Hunter loves Edric. He loves everything about him.

No matter how much he used to try to lie to himself and say he found Edric annoying, he couldn't help but find all those annoying traits endearing. He doesn't even know when he had stopped lying to himself and finally accepted that he was in love.

He couldn't pinpoint one specific moment when he fell in love. With Edric, it felt like he was constantly falling more and more in love.

...

When they had first met, Hunter had been a paranoid runaway and constantly felt stressed. He'd hid himself within Hexside until Adrian Graye showed up and Hunter had to help stop him from branding the students with sigils. After that, he'd been bombarded with questions by dozens of Hexolios (Is that what they were called? Hunter knew that's what Luz called them, but he didn't know if it was an official title). As he struggled to answer all their questions without having a mental breakdown, a green haired witch caught his attention.

He braced himself for some sort of anger or aggression from the Blight boy. After all, he'd probably heard plenty of horrible things about Hunter from his sister. Hunter wouldn't blame him if he hated him (especially after he'd attacked Baby Blight at Eclipse Lake).

To his surprise, the Blight boy didn't seem upset at all. He just smiled and asked, "Have you ever sneezed with your mask on?"

Hunter hesitated before replying, "I think I did. Yes?"

"That's gross, man."

Hunter couldn't help but smile.

...

The next time Hunter had a chance to talk to Edric, it was after Belos had been defeated.

Hunter had already gone with Willow and Gus and met their parents. He felt awkward standing around while they were all crying together after being separated for months, so he left to find Luz. When he found her, she was talking to the Owl Lady, Raine, and that bird-dog-thing, so he walked away.

While he wandered around aimlessly, he'd run into Darius, who'd given him a pat on the head and told him he was proud. He left soon after to help Lilith, Eberwolf, and Steve make sure the other coven heads didn't escape and lock them up.

Hunter soon found himself standing alone in a corner, watching people chatting happily.

When he felt a hand land on his shoulder, he jumped and turned to smack whoever it was in the face. He stopped just before making contact with Edric's nose.

Edric looked at him with wide eyes and held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Sorry, man. I didn't mean to scare you."

Hunter scoffed in embarrassment and slight anger. He didn't get scared, and he wasn't going to let anyone think that he did. "I wasn't scared. If anything, you were the one who was scared."

"Well, yeah! You were gonna punch me! And you have like 15 years of combat training or something. You would have obliterated my nose, and I just got my face out of a cast."

At the mention of the cast, Hunter finally noticed that the rest of the boy's body was still wrapped up. The casts on his arms seemed broken, though. The Blight boy noticed Hunter staring at his arms and spoke up, "Don't worry, Goldie. The casts were broken before I came up to you. I accidentally broke 'em while trying to hug my dad."

He really needed to stop hugging people. Hunter remembered Edric had broken his cast trying to hug his sister the last time they'd seen each other. They hadn't had a chance to talk then because of the battle, even though Hunter desperately wanted to find out what had caused him to need a full body cast. He finally had a chance to satisfy his curiosity now, so he took it. "What'd you end up doing to need that cast anyways?"

Edric smiled and started talking excitedly. "Well, I was walking through the forest to gather some food for the Hexagons-"

"Hexagons?"

"Yeah, Hexside students."

"I thought they were called Hexolios."

Edric shrugged. "Everyone has a different name for them. Em says it's Hexsidians, and her girlfriend says Hexites. Anyway, I was getting some food, when all of a sudden, I saw the Collector's stars coming for me, so I ran, but then I reached a dead end. On one side, there was the stars, and on the other, there was a cliff. And as you know, I wasn't captured by the collector, so I jumped off the cliff."

"And you broke your bones?"

"No, silly. I landed in the mouth of a slitherbeast."

"I thought that lived at the top of the Knee."

"It does, but it was on vacation." Hunter looked at Edric confused, but decided to ignore it and let Edric carry on with his story. "Then, it spit me out and told me I tasted like shit. Well, technically, it told Batric, and then Batric told me. I've been learning to speak bat recently. Either that, or Batric learned English. Sorry, I'm getting distracted. I ended up getting back to Hexside just fine, but when I looked up, I saw one of the pre-schoolers crawling on the edge of the roof. I had to save them, so I ran inside and up the stairs as fast as I could, but I dropped some of the food as I went. I slipped on it and fell down the stairs."

"And that's when you broke your bones?"

"Nah. I made it to the roof and was reaching to grab the pre-schooler, and that's when I realized, it wasn't a pre-schooler, it was Miki."

Hunter laughed, "Kiki must've been so pissed when you thought she was a toddler."

"Yeah. I went up to her later to apologize, but when I tried to hug her, she had Roka throw me against the wall."

"And that's when you broke your bones?"

"Yep. Abomatons are a lot stronger than I thought they were."

"You need to stop hugging people."

"Maybe, but I'm not gonna."

Before they can talk anymore, Edric gets dragged into another conversation with a brown haired witch and a dog. Edric turns around to give Hunter a quick wave, and Hunter awkwardly holds up his own hand in reply (and no matter what anyone tells you, he definitely was not hoping Edric would have hugged him before he left).

---

A few months later, the Emerald Entrails were about to have their first game of the new school year. Hunter had now become an official part of the team after joining Hexside in the potions, beast keeping, and healing tracks.

He'd been getting closer with Ed, since they had potions and beast keeping together. It also helped that their friend groups were blending together. Willow, Luz, and Gus were friends with Viney, who was friends with Ed and Emira, both of whom had decided to become the unofficial cheerleaders of the Entrails.

As Hunter walked onto the flyer derby field, he found himself subconsciously scanning the bleachers for green hair. When he didn't see Ed in the usual spot he sat in while watching their practices, he felt slightly disappointed. He's probably running late. He'll be here. He wouldn't miss the first game. Besides, Emira's not going to miss out on watching her girlfriend play.

He continued sneaking occasional glances towards the bleachers as the team continued their warm-up before eventually sighing in defeat when Ed didn't appear.

Soon enough, the game starts, and the two teams fly up on their palismen. Hunter was still sneaking occasional glances towards the stands, which was causing him to be off his game. He missed what should have been an easy shot at stealing one of the other team's flags. Focus, Hunter. You can't let the team down. (And, if Edric shows up, you can't be losing).

With renewed focus, Hunter teleports over to the nearest Glandus player and yanks their flag before teleporting towards the flagpole. The Hexside crowd cheers, and Hunter smiles, especially when he hears a loud yell, "YEAH! GO GOLDIE!" He doesn't need to look to know who it is.

The last flag is captured by Skara, who swoops down to high five Gus and Viney while they cheer excitedly from the bench. Hunter and Willow fly down to join them. Before they join the rest of the group, Willow stops Hunter with a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay? I noticed you were off at the start of the game," she asks with concern.

"I'm fine. I was just distracted. Sorry, captain."

"I'm not your captain right now; I'm your friend. So, tell me honestly, was it because of a certain Blight brother?" her serious face morphs into a smug smile. She knows she's right about why he was distracted.

"WhAt?! NO! I was just- How'd you-" Hunter stumbles over his words as Willow laughs at his defensiveness.

They join with the rest of their team as Hunter continues to halfheartedly defend himself. They all talk excitedly, recapping their favorite moments of the game, until Viney stands up and waves to someone over Hunter's shoulder. It must be Emira, which means Ed is coming too. Although, that wasn't always the case anymore. Emira was trying to be more independent and gain an identity outside of being one of the Blight twins. Ed was trying his best to respect her wishes, but Hunter could tell he was struggling.

Emira runs up and tackles her girlfriend, and Hunter notices she's wearing a cheerleader outfit. Viney laughs before asking Emira, "You're really taking being the team cheerleaders seriously. I could hear you guys chanting the entire game."

"Hey! Don't downplay our work. We had a whole cheer routine too," Emira argues before turning to Hunter. "You look like you've been waiting to ask me something. In case you're wondering, Ed's trying to figure out how to let go of his pompoms. He accidentally glued them to his hands."

Right as she said that, Ed walked over, pompoms in hand. Hunter couldn't help but think he looked adorable in that outfit, and he didn't have to look to know that Willow was smirking at him. He did, however, look when a mini Gus illusion appeared on his shoulder and whispered, "You like him," in what was possibly the most annoying voice ever.

Edric was still furiously trying to free his hands while rolling around on the ground until Emira finally decided to free her twin from his misery. He jumped into her arms and threw his hand onto his forehead before exclaiming, "Thank you dear sister. How can I ever repay you?"

"By getting out of my arms," Emira replies dryly.

Ed stands back up with a dramatic frown before immediately shifting to a grin when he saw Hunter. "Goldie! You were amazing up there."

"Uh... thanks. You too," Hunter says before he fully processes what he's saying. Shit. Why did I say 'you too.' He wasn't playing. He's going to think you're such a dumbass. Hunter awkwardly tries to recover his mistake. "I mean 'you too' because you were awesome at cheerleading. It was very cheerful."

The embarrassment is all worth it though to hear Edric's laugh.

---

Hunter stared at the ruins of the palace in front of him and tried to prepare himself to walk in. He needed to do this. He needed to get over his fear, and maybe it would make the nightmares stop too.

Hunter felt like chickening out, but he had to go in. He was going to help the Owl Lady and Luz make their new school, The University of Wild Magic.

While he knew that Luz and Eda would understand if he decided he didn't want to enter the palace, he also knew that he'd have to face his fears eventually. Might as well do it with his friends by his side.

Speaking of his friends, it seemed they were finally arriving. Gus, Matt, Luz, and Willow were the first to show up. He was surprised that Amity hadn't come with them. She and Luz had been inseparable lately now that they had the freedom and free time to be able to go on dates without worrying about overthrowing the government.

Willow and Gus came up to his side and each grabbed one of his hands with a squeeze of reassurance as they walked into the palace with him. Looking around gave him a deep feeling of dread, but that's what he was here to fix. They'd make the palace so unrecognizable that hopefully it wouldn't remind people of the fear under Belos's reign, and instead, would make newer, happier memories to replace the old ones.

Once Eda arrived with Lilith, Raine, and King, the group of witches got to work restoring and rebuilding the palace into a homier feeling school.

After about an hour of working, Amity arrived with her siblings and the Entrails in tow. "Sorry I'm late. Ed takes forever to get ready," she states while rolling her eyes.

"Hey! I'm not that slow," Ed pouts.

"Sure, Ed," Em says sarcastically while patting his head.

As soon as Edric spots Hunter, he runs up to him and starts excitedly chatting his ear off as they continue their work. Hunter clings onto his every word and finds himself not as focused on the nightmares that the castle brought. Soon enough, the group is done for the day, and Hunter finds himself glad that he had Edric by his side the whole day.

Over the next couple of days, the group of people working on the construction continues to grow, and soon enough, they're done.

"We did it, Goldie. We should go out for some eye-scream to celebrate."

Hunter smiles dorkily, "Sure."

"Race ya," Edric calls out while jumping on his butterfly palisman and flying away.

Hunter quickly gets on Waffles before zooming after him.

Despite his late start, Hunter beats Edric to the eye-scream store. As Edric slides off of his palisman, he jokingly complains, "Not fair. You cheated with your teleportation," while knowing full well that Hunter hadn't teleported during the entire race.

They both walk into the store and get their desserts before Edric drags Hunter over to a nearby grassy area and plops down into the field of flowers. He pats a spot beside him, indicating for Hunter to sit down. They both talk and laugh while eating their eye-screams before laying down in the field as Edric points out cloud shapes to Hunter. Hunter finds himself arguing over what animals the clouds are, and soon it devolves into him geeking out and telling Edric all the facts he learned about clouds from the libraries in the Human Realm. When he realizes he's rambling, he starts to cut himself off until he sees Edric genuinely listening to him, not seeming annoyed at all. With renewed confidence, Hunter continues on spouting everything he knows, happy that for once, someone was listening.

---

It was Hunter's 17th birthday. Honestly, it could be considered his 1st birthday, given that he'd never actually had one before. Belos never gave him a birthday. Instead, Hunter got to choose his own. He hadn't told anyone the reasoning behind his new birthday. Only Gus and Camila ma'am would be able to guess.

He left his room in the Owl House and saw Luz and King putting up balloons and other decorations. Vee and Camila were finishing decorating his cake, and Eda was keeping Hooty under control. Luz looks up at him. "Mornin' Hunter. We were gonna do a surprise party, but I figured you wouldn't be a huge fan of that."

Hunter nodded appreciatively before helping Luz and King finish up.

Around noon, people started showing up at the Owl House and wishing him happy birthday. He cut his cake, opened his gifts, played stupid party games that he got overly competitive in, and honestly, it was nice. It was one of the nicest days of Hunter's life.

Eventually, most of the guests left, and the remaining Owl House residents went to bed. Hunter found himself staring at the ceiling with no signs of falling asleep soon, so instead, he got up and decided to take a small walk through the woods with Waffles trailing behind him.

He walks for about ten minutes before hearing a rustle in the bushes. Cautiously, he creeps towards the bush as Waffles turns into a staff in his hands. He jumps back and barely stops himself from attacking when Edric jumps out of the bush with a small animal in his hands. After a closer look, Hunter realizes its a small wolf, about the size of a palisman. "HUNTER! Look, I found a wolf. I heard they're from the human realm. I'm actually not completely sure if this is an actual wolf, 'cause we don't have them on the Isles, but still its super cool. I've never seen one of these before. Wanna pet it?"

Hunter wasn't sure if that was entirely safe, but he did really like wolves, so he decided to ignore his reservations and crouch down next to Edric. Slowly, he reached out his hand and touched the soft fur of the animal. He wasn't sure how Edric always got so many animals to follow him around. It seemed like everywhere he went, Ed would acquire a new pet. They both sit in silence for a bit as Hunter holds the wolf before Edric decides to speak up again.

"I didn't give you your gift earlier today," he says while holding out a neatly wrapped box. Hunter takes it from his hands and starts peeling off the tape to avoid tearing the wrapping because the design looked cool, and he was considering hanging it on his wall later. Inside was the latest edition of Cosmic Frontier with a signed note from the author on front that said Happy Birthday Hunter.

Hunter looked up with awe. "How'd you get this? It isn't supposed to be released for another month!"

Edric laughed nervously, "It's a long story." And Hunter listened to the entire weird, long, and entirely Edric story, laughing and joking throughout.

---

School's over now, and Hunter has a job. He started his apprenticeship with Mr. Clawthorne over the school year, and now that he's graduated, he can make it a full time job. He finishes carving the latest palisman before cleaning up his workstation and telling Mr. Clawthorne he's leaving for the day.

As he finishes strapping on his roller skates, Willow rolls in, and together they race off to meet with Gus to hang out with him after he finishes his tutoring shift at Eda's school. It's become a routine for them now. Willow comes from Hexside to meet with Hunter after he finishes work, and they both go to Gus who has early release from Hexside to volunteer as a tutor with Eda. On weekends, Willow comes to the Owl House after going to the gym, and the two of them hang out alone or with Luz for a bit, since Gus is usually at the graveyard with Mattholomule. Weekends are also when Hunter gets to spend time with Edric, since during the weekdays, they're both busy with their respective jobs.

They make it to Hexside earlier than normal, and Willow takes advantage of the spare time to interrogate him (maybe that's a bit dramatic, but what could he say, Edric was rubbing off on him) "How are things going with Edric?"

At this point, Hunter's given up on trying to hide his crush from her. "I haven't told him yet, if that's what you're asking."

"C'mon Hunter. Just ask him out already. You have to believe in yourself. You can do it."

"Ooo. Is Hunter finally going on a date with Edric?" Gus asks as he pops up beside them.

"I'll do it," Hunter says.

Just as Gus starts cheering, Willow cuts him off. "You've done this before where you don't specify when. You are not going to put this off forever. We won't let you."

"Yeah!" Gus agrees.

Hunter resigns himself to a life of forever being annoyed by his best friends pushing him to ask a guy out.

---

The following weekend, Hunter meets Ed as he's leaving his potions-making job. He can do this. All he needs to do is walk up and ask Ed to go on a date with him.

Hunter wipes his sweaty palms on his tunic as he gathers up the courage to talk to Edric. Edric sees him and waves enthusiastically. "Hey, Hunter!"

"Greetings and goodbye." Hunter spins around to walk away, but Edric pulls him back.

"Are you okay dude?" Edric looks at him with concern.

"Skating us do." Hunter wants to bury himself in a hole as Edric looks at him with a mixture of confusion and wanting to laugh.

"Are you asking me to skate with you?" Edric says with a lopsided smile. Hunter has no clue how Edric managed to understand his mangled English well enough to get the message, but it just makes him like Edric even more. Hunter doesn't trust himself to speak, though, so he just nods in response. Edric looks embarrassed for a second before admitting, "I would love to, but I don't know how to skate."

"Teach me... uh.. teach you. I mean, I can teach you." Great job Hunter. You definitely didn't horribly mess that up.

Edric lights up. "That would be awesome, man! Thank you so much!" He looks like he wants to say something else, but he stops himself.

Hopefully Edric didn't think it was too weird that Hunter just happened to have an extra pair of skates that day.

Edric put on the skates and stood up before immediately falling back over. Edric adjusts his glasses, and Hunter laughs and holds out a hand to help him up. "You have to have your knees shoulder-width apart and don't forget to bend them slightly," Hunter explains as Edric struggles to balance himself.

Once Edric is able to stand, Hunter moves on to the actual skating part. "It's probably easy enough. It should be just like sock skating, right," Edric asks.

Hunter doesn't exactly know how to answer. He's never sock skated. Edric doesn't wait for an answer anyway. He just pushes off and moves his legs back and forth, which doens't move him anywhere. "You have to push your feet out at an angle."

The day continues like that with Hunter helping Ed learn how to skate until eventually they're racing each other. Hunter wouldn't admit to it if someone asked, but he did slow down to let Ed get close to winning to see the triumphant smile on his face because according to Ed, even if he didn't win, he still almost beat Hunter.

---

Hunter thinks he'll finally do it. Since the day spent rollerskating a month ago, he and Ed have been on a couple more almost dates. They're on one right now, sitting in that same grassy field by the eye-scream shop that they went to back when Hunter was still 16. The shop is closed already with it being nearly midnight, but Hunter and Edric are just laying in the field looking at the stars. Edric is telling him about Pollux and Castor. "...and did you know that Castor is a double star?" Edric continues spouting out facts while occasionally going on unrelated tangents, and Hunter continues hyping himself up.

Ed eventually moves on to rambling about the Orion constellation. "...and the Orion constellation is a Hunter, and your name is Hunter, so that's kinda cool-"

"You're cool."

"What?" Edric looks surprised and flustered as Hunter processes what he just said. No backing out now, so Hunter continues.

"You're cool, and I was wondering if you think it would be cool if we went on a date?" Hunter said while mumbling the last bit.

Edric just stared at him as Hunter awkwardly fiddled with his hands trying to distract himself from the sudden silence. Finally, Ed breaks the silence with one word. "Cool."

---

As Hunter was saying, he loves Edric. If there was one thing he's sure of in his life, it's that.

Hunter makes his way over to Edric who smiles at him like he does everytime they see each other. "Race ya!" Edric yells out while flying away. Hunter smiles and races after him as they make their way back to their field.

They sit in the grass eating their eye-screams as Edric tells him about a new potion he's working on. When Edric gets up as it's time for them to leave, Hunter kneels down. Nervously, he pulls a box out of his pocket. Before he can open it, Edric drops to one knee too and pulls out his own box. Hunter gawks for a second before bursting out into laughter, and Ed joins in. "I guess that means it's a yes?" Edric jokes.

"Yeah," Hunter says with a smile.

"Cool."

"Cool."

"I love you, Hunter."

Hunter grins, "I love you too, Edric," and Edric tackles him in a hug.

Hunter loves Edric, and Edric loves Hunter.

A/N: Hope you guys liked this. It took me a couple months to write because my motivation is a very on and off thing. If I ever get around to updating my art book, there will definitely be some drawings based off this fic in there.

As far as this book goes, I'm considering writing a second part where it's this fic told from Edric's point of view with some other interactions in it than the ones from this fic. Let me know if you guys would want to read that.

Other than that, I hope you guys are enjoying your day.

-Basilisk

12/10/23