#alkgjshdgkldsjhlkfdjhlkdfh

[seriouscuttervoice]

Redamancy

Fandom: Mystic Messenger

Pairing: Jumin Han/V

Content Warnings: Past abuse, past torture, blood.

Notes: This was written for @juminvweek for the Day 2 prompt, “Reunited”. I feel a need to say this is hurt/comfort and not angst and that it has a happy ending haha. It takes place after Jaehee’s route, which ends with V surrendering himself to Mint Eye.

Links: FFN | AO3

Ragged. Pale. The same clothes he wore the last time Jumin saw him two years ago falling apart at the seams, stained with blood and other substances Jumin doesn’t want to attempt to identify. Long slashes across the fabric leave the imagination a little too much room to interpret what happened—what has been happening. V is so thin his skin is translucent, his hair so long and dirty it reaches past his shoulders and likely would’ve been longer if not left neglected. The blue of the ends has faded to white and makes every unclean speck plainly visible, contrasting sharply against the natural black locks sprouting from his roots that account for almost three quarters of his hair’s length. The dungeon air is too foul to inhale and Jumin finds himself holding his breath. He wonders if the cultists even bothered with washing his friend the entire time he’s been here, Jumin’s skin standing up when he realizes he can’t even imagine what suffering V has endured these last two years while he, Assistant Kim, and Luciel were trying to track him down.

The guards who had been here less than a few hours ago warned Jumin that his friend’s condition would be unpleasant, and cautioned him that V had refused to speak to them, but despite all of Jumin’s meticulous planning his mind never wandered far enough as to actually imagine this moment. Even in the dingy lighting V glows behind the bars, and Jumin swallows down the sour taste that fills his mouth as he crosses the wet floors to V’s cell—the only occupied cell in this part of the underground. His own guards already unlocked it, but Jumin ordered them before they came down here not to remove V by force. There’s no bed in the cell, and despite all of V’s weakness he stands, using the back left corner of the cell to support his fragile body atop legs that seem on the verge of collapse.

Jumin finds himself at a loss for what to say, everything seeming to move so slowly yet happening all at once, and when he finally reaches V’s cell door and grips a cold, damp bar he’s unable to keep holding his breath and foul odours fill his lungs. He coughs, brings his left hand to his mouth to suppress his spluttering.

V shifts, and Jumin’s gaze flits to his face—sallow, closed eyes underscored with bruised purple rings, cheekbones that were hardly visible before so sharp they look as though they might cut through his skin. When the coughing dissipates, Jumin wipes his lip with his knuckle then holds the door with both fists, cringing at the loud creak it emits as he steps back to pull it open. V’s lips move, and then he coughs too, a dry, weak cough that shouldn’t shake his frame the way it does, and Jumin’s stomach turns, unsure of what to do, unsure of what to think. He waits until V is done, and wishes he’d had the foresight to think of something to say when this moment finally came instead of spending the last two years worrying it wouldn’t come at all. What if he couldn’t convince V to leave? How can he even still ask himself that question seeing V in this condition?

“Jumin.”

The voice is cracked, brittle, so quiet and small if Jumin were anyone else he might not have heard it but he isn’t anyone else and the reality of the situation crashes over him, carried in the short syllables of his name. He freezes, fingers still clinging tightly to the open door, voice intact but unable to speak.

V plants a hand against the wall and straightens his legs slightly to pull himself higher. His head turns toward Jumin, and he opens his eyes.

Jumin can’t breathe.

The scarring he remembers is much worse, V’s pupils and irises almost completely overcast as though a drop of milk was squeezed into water and left to spread. There’s no chance that the damage is only a result of V’s first injury worsening, his eyes must have been butchered again.

“I’d know that cough anywhere.”

V’s words fade in and out, there and then not, unevenly lilted instead of smooth and melodic the way Jumin remembers it, but it still sounds the same, the brassy quality, the tone that still manages to be teasing in a dungeon cell.

“Y—you recognized me by my cough?” Jumin stammers, and wonders if perhaps he should be the one locked up for not being able to come up with anything better to say as his first words to V after two years of work and worry. V apparently finds it amusing, but his body can’t handle the short laughter he attempts and he starts coughing again. Jumin has no idea what one is supposed to do when someone else is coughing, but the sound propels him to step forward into the cell, and by the time he’s inside the coughs have subsided once more.

“You really came,” V murmurs. They stand across from each other now and for a moment the smells and dampness disappear, Jumin's chest constricting with the difference in his friend's state now from the last time they were together. None of this would have happened if Jumin were more convincing back then, if he could’ve made V believe at the time that it were possible for Jumin to help him without getting hurt.

“Of course I did,” Jumin responds, wondering if there was ever any doubt. “I told you I would.”

“Of course…” his friend echoes softly. “Well, that’s just like you. I’ve never known you to break a promise.”

Jumin’s eyes find his shoes (and on their way notice that V’s not wearing any), feels his muscles tighten when the first thought to cross his mind is that he hopes that much is true for V too, though at this point with Jumin’s people dealing with Rika’s cult just upstairs he imagines most of the important secrets are already out.

V seems to have the same thought, shifting so he’s leaning on his shoulder and resting his temple against the wall. “What’s going to happen to her?”

“You still ask after her?” It’s a question with an obvious answer and V doesn’t respond, eyes fluttering shut, and after a long silence Jumin draws a deep breath. “I don’t know. That depends on the courts.”

V presses his lips together but gives Jumin a short nod, and Jumin has enough sense to think before saying any of the dozens of responses that come to mind when V sighs a moment later.

“She…” he starts, and Jumin glances up at him. “She was supposed to stop involving innocent people after I, um…”

“She didn’t.” Jumin feels that the words are harsh but their necessity presses him to speak them anyway, regretting it when V flinches.

“I know,” V says, and Jumin knows V is about to apologize and wants to cut him off but it’s too late, and perhaps it’s better to allow V to ask for the forgiveness he doesn’t need to ask for than to deprive him of it. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right.” V seems to be slowly slipping, readjusting himself every few seconds to remain on his feet. “… You look tired. Have you stayed standing this whole time?”

V smiles, an inappropriate response in Jumin’s opinion but who is he to decide so. “That’d be… impressive. I’ve stood whenever I can. My legs are kind of useless these days, though.”

“You look terrible,” Jumin can’t help himself, traces of incredulity stressing some syllables more than others, and it occurs to him he might need to carry V out of here and he wonders why he didn’t think of the possibility of that sooner, gritting his teeth as the pity he felt moments ago for his friend turns to anger for the woman upstairs. Useless legs… there’s a possibility V might never recover.

Somehow, though, it’s no surprise to Jumin that V has insisted on standing whenever possible, even propped helplessly against the wall like this. V is many delicate things— faint-hearted, timid, passive in many circumstances so as to upset the least amount of people. But V has a strength of character that Jumin has seen in few others, like a flower with the roots of a tree, a core that can’t be shaken, and Jumin could see it in him from the very moment he met him. Can still see it now in all of V’s brittleness.

“I don’t want to imagine it.” His friend’s face is blemished, much worse than it was when they were in high school together, likely from the buildup of dirt. His torn jeans and shirt reveal red flesh beneath them too. V must have several skin infections, and Jumin winces at the thought. “They… wouldn’t let me shower, or anything. Or bring me a change of clothes.”

“That’s disgusting.”

Jumin’s had two years of evidence collection to conclude that Rika isn’t the person he thought she was, but even knowing all that he wouldn’t have imagined her to be so cruel. Considering how many times he’s had that exact thought throughout this process though perhaps he should start expecting the unexpected.

V is quiet and Jumin wonders if he’s chosen his words wrong, made V mistake his declaration of disgust as being for V’s state and not for the treatment he’s endured.

“I didn’t forget, you know,” V speaks, and Jumin’s eyebrows draw downward in confusion.

“Forget what?”

“What you told me, before I left,” V smiles, his face pointed toward Jumin with his eyes closed and Jumin’s certain that even without sight V still knows exactly where he is. Jumin’s face doesn’t change and when a beat passes in silence V elaborates, “That your heart is always with me.”

“Oh,” Jumin says, remembering. Yes, the advice MC had given him during their chat in his office after the RFA party—the same conversation where she told him she would not be his assistant. It was the only meeting they had about V after the party, and indeed, the first and last one-on-one meeting they had at all. As he suspected, her advice didn’t work in convincing V to stay, and it was worse because Jumin could only say it to him through the phone instead of in person. It worked when MC did it for Assistant Kang—Jaehee— though, so he’d hoped that perhaps…

He stops himself. There’s no point in thinking about it anymore, not when V is right here in front of him.

“The word choice was unlike you,” V states, and Jumin rolls his eyes because he can tell V already knows.

“The word choice was MC’s idea.”

V hums. “Still. I could tell by your voice that you were sincere.”

Jumin’s throat tightens.

“It… meant a lot to me,” his friend admits. “More than you could ever imagine.”

Jumin takes a deep breath, pinches the bridge of his nose. “I knew she’d be a good person to ask for advice.”

V shakes his head against the wall. “It wasn’t just the words. It was that…” V trails off, and Jumin waits for him to recollect his thoughts. He thinks he can hear dripping but that’s no surprise in the dampness. “It was knowing I failed. To make you stop caring about me.”

Jumin’s eyes widen.

“I—I wanted you to be safe, of course,” V hurries to clarify. “And I hated to think of you worrying over me when I didn’t want you to, but.” He pauses. “But to think that… that even after everything, you still wanted me for a friend.“

“Wanted?” Jumin repeats, takes a step forward to V for the first time since entering the cell.

“Wanted,” V confirms, enunciating the word with a certainty that steals Jumin’s breath. “Because you love me.”

Jumin’s head spins, and for a moment he almost manages to convince himself it’s because of the dungeon odours, but he knows better than that.

“Because I love you,” he repeats slowly.

“Yes.”

Silence fills the room like wine poured into a glass. This shouldn’t be new, the words reverberating in Jumin’s mind like a rubber band stretched taut, a warmth spreading through him with every vibration. You love me. So Jihyun understands, then, so Jumin’s efforts have been recognized, so at last his actions have spoken loudly enough to make that truth spill from his friend’s lips without Jumin having to say it.

“I… always sort of knew,” Jihyun confesses.

“And then you didn’t,” Jumin answers.

Jihyun dips his head and his hair falls, more scraggly strands hanging over his face than even before. “It kept me alive.”

Jumin steps forward, then again, the smells becoming so intense he can feel nausea rising in his throat, stopping just before Jihyun is close enough to touch.

“You love me too,” Jumin says, and with the way Jihyun leans closer to the wall to press his forehead and nose to it Jumin knows. All the times in the last two years—and a bit more, if he’s honest—that he asked himself where the proof was of their friendship, of the connection they once had before V closed himself off, even knowing in the end it was all for his and the RFA’s protection—here it is before him, in the form of V himself, alive and standing in spite of all the suffering for something that he loved enough to live for.

He takes another step toward Jihyun, reaches out, then hesitates, thinking of his friend’s condition. “... Can I touch you?” He’ll likely have to eventually, so they can leave this place.

Jihyun inclines his head in a nod so slight it’s barely noticeable, and Jumin gently takes one of his friend’s hands in his. It’s calloused and scarred, the skin greyish from filth and split from dryness. Juxtaposed in Jumin’s manicured one, it could be a still from a film sequence. Jihyun’s hand quivers, muscles tightening, and Jumin softly brushes against his friend’s knuckles with his thumb.

“You’re safe now,” Jumin promises, sliding his other hand carefully under Jihyun’s cheek to cushion it against the wall. Jihyun’s lip twitches. “You’re safe with me, and you always will be. I swear, Jihyun, you will never have to be alone again.”

Jihyun slowly turns, rolling so his upper back is against the wall, and Jumin’s hand cradles his head. Jihyun’s body trembles, but his voice doesn’t waver.

“I swear, Jumin,” Jihyun replies quietly. “Neither will you.”