Chapter Text
The walk down her own hallway felt foreign.
The house was too quiet. It was used to having laughs and teasing shouts, long rambles and pounding as socked feet skidded on the hardwood floors. Sometimes there were breakdowns, with crying and soft voices. But never this quiet. Not where Camila could hear her own footsteps on the carpet in the hall or even the drips from the broken faucet in the bathroom.
Camila felt like a ghost as she stepped off the last stair and turned her body to face the shut bedroom door. She swallowed, lifting a fist against the wood. She hesitated, her eyebrows softly squeezing together. A gentle sigh expanded her tired chest. She knocked on the door, hoping it didn’t startle the current inhabitant.
“Hunter? Baby, are you awake?”
No response. She wasn’t quite expecting one.
She bit the inside of her lip, a frown deeply etched upon her sullen face.
“I don’t want to invade. So, if you are awake, can you please say something? Tell me to at least buzz off?” She made sure to make her tone light.
A muffled grunt seeped from the door.
“Can I come in? I just wanna make sure you’re okay, cariño .”
“Yeah.” He sounded so tired.
Camila pushed her lips together into a line, twisting it to the side. She touched her fingertips to the door, turning and opening it.
It revealed Hunter facing the wall on the bottom bunk, curled up with his arms tucked in his chest. Stacked blankets cuddled his body; a body that Camila was so glad to see be filled with warm food each and every day. When he had been blown onto her doorstep that summer night, he was so skinny. He wasn’t all frail, he had muscle in his arms and legs. She was afraid that was it, though. Just muscle that stretched awkwardly around bone, barely keeping his young body afloat.
Camila remembered having to feed him smaller portions compared to the others. He had gotten sick a few nights in, and she wasn’t able to figure out why; the other witches seemed to take the human food well. But then Luz made an off comment about the life he left behind in the other realm. He just wasn’t used to the amount of love put into the food she would set in front of him.
Bouncing out of her train of thought, Camila stepped in and closed the door shut that belonged to Luz and Hunter. The basement now occupied Vee. Her basilisk daughter had come up to her shyly, admitting to wanting an open, more spacious room instead of the tightness of Luz’s already small bedroom. Where Hunter wanted that closeness, needed that constant comfort of another person just above him on the shared bunk. It was a perfect swap and Camila was more than happy to give it to her newly beloved kids.
Hunter was staring at the wall, tired eyes drooping from the bags swimming underneath. She could tell he was once crying, but now his cheeks were dry. His face was so settled and empty.
Camila wasn’t sure if this was worse than last year. Where he was panicking his lungs exhausted, switching between pacing the floors or pushed back against the wall and rambling paranoid nonsense. Flashbacks and panic attacks filled in every pocket of time throughout that entire day.
“No, no, get away from me. I can’t let something happen, I can’t let that happen again. You don’t understand…”
“Hunter, baby, please. You are going to hurt yourself.”
Camila had knelt herself down to his level, his body cramped inside the hall closet, arms hugged around himself, nails dug hard and red into his skin. He was vibrating up and down, eyes flicking crazily side to side. He never met her concerned eyes.
“Don’t you get it?! He’s gonna— He’s gonna find me again! I can feel it. I don’t wanna hurt anyone anymore. I don’t want him in me and—and notice too late again! I’d kill myself before—“
“No, no, hijo ,” Camila quietly yet sternly cut him off. She wasn’t going to listen to him finish that thought. “That’s just grief, Hunter. It’s a reminder. I understand how much it hurts, how paranoid you are. I promise you are safe here. He can’t hurt you anymore.”
He should’ve been getting dressed up. He should have been planning the week beforehand of what character he wanted to get ready for to sit with her on the front porch and pass out candy.
But no. Halloween now was for days like these. And apparently it had gone from blind panic and terror, to curling up into himself and staring at the wall. It was jarring to remember Hunter was an eighteen year old adult now. He looked so, so small right then. Pressing his arms further into his chest as Camila sat at the end of his mattress.
“How are you feeling?” It was silly to ask, but Camila knew he wouldn’t talk about it if not at least questioned first.
But all Hunter did was shrug.
Camila bit her lip and stared at his back for a moment. “Do you want to…” She hated herself for how much she was struggling with this. This was her son . “Luz and Vee are downstairs. You’re always welcome to join them to help me with dinner.”
He shrugged again.
“That’s alright. If you’re not up to it, we understand.”
His stare could’ve burned holes into his posters and photos plastered on the wall.
Camila sat and waited to see if he’d change his mind. When he only continued to be silent, Camila sighed at her poor efforts and stood. “Well. You know where I’ll be. Or Luz and Vee.” She was about to rest her hand on his shoulder and kiss his temple, but she thought twice about how he might react when in a state like this.
She turned to make her leave, ready to shut the door behind her when she heard his tight voice speak through the thick air of grief.
“‘M sorry…”
“Aww…” Camila walked away from the door, back by his side. He turned onto his back and stared up at her, eyes so low and exhausted. “No need to be sorry, Hunter. I completely understand, okay? Even if this mood continues all week, I understand , okay, niño? ”
Hunter nodded his head. “Okay,” he whispered.
There where he could see her, she finally reached over to kiss his forehead. When she pulled away, she saw his lips trembling and eyes starting to water back up again. She cooed and rubbed a tender thumb under his eyes, caressing those eyebags. “Get some rest, baby. Your sisters and I are right downstairs. I’ll bring up some dinner when it's done? If you want?”
Camila was surprised when he slowly nodded his head. She smiled softly. “Okay, cariño . Te amo. ”
“Yo también te amo,” Hunter replied in a tiny, shaky voice.
When Camila returned back down the stairs, a heavy sigh blowing from her lips as she rubbed her eyes under her glasses, Luz and Vee were looking at her expectantly.
“He’s just really tired. And sad. Very sad,” the mother informed them.
Vee murmured a coo. Luz looked down at her knees, wobbling them around. She laid back into the couch cushions defeatedly. “Don’t know what’s worse: him paranoid out of his mind or… or—“ She looked up at Camila for clarification.
“He was very, er, distant.” Camila whirled a hand around, gesturing at her head. “Spacy. He might be dissociating.” She sat down next to her daughters. “I just… don’t know how to help.”
“It’s alright, Mamá,” Luz said. “You’re trying your best. I think that’s all Hunter needs right now.”
“Yeah!” Vee piped up. “I mean… remember when you met me all that time ago— like the basilisk me? You told me you had no idea what you were doing—“
Camila cut Vee off with a soft giggle. “I did not say that. I definitely remember saying something better than that .”
Vee laughed in turn. “I know, I know. But anyway… I just remember you admitting to me how hard you were trying, but you felt useless? And you didn’t really understand anything Luz or I told you about the Demon Realm… But it… heh,” Vee looked down at the carpet between her scaly feet. “It meant a lot to me anyway. No one really tried that hard with me, you know? To understand me, I mean. Don’t think that was anyone’s objective in the castle anyway,” she muttered before looking back up at Camila. “I think the same thing is with Hunter? Sorry, I started rambling there. That might’ve not made any sense, haha.”
“No, no. It does, hermana ,” Luz reassured. “You’re saying just attempts of trying mean a lot, right?”
Vee nodded. “Mhm!”
Luz looked at her mother. “See? Don’t worry too much. Hunter will come to us if he wants to talk about it. This… This is different…”
Different than anything he’s been through before, Luz said silently, but the other two hear it. This is different from the panic attacks he’d have if he stares in the mirror too long, different from a flashback when he makes a mistake or someone accidentally does something too similar to his old trips to the throne room and he’s expecting the same outcome with them. That Halloween night, two years ago, was different. His best friend was gone. Dead .
Camila’s brow raised. “Will he come to us?”
“You know, after everything? How far he’s come? Yeah. Yeah, I think he trusts us— and himself— enough to come to us.”
Camila could only hope her hijas were right as she hugged them both to her side, eyeing the staircase up to her other child with longing worry.