[Hunter's transition hadn't been...quite so unconscious. He hadn't had her curse to contend with. So he'd gone in and out, in and out. Separated from his aunt when he needed her most.]
[Barraged. With one memory after the next. Most of them painful. Only a few were good, small little beacons of brightness in the shadows. Precious gems made even more precious by how rare they were.]
[Worth suffering to remember. Willow. Gus. Luz. Amity.]
[His friends from this world. Especially Dylan and Nico. Jason. Huvrye.]
[But there was a price. As it went on, he came to understand a terrible truth.]
[He wasn't real. He'd never existed. His childhood with his aunt was a lie, the person he was because of it was manufactured.]
[Hunter died and Hunter felt him die. Felt him melt under the weight of reality, until only one of them was left.]
[Until the heart ache and rejection and loss (why did he still miss him sometimes, even though he was terrified of him?) and heart-clenching fear and anxiety replaced most of the happiness, leaving a far more modest remainder. Until he lost the confidence and pure sense of self he'd had thanks to dear Aunt Eda, the result of a secure connection as a child.]
[Now there were just doubts. Regrets. Worries that there was no way to truly make up for the things he's done. Now he knows he used to be a bad person and has to grapple with the fear he'll never properly be a good one. Now there's a wellspring of shame.]
[Another hero directs her to his room.]
["Well" is certainly relative. He is stable. No longer trying to fight them to escape. No longer crying. No longer slipping in and out of consciousness, a telepath trying to temper his pain and keep him as out of it as possible to spare him whatever troubled memories were pouring back in, in recognition that his were clearly more traumatic than some.]
[But after they asked him enough questions to realize most of his memories were back, after he gave enough terse answers that they thought he was stabilized, he'd slipped somewhere out of the way. Wanting to hide from everything but knowing he can't when he carries so much of it with him. But still doing it anyway.]
[When Eda finds him, he's pressed against the back corner of the room on the floor, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, hands clenched into tight fists. His face is drenched in sweat and his cheeks are still sticky with tears. His eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed, with those circles back under them. He is staring ahead at nothing. But there is no tension in his expression. It's slack, eyes half lidded.]
[Sluggish with outright depression. Resigned.]
[This was what he'd wanted. What a part of his mind had been fighting for. He'd wanted to be again. The real him. The current him.]
[He'd just had to kill Hunter Clawthorne to do it.]
[(Or at least that's what he thinks, as utterly unable as he was to see the full shape of him under so much he has to work through.)]
[His eyes briefly train their way up to Eda when she walks in. He doesn't address her. His gaze just falls back to stare at nothing.]
no subject
[Barraged. With one memory after the next. Most of them painful. Only a few were good, small little beacons of brightness in the shadows. Precious gems made even more precious by how rare they were.]
[Worth suffering to remember. Willow. Gus. Luz. Amity.]
[His friends from this world. Especially Dylan and Nico. Jason. Huvrye.]
[But there was a price. As it went on, he came to understand a terrible truth.]
[He wasn't real. He'd never existed. His childhood with his aunt was a lie, the person he was because of it was manufactured.]
[Hunter died and Hunter felt him die. Felt him melt under the weight of reality, until only one of them was left.]
[Until the heart ache and rejection and loss (why did he still miss him sometimes, even though he was terrified of him?) and heart-clenching fear and anxiety replaced most of the happiness, leaving a far more modest remainder. Until he lost the confidence and pure sense of self he'd had thanks to dear Aunt Eda, the result of a secure connection as a child.]
[Now there were just doubts. Regrets. Worries that there was no way to truly make up for the things he's done. Now he knows he used to be a bad person and has to grapple with the fear he'll never properly be a good one. Now there's a wellspring of shame.]
[Another hero directs her to his room.]
["Well" is certainly relative. He is stable. No longer trying to fight them to escape. No longer crying. No longer slipping in and out of consciousness, a telepath trying to temper his pain and keep him as out of it as possible to spare him whatever troubled memories were pouring back in, in recognition that his were clearly more traumatic than some.]
[But after they asked him enough questions to realize most of his memories were back, after he gave enough terse answers that they thought he was stabilized, he'd slipped somewhere out of the way. Wanting to hide from everything but knowing he can't when he carries so much of it with him. But still doing it anyway.]
[When Eda finds him, he's pressed against the back corner of the room on the floor, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them, hands clenched into tight fists. His face is drenched in sweat and his cheeks are still sticky with tears. His eyes are bloodshot and red-rimmed, with those circles back under them. He is staring ahead at nothing. But there is no tension in his expression. It's slack, eyes half lidded.]
[Sluggish with outright depression. Resigned.]
[This was what he'd wanted. What a part of his mind had been fighting for. He'd wanted to be again. The real him. The current him.]
[He'd just had to kill Hunter Clawthorne to do it.]
[(Or at least that's what he thinks, as utterly unable as he was to see the full shape of him under so much he has to work through.)]
[His eyes briefly train their way up to Eda when she walks in. He doesn't address her. His gaze just falls back to stare at nothing.]