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It's her fault. This is all her fault. She's the leader. She let them get rusty. She should have taken that hit. It's on her.
Rumi doesn't have time to self-flagellate right now though, because they're still mid-fight. This pocket of leftover demons was quiet, but when missing person's reports started back up around Icheon they knew there were at least a few of them hiding out here after Gwi-ma's defeat. They swarm like hornets when they finally track them down.
The new Honmoon is strong. There hasn't been a single tear, but the hundreds of demons that came through during that final showdown weren't all dealt with, so they're out at 3 in the morning during their hiatus dealing with it. And now Mira-
Focus.
Deal with the demons now.
Rumi is a blur of purple hair and starlight, claws swiping wherever her sword doesn't hit, sending demons scattering and screeching into the night. She has to get to Mira. She has to- a streak of iridescent blue brushes her ear and lands in the eye of the demon creeping up behind her. It disappears with a poof.
If Rumi's a blur, Zoey looks as though she's teleporting. The demon who took down Mira certainly doesn't see it coming when she climbs his body to rip his head from his shoulders before dispelling him with her shin-kal. Hot. Not the time.
The fighting winds down as Zoey begins to clinically dispatch every single demon with a focus no one but Huntrix would expect from their maknae, and now that Rumi isn't actively fighting for her life, she can tear across the field toward Mira's crumpled form.
The last thing she had seen was Mira being thrown into a nearby tree, crumpling like a rag doll at the bottom.
She feels the dull ache in Mira's head and the burn in her lower back as an echo in her own body. Not physically feeling the pain per-se, but hyper-aware of it all the same. Another symptom of the stronger Honmoon, a stronger bond with her hunters. For all the good it’s done in the past few weeks.
Rumi reaches her and flinches at the scarlet soaking the ground beneath Mira's body. It's enough to make anxiety knot in her stomach. She's just barely conscious and whimpers as Rumi gently probes her looking for the source of the blood.
"C'mon Mir, where is it? Let me help." she murmurs, pressing her face closer to Mira's so she can hear her.
"Back." she rasps, groaning as Rumi turns her gently to see.
Zoey finishes up with her demons. She's always liked to play with her food, but she seems to understand the severity of the situation well enough. She skids up to them at the base of the tree as Rumi rucks up Mira's top, revealing the four nasty claw marks gouging her left lower back. Zoey whistles lowly.
"This is gonna suck"
"Yeah" Rumi breaths.
This is the biggest injury any of them have gotten in a long time. They need to move quickly.
Zoey locking in is a special treat few will ever witness, and Rumi is so so glad she's one of the lucky few. There's no one she trusts more in a crisis than Zoey. The younger woman dismisses her shin-kal, gives the field an eagle eyed final sweep, and helps Rumi gather Mira's arms into her chest with a calm. "Let's get her to the car."
Rumi scoops a moaning Mira into her arms, hushing her gently. She's solidly built and lanky but weighs practically nothing with the help of the Honmoon. Rumi manages to maneuver them both into the backseat, as Zoey yanks off her hoodie to press against Mira's wounds. The cry Mira lets out at the pressure makes Rumi wince, but Zoey merely mumbles a quick apology and hurries toward the driver's seat.
It's an hour drive, and Zoey wasn't exaggerating when she said this was going to suck. They're tough after 8 years of this, but demon bites and scratches are another story entirely. Demons are venomous, and the pain of a scratch like the one Mira was now experiencing was easily 5 times the pain of a normal injury. Not to mention the pain of the antidote itself. By the time they get to the tower, Mira will be lucky if she's unconscious.
The pink-haired girl lays across her lap, so Rumi can keep pressure on the wound, her face tucked into Rumi's neck. She takes deep breaths through her nose like she's trying to sublimate Rumi's scent into her blood stream. (Honestly, she might be. Years ago, during a rather drunken game of truth or dare, she had revealed she found the smell of her hair comforting.)
Rumi hates herself for thinking this given the circumstances, but it feels so good to hold her close. After the Idol awards, getting Mira to say more than 2 words to her is a challenge, and even Zoey's spending far more time in her room lately. (Rumi also isn't talking much and is also staying in her room, but she'd like the record to reflect that she's left her door cracked.) All the same, she misses her girls and has absolutely no idea how to reach them. The fact that the three of them still haven't talked about any of it is probably a bad sign, but hey, they haven't left yet, and, after all she put her hunters through, she'll take what she can get and be grateful.
She does her best to comfort a crying Mira throughout the drive, humming softly and murmuring encouragement, but with the venom making its way through her system, it's hard to know what she comprehends. Rumi knows from experience it must be starting to burn terribly. She can feel wetness where Mira's face presses against her throat.
Zoey finally pulls off into the tower parking garage. Thankfully, it has a door directly into the brand new med bay. (Bobby insisted on adding it once they clued him in to their nighttime activities the day after the Idol Awards, and one guilt ridden check from Celine made it possible. It doesn't have an X-ray or anything huge, but it has most everything else they could possibly need.)
As soon as they get in, Zoey goes into what Mira affectionately calls "Dr. Zoey mode" though there's nothing cute about it. All the girls were taught basic first aid, but Zoey took it to another level. The dexterity needed for wielding knives translates well to stitches. (Her sutures would make an ER tech weep for joy. She practices quite a bit on fruit, which makes for interesting entertainment at breakfast.)
Rumi and Mira's weapons mean they are in closer combat than she is 7 times out of 10, and Zoey's enhanced agility means she's rarely injured. She says she figures if her girls are going to take more hits, she'll be damn sure she can patch them up properly. She even takes advanced first aid classes regularly, auditing them at a local university. It’s one of her more useful hyper fixations.
The sounds Mira lets out as Rumi sets her down on the table hurts her heart in ways she didn't know it could hurt. Zoey bustles about the sterile room gathering supplies, gauze and disinfectant, gloves, moving with speed and clinically detached accuracy. Clinking fills the air as she rummages through the old cedar chest containing their more... magical medicinal items.
Zoey doesn't spare the other girls a glance, her brows furrowed as she works. "Lay her on her front, so I can get a better look" she says, finally finding the bottle she's looking for, cobalt blue and oddly shaped. Rumi feels nauseated just looking at it, knowing the pain that innocuous little bottle contains. Celine has a doctor on retainer for critical injuries, but a doctor wouldn't be able to treat this. (even though that woman has signed so many NDAs she can't even talk about the weather)
As Zoey heads toward the sink, Rumi turns Mira over as gingerly as possible, dodging her groggy swatting hands as she does so. She's truly out of it now, not really seeing either of them and growing weaker by the second.
Once she's washed her hands, Zoey forces Rumi away from Mira to do the same. She can't quite catch it over the sound of the faucet, but she sees Zoey bend down to Mira's head, a small hand stroking a lock of brilliant pink behind her ear, and whisper something. A feebly struggling Mira grabs at her, blindly whimpering when Zoey catches her hand, pushing gently away. As good as Zoey is at first aid, Rumi knows she hates seeing them like this, and part of her curt bedside manner is for efficiency. She knows the quicker she does this, the quicker she can make the pain stop.
Their unusually focused maknae finally straightens up and gets everything arranged on the little metal rolling table beside the medical bench. She then snaps on some gloves and uses blunted shears to cut through the fabric of Mira's tactical gear and barely cringes at the cry Mira let out when she gently peels it away from the wound. All four scratches are long and deep, gently weeping blood. She does a thorough and quick examination, shining a pen light into Mira's hazy eyes and running her hand over her limbs and torso.
"Possible concussion. Luckily, no breaks that I can feel, but the lacerations on her back are nasty. We have to clean and disinfect them and- yeah, they're smoking slightly. We need to administer the antidote before stitching..." Zoey isn't even touching the injury directly, but Mira squirms away from her hand anyway, and Rumi steps forward to what? offer comfort? stop her from rolling off the table?
It's not fair. None of this is fair, and it is Rumi's fault.
She tilts her head down to Mira, her eyes welling with tears at Mira's hazy tortured expression. She is, unfortunately, still conscious, and Rumi is caught brushing her hair off her damp cheeks when Zoey says-
"Rumi, you're going to need to hold her down. She's gonna struggle, and she's stronger than I am."
Rumi would love to say absolutely not, would love for there to be a different way to treat this, but the longer they wait, the more it will hurt. As it is, Mira is already struggling against their hands.
She is their leader. It is her responsibility to help them treat their injuries, and it is her honor to comfort them through their pain. Her hunters are treasures more precious and rare than jewels. The Honmoon has gifted her two of the most beautiful souls to call hers, and she will forever be undeserving, but the moment Zoey says those words she knows this will break her. She will have to hold down her Mira through an incredibly painful process and, with the intensity of the new Honmoon, she will be aware of every inch of that pain. The Honmoon will cry out to her to stop it, and she will not be able heed its howling. That's to say nothing of how Mira will cry and fight them-
-But the alternative is unthinkable, and Rumi knows it will be doubly worse for Zoey who shares those same soul ties, will feel the same not-pain Rumi will, and will have to continue. Sweet, soft Zoey who will weep once the adrenaline wears off, and she's no longer actively treating Mira.
She steels herself, reminds herself of the oath she swore, and lowers herself to the table beside her injured hunter. She and Zoey work to shift Mira so her arms are crossed over her chest, and she lays face down on top of Rumi. This way, her arms are trapped beneath her so they can't flail during the process, and Rumi can restrain her if necessary. Mira's head lands on Rumi's shoulder. Rumi presses a kiss to her temple for luck. They'll need it.
Rumi is strong. She can hold Mira down easily in her injured state, but when she folds her arms securely around Mira's shoulders and upper back, and bands a leg over Mira's own, the girl barely reacts. If she didn't know better, she'd even say Mira sighs and presses a bit closer, taking another deep inhale through her nose.
But she does know better, and, when Mira is ok again (because she will be ok dammit), she'll be far more reluctant to get this close.
She tenses when she hears Zoey unstopper the antidote.
Rumi clears throat "Pain Meds?"
Zoey shakes her head. "No sense before the antidote. She'll feel it regardless, and we can't wait much longer. Brace yourself" she says grimly.
She tenses her arms and legs. Zoey swallows, tips the bottle over the wound, and Rumi loses 50% of her hearing in the ear next to Mira's mouth. The sound she lets out is inhuman in its pain, and Rumi knows why. Through the Honmoon threads that bind their souls, she can feel all of it, she can feel the sharp fire of the antidote eating through the venom, she can feel Mira's soul searching for an end to the agony. She can feel Mira look to Rumi and beg desperately for her leader to stop the pain. She can even feel Zoey's guilt and indomitable will to see this through until Mira is well.
Mira, her beautiful, elegant Mira, thrashes like a woman being exorcised.
Zoey continues until the bottle is empty and the wound stops smoking.
Eventually, the screaming becomes wailing, and Mira bites down on the leather of Rumi's jacket. The muffled sounds don't staunch the flow of despair from Rumi's chest as half of her heart keens into her shoulder.
Mira's teeth suddenly unclench from the fabric and she whispers roughly "Rumi- " Rumi's stomach lurches, and the injured woman continues.
"Rumi- m'sorry, m'sorry- so sorry" It's hard to understand through the breathless sobbing, but she eventually grits out "didn't- didn't mean it. I love you. m'sorry."
Rumi shushes against her temple as her thrashing subsides and whispers. "You have nothing to apologize for, sweetheart. You're doing so well."
This doesn't seem to mollify Mira in the least, because she turns her face back to Rumi's shoulder sobbing "nononononono no- I- I need to-" She doesn't finish the sentence as Zoey presses a button on an auto injector of painkillers against her thigh. It won't dull the pain of the antidote, but as the pain of the antidote naturally fades, it will help with the pain of the injury itself.
Mira's desperate sobs give way to shudders. Zoey's fingers card through pink strands as she speaks. "The Ketamine won't fully kick in for another half hour, but I need to irrigate and close the wound now before the antidote starts to eat at her muscle." Ah, yes. Another delightful aspect of those antidotes is their lack of ability to differentiate between demon venom and human flesh.
The wound irrigation isn't much better than the antidote. Mira doesn't scream this time as Zoey sprays the saline wound wash into the lacerations, but it's a near thing. As it is, she jolts and makes such a pitiful little whimper, that Rumi almost wishes she'd get loud again.
In her head, Mira is a rock, a steadfast pillar of strength Rumi has always been able to lean on. She fights her battles (demon or otherwise) with such an iron will, that to see her this vulnerable feels innately wrong.
Her shaking grows worse and, briefly, Rumi worries about shock. The Honmoon protects them from many things. It speeds their healing, heightens their awareness, (Including but not limited to each other nowadays, but thats a conversation for a different time.) but beyond that, they're still human (mostly). They are durable not invulnerable, as Mira has so aptly proven tonight, and are still susceptible to things like infection, adrenal fatigue, and shock.
Rumi holds tighter for lack of any other ideas and presses her lips to Mira's hairline. It doesn't stop the shaking, but Mira yanks her arm out from where it's squished between their bodies and grips the lapel of Rumi's jacket, trying to bury herself in Rumi's shirt. She can't see her expression from this angle to gauge her feelings on the matter, but Mira's face is soon entirely lost in Rumi's chest and the shaking slowly subsides. Rumi is holding her so tight at this point she'll be surprised if Mira isn't bruised.
"It's okay, Mir. You're okay. Zoey's fixing it, see? We've got you, aein. We have you." She continues to whisper as Mira weeps. She can see Zoey prepping anesthetic and a needle and oh is she dreading this part.
The topical anesthetic will help a little, but the injected anesthetic will still hurt, and she personally feels like Mira has hurt enough for one night, but the cuts are far too deep to leave too long without stitches. Probably more than one layer of stitches for one or two of them. All Rumi can do is keep talking as Zoey spreads the ointment carefully over the claw marks.
"You're my world, jagi. You two are my whole world, you are everything to me. We'll make it stop soon. I promise. Zoey will make it better." She rocks slightly as they wait for the topical cream to numb her a bit. "I'll always make sure you're safe. You're safe here with us. You two are my moon and stars."
At her words, Zoey's eyes flick to Rumi's in a look that says 'bitch, we are talking about this later'. She doesn't stop working though, taking out her suture kit with sure steady hands. In moments like these, Zoey is their anchor, or maybe a lighthouse guiding them back to safety. Healing and Protecting in equal measure.
She sees Zoey take a big breath and grab the needle. Rumi begins to hum softly, an old hunter song Mira likes from their training days back when she and Mira couldn't be in a room together without an argument breaking out. It makes her smile now. Her song won't numb the pain, but it does hush some of Mira's tears. She tenses when the anesthetic is injected into the wounds but doesn't scream, just shakes hard and mutters "fuck.".
Now that the venom has started to clear from her system, she knows Mira's silence is for their sake. It triggers an urge to wrap Mira up in a big duvet and put her someplace safe, guard her from harm.
Zoey too for that matter, because the guilt in her eyes as she works is too much to bear. She goes to change out her gloves and wash her hands again before Rumi can say anything.
As Mira begins to let up her death grip on Rumi's jacket, she tilts her head to look down. Mira’s sweaty, tearstained face looks up at her with unrestrained awe.
Her voice comes out raw but clear. "I don't deserve you," She shakes her head when Rumi tries to speak "I don't- hiccup- I don't deserve either of you."
She brings up a hand to brush her hair out of her face and says "You deserve the world and more, Mira."
This seems to upset Mira further as her pretty face crumples a bit and she cries "I could have hurt you!"
Rumi starts at that one. Mira has shied away from any sort of discussion of what happened two weeks ago until now "Angel, are you talking about the Idol Awards? That was- Mira, I understand why you did it. It was-"
"No! I- I raised my weapon. I swore you an oath that I would protect you, that I would never leave-" she gets more worked up as she speaks, and Rumi worries about her wounds getting jostled or her concussion worsening.
"Baby, if anything, I'm the one who-"
"I left Zoey!" Mira sobs, descending into nonsensical tears and apologies.
Zoey snorts with no humor from her place by the sink, seemingly unsurprised by this turn in conversation even as Rumi falters with a babbling Mira in her arms. "You were being possessed by a literal demon king. You get a pass this time."
Rumi summons some of those leader instincts and rubs her cheek against Mira's temple "Shhhhh, Sweetheart, see? It's alright. We can talk about this in the morning. Let's just get you stitched up, hmmm?" With a gentle hand, she eases Mira's head back to her shoulder, stroking her hair tenderly.
By the time Zoey begins stitching, Mira's fully numbed up with the pain killers beginning to take effect, and Rumi feels the energy drain from her as she goes more and more limp over her chest. It only takes about an hour, and Mira dozes uneasily against her as Zoey finally presses gauze over the new sutures and tapes it down.
From there, Rumi feels like she's on auto pilot. She gently moves out from under Mira to help Zoey clean, then lifts Mira up to carry her to the elevator. Truly, they outdid themselves with the design of the med bay, because the elevator takes them directly to their penthouse.
Mira is still awake, but her head rests heavy on Rumi's shoulder, so she figures they better wash up soon before Mira falls asleep on them.
They're all filthy from the fight. Mira most of all. Normally, they would prioritize sleep, but Mira is habitually clean ("like a cat," Zoey teased) and would hate waking up still grimy from the night before, so Rumi carries her to the bathroom in Zoey's room, as it's the only bathroom with a shower seat.
Normally...Normally, this is where she would bow out and, for a moment, she tries. After setting Mira down on the shower seat and ensuring she could sit up by herself, she turns to go. Washing off, tending to wounds, used to be a bonding ritual reserved for Mira and Zoey alone, (She pointedly refuses to think about all the nights she spent alone tending to her own wounds and showering herself while they could comfort each other. Tries to choke down the rage and bitterness at the stark unfairness of it all and mostly manages.) but, with a sharp tug of Zoey's hand on her wrist, Rumi finds herself newly initiated.
Zoey says little as she sheds her clothes down to sports bra and shorts, and Rumi follows her lead, stripping down similarly. Zoey's been... angrier these past two weeks. Even now, her silent demand that Rumi stay and help is sharp, tinged with an exasperation she would normally associate with Mira.
Mira, by contrast, has been almost shy, cringing away from Rumi and Zoey both, hiding from them when she can (a feat when they live together), and staying quiet when she can't manage to avoid them. Frankly, it's been freaking her out.
It has become appallingly clear that singing a song together and accepting that their flaws and fears were 'ok, maybe?' did not fix all of their problems. It didn't even fix most of their problems. It just gave them different problems to replace the few problems it did solve. And give them terrifyingly strong awareness of each other's emotions bordering on telepathy if they really focused (they haven't) and really who's counting that? (she's fine about it. honest. Zoey's frustration is giving her hives, and Mira's abject terror is keeping both of them up at night.)
So. Rumi hasn't quite lost them yet. Thats true. But is this anger and avoidance sustainable? Probably not, if the past 8 years of avoidance have taught her anything. Eventually, it will come to a head. The truth will out, and she will not survive losing them a second time.
(She cannot allow herself to think about that moment beneath the stage, as the two girls her soul was tied to cut her loose from their bond. The crisp, clean cut of their rejection sharper than any gok-do or shin-kal. She cannot think about that slice starting the unraveling process for the entire Honmoon, like a cut thread on a crocheted blanket.)
Very carefully policing her thoughts, she starts to gather towels and some fresh gauze from beneath the counter. Really, you never know when you'll need extra and-
"Rumi. Get. In. Here. Now." Zoey says lowly, not turning from where she's adjusting the temperature of the shower head.
Rumi scampers over like a dog who's been told to heel.
Mira has her head tilted back against the shower wall, still dressed except for the section of her tactical gear Zoey cut away to stitch her up. She should probably fix that if they're going to bathe her.
Kneeling down, she asks "Can I undress you?" for a moment, she worries Mira will say no and send her away, but she nods, keeping her eyes closed, exhaustion practically oozing from her pores.
She starts with her boots and socks, tossing them outside the shower for later.
Zoey has to have the right temperature by now, right? She glances back, but the shorter girl is still fiddling with the pressure controls for her absurdly fancy shower. She's stalling, and she has to remind herself of her oath once again to make her hands move and guide Mira's pants down her legs.
Rumi moves on to Mira's top. Luckily, Zoey cut it almost all the way to the top, so Rumi only needs to tug at it and shred it the rest of the way.
She's shocked to hear an amused giggle.
"Well that's not how I imagined this happening." Mira says through semi-hysterical laughter.
Zoey whirls back around with wide eyes spraying Rumi a bit in the process with the shower head, inciting a yelp from her and more giggles from a clearly very loopy Mira.
And suddenly they're all giggling madly. A kind of bone deep hysteria made possible only by an extreme venting of pressure. By the time they manage to calm down, Rumi has tears streaming from her eyes only partially from laughing.
The rest of the shower goes rather smoothly. and they manage to get Mira clean and dry, and in her pretty, pink pjs in record time.
The pleased drugged-up little hum Mira makes into her shoulder as she scoops her back up will live rent free in her head forever.
Zoey turns down her covers when they make it back into her bedroom, and Rumi slips Mira into the clean sheets as gently as she can manage. They carefully turn her on her stomach, and she's out like a light.
Zoey says "I'm going to shower." It's a clear a dismissal as any, and Rumi figures their moment of levity in the shower was just that. A moment. Her heart sinks anyway.
She nods and makes her way back to her room.
Once in her own bathroom, she turns the water as hot as it will go. It stings the little cuts and bruises she's picked up tonight, but honestly, it's grounding in its own way. She showers on autopilot, pointedly not thinking about anything. She changes into an oversized t-shirt and dries her hair. This takes quite a bit of time, but it's necessary. Her braid was gnarly after that fight in a way it hasn't been since before their debut. She really is getting sloppy. She makes a note to adjust their training regimen in the morning.
Once she turns off the hair dryer, she hears it. Crying. She nearly eats shit on her scramble to the door. She wrenches it open like there's a fire.
Rumi looks down to find Zoey sobbing into her knees just outside her bathroom, curled up against the wall, hair damp, in turtle pjs. Doctor Zoey has left the building.
The tears are not entirely unexpected, nor is Zoey raising her arms. Never let it be said Rumi misses her cue. She scoops her maknae up, marveling at the feel of Zoey's heartbeat against her chest. Zoey's legs wrap around her waist as she carries her back to her room, one hand supporting her, the other stroking soothing lines over her back.
"You did so well, jagi. You fixed her. You did that." she murmurs as Zoey's sobs subside.
The younger girl says in a voice thick with snot, "We need to talk about it. Really talk about it..."
Rumi doesn't clarify what it is. She doesn't need to. Just says "I know.", and sets her down on Mira's right, tucking her under the covers, and pressing a soft kiss to her forehead, lingering just a second too long, marveling at the way Zoey's breath hitches before turning to leave.
Zoey catches her with a growl. "Don't you dare, Ryu."
Rumi makes her way to the other side of the bed with no complaint, slipping in on Mira's left.
Their girl is sleeping soundly, face buried in the pillow, but her breathing is easy, and the danger is over for now. The adrenaline is easing from her system, and Rumi knows they'll all sleep hard tonight. Morning? Whatever.
She sees Zoey's small hand slide to rest between Mira's shoulder blades. After a moment of hesitation, Rumi does the same. They lace their fingers together over Mira's heart beat.