Hunter Loves Edric

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?"