Written for Bulletproof 22/23.
Tonight's job seems as standard as it gets—right up until their target pulls out a goddamn gun none of Jin's intel so much as hinted at.
One regular old human with a gun shouldn't stand a chance against three Persona-users with weapons of their own. But this guy almost seems to be expecting them, and he's fast, getting in a shot almost as soon as they've freed him from his coffin. For a second Jin thinks he must've missed, because there's the gunshot and then nothing, and he's not hurt, Takaya's not hurt—
"Shit, Chidori!"
He must not've heard Chidori fall through the ringing in his ears. But when he spins around, heart in his throat, there she is on her knees. Medea's crouched over her—how the hell did Chidori summon it so fast?—and now that he's caused a distraction their target's off and running, but who fucking cares when Chidori got shot, except her dress is still pristine white all over, so where—
His racing thoughts grind to a halt as he realizes that under the sickly moonlight Chidori's hair is just about the color of blood, and it's not hair in her face, trickling sluggishly down her cheek. As Jin stares, Medea pulls Chidori close against its belly, spindly fingers cradling Chidori's jaw with surprising tenderness as the golden sparks of its healing ability begin to dance across Chidori's head.
"Chidori—" But before he can even take a step towards her the shift of his weight sets Medea off, an eerie, inhuman growl issuing from beneath the ram's-head mask as it clutches Chidori tighter. And Jin trusts Medea even less than he trusts Moros—so, not at fucking all; he doesn't dare get any closer.
Takaya doesn't share his reservations, though, and he calmly walks towards it, arms outstretched, hands open. Its warning growl rises to a screech. Takaya is undeterred. "Come now," he says. "You know I mean your mistress no harm."
It doesn't seem convinced. But it doesn't burn Takaya to a crisp when he crouches down in front of Chidori, either.
It's been a long time since Jin's felt so damn helpless. He can't help Chidori, and the odds of taking out her attacker on his own aren't at all in his favor; all he can do is wait, and that Takaya doesn't seem to be panicking isn't much comfort when he's never seen Takaya panic at all.
What feels like a small eternity later, Medea vanishes, and Takaya stands. Chidori doesn't.
"The bullet grazed her scalp. It frightened her badly—but she is in no danger." Relief washes over Jin, so sudden and intense he nearly stumbles. Takaya claps him hard on the shoulder as he passes. "I will see our mission carried out. Chidori I entrust to you." And then he's off. Jin gets halfway towards asking if he'll be okay before he bites back the words. Takaya's not the one to worry about.
That just leaves Chidori, then.
"Hey." This isn't the kind of crisis he's good in—and it's weird as hell talking to Chidori without her biting his head off for daring to open his mouth. But he can't exactly blame her. His heart's still pounding so fast it's kinda making him feel sick, and he's not even the one who got shot. "Can you get up? We've gotta get going."
He offers her his hand. She must be pretty badly shaken up, since she actually takes it. The chain of her hatchet, wrapped around her hand, bites into his palm as he hauls her upright; she wobbles a little but keeps her footing. That's a good start, at least. He'd feel a lot better if she'd say something, or even look right at him—but at least she's on her feet and moving.
It's not that long a walk to the abandoned house they've been squatting in, but Chidori makes it longer every time she stops to catch her balance or her breath. They only just make it back before the Dark Hour ends. Hopefully Takaya... well. Jin will find out soon enough, one way or the other. Right now he's still got Chidori to deal with.
They have power here, and running water—that's about to be more useful than he ever could've guessed—but flipping on the light almost makes him wish they didn't. He's never seen this much blood on one person who was still alive. In Chidori's hair, on her face... her fussy little headdress and one of her hair ribbons are probably lost causes, and there's a few spots on her dress, too.
"Stop staring." There's surprisingly little heat to her words, and her voice sounds so... small. It shakes, just like her hand shakes as she rubs flakes of dried blood off her cheek. "...it's okay, Jin. I'm not hurt."
"You're not hurt anymore." The physical injury might've healed over in a shower of sparks, but Medea's healing can't rewrite history. The memory of having hurt lingers—Jin would know. And feeling a bullet scrape along your scalp, not even knowing, in that horrible moment, that the shooter's aim was off by just enough to be the difference between life and death... you don't have to fear death itself for that to be a mindfuck and a half. "C'mon. Let's get you cleaned up."
She glowers, staying rooted to the spot when he puts an arm around her trembling shoulders. But it doesn't last. Jin might not be any substitute for Takaya, but he's here and he's familiar, and it doesn't take long for her to decide that's good enough. She dumps her hatchet by the door and lets Jin guide her to the bath.
"I can..." She frowns, at a loss for words. Instead of finishing her sentence she shrugs out from under Jin's arm and starts pulling off accessories.
"I know you can." When she tries to unzip her dress, her fingers keep slipping off the tiny pull. She scoffs when Jin moves back into her space, but doesn't stop him from pulling the zipper down to her waist. "If you don't want my help, fine. But I'm offering."
"...fine."
She strips right down to nothing; Jin keeps most of his clothes on, not because he really cares if Chidori sees him naked but because it's cold and not everyone has their own supernatural space heater in their head. He perches on the edge of the tub while Chidori finds the least disgusting patch of broken, mold-stained tile to sit on, and while the water heats up he takes a look at just what he's dealing with.
Blood, obviously. So much blood that a lot of it's still wet, sticking her hair so thoroughly down to her scalp that he can't see what's underneath. She doesn't flinch when he touches her, just angles the worst of it towards him; but he flinches. He kills people for a living, slays Shadows for fun—he's no stranger to bodies, dead and dying, and everything that goes along with that gruesome reality... but it's not the same when it's Chidori. It's not the same at all.
Chidori works from the shadows, from a distance, from behind Takaya and Jin. Chidori doesn't get her hands dirty. Chidori doesn't get hurt, not like this. And maybe they don't always (or ever) get along, but—she's still the second-closest thing he has to family. That's not nothing.
"Where did that bastard even get a gun?" Now he's the one shaking, just a little, as he lifts the showerhead. He takes a breath, swallows it down. Aims the water at Chidori's head, and tries not to notice how the runoff is almost the same color as the blood caked in her hair. But it's awfully hard not to notice as it pours down her pale skin, across white tiles, and down the drain. "He's just some creep preying on high school girls, no connections, nothing..." Nothing he could find, anyway. He'll have to look again. Find what he missed. Figure out how not to miss it next time.
Picking through the blood-soaked tangle of Chidori's hair is slow, disgusting work, the strands glued to each other in chunks that resist all his efforts short of putting down the showerhead to pick them apart with both hands. The floral scent of the fancy shampoo Chidori shoplifts mixes with the raw-meat stench of blood to create something spectacularly awful, like spraying air freshener on a butcher shop dumpster; even the soapsuds come up rust brown.
The scabs he has to pick out of her hair trace a path a good four inches long, from her temple back over her ear. When he's washed away enough of the blood that he can part her hair down to the scalp, there's nothing to see; no open wound, no red-raw new skin, not even a scar. Like it never happened. The dissonance between what he remembers and what he sees doesn't sit right with him, escalating to a physical discomfort crawling under his skin until he has to look away.
Maybe it's better to just focus on how gross this all is. Gross is simple. Doesn't make him think too hard. He can handle gross.
The hot water's starting to run out by the time his fingers can comb through her hair without catching and the water runs clear. She barely reacts when he finally turns off the shower—not from shock this time, he doesn't think, but just from plain exhaustion. Healing always does a number on her, on top of how much energy and focus it takes just to stay conscious during the Dark Hour. Still, when he tries to bundle her up in a threadbare towel, she perks up enough to smack his arm and grab the towel out of his hands.
"You're welcome." He drops another towel, unfolded, over her head. From underneath it comes a sound that sounds suspiciously like a laugh.
Chidori seems awake enough to handle drying herself off unsupervised, so when Jin hears the back door creak open, he goes to greet Takaya; but right as he steps into the hallway, before the door slams shut behind him, he can just make out a "thank you".