Prompt Day 17: Scars

Word count: 574

Warnings: Self Harm

Notes: This is sort of post an RP me and Sadie did. That you can find here.

"Thirty six." She mutters, tracing the length of the last groove of scar tissue that runs the length of his side. "Still more than me."

"It shouldn't be a competition."

There's too many, she thinks, running over the larger ones. Most are minuscule, small scrapes and scuffs anyone could have acquired over time, and there are the larger ones. Likely from fights, some are burns, some are keep cuts that healed in jagged patterns and turned white through scarring. Others like the one's on his face and chest, dark ugly things, ones that she could say she hated, and found disgust, not in him but in the people who distributed them.

She couldn't see the distortion in his visage, no matter how gruesomely the rough patches, and charred tendrils extended through his skin, she couldn't see it. She thought it determined his bravery, his sacrifice, and just how much he had overcome. She almost envied it. How strong he was, how he had decided to never, ever, give up, no matter the circumstance.

A smile tugs at her lips and she lays her head on his chest. "Twenty-two." She says, letting the smile fade, and bring the tip of her nail to trace the tendrils that dance across his chest.

"It's Twenty-five." he corrects, bringing her hand into his and lifting her hand as he laces his fingers into hers.

There's so many, the lines, deep incisions, trailing diagonally, and horizontally, intertwining or overlapping, sometimes in parallels. His breath hitches in a pained sigh, and she notes it and closes her eyes. "So, twenty-five." She remembers the crimson, and the wet floors—but mostly she remembers his warmth, pulling her into his chest and his breath against her hair. her scars were nothing of bravery, but of cowardice, and she wasn't proud.

Thirteen, maybe more, line her wrists, and the rest are just the scratches and scuffs, the little things any one gains from a small fall or trip. She isn't brave or strong, and out of her fear of being just as inadequate as she seemed she dragged the end of the blade across her skin.

She doesn't know it but he remembers every time he looks, looking at the array of scars, and just how they bend with every movement of her skin. He remembers how he brought her into his chest, a damp, naked mass, arms coated in red, and how he promised he'd protect her, and failed at that. It only meant he hadn't done everything he could.

"—Why would you do this, to yourself, to me?" He murmurs softly remembering how he phrased those words so many months ago. His voice carries in a broken tone, and he bites back the tears that sting at the corner of his lids.

"I—" she trails unable to place it, bringing her finger back into a fist and shutting her eyes tight. "It was a tough time."

"You're okay now? We're okay?" He asked, keeping his focus on the warmth of her fingers intertwined into his.

"We're just fine." Her lips finally pulled back into a smile, and she opened her eyes, slipping her hand from his and placing it on the rim of the scar that painted his cheek. He promised they would be fine— he promised. And Mai had nothing else to believe in, even if he had broken every other one, she needed something, so that— she believed in that.