Work Text:
Hunter hasn’t been home in forever. His dusty town where the highway runs for miles and the mountains stretch higher than God.
He’s been looking at plane tickets lately. He’s been looking at train tickets lately. Gas prices are getting higher.
He hasn’t braided MoonDancer’s hair in years. The last time they called, last week at lunch for him, breakfast for her, it was hanging straight past his ears, the first time in a long time, and there were circles under her eyes.
If he shuts his eyes, if he concentrates, if he lets his thoughts wander, he can picture the feeling of a copper pot full of water for pasta hanging in his hands. The pressure of it like a phantom, curling his fingers around empty air thousands of miles from Ida Brown’s kitchen.
His dads want him home, of course. His sisters, too, but they’re too passive-aggressive to admit it. They’ve come up to visit him, and he keeps meaning to return the favor. There’s not really a reason, either.
Only –
Hunter’s always there. He always will be. If every movement is repeated forever in time, one step behind him and another and another, there will always be a Hunter living in his one-story house, sprawling over acres of valley. There will always be a Hunter climbing in through the window of his best friend when he has a key to the house. There will always be a Hunter slipping coins into the washing machines at the laundromat. There will always be a Hunter in a tux, slow dancing to Mitski on the floor of his high school gym, his face buried in his best friend’s shoulder.
He feels almost guilty, believing he could ever take the place of that Hunter, always repeating himself.
MoonDancer’s still there, of course he is. He was always the one saying he’d leave, go to fashion school, learn to fly. But Hunter thinks she loves the mountains too much to ever stray too far.
In the end, it was Hunter who left first, chasing a dream that started with his laptop and ended with college. He’s in senior year now, and MoonDancer is sprinting to reach him as a junior.
Funny thing, that – there’s a Hunter giggling in his best friend’s bed talking about graduating together, twining his fingers through his hair like a kid.
It’s far too late, and he has class tomorrow. He stares at the ceiling above his bed, and for a moment, there’s the outline of glow-in-the-dark stars, stuck up with blue-tack and prayers, outlining a careful constellation.
There’s a Hunter falling asleep under those, repeating seconds and seconds in time. A Hunter whose landlord is just his dad, who gave him the blue tack in the first place. There’s a Hunter whose fingers are aching from writing out the name of each star, a Hunter with all the blood rushing to his head, hanging off his bed while MoonDancer flounces back and forth in a new dress.
He turns on his side and hugs half a teddy bear, carefully stitched. Gas prices are getting higher, and MoonDancer Brown, too, sleeps on her shoulder and holds the other half.