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It had been a few weeks since Vee had sat down in the closet with Hunter and had that conversation, finally letting go of those demons from the past and accepting a new path forward with a fresh start.
And these had been some of the most refreshing weeks of her life.
Without the constant nagging worry or the lingering awareness of the boy's exact whereabouts in the house, Vee found that she was so much less exhausted! Physically and emotionally, sleeping had also not been as horrific now that the paranoia had at the very least been toned down.
And in the process of all of this... she'd made a new friend!
In the time since the witch kids had gotten here, she'd of course seen Hunter interacting with them pretty regularly, though, before they'd had their talk and resolved things, he had sometimes tended to retract into his shell when he noticed her presence, but a few times she had caught his genuine behaviour around his friends. And even still, she hadn't expected him to be so... polite? Gentle?
Yes, she definitely hadn't expected him to be all cold-hearted, violent Golden Guard, she hadn't been blind enough not to notice how there had clearly always been so much more to him. Yet still, it just felt so unexpected to finally meet the real him in such a casual setting and see how normal he was. (Though, normal was a strong word. That boy was a weirdo through and through.) This was the guy that had haunted her nightmares for so long and now he was walking around the same house as her in his silly little Crocs, asking if anyone wanted to play uno for the fiftieth time this week. It was bizarre!
He was the tallest of their group by far and he was very nearly as tall as Camila now! Vee had heard the woman mention how it was probably thanks to the fact he was now eating proper meals instead of gross scout rations he'd apparently been surviving on his whole life so Vee couldn't help but feel a sense of pride for him. Like, go him for getting tall, she guessed. But, despite being so much taller than her and the others (and a lot more muscular, she had clocked), he probably had to be the most gentle of the group. Willow and Gus loved play fighting or having pillow fights around the house, putting all their strength into absolutely battering each other with various of Camila's cushions and Luz was certainly no stranger to launching herself at people for surprise hugs or often impromptu piggyback rides. Even Amity would slam a few books on heads when they got too loud and disrupted her reading time and with enough prodding, she'd run full force into their various play battles involving soft objects. But Hunter, despite his superior physical strength, would haphazardly chuck a cushion at the floor to ensure he didn't break any of Camila's shelf decorations and then curl up on the couch and allow the others to lug pillows at him for a laugh. Where the others would run down hallways, roughly shoving each other out of the way on the stairs at the mention of food, Hunter would apologise for simply brushing up against someone. The only times he'd actually put his athletism to use would be joint workout sessions with Willow or Just Dance competitions with Luz which he refused to ever let her win because it was funny.
Seeing how reluctant he was to use his strength against any of them, even in a play setting, really helped to put Vee's mind at ease.
And it put her mind at ease enough that she was actually decently comfortable being alone in the same room as him now! Like how they were currently watching TV together! Except she was on the couch, trying to focus on the show and he was standing off in the corner staring at the couch to his side with a faraway look that was beginning to freak her out just a little bit.
Okay, maybe she was really freaked out.
She had no issue with him watching TV with her or sticking around while she did stuff, it was actually quite enjoyable to have his company nowadays, it was just the standing oddly still in the corner and staring at random things around the room for hours that put her off.
It was a bit too... Golden Guard watching over the experiments in the dungeon for her liking.
So, putting into practice her new boundary skills, she decided to ask him to stop. After another ten minutes of internal debating and procrastination.
"Hey, Hunter. Could you... not stand in the corner, please? It makes me uncomfortable."
It took him a moment to react as if the words had some sort of delay before reaching his brain, and for a moment she feared he'd just ignore her but after he seemed to have processed what she'd said, he blinked slowly. "Oh. Um... sorry..." He mumbled, looking and sounding almost drowsy.
With no further prodding, he shuffled over to sit beside her on the couch, giving her a bit of space but not squeezing himself into the side of the couch furthest away from her like he'd previously tried one time when there had been no other seats available back before their talk. Yep. Thinking back on that award phase just made her cringe.
"Is this...?" He asked vaguely.
"Yeah, you're fine." Vee nodded after an embarrassingly long moment of trying to remember what he was asking about.
"Okay." He said plainly. And with that, Vee tried to turn her attention back to the TV and Hunter just sort of sat there, fidgeting with his hands.
He'd stopped wearing his gloves as much as of late. Vee wasn't entirely sure what had spurred this decision but Camila had warned them all not to make a big deal about it so Vee hadn't really asked. Upon seeing the number of scars on his hands, however, she was reminded of something that she'd previously tried to push to the side and forget, deeming it too complicated to fit into her existing narrative of the horrible, evil Golden Guard. She remembered fighting for consciousness after days of starvation and torture, so weak she couldn't even hold her head up anymore, just laying there uselessly on the floor. And from the floor, through her blurry vision, she had watched the Emperor grab the Golden Guard by the wrist and snap each and every finger on his hands. And then he just left him there.
The Golden Guard had always been silent while keeping watch over the experiments, frustratingly silent to the point where some of the other basilisks would scream obscenities at him just to try and get a rise out of him. But that time that the Emperor had snapped his fingers, she swore she'd heard him cry.
She looked over at the boy beside her and tried to imagine what it would be like to have your only family that you trusted with your whole life stand there and snap your fingers. She couldn't. It was just such an unfathomable idea.
"It's just because it's what you would do..." She'd decided to interrupt the silence to clarify for whatever reason, "When you... Um. In the dungeons."
He looked up at her for a brief moment before his gaze flickered away. He still didn't really look her in the eye very much but he didn't seem to for anyone else either so she tried not to take offence. "Oh. Right, sorry. I guess I just... barely remember all of that, to be honest. That doesn't offend you, right? It's not that everything you had to go through was inconsequential to me, it's just—"
"It's okay, Hunter." She cut him off before he could dig the hole any deeper. "I know how you feel about it all. And it's not like I can sit here and blame you for having bad memory."
He shrugged. "It's not really that I have bad memory, it's just... I was pretty out of it the whole time. Dissociating, as Luz calls it. I guess I just... blocked it all out to protect myself. That happened a lot back then."
"So you just... zoned out the whole time? I guess I did always wonder how you managed to stand so still for so long without getting bored." She commented.
"Yeah... I hated getting sent to watch over the experiments. It sort of became a punishment after a while. Like if I hesitated when Belos would ask me to torture someone for information, he'd send me to watch you basilisks so I 'would learn to not be so soft'. But unfortunately for him, I would just stand there and dissociate until I could leave." He explained.
So, the scary, intimidating presence lingering in the corner, surveying all of their suffering was actually just completely dissociated the entire time. Huh.
Suddenly, the Golden Guard that haunted her nightmares didn't seem quite as scary anymore.
"So... dealing with us was seen as punishment?" She asked, no malice in her tone, just a genuine question.
"Pretty much. Excluding a few nutjob researchers and of course, Belos, nobody was really that enthusiastic about the whole Basilisk experiments. Sure, we pretended like it but that was just to appease Belos so we could hopefully get a better job."
Huh. That really shed a new light on things...
"Of course, it doesn't excuse what any of us did," Hunter clarified, "We still chose to stay in the coven. Even with all the manipulation, that's still us at fault. But... I don't know, maybe it would help to know that not everyone took pleasure in your suffering?"
"Thanks for... telling me that, I suppose. It's definitely something to think on." She decided to say. What could you really say to that?
He gave her a quick nod and returned to fiddling with his hands so she took that as a sign that the conversation was over and again, tried to return her attention to the TV. But he spoke up again.
"I hope they can find a new life where they can be happy."
She frowned. "The scouts?"
"All of them."
She thought very long and hard about her next words. "Even the ones that hurt me? That hurt you?" She'd heard a bit about how the other scouts had treated the Golden Guard back in the coven... none of it was really pleasant.
"Well... I think they should have a chance. If they continue to prove that they're... bad, then I really doubt they'll live very happily... but if they're willing to try and learn and change for the better then I think they deserve that chance. I got a chance, so I think they should too..."
"But they chose to be bad when they joined the Emeprors Coven, or at the very least when they stayed." She countered.
"They probably joined because they thought they would be helping people. And then they were stuck."
"Stuck?"
"I've been doing a lot of research on cults. Camila bought me some books. And honestly, I'd say the Emperor's Coven was a cult and the thing about cults is that they're not easy to leave."
"How come...?"
"They draw you in and then they make you rely on them. I didn't even own my own money back then, anything I needed I had to rely on the coven for. They overwork you to isolate you from anyone on the outside, I didn't even know anyone on the outside until recently. They build you up enough so that you feel like you could be of use, but not enough that you could ever be satisfied that you're useful. They get you to keep going with the false promise that you could finally be satisfied but the truth is, you're never enough."
That is... a lot.
"Maybe they are all bad, and you certainly don't have to forgive them for what they did to you and neither do I. But I still think they deserve a chance to be more than what Belos made them to be."
More than what Belos made them to be...
That would be nice.
"You're surprisingly nice." She blurted out without thinking.
Thankfully, he didn't seem to take offence. "Thanks. I try... I want to be—"
"More than what Belos made you to be?"
"Yeah."
"Me too."
He smiled. "Well, then I suppose we could both try to be more together."
She couldn't help the smile working its way onto her own face. Testing the waters, she decided to scoot closer to him and slowly, she leaned against his shoulder.
"That would be nice."