Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Today is looking to be a long day, it seems.

Amity looks up at the clock on the wall just as the school bell screams, and she grabs for the books in front of her as the other students around her bustle about. All she really wants to do is find a nice, quiet place to take a nap - she could barely sleep the night prior. She waits for a moment, letting the other students leave the classroom first so as to not get trampled on, and makes her way out the door with an offhanded wave to her teacher.

She sighs, holding the books close to her chest as she walks over to her locker. At least the day is halfway done, she thinks to herself. She hasn’t even gotten to open her locker when Boscha rolls up, slamming a hand against the nearest wall.

“So, I had the brightest idea earlier that we’d all go get our nails done after school, and Skara is SUPER on board with it.” The three-eyed girl leans in, a smirk on her face. “You in, Amity?”

She doesn’t really want to, like, at all - so she thinks up a quick excuse.

“I can’t, sorry. I promised mom I’d help out with her afternoon errands.” Amity replies, trying to really sell the lie with a grimace. She wishes that Boscha would just lose interest in being her “friend” already.

“Ughhh, it’s not as fun if you can’t go,” Boscha rolls her eyes, a bit of a pout on her face. “Skara’s just going to talk about her boyfriend the entire time.”

“I really am sorry, I definitely would go with you guys if I was free,” Amity lies through her teeth, reaching out to open her locker. She wants to be in the lunchroom already - she can feel her stomach growling, and maybe she can see a certain someone’s face. That will absolutely make her day better.

The locker opens with a clatter - it growls at her and she ignores it, and a single square white envelope is sitting inside; there’s no name, or any indication of what it could be on the outside. Amity grabs for it curiously, placing her books inside.

“What’s that, some kind of love-letter?” The pink-haired girl snatches the envelope out of Amity’s hands, eyebrows shooting up into her hairline.

“Boscha! Give it!” Amity tries reaching for it, but the other girl just side-steps out of her way with a laugh, tearing the letter open to see what’s inside.

“What do we have here~” She teases, eyes scanning the page. They widen considerably when she catches onto something. “Whoa, actually - dude someone has it bad for you, ha ha!!” She snorts out a laugh, and Amity grabs the letter out of her hand, finally.

She stares at the piece of paper, and her heart starts to race. It’s a poem.

Someone WROTE her a poem.

Amity - your eyes shine like gold coins

And when I look into them

I feel like the richest person ever.

Oh, wow. That’s a terrible poem. And yet kind of sweet?.. Hm. There’s no name anywhere.

Amity forces her face into a grimace, and Boscha’s still laughing.

“This is awful, who wrote this?” She cackles, and Amity is almost starting to feel a little defensive over it. I mean, the person wrote it for her.

“There seems to be no name on it.” The green-haired witch shoves the letter into her pocket, hearing it crinkle loudly. “That’s too bad.”

“ Yeah that’s too bad, I wanted to make fun of them for it!” She laughs again, and yeah okay, Amity’s starting to feel annoyed.

“Not everyone needs to be made fun of constantly,” She retorts, slamming her locker shut. She gives one last look to her not-sort-of-friend, before turning to leave. “I’m going to lunch.”

The sounds of Amity’s footsteps fade away within the noise of the school, and Boscha watches her go.

“What’s gotten up with her lately?” She says to no one in particular, scowling to herself.

-

Amity faces the crowded lunchroom, food in hand. She’s not even feeling particularly hungry now since she read that note, but will force down the food anyway. She looks around and happens to spot Willow sitting with Gus off to the side - as well as Luz.

Ah.

She feels so stupid, the way her heart does little flips every single time she sees the human. It feels irrational, at this point. Why did Luz turn out to be so nice, and caring, and cute - she stops that particular train of thought. It’s the entire reason why she hasn’t been getting enough sleep this last week, and with everything that happened after Grom, Amity feels a little like she might be going crazy.

Her feelings are going haywire, and she has no outlet for them. She can’t talk to anyone about it, come on, that’d be so embarrassing. Admitting you have feelings, romantic feelings, for a human? Yeah, she’d rather hex herself than go through that kind of social scrutiny right now.

She mulls over where to sit - spotting an empty table in the opposite corner by the windows, and walks over to it to sit down. She sighs, pulling her sandwich out of the bag, and takes a small bite out of it. It’s a bit dry, but it’s whatever. She pulls the note out of her pocket and unfolds it on the table, having to place her bottle of water on the top of it to stop it from folding back up.

Amity leans forward, peering hard at the handwriting, nice as it is. She doesn’t recognise it at all. Who could this be from, exactly? She feels like this could also possibly be a prank, because who in their right mind would send her a love letter? Definitely not the person she wants it to be. She takes another bite, chewing it slowly and thoughtfully. 

A familiar voice laughs nearby, and all of a sudden a hand slams down on the table about a foot from Amity. She jolts in her seat, looking up to see the face of Luz.

“Amity!” The human girl enthusiastically greets her. “Why are you sitting here all alone? Since you didn’t come to sit with us, we’ll sit with you!” She grins, Willow and Gus in tow right behind her. They all take a seat at the table around her, tossing their food onto the table and making themselves comfortable. Amity feels a little taken aback with the gesture, and tries to not let it show too much on her face. Being this close to Luz after what happened the other day.. she swallows her feelings.

“Oh, you don’t have to-” Luz gasps, cutting Amity off. She grabs the piece of paper on the table, and holds it up to her face. She’s squinting quite hard.

“A love letter!!!” Luz exclaims, eyes wide open with her mouth hanging dramatically - Willow shushes her. She rubs the back of her head sheepishly, looking apologetic. “Forget you heard anything!” She shouts back out to the lunch room. A stray “don’t tell me what to do!” pierces through the white noise of the other students chattering amongst themselves. Gus giggles into his soup.

“Thanks for that.” Amity half-glares at Luz, taking the letter back from her and folding it in half, placing it back on the table. She feels the tips of her ears get warm from embarrassment. “And yeah.. It was in my locker when I opened it earlier. I have no idea who it’s from.”

“I bet I can figure out who it is.” Gus says smugly, taking a spoonful into his mouth. “Let me see.”

“No! You’ll just judge it unfairly.” Amity replies, and reaches out to clutch it in her hands.

“C’mon, why are you being so defensive! What can it hurt?” He points his spoon at her, waving it a bit. 

"I'm not defensive!" She retorts back, Gus' smirk immediately widening. She quickly realizes her mistake, and slides the letter over to him to play it off cool. "It's just, it's a poem of all things, and I don't know of anyone that's written anything like.." She trails off as she watches Gus' eyebrows shoot up on his face, and she's unsure if it's either because he's impressed, or taken aback with said writing. Willow leans over to also peer at the letter.

"I don't know whether to laugh or applaud this guy."

"It could be a girl, Gus." Willow gives him a judgemental look. "Do you know of any guys here with that handwriting? It's too nice."

"That's a.. fair point." He puts a finger up to his lip, and then looks around at the other students in the lunch room, squinting his eyes in suspicion. He points to a person waaay over in the opposite corner. "What about him? He's always been pretty well-spoken."

"Geoffrey?!" Amity hisses out, and then reels enough back to not look so.. frantic. "It's obviously not him, I mean, he's nice sure. But he never goes out of his way to talk to me, and he's never given any kind of indication he even likes me as a fellow classmate."

"Plus, Geoffrey has had that thing for Brian since last year, remember?" Willow takes a bite out of her apple, and grabs the poem to read it again. 

"Oh right, kind of forgot about that since that one incident." Gus sighs a little dramatically, and the rest of the table ignores his theatrics. He makes a show to place his hand over his eyes - like he's staring out into bright open seas er - students. "Maybe it is a girl. Maybe it's.. someone we know. Maybe it's… Luz!!" He points to her like gotcha! and Amity feels her heart stop.

Luz chokes on the bite of food she's just placed inside her mouth, her spoon clattering on the table. "I've never written a love letter in my life," She sputters and coughs several more times - her cheeks are turning pink a little, but surely it's from the lack of air intake. Gus laughs at her, Willow rolling her eyes at her friend's antics. "Besides, if I were to write a love letter, it would definitely not be poetry. There's a reason why mom wanted me to go to that summer camp. If anything, I'd write a fanfic."

"A fanfic." Willow deadpans at her for a couple seconds, and then shrugs. "That is very you, though."

Amity takes the last bite of her sandwich and tries not to sit there in disappointment. Like, she knew it wasn't Luz of course. Still stings a little. Luz gives Amity a curious look as she swallows her food, and Amity hopes her emotions aren't showing on her face. That'd be terrible.

"Was the letter in your locker when you first came into school today?" The human asks, wiping her face for any food crumbs. She takes the letter from Willow, her eyes scanning the page one last time.

"No, now that I think about it." Amity replies, watching the other girl. She tries not to let her eyes linger on Luz for too long in anyone else's presence, for fear that someone might catch wind of her feelings for the human.

"Well then, clearly, we know they're a student here. Now if only it were obvious!" Gus says excitedly. "We should build a student card bingo for this."

"That would be interesting." Willow laughs.

"You think the admirer will come forward sometime to confess?" Luz leans near Amity to ask, making the other girl acutely aware of just how close she is.

"It wouldn't matter, honestly." Amity admits, taking the poem back from Luz and folding it into her pocket. "It's not like I'm interested."

"Why, you like someone else?" Gus interjects, slurping up another spoonful of soup.

"N-no! Of course not!" Amity says a little too quickly, and she feels a specific set of eyes on her. "Besides, I wouldn't date someone I don't know, just because they wrote me a poem."

She sees Luz staring at her out of the corner of her eye, like she's remembering the note Amity has been trying to forget about since the night of Grom.

"Yeah, I wouldn't either." Willow agrees, and hands Gus a napkin absentmindedly. He's kind of a messy eater.

"Wow, give the person a break, they just put their whole heart out there! Doesn't that mean anything in the name of romance?" Gus says in between mouthfuls of soup.

"They're welcome to say it to my face." Amity replies, and she tries to change the subject.

Lunch period ends pretty soon after that, and the rest of classes go by pretty slowly for Amity. Ed and Em rip into her about her day after school a little more than usual, and she retires to her bedroom early that night, a lot on her mind to think about.

She has a hard time falling asleep, like she has been for a while now, one very specific person plaguing her thoughts constantly. She thinks she'll just forget about the love letter for now. Or maybe entirely, actually, since there's no point.

Sleep comes to her after a couple of hours.

-

When her locker physically spits another letter at her the next day, she decides this might be a problem.

Chapter Text

Surprisingly enough, no one is paying attention to Amity when her locker spits the letter out at her, and she quickly stuffs the envelope into her pocket before anyone has the chance to see. It’s exactly the same as the other one, interestingly enough.

She rapidly gathers the things she needs for her next class, narrowly avoiding a few students in the halls as she makes her way to her next period. There are several students in the class chatting when she gets there, so she resides to looking at the letter later, regrettably. 

She sits down at one of the empty tables next to the window, staring outside as she listens to more students fill in the class. Two students are arguing about which one’s stronger, and Amity rolls her eyes to herself when she hears them start to challenge each other to a duel later. It’s raining outside today, the clouds are completely covering the sky in large sheets of grey, and she sighs as she watches the rain pour down. Sleep didn’t come to her easy last night, she kept waking up every half hour or so. She’ll have to push through her tiredness to even be able to get through school today.

Someone sits down next to her, and she tries to ignore the presence as she waits for the teacher to come in and start the class. They place their books down pretty loudly, and she hears a pretty familiar cough.

“Were you going to ignore my presence the entire class, Blight?” Luz jokes, voice light and airy.

Amity turns her face to look at the human in surprise - she forgot she had a lesson with Luz today. Luz is smiling at her the same way she smiles at the rest of her friends - and the way it has Amity’s heart beating fast is utterly embarrassing. 

“N-no,” She hears herself stutter a little, cursing herself internally for acting like some kind of fool around the human. “I just have a lot on my mind.”

Luz stares at Amity for several seconds longer than necessary, a worried expression taking up space on her face.

“You look a little tired, are you getting enough sleep?” She asks gently, and Amity thinks that Luz might be becoming a little too familiar with her. If she knows how to read her face like this, she’s going to figure out her feelings for the other girl, sooner or later. And that’s not good at all.

“I’ve been having some issues sleeping the last couple of days, it’s no big deal.” The green-haired girl answers truthfully - it’s not like she can lie about it, if Luz can see it on her face already. But she doesn’t want to talk about it, because then she’ll have to elaborate as to why, and she doesn’t want to go down that particular path. Just ‘ hey Luz, can’t sleep because I think about kissing your stupidly cute face constantly, don’t worry about it!’ Yeah, that’s gonna be a no. “That’s not what's on my mind though. Here.”

Amity pulls the blank white envelope out of her pocket, and places it on the table on her books in a way that only Luz can see from this angle. Luz’s eyes go comically wide, and she shuts her mouth before she shouts in surprise at the object on the table.

“-is that another..?” She whispers to Amity, scooting her seat so close to her that she can feel her knee press against her thigh.

Amity tries so incredibly hard to not focus on the single warm point of contact she has with Luz. It might actually be the hardest thing she’s ever done in her life. She can feel her own palms getting sweaty.

“Yeah, I haven’t opened it yet though. Wanted to be discreet.” She answers, screaming at her own brain to calm the hell down. This is a lot harder than she had thought. “I wasn’t expecting another one of these at all, or so soon after the last one..” 

“You’re not flattered at their insistence?” She wonders out loud, reaching over for the envelope - Amity smacks her hand from grabbing it automatically, and Luz yelps - tearing her hand away. Realizing what she just did, Amity feels her face light up in embarrassment.

“S-sorry, I didn’t mean to, I just didn’t want the other students to notice I had-”

Luz laughs, cutting her off. “Is Amity getting comfortable with me?” She says in jest, Amity wishing she could sink into her seat as she feels her face get redder.

“Don’t get used to it.” She retorts, and Luz knocks her knee against hers teasingly.

The professor walks into the room then, addressing everyone in his class, and Amity tucks the note into one of her books for safekeeping, pulling her potions book out to the front. The murmurs of the other students die down, and he starts off with some monologue about last week’s lesson theory, and Amity is already having a difficult time paying attention.

She places her chin in her hand, glancing out the window. Rain pelts against the glass, and within five minutes she’s starting to feel a bit sleepy again as the teacher’s droning voice goes on and on. Except for the fact that Luz starts to shake her leg out of misplaced, unbridled energy - the one that’s touching Amitys, and now it’s all she can pay attention to.

Is the girl not aware she’s touching the other’s leg? Or does it just not matter to her? Is it just Amity sitting here, silently freaking out about this?

Ugh, she feels so stupid.

The teacher calls on the student sitting in the front row, who gives a perfect answer - and they start heavily discussing that specific topic; Amity watches Luz pull a piece of paper out of her notebook, placing it in front of herself and shielding it from the teacher.

What the hell is she doing? Amity tries her best to not outright stare at her table partner. Luz is scribbling something onto the paper, tip of her tongue peeking out of her lips. A particularly strong gust of wind knocks a nearby tree branch at the classroom window, Luz looks up at the offending noise curiously - Amity has to tear her eyes away from the girl before she catches on.

She can’t even pretend to be a perfect, ‘straight A’ student when the object of her affections is sitting right next to her. How utterly embarrassing. Get it together. The face Luz is making reminds Amity of when she first met the human - and hoo boy has her impression of her flipped a complete 180. Not to mention how Amity herself acted around her. She tries to not think about that part too much, as she already has written extensively in her diary about all of her own regrets. 

Amity’s lost in thought before she realizes Luz is staring at her, and she feels the tips of her ears heat up in embarrassment. The human gives her a look - one Amity interprets as “you’re being weird again, Blight” and she slides the piece of paper over to her.

Amity looks down to peer at the note on the table, feeling the tips of her ears heat up even more.

Luz drew herself with a bunch of sparkles around her head, and inside the speech bubble next to her face it reads: “do you wanna spend the next free period together to look at that letter?”

Ah, yeah. Amity’s got it bad. How can one single girl affect her like this? She tries to visibly remain calm as she grabs her own pencil to write her answer, feeling her own fingers shake. Spend a free period - that she normally spends alone to study - with the human? Just the two of them?

Together?  

She feels her brain shut off after that specific thought, and hastily writes down “don’t you spend that with willow?” and slides it back over to Luz.

Luz reads it, scrunching her face and giving Amity a look. She writes something back, staring at Amity purposefully.

“do you not want my help?” Amity reads the paper, feeling her heart drop. She quickly tries to write out a “thats not what i meant”- but is interrupted by the professor coughing, and loudly.

“Miss Blight, are you passing notes in my class?” He asks, and Amity hastily sits up straight.

“N-No! Of course not! I was just teaching Luz here the proper way on how to write out the name of this particular fungus, sir.” She answers, heart caught in her throat. Do not come over here, do not come over here - is running in her mind on a loop.

He stares at her from the front of the classroom for a few moments, before shrugging and moving on with his lecture. Phew.  

Amity relaxes in her seat, feeling like she emotionally just ran a mile. After a few minutes while the teacher isn’t paying attention, she scribbles out what she was writing on the note earlier and writes down a “of course I do.” To slide over to the human.

Luz looks down at it briefly - to not seem as suspicious to the teacher - and Amity watches as a genuine smile breaks out on her face when she reads the words. It isn't good for her heart's health, being around Luz so much like this. 

The rest of the class goes by pretty quickly after that, and Amity finds herself both looking forward to, and dreading the next hour.

-

They were going to go to the library and sit at a secluded table together under the guise of studying, but it ended up much too crowded for Amity's taste. Even the three study classrooms that are usually empty were chock full of students today.

Eventually they end up on the third floor’s stairwell in the corner, next to all the giant windows. It’s very quiet over here, rarely do students come up or down this way since it’s much farther than any of the bathrooms or classrooms nearby. Luz takes a seat near the bottom of the steps, stretching her arms over her head and yawning.

Amity tries not to stare. She knows she’s been doing a lot of that lately. She instead looks out the large windows and the many trees beyond - the rain is coming down pretty heavy. There’s a flash of lightning out there in the far distance, and after several seconds she hears the thunder. It pours a little harder after that. 

She opens the envelope in her hand, unfolding the paper and sitting next to Luz on the third step.

Her hair was like trees 

Brown, green, and strong. 

Stronger and more powerful than any tree I’ve ever seen

People see her beauty, I saw her roots.

“I think this one is a little better than the other one, frankly,” Luz giggles, her shoulder pressed against Amity’s as she leans in close to read. She needs her brain to focus on literally anything else other than the constant physical contact the human keeps subjecting her to. 

“Should I be flattered or insulted?” Amity shakes the paper in disgust, giving Luz a look of judgement. “Mentioning my roots of all things..”

“I think it’s nice!” Luz locks eyes with the other girl, meeting her gaze. “They were definitely acknowledging your superior strength!” She pulls away to flex, and Amity almost snorts out a laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of it.

“You’re supposed to be on my side, don’t defend them,” Amity tries her hardest to not let her flustered feelings show on her face as Luz leans right back into her personal space. 

“I’m just admiring their choice of words,” Luz replies with a grin, bumping her shoulder with Amity's slightly. “But you know what’s bothering me? They don’t leave a name, or any way for you to reply to these.”

“While that has been bothering me, honestly, it’s not like I’d contact them even if they did.” The green-haired girl says, watching the rain pelt against the glass on the opposite side of the stairwell. God, it’s dreadful out. 

Suddenly, she hears footsteps on the floor above her coming downwards, and she quickly grabs the potions book to her left, placing it on her lap and hiding the love poem between some of the pages. Luz turns to look behind them both.

“Amityyyyyyy~” The condescending voice of Boscha is heard from behind her, and Amity sighs to herself.

Of course Boscha would somehow find her. Of course.

“What are you doing with her?” The three eye-ed girl walks down the stairs next to the both of them, Skara in tow. She stops to give Amity a bewildered look, and Skara’s not even paying attention. She’s glued to her scroll , rapidly tapping the screen.

Amity doesn’t feel up for it today.

“We’re studying, if you don’t mind.” She answers, giving Boscha a defiant look, the other girl raising her eyebrows in return.

“With the human?” She says it like it’s the scum under her feet. Amity hates the tone she’s using, and is getting irritated very quickly. “Come hang out with us instead.”

“Did you not just hear her? I know you’re not deaf, sheesh,” Luz retorts, bristling next to Amity. 

“Excuse me?!” Boscha scoffs, fists tightening. Skara grabs her upper arm, still tapping on her scroll screen.

“Let them study. I don’t feel like getting into it today.” She says to her three-eyed friend, nudging her a bit.

“Uggghhhh, are you serious right n-”

“Boscha.” She interrupts her with a huff.

“Fine.” The other girl retorts, and stomps away like a petulant child after a couple of seconds.

Skara finishes what she’s typing, before looking up to smile at Amity and also Luz by extension.

“See ‘ya around.” Is all she says before walking away leisurely, eventually catching up to Boscha all the way at the end of the hall.

Several long seconds pass, and Luz lets out a long breath.

“She sure has issues.” She says, finally, and Amity laughs at that.

“Thanks for speaking up back there, she would’ve been a lot worse I think if you hadn’t, Luz.” Amity says, giving the other a small smile.

“What’re friends for?” The human replies cheerily, and Amity having to mask her emotions right now is one of the hardest things she’s ever done in her entire life.

Ah, yes.

Friends.

-

She sleeps terribly this night, again, for the fifth time this week.

Chapter Text

Several days pass with nothing else from Amity's secret admirer, until she gets to her locker after a particularly rough day. She just wants to go home and attempt to take a nap, the insomnia as of late has been awful and she’s not quite ready to admit it’s a problem. 

She opens her locker, this time there happens to be a letter rolled up into a little scroll and tied with ribbon. She grabs it, placing her books inside the locker and taking the rest of her things out that she wants to bring home in her bag. There aren't really a lot of other students around, and no one's even looking in her direction, so she unties the ribbon to take a peek right there instead of later.

Amity immediately locks up when her eyes scan the page.

You're the beauty amongst the filth in this school. 

I watch you as you walk the halls, the way you keep to yourself has me enthralled. 

I wonder what you're thinking about when you chew your pencil so. 

I wish to be that pencil, to feel your lips upon my lips. 

Someday soon, you shall be mine.

She quickly balls up the paper, shoving it into her bag so she can no longer see it, heart pounding in her chest. There’s this unsettling feeling at the pit of her stomach, and she feels a little nauseous. Okay, yeah, she's pretty creeped out. If she was on the fence about her admirer before, she definitely has a solid impression of the weirdo now. She feels the hairs standing up on her neck as her mind is racing - oh jeez is the person still waiting around for Amity to read their letter?!

She whips her head around in time to see Willow giving her a strange look quite a few feet away at her own locker, and decides she doesn't want to stick around any longer for a comment. Was she watching the entire time?

Amity then leaves in a hurry, but she doesn't want to go straight home anymore. She needs to be alone to think.

-

The only place she knows where she can be truly alone, is in her secret hideout in the library. She leaves her bag on the floor, with the note still inside it and grabs her diary off the shelf to sit at and write on the large beanbag on the floor, sinking into it and relaxing.

She has a lot on her mind.

She doesn’t know who at school would write her these, and doesn’t like that they’ve been watching her. She really only chews her pencil when she’s intensely concentrating on studying, and rarely are people around her then. She ends up writing a lot about her newfound paranoia, but even then, eventually the words on the page turn to her writing about Luz.

Again.

Her thoughts are plagued incessantly by Luz, and that’s a first in the entirety of Amity’s life. She never thought she could feel such intense feelings about another person - let alone a human. She can’t seem to help it, though. After a lot of reflection on her own part about the other girl, Amity can’t help but like her. A lot. She keeps writing, finding the words flowing so easy on the page - her eyes droop, tiredness from the week making itself present.

She doesn’t even realize when she’s blasted through writing four pages of absolute mush - and then she thinks she hears something soft knock on the bookshelf entrance door. 

She looks up, because she wasn’t sure she even heard a noise. She’s pretty tired, after all. Several seconds pass, and then there’s faint knocking again. Amity knows that Edric and Emira would just barge in, and the only other person that knows that her secret is here is.. the object of her affections.

“You can come in.” Amity says, judging herself at how quickly she’d allow Luz in. The human could’ve barged in, really, and she wouldn’t even be that offended - even though she knows Luz respects her privacy enough not to. There’s heavy scraping noises as the bookshelf opens for the other girl, Amity’s heart starts to speed up a little as she walks in and makes sure the entrance closes behind her. Large eyes stare back at her in concern, short hair flipped up in several directions as if she ran here.

“I know it’s not secret book club day, but Willow said you were acting weird by your locker earlier and then left in a rush.” Luz fumbles with her hands, Amity can’t help but notice. It’s a little strange. She’s worried about her - Amity feels her stomach do somersaults where she sits. “Are you okay?”

“She would say something, huh,” Amity slams her diary shut, almost forgetting that she was writing about the only other person in this room and tosses it onto the floor next to her as casually as she can. Luz’s eyes dart to it pointedly, and Amity curses in her mind. 

“Was it another letter?” Luz asks, and Amity’s a little surprised that she just knows. She nods. “Can I see it?”

“It’s in my bag,” Amity points to hers on the floor, and Luz digs inside for it, pulling out the wad of scrunched up paper. She raises her eyebrows in confusion at the state it’s in, and walks over to the spot Amity’s sitting at and plopping herself down right next to the other girl, sinking into the beanbag as well. Luz doesn’t seem bothered at all with the fact that she’s now sitting flush against Amity, the side of her legs, hips, and arms colliding with the other girls as she carefully unwraps the paper, making sure she doesn’t tear it.

Amity sits there in muted shock, all too aware of Luz’s body warmth against her own as she reads the letter. It’s starting to get too warm in here. She feels her own hands getting clammy. Why does Luz keep getting so close to her? Is this just how she is with all of her friends? She needs to pay more attention to how the human acts with Willow and Gus for reference at this point because she’s going to go crazy if she keeps analyzing all this. Amity’s never been like this with any of her friends, so why is Luz so comfortable with her?

Not to say that Amity actually minds at all.

“Amity.” Luz speaks suddenly, drawing her immediately out of her current train of thoughts with a startle. She meets the other girl’s gaze. “You’re sure it’s not someone in the majority of your classes? This is creepy.” She finishes with a frown, leaning further against her. “Who would write something like this to someone they like, and expect it to go over well?”

“I don’t know,” Amity replies truthfully. “It’s not like I ever catch anyone staring at me.”

“Ughhhhhhhhhh,” Luz groans, stretching her legs out and resting her head against the back of the beanbag. “I wasn’t sure on how to feel about these, but now I’m nervous that they’re going to get bold, or worse, try something in the middle of class,” She rolls her head over to face Amity, giving her a very serious look. “I don’t like the line about your lips, or especially the ‘you shall be mine’ bit.”

Amity feels her face flush, Luz taking up the majority of her senses. She tries not to look at her, her mind is reeling with thoughts like ‘ haha oh Amity, imagine if she were jealous over this person? Wouldn’t that be something.’ “Considering they still haven’t bothered writing their name down, I think they’re too much of a coward to meet me face to face.”

“If it were me, I would’ve just came straight out with it. I don’t see the point of not just being honest with your feelings?” She rants out loud, clearly agitated. “Why bother hiding your feelings behind letters and anonymity, when that doesn’t help your case in the sake of romance? Just be forward!”

Amity avoids her eyes, knowing that her own face is incapable of hiding her own feelings for the other girl after she’s called out indirectly about her own feelings for the human.

“Being forward can be hard, though,” Is what comes out of Amity’s mouth, and Luz turns her head to directly stare at her, eyebrows raised in apprehensiveness.

“Are you defending your secret admirer?” She replies, and Amity feels her own face light up in embarrassment. She was only speaking for herself here, and now Luz thinks that she’s defending this creep?!

“N-no!” She retorts in a hurry, Luz’s confused face making her all the more flustered. “Not at all, I just understand that confrontations with your feelings can be hard,” She realizes what she’s saying as she remembers that Luz knows all about her own greatest fear, thanks to Grometheus. The expression on Luz’s face changes to something a little more knowingly as Amity’s stomach sinks - tone in the air changing. Luz opens her mouth to say something, a small grin turning the corners of her lips, and she cuts her off. -”not that I’d know anything about that. Anyway, whoever they are, I just hope they don’t try cornering me when I'm alone.”

“Hmmm,” Luz’s pupils fall on Amity’s face - said girl watches the brown specks in her eyes sparkle, her chest constricting when Luz meets her gaze. “I could always walk you to and from class if you’re that worried. I could be your knight! I can be protective and stuff! Although I kinda feel a little more like Westley from Princess Bride.. ” She finishes, excited at the prospect of her own suggestion, the meaning of it completely flying over her head.

“T-that’s..” Amity stutters, unable to stop herself from being affected by Luz’s boundless enthusiasm and the implications, whatever the hell Princess Bride is. “That’s not necessary at all. I can protect myself.”

“I know you can protect yourself Amity! Pretty sure you can beat me at arm wrestling any time,” Luz retorts with a snort, grin wide on her face as she wiggles her eyebrows at the other girl. Amity finds her stupidly endearing. “And beat me at loads of other things, but seriously, it might discourage the guy from approaching you if you always had a friend around.”

“I’ll think about it.” She says with a sigh, trying to not let her face fall at the way Luz says ‘friend’. “I don’t want to bring attention to myself, so..”

“I get it! Just let me know.” She smiles warmly at Amity, not knowing at all of what it does to her poor heart. “I did want your opinion on something, though, not to change the subject.. was reading this Azura fanfic the other day that had some interesting theories..”

“Yeah?” Amity perks up, interested.

“Yeah, so, remember that one scene with Hecate at the end of book four? So, this guy thinks that..” Amity mainly listens to the sound of her voice here, as Luz trails off about this specific writer’s off-color opinions about the possible end of the books. She does try to pay attention, but it’s so freaking difficult when it happens to be the one person she’d rather be kissing than anything else.

Ugh.

She needs to stop pining.

She finds her body relaxing as she gives minimal responses to Luz, other girl delving into deeper and deeper lore quite animatedly. It’s really fucking cute, honestly.

Her head feels so heavy here leaning against the bean bag, Luz warm against her side. She doesn’t even realize when she’s falling asleep, listening to the sound of the other girl’s light voice as she goes on and on about her own specific Azura end-book theories, comfort washes over her like a blanket..

-

She wakes up to the sound of soft humming of someone very familiar, and a page turning in a book. She doesn’t want to open her eyes just yet. It’s Luz, obviously - her brain catches on that detail almost immediately. What was she doing last? Ah, right, they were in her secret hideout. She realizes she’s somehow laying with her head in Luz’s lap, and she’s unable to comprehend how she got in this position in the first place. Another page turns, humming getting a little louder.

There’s a hand on her head, petting her hair. It’s gentle and tender in it’s motions, and Luz’s fingernails softly scrape her scalp. It feels really nice actually, so nice that she almost falls back asleep.. and then warm fingers graze the edge of the tips of her pointed ears, and she feels her entire body break out in a flush. The appendage stays there, resting against her skin; her heart beating wildly against her ribcage. Luz’s finger softly rubs against her sensitive outer lobe, and Amity’s knee-jerk reaction is to sit up immediately and clutch her ear like it was burned, yelping out loud embarrassingly. 

“Oh hey, you’re awake. I probably shoulda’ woke you up earlier, but I was pretty engrossed in this guy here,” She grins innocently, showing Amity the cover of one of her favorite fantasy novels. “You were also just so cute and peaceful that I couldn’t really bring myself to it..”

“U-um,” Amity stutters, face taking on a look identical to a tomato. She called you cute. She's physically incapable of moving, and can’t seem to force out any words, her brain is screaming at her - she was touching your ears! Luz! Ohhhhhh myyyyy g-

“Amity, are you okay? Your face is really red,” Luz points to her, her own cheeks starting to color as her eyebrows furrow. “Oh jeez, I wasn't doing something strange right? Don’t tell me I just did something super weird, I was just absentmindedly reading, I didn’t realize..”

-“No! No. It’s nothing, don’t worry about it,” Amity lies, knowing full well this will be all she can think about for the next month. Stupid human and her friendly casual-ness, she’s going to be the cause of a heart attack in Amity. "I'm just sorry I fell asleep on you. How long was I out?"

"Nonsense! What are friends for anyway?" She replies almost nervously, frantically waving her hands. "...and three hours, give or take."

"Three hours?!" Amity hisses out, unable to comprehend that Luz let her sleep on her for that long. "I was supposed to be there for a family dinner tonight! They're gonna kill me."

"I'm sorry! I would've woken you up earlier if I knew you had to be somewhere! You've just seemed really tired lately is all.." Luz scratches her cheek sheepishly. 

Amity stares at the other girl. How the hell can she read Amity so well?! She feels like the blush on her face is constant at this point around Luz, and it's going to give her away any day now. 

"It's.. it's fine. They'll be mad no matter what excuse I'll give them, so.." She shrugs, trying to ignore the thoughts at the back of her mind. "I feel a lot better now anyway."

"Have you been having issues sleeping? I can ask Eda if she has any solutions - that lady's always got a potion for something."

"I appreciate that Luz, but it's just been some other stuff on my mind that I'm sure is what's causing it." The green-haired witch sighs out truthfully. "Can't seem to let my mind rest, lately."

"Do you wanna talk about it?" She offers, and Amity nearly laughs right at her. Yeah, sure Luz! I can't seem to sleep because I can't stop thinking about how much I love you!

"Lord no," is what comes out of her mouth quickly, Luz giving her a strange look. "I just don't feel ready enough to talk about that."

"Well, if you ever want to, and you don't mind that it's me, I'm here." She gives Amity a soft, genuine smile, and Amity doesn't know what to do. Her heart hurts, and Luz is looking at her with such kindness and patience that all she wants to do is lean over and kiss the other girl. 

The room is eerily quiet for a moment as Amity gathers her jumbled thoughts, the human girl staring at her like she's the only other person worth looking at, breath held like she's waiting for something.

Amity almost blurts out a love confession on the spot, but her stomach growls instead. It ruins the atmosphere instantly.

"Oh. Guess I'm kinda hungry.." She covers her stomach with her arm out of embarrassment, as if that would help anything.

"Well, you did skip dinner." Luz stands up and stretches her arms, and then offers a hand to Amity. "Would Miss Blight like to grab some food with her human companion?" She winks a little smugly, grin on her face. "Only if you're up for it though."

Amity stares at the hand in front of her, feeling her face flush for the hundredth time today. She grasps Luz's palm before she can second guess herself, standing up on unsteady feet.

"Well, it's not like I can get into further trouble." She replies, holding onto the other girls hand a second or two longer than necessary. 

-

She did get into trouble though, and was admonished for quite some time when she got home later in the evening. Her parents grill her on her whereabouts, and she just tells them that she fell asleep. It's not like it's a lie. She does catch her siblings eavesdropping nearby, the absolute heathens. 

When they're finally done, she goes to hide in one of the bathrooms for a while - she knows that Ed and Em are gonna pry into everything. 

Five minutes into her nightly routine, and she hears two pairs of footsteps walking towards the bathroom she's in, like clockwork. She rolls her eyes to herself, not feeling up to the harassment tonight.

"Ohhhh Mittens~" Comes the annoying voice of her brother from beyond the door. Amity thinks for a brief second that she could just ignore them and carry on as usual, but she knows they won't let that happen.

"What." She answers sharply, water running in the sink. She grabs her face wash.

"Don't be like that! We just want to make sure you're okay," Emira says sweetly, and jiggles the doorknob that Amity locked prior. 

"No you're not," She replies, rubbing soap onto her cheeks and forehead. "You're here to gloat."

"So not!" Edric cries. "We just love our baby sister and we're concerned!"

"Suuuure." Is all she mumbles, uncaring as she rinses off her face.

"Where were you earlier? You never miss family dinner. Did something happen?" Emira prys, and Amity just sighs. She doesn't want to do this right now.

She finishes wiping her face, and suddenly opens the bathroom door wide - Edric was leaning on it and he almost falls to the floor, Emira catching him. Amity glares at her siblings.

"Can you two leave me alone for once?!" She snaps, and stomps off to her room, her siblings' crying out behind her.

She locks her bedroom door behind her, and flops onto her bed face-first.

She tries to sleep, but ends up thinking about Luz for literal hours instead. As per usual.

Chapter Text

Amity wakes up earlier than usual thanks to an unnecessarily grotesque nightmare, and lays there for at least twenty minutes before she decides that actually, she’ll just get up and make breakfast for once. It’s another school day, and she sort of wishes she could stay home in bed instead - but she knows that there’s no excuse she could use other than being outright sick. Her parents just know otherwise.

The entire house is completely silent in the early morning, her bare feet tapping on the cold wood as quietly as she can as to not make much noise. She prefers mornings where she can be alone, as her family can be.. quite a handful. Opening the fridge, she peers inside for anything her uneasy stomach can handle, and her eyes settle on the eggs. 

She grabs them, and goes to work. She only turns on the light above the stove, as the low light of the morning is starting to brighten the swirling clouds outside. Looks like it might rain again today. Cracking the eggs into the pan, she watches them sizzle at the edges and lightly salts them as her mind starts to wander. Mainly about Luz in particular.

A minute or so passes, she tries her hardest to flip the eggs over without puncturing the yolk and fails, sighing out loud.

“You’re up early.” The voice of her brother speaks from behind Amity, and she jumps on the spot while nearly screaming in the process.

“Edric!” Amity hisses at him, heart pounding wildly. She should give him a good smack for that. “You’re lucky I wasn’t holding a knife.”

“It’s just a little unlike you to be awake so early.” He replies, ignoring the distress he just caused her like a typical sibling. He sniffs the air around him, gold pupils trailing to her eggs on the stovetop. He raises an eyebrow in slight judgement. “Those smell good, but your showmanship needs some work, Mittens.”

“Shut up, they’re my eggs. They can look however I want them to look.” She glares at him, crossing her arms. “And I couldn’t go back to sleep, so..”

“Wow, you’re kinda touchy this morning.” He goes to open the fridge and pulls out some juice, drinking from the carton directly. Amity makes a face of disgust and vows to not drink anymore from that one.

“I was having a nice quiet time by myself.” She gives him a look, grabbing her plate and scooping her eggs onto it from the pan.

“Sucks for you, huh?” He grabs the carton of eggs before closing the fridge, taking the empty pan out of his little sister’s hands and placing it back onto the stove in one swift motion. “It’s what happens when you live with other people.”

“You kind of make it sound like I have a choice.” She retorts, wishing she had more time by herself before Edric came and ruined it.

She takes a bite out of her eggs, leaning against the counter as she watches him crack four eggs into the pan. He looks like he’s considering eating the shells, but ends up shrugging and tossing them into the bin next to him instead. Comfortable silence surrounds them for a moment, before he turns his face to look at her curiously.

“How’s school been?”

“Fine. Why are you asking? We both go to Hexside, idiot.” She takes another bite out of her eggs, chewing slowly. 

“Just been noticing you’ve been spending a lot of time with Luz lately, baby sis.” He eyes his eggs, scraping the spatula around the edges.

Amity feels her heart drop, knees locked in place. She wasn’t expecting to be called out in the middle of the kitchen at five thirty in the morning.

“And why does that matter?” She replies as casually as possible. Edric gives her a slightly smug look, raising a single eyebrow - she wants to throw her eggs at his face. 

“No reason,” There’s a ghost of a grin on his lips as he flips his eggs perfectly, and she hates how easy he makes it look. “It’s just that you get this dreamy look on your face whenever you’re around her.”

“I do not!” She nearly screeches, feeling her own face light up. “You’re imagining things.”

“Your face turns red whenever she’s within five feet of you.” He states with a chuckle, grabbing both the salt and pepper to season his eggs. “You’re terrible at hiding your feelings.”

Amity stands there like a gaping fish, completely speechless as Edric flips his eggs one last time for good measure, pan sizzling with heat.

“You should try confessing to her sometime.” He suggests, and Amity’s entire brain is filled with screaming profanities at the fact that her brother, and sister by proxy - have figured out her feelings for the human.

She drops her plate onto the counter, red-faced, and walks out of the kitchen entirely as her brother’s protests echo out throughout the living room all the way until she gets to her bedroom, slamming the door behind herself and leaning on it.

“I hate everything,” She mumbles to herself.

-

The worst (and best) part about school, is that Luz is there. Even when she spots Amity in passing, she sees the other girl’s face light up in greeting as she waves excitedly. It’s contagious, and she has to pointedly ignore the students around her as she waves back. She hates that she has a reputation as a Blight sometimes.

Her first class goes by pretty quickly, and it even starts raining after an hour or so. It’s absolutely dreadful outside. The second class goes by a lot slower.

Especially with Fredrick sitting next to her. He’s always so.. eugh. Sure, he’s friendly enough, but he has always seemed a little bit too much around her. Like he’s trying too hard.

“Did you have your notes from last week's lesson?” He leans over to ask her, and she leans away in response to him getting a little too close for her comfort. “I think I left half of mine back in my locker.” He makes an apologetic face.

“I do, yeah.” She passes him her notes, as she basically has them memorized at this point anyway. 

“Thanks,” He smiles at her. “I’m always lucky whenever I get to sit next to you.”

“Don’t mention it.” She mumbles, trying to not pay him any attention as she doodles on the corner of her notebook page, the teacher droning on in the background. She just wants to get out of here already. 

She feels eyes on the back of her head. She wants to ignore it, she hates that she’s been feeling a little paranoid as of late thanks to that last note. Could it be the person that wrote it, possibly? Once that thought enters her mind, she can’t seem to get rid of it.

Ten minutes pass, and she feels like she’s been staring ahead at the professor for too long, but the feeling doesn’t pass. She hasn’t even been paying attention to whatever they’re going over now. She feels her heart rate pick up speed, and as she moves her arm to grab the book next to her, she turns her head just enough to see who’s staring at her out of the corner of her eye.

Boscha’s looking directly at her, face neutral. Amity catches her eyebrow raising as she turns her head back to the front of the classroom, and a strange feeling settles over her.

That was weird. Amity doesn’t feel as paranoid now that she knows it’s just Boscha, but it still doesn’t explain why the girl was giving her strange vibes. She tries to go back to paying attention to the lecture, but is unable to concentrate on the rest of the duration of class.

Sure, Frederic keeps sparing her glances whenever he thinks she isn’t paying any attention, but the bell screams eventually and Amity feels relief flood her senses as she makes her escape from the classroom as swiftly as possible, avoiding every single other student.

It’s lunch period, so she makes a beeline to her locker to toss her books in. There’s a lot of students around, the halls are buzzing with noise, and Amity wants a bit of peace and quiet by herself. Or with Luz, she thinks - and then scoffs at herself mentally. She smacks her locker open, and there’s a letter sitting on top of her notebooks again. It’s in an envelope, like the first two. She feels cold dread drip down her spine, and grabs the letter to stuff into her pocket.

She takes the long way to the lunch room, just to avoid most of the other students as her head is swirling with anxiety of what could be in the letter this time. She clutches her lunch bag to herself tightly, looking around for any empty table - seeing Luz nowhere - and spots a table in the far corner to sit at.

The table next to her is loud, much to her displeasure. She can’t even drink her apple blood in peace while she mindlessly scrolls through her social media for a few minutes. The letter nearly feels like it’s burning a hole in her pocket, so she takes it out to open it as no one is paying attention to her and reads it.

Orchids are white, 

Ghost ones are rare, 

Mirrors are shiny, 

and so is your hair.

Once again, no signature. Amity takes a bite out of her sandwich as she chews and considers this thoughtfully, two of the girls behind her laughing loudly at something the other said - she feels her eye twitch in annoyance, and almost wishes she just sat outside in the rain to eat on the bleachers. This poem is so tame compared to the last letter that it almost seems like it’s written by another person entirely. She’s getting mixed signals from all of these, if she’s honest with herself.

Suddenly, a hand slams on the table next to her juice - Amity jumps, being spooked for the second time that day, and looks up to see Boscha and Skara with their own lunches in hand.

“Thought you were skipping lunch with us to go study again, like you have been all week.” Boscha says, flopping her lunch onto the table next to Amity, making herself immediately comfortable in the chair next to her. Amity definitely wishes she went to go sit and eat outside now.

“How come you weren’t at your locker earlier?” Skara asks, peering into her own lunch bag and bringing out her own container of food. “Are you finally getting tired of waiting for us?”

“Probably avoiding us for the human again,” Boscha scoffs, twisting the lid off the bottle of water in her hands, pointedly looking up at Amity and taking a long drink. 

Amity opens her mouth to argue, but Skara throws her bag of snacks at Boscha’s face, hitting her with a hilarious smack - the three-eyed girl sputters in surprise.

“Ignore her, she just misses you,” Skara rolls her eyes dramatically, leaning over the table to grab her snacks back - Boscha sputters even more at that statement, coughing violently, and Amity almost laughs at the absurdness of it all. “Wait, what’s this?” She grabs the poem before Amity can even think to hide it - bringing it closer to her face to read it. 

“Wait,” Amity tries to grab it, and Skara leans away easily, gasping dramatically.

“Is this-!?” She looks up excitedly at Amity as she slaps a hand on her cheek, stars in her eyes. “Is someone writing you love letters?!”

Boscha chokes on her water, eyebrows immediately furrowing as she swallows and clears her throat. “Hold on, you’re getting more?”

“Will you both be quiet,” Amity hisses at the two of them. “Yes, this is the forth, and before you ask - no, I have no idea who they’re from.”

“What! Why have you not told me?!” Skara cries in offence, leaning back into her chair with a huff, crossing her arms. She gives the red-haired girl a pointed, purposeful look, like something is starting to make sense to her. “Boscha gets to know, and I’m left out of the loop?! Are we playing favorites now!?” 

“It wasn’t my place to tell,” Boscha spits out, the tips of her ears coloring.

“I’m not playing favorites, and if it were up to me, NO one would know,” Amity snatches the poem off the table, crumpling it and shoving it back into her pocket. “Because it doesn’t matter. I’m not interested in whoever they are.”

“What, not even a little? You don’t care to know who it is?” Skara looks at her like she’s grown another head, and at this point Amity wishes she could just escape. She wanted a quiet lunch. 

“Come on, it’s not like you like anyone else,” Boscha says with a roll of her eyes, and Amity is about to retort an obvious -”uh, NO?” when she sees Luz walking in her direction, waving at Amity as she makes eye contact with the human, and her brain short-circuits instead. Boscha makes a sour face when she turns to see what has taken Amity’s attention.

“Ugh, seriously,” She says, voice dripping with disgust as the other girl approaches the table.

“Amity!” She bounces up to the table excitedly, holding something in her hands. It’s Amity’s pack of fancy colored pencils that she let Luz borrow the other day. “I thought you were going to be in the library today, so I went there to check for you first but you weren’t even there! And you weren’t in the study hall either, which was kinda weird, but I’m glad I found you here,” She rambles, slightly out of breath, but as enthusiastic as ever. Amity tries not to let her emotions show on her face as her two other friends are also sitting at this table. “But like, anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to spend the next free period together? I’m still having problems with last week’s potions homework and if you weren’t doing anything, I wanted to ask for your help..” 

She trails off as she rubs the side of her arm - Amity sitting there in stunned silence as the other girl’s cheeks redden slightly in embarrassment. “Oh, and also give you these back.” She finishes, holding out the boxes of pencils.

“Amity has better things to do. Why don’t you go ask that loser you always hang around with?” Boscha scoffs, frowning at Luz’s presence. “Whatever her name is.. Oh, right. Willow.” She barks out a laugh.

“I don’t, actually,” Amity corrects, heart pounding in her chest as she gives Boscha a glare for attempting to answer for her. She takes the box from Luz’s hands, feeling her fingers briefly brushing against the other girls. “And I’m done with my lunch anyway, so let’s go and get a head start.” She says with a casual shrug, thankful for Luz for giving her an unintentional excuse to leave this table before more disaster strikes.

Boscha starts to argue as Amity gets up, and Skara silences her with another threat of violence by food. She quickly leaves the table with Luz by her side, nearly tripping on the leg of her own chair. She can hear Boscha talking shit behind her back as they gain distance, and considers also throwing something at the girl like Skara has.

Amity looks at Luz, who looks like she’s trying to not laugh. She feels a little silly in the way in which her heart feels so soft around the other girl - the way her eyes sparkle when she smiles, the short brown hair framing her face flipped in several directions - her chest aches with longing.

“Sorry for Boscha back there.” She apologises.

“I actually saw you on the other side of the lunch room with those two. You kinda looked like you needed rescuing, so I made up my best excuse,” She grins, giving Amity a cheeky wink. “You’re so totally welcome for that, by the way. Now you get to hang out with me!”

She laughs, and Amity’s heart flutters. She feels her entire face light up.

Luz is seriously going to give her a heart attack.

Chapter Text

Amity was close, she’ll give herself that. She thought she’d be able to escape to school this morning and avoid her mother sitting at the dining room table altogether, but luck wasn’t with her today it seems.

“Amity.” She hears her mother say from behind her just as she’s trying to escape out the door, and mutters a curse under her breath. 

“Yes, mom?” She turns her head to peer at the direction of the dining room, hand still on the door knob. Her father is reading the local newspaper at the table opposite of her mother, completely ignoring the air in the room as usual - and her mom’s staring at the screen of her scroll, plate in front of her empty and cold.

“Come here.” Is all she answers with, and Amity complies as dread fills her stomach. She clears her throat when the girl's presence reaches the table, and looks up to meet her daughters eyes after a beat or two. “Had a discussion with one of your teachers. He said you’ve been pretty distracted in class lately. Why is that?”

Amity freezes on the spot as fear overtakes her, and she attempts to steel herself from the oncoming verbal tirade.

“N-no particular reason, I mean, I’ve kinda had issues with sleeping lately, but-”

“I don’t want any of your excuses.” Her voice rings throughout the room, clear and sharp and everything Amity hates. “If I hear about your distractions or your grades start slipping.. Well. You know what happens.”

“It’s not an excuse!” Amity hisses out much to her own surprise, and immediately regrets it as she watches her mother's eyebrows raise. Her father lowers his newspaper enough to peer over the edge at the both of them, and her heart rate speeds up. She hears footsteps coming from the other side of the house. “It’s just, I’m-”

“Amity.” She cuts her off again. The thin pressed line of her mother’s lips and her tone of voice has her so on edge that she can feel her hands shaking. “Don’t make me remind you.”

“Mittenssssss! We’re going to be late if you don’t hurry it up!” The voice of Emira emerges as she pops into the dining room to stare at all of them, like how dare they have the audacity of making her wait. “You can criticize her later, Mom. We’ve got school.” She rolls her eyes and grabs for her baby sister’s wrist, leading her out of the dining room and to the front door where their brother is waiting. 

Edric practically slams the door shut behind them, shrugging as if he doesn’t care about their parents reaming into him about it.

“You so owe me for that one,” Emira gives her sister a look-over to make sure she was okay, as she knows her well enough that she can just tell with a glance when she’s shaken. “I hate when she’s like this in the morning. I don’t have enough energy for it.”

“Mittens, you really gotta get it together, she seemed pretty ornery this time..” Edric pulls out his scroll and swipes through his notifications as he walks with his siblings. 

“I do have it together! My grades are fine,” Amity answers with a huff, shoving her still-shaking hands into her pockets. What a great way to start off the day - full of anxiety, nice, she thinks to herself. “I hate that she talks to my teachers so often..”

“You’re not alone. It’s not like she lets us off any easier, you know.” Emira sighs and links her arm with her sister’s affectionately, and they all complain about their parents on their way to school.

She likes her brother and sister sometimes.

-

Her siblings are still next to her as she gets to her locker much to her irritation, the both of them bickering about something so stupid that Amity stopped listening a few minutes prior. She stares at the teeth of her locker, pleading inside her mind for there to not have another love letter inside of it. She just wants to exist in peace.

She gets it to open without much biting today, the murmurs of other students bustling around the halls filling her ears with much needed white-noise. It’s fairly sunny out today, the first time this week actually, and quite a few of the students are in cheery moods because of it. Thankfully, there’s no letter inside. 

There’s a loud clatter a few feet away followed by some boisterous laughter, and Amity immediately recognizes it to be Luz - she stands there, staring into her locker as if she heard nothing and concentrates on making it seem like she’s not paying attention to the sound of Luz’s voice as she talks to someone. She eyes the notes she put up near the top of her locker last week and pulls them down from the magnet holding them in place, giving them a glance over before coming to the conclusion that she can just toss them now.

Hands slam onto both sides of her locker and she jumps in surprise with a yelp - her siblings are both grinning at her from her left and right. 

“Mittens..” Emira grins slyly, and Amity hates the look on her face. They’re up to something. “Look who’s here.” She whispers, leaning into her space teasingly.

“Will the two of you please leave me alone, my morning has been awful enough already.” Amity sighs, grabbing the books she needs and shutting her locker. Edric and Emira give pointed looks to each other before the both of them meet their sister’s gaze again, Edric wiggling his eyebrows.

“If you don’t go and just talk to her or something, you’ll lose your chance and we’ll take ours with the human,” He grins, Emira giving her an obnoxious wink. “You wouldn’t want that, would you?”

“The both of you are so ANNOYING,” She says the last word with a little bit too much irritation, and several students look over to their direction.

“Yeah, but you love us!” Emira grabs at Amity’s cheeks, pulling a little as the other girl scoffs and swats her hands away. “Also, it looks like your future wife is walking right over here.” She chuckles, eyes trailing behind Amity. 

Amity sputters at her siblings as they laugh at her expense and she feels her entire face heat up at their words, panicking at the fact that Luz is looking right at her.

“Amity!” She greets her with a radiant smile as she catches up to them, nearly blinding her in the process with it. “How’s your morning?”

“It’s, er, fine,” She stumbles with her words as she tries to push the rising flush down with no success, her twin siblings snickering beside her. She’s going to hex them, she swears. “Just dealing with these two idiots.”

“Aw mittens!” A grin pops up on Edric’s face. “We’re just trying to help you with your feelings!”

Amity stomps directly onto his foot, and he screams.

“Ignore them.” Amity says to Luz, glaring daggers at her brother.

“If you say so,” The human replies with slight confusion, watching Edric whine and hop on his foot. “I actually came over to ask you if you could help me with my abomination homework today..” She trails off awkwardly, like Amity would even say no. 

She can see Boscha staring at them from all the way over at Skara’s locker, and opts to ignore that entirely.

“Yeah? Of course! I can help you with whatever you need,” She answers, and it comes out way too eagerly for her liking. “Seriously.”

Emira snickers, fully paying attention to her sister’s reactions. “Yeah she will, won’t sh-” Amity elbows her sister square in the gut and it cuts her off mid-sentence and she chokes on the rest of her words. 

“We have the same free period today, would you like to meet up in the library then?” She looks to Luz, who’s watching Emira and Edric reel in pain with slight concern and amusement. Her gaze meets Amity’s again, and she has a brief moment internally where she gay panics a little.. How can one person’s eyes be so alluring? She finds it a little embarrassing that she thinks she likes almost everything about Luz, and is drawn to her whenever the girl is near.

“Works perfectly for me!” She answers, grinning at the other girl. Amity melts. “I knew I could count on you.”

Amity stutters out a response, feeling her entire face flush at Luz’s words. 

Edric attempts to wheeze out a snide response, and Amity shuts it down immediately - spending the rest of the time before class making sure her siblings can’t embarrass her further in front of the only person that has ever made her this nervous.

-

Amity’s in the middle of her second period class, staring outside the window as the professor drones on in the background about something she’s barely paying attention to. Her morning has been pretty slow.. Half her thoughts are filled with quiet anxiety about what her mom sort of threatened earlier, and she tries her best to just ignore them. There’s no use dwelling on any of it, it will just make the rest of her day worse. She knows she needs to be more attentive right now, but she isn’t feeling it too much today. Besides, he’s also going over stuff Amity’s already got a grasp on, she doesn’t need to focus too hard on it.

She watches the scenery outside, trees swaying in the wind in the distance. The sun is beaming down through the forest surrounding the school, rays peeking through the many tree branches onto the back pathway behind the school. It seems pretty nice to go out and take a walk in.. too bad she’s stuck in a stuffy classroom. She sighs, wishing she could just get up and leave class and go wander outside.. it might even help her mood lighten a little.

She feels something poking the side of her arm, and side glances enough to see Boscha poking her with her pencil discreetly. She tries to ignore it, really. She jots some notes down on the half filled paper in front of her, but still feels the redhead next to her try and get her attention. She makes a point to glance at the other girl in question, not hiding the look of irritation on her face at all. Boscha rolls her eyes at her dramatically, and Amity momentarily considers making a scene and just smacking the girl in the middle of class.

Boscha writes down on a piece of scrap paper in front of her instead of watching the teacher much to Amity’s anxiety, the sounds of her pencil scraping against the paper feels almost too loud in her ears. She slides it over to Amity after a long minute, and makes a point to watch her face.

Amity tries to not make a point of rolling her eyes at her friend next to her. She’s been a little extra lately, and Amity’s not sure why. Boscha’s always been a bit.. well, Boscha, but this almost seems unlike her. She’s extra clingy and annoying as of late. She grabs the piece of paper from the other girl discreetly enough to not gain the teacher’s attention, leaning in closer to the table to not be suspicious.

‘I gotta talk to you about some stuff in our free period.’

Amity reads it, contemplating it for a moment. She already told Luz she’d help her with whatever she needed later, and wonders how to tell Boscha that she can’t without her being all.. you know. She grabs her pencil to write out a reply for the other girl, pulling the paper in front of her to write down something dismissive to throw her off.

‘Sorry. Made plans already to help someone else out on our free period today.’

Boscha pulls the paper towards her to read it, eyebrows raised in apprehension as her eyes scan the page. Amity watches her discreetly until Boscha whips her head back over to the other girl, irritation prominent on her face. She looks like she’s about to blurt something out, but stops herself and remains quiet, moving to grab her pen to write down a reply instead.

Amity looks away, attempting to look like she’s got something else on her mind. After a little while of her watching the teacher vaguely, Boscha slides the paper back over to her, and she tries to ignore the way the other girl is sort of glaring at her. She looks down to read it, and it just says ‘are you freaking kidding me? ditching me for the human again!?’ and considers crumpling up the paper entirely and throwing it into her face. How did she guess correctly?

‘Yes.’ Is all Amity writes back, and pushes the paper over to her table-mate.

She quietly watches the long strokes of her professor’s hands as he draws out some kind of elaborate diagram on the board in front of the room. Boscha fumes not-so-quietly next to her.

She ignores her for the rest of class, and when the bell finally screams and the teacher tells them all to skedaddle out of there, she quickly grabs her things to leave - but feels a hand wrap around her arm.

“Are you going to actually talk to me, or is this going to go on forever?” Amity hears Boscha say from behind her, and she whips her head around to look at the three-eyed girl in anger. She tears her arm free from her grasp, the other students bustling around them loudly to file out of the classroom.

“Don’t touch me.” Amity says, lowering her eyes at the other girl. “And maybe we’d talk more if you weren’t so insufferable as of late.”

She spins around on the ball of her heel and waltzes out - Boscha sputtering in anger, unmoving from that spot as she mutters something a little nasty behind her - and briskly walks to the library to meet up with Luz. She doesn’t care what Boscha thinks anymore. Hasn’t for a while.

-

The school library is pretty quiet, and Amity does try her hardest to be helpful with the things Luz needs practice with. The human is really clever, actually - she knew this, but sometimes her innate desire to be friendly and her earnestness outshines half the other amazing qualities Luz has. A couple of nearby students are whispering about something she can’t hear, and Amity watches them out of the corner of her eye as one bursts out into a quiet fit of giggles. They’re playing a card game when they’re supposed to be studying.. 

Luz sighs out of quiet frustration at what she’s writing down on the paper in front of her, and Amity looks back to the other girl who’s sitting very close to her side. Peering at the paper, she notices that while there were a few mistakes, Luz did get the right solution to this problem.

“You got that a lot faster than most of the kids in our grade..” Amity mutters out her thoughts, and Luz glances up at her. Oops. She said that out loud, huh. She feels her face flush in embarrassment, and attempts to scramble a response to save face. “N-not that I ever doubted you, or anything.”

“Um,” Luz makes a blank face as she stares at Amity, eyebrows rising in apprehension. “Sorry, I’m kind of used to people thinking I’m a weirdo, so that caught me off guard.”

“Well, you are a bit weird,” She blurts a reply automatically, and Luz makes such an immediate scandalous face that Amity quickly whips her hands up in defense. “It’s not a bad thing.”

“SHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” The librarian hisses out at the table next to them, and Amity nearly jumps on the spot as the girl sitting next to her snickers at the other student’s expense. For once it’s not for her disruptions.

She continues to write down on her paper, answering a few more problems on the worksheet in front of her. Amity tries to concentrate on studying, but she finds her eyes wandering back over to her table-mate instead. 

How pathetic.

Luz’s eyelashes are long and pretty, even when her pupils are steadily focusing on a single point on the paper. When she was younger she used to find these beautiful, sand-worn glass rocks washed up at the beach with Willow and kept quite a few in her keepsake box at home. They were really pretty when held up in the light, and they reminded her nice memories. Luz’s eyes are the color of her favorite one. Funny, how coincidental that is.

She tries not to let her eyes linger too long on her, but she can’t help it. She’s never quite felt like this about anyone else her entire life. There’s this sensation she can’t quite describe right in her chest cavity, like there’s some sort of burning, gravitational pull that’s so strong around Luz she can’t ignore it. It’s impossible.

Chairs scrape against the floor, and the students next to the two of them pack up to head out of the library and subject the halls to their own brand of disruption. Luz doesn’t pay them any attention.

Amity wonders what it would feel like to confess her feelings to the other girl, and has a quiet panic attack on the chair she’s sitting in, right next to the object of her desires. She can’t. Not after what happened at grom. Although she still thinks about the way Luz held her firmly when they danced, she can’t help the words that have lingered in her mind ever since the other girl uttered them.

‘That’s what friends do.’

She doesn’t know if Luz even likes girls.  

“I can feel you staring at me, Blight.” Luz mutters as a grin forms on her face, eyes still staring at her paper and pencil resting against her lip. Amity feels her face burn as she purposely looks away. “Is there something on my face?”

“N-no!” Amity quickly hisses out, the nearby librarian glaring daggers at her enough to lower her voice. “I’m just having a hard time concentrating on studying.”

“So you stare at me?” Luz turns to give Amity a playful look, and the way the girl is smugly looking at her has her own heart bursting at its seams with longing. “And you called me the weirdo.”

Amity feels her face burning for being called out as her own mouth betrays her, she can’t even stutter out a response. Luz watches her, picking up the color of Amity’s face immediately as her own expression turns to one of slight concern.

“Oh shoot, I wasn’t trying to make you angry with my teasing,” She tries to backtrack, her shoulders tensing up into a rigid position. Amity struggles with her words.

“I’m not mad-”

-“DO NOT MAKE ME WARN ANY OF YOU AGAIN.” The librarian loudly snaps his book closed with an air of finality, and Amity promptly shuts her mouth.

The both of them go back to quietly working together on their singular table, the rest of the students around them scared into utter silence. The muted sounds of pages turning and quiet footsteps echo throughout the library, but that’s about it. The librarian hums to himself, pleased.

A warm knee bumps against Amity’s after a few minutes, and she discreetly looks over to Luz. The girl just grins at her briefly before going back to writing, and it’s almost like she knows exactly how to work her way into anyone’s heart with minimal effort.

But especially Amity’s in particular.

-

Despite today turning out to be better than she had thought, thanks to Luz, when Amity opens her locker to grab the book necessary for the last class of the day she happens to find the one thing she dreads: another love letter.

This one is tied into a little scroll with a ribbon, like the one she had a few prior. She could ignore it honestly, and maybe her day would be better off without reading it. Actually, she decides she quite likes that idea and just shoves the letter into her pocket to completely disregard later. A presence coughs right next to her locker, and she sighs to herself internally.

She’s quite tired of people ambushing her at her locker. She turns her head to see Fredrick of all people.. Ugh. 

“Fredrick. Do you need something?” She greets him, voice completely flat. She grabs the book she needs, and closes her locker. Of course he has to catch her right before class.

“Amity! I am so glad you asked.” He smiles, not at all catching on to the apathy in Amity’s tone. “I was wondering if you had wanted to come with me to watch the Grudgeby match this weekend.”

“Erm, thanks, but no,” Amity tries to let him down easy. “I’m not really interested in attending the sports season this year.” She lies, like she wouldn’t pay a premium fee to watch Luz captain this year’s grudgeby games. Yeah, no one needs to know that.

“We don’t have to do that! We can do something else!” He says eagerly, the soft rejection flying over his head entirely. Amity is not patient. The school bell screams, signifying Amity needs to get going to not be late for her next class.

“I appreciate the offer, but I’m not interested, Fredrick.” She replies, and turns to leave. A hand shoots out and grabs her upper arm, stopping her in her tracks.

“Wait, hear me out-”

Amity gives him a glare, and tears her arm out of his grasp. What is WITH people today, why do people keep grabbing her?! “No! Don’t touch me!” She hisses out in anger, and takes several steps away from him to run to her class. He almost looks like he might chase after her, but ends up just standing there and watching her until she turns the corner.

She’s gonna be late to her last period now, thanks to him. She forgot that the class was on the opposite side of the school, so now she’s going to have to take the long way all the way over to the 3rd floor. Great. Her heart is still beating heavily out of anxiety over what just happened, and she quickly walks through the mostly now-empty halls to her class.

She hears muttering down the hall, and sees a familiar head of red hair just as she stops herself from fully turning around the corner, pressing herself against the wall instead to listen in.

-”and I’m just saying maybe I’d be a lot more honest with my feelings if I thought I’d have a chance. But it doesn’t seem very likely.”

“You hide behind a facade, Bosch’. If you only display what you want people to think, that’s what they’re going to think.”

“Rich, coming from the girl who’s always on her phone. You can’t even look at me when I’m being heartfelt with my feelings, Skara.”

A scoff echoes down the hall.

“You can’t be like that, you do this every single time you get frustrated with something. Stop turning it on me when I’m just trying to help you.”

“ Ugggggghhhhh.”

“Just tell them how you feel. It’s easy.”

“For the last time, I’m telling you,”-

Footsteps start to come Amity’s direction, and she quickly doubles back to take a different staircase up to the 3rd floor to avoid the two, leaving her right in front of the mostly unused corner bathroom. She runs inside, heart beating wildly inside her chest.

It’s completely quiet. No one’s in here, thankfully.

Amity grasps at the sink, a little shaken. She turns the water on and watches the flow drain down the basin, thoughts swirling rapidly in her head. She should be in class right now. Her teacher is going to notice, and he’s going to tell her parents, and they’re going to punish her. Again. She feels her stomach sink with more anxiety at that thought, and the corners of her eyes burn, threatening tears.

She breathes out a long breath of air, to try and steady herself.

She feels like a failure. She can’t do something as simply attend a class and pay attention. She can’t please her parents. She can’t reject a boy she doesn’t even like properly enough to get him to take the hint. She can’t make it obvious enough to Boscha that she isn’t interested in even being friends with someone who can be so cruel to others, and she completely erases the conversation she happened to overhear in her mind. She doesn’t want to deal with it right now. She needs a distraction.

She pulls the letter out of her pocket, remembering it’s existence, and unties the ribbon keeping it together. Unfurling it, she recognizes the handwriting to be one of a letter she’s received before.

You are royalty. 

You are the ruler of this school, pushing those unneeded away. 

One day I will rule by your side, helping toss the peasants to the wolves. 

Together we will be perfect.

She thinks, maybe, today might be a little bit too much for her. She feels a hot tear roll down her cheek, and she isn’t even sure if it’s out of frustration or stress, or both. The sink is still running as the sound of water overwhelms her senses in this small, three-stall bathroom, and her fingers shake as they grasp the letter in hand.

She probably should have just thrown it away, in all honesty. It’s not like she wants to read these.

The door opens - she can see Luz walk in from the reflection of the bathroom mirror, and freezes on the spot.

“Amity?”