Chapter Text
Prove it.
Mira says it like a challenge, but there’s an undercurrent to her words that’s unmistakable for Rumi. It’s a plea. To prove that she’s with them. To prove that she’s not going to walk away from what they’ve built. That she hasn’t given up on them. That she isn’t going anywhere.
To prove Mira’s worst fears wrong.
And it’s such an easy request to fulfill for Rumi. Because she’s always been with Zoey and Mira. She’s never doubted them. Never thought about turning her back on them. They’re everything to her, and she desperately needs them to know that.
So Mira tells her to prove it, and she doesn’t hesitate to do so.
Zoey is the one who launches them into “Takedown,” landing the first attack as the horde charges them atop the train. And it’s so effortless for her and Mira because their faith in their mission has never wavered even once.
And Rumi’s hasn’t either.
(Liar.)
But neither have her fears. And there’s nothing she fears more than the prospect of Mira and Zoey hating her. Seeing her for what she truly is. Because they’ve never doubted their mission, so Rumi knows that if they see the patterns it’ll be the end of everything. She’ll never have a chance to tell them exactly what they mean to her. What she wants more than anything in the world.
(Them.)
It’s sinful and monstrous — greed in its purest form — but isn’t it so fitting? Doesn’t it make all the sense in the world? That the more she longs for them to look at her in the way they already look at each other — the more desperate she grows — the further her patterns spread? A demon has no right to want, especially not as deeply as Rumi does, so she has to erase them. She has to earn it. She has to earn the chance to tell them.
(To hope.)
Mira’s gok-do tears through a line of incoming demons, clearing a path for their leader to take on the next wave of them.
“I don’t think you’re ready for the takedown!”
And Rumi doesn’t hesitate to take the opening in stride. To let her saingeom glide through the first demon, leaving a cloud of pink dust to quickly dissipate in the air around her. She doesn’t hesitate to kill for their cause. For their people. For the Honmoon.
(For Zoey.)
(For Mira.)
She doesn’t hesitate to let the lyrics come out. To say what they all know to be true.
“A demon with no feelings don’t deserve to live.”
And there it was. Like a confession to herself. That she knew it wouldn’t matter. That she was too far gone,
(Maybe she always had been.)
She never lost faith in Mira and Zoey, or in what they believed and were fighting for, but herself? She had no faith or hope left for herself.
(Maybe she never had it at all.)
Her feet stop moving as the realization freezes her in place.
(She had been doomed from the start.)
“It’s so obvious.”
The club collides with her body before she can raise her sword to block it.
—
Rumi doesn’t hesitate.
She never does. Never has.
Not on stage. Not in battle.
(Until recently.)
Even with her mind clearly somewhere she and Mira haven’t been able to figure out over the past however many days, Rumi still blocked out whatever had been haunting her as of late when it came to a fight.
It’s why she's their leader. No matter what, they can always rely on her to guide them through fights with an unwavering confidence. Rumi believes in them, and they believe in Rumi. They’re a well-oiled machine in battle. Working in tandem, destroying every threat to the Honmoon.
(To each other.)
Rumi doesn’t hesitate to kill any demon they have to. She doesn’t hesitate to lead them through a fight of any magnitude. To pull them across each and every finish line, bloodied and bruised, and patch them up when they get home with stitches and bandages and the softest press of her lips to their temple.
(To suffer alone when it’s her turn to be taken care of.)
She doesn’t hesitate to protect them. To throw herself in the way of any attack Zoey and Mira don’t see coming. To take hits and scrapes like they’re nothing to her. Like she’s bulletproof as long as it’s them she’s standing in front of. She doesn’t hesitate to take the brunt of the damage meant for them.
(To sacrifice herself.)
Rumi doesn’t hesitate.
Until she does.
Zoey feels it before she sees it, and she knows from the way the taller girl's head shoots up that Mira does, too. It’s like a sting from a bee straight into their chests — an alarm from the Honmoon itself — seizing every muscle for the briefest of moments as they watch a massive demon cross one of the train cars in three steps, raising an equally massive club with barbs jutting out of it at every angle and then swinging it down towards their leader.
Their leader who has never hesitated before.
But Rumi’s sword doesn’t come up to block the hit. She doesn’t roll out of the way or dodge the weapon or anything.
She just takes the hit with a sickening crunch that Zoey can only hope she imagined hearing.
(She knows she didn’t.)
“Rumi!” Both girls cry out for their leader at the same time, stomachs churning when she doesn’t pop back up immediately with a brave face like she always has before. When they watch as she tries and fails to push herself back up off the roof of the train, all while the demon advances on her to finish the job.
A feral sounding yell comes out of Mira as she whirls her gok-do through each and every demon that’s trapped the two of them in one single slice, giving Zoey just enough time to throw one of her shin-kals at the advancing monster.
(It’s almost not enough.)
He staggers slightly in surprise, and then finds himself taking a long and unavoidable blade right through his torso as both girls arrive to Rumi’s rescue.
(Just like she always does for them.)
Zoey only gets to throw a few shin-kals, see a handful of the faceless demons turn to dust, and then Mira’s blade comes down like a reckoning for the horde, dispersing each and every one like it’s nothing. Their chests heave for a moment, eyes darting around to make sure they didn’t miss anyone. That every threat is properly vanquished.
And then they look to Rumi, who would be sitting up, or maybe even standing, ready to keep fighting after any normal hit.
(But this one was different.)
Instead, the girl who means the entire world to the couple is crumpled against the roof they stand on. One arm is wrapped around her stomach tightly while she uses the other to try and force herself up still. Zoey watches Rumi’s arm shake, struggling under her own weight, and then she collapses back to the metal surface with a cry she doesn’t even attempt to muffle for once. She and Mira don’t hesitate to rush to her side.
(They don’t hesitate like Rumi did.)
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Mira’s words come out like a mantra as she puts a hand on Rumi’s shoulder, trying to guide the purple-haired girl to her back, and Zoey feels a disturbing kind of relief when Rumi seems to fight against it, trying again to get up. At least she hasn’t given up.
(Then why did she hesitate?)
“Hey, it’s okay. It’s okay. Just lay down,” Zoey urges, helping Mira provide more — but still careful — pressure to get Rumi to stop.
“Pass-” Rumi wheezes, eyes squeezed shut in pain as she gives in and allows them to get her laying flat on her back. “Passengers.”
“I’ll go.” Zoey doesn’t hesitate to do this for her girls. She doesn’t want to leave Rumi’s side, but she and Mira both know if one of them doesn’t go, then Rumi will try again to get herself up. And Zoey’s not weak by any means, but Mira stands a much better chance of keeping Rumi down with force if necessary. Mira looks up at her to make sure her girlfriend is certain she wants to go, and gives a short nod when she sees the determination on Zoey’s face.
Even as she runs to the end of the train so she can drop down to the platform at the back of it and check on the passengers, their well-being is far from Zoey’s priority. She knows it’s wrong of her, and it goes against everything Celine taught them, but screw their duties as hunters. Rumi is hurt worse than she thinks she’s ever seen before. She desperately wants the passengers to be okay, but part of her, a deep rooted part she doesn’t want to acknowledge, knows she would have sacrificed everyone on that train for Rumi and Mira both.
(And she would have done it without hesitation.)
—
Why did she say something so fucking stupid to Rumi? Prove it? As if Rumi hadn’t been proving she was with them every day since they had met. As if she wasn’t the one who would slip off to handle business meetings alone so that she and Zoey could relax, or would get up early to do the dishes or other household chores when it wasn’t even her turn for them, or would stay completely still when they fell asleep on her even if her legs started to fall asleep. As if she hadn’t taken so many hits on their behalf over the years.
She told Rumi to prove it, and of course Rumi didn’t hesitate. She never had before. Not when it came to them.
(Just when it came time to protect herself.)
“Hey, no,” Mira tries to keep her voice firm and her touch gentle as she grabs Rumi’s wrist to prevent her from trying to push herself up once again. “Zoey is checking on them. Just stay here with me. And stay awake, okay? Can you do that?”
Rumi’s only response is a stiff nod, and Mira’s heart clenches as she watches the girl try to breathe through what she knows must be excruciating pain. She’s pretty sure if it weren’t for the rattling sound of the train on its tracks she could have heard Rumi’s teeth grinding.
Quick footsteps alert her to their groupmate’s return, and when she looks up at her, the unspoken question in her eyes, all she gets from Zoey is a small shake of her head.
(They failed.)
Both of their attention shifts to the more pressing matter before them. A few scattered spots of blood from where the barbs of the club connected with Rumi’s body are starting to seep through the hoodie after having made their way through the girl’s turtleneck already.
“We need to get her home,” Zoey states. “Do you think you can carry her? The next stop should be any minute.”
Mira nods and maneuvers to a position where she can carefully get an arm under Rumi’s knees and her other at Rumi’s back. Zoey helps carefully move Rumi into Mira’s arms, supporting her head and then carefully guiding it to rest against Mira’s chest once they both know she’s secure. Mira tries her best not to jostle her as she stands, but it just isn’t enough. Rumi cries out, turning her head into Mira further in an attempt to quiet herself.
“Shh, I’ve got you.” She can’t stop herself from pressing a soft kiss to the top of the injured girl’s head, and she knows Zoey is wishing she could do the same thing. They’ll have plenty of time for comforting their girl once they get home, though.
They’ll take care of her. Everything will be fine.
Rumi will be okay.
(Prove it.)
—
The stop comes up quickly, as expected, and Zoey feels more relief than she can put into words at the empty station. She doesn’t want to think about how they would have explained all three members of Huntr/x riding on top of a train, with one of them severely and undeniably injured, to the general public. That would have been an insane thing to ask Bobby to handle.
She hops down first, and then waits patiently, ready to support however needed, as Mira pulls on every thread of the Honmoon she can to soften her landing and prevent as much pain as possible for Rumi. Both of them let out the anxious breath they’d been holding when Rumi doesn’t even react to the landing in the slightest.
“Shit, how do we get her home without anyone spotting us?” The thought is clearly a sudden realization for Mira, but Zoey had already come up with a perfect plan to get them home quickly in the moments they waited for the train to come to a stop.
At least, it’s a perfect plan in Zoey’s eyes. Rumi probably wouldn’t agree, but neither she or Mira are too concerned with what their leader would approve of given the circumstances.
She hot-wires a car.
(Without the slightest bit of hesitation, too.)
Yeah, definitely not something Rumi would have liked if she were aware enough of what was happening around her. But it works far better than any of Zoey’s 34 backup plans. Mira is able to slide into the backseat of the SUV, Rumi never leaving her arms, and Zoey gets them home in record time, listening to Mira’s quiet comforting of Rumi to ground herself the whole way there. She opts to park in one of the back lots of the tower where they’re less likely to be spotted as they find an entrance — or maybe it’s an emergency exit or something, she doesn’t know and doesn’t really care — to slip through. Zoey leads the way, checking around each corner as they make their way to the elevator, and once they’re in it, she finds herself letting out a long breath as she bends slightly and buries her face in her hands.
(Why did she hesitate?)
(Rumi never hesitates.)
(Why did she hesitate?)
(What if they hadn’t reacted so quickly?)
(What if that demon had-)
(Why did she-)
“Zoey!” Her head pops up to find Mira looking at her with so much worry and understanding that she can’t help the choked out sob that escapes her.
“She got hit so hard, Mira.”
“I know.”
“I thought he was going to hit her again before we-”
“I know.”
“I’ve never seen her…”
(So hurt.)
(So broken.)
(Not get up.)
(Hesitate.)
“I know.”
Zoey’s lip quivers, but she forces herself to hold it together. They’re almost there and then they can take care of her. Why did they pick a tower with so many floors?
She looks to the number above the door, and then back to Mira and Rumi.
“Is she…?”
(Awake?)
(Okay?)
(Alive?)
“Yeah,” Mira nods shortly, her gaze having settled back on Rumi once she pulled Zoey out of her spiral. “She passed out halfway here. I- I know I probably should’ve kept her awake, but she- Fuck, Zoey, she’s in so much pain. I couldn’t do that to her.”
All Zoey could do was nod. She understood. She would’ve done the exact same thing, and both of them knew it. Rumi preferred to suffer in silence. They knew it. They knew it had happened in the past and would probably happen again. They didn’t want her to. All they wanted was for Rumi to let them in. To let them be there. To let them take care of her.
(To let them love her.)
But she hadn’t. Not yet, at least. So seeing Rumi in that much pain after not ever being shown the smallest amounts of it? It was like watching the most intense and personal horror movie to exist and not being able to turn it off.
“Mira?”
“Yeah?” She still doesn’t look away from Rumi.
Neither does Zoey.
“We’re gonna have to take her shirt off, aren’t we?”
Mira stiffens, then nods, and Zoey feels sick.
The elevator dings.