“Do you want one too? “
“What?”
Hunter blinked at Willow confused.
“A flower crown.” She said with a gentle smile. “It is just that you have been looking at me making them for a while now... I thought you might want one.”
Hunter's cheeks burned a little. He was so enchanted by Willow’s process that he didn't even notice that he was starting this much.
“Yes, please.” He managed to say it with his heart pounding in his chest.
She gently used her fingers to brush his head before starting the flower crown. And Hunter closed his eyes to let him sink into this wonderful feeling. She was always so careful and lovely with him. Just like when she cut his hair in the bathroom.
The plant witch could make the crown in seconds with just a flick of her wrists. But she wanted to take her sweet time. Bonding with him through this whole process.
Once she had finished, she handed him a small mirror. He hesitated before he looked at his reflection. He knew that Willow’s work would be perfect, but he probably was ruining everything with his face, with the gap in his teeth and his scars.
However, the look on Willow’s face silently encouragement made him finally glance at his face.
The ugly scars his uncle left him were still there, but this time they were not the focus. His Captain’s gift to him was. The way she had arranged the flowers in his head was breathtaking. Made him feel good in his own skin again.
“I look beautiful... Thank you, Willow.”
“You are welcome, Hunter.” She said smiling, happy to make him smile as well.
(Dark Shadows 1966)
@mediwhumpmay
As soon as Willie woke up, he regretted it.
Every inch of him ached. Stiff and sore. Lying down hurt. Getting up hurt. Might as well get up.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed, groaning. His head began to throb. Dawn was just beginning to peek into the room, illuminating the dust and the rot.
Willie looked back to his pillow. A dark red and brown stain lay there. His nose must have bled in the night. He touched his swollen and tender cheek.
The flash of a wolf’s head cane and sharp words.
Willie left the bed and padded over to the mirror on the wall.
He thought about things so far. He thought about the distant past that was a few weeks ago. Before he’d come to Colinsport. Before all of this. Before him.
And nothing had really changed.
And that struck a hollow, empty chord within him.
Willie remembered getting into scraps as a kid. Scraped knees. Busted lip. Talking big only to get hit again. He’d always been covered in scabs and bruises.
When he became an adult, it was the same. The scraps were bigger. Brawls. He just talked bigger and bigger.
The hits got harder.
But he learned how to hit too. And he gave as much as he got.
Willie thought and thought and tried to remember a single moment of this life where he hadn’t been bruised. Or bloody. Or in pain.
He drew level with the mirror, realizing he couldn’t remember.
This was just how it was.
His reflection stared back at him in the dim and cold morning light.
A pattern of cane-bruises marched over his face, dark and thunderous.
Willie’s tongue found a tooth, loosened by the blows to his face. He wiggled it. Opened his mouth. Stuck his fingers in. And ripped the tooth out.
Blood covered his fingers and blotted his lips. He slipped the tooth into his pocket.
Willie smiled at himself, bloody and gap-toothed.
At least his outside now matched his inside.