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Hunter sat back in the grass and wiped his forehead on his sleeve with a sigh. The sweat still clung to his skin and dripped into his eyes, and it was annoyingly difficult to clear away with his hands covered in dirt.
"Hunter?" asked a familiar voice. "What are you doing?"
Hunter's ears pricked and he looked up. Mrs. Noceda stood around the corner of the house. He sat up straight and proper and gave her a polite smile.
"I'm weeding your garden," he informed her proudly.
"Oh, why thank you, mijo!" She looked so delighted with him that his heart– or whatever was in there– swelled in his chest. "Why don't you take a break and come have something to drink, though? It's much too hot to be working out in the sun at this hour."
"It's alright!" he reassured her. "I've done way harder stuff when it's way hotter out! I know how hard I can work without passing out, and I'll stop before that. I really don't mind!"
Her face fell, and Hunter froze. He'd said something wrong again. He didn't know what it was, but he'd said something off, something that made everyone in the room get tense and uncomfortable. He'd been hoping he was getting better at not doing that.
"I'll come in when I'm done!" he added hastily, hoping that was good enough.
She smiled uncomfortably, but didn't press him further. She went back inside and Hunter returned to the job at hand.
A job Willow probably could have knocked out in a minute or two without breaking a sweat, but she didn't need to earn her right to be here nearly as much as he did. So he didn't mind.
Hunter hit pause on the video he'd been watching on Luz's smell phone. He needed to finish this part before getting to the next bit.
He leaned forward hard into the washcloth, digging it into the grout between the tiles with all the force he could muster– which, he believed, was quite a bit.
"Hunter?" said a familiar voice.
He looked up at the open bathroom door. Luz's mother had a worried expression on her face as she looked down at him, but he didn't know why.
"Yes, Mrs. Noceda?" he asked, straightening up to sit on his knees with his hands in his lap like he'd been taught. He watched her eyes follow him as he moved, and hoped she recognized and was pleased by how good and respectful he could be.
"What are you doing?"
"Have you heard of mold, Mrs. Noceda?" he asked. "I read about it on the internets. It can be really dangerous! I found a tutorial for cleaning all the different stuff in here, like the grout, and the tile, and something called porcelain."
"Well– thank you, mijo, but–" She looked apprehensive, uncertain. Hunter could feel ice crawling up his spine and the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stand up. Something was wrong. He'd done something wrong or said something wrong– she clearly wasn't happy with him, and she didn't seem proud of his initiative.
"I can do better!" he insisted before she could speak. "I'm not done yet, I promise! It will look better when I'm done!"
"It's not that!" she said quickly. "Hunter– you don't need to do this. Wouldn't you rather do something more fun?" she smiled weakly.
"No," Hunter blinked at her. "I want to work."
That look again. What did he even do this time? How did he keep messing up? He was taking initiative, he was helping out and trying to earn his keep, but it just wasn't enough. Why wasn't it enough?
"Mrs. Noceda?" Hunter asked.
"Hm, chico?"
"Where are the trash bags?"
Luz's mother looked up at him from the laundry she was folding. "What do you need a trash bag for?"
"I need to replace the ones in the kitchen," he informed her, "I took the full ones to the curb."
"Oh, mijo, you didn't need to do that," she said, knitting her brows together, "It's Luz's turn to take the trash out."
"I don't mind!" he dismissed. "I just need to put new ones in."
He bounced on his heels, anxiety running rampant through his veins. She was looking at him with– pity, maybe? Disappointment, probably. He wasn't sure. He didn't know if he knew how to tell. He wasn't very good at reading people, which made it all the scarier. He never knew when he'd done something wrong, when people were mad at him. She wasn't happy, at least.
"They're under the sink," she said eventually.
"Thank you, Mrs. Noceda," he said quickly, dipping his head in a quick bow before he jogged back to the kitchen to replace the bags.
She wasn't happy. Maybe he still wasn't being proactive enough. Maybe he wasn't doing enough chores. Maybe he was doing them badly?
Absently, he scratched the inside of his wrist beneath his glove where he knew the sigil of the Emperor's Coven was still living in his skin. At least with Belos, he'd told him what he was supposed to be doing. When he was bad, he always knew what he'd done wrong because his uncle would tell him how he'd failed, and then would tell him what he expected from him. So he could do it. And then he would be happy, and Hunter wouldn't be in trouble. Here, he didn't know what she wanted. He didn't know what he was doing wrong, why she wasn't happy with him. He didn't know what he was supposed to be doing.
He shook open the first bag and stretched it over the open bin. He would just have to try harder.
"Mrs. Noceda!" Hunter called as soon as she stepped in the front door. He turned off the vacuum and stood proudly in the clean living room, chest puffed out. "I vacuumed the whole house while you were gone!"
"Oh," she said. Her face was pulled into another sad frown. Hunter deflated like a balloon. "Thank you, mijo."
"Who told you to do that?" Luz snorted as she stepped in behind her mother.
"No one," Hunter said primly, lifting up his chin with pride. "I took initiative."
"Won't catch me doing chores nobody asked me to," Luz laughed. She elbowed him as she passed him by on the way to the kitchen. He stuck out his tongue at her and then turned back to her mother hopefully.
"Didn't I do good?" he asked, beginning to feel crestfallen. She looked even more worried and upset than she had a moment ago.
"Of course you did," she rushed to tell him, "That was very thoughtful of you, baby, thank you."
Hunter let his arms fall to his sides, shoulders drooping. She was lying. He didn't do a good job and she wasn't happy he'd done it. He'd read on the internets that vacuuming was good. It cleaned the carpets and people didn't like doing it.
Why wasn't this working? Why wasn't she happy with him? He was trying so hard, and it still never seemed like enough.
Well… he'd just have to try harder. Again.
"Are you doing another load of laundry?" Gus asked as Hunter stumbled down the stairs, arms full so that he couldn't see his feet on the steps.
"Uh-huh."
"How many is that today, man?"
"Four," Hunter answered. He dropped the dirty clothes on the floor and kicked a laundry basket in front of the dryer. "A lot of people live here. At least Vee doesn't need her clothes washed."
"This is your fourth load of laundry today," Gus repeated slowly, sitting up on his knees to peer at him over the back of the couch. " And I saw you mow the lawn. That's Willow's chore. And laundry is Amity's this week."
"Well, then they don't have to do them," Hunter huffed. He squat down to pull the clothes out of the dryer and into the basket. "I'm running out of ideas. I don't know what else there is to clean. Maybe the roof? Do human houses need those cleaned? I haven't cleaned that yet."
"Dude, I think maybe you should stop trying to clean everything and relax," Gus suggested. He sounded worried, and Hunter didn't like that.
"I'm fine!" he insisted, feeling annoyed. He was fine. He was working, and he was really good at working. "I don't need to relax."
"Everybody needs to relax."
"Not me," Hunter huffed. He pushed the basket out of the way and stood up to open the washer. "I've trained my whole life so that I don't need to relax. Ever."
"That's pretty messed up."
"I'm not saying you have to!" Hunter insisted. He was very fine with the rest of them taking it easy. So much had happened, to all of them, so much that they didn't deserve… "I'm just saying, I'm built different!"
"Literally, maybe," Gus mumbled.
Hunter froze, dropping the wet shirt he'd been holding as his hands flinched. "What was that?"
"I mean maybe you've just been taught different!" Gus said quickly. Hunter felt the hairs on his arms raising still. That had been terribly on the nose. Was that really what he'd meant…?
"Haha, maybe," he laughed nervously, voice rising in pitch. "But that's all I know, so."
He didn't look back at Gus. He didn't want to know what expression he was wearing. He was terrified of what it might tell him.
"Okay," his friend said eventually, voice small. Hunter didn't know what that meant either. He didn't know if he'd said something wrong again, he didn't know why Gus was on his case, he didn't know what was wrong with him doing chores when he knew he wasn't doing enough chores.
Why couldn't everything just be easy for once!
Fine. If he still wasn't trying hard enough…
"Dios mío, what are you doing?"
Hunter snapped up straight and pulled the ax sharply against his chest. That had not been pride in Mrs. Noceda's voice. He turned slowly, shrinking into himself nervously. Her mouth was open where she stood on the sidewalk twenty paces away, staring at him.
He swallowed thickly and looked down at the pile of wood he'd made. Then he looked at the stumps now surrounding the treeline of the backyard. Then he looked at the tree he'd just fell. Then he looked back at her.
"Chopping firewood?" he said. He'd phrased it as a question. Why did he do that? He knew what he was doing. He just didn't know if that was the right answer to hers. Based on her expression and her tone, it was not. "It… it's only a few months until winter," he added lamely.
"Mijo, this is too much!" she cried, and then crossed the yard at a brisk, sharp pace toward him, a deep frown on her features. Hunter tightened his hands on the ax handle into a death grip as she approached. She stepped on a branch and it snapped in two beneath her boot and the sound was enough to send him tumbling to the ground, dropping the ax as he landed on one knee and bowed his head so low it touched the grass.
"I'm sorry!" he burst in a blind panic. "Please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I was only trying to help, please, I'm sorry, I can do better! I promise I'll do better!"
He could feel his arms shaking where they held his weight and he hated them for their treachery. He'd only been at it for a few hours and they were already giving out on him. He'd been getting soft since he left the coven. He wasn't training every day. He was getting weaker and more useless and he couldn't even make up for it with magic–
"Please," he gasped, beginning to breathe rapidly, "Please, I'm sorry!"
He didn't know if he was being spoken to. All he could hear was the rushing of blood– was it even blood? – in his ears, the drum beat of his heart– was it even a heart? –in his head. His whole body shook with tension as he braced for the strike he knew was coming, because it was always coming. He'd failed, again, like he always did, because he couldn't figure out what he was supposed to do, when clearly everyone else could, when everyone else was doing everything right, but fuck-up half-a-witch Hunter just couldn't figure it out and he'd made another mistake he needed to be punished for–
"Hush, chiquito, you're alright, you're okay," a quiet voice whispered rapidly somewhere in the distance. He felt fabric against his face and buried himself in it, covering his head with his arms as he waited for it to come. It was coming. It was always coming and it was going to hurt, and he was supposed to be good with pain but it always hurt–
"I'm sorry, Uncle, I'm sorry," he choked out between frantic breaths, "Please, please, don't hurt me, I can do it right this time, I promise!"
"Estás bien, nene, he isn't here, you're alright," the voice continued. "No one is going to hurt you. Not here. I promise. I won't let anyone hurt you."
"I'm sorry," he warbled pathetically. He didn't know why it hadn't come yet. He couldn't bear waiting. The panic just built up in his chest the longer he made him wait, but he knew it was coming, because it was always coming–
"You didn't do anything wrong." A hand pet his back in slow, soothing movements, even as he began shaking like the fallen leaves around him. "It's alright. You're alright. You're right here with me and no one is going to hurt you."
He trembled in silence, throat too closed to squeeze any more words out. It felt like every muscle in his body had gone rigid, turned to frosty stone and locked up in place. He felt like he could hear his bones rattling in his otherwise empty shell.
"Hunter, mijo, you're okay," Mrs. Noceda hushed in soft, comforting whispers.
She'd pulled her jacket around him and blocked out the setting sunlight, casting him in cool darkness where no one could look at him and see how weak and frightened he was. His breath began to slow, finally, as he remembered he was supposed to be counting.
"You don't have to do these things, baby," she went on, while he counted back and forth, one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four. "You don't have to earn anything. You haven't done anything wrong."
"I'm bad," he finally managed to whimper, and he hated the sound of his voice, pitiful and childish and weak and small, "I'm bad and I'm sorry."
"You're not bad," she dismissed immediately. "That pinche pendejo Belos is bad. You're just a little boy."
"I'm sixteen," he argued weakly, "I'm not a kid anymore. I'm grown up."
"Sixteen is still little," she hushed him. "You're not a grown up yet."
"I'm supposed to be," he sniffled, "I'm supposed to know what to do."
Camila pulled him into a proper hug and he buried himself in it, touch-starved and panicked, terrified he was going to wake up on the throne room floor with a concussion, and everything was a dream and everything was just going to keep going again.
"You don't have to do anything, Hunter," she soothed. Her voice was soft like his uncle's had never been. Gentle and sweet, and her touch the same. He wasn't used to being touched with anything other than fists. It made him frightened and giddy at the same time, wanting both to live in it and to scramble away from it. "You don't owe anyone anything. You don't have to know what to do."
"I'm sorry," he hiccupped, because he literally didn't know what else to say, "I'm sorry."
"It's okay," she repeated, like it wasn't exhausting and irritating to deal with him. "We can stay right here until you feel better, alright?"
He nodded mutely, still sniffling, as fingers threaded gently through his hair, coaxing him away from thoughts of throne rooms and raised voices, and back to the quiet wind of an autumn night and a mother's soft voice.