Chapter Text
Willow had had just about enough.
When she first realized Amity’s obvious crush on Luz it had been somewhat funny. Seeing her serious and studious childhood friend being turned into a red-faced stammering mess by the human girl couldnt help but cause her to snicker. But after nearly three weeks of seeing Amity practically swoon as soon as Luz so much as gazed in her general direction and her friend still being almost painfully oblivious to her affections, Willow decided something needed to change.
She knew that if she just told Luz about Amity’s crush, the witch would personally sic her largest abomination on her. So she would have to help Luz figure it out on her own. Which would be difficult as it seemed like Luz was especially dense when it came to Amity’s feelings about her.
Case in point, when Amity leapt up from their lunch table with her face the color of blood and Luz’s only response was “huh, guess something didn’t agree with her.” Willow was tempted to bang her head against the table.
Thankfully, she found the perfect moment while the two of them where walking down the hall and Luz had started talking about a new piece of Azura fanfiction she’d read.
“So then Azura pushes Hecate out of the way and takes the blow from the burning heckhound! Horrified by whats happened to her friend, Hecate is filled with rage and power and defeats the monster with one powerful blast of magic!” Luz swept her arm in excitement, just narrowly missing hitting Willows forehead. She chuckled nervously after noticing. “Sorry. Anyway, Hecate runs to Azura’s side and cradles her in her arms. Hecate asks "why would you do that?” And Azura says “I couldn’t lose you.” Oh, it was just so romantic!“
Willow raised a brow at Luz’s word choice. "Romantic?”
“Yeah. I mean, the author isn’t really a Heczula shipper but the way they interact in the story just gives such a really strong romantic vibe. I tried telling the same thing to Amity but she said she didn’t really see it.”
Resisiting the urge to smile at the irony, Willow carefully asked. “So, Amity isn’t really into romance?”
“Oh no, she’s actually a HUGE Heczula fan. In fact she even showed me some really great fan art she’d done. I actually asked her about working together to make our own special Heczula piece. Marry our skills so to speak.”
She could just imagine Amity’s response to that. Still keeping her expression as neutral as possible, Willow pressed on.
“Speaking of Amity and romance, has she talked to her crush yet?”
Luz frowned. “No. And I don’t know why. I mean, I get that she was afraid of being rejected but its Amity. She’s smart, talented, cute. No way someone would reject her.”
Okay, Luz calling Amity “cute” wasn’t a bad sign. “Maybe its because she’s already got a relationship with this person. You know, like a friendship shes scared of messing up.”
Luz immediately struck a hand out in front of Willow and they both came to a stop. The human girl gasped like a banshee, practically sucking in air.
“Of course! She’s developed feelings for a friend and now fears her romantic attraction will end up damaging their friendship if she reveals it! Its such a common romance trope, how could’ve I have missed that?!” She gave another loud gasp. “Ogmigosh. I know who Amity’s crush is!”
Willow couldn’t help but smirk. About time.
“Its you Willow! Amity has a crush on you!”
Willows left eye started to twitch and she internally groaned at her friend once again drawing the wrong conclusion.
Mustering up as much effort as possible, she calmly asked. “What makes you think that?”
“Well it all fits. You two were close childhood friends before suddenly being separated. You’ve started rebuilding your relationship which probably caused her to realize that her feelings for you went beyond friendship and because things only just started getting better between you she’s scared of admitting her feelings because she doesn’t want to lose you again!” Luz declared, looking extremely pleased with herself.
Okay, that actually made since. “Yeah. But you know Luz…that could also apply to you too.”
Luz’s pride turned to confusion. “What?”
“Well, you two only recently became friends after not liking each other and she might not want to mess up your friendship since its so new.” Willow said slowly, hoping it would finally sink in to her.
Luz stared at her for a moment before bursting into laughter.
After a round of giggles, she wiped a tear from her eye. “Thats ridiculous. Amity couldn’t have a crush on me!”
At this point Willow couldn’t swallow the annoyance when she replied. “And why not?!”
She expected to hear “we’re just friends ” or “we danced at Grom” as Luz’s defense but what she said next completely shocked her.
“Amity would never be interested someone like me.”
Both the statement and the paradoxical chuckle Luz gave while saying it zapped away whatever anger Willow had at her obliviousness and replaced it with intense confusion.
“What are you talking about? Why wouldn’t Amity be interested in you?”
“Because Amity is, well, Amity and I’m me.” The way Luz said it, t as if it should be completely obvious, caused Willow to get a twisted feeling in her stomach. Before she could say anything Luz pressed on.
“I mean, Amity’s a skilled witch, Hexsides top student, she’s planning on being part of the emperors coven one day! Plus she’s rich, popular, she makes great fanart. And me? I’m…barely able to do magic. And I can’t even do it the right way like you guys thanks to my stupid human organs. I’m not even a real witch. I mean, if Amity had a crush on me, you really think she’d be afraid of me rejecting her?”
Willow just stared at her in stunned silence. She was waiting for Luz to yell “kidding” or say that this was just a joke and she’d known about Amity’s crush the whole time. But the bittersweet smile on Luz’s face told her that she was completely serious.
She couldn’t believe it. Luz, quite possibly the nicest person she knew, the one who tried to help her with a school project at the risk of being violently dissected, the one who’d managed to get past Amity’s walls and become her friend, honestly thought that Amity didn’t consider her good enough to have a crush on.
“Luz, I’m sure Amity doesn’t think that way.” Willow argued. “You two are friends now! You have that book club thing you do together! She doesn’t think of you as less than her! In fact, I bet if you asked she’d definitely say she would be interested in you!”
Hopefully that would kill two birds with one stone.
“I can’t do that Willow. Like you said, things are good between me and Amity. The last thing I want is to scare her off because she thinks I got feelings for her.” Luz looked to the side and muttered. “I don’t want to end up losing another friend because I pushed too much.”
Her voice was so low Willow almost didn’t hear her. She couldn’t help but notice her use of word in particular. “Another?”
Luz winced, clearly not having wanted Willow to hear her but seeing the look her friend was giving, she began to explain.
“Back at my human school I would sometimes manage to meet people who had some of the same interests I did, like Azura or Anime. We’d talk about it, meet up, it was almost like we were friends.”
Luz sighed
“But eventually, I’d do something. Somthing too weird or too much. Maybe even something that ccidentally ended up getting us in trouble. And then…they didn’t want to be friends anymore.”
The whole time Luz spoke her voice cracked, and Willow noticed a twinkle in the corner of her eye. The defeated expression on Luz’s face seemed almost alien compared to her usual beaming face.
“Luz…..”.
Upon seeing the sympathetic look on her friends face, Luz cleared her throat, plastered a smile on her face and tried to unnoticingly wipe the corner of her eye.
“But, anyway, thats my point. Amity and I are at a good place and I don’t need to go asking her questions that might make her uncomfortable just to make myself feel better.”
Noticing that she hadn’t managed to ease her friend, Luz added. “Hey, come on, relax. Its not like I don’t think anyone could like me But Amity? Trust me, I think she’s be a bit out of my league. Now come on, we should get to class.”
“You go ahead. I’ll catch up.”
As she watched Luz walk away, their entire conversation replayed in her mind. She couldn’t believe her friend honestly thought that way about herself. She truly thought she wasn’t good enough for Amity to like.
Willow knew one thing, still felt like she had before. She’d had enough. She wasn’t going to let Luz keep thinking like that about herself. She was going to do something about it.
And she knew just what that something was.