Archive of Our Own

Hunter swings his legs over the eaves of Willow’s house. He’s full of energy from seemingly nowhere, so he fidgets by rolling rapid circles with his ankles.

Titan willing, he’ll be alone with Willow for the next few hours. He imagines how the evening will unfold. It should not make his palms slick or his heartbeats quicken, and yet.

“Okay, okay, new framing. It’ll be like an infiltration mission,” he tells Flapjack, gesticulating wildly. His fingers fly like the butterflies in his stomach. “I’ve done dozens of those. And being alone with people? I’m alone with the Emperor all the time!”

Flapjack only stares at him. So much skepticism can fit into the eyes of such a small bird.

“One last check, I look okay, right?”

This is a new way of being for Hunter: slicked hair, slacks, shoes that clack, and a bow tie that matches his eyes. King had done a good job once Luz had stopped screaming the Golden Guard is in our living room!

Flapjack pulls one last stray bit of his collar flat and whistles approval.

“I look so good I must be a stranger, hey! Your aesthetic assessments are still on probation with me after what you said about my cloak. Keep your backhanded opinions to yourself— as the cool kids say, good vibes only.”

Hunter rubs Flapjack’s beak affectionately. It’s strange to do it with no gloves on, but they weren’t part of King’s plan. Flapjack nibbles at his knuckles.

“Speaking of cool kids, Gus said I looked dressed for success. He called me hot stuff even though I wasn’t sweating. Maybe I should take his opinion instead.”

Flapjack pulls on Hunter’s hair in retaliation. Hunter did miss the strand hanging down into his vision. Until Flapjack came along, it was one of the few constants in his life. It’s free from its gelled confinement and dangling once again.

“Yes, that hurt, but you’re right, it’s better. I feel like me again. But I also feel— what do I feel.”

The word for an emotion ought to have landed on his tongue, but all that comes is an intensity. He swallows against his collar, buttoned higher and tighter against his neck than he would have picked for himself.

He turns to the usual suspect: anxiety. It has a way of flaring when he’s out of the mask. He did so well that one day at Hexside, but that was the exception.

There’s no reason to be nervous. This is not the hardest night of his life. From a survival perspective, that was day nine of scout training for the Emperor’s Coven. The consecutive marathons jellied his legs. No one had gotten the water purification spell to work yet. He survived on a catnap and a handful of bloodminer’s lettuce and walked away wobbly and dangerously dehydrated, but with beautiful memories.

Hanging out with Willow involves being left on zero mountains, navigating zero mazes full of traps. It should be a cakewalk.

Nor is this the most important night of his life. No contest, that was when he was granted the title of Golden Guard. He didn’t have so much as a stomachache before the ceremony, and that was witnessed by thousands of awed members of the Emperor’s Coven. All he had to do was kneel and stand, accept the mask, accept the staff. It was simple. It was scripted.

Tonight is the opposite. The cold dread that winds through his entrails, special for this evening, tells him he’s onto something in the differences. Nothing about tonight was predictable. It’s all bloody fly effect from being bad at sewing. That kind of coincidence, like the bleeding fly that chokes the titan and boils the isles, makes him feel humble and small.

A month ago, he didn’t know what flyer derby was. Now references creep their way across his speech like fresh bloodstains. The coven scouts and the Emperor don’t understand what he means by rising stinger formation or injured worse than Tibia Fibula, but he says them anyway.

So had Hunter fallen down the smooth-walled rat-worm hole of a new fixation that outcompeted all else for his attention. It’s almost a relief that his brain chose a semi-obscure sport to root itself in. Unlike wild magic, Belos’s impatient punishments for waxing poetic about flyer derby haven’t broken skin yet. It’s a win-win.

Hunter has learned over a dozen seasons of rosters for all of the teams in both the Skeletal and Muscular Leagues, plotted the drama that crumbled the Poltergeists’ decade-long dynasty, and watched every round of the last thirteen All-Titan tournaments.

He can talk for an hour about the Gastros and their staff-slicking controversy. Flapjack has listened to the whole thing attentively, twice, even asking clarifying questions.

He can rant about the symbolic meaning behind different face paint shapes and whether the designs really predict the outcome of a match — the answer is yes, but only when experienced players change their longstanding designs, and then it’s a tossup whether it helps or hinders.

All this investigation has taken place under layers of covers, bedsheets and night, as if fabric and darkness could keep anyone else from finding out about it. He shares the information more than freely, but getting it in the first place demands a strange privacy. There’s none of that tonight. He will be in public, with his captain, on his own time.

His captain. Thinking about Willow makes Hunter’s pulse race. He wants her to say that he’s important to the team. He wants to make her proud. He wants to take out her pigtails and run his fingers through her hair, gloves be damned. He wants to—

Hunter catches his heart pounding away and stops himself. Every extra beat is an inefficiency. Thinking about Willow like this serves no purpose. He rechannels his thoughts, reformulates his wants. He wants Willow to train him. He wants to learn from her. 

Flyer derby is useful. It hones real-time strategy, gives time for flying practice, and promotes team building. He’s even learned a few cheers that would boost morale in the Emperor’s Coven, if he edited the bad words out.

That’s better.

It’s not better. Questions leak out like grime from Belos’s body when he needs a palisman infusion. 

What if what Hunter likes about flyer derby isn’t the strategy but the freedom, that it’s all the rules of the Emperor’s Coven but none of the stifling structure? What if he took to flyer derby so quickly because Willow was leading it? What if he likes it because it’s an excuse to hold Willow’s hand? What if Willow wants what he wants? For that to work, she would have to be an afterthought, late nights and one day off a year. What if she doesn’t want what he wants? When then does he do with these feelings?

The less he dwells on these loose ends, the better he feels. He unbuttons his collar to breathe more easily. If dressing for success hinges on a single button, maybe the odds were too narrow to begin with.

This is a weekend night and Hunter is off the Emperor’s clock. For now, Willow— wrong, flyer derby is front of mind.

Flapjack chirps impatiently. He has a way of helping and reassuring Hunter that feels like neither of those things. He drags him by the hair, throws him in, and watches him tread until he can swim. It’s worked so far. Hunter has no choice but to love his palisman for it, but what would Willow say if she knew this whole thing was Flapjack’s idea?

“Hey— don’t pull my hair! I’m almost ready, I swear!” He rubs his hands together, confused when his fingertips touch. It’s strange to not wear gloves. “Okay, we can do this.”

Flapjack chirps back.

“It’s all me? Don’t say that. You do all the flying. But— I guess it’s on me to do all the talking. I can be cool about this. Yeah, I can do this. She thinks I’m a good player and I think she’s a good captain. Getting to meet her athletic idol is going to mean a lot to her.”

A squeeze to his chest pocket locates the tickets. Flapjack rubs his beak over Hunter’s knuckles and cheeps.

“—which is going to mean a lot to me?” Hunter’s voice rises into inaudibility. “Keep talking like that and you’re gonna undo me some day. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Hunter would like very much to get ahead of himself, and it scares him. For his life to go as planned, he needs his feelings for Willow to make sense within what he already has. Feelings are rarely neat, so it’s best for feelings to be rare.

He can overcome this. It will take more training, more exposure, like practicing a maneuver until his muscles know it without thought. He can run up Mount Patella and barely take a deep breath. Being next to Willow takes orders of magnitudes less exertion. It should not be the sweatier activity.

Training begins now.

He texts Gus IM’ doing.it before rebuttoning his collar because damn it, he does want success tonight. Every increment could make the difference. Willow is worth it.

“Ready, Flap? It’s go time.”

whO”s.outside.your.window,? Hunter messages Willow. His typing is even less rhythmic, his hands even more jittery than usual.

He recalls all the preparation he’s done to be more than just competent in this sport, so that he now feels confident enough to call it his sport. He finds comfort in things he knows for certain. He was always a strong flyer with a good sense of motion and space. He can hold his own in playmaking talks with Skara as they pick apart Frightday night matches. He has theory and he has practice.

Willow will be impressed by his rapid ascent, realize his strategic value, and pick him as vice captain, which will mark him as a greater asset to the team. Vice captain? That part of the fantasy is new, but it’s a sensible next step. Always following after the captain, and—

Flapjack chirps.

“How do I feel?” Hunter frowns, running the sensations in his body against a dictionary in his mind. “I think this is hopeful, but don’t remind me.”

The last time a hope gripped his chest, he pushed too hard. Belos’s temper sparked and everything happened too fast. He didn’t miss, slicing with his spike arm. Hunter’s face will remember it forever, as will his heart.

Here goes nothing, then, because it means nothing. Hunter raises his chin to the moon, then swan-dives from the roof.

Flapjack flies in front of him and draws out the staff. He speeds into Hunter’s grasp. The arc of their movement traces a graceful loop two stories tall. 

At the bottom of the arc, Hunter’s fingers tap cobblestone. His stomach lurches. Flapjack soars. It’s only to the second floor, but the moment of wind over Hunter’s ears is what freedom feels like, tantalizing and brief.

On the way up, Gus responds WE ARE BEINGS OF COURAGE!!!!

Hunter’s duckbill dress shoes toe the windowsill, a light clack as he touches down weightlessly between the potted plants. The window is open. He waves. Flapjack whistles a greeting.

Willow looks up from her reading and puts her hair behind her ear. She gives Hunter a little smile that adds another butterfly to his stomach. Clover sits on her shoulder.

Hunter eyes the flyer derby posters on the walls. All their flashy, fierce, expressions converge on him, setting his cheeks on fire like an ant under a magnifying glass. With their wild hair and impassioned eyes, they say, look how large we loom in Willow’s life. How can you compete with us?

He has an answer to their challenge he doesn’t like. The youngest Blight was right at Eclipse Lake. His ego would boil his brain before admitting it, but he did meet someone who didn’t make him feel worthless. Worse than that, she makes him feel hopeful, which he’s learned to read as the disappointment that always follows. He doesn’t get to want. His dreams don’t come true unless they are also someone else’s.

No. He swallows his fear with a helping of crisp evening air. He imagines pushing it down past his navel, where it can lie dormant until the night is over. Hunter might not have a life outside his head, but Caleb is unburdened. Caleb can do anything, even smile, even want, even dream.

He swings his legs over one side of the staff and reaches for her with a hand outstretched, just like he rehearsed.

“Captain, run away with me for a night?”

His voice cracks, but the two hours he spent practicing those two seconds pay off. He only blushes a little bit. On his face is the light from her room and the warmth of relief.

“Hunter! I mean, Caleb!” Willow winks and runs to the window. After looking him up and down, she puts her hand to her mouth and asks into her palm, “Have you been reading my diary?”

He picks at his bow tie. “No, but we can go over it together if there’s something in it I should know?” Hunter didn’t know she had a diary until she mentioned it.

Willow bites her lip and looks to her desk, where it lives. That’s not happening anytime soon. “Have you been reading my DMs with Gus?”

“No, I would never do that to you two! That would violate the creed of brothers— Gus told me about it. And he would never do that to you! Privacy is important!”

“What a relief.” Willow wipes her forehead. “Well, if that’s settled, where are we going, Bloodwilliams?” she asks with gusto.

Hunter likes it when his captain is confident. It makes him feel like he can be too, not only as Caleb, but also as Hunter.

His captain. He did it again. Foolish.

He grips the staff and breathes, making sure all of the air in each breath leaves his lungs. “Someone you might have heard of is doing a meet and greet at Clavicle Arena in Glenoidale. Her name is Stabitha Jenkins.”

“Oh my titan. Clover, I need your help.” A stroke of her staff and she’s changed into a bright green varsity jacket. She spins so Hunter can see PARK on the back over a big, blocky number 01. Both thumbs point to her shoulders. “Now I’m ready.”

She uses magic to have her plants part a path in front of her, only moving one by hand. He recognizes the miniature sunflowers he gave her, planted in a leftover golden pauldron. It took a deal with Gus to ask Luz for the plant glyph to make them.

Willow reaches out with both hands for him to pull her up. “Oh my parboiled titan! Let’s go!” She squeezes his forearms as she hops onto the staff, then wraps her arms around his waist.

Hunter doesn’t know what to make of the sensation. Caleb, he decides, likes it.

“Okay Flap,” he whispers. “Take care of us. We’re counting on you.”

They follow the Brachial-Axillary Road high above the spires and fields and forests. It’s a clear night. Jaundiced lights blink in scattered windows.

Willow leans close to keep her balance as one hand messages Gus, IT’S HAPPENING! His ricochet reply is an eyes emoji and a winky face.

“Hey Captain, can you tell Gus that I've picked you up and things are going well? Don’t want to text and fly.”

“Yeah, sure.” Willow appends, HE SAYS TO TELL YOU HE THINKS THINGS ARE GOING WELL!

GIRL, REMAIN CALM. EYE ON THE PRIZE! Gus responds.

Willow looks at Hunter’s back, covered by a dark suit jacket.

“We’ll be back by midnight, just in case there was any confusion there.” Hunter says. “Caleb might have a bad boy streak, but Hunter has a curfew.”

“Midnight is more than fine.” Willow giggles and makes Hunter’s chest melt, flame to wax. “I can’t believe we’re going to meet Stabitha! She’s really real!”

Hunter wonders if his enthusiasm feels as warm and velvety as hers. He looks down at Willow’s hands around his waist, the bands of green and white around her stretchy cuffs. Again rises the feeling of optimism laced with dread. “When did you get the jacket?”

“Just today. Hermonculus’s office, after school. I think they got there earlier and he neglected to tell me.”

“Still a sore loser, that guy, huh?”

“Yeah, but now that I have them, I was going to surprise everyone next practice. Do you think they’ll like them?”

“It looks good on you.” Hunter’s eyes widen as he realizes what he’s said. Maybe Caleb talks too much. Maybe he should talk more. “That is, um, efficient. And uniforms boost morale!” His brain sharpens knives at itself for not answering the question.

“I wasn’t going to wear it, originally. It reminds me of someone I definitely don’t want to look like. But you get it. It’s for the team.”

As she speaks, her fingers rub and tighten. Hunter feels it happen at his navel.

“And green is your color.” Hunter says.

She squeezes him tight. “Thanks for saying so.”

His brain sputters. “And just give the order and we can get revenge for you.”

Willow laughs to disguise a deeper churning. “No, it’s okay. Our team isn’t a personal army. That’s what she would do.”

“Okay, revenge can wait. It has to, because we’re here.”

Once landed, Hunter finds both of their palismen on his shoulders. Clover’s weight is unfamiliar but not unwelcome. His brain is tickled to make sense of her buzzing, even if he doesn’t believe what she says.

He looks around and eeps. It’s a sea of t-shirts and jerseys. His getup is conspicuously unlike everyone else’s. His body feels over-adorned, tackily spangled like a Cryptmas tree. His face feels barren without at least a splash of paint. “I’m so overdressed.”

“Want some help, Caleb?”

“Yes Captain, please Captain. But whatever you do, don't tell Gus. He was rooting for my, what did he call it— formalwear skin?”

With a wave of her staff, she has another green jacket in her hands. Her eyebrows bounce. “How about this?”

Hunter’s fists clench with excitement. “Oh my titan yes!”

“Excuse me, Flapjack. Watch your step.” Willow magics the varsity jacket onto Hunter and finds his suit jacket in her hands.

Flapjack resettles on Hunter’s shoulder, testing the new garment with his feet, cheeping approval. Hunter runs his hands on the green wool over his torso, then explores the pockets and fingers the lining.

“I should have shown you before putting it on, but on the back it says BLOODWILLIAMS,” she says it majestically, so he can hear the capitals, “number 02.” She traces the blocky letterman font, his name across his shoulders and the numbers down to the small of his back. 

“The vice captain’s number!” Hunter contains his surprise to his voice. He can’t help feeling like he hasn't earned it yet. Maybe Caleb has.

“If you don’t like Bloodwilliams, we can always change it to Hunter, or—” 

Impossible. Hunter doesn’t get to do things like have dreams or join sports teams.

“No, you’re perfect. I mean—” Hunter squeaks. “This is perfect.”

Hunter’s thoughts ricochet like magic off fool’s blood. Caleb needs to watch his mouth. Both need to prove to Willow that she’s right about him.

“It looks so good on you!” Willow’s fullest smile turns her face all to grin and cheek. “Please, can I show Gus?”

“Willow, I’d rather Gus didn’t see this. Not yet.” 

“Oh. Okay.” Both sense the gravity of Hunter not calling her Captain. “What about one just for us?” She offers. “No one else will see it.”

“Yeah, alright.” He likes the idea of having something special between the two of them, even if it’s just a picture.

“Wait, we’re forgetting the most important part. We’re going to touch your face for this, okay.”

Hunter squeezes his eyes shut. “Go for it.”

Willow daubs green paint on Clover’s legs. She dances a star around his left eye. It’s a strange feeling, like being drawn on with a feathery pencil. Willow fills it in with her fingers. The paint is cold but her touch is warm within it.

Clover helps Willow give herself a twin star over her right eye.

Flapjack whistles approval, but refuses a star for himself.

“How did you have all this ready?” Hunter asks. “You looked like you were waiting for me when I showed up, and now we’re matching, and— I know you didn’t read my DMs with Gus, right? You wouldn’t.”

“Nothing like that.” Willow says. “I thought I heard your voice on the roof, and Papa did too, so he sent up his palisman to check it out. He says,” her voice goes gravelly, “There’s a tired-looking blond boy on the roof—again. Should I get the broom or does he belong to someone? And I was like, he’s still mine!”

Hunter chooses not to dwell on her diction, the possibility of belonging to Willow, of being hers. For his mind’s eye, it’s like looking at the sun. Caleb might weather it, but Hunter is fragile.

Willow chuckles. “You must have been really caught up in whatever you were doing to not have heard that. We’re not exactly the quietest.”

“When I’m focused on something, the world falls away.”

“And when you talk to Flapjack, and only then, your mask falls away. Now say Titan knees!”

Hunter’s ears burn. She bares him so casually.

“Titan knees!”

Clover takes the picture and flies back to show them. 

Hunter’s throat is tight and his eyes are tear-glossed. In the photo they merely glimmer. Caleb can hide a lot in a smile.

*

At this hour, the line for signing is short but moves leisurely.

Willow texts, I think it’s going well. It’s the thrill of the fight!

Gus reacts with a liger emoji. Enjoy, how does the song go? Stalking your crush in the night? Hm no. We’ll workshop that haha

Stabitha Jenkins is even more striking in person. Hunter knows her height and weight and wingspan, picked them up in the same biographic block as her birthday on Ghouleye 5th and her alma mater at University of Wartland. It's altogether different when this tall, toned woman with a ship’s prow of a fauxhawk in a figure-flattering suit smiles at him and holds out her hand.

Hunter’s not ready for that, not without a protective layer of leather between them. He bows instead, so deeply his head almost touches the table.

Eyebrows arched, Stabitha looks to Willow for an explanation.

“He’s from the Toes,” Willow mouths.

“Ah, gotcha. Very cool,” Stabitha mouths back. “Thanks for coming all the way to the Shoulders to see me. It means a lot.” She smiles a million-snail grin that Hunter recognizes from the fronts of cereal boxes. “Who do I make this puppy out to?”

Hunter stammers. Caleb’s no help here either. His mouth is dry and agape with awe. He looks at the green flag that will bear Stabitha’s signature in her staff-calloused hands and gets a grip. “Caleb Jasper Bloodwilliams, please, ma’am. No space between the Blood and the Williams.” 

“Now that is a great derby name. Too luscious to be real, but so full of realness.” She hollers, “Cee Jay Bee—!”

They fistbump.

Hunter whoops. “Yeah! My palisman came up with it.” He touches Flapjack’s head and earns a chirp.

“And between us, it’s great to see someone as overdressed as I am.” Stabitha picks at her starched collar. They share a smile that feels full of secrets even Hunter doesn’t know. “Here you are.”

To Caleb Jasper Bloodwilliams—

GO FOR IT, CJB!

Fly on, S~~~ Jenkins

Willow steps up in line.

“And you?” Stabitha asks.

Willow shakes her hand with a vigor Hunter recognizes from the day they met, only Stabitha responds in kind, not with a full-body wiggle. “Omigosh, your hair is even more magenta in real life and your palisman is so cute.”

Hunter knows the palisman’s name is Zachary and he likes dried moonfish. He also knows he wants to remember the look on Willow’s face forever.

Stabitha keeps her camera-ready smile but waves the marker expectantly.

“Um, just Willow is fine.” She bends her wrist, dismissing herself.

“Captain Willow!” Hunter insists, nudging her shoulder. 

“You’re team captain?” Stabitha brightens. “No just or only there.”

Willow presses her lips together into a nervous smile. “That’s right, I am.”

Hunter sees the path forward. There’s no better way to show dedication to the cause than to ingratiate Willow with Stabitha.

“She’s my captain! She led us to victory against Professor Hermonculus and established the first flyer derby team at Hexside. She’s amazing!” Hunter can’t feel the blush on his face, but he can see it on Willow’s, a light dusting on her cheeks.

My captain. Oh, he was careless, but his tongue pedaled on adrenaline and now there’s no going back.

“Hunter, you're embarrassing me,” Willow whispers, “but don’t stop.” She leans into his nudging arm.

Hunter looks for words. Again he notices Willow’s face is rosy, and not from exertion. “She’s so confident and determined and that’s why I love her—” He runs out of air. “Um, leadership.”

Stabitha puts a hand on her hip. “Wow, so, who asked who?”

Hunter doesn’t understand the question. Willow loops her arm through his, hooking at the elbow. She looks at him softly. “I haven’t yet, but at this rate, it could go either way.”

“Not that.” Laughter ripples from Stabitha’s mouth. “Haha, I meant to play derby! But best of luck, Captain.” She salutes at her temple.

Hunter answers, taking Willow along as he gestures. “I didn’t want to play at first, but she literally pulled me from the sky with vines. I kind of thought I was going to die, but I was awed.”

Stabitha snorts. “Determined from day one, huh? Yep, that is young love.”

Hunter pretends he didn't hear that. It makes his mind whirr. He talks faster. Everything he knows rises to meet the challenge. “Also, Captain Willow’s dads met playing flyer derby. They were on the Ghouls from Right Elbow.”

“Oh yeah?” Stabitha smirks, affection and not derision. “Looking to follow your pops, Captain?”

Willow gasps and whispers at the edge of her voice, “Hunter, I never told you that. How did you know?”

Hunter wishes Willow would answer Stabitha’s question before asking her own, but he’s glad to not know.

“It’s my business to know my sport.” He says matter-of-factly. “Harvey Park still has the Skeletal League record for most flag passes in a single match, after all this time.”

“And boy do you know it!” Stabitha’s eyes linger on Willow and Hunter’s arms, still locked together. She leans in conspiratorially. “You know, me and Old Gory are an item. When you fly derby long enough, you can always tell who has off-the-field chemistry too.”

Willow screams into her hands. “You and Old Gory are married?”

“Five years in Scabuary.” Stabitha winks.

“What? Hunter, did you know this? — Sorry, I try to keep athletes separate from their personal lives, but oh mamma, the draw of the drama!”

“I appreciate a fan who appreciates my privacy,” Stabitha touches her chest, “but I’ll give you this one. Consider it a wish for your future.”

“I did know.” Hunter is ready with citations. “In a livestream you did last Shocktober, you were wearing a ring with a green gem. Then in Litchtember, Gory had a matching ring with a pink gem that she lost playing the Latissa Ligaments. At the post-game press conference, she was pretty shaken. She said it was a symbol of a promise to an important person.”

“We have a sleuthy superfan. Well done.” Stabitha nods. “I used to get all nervous and sweaty around her. I thought, wow, why is derby tiring me out but giving me so much energy? Rad.”

“Nervous and sweaty and strangely energetic?” Hunter’s interest is obvious. “The solution was training, right? With her?”

“Well, after one All Scar Game, she comes up to me and—”

Willow whispers in Hunter’s ear. When he nods, perplexed but engaged, she kisses his cheek. His legs buckle and he leans against her.

“Just like that! Exactly! Now Gory and I settle our differences on the field, but also in couples therapy. Love wins.”

Stabitha snaps her fingers as she points. “You know what, I know what to write now. Here you are, Captain.”

Captain Willow ;)

You’re gonna get what you want!

Stay rad, Stabby Jenx

*

RULERZREACHF4N: GUS IM,,, BROKEN.AND.REMADE

RULERZREACHF4N: capslock on,purposE,thatttime

OHTHEHUM4NITY: Whoa it was so transformative it made you a poet?? 

RULERZREACHF4N: YES,,,

OHTHEHUM4NITY: It was just a kiss on the cheek dude!! Congrats, but also dream a little!!

RULERZREACHF4N: i.nEver.told.you.that?,!

OHTHEHUM4NITY: Oh farts. I’m exposed…

RULERZREACHF4N: GOtta,fly.talk,later

RULERZREACHF4N: ps.. i.forgive you, for, breaking.tHe.cReed.of,bRothers.,,

*

Willow leans against Hunter’s back, into the arc of BLOODWILLIAMS between his shoulders. Glenoidale gives way to forests below them.

“Tonight has been perfect,” she offers.

He shakes his head. “It’s not perfect until I drop you off without a hitch.”

“Perfect for me anyway. Is there anything else you want to do?”

Hunter sweats, though the evening air makes quick work of it. There’s so much he wants to do, wants to be. His brain howls and screeches, but this isn't a conversation he’s let himself plot before. It’s one he actively avoids considering, mostly while burrowed under the covers in the thought-wending time before sunrise. Those are the only hours when the world is quiet enough for him to think about what he wants.

He wants his desire to be neat. He wants it to be clean-cut, to fit into his one-day off a year. He wants to see Willow smile again. He wants her to lean against him like she did tonight. He wants to lean back. He wants to let his hope grow and live in the time before disappointment, which ought to be forever, because it’s not inevitable after all. He wants to not need Caleb. He wants Hunter to be enough for her. And for himself.

He realizes he owes her an answer and not just silent spiraling.

“Captain, I agree. Tonight was— pleasant. In light of what Stabitha said, I think we need to plan. I need to spend more time with you to get better at flyer derby. Can you do that for me?”

She raises her head from between his shoulders. He feels the night’s cold again. It’s a sign.

”I’m going to give you an answer, but before I do, can you cross your legs?”

It’s a strange request, but he listens to his Captain. It’s not the first time he’s carried out an odd order.

This has all gone impossibly well, but maybe it would be better for them to continue meeting only in happenstance, never long enough to be pinned down. Maybe that’s what she’ll tell him. Something in this feels like landing, the relief of feet against ground, but also melancholy at the end of flight.

Cross his legs? Best to get it over with. Hunter grips the staff and adjusts his posture.

“Thanks. Now Flapjack, like we talked about.” Willow signals.

With a whee! she rolls left until she’s upside down, taking Hunter over with her. She touches her glasses to make sure they don’t plummet off her face.

“Why did you tip us over?” Hunter is more relaxed than Willow might have expected. He’s been flying since he was little and had his fair share of silly pose phases. It would make Gus proud.

“I need our masks to fall off. I know you’ve been Caleb all night and I’ve been Captain. That’s been fun, but I have an answer that’s meant for Hunter.”

Hunter’s pulse pounds in his face from the inversion.  “Okay. It’s off. You’re right.” He scratches his hairline, intrigued by having a clear forehead once again. He knows she has a point. There are no masks in flyer derby, just face paint.

Flapjack somersaults and flies on. Blood flows back into their bodies.

Hunter turns around to face her. Their hands on the staff almost touch, but don’t. He wants to look into Willow’s eyes, but can’t. He can still imagine them, green and bright.

“You’re taking this all really seriously. Which isn’t a bad thing— I love the intensity.” Her voice is gentle, almost cautious. The last time Hunter heard her like this, he had kidnapped her and she had called herself terrible things. “But there’s a new panic in you that I didn’t see when we first played. Are you okay? What happened? Can I help?”

The dread rising to the bottom of his throat is deserved. Her questions are knocks on the jambs of his heart that he can't answer. How does he say, I’ve always known I was dispensable, disposable, replaceable after a moment too long faltering, when he’s breathed it wordlessly his entire life? He’s given her glimpses of this before, but the difference is between the glint of a coin and its worth. How can he explain truths that lie in marrow without scraping bone?

How does he explain that imagining a future with her in it is a stain on his vision— the Emperor’s vision of him— warping the true color of everything? That one wrong move too many, one display of weakness too many and he knows even Willow will discard him? She’s already given him one great second chance and many small ones. It’s not too late to spare himself the uncertainty of hurt and guarantee it instead, to abandon what is unrealizable.

Hunter shoves a pile of words out of his mouth. What comes out is both murky and clear. “I’m nervous about— us, I guess.”

“That’s okay.” Willow puts her hands on his hips and draws him closer. She looks in his eyes, then at his lips. “Can I?”

Hunter flinches. He knows what’s supposed to happen now, lips and tongues and fluids.

“I know what you want to do. I’m not ready for that— but maybe I can be. No, I will be— soon.”

He wishes for his gloves. He wishes for a glove that could cover his entire body. Doesn’t he want this? Why doesn’t he want this? He moves his grip on the staff closer to himself. His elbows draw in. This is fear again, a tectonic grinding within him. 

Maybe Caleb could do this, but he’s not here. Hunter can’t. He tries to open his eyes wider against the impulse to scrunch his vision into darkness. It comes with shaking and tears. He wipes at them furiously, smearing green on one hand.

“Hunter? Oh no. Hey now.” Willow reaches for his face, a thumb to wipe away tears.

He swats her hand away. “I’m fine,” he lies.

She holds her fingers as if they scald instead of tingle. “What would you do if you knew you’d never be ready to kiss me?”

Hunter thinks about it. He looks at her lips, up to her eyes— a mistake— and the world falls away. She knows. This was a trial he couldn’t fail. He’s let her down. This is when he loses her.

His mouth crumples. His shoulders slump. “This isn’t how it went in your diary, is it.”

Willow swallows a laugh. “That’s just my imagination. Sometimes it’s daisies and sunflowers, but usually it’s my fears talking. I put them in there so they’re not in here.” She taps her head.

“Your fears?” Hunter has another want, for her to let him in, for them to face those together.

“Like, what if I never saw you again?” She can speak easily because it didn’t come true. “Fifty-two weeks is a long time to forget about a fly dooby team at a school you don’t go to.”

Hunter can’t imagine forgetting about Hexside, can’t imagine forgetting about flyer derby, can’t imagine forgetting about Willow.

“That was never up for debate. I needed to fly. I needed to see you. The Emperor’s Coven is mighty. And lonely. It’s like—” He makes a fist and raises it: power. It looks like a victory pose but feels like a trap. Then he straightens his elbow and tightens his grip: strangulation. “Do you understand?”

Willow teases his fist apart. Hunter lets her take his fingers in her own. He doesn’t wish for gloves.

“I didn’t think any of it would come true,” she says. “Good things don’t just fall from the sky.”

“Sometimes you have to pull them down yourself.” He leans towards her and snickers.

Willow giggles. “I don’t know what you had to pull down then, because tonight you made it happen. Stabitha Jenkins signed my derby flag. I shook her hand. Titan’s tailbone, I’m still thinking about it.”

Hunter waits for the caveats. It was not a perfect night. He knows what he couldn’t execute. Does she need an enumerated list?

“That means I did a good job, right Captain? I haven’t failed, right? I’ll still be your friend and vice captain and—” He readies himself for rejection, tension coiling in his neck and shoulders, tears readied in his eyes. “Willow?”

She lifts his face with a thumb beneath his chin. Slowly, so he can see her hands move, she cups his cheek and traces his unpainted eyebrow. He shivers beneath her touch.

“That was never up for debate.” She smiles at him. “Even if you don’t believe that right now, I’m telling you, it’s the truth.”

He doesn’t believe it. This has the texture of a trick. “You’re lying. You’re saying what I want to hear. You— I don’t know what your motivation is, but you want to keep me around to— to, I don’t know, kiss me!”

He stops talking, the sensible option. Red rises on his face. She wants what he wants, more than he could have ever considered.

“Well if you think that’s a lie, brace yourself.” Her voice is small and true, like seedlings pushing through soil to reach light. 

Hunter brings one knee to his chest instead of two, a compromise for flying safely. “I’m bracing.”

“You don’t need to worry about impressing me. You don’t need to worry about failing, because you will. And that’s okay. I will too.”

Willow takes his hands and raises them almost to her cheeks. She lets him choose whether to close the last inch.

Beneath Hunter’s fingers, her cheeks run hotter than Flapjack, must be well over a hundred Scarenheit.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong, I am impressed, as your captain, but as Willow, I think I’m—” She takes a four-count breath in and out, “already yours, if you want.”

Hunter wants. He wants so bad. A steady drip can wear away a stone and he has a great hole in his heart where the want has bored through.

He almost says you’re lying again. It’s too good to be true, but it didn’t sound like a lie. He can’t just say yes. That option is blocked by mental fog, padlocks on padlocks, and probably some version of Kikimora’s freakish hand dragon that lives in his mind.

He nods furiously. He overflows. He takes her hands and holds them. It’s still weird without gloves, but if he did this more, he could get used to it.

“Hunter, I care about you a lot, okay? I want to spend time with you too. Not just for derby. Just because. And as part of that, we’ll find ways to show it that don’t make you cry. Unless they’re happy tears.”

The knotted strands inside him, twisting and taut between hope and measured want and Willow, slacken and come undone. The solution was simple in the end. 

This is kindness. This is not having to form himself in the vision of someone else. This is wanting to grow upwards, towards her and with her.

Hunter finds Willow's shoulders and squeezes her back. He feels foolish. He feels stupid. He feels loved. 

“I've never cried this much in front of another person,” he admits. He realizes he’s not being complete, and adds with too much honesty, “or ever.”

“Maybe it’s good that you started.” She rubs his back.

“I don’t know what to do now. Do I— Can I kiss your cheek? That went okay earlier.”

“Please.” She turns, offering. “If you want to.”

He does, beneath the point of her face paint. It’s soft and warm beneath his lips, streaked with the shooting star trail of a shed tear.

“Okay, um, your house is coming up,” he sniffles. “Time to say goodnight.”

He holds her hand as she opens the window and climbs inside, not really present outside his head. His ears are hotter than fire bees. His insides are as gooey and slow-moving as their honey.

She waves goodbye. He lingers outside, not sure how to leave, not sure what happens next.

Flapjack chirps at Willow from the staff.

“Hunter has more to say?” Willow goes back to the window, meeting the sunflowers.

Hunter had picked them for their color and not for any hidden meaning. It hadn’t occurred to him that flowers even had meanings. Since then, she’s adorned the lip of the makeshift pot with homemade Emerald Entrails stickers, drawn in marker and pen.

“If we’re going to do this, come in. My dads are absolutely eavesdropping right now.” She leans out the window and shouts to the first floor, “Cover your ears!”

What does Hunter have to say? Again Flapjack has thrown him into the surf. There’s nothing for him to do but swim on. The only way out is through.

Surrounded by the flyer derby posters on Willow’s wall, Hunter has a different reaction to their expressions and their vigor. He competed with them and was worthy. Their crazed expressions aren’t adversarial but encouraging.

He notes that Willow has already put up their photo with matching stars and matching jackets besides the flag that Stabitha signed. Willow’s handwriting has labeled it FIRST DATE? The question mark is dotted with a heart.

Hunter takes a breath. “That didn’t end right, so um, I call do-over. I know that’s not a flyer derby thing, but go with it.” He waves his hands. “You were right. Caleb was fun, but I think he needs to rest for a while. Just Hunter from now on, sound good?”

Hunter takes off his jacket and folds it over his arm. The blocky white 02 is fuzzy under his fingers. The name over it is a lie. His skin radiates heat.

“I want you to know that, um, I like authority and rules.” He starts with the easy part that’s long been true. So far so good. He takes a breath in, visualizing victory. “And flyer derby.” 

He remembers to wipe off the smeared remains of his face paint. It’s a part of Caleb. His hands come away green. Now he’s really Hunter again, if a little overdressed. He undoes the top button of his collar. He doesn’t need luck anymore.

His lips part in anticipation of the next words. “And I like you, Willow. A lot. So much it scares me, more than I can say.”

“What a coincidence.” Willow closes the space between them. She looks around at her walls, proof of her flyer derby enthusiasm on display, held up by thumbtacks and tape. Then she looks at him. “I like you, Hunter. A lot. I don’t scare easily, but I was scared tonight too.” She smiles at him. His legs give way again, but she’s there to catch him.

She takes off her jacket and magics off her face paint. “So if you want to spend more time together, you can come to my house before practice. I’ll let you think about it, okay? We’ll figure ourselves out.”

Hunter nods slowly, less than certain. “We will.” It feels like lying, but so has every dream he’s ever had. “And I’ll bring my jacket. We can sew HUNTER on the back, like you said. I hope you're a better tailor than I am, but I have a feeling, maybe things will be okay.” He bites his lip, remembering how the last time he held a needle made great things happen in unexpected ways.

She helps him out the window. Their hands are hot against each other. He’s glad he’s not wearing gloves.

“See you soon, just Hunter.”

“You too, just Willow.”

She blows him a kiss goodnight.

He catches it in his hands. He hovers above the roof for a long time, wondering what to do with it, sheltering it in his palm like a flame against the wind. At last, he holds it against his chest and lets it in.

Flapjack chirps in question.

“Just a sec, Flap.” Hunter starts a group message with Willow and Gus. hEY Gus, thnks,for,helping us tonihgt.

Willow responds, Gus for MVP! Let us know when you’re ready to make a move on Matty ;)

Gus sends a solid block of happy crying emojis.

SOMEThing,else to.look.froward.too:: Hunter sends the picture of himself and Willow in matching green jackets with matching green stars on their faces. His ears are red. Hers are too. He hadn’t noticed.

Gus texts back YES with impossibly many esses, then OH YOU MEANT THE JACKETS!!! and a facepalm.

“And thank you, Flap, as usual, for everything.”

Hunter puts his scroll away, dries his eyes, and clears his mind to fly. On the way to the castle, he thinks of what excuse he’ll use to go to Willow’s house before practice, how he’ll prepare. He’ll ask Gus and Flapjack for help.