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Rumi is asleep in her lap when it really sinks in.
It used to be standard procedure for any movie night marathon. Like clockwork; midway through, either Zoey or Rumi — or both — would succumb to the exhaustions of the week and doze off with their head on Mira’s shoulder. And it was nice. It was routine.
It never bothered her so much before.
Well, it's not like it bothers her, it's just… different, when Rumi looks so much smaller without her jackets. When she can still see little flickers of anxiety and strain staining Rumi’s expression. When the only thought looping around her brain is a soft, sickened I held my blade to you.
A drowsy mumble slips from Rumi’s lips, too tiny to really be coherent. She curls up a bit tighter, inches closer, one hand coming to loosely grip at the hem of Mira’s shirt.
Mira watches her patterns flare and dim; another moment's tension come and gone.
I held my blade to you, she thinks again, shame pooling in her stomach, struck with the desire to reach out and run her fingertips along the edge of one of those markings.
But she doesn't deserve to.
So she keeps her hands — and the thought — to herself.
On some level, she can still recognize that this is fucking stupid. That this is the exact sort of thing she would get mad at Rumi for doing. But that doesn't really help. If anything, it just makes her feel worse.
They're a team, aren't they?
They trust each other, don't they?
She's the one who flies off the fucking handle when it feels like they're keeping things from her, isn't she?
The moment stays with her, as the idle days pass by. Lingers like an unwelcome guest in the back of her mind, looming over every mere breath, sitting with her late at night. The image of Rumi all curled up in her lap like a sick child ever present behind Mira's eyelids, the absence of the girl's weight pressing against her a suffocating reminder.
She can't stop thinking about the way Rumi looked at her, terror and hurt and betrayal all strung together in a desperate, watery stare.
She can't stop thinking about how she must have proved all of Rumi’s fears right by backing away from her like that.
She can't stop thinking about the sound of Rumi’s voice, whining and weak and shattered, begging them not to leave.
And she can't help wondering maybe; just maybe if she'd managed to keep her goddamn temper in check and not raise her voice, Rumi could have felt safe enough to tell the truth that night when Mira came into her room.
Maybe they could've talked it out properly instead of–
Mira looks down at her hands.
I held my blade to you, she thinks.
“Problem child,” she whispers to herself, grip slowly curling and unfurling around empty air, bedroom door shut to the soft golden glow of the kitchen lights.
That's when she starts hesitating.
In moments where simple touch should be easy — should come naturally — she falters. She freezes. She waits. She lets Rumi have all the say in how physically affectionate they are, lets her make the first move. It's only fair, after what she did. Right?
It feels like it's been ages since Mira last hugged her, last felt the rise and fall of Rumi’s chest against her own.
And it hurts.
Punishment is meant to hurt, she reminds herself, an old childhood adage she thought she'd left behind.
She'd been so upset that Rumi didn't confide in her. Didn't trust her. But she understands now.
She's violent.
Abrasive.
Unruly.
Disrespectful.
A problem.
Girls like Mira don't deserve anyone's trust. She should know that by now.
Still, there are nights she wakes up gasping for breath, clammy and pale, head swimming with the blinding light of Gwi-Ma's flames and the distant scent of Rumi’s hair getting singed. She'll turn to look for her, to make sure she's still curled up at Zoey's side and not reduced to a smoldering pile of ashes on stage.
Rumi will stir, just the slightest bit, eyelids fluttering and clouded, sleep-laden gaze slowly searching to meet Mira's own. Her patterns’ dim glow illuminates the distance between them, multi-hued, flecked glittering gold. And she'll whisper Mira's name like a healing prayer, one hand lazily reaching for her, before giving in to her exhaustion and dozing off again.
For a moment, just a moment, Mira can convince herself that Rumi still feels safe with her.
But in the morning, she'll catch Rumi staring from across the room, biting down on her lip, uncertainty dancing in her wide-eyed gaze.
Looking worried.
Looking scared.
It makes Mira sick. She can hardly stand to look at herself in the mirror.
Zoey can tell something is wrong. Of course she can. Sometimes it feels like she knows Mira better than Mira knows herself.
So why isn't it easy to tell her?
Why do the words die in her mouth every time Zoey looks at her with those worried puppy dog eyes?
Why can't she look at the near-healed cuts still peppering Rumi’s face without choking on the urge to cry?
She's supposed to be the confrontational one. She's supposed to be the one to call bull when she sees it and she's supposed to be the one to refuse to drop the subject.
Instead, she watches.
As Zoey tucks some stray hair from Rumi’s face, traces her hand along a jagged swirl on Rumi’s shoulder, whispers that she's sorry.
And Mira is sorry, too.
And all of the words stay tangled up in her guilty throat.
Mira doesn't want to touch her anymore.
That's okay, Rumi tells herself. You've been down this road before. You can handle it.
She isn't sure when it started. She thought everything had settled down, that everything was alright as could be in the aftermath of their escapades. She thought Zoey and Mira accepted her with open arms.
But Mira hasn't been leaning up against her when they sit next to each other anymore. She hasn't been reaching out to hold Rumi’s hand, or greeting her with an arm around the shoulder, or idly playing with loose strands of her braid. No more drowsy, honeyed murmurs dripping down Rumi’s neck first thing in the morning. No more curious fingertips tracing along the curve of the patterns near her hairline. No more dozing off enveloped in the scent of Mira's perfume.
It has to be because of all the demon stuff.
What else could it be?
Why else would Mira be afraid to hold her?
Rumi has been trying not to let herself be too bothered by it. It's only natural for there to be some shifts in their relationship, after everything. She has been lying to them for years. Of course they could still have reservations, resentments, regrets. Of course they could still be apprehensive of her.
But it's so difficult not to feel the sting of upset, the crushing roil of loneliness thick and thorny in her chest, watching from across the room as Mira's hand settles thoughtlessly atop Zoey's leg.
Suddenly, the floor is the most interesting thing in the world. Rumi feels her face flush hot, her eyes sting. She thinks about sneaking off to her room to grab a sweater.
“Whoa, Rumi!”
She wills herself not to flinch at the sound of Zoey's voice, clearly just full of eager intrigue with not a drop of malice to be found.
“That's a new color!”
Rumi can't help but startle at that, immediately moving to glance at her forearms. Her patterns glare back at her, pulsing dull, uneasy indigo; almost too muddled to even be named. She can hardly blink before Zoey is in front of her, taking one hand in both of hers to get a better look.
“... Is it just me, or are they kinda warm?” Zoey remarks in a murmur, tone softening as her fingers brush across the top of Rumi’s wrist.
“Hmm. Should we be worried about that?”
Rumi snaps her head up to find Mira standing at Zoey's side, leaning in to join her in staring intently at Rumi’s patterns, brows furrowed.
She keeps her arms crossed.
Something twists in Rumi’s stomach, sharp and sordid.
“No,” she lies, habit puppeting her mouth in her stead. She tries to smile for them all the same. “It's probably nothing. They've been doing a lot of weird new stuff lately. They probably just need to, like, readjust or something.”
Zoey gives her hand a gentle squeeze. There's a speck of disbelief hiding in her expression. “Rumi. Are you sure?”
Rumi makes the mistake of glancing up at Mira.
Mira won't look her in the eye.
“Yeah,” she says, turning her gaze back to Zoey instead of back to the floor like she'd prefer. “Maybe I– Maybe I just need to lie down for a bit.”
Zoey doesn't believe her. Rumi can see it in her eyes. She's never been good at masking her expressions around them.
But Zoey is gentle.
Always so, so gentle with Rumi.
So she smiles back, and lets Rumi go.
“Yeah, you need all the rest you can get,” she says, abject concern still painted all over her freckled face. “Just… Give us a shout if you need anything, ‘kay? We'll come get you when dinner’s ready.”
Rumi says thank you to the floorboards, and skitters back to her room.
She isn't quite sure how long she stays there, all wound up in a big ball of nerves, face buried in her pillow to keep them from hearing her sob.
She remembers hiding under the covers like this when she was little, wondering why her classmates’ parents would hold them up in their arms and embrace them with great, wide grins; when all Celine could ever seem to manage was an encouraging hand on her shoulder, a fleeting touch to her cheek.
Maybe she doesn't want me, Rumi thinks, tethered to the past and trapped in the present all at once.
She doesn't answer when Zoey calls her for dinner. At night, still huddled in her blankets, she hears another knock.
She can tell it's Mira from the sound of her knuckles against the door, the weight of her footsteps padding over to the bedside.
“...Rumi? Are you awake?”
Less out of conscious choice and more out of some deep-seated feral instinct, Rumi goes stock-still, stiffened and quiet like a long dead animal.
Mira sighs.
“I brought you something. You really shouldn't be skipping meals, y'know. You're supposed to be recovering.”
And maybe any other night, Rumi would hear the worry in Mira's words. The care, the concern for her wellbeing. The whisper of I love you, I need you bubbling just beneath the surface.
Right now, all she hears is disappointment.
She listens to the sound of a dish clinking softly against the surface of her desk. Her face runs hot, the blinding warmth of shame blooming outwards, patterns burning feverpitch in its wake.
The floorboards creak. Rumi counts the steps it takes for Mira to stand over her again.
“Hey. I can see you glowing under there.”
Her voice feels so much closer now. She must be kneeling at Rumi’s bedside.
“...You havin’ a bad dream?”
Somewhere underneath the tension, the thousand layers of glass encasing her lungs, Rumi almost wants to say yes.
All she does is choke out a whimper.
“It's– It's okay,” Mira whispers to her, uncharacteristic uncertainty lacing her tone. “It'll be okay.”
Rumi can feel Mira’s hand hovering just above her shoulder, and even in such fear of having drawn the girl's ire she can't help but think, Touch me.
Touch me.
Show me you still want me.
“I’m right here,” Mira says. Hushed, wounded. She pulls her hand away. “I promise.”
Rumi shudders out another silent sob.
Mira sits with her until she finally falls asleep.
Something is wrong with Mira and Rumi.
Worse still, somehow they have the nerve to think Zoey won't notice.
She's tried being gentle, tried to have patience to let them come to her on their own. She's tried being forthright with it, tried taking them aside to just ask them what's wrong. But Mira has been stubborn and steadfast from the moment Zoey first met her, and getting anything past a smile and an I'm alright, don't worry from Rumi is like pulling teeth.
By now, she's suffered through an entire week of watching them both spectacularly fail to mask their moping, only to find that even her beloved movie night routine has fallen victim to their unspoken moodiness. Zoey is in the middle; which is a little unusual, sure, but that's not what she's taking issue with.
Neither of them are leaning on her.
And that's the final straw.
“Alright,” Zoey sighs, not even bothering to pause the movie before rising in a huff. She turns towards them, looking first at Mira, and then at Rumi. “That's it. What is going on with you two.”
She makes a point to have it sound more like a command than a question. Maybe that'll get her somewhere.
Rumi holds her stare, for a moment or two, eyes wide and wild and worried. Zoey recognizes the urge to run in the way her gaze starts jumping from doorframe to doorframe. But she stays put, near petrified, patterns visible along her throat gleaming brightened and violet.
And Mira isn't looking at Zoey. She's looking at Rumi, mouth drawn in a tight line and the slightest hint of a furrow notched in her brow.
There's a reason Zoey let Rumi’s earlier excuses slide so easily, and it's because her patterns really have been doing a lot of weird things lately. As Rumi herself once said — fingers twitching in her lap, frown illuminated only in dim purpled glow — it feels like they learn something new about them every day. Though the thing she seems most bothered by is the fact that she's forced to wear her heart on her sleeve.
It's not like Zoey and Mira can read her mind or anything, but any emotional turbulence makes itself clear as day in the way her patterns’ iridescence is overtaken with a more concentrated, singular hue. She can't just ward away their concern with a smile anymore, can't hide under all the masks she'd been raised to rely on. She has no choice but to let them see .
And they do.
They see her.
Mira watches Rumi’s patterns, rippling anxious shades of purple and blue. Zoey watches Mira. Rumi stares holes into the floor, visibly wilting as the seconds pass.
“I'm not mad at anyone,” Zoey adds in a mumble, because she knows they would both be up all night fretting themselves sick if she didn't. “I'm just– just worried. ”
Mira's mouth twitches, stony expression crumbling into something more akin to guilt. She balls up her fists around the hem of that oversized sweater.
Looks like I gotta break out the big guns, Zoey sighs to herself, glancing between them.
“... I thought we said no more secrets,” she says, truly not intending to pout as much as she does.
Another moment's taut silence. Now they both look guilty.
Then, in a small, strained voice, as if trying not to choke on the weight of the sentiment, Rumi confesses to the floorboards.
“... I miss Mira.” Her lower lip wobbles. She takes it in her teeth — just the slightest bit too sharp — to try and hide it.
“Miss me?” Mira asks, voice low and languid. Anyone else might think she sounds calm, but Zoey knows better. “Rumi, I'm right here.”
“Yeah, but–”
Rumi’s already frail voice hitches, and her patterns shimmer that same muddied blue from the other day as she moves to fidget with the ends of her sleeves.
Zoey can't tame the urge to kneel at her side, reaching to lay a hand on Rumi’s arm. Mira stays rigid.
“But you don't wanna hold me.” Rumi’s voice teeters over the edge of breaking, and she muffles it only further as she breaks from Zoey's grip to bury her face in her hands. “I'm sorry if– if I scared you. I didn't mean to. I didn't. R-Really, I promise.”
Rumi sounds like a child when she cries.
It makes Zoey's chest ache. To think they never knew until now, to picture every night Rumi spent sobbing all by herself like a lost little girl. Though she can hardly open her mouth to offer any comfort before Mira is all but launching herself across the couch.
“No, Rumi, no, you–” Mira's voice wavers as she gathers Rumi up in her arms, wrapping around her like a shield. Rumi melts into it without a second's hesitation. “It's not your fault, I swear. It's– I–”
She holds Rumi even tighter, buries her face in the girl's hair. It doesn't do much to mask the sound of her own weeping.
“I didn't want to hurt you. That night, when I– You know that, right?”
Oh.
Oh.
Guilt twists in Zoey's stomach, remembering the way Rumi whimpered at the sight of her shin-kal. But she tries to push it aside, to remind herself that they chose to forgive each other.
“I– I thought I had to. Rumi, I thought I had to hurt you and it was so fucking scary, I didn't want to, I never wanted to, I just–”
“Mira,” Zoey interrupts, as softly as she can. “Breathe.”
They can both hear her shaking through an inhale.
Rumi shifts herself around so she can better nestle into Mira's arms, gripping at the back of her sweater like she's afraid the girl will disappear the moment she lets go.
“S’okay,” she mumbles, weighted and earnest and almost too quiet to hear. “You needed to keep Zoey safe.”
“I need to keep you safe too,” Mira counters, stopping short as she flinches at her own volume. “But– But I didn't. I… I…”
Her shoulders heave. Her voice breaks.
“I held my blade to you. Why are you letting me hold you? Rumi, w-why–”
Even as she keeps begging why, why, Mira still tries to pull Rumi closer.
Zoey scrambles to set herself down at Mira's other side, leaning into her, resting her cheek against Mira's back. She can feel each sob as they wrack through Mira's body, shuddering and harsh.
“I want you to hold me,” Rumi insists, or at least as much as she can in her current state. “I– I like it. Nothing's safer than Mira holding me.”
“Rumi,” Mira cries back. Small, shaking, like it's the only thing she can bring herself to say. “Rumi. Rumi.”
Zoey gives the two of them — and herself — a moment's pause before interjecting again.
“There, there,” she says with a sniffle, catching a few stray tears with her sleeve. “Sweet little Mira. It's okay, we know you couldn't hurt us. You're too much of a softie.”
Rumi hums in agreement.
Mira lets out an indignant grumble that sounds like it was meant to be, No, I’m not.
“Yeah, you are.” Zoey nuzzles into her. “You're scared to hold my hand too tight.”
“They're so small,” Mira whines, weak voice still muffled in Rumi’s hair. “What if I break them?”
“You won't, silly," Zoey assures with a watery little laugh.
“See?” Rumi whispers, a hint of teasing fondness in her tone. “Softie.”
“Our softie,” Zoey agrees in a murmur, pressing gentle kisses along Mira's spine.
Mira gives another half-coherent grumble in reply, but some of the tension finally eases from her.