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“Narcissistic Personality Disorder.” The words feel strange and stringy on her tongue, stinging the tip as it hits the back of her teeth. Luz had known something was wrong with her, but she had hoped it wasn’t something so… intense. She had expected rain, but this is a tsunami.
Bathed in the clear light coming in through the Owl House’s open windows, soaked in the salty, humid breeze that tickles through her room, Luz curls onto her side and does not cry. She’s laying in the bed Eda made for her while she was away at her therapy appointment, heart aching at the way the sheets wrinkle beneath her weight. The blankets were so pristine, crisp and lovingly folded, but here she is, ruining them. Ruining everything. Will anyone ever believe a word she says again? Will anyone ever assume love over malice again? She buries her face in her hands. Already, she was separated from the world, unable to connect with anyone, but now that she finally has it all, finally has people who see her and love her and let her see them and love them back, she’s going to lose it all. She’s going to lose it all because she’s a fucking narcissist. She’s watched enough YouTube to know what people think about that.
It’s always been easy to cry about happy things, or about other people’s pain, or about heartfelt moments in anime, but never her own feelings. Luz’ throat feels tight, painfully so, and her eyes burn with unshed tears, but she doesn’t cry. A scream of anger and fear builds behind her teeth, but she doesn’t cry. She just lays in bed, fully dressed above the covers, and gives herself a migraine like an idiot.
I hate you, she thinks, the words aimed solely at herself. I wish you didn’t exist.
She thinks those words and similar ones until finally, the weight of the day sends her to sleep.
-
“...uz. Luz, hey. Wake up.”
Luz groans, swatting a lazy hand towards whatever strange force is shaking her. “Noooooo…”
Hunter laughs. “Come on, sleepybat. Mom said you looked upset when you came in. If you won’t talk to her, then talk to me.”
Mom. It’s kind of cute how quickly Hunter has gone from being stand-offish and cold to calling every adult in his life some kind of affectionate title. Luz is happy for him. And, of course, Eda soaks it up like sunlight, grinning every time Hunter calls her ‘Mom’ so casually. Luz feels herself deflate. Will anyone ever grin like that for her again, once they know? Her chest feels like she’s in some medieval torture machine. Terrifyingly, she wants to die.
Most people would be happy to wake up to their boyfriend being sweet and supportive. Usually, Luz is too. But now… The clock is ticking.
Her time under his caring gaze is numbered.
“Hey…” Hunter’s voice is much softer this time, a low, comforting rumble. Luz listens hard to it, pin-focused, because she doesn’t know if he’ll ever talk like that again to her. She’s a liar now, pathologically manipulative. It doesn’t matter what she does or says, it matters only that she has a sickness. No one will ever see past it again. “Hey! Are you having a nightmare? It’s okay, nothing’s wrong, you’re safe…”
Luz opens her eyes at last. Hunter is above her, his sweet face warm and worried. She studies it, desperate to remember someone looking like that at her once everyone knows. If only she could keep it secret and safe, but she promised to never do that again after Belos, and she intends to keep that promise. Even if it means losing everything.
Hunter’s face contorts, concerned to a degree of fear. “Do I need to call a Healer? What’s wrong? You look sick…”
Sick. If only it wasn’t true. “I’m fine,” Luz says. Then she kicks herself for lying again. Disgusting narcissist, a voice tells her. Manipulative bitch. “Sorry. Therapy was…”
She has no idea how to explain to him that she got the worst news of her life. He nods, though, like he understands. “When I went for the first time…” He bites his lip, looking embarrassed. He sighs and sits on her bed against her hip, facing the room. “I wanted to test my therapist, to be sure if xe was really safe. So, I told everything. All the horrible, evil shit—s-stuff I did. All the awful thoughts I had about myself and everyone else. And all the stuff Bel—Philip did to me and how much I hated it and wanted it and… Yeah.” He glances to Luz, then laughs at her expression. “It was a mess,” he agrees. “And even though xe was really great, and it helped a lot, it also left me really sore for a while. Is that… Did something like that happen with you?”
Luz drops her head backwards against her pillow. “No. I, um—I got diagnosed.”
Hunter blinks widely. “Already?”
With a sigh, Luz shrugs. She curls towards Hunter, hugging his hips with her knees, curled around him like the worm she is. His thighs are warm even through his jeans. Smiling softly, he takes her hand, like it’s easy. Luz holds on for dear life. “Yeah. I told her how I hate myself so much, but I always think of myself as being better too—chosen, somehow. I told her how everything is my fault, because I’m not like other people. I’m…better. More. I’m removed from personhood. I’m not allowed to have it. So I must be something else, something bigger.” She feels sick. “I’m just like Philip.”
“Don’t say that.” Hunter sounds insulted. “You’re nothing like him. And, even if he did feel like that, so what? There’s a big difference between feeling like shit and killing a ton of people.”
Luz laughs, but there’s no humor in it. There’s only rage and hopelessness and self-loathing. “Not that big,” she mutters. “I have NPD.” The letters come out sing-song, sarcastic and bitter.
“Oh.” Hunter doesn’t sound very concerned. Luz looks at him in confusion. “I have that too.”
A moment passes, then another. Hunter stares at her patiently, and is stared at. He smiles pleasantly, not pushing, not correcting, not offended. Just waiting. Luz glances away, as if answers can be found written on the wall. Then she looks at Hunter again, confused. “Huh?”
Hunter laughs. “I have Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It’s the brain’s response to trauma. If you get blamed enough, isolated enough, told you aren’t a real person enough… Well, sometimes the brain can overcorrect. With that deep self-loathing comes a well of ill-fitting self-confidence.” The words don’t sound like his own. They sound like a therapist’s, which is bizarre. Therapists hate NPD. Luz’ hadn’t, sure, but it was all fake smiles. Right? “You…don’t think less of me, do you?”
Luz’ eyes go so wide they almost hurt. “No!” She sits up in bed, a little awkwardly from being tangled around Hunter, and does her best to assure him. “I love you so much. Nothing about you has changed at all, so why would I think less of you?”
Hunter grins, victorious. “See? When people love you, they love you as you are. Wounds and all. Scars and all.”
“...Okay, you got me.” She flops against his back with a groan, squishing her cheek into the curve of his spine. “Humans hate NPD,” she says. “Everyone has to armchair diagnose every dictator, serial killer, and abusive mommy with fucking NPD. And I—” She takes a deep, shuddering breath. “I kind of already knew? I spend way too much time on Tumblr, you know? I’ve known this since before I even came to the Boiling Isles! But, if everyone else knew, then…”
“...Then they’d show you the love and support you need to heal,” Hunter finishes, voice small and determined. “In the Boiling Isles, disorders are just…disorders. Actions are what make us what we are, not feelings. I’m sure any humans you meet who are worth talking to will know that too.”
“You’re so hard-headed,” Luz grumbles.
“So are you.” She can hear Hunter’s grin, big and goofy. “I wonder what we have in common that might contribute to that.”
She hates it. She hates herself. She hates NPD and she hates the DSM and she hates every asshole with a YouTube channel that thinks they’re an expert in psychology because they read a FaceBook post once. She hates humanity. She hates that she isn’t a part of humanity, no matter how hard she tries. But, she laughs. She laughs because Hunter is a jerk and he’s her jerk and he’s somehow just like her in this secret, awful way that isolates her from personhood. She laughs because she’s always been bad at crying at her own pain.
“I love you,” she bites into his shirt.
“I love me too,” Hunter says dreamily.
Luz’ snorting cackle could rival Eda’s. She flattens her palms against his back and pushes, but he pushes back, grinning crazily as he fights to stay on the bed. “You suck!” she guffaws. “Get out of my room!”
“But I missed you! Let’s snuggle!” Hunter giggles.
“No!” Luz screams, laughing uncontrollably as Hunter abuses his Emperor’s Coven training to overpower her and cuddle against her in the bed. “Oh my Titaaaaan! Eda! Save me!”
Hunter laughs like he’s the Joker. “No one can save you now, human! You will be loved!”
“Noooooo!”
It’s far from the end of it, Luz is sure. Maybe the Boiling Isles is more kind to those with her disorder, but her mother is human. Vee has been in a human high school, talking to human teenagers, on the human internet. Everything will be different soon, for better or for worse, and Luz isn’t excited for the change.
Still… Hunter tickles her and kisses her face and knows her pain. So, for now, things are good. Things are okay. She’s okay.