Roo is fascinating to observe, she decides. Moments of stolen glances turn into collective hours of learning his frowns (rare), his smiles (even rarer), his movements and reactions (he's never still for long). She likes when he shapeshifts, but only so she can watch him turn back into Roo, back into the mess of energy and rare smiles she's come to memorize as if it were all her own. Every fine detail imprints in her mind, to the point where his image seems stamped inside her eyelids.
(She is utterly infatuated with him.)
(But she's not the only one.)
She denies it with all her heart and Roo-stamped eyes. She continues to steal glances, painting pictures of him in her memory, and somehow manages to delete Gabriel from the picture entirely, leaving Roo looking at someone who's not there. Because she refuses to see that Roo spends as much time looking at Gabriel as she does looking at him.
But denial is like a river, because she sweeps the truth aside with all the force of her world, but it's always still there, flowing and ebbing with the tides of Roo's attention. And lately, the tides are wearing lower and lower, because Roo's gravitating towards Gabriel and Gabriel's gravitating towards him, and it's almost like an eclipse; sun and moon colliding, heaven and hell merging, angel and demon embracing. She's the earth, the one left behind in the shadow, and she can't tease out who's the angel and demon here.
Anya is a thing of fire though (and maybe just as petty, sometimes), so she fights back. Every second Gabriel isn't around is spent in determined exploitation of Roo's undivided interest. She sidles up to him, helps him if he's polishing a weapon, distracts him from worries with bad jokes and careful smiles.
The harder she tries to get his attention, the more it seems to slip away. She realizes it is hopeless a week before Valentine's Day, when they pass a town already preparing for the festivities.
She wants to make something for him, so she makes a quick mental inventory of her resources. When it takes less than a minute, she knows it's not enough, so she goes to Roo and asks him as casually as she can to add a ball of yarn to the list of supplies they need to get. That evening, Roo presents her with three small bundles of soft, red yarn and she has to fight to keep her smile from getting too big.
The smile wins the fight, though, because Roo tells her that he needs her help, and she's thinking- this is it- and she's almost too happy to listen to what he's saying, but then Gabriel's name is mentioned, and her thumping heart stops almost painfully. Her breath solidifies in her lungs as Roo confesses that he wants to get Gabriel a nice present for Valentine's, and she's his sister, so could she help him think of something Gabriel would like, please?
She is Gabriel's sister, and she can be petty if she wants to, but the lump in her throat tells her that pettiness isn't love. So she thinks about it and tells him that Gabriel's hair has been getting too tangled lately and it takes forever to tackle the mess every day with the fine-toothed comb that brother and sister share.
His gratitude is a mess of energy and a rare smile, and it makes her chest hurt. She bids him goodnight and good luck, and turns away to begin making her gift.
A week later, Valentine's Day dawns bright and frosty. Gabriel blushes and stammers his thanks several times for the delicate silver brush that Roo claims is a gift from him and Anya both, and smiles shyly before handing Roo his present. It's a pretty wrapped package that opens at Roo's precise touch to reveal a thick, neatly knitted hat, with ear flaps and intricate snowflake patterns dancing across the brim.
They steal glances and smiles, and it's only later that Roo thinks to ask Anya if she made a valentine for somebody special. She thinks of the lumpy, shapeless mess of a hat shoved deep in her pocket.
"No," she lies, and gives them hugs instead.