Treehouse AU - Open Post.

[adistraction]

……..it is what it is.

Just Clarify in the Subject Line, cause brains are dumb.

 

Comments

at the bar

[cordiformed]

Those are Sungki's freckles and that is Sungki's face. It's not his hair, because this one is golden instead of dark. It's not Sungki's demeanor either, at least not the one that Hunter knows. He seems way too nervous for that as he approaches the bar.

"Uhm...excuse me? Are you the boss here?"

[adistraction]

It isn’t Sungki that Hunter immediately thinks of, simply because the hair is wrong. He thinks of Sawyer but that’s wrong, too.

His brow furrows as he pauses mid way to a table with a tray of drinks.

“Oh. No. Uh, just one sec,” he says before he quickly delivers the drinks and returns, toying with the tray.

Nope. Not Sawyer. Not Sungki.

“Bishop is the owner. Did you want me to go find him?”

[cordiformed]

"Oh..."

He seems unsure about that for a moment, chewing on his bottom lip before his smile returns.

"That's okay! Would you mind giving him this when you both have the time?"

Sungki offers him a sheet of a paper - a resume, to be exact. There's not much on it.

[adistraction]

Hunter takes the paper and glances at it a few times.

Scratch that — he is a Sungki.

A look passes over his face before it fades away. No, this isn’t just Sungki being a gremlin. This one feels different than his. But it’s still strange to…

“Sungki?” He chews on the inside of his cheek and looks the new familiar face over for a long time, “I’ll….yeah, I’ll give it to him. He’s in the office I think. Do you just want to wait here…?”

[cordiformed]

"I'll just have a beer!"

He brightens at that. That way, it's not like he's just waiting to take up someone's time, he can be a customer too. Plus that was his last resume for the day. He's doing well!

"Do you like working here?"

Post Finalization with Lennon - Release…thing.

[adistraction]

[ Unfortunately, what happened between he and Lennon was something he had expected. To the extent that it was taken, no, but he knew that the chances of being welcomed warmly were slim to none despite the talk they had had before.

It broke his heart a little, if he were being honest. Lennon had been important - still was important and always would be, even if Lennon didn’t see it that way. Lennon could and would believe whatever he wanted but Hunter had never thought less of him because of what he needed. The problem was that he couldn’t meet him where Lennon needed him to. He was just too uncomfortable, too insecure and he knew that after trying it for a while that he just wouldn’t be able to do it.

There was love between them - no one could deny that. They just saw things too differently, needed different things.

But Lennon had never been less to Hunter.

And even if walls were necessary to put up…again…and distance would be needed to keep things from being tense and unhappy…he would do that.

The broken cup was picked up; all of the broken shards gathered up carefully once Lennon had left. He’d wiped up the tea and closed the door to Lennons art room without stepping a foot inside of it. It wasn’t his business anymore than Lennon was at this point.

Cutting himself off was easy. He’d done it for most of his life. He tossed the glass into the trash and tucked the memory of everything he’d had with Lennon into a safe little box in his heart; pushed it onto a shelf and pretended that it didn’t hurt to be told that he was basically not important enough as a person to keep him.

Being pushed away by people that you care about, though, is never easy. It never gets any easier. No matter how well or how tightly you can put the lid on them.

He doesn’t cry.
He won’t cry.
Crying solves nothing.
It won’t make people change their minds and if it does it’s out of pity - and he doesn’t fucking want that.
No crying.

But this family is important to him. Every last one of them is important to him, and he’s not going to just disappear even if that would make everything easier on Lennon. Hunter wouldn’t leave Daeshim, or Lavy. Wouldn’t leave Baein or Jasper - any version of them. You don’t just throw away family just because your heart hurts.

And it does hurt.

Hunter doesn’t even remember getting into the shower but he blinks and he’s there, feeling lost and with the same words repeating over and over, and over in his head.

They’re an echo that is familiar in a way that has his brain firing in a painful manner - that memory itchy morphing into a clawing.

…leave me the fuck alone…

…I wish I could forget…
Leave me…forget….leave me…forget….

Why did those words sound so familiar? Why?


At some point the words all tangle together until it just sounds like static, screeching, crying. Hunter reaches up and presses his hands to his head, pressing as if it would take away the pain, covering his ears to block out noise that won’t leave because it’s coming from the inside.

And then all at once there’s a moment of calm, dread…like the sound of a pin dropping on a glass table in slow motion and you know something is now free that never should have been let out. You don’t want to look up, but you can’t close your eyes…

The pain is sharp when reality snaps back, fast forwarding, jolting him into letting go to brace himself against the tile.

It feels like watching a home movie; distorted and mangled, all at once and somehow still being able to follow along. Everything. Everything all at once. His mothers face that he had long ago forgotten is vivid and bright, angry, frightened, sad… Doctors, Priests, men with needles and reaching hands that shouldn’t be where they are. He feels scorching pain and hears whimperings of a child. The pressure of fingertips and the sweat that definitely isn’t his own and acid wrecks his throat. Threatens to come up but he swallows it down and shakes his head.

The pin rolls along the glass again and he glances at it. The reel stops spinning and is replaces with a burning he’s never felt before and yet is all too familiar with. It isn’t Sungki’s where it’s controlled and practiced. It’s angry for being locked in a cage for all of these years. It starts at the base of his skull and rushes through every vein and energy channel in his body, and he whimpers again. He knows he is. He knows he’s trying not to scream even when he feels the impending rip—it’s stupid really, rushing out of the shower to slam the lock on the door will really only keep one person out and even then it might not, but he does it anyway.

The itching burn that his back had felt so often these last few months finally comes to a head and he knows now what it means. He remembers the pain the first time, when he was small. Remember when they tried to hack away at them before he managed to get free long enough to hide them away.

But they’re bigger now. Sharper. And there’s no more room. Not now. Not when the truth is right there on the tip of his tongue.

It burns. Muscles are pushed against until they finally snap through. Fascia is spread like wet layers of fishnet until the much more delicate flesh is forced open. Pain only lingers until shock can kick in. But the scream is loud and the tears silent, red, when the wings push their way free from their humanized cage.

Blood sprays around the bathroom; a fine mist coating every surface - mirrors, tile, carpet, toilet, bottles, tissue…

It hurts so badly that the scream stalls and all he can do is hold himself up on his hands and knees and stare at the blood on the carpet as his body gets used to the weight at his back. He knows logically that only a few moments have probably passed but it feels like hours when he finally turns his face to look at the reflection in the mirror from where he’s half melted on the floor.

White, tipped with black and dripping red. He can’t count how many layers there are but it’s enough that he just gives up and sinks down completely against the floor and curls up, exhausted.

It’ll heal. It always does.

He breaths shallowly and closes his eyes; the heat isn’t burning anymore…it’s settled…warming him in a way that he is familiar with.

And his mind only calls to two people for this… ]

Baein…Sungki…don’t let Daeshim in the bathroom…

[narcolepsy]

[ the first thing baein notices is hunter's voice in his head. the second thing clear as a day is how weak and out of breath it sounds, even for something that's for all intents and purposes inside baein's mind. and the third is how it sends a chill of instant dread down his spine, as if something is incredibly wrong. yknow, besides the fact that he's apparently hearing the voices of his friends in his head now!

it startles the fuck out of him, and the blonde jerks in his computer chair, tugging his headphones off as he whips his head to look around the room. he's alone, he is, but he could've sworn—

halfway to his feet to go investigate (the bathroom. hunter said the bathroom. what's in the bathroom? what's happening?) baein stumbles, a searing flash of scalding heat ripping down his spinal implant in a way he's only really felt once in his life before, back when he touched what amounted to a holy apocalyptic weapon. it leaves him gasping for breath even as he staggers over to the door and out in the hall almost blindly, catching himself against the wall. ]

H... Hunter—?!

[ he thinks he's yelling, but honestly he might be whispering too because his voice doesn't feel like it's making it through his voice box at all, throat closing up alongside the tight tension in the rest of his body. it hurts, whatever it is that's going on, it hurts, and his sensors are going haywire.

the feeling of worry and dread somehow overpowers it, and all he really focuses on is getting to hunter, wherever he is. he has to, and he doesn't question it, because the urgency in his mind is honestly overwhelming. it's as if he's moving on his own, much like he did when daeshim was in danger, when baein blatantly altered a whole timeline to make things right.

even if the door is locked, it won't be for long and baein manages to throw his palm against it in a thud when the handle isn't budging. ]

Open— open the door—!

[ when there's a click in the lock, he doesn't hesitate to immediately tumble through the door, not really registering anything else before his eyes find hunter. and he feels himself go pale, breath catching in a stuttered gasp at all the red. so much red. ]

[adistraction]

[ From his position on the floor; fetal and trembling, Hunter is strangely aware that some of the following pain isn’t just his own. It’s different. Connected, but different. It isn’t coming from him this time. Not his own body, not his mind.

And then he can feel the vibration of footsteps. Heavy, thudding sounds before the bang on the door comes. He reached a hand out but he didn’t really need it to unlock the door at all so when it clicks he just drops his hand back down and takes a breath.

Baein.

He swallows a lump in his throat. ]

Close it. The door. Daeshim…

[narcolepsy]

[ the world seems to sway on it's axis even as baein barely moves, doesn't look away from hunter, eyes wide and lips parted. he hears him, but the words are muffled as if there's cotton in his ears, his own breaths a little too loud in his own head. when he finally stumbles half a step further into the room, almost slips and stumbles to catch himself against the sink, the world seems to slow down around himself and hunter, particles and droplets of blood in the air floating around them like a slow moving morbid mist.

baein doesn't even try to stop himself as he all but slips to fall to his knees in front of hunter, feeling the slippery wet of blood against his bare skin.

and the door somehow slams shut behind him without him moving a muscle. ]

What's... going on...?

[ it startles him how his voice comes out like a wheeze and barely able to squeeze through his windpipe, and baein breath's hitches, hands shaking as he reaches out to touch hunter. ]

[adistraction]

[ too tired to even try to articulate how to really respond to that he just reaches out to grab Baein’s hand; needing him closer, wanting him there. ]

…it broke free finally.

[ everything. The pain. The truth. All of it…everything he had been ashamed of, scared of, hated…all of it. ]

1

[faeshim]

When Daeshim shows up at his door, looking a little tired, a little sad, Hunter will know that he's figured it out.

"I warned you." I will curse you nine times if you take yourself away from anyone, then nine times more! "And a Fae cannot lie."

There's a little darkness in his voice and it's reflected in his eyes when he looks up at him, like the rolling of late summer storm clouds.

And then he turns and leaves. It feels like nothing more than an itchy scalp at first. Maybe change your shampoo?

But the daisy that pops from the top of Hunter's head is definitely not normal, not even for the Ruinwood.

|

[adistraction]

Hunters eyes still burn a little when he opens the door to find Daeshim there. He expected this, honestly. He remembers what Daeshim told him.

…and he may have skirted the threat thinking that by not completely erasing him, that it would be okay but…

He still expected this.

So when the words come, he just nods tiredly at him.

“…Dae…if he doesn’t change…tell me,” he breathes, “I told him he needs to be better for you.”

He is not sorry for this, though.

…maybe Sungki will rub his head again. It is itchy.

2

[faeshim]

On dawn of the second day, the petals fall off the daisy. The stem withers and disappears.

Maybe it's just the coolness of the morning, but Hunter's nipples are extra...perky.

And purple.

||

[adistraction]

Dawn is way too early for Hunter to be waking up, but something is off enough that he does on this day. Confused and oddly sensitive, he looks around the bedroom to see if what is off is here, in his head or—

—he takes a peek in his shirt and is torn between wanting to laugh or cry.

He woke up for that? Daeshim…

This was day two. Sixteen to go.

Really so far this ‘punishment’ has been…not what he’d expected from a fae curse. Curses. Cursing.

He nudges Sungki because he has to share this with someone.

3

[faeshim]

Three is a very lucky number! So today Hunter's luck will be slightly better. Everywhere he looks, there's a little money on the floor - a coin or two. Enough to make a few dollars by day's end.

He'll feel compelled to pick every last one of them up.

|||

[adistraction]

This even more hilarious considering Hunter never does this. He honestly couldn’t care less about money - yes it’s mostly necessary but he doesn’t find joy in handling it.

By the fifth coin of the day he’s tired of bending over to grab the little bits, and decides to start sending Daeshim little random mind movies of incredibly boring things. Just because he can.

4

[faeshim]

On the fourth day, every chocolate chip cookie in the Sunter house, bought or baked...

turns suddenly to raisin cookies.

(He'll still be over to eat some.)

||||

[adistraction]

SIN.

This one is a sin.

And this is probably the first of all the curses where Hunter has suffered.

(He’ll remember this for the future.)

Re: ||||

[faeshim]

YOU WILL THINK TWICE BEFORE CROSSING HIM AGAIN.

[adistraction]

He will actually.

He really wanted those cookies.

:(

[faeshim]

Okay, so yesterday's curse was kind of cruel. Daeshim will be gentler today, because it won't be a curse that affects Hunter every minute of the day.

But whenever it's time to lay his head on a pillow - any pillow - both sides will always be warm.

|||||

[adistraction]

BOO.

5 and 6

[faeshim]

Curse #5 is more of a blessing than a curse - a near endless loop of "Barbie Girl" inside Hunter's head. Daeshim actually likes the song - it's very catchy!

Curse #6 may not be discovered for awhile, which might lead to some unintended paranoia. But Hunter, may your bubble gum never produce bubbles.

7

[faeshim]

Today, may all of your gummies turn to hard candy.

He really knows how to hit where it hurts sometimes.

Re: 7

[adistraction]

Ouch.

Bye bye gummy worms.