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The car ride to the only restaurant in Gravesfield that serves quality Dominican food is suffocating. It’s a trademark favorite location of the Noceda family — which includes Vee too at this point — but their nostalgic stories are garbled nothingness in Gus's mind. His seatbelt presses against him with more force than it should, and this car clearly isn’t intended to fit this many people. Being the smallest passenger dooms him to a fate of always being the one who gets trapped between everyone else, and he can already feel a headache coming on.
This is going to be a particularly long night.
Things only get worse once they actually arrive. He walks inside with shaky legs and is only saved from his stumbling by the reassuring presence of Hunter’s hand on his arm to steady him. The festive Spanish music that plays like a quiet hum in the background blares against Gus’s sensitive hearing, and it’s far less enjoyable here than it is in the Noceda home. It doesn’t help that he’s being forced to put extra attention on his ears to preserve their rounded disguise, and he slightly regrets that he’s using an illusion instead of wearing a hat like the other witches.
There are so many people in the restaurant. Too many.
While he clutches Willow’s familiar hand for dear life, he does his best to avoid bumping into anyone; attempting to dodge guests in a place this packed is like trying to navigate a maze that’s far too tall to see through. Coming here on a busy Friday night is clearly a terrible choice, but it’s too late for regrets. After what feels like an endless amount of minutes spent nearly tripping over his own feet, the group settles on a table and gets seated.
“Woah, Gustopher. No offense, but you ain’t lookin’ so hot. Is something wrong?”
The first sound that cuts into the blended mess of strangers’ voices comes from Luz. She’s sitting across from Gus, in between her girlfriend and her doppelgänger, and her forehead is creased with worry. The only thing worse than being anxious is having other people notice his anxiety, so he makes a quick decision.
He shifts in place, and his right hand automatically wanders up to his necklace. The magic amplifier he’s “borrowing” from the head of his coven has been a constant part of his wardrobe for longer than originally planned. Fiddling with it is a comforting distraction, and it looks enough like an ordinary piece of jewelry that he can still wear it in public in the Human Realm without arousing suspicion.
“All good! Just trying to pick what to get! There are so many options!” he bluffs. It’s a bad lie, but it’s one he manages to sell with a forced grin. “Is there anything specific you’d recommend? I’m still not used to food that isn’t from…well, you know.”
Luz considers this question for a moment, listing out a variety of possible choices that all mean nothing to someone who’s only lived here for as long as Gus has, before she decides to ask for more input from the other members of the group. Any opportunity to divert attention away from his nerves is one he’s going to take, and it feels like a miracle when her knowing gaze is turned away from him again.
He immediately zones back out once the three Human Realm experts — which is a label he’s recently realized doesn’t apply to him anymore — begin to debate over the best dishes available at this restaurant. The Noceda girls all enthusiastically chatter about their past experiences, and Amity quickly gets sucked into the conversation too. However, the two people sitting against Gus’s sides are less convinced.
“You’re super tense,” Willow points out. She’s speaking in a hushed tone, like she’s trying to keep her observation a secret from the other members of the table, and he continues to be grateful for her endless amount of respectful consideration. It’ll be best if nobody figures out the truth, but Willow is the least embarrassing option. “Did something happen in the car? You were really quiet the whole way here.”
“Yeah, seriously,” Hunter adds. “I’m not…great at reading people’s emotions, so maybe I’m wrong, but you look freaked out about something. What’s up?”
A pang of guilt strikes Gus’s chest when he makes himself lie to his two best friends. He hates having to do this, but it’s the simplest way to maintain peace at the table and avoid ruining this night for anyone else. It won’t become a problem if he’s able to keep his calm for the entire meal, even if that’s easier said than done.
He picks up a menu with one hand, his other locked on to his amplifier like a comfort object. “There’s nothing to worry about! Trust me.”
Willow leans back in her seat and exchanges a knowing look with Hunter, but neither of them comment further on Gus’s predicament. They can tell that if Gus is stressed, forcing him to discuss it in front of so many people certainly won’t make his situation any better.
Tension swells on the trio’s side of the table.
The next few minutes pass by as a hazy blur, like a painful illusion Gus’s anxious brain is shielding him from with complete numbness. He runs on autopilot mode, engaging in the most basic of obligatory small talk and ordering the same thing as someone else just to avoid needing to think it over. Through it all, he keeps running his trembling fingers along his amplifier necklace, over and over until the golden metal practically melts into a static sensation beneath his hands.
Then his eye twitches, and his entire charade falls apart.
Sometimes, when he loses control of it, his magic feels like an unscratchable itch or a persistent sneeze he can’t let out. Having these types of illusion-filled meltdowns is bad enough back home, but in the Human Realm, they’re a potential death sentence.
He rapidly blinks, begging and praying to whatever Titan may control this world that he’ll be able to keep himself together, but it’s to no avail. His fragile defenses shatter like glass when the group is given their beverages. Hunter bumps his cup a little too roughly, and droplets of non-boiling water spill over onto Gus’s hand like the ice-cold raindrops from a certain traumatic night, and this accident makes Gus’s heart practically burst out of his chest.
One minute, Gus is sitting at the table with everyone else. The next, he’s rushing into the men’s bathroom with a sweaty palm pressed desperately against one of his glowing eyes. What led him here is entirely absent from his memory, like nothing even happened at all between the two moments, but he slams the door behind him with unsteady breaths.
The reflection staring back at him in the mirror is something distant and foreign, as if he’s living in a foggy dream. His left eye remains perfectly acceptable for the Human Realm, but his right one stings with distinctly forbidden bright blue illusion magic — his real ears are on full pointy display now too.
“Crap…” he mumbles, poking and prodding at his own face with trepidation. “I guess I’ve just gotta stay in here until this goes away.”
There’s less chaos in the little restaurant bathroom than there was in the dining area. He has space to pace around, the loud music is a faint echo from outside the door, and the lighting is less harsh. As long as no humans enter it for a while, he’ll be better off here.
However, Gus realizes a few moments too late that he didn’t ask for no Grimwalkers to show up.
Hunter bursts into the bathroom with a frantic expression contorting his features, like he’s holding back a stressed shout, and he exhales with relief when he spots the person he’s been searching for. He’s a living reminder that Gus unintentionally accomplished the one thing he was determined not to do: he made people worry about him.
“Gus!” Hunter’s voice almost comes out as an urgent yell at first, clumsily intense and an indicator of his lifelong lack of social skills. But, as he’s been learning how to do recently, he intentionally settles himself down and lowers his volume. He shuts the door behind him with precision and gentleness, and he slowly approaches Gus in the way someone might walk up to a frightened stray cat. “Are you…okay?”
All Gus can manage to reply with is a defeated shake of his head. He slumps down to the ground, too worked up to be bothered by anything gross on the floor, and buries his face in his propped up knees. An unwanted guest entering the room has made it start to spin again, and the only way to get rid of its ominous blue tint is to squeeze his eyes shut entirely.
Maybe if he can’t see the world, it won’t be able to see him either.
He doesn’t need to be looking to detect Hunter joining him. The older boy sits down right next to him, leaving a few cautious feet between their bodies, and stays silent while he plans out what to say. They’ve been in this type of situation many times since the Day of Unity, desperately trying and failing to help each other, but it feels different this time.
“You need to remember to breathe,” Hunter tells him. He says it with such a level of tenderness that it brings up old memories of Gus’s father taking care of his son in a similar manner, and the thought of him just makes this forbidden world even more suffocating than it already is. Hunter reaches out a hand towards Gus, like he wants to touch him, but he holds himself back. “Do you want me to get anyone else?”
Gus just shakes his head, still refusing to look up. Verbalizing is too much. Everything is too much. Silently sitting there together, no longer alone, is more than enough.
The bathroom is quiet, and calming, and dyed in hues of illusion blue.
“My feelings are just so…silly,” Gus complains, mumbling into the uncomfortable fabric of his borrowed pants. Nothing feels like him in the Human Realm; nothing truly belongs to him here. “I ruined everyone else’s night just because I couldn’t keep myself together. It’s so humiliating. I’m supposed to be more mature than this by now.”
“I don’t think your feelings are silly at all,” Hunter insists. He watches over Gus through the invisible wall that seems to be dividing them, determined to find a way to climb over it. “If anything, I think the people who are actually strange are the ones who don’t get overwhelmed in a busy place like this. I was pretty close to cracking out there myself, honestly.”
Gus sniffles a little and begins to lift his head back up, ever so slightly. His vivid glowing eye is as unsettling as it was on the day the two first became friends, but a bit more life returns to his features when he notices Hunter’s small smile.
“Actually, it wasn’t really because of the things going on around me,” Gus admits. “I think…the thing that’s bothering me the most is something inside me. Like…something’s putting pressure on my bile sac and forcing magic out? Does that make sense?”
Hunter chuckles and teasingly nudges Gus’s arm. “Ew. Gross imagery. If that’s how it feels when you use magic, then I’m glad I don’t have one of those.” The tension in the room begins to melt away, and the corners of Gus’s mouth turn up an almost unnoticeable amount. Normally, Hunter doesn’t joke about his Grimwalker identity so casually, and there’s always a hint of sadness lingering behind any comments about it; this time, however, it seems to simply be a genuine attempt at making Gus smile. “But yeah, I get what you mean. You’re scared — we all are. I don’t think that makes any of us weak, though.”
The distant echo of the Spanish music that he usually loves reaches Gus’s ears from the other side of the bathroom door, and it’s like a stab to his heart. “Whenever I imagined visiting the Human Realm, I always thought it would be…different than this,” he explains. “I thought I’d be happy, and I’d be with everyone I care about, and I’d finally achieve what I’ve wanted to do for my entire life. But…the way it’s actually happening is all so wrong, and that hurts. A lot.”
“Well, this probably doesn’t mean much, but…” Hunter leans back against the wall, his eyes never leaving Gus. He twiddles his thumbs together, awkward and inexperienced with comforting others despite his determination to try. “I care about you. And so does everyone else we’re with. You may be in a shitty situation, but at least you’re not alone. That’s gotta be better than nothing, right?”
It’s deeply ironic to be reassured about the pain of loneliness by the most isolated person Gus has ever met — but it’s also effective.
“How did you bear it?” he asks, his voice low like a scared child. “How did you handle finding out everything you thought you knew was just…one big lie? I don’t think I can ever be strong enough for that.” He looks up at Hunter and shrinks into something tinier in the older boy’s eyes, like the little sibling he never had until the two of them met.
“Flapjack,” Hunter immediately says, very matter-of-factly. “He was…my anchor, I guess. Even when I lost everything else, I still had him. And right now, all five of us have to become that for each other — whether we know how to or not.”
The magic amplifier hanging around Gus’s neck presses down on him like a heavy weight dragging him down into a sea of murky blue; it’s a gloomy reminder of everything he’s lost and might never be able to get back. Rubbing it between his fingers only makes things more and more suffocating, but it’s a tempting instinct he can’t resist. Owning something so valuable and powerful was once a matter of pride, but now it’s just a risk factor that makes his already unpredictable anxiety symptoms flare up even more.
And so, Gus decides to lift up the piece of painful jewelry and offer one of the most coveted tools in the entire Boiling Isles to Hunter.
“It’s not safe for me to have this in the Human Realm, especially when we’re in public. Not while I’m still having problems controlling my illusions,” he explains. “But you…well, you don’t have any natural magic, so it shouldn’t do anything to you. It’ll be less dangerous for all of us if you hold on to this until we get back to Luz’s house.”
Hunter’s gaze wavers with a conflicting mixture of bitterness, shame, and affection. Regardless of the fact that it comes with some unique advantages, his status as a powerless witch — if a Grimwalker can even be labeled as such — still hurts to think about. Gus is capable of feats few others can accomplish, to the point where he truly doesn’t need the same boosts required by the Coven Head he took his amplifier from.
But he’s also a terrified child trapped in a world he doesn’t understand — and his own mind.
If anyone knows how that feels, it’s definitely Hunter.
“Nope. I’m not taking that from you. Not until you give yourself enough time to actually think over your decisions.”
Gus is taken aback. The frown disrupting his normally gentle features grows larger, and he sticks to his request. With a shaking hand, he pushes the amplifier closer. “This is my decision. I need your help. Please.”
“That’s the decision your self-doubt made for you,” Hunter protests. The amount that he’s matured during their short time in the Human Realm is surreal to witness, and even more strange to be involved in. “What I will help you with, though, is getting that eye of yours to stop freaking out. Do you mind if I touch you?”
After setting the amplifier down on the floor in between their matching crossed legs, Gus gives him a chance. “...You can try, I guess.”
“We’re going to try,” Hunter corrects him. “And we’re going to succeed.”
It’s rare for Hunter to let anyone near his hands; they’re a sensitive area and a sore spot that he doesn’t want to address. Even in the Human Realm, a world where people stare at his odd behaviors with questioning looks more than they do in the Demon Realm, he still covers the dark scars with gloves everywhere he goes. But for Gus’s sake, he barely hesitates to reach out.
He firmly holds Gus’s hands like a concerned older sibling, like someone who’s been there supporting him for his entire life. Sometimes, it really does feel like they’ve been stuck so far from the Boiling Isles for that long.
Hunter turns to the method he was taught by Gus himself, and the student becomes the teacher once again. He counts slowly and smoothly, inhaling and exhaling as he goes, and Gus copies his steady rhythm. Gus finally stops shaking thanks to this gesture of love from Hunter, from Willow, from Willow’s fathers who taught her this coping strategy so long ago and set this entire chain of friendships into motion — from the love of his home.
When Hunter inhales a little too strongly, a whistle escapes from his tooth gap and Gus laughs. It’s a simple sound that’s reminiscent of the moment that forged their bond on a day that feels so long ago, and it’s a relieving reminder that not everything has changed since then.
The blue glow fades away from Gus’s vision, and the two boys exchange matching grins.
“Thank you,” Gus says, squeezing Hunter’s hands. “For everything you’ve been doing for me recently, actually. I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to repay you for how much you’ve been helping me since…you-know-what happened.”
“You already did, though.” Hunter’s smiles are usually awkward, unfamiliar and new expressions twisted onto a face that has little experience with making them, but the one he uses for Gus is still clearly full of affection. “I know you can keep yourself calm, because…you’re the person who taught me how to feel that way in the first place. Needing help doesn’t make you weak. It just makes you a person…one that I care a lot about.”
Now that he’s finally relaxed enough to stop overthinking all of his decisions, Gus impulsively does the one thing that he’s certain is the right choice — he brings Hunter into a hug.
Muscular arms that were trained to do cruel acts that don’t resemble this at all wrap around Gus’s small body, and a former soldier transforms into a warm shoulder to cry on. While he sinks into Hunter’s reassuring touch, the realization that “home” might be more of a feeling than a place crosses Gus’s mind.
The two friends return to the group’s table of the restaurant a few minutes later, hand in hand, and Gus survives another day in this unpredictable new world with his magic amplifier sparkling proudly against his chest.
