Chapter Text
It’s 3AM, and I have to pee.
My name is Amity Blight, and I came from another world to squat at my girlfriend’s mom’s house. It’s sort of awkward, not least because we left the Demon Realm in the middle of a space kindergartener apocalypse, and now we all have to live together in Connecticut. I’m trying to be supportive, but Vee keeps leaving her shed skins in the shower, and every time I pull the curtain back I wind up screaming at the sight of her dead-eyed husk. It’s even worse when I don’t see it till I step in and feel the crunch. I’m a guest, though, and it’s not like I’m paying rent—how am I supposed to complain?
Mrs. Noceda is great. A little too great. Don’t get me wrong, it’s pretty wild having a maternal figure that isn’t Odalia. I mean, it’d be great just having a potted plant that isn’t Odalia. I’d rather have a tapeworm than my mother. But I’m also just not used to the positivity. The supportiveness. The of-course-dear-that’s-just-fine-and-would-you-like-a-cookie? I know it sounds mean but it just… Kinda weirds me out. I’m not used to the nice, I don’t know what to do with my hands. I’m sleeping in my girlfriend’s bedroom because it was her mom’s idea. Granted, we’re also sharing it with Vee and Willow, but still. This whole thing is just… Crunchy shower snakeskin.
And I still need to pee. I can’t sleep in this place, it’s too quiet, you can’t even hear anybody hammering and blasting away at Abomination creation in the basement. I used to think the sounds of my dad’s overworked business hours were annoying; now their absence is twice as deafening. The trees are green like trash slugs, and the nights are too quiet.
I cave like the bladder coward I am and get up, trying to make as little sound as possible. Nobody brought pajamas for the apocalypse, and Demon Realm clothes would stick out here, anyway, so I’m wearing some of Luz’s. This feels extra awkward, like I’m cosplaying as her while crashing in her room. It doesn’t help I’m the only one—Willow borrowed some of Mrs. Noceda’s things, and Vee is a low-key nudist. I’m still not clear how being a shapeshifter gives you free license to never wear pants in a cramped roommate situation, but it’s not my house. I didn’t even know Luz had a shapeshifting snake sister—I mean, I guess she mentioned it at the Coven Day Parade, but a lot of other elements of that story seemed more important at the time. Like the promise to go home and never come back to the Demon Realm, which seemed like a bigger deal before we all spontaneously went home with her and now can’t go back to the Demon Realm. Seems like we’re trying to get back, though? I hope so. I just started working things out with my dad, and I honestly don’t know how to function independently of Emira. I never really noticed that she did literally everything, but with dad working constantly, Odalia being Odalia, and Edric trying to eat bats, Emira was the one, y’know, making my lunchbox, and dying my hair, and explaining witch puberty. I’ve never bought soap before in my life, I don’t even know how to make an omelette.
Vee stirs in her sleep as I creep to the door. She sleeps with her eyes open, staring right at me like a vacant, judgmental corpse. Willow murmurs something unconsciously about ladybugs. Luz is actually asleep—usually she just pretends to be, but you know she really is when she’s sprawled out with her blankets over her head, snoring loudly.
It’s really crowded in here, sweltering with teen body heat and pet store snake smell. It doesn’t help Willow always smells like garlic. What the frick even is that? She always has, I don’t know why…
I get out safely into the hall. My pajamas have that weird smell other people’s clothes always have—in this case they smell like Luz, at least, which is vaguely comforting, but still vaguely unnerving, like I went down to the copier store and made clothes solely out of blown-up prints of our photo booth pictures. I feel less clothed, or described, and more just followed around by my girlfriend’s deodorant brand. Also, it’s not the same brand Eda wore, which I guess is what she was wearing, so even that’s different. Same story but worse when it comes to detergent.
Look, I’m not a shorts person. I have nothing against shorts on principle. They’re fine if you’re an adorable human in jorts and leggings, or if you’re Emira, or if you’re a beach hippie jogger dogwalker. But my knees look weird, when I can actually see them—they’re for walking on, not looking at. They’re not a fashion statement, they’re functional anatomy that gets me to and from the toilet. Plus, I haven’t gotten the hang of these weird human razors yet, and in my borrowed, artificially minty-smelling sleep shorts, my numerous band-aids are obvious. I don’t even know the cartoon characters on them (except for Shrek, but I don’t know who Shrek is, only that Luz had a video saved on her phone of him opening an outhouse and musically screaming, “SOMEBODY!” as the start of an Azura AMV).
I wonder if Shrek understands my pain.
I sneak down the hallway, desperate not to wake Mrs. Noceda. She already falls asleep working as it is, sorting through all the notes she’s taking to try to manage suddenly becoming a mother of six. We nicknamed it her Demon Binder, among ourselves, although we probably use the name a little too liberally—the mailman gave Gus quite the weird look, the other day, when he heard him calling from inside the house that he’d “found the Demon Binder!” I’ve suggested just calling it her Grimoire, as an alternative, but it hasn’t really caught on. Any word with, “oire,” in it just isn’t really catchy.
I’m almost safely to the bathroom, now, I just need to cross the kitchen. It’s dark and shadowy within, my socked feet flopping faintly on the cold tile.
I hear a munching noise.
I lunge, switching on the light.
Hunter is standing by the window, eating cereal over the sink. We stare right at each other.
Slowly, without breaking eye contact, he takes another bite.
“Hello…” I say, slowly.
“Hi,” he says, with his mouth full.
He’s not in PJs, no one can convince him to take off his dirty, smelly Emperor’s Coven clothes most of the time. He doesn’t wear his armour anymore, at least, and sometimes Gus is able to steal his soldier shirt and pants while he’s showering and replace them with some of Camila’s stuff. Hunter has stopped complaining about this since he got that fungal infection from his dirty pants, but he still holds out as long as he can, insisting his clothes are “fine.” If he had a pair of jeans he’d probably keep them at the foot of his bed forever. If he had a bed.
This is awkward. The most him and I have ever interacted was that time we tried to kill each other in an abandoned mine. Then he threatened my girlfriend, and I broke glass with my (nearly) bare hands, and we mutually cheated each other under threat of violence. It all worked out—I guess if he hadn’t extorted me for the broken portal key, we wouldn’t’ve had Belos’ portal to escape through—but it’s the thought that counts, and in this case it counts against him.
He’s a good guy now, though. I guess. He helped and stuff, and we all fought Belos together. I don’t really know him, though, and his pants smell even from here. Plus I’m wearing shorts, which I already explained feels weird, and now it’s doubly weird because I’m in PJs and he’s not. I feel like I came to the slumber party already dressed in footy pajamas, without getting the memo everyone else would be coming in day clothes.
“I was hungry,” he explains. He proffers the dripping bowl, “Want some?”
“Are those Greenbeam Sugar Princess Blast Crunchies?” I ask, sharply.
“No,” he says, hastily pulling the bowl away.
“They are! Those are Luz’s favourite!” I protest, hotly.
“They were just the first box I grabbed,” says Hunter, “I didn’t see her name on them.”
“You knew!” I say, approaching him, finger raised in accusation, “You knew she loves GSPB Crunchies!”
“You learned this, like, last week,” he says, unimpressed.
“And I care about it!”
“Okay, okay, Blight, I’m sorry. I’ll put it in the freezer,” he says, taking his bowl to the fridge.
“You can’t put cereal in the freezer, Hunter.”
“I mean, seems like it fits,” he says, opening up the freezer door, “If I just move this bacon…”
“Would you—stop spilling milk in the freezer!” I snap, trying to restrain his disastrous attempts at peacemaking.
We grapple for a moment, then suddenly something inside me snaps. I’m back at Eclipse Lake, and before either of us quite knows what’s happening, we’re both locked in barely contained violence. I’ve conjured a razor-sharp shard of Abomination goo, he’s fallen into combat mode in his smelly soldier clothes.
The Greenbeam Sugar Princess Blast Crunchies are spilled all over the floor. We both stare at the mess, panting.
My 3AM brain, newly awakened by adrenaline, realizes what I’m doing. I disentangle myself, hurriedly releasing Hunter’s arm and banishing the spike of goo that I almost shivved him with. “I’m so sorry—“
“No, no, that’s my bad, I spilled the bowl,” he says.
“I meant about the—the spike thing,” I stammer, scratching the back of my neck awkwardly, “I just, you know, I went back to—“
“Yeah, yeah, no, me too, uh…” Hunter gazes into the middle distance, chuckling with quiet pain, “Yeah.”
“Yup,” I say, uncomfortably.
“We should probably—I should probably clean that up,” says Hunter.
“I’ll get it,” I sigh.
“No, no, I got it, you, uh, get your beauty sleep?” Hunter seems to question his choice of phrase, “I’m sorry, that sounded weird, I was trying to sound casual.”
“No, you’re—you’re good,” I say.
“I really am sorry about that.”
“No, I know—you were a different person then, I don’t mean to be unfair to you,” I say, trying my best to see him as the pathetic teenage disaster he is, not the pathetic teenage disaster he was. Not the guy who, you know, betrayed my attempt at an intervention and then threatened to murder my girlfriend. Now he’s just the guy who lives with us, in the same house Luz sleeps in.
This is fine.
“Oh, I meant the cereal,” he says, “But, uh, sorry about that, too. The thing with Eclipse Lake, uh—“
“Yeahyeahyeah, I know, it’s, uh, all good bro,” I stammer, limply.
“Righty-o, brohomio. I mean, sis? Sistomio? Sisterama?”
“Amity,” I correct him, stiffly, from where I crouch down on the cold kitchen tile. I wield paper towels with unnecessary energy, sopping up the wasted cereal in scrubbing strokes, trying to contain my bitterness. I really am being unfair, Hunter’s been through so much.
And so has Luz.
“I’ll just eat some leftovers,” he says, going back to the fridge for even more food.
“Not the takeout, that’s Luz’s,” I say, quickly, not looking up.
“I wasn’t going to eat the takeout,” he says, with the traitorous sound of him hastily putting something back, “I’ll just go outside and eat some grass.”
“Don’t get sarcastic, Hunter, it’s three in the morning and I’m sitting on the Isles’—the world’s biggest bladder. I mean fullest,” I say, sharply.
“Sarcastic about what?” asks Hunter, stopping with confusion by the back door.
“Wait—are you actually going outside to eat grass? Oh my gosh, dude, you don’t have to eat grass, please don’t ever do that,” I stammer.
“I used to eat grass all the time,” he says, lightly, “That’s, like, three quarters of basic training. The kids who don’t learn to eat grass are the ones who don’t make it down the mountain alive.”
I stare at him with horror, “Oh my gosh.”
“It’s really not that bad. You should try some,” he says.
“I’m not doing that. Also, isn’t this Earth? Even if you were going to—you know what? Never mind. Just please don’t,” I sigh, standing up and throwing away the wadded paper towels. I walk to the fridge, still feeling cold and underdressed, still needing to pee, and pull out the butter. Emira always made the food, or Abombo the Abomination Butler made an ill-conceived attempt at it, but I know a little of the culinary arts. I am, after all, a highly educated young lady.
I find some pop tarts in the cupboard, which are one of the Earth foods I’ve come to understand. Rubbing these up and down along the block of butter, I place them carefully in the toaster and pull the magical lever to light them on fire.
The effect isn’t as incendiary as when Luz tried to make toast for breakfast, but the butter kind of melts, and some of the drops smoke a little when they dribble inside.
I dump the toaster out on a fresh paper towel and point to it without looking at Hunter, “There. Eat that.”
“Thanks, uh… You didn’t have to do that,” says Hunter, awkwardly.
“Apparently I did,” I say, hastily, turning at last toward the beacon of relief that is the bathroom.
I make it to the hall doorway at the other end of the kitchen before I hear Hunter sob.
“Oh, Hunter, I—“ I wheel around, hating myself, “I didn’t mean that to sound so mean, I just, I really need to pee—“
“What? No, no, I just—I’m not even crying,” sobs Hunter, “It’s, uh, the butter.”
“It’s not the butter, Hunter,” I sigh, “Look, I know I can be… I’ve been a bully in the past, and I never want to be that person again, but when I think about—“
“What? What are you talking about? I just—no one’s ever made me food before,” says Hunter, “I mean, I guess that’s not true, I’m just, uh… being stupid old Hunter. Just, like, no one’s ever made food for me personally. Except Camila, gosh, I didn’t mean to say it like—I just, outside of meals, you know, I—I have a complicated relationship with food, okay?”
“Hey man, you eat grass, I get it,” I say.
“But you’re not a bully, Amity,” he says, “I’m the one who spilled the cereal.”
“Just forget the cereal. I really have to go to the bathroom,” I say.
“Oh, right, right, yeah. Hey, by the way, I know this is a weird time, but on that note, I have some questions, and Belos never explained to me, but when you turned, like, thirteen, did you start to have these weird—“
“Uhhhh, ask Camila! Goodnight!” I flee in terror, hurtling down the hall in my socks. I think I stepped in some of that spilt milk.
The bathroom door closes just as I reach it, light and fan flicking on inside.
“Seriously?” I sigh.
With an audible crunching, Vee starts shedding a fresh skin within.