Chapter Text
Around 11, the sun began to turn cruel. They had been heading North for two hours, and would be for two more. The empty California highway offered nowhere to hide from the sun as it crept higher and beat hotter with each passing minute. Jean rolled down the passenger window.
The warm air hit him like a bad memory hits you when you’re trying and failing to fall asleep. He stuck a scarred hand out the window and felt the breeze pass between his fingers. The old truck rattled and rambled down the highway. Outside the truck, Jean could hear the engine shudder and rumble, loudly and belligerently boasting its close proximity to death. Inside the truck, Jeremy Knox drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as he hummed along to whatever song was pushing its way through the radio’s static, blatantly and unknowingly boasting his close proximity to life.
How fitting that Jean should find himself somewhere in the middle. He was no longer on the engine’s violent march to death, but he wasn’t quite alive, either. He was a stranger, a ghost hiding in the land of the living. An imposter.
Jean closed the window. He reached over and turned down the radio.
“I think we should focus on building up our defensive line next semester,” he said.
“I was listening to that,” Jeremy replied, like he hadn’t heard Jean, “I think it was Outkast. You turned off Outkast, Jean.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“That’s no excuse,” Jeremy said as he went to turn the radio back up. Jean pushed his hand away from the dial.
Jeremy laughed, lazy and easy. It was a thing he did often, even when nothing was funny.
“Okay, Moreau, fine. We can talk about exy,” he said.
“You like exy,” Jean pointed out.
“I like Outkast too.”
“We have two hours to go still, what else are we going to talk about?”
“We could play twenty questions,” Jeremy suggested.
It was, decidedly, the worst idea Jean had ever heard.
“Fine,” he said. A year ago, Jean would’ve refused. But twenty questions was a Trojan favorite for bus rides, and he had been worn down too many times on the subject to care anymore.
“Really? Sick.”
“Okay, I’m thinking of something,” Jean said.
“Is it exy?” Jeremy guessed.
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“No, dumbass,” Jean said, and Jeremy laughed again.
Jeremy’s laugh—a frequent visitor, to be sure—rang out like a lightning bolt. His face cracked into a smile, and a brilliant flash branched out and filled the air around him, leaving everything warm and electric. Suddenly, what was alive was jitteringly alive, and what was dead was starkly dead.
Sometimes, Jean was unnerved by it. It crept under his skin and filled him up; it served as a white hot reminder of how vast his empty insides were each time it left. Jean was a stranger in the land of the living. He’d been dragged out of Hell, and he didn’t know where that left him. He was afraid one day Jeremy’s laugh would flash a little too brightly, and Jean would wake up a skeleton on the other side of it.
“Well, is it a living thing?” Jeremy asked.
“What?”
“The thing you’re thinking of, is it alive?” Jeremy clarified, and Jean suddenly remembered that they were playing a game.
“Oh, no,” Jean answered. The truth was he hadn’t actually thought of anything.
“Well, save it for now. We’re pretty close to Holly’s, so we’ll play later,” Jeremy said, unknowingly rescuing Jean from having to actually come up with something.
About two months ago, their coach had offered to let Jean stay in the dorms for the summer. He probably would have, too. It wasn’t as if he’d had anywhere else to go. He’d been doing better, even. It’d been around a year since he’d left the Ravens, and he was even at the point where he could go to class or take walks by himself without getting lost.
Still, a summer was an entirely different monster.
Jean had told Jeremy about their coach’s offer. As soon as he’d gotten the words out, Jeremy had shot back with an offer of his own. There really hadn’t been much of a choice.
And so, a few days after the semester ended, Jean and all his things were piled into the old truck and on their way to spend the summer in the small, coastal town of Candor, CA, with the Knox family.
Apparently, halfway between USC and Candor was Holly’s.
As if marking Jean’s thoughts, Jeremy slowed down as a little mirage of a general store appeared in the distance. Before too long, the truck was shuddering into the otherwise empty parking lot of a small, white building that looked a little bit more like a house than a store. Still, the sign read “HOLLY’S GENERAL STORE. IT’S NICE TO SEE YOU!”
Jeremy hopped out of the truck and gestured for Jean to follow, which he did.
“Question:” Jeremy said as they crossed the parking lot,“what’s the best fudge you’ve ever had?”
Jean blinked.
“Fudge? You mean, like, chocolate fudge?”
“Yeah, there are other kinds too, but yeah,” Jeremy said. Jean thought for a moment.
“I don’t know, the only time I can remember having it is when Luke made it for that one bus trip.” Luke was the Trojan’s defensive dealer, as well as their baked-goods dealer. His dealings were frequent and sugar fueled, and while Jean had often protested against the team’s reckless indulgence, even he couldn’t deny that Luke was very good at what he did.
“Although Luke may be the best baker I know, even his fudge can’t compare to this.” Jeremy threw open the doors to the shop, and Jean followed him inside. The shelves were lined with strange knick knacks, homemade crafts, and what must have been at least three hundred pairs of sunglasses. It was, decidedly, the most eclectic and least general general store Jean had ever been inside.
“Is that why you wanted to stop here?” Jean asked, inspecting a set of wind chimes that looked like they could double as a lethal weapon.
“I always stop here and get some for my family on the way home. Morgan would literally never speak to me again if I didn’t get her peanut butter fudge.” Jeremy said as he made his way to a counter in the back of the room. It was a glass case that was, surely enough, filled with about a dozen different types of fudge.
“I was wondering when you’d stop by,” said a new voice from somewhere amid the shelves of strange trinkets.
“Mrs. Davidson?” Jeremy called out to the room. From between a herd of lawn gnomes emerged an old woman. She was boney and grey, and Jean could only see the top of her head when she walked past, as he was nearly two feet taller than she was.
“I’ve got something for you,” she said as she made her way back to the counter, stopping only to pull Jeremy into a short hug.
“Something for me?” he asked, surprised.
“Both of you,” she answered, and she gestured for Jean to come over. Jean looked around the room. He didn’t know this woman; he couldn’t imagine what she could possibly have for him.
“Yes, you, Moreau,” she clarified, as if reading Jean’s thoughts. Jean did as he was told. He kept forgetting how recognizable he was. Even if the Trojans hadn’t been the talk of the NCAA this season, not many people had face tattoos.
“My family has been stopping in here on every road trip we’ve been on for as long as I can remember,” Jeremy explained as Jean took his place next to him.
“What if you’re going the other direction?”
“Then we don’t stop.”
“Oh, so you were just lying for no reason,” Jean said, not quite a joke, but something close.
Jeremy smiled. It was hardly warranted.
“You know what I mean, Moreau,” he said.
Both boys jumped as Mrs. Davidson slammed four cardboard boxes down on the counter in front of them.
“Fudge, four pounds of it,” she declared.
“How much do I owe you?” Jeremy said, pulling out his wallet. Mrs. Davidson shook her head.
“I already told you, it’s a gift,” she said.
“What for?” Jeremy asked.
“It’s congratulatory fudge, for your big win,” Mrs. Davidson explained. The Trojans had finished first in the NCAA this past season. Some—well, many—theorized this was because the Ravens had been out for the season as they were under investigation for “ethical violations”. Part of Jean wanted to agree with them. Still, he honestly had no idea how the Ravens would operate without Riko. And anyway, another, much quieter part of Jean knew that the Trojans had played a solid season, no matter how undisciplined they seemed in comparison to his old teammates.
“That’s really not necessary,” Jeremy said.
“I insist,” Mrs. Davidson insisted.
While they argued about the fudge, Jean’s eyes wandered to a big, wooden bin beside the counter that was painted bright pink. It appeared to be full of rocks. “$3.00” the bin said.
Upon closer inspection, they looked more like tiny, colorful brains than rocks, with two lobes and wrinkle-like patterns.
Upon even closer inspection, Jean realized that the rocks were in tiny pots. They were plants.
“You can take one, I won’t look,” Mrs. Davidson said, and it took Jean a moment to realize that she was talking to him.
“Oh, no, thank you. I wasn’t-”
“I insist. They’re neat little things,” she assured him. Not knowing what else to do, Jean took a pot that had four of the strange little plants. There were two red, a blue, and a green one. He didn’t even want them, but it felt rude to say no. Mrs. Davidson nodded, satisfied. Then she turned on Jeremy.
“Now, as for you,” she said. Jeremy put his hands up in surrender, accepting the fudge as a gift, even though Jean saw him stuff a twenty dollar bill into a tip jar that looked like a frog as they left.
***
The roads of Candor, CA, seemed to all be lightly dusted with sand. Even the driveway of the Knox house, which was a few blocks away from the shore, seemed littered with it. The house itself was big, at least, bigger than Jean had expected. It was two stories, much longer that it was tall, and a pale yellow. A wooden deck wrapped around the house as far a Jean could see.
There were three girls on the deck, one laying in a knit hammock, one sat in a rocking chair, and a third sat on the steps. The one in the hammock, who looked to be the oldest by far, folded a page in the book she was reading when she saw Jeremy and Jean climb out of the red truck. She hopped out of the hammock and took off running toward them, and the two other girls followed suit.
No sooner than Jeremy had shut the driver side door, Hammock Girl collided with him in a hug of impressive force for her size.
“Christ, Hal,” Jeremy laughed as he hugged her back. Once he’d regained his footing, he hugged the other two with equal enthusiasm.
“I’m Hallie,” said Hammock Girl, who was apparently Hallie. She held out her hand to Jean, looking him over. She had her brother’s tan skin and dark, curly hair. Her stance was casual, but Jean got the distinct impression she was sizing him up.
“Jean Moreau,” he said, shaking her hand. Hallie smiled. She had her brother’s lightning bolt smile, too.
“Jean, you’re gonna have to speak up a little bit. Hallie’s very old. She’s basically got one foot in the grave,” Jeremy said, wrapping an arm around Hallie. She wriggled out of Jeremy’s grip and punched him in the shoulder. Jeremy laughed.
“I’m twenty-four. That’s not old,” Hallie clarified. Jeremy shrugged. He pointed to the other two girls.
“These are my younger sisters, Morgan and Kara.” They looked more like each other than they did Jeremy or Hallie. Both had dirty blonde hair that they wore very differently. Where Morgan’s was wavy and cut short at her chin, Kara’s was long and styled.
“You should convince my mom to let me get a tattoo,” Morgan said.
“I don’t-” Jean started, having know idea how to end his sentence.
“What would you even get a tattoo of?” Jeremy asked, rescuing him. Kara shook her head gravely, causing bits of her hair to stick to her lip gloss.
“She’s been going on about it for the last month. She wants a tattoo of a rooster.”
“Why?” Jean couldn’t help but ask. Morgan shrugged.
“Mom won’t let me get a real one,” she explained, which explained nothing.
“A real tattoo or a real rooster?”
“Both! Did you get me fudge?” said Morgan. She was talking to Jeremy, who had begun unloading the back of the truck, but she still gave Jean whiplash.
“No,” Jeremy said.
“You’re lying. That’s your lying face,” Hallie pointed out.
“My what?”
“Your lying face, the face you make when you’re lying and you’re trying not to laugh,” she explained. As if on command, Jeremy began to laugh. Morgan apparently took this as her cue to search the truck for fudge. She found it much more quickly than Jean would’ve thought humanly possible.
***
After dinner, Jeremy showed Jean to the guest room. It was a modest-sized bedroom on the first floor, with double doors that led out to the back porch.
Jean let himself fall onto the bed. There was something in the heat of the day or the decidedly unfamiliar cacophony that seemed to fill the entire Knox house that left Jean barrelling toward exhaustion.
“My room is just down the hall,” Jeremy said, more a question than a statement.
“Okay,” Jean said, laying back to look at the ceiling. It was peppered with small, fluorescent stars that would eventually, Jean assumed, glow in the dark. They looked just like the ones that Jeremy had stuck to the ceiling of their dorm room. There were more nights than Jeremy would ever know in which Jean had woken up, a scream on his tongue and no air in his lungs, and the stars had been the first thing he saw. Countless times Jean had opened his eyes and seen the soft, green glow of the stars, and, usually, it was enough to remind him where he really was. Sometimes, they weren’t enough.
“Do you think you’ll be okay sleeping in a room by yourself?” Jeremy asked, because Jean hadn’t answered the question the first time, when it was only a statement.
Since his arrival at USC, Jean had been repeatedly surprised by Jeremy Knox. In many ways, Jeremy was just as predictable, friendly, and dependable as anyone would expect him to be. Many of his qualities, however, manifested in ways Jean could never seem to anticipate. For instance, he could be extremely blunt. Over the course of a year, Jean had gotten used to Jeremy’s unflinching and direct methods of confrontation. He knew that if he asked Jeremy not to push, Jeremy would not push. Still, Jeremy seemed unwilling to shy away from any topic, no matter how sensitive or gruesome. A cruel piece of Jean often wondered how far Jeremy’s bravery could be stretched, what he could tell Jeremy that would make him stop asking questions for good. Jean knew he had scars and stories that could make anyone shudder, things that were never meant to see the light of day.
“I think so, maybe,” Jean answered, because he really wasn’t sure. It had been over a year since Jean was dragged from Hell and thrown into the land of the sun, the stars, and Jeremy Knox. But Castle Evermore had left Jean with stains that were not easily shaken. Time had helped him kick a few of his burdens. His sleep schedule was the best it's ever been, save the nightmares. His eyes had adjusted well to daylight. He could usually spend a few hours by himself without getting lost in a sea of ghosts and bloody memories. He liked to think that he would be alright sleeping alone. Even if he wasn’t, he didn’t intend to make that anybody else’s problem.
Jean sat up. Jeremy was looking at him.
“I have an idea,” he said, and he left the room without elaborating.
Jean stood up and looked at the bedroom. It was simple, with light blue walls and dark, wooden furniture. The only decorations were the stars and a few pictures on the wall. Most of them were of various members of the Knox family; a picture of Hallie’s graduation from what looked like UCLA, a picture of Morgan playing softball. One picture, which Jean stepped closer to, looked slightly older than the rest. It appeared to be of the Knox siblings at the beach. They all looked much younger than they did now, with Kara, the youngest, looking no older than nine or ten. The picture was chaos. Morgan was on Jeremy’s back, Kara was sat on the ground and badly sunburnt, and Hallie was waving to someone out of the frame. It was a sepia memory, frozen in time. It was a window into the sort of life Jean couldn’t even imagine. Jeremy was laughing with another girl that Jean didn’t recognize. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. He was sure he’d never seen her before, but he recognized her dark, curly hair, her bright brown eyes, and her blinding smile. The girl looked even more like Jeremy than Hallie did. The resemblance was off-putting. Jean thought she must be their cousin.
After a few minutes, Jeremy was back, and he wasn’t alone. On his heels was a golden retriever.
“You’re joking,” Jean said. The dog padded up to Jean and began to sniff him. It was unbothered and unhurried, and it’s fur was scattered with white hairs.
“Jean, meet Sadie. She can sleep in here with you,” Jeremy said. He sat down on the ground next to the bed and Sadie, apparently deciding Jean was not of immediate consequence, went over and sat next to him.
“Why?” Jean asked. Jeremy gestured for Jean to come sit with them. Jean folded his arms and stayed where he was.
“I know you don’t like to be alone. Maybe it’ll be an easier adjustment if there’s at least another living thing in the room.” Jean looked at Sadie, who looked back at him in turn. He wasn’t crazy about dogs the way a lot of people were, but he didn’t have anything against them, either. Jean sighed and sat on the ground. Sadie immediately walked over to him and laid down next to him. Giving in, Jean ran a hand through her fur. It was warm and soft.
“Fine,” he said.
Jeremy smiled.