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infinite sky

Summary:

jean's first year with the trojans as they try to teach him life

Here even the shadows hold colour, a blend of royal purples, midnight blue, blood red and winter green like expensive ink. In the Nest the shadows were just black, a shade darker than the rest. Maybe he’s imagining things. Maybe there aren't any colours in the shadows. Shadows are the same everywhere, why should California be any different? He stops looking.
But he does let himself breathe in the sky as they walk, infinite and dark and right up there above them.

Notes:

a few trigger warnings - vague mention of rape, mentions of violence / abuse, mention of suicide attempt, jeans just pretty depressed, i dont think itll be this bad the whole way through but i dont actually know

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: before

Chapter Text

Panic has been building in Jean’s chest since he was 12 years old and he first realised what his father did as a living. Something uncomfortable and tight that takes him years to acknowledge and even longer to name, something that makes it hard to breathe sometimes and even harder to eat, something that feels like the moment before you burst into tears, but the tears never come. It starts as something small, making sure he checks that all the doors and windows are locked, something that has him waking up in the middle of the night and checking his little sister is still there, still breathing, something that has him clutching her hand a little too tight on their walk to school.

Then he turns fourteen and he’s being used and he knows it, used to deliver messages mostly but it feels like betrayal anyway and suddenly he has a better weapon against the tightness squeezing the breath from his lungs at the back of his throat. He wields his anger like a sword, too heavy for his young hands, clumsy and sharp, as likely to hurt himself as others. It's a roaring sound of emptiness crashing in his ears, making his heart pound, but it pushes the fear back, snarling teeth bared so he gives in, letting it drag him through days on it's adrenaline, falling into bed exhausted each night. He gets into more fights than even his school approves of and when they phone home he comes into school the next day with bruises that aren't from those fights. But it doesn't stop the hole deep inside filled with a storm. He still checks the locks at night, still reads his little sister her bedtime story.

He turns fifteen and it doesn't stop, the panicked uneasy tension in his shoulders wherever someone looks at him twice and he doesn't know whether he’s angrier at the world or himself, can no longer tell if he can't breathe because he wants to hit something or break down and cry, if he's clenching his fist because he wants to swing or to hold himself together. His older brother laughs at his anger and takes him out, hands him a bottle and a cigarette and tells him to have fun. He finds it's the perfect way to drown out both the panic and the anger and lets himself fall. He no longer cares if someone opens the door or the window to drag him away. But he still holds his little sister’s hand as he walks her to her piano lessons.

Then he’s sixteen and he thinks that maybe this is it. The climax of his story, where his panic stops building but breaks instead. He's wrong. He's sold and he's leaving his country for the first time with a man he can't understand and for the first time he's so angry he doesn't just want to hurt. But there's nowhere for that to go so it turns into him and it's eating him alive, angry, angry, angry and he doesn't even know at what anymore. He doesn't remember what it felt like to breathe anyway. But now it’s so much worse, the panic justified because even his father didn't hurt him like this. Now the panic is suffocating and he's jumping at each sound because now when he wakes up it's to injuries and blood and memories he doesn't want. But he still has all this anger. Anger that's beaten brutally down until even he knows not to show it, so it buries down, deep inside where it can hurt the places that never should have been touched. He no longer has a lock on his door or a window to close. He doesn't even have a little sister.

Still Jean thinks the feeling in his stomach like nausea, tingling in his finger, setting his shoulders on edge, tightening his lungs, waking him at night, it must be building up to something. It builds and builds and he’s drowning in it as it gets worse and worse and worse and no one notices and there must be a limit, surely it can't keep going. There are moments, moments where he thinks this is it, the limit, what the feeling has been leading him to because nothing could get worse than this. Moments like the first time he really believes he is going to die, gasping for breathes in between minutes without, like the first time Riko ties him to a bed and smiles as he tells the upperclassmen to take and take and take, like the first time he tries to die or when he wakes up afterwards, still alive, found before could be gone completely. But it just keeps going, keeps rising, keeps building and he keeps drowning keeps sinking deeper and deeper into the feeling.

And then that night. It's not the first time he thinks Riko might kill him, but it is the first time he thinks he might be trying to. And afterwards Jean is alone. All alone with no one to even try to mop up the mess of blood and bruises and burns and worse and he might just die anyway. From blood loss or infection or something as equally pointless and useless and that anger, the anger that he thought maybe had died, is back, strangling him so hard it might kill him first. So angry because what was the point? What was the point of even making it so far, of existing at all if this is the end? It's anger and bitterness and something else that makes his broken throat want to scream at the entire world that makes him pick up the phone, muscles and skin and everything in between barely able to grip it, to type a number, but he makes it, sheer spite forcing his broken body just far enough. For the first time in his life Jean Moreau asks for help and for the first time, he gets it.

He's barely conscious, drifting half out of the world when Renee walks in, phone in hand. Barely conscious during his entire rescue, half carried out. All he can make out is pain, exhaustion and the bright flash of Renee’s hair and her soft voice speaking a language he is too far gone to understand.

 

Pain is a strange word, a strange concept. It can't really be summed up in one word, or even a sentence. It can't really be explained at all, not even with paragraphs and pages of time. Everyone has reached their own level of pain, the level by which they judge, be it a scraped knee or a broken bone. It's strange because once it's gone our brains try to get rid of it completely, tucking the memory away and acknowledging only that it was bad and to be avoided but the feeling itself is forgotten, lost, pushed hurriedly aside. But what if you've spent the past seven years in pain? What if your body has instead forgotten what it feels like to be painless? What if the scale you abide by is different from anyone elses simply because you have known so much worse? If a scraped knee doesn't even count on the scale? What then?
What if the kind of agony you have suffered can't simply be forgotten?

 

Jean is flying high above reality. No. He is drifting. Flying suggests a purpose, a direction, flying suggests that he is making an effort in the movement. Instead he is drifting in a cloud of painkiller and sleeping pills, his mind somewhere far away from the broken body, unmoving in a bed for days, that it usually finds itself attached to. It's ok. He drifts off, detached and indifferent. Watching, as if from a cinema seat, events of his life twisted into dreams by the drugs floating through his system. Watches, as if watching a stranger on a street, his older brother play against Riko, both wearing crowns of blood and dust, until crows sweep in, sweeping them both away like chess pieces on a hollow board. Watches a younger him driving his father’s old car, small legs too short to reach the brakes, hands too small to turn the wheel, his little sister singing in the back as they race through the highway going too fast with no way of stopping. Watches dream after dream circle above the lifeless form of what used to be him. He keeps his eyes closed, allows whoever to keep feeding him those drugs, and drifts.

 

He’s told eleven days have past the first time he gets out of bed. He nods unable to bring himself to care, but it doesn't really seem right. Time had kept going but Jean hadn't, it didn't seem right that eleven days had passed when he felt like it had been no time at all, that he had never really been here, but also that it had been forever, that he had spent infinity wandering through dreams.

He goes outside, still in pyjamas, old ones borrowed from someone, too small on his legs but a too big t-shirt, and lies in the grass of the garden. Behind the haze of pills, he can still feel the pain, dulled and distant but there, easily ignored. He lies on his back and breathes in the smell of the grass, how it clings to him cold and wet, drowns out the sounds of the cars on the street in favour of the soft rustling of the wind and occasional chirp of a bird, he looks up and he drinks in the sight of the sky rolling on and on above him, an endless expanse of blue, broken by the odd cloud. The sky never stops. He takes comfort in that. That the sky never stops or changes. He never thought he would miss the sky but he has. He’s missed the sky and now there it is. Just above him. He closes his eyes and lets the knowledge of the sky above calm him down just for now.

Someone comes out and tries to get him to come inside but when he gives no indication to having heard they leave him be. He watches the sky darken slowly, a grey pulling away the soft blue to replace it with gold and red, tinting the world below, tinting Jean. He watches the sun leave, taking it's golds and reds and letting the sky have it's blue back, darker now but deeper too, littered with stars, an opening into the universe. Maybe Jean isn't looking up, maybe he’s at the bottom of the earth, looking down into the universe below with only gravity holding him down. If only it would let him go, let him tumble softly into the stars, falling down into the deep blue sky, away, away, away. For a second, he feels like it will, like he’s about to fall, to be dropped off the face of the earth. But gravity is too proud, too vain, too greedy, to let him go. He remains stuck to the grass, staring into the heavens and wishing they wouldn't stare back.

 

The very next day he’s told he’s free. He has to play, he has to pay but he is free. His payment is money, nothing else, he doesn't have to go back. He doesn't have to go back. And it's too late. He doesn't have to go back but it's too late, years too late, because now he doesn't know what to do. Doesn't know how to be a human anymore, how to be anything more than a number, than a possession, doesn't even know how to breath without feeling like it's something he’s only being allowed for the time being. It’s too late.

He takes a sleeping pill and tries very hard not to think. Goes to bed.

 

The Trojans are a good team, says Kevin, Jeremy Knox is a good captain. They will be perfect for Jean since he doesn't want to play with the Foxes. Jean ignores him, ignores his relief at Jean’s refusal to play with him and his hurt, ignores it all so he doesn't have to think about the crashing panic that threatens to pull him down and hold him there until he drowns at the thought of transferring. A new team, a new captain. If he pretends none of this is real it can't hurt him. But he lets Kevin do it anyway. Lets him make that decision, lets him plan and organise it. He's too used to someone else planning his life, deciding what he will do and when, he no longer cares. Probably can no longer do it by himself anyway. He tells himself the reason he doesn't get out of bed is because he’s still recovering from his injuries.

 

He doesn't watch the match.

But he watches the news afterwards. The news full of baffled reporters repeating the Foxes won? like it's a question. Like they still aren't sure, like it might be a trick, a joke, too stunned to even properly explain how. Jean has to go empty his stomach into the toilet, unsure if the laughter that follows is hysteria or genuine. So Riko lost then, the crownless king, thrown ripped from under him. He retches again, his laughter turning into sobs and back again. He's gone, he's far away and gone and he's not going back. If he was there he would be dead. If he was there they might not have lost. If he was there… but he wasn't. Riko would be… more than mad, more than raging, more even than livid. Jean doesn't think he has a word in either of his languages for it. He doesn't think that Riko’s sane, never has, but the past year has been worse, the past year Jean has been able to watch anything Riko had leave his eyes, replaced by something he can't name. Madness maybe. Even before Kevin left, but that was what sent him over whatever ledge was left. Jean doesn't want to think about his reaction. Losing… it feels foreign, impossible. And yet.

He goes back into the sitting room. And there it is - his answer, Riko’s reaction. Suicide feels wrong for him, out of character. Jean feels impossibly tired. This too feels too late. Too late for him, too late for the person he could have been. Riko is too real, a ghost he won't get rid of, even by his death. He doesn't think this was Riko’s doing. Riko took his anger out on others, not himself, he wouldn't even consider this his fault. Should Jean feel glad someone shot him? That he’s dead? All he feels is tired, so tired. Empty.

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Jeremy had met Jean before of course. Several times even, they had exchanged a nod, a handshake, they had collided and fought for possession on court. Even if they had never met, he would know Jean, know him as number 3, the third member of Riko’s ‘perfect court’, know him from the times on tv, in sports magazines and newspapers. Always in the shadow of numbers 1 and 2 but there none-the-less.

But he still feels like he met Jean for the first time at Abby’s house. The contract had already been signed and confirmed, all the details ironed out for the next year but he had driven over after the sports season’s end, just before his exams anyway. Kevin had said Jean had badly injured, had implied worse, stuttering and stumbling over his words like he wasn't sure how much he could get away with. Jeremy had wanted to see Jean himself before the summer took him away, had wanted to see the extent of his injuries but also the man bearing them, unable to quench his curiosity. So he had. He’d driven in Abby’s driveway, knocked on the average-looking house’s door, beamed at her when she answered. He’s not sure, now, what he had been expecting, but it wasn't what he saw. And it sure wasn't, even at the time, to be unable to rid his mind for the whole summer of the image of Jean at the kitchen table.

He can remember the whole half-hour he spent there as clear as day, most likely due to his brain playing it on loop for months. He exchanged the usual pleasantries with Abby in the hall, greetings, enquiries of health, the weather, her house, the drive down, before asking how Jean was, at which she sighed, her gaze going suddenly infinitely sad and led him to the kitchen. It was a nice normal kitchen, small but tidy and clean, a cream counter and wooden table, sunlight warming and lighting the room. Jeremy can even remember what he’d been wearing- a light grey tracksuit and a Trojan jersey. In that alone he’d been hot but the boy sitting sideways at the table didn't seem to notice the heat, couldn't have if he was wearing that huge purple jumper, hood pulled over his head. Jeremy had stopped just inside the doorway, unsure what to do when the other boy didn't bother look over, hating the sudden, unfamiliar awkwardness that overcame him. Abby came in after him and seemingly unimpressed by the boy’s silence had called his name, reproach clear in her voice as she went to the kettle to prepare some tea, waving at Jeremy to take a seat. He did, gladly, offering her a bright smile of thanks.

They sat on opposite sides of the small table with Jeremy nearest to the door and Jean to the window, but sitting as he was, Jean had to turn his head to look at him. Which he did only as soon as Jeremy was sitting. Jeremy got a flash of grey eyes, the rest of his face hidden by the shadow of his hood, seizing him up before a bandaged hand pushed his hood back. Jean had turned back around, clearly not bothered to deal with Jeremy’s reaction, had asked, voice hoarse from disuse, for black coffee. Jeremy had barely taken note of Abby’s surprise, he’d been too busy trying to hide his own shock. It was clear that Jean had not, as the news had said and Kevin had tiptoed around, suffered from an accident, sports related or not. The black hair visible from under the hood still half on, had been shaved short, but it was clear chunks had been ripped out. His nose was clearly still healing from where it had been broken, taped up as it was, and bruises still coloured his face and neck despite it being over a month since. A brutal red line sliced through his skin from the side of his nose running under his eye over to his ear and a bandage still covered the 3 on his cheek. But the worst, the absolute worst by far, had been his eyes. Framed by long delicate lashes and dark circles betraying exhaustion, they looked… empty. Jeremy had not noticed, before that moment, that eyes were in any way ‘full’ but Jean’s eyes, even as they darted around and assessed him, were vacant and hollow like something was missing.

Oh.

Oh. oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

Oh.

Jeremy felt nauseous as pieces fell into place. Kevin’s anxious evasion of specific answers and jittery attitude to Jean, the accusations of abuse within the Ravens, Kevin leaving the Ravens, Jean leaving them, the way they both watched Riko before. By the time Jean looked back at him, he had forced a smile back on, building it up piece by piece as fast as he could. Jean didn't seem to care. He wanted to know, needed too, but it hadn't been the moment. So he had put on a smile, accepted his tea and chattered through his time there, mostly with Abby as Jean had remained quiet, not speaking unless spoken too and then giving only one word answers, but watching him carefully the whole time.

This is the image that haunted him through the summer, the one his mind fixated on through each day: Jean Moreau sitting at the kitchen table, one leg tucked under the other, looking down at his coffee as the afternoon sun carved his outline out in warm gold, bathing him in colour, bruises and worse carved out starkly on his face like a watercolour painting, grey eyes drifting up to meet Jeremys then holding his stare coldly, with something that looked like stubborn defiance. Somewhere in Jean Moreau, locked and hidden away, raged an ocean of anger.

 

Summer: swimming, the beach, surfing, exy, his teammates, his family, his girlfriend, icecream, the sun, the sea, late nights, laughing, old friends… that goddamn image he can't get out of his head.

Summer: wondering about texting Kevin but putting it off at lack of words to say. He isn't used to being unsure on how to express himself but he has no idea what to say, what to ask, when surely he should just ask Jean himself. He doesn't end up having to do anything. The day before Jean is due to arrive, Kevin texts him himself.

He can’t be alone.

Jeremy doesn't have to ask who ‘he’ is.