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Hunter never used to have this many nightmares. Back when he worked for the emperor, he would usually crash into bed utterly exhausted and fall asleep within seconds, so tired he slept through the night. Sure, when missions went horribly wrong, or Uncle punished him for his failures, Hunter would have bad dreams for a few nights afterward, but they were still a rare occurrence.
But ever since he and Luz ended up in the emperor’s mind and Hunter learned that everything he knew was a lie, he has suffered nightmares about Belos finding him and killing him just like he did to all the previous Golden Guards. He wakes in a panic, choking for breath, and only calms when Flapjack perches on his shoulder, nuzzles his face, and chirps soothingly until Hunter can breathe again.
Even though that Collector person destroyed Uncle, and Hunter is trapped in the Human Realm with no way for anyone to come after him, he still dreams about Belos even when sleeping in Mrs. Noceda’s basement. And Hunter hates that his past keeps haunting him.
He tries to stay quiet when he wakes up, so he doesn’t disturb Gus, and so far, it has worked. But Hunter forgets about the occasions when he wakes up screaming. And they may be rare, but they still happen, and not even Flapjack comforting him can stop him from screaming in fear as he jolts awake.
And whilst sharing a room with Gus, Hunter has no way to avoid scaring his friend.
---
After trying and failing to fall asleep for over an hour, Gus sits up on the couch, hugging his knees to his chest. Ever since the Day of Unity and the chaos it caused, he has struggled to sleep, either troubled by nightmares of that day (all the adults—and Hunter—nearly dying as the draining spell hurt them via their sigils, that Collector showing up and just destroying Belos like he was a toy, King sacrificing himself to allow them all to get through the portal, and getting stranded in the Human Realm with no way home) or just unable to sleep, his mind whirring with worries about his father.
And the latter is what he deals with tonight. Gus just can’t stop thinking about Dad, terrified by not knowing what happened to him. Is he okay? Is he even alive? Titan, he misses him so much.
Just when Gus is considering whether to take a Cosmic Frontier book into the bathroom and read to stop himself from dwelling on his thoughts, a whimper makes him freeze. He turns his head to look at Hunter—the only other person in the room—and notices Hunter start to fidget in his sleeping bag. His head moving on the pillow, Hunter’s legs wriggle within the sleeping bag, his hands twitching at his sides. Another whimper escapes him, and Gus didn’t expect the noise to sound so… vulnerable. He must be having a nightmare.
As Gus leans closer to his sleeping friend, wondering what to do, Flapjack awakes, moving from where he slept curled up next to Emmiline. The palisman flies across the room and lands on his sleeping witch’s pillow, his beak gripping the long lock of hair that droops across Hunter’s forehead. Flapjack tugs his hair, and Gus realizes that Flapjack tries to wake Hunter up.
Without warning, Hunter screams—a terrified sound that makes Gus’ eyes sting with suppressed tears—and his eyes snap open. Sitting up in bed, Hunter stares around the basement, his eyes wide. Sweat shimmers on his skin, his breaths escaping him in shallow, jagged gasps. His eyes meet Gus’, but Hunter doesn’t seem to recognize him. Is he still half asleep? Or does Hunter think he’s in someone else’s company right now?
His next words clear up any confusion, although they leave Gus with horrible, twisting nerves in his stomach.
“I’m sorry! Please don’t hurt me,” Hunter cries, his voice shrill with terror. He holds his hands up in surrender, bowing his head to avoid looking at Gus—or rather, the person he sees there instead.
“Hunter,” Gus says, unsure what to say to him. “It’s me. You’re okay. Try to breathe slowly, like I showed you.”
But Hunter doesn’t calm down. Even as Gus begins to count on his fingers (just like he did when Hunter had a panic attack within a maze of illusions covering Hexside, showing Hunter the breathing technique that Willow had showed Gus the day they met), Hunter just keeps gasping for breath.
Trembling, Hunter scrabbles backward out of his sleeping bag, shying away further when Gus attempts to step closer to him.
“I’m sorry!” Hunter cries, tears welling up in his eyes even as Flapjack lands on his shoulder, chirping into his witch’s ear.
Gus doesn’t know what to do, so out of his depth right now. So, he does the only thing he can think of: he rushes out of the basement, hoping that Camila can help Hunter.
---
Camila awakes when someone starts knocking on her bedroom door. She sits up in bed, pulls on her glasses, and switches on the lamp, squinting as the light hurts her eyes. Yawning, she says, “Come in.”
The door opens and Gus pokes his head into the room. He stares at her, panic written across his face—and even before he speaks, Camilia knows something is wrong. Her sleepiness is forgotten as she gets out of bed and approaches him.
“I’m sorry for waking you up,” Gus says. “I just… didn’t know what to do.”
“Don’t worry about it, mijo,” Camila says. “What’s wrong?”
“Hunter… had a nightmare. He wouldn’t calm down. I… I got scared.” Gus takes a deep breath, his fingers moving by his side—and Camilia soon realizes that he times his breaths by counting with his fingers.
“That’s okay. I’ll go see him. Why don’t you go put the TV on?” she suggests, knowing that Gus can’t go back to the basement whilst Hunter is upset, and that the youngest witch in her house probably doesn’t feel like sleeping now anyway.
“Okay,” Gus says, still looking rather unsettled by everything. “Thank you, Camila…”
“No problem, cariño,” Camila says, patting Gus’ shoulder.
As she heads downstairs, Gus follows right behind her, only parting ways when they reach the hallway. Gus wanders into the living room, immediately getting distracted by his fascination with the TV (she heard the kids talking about ‘crystal balls’ in their realm, and it still blows her mind that they use those instead of televisions), whilst Camila approaches the basement door.
Taking a deep breath, she eases the door open. The basement is dark except for the fairy lights wrapped around the bar, illuminating the room with soft, multicolored light—just enough light to stop Camila from falling down the steps as she descends the stairs.
She finds Hunter sitting in the middle of the floor, hugging his knees as he gasps for breath. Hunter’s adorable red cardinal sits on his shoulder, rubbing his face against Hunter’s cheek. Tears stream down Hunter’s pale face, and his eyes widen when he notices her.
“Hunter…” she says, keeping her voice soft and caring.
But Hunter flinches as though she yelled at him.
“I’m sorry!”
“What for, mijo?” Camila asks, stepping closer (but keeping her distance, not wanting to crowd him).
“I scared Gus, and now you’re awake,” he mumbles, rocking himself back and forth. “Are you gonna punish me?”
“Why would I do that?”
“F-For disturbing you. I’m sorry,” Hunter says, tensing like he expects a hit.
“It’s okay, Hunter.” Camila sits down on the couch, keeping her hands clasped in her lap (just to make it clear to Hunter that she isn’t about to hit him). Despite this interaction making her feel rather sick, she tries desperately to hide this, just radiating the calm, comforting energy that he needs right now (as she did on the night Luz returned with four strangers in tow, all of them exhausted and traumatized). “I’m not going to hurt you.”
“Why?” Hunter sniffles, tears still trickling down his cheeks.
And in that moment, despite being the oldest child in her home, he seems so young. Camila is filled with a powerful urge to wrap him in her arms, but she doesn’t do it, unsure if it would make him panic. Still, she must wonder if Hunter has ever been hugged before.
(From what Luz has told her about Hunter, she wouldn’t be surprised if that thought was true.)
“Because you didn’t do anything wrong,” Camila explains. “Now, why don’t we try and slow your breathing, cariño?”
“I, I can’t,” Hunter splutters, reminding her too much of the first time she saw Vee have a panic attack.
“You can, I promise,” she says. “Just follow me, okay…”
Hunter keeps staring in disbelief, choking on his sobs and own breaths, but when Flapjack chirps to him, the boy almost seems to listen to the sounds. Although, from hearing both Amity and Willow having conversations with their palismen, she remembers that the witches actually can communicate with their magical animals. Absentmindedly, Camila wonders what Flapjack said to him. When Hunter nods and turns back to Camila, his expression a little calmer, she supposes that Flapjack encouraged him to listen to Camila. Truly, the bond the witches and their animals share is beautiful.
(But that makes her heart ache for a second, because she knows how much Luz is affected by her egg not hatching, and poor Luz could really do with the comfort of her own palisman right now.)
So, with Flapjack’s guidance, Hunter looks up at her, paying attention as Camila encourages him to slow his breathing. She takes in slow, exaggerated breaths, showing Hunter what to do, and he gradually begins to get some control over his breaths.
When she begins to count on her fingers, Hunter tilts his head as he scrubs his eyes with the back of his hand, a curious expression on his tear-stained face.
“Are you okay, sweetheart?” she asks.
Hunter nods, glancing away from her. “Y-Yeah,” he says, still struggling to breathe deeply. “I… didn’t know you knew that too.” As he speaks, Hunter holds up his hand, mimicking the way she counts to four and back on her fingers whilst timing her breathing.
“Oh this?” Camila says. “I learned it a long time ago. Where did you learn it?”
“Gus taught me,” Hunter says after exhaling slowly, his cheeks puffing out. “He said… Willow taught him.”
“It’s very useful. I know it because I had lots of panic attacks at your age. It helps a lot.”
Hunter nods, his own fingers moving as they continue to time their breathing.
(And Camila is grateful that he didn’t ask why she had panic attacks; she really doesn’t feel like dredging up all the memories of being bullied right now.)
After several long minutes, Hunter seems significantly calmer. His shoulders relax a little, his tears cease flowing, and he stops hugging his knees to his chest, instead raising his hands to let Flapjack perch on the back of one hand, carefully petting his palisman with the other.
“Are you feeling better now, Hunter?” Camila asks.
“Y-Yeah, I think so,” he mumbles. “I’m sorry about this.”
“You don’t need to keep apologizing, mijo,” she says. “I not mad.”
“Even though you’re awake in the middle of the night because of me? I don’t get it. Why aren’t you angry?”
“Because I’m not going to get angry at someone for doing something they can’t help. Just as I didn’t yell at Luz yesterday for breaking a plate by accident, I’m not going to punish you for having a nightmare. Does that make sense?” Camila asks, heartbroken at the thought of a younger Hunter being punished (and she dreads to think what the word ‘punished’ implies) for things out of his control.
The way his eyebrows pinch together and his ears tuck against his head suggests that Hunter doesn’t understand her words very much, but the boy still nods his head and mumbles, “Yeah…” Fidgeting with a thread on his pant leg, Hunter says, “Um… I feel a lot better. You can go back to bed now. I-If you want,” he hastily adds, always so jumpy.
Camila highly doubts that Hunter feels better, certainly not enough to be alone for the rest of the night, but she understands how desperate Hunter is to not come across as a burden to her. And she will never think any of the kids are a burden, but Hunter clearly thinks differently.
“How about… I’ll go to bed if you go and sit with Gus for a bit?”
“Why?”
“I don’t think you’ll be sleeping for a while, and…” I don’t want you to lie awake all night when you’re still feeling bad, she thinks. “I think Gus would like the company,” she says, hoping that Hunter will agree with her plan if she implies doing so would be good for his friend.
“Uh… okay. Is he upset?” Hunter asks, guilt shining in his eyes.
“He was… a little stressed, cariño, but that’s not your fault.” As Hunter opens his mouth, presumably to insist that it is his fault that Gus got stressed, Camila says, “There was a documentary about wolves on the TV last night.”
The mere mention of wolves distracting him from his guilt, Hunter perks up immediately. “Really?”
“Si,” she says. “And I’m sure Gus would love to watch it with you.”
Hunter smiles, the expression adorably bashful, and mumbles, “I guess that sounds good. Okay… I’ll go sit with him.”
Camila smiles as Hunter climbs to his feet, Flapjack settling atop his hair. And although he continues to tremble, his eyes still red from crying, Hunter seems a lot more like his normal self—enthusiastic about his latest obsession—than he did earlier. He hurries up the stairs, moving much faster than Camila (now the adrenaline from worrying about Hunter has worn off, her body remembers that it’s the middle of the night, her fatigue hitting her like a punch to the face), only to stop dead outside the living room.
She understands his apprehension; he must feel bad about scaring Gus. But she watches Hunter square his shoulders before walking into the room.
As Hunter approaches Gus, Camila thinks about what they will need if they plan to stay up for a while. So, as the boys talk, Camila fetches a couple of blankets from the basement, fills a pair of glasses with water, and puts them on a tray alongside a few crackers (which are on the list she and Luz made of foods that the witches can eat without getting sick), certain that they’ll need snacks if they want to watch the entirety of the documentary.
When she enters the living room, she finds Hunter sitting beside Gus on the couch, Gus fiddling with the TV remote as he attempts to locate the right streaming service to watch Hunter’s wolf documentary. Gus seems almost back to normal, chatting to Hunter enthusiastically about the way televisions work. Hunter smiles as Gus speaks, the tension in his posture fading away as his friend chats to him like nothing happened. Camila smiles too, glad to see Hunter happy after his panic attack.
“Here you go, kids,” she says, passing them the blankets as she sets the tray on the floor beside the couch. “Make yourselves comfortable.”
“Oh… thank you, Camila,” Gus says, beaming.
“De nada,” Camila says. “Now, I’m going back to bed, but you can come get me if you need anything, okay?”
“Okay,” Hunter mumbles.
“Sure thing, Camila,” Gus says.
Camila smiles. “Okay. Enjoy your documentary, chicos.”
And as Gus presses play on the documentary and the boys both cover themselves with the blankets, Camila heads back upstairs, ready to get some sleep now she knows Hunter and Gus will be okay.
---
Luz’s brain has two different methods for waking her up in the morning. She either wakes super early and is tired all day or sleeps straight through her alarm (not that she has an alarm at the moment, because she and Mami keep forgetting to replace the one Willow and Amity broke on their first night in the house) and is late for whatever she needs to do that day. And, considering that she’s wide awake at 6:30am, it seems her brain wants it to be the former type of day.
She doesn’t want to stay in bed for hours until the others wake up, so Luz eases herself out of bed and tiptoes out of the bedroom (taking a moment to pull Amity’s blankets up higher to keep her girlfriend nice and cozy), wandering downstairs to get herself something to drink.
After pouring herself a glass of lactose-free milk, Luz heads into the living room, planning to watch something on the TV until everyone is awake. Perhaps she can rewatch Good Witch Azura 2 or get started on that show she heard good things about at school. But as she enters the room, she starts as she finds the TV already on—and two familiar figures on the couch.
Puzzled, Luz tiptoes around the couch, and her eyes widen at what she sees. She stares down at Hunter and Gus, who slump on the couch under a pair of blankets. Gus’ head leans against Hunter’s shoulder, whilst Hunter’s head flops against the back of the couch. Flapjack perches on Hunter’s head, opening his one eye when Luz approaches. But her friends don’t. Because, to her delight, Gus and Hunter are fast asleep.
She has no idea why her friends are asleep in front of the TV, but considering they were watching something and clearly planned to stay here for a while (the snacks and blankets confirm that), she wonders if something happened in the night that left them unable to sleep. They do share a room, after all. Luz makes a mental note to ask Mom if anything happened when she was asleep.
But before that, there is something else she is desperate to do. Luz rushes back up the stairs, watching her footing so she doesn’t make too much noise, and retrieves her cell phone from her room.
She needs to get a photo of this adorable scene.