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lollytea · 7 months

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(Part 4 of La La Land Machine exposition posts!! I know I've made way more than 4 but this is the part that's going in chronological order. Like I've talked about Hunter and hunlow in this au before but this is his formal introduction, like Willow got in part 1. I also got quite a lot more followers since I last rambled about this AU so linking the other parts if they wanna catch up. And if they want, they can look through the tag for all the additional info.

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

Anyway, I lied. We are only BEGINNING to talk about the hunlow slow burn. It's taken me long enough to set up Hunter and everything he's got going on. It sets up hunlow but they're not really close yet. But it won't even take that long to get the next post out because I am so excited to talk about them more)

Hunter Wittebane has lived his whole life wearing masks. He's been an actor before he developed object permanence. He was memorizing scripts by ear before he could fully read by himself.

Job after job, set after set, role after role. His environment is not only cutthroat competitive, but it's always in motion. Things never sit still. The biggest stability in his life was his Uncle Philip, whom Hunter loved intensely. Even if it felt like the only way he could express it was by bleeding.

But Hunter was only allowed to bleed in private. And if he wanted his Uncle to stroke his hair back and keep telling him he was special, he needed to prove it. He needed to be the second chance that he was born to be.

Hunter struggles to really understand who he is. Because he is seldom himself. If he's not playing a character, he's only known as the legacy of the Hollywood gem, Caleb Wittebane, Hunter's late father.

Hunter was quite sheltered as a child. Other than being out and about for business reasons, he didn't really get to experience much of the world. If he wasn't working, he was usually confined to his Uncle's house. Or hotel rooms. The only outings he goes on that are considered "personal" are to church.

He loves to read and he'll devour whatever book he gets his hands on. Unfortunately his options are limited to what his Uncle believes is appropriate. Philip views the world as a depraved and lecherous place, as are the people that inhabit it. If it weren't for this world and its poison, his brother would still be alive.

And then he wouldn't need to waste his time replicating his brother's likeness in some aimless weak willed child who can barely comprehend how important his performance is in all of this.

Philip refuses to allow outside forces to contaminate his nephew. If Caleb's soul is going to live on in the way it should have, they can't make a repeat of last time. Caleb's replacement has to remain on the right path, or his legacy goes up in flames.

The Bible is one of Hunter's top comfort reads. It's the only book that his Uncle seems pleased to know he's interested in. And he's pored over the pages so many times that the familiarity is soothing. It also puts the fear of God in him. As do Philip's frequent lessons. He's shaping up to be a very faithful little Christian.

Hunter also watches a lot of (Uncle approved) television. He's a tiny chatterbox but is pretty starved of socialization. If his Uncle isn't around, he's stuck with the family assistant Kiki, who usually ignores him. TV and books are mostly responsible for Hunter's expansive vocabulary.

As a shy but precocious little boy, his best friends are sweet, comforting preschool cartoon characters.

Even though Philip's life seemed to orbit around Hunter and he worked day and night for the sake of his nephew's success, a lot of the time he just....wasn't around. Sometimes Hunter went weeks without hearing from him and was left in the "care" of Kiki.

Hunter was always left wanting. On those lonely nights when Philip was away, he would beg Kiki to call him so Hunter could at least say goodnight. All for the sake of holding the phone tight against his ear and hearing his Uncle's soft spoken "Sleep well, Hunter," so his world felt a little less cold.

If Philip even answered.

But when Uncle was home, Hunter found himself with some very guilty feelings and ungrateful thoughts.

The details are not important. By that, I mean Hunter is quite uncomfortable recounting the things that used to happen in the Wittebane house when his Uncle was home.

He said them aloud once. At the age of sixteen, when his breathing was in sync with the girl he had fallen in love with and her fingers were tracing gentle paths down his bare back. He felt like he had melted into a world where he could say anything.

It didn't stop his voice from wavering nor his throat from threatening to close up. It was like he was having a full body rejection of the admission. These were secrets meant to remain locked up in his chest until his heart went still.

But he said them. And after that, they couldn't go back to being unsaid.

He didn't say them again for many years. It wasn't until he was a grown man. He wrote them down and he told the whole world.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

The point is that when Philip was away, Hunter got lonely and wanted his Uncle back. When Philip was home and focused all of his attention on his nephew, Hunter wanted nothing more than for him to be gone again. He knew that was an awful thing to want and the guilt ate him alive.

Did he not love his Uncle? Of course he did! He loved him more than anything.

That's why it hurt so much.

Sometimes, his Uncle was a comfort to Hunter's anxious heart. He held him in his arms and hushed him when Hunter had nightmares. He was safety.

And other times, he was the reason for those nightmares and Hunter didn't feel like he could be safe until that man was out of the house again.

Maybe, no matter what happened, he'd never be truly happy with any situation he was put in. Maybe the state of "being happy" just wasn't real, but a thing TV made up. There was just something inherently empty and scary about being alive.

At least that's the conclusion the small boy came to. This remained his mindset as he navigated the big loud upsetting world around him, which only got bigger and louder and more upsetting as Hunter got older and his career grew.

The most glaring problem Philip encountered grooming Hunter in Caleb's image was that there's a drastic difference between a man who achieved the most undiluted burst of stardom in his twenties and a toddler. Hunter can not immediately slide into the dignified shadow his father left behind, because he's too young for the kind of dramatic roles that Caleb had dazzled the world with.

There was nothing available to little Hunter that Philip felt lived up to the standards of Caleb in his prime. Which was understandable but disappointing. So, with a heavy exhale, which made Hunter worry the hem of this shirt ("Am I doing something wrong, Uncle?") Philip relented. Hunter would need a lengthy portfolio by the time he was older, so it was now time to start building this budding actor from the ground up.

Commercials, TV appearances, small film roles. Though it pained him to do so, Philip abandoned all the initial integrity he attached to his brother's legacy, and focused primarily on simply getting Hunter's face on a screen, any screen, whatever it took to get him entrenched in the industry.

Hunter was a lot more sensitive than other children. When he was very little, he had a bad tendency to get distressed over things like bright lights and unfamiliar places and weird textures. This led to a lot of on-set tantrums and he was deemed a difficult and entitled brat.

His "brattiness" never quite went away as he aged. But Philip did manage to curb those tendencies to be far less frequent. It involved brief private conversations in the nearest dressing room. When Hunter emerged, he was quieter and a lot more willing to co-operate with what the adults needed from him.

Hunter learned that misbehaving had consequences. He learned to swallow whatever obscure distress he was feeling and just do his job.

This didn't make his tantrums stop. They just shifted from regular occurances to big nasty explosions that build up over a period of weeks to months.

He eventually gave up trying to suppress them. It doesn't work. So, he just allows his emotions to burst out of him in the most humiliating public display a human being can put on, and then takes his punishment.

Uncle keeps telling him that people are going to think there's something wrong with him if he keeps doing this.

Hunter begs him to believe that there's not. There's not something wrong with him.

While it was happening, Philip would consider the 90s as a rocky beginning to his nephew's career. He didn't care much for any of the films or television series' Hunter appeared in, likely because he didn't care much for any production that included small children. So he was uninterested by default in any of the roles Hunter managed to book.

Regardless, this didn't make Philip any less demanding. Even if it was all tripe, and by God, he was very vocal about it all being tripe, he was still strict about Hunter's work ethic. The boy was expected to pour everything into his performance, and through there were very irritating child labor laws, Philip turned a blind eye to directors pushing the limits every now and again.

After long work days, Hunter would listen to his Uncle tear his current acting job to shreds. The stupid demeaning script that Caleb would be appalled at, but Hunter had no choice but to take, because he simply doesn't have the privilege to be picky.

Hunter felt a deep humiliation by his own career before he was even ten years of age. There was nothing that Philip held to Caleb standard, which left Hunter a paranoid wreck most of the time, fearing that he was always doing something wrong but never knowing how to fix it.

When he thinks back on being a little kid, he has a lot of memories of tearfully begging his Uncle to stop thinking of him a certain way or looking at him the way he does. He remembers his throat hurting. Things must have gotten loud.

An older Hunter would wince as he makes that connection. He remembers his throat hurting but not the consequences of raising his voice.

Every so often, a more prestigious opportunity presented itself to him (like the role of the protagonist's son in a film adaption of an American classic), and Hunter got so overwhelmed by the pressure of finally having something that could possibly hold a candle to Caleb Wittebane that he completely flubbed the audition and failed to book the role.

He knows that were dire consequences for not getting it. Although, once again, he doesn't remember the details of the punishment. But he remembers how tightly Uncle gripped his wrist as they walked out of the building. He remembers sitting perfectly still in the car, scared to make a sound by wriggling in his seat. Scared to breathe.

That was the 90s. That was Hunter's experience as a young child actor.

By the year 2000, he was ten and that's when Philip quietly realized something.

Hunter currently resembled Caleb Wittebane in miniature. He had his strong nose, his ashy hair, his dark eyes. Philip had always anticipated that there may be a bit of her in his nephew's appearance, but there wasn't a trace. It was beyond ideal.

This is when things should have gotten easier. This is when dignified job opportunities should have begun rolling in. This is when the world should have taken notice that Caleb Wittebane was not dead.

But this was not the case.

What Philip did not anticipate was that the industry had changed significantly since the 80s. It was the year 2000 and a young Caleb Wittebane was not what the industry wanted the future of film to look like.

He realized this in his study late one night as he obsessed over old video tapes. And once the truth had sunk in, he called Hunter into the room.

Hunter remembers wearing red pajamas patterned with beagle puppies. He has a memory of liking those pajamas a lot but can't recall the disappointment of growing out of them and throwing them away. It makes him suspect that at some point he just stopped wearing them.

On that night, a part of Philip gave up completely. He decided that this attempt of reviving his late brother's career was a failure before it had even started.

However, Philip was a deeply complex man. A remarkably stubborn man. So even when a part of him died, another part flared with life. It was the part of him that wanted to dig his heels in and say he wasn't done yet. Maybe they didn't want Caleb now, but this world was fickle. Who knows what they'd want in five years? In ten?

Hunter would continue making a name for himself, Philip would make sure of that.

Hunter would be something special if it damn near kills him.

And if he fails, Philip would kill the boy himself.

So, Hunter continues working diligently, attempting to find his footing in the rapidly changing environment. The early 2000s seem to be working overtime to distance itself from the 90s and it certainly takes some getting used to.

When Hunter is around eleven, he is told for the first time that he is not very nice to look at. According to various make up artists and hair stylists who he is left in the custody of when Kiki is god knows where, it's very easy to be cute as a small child. Baby fat n' all. But at a certain age, you start outgrowing it and that's when it becomes apparent whether you're going to be a handsome young man or not.

They gently break the news that there are not a lot of promising signs for Hunter. As one of the women, maybe in her late twenties, cups his face in her hands and tilts it towards the light (he really hates when strangers touch him), she sucks through her teeth and winces, as though she's trying to dig something out with her eyes but is coming up short. Nothing about his features reads as a future leading man. He can still have a steady acting career of course. But it's important he not get his hopes up too high. He's doesn't look like the typical Hollywood star.

Hunter argues with her. He riles himself up until his face flushes with rage. He looks just like his father, who was one of the most famous leading men of all time.

"Who's your Dad?" The woman asks.

Hunter frowns. He's never said the word "Dad" in his life. But the full name is familiar on his tongue when he answers the question.

"Oh, yeah," She says vaguely. "I think my parents used to watch his movies. I guess he was what they considered handsome in the 80s but..."

He doesn't like the way she trails off. He doesn't like all the new information being presented to him. He doesn't like her saying Caleb Wittebane wasn't handsome. In the world Hunter lives in, the man is picture perfect in every discernable way. He's never heard a bad word spoken of his father before, not even of the shallow variety. Uncle only lets him speak to people with nice things to say about Caleb. It's so jarring that it makes him feel nauseous. This isn't the way things are supposed to be.

And what's even worse, does looking like Caleb Wittebane not even matter?

Does this legacy he's supposed to carry on not matter?

That's always been one of his biggest fears, but he can not think about it for too long or the meltdown gets bad. But this new realization about his apparently mediocre looks catch him so off guard that he can't help it this time.

Hunter proceeds to hyperventilate in a supply closet for the next twenty minutes. He had never thought about what he looked like before. He had never really cared. He didn't know his appearance could hinder his career. He didn't know everything could fall apart just by having the face he does.

This is when a deep seated insecurity centered around his body image began spiraling out of control. It was also around the time that Hunter's dietary restrictions were being implemented, as were the intensity of his ballet lessons. This certainly did not help his already deteriorating self confidence.

From that point, Hunter is far more conscious of his own ambitions as an actor. He believes he is more than just a little boy who performs because it's what his Uncle tells him to do. He's a young man who wants to become a success like his father before him. He wants recognition. He wants acclaim. He wants...he wants....he wants something that he does not currently have.

As an adult, Hunter can only drag his fingers through his hair and sigh sympathetically at the thought of his young self believing that his determination to be a successful was ever for himself. It was for Uncle. It was for Caleb Wittebane. It was for everybody but himself. He was just a stupid kid who thought he wanted this because he knew nothing else.

The 2000s are a time when Hunter simultaneously starts slipping out of his iron confines, while getting reeled back tighter than ever. As he grows older, his curiosity becomes more and more insatiable and current pop culture is not as easy to shield him from. Especially when it's such a huge part of his life as an actor.

By the age of twelve, he's such a boring obedient self sufficient little robot that Kiki doesn't even bother monitoring him as severely as she once had. What's he gonna do, really?

And though Hunter is adamant that he never breaks his Uncle's rules, he finds himself shattering them to smithereens on a regular basis.

"I like authority. And rules," He says, ignoring the fact that there are piles of teen magazines tucked away under his mattress. Ignoring the hour of TV he sneaked in that Philip would have shattered the television screen over.

And no matter how many times Hunter wrinkles his nose in disapproval at how rowdy and frivolous today's youth are, he's still reading those trashy articles, desperate to find some connection. His small bubble of worldliness is beginning to grow.

It is slowly occuring to Hunter that he is much different than other kids. But that's a good thing....right? He's on a cleaner path than they are. None of them are being led by Philip Wittebane.

This is a good thing, he tells himself. This is a good thing, this is a good thing, this is a good thing--

However, Philip does crack down on an aspect of Hunter's autonomy that has been mostly ignored until now.

Though he tries not to think about it, as it gives him the most splitting headache, Philip must internally acknowledge those rumors from an age ago. The word of mouth telephone that crackled with the events of that one ridiculous party. Caleb Wittebane, age 17(!!!!) with his tongue down some filthy girl's throat.

The news hadn't been as scandalous as Philip viewed it as, and the world forgot about it remarkably fast. But he never forgot. And he never would. It was a pesky stain on the otherwise clean image that Philip was trying to preserve.

It hadn't been Caleb. It wasn't like him at all to behave in such an indecent way. It was her influence. It always was. Sometimes his blood boiled when he remembered how deeply interwoven she had become in his brother's life. How the child wouldn't even exist without her. It was vile. Eternally contaminating a narrative she had no business being a part of.

Obviously, he never told Hunter about all this. About the party. About the tongue. About the girl. He never mentioned the girl. She was a footnote at best.

Anyway, Hunter was almost thirteen. He was tumbling into adolescence. And no matter how singleminded and sensible he tried to act, there would be challenges to this physical and mental development. And Philip knew from personal experience that there was nothing more damaging to a clean Christian boy than fizzling teenage hormones.

There would not be a repeat of last time.

On Hunter's thirteenth birthday, his Uncle gifted him a chastity ring, like many of the other young people that attended their church.

Hunter was so floored by the gift he forgot how to speak. And when his Uncle put his hand on his shoulder and murmured "I know you won't let me down," Hunter had nodded solemnly, suddenly feeling so much older than he had been a moment before.

He now had a responsibility to refrain from things he hardly understood.

Philip felt this would be an effective precaution. It made Hunter feel important and Hunter loved to feel important.

All that concerned Philip was that the boy stick to his morals.

Keeping his stupid tongue in his stupid mouth was only the tip of the iceberg of what the rules of the chastity ring entailed, but Philip stressed the importance of it nonetheless.

And if the boy failed to do this one simple thing, Philip was going to gouge his eyes out.

A few months later, Hunter was hired to appear in an advertisement produced by his family's church. He, and several other actors in his age range, promoted the rings they wore to the children watching at home.

Hunter was very proud to be a part of it. He rarely got to do anything educational.

When Hunter was fourteen, he surprisingly booked a role as Sir William in some medieval fantasy film for swoony teen girls.

He rolled his eyes over it, but this was the point when Philip made it apparent to Hunter that swoony teen girls was a huge chunk of the target demographic of any actor his age so he best begin pandering. He was no Edric Blight (Hunter fucking hated Edric Blight) but he'd probably appeal to some.

The means of obtaining the role was not Hunter's talent alone, but it was because of a perfectionist director who wanted raw, emotionally gripping action scenes, and was disappointed that all the hazardous exploits in the script would require stunt doubles. No parent in their right mind would allow their child to be put in such dangerous conditions.

Enter Philip Wittebane and his nephew Hunter.

The film's shooting schedule had a rough history. And after a few months, production had to stop altogether when an on-set accident resulted in Hunter being sent to the hospital.

He remembers the hospital, specifically the very uncomfortable bed. He remembers rarely sleeping through the night unless he was drugged, as he kept waking up with panic attacks about all the money he was causing the studio to lose by not healing faster.

By the time the film released, Hunter was fifteen and already moving forward with his next project.

The Golden Guard was a TV adaption of a well loved comic book series that was currently in the development stages. Hunter has never read the comic (he's never read most comics, other than newspaper funny pages) but he's been informed that he is the spitting image of the titular character.

Initially he was skeptical. Who wants a famous superhero on their screen who looks like him? Certainly not current networks who have a very limited view of what leading men should look like, regardless of the comic it's being adapted from.

Apparently, a lot of negotiations have been taking place with the Golden Guard's creator, in order to obtain rights to the series. After months of arguing, they wore him down, as they always manage to wear creators down, and he agreed to hand over his baby.

The one condition that he managed to secure was that the boy cast for the screen resembled the boy on the page.

Hunter was fully aware that if it weren't for that old man's stubbornness, there was no way he would have been eligible for the role. He remembered seeing him appear once during a screen test and had wanted to thank him. The speech that fell out of him was flustered and clumsy, but it made the man smile.

"There are going to massacre the Golden Guard," He said with a bitter smile. "But I think you'll do well."

He never saw him again after that. And though Hunter did not have the frame of reference to have an opinion, the girl he would inevitably fall in love with happened to be a huge comic book nerd, being especially infatuated with the Golden Guard. And her opinions were strong.

"He was right, y'know," She would inform Hunter. "Your show is a steaming pile of shit." She would then kiss the tip of his nose. "But you're the best part of it."

Speaking of girls,

Hunter met Emira Blight a year prior when she and her twin brother also showed up for the chastity ring promotional ad. The two of them would have gotten fired for vandalizing the set and pranking the director if they weren't the most well known stars associated with the project.

Someone had tried to contact their mother to come get her children under control but she had failed to pick up the phone.

"Our precious little Mittens has an audition today," Emira explained, hands placed angelically behind her back.

"Until further notice, Mom has forgotten she has two other kids," Added Edric.

Emira smiled. "Like the next time she notices her stretch marks <33"

The two of them burst into giggles. They were left to be "disciplined" by members of the crew, who hadn't the faintest idea how to handle either of them.

Hunter had tried to avoid them while on set. He never had any personal encounters with them but he was well aware of their existence. They had been starring in twin centric comedies for the last decade or so, and were beloved talk show guests for being chatty, mischievous and overall "adorable."

Hunter found them obnoxious.

Edric more so than Emira. Especially lately, as the two were finally branching out into their own separate careers, rather than remaining a double act. Meaning Edric could be found sniffing around in the same auditions rooms as Hunter, going for the same roles.

Edric had a perfectly structured face, devoid of blemishes. He had the most photoshopped nose Hunter had ever seen, except he looked like that in real life apparently. He looked perfect and he was already a star to begin with. The roles were his the moment he stepped into the room.

But this wasn't about Edric. Edric was off somewhere else, performing the leading role in some teen musical movie that was going to become a worldwide phenomenon the moment it hit television screens.

This was about Emira, who had just been cast as Ruby Green, the Golden Guard's love interest.

Emira Blight was one of the most beautiful teenage girls in the entire world. Hunter knew this because he read it in a magazine once. More specifically, she placed 4th on the list, but that was still a pretty impressive accomplishment.

Hunter always had a difficult time deciphering the exact definition of beautiful. It was apparently a far different thing than what you would initially imagine.

From what he had gathered, it had nothing to do with being particularly interesting to look at, but having a nice and tidy face with all its features being a specific size and shape. He couldn't understand how one girl on that list could be in 8th place, while another could be in 3rd, as they all looked so startlingly similar.

That was what beautiful meant, he supposed.

There were definitely people that Hunter saw as beautiful in their own peculiar way. In the way that wasn't correct. Sometimes he saw them in movies from the 80s-90s. Sometimes he saw them in audition rooms, but they rarely booked the role.

Sometimes he even saw them on the street as the car drove past, people who made him sit up and want to look at them a little longer--

Girls. Girls on the street. Just girls. Only girls. It was only girls that he looked at on the street. It was only girls that he looked at ever.

Emira Blight had Edric's perfectly structured face, which made her beautiful in a celebrity kind of way, but also made Hunter want to look at her less. She had Rapunzel hair and a rail thin frame and, much to Hunter's dismay, she was taller than him.

The wardrobe department were given notes to add an extra few inches to the Golden Guard's boots.

"Little Prince indeed," The head stylist had murmured under his breath, just loud enough for Hunter to hear. An furious flush set his face aflame.

There were no screen test to determine Hunter and Emira's chemistry before the latter was cast, which resulted in hours of reshoots where they were chastised for the lack of romantic tension that they were putting into their performance.

To be perfectly honest, Hunter disliked Emira quite a bit and she disliked him too.

She carried her troublemaking tendencies from the promotional ad to the Golden Guard set, frequently wreaking havoc on the cast and crew.

Hunter had blown a gasket and berated her for it several times, but all she had done was smile her insufferable smile, roll her eyes and sing songingly tease him for being so uptight.

She made him mad. So uncomfortably mad. If he pulled the kind of stunts she pulled, without caring about the consequences, he would probably be dead by now.

Emira rarely got angry. Everything she did had this air of impish joy, but based on the way she spoke to Hunter, her opinion of him wasn't exactly glowing.

She called him arrogant, bossy, egotistical, to which he practically exploded in response. And then she made fun of how red in the face he got.

The only time Hunter ever saw Emira as anything less than her usual bombastic self was early in the morning, during hair and makeup.

"Are you washing your face, honey?"

"Yes," Answered Emira, looking smaller than ever in the makeup chair.

"Drinking plenty of water? Eating healthy? Staying away from junk food? Getting plenty of exercise?"

"Yes, yes, yes and yes," Emira's voice was quiet and automatic.

After a pause, she continued "It's not my fault."

The makeup artist hummed, unconvinced, which made Emira grip the seat so hard her fingers shook.

But the woman didn't push the matter any more and got to work on painting Emira's face into the porcelain masterpiece that made its way on to magazines.

Hunter watched in fascination as a few minutes of work with sponges and brushes wiped her skin clear of acne. And then she was what everyone around here would call beautiful once again.

When Emira noticed him looking, she said, in her usual playfully indifferent voice "I think Hunter's eyebags are getting worse."

"We know," The woman replied, exasperated.

The comment wasn't much, but it successfully corralled Hunter into his default mood. Not being enough. Any thoughts about Emira flew out the window, and he was back to fretting about his own inadequacy.

"And he's more sickly looking than usual," Emira decided to add.

"Well, maybe if he laid off the coffee. It's got him looking like a half-dead ghoul. No wonder it takes so long to make him look presentable."

It was a bad time for Hunter to be taking a sip of his takeaway cup. He frowned. "I've been awake since 4:30am."

"You should go to bed earlier then,"

"But I--"

"And kids shouldn't be drinking coffee at all."

"I'm not a kid!"

"Hush up. We've got work to do on this face and the last thing I need is to listen to you bitching again,"

Hunter glowered at her.

"You're gonna have wrinkles before you're 18 if you keep pouting like that."

He was so preoccupied with not throwing a temper tantrum that he didn't notice Emira leave the room.

The worst thing she ever did was while they were filming episode 3 and she had decided that Hunter's uptight behaviour deserved a humbling punishment. He didn't know how but she had somehow managed to break into his trailer and scavenged the place for something embarrassing.

This resulted in his stuffed frog Sprig being paraded around the set in Emira's arms as she declared the toy's owner to everyone who would listen in a high pitched trill. Everybody. She told everybody. Everybody knew about his toy. And now nobody was going to treat him seriously.

And when Hunter finally processed what was happening, all he had wanted to do was cry.

But he couldn't cry. Because fifteen year old boys don't cry. But he wanted to cry so badly that his usual screaming rage was nonexistent. He was just completely deflated.

He silently took the frog from Emira's possession and walked away. She had seemed confused, not understanding why he was not turning his funny red colour and yelling his head off.

She didn't bait him as much after that. She rarely spoke to him at all, outside of filming.

At one point she had randomly burst into his trailer, brandishing a magazine full of women in bikinis.

"For you!" She announced proudly. "A gift."

Hunter was a little slow on the uptake because a bikini magazine being within ten feet of his person was so incriminating that immediately thinking of the consequences nearly made him black out.

When he could speak again, he exploded "ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?? GET THIS OUT OF HERE!!"

"No, no, listen," Emira insisted. "I know your Uncle is like. Super Christian--"

"So am I!"

"And I know you're never gonna get your hands on this stuff by yourself. So, I'm helping,"

"Why do you even have this?" Hunter demanded, disgusted.

Emira took more than half a second to answer. "It's Ed's."

As if anything on earth could have made Hunter want to touch the thing less.

"Why..." He began, lost. "Why would you ever think I would want this?"

Emira cocked her head at him, puzzled. "You're a boy."

"Get out."

At the time, Hunter had presumed this to be another means of humiliating him, because he had quickly written Emira off as inexplicably cruel. But in hindsight, she had probably just been trying, in her own emotionally stunted way, to apologize to him. She had known next to nothing about boys and she knew even less about herself, other than she was a thing boys were meant to be obsessed with.

They were both just stupid kids who couldn't communicate properly to save their lives, because they had never learned how.

As a child, Emira ranged from a mild bully to an indifferent co-star, to an acquaintance of Hunter's. As an adult, she was the close friend in his Instagram comments section who kept hitting on his wife.

She still never figured out boys, but she figured out herself.

But again, getting ahead of ourselves.

Despite being the only two teenagers on set, Hunter and Emira did not spend much time together unless they were working. Once she settled down and stopped causing problems, Emira spent a lot of her time across the studio to visit her little sister, who was filming some preteen comedy show.

Hexside it was called. Some some vapid sugary husk of a television production that had magic and witches, yet not an ounce of dignity. Hunter had become quite a ruthless critic when it came to TV and film, mostly because he had spent his whole life in the company of a man with sky high standards.

It also helped him feel better about his own work as an actor. The glass half full method. Maybe the Golden Guard was not going to be the most brilliant show of all time, but at least he wasn't working on Hexside.

He had caught glimpses of Emira's sister a few times around the studio, mostly because her hair had been dyed a bright garish teal, so she was impossible to miss.

There were other cast members scattered about, you could usually tell from the explosion of layers and clashing patterns they were dressed in. Chunky belts, brightly coloured converse, weird pointy hats, jangly jewelry. They were a visual overload.

On one occasion, Hunter was waiting in line at the canteen. He was feeling lightheaded again, like if he didn't eat something in the next hour he would probably pass out while shooting. The last time that happened, it was really embarrassing.

He was a little zoned out, so he didn't pay them much attention at first. But then the poofy tutu-like skirt and zebra print leggings caught his eye, if only for him to wonder how in the Lord's name these young actors ever signed up for this ridiculous show.

It was a girl and a boy and their conversation entailed some familiar words and names that Hunter hadn't heard said in months.

Ah. The movie. The swoony teen girl movie. That had just released in theaters, hadn't it?

That's when the girl brazenly stated "I wanna sink my teeth into Sir William," successfully knocking Hunter straight out of the realm of sensibility.

What. In the name of all that is holy. Is that supposed to mean???

And also.....he's Sir William.

"You want to BITE ME??" Hunter finds himself blurting out, completely flummoxed. Was that a threat of violence? Did she not like his performance? Did she find his voice annoying like those other film critics? He used to get a lot of death threats for that when he was younger but...

It didn't really sound like a death threat. It was was just....absurd. How was he supposed to take this?

The girl whipped around, flashing Hunter with a very bright pair of green eyes. They were blown wide in panic, and she looked at him like he was the one about to bite her.

(He wasn't about to bite her.)

The girl wasn't tall, but she was big. Broad shoulders and a thick chubby build. Her face was rounder than he usually saw in young actresses, and her nose was wide and flat.

All he could really think as he was digesting these all details at once was....she was interesting to look at.

Hunter watched as a fluorescent shade of pink burned across her lightly freckled cheeks and the girl scurried away, flanked by the younger boy, calling after her.

For some reason, Hunter turned around to watch her leave until she was completely out of sight.

He was left more confused than ever.

What did he do that deserved biting? He never found out.

(Well, he found out eventually but....)

He continued to see that girl around the studio sometimes, as well as the young boy that accompanied her, and Emira's little sister.

The bigger girl usually tried to hide whenever she saw him, though Hexside's flamboyant wardrobe department made that nearly impossible. Hunter presumed she was embarrassed by what she said, though he really wasn't all that offended. He had heard way worse. The thing that drew his attention to her was actually the lengths she would go to to make herself invisible. He watched her dive under a table once.

Hunter usually just stared, not remembering until an hour later that embarrassed people don't like being stared at.

Eventually, Hunter and Emira started spending occasional school hours with the Hexside cast's tutor, which resulted in them all being lumped in a room together.

Her name was Willow Park, he learned. And with a little exposure therapy, she stopped blushing every time he was within ten feet of her. Though they still never really talked, she seemed to become a little more comfortable with his existence.

She didn't look at him much though. Or anybody for that matter. She seemed to be very guarded and closed off whenever they were in the school room. Hunter had also noticed that the tutor had to spend more time with her than anyone else.

But Willow Park was not currently where Hunter's head was at the moment. He had other things to deal with.

The recent Golden Guard script had been delivered to Hunter and did not really like what it had to say.

Apparently several episodes of the romantic tension that Hunter and Emira were famously bad at was finally coming to fruition in this big grand dramatic kiss scene.

Hunter did not think about kissing much because it made him feel very weird and squirmy, but he was always well aware that if he was ever kissing a girl anytime soon, it would probably be circumstances like this.

His opinion on romance in general is that he wasn't quite sure if it was something that could really happen in real life or if it was just a concept made up for TV.

First kisses were considered a milestone in the shows and magazines Hunter had secretly devoured. Something sacred and significant. It can't be with just anyone.

Admittedly, it had Hunter second guessing himself a little bit. Is his first kiss important? Or is that just a bunch of silly TV fluff with no grounds in reality?

It doesn't matter if it's Emira, does it? He's read books where first kisses are supposed to feel like you've been electrocuted. But in a good way. He can't imagine being electrocuted in a good way.

He gets his answer on the day of shooting when the kiss is ordered of him.

He should be grateful that they've been directed to keep it chaste. They both wear rings after all, and this is a family show.

Hunter squeezed his eyes shut, because eyes are always shut when people kiss in movies. And his mouth pricks Emira's mouth. And that's it. That's his first kiss over and done with.

And when he opens his eyes, a little underwhelmed and vaguely wondering why everything feels the exact same, Emira looks disappointed too.

That's when he realizes that the significance of first kisses is all lights and cameras. It's made up for TV. None of it is real.

But what he can't understand in the moment is why he feels a bit sad. There's no reason to feel sad.

But it's an annoyingly heavy emotion that sticks with him for the rest of the day.

They do a million shoots. Or what feels like a million. Hunter kisses Emira what feels like a million times. He had gone from having never kissed before to having kissed far too many times in one day.

And not a single kiss felt like anything but the usual emptiness that Hunter was used to.

During shooting breaks, he thought a little too much about how everything was just going to be like this. Forever. All of his experiences. Scripted. Made up. Not real.

Nothing was ever going to be real.

He didn't usually think about things like that. But now he was finding it hard to think about anything else.

Hunter couldn't sleep that night. You would think he'd sleep soundly when he had to get up before the crack of dawn, but he continued to struggle. Too much caffeine, too much brain bees that never shut up.

Tonight it was that one single thought of an entirely artificial lifetime.

Hunter was never going to be real.

After hours of restless tossing and turning, he left his bed and went downstairs, his footsteps expertly navigating across the creaky floorboards. He would watch something terrible on TV and he'd get so distracted by hating it that he'd forget his own problems.

After pushing a button, the first thing that appeared on Hunter's screen was a familiar girl's rounder than average face and bright green eyes.

Apparently, the Hexside Pilot had premiered recently. Hunter scoffed, making himself comfortable and deliberately tuning into whatever brain rotting stuff he was about to experience.

Unsurprisingly, he hated it. It was terrible. Cheap jokes. Flimsy plots. An obnoxious laugh track. He had never seen a worse show in his life.

Nothing is real, I'm not real, I'm not real, Nothing is real, I'm not real....

The costumes looked just as ridiculous on screen as they did in the studio.

Nothing is real....

The sets were cheap.

I'm not real....

Hunter abruptly paused mid laugh track, and stared at Willow Park's interesting face for an additional moment.

He knew absolutely nothing about this girl. Absolutely nothing.

The character she played was borderline illiterate, and Hunter genuinely could not say how much of her he was seeing was a script and how much was her.

But she was very lookable.

Are you real?

#tw child abuse #a lot of it!!!!!#tw for....belos in general #how do i even tag this. he's really creepy and it delves into a few uncomfortable subjects #some very weird policing of teenage bodies. it is meant to be weird i promise you #tw religious trauma #THATS IT!!! that is certainly a thing that is happening #La La Land Machine AU

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