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Gus was aware of several sensations happening concurrently and yet everything seemed sluggish, as if the world had slowed down specifically to let him notice each in turn: the stink of rotten flesh, the feel of atrophied Titan bone under his bent knee, the sound of his own pulse in his ears, only slightly drowned out by Hunter’s voice.
“You’re … you’re lying!”
Belos shrieked something – a name maybe? A declaration of intent to kill? – and reared back, the grotesque eyes studding his body wide and staring. Despite clearly shaking with fear of his own, Hunter planted himself in front of Gus and held out his staff with his good arm, clearly intending to protect him. Hunter’s dominant hand hung limp, directly in front of Gus’s face, giving him an up-close-and-personal view of how the threads of magic snaked their way under Hunter’s skin, pulling it so unnaturally tight it looked like his whole arm was about to burst and bleed gold.
Gus knew he should stand, knew he should be the one shielding his hurt friend, but his legs were made of water and despite his best efforts he could not pull them under him enough to get to his feet.
Belos swung clublike arms at them. Hunter ducked, turned and grabbed Gus in the same smooth motion. Gus registered the tinkling sound of Hunter’s magically increased speed and for a moment everything blurred into a reddish gold wash as he was carried out of Belos’s reach. When they skidded to a stop, he tumbled forward out of Hunter’s one-armed hold and hit the floor with a heavy thump.
“You okay?” Hunter gritted, teeth clenched. More gold threads crawled up his arm, onto his neck, reaching greedily for his jaw. His gaze seemed to wobble as he looked down at Gus.
“I … I’m fine,” Gus lied, because he knew he was looking at Hunter but his brain kept telling him the ears were too pointed, the ponytail was missing and those eyes were meant to be blue like a Connecticut sky in summertime. Images flitted through his mind and he reflexively covered one eye to see if he was looking at one of his illusions run wild again. Hunter looked back at him, confused.
“We have to move,” he panted.
He tried to gather Gus up again in his good arm but his grip on his staff nearly failed and instead he fell to his knees. Gus could see his whole body was trembling from a combination of pain and being emptied by the draining spell. Did that thing drain life as well as magic?
Hunter lifted his gaze to meet Gus’s. “Gus, run.”
“No!”
“I c-can’t … my arm … hurts t-too much … you g-gotta …”
“I’m not leaving you!”
“Run, you idiot!”
Hunter pushed him but there was so much less power behind the push than there should have been. The tip of his staff slipped against the slick floor, sending it skittering. Instinctively, Gus grabbed for it before it tumbled over the edge. Beneath this fragile walkway stretched so much black nothingness that Gus wondered if there even was a bottom to hit. What other horrors might lurk down there in the depths?
Hunter’s body toppling over was more of a slide than a thump. He curled into a foetal position, squeezing his arm and biting his lower lip like that was all he could do to keep his screams inside. He was shaking and when Gus looked at him he knew there was no blood but he couldn’t stop the sight of it playing through his thoughts from the first time he saw someone wearing Hunter’s face convulsing on the ground. This time there was no crooked knife – except when he caught a glimpse of his own hands.
His hands? No, they were too pale. Yet they had to be his hands because they were on the ends of his own arms and he could feel the hot wetness of arterial spray and feel the grip the knife’s rough hilt against his palm. The shine of the blade reflected back a set of blue eyes that were not Gus’s own but they were because these were his memories except they weren’t and this was all wrong wrong wrong –
A roar. A towering shadow. And then Willow was there, blocking Belos from view. Amity jumped to stand beside her, the pair of them flinging abomination sludge and vines at the monster before he could deliver the crushing blow that would have ended both Gus and Hunter. Behind Gus, Luz hooked under his arms with her own, helping him to his feet. He wobbled dangerously but somehow stayed upright.
“H … Hunter.”
Hunter was still on the ground, still vulnerable, and there was no blood now but there might as well be because his friend was obviously dying and –
“I got him,” Luz said grimly.
“No, I got him.” Willow extended a hand behind her to lift Hunter into a sitting position with another vine, this one devoid of the thorns her others were desperately plunging into Belos’s putrefied skin.
“No,” Hunter pleaded, his voice little more than an agonised rasp. “Leave me … dead weight …”
“Will you shut up with this self-sacrificial nonsense?” Luz snapped in a tone tight with worry. “Friends don’t leave each other behind!”
Friends don’t leave each other behind.
Except … sometimes they do.
So when Gus was staring at Luz – strong Luz, Luz who never ever gave up, even against stupidly impossible odds – on the porch of a crumbling wooden house, in front of a door that would not open on the Demon Realm no matter how many times she slammed and opened it, looking lost and scared and broken, it was too much. Something snapped in Gus. Tears he had promised himself he would not cry filled his eyes anyway and he sagged onto his face in the wet, cold dirt, hoping the rain that did not burn would also wash away the dozens upon dozens of memories he now had of Hunter dying by his hands.