Chapter Text
After the first month of being stuck in the human realm, Mrs. Noceda insisted on enrolling them in school.
No one was adjusting well, to say the least. Luz had withdrawn into herself the first week they were there, and Willow hated it. It wasn’t like her friend to act like that, all stone-faced and withdrawn, not a spark of her usual warmth and kindness.
Amity had been at Camila’s side since the beginning, cooking, cleaning and helping wherever she can, all the while stressing out over Luz to try to make her feel better. Willow couldn’t imagine what Amity was dealing with, seeing her girlfriend so…devastated.
Gus found himself exploring every inch of the Noceda household, excitedly coming up with wild theories as to what they were, such a far cry from when they first came through the portal. Willow watched him closely, making sure that if he showed signs of regressing she would be able to help immediately.
Hunter was being as useful as possible, too. He had dove head first into research about Philip Wittebane, Gravesfield, any magical lore that could offer a hint of help in getting back home. Occasionally Willow would find him up until four or five in the morning, still hunched over a book on the living room couch, and she would have to yank the book out of his hands to make him return to the basement to sleep.
Willow had just tried her best to be helpful in any way possible; she had worked nonstop to figure out how to grow human plants, so now Mrs. Noceda’s garden was full of ‘tomatoes,’ ‘strawberries,’ and a lot of other edible plants Willow has never heard of.
So, Mrs. Noceda thought it could lend a bit of…normalcy.
Going to high school was, well, an adjustment.
Luz and Vee promised it would be good for them, but Luz was obviously nervous herself. She was probably the most nervous out of all of them, actually.
Amity worried about her a lot. She had never seen her girlfriend so stressed, so quiet and so unlike her usual personality in those first days in the human realm. Amity tried getting Luz’s mind off of things, showing her new human outfits and Good Witch Azura theories and a tv show—which is the human’s version of a crystal ball—called ‘She-Ra and the Princess of Power.’
Gus was excited to learn about more human things. He had already looked on the ‘internet’ about history, space travel, and giraffes. Willow gave him a notebook that he had already half-filled with research notes and further points he would like to study, shoving it in to his backpack for the first day and no doubt going to interrogate all of his teachers until he got every inquiry answered.
Hunter was apprehensive. He approached the concept of school as any good soldier would, logically and without complaint. Willow tried to get him to lighten a bit—‘relax, have some fun, make some friends’—that would fluster him, but not break the metaphorical armor he was wearing all of the time now. Willow understood why he did it, but she felt a pang in her stomach at how he seemed to be putting up these walls around her, too.
Willow was all nerves too. Since the last school she was at she had bullies and awful teachers, she was not exactly excited about a new one, with new classes, new people, new teachers, new potential bullies—
So her first day there, she was hoping for underwhelming.
It went pretty much as expected.
She was expecting Luz to overcompensate for her peers—and for the Hexsquad’s sake, too—by being overly friendly and smiling a bit too wide to be genuine.
She expected Gus to being fascinated by everything—pointing at garbage cans, inspecting the human fashion choices—“What are ‘Crocs’?”—and having a ball just by being there. It warmed her heart a little seeing how happy he was.
She expected Amity to be extra supportive of Luz—clinging to her arm, laughing at all of Luz’s attempts at jokes, and making an effort to be kind to everyone she passed in the hall—mean girl Amity was a thing of the past, after all.
What she wasn’t expecting was all of the attention Hunter was getting.
Hunter himself was the Golden Guard today, all soldier in appearance besides his casual human clothes and beanie to hide his ears. Willow kind of missed his actual personality, the secret dork who liked flyer derby and books and sending her pictures of Flapjack.
As they all walked into the school, a girl shoved her way in between the two of them, nearly knocking Willow into Gus.
“Sorry!” The girl said, but she was only looking at Hunter with a bright smile.
“How rude,” Hunter grumbled, taking Willow by the arm and placing a comforting hand on Gus’s shoulder. Willow felt a surge of firebees in her stomach, surely from nerves about school. And nothing else.
And then again at their lockers—which don’t actually eat the students, who knew—three girls came up to introduce themselves, and Willow smiled and waved, but she was unceremoniously ignored for Hunter.
They reminded Willow a bit too much of Boscha and her crew, for her taste anyway.
Hunter, to his credit, was having none of it.
“—so we just wanted to welcome you to Gravesfield High! I’m Penny, this is Hayley, and Toni.” Penny flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder. “Listen, if you need anything I would be more than happy to—"
“I’m good thanks,” Hunter cut off with a sharp look, loading books into his locker.
Penny was persistent though. “Is that AP Literature? You must have Mr. Baker, next.” She slipped her arm into his and Willow saw a flash of red. “Luckily I have that too! We can sit next to each other, Mr. Baker is very—"
Willow understood why he was getting flirted with so blatantly, though.
Well, yeah, he was pretty cute—with his scarred jawline, athletic frame, adorable gap tooth, the way his eyes lit up when he found a new and exciting book, the way he was so affectionate with Flapjack, how goofy he and Gus got when making up dance moves to that high school musical movie they watched…
And he did look pretty good in that beanie, too.
Later that day, Luz had said that the ‘bad but sad boy’ type was popular among human teenage girls, which Hunter fit the bill for perfectly. She had even pulled up a character named ‘Zuko’ from some TV series to demonstrate; he had a face scar too.
Hunter got even redder in the face, hands balled into fists. “Luz! Stop comparing me to fictional characters! It’s dumb and doesn’t make sense!”
Gus and Luz just laughed at him.
Hunter huffed even more, getting all red faced with irritation. “I hate all of this attention! What’s the point of all this anyway? It’s so stupid.”
Part of her thought it was funny when he got flirted with. He had no idea how to deal with it, and got all flustered and annoyed, very different than the Golden Guard façade he seemed to wear almost constantly nowadays. She was happy to see him not so stoic.
She didn’t know what the uneasiness in her stomach was all about, though.
As Hunter was towed down the hall with a worried backwards glance, Willow went into her next class with a forced peppy attitude. But it was biology, and according to Luz and Vee this was exactly her cup of tea.
She was assigned a seat next to a boy with bright blue hair who seemed less than excited about the class. She gave him a bright smile that he only half-heartedly returned, but that was enough for Willow to see an opportunity to make a new friend.
She got her opening when they got stumped on a particularly troublesome bit of algae they needed to get to cooperate for the lab.
“It should be reacting to the light, but it’s not moving.” He looked at the report again, scratching his head.
“I think if we just…” Willow surreptitiously made a spell circle under the table, while using her free hand to jiggle the specimen, which then caused the algae to expand almost immediately. She waved her hand over it in a flourish, and grinned at her lab partner. “Ta-da!”
His eyes went wide at her solve. “Hey! That was pretty cool! Where did you learn how to do that?”
“Oh!” She chuckled nervously, then gave a clandestine smile, quoting a human movie Gus had shown her the other day. “If I told you I would have to kill you.”
A beat. Then, “Ha! Well, keep doing it, and I could actually pass this class. Science is NOT my thing. I’d rather be in my photography class.”
“You sound like my friend Amity. She’s super smart at, uhh MATH…, but, biology? No way.”
Nice save, Park.
They joked around a bit more, Willow getting the rundown on the school, what to avoid—“Do NOT, under any circumstances, eat at the nacho bar.”—and other good to know things.
Willow grinned at her new friend. “Thanks a lot—oh, I didn’t get your name?”
The kid smiled and stuck out his hand. “I’m Charlie.”
She grinned at him. “Nice to meet you, I’m Willow.”
Willow was surprised how nice everyone was here. Outside of her biology class, she got to know a couple girls in her English class, two of whom she shared a gym period with—where they introduced her to other kids on the track team, who insisted she try out after they saw her do the shotput.
She helped a younger girl pick up her stuff when she had dropped her supplies and walked her to the art room—the next day she had a beautifully drawn thank you note taped to her locker.
She was invited to a ‘GSA’ meeting by Charlie and his boyfriend, which Amity and Luz was also invited to. Turns out humans use labels for their sexualities, and she herself fit under ‘pansexual.’ They even had all these fun colored flags to match.
Sarah from her history class invited her to debate club, and out to Robin’s Roast afterwards with some of the other members. They introduced to her to something called Tiktok, which she definitely had to show Gus later.
Even Penny, the girl who rudely ignored her in trying to flirt with Hunter, waved to her in the hall. Willow could only give a tight smile back, but she supposed that was good enough.
Willow wondered about Boscha. If she was okay, if her moms were okay.
By the third day, Willow was invited to five different lunch tables and was the newest member of seven groupchats. Thankfully Gus and Hunter had figured out how to turn the scrolls into ‘phone’ imitations, and she now had an ‘Instagram’ with more followers than she ever had on Penstagram.
Everyone was supportive of her newfound status at school.
“Willow, you’re popular.” Amity stressed to her one day. “Everyone is nice to you because they like you!”
“What? No—I mean Jenna and Danielle are just nice to everyone, and debate club is big but not that big, and yeah I know a bunch of people from track, but…”
“Oh my gosh, Willow Fever is contagious to humans too! This is the best thing to happen EVER!!” Luz tackled Willow in a hug, giggling.
Hunter lifted his head from his book, eyebrows scrunched up. “What’s Willow fever?”
“Well, Hunter, it’s the whole school realizing how frickin’ amazing our girl Willow is here!! It’s safe to say that everyone has it, would you agree, Huuuunter?” Luz grinned cheekily.
Hunter didn’t say anything else at that. He seemed to do that a lot recently, get all quiet and blush all the way to his ears. Willow didn’t know what that was about.
So, Willow tried to adjust to all the new attention. It still felt weird, having so many people be so kind to her. A part of her whispered that they were all lying, making fun of her, but she knew she had the most important ones always: Luz, Amity, Gus, Hunter. Even Vee.
It wasn’t much later that Hunter joined the track team too—besides his transportation ability he was fast, and he quickly proved himself to be one of the best. Willow knew that he needed an outlet of some type and dragged him to practice one day, and he relented without much of a fight. And now they got to spend more time together this way. Which made Willow feel…weird. But not in a bad way. She tried not to think about that too much.
She was glad he was acting more like a kid, not a soldier.
Hunter had ditched the gloves within the first couple weeks of being there, and would occasionally wear a pair of fingerless gloves when he needed the comfort. His texting had improved a lot since then, thankfully. Willow would see him occasionally on his scroll/phone when the six of them were hanging out, and she would smother the angry bile in her stomach asking who exactly he was texting: he could text whoever he wanted, who cares if it was Penny from his English class.
(If she looked harder, she would have been able to see that Gus was also on his phone, and the two boys were exchanging not so secretive glances at each other, and at her too. But she didn’t notice that.)
She was having fun on the track team and all the other players were great, too. It surprised her how much she could enjoy human sports like this.
Willow thought about Skara and Viney, and if she could ever play flyer derby again.
She was stretching and talking with Kendall and Jenna one day when the two of them shared a look before grinning at her knowingly.
“Soo…what’s the deal between you and Hunter?”
Willow’s heart rate sped up, and she was thankful her face was turned away during her current stretch. “What do you mean?”
“Weeell, you seem to spend a lot of time together. Are you two…?”
Of course. They wanted to know if Hunter’s available.
“HA—no, nothing like that. We’re friends. Good friends. He definitely doesn’t see me that way.”
Jenna snuck a glance at Kendall before smiling ruefully at Willow. “Ehh, he doesn’t know what he’s missing. I’m sure someone will come along and take you on the date that you deserve.”
Willow just gave a lukewarm smile before changing the subject.
It was a couple days later that Kevin, a teammate from track, asked her on a date.
Thing is, Willow didn’t know he was asking that.
“So…are you, uh, seeing anyone, Willow?” Kevin asked one day after tack practice, looking a little sweatier than usual.
Willow frowned, confused as to why she was asked the same question so recently.
“No, not particularly. Funny, Jenna and Kendall were asking the same thing the other day…”
“Ohh…huh. Anyway…uhh…would you want to go the roller rink this weekend?”
“Oh, that’s a good idea! I know Gus and Hunter would love to do that too, and I’m sure Luz would want to bring Amity.”
“Uhm, so I was thinking more of the—”
“Would you want to invite Jenna and Kendall and everyone else? Could be a cool—”
“Wait.. that was a date?”
Amity and Luz chuckled warmly. “Willow, people like you. You’re cute! And dateable! One good thing about being stuck here is that humans actually seem to know how great and amazing you are.” Luz squished Willow’s cheeks, putting emphasis on ‘great.’
Pouting, Willow considered her words. She was very uncomfortable with the idea of people liking her that way. For the longest time, she never thought anyone would—or even could—think about her that way, and sure she did become more well liked in the past couple months and she’s adjusting to being liked here, in the human realm, but romantically?
Gus put a hand on her shoulder.
“Willow, you gotta have more faith in yourself. You’re cool as heck and this Kevin guy sees it! You’re a catch. And I should know, I’m your best friend.”
Willow leaned into her friends touch. “Thanks, Gus.”
Gus took on a knowing smirk. “What do you think, Hunter?”
The older boy hadn’t uttered a single word the entire conversation. He had his gaze trained on a book, but Willow didn’t think he had turned a single page. His hand was gripping the table so hard she thought it might break.
That’s weird, she thought.
He made eye contact with Willow, just for a second, and his eyes darted back to his book as heat rose in his cheeks.
That’s weirder.
“I think they’re ri-ight.” Hunter cleared his throat, after a moment. “The humans can see how cool you are. I-it’s only—uhm. Anyone would be lucky to date you.”
Willow shook out the fluttering in her stomach. He was just being nice.
“Thanks, guys. I should work on that.” Willow gave a grateful smile to her friends. “I don’t think I like Kevin like that though. I should come clean to him tomorrow.”
Luz grinned conspiratorially. “Is there anyone you do like, Willow?”
She didn’t see that Luz was looking directly at Hunter, and that Hunter was blushing furiously.
Willow flinched, a face and a name rising in her mind that she shoved down immediately.
“Oh! Uhh…” She gulped, slapping her cheeks. “I have no idea. I mean, I guess I have to think about it? I never really thought about it, since, well…”
Amity reached out and put a hand on Willow’s. “No pressure. But, you know, you can let yourself have those feelings.”
Easier said than done.
It was a the next day that Willow talked to Kevin, trying her best to turn him down gently and make him understand how she felt. He nodded knowingly and smiled sadly, eyeing Hunter nervously as he walked away, only looking slightly dejected.
Hunter had hung around to ‘keep an eye’ on the situation, ever vigilant, and Willow was grateful for how protective he was. And it totally didn’t warm her chest and cheeks. No it didn’t.
“You all right?” He asked, arms still crossed in front of him. He was doing it again, hiding himself behind the Golden Guard mask.
She smiled kindly at her friend. “Yeah, thanks Hunter.” She looked over at the scattered group of teens, some of whom were sneaking glances at her and Kevin’s receding figure.
“C’mon, let’s start the cool down.” Hunter nodded towards the track and the two of them made their way there together.
As the kept a steady pace, Willow thought about all the flirting he got when they first started attending. She almost didn’t want to ask, for fear of an answer that would disappoint her in ways she has yet to fully understand why, but curiosity got the best of her. “Has…has anyone asked you out? You were getting flirted with a lot when we first arrived.”
Hunter laughed a bit too wryly. “Well, I was never interested in any of them anyway. But they figured out what a bore I really am, and lost interest.”
Willow looked at him incredulously, coming to a stop. “You weren’t yourself around them, though.”
Hunter looked up at her, eyes wide and lips parted. She tried not to get distracted by how his irises matched the setting sky.
“The Hunter I know is really cool! He’s snarky, sure, but he likes books and reading and is a good friend. That was the Golden Guard persona, all business and grumpiness. I haven’t seen you be the actual Hunter for a while now, you’re always so quiet when I see you.”
Hunter gulped, but raised an eyebrow at her.
Willow snickered. “Well, okay, Hunter is a little grumpy too. But only when he doesn’t get enough sleep.”
He seemed to accept that, and she smiled playfully. “And he doesn’t get enough sleep a lot.”
Hunter crossed his arms over his chest, all attitude again, but more playful, with half a smirk on his face. “Thanks, Captain.” His voice wobbled only a little bit, turning away to hide the blush on his face.
“Hmm. I’m just glad you’re acting like a teenager here. It’s a long time coming. Who knew high school would break the mighty Golden Guard?” She gave him a wide smile, eyes sparkling.
Hunter sucked in a breath, and the way he was looking at her made her breath catch. If she was still running, she was sure to have tripped and fell at his next omission, voice so gentle it made her heart ache.
“You make me feel like a teenager.”
It was so asinine, so trivial, who wants to feel like a teenager? But it made Willow’s insides flip in a way that made it harder to deny what every fiber of her being’s been telling her for weeks now.
The tension was broken as an upperclassmen, Jorge, ran past them. “Don’t slack off lover boy! If you wanna make varsity gotta keep it up with the big dogs!”
Hunter huffed as they finished the loop. “This is worse than scout training.”
Willow laughed maybe a bit too hard, way too grateful to leave that moment behind.
“Aww c’mon, its not that bad. You don’t need to wear a mask here, at least.”
“The masks weren’t that bad.”
“How many times have you sneezed in those things, again?”
“It’s hard to take off in time!”
Willow just snickered as they ended their lap. “Likely story. I’m just glad we don’t wear them for this or flyer derby. Could you imagine?”
“Pfft. As if masks really make it that much worse. If anything, they’re more aerodynamic, y’know?”
Resting her hands on her knees as she caught her breath, Willow looked up to Hunter with a wry smile—only to have her lungs empty again when she saw him smiling lopsidedly, blonde hair haloed in the late afternoon light, looking so boyish and cute and like a teenager. Willow quickly recovered and shot back a quick retort, hoping her emotions didn’t play across her face so plainly as she thought they did.
She told herself the weird feeling in her stomach was just from all the running. Nothing else. But she didn’t actually believe it this time.
He snickered and told a joke—this one even worse than the first, but Willow was laughing again, and that just made Hunter laugh harder too—and before they knew it they were collapsing onto each other, elbows and shoulders and more physical touch than either of them could handle in another situation.
Faces red from exhaustion (Well, Willow’s wasn’t just that. But only she knew that.) (Hunter’s wasn’t just that too, but she didn’t figure that out until much, much later.), the two of them made their way back to the sidelines for water.
It wasn’t much longer after that she stopped getting so many questions about her relationship status.
Maybe it had something to do with how Hunter and Willow now ran the laps together every practice, and walked home afterwards together, and always sat next to each other at lunch.
Maybe it didn’t.
(It totally did, but neither of them knew it. And they liked it too much to question it.)