Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

After the first month of being stuck in the human realm, Mrs. Noceda insisted on enrolling them in school.

No one was adjusting well, to say the least. Luz had withdrawn into herself the first week they were there, and Willow hated it. It wasn’t like her friend to act like that, all stone-faced and withdrawn, not a spark of her usual warmth and kindness.

Amity had been at Camila’s side since the beginning, cooking, cleaning and helping wherever she can, all the while stressing out over Luz to try to make her feel better. Willow couldn’t imagine what Amity was dealing with, seeing her girlfriend so…devastated.

Gus found himself exploring every inch of the Noceda household, excitedly coming up with wild theories as to what they were, such a far cry from when they first came through the portal. Willow watched him closely, making sure that if he showed signs of regressing she would be able to help immediately.

Hunter was being as useful as possible, too. He had dove head first into research about Philip Wittebane, Gravesfield, any magical lore that could offer a hint of help in getting back home. Occasionally Willow would find him up until four or five in the morning, still hunched over a book on the living room couch, and she would have to yank the book out of his hands to make him return to the basement to sleep.

Willow had just tried her best to be helpful in any way possible; she had worked nonstop to figure out how to grow human plants, so now Mrs. Noceda’s garden was full of ‘tomatoes,’ ‘strawberries,’ and a lot of other edible plants Willow has never heard of.

So, Mrs. Noceda thought it could lend a bit of…normalcy.

Going to high school was, well, an adjustment.

Luz and Vee promised it would be good for them, but Luz was obviously nervous herself. She was probably the most nervous out of all of them, actually.

Amity worried about her a lot. She had never seen her girlfriend so stressed, so quiet and so unlike her usual personality in those first days in the human realm.  Amity tried getting Luz’s mind off of things, showing her new human outfits and Good Witch Azura theories and a tv show—which is the human’s version of a crystal ball—called ‘She-Ra and the Princess of Power.’

Gus was excited to learn about more human things. He had already looked on the ‘internet’ about history, space travel, and giraffes. Willow gave him a notebook that he had already half-filled with research notes and further points he would like to study, shoving it in to his backpack for the first day and no doubt going to interrogate all of his teachers until he got every inquiry answered.

Hunter was apprehensive. He approached the concept of school as any good soldier would, logically and without complaint. Willow tried to get him to lighten a bit—‘relax, have some fun, make some friends’—that would fluster him, but not break the metaphorical armor he was wearing all of the time now. Willow understood why he did it, but she felt a pang in her stomach at how he seemed to be putting up these walls around her, too.

Willow was all nerves too. Since the last school she was at she had bullies and awful teachers, she was not exactly excited about a new one, with new classes, new people, new teachers, new potential bullies—

So her first day there, she was hoping for underwhelming.

It went pretty much as expected.

She was expecting Luz to overcompensate for her peers—and for the Hexsquad’s sake, too—by being overly friendly and smiling a bit too wide to be genuine.

She expected Gus to being fascinated by everything—pointing at garbage cans, inspecting the human fashion choices—“What are ‘Crocs’?”—and having a ball just by being there. It warmed her heart a little seeing how happy he was.

She expected Amity to be extra supportive of Luz—clinging to her arm, laughing at all of Luz’s attempts at jokes, and making an effort to be kind to everyone she passed in the hall—mean girl Amity was a thing of the past, after all.

What she wasn’t expecting was all of the attention Hunter was getting.

Hunter himself was the Golden Guard today, all soldier in appearance besides his casual human clothes and beanie to hide his ears. Willow kind of missed his actual personality, the secret dork who liked flyer derby and books and sending her pictures of Flapjack.

As they all walked into the school, a girl shoved her way in between the two of them, nearly knocking Willow into Gus.

“Sorry!” The girl said, but she was only looking at Hunter with a bright smile.

“How rude,” Hunter grumbled, taking Willow by the arm and placing a comforting hand on Gus’s shoulder. Willow felt a surge of firebees in her stomach, surely from nerves about school. And nothing else.

And then again at their lockers—which don’t actually eat the students, who knew—three girls came up to introduce themselves, and Willow smiled and waved, but she was unceremoniously ignored for Hunter.

They reminded Willow a bit too much of Boscha and her crew, for her taste anyway.

Hunter, to his credit, was having none of it.

“—so we just wanted to welcome you to Gravesfield High! I’m Penny, this is Hayley, and Toni.” Penny flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder. “Listen, if you need anything I would be more than happy to—"

“I’m good thanks,” Hunter cut off with a sharp look, loading books into his locker.

Penny was persistent though. “Is that AP Literature? You must have Mr. Baker, next.” She slipped her arm into his and Willow saw a flash of red. “Luckily I have that too! We can sit next to each other, Mr. Baker is very—"

Willow understood why he was getting flirted with so blatantly, though.

Well, yeah, he was pretty cute—with his scarred jawline, athletic frame, adorable gap tooth, the way his eyes lit up when he found a new and exciting book, the way he was so affectionate with Flapjack, how goofy he and Gus got when making up dance moves to that high school musical movie they watched…

And he did look pretty good in that beanie, too.

Later that day, Luz had said that the ‘bad but sad boy’ type was popular among human teenage girls, which Hunter fit the bill for perfectly. She had even pulled up a character named ‘Zuko’ from some TV series to demonstrate; he had a face scar too.

Hunter got even redder in the face, hands balled into fists. “Luz! Stop comparing me to fictional characters! It’s dumb and doesn’t make sense!”

Gus and Luz just laughed at him.

Hunter huffed even more, getting all red faced with irritation. “I hate all of this attention! What’s the point of all this anyway? It’s so stupid.”

Part of her thought it was funny when he got flirted with. He had no idea how to deal with it, and got all flustered and annoyed, very different than the Golden Guard façade he seemed to wear almost constantly nowadays. She was happy to see him not so stoic.

She didn’t know what the uneasiness in her stomach was all about, though.

As Hunter was towed down the hall with a worried backwards glance, Willow went into her next class with a forced peppy attitude. But it was biology, and according to Luz and Vee this was exactly her cup of tea.

She was assigned a seat next to a boy with bright blue hair who seemed less than excited about the class. She gave him a bright smile that he only half-heartedly returned, but that was enough for Willow to see an opportunity to make a new friend.

She got her opening when they got stumped on a particularly troublesome bit of algae they needed to get to cooperate for the lab.

“It should be reacting to the light, but it’s not moving.” He looked at the report again, scratching his head.

“I think if we just…” Willow surreptitiously made a spell circle under the table, while using her free hand to jiggle the specimen, which then caused the algae to expand almost immediately. She waved her hand over it in a flourish, and grinned at her lab partner. “Ta-da!”

His eyes went wide at her solve. “Hey! That was pretty cool! Where did you learn how to do that?”

“Oh!” She chuckled nervously, then gave a clandestine smile, quoting a human movie Gus had shown her the other day. “If I told you I would have to kill you.”

A beat. Then, “Ha! Well, keep doing it, and I could actually pass this class. Science is NOT my thing. I’d rather be in my photography class.”

“You sound like my friend Amity. She’s super smart at, uhh MATH…, but, biology? No way.”

Nice save, Park.

They joked around a bit more, Willow getting the rundown on the school, what to avoid—“Do NOT, under any circumstances, eat at the nacho bar.”—and other good to know things.

Willow grinned at her new friend. “Thanks a lot—oh, I didn’t get your name?”

The kid smiled and stuck out his hand. “I’m Charlie.”

She grinned at him. “Nice to meet you, I’m Willow.”

Willow was surprised how nice everyone was here. Outside of her biology class, she got to know a couple girls in her English class, two of whom she shared a gym period with—where they introduced her to other kids on the track team, who insisted she try out after they saw her do the shotput.

She helped a younger girl pick up her stuff when she had dropped her supplies and walked her to the art room—the next day she had a beautifully drawn thank you note taped to her locker.

She was invited to a ‘GSA’ meeting by Charlie and his boyfriend, which Amity and Luz was also invited to. Turns out humans use labels for their sexualities, and she herself fit under ‘pansexual.’ They even had all these fun colored flags to match.

Sarah from her history class invited her to debate club, and out to Robin’s Roast afterwards with some of the other members. They introduced to her to something called Tiktok, which she definitely had to show Gus later.

Even Penny, the girl who rudely ignored her in trying to flirt with Hunter, waved to her in the hall. Willow could only give a tight smile back, but she supposed that was good enough.

Willow wondered about Boscha. If she was okay, if her moms were okay.

By the third day, Willow was invited to five different lunch tables and was the newest member of seven groupchats. Thankfully Gus and Hunter had figured out how to turn the scrolls into ‘phone’ imitations, and she now had an ‘Instagram’ with more followers than she ever had on Penstagram.

Everyone was supportive of her newfound status at school.

“Willow, you’re popular.” Amity stressed to her one day. “Everyone is nice to you because they like you!”

“What? No—I mean Jenna and Danielle are just nice to everyone, and debate club is big but not that big, and yeah I know a bunch of people from track, but…”

“Oh my gosh, Willow Fever is contagious to humans too! This is the best thing to happen EVER!!” Luz tackled Willow in a hug, giggling.

Hunter lifted his head from his book, eyebrows scrunched up. “What’s Willow fever?”

“Well, Hunter, it’s the whole school realizing how frickin’ amazing our girl Willow is here!! It’s safe to say that everyone has it, would you agree, Huuuunter?” Luz grinned cheekily.

Hunter didn’t say anything else at that. He seemed to do that a lot recently, get all quiet and blush all the way to his ears. Willow didn’t know what that was about.

So, Willow tried to adjust to all the new attention. It still felt weird, having so many people be so kind to her. A part of her whispered that they were all lying, making fun of her, but she knew she had the most important ones always: Luz, Amity, Gus, Hunter. Even Vee.

It wasn’t much later that Hunter joined the track team too—besides his transportation ability he was fast, and he quickly proved himself to be one of the best. Willow knew that he needed an outlet of some type and dragged him to practice one day, and he relented without much of a fight. And now they got to spend more time together this way. Which made Willow feel…weird. But not in a bad way. She tried not to think about that too much.

She was glad he was acting more like a kid, not a soldier.

Hunter had ditched the gloves within the first couple weeks of being there, and would occasionally wear a pair of fingerless gloves when he needed the comfort. His texting had improved a lot since then, thankfully. Willow would see him occasionally on his scroll/phone when the six of them were hanging out, and she would smother the angry bile in her stomach asking who exactly he was texting: he could text whoever he wanted, who cares if it was Penny from his English class.

(If she looked harder, she would have been able to see that Gus was also on his phone, and the two boys were exchanging not so secretive glances at each other, and at her too. But she didn’t notice that.)

She was having fun on the track team and all the other players were great, too. It surprised her how much she could enjoy human sports like this.

Willow thought about Skara and Viney, and if she could ever play flyer derby again. 

She was stretching and talking with Kendall and Jenna one day when the two of them shared a look before grinning at her knowingly.

“Soo…what’s the deal between you and Hunter?”

Willow’s heart rate sped up, and she was thankful her face was turned away during her current stretch. “What do you mean?”

“Weeell, you seem to spend a lot of time together. Are you two…?”

Of course. They wanted to know if Hunter’s available.

“HA—no, nothing like that. We’re friends. Good friends. He definitely doesn’t see me that way.”

Jenna snuck a glance at Kendall before smiling ruefully at Willow. “Ehh, he doesn’t know what he’s missing. I’m sure someone will come along and take you on the date that you deserve.”

Willow just gave a lukewarm smile before changing the subject.

It was a couple days later that Kevin, a teammate from track, asked her on a date.

Thing is, Willow didn’t know he was asking that.

“So…are you, uh, seeing anyone, Willow?” Kevin asked one day after tack practice, looking a little sweatier than usual.

Willow frowned, confused as to why she was asked the same question so recently.

“No, not particularly. Funny, Jenna and Kendall were asking the same thing the other day…”

“Ohh…huh. Anyway…uhh…would you want to go the roller rink this weekend?”

“Oh, that’s a good idea! I know Gus and Hunter would love to do that too, and I’m sure Luz would want to bring Amity.”

“Uhm, so I was thinking more of the—”

“Would you want to invite Jenna and Kendall and everyone else? Could be a cool—”

“Wait.. that was a date?”

Amity and Luz chuckled warmly. “Willow, people like you. You’re cute! And dateable! One good thing about being stuck here is that humans actually seem to know how great and amazing you are.” Luz squished Willow’s cheeks, putting emphasis on ‘great.’

Pouting, Willow considered her words. She was very uncomfortable with the idea of people liking her that way. For the longest time, she never thought anyone would—or even could—think about her that way, and sure she did become more well liked in the past couple months and she’s adjusting to being liked here, in the human realm, but romantically?

Gus put a hand on her shoulder.

“Willow, you gotta have more faith in yourself. You’re cool as heck and this Kevin guy sees it! You’re a catch. And I should know, I’m your best friend.”

Willow leaned into her friends touch. “Thanks, Gus.”

Gus took on a knowing smirk. “What do you think, Hunter?”

The older boy hadn’t uttered a single word the entire conversation. He had his gaze trained on a book, but Willow didn’t think he had turned a single page. His hand was gripping the table so hard she thought it might break.

That’s weird, she thought.

He made eye contact with Willow, just for a second, and his eyes darted back to his book as heat rose in his cheeks.

That’s weirder.

“I think they’re ri-ight.” Hunter cleared his throat, after a moment. “The humans can see how cool you are. I-it’s only—uhm. Anyone would be lucky to date you.”

Willow shook out the fluttering in her stomach. He was just being nice.

“Thanks, guys. I should work on that.” Willow gave a grateful smile to her friends. “I don’t think I like Kevin like that though. I should come clean to him tomorrow.”

Luz grinned conspiratorially. “Is there anyone you do like, Willow?”

She didn’t see that Luz was looking directly at Hunter, and that Hunter was blushing furiously.

Willow flinched, a face and a name rising in her mind that she shoved down immediately.

“Oh! Uhh…” She gulped, slapping her cheeks. “I have no idea. I mean, I guess I have to think about it? I never really thought about it, since, well…”

Amity reached out and put a hand on Willow’s. “No pressure. But, you know, you can let yourself have those feelings.”

Easier said than done.

It was a the next day that Willow talked to Kevin, trying her best to turn him down gently and make him understand how she felt. He nodded knowingly and smiled sadly, eyeing Hunter nervously as he walked away, only looking slightly dejected.

Hunter had hung around to ‘keep an eye’ on the situation, ever vigilant, and Willow was grateful for how protective he was. And it totally didn’t warm her chest and cheeks. No it didn’t.

“You all right?” He asked, arms still crossed in front of him. He was doing it again, hiding himself behind the Golden Guard mask.

She smiled kindly at her friend. “Yeah, thanks Hunter.” She looked over at the scattered group of teens, some of whom were sneaking glances at her and Kevin’s receding figure.

“C’mon, let’s start the cool down.” Hunter nodded towards the track and the two of them made their way there together.

As the kept a steady pace, Willow thought about all the flirting he got when they first started attending. She almost didn’t want to ask, for fear of an answer that would disappoint her in ways she has yet to fully understand why, but curiosity got the best of her. “Has…has anyone asked you out? You were getting flirted with a lot when we first arrived.”

Hunter laughed a bit too wryly. “Well, I was never interested in any of them anyway. But they figured out what a bore I really am, and lost interest.”

Willow looked at him incredulously, coming to a stop. “You weren’t yourself around them, though.”

Hunter looked up at her, eyes wide and lips parted. She tried not to get distracted by how his irises matched the setting sky.

“The Hunter I know is really cool! He’s snarky, sure, but he likes books and reading and is a good friend. That was the Golden Guard persona, all business and grumpiness. I haven’t seen you be the actual Hunter for a while now, you’re always so quiet when I see you.”

Hunter gulped, but raised an eyebrow at her.

Willow snickered. “Well, okay, Hunter is a little grumpy too. But only when he doesn’t get enough sleep.”

He seemed to accept that, and she smiled playfully. “And he doesn’t get enough sleep a lot.”

Hunter crossed his arms over his chest, all attitude again, but more playful, with half a smirk on his face. “Thanks, Captain.” His voice wobbled only a little bit, turning away to hide the blush on his face.

“Hmm. I’m just glad you’re acting like a teenager here. It’s a long time coming. Who knew high school would break the mighty Golden Guard?” She gave him a wide smile, eyes sparkling.

Hunter sucked in a breath, and the way he was looking at her made her breath catch. If she was still running, she was sure to have tripped and fell at his next omission, voice so gentle it made her heart ache.

“You make me feel like a teenager.”

It was so asinine, so trivial, who wants to feel like a teenager? But it made Willow’s insides flip in a way that made it harder to deny what every fiber of her being’s been telling her for weeks now.

The tension was broken as an upperclassmen, Jorge, ran past them. “Don’t slack off lover boy! If you wanna make varsity gotta keep it up with the big dogs!”

Hunter huffed as they finished the loop. “This is worse than scout training.”

Willow laughed maybe a bit too hard, way too grateful to leave that moment behind.

“Aww c’mon, its not that bad. You don’t need to wear a mask here, at least.”

“The masks weren’t that bad.”

“How many times have you sneezed in those things, again?”

“It’s hard to take off in time!”

Willow just snickered as they ended their lap. “Likely story. I’m just glad we don’t wear them for this or flyer derby. Could you imagine?”

“Pfft. As if masks really make it that much worse. If anything, they’re more aerodynamic, y’know?”

Resting her hands on her knees as she caught her breath, Willow looked up to Hunter with a wry smile—only to have her lungs empty again when she saw him smiling lopsidedly, blonde hair haloed in the late afternoon light, looking so boyish and cute and like a teenager. Willow quickly recovered and shot back a quick retort, hoping her emotions didn’t play across her face so plainly as she thought they did.

She told herself the weird feeling in her stomach was just from all the running. Nothing else. But she didn’t actually believe it this time.

He snickered and told a joke—this one even worse than the first, but Willow was laughing again, and that just made Hunter laugh harder too—and before they knew it they were collapsing onto each other, elbows and shoulders and more physical touch than either of them could handle in another situation.

Faces red from exhaustion (Well, Willow’s wasn’t just that. But only she knew that.) (Hunter’s wasn’t just that too, but she didn’t figure that out until much, much later.), the two of them made their way back to the sidelines for water.

It wasn’t much longer after that she stopped getting so many questions about her relationship status.

Maybe it had something to do with how Hunter and Willow now ran the laps together every practice, and walked home afterwards together, and always sat next to each other at lunch.

Maybe it didn’t.

(It totally did, but neither of them knew it. And they liked it too much to question it.)

Chapter Text

Hunter felt he was adjusting to the Human Realm pretty well.

But ooh boy was it a lot.

He was out of his depth, for sure. He never had to deal with homework and all these domestic chores he’s never done before (doing dishes was waay harder than he was led to believe), and find a way back to the Demon Realm, AND he had to keep his identity a secret.

(Not just from the humans. His friends too.)

It was all so…overwhelming.

School was overwhelming.

He never technically went to Hexside, and while there were a decent amount of overlap between witch school and human school, Hunter felt like even more of ‘a fish out of water’ (human saying) than the rest of the witches.

(Not really ‘rest of’, since, well, Hunter wasn’t a witch. Or even a grimwalker of a witch, it seems. But he tried not to think about that too much.)

He kept his mouth shut during class and paid attention to everything, including how his peers talked to each other and the way they took notes or ignored the teacher during class. He started hearing a lot of slang he had no idea the meaning of, so he would write them down and ask Luz about them later. After the fourth day of pestering her with a laundry list of new words, she introduced him to this ‘Urban Dictionary’ on the ‘Internet,’ and he made a point of researching them extensively so he could use them properly if the opportunity presented itself.

(He finally understood what Willow meant by ‘sick flying skills’ on the first day they met. He beams with pride about three months too late.)

He also studied and researched high school in his spare time, including movies, TV shows and books, although Luz warned him that those aren’t always the most accurate.

“Most of them were made, like decades ago,” she said. “They have weird cliques and hierarchies that are super outdated. You would probably end up embarrassing yourse—you know what? Go ahead and watch them, and take a LOT of notes.” She grinned devilishly and laughed as he pushed her face away.

There was a lot of conflicting information he found. It was hard piecing apart what was considered fantasy here (vampires did not exist here, but there was a large array of fiction dedicated to them, apparently. None of it was not accurate. Most versions of magic or magic systems were laughably incorrect as well.)

But, Hunter was a child prodigy, after all. He could handle this.

Hunter really liked a lot of the human literature here. After talking with Mr. Baker about the first book they read, he got a bunch of recommendations and went to the school library to check them all out, dodging both his teacher’s and librarian’s inquiries into his life before moving to Gravesfield.

“You guys didn’t read Great Gatsby?”

Hunter scratched the back of his neck awkwardly, making sure to keep his beanie in place (they all had concealment stones now, but after being heckled the first day to take his hat off he anxiously spluttered out that he has a scar on his ear and was self-conscious about it (which is true, and luckily the hall aid eyed the one on his jaw and allowed him to keep it) he committed to wearing it most days).

“No…we were in kind of a small town. Not a lot of, uhm, resources. And, well, I was homeschooled.”

Technically true. He had tutors and read a lot on his own, and that was what Luz and Camila recommended for him to say, and it’s seemed to work so far.

The teacher nodded considerately, seemingly getting enough of an answer from that.

He did end up reading Great Gatsby, Catcher in the Rye, and Frankenstein—which was both his favorite book and his most hated, somehow—and a bunch of other ‘must-reads’, as well as some more fun reading that was popular among his peers. He and Amity started exchanging recommendations, and so far had avoided reading the Good Witch Azura series—Amity spent a lot of her time reading those, apparently there were a lot more books and comics and even more movies here than in the Demon Realm so she was having a blast. He couldn’t get into it, but he understood Amity’s love for it. He had found all the reading he’s been doing has helped him…cope, sort of, with, well, everything.

He was glad he liked English as a class so much.

He didn’t like Anatomy, though. Besides it being kind of gross, he hated the dissections they had to do. Luckily they wore gloves for it, but they were light blue and had a weird texture to it that made his skin crawl. He wished he could wear his old gloves more.

But he really, really didn’t like being reminded of how different he was here.

And, not because he was a witch. Because he was a grimwalker.

(Does he have blood and tissue? Is it just, like, sap and wood and scales? What the hell was he made of? He didn’t want to find out surrounded by a bunch of humans, and be graded on it on top of it all.)

Nope. Not going to think about it. But…

It gnawed at him, the secret he kept from all of his friends. It made him sick just thinking about it.

How could he tell any of them? He couldn’t picture any of his friends being happy with him—they barely accepted him as he was, him fighting with them and then they accepted him when he was an Emperor’s Coven runaway, and he didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize what he had with them, because then—

He shoved down that thought.

He was having fun, he had to admit. There was something nice about being just some teenager in this school, another face in the crowd going through puberty and life changes like getting a driver’s license and growing facial hair for the first time.

He let himself relax, like what Willow had told him. He didn’t have to be the Golden Guard around here. He could just be…Hunter.

It was a little difficult, at first. All these human girls seemed to be really interested in him at the beginning, like he was some celebrity or something. It weirded him out.

He didn’t know exactly why though. They didn’t know he was the Golden Guard, and they weren’t trying to needle their way into his business, attracted by the shiny mask and practically royal status. He was used to that, at least. But this…

Penny, the insufferable girl who he happened to share an English class with, was the worst of it.

“Leave me alone,” he finally said one day, ripping his arm from her decorated claws of a hand as they walked to English together.

Of course, Penny fought him on it. “Oh, c’mon, it’s not like it’s anything serious, I’m just—"

“I really, really do not want you to touch me. Is that so hard for you to understand?” He snapped. But he was really, really annoyed, and he let that Golden Guard persona leak out juuust a bit. “It’s pathetic!”

She left him alone after that. He found that most people stopped talking to him as time went on, guys included. They left him alone in the locker room, at least, because they found out pretty quickly that pranking the new guy resulted in being thrown against a locker and having a threat spat at them through gritted teeth (it was how he dealt with worse in the emperor’s coven, and found it worked here. Harsh, sure, but effective.) Gus had run into that problem too, but he took care of it with some cleverly timed illusions and fake pairs of pants.

Hunter also figured out he was ‘bisexual’; after a talk with Luz about what it meant when she came out to her mom—"So you like boys and girls? Doesn’t everyone?” Head shake. “…oh.” —he realized how many things suddenly clicked into place. He never would have known in any other circumstance, because…

No, don’t think about that. He’s gone, and can’t hurt you.

And it didn’t take long for Willow to adjust as well.

He still was getting used to that fluttery feeling he kept feeling around her. And when thinking about her. A friggin’ Penstagram message from her could set him off. It was bad.

(See, Hunter knew he had a crush on Willow. He knew that the fluttery feeling in his chest came from her, and that’s why he could barely manage a word around her sometimes and why he thought about her constantly, and that he was, as Luz put it once, ‘down bad’ for her.)

He just had no idea how to deal with it.

He was living in the same household as her, and going to school with her, and now on the track team together he could barely escape her, and there was a constant war inside him trying to figure out if he wanted to be far, far away from her, or if he wanted to be with her every single waking moment and—

He hated how much attention she was getting, and he hated how much he hated that. Like, yes, she deserved it! She was wonderful and funny and kind and cool and soo pretty and cute and—and he was glad everyone saw that! It was completely objectionable, factual, common sense and he did like that others saw that in her too and not the half a witch nonsense that plagued her.

Okay, okay, yes. He was ‘down bad’ for her.

Hunter was secretly grateful she pulled him along to join track. Yeah, he had to see a lot of people try to talk up Willow, but he had to admit most of them were genuinely nice people with a lot of good experiences to share, like Jenna and Lee and yes, even Kevin. He tried his best to be more trusting, more open to these people, they didn’t know his past and he didn’t need to have his guard up all the time. There was definitely other stuff to look out for, like pranks that involved saying accidentally dirty things that still made no sense to Hunter, but it was a lot less…stressful. Kind of fun, if he had to admit it. It reminded him of the better parts of scout training, the camaraderie that came along with it.

But he especially loved running loops with Willow, and walking home together afterwards. He got to watch as she aced every challenge thrown at her, and even the ones she didn’t get right away she would set her hands on her hips and jut out her lips before setting out to do it again until she got it. It was intoxicating seeing her like that, see the big smile spread over her face and that sparkle light up her eyes. And of course everyone would be cheering, would be whooping and hollering as her natural captain-ness took over and she would giggle and wink at them. And of course she looked good in her workout clothes, too, although he had to stop thinking about that too much because if did start to think about her strong legs and soft belly and—anyway…

If Hunter felt bold enough he would shout along with them and try to be especially loud, so that she would hear him, because some part of him wanted her to turn to him and blush like he does around her, and most of the time she would look to him, and the returning smile would make his heart soar.

And, if he was so fortunate, she would wink at him and it felt like they were the only two people in the whole world, like she only could look at him and him her, and Hunter would swear he would do anything to keep her smiling like that.

Even if he cringed at whatever stupid thing he managed to mumble out in response to her witty comments and jokes, Willow didn’t care, she would just smile and laugh and continue the conversation, and Hunter prayed that his lucky stars would keep him in her good graces so he could spend time with her.

(He still regretted what he said to her that one afternoon—the closest thing he voiced to an admission—‘you make me feel like a teenager.’—what was that? She was just so pretty in the setting sun, skin golden and green eyes sparkling with that beautiful smile and every filter he had between his brain and mouth shut down, and that dumb line came out. He was pathetic. Willow was too nice to care about those sort of things, though, so he dealt with it. He would keep dealing with it until his blessings ran out.)

One of his favorite memories was walking back to the Noceda residence after track one day. They were joking around as they made their back, Willow teasing him in a way that was both annoying and exactly what he wanted her to do all the time nowadays.

“I am not scrawny!” He insisted, it was an insult to him and his years of training to insist so. He wasn’t huge like some of the football players in school, but he was now taller than most of the other students in their grade and kept up with the rigorous training of the Emperor’s Coven (well, not completely, only the reasonable ones he could incorporate into the ones they did for track.)

(Willow did not think Hunter was scrawny. Very much not that, in fact, but it was easier to tease him based off of what Amity said about him once than admit that to herself.)

Hunter balled up his fists and turned to her, an idea popping into his head that came about probably as some combination of misplaced confidence and teenaged hormones (or equivalent): “Here, I can carry you. Watch.”

He picked her up then, arms under her thighs and around her back, making her squeak in surprise. He doesn’t even register how close their faces were until it’s too late, focusing on the crosswalk ahead of them and hoping she didn’t notice his ugly blush.

(He doesn’t notice her flaming blush, or the gasp that leaves her lips and takes her breath with it.)

“See?” He urged, glad his voice was steady and normal.

She laughed, only a tiny bit strangled. “Okay, okay, you made your point. You going to carry me all the way home, then?”

Hunter had her on his back the rest of the way, Willow’s arms looped through their bags and secure around his neck. He was winded by the time they make it home, although he was honestly not sure if it was from exertion or the fact that the entire time her face was brushing against his, resting on his shoulder and her thighs against his hips and in his hands, the entirety of her pressed along his back and he hoped he didn’t smell too awful from track, he did reapply deodorant in the locker room but he felt himself sweat just thinking about it, which definitely didn’t help his predicament.

And he was right, everything about her makes him feel normal, like a teenager, like some other average lovesick adolescent boy who had math homework and had to wash the dishes after dinner and worried about how his hair looked and had trouble talking to the girl he liked.

And the others made him feel like that too, with a best friend to commit shenanigans and hijinks with in Gus and an almost-sister in Luz with all her annoying quirks like taking too long in the bathroom and the affectionate way Amity called him her frenemy and even how Vee joked with him, but something was so unique about the way Willow made him feel, because the warmth in his chest bubbled up differently, and he almost forgot that he’s this monstrous copy of a long-dead Puritan witch hunter when he’s around her.

(Which, as he found out from history class and a couple books from the school library, a Puritan is a LOT worse than just, you know, the witch hunting part—let’s just say a lot of Belos’s methods of punishment made way more sense to Hunter, now.)

He did end up joining more than just the track team. One day when he was reading Cosmic Frontier in the hallway, he was approached by a student with orange hair and chunky green glasses who pointed at the book he was holding.

“Have you got to the part where Avery and O’Bailey escape the Khorlax prison and hijack the Djarkonian Ship?”

He blinked at them, then grinned. “Yeah, that was my favorite part! It was the start of when O’Bailey actually starts trusting Avery! And how they used Avery’s internal mind projector to trick the guards? Genius.”

They grinned back, sitting next to him in earnest. “You should read the companion books to that, it’s a prequel story with Captain Avery and Commander Jin. Before they meet O’Bailey, it’s very, very good.”

The two chatted more about the series—there were a whopping five total sagas, all set in the same universe. Hunter couldn’t wait to read them all.

“I’m Harper, by the way. You should join our book group! We read all of the Frontier books, and the Lord of the Rings novels. We also watch the Space Battle trilogies and Marvel movies occasionally.”

So he did. And they introduced him to Dungeons and Dragons, this roleplaying game that in this iteration had neither dungeons nor dragons but was called that anyway, and other really fun games and book series and TV shows too. Gus joined as well—he was the one to introduce Hunter to the series, already priming up a Captain Avery costume of his own. Hunter made friends—friends who had no idea he was the Golden Guard, and had no idea of all the messed up things he had done in his past. He was finally getting comfortable with the humans, finding people who liked him for him and allowed him to grow. Hunter was—happy.

And it wasn’t much longer that Harper asked him out on a date.

“So, you wanna get slushies later? Just the two of us?”

Hunter paused, and looked at how nervous Harper was, and noticed how they seemed to be blushing a bit, and thought about how Willow had handled Kevin asking her out—which he shouldn’t have thought about, it just made him angry now on top of the anxiety he was suddenly feeling—and, asked carefully—“Like, uhh, date?”

They nodded helpfully, and Hunter started panicking even more.

He didn’t want to turn them down, they were one of his first friends here, and he had no idea how to respond to something like that when it was from someone he liked and respected. Hunter never thought of them in that way, and to start even considering it now—

He just turned and ran.

(Yeah, he could have definitely handled that better. Sue him. (That’s another human phrase.))

Later that day, Willow and Gus comforted him in the backyard. He tried to hide from them, but the two of them knew him too well and needled out what happened at school that day, listening as he recounted what went down and his subsequent race back to the Noceda household once school was over, ditching track practice and settling for doing training drills in the backyard, which evidently worried Camila.

He spilled. He didn’t look up at them the whole time, scared all the way until he finished with a squeak and pressed his lips together. They were both silent before reaching out.

Gus rested a hand on his arm first. “Listen, man, I know this is all new and stuff to you, but you won’t disappoint anyone by saying no. You only have to do what you want to do, nothing else.”

Willow tugged on a braid, and smiled gently. “I know it’s hard to think of yourself that way. I mean, I am just coming to terms with it, and I know that you were getting a lot more flirting than I was. You know…Penny and all.”

Hunter laughed cynically. “Yeah, right. All those girls being soo annoying at the beginning, flirting, ha. Good joke, Captain,” he wiped his eye and shook his head. “They didn’t even know I was the Golden Guard!”

Gus and Willow exchanged a look.

“What?” He asked, not liking being left out of something.

Willow squinted at him. “Hunter, you know they were all…flirting with you?”

Hunter spluttered, feeling his face heat up under Willow’s gaze as it usually does and at the mention of flirting.

“I—what are—huhh?”

Gus tilted his head. “Buddy, you’re kind of considered attractive around here. What did you think all that attention was when we first arrived? And it’s you, not the Golden Guard.”

“What? No, they didn’t, they probably thought—that I—was—” He flubbed around to nothing in particular, his mind blanking on any explanation for their behavior.

Could they have…

He felt his face light up red.

Willow snorted, which didn’t help his blush.

After a bit she smiled gently, and he thought that her face seemed a little red (not in the way his face gets, all gross and red, more like a pink that was kind of adorable actually and made him want to pinch her cheeks).

“Listen, Hunter, I know it’s weird, getting all of this attention if you’re not used to it. But it’s not necessarily bad attention, you know? If you want, you can say yes. You’re allowed to, you know, h-have fun. Be…a teenager. R-ight?”

(He did not notice how tight her eyes got, or how her fingers started to dig into the wood of the steps. He didn’t notice Gus notice that, either.)

“Thanks, guys. I guess—I guess it’s still weird, adjusting to all of this. I mean, I like Harper but—but not that way. As—as a friend.”

Gus rose an eyebrow, and Hunter silently pleaded with him not to ask him who he liked that way, and he mercifully bit his lip and continued. “Well, you should tell them that. If they’re really you’re friend, they will understand.”

Willow nodded emphatically. “And, like Camila said, ‘Honesty is always the best policy’. Although that was about us using up all the sugar in the kitchen to try to make a traditional Boiling Isles Undulating Dessert and lying about it when it became too sentient, but still.”

“Yeah, thanks.” He felt that fluttery feeling return. “I will.”

“Sorry, Harper.” He wrung his hands in front of him in the cafeteria the next day, having sought them out to come clean about everything. “I, uh, I hope we can…stay friends?” He found it hard to meet their eyes, expecting the worst.

Harper smiled sportingly. “All good, my man. Of course we’re still friends. Besides, I think I know why.”

Hunter glanced back up at them. “What…do you mean?”

They rose an eyebrow, and nodded at the lunch table with Luz, Willow, and Amity. “Maybe it’s that cute girl with the glasses you always hang around? Willow? She’s pretty cool.”

Hunter gulped, stealing a glance at the table. Willow was looking, giving him a little wave and a soft smile filled with concern. For him.

Hunter whipped his head back, and he just knew his face was red as a tomato (a human fruit, although in cooking it is used as a vegetable. Man, humans were weird.) He rubbed a hand over his forehead.

“Uhhm, yeah, maybe.”

Harper raised their eyebrows and grinned. “Sooo, you gonna ask her out?”

Hunter’s eyes bulged out of his head. “Are you kidding? No way.”

They looked at him sideways, lips pursed. “Why…not?”

“Well, uhh, I kind of, ughh,” Hunter suddenly felt very overwhelmed. Ugh, this is hard. “Because…she’s my friend. And I don’t want to lose that. And she doesn’t even think of me that way. And, well, I…wasn’t the best to them—any of them—when we first met. And…they gave me a second chance,” One, two three, four, breathe. “But if they know everything about me, the—” breathe “—truth—”

Harper reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder comfortingly. “Hey, Hunter, I know it sounds scary, but I don’t think you should be that afraid of them or what they might think. They seem to like, care about you. Whatever you’re scared about telling them, I don’t think it will actually be a big deal.”

Hunter considered their words, lips tight. He glanced up at Harper again. They gave an encouraging smile.

“I think you should tell her. Tell them. About…whatever you need to tell them. I think you would feel a lot better if you did.”

Hunter shuddered, then smiled. “Thanks, Harper,” he paused. “You’re a good friend.”

Harper grinned, knocking him on the shoulder. Hunter was glad he had his friend back.

One week later Hunter decided he was going to tell Willow he was a grimwalker.

Gus already knew, turns out. He let it slip while they were arguing about Cosmic Frontier.

“Well, see I think Chief O”Bailey doesn’t want Avery to know he’s a grimwalker—”

“Wait….what?” Hunter’s voice cracked, eyes wide with terror and he felt like he was reliving all of his worst memories again, this time without Graye’s looking glass.

Gus flinched, and after walking through breathing exercises together Gus sat him down and explained…what he saw in Belos’s memories.

It was a lot, and they stayed up way past 2 AM still talking about it. He did not understand why Gus was still here, still holding onto him and reassuring him nonstop that it didn’t matter to him, that it was okay, that it wasn’t Hunter’s fault and it was actually his because he knew for so long and didn’t say anything, which was ridiculous to Hunter but he ended up comforting Gus through their tears together because he was dealing with a lot too and they were there for each other, and that’s what mattered.

And, Luz knew, obviously. And she (of course) told Amity.

Well, more let it slip. Hunter should have expected it, as Luz was in a similar bind to himself, and he had to admit she wasn’t in the best place mentally. He could barely blame her for it.

They were both good about it, sitting on the couch with enough space from him to not crowd him but close enough to be supportive in the way that he needed.

“Listen, man, I know that you are used to people taking every mistake or bad thing you’ve done and throwing it in your face—which they shouldn’t have done anyway, just to be clear—but it is not your fault that you’re a grimwalker, and you can’t blame or hate yourself for that.” Luz said, sincere.

Amity nodded. “I mean, we forgave you for everything you did before, and this is actually nothing, so…” She shrugged.

Hunter thought back to Eclipse Lake, and the horrible things he threatened Amity with. It made him sick to his stomach.

“Wh-why did you forgive me for—for all that?” He hated how much his voice cracked.

Amity scooted closer. “Well, I meant what I said that day. I know what it’s like to have to prove yourself over and over to merely justify existing. You weren’t in the best place…mentally. You were desperate, and you didn’t know how to get out of it. Or why you should. I…can’t blame you for that.”

He looked at Luz, and he knew from the dark expression on her face she had not confessed her own dark secret. He raised an eyebrow, pointedly, hopefully, at his first friend who saw him with and without the mask and trusted him despite it all.

“That, uh, really makes you think,” he said to both of them, but Hunter was looking at Luz. She pouted, expression darkening just a little. “Like, it really wasn’t that big of a deal. I just…had to tell them.”

Amity smiled, and squeezed Hunter’s shoulder. She didn’t notice Luz shrink under Hunter’s gaze. “Exactly. Now, you have to tell me what you thought about The Grapes of Wrath.”

It was when he was up crying one night that Camila found him, and she comforted him into the wee hours of the night and he let it all out to her. She did not know what a grimwalker was or much about how the magic worked, but she held him despite it and Hunter melted into the embrace of a mother, a type of hug he had never received before. She kissed his forehead and made him hot chocolate with heaps of cinnamon just as he found he likes it, topped with whipped cream and a marshmallow. It’s ridiculously sweet but it’s amazing, and Camila is just as if not sweeter and it makes him warm.

He cried. A lot.

Vee had known since she met him, apparently. The palistrom wood and selkidomus scales have a distinct scent, she said. She was quiet about it, way more understanding than she ever should have been, considering he was complicit in her creation and subsequent imprisonment. But she was the same as she was with finding out he was the Golden Guard—she had done questionable things in the past herself, while evading capture—and had impersonated Luz for weeks before being discovered by Luz herself. And, in typical Luz fashion, the human had forgiven Vee and employed her to keep impersonating her, and Camila had found out merely hours later, and the two Nocedas went ahead and took her in with no hesitation.

“I have assumed the worst of people before, and some of them turned out be true, but others have not.” She knotted her hands in the blanket, picking at loose threads. “I know if Luz trusts you, I should too.”

He cried then, too.

So, it was just Willow that was left.

“He-hey Captain, could I—talk to you?”

It was after dinner on a Tuesday night, and Gus and Amity were in charge of cleaning up. So it left both Willow and him open for the evening, and he even made sure to have his homework done for the next two days because he had no idea how it would go and what kind of state he would be in after.

Willow was working on her scrapbook in the living room, piles of colorful paper and shiny photos and stickers strewn about as Clover buzzed around helpfully.

She turned to look at him with that brilliant smile of hers. “Sure!” and followed him dutifully to the backyard.

(She noticed how tense he was, his balled up fists and tight shoulders and hunched figure as he made his way out the back door. And, she also noticed his red ears, the catch of his breath when their hands brushed on the screen, which picked up her heart rate in kind.)

Flapjack and Clover buzzed around the yard, flittering about through the trees and lights playfully. The two of them seemed closer than the other palisman, probably because they both could fly.

(And maybe because their respective owners had a certain closeness the others didn’t, and it reflected in their palismans. Maybe.)

Willow sat next to him, leaning back on her hands as she hummed. Her legs dangled over the porch end, and she swung them absentmindedly and Hunter felt his heart melt.

The sun had just set, so the warm light of the porch lamp had just turned on while the sky was still a rosy purple. It was still warm, for an October night, just a hint of autumn chill but not enough to be uncomfortable.

It was peaceful, just sitting next to Willow and enjoying the quiet. He wanted to move closer to her, maybe take her hand and make jokes about Coach Ferris and Algebra and the lunch menu until they were both hysterical blushing messes and he could just smile and laugh and feel it take over his insides.

But Hunter remembered why he was there, and gripped the wooden deck so hard his knuckles turned white.

He exhaled. “I—I have something—to tell you.”

A moment. Then, “O-h?”

Her voice was higher pitched than before, so he glanced at her. She was flushed prettily, eyes wide and pink across her cheeks along her freckles and Hunter wanted to brush his thumb over it. He resisted.

It was hard verbalizing his feelings like this. It was difficult with everyone, but it was always more difficult with Willow.

It was getting difficult to breathe, he realized. 1, 2, 3, 4, repeat. 1, 2, 3, 4, repeat.

Willow reached out, eyes soft and kind, and he felt her hand rest on his forearm, warm and a little rough. It did not help his breathing.

“Hunter, listen I know this is difficult, so—"

As she let out her kind words, Hunter found the last bit of his voice and forced it through his windpipe, squeezing it out as he screwed his eyes shut and waited for the worst.

“—I’m a grimwalker.”

Silence.

He waited a minute, then opened up one eye to measure her reaction, and since she wasn’t running away screaming in terror or entrapping him in her vines yet, he even looked at her in earnest apprehension.

She blinked at him dumbly, confusion then realization dawning on her face before resolving to a rather neutral expression, with what seemed to be a hint of that…fondness she looked at him with sometimes, that puzzled Hunter.

“Okay.” She said simply.

“Oh…kay?” He felt his jaw hit his chest, practically.

Her lip curled a bit, that affectionate look not wavering. “Is that…bad? Do you…want me to be upset?”

“N-no, I just…” Hunter blew air out of his mouth. “Everyone has taken this…much better than I thought. And here I was…I just—I thought everyone was going to—to—"

He still found it hard to breathe, getting a little choked up now.

Willow piped up again. “I mean, e-everything I’ve heard about grimwalkers has been good, you could say.”

Hunter blinked. “It-it has?”

Willow looked…embarrassed. She tucked hair behind her ear as she looked away. “Well, there was this book called Galderstone Heart that was super popular back—back home. The main guy was a grimwalker, and it was this cheesy romance novel for teens.” She pinched her lips together, eyes darting over the yard.

(Hunter did not notice the blush rise on her cheeks again, and the nervous tug she gave her braids. Again, he was too preoccupied with the fact that she wasn’t screaming in horror.)

Hunter pondered this, rubbing his thumb on his chin. “Could I use this for research?”

She looked away, again eyes cast on the ground. “Oh, well, I don’t think it’s super accurate.”

“How so?”

“Well, for one thing you don’t sparkle in the sunlight.”

Hunter blinked. “Wha-?

“I guess they got the eye color right, though.”

“Wai—sparkle in sunlight??”

Willow laughed, tucking some hair behind her ear. “I don’t know. There was this whole thing about staying out of the sunlight, but that’s obviously not true. I wonder if the resistance to the boiling rain is true, however…”

Hunter stared at her, incredulous.

Willow turned to him, a determined set to her brow. “But, listen. You’re still Hunter, you’re still my—friend, and it doesn’t matter what you are or what you were before. You were the Golden Guard all those years, right? And now you’re Hunter. And…you’re Hunter to me always.”

He breathed in, more shakily than he realized, and his vision was blurry. He was crying again, he realized. But this time he felt…happy.

Without thinking, he wrapped her in a hug. She fits perfectly in my arms, he thought, fullness and softness and warmth that made him feel whole.

(He missed the catch in Willow’s throat as he lunged forward, and how her heart beat faster than his for a few moments.)

He felt that fluttery feeling in his chest again, and he found that squeezing his arms tighter and tucking his face into her hair relieved some of that pressure. He was too overwhelmed to feel embarrassed. Maybe he should, but Willow squeezed him back and he thought that maybe he didn’t need to be.

“Thank—thank you Willow,” he sobbed quietly. “I didn’t—I didn’t think—”

“H-hey, it’s okay.” She murmured, hands tight on his back.

(If he was paying attention more, he might have seen how red Willow’s face was, or noticed that she was crying a little too, but he wouldn’t have known it wasn’t just from sympathy for him. She barely understood it herself.)

When he finally pulled away, he wiped his eyes and broke out in a smile. She smiled at him, something sad in her expression, but he didn’t think much about that. He wrapped his arm around her again, and she hugged him back.

He didn’t tell her what he really wanted to tell her, or at least what he probably should have. But he felt a million times lighter, like there was nothing more to be said.

(There was definitely more to be said. Just neither of them wanted to say it right now. For vastly different reasons. But Hunter was okay with that.)

Chapter Text

Willow was coming to the conclusion that she was not enjoying the human realm.  

The Noceda household was great. Camila was a rockstar, the closest thing any of them had to a (good) mom, and all of the teens made sure to help out whenever and wherever they could to help her out.

Luz had been doing better. Not the best…but better. She smiled more often, and her shoulders had less of a hunch to them. After she had confessed to her big heavy secret not long after Hunter confessed his, she had more of that signature Luz spark, although she still sunk inward when she thought no one was looking.

Amity was already part of the scholastic decathlon team and its leading debater, a record since she only joined a mere one and a half months before. She made sure to spend all of her extra time with Luz, rewatching every Good Witch Azura movie as many times as her girlfriend wanted. Willow could still see the worry etched in the witch’s features sometimes, no matter how much she hid it.

Gus was thriving in drama club and was enjoying pretty much every class he was taking, even the math ones. He still woke with nightmares sometimes but he had adjusted better than everyone else.

And Hunter was—was awesome. He was on the track team with Willow, joined the DnD club,  and was slowly coming out of his shell (er, armor) and into himself, the tension flowing out of his shoulders and acting like–like a teenager. It warmed her heart seeing him like this, carefree and smiling now that he didn’t need to keep secrets, and he had grown comfortable with physical affection, both giving and receiving. So. That was cool.

But…

Hunter was part of the reason Willow was feeling this way. She could admit that now.

It had all reached the tipping point on a Tuesday during lunch.

“So…what does everyone think of Hunter?” Caroline flicked her dyed red hair over her shoulder, showing off perfect teeth with a dazzling smile.

Caroline was even newer than Willow, but had transferred from the high school just a town away, so she knew some of the other students longer. Willow had met her a couple of weeks ago but they never really talked outside of group lunch conversations. Today had gotten on the topic of cute guys/girls in the school, which had inevitably landed on him.

And Willow really, really didn’t want to be part of this particular lunch conversation now.

Caroline was cool and funny (and pretty, too). Willow would have to lie that she didn’t see why people liked her. Her own breath picked up a little when the redhead grinned at the witch and she even offered up a hair scrunchie without hesitation when Willow lost one of her own during a track practice, smile sparkling. 

So…why wouldn’t Hunter like her?

Willow knew the others were looking at her. She saw Kendall’s eyes on her, Jenna’s sympathetic smile, and Debra leaning forward defensively. Waiting for her to say something.

She didn’t. 

Finally Kendall who piped up, brow furrowed. “Oh, well I think Hunter actually might—”

Caroline didn’t hear. “He’s kinda cute, and he’s really good at track. And I think he’s in that DnD club.” She giggled. “Nerds can be hot, right?”

Willow saw green and ducked down so her bangs hung over her eyes, hoping her anger didn’t appear so obvious and no one tried to ask her what was wrong.

Not here, not here, not here…

She picked at her sandwich absentmindedly because it wouldn’t bite back, like the lunch food in the Demon Realm would. That was one good thing about being here in the human realm, at least. 

Her vision blurred again, and Willow gripped the bench tighter. She wasn’t freaking out at the lunch table; just playing with her food before she ate it. No biggie.

Jenna spoke up next. “Well, Willow knows him best here. You guys are from the same town, right? Do you know if he’s got anything going on with…anybody?”

Willow swallowed down a bite of her sandwich hard, plastering on a smile. “Oh, no, I don’t think so. He doesn’t really talk to me about that stuff.”

She knew he talked to Gus, Luz, and sometimes even Amity: guilty-looking glances and not-so-hushed whispers that made her feel self-conscious for a longer amount of time than she realized. It hurt more now that she knew it wasn’t just in her head. 

It had gotten better after he told her he was a grimwalker. He would plop down next to her and start info-dumping about anything from the latest chapter of the Cosmic Frontier, to his research into the Wittebane brothers, or even the thing he found most interesting from his history class or AP Lit. 

But…not about that.

Caroline nodded thoughtfully and turned back to Danielle. 

(Willow did not see that Caroline observed the tight hunch of her shoulders, the fixated gaze on the table, and nervous twitch of her fingers. She did not see her then shoot Danielle a questioning look, and didn’t see Danielle nod in confirmation, before Caroline silently decided she could take Hunter off her list of potential suitors and promptly changed the subject.)

“You know who else is on track? Kevin, I noticed he did really good at regionals last week, and–”

But Willow was not listening any more.

Who cared if Caroline asked him out? Who cared if he said yes? He could do what he wanted. And he hadn’t said anything to Willow, so…

And who cared if Willow thought Hunter was going to confess his feelings for her the other week, when he confessed that he was a grimwalker? 

She remembered that well, her heart thumping in her chest, and she’d let herself…hope.

He was blushing ear to ear, hands gripping the porch and not looking at her. She was seconds away from confessing herself when he blurted out an even bigger admission, and she hugged him as he broke down in her arms.

And she remembered how her own heart broke. Just a little. But she pushed that down because she needed to be there for him, for her friend.

Because he was only trying to tell her that he was a grimwalker and he did not have feelings for her.

Which was fine with her. It was fine. It was fine.

She must have been reading into it. And that was fine. Perfectly fine. It’s not like she could have expected more.

Just that…he had blushed around her. A lot. He smiled so gently at her, looking at her in a way that made her heart skip beats, and she allowed herself to…think. 

And think she did. A lot. But she must have interpreted it all wrong. That was fine. He was one to get flustered easily, after all. She probably over thought about most things, including this. It was fine.

Because…Gus, Luz, and Amity had alluded to it. 

“I’m sure Hunter would like those, too.” Gus smirked at her one day at the mall, after she found these shoes called ‘roller skates’ that were worn for a human game very similar to flyer derby.

Willow grinned. “Yeah, I should find a pair of his own! And for you too, I think there’s a men’s section–”

“Not what I meant girlie, but go off,” Gus winked, before sliding away on these other shoes called ‘Heelies’ towards a different aisle, and Willow was left clutching the clunky shoes, stupefied at his using of human realm slang and the apparent meaning behind them.

“He’s gonna want a lot of hair cuts now.” Amity whispered to her after the plant witch offered up her expertise in the subject when Hunter expressed his distaste in how long his hair had grown. He only acknowledged with a squeak, before burying his head in a Cosmic Frontier novel, but Willow couldn’t go back to her algebra homework, Amity’s words still ringing in her head.

Harper, once, too.

One day Willow was hanging out in the club room as the boys put away the games from that day’s session when Harper wandered over. The two hadn’t talked too much since Hunter and Gus joined, and Willow wasn’t sure how to approach them after they had asked Hunter out. Willow didn’t have anything against them and, from what she could tell, they were cool. They smiled and sat next to her and started talking about Mr. Howard’s awful pop quizzes, and the two ended up talking about track and how Willow had recently broken a long-held school record for the javelin throw.

“What can I say, I’m strong! I mean, look at these guns.” Willow mock flexed, flashing a silly grin to try to make them laugh.

It worked–Harper guffawed heartily, slapping the table. “Hell yeah!” The two dissolved into laughter together, the sound echoing off the walls until they died down. 

Harper sent a smirk to Willow. “Hunter likes that in a girl, I hear.” They winked, and Willow’s brain overheated.

“Alrighty, y’all ready to go?” Gus pounced in with a snap of his bag straps, Hunter trailing behind. And that was the end of that conversation. 

Willow was quiet on the way home until Hunter bumped her shoulder about halfway through and looked at her in concern. “Hey, are you alright? You’ve been…quiet.”

Willow blushed and shook her head. “No, I’m fine, just got a lot on my mind, is all.” She smiled with slight force, hugging herself tighter by her backpack straps. 

“O-okay. Glad to hear, Captain.” And he looked away with that familiar blush on his ears, hand reaching up to scratch the back of his neck.

He was acting weird again. She didn’t dismiss it this time. But why? What else, besides what everyone was saying it was?

Guess they were wrong.

And…and Willow actually flirted with him sometimes. She wasn’t even trying , it was just what came out of her mouth whenever he was around. She could not keep how adorable he was to herself apparently, and he didn’t seem to mind, so she just…kept doing it.

And Hunter had carried her home that day. Willow never thought she could be picked up— held —like that. The last time was years ago by her Papa, but she was maybe ten at the time, and she never thought anyone else would do that no matter how many times she dreamed of it and read about it in books.

Because she couldn’t be like that when it went against everything she’s tried to become. She was supposed to be the strong one, the reliable one. She didn’t need to be swept off her feet or carried because she was supposed to be the one to carry others, to be capable and not weak or helpless. (Even if she felt like that all the time now.)

And she never thought anyone else could hold her like that, much less a boy she had a—a titandammit crush on, who blushed back and had a really cute smile.

But he didn’t think anything less of her. Hunter saw her as the fearless captain, the rock. Willow couldn’t let that image of her slip. 

Because Willow could still remember how his hands felt under her legs, how his back muscles moved against her as he walked, how she wanted to press her nose into his neck, how she told herself to snap out of it and distracted the both of them with dumb jokes and stupid commentary on plants she saw in people’s lawns that he listened to dutifully.

Because she had suddenly felt very weak kneed and unable to walk on her own, and she let herself be carried.

And that wasn’t the only time he surprised her like that, in a way that made her heart thump uncontrollably and brain empty completely. 

“Hey Willow,” he said one day after school, in the living room of the Nocedas. He was freshly showered after track practice and ran a hand through his wet hair in a way that made the  Willow’s insides a bubbling mess. “How’s the scrapbook coming?”

They were in the midst of talking about the previous week’s visit to the zoo–giraffes are, in fact, creepy and evil–when a brisk wind swept through the open back door and caused her to involuntarily shiver. 

He then just took off his flannel and draped it over her shoulders, not even a break in his spiel about human realm fauna. It smelled like him, and Willow forced her eyes to look straight at the coffee table because there was no way she could keep it together if she looked right at him.

He could have used the blanket sitting on the ottoman, or gotten up to close the door, but he didn’t. He gave her his flannel instead. She couldn’t read that incorrectly, right?

She remembered all too well how her insides erupted into bloodyflies, enveloping her cheeks in flaming heat. Left absolutely awestruck on the couch with a thundering heart as he continued extolling his research on giraffes, completely oblivious to her predicament.

And the time he offered her the last cookie from the lunch line because she got there late, and all the times he cheered whenever she competed in a track event no matter which place she finished in (although she rarely came after third), and whenever he was totally enraptured in her deep dive about some obscure human plant where his eyes sparkled, and–

Keep it in keep it in keep it in. She gripped her hands at her sides, fingernails digging into her palm and grounding her to the cafeteria lunch table.

She could make it to the end of the day. She had to.

But then she spotted Hunter and Caroline talking as they left their shared gym class, and he actually laughed at what she said.

She couldn’t take it anymore.

(She did not see him looking for her, just seconds after she turned away, magenta eyes just catching her dark braids and following them out of his sight.)

And now she found herself crying, underneath the bleachers, next to the abandoned supply closet, skipping track practice.

Maybe she should have known better than to keep this all bottled up.

Out of sight out of mind, right?

It has been months since they entered the Human Realm, and progress was slow going, if nonexistent, on finding a way back.

Willow had shoved those thoughts down a lot, not just the ones about Hunter. The ones about the Demon Realm, about her fathers, her friends, about everyone on the Isles. About how powerless she felt here, playing at human high school. How no matter what she tried to do she just ended up feeling useless and weak, and how she failed to even help her friends through everything they have gone through.

Luz was not great. She had pretty much internalized every emotion except something between anger and sadness, which had come to a boil just a few weeks before. The cry for help was heard, at least, and Willow could see the pieces slowly being put back together in the shape of her friend.

Amity tried to keep it together. But seeing Luz like that and not knowing what happened to her family (minus her mother) was wearing on her too, and Willow swore her lavender colored hair lost some of its shine day by day.

And Gus was a mess too, woven within the bright-eyed wonder. He would sniffle and smile at Willow with his eyes still wet and her entire being would fill with a need to protect him and to fix this, but she had no earthly idea how. 

“Thanks, Willow. You’re always looking out for us.”

All she could do was hold him tighter and hope she could figure it out.

And Hunter was still trying to parse out how to construct a portal, racking his brain for everything he and Belos had tried together. He still was nervous and flighty and flinched hard when a teacher raised their voice to him, even with all the progress he had made. The circles beneath his eyes had not gotten any better, despite his more generous sleep schedule. (Although he rarely followed it.) 

And he still managed to look at Willow like she wasn’t the half-a-witch she was all the time nowadays–was she ever anything more?

So she had to hold it together. She had to. There was no way she could let them down.  

The plant witch found it hard to keep up with everything, with her friends she had made here, with track meets and debate club and homework and working on the portal and helping out Mrs. Noceda at home and all these feelings that she tried to not let get the best of her and it was a lot.

She couldn’t be friends with any of the humans, really. She had to keep hiding that she was a witch, hide it with more and more lies and half-truths and even if Sarah said she could tell her anything and Danielle spilled her guts to Willow about her parent’s messy divorce and Kendall shared her secret crush on Jenna, Willow could never confide in them like they did her, and—

And she just needed a minute. 

And all of her pent up emotions let out now, of all times, on this rickety bench surrounded by thick weeds.

She suddenly felt something wrap around her arms and legs and stomach, and she looked down in panic at the weeds magically winding their way around her, tight like that snake Gus had shown her on a human animal documentary once. The leafy limbs were pinching her arms and covering most of her body, getting tighter and tighter. Willow felt her stomach drop.

No, no no no nooo…

She needed to get out of here, needed to get out of her own trappings and go back to practice, to put on a fake smile as she heard the news that Hunter and Caroline were going on a date from Jenna or Charlie or whoever and have to deal with their sympathetic faces and that would be the worst thing, the pity , the condescension , the oh, poor Willow, how sad that the boy she lo—

“Willow? Are you okay?”

Willow jumped at the voice. Of all the people to find her, of course it was Hunter. Her heart rate sped up as she heard footsteps close in. She tried counting to four and back, willing her vines to loosen, but to her horror they just squeezed tighter with her quickened heartbeat. She could not let him see her like this, not with tears streaming down her face and vines constricting her arms and eyes glowing green.

“H-hi, Hunter.” She plastered the biggest grin she could muster on her face as he rounded the corner and stopped short once his eyes landed on her. “H-how did you find me?”

He was in his track clothes, bag slung over his shoulder with his brows furrowed at her and eyes glued to the creeping limbs in apprehension. He widened his stance, a soldier’s pose, arms tensed cautiously.

Hunter snapped his eyes up to hers, brow furrowed in urgency. He spoke to her carefully, as if he might scare her.

“I knew you didn’t go home, and I didn’t see you at practice. Jenna said she saw you leave out the side door of the gym…s-so I was worried.” His hands twitched helplessly. “You mentioned this spot a while back.” His intense stare softened. “…what’s wrong?”

Why don’t you ask Caroline? Or Penny?

Her vines only strangled her more at that rancid thought.

Willow shuddered, hugging herself. “Oh, nothing, just, ah, got a little overwhelmed with school and all. I’m fine, just—"

He stepped closer, hand out, and Willow recoiled, making the vines tighten around her with a whimper.

He looked on, alarmed. “Willow, please,” he begged. “Let me—let me help you.”

“Hunter, it’s okay. I just—” she hiccupped, trying to turn away from him. She didn’t want him to see her like this, but the vines hindered her attempt.

“Willow,” he stepped closer and the weeds started making their way around his legs. Willow cringed, but Hunter barely seemed to notice. “Please. Talk to me.”

She trembled, tears threatening to spill. He softened and reached a hand to rest on her bound arm.

“It’s okay. You can let it out.”

She felt everything bubble up at once, breaking walls down she so desperately tried to keep up.

Willow felt her arms and legs come free of the weeds, the weight in her chest breaking free of its chains and bursting out all at once. She sobbed and as she tipped forward she felt warm, strong hands catch her. Willow crumpled into them, too weak to resist.

“I just—” she cried more, and his arms tightened around her. They were so different from the plants, strong and comforting, not constricting or oppressive.

“My dads, I have no idea if they’re even okay and—” she trembled, voice caught in her throat. “I hate that I have no idea what happened to them, that I can’t do anything about it.”

Sob.

“A-and I was the one who-who suggested we go into the door, that’s why we are all here, and we don’t know if we can even g-o back, and we don’t know anything about back ho-o-ome.”

Sob.

“Like, like they’re all so nice, but I can’t even be actual friends with them, because we’re witches, yeah, but also I just think that they’re lying or something a-about liking me, like it’s just some big joke , and that this is all some stupid game or prank they’re playing on me, and I can’t do anything about any of it because—because I’m just Half-a-Witch—”

“No!” he jolted back, hands on her shoulders.

Willow hiccupped, her next weep dying in her throat as she looked on in disbelief at his sudden outburst.

He—he seemed to be crying himself, eyes wet. “I’m—I’m sorry, but—please, don’t call yourself that. You’re not.” He shook his head fervently. “You never were. You’ve been holding in all of this, haven’t you…and we’ve all been focused on school and the portal and—and you’ve kept saying you’re fine , but—but you’ve been the one taking care of everyone, trying to make us all feel better and—and you’re not fine.” 

His eyes were wide and honest, rich and deep like gemstones. “And that’s okay.” His voice was barely a whisper. “It’s okay you’re not okay. You don’t have to be.”

His arms came around her again, palms pressed against her back and she felt the rest of the tension leave her body as she gave herself over to him, allowing herself to bury her head in his chest and grip his steady shoulders as she cried harder than she had in a long time. And he just held her closer.

She didn’t know how long they stayed like that, but his shirt became soaked with her tears and he kept rubbing her back until her sobs faded.

She kind of wanted to stay like that forever, an excuse to be in his arms and not face the real world. Finally, he pulled back enough to look her in the eye. “We should get back.”

Willow looked at the pinkish hue in the sky and mumbled an agreement. She turned back to him, ignoring the gentle look in his eyes and how it made her heart jump to scoop up her bag and walk home side by side, dodging the monstrous thicket of vines that had tangled itself over the ground.

The next couple hours were a blur. Hunter’s hand on her back grounded her all the way to the Noceda’s front door and she was sat at the dinner table as hushed whispers came from the hall before the entire Noceda residence came to her aid.

Gus was there, fulfilling his duty as the best friend role and providing much needed comfort as he wrapped his slight arms around her and squeezed whenever a particularly bad bout of tears came on.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t notice how bad it got for you,” he murmured, head resting on her shoulder. “I should have known. I could have helped sooner.” 

“You can’t blame yourself, Gus. I didn’t want anyone to know.” She pressed into his touch gently and he squeezed tighter.

“Well, you know you can rely on us too. You’re not the only reliable one around here, you know.”  

“Yeah, well, easier said than done I guess.”

They walked through a couple breathing exercises together and Gus told her about the latest chapters of Cosmic Frontier, the ‘hot deets’ of what was going on in the drama club he had joined, and his new history teacher that he liked.

Amity made vanilla cupcakes decorated with sprinkles for her (the closest thing to mini pixie cakes, the ones Amity knew Willow had liked since childhood) and Luz held her hand as Clover gave Willow little bee kisses on her face and snuggled on her shoulder.

Luz didn’t say much, just grumbled and held Willow tight. The plant witch knew Luz hadn’t taken any part of their predicament well since they got here, and Luz seemed to be upset she didn’t catch on to Willow’s turmoil herself.

She nudged her human friend. “Hey, how were you supposed to know, Luz? I barely knew. It’s not all on you.”

Luz nodded slightly and Willow knew there was still a lot for her friend to come to terms with. Willow herself was in no shape at the moment to help her (and everyone here would chastise her for trying to help someone else at the given time) but she marked it to address later.

Amity turned away from her girlfriend, although the worried pinch of her brow lingered. She smiled at Willow. “I can rebraid your hair if you want, I found a couple new types of braids that are a bit more complicated and want to give them a try.”

Amity’s hands were nimble and cold, and it soothed the plant witch as she worked through her tangled tresses. The abomination witch hummed. “I didn’t realize how long your hair grew. I have more to work with now.”

Camila made a pot of herbal tea heaped with honey for her, that Willow took gratefully, even portioning out a cooled teacup for Clover to sip on. Her palisman cuddled next to her, rubbing her soft fluff in comfort, sending remorseful thoughts her witch’s way, sad she was stuck in the Noceda’s household for safety and couldn’t help her outside of it.

Willow murmured in understanding. “I know, Clover. I appreciate all that you’re doing.” Clover buzzed softly in appreciation.

“Hey, mija.” Camila sat down next to her with a mug of her own. “You can always come to talk to me and don’t be scared of letting it out. I know what it’s like to face so many things and feel alone…you don’t have to deal with that, okay?”

“Thank you, Camila.”

The matriarch settled into cleaning the kitchen and taking care of tomorrow’s meals with Vee, while some foreign language drama called a telenovela played on the rectangular crystal ball that entertained Willow’s partial attention. She just sat and laughed half heartedly along with Gus, happy to some amount of normalcy, if she could call it that.

Nearing nine, Willow decided to wander outside. Blanket wrapped around her shoulders, she bumbled to the door, only to find Hunter sitting on the steps and hunched over something intently. She could hear some scuffling, alongside helpful tweets from Flapjack.

Her chest filled with warmth at the recollection of everything he had done for her today. He gave so much and expected nothing, if so little, in return. She could at least muster up enough energy to give him a proper thank you.

(She was warm with firebees, too.)

“Hey,” she said quietly, startling him out of his thoughts. She sat next to him as he scooted over, cupping whatever he had in his hands out of her sight. “What are you doing out here?”

“Oh, well, I figured you needed some space, with Gus and all of the others surrounding you. And…uh…” he trailed off, hands tightening around whatever he had in his grip.

Willow shifted closer, curious. “What do you have there?"

He looked away and blushed, shoulders hunching upwards. “S-so, I’ve uhm…been practicing with wood carving here and there, helping Luz with carving her palistrom log, and this is just regular wood from the maple tree in the back…”

He pinched his lips and puffed his cheeks before opening his palm to reveal a tiny, slightly lopsided wooden figurine. It was clearly a recreation of Clover, with her stinger and fluff and even little wings. 

“I-it’s not much, I just was, ah, trying something, and I don’t even really know what I was making when I started, but I sort of just went with it, it doesn’t even really look like Clover but, ahhh, that was the idea, the wing’s all crooked and…”

Willow picked up the little bee from his hand. “It looks like her. I can’t believe you did this.”

“You’ve done a lot for us, a lot for me, Willow, and I just—just wanted to do something nice for you.” He scratched the back of his neck.

Her voice escaped her for a moment, warmth flooding her cheeks, and it took longer than she would have liked to respond.

“I-I love it, Hunter.” She grasped her fingers around it and held it to her chest. Tears welled in her eyes. “It’s—it’s really nice.”

Hunter gulped and looked away, red to the ears. “Do-don’t mention it.”

Titan, why does he have to be so cute?

“I wanted to thank you,” she said after a minute. “If you didn’t find me there, I don’t know what could have happened. And…I needed to hear that.” She shifted to face him, smiling gently. “It meant a lot to me. You mean a lot to me. Thank you.”

“Of course, Captain.” She ignored how his voice cracked for his sake.

Willow felt so much lighter. She chuckled to herself. “It makes sense you’re a good carver.

Maybe it’s the palistrom wood? Has some effect on your abilities? I don’t know, I feel like there’s gotta be some connection there.” She punctuated her point with a silly wiggle of her fingers and a raise of her eyebrows.

He chuckled, smiling so softly at her. “There’s the Willow I know.”

Willow’s heart melted, and she tentatively scooted her hand next to his, reaching out her pinky to wrap around his. She kept her gaze on their hands, too scared to meet his eyes.

He gasped quietly and after a beat he pressed the back of his hand to hers. She looked up at him, stunned, only to be met by warm ears and fixated eyes, head bowed slightly before he chanced a glance at her.

His eyes widened when he realized how close the two of them were, and Willow remembered why she ended up like this in the first place.

She pulled away from him, suddenly very awkward, hands clasped in her lap.

Did it even matter?

Now that it was on her mind, it was eating at her. She cleared her throat.

“So, uhh…did Caroline say anything to you during practice?”

Hunter, watching her intently, perked his head up quizzically at the sudden change of topic. “No, she didn’t.” He paused, thinking. “She did want to talk to me but I went to look for you and told her we’d talk tomorrow.”

Willow stared in astonishment. It took her a second to recover and let out a small squeak. “Oh.”

He blinked at her. “Why?”

“Oh! Uhh, nothing. I just—it’s not important.”

But it was too fast—he noticed—and raised his eyebrow with a don’t bullshit me face. “Willow. What’s wrong?”

Willow briefly entertained the idea of lying again— no, nothing, I’m fine, it’s nothing— but there was a hardness in his eyes that pinned her down.

She sighed, defeated. He was going to know and she would be fine with it.

“There’s something else you should know.”  

He shifted closer, voice soft but firm. “Anything.”

Anything . It would be okay, she knew once she told him Hunter would still be her friend, so she wouldn’t lose him. It would be fine.

Willow squared her shoulders with Hunter, keeping her eyes on the wrinkle at his shirt collar, the bob of his throat as he swallowed, the stray cardinal feather stuck to his shoulder.

Well, here goes nothing.

“She was going to ask you out. On a date.”

He backed away in shock, eyebrows to his forehead, but she continued before he could say anything.

“She was telling us at lunch and it kinda triggered all of this, because…” Willow sucked in a breath through her nose, tugging her braids around her face. “Hunter…I like you. Like, romantically.” Her vision blurred. “Like I wish we could—you know, date.” Her voice was so small. She hated it. 

He froze.

Willow scrunched her eyes shut, unable to face him. “And it took me longer than it should have to realize that…and I thought you liked me back! I thought you were going to confess that day, but you were just—trying—to tell me you were a grimwalker. And that—that’s fine, know that that didn’t change anything about how I feel about you, you’re still my friend, and I still hope we can be friends, but, well, I just–wanted you to know. Not keeping anything in, and all that.”

She sniffled, biting the inside of her lip as she waited for his reaction.

He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t dare turn to him. He was obviously caught off guard and at any moment would gain his bearings and—and turn her down gently, like she knew he would, kind and honest, or he might run away like he did with Harper. Which was fine. They could still be friends. Although she really hoped he wouldn’t run away at the least.

(If she did look over, she would have seen that he was looking at her in awe, as if she just said the most amazing thing he’s ever heard in his life and he couldn’t say anything because he was frozen with disbelief and happiness, because, well, she did.)

She waited another moment before standing up abruptly, pulling the blanket tight around her shoulders. “Okay, well, thanks for listening!” She was ready to sprint back inside and bury herself under the covers of her bed.

“Wait,” Hunter grabbed her hand, standing up and turning her around. It made Willow’s heart leap into her throat how easily he caught and spun her towards him.

“Y—you like me?”

Willow could barely breathe, overwhelmed with how Hunter was looking at her, so gentle and eager with his hair gold in the glow of the porchlights. She found her voice, finally, coming out in a strangled whisper. “Ye-yeah…”

“Romantically?”

“Ro…romantically.”

He looked at her and Willow didn’t think he was breathing. His expression was unreadable.

Could it…could it be…

Then Hunter broke out into a smile with an adorable chuckle–well, it was closer to a wheeze in all honesty–eyes shining and darling blush across his cheeks and ears as he buried a hand in his hair in a way that made her heart burst out of her chest.

Willow took him in, the slight open mouthed smirk showing off his tooth gap and boyish charm, even when tomato red in the face, made her fall even harder for this ridiculous dork who made her little carvings and held her close and had already worked his way into her heart.

He stepped closer, almost shy, and gulped. “I, uhmm,” He was grinning ridiculously, as if he couldn’t contain it, and Willow was frozen, a million thoughts running through her head as he looked at her in awe. 

“I–I like you too.”

Willow’s eyes widened and a million things started clicking in her head. “You do?”

He laughed, again, a giddy burst from his smiling mouth, barely covered by his free hand. “Yeah, I do.”

Oh wow. 

“Oh, wow.” She mustered up a single brain cell so she wouldn’t collapse to the ground in a pathetic heap. She didn’t know how long she was just staring at him like that.

That fluttery feeling in her chest was a roaring fire now. Willow stepped closer, barely, but it was enough that she was that much closer to him, and she could see the bit of facial hair growing on his chin, the slight crookedness in his gap tooth behind soft parted lips. She tugged on her braids. 

Is this really happening?

He was breathing heavily, and with shaky movements Hunter lifted his hand, hovering just there before reaching out and tucking a dark curl of stray hair behind her ear, then pressing his palm to her cheek. His fingers were calloused, rough, but he held her with such delicacy it made her melt.

(What she didn’t know was that the hair-tuck-cheek-cup combo was a move Hunter had read in a Cosmic Frontier novel he was practicing to use on her one of these days but kept chickening out to do, and gave himself a mental pat on the back once he successfully implemented it).

His hand stayed on her cheek as she tilted closer to him, heart caught in her throat as their breaths met, and–

And then they were kissing.

It’s a simple press of the lips but it was everything, firebees and bloodyflies and every creature in between racing through her entire body. It was a little awkward, their noses pressing together uncomfortably until he turned his head and it made her dizzy how good it felt. She gripped the collar of his shirt with fervor, keeping him close so she could feel his heart beating as fast as hers was.

They separated finally, a quiet gasp of air emitted between them. 

Willow stepped back and buried her face in her hands, face on fire. A giggle erupted from her lips before she could help it, positively giddy. Hunter let out a strangled sound that was probably meant to be a laugh too, flushed red ear to ear. They looked at each other, stunned silly at the moment they just shared.

Willow blinked, mind blank. “Oh.” 

“Yeah,” Hunter croaked, grinning breathlessly. “Oh.”

Oh. OH!! 

She giggled, a sudden burst of confidence flooding her body.  “Can I ask you something, then?”

His voice steadied with his gaze on her. “Anything.” 

She could scream. “Would you, uhm …would you want to be my…my boyfriend?”

He seemed to choke first before recovering in record time. “Yes,” he breathed, eyes wide. “Yes, yes! I–yes!!”   

She just stood there and stared at him, elated, and he stared back, gripping her hand tighter. They leaned their foreheads together, their breaths intermingling, but she was still reeling from the first kiss to initiate another, and she expected Hunter was as well, so they just reveled in their mutual confession and their closeness. Shakily but assured, she reached out her other hand again to wind her pinky around his, rewarded with a happy sigh through gapped teeth.

She ignored the muffled squeals coming from the window and the distinct sound of Gus gloating to Amity and asking her to ‘pay up’ (????) as they settled back down on the porch steps, Willow happily tucking her head to his flushed neck. After a moment, Hunter extricated his arm to tentatively rest across her back, pulling her closer, and they laughed and talked and smiled about homework, track practice, Mrs. Dinello’s obnoxious sneezes when she got irritated, and everything in between.

(And they were happy.)