*kicks down door*

I'M BACK

Special thanks to the Huntlow Party Discord for giving me help with my writer's block!

"Welcome to La Casa Noceda!"

Luz threw her arms open wide as Amity, Willow, and Gus entered the house.

"We've been here before," giggled Willow.

"I know, but it's fun to say. Plus, Amity's never been here for a sleepover before!"

"It's been a while since I slept over at anyone's house," admitted Amity. "What do you guys do?"

"This way, milady!"

The term of endearment had slipped out without meaning to, and Luz felt her face burning bright as she led the trio to the living room where they'd set up for the night. Vee was carefully arranging stuffed animals on the couch when they walked in, and she brightened immediately upon seeing their friends. King popped his head out from behind the arm of said couch.

"Where's Hunter?" Willow inquired.

"He's on a snack run," Vee replied. "But he might not be joining us at all."

Luz grimaced. Hunter had been having a rough time since finding out about his birth family, so when he was at home he kept to himself more than usual. He was good at hiding it outside the house, but it was going to be a crapshoot whether or not he'd keep hiding it when they had guests over. Especially Willow. She knew Willow was the only reason he even hid what was going on outside the house.

"I'm sure it'll be fine!" Luz assured the three of them. "Set your stuff down and we'll get started!"

Amity, Gus, and Willow glanced at each other, not seeming to quite get what was going on, but they did set their stuff down and begin to settle in. Luz let out a relieved sigh.

"I'm back!" Hunter announced as the front door opened. "Are they here yet?"

"We're in here!" Willow called, and Luz heard Hunter stumble and she let out a snort of amusement. He poked his head into the living room, the tips of his ears turning slightly red.

"I got everything on your list," he announced, seemingly regaining his composure before holding up the bag of snacks he'd gone out to grab. "Way too much candy, by the way."

"You can never have too much candy!" snapped King, glaring.

"Whatever." Hunter rolled his eyes. "I'm putting this stuff in the kitchen."

"You're joining us, right?" Willow inquired.

"Or are you just the snack guy?" Amity added. Hunter leveled his signature "resting-bitch-face" glare at her.

"I'm sticking around to make sure she doesn't stick in a horror movie without making sure those two are asleep," Hunter stated, gesturing from Luz to the two younger kids.

"It only happened one time!" protested Luz.

"Vee couldn't sleep in her own bed for a week afterwards, we're not risking it."

"I think I can handle it this time," Vee admitted. "I'm a lot braver than I used to be."

"Yeah, again, I don't think it's a good idea to risk it."

"Maybe." Vee shrugged.

"I can handle anything!" King insisted.

"We're still not doing it." Hunter turned and headed out of the living room.

"I'm gonna see if he needs any help," Willow said, standing up to follow him.

"She totally has a crush on him, doesn't she?" Amity whispered to Luz under her breath.

"Don't know about her, but he one-hundred percent does. Since day one."

"It gets weird," Gus agreed.

"What are you guys talking about?" King questioned.

"Nothing!" all three older kids said in unison.

It was going to be a fun night.

"STOP BUTTON-MASHING!"

"It's a valid strategy for this game if you don't have the combos memorized!"

"Have you even played it before?"

"Those two need to be stopped," Gus muttered to Vee, watching Amity and Hunter argue as they played against each other in Street Fighter.

"And this is why I opted out of playing entirely," Luz stated. "Hunter is super competitive."

"Amity's always been like this, too," Willow agreed.

Hunter's character grabbed Amity's and threw them across the screen, knocking their health bar almost all the way down. Vee nibbled on the popcorn from the bowl she had in her lap; she'd gotten out of the tournament in the first round when Gus took her out.

"So, how goes drama?" Willow asked, changing the subject as she looked at Vee.

"I went to my first club meeting and it was a lot of improv games. Mr. Graye said he sees potential in what I can do but I'd prefer to just be part of the crew, not the cast."

"Every part of a stage production is important," Gus agreed. "And you're still new. It's best to learn the ropes before you go into the spotlight. I've been learning to work the lighting booth from Edric."

Amity let out a triumphant yell as her character KO'd Hunter's.

"Screw you, Blight!"

"I told you it was a valid strategy!"

"Doesn't mean it's not a bullshit one!"

"Maybe we should turn off the video games for a bit," suggested Luz. "I got movies! Or…"

Vee didn't like that smirk on her older sister's face.

"We could play Truth or Dare."

"Not with you," Hunter retorted.

"What, afraid?"

"No, I just know how you play."

"How would you know? You've never played with me."

He raised an eyebrow as if to ask 'you're serious?' before shutting down the game console. Luz took that to mean 'movies', apparently, as she grabbed the remote and switched it to Netflix.

"We could binge that series I've been wanting to watch."

"You've watched it four times."

"It's good."

"I'm not saying it's not good. I'm saying you've watched it four times."

Luz stuck out her tongue.

"What series?" Willow inquired.

"It's a tragic story of two sisters on opposite sides of a war." Oh, right, Luz had a dramatic flair. "A tale of haves and have-nots, a story of love and tragedy and sacrifice. It's—"

"Arcane," Hunter interrupted. "It's Arcane."

"I was doing a thing!"

"You were dragging it out."

"I've heard of it, but I haven't watched it," Amity stated.

"Oh, you'll love it. It's got action, adventure, heartbreak, romance, a villain who's actually cool and you're torn between sympathizing with him and wanting him to get kicked down an elevator shaft—"

"It might be a little much for those two."

Hunter was looking at her and King again. He had a point; she'd seen bits and pieces of the show when Luz was watching it and it looked really intense with all the fighting and blood. And it was already getting to be her bedtime.

"Let's just watch a movie, not a show," Willow suggested gently. "Something light-hearted."

"Good idea," Hunter agreed.

"Aw." Luz's face fell.

"Maybe another time," Vee assured her.

The next twenty minutes were spent scrolling through various streaming services and arguing over what to watch. In that time, King fell asleep under a pile of stuffed animals and Vee felt her eyes growing heavy as she leaned against Hunter. She was almost completely asleep when she felt him move her into her sleeping bag that had been brought into the living room. It was all cozy and she drifted off to sleep completely.

Once they were sure the younger kids were asleep, Luz wasted no time in switching to a horror movie.

"Are we gonna watch one that's campy or actually scary?" Gus asked.

"Nothing actually scary, please," Willow requested with a shiver. "Last time we watched one that was actually scary I had to keep the lights on while I slept."

"Hunter can keep us safe," Luz pointed out, glancing at him with a smirk.

"Don't give me that look, you weirdo. What am I gonna do against a slasher?"

"You're the tough guy of our group."

"Which means by horror movie logic, I'm one of the ones who dies. Hell, I'm probably the first to die once everything starts."

"Sounds about right," Amity snickered.

"Watch it, Blight."

"We should watch a campy one," Luz interrupted before they could start arguing. "Like a parody of an actual horror movie."

"Yeah, I'm not sitting through you watching Friday the Thirteenth again."

"I wasn't that bad!"

"Tell that to the hockey player whose mask you broke because you flipped out."

"Maybe we should all just talk," Willow suggested. "About… life? And things?"

"My parents suck, let's start with that," muttered Amity.

"Yeah, how are they taking you trying to be friends with me again?"

"Surprisingly well, actually. After Mom heard you beat Boscha. She still says you're not allowed at our house."

"I did hear your parents are pretty strict," Luz agreed.

"They are. Well, Mom more than Dad. Dad just goes along with what she says because he's distracted with work. What about you?"

"Mom's pretty cool about almost everything," Hunter stated. "As long as we're not doing anything illegal or out past our curfew. Tell your siblings thanks for that, by the way—that library thing is the reason we have one."

And Phillip, don't forget Phillip.

He squashed that little voice in his head down.

"They've been asking me to help them talk to you," Amity sighed. "I think they wanna apologize and be your friends, but you keep walking away from them."

"Why would I wanna be friends with the people who almost got my sister in trouble for breaking and entering?"

"Fair point. But they wanted me to ask since I'm apparently on roller-derby. I wasn't aware I made the team."

"You didn't."

"I know that. Tell them."

"Telling them would require speaking to them, which I'm not going to do."

Amity rolled her eyes as Luz finally picked a movie and turned it on. Hunter turned his attention to the movie with the others and tried to find a way to ignore a growing feeling of dread in his gut. The movie would be a good distraction, and Luz and the others would fall asleep and he could go up to his room.

And they didn't even make it to the credits, either.

As soon as those rolled, Hunter turned off the TV and stood up to head upstairs. Before he even set a foot on the bottom step, he went around to make sure all the doors were locked. He'd never had this habit prior to knowing about Phillip and his parents, but it helped him feel safer. Not that Phillip would ever try to break in but better safe than sorry.

His stomach churned slightly.

Phillip Wittebane. His uncle. A fucking bastard who'd caused Hunter's scar.

Nobody had said it outright, but he was guessing. He'd only ended up with Camila and Luis because Phillip had chosen to take his anger at Emily out on Hunter and CPS had been called by someone. That was all the information he was able to get out of Darius, anyway. It wasn't much but it was definitely something.

Ugh. He wasn't gonna be able to sleep.

He didn't get much of it these days with all the thoughts buzzing around his head.

I really need to talk to Mom about that therapist.

Talking had always helped him with his problems. The only issue with that was his need to also clam up and bottle up his emotions in regards to the serious stuff—his dad, his birth parents, his uncle, (his crush on Willow), all of it.

Might as well figure out something to do in the meantime. Maybe play a couple of dungeons in Ruler's Reach or try to tune Dad's old guitar again. Anything to keep his mind off of where it really and truly didn't want to go.

Hunter was gone when Willow woke up in the middle of the night.

Everyone else was fast asleep, but she couldn't put her finger on why she'd woken up like that. Whatever the reason, she was alerted to someone being in the kitchen fairly quickly. Quietly she crept over to peek into the room, only to see Hunter drinking a glass of water.

"Hey," she whispered. He almost dropped the glass in surprise.

"Willow? What are you doing up?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"Fair enough. I can't sleep." He shrugged.

"I just woke up and I heard you in here."

"Sorry about that."

His eyes were downcast. She knew something was bothering him.

For the past two weeks, Hunter had been acting differently than she was used to. Sure, he pretended everything was fine. He did a good enough job to fool Gus and Amity and everyone else. But not her. They'd spent so much time together over the summer that she knew something was wrong.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

"About what?"

"Whatever's on your mind." He stared at her in surprise, and her heartbeat quickened ever so slightly as she stared into his wine-red eyes.

"Nothing's on my mind. Don't worry about it."

"But I'm going to worry. You've been upset about something." She fidgeted, breaking their eye contact. "Maybe we can just hang out instead?"

He let out a sigh.

"Not here. Let's… let's go to my room."

She could've sworn his face was glowing bright pink in the faint light of the moon streaming through the window.

"Okay."

They headed up the stairs and she followed him into his room. She hadn't actually been inside it before; most of their hanging out had been done in the living room or outside the house. The only boy's room she'd been inside before now was Gus, and even then it had only been briefly to pick up something for class.

Hunter's room wasn't like Gus's. It was cleaner, for one thing, and lit by a lamp sitting on the nightstand. He had a much bigger bed that was messy, but that was probably because he'd gotten up to get that drink of water. His computer was just as nice as the one Gus had, though, and it sat on a desk in the corner. There was even a guitar sitting by the bay window-seat.

I didn't know he even played.

"Uh, I guess, make yourself comfortable?" he said, snapping her back to reality.

"Where should I…?"

"O-on the bed, if you want." He refused to look her in the eye. "I've got…"

"How about the window seat?"

"Yeah, that works!" His voice cracked slightly and he sat down on the window seat. She went over to join him, painfully aware of just how much space there was on said seat and how much space was between the two of them.

"I didn't know you played guitar," she commented.

"I do, off and on. It's not really mine, it belonged to my dad."

"Are you any good?"

"I can play a couple songs, but not a lot of them. Music isn't really my thing." He rubbed the back of his head nervously. "But, um, if you really want me to, I can play you something?"

"No, I was just curious because you hadn't mentioned it. You're pretty talented, though."

"Heh. Thanks. I, um… I'm really not that good." His face was red again. Was he okay?

"You mind telling me what's bothering you? If you don't want to, you don't have to, just… I'm here to lend an ear if you need it."

Hunter inhaled deeply.

"You know I'm adopted, right?"

"Yeah. You told me before. Miss Camila and your dad took you in when you were little and you became part of the family."

"Well, I've never known anything about my birth family. Nothing." He sighed. "The day we had the match against Boscha, this guy who was apparently friends with my birth parents showed up and he told me about them—how they were good people, that they loved me, stuff like that."

He took another deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut.

"He didn't tell me how they died."

"What happened to them?"

"Do you really wanna know? Because I want you to be able to sleep tonight."

"If it'll help you, yes."

"…they were murdered. Fourteen years ago. It's a cold case from what I've gathered just from articles online. They have no idea who did it."

"Hunter…" She scooted over so they were closer together and put a hand on his shoulder.

"On top of that, turns out I have a psychotic uncle on my birth father's side that I have to watch out for. Because CPS dropped the ball and didn't think to tell Mom where I came from." He glanced at her. "It's… it's a lot. And he's some kind of philanthropist rich guy now, so…"

"…can I hug you?"

His eyes widened as he stared at her. Without asking a second time, she wrapped her arms around him. His body stiffened in surprise but he relaxed at her touch, reciprocating the hug. He was so warm. It was a comforting feeling, one that ended all to quickly as they pulled apart.

"Sorry to put all this on you."

"I'm the one who asked. And you're the one who needed an ear."

He smiled slightly, a cute smile that made her want to hug him again.

"Um. How about you? Anything new with your plants?"

"Hunter."

"I don't wanna talk about me anymore. I feel better but I'm not there yet."

"Okay, then." She nodded. "Do you want me to stay?"

"Yeah. I do. If you want to."

"I do."

She gave him a smile, but she could hear her heart pounding in her ears.

He wants me to stay.

Someone was in his bed, and it wasn't Luz or Vee.

Hunter opened his eyes to find Willow asleep next to him, her chest rising and falling with her gentle breathing. And his brain promptly went into freak-out mode as he struggled not to wake her up and also free his arm from under her because he was cuddling her in his sleep, this wasn't happening, this wasn't fucking happening.

"Mm…" Willow shifted enough that he was able to free his arm (God he hoped he hadn't done anything stupid) and get up from the bed.

Okay. Okay. Don't panic. Remember what happened.

She'd found him drinking water in the kitchen, offered him a listening ear, he'd told her about his biological family (fucking hell), and they'd spent quite a bit of time talking afterwards. They got tired and he offered to let her use his bed on the condition he slept on the floor, which she hadn't accepted and she insisted that it would be fine if they both slept in the bed. It was a big bed, after all.

What time was it? If it was early enough he could maybe wake Willow up and talk her into pretending she'd slept downstairs all night instead of admitting that they'd spent a few hours cuddling in his bed.

She was so soft, though.

No, you idiot! You're not her boyfriend!

Not with that attitude.

He grabbed his phone off the nightstand and checked the time. It was 8:16, which meant it was past eight. Luz was never asleep past seven. There went that plan.

Wait.

Had Luz seen them? Had she come to look for Willow after not finding her in her sleeping bag? Why hadn't she woken them up?

Actually, he knew the answer to the last question—his sister had seen them and let them be because she was such a fucking shipper. Probably internally screaming about some trope that he and Willow were fulfilling in her mind.

"Willow," he whispered, shaking her slightly.

"Five more minutes," she mumbled in her sleep. "Comfy…"

God she was cute. All snuggled up like—

"Willow, you gotta get up."

Her green eyes fluttered open before squinting. He grabbed her glasses off the nightstand and handed them to her. It took a moment for her to adjust and get them on before she seemed to realize what was going on.

"Oh, good morning, Hunter."

"We'd… better get downstairs."

"Yeah, probably." She smiled.

How is she not freaking out?!

Willow swung her legs over the side of the bed and she and Hunter headed out of the room and downstairs. In the living room, Luz was watching TV with Amity and Gus. Vee and King were nowhere to be seen. She noticed them and waved.

"Oh, good morning! Sleep well?"

She had a shit-eating smug grin on her face and Hunter felt his face burning bright red. Not that it had stopped since he woke up cuddling Willow.

"Well enough." Willow walked into the living room and sat down between Amity and Gus.

Luz took out her phone and texted something. Hunter's went off in his hand with a picture of him and Willow. Asleep. Cuddling with his arms around her.

I'm saving this for your wedding :D

He narrowed his eyes at her and she still gave him that smug grin before he texted back.

Delete it now

No :3

I know your phone passcode. Delete it or I delete all your Amity pictures

You wouldn't

Test me and find out

Luz stuck out her tongue at him but showed him her phone as she deleted it.

"I'm gonna go make breakfast," he announced. "Alone. We're having pancakes."

"PANCAKES!" King yelled from the top of the stairs, almost falling down them in his zeal to make it down. Vee was right behind him.

"You sure you don't want help?" Willow asked.

"I got it. Trust me."

"Hunter's a good cook," Luz added in a tone as if she were trying to sell Hunter as a partner. "If anyone's gonna end this sleepover on a high note, it's him."

"Okay, then." Willow gave Hunter a smile that just made him melt. "I'm looking forward to it.

These are gonna be the best fucking pancakes I've made in my life.

He turned and continued into the kitchen.

Not me showing my Arcane fangirl in Vee's section, lol, I've had that conversation with my sister so many times and she still won't watch it.

Sorry about the lack of sleepover shenanigans, I wanted to put a lot more of a focus on Huntlow for this chapter as well as cover how Hunter's doing after learning part of his past. The sleepover was just an excuse to have a late-night Huntlow conversation by moonlight because I'm a dramatic bitch and I feel like I've been actually slacking on the Huntlow in this story. Also platonic (at this point) bed-sharing leading to cuddling.

Next time, as per request by the Discord, it'll be a flashback. A little heavy this time but with Huntlow cuteness at the end.

So long and thanks for all the fish!