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Mira woke up feeling like shit. She rolled over and immediately knew she’d overslept - she had been planning to get up to go for a run at seven like usual, but the sunlight peeking through the curtains told her it was already more like nine. As if in reminder as to why she’d slept in, her head pounded, and Mira groaned and burrowed further into the pillows. It was just her luck to wake up feeling like this, with a killer headache, fever chills and an unsettled stomach, the day before their first interview about their new comeback album.
She groaned and burrowed her face back in her pillow, resigned to wallow in her misery, only to be interrupted by a soft tap at the door. Mira already knew it was Rumi based on the knock alone, and sure enough, the older girl’s voice floated through the door a second later.
“Mira? You awake?”
“I’m up,” Mira called back, grimacing when her voice came out scratchy and weak.
Mira rolled over to face the door just as Rumi slipped inside, light on her feet as ever. The purple-haired girl’s face immediately pinched in concern when she caught sight of Mira curled under the covers.
“Whoa, Mira, what’s going on? Are you sick?”
Mira groaned in response. “Yeah, I feel like I got run over by a truck,” she complained, running a hand across her eyes and rubbing at her aching temple.
“Oh no,” Rumi frowned as she perched on the side of Mira’s bed and reached out to press a hand to her forehead. “Yeah, you definitely feel feverish,” she confirmed, eyebrows pinched in concern. Rumi ran a hand through Mira’s hair, then quirked her mouth in a half smile, and said, teasing, “I was wondering how I’d beat you to the leftover kimbap for breakfast!” Mira usually won the battle for leftovers, since she was almost always awake first, followed by Rumi and eventually Zoey, unless the youngest member had somewhere to be.
Mira hummed, cracking a slight smile. She instinctively pressed a little closer to Rumi, craving physical contact, then pulled back a bit as she remembered that she was sick, and definitely contagious.
“You should probably keep your distance,” she murmured to Rumi, “don’t want you to catch this.” But even she could hear the halfheartedness in her tone.
Sure enough, Rumi saw straight through her, and instead scootched closer and put a soft hand on Mira’s shoulder, rubbing gentle circles. The tension immediately drained out of Mira, shoulders drooping as her muscles relaxed under the familiar touch.
“Robust half-demon immune system, remember? Besides, Mira, you know Zoey and I have already been exposed. Doing everything together means we share everything, even germs!” It was true - long before Mira and Zoey had known why, Rumi had always been the least likely of the three of them to get sick, though there were certainly years that a bad bout of flu or a nasty cold had taken all of Huntrix out of commission for a few days.
“Hmm, well, don’t complain to me when you’re the one with the killer headache in a few days. You headed to work out?” Mira asked, finally taking in the fact that Rumi was wearing a pair of athletic leggings and a sports bra, hair pulled up and patterns shimmering slightly in the morning light.
“Yeah, I was thinking I’d head down to the gym for a bit, but Zoey’s got that advertisement shoot this morning, remember? So I can stay here instead - are you sure you’ll be ok up here by yourself?”
“Yea, Rumi, I’m ok. Just gonna nap, see if I can get over this before the interview tomorrow.”
Rumi didn’t look totally convinced, but she squeezed Mira’s shoulder and stood up from the bed. “Ok, well, I’ll leave my phone ringer on - you call me if you need anything, you hear me, Mira? Anything at all! Speaking of, can I get you something before I go? Water? Meds? A snack?”
“Hmm, no, I’m just gonna try to sleep it off first. Thanks, Rumi.” Mira offered a small smile as she snuggled back into her comforter, and Rumi returned it.
Rumi eased her way out of the room, a soft “sleep well” tossed over her shoulder on the way out, and slowly Mira drifted back to sleep.
**************
Unfortunately, Mira’s rest didn’t last long. She wasn’t sure exactly how long she’d dozed off, but she figured it couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes later when she woke up to the awful, cloying sensation of nausea tightening her chest and throat. If she’d been queasy earlier, this was ten times more intense, and she resigned herself to the fact that she needed to relocate to the bathroom.
Mira dragged herself out of bed and across the hall to her and Zoey’s bathroom, hand pressed to the wall for support. By the time she slid down the wall and arranged herself in front of the toilet, pressed up against the bathtub to her left, she felt woozy and lightheaded, faint spots dancing in her vision. She slumped forward, head pillowed on her arms, and took deep, even breaths, trying to calm the dizziness and the nausea. Her mouth watered ominously, and she spit a little into the toilet bowl, but nothing else came of it, and the nausea eased slightly.
It hadn’t occurred to her until then, hunched pathetically over the toilet, that she in fact did not want to be alone right then. In fact, Mira realized, she would give anything to have Rumi or Zoey (ideally, both) or even Bobby with her in that moment, but her phone was still plugged in by her bed, so she had no way to contact Rumi or the others. Against her will, tears started to well up in Mira’s eyes, but she dashed them away with a hand. ‘Get a grip,’ she hissed at herself internally. She was fine. She’d nursed herself through every illness as a preteen and teenager. She could handle a little stomach bug by herself for an hour.
**************
Rumi had only been in the gym for 45 minutes, but there was a nagging feeling in her gut that something wasn’t right with Mira. It’s probably nothing, she kept telling herself - after all, it had been a while since any of the girls had been sick with anything more than a cold (except that one time where they all got food poisoning a year ago, that had been messy…), and she wasn’t used to worrying about a feverish teammate left alone. But Rumi couldn’t shake the feeling that Mira needed something. She wasn’t sure if the honmoon was tipping her off, or if it was just best friend instincts, but Rumi knew better than to question herself on this, so she decided to head back up to the penthouse and finish her stretching up there after she checked on Mira.
Rumi stepped out of the elevator to a dark penthouse, the living room looking the same as it did when she had left.
“Mira??” she called softly, making her way down the hall towards her bandmate’s room.
“Here” came Mira’s voice, strained and echoey, and Rumi’s heart sank has she registered where her fellow hunter’s voice was coming from. Sure enough, when she rounded the corner to the bathroom, there was Mira, sprawled in a pile of long graceful limbs with her head propped up on her arms on the rim of the toilet.
“Oh, Mira,” sighed Rumi, hurrying to the girl’s side. She tentatively placed a hand in the center of Mira’s back, and when her friend relaxed into it instead of tensing, began to rub soothing circles between her shoulder blades. At least now, after the revel of Rumi’s patterns, Mira was the least likely of the three of them to initiate touch, but was generally receptive to it, especially when under the weather.
“Have you thrown up yet?” Rumi asked gently, noting the general absence of mess or smell of vomit in the bathroom. Mira shook her head in the negative, face pinched in a grimace.
“Just-“ the pink-haired girl paused to swallow harshly - “just really nauseous.” Rumi hummed in sympathy, continuing to rub gentle circles. She brought a hand up to Mira’s forehead to check her temperature, and Mira sighed as she relaxed into Rumi’s palm. Eventually, Rumi pulled away, tucking one of Mira’s flyaways behind her ear as she did so.
“Your fever feels a little higher than earlier, too. Once your stomach’s calmed down we’ll take your temperature and try to get some meds in you, ok?”
In response to the mention of ingesting meds, Mira gagged weakly, but nothing came up. Rumi patted her back in quiet apology, then took a second to collect Mira’s glasses from where they had been discarded next to the toilet and set them on the sink counter, swapping them for a scrunchie. Kneeling back down next to Mira, she began gently pulling the girl’s pink hair up and away from her face, winding it into a loose, lazy bun at the back of her head.
And just in time, too, since Mira’s next gag morphed into a harsh retch, and the subsequent heave was productive, sending Mira lurching forward over the toilet as a spray of vomit hit the water. Another wave followed, tears pricking at the corners of Mira’s eyes as she retched, the nausea unrelenting.
Rumi grimaced and tried not to flinch back - Mira was many things, but a quiet or neat puker was not one of them, and for all her ability to deal with the gore that came with being a hunter, handling vomit had never been Rumi’s strong suit. She steeled herself, continuing to rub soft circles with her left hand while she reached around with her right to cup Mira’s forehead to keep the other girl from smacking her head on the toilet with the force of her heaves.
The two of them stayed there another few minutes, Mira’s stomach refusing to give her a break. Eventually, she pushed herself back from the toilet, breathing hard. Rumi shifted behind her and Mira let out an involuntary whine, reaching back towards her friend as she started to lean in Rumi’s direction, but Rumi halted her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Shh, shh, it’s ok, I’m not going anywhere, just gonna get you cleaned up a bit, ok?” Rumi soothed, quickly getting to her feet and wetting two washcloths in the sink before sitting back down and pulling Mira to lean back into her, her back to Rumi’s chest. Rumi gently ran one of the washcloths over Mira’s chin, wiping up strands of spit and bile still clinging to the other girl’s skin. There was a bit of sick splashed on her shirt, too, but Rumi would deal with that later. The dirty cloth got tossed in the tub to be dealt with later, and the other Rumi folded up and laid over the back of Mira’s neck, and the other girl sighed in relief and curled closer to Rumi, her warm forehead pushing into the crook of Rumi’s neck.
“There, hopefully the cool cloth helps with the fever and nausea, huh?” Rumi murmured, and Mira hummed in agreement. “Do you still feel like you might throw up?” Rumi asked.
“Kinda,” Mira shrugged. Not exactly reassuring, Rumi thought to herself.
“Ok, how about we just sit here for a bit, then, see how you feel, ok?” Mira nodded into Rumi’s shoulder, and Rumi wrapped her arms around Mira, rubbing a hand up and down her upper arm and began to sway slightly, hugging Mira and trying to soothe without rocking too much in case that worsened the nausea. Rumi hummed softly under her breath, her chin resting on top of Mira’s hair as her fellow hunter began to doze, eyes fluttering shut and breathing starting to even out.
They’d been there, curled up against the lip of the tub, for probably close to ten minutes when Rumi’s foot started to fall asleep. She was just about to nudge Mira awake and suggest relocating to the couch when Rumi felt the other girl’s shoulders hitch slightly. She froze, attempting to figure if it had simply been a twitch or if it was a sign of impending vomit. Then it happened again, this time with a distinct gag attached to it, and Rumi swiftly moved to prop Mira back over the toilet as she heaved and threw up again.
“Shh, you’re ok, just get it up,” Rumi soothed, resuming her position of rubbing Mira’s back. It was surprising how much Mira still had left to throw up, but eventually it petered off into dry heaves, and then just panting as Mira wrestled back control of her body.
“Ok, now are you done?” Rumi asked, and Mira nodded, sighing heavily as she sat back on her heels. Rumi reached around her to flush the toilet, then retrieved the clean washcloth from where it had fallen in the scramble back to the toilet, and handed it to Mira to let her wipe her face off again. Then, the older girl stood up and offered a hand to Mira, easing her slowly up off the bathroom floor.
“Here,” Rumi said, handing Mira a small cup of water, “rinse your mouth out, and then we’ll go get settled, ok? Couch or bed?”
Mira rinsed and spit into the sink before replying “couch.”
Slowly, they made their way out to the living room, Rumi keeping one hand around Mira’s waist to help steady her. When they arrived at the couch, Mira slumped into the cushions, leaning back and taking deep breaths, clearly trying to quell the nausea and dizziness that had arisen from relocating from the bathroom.
“You good here for a minute?” Rumi asked. “I’m just going to grab a few things to get comfy, ok?”
“Yeah, I’m good.” Mira’s voice came out closer to a croak, voice wrecked from the stomach acid, but she gave Rumi a thumbs up, so the older girl headed off to grab some supplies. First was back to the bathroom to get the thermometer and fever reducers from the medicine cabinet, as well as the little plastic trash can, thankfully lined and empty. Then she ducked into Mira’s room to grab the other girl a clean shirt. She grabbed a soft, long sleeved t-shirt she knew Mira liked, the kind that could be layered with blankets to combat fever chills but wouldn’t be so warm as to be stifling with the hot flashes of nausea. She returned to the couch, setting the bin, meds and thermometer on the coffee table, then handed Mira the shirt.
She left her to change while she went to the kitchen, retrieving a new glass of water and a sleeve of rice crackers and bringing them both back to the table. Mira had changed, so Rumi took the dirty shirt and took it to the bathroom to be thrown in the tub with the washcloths. That was a later problem for sure.
On returning to the living room, Rumi took a second to send two quick texts, one to Bobby, letting him know that Mira was down with some kind of stomach bug and that they needed to reschedule the interview (she got back an immediate “done! Tell Mira feel better - let me know if you girls need me to bring anything by”) and one to Zoey to update her. It read “Hey Zo, just wanted to give you a heads up that Mira’s sick - seems like a stomach bug :(” A few minutes later, she got back a reply from the younger girl: “Oh no!! Give her hugs for me, I’ll be home ASAP!” Rumi liked the message and then stuck her phone in her pocket.
“Ok, how are we doing over here?” Rumi asked, settling herself down on the couch next to Mira, whose response was to shoot Rumi a look of disgust that said everything about how she felt.
“Yeah, should’ve seen that coming,” Rumi admitted, wincing. “Can I take your temperature?”
Mira nodded, and Rumi grabbed the thermometer from the table, holding it up and pointing it at Mira’s forehead until it beeped.
“101,” she read out from the display. “Not great, but could be worse. Still, I’d like to get some meds in you. Does that sound ok?”
Mira grimaced. “I can try, I guess.”
“Do you want to try a cracker first?” Rumi offered, “It might help the meds settle better if you have something in your stomach.”
“No, please don’t make me eat anything right now,” Mira groaned. “Just meds.”
“Ok, just meds first,” Rumi agreed. She handed Mira the pills and the glass of water, and her fellow hunter swallowed them with a grimace, immediately handing the water back to Rumi and pressing the back of her hand to her mouth as she shuddered.
“Ugh,” she groaned. Rumi gave a sympathetic frown and moved closer, rubbing a warm hand up and down Mira’s back. “Just take deep breaths, ok? Would it help if I turned on the TV as a distraction?”
Mira nodded, so Rumi flicked on the TV to a random channel, some househunting show the girls sometimes put on as background noise. Mira sat stiffly for the first few minutes, but after a bit, when she hadn’t had to make a dive for the bin, started to relax. Rumi eventually coaxed Mira into laying her head on her shoulder, and not long after her bandmate was dozing.
Rumi smiled softly, gently rearranging Mira so that the slightly younger girl’s head lay pillowed in her lap, and tugged a throw blanket up to Mira’s waist. Time to get comfy for a while.
********
In the elevator, Zoey shifted her weight anxiously, wishing the elevator would go faster. Of course, it was already a pretty fast elevator, she knew, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to simply teleport to be at Mira and Rumi’s side. Sometimes she wished she could teleport like Rumi. Of course, the fact that Rumi could only use those particular demon powers when she was distraught and overwhelmed sort of cancelled out the positives. So maybe Zoey didn’t want to teleport. But still she wished the elevator would go faster.
Finally, the doors opened as the elevator dinged its arrival to the penthouse level and Zoey hurried out of the elevator only to be met with the sound of harsh retching and Rumi’s voice, soft and attempting to soothe. Zoey crossed into the living room and took in the scene before her, finding Mira propped up against Rumi on the couch, tears of exertion running down her cheeks as she dry heaved over the bathroom wastebasket.
Zoey rushed towards the two of them, kneeling down at Mira’s side just in time for the older girl to cough up a watery spray of bile, spit, and lean back, pushing the bin away weakly.
“Oh, Mira,” she cooed, “I’m so sorry you feel crappy!” Mira just slumped towards her slightly, burying her face in Zoey’s shoulder. Zoey looked up and met Rumi’s gaze, the older girl smiling sadly at the two of them.
“You good for a minute?” Rumi asked, directed at Mira, “I’m gonna go clean out the bin, is all.”
Mira nodded, forehead pressing against Zoey’s collarbone, and Rumi untangled herself from behind Mira, carefully holding the trash can at arm’s length as she made her way to the bathroom. Zoey wrapped her arms around Mira and slowly moved to sit on the couch, pulling Mira into a better hug.
The silence stretched, and suddenly Zoey felt very out of her depth. Rumi had been here, all morning, helping. Rumi was a good big sister. Normally Rumi and Mira took care of Zoey, not the other way around. It wasn’t as if it never happened, but it never failed to make Zoey feel a bit out of her depth. She was good for casual affection, bone-crushing hugs, and comedic relief, not taking temperatures and soothing and being calm and quiet.
“How can I help?” Zoey blurted, hands fidgeting in her lap.
Mira just clung tighter to Zoey. “Just…this. Needed this.” And just like that, Zoey’s anxiety drained from her chest just as fast as it had appeared. She smiled, clutching Mira tighter. “Of course. You can have all the Zoey hugs you want! And not just cause you’re sick, but you know, they’re extra good when you are, at least, I like to think so,” she chirped brightly.
Mira gave an exhausted chuckle, and pulled back slightly. “Would you just…tell me about your day? Trying to keep my mind off how queasy I am,” Mira admitted, voice rough from all the vomiting.
“Oh! Of course! Here, get all comfy,” Zoey encouraged, hands already reaching to help Mira lay down, head pillowed in Zoey’s lap. Rumi reemerged from the bathroom and smiled at the two of them, replacing the bin on the table and sitting down, tucking Mira’s feet into her lap and rearranging the blanket from earlier loosely over Mira’s legs.
“So, I showed up to this shoot, and….”
********
Two days later, Bobby showed up to the penthouse to find his three girls in a miserable pile together on the couch, Mira looking slightly better, but Rumi and Zoey down for the count as well. He just shook his head at them and placed an order for more electrolyte drinks and crackers. Anything for his girls!