Work Text:
‘Hey, it's Rumi here! If you've gotten this far you're probably one of the five people I actually associate with- or you're a crazed fan and I need to change my number … again… Leave a message after the beep so I can know which it is! Um yeah, bye!'
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'eh… eh eh.. eh … eh .. eh eh EH HEH EH
Wow you're still on the line? I thought for sure the turtle sex audio would scare everyone off.. Welp that probably means you really need to talk to me so do your thing!'
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'Sup, it's Mira. I don't know who calls and leaves voicemails anymore besides scammers and freaks. But I guess I need to set this up anyway. So yeah, if you're a fan, I love you. If you're a friend, sorry I missed you. And if you're my mom or dad KILL YOURS—'
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When Zoey woke up, she noticed three things. One, Mira’s hair was fully in her mouth. Two, there was a faint blue glow coming from underneath their bedroom door. And three, Rumi was no longer spooning her. None of these were good things. Deciding an investigation was necessary, she pulled the pink strands of hair from her mouth and scooched away from Mira, accidentally kneeing her in the process.
“Sorry.” She whispered with a cringe, looking back at her. Mira thankfully only made a small grunt of disapproval but was otherwise undisturbed. Sometimes it was very advantageous to have a girlfriend who could sleep through an earthquake.
Zoey slipped out of bed and into her HUNTR/X slippers (because if you’ve got your own merch why wouldn’t you wear it) and padded out into the common area of the penthouse.
“Rumi,” She groaned, stretching her arms above her head, “I know you’re a morning person but four am is way too early.”
There was no response. No half laugh, no counter argument, no offer to carry her back to bed or make her a cup of tea. None of those usual Rumi-isms. Instead all Zoey found was a hollow shell on the couch. Her knees pulled up to its chin and her patterned arms wrapped around herself. Her unbraided hair waterfalling around her emphasized exactly how small she seemed in that moment.
“Rumi? Hey,” Zoey dropped to her knees on the rug in front of her, trying to make her wide eyes meet her downturned gaze, “Talk to me, what’s going on?”
Despite her attempts, Rumi wouldn’t look at her. Instead she kept her eyes trained on her girlfriend’s pajama clad knees.
“I don’t know why I even bothered.” Rumi shook her head, pulling her phone out of her mess of fabric and hair, offering it to her.
Zoey’s brows knit together, she took her girlfriend’s phone and found a voicemail from an unsaved number. She scrolled through the transcript and felt a tightening rubber band stretching itself out in her chest. It was the same bullshit and the same lies. No real apologies, only self-serving justifications.
‘We can still fix this. Fix you. Permanently. We can do it together.’
Oh, and lots of your mother this and your mother that. It really wasn’t hard to guess why Celine had played nice for so long. Noticeably however in the never ending stream of consciousness, two imperative words were absent. There was no I'm sorry. Not that it would be enough, but it would have been something.
“I thought,” Rumi’s voice was quickly dampening with the threat of tears, she cleared her throat before trying to speak again “I thought she’d change. I don’t know why but I did. I believed in her. I’m so stupid.”
“Whoa, no, no,” Zoey clicked the phone off, setting it down on the floor before scooching as close to her as possible without morphing into the couch, “You are so not stupid. You’re completely normal.”
“Yes,” Rumi laughed bitterly, looking at her girlfriend for the first time, “I’m totally normal, Zoe,” she held her glowing arms out for reference, “Totes.”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” She reached out and placed a warm palm on each arm, ”It’s normal to want someone you love to treat you well and it’s normal to be upset when they don’t.”
“But I don’t want to love Celine,” Rumi shook her head, a long purple strand of hair tumbling into her face, “I want to hate her,” Her hands curled into fists despite herself, “It’d be so much easier to cut her out of my life if I hated her.”
”I know. Trust me, I know,” Zoey did know after all. While Mira was much more public about her disdain for her family, where Zoey came from wasn’t exactly peaches and cream either. She spent many years with her grandmother because neither her mom nor dad were fit to take care of her. Or rather wanted to take care of her. She gently pushed Rumi's stray hair behind her ear again, hand lingering on her cheek “But when have things ever been easy when one of us is involved?”
“Never.” Rumi half chuckled in spite of herself.
“So maybe,” She added with a cautiously optimistic smile, “if we keep doing the hard things together and they won’t be so bad?”
“Maybe.” Rumi conceded, leaning in and pressing a kiss to Zoey’s soft lips.
Zoey eagerly pushed Rumi’s knees down so she could climb into her lap for a proper cuddle. She ran her yellow duck painted nails through her lavender hair.
“I got a new notebook today,” A glint of a familiar mischievousness crossed her face, “We could write a diss track all about Celine,”
“Zoey, we agreed no more diss tracks.”
"Not for the fans! No one would hear it but us, I promise. It'll be cathartic."
"Maybe." Rumi hummed, wrapping her arms around Zoey tighter and burying her face into the crook of her neck. The crying had caught up to her, quickly zapping any energy she had.
"Well when you want ideas let me know, because I've got them- Celine is very easy to rhyme with you know? Queen, scene, preen, obscene, careen, Krispy Kreme- that's a doughnut place I used to live down the street from and Oh," Rumi's breath had evened out, her forehead was heavy against her, the tension in her body fully relaxing, "You're asleep."
Zoey carefully laid her head down so it was resting on the back of the couch instead. She slipped away carefully to grab a spare HUNTR/X blanket, wrapping it around herself. She returned to find Rumi had tipped over landing face first into the couch cushions, her legs bent and her ass comically up in the air.
Zoey stifled a laugh, she picked Rumi's phone back up to a snap a photo and send it to herself. After acquiring the adorable blackmail for later, she gently lifted her purple head and slotted herself in so Rumi's face was now resting on her blanketed stomach. Rumi was drooling on her almost immediately.
"Good night, Rumi," she whispered, gently closing her girlfriend's gapping mouth so her throat wouldn't hurt in the morning, "I hope you dream about sweet things like mint chocolate chip ice cream and cats being afraid of cucumbers."
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