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Hunter feels sick. Not physically, there’s no aches, no fever, no nausea, just a deep sense of wrongness. Like something is under his skin. Infecting him. He can’t put his finger on what, couldn’t explain it if anyone asked, because it’s not a physical feeling.
For a while he thinks it’s just unease. He’s in a new place, the human realm, and his routines and norms have all been interrupted, turned on their head. He’s never done well with disruptions in his life, and this is quite possibly the biggest possible disruption. He doesn’t know anything, doesn’t have a single familiar thing to cling to, except Flapjack. He doesn’t know Gus very well, nor the rest of the group, and now he’s being forced to live with them. In Luz’s house with her mother, who acts nothing like any adult he’s ever met. It’s terrifying.
So he chalks it all up to the change in environment and the fear it brings him. But that can’t be it. It can’t be because he gets his footing fairly quickly, finding a new routine within household chores and cooking and cleaning. Ms. Noceda is grateful for the help and doesn’t berate him when it takes him time to learn some things, or when he makes a mistake. It’s comfortable. Comfortable enough that he shouldn’t feel this way, like something has slithered into his bones and made home there.
He feels a little like he isn’t really him. Which is odd because he doesn’t know who he is.
Regardless, it keeps him up at night, even though the niggling is not a physical sensation, it’s as distracting as one. He lays on an old sleeping bag of Ms. Noceda’s and stares at the ceiling. The paint is warped with age, cracked in places, the product of history and soul. Hunter envies that ceiling. The love that’s made this house what it is. There’s nothing in Hunter to make him anything.
His introspection spans a couple of days, until it eventually leads him to a breakdown on the bathroom floor.
Thankfully, the others are out at a farner’s market nearby, so they cannot bear witness. Or, Willow stayed behind. Said she wasn’t feeling well. Hunter is suspicious, as he had said the same thing before she could get the chance. He didn’t give it much thought, though, and retreated back to the basement as the others were heading out the door, missing Willow’s disappointed expression.
He sits cross legged on the sleeping bag and stares at the cracking paint. The slithering beneath his bones has only gotten worse and it’s becoming a feeling he can no longer ignore. Even sitting here, it feels as though his lungs are not his own. They won’t expand when he asks, and even the breathing technique Gus taught him can’t get them going.
He stumbles to his feet, wobbly like a fawn, and all but throws himself into the bathroom. Water, he needs water, to splash on his face and to drink, anything to get his body back under his control. Quick as he can, he turns the faucet on cold and splashes the water in his face. It doesn’t work immediately, though it is a shock. He looks up at the mirror, but it isn’t his face that looks back. Or, it is, for the most part, but there are very clearly features of Belos warping the structure of his face. He startles badly, thankfully caught between fight and flight so much so that he doesn’t swing at the mirror, which is his first instinct. Instead he falls back on his ass and scrambles against the tub, eyes wide open. His lungs have sure been kick started, but he’s gone from being unable to breathe to breathing far too quickly. He gasps, fingers twisting up into his hair. That writhing feeling in his skin grows worse, and he squeezes his eyes shut to prevent from seeing whether it’s real or not.
Belos is inside him. Or maybe he always was. Either way, he’s sick inside, infested, not Hunter. He wants to claw into his arms, his legs, expose the contamination and rot within him, but he cannot face it. He cannot see. He cannot know if it is really there.
Outside, in the basement, he hears footsteps. This is terrible, he can’t let whoever it is see him. They can’t know what is in him, what he is. What if they hate him? Hurt him? Banish him? All of this is too much for him to face and he wishes with his entire body that he could just fade away and be gone. Hell, he wishes he could go back to the way things were three weeks ago when he was still Belos’ pawn. At least that was familiar and he didn’t have to question who he is.
“Hunter?” He knows that’s Willow, he would know her voice anywhere. One of the first people to be kind to him, she’s seared into his brain forever. She is probably the person he wants to see him like this the absolute least. However, she may be the most accepting, the most willing to help. “Hunter, I can hear you breathing, it’s really fast. Can Flapjack and I come in? Please?” He doesn’t know what to say, he’s too scared to choose an answer. “If you don’t say anything I’m coming in.” His mouth is stuck, he can’t get it to form words. So, true to what she said, Willow opens the door.
Flapjack flies in first, frantically chirping as he circles Hunter’s head before landing in his hair to peck at his fingers. He peels his eyes open and obeys Flapjack’s command to release the hold on his hair.
“What’s the matter, Hunter?” she asks, going to her knees in front of him. She looks so concerned he can’t help but trust her. He has no choice, anyway.
“There is something very wrong with me,” he whispers, staring her in the eyes. “In me.”
“What do you mean?” She takes his hands, gently squeezing. “Do you really feel sick? I kinda thought you were lying to stay home.”
“No, not sick,” he croaks. “Or- maybe, I don’t know. I saw- I saw Belos in the mirror. He’s in me. He had my face.” Even to him, it doesn’t make any sense, but he doesn’t know how else to say it. “He’s in me.”
“I’m really sorry, Hunter, but I don’t get it,” she admits, softly. “Are you having a flashback? A panic attack?” Well, yes, but that isn’t the issue. He shakes his head.
“I saw him in the mirror, Willow,” he tries again. “He’s in me. Something’s in me. I can feel it moving.” He sobs. “I’m so scared, I’m so scared.” He pitches forward into her arms and she catches him, wrapping her arms around him, and his around her. “I’m sick and- and evil! Maybe that’s it, there’s something evil in me! Please, please don’t hate me!”
“I could never hate you,” she says, voice shaking. “You’re not evil. Belos isn’t in you, there’s nothing wrong. It’s just- just a panic attack. You’ve had them before.”
“I can feel it moving,” he insists, because he can. It’s like a snake. “It’s something evil, I know!”
“There’s nothing there, Hunter,” she assures him. “I know it, I know you’re good. You’re the most good person I know.” He doesn’t believe her, but her words are too soothing to refute. He’s too tired. What matters is she’s saying all the right things, and tired and frightened as he is, he can’t find it in himself to deny her.
But she is wrong, they will find out a little later. There is something evil in him, and it is Belos, and he will lose Flapjack because of it. It isn’t him, it’s something else, someone using him, like they have his whole life. In some way, this is a relief, but he will not be able to feel it.
He will feel only the rot, and the ugly wrongness of the intruder, and he will not know if the rot is merely residing in him, or if it is him.