Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It’s been a quiet week.

Later, Rumi will wonder how Bobby pulled it off - how he managed to calm the media frenzy after the Idol Awards, cool the social media storm and pacify the fans.  A few well-timed, carefully phrased statements about plans for a big joint show, ruined by behind-the-scenes mismanagement and betrayal, just vague enough to paint a picture without naming any names.  Easy enough to blame a management team that never actually existed.  The Saja Boys can’t exactly speak in their own defense now.  Bobby doesn’t know everything, but he knows enough to get started.

She isn’t expecting it to work, expects to have to break their hiatus before it even starts to manage the crisis, but somehow Bobby does it.

There are things they’ll have to face, still.  Rumi thinks that by the time they’re ready to return to the world’s stage, the general sense of confusion that’s muddling people’s memories of what actually happened at the Idol Awards and afterwards will have faded.  There’ll be some tough questions to answer, and Rumi has no idea what those answers will be yet.  She’s just grateful for Bobby, for his brilliance and his kindness and his understanding.  It would probably make his life a whole lot easier if the three of them would agree to do some damage control themselves - but they’re just not up for it, not quite yet, and Bobby understands.  She thinks he wouldn’t let them walk that gauntlet even if they wanted to.

The demon part of it mostly handled itself, at least. The Honmoon - the old version of it -  stood strong for long enough that most of the human race had all but forgotten the existence of demons entirely, happy to leave old stories firmly in the past even if the evidence in front of their eyes said something very different.

When the crowd shuffled out of Namsan Tower, still thrumming with the energy that built the new Honmoon, the excited chatter had been all about HUNTR/X’s comeback, and another new song, and how about those special effects?  There had been nothing about demons, or tears in reality, or the very public deaths of the Saja Boys or even, at first, about Rumi’s patterns.

They’d all experienced something like it before - a hunt getting a little out of hand, an oblivious civilian unexpectedly wandering into the middle of a fight and quite simply not realising what it was they’d stumbled on.  It was amazing, the stories the human mind could spin to itself to avoid accepting what it had already decided was impossible.

Three pop stars fighting off a tidal wave of demons, four-fifths of a demonic boy band, and a whole-ass demon king in the middle of a concert intended to consume the souls of its entire audience is one of those things the human mind tends to write off as ‘impossible, and frankly you’re insane for even considering it’.

So people just - didn’t consider it.

That didn’t mean they didn’t ask questions.  After the first wave of it all died down, once people made it back to their homes and the buzz of energy and music faded, the rest of the world started wondering inconvenient things like ‘what the hell happened at Namsan Tower?’, and ‘where are the Saja Boys?’, and ‘what’s going on with Ryu Rumi?’ - questions that Rumi, certainly, was in no fit shape to answer.

That was where Bobby swept in.  

Rumi thought they probably owed him a raise.

It was hard to think about that too much right now, though.  Right now she was full and warm and happy all the way down to her bones, cutting through the park on the way home from an evening out at one of their favourite restaurants with Zoey and Mira laughing on either side of her, pressed close against the slight chill in the evening air, real and true and hers in a way she still didn’t quite know how to accept.

In the aftermath of nothing going the way she’d planned it, how had she still ended up with everything she wanted?

They’d talked.  They’d talked long and late, curled up on their couch in their most comfortable pajamas, snacks at the ready though, in the end, largely forgotten.  They’d cried until their eyes ached and they’d used every last tissue in the house, hugged and paced and trembled until everything unsaid had finally been said.

Almost everything.  There were words that Rumi’s tongue simply didn’t know how to shape.  She wanted to tell them - because it was the truth, a piece of the puzzle, and she knew, now, the price of letting things fester - but after a lifetime keeping herself quiet, small, of burying everything that wasn’t easily digestible, how do you go about baring your soul even to those who already hold it in their hands?  Especially when you know it’ll only hurt them.

How do you tell the other two-thirds of your heart about offering your own sword to another - to your mentor, to your parent - and asking her to kill you, and wanting it?  Wanting it like the last light at the end of the tunnel, the last flickering, fading hope?  To stand right on the edge of your own ruin and choose the only noble thing left to you?

How to tell them that even now, with the new Honmoon stronger than ever and her girls at her side, knowing the truth of her, no more lies between them and still holding her hands, even now some dark part of her still wondered if Celine made the right choice.

They knew there was something else, of course.  Knew it wasn’t something she was holding back on purpose, knew she was just looking for the right words and the right time.  They understood.  It took her breath away.

Zoey held her hands and Mira met her eyes, and told her ‘When you’re ready.  We’ll be here’.

And she believed them.

Tonight they’re wrapped up in each other, in the way Zoey bounces as she walks, the way Mira’s eyes smile even when she doesn’t allow her mouth to, how Rumi’s patterns flicker under her clothes in time to their heartbeats.  A week’s not long enough to get complacent - they still don’t understand how this new Honmoon will work - but there is no room in any of their hearts right now for anything but each other.  Rumi isn’t watching the shadows, she’s watching her girls - and her girls are watching her.

Of course that’s when the shadows attack.

They’re distracted but they’re still hunters.  They’re still HUNTR/X.  The first demon clips Mira’s shoulder - barely, not even enough to tear the cloth, Rumi twisting her out of the way at the last second, a flicker of movement in the corner of her eye.

Their weapons are out without thought.  It’s muscle memory, instinct, and the fight does not last long.

The demons in front of them are not quite like ones they’ve fought in the past.  They’re more animalistic, more uncontrolled, they’ve wasted their element of surprise with a blind blunder of an attack.  There’s no tactics to them, no thought behind their movements, no plan.  They snarl and lunge, wild behind the eyes, and go down quickly under familiar blades.

When the last of them dissipates, Rumi banishes her sword instantly.  It feels strange in her hand.  This is the first time she’s pulled it out since the Tower, since Jinu’s sacrifice - but it’s not his face that comes first to mind in the heartbeat between action and calm.  It’s not grief that crawls up her spine.

That moment.  That split-second moment when Celine took the saingeom from her hands, before she pushed it aside, when Rumi really and truly thought she would actually do it.  The only thing in Rumi’s body had been relief.

For a moment she’s frozen and it takes an effort to pull herself from the memory, from the bitter want of it, back into this reality; to shake the phantom feeling from her hands and remind herself where she is.  Her girls.  She needs her girls.

Rumi turns.  Zoey and Mira are side by side, facing her, a few feet of empty space between them and her, and their weapons are up.

They aren’t pointing at her.  The logical part of Rumi’s brain knows this.  It’s been only seconds since the last demon died and Zoey and Mira are still on alert, like she should be, watching the shadows for movement, for danger, for death.  Their weapons are up because none of the three of them know if they are safe, yet, and that has nothing to do with her. 

Still.  The body is an animal all its own, Rumi’s more than most, she thinks, in her darker moments.  Her body is backstage again and the world is crashing down around her ears for the second time in five minutes as her girls, her girls, finally see her for what she really is and every nightmare she’s ever had comes true as they reject her -

Something chokes its way out of Rumi’s throat.  She’s not even sure what it is -  a cry, a protest, a whimper.  It’s a broken sort of noise, catching on every jagged edge in her throat, unbidden and unwanted and unstoppable.  She hates it.  She thinks about Celine, and her saingeom, and the press of cold dirt under her knees.  She thinks about the wanting, and how it was only the idea that she could still save them that kept her from the ledge.

Zoey and Mira don’t need saving any more.

They look back at her, and some part of Rumi can see it the moment they realise.  Recognises the flash of horror in their eyes, that punch to the chest.  Their weapons are gone in a flash - Zoey chokes out some wordless instinctual apology - Mira moves forward on unsteady feet - and it’s not the same it’s not the same it’s not the same - but Rumi goes to her knees anyway because it’s what her body wants to do and she doesn’t even know if it’s to crumple and scream like she wanted to do at the Awards or if it’s to offer up her life again, so they know that it is theirs and her heart is theirs and her soul is theirs and she is theirs -

Mira and Zoey wrap themselves around her without hesitation, knees in the dirt beside her own, arms tight, heads pressed into her shoulders and neck, covering every possible inch of her body with their own as if they are trying to weigh her down, keep her here, keep her solid, keep her with them.  Someone’s hand - Mira’s, she thinks - cups the back of her head and presses Rumi’s face against a neck and she can hear them breathing, both of them, unsteady with tears and fright but here, so very here, all around her, surrounding her, holding her up.  She feels the difference almost as a physical shock.  Her body, a creature all its own right now, flinches and then gentles like a startled horse.  Something else instinctive kicks in; Rumi breathes her girls in and thinks there is a whole world of difference between then and now, and that world is them.

No one speaks.  They don’t have the voices to.  Rumi’s arms come up and hold her girls as tightly as they’re holding her.  She feels them relax around her, just a little, at that.  Zoey is trembling on her left, Mira is so stiff on her right that Rumi fears she might snap, knows that Mira is trying to be the rock they can shatter safely against and that Zoey is trying to be the soft place to land and it breaks her open a little bit more, to know that they are trying to keep all of her pieces together even while their own are falling too.

It feels clean, though, this breaking.  A little bit like healing.  Like when the glue’s dried, they’ll be all the stronger for it.  Rumi doesn’t know how long they stay there, kneeling in the dirt, holding on to each other like they can somehow make it all better, erase all the pain, if they just hold tight enough for long enough.  She thinks maybe they can.  Her body is calming under the pressure of their embrace and her mind is, for once, following its lead.

But Zoey is trembling and Mira is practically the only thing keeping the three of them upright.  Rumi would like to stay exactly like this forever, but they are in the middle of a public park and it’s not even that late in the evening.  Bobby doesn’t need something else to explain.  There’s something like the start of a laugh in the base of her throat at the thought of the photos.

She tilts her head just enough to be able to speak.  Her voice is rough and shaky but she doesn’t mind.  It would feel wrong to pretend to anything else right now.

“Can we go home?”

***

They go home.  Rumi doesn’t remember it, exactly.  She thinks it must have been a slow journey, with how close Zoey and Mira remain pressed to her side, but almost before she can blink they’re standing in the doorway of their silent penthouse, lights flickering to life ahead of them, and something about the familiarity of that settles deep.

This is their home, theirs.  Hers, Zoey’s, Mira’s.  She has never been anything but loved inside these walls - none of them have - and this is a truth that lights a fire in her bones, a hearth, a low smouldering flame.  Some of the darkness haunting her recedes before the embers, some of the cold leeches from her bones.  She squeezes their hands and says:

“Couch?”

She leads the way over, her girls clinging to her hands a step behind.  It’s time to figure out the words.  She’s not ready but that doesn’t matter any more.  Rumi saw what rose behind their eyes in that moment in the park, knows the ghosts that are haunting them, and those are worse than her own.

The echo of what happened between them backstage was only one part of the picture, and a part they’d already said all there was to say about at that; it was the memory of that moment with Celine that set the dominoes falling.  They deserve to know.

If she can just find a way to start -

“Rumi, I’m so sorry, I didn’t - we didn’t -“  Zoey starts for her, stumbling over the words, tears thick in her voice.  Mira leans forward, takes Zoey’s hand, takes over for her seamlessly.

“The demons came out of nowhere, we didn’t think -“

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Rumi reaches for them both again, surprised at how steady her own voice sounds when her heart feels anything but.  She can’t stand to see them hurting over this - especially not when there’s worse to come.  “You were just being Hunters.  Being yourselves.  You shouldn’t have had to think about anything else.”

“Of course we should!”  Mira objects.  Rumi can see the self-recrimination in her eyes and loathes it.  Mira has always been good - so good - at taking care of them both.  “We’re always thinking about you, Rumi - we should have known.”

Rumi’s heart contracts, expands, flutters in a way she’s sure is anatomically impossible, wonders if its a demon thing like the patterns flashing erratically under her clothes.  She smiles.  It’s small but it’s real, the last thing she would have expected to break across her own face when this moment inevitably came.

“It wasn’t you - it didn’t start with you,” she tells them, squeezing their hands.  “I was - distracted.  In my own head, already.  I don’t think it would have -“ She stutters out, starts again.  “It wouldn’t have - surprised me like that if I’d been paying more attention.  It was the sword.”

“Your saingeom?”  Zoey frowns.  “What - oh.”

Mira picks up Zoey’s thread.  Effortless.  “It was - Jinu?”

There’s something behind Mira’s eyes when she says his name that Rumi can’t place.  She shakes her head.

“No - or, yes, but not really.  Not then.”

She takes a deep breath.  Her girls are with her.  She can do this, hand over the last piece of her fractured soul and let them trace those jagged edges, slot it back into place.  Rumi’s not afraid of them rejecting her anymore, just afraid of hurting them.  Maybe it’s best to rip the bandage off so they can get to the healing.

“When I went to see Celine, after - after what happened backstage -“  She’s told them about that conversation already, most of it at least, about Celine’s familiar denial and the way she couldn’t look Rumi in the eyes or bring herself to touch those flashing, pulsing patterns.  Zoey and Mira had spent most of the rest of that day touching and tracing Rumi’s patterns every time she was within reach, patient even when she startled and shied away instinctively before her brain caught up and let her sink into it.

“I was - desperate, I guess.  Out of ideas.  The world was coming apart and it was all my fault.”

“Rumi -“  Zoey protests.  Rumi shakes her head and manages to smile at her, just a little.

“I know, Zo.  I do.  This was then.  I felt - I’d failed.  The Honmoon was coming apart and not only had I failed to fix it, I’d caused it.  Everyone knew, now, what I was.  Demon.  I couldn’t hide it anymore, couldn’t pretend that it - that I - could be fixed.  I couldn’t see what else to do, another way to stop it all unravelling.  It felt like I was the centre of it.  Like maybe if I wasn’t there, it would stop.  You two were strong enough to do it on your own, if I wasn’t there anymore to fuck it all up.”

Zoey’s crying again, and Mira’s swallowing hard.

“Rumi,” Mira says.  “What are you saying?”

“I went to Celine.  I offered her my saingeom.  I asked her to - to end it.  Like she should have done years ago, before I broke everything.”  The words won't stop coming now, pouring out of her even as some part of her flinches from them.  Too blunt, too harsh - she can feel them scraping Zoey and Mira raw, but it was too late to stop now.

“I asked her to kill me,” Rumi says in almost a whisper.  “I wanted her to.  For a moment, I thought she would.  She took my sword just to push it away but for a second I thought she’d do it and I felt -“ A sob breaks in her chest.  “I felt so fucking relieved.  It would be over, and I couldn’t hurt you anymore, and it would all stop being my fault -“

The breath’s almost knocked out of her, when Mira lunges forward and wraps her long arms around Rumi’s trembling body once again.  In the next moment she feels Zoey scramble to embrace her too, almost climbing into Rumi’s lamp, head butting up under Mira’s arm.

Rumi sobs into them, the weight of the memory - of Celine’s refusal, of ‘I promised your mother’ warring with the relief of it, clean and easy this time, of her girls once more catching her as she falls.  She hopes she’s catching them too; clings to them just as hard, just as fiercely, trying to tell them without words that she’s here, now, steady and solid, that she’s not going anywhere, that she lived for them and plans to continue to do so for as long as they’ll have her.

“There’s nothing wrong with you, Rumi,” Zoey chokes out.  “Nothing.  You’re perfect, you’ve always been perfect, even when we didn’t know, and it wasn’t your fault!”

“It was Gwi-ma,” Mira rasps, right in Rumi’s ear.  “And those fucking Saja Boys - Jinu too, I know you cared about him, but he was part of it.  And a little bit Celine, she’s not getting out of this either.”

Rumi buries her face further into them.  She doesn’t know where she ends and her girls begin.  She’d like them all to stop crying, stop hurting, but she’d also not mind staying wrapped up like this forever.  It feels safe.

“God, Rumi, it was just -“ Mira goes on.  “It was all fucked, okay.  You’re not to blame.”

“I know.” Rumi manages.  “And you’re not either.  Neither of you.  Don’t think - it wasn’t about you.  I wasn’t in my right mind.”

Zoey pulls back first, just enough to cradle Rumi’s face in her hands and meet her tear-swollen eyes with her own.  “This world needs you in it, Rumi.  We need you.  There’s never going to be a moment when we’re not better off with you by our sides.  There’s no world that exists that’s better without you in it.”

Rumi lets her forehead rests against Zoey’s, lets her eyes fall closed again, and lets the last of the weight lift from her shoulders.  She hadn’t told them this story for their reassurances, but it feels good all the same.  She thinks that maybe some part of her had needed it after all.

“I know.”

“Do you?”  Mira croaks.  “We’ll spend the rest of our lives telling you exactly that, if you need it.  I’m so fucking sorry that I made you feel that way, even a little bit, even accidental.”

“If it’s not my fault, it’s not yours either,” Rumi says with an attempt at a laugh.  “Don’t carry that, either of you.  It was you who saved me, in the end.  Celine wouldn’t kill me so I had to find another way.  I had to come for you.  Even if you never looked at me again I couldn’t have left you there.”

“We would have looked,” Zoey sniffles.  “I always want to look at you, Rumi - and Mira.  It just took us a second to remember.”

“We don’t need to talk about that again,” Rumi says, pulls Zoey in to press a kiss to the top of her head.  “I know.  And you know.  I just - this was the last thing I couldn’t figure out how to tell you.”

Zoey slumps forward to rest her head on Rumi’s shoulder and Rumi can tell, just from the feel of the girl in her arms, that she’s beyond exhausted.  Wrapped tight to her side, Mira is still trembling just slightly.  Rumi has no idea what time it is but she knows they’ve all been pushed way beyond their limits tonight.  If they stay here much longer they’ll fall asleep on this couch, tangled together just like they are right now, and that won’t be good for anyone come morning.

“Can we go to bed?”  She asks.  “Stay with me tonight.”  It’s hardly worth asking; they haven’t slept apart since the Awards.  They don’t discuss it.  Every night they slowly graduate from couch to one of their rooms, falling asleep in a tangle of limbs, waking up much the same.  Rumi’s never slept better.  

Her girls agree and they begin the slow process of disentangling.  There’s a few rocky moments but they make it, somehow, off the couch and down the hall.  There’s whole chunks of this night that are missing from Rumi’s memory, transitory periods between one place and the next, the movement and the journey fading into insignificance with her girls at her side.  She hopes that part doesn’t continue, precisely.  It feels like an accident waiting to happen.

They end up in Mira’s bed.  It’s not the closest but Mira steers them there anyway, always the one trying to be their shelter from the storm.  Zoey and Mira sandwich Rumi between them again, Zoey’s head tucked into the crook of Rumi’s neck, her breath warm and regular against Rumi’s skin, Mira pressed up behind like an inch of space between them would be blasphemy.

She feels warm again, down to the bones of her.  They’ve kicked off their shoes but haven’t changed clothes and it shouldn’t be as comfortable as it is but Rumi can’t imagine moving - not a centimetre, not for a moment.  She is warm and if not exactly happy, after the weight of the evening, then at least content.  And - yes - exhausted.

She thinks, from the pattern of their breathing, that her girls are waiting for her to fall asleep first.  She doesn’t leave them waiting for long.

Chapter Text

Morning arrives soft and slow. They hadn’t had the foresight, last night, to close the curtains over Mira’s windows but when the early morning light hits Rumi’s eyes she just screws them tighter closed and buries her face into the crook of Zoey’s neck. Zoey makes this tiny, happy, unconscious noise and Rumi lets it lull her back into something that isn’t quite sleep but isn’t exactly awake either.

She feels - a bit bruised. Like the demon attack last night had been a knock-down drag-out brawl rather than the kind of pathetic little scrap it had actually been. It’s peaceful and safe in their little sleepy bubble right now, where all she has to think about is the softness of the sheets and the steady weight of Mira and Zoey all around her, the tangible proof that they’re here, still here, still loving her and wanting her no matter what. Doesn’t have to think about why the aching-wanting-needing part of her scrabbles for that proof.

Eventually, her girls will wake and they will have to talk more - about last night and all the nights before, about Celine and the Idol Awards, about the festering want that had grown up inside Rumi so slowly for so long that she hadn’t even recognised it until it became the only option left to her. At the very least, she’ll need to figure out a way to avoid a repeat of last night - a way to be able to hold her sword without it burning her palm, without old memories and ghosts and regrets rising up to choke her. There are still demons in the world, and her girls still need her.

Right now, though, her girls most need her to stay exactly where she is, curled up in bed with them, in their arms, warm and safe and peaceful. They need a gentle morning.

Rumi will give it to them. She stays in bed long past the time she’d normally stay, even on days off, her body and mind usually both too restless, too used to working to justify their own existence. She stays until her girls are both awake and ready to get up.

Mira wakes first, the pattern of her breathing against the back of Rumi’s neck and the way her long, lean body shifts against Rumi’s with a little more intent giving her away. Rumi turns her head slightly, can’t quite crane it enough to see Mira’s face, but Mira mumbles out something like ‘good morning’ and kisses Rumi’s shoulder, and shows no signs at all of wanting to move further. Rumi sinks back into her with a small, pleased hum she did not at all mean to make, and they drift there half in a doze together for a while longer.

Zoey wakes last. She shifts, groans, buries her face into Rumi’s shoulder, and breaks into a little half-shy giggle when her stomach almost immediately gives out a burbling growl. It’s the loudest sound Rumi’s heard in hours and she laughs as well, shifting a hand to rest over Zoey’s complaining stomach. It’s a bit of a shock, to realise in the moment that Zoey’s top has rucked up in sleep and Rumi’s hand now meets warm, bare skin. It sends a tingle up Rumi’s whole arm - Zoey’s stomach twitches just slightly under her palm. She doesn’t want to move it, though, and Zoey seems to have no protest either.

Mira grumbles from the other side of them, one long arm flailing out behind her in an effort to locate her phone.

“I’ll order us something,” she says. They’re due a grocery run anyway; there’s not much in their cupboards right now, even if they wanted to move. “Any requests?”

Zoey lists breakfast foods - and some not-breakfast foods - at the speed of sound, her rapper’s rhythm in every word. Rumi giggles.

“You could make a song out of that,” she says, light, teasing. She feels Zoey grin against her collarbone.

“Already on it!”

Mira hums. “We’re gonna be eating breakfast for the rest of the week but okay.”

There’s such open fondness in her tone that Rumi just wants to turn around and kiss her and - well.

It’s the first time that thought has occurred to her and she hasn’t freaked out hard internally, squashing it down with almost the same level of panic she’d felt that time in the bathhouse with Jinu. Panic that had less to do with the I want to kiss a girl part - she’d known that about herself even before she met her girls - and everything to do with the patterns curling under her clothes, the lies and half-truths and automatic denials ever thick on her tongue. How could she love them, when she was this and they didn’t even know?

Well. Now they knew. Now Mira’s lips press against the patterned skin on Rumi’s bare shoulder and Zoey leans further into the touch of Rumi’s palm against her bare stomach. Now they’d spent hours tracing and petting those same patterns and telling her, with nothing but truth in their eyes, how beautiful they were. She was.

It doesn’t feel like a secret she’s keeping from them, this love, this - desire. It feels like one of her plants - just waiting for the right time, the right conditions, the right care, to bloom under. It would happen when they were ready. Rumi knows how to be patient. She could wait for this for the rest of her life, so long as her girls stay by her side.

They lounge in bed for a little while longer, largely quiet, until Mira gets a an ‘out for delivery’ notification on her phone. With some grumbling, and more physical contact than was strictly necessary or, indeed, practical, the three hunters drag themselves up and finally change out of last night’s outfits.

The legs of all three pairs of trousers are scuffed and dirty; there are make-up marks on every shoulder. Gathering the discarded clothing up to throw into the laundry, Rumi lets herself think about last night for the first time.

She knows her girls are thinking about it, too.

They don’t talk about it, though, until Zoey’s requested feast is spread out in front of them on the coffee table, floor, and couch. Mira’s right. They’ll be eating breakfast for every meal for most of the week, at this rate, but neither of them have the heart to do more than fondly roll their eyes at Zoey determinedly arguing that this was actually the best and smartest thing she’s ever done.

It’s Rumi who points out that, technically, Zoey didn’t even ask Mira to order any of this. Just listed breakfast foods like she was going for the record. Mira made the choice she made.

It earns her a pillow to the face, but she can live with that.

They’re well stuck in, talking about nothing in particular, when Mira addresses the elephant in the room.

“I think we’ve talked enough for at least a year in the last week,” she says, with a laugh that’s clearly trying to be disarming. “I don’t have much more to say now that I haven’t already. Just - “

Rumi nods, a wave of something in her stomach that could be too much dakjuk or could be nerves. She doesn’t want Mira to stop, though.

“Have you ever felt like that before?” Mira asks, blunt but still gentle, her eyes searching and half-afraid. “Like - you didn’t want to be here anymore? To be - alive?”

Rumi can hear Zoey hold her breath. She puts her spoon down and takes a few steady breaths, eyes on her bowl, before she finds the courage to look up at her girls.

“Yes,” she says, simply. “Not - not for a while now. Not since I met you two, since we debuted. But, before. When it was just me and Celine. Yeah. Sometimes.”

Zoey’s hand finds Rumi’s where it rests against the table and squeezes. Rumi looks at her, smiles with as much sincerity as she can muster. Zoey smiles back - it’s wobbly, but unmistakably proud.

Mira’s brow is creased.

“Celine again,” she mutters, almost to herself. Rumi doesn’t know what to make of that, so she reaches over to put her free hand on Mira’s knee.

“I never did anything about it, before. I never - hurt myself.” She doesn’t know the right words for this, never seriously thought she’d need to find them. Just another thing - another fault, another flaw - that was supposed to stay locked up in her head forever. “Things got a lot better after you two came into my life.”

“I think you’ve been hurting yourself for a long time, Rumi.” Mira says, her voice about as fragile as Rumi’s ever heard it. These aren’t words Mira wants to say but knows she has to. “I just worry you don’t know how to stop.”

Rumi freezes, knows her face must be deer-in-the-headlights shocked, has no earthly idea what to say to that. She’s worried the same thing too. For a moment or two she and Mira just stare at each other and Rumi doesn’t know what to do with the weight of love and sorrow and concern she sees in Mira’s eyes.

“You don’t still feel that way, do you? You know.” Zoey braves the words this time. She definitely looks afraid of the answer.

Rumi breaks from Mira’s intensity with equal parts gratitude and regret. She meets Zoey’s eyes now, and finds no less weight there. Zoey looks at her like she’s the sun and the moon and all the stars in the sky, and like she’s afraid they’re all burning out.

“No,” Rumi breathes. “I don’t, Zo. I promise. I remember - how it feels to feel like that, if that makes sense? But the want isn’t mine any more. I want tomorrow. I want as many tomorrows as possible, and to spend them all with you both.”

She’s smiling, by the time she’s finished speaking. It feels easy, light. Like truth and trust and the sun coming up in the morning. Zoey’s teary, but smiling too. She’ll take it.

Mira nods, slow and accepting, something like a weight lifting free from her shoulders. She takes a couple more bites of her breakfast and then slumps back, groaning in defeat.

This is what trust feels like, Rumi knows. She won’t waste it again.

***

They spend the next couple of hours doing nothing very much at all. Zoey scrolls through her second-alternate social media feeds, the ones where everything is carefully curated to avoid the latest HUNTR/X gossip and include every cute-animal video known to the internet. Mira pulls out a battered old paperback, one Rumi knows she’s read a dozen times before, and lets Zoey interrupt her every three minutes with another TikTok or meme.

Rumi dozes a little on the couch between them, or alternates watching Zoey’s feed over her shoulder with reading a few lines of Mira’s book over hers. She’s too sleepy and content to concentrate much, but her interest is caught somewhat by what she reads. She should ask Mira to borrow it, sometime.

They eat a little bit more breakfast for lunch and Rumi decides it’s her turn to be the mature, responsible one while they clean up.

There was one more part of last night that they’d skated right over. The ‘demons attacking in the park’ part.

“So, there’s still demons, I guess,” Rumi starts. Flinches, a little, because that was not quite what she’d been going for. “Ah, I mean - last night.”

“Yeah,” Mira nods. “Figures. I didn’t feel a tear or anything. Some of them had to be in this world already when the new Honmoon went up.”

“Was it just me or did they feel -“ Zoey bites her lip, head titled slightly to one side. Rumi kind of wants to kiss her, kind of wants to pinch her cheek. “Like, easy?”

Mira snorts. Zoey swats at her.

“Come on, you know what I mean,” she pouts. “Usually there’s some sort of intelligence there, unless it’s those creepy faceless ones. Those ones last night were actualised demons but they fought like animals.”

“Yeah, I thought that too,” Rumi says. “Maybe it’s the new Honmoon?”

Mira shrugs one shoulder. “Sample size is too small to make a conclusion.”

“You’re saying we should go out and find more demons?” Zoey folds her arms, raises one eyebrow.

“No.” Mira raises her chin. “We’re on break. I’m saying the sample size is too small to make a conclusion.”

Rumi rolls her eyes at both of them. “We feel a tear, we go deal with it. Until then - “

“Keep an eye out in the park.” Zoey finishes, with a little grin. It fades quickly. “Um, Rumi?”

She doesn’t have to say it.

“I’ll be okay,” Rumi says softly. Hates how unconvincing it sounds even to her own ears. “I just need a little time, I think.”

“Maybe you need some - I don’t know,” Zoey shrugs, playing with her hands subconsciously, twisting a ring around her finger. It’s a little gemstone turtle, something Rumi and Mira had spotted on a kiosk on their way home from some grocery run or other errand and hadn’t been able to resist picking up for her. It makes something in Rumi’s chest ease. “Exposure therapy?”

Rumi frowns - Mira grins.

“Yes!” She practically cheers. “Of course you freaked out last night, Rumi - it came outta nowhere. For all of us. We all just weren’t ready. We can do something about that!”

It sounds like just about the last thing Rumi wants to spend this afternoon doing - but Zoey has lit up at the way Mira approves of her idea and Rumi recognises the look in Mira’s eyes, the one that says she has found something she can do and by god she’s going to do it. She could argue, but she’d lose. It wouldn’t even be close.

And, really. As long as she’s still with her girls, how bad could it be?

***

The training room is cool and quiet when they arrive. It’s been a bit since they used it - the last few weeks before the Idol Awards had kept them busier than they’d been in years, no time or need to spar or worry about their conditioning - but they fall into routine without a word.

Zoey moves over to the built-in sound system to put on something low-key, just for some background noise while they warm up. Mira lays out water bottles and snacks. Rumi checks the little cupboard in the corner to make sure they’ve got fresh towels waiting, then gives the dummies lining the far wall a critical once-over just to be sure nothing needs replaced. It’s quiet, automatic work, a routine built and repeated over years; they move about the space without needing to look to see where the others are.

They do, though. Look. Rumi watches the way Zoey crouches to fiddle with a speaker, the way Mira carefully pairs up a water bottle with each girls’ preferred snack. Catches Zoey staring at her bare shoulders when she turns away from the linen cupboard, Mira’s eyes raking over her back while Rumi eyes the dummies.

She worries about her patterns. She’s wearing black leggings and a black tank top - not the most revealing outfit her girls have seen her in but there’s still a lot more real estate on show than she’s used to. Her brain knows that her girls don’t mind her patterns - that they love them, even, for being Rumi’s - but her body is still a panicky beast. It feels eyes on parts long hidden and wants to bolt.

Her girls meet her eyes - caught, staring. They don’t look away. Zoey turns red, just a little, but grins wide and cocky like she’s not sorry in the slightest. Mira doesn’t even flush, just raises one eyebrow in a way that almost feels like a dare.

Rumi rolls her eyes and all three move into the centre of the room to begin their stretches.

By the time they’re done, stretched-out to Mira’s satisfaction, Rumi feels better. Steadier. Like maybe this isn’t about to be both traumatic and embarrassing, and she isn’t going to end up in another tearful cuddle pile on the couch or the training room floor. She’d really like to go even half a day, at this point, without needing her girls to put her back together again.

It’s not that she’s afraid they’d resent it. It’s Zoey’s question this morning - it’s ‘you don’t still feel that way, do you?’ in that small, vulnerable voice she’s not used to hearing from her cheerful, cheeky bandmate.

Zoey and Mira are hesitant to make the first move, she can tell from the way they rise to stand, they way they shift from foot to foot and lean unconsciously closer to each other. They don’t want to hurt her. It’s a little bit shit that hurting her might be unavoidable.

“How do you want to do this?” Mira asks, eyes tracking Rumi’s every tiny shift. Rumi shrugs.

“Just like always, I suppose. Start with a couple forms, move onto the dummies, then sparring?”

Zoey and Mira exchange a glance, then alternately nod and shrug in agreement. They don’t make a move, though.

With an internal sigh and a smile that is, alright, a little bit forced, Rumi summons her sword.

She can tell something’s different immediately. She hasn’t even looked at it yet - it sits differently in her hand, just the slightest bit, just enough to catch her attention. With a frown, Rumi looks down and sees -

She’s not sure, exactly. It’s still her saingeom. The weight of it’s the same, the balance. When she moves it to get a better look, it slices through the air with the same effortless sting. But the blade itself -

It’s a bit longer, perhaps. A bit thinner. Hard to say if she’s imagining things, though, because the main difference is the Honmoon.

It’s the colour, and the way the energy swirls through and around the blade. It’s always been just a little bit alive, her saingeom - all of their weapons - built partly out of the magic of the Honmoon and partly out of their very souls.

All of their souls, Rumi thinks now, looking with wide-eyed awe at the way their new Honmoon twists and dances inside the blade. She’d felt it before and had never thought to question it, another thing Celine didn’t like to talk about so Rumi learnt not to ask about. Resonance in the weapon, something pulling at the very core of her being.

For a moment, she wonders about Jinu. His sacrifice at the tower, shielding her from Gwi-ma, lending her whatever tattered remnants of his soul they’d been able to restore in those confused, confusing weeks. She’d thought his soul dispersed into the new Honmoon, a final revenge against Gwi-ma to form part of the barrier that would keep him from this world forever. But could it be?

Rumi looks up to find her girls staring between her and her saingeom with the same expression of baffled amazement as she was sure she wore. Then, in sync and without a word, they both call their own.

Mira’s woldo has Rumi’s heart beating just about out of her chest; Zoey’s shin-kals send a shiver like lightening running straight up her spine. It’s everything she’s felt before, cranked up to eleven and shot straight into her veins. Rumi doesn’t know whether she wants to lie down or climb the walls.

Just like with her saingeom, their blades have changed. Not much - not so much they’ll have to re-learn how to use them, that Rumi will worry next time they’re out in public about whether they’re ready for an attack - but enough that she can’t write it off as a trick of the light or imagination.

It’s the colour, and the way the energy, the magic, moves. Not just in the blade but in the hilts, too; they’re lighter, a little more ornate than they’d been before. Subtle patterns in the metal that - Rumi realises with a jolt - mirror the ones trailing over her own skin.

It’s not Jinu. It’s them.

Her girls are gaping down at their weapons in wide-eyed awe. Rumi has to sit down.

“Rumi?”

“You okay?”

Rumi looks up at their faces - their beautiful, glowing faces - and starts to laugh. It’s light and free and once she starts she can’t stop, giggling to herself like a madwoman cross-legged on the floor with her saingeom cradled to her chest.

She can feel them. She’s always been able to feel them, on some level, even if she didn’t recognise it for what it was. It’s just clearer now, like a layer of interference has been burned away. Their joy, their wonder, sing back to her across the Honmoon and it is like coming home after a long day. Stepping into the penthouse to their laughter from the kitchen or from the couch, to them welcoming her back with open arms and open hearts, filling her in on whatever little moments she’d missed in the couple hours she’d been gone. Like embracing on stage at the Tower, like the bathhouse, like three sets of knees pressed into cold dirt in the evening air.

Her girls gape at her, now, with every bit as much wonder and amazement. She knows they’re feeling what she’s feeling. She can feel them.

Mira’s the first to join in her laughter and before long they’re a puddle on the floor, tangled up and gasping for breath as the giggles eventually peter out. They’re warm against her, around her, a fistful of Zoey’s t-shirt in her hand and her head on Mira’s thighs. God, how is this hers?

God, how did she ever doubt that they were hers?

When the mild hysteria finally wears out, Rumi pulls her girls to their feet and dips back down to grab her saingeom from the floor. She stands with it at rest at her side, looking at her girls with an ache in her jaw from how wide she’s smiling.

They’re opposite, together. They retrieve their own weapons and hold them loosely, not at arms, just present.

There’s nothing in Rumi’s body but joy.

Mira catches her eye. Nods. Holds her weapon up. Not pointing at Rumi - Mira has known since the moment it happened that she’ll never get the look on Rumi’s face when she summoned her woldo backstage out of her head, will never forget the shattering she felt the moment Rumi ran. It’s worse now, she thinks. Now she knows what that shattering actually was - but somewhere off to the left and down.

Zoey hesitates but brings her shin-kals up as well, all six of them. There’s no threat in the line of her body. There hadn’t been last time, either.

Rumi’s body is a panicky beast. Kicked dogs don’t stop flinching overnight. She kinda wants to throw up, kinda wants to run.

She doesn’t. She breathes in and out, steady, calm, and watches Mira and Zoey’s breathing sync to hers. They’re not even doing it on purpose; she watches it happen over the course of seconds as they stand there watching each other, allowing the weight of this moment to just exist.

Maybe Zoey was right. Exposure therapy. Rumi doesn’t feel good, in this moment, but that’s oddly okay. Maybe it’s because she knows her girls don’t feel good, either. It’s not comfort she takes in that but solidarity; she’s not weak for hurting over that moment backstage because they all are. Maybe she doesn’t know how to pick her own pieces up but her girls do - and she knows how to pick up theirs.

After a few long moments, Zoey lowers her shin-kals. She takes a few hesitant steps toward Rumi and Rumi wraps her sword-free arm around her shoulders, knocking her head gently into Zoey’s.

Mira drops her stance too, comes up behind them to put a hand on Zoey’s shoulder and smile at Rumi, sweet and sad.

“We’re gonna be okay, you guys,” Rumi says. She’s sure. Steady. “Not bad for a first round.”

There’s a moment of silence, then Mira’s face breaks into a grin.

“Nah,” she says. The joy of before kicks back into Rumi’s chest, lighting her up - literally, patterns flashing bright against her dark clothes. “We’re gonna be golden.”

Chapter Text

They don’t do a lot of training.

Mostly they stare at their new weapons and wonder aloud to each other - theories and guesses, what happened and why. Slice a few dummies for the fun of it. They’re just messing around, really. Feeling the gentle push and pull of each others’ souls, the resonance in their blades and the way it sings. Alive. Theirs.

It’s not new, exactly. They’d always been able to feel each other through their weapons, to some extent. Knew where each other was, how they were moving. It let them fight together as one, in the same way that they harmonised together in the studio or on stage. A little bit of magic to light the way.

This is just more. There’s an intensity to it now that sparks against Rumi’s skin like static shocks every time she thinks she’s getting used to it. Mira and Zoey’s laughter fills the air and fills her heart until Rumi feels glutted on it, like her body cannot possibly hold one more drop of happiness before it pops like an overinflated balloon and all that giddy joy floods the whole room.

They don’t spar, not today. It might even be a good time for it - Rumi doesn’t think that anything could spoil her mood right now, she could take on the entire demon world single-handed and not even stop laughing - but nobody wants to do anything other than indulge themselves and the Honmoon, which is ringing and singing around them with every laugh, every brush of skin on skin. After everything they’ve been through they deserve a little bit of joy, and the very universe knows it.

When Zoey decides she’s hungry for more than just the granola bar Mira packed for her - though she eats that first, pressing messy kisses to Mira’s cheek that Mira pretends to hate - they dismiss their weapons and head out.

The thrum of it stays. Not as defined - Rumi can no longer tell exactly what her girls are feeling, just that they are feeling a lot and all of it’s good. Their happiness lives in her bones now, a deep-seated warmth she knows is echoed within their own. It’s in the way they reach out for her just as often as she reaches out for them, the way they reach out for each other, tiny glancing moments of contact they no longer need to bury or restrain the urge for. It’s in the way they’re all smiling, small and a little befuddled, a little disbelieving, as though this were a dream they’re afraid to wake up from.

It’s not. It’s real, and it’s theirs, and it is - as Mira said - golden.

They trip upstairs to the main room of their penthouse, flicking on the lights against the dimming sky outside, still riding the high of it and heading straight to the couch even though they should probably all shower first.

Rumi bursts into tears.

There, in the middle of the living room, looking for all the world like they’ve always been part of the furniture, are Derpy and Sussie.

She’d seen them once, since Jinu died - or thought she had - peering down from the top of a building. But they’d been in public, undisguised, and Rumi couldn’t exactly go parkouring up the side of their own billboard to chase after a blue tiger and a six-eyed magpie. She’d worried they’d been sealed away with Gwi-ma, or died with Jinu, told herself after that corner-of-the-eye sighting that they were just out taking care of themselves now, that they were Jinu’s friends/pets and she couldn’t expect them to, what, care about her?

Jinu had always sent them to her, they hadn’t come on their own.

Sussie squawks and flutters from the top of Derpy’s head to perch on the back of the couch, looking at her expectantly. Derpy pulls himself up, slowly, ponderously, and pads over.

“Um, Rumi -?” It’s Zoey, behind her. Rumi’s taken a few unconscious steps forward, focusing on the blur of blue through her tears.

“It’s okay,” she tells them, grinning. She sinks to her knees and buries her face in Derpy’s neck. He purrs, loud, approving, puts his big blue butt on the floor and nuzzles in. “They’re my friends.”

She’s told her girls about these two - Jinu’s pets? His familiars? - in passing, not wanting to linger on the sore spot or admit she missed them. Rumi remembered thinking about it, on one of those nights during the chaos of it all when Derpy and Sussie were hanging out in her room waiting to see if she’d respond to Jinu’s latest invite; thinking about what her girls would say if they saw them, how they’d respond, what they’d do.

Would they be as charmed as Rumi had been by Derpy’s empty-headed sweetness? By Sussie’s exasperated patience? Would they see what she had in these two impossible creatures, or would they take one look, call them demons, and move to the attack?

The question is answered for her. She feels Zoey’s soft footsteps creep up behind her, stop barely an inch away, crouch until her face is level with Derpy’s wide, staring eyes.

“Oh my god,” Zoey breathes. “That is the cutest - is that bird wearing a tiny hat?!”

Sussie takes off, perches now on Derpy’s head, narrows their eyes at Zoey and Mira.

“Yeah,” Rumi hiccups. “They keep stealing it from Derpy.”

“Derpy?!” It’s high-pitched with thrilled excitement. Zoey goes to her knees and holds out a hand. Derpy stretches his neck out just enough to headbutt the offered palm and Rumi thinks that Zoey might die from sheer joy right there on the carpet.

Mira moves closer next, stares down the bird for a moment, then crouches to meet Derpy’s eyes.

“There’s not a single thought in that head, is there?” she whispers, gentle, almost awed. “The bird looks like it’s got plans, but this thing?”

Rumi laughs, bright, clear, her tears drying on her cheeks. “The magpie’s name is Sussie, they know what they want. The tiger’s Derpy and he’s a very good boy.” Her voice breaks on the last three words and she buries her face back in Derpy’s neck.

“All right,” Mira laughs, reaches out to rub Derpy’s nose and then offer a slightly awkward finger to Sussie, who blinks at her for a moment and then kicks off Derpy’s head to land on Mira’s shoulder instead. “Guess we have, like, pets now?”

Rumi looks up at her and her smile is so blinding that Mira stops breathing entirely and only starts again when Zoey gives an excited squeal and topples herself backwards to rest against Mira’s legs. She reaches down to card her fingers through Zoey’s hair, coming loose now from her usual style, careful not to dislodge the magpie on her shoulder.

“They’ll come and go, I think?” Rumi says. “I reckon they can take care of themselves, mostly.” She stands, one hand still buried in Derpy’s soft, plush fur, and extends the other to help Zoey up as well. “They shouldn’t be any trouble.”

“If it makes you happy,” Mira shrugs. “And Zoey.”

Zoey is pulling faces at Sussie and the bird is blinking back at her slowly, seemingly quite content with this. Rumi laughs. She sees the way Mira is looking at Zoey now, her face soft, her eyes shining with a quiet, content kind of adoration that Rumi knows is just the gentlest wave in the ocean that is Mira. It swells Rumi’s heart so big it aches, in a way she never wants to stop. Feels like she could stand here and watch how her girls love each other until the sun burns out of the sky and it still wouldn’t be nearly enough time.

Their easy acceptance of these two demon-creatures does twinge something. Rumi can’t help but wonder, now, just how wrong Celine had been? If Rumi had just told them herself, shown them the patterns marring her skin somewhere calm and private, without the pressure of the Idol Awards and the Honmoon and the threat of the Saja Boys breathing down their necks, would they really have reacted as badly as she feared?

Rumi can’t imagine this Zoey and Mira - Zoey ruffling a giant blue tiger’s ears and bopping him on the nose, Mira allowing a six-eyed hat-stealing magpie to make itself comfortable on her shoulder - raising their weapons at her, looking at her with fear and disgust, rejecting her, if it hadn’t come as quite so much of a shock.

It’s a lot to change in just one week, if the seeds of it hadn’t always been there. Still. Despite everything - despite their long talks, and apologies, and the forgiveness Rumi feels down to the bones of her, despite the new Honmoon and the weapons it’s gifted them and they way Rumi can feel her girls’ souls, now, cradled within her own - she worries. How much of the pain of the last few weeks could she have spared them, if she’d just trusted them a little more?

Mira turns, calls her name, head tilted.

“You good?”

“Yeah,” Rumi smiles, automatic. It’s not even a lie, not really. Mira reaches out a hand to her and Rumi takes it. “Got a little lost for a second, sorry.”

“Don’t apologise,” Mira shrugs her Sussie-free shoulder. “It’s been a day.”

“Good one.”

“Still a lot, though. Good can be overwhelming too.”

Zoey looks up at them, smiles, daybreak. Knows what Rumi needs without another word.

“Couch?”

***

They do manage to get themselves functional again. Shower, change out of their sweaty clothes, heat up yet more of their breakfast feast and collapse together on the couch with something familiar and undemanding streaming on the TV. Derpy stretches out on the rug at their feet, Zoey squealing over the way he makes little biscuits with his massive front paws as he’s getting comfy.

Sussie regains his perch on Mira’s shoulder. She rolls her eyes and sighs but neither Rumi nor Zoey buy it - there’s something pleased in the quirk of her mouth.

“I’m beginning to suspect we don’t know as much about the Honmoon as we thought we did,” Zoey says after some time of idle chatter. She’s lying across Rumi and Mira’s laps, stretched out, one hand dangling over the edge of the couch to pet at Derpy’s elongated back. “I didn’t know it made pets.”

“I don’t think they’re pets, exactly,” Rumi considers. She’s pressed up about as tight to Mira’s right side as she can get, Mira’s arm slung around her shoulder to keep her there, Rumi’s other arm tracing idle patterns up and down Zoey’s back and across her shoulders. Zoey fidgets a bit under the touch from time to time but doesn’t protest; Rumi wonders if she should stop anyway but can’t bring herself to, just like she can’t bring herself to move from Mira’s side even though she can feel her left arm going numb.

“There’s more intelligence there, I think.” She continues. Mira snorts. Rumi pushes her forehead into Mira’s shoulder, leaves it there. “Different kinds of intelligence, maybe.”

“You said they would pass messages between you and Jinu?” Zoey prompts. “Take you to him?”

“ … Yeah,” Rumi says, slowly. Mira presses a kiss to the top of her head.

“It’s good,” she says. “I mean, I still kinda hate the guy, but I get it.”

“Do you think they’d do that for us?” Zoey asks, enthused. “Like - pass little messages when we have to be apart for solo stuff or something?”

“Probably,” Rumi says. Derpy, at least, had never seemed to mind the folded cards placed on his tongue. “But we have our phones. And like five different group chats.”

Zoey bites her leg.

It’s not hard, not even a nip - just the gentle pressure of teeth right at the spot where Rumi’s sleep shorts meet her thigh an inch or so above the knee. Playful, silly. Entirely innocent.

Rumi.exe stops working.

“Oh but it would be so fun, though!” Zoey whines. “Imagine, you’re in some boring board meeting and you spot this fluffy blue tiger tail outside the window, you run out before anyone else can see and there’s this guy’s sweet little face with an even sweeter little message from me and Mimi saying how much we miss you!”

Rumi.exe is not responding.

Mira laughs, scratches at Zoey’s scalp. “A sweet little message covered in tiger slobber though, Zo. Not sure it’s worth it.”

Zoey grumbles but lets it drop.

Mira risks dislodging Sussie from his new favourite perch to nudge Rumi with her shoulder.

“You still breathing there, Rums?”

Rumi clears her throat. It’s a strangled kind of noise; Mira smirks wider.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good. We got any water?”

“You mean in the whole house?” Mira’s grin can now accurately be called ‘shit-eating’. “Yeah, I reckon we do. Want me to grab you some?”

“No!” Rumi burrows her face into Mira’s shoulder, convinces her kind-of numb left arm to wiggle free just enough to grab Mira’s thigh. “No, I’m good!”

“If you’re sure.”

They subside into silence again, Rumi trying her hardest to concentrate on the show and not on the fact she can still feel the imprint of Zoey’s teeth on her thigh. If she thinks about that, she’s going to combust.

Rumi knows the love she feels for her girls is not all platonic. Rumi is even reasonably certain the love her girls feel for her is also not all platonic. They haven’t said anything outright and she doesn’t feel the need to, not yet. One dynamic shift at a time, thank you very much. She’s enjoying the slow burn of it, the surety that grows every day that her girls will catch her if and when she decides to take that last leap. Just like she’ll be ready to catch them, if they leap first.

That patience does not, however, extend to biting.

It’s almost enough to bring Rumi to excuse herself to bed early.

Not that that would help, given that her girls would certainly follow.

“What else do you think we don’t know?” Zoey keeps Rumi from spiralling further.

“Depends on what you mean.” Mira says.

“Think about it!” Zoey twists herself so she’s lying on her back, one arm still down to bury in Derpy’s fur but now able to look between their faces as she talks. “We didn’t know about demon - pets, familiars, what have you. We didn’t know our weapons could do that. What else don’t we know?”

“I think the weapons are because of the new Honmoon, Zo,” Rumi points out.

“But Derpy and Sussie aren’t! And even so, what else can the new Honmoon do that the old one couldn’t?”

“She’s got a point,” Mira nods. “I did used to wonder, back when we were training. We can make weapons from the Honmoon. We can fly, apparently. It’d make sense. Did Celine ever say anything about it?”

She directs that last to Rumi, who stiffens just slightly. It takes her a moment to find the words.

“Celine -“ she says, pauses, takes a breath. “There’s stuff that Celine doesn’t like to talk about.”

“Yeah, you don’t say,” Mira says it under her breath; Rumi decides to let it pass. She’s not unaware of her girls’ growing anger toward their mentor, she just doesn’t know what to do with it.

“She’d talk about how we’d find our weapons, and our connection through them. About the barrier to the demon world, obviously, and turning the Honmoon golden. I did ask, once, about if it can make things other than weapons. Celine -“ Rumi bit her lip. It wasn’t a bad memory, per say. Just - sad, in the way that so many of her memories with Celine were now.

“She told me to be grateful for what the Honmoon already gave me and not expect more. I thought maybe it was because of my patterns and I didn’t want to ask again.”

Mira’s hand moves from Zoey’s hair to Rumi’s, then down to press two fingers under Rumi’s chin and tilt her head up until she has no choice but to meet Mira’s eyes.

Rumi doesn’t know what Mira sees in her face but the next words from Mira’s lips are:

“Next time we see Celine, I might have to punch her. Just letting you know.”

Rumi startles a little. “It’s - it’s fine, Mira. Please don’t hit Celine.”

Mira purses her lips. Zoey tugs slightly on Rumi’s braid until Rumi looks down at her.

“You should, you know.”

Rumi frowns, questioning.

“Expect more. Expect everything.” Zoey’s voice is soft but her eyes are alive, burning with a love determined enough to chase away all of Rumi’s darkness. “I think the Honmoon loves you and wants to give you what you need. And even if it doesn’t, we do. And we will.”

Yet again, one of her girls punches the breath from Rumi’s lungs. There’s no artifice behind Zoey’s words; she’s not trying to make Rumi feel better, to comfort or distract. She’s simply saying what is, to her, the truth.

To Mira, too, if the way she presses a careful, reverent kiss to Rumi’s temple is anything to go by.

“You’ll make me cry again,” Rumi warns, already feeling the sting if it in her eyes. Surely there’s a limit to how many the tears the human (or half-demon) body can make?

Zoey smiles. “We’ll just have to figure it out for ourselves, then.”

“Figure what out?” Mira asks.

“What else the Honmoon can do, of course!” Zoey chirps, like that was obvious. “Our weapons aren’t, like, the only option. Other Hunters before us have used other weapons. So, if it can make different weapons, surely it can make other stuff too.”

“Like what?” Rumi asks. She’s not convinced of the idea but she won’t deny there’s merit to it, too. She won’t deny she’s curious.

“Anything,” Zoey shrugs. “Start small. See what happens.”

They’re both looking at her, grinning a little, expectant. Rumi has no earthly idea what they think she's going to do.

“Guys -“ she laughs, a little self-consciously. “I don’t know what you want me to do. I don’t even know where to start.”

“All right, all right,” Zoey grumbles teasingly, levering herself upright and off her girls’ laps. Rumi immediately misses the warmth and weight of her, reaches out with grabby hands to pull her back.

Zoey ends up between Rumi and Mira, both of them plastered to her side, arms around her shoulders so Mira can still tickle the back of Rumi’s neck and shoulders and Rumi can still play with Mira’s hair.

“I’ll go first then,” Zoey says, determined. She sits up from their embrace, ignoring their whines, and holds her hands out in front of her. A frown appears between her brows, her nose crinkled in the adorable way Rumi recognises from sessions where the lyrics or the choreography weren’t coming as easily as usual.

Nothing really happens for a while. Mira and Rumi try to give Zoey as much space as they can bear, letting her work. Her fingers twitch in midair like they sometimes do when she’s trying to work out a beat, one hand moving to cup above the other several inches apart.

Her frown deepens, and then something like a gasp breaks in Zoey’s chest.

Rumi sees it.

Strands of the Honmoon, that iridescent almost-blue, start at the fingertips of Zoey’s left hand and slowly stretch downward to meet the palm of her right. They’re thin, fragile, and they flicker a little bit like they’re still trying to decide whether to hold or break. But they’re real, tangible, and it’s nothing Rumi’s ever seen before. It’s not the deadly, beautiful curve of a blade or the softly undulating lines of connection they see when they sing.

It’s new. It’s Zoey’s.

“What’re you trying to make?” Mira asks in an awed whisper.

“I don’t know,” Zoey says breathlessly. “Nothing in particular. I couldn’t decide. Just something new.”

Rumi reaches out a hesitant finger, stops short before actually touching. It’s Zoey’s creation; she shouldn’t risk shattering it.

“No, go on,” Zoey encourages. “I want to see.”

As gently as she can manage, Rumi presses one fingertip to the thickest of the strands.

It doesn’t break. It gives a little under the pressure, like a strand of spider silk, but far more tangible against Rumi’s skin. Real.

The pulse it sends through her is gentle, but unmistakable. She knows it from the way Zoey gasps beside her. Would know it without, even.

It’s Zoey’s soul.

Just a thin thread of it. Rumi doesn’t feel much from it, emotion or reaction, but it is instantly and wonderfully familiar. Like a favourite pair of pajamas fresh from the dryer. Like coming home.

Like Zoey.

“Zoey -“ Rumi breathes. “You’re - Mira -“

Mira doesn’t need to be told twice. She leans in and reaches out too, and Rumi feels the moment she makes contact in the thrum of Zoey’s soul against her shaking fingertip.

Zoey laughs aloud, a little tearful, entirely giddy.

“Oh my god,” she says. “Oh my god!”

Zoey is an flame in the darkness, a great roaring hearth blazing right on the edge of out of control, the sun just before the supernova.  The heat of her should burn but Rumi isn’t afraid, could stand there forever and watch the fire dance and still beg for more time.

But it’s maybe a little bit too much for a first try. The threads under their fingers waver, flicker, then dissipate entirely.

Zoey is shaking. Rumi and Mira wrap themselves around her like the koalas they’re always accusing Zoey of being, and hold her as she settles. If they shed a few tears as well, really, who can blame them?

They’ve just touched a part of their girl’s soul.

“You felt that, right? Both of you?” Zoey asks, hand now gripping Mira and Rumi’s.

“Yeah, we felt it,” Rumi nods, kisses Zoey’s shoulder, buries her face in her neck. “We felt you.”

“That was -“ Mira laughs, long arms coming up to pull the two of them closer, Sussie finally dislodged. “Zoey that was incredible.”

“Can you do it again?”

“I don’t know. Probably.” Zoey squeezes their hands. “But you should try. Both of you.”

“How did you even do that?” Mira turns Zoey’s hand up to look at her palm like the instructions should be written there in iridescent ink.

“I don’t know!” Zoey laughs, letting her. “I just - I wanted it. Wanted something new. And then there it was.”

Mira kisses Zoey’s palm. Rumi feels the tremble it sends through Zoey’s whole body.

“All right,” Mira shrugs. “My turn then.”

Mira lets them go, reluctantly, and holds her hands out in front of her the same way Zoey had. Rumi leans even further into Zoey to get a good view.

It takes a bit longer for Mira. Rumi thinks Mira might get impatient but it seems she underestimates how much Mira wants this; time stretches into silence and still Mira stares at her hands, brow furrowed, shoulders set.

And, eventually, she is rewarded.

It’s not quite the same as Zoey’s. The thread stays in Mira’s left hand, tangling in one unbroken loop around her fingers. She lets out a shuddering breath as it materialises, and looks over at her girls with invitation in her eyes.

Rumi lets Zoey go first and enjoys the shudder that passes through Zoey’s body when her fingertip makes contact, enjoys the way Mira’s eyes flare wide and her cheeks darken with just the hint of a blush. She watches that blush spread as she reaches out herself and caresses Mira’s soul.

Mira’s soul is like diving into a cool ocean after a long, hot day.  Rumi can feel the depth there, the great uncharted territory of it - waves on the surface, turbulence below, yes, but awesome and inviting all the same.  She could drown in it, in her, without an ounce of regret.

It only lasts for a couple seconds, again. It’s more than enough to understand how incredible what they’ve discovered here is - to appreciate the simple, shattering beauty of physically touching her girls’ souls. Zoey’s crying a little; Mira looks like her entire world has been turned inside out and shaken for good measure.

Rumi feels like she’s been handed the key to the universe and the meaning of life on a silver platter.

Both her girls turn to look at her, the invitation and plea clear in their eyes.

Rumi’s nervous. Old words still echo, the implication she’s not even sure Celine actually meant sitting heavy in her memory. The Honmoon isn’t for you. It tolerates you but don’t you push it now. It’s unfair - to the Honmoon, to Rumi, maybe even to Celine herself - but it’s there.

Rumi holds out her hands anyway.

She thinks about Zoey and Mira. Feeling their souls against her skin, and earlier, the very essence of them humming through her saingeom, burrowing deep into her own chest. Thinks about a breakfast feast, and curling up together in bed in messy street clothes, and three pairs of knees in the cold dirt.

Thinks about the way they love each other, steady and sure, no room for doubt, a constant of the universe she knows she can rely on. How it feels to watch them in those moments when they’re caught up in each other, how if she could only ever see one thing more for the rest of her life she would choose the way Mira’s eyes trace Zoey’s face when Zoey’s delivering one of her rapid-fire lecture-rambles and the way Zoey’s whole body lights up every time Mira enters a room.

Thinks about the way they love her. Like she’s the sun and the moon and all the stars in the sky. Like she is the reason they’ve been waiting for all of their lives, the piece they never knew they were missing. The endless patience behind Mira’s snark, the depth of everything under Zoey’s bubble. The way they fit together so naturally yet still make space for her as easy as breathing, as easy as every mumbled evening ‘love you, sleep well’.

Thinks about they way she loves them. Endless, adoring, eternal. The truest thing she’s ever known - truer than her own self-doubt, her own self-hate, every moment when keeping herself hidden from them tore her apart. The way she is beginning to believe she is worthy of their love just because they love her. The sun and the moon and all the stars in the sky is not enough - not nearly enough, not nearly enough - to be equal to their love.

Her own soul, though? That might be.

Rumi watches with incredulous eyes as it starts to form in the palm of her right hand. It’s different again from Zoey and Mira’s; not dangling threads connecting her hands or a weaving loop around her fingers. It’s a single ring, thicker than her girls’ had been, sitting in her palm.

She can feel the slight weight of it, the tingle against her skin. It’s not unlike touching the blade of her saingeom; a little resonance, an echo, like recognising like. She’s a little surprised at how emotional it feels, holding a fraction of her own soul. Part of her had been expecting, still, the Honmoon to reject her.

Rumi looks up and nods at her girls and she thinks she’s ready for the moment they reach out and touch her.

She isn’t.

If getting struck by lightening was a good thing, she’d imagine it would be like this.

It’s a shiver in a place she didn’t even know she had. A caress to the most fundamental part of her, gentle hands cupping the very essence of her being and holding on. Not flinching, not even from the worst and darkest parts. Like being known.

Rumi gasps through her tears. The little fragment of her soul cupped in the palm of her hands flickers, and fades.

It’s - almost a relief, to be honest. Rumi misses the feeling of her girls’ gentle fingertips immediately but it was also a lot. A lot, a lot. She feels more exposed than she’s ever felt in her life, including on stage at the Idol Awards.

But it doesn’t scare her, not this time. Mira and Zoey are wrapped around her and she knows they’re feeling just as vulnerable, just as flayed-open as she is. Just as dizzy with it, the sensation of being known like that on so fundamental a level you’d never thought to imagine its existence before.

They’re curled up together again, a complicated tangle of limbs, tear-stained but laughing. Exhausted, again. Happy.

There has to be a ceiling on this thing, Rumi thinks. There has to be a point where she’s as happy as she’ll ever be again. She hasn’t found it yet, apparently, but it has to be there.

But Zoey is already babbling in her ear about trying again and wouldn’t it be cool if they could make little hearts? Little tigers and magpies? Little turtles?

Rumi doesn’t think she’s reached that ceiling yet.

Chapter Text

Life falls into an easy, uncomplicated kind of routine.

Long, lazy mornings in the penthouse, quiet and peaceful, then an hour or so working out either in their gym or training room, just to keep their conditioning up, just to feel their bodies moving. Maybe they spend the afternoon in the studio, ideas just falling out of them, music coming easier than it ever has. They haven’t set an end-date for this little hiatus yet, haven’t talked even with Bobby about concrete plans for their comeback, but Rumi isn’t worried.

They work when they want to and the music is there waiting for them, every time. There’s lyrics that Zoey just has to get out and choreography Mira just can’t keep in her body, and Rumi in the middle of it all basking.

Or maybe they spend the day out, chilling in the park under sunglasses and caps on a warm day, stealing bites of each others’ ice creams and boba; or they take a trip to a fairground, ride some rides, get a little competitive over the rigged games, eat way too much increasingly strange food until one of them admits defeat and they head home, arms full of new cheap plushies for Zoey’s collection.

Mira tells them about a museum exhibit she’s interested in, and Rumi’s bought the tickets before she’s even finished speaking. Rumi wonders aloud about changing up her wardrobe now her secret’s out and suddenly finds Zoey koala-clamped to her back, squealing with excitement, Mira already looking for her car keys even though they’re all still in their pajamas. Zoey spots an article about a new turtle tank at an aquarium a couple cities away and Rumi and Mira are working out their road-trip itinerary before she can so much as flash them the puppy-dog eyes.

It comes so easily, this gentleness, this closeness. Making up for lost time, or maybe convincing themselves that this is real, now, that they can have this simple, sweet joy without looking over their shoulders for the other shoe to drop.

Rumi, most of all. Her girls have told her as much, in so many words; when you’ve lived your whole life in a flinch, of course it’s hard to just relax. To stop hiding, to accept that the things you want aren’t burdens you’re putting on others’ shoulders or luxuries to deny yourself until you’ve earned them.

What she wants most of all, now and in every moment, is to be as close to her girls as possible. Emotionally, yes, but also physically.

Not in a horny way - though, yes, there’s that too. Her girls are gorgeous. It sits, simmering, somewhere deep under the skin. An awareness that they’re building towards something now, the slow-burn is heating up, the moment of truth is creeping steadily closer. They can’t hold this tide back forever.

It’s scary. It’s exhilarating.

But right now, it’s just - little things.

It’s Zoey getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and coming back to find Rumi watching for her, groggy, grabby. Being spun into the middle of the Rumi-Mira sandwich, Mira still fast asleep but pulling her in like it’s the most natural thing in the world, Rumi drifting back off with a smug, victorious little smile.

It’s Mira getting up from the couch to put a half-full cup down somewhere safe from Zoey’s wiggling and being yanked back down to sprawl across their laps, where she can’t escape again, protesting loudly and not meaning a word of it.

It’s Rumi at the kitchen counter first thing in the morning, clumsily feeding herself breakfast while trying not to disturb her girls’ heads where they rest on her shoulders, dozing until the smell of freshly-brewed coffee finally wakes them all the way up.

Sometimes, Rumi worries she’s being too much. Her brain all-too-easily dismisses the many moments when Zoey or Mira are the first to reach out, the first to protest at one or the other pulling away for even the most innocent of reasons, focusing instead on all the moments when she herself initiates contact where it isn’t really needed.

Mira, at the counter making dinner, Rumi walking in from another room to wrap her arms around Mira’s waist and rest her chin on her shoulder, peeking at what she’s making.

Zoey, cross-legged on the studio floor, scribbling in one of her notebooks, Rumi pressed up against her non-dominate side in half a doze.

Mira, reading on the couch, Rumi’s head in her lap, plaintively asking Mira to read aloud to her even if she’s already halfway through the story. Mira, complying.

Zoey, packing her Switch away when Rumi settles herself against her legs, to wrap those arms around Rumi instead and talk about her game rather than play it.

It’s a lot. Rumi knows it’s a lot. Her girls don’t seem to mind it, exactly. They never protest - in fact, they protest when she stops. But there’s a part of Rumi, there may always be a part of Rumi, that shies from the things she wants most.

She’s too much, too greedy, too selfish, too demon. She gets what she wants and just wants more. More and more and more, never knowing when to stop, never able to curb the appetite. There’s something hollow inside Rumi and it aches, always, a low drum-beat she’s never more aware of than when it’s being filled.

So she tries. Tries to be less, to want less, to be happy with what she has. With what she will have, in the future, when they’re all good and ready.

It’s just hard, when her girls don’t seem to have gotten the memo.

***

They go out to eat, at a popular restaurant not too far from their penthouse. It’s close enough to walk but Mira insists on driving; the weather’s getting a bit unpredictable, the turn of the season approaching, it can be hard to tell what outfit’s weather-appropriate especially if you’re planning on spending a couple hours indoors.

Rumi thinks it’s the perfect time to practice being a little bit more hands-off.

They’re going to be in public, after all.

In disguise, yes, but it’s not the kind of place where hoodies, sunglasses and baseball caps will pass without notice. The manager knows they’re coming and will seat them as discretely as she is able but there is always the chance they’ll be recognised.

In this age of camera phones and TikTok, every step outside their doors could be the next viral moment.

The public’s still hungry for news of HUNTR/X. A couple blurry pictures of Rumi trying and failing to eat a simple meal without crawling all over her ‘friends’ will more than feed that fire.

So Rumi decides she is going to be Good.

They’re as handsy as ever in the car but as soon as they park and head inside, Rumi pulls away.

Not far. They’ve always been close, always the kind of friends who hook arms or hold hands in public. She doesn’t need to change things all that much. Just needs to look a little less like their bare skin under her palm is a drug she can’t get enough of.

It is, but the public don’t need to know that.

Her girls feel her pull away, and pout about it. There’s a flicker of hurt and worry in their eyes. Can’t have that.

“Behave yourselves,” she scolds, as light and teasing as she can muster. “We’re in public.”

“We’re disguised,” Zoey protests.

“Barely,” Rumi laughs. “Come on, someone tonight is going to recognise us, even if it’s just the wait staff. Keep your hands family-friendly.”

Zoey pouts a little bit more but they go along with it. If Mira’s eyes are heavy on Rumi’s back, she can’t exactly blame her. She wants this less than they do.

Rumi puts herself on one side of the booth they’re shown to, Mira and Zoey on the other. Their beautiful faces are not happy about this, but she taps her feet against their ankles under the table and leaves them there for a while, until the waiter shows up to take their orders.

The food comes quickly, and it’s very good. Good enough to be its own distraction and the familiar easy banter of a meal together quickly takes over. They laugh, tease, share bites of food - platonically, respectfully - and bicker about whose turn it is to pay before the first course is even over.

They talk about the songs Zoey’s already written, and the one she’s working on at the moment. About the dance Mira wants to show them tomorrow. Rumi reminds them they’ve got a check-in due with Bobby; they spend an excitable ten minutes talking and fine-tuning their plan to surprise him with something to make sure he knows how grateful they are for all he’s doing.

It’s easy. Natural. Rumi almost forgets they’re in a public restaurant several times but reminds herself at the last minute - hands to herself. Feet to herself as well, mostly. She’s pretty sure the waitress who brings out their desserts recognises them, but she’s a professional too. Just smiles a little shakily and tells them to enjoy their food.

Mira wins the right to pay for their meal by virtue of flagging down a waiter on her way back from a bathroom trip. Rumi scolds her playfully; Zoey presses her cheek briefly into Mira’s shoulder and says she’ll get her next time.

They leave. It’s earlier than Rumi thought - they usually linger over dessert and drinks, full and lazy, happy to keep their little bubble going for as long as it seemed the wait staff weren’t waiting on them to clear out. They’re not exactly in a hurry, tonight, but everything goes down quick and they don’t consider another round of drinks.

There’s still some distance between them when they pile back into Mira’s car. Full and satiated, all three are content to listen to Mira’s playlist and enjoy a quiet ride back.

It’s still early when they get back home; they agree on a movie, change into pajamas and meet back on the couch. Rumi wants to sandwich herself between them and erase every possible inch of space but she’s been so good tonight. She can keep it going a little while longer, give them a bit more of a break.

Zoey and Mira have other plans.

Rumi doesn’t even get the chance to hesitate over where to sit before they’re pulling her down, squashing her between them, throwing arms and legs up over her until she can hardly breathe and the laughter startles out of her throat, light and relieved.

“You guys,” Rumi pretends to gripe. She knows they can see the grin on her face. “Bit much, maybe?”

“Nope,” Zoey says, pops the ‘p’. “Not nearly enough. You’ve been gone all night.”

“I’ve been five feet away!”

“Felt like five years.”

“Zo, that doesn’t even make sense,” Rumi laughs. Mira taps their heads together.

“It does if you’re the one on the other side of the table.” Mira pulls back just enough to narrow her eyes at Rumi. “What’s going on with you tonight?”

“What do you mean?”

“Pulling away from us like that. I mean, I do get it, we were in public,” Mira pulls a face. “We should probably be, like, aware of that. Everyone’s got a camera in their pocket. It just felt, I dunno -“

“Pointed?” Zoey supplies. “Are you trying to tell us something, Rumi?”

“No!” Rumi startles. There’s a note of vulnerability in Zoey’s voice, an uncertainty in Mira’s eyes. She kicks herself for putting it there. God, why can’t she ever get this right? “It’s not you two. You’re perfect.”

“But it’s something?” Mira presses.

“I just - I worry, sometimes,” Rumi says. She fiddles with her fingers, looking for the least-pathetic, least-needy way to say this. “That I’m being too much. Asking for too much - too much contact, too much affection. And I know that’s probably dumb. You’re both more than capable of telling me when I’m being annoying. I just - worry.”

She knows that Mira and Zoey are exchanging glances above her head but can’t bring herself to meet them.

“Rumi,” Mira says, gently, close to her ear. “I’m gonna need you to get your head out of your ass, please.”

Rumi blinks, something confused but warm in her chest; there’s no bite in Mira’s words and a whole world of slightly exasperated affection. Zoey chuckles against her shoulder. Mira smirks.

“Rumi. My darling. Please. You and Zoey nearly cracked your heads open on the kitchen counter just this morning because she grabbed you in for a hug while you were just minding your business.”

Zoey huffs. “And remember yesterday, when you spilled Pepsi all over the rug because Mira pulled you down into her lap for no reason at all?”

“Or the night before, when we all completely missed the movie we’d been waiting to watch because we were so busy looking at and tracing all your patterns?” Mira prods. Takes one finger and runs it along one of the swirls up Rumi’s arm. “You think you’re the greedy one?”

“Nah, baby,” Zoey grins, Cheshire-cat. “Me and Mira have you beat. There’s two of us and one of you. We’ll eat you alive.”

That sends a shudder up Rumi’s spine. She doesn’t think Zoey means it platonically at all.

She’s saved from having to remember how words work by, of all things, Derpy. The tiger has curled himself up at their feet again, only disturbing to occasionally pace over to the bank of windows and peer out into the lengthening night. Rumi thinks he’s looking out for Sussie, maybe, as the bird hasn’t made an appearance tonight, though it really is hard to tell what’s going on behind those wide, sweet eyes.

Derpy sits himself up and huffs, head to one side, staring at a spot a little behind Mira’s left ear. Mira frowns and turns to look; there’s nothing.

“Okay, what do you want this time?” Mira grumbles. It’s forced. Rumi and Zoey both know she’s as smitten with the tiger as they are.

He bows his head and then, with a tinkling chime, disappears into the floor.

Mira and Zoey blink in the silent aftermath. Huh. Of course; they haven’t seen him do that before. In past visits, Derpy and Sussie have made their exit after the girls have gone to bed.

“He does that,” Rumi tells them. “They can do the demon-teleportation thing. At least Derpy can. I haven’t seen Sussie do it themself.”

“He’s a fuckin’ weirdo,” Mira states. Zoey swats at her.

“Don’t talk that way about our son!”

“The giant blue demon tiger is not our son, Zo,” Mira protests. It’s weak, and weakens further when Zoey turns her pout directly on her. “He’s a giant blue demon tiger!”

“He is our giant blue demon tiger.” Zoey says and Rumi thinks she would have stamped her foot if she’d been standing. “Don’t be mean, Mira!”

Mira folds like a house of cards.

Rumi laughs. On TV, the movie is playing to itself; she can’t even remember what it is. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is their warmth on either side of her, they way they all relax into the moment, laughter fading to content quiet as they try to pick up the thread of whatever’s on screen.

Zoey ends up sprawled across Mira and Rumi’s laps before long, a common theme in their movie nights. She likes to stretch out, take up more space than her smaller frame should reasonably be able to. Rumi buries one hand in the loose strands of her hair, marvelling at the softness of it. Mira takes her other hand and just holds it, and though her eyes never leave the screen Rumi sees the quirk of a smile on her lips when she squeezes back.

By the time the credits roll the sky outside is dark, and though it’s not particularly late Rumi feels a sudden need to be horizontal. Maybe they can watch one of Zoey’s cute-animal compilations while they cuddle in bed.

“Come on, I think it’s time we settle down,” Rumi says, patting their thighs. “We have that meeting with Bobby in the morning.”

“Oh, yes! We can give him the pamper-day gift basket we made!” Zoey cheers. “Mira, it’s ready, yeah?”

Mira nods. “In my closet, ready to go.”

“I’ll set an alarm for half eight,” Rumi reluctantly disturbs Zoey, gets to her feet, offers Zoey and Mira her hands to pull them up as well.

“My room tonight,” Zoey says. “If we have to be up early I want my stuff in arm’s reach.”

“Half eight’s hardly early, Zo,” Rumi points out. They’ve been generally pretty lazy over the last couple of weeks but they’re used to far earlier starts than that. She doesn’t think it’s been long enough to ruin their routines.

“It’s the alarm,” Zoey whines. “Getting up at half eight because that’s when you wake up? Great, lovely, no problem at all! Getting up at half eight because your phone yells at you to? Noooo thank you!”

Mira laughs and slings an arm around Zoey’s shoulder. “We’ll put on something good. No yelling involved.”

Zoey continues to grumble half-heartedly as they head into their before-bed routines.

Rumi realises she’s in trouble almost immediately.

The want in her is sharp tonight, suddenly, a loop playing on repeat in her mind that she can’t seem to shut down. The easy domesticity of their nightly routines is, for once, not helping - in fact, Rumi thinks it’s making it worse.

They’re never more her girls than in these soft moments - washing off the day’s makeup, taking down hairstyles, brushing teeth stood side-by-side at the sink with elbows jostling. It’s a little silly; they could take turns, they just don’t want to. Instead they crowd Zoey’s bathroom, bickering lightly over skincare products and space, enjoying the familiarity of it, the ease with which they move around each other and the ways they choose not to move around each other just for the high of a fleeting touch.

Rumi wants to kiss them.

She stands at the sink watching them brush their teeth beside her in the mirror and she thinks about kissing them just to see what their toothpaste tastes like, even though she’s using the same tube.

Mira’s brushing her hair in long, even strokes and Rumi imagines taking the brush from her hand, tilting her head up, and kissing her.

Zoey’s moving her collection of plushies from bed to chair, murmuring quiet reassurances to each, and Rumi thinks about pulling her into her arms and kissing her.

It’s certainly distracting. She’s poked herself twice in the eye while putting on moisturiser because she can’t get the thought out of her head - the way they would feel in her arms, tilting up to meet Mira’s lips or down to meet Zoey’s. The way they’d hold her in return, the way they’d touch each other, how easy it all would be.

She’s right on the edge of it, caught in the moment before the leap. Hesitating, still.

In no great rush they gravitate toward the bed, shedding cozy outer layers because a three-person cuddle pile does tend to run hot. They’re all bare arms, and legs from the knees down. It’s a lot of skin pressed up against Rumi’s own when they pull her down into the middle.

They rotate the centre of the cuddle pile, usually, but there’s no room for argument in the way Mira and Zoey reach for her. And despite the mantra ‘I love you, I want to kiss you; I love you, I want to kiss you’ repeating on loop in her head, Rumi doesn’t want to argue at all.

She ends up on her back with Mira and Zoey’s heads resting on her shoulders, their legs tangled up with hers, holding each others’ hands over her stomach.

It’s perfect.

It’s torture.

She knows she’s stiff between them but can’t get herself to relax. She feels every slight shift of their bodies, every breath against the nape of her neck and shoulders. Her patterns feel especially sensitive tonight, reacting to every tickle of Mira’s hair, the slightest brush of Zoey’s eyelashes where she nuzzles in.

There are thousands of tiny firecrackers going off under her skin and Rumi does not know how to snuff those wicks.

It’s not even that she doesn’t want to feel this way. If they were all on the couch right now she’d maybe even do it - take the leap they’ve all been hovering on the precipice of, use her words or maybe use her lips. Doesn’t know which is more terrifying, which is more exhilarating. She’s just been waiting for the right moment, after all, and this would be it -

Except she’s waited too long and they’re all curled up in bed, now. Except they have a half-eight alarm set on her phone. Except they have to be up and functional for Bobby in the morning.

It’s a little bit selfish, to keep them up now.

“Hey,” Mira breaks the sleepy quiet. Taps Rumi on the forehead. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”

“What?” Rumi tries for casual and misses by a country mile. “I’m fine. Don’t know what you mean.”

“Rums, you’re stiff as a board,” Zoey peers up at her through thick eyelashes. It’s not at all fair. “What’s the matter?”

She could lie. Say she’s fine, just a bit hot, a bit less tired than she’d thought. Tell them not to worry, to go to sleep, that she’s sure she’ll be right behind them. Offer to swap spots if she’s making them uncomfortable.

It’s all on the tip of her tongue.

But the door’s open now, isn’t it?

She doesn’t say any of that.

Instead, she says, in a voice that’s so steady and sure she’s almost surprised it’s hers at all:

“I love you. I love you both.”

Mira and Zoey both push themselves up to one arm, in sync, and stare down at her.

She’s touched their souls. They know what she means.

They wear matching looks of cliff’s-edge anticipation. Their love for her burns behind their eyes but they are holding it back, waiting to see - is this really the moment? Is Rumi really ready?

Rumi is.

She sits up.

“And I really, really, want to kiss you both right now. It’s kinda all I can think about.”

They stare at her for a beat.

Rumi stares back.

A smile like the dawn breaks across Zoey’s face.

Mira lets out the tiniest, giddiest chuckle and brings up one hand to cup the back of Zoey’s head, pressing her forward just a little, as though she knows indecision is the only thing holding Rumi back.

“Well,” Mira grins. “What are you waiting for?”

Rumi moves, reaches - Zoey falls into her like gravity - cups Zoey’s face in one hand and finally, finally, kisses her.

She would have expected fireworks but what she gets instead is the bathhouse. Sinks into it, warm, easy, a gentle kind of heat that hits deep and spreads through every inch of her suddenly-buzzing body. Kissing Zoey is the easiest thing in the world and Zoey is being so careful, Rumi can tell, trying not to push too far too fast - it’s so sweet it makes her heart ache and Rumi is grateful for it, she really is, can tell the effort it’s taking from how unusually still Zoey is against her side but she doesn’t want it.

Rumi wants more, instantly, greedily, a lurch in her heart that tells her she’ll never get enough of this - this is her end, this is her ruin, Zoey so soft and careful against her, every millimetre where their skin touches lighting her up from the inside out.

A little whine breaks in the back of Rumi’s throat. Zoey shudders, wraps her arms around Rumi’s neck and utterly gives in.

She kisses like she’s trying to burn this moment into her own memory, reverence in the heat of her mouth, a banked, burning want in the way her tongue brushes Rumi’s for the first time. The kiss deepens, grows hungry, needy noises in both of their throats now, but Zoey’s arms stay tender and soft where they hold Rumi close.

It’s devastating.

They pull apart only because they have to, Zoey clinging onto Rumi’s neck, burying her face in her shoulder, a giddy little puff of laughter escaping her chest. Rumi doesn’t know what her own face is doing, knows her patterns must be going crazy right now but doesn’t give a damn about anything except the girl in her arms -

And the girl at her side, staring at her with her mouth agape and a look of the sweetest awe Rumi has ever seen.

She thinks she must make some kind of tiny yearning noise, because Zoey lifts her head, eyes slightly damp and grinning wide enough to hurt, and pulls away just enough to give them space.

Mira’s hand trembles slightly as she reaches out to cup Rumi’s cheek and leans in - keeps leaning in until their foreheads are pressed together and Rumi’s world narrows to Mira’s beautiful brown eyes staring into her own, full of a weight she doesn’t know how to name.

For a moment they just - breathe together. Mira’s air in Rumi’s lungs, Rumi’s air in Mira’s. Mixing, mingling, nothing left now in between. Rumi might be about to cry but Mira closes the last scant inch between them and presses her mouth to Rumi’s and -

Oh, she’s done for.

Mira’s kiss is different to Zoey’s. More confident, more demanding - she isn’t holding back, giving Rumi any more time to adjust. She pulls Rumi into her, parts her lips, meets Rumi’s tongue and swallows the moan Rumi can’t hold back. It’s devouring, like she’s trying to brand herself on Rumi’s skin, as if Rumi will ever forget this moment, ever forget the way their mouths meet and the taste of Mira on her tongue.

She’s done, she’s gone, ruined, wrecked. Mira kisses deliberately, like she’s searching out every weak spot Rumi has, methodologically taking her apart to see the way the heat builds at her seams, see what makes her twitch and what makes her moan. It short-circuits every braincell Rumi owns - she just wraps one arm around Mira’s neck, clutches onto her waist, and lets herself drown.

She’s panting when they part, caught between the urge to chase after Mira’s lips and flop down into the mattress like her bones are made of so much electrified jelly. Staying upright takes effort she’s not sure she has in her.

She’s not given the chance to catch her breath before she’s frozen for an entirely different reason.

Mira and Zoey make eye contact over Rumi’s slightly-shaking body and reach for each other. They meet in a kiss just inches away from Rumi’s reddened face and there’s nothing tentative about it; they hold each other with a kind of tender surety that takes Rumi’s breath away, fills her lungs instead with a sappy kind of radiance like molasses.

It’s another moment she could stay in forever. The way Mira smiles against Zoey’s lips, fingers framing her face like the work of art she is; the way Zoey just melts into Mira, boneless with adoration, enraptured with the way she moves.

Mira tilts her head just so, deepening the kiss, and there’s something familiar in the way they respond to each other. It’s not something Rumi gets the chance to ponder long, though; Zoey moans, low and needy, Mira echoing a breath later, and if the entire Honmoon crumbled into dust around them right now Rumi wouldn’t even notice it.

It’s over too soon, and not soon enough - Rumi really needs to take a breath sometime around now. Mira and Zoey are breathing hard themselves when they pull apart, a thin strand of saliva connecting their lips for just a moment before they settle and both turn their attention back to Rumi.

Rumi, who couldn’t get her voice to work right now if her life depended on it.

“Just in case it wasn’t clear,” Mira says and her voice is low and throaty, wrecked in the best way. “I love you too. Not only as a friend. I’m in love with you both.”

“And me,” Zoey says around a smile that’s heartbreak sweet, wild at the edges, a hint of a tremble in her jaw. “I’m so ridiculously in love with you both.”

Rumi cracks wide open.

Lurches forward to wrap her arms around her girls and pull them in tight, a giddy laugh breaking from her chest, tears in her eyes.

At the end of it all, it’s so easy. Of course she loves them. Of course they love her. It could never have been anything else.

“I love you,” she says into their shoulders, the skin of their necks. “I love you so, so much. I don’t - I’m sorry it took so long.”

They squeeze her tighter and rock her between them.

“Don’t you dare,” Zoey scolds, playful but serious all the same. “We knew. You’d tell us when you were ready.” Zoey kisses Rumi’s neck, pulls back to knock their foreheads together. “We wanted you to be ready.”

“We would have waited however long it took,” Mira tells her, cups her cheek, kisses her gently on the lips. “I knew you’d find your way to us eventually.”

Rumi kisses her back, then pulls Zoey in to meet her lips as well. They’re both smiling a bit too wide for it to work particularly well but she can’t bring herself to care. Zoey peppers small quick kisses all over Rumi’s face and then drags Mira in to do the same to her, giggling all the while, hands fluttering between them like she can’t decide where she wants to touch next.

Rumi can sympathise; she can’t either. She’s thrumming with it, all of this love, all of this want, and words just aren’t enough. She has to press it into their skin with her fingertips and her lips so it can sink into the marrow of them, so they’ll never spend another second doubting what’s in heart.

She sits back a little to watch again as Mira finally stills Zoey and catches her lips instead. Their kiss is sweet and slow and once more Rumi wonders.

“Are you two already -?” She doesn’t quite know how to ask the question. There’s nothing bad behind it, no jealousy or fear. She’s just curious.

“We’ve -“ Zoey starts, stops, exchanging a glance with Mira. “Mira and I -“

Rumi reaches out, brushes a few stray hairs from Zoey’s forehead. Squeezes Mira’s hand where it rests on her thigh. “It’s okay if you are. I don’t mind.”

And she doesn’t. After everything they’ve been through, all the years of silence and secrets, of repression, of keeping herself separate from her girls even though it ached - and knowing now that they were aching for her, too - Rumi can’t find it in herself to feel anything other than comforted at the idea that they’d had each other.

“We’ve kissed, a few times,” Mira says gently. “And we slept together, once. It didn’t - we always felt like there was something missing. We could be good together but not really -“

“Complete,” Zoey finishes. “So we talked. We wanted to give you time.”

“You were waiting for me,” Rumi says in a whisper. They’ve said it before but now it hits deep, settles something in her gut she never realised needed settling. This is a choice - she is a choice - her girls are making, a choice they’d already made and keep making over and over again. She is loved. She is wanted. She has never been anything but.

She kisses them both again, lingering, reverent. They smile against her lips and she wants to live in these moments forever, their arms around her, their mouths sweet and sure beneath her own.

At the same time, though, she wants tomorrow.

Her girls kiss her like a promise; this is good, this is golden, but there are better days to come. There is no ceiling on this joy and they have the rest of their lives together to discover that, a whole world of new adventures to chase.

All the little things about their lives that will not change at all but which will be completely different come the dawn, because she will be theirs and they will be hers in every way imaginable. The simple surety in her now that even if something should happen to HUNTR/X, she will still have her girls. She will not be left alone.

Rumi feels insecurities she’s never even let herself think about crumble to dust and blow away in the wind as the three of them, giddy and exhausted, collapse back into the mattress. They’re tangled up, swapping kisses and I love yous and sleepy half-exhilarated, half-disbelieving laughter back and forth, a little cocoon of warmth that slowly but surely tugs her toward sleep.

She can feel her girls drifting too, safe in her arms. That’s fine.

They have tomorrow.

They have the rest of their lives.

Chapter Text

Rumi wakes first, before the alarm.

She’s a bit befuddled, for a moment, to find herself on the outside of their cuddle pile - Zoey now in the middle, curled up and drooling onto Mira’s shoulder. Last night hits her like a sunrise, swells within her until it’s taking every bit of effort she can muster to keep herself still so she doesn’t disturb Zoey and Mira behind her.

They love her. They love her.

She loves them.

A sleepy memory comes back to her, eventually. Waking in the night to find Mira gone, twisting herself round to look for telltale signs of lights in the bathroom or hallway. Zoey squirming after her like a heat-seeking missile, effectively stealing Rumi’s spot in the bed. Mira coming back and simply slotting herself in place behind their youngest member, reaching out with sleep-heavy arms to take Rumi’s hand and hold it over Zoey’s hip.

They hadn’t needed a word.

Now, the space lets Rumi slowly wriggle her way out of bed without disturbing either of her girls. Her phone tells her it’s a few minutes past eight - plenty of time before Bobby arrives. He won’t expect them to be dressed up but he’ll want them conscious, and at least semi-functional.

They’re planning on ordering in when Bobby gets here but Rumi busies herself in the kitchen anyway, cutting up a few pieces of fruit, brewing coffee just the way her girls like it. It’s nothing she’s not done before; Rumi is almost always the first to wake, and if she’s making food for herself she’s making it for her girls as well. Knows what they’ll want for breakfast before they do, how they take their coffee, when they’ll need a little extra to get themselves moving. Second nature.

Today is nothing different and yet nothing is the same at all.

It feels - exhilaratingly domestic. Standing in Mira’s fuzzy slippers in the kitchen, making her girls breakfast in bed.

Her girls. Her girlfriends.

This morning, she gets to wake them with a kiss.

Rumi has to put down the knife, for a second, to flex her fingers into the rush of it. Joy shears its way through her body, waking her up more effectively than any amount of caffeine could hope to replicate. She’s giddy with it; wants to laugh, bounce, kick off the walls with it, give this fizzing-sparking energy something to do.

Something like kissing her girlfriends, perhaps.

On any other day she’d feel bad about waking them before they have to be up but Rumi has the inkling they won’t mind this morning. She puts the fruit and mugs of coffee on a tray and carefully carries them to Zoey’s bedroom.

She’s not surprised to find them just beginning to stir under the covers, stretching arms, yawning into the sunlight drifting through a crack in the curtains. Mira sits up first, blinks blearily at Rumi in the doorway.

Her mouth drops into a little ‘O’ of surprise.

“You brought us breakfast in bed?” Mira’s voice cracks the slightest bit on the last word. Her eyes are achingly tender.

“Just some fruit,” Rumi shuffles forward, suddenly a little shy. The way Mira’s looking at her, like Rumi’s some new and impossible wonder she’s been undeservedly gifted, catches her completely off guard. “And coffee.”

“Mhm, coffee?” Zoey perks her head up, hair a tangled mess, and narrows her eyes at Rumi with a sleepy pout. “Where did you go?”

“I didn’t want to wake you,” Rumi says, holds the tray up in front of her. “Not without an offering.”

“We missed you,” Zoey whines.

Rumi laughs, sets the tray at the end of the bed and sits on the mattress at Zoey’s side.

“I was gone five minutes,” she shakes her head. “Besides. I wanted to wake you up with a kiss.”

She says it teasingly but Zoey looks dismayed. She flops back dramatically, one hand flung up above her head, eyes tightly closed. Rumi laughs again, light from fingertips to toes, and indulges her.

Brushes a couple strands of hair from Zoey’s forehead, caresses her cheek with gentle fingers, and leans down to press a soft kiss to Zoey’s lips.

“Zoey, wake up,” she whispers, pulling back only barely so she can still feel Zoey’s lips against her own as she speak. “I made you coffee.”

Zoey doesn’t respond, though Rumi can feel the tiniest shifting of her mouth as Zoey clearly fights to keep herself still.

Rumi kisses her again, a little more insistently.

“Zo, wake up.”

No response. Rumi can’t help but grin.

“I can’t kiss you properly while you’re asleep, Zo,” she says with as much whine as she can muster. “Please.”

Zoey surges upright so fast she nearly knocks Rumi off-balance, hears a clatter from the tray behind them that says they only narrowly avoided disaster. She can’t check, though, because Zoey is pulling her in properly now, mouth open and wanting beneath her own, and Rumi is distantly glad she didn’t cancel her alarm because this is going to get out of hand.  The kiss gets heated fast.

Mira clears her throat. She’s lounging on one elbow, hair mussed, cheeks ever-so-slightly flushed, watching them intently.

Zoey giggles. “Aw, baby, are you feeling left out?”

Rumi pushes up, rounds the bed, feels Mira’s eyes tracking every movement. She stretches her body out over the taller girl’s, cradles her cheek, kisses her soft and quick.

“Mira,” she teases. “Baby, wake up. Come get your coffee.”

Mira growls and pulls Rumi down into her lap.

There’s a flash of movement out the corner of Rumi’s eye - Zoey diving to secure the breakfast tray - before her entire world is swallowed up in the way Mira kisses her.

It’s deep but tender. Mira takes her time this morning, pouring everything Rumi had seen in her eyes moments ago into it and more. Rumi shudders under the gentle press of her hands, the way Mira’s body moulds to her own. When they break apart Rumi’s sure her eyes must be blown wide and her chest is heaving.

Mira smirks, rubs her thumb along Rumi’s bottom lip, feels the tremor in it.

“Good morning,” she says, casual as you like. “I think you said something about coffee?”

Rumi scowls at her a little, slumps sideways to fall into the space between Mira and Zoey - Zoey who is sat blinking at them in something like astonishment, red in the cheeks, breakfast tray held awkwardly in the air in front of her.

Mira takes it, eases it down into Rumi’s lap.

“Earth to Zoey,” Mira grins. “Look. Our girl made us breakfast in bed.”

Mira’s going for cocky but there’s something soft in way she says that, all sweet surprise and gratitude. Rumi’s red to her roots but settles between them with barely a huff, hands out the mugs, offers the shared fruit bowl.

“I know we’re waiting for Bobby for a late breakfast,” she says. “It’s just something to tide you over.”

“Thanks,” Zoey bumps her shoulder against Rumi’s. “It’s sweet of you. You didn’t have to.”

“I wanted to. And -“ Rumi laughs at herself. “I didn’t want to wake you up. I couldn’t keep still.”

“Oh?” Mira smirks. “You got something to be happy about?”

Rumi looks at her, lets everything she’s feeling sit heavy in that gaze; the joy, the desire, the overwhelming all-consuming love that’s just been waiting to spill out - a pleading, puppy-dog look she already knows is Mira’s kryptonite. Mira folds instantly.

“Now that’s just not fair,” Mira grumbles. “There’s two of you?!”

Zoey giggles into Rumi’s shoulder and together they take pity on Mira.

They share the fruit between them, feeding each other bites, a little giggly, a little silly with it. Mira takes their coffee mugs and puts them on the nightstand after the second narrowly-avoided disaster, muttering something about second-degree burns and not having time to change the sheets.

For once the coffee seems superfluous, anyway. Rumi’s wide awake.

And so, apparently, are her girls.

There’s a moment when, fruit finished and bowl placed to the side, Zoey and Mira exchange a glance over Rumi’s shoulder.

There’s heat and intent in Zoey’s eyes. Rumi doesn’t get the chance to turn and see what Mira makes of that, though -

Next moment, Zoey’s in her lap.

Zoey cradles Rumi’s face, tilts her head up, and Rumi is butter in her hands. It’d be embarrassing, the way Rumi’s breath immediately stutters almost to a halt in her chest, if Mira didn’t choose that exact moment to press up against her back and steal away the last of Rumi’s higher brain function.

“Mira,” Zoey smiles, her face so close to Rumi’s own that Rumi can taste the coffee and fruit on her breath. “Rumi made us breakfast in bed. I think she deserves a thank you, don’t you?”

Mira nods, starts pressing slow open-mouthed kisses to Rumi’s shoulders and up the back of her neck. “Definitely. Did you have something in mind?”

Rumi shudders, clings to Zoey’s waist like a lifeline. Zoey hums and she can practically feel the vibration on her own skin.

“Oh, not really.” There’s a glint in Zoey’s eyes that sets Rumi’s heart racing; it’s mischievous, promising, suggests that Zoey just told a bare-faced lie. “Rumi, what do you think?”

Rumi’s mouth falls open but she can’t make words happen. They’re so close. Zoey can’t expect her to have thoughts when the two of them are pressed up against her like this!

Zoey laughs, presses a thumb to Rumi’s bottom lip. “Oh? Is that a suggestion?”

Rumi whines, entirely unintentionally. Flushes pink across her whole face.

“Stop teasing, you menace,” Mira scolds lightly.

Then completely contradicts her own words by biting at the spot where Rumi’s neck and shoulder meet.

The noise Rumi lets out next isn’t one she’s ever heard herself make before. That flush on her cheeks goes full red and her body spasms, trying all at once to pull away and sink even further into both of them, a wave of heat crashing through her that steals any last vestige of control Rumi has.

Her patterns are pulsing. Mira lets out a shaky ‘fuck’ against the patch of skin she’s just bitten and that seems to be the very last straw for Zoey because Rumi doesn’t get another moment to consider the light show she’s suddenly giving off before Zoey’s lips crash into her own with all the restraint of a starving tiger.

Rumi is being devoured.

Zoey’s kiss is messy, desperate, pressing herself into Rumi like she wants to crawl inside her chest and Rumi would let her but there’s also Mira behind her, mouth blazing across every inch of skin she can get to, alternating between open-mouthes kisses and bites that reverberate through Rumi’s body like gunshots.

She’s burning alive. The moan that rips out of her chest is swallowed up by Zoey and echoed back to her, in stereo, Mira responding right in Rumi’s ear. It’s heat and want and need and Rumi is dizzy with it, strung out between them, higher than she’s ever been.

They’re going to ruin her.

They break apart when the need for air becomes too much, Zoey panting hard above her, staring down at Rumi with pupils blown wide. The want in her eyes is too fucking much, Rumi’s paralysed in front of it - but then there’s a hand on her cheek, twisting her face around, and Mira leaning in to close the last remaining distance.

The angle is awkward but Rumi can’t even think about that, let alone care - the heat of Mira’s mouth and the press of her tongue, the greedy way she pulls Rumi to her and steals what little air Rumi has been able to drag in, is the only thing in the universe to exist.

Mira groans into the kiss; Rumi keens as Zoey takes over where Mira’s left off, pressing lips and teeth to the skin of Rumi’s shoulders and neck. The weight of Zoey’s body in her lap is about all that’s keeping Rumi tethered to the bed, to the world - but even that might not be enough when Rumi feels Zoey’s fingers at the hem of her sleep shirt, worming their way beneath to caress at the bare skin of Rumi’s stomach.

Bare skin that feels super-heated, like Zoey should be pulling away from the burn of it but she doesn’t; flattens her palm to Rumi’s abdomen instead and starts to crawl it up -

A loud, cheerful pop song she couldn’t name for the life of her splits the air and Rumi just about chokes. It’s only her death-grip on Zoey’s hips that keeps the younger girl from tumbling clear off the bed and from behind her Rumi can feel the first tingles of the Honmoon that tell her Mira is inches away from summoning her woldo.

For a moment they sit frozen, panting, blinking at the room around them in utter befuddlement. Where - what -?

Then Rumi remembers.

Her phone on Zoey’s nightstand. The half-eight alarm. Bobby.

Her girls are right behind. Zoey lets out a broken sort of laugh and collapses sideways to the bed, dragging Rumi with her - who, in turn, drags Mira. The room comes slowly back into focus. They lie there, wheezing, for a few moments until the continuing irritant of the alarm pulls Rumi back to herself.

She sits up, stretches, and turns the damn thing off.

Mira groans behind her.

“God damn it. I hate that song.”

“You chose it,” Rumi laughs. Ducks the pillow Mira throws at her with ease and offers a hand out to Zoey. “Come on,” she wheedles. “It’s for Bobby.”

***

They get themselves ready in time, just about. Zoey and Mira have both left a few faint marks along Rumi's shoulders and neck; it’s nothing that they can’t hide - they’re experts at the quick cover-up, well used to disguising bruises and cuts - but Rumi still startles at the sight of them in mirror and stares for a good few minutes.

Zoey comes up behind her as she’s staring, stops dead in her tracks. The marks aren’t stark but they’re noticeable and Zoey’s eyes find them immediately.

“Mira,” Zoey calls over her shoulder, not taking her eyes away. “Come here a second.”

Mira obeys, eyes on her phone at first but when neither Zoey or Rumi says anything she looks up. Rumi sees the moment she notices in the mirror; she almost drops her phone.

“Ah, fuck,” Mira mutters. She crosses the space between them, traces a finger over the darkest of the marks. Rumi thinks it’s one Zoey made.

“Guess we got a little carried away, huh?” Zoey says with a shaky laugh. Mira’s eyes are wide, her fingertip reverent against Rumi’s skin.

“Yeah,” Rumi’s voice is hoarse. “Better get the cover-up out.”

Mira growls just a little, under her breath. Rumi can sympathise. Seeing the physical marks of their love and desire for her on her very skin is doing something complicated to her heart - the idea of covering up them, while practical, makes something deep inside ache.

She does it. It’s fine, just a bit of a sting in her chest, but the marks are still there beneath the makeup. This is too new - it hasn’t even been twenty four hours, Rumi would like to keep this for themselves for at least a while longer, even from Bobby.

By the time Bobby arrives, dead on 9am, they’re mostly functional. Dressed, appropriately covered up, Bobby’s gift basket waiting on the coffee table, his favourite breakfast foods on order.

It’s nice - casual. Bobby brings them up to speed on the publicity surrounding them, everything he’s managed to do in the week or so since the Idol Awards and what still lingers, what might be waiting for them when they’re ready to step back into the spotlight.

People seem to have mostly forgotten about the Saja Boys. The idol scene moves quickly, after all, and the Saja Boys only had one song before they ‘disappeared’. Now that they aren’t actively hypnotising everyone listening to them, their fandom’s fallen apart without too much fuss. Not entirely, of course, but enough that Bobby isn’t worried.

They do need to come up with a better narrative about the Idol Awards and Namsan Tower, though. Bobby’s doing what he can, more than Rumi expected, but there’ll be questions no matter what. He’s laid the groundwork and thinks they can put it all to bed with a few interviews with sympathetic hosts, once they’re ready to jump back in.

Which leaves Rumi’s patterns.

It’s not as bad as she thought. In the same way that people don’t remember the waves of demons or Gwi-ma’s emergence, or the creation of the new Honmoon, people don’t seem to be really seeing Rumi’s patterns properly.

They can see something. Bobby’s not sure what, exactly - he’s been brought up to speed on most things now, had to be in the aftermath of everything just so he can do his job, so he sees Rumi’s patterns as they really are. Others, though - the fans, the media? The sheen of them goes unnoticed. People are talking more about a skin condition than they are tattoos, which had been Mira’s first thought as an explanation.

Rumi doesn’t know how to feel about it. A skin conditions feels, at least, a little less like an outright lie and it’s not like she wants to tell the truth or call any more scrutiny down on their heads. It’s just the idea of sitting in front of TV cameras and eager fans and trying to explain it all without actually explaining anything.

The idea of a part of her that’s caused her so much pain being put up on stage for the whole world to dissect.

She can’t help but wonder what Celine is going to say about these first-draft statements they’re concocting on the fly.

They’ve got time. Bobby’s determined that they’ll take at least another couple weeks to themselves before they start to dip their toes back into that pool. He’s got this, he insists, in that cheery calm-tinged-with-manic way that’s so familiar. It’s how he seems to work best, right on the verge of a crisis, one toe out over the ledge.

It’s - probably not very healthy, actually, now Rumi thinks about it. They’re definitely going to owe him a raise after this.

It helps, though, when they tell him about the music. Even though they’re not really trying the new album is already coming together, taking shape in Rumi’s mind, in Zoey’s notebooks, in Mira’s studio. She tells him it’s gonna be their best yet and it takes some of the edge out of his eyes.

That, and the pamper-day gift basket he almost bursts into tears over.

When the last of the food is either eaten or packed away into takeout containers to fuel the rest of Bobby’s day, they hug him goodbye at the door and the penthouse returns, once more, to their little sanctuary.

Rumi doesn’t quite know what to do with herself. The heat from this morning still lingers in her bones, in her belly; it makes every every casual touch or accidental brush feel weighted, anticipatory. Her girls - who had given each other just enough space to not tip Bobby off immediately - gravitate back into her orbit, she into theirs, three circling black holes of want threatening to collide.

It’s not really all that different to how it’d been yesterday morning; just that now their casual touching includes kisses, includes hands inching their way under clothes, leaves Rumi breathless every time. Now when her girls tell her they love her, she knows exactly what they mean.

She’s tense. With nerves, anticipation, excitement - Rumi can’t even tell herself. Part of her wants to grab her girls by the hands and drag them back into the bedroom; part of her wants to blurt out that she’s never done anything like this before and oh god, what if she’s bad at it?

Rumi’s at the kitchen counter, staring at the counter-top and trying to wrestle her brain back under some semblance of control, when Mira pads up behind her and wraps both arms around her waist. Kisses her neck gentle and sweet, right over one of the marks they’d left on her that morning, still covered up, like that’s an entirely normal thing to do and not a small bomb going off under Rumi’s skin. Puffs a laugh into the same spot.

“You’re tense,” she notes. Teases. “Got something on your mind?”

Rumi shakes her head, leans back into Mira’s touch instinctively. “I’m good. Just a lot to think about.”

She’s not lying. The conversation with Bobby still plays on her mind, worries about their comeback and her patterns mixing strangely with the way her breath catches every time one of her girls comes close, the way memories of this morning flash incessantly behind her eyes. There’s a lot in Rumi’s head right now.

“How about we take your mind off things for a while, then?” Zoey leans on the counter in front of Rumi, peering up at her, something just a little evil in her eyes.

She lets that linger for a while, watches the way Rumi’s flush starts in her cheeks and spreads rapidly all the way to the roots of her hair and down her chest, her patterns sparking to life as well. Grins wide, traces one of those patterns up Rumi’s arm with a teasing fingertip. Rumi stops breathing.

Zoey leans back, suddenly.

“We haven’t been to the bathhouse in a couple days,” Zoey says, entirely innocent. “We should be able to get a private room easy, at this time.”

If it takes Rumi a minute to recover from that bait-and-switch, her girls are at least kind enough not to call her out directly.

***

The bathhouse is nice.

The bathhouse is a lot.

She’s seen her girls naked before, in this very place, but it’s different now. They all know it’s different now, because now they are not confined to stealing shy glances, trying not to get caught and give themselves away. Now they’re allowed - encouraged - to look. Now they are allowed to touch.

They don’t, at first. To Rumi’s surprise, her girls - though they watch her drop her towel and step into the water with eyes so intense she feels they’re boring a hole straight through to the core of her - sit a respectable distance apart from her and from each other.

She doesn’t know whether to be grateful or to choose a lap and put herself in it. The idea of touching them while they’re all completely bare and the idea of not touching them at all are equally overwhelming.

The water’s good, though. She can feel it getting to work almost immediately, relaxing her body despite itself. Mira and Zoey sink back with little groans she wants to bottle up and keep; her eyes flicker back and forth between them, hungry for something Rumi can’t quite name. They look happy, though, peaceful, and she’s content for now just to watch.

After a few long moments of quiet, Zoey starts to hum to herself. And then -

“Three girls, chilling in a hot tub,” Zoey murmurs, head only barely out of the water. “Five feet apart ‘cos they’re not gay.”

Rumi snorts. Mira raises one elegant eyebrow.

“I think it’s pretty well established that we’re all some flavour of gay, Zo,” Mira says. Sits backs and stretches just enough to bring her breasts above the water line. Rumi can’t help but stare. Wonders what they’d feel like under her hands.

Zoey’s looking too. She bites her lip but affects a casual shrug.

“All right,” she hums. “Three girls, chilling in a hot tub, five feet apart ‘cos they’re so gay they’re afraid they’ll cause a public spectacle!”

Rumi laughs again, raising her eyes from Mira’s breasts only for them to fixate on Zoey - Zoey, who stands up in one easy, graceful movement, and crosses over to sit between Rumi and Mira. Wraps one arm around Mira’s shoulders and leans in to grin right in Rumi’s shocked face.

“We’re not really in public though, are we?”

It’s mostly true. They’re in a private room - the owners of this bathhouse know Mira and Zoey well, are thrilled that Rumi’s finally starting to join them too, and have been nothing but discreet and respectful every time the three have come in. Rumi knows they won’t be disturbed until their time is over.

It’s just that the way Zoey’s looking at her now has the breath catching in Rumi’s throat, and Mira’s arms are possessive when she shifts to wrap herself against Zoey’s back, and there’s no alarm set on Rumi’s phone to warn them this time.

She moves anyway, moth to their flames. Lets Zoey kiss her slow and deep, then take her chin and twist her head, offering her up for Mira to claim next. The heat that spreads through her has nothing at all to do with the water.

Next thing Rumi knows she’s entirely in Mira’s lap, bodies pressed tight, and she no longer has to wonder what Mira’s breasts feel like because they’re pressed up against her own, Mira’s nipples hard against her skin. She’s being kissed deeply, thoroughly, Mira’s hands firm on her hips, keeping her in place.

Like she’d want to be anywhere else. Zoey moves in behind, the whole length of her body stretched out along Rumi’s spine, and kisses open-mouthed and hungry at Rumi’s neck. Her mouth finds the marks they’d left on her earlier and picks up the work with an eagerness that has Rumi’s hips twitching beneath Mira’s palms.

Rumi can’t think. She’s utterly surrounded by her girls, skin against skin, places she’s barely let herself imagine touching now about all she can feel. There’s a heat building low in her stomach, familiar but new in its intensity, the way it creeps up and overrides all other instincts. Mira’s tongue in her mouth, Zoey’s breasts at her back - it’s so much and it’s so new and Rumi is powerless to its pull.

Zoey sucks a little harder; Rumi whimpers, hips twitching, just the barest hint of friction there to wind her up further. Mira’s swallows her noises and her thumbs rub comforting, encouraging circles on the skin over Rumi’s hips.

It brings Rumi back to herself, just enough.

She may be inexperienced but she knows where this is heading - the way her body seems to be slipping ever further out of her own control, patterns pulsing, heat coiling. She thinks they’re approaching the point of no return probably faster than any of them had anticipated and it’s not that she doesn’t want that -

It’s that they are, technically, in public. And she should probably tell her girls just how inexperienced she really is.

She pulls back from Mira’s mouth, panting, groans at the way Mira chases after her lips without even opening her eyes.

“Wait,” say says, though it just about kills her. Buries one hand in Zoey’s hair in a way she intends to be grounding but which Zoey clearly finds encouraging, if the little moan she lets out is anything to go by. “Wait. Hold on a moment.”

Her voice is shaky, not at all sure, but her girls stop the moment they process her words. Zoey pulls back and Mira opens her eyes, looking at her with concern.

“You okay, Rums?” Mira asks. “Is it too much?”

“No - hah,” Rumi groans. She can still feel every inch of them both. “It’s - we’re in the bathhouse.”

Mira blinks, looks around, then heaves out a shaky sigh and sits back. “Oh. Right.”

Zoey kisses Rumi’s shoulder once more, soft, almost in apology, then pulls away to help ease Rumi off Mira’s lap. Rumi shudders at the loss of them both.

“Sorry,” Zoey says meekly. “I got carried away.”

“We all did,” Rumi takes her hand, kisses the back of it, refuses to let either her or Mira pull further away. The water almost feels cold without them. “It’s fine, it was good. It’s just - I should tell you.”

“You can tell us anything, Rumi,” Zoey sinks into Rumi’s side with a tiny shiver. “We’re here for you.”

Mira nods against her shoulder.

“It’s nothing - I just,” Rumi stumbles. It’s not like she’s embarrassed. Really, she thinks, it’s probably pretty obvious. If she couldn’t bring herself to trust her literal soulmates with the truth of her, who else could she have gone to? It’s more about finding the words that won’t make her girls worry - won’t make them hold themselves back when they’re somewhere a bit more appropriate, with no impending alarms.

“I’ve never done this before,” Rumi tells them. “With anyone.”

Zoey nods. Mira squeezes her hand on Rumi’s knee.

“We kinda figured that,” Mira says, carefully. “You’ve always been - really private.”

“We don’t wanna rush you,” Zoey looks up at her, chewing slightly at her lip. “I know we’ve been getting carried away. You’re just - you’re really hot, Rumi, and we love you so much -“

“But we can wait,” Mira interrupts, shooting Zoey a teasing grin. “As long as you want. Just know that we’re here, and we want you, whenever you’re ready.”

Sparks shoot straight up Rumi’s spine. Through the water, she can see her patterns pulse again.

“I want you both too,” she says quietly. “Really, I do. Just - maybe not here.”

Zoey laughs.

“Yeah. That’s on me.”

“You hardly had to encourage me, Zo,” Rumi smiles. “I’m - I’m into this just as much as you are. Into you both. I wasn’t about to stop you this morning.”

“How about this,” Mira says. “No pressure, no expectations. But I’d really like to take the both of you out this evening, on a proper date. We’ll go somewhere fun, casual - where we can wear our disguises - then maybe stop somewhere on the way home for dinner?”

Rumi’s heart flutters. She can’t help but twist and kiss Mira sweetly on the mouth. Pulls back only to watch Zoey do the same. Mira grins against Zoey’s lips.

“Anywhere in mind?” Rumi asks.

“I was thinking the aquarium,” Mira suggests. Zoey’s face lights up instantly. “I know we’re planning that trip to the one in Busan but we haven’t been to the local one in a while.”

Zoey squeals, bouncing a little in the water, then leans over Rumi to drag Mira into an excited hug. There’s a moment when Rumi slips slightly on the bench, finds herself with Zoey’s chest jammed up under her chin, and completely short-circuits.

“What do you think, Rumi?” Mira asks, when Zoey lets her go. Rumi pulls herself together.

“Sounds great,” she grins. “I can’t wait.”

Chapter Text

They dress casually for the aquarium, hats and glasses to soften recognisable features, to draw the eye away. Rumi worries a bit more about her patterns. If what Bobby said is true then people aren’t seeing them for what they really are, but that might just make her stand out all the more in public.

She chooses jeans and long sleeves, and her girls squeeze her hands and tell her she looks beautiful either way.

Once they’re there, though, inside the aquarium with Zoey dragging them by the hands in her eager wake, Rumi finds it surprisingly easy to forget. Much of the aquarium is low-lit, disguising in itself, and the crowd at this time is light enough to give them space.

And her girls are here with her, of course. They never stray far. They’re trying not to be too obvious in public, and Zoey’s enthusiasm is such that she’ll suddenly dart away with a squeal to some new little creature that’s caught her eye, but there’s rarely a moment when Rumi’s not in contact with at least one of them.

She clings to Zoey’s hand as Zoey pulls them to the next exhibit, curls into Mira’s arm around her shoulders as they listen to Zoey ramble on about whatever critter they’re looking at now. Leans into Zoey’s warmth while they’re reading one of the information plaques, hooks her arm through Mira’s whenever a room starts to feel a little crowded.

They pull her in every time, and pull each other in too. Mira doesn’t let Zoey get more than an arm’s length away even when she swerves mid-sentence to head to a tank they’d almost missed. Zoey grabs onto Mira’s bicep to draw her attention and keeps clinging on long after she’s given it.

Rumi lets herself relax, bask in the warmth of it. They’re just three girls on a low-key date, having fun, enjoying the exhibits and each other most of all. There’s no demons to slay or world to save, or PR crisis to manage - just this, sweet and simple, Zoey’s hand in hers and Mira’s arm around her shoulder.

The easy way they talk, teasing back and forward, listening to every ramble and tangent Zoey goes on. Rumi can see it in Mira’s eyes, the open adoration she knows is reflected in her own every time Zoey’s voice takes on that excited, slightly-breathless little tinge. How Zoey looks back at them with no hint of the anxiety Rumi knows dogs her at times, that she’s being too loud or too much.

It’s a perfect afternoon.

They leave just as the sky outside starts to really darken, the sun low on the horizon, piling Zoey into the back of Mira’s car with all the merch they hadn’t even tried to deny her.

Mira’s playlist is full of love song after love song. They don’t mention it but Rumi’s heart flutters with every one.

“So what’re we thinking for dinner?” Mira asks as they pull away from the aquarium.

Rumi’s not starving but she could eat. She’d be happy with anything right now, so long as her girls were enjoying it with her - even if the idea of navigating another public foray leaves her feeling a little drained.

“Something casual,” Rumi suggests. “We’re not really dressed for fancy.”

Mira nods in agreement.

“How about we just get something to go?” Zoey says from the back. “I don’t know about you two but I’m kinda sick of having to keep things family-friendly.”

Her voice is mostly teasing but there’s heat there, too, kindling something at the base of Rumi’s spine. She laughs, shaking her head. Should have known her girls would be on the same page.

They end up calling into a few old favourite places, a little bit from each as Zoey and Mira can’t make up their minds and Rumi’s enjoying watching them debate back and forth too much to even pretend to help settle it.

***

It’s dark by the time they make it home.

They leave the food on the counter, putter off to change into pajamas, ready for a comfortable night on the couch with their food and something easy to watch.

Rumi’s not sure how it happens.

She’s on the edge of Zoey’s bed, panting into a kiss that had started out light and sweet and quickly spiraled out of all control. Mira’s behind Zoey, sucking marks into the skin of her neck, pressing her forward so Zoey has to brace her hands on Rumi’s shoulders to keep them all upright.

They’re half in their street clothes and half in pajamas, hair half-down, make-up half-removed. There’s a heat lancing through Rumi’s belly that has her moaning as Zoey’s tongue brushes against her own, twitching up into every point of contact, desperate, needy, hands grasping for something - anything - to hold onto.

Zoey responds in kind, Mira’s mouth urging her on. Mira’s leaving marks on Zoey’s skin to match those on Rumi’s and just the idea of it is driving Rumi crazy, heartbeat pounding in her ears, patterns running wild. She wants to touch, she wants to taste, she wants to take -

Her fingers find the hem of Zoey’s shirt and scrabble up under it, desperate for the feeling of bare skin under her own. Remembers the bathhouse, how it had felt to have them both pressed up against her, all around her, nothing but water between them.

Wants.

Zoey rips her mouth away from Rumi’s with a groan.

“Rumi,” she gasps, and her voice is utterly wrecked already. Rumi chases her lips but Zoey keeps her gently at bay. “Are you - maybe we should slow it down.”

Rumi sees Mira blink behind Zoey, pull back a little as well.

Can’t imagine anything she wants less.

“No, it’s -“ Rumi’s struggling to make her voice work. She doesn’t really care how desperate it sounds, just wants their hands and mouths back on her now. “It’s good. I’m good.”

They look at her for a moment. Desire is heavy in their eyes, so much it makes her flush, but what really seals it for Rumi is everything she can see behind that desire. They weren’t lying, earlier. They want her so much but they’ll wait as long as she needs.

She doesn’t need anything but them. Meets their eyes, steady and sure, and nods.

“I want this.”

She’s suddenly pinned to the mattress, the entirety of Zoey’s body weight holding her down. Rumi’s pretty sure she could wrestle the younger girl off but honestly, why would she?

Especially not with the way Zoey’s pajama top has risen up, putting the bare skin of her stomach in direct contact with Rumi’s own.

The muscles in Rumi’s stomach flutter; she knows Zoey feels it by the way the kiss she presses to Rumi’s lips now is 75% smirk, their teeth clashing slightly before Zoey presses forward, licking into Rumi’s mouth deep and hot.

Rumi can’t help but moan at it. It’s like a barely-banked fire roaring to back life, all the heat and desire and need she’s ever felt shooting straight up her spine, leaving her raw and open in its wake. She arches up into Zoey’s touch and wraps both arms around her neck, keeping her in place.

The mattress dips beside her. Mira’s hand scratches at Rumi’s scalp.

“Relax, baby,” Mira teases. “I don’t think she’s going anywhere.”

She looks at Mira upside-down and wants to kiss her too. Reaches out a beseeching hand; Mira scrunches herself down to meet her lips even though the angle doesn’t really work. Zoey sits up when Mira does and drags her into a kiss as well, urgent and messy.

They’re making out on top of Rumi and Rumi doesn’t know whether she wants them to turn their heat back on her, or never stop. She could watch them like this for hours and never get bored.

Uncomfortably aroused, however?

She whines a little, unintentionally. Zoey and Mira part with a chuckle, and pull her up to sit between them.

They take their time with her, peeling her out of her clothes with hands that feel almost worshipful in their tenderness. Rumi is jelly between them but she tries to reciprocate, forcing her jittery arms to move, to tug at their clothes in turn.

Her girls take pity on her and help with this as well - Mira unhooking Zoey’s bra when Rumi’s fingers tremble, Zoey taking over to ease Mira’s trousers and underwear over her hips. Their hands are as gentle on each other’s skin as they are on Rumi’s own, lingering, indulging in each touch.

Mira presses unhurried open-mouthed kisses to Zoey’s shoulders as she brushes off her bra straps. Zoey trails her hands down the outsides of Mira’s thighs and back up the insides, leaving goose-flesh in her wake. They pull each other in for a deep, slow kiss when they’re both finally naked and Rumi wants to see the two of them stretched out against each other about as much as she wants to feel them stretched out against her.

They’re beautiful. She’s known they’re beautiful for years, of course, since the day she met them - and she’s seen them in various states of undress before, including entirely naked in the bathhouse just a few hours before.

It’s different, now. Now she doesn’t have to look away, to pretend her heart isn’t breaking open at the sight of them; now she gets to watch them twine together, to let the way they love each other steal her breath and light up her bones. She could watch them forever and it wouldn’t be nearly enough time.

They pull apart eventually, turn their attention back to Rumi. She feels a little wobbly under the weight of their gazes, such open adoration and desire in both of their faces, but she doesn’t try to pull away or hide. If she’s wobbly, they’ll hold her up. There’s not a doubt in her mind about it now.

Mira reaches for her, cups Rumi’s cheek in one hand, rubs a tender thumb over her cheekbone.

“You good, love?” She asks in the gentlest of voices. Rumi nods, presses further into her touch.

“Yeah,” she says, smiling helplessly back. “I’m so good.”

“You want us to stop, or slow down, just say the word,” Zoey tells her, rubbing at Rumi’s knee in a way Rumi honestly finds more distracting than comforting.

“I meant it,” Rumi says. “I want this. But thanks.”

She shifts forward, puts one hand over Mira’s on her cheek, and leans in to kiss her.

It starts slow but deepens quickly; the desire in all of them is only barely being held back. Mira’s tongue is sure against Rumi’s own; she kisses with intent, with focus, greedy for everything Rumi will give.

Rumi moans again, helplessly. Feels Mira respond, pressing deeper, insistent. Then they’re moving, slowly, Mira pushing and Zoey pulling, guiding Rumi into place between them on the bed.

She feels a little out of it, deliciously so, content to let them move her pliant body and rearrange her limbs until they have her exactly how they want her. It certainly removes some of the pressure on Rumi’s part - she doesn’t have to fumble or worry, is she doing this right, is she being what they need? They’re showing her the way, taking care of her as they always do, with gentle touches and quiet murmurs of approval.

Rumi doesn’t have to think about anything except how good they feel pressed up against her, and it is exhilarating.

She ends up cradled between Zoey’s thighs, the length of Rumi’s spine pressed tight to Zoey’s stomach, the soft press of Zoey’s breasts against her back. It’s wonderfully warm, safe, Zoeys’ fingers tracing over Rumi’s patterns across her stomach and hips. Rumi sinks into her with a sigh.

Mira follows, arranges herself between Rumi’s spread legs, trails a hand over Rumi’s cheek and leans in to kiss her again soft and deep.

Pulls away only to kiss Zoey the same over Rumi’s shoulder and then to move her mouth to Rumi’s neck, down the line of it, over her collarbone, across her chest. Little open-mouthed kisses blazing a trail, sometimes following the curl of her patterns and sometimes meandering their own way, scorching Rumi’s skin.

Rumi whimpers beneath the attention. Zoey puffs a laugh in her ear, then takes that earlobe between her teeth and tugs gently. Rumi jolts in her arms.

It’s so much. It’s so much and Rumi thinks they’ve barely gotten started. She can feel their desire in every touch, how they’re holding themselves back, taking their time with her, making sure she’s never uncomfortable.

She loves them so much for it but she’s getting impatient. The heat building in Rumi is quickly spiralling out of control - her body feels like a live-wire, jumping and twitching at every touch, every wash of breath over her oversensitive skin. If she could find the words for it she’d be begging them to get a move on already -

Mira’s mouth closes over a nipple and Rumi almost shouts. Surprise and white-hot pleasure punches into her; she arches helplessly, feels Zoey’s hands tighten around her ribs to keep her still. Hears Zoey laugh again into her ear; sees the smugness in Mira’s eyes where they flutter up at her.

Can’t bring herself to care, really, when Mira’s tongue laves over that nipple and she sucks gently but insistently.

“Mira,” Rumi gasps out. “Fuck -“

“Mm, breathe, baby,” Zoey teases. “We’re just getting started, you know.”

“Zoey -!”

Mira switches sides, sucks Rumi’s other nipple into her mouth with purpose. Rumi’s whole body contracts, the ripple of pleasure spreading right down to her core. She’s aching, needy, doesn’t want to think about how wet she must be already, just from this -

When Zoey’s hand reaches around to thumb at the nipple already damp from Mira’s mouth, Rumi’s brain entirely stops working. A startled, desperate moan rips from her throat, reverberating in her chest. She’s breathing so heavily it’s a wonder they can keep contact.

Mira pulls back and for a moment Rumi thinks she’s taking pity on her. But Mira is still grinning that smug, infuriating grin which promises more to come.

She moves further, pressing kisses down Rumi’s stomach, chasing the twists of her patterns, hands gently encouraging Rumi to lean further back into Zoey who takes her weight with a little murmur of approval. Zoey’s petting soothingly at Rumi’s side with one hand, the other still teasing at her breast.

Rumi sinks into it. Every nerve ending in her body is sparking as Mira drifts lower and lower, now at her hips, then down her slightly-trembling thighs. There’s no resistance in Rumi’s body when Mira pushes her legs further apart and moves to lie between them.

Mira hooks one arm under Rumi’s knee and spreads her even further, resting her cheek against the inside of her thigh and just looking.

At where Rumi is open for her, glistening with the evidence of her arousal, the pleasure they’ve already brought her. Rumi knows she must be dripping with it.

Mira’s eyes blow even wider, breath stuttering in her chest. Her fingers flex where they’re gripping Rumi’s thighs.

“Fuck,” Mira groans. “Zo, do you see her?”

“I see,” Zoey sounds almost as breathless. “So ready for us, aren’t you, Rumi? We’re gonna make you feel so good, baby, I swear.”

Rumi whines. The look on Mira’s face is burning her just as badly as Zoey’s fingers still working at her breast. If they don’t do something soon she thinks she might explode.

Mira doesn’t want to wait any longer, either. She sinks down onto her stomach, pressing messy kisses to the insides of Rumi’s thighs, tasting the first hints of Rumi’s pleasure coating them. Groans again, raw, throaty. Moves up.

Mira licks a long, broad stripe up Rumi’s aching cunt and Rumi just about folds then and there.

It’s electric, white-hot, punches the breath out of her lungs. Rumi’s hips jerk wildly off the bed, caught by Mira’s hand on one side and Zoey’s on the other, held in place so Mira can dive straight back in.

Rumi keens, bucks, gasps. Mira’s mouth is unrelenting, devouring, tracing through Rumi’s folds, pressing lightly at her entrance, then flicking up to tease at her throbbing clit. She chases Rumi’s slightest move, learning the way she moans and shakes, always a quick study. She has Rumi on the edge before Rumi can really process what’s hit her.

“Mira, oh my god,” Rumi chokes out. “Mira, please -“

Zoey’s breath on her ear.

“Don’t worry, pretty girl,” she croons. “She’s not gonna stop any time soon. Look at her. Can’t you see how much she loves this?”

Rumi whimpers, shudders, forces her eyes open. Mira’s looking up from between her legs with blown-out pupils, slick already smearing across her cheeks, a heat and hunger in her eyes that sets the very air in Rumi’s lungs on fire.

She’s burning. The heat in her core is coiling tighter and tighter with every flick of Mira’s tongue, every time her lips wrap around Rumi’s swollen clit and suck. Both of Zoey’s hands are now cupping Rumi’s breasts, twisting and petting at her nipples, her mouth insistently biting and sucking at Rumi’s neck. It’s too fucking much.

Rumi’s in free-fall. She’s hurtling toward the edge of something she can’t name, can’t wrap her head around - none of her (admittedly rare) self-explorations have ever felt anything like this. But Zoey and Mira have her. Their touch is hungry, starving, but tender. Adoring. Her body’s the altar they’re worshipping at and they can’t get enough.

It’s overwhelming but it’s safe. Rumi lets herself fall into it, the rush and the heat and the pleasure, screws her eyes shut, buries her hands in Mira’s hair and lets Zoey take the full weight of her body. They’re holding her between them, where she’s never been more at home.

Her orgasm hits like a tidal wave, swamping everything in white-hot pleasure that starts in her core and ripples out until there’s nothing left of Rumi but that feeling, the crest of it, roiling, rending. Her body locks tight, the last of the air in her lungs punching out in a high, keening sob she didn’t know she was capable of making. She’s gone.

It takes her a while to come back. She doesn’t know how long, just that she stirs to the feeling of Zoey and Mira petting her head and her sides, anywhere not currently literally pulsing iridescent blue, murmuring soothing nonsense as she finds her way, somehow, back into her own body.

Rumi blinks her eyes open, sees both of her girls smiling softly down at her.

“There she is,” Mira’s voice is more than a little wrecked, her face still smeared with Rumi’s pleasure. It’d make Rumi flush, if she was physically capable of such a thing right now. “Feeling good, love?

“Mhm,” Rumi manages. Tries to reach out for her but can’t quite manage it. Mira huffs out a laugh.

“Take your time,” she smiles. “There’s no rush. Just enjoy it.”

Zoey shifts, reaches out, brushes a few strands of hair away from Mira’s face. They get stuck in the mess on her cheeks. Rumi does manage a flush at that.

“Mm, looks good on you,” Zoey tells Mira, grinning wild. She hooks a hand around the back of Mira’s neck and draws her in.

The kiss is filthy, open-mouthed and messy, Zoey licking into Mira’s mouth for as much of Rumi as she can get. She moans into it, greedy; Mira whimpers back.

Zoey pulls back, puts two fingers under Mira’s chin to tilt her head back and stares her down for a moment, considering.

“Rumi,” Zoey says conversationally. “Wanna watch me get Mira off? She did so good for you, I think she deserves a reward.”

Rumi chokes, nods rapidly while her brain spins out in search of words that could possibly convey just how much she wants that, yes please. Mira groans, screws her eyes closed and blushes to the roots of her hair.

“Zo. Are you trying to kill me?”

Zoey just grins impishly and urges Mira forward. She crawls over Rumi’s prone body, her usually graceful limbs a little ungainly, and folds herself into the space Zoey creates between her and Rumi.

Zoey presses herself to Mira’s side, kisses her slow and deep, and traces a hand down Mira’s body to cup between her legs. Mira jerks; Rumi feels it, and immediately bullies her wayward limbs back into cooperation. She wants to see this.

It’s clear that Zoey isn’t in the mood to tease or drag this out. Her hand cups Mira’s cunt almost possessively, wetness smearing against her palm, and she hisses out her approval. Mira spreads her legs for her automatically, a moan already caught in her throat.

“You did such a good job, baby,” Zoey coos, eyes intent on Mira’s face. “God, you’re so wet.”

Mira hisses, one hand shooting out to wrap around Zoey’s wrist between her legs. Zoey just laughs.

“I’ve got you, don’t worry.”

Zoey starts moving with a purpose and Rumi shifts to get a better view. She’s curled into Mira’s other side, absently kissing at her bare shoulder, eyes fixed on where Zoey’s fingers are now tracing lightly through Mira’s folds.

Mira gasps again, lets go of Zoey’s wrist, moves that arm to wrap around Rumi’s shoulders instead like she needs something solid to hold on to. Rumi doesn’t exactly feel solid right now, her entire body still tingling with the aftershocks of what Mira had done to her, but she’s happy to give Mira whatever she can.

There’s something entrancing about the way Zoey’s fingers move between Mira’s legs. She’s tracing soft circles across Mira’s clit, every movement causing Mira’s thighs to tremble or her breath to stutter, hand clenching and unclenching at Rumi’s side. Mira is wet, and the idea that it’s because of Rumi - because Mira enjoyed eating Rumi out so much - sends Rumi’s pulse thundering all over again.

Zoey’s hand dips lower, one finger lining up at Mira’s entrance and sinking in with one easy, smooth stroke. Mira moans aloud, arching up off the bed, hands fluttering at her sides like she doesn’t quite know what to do with them or maybe like they’re not entirely under her control at the moment. Rumi knows the feeling.

Zoey groans as she sinks into Mira.

“Fuck, baby,” she mutters. “You’re so - you can take another, yeah?”

Mira chokes but nods and Zoey doesn’t hesitate, sinking a second finger in alongside the first and starting up a slow, indulgent pace. Her eyes are drinking Mira in, every twitch and tremble, every catch in her chest and jerk of her hips.

Rumi’s doing much the same. It’s addicting, watching Mira like this - she knows, now, the coil that’s being wound ever tighter inside her, wants to see what Mira looks like, hear what she sounds like, when that coil finally snaps.

She wants to be part of it.

One of Rumi’s hands starts moving without her conscious control, skimming over the softness of Mira’s stomach and up towards her chest. Feels the twitch in the muscles of her abdomen, sees the flicker in her face that says she’s registered the new sensation. Has no objection to it.

Rumi’s hand cups her breast, feels the nipple hard against her palm, the impossible softness of the skin. Has to take a moment to breathe it in; she’s touching Mira’s breast. Tries to echo the way Zoey had touched her, watching Mira closely for any sign.

Mira gives freely; her eyes shoot open and meet Rumi’s own with an expression of slack-jawed astonishment, heart in her eyes, a moan on her lips. Rumi smiles, kisses her deeply, moves a little more confidently.

She can hear it when Zoey picks up speed; the obscene wet sound of her driving her fingers into Mira’s cunt over and over. Mira’s eyes fall shut again and she starts to pant, free hand fisting in the sheets, hips jerking.

Zoey’s breathing heavily too. Rumi looks down the length of Mira’s body, sees the way Zoey’s fingers disappear into her and then re-emerge covered in glistening slick. She wonders what that would feel like under her fingertips.

Slowly, with time for either Mira or Zoey to protest, Rumi moves her hand down Mira’s stomach until it rests just above her cunt.

Zoey meets her eyes.

“Slow circles,” she says. “Not too hard. She likes it like that.”

Rumi nods, bites her lip. Feels the way Mira stiffens at her side. She slides her fingers further down until they meet the warmth of her - Zoey slows her pace, lets Rumi in, lets her coat her fingertips in Mira’s pleasure.

It’s abundant. Rumi breathes out almost as shakily as Mira does.

“Use two fingers,” Zoey instructs. “Not too direct.”

Rumi’s good at following instructions. It doesn’t take her long to get the hang of it, apparently, if the way Mira starts to moan high and helpless in her ear is anything to go by. Zoey gives her an approving nod, a devilish grin, then picks her pace back up again.

Between the two of them, Mira doesn’t stand a chance. As Rumi’s fingers gain confidence on her clit and Zoey drives deeper and faster into her, Mira begins to shake and twitch under them. She’s coming apart, Rumi can tell, caught on the edge - all Rumi wants to do is watch Mira fall.

Mira does. She’s quieter, more contained, but it’s breathtaking all the same - the way her body arches up off the bed, her face screws up tight and then relaxes all at once, the guttural moan that gets caught in her throat and only escapes when her body releases, collapses back to the mattress, boneless and spent.

She looks wrecked.

It’s spectacular.

Rumi and Zoey withdraw their fingers when Mira’s twitches become a bit more pronounced. Mira still hasn’t opened her eyes, one hand pressed to her face, the other still clutching at Rumi’s shoulders. Her breathing is slowly climbing back down.

Rumi can’t stop the grin that splits her face, looking at her lying there boneless. It might be the best thing she’s ever done. She cards her fingers through Mira’s hair, as soothing as she can talk her vibrating body into being.

Mira opens one eye, blearily, then the other. Blinks up at Rumi. Pulls her down with shaky hands for a gentle, breathless kiss.

“Well, fuck,” she says, hoarse. “You’re a fast learner.”

She turns, reaches out for Zoey as well. Rumi watches them kiss and wonders if her heart’s about to swell out of her chest. Mira flops back and scrubs both hands against her face.

Zoey’s reclining against the pillows, smile smug but breathing heavy. Rumi takes her in for a moment, the flush that seems to run from her cheeks down the whole length of her body, the way her thighs are pressing tightly together. She can guess what Zoey’s feeling.

An urge hits her. Rumi has no idea where it came from but she’s inclined to go along with it.

“Zoey?” She says, waits until Zoey meets her eyes. “Can I taste you?”

Zoey wheezes like she’s just been punched in the solar plexus. “What?!”

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” Rumi admits, fingers fidgeting a little with the bedsheets. “But I’d really like to try.”

Mira laughs. It’s still a little unsteady. “Turnabout’s fair play, Zo.” She moves slowly, languorously, poking and prodding at Zoey until Zoey moves how Mira wants her to. Lies with her head pillowed in Mira’s lap, looking across at Rumi with wide, astonished eyes.

Rumi moves into place between Zoey’s legs, which spread unhesitatingly for her. She can see the evidence of Zoey’s arousal all down the inside of her thighs - it catches the light and gleams, slick and sweet. Rumi’s mouth waters.

She wants it but she’s a little nervous. Puts a hand on Zoey’s thigh just to hide the shake. Zoey lets out the tiniest whimper at even that contact.

“Just do what feels right,” Mira encourages her, fingers carding through Zoey’s hair. “Zoey’s the vocal sort. She’ll let you know what she likes.”

“Honestly, Rumi, it’s not gonna take much,” Zoey admit shakily. “I feel like I could come just from the thought.”

It’s emboldening. Rumi sinks down to her stomach, pulls herself closer, and gets her first good look.

Zoey takes her breath away. She’s so wet, flushed and swollen and open without even being touched. Just the faintest wisp of Rumi’s breath across her has her cunt clenching, a little gasp in her throat.

Mira’s long limbs allow her to reach down and thread her fingers into Rumi’s hair; grounding, guiding.

Rumi takes a deep breath, calms her nerves, and leans in.

Her first taste of Zoey is immediately addicting. She’s tart and strong against Rumi’s tongue; Rumi chases the flavour deeper, licking through her folds, pressing closer. Her hands find purchase on Zoey’s thighs, feels the way they quake under her palms, keeps them spread.

Zoey’s moaning loud and unrestrained, hand coming down to join Mira’s in Rumi’s hair. Pulls her in even harder, hips twitching beneath Rumi like she’s only barely keeping herself under control.

Rumi doesn’t want her to. Wants her to take what she needs from Rumi’s mouth, to grind down against her, show her exactly how to make her come apart at the seams. She doesn’t really know how to tell Zoey that, though, especially as she can’t bear the thought of pulling away right now.

She moans into Zoey instead, moving up to suck firmly at her clit. She’s learning fast - Mira’s right, Zoey is plenty vocal. She moans high and desperate every time Rumi does something she particularly likes, whines if she moves away, her fingers flexing rhythmically in Rumi’s hair.

It sends shudders skittering down Rumi’s spine every time those fingers tighten. She sucks harder. Zoey’s voice cracks into a sob, fist clenching, hips bucking up. Rumi groans encouragingly and Zoey seems to take the hint - her grip stays tight, grinds up insistently, demandingly.

Rumi redoubles her efforts.

“That’s it,” Mira whispers. “She’s close, can you feel it? Just a little more.”

Zoey whimpers, squirming between them.

“Oh, god - fuck - Rumi -!” she gasps out. “Rumi, I -“

Rumi holds on as best she can as Zoey thrashes beneath her and feels the moment - glorious, blinding - when Zoey finally shatters.

Zoey comes with a keening cry, hips levitating off the bed, fist tight in Rumi’s hair. Her whole body is shaking, trembling in Rumi’s grasp, and Rumi feels like she could melt into the mattress herself - if it weren’t for the way her whole body is lit up again, even the rasp of the sheets against her skin almost too much.

Rumi keeps licking into her, slower now, until Zoey’s grips loosens on her hair and Mira eases her back, tilts her head up to look at the pair of them.

Zoey is flopped back in Mira’s lap, arms spread wide, utterly boneless. Her breath is coming quick and ragged, eyes closed, Mira smoothing a few strands of hair away from her sweat-damp forehead.

Mira’s behind her, grinning wide, as smug as if she’d wrecked Zoey like this herself. She bends down, whispers in Zoey’s ear.

“See, what did I tell you? Fast learner.”

Rumi splutters a little, pulls herself up, crawls up Zoey’s body until she can drag Mira into a kiss. It’s messy, uncontrolled - she feels like she’s about to vibrate out of her own skin, arousal thrumming heavy in her veins once again.

Mira notices, smirks against her lips.

Zoey’s eyes have flickered open, groaning at Mira’s taunt. She eyes the way Rumi is trembling on top of her and somehow coordinates her wobbly arms to rest against Rumi’s thighs.

“I think someone’s still feeling needy, Zo,” Mira bites at Rumi’s neck, drawing another shudder. “Think you’ve got a bit more in you?”

Zoey groans but her hands are sure as they slide up Rumi’s thighs. One moves to her hip, the other teases lightly at Rumi’s cunt with her fingertips. Rumi’s hips buck instinctively.

“I think I can manage it,” Zoey husks. “Want another, baby? Want my fingers?”

“Yea - yeah,” Rumi stutters, bites her lip, leans her weight more fully into Mira. “Please, Zo - Mira - I -“

“Want my fingers inside you, baby?” Zoey says. Rumi gapes down at her for a moment, then nods frantically. Hardly coherent before, words are beyond her now.

“Mm, good answer,” Zoey smirks. The hand teasing at Rumi’s cunt gains confidence, purpose, fingers finding Rumi’s entrance and pressing just light enough to make sure Rumi knows she’s there.

Rumi lets her hips twitch into it, lets the moan building in her throat rumble out. She’s wet enough to take it but Zoey’s careful anyway, pressing a single fingertip just inside and watching Rumi’s face closely for any sign of discomfort.

Mira snakes a hand down between their bodies and claims Rumi’s clit with one sure finger. Rumi keens, jerking into the touch, feels Zoey’s finger slipping further inside her.

It’s a new feeling. Even during her infrequent explorations, Rumi’s never really tried to put anything inside herself; her own body is a stranger to her in many ways. But she’s soaking wet and wound up, and surrounded by her girls - the stretch doesn’t feel intimidating, doesn’t feel anything but right.

The way she moans into the skin of Mira’s shoulder tells them both all they need to know. Zoey’s finger works deeper until Rumi feels knuckles pressing against her; Mira’s finger on her clit circles tight and fast. When Zoey starts to move inside her with purpose, Rumi knows she’s done for.

Zoey is inside her.

Her second orgasm comes quick. She’s wound up tight from watching Zoey and Mira, from the way Zoey’s taste is still heady on her tongue, the sound of both of them moaning her name. She’ll never get a moment of it out of her head and doesn’t want to - can see it all playing out behind her eyelids even now, as Zoey keeps fucking up into her and Mira winds her up ever higher with every movement.

It builds; she breaks on a half-choked sob, the last strength in her body giving out as her whole world flashes white, as she’s sent spiralling up into the stratosphere all over again. Mira catches her, holds her upright, as Zoey eases her down and through the aftershocks, both of them murmuring words of praise and adoration into her ear that she’s currently too far gone to make much sense of.

She feels the sentiment behind it, though. As her hips twitch out the last of the rush of it, Zoey pulls out and together she and Mira ease Rumi down onto the bed between them.

They’re gonna have to change the sheets. It’s the first coherent thought Rumi has as she comes back to herself, listening to her girls get their own breathing under control on either side of her. They’re tangled together but Rumi can feel the dampness beneath her, from sweat and slick, the way the covers are snarled and rumpled. Knows that Mira, particularly, won’t sleep well like this.

The first time she tries to voice this thought it comes out as a broken whimper, her lungs and throat as exhausted as her body. Mira hums into her hair; Zoey looks up at her with a question in her eyes.

“You good, baby?”

“Amazing.” Rumi manages on the second try. “God, that was -“

She’s surprised to find tears in her eyes. Zoey smiles softly, kisses her with such tenderness that Rumi’s tears leak out. Zoey brushes them away; Mira pulls Rumi in even tighter.

“I love you both so much,” she says in a whisper. Her girls echo it back to her and she can feel it, in every inch of skin that presses against her own, in the rhythm of their breathing in time with hers. It’s aching and tender and, for perhaps the first time in her life, there is not a single doubt or worry left in Rumi’s head.

Well. Maybe half a one.

“We should change the sheets, though,” she sniffles. “We’re a mess.”

Zoey laughs, nuzzles into Rumi’s neck. “I don’t think I have the strength for that right now.”

“Let’s just switch rooms,” Mira suggests. “Mine’s closest.”

It takes them a minute but they manage it, stumbling on shaky legs, clinging onto each other for support and also just because the idea of separating for longer than a heartbeat sounds about as pleasant as walking on hot coals.

Mira’s curtains are already drawn. They don’t even bother with the light, muscle memory taking them to the bed with only a couple minor wobbles. Mira collapses first, pulls her girls down with her, and the ungainly sprawl of limbs they land in is exactly where they stay.

Chapter Text

Everything changes, and everything stays the same.

They go on more dates - Zoey takes to calling practically everything they do together a ‘date’, whether it’s a meal at a nice restaurant or a trip to the grocery store. Mira rolls her eyes but Rumi can tell she loves it.

It’s there whenever they go down to their training room for what Zoey terms a ‘spar date’, pulling out their new weapons and feeling the rush of connection that always follows. Their souls sing together. It’s not quite enough to ease the jolt in Rumi’s gut when they first raise their weapons, or the guilt in her girls’ eyes, but they’re getting there. They’re getting there a lot quicker than Rumi would have expected.

“I’ve been thinking,” Zoey says, casually, not even breathless as she spins away from Mira’s low-angled sweep, shin-kals shining in her hands. “We should try again -“

She cuts out to toss two in Rumi’s direction, keeping her at bay when she comes in with a downward swing. Rumi pivots out the way, spins around Mira’s back.

“With the Honmoon,” Zoey picks up effortlessly, shin-kals appearing back in her hands just in time to throw at Mira as she’s distracted by Rumi. “See what else we can do. I bet I can make something, like, real.”

“What do you mean, real?” Mira asks. Her woldo clashes against Rumi’s sword - they both visibly shudder at the contact.

“I don’t know,” Zoey ducks Mira’s retaliatory swing. “Something solid. Like a - like a turtle!”

Rumi stops mid-movement. “You want to make a Honmoon turtle?”

“Yeah,” Zoey grins. Tosses a shin-kal her way half-heartedly. “Just to see if I can do it.”

Mira comes to a stop as well, breathing a little heavily, leaning on her woldo. They’ve been sparring back and forth for a while now, mostly just having fun with it, feeling the reverberations whenever their weapons make contact.

“You wanna go get an early lunch?” Mira suggests. “Try it out?”

Zoey dismisses her weapons eagerly. “Can we?!”

Rumi and Mira laugh in sync. Like they’ve ever denied Zoey anything she wants - the puppy-dog eyes are really redundant at this point. Not that Rumi would ever tell her that. She might stop.

She lets her saingeom fade out and grabs a few towels from the cupboard for them all, while Mira grabs the water bottles she’d carefully laid out. Throws an arm around Zoey’s shoulder, kisses her cheek. Thrills, as ever, at the easiness with which this casual affection comes now.

“All right, Zo,” she says. “Let’s get something to eat and then you can show us how it’s done.”

***

They end up ordering in. Rumi knows that, with their comeback now on the horizon, the new album coming together so seamlessly it almost worries her, they should be starting to shift back into ‘being public figures’ mode - should get out of their penthouse more, maybe start to let a few fans see them. Plans are moving apace and they can’t be left behind.

But she always feels a little vulnerable after a sparring session, knows her girls do too, all that weight they’ve talked to death but still can’t quite forget. It’s coming. Rumi doesn’t want to rush it. So she lets herself indulge the instinct to keep her girls to herself a while longer, and stay in.

They’ve worked up something of an appetite. Rumi insists they eat first, at the kitchen table even - there’s been more than one meal left to go cold in the last few days as a platonic cuddle on the couch turns into something decidedly not. If their last try manifesting the Honmoon is anything to go by, they’ll need the fuel.

Zoey’s the first to finish, watches them impatiently as they eat. Mira and Rumi exchange a glance and, as one, move slower. They take their time, savour each bite. It really is good food. Zoey squirms in her seat.

“You want some more, Zo?” Mira asks. “You’re looking antsy there.”

She’s already had bites off both their plates, both offered and stolen. Zoey shakes her head and tries to look calm.

“No! No, you go ahead,” she says. “I’m just here. Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?” Rumi teases.

“You guys are mean.” Zoey huffs. “If you’re gonna be brats about it, I’m gonna go.”

She takes herself off to the couch, flopping down dramatically onto it.

“I’ll start without you, see if I don’t!”

Rumi knows it’s an empty threat but feels herself pulled in anyway. She can imagine the pout on Zoey’s face. It’s adorable, even in her mind’s eye, and she’s never been able to resist.

She chuckles along with Mira and they both take their plates to the sink, scraping off the last scraps into the bin. They’ll draw it out that much but the dishes themselves can wait.

Zoey sits up when they approach and she barely lets them get settled on either side of her before she’s starting.

She holds her hands out in front of her again, one above the other, palms facing. This time the thin threads of the Honmoon spring into existence almost immediately. Rumi feels the way they sing to her, calling her to reach out and touch.

She doesn’t, though - Zoey has plans and Rumi doesn’t want to interrupt. She watches, intently, mirrored by Mira on Zoey’s other side, as Zoey concentrates.

It happens slowly. The threads dangling down from the palm of one hand to brush the palm of the other begin to pool, to converge. Slip down from the cradle of Zoey’s fingers to merge in her cupped hands, edges shaking and shivering like they can’t decide what direction to move in next.

Zoey’s breathing picks up. Rumi remembers what it felt like to hold her own soul, the static shock of it, a reverberation that felt like it could tip into painful if she wasn’t careful. Wonders if that’s just her - Zoey’s eyes are wide and round with wonder.

The pool of almost-blue in her palm is moving, shaping. Becoming.

Rumi hears Mira’s breath catch.

It is, unmistakably, a turtle.

It’s small and lopsided, with one flipper definitely larger than the others and an uneven shell. But it’s real, solid - Rumi can feel the weight of it in the room, the whisper of Zoey’s soul calling to her own.

Zoey laughs, shaky but exhilarated. Drops her now-free hand and gestures to them both.

Rumi reaches out, ever so gently. Caresses the wonky shell with a reverent fingertip. Zoey’s soul reaches for her, welcomes her in. Welcomes her home.

Mira follows suit, traces those uneven little flippers, strokes its head.

“Look what you did,” Mira’s voice is open with wonder. “Zoey.”

Rumi can’t quite name the sound Zoey makes in response. The little turtle holds up to their adoration for a few moments longer before wavering slowly out.

They all look up at once, and the next thing Rumi knows they’re laughing.

They’re curled in on each other, laughter high and wild, a little helpless, entirely in love. Rumi wants to drown in it, wants to live forever in it. Thinks, once again, there is no ceiling on this joy.

“You made a turtle out of your soul,” Rumi giggles. “Zoey, that’s amazing!”

“How did you do it?” Mira asks, again pulling Zoey’s hand to her to kiss the palm, the start of a little ritual.

“I just wanted a turtle,” Zoey shrugs. “I couldn’t think of anything else. And then there was a turtle!”

She says it like it’s easy. Rumi remembers that it was easy, last time, at least easier than she’d expected - natural, as if the Honmoon had just been waiting for them to figure it out. The idea is comforting - and a little daunting, if she’s being honest. There are a lot of implications to their new-found abilities, implications she hasn’t had the time or desire to really think through.

But Zoey is warm and giggly against her chest, Mira solid and steady against her back. There’s nothing in the world to fear right now.

So Rumi doesn’t.

It’s really as simple as that.

***

They spend a few hours like that, shaping the Honmoon into increasingly elaborate shapes and then dismissing it when the raw vulnerability of a piece of their souls exposed to the open air becomes too much.

Smaller is easier to handle; larger makes them feel like they’re being flayed open and put on display. Even though the only observers are her girls, it’s still a lot.

Zoey makes more turtles of increasing size, all the way from a tiny little thing in the palm of her hand up to a Derpy-sized behemoth, taking up half the available floorspace, glowing so brightly it’s almost blinding. She can’t keep that one up for long, leans against Rumi for support as it takes shape, dismisses it after a few moments with equal sorrow and relief. Rumi misses it instantly, and feels like she can breathe again.

She settles on one that’s about to scale to the giant turtles she so loves to watch at the aquarium.

Asks if they’d like to hold it.

Rumi thinks it might well kill her but her arms ache to try.

Mira takes it first, cradles it in her arms with impossible tenderness, and sways on her feet. Rumi’s not sure if she’s conscious of that or not - her face is slack with astonishment, flushing to her roots. Mira’s half in another world entirely; she closes her eyes and holds the turtle close to her chest for as long as they both can bear.

Zoey’s trembling almost violently when Mira reluctantly passes her soul back, words of wonder on her tongue.

The turtle is big enough that Rumi needs to hold it with both hands when Zoey offers it out to her.

The moment takes her breath away even before she takes the turtle. Zoey, standing in front of her, holding out her literal soul. Rumi thinks she might be crying but can’t be sure; are those tears blurring her vision, or is it the rush that sweeps through her body as she takes Zoey’s soul into her arms?

Zoey burns like the sun and all the stars in the sky. She loves bright and clean, steady and sure, like there’s no alternative fate the universe could have handed her than Rumi and Mira in her arms. It’s so much more than the threads or even the little turtle had been when her fingers pressed against them.

If Zoey had felt like an inferno then, it’s nothing compared to now. Rumi is ashes at her feet, and has never felt more at home.

Like Mira, she can’t bear it for too long - the sensation only builds the longer she holds on, shivers overtaking both her body and Zoey’s. She feels as though she’s vibrating out of her own skin, can only imagine how it must be for Zoey - Zoey, who crumples a little when she meets Rumi’s eye, caught immediately in Mira’s arms.

When Rumi lays the turtle down carefully on the couch to watch Mira’s first try, it stays.

Mira makes a few things - something she insists is a wolf though it looks more like a horse, a plane, a mini version of their couch - until she finally settles on the shape of a bird that looks suspiciously like Sussie.

She insists it isn’t but when she unceremoniously plops the bird down onto Rumi’s shoulder - laughing breathlessly at the way Rumi spasms in response - Rumi knows the lie of it instantly. She’d tease back but Mira’s soul steals the breath from her lungs.

Mira’s the ocean and the moon and the tides that bind the two, locking the three together, inseparable. Rumi’s floating and drowning all at once, flooded by the depths of Mira’s love, knowing she’s only feeling the echo of it through this tiny point of connection. There’s so much more beneath the surface.

It’s overwhelming. Rumi has to sit down. There are definitely tears this time.

It’s the kind of love that reshapes the earth, reshapes reality. Rumi thinks she understands, now, how the new Honmoon came to be.

Her girls love her like the entire universe was created solely to one day allow this love to exist.

She loves them the exact same way. Of course she can remake the universe for them.

When, near-breathless, Mira takes her bird and offers it to Zoey, Rumi pulls herself shakily together to start working on her own creation.

She wants to give her girls the same gift they’ve given her. She watches for the pleasure of seeing Zoey’s knees go completely out from under her when the magpie is placed in her waiting arms, helps Mira settle her on the couch beside her before she can hit the floor, casting around in her mind for something to make for them.

By the time Zoey and Mira admit temporary defeat and carefully place Mira’s soul at rest next to Zoey’s, Rumi still isn’t sure what she’s going to do.

But once again, it comes far easier than she lets herself expect.

She’s not even really sure what she’s making until she sees it start to take shape in her palms - the familiar proportions, the wide staring eyes. There’s not much definition to the patterns in his fur, and she hasn’t got the teeth quite right, but it’s still unmistakably him.

It’s Derpy.

Zoey squeals a little beside her.

“Ohmygod, he’s so cute!”

Rumi laughs a little giddily. Feels Mira settle behind her, looking over her shoulder. He tingles in her palms, a running shock that never quite tips over into pain but does still suggest it. Not in a way she flinches from; more like a reminder that this is a vital part of her very being suddenly on the outside of her body, where it doesn’t belong, where it has no protection. She could get hurt like this - they all could.

The reminder only makes her all the surer.

Rumi holds her hands out and offers Zoey her soul.

Zoey takes it like it’s precious, like she can’t believe her hands are worthy of the honour. If Rumi had the words or the breath in her lungs, she’d tell her the honour’s all her own. A twin shudder runs through them both and Rumi no longer needs to try.

She doesn’t know what her soul feels like to Zoey - or Mira, when Zoey hands it over with the sort of reverence usually reserved for holy relics - but she can feel the way it pulses in their tender hands, how after the first shock of contact it relaxes into something that feels like safety and home.

She relaxes. Her whole body thrums with a sense of belonging so profound it steals the breath from her lungs - she’s glad she’s already sitting down, doesn’t think her knees can take her weight at the moment.

She has never been more vulnerable. She has never been more safe.

Her girls are just as affected. Zoey has to lean back on the couch beside Rumi and Mira sinks to her knees in front of them even before Rumi’s soul is handed over to her, eyes wide and awe-struck. They don’t have the words to speak.

They feel it when it starts to get too much for Rumi. She thinks she’d get used to it after a while but every tiny movement of their skin against her soul is a lightening strike to the core of her, sets her patterns pulsing wildly, her skin immediately oversensitive.

When Rumi’s breath starts to come a little too unsteadily, Mira strokes across the tiger’s back with one languid, indulging movement and Zoey leans down to kiss its little head, before they add it to the pile in the corner of the couch.

Their souls lean against each other for all the world like they’re made to do so.

Rumi collapses back into the cushions with a shaky sigh, Zoey right next to her. It takes Mira a moment to find the strength to pull herself off her knees and join them.

They’re quiet for a long while. It takes some time for the echoes of it to fade from Rumi’s limbs - to stop feeling the static-shock spark of her own soul, the deep and abiding pull of her girls’.

There’s something different about the three little creatures sitting on the end of the couch. Rumi can feel them humming away at the corner of her mind. Knows in some instinctive part of her that, while they’re not permanent - and shouldn’t be, the soul way too fragile a thing to live outside the body - they’ll last for a while longer at least. Maybe until their creators choose to dismiss them, like their Honmoon weapons.

She wonders if she can get more detail in Derpy’s patterns next time, fix those teeth.

Then thinks she shouldn’t bother.

Mira’s bird is a little crooked, feathers ill-defined. Zoey’s turtle is slightly uneven, head at a funny angle. They’re perfect.

She thinks - she lets herself think that maybe hers is, too.

Mira murmurs something unintelligible against Rumi’s shoulder.

Rumi runs her hand up Mira’s spine and hums a question.

“What time is it?” Mira asks, squinting up at her. Somewhere along the way she’s taken her glasses off - Rumi looks around until she sees them safely on table, out of the way.

“About four, I think,” Rumi guesses. She’s lost all track of time and can’t for the life of her remember where her phone is right now but the sun’s still bright outside. It’s well past lunch but not into evening.

Zoey shifts semi-reluctantly until she manages to pull her phone out of a pocket, confirms Rumi’s right.

“About twenty past,” Zoey nods. “Is anyone else hungry?”

Rumi laughs, then spots Mira’s face.

Mira doesn’t do the puppy-dog eyes very often at all - Rumi can count on one hand all past occasions. It’s just not her style.

And she’s not trying now, Rumi knows. That’s what makes it so devastating.

Rumi thinks she might burn the world down if Mira asks her to with that look on her face. For someone who’s entire life so far has been about duty, that thought shouldn’t come as easily as it does.

Fortunately, Mira’s eyes are asking for something a lot more achievable.

They’ve got a store of their favourite ramyeon in the cupboard.

She groans, playfully, and pulls herself up.

“All right, I get it,” she grins. “Ramyeon coming up.”

Mira moves like she’s going to get off the couch and help but Rumi pushes her back down, into Zoey’s waiting arms.

“I got it,” she smiles, tucking a few strands of hair back behind Mira’s ears. “Keep Zoey company for me?”

Mira snakes a hand around the back of Rumi’s head and pulls her in for a sweet, slow kiss. Then, in a manner which is becoming familiar, turns Rumi’s head to offer her to Zoey.

Zoey indulges without hesitation. Rumi’s chest feels like it’s swelling to the point of bursting when she is eventually allowed to pull back. Knows she’s grinning like an idiot, and doesn’t care in the slightest.

“Thanks!” Zoey says brightly, pats Rumi’s cheek.

Rumi blinks for a moment, then a laugh explodes out of her like every weight she’s ever carried lifting all at once.

She shakes her head, straightens up, and pads off to the kitchen still chuckling. Ramyeon to cook.

Her girls waiting on the couch, her laughter echoing back from them.

Their souls cuddled together in the corner - a little frisson she can’t forget but which has become so normal so quickly it’s almost strange to actively remember.

When the ramyeon’s ready she brings it over, settling on the other side of Mira and handing out their prize. Watches them dig in, indulgent, savouring the sight more than she savours her own food.

Zoey’s put something on the TV but Rumi doesn’t care what it is.

Her girls are the only thing she wants to watch.

Chapter Text

It’s only been a few days but it’s still far from the first time Rumi’s found herself in this position.

One moment carrying out some mundane small task around the penthouse, the next half-naked in a lap or sprawled on her back on the nearest flat surface, two mouths stealing away her breath and her thoughts, two pairs of hands rapidly reducing her to a quivering, panting mess.

This time they’re in Mira’s room. They’re just back from a trip to the grocery store, refilling their cupboards after using up the last of their ramyeon stores the night before, and Rumi’s been expecting this, to be honest. Mira and Zoey have been cooking up something between them all day; she’s caught them whispering close several times, felt the heat of their eyes on her as they do, and they haven’t even bothered pretending contrition each time. Just kissed her quick and cheeky, maybe grabbed a handful of ass (Zoey) and told her not to worry her pretty little mind about it.

So Rumi’s not surprised, this time, when the last of the perishables are put away, to feel someone’s hands on her hips pulling her away from the bags. She gives a token protest.

“The shopping!”

“Can wait,” Zoey’s voice rumbles into her neck, followed swiftly by teeth. They really do like leaving their mark on her. Rumi’s grateful for her collection of turtlenecks, suspects they’ll remain a staple part of her wardrobe even now her patterns are no longer a secret from the world. “We can’t. We’ve been waiting all day.”

“It’s like three o’clock!” Rumi laughs, but she’s following the pull of Zoey’s body. Lets herself be twisted round, guided hastily toward their bedrooms. She wonders where Mira is, what she’s up to.

“Exactly,” Zoey whines, right into her ear, sending a little shiver through Rumi’s body. “Forever.”

There’s nothing in her that doesn’t want this, want them, their hunger and their desire and their need for her. Her need for them sits under her skin, always, a low-burning ember that doesn’t take much at all to be kindled. The slightest hint that they want her too is enough to send it roaring.

Which is how she got to be here, in Mira’s room, on the edge of the bed with a topless, smirking Zoey in her lap.

Mira’s still nowhere to be seen. It would concern Rumi, except the only thing she can think about right now is getting her mouth on as much of Zoey as she can reach.

She tugs a nipple into her mouth, suckling with just the edge of teeth in the way she now knows Zoey likes best. Zoey moans above her, rolls her hips down into Rumi’s, one hand carding into Rumi’s hair. Takes hold of the top of her braid and uses it to keep Rumi firmly in place.

Not that Rumi wants to go anywhere right now. Zoey’s breasts are sensitive; Rumi switches back and forth between the hardened peaks, circling them with her tongue, sucking lightly, one hand coming up between them to play with whichever her mouth isn’t, and soon has Zoey panting into her hair, grinding down with increasingly erratic movements.

“Fuck, Rumi,” Zoey breathes. “You’re gonna kill me.”

“You started it,” Rumi mumbles, grins against the skin of her breast. Protests when Zoey tugs her away from that skin, though it’s swallowed by the hungry press of Zoey’s mouth on her own not a heartbeat later.

They separate when Rumi’s hands smooth down the expanse of Zoey’s back to toy with the hem of her leggings. Zoey shudders, sits back, and twists to call over her shoulder.

“Mira? You about ready, babe?”

There’s noise from Mira’s bathroom, the sound of someone shuffling, and then the door opens.

Mira walks into the room.

Rumi shuts down.

She’s entirely naked - which would be enough all on its own to short-circuit Rumi’s brain - save for a few black leather straps around her hips and upper thighs.

A harness.

For the -

They’ve talked about it before. Zoey brought it up just yesterday, late into a cozy evening, enjoying the way Rumi flustered but couldn’t hide her interest and the way Mira just smirked, raised one eyebrow, said it was certainly something that could be arranged.

“Oh, wow,” Zoey murmurs. Reaches back with one hand to beckon Mira closer.

The strap-on between Mira’s legs is almost the same colour as her hair. It’s - Rumi doesn’t really have anything to compare it to but it looks big. Certainly it’s bigger than the fingers she’s taken before.

Rumi’s aware her mouth is hanging open, aware she’s staring. Can’t get herself to stop doing either as Mira stalks forward, eyes knowing and a little amused. Knows her grip on Zoey’s waist must be tight enough to leave an impression but Zoey doesn’t seem to mind, or maybe not to even notice - especially when Mira leans down, catches Zoey’s chin, and pulls her into a deep kiss.

Zoey moans into Mira’s mouth, high and filthy. The heat she’d already stoked in Rumi’s belly roars; Rumi’s almost dizzy with it, torn between two suddenly emerging desires.

To find out what that thing between Mira’s legs would feel like inside her, and to watch Mira utterly wreck Zoey with her own evil little idea.

Zoey’s breathing hard when Mira pulls away. Rumi pushes her hands past her waistband to grab her ass and rock Zoey into her own body just to feel the way she shudders.

“God, Mira,” Zoey says with a shaky attempt at a laugh. “That’s so not fair.”

“You asked for it,” Mira smirks. “Don’t you want to put on a show for our girl?”

Zoey groans, laughs again, scrubs a hand across her face. Looks down at the way Rumi’s gaping between them and seems to regain some of the upper hand.

“What do you say, baby?” Zoey leans down to purr into Rumi’s ear. “Wanna see something good?”

“Oh yes please,” Rumi squeaks, entirely without her own consent. Blinks, and flushes in embarrassment. “Fuck. I mean -“

They both laugh at her, but it’s warm with affection and she can’t help but join in.

“Mira’s gonna show off for you, m’kay?” Zoey bites at Rumi’s earlobe. “Then she’s gonna show you. And you’re gonna be a good girl for her, right?”

Rumi squeaks involuntarily again, clamps her mouth shut and decides on non-verbal communication for now. Nods rapidly, arches up into Zoey in pursuit of her teasing mouth.

Zoey pushes her back with a smirk, then climbs off her lap. Rumi whines in protest but their hands are back on her before long, shifting her limbs, encouraging her into position. She follows, obedient and eager.  The rest of their clothes fall off along the way, thrown who knows where, the live-wire tingle of skin on skin the only thing in Rumi's head as they arrange her how they like.

Rumi settles herself against the pillows at the head of the bed, pulling Zoey in flush against her until she can feel the whole length of Zoey’s back pressed up against her front. There’s a lot of real estate in reach of both her hands and her mouth in this position, and Rumi doesn’t waste time. There’s a surge of confidence from the way Zoey’s tenses against her, clearly just as wound up as Rumi herself is.

She ghosts fingers up over Zoey’s ribs, across her chest, teasing at her breasts but never quite reaching where Zoey clearly wants them. Rumi’s mouth, however, shows no such restraint. She kisses and sucks and bites at every inch of skin she can get to, enjoying the way Zoey trembles in her arms, how she hisses at each nip of pain and whines at the pass of a soothing tongue.

Enjoying the way Mira, kneeling at the foot of the bed massaging lube along the length of her new cock, tracks each new mark Rumi leaves behind with unmistakable relish in her eyes.

Zoey reaches for Mira with the hint of a pout, spreading her legs in a way that feels more desperate than demanding. Rumi pauses her handiwork to hook her chin on Zoey’s shoulder and peer down the length of her body, to get a glimpse of the mess between Zoey’s legs - and it is a mess, thighs already glistening with the evidence of her rocketing arousal, the lube Mira sets to the side maybe not even necessary.

Rumi’s hips twitch, catching just the edge of friction where she’s pressed so tightly to Zoey’s back, a jolt shooting through her whole body. She’s about as far gone as Zoey is, presses her mouth to Zoey’s shoulder again to muffle a moan, wondering distantly how they’d managed to get so high so quick.

She eyes Mira’s cock with none of the apprehension she’d felt before. Now she wants it in her - wants Mira in her, fucking her, driving her higher and higher until this building coil of unbearable, exquisite tension in her belly finally snaps and she can find release around Mira’s cock, Mira over and around her taking everything she has to give. Wants to feel the way Mira would hold her hips steady to drive herself deeper, the way she’d pant and groan into Rumi’s ear as she chases her own pleasure on Rumi’s body, imagines it might even be enough for Mira to grind out her own release, coming inside Rumi, because of her, for her -

The only thing she wants more than that is to watch Mira take Zoey apart first, to watch their sweet little insatiable maknae open up for Mira’s cock, to see her writhe, to see her beg, to see her shatter -

Mira responds to Zoey’s summoning hand, crawling forward on the bed until she’s looming over them. Her cock looks even bigger at this angle, this distance. Rumi’s mouth waters, just a little. She needs to see that thing inside Zoey in the next two minutes or she’s going to explode.

Zoey seems to be in a similar state of mind. She reaches for Mira’s cock with determined, demanding fingers and tugs Mira forward with it - Mira chokes, just a little, but follows obediently.

Tries to keep the upper hand by grabbing Zoey’s thighs and tugging her down a bit, spreading her further open, exposing her soaked cunt to their eager eyes.

“Not feeling very patient today, Zo?” Mira teases. If her voice is kinda shaky, Rumi won’t mention it. She doesn’t think she could even talk, herself. “I thought you wanted to show off for Rumi?”

“Oh, I think she’s enjoying the view,” Zoey mutters, most of her attention on the way Mira’s cock ever-so-slowly drifts closer to where she needs it. “Aren’t you, baby?”

Rumi’s right - she can’t handle words right now. She whines into Zoey’s neck instead, then bites down - perhaps a little harder than she’d intended. The marks she leaves behind this time are pronounced, with just a hint of fang. She hadn’t even noticed those coming in.

Zoey lets out a noise Rumi’s never heard before - a deep, guttural, instinctual sort of noise that completely short-circuits Rumi’s brain, has her bucking up and gasping herself, pulling Zoey flush against her, every instinct in Rumi’s body screaming at her to do that again -

She holds herself back, a flicker of uncertainty as she eyes the mark. She hasn’t broken skin, thank goodness, but it looks like a close thing. Has she finally gone too far?

Zoey buries one hand in Rumi’s hair and tugs her head back down.

“Rumi,” she pants, raw and desperate, as close to out-of-control as Rumi’s ever heard her. “Fuck, Rumi, do that again -!”

Rumi’s eyes widen. She hadn’t been expecting that. But she is ever a thrall to her girls’ desires and presses her mouth back to Zoey’s shoulder, to a clear spot of skin, trying to recall the pressure and the starburst of slightly-embarrassed pleasure that had taken her last time.

Mira’s hand taps Rumi’s forehead, stopping her in her tracks. She looks up. Mira puts a hand under her chin and raises her head.

“Do that again,” Mira says, staring Rumi down, voice nothing short of commanding. “When I’m inside her.”

Rumi swallows thickly, body tingling with lightening, cunt clenching around nothing at the demand in Mira’s voice. Nods jerkily, sits back to wait her turn.

Zoey groans, hand leaving Rumi’s hair to scrub at her reddened face.

“You’re trying to kill me,” she says, a little disbelieving, a lot turned on. “You’re actually, literally, trying to commit murder via sex.”

Mira shuffles closer and Zoey’s entire body jerks off the mattress when the tip of her cock brushes over her folds. Mira takes the cock in one hand, the other keeping Zoey’s thighs spread wide, and smirks.

“Your idea, remember?”

Zoey opens one eye to glare back at Mira. “Not exactly what I was picturing.”

Mira shrugs one shoulder, lazy, entirely confident. Rumi would follow her into hell itself, naked and dripping. “Shoulda been clearer, then.”

Whatever Zoey might say to that is cut off as Mira, in one smooth and sure movement, lines her cock up with Zoey’s entrance and pushes inside.

Zoey gasps and jerks like all the air’s just been punched out of her body. Her grip on Rumi’s arm is vice-like and it’s taking a surprising amount of Rumi’s strength to hold her hips in place and keep her from bucking up so hard it knocks them all off-balance.

Mira’s smirk widens. She gives Zoey only a few moments to adjust.

“Doing okay there, babe?” She asks, smug. “Still think you can handle me?”

It takes Zoey a second but she does manage to open her eyes and meet Mira’s gaze. Her eyes are dark and desperate but she tips her chin up and grins, feral.

“Bring it on.”

Mira shifts, pushing Zoey’s thighs up and further apart, and does.

Her first few thrusts are slow and deep, easing her cock all the way in, bottoming out each time flush against Zoey’s hips in a way Rumi swears she can feel reverberating through to her own. Zoey meets each with a short little gasp, eyes fluttering shut again, arching up to meet Mira like-for-like.

Mira doesn’t let her relax into it. She picks up speed and strength, pulling Zoey’s body back to meet her every thrust, the sound of her cock moving in Zoey’s cunt loud and obscene in the room. Rumi can’t take her eyes away from sight of that cock disappearing into Zoey’s body, can’t think of anything but the way Zoey shudders and moans in her arms.

Wants to bite her again but knows she doesn’t have permission - not yet.

Mira is moving with what Rumi can only describe as focus - she’s not chasing her own pleasure, not drawing things out to watch Zoey squirm. This is intentional. Her eyes trace every little twitch and jerk, attentive to every cry and whine, studying Zoey’s every reaction like she’s a puzzle made just for Mira to solve.

There’s a shudder along Mira’s back every time she bottoms out, though, that tells Rumi she’s not as unaffected as that stare might suggest.

Zoey has given up every bit of the fight. She’s open and soft in Rumi’s arms, trusting Rumi to hold her up, keep her steady, as she arches helplessly into every thrust of Mira’s hips. A litany of moans and whines drips from her mouth, desperate gasping little pleas that sometimes sound like Mira’s name and sometimes like Rumi’s but mostly sound like pure unfiltered need teetering right on the verge.

“Mira!” Zoey’s breath punches out. “Oh god, fuck, Mira, please!”

Mira shifts, changes the angle of her hips, moves slower now but with a single-minded purpose that steals every bit of breath from Rumi’s lungs. She’s not sure how Zoey is even alive. Each thrust is calculated, deep and hard and devastating - the pitch of Zoey’s moans turns desperate, clawing, her chest heaving, hands white-knuckled where they grip Rumi’s arms.

She’s on the edge.

Mira makes eye contact. Nods. Rumi knows what to do.

She isn’t thinking, now, about angles and pressure and how far is too far. She’s thinking only about the way Zoey writhes and moans in her arms and the way Mira is looking at her, expectant, demanding, ravenous. She puts her teeth to the juncture of Zoey’s shoulder and neck and bites.

Zoey screams.

She’s thrashing in Rumi’s arms, so much so that Rumi has to ease the pressure on her shoulder to hold her in place, keeping her teeth where they are but grabbing hold of her hips to help steady her through it. Mira’s thrusts have gone short and shallow, by necessity Rumi thinks, can tell by the way Mira grunts and shudders that Zoey’s cunt is clenching down hard around her cock.

They ease her through it. Zoey’s entire body is trembling by the time Mira’s able to pull out, panting hard, boneless in Rumi’s arms and apparently not entirely conscious.

“I think you broke her,” Rumi whispers, nothing in her but awe at the way Zoey has collapsed into her, giving herself over entirely in this vulnerable moment. Even the deep, coiling heat in her belly is secondary to Zoey so soft in her arms - and the way Mira is looking at her too, with every ounce of tenderness Rumi feels in her eyes as well.

Mira brushes a couple strands of hair away from Zoey’s sweat-damp forehead and crawls forward to press a gentle kiss to her lips.

“You back with us, baby?”

Zoey groans.

Rumi laughs a little, nuzzles in. Reaches out for Mira to claim a kiss as well.

This one doesn’t stay gentle for long. Zoey might be out of commission but they’re both wound up tight - Rumi can feel the thrum of tension in Mira’s biceps when her hand trails down the skin there, admiring. Mira licks into Rumi’s mouth, possessive and hungry; Rumi whimpers in a way she’d find a little pathetic if she hadn’t been reminded of just how wet and needy she is.

Rumi kisses back, starving, pressing up into Mira as much as she can with Zoey still a dead weight in her lap.

It must wake Zoey up a bit because she puffs out something close to a laugh and tips herself sideways, collapsing into the mattress, eyes heavy but open and interested.

“I think I’m out of action for a while,” Zoey admits, voice hoarse. “But I wanna see whatever this is about to be.”

Mira pulls away, thumb caressing Rumi’s cheek when Rumi whines in protest. Smirks over at Zoey.

“You not gonna return the favour, then, Zo?”

“Oh, you’ll get yours,” Zoey mumbles half into the pillow. “When I can feel my legs again.”

Rumi whines again, more insistently, and pulls Mira back into her. Without Zoey in her lap she can shuffle forward, press her body into the length of Mira’s just as she presses her mouth against hers.

Feels Mira’s cock - still wet with Zoey’s pleasure - press into her stomach.

Just about combusts then and there.

Mira laughs.

“Okay, I get the picture.” She puts a hand on Rumi’s chest, pushes her steadily back into the mattress. “Patience is a virtue, love.”

Rumi pouts. “I’ve been very patient!”

Mira only laughs again, though Zoey mumbles something that might have been agreement. Rumi would protest but Mira’s not in the waiting mood either, it seems - she shuffles down, grabs Rumi by the hips, and shifts her bodily into place.

It sends another frisson of heat through Rumi, to be manhandled like this - moved into whatever position Mira wants her in, trusting Mira to have a purpose in mind that Rumi will enjoy. If it’s for Rumi’s pleasure or her own, Rumi doesn’t really care.

There’s tension in the way Mira holds her hips, the way she lines herself up. She’s about as wound up as Rumi herself, maybe more. The toy between her legs isn’t real but it must be providing some kind of feedback - with a closer look at it now, Rumi thinks that part of it must be inside Mira as well.

She has to be close. It’s this thought that dispels the last of Rumi’s nerves, her uncertainty over taking something this big for the first time. It’s Mira, after all. Mira would never do anything to hurt her.

Zoey’s pressed up against Rumi’s side, nuzzling in, tracing idle patterns over the skin of Rumi’s abdomen. It’s comforting. She wants to be surrounded by her girls.

She pulls Mira in until the taller girl is hovering over her, cock pressing into Rumi’s inner thigh, a lingering promise. Kisses her slow and deep. Pours every bit of love she can into the kiss - tries to tell her without words just how much she trusts her and how much she wants her.

Mira looks a little shaky when they pull apart, staring into Rumi’s eyes with a gaze that’s half hunger and half reverence.

“You don’t need to hold back,” Rumi whispers. Tucks a couple strands of hair behind Mira’s ear. “I want everything.”

Mira shudders. Rumi feels the tip of her cock pressing against her entrance.

She’s dripping wet - and Mira’s cock is still liberally coated in Zoey’s release. Rumi’s breath catches in her throat at the thought of Zoey’s pleasure mixing with her own inside her. Only wishes it was Mira’s, too.

Despite the permission, Mira takes it slow - seems to want to savour this moment as much as Rumi does. She pushes inside with care, holding Rumi’s gaze.

Rumi’s mouth falls open. The stretch isn’t painful - it’s more than she’s taken before, to be sure, but she’s had both of her girls’ fingers inside her many times by now and she’s more than wet, more than ready enough for this. It’s a steady bursting pleasure that spreads through her whole body.

Mira sinks deeper, patiently, eyes intent on Rumi’s own. Rumi threads one hand into her hair, holds her gaze, lets her exhale break into a moan as Mira’s hips finally still - all the way inside, now.

For a moment, they just stay there. The feeling of Mira buried deep inside, fuller than Rumi’s ever been, of Mira’s eyes boring into her own like she’s trying to hand over her heart. Zoey snuggled in on her right, pressing little kisses to every inch of skin she can reach. Rumi manages to get an arm around her waist and hold her even closer.

She’s surrounded by them. She could stay this way forever.

But the heat in her belly won’t be ignored for long. Mira moves slightly and it roars back to life, punching a moan from her chest.

Mira chuckles a little, and starts to move.

She’s deep, like this. Deeper than anything Rumi’s ever felt. The angle they settle into is obliterating, Mira’s slow thrusts scraping her raw, opening her up. She’s whimpering with every roll of Mira’s hips, thighs spreading further of their own accord, hand moving from Mira’s hair to claw at her back.

Mira keeps her pace slow but Rumi can feel the shake in the muscles along her back, the effort it’s taking her to maintain this level of control. The dildo must be moving against her just right - Rumi knows what Mira looks like, feels like, when she’s on the edge of breaking.

Wants to feel that, too.

“Mira,” she whines. “Mira, please. Baby, I want to feel you.”

Mira groans, hips stuttering. Rumi feels Zoey grin against her neck.

“Baby,” Zoey coos. “Rumi said she can take it. Don’t make our girl beg.”

Rumi arches up to kiss Mira, messy and desperate and filthy, and feels the moment Mira snaps.

It’s not like she was with Zoey - deliberate, focused, intent on utterly wrecking the girl beneath her. Mira burrows herself into Rumi like she wants to live inside her, like her mind and heart want to draw this out even while the rest of her body has another idea entirely.

Her hips snap into Rumi’s with undisguised need, fast and a little messy, responding on instinct alone to the way Rumi jerks and moans beneath her.

Finds another angle, another pace, that spells ruin for them both.

Rumi’s keening now, hips meeting every roll of Mira’s own, clutching tight to both her girls as she feels herself spiralling rapidly toward the edge. Lets her eyes fall closed as Mira buries her head in Rumi’s shoulder - the one Zoey’s not still sucking bruising marks into - and moans brokenly.

“God, you’re so beautiful,” Zoey murmurs into the skin of Rumi’s shoulder. Her soft words contrast with the way her teeth sink in and leave deep marks. “Both of you. I could watch you like this forever.”

Mira whimpers.

It’s enough.

Rumi shatters.

That little noise reverberates through her body until it meets the place where Mira’s cock is buried inside her and the earthquake at their meeting is ruinous. Rumi cries out, head tipping back, Zoey’s teeth immediately latching onto the new expanse of skin only heightening the orgasm crashing through her, dragging it out, rolling it on.

Her world is white, body swamped in near-suffocating pleasure - but through it all she still feels the moment Mira snaps too.

Mira’s hips stutter out of control, grinding her clit into the base of the toy, a litany of broken ragged moans falling from her open lips. She collapses forward, the weight of her suddenly-boneless body entirely on her girls below.

They welcome the weight, Rumi and Zoey both. Rumi manages to persuade one arm to wrap around Mira’s shoulders even as the weight of Mira still inside her sends little starbursts of pleasure ricocheting around her body, drawing out her own climax even further. Feels herself clench around the cock inside her like she never wants to let it go.

She can’t get her breathing under control. Mira’s faring no better on top of her. Zoey’s kissing and clutching at them both, murmuring praise and awe into their skin.

Rumi doesn’t know how long it takes until she comes back to herself. Mira shifts, pulls back and out of her body and she can’t help but whine at the loss. She reaches out with grabby, needy hands for Mira even as Mira wrestles herself out of the harness with uncoordinated, shaky fingers. She’s making the process harder but Mira doesn’t complain.

Falls back into Rumi and Zoey with a heavy, satiated sigh.

“So that was a great plan, then?” Zoey mumbles. She doesn’t seem to have recovered from her own orgasm yet, either, but there’s still smugness in her voice.

Mira bats at her absently.

“I did all the work!”

Rumi huffs a laugh.

“Aw, baby,” Zoey coos. “You need taking care of too?”

One of her hands starts wandering down toward Mira’s hips - Mira shudders and grabs it, halting her in her tracks.

“No,” Mira groans. “I can’t take anything more right now. I wanna go to sleep.”

Rumi opens her eyes, blearily, and casts a look out the window. The sun’s not even started to set.

“It’s barely five,” she says, slowly. “We shouldn’t go to sleep, we’ll be up before dawn.”

“Speak for yourself,” Mira mumbles.

Zoey seems to agree, though. Pats Mira’s hip and starts talking her own body into movement.

“We can collapse on the couch for a couple hours,” she suggests. “Watch something brain-dead. You can nap there if you still want.”

“We still have shopping to put away,” Rumi remembers, abruptly. Zoey stares at her. Rumi shrugs. “Or not.”

Honestly, she can’t bring herself to care.

“Can’t we watch something right here?” Mira whines.

“If we stay in bed, you’ll fall asleep properly,” Rumi pokes at Mira a little, just to see her stir. “And apart from anything else, this bed’s a mess.”

They’ve done it again - the sheets are snarled and tangled around them, a couple of the corners popping entirely free, and the spot Rumi’s lying in is noticeably damp. At this stage it’s almost becoming a routine, whenever they make it to a bed at least - leave one a mess behind them and migrate on shaky feet to the next, only to slink back in the next morning to put things to rights again.

They have a cleaning service but Rumi doesn’t feel exactly right about leaving such explicit evidence of their activities for someone else to tidy up.

Mira groans again but when they feel Zoey finally manage to roll away from them and sit up, she seems to admit defeat. Shuffles herself off their laps and achieves an upright position without too much trouble.

Zoey wraps an arm around Mira’s waist from behind and kisses her tenderly on the temple.

“You were amazing, baby,” she says with quiet reverence. “Come on, let us look after you a bit.”

Rumi nods in agreement, sitting herself up as well to kiss them both sweetly.

“You can pick the movie,” she says. “And we’ll get your snacks. Whatever you want. We can order in if you’d like.”

There’s a moment when Mira looks like she’s about to cry, but it passes quickly enough. Rumi gets it. The vulnerability in these moments has only been matched when they’re sitting with their little Honmoon creations cradled in their hands, aspects of their souls literally entrusted to each other’s care.

It’s more than Rumi has words for. She doesn’t need to try when they’re bound together by the Honmoon - can feel her girls’ love and trust and wonder in the palm of her hands, knows they can feel her own.

Right now though, she has to settle for what her body can do. She cradles Mira’s face, kisses her again, then pulls back to take her by the hands and help her stand, Zoey’s hands steady on Mira’s hips. Pressing every bit of the love she feels into their skin when she draws them close.

Mira smiles like the calm after the storm, and follows where they lead.

***

They do make it to the couch, in the end. Queue up a movie and dig through the snacks they’d bought earlier, still not tidied away. None of them have the energy for that right now and for once it doesn’t bother Rumi at all. Her body still buzzes but it’s not need anymore, it’s something close to peace - a deep, echoing satiation spreading through her marrow, washing away anything but the quiet contentment of this moment.

The rest of the shopping can wait until morning - the only thing that matters right now is curling up with her girls and letting the evening happen.

Their Honmoon creations are still piled together on one end of the couch. Rumi had been surprised to see them this morning and is even more surprised now, would have expected them to have faded out in the over-twenty-four hours it’s been - especially after all that. They’re still solid, though, glowing with that odd almost-blue iridescence, resting against each other like the most natural thing in the world.

Zoey’s giant turtle with Rumi’s slightly-wonky tiger and Mira’s exasperated-even-static magpie. If she concentrates she can feel it; the places where their souls press up against her own, where they merge at the edges just a little. It’s a different kind of warmth, something safe and steady, something sure.

It pulls her in. She reaches out and lets a hand trail over the shell of Zoey’s turtle, the wings of Mira’s bird. Feels their souls respond with a shudder, their actual bodies behind her shuddering too. Zoey’s sun and Mira’s ocean welcome her touch with an openness that still surprises her even now, handing her something so precious without so much as a flicker of hesitation or doubt. Like there’s nowhere in the world their souls will be safer than in her hands.

Even as she volunteers to be the one to fetch their snacks from the kitchen, making sure to pick up all of Mira’s particular favourites and slinging their softest blanket around her shoulders on the way back, she’s still thinking about the little soul-cuddle-pile in the corner. It occurs to her to wonder if that had anything to do with this afternoon - how easy it had been to kindle that fire, to reduce them all to a hungry, desperate mess.  If they've made a feedback loop of sorts out of their own desires.

But the puzzle can wait.

Rumi settles on the other side of Mira and Mira melts into her, burrowing close under the blanket Rumi wraps them all up in. She flicks through the options on the TV screen until she finds one of Mira’s old comfort movies, something they’ve all watched a thousand times but she knows her girl still loves. Mira makes a tiny, content noise into Rumi’s shoulder.

She hits play and they sink into a familiar, comfortable kind of quiet. Tangled up together under a warm blanket, snacks and drinks in easy reach, Rumi lets her brain switch off.

After a while, though, Rumi notices the way Zoey’s mind is ticking away quietly on the other side of Mira. Her eyes on their Honmoon creations, way more than on the movie. She nudges Zoey’s shoulder. Doesn’t need words to ask what she’s thinking.

Zoey hums. “Oh, just wondering,” she says. “What else we can do with the Honmoon now.”

Mira rubs lazily at Zoey’s knee. “More turtles? We’re gonna need a bigger penthouse.”

Zoey grins. It’s sharp, deadly. Sends a shiver up Rumi’s spine that she can’t quite identify - is it interest, or is it fear? Zoey with that look in her eye almost always spells trouble.

“Oh, I’ve got a few ideas.”

Chapter Text

They find out what Zoey’s planning just a few days later.

It’s exactly as devastating as Rumi feared.

Zoey suggests it like it’s - like it’s easy. Obvious. Like Rumi should have already been thinking about it as obsessively as Zoey, apparently, has been.

Rumi has not. It’s never occurred to her.

To take their new talent with the Honmoon and turn it into - into that.

A strap-on. A magic dildo. A magic cock.

Mira looks immediately intrigued. Rumi sputters and turns about as red as she’s ever managed.

It’s - they’re talking about their souls, here. Varying sizes of turtle notwithstanding, it’s a deeply intense, intimate thing. Holding a fragment of her girls’ souls in her hands, watching them hold hers - it’s almost too much for Rumi just sitting on the couch in her pajamas.

What would it feel like to have -

To have -

Fuck.

To have a bit of Mira or Zoey’s soul inside her?

While Rumi’s having a minor breakdown, Mira and Zoey are talking logistics.

***

The exact sequence of events that follows is somewhat blurry in Rumi’s mind.

She remembers Zoey and Mira gentling her out of her ‘do I want their souls inside me or will that literally actually physically kill me (and would I mind if it did)?’ spiral with soft reassurances and promises.

It’s new to them all. Zoey’s not certain it’ll actually work but she hasn’t been able to get it off her mind for the last few days, slipping out of bed in the middle of the night just to see if she can get the shape of it right, the feel of it even only in her hands. She shows Mira the beginnings of it with hands that want to tremble but hold themselves still.

Zoey’s put thought into this - and not just the carnal.

“I love you both so much,” Zoey says with eyes that are a little shy. “And I know you both love me too. I’ve felt it. And maybe that’ll be too much to have - inside. I won’t be upset if you don’t want to try. I just think it could be incredible.”

There’s no pressure here. They can try this tonight or next week or not at all. Rumi just gets a bit stuck on all the other ideas it brings to mind now that Zoey’s opened the floodgates.

She remembers telling them that yes, she does want to try. It’s just an awful lot to think about, especially when they’re sat on either side of her talking about whether the magic cock Zoey’s going to help Mira create should also go inside of Mira.

They tell her she doesn’t have to think about it; they’ll think for her. Zoey promises she’ll enjoy it. Rumi’s entire body clenches.

Yeah, okay, she’s into it.

Things seem to move very quickly from there.

Rumi’s not complaining. She’s just a little dizzy.

Because now she is naked on the bed next to an equally naked Zoey, both of them watching Mira, rapt, as she coaxes a brand-new appendage into existence between her thighs.

It’s been - some amount of time. Theoretical discussions and logistics somehow turned into a whole lot of kissing, Zoey and Mira passing Rumi back and forth between themselves until she was a spluttering mess and then pinning her down and making her watch them enjoy each other as well.

Which turned into hungrily stripping off each other’s clothes, only to then order her to sit and watch.

Mira’s hands are bathed in light. It’s intense, more intense than it’s been even with Turtle Derpy, Mira’s whole face narrowed in concentration. Rumi’s a little bit hypnotised by the furrow of her brow.

Mira gasps into the quiet air as the something between her hands begins to solidify.

The bright glow steadies into something softer, familiar in its easy intensity, an iridescent almost-blue that is reflected in the shine of Rumi’s patterns flaring almost in welcome. For a moment, all three girls just stare at what Mira has made, the thick length of it standing out from her hips proudly, waiting patiently for one of them to make the first move.

It’s hard to think. Rumi bites her lip. Zoey reaches forward, slowly, carefully, as if waiting for one of them to pull her back - but Mira’s eyes are wide and her jaw is slack and Rumi thinks Mira couldn’t move even if asked to and as for Rumi herself, well … this was Zoey’s idea. If she wants the first touch she should take it and Rumi - Rumi likes to watch.

Zoey’s fingertips skate along the length of Mira’s new cock, a barely-there flutter that nevertheless has a choked moan rising from Mira’s throat. Her hips twitch, just slightly, like she’s already fighting for control. Zoey looks up at her with that grin spreading across her face and if it makes Rumi want to bury her face in her hands and beg then god only knows what it’s doing to Mira, part of her creation apparently already buried inside her. Rumi’s surprised she’s still upright.

As Zoey’s fingers continue to tease, Mira seems to wrench herself out from the spell of it. Rumi remembers the intensity of having another’s fingers on your soul, how concentrating on breathing and staying standing at the same time was about all she could manage. Wonders if there’s something different about this manifestation, made for such a specific purpose, if the Honmoon’s responding to their intentions and not just their raw emotion - it’s either that or Mira’s got the sort of iron willpower that could topple gods.

Rumi wraps herself tight to Zoey’s side and rests her chin on her shoulder, watching Mira’s face intently as she grabs Zoey’s wrist and steps forward, other hand finding a place on Zoey’s bare thigh to push.

“Ready?” Mira says, going for confident, dominant, but not quite getting there. There’s a shiver in her voice and a glint in her eyes that Rumi reads easily.

It seems Zoey does too. She scoots back on the bed, tugging at Rumi’s arm wrapped around her waist until Rumi helps her lay back onto her elbows, Rumi curling into her side again to get the best view. Zoey spreads her legs even further in invitation and grins.

“Are you?”

Mira growls, just a little, in the back of her throat, and surges forward. One hand on her new cock, she drags it through the folds of Zoey’s already-dripping cunt with no further warning, a startled moan from her own mouth matching the pleased, almost smug one from Zoey’s.

All the talking - and the kissing - has clearly got Zoey wound up; she’s so wet it doesn’t take more than a couple short thrusts to coat Mira’s cock. That’s about all either have the patience for anyway, if the just-barely-controlled twitch of Mira’s hips is anything to go by. Rumi loves that she knows them like this, now, can tell from the play of muscles in Mira’s abdomen and the pitch of Zoey’s moans how close they are to losing control, giving up their little tug-of-war and just giving in. Loves that she gets to be part of this - that she gets to make them lose control like that and watch them lose themselves in each other, too.

It bursts warm in her chest but she can’t think about that sappy, hopelessly in love side of her right now because Mira is lining her glowing cock up with Zoey’s entrance and they’re both panting and moaning in concert with every little twitch and it’s much more important right now for Rumi to try and figure out what she most wants to look at - Mira’s face, warring between pleasure and control; Zoey’s grin still with that hint of ‘I told you so’ smugness at the corners of her lips, or the place where Mira’s cock is now disappearing into Zoey’s eager body.

Zoey hisses in the way that Rumi now knows means she is feeling - and loving - the slight burn of the stretch. Mira makes a choked-out sound, fingers gripping so tightly to Zoey’s hips she’s sure to leave marks. The cock slides inside Zoey’s pussy with little resistance, slow and steady, Mira watching Zoey’s face for any sign of discomfort even as her own breath catches and her thighs tremble.

It’s wrecking them both. Hell, it’s wrecking Rumi and she’s just watching, stretched out alongside Zoey looking down the length of her gorgeous body. There’s a moment when Mira bottoms out inside her, skin finally meeting skin, and the three of them just - freeze.

Zoey’s panting like she’s run a marathon. Rumi brushes a few strands of flyaway hair off her sweaty forehead and mouths at her neck, muttering nonsensical encouragements against her skin. Even she’s not sure what she’s saying, exactly. Zoey turns her head, eyes screwed shut, to nuzzle against her and whimpers.

It breaks Mira from the moment as well; she finally starts to move inside Zoey, still slow and careful. She’s breathing hard, locked tight, such a look of concentration on her face that Rumi just wants to grab her and kiss her but Zoey’s clinging to her arm now and she doesn’t want to tear away.

“I can - you’re - inside me,” Zoey mumbles. “Fuck, Mira, I can feel you - love you - god you’re so -!”

Words aren’t really working out for Zoey right now. Her hand is clenching and unclenching rhythmically on Rumi’s arm, clearly trying to ground herself and communicate something.

Mira’s not faring any better - her mouth moves around syllables that Rumi thinks might be ‘love you’ but that’s really an educated guess. Her head’s dipped, her eyes closed, every muscle in her long, lean body tense.

Rumi sympathises. It has to be a lot.

She decides not to help them.

“Fuck, Mira, you look so good,” Rumi says, only slightly surprised at how unsteady her voice sounds, the worlds tumbling out without further thought. “God, look, look at you inside her. You’re making her feel so good already.”

Zoey moans in agreement and rocks her hips up into Mira’s gentle thrusts, one hand tangled in Rumi’s hair and the other reaching down to grab at Mira’s wrist with the slightest flash of clarity in her eyes.

“You can go harder,” she pants. “I’m good, you won’t break me.”

Mira finally opens her eyes and looks up at them both properly and fuck fuck fuck she looks wrecked. Her pupils are blown as wide as Rumi’s ever seen them and her jaw - hell, her whole body - is trembling now.

“Not you I’m worried about,” Mira manages, flexing her fingers a little against Zoey’s hips even as her own keep working in slow, almost uncertain thrusts. “I can - fuck - I can feel you more than I thought I would.”

It takes a moment for the words to percolate through Rumi’s brain. Her jaw drops a little.

Zoey hauls herself up a little higher on her elbows, leaning on Rumi for support Rumi provides unthinkingly. She gapes at Mira for a moment.

“You can feel me?” she says in almost a whisper, something reverent edging into her voice.

“Yeah,” Mira grinds out. “I can really feel you. God, Zo, you’re so -“ Her voice cuts out with a snap of her hips that makes Zoey cry out.

A wicked grin spreads across Zoey’s face and in the next moment Mira grunts, and curses, and practically falls forward on top of her. Rumi can only guess that Zoey’s clenching deliberately around her and doesn’t know whether to be jealous or relieved that she’s not in Mira’s spot right now. Just the noise Mira made and the look on her face is enough to send a dizzying flash of heat through Rumi’s body and she wonders, not for the first time, if it’s possible to come just from watching.

“You’ll pay for that,” Mira grunts, though there’s no heat behind the words.

Zoey coos. “Aw, baby, you doin’ all right there?”

Rumi laughs. “Don’t think she’ll last much longer if you keep doing that, babe.”

“Fuck off.” Mira hauls herself upright, new intent in her eyes, but is stopped by Zoey’s hands around her wrists. That grin is back on Zoey’s face, a glint in her eye that sets Rumi’s heart racing.

“Mm, baby, can you be patient a little longer?” She bats her lashes. “I think I wanna ride you.”

Mira stops working for a second. Rumi would laugh aloud but it gets caught in her throat as her own brain hard reboots as well. She buries her face in Zoey’s neck and groans.

Mira nods rapidly, her words gone now. It’s really something to see her like this, eager and fumbling and letting the two of them - Zoey, mostly - maneuver her into position, coaxing her along with gentle words of encouragement. Mira whimpers when her cock slips out of Zoey’s cunt but Rumi kisses her hot and deep to distract her and then Zoey is pulling her in too -

Somehow, they get themselves into position with Rumi leaning up against the headboard, Mira cradled between her thighs with her back pressed firmly to Rumi’s front, feeling every twitch and tremble in the muscles there as Zoey slowly, languidly, crawls back on top of her.

Rumi rests her chin on Mira’s shoulder for a better view as Mira grabs onto Zoey’s hips again, like a lifeline. Zoey steadies herself against Mira’s other shoulder, reaches down to line up her cock, and sinks down with none of the care and control Mira had shown.

Watching them in this moment is something close to holy. Rumi still doesn’t understand how she gets to be here, with these girls, not only watching so intimate and incredible a moment but also part of it, intrinsic to it, steadying Mira as her moan twines with Zoey’s in the kind of chorus they’ll never be able to capture in their music.

For once, though, she’s not interested in questioning it. Her girls are right here in front of her; she can feel the muscles in Mira’s back working as she begins to thrust up into Zoey, matching the somewhat frantic pace the younger girl is setting as she grinds down on the length of Mira’s glowing cock.

“Fuck, Mira, you’re so deep,” Zoey mumbles, the words blurring into each other, panting heavily as she keeps moving, chasing her pleasure and Mira’s both. “Feel so good inside me, baby, fuck.”

Mira groans, knuckles white at Zoey’s waist, head tipped back on Rumi’s shoulder. Rumi mouths at her neck, sucking hard enough to leave a mark, dragging another moan from Mira’s throat. She bites at Mira’s ear.

“You’re doing so good, Mira,” Rumi husks. She doesn’t quite know where the words are coming from - she’s not usually so bold - but she likes the way Mira responds to them, shuddering against her. “Look at her, look at Zoey."

Mira obeys. Rumi doesn’t have the best view of her face but knows it’s mirrored in Zoey’s - pupil’s blown wide, wild, desperate. Neither of them are going to last long like this.

“You’re making her feel so good, Mira.” Rumi bites again.

“Fuck, Mira, yes, like that,” Zoey agrees, moving faster now, uncoordinated, jerky - her lovely voice is high and tight and Rumi knows she’s close, so close -

“Do you feel good, Mira?” Rumi asks. “Does Zoey feel good wrapped around your cock?”

Mira chokes, nods frantically, moves harder, faster. “Fuck, Zo - Rumi - Zoey - I -!”

“Gonna come for us, Mira?” Rumi’s voice is low, deadly, her eyes fixed on Zoey trembling at the edge. “Gonna come inside our girl?”

She reaches a hand around Mira to thumb at Zoey’s clit - the angle is awkward and Zoey’s moving so uncontrolled that it’s hard to keep up, but even that much is enough. With a keening cry, her head thrown back, whole body shuddering, Zoey comes around Mira’s cock - and Mira follows her, thrusting up wildly, gasping and crying out what’s probably their names on loop but can’t quite be called coherent.

Fuck, it’s something else, seeing them like that. Rumi’s wound as tight as she’s ever been, hips twitching against Mira’s back, searching frantically for some kind of friction, but she never wants this moment to end - her girls lost in each other’s pleasure, wrapped around each other, their voices as they reach their climax the only song she wants to hear for the rest of her life. If this is her last moment on earth, Rumi would go out happy.

It takes a while for Zoey and Mira to come down. Zoey slumps, boneless, against Mira, and Rumi’s suddenly supporting the combined weight of them both as Mira sags, too. She wraps her arms around them as best as she can, pressing soothing kisses into Mira’s neck and shoulders, one hand rubbing gently at Zoey’s back, covering every inch of skin she can reach and murmuring quiet nonsense to them as they recover. It’s beautiful. They’re beautiful.

Eventually, Zoey pulls away with a soft laugh.

“God, that was -“

“Yeah,” Mira agrees, eyes still closed, still breathing heavy.

“Mira, you’re inside me,” Zoey breathes out. “I can feel everything.”

Rumi knows they’re not just talking about the physical, here. There’s a piece of Mira’s soul buried inside Zoey’s body, deep as it can get. The thought of it’s enough to fry every neuron Rumi has.

Mira just shudders. Drops her head forward to rest on Zoey’s heaving chest.

“Love you,” she whispers, quiet and bare. Zoey drops her head on top of Mira’s and echoes the words.

“You were incredible.” Rumi tells them, soft, reverent. Mira twists her head to kiss her on the lips, though she doesn’t seem to have the energy for more than a quick peck. Rumi laughs slightly, until Zoey leans forward to follow suit with something hotter, dirtier, and distinctly promising.

With a groan, Zoey lifts herself off Mira’s cock and slumps to her side, burying her face in the pillows. They both shudder at the parting, curling toward each other like physical closeness could patch over the loss of one’s soul buried inside the other.

“Just - give me a sec,” Zoey says with a little laugh. “I’m not done yet.”

“I might be,” Mira groans.

Rumi’s eyes find Mira’s cock, still standing proud between her legs, now covered in a considerable amount of slick wetness. Something pings in the back of her mind, an instinct, a want, and she has no idea where it came from - she’s only done this once before, and only briefly - but she follows the call without hesitation.

Carefully, Rumi slips out from behind Mira and lowers her to rest against the pillows. Zoey snuggles into her side, but where Mira has her eyes still tightly closed Zoey’s follow Rumi with curiosity as she shuffles her way down the bed and lowers herself until she’s eye-level with Mira’s cock.

It’s big; thicker and longer than the strap Mira’s used on her before. Mira’s own creation - made with Zoey’s pleasure in mind. The gentle blue glow is a little distorted through the mess now coating it and Rumi wonders -

She licks her lips, then moves forward and licks a long, bold stripe up the length of the cock, base to tip, gathering as much of that wetness on her tongue as she can. Mira spasms beneath her, arms flailing just slightly, a choked noise breaking from her throat.

“Rumi -!”

Rumi does it again. Zoey shoots upright, eyes laser-focused on the way Rumi’s mouth hovers now just centimetres away from Mira’s cock, a thin trail of saliva and slick still connecting her bottom lip to the tip of it. Mira buries her face in her hands.

“You’ll kill me,” she states, but there’s a whine in it that Rumi recognises. She steels herself and moves back in.

This time, she wraps her lips around the tip of the cock and sinks down, just a few inches at first, learning the sensation. Mira moans, high and strangled. She savours the taste on her tongue.

Savours the way Mira’s souls greets her touch with a thrum of joy, a wave of love unclouded and sweet. It’s different to how it’s been with their other creations, the ocean that is Mira turbulent now with her desire and pleasure, but it still sings out a welcome Rumi can feel in the marrow of her.

She can feel the reverberations of Mira’s pleasure through the length in her mouth, too, the way it’s almost too-much, almost too-good. Mira’s soul is pulsing under her tongue. If Rumi thinks about that too hard she might lose her mind so instead she focuses on the taste lighting up her mouth.

Familiar. She knows what both her girls taste like now - and isn’t that a fucking thought - intimately, Mira a little stronger, Zoey a little sweeter. She could tell them apart at the first taste - and she knows what they taste like together.

Rumi hums in thought and sinks down again, taking Mira’s cock a little further, feeling the twitch of her hips under her hands, then pops up to look at both her girls.

“Mira, I think you really did come inside her,” Rumi says, with wonder in her voice.

Mira peeks out from between her fingers and mumbles something that might have been ‘what?’

Rumi shrugs. “Tastes like both of you.”

She doesn’t really want to talk about the implications and the hows of that. She wants more of that taste on her tongue, more of the way Mira’s cock twitches in her mouth and her hips jump beneath her hands, more of the way she whimpers and gasps. Rumi sinks back down and takes Mira back into her mouth without another word.

One of Mira’s hands comes down to rest gently on the back of her head. Rumi looks up at her from beneath her lashes, thrilled at the utterly wrecked look on Mira’s face. Zoey’s not much better. She’s got one hand back between her legs and even as Rumi watches, Zoey brings two soaked fingers up to her mouth and licks them clean, slow and savouring. Rumi shudders and moves faster.

“I think she’s right, babe,” Zoey grins. “I can taste you in me.”

Mira’s hips surge up. It’s a little surprising but Rumi loves it, moans loud and unabashedly at the thrust. Mira’s gasping now, fighting her own body back under control, a battle Rumi does not want her to win.

Zoey’s hand covers Mira’s in Rumi’s hair.

“Don’t hold back,” she whispers, intent, urgent. “Rumi can take it. She wants to take it. Right, Ru?”

Rumi doesn’t want to stop long enough to answer but makes the clearest affirmative noise she can manage with most of Mira’s length down her throat. For a moment she thinks Mira might keep holding back but then her grip in Rumi’s hair tightens and her hips begin to move again, not in the controlled and careful way she’d used last time with the strap but jerky, desperate, already on the edge again, moaning near constantly in between gasping, shuddering breaths.

It’s making Rumi feel insane, in the best way, this woman coming apart beneath her mouth. She tries to move in counterpoint to Mira’s thrusts, giving her what she needs, what her body’s asking for, thrilled by the pulse of her cock under her tongue and the desperate, needy noises falling from her mouth. Zoey’s on her other side, one hand still covering Mira’s in Rumi’s hair, the other on Rumi’s back, words falling from her lips that would usually leave Rumi flaming red and hiding her face but now only spur her on -

“That’s it, good girl, Rumi you’re doing so good for Mira, aren’t you? Isn’t she so good for you, Mira?”

A strangled grunt.

“Fuck, she looks so pretty sucking your cock, Mira, look at her. Look at our girl.”

Mira’s eyes meet Rumi’s, just for a moment, before the sight seems to overwhelm Mira and she has to screw them shut again. Zoey laughs.

“You gonna come for us again, baby? You gonna come in Rumi’s mouth? I know she wants to taste you.”

Everything in Mira’s body goes taut and Rumi knows what’s coming. She braces herself - she wants to take everything Mira has to give.

“That’s right, Mira, you’re so good, you’re so hot, come in Rumi’s mouth for me, please Mira -“ Zoey sounds almost as wrecked as Mira does, now. Rumi wonders if she’s touching herself but doesn’t want to take her eyes off Mira, waiting for the inevitable moment -

Mira comes hard in her mouth, hips arching up off the bed, a half-scream caught in her throat. Her fingers tighten almost painfully in Rumi’s hair but Rumi hardly notices. Her mouth is flooded with the taste of Mira, a flood that comes, she thinks - as well as she can think right now - not from the tip but from the length of it, a burst that escapes from the corners of her lips even as she does her best to swallow it all down.

When Mira’s cock finishes twitching against her tongue and her hips still, Rumi sits up. Her face is smeared with the evidence of Mira’s pleasure and she’s panting a little, lungs she hadn’t quite realised were being starved of oxygen heaving to catch up.

Mira’s gone. She is as utterly spent and relaxed as Rumi’s ever seen her, whole body covered with a light sheen of sweat, one arm thrown haphazardly over her face as though even the dimmed overhead light is too much right now. She’s breathing so heavy she’s practically arching up off the bed with every gasp.

“Aw, baby, you good there?” Zoey laughs, petting at Mira’s head. Mira grunts, whines, nods once, doesn’t move another inch. “I think you broke her.”

“You started it,” Rumi grins. Her whole body is a live wire; she’s never been this painfully turned on in all her life, but if her girls wanted to just sit in this moment forever she’d be good with that too. She already feels like she’s flying.

Zoey, clearly, has other plans. She lurches across the bed, across Mira’s prone body, to drag Rumi into a deep, messy kiss. Zoey moans into Rumi’s mouth, hot and dirty, at the taste there.

“And I’ll finish it,” she says when she pulls back. “I think you deserve a reward for all that hard work, baby. What do you think, Mira?”

Mira whimpers. “I don’t think I can move, Zo.”

Zoey laughs, ducks down to peck her quickly on the lips. “Don’t you worry. I’ll take care of our girl.”

Mira takes it as permission to let the cock between her legs fade out of existence, groaning in something that might have been relief, finally shifting her arm above her head to look at them.

“What’re you up to now?” she asks blearily.

That grin again. “Taking my turn,” Zoey says with a shrug. She stands, manhandles a surprised but more-than-willing Rumi until she’s laying on her back, head resting on Mira’s spread thighs, watching as Zoey looms over them both.

“You were so good for Mira, Rumi,” Zoey takes hold of Rumi’s chin and swipes a thumb along her swollen bottom lip. “Can you be good for me, too? Can you take me?”

Rumi nods frantically. “God, yes, Zoey, - please, anything -“

Zoey giggles. With another gesture, she twines the threads of the Honmoon around her fingers and twists, shapes, until her newest creation stands proud between her own legs.

Zoey’s cock is different than Mira’s. It’s the same soft almost-blue, iridescent like the Honmoon, like Rumi’s patterns flickering in time with it. But it’s a little shorter, a little thinner - still bigger than the strap they’ve used on Rumi in the past but not by much. Just enough to make it interesting.

Rumi’s whole body throbs. This is Zoey’s cock - made for Rumi.

Zoey drags the very tip of it against Rumi’s folds. She’s so wet there’s no friction to speak of. Feels the first tingle of Zoey’s soul brushing her own. “Anything, baby?”

“Anything,” Rumi pleads, the raw desperation in her voice a little embarrassing. Or it would be, if Rumi was aware of anything but the faint pressure of that cock against her cunt and the sight of Zoey between her legs, so confident, so sure of herself, of her ability to wreck Rumi that Rumi knows she can do nothing other than allow herself to be wrecked.

Zoey’s hands find her thighs, push them up and apart until Rumi is completely spread beneath her.

Then, with one smooth and devastating thrust, Zoey buries her cock all the way inside Rumi until her hips are flush against Rumi’s thighs and Rumi’s entire world goes white.

She knows she’s making some sort of sound, but she can’t tell what it is. She’s full - fuller than she’s ever been, and she can feel every pulse and twitch of that cock in her pussy, feel Zoey as she shudders inside her.

God, fuck, Zoey’s inside her.

Zoey’s soul is inside her.

Rumi keens, forces her eyes open to get a look at Zoey’s face. She wants to know that Zoey feels this as much as she does, that she’s just as affected at being inside Rumi as Rumi is at Zoey inside her.

She doesn’t have to wonder long. Zoey’s eyes are open, fixed on Rumi’s face, her jaw slack, gasping. There’s wonder in her eyes, awe, so much that Rumi feels herself flush from head to toe. She can feel it in the way Zoey’s cock twitches inside her, how Zoey is now utterly consumed by Rumi’s body.

Can feel the way Zoey loves her like there’s a direct line straight to her heart.

It’s on the verge of overwhelming but it’s tempered by the physical, the real-world grounding of Zoey’s cock stretching her open, the way she’s never felt fuller, never felt anything deeper. Every time she thinks she’s about to get lost in it, Zoey moves and drags her back down to earth. The slightest twitch sends a pulse of pure pleasure rolling through her and Rumi can almost pinpoint the moment when the way that Zoey loves her settles in, makes itself at home, and cedes the floor to the way that Zoey fucks her.

“Zoey, fuck, please -“ Rumi’s not sure exactly what she’s asking for, but Zoey gives it to her anyway. After the first indulgence of feeling, Zoey adapts quickly and begins to move inside Rumi with a singular, devastating focus.

Each thrust is deep and hard and perfect, forcing the breath from Rumi’s lungs, making her sob, hands clawing at the sheets - literally, she thinks vaguely, distantly, she thinks her claws have come out. It’s a shockwave through her each time and she builds quickly, viciously, her body completely out of her mind’s control. Her hips buck up into each of Zoey’s thrusts, helpless, entirely at the mercy of instinct and pleasure.

“Gonna - Zoey - I can’t -!”

“Don’t have to,” Zoey pants, hoarse, as ruined as Rumi; it sends another shock of heat spiralling through to Rumi’s core and she really really won’t last much longer now -

Mira’s hands tangle in her hair. “You’ve been so good, Rumi,” Mira tells her, her own voice still unsteady, clearly affected. “So good for us. Let Zoey make you feel good too. Come on her cock.”

And Rumi does - she comes with a scream she’s distantly worried about, something deep and primal torn from her throat without thought behind it. Her whole body locks up, clenches around the perfect intrusion in her cunt, spasms and shudders until everything but the tidal wave of pleasure rolling through her is gone gone gone - until all she is is this moment, Mira’s hands in her hair and voice in her ears, Zoey’s fingers digging into her thighs and her cock still pounding deep inside, urging the wave on, keeping it rolling.

When the shocks finally begin to fade, Rumi forces her eyes open. Zoey’s face is above her and she can see the desperation in her eyes, in every line of her face - but Zoey’s slowing, calming her movements, gentling Rumi through her climax.

Rumi doesn’t want that. She wrestles back control of her limbs just enough to wrap her legs around Zoey’s back, keeping her deep inside, urging her on.

“Don’t stop,” she pants. “Fuck, Zo, don’t stop. Want you to come inside me.”

“Yeah?” Zoey shifts slightly, and her next thrust hits even deeper. Rumi sobs.

“I can take it, Zo, please - use me, come inside me, Zoey please-“

Rumi sees it, the moment when any last vestiges of Zoey’s control snaps. It’s mesmerising. Zoey’s sweet, cheeky face contorts into something like a snarl, something feral and wild and absolutely delicious as she shoves at Rumi’s legs until she’s bent almost double on herself, utterly exposed, Rumi’s cunt clenching wildly as Zoey’s thrusts resume.

Harder, deeper, faster, more. Permission given, Zoey’s chasing her own pleasure now, rutting into Rumi like it’s her only purpose in life, her cock pulsing with every thrust, stretching Rumi’s eager cunt, her slick pleasure easing the way. Watching Zoey like this, losing control, burying herself in Rumi’s body over and over again, her desperate panting moans, the hard press of her fingers, the way her muscles move and breasts bounce with every thrust, it’s incredible, it’s the best thing that Rumi’s ever seen, and she’d want nothing more than to watch her Zoey like this for the rest of their lives except -

Except Zoey’s pace and her cock and her hands and the way she’s looking at Rumi with eyes clouded over with lust and love and awe is ratcheting that tension back up inside Rumi at an alarming rate. Her own pleasure starbursts behind her eyes; she can barely keep them open, can barely remember to breathe, desperate little whines escaping from her throat with every movement, her back arching, body reaching once more for that peak. Zoey’s close, Rumi’s not far behind even though that seems impossible so soon after the first shattering climax but she doesn’t want this to end and she doesn’t want to miss a moment.

Behind her, Mira curses, one hand still petting at Rumi’s hair. She contorts herself some which way, bending around so she can get her mouth on Rumi’s, kiss the cries from her lips, and her other hand sneaks its way down the length of Rumi’s body until it finds her swollen, aching clit.

Mira’s murmuring nonsense in her ear and circling her clit with a steady, sure thumb, and Zoey’s hips are stuttering now, thrusts uncoordinated and blinding and she feels it, the moment Zoey snaps, the moment her hips buck once, twice, then still as she comes inside Rumi, feels her pleasure flooding in and out and Rumi snaps too, silently this time, every muscle in her body locking up as her back arches and Zoey collapses on top of her, trapping Mira’s hand between their bodies, all three of them trembling together as the white-out world Rumi’s floating in slowly, slowly comes back to reality.

Mira’s still murmuring quiet nonsense to the two of them, how good they are, how beautiful, how incredible, how she loves them, how she loves them so much, how Rumi did so well and Zoey did so well, and they’re perfect and they’re her girls and -

Zoey groans on top of her, her smaller body somehow feeling like it’s pressing Rumi right into the mattress. Maybe it’s the leaden weight in her limbs. She can’t fathom moving right now but Zoey stirs a little on top of her, shifting Mira’s hand against her oversensitive clit, shifting Zoey’s cock inside her oversensitive cunt, and Rumi sobs pathetically between them.

With gentle reassuring noises, Zoey pulls out and slumps to the other side of Rumi. Mira’s pressed to her right, sandwiching Rumi between them while all three try to get their breathing under control. Rumi tries opening her eyes, wants to see her girls’ faces in these moments of exhausted bliss, but her vision is blurry and she gives up quickly. Just squirms until she has her hands on both of them, until she’s in contact with as much skin as is physically possible without moving the rest of her body, and listens to them breathe.

They calm slowly. It’s - almost peaceful. She wouldn’t have thought peace would be possible in the immediate aftermath of what they’ve just done together, but that’s the closest word to describe what she’s feeling.

She’s going to be coming down from this one for a while. She’s had her girls’ souls inside her body, watched as they buried themselves inside each other. Her mind still can’t quite seem to wrap around it. How it had felt to have them thrumming inside her, so real and so alive, the echo of how they were feeling wrapped around her feeding back to her own desire.

She can still feel the echoes - not just of their orgasms but of their love - in her very bones.

She hadn’t really been able to think about it in the moment. She’d taken both Mira and Zoey into her, in different ways, held them within her own body as though it’s what her body was built to do. There was a moment with both, where the tidal wave of love that always swamped her whenever she touched their souls, made her teary and weak at the knees, simply settled down into something calmer and easier to hold.

It felt like - recognition. Like - Oh. Hello there. I know you. Like this is where I belong.

Rumi feels it sink deep, latch in.

It’s quiet. The only sound is that of her girls breathing on either side of her, slow and deep and so achingly familiar.

It hits Rumi then.

This is forever.

The worst’s already happened, hasn’t it? Her girls learned the truth of her, found out every secret she’s been hiding. And they faltered, sure - of course they did, they were only human, how could she possibly hold that against them? - but they got back up again. They came when she sang.

Kept coming. Every truth brought to light, every painful confession, every conversation they didn’t have the words for but made it through anyway. Every step taken together, burning away a bit more of the darkness that clung to her - to them all, really.

They all had secrets, they all had shame. They’d all spent their lives so far pretending, in one way or another.

They didn’t have to do that anymore.

Not here - in their home, in their bed, in this tangle of blissed-out, sleep-heavy limbs. There was nothing left between them now but truth.

As it turns out, this truth’s been there all along.

She loves them.

They love her.

They have handed her their very souls and cradled her own in return. Found heights of pleasure in each other that Rumi had never dreamed existed. Come back down to rest in her arms, safe and sure.

Rumi’s eyes drift closed. The gentle rhythm of her girls’ breathing lulls her to sleep. It’s the easiest thing in the world to let go.

She’s home.