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Rumi knew something was wrong before she even got her shoes off, because the penthouse didn't smell like home anymore.
It smelled like warm electronics and stale sugar. Like someone had been living off whatever they could grab one-handed without looking away from a screen. The air had that faint, dry heat to it too—too many devices running, too many chargers plugged in, the kind of atmosphere that made your throat feel scratchy just from existing in it.
Mira was behind her in the doorway, still in her jacket, like she'd walked into a situation she didn't want to emotionally commit to. She paused, eyes narrowing, head tilting slightly the way it did when she caught something off.
Click. Click. Click.
The sound was coming from the living room. Not frantic yet. Just steady. Patient. Like a drip in a sink that you can't un-hear once you've noticed it.
Rumi stepped forward first.
Zoey was on the floor.
Not sitting. Not lounging. She was fully set up like this was her station now. A blanket pulled around her shoulders like a cape. A pillow under her stomach. Laptop open in front of her. Phone in one hand, thumb scrolling. Even the TV had a browser page blown up like a public service announcement.
In the middle of the screen, in that calm, polite font that made Rumi want to throw something:
The archive is temporarily down for maintenance.
Under it, a list of places to check for updates. A status page. Social accounts. Cheerful suggestions that felt, at this point, like personal insults. At least to Zoey.
Zoey's gaze didn't move when Rumi and Mira came into view. She clicked refresh again anyway, like the page might feel pressured into behaving if she tried hard enough.
Nothing changed.
The same sentence sat there, serene and unmoved.
Zoey's jaw tightened. Her lips pressed together, thin and determined. She clicked again.
Mira's mouth twitched, like she was fighting an instinct to say something unhelpful.
Rumi didn't let her.
She slid onto the edge of the couch, careful not to step over any cords. There were so many. Chargers webbed across the coffee table, trailing to power banks like Zoey had been preparing for a siege. A second phone—old, with a cracked screen—was propped against a mug. A tablet sat on a cushion with some kind of discussion thread open. It looked like Zoey had built redundancy into her despair.
"Zo," Rumi said gently.
Zoey didn't answer.
Click.
Click.
Rumi tried again, softer. "Hey."
Zoey's eyes finally flicked up, just enough to acknowledge them. Her face was pale in the TV light, and her hair was doing that thing where it wasn't fully messy, but it had passed the point of being deliberate. Like she'd started to fix it, then remembered something more important and stopped halfway through. There was a faint crease on her cheek too, like she'd fallen asleep on her hand and refused to admit it.
"Don't," Zoey said.
Rumi blinked. "Don't what?"
"Don't 'hey' me," Zoey said, voice tight. "And don't say 'it's just a website.'"
Mira lifted a brow. "Wasn't going to."
Zoey looked at her with open disbelief. "You were."
Mira didn't deny it. She just leaned her hip against the wall and crossed her arms, watching like this was a documentary about human fragility.
Zoey clicked refresh again.
Rumi tried to make her voice normal. Not patronising. Not amused. Not too serious, either. Just… present.
"How uh… how long has it been down?"
Zoey's eyes widened like Rumi had asked her how long the ocean had been gone.
"Two days," Zoey said. Then, after a beat, "And don't tell me it's not that long, because time works differently when you're suffering."
Mira gave a short, disbelieving exhale through her nose.
Zoey snapped, "What?"
Mira held up a hand. "Nothing..."
Rumi's phone buzzed in her pocket. She ignored it. She watched Zoey instead—watched the way Zoey's knee bounced, the way her fingers kept shifting from the track pad to her phone and back again. Like her body didn't know what action would fix it, so it was trying all of them.
"What were you reading?" Rumi asked.
Zoey's throat bobbed. She looked away, as if admitting it out loud would make it worse.
"A Polytrix fic," she said finally, quiet but intense. "You know when it's really like us, but they still do little… extra moments? Like they know the way you two look at each other, so they add in the stuff no one sees?"
Mira made a face. "No."
Zoey's stare sharpened. "Yes."
Mira's lips pressed together. She looked away like she didn't care, and it was obvious she cared just enough to be irritated about it.
Zoey continued anyway, like she couldn't help herself. "It was one of the long ones. Like… the kind where you settle in. I'd just started the part where everything gets soft. They were finally talking like people instead of—" Zoey stopped and seemed to clench her jaw around the rest. "And then it went down."
Rumi nodded, slow. She didn't say "that sucks," because it felt too small.
Zoey clicked refresh again.
"Zoey," Rumi said, and there was a gentle warning in it, like she was about to say something Zoey wouldn't like.
Zoey didn't look up. "What?"
Rumi leaned forward a little. "Zoey. Have you eaten today?"
Zoey stared at her like she'd asked if she'd considered becoming a sea slug. "Why would I do that when I could be refreshing?"
Mira let out a laugh so sharp it startled even her. She turned it into a cough immediately.
Zoey glared at her.
Rumi didn't laugh. She couldn't—not with the way Zoey's voice sounded like she meant it. She reached out and nudged the water bottle on the coffee table closer with her fingertips. It was half empty, and the plastic was warm like it had been sitting there untouched for too long.
"Drink," Rumi said.
Zoey's stare dropped to the bottle like it was a trap. Then she picked it up and took a sip, still watching the TV over the rim. Like she was afraid the second she looked away, the Archive would come back out of spite and she'd miss it.
"Good," Rumi said quietly.
Zoey swallowed hard and set the bottle down again. Her hand went back to the mouse.
Click.
Same message.
Rumi exhaled and tried not to let it sound like defeat. "Okay. You can refresh. But you're going to do it with food."
Zoey's mouth pulled into something that wasn't quite a smile. "I don't want food..."
"You want food," Rumi corrected gently, like she was reintroducing Zoey to basic life functions. "Your body wants food."
"My body wants the Archive," Zoey muttered.
Mira finally pushed off the wall and stepped closer, eyes narrowing at the TV like she was about to fight it physically. "So. What happens if it doesn't come back tonight?"
Zoey's fingers stopped.
The room went very still.
"Don't say that," Zoey whispered.
Mira blinked. "I'm asking."
Zoey's face twisted, somewhere between fury and fear. She looked down at her hands, then at the laptop, then back at the maintenance page as if she could force herself not to answer.
Rumi watched her shoulders rise with a breath that didn't fully make it out.
Zoey's voice came out smaller than before. "Then I'll have to… do it myself."
Rumi frowned. "Do what?"
Zoey looked up slowly, eyes too bright.
"Imagine it," she said, like it was the worst fate anyone could suffer. "In my head. Like the olden days."
Mira stared at her for a long second. Then, in a tone that was almost respectful, she said, "That's barbaric."
Zoey nodded, grim. "Exactly."
Rumi looked from Zoey to Mira and felt a weird, helpless warmth in her chest. It was stupid. It was dramatic. It was also Zoey, in the most Zoey way possible, turning comfort into ritual and refusing to let go.
Zoey's phone buzzed. She didn't check it. She didn't blink. Her finger hovered over refresh again like a gambler about to place her last bet.
Rumi shifted forward on the couch.
"Alright," she said, steadying her voice. "We're going to get you through this."
Zoey's eyes flicked to her. "How?"
Rumi opened her mouth—and realised she didn't actually know yet. Behind Zoey, the message sat there, calm and unchanging, like it could wait forever. Zoey couldn't.
She clicked again anyway, like she was trying to wear the pixels down through sheer persistence. The cursor moved. The page refreshed. The same polite sentence reappeared in the same polite place, with the same little block of "check here for updates" links that might as well have been a handwritten note that said: good luck, babe.
Zoey's shoulders rose and fell once, sharp and shallow. Then she shifted on the floor, blanket sliding off one shoulder, and it was like her body decided it was done pretending it could sit still.
She pushed up onto her knees and started crawling, not toward the kitchen, not toward the bathroom, not toward anything that would help her in a normal way—toward the coffee table, where the cords were, where the other screens were, where she'd left the "backup" options like a person preparing for a storm.
"Okay," Zoey murmured to herself, more than to them. "Okay. Status check."
Her phone was already open to the status feed. She flicked her thumb hard enough that Rumi heard the tiny tap tap tap of nail against glass. Her eyes scanned. Blinked. Scanned again, hungry for any new line of text the way Rumi was hungry for a real meal after rehearsals. Zoey's face barely changed, but her jaw did that little clenched thing it always did when she didn't want to admit she was scared.
Mira watched from the side with an expression that said she'd fought down bigger problems than a broken website and still, somehow, this was the one that made her look unsettled. She kept her arms folded, but her foot had started tapping. Not out of impatience—out of secondhand tension. Like Zoey's panic was contagious and Mira hated that it was working.
Rumi tried to keep her voice level. "Any updates?"
Zoey's laugh came out thin. "Yeah. The update is that they would like me to 'check the status page for updates.'"
Rumi winced, because that was exactly what the maintenance notice said. She could picture it without looking: clean font, calm tone, absolute disregard for the fact that a person was actively losing their mind in her living room.
Zoey shoved her phone forward, practically jabbing it at Rumi's knee. "Look. It's all memes. People are treating this like it's funny."
"It is funny," Mira said, then immediately corrected herself when Zoey's stare sharpened. "I-It's… funny to them. Because they're not you."
Zoey huffed and leaned back on her heels. The blanket slipped down further, bunching around her waist like she didn't even notice it anymore. She grabbed the tablet next, opened some thread full of screenshots, scrolled too fast, doubled back, then made an aggravated noise in the back of her throat like she'd bitten her tongue.
"This person," Zoey said, pointing at the screen with righteous fury, "is recapping the fic from memory and they got the line wrong."
Rumi blinked. "They got… a line wrong?"
Zoey looked up, eyes wide with disbelief that Rumi didn't understand the magnitude. "Not a line. The line."
Mira finally moved closer, crouching just enough to see the tablet. "Which fic?"
Zoey's mouth opened, shut, opened again. Something flickered through her face like embarrassment trying to break through the crisis.
"It's like… the slow-burn…" Zoey said, quieter.
Mira's brows lifted. "Obviously."
Zoey shot her a glare. "Don't."
"I'm not. I just think it's cute that you like slow-burns. Keep going."
Zoey exhaled hard and scrolled again, like the motion itself was the only thing keeping her upright. "It's one of the long ones. Like… the ones that aren't… it's about the vibe. Y'know? The little stuff. The way you both—" She stopped herself mid-sentence like she'd almost stepped on a landmine. Her eyes flicked to Rumi, then away, then she pushed her hair back so roughly it snagged on something and she hissed under her breath.
Rumi felt her ears go warm, and she hated that she had a physical reaction to that at all. She'd spent her entire life learning how to keep her face neutral when people said insane things about her online. Being flustered on her own couch, because Zoey had said "the little stuff" like it meant something sacred, felt like a private humiliation.
Mira didn't look at Rumi. She looked at Zoey, focused in the way she got when she decided something mattered.
"Okay," Mira said. "So. You're not just bored. You're… stuck."
Zoey made a noise that sounded like agreement and misery in equal measure. She shoved the tablet aside and grabbed the laptop again, like returning to the original altar might help. Refresh. Nothing. Refresh. Nothing.
Rumi's phone buzzed again—probably Bobby, probably someone reminding her she had an early call time tomorrow—and she ignored it with the kind of reflex she normally reserved for hate comments.
"Zo," Rumi said carefully, "can you tell me what you were up to when it went down? Like… what part?"
Zoey froze for half a second. Her thumb hovered over the track pad, suddenly still. Then she said, "They were about to talk."
Rumi stared at her.
Zoey's eyes shone with fresh indignation, like she couldn't believe she had to explain this to someone. "Not small talk. Like… the talk. The one you wait seventy thousand words for. The author had nailed the whole build-up thing, and then—pssh."
Mira's face shifted, subtle but real. "Oh."
Zoey's gaze snapped to her. "Don't 'oh' me."
"I'm not," Mira said. "I'm… acknowledging your pain."
Zoey's expression softened in a way that made Rumi's chest tighten. It was still dramatic, still Zoey, but there was something raw under it that hadn't been there when she first walked in. Like she'd held it together as long as she could and now the seams were starting to show.
Rumi leaned forward on the couch, elbows on her knees. "Okay. We need a plan."
Zoey blinked. "A plan."
"Yes," Rumi said, clinging to the word like it was a life raft. "Because this—" she gestured vaguely at the web of devices and the unhinged focus in Zoey's face "—isn't sustainable."
Zoey's mouth twisted. "I'm sustaining."
"Out of spite," Mira muttered.
Zoey pointed at her. "Correct. See? Mira gets it."
Mira's lips pressed together. She looked like she wanted to argue, then decided it would only make Zoey dig in harder. Instead she asked, "Do you have any of it saved? Anything…?"
Zoey's posture went rigid.
Rumi's stomach dropped. "Zoey."
Zoey stared at the floor for one humiliating second, then lifted her chin again, defensive like it was a shield. "I believed in the cloud."
Mira shut her eyes and dragged a hand down her face. "Jesus Christ."
"It's not my fault," Zoey snapped. "It's not like I expected the Archive to— to—" She stopped, swallowing. Her voice went tight. "To leave me..."
Rumi didn't respond fast enough. Mira did, because Mira couldn't help herself.
"It didn't leave," Mira said. "It'll be back..."
Zoey's stare sharpened into something almost feral. "That's what people say before they get abandoned."
The words landed in the room with an ugly little thud. Rumi felt the air shift. Mira went still too, her mouth parting like she'd been about to snap back and then decided not to.
Rumi forced herself to keep her voice gentle. "Okay. Then we're not doing 'just down.' We're doing… practical steps."
Zoey's eyes flicked between them, suspicious. "Like what?"
Rumi opened her mouth—and honestly, she had nothing. Not a real solution. Not something that would replace a comfort routine that had become a lifeline.
"Maybe…" Mira, after a beat, finished, "We can fill n the gap."
Zoey blinked. "With?"
Rumi's brain finally offered something, and it was stupid, and she knew it was stupid the second it formed, but it came out anyway because she couldn't stand watching Zoey look like this.
"Maybe," Rumi said, cautiously, "you could… make your own?"
Zoey stared at her.
The silence stretched long enough that Rumi started regretting the shape of her own tongue.
Then Zoey's eyes widened, not with anger—worse. They widened with possibility.
"Say that again," Zoey whispered.
Mira made a sound like she'd just realised they were about to make a terrible decision on purpose.
Rumi swallowed. "Zoey—"
"No," Zoey said quickly, crawling closer like she was being pulled by gravity. "No. Don't back out. You said it. You can't un-say it. You two can—"
Rumi's pulse kicked hard. "We can what?"
Zoey's face lit with manic hope, the kind that usually came right before disaster.
"You two can do it," Zoey said, voice shaking with excitement. "Like a live reading. I've seen people so that on TikTok."
Mira stared at Zoey. Then at Rumi. Then, like she was trying not to smile at how insane this was, she muttered, "Absolutely not."
Zoey's gaze slid to her.
"And before you say no," Zoey added sweetly, "I have not eaten today and I am emotionally fragile, so. Just think about that."
Mira stared at her like she was trying to decide whether that was blackmail or just an extremely honest hostage demand.
Rumi, meanwhile, felt the shape of the problem settle into her bones. Not the outage. That was whatever. Things went down. Sites crashed. The internet threw tantrums. You waited, you checked the status page once, you moved on. The problem was Zoey, kneeling on her living room floor like a pilgrim, blanket slipping off her shoulder, eyes bright in a way that wasn't 'sleep deprivation' cute anymore. It was the kind of bright that came from being too wound up to come down. Like a string pulled too tight.
Rumi rubbed the side of her thumb against her palm, trying to keep her own voice gentle and practical, because that was what she knew how to do when the people she loved started shaking at the seams. "Okay," she said. "Okay. If we're even considering this—"
Zoey's head snapped up instantly. "Yes."
"I said if," Rumi corrected, but it came out softer than she meant, because Zoey was looking at her like Rumi had just offered her oxygen.
Mira made a small sound under her breath and looked away, like she was offended by the fact that Zoey's eyes were doing that. Mira hated being made to care, especially in a way she couldn't defend as useful.
Rumi kept going before Zoey could launch herself at her. "If we're considering it, then you need to eat something first. Not later. Not 'after the next refresh.' Now."
Zoey's face tightened. Her gaze darted instinctively toward the TV, like the maintenance message might change the second she stood up. "I told you—"
"I know," Rumi said. She leaned forward on the couch, elbows on her knees, voice low and steady. "I know you think if you blink, it'll come back out of spite and you'll miss it. I'm promising you right now: if it changes, I will scream."
Zoey's eyes narrowed, measuring. "Like… a real scream."
"A real one," Rumi said. "A full, ugly scream."
Mira's mouth twitched. "Please don't—"
Zoey pointed at Mira without looking away from Rumi. "She's lying. You would do a dainty scream."
Rumi snorted before she could stop herself. She covered it by clearing her throat, but Zoey's lips tugged, just slightly, like the idea of Rumi screaming like a normal person had done something to her brain chemistry.
"Fine," Zoey said, grudging. "But I'm not leaving the room."
"You don't have to," Rumi said immediately, like she'd been waiting for that exact compromise. "We'll bring it."
Zoey's shoulders loosened by a fraction. The blanket slid down her arm again, and she didn't fix it. She just stared at the TV as if her eyes alone could keep the page pinned there.
Mira shifted, finally uncrossing her arms. "I'll go," she said, and it sounded like she regretted volunteering the moment it left her mouth.
Zoey's head whipped toward her. "You're going to bring me food?"
Mira's expression went flat. "Yes."
Zoey blinked, suspicious. "Why?"
Mira looked at Rumi, then back at Zoey, like she was offended she had to explain basic decency. "Because you look like you're going to start chewing on your laptop."
Zoey's face softened, and it was small enough that Rumi almost missed it. Then Zoey recovered quickly, like she didn't want to be seen accepting care without making it a bit. "I'm not thinking about chewing on my laptop…"
Mira started toward the kitchen anyway. "You're right. You're a hamster at heart. You'd chew through the charger first."
Zoey called after her, "Bring something I can eat one-handed!"
Mira didn't answer, but Rumi heard the cupboard open. Heard the rustle of something being torn open. Heard the faint clink of a bowl.
Zoey turned back to Rumi, eyes bright again. "So," she said, like they were negotiating a contract now. "We're doing it?"
Rumi inhaled slowly, and for a second she wished she was anywhere else in the world. On a stage. In front of cameras. In a room full of demons. Anything but sitting in her own living room about to perform a fake fic of herself for her girlfriend who hadn't eaten and was clutching her refresh button like a rosary.
"We're not doing anything yet," Rumi said, careful. "We're talking about whether it would even help."
"It will," Zoey said immediately.
Rumi held her gaze. "It might make you worse."
Zoey's mouth opened—then she paused, actually paused, like she'd heard the seriousness in Rumi's tone and it had cut through the bit. Her eyes flicked down to her hands. Then back up again.
"I can't just sit here," Zoey said, quieter. "I've been sitting here. I've been refreshing like it's going to fix something. It's not fixing anything. It's just… making the time go loud."
Rumi didn't answer right away. She didn't need to. The quiet between them filled itself with the soft click of the TV fan and the distant sound of Mira rummaging in the kitchen.
Zoey cleared her throat and tried to drag it back into something playful, like she'd said too much on accident. "Also," she added quickly, "I would be so good at it."
"At what," Rumi said, even though she knew.
Zoey's eyes widened, delighted again. "Commenting. Like. Live. I can do it without even thinking."
Rumi's stomach dropped. "No."
Zoey stared. "What.?"
"No live commenting," Rumi said. "This is already—" She gestured vaguely at the situation, the cords, the nest, the maintenance page that hadn't moved in two days. "—a lot."
Zoey's face shifted into something offended and dramatic. "You can't take away my voice."
"I'm not taking away your voice," Rumi said, fighting to keep hers calm. "I'm trying to keep you from making this worse. If you start commentating, you're not going to calm down. You're going to spiral faster."
Zoey's gaze sharpened. "Maybe I wanna spiral…"
Rumi didn't flinch. "No."
It was a simple word. It landed. Zoey blinked hard, like she wasn't used to Rumi drawing a line in her own living room.
From the kitchen, Mira reappeared with a bowl and a spoon and something that smelled like peanut butter. She dropped it onto the coffee table with a soft thud, then held out a banana like she was offering it to a wild animal through a fence.
Zoey stared at it. "Is that… a banana?"
Mira nodded. "Eat it."
"That's so… responsible... little bit suggestive too."
Mira snorted. "Shut up. You're welcome."
Zoey took the banana anyway, peeled it, and took a bite while keeping her eyes on the TV. She chewed with the kind of begrudging focus that said she was only doing this because the adults in the room had unionised against her.
Rumi watched her swallow. Watched her take another bite. Watched her shoulders drop in tiny increments, like food was doing what food always did: making the body remember it was a body, not an engine running on fumes.
"Okay," Rumi said, once Zoey had eaten enough to look less hollow. "If we do this—if—then it has rules."
Zoey held up the banana like a microphone. "Okay."
"No interrupting," Rumi said.
Zoey opened her mouth.
Rumi raised a finger. "No interrupting."
Zoey's eyes widened in exaggerated innocence. "I wasn't going to—"
Mira cut in, dry. "You were going to."
Zoey swallowed another bite with a glare.
Rumi continued, laying it out like she was trying to keep a stage from collapsing. "You can pick the tropes. You can pick the scenario. You do not get to—" she searched for the word, because she could already hear Zoey doing it "—live-react to every line."
Zoey's face twisted like she was being asked to stop breathing. She chewed, slowly, thinking, then swallowed with visible effort.
"I can't promise that," Zoey said. "That's like… my whole thing."
Mira scoffed. "Your whole thing is being annoying."
Zoey pointed the banana at her. "My whole thing is being supportive. I am a community pillar."
Rumi stared at Zoey, then at Mira, and for a second she could see the exact fork in the road: either they said no and Zoey kept refreshing herself into madness, or they said yes and accepted that Zoey was going to be Zoey, and the only question was how much damage control they could do.
Rumi exhaled and made the decision with the same resigned courage she used when she stepped into things that scared her.
"Alright," she said. "You can react."
Zoey lit up instantly. "Yay!"
Rumi held up her finger again. "But you can't derail it. You can't talk over us. You can't—"
Zoey nodded so fast her hair bounced. "Okay. Okay. I can do that. I'll just gasp."
Mira snorted. Zoey shot her a look that said don't ruin this for me.
Rumi's gaze drifted to the TV again. The maintenance message was still there. Still calm. Still unchanged. Like it had all the time in the world. Zoey didn't even look at it now. She looked at Rumi instead, eyes bright, mouth smudged faintly with banana like she didn't even realise.
"Do it," Zoey whispered, like a prayer. "Update. Please."
Rumi's throat went dry.
Mira's voice came out low and reluctant. "We're really doing this?"
Rumi leaned forward, reached for Zoey's laptop, and gently tilted it down so the TV glare wasn't in Zoey's face anymore. Zoey didn't protest. She just shuffled closer, blanket pooling around her legs, like she was settling in for the only thing that mattered.
"Fine," Rumi said, and she tried to make it sound casual. It didn't. "Fine. We'll… improvise."
Zoey's smile broke across her face, sudden and ridiculous and relief-drunk.
Mira looked at Zoey, then at Rumi, then muttered, "I need to get something first," and stood up like she'd just remembered an errand.
Rumi blinked. "What?"
Mira was already heading toward the hallway, voice thrown back over her shoulder. "A… button."
Zoey froze mid-bite. "A what?"
Mira didn't turn around.
"You'll see," she said.
Zoey watched her go, eyes wide, and then she turned back to Rumi with the kind of giddy terror that only came when Zoey was about to be given exactly what she wanted.
Rumi shifted on the couch, suddenly too aware of her own hands. She didn't know what to do with them, so she clasped them together, then unclasped them, then reached for the water bottle like that was a normal thing to do. The bottle was still warm, still half-empty, still accusing, and she took a sip just to give her mouth something to do besides say something stupid.
Zoey didn't blink. She sat there on the floor with her banana, chewing slowly now, as if she'd remembered she was supposed to be a person with blood sugar and organs. The blanket had pooled around her waist like a skirt. Her laptop was still open, angled away from her, but the TV behind her kept shining that calm maintenance message into the room. It made everything look a little flatter than it should. Like the apartment had become a waiting room.
"So," Zoey said, voice quieter than before, like she was afraid if she spoke too loud she'd scare it off. "What's the premise?"
Rumi swallowed. "Premise?"
"Yes," Zoey said, nodding hard, earnest. "Like. Cold open. Hook. Are we starting with, like, forced proximity? Or do we want something softer. Like… post-show exhaustion. Or like, you're both at the same company event and pretending you're not—"
Zoey stopped herself abruptly, eyes sliding to Mira's empty spot on the arm of the couch as if she'd suddenly remembered there were rules.
She forced her mouth shut. Chewed. Swallowed.
Then she said, very deliberately, "I will be so normal."
Rumi stared at her. "You're doing great."
Zoey exhaled out of her nose, half laughter, half relief. "Thanks. I feel like I'm being asked to do my taxes."
Rumi's lips twitched. "You do your taxes?"
Zoey made a face. "No. That's why it's stressful. Bobby does them now. I am very bad at math…"
The quiet that followed was different than the earlier quiet. Less sharp. Less desperate. Still tense, but in a way that felt like anticipation instead of panic. Zoey's knee bounced a little. Rumi could see it even under the blanket. The urge to do something, anything, had just changed target.
Rumi glanced past Zoey toward the TV again. The message hadn't moved. The whole page sat there like a dead fish. Calm. Unbothered. Zoey didn't look back once.
Rumi tried to gather herself the way she did before stepping onto a stage, except this wasn't a stage. This was her couch, her living room, Zoey on her floor, and Mira somewhere in the apartment hunting down a mystery object like she was gearing up for a heist.
"How serious are we being," Rumi asked, because she needed ground rules too.
Zoey's eyes widened. "Serious?"
"Like," Rumi said, careful, "do you want funny. Or… comfort."
Zoey hesitated. The word comfort did something to her face—softened it, then made her defensive again, like she didn't want to be caught needing that.
"Funny," Zoey said quickly. Then, quieter, "But with… a little bit of comfort. Just… in the background. Like seasoning… liiittle bit of enemies-to-lovers too, please."
Rumi nodded slowly. She could do that. She could do funny. She could do soft. She could do anything, technically. She'd performed in front of thousands of people. She'd smiled through interview questions she wanted to throw up over. She'd walked red carpets with cameras flashing in her eyes and not once had she tripped. Well, apart from that one time, but who's counting?
This should not have been scary.
It was terrifying.
Zoey leaned forward slightly, like she could sense Rumi's hesitation and wanted to feed her something. "You can just start. Like… 'Rumi walked into the—'"
"Don't," Rumi said immediately.
Zoey froze. "Why?"
"Well. Because now I'm thinking about walking," Rumi said, and she sounded more distressed than she meant to. "And I'm going to overthink it. Like, where am I walking? How am I walking? Is it a hallway walk? A stage walk? A normal walk? I don't—"
Zoey's mouth twitched. "Okay, fair."
Rumi exhaled, a little embarrassed. "Sorry."
Zoey waved the banana, magnanimous. "No, no. It's fine. That's why I'm here. I'm like a support animal."
"I love you," Rumi said.
Zoey's smile was small but pleased. "Love you too."
The sound of something opening in the hallway cut through them—drawers, maybe. A cupboard. Then a soft thump, followed by Mira's footsteps returning, unhurried and purposeful.
Rumi straightened instinctively. Zoey's head snapped toward the sound like she was tracking prey.
Mira came back holding a small plastic button in her palm. The kind that looked like it belonged in a kid's toy aisle or the impulse section at a checkout, except this one had a little speaker grille and a sticker on it that read: Record your own message!
Zoey's mouth fell open. "What is that?"
Mira sat down on the arm of the couch again like she owned the moment. "A… temporary solution."
Zoey's eyes narrowed. "To?"
"To you," Mira said flatly, then leaned forward and pressed the tiny record switch on the side with her thumbnail.
Rumi watched, confused, as Mira brought it up to her mouth. Mira's expression didn't change. Her tone didn't change either, which somehow made it worse.
She spoke into the button with solemn intensity.
"Kudos."
She let go. Clicked the switch back. Tested it with her thumb.
The button chirped, in Mira's own deadpan voice: "Kudos."
Zoey stared at it like Mira had just invented fire.
Mira held it out to her. "Here."
Zoey reached for it slowly, like she didn't trust it not to bite.
She pressed it once.
"Kudos."
Her eyes fluttered shut for a beat, like the sound hit her in the chest.
Rumi's eyebrows climbed. "Oh my god."
Zoey pressed it again immediately. She inhaled like she was breathing in through the word.
Mira watched her with grim satisfaction. "Every time you feel the urge to interrupt, press that instead."
Zoey looked up, offended. "I wasn't going to interrupt."
Mira raised a brow. Zoey pressed the button again without breaking eye contact.
Rumi had to cover her mouth to hide her laugh, but the sound still leaked out. Zoey glanced up at her, cheeks slightly pink, and pressed the button once more like she was showing off.
Rumi finally let out a snort. "You're such a dork."
"Glad you noticed." Zoey hugged the button to her chest for a second, then pulled it away like she didn't want to admit she'd done that. She placed it carefully on her thigh, thumb resting over it like a trigger.
Rumi stared between them, half amused, half endeared, half alarmed. "You bought that… today?"
Mira shrugged. "No. Don't really remember, just knew it'd be useful one day."
Zoey's eyes were shining now, and not in the scary way. In the excited way. She tapped the button once, softer, like she was testing if the dopamine still worked.
"Okay," Zoey said, voice suddenly steady, like she'd been given a purpose. "Now we can begin."
Rumi's throat went dry again.
Zoey leaned forward, practically vibrating. "In this universe," she reminded them quickly, like she was afraid they'd forget. "Total RPF vibe. No demon stuff unless it's a joke. You don't have to mention it at all. This is just like… normal life, but you're you."
"RPF?"
"Real Person Fiction."
Rumi nodded, slow. She could do that. She could say words. She could pretend this was like any other performance, except it wasn't, because Zoey wasn't an audience, she was her girlfriend, and Mira was sitting right there, watching her like she was waiting to see if Rumi would mess it up.
Zoey pressed the button once, as if to bless the moment.
Rumi swallowed and finally, finally forced her mouth to move.
"Okay," she said. "So… it starts with—"
Zoey's eyes went wide.
Mira's brows lifted.
Rumi's brain emptied itself completely.
She stared at the floor for one brutal second, then let out a laugh that sounded more like surrender than amusement.
"I've got nothing," Rumi admitted.
Zoey pressed the button against her forehead like she was trying to keep herself from screaming.
Mira leaned closer, voice low and unhelpfully calm. "Just say a sentence."
Rumi blinked. "A sentence?"
"Yes," Mira said. "One."
Zoey nodded violently. "Just one. Just one sentence. You can do that. I've seen you on live TV. I've seen you lie with your whole face. You can do one sentence."
Rumi stared at Zoey. "That's not… exactly comforting."
"It is," Zoey insisted. "It means you're powerful."
Rumi exhaled slowly, closed her eyes, and tried to reach for something simple. A room. A moment. A feeling. When she opened her eyes again, Zoey was watching her like she was waiting for rain.
Rumi forced the words out.
"We'll start it," she said carefully, "with Mira and I in the hallway."
Zoey's thumb hit the button on instinct
Rumi's shoulders loosened a fraction.
Zoey looked up at her, positively glowing. "Okay. Okay. Keep going."
Mira made a small, impatient noise and slid off the arm down onto the couch, laying her head on Rumi's lap, one hand on Rumi's thigh, watching her with that look that always said commit or shut up. Rumi's heart did something stupid. She tried not to show it.
"Hallway," Rumi repeated, as if saying it twice made it real. "Like… we're both coming from opposite ends."
Zoey's eyes narrowed in concentration. The button rested in her lap like a sacred object now. She didn't press it. She was too busy directing.
"Okay," Zoey said, voice suddenly serious in that way she got when she was editing videos or taking photos. "Stand up. Both of you."
Rumi blinked. "We're standing up?"
Zoey nodded like it was obvious. "Yes. I can't work with sitting. This is a hallway scene. Get up."
Mira lifted a brow, but she stood anyway, rolling her shoulders back like she was about to stretch before a dance rehearsal. Rumi followed, slower, smoothing her hands over her sweatpants in a tiny, useless attempt to look less like a person about to embarrass herself in her own home.
Zoey pointed with the banana peel she'd forgotten she was holding. "Okay. Rumi, you're over there." She jabbed toward the far side of the hallway. "And Mira, you're over there," Zoey added, pointing in the opposite direction. "You're both walking. Normal walking. Not red carpet walking. There are no cameras. You're not waving. You're just—" she searched for the words, eyes flicking upward like she was pulling them from a shelf in her brain "—two people who are forced to exist near each other."
Mira snorted. "That part's not entirely fiction."
Rumi flipped her off playfully.
Zoey didn't look. "No ad-libbing."
Mira's mouth snapped shut. Rumi's lips twitched.
Zoey shifted, blanket bunching at her waist, button tucked in one hand like she might need it for survival. "Okay. Rumi, you're coming from—" her eyes scanned the room as if she could see an invisible set dressing "—a meeting. You're annoyed. Your feet hurt. You're thinking about taking your shoes off in the elevator. You're tired."
Rumi hesitated. "Why am I thinking about my shoes?"
"Because it's human," Zoey said immediately, like Rumi had questioned a scientific law. "People have feet. Continue."
Mira glanced at Rumi, amused.
Zoey snapped her fingers. "Mira, you're coming from… wherever you go."
Mira stared. "'Wherever I go'?"
Zoey nodded, perfectly satisfied. "Yes. And you're in a bad mood."
Mira's lips pressed together. "Also not fiction."
Zoey finally looked up at her, expression bright and mildly threatening. Mira blinked. Zoey pressed the button once, eyes still on Mira.
She stared at Zoey like she'd just been hit with a foam dart to the forehead. She promptly shut up. Rumi couldn't help it. She laughed, breathy and surprised, and it loosened something in her chest.
"Okay," Zoey said, pleased. "On my count. You both walk toward the middle. And when you see each other, you both do the thing."
Rumi frowned. "The thing."
Zoey nodded like she was explaining something simple. "The enemies to lovers thing. The look. The full-body 'ugghh.'"
Mira rolled her eyes, already walking into position. "You're enjoying this too much."
Zoey didn't deny it. She adjusted her blanket like a director adjusting a headset.
"Three," Zoey said. "Two. One. Action."
Rumi started walking.
It felt ridiculous immediately. She knew it. She could feel her face heating up. Her living room rug wasn't a hallway. The coffee table wasn't some neutral marker in a corporate building. The TV behind Zoey was still sitting there with that maintenance message like it was watching too.
But then Mira started walking too, and the moment shifted. Mira's posture was casual, shoulders loose, hands in her pockets, but her eyes had that sharpness they always had when she decided to play into something. She didn't half-commit. She never did.
They walked toward each other.
Zoey leaned forward, whispering like she was narrating a sport. "Yes. Yes. Give me tension. Give me distaste. Give me… you've got old beef."
Rumi's mouth twitched. She tried to keep her face neutral, but her eyes flicked up, caught Mira's gaze, and it was like the air tightened between them.
Mira's lips curved, faintly. Not a smile. A warning.
Rumi's stomach dipped.
They stopped in the "middle" of the living room—close enough that Rumi could smell Mira's shampoo. Close enough that she was suddenly, vividly aware of Mira's height. Of the way Mira's eyes dragged over her, quick and assessing, like she was looking for weak points.
Zoey made a sound of approval in the back of her throat. "Good. Great. Now say something."
Rumi swallowed. "What do you want me to say?"
Zoey pointed at her. "You say something like you're pretending you don't care. Like you don't even notice her."
Rumi stared at Mira for half a second too long to pretend that.
Then she forced her voice into something flat. "Excuse me."
Mira tilted her head. "No."
Rumi blinked. "No?"
Zoey whispered fiercely, delighted. "Yes..."
Mira's eyes didn't leave Rumi. "You're in my way."
Rumi's brows drew together despite herself. "Go around."
Mira's mouth quirked. "No."
Rumi actually felt her cheeks warm. She hated it. She hated that Mira could say one word and make her feel like she'd stepped wrong.
Zoey pressed the button once, quietly, like she couldn't help herself. Rumi shot Zoey a look. Zoey looked back with pure, unrepentant joy.
"Now," Zoey said, voice soft but commanding, "you both take a step closer to each other..."
Rumi's breath hitched. "Zoey."
Zoey's eyes widened in mock innocence. "What?"
"This is—" Rumi gestured vaguely between herself and Mira, because she didn't know how to say this is our living room and you are turning it into a stage without sounding like an old woman.
Zoey leaned forward, earnest. "It's just acting."
Mira looked at Zoey, then at Rumi, and something in her expression changed, just slightly—like she'd decided to be unhelpful on purpose. She took a step closer.
Rumi held her ground out of stubbornness. Then, because she refused to be the only one losing this game, she took a step forward too. Now they were close enough that Rumi could see the tiny flecks of colour in Mira's eyes. Close enough that Mira's breath brushed her cheek when she spoke.
"You always do this," Mira murmured.
Rumi's throat tightened. "Do what?"
"You act like you're above it all," Mira said, voice low, almost calm. "Like you don't want anything."
Rumi's pulse thudded hard. She glanced at Zoey instinctively, as if Zoey would call cut if this got too real. Zoey didn't call cut. Zoey's face had gone utterly intent, lips parted, eyes bright. She was clutching the button like a rosary, but she didn't press it. She was watching like she was witnessing prophecy.
"Okay," Zoey whispered, barely audible. "Now… the almost-kiss."
Rumi's brain misfired. "The what?"
Mira's brows lifted, amused. "The what?"
Zoey nodded with violent certainty. "The almost-kiss. The tension break. You both lean in. You don't fully do it. You stop. You breathe. You hate it."
Rumi stared at her. "Zoey, I—"
Zoey held up a hand. "It's acting."
Mira's mouth twitched. "She's right. It's acting."
Rumi's eyes narrowed. "You're enjoying this."
Mira leaned closer, voice light. "You're the one who suggested we even do it."
Rumi's cheeks burned.
Zoey pressed the button once, like she couldn't contain herself anymore. "Okay," Zoey said quickly, like she was speeding through a dangerous part to keep momentum. "Lean in. Both of you. Mira, tilt your head a little. Rumi, you don't. You're more stubborn. You keep your head straight because you refuse to make it easy for her."
Rumi's mouth opened. Nothing came out. Mira, infuriatingly, did exactly what Zoey said. She tilted her head just slightly, eyes on Rumi like she was daring her to flinch. Rumi's breath caught. This was ridiculous. This was a game. This was—
Zoey whispered, urgent, "Do it."
Rumi leaned in. Not all the way. Just enough to feel Mira's warmth. Just enough to feel the space between them shrink into something electric and stupid. Mira didn't move. She held there, steady, like she was waiting. Rumi could see her lips now. Close enough to count the seconds before she backed out.
Zoey made a tiny, strangled sound in her throat like she was trying not to combust.
Rumi stopped.
Her breath came out shaky. Mira's eyes flicked down to Rumi's mouth, then back up. For a second, neither of them moved. Zoey pressed the button like a reflex, like she needed it to stay conscious.
Rumi jerked back, startled by the sound. Mira blinked, then let out a quiet laugh that sounded like she'd been holding it in.
Zoey slapped her free hand over her mouth, eyes wild. "Sorry. Sorry. I needed it."
Rumi stared at her, then at Mira, then at the space between them that still felt too charged for a living room.
Mira tilted her head toward Zoey. "Is this helping?"
Zoey nodded so hard her hair bounced. "Yes. So much."
Rumi exhaled, half laugh, half surrender. "Okay. Fine. Keep directing."
Zoey's grin returned, bright and hungry. "Okay. Now we do the part where you both walk away but you both look back."
Mira turned on her heel instantly, like she'd been given permission to retreat with dignity.
Rumi followed a beat later, because she refused to be the one left standing there looking like she'd forgotten how to move.
They took three steps in opposite directions—two people walking away from each other in a living room that very much wasn't a hallway, past a coffee table full of chargers and a bowl that still smelled faintly of peanut butter. It should have broken the spell. It should have reminded them how stupid this was.
It didn't.
Maybe it was the way Zoey was watching, chin propped on her fist like this was the most important documentary of her life. Maybe it was because Mira, of course, committed to the bit like it was oxygen. Maybe it was because Rumi's body never quite remembered how to behave when Mira turned the charm on her, even when she knew exactly what Mira was doing.
"Okay," Zoey whispered, urgent. "Hold. Hold. Now look back. Both of you. At the same time."
Rumi tried to time it—tried to make it neat and controlled.
Mira didn't bother.
She looked back first.
Rumi felt it before she saw it, that shift in the air, like Mira's attention had physically landed on her shoulder blades. Rumi turned her head, and there Mira was, halfway across the room, eyes sharp and amused, mouth curved just slightly like she knew she'd caught Rumi exactly where she wanted.
Rumi's stomach did that stupid little swoop.
Zoey made a pleased sound, like she'd just watched a successful magic trick.
"Yes," Zoey breathed. "Yes. Now Rumi, your face. You're trying not to care. But you do."
Rumi's cheeks warmed. "Zoey—"
"No," Zoey said quickly, as if she could hear the apology coming. "Don't talk. Just act. This is the part where you're mad that you looked back."
Rumi swallowed and tried to school her expression into something neutral.
Mira's eyes flicked over her face like she was reading her anyway.
Zoey pressed the button softly, almost reverent.
Rumi's shoulders loosened against her will. It was like the room had been holding its breath and that stupid button gave it permission to exhale.
"Okay," Zoey said, regaining speed. "Now we do the thing where Mira says something that makes Rumi mad."
Mira lifted a brow, like she was waiting for her line.
Zoey nodded at her. "Go. Just one sentence. Like a little hook. Like something that'll haunt her all day."
Mira didn't hesitate. "You always run."
Rumi froze.
It wasn't even a new line. It wasn't even that deep. It was just Mira's voice, low and casual, delivered from across the room like she was tossing a pebble and aiming for a bruise.
Rumi's mouth opened and shut once. She felt the heat crawl up her neck and hated herself for it.
Zoey's eyes went wide with satisfaction, like she'd just seen a perfect plot twist. She pressed the button again.
Rumi's voice came out a little sharper than she meant. "I don't run."
Mira's smile widened by a fraction. "You do."
Rumi narrowed her eyes. "From what?"
Mira shrugged, like it was obvious. "From me."
Zoey's whole body tightened, like she was trying not to levitate. Her thumb hovered over the button. She pressed it twice in quick succession.
Rumi shot Zoey a look over her shoulder. Zoey immediately pretended she was innocent, like her hand hadn't just betrayed her.
Mira started walking back toward the middle of the room again, slow and deliberate, like she was closing the distance for fun.
Zoey whispered, frantic with delight, "Yes. Yes. Mira, close the space. Rumi, stay still. Don't give her the satisfaction."
Rumi tried. She really did. She planted her feet and told herself she wasn't going to move an inch.
Mira came closer anyway, and Rumi's body reacted like it always did—like it was aware of Mira before her mind could catch up. Mira's presence filled the space. Warm. Sharp. Familiar in a way that still managed to make Rumi feel like she'd been caught doing something embarrassing.
Mira stopped right in front of her again.
Zoey leaned forward, whispering like she was directing a heist. "Okay. Now Mira leans in like she's going to kiss her, but she doesn't. She just talks. Right there. Close. In her ear."
Rumi's throat tightened so fast it almost hurt.
Mira's gaze flicked down to Rumi's mouth again, then back up. Her eyes were dark and amused. Like she was having fun watching Rumi try to pretend she wasn't affected.
Mira leaned in.
Not all the way. Just enough that her breath brushed the side of Rumi's face, warm and maddeningly calm.
"You're blushing," Mira murmured.
Rumi's whole body went hot. "I'm not."
Zoey slammed the button so hard it clicked against her palm.
Mira's mouth quirked. "You are."
Rumi's voice came out too fast. "Stop doing that."
Mira pulled back a fraction, just enough to look at her properly. "Doing what?"
Rumi hated that question. She hated that Mira always asked it like she didn't know, like she wasn't the one poking at her on purpose.
Zoey's eyes gleamed. She whispered, "Rumi, shove her."
Rumi blinked. "What."
Zoey nodded, urgent. "Not like, mean. Like—like a little push. Like you're mad but you also don't want her to stop."
Rumi stared at Zoey like she'd lost her mind.
Zoey pressed the button once, softer, almost pleading.
Rumi's hands came up and rested on Mira's shoulders. Not a shove. Not really. Just contact, grounding herself through the familiar shape of Mira under her palms.
Mira stilled, eyes flicking down to Rumi's hands like she'd been caught too.
Zoey's expression softened for a second, the hunger in it shifting into something warmer.
Then Zoey cleared her throat and snapped back into director mode like she hadn't just witnessed something that made her chest ache.
"Okay," Zoey said briskly. "Now you both stop. And you both realise you're being stupid."
Mira's lips parted, like she had something to say.
Zoey pointed at her immediately. "No. Don't ruin it. Silence. Let the tension sit. Let it marinate."
Mira shut her mouth, but her eyes stayed on Rumi.
Rumi tried to breathe normally. She couldn't. Not when Mira was right there, close enough that Rumi could count the freckles on the bridge of her nose if she wanted. Close enough that she could just—lean in. Zoey pressed the button again, like it was a metronome keeping her heart steady.
Rumi exhaled a laugh, helpless and embarrassed. "This is ridiculous."
Mira's voice was soft. "Yeah. Fun though."
Zoey pointed at both of them with satisfaction. "Good. Keep going."
Rumi glanced at Zoey. She was looking at them like the world had narrowed down to one thing: keep it alive, keep it moving, keep the story going so she didn't have to sit in silence and refresh herself into dust.
It wasn't even the dramatic part that got Rumi. It was the way Zoey's fingers kept worrying the little button in her lap, thumb hovering like she was rationing herself. She'd been loud and bossy and ridiculous for the last ten minutes, but there was a thin thread of something else under it. Rumi could see it in the tightness around Zoey's eyes. The effort it took to be "fine," to keep this in the realm of jokes.
Rumi turned back to Mira, and Mira was already watching her like she'd noticed the same thing.
Mira's mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. More like: Do it. You know you're going to do it.
Rumi swallowed.
Zoey drew in a breath like she'd been waiting for Rumi to reach that exact moment of hesitation. Then, softly—too soft for someone who'd just threatened to bite people earlier—Zoey said, "Okay."
Rumi blinked. "Okay what?"
Zoey sat up straighter, blanket slipping down, forgotten. Her eyes were wide, bright, and completely serious in a way that made the room feel suddenly quieter. "Okay," Zoey repeated, like she was grounding herself. "This is where you kiss for realsies."
Rumi's entire body went warm. Mira, infuriatingly, didn't look surprised. She looked amused. Like she'd been expecting Zoey to steer them here eventually, and now she was just curious how Rumi would handle it.
Rumi let out a laugh that sounded like it didn't belong to her. "Zoey—"
Zoey held up a hand. "No. No bargaining. No stalling. The kiss is inevitable. It's a hallway kiss. It's messy. It's impulsive. It's 'I hate you' energy and then suddenly—" Zoey made a helpless motion with both hands, like the kiss had physically stolen her ability to speak. "—that."
Mira's eyes flicked to Rumi's mouth again, quick and shameless. Rumi hated that it still worked on her. She hated that she could feel her pulse in her throat like she was seventeen and getting teased for the first time.
Zoey leaned forward, voice low and persuasive, like she was coaxing a skittish animal. "I'm not asking you to do something you haven't done a million bajillion times before. The scene needs a payoff."
Rumi stared at her, then at Mira, then at the space between her and Mira that suddenly felt way smaller than it actually was.
Mira spoke first, because of course she did. "Do you want me to be gentle or annoying?"
Rumi's eyes narrowed. "Why are those the only options?"
Mira shrugged. "It's who I am."
Zoey pressed the button again, like she needed a hit to survive the tension in her own living room.
Rumi exhaled through her nose, trying to find her footing again. "We—" she started, then stopped, because she didn't even know what she was trying to say. We are not actors? They were. We are not doing this for an audience? They were, technically. Zoey's eyes were on them like a spotlight.
Zoey's voice softened. "Please?"
It was just Zoey, asking in a way that made Rumi's chest tighten. Rumi looked at Mira again. Mira's expression had shifted too, that teasing edge still there, but tempered. Like she knew when to stop pushing and when to hold steady.
"Okay," Rumi said quietly, and her voice surprised her with how small it came out.
Zoey's face lit up so hard it looked like she might actually cry, and she immediately covered it up by snapping into director mode again like she'd been caught. "Okay! Great. Awesome. So. Set positions."
Rumi almost laughed again, but it felt fragile now. She didn't want to break whatever this was doing for Zoey.
Zoey pointed at their feet like she could rearrange the whole world with her finger. "Mira, you stand… there. Rumi, you stand… there. Closer. No, closer. You're in a hallway. Hallways are narrow. I don't make the rules."
Mira took one step in. Rumi didn't move.
Zoey made a disappointed noise. "Rumiiii..."
Rumi took one step in too, stubborn and slow. Now Mira was close enough that Rumi could feel the heat of her, could smell her, could see the tiny changes in Mira's face as she watched Rumi try to pretend she wasn't flustered.
Zoey nodded, satisfied. "Okay. Now. Mira, say something that pushes her buttons..."
Mira didn't even have to think. "You're always pretending you don't want me."
Rumi's breath caught. She hated that it landed. She hated that it felt like a line meant for a fic and also like something Mira would say just to watch her squirm.
Zoey's eyes widened. "Oh my god. Perfect."
Rumi managed, very stiffly, "That's not true."
Mira leaned in a fraction, voice lower. "Then prove it."
Rumi's brain went blank again. She felt herself looking at Zoey for help like a traitor.
Zoey lifted both hands like she was holding invisible reins. "Okay. Great. This is it. Now you stop thinking. Both of you. Just… do the kiss like you're mad you want it."
Rumi swallowed hard. She could feel the maintenance page glowing behind Zoey's head like a judgmental moon. Calm. Unchanging. Like it had all the time in the world.
Zoey didn't. Her thumb hovered over the button, trembling slightly.
"Kiss," Zoey whispered.
Rumi moved first.
It wasn't a delicate kiss. It wasn't slow. It wasn't anything that belonged on a stage. It was the kind of kiss that happened when you were too close and too stubborn and you were tired of pretending your body didn't already know where it wanted to go.
Mira made a quiet sound into it, surprised and pleased at the same time, and then Mira kissed her back like she'd been waiting for that exact moment.
Rumi's hand came up automatically, sliding to Mira's jaw, fingers curling there like she needed something solid. Mira's hand went to Rumi's waist, firm enough to make Rumi's stomach flip in a way that was humiliating and entirely Mira's fault.
Zoey made a noise from the floor that was halfway between a gasp and a strangled laugh.
Rumi pulled back first, breath shaky, cheeks burning. Mira's eyes were dark and amused, like she'd just watched Rumi lose a fight and was enjoying the victory.
Zoey slammed the button like it was a life support machine.
Rumi's hand flew to her mouth. She started laughing, helpless, embarrassed, relieved, and she couldn't tell which part was loudest.
Mira looked down at Zoey. "Was that good enough for you, director?"
Zoey stared up at them like she'd just seen a religious vision. Her eyes were wet. She blinked hard like she could clear it away with force.
"Yeah," Zoey said, voice thick. Then she cleared her throat harshly and immediately ruined the softness on purpose. "But do it again."
Rumi stared. "Zoey."
Zoey sat up straighter, button held like a weapon now. "Do it again. Shorter. Meaner. Like it's an accident. Like you're both furious that you did it."
Mira's mouth quirked. "She's going insane."
Zoey pressed the button once, smug and shaky all at once.
Rumi exhaled, then nodded once.
"Fine," Rumi said, voice softer than she meant. "Again."
Zoey's grin came back bright and hungry, and this time it wobbled at the edges like it was being held up by sheer will.
"Okay," Zoey whispered. "Again. And then we keep going."
Rumi didn't move right away.
Not because she was refusing. Not because she didn't want to. It was more humiliating than that—she was trying to reset her face into something composed and failing at it in real time. Mira's hand was still at her waist like it belonged there. Not that she wasn't used to it. The heat of it lingered even after Mira loosened her grip, like her palm had left a print behind.
Mira's eyes glittered. She looked entirely too pleased with herself.
Rumi narrowed her eyes. "Don't."
Mira tilted her head. "Don't what?"
Rumi's voice dropped, warning. "Don't do that thing where you act like you're innocent."
Mira's mouth curved. "I am innocent."
Zoey pressed the button once, delighted by reflex.
Rumi shot her a look. "You're enabling her."
Zoey's face was open and bright, the kind of bright that made Rumi's chest go tight again. "That's literally my job."
Mira leaned in, like she couldn't resist. "Your job is ruining our girlfriend's composure."
Rumi made a choked noise. "Mira."
Mira blinked slow, smug. "What? I'm in character."
Zoey's shoulders shook with silent laughter. She covered her mouth with one hand like she could physically keep it in, then failed and let out a squeaky little sound that didn't even count as a laugh yet. It was the laugh before the laugh. The one Rumi had been trying to get back out of her since she walked in and found Zoey on the floor with that maintenance page haunting the room.
Rumi's irritation softened at the edges despite herself. She looked down at Zoey, who was grinning like she'd been handed the sun and decided to outshine it.
"Okay," Zoey said, taking a deep breath like she was collecting herself. "Again. Shorter. Meaner. Like it happens because you both hate yourselves."
Mira's brows lifted. "Hate ourselves?"
Zoey nodded firmly. "Yes. Like you're so furious that you kiss anyway. Like it's a terrible decision you'll regret later."
Mira's gaze slid back to Rumi. "You heard her."
Rumi rolled her eyes, but she didn't move away. "I heard her."
Zoey pointed between them with the banana peel like a director with a baton. "Positions. Mira, you're smug. Rumi, you're outraged. Mira, you're the kind of smug where you… you're just you."
Mira put a hand to her chest like she was offended. "That's so mean."
Zoey didn't blink. "Good. Use it."
Mira's mouth quirked, and she turned back to Rumi with a look so shameless Rumi actually felt her stomach flutter. It was ridiculous. It was familiar. It was Mira doing what Mira always did, walking right up to the line and then toeing over it just to watch Rumi react.
Mira leaned in a fraction, voice low. "Prove it."
Rumi's breath hitched on reflex. She hated that Mira could say two words and make her brain short out. Zoey pressed the button again, softer this time, like she was soothing herself through it.
Rumi's cheeks warmed. She was so tired of being flustered in her own living room, and she was so tired of pretending she didn't like it.
"Fine," Rumi muttered, and the word came out rougher than she intended.
She grabbed Mira by the collar and kissed her.
It was quick. Sharp. All teeth and heat. Like an argument in the form of a mouth. Mira made a surprised sound into it that turned into a laugh the second Rumi pulled back.
Zoey made a noise like she'd been punched in the lungs with joy.
Rumi let go of Mira's collar and immediately regretted how pleased she felt, because Mira's face was lit up in a way that made Rumi's chest feel too soft.
Mira leaned closer again, like she wanted to keep poking. "That all you got?"
Rumi shoved her lightly in the shoulder. "Stop."
Mira grabbed her wrist instead. "Make me."
Zoey's laughter finally burst out properly, full and loud. It startled her, like she'd forgotten she could sound like that. Her head tipped back. Her eyes squeezed shut. Her whole body shook with it, the kind of laugh that pulled air back into a room that had been too tight for too long.
Rumi watched her for a second and felt something in her chest unclench all at once.
Mira watched her too.
It wasn't long. It was just a glance. A small, silent agreement between them. Keep going. Keep her laughing.
Mira immediately over-committed.
She stumbled backward, clutching her chest like she'd been struck by Rumi's kiss. "You're unbelievable," Mira announced, voice suddenly theatrical, like she was on stage. "How do you expect me to go on living after that?"
Rumi blinked. "What?"
Zoey wheezed. She covered her mouth again, eyes watering, trying not to laugh even harder.
Mira pressed the back of her hand to her forehead. "My heart. It's—broken. Destroyed. I'll never recover. Oh fair maiden… spare me…"
Rumi's lips twitched, despite herself. "You're doing too much."
Mira turned her head sharply, scandalised. "Doing too much? I'm dying here."
Zoey's laughter pitched into something breathless. She slapped the button yet again like she needed it to stay upright.
Rumi looked down at Zoey, who was laughing so hard her shoulders shook, and something warm spread through her like a slow exhale. Rumi could pretend she was annoyed. She could roll her eyes. She could do the whole "stop being ridiculous" thing.
But surely it's quite obvious? She didn't actually want Mira to stop.
Rumi stepped forward, deadpan, like she was committing to the bit purely out of spite. "Fine."
Mira blinked. "Fine what?"
Rumi lifted Mira's hand—very dramatically—and pressed her lips to Mira's knuckles like she was in an old movie. "If you're going to die, then die with dignity."
Zoey made a sound like she was choking.
Mira stared at Rumi's mouth on her hand, then at Rumi's face, eyes wide with delighted shock. "Oh my god."
Rumi straightened, still trying to look unimpressed. "Happy?"
Mira's smile turned wicked. "You're so in love with me."
Rumi's ears went hot. "Shut up." Then softer. "Of course I am."
Zoey's laughter softened into something quieter, like she was trying to breathe again. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her sleeve, still smiling so wide her cheeks looked sore. The button rested in her palm now, thumb idly stroking it like it was a worry stone.
Her phone buzzed.
It was muffled at first, the vibration lost under the blanket and the mess of cords. Zoey barely noticed it. She wasn't even looking at her screens anymore. She was looking at them.
It buzzed again.
Zoey's eyes flicked down, almost annoyed by the interruption. She fumbled for it, not with urgency, just… reflex. Like someone checking a clock out of habit. The screen lit up in her hand. A familiar icon. A refresh symbol on Zoey's phone, the tab she'd left open—her own little private prayer—had auto-updated.
The white page flashed.
Then—
Colour.
Filters.
Tags.
The Archive's header shining like a sunrise.
Zoey froze with her phone in her hand.
Not the kind of freeze from panic.
The kind of freeze from disbelief.
She could open it. She could dive in. She could check her bookmarks like she'd been starving and suddenly someone put food in front of her. She could fall into it headfirst and forget the room existed.
Instead, Zoey looked up. Rumi and Mira were still mid-bit. Mira was leaning back against the couch like she'd fainted from love. Rumi was standing over her with a face that said she was trying not to laugh.
Zoey's chest felt weird—tight and full at once.
She glanced back down at her phone. AO3 was back.
She had it.
It was right there.
And for the first time today, she didn't feel the need to claw at it like oxygen. Zoey turned the phone face-down on the blanket like it was nothing. Like it could wait. Like she finally could. Then she lifted her head again, grin returning, a little softer this time.
"Okay," Zoey said, voice bright, like she hadn't just watched the world heal itself in the palm of her hand. "Now. Mira, you have to do the thing where you pretend you hate her but you're obviously obsessed."
Mira squinted at her. "I don't have to pretend." Turning to wiggle her brows towards Rumi.
Rumi covered her face with her hand, laughing. "Shut uppp-ahh."
By the time the sun finished sliding down the windows and the living room light turned honey-warm, they'd stopped pretending this was a one-time intervention.
It had turned into a whole thing.
At some point, someone—someone being Mira—had dragged a chair into the "hallway" zone like they were blocking out a stage. The coffee table had been shoved a little to the side. The blanket nest had migrated from "Zoey's bunker on the floor" to "director's chair with a throw over it," because Zoey insisted she needed a better vantage point and Mira had said, with a straight face, "Yeah. You do." Always with the short jokes.
They'd rotated roles like it was a game.
Mira had directed next, obviously, because Mira couldn't resist the power of it. She'd sat with her legs crossed and her chin tipped up and called "again" almost like she was bored of them after three seconds, then made Rumi repeat the same line five different ways just to see which one made Zoey wheeze-laugh the hardest. Mira had gotten mean about it too, in that playful, lethal way of hers.
"No, no," Mira had said at one point, waving a hand like she was dismissing a staff meeting. "Rumi, you sounded like a commercial. Again. But this time you're offended she even exists."
Rumi had tried to argue, at first. She'd lasted maybe ten minutes before she gave up and just committed with the same stubborn energy she used on stage. Once she leaned into it, she got dangerous, because she had timing. She had rhythm. She knew exactly how long to let silence sit, exactly when to say a line too softly to make it hit.
Mira had looked at her like she'd just discovered a new hobby.
Zoey, when she got her turn directing again, was… unbearable.
In the best way.
She got bossy. She got specific. She started giving them stage directions like she'd been born with a headset on. She made them do "the accidental hand brush" at least three times in a row because "it's the foundation of the genre," and she gave a little gasp every time Rumi acted annoyed about it, like the annoyance itself was her favourite part.
When Rumi took over as director, it went weirdly intense in a completely different way. Rumi kept trying to make it make sense. She'd pace the "hallway," brow furrowed, and ask questions like she was work-shopping a scene for a drama instead of a fake fanfic in her living room.
"Okay," Rumi had said, holding up a finger. "What's the emotional theme here?"
Zoey had stared at her like she was witnessing character growth in real time. Mira had laughed so hard she nearly fell off the couch.
Even the kudos button got passed around like a prop. Sometimes Zoey used it like a pacifier. Sometimes Mira stole it just to press it while Rumi was mid-line, which made Rumi snap, "Mira," in that dead-serious voice she used when she didn't want to laugh, which made Zoey lose her mind every time.
The TV stayed on. It had become background noise. A stupid light source. A thing that didn't matter as much as the sound of Zoey laughing so hard she had to wipe her eyes with her sleeve and tell them, breathless, "Okay, stop, stop—keep going."
Eventually, the hunger part of Zoey's hunger got solved. Mira made her eat actual food. Rumi made her drink water. Mira threatened to confiscate the button if Zoey didn't take a shower, so Zoey had stomped off in outrage and returned fifteen minutes later smelling like soap and victory.
Then they'd kept going.
Hours passed in that slippery way that only happened when you weren't counting them.
Rumi only noticed because her phone buzzed again and again and she finally glanced at it and saw the time, and her brain went, Oh.
She looked up at the windows. The sky had shifted. The city lights had started to come alive in the distance.
Zoey was curled up in her throw like she'd been born on that couch. Mira was sprawled sideways, head against a cushion, still fully awake because Mira never looked tired until she was dead asleep. Rumi stood by the TV with her arms folded, watching them, feeling something warm and strange settle behind her ribs.
Then, like a delayed thought finally crossing the finish line, she looked at the screen.
The maintenance message was still there, calm and composed, like it had been mocking them for half a day.
Rumi frowned.
"That's… not refreshed," she murmured. She stepped closer to the TV, grabbed the remote off the shelf, and moved the cursor to the refresh icon. It felt almost ceremonial, like she was touching a cursed object.
Zoey's head lifted a little, but she didn't scramble. She didn't reach. She didn't react like she had earlier.
Rumi clicked refresh.
The page blinked.
For a second, it went white. Then the Archive loaded in properly. Tags. Filters. The familiar header. Everything where it was supposed to be, like nothing had happened.
Rumi stared at it, then turned around slowly, eyebrows lifted.
"…It's back," she said.
Zoey didn't move at first. Then her mouth twitched. And she did something that made Rumi pause—her eyes softened. Like the panic had already left her body hours ago and she'd only just now gotten permission to notice it.
"Yeah," Zoey said simply.
Rumi blinked. "Yeah?"
Zoey nodded. "Yeah. I know."
Mira sat up a little, suddenly alert. "You knew?"
Zoey shrugged, like she hadn't just committed a mild crime against their entire afternoon. "My phone refreshed ages ago."
Rumi stared at her. "Zoey."
Zoey lifted her hands quickly. "I was going to tell you!"
Mira's eyes narrowed. "When?"
Zoey hesitated, then smiled, sheepish and bright. "When we finished…"
Rumi's mouth opened and shut once, like she couldn't decide whether to scold her or laugh.
Zoey looked between them, chewing on the edge of her sleeve like she wasn't trying to make a face. "I just…" She stopped, then pushed through anyway, voice softer. "I didn't want it to stop. This was fun…"
The room went quiet for a beat. Mira's expression shifted first—annoyed yet tinged with that barely contained fondness. She leaned back again with a huff. "I love you."
Zoey grinned and kissed her on the cheek. "I know. I love you too, Mimi."
Rumi sat down on the edge of the couch, close enough to bump Zoey's knee with hers. "You're going to binge read aren't you?"
Zoey's eyes lit up instantly, like she'd been waiting for permission. "Oh definitely. I'm gonna read until my eyes dry out."
Mira made a sound of horror. "Please don't."
Zoey ignored her, already reaching for her phone like it was a treat. Then she paused, glanced up at them, and her expression turned almost comically sweet—wide-eyed, polite, angelic in a way Zoey only ever pulled out when she wanted something and knew it.
Rumi's shoulders tensed. "No."
Zoey leaned in. "Please?"
Mira pointed at her. "Don't."
Zoey clasped her hands under her chin like a cartoon. "Pretty please? With extra sprinkles?"
Rumi stared, doomed. "What?"
Zoey's voice went softer, syrupy. "When we go to bed… can you two read out loud to me?"
Mira made a strangled noise. "Zoey."
Zoey pressed on, undeterred, eyes shining. "Just like… one. Or two. Or even just a chapter. You can take turns doing the dialogue—"
"No commenting," Rumi said automatically.
Zoey put a hand to her chest like she'd been wounded. "I won't comment."
Mira squinted at her. "You will comment."
Zoey smiled, angelic. "I will whisper comment."
Rumi laughed before she could stop herself. It came out warm and helpless, and Zoey's grin widened like she'd won.
Mira looked between them, then sighed like she'd just accepted her fate. "Fine. One rule."
Zoey gasped. "One?"
Mira narrowed her eyes. "One. If you start narrating, I'm taking the button away."
Zoey nodded with violent seriousness. "Understood."
Rumi reached out and ruffled Zoey's hair gently, like she was smoothing down the last of her energy. Zoey's smile softened.
She didn't say anything for a second, like she was letting the feeling settle without grabbing at it. Then she gave Rumi a look that was too sweet to be fair and murmured, "Bed."
Mira, who had been sprawled in a way that said she was absolutely not moving, sat up with a sigh that sounded like she'd been inconvenienced by affection.
Rumi snorted, stood up, and followed them down the hall, the quiet passage between rooms that felt warmer now than it had earlier.
They piled into bed like it was the most natural thing in the world, because it was. Zoey climbed in first without ceremony, curling into the middle like she belonged there—blanket tugged up to her chin, hair still faintly damp from her shower, eyes already half-lidded with the kind of tired that came after laughing too hard for too long.
Rumi slipped in on her left, careful not to jostle Zoey too much, and Mira dropped onto the other side with the heavy exhale of someone pretending she wasn't content.
Zoey immediately scooted closer to both of them, shameless. She tucked herself between their bodies like she was trying to make sure they couldn't escape, like she had to physically anchor herself to something real.
"Okay," Zoey whispered, voice hoarse from hours of giggling. "Read."
Rumi grabbed Zoey's phone from the bedside table. She'd already pulled up one of her bookmarked favourites—the one Zoey had described earlier with such intense reverence that even Rumi had felt the need to see what all the fuss was about. But what kind of name is "Give Me That Cotton Candy"?The screen glow lit Rumi's face faintly. She turned the brightness down so it wouldn't hurt Zoey's eyes.
Mira leaned in just enough to see, hair falling forward, and muttered, "This better be short."
Zoey, eyes closed, smiled. "It's really not."
Mira made a sound that was half complaint, half laugh, and settled back into the pillow anyway. Rumi cleared her throat softly, and the three of them went quiet in that slow way, like the day had finally burned itself out and left only warmth behind. Zoey's breathing eased. Her shoulders loosened.
Rumi started reading.
She kept her voice low. Comfortable. Letting the words be words. Zoey's face shifted with every familiar beat—tiny smiles, soft hums, the occasional twitch of her lips like she was fighting the urge to interrupt and choosing not to, for once.
Rumi's left arm was tucked under her head, and at some point her right hand drifted behind Zoey's back, reaching across to rest on Mira. Her fingers found Mira's arm first, gentle pressure there, then slid higher to her shoulder in a slow, absent stroke. Mira's skin was warm under her palm.
Mira didn't comment. She didn't move away.
Instead, her hand mirrored without a word—reaching behind Zoey the same way, finding Rumi on the other side. Mira's fingers slid into Rumi's hair with practiced ease, combing through it, nails lightly scraping Rumi's scalp in a way that made Rumi's eyes flutter once.
Zoey, caught between them, let out a quiet, satisfied sigh like she could feel both of those small touches and it was doing something important in her chest. Rumi kept reading.
The story was silly in places. Soft in others. Full of those little imagined moments Zoey loved—glances held too long, hands brushing, the kind of small domestic tension that made a heart feel stupid. Mira made one snorting sound at a line she clearly found ridiculous, and Zoey immediately stifled a laugh into her pillow.
Rumi stopped and looked over Zoey's head at Mira. "Behave."
Mira's eyes were half-closed. Her mouth curved. "I am."
Zoey whispered, very seriously, "I said earlier, no ad-libbing."
Rumi chuckled and resumed reading, this time Mira kept quiet, but her fingers in Rumi's hair got slower, softer, like she was making up for it. Rumi's hand on Mira's shoulder stayed there, a small, steady weight.
Zoey's breathing deepened.
It happened gradually. The way sleep always came when you finally stopped trying to wrestle it down and just let it find you. Rumi glanced down halfway through the next paragraph and realised Zoey's eyes were closed for real now, lashes resting on her cheeks, mouth slightly open. Her hand still clutched the blanket, but her fingers had gone slack. Her body was heavy in that safe way.
Rumi kept reading anyway, quieter now, the words more for Mira than for Zoey, and maybe for herself too.
Mira's hand stayed in Rumi's hair. Mira's breathing matched Zoey's after a minute, slow and even, and when Rumi looked over, Mira was watching her with that softened, unguarded expression she didn't put on for anyone else. Rumi's voice faltered for a second. Mira's fingers tightened gently, like reassurance, like keep going. So she did.
Rumi finished the last line she was reading, let the silence sit, then lowered the phone onto the bedside table as carefully as if the slightest sound might wake Zoey. Mira's hand slid down to cup the back of Rumi's neck, warm and steady. Rumi's palm pressed once into Mira's shoulder, a quiet answer.
Zoey slept between them like she'd been holding her breath for two days and finally, finally let it go. And if the Archive went down again tomorrow, Zoey would crash out again.
Probably worse.