part two of that thing I posted last week! This is also an unedited first draft, so take it with a grain of salt
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She arrives in the dead of night, clothes singed and skin burned.
The knock wakes them all, but Hooty is the loudest. He bursts through Luz’s window, a worm shaped interloper, and announces “HEY LUZ, YOUR GF IS HERE!!!!! SHE LOOKS LIKE SHE WAS DIPPED IN A POT OF ACID, BUT I’M SURE IT’S NOTHING TO WORRY ABOUT.”
Before Luz can even open her eyes fully to focus, he slides back out of her window with a loud “HOOT HOOT”.
Blinking sleep out of her eyes, Luz thinks she might be dreaming, until she hears the knock at the door. It’s insistent, quick, and somehow a little desperate.
Something is wrong.
She is instantly awake and on her feet, flying down the hallway just in time to collide with Eda, whose hair is sticking up at all angles. Before she can fall, Eda steadies her, and says “Did I hear Hooty say that Boots is in trouble?”
“I’m not sure,” Luz says frantically, “but we need to get to the door. Now.” She’s already running as she’s talking, and finally, finally, she makes it to the front of the house. She wrenches open the door and standing there is Amity, eyes red rimmed and body shaking.
Behind her is a sheet of boiling rain.
“Oh my gosh, did you run here in the rain???” Luz asks, grabbing Amity’s hand and tugging her inside. Amity nods wordlessly, staring at a spot on the floor. Now that she’s closer, Luz can see the damage; the rain has singed the sleeves of Amity’s dress, and dark, angry burns march up and down her arms. “Dang, kid, are you okay?” Eda asks, sounding genuinely concerned.
Something inside Luz tugs insistently, and though she wants to panic, she knows Amity needs her more right now. So she takes a deep breath and says “Let’s get you patched up, okay?”
Amity doesn’t move. She’s still staring at the floor with a blank expression, and Luz suddenly has no idea what to do. She wants to wrap Amity in her arms, protect her from whatever’s going on, but she knows that might not be appreciated, so she decides to ask.
“Do you want a hug?”
Amity nods so imperceptibly that Luz thinks she might have imagined it, but she nonetheless takes it as a yes. Careful to loop her arms around Amity’s waist and not her neck so as to avoid touching the burns, she wraps Amity in a loose hug. For a second, Amity does nothing. She stands there shaking with her arms hanging at her sides, until all at once, like a dam exploding, she grabs at Luz almost desperately, pulling her tighter as she bursts into tears.
Luz has never been in a situation like this before. Eda is sitting on the couch a respectful distance away, watching but not getting involved. Luz doesn’t know what to do, so she decides to follow her instincts. She reaches up to stroke Amity’s hair and whispers “It’s okay, you’re okay”. Amity cries herself out a few minutes later, Luz talking to her in a soothing voice the whole time. When only sniffles remain, Luz asks “Can we go to the couch? Eda wants to treat your burns.”
“Y-yeah,” Amity hiccups. It’s the first thing she’s said all night, and something in Luz loosens at the sound of it. She keeps an arm around her girlfriend’s shoulders as she guides her to the couch. She doesn’t want to let go, so when they sit down, she instantly grabs Amity’s hand.
“Is this okay?” she asks Amity. Amity nods, gently brushing her thumb along Luz’s knuckles in silent consent.
“Wow,” Eda whistles. “The rain got you good. Why were you out in that anyway, are you crazy?”
“Eda-” Luz starts, but Amity holds a hand up. “It’s okay,” she says. As Eda begins pulling potions out of the cabinet, Amity says “It’s- it’s my parents”.
Luz goes cold. She remembers them well. It’s hard to forget people who tried to kill you.
She hasn’t had much contact with Alador, but Odalia...Odalia gives her a feeling she can’t describe. Just the sight of her makes Luz unspeakably angry. Looking at Amity now, though, she realizes that Alador is just as bad. Complacency in the face of abuse is just as bad as the abuse itself.
“We had a fight,” Amity continues. “And you ran away? In the boiling rain? That takes guts, kid,” Eda says, a mixture of impressed and concerned.
“Not exactly. They, um...they kicked me out.”
“WHAT?”
“It’s not forever,” Amity hastens to say. “Just for the night. My mom said she...she said she can’t even look at me right now, and my Dad just agreed with her. Like he always does.”
Luz’s grip on Amity’s hand is tight as steel now. She’s ready to get up and give the Blights a piece of her mind. She wants to take them down, and make them pay for what they’ve done.
“So,” Luz says in a low voice. “Your parents left you alone in the middle of the night in rain that can literally kill you?”
“Yeah,” Amity says bitterly. “They’re not the best parents.”
“I’m going to make them pay for this. I’m- I’m going to go over there, and I’m going to-”
“Luz,” Amity puts a hand on Luz’s shoulder. “No. You can’t- I don’t want you in the same room as them ever again, okay?” Amity sounds scared.
Luz remembers the abomiton that tried to kill her, and the disappointed look on Odalia’s face when it didn’t succeed. She also remembers Amity’s righteous anger, and the steely eyed glare she gave her mother.
“I can’t have you hurt again,” Amity says, sounding almost frantic. “I just can’t, okay?”
“Okay, okay, shh it’s okay,” Luz assures her, cupping a hand to her face. Neither of them have the energy to be embarrassed about it right now, but it’s probably the most romantic gesture they’ve shared. Amity leans into Luz’s hand, breathing deeply.
“This might sting,” Eda says from the other side of the couch. Both Luz and Amity jump, having forgotten that she was there. Sheepishly, they part, still holding hands. Eda smirks at Luz and gives her a wink that Luz hopes Amity didn’t see. She gets the feeling Eda is going to be talking to her about this later.
Eda dabs a bit of blue potion onto Amity’s arm, and Amity hisses, breath whistling through her teeth, but she doesn’t flinch. “Is it- ow- is it okay that I came here?” She asks Eda, looking at her shyly.
Eda snorts, like it’s the stupidest question in the world. “I practically take kids in for a living, now,” she says. “What’s one more?”
“It’s just for the night,” Amity hastens to assure her. “I’m going home tomorrow morning.”
Luz shakes her head. “I hate the idea of you living with them. I can’t believe they treat you like this and just get away with it!”
“I’ll get out of there eventually. When I join a coven…” Amity trails off, and an awkward silence ensues. They haven’t talked about the whole “Amity’s biggest dream being potentially crushed by the Emperor being evil” thing.
“Well, the point is, it’s not forever,” Amity finally finishes.
“Aaaand done,” Eda says, wrapping the last bandage around Amity’s wrist. She stands up, knees creaking in an entirely unnatural way. “And now it’s bedtime,” she yawns. “You two get some rest, too.”
“Thank you, Eda,” Amity calls, and Eda gives her a lazy wave over her shoulder as she leaves.
The adrenaline is wearing off, now, and Luz suddenly realizes she has no idea what she’s doing. She glances at Amity out of the corner of her eye, and the image of her cupping Amity’s face floats into her brain. She flushes a deep scarlet, and suddenly, she needs to be doing something, anything else.
“Well, okay,” she says loudly, standing up abruptly and walking towards the closet. “Let me get you some pillows and a blanket, the couch is old and creaky, but it’s comfortable.”
As she’s rummaging through the closet, she hears Amity say “Luz”.
“Yeah?”
“Would you- I mean, if you wanted to, could you- could you stay with me for a little while?” She sounds so scared, and so sad, and it’s so unlike Amity that Luz melts immediately.
“Of course,” she says. “Here, scoot over.”
Amity moves a few inches, wincing at the pain in her arms. Luz sits down next to her and drapes a blanket over the both of them. They sit there awkwardly for a few minutes, and Luz is absolutely freaking out. She has no idea what to do now. Before she can agonize over it any further, Amity’s head lands on Luz’s shoulder.
This is unprecedented.
Nobody ever told Luz how scary the beginning of a relationship is. Nobody warned her that every little thing Amity does could change her mood instantly, or that every time she touches her she can swear to god she feels electricity.
Nobody told her how bittersweet it could be to have Amity Blight resting her head on her shoulder, exhausted from a horrific night of what can only be called abuse.
Her internal alarms are going off, she’s losing her mind, and she hopes Amity doesn’t notice. In the midst of this emergency, Amity calls her name sleepily.
“Hey, Luz?”
“Yeah?”
“You’re my favorite person.”
Oh. Oh wow. Oh. Wow.
This is a whole new level of scary. She feels a mixture of nerves and elation swirl through her, and she can’t help but smile, and she feels a little bit like crying but she doesn’t know why. She doesn’t know what to say, so instead, she does something even scarier: she kisses the top of Amity’s head.
She freezes, hoping that was okay, hoping that Amity doesn’t feel weird about it, but before she can ask, Amity starts quietly snoring.
She’s fallen asleep. Luz breathes a sigh of relief, marveling at the fact that Amity felt comfortable enough, after an awful night, to come to her house and fall asleep on her shoulder. How did she ever get so lucky?
After awhile, Luz yawns and checks her watch. Four forty two am. It’s definitely time for bed, but she doesn’t want to wake Amity up by leaving, so she decides that she’s going to stay up all night, watching over her girlfriend and making sure she’s okay.
Two minutes later, she falls asleep, resting her head on Amity’s.
When they wake up in the morning, it’s all apologies and blushing and everything Luz has started to get used to. But Amity has a small smile on her face despite her blush, and Luz has to admit: it’s the best nap she’s ever had.
