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WOW, oh wow ow wow wow and ouch! This is wonderful,another absolute banger from you! His two contradictory feelings! His fantasy of death and how belos would react, of hurting himself or being killed?! The mix of hate and desperate want for approval?!! God you write such good monologues! W o w. By the conclusion, I can only imagine Amity is in for an absolute shitshow.
Here’s a little oneshot wip(?) for @pincushionx, who inspired me to write a little BPD Hunter character study that takes place during Eclipse Lake
TW: violence, rage, swearing, suicidal ideation, self-harm ideation
There’s no point anymore. Hunter’s done for. This was his chance to prove himself to his uncle, and he blew it.
A wave of despair washes heavy over his body as he falls to his knees. When he doubles over, the dirt is cold under his gloved fingertips, and he can barely breathe over the weight on his shoulders and the sudden, pooling rage in his stomach.
The all-consuming sensations flooding in urge him to scream, fight, and destroy everything in his vicinity just as much as they make him want to throw himself off of a cliff and smack his head against every rock on the way down.
Either reality melts a bit, viscous and toxic, or something’s shifted sideways, pixelated and fuzzy; he’s not sure which, but he does know that he’s filled with the inescapable awareness that everything is wrong. His entire world isn’t right anymore, now that he’s failed, and all he wants is for everything to stop.
He wants this rabid animal under his skin to shred his body to pieces until he’s nothing more than mutilated flesh left behind in the dirt. He wants to make his shameful face so unrecognizable that no one will ever figure out what happened to the boy behind the mask. He wants this world to move on without him, and he wants to pretend he never dared to disgrace it with his presence in the first place.
He wants to die.
He wants to die, die, die.
He pictures himself grabbing his go-to knife in his nightstand and slashing wild gashes into his thighs. He thinks about how good it would feel. How maybe, if he wasn’t such a coward, he could dig deeper and deeper until he’s lightheaded from blood loss. How maybe, if he did a good enough job, he’d bleed out on the floor and never have to face his uncle’s disappointment first-hand. How one minute, he could be there, and the next, he could be gone, leaving behind only a husk for no one but his Uncle to mourn.
The thought of Belos finding him murdered by his own hands sends a bolt of thill through his body. He can't help but fantasize about it. Belos would walk into Hunter’s room, gasp in shock at the state of his poor, beloved nephew, and try to revive him. He would watch in distress as the healers try to revive him, to no avail. When there’d be truly nothing left for Belos to do to fix his mistakes, he would feel so bad about just how much anguish he put his poor guard through. He would look back fondly on all the ways Hunter had helped him over the years and bury his nephew with guilt-ridden tears streaming down his cheeks. He would be so, so sorry, and Hunter could rest in peace knowing that he’d at least be loved unconditionally in death.
Or not.
Hunter lets out an anguished whine as he tangles his fingers in his hair and pulls.
He’s only deluding himself, isn’t he?
When has Belos ever felt bad about anything when it comes to hurting Hunter? When has Belos ever wiped away Hunter’s tears without mocking him, or acknowledged Hunter’s efforts without some kind of ridicule undermining the entire whisp of praise? When has Belos ever said the simple promise of “I love you” without it having to be a reward to chase after?
Hunter understands why Uncle is so harsh. Hunter knows that Belos only wants the best for him. He wants to train Hunter well enough that Hunter will be able to survive in a world without having innate magic. Uncle’s reserving this special position just for Hunter so that the teen won’t grow up without employment. He provides Hunter with the best instructors and the best artificial staff so that Hunter can make up for his deficits. Yet despite the accommodations, Hunter spits in Belos’s face with his failures every single time.
Hunter tries so fucking hard, and for what? Nothing he does ever matters. Hunter always just takes, takes, takes, from Belos, and nothing he brings back from missions is ever enough to buy Belos’s kindness for more than a day. Hunter was born wrong; he knows he needs to earn the right to live, but he wishes it wasn’t so soul-crushing to bear the curse of an unruly body like this.
If Hunter was just good enough effortlessly, Uncle would love him more, but unfortunately, Hunter eventually has to fuck it all up. His heart always has to drop every time his Uncle sighs heavily in his direction.
It’s not fair.
He sounds like a child, he knows, and he hates himself for it, but it’s not fair.
Dirt gathers under his gloves as he scrunches his fingers to curl into fists. A revelation boils under his skin so hot and vapid that it can’t help but change the tide of rage. He grabs a handful of dirt and screams as he pelts it across the empty lake.
He hates his Uncle.
He hates him so much.
How dare the man string Hunter along like this? If he knew that Hunter was such a fuck-up from the start, why did he even give Hunter the time of day? Why did he breathe false hope into Hunter by saying that Hunter could ever truly achieve anything worthwhile?
Surely he had to have known this would happen. Surely he had to have known that Hunter would never be good enough. Hunter should have been killed from the start, and he hates Belos for treating him with the cruel mercy of of an unearned life.
Hunter’s not sure when he’d started sobbing.
He untangles his knees from the dirt and repositions himself to sit on his bottom with his knees pulled to his chest. From this position, he can wrap his arms around his legs and scratch his forearms as hard as he possibly can.
The sting of pain isn’t enough. He wants to flay the meat of his arms open and cause as much damage as possible. Sadly, gouging welts into ins skin with his hands isn’t as productive. There’s no way he can cut anywhere near as deep without a knife.
He looks around through blurry tears and comes to a decision. He’s already here. The Blight girl should be arriving anytime soon. If he’s lucky, she’ll be kind enough to kill him. That would be much easier than dragging himself back to the castle to do the job himself. He’s quite tired from this whole pointless endeavor, anyway. It would be good for her, too—she seems to hate his guts.
He loves a fair trade.
With a cautious serenity lifting the haze of negativity ever so slightly, he unclenches his fists and puts his hands to work, just like his Uncle likes.
It wouldn’t be fair to make the Blight girl dig his grave, too.