Friendly Reminder That Hunters Actor Said He Would Watch Steven Universe! (also Heres A Huntlow Cosplay)

friendly reminder that hunters actor said he would watch steven universe! (also heres a huntlow cosplay)

I'll Stare Directly At The Sun But Never In The Mirror

The Owl House » Huntlow

Title: I'll Stare Directly At The Sun But Never In The Mirror

Author: fairytalesandfolklore

Fandom: The Owl House (Masterlist)

Relationship: Hunter | The Golden Guard x Willow Park

AO3 Rating: Teen & Up (a complete collection of author's notes, inspiration credits, content warnings and tags can be found on AO3)

Summary: Hunter has been avoiding mirrors, terrified he'll see the many faces of all the grimwalkers and golden guards that came before him — or worse, the face of a witch hunter. One night, Willow gives Hunter a haircut, helping him feel more like himself than he's ever been, and giving him the courage to confide his deepest, darkest secret in his closest friends.

He looks…nice. Not like Belos. Not like Caleb. Just…like him. Like Hunter. It's the most like him he's ever looked in his entire life. "It's perfect," he says, turning around to face her with a bright smile. "I love it. You did an amazing job, Willow. Thank you so much," he says, surprising her by drawing her into a tight hug, chin tucked against the curve of her shoulder as he closes his eyes and takes in a slow, steady breath. "Oh. You're— you're welcome," she says, a radiant smile curling across her pink-tinged cheeks as she melts into him, all soft edges and comforting warmth.

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He finds the book at a local shop downtown, half price on a Halloween special. Keeps it hidden in its little brown paper bag and waits until everyone else has gone to bed, listening for the telltale sound of Gus's soft snoring coming from the couch above him before slipping out of his sleeping bag and sneaking up the creaking basement stairs to lock himself away in the first floor bathroom.

In a house full of seven people, he figures it's the only place he's going to get any sort of privacy — only, the door doesn't actually lock, it slides, and it's currently stuck on its roller, leaving a two-inch gap between the door and the frame, but it's the best he can do under the circumstances.

Once inside, Hunter takes a deep breath and pulls his copy of The Witch Hunters Of Gravesfield out of its wrappings, silver-white lettering shimmering across the dark blue hardcover in the soft golden glow of the bathroom light, upper lip curling into a scowl as he peers down at the two little puritans carrying pitchforks and lit torches illustrated on the front cover. He glances up on instinct, needing to make absolutely certain that he doesn't look a thing like either of them, catching sight of himself in the little medicine cabinet mirror for the first time in weeks.

Hunter has been in the human realm for a couple of months now, and his hair is starting to get a little too long for his liking. He'd always assumed that all witches' hair grew this fast, but seeing as Willow, Gus, Amity, and even Luz's hair has only grown a few inches each compared to his several, he's beginning to suspect that this might just be yet another quirk of being…what he is. He could simply tie it back, but…well…then it might remind him a little too much of a certain someone he'd seen lining the portraits of his unc— of the emp— of his mindscape.

So he's been avoiding mirrors lately, afraid he'll see the face of a witch hunter staring back at him. But tonight, when he looks in the mirror, Hunter sees something so much worse than the ghostly, sharp-angled face of his ortet. Tonight, when Hunter looks in the mirror, he sees his own worn and weary face staring back at him with a head of long, shaggy blond hair, so light it's almost white, framed around the sharp edges of his pale, scarred skin, and is immediately and viscerally reminded of Belos.

Hunter gasps, flailing backward so hard he nearly crashes into the toilet, panic radiating through him like he's been struck by lightning. He sits there for a couple of seconds, fighting to calm his racing whatever he's got beating inside his chest in place of a heart, using Willow's four-count technique to steady his breathing. It works long enough for him to get shakily back up to his feet, but he still has to clutch the bathroom sink for support, staring a hard line into the mirror, almost like he's willing the phantom of his dead uncle to reappear, if only to prove that he hadn't just seen the monster inside himself.

But all he sees when he looks in the mirror this time are his own bright red eyes set against his own pale, scarred complexion, terror etched into every detail.

Hunter is so tired of being afraid.

So he makes a decision. Decides he's had enough of avoiding looking in the mirror and hating what he sees, and reaches for the pair of red rubber-tipped shears he'd seen Mrs. Noceda use to trim Luz's bangs a couple of times. Holds them up over the meddlesome forelock all the men in his "family" seem to share, and lets the first satisfying snip fuel his catharsis. How hard could it be?

Very, very difficult, as it happens.

• • •

Willow can't sleep, and so she does what she always does whenever she's feeling restless, and heads down to the kitchen to brew herself a cup of tea. She's walking down the darkened corridor, little light spell held aloft in her open palm, when she sees a sliver of light coming from the gap in the bathroom door.

Figuring one of the boys must have forgotten when they were washing up for bed, Willow lets out a small sigh and moves to turn it off, pausing when she hears the sound of heavy breathing followed by a panicked chorus of no no no no no, oh Titan what have I done? coming from the other side.

"Hunter?" she says with a gentle knock. "Is everything okay in there?"

She hears a startled meep! followed by a deafening silence, and then, finally, a resigned sigh.

"I fucked up. Please help me," comes Hunter's low, shameful voice, muffled from the other side of the door.

With his permission, Willow slides it all the way open, one hand coming up to stifle a startled gasp as she's met with the sight of Hunter huddled over the bathroom sink, pair of scissors clutched in his hands and a mortified grimace on his face, chunks of light and dark blond hair littered all over the tiled floor.

In the seconds it takes for Hunter's face to reach groundbreaking levels of scarlet cringe, Willow schools her features into a soft, reassuring smile, holding out her hand for the pair of scissors with a simple, "Here, let me."

By her instruction, Hunter sits on the edge of the toilet while Willow hovers over him, assessing the damage. He's about to say something, lips poised at the ready with an apology, something to the effect of thank you for doing this, I'm sorry I'm such a mess, when Willow runs her fingers through his hair, and just like that, his whole brain short-circuits, every inch of his skin breaking out in a flurry of shivers like he's just swallowed a shot of fire-bee honey and chased it down with freezing rain.

"Your hair is so soft," she says with a kind of reverence, and Hunter nearly passes out from the effort of trying not to breathe too loudly, lest it come out as a sigh (or Titan forbid, a moan.)

"Th— oh," he gasps as her fingernails gently graze his scalp, sending another wave of fire-and-ice shivers down his spine. It's hands down the best thing he's ever experienced in his entire life, and for one wild moment he's actually grateful that he's a grimwalker, because if his hair keeps growing at such an alarming rate, it might mean she'd be willing to do this for him again in the near future…

…if she isn't put off by the fact that he's a grimwalker, that is. She's bound to find out eventually, just…hopefully not tonight. Hunter glances down at the dark blue hardcover just visible from where he'd dropped it and attempts to subtly nudge it out of sight with the toe of his shoe.

He clears his throat and tries desperately to regain some modicum of composure. Be cool. Reply to the compliment like a normal person.

"Thanks, I…grow it myself," is what comes tumbling out of his mouth instead, blushing even harder when Willow lets out a soft giggle at the dumb joke he totally stole from a 90's era human realm sitcom. Featuring a scene where a dorky guy also gets his hair cut by his long-time crush. For one ridiculous moment, Hunter wonders whether this situation could also end in him getting to kiss her.

"So, what did you have in mind?" Willow asks, breaking him out of his little daydream sequence.

"What?" Hunter falters, terror flooding him. She can't read minds, can she? Oh Titan, she absolutely cannot find out that he was just imagining what it would be like to kiss her.

"For your hair," she elaborates with a patient smile, and Hunter lets out the breath he'd been holding. "Was there a particular style you were trying to go for, or…"

"Oh," Hunter sighs, tension mounting in his muscles for a whole different reason this time. "No, not really. I just…wanted something different."

He feels the longest piece of his hair pull away from the rest of his head, held aloft between Willow's careful fingers, followed by a snip that sends a flurry of white-blond hair drifting around his shoulders like falling snow.

"I get that," she says, tongue stuck between her teeth as she concentrates on trimming a different selection, and Hunter struggles not to fidget, sigh, or catch fire each time she cards her fingers through his hair, sending another spell of blissful shivers down his spine. "I like my longer braids, but sometimes I just want to chop it all off and go back to a pixie cut."

"You had a pixie cut?" Hunter asks, finding it hard to picture her with anything but her signature braids.

"A little while back," Willow says with a small nod and a self-effacing chuckle. "It was totally wild and untamable, stuck up in all directions, but it was nice for summer. I'm sure my dads've got a bunch of embarrassing school photos lying around somewhere. I can show you sometime, when we're back home…if you'd like."

"I'd— yeah. I'd like that a lot," he says, overwhelmed by the notion that Willow wants to invite him even further into her life, take him home, let him meet her parents, share a piece of personal history with him that she deems embarrassing.

Wild and untamable, huh?

"I'll bet you looked adorable with a pixie cut," he blurts out, imagining a slightly younger Willow with short cropped hair, dark as a starless night sky and covered in a sea of gravity-defying waves.

He feels Willow fall still above him, blades halfway through a cut, and worries for a moment that he's somehow offended her.

"Not that you don't look adorable now," he says, rushing to correct his mistake, face going up in flames as he word-vomits an endless stream of compliments he usually tries to keep under lock and key inside his head. But, well…given the choice between outing himself about his huge embarrassing crush and potentially hurting Willow's feelings or damaging her self-esteem, Hunter would gladly take the former.

"You'd look good with anything. Long braids, short braids, pixie cut," he barrels on, wondering for a brief moment whether it's possible to give yourself third-degree burns from the temperature of your own skin.

"Hell, you could probably even pull off the choppy mess I made," he says with a nervous chuckle.

Above him, Willow slowly starts to unwind, shoulders rising and falling as she takes a deep, steadying breath.

"Thank you, Hunter," she says in a soft, small voice. Finishes cutting the section she'd been tending to before his comment and then pauses again, hesitating like she's trying to decide whether to say something.

"For the record, I think you look adorable too," she says after a moment, and Hunter could almost swear he feels her hands shake ever so slightly as she gathers the next layer of hair between her fingers. "I don't think you could ever look bad, even with the choppy haircut."

Hunter blinks a few times and has to remind himself to breathe.

"Speaking of which, I should be just about…" Hunter hears the last snip followed by the sound of metal clattering down against porcelain as Willow places the scissors on the side of the bathroom sink. "Done!" she exclaims with a cheerful smile, coming around to stand directly in front of him, tongue between her teeth as she studies her handiwork.

"What, um—" Hunters falters, still not recovered from the fantastical notion that the Captain thinks he's adorable, eyes wide as she leans in close and starts carding her fingers through his hair.

"Just need to add some finishing touches," she says, gently tugging the shorter tufts of hair to work them up into their usual state of fluffiness, and Hunter struggles not to let himself get lost in it, or Titan forbid vocalize how good it feels.

Once she's satisfied that everything is even and she's styled it in a way she thinks looks good, she glances down to look him in the eye, only just realizing how close their faces are to one another's, cheeks flushed a delicate shade of pink as she swoops back into a standing position.

"Okay, all done!" she exclaims, voice a little higher and squeakier than usual, adding even more fuel to fire that she is absolutely adorable no matter what she does.

"What do you think?" she asks, sounding equal parts giddy and apprehensive.

Not entirely certain his jelly legs will support him, Hunter gets to his feet and stands in front of the mirror. On the count of three, he opens his eyes, and when he does, he finds a whole new person staring back at him, hair short and neat, but with a few of his signature fluffy cowlicks sticking up near the top.

A little hint of his old forelock curls across the center of his forehead, no longer dangling across his line of sight. Hunter huffs out a chuckle, wondering just how annoyed Flapjack will be when he finds out he can no longer tug on it to get him to do what he wants.

He looks…nice.

Not like Belos.

Not like Caleb.

Just…like him.

Like Hunter.

It's the most like him he's ever looked in his entire life.

He hasn't said anything in over a minute, too busy staring at his own reflection, examining his new look from all angles, and Willow is starting to get nervous.

"I'm sorry!" she blurts out. "I know it's a little shorter than you're used to, but you kind of chopped off your little hair noodle, so I had to—"

"It's perfect," he says, turning around to face her with a bright smile etched across his face, huffing out a laugh at the words hair noodle.

"I love it. You did an amazing job, Willow. Thank you so much," he says, surprising her by drawing her into a tight hug, chin tucked against the curve of her shoulder as he closes his eyes and takes in a slow, steady breath.

"Oh. You're— you're welcome," she says, a radiant smile curling across her pink-tinged cheeks as she melts into him, all soft edges and comforting warmth.

It's only when he pulls back, much later and yet far too soon, that he realizes just how close the two of them are standing, the moment suddenly so charged it's a wonder he can't feel the electricity crackling in the air all around them.

He finds himself instinctually leaning down, heart stuttering in his chest as Willow mirrors him, eyes fluttering closed, lips forming a small pout, so close he can practically taste her watermelon lip balm.

Hunter swallows, thinks this is it, and lets his own eyes drift closed, lips a mere whisper's breadth away from hers, when he plants his back foot to keep himself steady and feels the sharp corner of The Witch Hunters Of Gravesfield digging into the scar on the back of his ankle.

Hunter lets out a yelp, hopping up and down in pain, while Willow reaches for the offending thing that had hurt him with a narrowed glare. Hunter freezes, watching her eyes widen in curiosity as they scan the front cover.

"Is this what got you so worked up tonight?" she asks, sympathy he doesn't deserve etched in the soft smile she offers him as she gazes up at him with those pale green eyes that never fail to make him feel like he's lying in a summer meadow.

"Don't worry, Hunter," Willow reassures him. "There haven't been any witch hunters in the human realm in over four hundred years. We're safe here."

And just like that, the meadow is on fire.

Hunter looks at her for a moment, smile so earnest, eyes so bright and hopeful. Feels the guilt of keeping this secret well up inside him to the point of drowning, and decides he's had enough of lying to the people he cares about most, in this world or any other.

It's time to come clean.

• • •

He's on his way to wake Gus when the two of them round the corner to find him trudging up the stairs from the basement, looking a little bleary-eyed.

"Hey," he says, stifling a yawn. "I woke up and you were missing, so I came up to see if everything was okay. Are you—" Gus pauses mid-sentence, eyes widening at the sight of his best friend with half a foot less hair than the last time he'd seen him.

"Whoah, you look different," he says, clocking the alarmed look on Hunter's face and hastening to add, "Good different."

Hunter manages a small smile and says, "Thanks. Willow cut it for me," with no small amount of pride.

"Nice work, Willow," Gus says with an approving nod, and beside him, Willow preens. "Kind of a weird time for a haircut, though. Is everything okay?"

Hunter's smile falters.

"Um…no," he says, shoulders dropping as he heaves a weary sigh. "There's something I need to tell you. Both of you."

He turns to look at Willow, wishing he could smooth over the worried crease in her eyebrows, kiss the soft pout of her lips until he's got her smiling again. For a brief moment, Hunter wonders whether he'll ever hear her laughter again after what he's about to tell her, and the sorry excuse for a heart inside his chest clenches with something close to heartbreak.

But no matter what happens, he has to do this. He's tired of keeping this a secret, and she deserves to know the truth. They both do.

"Could we, um…" he says, waving vaguely in the direction of the kitchen table, where the two of them follow him, settling in with Hunter at the head, Gus and Willow close by on either side. Hunter stares at them for a moment, lips parted like he's about to cry, at a loss for where to begin. This could be it, a terrified voice inside his head reminds him. This could be the end of everything.

"So, first thing's first, I'm not a witch," he sighs, staring down at the warbling striations like wooden waveforms across the surface of the kitchen table, unable to look either of them in the eye.

"I'm a grimwalker," he confesses in a breathless rush, ripping off the bandaid in one painful go. "And I don't know exactly what that means. All I know is that I'm a clone…made by Belos…of someone who used to be a witch hunter…with Belos."

He waits for the weight of his words to sink in, for the cry of outrage, the scoff of disgust…but instead, he's met with silence, and he's honestly not sure which is worse.

"And I'm not the first, either," he pushes himself to carry on, tears cracking his voice as he swallows against the griffon-sized lump in his throat. "I'm just one of many in a long line of Hunters that Belos made disappear whenever they couldn't live up to his standards. Whenever they turned against him. Like I did."

"I guess that's why I can't do magic," he says around a slightly hysterical laugh, pressing his fingers into the faded sigil on his wrist, wishing it would disappear completely. "I'm not half a witch. I'm not even a witch at all. I'm just…a copy of some dead guy who used to be buddies with Belos. They hunted witches together. I was literally made to hurt the people I love."

"And I'm sorry," he chokes, crying in earnest now as he buries his face in the palms of his hands. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you guys sooner, I was just so scared that once you knew, you'd never want to— you both mean so much to me, I couldn't risk losing you, so I—"

He's staring down at the table, tears trailing down his cheeks, a tight knot in his throat, hands balled into fists at his sides, when he feels two sets of arms wrapping him up in a hug, Gus's cheek pressed against his temple, Willow's chin resting against the top of his head.

"You're not getting rid of us that easy," Gus reassures him with a low chuckle, and something inside Hunter snaps, floodgates bursting open. He sobs openly into both of their shoulders, sniffling as Willow gently strokes his hair and whispers a soothing chorus of it's okay, we're here for you, let it all out, reminding him that he's safe, that no matter who made him or who he was made after, he's nothing like them, he's not Belos, or—

"Caleb," Gus says with a heavy sigh, pulling back to take a seat at Hunter's side.

"What?" Hunter asks, blinking back tears as he stares wide-eyed at Gus, Willow slipping her arms from around his shoulders as she sinks back into her chair, giving Gus the same baited-breath look as Hunter.

"His name was Caleb," Gus says slowly, like he's revealing some long-forgotten secret he's certain he shouldn't know. "He was Belos's brother, and he was a witch hunter…until he fell in love with a witch."

"How— how do you know that?" Hunter asks, hardly daring to believe it.

"I saw him, that night I tapped into Belos's memories," Gus explains. "I only caught glimpses, but it was enough to piece the story together."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner, I just…didn't know how to bring it up, or what Caleb might have meant to you," Gus says, fixing Hunter with a sympathetic frown. "At first, I thought he might have been your father, he looked so much like you. And for you to find out that Belos killed him, after everything you'd already been through…I just didn't want to cause you any more pain."

At this, Willow reaches out to hold Hunter's hand, the soft pad of her thumb rubbing soothing circles against his palm. Hunter clutches it like a lifeline, thankful for its warm comforting weight.

"But then I realized…Caleb died hundreds of years before you were ever born," Gus continues, a small smile curling across his face as he glances down at Hunter and Willow's entwined hands, comforted by the fact that at least his best friend fared better than all the others. "And then I saw that hallway with all those broken Golden Guard masks in Belos's memory, heard him call you Caleb when he saw you holding Flapjack, and I kind of just…started piecing it all together."

"So you…you knew this whole time?" Hunter asks, still sniffling. "You knew what I was and you didn't treat me any differently," he says, staring back at him with a look of awestruck affection in his eyes.

"Of course not, man. You're my brother, no matter what you're made of," Gus says, reaching out a hand for their signature fist bump. Hunter huffs out a shaky laugh as he raises the hand not currently linked with Willow's to meet his brother halfway.

"And you?" he asks, glancing up from the pretty picture of their laced fingers to meet Willow's soft gaze. "Does it…bother you? Knowing what I am?"

"Why should it?" Willow says automatically, like she's offended he would even think such a thing. "Does it really matter where we came from or how we were made? All that matters is who you are, who you choose to be, and the only person who gets to decide that is you."

She gives the palm of his hand an affectionate three-pulse squeeze before letting go to push back from her chair, and Hunter has less than a second to mourn the loss of contact before she's swooping down to wrap him in a tight hug, blush spreading from his cheeks to the tips of his ears as she leans in close and whispers, "And from everything I've seen, I really like who Hunter is."

Far too soon, she's pulling back, offering him a wink that makes all the air rush out of his lungs, before casting a glance at the stovetop across the way.

"Okay, heavy emotional topics like this call for some comfort," she says, warmth flooding her chest as she thinks back to all the times her dads ever tucked her into bed with a warm mug of her favorite drink on the whole of the Isles, thankful that the human realm has an equivalent. "How about I make us all some hot cocoa?"

"Yes, please!" both boys chant in unison, and Willow snorts with fond amusement before bustling off to the other side of the kitchen to heat up some milk. Hunter watches her go with a smile nothing short of smitten curled across his face, the space between his fingers still pulsing pleasantly from where she'd held him.

"You know, I did try dropping hints," Gus says with a wry smile, snapping Hunter's focus back to him. "To let you know it was okay for you to tell us whenever you were ready."

"You did?" Hunter asks, wondering how in the world he could have possibly missed the signs.

"Why do you think I wanted you to read Cosmic Frontier with me so badly?" Gus asks, arching a playful eyebrow.

"Because it's amazing and you wanted to drag me into your awful fandom so you wouldn't have to suffer the cliffhangers alone," Hunter jokes, but even as he says it, he can't help but think back to all the times Gus placed special emphasis on the word clone, all those times he reassured Hunter that duplicants were cool, and how much stronger it made the bond between Avery and O'Bailey when they finally came clean about all their secrets.

"That too," Gus chuckles. "But it's also because I thought you'd relate to Chief Engineer O'Bailey. See that his story had a happy ending, that Captain Avery and Security Officer Quando still loved and accepted him for who he was. Hell, he and Quando even end up getting married in the last—"

"Ah, bup bup bup! No, no, no, no, no spoilers!" Hunter claps a hand over his ears, smiling so hard his cheeks hurt when Gus bursts out laughing.

"Okay, okay, no spoilers," Gus relents, sighing as his laughter subsides to soft stuttered giggles.

"You know, it's kind of funny," he prompts. "With this new haircut, you even look more like O'Bailey now. Is…that what inspired the change? The whole grimwalker thing?"

Hunter's smile falters for the first time since they hugged him, that same flicker of fear and disgust welling up inside him at the mere memory.

"For weeks, every time I looked in the mirror, all I could see was Caleb," Hunter exhales on a heavy sigh. "But then today, when I looked in the mirror, I saw Belos, and I just…I couldn't—"

"It's okay," comes Gus's calm, reassuring voice, paired with a gentle hand on Hunter's shoulder. "I totally get it."

"But you know you're not him, right?" he says. "You're not either of them. Even if you were made in the likeness of Caleb, you're still Hunter. You're your own person, always have been. And I'm glad you found a look that lets you feel like you."

"Thanks," Hunter says, smiling back at him. "It helps…knowing that at the very least, I was made after someone good. Someone who maybe didn't start out on the right path, but who found his way there eventually."

Someone who defied his own brainwashed upbringing. Changed and redefined every belief he ever held. Fell in love with the very thing he was never allowed to want.

It's in this moment that Willow comes back over, setting down three soup-bowl-sized mugs of perfectly tempered cocoa in front of each of their chairs, about to settle into her own before jumping back up and exclaiming, "Oh! I forgot the marshmallows! Hang on, I'll be right back."

"To Caleb, the hunter who fell in love with a witch," Gus cheers, clinking his cocoa mug against Hunter's before taking a hearty swig in Caleb's honor.

Hunter pauses mid-sip, lips curving upward into a big, goofy grin as his eyes wander back toward Willow, watching as she jumps up to reach for the bag of jumbo-sized marshmallows on the highest shelf, misses, and then summons a set of vines to snag them for her, beaming in triumph as she grabs a generous handful for the three of them to share.

"Guess I'm more like Caleb than I thought," he sighs, blushing and averting his gaze to the ceiling when Gus catches him staring, a knowing smirk curling across his face as he glances back and forth between the two of them, watching history repeat itself…

…though if they're lucky, with a much happier ending this time around.