Chapter Text
Everything that Hunter feels is pain.
He does it all, does what he’s been taught to do all his life. Shakes his head like the good boy he is when Camila asks him if he’s in any pain anywhere, despite it being a lie. Sometimes lying is a noble thing if it means he’s less of an inconvenience to others than he already is. But Camila is not Belos or Philip or every other adult around him that’s failed him so terribly—Camila is a mother, and a mother sees right through all his bullshit.
Camila gently presses her palm against the fresh scar on his cheek, against the pink flesh that burns his synapses, and he screams. Well, tried to, at least—what came out was no more than a pained yowl, and his lip was between his teeth before he allowed himself to make the mistake again; but Willow tightens her arms around his body with a breathy gasp, and Camila is all but stern-faced in front of him, and he’s fucked up for good now.
Because all that she’s ever given him was warmth and kindness when it had been so easy to just leave him at the door, and all he’s ever given her was a burden. She’s going to leave him to die, should have done that a long time ago—
Except she doesn’t.
He doesn’t know it for sure, exactly, but Willow’s sweet voice is still talking to him, panicked and afraid but she’s holding him sure and sturdy like it’d been her choice not to leave him to die there. Hunter doesn’t understand any of it, but he’s gently shoved into the muffled silence of the car with his head on Willow’s lap and his legs on Luz’s—and between the next breath and the other, the comforting silence is no more. Everyone is suddenly talking to him about everything from everywhere all at once, their voice significantly louder when his eyes start to droop but everything hurts and he’s so tired, he’s so tired, he wants to cry and beg for them to let him go but they wouldn’t. He doesn’t know how to begin parsing it all out when he couldn't even feel his own mouth.
He feels like he’s drowning deeper with each passing second.
He can’t breathe. There’s water in his not-lungs, fire burning every inch of his not-body. He’s everything but the person they told him he is, the pieces of a broken boy they don’t leave in the doorway. He wants to tell them this, too, but darkness is beginning to seep into the corner of his eyes.
He’s so tired.
Sixteen is a lifetime and he’s just so, so tired.
(But Luz’s tears are soaking into his shirt. It’s damp and warm and uncomfortable, but he’s grasping his body so tightly with all that she has to make him stay that he might as well does.)
The next thing he feels is something rough and cold being pressed against his seething wounds.
He screams, this time, truly does scream. Arches his body and tries to get away from the piercing pain but the pain is everywhere, and there are hands holding his body, so many of them, are they all the others that Belos has killed? Gloved hands grasping on him, dragging his filthy body down with them, because he was made filthy, because that’s all he will ever be?
Don’t fight it, the voices say, and he stops; his body immediately falling against the cushion with an audible thud, a puppet cut off its string. He was made to be one, after all.
Hunter, it’s us. You’re gonna be okay, it’s going to be okay.
Gentle hands. Palms wiping back his damp forehead, running through his hair. The cold is almost soothing, somehow, if he hadn’t snapped his eyes open to see his body partially naked save for his pants—he panics, wide eyed, wants to scream again but this time his body isn’t his anymore and he doesn’t know how. It’s Camila’s lap that he’s laying on now, holding his back, shushing comforting nothings into his ear. Gathers him in her arms like she’s trying to piece him back together again.
You can’t save me, he wants to tell her, but the words wouldn’t come out—Camila wouldn’t hear any of it even if it could. He tries anyway. You don’t want to save me. I can’t be good. I wasn’t made to be good.
“Hush,” Camila says, running her fingers through his hair over and over like it would save him. “Don’t try to talk, baby, I know you hurt. You just breathe.”
Someone is coaxing in a small metallic object between his lips, Camila’s knuckles gently easing him into taking a sip. He gingerly does, realizes how parched his throat is, almost drains the whole thing before wincing as his stomach cramps. He should know better. He never knows better. Hunter would have regretted it, if he hadn’t seen the way it made Camila’s frown slightly ease.
“Sleep, all of you,” was the next thing she spoke, after his surroundings fell into a terse silence. Immediately, a chorus of complaints—Camila raises her eyebrows at them, but there’s softness sewn into her eyes despite it all, kindness stitched into the very fabric of her being. Hunter wonders how it would feel, to be good. To be capable of being good. “Please, you need all the rest you can get if we’re going to get you all home. Go ,” she then says, softer, towards her side where Luz is—on her knees, praying, unmoving. “I have him, mija. Don’t you worry about a thing.”
“Can’t ,” the girl whines, and Hunter doesn’t have to look to know there are tears in her eyes. He doesn’t want to look. It’s easier to leave when he knows he isn’t wanted. “Please, mama, I can’t sleep if I’m not—if he’s not—”
“Okay—hey, hey, okay,” Camila soothes, “you can stay, baby. I’ll get the roll-up upstairs so you two can sleep, okay?”
It takes a while for Camila to wrangle herself off him without jostling him too much. His whole body still felt like it’s burning, but Willow presses a kiss to his forehead right before she bid him good night, and Luz’s hand stays where it had been the whole time; her fingers locked between his, palm against each other’s, and Hunter would never forgive himself if he let Belos touch a single hair on her again.
“I’m here,” she keeps repeating until it’s reduced to whispers, face buried against the crook of his neck. “ No te dejaré ir. No te dejaré ir.”
He wonders if Luz would tell him what it means, one day. He wants to ask her, but all that came out was a croaked-out noise, his words slurring together beneath the heat that burns his aching body. He only hopes that it would be enough to burn away his sins, this time.
“Shut up,” Luz murmurs, raw voice breaking in the threat of tears—he must’ve said that out loud, somehow. I don’t want you to cry anymore, Hunter tries to say, hoping he speaks it right this time, but all that Luz does is hold him tighter.
Camila clicks her tongue in sympathy at the sight of them when she comes back with the bed and a couple more blankets than necessary, but Hunter doesn’t complain. Her hands treat him like he’s a fragile thing, settles him down in bed and makes sure he’s lying on his side, just in case. Just in case he wakes up screaming. Just in case he’s too fevered out of his mind to do so.
Hunter’s eyes roll around, trying to catch comforting glimpses of them to remind himself that he’s not dead in a ditch somewhere—but the girl that made him a brother again fits herself into his side, buries her face in the crevice of his neck like they’re two pieces of a puzzle. And the woman that taught him what the word mother means is pressing another cold washcloth against his temple, sneaking gentle kisses into his hair when she thinks he’s out of it enough.
Mother. That’s been a foreign word his entire life, but Hunter thinks he could understand it, now. Here, it makes sense. Mother means a soft bed. Mother means the hands that won’t hold him down, won't paint another fresh scar on his skin. Mother is a blanket that carries the softest hint of lavender, leftover from being folded in the drawers with dried sprigs wrapped in little cloth bags—a thing he would have sworn was absolutely nothing but a fantasy but is in fact a thing Camila does. A mother is someone who jumps for him into the water without a second thought. A mother is someone who whispers soothing nothings into the shell of his ear, even if he doesn't understand it.
Love . He doesn’t speak that language, wasn’t made for it. Doesn’t think his filthy hands are capable of it.
But he could try.
It’s so nice having a mommy, he thinks, and he must’ve mumbled it out loud too—because Luz snorts out a gentle laugh to his side, and Camila’s fingers tense up for a split-second before it returns to carding his hair, gentler than ever, press another kiss against his forehead.
“I am your mommy,” he hears her tell him with a breathy chuckle, kisses his forehead again like she means it, truly means it—but exhaustion gets the better of him before he’s coherent enough to understand any of it.