Work Text:
Watson was off on a detective case. This meant that Gura was bored. Legs swung over the top of the backrest of Ame’s couch and head dangling off the seat, she mashed buttons for the sake of mashing them; Villager got knocked around by her Marth’s rapid-fire sword slashes, but one fatal dash-up had her running straight into an axed tree.
It KO’d her instantly. The Smash ‘Defeat’ card popped up on screen once again.
Gura’s voice pitched up to a frustrated scream as her heels kicked hard against the back of the couch. Ina hummed as she perused through her necronomicon with two tentacles, sitting against her side, ear-like fin twitching at the sudden noise. She nudged Gura’s shoulder with a knee.
“Hanging in there, Gura?”
“I hate projectiles. And I hate Villager’s stupid face.” The controller clattered onto the carpeted ground when Gura swiped a hand across her eyes, relieving some of the screen ache buried in her pupils. “I’m okay. Only frustrated because I wanted to spend some time with Ame and wipe the floor with her.” Gura propped herself up to make eye contact with Ina. “Please don’t tell her I said that.”
Ina pressed a finger to her mouth with a wink, confirmation enough to know that the trash talk would make its way to Ame eventually. Gura should have kept her mouth shut, she flopped back down to the sofa with a groan.
“Did you want someone to play with you? I can multitask.”
“...You sure about that?” Oftentimes Gura found the other woman doing five things at once; washing dishes with two tentacles, vacuuming with another and frying eggs with her human hands. Ame always made jokes about how if her tentacles took over the cooking, maybe her dishes would come out looking better, and great, now she was missing Watson again. “I think your tentacles multitask better than you do.”
“They’re extensions of me,” Ina protested. Her knee knocked against Gura’s shoulder again. “They only do what I want them to do…”
Gura huffed out a laugh, a little quieter than usual. “If you say so.” Ina must have felt Gura’s loneliness or something, glancing down at the shark girl sprawled out-nearly starfished on the couch. In a sudden display of affection, she reached for Gura’s hand to lace their fingers together. The thoughts circling Gura’s head slowed to a halt, like they took a moment to breathe. Scooching up so her head rested on Ina’s thighs, she got lost in playing with Ina’s hand, pinching skin and fingers through her glove. It helped; Gura didn’t feel as pent-up anymore. She hadn’t even realized how her shoulders were bunched up to her ears until they loosened back into their sockets. The amber light from evening settled like a blanket over Gura’s thighs, warm and comforting through the blinds.
“Feel better?” Ina asked quietly. Gura exhaled deep from her chest. The frustration and missing-Ame-syndrome was melting away, like a marshmallow in hot choco.
“Yeah. I think so. Thanks Ina.” For being there? For being her.
When Ina pressed a lingering kiss to the back of Gura’s knuckles, Gura felt the smile more than saw it. “Always. Only for my favorite shark.”
Gura flushed crimson, toes curling at the affection, tail thumping at the sweetness. Wasn’t even sure if Ina noticed with her eyes glued to the necronomicon. “I’m your only shark,” Gura mumbled, eyes darting away. “A-anyway, that’s enough out of me. What’s up with you? What’ve you been reading?”
Ina hummed. “I’m studying some of the pages I couldn’t read when I first got the book. Ao-chan says I should be able to translate it now, but...There’s a couple of words I can make out, like ‘underwater’ here and ‘breathing’ here? But the rest of it I still can’t fully decipher.” The tentacles pulled the book closer so that Ina could tap on the words. Letters shifted and rearranged themselves on the page under Gura’s gaze, but she nodded like she understood anyway.
From what Watson and Gura understood of how Ina’s little book worked, the more Ina practiced the magic in the book, the more it would unlock. Generally, Ina would leave the apartment every few weeks to practice some magic in an undisclosed location, come back with scruff marks and raccoon-eyed exhaustion, and collapse in their bed.
It was worrying sometimes, and only recently did she start opening up to them about magic. Small little tricks here and there like lighting a candle from a distance away, pocket dimensions, making sure that Watson and Gura always had access to their time machine and trident by sealing tiny summoning tattoos onto their bodies.
“Do you think it’s something like an underwater breathing ritual...maybe?” Gura suggested. She was just taking shots in the dark, seeing if anything stuck to the dart board. Ina humored her, tapping her chin in thought.
“That’s the tricky part. There’s too many words I don’t have any knowledge of yet. But I think this word means ‘summoning’ in past tense. Which could imply summoning an underwater breathing ritual, or an air bubble, or it could imply someone once summoned...something else. And this ritual would summon that something else...it’s too hard to tell, though.”
Ina’s fingers twitched over the page, tracing the words that didn’t stay static in Gura’s vision. Like she wanted to see what the difference was right here, right now. It was in moments like these that Gura thought Ina was the most human, eyes gleaming with scientific curiosity.
Gura pushed herself up to her elbows, twisting her body so she could face Ina. “Did you want to find out what it is?”
“Absolutely,” Ina said, more to herself than to Gura. “Maybe sometime tomorrow though, so I can spend some time with you and Ame.”
Gura cleared her throat. Pushed herself more to an upright position, cross-legged across from Ina. “No, I meant... Did you want to summon it together? Like, now?”
Ina’s fingers halted on top of the page, curling inwards at the question. Her gaze moved towards Gura. Slow, deliberate, like she held the weight of the world in their tiny apartment. The amber light felt hot on Gura’s back. It made Gura’s leg bounce.
“I don’t have any experience with this spell,” she said carefully, measuring every word. “I don’t know what’s going to come out the other side. And we know what Ame said about summons.”
Ame was very cross with them the first time she found a tako summon eating all of Bubba’s snacks— they shouldn’t be risking anything while she was away. Ina smoothed her hands over her thighs. With some difficulty Gura stole her eyes away from the movement, biting her lip to think.
“I really, really want to do this with you, Ina,” Gura said. Her fingers bunched up her hoodie. “I want you to trust us more.”
“It’s never been about trust,” Ina said quietly. Her eyes slid away to the potted plant in the corner. “It’s about putting you in danger.”
There it was, the one excuse that Gura was prickled by, the one that made her eyes narrow and mouth flatten. Gura scoffed, a raspy sound that rammed its way out of her throat before she could stop it.
“My dear, I am a centuries old shark who’s been alive longer than some of the creatures in your diary,” Gura said, eyes still narrowed sharp. “I’m not human like you or Watson. I can handle whatever the necro-con throws at me.”
Ina watched her. Her eyes were unreadable, empty of emotion as a void. Her tentacles were the only thing that displayed her anxiety, shifting and pulsing, tying themselves together in knots from behind her. Gura took in a deep breath, letting it hold in her lungs until it ached, and finally exhaled. “Please. Let me do this for you.”
The air between them was suspended in silence. Gura waited with all the patience of an immortal. But Ina wasn’t budging, and her tentacles were becoming less readable. Gura pursed her lips together. It was time for the big guns.
Gura held up a finger. “I’ll do the dishes for a month.”
Ina’s ear-like fins perked up. Her eyes revealed nothing even as her resolve cracked like an egg. “Deal.”
Relief slackened Gura’s shoulders. She whooped, letting her back meet the other side of the couch, arms pumping up in decisive victory. “Oh man, I thought you’d never say yes. Then I’d have to just sulk until Ame comes back.”
Gura felt Ina’s eye roll like a physical presence when one of her tentacles poked her in the nose. “We’re only doing this because I don’t want Ame to yell at me about the dishes again. And the necronomicon is not a diary, AO-chan would have you know.”
It was Gura’s turn to roll her eyes. “Diary, shmiary, journal of the Devil, Book of the Dead, what’s the difference?”
Ina shot her a look that made Gura shut her trap. “Speaking of Ame, we don’t let her find out about this. We make sure the apartment is in tip-top shape,” Ina poked Gura in the nose with each word, “before she gets back.”
“Don’t worry ‘bout it. I’ll take the brunt of the heat,” Gura said, wrapping a pinky around the end of the tendril in a solemn promise. Ame always found out about their antics when they were home alone. And Ame would understand Gura’s logic even if she didn’t like it. It was one of the first opportunities where Ina had opened up so cleanly, and Gura had to leap on the chance.
“I still don’t know what the spell does,” Ina warned. “If anything goes wrong…”
Gura grinned, sharp and mischievous. “I’m ready to go if you are, Ninomae. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Two minutes later found them with a big pot of water filled to the brim, settled on Watson’s coffee table, situated in front of the living room couch where they were seated. It was a lovely pot, if a bit beaten up from their other misadventures. It was dented on one side and scorched on the other. And permanently pink on the inside.
“It’s all up to you again buddy.” Gura tapped the pot affectionately, for good luck.
Ina laughed as she turned to the right page. “Maybe we should consider naming it.”
“Yeah? Like what?”
“...Amelia Potson.”
Gura barked out laughter that doubled her over.
They weren’t sure how the ritual would work, so they went for the simplest option with the easiest clean up; Ina would shove her face into the pot and see if she could breathe. Her eyes darted between Potson and the book, Gura could taste her excitement and curiosity in the air. She suppressed a fond giggle. It was a new sight seeing her try out new magic she had never performed before, Gura could get used to this.
“Okay, so!” Ina clapped her gloved hands together. “Ah—if I’m reading correctly... the Ancient Ones said that the incantation should read something like this.” She cleared her throat, posture straightened, and began chanting.
It was a guttural, foreign thing that teetered on the edge of uncanny and wrongness. Something that wasn’t meant for mortal ears. Static danced up and down the back of Gura’s neck and spine. This was the longest Ina’s ever spoken in the tongue. Gura’s head felt like an air balloon, light and filled up like she could burst. It still took her several moments to realize that it wasn’t just her, it was the living room itself.
Ina had flipped the gravity switch off; the abandoned switch controller was lifting off the ground, the potted plant in the corner of the room also rising up. Gura float-scrambled to sit down on the coffee table and hold down the bucket of water, aghast as the pot’s content was already starting to “spill” out of its container. Ina paid her no mind, chanting getting louder, her purple eyes glowing in the flickering lights of the room, hair flowing with invisible air currents.
And then just as quickly as it happened, it stopped. Everything fell back down with a loud, painful clatter, Gura’s backside flaring in pain, as the pot sloshed water over the side, onto Gura’s hoodie. She hoped the switch and dumb cane plant were still intact.
Ina cleared her throat, blinking away the magic. “We’ll clean anything up later,” she said, voice gruff. “Did anything change?” They both looked into the water.
It...looked like a normal pot of water, prior damage to the pot asides. They glanced at each other. Gura shrugged at her. Ina delicately put her head in, only to immediately come up coughing and hacking. Gura patted her softly on the back.
“Maybe I read it wrong?” Ina murmured, once she stopped choking. Water dripped down to her jawline. Gura’s thumb wiped away the droplets as Ina’s brows furrowed at her book. “I know enough about the language to pronounce everything in it. Maybe there was something irregularly conjugated...”
“We can give it another go,” Gura suggested, peeling the hoodie away from her skin, shivering a little from the temperature difference. “Do you think we just need a larger surface area, or should we use the sink instead?”
Ina hesitated, then shook her head. “It didn’t say anything about volume or space. We might need to just try again. The only other thing it said was waiting a few moments, but a spell of this scale doesn’t take all that long.”
Gura stretched her arms above her head, bouncing up to her feet. “Well, I’ll leave you to figure that out. Give me a second and I’ll refill the—“
Just then, the pot started bubbling. Slowly at first, but then it was near vibrating off the table from the bubbles like they put the pot over an open flame and it snapped to boiling instantaneously, steam billowing off of the surface. Gura’s eyes looked towards Ina in alarm, and so she saw the fraction of the moment when Ina’s eyes widened and snapped over to Gura.
“Gura, get down!”
Ina didn’t have to say it twice; Gura hit the deck just as a tentacle thick as sludge whipped fast right above where her head would be. Gura barrel rolled underneath the table on to the other side with a high pitched scream, scrambling to her feet as more tentacles bursted out of the pot. Ina speared through two of them with her own appendages, only for the tentacles to split off in two separate tendrils. One of them went right for her book, slapping it out of her hands across the room, and the other missed her head by an inch. With a panicked yelp, Ina slammed a foot against the pot to create some distance before vaulting behind the couch for cover, just as Gura slid across the wooden floors to join her— they collided solid against each other.
“Ina, what the hell is that!?” Gura yelped, high-pitched and flutelike. “That isn’t an air bubble!”
There was a rare, mild panic in Ina’s eyes, smile a touch manic. “You know, I think I found out what ‘summoning means in context, now. You live and learn, right?”
The couch made a ‘fwump’ sound as multiple water beast tentacles attempted to pierce through their cover. They both screamed, ducking closer together.
“Ohhhh my goodness we owe Ame a new couch,” Gura said, the shape of her trident already forming in her hands. “Any good ideas Ina, or do we have a new pet in the living room?”
Ina’s jaw clenched. Her index and middle finger pressed against the ridge of her brow in thought. “My one brain cell is working overtime,” Ina muttered. “I just need a moment to think.” Her eyes drifted shut, like the sound of the couch being torn to shreds didn’t even bother her.
Gura was starting to vibrate, starting to sweat the closer and louder the sound got. But she trusted Ina, hand clenched knuckle-white on her trident. She was only waiting for two more heartbeats before her trust was well rewarded. Ina opened her eyes.
“These summons always originate from some portal, there’s probably one at the bottom of the pot. If we kill the source of its magic then we kill the monster.”
“Alright.” Some of the tension left Gura’s body. Her hands loosened around the trident, something more suitable for fighting, and more confident than prior. Because dear Ina had a plan. The tentacle punched in closer, still. “So how do we do that?”
Ina’s eyes flickered to the abandoned necronomicon tossed in a different corner of the room. A blaze of determination set her eyes alight. “I need you to put your money where your mouth is, sharkey. You said you can handle anything my book throws at you?”
The tentacle finally punched through, cutting right in between Gura and Ina’s heads. When the tentacle pulled back, it tipped the couch over with a loud, echoing thud. The black sludge tentacles were pulsing, filling the room, crawling over the walls like an invasive ivy.
Gura stared at the walls then back to Ina. “I’m known for rising to the occasion.”
Ina grinned at her. There was clear, panic-anxiety fresh at the surface in Ina’s eyes, but it wasn’t the time for worry and she knew it. They had to act now. “Prove it. It’s time to play sharkbait. Ooh ha ha.”
Gura grinned right back, hand snapping up to her forehead in a cheeky salute. The tentacles primed themselves above them, ready for the killing blow. “Yessir, one distraction coming right up.”
The tentacles shot straight down towards their heads. Gura deflected each one with a whirlwind spin of her trident. At the same time, Ina bolted for her book, a persistent tentacle on her tail tracing erratic patterns in the air.
“Oh no you don’t,” Gura said, and spun on the balls of her feet to throttle it with the flat of her tail. She caught her first glimpse of the pot unobstructed by the furniture in Ame’s apartment; it was gorged, spilling black oil toxic slick over the sides and melting right through the metal. Like a flower in bloom, the tentacles were opening up, and in the center there was a large beak gasping for air in the center, rising from the depths.
It reeked like gasoline and saltwater, the beak in the pot gasping and shuddering with life—did it have eyes on it? It was a sight that would haunt Gura’s dreams for the next three weeks. Out of the corner of her peripheral vision, the pro controllers caught her eye. Thinking fast, she kicked it up with the butt of the trident and whacked it towards Potson like a baseball with enough force that the controller split in half, and the pot was sent flying to the other end of the wall.
It bought Ina precious seconds to begin chanting, something deep, dark and guttural. Adrenaline pumped addictive through Gura’s veins. She felt like she was underwater again, bloodlust tunneling her vision. Gura grinned, every knife-edged tooth showing, ducking and weaving amongst the attacks even as gravity turned itself sideways again. The monster and Gura matched blow for blow, none of them getting even close to touching Ina.
But Gura got cocky. “I could do this forever,” she taunted. The three prongs of the trident left gashes along one of the tentacles; horrifically, the beak at the center began to wail, sharp and piercing and human , and loud enough to shatter glass. Gura recoiled hard at the sound—it was the only opening needed for a tentacle to break her defenses. One of the tentacles lunged for Watson’s dumb cane, and launched it like a projectile across the room.
The pot and plant shattered against Gura’s shoulder. She bit back a scream as pain bloomed fast and true like a solar flare across her right side. A tendril zoomed past her, running straight for Ina, ready to run her right through.
Gura did the only thing she could do. Shoulder screaming in protest, she threw her trident like a lightning bolt, slamming into the tentacle and pinning it directly to the wall. It meant she was weaponless with a bum arm, and it gave the beast yet another opening.
A tendril whiplashed towards her, striking hard against her ribs, and sending her flying across the room. She collided head and back first against a wall, air forced out of her lungs in a sharp wheeze.
Gura had enough presence of mind to open her eyes. The beak in the pot was looking at her, beak opening wide and unhinging itself during its siren song. It was still covered in muck and grime, and every single tentacle was poised up to come down like a guillotine above Gura’s head.
Suddenly. Gravity reversed again, ten-times stronger than what it was at the beginning of their summoning. The beak screamed again, louder, banshee-like, as the tentacles were sucked back by an invisible force, right back into the pot.
A tentacle attempted to lunge at her again, but didn’t even make it as far as to touch Gura’s toes. The eyes on the beak looked at her, so much human hatred and intellect in those eyes. She wheezed out a choked laugh. “Say hi to Atlantis for me, nimrod.”
The beast was gone.
It was quiet in the aftermath. Only her and Ina’s breathing was audible. The apartment was in a state of ruin, sludge and much dripping from the walls and ceiling like a monochrome splatoon level. Gura leaned against the wall, eyes closed, letting out a shuddering exhale. Her shoulder and chest throbbed.
She hated projectiles so much.
“-ra,” a muffled voice called out. It was like she was speaking through a pillow. “Gura! Are you okay?”
Gura opened her eyes. It took a moment for them to adjust to the lighting again, and for them to spin back into place. Ina’s face looked so worried, hands hovering over Gura’s body like she didn’t know where to start.
“Maybe mildly concussed, but that’s alright,” Gura said, hissing as she tried to push herself up and failing from the pressure on her right side. But something else was wrong. There was a deep set ache in her chest, nearly doubling her over in pain. “Oh boy. It’s hard to breathe though. Has it always been so hard to breathe?”
Ina’s eyes went blank as a canvas. With little other fanfare she lifted up Gura’s hoodie and tank top. Gura didn’t even have time for a snarky one liner before Ina’s hands began prodding at her ribs. Maybe in another scenario it would have also had Gura blushing from ear to ear, but now she shrieked, flinching away hard enough that her head bonked against the back wall again. “Ow! ow ow ow—Ina that hurts!”
Ina clicked her tongue, but thankfully stopped pressing down so painfully on her chest. “You might have more than a concussion, your ribs might be broken. One...maybe two. The rest might be bruised. And your shoulder...” Ina’s jaw tensed. One of her hands scrunched Gura’s hoodie tighter. “I didn’t mean for you to get hurt. I should have known better. I’m sorry. Next time...” Ina’s bangs obscured her eyes. The message was clear. Next time she would shut them out again.
“Hey, woah, no, none of that.” Gura winced, pushing past the pain to sit up in a higher position. “I asked you what was in your book and prodded you on. We did this together— no guilt allowed. All of this?” She gestured to herself with her uninjured arm. “This was all me. I was the one who wanted to know more about you.” Her hand flopped back down to squeeze Ina’s hand still holding onto her hood with a death grip. “I told you, you don’t have to be worried about putting me in danger. I’m still alive, right?”
“Alive isn’t good enough, Gura,” Ina said. Oh no, she sounded like she was trying not to cry. “I want you safe.”
“And I don’t want you facing these weird demons from your book alone. So what’s it gonna be, Ninomae?” Ina let out a soft wet laugh, finally looking up to meet Gura’s eyes. There were tears at the corner of her vision. Gura’s right arm twitched up to wipe them away, only to fall back down, helpless from the injuries.
“We make such a good pair without Ame. I was so worried about you when you hit the wall...”
That was pretty embarrassing, Gura had to admit. She hoped Ina didn’t see when the dumb cane caned her in the shoulder.
“You don’t have to be worried. I’m built different! I’ll be healed up in no time. And who needs ribs to play rhythm games?”
It was enough of a joke to make Ina laugh again, something a little more fuller than the last one. It flooded Gura with relief. “Only you would care about video games more than your broken ribs.” Gura squeaked, jolted, when fingers glided against her gills in emphasis, but light enough only to tease. Her ears went red hot. Ina looked at her, eyes still wet, but with a small, slow smile curling up; oh she was definitely going to remember that.
Gura cleared her throat as Ina withdrew her hand, smoothing down Gura’s hoodie. “I mean, there’s not much else to care about. I only need you, Watson, food and rhythm games.”
Ina paused for a brief moment, considering. She let out a bemused exhale. “I...always liked it,” she said, “how the small things are enough to keep you happy. You remind me to stop and smell the roses every now and again.” Ina’s smile turned a little more sweet, like candied honey. Gura had trouble breathing for another reason entirely. “You’re important to me Gura. I don’t like seeing you hurt. I’m only teasing you about the rhythm game thing...or should I say...I’m only ribbing with you.”
Gura couldn’t believe it. Ina shook with silent laughter, only laughing harder at Gura’s face.
“I can’t believe you,” Gura said at once. “I literally cannot believe you. You know what, I’ve got a bone to pick with you.”
Ina laughed again. She sounded more like herself now. Ina wiped her own tears away with the palm of her hand, grinning down at Gura. “Oooh, little sharkey is clever clever. But maybe you should wait until the ones inside your body are done healing before you pick ones from other people.”
“Or mayyyyybe,” Gura stretched her non-useless arm out, ignoring the twinge in her chest to wrap herself around Ina’s neck, pulling her closer. “I have you to care about me, for me.”
“We’ll keep each other safe next time,” Ina promised. She wielded to Gura’s insistent pulling, finally leaning in for a kiss. It was soft and careful, like Ina was afraid the lightest touch would give Gura pain. Even still, Gura’s head went blissfully numb. She hadn’t noticed the headache pounding at her temples until the pain abated. Gura’s mouth parted, testing, and Ina shuffled closer.
Eventually, they had to part for air, because breathing was already about 20% harder. Ina noticed her struggle, pulling back in concern. “Are you okay? Oh dear. Maybe we should take you to the hospital.”
Gura’s cheeks blew out, pouting. Who cared about her ribs when Ina was right there? “Just— kiss me again, first? You know, my ribs, ow, ah, they hurt soooo bad. I’m in excruciating pain. I need a distraction.” Ina rolled her eyes at Gura’s tone.
“Okay, okay. I believe you. Kiss-anaesthesia, doctor approved and prescribed.” Gura grinned, though her expression faltered when Ina shifted lower to pull up her hoodie instead.
“Uh, In— !” Ina pressed her lips featherlight against Gura’s gills, forcing Gura to suck in a harsh breath. Ina nearly stopped there, but Gura’s arm held her closer. The breath had jostled her broken ribs, but with the prickling heat running its way through her entire body, she really couldn’t care less.
Then the door unlocked. Both Gura and Ina froze in their positions.
“Hey guys, I’m— wait, what the hell? What are all these— there’s a trident in the wall! There’s sludge on the ceiling!! What did I tell you guys about summoning shit inside the apartment!?”
Gura groaned, hands moving up to cover her face. Bubba was barking, too, now that he was home and heard all the excitement. “Dr. Watson, please, my ribs are broken and I think my concussion’s coming back.”
“Your ribs are what!?” Watson lurched into the living room, expression blanching when she saw Gura and Ina cradled against a wall with a huge shark-sized dent in it, catching the exact moment Ina slid out from underneath Gura’s hoodie like a dog caught doing something naughty. Her eyes narrowed, rage warring with horror and worry on her face. She dropped down to their side, making disgusted noises at the sludge, and funnily enough did the exact same prod test that Ina did.
Oh man, adrenaline was one hell of a drug. Her adrenaline rush was finally sputtering out, gas canister emptied. All of the exhaustion and terror was finally hitting her. When Watson poked at a particularly bad spot in her chest, she only had enough energy to whimper.
Bubba scampered away from the sludge after just a small sniff, clearly uninterested in whatever his owner was drenched in. That explained why Ame’s cat was disinterested in their little scuffle earlier.
“I leave the apartment for an hour and I find out my girlfriends probably nearly died,” Ame hissed. “Should have taken you both to the grocery store. Next time, instead of boning each other on the ground, go straight to the hospital!”
“Haha...boning…’s another rib joke...” Gura mumbled. Ina made a sound like she was swallowing a laugh.
“I, uh, I thought you had a case?” Ina asked quickly, once Ame’s head started slowly rotating towards her. Gura knew Ame was taking in the signs, Ina’s red eyes, Gura’s injuries, putting together scattered clues and playing the entire scene right inside her head. “A detective case?”
“Yes, a case of needing more pizza rolls. Considering some people ate them all.”
“We can all go grocery shopping together for pizza rolls next time,” Ina soothed, brushing a strand of Ame’s hair behind her ear. Even with Gura’s drooping eyes, she could see how Ame’s ears went red immediately at the contact. “You can keep an eye on us and no one dies.”
“...I’d hope so, but knowing Gura’s luck...” Ame muttered, but with none of the steam she held for them prior. Ina was really good at that. Defusing them both when they got too on edge. Gura’s head bobbed, eyes blinking to try and keep herself awake. Of course Ame noticed.
“Head on off to dreamland, Gura,” Ame said, voice brookening no room for argument. Her hand was already reaching down towards the syringe on her thigh. “You’ll be okay once you’re up again. We’ll be with you.” And for punctuation, Ame leaned down for a quick kiss against Gura’s temple. “And I’ll have words for the both of you then.”
Gura laughed, softly, eyes sliding shut as Ina and Ame both cradled her closer, and the needle found its way into her arm.
She really wouldn’t have it any other way.