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He didn’t think he’d have to turn to her of all people to talk about something like this. Correction, he never thought he’d ever have to talk about something like this at all.
He was the golden guard after all. He shouldn’t distract himself with such lowly pleasures like the heat that traveled from his heart throughout his entire body whenever she looked at him. Or the way that heat slowly turned into a comforting warmth, whenever she talked to him, whenever she smiled at him. The way she made him feel like a normal person.
But then he started to realize that he was a normal person. And he did deserve to revel in those little things. He deserved to pretend not to laugh at Luz’s dumb jokes. He deserved to be amazed at simple human things with Gus. Hell, he even deserved Amity’s snarky comments. He deserved to not have to constantly feel like he was disappointing someone. He deserved to be a normal teenager, even if he didn’t always feel like one. Even if he never felt like one.
But as amazing as this new realization (that he still sometimes doubted the legitimacy of) was, it put him in quite the difficult situation.
He no longer had a reason as to why he shouldn’t feel the way he did about Willow. He no longer had an excuse. And if he was being honest, it scared him.
At first he told himself that this is just what friendship was like. To be fair, he hadn’t had one before (besides Luz herself…. But that was….. different) , so it wasn’t a completely unreasonable thing to think.
But, as he slowly but surely began to break down his walls and connect with the others, there came an equally horrifying realization that he still felt the way he did about Willow and only Willow.
And he, of course, had no clue what to do with this information.
So decided to give up what little of his pride he had left and ask the one person who might.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” Luz asked before he could.
“Like what ?” He replied, trying to play it cool for the last moments that he could.
She shrugged. “I don’t know. You just look like you’ve got something on your mind,” She hopped onto her staff. “But if you don’t then-“
”Actually, there was something I kinda wanted to ask you,” He blurted out, taking advantage of the moment so he didn’t have to awkwardly have to bring it up later.
Her eyes widened and her shoulders perked. While Hunter had gotten better about opening up, it was still rare for him. Well, it wasn’t hard to be ‘better’ at something that wasn’t an option before. But like he said, it was still rare. Very rare. He still hadn’t even told Gus Amity or Willow that he was a grimwalker.
That thought sent him down a dangerous spiral the second it entered his mind.
What would she think if she knew? What would any of them think?
"What is it?" She hopped down from her staff, her palisman going back into its bat form and fluttering its leathery wings as it perched on her shoulder. She could tell from the look on his face that this would be a conversation much too long for the short flight to the owl house. Or maybe she just hoped it would be. Not entirely because she wanted to embarrass him, but because she genuinely cared about how he felt.
"Oh it's not that big of a deal, really," It was a big deal, to him at least.
"If it's not a big deal then why can't you just tell me what’s up?" She smirked. "Oohhh is it a secret? I won’t tell anyone, swear on my life."
"Debatably. Also I absolutely do not trust you on that"
Despite the fact that he’d just insulted her, her eyes brightened.
"It's just.... there's a certain person- who I will not be naming, who makes me feel..." Inside his head he could talk about her for hours. Titan, how was he supposed to put this into words without sounding like a complete idiot? He felt like that whenever he tried to put anything into words, didn't he? "Weird I guess? But in a good way, always in a good way. And I thought this was just, i don't know, how you felt around people, but I don't feel this way around anyone else and I was just wondering if you.. knew what it meant or something," He stopped himself quickly, realizing how high and fast his voice was getting. He had to at least try to remain cool.
But Luz's smirk softened into a genuine smile, and for a minute Hunter actually believed she wouldn't make a big deal out of this. But it was Luz after all.
She grabbed his shoulders, shaking him, making indiscernible high pitched noises.
He groaned, already feeling his face growing hot. "See, this is why I didn't want to tell you,"
"Ok, no I'll stop, I'll be normal," She backed away, the annoying big smile not leaving her face. "I'm just really happy for you," She sighed. “I remember what it was like to be in love for the first time,”
It was Hunter's turn to make an indiscernible noise. “Love is a strong word!”
”But it’s the right word? Isn’t it?”
”I-“ Was it? He’d never felt anything like this before, so what reference point did he have to go off of? He averted his eyes from Luz’s. “I’m not sure yet,”
When he finally found it in himself to meet her gaze again, she didn’t speak, but simply smiled at him. A smile that told him she understood.
And from a logical perspective, yes, she did. From the simplest perspective, yes, they were two kids falling in love for the first time. But her situation was completely and utterly different. Not better or worse, but different. While he could image how much it must hurt to fall in love with someone you thought must hate you, how much it must hurt to fall in love with someone from a completely different world (But was he part of this world either?) a world you knew you had to leave, Hunter was something someone who fundamentally should not exist.
And if he didn’t deserve to exist, then why should he deserve to be loved?
But Luz grabbed his hand and dragged him down the path towards the owl house, and those thoughts didn’t exactly go away, but they definitely softened.
Once their group had returned to the demon realm, things had gone back to normal. For the others at least.
But for him, normalcy wasn’t an option. And even if it still was, even if Belos was still alive, there was no way he could go back to him after what he’d learned. Not just the revelation that he was a grim walker, but the realization that it wasn’t selfish of him to want better. To want to be treated like a normal person, even if he wasn’t one. Even if he wasn’t really a person at all.
He could’ve stayed in the human realm, it surely seemed like the safest option, but he didn’t want to burden Mrs.Noceda, especially after she’d given them so much. Besides, this was all new to her. So for the past six months he’d been living with Eda and King (and Hooty. Can't forget Hooty. Unfortunately). For the first few months he told himself that he was just a replacement for Luz, since she was alternating between worlds and only spending half her time with Eda. Being a replacement felt weirdly familiar after all. It was what he was made to do.
But Eda genuinely cared for him. As his own person. And he cared for her.
She wasn't home today. Because, according to the note she'd left on the fridge, she was out with Raine (Which Luz went crazy over. Of course. It relieved him a bit, to know that she wasn't specifically targeting him, or even specifically trying to be annoying. Although he kind of already knew that. Luz was just the type of person to exclude love no matter what, without even realizing it herself)
"It's Willow, isn't it?" She said before she even closed her door. "Don't look so surprised, I mean who else would it be?" She sat down on her sleeping bag, Hunter quietly joining her. Even as she'd transferred a lot of her stuff back over to the human realm, her room still had that charm about it that was so uniquely hers. "I mean, I don't just think that because of process of elimination of course- there's just something special about you two, y'know? I see the way you look at her. As cliche as it sounds"
He sighed. Not a sigh of annoyance but of.... relief. "Yeah. I know," Being alone here with her gave him the guts to ask a question he’d been meaning to ask for a while. “Do you think she sees it too?”
“Possibly. But you’ll never know until you ask her yourself, will you?” She poked him in the shoulder, and her smile widened even more (if that was even possible at this point), and Hunter couldn’t help but smile as well. "This is the point where I probably should be giving you a lecture on how I'll kill you if you break her heart, but I really don't think your capable of that,"
That made Hunters smile fall, ever so subtly. It was funny how she said that. When she knew he was capable of so much worse. She'd seen it with her own eyes. Yet she still put so much trust in him. An amount of trust Hunter wouldn't give to anyone, no matter what good or bad they’d done.
Maybe she knew how much Willow had changed him.
Or maybe Luz was just a person who excluded love no matter what.
"Soooo when are you gonna tell her?"
"Let's not get ahead of ourselves-"
"I wouldn't call this getting ahead of ourselves- you've known her for what, a year? I'd say this is taking it slow,"
He messed with the strand of hair that fell in front of his face, desperately trying to put it into place. Desperately looking for a distraction. "But I haven't even figured out if these feelings are romantic yet,"
"If you're willing to risk your pride to ask me for advice, then i think we both already know what type of feeling it is,"
“I guess you’re right… but what if… no okay you are right, I absolutely do like her,” He absolutely did love her, but even as inexperienced he was at feeling like this, part of him knew he couldn’t say that just yet. Although he wasn’t really sure what the difference between love and like really was, if there was one at all “ I’m just afraid… afraid of messing everything up,”
She frowned, but her eyes crinkled up as if she were smiling. “No, I get it. It is scary. I mean, she was your first friend, you wouldn’t want to ruin what you have- i mean, not that you’re going to. I know you’re not going to. Cause I know you, Hunter. And I know Willow,”
”First friend? What, do you not count?”
She blinked. “I guess I do,”
Hunter thought about what he’d said. I guess she had good reason to not think she counted as his first, considering their first interaction had involved him threatening to kill her. And their second.
Titan, he really didn’t deserve her, did he? He didn’t deserve any of this. Most certainly not Willow.
He’d been staring at the same spot on the floor for a while without even realizing it, and his gaze only being broken when he heard Luz rummaging through her bag, pulling out a plethora of pens and glitter.
He raised an eyebrow. “And what’s this now?”
“Sooo I told you how grom is coming up right?” She asked, already getting to work on whatever it was she was making.
”Yeah, you won’t shut up about it,”
She blushed, waving her hands about . “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just my first grom with Amity- well my first grom with her as my girlfriend, that is, and Eda lent me her dress from when she when to grom and it so cool and vintage- No ok, sorry, this is about you,”
He leaned towards her to look over her shoulder. Written in obnoxiously (He meant that as a compliment) colorful bubble letters were the words ‘will you go to grom with me?’.
”So I’m making you a grom sign!.”
His brain wasn’t sure whether to be embarrassed or to be grateful, so he just laughed. Which apparently wasn’t the reaction Luz wanted.
“I’m sorry, I know this is really cheesy and dumb I just thought-“
”No, no, no, I’m not making fun of you- I just… I don’t know. I never thought I would get to do something like this, you know?”
Luz wrapped her arms around him with what was probably more force than needed, and all at once he was so extremely grateful he didn’t have to play the golden guard persona anymore, that he didn’t have to pretend not to love this. While a sign like this was definitely much more on brand for Luz than for him, and when he did eventually tell Willow how he felt he’d do it in a way that was a bit less… extravagant, he couldn’t act like this didn’t mean a lot to him.
And she pulled away like it wasn’t a big deal. Cause it wasn’t to her. “I’m glad you get to experience it now.”