Chapter Text
Jeremy Knox offers to take him to the beach when he picks Jean up from the airport.
“Now?” Jean asks in disbelief, surprise already disrupting his carefully laid plan of being the same person he already was in the Nest–head down, closed off, shuttered and cold. He’s found that the same survival tactics are applicable to most situations, and learned a long time ago that his was the best.
“Sure,” Jeremy says easily, switching lanes on the freeway. He grins, shoots a friendly look over at Jean. “California greeting. There’s an exit up ahead, it’s a little out of the way, but–”
“No thank you,” Jean says, clipped and final. He hasn’t been to the beach in years, has avoided it at all costs. The fact that he’ll be so close to the coast for the next year makes his skin crawl.
He expects Jeremy to argue or even push it, but he doesn’t. “Okay,” he shrugs. “We’ll be driving on the coast in a bit, if you want to look out your window and see the water.”
Jeremy must notice that Jean, who’s been leaning on said window with his elbow, cradling his chin in his hand and staring out at the passing scenery, leans away from the view and resolutely stares forward, but he doesn’t say anything about that either.
----
Similar to the Ravens, the Trojans have a house on campus. Unlike the Ravens, the Trojans actually live there.
Jean’s first impression is of of two story house that has probably seen better days, but is kept fairly neat. The layout of the first floor is open and lived in, and the second floor houses bedrooms and bathrooms. Everything is painted in shades of white or beige, and there are paint drips on the hardwood floors. Flashes of red and gold are everywhere.
“I’ve seen pictures of the Exy house at Edgar Allen,” Jeremy says conversationally. “Ours is a little different, but I hope you adjust okay.”
Jean only blinks. He’s been to the Exy house on Edgar Allen’s campus twice, maybe three times, even though technically he had a room there, with a school banner on the wall, and an Exy racket and some textbooks to keep up appearances.
The Nest, on the other hand, is about as far from the USC Exy house as anything could be, but Jean knows for a fact that it unnerves people when he tells them about it.
The room that Jeremy shows him is as different as his room back in the Nest. In Castle Evermore, Jean had shared a room with Luke, a stifling coffin of a space that felt like the roof was caving in. Here, it’s a single, shoebox sized with a small closet. It’s enough for a bed and a desk, and not much else. There’s a window facing the front lawn, the curtainless glass showing an unavoidable view that has Jean wanting to crawl out of his skin.
”Typically, newbies share,” Jeremy says, “But because you’re a fifth year we pulled some strings and were able to get you a single.”
Jean almost wishes he could just share with someone. Sleeping alone at Abby’s every night, nothing in that dark room but the stain on the ceiling to look at and distract him, had almost killed him. Jean presses his hand to the unadorned dry wall and wonders for the millionth time is this really has to be it, if it’s all really worth it.
Jeremy clears his throat and sets Jean’s suitcase down with a soft thump. He had insisted on carrying it in from the car after seeing Jean’s wrist brace, and carried it between rooms as he gave Jean the tour. He had even lugged it up the stairs and down the hall to the bedroom, undeterred by Jean’s cool stare and unimpressed raise of his eyebrows.
“It’s actually the first day of practice,” Jeremy says, “But I figured you’d want a day to rest and adjust before stepping onto the court.”
Jean almost laughs at the idea that a day would be enough, but Jeremy continues, saying, “It’s why it’s so quiet around here. Normally its, uh, pretty loud. Hope that’s okay.”
“It’s going to have to be, isn’t it?” Jean says, setting his duffle bag on the bare mattress of his university supplied twin bed.
Jeremy smiles, apparently undeterred by Jean’s blunt remarks and general lack of warmth over the past hour and a half. “I’m heading to the court, but you don’t have to come. Or I can stay here, if you need help setting up.”
Jean snorts. Even if he hadn’t just sat in traffic for the other man for an hour, the last thing he wants to do is spend more quality one-on-one time with Jeremy Knox. “I’ll be fine here.”
“Gotcha,” Jeremy says. “Oh! That reminds me! Hold on.” Jean watches him leave, but he comes back less than a minute later carrying a laundry hamper. “I almost forgot. We, the team and Coach and all, made a little welcome gift for you.”
Jean peers inside to see the plastic basket full, an unopened set of sheets and packaged bars of soap sitting atop other odds and ends. He looks back at Jeremy, who’s still smiling that same smile, all warmth quiet strength.
It makes him uncomfortable. “Thank you,” he says, unsure and gingerly taking the laundry basket from him, setting it on the mattress next to his bag.
When Jeremy leaves, after giving Jean a house key and a rundown of the laundry room, Jermy sits down on his unmade made and wonders how he already feels out of his depth here, at a loss and swimming in unfamiliar waters.
----
The Trojans must have been briefed about Jean’s state, because while there are some lingering glances over the healing scars on his face and the brace on his right wrist, they don’t say anything at practice the next day.
He’s actually been to USC’s Exy Stadium a few times before, each time to soundly beat their team before taking the championship title, so it’s not as unfamiliar as it could be. All stadiums are fundamentally similar, but the overwhelming amount of color still unnerves him. Jeremy gives him a tour anyway, showing him his locker and gear before ducking back out to join everyone in warmups.
It’s strange to see his name printed on a jersey in any colors but red and black. Under the letters spelling out “Moreau” there’s a large, gold 29 on the front and back of Jean’s new jersey. Something releases in Jean, and he breathes out, short and sharp. He hadn’t even realized he was holding his breath. He told Jeremy that he didn’t care that he couldn’t have his three, and he meant it. Seeing that the digit isn’t present in his number at all fills him with a dull rush of relief.
He dresses quickly, the padding a familiar weight on his body. He skips his bandana, still unused to his hair being this short–after Riko, he had to cut it close to his skull to hide where chunks of hair had been ripped out.
He runs water in one of the taps as cold as it will go, and scrubs his face with it, considers filling the sink and screaming into it. He catches sight of his reflection as he grabs a towel.
A different person might hate their reflection if they looked like him, but Jean has been disassociated from his own body for so many years that he feels nothing but hollow when he looks in the mirror.
Riko really did a number on him. He always had, but he usually left his face alone, or hurt him in ways that wouldn’t scar. Now he has a crooked nose and a left cheek to show the results of that restraint falling away. Abby did the best she could to minimize scarring, but it’s still impossible not to notice. The ruined skin is not as bad as he thinks it should be under his fingertips. He’s just lucky he kept both of his eyes. The scar running through his right eyebrow says it was a close thing.
Jean doesn’t think that Riko purposefully went for his number, but maybe he sensed that his “perfect court” wasn’t ever going to happen.
The thing that Riko never got, Jean thinks, is that he was never going to have a perfect court in the first place, not if he kept breaking everyone on it.
Jean’s eyes have been empty for a long time. That didn’t really change.
He’ll stop dwelling on the past when he figures out how, he thinks as he presses the towel to his face before grabbing his gloves and helmet off the bench and leaving the locker room.
All of the new first years did their introductions yesterday, but Jean opts out of his own. He’s most familiar with the strikers, as he’s spent matches blocking them, but everyone else is an overwhelming blur of faces and names that he doesn’t feel like learning.
More importantly, he’s having trouble adjusting to the Trojan’s play style. His wrist is still healing, and his game is painfully behind everyone’s after months of atrophying in a spare bedroom. The drills are all different, and while they’re not hard, he hasn’t been doing them twice a day for the past four years like the rest of the seniors. That they wouldn’t stand a chance if presented with Raven drills is of minimal comfort.
It’s also unavoidable that playing by the Raven’s book as about as far from Trojan style as one can get. He’s reminded over and over that this is a team that hasn’t, doesn’t, and won’t get red cards, and it makes him gnash his teeth.
“I see now why you are all reigning champions,” he says, after he’s reminded not to use excessive force for the fifth time in the scrimmage.
Xochitl, the third year defensive dealer who had been oh so helpfully reminding him, glares. The scrimmage starts up again, and Jean, gritting his teeth, attempts to keep his plays in check.
It’s why it stings so much when a first year, also fresh off a team where a certain degree of violence is expected (like it’s supposed to be in Exy) hits Jean’s racket with her own so hard that he feels it all the way up to his shoulder. If he was the player he was eight months ago, he would have kept going like it was nothing, but it sends reverberations through the fractured bone in his right wrist, and the racket clatters to the floor as he involuntarily clutches his forearm.
“Hold,” Jeremy calls, jogging across the court and pulling his helmet off. “Everything ok?”
“It’s fine ,” Jean snarls, but Jeremy signals to an assistant coach to open to door to the court.
“Coach,” he calls, and Rhemann gestures for the both of them to meet him at the bench. Jean, seething and ignoring the rest of the Trojans, follows Jeremy across the court to stand in front of Coach Rhemann.
“Are you okay?” He asks first, professional but not unconcerned.
Jean tries not to show how unused he is to people asking after his well being, and stares at the space just above his ear. “It’s nothing. Just a minor fracture,” he grits out.
“Jeremy told me that you were wearing a brace, but I wasn’t aware you broke your wrist,” Coach Rhemann says, gaze flicking down to where Jean is still pressing a careful hand over his healing bones. He drops both of his arms to his sides, ignoring the twinge of pain that follows. “You should have told us.”
Jean flicks Jeremy an annoyed look before responding. “It is not broken.”
“Were you worried I’d that I’d null your contract?”
Only a little . “I didn’t want to cause any trouble. I knew it wasn’t serious enough to warrant real concern.”
“Somehow, I don’t think of you as the type who stays out of trouble,” Rhemann says, eyes making a quick pass over the healing lines stitching Jean’s face together.
“It’s not always a decision I have a part in,” Jean says.
“I’m sure,” Rhemann says, and then tells him in no uncertain changes to change out and see the team’s on staff physical therapist. One of the assistant coaches shows him the way–the PT’s office is actually directly between the two locker rooms, for post game convenience. She feels the bones in his wrist before signing a slip that pulls him off the court for a week, and tells him to ice it and come back after the week is up for stretches he can do to restrengthen the muscles in his forearm.
Jean spends the rest of practice sitting on the bench with the assistant coaches. He’s supposed to be watching the backliners to get a good idea of what to adapt himself to, but he seethes quietly instead and resolutely decides that he’s never going to be good enough for them, anyway.
----
Jeremy is waiting for him outside the stadium, arms crossed and leaning against one of the only cars in the parking lot. Jean had deliberately taken a long shower and taken his time putting his gear away, but by the looks of it, Jeremy has been standing out here the whole time.
“At least stand in the shade,” Jean says, shifting his grip on his workout bag and moving to walk past Jeremy and go back to the house.
“We knew that you weren’t coming to us in one piece,” Jeremy says, keys dangling in his hand. “We’re not expecting you to hold out against our strikers.”
Jean stops with his back to Jeremy and scowls, even though he can’t see. “And?” He knows he’s no match for Trojan strikers but still irritated by it.
“So stop trying to kill yourself and get better. No one on that court would rather you play in your condition than to get better. I heard you broke your ribs?”
Jean clenches his jaw. Fucking Kevin Day. “It was months ago.” He turns around, gesturing to his side as if to say See? All better.
Jeremy opens the passenger door to his car. “Come on, I’ll drive you back.”
“I’ll walk,” he says, even though the thought of going back alone turns his stomach.
Jeremy gives him a once over, clinical and quick. “It’s like a hundred degrees. I’d rather not scrape you up off the sidewalk, so you’d really be doing me a favor.”
He’s already in the passenger seat and twisting the ignition to the car before Jean gets in, twisting to look behind him with his hand on the back of Jean’s seat as soon as the door closes. Jean leans away from Jeremy’s hand, and Jeremy glances at him once, quick, before shifting out of reverse and pulling out into the road.
For as much as Jeremy seems to be dead set on letting Jean know just how broken everyone thinks he is, he doesn’t appear to have much interest in making him talk to him on the way back to school. Jean, in turn, gazes out at the low LA buildings and the manicured lawns of campus, trying to imagine a world in which he thinks he belongs here. He’s sure it isn’t with Jeremy–he hasn’t seen much, but what he has doesn’t add up–the smiling stranger in the car, the serious, blunt captain on the court, the unflappable PR golden child of the Exy news circuit–which means that at least one of them has to be a front. Jean has some experience with people who flip like a coin once the cameras are off, and if Jeremy is anything like them, he’s not going to be sticking around long enough to figure him out.
When they get to the house, Jean grabs his bag from its spot by his feet and exits the car as quickly as possible. He’s halfway up the steps of the front porch before he hears Jeremy’s car door close and the locks to the car slide into place. Jean leaves the door open for him but doesn't wait around to hear a thank you, instead choosing to head immediately up the stairs.
When he gets up to his room, he can see Jeremy still in the front yard, talking to, a starting backliner, her hair buzzed close to her scalp. She’s gesturing with her hands, and Jeremy is listening intently.
Jean jerks away from the window and makes a mental note to get curtains. If he could change rooms, he leave this front facing vulnerable place as quickly as possible.
As it is, though, he didn’t get much of a choice in anything concerning USC.