TRIGGER WARNING
- BLOOD
- INJURY
- PANIC ATTACK
For everyone who is easily triggered by panic or panic attacks, I recommend not reading any further than the Lumity part of this chapter. You won't need the entire Boscha part, just know she's incredibly distraught and has a lot of confusing emotions about fault and making up for it. She has a full-blown panic attack (actually I wrote myself into one thanks to this) and I recommend continuing on your own responsibility.
There will be more on Boscha's state and her feelings on the situation in a calmer and safer scene later on.
You won't miss anything if you skip this part.
A lot of it was already mentioned in the actual scene of the accident and Amity's nightmare.
Boscha's feelings will resurface later on and you will know how she feels in future chapters if you don't feel comfortable reading panic attacks with physical reactions.
I'M SERIOUS.
ONLY READ IF YOU FEEL ABSOLUTELY SURE, THERE'S NO SHAME IN NOT READING IT.
It still took Luz a few days to walk by herself again and she hated every second.
Well, not the seconds when Eda and King were visiting. And she loved every second Amity spent with her. And she also enjoyed all the seconds while Willow and Gus were visiting.
Skara, Cat, and Amelia had also paid her a visit and Luz had enjoyed having them all over. They were gentle and careful around her and even helped her get up once to get some snacks from down the hall, even if Amity had protested them carrying Luz.
In the end, it had been a lot of fun though, and they had giggled all the while two of them carried her to the vending machine and two carried her back by interlocking their hands and having Luz sit on them while wrapping her arms around their necks.
Amity had helped to carry her back and Luz had grinned at her constantly, knowing the girl had needed to warm up to her old friends showing up and not being bullies.
Viney, Jerbo, and Barcus had also shown up for a short visit, and Luz and Amity had coincidentally invited over Edric and Emira at the same time, giggling to themselves when Emira had started flirting with the unamused Viney until she had shot back a flirty line only to leave Emira a hot mess.
So, she guessed she didn't hate every single second of it.
But the walking, the slow progress, and the lonely nights had been horrible.
When she had finally gotten the permission to leave, she had celebrated, even if Eda had put her under strict supervision over the weekend before letting her back to Hexside. She didn't mind, though.
Strict supervision usually meant games, snacks, and movies, and having friends over once Eda had to get some stuff, run her business of human phenomena or do undisclosed business at undisclosed places.
So, Luz was super happy to be back in the Owl House over the weekend, naturally. With Eda's permission, she had quickly invited Amity, Willow, and Gus over, but Willow and Gus had other things on their schedule – something about a forgotten homework and some tunnel Gus was babbling about, even if Luz had thought his tunnel underneath Hexside had already been finished.
Having Amity over was really cool, too. Especially since Eda had already announced she'd be out this evening, so she was looking forward to watching a movie and spending the evening with Amity.
"So, what do you wanna watch?", Luz began, already grinning at Amity. The girl just shrugged at that, a small smile on her lips.
"Your descriptions were a little-… Enthusiastic. Why don't we just watch something you wanna watch?"
Luz grimaced at that and then pouted at Amity, causing her to chuckle.
"But I like all of these movies! Giving me the choice would break me!"
Amity immediately pointed at a random cover then, her eyes blown wide. She absolutely didn't want Luz to break over something like this. The girl laughed.
"Okay, that one. That's the super cute romance!"
Amity suppressed a sigh. Well, this was going to be easy, right?
She only had to make it through 2 hours of two characters getting together, kissing, building up chemistry, without projecting it onto her and Luz.
Already flushing, Amity pressed herself into the backrest and pulled up the blanket while Luz prepared the movie on her magic box, before returning to the couch as well with quite some effort and sitting close to Amity, close enough so she could steal the other half of Amity blanket.
Yelping, she tried hiding her face, then she looked up.
"… Is that too warm for you?", the teenager asked her, obviously referring to Amity's red face, but she quickly shook her head while the movie began, trying a smile.
"N-No! I like that."
Luz smiled and grabbed the snack box, putting it between their thighs on top of the blanket, then the first scene started playing. A short-haired girl introduced herself, and the human world she was living in, before saying she was different than all the others. She was a lesbian.
Immediately, Amity suppressed rolling her eyes.
Suited her right that she had to pick the gay movie.
Luz already giggled at the introduction, then she turned to Amity, way closer than she had expected, making her blush. She was just glad the lights were dimmed now.
"That's so cliché. I like this movie, but it stays as shallow with the LGBTQ community throughout."
Amity tried controlling her blazing face.
"Wh-What do you mean?"
Luz shrugged at that, leaning back again and Amity felt herself relaxing, thankfully, "You know, all the drama about it. In movies like these, it's a huge deal to be gay, and it's either the scared, closeted character or the over-the-top gay who acts extra. There's so much more to LGBTQ than that. I was actually quite glad that homosexuality isn't as big a deal on the Boiling Isles as it is in the human realm. I don't think it's even recognized as different here, is it?"
Amity furrowed her eyebrows at that.
"It's a problem to like the same gender in the human realm?"
For a few minutes, Luz watched the movie when the introduction was over and the story began, then she sighed and shrugged.
"That's a topic for another time, I suppose.", she finally said and Amity softly took her hand. Something in Luz's words sounded heavy, clouded by something that must've happened. Pressing pause, Luz looked over to Amity and she slanted her lips.
"Are you sure?", she finally asked and the human hummed, then she nodded.
"Yes. Don't worry, I never had problems with that, because my mother is really open-minded and nobody else knew I was bi. But for many others, it's a huge problem. It's even a crime to be gay in some places. You'll see what's about it in that movie. Let's just watch?"
Despite the worrying information about the human realm, Amity couldn't help but replay that one thing Luz had said all over again in her head, even when the movie started picking up and the story got interesting.
She had hoped that Luz was interested in the same gender as well, even if she hadn't really minded because, in her home, the different sexualities didn't really matter. But hearing Luz confirming that she wasn't straight was a relief, almost.
The longer the movie carried on, with the main character starting to chat with another gay girl online, getting problems keeping their sexuality a secret, and finally, everyone turning away from her when it came out. Amity followed the movie wide-eyed, learning how problematic it apparently was in the human realm, while Luz's head got heavier and heavier.
She still couldn't concentrate long on something, partly because of her ADHD but also because of the accident. Her mind needed rest.
When it finally got too much, her head dropped on Amity's shoulder and she finally relaxed. With her head secured, she adjusted the rest of her body now, wrapping one arm across her lap, then she smiled softly and dozed off.
She couldn't even notice Amity freezing up and blushing furiously again. And she didn't see Amity's eyes widening, or her heart skipping a beat. Sleep had taken her fully, leaving Amity to finish the movie by herself. Even if she found the story compelling, though, she couldn't exactly concentrate anymore once Luz had fallen asleep on her.
Deciding to finish the movie on her own, Amity just settled against her and smiled softly. This was very nice. And before she knew it, she had fallen asleep as well.
Finally, it was the weekend and Boscha could be home again.
Away from the curious eyes, away from people asking her how she was, what happened and how Luz was doing. She had mostly relied on her friends to keep her out of the crossfire, something Amelia, Skara, and Cat had more than gladly done, but it had only helped so much. Every single gaze, every single question, reduced her to what had happened about ten days ago. And every single time it brought her back to these moments, minutes, she had spent kneeling in the human's blood and trying to keep her alive.
Her parents, mostly her father, had been understanding enough to schedule her some emergency therapy sessions, and allowed her to stay out of school for a few days. While the therapy sessions had definitely helped, and she had been able to convince her parents she'd need them for a bit longer, she still felt as though this incident followed her every step.
When she looked out the window to see the forest, when she lied down to sleep, when she got up and when she ate. Throughout her whole day, the memories followed her, bothered her, taunted her.
She had injured Luz this way. She had thrown that ball, and her teammates had tried stopping her. She was at fault, she could've had this never happen. She should've stopped.
Tiredly, Boscha crawled under her sheets and buried her face in the pillow. This was unbearable.
Injuring another witch like that had never made her feel so guilty. Probably mostly because witches were more durable than humans. They could get back up, their injuries healed faster.
Seeing the human knocked out like this, seeing her bleeding out and dying, had been a rapid change from what Boscha knew.
She knew she had acted right after she had realized what she had done. She knew that she had reacted faster than all of them and that she had done the right thing, giving everyone tasks, avoiding them to slip into shock right there and freeze up. She had done the right thing.
That still didn't excuse that she had done the wrong thing before. That didn't make anything better, except that Luz was still alive, and well, as Amity had told her. It didn't make her suffering better. It didn't make it easier that she would have to adjust and live with what she had done.
Once again, her eyes burned and she growled. She had been crying a lot these days, something she hadn't done before. She'd also had a lot of nightmares. Nightmares of the human dying, of everyone blaming Boscha.
She had shot up in bed in a cold sweat and cried, cried all night long until she had fallen asleep for the next nightmare again.
But she couldn't face Luz yet. She couldn't face her.
In her memories she was always so grey, surrounded by red, and draining of life. She was so weak and helpless and completely at Boscha's mercy. Boscha liked bossing people around but, never like this. At her mercy, not responding. Still.
She gulped again.
The human's soft, raspy breaths when she had leaned down to check for it.
Closing her eyes, Boscha groaned again and shook her head. She had never anticipated this, she had never wanted this. And now she was feeling so sick, so twisted. She had done the wrong thing, then the right, and she felt so guilty for both.
By the first throw, she should've already known the human wasn't playing. She should've known the human was in real danger at the very moment she had seen the fear flashing in her eyes. But she hadn't reacted to that, even liked the fear. Because she never would've thought something would actually happen. Nothing had happened to Luz before. Nothing would happen to them, they were just teens, right?
And then it had happened. The sickening crack still shook Boscha to her core. The ball leaving her hand and the crack that had followed when she had crushed Luz's skull against the stone. The flashbacks were coming again and Boscha curled up under her blanket, baring her teeth.
When the human had been thrown back, her eyes rolling upwards and her torso collapsing in itself as the spine was turned to cracked pebbles. She winced.
Then the blood. She hadn't registered how the wound looked like at first, but the more her shock faded, the more her brain gave her all the details she had burned into her memories by accident. When she had run over and remembered faintly not to damage Luz's spine more. When, for a super scary second, her hands had hovered helplessly and she had done nothing.
She still dreaded that moment. It couldn't have been longer than the blink of an eye but her memory stretched it to hours, unmoving, terrifying hours of dread while she stared down at the broken human, hearing her rasping breaths and letting the shock take over her.
And then that moment ended. When she snapped into action.
Her fingers reaching down finally, feeling as though she had just cracked a cover of ice over her skin when she moved, breaking free of her frozen state. The soft pulse, so weak and fragile, underneath her fingertips, her skin getting slick with the warm blood spilling from the human.
She remembered faintly how her grandmother, as strict as she had been, had been baking with her once. Her grandmother hadn't taken any shit. Especially not from the spoiled five-year-old brat who hadn't wanted to knead the dough or do the dishes by hand. She remembered her stepping behind the child and folding up her sleeves, before grabbing her hands and forcing them down into the sticky goo. Telling her, "When you work in the kitchen, you don't use your fingertips and keep your hands clean. You can wash them after. Now knead it properly, child."
She had done the same with Luz. Not fearing the blood getting on her, not fearing her hands getting dirty. She had just jumped to action, done the right thing, not minded any blood no matter how thick and slimy and warm it had felt on her hands. As if it was holding onto the skin by which it had been trapped before, begging for a way back in.
Luz had been facing down on the ground, and she would never forget the kind of awkward angle her spine had been in. Even in this lying position, she had seen the dangerous injury she had given the human.
Her eyes had flitted from her back to her fingers on her neck, then up to the back of her head. Where the laceration of the hit was. Boscha felt herself getting sick while her body started shivering uncontrollably.
The wound had been horrifying. She hadn't paid attention to the details when she had been in the situation, but her mind would never forget. How the hair had been flattened down and dampened by red blood, how it had darkened her hair and flowed down her neck, down her back underneath her uniform, and down the sides of her face. The exposed flesh, something hard and red and-… Dark sitting underneath the pulled-back skin. The cracked skull.
Boscha convulsed, then she pressed a hand to her mouth while a pathetic whimper escaped her throat. She had done this. She had thrown the ball that had the speed to split open skin, crack bones. She heaved, then she finally got up to stumble to her bathroom that was attached to her room, and threw up in the toilet.
She would never forget how it moved. How she watched the wound oozing, how she had watched the skin moving with every slight movement of the human.
And the worst had been that, while Luz had been knocked out completely, her eyes had been half-open. She had seen the pain on the human's face, the whites of her eyes, and the flitting iris sometimes coming into view when her eyes rolled.
Her knees had been damp, she could still feel it while kneeling in front of the toilet. She mistook the cold tiles beneath her knees as wetness, she was sure. But when she looked down, there was red.
Immediately, her eyes watered, and her torso convulsed again, forcing her to heave on an empty stomach. The blood-soaked pajamas climbed up her legs, and she remembered how her clothes stuck to her after that. No matter how much she had scrubbed when she had gotten home, she would never get rid of the iron smell, or the slight, faint coloring of a darker shade, of the dried, edges of the blood on her pink skin.
Desperately gripping the toilet seat, she leaned the side of her face against the edge and sobbed.
She still remembered how warm her forehead had felt when she had checked for Luz's breathing. She still knew how it had felt, leaning over the human, pressing her forehead into the pool of blood, and feeling her hair getting dampened by the liquid.
She still remembered the raspy breaths, the heaving, and the blood sticking to her hair and face and getting everywhere. She could still feel the cold air hitting her blood-soaked skin when she had leaned back to bark more instructions, and checked Luz's pulse again. The droplets out of her hair, running down her head, around her ears, down her temples and nose, getting in her eyes and mouth and tasting like iron.
She faintly remembered not wiping it away.
And Amity's screaming. Her insults, the despair. Titan, the love from that girl. Boscha was glad she had instructed Amelia to trap her in a cage. But that hadn't made her screams easier to bear, her screams that had morphed into the voice inside Boscha's head that had been pestering her ever since that accident had started sinking in.
Finally, when they had turned Luz around and Boscha had done her best not to look at the wound, the skull moving when they moved her, her breaths coming to a stop. The sudden silence after the raspy, uneven breaths.
She had leaned down and listened and had heard it, heard Luz's last breath in another reality, had she not started CPR. She was just glad she was on the grudgby team and everyone suspected harsh injuries in that sport.
It was completely uncommon in the demon realm to perform CPR because either the body of a witch or demon was fast enough to recover or there simply wasn't enough left to perform CPR on. Boscha was one of the few people in the school, including some teachers, the healing track students, and the grudgby players to even know that practice.
It had been deafening.
Even tuning out Amity's screams and sobs, and her own intrusive thoughts.
The sudden break had shocked Boscha more than she had anticipated. She only knew breathing. She had known it when her father had held her as a child, she had known it with her sister, and her friends sleeping over and breathing in their sheets while Boscha had lied awake. She had known breathing from Amity, from her panic attacks when they had gotten older, the hyperventilation, and the quickening breaths she had let out. She knew it from Amity when they curled up together, seeking each other's comfort in their mothers' competition. She had known breathing in her first kiss, and in the silence of a classroom during an exam. There was always breathing around her.
Hell, some houses in the Boiling Isles were breathing.
And yet, Luz had stopped.
It had been unnerving, understanding that the human had just stopped breathing. Her brain wouldn't work it out until way later, in the situation she had known it was bad and had known what to do.
But now that she was pushing away from the toilet and leaning against the wall next to it, crying and sobbing hysterically into her arms?
She understood what it had meant, beyond bad.
It had meant Luz had just been moments from her death. She doesn't think anyone but Skara, who had heard it, too, knew what that had meant. Willow had only sat on Luz's feet and heard and understood what Boscha had said, but she hadn't watched the sudden drainage of life from Luz's face, she hadn't noticed the forced lifting and sinking of her chest stopping under her hand and she hadn't heard her last breath.
She hadn't felt the pulse under Boscha's fingertips weakening, hiccupping, stopping. Then restarting, before stilling again.
But Boscha had, Boscha had felt and heard and noticed it all, and she had realized what that had meant. Someone had jokingly told her once, that the soul of a being left its vessel with the last breath. Boscha had seen Luz's last breath, she had seen the life fleeting from her body so fast that she had been scared that she wouldn't be fast enough.
Letting out a feral scream, Boscha buried her head on her knees and clamped her arms over her head. The world vanished in static when the panic attack took full hold of her now. Her fingertips were uncomfortably pulsing and itching under her skin, mockingly, reliving the feeling of Luz's pulse getting too weak for her to feel anymore, reminding her of the sudden lack of life.
She knew Luz hadn't died at that moment, she knew it took a moment still, but it had certainly felt like it.
Her socks kicked against the floor in a desperate attempt to make herself smaller, press her back harder against the tiled wall, and the itching in her fingertips spread to her knuckles, to her palms and wrist, and down her lower arms. Suddenly, she had to get the sleeves off. Ripping her arms off her head, she tried rolling her sleeves up in unpracticed, frantic movements, starting to scratch her skin to get rid of the uncomfortable itching, but it wouldn't stop. The blood was soaking her skin, the red was crawling up and the itching got worse until she finally ripped her shirt off and started rubbing over her arms, up and down and not noticing that she scrubbed it sore, turning it red, much lighter than the human's blood.
How the wound on the back of Luz's head hadn't stopped bleeding, and how wet it had sounded, Luz's head rolling around despite Skara's grip on her to keep her crushed spine straight enough for Boscha to perform CPR. How stupid Boscha had been not to cover the wound. Had she even been supposed to? She didn't even know now.
Another scream ripped through her throat and she squinted her eyes, biting her teeth together so hard it hurt, while her arms were still working over her biceps, shoulders, and whatever she could reach of her back. She saw the human convulsing, her belly rising and falling with each violent push she had given her chest, compressing the air that was left. As if she was breathing but not quite.
How stale and like iron her lips had tasted when she had blown air into her mouth, hoping so badly that she hadn't suffered a wound in there somewhere so Boscha wouldn't force blood into her lungs.
Amity's screams had become one with the voice in her head, screaming at her to do better than what she had done.
And then, nothing anymore.
When Luz had been gone, and the storm in Boscha's head had calmed down, the static had died out in the silence. Amity's weak sobs, Willow's soft reassurances, and Skara's and Amelia's shocked breaths, hitching every now and then when they collapsed in emotional and mental exhaustion.
Boscha whimpered and sobbed more, still rubbing over her arms frantically and still trying to push herself further into the wall.
Suddenly, she heard footsteps, fast footsteps approaching, and the door to her bathroom flew open. Before she knew what was happening, her mother's arms were around her and her father kneeled in front of her. His expensive business pants got soaked in blood, so much blood that was covering all the floor, Luz's blood. Boscha whimpered again, when her mother pulled her in, when her father flushed the toilet and sat down beside her as well, his arms wrapping around her cooling back, keeping her away from the wall just a little at least.
She managed to control her crying and whimpering the best she could, softly sobbing now, and felt her mother's unruly hair on her neck and her nose in her hair.
Her parents held her close, not even caring that she didn't have a shirt on, and as soon as she had calmed down a little at least, her father started soaking toilet paper in cold water to soothe her burning skin. She felt her mother chastising him, but he was so helpless, and Boscha didn't want him to stop. Plus, it did help.
Sighing, she finally relaxed into her mother's embrace and felt her father softly drying her arms again, then she was coaxed up by him, and led back into her room. She barely felt her mother lifting her arms and covering her with the shirt again. It was on backward, but it wasn't important.
Her father scooped her up in his arms and started carrying her outside, causing a slight, irritating call from his wife, but he just spoke back in a calm voice before carrying her out. Her head was rested against his chest and she heard his heart beating.
Vaguely opening her eyes, she saw that he was aiming for her parents' bedroom. Looking behind, she saw her mother closing the door to her room and carrying her blanket, before following them.
This was a privilege she would not pass up. Being able to sleep in her parents' bed at least for tonight. Her parents believed in independence much like Amity's, but she knew they had her back if something happened.
And if it left their daughter traumatized, they would move mountains for her. In the caring department, her parents weren't that bad, even if there was mostly discipline in it, but the loving didn't come too short in exceptional situations. She supposed this was one.
Her father lowered her down in the middle of the bed and kissed her forehead, before crawling in in his side and getting under his blanket, while wrapping his arm around her waist and keeping her close. Boscha managed an exhausted smile, then she felt a gust of wind, and her blanket sunk down on her before she felt her mother getting into bed as well and adding her arm around Boscha's waist as well. She knew her mother wasn't the most affectionate type, but she appreciated the effort she had put in today.
It was much needed.
With her father's breath deepening, and her mother's humming, she slowly felt herself getting drowsy and falling asleep. She had a feeling she'd have a nightmare tonight again.
But maybe, just maybe, she'd be exhausted enough not to dream at all.
And maybe the presence of her parents would also help her through this.
...
I will go now and uh. Calm down.