thinking about rooney in the 90s au having to work overtime to get jules to feel okay about himself and his condition again after his one night stand with that rude woman... :,(((
Heart lead me not into temptation to flesh this out into a whole ass story 😭 😭 Because I sooo easily could... too easily...
You guys know I love my Sad Men in this kink. While Jules' shameless, carefree and self-assured attitude is a heap of fun to write (and very attractive), he's just as vulnerable as the rest. His vulnerability hits all the right spots for me because of that contrast with how he presents to other people, and how he has developed the resilience to be able to pick himself back up again when things like this occur.
Maybe that gets a little harder to pull off each time.
Rooney was fuming that she hadn't come along for this particular trip -- Jules "forgives" her (not that she had anything to be forgiven for, as he points out 500 times) but it plays on her mind for ages. This was his first time sleeping with someone, which can already be a huge deal, and to have it turn out the way it did...
The thing with Jules is that he does not let on about his sorrow -- he doesn't have a tell like he has when he's nervous lol. He is a very convincing bullshitter. It's hard to doubt him when he tells you he's fine because he gives no indication that he's anything but it. He doesn't give himself permission to feel sad about any part of his situation.
It was like that since the time he was a kid, getting picked on in class or on the playground. When he moved to the residential house in London, he was surrounded by other kids who were really sick, in a way that he felt mattered more than his illness did, because their conditions were more crippling and life-threatening, and his was so silly in comparison. He didn't think he was allowed to feel sad about it because he could still run around and goof off and do so many things his peers could not, either point blank or without needing days of recovery afterward. A lot of his getting into physical alteractions with other kids at school (who always had too much to say and who always had it coming) was being something of a conduit for their frustration, as well as some of his own, about the injustice of it all.
And that never leaves him. When things like this happen as a young adult and beyond, he has that same instinct to shrug it off, laugh it off, or bury it and move on with his life. Because of his childhood, he's learned to lean on the idea that there is so much he still can do, despite this, and he should count himself lucky. But he can't dig deep enough for this one. It plants this idea that he's never going to be attractive to anybody, and he's never going to get to have those physical connections he craves. Maybe never going to get married, start a family (though he's iffy on the idea of kids), etc.
He might have spiralled had he not had boxing, or Rooney. They argued intensely before she understood she was making him confront his emotions when he was still trying to process it/in shock and if he didn't want to do that, then the second best would be to give him the space to get there in his own time, and support him when he did. She was like a limpet with him for months afterwards -- she pretended it was because of a break-up with a girl she was actually never really that serious with, just so Jules could feel comfortable being her caretaker when it was really the other way around. He doesn't ever breakdown, never has that sudden shattering of confidence where all the hurt floods out after months of denial. He just... gets on with it. Like he always does.
But it never leaves him. Not completely. Rose finds that out.