Okay, so I want to just say... This is sorta my bad for why this took half a year to actually make.
This chapter was meant to be MUCH longer and include the inevitable reveal and confrontation scene... But it just got too long, and I lost inspiration for a LONG while. So, while I work on the second part of what this chapter was supposed to be, I wanted to at least allow you guys SOME of the writing. So here we are, back to this fic after multiple months of hiatus!
Enjoy the possibly cringe writing, and leave a follow/favorite if you've enjoying so far!
Camila knew it was a mistake to take Eda's offer up. She knew she'd end up being pushed to drink WAY more than she originally agreed to, but she did it anyways. Guess she was desperate for some way to calm down after all the stress of yesterday.
Course, the consequence of that happened to be waking up in the backyard with a turkey sleeping right on top of her. Camila moaned a bit as she sat up a bit, glancing around as she held her (now aching) head.
The yard seemed mostly untouched apart from a few empty bottles of liquor littering around. The most noticeable thing amiss in the yard was Eda... Who was currently getting up from the grass, wearing a mix of Camila's clothing along with her glasses. The sweater and pants hung loosely off the witch's much thinner (which Camila wasn't ashamed to admit) body.
"Morning..." Eda mumbled out a casual greeting when she noticed Camila nearby. The witch's speech was slurred. Camila didn't need to shake off her headache in order to tell that Eda wasn't sober.
"Why are you wearing my clothes?" Camila mumbled out, groaning as she clutched her head when another spike of pain throbbed from it.
"Well, you weren't wearing them anymore... So I didn't see why not... Fuzzy stuff." Eda bluntly answered, which made Camila blink in confusion.
"Uhh, what are you-" Camila began to question, before she glanced down at her body, which gave her a better answer than the drunken Eda ever could at the moment.
The witch was telling the literal truth: Camila had (for some reason she couldn't even begin remember) stripped all her clothes, apart from her undergarments, off at some point during the drunken haze. Which Eda had apparently taken as an invitation to put on said clothes.
Camila yelped in surprise, taking her hands off her head to cover herself up best she could.
"It is cold out here... Like, incredibly cold." Eda commented with a slurred tone, glancing around absentmindedly.
"Imagine how I feel..." Camila remarked, still self-conscious about her mostly naked body. But she was right, it was freezing outside right now. Considering it was clearly still the middle of the night, that checked out.
"I can see why... You love these sweaters. So warm, and fuzzy. Soaks up liquor stains pretty well too." Eda commented, her speech still slurred as ever.
"Oh nice that you think that... Now give me my clothes back." Camila flatly demanded to the drunk witch.
"But I'm gonna be cold without it..." Eda complained with a slur, whining a bit as she did.
"We're heading inside anyways, just give it!" Camila pointed out, annoyed to have to raise her voice with the headache that was currently going on in her skull.
Eda grumbled, before reluctantly taking the sweater off and tossing it to the Noceda mother, putting some sass into her throw as she did.
"Fine, take it... Chubby." Eda slurred out, with that being the best insult her currently drunken brain could come up with.
Camila didn't have the energy to refute the insult, and just began putting her sweater back on as she walked towards the door leading inside.
She managed to quietly open it, and creeped in. The last thing Camila wanted was for Miranda to wake up and see her in this state, it'd probably be the thing that would break the camel's back if she got spotted like this.
On the counter was an empty shopping bag. A decently sized turkey had been put in the sink to defrost overnight.
"Oh, gracias a Dios... Someone got an actually unalive turkey." Camila sighed in relief. She was way too hungover to comment on how weird that sentence sounded.
That was one less thing to stress about off her list. Now Camila just had to focus on the other 40 things to stress about.
She figured that since she was already (mostly) awake, and wasn't falling back asleep anyways... That she may as well start cooking everything early.
Just then, Camila heard a faint crash from behind her, and turned quickly in fear that it was possibly Miranda walking in... Only to see it was instead Eda.
She had stumbled inside behind Camila, and in the process had knocked over a few pans on a nearby shelf, which made them fall to the floor. Luckily, nobody seemed to wake up from the noise, and the pans weren't dented in any way.
"You have a pretty nice body, not gonna lie." Eda randomly complimented, leaning on the counter nearby as she glanced at the Noceda mother. "I can see where all that fa-"
"One more word and I'm shoving the turkey baster up where the sun doesn't shine." Camila flatly replied, not even looking up from the drawer she was digging through. "Now stop slouching around, and help me find the masher."
Waking up was always a painful experience for Luz. She hated opening her eyes in the morning, only to get blinded by the sun's rays beaming into the room from through the window. It didn't help that it was autumn, and the house had a decent chill going through it.
So to Luz, it was like she was leaving her warm comforting covers, and stepping straight into a frozen tundra. Maybe she was being a bit dramatic, but it's just how it felt.
Amity was still mostly asleep, slightly stirring next to her. Luz was perfectly content with spending the morning phasing in and out of sleep next to her girlfriend in peace... But it was pretty clear that wasn't going to happen.
Probably the only thing that was managing to force her out of bed, was the two young voices badgering her excitedly about the day ahead, nearly dragging her by the arm to get her up.
"Luz! Luz! Luz! Come on!" The Collector grinned, shaking her arm in an effort to get Luz to start getting up on her own. "Wake up!"
"It's Thanksgiving! The first Thanksgiving I've ever been a part of!" King added, having climbed on top of Luz, trying to yank the covers off her.
"Ugh, alright, alright... I'm up." She eventually groaned mixed with a yawn as she reluctantly got up.
God, with how the two were acting, Luz was both curious and scared about how they'd react when Christmas came around.
Hm, she was already thinking about the next holiday. It hadn't really hit Luz yet that this was most likely going to be the normal scene for holidays in the future.
Again, that both scared and excited her.
The Collector and King both took one of Luz's arms each, and began dragging her out of the room. As they did, the human girl looked back at the still sleeping Amity (man, her sleep-purring was adorable).
"Eh, I'll let her sleep in..." Luz remarked to herself in a mumble.
Soon the three had reached the living room, where everyone else was also slowly getting up from their sleep.
Vee and Willow had waken up before Luz, and were already helping set the table in the dining room, chatting as they worked.
Gus and Hunter meanwhile, were talking to Miranda as she sat on the couch sipping a cup of coffee.
"You know, nieto... I know of a good skin lotion that may help with those marks on your face." Miranda murmured to Hunter, as she sipped her coffee.
"Oh, that's... Nice..." Hunter replied back with a fake smile.
As much as he hated bringing the subject of his scars up, Hunter felt like it was smarter not just for him, but for everyone else to just let his "abuela" ramble on about them until the subject inevitably diverted in a different direction.
Thankfully, Gus seemed to notice his friend's discomfort, and spoke up to do just that.
"You know, I've done a few stage performances before... But I'm thinking about doing some stand-up comedy sometime." Gus randomly stated, in hopes Miranda would take the bait... Which she did.
"Oh, stand-up? Really? You struck me as a theater-type kid..." Miranda remarked curiously.
"Well, I am known for being pretty dramatic sometimes!" Gus pointed out with pride.
On the other side of the room, Luz exhaled in relief at seeing Gus divert the discussion away from Hunter's past. She had to remember to thank him for that later after dinner sometime.
On the topic of dinner, Luz could hear her mother already working in the kitchen.
"Uh, I'm gonna go check up on mamá..." Luz announced, turning to King. "Why don't you go talk with abuela for a bit to keep that conversation going?"
"Oh, okay! Yeah! I can do that!" King nodded, walking off into the living room to join the discussion... Which had begun to turn into a conversation about popular stage-plays.
Luz and the Collector both entered the kitchen, where Camila was working on the various dishes for dinner. Most of which had surprisingly been finished by the looks of it... Almost like Camila had been awake even before the sun had been up.
"Uh, morning Mamá!" Luz piped up to announce her presence to Camila.
"Morning, Mija..." Camila greeted back with an exhale, as she rushed across the kitchen to tend to another dish.
"Wow, there's a lot of human food!" The Collector smiled, before quickly correcting himself as he remembered his cover. "Uh, I mean... Just food! Because I'm a human as well!"
Luz sighed a bit at the star child's moment of forgetfulness, but brushed it off as her curiosity was peaked when she noticed there were a few people missing from the observable group...
"Hey, where's Lilith, Raine, and... Hooty?" Luz questioned, putting more concern in the the current location of the latter.
"Lilith and Raine are upstairs tidying up the bedrooms right now." Camila answered the question without even turning away from the (totally homemade) dish she was preparing. "So my guess is Hooty's also with them."
"Oh okay, good..." Luz exhaled, relieved that the bug demon wasn't out causing chaos or doing something Luz couldn't even begin to imagine. She had learned that there wasn't really ANYTHING off limits when it came to Hooty.
The Collector, while Luz was thinking to herself, approached Camila as she moved on to working on the mashed potatoes.
"Do you need any help, Luz's mom?" He asked with a curious smile. "I can take the plates and stuff to the table for you!"
"Thank you, Estrellita." Camila smiled thankfully at the star child's willingness to help out, kneeling down to give him a small hug, which he returned.
Luz smiled at the cute sight, before the Collector rushed off to bring everything to the table. It warmed her heart to see her friends (and found family) help out in setting up for the meal.
But Luz's smile slowly dipped when she noticed the sate of her mother. Camila's eyes had heavy bags, her clothes raggled, and a noticeable stain on the left side of her pants (she was just going to assume it was water, and leave it at that).
"Uh, did you sleep last night?" Luz questioned with an eyebrow raise. "...Like at all?"
"Technically." Camila answered after hesitating for a few moments. Being blackout drunk did count as sleeping in her book. Which is sadly something she never thought or wanted to count in any book at all.
Their attention was drawn away from each other when a muffled crash came from the hallway.
"Who the hell put a shelf here right in the way of the wall?!" Eda's voice could be heard complaining soon afterwards, a drunken slur still in her voice.
Luz blinked at the sound of the Owl Lady's voice. It was in a condition that she was unfortunately rather familiar with.
"Uh... Mamá, is Eda-?" Luz began to question, but her mother was one step ahead of her.
"Yeah, yeah... She's wasted." Camila clicked her tongue, not even changing her expression as she cut Luz off with the blunt answer.
Camila had hoped that Eda would have sobered up in the hours she had been busy preparing for the dinner... But of course, the universe decided that would have been too merciful, and Eda had barely snapped out of her drunken state at all.
"Wonderful." Luz deadpanned, and she sighed heavily afterwards.
Soon after, Amity walked out from the hall, having woken up and come out to join everyone else in preparation.
"Hey, not to raise any alarms... But Eda just completely collapsed onto an end table in the hallway..." Amity announced as she approached the two, giving off a faint yawn.
"Course she did." Luz clicked her tongue, "By the way, good morning, swee- Amity."
Amity frowned at the way Luz corrected herself. "Oh come on, we can't even use our affectionate nicknames? Your abuela isn't even listening right now!"
"Look, we can't be too careful..." Luz sighed, "If she finds out in the wrong way, it WON'T end well."
"Fine, whatever..." Amity grumbled, and walked off past Luz.
Wow. The room now felt a lot colder to Luz. She couldn't help but exhale with a frown, knowing this wasn't pleasant for her girlfriend to deal with. Heck, wasn't really pleasant for herself either! But Luz knew she didn't really have much choice.
"You okay, Mija?" Camila asked, noticing her daughter's downtrodden expression despite how tired she was.
"Yeah, yeah I'm fine... Let's just sit and enjoy this nice and peaceful meal without any more hiccups." Luz remarked with a hopeful smile.
Deep down, she knew there was a very unlikely chance any of that was going to end up happening.
The next chapter WILL be done much sooner than this was, and will include the scene you've all been waiting for... Stay tuned for that.
Remember to review and leave a favorite/follow if you enjoyed! I love reading your thoughts in the reviews...