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The morning sun crept in like a hesitant hand, gently touching the blankets covering their warm bodies. It got soaked up by the reaching leaves of the countless plants that decorated the room, reflecting off the round glasses on the nightstand and sending glittering light bouncing back against the ceiling. A hush coated the world like a thick snow, waiting for the first footprint that would mark the day anew.
It wasn’t yet time to get up, but Hunter’s eyes opened anyway. They blinked unhurriedly, lazily, a feat that took many years to learn. The bed below him and the blankets above him enveloped him in a way that had never once felt suffocating, his bones knowing that this was where he was safe. The world didn’t need him yet, and he relished in it.
The body next to his shifted ever so slightly, the soft glow from the window reaching her round face. Her mouth opened in a quiet yawn, and her short hair stuck up in ways Hunter had teased her for but adored with his whole being. He watched her, now, unashamedly so, a sleepy smile pulling at his scarred skin.
Moments like this used to be a fantasy to him. Never had he dared to dream that he would have a life where his mornings were quiet in a way that didn’t spell loneliness, that his side was warm in a way that spelled love. It was a skin he didn’t think he would ever get to wear, and now he had forgotten the feeling of the one that came before.
It had occurred to him, many years earlier, that he was genuinely happy. The word had never tasted more sweet than it did in that moment.
Willow shifted again, and her searching hand grabbed at the blankets next to her, and he knew she was looking for him. His smile grew impossibly wider as he wiggled closer, rejoicing in the pleased sigh that escaped her lips as she rolled over into him, shoving her face into his neck and throwing her arm across his chest. Her breath tickled his skin, and he enveloped her in a hug, pulling her even closer.
“Good morning, love,” she murmured sleepily, pressing a kiss to his jaw.
“Good morning, my flower,” he whispered back, tracing circles over her spine. He felt her smile against his throat, and his heart stuttered as she began to kiss up his neck, across his cheeks and nose, his forehead, his eyelids.
“Stop teasing me,” he said, gently flicking her side, and she laughed before conceding and pressing her lips to his.
Kissing Willow Park felt like the air itself was the sun. Every inch of him came alive, from his fingertips all the way down to his toes. The world could explode into stardust around them, and Hunter would still find himself encased in a cocoon of Willow, Willow, Willow.
She kissed him softly, carefully, lovingly, like he was a treasure to hold onto and cherish, something beloved, something adored. She cupped his cheek and tilted his chin up, her fingers stroking over the rough skin of his scar. The simple touch of her lips took him apart piece by piece, and he thought that if he didn’t continue to wrap his arms around her, he would drift away with the breeze.
Willow smiled at him as she pulled away, their noses still touching. She stroked his cheek again, her eyes drinking up whatever it was she was seeing. “You look dopey.”
Hunter grinned lazily up at her, loosening the grip he didn’t realize he had on the back of her shirt. “A beautiful lady just kissed me, can you blame me?”
Her laugh was something he would never tire of. “Oh yeah? What’s she like?”
Hunter let out a long, lovestruck sigh, enjoying the next peal of laughter it caused. “Oh, she’s gorgeous,” he said, pulling Willow down and pressing a kiss to her face, “breathtaking,” another kiss, “strong, amazing,” kiss, “the most wonderful woman,” more kisses, “I have ever met,” kiss.
Willow was a shaking and giggling mess at that point, and grabbed his face to return the kisses, though her laughter prevented her from being entirely successful. Hunter tightened his grip on her waist and rolled them over, burrowing his face into her hair as her arms came up to loop around his neck.
Putting his lips next to her ear, he whispered, “And I’m in love with her.”
His own ear twitched as he felt her lips brush against it. “She’s in love with you, too.”
“Oh, wow,” he exclaimed, pulling away to look at her with wide eyes. “Really? You think so?”
Willow snorted, reaching up and ruffling his hair. “I know so, you big nerd.”
Hunter didn’t have a response to that, as he quickly became entranced by everything that Willow was. He loved her round cheeks, her curly hair, the ever so slight freckles by the corners of her eyes. The ears she tugged on when she was focused, the lips she bit when she was scared. Her face was aged in small ways, like the little wrinkles that had started to show up around her mouth, and the tired lines under her eyes. Even though Hunter saw these changes, knew they were getting older, it was impossible for him to think of her as any less beautiful than the day he first laid eyes on her.
She didn’t call him out on the staring, as she was doing plenty of it herself, her eyes flickering about his face as she drank him in. He wondered what she saw, if she noticed these changes on him, too. Aging was a luxury that he refused to fear, but it was still strange, to look in the mirror and see a new face and know it wasn’t going to go away.
Willow’s eyes stopped moving, and her fingers that had been carding through his hair froze. Hunter blinked at her as she brought his face closer, eyes squinted as she seemed to almost glare at some spot near his forehead. It was a very sudden and harsh change from the expression she wore before, and he felt concern bubbling under his tongue.
“Willow?” he asked. “What’s wrong?”
She fiddled with something in his hair, and he felt like the Human Realm’s gorilla being nitpicked by its mother. Eventually, Willow located what she was looking for, and her jaw dropped as her eyes shot open wide.
“Hunter,” she breathed. “You have gray hair.”
Hunter’s mind went blank. “I what?”
“Gray hair,” she repeated. Her fingers began to move again, brushing certain strands away. “A small patch of it. It’s near your little cowlick.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.”
Hunter suddenly sat up, jumping from the bed to run to their bathroom. He didn’t really know what was going through his head, and it remained like that as he flicked the light on in front of the mirror. He was met with wide brown eyes and a tousled mop of blond, and he leaned in towards his reflection, frantically searching.
Willow appeared in the doorway behind him and stepped up next to him, leaning against his side. Gently, oh so gently, she lifted her hand and pushed back a section of his hair, right where she said it would be. “Here.”
It blended in easily with the blond, but it was there.
Hunter had gray hair.
Hunter, who had one point in his life considered himself lucky for seeing the next sunrise. Hunter, who was so certain that the man who had raised him would eventually kill him. Hunter, who had purposefully tried to drown himself to save the ones he loved, dragging that same man down to the depths with him. Hunter, made of scales and wood and stone and wore the face of someone long dead. Hunter, who was never actually sure if he would age the way everyone else would.
Hunter Park, who had somehow reached his mid thirties with a wife and a family and a home to call his, had gray hair.
“Titan,” he whispered. “Holy shit.”
Willow watched him as he inspected himself in the mirror, a hand resting on the small of his back protectively. Her voice was quiet when she said, “We’re growing old together.”
Hunter turned back to her then and found her gazing at him with an expression that warmed him straight through the beating stone of his heart. Willow stepped closer and cupped his face between her palms, bringing him down as she went on her tiptoes. Her lips pressed over the spot in his hair with such a tenderness that Hunter felt his throat spasm as tears gathered in the corners of his eyes.
“My old man,” she whispered, and he felt her grin.
“I’m thirty-six, ” he gasped, “You’re not too far behind!”
“A grandpa.” She kissed down his face to the tip of his nose. “Senior citizen.”
“I’ll show you ‘senior citizen’,” he huffed, and before she could react, he bent down and scooped her into his arms, princess-carry style, rejoicing in her shriek of laughter that he quickly swallowed with a kiss.
He carried her out of the bathroom, back to their bed, back to their home, a home they made for themselves, a home for them to live together and love together and grow old together. A home that will see every new wrinkle, every new gray hair, and every kiss that will follow these little discoveries.
Hunter couldn’t wait.