jean moreau has been dead for years. he’s been dead the second his father decided to give him to the moriyamas. he’s been dead from before he stepped foot on the plane that took him to the states, before he slid into the car that drove him to edgar allen.
he was dead long before he met his executioners. he nods stiffly when questions were asked and responded curtly, his english accented heavily and his nerves skyrocketing. his hands shook and he was reprimanded for it.
jean made sure that there would never be second reprimands for his shaking hands nor his dying heart.
he’s departed quietly from his hope when he kissed his siblings goodbye; a silent promise to keep them away from their father’s debts.
jean moreau is not a fucking martyr and if he ever returns to france his father will pay. he isn’t a fucking martyr he’s a sacrifice, a barrier between his father’s debts and pain and loyalty to the moriyamas.
jean moreau is furious but directs his rage into his practice, into learning english with kevin day, into remaining still as the number three is tattooed neatly on his cheekbone. jean moreau directs his fury into masking his expression and following riko’s orders and avoiding reprimands.
he’s never successful no matter how hard he tries. he’s a battered warrior stripped of weapons and thrown in a pit to fight against a wolf with his hands bound behind him.
on days when he’s ripped to pieces and staining the floors with his blood, kevin patches him up without further comment. they’re both bound to die at the hands of riko moriyama and they’re both waiting for the end to come.
on other days, he realises he never got the opportunity to bid the sun goodbye and wants to crack and weep and forget he exists.
there is a single silver lining in the darkness of evermore. jean moreau learns japanese with kevin and riko, he’s forbidden to speak french and he wants to scream his frustrations out at riko’s smirk. jean took refuge in speaking french, in remembering his brother’s dramatic pronunciations as they grew up, of his mother’s idioms and lullabies, of his sister squealing and spitting rapid fire french - she sometimes pronounced things differently too and jean’s heart aches when he realizes he won’t ever get to hear that again.
the silver lining comes when he’s battered and bruised and a patchwork of scars and burns. kevin sits by his head and holds onto his wrist, tapping quietly as they wait for the painkillers to kick in - kevin’s snuck some in to help. jean doesn’t whimper, but he does press his face into kevin’s thigh and curse himself out for crying. it only subsided when kevin starts talking to him; nonsense words and sentences that he strings together to get jean out of his own head.
it takes him a minute to register that kevin was speaking in french. he finds sanctuary in the words they share and the secrets they keep.
his next silver lining comes years later, months after kevin left and joined the psu foxes. it comes in gentle murmurs and kind eyes; bleached hair that holds a rainbow. it comes when renee walker speaks to him and offers him something rare and valuable at evermore; friendship.
she comes and brings him back from the brink of destruction with their little conversations on the phone.
I cannot play this week. I do not think Riko will remain sane for long. I do not think we will speak again renee.
would you like to talk about it?
despite every doubt and flinch and sickening crunch of bones after a blow, jean moreau wakes up and sees kevin day’s face and he wants to nothing more than to bury himself in his grave and finally rest.
he nearly begs through the haze of pain. kevin speaks in french, frantic, distant; scared? he vaguely registers nathaniel neil josten replying.
“jean,” renee would say several minutes later. “edgar allen is falling. you’re not returning back there.”
he wants to laugh. how. how could anyone keep him hidden from edgar allen when riko will dig his claws into him and fly him back.
renee caught onto his line of thought and smiles something soft; reassuring and full of promise. jean learned that renee follows through with her promises and that not even riko can stop her.
jean moreu was dead for a long time, he’s been dead before he even met his executioner, he’s been dead before he spoke to the other prisoners set to suffer a fate similar to his own.
he’s been dead for so long that when something akin to hope flickers in his chest he panics. he doesn’t feel it when his eyes start to water but he does feel the sting of his tears against the fresh cuts on his face. he’s used to the tightness that wraps around his chest, the rope that holds him down and digs into him until he’s all raw marks and terrified cries.
and there’s the hope that he’s free. the hope that he could be safe, the strangeness of the word in his mind, on his lips, in the shake of his hands and the desperation in his heart because jean wants this. he wants to latch onto the blooming hope that burns through him and never let go.
the third silver lining comes in the form of one jeremy knox; jean’s heard of him from kevin dozens of times before when the dead of night terrified them and sleep refused to linger long enough for them to actually rest. jean’s played against the trojans before, but he’s never felt the need to speak to jeremy before.
but he’s there, he’s a constant force in jean’s life as he moves from hospital to hospital and then from that to therapy sessions. he’s there when jean moves into the usc dorms, he’s there when jean stands by the window and holds onto the frame as he stares out, as he stays still as sunlight - warm, soft, gentle - settles on him.
jeremy knox makes jean feel like he’s teetering on the edge of a breakdown; he’s the prince of fairy tales, the one that smiles and stops wars, the one that can rally a kingdom with a single look, the one who rescues and protects and supports the damsel. he’s a fictional being who embodies all the things that jean’s hoped to meet in life but never had when he was under riko.
jeremy is everything jean had stopped believing in while he was a raven.
jean is everything jeremy shouldn’t see, shouldn’t be around, shouldn’t have taint the bubble of sunshine that seems to follow his every way. jean moreau is the broken pieces of a nightmare put together hastily with stitches and bandages and jeremy is a being made of happiness and stardust and good.
he isn’t made to withstand jean but he seems trapped in a gravitational field and dodges every asteroid that surrounds jean.
jeremy continues avoiding all the asteroids. he continues moving past all of jean’s curt replies, all the quick glares and scowls, the drop of a conversation. he dodges all that and continues talking, continues grinning and gesturing wildly (but not wild enough that jean would flinch and try to even his breathing again, jeremy’s seen what fast touches do to jean and he’s spoken to the offender to stop it.) in jean’s line of site. he chatters on and on and offers to buy jean sorbet because he doesn’t like ice cream as much.
jeremy is careful understanding and patient touches, he’s little rays of sunshine peaking in between clouds on a dark day, present and a promise.
jeremy is gentle touches and warmth against jean’s back, he’s never ending trust and encouragement, he’s a map that jean explores cautiously with shaking fingers and nervously bitten lips.
jean feels like a piece of him rights itself as he learns about himself through jeremy. he learns about places on his body that can be touched - his shoulders, his arms, his torso. he learns about the places that will have him retching and crying and retreating back into a field of panic panic, he’s here, he’s going to -
jeremy knows that no one is allowed to touch jean’s neck, no one is allowed to touch his thighs purposely either. and jeremy knows above all else that jean’s hair is forbidden territory marked by scabs and scars and a tender scalp.
but jeremy’s a map of unexplored territory, he’s a sanctuary of comforting touches and embraces, he’s the gentle thrum of melody, he’s the eye of a storm and jean could feel himself being lost in everything that was jeremy.
jeremy tilts his head back, he taps a melody against jean’s wrist, he hums the parts of the song he doesn’t know and sings the parts he does. he shows that this can be safe, that it isn’t about pain and retribution but can be about support and reassurance. he pauses briefly when jean’s fingers brush against his chin and looks down at him. jean is sprawled on jeremy’s chest, eyebrows furrowed and eyes darting from jeremy’s face to his neck to usc trojan’s logo on the hoodie he wore.
“okay?” jeremy murmurs, jean glances back at him and presses his chin against jeremy’s chest. he can hear the gentle thud of his heartbeat and calms down to the count of it.
“now i am,” jean whispers, he scowls when jeremy giggles and is jostled off his chest.
jeremy’s laughter filters in the quiet of jean’s dorm room, brushing away the silence that envelopes them when jeremy’s thinking too much and jean’s too tired to speak.
jean finds courage seeping into his bones because of jeremy, because of his little raspy giggles and his weak attempts at stifling it, because of the look in his eyes that makes jean feel like he’s staring at a star - burning and bright and alive.
he surges up and cups the back of jeremy’s neck. he brings their faces together, huffs of laughter brush against his lips and the warmth of his cheeks feel so strangely pleasant. jeremy wraps a hand around jean’s wrist, his other hand coming up and resting on his waist.
“is this okay?” he whispers, watching jeremy’s eyes brighten up impossibly so. jeremy nods, his nose bumping against jean’s affectionately.
jean brushes his thumb against the side of jeremy’s neck and mumbles nonsense when jeremy tilts his head to the side, an opening for a kiss if he’d like. instead, jean brushes his lips against jeremy’s cheek, marking a path across the freckles there before moving to kiss jeremy’s temple and repeating the same pattern on the other side.
jeremy’s huffing softly, chest rising against jean’s with silent chuckles. he sighs happily when the little journey jean maps across his face stops at his lips and grins when he feels jean’s lips press against it.
maybe jean is everything that jeremy should stay away from, a patchwork of scars and a passionate distaste for affection, a shell of a boy haunted by a ghost and one that’s been dead for so long that he’s forgotten what it felt like to feel something other than immediate fear that he must repress behind a mask of indifference.
jean moreau has been dead for years and maybe, just maybe, jeremy is the reason jean starts to feel a little more alive every day.
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