Chapter Text
Hunter watches as Ed bounces excitedly in front of him. Just beyond him, a group of witches are gathered around the new portal to the human realm, chatting with the same amount of excitement Ed is currently displaying. Hooty is wrapped protectively around the door frame like he expects someone to attempt to run through at any second.
This trip wasn’t going to be anything special for Hunter; he’d been through the portal plenty of times in the past 8 months, whenever Luz begged him to spend a few days with her and her mom. But most of the group, Ed included, had only been to the human realm once, months ago, when Luz invited everyone over to meet her family. Hunter’s not surprised that his boyfriend is excited.
Boyfriend. A small smile crosses his face. This thing between him and Ed still doesn’t feel real to him.
“Okay, is everyone ready,” Eda calls from the front of the small group. A chorus of cheers ring out in response. “Alright, lead the way, Luz.”
The girl turns to smile at the crowd, then walks through the portal with Amity at her side. The rest of the group follows, until Ed is standing directly in front of the door. He looks back just long enough to grab Hunter’s hand, pulling him along as they step through.
~~~
Ed doesn’t let go of Hunter’s hand even as Camila welcomes the group of witches. Once she finishes her little speech and the group starts to disperse, her eyes meet Hunter’s. She gives him a knowing smile, glancing at the boy beside him and their intertwined hands, and he feels his face and ears heat up at her unspoken teasing. Camila’s smile melts into something warmer before she follows her daughter inside.
Only once the two are alone in the backyard does Ed release his hand, taking a few steps away and glancing around the yard. Hunter looks down at the snow at his feet, poking at it with the toe of his boot. He’s about to suggest that they head inside, when Ed calls out to him, turning back around.
“Hey, Hunter, you know what we should do first?”
The blond looks up, raising an eyebrow. “What?”
Ed crouches, grin splitting his face, and picks up two handfuls of snow. He pushes them together, shaping the pile into a ball, which Hunter half expects that Ed will throw at him. Instead, the boy holds it out to display it. “We should make a snowman!”
Hunter looks around the small yard. “Ed, there’s barely an inch of snow,” he states flatly.
The other boy smirks, a practiced, mischievous look crossing his face. “You say that like you think it’ll stop me. C’mon!” He runs off to the far corner of the yard, leaving Hunter with no choice but to sigh fondly and follow after him.
~~~
At Edric’s request, Hunter finds himself rolling a second ball of snow across the sparsely covered yard. Ed’s own snowball is barely the length of his forearm, but the boy is off searching for sticks at the edge of the woods anyway. Hunter doesn’t know why Ed is so set on making a snowman right now, with barely enough snow to cover the ground, but his boyfriend seems so excited about it that he has to give in. Besides, Hunter has never made a snowman himself before. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious.
“That looks big enough,” Ed cheerfully calls from somewhere behind him.
Hunter stands and turns to face the direction of his voice, finding Ed walking towards him. “Aren’t snowmen supposed to be bigger than this?” He gestures to the ball of snow at his feet, small enough to be held in two hands with little effort.
“As you pointed out,” Ed teases, poking Hunter’s shoulder as he walks by, “there isn't enough snow to make a bigger one.” He carefully picks up Hunter’s snowball and walks it over to his own. Hunter follows close behind. “Once we get back to the Isles, though, I’m gonna take you to the Knee so we can make a real snowman. See how tall we can make it. I bet we could beat the record me and Emira set last year!”
Hunter smiles, feeling warm despite the cold sting from the snow on his bare hands. He watches Ed place his snowball on top of the other.
“Do you think Camila has carrots? For the nose,” Ed asks without looking up, reaching for the sticks he left to the side of the half-made snowman.
“She did last time I was here. I’ll go check.”
~~~
By the time Hunter returns, Ed has positioned the sticks he found on the bottom part of the snowman, pointing up, and has…somehow managed to acquire a scarf?
He kneels beside Ed, holding out the carrot he’d grabbed with Luz’s assistance. “Where’d the scarf come from?”
The boy’s smile grows. “I brought it with me.” He takes the carrot, placing a handful of small rocks in Hunter’s palm in return. “You can put the buttons, eyes, and mouth on.”
Hunter watches as Ed attempts to push the carrot into the head of the snowman, closing his fingers around the rocks and rolling them in his hand. “So you planned this even before we got here,” he teases, trying to keep a straight face. Edric turns to him, hands still on the snowman, his face scrunched up in a mix of emotions. Hunter’s lips pull up slightly. He tries to smother it to appear unaffected by Ed and his cuteness. “Of course you did. You probably have a plan for every day we’re here.” He manages to keep himself from fully smiling, but with the way Ed is watching him, he’s sure his unintentionally light tone gave him away. Or maybe it was because his ears, embarrassingly, made a small twitch of happiness without his permission. But, if he’s being honest, it was probably his inability to keep his gaze from softening when his eyes met Ed’s.
“I don’t have a plan for every day,” the green-haired boy protests, face lighting up again. “Just…most days. It’s more of a…vague checklist of things we need to do.”
Hunter lets himself smile at that. He doesn’t respond, but he finds himself excited to see what his boyfriend has planned. It’s gonna be an interesting month.