one day, some time in the afternoon, huntr/x gets called in to do an emergency reshoot for something thats due the next day because something caused all of the photos they’d already done to be lost, so they need to rush over and deal with it now.
rumi is already out doing some work, so she gets to the studio pretty quickly, and is able to start getting her solo stuff done while they wait for mira and zoey, who were at home when they got the call.
when they get there, however, they’re acting a little…off. the worst part is, though, all of it feels strangely…familiar to rumi, but she can’t put her finger on it.
mira, especially, is behaving strangely. she’s barely speaking, and when she does speak it’s only if someone has asked her something, and she responds kinda quietly. she keeps coughing, but she doesnt seem sick elsewise. she keeps scratching her neck, though, so maybe she is sick, but the way rumi keeps seeing her scratch her neck is that she’ll spot mira rubbing at it, and then, when she notices rumi staring at her, she’ll start scratching as though to cover up her rubbing. she’s looking around at everybody a little nervously. mira’s normally a very clingy and cuddly person anyways, including during shoots, but she usually divides it pretty well between rumi and zoey. during this shoot, however, she’s clinging to zoey in particular for dear life. they keep whispering stuff to one another, and stopping if anyone gets too close. when it comes time to do her solo shots, mira genuinely looks terrified to leave zoey’s side for a second, but does pry herself away for her turn.
(she also, weirdly enough, tenses up when the photographer says “good girl!” to her after she manages to loosen up a bit for her shots)
zoey isn’t doing that much better, however. she’s just as quiet as mira. she keeps staring at her neck intently, and then flexing her hand. while mira watches everyone nervously, zoey is watching everyone distrustfully. she seems angry, or at least irritable, which at first rumi thinks might just be because she’s annoyed at being called in so suddenly, but she doesnt really look just grumpy like she normally would whenever they got called in to do emergency reshoots in the past. shes not as clingy as mira is, but looks just as agonized as she does when mira has to go up for her turn. when rumi sits down next to zoey, zoey watches her nervously until rumi scoots closer to her. zoey buries her face in rumi’s neck, and after a few minutes, rumi can swear she can feel her start shaking.
(when mira gets called “good girl!” by the photographer, zoey almost leaps from her seat.)
after that, rumi calls for a pause for the shoot, not caring about how panicked the crew look. her girlfriends are clearly not feeling okay, and she NEEDS to get to the bottom of this NOW.
so she pulls mira and zoey aside to a private dressing room, and is unsurprised at this point with how quickly they attach themselves to each other. she asks them what’s going on, and why they both seem so upset.
zoey snaps and says “what? im fine!”, but then she looks super guilty about snapping and tries to apologize, and mira looks incredibly ashamed and embarrassed and then Oh Fuck
rumi’s stomach drops as she realizes at that moment why this looks so familiar, because she’s seen them like this a few times each (and even experienced her own version of it a few times), but never at the same time as one another, at least not to the degree that it’s happening right now. the pieces of evidence from throughout their time at the shoot all start to come together to form a bigger picture about what happened before they came in, too.
the way mira was rubbing her neck (which had no visible bruises) and zoey was staring at it and flexing her hand, plus the fact mira was barely talking, she kept coughing, and she tensed when being called good girl (while zoey looked furious)? they were clearly doing puppy play before they came in. mira was rubbing her neck because she had a collar on it before, which is also why zoey kept staring, and she was flexing her hand because she had a leash in it earlier. the lack of talking from mira was something that mira does during puppy play, where she refuses to talk unless spoken to by zoey (or if she’s trying to rile zoey up beforehand), and the coughing was to cover up any whines that must’ve been in the back of her throat. and of course, only zoey was allowed to call her a good girl while they were playing. rumi had seen it all before plenty of times, even participated sometimes (mostly while performing kitten play, but once or twice while acting out the role of a “puppy sitter”).
rumi would’ve been kind of amused by all of that if it weren’t for the rest of their behavior.
the anxiousness of the normally confident mira, the irritability of the usually friendly zoey, their extreme clinginess, plus the fact rumi was able to discern they were performing puppy play?
zoey was clearly experiencing domdrop, and mira was clearly experiencing subdrop.
rumi gets down on her knees in front of where they’re sitting and cups their cheeks and coos at them “oh, my babies…” and kisses their cheeks sweetly. zoey squirms away and says “im not a baby” but mira leans into her touch and actually whines. zoey curls up and hides her face, but rumi strokes her back, and eventually mira pulls away from rumi so she can rub her face against zoey’s back. rumi reassures them both as best as she can that she loves them both and they’re both so good and she knows they must’ve been so good for each other (zoey doesnt snap at her after that, but she does look upset about something, which tells rumi that this wasnt just normal post-scene domdrop for her. she doesnt ask what happened, though, at least not while they’re not home).
she tells them she’s postponing the shoot. zoey jumps and looks at her anxiously. “but this was an emergency shoot! they need the shots for tomorrow!”
rumi shakes her head. “i dont care. you two arent feeling well, and i would MUCH rather have to delay the project than force my girlfriends to sit through a shoot while they’re experiencing subdrop and domdrop. you guys are my top priority.”
they both look guilty, then. but rumi won’t have that. “hey.” she puts her hands on their faces again to make them look at her. “you had no way of knowing that we were gonna have an emergency shoot today. you did nothing wrong. but it would be wrong of me to know you were feeling like this and let you keep going, and it’d be wrong for you guys to force yourselves to get through it when you’re not in the right headspace.”
the crew looks a little panicked when rumi comes out (she didnt bring the other two out because she didnt want them seeing the crews reactions) to tell them they need to delay the project the shoot is for, but there’s nothing they can do if the two of them genuinely arent feeling well.
rumi calls bobby to sort things out (she just tells him that “something happened, and now mira and zoey aren’t feeling well, and i need to go home to help take care of them” and leaves it at that), and then gathers her girls to bring them home.
the car ride home is almost silent, besides rumi’s quiet reassurances and mira’s tiny whimpers. rumi has an arm around both of them, and mira is cuddled into her side, but zoey is still a little retreated, curled up in a ball and facing the window. one the way up to the penthouse, mira stays wrapped around rumi, while zoey watches the numbers climb like she’s awaiting a death sentence that she’ll have to face when it reaches the top.
as soon as they’re in the living room, rumi brings them to her room and has them sit on the bed. she asks them what clothing of hers they each wanna wear. mira’s still feeling nonverbal so she just points, and zoey doesnt answer at all for a bit, but when rumi asks her if she wants to wear something of her own, she shakes her head. she doesnt end up changing just yet, then.
rumi asks them to stay right there while she leaves the room briefly, and while they do both look extremely anxious at the idea of her leaving, she assures them she’ll be right back. they do stay, and when she comes back in with their favorite hot teas, made exactly how she knows they like them, her heart warms as she sees zoey helping dress mira in rumi’s clothes.
they thank her for the tea (mira, still nonverbal, smiles slightly and butts her head against rumi’s), and drink it while she rubs their backs. zoey isnt retreating as much anymore, luckily.
once they’ve drank their teas, rumi bites the bullet and asks what happened.
they dont answer right away. in fact, they dont answer verbally at all. instead, zoey gets up from the bed and walks out of the room. rumi is briefly afraid she’s made her retreat even more by asking, and mira watches her leave with longing in her eyes.
but zoey comes back shortly afterwards, clutching something in her (shaking) hands. she holds it out to rumi like it’s evidence of a murder she accidentally committed.
it takes rumi a second to realize what it is.
its a collar. more specifically, a ripped collar. nearby the metal ring that the leash, which dangles uselessly from the thing, is connected to, the collar was torn, making it completely unusable.
after staring at it even longer, rumi also realizes that its one of miras favorite collars.
based on the way mira is staring at it (utter despair) and how guilty zoey looks, she can sort of see what happened, but still, she asks again, “what exactly happened?”
zoey takes a shaky breath and starts explain. she and mira were doing some puppy play stuff, and zoey was teasing mira while playing with her collar. at one point, though, mira got a little too whiny, and then she started deliberately thrusting backwards while zoey was inside her. zoey chastised her and tugged on her collar, this time with her finger, but she must’ve tugged it too hard, because the collar tore and fell off of mira’s neck and onto the floor. mira (who loves wearing collars when they’re not doing puppy play, but absolutely NEEDS to be wearing one during puppy play. removing her collar is on the list of things they should Never Do during sex and especially puppy play because of the genuine panic it causes her) or course realized immediately what happened and became extremely distressed, and that distress caused zoey to feel extremely guilty, but before they could call stop the scene themselves to soothe any hurt, their phones both rang. both of them had to rush over to the studio while they were still stuck in that terrible headspace.
rumi’s heart drops. “oh, my loves, thats awful.”
zoey is crying now, still holding the collar and leash like she’s committed a horrible crime. “im sorry,” she sobs out. “i didnt-i shouldnt have-i didnt mean to.”
“hey, zoey, its not your fault. we know you wouldnt do that,” rumi says, grabbing her hand and tugging her closer to them.
but zoey shakes her head and looks guiltily at mira. mira hides for a second, but she sighs. finally speaking for the first time since rumi first pulled them aside, she says, “i know logically you didnt mean to. but the-” she scoffs, “the stupid, illogical, sub side of me keeps screaming about how i fucked everything up by misbehaving, and how you dont want me anymore, and that THATS why you tore the collar, and that it wasnt an accident-”
zoey stares at her in horror. “what?! of course i still want you, mira!” she rushes forward, places the collar off to the side, and grabs miras face so she can look her in the eyes. “i didnt mean to! i swear to you i didnt mean to!”
“i just keep worrying, you know?” mira sniffles, tears falling down her face. “like, did i ruin everything? am i not…am i not your puppy anymore?” she rolls her eyes at herself. “its so stupid!”
zoey kisses her, then. when she pulls back, she reassures mira, “its not stupid, mira. its not. and of course youre still my puppy!”
mira whimpers. “even though i was misbehaving?”
zoey laughs. “ESPECIALLY because you misbehave! part of the reason youre my perfect puppy is because you misbehave!” she kisses mira’s cheeks. after she pulls back, though, the guilt remains on her face. “i just wish i hadnt…” she looks down.
“zoey…” mira says, a hand on zoeys face.
rumi decides to remind them of exactly which collar they were using, and thus, why it mightve happened in the first place. “this is one of your favorites, right, mir?” she holds up the collar.
they turn to look at her strangely. mira nods, “yeah. its one of the first ones zoey bought me. we use it all the time…” comprehension blooms on her face.
she laughs, and now its her turn to get stared at strangely by zoey. mira brushes a hand across zoey’s cheek, wiping away some of her tears. “zoey, baby, ru’s right. that’s one of our favorite collars to use. of course it tore! you tug on it all the time!”
zoey takes a second to think about that, but her guilt is only mildly assuaged. “but it is still my fault, then, isnt it? because i still tugged on it until it broke.”
mira snorts. “if you didnt tug on my collar i would think something was wrong.” she lifts zoeys face with a finger under her chin so theyre looking in each others eyes again. “you didnt do anything wrong. neither of us did. an overused piece of equipment snapped from overuse and we just didnt have time to deal with the damage.” she kisses her. “we’re fine. you’re fine. im fine.”
zoey stares into her eyes, and then rumis reassuring eyes, and then nods. “we’re fine.”
the tension releases from zoey’s shoulders then, and she tackles mira on the bed and snuggles her. rumi watches, grinning, before she gets pulled into the snuggle pile too.
(theyre still not 100% after that, of course. they have a nice warm bath together after that. when they get out, they each put on a hodge podge of each others clothes, and then zoey and mira cuddle up in bed. rumi brings them another mug of their favorite teas, and joins them under the covers so the three of them can watch their favorite movies and shows together. she also tells them she cancelled any plans for the next few days so they can do this again tomorrow if they want. they end up falling asleep mid movie, warm and happy.)
(after that, integrity checks of collars and leashes become a lot more common. they dont want another one to break during sex after all.
a week after this, zoey presents mira with a gift box. when mira opens it, she sees the collar that broke, completely fixed. she squeals with joy and jumps onto zoey, who kisses her cheeks and spins her around. then, mira grabs her ass, and suggests they give that collar a test run.
they also start putting their phone on do not disturb when performing puppy play from that point forward.)

