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“Aw, are they getting sleepy?” Willow coos, leaning over to peer at Hunter’s palisman.
Hunter cradles Flapjack a little closer to his chest with an awkward smile. The little bird shuffles their wings and tucks their head under one, feathers puffed up until they resemble a ball of fluff more than a cardinal. It’s adorable.
“Probably?” Hunter says, stroking one finger along their shoulder. “We did a lot of magic today in class.”
“Oh! You should’ve told me!” Willow says, straightening up to look Hunter in the eye. “I wouldn’t have made practice so hard today if I’d known.”
Hunter seems to bristle for a moment, then takes a breath and lowers his hackles. Still, his words carry a faint bite. “We can handle ourselves, Willow.”
Willow huffs. “Just because you can handle it doesn’t mean you should have to. Rest is important! For you and for Flapjack.”
Hunter pointedly avoids her eyes, frowning down at where Flapjack rests in his hands until Flapjack untucks their head with a tired chirp. Hunter scowls at the little bird. “Oh, not you too, Flapjack!”
Willow can’t help but giggle. By now she’s picked up that most of the time Hunter reacts like that to Flapjack it’s because his palisman told him to do something completely reasonable, like take care of himself. She gives the bird a conspiratorial wink and Flapjack returns it with a little head bob.
“Willow’s right, though.” Gus chimes in from Hunter’s other side with a smile. “We totally could’ve made practice easier today.”
“Rest days are super important for actually retaining the skills we build in practice!” Skara grins.
Although Hunter’s scowl was never mean-spirited in the first place, it still loses some of its heat as he turns his face to the ground, shoulders hiking up to his reddened ears. “Okay! Fine! Rest is important or whatever!”
“Glad to hear you agree!” Willow says smugly. She still catches Hunter grumbling that they handled it just fine, but she chooses not to comment for his sake. Baby steps, Willow. Baby steps.
“Palisman tend to rest better in staff form.” Viney offers kindly. “It might be good for Flapjack to rest like that for a little while.”
Hunter hums and seems to deliberate it. Flapjack cheeps at him, stretching out their wings. “I mean… it might be better…” Flapjack warbles something softly. “It’ll just be for a bit. Besides, Darius is picking me up today.” Flapjack chirrups with a head bob. “Yes, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
Finally, Flapjack shakes out their feathers and jumps out of Hunter’s cupped hands with a whistle. Willow watches golden sparks envelop their hovering form, smoothing their feathers into red-stained wood and locking their little feet onto the staff the magic conjures.
The golden glow dissipates and the staff drops…
And is snatched out of the air by a hand that is very decidedly not Hunter’s.
Hunter’s gloved fist closes on empty air and he jerks back with a startled “Hey!”
And standing before them is the very last person Willow wants to run into: Boscha.
The girl has backed off a little since their grudgby match, but only a little. And only toward Willow and Luz. She still picks on kids weaker than her, and, based on the way every muscle in Hunter’s body has gone rigid, she’s picked a new target.
Willow scowls at the bully.
Boscha holds Flapjack’s staff by her side, her free hand on her hip and her feet planted wide. She tilts her chin up with a smirk, and even though Willow knows it’s because she’s intimidated by Hunter’s height, it still grates on her nerves.
“Well, well, well,” Boscha says, voice dripping with that irritating false confidence of hers. Willow rolls her eyes. “If it isn’t the Golden Guard.”
At that, the whole team bristles, and Willow hears the telltale whirr of spell circles activating.
Hunter left all of that behind him. He’s not the Golden Guard – not anymore – and reminders of his time under that mantle are painful. He hates being judged by his old title and Willow and the other Entrails hate seeing their friend in pain.
Still, despite the way Hunter’s ears pin back against his skull, Willow gestures for the team to stand down. Hunter hates it when they try to fight his battles for him. They’d told him before that they just want to protect their friend but he had just gotten defensive and had snapped back that he doesn’t want or need protection. He can handle himself just fine, thank you.
And beneath the fury and indignation, Willow had seen the remnants of fear ground into him by the Emperor’s Coven – that if you couldn’t protect yourself you were weak – and so she’d backed off.
Hunter had apologized later, explained himself as best he could, asked politely that she and the others let him defend himself, and Willow had agreed on the condition that she be allowed to step in if it became absolutely necessary.
So, even though every bone in her body itches to knock that smug look off Boscha’s face, she stands silently at Hunter’s side and lets him fight his own battle.
“Give them back.” He says, low and dangerous, hand held out toward his staff.
Boscha moves Flapjack’s staff to be behind her, just a little farther out of reach. “I don’t think so. See, you show up here and suddenly you’re at the top of the class. In every class. But you’re also the only student allowed to keep their palisman with them in classes, and I’ve never seen you do magic on your own.”
Hunter thrusts his hand out again. “Give them back,” he repeats with more force.
Boscha ignores him and plows onward. “And that’s not very fair, is it? So I want to see what you can do without your little palisman’s help.”
Hunter’s shaking now, ever so slightly, but still, Willow stays out of it, and keeps the team back. This is exactly the kind of situation where interfering just makes Hunter angry.
“Come on!” Boscha taunts, lazily spinning her finger in a half-formed spell circle. “You used to be the Golden Guard. You had to have been pretty powerful to earn that title at the age you did.”
Hunter’s hands drop to his side, clenched into fists and shaking. He widens his stance and Willow can see that he’s fixed Boscha with an impressive scowl. “I don’t have to answer to you. Give me back my palisman.”
“If you want it back so badly, then take it. It’ll only take one spell.” When Hunter says nothing, Boscha laughs triumphantly. “You don’t have any magic, do you?”
Hunter growls, ears drooping and turning an angry shade of red at their tips.
Willow shakes with rage. That’s not fair! It’s not Hunter’s fault he can’t do magic and he isn’t any weaker for it! Her fury threatens to climb out of her chest in the form of the vines she can feel weaving a path under the school. Her magic slips into their roots so easily, calling forth sharp thorns that slice through the earth and stone beneath them. She could take Bosha down easily, make it so she doesn’t play another game of grudgby for the rest of the season.
Still, she forces herself to breathe in for four, out for four, and again. Let Hunter handle it for now. She can kick Boscha’s butt for this some other time.
Just stay calm.
Stay calm.
She collects herself and resigns herself to glare at the bully from her friend’s side.
And then Boscha delivers the killing blow. “Hah! Figures! Of course half-a-witch-Willow would find another half-a-witch to befriend.”
Hunter flinches hard.
He stumbles back, eyes wide.
And Willow.
Sees.
Red.
-
It’s not like Hunter’s never been called that before.
Half-a-witch.
It was thrown around easily by the coven heads, passed in whispers and shouts and jeers alike. Hissed at him in secluded halls, spat alongside a shoulder-check, taunted from the sidelines of duels.
He’s heard it plenty.
When he was younger, just a witchling, only eight or so – although, now, he’s not entirely sure how old he actually was – he told himself he was just a late bloomer. His magic was just taking longer to develop cause there was so much more of it and he was going to be more powerful than all the coven heads combined.
And then his ninth birthday came and he had nothing.
On his tenth, he graduated Scout basic training with hardly a spark.
By his eleventh, he had given up all hope of magic.
On his twelfth, he was given his title, his staff, and a chance to prove himself.
The coven heads and scouts were less open about insulting his magic-less state after that. At the end of the day, he was the one giving orders, not them.
So he’s heard it before. A lot. It’s practically second nature to him, rolls off his skin with hardly a flick of his ear, gets buried deep, deep down inside him where he doesn’t have to look.
Except.
Except this is the first time he’s heard it since finding out he’s not a witch.
He’s not even half a witch, is he? He’s just-
A grimwalker.
Not a witch.
He’s-
He-
He flinches, stumbles back, but he can barely see Boscha or Flapjack. He’s back in the ground again, dirt piling over him, pressing in on all sides, crushing his lungs – his stolen lungs – and chest and ribs-
There are hands on his arms, pulling him back, back, away-
He gasps, tries to yank his arms away but it’s like moving through mud and his arms aren’t quite responding to his commands-
Are they even his arms to command?
Galdorstone heart.
Palistrom wood keratin.
Stonesleeper lungs.
Bone of Ortet.
Which bone? Which bone makes this body someone else’s? Which bone is the proof that he’s not real?
It could be a bone in the arms that jerk sluggishly away from those hands. It could be a rib being slowly crushed by the weight of the ground he grew out of. It could be a phalange in twitching fingers, reaching up to tangle in and tug at the palistrom-wood hair.
His back hits a wall, solid stone in this crushing grave and he slides down, down, down as the earth piles on top of him. The fingers of this body dig into the hair growing from his head, the palistrom wood keratin of the nails scraping against the scalp, tangling in the hair made of the same material, pulling sharply, tugging, tugging, but it’s barely felt.
Those hands from before are back – this time threading between the aching fingers and gently pulling them from the hair. “Hey, hey, hey-” He catches a voice, distantly, through layers of cold, heavy mud. He blinks and gulps for air and gets a mouthful of dirt.
“Hunter. Hunter!” The voice is a shovel scraping through the earth that buries him. That’s the name he was given. His name. That’s his name. I’m here! He wants to cry, desperately clawing at the dirt that drowns him, but he can barely get air into the stonesleeper lungs that sit heavy in his chest, gasping in sporadic bursts.
“Listen to me, Hunter. You’re safe, it’s okay, it’s okay, we got Flapjack back, you’re okay-”
“Flap- jack.” He wheezes, stumbling in his attempt to maneuver the word out of his mouth. Something in him makes him put his hands out, cupped to hold a familiar shape.
“They’re still asleep. They just went dormant, they probably won’t wake up for a while-” A second voice says. Hunter tries not to cringe away. He knows these voices, he knows them.
“I know, I know, he just needs to hold them. Trust me, he just needs to hold them.”
Something settles in Hunter’s cupped palms, but the weight is wrong. It leans too far to one side, doesn’t fit perfectly in the shape he made for it. He can’t help the distressed whine that slips out of his throat, cursing himself for showing such weakness.
“Hey, it’s okay, Hunter! It’s still Flapjack, I promise!” The second voice says.
“Here,” The first one says, and he feels a gentle pressure guiding his gloved fingers closed around the thing in his hands. “Feel them. Run your fingers over their feathers.”
Hunter obeys, because of course he does. He wasn’t made for anything else.
He brushes his fingertips across the shape of the object in his hands. It’s wooden, and his fingers settle on familiar grooves, running them over and over in his mind like clawing clumps of mud away from his face, bringing him closer to the surface.
There, the bump of a wing.
There, the ridge of the feathered crest.
There, the sharp point of their little beak.
There, the notch in the staff from a story Flapjack has yet to tell.
“Flapjack,” Hunter repeats between heaving breaths, blinking to clear clots of dirt from his eyes. The palisman’s little red body swims in his vision, nestled carefully in his cupped hands. They’re in staff form, Hunter can see now, the weight of the staff tilting them to one side in his hands, making them heavier. That makes sense now.
He looks up.
Gus crouches in front of him, Viney kneeling next to Gus. Both of them look worried, so so worried, and shit – that’s his fault, isn’t it? They’re worried because he couldn’t keep it together when he was called one lame insult – but the grave threatens to close on him again when he thinks about that, pressing heavy on his chest and making his weak breaths wheeze. He shakes his head and blinks hard, holding Flapjack just a little tighter.
“Hey, you back with us, buddy?” Gus asks, and though his voice still sounds a little far away through the ringing in his ears, Hunter can hear him.
All he can offer, though, is a pitiful whine.
“That’s okay, that’s okay,” Viney cuts in, using that voice she uses when Pebbles gets upset. He must be a cornered animal if she’s using that voice on him.
He shakes his head. “’m not a witch.” He mumbles around the grave dirt in his mouth.
“Woah, hey, no.” Gus cuts him off and Hunter hates the way tears spring to his eyes. He’s better than this. He’s supposed to be better than this. “Boscha’s wrong, Hunter. You’re a witch – a powerful witch – and she’s just jealous-”
“No!” Hunter huffs, struggling to breathe under the weight of the grave. “I’m not real.”
“Magic or not, Hunter, you’re still a real witch-”
“No!” He cuts in again, his voice dangerously close to a wail. They don’t get it, they don’t understand! “I’m not real! I’m not real I’m not real I’m not real-”
The earth fills in to swallow him whole, the hands of thousands of his predecessors reaching to pull him down, down, down to join them. He wants to fight them, wants to flee, wants to hide somewhere far away from the memory of the dead, but the earth crushes his bones and holds him in place.
“Hunter! Hunter, look at me!” Viney begs him and Hunter obeys, because it’s easier than fighting what he was made for.
“You’re real, Hunter, I promise you’re real, but I need you to focus, okay? We can’t help until we get you grounded.”
He manages to nod, even though he’s only processed half of what she’s saying. She’s still talking to him with that cornered-animal voice, still trying to calm him down. She still doesn’t get it, does she? But she’s closer than Gus, and that’s enough to fix his attention on her.
“Okay, okay, good. Now, what’s five things you can see?”
What a stupid question. His predecessors are trying to drag him into the grave and she’s asking what he can see?
Still, he follows orders.
“Uh, you. Gus. Um… Flapjack. Some- some plants. Uh. Your jersey.”
He’s rewarded with the faint hint of a smile.
“Okay, now what’s four things you can touch?”
And he’s… he’s not really thinking about that. He has to actually find things to say for this one – dig past the crushing dirt and name something, anything, for Viney.
“My gloves.” He says, because they’re easy. “Flapjack. The- the stone wall behind me.” He takes one hand off the palisman and sets it on the floor, feeling the chill of the linoleum seep through his gloves to bite his fingertips. “The floor.”
“Good!” Viney says, and the cornered-animal voice is slipping away. “Three things you can hear?”
“Your voice,” he says, and cringes, because that’s such an obvious one. It can’t possibly be the right answer. But Viney just nods encouragingly, and he focuses on trying to hear anything else. Slowly, the ringing in his ears fades. He hadn’t realized just how loud it had been until the other sounds filter in and he wonders how the hell he’d missed them. “Skara’s music. Shouting.”
Gus looks over his shoulder and winces, then shifts so that whatever is behind him is blocked from Hunter’s view. “Okay, now two things you can smell?”
“Uh,” Hunter takes a big sniff of air, forcing his rapid breaths to behave just long enough for him to answer this question. “Flowers. Dust.”
Viney’s gaze flicks nervously behind them, where the shouting is coming from. She also moves so that her much broader shoulder meets Gus’. “One thing you can taste?” She asks.
The taste of grave dirt is gone, but his mouth has gone dry. He can’t really taste anything, but Viney is looking at him expectantly. “Um. Dry?” He offers.
She smiles at him. “There you are!”
The cornered animal voice has dropped, but her voice is still so gentle. Hunter rubs his thumb along the ridge of Flapjack’s wing and dips his head away from her eyes. He heaves in air – easier now that he's not being buried alive, but still coming in ragged, scraping gasps.
“You ready to try breathing with me, man?” Gus asks.
Hunter nods slowly and looks up to watch Gus count. He manages to meet his eyes for just a split second before flicking them back down. It’s too hard, right now, to make eye contact. His head is still spinning and his hands are still shaking and he’s still trying really hard to just stay present.
Gus doesn’t force him to make eye contact, though. None of his friends do, not like his Uncle did-
No. Nope. Not going there again.
Focus.
Gus lowers his hand to where Hunter can see it without meeting Gus’ eyes. “Ready? One, two, three, four-”
Hunter inhales and exhales and inhales again, over and over until his breaths stop catching and his heart stops skipping.
“I’m sorry.” He mumbles when he feels calm enough to speak. “I don’t know why I… I didn’t mean to freak out like that.”
“Nobody means to have a panic attack.” Viney reminds him. “It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, you’ve got nothing to be sorry for, Hunter!” Gus chimes in.
Hunter curls his shoulders in tighter, scraping the heel of his boot against the floor. “I’ve… I’ve never reacted like that before. To what she said, I mean. It’s not… it’s not the first time I’ve heard it, but I just- it’s never hit me like that before.”
Viney’s face seems tight, pained lines by her eyes and lips pressed together. He’s said something wrong, hasn’t he? They said it’s not his fault but they didn’t know he’s heard it before. Now they probably think he should have kept it together better and they’re going to hate him and he’ll be back to having no friends-
“Hunter, it’s okay!” Gus leans into his space and Hunter startles back, blinking out of his spiraling thoughts. “It sucks that you’ve been called that before, but just ‘cause it didn’t freak you out before doesn’t mean it can’t affect you now.”
“They’re called ‘triggers’ and old things can become new triggers, and sometimes they can catch you by surprise. What’s important is now we know what it is so we can avoid it and react to it if it happens.” Viney offers kindly.
“Oh.” Hunter feels a little dumb. Of course there’s a word for it. The tightness in his chest and his struggle to breathe has a name. “Oh, that… makes sense. I guess.”
“How are you feeling now, Hunter?”
“Um.” He takes stock. His fingertips still feel a bit tingly and his whole body seems to be trembling with the lingering aftershocks of his panic attack. But he knows where he is now. He’s sitting against a wall in the hallway of the school, afternoon sunlight filtering in through the windows, catching the dust and… pollen?
Vines and flowers cover the walls in front of him, rippling up out of the floor and all flowing towards a spot just past Viney and Gus’ meeting shoulders. Behind them, he can hear shouting and the frantic plucking of Skara’s harp, her voice mingling with the music in an attempt to overpower the noise.
“I’m- wait. Wait, what’s going on?”
Viney and Gus both grimace, chancing a look over their shoulders. They’re hiding something – Hunter’s not stupid – but why are they hiding it from him?
“Are you sure you’re feeling good? Like, you’re steady?” Gus asks nervously.
“Grounded?” Viney corrects.
“Yeah, I’m fine. What’s going on?” He goes to push himself up from the wall and Viney and Gus follow him up.
“So, um, you know that thing that happened a while ago? With the illusions over the school when… uh… I got too into my head?” Hunter hesitates. Gus wrings his hands together nervously, casting sharp glances over his shoulder.
“Yeah?”
“And you know how… Willow is, like, really powerful?”
Hunter doesn’t like where this is going.
“Yeah.”
“Sometimes… uh- sometimes her emotions get the better of her. And her magic responds to that. So when Boscha said… what she said to you, and you… uh-“
“Had a panic attack.” Viney supplies.
“Had a panic attack,” Gus continues, “she got upset. Like, really upset.”
“Skara’s trying to get through to her but it’s… not going well.”
And finally, the two of them step aside and Hunter can see Willow, surrounded by thick, sharp-thorned vines, wreathed in a poisonous green glow. She sits straddling a cowering Boscha, fists raised and bloody and held back only by the flickering red light of Skara’s frantic magic. Thorns dig into Boscha’s skin where the vines hold her down and Hunter can see her holding trembling arms over her face in a weak attempt to protect herself.
He steps forward cautiously on shaking legs and Gus and Viney step aside to let him pass by. He continues to creep forward, skirting around the edge of Willow’s rage, stepping carefully over vines and dodging thorns until he can see her face.
Her eyes glow bright green behind her glasses and glare unseeing at Boscha, lips pulled back in a snarl, baring sharp teeth.
“Hunter!” Skara yelps, snapping Hunter’s attention to her. “I’m doing my best, but I can’t hold her back much longer!”
“I don’t know how to help!”
“Just get her attention! She’ll listen to you!”
He wavers for just a moment on the edge, clutching Flapjack’s staff close. He’s not… he’s not necessarily the most qualified for this. Willow is angry, he can see it in the way she snarls and struggles against the red bardic magic wrapped around her fists and holding her back. Willow has always been the one teaching him how to regulate himself, he’s not- he doesn’t know how to do this.
Skara’s fingers stutter. The magic flickers. Willow’s fists jerk forward before being halted once again. The vines wrap tighter around Boscha and she shrieks, and Hunter jolts into action.
-
When Willow’s vision clears, it’s to tired red light wrapped around her fists and thick thorny vines warping and breaking the floor beneath her feet. She blinks hard, trying to clear the lingering haze from her vision.
There are hands on her shoulders, tugging her back, and a voice in her ear. She shakes her head, trying to re-center herself in the moment. The voice takes on familiarity and then she recognizes Hunter behind her, talking quickly in her ear.
“Captain, you have to listen to me, focus on my voice, come on, snap out of it-“
“Hunter?”
He huffs a sigh of relief. “Welcome back, Captain.”
“Welcome…” She looks down and finally notices Boscha beneath her, bruised arms raised to cover an equally bruised face. Her knuckles sting, and when she chances a look at them she sees the split skin marking her as the culprit. And the vines… the thick, thorny vines she’d called from beneath the school wrap around Boscha’s chest and shoulders and legs, thorns digging into her skin, little beads of blood raising from the wounds. “Oh. Oh no!”
Willow throws herself back, calling off the vines as gently as she can. “Oh, no, I didn’t- I didn’t mean to do that, I-”
“We’ll take care of it, Captain,” Hunter says seriously, his heavy gloved hands not leaving her shoulders, steadying her as she gets to her feet. But he doesn’t look at her. Willow draws in a shuddering breath as she takes in his shaking form, fists clenching Flapjack’s staff, his eyes still locked on Boscha, who still cowers with her arms over her face, even as Skara and Viney rush to peel the remaining vines away. There are spell circles at Viney’s fingertips, drawn to heal the damage she caused. She scared her friends. She scared Hunter.
“I’m sorry.” He flinches and Willow draws her arms up around herself. She’d been doing so well lately, but Boscha was so mean and Hunter had looked so scared and she didn’t think she just reacted and now…
Now she’s worse than before.
Hunter clenches his jaw, his hand momentarily tightening on her shoulder before he rolls his shoulders back and lets the tension drip away. He holds his head a little higher, his eyes narrowed in focus, his posture perfectly straight. It’s the look he gets when he needs control – when he doesn’t know what to do and being the Golden Guard is just easier – but there’s something different about it this time. There’s none of the usual tension in his shoulders, and his expression, while focused, isn’t neutral and closed off. Willow blinks in recognition. He’s a leader, this time, not a soldier.
“We’ll figure it out, Captain,” He says solidly. Not ‘it’s okay’ because it’s not okay and they both know that – ‘we’ll figure it out’. “Let’s just get you out of here for now.” And then he guides her, gently, out of the school.
The fresh air settles in her lungs, stilling her trembling nerves. She takes a deep breath, and then another, and then follows Hunter down to sit on the steps.
He settles heavily on the stone and Willow leaves space between them so their shoulders don’t accidentally touch – for all his calm, focused leadership, she can still see the way he tightens his fists around Flapjack’s staff, and touching him seems like it would do more harm than good right now.
Willow clenches her fists in her lap, blinking away the tears that spring to her eyes when her knuckles pull and sting. “Are you okay, Hunter?” She asks.
He still won’t look at her, but she sees his mouth twist for a moment before he schools it back into a neutral expression. “I’m fine, Captain.” He shifts, tilting his head toward her just a bit, eyes still fixed on Flapjack. “Are you okay, Captain?”
Her eyes burn and Willow swallows around the sudden lump in her throat. Why is he asking her that? He’s the one Boscha bullied, and she’s the one who just beat someone up so badly her friends had to pull her away.
“I’m-” She starts, then cuts herself off with a curse as her voice wobbles because the truth is no, she’s not okay. Her chest tightens painfully and she chokes back a sob. She can’t fall apart right now, not when Hunter looks like he’ll jump out of his skin if she moves too fast, not when her friends are inside healing wounds she inflicted, not when her nerves still spark and crawl under her skin.
“It’s… okay. If you’re not okay.” Hunter says, stumbling over the words she recognizes from the numerous times she and the team have told him the same thing. It becomes harder to hold back her tears, watching Hunter try to comfort her the way she’s comforted him. “You seemed… really upset with yourself.”
And that knocks the tears from her eyes and sends them spilling down her cheeks because she is upset with herself! She had gotten so much better at controlling her anger and her magic – she hadn’t had an outburst like that in months – and then Boscha makes one stupid comment and she loses it! A sob catches in her throat and she curls around herself, clutching her arms close to her chest, feeling the broken skin on her knuckles sting.
Hunter’s hand lands lightly on her back. He pulls her, gently, until she tilts to lean into his side. She feels him tense, but when she tries to pull away, he wraps an arm around her protectively, holding her in place.
“I didn’t mean to.” She manages through her tears. She needs him to know she would never do that on purpose. She needs him to know she’d never intentionally hurt anyone.
He only hesitates a moment before he says, “I believe you.”
And Willow curls into him and cries. He holds her close, and even though Willow can feel the way he’s pulled taut with anxiety, he doesn’t let her pull away – he just keeps his arm around her shoulders and a firm hand on her back. Her tears stain his shirt but he doesn’t even seem to notice. He pulls in long, slow breaths, and gradually Willow manages to calm her own sobbing enough to follow him. She takes a shuddering breath, and then another, and another, and eventually her tears dry and Hunter finally lets her sit up.
“Do you feel better, Captain?” He asks, pulling his arm back in to clutch at Flapjack’s staff again.
She does, kind of. All the lingering emotions and energy have flooded out and her hands have stopped twitching and trembling. But she also feels tired – like her energy drained away with her tears. She manages to shrug in response.
He shifts on the stone steps and opens his mouth to respond, but is interrupted by footsteps above them.
“So, good news: Boscha’s probably okay. Viney healed most of it and we walked her to the healing homeroom and the nurse was still there, so she’s in good hands.” Gus comes down the steps to sit on Willow’s other side. “The bad news: when we called your dads, Mr. Harvey was the one who answered, so they’re… kinda… already on their way.”
Willow groans and buries her face in her hands. She doesn’t have the energy to deal with her dad’s overprotectiveness. He’s going to be hovering and demanding to know what happened and what Boscha did and what made Willow do what she did and why it was so much worse this time and-
“I’ll protect you, Willow,” Hunter says, and the worst part is Willow knows he means it because he’s probably misreading her reaction.
“I don’t need protection!” She throws her hands up. “That’s the problem!”
She stands abruptly and paces back and forth, her sneakers scuffing up the dirt. “My dad’s going to be trying to figure out every detail about what happened and what went wrong so he can fix it, but he’s not even going to ask me what I need, he’s just going to do what he thinks I need!”
She kicks a rock and it bounces across the dirt path before coming to rest in the grass. “It probably wouldn’t even matter if he did ask me because I don’t know what happened! I don’t know why I freaked out, I don’t know what went wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it!”
“Woah, Willow, breathe,” Gus says, hands up, sounding concerned, and it rubs the wrong way. She bristles even though she knows he’s just trying to help.
“I’m trying!” She snaps, clenching and unclenching her fists. She can feel the vines writhing under the ground beneath her feet and she needs to calm down now because she doesn’t want a repeat of what just happened – especially not toward her friends.
“Was it…” Hunter starts, and Willow turns sharply to him. To his credit, he doesn’t flinch – he just swallows hard and starts over. “Was it a trigger?”
Willow blinks, caught off guard. “What?”
“Was it a trigger?” Hunter repeats, seeming to gain confidence. “What Boscha said- uh, triggered… a panic attack for me, and you used to be called that, too, right?”
Willow blinks. Oh. Oh, he might have a point.
“So, maybe it just affected you differently than it affected me? I mean, we have different… correlations with the word,” Hunter continues, grimacing, “so it makes sense that we would have different reactions.”
“Yeah, Willow, when she said it, you looked startled before you looked angry.” Gus chimes in. “You only lost control when Hunter reacted.”
Hunter cringes, but Willow shakes her head. “No, I just- Hunter, you looked so scared and I- I know you said you don’t need help protecting yourself, but she was going too far and I-”
“Willow-”
“Captain-”
“I had to protect you, I have to be strong enough to protect you!”
“You are strong enough!” Hunter cuts in. “You are more than strong enough.”
There are tears in her eyes and she wipes them away angrily. Gus reaches up and takes her hand. She squeezes it tightly in hers, grounding herself with the feeling of his knuckles under her fingers.
“Willow, you’re always looking out for us, but you also always put our needs above yours,” Gus says, tugging her down to sit beside them again. “I think… maybe what Boscha said did trigger you, but you focused on Hunter’s reaction instead of your own, and responded by protecting him-”
“-And the heightened emotions from a panic attack messed with your magic-” Hunter says, brow furrowed in thought.
“-And compromised my control over it.” Willow breathes.
“You had a panic attack, Captain. It doesn’t make you a bad person”
“I still hurt someone. And I scared you.”
Hunter stays quiet, but out of the corner of her eye she can see him open and close his mouth. She lets him work out what he wants to say, even as she clutches Gus’ hand anxiously. She never wanted to lose control like that around him – not when she knows what Belos did to hurt him.
“You did,” Hunter admits softly.
“I’m sorry,” Willow says, because even if he chooses to leave her, she needs him to understand she never meant to scare him. “I didn’t want to- I know that- I-” She cuts herself off with a huff and tries again. “I didn’t want to lose control like that around you. I don’t want to remind you of him.”
Hunter flinches and Willow curses internally. She leans away from him, giving him space, bracing herself for his inevitable response.
“You’re not like him, though.” Hunter starts shakily, worrying his thumbs together. “He… he meant what he did. Even when he pretended he didn’t. And he never apologized. Not really.”
Startled, Willow looks up just as Hunter drops his hands to brace himself on the stone steps so he can turn to look at her. “I saw you, Willow. You really didn’t have control. You were scared of what you did. You apologized and I believe you.” He hesitates only a moment before taking her hand. “Yes, you scared me. You hurt someone. But you didn’t mean to. He did. So, you’re nothing like him.”
Willow stares at his hand in wonder. He never lets anyone touch his hands. She’s seen him turn down high fives and wince when something puts too much pressure on them. But he’s offered his hand in comfort willingly, even after what she did. Faintly she can feel him trembling in her own grip and she is careful not to hold him too tightly.
He holds her hand for another breath and then pulls it back. She watches him rub at his palm and knuckles nervously, flexing her own hand.
“I’m going to fix this.” She promises. “I’m going to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”
“We’ll figure it out, Willow,” Gus says, squeezing her hand. “You’re not alone. Let us look out for you this time.”
Her eyes burn and her throat feels tight, so she just nods, and Gus slings an arm around her shoulders. She stays there until her dads descend on their palismen, already calling for her before they’ve even hit the ground. She can feel her Papa’s frantic protective energy from here and shrinks further into Gus’ hold. She’s still tired. She doesn’t want to do this right now.”
“I’ll go talk to them.” Hunter volunteers, pushing up off the steps.
Gus reaches out, snagging his bag before he can get too far. “Mr. Harvey’s not a threat. He’s just protective, like Willow is. You don’t have to protect her from them. Just tell them she’s tired.”
Hunter nods seriously, and Willow snorts as she watches him go to fulfill his mission.
“We’ve got you, Willow,” Gus says again as they watch Hunter fend off Willow’s Papa with wide gestures and rapid-fire exchanging of words. “We’ve got you.”