Chapter Text
It’s just slime.
It’s a gooey substance you can make with glue, baking soda, and contact solution. You can add whatever you want to it. Some people add glitter. Some people add small charms.
Some people add green food coloring.
Gus really doesn’t mean any harm. He just wants to ‘get slimed’ like the kids on the human realm ‘Nickelodeon’ channel. It’s a fun activity he and Luz are doing in the kitchen to destress from a long week of rebuilding the Isles. Hunter’s the one making it a big deal. Hunter’s the one who can’t be summoned into the kitchen to check it out without his lungs threatening to cave in.
Unbidden, during his infodump on color experimentation, Gus places a blob of goo into Hunter’s rubber-gloved hands and asks for his opinion on what they came up with. Hunter drops it immediately onto the counter and wipes his hands on his pants. It’s a useless endeavor, he knows. He’s already contaminated. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t try to frantically rub the surface clean anyway.
He’s too late. He’s always too late. His surroundings morph into the graveyard where he dies. Green rot creeps along his skin until he’s not sure where he ends and Belos begins. He’s stuck screaming inside his mind, crying, begging, to be let go. His breathing picks up as the moonlight bears witness to his disfiguration. He closes his eyes to ignore whatever Belos is doing now with his body and tries to barter with the Titan for someone to come save him. He doesn’t want anyone to be in danger, but he’s also selfishly terrified of dying alone with no one else to lead him to the afterlife but his creator-turned-destroyer.
His ignorant wish for help bears fruition when his friends arrive at the scene. His arms liquify and shoot out to hurt them. He’s forced to look again. His body is screaming out in pain, but Belos doesn’t care. Maybe Belos can’t feel it. Maybe all the agonizing fire destroying his body’s neurons is reserved just for Hunter. Maybe Hunter is just too weak to handle it.
“Hunter!” Luz yells.
He can hear his friends yelling for him as though he’s underwater, but there’s nothing he can do to respond. He can take control of a limb or two at a time, but it takes an exorbitant amount of strength to ignore the agony enough to focus on what to do with it. It’s as if he’s fighting to break through vicious waves each time he tries to hit himself. As long as he’s able, he’ll fight to keep his head above water for his friends, but with his control slipping by the second, he’s drowning, drowning, drowning; he doesn’t know how long he can—
“Hunter, you’re safe. We’re at home. We’re in the kitchen. He’s not here, everyone’s okay,” Luz says.
She sounds like she’s talking to a wild animal, which, to be fair, she kind of is. Belos’s version of his body resembles a grotesque deer rather than a witch or a human.
“Yeah! Everything’s good! Bueno, even,” Gus adds.
His shaky tone betrays his words. He’s scared. He should be. They all should be.
“You guys need to leave,” Hunter says, “I can't keep him down for long. Please go, I’m going to kill you, please—”
It’s only now that he notices his chest is heaving. He grasps onto his wolf shirt over his galderstone with an iron grip. It doesn’t look completely like his wolf shirt, though. It kind of looks like his dinosaur shirt. It’s like he’s looking at both at the same time.
“Hunter, come on, breathe. In for four, and out for four,” Luz says, “You can do it. You’re safe.”
“I can’t—please—I’m going to kill you.”
“You’re not going to kill anyone,” Luz says.
She and Gus immediately wince. They must realize that he’s right.
Hunter needs to find the lake—
Where’s the lake?
Camila’s holding his hand now. He’s not sure when she got here. She says something. He’s not sure what. He’s infecting her.
The lake has to be around here somewhere—
He’s on the floor now.
In the kitchen? At home?
But the lake—he needs to drown for real—
She’s sitting in front of him now, counting down with her fingers.
“Breathe, mijo. In for four, out for four. You’re safe. You’re at home. It’s just you, me, Gus, and Luz. No one else.”
Terror cinches his heart. “I killed them?” His breathing picks up even more, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to, I’m—”
“No! Everyone’s safe. Vee’s out with Masha and the rest of the kids are in the Demon Realm. Nobody’s hurt. We’re at home. Breathe. Follow me.”
She puts his hand on her stomach and breathes deeply. He coughs on his hyperventilating a few times in the process, but does his best to follow her instructions. She’s his anchor through the haze of panic, yet for her sake, he wants her as far away from him as possible. He’s not sure how he’s going to find the lake in the kitchen, but maybe if he can calm down enough to think clearly, then he can find it, and…
“Good boy. You’re doing so good. Keep breathing. Can you help me count down from thirty?”
He nods. A split second passes, and they’re at zero.
“Great job, baby. Can we do it again?”
He nods. He needs to make up for not doing it right the first time. He needs to get it together so that he can figure out what he’s going to do to protect her. The time skip happens again, but at least this time, he blips back into existence with ten seconds to spare before they hit zero. He finishes counting with her.
She smiles at him. “You’re doing so good. Can we count by twos now? Let’s get to twenty.”
He thinks about it. It sounds difficult. His mind is incredibly fuzzy, but he thinks he can manage that. He nods.
“Two,” he croaks, and it occurs to him that Belos hasn’t taken control over his mouth for a while, “Four. Six. Eight.” He takes a deep breath and shakily lets it out, “Ten—Mmf, mmf!—Twelve. Fourteen. Sixteen. Eighteen. Twenty.”
“Excellent job, baby. What are five things that you can see?”
His heart is still beating out of his chest, but at least he’s not hyperventilating anymore.
“You. The floor. Th-the cabinets. The rug. The dishrag.”
“Keep breathing. Four things you can feel?”
She looks over and grabs the dishrag hanging on the oven door beside her that he spotted. She hands it to him. He takes it into his hands and rubs it on his arm. It’s scratchy. Grounding. Ruined by his touch.
“The floor. My shirt. The rag. My gloves.”
“Three things you can hear?”
He whistles and snaps his head back, hitting the cabinet behind him.
“Ow,” he winces and rubs the tender spot, “You talking. Me talking. The TV in the living room.”
He glances up at her worried face. He tries to hold the next phrase back, but it comes spilling out of him anyway.
“Ew gross, those glasses are ugly.”
He knows her well enough to spot the almost-grimace she does when she’s trying not to laugh at one of his out-of-pocket tics. He’ll never forgive Luz for accidentally giving him this new one while Camila was trying on new pairs with them at the optometrist last week. He actually loves Camila’s new glasses! He’s thankful Camila knows that and brushes over it to continue on with her list.
“Two things you can smell?”
“Your lotion. Glue.”
“One thing you can taste?”
“Nothing?” He scrunches up his face and whistles, “Hello!—Tch, tch, tch—I’m not eating anything.”
She giggles. “That’s a good point. Are you back yet?”
He scrunches up his face again and takes a look around. The graveyard has completely faded away by now. Still, he feels like he’s been teleported back to his home and he’s still stumbling to regain his footing.
He takes in his body. His breathing is normal again. He yanks off his gloves and holds out his hands in front of him to study them. No slime, just red hands and scars. Finally, he looks back up at his adopted mother. Her face is so soft for him, it makes his skin crawl. No one should be looking at him like that. He exhales one last big breath and nods.
“Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Good! I’m proud of you. You did great.”
“No, I didn’t,” he says, pulling his legs to his chest and glaring at the floor.
“You did. I know it was hard to come out of that flashback. It seemed like a really bad one.”
It was, but she doesn’t get it. No one should be babying him over his baggage from something his negligence caused. No mother should worry for the child who’s going to hurt her.
With that, the urge to hit her on purpose slams into him like a truck. He imagines his fist connecting with her cheek and what it would feel like when her head recoils to the side. He imagines wrapping his hands around her throat and strangling her just like he did with…
Who did he do that to?
In his mind, his hands wrap around a small, warm body and squeeze. Green blood trails down his arm.
Oh, right. Flapjack.
It would be just as easy to kill Camila.
A tingling feeling builds up in his neck. He whips his head to the side to make it go away. Another one builds behind his eye sockets, so he squeezes his eyes shut until it hurts, then blinks several times. He has one more begging to be released—it’s a combo this time—clearing his throat and hitting his fist against his chest.
Did he say one more? Well, turns out he really meant six more, as one look at Camila’s sad face urges him to make it seven. Seven is a good number. A lucky number. A holy number. If he hits himself seven times, everything will be okay. He won’t hurt her, because seven is a good number and good numbers protect good people.
She’s watching him.
“You okay, baby?” She asks.
“Yeah.” He can never look her in the eye when he lies.
She purses her lips, but blessedly doesn’t mention it.
“Do you want to go take a nap or something? You look exhausted. I told Gus and Luz to give you some space, so they went on a walk for a while. She’s going to take him home afterwards. No one will interrupt you.”
Did he really just kick Luz out of her own home? Just because he was having a little freak out on her kitchen floor over a children’s science experiment? Pitiful. He really ruins everything, doesn’t he? Maybe he should take a nap. Maybe he should sleep forever, in fact. He’s long overdue.
“Um, yeah. A nap sounds good. Thank you.”
“Of course. Want me to tuck you in?”
His cheeks burn. “No,” he clears his throat, “I’m—Mm-mm! Mm-mm!—I’m—Up-bub-bub-bub, mind your manners, dear—I’m okay,” he clears his throat again, “Thank you ma’am.”
“No problem, baby. Try to get some rest. I’m going to get started on dinner.”
She kisses him on the forehead and walks away. He smacks his hand against his forehead where her lips just were. He’s glad she didn’t see that part. He doesn’t want her to think he’s disgusted by her, when really, it should be the other way around.
If he could erase her memory of the last hour, he would in a heartbeat. Not only did she just have to calm him down from his panic attack, now she also has to listen to him tic all over the place. Hopefully this nap will help. Hopefully he’ll wake up normal. He never does, but he can dream.
When he enters the basement, he wastes no time finding a plastic bag and depositing his soiled gloves inside. He almost spirals into another panic attack as he double-bags, then triple-bags them. He thinks the slime isn’t Belos, but he can never be sure. Fool Hunter once, shame on Belos, fool Hunter twice, shame on Hunter.
He fantasizes about taking the bag outside and setting it on fire. He can’t do that now though, if he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself. He’ll be expected to be at dinner soon. He can only pray that the late Titan keeps the slimy gloves contained inside the bag until he can sneak away to take care of the issue. He makes sure to repeat his prayer script seven times for good measure.
Momentarily reassured, he flops onto his new bed and buries his face into his pillow. He tries to relax, but between the tics and the never-ending images of violence pouring back into his mind’s eye, he can’t. He can’t stop feeling awful that he’s valuing his pride over protecting his family. He tries to reassure himself that it’s okay that he’s waiting to dispose of the bag until tomorrow. He’s still behaving like a good person. He’s just protecting their peace. They would be so worried if they knew just how anxious he is about killing them. Good people don’t think about that kind of stuff. Good people aren’t so desensitized to their own violence that they forget they killed their best friend, either.
That last reminder makes him want to hurl. What kind of awful person forgets something like that? The only conclusion he can come to is that he must have wanted to do it. He must have wanted to squeeze the green essence out of his friend and watch him fade into dust.
Deep down, he knows that if Belos were to invade his body again, the man wouldn’t even need to come up with his own schemes—he’d simply act on Hunter’s thoughts. That’s what Belos did at the graveyard, right? Belos may be evil, but so is Hunter, deep down. He’ll never admit it, but he’s had these types of fantasies long before Halloween. Now that Belos has indulged him, the occasional violent thoughts have become the default subject of his daydreams.
This fear inside him has become so big that he can’t sweep it under the rug anymore. He can’t even reassure himself that “He would never do that,” because he did. He did do that. He can’t take his family’s safety for granted anymore. He has to put safeguards in place to protect them from himself.
In his next prayer, he lists out the names of every single family member and friend and begs for the Titan to protect them from any awful thing Hunter may do to them in the future. He starts over each time he stumbles in his wording or forgets to list a person. With the last repetition, he feels a little better. That is, until he remembers that he didn’t wash his hands after handling the dirty gloves with his bare hands earlier.
What if he’s tempting fate by spreading his filth everywhere? What if Camila dies from touching him earlier? He knows he can’t convince Camila or Luz to wash themselves when he asks them to (trust him, he’s tried), so he tries not to think about the damage he’s already done. He can only do what he can for himself, and pray it’s enough.
He rushes to the bathroom. He scrubs his hands seven times until they’re even more red and raw to the touch. It still doesn’t feel like it’s enough, so he takes a shower, too. Gets dressed. Slaps the soap bottle into the sink like he’s some unruly house cat. Sighs. Fixes it. Washes his hands again. Resists the temptation to wash his hands six more times (He can’t keep wasting soap like this, or somebody’s going to think there’s something wrong with him).
There’s nothing wrong with him. Everything’s okay. He’s doing what he has to do.
He walks back to his bed.
Nothing is okay.
Now that he thinks of it, it’s probably dirty. He hadn’t washed his hands or showered before laying in it. If he wants his family to be safe, he needs to change the sheets. In order to change the sheets, he has to touch them. If he has to touch them, he’ll be dirty again. If he’s dirty again, he’ll need to start the long process of getting clean all over again.
It’s entirely possible Belos has the capability to sneak in under his gloves while he sleeps and try his luck on a cut Hunter can’t even see, so he’s been washing them a lot lately. As a result, his hands have been extremely dry. Unfortunately, if he washes his hands several more times tonight, he’s positive the skin’s going to split. If the skin splits, it’s definitely over for Hunter. He aches to wear his gloves again and tape them down to be airtight against his skin, but they’re busy festering across the room in a plastic bag. He’ll never be able to wear that pair again, yet he doesn’t have any more gloves to spare to replace them.
He wants to burst into tears.
No matter what he does, no one is safe.
He can only do his best.
He pulls himself together enough to complete the task. He has to stop several times to let out a series of tics, but he manages. He’s changing the pillowcases when he spots Luz plodding down the stairs.
He sighs. He hates having an audience when he’s stuck in these loops. Everyone’s used to his tics, but they always look at him like he’s crazy when they get a glimpse of him putting his preventative measures in place.
“What’re you,” he snaps his head back, whistles, then punches his chest, “Up-bub-bub-bub, mind your manners, dear—Mmf, mmf!—doing here, Luz?” He jerks his head to the side and whistles again.
“Yikes, your tics are super bad right now, huh?”
“No shit. Thanks for,” he snaps his head back and clears his throat, “Pshew! Pshew! I'll hit you!—Byeeeee!” He snaps his head back, juts his chin out on the way back up, and smacks the bony parts of his wrists together, “Haha!—Th—th—th—Haha!—Haha!—Fuck! Thanks for pointing out the obvious!”
“Thought you said you don’t curse when you tic?” She says, tilting her head slightly.
He knows it’s a genuine question coming from a place of curiosity, not malice, but after everything that he’s done this afternoon, he’s really not in the mood to play 20 questions about his Tourette’s. Not everything in his life is out of his control. He can change his pillowcases if he wants to change his pillowcases. He can change his bed sheets if he wants to change his bed sheets. He can curse if he wants to curse.
“I don’t. That was just,” he clears his throat and whistles, “That was just me. I’m frustrated.”
“Oh, gotcha. I’d be frustrated too. Well, anyway, I just came down here to tell you that dinner’s ready. You need help finishing up here?”
She steps over to where he’s changing a pillowcase to grab a corner of his sheet. His heart drops.
“No! You can’t!”
She looks at him like he’s crazy. He’s not.
“It’s gross, don’t…” He grunts, then whistles. He shakes his head, half on purpose, half because it helps the tingling in his neck subside, “You can’t touch that.”
Luz holds her hands up in surrender like she’s afraid of a bio-hazard. Good.
“Iiiiiiiii don’t even wanna know,” Luz says, “But okay, finish up here, then come eat dinner.”
He huffs. “Dinner can’t be done already. Camila—Hey!—tch, tch, tch!—Haha!—I’m a sneaky sneakster!” He jerks his head to the side and scrunches his face, “She—Ha!—Hello—Pshew, pshew! I’ll hit you!—just started.”
She raises an eyebrow. “No, she said you came down here for a nap two hours ago and that I needed to wake you up if you were still asleep.”
That cannot be right.
“Two—Mmf, mmf!—Meow!—Ha!—hours?!”
“Uh huh…” She says slowly, “Wait, did you even sleep?”
“Of course I slept!” He lies, probably not convincingly, “I—Beam us up!—Haha!—Meow!” He snaps his head back, “I just lost—Mmf, mmf!—lost track of ti—Mmf, mmf!—lost track of—Shut up! Hey, that’s not nice!—Haha!—Tch, tch, tch—Byeee…”
He runs his hands down his face and groans. Jerks his head to the side. “Never mind. I’ll be up in a minute.”
He’s so exhausted.
She studies him. He needs to pull himself together.
“Hey. Do you want a hug?” She asks.
The thought makes him unconsciously hug his own arms around himself. He wants one so badly it hurts. He used to love hugs, once he got used to them. He wasn’t dirty back then, though.
“That’s—Mmf, mmf!—Meow!—Probably not a good idea,” he says.
“I don’t care. I can dodge, and you look like you need a hug. So, do you want a hug?”
“No thank you,” he says, shifting on his feet.
Luz looks disheartened, but he tells himself it’s for the best.
“...Okay,” she says, “Well then, are you ready to go upstairs? This can wait. We want to eat while dinner’s still hot, right?”
He’d be fine with skipping dinner if it meant that he can finish what needs to be done, but he’s sure she wouldn’t like to hear that. He understands that arguing why he needs to do this would sound insane to her, but that’s just because she doesn’t think things through like he does. He’s better than her in this regard, which he likes to think makes up for him being a bad person. Still, he needs to keep up appearances. She can’t know he’s two seconds away from internally combusting from the pressure.
He looks at his bed and reminds himself that everything will be there later. The sheets will probably fester in Belos’s slime and be ten times more contaminated than before, but they will be there later. He can wash them extra well. Everything will be okay.
“Yeah—Mmf, mmf!—that's fine. Let’s go.”
He subtly pumps some hand sanitizer into his hands before turning to follow her. He rubs it into his skin once her back is turned, and revels in the sting of the alcohol. He’s temporarily clean. When Luz scampers off to help her mother finish setting up the table, he makes sure to grab the key above the door to lock the basement door behind him seven times.
It’ll never be enough.