Chapter Text
Willow was not the first to hear the news. Gus was.
Gus had a habit of doing that.
It was one of the many nights they spent in her basement playing video games and eating snacks, and her phone rang across the room. Gus stood from his bean bag that he’d claimed as his years ago. “I’ll get it.”
“This is Willow’s phone.”
“...Oh.” He gave her a look that clearly stated that this particular call was delivering bad news. Very bad news. “Yeah, I’ll give the phone to her.”
Willow took her phone and squeezed her eyes shut. Out of sight out of mind . But obviously, this time, she couldn’t escape by closing her eyes. Phone calls didn’t work that way.
“Hello, I’m calling from Death-Cast. I’m Amanda. Is this Willow?”
“Yeah.”
She opened her eyes and looked at Gus, who was now sitting on the floor against the wall, his eyes burning holes in the carpet. She sat down next to him as the call continued, and he leaned his head on her shoulder. When the call ended, she let her head go back against the wall with a thud.
“I should fill out that form, shouldn’t I?” she mumbled.
Gus stayed silent, so Willow did too. They sat against the wall for a while before Gus stood with a grunt. “I’m going upstairs to get a snack.”
“Help yourself,” Willow responded tiredly. Her friend trudged up the stairs and she stood, moving to the TV to turn it off. She followed Gus up the stairs, but continued to the next set that went upstairs after Gus seemed to have settled in the kitchen, rummaging through the fridge.
Once she got to her room, she flopped face-first onto her bed, took her phone out of her pocket and scrolled through Penstagram. After a few minutes, she got bored and rolled over, opening her contacts. She opened Luz’s contact and stared at it for a while, thinking. She’s probably asleep. But what if she doesn’t care and wants to hang out anyway? I don’t-
There was a knock at the door. She looked up to see one of her dads in the doorway.
He smiled at her. “I heard you come upstairs without Gus.”
Willow sat up. “Yeah, I did.”
He sat down next to her. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not particularly.”
Her dad pulled her into a tight hug, and they stayed like that for a while.
“Hey pops?”
“Yes?”
“If something happens to me, will you and Dad keep an eye on Gus and make sure he’s okay?”
Her dad leaned away. “What are you saying?’
Willow hesitated. “I got a call about half an hour ago.”
“And Gus knows?”
“Yeah.”
“...We should tell your d-”
“No! Not yet. He would make me stay home all day.”
Her father sighed. Unfortunately, his daughter was right. His husband was far too worrisome about these things sometimes. He patted her shoulder. “Take your time. Do what you need to do. I’ll keep Gus company for a bit.”
Willow smiled softly. “Thanks, Dad. I think… I think I know what I want to do.”
Suddenly, they heard a voice from downstairs.
“Hey, what happened? …Oh. Okay. I’ll be ready to go when you get here.”
A moment, and then a small sob.
Willow glanced at her dad, concerned. He shrugged. Willow stood from her bed, slowly walking out the door and down the stairs. She found Gus in the kitchen at the table, his head in his hands. She froze when a stair she stepped on creaked loudly. Gus looked up, his eyes puffy, and something inside Willow broke. She approached him gently. “Gus, I-”
She didn’t get to finish what she wanted to say because Gus had suddenly wrapped her in a tight hug, as if he was never going to see her again.
Which was almost true.
Willow hated this.
Willow didn’t want to leave him. She didn’t want to die, knowing that Gus still has his whole life ahead of him. She didn’t want to die, knowing how lonely Gus would be.
She didn’t want to die.
So she hugged Gus back, as hard as she could. She hugged him for all the times she wouldn’t be there. She hugged him for all of his losses, all of his wins, and she hugged him for everything in between. She hugged him for all of his bad days, and all of his good days, too, whenever they came back. She hugged him for all of his days, because she wouldn’t be able to be there for him.
Willow felt him sniffle into her shoulder. “Dad got mom’s call,” Gus said, finally, and for whatever reason Willow hugged him even tighter. He continued. “I think I should go home. Mom needs me.”
“Yeah, I know,” Willow said, her voice wobbly as she tried and almost failed to bite back a sob. She held him for another minute before finally letting go. She gestured for him to wait there while she went upstairs to her room, looking around. She went to her windowsill and grabbed a pair of clippers, also grabbing the plant next to them. She carefully brought them downstairs and put them on the table. She turned to Gus. “I want you to have my bonsai.”
Gus sniffled and wiped his nose, giving her a confused look. “What? But you’ve been taking care of it for years.”
Willow gave him a sad smile. “Exactly. Think of it as… Think of it as an extension of me.”
They went back to the basement to pack up Gus’ things in a bag, then sat on the couch in the living room together in silence until Gus’ dad came to pick him up. When Perry arrived and knocked on the door, they both stood. Willow grabbed Gus’ bag and waited for him to grab the bonsai and the bonsai clippers, and she opened the door.
Perry was standing there solemnly, a fine layer of snow dusting his shoulders. He silently turned and started walking to the car, and the two kids followed him. Willow opened the door to the back seat and set her friend’s things inside, and Perry opened the passenger door, allowing Gus to carefully sit down and buckle up with the bonsai in his lap. Perry saw the bonsai and looked at Willow skeptically, to which Willow responded, “He’ll explain it.”
Willow didn’t realize she wasn’t wearing a coat until she had watched Perry and Gus drive out of sight. The snow was coming down a little heavier now, and the wind didn’t help the cold at all. Willow regretted chopping off her hair last year; the wind nipped at her bare neck, the short loose curls not really doing much to maintain her body heat against the cold.
The funny part was that she couldn’t tell if she was shivering because of the cold or if the shivers were giving her shoulders an excuse to shake for other reasons.
As soon as she got to her room, she decided to call Luz. She wiped her eyes and dialed her number, letting the dial tone go one, two, three times before her friend picked up.
“Hey, what’s up?”
Willow inhaled carefully before speaking. “Luz, I got the call.”
“Oh shit. I did too.”
Willow cleared her throat a little. “Oh. Do you want to, you know, hang out? I’m…”
Luz seemed to sense her tenseness through the phone. “Hang on, I’ll be there soon. I’m hanging out with someone.”
Willow could feel her shoulders tensing up. “Oh, you are?”
“Yeah, you’ll meet her when we get there. Where’s Gus?
“His mom…”
“Oh. Oh shit. I see… Well, uh, tell him I said… You know what, I’ll text him.”
“Okay. I’ll see you.”
“…Yeah, see you soon. Bye.”