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Mira looks up from the laundry she’s folding at the sound of a knock on her open door. Zoey is standing in the threshold with a strange expression on her face.
“Hi,” she says.
“Hi?” Mira answers. Mira watches warily as she finally steps in and closes the door behind herself. “What’s up?”
“I need to tell you something but I need more information before I can know if it’s something I can tell you.” Well, that clarifies nothing. Mira sets down the shirt she was holding and turns to face Zoey more fully.
“What do you need to know?” she asks.
“Things. About you.” Very helpful. Mira folds her arms over her chest and waits for an actual question. Zoey stares back at her, hard, like she’s trying to divine the answers she’s looking for.
“Zoey, you have to actually use words to—”
“Do you like girls?”
It appears to be Mira’s turn to stare. She doesn’t think they’ve ever talked about this before, directly or otherwise. She hesitates for a minute, having to remind herself that she is safe and trusts Zoey completely.
“My parents threw me out after catching me with a girl.”
“Mir, oh my god.” Zoey takes a whole step closer to her, reaching out but then seeming to reconsider halfway. “Why have you never told–no, don’t answer that, I know why.” She shakes her head and scrubs a hand over her face. “Okay, that makes this easier and also harder. Which you would think would cancel out and make it the same but it’s not.”
Mira waits, even though the tension Zoey’s bleeding in the air is starting to make her skin crawl. She watches her take a deep breath and set her shoulders, looking over to Mira with as serious an expression as she’s ever seen her in.
“I’m just going to say it. Communication is important.” She pauses, swallowing.
“I like you. A lot. In the liking of girls way. And I have for a really long time.” Mira stares. Zoey continues, “If I’m being totally honest, which we said we were all going to be now, I am fully in love with you and have been for at least four years. You should also know that I feel the same way about Rumi and have for just as long. You are my best friends and I have been terrified of losing you because I couldn't keep a handle on my own shit, and I’ve managed it this far, but it’s been almost three months since all that happened, and things have been changing. Good changing, but changing, and I didn’t feel right keeping this to myself anymore.”
Mira just…stares. That was a lot of information in a very short amount of time, not unusual from Zoey, but they’ve just covered ground that Mira herself has kept carefully and quietly to herself for almost as long as she’s known Zoey. Zoey looks away, wringing her hands.
“You’ve gotta say something, I’m sorry. Even if you hate me, please, just say something.”
Mira doesn’t think she can yet, her brain still sluggishly processing the complete paradigm shift that just occurred, but she does manage to walk over to Zoey and wrap her arms around her. Zoey stays stiff but tucks her head against Mira’s neck like it might be the last time she can.
“I love you, too,” leaves Mira’s mouth, and she’s awed and relieved to feel that it’s true. Of course she loves Zoey. She may have been in love since the first time she saw her smile.
“Oh thank god,” Zoey wheezes, wrapping around Mira hard enough that it squeezes a breathless laugh out of her. “I love you so much and that was fucking terrifying.”
For the first time, Mira allows herself to give in to the impulse to dip her head enough to take a deep breath of the smell of Zoey’s hair. “Zoey, you could have told me you were a serial killer and the only follow up question would be do you need help with the bodies.” Zoey lets out a startled little laugh of her own, pulling back just far enough to meet Mira’s eyes.
“What about the Rumi part?” Yes, Mira had definitely not forgotten that particular complication.
“I…” she starts with a small frown. “I’m on the same page as you, but I don’t know anything about this particular page.”
“Yeah, me either,” Zoey says, leaning back against her. “Like objectively, I’ve never really considered myself as being into polyamory. But also I’ve never wanted anything that wasn’t both of you. You know? It’s weird.”
“Has anything about the last five years of our lives been normal?” Mira asks. Zoey makes a thoughtful noise, starting to relax against her. It makes Mira’s chest fill with a strange, fluttering pleasure. Zoey has always been physically affectionate, from hugs to tackles to basically climbing on her to get things. This is the longest Mira can remember ever holding her. It’s nice.
“We’re gonna have to talk to her,” Mira says. She feels Zoey sigh.
“I know.” There’s a ‘but’; Mira can nearly hear her thinking it. She squeezes an arm around her to encourage her to continue.
“What if I ruin everything?” she asks in a small voice.
“Correction number one; it’s ‘we’ now.” Zoey is still pressed close enough that Mira can feel her smile, another new, wonderful sensation. “Correction number two; Rumi’s been as much a part of the changing as either you or I have. She may not have gotten to The Page yet, but she’s not going to be mad.”
“Are you sure?” Mira hates how afraid Zoey sounds, that anyone ever made her feel like she could be cast aside for this. She holds her tight and says, “Yes,” with all the confidence she can. Zoey goes as soft against her as she’s ever felt her be.
“I want to kiss you and also pass out,” she mumbles.
“I mean, I’m not bad at it, but that’s a pretty high bar,” Mira replies, unable to keep from smiling when Zoey laughs. She watches her pull back but doesn’t let go, letting her bring a hand up to either side of her face.
“Seriously,” she says, eyes drifting to Mira’s lips. “Can I?”
Mira swallows and nods. Zoey pulls her down and kisses her like no one has ever kissed her before, slow, gentle, lingering like she’s been thinking of it forever. It’s over too soon, and Mira still feels unsteady on her feet after.
“Wow,” Zoey breathes.
“Yeah,” Mira agrees. She smooths her hands over Zoey’s back, leaning into the pressure of her thumb sliding over her cheek. “I’m going to hold you for another minute, but then we should go downstairs before I spend the rest of the day kissing you.”
“Okay, but you definitely can’t stop me from thinking about it for at least that long,” Zoey replies, leaning back against her shoulder. “Probably longer, if we’re being honest.” Mira chuckles, moving a hand up to run over Zoey’s hair.
“No matter what happens after this, we’re still going to be us, okay?” she says softly. Zoey presses herself even closer and takes a deep breath.
“Yeah,” she says, edging her head back just far enough to brush her lips over the base of Mira’s neck, making her shiver. “I want to…yeah. We will be.”
Just as Zoey takes the last stair down to the living room, she goes from wrung out and ready for a nap to High Alert. She watches Rumi complete a circuit around the couch, pacing like a caged animal. She can’t see her face yet, but the usually airy space is all but dripping with anxiety. When she glances over her shoulder at Mira, she can see that she feels it too.
“Rumi?” she asks hesitantly, edging closer. “Is everything okay?”
Rumi stops midstep, spinning around to face them. She looks alarmed. “Oh. Uh, hi. You’re here.”
“In the place that we all live?” Mira asks. Rumi laughs, but it sounds sharp and forced in a way that sets Zoey even further on edge.
“You’re being weird,” Mira says, cutting straight to the point in the way Zoey has always loved her for.
“No I’m not!” Rumi squeaks. Zoey doesn’t say anything, but also doesn’t look away, even when she feels Mira cross her arms over her chest next to her. Rumi shrinks back from the seriousness, shoulders falling.
“You’re right, I’m sorry. I just…it’s just, I mean, I have to…I…” She swallows and looks away from them.
“I’ve been keeping something from you again.”
Zoey feels her stomach drop, feels Mira go stiff beside her. Panic blooms across Rumi’s face when her eyes return to them.
“No, no, it’s not—I didn’t mean…” she trails off, scrubbing her hands over her face with a groan. “How have I messed up this badly already?” She lets her hands drop, balling at her sides as she tries again. “It’s not a bad thing. At least, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. It’s just—”
“Just say it,” Mira says. Her voice is hard and untrusting, her arm tense when Zoey reaches a gentle hand to touch her. Zoey understands, feels just as afraid, but she has to make enough space for everyone to understand what is actually happening right now, because damned if she knows.
She turns to Rumi and says as calmly as she can, “Rumi, it’s okay. You can tell us anything.”
Rumi stares at her for a minute, visibly desperate to believe her, before taking a deep breath and setting her shoulders.
“I’ve been thinking a lot. About the last three months, specifically. They’ve been…they’ve been so incredible.” She looks at the both with a shaky smile. “I’ve never been able to be me before. Like I don’t even know if I know how to, but now I get to do it with you. You’re my best friends in the whole world and now you know everything, like everything everything about me, and there’s just a lot of…thinking going on and I promised I would never lie to you again and I don’t want to even by accident so I have to tell you that…that I…” She sets her jaw.
“I love you.”
Zoey claps a hand over her mouth before a startled laugh can leave it. She can feel confusion radiating off of Mira as she says, “Rumi, what? You know we love you, we say it all the time, why—”
“I am romantically in love with both of you,” Rumi clarifies urgently.
“Oh.”
“And, like, that’s not normal, I think,” she presses on, starting to pace again. “But is it so weird? We’re always together, I trust you more than anyone else in the world, and I’ve never spent a whole lot of time thinking about what I like, romantically speaking, because why would I when I have to hide everything, and I just kept thinking about how I’ve found guys attractive because I was supposed to, and like why should I keep doing that? You’re both amazing and beautiful and I’ve always thought so, even when I thought I’d never be able to get as close to you as we are now, and—”
Zoey has to bite her cheek to keep from laughing out loud at the realization that Rumi has reinvented queerness on her own as she continues.
“—it’s always been both of you, you know? Like it’s always, always been the three of us against everything, and I have no idea how something would work practically so I started reading, and thinking, a lot of thinking if I’m being honest and—”
“Rumi,” Mira tries to cut in, reaching in her direction as she passes by but missing as she carries on.
“—it’s just all I’ve been able to think about, and I never, ever want to lie to you again, and it’s just gotten to the point where not telling you felt dishonest because I want something that we’ve never talked about before—”
“Oh my god,” Mira groans into her hand, clearly overwhelmed. It’s up to Zoey to reset this whole beautifully chaotic situation.
She walks decisively into Rumi path, catching her by the shoulders with both hands. Rumi looks up at her, startled. Zoey takes a step closer, pushes up on the balls of her feet, and kisses her on the mouth.
It’s different from kissing Mira. She knew it would be, but to have learned the contrast so fast is gorgeous. Rumi is stiff and still for a confused second before Zoey feels her melt. She realizes distantly that this is likely the first time Rumi’s ever been kissed.
When she pulls back, Rumi opens her eyes to stare, awed. Zoey tries not to laugh at the awkward position her hands have frozen in.
“What’s happening?” Rumi breathes. She starts when Mira comes up behind them, sliding a hand over her back.
“What you were thinking about,” Mira says, relaxing enough to throw Zoey an amused smile before she leans over to press her lips to Rumi’s temple. “We love you too, dummy.”
“Like that?” Rumi asks weakly.
“Like that,” Zoey confirms.
“This is the single most hilarious way this could have happened, just so you know,” Mira says in a sigh tinged with laughter. Rumi looks between them both, confused.
“I cannot express how literally Mira and I were just talking about this,” Zoey explains. “We really should have someone come check that there isn’t something in the water.” Rumi makes a sound that could almost be a laugh, unconsciously leaning into Mira’s touch.
“What happens now?” she asks. Her voice is small, but filled with a quiet excitement that makes Zoey smile. She looks over when she feels Mira move, making a soft, surprised noise when she’s pulled into another slow kiss. Zoey watches them, half-waiting for some kind of jealousy to rear its head, and thrilled to realize that she feels nothing but suddenly and incredibly turned on.
“That’s real good,” she mumbles. “You should do that more.”
Mira chuckles as she pulls away from Rumi, who chases her without seeming to mean to. “That’s the idea,” she says, reaching a hand up to stroke Rumi’s cheek while touching Zoey’s shoulder with the other.
Zoey looks at them both, her whole body buzzing when Rumi reaches for her too.
“I’m gonna be super honest with you guys; I just had two of the most intense emotional experiences of my life back to back and I would really like to lie down now,” she says. Mira snorts and Rumi makes a little bark of a laugh.
“C’mon.” Rumi’s hand wraps around her as she starts pulling her towards the couch. Mira’s hand slides over her back as she follows close behind. “Couch cuddles will fix it.”
Rumi watches her hand move back and forth over Zoey’s middle, hoping the texture of her t-shirt, of this moment, sinks so deep into her that she can remember it forever. Her breath moves slow and steady under Rumi’s fingertips.
“Is she asleep?” Rumi shifts her head at the question, meeting Mira’s eyes over the top of Zoey’s head.
“I think so,” Rumi answers. She watches Mira adjust herself on the edge of the couch, reaching a hand to rest just beneath where Rumi’s is moving. “I think this is maybe the third time I’ve ever seen her like this.”
“It’s been A Day,” Mira says. “She could use the rest.” She meets Rumi’s eyes with a rueful smile. “She was worried you’d hate her.”
“How could anyone?” Rumi wonders aloud.
“Beats me,” Mira sighs. She narrows her eyes at Rumi when Rumi stares at her, smiling. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Because you’re so gentle with her. With both of us. You always have been.” Mira scoffs quietly as her face tinges red.
“I remember enjoying beating the shit out of you a few times during the first few months of training,” she tries to deflect.
“Pretty sure I only let you once or twice,” Rumi responds with a wink, grinning when Mira rolls her eyes. “Even when you didn’t like me, you always picked me back up.”
“Probably because I always liked you.” She shifts her hand up to cover Rumi’s as it stills on Zoey’s middle. “You might not believe it, but I kinda suck at feelings, and the dealing with thereof.”
“You? Never,” Rumi teases, watching Mira huff indignantly, but delighted that she doesn’t pull her hand away. “But let’s be real, it’s a big pot calling the kettle black situation.” She sighs, eyes drifting to Zoey’s sleeping face. “I’ve always wished I could be more like her, you know? I don’t think I’ve ever loved anything out loud.”
“Me either,” Mira admits. She takes a slow, steady breath and squeezes Rumi’s hand. “She makes me want to try, though.”
“Me too,” Rumi sighs. She’s warm and tired and has never felt happier in her entire life. Even when she looks up to find Mira watching her with a wry smile.
“What?”
“I think you used more words today than you have in basically the last five years combined.”
“I was panicking, okay?” Rumi tries to defend. “I really messed up the beginning and you looked really mad and—”
She cuts herself off at the firm squeeze around her hand.
“I’m sorry,” Mira says. “I…got scared. I’m not the best at handling it.”
“Scared?” Rumi asks quietly, tilting her head. Mira makes a little movement that could be a nod as she looks away.
“Everything’s been, you know…amazing,” she says. “And thinking that it maybe wasn’t was, I don’t know, bad.” She scoffs, but Rumi can tell it’s at herself. “Great job, very eloquent,” she mutters.
“Don’t worry, I get it,” Rumi assures. She smiles when Mira risks a glance back over at her, touched to be able to see a vulnerability in her that she’s only been privileged enough to witness a handful of times before now. “I’m glad Zoey set us straight.”
“I don’t know what we have going on right now, but it is definitely not straight,” Mira replies, making Rumi laugh loud enough that Zoey briefly stirs between them. They stay still and quiet, waiting, until she drifts back to sleep.
“Are we…” Rumi starts uncertainly, “I mean, do we need–”
“Nah,” Mira dismisses. She shifts even closer, until she can drape her arm over both of them. “We’re just us. Might be some kissing now, but I don’t see much that’s changed.”
Rumi is relieved she’s not the only one who feels that way. As wrapped up in her own anxiety as she got, once everything was out in the open, they progressed through what should have been a complete redefinition of their relationship to each other as easily as walking through a doorway. She loves them both. They love her. It’s always been them against the world, and it still is.
“I don’t know how to do any of this,” Rumi admits.
“Do I look like I do?” Mira asks.
“A little, yeah.” Rumi shifts herself so she can run her hand along Mira’s arm as she thinks. “You’ve always been so cool and worldly. I’m just a weirdo who doesn’t know much more than singing and swinging a sword around.”
“You also know a lot about plants,” Zoey adds sleepily.
When she lets her head flop over towards Rumi, they’re close enough that their noses brush. “We’ll figure it out,” she says. She sounds like she’s relaying a truth as constant and universal as the color of the sky. “We can do anything together.”
Rumi smiles when she hears Mira make a noise of agreement, dipping her head to press her lips behind Zoey’s ear. Zoey squirms and huffs a little laugh, looking for all the world like she may never have been happier herself.
“Can we have a sleepover tonight?” Rumi asks before she can stop herself. “I mean, not in that way…not that I haven’t, I mean, I–” She closes her eyes and wishes she had something hard nearby she could hit her head on. “I just want more of this.”
“We haven’t done that since…” Mira trails off.
“It’d be kind of nice to after a good thing, I think,” Zoey offers. She looks up at the ceiling thoughtfully before adding, “I need to get some bigger blankets. All my favorites are me-sized.”
“Damn, I hadn’t even gotten to the practical logistics yet,” Mira says. “I need more pillows.”
“We could just stay on the couch,” Rumi suggests, grinning when they both make displeased noises of remarkable similarity.
“Absolutely not,” Mira says firmly. “I love you both and I love this couch, but ten more minutes of this and my spine will not forgive me for at least a week.”
“I’m also super hungry. We were a little busy during lunch,” Zoey adds.
“Alright, alright,” Rumi grouses, giving Mira a playful shove over Zoey. “Go be practical.” Mira sits up stiffly on the edge of the couch, stretching with a wince. Rumi lays for a moment longer as Zoey wiggles her own way up beside her, pausing to press a kiss to her shoulder. She wonders if this is going to be a constant, this feeling of utter happiness being surpassed with startling ease again and again.
“Are there leftovers from last night in the fridge?” Zoey asks.
“Yes, but for the love of all things holy, please be civilized and reheat them.”
“No,” Zoey replies matter-of-factly. “The texture is more interesting cold.”
“Rumi, make her be reasonable,” Mira says, turning to look at her over her shoulder.
“When have I ever been able to make either of you do anything you didn’t want to?” Rumi asks, sitting up beside Zoey with a sigh.
“Never,” Zoey says cheerfully. “But today has been the best day of my life, so I will grace you both with The Good Ramyun to celebrate. I’ll have leftovers tomorrow.”
“So magnanimous,” Mira yawns as she gets to her feet, twisting to stretch her back. Zoey follows close behind, nudging her just enough to unbalance her and grinning at her noise of startled indignation.
“C’mon Rumi,” Zoey says, turning and pulling her up with both hands. She hesitates for a second when Rumi lands on her feet, looking almost shy before bringing one of Rumi’s hands up to kiss the back of it. “Wanna come with us?”
Yes, Rumi thinks. For the rest of my life, yes.