Toxic Mentality~ {TRANS HUNTER AU}

Chapter 17: The Night Out

yippee fluff :3
(and angst heheheh)

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Hunter's POV:

I woke up with a backache (as to be expected when you sleep in your binder), and cracked my back and neck. I looked around, the memories of yesterday flooding back to me. It almost felt like a fever dream. I hastily walked upstairs, to see Ms. Noceda awake, and making breakfast. She waved to me, and I hesitated in waving back, before I walked into the living room and sat on the couch.

I just sat there, thinking about my mistakes, my failures, and the fact that I'm not even a real person, when Luz walked in. She yawned, waving to me. I waved back, not even attempting to put on a fake smile, and continued to think about the meaningless existence of my life.

The only thing we did that day was sit around and try to move past the things that happened the day before, and once again, I cried myself to sleep that night too. And the night after that. I woke up feeling awful, my back hurt, I felt like I could barely breath, and my hair was getting long. I feared I was starting to looking like a girl again, or even worse, like Belos. I had found some books Luz had on "Gravesfield History", Gravesfield apparently being the small town she lived in. I started reading into it, and LUCKY ME of course, there he was. Caleb, whose face haunted me.

Belos was right, I do look the most like him, don't I? We have the same nose, hair color, stupid hair strand that won't stay back. I was sat in the bathroom upstairs, looking at myself in the mirror. I began digging through the cabinet behind the mirror to get scissors. I grabbed a pair, and closed the cabinet. But when I did, it's almost like my reflection was taunting me. I saw Belos, I saw Caleb, and then I saw me. I looked just like them.

I felt tears prick the corners of my eyes, and I grabbed a big chunk of hair, cutting off piece by piece. I heard a creak as the door opened, and I saw Willow standing in the hallway. I froze. "Want some help with..." She gestured to the flying rats' nest that sat on my head. I nodded.

She giggled, taking the scissors from me and helping me fix my mess. I blushed a bit, avoiding eye contact, and scooting my books back to hopefully not be noticed. Once she was done, she turned me around and asked how it looked. I smiled. No long, feminine hair. No stupid strand of hair that I could never push back. I looked like a boy. I looked like me.

"Thanks, Captain." I stood up, shaking the hair off of myself. "No problem, Caleb." I got a weird feeling when she said that. I liked the nickname, but now that I know who Caleb was, it's almost unsettling.

She grabbed me by the hand, pulling me over to the back door. "Before I noticed you, I was gonna go on a night fly. I used to do those a lot back home, but without boiling rains and such, it's a lot safer in the human realm." She smiled, quietly unlocking the back door. I was usually quite paranoid about this kind of stuff, but for some reason I felt safer with her. I tapped on Flapjack, who was sleeping in my pocket. He looked up at me, and flapped up onto the finger I offered for him.

"Let's go then." I smiled, turning Flapjack into staff form. Willow snickered, leading me outside. My eyes widened as I was engulfed in the sights and sounds of the human realm. The chirps, croaks, and hoots of small and large critters all around us alone were beautiful, but the sky. The sky was amazing. It looked like the Boiling Isles sky, but it was just different. Some way, some how, it was like nothing I had ever seen before. Yet for some reason, so very familiar.

Willow took off into the sky, catching me off guard. I quickly hopped on my staff, taking off after her. I caught up, slowing down to drift right beside her. The wind felt strange on the back of my neck, and on my forehead. we stopped moving for a minute, parking our staffs right next to each other.

We looked over the soft glow of the remaining lights in town, listened to the chirps of wildlife, and got used to our surroundings. "I should do this more often, it's really relaxing." I told Willow, unsure if my voice was too quiet to be heard. She responded with an equally as quiet hum.

I sighed, closing my eyes and hanging upside down on my staff. Willow did the same, and I looked over to her, just in time to see her glasses almost fall to the forest floor. She decided to hold her glasses instead, which made her look different. "You look good without your glasses." Wearing my binder for so long must have been getting to me, because I did not mean to say that.

I blushed, and my ears went down. The decision was made that it would be a good idea to avoid eye contact at that point, so I looked at the trees instead. Willow giggled, replying with a soft "Thanks."

After just sitting there and talking for a while, we decided to head back to Ms. Noceda's house. We successfully snuck back in, and I don't think anyone ever knew that we left. And for the first time since we had left the Boiling Isles, I didn't cry myself to sleep that night. Actually, I felt safe enough to take off my binder, and hide it under my pillow.

974 words

YEAAHH IM ON FIREEE I WROTE THIS CHAPTER IN THE SAME NIGHT I WROTE THE LAST ONE, AND IM NOT EVEN SEEING THE FIRST HINTS OF DAYLIGHT YET :D

(I need sleep)

ALSO- also, i have a bunch of chapters planned out, so i'm working on a drawing that i'm gonna put at the beginning of one of them. do you guys want to see it? if so, i'll put a pic of the sketch at the end of the next chapter :3

BUT BE WARNED, IF I DO PUT IT IN THE NEXT CHAPTER, YOU MAY REALIZE WHAT IT MEANS‼️ YOU MAY GET BIG SPOIL‼️‼️ but that's only if u get the right theory on it lol