cody and jean's friendship is genuinely so important to me, because how often do you think cody ever meets someone who doesn't acknowledge their transness on first instinct? because as a trans person, i can guarantee not once in their life has anyone ever been so nonchalant about their pronouns, and then here comes this 6'3 sheltered french man who most definitely has them internally bracing for questions ("they? but you're only one person." "yeah, but what are you really?" "she— he— oops, i mean they. sorry, it's just so hard for me!") but then they meet jean and all it takes is hearing their teammates use they/them once for him to pick it up effortlessly. jean, who's been sheltered in a cult his entire life. jean, who's too afraid of his own sexuality to even look at jeremy for too long. jean, whose native language has little to no accommodations to be gender neutral. jean would be the first person they'd expect to be confused or hostile, and they probably wouldn't even fault him for it if he was. but he isn't. he treats cody like a human being first and doesn't ask a single question as to why he should.
and then there's the other side of the coin. jean is used to his eating disorder being a topic of discussion by this point, and his fixations with numbers and measurements being scrutinized rather than gently counteracted. cat helps by teaching him to cook, and jeremy and laila try too, but even then he's still surrounded by nutrition facts and labels and calculations to lose himself in. but then cody notices, and they keep noticing, and as subtly as possible they start to find tiny things jean enjoys to brighten up his day. they ask cat what fruits he likes and bring him peaches and buckets of strawberries, snacks without a label to lose himself in or visible numbers to panic over. and they don't force him to have them, but they're visibly elated and encouraging when he does, and when he actually enjoys them. jean doesn't make cody feel like a burden for something they can't control, so cody refuses to do the same. they just want to help, to make sure he eats, and to make sure he enjoys eating.
and fuck, dude, i can't stop thinking about them.
yousharknotpass
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gracieabrams
blakekathryn
