Chapter Text
When Jeremy was sixteen, his high school best friend accidentally overdosed at a party. It was a situation that had gotten out of control; a bad batch of the same stupid party drugs Daniel did every weekend back in the day. Jeremy had been beyond scared, and could still very clearly remember sticking his fingers down Daniel’s throat to make him bring whatever he had taken back up, and the retching as they waited for an ambulance. He remembered the shivering, and the bass of the music inside the house continuing to pound in time with his heart, and the disbelief that people’s lives could just continue around him while his was collapsing. He himself had never touched the stuff and never would, and it was easily one of the worst memories of his young life. By contrast, his new roommate had spent his sixteenth birthday in the hands of a sadistic egomaniac, enduring actual, literal torture. Jeremy grimaces at the thought; maybe his own sixteenth year hadn’t been so bad after all.
Still, Jean’s harrowing past doesn’t make him any easier to love in the beginning, even for Jeremy, who’s never met a human, animal or inanimate object he didn’t want to talk to. (According to Alvarez). Jean is prickly at best, and vicious at worst, his exquisitely crafted features - all French fine angles and starlight skin beneath compelling grey eyes - are able to convey the deepest contempt with a mere lift of a dark brow, or jut of his angular jaw, and his prettily-accented words drip with poison as he tries to keep Jeremy from getting close to him. At first, it’s disconcerting and Jeremy feels deeply hurt that Jean won’t accept his kindness. Why the hell doesn’t this long-abused and affection-starved man want friendship when it’s finally offered? But as Jeremy spends time in Jean’s company and starts to notice things - like the way Jean’s eyes almost never leave him, as if he’s watching for danger, and the things Jean screams in his nightmares - the realisation clicks into place, that it’s really not Jeremy. Jean has every right to be as gun shy as he is, and for some reason that Jeremy hasn’t quite figured out yet, he wants to be the shield Jean needs and give him what he requires to heal.
Even after two weeks with the Foxes, Jean comes to USC, to Jeremy, in a horrific state. His hair is shorter than Jeremy has ever seen it at Edgar Allan versus USC games, but the healing, raw patches on his scalp where Riko ripped it from his head are still evident. He has a crescent moon of stitches that curve almost lovingly around the stark, black three that adorns his cheekbone. He is black and blue from head to toe, his pale skin a canvas of brutality of the kind that Jeremy has never seen before. Three nights in, Jean spikes a blazing temperature; his head is warm and his skin is soaked, his eyes dart behind blue-veined eyelids and his cheeks flush with marrow-deep sickness, and he calls Jeremy’s name until the fever breaks - the first time he speaks aloud since arriving in California.
Jeremy is surprised by this turn, but then again, he supposes there’s nothing like holding a cold face cloth to your new roommates’ forehead for three days to bring you closer.
At the start, Jeremy could see how torn Jean was; he didn’t want to warm to Jeremy, to let him in, to give him the opportunity to hurt Jean the way so many before had. And yet, keeping Jeremy away warred with his ingrained Raven ideology of being a pair. And so often, he followed Jeremy around, but with a look on his face that was some cross between mistrust and exasperation. Jeremy is concerned at first, but then he speaks to Kevin and he finds his mind much more at ease after the call. He’s played with Kevin, the first time they both made Court together, and he trusts him - even if he is a prickly bastard. Plus, Kevin is the only person Jeremy has regular contact with who has some idea of how harrowing Evermore was for Jean. Kevin doesn’t say as much, but Jeremy can tell he’s glad for some news of Jean. He’s not sure what it will take for Jean and Kevin to mend that bridge, if it even can be, but he’s quietly hopeful.
And, if Jeremy’s being honest with himself, he kind of likes Jean’s company. Even if he is sullen and silent so very much of the time, sometimes he cannot bite back his acerbic wit and dark humour, and when Jeremy laughs in response to his comments, he swears he sees a hint of a smile at the corners of Jean’s grey eyes, even if none appears on his mouth.
Jeremy takes an approach like Jean is newly arrived on some kind of exchange. He orients him to the best coffee shops, where to get groceries, his favourite running tracks, the cinema, and so many other places in those early days before the team comes back for the new semester and Jean starts his formal counselling. Jean takes it all in with what Jeremy interprets as a stoic, impassive kind of wonder. He is regularly surprised by the knowledge of his new freedom, and is slow to take to it at first.
At Jeremy’s favourite coffee shop, the pretty, soft-looking girl behind the counter turns into a blushing mess under Jean’s intent gaze. He never says any more words than he absolutely needs to, but he might as well have proposed marriage for the way she looks up at him. Jeremy can’t blame her, he thinks mildly. Jean is several inches over six-foot, his shoulders broad and his chest like a wall. He’s a true backliner, every line of him strong, and imposing, occupying space.
She brings their coffees to their table; Jeremy’s dish has a teaspoon and a small biscuit balanced on it, Jean’s a slip of paper with her phone number.
Jeremy looks at Jean over the rim of his cup, as Jean fingers the piece of paper and one dark brow rises slowly. He meets Jeremy’s gaze, almost like a challenge, and when they leave, Jean leaves the number on the table with a generous tip.
“Jesus, fuck, you’re tall.” Alvarez looks up at Jean, who towers over her, and probably has a good fifty pounds of pure muscle on her too. She presses a hand to her heart dramatically.
Jean’s eyes track lazily down to the gold crucifix that rests in the hollow of her throat. “I tend to have that effect on Christians.”
Alvarez grins, and sticks her hand out, which Jean pointedly ignores. He leans his shoulder against the doorframe of his and Jeremy’s room, arms folded across his chest. Jeremy and Laila wait, breath bated, in the little kitchenette, watching the exchange. Laila had politely introduced herself to Jean, and then retreated to Jeremy’s side, much more conscious of not overwhelming Jean than Alvarez was. Or perhaps, Cat simply doesn’t care. Jeremy thinks it is probably the latter.
Alvarez’s eyes travel Jean’s bare arms, littered with scars. She lingers on the ‘three’ on his cheekbone, and the crescent-moon scar that curves around it. Jean stares her down, unwavering.
Jean is unashamed of anything, Jeremy has quickly discovered. He’s aggressively unashamed of his scars, and equally aggressively unashamed of the personality that was forged in the fire of his upbringing. Jean is a survivor, but he was a dissonant before that, before Riko carved and sliced and beat and tattooed that instinct right down into the heart of Jean, where the fire only just barely survived going out. As the team gets to know him, he doesn’t back down from anything, and he’s blunt and honest to the point of being rude often. Most of the Trojans think it’s great.
Alvarez, bravely – or maybe stupidly, Jeremy thinks – prises one of Jean’s arms from his chest and holds it out to the side. Jean must be in a good mood, to allow it.
Alvarez looks over her shoulder at Jeremy and Laila incredulously, still holding Jean by the wrist. “Look at this wingspan!” she says to them. “We are going to fuck some strikers up this year!”
“How eloquent,” Jean says dryly, and Laila stifles a giggle against Jeremy’s shoulder.
Their first practice with Jean on the team is…interesting. Jean is fierce, and no less prodigiously talented for having nearly died earlier in the summer. He’s also brutally candid, and not afraid to hand out advice on the court when he sees things, which when compared to Jeremy’s style of constructive critiques, and positive encouragement and feedback, is definitely different than what the Trojans are used to.
“Can’t decide if I hate him, or want to be him,” says Caro, the junior backliner, to Jeremy. They watch Jean stretch for a blindingly quick return from Laila. He barely even extends to the full potential of his reach. Jeremy can’t wait to see him in full flight, in Trojan red-and-gold instead of Raven black-and-red.
“He’s a handy pick up,” Jeremy says mildly.
“Handy? Fucking handy?” Caro chokes on his own saliva. “We are going to win a championship on his back.”
“Maybe so,” Jeremy says, smiling. Across the court, Jean body-checks McKenzie hard, and barely legally.
Privately, Jeremy thinks there’s work to do – but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t agree with Caro.
They have some really bad days though; days where Jean’s anger breaks like a tidal wave over Jeremy, over the team. These are the days when they see some of what lies beneath with Jean; the fight that he buried long ago in order to just survive Riko, and the trauma of what was done to him. Jean is a river, calm-looking and impenetrable on the surface, but swirling, raging, eddying beneath, and Jeremy finds it hard to believe Jean hasn’t drowned yet sometimes. He thinks that’s probably a testament to Jean’s quiet bravery, but he’d outright deny that if Jeremy ever said it.
For the most part, the Trojans let it happen - because they know it needs to - and move on with a gentle reminder that he’s still safe, and they are still here for him. Jean can be cruel and horribly standoffish when he’s having a bad day, but as Alvarez says in the beginning, “He’s a fucking good player. Doesn’t have to be the nicest bloke going around, he just has to help us win games.”
It’s not smooth sailing, and Jeremy doubts it ever will be, but Jean starts coming to Jeremy at least. It’s never with an outward, ‘Today is bad, I need help,’ but with small acts of entreaty; sitting down near enough to Jeremy that he could touch him if he wanted, or a brief touch to the inside of Jeremy’s wrist, or his shoulder.
It’s one such bad day, when Jean and Jeremy lay in their beds, both exhausted from practice but unable to sleep, that Jean starts what will become a habit for them that Jeremy privately refers to as ‘revelations in the dark.’ Jeremy is sprawled on his stomach, with one arm up under his pillow and his head turned to the side, watching Jean in the gloom. He’s become very watchful, he thinks idly, his eyes seeking Jean always in rooms, at practices, everywhere they go. He’s attuned to the slope of Jean’s broad shoulders - are they tense? Relaxed? - and to the slant of his brows and the rhythm of his breathing, and his sense of how okay, or not, Jean is. Jean is currently decidedly not okay; his chest is tense as he breathes.
Jean is on his back, his right arm flung across forehead and his left leg bent at the knee. He’s awake, Jeremy can tell by his breathing, and something in the air feels like he’s stewing on something.
“I’m sorry about training today,” Jean says eventually. Jeremy feels his own brow lift; Jean has never apologised before, for anything. The incident in question wasn’t even that bad; a tactical discussion between backliners had turned heated, but Alvarez had called to Jeremy for his opinion as captain, and as Jeremy had started towards the group, Jean had gone paler than death and flinched away. At spying the devastated look on Jeremy’s face, he had then turned on his heels and ran. He’d already been back in their room by the time Jeremy wrapped up practice and got rid of everyone for the evening.
“‘S’okay,” Jeremy says, keeping his tone gentle. It’s not okay, he thinks, it’s so unfair that Jean has to live with everything he does – that for even a second, he expected a berating, beating. But Jean doesn’t want pity. “My priority is you, not making sure my training plans are followed one hundred percent to the letter.”
Jean makes a quiet noise of derision in the darkness and Jeremy smiles, because yeah, okay, maybe Jeremy is also a bit obsessed with winning the championship this year. But he also isn’t lying. He’s not a therapist or anything, but somehow he and Jean are kind of working, and it’s become very important to Jeremy that Jean stops just surviving and starts flourishing. He can’t really tell if Jean actually likes him or not, but he thinks maybe he respects him a bit and that’s a good enough start for Jeremy.
“Once,” Jean starts again, and Jeremy suddenly feels every nerve in his body stand to attention at the tone of Jean’s voice. “I kept messing a drill up – in fact, it was pretty close to the drill we were doing today actually.”
Jean pauses, and Jeremy thinks on that for a moment, before his voice, deep and dark even by the standards of a Raven, resumes again. “We’d been at it for hours, and I was so tired that I didn’t even scream when he started breaking my fingers in punishment. Except that meant it wasn’t entertaining enough, I guess. So he made me break my own.”
Jeremy sucks in a breath, and he feels genuinely nauseous. Jean’s expression on the court today now makes sense. “I would never-” he begins, but Jean cuts him off with a clipped, “Of course not.”
Jeremy stays quiet, because Jean’s tone isn’t dismissive because he doesn’t believe Jeremy. It’s because he does.
The more the team trains together in the lead up to the season, the more Jean slots into the fabric of them. Caro doesn’t even seem bothered about losing his starting position to Jean – rather he shadows him eagerly, peppering Jean with an average of ninety-three Exy tactics and strategy questions per practice. Laila and Jeremy had done the maths once.
It’s a huge relief to Jeremy, who had been most concerned about the impact Jean’s recruitment was going to have on his defensive unit. Jean was born to play Exy – his racquet is like an extension of his arms, he seems to know where the ball is going even before it’s moving, and he is not satisfied unless he has stopped every single offensive play and drive. Jean is silk, elegant skill and impossible natural talent, and it’s an excellent foil to Alvarez’s explosive power and dogged defensive style.
Jeremy and the other strikers test him every day. They press, and prod, and throw themselves against Jean like he’s a wall, and they find that there’s no gaps to be exploited. Jean doesn’t have a weakness as a player – that was why he was marked with the perfect court’s number three, Jeremy thinks, as Jean flings a ridiculous shot on goal from half-court which slams home beneath Laila’s outstretched arm. The goal lights up red.
Jeremy eventually scores on Jean, after weeks of grinding, and he breaks out into the biggest smile he’s ever felt on his own face. Sweat is dripping down the back of his neck, and his forehead, so much so that he doesn’t know where he stops and the salt starts.
“Why are you smiling?” Jean asks him, leaning on his racquet. He looks mildly incredulous, and nowhere near as ragged as Jeremy feels. “One goal in two and a half weeks is not something to be proud of.”
The Raven words often come without Jean censoring them, but the thing about Jeremy is he doesn’t take it personally. For every rude, condescending word that comes out of Jean’s mouth, Jeremy sees something good happen. Like the way Jean patiently explains how to set an effective zone defence to Alvarez and Caro and the defensive dealers. Or when he shows McKenzie, who is a lick over five-and-a-half feet tall, how to use her speed and agility to turn big-bodied backliners inside-out.
Jeremy pulls his helmet off and grins even wider at Jean, if possible. “You’re the best there is though. If I can score on you, even once, I can score on anyone.”
Jean rolls his eyes so hard that they’d probably get stuck that way if the wind changed. “You’re just so obnoxiously positive, aren’t you Knox? And you genuinely mean it.” Jean’s expression suggests disgust, but the corners of his eyes crinkle with something kind of like amusement.
Jeremy is always the last to leave training, later even than Rhemann, because he always cleans up the cones and balls and various other assorted equipment the team uses. Sometimes Jean waits for him, and sometimes he goes back to the dorms with Cat and Laila. Jeremy doesn’t mind either way – he likes Jean’s company, but he also feels a fierce pang of pride every time he thinks of Jean bonding with the girls and the rest of the team.
It’s two days before their first game of the season, and Jeremy whistles low between his teeth as he dumps the bag of balls into one of the metal equipment lockers that line the locker room. His brain registers the sound of a shower on in the boys’ room, but he thinks nothing of it.
Jeremy flings his towel over his shoulder and makes for the bathroom door, at the same time as it flings open and he nearly runs headlong into the expanse of Jean’s chest.
Jean’s right eyebrow – the more expressive of the pair – rises slowly, as Jeremy stares blankly. Jean is still dripping wet from his shower, a towel slung low around his hips, and Jeremy notes with interest the cluster of freckles across his chest and south of his collarbones that looks remarkably like the Southern Cross constellation. Jeremy feels a curious flush rising up his neck.
“You waited for me?” he manages to choke out, voice desert-dry.
“Are we not going to dinner?” Jean asks, his accent lilting around the words, teasing.
Of course. They’d made pizza plans days ago. Carb-loading, an essential process for athletes in the forty-eight hours before a game. “Ye- yeah. I better shower first though.”
Jean angles himself just enough to open a gap in the doorway that Jeremy can slip through, and it’s a close fit. Jeremy hears Jean huff a laugh behind him as he hustles for the shower stalls, and he swallows heavily, heart inexplicably pounding.