Running to You | Park Han + JL + Steven | Haneulz + Stejay AU

Chapter 85: Permission to Fall Apart

The weeks that followed were a careful dance of healing -- not just physical, but something deeper. JL began asking questions. Small ones at first.

"Did you eat today?"

"When did you last sleep?"

"Are you okay?"

Han would answer simply, never making a show of the sacrifices he'd made. But JL saw them anyway. Saw the weight Han had lost, the shadows under his eyes, the way his hands sometimes shook with exhaustion.

One evening, as Han helped him with his exercises on the living room bars, JL spoke quietly.

"I know what you gave up for me."

Han's hands stilled on JL's waist. "I didn't give up anything."

"You gave up everything." JL's voice was steady but tight with emotion. "Your life. Your sleep. Your peace. You let me hate you because you knew I needed to hate someone, and you were the only one strong enough to take it."

Han swallowed hard. "JL -- "

"You saved me," JL said hoarsely. "When I wanted to die, you wouldn't let me."

JL began to change in small ways. He stopped turning his face away when Han wiped the sweat from his forehead. He started gripping the bars tighter, as if he was fighting for something instead of just enduring. When the timer hit a new milestone, he would look at Han first -- not with the hollow exhaustion of before, but with something that might have been pride.

But it was the quiet moments that revealed the most. The way JL's eyes would follow Han around the room, tracking his movements with careful attention. The way he would reach out sometimes, just barely, when Han was helping him back into the wheelchair -- not quite touching, but wanting to.

One evening, Han found JL staring at his own hands in his lap, turning them over slowly.

"What are you thinking about?" Han asked softly.

JL was quiet for a long time. When he finally spoke, his voice was barely audible. "You have calluses now."

Han looked down at his own palms, roughened from months of gripping JL's wheelchair, from helping him in and out of bed, from holding him steady during therapy.

"From taking care of me," JL added, his voice thick.

Han sat beside him, not sure what to say.

JL reached out then, tentatively, and traced one of the calluses with his fingertip. "I gave you these."

"JL -- "

"No." JL's voice broke slightly. "I need to... I need to see them."

Han let him explore his hands, feeling the tremor in JL's fingers as he mapped each rough spot, each small scar from months of caregiving.

"You weren't supposed to have to do this," JL whispered.

"I wanted to."

JL shook his head, tears starting to fall. "You shouldn't have wanted to. Not after the things I said."

Han caught JL's chin gently, making him look up. "You were in pain."

"So were you." JL's eyes were bright with unshed tears. "I could see it. Even when I was... when I was drowning, I could see what I was doing to you. And I couldn't stop."

They sat in silence for a long time, JL's hands still resting in Han's.

* * * 

The sessions grew longer. Two minutes became three, then four. JL stopped making sounds of pain during therapy -- not because it hurt less, but because he seemed determined to bear it quietly now. Sometimes Han would catch him biting his lip so hard it bled, holding back cries that would have come easily before.

After one particularly brutal session, as Han was helping him change his sweat-soaked shirt, JL caught his wrist.

"Han."

Something in his voice made Han still.

JL looked up at him, and Han saw something different in his eyes. Not the hollow anger of before, not the desperate gratitude of recent weeks, but something deeper. 

Something that looked like the JL he used to know.

"I..." JL started, then stopped. His grip on Han's wrist tightened. "I need you to know something."

Han waited, heart pounding.

JL's voice came out broken, barely a whisper. "I don't know if you can still..." He swallowed hard, tears spilling over. "I don't know if I ruined everything. But I -- "

His voice cracked completely. His face transformed with fierce emotion and aching fear that Han might not want it.

"I love you, Han."

The world stopped.

Han's breath caught in his throat, his entire body going rigid. The words hit him like a physical blow, like something crashing into his chest and stealing all the air from his lungs. His vision blurred, narrowed, until all he could see was JL's face -- tear-streaked and broken and beautiful and saying the words Han had waited months to hear. Years to hear. A lifetime to hear.

"I love you," JL repeated, his voice dissolving into sobs. "I love you and I'm sorry, I'm so sorry -- "

Han's hands flew to JL's face, trembling so violently he could barely hold steady. "JL -- "

"I'm sorry," JL broke down completely, the words tumbling out between gasping breaths. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry -- for everything I said, for how I hurt you, for making you -- " His voice shattered. "I love you and I'm sorry and I don't deserve -- I don't deserve for you to forgive me but I love you, I love you -- "

Han felt his own composure crumble like a dam breaking. His chest heaved as the sobs tore through him, months of held-back emotion flooding out all at once.

"I'm sorry too," Han gasped, pulling JL closer until their foreheads touched, until they were breathing the same air, tears mingling on their cheeks. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry -- don't hate me anymore, please don't hate me -- "

"I never hated you," JL sobbed against him. "I hated myself, I hated that I needed you, I hated that I couldn't -- but never you, never you -- "

"I love you," Han whispered brokenly, the words spilling out like a prayer, like something sacred. "I love you, I love you, I love you -- I never stopped, not ever, not for a second -- "

They held each other and cried, faces pressed close together in something beyond intimacy -- something raw and holy and unbreakable. This was forgiveness asking for forgiveness. This was love stripped down to its most essential truth. This was two people who had walked through hell together finally allowing themselves to believe they were going to make it out alive.

JL's hands clutched at Han's shirt, desperate and shaking. "I love you," he kept whispering, like he was making up for all the times he'd never said it before. "I love you, I love you -- "

And Han held him like he was afraid JL might disappear, like these words might be taken away from him if he let go for even a second.

"I love you too," Han breathed against JL's skin. "So much it kills me. So much I thought I'd die waiting to hear you say it back."

It was the first time JL had ever said those words. Not to Eli, or his father, or Coach Jim. Not to either of the men that had loved him before he became a cripple. But here, now, broken and healing and perfect in their imperfection -- when saying them meant everything.

When their tears finally slowed, when their breathing began to steady, they stayed pressed close together, afraid to break the moment.

"I'm not going to waste what you did for me." JL whispered eventually, his voice still thick with tears but steady with determination. "I'm going to walk again."

Han's throat closed with emotion as he held JL closer, finally allowing himself to believe that they were going to be okay. More than okay.

They were going to heal.