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Hunter lifted his ankle up, bending his knee almost awkwardly just so he could see the back of his foot. Walking from south to north campus absolutely drained him, and the blisters on his feet definitely didn’t agree with the four flights of stairs he had to climb just for his chemistry lab.
“Hunter Caleb Noceda!” Hunter jumped at the sudden intrusion, nearly falling from his top bunk bed as he swung his leg back to a normal position.
“Agustus,” He replied.
“Okay, don’t laugh, you’re not allowed to laugh,” Gus started. Hunter raised his eyebrows in question. Gus stood slightly awkwardly at the door to their dorm, not really in a position to leave, but not entering the room wholly to close the door, either. “Dooo… you know how to use those locks on the mailboxes?”
“You don’t?”
“NO! I can, I do. Ican’treallyreach—” Gus mumbled something that Hunter didn’t quite catch. He descended the side of the bunked beds and began to slip a pair of socks back on, accepting this conversation probably wouldn’t end in the dorm.
“What was that?”
“Man, don’t tease me.”
“No, really, I didn’t hear you the first time. It’s okay if you can’t work the lock.”
“I can! I swear. I, ah, I can’t reach it.”
Hunter paused mid-grab for his keys. “Wait, really?”
“Dude, I’m about five-two on a good day, with shoes, and you picked the dorm on the fourth floor.” Gus turned and groaned into his hands, flopping onto his own bed. Hunter closed the door a bit more, so it was at least just ajar instead of fully open . “And, you’re, like, nine feet tall at least.”
“I’m six-three.”
“That’s a foot on me. More. You should’ve majored in being tall. Minored in being-mean-to-me.” Gus spared a glance and quickly added: “Not really, you’re nice to me. Would be even nicer if you got it for meee.”
Hunter smiled. Hunter was doing better with really believing it when his friends said they loved him, and that love came as a package deal with all their teasing, especially Gus. Nonetheless, he appreciated Gus’ constant reassurance, even if sometimes he felt childish, it really did help. “Get up. Do you want me to get the package? Because I’m not walking downstairs for this alone.”
Gus fake sobbed into his hands, before abruptly jumping to attention. All signs of fake sadness suddenly gone, a large, appreciative smile in its place. “Okay.”
Hunter laughed and let Gus out the door before him, locking it and following Gus to the stairwell.
“Also—” Gus started as they approached the lounge at the bottom of the steps, “Don’t look at the package, by the way, when you pull it out.”
“Why?”
“Just don’t,” Gus whined. “Pretty please?”
Hunter made a face but otherwise nodded and walked up to the wall of lockers. Gus stood slightly behind him to his right.
“It’s fourteen, twenty, forty-four.”
“Thank you.” Hunter stood at the lock, near perfectly at eye level (if anything, a little lower). He glanced to his side and the mental image of Gus on his tip toes trying to even see the top of the knob, let alone know if he’s really putting in the right combination, made him laugh under his breath a little. Gus was extremely talented, you don’t skip two grades and get a free ride based on nothing, but he still had every capacity to look a little goofy, everyone does.
“I know what you’re laughing about, man. I don’t need height to win, I know what I’m about.”
“I know you do.” Hunter returned his attention to the lock. Twisting the right combinations, clockwise twice, counter once, clockwise to the final—
Nothing happened.
He tugged on the small knob again, hoping it just got caught on something, only to be met with the same resistance.
He groaned under his breath and repeated the process. The door stayed shut.
Gus noticed his slight frustration building. “I remember I asked the guy at the desk, he helped a bit with the first package, y’know, the notebook. He opened it but I couldn’t see—Well, he kinda covered the whole thing, I don’t think it mattered what vertical level my vision was at. Whatever.” Gus mumbled a bit at the last bit, voice already low from the public area. Hunter took note of whether or not this was something that might’ve actually bothered Gus, mentally storing it away for later.
Another try, stuck still.
Another.
“Do you need help?”
Hunter jumped and felt his ears droop, face heating at the sound of a familiar voice. How long had she been watching him mess up and struggle to even just open a simple lock?
"Oh, I didn't mean to scare you.”
Hunter made a pouty face at it “You didn’t scare me you—“
“Startle you, my bad.”
“Hush, hi Willow. Uh, no I’m good I think,” Hunter mumbled.
“He can't open that thing.”
“Gus!”
Willow laughed softly. “Let me try?”
He deliberated for a bit, finally pursing his lips and stepping to the side to give Willow space. “Fourteen, twenty, forty-four.”
She had a similar problem to Gus, but not nearly to the same degree. At least when she stood on her toes, she could see the top of the knob. She quickly, yet carefully, manipulated the lock into the right combination. With a final twist and a tug, it finally—
Stayed shut.
“Wait—,” Willow started. Hunter felt a twinge of relief (and slight guilt at the thought) that she had the same issue.
Willow tried again, to be met with the same results.
“Are you sure that’s the combination, Hunter?”
Hunter looked at Gus.
“Yeah, man, look.” Gus took a few moments to pull up a picture on his scroll, presenting it to the two. Sure enough, the slip clearly, in impressively neat handwriting, presented the combination. “Maybe it’s cursed. Maybe we’re cursed.”
“We aren’t cursed.” Hunter sighed and gave it another try as well.
Frustratingly, nothing.
For a bit, they all sat in a peaceful yet collectively slightly-annoyed aura.
Gus sighed. “Alright, that’s fine. To be honest, I can just ask the front desk about it later.”
Another voice joined in, “Or you can ask about it now.”
Hunter jumped slightly (not scared, just startled.) as someone else joined their group. He vaguely recognized them from dorm introductions, and knew they were an upperclassman. Aside from that, though, he never really talked to them.
“Ohh, Q, hi! Yes, this is definitely not embarrassing. Cann you open that mailbox? Or I guess just grab the package from the back anyway, I can confirm my identity.” Gus was already reaching into his bag to grab his I.D. before Q began walking up to the locker anyway.
“No,” they started, “you don’t have to, I recognize you from when you were trying to open it earlier and Ávante helped you out. Can I see that picture?”
“Oh.” Gus slowly returned his bag to his side. “Alright, coolio.” (The amount of human slang Gus picked up from Luz was honestly impressive.) He pulled up the picture of the slip with the combination on it and presented it to Q, squatting down after they repeated the numbers to themself.
“Okay, so the trick is you have to actually turn it back to get the hatch to do its thing at the end.” They began twisting the knob through the combination, when they got to the final one, they stepped to the side to let the group see. Then, they suddenly twisted it backwards, and pulled on the knob, finally revealing the just-barely-fit-in-there package.
Hunter heaved a heavy sigh. “Oh Titan’s fist, thank you so much.”
Q smiled and handed the package to Hunter. “Yeah, of course. If you ever need anything, don’t hesitate to ask me or another RA.” They returned to the back area after that, leaving the three to stand in the lobby.
Hunter sighed gently. “Thank you anyway, Willow.”
“Yeah, it’s whatever. My ego’s only bruised a bit. What did you get?” Willow moved to look at the small parcel, before Gus jumped up from where he was squatting against the wall, waiting for the mail to be retrieved.
“Hey-o, thank you! Don’t look at this.”
“I wasn’t going to!”
Gus made a face towards Hunter and jumped to wrap his arms around Willow. “You’re the bestest everest, thank you.”
Willow laughed and returned the bear hug. “I didn’t even open it! Also, I didn’t know it was your package, sorry Gus. Why was Hunter opening it?”
“No reason. Wait, actually, it’s good that you’re both here. Do you want to come to our dorm, Willow?”
Hunter startled. “Wait, like, right now?”
“Oh, sure, why not?” Willow said.
Hunter gave a strained smile, hoping it wasn’t showing on his face too much. His desk was a mess right now.
“Is that okay, Hunter?”
“Hm?” Gus was actually surprisingly good with keeping boundaries set, even Hunter’s own, which Hunter himself had a small issue actually enforcing.
“Okay if she comes? Now?”
“Oh, yes.” Hunter paused. “Uh, let me go in first, I want to pick up my desk a bit.”
“Alright, cool beans.”
After a few moments of climbing steps and walking down the long hall, which received many ‘Hunter why did you pick the fourth floor what’s wrong with you,’ Hunter was picking up the various scattered notebooks on his desk.
He faintly heard Willow and Gus talking out in the hall and tried to calm his heart a bit. It was honestly ridiculous. Willow and him have had long, long conversations ranging from ‘wow that cat is cute’ to ‘what do you think about the transitive state of the conscious?’ Her simply seeing his living space is not something that should be bothering him, yet here they are.
After a once over of everything, and tossing some of Gus’ clothes into the hamper, he popped his head out the door.
“Hi.”
“Hi Hunter.”
Gus didn’t bother with a greeting, simply using Hunter’s shoulder as leverage to propel himself into the room. Collectively, they decided to sitting on the carpet.
“Do you wanna play cards?” Willow leaned back into the carpet, reaching into her bags.
“You’re turning into Eda ever since you learned that game. Do you always have those on you.”
“Not always, Hunter. Only most-of-the-ways.”
Gus started opening the package in front of them, which immediately got both their attention. “I actually wanna give this to you guys before we play anything. Also, I’m making the executive decision that we play the Mao game Luz showed us.”
“Minus the silence?” Willow asked.
“What do you take me for? Boring? Of course minus the silence.”
Hunter raised a hand.
“This isn’t a school, dude.”
He ignored Gus’ comment. “You were so adamant about us not seeing that.” He pointed to the half open package.
“Oh,” Gus started, “Yeah, that’s because it’s a gift for you guys. All of use, actually. I had a moment downstairs, but I just remembered since we’re all here I can just give it to you guys now.”
Willow laughed at Hunter’s confused expression.
“Gus you’re weird, and sweet. What is it?”
“Don’t be mean to mee,” Gus whined. “Look.”
He finally presented the package to them. Three clear baggies filled with paper protective wrap was held in his hand.
“Wow, paper. I love this Gus, thank you.”
“Don’t play.” Gus smiled and started opening them. “I don’t know which is which, I’m just going to open them and give them to the right one of us.”
As he opened it, he revealed a small red earring. Hunter looked closer and realized it was a bird—a red bird earring.
He simply looked up at Gus, words caught in his throat.
“Okay, this is Hunter’s. No, save the tears for, like, half a second.”
The next one was a lighter blue bird, which he placed in his own lap. The last one was yellow, belonging to Willow.
“It’s—uhm.” Gus wasn’t one to be nervous about this kind of stuff. It was hard for Hunter to offer any kind of assistance when he was too busy trying not to let the tight ball in his chest manifest into tears. He turned the earring over in his hand. Gus continued, “They’re matching earrings. I know you guys were planning on getting tattoos, which still do, because that’s so cool, but my dad doesn’t want me getting one until I’m older. I wanted to still have this though and be with you on this one. Plus I loved Flapjack. I wanted it to be us three because I love Amity and Luz, but also it’s nice when it’s just us sometimes. Like an emerald trio, I don’t know. They’re our favorite colors.
“Sorry, I don’t know why I’m so nervous, honestly. Uh, do you guys like them?” Gus glanced up at Willow and Hunter across from them.
At some point, Hunter gave up and there were silent tears coming down his face, Willow similarly looked a little emotional.
Gus pursed his lips. “Man, don’t cry. I’m gonna cry.”
“I love this, Gus. Wow, I…” Hunter turned the earring over again.
Willow laughed, a little wetly but still breaking the heavy atmosphere. “Is this why you begged me and Hunter to get our ears pierced.”
Hunter smiled and looked up at Gus, standing to pick up his baggie of medicine.
“Nooo… Yesss… Yeah.”
“In love it too, Gus. Thank you. Honestly, I like when its all five—six of us, with Vee, but I also like something about when it’s just us three.”
Hunter sat down in the circle again, antiseptic and napkin in hand. After removing the earring already in place and swiping the cloth against the new earring and his ear a few times, he put the new one in place. Willow immediately grabbed the cloth from him and wet a new area with the alcohol, doing the same.
Gus simply placed his earring in, no cleaning necessary, earning a halfhearted eyebrow raise from Hunter and a simple whiny ‘Guss’ from Willow, a ‘it’s already healed’ from Gus himself.
All three of them stood in the hanging door mirror.
“I feel like we’re in a family portrait.”
Willow wrapped her arms around the two of them, maybe a bit too tightly with her strength. “Yeah, ‘cause we’re familyyy.” She swayed them all back and forth.
“I love you both,” Hunter mumbled.
Gus looked up to him with a slightly-shocked smile, Willow with much of the same.
“Awwwe, Hunter you’re soft now!”
“Shh.”
“The wolf inside emo Hunter is no more.”
“I take it back.”
“Loving, domestic Hunter is the only Hunter available now.”
Hunter groaned and pressed his hands to his face.
Gus looked back at the mirror and gasped, pulling out his scroll. “Look at this thing Luz sent me, the moving picture thing. It’s just like us, for real.”
---
They moved back to the carpet, eventually, Willow’s cards spread out among them. At some point, the late hour became more and more apparent, and Willow started to put her stuff together to leave.
“Wait.” Gus perked up a bit. He opened his mouth to seemingly say something else, but turned to Hunter first. He leaned in towards and whispered, hand cupped almost comically around where Gus was whispering, “Can we have a sleepover? Pleaseee.”
Hunter let out a startled laugh. “We have one every night now, Gus.”
“No! Willow!”
“Oh!” Hunter laughed.
“Me?”
“Sure,” Hunter said. He very purposefully ignored the idea of sharing a sleeping space with Willow. He’s literally done so before, whatever it was that was so different about it now evaded him, leaving him with only the confused fluttery feeling in his stomach.
“You!” Gus smiled and looked at Willow. “It’s Friday. Do you wanna sleepover here?”
“Oh!” Willow put her stuff back down. “Yeah, oohhh, yes sure! That will be fun, wait let me get my sleep stuff from my dorm I’ll be back.”
“Coolio. Oh! Get blankets.”
As she left, Hunter and Gus began setting up pillows and blankets on the carpet, pulling Gus’ mattress to the floor and turned to Gus, still fidgeting with the earring in his ear. At some point it got a little red from the constant attention, but Hunter was a bit particular about wound care and had been applying the antiseptic every so often. “Thank you, Gus, seriously. This means a lot to me.”
Gus smiled and leaned into Hunter, falling into his lap. “No problem, it means a lot to me, too.”
Hunter started gently fidgeting with Gus’ new locs. It was a new hairstyle, and right now they looked more like long buds that kind of went in more random directions than the longer locs. Gus had asked for his and Darius’ help with maintaining them every so often. Gus was good with hair care, but Darius was better and Gus’ dad hadn’t really taught him much in that field. Hunter had been helping him with respinning and maintaining the sections.
At some point, Gus had started begging Darius to tell him that he could add small plastic star beads to them that Luz gifted him from the human realm, but Darius was insistent that his locs weren’t quite there yet, which was the source of many groans and teenage woes.
They sat in comfortable silence for a bit, Hunter playing with the locs as gently as possible, though Gus had reassured him that they weren’t actually that fragile anymore in the later stages now (he still wanted to be gentle).
“Also,” Gus mumbled, “I love you too, Hunter.”
Hunter paused his fidgeting. Gus was laying on his lap on his side, so Hunter couldn’t really see his face. “Thank you.”
If at some point in the night Willow rolled over towards Hunter and whispered the same, then that’s that.