Chapter Text
"We can't-- fuck, Jude! Fuck! Fucking fuck!"
Judit remained quiet, because there wasn't really anything to say. It wasn't about what Jean would like to hear, it was about what made the most sense. It was a difficult call to make, as a mother or an officer. A rock on one side, a hard place on the other, and more than just a low-wage job at stake.
They’d stepped away from the motor carriage, just off the water gate. Jean’s jaw had clenched hard enough for Judit to hear his abused molars grind against each other from the back seat, and he’d ended up telling Trant to pull over and let him out. Then when Trant hadn’t pulled over right away, Jean had unfastened his seatbelt and opened the door anyway, and was lucky enough that Trant had at least slowed down to a crawl in his confusion at the sudden outburst. Not that “outburst” and “Jean Vicquemare” were two concepts that didn’t meet frequently.
Judit had watched Jean pace back and forth on the sand until a ditch started to form, far enough away to not seem overbearing, but close enough to let him know she was ready to hear him out once he’d managed to comb through his own thoughts enough to clear some of the tangle. There had been a slight change in driving plans then. Jean didn’t know or care what they were, and Judit wasn’t entirely sure of the specifics, just that Harry was en route to precinct 41 for medical attention, which left them with one very ornery, very orange problem: the child that had taken a liking to the lieutenant double-yefreitor.
At least Jean had stopped pacing as much, but she was sure that if the sounds of the coast weren’t so loud, she’d be able to hear him buzz with all of the anxious energy radiating from him.
“We… already agreed,” she tried eventually. She knew Jean listened to her, and that right now, he just needed reassurance of some kind, judging by the speed at which he picked at his own cuticles. She stepped closer so they wouldn’t need to shout while the boy was within earshot, and even with the roaring waves, he had the same supranatural perception that all children seemed to have. “You heard Harry: he has nothing for him here. It would… be cruel, leaving him. Don’t you think so?”
Jean snapped his gaze to hers. It used to be unnerving, having his attention and all of that frantic energy suddenly zeroed on you, but he was a bit less difficult to read than people seemed to give him credit for. He’d graduated to biting at the cuticle of his thumb now, and she could see the slightest hint of red around his lips as she looked to them instead of his almost desperately frantic eyes – the intensity in the grey quickly became overwhelming even for her. He lowered his hand from his mouth and dipped his head, as if he was leaning in to share a secret. “It’s fucking kidnapping!” he hissed, “What the fuck do the RCM look like, sending— sending Harry to terrorise the place for almost a week, hit them with a little rooty tooty point-n-shooty, then get escorted away with some random fucking child in tow? The man was in a silk robe, Jude, for fuck sake-!”
His voice withered as he lowered into a squat with his back to her and his head in his hands. Now wasn’t the time to laugh, she knew, but even now it was charming how much of a catastrophe everything seemed to be for Jean. She watched as he lifted his head and stared out at the water. It almost felt cruel to interrupt his moment, but…
Judit looked back to the MC to see the boy – Cuno, had stepped out and was watching them from next to the carriage with a forced look of impatience to hide the obvious worry. Was it her place to say they’d take him on? Most likely not. Could she have held her tongue for a second longer, knowing that a child, even one as jagged as this one, would have been thrown back into the jaws of the beast when they could easily prevent it? Absolutely not.
She glanced back at Jean, then back to Cuno, and smiled apologetically as she held up two fingers and mouthed “two minutes” before stepping forward to try and draw Jean back from the edge of a full-blown panic attack. “Jean, we should go,” she urged, with just the right balance of force and warmth, as she placed her hand on his shoulder and rubbed it slowly, “Cuno is getting impatient.”
Jean remained silent and still, elbows on his knees and both hands covering the bottom half of his face, eyes closed, brow furrowed. The only evidence that he wasn’t made entirely of stone and placed here as some kind of statement art piece was his clothes and hair being whipped around by the ocean breeze; closer to him, the puffs of breath that slipped steadily and slowly from behind his hands made visible by the cold.
She glanced back at Cuno, who was now squinting at them almost suspiciously in a way that still didn’t hide how worried he was, and held up only her index finger this time and mouthed “one minute” accordingly. Jean was at least standing up straight now, and a slow, deep breath was all he needed before he looked at Judit. His eyes were less wild now, just tired in the way she was used to. That was better. She could deal with tired.
“Trant’s fucked off then, is it?” he began to stride back to the MC, with one step for him as two steps for Judit, as always, because even when he was bogged down with all his catastrophes, he insisted on at least looking like he had some semblance of his shit together, which meant cutting about quickly in a way that looked casual and confident. “Special Consultant Child Abandonment.”
Judit bit her lip to keep her amusement hidden, “He never anticipated you having a moment. And I shouldn’t need to remind you of this, but Harry was bleeding. A lot.”
“He was.” Jean kept his voice steady, but there was a bit more of a growl to it than usual that told her to end the discussion there. Given the last week, she didn’t argue. It would probably take a long, long time and a lot of needling to get Jean to process his feelings on Harry. She just hoped that Jean knew she was ready to help him process; all he had to do was let her.
It was Cuno’s turn to radiate nervous energy. His hands were in his pockets, but his legs seemed to be unsteady in a way that didn’t have anything to do with the cold. He had a defiant look in his eye, like he was letting Jean know that, yeah, he was nervous, but it wouldn’t become him — he wouldn’t go cry about it on the beach, that’s for sure. Fair play, Jean thought. He drummed his hands on the roof of the MC, and put on an Oranjese accent for the drama, “Kuuno de Ruyter…” he announced with as much of a lilt as he could muster and made sure to roll his Rs for extra flourish, “what am I gonna do with you?”
Cuno swallowed and shrugged his shoulders. He didn’t trust his voice not to waver like some kind of— pussy. That was better than faggot, right? The pig made of brick - you know, like the three little pigs and a play on the fact the guy was a brick shithouse - seemed to be somewhat agreeable at the moment, and he didn’t want to fuck it up. Or maybe he was just imagining it, he couldn’t tell, but he’d only seen this one wear a scowl or a sneer before now, but it had become something more resigned now. The tiniest crease at the corner of his mouth felt like the closest thing to a smile Cuno would get from him right now. It disappeared and was replaced with a thoughtful lip bite as the idle drumming had returned. The sow had returned to the passenger seat, but Cuno could feel her eyes on them as she watched them through the wing mirror. He shivered and pointedly looked off to the side as if it would hide him without actually forcing him to hide.
Jean paused then, obviously understanding the shiver wasn’t to do with the weather, shit as it was, and looked over his shoulder to the wing mirror as subtly as he could without Judit noticing. Cuno sniffled and swiped at his nose to hide a small smirk of his own as he saw a flash of obvious dread on the man’s face once he’d realised she was watching. The biggest pig in the sty could still be whipped, it seemed. Jean clicked his tongue a few times in rapid succession, then finally forced out the question: “Are you sure this is what you want?”
“Yeah- yes. Yes, um, sir.”
Jean was slightly taken aback with how quickly the answer came, and hearing ‘um’ and ‘sir’ from a kid that seemed determined to get into a fistfight with any and every living creature within a mile radius made his stomach do some kind of horrid twist for reasons he wouldn’t think about too much. It just felt wrong. Respect was nice and all, but it felt more like a last-ditch attempt at survival coming from the rushed way the kid said it. He sighed and nodded thoughtfully, “You don’t need to go get anything, do you?” he looked in the direction of the Whirling, “It’s- we need to discuss this further, but I’d… rather do it back in Jamrock.”
“Cuno doesn’t need shit from home,” the boy announced with a little more of the bravado he’d come at Jean with from the start. He was a little shit, but it felt better this way. “Everything he needs, he’s got right here. Nothing else matters or he’d have it on him already. All we need now is you in that driver’s seat, putting some fuckin’ pedal to some fuckin’ metal!”
There was another twist in Jean’s stomach as he considered that. What an interesting way to say ‘I have nothing’. “Travelling light, I like it. Smart.” He tried to put a positive spin on it, and it seemed to work, given the way the kid nodded and spread his arms out as if basking in the praise. Yeah, that was much better. Jean laid one final tap on the roof of the MC before opening the door and motioning for Cuno to get in. The pause before the boy actually took the offer and hopped in was entirely for his own pride and an attempt to get on even footing with the pig he felt he’d embarrassed himself in front of by fucking grovelling like he did. The slamming of the door behind him felt like it had been heavy enough to shatter the weight in the pit of his stomach that had arrived the second it looked like he’d have to come crawling back to the den of the wolves.
Jean took his patrol cloak off and rather unceremoniously tossed it over Cuno’s head in the back seat before he got into the MC himself. Cuno took it in stride, and as an opportunity to put the cloak on himself; the sleeves hung far past his hands, the shoulders were almost down to his damn elbows, and he was pretty sure it would drag along the ground if he stood up while wearing it. It was still warm with Jean’s body heat and smelled like cigarette smoke and a cologne that Cuno didn’t know enough about scents to try and describe.
The last thing he remembered was seeing Judit’s hand on Jean’s shoulder as she gave him a bright grin, with Jean’s own smile being forced into something more muted than it wanted to be.
//
A short and quiet conversation, the MC bobbing with a change in weight, the door closing, the feeling of the patrol cloak being fussed with carefully, a soft and quiet voice whispering yeah, you’re fine. you’ll be fine.
/
The refreshed smell of cigarette smoke as the MC bobbed again, the sound of a Frittte bag rustling, a fake but energetic cackle forced to be quiet,
Whoever said cigarettes are bad for you is a fucking moron, Jude. I’m so fucking replenished
Language!
Sorry, you’re right, we’d hate for the sleeping kid that’s currently asleep in the back to learn any naughty words. In his sleep.
Get fucked, Vic.
Genuine laughter this time, still forced to be quiet.
/
A quiet conversation going on outside, right next to the MC window, muffled, only some words making it through: gym, fucking, report, office, shit, fuck, pryce, fucker, shitting, exhausted, fucked, drunk, shitty, good night.
The MC bobs under new weight again, with only one figure in the front now. There’s a long inhale and deep exhale that carry a bit more weight than a sigh, and there’s complete silence for almost a minute before the engine starts up again.
/
The patrol cloak has been returned to its rightful owner, replaced by an actual quilt and mattress. Double bed, because queen is too expensive but a single just won’t cut it. The pillow and quilt are far from fluffed but the bedclothes are soft and smell fresh. Underneath the smell of detergent, there’s cologne and cigarette smoke. There’s a cough in a nearby room, a presence in an unfamiliar place that doesn’t come with a feeling of dread.
//
The precinct is fine. It’s cool. Whatever. It would be a whole lot cooler if it wasn’t six in the morning. Even having slept through the night in a comfortable bed, Cuno was not made for six in the morning unless he was still awake from the night before. In this case, he wasn’t. He’d been violently ripped from his slumber by the feeling of cold water on his face and sat up with the intention of fighting, only to be spritzed again. The fuck?
“Wakey wakey, sleeping beauty, it’s time to go to work.” The voice deadpanned, and then added one more spritz for good measure. The pig that took him home stood over him with an honest-to-god squirt bottle full of cold water that he aimed directly at Cuno’s bewildered, incredulous face, “You’re coming with me now, because I’m not walking back here just to walk back to the place I just walked back from.”
Cuno opened his mouth to reply, and was met with another spritz of water, “Fucking- cut that shit out, pig! For fuck sake!”
One corner of Pig’s mouth curled up in the biggest smile Cuno had seen on him, though it really wasn’t a lot. The mischief was more visible in his eyes than anything, “Sorry,” he lied, “power tripped for a second there. I won’t do it again, but that’s not a promise.” he twirled the squirt bottle around his finger like a pistol, then retreated back to the room door, “I’ll do it again if you’re not up and dressed in the next five minutes. I’m fucking serious, you wanna be an officer? Training starts now.”
“If you don’t wanna walk, just drive back to pick Cuno up, c’mon…”
“Drive?” Jean crowed, “Cuno, my motor carriage is in the fucking ocean. Besides, I’ve never driven to work. Matter of fact, we’re not even walking there. We’re running.” He clapped his hands and grinned wide as he rubbed them together, the squirt bottle hanging off his index finger now, “So, rise and fucking shine, come on, I’m putting this in the freezer. Five minutes, I said,” he checked his watch pointedly, “four minutes now. Hustle!”
Cuno watched him retreat into the apartment - then step to the room to flick the light switch next to the door, and then retreat again - with as much fury as he could muster without contorting his face too much outside of the squint against the light. He forced himself to get out of the warm comfort of Jean’s bed (and was quietly thankful for being allowed to sleep in said bed at all, and not banished to a potentially uncomfortable couch) and frowned at his surroundings. There were clothes on the floor that he wasn’t sure were clean or dirty or something in between but had all the graceless positioning of garments that were stripped from the body seconds before falling into bed, with a closet that was left open and revealed more formal clothing that was a little better taken care of. The bedside table held a lamp and two bright orange pill bottles - one empty, one with a couple pills remaining - both reading the general shit pill bottles read. Sertraline still had something in it, and the empty one– shit! Diazepam! Cuno didn’t fuck with that shit, but those would have sold for a pretty penny if there’d been any left to swipe–
There was a sudden and overwhelming wave of nausea that swept through Cuno’s stomach. He looked away from the bottles, to the clothes folded neatly at the end of the bed, and it crashed down hard this time. Guilt, right? He was pretty sure that was guilt. He bit his lip and picked up the shirt left out for him, ready to focus on that instead of how much of a dick he was acting – thinking about stealing some guy’s pills after that guy had tried to help him, he really was such a shitty kid – and he realised that the shirt he was looking at was the one he’d arrived in. A look at the pants revealed that they were the same FALN joggers that he’d had on too. He looked down at himself, at the t-shirt - grey with a very much faded design that seemed to be for the RCM - that drowned him like the patrol cloak did. It smelled the same, but muted, underlying the smell that fabric seems to get with age, when it hasn’t been worn in a while but absorbed the world around it. He wore shorts on the bottom half that hung loose on his bony hips, still slack despite the cord being tied as tight as it can.
//
Sorry for waking you up, kid, but you should probably get into a different set of clothes.
The voice is a low rumble that lumbers through the sleep, as gentle as it can be. There’s a presence that nudges fabric into his hands, waiting until he takes hold of it before retreating into the dim light of a hallway. Sleep is very much still holding on to him as he goes through the motions of changing clothes, carelessly dropping the ones removed on the floor below, and he’s only able to sit up for a few seconds before dropping to the side where his head lands on a pillow.
Sleep flickers again as he feels the duvet tugged out from under him slowly, then settled back over his body. There’s a hesitation before a calloused hand smooths his hair back. More shuffling - as graceful and silent as such a figure can achieve - and a mutter of, yeah, I’ll get these cleaned up. A humourless scoff, then an addition of, I’ll get the fucking blood off this kid’s fucking clothes.
//
Cuno’s stomach writhes again as he remembers that. He chooses to ignore it as he goes through the motions of changing clothes again. He inspects his shirt, now brighter and softer without a speck of blood or any of the other dirt on it. There’s something off, though, that he can’t put his finger on right away and also chooses to ignore, because he hears footsteps down the hall and a gruff reminder that he had one minute before he got spritzed again. He grumbled back, “Cuno’s up, fuck’s sake…” and pulled on his shirt, then added, “his whole arse is out, so keep yours parked the fuck outside this room, sick pig.” which at least got a laugh from Jean. Once he was decent, he stepped out into the hall too, with the same hesitant bravado he’d put on during the pig’s beach tantrum, adjusting his shirt as a means of fidgeting.
Ah! He understood now, what felt so different. He looked to his shoulder, where there had been a rip at the seam of the sleeve and a tear on the sleeve itself, only to see both were gone. He jumped slightly as Jean stepped out of the bathroom a few feet in front of him dressed down in his own joggers and t-shirt that looked to be for some charity event. He had a slight crease between his eyebrows as he nodded toward Cuno’s sleeve, having noticed him scrutinising it.
“I’m an old fuck, so if I’ve fucked up some kind of style thing, I can only apologise.” His deadpan voice and lack of sorry expression told Cuno otherwise. He wasn’t actually looking at Cuno, just facing him, with his eyes off to the side. Nervous? “Just figured, since I was cleaning… I didn’t have anything that’d fit a shrimp like you, so…” he shrugged one shoulder and decided that was enough of whatever he was attempting to fumble his way through. He walked down the hall into the living area.
Cuno wasn’t sure how to feel. There was still that nauseous guilt from a few minutes ago, engaged in a fierce turf war with a fluttering feeling of warmth. He’d been given a lot in such a short time. Was this the bare minimum? It felt like above and beyond. Cuno wasn’t sure where one began and the other ended; the bare minimum for him was usually having electricity, or running water. Rarely both. So this was a lot, and he didn’t know how to process it.
Though, to be fair, the pig didn’t seem to either. He seemed to be walking a very fine line between actually good with kids and was probably never a child. There was evidence to the former, with how quickly he was able to return fire when Cuno got mouthy, or pick out the quiet parts of what was being said to make sure they remained a whisper between them, or how quick he was on the uptake of inviting some random kid - one like Cuno, who, by all counts including his humble own, was a little shit and complete bastard - into his home and making him feel comfortable.
Even if it was temporary.
(Cuno sort of hoped it wasn’t going to be temporary.)
But it was all very overshadowed by how awkwardly the man seemed to carry himself when doing these things. At least when Cuno was awake. Maybe sleep just made Jean look more relaxed than he really had been, but now Cuno was alert and aware of his surroundings, he seemed hesitant to admit he’d been kind at all. Like he was embarrassed to give a shit.
“Move your ass, kid, you’ll need to eat something.”
Cuno’s stomach practically roared in a well-timed protest of its hunger, which did a great job of shutting up the guilt and warmth still fighting over which deserved to conquer this land. Hunger was easier to fix, anyway.
“Shouldn’t Cuno shower or some shit?” He asked in a moment of, in his opinion, responsible clarity. “First day on the job, yeah?”
“You want to shower before running?” was all Jean asked before disappearing into the apartment.
Cuno followed.
The apartment interior wasn't claustrophobic, but small enough to look cluttered with all the personal trinkets collected and strewn around over the years. Some made sense for a man in his 30’s on a shitty wage; art pieces hung on the walls in frames, some photographs and postcards pinned to a corner wall where a worn wooden desk rested, plants resting on surfaces that hadn’t been claimed by piles or boxes of folders, and ornaments that gave the tiniest insight to the man’s interests — and the good news was the plants were clearly taken care of. Other things stood out as odd, though it didn’t take a genius to piece the picture together; the little toys you’d find in a chocolate egg, clumsy clay figures, slightly larger toys that all seemed to be ponies, and the colourful and chaotic drawings of a child that had found themselves pinned amongst the photographs and postcards. Despite the wall hangings, there had been no attempt to cover up or repair the first signs of unrest Cuno could pick out and, unfortunately, recognise: a fist-sized hole, and another dent in the wall with scratches slicing away from it where glass was shattered in a high velocity impact.
Cuno would have to apply some of his detective skills to figure out the story there. More specifically, if the size of beef-in-pig-clothing’s fist matched the size of the hole in the wall there.
To the east wall, opposite the front door that led directly into the living room: a sliding glass door leading to a small patio, with a chair and small side table next to it, where an ashtray sat overcrowded by cigarette butts next to a half-finished mug of coffee. The living room itself was tidy save for the trinkets littered around, with an older woven patterned rug laying under a small coffee table (covered in papers and folders), a two-seat sofa, and an armchair that had clearly been designated as the chair that gets everything put down on it for convenience. The sofa had a blanket crumpled on it with a pillow resting against one of the arms, evidence of where Jean had retreated to after he’d given his bed to Cuno for the night. Judging by the size of the couch in relation to the man, he’d either hung off of it or slept completely curled up.
Another pang of guilt managed to make itself known through the grumbles of hunger.
A small kitchen island separated the living room from the kitchen, a few feet to the left of the front door, with the kitchen itself being small; a half-fridge with several magnets of tourist attractions or some kind of novelty design holding up more of those photos, drawings, and personal reminders — oddly, one of the papers hanging there looked to be a report card from school. Further investigation would be needed there. Aside from that, it was still a typical kitchen, with a stove oven, a coffee pot, evidence of living in the form of plates and mugs in the sink, a selection of blister packs close to the coffee-making equipment, and more houseplants in a window collecting sunlight. A hallway led further into the house, narrow, with one door leading to the bathroom and another leading to the bedroom that he’d just come from.
Cuno hadn’t even noticed Jean had been on the balcony, but the sound of the door sliding open and then shut had him whip around to stare at the man like a deer in the headlights. They were both silent for a moment, then Jean jabbed a thumb in the direction of the balcony. “I try to avoid smoking in the house,” he explained, as if that was the biggest issue right now. Cuno wasn’t as subtle as he thought he was as he glanced at Jean’s hands, then back to the hole in the wall — or maybe he was subtle, and Jean was just good at his job? Either way, the man spoke again, “I’ll save you some trouble: it wasn’t me.”
“Eh?” Cuno looked back at him, “then who…”
“Ah-ah!” Jean cut him off, his smile was humourless, “I don’t kiss and tell.”
He left Cuno to figure that one out and moved past him to the kitchen, where he took two slices of toast out of the toaster and picked up a jar, then paused. “I should ask, just in case I’m about to kill you…” he held up the jar, “you’re not allergic to peanuts? Or anything, really?”
“Cuno’s not allergic to sweet fuck all, pigamarole!” Cuno turned to face him and slipped his hands into his pockets, “Except dogs, but it won’t kill him. That allergy shit’s not nowhere near tough enough to take my shit offline. So even if I was allergic to nuts, I’d fuckin’ live.”
Jean nodded slowly with a look of mild amusement. He liked how this kid talked, when there weren’t slurs peppered in. “Great. I don’t do dogs either. You’ll be fine with this then,” he worked on spreading peanut butter on the toast in a thin layer across both slices of toast, “can’t run on an empty stomach-“
It was Cuno’s turn to cut Jean off now, “Oi, oi, ‘ey, let’s back up a second there, bacon grease lightning! You were serious about that running shit? You actually expect Cuno to get up at the cunt-crack of dawn and fuckin’ run? For leisure?” He scoffed and sucked in through his teeth, “That’s fucked. You’re fucked.”
Jean had begun eating his toast while Cuno spoke, and only nodded in response, then lifted the second piece and held it out toward the kid gingerly, not touching it more than he had to on the grounds that he wasn’t gross. Cuno remained staring - glaring, more like - and made no immediate move to retrieve the offering. There was a silent few seconds between them before Jean retracted the offered toast slice and, despite still only having taken one bite of his own, moved Cuno’s slice towards his own mouth.
“For fuck sake, give me that!” Cuno snapped with barely any real bite behind it. He crossed the room to take the slice, avoiding touching the peanut butter as well as avoiding Jean’s smug smile, and took his first tentative bite. Even if it wasn’t anything more than toast and peanut butter, it was a hell of a lot more than Cuno usually had for breakfast.
(The longer he stayed in this house, the more he dreaded the thought of having to leave.)
“Good?” Jean asked from behind his hand. He seemed shy about eating.
Cuno shrugged. “Mm.” He looked out of the patio doors as nonchalantly as he could, “not as five-star as the Cuno’s used to, but he’ll find a way to forgive you.”
“Thanks. Dinner is gruel and whatever bugs I can find on the way home.”
“That’s more like it!”
//
When Cuno had called Jean ‘fucked’, he’d been full of conviction. He’d meant it. Or rather, he’d thought he did. Now, running uphill alongside the man as he clapped loudly and verbally harassed Cuno with encouragements, he realised that he’d truly underestimated just how fucked a person could be.
The only thing keeping him from reaching truly psychopathic status was that he’d give Cuno minute-long breaks every block to catch his breath before going back to his assault on Cuno’s ears and legs and lungs and every part of Cuno actually. He could sprint, sure, he was athletic in bursts, but this long-term shit was going to kill him. “You can’t sprint to the precinct.” Was all Jean had told him, and Cuno had argued, but then he’d tried to sprint to the precinct and passed by five blocks before stopping for breath and asked Jean if they were close, and Jean had just laughed and said “Not even a little, kid.”
Jean wasn’t even running himself anymore, he was just focusing on getting Cuno to move; jogging forward at times to urge him forward too, walking backwards, weaving through the few obstacles on the way with graceful ease. It was nice, not being left behind, once he thought about it long enough to break through the fog of exhaustion. It just made Cuno want to reach a point where he could keep up with the man’s pace. This was obviously something he did every day, and he didn’t take long to catch up after Cuno had zipped off down the street which probably meant he was used to going a hell of a lot faster than this.
(Would Jean keep him around long enough to reach that point, or… ?)
On the next minute-long break: “Listen, tell you what,” Jean clapped a hand down on his shoulder and leaned down to point at a point in the distance at Cuno’s eye level, “down this street there’s a Frittte. You jog these next two blocks without stopping, we’ll stop and walk the rest of the way.”
Cuno scowled. That was tempting, but… “Naw, cunt, I can get to the pig farm by running, just—“
“I can’t really ‘just’ anything, kid. I start at seven on the dot, we’ve got fifteen minutes to get there and get you cleaned up.”
Cuno deflated somewhat. Jean did too, just less visibly; did he sound like how Harry used to talk to him? He kept his hand on Cuno’s shoulder, jostling him lightly, and lowered to a squat to be less, you know, towering the fuck over him. “Don’t get yourself in a state, it takes time to get adjusted to this. Just sucks you got stuck with me on your first day and not the Shitkid who just shows up whenever he damn well pleases. I’ve got a fucking,” he pinched his fingers together for emphasis, “system.”
Cuno was silent still, just letting his breathing even out. He swallowed and looked away as he let himself be honest. It only came out as a quiet mutter. “Just don’t want to slow you down.”
“Yeah, well, you will, and then over time you won’t.”
It was almost impossible to miss the implication there: they’d do this again. Jean would keep Cuno around, and give him time to adjust, and they would do this again. Was it delusional to believe that? Probably. But it made Cuno feel lighter, and the fluttering warmth from earlier was enough to make him smile. Just a little. Lopsided and unsure.
“Besides, I’m an old man now. You’ll need to be waiting for me eventually.”
And that got a laugh and a proper grin from the boy. He looked back to Jean’s own half-smile (he wondered if the man ever did more than half-smiles?) and nodded (oh, yes, there it was!), forcing a more serious expression though his smile still lingered.
He sighed out, “Fair’s fair, I reckon.” Because the third person didn’t feel appropriate in a moment of sincerity.
“Great.” Jean stood up straight and made a sweeping gesture forward, “Now move your ass, I don’t wanna be late.”
//
They stopped at the Frittte for a bottle of water. To prevent Cuno’s death. They sat on a bench so he could drink it. Jean was twenty-two minutes late.