The Walk Back Home
A story about the kids trying to pick themselves up after everything that's happened.
Massive spoiler for the S2 finale under the cut.
Here's the link for this oneshot on AO3
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Luz stared at the empty, abandoned room, devoid of life, devoid of warmth, and most importantly, devoid of her only way to get back to the Boiling Isles. She was back in Connecticut, her whole goal, and she would trade anything if it meant that she hadn’t come back. She continued staring, refusing to blink. If she did, the tears would start squeezing out. And if they started, they would not stop. And she needed to focus. What should she do?
Should she wait here? Stand right here, in this doorway, opening and closing it until it worked? That seemed like her only plan. King could’ve found Eda and Hooty and the rest, and they could’ve figured something out. Plus, King was basically a young god, right? It would make a whole lot of sense if the answer here was that she just needed to have faith.
She looked back to her friends, attempting to muster up some form of encouraging expression, but her face didn’t seem capable of moving. Huh, weird. She looked at them, standing in real Earth rain. She had dreamed of this moment so many times, of them finally being able to enjoy these sensations, of finally being able to enjoy her world. Gus broke down crying. Right. If there was one thing she had learned this year, it’s that nothing went as expected. There was never a right answer, never anny pay-off on her wild daydreams, there was just reality. The reality of a cold, abandoned house that would never again be anything else. Still, it was the only thing she could think of that COULD get them back. She couldn’t just LEAVE, could she?
“Hu… Luz,” Hunter started. “I think, I think Gus-” He cast a worried glance at the young witch. That’s right, they’d become buddies. “Could probably use some… food?” He stared at her, clearly also unsure of what any of them needed at this point in time. Luz glanced back at the house. At the very least, she was sure there was nothing they needed in there.
“You’re right, Hunter, you’re right.” She gathered herself and turned to face her friends fully. Her tired, beaten, and destroyed friends. Titan, could she have done anything different? They just watched their entire lives be ripped apart, had she done that to them? If she had never gone to the Boiling Isles in the first place, would they look like this right now?
No, no, she would not fall down that rabbit hole right now. They needed her right now, and she desperately needed them.
“You’re right, Hunter,” Luz repeated, finding that saying it the third time gave her the push she needed to take one step down the stairs. But what if they just now got it- She heard another choked sob from Gus. No, that’s right. She couldn’t bet her friends’ welfare on stupid gambles. She’d already done that enough today.
She quickly strode down the steps and in the direction of her house. Her house. Holy moley, she was back in Connecticut, she was going to see- No, bad Luz. No happiness right now, just business. “Follow me, guys, I’ll take us to my house.”
“Luz,” Amity asked. “What about your mom? Do you think…” She trailed off, clearly having no desire to finish talking.
‘Do you think she’s going to accept us after everything?’ That was a worry wasn’t it? Mom didn’t have the best opinion on the Boiling Isles, especially after she botched their last conversation. Man, she really never did anything right, did she? Luz pushed those thoughts to the back of her mind and gave her friends a smile. At least, she hoped she was smiling. “Don’t worry, my mom's not gonna leave a bunch of kids starving in the rain, no matter how pointy their ears are! Us Nocedas are known for our kindness, especially when no one actually benefits from it!” Ohh that was not the thing to say, Amity was giving her a very concerned look. Brush past it, Luz, brush past it! “Come on, we need to get warm. Earth rain can chill you to death.”
“It’s true,” Gus croaked from his position on the ground. Hunter walked over and helped him up, and they all started walking. Luz made her best efforts to not look back at the house. She couldn’t. She had to keep moving forward.
Amity stared at Luz’s back. She knew Luz had her… moments, moments where she just drew into herself, where she became almost terrified of other people, of them resenting her. She hadn’t realized it at first, that they were similar in that regard, but she knew it now. And she knew that Luz was having one of those moments. If she tried to walk next to her, talk to her, or hold on to her, Luz would shut down further. She needed to wait, let the worst pass, and then help her feel better. But Titan could she wait? Because she desperately needed Luz next to her, talking to her, holding onto her. She felt like she was suffocating with worries. Was Dad alright, what about Ed and Em, they had been keeping an eye on Mom, had something happened to them? Would Mrs. Noceda hate her?
She didn’t belong here, she couldn’t do anything, hadn’t done anything, she was just useless, she’d be just another mouth to feed. She’d prepared so much, too. Arguments, heroic speeches, she had half a dozen drafts of letters sitting in her desk drawer, all trying to convince Mrs. Noceda to let Luz keep her life on the Boiling Isles, and they were all useless now. “Hey, Mrs. Noceda, the Boiling Isles are fine, and I can make your daughter happy! Not right now, of course, because we both just had to watch some freaky child and demented monster of a ruler rip apart everything we’ve ever known and loved, but it will get better maybe. Also, can you feed and shelter me for the foreseeable future?” Mrs. Noceda would grab Luz and slam the door on the rest of them and Amity wouldn’t blame her.
She sucked in a breath. Oh, she very much needed Luz to tell her how wrong she was, that her mom would love her, how smart and responsible she was compared to Luz, and she would never hold anything that happened in the Boiling Isles against her because they were just kids, the fact that the adults mostly refused to help was the problem, not them. But Luz wasn’t going to say those things. Luz wasn’t going to promise her that her dad was fine, wasn’t going to hold her close so that she could stop shivering, Luz was going to do nothing because she was dealing with her own issues right now. Amity took a deep breath. And that was fine. Because, eventually, Luz would do those things. They would go on a date, in the warm sun, and Luz would hold her hand the entire time, and they would talk the whole day away and they would feel okay again. So if Luz needed a moment to herself right now, Amity would give it to her, because that’s what girlfriends did. She gathered herself, and straightened her back. She was Amity Blight, she could hold herself together for a while longer if that was what the situation demanded. Even if she couldn’t actually do that, she had to. She stared at Luz. They both did. Whether they were capable or not, they had to power through.
Willow stared at the sidewalk. There were plants, small little weeds growing there. She sent out a pulse of magic, reaching out to them, trying to get a feel for Earth plants. They responded, albeit feebly. That’s right, this was Earth. Plant life here wasn’t inherently magical, it just… was. Great, so she was even more pathetic here than she was back home. She thought… she thought she had really made a difference in herself. She thought she’d become strong and fearless. She was the friend and protector of one of the Isles’ most wanted criminals, the captain of her own flier derby team, and a regular giver of emotional support and advice. Her friend was now just silently trudging through the rain, one half of her team was behind her silently weeping, and the other half was… somewhere, forced to play the twisted games of whatever that… thing had been. And she couldn’t muster up any support for anyone. At the end of the day, she was still the same she’d always been, useless. She thought she could be bigger and better but she was still just half-a-witch Willow. She stared down at the little weeds, plants that had no reason to be there, offered nothing to anyone, they just existed. She was just a weed. Even so, weeds still grew.
Gus stared at the houses. Human houses. They were walking by human houses, each of which contained humans living their human lives and going about their bizarre human rituals. This was the chance of a lifetime, a miracle of research that he had dreamed of ever since he met Luz, so why was it that all he could think about was Dad? He was so scared. He didn’t know if any of his other friends were alright, his home and family, everything in the human realm just seemed irrelevant. He just wanted to be home. But he wasn’t. He could recreate home, create illusions of school, his room, all of it, but that’s all it would be. Illusions. He couldn’t actually do anything real, could he? He had talked down to King, acted like he was one of the heroes, created that illusion for himself, but all he had done was make Belos mad. If he hadn’t been playing pretend, if he just minded King while his actually impressive friends did their jobs, maybe King wouldn’t have called upon… whatever that kid had been. But he didn’t. Because he needed his illusions. He needed to pretend like he was important and helpful, because why bother otherwise? No, he was starting to lose himself again. He started taking breaths. He was real. His friends were real, and they thought he was important. He knew that because Hunter was still supporting him. He could feel Hunter’s hand on his shoulder. He wasn’t cool, or heroic, or useful, but he was real, and that had to suffice for now.
Hunter stared at… nothing. He was sure, objectively, his eyes were looking at something, but he didn’t care to tell what. He just needed to walk forward, that’s all. He was good at that, ignoring everything that wasn’t exactly what he needed to think about. And there was so much to ignore right now. Don’t think about how his… uncle? No. Creator? No. Don’t think about how Belos, the all-powerful, all-knowing ruler of both the Isles and his life had been swatted like a flea by the Collector. Just help Gus. Don’t think about how both Flapjack and Belos knew the name ‘Caleb’, or how he was based off someone from Belos’ past and there was an easy conclusion to make there. Just walk forward. Flapjack wasn’t talking to him right now anyway. Maybe because he knew. They both knew, now. They both knew that Flapjack only liked him because he looked like his old master. Try as he might, nothing about Hunter was his. His friends were Luz’s, his palisman and his body were Caleb’s, he was nothing without what other people gave him, and-
He tripped on uneven ground. He managed to catch himself but he felt Gus buckle as well. “Sorry, sorry, Gus,” he blurted, helping his friend up, terrified of looking at him. Because if he did, maybe he’d see that Gus knew, that Gus had somehow figured it out, that one of his only friends realized he was faker than even his worst illusion. “Don’t worry, it’s fine,” he heard Gus say. “They call these places ‘concrete jungles’, so it makes sense that you’d lose your footing from time- *hic* to time.”
That’s right, Gus was crying. Gus was miserable right now, because he had just lost everything he’d ever had. Gus, his buddy, they guy that taught him about secret handshakes which were cool and amazing, who taught him how to breathe when things were at their worst. He took a long breath, and for the first time, looked ahead of him. Luz, Captain, and Blight were all walking ahead of him. Luz and Captain clearly weren’t doing great, and Blight seemed to be trying to hold her posture, but her shaking shoulders were a dead giveaway. And Gus, Gus wasn’t sobbing as much, but he was still clearly upset. They were all absolutely miserable. Something inside Hunter twisted at that. He felt Flapjack readjust in his hair as he started walking normally again. Maybe he was just a fake, whose entire life was ripped from the coattails of others, but his friends were his now. Not Luz’s, not Caleb’s, his. And he would do anything to keep them. First things first, they all needed a clear mission objective. That always helped him.
“Hey, Luz,” he called out. “How long until we get there?”
“Two minutes, I think,” she called back.
He nodded. Maybe that was pointless, maybe it didn’t change anything. His friends probably didn’t like mission objectives as much as he did, and he was still just some freakish visage of much better, much realer people, but he was still walking forward. They were all still walking forward.
And for now, he figured that was probably good enough for all of them.
