Chapter Text
It takes a second to move beyond reaction. Beyond don’t and no into this isn’t about you. Because it isn’t. Mika’s frightened, and she’s right to be. She needs a friend, not…
She’s warm, all floral scented hair, familiar in a way it has no business being, fitting under Jules’ arm in a wash of yes that soothes a day of coiling tension gradually into background, its hot little kernel of what the hell have I done wrong dissolving under the relief of just holding her. Being here. Mika feels like home, even when she’s saying…
Only she isn’t, really. Jules had been primed for no, and that’s what she’d heard. I can’t start anything new. Only it isn’t. New. Whatever it is or might be or could maybe become, Jules has been here forever. Is never not going to be here, in this moment, doing this. Mika’s so hesitant of asking for help, of expecting it as a possibility, even when she trusts you. Even when she needs it. So the fact that she just has, is…
The message isn’t I don’t want you. Not really. It’s I can’t make space for you, devote resources to you, promise you anything I can’t make real right now. Because of course she can’t, she’s already drowning without that weight of expectation. She’d never pretend otherwise. Not here, like this. It’s fair. It’s sensible. And it isn’t going to fly.
Help me. People ask it all day. Always have. Only they aren’t surprised when the answer is yes, because somehow in Jules’ life that part has always been a given. Until now. Mika doesn’t expect, doesn’t know, just please understand. The vulnerability in it stings, and Jules squeezes her closer, remembering half a breath away that friend means not kissing her hair, not breathing her in as if she could pull the grief loose. Not grasping up a burden she’s been warned shouldn’t be hers in case she ends up adding to it, in whatever selfish increment, then thrusting the whole thing right on back. She has to be sure before she can ever wager…
Only she is sure. Has been, forever, since – It’s been weeks, realistically. Months, at a push. What does she even – this has long gone beyond I need you to make time for me. Jules has never been here, not here here, like this, but she’s not going to be jealous of a dying sister. Of a family in crisis leaning on their whip-smart daughter. She’s been there, in much less awful, terrifying ways. This isn’t about her. She isn’t going to mind absences, or snapping, or rage, she won’t pout at a lack of date nights -of any nights- the way she might have been considering, some time, earlier. Before Mika had flicked that so smartly away. This morning…
None of it matters. It never has, it never will, because it so manifestly isn’t the point of this thing. She doesn’t need manufactured romance in some normatively predetermined three act structure to want this, to love her – Wow. That one had come out of nowhere.
Only it hadn’t, really. It’s always been there, this unmown blade rising unnoticed to fan out a flower, reaching into the sunshine until its unspoken pollen is stinging her eyes until they water.
“I will always be here for this.”
All of it, whatever the deal is, as sure as she's ever been certain of anything. There doesn’t have to be guilt involved in pulling Mika closer, in smoothing her hair back, or drying her face, or taking her hands in an acupressure placebo that’s really just holding. Centering. Being there. I love you.
She doesn’t say it, because fear is complicated and pressure is malleable and there’s a little part of her, somewhere, that shrinks from the image of not having it said back. But it’s there all around them in pink-filtered focus, stretching into the future. Reaching into the past.
It’s the equals sign to the entire equation - just as it is, without any embellishment.
The fact that you’re letting me is all I need back.