Work Text:
What does it take
To make it past the passion
And stick through the pain?
Wondering is it even out there?
‘Til you came in my life
And showed me what it’s like to be loved
I’ll show you
What I would do
What I would say
The lengths I would go to, the measures I’d take, to be loved
Oh, to be loved by, oh, to be loved by you
- JVKE, oh to be loved
---
Rumi could never forget the night she showed Mira and Zoey her scars.
Rumi didn’t mean to hide them from Zoey and Mira, she really didn’t.
The patterns? Yes. That was intentional. The scars? No.
Once upon a time, Rumi spent every waking moment worrying that Mira and Zoey would catch a glance of a purple jagged line on her skin. She hid those purple lines for years under hoodies, long-sleeve shirts, and jackets. It hurt to hide from the two people she loved most in the world. It hurt even more to pretend that she was just fine, thanks for asking, when she had to walk away from a fight while bleeding under her hoodie.
It would have been easier to let Zoey or Mira carry her home, to collapse in their arms and let them be the shoulder she leaned on. It would have been easier to let them take care of her for once, to let them properly address her bloody, aching wounds, especially the ones she couldn’t reach.
Instead, Rumi walked it off. She shoved the pain in a corner and walked away like she wasn’t bleeding, like she wasn’t bruised, like it wouldn’t break her to do so. She refused to limp away from a fight. She refused to show Zoey and Mira an ounce of pain, fearing their worry would turn into them finding her patterns.
It hurt, of course it did. Rumi knows she could have saved herself a lot of pain if she had been brave enough to let her walls down sooner. It hurt even more when Rumi walked herself home, knowing that she would have to patch herself up alone. It hurt the most when she knew she would have to retreat to her bathroom, and bite into a towel to keep herself from screaming out at the fizzing burn of alcohol on her open wounds.
Once Rumi didn’t have to hide her patterns anymore, she stopped doing her own first aid. Zoey and Mira’s soft touch made the alcohol sting less, the bruises ache less, and the cuts heal faster.
(Rumi’s truly not sure if healing feels sped up because she’s not straining herself trying to apply gauze where she can’t reach anymore, because her wounds are being addressed properly by a different set of hands, or if it’s simply the power of being cared for. Maybe it’s all three.)
Due to the formerly purple, now iridescent lines strewn across her skin like a poorly completed connect-the-dots drawing, the pale scars she has get a little lost. After all, it was the patterns Rumi was hiding - hiding the scars was just collateral damage. Mira and Zoey are so happy to just have Rumi back that they miss the pale lines that criss-cross the shimmering patterns. They don’t seem to notice that some of her skin is more upset and elevated in parts, and paler where demons have carved their claw marks in her back and across her shoulders.
Rumi can live with that. The scars weren’t what she was hiding, not intentionally at least.
“Rumi?” Zoey asks one night.
They’re all cuddled up on the couch together, their trip to the bathhouse that day still fresh in their minds. Zoey is leaning against Mira with her legs draped across Rumi’s lap. The corners of Rumi’s mouth tick up in a small smile and she gives Zoey’s knee a gentle squeeze.
“Zoey,” Rumi replies, reaching for Zoey’s hoodie sleeve. She tugs her closer, and Zoey falls from Mira’s side into Rumi’s, causing them both to topple into Rumi like dominoes. Zoey is halfway in Rumi’s lap, and Mira leans against both of them (she doesn’t even seem to care that their cuddle pile has toppled over).
“I was just wondering… and Mira was too… did you ever lie about how hurt you were when you walked away from a demon fight?” Zoey asks.
Rumi’s stomach drops. The faint hum of the TV fades into the background. She promised them no more lies.
“What makes you ask, Zoey?”
She’s purely curious, but she knows she’ll need to answer Zoey’s question eventually.
“I thought I saw something on your back at the bathhouse… and I’m hoping it’s not what I think it is.”
Rumi takes a moment. How do you explain to your girlfriends the gravity of what you ended up hiding from them?
“Yes,” Rumi whispers, shutting her eyes momentarily as the word leaves her tongue. “All the time.”
Mira sits up straight, and Rumi can see her eyes have gone glassy when she turns her head to look Rumi in the eye. Rumi can feel Zoey’s breaths pause for a few heavy seconds.
“They’re what you think they are,” Rumi adds, swallowing dryly. “I was… so desperate to keep my patterns a secret that I hid injuries so you wouldn’t worry… so I wouldn’t have to show you my patterns.”
“Have you hid any since we started this?” Mira asks, gesturing between the three of them. She’s referencing their relatively new relationship.
“No. No, I haven’t,” Rumi says, bringing an arm around Zoey’s back. She leans further against Rumi, playing with one of her hoodie drawstrings. “I only did it to keep the patterns a secret.”
She sees Mira’s shoulders relax when she sighs with relief. Rumi knows the admission isn’t exactly soothing, but she knows Mira values the truth because of the stubborn way that she trusts people. She told Rumi a while ago that she’d rather hear the truth, even if it hurts more than a lie. Ultimately that lie hurts Mira more in the long run. Mira’s trust is something Rumi never wants to lose again.
“Will you let us see them?” Zoey asks, her voice small and nervous.
Rumi glances between the two of them, seeing their downtrodden anticipation. This means something to them. They want to see.
“If… if you want to, I’m okay with that,” Rumi tells them. “It might be… a lot.”
“I want to,” Mira replies. She takes Rumi’s hand on Zoey’s shoulder, interlocking their fingers. Rumi watches as Mira brings their joined hands to her lips, pressing a soft kiss to her knuckles. It nearly unravels Rumi completely. “I want to see it all.”
Zoey snickers. Rumi knows her face turns red.
“M-Mira!” Rumi stutters. Zoey continues trying to suppress her laughter.
“Not like that you modest dummy,” Mira teases gently. “And stop it, you.” She swats at Zoey’s back, still shaking with quiet laughter, then returns her gaze to Rumi’s. “The scars. I want to see all of them.”
“Me too,” Zoey adds, done laughing at the pair of them. She grabs a fistful of Rumi’s hoodie and pulls herself even closer. “I want to see them.”
When their movie is over, they all move to Rumi’s room. Mira takes Rumi’s hand to guide her there, and Zoey takes up the rear. It’s quiet between them while Mira and Zoey begin to turn on the softer lights by her bed. They sit near the middle of her mattress, waiting for her.
Rumi suddenly feels a chill. She’s really about to do this. She’s going to show them the rest of what she hid. She wants to, but she’s nervous as she sits at the edge of the bed, facing away from them. Mira and Zoey shift closer, and Rumi can only tell them apart by their respective perfumes at first.
“Are you sure?” Mira’s voice comes soft from Rumi’s right.
“Yes,” Rumi whispers without hesitation. She wants them to see. She’s just nervous.
Somehow this is more vulnerable than letting them trace her patterns with their fingers at night. This is more vulnerable than finally letting herself indulge in trips to the bathhouse with them. She hid bloody injury after bloody injury from them. It’s a different layer of trauma, a different layer of pain that came from her patterns.
“Go as slow as you need to,” Zoey whispers on her left.
Rumi nods and exhales shakily.
“Can you help me?”
Rumi’s not even sure the words leave her tongue until Zoey and Mira’s hands are tentatively resting at the hem of her hoodie. Rumi shuts her eyes, letting them push her hoodie over her head. Moments later, so goes her t-shirt. She unclasps her bra behind her back, then she’s laid bare. Rumi lets out a shaky breath and wraps one arm across her front to let her hand linger at her shoulder.
The room is quiet. Silent, even.
Zoey’s quick inhale - no, exhale through her nose seems louder than it is.
“Oh, Rumi…” Rumi notices the way Mira chokes when she says her name. Her voice is low and barely audible, but in the quiet room, it’s akin to a breathy whisper.
Rumi closes her eyes again and tries to just breathe. Now laid bare between them, Rumi is cold. The moment is so raw, so vulnerable that she can’t help the shaking, unsettled exhales leaving her lungs. She shivers as the cool air brushes her skin.
The warmth of Mira’s fingertips bleed through the cold tension in her shoulders, like a hot shower after being out in the snow. The heat in her palm steadies her, almost like she was a ship caught in a storm. But Mira found her. Mira always finds her. Mira will always pull her up and rescue her.
Rumi doesn’t know exactly what they’re seeing back there because she hasn’t seen all of her scars herself. She remembers deep claw marks in the skin above her spine and left ribcage. Rumi couldn’t stitch them, so she laid on gauze to try to keep pressure on her back, fading in and out of consciousness while she waited for the bleeding to stop. There are grazes on the back of her arm from a broken window. She can’t remember if she launched herself through the window or if she was thrown, but she knows she picked bits of glass out of her tricep when she came back to the penthouse. Rumi knows there’s even more marks back there from scrapes she can’t remember as vividly, cuts she forgot about, bruises she ignored.
Zoey’s featherlight touch on the pale lines etched in her shoulder nearly splits Rumi down the middle (they’re from Jinu’s claws when they fought months ago). Her shoulders drop completely, allowing Mira and Zoey’s hands to mold her like clay. The pads of Zoey’s fingers map each pale line on her left side, like the lines are something to be cherished. Zoey always holds her like she’s delicate, but not like she’s fragile. She’s so tender with her that it gives Rumi butterflies, especially when she clings her hugs to her body. Zoey is always there to remind her she deserves their affection, that she deserves to be held so lovingly and so often.
Rumi has forgotten how to breathe somewhere in the middle of all of this. When she finally fills her lungs with air again, her exhale comes out as a choked sob.
Zoey rests her chin on Rumi’s shoulder and hugs across her chest. Her hands end up at her waist. Mira’s arms loop around Rumi’s neck, and she presses soft kisses from the base of her shoulder up to the spot behind her ear. She tucks her face against the side of Rumi’s head.
“You’re so brave,” Mira whispers. “So strong.”
“I’m so sorry you bled alone,” Zoey adds on her other side. “That you felt you had to hide and suffer by yourself.”
“You never have to face this alone. Never again,” Mira says.
“You don’t have to carry this without us.”
“I will spend every day making up for your years spent bleeding out without a hand to hold.”
“Can’t you see that this will never change our love for you?”
They hold her when she crumbles in their arms. It’s like they’ve reached into her chest and willed her heart to keep beating. Her skin heats underneath their combined weight, cloaking her so securely in their adoration. Rumi’s emotional dam is about to burst, but then-
“You should have had this,” Mira whispers. “You should have had us. Every damn time.”
Zoey’s thumbs stroke her side ever so gently.
She can’t help it. She can’t fucking help it.
Mira’s words and Zoey’s hands are all it takes for her chest to crack wide open.
“I love you,” Rumi tells them, her voice cracking as the tears fall freely from her eyes and roll down her cheeks. Her choked sobs are messy and obscenely loud in the silent room.
She loves them, and it’s the first time she’s said it out loud.
If Rumi had been dunked in a can of paint, she knows the pigment would be the color of their love. She’d spend hours painting the walls of their penthouse in that color so she’d never forget how it feels to be loved by them. She’s always taken back by how effortlessly they care for her. Even after the lies and the hiding, it is no difficult task for them to forgive her for her mistakes and continue loving her.
They love her for who she is. It’s not something they think about doing, but it’s something they choose. It’s something Rumi doesn’t know if she could ever live without. It’s a type of love that would take her an eternity to show them how much they mean to her.
Her words seem to echo throughout the room. They’re intermingled with the sound of her sobs, but Rumi can hear the echo plain as day. It feels like it’s been hours since she spoke, but it’s only been moments.
“We love you too,” Mira whispers first, ducking to tuck her face in Rumi’s neck.
“We love you, Rumi,” Zoey agrees, pressing a soft kiss to the corner of Rumi’s jaw.
Rumi’s still crying, but she’s allowing herself to just be held. Even when she feels like she’s falling apart in their arms, it’s their hands that will help her pick up the pieces and put her back together again.
“Thank you for showing us,” Zoey whispers, rubbing up and down Rumi’s side as her sobs soften and her tears begin to dry. “They’re beautiful.”
“What?” Rumi asks, her voice unsteady as she turns her head to look at Zoey.
“They’re a part of you. And I think you’re pretty, so… they’re pretty too,” Zoey says.
Mira chuckles softly from Rumi’s other side. “I think she meant to be a little more profound than that, but she’s got a point,” she adds. Rumi turns her head toward Mira. “There’s an art to your edges, Rumi. No matter how sharp you think they might be, we’re not scared of them.” Her hand comes up to play with the curls at the nape of her neck as she speaks. “We don’t love you despite them, we love you more because of them.”
“What?” Rumi mutters.
“You’re over-thinking this, Ru,” Mira adds. “They’re reminders that you’ve done so much to protect us over the years. It doesn’t matter whether you thought that was protecting us from you being a demon, or from other demons.” She presses a kiss to Rumi’s cheek. “They’re proof that you love us. And that’s the most beautiful part of it all.”
Just when Rumi thinks she’s about to start crying again, Zoey speaks.
“Gosh, Mira, you’re so long-winded,” she says.
“Look who’s talking. You’re the one that nerds out the most when we go to the aquarium,” Mira says. Rumi can’t help but smile.
“You critique chefs’ form when they’re cutting vegetables on cooking shows!”
“Well they should do it better than I do if they’re going to be on TV for their expert cooking skills!”
Rumi’s chest and shoulders shake when she chuckles at them bickering across her shoulders. The movement stops their little argument. Rumi knows it’s all facetious in nature - they just enjoy the back and forth.
“What’s so funny?” Mira asks her, threading her fingers into her loose hair.
“It’s just cute when you two argue over nothing and forget what’s going on around you,” Rumi says, gesturing to herself, sitting half-naked between them.
“Bold of you to assume I could forget when one of my girlfriends is topless,” Zoey tells Rumi in a low tone of voice, attaching her lips to the skin on her neck.
“Oh, please, like I could let you put your shirt on again when we haven’t even seen the front yet,” Mira whispers against her ear. Rumi’s face flushes when Mira and Zoey sit beside her on the edge of the bed. She watches them share a devilish grin, then she’s pushed by the shoulders to lay down on the bed.
Rumi knows the pale lines on her chest aren’t as bad as her back, mostly because she was able to stitch them up when she needed to and care for them properly, but Rumi’s arms come up to cover herself anyway. It’s instinct, really.
“Ru, stop being so modest,” Zoey says, hovering above her to her left. She places a soft hand on one of her wrists. “We’ve already seen most of you at the bathhouse, silly.”
“What? How much?” Rumi feels her face turn bright red in embarrassment. They’re right about one thing: she is modest, likely as a result of hiding her patterned skin from the world.
“Enough to get our attention,” Mira tells her, leaning down to kiss Rumi’s lips slowly and sweetly.
When Mira pulls away, Rumi brings her hands up to cover her flushed face and she groans in embarrassment. She can hear her girlfriends chuckle. Mira uses her fingertips to push some hair away from Rumi’s forehead. Zoey works to pull Rumi’s hands from her face.
“Oh, look, she’s a little tomato,” Zoey chides when she finally gets Rumi’s palms away from her eyes.
Rumi tries to roll toward Mira to get her to save her from such flirty ridicule, but Mira stops her by planting her hands on her shoulders and pressing softly. Rumi hates how quickly she folds and lets herself fall into the mattress again under such little pressure.
“If you keep teasing her, she’s never going to let us see her again,” Mira says to Zoey. “She’ll turn into a turtle.”
Both of their gazes return to Rumi lying between them. Rumi’s entire body flushes this time.
“You look very pretty right now, Ru. You’re doing amazing,” Mira says softly. “Can we see the rest of your scars?”
It’s such a genuine request that Rumi can’t bring herself to say no. She doesn’t want to say no, she wants them to see.
Once again, the drag of their fingers on her skin brings Rumi to tears. They’re both so gentle and tender when they touch the pale, healed skin on her collarbones, ribs, and stomach. Rumi can’t help it. She adores the way they love her. Mira and Zoey take turns kissing her tears away, assuring her she’s so loved and safe in their arms.
When they’ve seen enough, Mira and Zoey help Rumi put on her shirt again. Mira leaves to make Rumi a cup of tea. While she does that, Zoey gets Rumi comfortable under her covers. Zoey ends up tucked in bed with her, cuddled into Rumi’s side.
When Mira returns with the steaming hot cup of chamomile, she’s just a little jealous that Zoey’s getting extra cuddle time without her. It fades as soon as Rumi offers up her free side to Mira and thanks her for the tea with a kiss to her cheek. Zoey falls asleep against Rumi’s shoulder with a quickness that could rival a toddler that spent all day having the time of their life at an amusement park.
“She’s always out like a light,” Mira comments, reaching across Rumi to tuck a lock of hair behind Zoey’s ear. “It takes me forever to get that comfortable.”
“My brain is always working overtime,” Rumi whispers, pausing to take the last sip of her tea. “I try drawing shapes on the sheets and that is just mindless enough to help sometimes.” Rumi hands the empty mug to Mira, who sets it on the bedside table and cuddles closer.
Mira’s eyes drop to the iridescent patterns on her forearm. Rumi’s breath stutters when the tip of Mira’s finger traces a shimmering, jagged line. She only pauses when a scar near her elbow intersects with the pattern she’s focused on.
Mira looks up into Rumi’s eyes, asking without words.
Can I? Is this okay?
Rumi nods. Mira doesn’t take her eyes off Rumi’s when her finger changes course, running along the pale, raised skin.
“The ones on your back match the ones on my chest,” Mira says softly.
Rumi knows she’s referring to the claw marks on her back and ribs. The gashes in Mira’s chest have turned pink since their run-in with that demon - the one Mira stepped in front of to protect Rumi. Rumi stitched them up herself.
“Yeah,” Rumi mutters.
“You wear them all so well,” Mira adds.
Rumi closes the short gap between them, leaning in to capture Mira’s lips with hers. It’s meant to just be one soft kiss, but when Rumi begins to break the kiss, Mira grabs her jaw with both hands, keeping her there. Mira deepens it, swallowing Rumi’s contented hum and pulling Rumi even closer. Rumi can feel Zoey slipping from her shoulder, but she doesn’t think Zoey will mind.
The push and pull is soft and completely intoxicating. It’s hard for Rumi to breathe when it feels like Mira’s trying to such the air from her lungs. It’s even harder when someone starts kissing her neck from the other side.
Zoey.
Rumi breaks her kiss with Mira in shock. She lets her eyes roll back in her head when Zoey finds a spot that makes her feel like she could turn into a puddle. The arm she has around Zoey’s shoulders moves so she can cup the back of Zoey’s head with her hand.
“You guys woke me up,” Zoey whispers between kisses. “Diabolical. A war crime, even.” Mira tilts Rumi’s chin to kiss her again, but their lips never touch. “Hey, get back here.”
Zoey grabs a fistful of Rumi’s shirt to pull her lips in the other direction. Rumi is thrown a little off-balance, grabbing Zoey’s shoulder with one hand and planting the other on Mira’s thigh to keep her steady. Mira laughs when Rumi and Zoey’s lips crash together. Rumi chuckles too, once Zoey pulls away from their bruising kiss to pepper some on her cheeks and the corners of her mouth.
“Okay! Okay!” Rumi laughs between Zoey’s sweet pecks. “We can go to bed!”
“Thank you, Ru,” Zoey replies, pressing one more kiss to the tip of Rumi’s nose. “Cuddle me, please.” The smile that Zoey gives her is as bright and as warm as sunlight - Rumi can’t refuse her.
All three of them shimmy until they’re laying down. Zoey shifts to spoon Rumi, wrapping her arms around her waist. Mira turns off the lamp on her side of the bed, plunging them into the darkness. Rumi hears her shuffle closer, then feels arms wrap around herself and Zoey. She tucks her face into Mira’s neck.
Rumi relaxes completely, sandwiched between her girls, when Mira presses a kiss to her hair. One of Mira’s hands finds its way back to Rumi’s forearm, stroking the raised skin from that scar near her elbow.
“You okay, Ru?” Mira asks softly, just loud enough for her to hear.
What a loaded question.
Rumi would be lying if she said the evening wasn’t just the slightest bit difficult - facing parts of herself that she’s not completely proud of has always been hard. At the same time, Rumi is so genuinely happy and loved that she has no idea how to describe that feeling to Mira.
They took her mess and showed her it wasn’t one, not to them.
They took the shattered pieces of her heart and made it whole again.
All of that is too much to say out loud right now.
“Never better. Truly,” Rumi tells her.
“Can I keep doing this?” Mira asks, her thumb still running gently along her scar.
“Yes,” Rumi whispers, hugging Mira tighter. “You can do it whenever, wherever you find one.”
Mira does. Rumi notices her finger tracing a scar when she’s nervous, when she’s itching to let her aggression out on someone, when she can’t sleep. Mira’s favorite is the one near Rumi’s elbow, but she frequents the one at the corner of her jaw when they’re away from prying eyes.
Zoey catches on, easily finding the scars near Rumi’s tricep to anchor herself when she needs a hug. She loves letting her hand creep under Rumi’s shirt to find the scarred claw marks on her back - the touch always makes Rumi melt into her arms.
Day by day, the pale marks that Mira and Zoey press kisses to feel lighter. They love them like they love her - wholly, completely, entirely, without hesitation.
Their love, and her love for them, is engraved in her very skin. When she takes a hit for one of them and they handle her with care, their love is woven into her wounds in the very stitches, gauze, and antiseptic used to treat them.
When their fingers linger on a newer scar, Rumi knows they can see her love renewed like a solemn vow, etched in her skin for them to see and feel. Mira cherishes the one from the spear that one demon sunk into her shoulder, the one that sent her to the hospital because Mira was defenseless. Every time she sees Mira smile, she knows it was worth the blood lost.
There’s a thin one on Rumi’s wrist from when she got nicked by a demon’s blade while defending Zoey’s turned back years ago. Zoey presses her lips to the line at least once every few hours. Every time Zoey laughs, Rumi knows she would take plenty more hits like that as long as she can keep hearing that sound.
When Mira falls asleep tracing Rumi’s scars and Zoey’s breaths slow against her neck, she knows.
Yeah, she could live like this forever, loved like this until the end of time.