Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Even after their feet touched the ground, the three of them still felt like they were flying for a few seconds more.

It wasn’t just the thunderous applause, louder than they had ever heard it before. It wasn’t just the new Honmoon either, more than golden and so strong that they could feel it in their veins. No. The strongest bliss came from the feeling of their intertwined hands.

That alone wasn’t entirely new. In fact, it was the usual. But after coming so close to losing it, to losing each other, they didn’t take it for granted. They were in awe of their connection as if it were the very first time they got through a song together.

For a minute more, they let the roaring of the crowd and the hum of the Honmoon wash over them. They could hardly hold back their smiles. Even less so when they were finally able to look away from the starstruck faces of the audience and started to exchange tentative yet giddy smiles with each other. 

Eventually, and unsurprisingly, Zoey was the first one to try to break the silence between them. It was a wonder that Rumi and Mira could hear her at all.

“Um… Guys?” she said, doing her best to keep up her smile for the crowd.

“Yes, Zoey?” Rumi replied, still feeling a little bit out of sorts after the high of their last battle and performance.

“What… What do we do now?”

Her joy didn’t leave her expression, but she did finally turn her face to look directly at the two girls she’d been looking up to for so many years now. It was part of the routine, it was another comfort… And yet it was also the first brick against the delicate wall of hope that Rumi put up over the memories of everything that went wrong.

Rumi understood that she was meant to be their leader, she knew it was up to her to answer first, and she did feel the impulse to do exactly that. It still came naturally to her, to some extent. But it would’ve been impossible to hide the fear and the doubt in her voice when she replied.

“We can go home now,” Rumi said.

It still kind of sounded like a question.

She could get through the unlikely miracle of accepting herself, all of it, and she could defeat unspeakable evils. But as the adrenaline of the fight started to settle down, new doubts resurfaced. Rumi was hopeful. She remembered how her girls looked at her, and how they felt in her arms, how they fought side by side, and even in that moment, how their hands still grasped her so tightly, patterns and all. But there was doubt, always lurking in the corners of her mind. If her suggestion was to be turned down…

“Yeah,” Mira said, mercifully interrupting Rumi’s trainwreck of thoughts as if she could read her mind, which she most likely could do, actually, at least on some level. “Let’s go home.”

In a way, Mira saying it out loud turned those into the magic words that made it all feel real and achievable. It prompted them to move toward each other in a brand new hug, which, in turn, made the crowd cheer for them a little louder with renewed energy. Only because they were now even closer together, they managed to hear Zoey.

“Okay, but like… How?” she asked. “I mean, how did we even get here, and how do we get off stage, and can we fly now? Can we fly home? Guys, do you think we can-”

“Okay,” Rumi laughed and took a step back to smile at Zoey and Mira. “We’ll have to improvise.”

As it turned out, “improvising” meant awkwardly and clumsily walking backward until they could run off stage. Then, dodging very confused members of staff who could’ve sworn they signed up for a concert from a different band. Then, doing their best to move away from the perimeter without running into a mob of fans, which proved to be especially hard considering it felt like most of the city had been unwillingly dragged there. And then, running through the city unnoticed to the best of their abilities, even though they were in very bright concert outfits and Rumi may or may not have been literally glowing the entire time. And finally, finally, arriving home together.

Even though they didn’t have to rush anymore, the laughter and the adrenaline made them feel like they were still flying. When the door to their apartment locked behind them, they rested their backs against it, still laughing at the strangeness of the situation.

As soon as the laughter started to die down, the girls slowly pushed themselves off the door. Mira and Zoey immediately started walking toward their bedrooms. Even though Mira’s pace was as slow and nonchalant as usual, she at least walked steadily in a straight line, which put her ahead of Zoey, who took detours and breaks to stretch her limbs, make a final twirl in her outfit, and gesticulate animatedly while they discussed the end of their night.

“I can’t wait to get out of these outfits,” Mira groaned, in that Mira way she had, which let the other two know she was smiling as she said it.

“I know,” Zoey agreed. “I love it very much, I’m not sure if I want to never take it off or to frame it, but like, I seriously need comfy clothes and to sleep for like twenty hours.”

Watching their banter from afar was familiar to Rumi. She even knew very well how it felt when they eventually realized Rumi wasn’t following them. She couldn’t decide whether it was heartbreaking or comforting that even after everything changed, some details of their life could still feel exactly the same.

“Rumi?” Zoey asked her, trying to keep up the joyful tone she had been carrying since they ran off the stage earlier that night.

It was no use. Rumi could see the fear showing in the cracks in her voice and perfectly reflected in Mira’s frown.

“Are you sure?” Rumi asked as she let out a breath that she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding. “I mean, I know… I know what we just did and what it meant… But I just mean, it’d be okay, you know? If you needed time. If you’d prefer that I-”

It only took seconds for Rumi to have the air knocked out of her again by Zoey pretty much throwing her body at her, wrapping her arms tightly around Rumi’s torso, and hiding her face under Rumi’s chin.

The thing about Rumi was that she could get thrown across a room by a demon and barely let out a grunt of irritation. Expecting pain and controlling her reactions was second nature to her. But being shocked by affection? She never could get completely used to it. Something between a squeak and a groan escaped, inevitably, when Zoey squeezed her like that.

“Please don’t leaveee,” Zoey mumbled with her face pressed to Rumi’s chest. “I’m so sorry, Rumi. We shouldn’t have made you leave, but… Please don’t leave ever again.”

It was blow after blow to Rumi’s expectations. She couldn’t process it all at once. Her mind was stuck on the first sentence, genuinely shocked that they wouldn’t want her to leave. But to think that there was an apology there? That Zoey and Mira could even remotely think they had to apologize? Not to mention the “ever again”. Rumi could hardly picture the next minute of her future.

As a gracious bridge between Rumi’s current instability and Zoey’s grand declarations, Mira approached them slowly.

“Easy, Zoey. You’re going to break her in half,” Mira said, placing both hands on Zoey’s shoulders and squeezing gently. The shorter girl immediately eased her hold on Rumi, at least enough to let her breathe. But then Mira’s attention moved to Rumi, who had to make a big effort not to avoid her eyes. “Do you want to leave?”

And Mira’s voice was so… gentle. She could do that, take a gigantic problem, reduce it to five words and a casual question that made it sound so simple, almost unimportant, but talk to them and only then with such softness that Rumi felt her legs shaking.

Rumi stood no chance of speaking at that moment. All she could do was shake her head.

Fortunately, that was all the other girls needed. Mira smiled as she watched her, and Zoey tightened her grip around her a little more because she felt Rumi shake her head. 

“Then stay, Rumi,” Mira said.

A second later, she joined in the hug. She took full advantage of her height and just closed the distance between her and leaned over Zoey to wrap her arms around both of them. 

Rumi realized only then that her arms had been awkwardly hovering at her sides. Afraid to touch Zoey or, more accurately, afraid to try to touch her and end up rejected, even though all signs so emphatically argued against that possibility. But now Mira’s arms were over her shoulders, and there was no place for Rumi to go but just right there, between their arms. She finally returned the embrace, holding them just a little tighter than usual and very purposefully and successfully pushing away the familiar guilt that came along with it. 

Rumi thought that, if her life were a movie, and it didn’t end with her death at any of the multiple opportunities she had that day, then that moment, at home and in the arms of her girls, was the scene she would choose for it to fade to black and into happily ever after. She thought that was a nice thought to have. She didn’t stop to think that it could be yet another way in which she was cutting short her chance at happiness because she could hardly imagine it being so perfect.

And so, her story kept going.

Zoey giggled softly from somewhere between Rumi and Mira.

“Oh, I could stay right here forever,” she sighed, sounding entirely too pleased with herself.

Rumi laughed wholeheartedly, but Mira just tightened her arms around Rumi, tight enough to squish Zoey between them. Judging by her delighted shriek, she wasn’t complaining.

It wasn’t easy, when the moment was that perfect, and the three of them were laughing and enjoying themselves like that, but Rumi managed to untangle their limbs and take a step forward. 

“Come on,” Rumi said, her voice still colored by her laughter. “It’s been a long day. Let’s just go to bed, okay?”

It had been a minute since she felt so confident in a simple decision, since she recognized her own voice like that. Zoey and Mira pulled back to stare at her with sincere smiles, as if they’d noticed the exact same thing. This time, Rumi didn’t watch them leave, she led them through their home, ready to end on a good note the first night of this new chapter of the rest of their lives.

Chapter Text

Mira and Zoey had been saying for years that they knew Rumi better than anyone else in the world. They said it all the time. In interviews, in fan events, in parties, to anyone willing to listen. But, during private moments when it was just the two of them, they often joked about how they believed they knew Rumi better than she knew herself.

They knew all her likes and dislikes, every minute of her daily routine, the minuscule tells she had for when she was tired, stressed, frustrated, or nervous; and the beautiful signs that showed she was content, excited, overjoyed, or deeply emotional. They could predict her moods, her needs, and her worries. Mira passed her a water bottle during rehearsals before Rumi realized she was getting tired, Zoey held her hand during red carpets before Rumi got a chance to feel anxious, and both of them covered Rumi’s back during a battle so well that years had passed since Rumi last got injured.

The best part? They got to know and love her so well because she knew and loved them just as well, if not ten times more. They really thought they had perfected their relationship.

Finding out that they had missed an immense part of Rumi’s identity had temporarily wrecked them. There was a profound betrayal, of course, but just as strong, if not more, was the guilt. Rumi hiding that part of herself from them briefly broke the version of Rumi they thought they knew. But the fact that they had failed to notice it at all broke their own image they had of themselves.

Losing themselves and each other like that had nearly triggered the apocalypse. So, they didn’t blame themselves for being a little too eager to restore their bond, to start this new chapter, or just to lay eyes on Rumi again.

They had years of experience practicing their patience when it came to Rumi. But this night was testing even the strongest foundations of Mira’s patience. Zoey had lost hers entirely.

So, after changing their clothes and taking off their makeup in record time, the two of them rushed to the closed door of Rumi’s bedroom. 

There, they hesitated. 

They used to know exactly when to push Rumi, knowing she’ll give in and join them, and when to give her space. By all means, this looked like a night to give her space. But it was also the one night they were the most desperate to just see her. To make sure she was alright. To confirm she was still there. Still theirs. 

For a minute or so, they stood right outside Rumi’s door, arguing silently with each other. Or, at least attempting to be silent about it. Mira’s facial expressions and Zoey’s animated gestures only worked for so long as they debated whether to knock on Rumi’s door, and if they did, which one of them should do it. 

They were right on the peak of their argument when Rumi’s voice interrupted them.

“I can hear you guys creeping outside my door, you know?” Rumi said.

The two of them straightened quickly as if they were a few years younger and Rumi had just told them Celine was coming over to supervise their training.

“We’re not creeping!” Zoey weakly protested.

The two of them shared a look that spoke for a thousand words. Rumi didn’t sound very different. She didn’t even sound upset about their lack of discretion. If anything, she just sounded a little tired.

So, Mira took a deep breath, stood a little taller, and asked, “Rumi? Can we come in?”

The couple of seconds Rumi took before replying felt like an eternity.

“Yeah… Okay,” she finally said quietly, but just enough for them to hear her through the door.

The two girls froze for a second. Only then did they realize they fully expected Rumi to turn them away like so many times before. When it clicked that she was finally letting them in, they scrambled for the closed door. Their hurry made them stumble inside almost comically, enough to make Rumi smile. She would’ve actually laughed, but then Mira and Zoey finally looked at her, and the surprise in their eyes made her blood run cold. 

Rumi was sitting on the edge of her bed. The truth was that she was struck down by such big questions halfway through changing her clothes that she didn’t even finish. She just sat there, in her sweatpants and tank top, debating whether to put on her hoodie or not. It was the usual, and her first instinct. But maybe, now that her girls knew the truth, she didn’t have to do it. But maybe, just because they knew the truth didn’t mean she had to shove it in their faces. But maybe, she didn’t have to decide and could just stay locked inside her room like she also used to do for so long. The long line of “But maybe” went on and on, until too much time passed, and she heard Mira and Zoey outside her bedroom. 

“I’ll just…” Rumi said as she started fumbling with her hoodie again, panicking when she caught them staring.

“Wait.”

Mira and Zoey spoke up at the same time. But when Rumi stared at them, they found out they hadn’t planned on what else to say. They exchanged a nervous look and then Mira cleared her throat.

“You don’t have to,” she said, “if you don’t want to.”

The words made Rumi shiver, which almost made her want the hoodie after all. But once again, it was Mira putting into simple words a much bigger sentiment. Rumi didn’t have to hide, if she didn’t want to, not anymore, not with them. 

But they saw her still hesitating. Maybe words weren’t just quite enough. And all three of them knew who would act then.

“Can I borrow it?” Zoey blurted out. Two heads snapped toward her, and she nervously pointed at Rumi’s hoodie. “I’m cold,” she argued, vaguely defensively, before wrapping her arms around her and faking some chills.“Brr.”

That put a smile on Rumi’s face again. “Are you sure?” she asked, aiming the question at both of them and talking about so much more than her sweater.

In response, Zoey just made grabby-hands gestures at her until Rumi gave in and extended her hoodie to her.

Zoey rushed forward to grab it and put it on, getting a little tangled in the process. Meanwhile, Mira approached Rumi and sat down next to her.

“So, this is new,” Mira said.

Her tone might not be very expressive, but Rumi and Zoey knew just how to read her, so it wasn’t exactly a bad sign.

“That’s an understatement,” Rumi shrugged. “You’re… You’re surprisingly calm right now.”

“I’m just trying to take the lead before Zoey drops a million questions on you,” Mira replied.

Right on cue, Zoey let herself fall down with a huff on the bed on Rumi’s other side. She looked quite content wearing Rumi’s sweater. Rumi was just about to comment on how adorable she looked and how big the hoodie looked on her, but Zoey beat her to the punch and effectively took her breath away.

“Rumi, you look so pretty,” Zoey whispered, sounding awe-struck in every sense of the word.

Rumi’s eyes widened, and she had to look away from Zoey’s eyes quickly. She opted for staring down at her hands.

“I know it's… strange,” she said, turning her hands this way and that, knowing the other two were also following the movement closely, focused on the patterns on her skin. “We were taught to hate these same patterns, didn’t we?”

“No.”

Both Rumi and Zoey turned to look at Mira. She’d sounded so confident on that single word, but now she looked uncharacteristically troubled as she searched for the right words to explain her argument.

“I mean,” Mira said, frowning and pinching the bridge of her nose for a second before explaining. “We hated the patterns because demons have them. And we hated demons because they steal people’s souls,” she said, painfully aware of each time Rumi winced and flinched at her choice of words. Losing her patience with herself, Mira finally concluded with a familiar, blunt tone, “What I mean is, do you have plans to steal anyone’s soul?”

“What?! No,” Rumi said, possibly on the verge of tears.

“Great. That settles it. Not a problem,” Mira grumbled, well aware that her point might have gotten lost somewhere along the way. 

“Rumi,” Zoey intervened, laughing softly at Mira’s approach and trying to organize the idea into kinder words. “I think Mira means that we know now that the patterns don’t make you evil or anything like it. You’re still our Rumi. We can tell.”

Rumi nodded slowly, looking from one of them to the other to confirm that they really meant it all. And the truth was that she was starting to believe they did. But that still brought tears to her eyes anyway. 

“Can I?” Zoey asked.

At first, Rumi couldn’t tell what the question meant. It wasn’t until she saw Zoey tentatively raise her hand that it clicked. And she made herself nod quickly before her fears could take over and change her mind. 

Zoey smiled, and a second later, her palm was resting on Rumi’s cheek. Zoey’s fingertips were resting right over the patterns on Rumi’s face. And yes, they hugged her a couple of times that night, held her hand for a good long time too. But this was different. 

Zoey’s fingers didn’t stay still either. Once Rumi leaned into her touch, and after no one commented on the desperate little sob-like sound that escaped from Rumi, Zoey started slowly tracing the patterns. She was reverent in a way that Rumi never, not even in her wildest dreams, imagined her patterns and her body to be deserving of. 

It was genuine, that was the most shocking part. By the time Zoey’s dancing fingertips descended over Rumi’s neck toward her shoulder, Rumi admitted to herself that the adoration in Zoey’s eyes wasn’t fabricated for her sake, Zoey was sincerely admiring every inch of her. 

“So pretty,” Zoey murmured one more time before pressing a gentle kiss on Rumi’s shoulder, right over a pattern her fingers had just traced.

As if she could tell neither she nor Rumi could take much more of that loving exploration, she just grabbed onto Rumi’s entire arm and cuddled up to her, resting her cheek on her shoulder.

It was during that pause that Rumi realized she’d started crying. But when she tried to move her free hand to wipe away the tears, Mira’s hand on her wrist stopped her.

“Let me,” Mira whispered.

She did much more than wipe those stray tears. She brushed her knuckles against the patterns curling over Rumi’s cheek and jaw. She caressed her skin until Rumi’s tears stopped and her breathing evened out.

When the peace settled around them, Mira smiled at her. 

“There we are,” she said. “It’s all good, Rumi. You’re okay.”

Despite herself, Rumi was starting to believe her. They sang their most powerful song and fought together again. They returned home together and let her stay with them. They saw, touched, and accepted the patterns. It wasn’t hard to imagine this was just the start, and they still had a long way to go, but Rumi had to admit, it was a damn good start.