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Ramona was standing in front of the mirror in Oona’s wardrobe, tugging at her green tunic so that it might sit a bit better on her. It was just a cheap fabric, and the leather belt was more basically pieces of thin plastic, and she couldn’t think of a time where she wore boots that went up to her knees like this. Safe to say, this whole thing wasn’t her idea of fun.
Maybe it’d be alright if she could just wear her normal shoes.
She heard the sound of Oona returning in her direction, and turned, prepared to ask her just that.
“Oona, I don’t know if these are really-,”
The rest of the words didn't come.
Oona was standing in front of her now, and whatever Ramona had been about to say about the boots completely left her mind. Because Oona was in her costume now too, and she looked…
“Wow,” Ramona practically whispered.
Oona raised an eyebrow at her with a smirk.
“You like?” She asked, giving a little twirl.
Ramona cleared her throat, averting her eyes to fidget with her plastic belt.
“Yeah, you look great,”
Oona smiled with all of her teeth, before her gaze settled on Ramona.
“You look uncomfortable,”
Ramona turned away from Oona, looking at herself in the mirror again. Oona approached from behind, until they were both staring at their own reflections.
“It’s just…I’m not like a dress up for halloween kind of person, you know that,”
Oona reminded her, teasingly, “there’s that photo of you as Spider-Man when you were a kid,”
Ramona laughed, rolling her eyes. Oona’s expression turned into something more sincere.
“You look good though. Like really good,”
Ramona felt her breath get caught in her throat, and her eyes automatically flicked to Oona’s in the mirror. It took Oona a few seconds to look up from Ramona’s body to her eyes, and it seemed to wake her up a bit.
“I just mean that you don’t need to be embarrassed or anything, it suits you. And it’s just us.”
Before Ramona could respond, Oona gasped as if only just remembering something, and then turned around, digging through a pile of random items around the room. Upon finding whatever it was, she turned, hiding it behind her back.
“Don’t freak out,” she warned, stepping closer.
“Oh well now I’m totally going to freak out,”
“Relax," Oona said, "it's a good thing.”
She then produced a green, floppy hat from behind her back with a small flourish.
“Ta-da!”
Ramona stared at it, then looked at Oona’s excited but slightly terrified expression, and back to the hat.
"You didn't tell me there was a hat."
"I'm telling you now." Oona stepped closer, close enough that Ramona could smell her perfume, and reached up to settle it onto Ramona's head herself, tilting it around a bit to get it to sit right. "There."
She stepped back to survey her work, and something in her expression shifted — pleased, but quieter than the teasing from a minute ago.
"Perfect," she said.
Ramona turned to the mirror. Tunic, boots, belt, and now the hat. She looked, unfortunately, exactly like Link. She looked at Oona in the reflection, in a blue dress, with her hair beautiful and flowing, with fake elf ears on. Ramona don’t know how she ever ever agreed to this, Oona must have caught her at a bad time, because suddenly it was Halloween night, and the two of them were very clearly matching as Zelda and Link.
"You know people are going to think we're like…" Ramona started, trailing off.
"Think we're what?"
Ramona shrugged. "You know,"
"Come on, Mona,” Oona replied, smiling softly at her.
"People are going to think we're like, I don’t know… together. Because we're like… this." She gestured at the two of them, side by side in the mirror.
Oona shrugged, casually, “who cares. Let them.”
"That's it? Let them?"
"It's a Halloween costume, Ramona." She said simply. She said it as if that was the end of the discussion, and maybe it was, because Ramona didn't have anything to say back to that. She just stood there, ears warming under the hat, watching Oona's reflection instead of her own.
There was a knock on the wall to the entryway of the house boat, brisk and unbothered, before Maple walked into her home she shared with Oona. She was in her regular clothes, not prepared for a Halloween party at all.
"You're not dressed up?" Ramona asked.
Maple shrugged, dropping onto the couch. "It's not really my thing. Also Oona said the party's too wild for me anyway, so."
“I said it’d be a wild party, and that’s why you should come,” Oona rebutted, only half-joking.
"Whatever. I need to finish my book, anyway,” she paused for a moment, “are you guys wearing a couples costume?”
"It's Halloween," Oona said, entirely unbothered, “and they’re just like partners anyway. But either way it doesn’t matter,”
Maple tilted her head, before offering an elongated “sure,”
“Anyways,” Oona cut in on the silence, “we better get going if we want to arrive only fashionably late.”
She grabbed Ramona by the hand, leading her out of the house boat with an “Love you Maple, see you later!” as they left.
***
The party was already louder than Ramona had expected.
She could hear it from across the water, and by the time they were back on land, in front of Rory’s clearly bustling lake house, it felt like it was ever so slightly vibrating the ground beneath her feet.
Ramona slowed slightly as they approached.
Oona didn't.
"Come on," she said, still holding her hand.
"I am coming."
"Why have you suddenly got a snail's pace?”
"Why are you in such a rush?”
Oona laughed and tugged her closer.
"You're going to have fun,"
Ramona gave her a look.
"You know I don't do parties,"
"I know."
"And I don't like these people,"
"I know. And yet…”
Ramona scowled at her, but found it immediately difficult to look angry when dressed like Santa’s elf. She opened her mouth, then closed it.
Oona smiled.
"Exactly."
Before Ramona could think of a response, Oona pulled her through the front door.
It was worse inside.
Much worse.
The music was loud enough that Ramona immediately felt it in her chest, and there were people everywhere. The living room had been cleared out for dancing, although calling what everyone was doing dancing felt generous. Most of the people she saw on the dance floor were barely even in costume, most of them in clothes that felt far too revealing to be dancing so aggressively in. A guy in a werewolf mask immediately almost ran straight into her, which she narrowly avoided.
In the end, she just stood very still, looking around wordlessly.
Beside her, Oona was grinning, looking at all the rich people and their rich costumes.
"Is this really meant to be fun?” Ramona asked.
“Only if you let it be,” Oona replied, squeezing Ramona’s hand, “come on, I think I saw Annie over here,”
Oona pulled her through the crowd, and Ramona followed, gripping onto Oona’s hand mainly from a fear of losing her in the crowd.
They found Annie near the kitchen with Ellis, both of them smiling lovingly at one another in a matching couples costume – two chess pieces.
Despite the chaos of what was happening behind them, upon seeing her sister and her friend, Ramona felt her chest ease slightly.
“Those costumes just look annoying to walk around in,” Ramona said upon arriving beside the two of them.
Annie turned to face Ramona and Oona, her face splitting into an excitable smile.
“You guys made it! And oh my god you look so cute,”
“I don’t know if cute is what we were going for,” Ramona argued, but Oona just nudged her with her elbow.
“Sorry Ramona, you can’t deny that you’re the cutest Link around,”
“The hat really adds to the cuteness,” Ellis cut in, smirking.
“I will walk away from this party and never come back.” Ramona replied, entirely serious.
“Okay, okay, we’ll stop. We’re just happy to see you finally get some halloween spirit,” Annie continued. “Though I’m guessing Oona picked these out? You look great by the way,”
Oona smiled, lifting her dress to give a short curtsy.
“Why thank you, and of course. If it were up to Ramona we wouldn’t even be here,”
“I was surprised when you said you’d be here, Ramona,” Ellis said.
“We thought Oona might have to drag you here,” Annie continued.
Ramona was about to respond, but she didn’t get the opportunity when she heard her name being yelled a short distance away.
“Ramona!”
She jumped, turning around to see a shirtless man, painted entirely green, approaching them with a giant smile on his face.
“Jesus Connor, how long did it take you to paint your entire body green?”
As Connor approached, Ramona realised that Sully was by his side, dressed as Hannah Montana.
“More like it took me ages,” Sully replied, “But now there are some patches.”
Connor looked down at himself, apparently surprised to hear this.
“Where?”
“Your stomach.”
Connor frowned, then rubbed at the green paint as if he could fix it with his hand.
“Shit,”
Sully laughed, grabbing his wrist before he could make it worse.
“Don't touch it.”
“Sully, you look incredible babe,” Oona told them. In response, they flicked their blonde wig over their shoulder, grinning widely.
“Says you, girl. Zelda?”
Oona immediately lifted the skirt of her dress and did another little curtsy.
“Obviously,”
Sully grinned.
“And Link?”
Ramona sighed.
“Unfortunately,”
“No, wait, I actually love it.” Sully stepped closer, looking her over with genuine approval. “The hat is everything.”
“Everyone keeps saying that,”
“Because everyone is right,” Oona told her.
Connor, who had apparently only just noticed Oona's costume, pointed at her.
“Wait, you're Zelda?”
“I am,”
“And Ramona's Link?”
“Yeah,”
Connor looked between them. And then his face slowly broke into a big grin.
“Oh my god,”
Ramona immediately knew what he was about to say.
“Don't.”
“You guys are matching.”
“We're aware,” she tried.
“No, like…” Connor gestured vaguely between the two of them. “You're matching matching.”
Ramona turned to look at Sully and Annie, because maybe they’d be able to do something to stop him. But both of them just shrugged or grinned.
“It's a couples costume,” Connor continued.
Ramona folded her arms, “we’re characters from a video game,”
“Yeah but aren’t they a couple?”
“They're not always–,” Ramona tried to argue, but Oona cut her off by wrapping her arm around Ramona’s neck.
“We look hot, that’s all that matters,”
“Exactly. And because of that, you need a photo of the two of you,” Sully offered.
Immediately, Oona grinned by Ramona’s side, pulling her in closer with the arm slung around the back of her neck.
“Dude you have to get a photo” Annie continued, pulling out her phone from somewhere attached to her chess piece costume, “come on, get closer you two,”
Oona just laughed and dropped her arm to slide fully around Ramona's waist instead of her shoulders, pulling her in until there wasn't really any space left to close.
"There," Oona said, pleased with herself. "Better?"
“Much,” Sully answered.
Ramona felt her body suddenly get very still. She was very aware of the hand at her hip, and the warmth of Oona's side pressed against hers. She was used to Oona touching her casually like this, but it felt different somehow tonight. Maybe it was just because of their totally not matching costumes.
"You smell like the inside of a costume shop," Oona said conversationally, like it was just something that occurred to her, not looking away from where Annie was fixing the camera settings on her phone.
“We both do. We’re going to smell like plastic for days I think,” Ramona replied, “you can’t complain, you picked the costumes,”
Oona glanced over at her, and whatever she saw made her smile, small and genuine. “Worth it, though."
Ramona turned to look at her, and felt something in her heart skip a beat when she made eye contact with not just Oona, but Oona as one of the most gorgeous characters in fiction that somehow suited her perfectly. She didn’t have time to name the feeling in her chest before Annie called out, “smile!” and her phone’s flash went off. Ramona wasn’t sure she turned to look at the camera in enough time.
"Let's see," Sully said, already crowding in next to Annie's shoulder before anyone had actually agreed to a group viewing.
Annie turned the phone around, and there was a beat where none of them said anything, which was somehow worse than if they'd all just laughed immediately.
It was a good photo. The kind of good that made Ramona's stomach drop a little, looking at it. Oona was grinning at the camera, easy and bright. But Ramona hadn’t turned in time. She was looking at Oona, caught in the moment of looking at her beauty. Her whole face was turned toward Oona instead of the phone, her expression something that felt too uncomfortable to name. Fondness, maybe, but it felt too weak of a word. It looked, unfortunately, exactly like what Connor had been saying a minute ago. Matching matching.
Oona was the first to speak, voice almost serious. “Send it to me,”
Ramona's head turned immediately, “what?”
"The photo. I want her to send it to me." Oona was still looking at the screen, a soft expression appearing on her features. “I like it,”
"It's a bad photo," Ramona said quickly, feeling self conscious. "I'm not even looking at the camera."
“I don’t think it’s possible to take a bad photo of you, Mona,” Oona turned to her, back to teasing.
"And it’s sent," Annie said, and Oona grinned at her.
“Thank you. Now can we actually get this party started now?”
***
Ramona found that the party was definitely easiest with her friends by her side. She witnessed Connor jumping into the freezing cold lake and coming out with green paint practically dripping off of him, revealing his pale skin underneath. She drank with Ellis and Annie and made fun of their romantic antics and how uncomfortable Ellis looked when he tried to sit down on the couch in his costume. She saw Rory in passing, dressed as Mozart, and he was always nice to her – to all of them really, despite how things had turned out between him and Annie. There was a stretch on the makeshift dance floor where Oona had pulled her in by the wrist without asking, and Ramona wouldn’t say she necessarily danced, but she jumped around for a while with Oona, tipping their heads back and laughing at something the other said that hadn't even been that funny.
It actually wasn’t painful. Most of it. Mostly because Oona kept finding her every time she drifted away, like there was never really a version of tonight where they weren't standing near each other.
Even when Oona danced alone, because beyond a couple songs, dancing really wasn’t Ramana’s thing, Oona barely left her sight.
“You should come join us!” Oona called out, hand in hand with Sully, both of them smiling and sweaty from the dance floor.
“I’m alright, you guys have fun. It’s good though?”
“So much better if you were out here with us, baby,” Oona replied, before twirling Sully in a circle.
Ramona noticed the sudden drift in Oona’s costume before she did.
“Oona, you’re clasp,” she tried, but Oona didn’t seem to hear her over the music.
Ramona stood up, walking closer, but she had only taken two steps when the fabric slipped an inch as Oona danced, before she caught it against her collarbone suddenly.
“Shit,” Oona muttered to herself.
“I got you,”
Ramona was immediately steering her by the elbow, away from the noise and the crowd, until they found an empty bathroom. She closed the door behind them, and the sounds of the party became muffled through the door.
"You don’t need to do anything, I can-,”
"Just sit down. Let me see it," Ramona nodded toward the counter, and Oona hopped up onto it without argument, holding the loose fabric against her shoulder while Ramona stepped in close to see what she was working with.
Ramona leaned in, fingers working at the clasp. She was so focused on fixing it, that it took her a few moments to become aware of exactly just how close they were now. Oona sitting on the counter, Ramona standing practically in between her knees, the two of them eye to eye when Oona was sitting down like this.
She could suddenly and all at once, smell Oona’s perfume, despite the plastic costume smells. Her fingers brushed Oona's collarbone, adjusting the fabric, and she felt a small catch in Oona's breath.
"Sorry," Ramona murmured, not sure what she was apologizing for.
"It's fine." Oona's voice had gone quieter than usual.
Ramona kept working, or at least tried to. Her hands were slightly less steady than moments before, and she was suddenly very aware that she was now taking far longer on fixing the clasp than it ever would require. She was also very aware of Oona watching her work, her brows furrowed ever so slightly in the way they sometimes did.
Ramona let herself look up, just for a second, to check the angle of the strap, she told herself. She then immediately regretted it.
Oona was already looking at her. Her expression was soft and genuine, like it’d sometimes get when she knew Ramona was upset, or when she told her that she loved her before they fell asleep side by side.
Ramona froze, forgetting entirely what her hands had been doing. Because they were so close. And it was so quiet. And if she inched just a little bit closer, her lips would be on Oona’s.
Oona's gaze dropped, just slightly, to Ramona's mouth. Ramona's breath caught in her throat.
And then something shifted. It happened quickly, with Oona suddenly blinking and sitting back a bit, putting physical distance between her and Ramona.
“You got it yet?” She asked, and her voice sounded less genuine than her expression had been just moments beforehand.
Ramona shook herself out of it, and finally felt the snap of the clasp back into place.
“Uh yeah, yes. You’re good to go,”
“Cool. Thanks man,” Oona continued, sliding off of the counter. “We better head out, people might be looking for us,”
“Yeah, of course. I’ll just…use the bathroom before I follow you,”
Oona nodded, not really looking at Ramona properly.
“Come find me once you’re done,”
Oona slipped out of the bathroom, the sounds of the party filling the small room before the door clicked shut behind her and silence fell once more.
Ramona stood there a moment, the party's noise reduced to a low, distant thud through the wall. She let herself breathe for a second before she looked up at her own reflection.
She turned on the tap, needing something to do with her hands. She splashed a little water against face, and took off her hat. She stared at herself in the mirror. At Ramona, not at Link. And she had no idea what the fuck just happened.
She thought about the way Oona had looked at her. It wasn’t the easy, teasing look that Ramoan was used to, and it was slightly different to the soft concerned gaze she sometimes had. This felt newer, quieter. It felt like that look alone was what made Rory’s obnoxiously large bathroom feel so suddenly small.
If I had leaned in, Ramona thought, what would have happened?
She dried her hands on a towel hanging by the sink, and put the hat back on, more out of instinct than any real desire to go back to a Halloween dress up party.
The hard part was that Ramona had either completely misread the moment, and Oona hadn’t looked at her lips, and hadn’t panicked… or she hadn’t misread it, and Oona had felt the exact same in that moment as Ramona.
She wasn’t sure which was less terrifying.
Her instinct was to tell Annie, but she didn’t want to do that here. It felt too busy, and too fresh.
She didn’t let herself wait any longer. She opened the bathroom door, and stepped out, the noise of the party rushing back in around her. It felt louder now, and brighter and faster without Oona by her side.
She made her way back to where she and Oona had been hanging around before. She didn’t see her there, but she did see Rory.
“Hey, have you seen Oona anywhere?”
“Oona?” Rory checked, standing on his tip toes to look around the party, “no, not recently. Do you need help looking for her?”
Ramona hesitated, then shook her head, “no, it’s okay. Thanks though,”
Rory nodded with a pleasant smile, and Ramona went back into the crowds to search for her Zelda. It felt like the crowd had thickened while she was gone, everyone around her unfamiliar, with none of her friends anywhere in sight. She started making her way toward the kitchen again, half-distracted, still turning the bathroom over in her head, when someone fell into step beside her.
"You look like you're on a mission,"
Ramona turned, expecting to see someone she knew. But instead, she was faced with a girl with dark black hair, a couple inches taller than Ramona. She was wearing a Wonder Woman costume, and Ramona could easily tell that this girl probably wasn’t wearing a fake, plastic belt.
“Oh, I’m just looking for someone,” Ramona explained, kind of confused why this random rich girl was talking to her.
“Aren’t we all?” The girl asked. “I’m Leah, by the way,”
She held out her hand, and Ramona stared at it, then back up at the girl’s face. After a few moments of silence and Ramona’s lack of movement, the girl laughed and dropped her hand.
“Okay then, noted,”
Ramona nodded, then began to continue her way to find Oona. What she didn’t expect was for Leah to follow her, side by side.
“I haven’t seen you around Rory before,” Leah continued.
“I don’t really know him,” Ramona responded, feeling far too short in this crowd to find Oona.
“Then how’d you get the invite?”
“My sister went to middle school with him,”
“Who’s your sister?”
“You’re a curious person for someone I don’t know,” Ramona said, but Leah just laughed again.
“I suppose I am,”
Ramona hesitated, “Annie Jacobson, she’s my sister,”
“Oh I know Annie. Were you adopted too?”
Ramona wasn’t sure what to say to that, “it’s complicated,”
“Is Annie who you’re looking for?”
“No,”
“Well who is it? I’ve got a couple inches on you, maybe I can help,”
Ramona sighed, she really wasn’t going to lose this girl anytime soon she didn’t think.
“A girl dressed as Zelda,”
“Oh, and you’re Link?” Leah asked.
“Yeah,”
“So you guys are like…a thing?”
Leah kept pace easily, unhurried despite Ramona's increasingly urgent weaving through the crowd.
Ramona was so used to people suggesting that tonight with their costumes, that she barely blinked an eye.
“No, she’s my best friend,”
“Got you,” Leah paused, “so you’re like, single then?”
"I mean… yeah, I guess." Ramona wasn't really absorbing the question, too busy scanning the crowd.
"Seems like a waste to be searching so hard for your best friend. Don’t you wanna like dance or something? Doesn’t seem like she cares that much about finding you,”
Ramona stopped in her tracks, turning to Leah, brows furrowed.
“She'd find me. That's kind of the whole point of best friends." Ramona said it plainly.
Leah's mouth curved, amused, watching Ramona with open interest.
"I like you. Most people at these things try so hard to be interesting. You're just walking around being one very genuine thing. It's rare."
“Thanks, I guess,”
Ramona was already looking past her again, distracted, "I really do need to find her, though,"
"I can keep you company while you do," Leah's fingers brushed lightly against Ramona's arm, brief and deliberate, like she was testing something. "Or…we could like stay here and talk. She’ll turn up eventually,”
"I'd rather find her, honestly." Ramona said simply, entirely missing the way Leah's smile flickered at the rejection.
"You’re very persistent. You must be a good friend," Leah laughed, unbothered, falling back into step. "I respect it. I'll walk you the rest of the way, at least."
They'd made it maybe five more steps when a voice cut through, closer than expected and considerably less warm.
"Ramona, there you are,”
Ramona turned, and Oona was suddenly right there. She was smiling at Ramona, but it felt more guarded somehow, and Ramona wondered if things would still be weird from the bathroom. But then she saw how Oona’s eyes flickered to Leah, and how her smile slightly lessened at the sight. Then suddenly, Oona was back to wrapping her arm around Ramona’s shoulders, pulling her closer.
“I’ve been looking for you,” Ramona explained, “I thought you’d be near where we were before,”
“Sorry, I got distracted,” Oona paused, turning to Leah, “and it seems you did too,”
"Not distracted," Leah cut in, smiling back, but there was something sharpening behind her eyes now, some quiet recalibration happening as she looked between the two of them. "Just being friendly. Your best friend here, seemed a little lost."
“Well thanks for helping her find her way back then,” Oona responded, tone a bit pointed.
"Glad I could." Leah's gaze flicked, briefly, deliberately, to the arm around Ramona's shoulders. "You two really do match well. The costumes."
“Yeah, we do,” Said Oona simply.
Ramona glanced between them, aware that something was happening in this exchange that didn't have much to do with costumes at all, though she couldn't have said exactly what.
"You know," Leah said, watching the two of them for a beat longer than the moment really called for, "actually… never mind."
"Never mind what?" Ramona asked.
"Nothing. Forget it." Leah glanced between them once more, at the arm still snug around Ramona's shoulders, the way Oona hadn't quite stopped watching her this whole exchange, the way Ramona kept glancing at Oona instead of at her, and she laughed at herself.
"It was nice meeting you, Ramona," she finally said, "I’m glad I could help you find your friend,"
"You too," Ramona said, still faintly lost.
Leah gave Oona a small, knowing look , and drifted off further into the party without saying anything else.
Ramona watched her go, then turned to Oona, who now seemed completely calm again.
"Okay," Ramona said slowly, "What was that?"
"Nothing." Oona's arm was still around her shoulders, a little tighter than it needed to be.
"You were being weird with her,”
"I wasn't being weird. She was being weird because she was clearly flirting with you,”
Ramona laughed, “no, she wasn’t,”
Oona rolled her eyes, grabbing onto Ramona’s shoulders and shaking them slightly, back to teasing.
“You’re deluded if you think no one wants you, Ramona,”
Ramona felt her mouth go dry, and Oona’s smile fell slightly, as they both seemed to suddenly remember the bathroom, or maybe Oona just felt awkward that Ramona had suddenly gone quiet.
Oona shook herself out of it, “come on, let’s go find the others,"
They found Connor first, trying to do a backflip into the lake, his costume now just him in a wet pair of purple shorts, with Rory cheering by his side. Sully, Ellis and Annie appeared not long after, dragging Ramona into an increasingly chaotic group photo situation, and for a while, it felt nice again.
It didn't last, though. The party had gotten louder, more conversations were happening around her, people were getting drunker. Someone else made a comment about the costumes again, you two are so cute, when did that happen, and Ramona just rolled her eyes and tried to make a quip about it again, except this time it cost more than it had before, and she felt herself wearing thinner.
She glanced around for Oona and found her a few feet away, deep in conversation with Annie about something, laughing at whatever had just been said, entirely unaware. Ramona meant to wait for a gap to say something, to ask if she wanted to step outside for a minute, but the moment didn't come, and the noise kept pressing in, and something about you’re deluded if you think no one wants you, Ramona was rattling around in her head.
She decided that she would just leave and take a minute to smoke, without anyone noticing. She slipped past the crowds, unable to find a quiet place outside, and instead headed upstairs, the party noise falling away by degrees with every step, until she was standing in a guest room, the door shut behind her, the sounds once again muffled beyond the thick walls. It felt inappropriate to smoke in here, like she would at home, but she was feeling overwhelmed and needed to do something, so she walked over to the window and practically leaned entirely out of it, as she did so.
The night air was nice and cool against her face, a welcome shock after the crush of bodies downstairs, and Ramona breathed it in slowly.
She didn't know how long she stayed like that. Long enough for the joint to burn to nothing and get stubbed out against the wall outside of the window. It was long enough for her heart rate to come back down to something normal. Long enough that when she finally pulled herself back inside and sat down on the edge of the bed, the room had gone entirely quiet around her, and she let it stay that way, hat resting beside her, elbows on her knees, just breathing.
She wasn't sure what she was doing up here, exactly. Hiding, probably. She kept turning the night over, the bathroom, Leah and Oona, the party itself. She wasn’t sure what to make of it all. It just sat there, heavy and unfinished.
She didn't hear the door until it was already opening.
"Ramona?"
She looked up. Oona was standing in the doorway, still in the Zelda dress, circlet slightly crooked now, looking at her with an expression that had dropped every trace of the party downstairs.
"Hey," Ramona said, voice quieter than she meant it to be.
"Can I come in?"
"Yeah."
Oona stepped inside and shut the door behind her, leaving just the two of them in the low lamp light. She didn't say anything right away, just crossed the room and sat down beside Ramona on the edge of the bed, close enough that their shoulders nearly touched.
"You disappeared," Oona said finally.
"Sorry. I needed a minute."
"You don't have to say sorry," Oona glanced sideways at her, taking in the hat on the bed, the faint smell of smoke that hadn't quite cleared the room yet, and didn't comment on either. "Are you okay?"
“Yeah, just… a weird night, I guess,”
“I’m sorry, I should’ve noticed you were feeling off sooner,” Oona reached up and took off her circlet, setting it down carefully beside her, and then, kicked off her shoes too, drawing her legs up onto the bed. She didn't say anything else immediately. She just let the silence sit there, the party a distant, muffled thing on the other side of the door.
After another long beat, Oona fell backwards onto the bed, flat. Oona followed, lying on her side to look at Ramona’s side profile.
"Can I ask you something?" Ramona finally said.
"Always,” Oona replied, reaching out to twirl Ramona’s hair between her fingers.
"Why'd you pick this costume? Like… really. Not the joke answer,"
Oona was quiet for a second, long enough that Ramona almost regretted asking. When she spoke, her voice had lost some of its usual ease, gone a little more careful.
"I don't know. I saw the Link costume and just… thought it'd suit you. And I liked the idea of us matching, I guess. I didn't really think past that."
"You didn't think about the whole–,” Ramona gestured vaguely, "everyone assuming we’re dating?"
"Honestly? No." Oona huffed something that wasn't quite a laugh. "I think I just wanted to match with you. And I thought you’d look cute as Link,”
Ramona couldn’t help but let the edges of her corner peek upwards at that, then her expression fell as she next spoke.
“Did you care, that everyone thought we were–,” she trailed off.
Oona shook her head immediately, then gave a quiet, “no. Did you?”
"It's not that I minded people thinking it," Ramona admitted, surprising herself with how easily it came out, "I think I minded how much I didn't mind it."
Oona went very still beside her, fingers stopping mid-twirl in Ramona's hair.
"That's–,” Ramona pressed the heels of her hands briefly against her eyes, half-laughing at herself, embarrassed at how it had come out. "That came out weird,"
"No. I got it," Oona's voice had dropped quieter, careful in a different way now.
Ramona lowered her hands and looked over. Oona was watching her with something open on her face, and for a second neither of them said anything at all.
"I need to say some stuff," Oona said finally, and there was a slight unsteadiness to it that Ramona wasn't used to hearing from her. "And I don't really know how to do it without it sounding like a whole thing, so I'm just going to say it badly and you can make sense of it after."
Ramona blinked. "Okay."
"I was a shitty friend tonight," Oona sat up slightly, propping herself on one elbow, not quite meeting Ramona's eyes yet. "I was weird with that girl, just because I saw you with her and that was just like stupid of me,”
“It wasn’t stupid,” Ramona responded, unsure exactly what she was calling not stupid.
“It just wasn’t fair to you. Like you could’ve liked her, like you were just existing as yourself and someone else noticed how great you are and I like got all weird about it,”
Ramona didn’t respond, feeling her heart rate speed up as she watched Oona carefully.
"And then there was the bathroom," Oona exhaled hard, like she was forcing herself through it. "I freaked the fuck out. I looked at you and I felt like everything, basically, all at once, and instead of saying literally any of it, I immediately ran away. And then I spent the rest of the night pretending it hadn't happened, which was stupid, and unfair to you, and I'm sorry."
Ramona swallowed. "You don't have to apologise for panicking."
Oona finally looked at her properly, something raw and unguarded in her expression that Ramona had only caught glimpses of before tonight. “I do though,” she whispered. “Becuase i made you think that I didn’t like the way you were looking at me,”
Her fingers went from Ramona’s hair to her jaw, softly, just holding her there as if she were fragile.
"Like I wanted to kiss you," Ramona said, quietly filling in the gaps.
Oona's breath caught. "Yeah."
"I did. Want to, I mean" Ramona felt something in her chest loosen, finally, after a whole night of carrying it around unspoken. "I still do."
Neither of them moved for a second, the light low and warm around them, the party a distant thud through the floor.
"Ramona–,”
“Can I kiss you?” Ramona asked, already inching closer.
"Please," Oona replied, more a breath than a word, already closing the last of the distance herself.
The kiss was soft, and careful. Oona's hand still cupped gently against her jaw, Ramona's fingers found the front of her costume without deciding to,gripping tightly in the fabric of the Zelda dress, like she needed something to hold onto. It was slow, and careful, and life changing. When they broke apart, neither of them moved very far, foreheads touching, both a little breathless in the low lamp light.
"Okay," Ramona breathed, eyes still closed.
"Okay?" Oona's voice had gone soft, uncertain in a way that was rare for her.
"Okay, good." Ramona let out a small, disbelieving laugh, "that was like, really good, actually."
That got a true smile out of Oona, the kind that reached her eyes, and made Ramona want to never leave this moment. “Yeah?”
"Yeah," Ramona reached up, brushing a strand of hair back from Oona's face, mostly just to have an excuse to keep touching her.
Oona pulled back just enough to look at her properly, thumb brushing once along her jaw. "I'm still sorry about before. I was just scared,”
“I know, I was too. You can stop apologising for it now,”
"Can I?" Oona asked, head titling with a cheshire cat smile on her face.
"Yeah," Ramona smiled back at her, "Kiss me again instead please,"
Oona didn't need telling twice.
They stayed like that for a while, kissing slowly, tangling their limbs together on top of the covers. Neither of them rushed, both of them knew that they had all of the time in the world. The rest of their lives, really, Ramona thought. Then mentally kicked herself for jumping that far ahead. But it was truly just how she felt about Oona. She didn’t know how she had spent so long not doing this.
At some point the kissing slowed into something quieter, Oona's head tucked against Ramona's shoulder, their hands loosely linked between them with Oona running her fingers gently along Ramona’s, the party's noise fading with each passing minute.
"I don't want to go back down there," Ramona admitted, quietly.
"So we won’t," Oona's voice was already heavy with sleep, words slowing. "We can just stay here forever,”
“Stay forever in Rory’s guest room?”
“Mhm hm,” Oona hummed, slowly planting a single kiss on the bottom of Ramona’s jaw.
"Someone will come looking eventually," Ramona said, though she made no move to sit up.
“Let them find us,” Oona whispered quietly.
Ramona meant to argue the point, but Oona had already gone quiet, breathing slowly transitioning into something deep and even against her shoulder. The room was warm, and the bed was soft, and somewhere in the space of only a few minutes, Ramona fell asleep beside her.
***
Ramona woke to sunlight and the distinct sensation of being extremely squished.
It took her a moment to piece together why. Oona was curled into her side, one arm slung across Ramona’s stomach, still deeply asleep. That part made sense. What took longer to process was the rest of the room.
Connor was sprawled diagonally across the foot of the bed, shirtless still, his mouth open and drool coming ever so slightly down the side of his face. Sully was curled in an armchair by the window, his Hannah Montana wig carefully placed on the dresser next to him. They were wrapped in a blanket that Ramona thinks must have been brought in from another room. Then there was Annie and Ellis, tangled together on a pile of cushions and blankets on the floor, half of their costumes squashed or removed with other clothes underneath.
Ramona lay very still for a moment, taking it all in.
“How the fuck…” she whispered to herself, utterly confused.
Oona stirred beside her, blinking slowly awake. Sensing presence, her gaze followed Ramona’s, letting out a small, sleepy laugh at the sight of it. "Looks like the party migrated,"
"How did neither of us wake up for this?"
"Making out must be tiring," Oona murmured, not moving from where she was tucked against Ramona's side, tilting her head up to look at her properly, morning light warm and soft across her face. "Best kind of sleep is a post make-out sleep, I guess,”
They lay there a while longer, watching their friends sleep off the night in various states of costume disaster, nobody in any particular hurry to be the first one up. It was Oona who finally broke the quiet, voice still thick with sleep, fingers idly tracing the hem of Ramona's tunic sleeve.
"Can I tell you something?"
"Always," Ramona replied, voice filled with fondness as she repeated the answer that Oona had given her the night before.
“I really bought this costume because I thought you’d look hot as Link,” Oona propped herself up, chin resting on Ramona's shoulder. "I mean it properly now. Not a joke or something to brush off. I could barely function when I saw you in that mirror,”
"You hid it well, then,” Ramona teased.
Oona pressed a small kiss to Ramona’s shoulder, then another, slower, on her neck.
"You have no idea how many times I almost said something and freaked out before I could. I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable,"
Ramona turned her head slightly, close enough now that their noses nearly brushed. "For what it's worth, I'd match costumes with you again,” she kissed Oona gently on the lips, “Especially if you think it’s hot,”
"Even something embarrassing?" Oona asked, wiggling her eyebrows.
"I have a veto power," Ramona responded, “but really, I’d wear anything, as long as it means people keep mistaking us for a couple."
"They won't have to mistake it anymore,” Oona whispered.
"No," Ramona said, smiling now, slow and sure. "They won't."
Connor chose that exact moment to snore loudly in his sleep and roll over, and Annie mumbled something incoherent from the floor, but neither of them stirred. And Ramona and Oona just remained there, tangled together in the quiet morning light, with their whole ridiculous family scattered around them.
And Ramona thought that she could stay exactly like this for a very long while.