Work Text:
Jean’s body aches, but not exceptionally so.
In the beginning, the ways in which Riko would hurt him would leave him weeping. Now, it does not matter if the torture involves Riko’s knives or Kevin’s old racquet; if he is carved up or beaten. When the door closes behind Riko, Jean’s eyes are dry.
He knows better than to move, because moving makes it worse. So he remains perfectly still in the darkness, eyes closed, and imagines himself somewhere else.
Like most nights, the place he imagines himself is by Kevin’s side. Sometimes they’re at Palmetto, walking the grounds of the University Jean has only gotten glances of during their games there. Sometimes they’re in the Nest, kissing each other in the supply closet like they almost did that time Riko sent them to get new strings for their racquets.
Tonight, he imagines them somewhere else entirely.
In tonight’s fantasy they’re older, holding hands as they move along a crowded street. Kevin walks ahead of him, carving a path through the crowd for Jean to follow. It’s warm, another kind of sunshine than the one they get in West Virginia.
They walk past a store front with large windows and the name of the store written with colourful letters on the glass. The name isn’t important, so Jean doesn’t care to make something up. Instead he focuses on the contents of it: a collection of animal figurines, placed in little clusters on top of worn wooden furniture.
A porcelain parrot, brightly green and small enough to fit in his palm, looks back at him with big, black eyes.
He squeezes Kevin’s hand to make him stop. The sensation of the gesture is so vivid in his memory from when they were still together that his heart twinges.
“Find something you like?” Kevin says as he turns around, and Jean nods towards the parrot on the other side of the glass.
“It would look nice in the bedroom.” Because in this fantasy they have it all. Beginning with a secluded house of their own somewhere in Europe, and ending with the way Kevin lights up in agreement.
“You should get it.” Kevin’s arms wrap around Jean from behind. His warm breaths feel so real when they break against Jean’s neck that Jean reaches up to stroke his face.
When his fingers touch nothing but air, he opens his eyes.
The fantasy crumbles around him, but the warmth on his throat lingers. It grows stronger, until the skin burns like when Riko put his hands there once and squeezed.
Jean gasps for air, and each unhindered breath feels like salvation. Yet, the fire does not subside. He forces himself to keep his mouth shut, to not breathe so loudly that the Raven on the other side of the room wakes up.
The burning isn’t painful, but it is overpowering. All he can think of when he lies there, pressing his cold palms against his throat, is that if this bruise is not his own, then it must belong to Kevin. And there is nothing he can do to help him.
*
Kevin doesn’t even want to be at the cabin. Under normal circumstances he’d be hesitant towards the trip, but considering they’re in the middle of Spring Championships the mere idea of leaving Palmetto borders on insanity.
It’s a matter of weeks until they could be facing the Ravens, something he has reminded the rest of the team of multiple times. He doesn’t expect the upperclassmen to listen, but it stings that Neil disregards his protests when Kevin has spent all year trying to instill the importance of practice in him. But perhaps most of all had the feeling of being poked under the table by Andrew, holding a blunt kitchen knife against Kevin’s thigh, made something sour within him.
The trip isn’t made better by Dan punishing him. When he confessed to Wymack, she had been the last thing on his mind. No matter how many times he tells her this, she seems convinced that the very act itself had been a personal attack against her.
With all these things throwing an unpleasant shadow over the stay, it isn’t until the final night that he is able to find a peaceful moment to himself. Pleasantly buzzed and seated on the rug in front of the crackling fireplace, he’s reading one of the books he brought along.
On the other side of the room is Andrew, watching him in silence, and Kevin tries his best to ignore him.
It works well until the silence they have fought to uphold is broken Renee, entering the room and addressing Andrew in her softest voice. Kevin refuses to peek at them over the edge of his book, even as they keep speaking so quietly that he’s unable to make out the words.
As he clutches the book tighter, Kevin becomes aware of warmth spreading over his left arm. At first it is subtle, but then it hits him with such a sudden strength that he hisses with surprise and drops the book.
Renee and Andrew fall silent at once and turn towards him.
“Kevin?” Renee’s smile falters when she sees him.
Kevin reaches to pick up the book and his eyes fall on the dark, purple bruises blossoming over his arm. They are spreading like fire, appearing like blotches of paint all over his body. In some places, like his arms, he sees them. In others, like his ribs, the warmth is what announces their presence.
“Is it Jean?” Renee says, even though Kevin is sure all three of them know that it must be. Most people have the privilege of keeping their soulmate private. If the bruises are few and far between they’re easy to hide and make excuses for.
Nothing in Kevin’s life has ever been private, and this is no exception.
Instead the warmth envelopes his body almost every night. It is a constant reminder that Jean is still stuck in the hell that Kevin ran away from, and that as long as one of them is trapped, neither of them is free.
It isn’t possible to hide bruises like the ones Riko gives Jean. Kevin can put on as many layers as he wants, wearing hoodies and joggers that reach his ankles in the southern sun. There will always be a bit of bruising peeking out. He will always have to change before and after practice.
In those moments, like now, the truth of what he did is painted all over his body for everyone to see.
Kevin folds on himself, pulling his knees towards his chest. He doesn’t know what to say, and the heat is so pressing that he isn’t sure he remembers how to speak anyway. His entire back is on fire, like someone is pressing an iron repeatedly between his shoulder blades.
Through the haze, he’s able to make out Renee. She’s getting up, and at once the terror is as strong as the insidious heat.
“Where are you going?” he calls out, and he isn’t sure if he sounds too harsh or pathetically pleading. “You can’t tell anyone.”
The last thing Kevin wants is for the rest of the team to see him like this. They are already well aware of what he subjected Jean to by leaving, and this would only serve to remind them of his betrayal.
“I’m not telling anyone.” Renee sounds perfectly calm, even with her brows knitted together in worry. “I’m going to get him.”
The world tilts as Kevin tries to get up.
“You can’t! They won’t allow it,” he says and stumbles onto his numbing legs. His face is warm too now, and he knows that when he looks in the mirror tonight he’s going to hate what he sees.
“I have to, Kevin. When you look at yourself you will understand.”
Anger simmers within Kevin. The others can never understand what a place like the Nest does to a person, no matter how many times he tries to explain it.
“He won’t let you. He’ll go right back. He has to go right back.”
“Wow, Kevin. One could almost think you want him there.” It’s Andrew, looking unbothered, almost bored, with what is happening in front of him.
A quick pivot brings Kevin towards Andrew instead of Renee. Both of his knees are screaming with fiery heat, but the anger overshadows it.
“You don’t get to say that. If he even tries to leave they will kill him.”
Kevin brings his hand up to shove Andrew back, but a sharp heat in his nose interrupts him. It numbs his face, and when he opens his mouth to speak he tastes blood. He brings his hand to his face instead, and stains his fingers with the blood running from his nose.
“Fuck.”
He turns towards the kitchen instead, trying to catch as much of the dripping blood in his palm as possible while he hurries towards it to find something to stop the bleeding.
Once there, he catches a glimpse of his reflection in the microwave’s dark front. A large bruise is already stretching like a shadow over his left eye.
He presses paper tissues against his nose and leans against the counter. His breath is still stuck in his throat, but at least Renee and Andrew did not follow him. Instead he can almost make out their muffled voices coming from the living room.
It doesn’t seem to matter how many times he tells them that rescuing Jean isn’t as easy as picking him up and going. There are no guards at Edgar Allan and no tall fence between them and the rest of the world. Even if Renee was able to bring Jean out of there, he would not be free. Just like Kevin isn’t free, even after spending almost a year away.
The bleeding subsides, and Kevin returns to the living room ready to pick the argument back up. When he enters the room the only one there is Andrew.
“Where is Renee?” Kevin asks, noticing how his voice is a little more nasal than usual. Andrew eyes him for a moment before he answers.
“She went to bed.”
The tension in Kevin’s body releases. He’s bruised and aching from injuries that aren’t his own, and the relief almost makes his legs give out beneath him.
Even though he and the rest of the team do not always see eye to eye, he is grateful that they will listen to him when it matters.
*
Kevin wakes up with a swollen face. At breakfast he drinks his Irish Coffee in silence, trying to not put unnecessary strain on it.
Renee is late. The mood is awkward as some are staring openly at his bruises while others try to be more subtle about it. Andrew is one of those staring openly, slurping his drink that is toppling over with cream.
“Where is Renee?” Kevin asks, and feels like an echo of last night.
“She went to get Jean.”
There is nothing in Andrew’s expression that suggests Kevin heard him correctly.
“What?”
“Don’t play deaf; I know you heard me.”
“But she can’t do that, I told her, I-” Kevin looks around for someone, anyone, to back him up. “They’re going to punish him if she even tries to take him!”
His panic mixes with his anger mixes with his fear. “If you think this is bad,” he gestures at his face and body, “this is nothing !”
Riko’s rage if Renee actually takes Jean from the Nest would be nothing short of a death sentence.
At least if Jean is beaten until he dies, Kevin will most likely die too. It’s extremely rare for soulmates to survive if the other is murdered, and the ones who do often end their own life. No one wants to be alone, knowing that their other half isn’t out there anymore.
“Renee can do it,” Neil says from where he sits beside Andrew. “She knows him better than anyone.”
It’s cruel in the way only Neil can be, completely oblivious of the weight of his words.
“She knows him well enough to get him killed,” Kevin snaps and gets up.
His legs are weak and still somewhat numb, but they carry him up the stairs to the bathroom. There he can be alone with his panic when it consumes him. He curls up, crying and hugging his knees while he waits for the inevitable fire as Jean is punished once again for something out of his control.
*
Kevin keeps his phone with him at all times during the rest of the day. He restarts it several times, and asks Andrew to try calling him just to make sure it works. There is not a single message from Jean to let him know he’s alright, even though Renee tells him that Jean is waiting for him at Abby’s.
When they pull up in front of Abby’s house he’s the first one out of the car. Abby gives him a pitiful look when she opens the door, but he isn’t sure if it’s because of how he looks or because she knows how difficult this meeting is going to be for him. She follows him down the hallway while Neil and the others stay in the living room.
“Here,” she says when they stop outside of the guestroom. At first Kevin thinks she’s referring to the door, but then he notices the small box in her hand with a red cross on its lid. She’s holds it out towards him, and when he doesn’t take it she presses it into his hand. “Someone has to change his bandages, and he won’t let me do it.”
“How is he?” Kevin knows that it’s a stupid question. He saw his own face in the mirror this morning, only marginally better than it looked last night. When he speaks he tastes blood, telling him that his lip has split again.
“Not good.”
Kevin nods and reaches to open the door, but the knob doesn’t budge when he turns it.
“You locked him up?” He turns to Abby in disbelief, and there is shame over the way she digs the key out of her pocket.
“It’s only because he tried to leave. Twice. If we let him go he’ll bleed out before he even gets out of the state.”
“He shouldn’t even be here.” Frustration flickers within Kevin again, so sudden and strong that even he is surprised by it. If Abby notices, she doesn’t show it. Instead she unlocks the door and gives him a careful smile.
“I’ll be right out here,” she says, and as Kevin steps inside she closes the door behind him.
The sound prompts a response from the bed, where the covers are pulls up high and only the dark back of a head is visible.
“Keeping me against my will is a crime.” It is unmistakably Jean’s voice. His accent. Raw and no longer filtered through a cell phone speaker.
“I know.” Kevin wonders if his voice makes Jean’s heart rush the same way Jean’s does to him.
At first Jean says nothing. The two of them just remain as they are, completely still and quiet. Then Jean turns around.
His movements are slow, and Kevin doesn’t need to ask to know that it’s probably due to the severity of his pain.
“Why are you here?” Jean says in French. Even though Kevin knows what to expect, the sight of Jean’s face practically split open wrenches his gut. When Jean sits up on the bed, the covers slide down to expose his naked chest and the bandages wired around it. What must have been clean, white linen last night, is now stained a brownish red.
“Abby says you won’t let her do it.” Kevin holds up the first aid kit.
It earns him a scoff, and Jean turns his gaze the other way.
But he doesn’t tell him ‘no’. So Kevin walks up to the chair by the bed and sits on it. He reaches for Jean’s arm and begins to unwind the bandage there first. It’s sticky with dried blood. The arm is dead in his hands, but it does not pull away.
The action is so familiar, Kevin’s fingers act on their own. He doesn’t even need to look at them, so he is able to trace Jean’s neck with his eyes. There is a tint of redness there. It is strange, in a way, to be reminded that just like Kevin carries Jean’s bruises, Jean carries his as well.
When the arm is finished, wrapped in a new soft bandage, Kevin moves on to the chest. He taps Jean’s shoulder, and Jean obliges by leaning forward.
“I thought you would be the one to get me.” Jean’s voice is so low Kevin might not have been able to hear it, had he not been bent forward to reach behind his back. “Renee told me you would be here when I came,” he adds, ever softer.
Kevin lets go of the dirty bandages, lets the end dangle along Jean’s torso and pool in his lap, so he can lean back. Jean’s eyes are hazy and red, mouth little more than a sharp line.
“I told her not to go.” “So she didn’t tell me when she did. They think it’s as easy as just picking you up and going. I don’t know how many times I’ve tried to explain to them, but they just-” He’s upset again. Disappointed and angry and scared. “What?” He says, and immediately regrets the bite with which he says it.
Jean does not seem fazed by it. His eyes are less red now, and their calmness borders on something soft when they find Kevin’s.
“You look terrible,” Jean says. Kevin isn’t sure if it’s a joke. There is nothing funny about the situation, but sometimes Jean would be like that. Regardless, it relaxes him.
“You looks worse,” he says, and something resembling a smile dances on the edge of Jean’s mouth, just above the large bruise staining his jaw.
“We look the same.”
Kevin nods and reaches out to touch Jean’s one of the unbruised patches of Jean’s face, right between his ear and the corner of his eye.
Jean closes his eyes and leans into the touch. Kevin’s fingertips have brushed over Jean’s skin just like this more than a thousand times. Still, it was so long ago it feels like they are touching for the first time. He has seem Jean’s lips as split and swollen as they are now more times than he can count, and every time he has wanted to kiss them.
“I should have come back for you.”
Jean’s eyes flutter open.
“It does not matter. We both know I am not staying,” he says. Even though Kevin knows it is true, being reminded of the reality of the situation still hurts. “Because surely that cannot be why you’re here, right? To convince me to not go back.”
The others are still in the living room, and Neil’s words ring even more hollow now than they did minutes ago.
“Neil told me to pull rank on you,” Kevin admits with a shrug.
Jean raises one, split eyebrow. “Really?”
“Really. Would it work?”
“No. But he thinks I am stupid, so I can see why he would suggest it.”
Kevin’s mouth twitches into an involuntary smile. Ever since Neil came back from Evermore he has tried to imagine how him and Jean got along. He knows that Jean took care of him, or Neil would have come back in a much worse condition. He also remembers the increased frequency of his own bruising, telling him that Jean suffered worse beatings than usual.
Still, they had both survived. Maybe if they got to spend more time together, they could even get along.
If Jean stays with the Foxes he will get to know the Andrew and Neil that Kevin knows. The side of them that keeps Kevin safe, even if they do not always listen to him.
“I am not staying,” Jean says again, like he can read Kevin’s mind.
“You could. I just have to convince Andrew to protect you as well. I’m safe here, so you would be too.”
“Are you?” As soon as the words leave Jean’s mouth, Kevin’s face reddens. “You owe me the truth.”
“Of course it is! What they do back there, giving us all of these-” he gestures at his arms and body, “that won’t happen here.”
“You’re lying.”
“What?”
“Our throats are still red. So it cannot be as safe as you say.”
As his eyes widen, Kevin’s mouth opens. But there is no sound, no retort or denial or excuse. The memory of Andrew’s fingers clutching his throat, pressing until his vision blurs with no intention of stopping, is still vivid in his mind. Kevin’s eyes drift to where Jean’s neck, where the fading bruises paint his skin beside the newer ones.
“Did he- I mean does Riko?,“ Kevin says, mouth dry.
“No. He laughed when he saw it, and told the others to be less rough in obvious places. Ironic, considering how he has made me look now.”
Kevin’s stomach sinks. Jean is right. This is no place for him; it’s barely a place for Kevin either. But the idea of Jean going back, that seemed so inevitable moments ago, suddenly fills Kevin with a sadness so desperate that he is willing to grasp at any straws to avoid it.
“Somewhere else, then,” he says and looks around, like the answer is written on one of Abby’s old generic paintings. “Wherever you want to go, I’ll make it happen.”
“You will send me away, then.”
“Jean.”
But Jean just shrugs and looks away.
The end of the bandage is still hanging in Jean’s lap. Kevin reaches for it and with careful fingers he picks back up the work he started.
“What about USC? Like we talked about.” The reaction is miniscule, just the slightest pause in Jean’s breath, but it’s enough encouragement for Kevin to keep going. “Jeremy’s my friend, he’ll take you. And I’ll be able to visit you there, and after graduation we could-”
“What could we?” The sharpness of it catches Kevin by surprise. Jean is tense beneath his fingers, but he still angles his torso so Kevin can reach easier when he’s wrapping the new bandage around it.
“Be together,” Kevin says. “I’ll sign with one of the LA teams and you can just, you know, quit. Do whatever you want.” As much as Kevin loves Exy, he knows that Jean does not. For once he’s grateful, because that means they won’t have to be apart because they sign with different teams.
“You should transfer with me.”
“I have to be here, Jean, with my Dad.” It almost feels like cheating, bringing his father into this. But it makes Jean hesitate.
“Did you tell him?” he asks, with a voice that carries some of the warmth that Kevin still thinks back to during difficult nights alone.
“I did.”
“How did he take it?”
Right then, a part of Kevin wants to spill everything onto the covers between them. From Wymack’s reaction, awkward and stiff, to Dan’s anger. There is no one he would rather tell than Jean, but his own struggles aren’t what matter right now. “We have to work on it,” he says instead, feeling Jean relax beneath his fingers when he fastens the end of the new bandage. “And I can only do that here, so it doesn’t matter what I wa-”
“I accept.”
Kevin’s disbelief must show on his face, because Jean’s mouth curls into something smug. “It is only for two years, right?” Jean says with feigned nonchalance. “You send me wherever you see fit for those two years, and then you come to get me.”
Kevin cannot stop himself then. The sight, the words and the moment are too powerful. Any other day he would have been stronger, but today he leans in, capturing Jean’s bruised lips in a kiss.
The realisation of what he has done dawns on him at once, and for an awful moment, neither of them move.
Then Jean makes a sound. A small, barely audible thing coming from the base of his throat.
The next moment, his hand is in Kevin’s hair, returning the kiss with a hunger so sudden it pulls the breath out of Kevin’s mouth.
Kevin loses himself in the motions of their lips and tongues, allowing himself to become half of something bigger than he could ever hope to understand.
They are soulmates.
Kevin has known it since he saw Jean, weak and afraid as he was brought before the Master for the first time. He knew it not because his own wrists carried the same bruises that Jean’s did, but because of the way his heart sped up at the sight of someone so beautiful.
Before they spoke the same language, when the only way they could communicate was with gestures and grunts, Kevin wanted nothing more than to understand him. If learning French was what it took for the two of them to communicate, he was more than willing to do it.
His hand finds Jean’s and gives it a soft squeeze, careful not to cause him pain. Reluctant, Jean breaks the kiss and gives Kevin a questioning look.
“You’ll never look like this again,” Kevin says as he presses their foreheads together. There is a spark in Jean’s eyes when he smiles.
“We will never look like this again,” he says, and Kevin kisses him again.