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There have always been two Jean Moreaus, at least as far as he’s concerned.
One, the star athlete; but never a bright enough star to shine too brightly, just enough to cast a shadow. Just enough to make the real stars in front of him stand out. Jean Moreau, Raven. Jean Moreau, Perfect Court. Jean Moreau, boy. Jean Moreau, man.
The second Jean Moreau is someone much smaller than his frame, someone curled into the crooked angles of his body and unsure when it’s safe. Not a boy or a man, as everyone always reminded him, not unless they let him be one.
It had seemed like such a miracle when they put him on testosterone and let him use a new name when he made his formal debut in the Raven lineup. A chance to be the person he always dreamed about, even in a place like the Nest.
It became incredibly clear, very quickly, that it was just another noose around his neck.
An accident meant he missed his T shot for the week, if he was lucky. Cruel smiles and questions about how he expected to be a boy now if he couldn’t even cheat anymore. A misstep meant Riko sneering as he took away the right to Jean, spitting a girl’s name in his face with malicious glee instead.
So it’s almost unsettling how little the Trojans question it.
It sets the hair on his arms on end when Cat finds the box of testosterone and syringes when he moves in. It makes him feel utterly helpless when she and Laila find him a much more secure container for it, even clearing out space in the bathroom for him to store what they fondly call his ‘Boy Box’. When Jeremy offers to do his shot for him when his hands are swollen and bruised from a particularly brutal match, all Jean can do is stare at him in disbelief.
Not once does anybody threaten to take them away from him. Not his testosterone, or his name, nothing. Not even when Jean completely fucks up and misreads a situation in practice and expects punishment. No amount of kindness (or basic human decency, Laila remarks bitterly) shown to him ever feels right. It always feels like waiting for a surprise blow.
It takes a long time to get to a point where it stops feeling like an immediate threat, and even then he still sometimes stiffens and waits. He goes home to their apartment and checks the place under the sink, and the box is still there, and it feels absurd.
More confusing than anything, Jeremy is completely unfazed by it. That’s the thing that baffles Jean the most.
Jeremy kisses him. Jeremy kisses him, and holds him, and wants him. Jeremy does all of that and it feels so good and it just doesn’t make sense to Jean.
“You could have anybody,” Jean mumbles one day, the apartment AC blaring as they lie together in bed. Both of them are drenched with sweat, the air barely doing anything. Still, neither of them moves to peel their sticky skin apart or untangle their knotted limbs.
Jeremy cranes his neck to look at him, mouth curving into a frown. “What?”
It had been a terrible day. Hot and humid, like a wet blanket. Everything had gotten on Jean’s nerves, from the ever-excitable Trojans, to the scattered press still trying to snap pictures of him, to the way the Exy ball had bounced all wrong. He’d gone home with Jeremy in a horrid mood, the girls electing to go out to eat and leave them be.
When Jeremy tried to turn the radio on, Jean had reached out and silently turned it back off, leaning his forehead against the cool window. Jeremy hadn’t said anything, just quietly found his hand and twined their fingers together, setting them on the console. Jean let him.
Even in moments like this, Jeremy is sunshine. Less of his usual blinding radiance and more a warm sunset on a cloudy evening. No pushing, no pressing, just reassuring in Jean’s space as he decompressed in the comfort of their home. When Jean finally hooked his fingers into the collar of Jeremy’s hoodie and pulled him to the bedroom, it was easy enough for both of them to fall into place after that.
Still, lying there in silence after leaves Jean too much room to think, and he can feel the lingering gloom from earlier creep back in.
“You could have a real man.” Jean’s hand finds his wrist, pressing his thumb into the skin there until it hurts. “Not…”
Jeremy’s face scrunches. “I don’t understand what you’re trying to say, Jean.”
“Fakeboy,” he spits, Riko’s voice ringing in the hollows of his head.
Jeremy recoils immediately. “You shouldn’t say stuff like that.”
“It’s what I am,” Jean says harshly. “It’s all I ever will be.”
“You wouldn’t call Xavier that.” Jeremy’s voice is gentle but firm. It’s not a question. He says it with the slow authority that only being Jean’s partner comes with; the insight into Jean’s mind whether he wants it or not.
Jean bites down on the inside of his cheek until he tastes a tang of metal. Jeremy waits patiently for him. Finally, Jean lets out a shuddering breath and admits, “No. I would not call Xavier that.”
Jeremy’s perfect brow creases. “So why are you saying that about yourself?”
“It is different.” The taste of his blood in mouth makes each word feel heavy. “I am Jean Moreau. That name is something I earned. My— my manhood isn’t something I am owed by my birth, like you. It is something that can be taken away as easily as it can be given.”
“No,” Jeremy says firmly. It’s the tone he uses when Jean says something completely unthinkable to him— usually something Raven— and it makes Jean shiver. “Nobody can take that away from you. It’s just what you are.”
“Everything can be taken away from anyone,” Jean says, his voice much softer, the edges of it dulled. Jean feels bone-deep exhausted. “There is nothing in this world that cannot be stripped from a person.”
Jeremy sits up, leaning halfway over him. He takes Jean’s shoulders in his hand, not shaking, but holds him tight. Jean meets his eyes, bewildered at how stern his partner suddenly is. “Jean. Look at me.”
“I very clearly am already doing that,” Jean says, unable to stop the snide tone.
“And listen to me too,” Jeremy tells him. When Jean narrows his eyes but presses his lips together, Jeremey continues, “You being a man is something nobody is ever going to take away from you again. Not with Cat and Laila. Not with the Trojans. Not with me.” His grip tightens slightly. “I won’t let it— and you’ve seen how scary everybody can be when they set their mind on protecting you too.”
When Jean just blinks up at him, Jeremy taps Jean’s heart with a finger and goes, “I don’t want anybody else. I want you. Honestly, Jean, you’re a better man than most of the ‘real men’ you seem to think you’re lesser than.”
He says the words real men with such disdain at the concept it makes Jean’s throat feel like it’s closing up. Like it’s clear the idea is nonsense. Like he never once thought of separating Jean from what a man could be. He swallows thickly, glancing away from Jeremy and trying to sort through the jumble in his head. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.
When he opens them again, Jeremy is still looking down at him with that serious expression that makes him look older than he actually is. Slowly, Jean reaches out and takes his chin in his hand. Jeremy leans into the touch immediately and Jean feels a twinge in his chest.
“You have these terrible kicked dog eyes when you are upset,” Jean says quietly. “Almost like those creatures at the shelter. Does this really upset you so much?”
“I never want you to think you’re lesser than you are,” Jeremy responds simply.
And that’s so strange to Jean, that somebody thinks of him as more than he actually is. But Jeremy’s skin is so soft and his voice is so earnest, his eyes so pleading, and Jean relents for now and lets Jeremy convince him that maybe he really is no different than any other man.
---
Sex is a confusing, contradictory thing to Jean.
In the Nest, sex had been unequivocally intertwined with violence and power and obligation. Even now, his brain balks at the idea of examining any of his encounters there too close— runs right up to the words rape and assault and coercion and stops dead before he can make himself sick. He’s done work on that since becoming a Trojan, but that doesn’t make it any easier.
He understands not deserving those things. He also understands that he’s probably always going to struggle to name any of those things as what they are, just for his own sake. It’s hard to think about the heavy hands and teeth and nails and all the little details he can still feel on his skin if his mind wanders. It’s harder to think of those things and then try to put the word rape to them.
Being pried open by force had been the norm; brutal with no care for what he felt. The pain became a kind of numbness if Jean just let it happen and retreated into his own mind. The worst were the few times between vicious bites and taunting words that his betrayer of a body had responded.
He tries not to think about those times the most.
So maybe it’s understandable that Jean feels almost guilty for how good sex feels when he’s with Jeremy. Like he was ruined so thoroughly before he ever even had a chance, so how is it that he enjoys something that once hurt him so bad? What does it say about Jean? How much truth is in the words the Ravens said to him if he ended up enjoying this so much?
A particular guilt gnawed at him when he realized how much he liked receiving when he was in Jeremy’s steady, trustworthy hands; both the act of bottoming and letting Jeremy focus all his attention on him.
There had been a moment early on when Jeremy asked what he shouldn't do, and Jean had nearly choked trying to get the words no teeth out. It had felt stupid, but Jeremy had only nodded earnestly before commencing his grand exploration of Jean’s sensitive body.
The first time Jean asked Jermey to leave marks, Jeremy had been so hesitant and careful about his teeth that Jean was left stuck halfway between annoyance and appreciation. The second time, Jean had insisted more with an authority than he’d ever used in his life and Jeremy had obeyed with an eagerness that could’ve gotten Jean off just from that. Jean had been stuck wearing a turtleneck until the marks faded.
He’d pressed his fingers into the hickeys when nobody else was around and carefully sorted the marks Jeremy’s lips left into a different pile than the cruel bites and bruises from his past.
These are good, he’d thought in a strangely satisfied way.
And they’re still good, Jean decides as he tilts his head to let Jeremy suck at the skin of his throat. He does it a lot more tactfully now, having found a middle point between being too nervous to leave any mark and accidentally ravaging Jean.
Jean… maybe hasn’t learned that lesson himself. But Jeremy doesn’t seem to mind all that much, Jean thinks a little smugly as he reaches up to rub his fingertips along the blossoming marks on Jeremy’s chest. He tweaks a nipple just because he can and Jeremy moans pitifully as if he didn’t already come a few minutes ago.
“Can’t again,” Jeremy mumbles into his skin, earning half a laugh from Jean as he respectfully takes his hands away from those enticing little things. “Sorry. Too much.”
“I just like hearing you make noises,” Jean lets himself admit. Jeremy shoots him a rueful smile in return.
Jeremy takes his hand, lifting it to his lips so he can press a kiss against the pulse point on Jean’s wrist. When Jean only huffs out a sound of exasperation but doesn’t pull away, a radiant smile spreads across Jeremy’s face as he kisses there again. Another kiss to his forearm, then further up again. Jeremy trails kisses up the expanse of Jean’s skin— straying only from his path to press his lips against moles within reach before returning to his mission— until he’s kissing the underside of Jean’s jaw, then finally the corner of his lips.
The kiss is slow and lazy. No heat, just the strange comfort of being completely bare and completely at ease with someone. Jean still can’t really believe this is something that exists in this world, much less that it’s something he accidentally stumbled into after everything. And yet he’s here, lying in his bed in the safety of their apartment, and Jeremy is his partner in both senses of the word, and he feels so at ease.
“Would you want top surgery?” Jeremy asks suddenly, startling Jean out of the sleepy haze he’s found himself drifting into.
He blinks at him, not quite understanding. “I play Exy. I have no time for surgery or bed rest.”
Frankly, Jean’s done enough bed rest to last him a lifetime.
“What about during the offseason?”
“I still need the offseason to practice.”
Jeremy hesitates. “Okay. But… just say you didn’t.” When Jean gives him a skeptical look, he insists, “Just play along, okay? If you weren’t so worried about playing Exy or missing practice, would you be interested in surgery?”
Jean frowns. There are a handful of things he could probably tell Jeremy, mostly things he had rehearsed and ready by default. But in the quiet of their room, none of the concrete answers seem right or honest.
“It’s not something I’ve ever been allowed to think about,” Jean admits slowly.
Jeremy works his jaw. He does that whenever Jean says something that clearly is absurd to him from the Raven days and he can’t decide how to respond. What he eventually settles on is, “Well, you know you are now. Allowed to think about it, I mean. If you want.”
Jean just looks back at him, a strange curiosity building in his gut.
“Do you not like my chest?” Jean asks finally, turning his gaze down to the thing in question. In truth, he used to resent his breasts when he was younger. After starting testosterone and getting older, his weight had redistributed and he found them to be more of an afterthought. In most shirts they’re small enough to pass as any man’s chest, especially with his more muscular build. It helps that he’s gotten better with chest tape since coming to the Trojans. They’re really only noticeable when he’s naked— soft and slightly perky with large nipples, easily flattened by whatever he puts on.
The dark, curly chest hair that’s grown there since becoming more consistent with his shots certainly helps as well.
Against him, Jeremy jolts. Almost like his body’s moving without thinking, he reaches out and cups one of Jean’s tits, holding it loosely in his hand. Fumbling over words in that terribly endearing and awfully dorky voice he only ever seems to use when Jean has him flustered, Jeremy insists, “No! I like— love your chest!”
Jean gives him another skeptical look. “You truly wouldn’t prefer me to have a flat chest like other men?”
“I don’t care about other men’s chests,” Jeremy says immediately. “I like yours. That’s what I’m getting at, Jean! I’m not asking you to change for me, I’m just asking because I want to know if it bothers you. Or— or if you think top surgery would be something that would help you feel better about the whole… manhood thing.”
“Are you still thinking about that?” Jeans asks, surprised. “That was weeks ago, Jeremy.”
Weeks ago and an incredibly bad day. True, those thoughts linger under the surface quite often, but they usually don’t bubble over like that. When Jean let himself give into Jeremy’s reassurances, he truly did pack those thoughts away as best he could for now. Realizing Jeremy was apparently worrying about it this whole time is…
Well, Jean honestly can’t wrap his head around the idea of anybody caring so much about what he thought about his own masculinity, even Jeremy.
“I know,” Jeremy admits. “I don’t want you to feel like I’m putting you on the spot or anything, I just… I don’t know, it matters to me that you know you have control of what you do now. And that you have all these options available and I’ll stand behind you on it no matter what.”
Jean’s chest tightens. Then he reaches up and taps at Jeremy’s hand where it still cups one of his tits. “Are you going to keep holding this while you tell me about how I can cut them off?”
Jeremy’s face turns a beautiful shade of pink but he doesn’t remove his hand. “I like touching you.”
“Clearly,” Jean says, but it lacks any bite and comes out much more fond than he intends. He sighs, shifting so Jeremy can slide an arm around him and pull his back to his chest. It’s easier sometimes to talk when he doesn’t have to meet anybody’s eyes, even his boyfriend’s. “I don’t have any answers for you, Jeremy. I have never thought about… any of that. It would get in the way of being on the court. It was never an option.”
Jeremy’s breath tickles Jean’s neck when he speaks, making him shiver. “But what if Exy wasn’t an obstacle?”
Exy will never be an obstacle because everything else is an obstacle to Exy, but that probably seems more combative than Jean is actually trying to be in this moment. Jeremy is earnestly trying to ask him something, so Jean bites back that retort and breathes.
“I cannot imagine a world where I could get surgery,” Jean says carefully. “I am not trying to be difficult. There was a time where my chest bothered me more, but these days it does not. I think anything surgery would give to me at this point would be…” He thinks, paging through his mental dictionary to try to find the right word before settling on, “Negligible.”
Jeremy is silent, just breathing against his back. Jean nearly twists around to check his face and make sure he didn’t say something wrong, but then Jeremy squeezes him tight enough that it makes Jean go oof and grab at his arm with his hands.
“Sorry,” Jeremy says hastily as he loosens his grip. “That’s— that’s genuinely okay. I want whatever you want, and if that isn’t the thing that you think will help you then that’s fine. I just thought it was important to ask you about it, especially since you haven’t thought about it before.”
“You are not… disappointed?” Jean ventures, this time daring to turn his head to look at him. Jeremy wears a gentle smile as their eyes meet.
“No,” Jeremy says easily. “No, Jean, I’m not. I like you now. I’ll like you no matter what you do, and even if I don’t really understand what it feels like for you, I’ll do my best to help you feel more sure of yourself.”
Jean is quiet a long time at that, a lot of words and a lot of nonsense swirling around the inside of his brain. A lot of them sound like Ravens, a lot of them Trojans. Most of them sound like Jeremy. Very few of them sound like his own voice, but he thinks he likes the words that sound like Jeremy, even if a lot of them still seem unbelievable to him.
“You just want me to keep my tits,” Jean settles on eventually, because none of those words are able to leave his mouth yet and this is less raw than any of them, “because you are a pervert.”
Jeremy gasps in mock offense and the sound makes Jean’s shoulders relax. He didn’t even realize how stiff they were. “For being in love? I’m a pervert because I’m in love?”
“The worst one I know,” Jean insists as Jeremy manhandles him until they’re chest to chest, trying to hide the smile threatening to break out across his face at the words in love. “Just terrible.”
And Jeremy’s laugh is so warm and bright and loud that all Jean can do is kiss him and try to swallow that light for himself.