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“Are you seriously still studying?” Mattholomule asked, darting his hand over to grab Gus’ pen. Gus swatted his hand away and frowned, shifting in his seat but not taking his eyes off of his paper.
“Yeah,” he responded simply. Matt rolled his eyes and shoved his hand in a bag of Pixie-Chips , crunching them obnoxiously. Gus broke his eyes from his paper and looked up at Matt with a scrutinizing glare. “Dude, this isn’t some random pop quiz, our future job prospects and apprenticeships and covens will look at these scores and if I flunk them, my whole future is —”
Matt stomped Gus’ foot under the table. “Ow, what the hell?” The pen slipped from his hand, skittering off the table. Matt turned to the right, away from Gus.
“Shut up. You’re so…”
“So what?” Gus stopped nursing his foot and nudged Matt so he’d look at him. Reluctantly, Matt turned back. He met Gus’s eyes and half-smiled for a moment, the kind of smile that grounds you to reality with the sincerity of it. Gus had known Matty for four years now, and the genuine way he smiled when he assumed nobody was watching was infectious. Gus smiled back, and Matt’s smile deepened. It wasn’t a sarcastic grin or a malice-laced smirk, Matt had a bonafide Smile with a capital S, and it was all for him.
“Stupid.” Matt left it at that and leaned back in his chair, feigning casualty. “You’re stressed now. But we both know what’s going to happen after you take them.” Gus’ interest piqued. He massaged his cramped palms in his lap and responded,
“What’s that?” Matt scoffed and shook his head, jerking forward and slamming all four chair legs back onto the ground, the thud reverberating across the empty H.A.S. clubroom. Matt threw an arm over Gus’ shoulder and leaned in close.
“You see,” Matty said, sloppily casting a one-handed construction spell and producing replicas of him and Gus, transforming an eraser and a paper clip respectively. The illusionist furrowed a brow and gave a slight smile at the magic — so similar to his own, but the way he produced replicas of people was in its own distinct style. “This is us. But…” Matt rose mini-Gus higher by placing it on a pencil case and flipped his own replica over onto its face. Satisfied with his work, he waved the hand not around Gus’ shoulder over his creations.
“...You’re going to ace the exams, and get some hoity-toity internship. Then, you’ll be a famous host, or you’ll revolutionize our views on humans, something world-changing.” Gus flushed and opened his mouth to retort. “I’m not finished, Gussy-boy, you are going to ace them, and I’ll be… I’ll be your sugar baby or something,” Matt finished.
The way Gus sputtered caused Matt to smile his Smile again, italicized and capitalized, patent-pending.
…
“And then, their own abomination tripped them on the way out!” Amity exclaimed, and laughter from the group rang out. Maybe it wasn’t that funny, but the combination of alcohol and the bittersweetness of school ending for good made everyone bask in the moment. The night air was sweet and everyone — the seemingly unbreakable group of Luz, Gus, Matt, Amity, and Willow — was perched on a small balcony Matt had constructed on the roof of The Owl House, double-reinforced with Willow’s vine magic and a few protection glyphs.
(Matt had bragged about how he probably didn’t even need the balcony before nearly slipping off the roof and being saved by Willow. It took Gus three full minutes to stop laughing.)
It’s graduation time, and the night was beautiful, starry and clear, and luckily not raining , with bottles of beer and seltzers smuggled from the human realm by Luz resting in the very middle in an enchanted cooler, next to an array of snacks made by Willow’s parents. They were all lounging on the rooftop, idly conversing and avoiding the somber topic of what’s after Hexside ?
Nobody wanted to spoil the night by bringing it up.
Matty began to tune Amity out and watched in awe as Gus lazily illusioned an elegant display of fireworks, a traditional human activity he had picked up during a visit to their realm. Even when tipsy, Gus could control and produce the most elaborate patterns. Matt kept his gaze trained at the sky, sipping his White Claw Human Drink languidly and ignoring whatever topic the talkative-and-very-wasted Amity was on now. “Beautiful…” he murmured, running a hand through his fringe.
Gus grinned to himself, changing the firework patterns to rainbow patterns, and then glyphs that activated themselves, and then an animation of his very own face winking. “Humble,” Matt quipped, turning to face Gus. He intended to flip into a side-lay pose (draw me like one of your French girls! ) but moved too fast and almost fell. Again. “You love plastering your face on everything.”
Gus drew a circle and a firework of Matt’s fond Smile appeared.
Oh.
Firework-Matt was softer and prettier than the real Matt thought he was. His hair was well-styled, his impish features looking somehow regal in Gus’ illusion.
Matt mirrored the expression of the firework, the Smile , before catching himself and stopping. Gus adjusted his Matt-illusion to do a sort-of dance, but the expression his firework-counterpart held was still soft and careful and sweet as if Gus had studied his smile closely.
Is this how Gus viewed him?
Matt was suddenly red.
“Have you had too much to drink?” Matt was snapped out of his thoughts. Gus looked down on him — Matt hadn’t been taller than him since he was thirteen. His brown eyes were laced with concern.
“No,” Matty responded defiantly, chugging the rest of his White Claw Human Drink. He turned back to his friends. Amity was absorbed in her own storytelling and Willow was watching intently, ever the careful one in case of accidents. Luz was miming Amity’s words as she spoke. Those two.
He turned back to Gus, shooting his legs out and nursing his drink. “You’re still staring, squirt.”
“Come on, I’ve been taller for ages now,” Gus said. “You can use that small brain of yours to make a better insult-slash-affectionate-nickname, right ?” he teased, poking Matt’s side and finally shifting his eyes away.
“Hey, if it weren’t for me, you’d still be tied to the Keeper,” Matt reminded him, drawing a circle and producing a caricatured version of Gus tied up with vines out of a stick on the roof. The details were clear and fine, etched into wood like a Greek statue.
“Well…” Gus said, looking at his constructed counterpart. “If it weren’t for me , you’d still be frozen and brainwashed in detention!” He used his magic to make an equally dramatic version of the aforementioned scene, Matt in a pod and Gus bravely cutting him free.
Luz came up behind them and scoffed, concentrating hard and dissolving Gus’ illusion. “Well, I was the one who lugged you around, Matty,” she teased, plucking up his construction-Gus and appreciating the detail. “Hey, this is good! Wouldyoubyanychancebeableto —”
“For the last time, I’m not making you a one-to-one replica of a scene from one of your Hecate x Azura fanfictions.”
Luz blew a raspberry and walked off. Matt smirked. He loved their little group, despite whatever drama they had gone through over the years, no matter how much he felt like an outsider, it didn’t prevent the love from exuding from every fiber of his being.
Matt watched Gus continue his firework venture, lost in thought and idly sipping from an empty can.
Eventually, it was the ever-eclectic Luz who brought the group together, seemingly recovered from her time with the boys. “Guys! We should play beer pong with Eda and Lilith downstairs!” Luz suggested, hand-in-hand with a smiling and recently-christened redhead Amity (it seemed to be a new color every month nowadays).
Willow shrugged and smiled, responsibly summoning viney tendrils to gather the empty bottles. Matt summoned a crude rolling recycling bin to help — he remembered fondly listening to Gus explaining the human garbage system and trying to replicate their bins, and thus he knew the object by heart, even three White Claw Human Drinks in. Gus watched quietly.
Matt shot to his feet, letting the world spin for a moment before regaining his balance and heading to the attic chute to reenter the Owl House. “You coming, ‘Gustus?” he said, not looking back.
“Yeah,” Gus said, watching as his last firework faded into the sky before following Matt.
…
“Are you sure I should do this?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Sending it off… now!”
“It’s still in your hands, Augustus.”
“Well, what if it’s not good enough?”
“Impossible.”
“Maybe to you , but she’s one of the best illusionists around. How do you know she won’t hate it?”
“Well, if she hates you, you can always go to the human realm and become a kid’s magician,” Matty suggested sarcastically, playing with a strange human trinket — an odd, wooden paddle with a stringed ball attached to it.
“No way!” Gus exclaimed. “It would ruin the whole point if I were to do actual magic, and besides —”
“Bro. Just send it,” Matt said, firm and taut with his tone. Gus looked over and sighed, sucking in before submitting his application for an internship with Shira Swellcion (only like, the most skilled and famous illusionist, who chose five people a year to intern for her, not a big deal) .
The construction witch grinned and held out a hand for a high-five before Gus pulled him in for a hug. “Whoa!”
Gus held tightly, deflating in Matt’s arms. The latter awkwardly patted the former’s back. “Uh… good to have you too, pal ,” he said, but he didn’t let go of Gus.
Finally, they broke apart. “Sorry, it’s just that… wow! We’re growing up. You’re in the construction coven now, and I might get an internship…” Gus looked down before grinning at Matt. “I mean, I feel like it was just yesterday that you were trying to take over the H.A.S.”
Matt sighed and leaned against the box Gus had slipped his application form into. “We’re grown men now, Gussy-boy. I’m in the C.C. now, and you’re going to be making history. It’s like I said, I’ll just be some washed-up drunkard who keeps bragging about knowing Gus Porter despite no one believing him.”
“Don’t discount yourself that quickly,” Gus said swiftly, nudging his arm. He was a man now, barely-17 to Matt’s barely-18, yet he was still taller and stronger looking. Matt was acutely aware of Gus’ features — his sharp jaw and slight dimples, the way his eyelashes made spidery shadows against soft cheeks. His face was asymmetrical in such a way that only someone who had studied it intently could identify its flaws, the way a slightly-too-late note in a song was overlooked by those who had never heard it before. Matt scanned Gus’ face, even though every small discrepancy was immortalized in his mind already.
After Hexside, would they still talk like this? Would Gus still make illusions of them? Would there still be shared human inside jokes and fireworks on the rooftop and shared smiles in the dead of night?
Matt ignored his thoughts.
He began to walk and Gus caught up with an easy jog. “I meant it, you know,” he said, finger gunning the shorter boy. “You’re very proficient with your construction magic. They recruited you right off the bat, that’s not easy. And it’s a main-nine coven to boot.” Matt fingered the construction coven tattoo he was branded, admiring the detail.
“I mean, yeah,” he responded after a beat, tucking his hands into the pockets of baggy jeans and realizing he had been wearing Gus’ ‘Bad Girl Coven’ shirt this entire time. He was still thinner and shorter than his counterpart, and he could never make his clothes fit his frame the way they did on Gus. “But I’m not making history like Luz when she protested the coven system, or Viney and Jerbo when they graduated last year and formed that blended magic coven, or —”
“You don’t have to!” Gus said suddenly. “It doesn’t matter if someone is more ‘successful’, you can go at your own pace. And…” He smiled and kicked a pebble. “I’ll always be there for you, man.”
“If our lives don’t work out, we agree to run off to the human realm and advertise you as a high-class magician, right?” Matt punched Gus’ arm. Although they laughed, he couldn’t help but worry for the future.
Gus was the first person to give him a chance. The first person to befriend him. He would talk to him when nobody else would. He made an effort to weave him into his Willow-Luz-Amity friend group and treated him as an equal, even when Matt didn’t deserve it.
He didn’t want to lose Gus.
…
It seemed that every night, he and his group of friends were at some sort of bar or club. Something about Luz over-indulging in her fantasies of young adult romcoms or Willow liking the clientele apparently meant they had to spend every Friday night going to a different bar. The current place they were in, The Pointed Ear , was all neon colors and sour drinks and goth-y patrons. After a while, the bright lights were getting to Matt and he was sick of listening to some four-eyed witch prattle on about something that didn’t matter to him. “Excuse me,” he said, patting down his pockets and mentally congratulating himself for remembering to bring his darts.
He left the bar, closing the door behind him and inhaling the fresh air, listening to the sounds of the bar attendees bleed in through the walls. Matt lit one of his cigarettes with a human lighter (a memento Gus had gifted him) and took a drag, smiling as he watched the purple smoke dissolve into the air. Smoking was a bad habit, he knew, but he felt distinctly cool when he did it, like in Heathers, his all-time favorite movie.
He methodically took drags of it, savoring the feeling of it hitting his lungs. While they were (according to Eda, his seller) less harmful than their human counterparts, Luz claimed they were just as bad, so to be safe, Matty stuck to smoking them only on occasion.
The opening of the bar door startled him. He listened to the sounds become clear and then muffle again. “Hey,” Amity sighed, leaning on the wall. Matt passed her the cigarette wordlessly and she took a hit, holding the dart carefully and dramatically like a girl from the 1950s, elegant but unnecessary.
It had become somewhat of a habit for them to share a smoke and get away from whatever was bothering them. It was strange at first — sure, he was friends with Gus and cool with Luz (who wasn’t?) and Willow was nice to everyone , but Matt had resigned himself to being the odd man in the group who tagged along as an extension of Gus. Plus, ever since the Bria thing, he realized trying too hard to fit in wasn’t a good move. But for whatever reason, he found himself talking with Amity more and more recently, not within the group but in these strange, unplanned circumstances.
“So. Have you pulled tonight?” Amity asked. She was always the initiator. “I saw you talking with Leevi.” Matt whistled and ran a hand through his hair.
“Quite a question.” He slid down the wall and sat on the ground, motioning that she could finish his dart. “No. They were annoying.” Amity nodded, though she probably didn’t and would never understand. She and Luz had been always and forever since they were like fifteen (and probably even before that). She was lucky she had someone.
Although hook-ups were fine for him. They suited Matty. No commitment, no problem, no time to wallow and overthink things, no need to compare it to what it would feel like if he was dating —
“You like Augustus, don’t you?”
Matt’s blood ran cold and he flushed red, sinking his body closer to the wall as though if he was close enough he could phase through the wall and go back to talking with Levii (or was it Leevi?) and forget about this conversation.
Amity smirked, snuffing out her cigarette and putting it in her pocket to throw out later. “That’s what I thought.” She looked smug, looking down at Matt with her arms crossed. With her hair cut into a messy mullet and dyed that shocking orange, she looked like the singer from Paramore. “You clearly like Gus, you aren’t good at hiding it.”
“Since the girl who would go bright red permanently any time Luz was around,” Matt retorted, sticking his tongue out. Amity smiled coyly.
“This isn’t about me, Mattholomule,” she said, sing-songing her tone and sitting down next to Matt gracefully. She didn’t seem to want to drop it.
Fuck.
Matt didn’t like Confident Amity.
“You know, we used to think you guys were together way back in our ninth year,” Amity blurted out. Her filter seemed to dissolve when it came in contact with alcohol.
“Really?”
“Really. Gus often talked about meeting up with you.”
Matt blanched, processing this information in his mind. “But that was because of —”
“The graveyard, yeah. But how were we supposed to know that, Matty?” She prodded Matt with her heeled leather boots (Doctor Martens, definitely a gift from Luz) and raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure you guys were ‘tending the graveyard’ all those hours alone on the weekend, huh?”
Matt’s entire body heated up from embarrassment. “E-ew! We were like, thirteen! You’re disgusting, Blight,” he spat, curling his body inward.
“So if you two were older, you’d like to have some spooky graveyard sex?”
Matt recoiled. “Why would I want to do it in a graveyard when the Keeper is around?”
Amity mulled this for a second.
“So, if you were older, and not in a graveyard —”
“Dude, what are you getting at?” he said, holding back a slight snicker.
“You should just ask Gus out, why wait?” Amity tucked a bit of hair behind her ear. “You like him, he probably likes you back.”
“That’s a bad idea,” Matt said simply and quickly, thinking of his easy friendship, of sneaking off to each other’s houses and binging human shows and bantering and doing joint magic and falling asleep in the same bed and —
“Quitter’s talk. You always act on your bad ideas.”
Amity left with a knowing smile that was not reciprocated, not with a smirk, and definitely not with his Smile .
He wished his love life was as easy as Amity’s seemed.
Matt lit another cigarette.
…
“I can’t believe this baby’s really mine now,” Matt blew out a gust of air and admired his surroundings, right after dropping his keys on the countertop. It was far from luxurious — a two-bedroom, one bathroom, one kitchen-living-dining room conglomerate, but it was his apartment, with his own bedroom and his own space.
Gus walked in, setting a few boxes on the ground. “You mean it’s ours ,” he corrected, opening the box and beginning to file the dishes and silverware into the cabinets. “Also, did you really come all the way up here with nothing but your keys?”
“Move it!” Boscha yelled from the front door. Matt leaped out of the way, and the three-eyed witch burst through the door and set down their TV stand. Matt winced at the sound of the wood hitting the carpet. She was clad in a work polo and matching hat, brandishing the logo ‘Kinuta Movers’.
“You could stand to be a little more careful,” Matt sneered, cracking open a White Claw Human Drink and preparing to take a sip. Boscha rolled all three of her eyes and scoffed.
“Be grateful I’m doing this for you guys,” she said, grabbing the can from his hands before he could take a sip and downing it in one gulp before tossing it behind her back and running to get the next piece of furniture.
“It’s literally your job!” Matt called down to Boscha. She backtracked to the door and flipped them off with a smile, stuck out her tongue, and rushed back down.
“Glad to see she hasn’t changed,” Gus muttered, although he had a nostalgic smile on his face. Matt rolled his eyes and picked up the can Boscha had abandoned. He began to concentrate on the shape. An image clear in his mind, he drew a circle and reconstructed it into a tin vase. He gave an unclear look, holding it up and examining his own craftsmanship. He’s made better, but it was fine enough for a random design made in his mind. Matt liked that he could do that, that he could think of something and make it reality, repurposing elements to give them new life, to benefit others. Gingerly, he put the vase down, and when he looked up, Gus was staring at him, a stack of bowls in both hands, entranced.
“What are you looking at?” Matt asked, somewhat snippy. Gus blinked.
“You know I like watching you do magic, Matty,” he replied, a warmth in his voice that did not match Matt’s sharp remark. As always, a wave of guilt splashed over the constructionist; there he was, being an ass to his best friend again.
“You’ve seen me do it a million times,” Matt mumbled, but the tips of his ears were red. He marched over to Gus and opened the next box, which held their Tupperware, and began to haphazardly file the lids and bottoms into the cabinet. Gus kept staring, curious, and chuckled, swatting at Matt’s reddened ears.
“Well, I’ve seen the sunset a million times too, and it never gets old.” The flush spread from Matt’s ears to the rest of his body, and Gus flicked his ear again, laughing again and reorganizing the Tupperware that Matty had shoved into the cupboard. “You should go get the rest of our stuff.” His hand twitched and he grumbled but obeyed.
Matt tried not to let his mind linger on Gus, tried not to realize that he was now one of those besotted fools he used to make fun of in high school. He was the exact blubbering schoolboy the Glandus kids would have wailed on. If only Bria could see me now.
He walked down the hallway, hands stuffed in his pockets, passing a series of Abominations led by a lazy-looking Amity. They carried furniture upstairs, and Matt really hoped they didn’t leave weird residual goo on his stuff. Amity nodded to him in the hallway. He nodded back and took the fast drop chute down to the ground floor.
Matt grabbed a box labeled GLASSWARE and stacked it on top of a crate of books, struggling to carry it but managing a steady pace. He wished Willow was here — she was pretty muscular from lugging around those plants, but she was busy with something-or-other for her job doing this-that. Luz was also absent, but that was probably for the best because he actually, you know, wanted to get his stuff moved in as fast as possible and if Luz were there, they would probably make it more fun yet take twice the time.
He really was fond of that human.
Matt began to walk back to the up-chute, but not before Boscha barrelled from the stairs, grabbed three boxes, and began to run back upstairs before backtracking just like she did in their apartment. “How’d you get here faster than me?”
Matt looked at the up and down chute and looked back at Boscha. “Uhh… These apartments have chutes.”
“Damn it!” She dropped the boxes in frustration (thankfully, they only held clothes) .
Matt gave a slight smile and gestured for her to join him on the chute. She sighed and followed dejectedly as they waited for the chute to take them up.
“Not a bad apartment. You and Porter didn’t do too badly for yourselves,” she commented, trying to break the silence. “I’m still slumming it with Skara and the gang in a shit condo.” Boscha was being friendly, so he chose not to make a quip.
“Yeah, I guess so.” The chute dinged, and they got off at their stop. “I still have to land a new job. Any openings at…” Boscha glared.
“We are not becoming coworkers.”
“Right.” He could probably just get a job through his coven or make products for Eda, anyway. The first few months were paid for by Gus’ grant and Matt’s savings, but a steady job would do them some good. Matt and Boscha approached the door together. Gus walked out with a smile, waving cheerfully at Matt. He reciprocated the gesture in kind, watching Gus for a bit too long and a bit too cheerfully . Matt, with a real smile? Unthinkable.
He was brought back to reality when Boscha elbowed his side. Hard. Then began to cackle. Her shoulders shook harshly.
“Shut up,” Matt said through gritted teeth.
They set down their boxes in the living room, Boscha laughing and snorting the entire time, slumping onto the couch and barking laughter like a giraffe (did giraffes laugh? They seemed like they did) . She kept laughing and laughing and laughing, even as Matt began to hang up his clothes in his bedroom he could hear Boscha’s laugh reverberating across the apartment. He wouldn’t be surprised if his neighbors were filing a noise complaint.
“ Fucking Porter!” She took a deep breath and leaned back on the couch. Matt assumed she was done and sat next to her, running his fingers through his fringe anxiously.
She began to laugh again and Matt smacked a hand over her mouth. Gus walked in — saw Matt covering Boscha’s mouth, and promptly dropped his boxes and walked back out. Once Matt was sure he was out of earshot, he took his hand off. “Ew. Your hand smells weird. But yeah. Him? You ?”
“It’s nothing like that.” Matt’s response was firm and simple. He got up from the couch and began rooting through a box, setting their DVD collection into the shelves of their TV stand. Perfect distractor .
“You’d like it to be, though,” Boscha retorted. She really did not want to drop this. “Hey, I’m not into romance, but come on.” Matt shook his head, exasperated. Talking about it with Amity? Sure. Fine. They were friends and at least when they talked about it he was inebriated. But this ? He was too sober to talk about this with Boscha of all people.
“Don’t say a word,” Matt admitted, deconstructing the unpacked box and laying it flat. Boscha gave a finger gun and a swift wink before darting out the door again, and Matt exhaled, covering his red face and pulling the skin under his eyes.
…
“Can I just use my construction magic and make a replica?” Matt groaned, falling back and yelping when a bunch of nails embedded into his back. Gus shook his head, looking at the instructions with intensity and double-checking his work. They were sitting in the living room, surrounded by strange human apparatuses, Ikea-labelled boxes, and a half-finished shell of what might be a coffee table.
“No way!” He said indignantly, twisting a screwdriver carefully. “Luz told me that when humans move into their apartments, they make furniture from kits. It’s just like your magic.” Matt grabbed a handful of nails and moved them from hand to hand, listening to the sound they made as they knocked into each other.
“ My magic takes like, three seconds to make a whole bed. This is one little coffee table and it’s taking forever,” Matt complained.
“Well, come on, we’re almost done. Pass me a dowel.” Matt obeyed, dropping the nails in a little bag and fishing a wooden dowel from the ground. As soon as Gus stopped looking, he started to draw a circle. “And don’t even think about using magic to make this faster, that’s cheating!”
He dropped his hands.
“Didn’t you just say you liked watching me do magic?” He stuck his tongue out, and Gus tried to drive a screw in but failed to embed it. Matt peered at it and silently passed the better tool for the phillip screw. Gus nodded a thanks.
“Well, you know I like trying new things,” he smiled, satisfied when the screw didn’t budge. Matt shook his head and took another tool, screwing the opposite table leg in. He didn’t get it, and after all that work bringing the boxes up the last thing he wanted to do was fuss and mess with small objects, but if it made Gus happy...
Methodically, they worked through the instructions with minimal arguing, and Matt couldn’t deny it was almost satisfying to watch it slowly taking shape, one step at a time. It was just as rewarding than his construction magic , and Matty decided if he were to be transported into the human realm it wouldn’t be so bad to live like this, to take things slower and do things by hand more often. The way their hands brushed as they put the pieces together felt so domestic , so distinctly different from talking to someone in a bar or linking in a dingy room.
“Well, I’m sure this won’t be a problem,” Gus said, looking at the pieces they had left rattling in the box. Matt shrugged and hopped on the couch, resting his feet up on the sleek finished coffee table.
Gus joined him, sitting in the middle rather than the other end, putting his own feet up and nudging Matt’s leg.
Matt turned to look at Gus.
Gus was smiling, but somehow, it looked different than the easygoing grin Matt had memorized in his mind‘s eye. His eyes were soft, fond , even, his eyebrows quirked and his left dimple prominent.
The way he was smiling was electrifying.
“Gus?” he murmured, automatic and quiet, the notes of his voice folding against the spoken name the way cold water poured into a glass. Matt sunk deeper into the side of the couch, tucking his legs under him, his face on fire . He nervously licked his lips and Gus followed the motion, darting his eyes around before breaking the distance between them and oh .
Gus was kissing him.
Oh .
He was too shocked at first to move, but once it registered, Matt was kissing back, sharp and controlled, just like the way he made statues of them, like how he built Gus’ bed, a dexterity present in both his magic and the way he manipulated his mouth. Gus tasted of softness and marmalade, of foggy days and Grudgeby games spent in the bleachers. Matt gripped his partner’s trim hips, struggling to follow techniques he knew verbatim, left bleary-minded by the fact that he was doing the thing he knew he always wanted to do since they were at least sixteen. It was always Gus Porter , no matter how much he buried it or denied it or hid it with hook-ups, it was always him.
Giddy with euphoria, Matt broke the kiss, smiling the infamous Smile against Gus’ lips.
There wasn’t time for denial, to let his thoughts take over. It was draining to pretend there was nothing when there was everything , to internalize over a non-existent fear of rejection.
Gus leaned into Matt’s chest and closed his eyes. “Just something I’ve been meaning to do,” he murmured. “It’s cold in here, do me a solid and lend me that pretty blush of yours.”
Matt was too elated to fight the full-body flush that suddenly flooded him.