made a mental note that she needed to take the kids out shopping since Luz adamantly insisted she needed some new sunglasses (purple and sparkly, apparently) and at about eleven last night, Camila had realised that she'd forgotten to pick up any pyjamas for Hunter and most of the clothes she had picked up for him were too big. And, despite the fact he was a year older than Luz, he couldn't even borrow any of her clothes because even they were still too big for him. Camila mentally cussed out that horrible excuse of an uncle for what must have been the hundredth time already for what he'd done to this little boy.

She hadn't even known Hunter for a full twenty-four hours yet and she was already both amazed and disgusted by what she'd seen. Not disgusted with Hunter, no, not at all, but disgusted with the man who had caused all of this. This poor little angel was terrified of her because he was so used to being shouted at and hurt that he automatically assumed that that was the treatment he would be receiving from her and all she wanted to do was wrap him up nice and snug in her arms and tell him that he was safe now but thanks to his good for nothing uncle, she couldn't even do that because again, he was so terrified of her. And the things he'd said... Oh God, her heart had already been shattered into about a million pieces and it was only day two. Sure, she'd dealt with some traumatised children in the past, it was pretty much a guarantee at this point that if the kid was in foster care, they had to be carrying some sort of trauma along with them, but never in her entire life had she seen a case this bad. Never had she fostered a child that was afraid to drink the water she offered him because he expected it to be laced with sedatives. Never had she fostered a child that broke down when she asked him a question because he was too afraid to answer for fear that he wouldn't give the 'right' answer. Never had she fostered a child who had sat there all night, physically holding his eyes open because he didn't want to let his guard down around her for even a second.

She wanted him to trust her, she wanted it so bad, and she knew that it would take a good while to earn that, she was well aware. But even still, she wished she could just magic all his worries away. This poor boy had spent his life hurting and she didn't want that to continue for even a second longer.

That was unrealistic though, as much as she wished it wasn't. So for now, the most she could do was offer him a place where he would be loved and accepted and hope that in his own time, he'd grow to trust that this wasn't all just some trick.

And today, step one of slowly earning Hunter's trust would be breakfast because what better way to bond with people than over food! It had certainly worked last night with the two kids. They may have thought they were slick but she knew fine well about how they were kicking each other under the table! And they'd even gone and cuddled up on the couch together before Hunter had thrown up and everything had gone wrong.

Luz had always been good with the foster kids that came to the house. She always managed to cheer them up on bad days and helped the more shy kids really learn how to come out of their shells. And more than anything, she was someone they could talk to. She was someone roughly their age that they could go to and talk about the things only kids really seemed to get. She was someone that was there to share her toys or blankets and offer cuddles and find them the best shows on the TV and distract them from their thoughts with her ramblings about Azura and show them how fun ice cream sundaes were and she was someone who could just teach them how to be a kid again.

But, Camila would admit, she'd had her doubts about Luz's skills this time around. Her daughter was amazing, that was never in doubt, but this kid was different from any other she'd met before. This kid had been sheltered his entire life and knew nothing but violence and what it was like to hurt. He was tense and jumpy and he didn't seem to trust anyone other than the man that had done this to him.

And yet, Luz had managed to get through to him, even if just slightly, and she'd been able to put a real smile on his face, something Camila hasn't expected to see for weeks, maybe even months.

Camila saw the way Hunter had looked at Luz across the table that night. It had only taken a few hours and he already cared about her, even seeming to look up to her. And it wasn't one-sided either. Luz seemed to care for this boy just as much and that much was evident from how she'd stayed at the bathroom door to make sure her new friend would be okay after he'd been sick.

Furthermore, when Camila had gone back upstairs to tuck her daughter in for the night — making sure her daughter knew she was still there for her too and cared about her even if a lot of her attention was on Hunter right now — Luz had expressed her worries.

"Mami, is Hunter going to be okay?" She'd asked, clutching her sheets beneath her chin with shaking hands.

Camila had kneeled down beside the bed to help tuck her in, gently smoothing out the sheets where she thought Luz's legs would be under them. "Yes, mija. You don't have to worry."

"But he was being sick a lot... and he was crying and I saw how he got scared on the stairs when you tried to hold his arm..."

Luz was a very intelligent girl. Many of her teachers would argue against that fact but Camila would argue right back. Her daughter's grades were nothing against her genuine, deep understanding of the world around her and the people she interacted with. So Camila knew that her daughter understood the concepts of abuse and neglect and why so many of the kids that came through this house were so nervous and usually tended to be wrapped up in bandages. She knew that her daughter understood why Hunter had flinched away from her on the stairs, and yet, it was still so difficult to get the words out and confirm her thoughts.

"Hunter will be okay. He's finished being sick now. That was just because he's not used to eating so much so when he ate so much food in one go, his stomach couldn't handle it and had to get rid of it. But now that it's all out, he'll be okay and there are things we can do to help him get used to food." She began by addressing the easier topic first. "And then on the stairs... back when Hunter used to live with his uncle, he was treated very differently. Very unfairly. So he's not used to the way we do things in our house. He doesn't realise that we aren't going to hurt him so in a situation like that where usually, back at his old home, he'd be hurt, he still expected that here."

"He thought you were going to hit him?" Luz asked with wide eyes.

"Maybe... Probably. But I'm not going to. Not ever. So even if it takes a bit of time, or even a long time, I'm going to keep reassuring him that he's safe here and that we won't let anyone hurt him ever again."

"Yeah! If anyone tries anything, I'll set my snakes on them!" Luz declared with a new look of determination on her face. Camila didn't even doubt her apparent sources of obtaining said snakes. She'd done it before.

Despite everything that had happened and all her worries, Camila managed a small chuckle. "I'm sure he'll appreciate that, mija."

At least she knew that while Hunter remained suspicious of her, there would still be someone there that had his back.

Speaking of Hunter, she turned to look at the boy who had just been staring at the couch cushion all night, determined not to fall asleep. They'd both been sitting in silence for a while now, him too afraid and probably at this point, too tired to talk, and her having realised that she didn't have the energy to try and keep up a conversation all night, especially when she couldn't even really manage a conversation with how he was pretty much the equivalent of a brick wall in terms of conversational skills. She didn't mind sitting in silence though, and if anything she hoped it would mean she wasn't distracting him from getting sleep. She couldn't exactly pinpoint how he seemed to be feeling about the silence considering he was stuck in a permanent state of anxiety but he didn't seem any more bothered by it than he had been with everything else so far so she guessed he wasn't all too affected.

But now it was morning and she was going to have to start parenting again, even if she was exhausted and the task of trying to talk to this boy without accidentally treading on something that would freak him out seemed extremely daunting. But still, she'd push through her own feelings if it meant she could have a chance to possibly get through to this boy.

"It's getting light now, I think we should go get some breakfast." She suggested, stretching her arms out in front of her with a yawn.

As if she'd flipped a switch, his head snapped around to face her and that intense stare he'd kept up for most of yesterday was back again. It was honestly a little terrifying.

Curious about why he always seemed to stare like that, she decided to question. "Do you like looking people in the eye?"

Nervousness seeped into his expression and he tensed quite quickly, going completely still as if she'd just threatened him. Right, the questions.

Yesterday she'd noticed how nervous he seemed about questions and taking it as just not being used to making decisions, she'd tried to simplify her questions to make it easier for him, giving him options of things he could pick. But that had hardly helped and he'd continued to freeze up and give her that deer-in-the-headlights look whenever she asked him a question until it got to the point in the bathroom where he'd just broken down in tears when asked to make a decision.

Throughout her time fostering kids, Camila had formed many various rules and guidelines for herself to follow based on what she found worked best with the kids, and a major one of those was questions. Whether it was offering different options and letting them decide or asking them how they were feeling at the moment and offering them a safe space to talk, asking questions was an essential part of helping the kids that came to her feel more comfortable. But here she was, faced with a kid who was terrified of any question she offered him and she was now being forced to rework that way of thinking that she'd been relying on for years now.

It felt outright cruel to take away the decisions for him, to sit there and simply tell him what was going to happen rather than give him options. And yet, it felt even more cruel to force him into that situation where he became so terrified of giving the wrong answer that he just froze, unable to give any answer at all.

It was certainly going to take a lot of effort to work herself out of the habit, but in the meantime, until she was able to help him feel comfortable enough around her to trust that she wasn't trying to trick him, she would put in that effort.

So, reworking her question into more of a statement, she tried again. "I just noticed you look at people's eyes a lot. You know, Luz used to do that too. She said one of her teachers would force her to look her in the eyes even when it made her uncomfortable. I was wondering if you'd ever felt that way before."

He examined her for a moment. "Uncle always tells me to look him in the eye when he speaks to me."

Despite it being such a vague statement, Camila could already picture the scenario. An angry monster of a man shouting at a terrified child, ordering him to look him in the eyes when he spoke. She hadn't thought her heart could possibly break anymore for this boy and yet, with each new thing he mentioned about his horrible uncle, she found herself ready to shatter.

"Well, I'm sure you've already noticed by now, but we do things very differently in this house than what you're probably used to." She said. He nodded almost sadly before quickly gathering himself. "And this is another one of those cases. I really don't mind whether you look at me or not when we talk. You can look wherever you want, the floor, the wall, or you can even continue to look me in the eye if you really want to but I get the feeling that's not very comfortable for you."

He had an almost guilty look as if she'd caught him in the act of whatever he seemed to feel he'd done wrong. But, to her surprise, he did allow his gaze to drop back to the cushion for a few seconds, testing the waters, before taking a quick look back up at her to make sure she hadn't suddenly changed her mind.

She made sure to give him a reassuring smile and he dropped the eye contact altogether. She could see just how much he'd physically relaxed in just a few seconds now that he wasn't so focused on looking at her eyes. It was honestly a huge relief. The staring had been beginning to border on outright unsettling.

"Now, breakfast time!" She declared, determined not to get distracted again.

With some reluctance from her aching limbs, she forced herself up from the couch and headed towards the kitchen. She stopped briefly in the doorway to look behind her and check to make sure that Hunter was following and sure enough, he padded along after her, his eyes on the floor the whole time. It was an action (or rather, a lack of action) so simple, and yet, she couldn't help but smile.

She continued onwards to the kitchen and began digging through the cupboards for pancake mix. Hunter sat himself down at the table and traced the woodgrain with his finger. After enough opening and closing various cupboards, she found that they were all out of the store-bought pancake mix so she instead resigned herself to making them from scratch.

Once she'd picked out the ingredients she needed, she began preparing them into a mixture before pouring some of it into the pan. Soon enough, the delicious smell of homemade pancakes warmed the air.

And said smell seemed to have lured in a rare little creature called Luz who scrambled down the stairs in a matter of seconds, still half wrapped in her blanket.

"I smell pancakes!" For such a little girl, she sure had a very loud voice. Camila noticed Hunter cover his ears when she yelled. She also noticed Luz purposely lower her volume. "Oh! Hunter! Are you feeling better?"

Unlike with Camila, Hunter didn't seem to have so much of a problem with questions when it came to Luz. He didn't put too much thought behind his nod.

"That's good!" Luz beamed, happily skipping over to her usual seat across from the boy. "Being sick sucks big time. Did Mami let you stay on the couch with her?"

Hunter nodded and hummed quietly, still keeping his eyes down on the table. Camila felt a little silly saying she was proud of him for not looking at people but she just was! Luz seemed to have picked up on the change too as her expression flashed with realisation and her smile softened a bit.

"Who wants pancakes!" Camila exclaimed, balancing three plates in her hands and depositing them on the table. She worried for a second that Hunter might consider that another question but when she tried to read his face he seemed more normal-deadpan than frightened-deadpan so she'd take that as a sign he was fine.

"Me! Me! Me!" Luz cheered happily, her voice still a little quieter than usual. Camila found it sweet how mindful she was of Hunter.

Hunter looked over at Luz, practically vibrating with excitement with her hand stretched up in the air. From this information, he also put his hand up with a quiet little, "Me."

Camila laughed a little at the pair of them as she handed out their plates, Luz's stacked high with pancakes and berries (that girl had a surprisingly big appetite so Camila knew she would handle her food no problem), and Hunter's cut into smaller bite-sized pieces with sliced strawberries and a handful of berries on the side.

Luz eagerly grabbed the whipped cream from where Camila had set it down in the middle of the table and began squirting it all over her stack. Camila swore her breakfast was more cream than pancake by the time she was done.

Hunter watched her curiously as she decorated her plate with a healthy helping of whipped cream, seeming almost fascinated by the action. Luz noticed him watching and her smile brightened, an idea obviously coming to mind.

"Do you want some?" Luz offered, waving the can around in front of him for him to take. Hunter considered for a moment before looking to Camila for advice.

"It's whipped cream," The woman explained, "You can put it on your pancakes if you'd like. Probably not as much as Luz though, she tends to go a little crazy."

"It's good!" Luz exclaimed through a mouthful of her whipped cream covered pancakes.

Hunter tentatively took the can from Luz and examined it. Experimentally, he pushed down on the top and jumped a little when a little blob of whipped cream squirted out, earning a good-natured laugh from Luz. After figuring out the workings of the can, he held it above his plate and pushed down on the top again. Camila's heart squeezed at the little surprised gasp he let out when the cream squirted out onto his pancake bites.

"There you go!" Luz cheered, "Now try it!"

Hunter obliged and with a little bit of fiddling, he managed to get a bit of pancake and cream on his fork and popped it into his mouth. The pure look of joy on his face as he tasted the pancakes and cream for what Camila guessed was probably the first time in his whole life was something she would never forget.

"You like?" Luz asked, smiling expectantly.

Hunter nodded enthusiastically, even letting out a small giggle which in turn got a laugh out of Luz who kicked him gently under the table again just like the two of them had done the previous night.

Oh my god. Right now, Camila wanted nothing more than to sit Hunter down and feed him all the foods she could possibly think of just to watch that adorable reaction again.

Thankfully, Hunter ate his breakfast much slower than he'd eaten his dinner last night, still a little hasty but nowhere near how he'd scoffed a plate of macaroni in seconds flat. The little bite-sized pieces seemed to have been a good idea too as it seemed to be making it much easier for him to get them on his fork and eat them. She briefly wondered how much experience he even had eating with cutlery.

"Try a strawberry!" Luz demanded, picking up one of her own strawberries on her fork to show him.

Hunter looked down at his own plate and stabbed one of the sliced strawberry pieces with his fork before holding it up like Luz was doing. Seeing he was following her lead, Luz took a bite out of her strawberry and watched Hunter do the same. She immediately erupted into a fit of happy giggles upon seeing the amazement on Hunter's face and how quickly went to pick up another piece of strawberry with his fork.

Camila made a mental note to show him chocolate-covered strawberries. And that was a point, had this boy ever had chocolate? Or even just sweets for that matter? Oh, Luz was going to have a field day showing him those.

In an act that at first confused Camila, Luz pushed her plate to the centre of the table. She still had plenty of food on her plate and she didn't seem to be full so Camila wasn't quite sure what she was doing. And even stranger, she gestured to Hunter to do the same. It was only when Hunter pushed his plate to touch hers and Luz began scraping some of her strawberries onto his that she realised the girl's plan.

Part of her thought to step in, worried that this would be too much food for him and they'd end up with a similar situation to last night. But then she saw the excitement practically radiating off of him and she suddenly decided that, oh well, a few extra strawberries couldn't hurt.

When Luz was finished, Hunter quickly pulled his plate back and eagerly dug into his new strawberries, much to Luz's delight as she giggled happily and the two continued to kick each other under the table.

They looked like siblings.

The thought slipped into Camila's mind so easily, so effortlessly, like it was always meant to be there.

It made her smile.

Chapter Text

After finishing up with breakfast, Camila spent a good hour or so digging out an outfit for Hunter so they could all go out shopping together.

The main place she thought to look was the ever-growing piles of Luz's old clothes she'd kept and stored in the upstairs linen closet for exactly this sort of situation. And there were certainly plenty to choose from. That girl grew out of clothes at an incredible speed.

Now, she could have just thrown together a random mismatched outfit of the first things she found in his size. It sure would have been a hell of a lot easier. Yet she didn't. She spent a whole hour sorting through the piles and piles of old clothes to find fitting, comfortable, matching clothes that she thought he might genuinely like. She didn't want him to feel as if he was simply getting thrown together hand-me-downs, even if that basically was what they were. She wanted him to feel appreciated and cared about, even if that was just in the form of putting together a one-time outfit for him.

Because how many times had this boy had someone sit there and chose a nice outfit for him that they thought he would actually like? Probably zero! And frankly, she was not going to let it stay that way. This boy deserved love, no matter how small.

Another reason she waited so long before heading out was that she wanted to make sure he kept the food down before they went into a public space. She didn't mind clearing up vomit, even if it was a bit gross, but if it were to happen in public it would be a whole lot more of a hassle and not to mention ten times harder to comfort him when she would be unable to give him the time and space to calm down.

Long story short, any sickness would be a lot easier and less stressful to deal with at home than out in public.

Thankfully though, in the time after breakfast, Hunter seemed to be feeling well enough and the food made no signs of reappearing. Camila did have to do a bit of nudging though to get Luz to ask how he was feeling and in the end, only received a small shrug which she generously decided to interpret as 'fine' and just hoped that wouldn't come back to bite her later.

With an outfit now put together for him, Camila directed him up to his room and explained she'd set out some clothes for him on his bed which he could change into and then they'd be going out shopping. He seemed a little anxious upon hearing that news but he didn't address it and headed upstairs to go get changed.

A little bit later, he returned in the new clothes which thankfully seemed to fit alright (which was in fact, rather concerning considering they were clothes that Luz had outgrown years ago by now).

"Don't forget your laces!" She pointed out, seeing that his shoes remained untied.

He looked down at his outfit before giving her a puzzled look. It then occurred to her that he'd probably never worn shoes with laces before. Most likely, he had no clue what she was even talking about.

"Your laces," She repeated, gesturing down at his shoes, "They're untie— Oh! Right, do you know how to tie them?"

It was only after the words had left her that she realised she'd just asked another question. This was much harder than she'd expected. Luckily for her though, he seemed a bit too confused to care and simply shook his head.

"Let me get them!" Luz exclaimed, rushing over and dropping to her knees to scoop up his shoelaces and begin tying them, excited to show off her only newly learned skill.

Hunter watched her with childish curiosity, fidgeting with the bandages around his hands as he waited for her to finish. Camila made a mental note to rewrap his bandages later.

After a little bit of fiddling, Luz leaned back and grinned up at him. "Ta-Dah!" She declared, gesturing to his now messily tied shoelaces.

Hunter examined her work and gave his foot a little stomp to test it out. A small frown appeared on his face and Camila's felt her smile falter for a moment.

"Do they go tighter?" He asked quietly.

Okay. That wasn't as bad as she'd been expecting.

Luz nodded, undeterred, and untied them again so she could tie them tighter. "I know what you mean, I like mine tight too. Makes my feet feel safe."

Camila had no clue what she meant by that but Hunter hummed in agreement, seeming to understand so she decided not to question it all too much.

After tying his laces for the second time, Luz looked up yet again for his approval and after another small stomp, he nodded, satisfied with her work.

"Thank you." He muttered with that little ghost of a smile Camila had caught glimpses of every now and again. It was the closest thing to a proper smile he'd managed so far and she supposed that was fair considering the absolute hell he'd been through. It was a start at least. And she just couldn't wait to see what a real smile would look like on him.

Luz beamed right back. "No problem!"

"Now kids," Camila began, getting their attention, "We're going to go shopping to get some more clothes for Hunter and sparkly sunglasses for Luz because apparently they're essential."

"They are! I'm trying to outshine the sun here Mami! The only way to do that is to sparkle back!"

Camila rolled her eyes, failing to hold back a fond smile. "Alright, Luz. We'll get you sparkly sunglasses. And Hunter, if there's anything else you would like me to pick up for you then just let me know."

She really doubted he would actually end up asking for something, even if she really wished he would. So far the only thing he'd been brave enough to ask for had been a Bible and she had a feeling that was the bravest he'd be getting for now.

She'd actually spoken to Raine about whether or not to get him a Bible. They'd explained that it was very likely that a large chunk of Hunter's trauma was linked to religion thanks to his absolute nutjob of an uncle and she certainly didn't disagree with that assumption considering what she'd seen and heard so far. Raine had pointed out that it probably wouldn't be very healthy to continue letting him have access to that, worried that he might end up using it as a means to continue harming himself now that his uncle wasn't here doing it for him. But ultimately, they couldn't deny him that right so they'd agreed that if he asked again, Camila would get him the Bible, but in the meantime, they'd just hope he would forget about it so they could give him some time to actually start healing first before introducing any other complicated factors.

"Can I unlock the door?" Luz asked, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet. She always seemed to get strangely excited over the most mundane things. It was pretty cute though, Camila had to admit.

"Alright, mija. Here you go." She handed the girl the key and she skipped over to the door to try and unlock it.

It did take her a little while to get the key in the lock and figure out which way to turn it but she eventually managed. Camila had already learned her lesson after offering to help her with it once before and now knew it would just take twice as long if she tried to interrupt so she let Luz do her thing.

After getting the door open, she ran over to grab Hunter's hand and dragged him outside with her, much to the poor boy's surprise as he nearly tripped over himself trying to keep up with her.

"Be careful, Luz!" Camila shouted after her, sighing to herself as Luz immediately found a puddle, jumping in it and soaking her shoes within seconds of leaving the house.

That girl.

Camila followed after them and unlocked the car, climbing in. "Come on now! You can play in the puddles later!" She compromised, beckoning her daughter over who in turn dragged a slightly startled Hunter along behind her.

Luz wasted no time in tugging the door open and clambering across the backseat to sit in her booster seat (purple and sparkly. She was going through a bit of a phase at the moment), giving her mother a toothy smile. Camila laughed at her antics but that laughter soon tapered off as she noticed Hunter still standing anxiously in front of the open door. Immediately, she got out of the car and went around to go check on him.

"Hey, are— you're looking a little lost there, cariño." She pointed out, kneeling down to be level with him.

He was beginning to seem a little agitated now, biting his lip and tugging quite harshly at his bandaged hands.

"You can tell me if there's something bothering you." She tried to prompt. Making sure he was okay without asking questions was really hard.

"Are..." He began but stopped himself there, getting even more frustrated that he couldn't seem to articulate the right words to explain what was wrong to her. She waited patiently, allowing him the time to figure it out.

"Where are we going?" He eventually settled on.

"We're going to the store, darling." She reiterated.

He continued to fidget nervously like he still had something to say. Camila remained silent.

"Are we coming back...?"

Ohhh...

That made a little more sense now.

Now that she was thinking about it, the only times Hunter had probably ever been in a car or a vehicle in general would have been the ambulance to the hospital and then the car ride here. It was no wonder he was now associating the car with being taken away.

"Yes. We're coming back." She quickly assured him. "We're going to go to the store, do a bit of shopping, and then we're going to come right back here."

He finally relaxed a bit, his shoulders dropping as he nodded along. She really should have thought to explain things a little more thoroughly but she supposed it was better late than never.

"Are you coming in the car, Hunter?" Luz asked, leaning over to pat the other seat.

After a moment of consideration, he climbed in too and Camila gave him a hand with his seatbelt.

With the initial troubles out of the way, the car journey was fine. Camila kept the music on a low volume so it wouldn't be too overwhelming and Luz talked their ears off pretty much the entire drive while Hunter watched the other cars out the window. Camila had to give Luz a warning look when a yellow car passed by but other than that it went well.

Once they arrived at the store, however, Hunter seemed a little intimidated by all the people around but Luz was quick to grab his hand again and he seemed a little calmer with her at his side.

God, could these kids get any more adorable?

"Now, you kids have to stay with me in the store, I don't want you running off and getting lost," Camila instructed. Hunter edged slightly closer to her to be on the safe side. "If there's anything you want, you can ask me and I'll see if we can get it, and if you're well-behaved — I'm looking at you Luz — then we can go look at the toys at the end."

Both kids nodded along, Hunter with a serious look of determination and Luz with a bored look, obviously already sick of standing still.

"Alright then. Luz, do you want to grab a shopping cart?"

"Yes!" The girl exclaimed, running ahead to go find a cart and yet again, dragging Hunter along with her. It was a miracle she hadn't pulled the boy off his feet at this point.

As they entered the store, she saw Hunter wince and curl in on himself slightly as the doors opened and the wave of noise hit him.

It was now occurring to her that taking this kid to a very busy and very noisy store on the second day of caring for him probably wasn't her brightest idea. As far as she knew, it was highly probable that Hunter had never left his uncle's house before up until recently so going from quiet little house to crowded store was quite the jump.

"It's quite loud in here, huh?" She commented, "If it's too loud for you then you can always go back and sit in the car. Luz could even lend you her IPad so you don't get bored."

Luz nodded along, showing him the IPad and purple sparkly headphones (again, she was going through a phase) that she'd packed in her bag.

He did genuinely seem to consider the offer, but in the end, he shook his head. "I'm alright." He muttered.

She wasn't quite sure how honest that answer was but she didn't really have another choice other than taking it for granted. "If you're sure, honey. But if that changes then you can let me know. It's no bother."

"Okay."

Again, she wasn't sure how likely he was to actually let her know if it was too much so she mostly just hoped she'd notice if his behaviour began to change.

"Come help me push the cart!" Luz demanded, waving Hunter over.

"Just try not to crash into anyone!" Camila chuckled. You'd be surprised by how many times it had happened before.

"What's first, Mami?" She asked, standing at attention. Hunter copied her and stood up a little straighter in turn.

"Well, we should go look at the kids' clothes so we can get some things for Hunter and actually, I should probably pick you up some more leggings. You put a hole in your last pair the other week."

"And sunglasses?"

"Yep. And sunglasses."

"Do you want sunglasses too, Hunter?" Luz asked, taking one hand off the shopping cart so she could go back to holding his hand.

Obviously, he seemed to have a limit even for questions from Luz as he gave her a blank look. She didn't falter, however, and continued on. "I think red would look nice on you. Maybe we can get matching sunglasses!"

That was actually the cutest thing Camila had heard today. She was all here for the matching sunglasses plan.

"Alright then, let's go." Camila announced, leading the way to the clothes aisle while Hunter and Luz worked together to push the cart. Hunter was quick to back out, however, when Luz tried to run with the cart and nearly crashed them into a wall and so he instead decided to walk beside it. That was probably for the best.

"Mami, can I help Hunter pick clothes?" Luz asked upon entering the kids' section.

Considering Hunter already hadn't been all that proactive in making choices, that was probably a good idea. "Alright, mija. As long as that's okay with him."

Luz looked to Hunter for his approval and he gave her a small unsure nod which was all the assurance she needed to begin rummaging through the clothing racks.

For a moment, she paused and frowned, as if forgetting something important. "What's your favourite colour?"

"Favourite colour?" Hunter repeated, confusion evident in his tone.

"Yeah! Everyone's gotta have a favourite colour! So what's yours?"

Hunter looked genuinely worried. "I don't know..."

"We should figure that out then." Luz decided, holding up a t-shirt she'd found in the rack to get a better look before shaking her head and putting it back.

"How do I know?"

"Hmmm. Well, see if I had a bunch of different coloured water bottles and I told you that you could have one, which one would you take?"

Hunter was just growing more stressed over the question. "Um... I‐I don't know..."

"What colour do you think is the prettiest? Which one looks nicest?"

"...Yellow is nice?"

"Yellow! Cool! I like purple. And blue. And pink. And all the colours actually."

"I think I like all the colours too." He said thoughtfully.

"Cool! Okay, so. All the colours and yellow. Got it."

With that very important information out in the open, Luz continued her search for the perfect clothes accompanied by theatrical 'hmm's as she examined each piece of clothing, deep in thought. She ended up finding a nice yellow t-shirt which she apparently deemed as appropriate and held it up for Hunter to see.

Hunter frowned. "Why are the arms little? Mine are bigger than that?"

"Oh! It's a T-shirt!" Luz clarified, "It's got short sleeves and they're only supposed to cover the tops of your arms. Do you not like that?"

He rubbed at the bandages around his wrists. "I think... I want them on my arms..."

"What about a sweater then? If you like the t-shirt then you can still wear it but just with a sweater on top so it still covers your arms! Do you like the T-shirt?"

Hunter didn't seem to have much of an opinion but nodded either way.

Luz pumped her fist in victory before tossing the t-shirt into the cart and returning to browsing.

"This sweater looks nice!" Camila said, pulling a dark green knitted sweater from the rack.

He reached over to feel it, rubbing the back of his hand against the sleeve, before physically cringing and wiping his hand on his shirt. She took that as a resounding no and placed the shirt back on the rack.

"What about a yellow sweater?" Luz tried, showing him what she'd found.

He looked at the sweater for a few seconds while he continued to wipe his hand rid of the strange sensation before he screwed up his face and sighed in frustration.

"Are you okay?" Camila worried, rushing over to check on him. He took a shaky step back.

"Hunter?"

Someone a few aisles over dropped something and it shattered. Hunter flinched.

"Hey, what's the matter?" She tried to place a hand on his arm but he whined and tugged away backing up even further from her.

And when he accidentally bumped into someone, he just burst into tears.

The poor stranger he'd walked into stood there startled for a moment before looking panicked between the now sobbing child and Camila who was desperately trying to calm him.

"Is he alright?" She asked nervously.

"Don't worry, it's not you. I think he's just a bit overwhelmed!" Camila explained, valiantly fighting to keep a polite smile on her face all the while internally screaming.

Hunter sat himself down on the floor in the middle of the aisle and smacked his hands over his ears, beginning to rock back and forth. The woman he'd bumped into awkwardly shuffled away.

Camila dropped to her knees to try and help him, figure out what was wrong, just anything, but Luz beat her to it, on the floor with him in a matter of seconds. She leaned over to examine his face, scrunched up in what she may have assumed was pain if she hadn't just witnessed the build-up to this, and Camila could see the cogs turning as she figured out what to do.

Carefully, she reached into the little bag she'd brought along with her and pulled out her headphones, unhooking them from the IPad. And in what Camila admitted was a rather smart move, she placed them over Hunter's ears and helped him slip his hands out from under them.

Immediately, he opened his eyes to look up at Luz who gave him her warmest smile.

"I'm sorry we were asking lots of questions. I know they're scary to you. And I'm sorry it was all loud and stuff, I understand how you feel. It's a lot for me too sometimes!" Luz sympathised.

Hunter just watched her with teary eyes and small hiccups, probably too overwhelmed to form a response right now. Luz wasn't all too bothered by that, gently wiping the tears from his face with her sleeve and offering him her hand so she could help him to his feet.

Once they were both standing again and Hunter had calmed down significantly, Luz adjusted the headphones to make sure they properly covered his ears before giving him a small pat on the head that just about melted Camila's heart.

They finished up the shopping trip as quickly as they could, Camila and Luz picking out the clothes for Hunter by themselves, choosing simple colours and textures (and long sleeves) with what limited information on his likes and dislikes that they had. Camila reminded herself they could always go back and get more in the future if need be. Then, they paid for the clothes and headed back to the car, Luz keeping a firm hold of Hunter's hand the whole time and even helping him use the IPad to put music on when the noise became too much for even the headphones to block out.

Despite it only having been a day, Camila could clearly see the bond forming between the two kids. Sure, it was nothing too unexpected, Luz made friends with practically every kid she encountered (or at least tried to) and Camila firmly believed she'd be able to keep up a conversation with a brick wall. She'd always managed to bond with all the other kids they fostered in their house. But this time it just felt... different.

And on the car ride home, when she looked up at the rearview mirror to see Hunter fast asleep in his seat and Luz looking over at him with such a loving look in her eye, both of their hands still intertwined, she couldn't help but smile.

Chapter Text

The shopping trip hadn't gone great.

And that was putting it lightly.

Because of course, when these people took time out of their day and money out of their wallet to go out and get new clothes just for him, Hunter just had to go and throw a tantrum in the middle of the store and embarrass them all.

Why they hadn't hit him never mind gotten rid of him yet was honestly a miracle he was too afraid to question.

Although Camila had continuously reassured him that it was alright, that she didn't mind and 'it wasn't like he could control it', Hunter still continued to apologise hoping that he could at least use that as a way to atone for his sins in the meantime until he had a chance to sit down and pray.

Usually, in a situation like this, Uncle would hit him, either with his hand or the switch or maybe even a bottle, and then through his suffering he could be forgiven again and that demon clawing at his insides would finally stop. Sure, it could be a bit sore at times and the blood got messy, but in the end, it always helped! Because then he wouldn't throw tantrums anymore and the demon wouldn't hurt anyone.

But Camila refused to hit him, she refused to help him, and now she wouldn't even accept his apologies. How was he supposed to be relieved of his sins if she didn't punish him? She kept trying to be nice, he knew that, but that was just hurting him more at this point.

He wished she'd just give up on trying to be nice. An awful sinner like him didn't deserve that.

But of course, he couldn't tell her that when she so generously insisted on caring for him. That would be rude and unappreciative. He'd just have to endure it and hope that she didn't end up getting hurt in the process.

Much to his embarrassment, in the car on the way back to the house after the trip to the store, he ended up falling asleep. He hadn't really slept the night before but he hadn't thought too much of it; he'd already stayed up late plenty of times before and he was certainly no stranger to going days without sleep but he supposed his tantrum in the store must have tired him out enough that he'd accidentally let his guard down and fallen asleep.

It was yet again a miracle that he'd woken up to find himself tucked into bed in the room Camila continued to insist was his. He'd quickly leapt from the bed and made sure to fix the sheets and return them to the neat way Camila had laid them out when he'd first come here.

Because no matter how many times she insisted and repeated that this was his room, he knew it wasn't.

He hadn't had a room back at Uncle's house and there was no need for one. Uncle always said he didn't need a room because the only children who had their own rooms used them to hide their sinful actions from their parents and from God. Children who had their own rooms were demanding and believed they owned that space and if their parents questioned that, they became violent and hateful. Uncle had reasoned that since he had nothing to hide from him and God, then he had no reason for his own room. Hunter agreed that that reasoning made perfect sense.

So why did Camila think he had something to hide? Did she believe that just because the police had wrongfully taken Uncle that he must also be hiding something sinful? And if this was just another example of her apparent 'kindness' to him, then how long would it be before she took it away? What would be the limit that would cause her to change her mind? Because in the end, no matter how hard Hunter tried, he always seemed to be incapable of avoiding sin. That's why Uncle had to punish him so often and so harshly because that was the only way someone like him could learn and possibly hope to be better. He was really lucky he had someone like Uncle to do that for him, to believe that even someone as sinful and disgraceful as him could be loved by the Lord.

But this was Camila and Camila was very different from Uncle as he'd quickly grown to see. Camila didn't have the patience or strength to hurt him and that's why he had thrown that tantrum earlier. And if things continued to progress in this way, then he could only see things getting worse.

When would she finally reach her limit and decide he wasn't worth it anymore?

A selfish little part of him guiltily hoped that wouldn't be soon...

After fixing the sheets on the bed, he left the room, closed the door very quietly behind him, and padded down the stairs. Upon approaching the open doorway to the living room, he gazed in at the clock. It was now eight pm. He'd slept nearly the whole day which also meant he'd missed both lunch and dinner. His stomach squirmed a little at the thought of going back to missing meals.

He dropped his gaze to Camila who was sitting on the couch doing... something. She had some weird string — like the material of the sweater she'd showed him earlier in the store but this one didn't look like it would be as sore if he touched it — and she was twirling this string around her fingers and over big sticks, moving them back and forth through the loops she made in the string. It was quite mesmerising, in fact.

He stood in the doorway and waited for Camila to notice him. That's usually what he did with Uncle to play it safe knowing that the man despised being interrupted while in the middle of something (even if it looked like he was just sitting there) but also hated when Hunter approached him without announcing himself first. Waiting at a safe distance to be noticed and usually either turned away or invited over if he was lucky was a good go-to.

But Camila seemed really focused on the thing she was doing with the sticks and Hunter's legs were getting a bit sore now. He tried to quietly clear his throat or tap his finger against the door frame but every noise he made was drowned out by the TV so he resigned himself to simply standing there.

Eventually, though, she happened to turn to the side to pick up a mug that she'd set down on the table and caught sight of him, jumping slightly.

"Oh, Hunter! How long were you standing there? Oh— I mean—"

"Half an hour." He replied, looking at the clock to double-check.

After noticing his stress over her questions, Hunter had seen a large decrease in them but every now and again she'd appear to slip up and ask one before her eyes would widen and she'd try to backtrack.

But not all the questions actually made him nervous, some were completely fine and he had no trouble answering them. It was just certain ones that triggered that deeply ingrained fear that this was a trap and she was trying to catch him out and that she was going to hurt him if he didn't get it right. And the thing was, he wasn't even sure what factors made up one of the okay questions or one of the scary questions so he couldn't even explain it to her! Everything had gotten so complicated recently...

"I'm sorry, I didn't notice you. Next time you can just come in or call on me if you need me."

Sure, she said that, but it still didn't make Hunter any more inclined to change the safe way he'd learned to do things.

"I saved some dinner for you, I can't believe you slept for so long! You must be hungry."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to fall asleep..." He apologised, looking down and examining all the little pieces of fluff in the carpet.

Yet another thing Camila had told him he didn't have to do was look her in the eye. Despite his reluctance towards all the other things she'd adamantly stated he didn't have to do in her presence, this one was actually a relief. He'd always had trouble looking people in the eye, he swore it sometimes felt like there were repelling magnets between him and the other person, desperately pushing his gaze anywhere else. Uncle found it disrespectful, however, so he had mostly learned to turn his brain off and just look. But there were times he couldn't afford to turn his brain off because he'd need to be listening and paying attention and that's when the eye contact became difficult.

Not having to look Camila or Luz in the eye anymore was a huge burden lifted from his shoulders and it felt as if a whole layer of tension he hadn't even realised had existed had now just been washed away and suddenly he wasn't as anxious anymore.

"It's okay, cariño. You barely slept last night so it's no wonder you slept so long!" She chuckled. "Now, let's get you some food."

She put down her weird activity with the string and stood up from the couch, walking past him to the kitchen, briefly looking back to make sure he was following her.

He sat down in the seat he'd picked the last few times he'd been at the table and Camila quickly reheated the plate that she must have left out on the counter earlier on and sat it down in front of him, grabbing herself a snack from the fridge so she could still eat with him.

He would admit, it was a little nervewracking to be eating without having Luz there as an example that he could safely follow but he liked to think he'd done a good job! Camila didn't scold him so he took that as a win, even if she didn't really scold him for anything else either. That was irrelevant.

She was staying true to her word though by continuing to give him smaller portions. Honestly, he expected to be a lot more bothered about it but actually, the portions she'd been giving him made him feel a lot better than what he'd had on the first night. They were just enough to the point where he felt full but not with the nausea that had accompanied that first meal here and just the fact that he wasn't throwing up anymore was a huge plus on its own.

After he'd finished his meal, Camila quickly washed his plate in the sink and left it on the drying rack along with the other plates which he assumed had been for Camila and Luz's meals. He felt a little sad that he hadn't been able to eat with Luz again... He wondered if she'd missed him.

"Now, I think we should get you cleaned up and change your bandages. I forgot to do them yesterday, sorry about that." Camila mentioned.

Not exactly sure what getting 'cleaned up' entailed, Hunter simply nodded.

And so, he stayed sat in his chair and allowed Camila to retrieve the first aid kit and kneel down in front of him to begin unwrapping his bandages. Hunter was actually quite relieved she'd offered to help because although in the past he hadn't had much trouble doing them himself, these bandages covered his entire arms and weren't exactly the easiest to unwrap with the state his fingers were in.

He hadn't actually gotten a proper good look at his hands and arms since they'd been bandaged up at the hospital so he was actually quite intrigued by how they'd be looking by this point. As the bandages came undone and he could examine the damage, he actually thought they looked much better than he remembered but by the look on Camila's face, he didn't really get the impression that she felt the same about that.

Sure, his fingernails still looked pretty mangled, but they had at least begun to grow back! It was just a little but the doctors had said it would take six months for them to grow back properly so honestly, it was quite impressive!

"What happened to your nails?" Camila asked before that panicked look returned, "Sorry— forgot about the questions."

"I'm okay with them sometimes..." He said quietly. She looked up at him, waiting for him to continue. "Um... sometimes questions are scary but sometimes they're not..."

"Is this one scary?"

"No. It's okay..." He mumbled. He was glad Camila didn't push the subject any further because he really had no clue how to put these feelings into words. "And I pulled my nails off. It was when I was in the closet."

"You pulled them off?!" She exclaimed, eyes widening and mouth hanging agape. She tried to cover up her reaction as best as she could when she noticed him flinch back.

"I was in there for a really long time and I just— I don't know... I wanted to do something. I wanted to feel something."

"Did it not hurt?" She frowned.

He shrugged. "It helped me not think about my leg. That hurt a lot more."

She was beginning to look a little pale. "Right..."

As she continued to unwrap the bandages, he was grateful that she didn't comment on the large amount of scars coating his hands even if he still saw her falter at the sight of them. However, once she got to his arms, she stopped again.

"Oh, baby... Oh my God, what—"

"You shouldn't take the Lord's name in vain or your tongue will be cut out." Hunter reminded her. He was sure it was just an accident but he'd certainly learned not to make that mistake after Uncle chased him around the house with a knife trying to cut his tongue out. In the end, he'd been satisfied enough by just nicking his ear.

"Sorry, um... what...?" Camila fumbled, staring down at his arms.

Hunter looked down at the symbols scarred into his arms she was apparently freaking out over.

"Oh. Uncle did it."

"He... he did that to you?"

He nodded.

"How...?"

"With a knife."

"Why would he do that?"

He was confused as to why this was apparently such a big deal to Camila. Uncle had done this to help him.

"God wanted him to." When Camila just stared at him, utterly baffled, he decided to continue. "Uncle told me that God had shown him these glyphs and that he wanted him to put them on me to help me. He thought it might be able to get the demon out of me."

"So he... he told you that God wanted him to carve these symbols into your arms with a knife to... to get a demon out of you?"

"Mhm."

"Oh, baby... I'm so sorry."

He frowned. "Why are you saying sorry?"

"I'm sorry that this happened to you."

Well, that was a silly thing to say.

"It was good though. It was going to get the demon out of me. It just didn't work all the way because I'm too sinful."

"You think there's a demon inside of you?"

Hunter wasn't sure why that specifically made him falter. He didn't think there was a demon inside of him, he knew there was one. Many people dismissed Uncle or didn't listen to him but Hunter knew he was a good man. He was such a good man. He was the only one patient enough to handle someone like Hunter and the only one willing and brave enough to do what had to be done. He was always trying to help other people, to show them the healing light, but they didn't listen. Hunter refused to be like them. Because now, his uncle had him and he had his uncle and all they needed was each other and God. Uncle had no reason to lie to him about the demon inside of him because it would make both of their lives so much easier if there wasn't one! But unfortunately, this was the harsh truth that they were forced to face. He believed his uncle through and through. But there was something in the genuine sadness in Camila's voice, the utter heartbreak on her face, that for just a moment, made him waver.

"Y—Yeah... there is! It's... it's why I was being difficult at the store earlier! It's why I threw a tantrum and it's why I can't look you in the eye and it's why I'm different!"

Camila looked as if she'd just realised something.

"Honey... I don't think there's a demon in you. Have— Have you ever heard of autism?"

"Huh...?"

She nodded slowly as if that confirmed something.

"Autism is a condition where your brain develops differently from other people which can mean that people who have it have a very different view of the world. Some of the signs that someone might be autistic are finding eye contact difficult, finding certain sounds, smells, touches or tastes overwhelming, interpreting social cues differently and lots more. I think that sounds familiar, don't you?"

He had wondered why nobody else seemed to find noise upsetting... but was this really what it was? And if it was, if it was so similar to having a demon inside you, then didn't that still make it bad?

Seeming to have read his mind, Camila continued. "It's not a bad thing by any means, it's just different. You know, Luz is actually autistic! Maybe she'd be willing to talk to you about it. I could also have a little word with Raine and see if we can get you tested for it properly."

Luz? She didn't seem like she had a demon in her? She was a little weird, yeah, and completely unlike anyone he'd met before, but she didn't act like she had a demon in her? She was nice...

"We can talk more about it another time, preferably not at nine at night." Camila chuckled, "But I'm willing to answer any questions you have and I'm sure Luz would be too."

Maybe talking to Luz would help... She'd already helped him so much already.

"Anyway, let's get you cleaned up, come on," Camila said, throwing the old bandages in the bin, helping him up from the seat and leading him upstairs. He saw how her eyes continued to linger on the glyphs etched into his arms.

If she really was telling the truth about this autism thing, then did that mean he didn't actually have a demon inside him? Then why did Uncle lie? No, he couldn't have lied, because that would mean that God had also lied and that he'd had to lay there on the floor, screaming in pain while the knife dug into his arm for no good reason. No. Either Camila was wrong and he didn't have this autism thing or maybe it was both? Or maybe autism really was the demon and that was just another term for it for people who weren't well educated by God.

This was all so complicated.

"Alright, I left you a towel in your room. Why don't you go and grab it while I run the bath." Camila instructed.

The bath...? Hadn't she just told him that there wasn't a demon inside him? Why was she... Had she already changed her mind? But he hadn't done anything... Was it because of his tantrum earlier? Had she been waiting for him to let his guard down before she finally decided to punish him?

Her expression morphed into worry as she saw he was still standing there frozen. "Is everything alright, cariño?"

He quickly nodded and returned to 'his room' to get the towel as asked. Camila gave him a strange look but shrugged it off and began running the bath.

After retrieving the towel he peeked around the doorframe and watched Camila as she poured some strange soap into the bath — probably to make his eyes burn even more — and checked the temperature — she must have been making sure it was hot enough to get the demon out. He knew that she'd said he didn't have to wait in the doorway but this time, he really was going to have to play it safe. She was clearly already upset with him, that's why she was setting up his punishment, so he couldn't afford to risk making things worse.

She turned around and spotted him, her face softening. "You can put your towel on the radiator," She tapped the metal thing attached to the wall. Uncle had ones like that too except they looked a lot more dirty and never seemed to function with their intended use. He'd always wondered what they'd done. "That way it will be nice and cosy for you when you get out."

Extra careful not to anger her, he unfolded the towel and draped it over the radiator, desperately hoping he was doing it right. He didn't receive a slap across the head so he took it as a good sign.

"Now, do you want me to leave or do you need a hand with anything? Or is that a difficult question? Sorry—"

Camila was talking to him but that didn't matter because the tap had stopped and he knew what came next.

He turned the tap and the sound of the water stopped. The room felt suffocatingly silent, despite the volume of his own voice.

"No! Nononono stop it!"

He'd never seen Uncle look at him with so much genuine hatred.

"Give me back my Caleb you filthy demon."

"Uncle! Don't! Stop it!"

Long, cold fingers snaked through his hair before pulling tight and digging into his scalp. Pain radiated from the site and he shrieked.

"I'm doing this to save you. So shut up."

He barely had time to prepare himself or even take a breath before his head was plunged into the water. The hot water stung his eyes and dug into the wounds on his face like pins jabbing into his skin. He briefly registered a salty taste in his mouth before everything erupted in white hot burning pain as the salt began its attack. Out of instinct, he tried to scream but that only allowed the water to flow into his mouth and rush down his throat, making him gag and choke. As the world began to go fuzzy, he felt his hair being pulled taunt and his head was yanked back up.

He only had a split second to splutter and gasp before he was shoved back under the water, choking almost immediately on his half-finished breath.

His throat ached and his lungs burned and his face stung.

The next time Uncle pulled him up, he used the limited time he had to get out a raspy "please!" hoping that it would be worth risking his only chance to breathe. It wasn't. He was pushed back under without a breath and began coughing, just inhaling more and more water and everything was going dark and his only thought was that he was going to die.

There was a hand in his hair but it wasn't pulling this time. It brushed through his hair, not stopping or lingering, simply drifting through before coming back to the front of his hairline to brush again. They were warm instead of cold, he noted.

Someone was screaming. It was very loud. He wanted to tell them to stop because— they had to— he was— he would be really angry and he couldn't—

Please Uncle, please stop!

"He's not here, baby. Your uncle isn't here. I promise you're safe."

His throat hurt. That's how he realised that the screaming was coming from himself. It quietened to sobs after that.

His vision was still fuzzy like a smudged painting but when he looked up, he could make out a pair of eyes looking down at him. Except, they weren't cold, harsh, blue that froze him in place with terror and demanded him to keep looking. No, they were warm brown, filled with worry and creased in a soft frown.

"Hi, Hunter." She said quietly. He could now make the connection between the hand running through his hair and the woman looking down at him. "Are you back with me?"

He wasn't sure what that meant and he was far too exhausted to try and decode it. Luckily, she seemed aware of that and did the explaining.

"You're with me, Camila, and we're at my house while I look after you. We're in the bathroom right now, I was going to let you have a bath but if that's too scary then you don't have to. We can leave it for tonight at the very least."

The side of his face was pressed up against something firm and cool, wet with tears. He made the distant connection that he was laying on the floor but he wasn't quite sure how he'd managed to end up there. He'd been standing last he remembered, standing and waiting as Camila ran the bath and prepared his punishment—

His breathing quickened again as he remembered what he was really here for. It was supposed to be good, it was supposed to help him, he knew that! He knew! But it hurt so bad and it was so so scary and he didn't want to die!

He must have said that last part out loud as Camila spoke up again. "You're not going to die. You're safe."

He didn't care if he was speaking out of turn or denying what God wanted for him because right now, all he could think about was how he really didn't want this. He didn't want to die.

"Please... please don't put me in the water... I'll be good, I promise..."

"I'm not putting you in the water, baby. You're safe. I've got you."

Carefully, she wedged a hand under his side and pulled his shaking frame up off the floor and into her arms. The alleviating feeling that came with being wrapped up in her warm embrace was like nothing he'd ever felt before.

He felt the shift in his sobs from fear to relief.

"I've got you now, baby. You don't have to hurt ever again. You're safe now."

And for some reason, he couldn't help but believe that.

Chapter Text

After carrying a sleeping Hunter to bed and tucking him in, Camila returned downstairs to the living room, sat back down on the couch and put her head in her hands.

The best way she could articulate her thoughts at this moment was Oh. My. God.

She picked up her phone and pressed the call button under Raine's contact. The phone only had to ring a few times before they picked up.

"Hi, Camila. Is everything alright?" The sweet, soft voice of Raine Whispers came from down the phone. Camila couldn't be happier to hear that voice right now.

"Raine, hi, um... sorry for calling so late." She stumbled over her words, still trying to figure out how to articulate what had happened on top of figuring out what reason she even had for calling them in the first place other than just simply needing to get all of this out of her system so it didn't collapse.

"No worries. Did something happen?" They asked, clearly reading her mind. Or maybe they just heard how frantic and dishevelled she was and put the pieces together.

She gave an empty chuckle. "Uh— Yeah... I guess you could say that."

"What's up?"

"Is Hunter's uncle in prison yet?" That felt important to get out of the way first. After what she'd just heard and seen from such a sweet little boy, she had decided that that man deserved to rot in the worst prison they could find for the rest of his sad little life.

"Umm, there's still some time before the trial. Why...?"

"He— Oh God, Raine... things were really bad." It was such a generic thing to say. Of course things were really bad! The kid had been found half dead in a closet! They all already knew that! But how else could she possibly express just how bad it was?

"Is Hunter alright?"

Was he alright? Physically? Barely. Mentally? She didn't know how he ever could be after everything...

"He's— I put him back to bed but I don't know how he'll be in the morning." She admitted.

"What happened?"

How was she even supposed to begin to put all of the information currently rushing through her head, all of the possible theories and recontextualising and pieces falling into place and realisations into words?

"I—I was taking off his old bandages so I could give him a bath and there were symbols scarred into his arms! He started telling me about how his uncle carved them with a knife because 'God told him to' and that he thought there was a demon in him but, if I'm really being honest here, I think he's just autistic! And I was running a bath for him and he just— freaked out, out of nowhere! He'd been completely fine! Maybe a little nervous but he's been nervous since he got here so I thought he was fine and then he just started screaming and he was on the floor screaming and sobbing and begging me not to kill him!"

There was a slight pause over the phone as Raine took in that information and probably tried to process at least a part of her rambling. "Right, that sounds like a lot. Are you alright?"

That stunned her for a good few seconds. "Me? I'll be fine. It's him that I'm worried about."

"Okay. Well, I can mention this all to the police, I'm sure it would help with the case. And as I've mentioned before, he's on a waiting list to be seen by a therapist but I can try and speak to someone and see if we can get him prioritised since it sounds like he's having some serious troubles that are actually starting to impact his life more than we'd expected."

What had they expected?

"Yeah, thanks, um. That helps."

"You're doing a great job, Camila. I've got to go now but if you ever need anything you can always call me."

Before her brain even had much of a chance to catch up, she was thanking Raine and the phone was clicking off. She leaned back into the couch cushions and let out a long, dramatic, much-needed sigh.

Of course, when she'd said yes to taking Hunter in, she'd been briefed on all of this. She knew he'd had a rough life, he'd been sheltered, abused and neglected and up until now, the rest of the world hadn't even known he'd existed. She'd been told to expect all sorts of things and she had but there was a difference between hearing that a child was troubled and actually seeing him screaming and crying and begging for his life on the bathroom floor. There was a difference between hearing that his uncle had abused him and listening to him talk so casually about how his uncle had carved symbols into his arm with a knife like it was just another Wednesday.

And this poor boy didn't deserve to have to hurt like this. Only a monster could look at such a lovely, sweet little boy with a heart full of so much love and be able to hurt him. And forget prison, Camila hoped that monster rotted away in whatever hell he'd made that boy fear.

Her raging train of thought was cut off, however, as she heard footsteps coming down the stairs. She wasn't a religious woman by any means but she prayed that it wasn't Hunter.

And, thankfully, it wasn't. She felt a sick sense of relief to see it was indeed Luz. Of course, if it had been Hunter she would have helped him with whatever problem had led him to go to her and she'd offer any comfort he needed, but she really just hoped he'd stay in bed. He was in desperate need of a good night's sleep.

Despite sleeping for half the day, he'd still looked utterly exhausted when he'd woken up and not to mention his breakdown in the bathroom had tired him out so much that he'd ended up falling asleep in her arms despite being so vigilant of her last night. At a time like this when he was already distressed, it certainly wouldn't help him any more to be tired too.

"Hi, Luz," Camila said softly, trying to force a smile back on her face for her daughter's sake. "Everything okay?"

Luz stood in the doorway, fidgeting with the sleeves of her pyjama shirt. In a strange way, it was similar to how Hunter had done earlier.

"I heard screaming. Is Hunter okay...?"

Camila felt a bit silly for not realising that a child hysterically screaming continuously for a good long while would have most definitely woken her daughter up.

"Sorry we woke you up, nena. Hunter's okay, he just had a bit of a fright." She reassured her.

Luz looked hesitant, almost agitated, now chewing on the edge of her sleeve. "He was screaming a lot though... I thought he was hurt."

"He's not hurt, I promise. He just... I think he was reminded of something scary. Like that time you had a bad experience at the dentist and you were scared to go back for a while. It's a bit like that."

"What was he reminded of?"

And wasn't that the question. What had happened to this boy that the mere thought of getting in the bath had caused him to beg not to be killed? None of the ideas coming unbidden to Camila's mind right now were very nice.

"I'm not sure, mija. But you don't have to worry, he's okay now."

"But I want to worry. He's my friend..."

Despite the situation, a small sad smile found itself on Camila's face. She beckoned Luz over and the girl waddled across the living room, plopped down beside her on the couch, and leaned in as her mother wrapped an arm around her.

"I know, mija. I want to worry about him too, and that just shows we care. But right now, Hunter's safe so there's no need for us to worry, it's not going to get us anywhere."

"I know..." Luz sighed. She looked up at her mother and a worried frown pulled at her features. "You look sad."

Yeah, that was... probably about right. She did feel sad. She felt sad for this poor child who'd spent so long being hurt and afraid that it was just normal to him and it was the default thing he expected upon entering her house. It was such an everyday thing for him that he could tell her all about how these symbols had been carved into his arms without so much as flinching. She was sad she hadn't met this boy sooner and been able to help him.

"Yeah... I am a bit sad." She admitted.

After a small amount of consideration, Luz seemed to come to a decision. "Do you want a hug?"

"You know what, mija? I would love a hug right now."

That wasn't even a lie either. She swore all world problems could be solved by a hug from Luz. That girl just had something special to her.

Luz managed to put a smile on her face and wrapped her arms around Camila, hugging her tight around the middle and burying her face in her shirt. Camila relaxed and hugged her back.

Even if it couldn't erase all the horrible stuff that had happened to Hunter that Camila was now trapped knowing about and would never be able to forget, the hug did still help melt away some of her current stress.

"Are you sure Hunter's okay...?" Luz mumbled into her shirt after a period of gentle silence.

Camila wasn't sure why she was still so insistent on checking? Of course, she could see how close the pair were growing and hearing a friend screaming like that was definitely at least a little scary but she'd already reassured her he was fine. Well, she supposed it couldn't hurt to do it again.

"Yeah. He's okay."

"He's—" Luz began before cutting herself off and going silent with a small frustrated sigh.

Clearly, there was something more to this. "What's on your mind, Luz?" She decided to push.

"It's just... you know when Papi—"

Ohh...

That made a lot more sense now.

When Manny had been sick, there'd been a couple of times that he'd had flare-ups at home and they'd had to call an ambulance. It was always stressful and noisy as Camila fumbled around trying to do anything to relieve her husband's pain. She tried her best to keep Luz out of the way so she wouldn't have to worry or see her father like that but, of course, the noise would wake her up and she would insist on watching from the stairs, terrified that it would be the last she would see of her papi until it eventually was...

So of course, when she woke up to someone she cared about screaming in what she had assumed was pain, she'd made that connection.

Camila hugged her daughter a little tighter. "Hunter is okay, mija. I promise you. He's not hurt or sick or anything like that, something just scared him but he's calmed down now and gone back to bed."

"Okay..." She sagged a little with relief, seeming to take that answer a bit better than before, "Can I sleep with you tonight?"

"Of course, baby."

______________________

Camila frowned in thought as she flipped another pancake over in the pan.

Hunter still wasn't up and it was now almost nine.

Herself and Luz had both slept in a bit, yes, but this was different when he'd slept through most of yesterday and then an additional twelve or so hours after his panic attack in the bathroom.

If he really was sleeping for that long then she was glad he was finally getting some rest since clearly he needed it, but part of her also worried this was another misunderstanding, another strange thing he'd learned from his past that he was carrying on here that he really didn't need to. By now she'd learned that she couldn't just assume he was thinking along the same lines as her or even anywhere near her. Did he know he could come downstairs? Did he know he could come eat? Was he worried she was angry about last night?

She tipped the pan to flip the pancake over onto a plate and turned to Luz. "I'm just going to go check on Hunter."

She didn't miss how the girl faltered slightly before plastering a smile on her face. Their conversation from last night came to mind. "Okay."

After a bit of debating, Camila knocked on Hunter's door — deciding to risk waking him up in exchange for enforcing the knowledge that he had privacy and boundaries in this house — and waited for a response. When she got none, she cracked the door open just enough to peek in.

To her relief, Hunter was actually still asleep but a little more concerning was the fact that he was sleeping on the floor. She definitely remembered putting him on the bed when she'd brought him to bed last night. Had he fallen out in the night?

She entered the room properly and kneeled down beside where he was laying on the fluffy rug, curled up in a little ball. She honestly felt bad waking him when he looked so adorable but still, she placed a gentle hand on his back.

Immediately, he jolted awake and fumbled to sit himself up, looking around for any possible danger. Camila tried to keep a kind smile on her face, even if it worried her to think about how he'd come to be so on edge.

"Good morning," She said softly, rubbing his back to show that her touch wasn't threatening. "I've made some breakfast, I was just coming to see if you wanted any."

He blinked a few times before nodding, still half asleep.

"Did you fall out of bed last night?" She decided to ask.

He didn't seem uncomfortable with the question but it did require a bit of extra thinking time as he still seemed to be waiting for his brain to turn on. After thinking it through, he shook his head and gestured to the floor under him. "Slept here." He mumbled.

"You slept on the floor? Why not the bed?"

This time he just seemed confused. Whether he was just confused about the question or didn't exactly know what his own reasoning was, she wasn't sure but in the end, he could only shrug.

"Back at your uncle's house, where did you sleep?" She decided to try. Again, he gestured to the floor.

She brushed a strand of his hair behind his ear. "Do you prefer that? Because it's familiar?"

He considered her words and nodded with a small frown as if she'd just found the exact words he'd been looking for.

"That's okay," She reassured him, "If that's the case then I could help you set up a place to sleep on the floor so it's nice and cosy."

"Am I allowed?" He whispered, like it was something he had to keep secret.

"Of course. This is your room after all. Here, let's do it now."

She got to her feet and in one big armful, she grabbed all the pillows and cushions she'd left on the bed and dumped them on the floor in a nice big pile beside Hunter. He moved out of the way to let her lay a blanket down so he wouldn't have to lay on the cold hard floor anymore and then she laid the duvet on top of that, taking the extra time to smooth it out nice and neat.

"You know, I think what you need is a nice cosy blanket. Luz loved her purple one so much that she can't even sleep without it! Now, I'm pretty sure I've got some in this cupboard, do you want to pick one?"

She opened up the door to the little storage cupboard lined with shelves in the corner and Hunter cautiously approached to investigate.

"Do you want to feel them so you can find the best one?" She offered, remembering how he'd cringed at the material of the sweater back at the store. He nodded and slowly reached out his hand to test the blankets, watching her out of the corner of his eye to make sure it wasn't a trick. To ease his nerves, she kept her hands in her lap and gave him some space.

He ran his hand down all the different blankets until he got to a nice fluffy red one that funnily enough matched the carpet.

"That one is nice! You can take it out if you want."

Again, watching her for any sign that this was a trick, he removed the blanket from the pile and hugged it close to his chest.

"Oh, I have an idea. Why don't I wrap you up nice and cosy and you can take it downstairs." She suggested. He didn't give her a real answer but held the blanket out towards her so she took it as a yes.

She took the blanket from him, careful to keep her hands in his line of sight, and unfolded it so she could wrap it around his shoulders. She noticed that small ghost of a smile return.

"Thank you. I... like it." He muttered quietly.

She couldn't help but playfully tug the blanket to pull him forward, laughing at the way his face scrunched up in his own sort of smile. It looked like someone who had only ever seen a picture of a person smiling and was trying to recreate it but just hadn't quite gotten it yet.

Camila wanted to protect that smile.

So she dragged herself to her feet and offered him her hand.

"Let's go get some breakfast, I'm sure Luz is just itching to talk your ear off again."

Chapter Text

Luz couldn't sleep. And while it wasn't like that was something new, it was actually quite a frequent occurrence, in fact, it was still just really really frustrating.

She was all tired and grumpy and she knew she'd be even more tired and grumpy in the morning if she didn't get to sleep now but she just couldn't and it was really starting to stress her out which was making her even more tired and grumpy and— ugh!

She'd tried all the usual tricks that Mami had gone over a thousand times: counting to one thousand and back down, relaxing each part of her body one at a time, timing how long she could stay completely still for, but none of it had worked.

With a lovely long, drawn-out sigh, she accepted her fate and dangled herself upside down over the edge of her bed, deciding to think of ideas for her next Azura fan fiction so she could at least be wise with her time.

That was when she heard it.

It started off as a quiet whimper, like the injured animals that she'd find in the forest that her mami would try and help, then it was a high-pitched whine which broke into small sobs and hiccups and then became proper cries.

Luz pulled herself back up into a normal sitting position so she was the right way around again before sliding her legs over the side of her bed and onto the carpet beneath her. Curiously, she slipped from her room and tip-toed down the dark hallway to try and locate the source of the noise.

In the end, she found herself outside Hunter's room.

It wasn't an unusual occurrence for the kids that stayed here to cry. It happened a lot in fact! Especially in the beginning. Usually, Mami would come and comfort them and offer them something to cheer them up whether that was a snack or even just a nice hug. But Mami was asleep and after the other night... Luz would just go and check on him, she decided.

So, she gave the door a very small nudge with her shoulder, just enough for it to brush open ever so slightly, and she peeked inside. And there, curled up on the floor in his makeshift bed was Hunter, sobbing into his pillow.

A few days ago, Luz had overheard her mother asking Hunter about whether or not sleeping on the floor was helping. She hadn't known what she'd meant by that, why was Hunter sleeping on the floor when he had a bed? And what was that supposed to be helping with? So she'd gotten curios and asked her mom about it and she'd explained that apparently, at his uncle's house Hunter would sleep on the floor instead of in a bed and with all the changes happening recently, Mami was helping him find something familiar but making it more comfortable so he could be happy!

It made Luz sad to imagine Hunter having to sleep on the floor back at his old house. That sounded really uncomfortable... and where would he put all his toys? He probably didn't even have any toys, now that she was thinking about it... From what Luz had heard about Hunter's uncle, he didn't sound like the type of guy to be buying him nice toys to play with. He didn't sound like the type of guy to do anything nice at all, in fact.

But Luz admired how considerate her mother always was of not only her but every other child that stayed with them as well. Plus, the cosy little corner that she'd set up for Hunter, filled with soft pillows and blankets to burrow himself in looked really comfy!

Thanks to the fact that he had his face buried in a pillow and his own sobs seemed to have drowned out the quiet sounds of the door opening, he hadn't appeared to have noticed Luz's presence so she squeezed through the gap she'd made in the door and crept across the floor to his little cosy corner, kneeling down beside him and tapping him on the shoulder.

He jumped at her touch and let out a scared whimper. Her stomach felt like it was doing flips as she remembered what Mami had told her back when he'd flinched before. He was jumping because he was expecting her to hurt him... But she would never hurt him! And she didn't want him to think that she would! She wanted him to trust her... But Mami said that even when he did begin to trust them both, it would probably still take a while for him to stop flinching. Luz thought it was cruel that he'd have to be scared for so long.

Frantically fighting off the blankets he'd been cuddled up under, Hunter quickly sat up and stared at her with a cautious look in his eye. She must have really scared him if he was going back to staring at her again.

"Are you okay?" She asked, only realising how stupid that question was when he just burst into tears again. Yeah Luz, he probably wasn't doing too well.

"What's the matter?" She rephrased, trying not to let her slip up put her off track.

"I miss my uncle," Hunter mumbled between his sobs, "I miss my house..."

At first, Luz was confused. How could he ever miss his uncle after he'd hurt him so much! Wasn't he glad that he didn't have to go through that anymore? But then she imagined how she'd feel if she was taken away from her mami and her house and forced into an unfamiliar place with complete strangers. Even if it was for a good reason, that did sound really scary...

"Where is your uncle?" She asked, trying to gauge the situation.

That just seemed to make him more upset. "I don't know!" He whined between even heavier sobs, "The cops probably locked him away! And— And— I'm never going to see him again!"

"Hey! That's not true!" She tried to placate, waving her hands around in front of her. She felt a fresh wave of guilt when he flinched again. "Loads of kids that have come to stay here get to go back to their families!"

He calmed slightly, a hopeful look making its way onto his face. "Really?"

"Mhm! What's the word Mami uses again? Reu— Reuni— Reunifiction? I don't remember, but it's definitely a thing!"

"So... I can see Uncle again?"

In all honesty, Luz didn't want Hunter to go back to his uncle. His uncle sounded like a bad guy because, in her mind, only bad guys could hurt nice people like Hunter. She didn't think a bad guy like him even deserved someone like Hunter. And... she didn't really want to see Hunter go... He was her friend now and she really liked him! She wanted to get to know him, the real him under all the anxiousness, and she wanted to see him smile more! So she didn't want him to go back to his uncle again, even if the man did get better. But... she also didn't want to see Hunter sad like this...

So she plastered a smile on her face and tried to be hopeful for him. "Yeah!"

"When does that happen?" He asked almost immediately. Luz felt a twinge of sadness to see how eager he was to leave.

"Well, usually the other kids stayed with us for a while and their families had to do a bunch of stuff, like to become better parents and stuff, and then in court, when the judge decided they were good enough to be parents again, they let the kids go home!"

Hunter's face scrunched up in frustration. "But my uncle is good! He's really good! He goes to mass every Sunday and he says lots of prayers, just like God wants him to!"

Luz didn't think praying and going to mass made up for hurting a kid but she didn't want to upset Hunter by saying that. "Maybe it won't take long then! We'll just have to wait and see how it goes."

"I still miss him though..." He sighed, tucking his knees up to his chin and hugging them.

And didn't that strike a familiar chord?

"It's... not exactly the same, but I get the feeling... I miss my dad a lot too." Luz admitted, her shoulders hunching in as she let her hands drop into her lap.

Hunter stole a glance at her. "Your dad?"

"Mhm. He died about four years ago now. It's a long time ago, I know, but I still miss him... and some days I miss him a lot and it's all I can think about and I just get really sad."

"How do you feel happy again?"

Luz had a good long think about that. "Well... I guess I usually go and talk to Mami. I like it when she gives me hugs, that usually helps cheer me up at least a bit."

"Would hugs make me happy?" Hunter asked hesitantly.

She doubted any hugs would make him stop missing his uncle, they'd already shown him tons of kindness and that fact hadn't changed, but she supposed that even if hugs didn't stop her from missing her dad, they still helped.

"Maybe? I could try?" She suggested.

After a little bit more thought that Luz thought he needed, Hunter nodded. "Okay..."

So, once he'd uncurled himself from hugging his knees and straightened up a bit, Luz leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him in a nice, cosy hug. At first, he was a little awkward and more than a little stiff but to her relief, it only took a minute before he relaxed and melted into the hug.

She tried to recall all the things that made Mami's hugs so special and attempted to recreate them, holding him securely but not too tight, rocking ever so slightly back and forth, and running a hand through his hair, smoothing out the bits that were sticking up from laying down.

After a few minutes, she tentatively pulled away. Hunter seemed a little reluctant to do the same.

"Did that help?" Luz asked, reaching her hand over to rest on top of his.

He didn't hesitate to slot his hand into hers. "A little bit, but I'm still sad..."

Luz returned to thinking of what helped her feel better. She supposed she liked to curl up somewhere cosy with her Azura book from dad and read it for a while but after Hunter's previous comment about the witchcraft elements, she didn't think that would help very much. Sometimes Mami would let her invite her friends from school over but she had a feeling she was probably Hunter's only friend and although she would love to introduce him to her friend group, sure they'd love to be his friends, right now was probably not the best time when he was still so nervous of everyone. She liked cuddling her plushies and squeezing them really really tight to help get some of her emotions out but Hunter didn't have any plushies. Well...

"I've got an idea! I'll be back in a minute!" She exclaimed, dashing off back to her room before Hunter could even process what she'd said.

She was back in only a few seconds, hoping Hunter would be amazed by her super cool running skills and hiding her hands behind her back.

"I think that what you need is a good friend to cuddle when you're sad!" She decided, revealing the red bird plushie from behind her back and grinning as she saw the quick spark of interest on Hunter's face. "Plushies always make me feel better! So, I thought I could let you have one of mine!"

He wilted slightly, wringing his hands anxiously. "Really? Is that okay?"

"Of course!" She reassured, "I have tons and tons of them, I only got this guy the other week so he's brand new. There are just so many toys I need to give hugs to so that means not everyone gets equal hugs and since this guy is so new and a little nervous, I think he needs someone to give him one on one cuddle time. And you're the perfect man for the job!"

She held out the plushie for him to take and watched all the emotions crossing his face, nervousness, hesitancy, anxiousness before curiosity seemed to win out and he accepted the plushie, keeping a close eye on Luz to make sure she didn't change her mind as he sat the toy in his lap.

He ran his fingers over the nice soft fabric and rubbed the little wings between his thumb and forefinger. "It's a cardinal..." He muttered.

She hadn't realised he was a bird sort of guy. Lucky guess, she supposed. "Oh cool! Do you know if it's a boy or a girl?"

"It's a boy. Only the males are red like this. The females are more brown." His voice had lost that nervous shake to it and he seemed a lot more calm.

"Does he have a name?"

He frowned at her.

Taking it as confusion, she explained. "He needs a cool name now. What do you want to call him?"

"I—I don't know how to do that..." The nervousness was back. Great job, Luz.

"It's okay! You just need to look at him and go with what comes to mind!" She explained.

Hunter bit his lip. "But I want to give him a really good name..."

"Why don't I help you then!" She offered, "I have plenty of experience naming plushies. So, what's something that makes you happy?"

There was a very long pause as Hunter thought hard about her question. Despite her usual lack of patience, she let him think for as long as he needed.

"Pancakes." He eventually settled on.

Luz looked thoughtfully at the little bird he was now stroking. "Hmmm... pancakes doesn't quite fit..."

He looked down at the bird too and hummed in agreement. They both had another think about it.

And all of a sudden, the answer came to Luz as if it had been right there all along.

"What about Flapjack!"

Hunter examined the bird with the new name in mind. "Oh yeah. That looks right."

"Yeah! Flapjack! Flapjack and Hunter! It sounds good!" She cheered.

His face did that scrunching thing again where it seemed like he was trying to smile but he just sort of looked like someone was tickling his nose with a feather. Luz still thought it was sweet. She liked his smile.

"I love you so much Flapjack." He declared, hugging the plushie tight to his chest and running his hand across the feathers on its head, a bit like how Luz had hugged him earlier. She wondered if he'd known about hugs before coming here or if this was his first time getting to experience them.

That thought was what made her lean forward yet again and wrap him up in another hug.

"Are you feeling better yet?" She asked, mentally crossing her fingers because... you know, she was kind of busy giving the sad boy hugs!

"I think I am... yeah." He mumbled, leaning into her.

The idea of returning to her own room, fighting for sleep to come, filled her with dread but it was getting late... "Guess my job here is done then." She chuckled, leaning back again. He looked a little disappointed by that. "I'm going to head back to my room now. You can come get me if you need anything though!"

He opened his mouth to say something before stopping himself and simply nodding.

"Unless... you want me to stay, and we could maybe have a sleepover...?"

He perked up at that and nodded enthusiastically. She found her smile widening too.

"Okay! I can stay then." She grinned, launching herself at him to squeeze him in yet another hug. She swore she heard him giggle.

He made some space in the pile of cushions for them to lay down in and then Luz helped him pull some blankets over them so they were nice and cosy. She could definitely see the appeal of this set-up versus a normal, boring bed. It was so much comfier.

"Will... your mom be okay with you staying in here?" Hunter asked, kneading the soft blanket with his hands. She thought he looked like a cat.

"Yeah! She doesn't mind, especially if it's something that'll make us happy."

He hugged Flapjack a little closer. "Does this make you happy?"

"Being with you? Yeah!"

"Oh."

She pretended not to notice how his eyes were getting a bit wet.

"And... if you wanted to, you could call her Mom too." She decided to venture.

"Huh?"

"You called her my mom. I just wanted to let you know that... you could call her your mom too. If you want."

Hunter bit his lip again, curling in on himself slightly. "I— um... I shouldn't... she's— I—"

"It's okay! You don't have to!" She made sure to clarify, though internally, her stomach squirmed.

"She's... nice," He continued, "But... she's not my mom. She's not my family. I—I have a family, I have my uncle and I... can't abandon him... not like him."

Luz wasn't entirely sure what all of that meant but she got the important parts. "That's okay. You don't have to call her Mom or anything. I just wanted to... the offer is there if you ever want it."

He rubbed Flapjack against his face to wipe away the small tear from his cheek. "Okay."

"I think we should try and sleep now. So we aren't super tired in the morning." She advised.

"Can you..." He made a vague gesture with his arms.

"Do you want me to hug you again?"

"Mhm."

"Okay."

For like the fiftieth time that night, Luz gave him a nice big hug, holding him close and laughing when he managed to wriggle Flapjack in between the two of them. She was glad he liked the hugs because so did she.

"Can you make sure nothing gets me?" He mumbled sleepily, allowing his eyes to close.

Now, she had absolutely no clue what he meant by that but she still nodded along anyway. "Yeah, I got you."

He nodded, seemingly satisfied with her answer, and relaxed. "Goodnight..."

She smiled. "Night night."

Suddenly, sleep seemed a lot easier now that she was cuddled up cosy with her new friend. It was almost like this was how it was meant to be.

So she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep with a smile on her face.

Chapter Text

Hunter liked dinner time, he'd decided.

Back home, dinner had of course been good, he finally got to eat and if Uncle hadn't been drinking then they'd eat together at the table like the families on TV did when Uncle wasn't looking and he watched the screen secretly from the stairs. That had always made him happy, he liked it when they were like the families on TV. But, although it was good in the sense he could finally spend time with Uncle, it was also a little scary. He always found himself trembling as he tried to figure out how to hold the cutlery before Uncle got mad. Dinner seemed to always be when Uncle would remember to criticise him, comment on how he'd been slacking with his prayers recently or he was being such a burden with all his irritating problems and how hard that was for his poor uncle who had given up so much freedom in taking him in. And if Hunter happened to mess up at dinner, he was in perfect grabbing distance for Uncle to slam his head into the table or smash a bottle over his head.

In short, dinner could be nice but also very scary.

But dinner at Camila's house was nice without the scary.

The three of them sat at the table just like the families on TV and they'd talk instead of shout. And they wouldn't even talk about each other's faults or shortcomings either, they talked about nice things like Luz's friends and Camila's cookbooks and on a few occasions Luz had even managed to shift the conversation in the direction of birds to give him a chance to share what he'd learned from the birdwatching books he used to read in secret from the dusty sections of Uncle's bookshelves. And not only was the conversation good, but the food was good too! Camila always made such tasty meals, even if she insisted they were just 'made in the microwave', Hunter always found himself with a happy, warm feeling in his chest (and his stomach). And she gave him big portions, bigger than he'd ever had before, but not enough to make him sick. And if he didn't finish it quickly enough, she didn't take it away. She always waited for him to finish, no matter how long it took and, in fact, she'd even let him have seconds if he wasn't feeling too full yet.

Dinner had become less mixed feelings, some good, some bad, and more just all good every time.

Though, a small part of him felt bitter that he was able to have this experience with strangers rather than his uncle...

But he tried to ignore that thought as he kicked Luz under the table and dug into his spaghetti.

They'd had this meal a few times now, not that Hunter minded. Like with everything else Camila made, he loved it, but after the first time they'd had it Camila had learned to cut his up into smaller pieces after he'd tried to eat a bunch of it at once and ended up choking on the long pieces of pasta. That had not been a very good feeling and did not bring back very good memories.

So, to make sure he didn't end up dying from his own stupidity, Camila had been cutting up his spaghetti for him and actually, it made it a lot easier to eat anyway! He also found it sweet how she always seemed to cut up his food for him. It made him feel fuzzy inside to know that someone was taking the time to do that for him, even if it was just something really small...

But he'd never admit that out loud. Even if Camila was really nice and gentle and patient with him and considerate of his needs and for the first time in forever he felt like he could start to let his guard down because of her, he didn't want to get too comfortable with her. He still had his uncle to return to and he'd sworn to the man that he would never betray him. He refused to give into sin like Caleb had and he would not let all of his uncle's sacrifices over the years go to waste.

Even if these people were nice, they were sinners and ultimately, he could not allow himself to be led astray by their unholy way of life.

But it didn't mean he couldn't enjoy this, just for a little while...

And there was a lot to enjoy actually! He didn't think he could remember a time when he'd even had anywhere near this amount of fun. He liked sitting in the corner of the living room while Camila watched TV and listening to the people talking on the screen. He liked the games that Luz taught him how to play, as long as they weren't the ones with witchcraft in them. He liked it when Luz snuck into 'his' room in the night to give him more hugs. He liked reading the books that Camila had left on the shelf in 'his' room, especially the ones about birds! He'd even noticed a few new books on birds appear on the bookshelf as if by magic! He'd concluded that God must have seen how well-behaved he'd been and wanted to reward him.

But maybe most of all, he liked spending time with Flapjack. He hadn't expected to grow so attached to the bird, only taking him off Luz's hands for her sake (and maybe he was a little interested in the fact he was a bird) but as time went on, he'd started to realise just how much he liked having Flapjack. Whenever he would start to feel sad or scared or miss Uncle again, he'd wrap the bird up in a nice tight hug, just like Luz had suggested, and he'd immediately feel ten times better! He hoped she hadn't used any witchcraft on it... But Flapjack didn't seem sinful, so for now he'd accept that his new bird friend was safe from the devil's reach.

Uncle had always said he had no need for toys like Flapjack, insisting that since Hunter was so mature for his age, so knowledgeable compared to his ignorant peers who used the excuse of youth to ignore the wishes of the Lord, that he didn't need such childish methods to keep himself entertained. If he was bored, he could read the Bible. If he needed comfort, he could turn to God.

But he'd tried going to God for help. He'd kneeled on the floor of 'his' room and said prayer after prayer, pleading with the Lord to give his uncle back and to let him be happy again until his knees ached and had deep red imprints from the pattern of the carpet. But no matter how much he prayed, he was yet to feel any sort of comfort.

But Flapjack, however, had been able to calm him in a matter of seconds. Whenever he'd begin to grow nervous of the people around him or his mind insisted on dragging back those scary memories and lingering on them, he'd squeeze Flapjack tight in his arms and suddenly he would just feel so much safer.

So sure, it was silly and childish, but... it was nice.

And Camila had even been tolerant enough of his childish behaviour to allow him to bring Flapjack to the table to eat dinner with them! She had agreed with him that the bird shouldn't have to miss out on something so fun and she'd even set out another, much smaller plate of food for Flapjack to have so he wouldn't feel left out.

Hunter... appreciated her thoughtfulness.

So now, he scooped up spoonfuls of spaghetti, (Camila had offered him a fork like what she and Luz were using but he'd spent ten minutes struggling with one, trying to get the spaghetti to stay on it long enough for him to take a bite until he eventually gave in and used a spoon) and fed them to Flapjack who chirped happily and thanked him for the food. And it was definitely Flapjack doing those things and definitely not Luz across the table. Definitely.

"Hunter, could you pass me the vinegar please?" Camila requested, gesturing vaguely in his direction.

That was an order. He was good with orders. Even if it threw just a small spanner in the works since he hadn't had time to prepare for this, it was fine because orders were simple. He knew what to do with orders. And he'd be able to complete this order as long as he took it one step at a time and didn't get stressed and freak out like he now had a consistent streak of doing. What was vinegar again?

He quickly scanned the labels of each of the different jars and bottles that Camila had sat out on the table, trying to identify them but after quickly skimming over them, he realised he'd been too fast to actually process any of them and Camila was looking at him expectantly and okay, maybe he was starting to panic just ever so slightly.

But thankfully, Luz gave him a helpful kick under the table and pointed discreetly to a clear bottle with a dark, brownish liquid.

Not wishing to keep Camila waiting any longer, he snatched the bottle and quickly handed it over to her.

And in the process, lost his grip on it and dropped it, the dark liquid spilling all over Camila's plate, soaking into her food and giving it a dirty look.

Time felt as if it had slowed as he looked up at Camila's face to gauge her reaction and saw the quick flicker of something across her face.

Immediately he went into panic mode before he even had the chance to process what that look had meant.

He launched up, distantly registering that he must have knocked his chair over in the process thanks to the loud bang it made on impact with the floor and his own subsequent flinch that followed, and he frantically waved his hands around, trying to do something, stalling to try and figure out how he could fix this before—

"I—I'm sorry! I'm really sorry! I— Sorry! I didn't mean to— I'll fix it, I promise! I can— I didn't mean to be so useless but I swear I'll do better! I'll be better!"

Through his now blurry vision thanks to the tears insistent on pooling in his eyes, he could just about make out the worry etching itself into Camila's face as she watched him fumble to try and fix his mistake, dipping his sleeve on the excess liquid on her plate to try and clean it up and cringing when it soaked through his sleeve and bandages and stung the wounds on his arm.

"Hey! Hey, it's okay! It's just an accident!" She insisted, quickly pulling his arm away from the plate.

As soon as he felt her hand wrap firmly around his wrist, he dropped to the floor, arranging himself into an at least somewhat respectable kneeling position, and began begging for her forgiveness.

"I'm really sorry! Please— Please forgive me! I didn't— I'll do better! I'll— I'll—"

She was trying to talk to him, he could see that, he could see her mouth moving but he couldn't hear what she was saying over his own gasping and pathetic whimpering. He was now realising just how difficult breathing had become.

As his panic continued to pile up into one big mountain of terror, the only thing his racing mind could grab onto was the deeply ingrained lesson he'd been taught time and time again with a whip cracked across his back or a switch struck across his hands or healing salts rubbed into his wounds. He prayed.

In his hunched-over position, trembling in fear, he clasped his hands together and began to work his way through the first prayer that came to mind.

"Our Father, who— who art in heaven... hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, th—thy will be done on earth as it—"

He cut himself off with a harsh gasp which devolved into choking as he desperately tried to get air in. But no matter how hard he tried, it felt as if a hole had been poked out in his throat for all the air to escape through before it could even reach his lungs. And the more and more he tried, the more frantic and panicked he became until all he could do was choke on his sobs.

A hand closed around his own where he'd clutched them tight against his chest and he whimpered as they were pulled away from him. He was sure that this would be the breaking point, when Camila finally saw how much of a pathetic waste of time he was and that she'd finally learn her lesson and punish him properly like she should have done from the start because clearly he hadn't learned. But instead of a blow to the head of sharp fingernails digging into his wrist, there were soft, warm hands wrapping around his own and gently massaging his clenched knuckles.

He risked stealing a glance at the person in front of him and caught a glimpse of Camila's face. She didn't look... angry. She looked a little bit sad but not angry or annoyed. When she noticed he was looking at her, she gave him a smile and ran a gentle hand through his hair. He could just about catch when she mouthed 'It's okay'.

Gradually, his hands relaxed and Camila took that as an opportunity to slip her hand into his and rest her fingers on his palm. Slowly, she lifted each finger up and tapped it back down, counting to four and then back down. Confused as to what she was trying to accomplish, he looked back up at her and noticed how she was taking such exaggerated breaths. It took him a moment to put the pieces together but eventually, he realised that she was breathing in and out in counts of four, trying to coax him into doing the same.

It required a lot of focus for him to do, but he began trying to match his breathing to hers, taking a deep breath in for the first four times she tapped his hand and then letting that breath go for the next four taps. He did end up choking and messing up a few times, causing him to go straight back to panicking, but Camila remained patient and each time she'd help him calm down again until eventually, his sobs wound down into sniffles and he was feeling a lot less like he was dying.

"It's okay, see. It was just an accident." She reassured him, her voice lowered significantly, nearly to a whisper. "Accidents happen all the time and it's nothing that can't be fixed. You're not in trouble, cariño."

But I should be, he thought bitterly. I should be in so much trouble because I messed up and you should hit me so I learn to be better and you should keep hitting me to make up for every single time you've let me be bad. You should hit me because I don't want to like you more than Uncle.

He wanted to shout at her. He wanted to give her a reason to hurt him so he could say that she was no better than his uncle and that he had been right all along. He wanted her to admit he deserved it.

He stayed silent.

"Do you want to finish your dinner?" She offered gently.

He looked up at his abandoned plate still sitting on the table and was filled with a guilty sense of nausea. He'd ruined her meal, so why did he deserve to have his own? He shook his head.

"That's okay, why don't you go and sit in the living room and put something on the TV while I clean up, 'kay?"

Despite her strange wording, he understood her order. She must have finally realised just how incompetent he was and wanted rid of him before he had the chance to ruin anything else.

He struggled to his feet, using the table as leverage to pull himself up onto his shaky legs. Then he gave her a polite nod and left like he'd been asked to.

If she was still this insistent on not punishing him, he'd just have to do it himself.

Stopping at the door to the small closet under the stairs, he wrapped a hand around the cold metal doorknob and gave it a small twist, allowing the door to swing open slightly. The closet was small but still bigger than the one at home, although, it was packed full of coats, shoes and other miscellaneous items but he was pretty sure he'd still be able to squeeze in just fine.

He glanced down the hallway to the kitchen and watched as Camila leaned against the counter, rubbing her temples and let out a long, tired sigh.

This was for the best, he decided, and climbed into the small closet, closing the door behind him and watching the cramped space fall into the familiar darkness.

Immediately, it felt as if the world had shifted. Time slowed and everything felt fuzzy and far away. He felt numb. And that was nice.

He hadn't been in the closet for a while now. Back at the hospital he had of course been confined to his bed and also pretty zoned out the entire time and Camila certainly hadn't ever left him in the closet so this was the first time in a while that he'd gotten to sit in the darkness on his own.

And admittedly, it wasn't quite as bad as he remembered...

Sure, the last time his leg had been bent entirely the wrong way and he'd sort of been dying of malnutrition and stuff but still, he almost felt as if he'd missed this.

The closet had never been the danger, he was now realising. It was outside the closet that he had to worry about. Outside the closet, he was hurt and scared and he just felt so genuinely lost in the world. But inside the closet, he was safe. That meant the sore part of the punishment was over and he could finally have some time to rest without worrying about being hurt. Uncle had never hurt him in the closet, after all.

And it was something familiar too. The past week or so that he'd been here had probably been some of the most confusing and upsetting in his life. He barely knew these people and even if they put up a kind front, he didn't know their true intentions deep down. The house itself looked so different to what he was used to, and although it felt warm and cosy, it wasn't home. Hell, the entire neighbourhood looked unfamiliar. He had no clue where he even was or what direction was the way back to Uncle's house. He didn't even know where his uncle was or what was happening to him...

His whole life had been uprooted and everything had been changed and he just felt so helpless.

But the closet was familiar. It was safe and familiar.

Someone was calling his name, he recognised distantly, but he paid them no mind and let the darkness cloud his mind.

But unfortunately, that darkness was interrupted when the closet door creaked open and light spilt into the small space. Somewhere in the distant, cloudy feeling, he felt a rise of dread at the thought of being discovered.

There was a shadow towering over him and he could feel that deeply ingrained feeling of terror spark up again but he was far too numb to actually react to it. Thankfully, though, the figure bent down and kneeled instead.

"Hi, baby. Are you okay?"

He could tell it was Camila's voice but she just sounded underwater...

"Can I come in?" She asked. He wasn't sure... everything felt too foggy to think properly. He decided just to nod.

She climbed into the closet with him and sat beside him, having to tuck her legs in a bit to fit. "Do you want me to close the door?"

He didn't know what he wanted. He didn't want to sit and try to puzzle out which option would be better when in the end it wouldn't change the fact that he was scared and upset and the world felt fuzzy. She didn't punish him for his silence and seemed to have decided to shut the door on her own terms, letting the space return to darkness.

"I brought Flapjack." She whispered. That caught his attention and he turned to look vaguely in her direction. "You left him at the table. Luz tells me he missed you."

His arms felt like they'd been weighed down with lead and frankly, he did not have the energy to fight with them right now. Camila noticed and kindly placed his bird companion in his arms. He felt ever so slightly better once he was able to bury his face in Flapjack's soft feathers.

Camila paused for a moment, appearing to consider how she wanted to proceed. "Why did you come here?"

He didn't have the words nor the energy to try and process and explain all of what he was feeling right now, all of the frustration and anger and resentment and guilt and overwhelming fear. The best he could do in his current state was settle on one simple idea. "I was bad..."

He could physically sense the moment she frowned. "No, cariño... you're not bad. It was just an accident and nobody is mad at you for it."

"You need to be mad at me... So I learn." The words slipped from him before he even had a proper chance to consider them.

"I've got no reason to be mad at you. You didn't do it on purpose so I know you didn't mean it. You've got nothing to learn when you already knew not to do it."

"But I—" What was he even doing? Why was he even arguing with her when she clearly didn't understand?

"You see, if I got mad at Luz for every mistake she made, if I punished her every single time, I would have lost my voice by now. And I'm the same! We make mistakes all the time and sometimes there is a lesson to learn there, but you don't need to be punished to learn it."

"Hit me."

Suddenly, everything went dead silent.

It took Camila a considerable amount of time to pull herself together and respond and even then, all she could manage was a weak "What...?"

For the first time in a while now, he looked her dead in the eye.

"Please... just hit me."

She looked horrified. "Why...?"

"I need—" He stopped when he saw the tears beginning to gather in the corners of his eyes before he scolded himself and reminded his stupid, messed-up mind that he was right and she was wrong. "I need to be better. I need to learn so I can be better. You need to hit me to make me better."

"Baby... No..."

"Please!"

She just... looked at him. Like he was crazy. And then slowly, she wrapped her arms around him and pulled him close.

She wasn't getting it... she didn't understand! He needed to—

"Just hit me!"

"No."

"Hit me! Punch me! Pull my hair! Scratch me! Kick me! Stab me! Just hurt me, please!"

"No."

"Please... I don't want to like you..."

"That's fine, darling. You don't have to like me. But I will still never hurt you."

"You're not better than him! You're not! You need to hurt me so he can be right!"

"He's not right."

Those words were worse than any injury she could have given him.

"He is! He is! He is, he is, he is, he is! He needs to hurt me! You need to hurt me! So just do it!"

"He didn't need to hurt you and I'm so sorry he did. But I promise you that you won't ever have to hurt like that again. I'm going to keep you safe."

"He's not wrong..."

"I know it's hard to accept and I know it's scary, but you're not alone... I'm right here and I'm going to stay right here so we can figure it out together. I'm not your enemy. I'm on your side. I just want what's best for you."

"I'm scared..."

He didn't even know where that came from. But it was genuine.

"You don't need to be scared anymore. I've got you, baby."

He couldn't stop the sobs that escaped him and he didn't want to either. He gripped her shirt and buried his face in her chest and sobbed. She held him tight in her arms and he just sobbed. He just sobbed.

He sobbed until he couldn't anymore and then she opened the closet door again and pulled him out, lifting him into her arms and carrying him upstairs like a baby. She took him to his room and laid him down in his bed and brushed her hand through his hair with a loving look in her eye.

"Do you want me to stay?"

He nodded. He did.

She made a space beside him in his weird little makeshift bed and then she laid down, pulling a blanket over them, nice and snug. He curled up against her and kneaded his hands into the fabric of her shirt and she wrapped her arms around him again and rubbed his back.

It felt really nice.

"You're safe and you're loved, baby. And everything's going to be okay."

She spoke with such certainty that he couldn't even find it in himself to disagree.

So he didn't.

He just nodded and let his eyes close, relaxing as she held him and rubbed his back.

Chapter Text

Watching Hunter freak out like that had been really really scary...

Before today, Luz had barely even heard him raise his voice above a whisper, so to suddenly see him shouting how sorry he was as he frantically tried to fix his mistake and then begin praying, it sure was a stark contrast, to say the least. And of course, she'd heard him shouting at Mami when she'd disappeared to go check up on him. She'd heard a hell of a lot of shouting, that was for sure. And the things he'd been saying...

He'd asked her to hit him.

That confused Luz. She knew that his uncle had hit him in the past, she wouldn't even have needed to be told that to come to that conclusion, and that even though he was safe now, he still expected it to happen again. But she thought he'd be glad when he realised that it wouldn't?

But she'd heard him loud and clear as he shouted at Mami, demanding that she hit him.

She'd heard him tell Mami to do all sorts of things and she heard him tell her that she wasn't better than his uncle and that he didn't want to like her.

But why?

Mami had been so kind to him, she'd tried her best to make sure he was happy or at the very least okay. And then he'd shouted at her that his uncle, his uncle who had hurt him, was better than her.

Why wasn't he happy to have Mami? Why wasn't he happy that he didn't have to hurt anymore? Why was he now asking her to keep hurting him?

She didn't understand...

As footsteps staggered down the stairs, Luz turned to the doorway to see her mami emerging into the hallway, hair a little all over the place and reaching under her glasses to run at her tired eyes. Mami also noticed her and a look of alarm took form on her face.

"Oh, Mija! I'm so sorry, I was just getting Hunter to bed and I lost track of time." She rushed to explain.

"It's okay, Mami!" Luz was quick to reassure, "I cleaned the table for you and got my pyjamas on."

Mami looked almost sad to hear that. But wasn't she supposed to be happy that Luz helped her? She was always asking her to chip in where she could! "You didn't have to do that... But thank you, Luz."

"Is Hunter okay?" She was decently sure she already knew the answer to that, it was pretty damn clear how he'd be doing after shouting at Mami to hurt him, but she still just had to ask.

Mami crossed the room to sit beside her on the couch. "You, young lady, need to stop worrying so much about everyone else."

"I can't help it!" She protested, "So is he?"

"I don't know, mija." Mami replied honestly with sighed, "He's feeling a lot of complicated emotions right now, and that's understandable. I think he just needs some time to adjust. It has only been just over a week after all."

"Are you okay?" Luz pushed.

Mami paused for a moment, genuinely taken off guard. "Yes? Why are you asking?"

Luz pulled at a loose thread on her pyjamas. She had no reason to feel guilty, it wasn't her fault she'd overheard. It was pretty damn hard to miss it when Hunter had been shouting so loud. Yet that conversation had felt personal and something that Mami would say was 'not for her ears'. "I... heard him shouting at you."

"Did you hear what he said?" She asked, cautiously.

"Mhm..."

In the pause that followed, Luz was sure Mami would be upset with her for listening in. She tried so hard to protect Luz from stuff like this, the scary stuff that made her sad, and Luz had still gone ahead and listened, even if not intentionally.

When her mami spoke, however, she was pleasantly surprised. "That's okay, mija. It must have been hard to hear though. Are you alright?"

"I'm...worried..." She mumbled, resting her chin up on her knees.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Mami offered.

"I want Hunter to like you! But he said—" She cut herself off with a frustrated sigh.

"I know, baby. So do I. And I think— I think he does like me, and that's the problem."

Luz frowned up at her mother. "Why is that a problem?"

"Because he doesn't want to like me. Because he thinks that liking me somehow takes away from how much he loves his uncle. He doesn't want to end up liking me more than he likes his uncle."

"But he should!" Luz exclaimed, "He should like you more! Because you're nice to him and you don't hurt him like his uncle does! That makes you so much better!"

"I wish it was that easy, Luz." Mami sighed, "But to him, being hurt is what's normal, and now that we're challenging that, it's scary for him. He doesn't want to accept that we're right because that would mean his uncle was wrong."

"But why can't he see that what his uncle did is wrong?"

"Because up until now, that way of life was all he knew." Mami explained, "Imagine for ten years, you live with me like we do now, and then after those ten years, you go into the real world and find out that everyone else's parents hurt them. You'd think your way was right and theirs were all wrong."

"But it is right!"

"And that's what he thinks."

As much as she hated it... that did make sense.

"I don't want Hunter to go back to his uncle..." She stated, "He's my friend now and I like having him around. He's starting to feel happy here! I don't want to see him all sad again..."

"I know, Luz. I like having him around too, but it's not our decision what happens to him. We're just giving him a nice, safe place to stay while things are sorted with his uncle."

Luz through her hands up in frustration. "But he shouldn't go back to his uncle! He's bad and he hurt Hunter!"

"I don't think he should go back either." Her mother admitted, "But we shouldn't say that to Hunter. This is a very difficult time for him and what we have to do is support him, not make him feel as if he's being attacked. That would just isolate him further."

"I just want him to see that things were bad with his uncle and good here..." Luz groaned, burying her face in her knees.

"Me too. And hey, it'll take some time but we can work on it. The best we can do right now though is to continue to offer him somewhere safe where he can be happy and with time I'm sure he'll come to realise how wrong he was treated before."

"M'kay..." Luz mumbled, sulking as if that would somehow make a difference to anything.

"How about you, mija? Are you doing okay?" Mami asked, wrapping a comforting arm around her.

"Yeah. Same as always." She huffed.

"Good same?"

"Yeah."

Mami smiled for a moment before it slowly wilted. "I'm sorry I got distracted, I told you I'd be right back once I checked up on Hunter and... plans sort of changed. I don't want you to feel like he's more important to me, or anything. You both are."

"It's okay, Mami. I understand." Luz assured her, leaning into her side.

"I know. But you can understand and still be upset by it."

"I'm not upset, I promise."

Mami scanned her face for a moment. "Okay... but if that ever changes—"

"I'll talk to you." Luz finished.

Mami grinned at her. "Right. Now, I picked up just a little something at the store. Don't know if you'd like it but..."

She reached behind the couch cushion she was leaning against and pulled something out, handing it over to Luz. Curiously, the girl inspected the item before her brain caught up and it suddenly hit her what it was.

"Oh my God! It's The Good Witch Azura movie three!" She exclaimed, gawking up at her mother.

Her mom shrugged. "If you don't like it I could always take it back." She teased

"No! I love it! Thank you thank you!" Luz cheered, practically throwing herself at her mami, squeezing her in a tight hug around the middle.

"Now, why don't you pop it in the DVD player and we have a little girl's night. I may or may not have picked up popcorn too."

"Sweet and salty?!"

"Sweet and salty."

Luz hopped up from the couch and did a few little twirls, hugging her new DVD to her chest. "You're the best ever Mami! Thank you so much!"

"I know, I know." She chuckled, "Now, you get the movie set up, I get snacks."

"Yes ma'am!" Luz saluted and rushed off to start up the movie.

Camila chuckled fondly at her daughter and went off to grab them some snacks for their nice little evening in watching Azura.

Chapter Text

"I like snakes!"

"Did you know that in the Bible, the devil takes the form of a snake to tempt Eve into eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden?"

"Did you know that snakes smell with their tongue?"

"Oh. Interesting."

"I know! Do you want to know what other animal I like?"

"Okay."

"Dinosaurs!"

"They're not real."

"Whattt! They totally are! Just like... millions of years ago."

"My uncle says that dinosaurs were a lie made up by the government to distract from the Lord's teachings. But that doesn't work on me, because I've heard the truth."

"Right."

Spending time with Luz was fun! She sure said some funny things sometimes. But even if she seemed incapable of properly understanding the very valuable knowledge he was trying to offer her about the Lord, she did provide some rather interesting insight into animals. She did have a book on them after all. Several, in fact.

"You hold your arms like a T-Rex." She stated before going right back to skimming through her treasured book on animals that she'd been telling Hunter all about for the past few hours. She sure knew how to talk.

But even if she did talk an awful lot for a girl, she was, admittedly, good company. He wasn't exactly used to talking to people and especially not people of his own age group but she seemed surprisingly tolerant of his lack of social intuition amongst other things. And not only did she allow him to but she actively encouraged his rambles about birds! And she didn't even sigh or roll her eyes when he got carried away, no, instead she gave him her full consideration and listened with rapt attention. It actually felt very refreshing to be listened to.

He frowned at her, unsure of what she was trying to say and even more unsure of what a 'T-Rex' was. "What do you mean?"

She gestured vaguely at him like that would help him understand. It didn't. "Your arms, you hold them in an awkward position, a bit like a T-Rex. I do it too sometimes! We can be like... T-Rex buddies!"

"Oh," He said thoughtfully, "It's probably the demon inside of me. It makes me do weird things."

She peeked up from behind her book and stared at him in... awe? What? "You have a demon inside of you?"

"Yes." He said, giving her a very slow and pronounced nod. Could she really not understand this either?

"Cool!" She exclaimed with a sudden rush of enthusiasm before returning to her book, totally unbothered.

He stared at her in utter horror. "It's not cool! It's very, very bad!"

"I don't know, man. Sounds pretty cool to me!"

"Well, it's not!" He protested, "It's ruined my uncle's life! It makes me wave my hands around and it makes me not like itchy clothes and it doesn't like me looking people in the eye and it makes me not understand normal people ways of saying things and it makes me not like noise!"

"I think you're just autistic."

"I am not!"

"Do you even know what autism is?"

He briefly recalled Camila explaining that... excuse to him once before but in all honesty, he hadn't really been committing it to memory. He'd sort of just brushed it off at the earliest convince.

"No..."

Luz looked him up and down before nodding slowly. "Figures."

He scowled. Why was she bringing up her 'Azura' figures at a time like this? Was she equating this so-called autism to witchcraft?! Hmm...

Unsure how to proceed with the conversation after that, he made an educated guess of what direction he should go in.

"Cardinals fight their own reflections because they think it's another cardinal trying to invade their territory." He informed.

Luz giggled. "That's funny! Have you seen them do it before?"

"Mhm. Our neighbour had a bird feeder outside his window and sometimes I'd see the cardinals pecking at the window."

"Hehe. Funny lil guys."

"That's why I keep Flapjack away from the mirrors, so I don't upset him. And because Uncle said if you look in the mirror for too long, then your reflection will pull you through."

"Of course he did..." Luz mumbled with an eye roll. Clearly, she'd never seen her reflection warp evilly in the mirror. Well, admittedly he hadn't slept in days so maybe that had just a small part in it. But whatever.

Even if Luz had some pretty bizarre responses, it was still pretty fun to have someone else he could just go and talk to, especially someone else who thought animals were pretty cool! And especially especially someone who properly appreciated the very fascinating bird facts he delivered and took them just as seriously as he did! Sometimes... It was a good change of pace anyway! And maybe, with enough of a distraction, he could finally get her to leave behind those sinful books of witchcraft.

"Oh! This snake looks like the one in The Good Witch Azura!"

One could only hope.

"Do you have the Bible?" He asked, hoping to sway the conversation in a more appropriate direction. "I asked your mom for one and I don't think she remembers... and I'm really supposed to be reading it every day."

"Every day?" Luz gawked, obviously focused on the wrong part of the question. "Wow. That's a lot. And no, we don't have one, sorry."

She didn't sound all too apologetic but he just nodded. "Did you lose it?"

"Nah, Mami sold it off in a yard sale."

He scowled. "What? Why?"

"Eh, well we tried going to church for a while when we first moved here and it just wasn't for us." Luz shrugged. "The people there were really mean to Mami and they kept insisting that she needed to 'do' something about me, like an exorcism or something."

"If my uncle met you, he would have given you several."

"I take that as a compliment by the way. But anyway, things just got... not nice, so we left. I've got no problem with religion and stuff, like if it helps you then good for you, keep at it or whatever. But when people use it to hurt other people or even themselves? I don't think that's right. Religion should improve your life, it should be a happy, exciting thing. It shouldn't be scary or hurtful or be all this pressure."

Hunter stared down at the carpet in thought. "So... what do you think people should do?"

"Hmm, well I think they should just do what makes them happy. If religion makes them happy, they should keep going with it, if it doesn't, they should stop, and if it's a bit of both, they should take it at their own pace. I think people should just do what comes naturally."

That was... an interesting way to look at it. Wrong, obviously, but still interesting.

"Are you hungry?" Luz asked. She had quite the knack for steering the conversation in the most random directions sometimes. Though, he had to admit he probably wasn't much better.

That was one of those questions that gave him that spike of panic. It was such an open question that could have so many incorrect answers, so many hidden meanings, so many ways to catch you out. Typically, he didn't have as much trouble answering Luz, after all, what could she really do if he did answer wrong, but he still took a moment to organise his best answer.

"I'm okay right now." He settled for.

"Okay. Let's go get snacks then." Luz declared, grabbing his hand and tugging him after her down the stairs, barely leaving him enough time to snatch up Flapjack on his way out.

Sometimes, he really got to wondering what was going on inside a head like hers.

He doubted he'd ever know.

Stopping abruptly in the kitchen in front of the pantry, nearly causing Hunter to go tumbling from the force of their stop, she turned to him, smiling silly like a strange puppy. "What do you want?"

"A—Are we allowed...?" He asked hesitantly, gesturing timidly to the pantry door.

"Oh yeah," She brushed him off, "Mami says I can just take stuff when I'm hungry. Same applies to you!"

"But I'm not hungry..." That felt necessary to specify. He still hadn't properly placed how particular Camila was about her rules.

"She means we can just take it when we want." She rolled her eyes which he found rather unfair. That was a perfectly reasonable thing to question. "And you're literally so thin it's sad. You need some food. So, what will it be?"

That was a lot of pressure he was far too nervous to carry. What if he picked something bad? What if it was gross? Or... she was allergic! Or something.

"You can pick." He decided, deflecting the burden back to her. Even if she had begun to grow on him, it was still better she get into trouble than him.

"Fine, I'll do it." She groaned, finally giving in and snatching a few random packets and tucking them away in her hoodie pocket.

Without warning, she skipped over to the fridge and grabbed a can off the shelf and handed it out to him. "Want one?"

His brain, after years of practice, immediately kicked into panic mode and he leapt back as if the can would burn him if he remained too close.

"What are you doing?!" He exclaimed, frantically waving his hands at her to try and get her to stop. "Don't touch those!"

"Huh?" She replied very intelligently, looking back and forth between the boy in front of her, currently freaking out, and the unassuming can in her hand.

"Quickly! You need to put it back!" He tried to convey just how dangerous the situation they'd found themselves in was but Luz still seemed just as unbothered despite his panicked nature.

Hunter stole a quick look over his shoulder to make sure Camila hadn't suddenly happened to have materialised right behind him. So far, the coast was clear, but he really doubted it would remain that way for much longer.

"What are you even talking about?" Luz frowned, finally seeming to have collected herself enough to respond, "It's just juice? You ever heard of Fanta?"

He wasn't going to fall for it. He remembered perfectly well what happened when he touched one of Uncle's cans in the fridge. He wasn't about to risk that.

"What do you think you're doing?! Get your dirty little hands off that! What are you? Some kind of delinquent?! Think you can try and steal my drinks for yourself? And after all the trouble you've given me! Next, you'll be out sleeping with those satan worshipers! Well listen here, Caleb—"

He lunged at her and grabbed her arms, desperately trying to wrestle the can from her grasp. Unfortunately for him, however, she seemed to have the upper hand over him in his weakened state with her superior strength. Knowing he couldn't risk this, he punched her arm with all the force he could muster in his tiny arms, and when even that didn't work, he sunk his teeth into her arm and bit down as hard as he could until she yelped and finally dropped the can which landed on the floor and exploded from the top, spraying fizzy orange liquid all over the two of them and the kitchen floor.

They both just stood there for a moment, staring at the mess and watching as the liquid swarmed around Flapjack on the floor where he'd been dropped and soaked into his feathers before Luz wrenched her arm from his grip and began backing away. When he finally mustered up enough courage and looked up to meet her eyes, a wave of nausea hit him as he took in the look of anger she was shooting him. And not only that, he could sense the disgust she was trying to hide in the slight pull of her upper lip. Disgust of him.

And before he even had a chance to explain himself to her (he doubted he even could), she turned her back on him and stormed out, slamming the door to the kitchen behind her. He hated to admit how harshly he flinched.

Distantly, he could hear Luz talking to her mom, anger even clearer in her tone than it had been on her face, but it all faded away as he stared at the growing pool of liquid on the floor and his now ruined toy.

He should clean it up, he knew that was the first step, but he—

His hands felt so numb and his head felt like it was stuffed full of cotton and it was like he was seeing everything the wrong way around.

In the end, he left the kitchen and the mess on the floor behind and drifted down the hallway to the closet, taking a small, nostalgic comfort in the act of opening the door, climbing inside, and shutting it behind him.

He stared somewhere in the darkness and tried not to think about what he'd done.

Chapter Text

The door down the hallway slammed shut with an unusual amount of force and Camila immediately knew that something had happened.

Peeking her head out of the living room door, she was met with a red-faced, slightly teary-eyed Luz as she stormed away from the now closed kitchen door. Admittedly, that hadn't been the child she'd expected to be slamming doors.

"Mija? Is everything okay?"

"Great!" She shouted, furious tone adding to the sarcasm of her statement, "Go deal with him!"

And with that, she dashed off up the stairs, making sure to stomp on each and every step to really emphasise her anger.

Blatantly ignoring her, Camila followed her daughter upstairs and caught the door to her bedroom just as she tried to slam it.

"Hey, let's talk about it, come sit," Camila instructed, taking a seat on one of Luz's various beanbags and trying not to take it to heart when Luz dragged the other one as far away from her as possible before sitting down with a huff. "Now, what happened?"

Luz tucked her feet up onto the bean bag so she could rest her arms on top of her knees and bury her face in them. "It's fine." She said, certainly not sounding very fine.

"What did we say about bottling stuff up?" Camila reminded her. She'd had to have several more conversations than she'd have liked to with her daughter about sharing her struggles instead of trying to deal with everything all on her own like she always seemed so inclined to do. Camila really had no idea where she got that from. And she was definitely not being sarcastic.

"But— I don't want to get him in trouble! I'm just— I'm angry! And— Ugh! I don't know!"

"What if I promise not to tell him off," Camila suggested, taking an educated guess as to who she was clearly referring to. "If it's something I need to talk to him about then we'll have a calm, reasonable conversation."

Luz squeezed her knees tighter. "He bit me!"

Out of everything it could have been, Camila hadn't quite been expecting that. Her guess had been that he'd gotten a bit pushy about all the religious stuff that he was ultimately only repeating from his uncle and that it had finally struck a nerve and gotten to Luz. This was... not quite that.

"Why did he do that?" Camila asked, completely baffled as to how a situation like that had even come up.

"I don't even know!" Luz exclaimed, "I tried offering him juice and he started seriously freaking out, telling me I needed to put it back and I was super confused so I didn't! Then he just went for me! He was trying to snatch the juice for me and he punched me and when I still didn't let go he just bit me!"

No idea where to take the conversation from here when clearly, she didn't have all the context, Camila decided to question, "Where abouts?"

"My arm, look!"

Luz held out her arm to show the prominent red teeth marks dug into her arm, hints of purple showing a promise of bruising, and looked slightly more alarmed when she realised that a small amount of blood had begun leaking from the wound.

Geez! How hard did this kid bite?!

"I—It's bleeding! Is that... bad?" She asked nervously, her lip wobbling slightly as if she were about to burst into tears.

"It'll be fine, mija." Camila reassured, "We'll just give it a quick clean and then I'll bandage it up for you."

"But what if it gets infected or— or I turn into a zombie!" Luz exclaimed, throwing her arms up.

Camila stared deadpan at her daughter. "Luz. You are not going to turn into a zombie. Now, come with me, let's get your arm sorted."

"You don't know that..." The girl mumbled, pulling herself to her feet with a far too dramatic sigh and shuffling over to the door after her mother.

Camila led her to the bathroom and let her climb up onto the counter while she dug out the first aid kit. She grabbed a few other random medical supplies from the cupboard along with a tub filled with various bandages and sat them down by the sink to sort through in a moment.

She gave her hands a quick wash before turning Luz's arm over to inspect the wound. On closer inspection, the wound wasn't that deep and the blood was minimal but still, the fact that Hunter had managed to bite so hard was honestly a little impressive. It also gave her an inkling of just how frantic he'd been.

She knew that even if Hunter definitely seemed to struggle a bit, especially with everything going on for him right now, he still wouldn't randomly attack Luz for no real reason. There had to have been some sort of mistake or misunderstanding that had set him off and caused him to panic.

"What happened leading up to him biting you?" Camila questioned, directing Luz's arm to the sink to wash the wound.

"We were just talking about animals! He did that thing he always did where he said really weird stuff about religion and his uncle but I guess that's just pretty normal at this point. I asked if he was hungry then took him downstairs to get snacks and then I opened the fridge and offered him a drink and that's when he started freaking out." Luz explained, wincing a little when Camila gently rubbed her arm with soap.

Camila tried to think of the best questions to ask to get an at least semi-useful answer. "Do you remember what he said when he was freaking out?"

"Um... he told me to put the drink back and that I shouldn't touch it." She recalled.

Camila poured some antibacterial ointment onto a clean cloth and began to dab it around the bite. "But he didn't have any issue with you taking the snacks?"

"No! He was just the usual amount of anxiousness for that!" Luz exclaimed, rolling her eyes.

It was silent for a moment, only interrupted by Luz's annoyed huffs so she could remind the world she was still in fact angry.

"You know, there's probably a reason why Hunter lashed out like that. I don't think he would just attack you out of nowhere." Camila mentioned.

"But I didn't do anything!" Luz objected.

"I know, and I believe that, but I think he probably interpreted something the wrong way and that's why he reacted like that. Remember how I said that sometimes he flinches because that's what he's used to having to do and even if we will never try to hurt him, he still expects it? This might be something similar to that." Camila pointed out, treading carefully.

Luz scrunched up her face in frustration before sighing. "I know it probably is... he's been nice to me so far so I know he wouldn't just bite me for no reason! But it still hurts and I'm upset..."

"And that's okay, mija." Camila affirmed, "It's fair to be upset about it, even angry, because even if he had a reason for doing it, it doesn't change the fact that he hurt you and he owes you an apology for that. But I think that if you sat down and spoke with him and listened to his reasoning and you let him know that he didn't have to hurt you to get you to listen then he'd be willing to say sorry."

Luz nodded slowly. "I'm just... sad that he hurt me... I want to be friends and I don't want to have an argument with him because of this."

"It doesn't have to be an argument. It can just be a conversation. You just explain to him that you'll listen to what he has to say without violence being involved and you can ask him what his line of thinking was. And if you need any help talking to him or explaining anything, then you can come get me."

Luz thought on it for a while before sighing and nodding her head. "Okay... I'll go talk to him."

Camila finished tying the bandage around her arm and gave her a pat on the back. "Thank you, mija. That's very mature of you. And if you need any help or need to step away for a moment, then you can come get me, okay?"

Luz nodded and slid off the counter and back onto the floor. "If he mentions the Bible or God one more time, though." She mumbled, dragging her feet across the floor.

Camila chuckled, giving her a playful nudge. "Off you go now, be nice."

So while Luz trailed downstairs to go make up with Hunter, Camila started on putting away the first aid supplies back into their various cabinets, wracking her brains to try and remember where she'd originally grabbed them from and waiting to see if Luz would come back seeking her help.

Inevitably, the loud, thumping footsteps running up the stairs alerted her to the fact that Luz had in fact returned, though it was a bit weird. She had been expecting her to last at least a little longer.

She was confused and pretty startled, however, when Luz came running in, tears streaming down her face with a panicked look.

"Woah! Mija? What's the matter?" Camila worried immediately running over to cup her daughter's face in her hands.

"He's— He wasn't in the kitchen! I think he's in the closet again! The door was locked a—and I tried to knock but he wasn't saying anything!" Luz exclaimed, tripping over her words at the speed they were leaving her mouth.

Camila immediately pulled her into a hug. "Oh, cariño... it's okay. I'll deal with this, alright?"

"It's my fault!" Luz sobbed into her mother's shirt.

"No, baby... it's not your fault. You've not done anything wrong, okay? Sometimes people react in a way that can scare us or make us worry but that's not your fault in any way." Camila stated firmly. "Now, I'm going to go speak to him. Do you want to come with or just stay up here?"

"I want to come with you!" Luz replied immediately, clinging tighter to Camila.

She nodded and took her daughter by the hand to lead her downstairs to the little closet. Luz hung back a little to watch from a distance while her mother knocked on the door.

"Hunter, are you in there?" She asked, listening out for a response. She got nothing.

She gazed down the hallway at the kitchen and just like Luz had said, it was empty. The living room was too and she was pretty certain she would have seen or heard him if he'd come up the stairs. So that did only really leave the closet.

She tried the handle but when she tried to pull the door open, it stopped. He must have found a way to block the door.

"Hunter, sweetie. Can you open the door for me, please? You're not in any trouble, I just want to come and have a chat."

Again, she was only given silence in return.

She tried knocking on the door and calling out a few more times but nothing changed. She wondered if he was purposely ignoring her or just that zoned out. He hadn't looked very present the last time she'd found him here so it wouldn't be a surprise if that was the case...

She tried pulling the door open as much as she could and tried to peer through the gap. It was much too dark to actually see him but she could make out the broom he'd used to block the door. With a bit of squeezing and manoeuvring, she managed to slip part of her hand through the gap and push the broom out of place to finally allow the door to swing open.

Hunter was sitting there at the very back of the closet, his knees tucked in close and his face buried in them. She could just about see his eyes behind his knees and they did in fact look very vacant.

Remaining aware of her limits so she didn't end up toppling over or pulling a muscle, Camila climbed into the closet and kneeled in front of Hunter, placing a gentle hand on his knee, trying to seem as non-threatening as possible by rubbing her thumb on the fabric of his leggings.

"Hi, baby. It's me." She whispered, conscious of her volume since she knew he was probably feeling especially sensitive after what had happened.

It took him a particularly long moment to try and get his brain to function enough to process her words and even longer to get his mouth to function enough to speak a response, but after a while, he whimpered a weak little "Uncle...?"

"No, baby. Your uncle isn't here. It's just Camila. Remember me?" She gently reminded him.

She wasn't even sure if he'd properly taken that in or even heard her as he showed no signs of any sort of reaction and just continued to stare blankly at the air.

"I'm here too," Luz mumbled from behind her mother. "I'm not mad at you... I was just sad, I think. I don't know... feelings are complicated... I just really want you to be my friend."

He looked up at her slightly and Camila saw Luz perk up a bit at being acknowledged.

"Luz..." He said quietly, as if gradually piecing together who she was. God, he sounded so out of it...

"Mhm." The girl hummed, "Luz. My name. Me. It means light in Spanish actually. My dad always told this funny joke with my name but I think it would be a bit too complicated to explain right now. I will tell you it at some point though."

Clearly, so incredibly zoned out, Hunter only seemed to grasp part of what she'd said. "Spanish...?"

"The language. Like what me and Mami speak. Spanish." Luz explained.

Hunter watched her for a moment before his gaze dropped to the floor under him and to Camila's intense worry, he suddenly began to tear up.

"Luz..." He whined before his voice broke off into little sobs, tears rolling lazily down his cheeks.

Luz was impressively quick ducking into the small closet and squeezing past her mother to get to her friend, pulling the boy into a tight hug, cradling his head against her chest.

"I don't want you to be sad..." She said helplessly.

Despite her statement, when Hunter's eyes landed on her freshly bandaged arm, his sobs took on a whole new weight. "I h—hurt you!" He wailed.

Seeing the look on Luz's face as she tried to grapple for an honest answer that wouldn't make the situation worse, Camila stepped in. "What made you think to do it?"

He seemed startled, as if he'd only just registered that she was still here, before curling in on himself in Luz's arms and stubbornly pressing his lips shut.

"You're not in any trouble, cariño. I know you wouldn't just do that for no reason. I just want to have a chat so we can all be on the same page." Camila assured him.

"Is Luz i—in trouble...?" He sniffled.

"Nope. Nobody's in trouble. We're just going to chat about it." Camila repeated.

Hunter hid his face in Luz's sleeve but spoke up anyway. "She... took t—the can from the fridge... I didn't want her to get in trouble but... but she wasn't listening! I was scared..."

Camila nodded along, listening carefully and making sure he knew he had her full, undivided attention. "She took a can? Okay... Is that something that's gotten you into trouble before?"

He nodded, letting out wet, miserable little sobs that broke her heart. "Uncle didn't... he told me not to."

"Right. Your Uncle told you not to take cans out of the frid—"

Oh...

It finally hit her.

She briefly recalled a small mention from Raine when they'd first been discussing the case and she'd asked about Hunter's background. They'd mentioned a significant amount of litter piled up around the house, mainly bottles. Camila had kept that information in the back of her mind but she hadn't exactly needed to think much about it. She herself wasn't much of a heavy drinker anymore, especially not when there was a foster kid around since she was well aware that trauma and alcohol never went down well together. But it hadn't actually occurred to her that to a kid like Hunter who had been so heavily sheltered, a normal can of Coke or Fanta or whatever other soft drink would look no different than a beer...

No wonder he had reacted like that... if he'd already presumably been punished by his horrible uncle for touching whatever alcohol he'd found in the fridge, seeing Luz do what he'd thought to be the same must have really panicked him. He cared about Luz, that much was crystal clear, so of course the thought of her getting into trouble like he had would have worried him. And when she hadn't listened to him, he did the only thing he could think of to get her attention in what he'd assumed to be a dangerous situation. He'd done what he'd been taught to do.

"I think I'm starting to understand," Camila admitted cautiously. Hunter peeked up at her. "You see... I think the cans that you're familiar with from your uncle's house are alcohol. Do you know what alcohol is?"

He nodded with a regretful understanding.

"Well, kids aren't supposed to have it because their bodies aren't able to handle it. Like how your tummy isn't used to lots of food. Kids' bodies aren't able to handle alcohol until their older. So, your uncle was trying to keep you away from it, even if it was probably in a rather unnecessarily harsh way. But the can that Luz picked up wasn't alcohol. It was just normal juice, fizzy juice actually, which is fine for kids to have and I certainly don't mind you touching them or taking them from the fridge to drink."

His face fell, if that was even possible to do with how miserable he already looked, and he looked up to Luz for confirmation and wilted when she nodded.

"I—I was just trying to keep you safe..."

Luz squeezed him even tighter in her hug. "You silly goober... you didn't need to bite."

"I'm really sorry. I just... panicked... I didn't mean to hurt you—" He hiccuped, "So... 'm sorry..."

Luz sighed but Camila could see the telltale tears pricking her eyes. "I forgive you..."

His head snapped up and he stared at her like she'd just said the most shocking thing he'd ever heard. "Y—You're not angry...?"

"Well... I wouldn't say I was angry. I was just a bit sad, really. But you said sorry and I know that what you were really trying to do was keep me safe so I forgive you." The girl explained.

Hunter clung to her like a lifeline. "You're my best friend..."

Luz's soft smile could melt the coldest of hearts. "That's a funny coincidence because you're actually mine!"

They both fell into a quiet fit of giggles before Hunter suddenly jumped up, nearly hitting his head on the low ceiling if it hadn't been for Luz clinging to him so tightly.

"Flapjack!" He exclaimed, distress seeping back into his tone.

"Oh... he fell on the floor, remember?" Luz clarified, "In the juice..."

Camila saw Hunter's lip begin to wobble and a fresh wave of tears pool in his eyes and swooped in to try and save the situation. "It's okay! We can clean him. Why don't you come with me and I'll show you how the washing machine works?"

She offered him her hand to help him out of the cramped little closet but he just looked at her, biting his lip anxiously.

So she let her hand drop. "What's going on in your mind, hmm?"

"I don't..." He let out a frustrated sigh, "I'm not— I don't know..."

"We can come back to the closet after if you want." She suggested. "And we could even decorate it! I'll help move all of this junk down to the basement and then we can put some cushions and cosy blankets in here to make it a fun little hideaway!"

"With fairy lights!" Luz chirped.

"Sounds like a plan! So, we'll clean up Flapjack first and then we can decorate."

He seemed much less hesitant with that proposal and when Camila offered him her hand again, he took it and let her help him out into the hallway.

"Will you be alright on your own, Luz?" She asked, turning back to the girl.

She nodded, wiping away her previous tears. "Yeah. I'm gonna find some fun stuff to decorate with."

"Perfect. Come get me if you need anything."

After receiving a nod from Luz, she led Hunter down the hall towards the kitchen and took silent pride in how much trust she'd earned from him that he had continued to cling to her hand, even once out of the closet. It gave her the hope that all her hard work was finally starting to pay off and that maybe in the not-so-distant future, he wouldn't be wary of her anymore.

Once they entered the kitchen and saw the puddle of juice on the floor and the poor bird soaked in it, Hunter clung a little closer to her. "'M sorry..." He mumbled.

She used her free hand to rub his cheek. "It's alright. Accidents happen, remember?"

He looked up at her with a weak smile and nodded, hugging her arm. It only came naturally for her to pick him up and hold him close. Despite being a ten-year-old, he certainly wasn't the height of one and he still weighed a concerningly small amount so it wasn't all too difficult and she swore she felt him relax now that she was holding him.

Ignoring the mess for now, she picked up the soggy bird plushie off the floor, careful with her balance so she didn't fall over with the added weight at her side, and she carried the plushie and the little boy down to the basement.

"Now, this," She nudged the washing machine with her foot, "Is a washing machine. Do you know what it does?"

He thought about it for a moment before a cheeky little smile crept onto his face. "Wash."

She laughed along, genuinely delighted to see him something other than tense and cautious for once. "It does! You can put clothes or even plushies in it! And it spins them around and around in a circle with water and special cleaning soap so they're all nice and clean again! There are even different smells, do you want to check them out?"

He nodded so she sat Flapjack on top of the machine so she could grab the different powder detergents she had and set them out in a row. She grabbed the scoop and filled it with the first powder to let him sniff it. However, when she held it up to him, he opened his mouth and tried to eat it.

She quickly pulled the scoop out of reach. "Woah, not quite!" She tried to laugh, "It's not for eating, it'll make you sick. You can just smell it, so you can see what it'll smell like on Flapjack."

"Oh." He said simply.

She gave him another try and this time he took a proper sniff, wincing a little at the smell.

"Okay, not that one." She noted, "How about this one?"

He took a sniff of the second one and gave her the nod of approval so she put it in the little drawer and put Hunter down to allow him to set Flapjack down inside the machine. He gave the bird a pat on the head and then closed the door, waving to him. "Bye, bye Flapjack. Have a good wash."

Her heart was practically a tiny little puddle of awe at this point with all the melting being done by these adorable little kids.

She turned on the machine and let Hunter spend a few minutes watching his bird spin around in circles before taking him back upstairs to see how Luz had done with her decorating ideas.

Upon seeing Hunter, Luz practically lit up like her namesake. "Hunter! Does Flapjack like the washing machine?"

Hunter nodded happily. "Mhm. He says it's like a spaceship."

"Aha! So you do admit that space is real!"

He rolled his eyes at her. "The moon landing is still fake though. The government are liars."

"Ah, we'll get there eventually." Luz chuckled. "Anyway, I got a bunch of cool fairy lights from my secret stash and I was also thinking we could tape bits of paper to the wall so we can draw on a super big canvas! I already started but we need Mami to move the heavier stuff out first."

"I'm on it." Camila saluted, slipping straight into her role of super‐strong superhero Mami.

"Thank you!" Luz singsonged as her mother gathered huge bundles and boxes of coats and old shoes and lugged them downstairs to the basement.

So, while she cleared the place out and brought some cushions and pillows and such up from the basement, the kids constructed their little hideout, decorating to their heart's content until eventually, they had themselves a 'super-duper-cool-cosy-amazing-fun-best-of-all-time' hideout, decked out with all the pretty fairy lights and fluffy pillows and art supplies they could ever dream of.

The two of them got comfortable after their hours of hard work and Camila made a final trip down to the basement to retrieve Flapjack who she had transferred to the dryer on one of her previous trips down.

She took the bird out and smiled at the warmth still lingering from the dryer and the nice smell of a clean toy. Then, she brought the little bird back up the stairs and cracked open the door to the closet to find both Hunter and Luz fast asleep, cuddled up together in their piles of cushions. Camila smiled at the sight and grabbed one of the many blankets to lay over them before returning Flapjack to his rightful owner and tucking him safely under Hunter's arm. She gave both kids a goodnight kiss on the forehead before turning off the fairy lights and closing the door, heading upstairs to her own bed for a peaceful night's sleep.

Chapter Text

Hunter stood in front of the horrific looking plastic prison and mentally prepared himself for what he was about to endure.

"It's just the shower, Hunter." Luz teased, playfully rolling her eyes.

"Why does it look so scary then! I don't trust it..." He decided, eyeing the torture device looking contraption suspiciously.

Camila, always the voice of reason, stepped in. "If you're still too nervous about it then we can always go back to washing up at the kitchen sink instead. You don't have to force yourself if you're not ready yet."

Hunter imagined the proud look on Camila's face when he faced his fear and the nice, big, squeezy hug she'd give him. He made his decision. "I want to try be brave..."

Her smile softened. "That's great to hear. Why don't I show you how the shower works first and then you can try it? That way, you know what to expect."

He nodded. She did a lot of nice things like that for him. He'd begun to realise that she must have dealt with a lot of troublesome kids like him to get this good at knowing what to say or do to help when sometimes, he didn't even know why he was upset.

"Oh, Luz! Why don't you go grab those bath crayons we bought a while back? I'm sure they'd probably work on the shower tiles too!" Camila suggested.

"Oh yeah!" Luz lit up, "That's a great idea! Be right back!" With that, she scampered off downstairs to go try and find where those crayons had ended up after they'd cleared the closet and dumped most of the stuff in random places around the basement.

"Now," Camila began, reaching over to open the shower door so she could begin pointing things out. "This button here, turns the shower on and off—" She pushed said button and sure enough, water began to shoot out from the bit of metal at the top before she pressed the button again and it stopped. "—and this dial here controls the temperature. This way will make it hot and this way will make it cold. After you adjust it, it's best to wait a few seconds for the temperature to adjust before you turn it anymore. Sometimes it takes a while." Next, she moved on to addressing the varied selection of multi-coloured bottles containing strange goops. "These are what you use for washing. Now, for your hair you should stick to these purple bottles as they're what's best for your type of hair. Then the body wash is this pink one." To make it easier for him to remember, she took the three bottles out from the rest and sat them to the side. "For your hair, the first one you use is the shampoo, that's this one that looks a bit more see-through than the other. You just pour some of that in your hand and then scrub it into your hair so it's all soapy. Then, once you wash that one out, you can use the condition, this one, that feels a bit thicker. You put it in your hair the same way you do the shampoo and it'll make your hair nice and soft! Then for the body wash, you use this thing—" She picked up a strange ball of weird yellow... stuff... He wasn't quite sure what it was. "—It's called a loofah, this yellow one is for you to use. You just wet it a bit in the water, then you pour a bit of the body wash on it and start gently rubbing it on your skin and it should start to turn all bubbly!"

After seeing the look on his face, she laughed nervously. "You're probably not going to remember all that. Okay, why don't I set the bottles out in the right order so you remember? Purple bottles are for your hair, then pink goes on the loofah then on your skin." She aligned the bottles in the right order and left the 'loofah' beside the pink bottle. Admittedly, that did make it a little easier to remember.

"Once you're done you can just turn the shower off, and here, I'll leave your towel on the radiator so it'll be nice and cosy for you when you're done. Then, you can shout me and I'll help you dry your hair. Sound good?"

He nodded and took a long deep breath, hoping that when he let it go he'd also be letting go of all of this silly nervousness that was so insistent on making his hands shake. It felt a little refreshing but there was still the same fear continuing to nag at him.

He wasn't even really sure why he was this scared. The bath was a different story, that was what terrified him, but he had no clue why this was doing the same. It was a completely different thing to the bath, it had no sort of basin to hold water in and certainly not enough to submerge his head in. Not to mention, it wasn't like there would even be anyone around who could possibly try and hold his head under the water. Once Camila left, he was going to lock the door just like she'd showed him and he was going to be completely alone in here. So really, he had no excuse to be acting this way. And yet, Camila still continued to be so patient with him.

Seeing how nervous he still was, she ran a gentle hand through his hair. He tried not to let it show that that wasn't really what he wanted right now but even still, she seemed to notice and instead let her hand rest on his back. "It's going to be alright. I know it's still scary and I doubt anything I say will change that, but realistically, this isn't even as bad as the kitchen sink."

That was true. Even if the kitchen sink had been better than the bath, he still go very nervous seeing the water linger in the bottom of the sink, especially when there was someone standing behind him. But still... he just couldn't shake this nervousness.

It was so stupid too. It was just a shower! Everyone else didn't seem to have any problems with it! But he was starting to question if maybe everyone else hadn't had their heads held under the water like he had... He was starting to question if maybe everyone else hadn't lived a life like his.

Luz eventually returned with the 'bath crayons' after a good bit of digging in the basement and happily handed them over to Hunter. "Here!" She said cheerily, still panting a bit from running up the stairs. "Now you can draw fun stuff on the tiles!"

He tried to force a smile, gently opening up the packet. "Thanks, Luz."

Luz watched him expectantly as he struggled to carefully open the packaging and after a while, she simply snatched it from him, tore it open, and put the crayons back in his hand as if nothing had happened.

"Okay, Hunter," Camila spoke up, drawing his attention back to her, "We'll leave you be for now but if there's anything you need or you change your mind then just give me a shout."

Hunter tried another deep breath before nodding. Luz patted him on the head before running off to do her own thing and Camila made her way over to the door before hesitating for a moment. "Take it at your own pace, okay? You're doing great, cariño." She reminded him before finally closing the door behind herself and leaving him on his own.

He stood there for a moment, staring at the closed door as he let those words properly sink in before he finally locked the door and faced the task ahead of him.

"It's just a shower. You'll be fine." He repeated to himself as he undressed and stepped in.

It took a lot of internal coaxing and procrastination but after maybe a good five minutes, maybe even ten, he pressed the button to turn the shower on and squeezed his eyes tightly shut in anticipation. And good thing he did too! Because immediately, freezing cold water shot out straight into his face, nearly making him yelp.

Just as he was about to get out and change his mind about this whole thing though, the water began to warm up and as the temperature slowly increased, his shoulders gradually dropped and he got acclimatised to the feeling.

Maybe this wasn't too bad actually...

He turned around and just stood there for a while, simply letting the water fall on him. It was actually pretty relaxing to have that sensation of the warm water hitting his back. He leaned back a bit and let the water soak his hair which also felt pretty nice.

He'd expected this to be a lot more horrible than it really was. He'd expected to have to hold his breath or shield his eyes as huge amounts of water poured down on him but in reality, there was just a little bit of warm water hitting the back of his head and all he really had to do was stand there.

Comfortable with the first step of actually getting into the shower, he turned to inspect the bottles of stuff that Camila had left. He picked up the first bottle and inspected the label. After reading over all the little details, he could confidently say that the only word he understood on it was 'hair'. Ah well, he'd just have to trust Camila's judgement.

He pried open the lid and squeezed out a little of the soap into his hand, cringing slightly at the strange slimy texture. He remembered what Camila had said about the washing powder and assumed the same rule of smell don't eat applied so he leaned forward a little and sniffed it. He wasn't quite sure what the smell was but it definitely smelled of something.

Deciding he'd done enough investigation, he began to rub it into his hair and soon enough, both his hands and hair had gone all bubbly. It was weird.

After washing out all the bubbles from his hair and cringing a little as he watched the water running down the drain go a little off-coloured, he picked up the next bottle covered in strange words and did the same. This one felt a lot different than the shampoo, it was thicker and when he put it in his hair it didn't go bubbly but instead, it went silky. And after he washed it out, his hair felt a lot smoother and less like straw which was always a plus.

The scrubbing thing he'd already forgotten the name of was fun too! Very bubbly. He may have put a little bit too much of the pink soap in it but oh well, it still got the job done. And once he'd washed all the soap away he was technically finished! But unlike he'd first anticipated, he wasn't actually in much of a rush to get out of the shower. If anything, he actually wanted to stay, at least for a little longer. Being warm felt nice!

So, to keep himself occupied, he put the crayons to good use and began drawing on the tiles. It was a bit of an uneven canvas but he made do with what he had. He drew a few birds, all his favourites, blue jays, robins, crows, and of course, cardinals. And he also drew home! Himself and Uncle and their house and the not-so-nice closet and the trash... and the bottles... and the blood...

He looked down at the red crayon in his hand, slowly melting in the water and flowing down the drain, and then his eyes drifted up to the scars on his arm. Despite the fuss he'd put up when he'd first been pinned down and had them carved, he'd always seen them as something necessary. Like removing a splinter so it didn't cause infection or resetting a bone so it would heal properly. It was just one of those things that had to be done. But Luz didn't have scars on her arms. She didn't have scars anywhere else, in fact. Neither did Camila. Or Raine. Or the people on TV. Or anyone. Nobody else talked about all the bottles in their house or the blood on the carpet or how hungry they had been in the closet. Just him. Nobody else seemed miserable and scared in their own home... it was just him. So why did he want that back?

He quickly pushed that thought away and set the red crayon down, turning off the shower and stepping out. The cold air hitting his skin now that he didn't have the constant stream of warm water was rather unpleasant but when he grabbed the towel from the radiator where Camila had left it, he marvelled at how warm it was. And also the fact it had a hood. He'd never seen a towel like this. He wrapped himself up nice and tight in it and got ready to leave in search of Camila when his gaze caught on the mirror.

Pretty much all the mirrors back home had been smashed. Whether it had been from drunken rages or a safety measure to make sure no demons got through or even just when Uncle had shoved him into them to teach him a lesson, every mirror in the house had been shattered. He'd not really had the chance to look at himself in a while...

He almost didn't recognise himself.

His hair was longer. Even if it was wet right now, he could still tell it had grown out quite a bit, the back now level with his shoulders. And the dark circles that had permanently framed his eyes were now more of a faint shadow, still there but much less prominent than they'd once been. He looked a lot cleaner than he remembered. There was the fact that he had just gotten out of the shower but he had a feeling it had probably been this way for a little while now. Despite the scars digging into his skin in pretty much every place imaginable, he looked a lot more like a normal kid than he ever had before. And that was a weird feeling he wasn't sure how to approach. So he didn't and instead, went to look for Camila.

It didn't take long to find her considering she was only next door in her room, reading a book. Luckily, he didn't have to awkwardly stand in the doorway like he usually did as she immediately noticed him and put her book down with a warm smile. "So, how was it?" She asked.

"Nice." He mumbled, fiddling with a loose string on the towel. She seemed to relax slightly at that.

"That's great! Now come sit, I'll sort your hair out." She told him, shifting to sit on the edge of the bed and patting the spot beside her. He shuffled across the room to her, feeling tiny in the huge towel that was practically swallowing him whole. She chuckled at him and helped him adjust the towel to sit better before lifting him up to sit in front of her with his back to her, pulling the hood of the towel down.

He tried to ignore the nervous feeling that came from not having her in his direct line of sight but he tried to shove that feeling down and ignore it. However, when he felt something touch the back of his head, he jolted and spun around.

She looked a little startled by his reaction but her expression settled into an apologetic smile. "Sorry, I should probably have given you a bit more warning. I'm just going to brush your hair while it's still wet."

He eyed her suspiciously but she held up some strange spiky plastic thing as if that somehow helped to justify her statement.

Seeing his clear confusion, she explained a bit further. "Hairbrush," She stated, making a brushing gesture with it, "I'm just going to use it to brush your hair. It helps keep it from getting all tangled and matted."

He briefly recalled someone sitting beside his bed at the hospital, patiently tugging at the matting in his hair. He didn't really remember much since he'd mostly blocked out that entire period of time from his mind but it had been clear that they'd done a good job from the fact that he could now run his fingers through his hair. Which was actually just what he'd been doing to keep it from getting tangled again for the past few weeks. He hadn't realised there was actually an object he could use instead.

Accepting this, he turned back around and sat patiently as she gently ran the brush through his hair.

"You know, I'm really proud of you." She said out of the blue. He frowned a little even if she couldn't see his face. "I know that was scary for you so I just want you to know that I'm proud of you for still trying it."

He just nodded. He still really hadn't gotten the hang of how he was supposed to reply when she said things like that. But it still put a nice warm feeling in his tummy.

"You've got such lovely hair." She commented, using the towel to gently squeeze some of the extra water out of it. Again, he wasn't really sure what he was supposed to say so he muttered a quiet thank you which she seemed satisfied enough with.

He heard the sound of something plastic opening and felt her fingers brushing through his hair. He decided that she probably knew what she was doing so he didn't question her.

"You're much easier than Luz," Camila chuckled, "She hates me touching her hair. Can't get her to sit still."

He wondered if she did things like this for Luz regularly. By the sound of it, she probably did. Luz had probably gotten to grow up with a mom doting on her and caring for her and loving her.

He couldn't remember the last time Uncle had said he loved him. He couldn't remember the first either.

Luz was really lucky that her mom did all of this for her...

The words just sort of came out before he even had the chance to think about them. "I wish my uncle did stuff like this for me."

It was silent for a moment and Camila froze. For a brief and very scary second, he wondered if he'd said something wrong but she simply sighed.

"Me too, baby. But unfortunately, I can't control what he's decided to do for you. But I can control what I do for you."

"I love him, but... I don't think he loves me back."

"Oh, baby..." Camila sighed, shifting closer so he could lean back into a hug.

"You keep doing nice things for me... a—and I like it! But... I wish it was him doing it instead... I wish he cared."

She wrapped her arms around him, tight and secure. "You shouldn't have to feel this way, baby, and I'm so sorry that you do. You deserve so much better."

For some reason, it was this that finally broke him and caused the tears to spill. He burst out sobbing, tears flowing down his face, and Camila turned him around to face her and just hugged him.

"It's not fair!" He whined into her shirt.

"It's not." She agreed, rubbing comforting circles on his back. "None of it's fair and you don't deserve to be hurt like this. I'm sorry."

"Why doesn't he love me?!" He sobbed, "Am I really that bad...?"

"You're not bad, nene. You're brilliant and you're kind and you're brave. He just couldn't– or rather, wouldn't, see that. I know you love him, he's your family after all, of course you do, but... he wasn't good to you."

"No! He was! I-I was just... I was bad a-and that's why he couldn't love me. Because I'm bad."

Her eyes were brimming with sadness. "You're not bad... you're just a little boy..."

"Stop it..." He mumbled weakly.

Surprisingly, she gave it up easily. "Okay... We can stop talking about it if it's making you upset. But I just want you to know that I'm on your side here. Even though it must be hard for you when I do all of these things since you wish it was your uncle instead, and it's alright to be upset about that because you do deserve better than what he gave you. But I'm on your side and I always will be."

He didn't want to think about it... He just wanted to say that Uncle was right and leave it at that. Any doubts he had were because he just didn't understand.

But it wasn't as easy as that anymore now that he knew what it felt like to be treated this way...

He just wanted everything to feel normal again so he could go back home.

He wondered what normal even was.

Chapter Text

From the moment the two of them woke up, sitting up and stretching from the little den they'd created in Luz's room the night before, Luz could tell that something was off with Hunter today.

He just didn't seem himself. He was... distant. And throughout the day, he only seemed to get worse.

From the way he picked at his food, hesitant to eat it, to the way he almost seemed to cringe at her hugs or the way he just shrugged when she asked him if he could tell her about the bird she saw out the window, Luz could tell that something was bothering him. And she was intent to get to the bottom of it.

So, throughout the day she slipped in sneaky little comments about how things were going today, how the weather outside was pretty miserable (maybe like his internal battles?) And how she had scientifically proved that her hugs could make anyone feel better, especially if they were super sad on a Saturday afternoon (lucky him!), but each time, he would simply brush her off with empty hums and weak nods.

Though, she wasn't the only one to notice his strangeness and she wasn't the only one who wanted to get to the bottom of it either. Mami was quick to frown when she saw just how miserable he looked. And at one point she even stopped him to ask if he was feeling alright or if anything happened to be bothering him. He'd just shrugged and stared at the carpet. She'd asked if he wanted to talk about it, offering him an opening to let out anything he happened to be bottling up but he'd just shook his head and she'd been forced to leave it at that.

Luz tried to think back to the previous night or even just this morning to try and remember if anything had happened, if either of them may have accidentally upset him, but no matter how hard she thought or how precisely she combed through each and every action or word, she couldn't find anything that could have upset him like this. The best she could come up with was maybe he was just having a bad day.

So, in her best efforts to try and cheer him up, she'd dragged him to the living room, forced him down on the floor to sit with her and then handed him a fresh notebook (decorated with red sparkly sequins that changed to pink depending on which way you swiped them) and some of her best colourful, scented pens.

"Let's draw." She declared, grabbing her own notebook (also sequins, purple when you swiped down and yellow when you swiped up) and pens and starting on a new picture.

Without really being given any other option, Hunter obliged and opened up his notebook in the most unenthusiastic way possible to begin drawing too.

And that's what they'd been doing for the past hour or so, laying on the living room floor drawing whatever came to mind. In front of them, they now had a decently sized pile of pictures that they planned to later put up on the walls of Hunter's room. Luz had decided that his room was far too bland and took it upon herself to now hang up each and every one of her newest drawings on his walls and she encouraged him to do the same to give the place a bit more colour.

He'd been getting a lot better with his drawings too! (Thanks to her amazing lessons) And he'd gone from only using the red pen to gradually introducing a bit more colour into his pictures! She was very proud of him for that, the more colourful the better was always her motto. Well, one of them. The other was snakes are cool. But anyway, his pictures had also gone from very concerning and creepy to... typically slightly less concerning and creepy! She much preferred the bird pictures to the blood, guts and gore pictures. And Mami seemed to feel the same as she'd been pulling less faces when he ran up to her to show her his pictures like an adorable excited little puppy and she'd also been making fewer calls to Hunter's social worker about 'concerning behaviour' and 'therapy'. So yeah! Improvement all around.

Luz had tried to sneakily take down some of the scary pictures from his wall but he had been pretty protective over his dead animal and open-wound drawings so she'd had to leave them up. She wasn't quite sure what the appeal was to him but whatever made him happy, she supposed?

But today at the very least he'd mostly been drawing birds with only one bloody picture of an open face wound that looked suspiciously similar to the scar on his own face. So it was technically still an improvement!

"I wonder if rainbow birds exist." She babbled absent-mindedly, "I know there are birds with lots of colours on them but I wonder if there's a bird that just has all the colours. Like, even pink and purple. Now that I think about it, actually, I don't think I've ever seen a purple bird? Or maybe I have... well, it could always have just been Photoshop."

Though she'd been hoping to spur a ramble from Hunter about the science behind the colour of bird's feathers or whatever, he only gave her a quiet hum and continued to draw his pictures in silence. With the frequent use of the red pen on this one, she hoped it was just a very red bird instead of another bloody scene. Honestly, he'd gone through at least three of her good red pens with how many he drew.

Flopping on her back with an exasperated, and okay, maybe slightly over-the-top sigh, Luz gave up. Clearly, he just wasn't happy today and that wasn't going to change anytime soon, even with all her valiant efforts. It saddened her to see him so sad but she guessed that even she had bad days like this sometimes and a lot of the time, she would just want to be left alone to sort through her thoughts by herself for a while. So that's what she'd do, leave him alone, even if it frustrated her to feel so helpless.

However, when she saw her mother appear in the doorway, hesitantly peaking around the frame and looking over at Hunter, hope bloomed in her chest. Maybe Mami could help! On her own bad days, when she was fed up being on her own and thinking to herself, she'd always seek out her mami who would sit patiently listening to whatever was bothering her and try her best to find a solution or even just offer comfort if she was unable to do that. Maybe what Hunter needed was some nice hugs from Mami! She already knew he enjoyed being hugged from the amount of times he'd try and sneak them off the two of them. He always went bright red when she brought it up though and he'd adamantly try to change the subject but she could tell a hug lover when she saw one. He couldn't hide from her.

"Hunter," Mami called out, waiting to get his attention first before she continued with whatever she wanted to say.

However, unlike Luz, Hunter hadn't noticed Camila's presence so suddenly hearing her voice break the silence gave him a fright and he jumped, his hand holding the red pen he'd been using slipping off the paper and onto the carpet.

Luz cringed. She'd been lectured countless times before about being careful with her pens, especially when she was drawing on the floor, so just watching the ink soak into the carpet gave her some strange feeling of second-hand guilt.

It took Hunter's brain a moment to catch up as he stared at the pen he'd just got on the carpet but when it had, he looked fearfully up at Luz and when he caught the look on her face, his fear seemed to increase tenfold. Damn it. Why did she have to be so easy to read?

Mami seemed the most unbothered out of the three of them, crossing the room to where the two of them now sat awkwardly and examining the mark on the carpet. "Oh. Whoops!" She said rather casually, probably trying to brush it off so she wouldn't scare Hunter. She did that a lot with the foster kids.

But this time, it didn't do much to help, however, as Luz could see him physically shaking. And then, he shifted into a kneeling position and bowed his head to Mami, much like he'd done that night he'd spilt the vinegar, although this time there was something much more weary to his posture. He looked tired...

"Hunter..." Mami said, softer this time.

"Sorry..." He all but whispered. He sounded so defeated.

Mami sat down on the floor in front of him, much calmer and less freaked out than the last time she'd had to do this. "You don't have to kneel, remember baby?"

He squeezed his eyes shut. "I messed up... I don't know what else I'm supposed to do..."

Mami shrugged. "Well, you don't have to kneel at the very least. I know that you didn't mean to, it was just an accident, so you can just... act normal."

"But nothing is normal!" He burst out of nowhere, startling both Luz and Camila. "I—It's all different! And I don't know what to do..."

"I know, darling." Mami tried to sympathise, "It's really difficult to have to adjust to something so different, but we're—"

"I want my uncle!" He cut her off, tears dripping from his eyes squinted in despair, "I want to go home..."

Jealous squirmed in the back of Luz's throat. Even if she knew it wasn't really the case, she couldn't help but wonder why he was just so desperate to get away from her and go back to someone so horrible instead? She got that it was his family and all but surely he'd learned that there was nothing from his sad excuse of an uncle that Mami couldn't give him and more. Deep down, she knew it wasn't fair to expect this of him but she just couldn't help it! It frustrated her that he still couldn't grasp how much better it was here.

"E—Everything is so different and I—I don't know what to do anymore! I hate it! I just want to go back to normal!
B—But... you've all confused me! I don't even— I don't even know what normal is anymore!"

All Luz and Camila could do was watch as he crumbled from his kneeling position to simply sit on the floor, his body heaving and trembling with his growing sobs.

"I wished none of this ever happened! S—So I don't have to feel this way! He declared.

"So you wish we were never friends?" Luz blurted out, receiving a sharp look from her mother, pleading with her not to go there.

Hunter paused for a moment and Luz childishly hoped that her words had done something to get through to him and help him realise that he shouldn't be wanting to go back to his uncle. However, Hunter just became even more hysterical.

"Stop it!" He practically screeched, "Stop it stop it stop it! You keep making everything so complicated and I don't want to feel this way! I just want my uncle!"

Mami took a very long pause before she could find something to say. "I'm really sorry... This all must be so difficult, I can't even begin to imagine what it feels like. But remember what I said the other night? We're on your side here, and we're going to help you in whatever way we can."

"I—I just want to go home now..." Hunter sobbed. "Luz said that— that I could maybe go home i—if Uncle got better but I've waited so long and I don't want to wait anymore! It's been months!"

Luz shrunk in on herself when her mother turned to her. She was now beginning to consider that maybe it hadn't been her brightest idea telling him that...

"I'm sorry, baby," Mami tried to comfort him, "But unfortunately I don't get much of a say in what happens with your uncle. The most I can do is be here for you in whatever way I can and that's what I intend to do."

"C—Can't you tell the cops that he's good and t—that I should be allowed to see him again?"

Mami bit her lip. "Well... I'm allowed to request it, but... I don't think I want to."

Hunter stared at her with a look of absolute horror. "Why... Why not?! Why won't you let me see him?! Why are you keeping me here?!" He stood up abruptly and began backing away towards the door. "I—I want to go home! Why aren't you letting me...?"

Mami held her hands up in surrender, trying to find some way to placate him. "I don't get to make the decisions, cariño. But still, I just don't think it's very... safe for you to go back to your uncle."

"It is safe!" He snapped back immediately. His point was not made very convincing by the very big and now prominent scar on his cheek that was only highlighted by his flushed face thanks to the tears.

"Then why did he hurt you?" Luz argued, just as quick. "Mami said you would have died in that closet if the police hadn't found you. That doesn't sound very safe."

"T—Then maybe I should have! Maybe it's what I deserved!" He said with barely a second thought.

Luz felt her mami's hand on her shoulder, warning her not to react but she brushed it off and did anyway. "What?!" She exclaimed.

"H—He put me in there for a reason! I was bad and he was teaching me to be good! S—So... I deserve it!" He stated adamantly, sounding more like he was trying to convince himself than either of the other two in the room.

"No! You don't deserve it! And I don't want my best friend ever saying that he deserves to get hurt!"

"Luz—" Her mom tried to intervene but Luz continued to ignore her.

"No, because I don't want you to say that about yourself! You deserve to be happy and have fun and read about birds and draw nice pictures, even the not-so-nice ones, and you deserve to not be hurt! As your best friend, it's my job to stop you being silly and right now you're being super silly! Now come here!"

She stretched her arms out wide and beckoned him over. When he didn't move, she got up and took it upon herself to walk over to him and wrap him up in the biggest hug she could manage. "Stop being silly. You deserve good stuff."

Despite his hesitance, he still melted into her hug. However, she wasn't done. She nudged him and prompted him to look up so she could cup his face. "I want you to say it. Say 'I deserve good stuff'."

He just looked at her funny, clearly not taking her seriously. So she decided to show him serious and pinched his cheeks. "Say it so I know you mean it!"

He grumbled miserably but after realising she wasn't going to give this up, he relented. "I deserve good stuff..."

"Exactly! So no more silliness." She stated, letting go of his face so he could bury it back in her shirt.

"I miss my uncle though..." He whined.

"I don't really know what to say to fix that bit." She admitted, "But I get the feeling. Do you want to do something to take your mind off it? Or we could talk about it to get it out your system?"

"I miss my old life." He mumbled, "Everything's new and scary now and I don't understand..."

"I could try and help you understand?" She offered. She saw her Mami give her a reassuring smile, letting her take the initiative this time.

"No... I just want things to go back to the way they used to be. But now everything's changed and it's changed forever..."

"How come?"

"Because you keep being nice and it's confusing everything!" He exclaimed.

"Well, sorry but I'm not going to stop being nice." She grumbled.

"I don't want you to stop being nice! I like it! A—And that's the problem but I... I just don't know!"

"You probably just need some time to get used to things. I get like this sometimes too, when there's too much change." She sympathised.

"I don't like change..." He sniffled.

"Nah, me neither. But sometimes change just happens and even if it sucks, we get used to it eventually."

"But I don't want to be away from Uncle..."

"Maybe things will go back to normal or maybe they won't. Or maybe they'll change even more. But whatever does happen, you've got me and Mami to help you, okay? And we'll give you tons of hugs because I know you like them and we'll even listen to you talk about birds for a really long time."

"Even blue jays?"

"Tell me all about 'em!"

"They're part of the Corvidae family like crows so they're really smart and they can mimic other birds like hawks and sometimes even kittens to scare away other birds." He explained, voice still muffled by her shirt.

"Uh huh?" She said, helping him sit back down on the floor with her, her arm still around him. "That's pretty cool."

"And they're not actually blue." He mentioned.

"What? That's crazy! How come?"

"Well, they get their feather colour from melanin and..."

Hunter trailed off as Mami's phone rang, she gave the two an apologetic smile and a quiet "sorry" before picking up. Luz couldn't really hear the person on the other end but whatever they said caused Mami's face to drop and she quickly got up and left the room.

"Huh. Wonder what that's about?" She acknowledged before quickly losing interest, "Anyway, what was that about feathers?"

Hunter was quick to continue with his explanation. "Their feather colour is from melanin which usually makes them brown but because of the way light hits their feathers, it gives off a blue colour."

"Oh wow. I have zero clue what that means but it's cool!" She replied and he nodded in agreement. "Are you feeling a little bit better now?"

He shrugged. "'M still a bit sad... and I still miss Uncle a lot. But you're helping."

She perked up, pride filling her chest. "I'm happy I can help you! Even just a little bit. I know you're sad at the moment and everything's really weird and difficult but me and Mami just want to help you. 'Cause you're like our favourite person ever! So you can tell us when you're sad like this and we can talk about it or give you hugs or even just listen to your bird facts."

"Thank you..." He said quietly, leaning against her.

"Of course. That's what best friends are for. And I'm sure things are going to get better."

"I hope so..."

Chapter Text

As soon as the phone clicked off, the dreadful call finally coming to an end after what felt like an eternity too long, Camila let out a very long and very shaky sigh.

Oh, God... what was she going to do...

Sure, it was no surprise to hear, she'd fully been expecting this, there never really had been any other option, but still... actually hearing it...

"The court officially terminated parental rights. Philip will go to prison and Hunter will be staying with you permanently or at least until we can find other accommodations."

And just after he'd expressed how much he wanted to go back to his uncle... how would she even break the news to him...?

From the beginning, reunification had never been the goal. The fact that Hunter had been abandoned in that closet for weeks until he nearly died was enough to prove that his uncle was in no way a suitable guardian. And now that she'd spent time with the boy, gotten to know him, and actually heard the horrors he'd been through, there was absolutely no chance Philip was getting him back, especially not on her watch.

So she'd known that he wouldn't be going back to his uncle. It wasn't a surprise. She was even quite glad about the fact! But now that it was official, it felt so much more real...

Hunter wasn't going home to his uncle like he'd hoped and even waited for.

And she was now going to have to break that to him.

After taking a few minutes to calm herself and form a half-baked plan, she stood up straight, plastered a smile on her face, and walked back into the living room.

Upon entering, both kids stopped what they were doing and looked up at her expectantly, Hunter even pausing his ramble about birds. Camila tried to be as casual as possible but Luz seemed to immediately pick up that something was wrong.

The girl frowned and cocked her head to the side. "Is everything okay?"

Camila's gaze flickered over to Hunter, looking up at her so innocently, a hint of hopefulness to his expression. "Was it Raine?" He asked quietly.

The lie slipped out before she even had the chance to think it through. "No, it was just a scam call. I get them pretty often."

Luz didn't look like she believed her but she didn't push it and instead turned her attention back to Hunter. "Now, what was that about parrots?"

While the kids chatted on about various birds, Camila tried to smile, tried to be happy, tried to be proud of how much Hunter was coming out of his shell. But she couldn't. All she could think about is how she'd have to take that smile off his face by telling him the one thing he didn't want to hear.

God... he would hate her.

___________

All day that phone call had been playing on her mind, the words repeating themselves over and over as if just to taunt her. She'd gotten what she wanted, that horrible monster of a man would never get his hands on that little boy. That little boy was finally safe and in her care and now, if she decided she wanted to, she'd possibly even be allowed to adopt him.

But for him, he was being ripped away from his only remaining family member forever and forced to live with people he'd only known for a few months now with absolutely no say in the matter. He'd been worried he'd never get his old life back and now that worry was an undeniable fact.

She wished she didn't have to tell him. She wished she could just let him continue on like this, blissfully unaware that he'd probably never see his uncle again, certainly not for the foreseeable future so he could keep hoping for a day that would never come where he could go back to a life of fear. But that was cruel. He deserved to know...

So, later that night after she'd put Luz to bed, she headed to his room to sit down and break the news to him.

Even just opening the door to his room felt like a battle, as if every possible force the universe was throwing at her was telling her not to do this. But even if she hated to, she had to so she went inside.

To her surprise, however, she found him fast asleep, curled up in his little makeshift bed on the floor with Flapjack cradled close to his chest.

This was very unusual. Usually, he wouldn't fall asleep until late in the night and that's if they were lucky. She'd frequently hear him still moving about even at two in the morning and several nights now she'd had to go downstairs in the middle of the night and bring him back to bed after he'd go wandering.

She'd spoken to Raine a few times now about his poor sleep schedule but so far, the best plan either of them could come up with was just to make sure he stayed in his room and maybe play a bit of white noise if he still wasn't settling down. They had considered medication or something of the sort but eventually decided it probably wouldn't go down very well after Hunter had mentioned that his uncle apparently had a consistent streak of drugging him with sleep medication. So, she'd stick to the white noise.

She'd just gotten used to taking him back to bed when he wandered or sitting with him until he eventually passed out so to see him fast asleep already at eight o'clock was nothing short of a miracle.

And also probably the worst possible time for it to happen.

There was no way she could wake him up now, who knew how long it would take to get him back to sleep! She'd just... wait until the morning. She'd take it as a sign that today just wasn't the day

___________

She turned around and nearly screamed when she noticed the small child standing right behind her.

Instances like this weren't rare, Hunter was very quiet and had already memorised pretty much every creak in the house. Not to mention he also seemed to have an aversion to announcing himself when he entered a room or starting up a conversation unless someone did it first so every now and again she would turn around and just be jumpscared by him.

She placed a hand on her chest and took a deep breath. "Oh, Hunter. Hi. Everything alright?"

He kept his eyes on the floor and rubbed his foot into the carpet, biting his lip. For a moment she wondered if maybe he'd caught on, if somehow he'd put the pieces together and knew what she was so worried about telling him.

"Can I have a hug?" He whispered, so quiet that she almost didn't catch it.

Oh. Okay.

"Of course, darling. Come here."

He shuffled forward rather quickly and happily fell right into her open arms. As she cradled him close and felt the soft rise and fall of his chest, a selfish little thought wormed its way into her mind.

He could be my kid now.

She pushed that thought to the side to deal with later and instead focused on him. "Any reason you want a hug? Or are you just in the mood for some cuddles?"

"Mm... I miss Uncle a lot again... but last time when Luz hugged me, I felt a bit better." He mumbled, playing with the hem of her shirt.

"Is it helping this time?"

"Mhm... I miss him lots, but... I've got you until I go back. And I like you a lot."

The guilt felt like a physical weight in her chest, tugging her down until she could barely even stay on her feet.

She had to tell him, she knew that, but... like the coward she was, she remained silent and enjoyed the hug while the guilt lingered and grew.

___________

"Hunter, can I speak to you please?" Camila called out when she noticed him pass by the living room one late evening.

He froze in place upon being addressed and after hearing her request, padded over to stand beside the arm of the couch, looking for further instruction. Camila patted the space beside her with a "Come sit" and he quickly sat himself down, looking a bit stiff as he tried to keep his back straight.

"There's just something I wanted— needed to talk to you about." She began, trying to take a deep breath to calm herself and cringing when it came out shaky.

Hunter became a lot more serious, keeping his gaze trained on her. She tried to ignore how he kept looking down at her hands. "Am I... in trouble...?" He asked when she remained silent, still struggling to get the words out.

"No! No, you're not in any trouble. It's..."

She watched him wilt and his expression drop as if he was just anticipating the news she was about to tell him, already preparing himself for the worst-case scenario which in his case, turned out to be the true one.

She watched the hopelessness begin to seep into his face and suddenly it felt as if there was a physical blockage in her throat.

"I—I..." She tried to push forward but it was nearly impossible.

"I was just going to order some takeout! Would you like some? Maybe we could watch something on the TV?"

He relaxed. "Oh. Um, okay. I'm okay with anything."

She knew for a fact he wasn't okay with anything after he'd thrown up Tuesday's dinner when she tried to add some spice to his plate but she was far too focused on the disappointment she felt towards herself to think about correcting him.

"Why don't I just order a bunch of fries and we can share them." She suggested.

"Mhm." He hummed, not sounding all too bothered. Thinking about it, he was probably just relieved it wasn't what he thought it was. Even if really, it was...

She considered getting separate portions, an adults and a kids, before deciding the kids would still probably be too much for him and she'd just have to hope he stopped eating when he was full. And hey, maybe it could be a treat to cheer him up if she did happen to suddenly find the courage to tell them the truth.

By the end of the night, Hunter had eaten far too many fries and still didn't know the truth.

___________

"What was the phone call about?"

Camila turned to her daughter who she'd been trying to read a bedtime story to in the hopes that she'd settle down for bed.

"Hmm?"

"The phone call. When you looked all serious and left the room. When Hunter had that whole breakdown about wanting to go home."

"Oh, it—"

"It was about his uncle, right? Hunter's not going back..."

Camila paused. "What makes you think that?"

Luz shrugged as if it was no big deal that she'd somehow managed to figure it out. "I can't really think of what else would make you go all serious like that. And you lied and said it was a scam call so I knew it had to be something you didn't want us knowing about."

Camila tried to dismiss it all with a chuckle. "Never knew we had a little detective on our hands! But it's nothing for you to worry about, mija."

"When are you going to tell him?" She asked, completely ignoring her attempt to change the subject.

Camila gave in with a sigh. "I'm not sure... it's hard to find the right moment."

"He's going to be really upset..." Luz mumbled, clutching her sheets tightly in her hands.

"Yeah... he probably will." She admitted, "But he'll have to find out eventually and I'd rather do it soon rather than just springing adoption papers on him out of nowhere."

Luz lit up. "Are you going to adopt him?"

"Maybe. I mean, I'd be happy to but it's not an easy process. I'd need to sit down and talk to you about it properly, I'd need to prove that I'm fit to be his parent, I'd need to get all the paperwork done. It would take a while."

"Please adopt him, Mami!" Luz exclaimed, clasping her hands together.

Camila let out a weak chuckle. "We'll see how it goes, mija. But first, I need to break the news to him."

The girl dimmed again. "Yeah..."

___________

Camila watched from the doorway of the living room as Hunter lay on the floor and doodled in one of the various notebooks Luz had lent him, kicking his legs up and down in excitement at his own drawing.

Camila had gotten rather good at creeping around the house now, maybe as good as the boy himself, for the sole purpose of catching sweet, genuine little moments of happiness like this.

She gently knocked on the wooden doorframe and Hunter quickly looked up to check who was there. The amount of pride and honour she felt when she saw him relax upon realising it was just her was immeasurable.

"Hi, baby. What are you up to?" She asked, walking over to sit beside him on the floor.

He scooped up his notebook and held it close to his chest like a valuable. "Drawing." He said simply.

"Oooh, lovely. Can I see?" She asked. Her chest ached with a funny mixture of feelings when he looked so genuinely happy just from her showing an interest in his art.

He turned his notebook around to show her the page he'd been drawing on and she took to examining it very closely. His art skills were definitely improving! And she was very relieved to see it wasn't something bloody again. She was not feeling like having another discussion about all that right now. Explaining to an abused child that no, what happened to him was wrong and undeserved and it should never have happened but also yes, it's okay for him to draw his very traumatic memories as a way to process and work through them as long as he isn't using them as a way to hurt himself, was already hard enough on a normal day when she didn't have about fifty other things buzzing about her brain.

Thankfully though, the picture looked decently happy. Both figures seemed to be smiling and the red pen mostly looked like it had just been used for colouring in rather than represent copious amounts of blood. So that was a plus, she supposed?

"Oh, that's amazing!" She praised, watching him lose the fight to keep that sweet little smile hidden.

"It's me and uncle." He pointed out.

Ah.

She tried not to let her attitude falter.

"I see. Well, it's a lovely drawing."

"Thank you." He said softly. "I can't wait to go back to him so I drew a picture of how happy I'll be when I finally get to go see him again!"

Her heart felt as if it had just been stomped on and shattered into a million little pieces.

"Hunter... can I speak to you about something?"

He looked up from his picture and his smile faded just a bit. "Mhm."

Yet again, the words felt sticky in her throat and that fact only worsened as she saw how patiently he waited for her to spit it out when she was about to crush whatever happiness he'd just had.

But the longer she let him cling to this false hope, the worse it would get... the more he wouldn't trust her...

"You see... I got a call. It was about your uncle."

He didn't look very surprised. Just very hesitant.

"The court made a decision about who you'll get to stay with. They, um... they've terminated parental rights for your uncle. Do you know what that means...?"

His face dropped even if he shook his head.

"It means... they don't think he's suitable to be your guardian. From now on, he's not going to be allowed to look after you, and from what I've heard, he's going to prison and you'll be staying here with me. I'm sorry..."

She waited for a reaction. She waited for him to break down in tears or get angry or lash out at her or maybe even ask for a hug... Instead, his expression remained completely blank as he stood up and left the room, the sound of the stairs creaking and his bedroom door shutting following behind him.

Camila sighed, burying her face in her hands and trying not to cry. It felt selfish to do so, he was the one receiving the news that he wasn't allowed to go back to his only remaining family member and here she was throwing a pity party for herself because she just so happened to be the one who had to break the news to him.

She didn't deserve to sit here and stew in her feelings. She had to be there for him.

So she pulled herself up from the couch and dragged her feet along as she climbed the stairs. She got to the door to his room and gently knocked on the wood.

"Hunter?" She called out, "Do you want to talk about it?"

She received silence in response. She wasn't surprised by that.

"If you want to talk about it or just want a hug, then I'm here. But if you just want some alone time then I can leave and give you some space. Just let me know."

Again, he left her with silence.

"I know this is really difficult and I'm so sorry it had to turn out this way. But me and Luz are here for you, okay...? We care about you so so much and we always will."

Silence.

"I'm sorry to bother you if you want to be left alone, but... I just want to make sure you're alright. I'll go away if you want me to but you need to tell me, darling."

Still silence...?

"Hunter...?"

Now she was listening, it was unnaturally silent.

She knocked on the door again and when she still received nothing she slowly twisted the doorknob and peeked inside.

The first thing her eyes landed on was the drawing on the floor. The picture of himself and his uncle had been ripped out from the rest of the notebook, which had been tossed to the side, and then it had been torn in half down the middle, separating the two stick figures. There were red scribbles on one side.

The next thing she noticed was the notable emptiness of the room. Hunter was nowhere to be seen and neither was Flapjack, the spot on the makeshift bed where the bird usually sat now vacant.

And then, the final thing she noticed was the now open window across the room from her, the curtains dancing as the cold wind blew into the room.

The window was open and Hunter was gone.

Hunter was gone.

Chapter Text

"The court made a decision about who you'll get to stay with. They, um... they've terminated parental rights for your uncle. Do you know what that means...?"

"It means... they don't think he's suitable to be your guardian. From now on, he's not going to be allowed to look after you, and from what I've heard, he's going to prison and you'll be staying here with me. I'm sorry..."

As soon as he heard those words it felt as if his world had come to a halt. Everything else felt distant and unimportant in comparison to right here in this very moment where she was trying to talk to him and his ears were ringing but all that mattered was that everything he could have wanted had just been ripped away from him forever.

I'm not going back to Uncle...

That statement repeated over and over in his mind like a broken record as he left the room and walked up the stairs to his room, feeling about a foot to the left of his body.

And then as soon as he closed the door behind him, it all hit him at once. He wasn't going back. He was stuck here. This was it. There was no more waiting to see Uncle again, the decision had been made, Uncle was going to prison and there wasn't a single thing he could do about it.

He looked down at his trembling hands, still holding the notebook Luz had given him with the picture he'd just been drawing. He'd drawn it in a stupid, childish attempt to cheer himself up, to reassure himself that things would be okay again and to find distant happiness in the sort of joy he'd feel when he'd finally get to go home. But that was stupid because he was never going home ever again and Uncle had been taken away from him forever and he wasn't going to get that happiness.

He pulled the page from the notebook, tossing that haphazardly to the side, and clutched the page so tightly in his hands that the paper began to crease.

He took one look at the happy faces he'd drawn, now mocking him with something he could never have, and he tore the picture in half and let go, watching the two pieces flutter to the floor. Then, grabbing the red pen from the pile of pens that Luz had left on the floor earlier, he kneeled down in front of the half that had the drawing of himself and scribbled all over it. He drew his scars back in from where he'd purposely missed them out and he covered them in blood again. He drew a sad face over the smile and then an angry face and then when it still didn't feel like enough, he scribbled it out. He brandished the pen like and knife and stabbed it into the picture over and over again until he collapsed in a fit of sobs.

It wasn't fair. None of this was fair. He didn't want to be here. Why was everyone so set on keeping him apart from Uncle? Why did they have to care so much?! Why couldn't they just mind their own business and let him deal with it all on his own like he'd always done?!

No one had ever cared before. Uncle's friends had come and gone and looked down at him with pity as he had his head slammed into the floor for misbehaving and they didn't care. Why was it all so different now?!

Why couldn't he just go home?!

He just wanted to go home!

He grabbed Flapjack from where he was sitting under his favourite blanket and clutched him tight to his chest, curling around the bird as if for he had some reason to protect him.

He wasn't sure where to go from here. The possibility of seeing Uncle again had been his driving force, it had kept him going and he'd been able to push forward despite the crushing loneliness he felt from being the odd one out in just about the entire world at this point. And now that that was all gone, what was he supposed to do...? He was alone.

Lifting his head felt like a chore but still, he had to look for some sort of sign, something to guide him. When he was lost he was supposed to turn to God for help and the Lord would save him.

He didn't hear all too much from God but he did spy the window ahead of him.

Still not even feeling fully in control of himself, he pulled himself to his feet and staggered over to it. He hadn't seen a window like this but he assumed it worked more or less the same as the ones from Uncle's house. He wrapped his hand around the handle and experimentally pushed down on the little button in the centre. Something clicked and he was able to turn the handle and with a small amount of tugging, the window pulled open and he was hit with the cool evening air.

Back at Uncle's, on a few occasions, he'd snuck out through the window, climbing down the drainpipe and stone walls to reach the bottom and going off venturing into the forests. He'd always come back so he had never really been sure why Uncle got so upset over it but he learned not to do it again when Uncle confiscated his shoes and stuck pins in his feet for a few weeks. This time, however, he didn't have plans on coming back.

As soon as he had clambered down the drainpipe and dropped to the ground, he ran. He didn't have shoes and he didn't have a jacket or even a sweater. He just had himself and Flapjack, still cradled to his chest, and really, what else was there left for him?

Sure Camila and Luz were nice and... he cared about them... but they were forcing him here. He just— he couldn't do this anymore. He didn't have a home to go back to and he didn't want to stay here so he just had to run.

He didn't know where he was running, maybe Uncle's house but he had no clue which direction that was even in never mind how long it would take to get to or where he even was, to begin with! He just knew that he had to go and he had to go somewhere so he just ran and he kept running until he couldn't see the Noceda's cosy little house anymore and he was completely alone in the cold, dark forest.

The rain began to pour and the mud squelched under his bare feet but he just kept running until eventually, he found himself in front of an abandoned little cottage, half falling apart but he deemed it good enough shelter for now, at least until the rain stopped and his head cleared a bit.

As soon as he shut the door behind him, he became acutely aware of just how soaked he was. He shivered and stumbled further into the little house as rainwater dripped off of him and onto the dusty floorboards. Reaching the back wall, he braced himself and slid down it onto the floor, tucking his knees in close. He hadn't been this cold in a long time... not since the closet. It was a strange feeling to be back to this, though. He'd gotten used to not having to worry about his lips turning blue. He'd gotten used to having everything given to him...

He'd gone soft.

He'd been dwelling on that for a while now, worrying how he'd adjust to going back to his old life of punishments and pain when he was so used to hugs and kisses. Guess he wouldn't have to worry about that problem anymore, now that he wasn't going home or back to Camila's.

Just that thought alone was enough to send him into another round of sobbing.

"Flapjack... what am I going to do...?" He cried, hugging the now soggy bird tightly against his chest. "U—Uncle— he always... he always kept me right! He always made sure I was good s—so I could go to heaven, but now..."

But now he was probably never going to see him again...

Up until now, his entire life had revolved around his uncle. Uncle had been all that mattered to him. He did everything because Uncle asked him to and he wanted more than anything to make Uncle proud. Uncle made sure he followed God, Uncle made sure he did everything right, Uncle made sure he was the best version of himself that he could be.

Now, all of that had been ripped away. Everything he'd ever known or cared for before all of this foster care nonsense had been torn from his hands and destroyed and there was nothing he could do to stop it...

He felt so helpless.

"You should go back to Camila." Flapjack twittered softly, "You like her."

"No! I don't want to go back there! I want to go home!" He said stubbornly.

"But home is scary and sore. Camila's home is warm and nice and happy. You like it a lot." Flapjack argued.

"But it's not Uncle! I want my uncle! I want to go back to normal!" He whimpered.

"Being sore isn't normal. You understand that now that you've gotten to stay with Camila and Luz. Neither of them hurt you, and that feels better."

"I don't care what feels better! I don't care if I have to hurt and be sad and cold and scared! Uncle is my family, I'm all he has! I can't leave him!"

"It's not your responsibility to be there for him. He wasn't there for you when he locked you in the closet. He doesn't deserve to have someone as nice as you, you deserve someone who is nice back to you like Camila."

"But Uncle is good! He can speak to God! He can help guide me to be a good person!"

"What if Uncle lied?"

Hunter looked down at the bird in shock. "He can't lie...
b—because he's... he's holy. He serves God. He's a good person."

"Good people don't hurt kids." Flapjack pointed out, "So what if Uncle lied? What if he isn't good? What if he didn't do any of that to 'help you be better'? What if it is the right decision to not let him look after you?"

He didn't know what to do...

"Just stop..." He whimpered, "Stop talking about it... I don't want to..."

"You can't keep pushing those questions away. You need to face them eventually."

"I don't want Uncle to be bad..."

"You realising what he did isn't what will make him bad. He was already bad in the first place."

"But I miss him!"

"Do you? Or do you just miss the chances he had to be good to you that he avoided every time? The chances that Camila has taken and excelled in."

"I..."

Bright lights flickered across the broken glass windows, invading the now pitch-black cabin. How long had he been sitting here for...?

Before he could question that too much though, he was cut off by the voices and approaching footsteps that were far too nearby for his liking. His immediate thought before he even had the chance to properly analyse the situation was to curl up as small as he could and hope he wasn't noticed. Obviously, he realised that was a stupid idea, but he only realised it was a stupid idea after the door had been opened and the bright flashlights had been shone on him.

People were talking to him, they were trying to get his attention but their words made no sense and he had no time to actually pay attention to them because right now, his only thoughts were that he felt far too much like a deer in the headlights and his uncle had been taken from him and these people were towering over him in familiar uniforms that made his stomach turn and his leg twinge with phantom pain.

The light from the torches was blinding and they felt like they were physically pinning him in place, rendering him useless as the people around him spoke words at him.

Then, one of them tried to touch him, they slid their hands under his arms to try and pull him up on his feet and he just panicked. He panicked and he bit them. But unlike with Luz, they didn't yelp or let go but instead kept a firm hold of him, an even firmer hold, even. And even when he sunk his teeth in deeper, biting as hard as he could until he could taste metal and the blood poured into his mouth, they didn't let go.

Someone finally intervened, tugging him away from the person he'd bit rather harshly and keeping their arms tightly around him while he thrashed around.

He wasn't even sure why he was fighting, he wasn't even sure why these people had grabbed him, but he was scared and tired and already upset enough as is and that was all a very dangerous combination.

"C'mon kid," Someone said, though he had no clue who, "We're gonna take you home now, your mom's been looking for you all night."

"She's not my mom!" He shouted back, trying to keep a tight hold of Flapjack as he was dragged out of the little cabin and through the muddy forest.

"Right, your foster mom or whatever."

"She is not my mom!" He repeated, growing more and more upset. She wasn't his mom and she never would be because she was keeping him away from his uncle and his uncle was all he had and he needed his uncle! He didn't need her!

He tried and failed to fight off the person keeping hold of him as they dragged him back to Camila's house but unfortunately, he was unsuccessful and they were able to lug him up the porch steps and knock harshly on the door.

It opened in no less than a second and he saw the relief on Camila's face when her gaze landed on him. He didn't want her to be relieved, he wanted her to be angry and upset that he'd shown up so she could send him back to Uncle and he wouldn't feel so guilty for his own relief when he saw she still cared despite all the hassle he'd caused.

"Hunter... Oh, baby, I was so worried! Where have you been?!" Camila exclaimed, reaching forward to try and hug him.

He wrestled himself out of the grip of the person holding him and barged past Camila to march up the stairs and slam the door to his room behind him. Unlike the last time, Camila was much quicker following after him, saying a quick thank you to the people who'd found him (probably police, he was now realising) and rushing after him to make sure he didn't try any more escape attempts.

"Hunter..." She sighed, stopped in the doorway to his room, "Please don't do that again. You could have gotten really hurt."

Yeah right... he'd had his leg broken with a hammer just months ago. The worst he'd gotten from the forest was a few scratches.

"I want to go home..." He mumbled, squeezing Flapjack so tight that the rainwater that had soaked him began to drip out onto the floor.

"I know, sweetheart... and I'm sorry," Camila replied. Her soft tone made him angry.

"Then why are you keeping me here? Why can't you let me go home!" He exclaimed.

"Because it's my job to keep you safe. While the court makes the decisions, it's up to me to look after you and to make sure you're not running off into the forest and getting yourself hurt."

"I want to go home! I don't care i—if you're nice, I don't want to be here!"

"I know, darling, and I'm sorry. But, it's for your own good."

For his own good?!

"It's not! I hate it here and I hate you!"

Taking a step back, he would have realised that there was no reason to be angry at Camila, much less any reason to be shouting at her like this. But he was angry and hurting and all he knew was that hurt people hurt people. And that's why even when he saw her heartbreak in the look that she gave him, he didn't stop.

"I hate you! You're not my mom! I have a family and you're taking me away from him!"

"Hunter, please—"

"Shut up!"

In a fit of anger, he shoved the lamp off the set of drawers and watched it shatter and break when it hit the floor. The look of shock on Camila's face only motivated him to go even further so that's what he did. He knocked all the stupid, pretty little decorations off the shelves, he tore the books off the shelves and threw them across the room, he ripped all the happy drawings off the walls but left the gory ones, he pulled all of the drawers open so they could topple out and pulled the clothes in the closet down along with the curtains.

Once he'd well and truly trashed his room, he sat down in the mess, curling up into a tiny ball with Flapjack still cuddled tight and he watched as Camila slowly approached him like he was some sort of wild animal.

"You got it all out your system?"

"Shut up."

"I'm on your side here, Hunter. I know that's difficult to accept but it's the truth."

"I hate you. Go away."

Again, she looked genuinely hurt by his words and no matter how much he tried to convince himself that he didn't care, that he enjoyed to see her as miserable as him, even... his chest ached.

"I'm here for you, Hunter."

"Leave me alone."

"Okay... I'll give you some space. But if you ever need me or want to talk about it, you can come find me."

"You're not my mom. You're not my family and you never will be. So stop acting like it."

She gave him one last sad look before leaving him behind in the wreckage he'd created to stew in his own misery.

"Flapjack..." He mumbled, looking down at the little bird, "What do I do...?"

Chapter Text

Luz missed her best friend.

It had been a few weeks now since he'd tried to run away and since then, he'd barely left his room.

It wasn't really all that surprising, she supposed... She'd heard the way he'd shouted at Mami, heard the thumps and breaks as he trashed his room. She knew he was angry and upset and trying to prove some stupid, stubborn point but... she just missed him...

When Mami had rushed around the house, double-checked that he hadn't just hidden somewhere again while on the phone to the police, rambling about how he was just gone, she'd hidden herself under her covers and cried. She'd been terrified she'd lose him, that he'd run away forever and she'd never get to see her best friend again. And then he did come back, or well, at least the police brought him back, and even still it felt as if she'd lost him thanks to the fact she'd hardly seen him since.

The only time she really ever saw him nowadays was when Mami would take him to therapy and he'd be forced to leave his room.

After many, many phone calls, Mami had been able to get him into therapy which, in her humble opinion, he desperately needed. He had sessions usually once, sometime twice a week and each time, she and Mami would go to drop him off and then they'd go to the park or get ice cream while they waited for him to finish.

Luz knew it was just her mom's way of trying and cheer her up, seeing that she was a bit miserable without her friend, and Luz did appreciate it but honestly, she spent most of the time worrying about how Hunter was, wondering if this would be one of the days where things went well in therapy and she'd maybe get a few words out of him in the car on the way home or if this was one of those days where the therapist happened to upset him and he'd sulk in the car instead.

Whichever instance it was, she always tried to talk to him either way. She'd talk about her day and ask him about his, even if she knew he'd just ignore her, and she'd even bring up some of the research she'd been doing into birds, especially for him so she could try and get him talking to her again. It usually didn't really work so well... but it was the thought that counted...?

Mami had also been trying. A lot. But just like Luz, she hadn't really made much progress. She'd tried to clean up the mess in Hunter's room but that had just set him off again and she'd had to give up. She'd tried offering to take him out for pancakes from that one really good cafe in the town but he'd shut the door in her face. She'd tried offering him some books on birds she'd picked up from the shop and he'd ignore both her and the books. She'd even tried getting one of those strange little octopus toys with the different emotions on each side but he'd just flipped it to the angry side and thrown it at her.

So yeah, progress hadn't exactly been... progressing.

But Mami had managed to come up with something, something genius, and Luz hoped that it would be able to fix things again. Maybe it wouldn't turn things back to normal again, but at this point, she'd take anything. She hated to see her best friend (maybe soon-to-be brother if things stopped going so poopy) being all sad like this.

So, with a bit of help from her mami, Luz had dragged Hunter out of the room and insisted he come on their little day out. He had protested quite a bit but to his credit, he did eventually give in when Luz pulled out the good old I won't breathe until you say yes trick. Classic. And so, she was now practically vibrating with excitement in the car, waiting to see Hunter's reaction to their little surprise.

"Hunter, did you know that both male and female cardinals sing? Did you know that?" She asked, showing off her new bird knowledge. He rolled his eyes at her and nodded, stubbornly looking away and keeping his gaze focused on the window instead.

"Cardinals are your favourite, right?" She questioned, gesturing to Flapjack who he'd been taking with him to every therapy session (and therefore, every outing) for the past few weeks. Luz hoped that even if she couldn't help him much right now, that Flapjack was at least able to pick up some of the slack in cheering Hunter up and keeping him company.

Hunter spared her a quick look and for a moment she childishly hoped for something more but her expectations were of course crushed when he only gave a curt nod before looking away again, making sure his frown was still intact so they all knew he was still in fact angry.

She loved him but God did he get on her nerves sometimes.

"Well, you'll probably love this then!" She announced, crossing her arms smugly.

"No more hints, mija. It's supposed to be a surprise. You'll give it all away before we even get there." Mami sighed.

Luz kicked her feet excitedly. "I know! But I'm just too excited! Hunter, you're gonna love it."

Hunter sighed and tried to shift a bit further away from her. She tried not to take it to heart.

"We're here! We're here!" Luz cheered merrily as the little building came into view.

"Vet–er—in—ary clinic..." Hunter sounded out quietly. Luz nodded with her usual enthusiasm.

"This is where I work. I thought I'd take the two of you in to show you around. We've got quite a lot of animals in today." Mami explained.

"If you've got a job why don't you go to it?" Hunter commented under his breath.

"I'm taking some time off at the minute," Mami replied anyway, despite his slight rudeness, "Just so I can help you adjust to living with us. I'll be going back to work when you and Luz go back to school."

"I don't want to live with you." Hunter scowled.

Mami sighed. "Okay, Hunter."

He'd still not come around to the idea of living away from his uncle. At every possible moment, he'd throw out little comments about his uncle being better than Mami or hating it here or whatever. And although Luz understood where it was coming from, it was still frustrating as all hell. She just wished he could finally give up on all this pettiness and just accept that he wasn't going back to his uncle and that Mami was much better anyway. But right now, that option seemed almost impossible...

"Come on kids, out you get," Mami ordered as she opened up the back door on Luz's side, snapping the girl out of her thoughts. She quickly unclipped her seatbelt and clambered out.

Once out of the car, she turned back and gestured to Hunter to get out. He promptly ignored her and tried to open his own door before remembering child lock was still on and then he resorted to huffing and crossing his arms while he waited for Mami to open his door for him. He looked a little bit silly, Luz thought.

Mami led them to the door and walked up to the front desk to speak to the receptionist. Luz watched behind them as Hunter slowly trailed along after them, trying to keep a distance so it was still clear enough that he wasn't happy until the automatic door shut in front of him and he froze in place, unsure of what to do. Luz decided to give him a helping hand by sticking her foot out under the door's sensor to open it again. This time, Hunter ran through a bit quicker.

"Okay," Mami began, getting their attention, "There's a cat about to go in for surgery but he needs to be calmed down first so they can give him the anaesthetic. Do you two want to help out?"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Luz exclaimed, jumping up and down on the spot. Hunter had a look of interest on his face but as soon as he realised Luz was watching, he quickly covered it up with another scowl. Yep. He wasn't very slick.

Mami, coming to the same conclusion as Luz, smiled and took that as a yes. "Okay then, just follow me."

Luz skipped along happily down the hall after her mother while Hunter, yet again, trailed along behind, running forward to catch up every now and again when he got too far behind.

They made it to the room and Mami let them in, holding the door open for them, much to Hunter's apparent dismay since it meant he could no longer remain at a distance to keep sulking. Like Mami had said, there was a little grey cat backed up in the corner, hissing at the woman who was trying to coax it out.

The cat startled at the sound of the door opening and turned its attention to the three of them in the doorway. The woman took this as an opportunity and tried to grab the cat but it yowled and leapt out of the way and towards the open door.

Thankfully, Mami had the reflexes to quickly slam the door shut behind them which in turn made Hunter flinch and back away a bit.

The cat quickly changed direction and ran to Hunter instead, slipping itself between his feet and rubbing up against his leg like a naughty toddler sucking up to a parent in an attempt to dodge a telling-off. Hunter looked helplessly between the cat at his feet and the woman who'd been trying to catch it who was now getting to her feet with a tired sigh.

"I've been trying to get her to sit still and calm down for ten minutes." She grumbled. "My arm is covered in scratches and I'm still no closer to getting that needle in her."

"Needle...?" Hunter repeated cautiously.

"It's just a little needle," Mami clarified, "It's just to give the cat the anaesthetic. It puts her to sleep so she doesn't feel any pain during surgery."

"Oh. I think I had that. In the ambulance. It's hard to remember..."

The room went uncomfortably silent and the woman — who was probably one of Mami's coworkers — gave Mami an awkward look.

Hunter however seemed immune to the awkwardness and kneeled down on the floor to pet the cat who happily hopped up into his lap and began pawing at his shirt. Hunter pet her in a very methodical way, placing his hand on the cat's head and running it along her fur until he got to her back and then he would lift his hand robotically and move it back to the cat's head. He looked a bit silly but he was far too focused on the task at hand to pay attention to Luz's giggles and the cat seemed happy enough, purring at the attention.

"Does she have a name?" Hunter asked, "Luz says you need to name stuff... like her toys. Do cats get names too?"

The poor woman looked a bit bewildered but answered him as best as she could all the same. "Um—yeah. Yeah, she's got a name. Waffles."

"Oh. It's... Nice to meet you Waffles. I've never met a cat before, but my bird is called Flapjack and that's similar to Waffles so maybe you can be friends." Hunter said, with some rather convincing logic Luz had to admit, and he held out Flapjack for Waffles to see. Waffles took one look at the plushie before snaking past to curl up against Hunter's stomach.

"Typical," The woman sighed, "She gives me all the bother but sucks up to the first person to come through the door. At least now she's calm enough for the needle."

Hunter suddenly shifted to face away from the woman, keeping his arms wrapped protectively around the cat with a stubborn frown.

"Hunter, honey," Mami tried to gently coax him, "Why don't you sit with Waffles while Jane gives her the anaesthetic? She seems to really like you."

"I don't want you to hurt her..." He mumbled sadly, curling himself around the cat. "She trusts me... 'm supposed to keep her safe."

Mami sighed before kneeling down beside him on the floor, tucking a strand of hair behind his ear. "It's alright. I know the needle sounds scary but we only actually use a tiny bit of it. And she'll barely even feel it, I bet if you keep petting her she won't even notice it. And then it'll help her feel nice and sleepy so we can get the surgery done and she can be all better again."

"Is she sore?" He asked quietly.

"Yeah. You see, she has a problem with her leg, that's why she's walking a little funny if you've noticed. But she's going to get surgery to fix it and she'll feel so much better. And she won't even feel a thing! How good is that?" Mami explained. Seeing Hunter still looking hesitant, she continued. "See this job? It's about helping animals. We do everything we can not to hurt them. We make them all better! So, do you think you could lend us a hand to help Waffles feel better?"

Hunter bit his lip, looking down at the cat cuddled up in his lap, considering Mami's words before he finally nodded. Mami gave him a warm smile and beckoned Jane over who brought the needle.

"Now, if you just keep stroking her there, I'll pop the needle in and it'll just be a second," Jane instructed, kneeling down too.

Waffles spied the needle as Jane approached and meowed, trying to twist away in defiance.

"She's scared..." Hunter mumbled.

"Yeah, since she can't understand what we're saying, she doesn't realise the needle is going to help her. She thinks she has to defend herself from it." Jane explained.

Hunter observed the cat for a moment before gently stroking her again. "It's okay Waffles. I know the needle is really scary, I thought so too when I had one, but it's really good at helping you so it's okay."

Waffles pawed at his leg a few times before cautiously settling down again, allowing Hunter to continue petting her while Jane brought the needle closer. When the needle went in, Hunter flinched and tried to look away but Waffles mewled and his attention was back on her.

"It'll be really quick, Waffles. It's okay." He reassured her, "You're being really brave."

It did only take a few seconds for Jane to remove the needle and announce she was all done and then Hunter pulled Waffles into a gentle hug. "It's all done now," He told her, "Now they can make you all better and you won't be sore anymore."

Waffles meowed sleepily in agreement and it wasn't long till she was out like a light. Jane returned from disposing of the needle and bent down once again.

"Thank you so much, Hunter. You've been a great help." She smiled. A small, proud smile of his own made its way onto his face. "Now, I've got to go take Waffles to surgery but I'll let Camila know how she does and I'm sure she'll pass the information on."

Mami nodded and placed a hand on Hunter's shoulder.

Although a little reluctant, Hunter let Jane pick up Waffles from his lap and take her away, saying a quiet goodbye to the cat before Mami helped him to his feet.

"We should get you down here more often if you're such a cat magnet." Mami chuckled.

"That was so cool Hunter!" Luz exclaimed, "You're like the cat whisper! I wish cats liked me that much. Well, I guess my friend Amity's cat likes me but she'd probably hate you. She always hisses at boys. One time me and Gus went to her house to ask if she could come play and Ghost just leapt out at Gus like a ninja cat! She kept clawing at his head!"

Hunter just sort of stared at her. "Okay." Guess he still wasn't quite over his sulking.

"Anyway," Mami cut in, "Before we head back, there's one last thing."

By the look on his face, Hunter's curiosity was piqued and he gave Flapjack a little squeeze as he followed after Mami.

Luz could barely contain her excitement as she hopped down the hall. She'd been nearly unable to compose herself all day waiting for this and she just hoped it went as well as she imagined it would.

"Just through here," Mami said, holding the door open for Hunter to slip through. Pretty much as soon as he disappeared into the room, Luz heard him gasp.

"It's a cardinal!"

Luz laughed, peering into the room and watching as Hunter jumped up and down at the sight of the little cardinal waddling around on the table. He tried to crouch down to be at eye level with the little bird before he just got too excited and had to start jumping again, giggling madly.

"Thanks for letting us come see him, Polina," Mami said to the woman sitting in the room who was now chuckling at the boy in front of her.

"It's no bother, Camila. Any time."

Hunter plopped Flapjack down on the table in front of the cardinal. "This is my friend Flapjack! He's a cardinal too, like you. 'Cause you're a cardinal!"

The cardinal twittered softly and gave a little peck at Flapjack before tilting his head at Hunter which made the boy squeal with happiness.

"Someone found him at the park and brought him in," The woman, Polina as Mami had called her, explained, "He had an injured wing and couldn't get back in the tree so they brought him here. We're just keeping him here while we wait for his wing to heal up properly and then we'll put him back in the wild."

"You should put him back where you found him," Hunter instructed. "Cardinals like staying in the same place for a while and he might have a girlfriend waiting for him."

"You know a lot about them, huh?" Polina commented.

"They're my favourite birds!" He beamed, holding a finger out in front of the cardinal and squealing again when the bird approached and rubbed his head against it.

"So! Do you like your surprise?" Luz asked eagerly.

Hunter tore his focus away from the bird for a moment to frown at her. "Surprise?"

"Mhm! Mami planned this so we could cheer you up! She saw how sad you were and she knows how much you love birds, cardinals especially, so when she heard there was one at the clinic, she made a plan to take you! Isn't she just a genius?"

Hunter turned to Mami, tears brimming in his eyes. "You planned it for me...?"

Mami gave him a warm smile. "Of course. I wanted to see you happy again and it seems like it's worked."

Hunter seemed to immediately lose all interest in the bird and sniffed tearfully before stumbling over to squeeze Mami tight around the middle in a hug.

"Oh, nene... it's alright. It's okay." Mami said softly, kneeling down so she could properly scoop him up in her arms. "Hey... it's alright..."

Luz padded over and quietly joined in on the hug, wrapping her arms around both of them and pulling them close. Once she did, Hunter practically broke, bursting into heavy sobs and clinging tight to Mami's shirt. Luz herself even found her eyes a little wet and hoped that nobody noticed.

"Are these good tears or bad tears?" She questioned, giving her eyes a quick rub with her sleeve.

"Y—You're still being nice, e—even when I'm being horrible! A—And you did this for me..." He whimpered.

"Of course, baby," Mami said firmly, "I told you I'd always be here for you and I mean that. Even when you're angry and frustrated and don't know what to do with your emotions, I'm still here for you and I love you regardless."

Hunter's sobs carried a whole new weight. He buried his face in Mami's shirt and said something so quiet they both nearly missed it.

"I love you..."

Luz held her little family close and hoped that this meant things could get better.

Chapter Text

"Looks like Hunter's taller," Camila concluded, using the little purple pen Luz had offered up to her to make a mark on the doorframe where the boy's head had just been resting. She shrugged. "Sorry, Luz."

"Noooo!" Luz wailed, falling to her knees rather dramatically and keeling over as if her mortal enemy had just betrayed her trust and delivered a dagger right into her stomach, "I can't believe it! I thought I was going to get to be the tall one! It's so not fair!"

Hunter crouched down, plushie squeezed under his crossed arms as always, and politely patted her on the head. "It's okay, Luz. You just need to eat all your vegetables like me. Then you can be tall again."

"I didn't shrink!" She exclaimed, throwing her hands up with a rather offended look on her face, "And I don't like vegetables!"

"Oh." Hunter looked up at the doorframe, colourfully marked with various different heights from all sorts of kids over the years, and then back at Luz. "Why aren't you taller than me anymore then?"

"Because you grew, Hunter!" She exclaimed.

"Oh. Oh! Is that...good?" He asked innocently, looking around absent-mindedly like a little lamb who had just been shoved into the big scary world and didn't have a clue what to do.

"Well, it means you're a bit less malnourished now. So yeah, it's a very good thing actually." Camila replied rather bluntly, unsure of how else she could even put it.

"Good job, Hunter..." Luz sighed, defeated and slightly muffled from her face being buried in the carpet, but still willing to congratulate her best friend.

Hunter took the opportunity to play with her hair, twirling it around his fingers and braiding it together, careful not to pull at her scalp. "Thanks, Luz."

"You've already managed to outgrow all you're new clothes." Camila chuckled, "And all of Luz's old clothes too." She added. It was rather impressive how much he'd actually been able to grow after finally being fed some proper meals, even when he was still working up to normal portions.

"Oh... sorry." He mumbled, dampening slightly in the way he tended to do, ducking down a little as if making sure not to remind her how he'd grown would somehow make her forget about it entirely.

"No, it's okay, cariño. It's a good thing! It means you're much healthier now than you were before. Now that you're eating properly you've actually got a chance to grow like normal. I don't mind buying you new clothes if it means you're healthy." She was quick to reassure him, desperate not to lose this progress.

"Oh. Okay." He accepted with an air of relief. Nowadays it was a lot easier than it had been before to convince him he wasn't a burden or in some sort of trouble. Camila was very glad for that fact because it had taken a whole lot of effort to earn this amount of trust.

"Speaking of new clothes, it's about time we do a proper clothes shop, get you some clothes that you actually like this time." She pointed out, already beginning to mentally map out a route through the store that would get them to any bird-themed clothes as quickly as possible.

Luz's head shot up and Hunter had to quickly pull away before she headbutted him full force in the face. "Did someone say shopping?!"

Hunter frowned, tilting his head like a cute little kitten (which of course, he was), "Yeah? Your mom said it. Did you not hear her?" He asked worriedly.

"I heard her. It's just a thing you say, like for things that make you really excited." Luz explained patiently.

Hunter sat with that thought for a moment before testing it out. "Did someone say Northern Cardinal Birds?"

Luz stared at him blankly before pressing her lips together into a thin line and slowly nodding. "You know what? I'll take it."

"Take what?" He tilted his head again.

"Nevermind!" She declared with a slight hint of franticness, leaping to her feet. "Let's go shopping! Do you want to take my headphones? I know you don't like the loud stores."

"Mhm. Can I wear the red ones? With lots of sparkles?" He requested, pulling himself to his feet to shuffle across the living room after her.

"Of course! And I can wear the purple ones so we can match. That's such a good idea, Hunter!" Luz praised, both her and Hunter's voices fading away as they climbed the stairs to go retrieve the headphones from wherever Luz had stashed them away.

Camila chuckled fondly as she watched her kids go. Well, she shouldn't say that... Hunter wasn't necessarily her kid, even if she wished he was. Because that was a selfish wish. This wasn't about her, it was about him and what he needed and how he felt and he'd already made it perfectly clear that no matter how much effort she put in, she wasn't his mother.

She felt a guilty twinge of jealousy. A guilty twinge of jealousy towards an awful man who despite seeming to be incapable of not messing up this poor kid's life, had managed to earn his love and admiration effortlessly whereas Camila had to fight tooth and nail for just a sliver of it.

She felt triumph that the court had deemed her a better guardian than his uncle but a crushing amount of guilt that that wasn't what he wanted.

She felt an overwhelming amount of grief for him that he had lost any chance he still had to repair his old life and allow his uncle a second chance to become a better parent but she recognised how unlikely that was to even happen.

That man didn't deserve this kid. That man had tried to drown his own nephew in a bathtub in some weird exorcism because he'd been convinced he was possessed by some evil demon instead of just considering the chance that maybe this was just who his nephew was and learning to love and accept him either way. Camila was glad he'd now be rotting away in prison.

What she was not glad for was that Hunter still had to suffer the consequences of his uncle's actions despite having already suffered more than enough. What she was not glad for was that Hunter would probably still never have a normal childhood, no matter how hard she tried to change that. What she was not glad for was that all of this had to be so damn complicated.

However, she was forced to put that thought on hold and tuck it away in a little box in the corner of her mind as the kids thumped back down the stairs.

'Her kids' had much more of a ring to it.

"Can we go now?" Luz asked, bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet as she grabbed her mother's hands, looking up at her with puppy eyes. "Me and Hunter are ready!"

"I still need my shoes on." Hunter piped up.

"He still needs his shoes on. But that'll be really quick." Luz reassured her in case she had any doubts.

"I still need to get myself ready, Luz." Camila laughed, trying to shuffle her way past the girl to get out of the living room. "But I'll be quick, give me fifteen minutes."

"One, two, three—" Hunter chimed in.

"You don't have to count." Luz told him, "Just look at the clock."

"Oh, okay."

Hunter began to stare intensely at the clock and Luz nodded in approval.

Camila rolled her eyes fondly and went to go get herself ready.

________________

Camila hummed along to the song on the radio as they drove along the quiet roads. It was nice, having these little domestic moments as a family.

Or as close to a 'family' as they could get. Family was a bit of a... complicated... word at the moment.

"Can we go to the park and get ice cream tomorrow?" Luz requested from the backseat, "Willow says she's going to play soccer."

"I think Hunter has therapy tomorrow, don't you, mijo?"

The word slipped out before she even had the chance to think about it and as soon as it did, she cringed, waiting for the backlash. But to her surprise, it didn't come.

"Mhm." Hunter hummed, still watching the houses pass by out the window.

Oh right. He didn't speak Spanish.

She relaxed again and continued to hum along to the radio.

"What does that mean? What you called me?" He asked curiously.

Once again she cringed and she fumbled to find some sort of an excuse. "Ah— Um... it just means... sweetie! Yeah, sweetie. I called you sweetie."

Luz gave her a 'really?' Look from the rearview mirror but didn't say anything, most likely also guessing that Hunter probably wouldn't take the real answer all too well. Even if he was starting to trust them again, he still did have little moments where he'd lash out and get angry about this whole situation and she did not get the impression that telling him 'Oh yeah, 'mijo' can sometimes mean son, so I basically, kind of, sort of called you my son even though you told me not to', would go down great.

"Oh. Okay." He accepted fairly easily.

"We could still go for ice cream once you're done in therapy. Would you like that?" She offered.

He hesitated before settling on a quiet "Mmm... Maybe."

"Maybe?" She repeated, "What do you mean?"

"Well, the nice therapy lady said that when I get stuck with a question I can just say 'maybe' until I get brave enough to say yes." He explained.

"Ah, I see. So that's a maybe yes?"

"Maybe."

She chuckled. "Alright then, we'll get some ice cream and if it's a maybe no then I'm sure Luz will have no problem eating yours."

"That's right!" Luz chimed in cheerily, "I'm really good at eating ice cream! I should enter an ice cream eating competition, I'm sure I'd win."

"I think you would win every competition, Luz," Hunter said sweetly and Camila's heart was officially a tiny little puddle now.

"Thanks, Hunter! I'm sure you'd be able to win a bird knowledge competition or something."

"Thanks, Luz."

________________

Pretty much as soon as the car was parked, Luz was leaping out from the backseat and dragging Hunter out with her. Camila barely managed to stop her in time before she tried to run into the road.

"Right! We'll get to the shop Luz, just no running off."

"Not my fault you're a slow coach! C'mon Hunter, let's go!"

Camila grabbed her by the hood of her hoodie and held her like a cat being held by the scruff of the neck. "Not so fast, young lady. If you're not going to listen then you can come hold your Mami's hand."

"Noooo! It'll take foreveeeerrrr! You stop at every yarn shop we pass!" Luz whined.

Camila ignored her protests and clasped her hand around her daughters. "Come on now Luz, I'll hold your hand so you don't get lost. Or should I carry you instead?"

"Mami!" She exclaimed, flushed red with embarrassment, "There might be kids from school here!"

"You can hold my hand." Hunter offered, holding out his hand towards Camila's free one. She took it gladly, giving it a little squeeze.

"See, Hunter doesn't get all embarrassed holding his ma– my hand." She teased, hoping her slip-up went unnoticed.

"Suck up." Luz whisper-shouted at Hunter. He just smiled back, unbothered, swinging their hands back and forth.

________________

"Awwooooooo!"

"Awwooooooooooo!"

"Why are you two howling exactly?" Camila sighed, her seriousness falling flat when a smile snuck its way onto her face.

"My new wolf shirt!" Hunter giggled madly, "It's like the show about wolves that me and Luz always watch!"

"Still doesn't quite explain why you're howling." She pointed out.

"We're communicating, Mami! So we can talk in secret without you understanding what we're saying!" Luz explained as if it was the very obvious, clear answer that she was silly for not already knowing.

Hunter turned to Luz, his smile dropping to a more serious look. "Are we?"

"Yep!" Luz replied, popping the 'p', "Now, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted. Awoooooo!"

Hunter looked up at Camila cautiously, scanning her face to gauge her reaction. However, when she began to laugh at Luz's antics, he immediately relaxed and the smile was back on his face once again.

"Awooooo!" He howled back in response.

"Come on you two, we have shopping to do, wolves or not." Camila laughed, herding the pair into another aisle and proudly ignoring any of the weird looks they were getting.

________________

"Hunterrrrr, come onnnnn!" Luz whined childishly as she tugged at his hand. The boy in question had been stood in front of the same bird encyclopedia for a full half hour at this point, and that was no understatement.

"Hunter, sweetie, if you want to read the book I'll buy it for you and you can just read it back at the house." Camila explained, careful with her words instead of just saying 'back home'.

He looked up at her guiltily, biting at his lip. "No, it's... It's okay. I don't need it."

"Ughhhh can we hurry up already? I can't stand any longerrrr. My legs are literally falling off." Luz complained, leaning back so far that if it weren't for her grip on Hunter's arm, she'd have fallen flat on her back by now.

Camila elected to ignore her daughter's drama. "But you want it right? So get it."

Hunter brushed his thumb over the price tag. "But it's fifteen dollars... that's a lot."

"It's a big book. You'll read it for longer than fifteen minutes. That's less than a dollar per minute then. That means it's basically free. Now put it in the basket, or do you want to hold it?"

"I feel bad..." He mumbled, clutching the book to his chest.

"Don't," Luz said, simply. "Now come on, hermano. We've got places to be!"

Camila tried very hard not to let her reaction show when a boiling hot wave of startled surprise passed through her.

"Is that your special language again?" Hunter asked curiously.

Luz, only seemingly just processed what she'd said nodded. "Oh yeah, it's Spanish. Want to know what it means?"

"Mhm!" Hunter perked up, listening intently to the girl.

Luz turned to her mother with a cheeky smile as the next words left her mouth. "It means brother."

Camila was hit with an overwhelming load of anxiety and that only grew worse at the silence that followed. She prepared herself to calm him down when he got upset, prepared how she'd explain to him that Luz didn't have any bad intentions, prepared how she'd deal with Luz's following guilt when he spent another week locking himself in his room, she prepared how—

"Oh. Okay." He said, simply. "How do you say sister?"

"Hermana," Luz replied, not requiring any time to deal with her dashed expectations because they hadn't been. She'd been totally expecting this sort of reaction.

"Okay, hermana. We can go now, if it's definitely alright for me to get the book."

"Mhm!" Luz replied, stepping in for Camila who was still pulling herself together and adjusting to the fact that she didn't have to handle any meltdowns from scared, confused kids in the middle of the store. "Let's go!"

________________

The setting sun cast a warm glow across the car, making the very air around them feel calm. A soft smile formed on her features as Camila watched Hunter through the rearview mirror, kicking his legs in excitement over his new book and new clothes. Mainly the new book. He really loved that book.

He hugged it close to his chest for what had to have been the fiftieth time today and squeezed his eyes shut. "Thank you so much, Camila. I love it!"

"Of course, honey. But you don't need to keep thanking me." She laughed.

"Seriously Hunter, all you've said for the past hour is 'thank you'. How about that other thing you were going to say?" Luz nudged, proudly inspecting her own book on lizards.

"Other thing?" Hunter parroted, tilting his head to the side.

"Like we practised? Remember?" Luz tried to hint.

It took him a moment of deep thought but eventually his face lit up with a soft "Oh!"

Camila suppressed a small laugh.

"Okay! So... Camila, I've got something to tell you." He said slowly, biting back a smile.

She met his gaze in the rearview mirror and gave him a nod. "Yes? What is it?"

He giggled a bit before tapering out and turning to Luz. "What was it again?"

She rolled her eyes at him and leaned across the seats as much as her seatbelt would allow to whisper something in his ear.

"Oh yeah! Um... so... te quiero...?" He said hesitantly.

Camila's eyebrows arched up, tears stinging her eyes. "What was that, darling?"

"Te quiero!" He repeated with a bit more confidence this time.

She'd heard him perfectly fine the first time but what mother didn't want to hear her child say that he loved her as many times as possible?

Her child.

It may be a selfish thought, but... what if it could work? What if one day, it could all just work out?

She held her gaze with his warm, relaxed eyes in the mirror.

"Te quiero mucho, mijo."

Chapter Text

As soon as Hunter sat up, squinting at the bright sunlight shining through his bedroom window and right into his eyes (Camila must have come in and opened the curtains for him, she liked doing small gestures like that for him and he liked that she still cared enough about him to do them), the world began to spin so he elected to burry his face in his pillow and try to go back to sleep.

But he couldn't. Not anymore. This wasn't like his old life where he could just sleep the day away, running on his own clock because he was basically an outsider to the rest of the world anyway and it wasn't like he'd spend his day doing much other than hoping Uncle wasn't in a beer bottle throwing mood. No, because now he actually had a life. They all got up in the morning (well, Luz sometimes barely) and they all ate together and they spent the time they had during the day actually doing stuff and spending time with each other before returning to bed to do it all over again tomorrow. Days weren't just a meaningless taunt of how the rest of the world moved on, abandoning him to struggle along after, they were each new and exciting experiences where he spent meaningful time with the people he loved.

And even if that was all a very good thing, just like anything else, it also came with expectations. If Hunter didn't go downstairs for breakfast like he usually did and instead hid away in his room, then Camila and Luz would think he was all angry and confused and upset again and the truth was that he wasn't! Not today! His limbs just felt like they were being physically weighed down and his head felt all fuzzy and when he tried to move it it felt like that time Uncle had held him down and repeatedly smashed a beer bottle into his head until all that was left were really tiny pieces of glass and a lot of blood.

But what was worse? Enduring a little bit of discomfort that he'd easily put up with in the past while he still lived with Uncle or making Camila and Luz worry that they'd upset him again?

He knew which answer he preferred and he preferred it a lot more. So despite the complaints from pretty much every single part of his body, he forced himself up from his nest of blankets and pillows, grabbed Flapjack from where he'd rolled away in the night, and headed downstairs.

Well, he at least tried but the stairs proved a challenge when his vision didn't quite seem to match up with his feet. He blinked down at the stairs in front of him and then his foot, hovering in mid-air, before trying to place said foot down on the stair and completely missing, going down an extra 2 and barely catching himself before he tumbled down the rest. The slight slip jumbled up his already jumbled-up head so he decided to play it safe and wait a few minutes for the world to stop spinning so fast before continuing.

In the end, he'd estimate it took him around five minutes to get to the bottom which upon reaching, he then let out a very long and very earned sigh of relief, gratefully at the sight of level ground that didn't take about ninety percent of his concentration and brain power to traverse.

Now it only took about eighty.

He stumbled down the hallway and into the kitchen, gladly collapsing into his usual seat at the table before resting his head down on the wood and letting his eyes shut. Just for a short moment, he told himself, so he could recuperate.

"You look horrific." Was the first thing Luz said upon seeing him, giving him a wide-eyed look while taking a nice big bite of her waffles.

He decided to interpret this as one of her funny remarks that he was just supposed to laugh at instead of trying to respond to except he didn't have the energy to laugh. Or even respond to it anyway. So he just stayed silent.

"You alright there, Hunter?" Camila worried, diverting her attention from the meals she was currently preparing to lean over and check that he wasn't fatally injured or something. He wasn't really sure why she always checked on him so insistently.

"'M fine..." He replied, voice coming out much groggier than he'd anticipated but there wasn't very much he could do about that. He tried to cough it away but it felt as if his entire throat had been filled with gunk. And the more he tried to subtly cough it out, the more out of breath he became, causing him to realise how little air was making it through his nose. Pretty much the entire area of his face surrounding his nose felt heavy and gross and when he tried to inhale it felt as if the air could only enter through a pinhole. Trying not to suffocate today, he opened his mouth and tried to breathe that way instead, which wasn't the easiest thanks to the gunk in his throat but it was at least better than nothing.

He could practically feel Camila's worried frown burning into the back of his head. "Well... if you say so, darling."

He relaxed to see her shrug it off for now and redirected his attention to enjoying breakfast time as much as he possibly could in this situation and also trying not to suffocate which would be a major issue if it were to happen so he very much tried to prevent it.

Until he tried to take a particularly large inhale and the gunk seemed to disapprove, sending him into a coughing fit, spluttering gross bits of gunk and spit all over the table in front of him and having to hold his stomach from how nauseous he felt thanks to all the coughing.

Camila abandoned what she had been doing to instead rub big, steady circles against his back with the palm of her hand, lightly patting every now and again to help him get all the coughing out. Once he'd finished hacking up half the gross stuff in his throat all over his plate and the nice wooden table, he was able to hear Camila as she fussed over him.

"That sounds like a nasty cough, mijo. Why don't we try some cough syrup? I'm sure there's some in the cabinet upstairs if Luz could go grab it?"

"On it!" Luz exclaimed, jumping to her feet but Hunter beat her to it, brushing her off.

"It's fine. I've got it." He managed to croak out, the words irritating his now scratchy, achy throat even further to the point where it just felt like one big nasty bruise.

"If you say so." Luz obliged hesitantly, slowly sitting back down and watching him stumble out of the room with a look of unsureity.

The idea of putting something syrupy in his throat along with the already slimy contents made him want to gag but if it's what Camila thought was best then he supposed he ought to trust her.

He grabbed the bannister and used it to help haul himself up the stairs, trying his best not to trip up them. As he climbed he came to the vague realisation that he had no clue what cough syrup was so also had absolutely no clue what he was supposed to be looking for. He'd just have to figure it out, he guessed.

As he tried to lift his foot up over the next step, it caught on the edge as he misjudged how much energy it required to actually get it high enough and after a bit of a blur, he ended up on his hands and knees on the steps. The urge to just continue up this way, crawling like some sort of animal, was very strong but briefly recalling some distant lecture from Uncle about civilised behaviour and whatnot was enough to encourage him to be vertical.

He reached up and grabbed at the air until he found the bannister again and attempted to pull himself back up. However, he underestimated how much this change in position would make the world spin and before he really even had chance to process, never mind react, everything had faded away into vague, grey blobs of static.

Everything felt tingly and warm. Really warm, like boiling hot water had just been thrown at him. He fought to open his eyes but no matter how much he tried to will it to happen, it didn't. Slowly but surely, the tingly sensation like pinprick under his skin faded away and he was left with an array of sharp pains and aches. Since his focuses were elsewhere, he failed to prevent a pathetic little whine from escaping his mouth which was met by a gentle shushing sound and a block of noise.

Someone was trying to talk to him, he was able to put it together after a bit of puzzling, but he couldn't really focus on specific words, only having the awareness that he was being spoken to by a warm, comforting voice that made it almost impossible not to relax.

So he did and he was able to recognise that he was being moved, probably picked up and carried, and then he was being placed down again but this time it was somewhere soft that was a lot more gentle on his aching limbs.

Despite feeling on a completely different planet, he at least felt safe and relatively comfortable, sinking into the softness under him and when a hand came to gently brush through his hair, he was able to give in and let himself go back to sleep.

_____________________

Coming back to reality wasn't quite so pleasant. The distant aching pain he'd felt before now felt a lot more like sudden, stabs in just about every part of his body. He grumbled and tried to shift where he lay but someone was there to place a gentle hand on his arm and shush him.

With a little more success this time, he managed to open his eyes and squinted against the warm lights that greeted him as his brain tried to piece together who the blurry figure in front of him was.

"Camila...?" He croaked, sounding a lot worse than he'd hoped. His throat protested at the action and he coughed up a glob of mucus which dripped down his chin.

Camila seemed to be pretty prepared and picked up a warm cloth to wipe his face with. "Hi baby," She said softly, her voice was immediately enough for him to relax, "How are you feeling?"

He took a breath to attempt to start a sentence which sent him into another cough fit which required Camila to clean up another disgusting glob of mucus off his face. "Not great..."

"Yeah. That was a bit of a silly question." She admitted with a grimace, "Do you remember what happened?"

Despite the fact he was pretty sure he'd just slept for at least a decent while, thinking was still very tiring and remembering, even more so, so he settled on shaking his head and letting her explain for him.

"You fell down the stairs, sweetheart." She explained gently, "You must have fainted and just fallen. And it seems like you've got a bit more of a cough, to say the least."

He would have raised an eyebrow as to not waste energy speaking but even that alone was exhausting. Camila seemed to sense his intentions though.

She began threading her fingers through his hair just the way he liked. "You're a bit sick. Well, more than a bit sick."

He wasn't sure if it was just his muddled-up brain from the sickness or his genuine fear but without really thinking he blurted out, "Am I going to die?"

"No! No, baby!" She was quick to reassure, "It's probably just a little cold, or maybe a virus, but it'll pass."

"Then why do I feel really really bad?"

"I think you're immune system just isn't very strong, darling." Camila sighed.

"My... emu system...?" He frowned. They were funny-looking birds. The second tallest living bird species, actually. One time, there was actually a war declared on them!

"Immune system." She corrected. That sounded a bit more boring, he'd been hoping to tell her all about The Emu War. "It's like your body's army, your immune system is what helps fight off sickness and disease and the more things you're exposed to, the stronger it gets. But since you've been so isolated for so long, your immune system isn't quite so strong because it's not really had all too much practice, has it? So that means it struggles a bit more to fight off sickness like this which is why you probably feel a lot worse than say me or Luz would be feeling if we were in the same boat. From all the dirt I've seen Luz eat, I can take a good guess as to how strong her immune system is."

"Oh..." Hunter said, taking in the information of his own shortcomings, "I'm sorry."

"It's not something you control, silly! So there's nothing to apologise for." She chuckled.

That was good because he didn't really know what he'd been apologising for.

"When am I going to feel better again? This isn't fun..." He complained, wincing when he sneezed and felt a sharp stab in his chest.

"It's hard to say, but we'll get you some medicine to make you better, okay? And you can stay in bed — or well, my bed — all nice and cosy, and I'll make you nice soup, and play with your hair, and fluff your pillows for you, and attend to your every need." She teased, giving him a light poke in the side that despite his terrible state, did get a small laugh from him. "You don't have to worry about a thing. I'm going to take care of you, okay?"

He nodded, making sure the soft smile he gave her truly conveyed his appreciation. "Thank you..."

"Of course, my darling. I've got you."

"Is it okay if I go back to sleep...? I'm really tired." He admitted sheepishly, already half asleep.

"That's a good idea. Rest will help you get better sooner. You get some sleep and I'll stay right here."

He wasn't quite sure why, but that reassurance was enough for his mind to accept that he was safe and that allowed him to drift off back to sleep.

_____________________

"We have guests coming over. Make yourself presentable."

Hunter stood there, lost and helpless in the middle of the tiny living room which felt even tinier than usual, the space so cramped that in order to stand, his leg had to be squeezed up against the coffee table, the sharp edges digging red lines into his skin.

He wasn't very presentable. His only good shirt was still stained from blood and his trousers were ripped at the bottom. He tried to recall what other clothes he had tucked away but he came up with a blank, the answer feeling slippery before he lost his grip and his train of thought escaped him.

Uncle was staring at him expectantly. The clock was ticking.

"Go."

He wanted to ask what that meant, even if deep down he knew, but he just couldn't. It wasn't even that he couldn't move his mouth but it was his throat all together that had gone numb.

"You've betrayed me, you've abandoned me. Get out and never come back to me again. You're not allowed."

He scuffed the tiled floor under himself with his foot.

"I thought I told you to make yourself presentable."

He picked at the food on his plate before remembering he wasn't supposed to eat it.

"I didn't mean to."

The wine in the glass tricked down the inside of the stem before pudding in the base and slowly seeping out into the tablecloth.

Everyone was looking at him.

There was so much blood on his shirt.

There was so much wine on the tablecloth.

Uncle's friends were looking at the blood. Or the wine. He couldn't tell.

His head was slammed into the table and the smell of sticky wine wafted into his face. He wanted to tell Uncle to stop before thinking better of it.

But everyone was watching and they could see how Uncle was hurting him and they were going to give him into trouble and lock him away and tell Hunter he could never see him again.

Hunter looked up at one of their neighbours through the glass, the man who always wore purple. He stared in from behind the window, watching curiously as his head hit the table over and over again.

His head hit the floorboards and the bottom of the bed he hid under loomed over him, getting closer and closer until it was smothering him, the old broken wood digging into his back and smooshing his burning-hot face into the floor.

"You're not allowed to go back."

His eyes were open and he was staring up at the hazy ceiling. The intensity of the lights made him feel sick.

A figure loomed over him and it was all too much so he squeezed his eyes shut again and whimpered like the pathetic, useless little animal he was.

"'M sorry, Uncle... didn't mean t' get sick..." He managed, coughing his way through the sentence and whining hopelessly at the gross feeling when he gagged on saliva.

A cold hand cupped his cheek — or maybe he was just far too warm — and he tried to twist away. "I'll do better... promise..." He mumbled. "Don' wanna sleep outside..."

The weight beneath him shifted and someone laid down beside him, reaching an arm around him which he gladly leaned into. Upon moving, he became acutely aware of just how horrible he felt. Everything ached and burned and his clothes stuck to his skin with the cold sweat he was drenched in. His feet were freezing cold but the rest of him felt like fire. It wasn't very nice.

As if sensing his discomfort, something cold was placed on his forehead and the relief came instantly. As the arm around him brushed up and down his own, coming to find his hand and cradling it with care, he went back to sleep.

_____________________

There was a gentle nudging at his shoulder.

With great reluctance, he pried his blurry eyes open and tried to piece together what was going on.

"Hi sweetheart, time to eat." A soft voice whispered.

"'M not hungry." He slurred. It was an obvious lie, he was actually really hungry, he just didn't feel capable of doing anything right now and would much rather have gone back to sleep.

"Come on now, you can sleep later." She scoffed, nudging his shoulder again. "If you're too tired, I'll just have to spoon-feed you, but you need to eat something."

"I'm tired." He groaned as Camila helped him sit up — by help he meant she practically pulled him up by herself as he didn't offer much assistance — and leaned him back to rest against the pillows.

"Open wide." She instructed, holding a spoon out in front of his face.

Words, just as everything else, were still very tiring at the moment so he hoped his questioning glance between the spoon and Camila allowed her to interpret what he wanted to ask.

"It's soup," She correctly guessed, "Remember we had it a little while ago and Luz moaned about the potatoes tasting funny? It's like that but this one has different ingredients. It's a lentil this time."

He wasn't really sure what a lentil was... probably some sort of food. He hoped it was yummy.

He obliged to her gentle jabbing motions with the spoon and opened his mouth so she could feed it to him. The soup tasted nice and, probably best of all, it was easy on his throat which currently felt like a raw open wound. The soup was just thin enough to make swallowing easy but just thick enough to coat his throat.

"'s nice." He managed through a mouthful. "Warm."

"Not too warm, is it?" Camila checked, scooping up another spoonful for him.

He shook his head. "Nice warm."

"Ah, good."

"I feel not so nice warm." He mentioned, accepting the next spoon of soup.

"Yeah, you've got a pretty bad fever. It's gotten a little better though, you were really out of it before." She said with a slight awkwardness to her tone.

"Hm?"

"You were mumbling a lot."

His immediate worry was about what he might have revealed, even though logically, what even was there he could reveal? That his uncle once made him kill rodents with his bare hands to prove his loyalty? That he once ate a suspiciously sourced slab of raw meat his uncle gave him? That one time he whispered that he hated God to see what would happen? What did she know?!

"I think you thought I was your uncle." She grimaced, "You said some concerning things. About sleeping outside and eating... bones..."

"Oh... iz a healing thing. When I was sick." He explained

"Eating bones?" Camila asked with a very concerned look.

"Mm. Ground up." He replied vaguely.

"Okay... well, um, maybe no more of that." She decided.

He wouldn't argue with that.

"Now, eat your soup." She ordered, holding out the spoon again. He obliged and opened his mouth but after getting a sniff of the soup, his body gagged without his permission.

Camila put the spoon down momentarily and used her hand to rub his back. "I know, cariño, but you've got to eat something or you won't get better. Can you try it, for me?"

He whined miserably but despite how easy life had gotten in the past few months, he still knew how to take an order.

He opened his mouth again and allowed her to feed him the soup, trying his best to keep down his gagging.

"Good job, honey. Good job." Camila soothed, rubbing his back again. "Do you think you can manage another?"

The thought of swallowing down another spoonful made him physically cringe. Camila noticed and placed the bowl and spoon down on the side table. "That's alright, we can try again in a bit."

Despite how horrible the idea sounded, the thought of hearing her praise him again greatly outweighed his discomfort. "No... I can eat another." He protested, reaching out for the bowl.

"Are you sure?" She asked hesitantly.

He hummed and gestured to the bowl. She reluctantly agreed, feeding him some more soup and he promptly vomited it back up all over himself.

The strength it took to even throw up was enough to tire himself out to the extent that he was mostly spaced out as Camila rushed to sort out the mess.

He was half aware that Camila had picked him up and sat him down in the shower but that was about as much as he could process as he sat and watched the water soak his sick-covered pyjamas.

She came back to get him eventually, once all the sick had been washed off him, and she helped him get changed into some fresh pyjamas before carrying him back to bed — or well, the floor as she laid him down in a pile of blankets on the carpet while she finished fixing the bedding. From that angle, he only just registered that he'd been sleeping in her room all this time. He wasn't quite sure why that was but it left him with a bit of comfort to know he hadn't been alone.

With the bed now cleaned up and smelling significantly less like sick, she laid him back down and tucked him in. He didn't stay awake long enough to hear what she said when she left a gentle kiss on his forehead.

_____________________

"You're such hard work, you know that?"

He was used to hearing that sort of thing, and it wasn't as if it wasn't true...

"I'm sorry, Uncle..."

"Uncle?"

Frowning, he turned around to the voice to find that it wasn't in fact Uncle that had spoken, but instead, Camila.

"Mine and Luz's lives were so much simpler before you came along. Now there's just always some sort of problem I'm left to fix and all of them seem to coincidentally trace back to you."

He stood there, stunned, and stared at her dumbly before remembering his place and stumbling through apologies. She raised a hand to quiet him. "I don't want to hear it. You already do enough whining as is."

"No no no, I'm really sorry! I'll do better, I promise!"

He was used to hearing that sort of thing from Uncle. However, the idea of hearing it from Camila filled him with a new sort of terror and he found that he really didn't want to lose the love she'd so generously offered him.

"Hunter."

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to get sick!"

"Hunter."

"Please don't leave me!"

"I'm not going anywhere, sweetheart."

The difference between that cold voice and this warm one, full of so much gentle care, was jarring.

A hand gently swept the hair off his face. "Shhh, that's it. You're alright, baby."

"'M sorry..."

"You've got nothing to be sorry about. It's okay."

"Please don't stop loving me..."

"Oh, mijo. I'll love you forever and ever. You've got nothing to worry about. Now, why don't you get some more sleep."

That sounded nice...

_____________________

Camila held another tissue up to his nose and instructed him to blow again. He took a really deep breath and blew as hard as he could, cringing at how irritated his nose had become. Camila scrunched up the tissue and added it to the pile in the little bin she'd sat beside the bed while Hunter grumbled at how his nose had already managed to block itself up again.

"I know being sick isn't fun," Camila sympathised, "But think about all the ice cream we're going to eat when you're better."

"Ice cream sounds too sweet right now..." He muttered, blowing his nose into another tissue.

"I have a feeling your opinion might change when we actually bring the ice cream out." Camila chuckled before grabbing a tissue out of the dwindling supply and sneezing into it.

Hunter frowned. "Are you okay?"

"Hm? Oh yeah, I'm fine." Camila brushed his worries off, dropping the tissue in the bin.

"But you're all sneezy." He argued.

"Ah, well. Might have caught your cold." She admitted as nonchalantly as she could manage.

"Oh..." He wilted, "I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you sick too. I— um..."

"No sweetie! No— it's not you're fault. It's just what happens, colds and bugs get passed around all the time, I'm sure Luz will get it next and she is the biggest drama queen when she's sick." Camila explained, trying to distract him with a joke. It didn't really work.

"But I made you sick... I'm really sorry..."

"Hey..." She said softly, placing a hand on top of his to stop his nervous wringing. "It's alright. If anything it's on me for getting so close to you while you're sick. And you know what? I wouldn't change that, making sure you're getting better and being able to keep you company when you're not feeling too great is much more important to me. So feel free to give me all you're colds, as long as you don't give them to Luz. I don't know how I'll manage another monologue about her untimely death."

This time, Hunter laughed at the joke, leaning in closer to Camila to rest against her chest. "Thank you..."

Camila smiled and rested her chin on top of his head. "Of course, mijo. Anything for you."

Chapter Text

"Hunterrrrr!" Luz whined rather annoyingly, nudging him with her elbow for what had to be the millionth time in the past hour alone.

"I'm busy." He sighed, tired or having to reiterate himself yet again. He valiantly tried not to let her whinging distract him from the book in his lap.

"But the stars are so pretty! You need to look!" She persisted, gesturing wildly up at the night sky from where she was lying on her back in the grass. Hunter cringed a little at the dark stains in her nice new shirt.

He simply rolled his eyes at her antics. "Stars are boring." He stated, "They're just too far away."

She looked at him as if he'd just personally offended her and insulted everything she stood for. "I can't believe you have the audacity to call stars boring when you're sitting here looking at dumb maps." She scoffed.

"Maps are interesting!" He argued, "In my old life, I never even really considered that there was a whole world outside. Now I know there's all these different countries and continents and, I don't know, I just feel a little less alone."

"How sweet." She cooed sarcastically with a pouty lip, "But you're not even looking at the country map! You're just reading off boring old street names. Is that really your idea of fun?"

"They're the 'boring old street names' that make up this area. I'm... getting a lay of the land, you could say." He explained, covering up the marker he'd left on the page with his thumb.

"You definitely read that somewhere." She scoffed, unimpressed with his quick thinking.

"So what?" He defended.

"I don't know. Just funny." She decided, booping him on the nose like the strange, annoying little creature she was, before going back to watching the sky.

"What's so interesting about the stars, anyway." He huffed, trying to seem as uninterested as he could but still a little curious as to what had managed to hold Luz Noceda of all people's attention for the last hour.

"They're stars." She stated very matter-of-factly, as if that was enough of a convincing answer. "They're like big balls of fire ages and ages away, so far away that if they died, it would take up sometimes hundreds of years to see they'd gone! Like you and your maps, to me, there's just so much out there so that even if I don't feel like I fit in with the humans on Earth, I'm sure there's some nice alien somewhere out there who gets me."

That did sound... kind of interesting actually.

He let his book drop down by his side and laid his head in the soft grass beside her. "I feel a bit like an alien too sometimes..." He admitted, "Do you think there's someone out there who gets me too?"

"There has to be." Luz replied immediately with full confidence which made it very difficult to not just believe her, "Whether just in a different country or across the universe, I'm sure there's someone out there who's weirdo just like you."

"Weirdo? Says you!" He giggled, pointing an accusatory finger at her chest.

She rolled over to rest on one elbow and gave him a playful punch to the arm. "But us weirdos have to stick together, right?"

He let his head roll over in the grass so he could face her too. He smiled. "Yeah."

She beamed back before flopping down on the grass once again, reaching her hand up to the sky as if grasping at the stars themselves. "Look at all the pretty constellations."

"Constellations?" He muttered, turning his focus back to the stars as well. Maybe they were a little mesmerising.

"All the shapes the stars make when they line up. Cool, aren't they? There's bulls and bears and even birds!" She explained, truly in her element.

That certainly piqued his interest, as Luz had probably planned.

"I just think it's kinda cool that someone looked up at the sky and went, 'Hey, those stars kinda look like an eagle' so then they gave it a name. Just a bunch of random stars someone noticed fit together." She smiled, tracing her finger along the patterns she could find.

While Luz stared up in wonder, Hunter couldn't help turning to watch her instead. "Yeah. Cool..."

He rolled over in the grass once to be closer to her and she happily stretched an arm out to wrap around his shoulders, pulling him in closer.

"I'm really glad I met you Luz." He smiled, and it was the most genuine smile he could say he'd ever had.

She gave his shoulder a small shake and laughed. "Me too. Feels like we were always supposed to be best friends. Best friends and brother and sister. Maybe the universe decided it."

"Or God." He chirped.

"Or God." She shrugged. "Whatever it was, I'm glad it let us meet each other. And I'm sure the only reason it didn't happen sooner was it knew we'd be too powerful."

"So powerful!" He agreed.

"Luz! Hunter!" Camila called from the open front door, drawing both kids' attention, "Hot cocoa is ready!"

"Yes!" Luz exclaimed, pumping her fist into the air in victory before leaping to her feet and heaving Hunter up along with her. Hunter decided it was a miracle she hadn't managed to rip his arm out of its socket in the time they'd known each other thanks to the sheer amount of times she'd just tugged him around like a ragdoll.

Though it wasn't in the same way Uncle always had. Uncle had pulled him around however he liked, not bothered one bit by what glass he stood on or how he kept bashing into the wall. He'd throw him to the floor or up against the wall or he'd simply drop him and scoff at the way he fopped over so pathetically. And then there was Luz who tugged him around to do fun stuff, who didn't dig her nails into his skin and always made sure he didn't hit anything as she pulled him along with her.

It was a small change, but one that made a huge difference nonetheless.

Luz ran through to the kitchen and only let go of Hunter to let him sit down in his usual seat while she sat across from him so she could kick at him like they usually did. Camila grabbed the three mugs of what she'd explained to be 'hot cocoa' and sat one down in front of each of them on colourful coasters, taking the last for herself and joining them at the table.

"Just be careful, it's still quite hot. Just sip it until it cools down a bit." Camila instructed. Hunter nodded and pressed his lips to the edge of the mug and tilted it a little where it was on the table so he had less of a chance of spilling it.

"Wait a minute!" Luz exclaimed, waving her hands frantically to stop him to which Hunter carefully lowered his mug again. "You need to have it the proper way! With whipped cream and tons and tons of marshmallows!"

"Oh. That sounds fun." He mumbled curiously. Luz nodded enthusiastically and leapt from her seat to go grab the cream and marshmallows. Hunter had tried both on different occasions but never together or with this 'hot cocoa' but he could imagine that with their respective flavours, they'd taste quite nice together!

Luz squirted a healthy amount of whipped cream into each of their cups — though having to cut back a bit on Camila's when the woman waved the can away before Luz had the chance to overfill her cup — and then sprinkled as many marshmallows as she could fit (which turned out to be an awful lot).

"Okay!" She declared, sitting back down in her seat like it was her own royal throne, "Now we feast!"

Hunter, again tipped his cup to get a little taste of the drink, some of the whipped cream ending up on the tip of his nose. He grinned approvingly. "It's really nice." He giggled.

"Mhm!" Luz cheered into her mug with a mouthful of drink and probably about fifty marshmallows mixed somewhere in there, "It's just the best. I'd drink it every day if Mami let me!"

"If I let you drink hot cocoa every day, I don't think I'd cope." Camila sighed, rubbing her temple, "You're already enough work as is."

"But'cha love me!" Luz teased, resting her chin in her hands and giving Camila her best look of pure innocence.

"Of course I do," Camila laughed, rolling her eyes, "Even if you can be a pain."

The girl grinned triumphantly. "Love you too!"

"You're so silly, Luz." Hunter laughed, kicking her under the table.

"Of course I am! Silly is one of my many middle names. And I would also argue you're pretty silly too." She declared, topping it off with a regal sip of hot cocoa that got all over her face.

He raised an eyebrow and gave her a 'really?' look. "Am I?"

"Of course. Cause I've rubbed all my good influence off on you." She said proudly.

"That's debatable," Camila grimaced, "But you've certainly changed a lot, Hunter."

"Changed?" He questioned, smile fading a little but not in sadness, just settling into something a bit more serious so he could truly take in her words.

"Oh, definitely!" Luz piped up, "Even just looking at you! You look more like an actual kid instead of a sad wet kitten you'd see abandoned in an old building in one of those heartwarming rescue videos!"

Well. That was certainly a comparison. "Okay, Luz."

"You've really started to build on your confidence," Camila cut in, phrasing things much more succinctly, "Not just in terms of your social confidence but you're self-confidence too. You just seem a lot more... you."

"And you freak out over stupid stuff much less." Luz felt it necessary to add. Camila gave her a warning look that promptly shut her up.

"I've only really been thinking about how everything else has changed, I never really thought about how I'd changed too." He commented.

"It's a good change though. You seem a lot happier." Camila smiled, seeming proud.

Was he? A lot happier?

A lot happier without Uncle...?

That thought gave him a weird feeling he had no clue how to place...

When had all of this become his new normal?

"Are you okay, cariño?" Camila interrupted his train of thought with a look of concern.

"Yeah. I'm just... thinking." He brushed it off, trying to push all those confusing thoughts away. Though, it was difficult to ignore the nauseous feeling they left in his gut.

"Anyway!" Luz diverted the conversation, much to everyone's relief, "You enjoying your cocoa?"

Hunter gladly took on the new change in topic, thankful for a distraction. "Mhm! It's sweet. But nice sweet."

"Great! Because you have a bit of a cocoa and cream moustache but all over your face." She laughed which was a bit hypocritical when she herself had made a right mess of her drink.

"Do I?" He asked, turning to Camila instead as she was the much more reliable source.

"A little!" She cringed, gesturing to above her lip. He used the sleeve of his shirt and wiped away some of the drink smeared there. She cringed even more. "Here, let me get it."

She grabbed some kitchen roll and scrubbed at practically the entire bottom half of his face while Luz giggled at the amount of chocolate that came off onto the tissue. "Yeah, just a little!" She poked, laughing even more at her own joke.

"There you go." Camila chuckled, taking a step back after rubbing what felt like 6 layers of skin off his face along with all the cocoa.

"Thanks." He tried (and failed) to smile normally which just made Luz laugh even harder.

"Aw, you're welcome, mijo." She cooed, hugging him in the way she did Luz when she was trying to get a rise out of her. Unlike Luz, however, Hunter was more than happy to let himself be hugged so much. It was only when Camila decided to pepper his face in hundreds of kisses that he objected. "Mom!" He groaned, laughing at how ticklish it was.

She suddenly stopped and just stared at him. His own laughter faded away as he looked up at her uncertainly, unsure of what was going on. When she didn't give much away, he turned to look over at Luz to see the girl similarly, practically gawking at him.

"What is it?" He asked nervously, wringing his hands. It took him a while to get a reply and it was only Luz who was able to compose herself enough to do so.

"You called her Mom!" She exclaimed, pointing at the two of them.

Before his brain really even had the chance to catch up and give a proper, thought-out response, he quickly refuted it, "What? No, I didn't."

Briefly, he acknowledged Camila falter at his words and somewhere deep down, the guilt burrowed in, urging him to rush into explanation, to reassure her that that wasn't what he had meant. But it was drowned out — or maybe not entirely, maybe just easier ignored over the noise — by the stern voice in the back of his mind, asking "What did you just call her?"

"You did!" Luz exclaimed, as if she'd caught him in the act of something. She clearly and painfully misinterpreting his refusal. "I heard you! You called her Mom!"

"I didn't!" He snapped, maybe harsher than he'd liked or maybe not harsh enough. "I didn't call her that! Because she's not! She's not my mom!"

"Why not?" Luz argued back, losing her joking tone this time, "She basically does everything a Mom would do for you, may as well call her that."

"Shut up!" He yelled, pushing himself to his feet with so much force he knocked his chair over in the process. It banged loudly off the floor behind him. "Just shut up!"

Luz got ready to argue again but Camila raised a hand in her direction to shush her, "Luz, just leave it. He doesn't have to."

"I said shut up!" He shouted, "You're not my mom! You're not! You're not! I'm not going to call you that, not ever! So stop— stop making me— stop confusing me!"

"That's okay, Hunter. You don't have to call me anything you don't want to if you're not ready." She replied, frustratingly calm.

"I—I already have my uncle! I don't need you! I—I just! I can't leave him!" He screeched, barely even sure of what argument he was trying to make anymore. By this point, he was just saying words.

"You're just picking an argument with yourself." Luz pointed out, growing increasingly frustrated with him.

"Shut up!" He screamed in response, tears dripping down his face and splashing onto the table.

Camila tried to ease herself between them gently, "You're working yourself up quite a bit, Hunter. Why don't you sit down and we talk."

"I don't want to talk! I won't!" He protested like a stubborn child.

"Okay, we don't need to talk!" She amended, "But can you please sit down for me?"

In direct defiance, he took a step back, coming across more as a cornered animal than someone trying to make a statement. "You're not my mom! I—I... I don't know what to do!"

Her expression switched on a dime to something much more confused, "What do you mean, sweetheart?"

"I can't abandon my uncle! I can't!"

"You're not abandoning him." She said with certainty, maybe even enough certainty for him to have believed her under normal circumstances. Normal circumstances where he wasn't just screaming his head off at her for no apparent reason.

"Stop it! You're just trying to confuse me!"

"Hunter—"

"You'll never be my mom! So just stop it!"

"Hunter, please—"

Letting out all his pent-up feelings — feelings in the vaguest way possible because he had no clue how he was even feeling, just that it was too much and he needed to get away — he barged past her and ran for the kitchen door, and then the front door, and then he bolted down the street as fast as he could.

Was it stupid to have an entire meltdown over his own tiny mistake? Probably. But it wasn't just one off-chance instance, it was months of confusion and frustration and fear and love and happiness and rage, boiled down into one word that had escaped him whether he meant it or not.

He was numb with all the emotion bubbling up in his chest. His head felt light and his ears rang as his feet hit the pavement again and again, unsure of where he was even going.

Though, maybe that wasn't entirely the truth. Maybe deep down, he knew where he wanted to go, where he'd wanted to go for all these months. Where he'd wanted to go back to.

It had been the first thing he'd found on his map after Camila had given it to him and it was the only one he remembered, especially while he was so worked up.

That's how he found himself outside of Uncle's house.

The old place didn't quite look as nice as he had previously remembered. Whether that was because it had broken down since he'd left or if it had always been this way and he was only just now able to notice it due to his new standard of normal, he wasn't sure.

The world itself went deathly silent as he shuffled his way up the path towards the front door, nothing pulling him in or pushing him away, just himself and his choice.

It only took a slight nudge for the front door to open and then he was in. He was back home, though it felt more like a house than a home.

Just in the entrance to the house there were drops of dark, dried-up blood on the carpet that only grew in size and frequency the further down the hallway they went, culminating in a small puddle of it just outside the open closer door. It felt a little less creepy and more just uncanny to realise that it must have been his own blood.

He stepped into the hallway and followed the path of blood, the familiar clink of empty bottles and the crunch of glass under his shoes unnerving him greatly.

Coming upon the closet, the door had already been opened for him. He wasn't sure why but it surprised him to see just how empty the space was. There were no fairy lights or cushions or blankets or toys, just a neat square of carpet, permanently stained. On the walls, there were pictures painted in blood, though those were less surprising. They'd already been burned into his mind from how long he used to spend staring at them. He'd attempted to recreate them in the notebooks Luz gave him, grasping for some sort of comfort, or maybe catharsis.

Across the hall were the kitchen and the living room. He'd never liked being in the living room, it was just so small and cramped and with Uncle at the centre, sitting in his armchair, everything always felt a little too close, too dangerous. The kitchen was arguably just as unnerving, it was either full of tension as Hunter was forced to try and anticipate his uncle's next move so he didn't end up with his head slammed into the table or it was scarily silent as he tried not to alert Uncle while he searched for something to eat.

Upstairs he didn't really remember much. He didn't go up there often and he wasn't sure if he wanted to refresh his memory on that today. Or ever.

On his survey of the house, the best way he could sum it up was with one singular word: cold. It was cold and empty and alone, like a snapshot in time, completely removed from the rest of the world. Stuck in the most miserable period of his life.

Miserable. That's what he'd been.

That voice in the back of his head nagged at him, urging him that what he had to do was go back home, get back to his uncle. And well, he'd done half of that and what did he feel? Not relieved, not thankful to finally be back, just miserable.

Why had he wanted to come back? For the familiarity? The familiarity of a tiny house full of painful memories and blood-stained carpets? Why did he want all of that?

All of this time, he'd been so set on his goal, so insistent on what could solve all his problems, just getting back to his old life.

But maybe all his problems were his old life.

Going back didn't seem so appealing anymore.

Maybe he still did love his uncle, maybe he wasn't ready to let that go just yet, but he didn't love being with him, that much was for sure.

He didn't love being with him.

So what did he love?

Well, that was easy! He loved comfy blankets, and warm pancakes, and hot cocoa! And he really loved hugs and birds of course! And he loved Luz and Camila, maybe even most of all.

None of that was here. All of it was a part of what he'd labelled his new life, the one he'd been so insistent on pushing away.

For this? What was so worth it here that made him so desperate to throw away this new opportunity he'd been gifted?

Maybe it was alright to accept that 'normal' could change and become something completely different. Something so much better.

He walked over to the dresser and bent down to pick up the picture that had fallen face down on the floor. The glass of the frame had shattered but the picture was still intact. He held that picture close to his chest.

Even with this new revelation, he wasn't ready to let go of the past, not just yet, but that didn't mean he couldn't embrace his future.

A future with Luz and Camila, in their cosy little house, drawing pictures and eating pancakes and getting hugs and knowing how it felt to be so utterly and completely loved.

For once, the decision didn't seem quite so confusing. The thought of such a life, the life he'd already been allowed a taste of, sounded so nice, so exciting even, that the answer was clear.

He wanted this. He wanted a life with Luz and Camila.

His sister and...

He had to go back.

And for once, he wanted to go back too.

So, steeling himself and taking in the scene around him one last time, he reminded himself that he could come back if he needed to, though he doubted he ever would, and he made his decision.

He turned around and trudged his way back home.

The walk back felt considerably longer than his journey to the old house had been, even though he knew that was impossible, but even still, he continued on with a liminal sort of feeling. It felt as if he existed in nothing but an empty space, nothing holding any meaning until he was back home. Then time would resume and as a result of his actions, something would unfold. He wasn't sure whether it would be good or bad, but it was rather exciting in a nerve-wracking sort of way.

He was allowing the start of a new chapter in his life, maybe even a whole new book, instead of stubbornly clinging onto the old one like he'd been so insistent on doing before. Who couldn't be at least a little excited to see what would happen?

And though the excitement remained as the house came into view, it was quickly evened by an array of other emotions that made him feel just about ready to explode. Because really, there was an awful lot of uncertainty; he had no clue how Camila would react to seeing him again after yet again causing even more trouble. And as he got closer and was able to get a better view of the house, he could see her, sat outside on the porch steps with her head in her hands, her knee jerking up and down almost frantically as she tapped her foot.

He could have turned back around and avoided the confrontation entirely. Avoided the possibility that maybe she'd hate him. But he didn't. He clutched the picture still in his hands a little tighter and proceeded forward.

He'd hoped that getting a little closer would cause Camila to look up and notice him but she hadn't. He did suppose he had always been quite light on his feet. So, as much as he didn't want to, he knew he'd have to actively draw her attention.

Of course, the best way to do so would be to speak, but what was he even supposed to say? Sorry for running off (again) after shouting at you (again) and undoubtedly causing you tremendous amounts of stress. Yeah, that didn't quite cut it.

Instead, after an awkwardly long amount of silence, he forced out one simple word.

"Hi."

Immediately, her head snapped up to look at him and as soon as she did, her eyes widened and her face flooded with relief. To be honest, she looked like she couldn't quite believe it.

She was quick to get back on her feet, even quicker to step forward and open her arms, but then she paused, hesitating on whether or not what she wanted to do would be the best course of action.

She stood there dumbly for a moment, just frozen with her arms open, until Hunter took the decision upon himself and ran straight into them, wrapping his arms tightly around her middle and sagging with relief when hers came to cross around his back.

"Oh, Hunter... I'm so so sorry." She said through a heavy sigh, squeezing him a little tighter. She had no reason to be apologising so he wasn't sure why she was.

"I'm sorry..." He replied instead, "I—I panicked. I'm sorry, Mom."

He felt how she paused at his words, or more specifically, word, and he waited patiently to see what would happen.

In the end, the silence was broken by a sob, not from him but instead from her.

"Oh, my baby..."

That was enough for him to devolve into tears as well, clinging tightly to her shirt as he sobbed his heart out. It wasn't his usual sort of crying, coming from fear or loss or stress, but it was a mix of so many different emotions that he couldn't even begin to name, overflowing and forcing themselves out through sobs.

"Hunter!" A voice exclaimed from the open front door. Hunter shifted a little in Camila's arms to look over and see Luz, beaming with happiness.

She sprinted out of the house and down the steps before launching herself at them, hugging them as tightly as she possibly could. Camila moved her arm a bit to allow Luz to slip under and join in and the girl immediately latched onto Hunter.

"I thought you weren't going to come back!" She exclaimed, somewhere in between crying and laughing.

"'M sorry." Felt like the most appropriate response, "I decided to come back?" Felt like a little less of an appropriate response but still needed nonetheless.

Luz laughed at him and continued to sob into his shirt.

"Where did you go?" Camila asked breathlessly as if she still just couldn't grasp the fact that he'd come back, on his own accord no less.

"Uncle's house..." He admitted sheepishly, hoping the extra squeeze he gave Camila would make up for his betrayal. "But... I realised that I don't think I want to go back anymore. I think I like it better... here. If that's okay."

"Of course! Mijo, this is you're home too, if that's what you want...?"

"I want it."

He tilted his head up to see her smile through her tears. She moved her hand away just enough so that she could wipe the tears clinging to his cheek.

"Can you be my mom...?"

"Of course..." She said so softly, looking down at him with so much love. "You want to be my son?"

He lit up at the idea. "Yeah...! I'd like that."

"Me too."

He buried his face safely back in her shirt. "I love you, Mom."

"I love you too, mijo."

"Does that mean you're my brother for realzies now?!" Luz gasped.

"For realzies." He replied with a wet smile.

She pumped her fist in quiet victory. "Yes..."

It was so stupid... but right now, exhausted and a little light-headed from crying, he couldn't help but laugh. They all did. They just laughed and hugged each other close and decided everything else could wait a while.

Everything else could wait a while because right now, they were a little family.

And how exciting was that?

Chapter Text

Hey guys, this isn't an actual chapter so I'm sorry if I got anyone's hopes up.

Lately I've not really been as interested in the owl house as I have been in the past. I still love it and I'll probably go through phases of obsessing over it again but rn writing for it feels a bit like a chore if I'm being honest.

I love this account and the people who interact with my fics! You're all so sweet and it's become such a nice part of my day to open ao3 and ready all your lovely comments but at least for now, I won't be writing any more owl house.

That's not to say I won't go back to writing it in the future, there's always a chance so still keep a look out but at least for now I'm stopping.

That's not to say I'm stopping writing all together. I've actually gotten really into the TV series Arcane recently and it's given me a new wave of inspiration for writing! So if you're one of my regular commenters or just someone who's a fan of my writing I highly recommend you watch the show so you can keep reading my stuff! It's only 9 episodes and I promise it's 100% worth it. Even if you're not interested in watching the show, the stuff I've started to write about is pretty disconnected from the main plot, more focused around a particular flashback in episode 6 (revolving around two characters called Singed — a weird scientist — and Viktor — a boy who stumbles across his lab and is taken under his wing —) and expanding on it so you don't even really need to watch the show to read it or you could even just watch the opening flashback scene of episode 6 (along with the one just at the end) if you want context!

Anyway, I hope to see you all in my future stuff and I just want to say thank you so so much for everything guys. This has been so fun and I hope it can continue to be fun as I continue writing :)

Love you all <3 (and please watch arcane I need people to talk to abt it)