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Willow may have been responsible for Amity's current situation, but the entire affair started with Gus.
The four of them had just been hanging around the Owl House’s couch– to Eda's secret delight, though she played it off as annoyance –when Luz laughed too hard while drinking and started coughing because "it had gone down the wrong tube".
This led to Gus asking questions about said “tubes” which naturally progressed to human anatomy in general.
"So wait, you don't have a bile sac? At all?!" Gus asked, astounded.
"Nope! Just a regular old heart!"
"Does that mean it sounds different than ours?" Willow wondered.
"I mean, probably?" Luz answered before her eyes lit up and she leapt out of the room. "Ooh! Wait, I think I have just the thing!"
“Um, just the thing for what?” Willow asked.
“Ta-da!” Luz bounded back into the room holding what looked like a shiny noodle in the shape of a Y.
“Oh my gosh- what is that?!” Gus gasped, at her side in an instant to get a better look at the strange new human artifact.
“This, my good Gus,” Luz explained faux-haughtily, “Is a stethoscope! Doctors in the Human Realm use it to listen to a person’s insides, like their lungs or heart, to make sure they sound right. We’re lucky Owlbert grabbed one last time he went over.”
“Fascinating!” Gus’s eyes shone brighter than the sun with curiosity.
“How does it work?” Willow chirped.
“I’ll show you; first these go here,” Luz took hold of both prongs of the ‘stethoscope’ and gently put one in each of Gus’s ears. She then grabbed the knobby thing on the other end and placed it on the left side of her chest. “And then this bit goes here!”
The illusionist’s eyes scrunched in concentration before bursting wide with delight.
“I can hear something!” He yelled loudly, causing the rest of them to flinch. “Whoops, sorry. But, I’m not sure what exactly it is I’m hearing?”
“What do you hear?” Amity asked, curious.
“Sounds like…” he furrowed his brow, trying to translate what he was hearing into words. “...Bd-dump, bd-dump, bd-dump.”
“Yup, that’s my heart!” Luz grinned.
“Seriously?! It sounds so weird,” Gus giggled.
“Gus be nice,” Willow chided playfully. “Luz has a perfectly good heart no matter what it sounds like. Right Amity?” She asked the teal-haired witchling with a knowing grin.
Darn you, Willow, Amity groused mentally as she flailed for a response.
“Ye-yeah, Luz has a gre- good, good heart. Yup! It’s... good,” If Luz didn’t have her eyes on her, Amity probably would have slapped herself. She settled for sending a small glare Willow’s way, who didn’t even have the decency to be abashed by her actions and simply smiled back. The plant witchling had figured out Amity’s… feelings towards the human girl after the grudgby match. The youngest Blight had been worried her old friend would react badly, and thus was shocked when Willow turned out to be nothing but supportive of Amity and her crush-turned-something-more.
Unfortunately, this also led to Willow discovering a love of teasing the ever-loving crap out of Amity about her feelings. Boscha and Skara used to do the same thing whenever someone in their group had a crush, but Willow’s brand of teasing felt lighter and in more good fun than theirs had felt, so in all honesty she didn’t resent her too much for it.
Plus Amity felt she was due for a little payback after years of mistreating the kind-hearted witchling, so there was that.
Still, she could do without it happening while she was sitting in front of Luz!
“Well, what do your hearts sound like?” Luz asked, completely oblivious to Amity’s turmoil and the reason behind Willow’s smug smile.
“Take a gander,” Gus offered, plucking out the prongs and swapping them with Luz.
After getting set up, the human’s eyes and brow furrowed before lighting up with delight and mild surprise just like Gus’s had.
“Whoa! Yours sounds like,” her tongue poked out the slightest bit in concentration and Amity had to bite her own to keep from squealing about how cute Luz looked. “...Bd-ssk-bump-ssko, Bd-ssk-bump-ssko, Bd-ssk-bump-ssko.”
“That’s because our bile sacs pump in time with our hearts like this,” Willow supplied, raising both hands up for Luz to see. In a 1-2, 3-4 tempo, she closed her right and then left hand before reopening them the same way.
“Oh, I get it!” Luz grinned, always thrilled to have learned something new about the Isles and its inhabitants.
“But you know,” Willow threw Amity the quickest, evilest grin she’d ever seen, “If you really want to know more about witch’s hearts, you should listen to more than just one!”
“Willow, that’s a great idea!” Gus applauded.
“Yeah, Willow,” Amity gritted out with a thin smile, knowing exactly what the witchling was doing, “ Great idea.”
“Ooh yes!” Luz cheered, already scooching over to Willow since she was closer. “Are there any variations between witch’s hearts,” she asked as Willow gamely took the knob Luz held out to her and put it on her own chest.
“Not really?” Willow answered. “Mine might sound a little deeper than Gus since he’s so small–”
“Hey!”
“–But beyond that they’re pretty much the same. You get a lot of variations in demons, though.”
“That makes sense,” Luz mumbled as she focused on the plant witchling’s heartbeat, mentally comparing it to Gus’s. After a few moments she sat up and looked towards Amity expectantly.
Poor Amity, all she could do was smile indulgently and pat the space next to her on the couch. As Luz squeed and bounced up to join her, the teal-haired witchling sent another glare Willow’s way, though it was just as ineffective as the previous ones.
Luz smiled encouragingly at Amity before handing her the knob. Amity took it with a gulp and placed it on her chest. Within seconds the human’s eyes shot wider than ever.
“Whoa! Amity! Your heart’s racing, like, a mile a minute? Are you okay?”
“Uh buh , well– you see-” Amity could feel her cheeks begin to burn.
“Maybe the steth-a-scoop is stretched too far?” Willow helpfully offered.
“Yeah, try getting closer,” Gus naively suggested.
Willow Park, you are dead to me, said the glare Amity sent to a smiling Willow.
“Let’s see,” Luz mumbled, moving so close that the side of her face was inches away from Amity’s now blazing red one. “...No, now it’s beating even faster?” The human turned her head and her nose just barely brushed the witchling’s cheek. “Amity, are yo– Amity?!”
With a gurgle the teal-haired witchling plopped backwards over the end of the sofa, her whole head looking like she’d dunked it into a vat of apple blood.
“Amity! Amity, are you okay?! Speak to me!” Luz freaked, reaching to pull the now passed out witchling back up into a sitting position.
“Oh I’m sure she’s fine, Luz,” Willow assured, loving every bit of this. “The spell on her cast is probably just...making her drowsy! To help with the healing process!”
“That’s a thing?” Gus asked.
“Yup! Just give her a few minutes and I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
“...Are you sure?” Luz worried, “She looks really red?”
“That’s normal,” she answered, elbowing Gus before he made another comment. “In the meantime, why don’t we watch something on the crystal ball while she...recovers.”
“Okay,” Luz agreed, though she didn’t seem entirely convinced. “Is there anything else we can do to help?”
Willow’s smile broadened.
“As a matter of fact, I do have one idea.”
As Amity came back to the waking world, she slowly became aware of various sounds. The most prominent of which was the low mumblings of the Owl House’s crystal ball, playing what looked like reruns of some soap opera. Blinking blearily, she could just make out the forms of Willow and Gus, in the now darkened living room, seated on the floor in front of the couch, leaning back against it. From the way they were sprawled and the quiet snores meandering up to her ears, she figured they had fallen asleep as well.
Brows furrowing, Amity’s curiosity over where Luz could be was overshadowed by a repetitive thumping in her right ear. Turning her head slightly to see what it was, the witchling nearly choked when she figured out that she had been leaning against Luz’s chest, the human’s left around slung snugly around her shoulders, keeping her in place.
Biting her lip to keep from freaking out– more than she currently was –Amity peeked up and realized with a sigh that Luz hadn’t noticed her mild freak out because she too was asleep, head leaning back and to the left, towards Amity. Pleased that her actions had gone unnoticed, the witchling’s mind meandered back to wondering what sound she had heard when she…
When she had been laying her head on Luz’s chest.
Luz, who had apparently decided to cuddle with her on the couch while she had taken an impromptu nap.
Darn you Willow, she grumbled. I just know you had something to do with this!
Willow snuffled in her sleep as her only confession.
Mental yelling out of the way, Amity snuck another peek at the human’s face and weighed her options.
If she moved carefully enough, she should be able to safely extricate herself from this situation with minimal damage to her mental wellbeing, aside from what damage Willow had already inflicted this evening.
Or…
With a gulp and a prayer sent to the titan, Amity gently leaned her head back down where it had been; her right ear pressed against the chest of her crush. Steeling herself, she closed her eyes, and listened.
Bd-dump, bd-dump, bd-dump–
Huh, so that’s what a human heart sounds like, Amity wondered idly. It was strange, hearing a heart without the extra beats associated with a bile sac. She would have thought it would have made the heart sound... weaker, or less than? But no, it beat steadily along, consistent as the babbling brook by her home.
It’s… actually rather soothing, she thought, not realizing she had slowed down her breathing to try to match the tempo in her ear.
Bit by bit, Amity allowed more of her weight to fall into Luz, mind quieting until finally she succumbed to a blissful sleep, unmindful of the arm that gently pulled her closer while its owner slept on.
Later Amity would find a message from Willow on her scroll, containing only a single image of her and Luz cuddled together asleep on the couch.
She didn’t give her terror-of-a-friend the satisfaction of a reply…
But if she did make it into her scroll’s wallpaper, well, no one needed to know.
