The one where the author deals with their recent and unexpected epilepsy diagnosis by projecting it onto a new blorbo

by Polyhexian

Summary:

"What's a seizure?" he asked.

"It's like–" She visibly fumbled for words. "Like you pass out and start shaking!"

"Oh," he replied. He remembered he'd been reading a book and looked around for it. "Yeah. That happens sometimes."

"That happens sometimes?!" she repeated incredulously.

Chapter 1

Hunter flipped to the next page of his book absently. He'd really wanted to read The Good Witch Azura for Luz and Amity's sake, but he really couldn't fathom what it was that they found so interesting about it. The characters seemed a little flat, Hecate struck him as bland, and he thought Azura was not nearly as good and kind a witch as she purported to be. Luz perhaps was, she was determined and stubborn to the point it was comical, a terminal optimist, but Azura? Meh.

The basilisk was cool, though. It wasn't a real basilisk, not like Vee, just a big snake that could turn people to stone, but it was still cool. He'd seen a lot of creatures, but he didn't think he'd ever seen a snake big enough to ride before. That was a fun thought. He wondered if wolves would be big enough to ride if they were real. Now that was a fun idea. Maybe Luz would draw it for him.

He woke up on the floor with his head spinning and thoughts a thick slurry that slid through his fingers as he grasped at words and didn't quite catch them. 

"Hunter, oh my god, Hunter, are you awake? Can you hear me?!" 

"Eh," he choked out. He frowned and then tried again. "Yeah." He coughed and tried to sit up, but his head was still spinning. "'M not deaf."

"What just happened?!" Gus exclaimed across the room. Ugh. Everyone needed to stop yelling. 

He tried sitting up again and this time the world stayed mostly still as he did. He shook his head a few times, trying to clear away the lingering dizziness. "Ugh," he grumbled. "What's going on?"

"You had– I don't know, you had a seizure or something!" Luz cried. She sounded panicked for some reason. He glanced around the room, but there weren't any dragons or evil emperors encroaching. Just Mrs. Noceda's peaceful living room. 

"What's a seizure?" he asked.

"It's like–" She visibly fumbled for words. "Like you pass out and start shaking!"

"Oh," he replied. He remembered he'd been reading a book and looked around for it. "Yeah. That happens sometimes."

"That happens sometimes?!" she repeated incredulously.

"Could you stop yelling?" he groused. He found his book on the floor a few paces away and frowned. It had flopped shut, and he'd lost his place. Great. 

"I'm sorry," she said, lowering her voice but not enough, "But seriously, what do you mean it just happens sometimes?"

"I mean it just happens sometimes," he groaned. He put a hand on the couch cushions beside him and pushed himself to his feet. "It's like, a curse thing."

"Hey! Don't stand up!" Luz gasped.

"I'm fine," he dismissed. "You're overreacting."

"You're under-reacting!" she warbled, hands in the air.

"What curse thing?" Willow prompted from the doorway. "What are you talking about?"

"Uncle Belos has a curse–" he stopped and tilted his head sideways. "Huh. Now that I think about it, maybe it's not a curse after all. Maybe it's just a side effect of all the palismens he's drained." He shook his head. "Either way, it's in my bloodline." He gave Luz a pointed look. "And, I mean, you know. Bloodline, and all." He wondered with a churning stomach if maybe it was a grimwalker thing after all.

"What in titan's name are you talking about?" Willow fret. "That doesn't even make sense! That's not how curses or– or magic destabilization work at all!"

He shrugged and continued into the kitchen, turning on one of the stove burners before he opened the silverware drawer. "It's probably just something you've never heard of before. Belos was paranoid and secretive, he never would have let anyone write anything about it, even if he ever let anyone know in the first place. I wasn't allowed to tell anyone."

"How long has this been happening?" Gus prompted.

"Uh, couple of years, I guess," Hunter replied, looking away in thought as he selected a butter knife from the drawer and held it over the burner. "The shaking part only started when I was thirteen, but Unc– ugh, Belos, said I started with just freezing at seven and passing out around ten."

"What?" Luz burst. "I'm calling my mom."

"Isn't she at work?" Hunter asked, watching the knife begin to glow.

"She's gonna wanna come home for this!"

"You're all being ridiculous," Hunter groaned, rolling his eyes. "This isn't a big deal. You guys really need to calm down." He pulled back his left sleeve with his teeth, held his wrist out, and then laid the red-hot flat of the knife against his skin.

The room erupted into chaos, and by the end of it the burner was off, Luz was holding the knife in a death grip, and Hunter had been pinned to the floor by what had to be like, a hundred vines. Amity had arrived during the scuffle and immediately begun frantically pacing while Luz continued to gesticulate wildly, ranting in a manic frenzy.

"Titan's bloody fist," he grumbled from the floor, wriggling against his bindings, "What is wrong with you guys today!"

"Why the hell did you just do that?!" Luz shrieked. She sounded hysterical. 

"Oh man," Gus mumbled, "Oh, man. Ohhhh, man. Somebody really needs to call Luz's mom."

"I can do it!" Amity burst, leaping from her pacing like she'd waken from a nightmare. She sprinted across the room to find a scroll. 

"Hunter!" Willow sniffled, and he startled as he turned his head upside down to peer back at her, realizing that he'd made her cry, "Why would you do that?"

"I have a curse," he groaned. He didn't understand what part of that was not coming across. "My blood is bad. You have to boil some of it to clean out the toxins and everything."

"That's so wrong," Gus said, sounding somewhat ill.

"I'm so glad Vee is at school for me today," Luz wheezed, "If I had to find out about this when I came home I think I would explode."

"Can I please get up now?" Hunter asked.

"No!" all four of them yelled at him. He pouted in frustration and dropped his head back down onto the carpet. 

"It's so red," Willow said under her breath, voice shaky as she knelt down beside him.  The vine pinning his left hand to the ground released it so that she could cradle his wrist in her fingers with a delicacy that wasn't at all necessary. "Hunter, doesn't that hurt?"

"Well, duh." He immediately felt bad at her hurt expression and dropped his voice. "Sorry. Yeah, it hurts, but it's not that bad. I've done it a hundred times now, I'm used to it."

"What?" she gasped. Her eyes flicked back down to his wrist, and she opened her mouth like she was going to ask him something, then closed it as if having decided against doing so. She pulled up his sleeve to his elbow to reveal nine years of burn marks at various stages of healing.

"Holy crow," Luz gasped.

"That is so not right," Gus balked.

"Have you ever seen a healer in your life?!" Amity yelled from the doorway, having apparently found a scroll and returned. 

"No," Hunter replied, raising an eyebrow.

"What?!" cried four voices. They were getting good at that.

"I'm the emperor's nephew," he said slowly, because it should be obvious, "Letting anyone get access to me or my blood could be dangerous. It could be used against him. I wasn't allowed. Belos never let the healers near him either."

"You're insane," Luz burst, "Guys. Guys, I think he's insane. He hit his head on the floor and he's completely lost his mind."

"Camila wants to speak to you," Amity said with an uncharacteristic nervousness. 

"What for?" Hunter asked. The whole room groaned in unison. They were getting really good at that.

"Uhhh," Amity said, handing him the scroll, "I think she's coming home early."

"What?" he fret. He took the scroll and held it to his ear. "Mrs. Noceda, you don't have to come home, everyone is overreacting and–"

"Mijo!" she cried, sounding shorter than he'd ever heard her. He snapped his mouth shut. "Do not with me right now!"

"Oh," he said awkwardly, "Uh."

"I want you to go lie down– on a bed, not a couch– and tell one of those kids to bring you some water. Drink it. Don't do anything. Don't go anywhere. Don't get up, and dios mío, do not hurt yourself!"

"I was just boiling my blood, ma'am," he said, feeling unbelievably cowed– but, somehow, not the same way he did when his uncle yelled at him, "That's what you're supposed to do."

She rattled off what he thought might have been a full paragraph of Spanish. He didn't know a single word she said, but strongly suspected that a lot of them were swear words. 

"Go to bed," she said finally, "I'm bringing you home some levetiracetam. Thank your lucky stars that dogs and people use the same kind of anticonvulsants."

"Uh," he said, because he had no idea what any of that meant, "Alright."

"Give the phone back to Amity."

He held the phone back out to his friend. "She said I had to go to bed and drink water. I think she's bringing me dog medicine."

"Bed time it is!" Willow announced. She drew a spell circle with her finger and the plant trap he was in hefted him into the air and began skittering toward the stairs.

"I'll get some water," said Gus, hopping down from his chair.

"I think it lasted, like, a minute?" Amity said into the scroll, "But I wasn't in the room at the time. Do you want to talk to Luz? She actually saw it."

"This is super weird for me," Hunter mumbled.

"Yeah, Hunter, it is super weird!" Willow chastised him. "It's super duper weird! It's weird that you don't think it's weird!"

"Uh," he said for the hundredth time, "I guess. I guess it's weird, then."

"Damn right it is," she said primly, using one of the human swears Mrs. Noceda had told them not to say. 

Hunter had no idea what was going on, but apparently he had to drink water and take dog medicine now. He wasn't looking forward to the lecture he was expecting to get when Luz's mother got home, but he expected it would be exasperated, mostly Spanish, and end in a hug. She was big on hugs. 

Dog medicine aside, he was pretty big on hugs, so it was probably going to be fine.

Chapter 2

Notes:

Lmao this was just supposed to be a one shot, but... When more than one person asks me to keep going, how can I possibly resist? The siren song of praise is to great.
Anyway yeah I suppose that yes, I had... Yeah my birthday was a few months ago and I had a grand mal seizure which was... A bit of a surprise, but I was weirdly cool about it. My roommate was crying on the phone with 911 while I was like "I don't need an ambulance, I can drive myself" and "I guess if I'm going to the emergency room I should go get dressed." In the last three years I had two other incidents I was sure we're strange and saw a doctor about, but since no one was there to see it, I wasn't quite sure what had happened. Still don't really! Did I convulse? I can't really know. I'd started a new medication before the first incident, so the whole time I was getting bopped around between doctors and psychiatrists and neurologists I thought... Well, once I get off this medication I'll be fine!
And like two weeks ago I found out, um, no. Nothing to do with the medication actually. Apparently I've had undiagnosed and untreated epilepsy for twenty years, and the temporal lobe damage to prove it. It was pretty unexpected and... A lot bigger if a deal than I was anticipating. I have a big fancy test I have to do next month, five days in the hospital with electrodes on my head. Until then, I really... Don't want to dwell on it, I don't know everything yet so there's no good in stressing. Despite that I've been crazy stressed lol, I've been staying distracted by latching into a new blorbo to obsess over. A friend said "why don't you do what you always do? Project your problems onto a blorbo to deal with from a safe distance!" So I figured I would do that. And, yeah, it really helped lol
Also, like.
>Googles puritanical ideas of medicine
>...
>I can't include this. No one will believe me

Camila was not equipped for this.

She wasn't a doctor. She was a vet. These were kids. Maybe not human kids, but they definitely weren't cats or dogs. What could she do, though? They'd already talked about bile sacs, they did magic and had pointy little ears. Any doctor she brought him to would immediately realize he wasn't human, and that very well might put them all in even more immediate danger. She wanted to keep them safe.

He probably needed to see a doctor in his own world, but he clearly hadn't by now, and who knew when he might get the chance again? She desperately wanted those kids to get back home to their families, but she was already steeling herself for the possibility this could become a permanent arrangement. She wasn't going to abandon them, as daunting as the idea of housing and feeding six children was, she was never going to turn one of them out now that she had them. 

Not that Hunter even had a family to go back to. As she understood it, he only had his uncle, and the man was a form of evil she could barely wrap her head around, and also: dead. 

Maybe demon realm doctors wouldn't even be able to help him. He'd lived there his entire life and apparently he'd been treating his seizures by burning himself.

She rubbed her temples as she parked and grabbed the bag of generic brand Keppra from the passenger seat she'd brought home from the clinic. She thanked God that she had access to that kind of thing, that it was the same medication, and that no one had been around to watch her fudge through the paperwork to excuse its absence. 

Three children were already babbling in a panic when she opened the front door of her home. 

"Mrs. Noceda!" Willow exclaimed, "He's got so many burns and I don't know what to do!"

"You should have seen him," Gus worried, "He was thrashing around and I thought he was going to hit his head, and–"

"He's being crazy!" Amity burst, "He keeps saying it's normal and it's not, it's absolutely not!"

"Hush, kids," she tried to soothe them, putting on the most reassuring smile she could muster. "It's going to be alright. I need to talk to him though. He's not alone, is he?"

"Luz is watching him," Amity answered. 

"Good," she sighed in relief. "Which bedroom did you put him in?"

"Luz said to put him in your room," Willow said shyly. "She said your bed was bigger."

"Good choice," Camila confirmed, heading for the stairs. "Did he drink any water?"

"I made him drink two whole glasses," Gus piped up behind her. 

"Good job, mijo." She double checked the bag she'd brought again anxiously. Could he even take these? They didn't have any trouble eating human food, at least not so far, but Luz said there was a lot of food in their world she hadn't been able to eat. They'd already been introduced to ibuprofen without anyone telling her, and fortunately it seemed to work the same as it did on humans for them, but ibuprofen and keppra were very different beasts. 

"Hunter?" Camila inquired, peering into her bedroom. 

"Mamá!" Luz exclaimed, leaping to her feet. "You're home!"

"I'm sorry you had to leave work, ma'am," Hunter apologized, sitting up in bed with his legs and arms crossed. He looked somewhat humiliated, face flushed red and eyes cast away. Two empty glasses and one full one rested on the nightstand.

"Don't be sorry at all," she dismissed, "This is an emergency. This is exactly the thing you leave work early for."

"It's not an emergency!" he said in a strained, exasperated voice. "I told them, this happens all the time! It's okay!"

"It is not okay, mijo," she said firmly, "Seizures are very serious. Your tio sin valor is a liar." 

He shrugged vaguely and she grimaced, kneading the paper bag between her fingers, before she crossed the room to set the bag and her purse on the nightstand. She withdrew her notebook and a pen and sat down on the edge of the mattress. 

"Listen, chiquito, I want to ask you some questions before I give you anything. You kids look a lot like humans, but you aren't, I know that. I want you to start by telling me anything about your body that you think might be different from a human's. Can you do that?"

"We have bile sacs!" Gus cried from the doorway. "That's where magic comes from! It's an organ and we make it inside us!"

"We're born with all our teeth," Amity added helpfully, "Luz said human teeth fall out and grow back sometimes."

"We can digest rocks," Willow suggested, "I think we have way tougher stomachs than humans. Oh! We have stomachs, just like humans do!"

"Hunter, uh," Luz stammered, "He, uh–"

"Luz," Hunter snapped, balling his hands into fists. Camila watched his eyes dart to the other three in the doorway and her daughter's eyes follow them. She knew something about him that the others didn't. Something he didn't want to say around them.

"Alright, I need all kids who did not have a seizure to go downstairs," she announced, "We've embarrassed Hunter enough today and I can handle it from here."

"We can help, though!" Gus insisted.

"No, uh," Luz said nervously, "Mamá is right, we should– we should probably give him some space. How about– how about we go work on making dinner for tonight! So mom doesn't have to worry about it?"

Her daughter was so smart. Perceptive as hell when she was paying attention. Quick witted and always thinking. She was proud of her. "Good idea, mija, that would be so helpful!"

"I'll make some vegetables!" Willow exclaimed, and bolted for the stairs. It didn't take long before the other two followed, and with no more than a lingering gaze, Luz went with them, shutting the door behind her. Camila waited a moment before she turned back to the oldest child she was sheltering in her home.

"Now," she began again, "What is it you don't want them to know?"

He jerked up ramrod straight with a slight look of panic. "I– uh– it's not that I–"

"I won't judge you," she assured him gently, "And I promise not to tell them your secrets. Those are yours and I won't take them from you."

He fidgeted uncomfortably, unable to meet her eyes. "It's… it's just that…"

"You don't have to be embarrassed about anything, mijo," she tried again. "I've seen a lot more than you'd think. And no matter what you say, I know you're a good, caring boy who deserves to have his body be safe and healthy."

He fisted his hands in his lap and stared down at them, gaze locking in place. Cold pinpricks ran up her spine. She recognized that distant stare from animals she'd worked with, ones who'd truly been through Hell.

"You see, ma'am," he said finally in a choked, quiet voice, formality returning as his more childish and open tone drained away, "I'm not… real."

Camila wasn't sure what that meant, but she had a gut feeling it wasn't true. "Why do you say that?"

"I'm not a witch, ma'am," he whispered, gaze still frozen, unblinking. "I'm a different thing."

She frowned. "Are you human?"

He shook his head. Then he nodded. Then he groaned.

"I don't… I'm…" He looked truly miserable about it. She wondered what had been done to him and by whom that it had resulted in what she was seeing now, this frightened and traumatized teenager with an identity crisis in her bedroom. "I'm a thing, ma'am. A thing called a Grimwalker."

"You're a person," she said first, "No matter what else you are. Alright?"

He didn't answer.

"What is a grimwalker?" she tried instead.

"I'm a copy, ma'am. Of a person that died a long time ago. I'm made of wood and magic, and– and I don't really know what else. I'm not wood anymore, I don't think, I can bleed. But I don't know how much of me is… real."

That was… an answer.

"He was a human," Hunter added uncomfortably. "The man I'm a copy of. I don't think I'm a human, not all the way, but I think I'm closer to a human than a witch. Body wise, I mean. I don't think I have a bile sac."

She wondered how long he'd held this secret. She wondered what made him so frightened that his friends might find out. She tried not to wonder anything else, because if she did she wasn't going to be able to get out of her own head, and he needed her here right now.

"Alright," she said slowly. "Thank you for telling me, Hunter."

"Please don't tell them," he pleaded hoarsely. "Luz– Luz knows. But please don't tell the others. They'll hate me if they find out."

"I sincerely doubt that, mijo," she said as gently as she could. "Your friends are very protective of you."

He fidgeted again. 

"Alright," she decided, "I think that you should take this, then."

"Do you really think it's safe?" he asked. "I'm still… different."

"I think so, but… I don't know for certain," she admitted. He was old enough and mature enough he deserved honesty here. "And you can say no, mijo. You have the right to say no."

"I don't want to take anything," he mumbled, "It's not a big deal."

"Every time you have a seizure," Camila explained, "Your brain isn't getting any oxygen. And when your brain isn't getting any oxygen, parts of it start to die. Years and years of seizures without any treatment… part of your brain could be hurt, mijo, and once it's damaged, we can't fix it. You don't ever get it back."

He looked up at her, eyes wide with childish anxiety. "Are you saying I have brain damage?"

"I'm saying you might," Camila said carefully. "I'm also saying that it's likely you will get brain damage if you keep having seizures." She reached for his left arm, eying the fresh bandages on his wrist. "I'm also saying that there's no such thing as bad blood. Burning yourself like this doesn't help you. Not even a little bit. It only hurts you."

He looked alarmed. "It doesn't?"

She shook her head. 

"...And if I take it," he asked slowly, "I'll stop having seizures?"

"You should," she replied, "I hope so."

"...Do you think I should, Mrs. Noceda?" Hunter asked. He looked so small and frightened. "If Luz were me right now, would you give it to her?"

"Yes," she answered confidently. "Absolutely."

"...I'll take it, then," he agreed quietly. She opened the bag and withdrew a bottle of 500mg pills.

"You'll need to take this every twelve hours," she instructed as she handed it to him. "You get into the habit of it. It's not so hard."

"I'm good with habits," he mumbled. He almost popped it into his mouth dry before she waved frantically for him to stop.

"With water, mijo."

"I don't need it," he said weakly. 

"You need it more than you think," Camila warned him, "Take your pills with water. If you keep swallowing them dry, you can burn a hole in your esophagus. It's very bad for you to do over and over again."

"Oh," he said morosely. He picked up the glass of water and this time, used it.

"Do you ever have more than one seizure in a day?" she asked. He shook his head. "Do you ever get any funny feelings before it happens? Maybe your stomach hurts, or it feels like something has happened before, or you see or hear anything that isn't there?"

"No," he replied, wiping his mouth and putting the glass down, "It just happens."

"How often do they happen?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, "I only even really know I had one if someone else sees. It doesn't really feel like anything even happened to me. Sometimes I feel… weird, after, but sometimes I just feel fine."

She would have to do some reading. She suspected that she wouldn't be sleeping that evening. 

"Hunter," Camila prompted finally, "What else did your uncle tell you that you should be doing for your health?"

"I fast on weekends," he admitted, in a way that suggested he didn't think he was supposed to tell her such things, "That means I don't eat."

"You're not doing that anymore," she said without even processing it, "There's no good reason to do that. No wonder you're so thin."

"Uncle said it was good for the soul," he mumbled, "Fasting is the only way to purify the body of toxins and please the Titan." He paused. "I guess he didn't really know what the Titan wanted, though."

"There's no such thing as vague toxins in your blood that you need to purge," she fret. "Two days without eating? Every week? You're a growing boy, mijo. That's very bad for you."

"I see," he mumbled vaguely. 

"Food is fuel for your body," she said carefully, "Like a fire. If it runs out of fuel to burn, it will either start burning what is around it, or it will go out."

That seemed to click. He grimaced and drew his knees up to his chest. "Uncle used to talk about, um, something called sympathies. Like cures like, he would say. To treat a wound, you also had to treat the weapon that made it. He was always careful to collect any blood he spilled and do stuff to it. He said that you were always linked to your body, even when it was separated from you. That's why I didn't see healers. He didn't want them getting any of my blood and separating me from it. I had to use rags to try and clean up as much as I could without washing anything and then had to keep them until it healed, and then I had to burn them." He looked a little sick suddenly. "He had this idea… life gives life, and all, that's why he… killed palismens. Their life for his."

He tightened his arms around his knees, but could tell that wasn't all. "Thank you for telling me," she said cautiously, "I can tell you already know he was wrong."

"I know," he mumbled, "I always knew it was… off. He was right about palismens, but…" He shivered. "Witches, too, ma'am. He told me once that the energy that was left in the body of someone who'd died violently was very powerful, that it could be used to cure you if you were sick. He didn't specify, ma'am, not exactly, but he said something about grinding bone meal. I didn't tell him when I was sick. I never did that."

Camila had seen a lot of things. She'd had to stomach a lot. Working with animals meant you needed to be prepared to kill them. It was the reality of such work. There were times when you could not help them, when the kindest thing left you could do was offer the mercy of a quick end. Such things came easily to no one of her disposition. It had taken a great amount of strength to learn to handle things she had once believed she could not. 

And despite that, she thought for a moment that she might puke at the thought. She scribbled down a quick note to read up on puritanical ideas of medicine when she could. What sick ideas had that maniac put in this boy's head? Had he really tried to thrust cannibalism upon him in addition to everything else? 

"I didn't do that," Hunter repeated again uselessly, "It wasn't right. I knew it wasn't."

Something clicked. "Even if you did, mijo, you are still a good boy. You aren't bad because you did something an adult told you to. That's on him for failing you, not the other way around."

He seemed to relax, but silently. She wondered if he was just worried she thought he was lying, or if he really was lying. She hoped for the former and prepared for the latter.

"Doctors in our world have come up with a lot of medicine," she explained, "We know a lot about things that Belos did not when he left this world. No more burning yourself, mijo, you on ly risk an infection with that, you only cause yourself pain. This–" She gently took his wrist in her hand and he let her turn it over, the scars beneath the fabric of his sweater and the fresh bandages, unseen and unspoken. "–Is not good for your body, your brain, or your heart."

"Okay," he said, staring downward. "I don't want to do it, ma'am. I thought I was doing good. I thought it was helping."

"And for that, I would never fault you," she said gently. "All you can do is your best; no more."

"Okay," he whispered.

"So, we're going to start taking these every twelve hours, with water," she reminded him, shifting his focus. He'd done enough for now and he was too close to the edge to push any further. It was time to back off. "I'll set an alarm for you. Do you think you can do that for me?"

He nodded mutely. 

"And if it happens again, please come tell me," she asked, "Even if I'm asleep. Even if I'm at work. I want to know right away, no matter what."

He nodded. 

"Thank you."

"I guess I'm glad I don't have to burn myself anymore," he said hesitantly, as if worried he shouldn't say it. Her heart swelled that he had put it to words anyway. "It hurt. It always hurt." He pushed his face into his knees. "And it's embarrassing. I don't want people to think that…" He trailed off, eyes distant, before refocusing. "Belos said not to let anyone see, anyway. Wear gloves and long sleeves, even in summer."

"Okay," she said slowly as she took all of that in. "Well, I'm glad that you weren't doing it to–" She paused. He hadn't put it into words, and maybe she shouldn't either. He was already stressed. Worst case scenario was triggering another seizure. "I'm glad you were just trying to take care of yourself. Even if you did it for– other reasons," she said carefully, "That would be okay. It doesn't mean anything is wrong with you. It doesn't mean I'd think any less of you. It doesn't mean you're weak." He looked a little thoughtful and her heart hurt. He was a little too relieved by that. She rubbed a thumb across his palm in a way she hoped was soothing. "And it doesn't mean you should be ashamed of it. Long sleeve shirt rule is gone now. You can wear whatever you want, and you don't have to explain yourself to anyone. If someone asks, and you don't want to answer, all you have to say is 'I would prefer not to talk about it.' And if they don't accept that answer, you come get me, and let me tell them that you prefer not to talk about it. "

"Everyone freaked out when they saw it, though," he said nervously. "I don't want to…"

"It's your body," she said firmly, "Not theirs. You get to decide what you do with it. They 'freaked out' because they care about you, and they were scared for you. But you only have to tell people as much as you want to. Would you like me to talk to them about it for you?"

He looked surprised by the offer, and then very thoughtful. She was glad he was actually thinking about it, and not just responding instinctively. 

"...No," he said finally, "I want to do it."

"Okay. Remember: you don't have to say anymore than you're comfortable saying. If you feel uncomfortable, tell them you need a break, or you've shared as much as you want to for now. Your friends care a lot about you, and they don't want to make you do anything you don't want to or aren't ready for."

He nodded mutely. 

"Okay, talk over," she said, and watched the tension leave his shoulders. "I'd really like you to take it easy today, and I don't want you to be alone. Is that alright?"

He nodded, still silent.

"You don't have to stay here, but you can also sleep in my room tonight if you want," she offered, "I don't mind staying on the couch."

"No, no!" he burst. "I don't need that. I'm fine. Please don't do that on my account."

This poor boy has really been through hell, hadn't he? Camila felt lost. She didn't know how to help him, not with the obvious PTSD, not with the apparent epilepsy, not with the world he was missing or the childhood he'd lost. 

When Luz had been little, Camila had taken her to church, but the other kids her age hadn't been kind. They'd called her strange, said she believed weird things and they didn't like her. If her daughter wasn't welcome, though, Camila had no desire to be a part of that community, and when she'd stopped going, she hadn't found another. She may not have gone back to church, but she still believed in God, and she had to hope, within the deepest place in her heart, that the reason this little boy was in her home right now, the reason it was her doorstep he had ended up on, was because God sent him to her. That He knew she was what he needed, that she did have it in her to do. She would be praying for a long time that night.

"For now, if you're okay staying in here until later tonight, I know a movie I think you would love to watch. All you kids can hang out in here and watch it."

"What movie?" he asked. He sounded genuinely intrigued. A good sign.

"It's called Balto, " she smiled, "It's about a half-wolf."

"A half wolf!" Hunter gasped. "Half wolf and half what?" He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Human??"

She laughed. "Half dog. But if you want to see half-human half-wolves… why don't you ask Luz to tell you about werewolves?"

His eyes sparkled, life returning to them as his timidness and hesitancy slipped away like water beneath his genuine wonder for the world. Anyone who had contributed to stifling this bright little soul was monstrous indeed. 

She shut her notebook and slid it back into her purse. "It's decided then. Dinner, Balto, and then bedtime. I'll make sure and remind you to take your medicine later."

He nodded with a growing smile, and she stood up to go let the other kids fight over which one got to come and sit with him first.

Chapter 3

Notes:

Truly can't help myself

"Why are you looking at me like that, Golden Guard?" asked the bobbing head of a red cardinal on the windowsill of his castle bedroom. "Don't you want to be free?"

"I want to go home," Hunter said, looking around. The walls shifted and changed, gravity slipping through his fingers like smoke. "Didn't… this isn't right."

"You are home, though," the little bird tweeted, "Unfortunately."

"I don't remember…" He turned on a heel and stepped on something. Spinning about he saw green wisps and stumbled away in alarm. 

On the floor were the crushed remains of a cardinal palismen.

"What?!" he gasped, snapping his head up. The windowsill was empty. "What?! No, I didn't–"

He woke up shaking, vision blurry and swimming. It took him longer than he wished it did to remember which direction was up and which was down, and he felt so cold and wet that he was trembling and the willpower it took to kick off his sleeping bag was almost more than he thought he had in him. 

He spared a glance back down at where he'd just been laying, the blurry silhouette of it's prior occupant visible in the damp shape that remained. 

"Freaking night sweats," he mumbled, pushing himself to his feet with his arms wrapped tight around his chest. He ignored the fact that Gus was not on the couch and that sunlight was streaming in from the window before he stumbled into the bathroom, cranked the shower temperature up as high as it would go, and sat down on the floor to let it run over his skin until he finally stopped shaking. 

He wondered what time it was. The sun was up. Gus was up. 

He stared at the tile floor of the basement shower blankly, trying to ignore the roiling nausea at the bottom of his belly. Eventually he sighed and turned the water off.

"Whoa," said Amity the second he opened the basement door, "You look terrible."

"Thanks," Hunter said dryly, tugging his shirt down, "I just took a shower."

"Another one?" asked Willow. "You took one last night, too."

"Yep," he replied, popping the end of the word with a dour expression. He stumbled into the kitchen and opened the cabinet doors, looking in at boxes of cereal. His stomach churned again and he shut them, peering at the clock on the stove.

11:36.

"Did you just wake up?" Willow pried further. "You never sleep this late."

"Not 'till now," he mumbled, opening the fridge to find a soda. He retrieved his spoils and retreated to the couch to grab a fleece throw and bury himself in it. 

"Are you okay?" Willow continued to fret. 

Hunter grunted something vague and noncommittal in response. He opened his soda.

Amity and Willow exchanged a look, but didn't comment further. Hunter was just fine with that. He was already frustrated enough, he didn't particularly feel like deflecting their very much shared concerns right now.

 

---

 

Hunter leaned back against the wall of the shower beneath the hot water, waiting for his body temperature to rise enough that he would stop shaking. He hated this. 

He held up his left arm beneath the spray and stared at it. It was covered in burn marks that glistened under the water, red welts that bubbled and stretched. He willed himself to find them ugly. To regret having made them.

He couldn't.

He ran his fingertips across the marks, memorizing the texture for the millionth time. He was fairly certain he was supposed to feel ashamed of them, not a sickly sense of smug pride. For that, guilt churned in his gut.

But not shame. Shame, he could not find.

 

---

 

His hands were wrapped around the intricate latticework of the beating clockwork heart that hung in the Emperor's throne room, hanging on for dear life as his feet dangled below over an endless chasm of darkness. His hands were starting to sweat and he wished he had his gloves. Where were his gloves?

"You could just let go," a familiar voice suggested. He snapped his head up toward it to see an uncomfortably familiar face staring back at him where his Ortet sat cross legged on top of the ornament and tilted his head sideways at him. "No one would blame you."

"I would!" Hunter insisted. He started to slip and frantically adjusted his grip. "I'm not ready to die yet!"

"But you're already dead," Caleb said mildly. "You're me, and I'm dead."

"I'm not you," Hunter choked. "I don't even know you."

He fumbled to keep his hold, fingers feeling slippery against the copper. He could feel his galdorstone heart thumping behind his ribs. 

"Honestly, Hunter?" Caleb sighed, grabbing onto the latticework himself so that he could lower himself down. "Nobody knows you, either."

He slammed his boot onto Hunter's death-gripped hands on the heart, and with a cry of pain, he let go.

"Hunter?" called a distant voice. Groggily, Hunter peered up at the familiar face.

"Wlow?" he mumbled blearily. 

"That was almost my name," she replied, but she looked too worried for the joke to feel funny. Hunter coughed and sat up, rubbing his eyes.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"It's seven PM," she said nervously, "You fell asleep on the couch."

"Did I?" He glanced down at his body where he'd buried himself in a blanket after dinner. Great; it was all sweaty, too. He'd need to wash it now.

"I've never seen you sleep this much," Willow continued. "Are you feeling alright?"

"Maybe," he said warily. "I dunno. I've felt really off lately. I have been sleeping a lot. And I keep having weird dreams."

"Weird dreams?" his friend prompted.

"It feels wrong to call them nightmares," he admitted. "They're stressful. And weird. And vivid. And I have been having a lot of them."

"That sounds super not-good, Hunter."

"Maybe I've been drinking too much soda," he admitted, glancing at the stack of cans growing beside him on the side table. 

"You do drink a lot."

"I'll try cutting back," he resolved, mourning them already, "Drink more water. Hopefully that helps."

"Hopefully," Willow agreed, but she didn't sound any less worried about him.

 

---

 

"Hunter?" 

Hunter shook his head and blinked, looking up. "What?" 

Gus frowned. "You spaced out on me, man."

"Did I?" Hunter mumbled. He looked back down at the sewing machine and realized he'd mindlessly run stitches across the whole front of the shirt because he wasn't paying attention. He scowled at it as if that would change anything, and then raised the needle with a sigh. "What did you say?"

"I just finished Brothers in Arms," Gus said in a voice that made it clear he was repeating himself, "I asked what you thought about Mark."

Hunter picked up the seam ripper and paused, scrunching up his face in thought. What did he think about Mark? 

"Hit a little close to home," he mumbled finally, as the plot details of the character being a clone created to kill and replace the protagonist trickled sluggishly into his mind.

"Huh?"

Hunter swore as he moved too quickly with the tool and stabbed himself in the hand. "Uh," he stammered, more angry with himself for the conversational slip than for the physical one. "You know. Raised in a horrible toxic abusive environment to become a puppet leader within an empire he didn't benefit from being a part of," he corrected, internally patting himself on the back for the save.

Gus grimaced. "I'm sorry."

"It's fine," Hunter shrugged. "Like, I liked him, it was a good plot and all, I just kind of hated the first half where he was still the bad guy."

Gus was quiet for a moment. "You wanna talk about something, Hunter?"

"What? No. Sorry." Hunter shook his head again and finished tearing the seam free. He began picking at the threads that remained stuck in his Cosmic Frontier costume. "I'm okay."

"Okay, but like, you're super not, dude," Gus said dubiously. "It's okay to not be okay."

"I know that," Hunter sighed. "I dunno. Two months ago I thought my life was totally fine and normal and now it's like, congrats, your life sucks, actually. You're an idiot for not realizing it until someone beat you over the head with the truth."

"That's really harsh."

"You think that's harsh?" Hunter scoffed bitterly. "Nah. Harsh is when my uncle used to tie me to a post and beat me."

He only realized what he'd said a few seconds after he'd said it, and then a few seconds after that it occurred to him that he really, really should not have said it. He sat up ramrod straight to catch Gus's horrified expression.

"Haha, hey!" he laughed nervously, pitch climbing, "Funny joke! Of me to say! I'm being dramatic for joking reasons! You know, good ol' sarcasm!"

Gus's continued pallor made it very clear that he was not being particularly convincing.

"Did he really do that?" Gus breathed, shrinking down into himself. 

Hunter cursed, but had the foresight to only do it internally this time. Gus was only thirteen, he shouldn't be saying this kind of stuff in front of him– in front of anyone, honestly, it horrified all reasonable people and he was deeply tired of upsetting and hurting everyone around him. 

"He, uh," he tried, squeezing the seam ripper in a tight fist. "Only when I did something wrong. It wasn't that bad. It sounds worse than it really is."

"It sounds pretty bad, Hunter."

"Well," he said, floundering, "It, uh. It wasn't."

"I can't tell if you really think that or if you're just trying to shield me from it," Gus admitted, face screwed up with worry, "Both are bad."

"Uh," Hunter swallowed. He looked down at the seam ripper as if it might hold some kind of answer. It did not. "Second one."

"That's kind of a relief," Gus said carefully, "Cuz I was halfway to running off to get Camila, like, please explain to Hunter that it is actually a super big deal to get tied to a post and beaten by a family member."

Hunter winced. He dropped the seam ripper onto the table and his head into his hands with a groan. "Ugh. I didn't mean to say that. I don't know why I said that."

"It's okay," his friend said gently, "You're allowed to talk about it."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"You should probably talk to it. To somebody, at least."

"It sucks," Hunter hissed under his breath, "I'm really tired of saying something off the cuff and having everyone in the room just freeze and stare at me. It sucks. I hate it. I'm used to people resenting me or being intimidated by me, I'm used to people looking up to me with fear or down on me with contempt. I'm really not used to people looking at me with pity all the time. I kind of wish you'd all just be a little more annoyed by me, I think."

Gus mulled it over thoughtfully. "I don't know if I can help with that. I don't find you annoying at all. I think you're really cool."

"I am a complete loser."

"In your defense," Gus pointed out, "You joined a whole squad of losers."

"Don't call yourself a loser," Hunter groaned. "I'm the only one allowed to self-deprecate here."

"Luz would call that an 'SAT word,' whatever that means."

"I think it's a test," Hunter mumbled, trying to pry Luz's rapid infodump about it from his thick, congealed memory, "Humans take it when they finish basic education or something."

"For what? They don't have covens."

"I think they just go back to school."

Gus looked somewhat horrified when Hunter picked his head up. "Endless school," he shuddered.

"I dunno, endless school sounds nice," Hunter said distantly. He'd never been to 'school' persay, but he'd had a fairly rigorous education nonetheless, and he loved learning. The idea of just learning forever sounded a little dreamy. 

"Well, you've never been to school," Gus said somewhat presciently, "The learning part is cool. Love that. It's the everything else that kind of sucks a lot of the time."

Hunter considered it. That sounded about as on par as everything else he'd learned in the last few months. He sighed. "Figures."

"Also, just backtracking because I really wanna emphasize," Gus said, leaning forward on the armrest of the couch. "It is like, super not normal or cool for anybody to hit you, dude."

Hunter rolled his eyes and then hoped Gus hadn't noticed. He sat up to rethread the bobbin on the machine. "Everyone I know other than Mrs. Noceda and Vee have hit me."

"That's not true!" Gus huffed defensively. "I never hit you!"

Hunter squinted in thought. "Huh… I guess we never actually really fought each other, did we?"

"The first time I even met you was for flyer derby!" Gus crossed his arms. He narrowed his eyes in thought. "Did you ever fight Willow? Y'know, seriously? I know Luz kicked your butt a few times."

"She did not kick my butt!" Hunter said defensively. He didn't know why he was being defensive about that, as if kicking her butt was any better for him. "And, uh– I don't… I don't know? I don't remember."

"You've been saying that a lot lately," Gus said, tone shifting. 

"What?"

"That you don't remember."

Hunter hummed in frustration and lined his project back up on the machine. "I've been having trouble remembering stuff."

"Like what?"

Hunter shrugged. "Stuff. Anything. Everything. I dunno, it feels like I'm just reaching through muck every time I try and dredge up a memory."

"That's not good."

"I've been having trouble focusing, too," he admitted. "If I stay on task for too long it feels like my brain starts getting slippery."

"That… is weird," Gus said, concern only growing. "When did that start?"

"Uh." Hunter stopped sewing and squinted in thought. "When I had that seizure and you all freaked out."

Gus seemed alarmed. "What? Seriously? That's pretty bad, dude, you should tell Camila that."

"I don't want to bother her."

"Dude, Hunter, seriously, I think if she finds out that you didn't tell her about this she's gonna be pissed."

Hunter stopped, foot hovering over the pedal. He did not want to piss off the woman whose house he was living in and food he was eating. "Uh." He swallowed thickly. "Yeah. I guess I'll tell her."

 

---

 

"Hm," Luz's mother hummed unhappily. She considered the bottle of medicine in her hand not for the first time. "It's probably the Keppra, but I don't know. I'm not a neurologist. I don't know if this was caused by the seizure or the medication." She considered the bottle again. "But that sounds like side effects of Keppra."

"Can I stop taking it, then?" he asked. His head hurt and he kind of wanted to go take an Excedrin and a nap. "It's making me miserable."

She set the bottle down on the table. "I know it's frustrating, mijo, but it's really important that you be taking an antiepileptic. It's just not safe for you to be off of them– you said you get these somewhat regularly!"

"Like two or three times a year," he groaned. "And it's never been a big deal before."

"No, it was always a big deal, you were just surrounded by incompetent and apathetic adults who should have gotten up off their pampered behinds and done something about it," she said sharply. He rarely heard her take a tone that was so venomous, but when she did, it was usually about someone Hunter had grown up around. He was beginning to notice a pattern in that way.

"But the Keppra is making me more miserable than the seizures ever did," he insisted. "I want my brain back."

"You could lose your brain forever if you fall and crack your skull open," she warned. "Remember what I told you about brain damage and oxygen? Just one seizure could be all it takes to damage something that you can't fix, mijo."

He grumbled under his breath, but she was making sense, and he lived in her house and ate her food and subsisted on her kindness. It was her house, and her rules. He had to take it.

"Alright," he said finally, retrieving and opening the bottle.

 

---

 

Hunter stared down at the sewing machine. He had threaded the bobbin. He'd lowered the needle. His project was staring back at him as if beckoning him to just put his titan damned hands on the fabric and push it forward.

He stared at it.

Why couldn't he work on it? He wanted to work on it. He loved sewing. He'd been terrible at it at first, but he was learning fast, and with everything he made he got a little better. He'd been almost feverish in his sewing spree, exuberant at each finished project that came out looking better than the previous one.

He stared at his unfinished costume blankly. 

He wasn't even working on it, but just keeping focus on it was hard enough. It felt like he was trying to hold onto smoke with his bare hands. Slippery, wet smoke. He could barely get a grasp on it and it kept moving between his fingers beyond his control.

His hands refused to push the fabric forward.

With a hiss of frustration he pulled the needle up and practically yanked the power cable from the wall, shoving his chair back and stomping away from the table. Fine. If he couldn't sew, he was going to do something.

He spent ten minutes mindlessly pacing the room and trying to think of something to do.

"I hate this," he said out loud, coming to a sudden stop and clenching his fists at his sides. "This is untenable. I can't live like this!"

Flapjack chirped in concern from his nest by the sewing machine. Hunter shook his head.

"I'm fine," he mumbled. 

"My boy is not fine," Flapjack insisted, "He is upset and his feelings are hurting."

"My feelings are perpetually hurting," he snapped and then immediately regretted it. Flapjack wilted sadly and Hunter dug his nails into his palms, furious at himself for being so sharp with his palismen. He was only trying to help, and he was right. Why had he snapped at him? He never snapped at him.

He flopped back onto the couch and buried his head in his hands. "I'm sorry, Flap, I don't know why I did that," he said miserably. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

Flapjack stood up and shook out his wings before he flew over and landed in his hair. "Flapjack always forgives his boy. He never says not nice things on purpose. He is good boy, kind boy."

"I say not nice things on purpose all the time," he groaned, "I'm such an asshole."

"He is not," his palismen insisted stubbornly, tugging at his cowlick. "He is good boy. Full of feelings. Confused sometimes by them, but he is good good boy."

"I don't feel particularly good right now."

"He is hurting."

"I'm am hurting," he mumbled.

"Medicines supposed to make better," Flapjack said worriedly, "But make boy feel worse. Make feel not good. So sad. Medicines bad?"

"Maybe," he said softly. "It makes me feel bad."

"Medicines bad," Flapjack confirmed. "New medicines?"

"I don't know," he said uncomfortably, "Mrs. Noceda ordered me to take this one."

"Blood boiling was bad medicines," Flapjack reminded him, "Maybe this bad medicines too? Boy should not take bad medicines."

He chewed his lip. "That's true."

"Bad Philip make boy take bad medicines," Flapjack asserted, tugging his hair again. "Hurts him lots. Makes his feelings and body bad and hurt. Boy should not do things that make his feelings and body hurt anymore. He is free now!"

Hunter fidgeted. "But she ordered me to."

"Hunter is not soldier," Flapjack tweeted fiercely. "He is little boy. He should protect his body and his heart. Do not do things that hurt even if others say it is good for him. Bad Philip sad things were good for him too, was wrong! Was liar! Boy deserves to protect himself now."

He tightened his hands where they clutched each other. "I deserve to be happy," he agreed. "I shouldn't do things that hurt me just because an adult told me to."

"Yes!!!" Flapjack cheered. "Good boy, smart boy, Flapjack loves his boy so much!!!"

Hunter smiled and held his hands up for Flapjack to hop into so he could pull him close to his face. The bird nuzzled lovingly against his cheek and Hunter swelled with joy and happiness and adoration. "Thanks, Flap. I love you, too."

 

---

 

Hunter sat up and stretched, glancing at the clock. 

5:10 AM. 

He grinned happily. He felt sharp, and awake, and when he wriggled out of his sleeping bag, he wasn't soaked in sweat or shivering. He was humming to himself on the way to the bathroom and took his time with his morning routine, leisurely brushing his teeth and smearing aloe vera over his scars. 

Flapjack chirped encouragingly from his hair. He was clearly happy to see Hunter acting like himself again after a few days off of Keppra.

"How 'bout we go for a jog and then run through some katas, buddy?" Hunter asked, giving his palismen a skritch. Flapjack cooed an affirmation and Hunter headed outside to start one of his regular early morning runs. 

He loved waking up before the sun. His friends found the idea ghoulish, would never even consider it, but it was their loss. The sunrise was so beautiful, and getting to watch it come up was always a treat. It peaked over the horizon and woke all of the normal earth birds, who began their morning songs, and Flapjack joined them in merry revelry.

Flapjack had been right, but then again, Flapjack was always right. It was his body, his life, and it was his choice what he did to it, put in it. He hated the Keppra, and he wasn't going to take it anymore, and that was that. 

Then he woke up facedown on the sidewalk with a pounding migraine, head spinning and surrounded by a mishmash of panicked sounding unfamiliar voices.

"Whazzif," he mumbled deliriously. 

"Hey, I think he's coming around," said someone. "Hey, buddy. Are you with me? Can you hear me?"

"Yeah," he slurred, feeling like he was in slow motion. "What… happen?"

"You had a seizure," said the stranger gently. "Have you ever had one before?" 

"Yeah," he answered, "Ah've got, uh… 'pilepsy."

"Epilepsy," the stranger repeated. "Listen, try not to move. Your head is bleeding, I think you hit it when you fell."

"M'head?" he said in alarm, reaching up with a wobbly hand to touch his forehead. It came away with red on his fingertips. "Oh no."

"There's an ambulance on the way. Do you have someone I can call for you?"

"Uhhh," he mumbled. His head was hot and sludgey like it was full of molten lava. "Mamá."

"Your mom?" he asked.

"A mom," Hunter said vaguely. He fumbled for the prepaid cell phone in his pocket. It couldn't do fun stuff like the Spanish owl app like Luz's could, but it could make calls, and Mrs. Noceda's number was in it. "Mrs. Noceda."

"Mrs. Noceda," the stranger repeated, taking his phone. He began flipping through contacts. 

"Flappuh?" Hunter asked blearily, looking around. He didn't see the little red bird anywhere. "Fl?"

"Hello?" said the unfamiliar voice. Hunter let his head fall back and shut his eyes, trying to stop the world from spinning. "Mrs. Noceda? Yes, hello, my name is Connor, I was out for a jog when I saw the boy whose phone this is collapse. I think he had a seizure and he hit his head. He's bleeding and I think he has a concussion, he seems delirious. No, I don't think it's that bad, but another lady here already called an ambulance. They're on their way now. Okay. Yes. Hunter?" Hunter blinked his eyes open at his name. "Hey there, Hunter. How are you feeling?"

"Fine," Hunter answered automatically.

"He's not thinking clearly," Connor shook his head. "Yes, we're near the corner of…" He looked up. "Fourth and Canterbury. Yes, I'll stay with him, until you or the ambulance gets here. I have a kid his age, too."

Hunter stopped paying attention around then and let his thoughts drift away, even more slippery than usual. 

He drifted through questions with a nice lady in a big van before he finally heard a voice he recognized.

"Mijo!" Mrs. Noceda cried, on the other side of the ambulance doors. 

"Is that your mom?" 

He nodded lazily.

"Do you want me to let her in?"

He nodded frantically.

The lady opened the door and Mrs. Noceda burst into the ambulance and rushed to his side. 

"Mi hijo!" she cried, looking terrified, "Are you alright? Do you know where you are?"

"I hit my head, I think," he said distantly. "Uhhhh. No."

"He's got a concussion," the lady informed her. "We need to take him to the emergency room for an MRI."

Mrs. Noceda bit her lip. "He has epilepsy. I only found out recently and we haven't been able to get him into a neurologist yet."

"Well, the good news is we can speed that up to today," said the lady. "Do you want to ride with us?"

"Yes," she said immediately. She picked up his hand and he relaxed, feeling better. "I don't know what kind of epilepsy he has. Can we find that out?"

"I'm not a neurologist," the lady told her, "But hopefully. Can you answer some more questions for me about his medical history?"

"I can do my best," she replied. "But I don't know all of it. He's a– foster child," she stumbled. "He's not been living with me long."

The other woman nodded and Hunter let his eyes shut. 

"Mijo, wake up!" Mrs. Noceda fret. "You can't fall asleep with a concussion!"

"That's actually a myth," the lady informed her. "It's actually better if he sleeps. We can wake him up when we get there."

"Oh." She sounded profoundly relieved. Hunter stopped paying attention at that point, and drifted away.

 

---

 

"Hhhrgghhh," Hunter groaned, blinking away stars as he sat up. "Wh?"

"Hunter!" Luz's voice exploded, just before something slammed into him. He could take a guess what it was. "Oh my god, I was so worried about you!" 

"I'm fine," Hunter dismissed, "I just fell down." He looked up at sudden twitters as Flapjack nested in his hair and began pulling at his cowlick.

"There was so much blood on the sidewalk," Willow said in horror nearby. Hunter blinked under the sterile lights of his emergency room as it came into focus. Outside the room was the noisy hustle and bustle of the rest of the ER. "I was so worried about you, Hunter."

"Are you feeling any better?" Vee prompted. "Does your head feel any clearer?"

"I think so," he answered. Blinking away the light, he did feel better.

"I can't believe you had a seizure again," Gus fret, "You've been on medication and everything!" 

"I'm okay," he argued. 

"You had a concussion!" Amity balked. 

"I've had a lot of concussions," he mumbled.

"Okay, but that's worse. You see how that's worse, right?" 

He sat up and touched his head to find a bandage there, but a smaller one than he was expecting. 

"I'm sorry I worried you," he said eventually, uncomfortably. He wanted to apologize for being stupid and for getting injured at all, but he had caught on by now that doing so would make things worse and get him a lecture.

"I'm honestly always worried about you," Willow admitted.

"I think we all are," Gus added.

"You make it really easy to worry about you," Amity sighed.

Hunter fidgeted. "Is Mrs. Noceda mad?"

"Mad?" Luz scoffed. "Are you kidding?"

Hunter considered her baffled tone. "Yes," he said. "I am definitely kidding."

"Alright, well, you definitely weren't, but I'll let you have this one," she said dubiously. "She's grabbing some snacks from the machine."

"Sheeeee really wanted to talk to you about something, though," Gus said nervously. Hunter's anxiety immediately spiked. He was in trouble. 

"Hey," he said, looking up at Flapjack, "Where'd you run off to?"

"He came to tell us what happened," Luz admitted. "Somebody called Mamá before he got there, but he showed us exactly where you were so we got there before the ambulance left."

"Oh, cool." For one terrifying moment he thought Flapjack had left him.

"This is so unfair," Gus shook his head. "That medication made you feel terrible, and it didn't even work!"

"Haha, um, yeah," Hunter laughed nervously.

The air in the room shifted as five sets of eyes narrowed at him suspiciously.

"Hunter," said Luz in a warning tone.

"You have been taking your medication, haven't you?" Vee asked in a deeply worried way as if she already knew the answer.

"Uh," he said, throat dry.

"Oh my god," Amity groaned.

"Dude," Gus said, crossing his arms.

"Hunter!" Willow balked. "Why would you do that!"

"Haha, uh," he laughed nervously again.

"Hunter," Vee pleaded, "You could have died."

"But I didn't!" Hunter huffed, crossing his arms and looking away. "You guys are overreacting."

"Why won't you worry about yourself!" Luz exclaimed, visibly frustrated, "If only because we obviously care about you, and we get upset when you get hurt, even if you don't!"

"Oh," Hunter mumbled, tightening his arms, "I'm… I'm sorry."

"Hunter–!" Luz started again.

"Mija," her mother said from the doorway, looking profoundly relieved, "Don't berate him. He's had a bad enough day as it is. And it's six AM."

He grimaced. He'd made everyone wake up at the crack of dawn, and they hated that. He really had made a mess of things.

"Nuh-uh, don't you start beating yourself up for inconveniencing us or whatever," Willow said, interrupting his thoughts as if she could read his mind. "We want to worry about you, remember?"

"I'm sorry," he repeated uselessly. 

"Can you kids go sit in the waiting room for a few minutes?" she asked, handing out bags of chips or crackers. "I want to speak to him alone for a moment."

Silently, they nodded, mumbled goodbyes, and filtered out of the room.

"I'm so sorry, Mrs. Noceda," he stressed miserably, "I disobeyed your orders and I will accept any punishment you deem appropriate for my actions."

She sighed and sat down in the chair that Willow had vacated beside him. "Mijo," she said gently, "You're not in trouble. I'm not going to punish you."

"I've put all of us in danger," he said, still unable to meet her eyes, "You said we had to be careful, that we don't have any identification here and we could get in trouble, and–"

"I'm paying out of pocket," she said carefully. He wasn't entirely sure what that meant. "And I gave them Luz's social security number. It's risky, but we might be okay. If a doctor calls you Luz, though, just go with it."

"Oh. Okay."

"They took some blood and ran your Keppra levels, mijo." She paused, as if waiting for him to make an admission. He stayed silent. "You stopped taking your medication."

"It makes me feel awful," he seethed under his breath, "It's worse than the seizures."

"It's not, baby."

"It is!" he insisted. "I can't live like this! I hate it! It's worse than when I was in the Emperor's Coven!"

She looked alarmed. "I don't believe that."

"Okay," he said, frustrated that she was right, "It isn't worse than that. But it's still bad. I don't want to take it anymore."

"I talked to the doctor about putting you on something else that won't make you feel as bad, but you have to start out at a very low dose and work up to a higher one before it starts working. Can you please, for me, just take it a little bit longer?"

He squeezed his arms across his chest. "Is that an order?"

"No," she said gently. "It's a request. I can't, and won't, make you do anything, Hunter. I am asking because I am frightened for you."

His lips twitched and he hiked his shoulders up. "...Alright. Fine. Until the other one starts working."

He finally glanced over to see her irrevocably relieved.

"Thank you," she sighed. "I'm not mad at you, nene. And I said this before, but it bears repeating: you are welcome in my home, and I am never going to make you leave, not because you made a mistake and definitely not because you've hurt yourself. You have been treated cruelly and unfairly, but you will not be by me."

"...Okay," he conceded carefully. He didn't entirely believe her, but she hadn't punished him yet, so he could at least admit that the threshold for punishment with her was much higher than he was used to. 

"I'm proud of you, mijo. Thank you for being honest with me." 

Hunter twitched. He wasn't sure anyone had ever said that to him before. It put something warm and weird in his chest.

"Do you want me to text Luz and let her know your friends can come back in?" Hunter nodded. "Okay. You're a good boy, mijo."

He smiled despite himself, relief flooding his veins. He hadn't messed up too badly. 

It was going to be okay.

Chapter 4

Notes:

I just wanna talk about Brain Drugs

“I think Lamictol fixed me.”

“Hm?” Luz asked absently. Her eyes didn't stray from her book.

“Lamictol,” Hunter repeated. He was laying flat on his back on the carpet beside her. He claimed that it was good for his back. “I think it fixed me.”

“Yeah, I think the lack of tonic-clonic seizures in your life is a big improvement,” she said dryly.

“Don't call them that. Tonic-clonic sounds stupid.”

“Well, that's what they're called.”

“No, they're called grand mal seizures.”

“They were called grand mal seizures.”

“They're my seizures, and I can call them whatever I want.”

“Alright,” she conceded as she turned the page. “Then the lack of grand mal seizures in your life is a big improvement.”

“That's not what I'm talking about.”

“What are you talking about, then?”

“I don't want to kill myself anymore.”

Luz’s eyes stayed on her book for a few moments before they snapped up and over to him. He continued to stare at the ceiling, but his expression was neutral.

“You want to kill yourself?!” she burst.

“No,” her adopted brother dismissed, “Not anymore.”

“You wanted to kill yourself?!” she corrected.

“Well–” He frowned. “No? And yes.”

“What does that mean, though?”

“I mean before I started taking it there was this little… voice in the back of my head,” he said, waving a hand vaguely in the air above him, “and it was just constantly yelling ‘kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself kill yourself’ over and over and over again. I didn't really want to kill myself. I was terrified of dying. But something was screaming at me that I should.”

“How often?” Luz asked worriedly.

“Always,” Hunter answered. “It never went away. Sometimes it was really quiet and I could ignore it, but sometimes it was so loud that I couldn't do anything but curl up into a ball and cover my ears.”

“That doesn't sound normal, Hunter,” Luz fret.

“Well, it was normal for me,” he shrugged. He let his arm drop back onto the carpet. “It was always there. I never knew what it felt like for it not to be. And what would I have even done about it if I'd wanted to do something about it? So I just ignored it. I ignored a lot of stuff. Everything was okay as long as I just didn't think about it.”

Luz was quiet. She knew the feeling.

“And then,” he continued, “it just stopped.”

“When you started taking Lamictol?”

“When I started taking Lamictol.”

“Because it's a mood stabilizer?” she posited.

“Maybe– but my neurologist said that it's like–” He frowned again. “You know. It's like the brain is a bunch of wires and one of my wires has the rubber stripped off. So it sparks and stuff. And sometimes it catches fire and that's a seizure. But the like– the sparks. It makes it pass electricity inefficiently. So it just… I dunno, I think the metaphor falls apart here, but it causes weird stuff to happen. And then the antiepileptic is electric tape around it and suddenly, no sparks.”

“I understand the metaphor, but not the practical application.”

“I just feel like part of my brain that never worked right is suddenly working,” he clarified. “The little voice is gone. My thoughts are clearer. I get distracted less. I can focus better.”

“You could already focus. I've seen you focus on one thing so hard you'd go sixteen hours without a bathroom break.”

“Focus when I want to,” he scoffed, “Not just when my brain decides it's time to hyperfocus on something. That's just the autism.”

“Wow, I wish that were me.”

“Take your Adderall then.”

“I don't like how it makes me feel.”

“Tell your psychiatrist that.”

“Uggghhhhh,” she groaned, “Worry about your own psychiatrist.”

He stuck his tongue out at her.

“I guess that's good then,” said Luz, changing gears. “It made your brain better?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “Way better.” He paused. “I mean, not perfect. I still get panic attacks and stuff. But like– there's things I never realized weren't normal that are just… gone, now.” He paused again. “It does make me make weird faces though sometimes.”

“Oh, I thought that was just your face,” she said slyly. 

Hunter grabbed the pillow from beneath his head and slapped her with it.