Archive of Our Own ^beta

On the third Thursday of every month, Jean walks seven miles across town to visit his sister. He used to be able to rely on Kevin donating the four dollars in bus fare from his allowance, but he ran to his father two years ago, and Jean has never been good enough to warrant being given any privileges.

This is the deal that he’s struck with his sister’s foster—no, adoptive now—family. They used to claim that he could visit whenever he wanted, and it used to be Jean’s ability to sneak out of the Moriyama’s home that limited the frequency, but of course the Master had figured out where he was going, and now for years they’ve had him in their ear, telling them how Jean is unstable and disruptive and getting into fights and doing drugs, and of course they don’t want Elodie around that. She’s had a hard enough life as it is, and her good-for-nothing brother is just going to bring trouble and pain. But that won’t stop Jean from showing up, and so this is the deal that he had to make.

Jean will take whatever time he can get, and it’s not the crueler end of the deal. That will always be what he is forced to concede to the Master to even be allowed out of his room for something other than chores or school.

And Jean is glad that, by all accounts, Elodie is safe and happy and loved. He had fought kicking and screaming when they were first separated by the foster system—everyone wants to foster a sweet, smart, kind six year old, and no one wants the twelve year old mutt already filled with rage and haunted by the world. Those first few months with the Moriyamas, he had been terrified that Elodie was in the same prison, just a different physical cell, but no matter what he has asked her, she assures him that no one has hurt her. He still asks every time.

So Jean walks seven miles, shoving his hands into the pocket of his sweatshirt to try and keep the November chill from turning his hands blue. They’re already red and raw from raking leaves and cleaning the gutters in the cold West Virginian fall, and his threadbare, black sweatshirt is doing little to keep him warm. At least walking helps with the cold, but it pulls stitches and bruises and every step reminds him of some ache hidden beneath his baggy and fraying clothing.

As always, when he rings the doorbell he is met first by Elodie’s adoptive mother and father. They have to make sure that he doesn’t look fucked up or high (Jean mentally scoffs at that, because the only drugs he’s ever taken have been forced down his throat by Riko) before they’ll let her see him. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Miller. I apologize for my tardiness.”

“Hello, Jean,” Mr. Miller says. “It’s a little cold to take Elodie to the park.”

“I figured. Can we use your kitchen?” Jean asks, shifting back and forth on sore feet. He has been cold down to his bones since the first frost, but he doesn’t like the idea of the adults listening in on their conversation.

“Of course. I’ll send a text to your guardian and let him know you arrived safely,” Mrs. Miller says, and they allow Jean into their house. He respectfully toes out of his worn combat boots, the last gift Kevin had ever given him. Elodie is waiting at the kitchen table, a bright smile on her face. Her curly, long black hair is pulled back in two braids, and she’s still wearing her uniform from her private school.

For the first time since the third Thursday of last month, Jean feels a smile grow on his lips, and he opens his arms. Immediately, Elodie is standing and jumping into them, holding onto his back tightly.

“I missed you,” she whispers in French, and Jean feels pieces of his soul that he thought had long since fallen apart stitch themselves back together. No matter what the other twenty nine days of the month are like, this one day is enough to make him continue to endure. Nothing is worth potentially being moved away from Elodie.

“I missed you too, Elodie,” Jean mumbles into her hair, before he puts her down again and sits at the table. He can’t help the shivers in his bones, but he does his best to hide them as he asks her all about school and what she’s making in ceramics class and how learning the violin is going. She tells him about all of it, her French still as childish and simple as it was at six, the year she was separated from Jean, but her vocabulary is not lost yet.

“When you go to middle school, take French,” Jean urges her. “Don’t lose the language. You need to learn proper grammar and writing.”

“Mom wants me to take Spanish or Latin,” she confesses, ducking her head. “I’m trying to convince her.”

“I think our time is almost up,” Jean admits, because he can see her adoptive parents starting to hover in the way that means their tolerance for Jean is at its limit. “You know what I’m going to ask you. Are you safe? Has anyone touched or hurt you?”

“I’m okay, Jean,” she answers, rolling her eyes just a little. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” Jean lies, the way he does every time she asks him. He’ll tell her tales of how he’s doing well at school (he’s not), of how he has the most annoying foster brothers but it’s okay because it’s a full house (he lives in a prison), of how he’s got lots of friends at school (he doesn’t), and it’s worth it to see his little sister smile. “I’ll see you next month, okay? Be good. You know how to reach me if you need anything at all.”

“Time’s up, Jean,” Mr. Miller says, and Jean slowly stands. Elodie slots into his side one more time, and Jean successfully silences the grunt before it exits his throat as she crashes into stitches. “Mr. Moriyama has requested I notify him of your departure.”

“Fine,” Jean grits out, pulling the hood of his hoodie up as he laces up his shoes. “I’ll be back next month.” He pauses, as they walk him to the door. “You should let her take French. She doesn’t know how to read or write it well. And it’s her native tongue.”

“Spanish is more useful, and there’s lots of studies that learning Latin produces higher achievers in important subjects for college,” Mrs. Miller says. “I understand where you’re coming from, but you have to consider her future.”

“Please,” Jean says, and he hates the sound of the plea in his voice. “Elodie is French. If she doesn’t practice, she’ll lose the language. And she deserves to know how to read and write in it.”

“Elodie is an American citizen,” Mrs. Miller says carefully. “She can keep practicing her French with you.”

“It must be nice,” Jean says icily, before he just takes off down the street. He knows that he is in the middle of a game that he is doomed to lose—there is no way that he will make it back to the Moriyama’s in time to avoid a punishment, but he has to try to be as close to acceptable as possible to avoid a worse one.

He is cold, and he is tired, and he spends the seven miles back across town trying to desperately push back memories of the time before the Moriyamas. At least in Marseilles he was allowed to hem Elodie’s dresses, and at least when they moved here he understood his father’s rage and his mother’s cruel hand.

It has been three long years, and he doesn’t understand the endless pits of rage and cruelty present within the Moriyama household. There is no rhyme or reason to the pain, or what will set off the Master or Riko, and Jean has long since given up trying to understand it.

He only knows that he deserves it, and he will endure it. He can’t afford to be moved away from Elodie.

Jean squints, his eyes still not adjusted to the sunlight after almost a week locked in the basement. As soon as he had returned from Elodie’s, he had to pay the price for his visit, and then he was shut away to lick his wounds until he was in a state acceptable to be seen in public again.

He would pay it over and over again.

“Do you have a migraine? I’ve got Tylenol in my backpack,” Catalina Alvarez says, leaning over from her seat in whatever class they’re in. Jean has no idea what the teacher is talking about. He barely knows her, only that she plays volleyball and soccer and runs track, and that she’s friends with Jeremy Knox and dating Laila Alvarez. He has no idea why she is being nice to him.

“Yeah,” Jean says, because he can’t pass up free pain medication. “Thank you.”

“Are you a vampire?” she asks, as she hands him four. Jean decides in that moment that she is his favorite person in the world who isn’t Elodie. “You look like the sun is actually hurting you.”

“I’m not,” Jean says, swallowing them dry. He’s definitely dehydrated, but that’s the least of his problems. “Thanks again.”

“Why were you gone most of the week? Were you sick?” she presses, and Jean just sighs.

“Why do you care?” Jean asks tonelessly. “I miss class a lot.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re always in detention for shit you have fuck all to do with,” Cat says. “Oh, don’t give me that look. You’ve done nothing all year in this class but sleep and, sometimes, pretend to take notes. You’re not the fighter that I’ve heard tales about.”

“You know nothing,” Jean says seriously. “Of course I’m not going to start fights in…” he pauses, looking around the room to figure out what class he’s actually in. “... world history. Who am I going to fight? You?”

“The scary act works on everyone else, but I’ve been watching you snore for the last three months. It’s not gonna work on me,” Cat says. “So tell me why you always end up taking the fall for Riko Moriyama’s tantrums.”

Jean feels his blood turn to ice in his veins. This cannot be happening. “Never say that again.”

“Jesus, alright,” she agrees. She is quiet for the next few minutes, and Jean thinks that he has survived the worst of it. He has done what he was supposed to. It will be okay. “Oh, hey, I just remembered something.” Jean does his best not to let any indication of his annoyance show. “I help with a ceramics class at my mom’s studio sometimes. You look just like one of her students for the elementary class—are you related to Elodie Miller?” She pronounces his sister’s name like it rhymes with melody, and Jean can’t help his cringe.

“Elodie,” he corrects. “She’s my sister.” He can see the confusion cross Cat’s face, but he does not have the time or energy to explain the shitshow that is the Moreau family. “It’s a long story.”

“Elodie,” she says, this time correctly. Jean nods, and she smiles. “You don’t have to air your shit to a stranger. She’s a great kid.”

“She is,” Jean agrees quietly. “You see her at ceramics class?” He can hear the nerves in his voice. But everything he has done has been for Elodie. He will eat his pride ten times over it means he can learn more about her.

Cat nods. “She’s great. She’s a little quiet, but she’s very polite, and she just painted this great mug with blackberries on it.”

Jean has to fight back tears from his eyes. It’s barely a scrap of information, but it’s more than he’s gotten in years. “She still loves blackberries. But she is happy? And the Millers are nice, too?”

Cat gives him a look that lets Jean know how not-normal of a question that is, but she doesn’t press it. “Yeah, Jean. She’s happy.”

“Will you tell me, if you help again?” Jean asks, and Cat just nods.

“Dude, I’ve been trying to talk to you for months. If all it takes is telling you about elementary ceramics class, then I’m so in.” Cat’s voice is excited.

“Why?” Jean asks, because no one has ever wanted to talk to him.

Cat shrugs. “You’ve got this mysterious vibe about you that I’ve found fascinating. I haven’t seen you talk to anyone since Day transferred.”

“I’m not a fucking project,” Jean spits out. “For you or your do-gooder friends.”

“Dude, no offense, but you went full bambi eyes at the mention of your sister. You’re not fooling me with the shithead act,” Cat says. Luckily, the bell sounds, and she just waves goodbye as she grabs her backpack.

Jean can’t help but feel like he has made a grave error.

Jean always forgets how difficult winters are, in the Moriyama house. His list of chores is longer than his arm, and the basement becomes so cold that Jean cannot sleep without his own chattering teeth waking him up. The cold works its way into his bones, making him slow and sleepy and an easy target. And Riko’s rage is somehow always worse in the winter, the lesser light shortening his already microscopic fuse.

It’s an impossible task to fight off Grayson, after Riko is done with him, and so Jean stops fighting.

Riko’s anger makes him sloppy, and that means that the Master has to clean up after his messes, and Jean has to take the fall, and then the Master is angry because he had to clean up after him, and Jean has always been the favorite punching bag.

He is a Moreau. It is what he deserves.

He just counts down the days to his next visit with Elodie.

“Jean,” a voice says, while Jean is at the grocery store on orders from the Master. He doesn’t care that it’s started to snow, or that Jean doesn’t have a winter coat. He cares that it’s snowing outside and he did not want to take his car out. He cares that Jean is already covered in more stitches than skin and the walk in the snow would be difficult.

Jean is shivering in front of the wall of salad varieties, trying to remember the variety of mix he needs to purchase, and so of course he has to see Kevin Day for the first time in almost two years.

“Fuck off, Kevin,” Jean mutters, his eyes flicking to a few paces behind Kevin, where he can see Kevin’s father and his wife. “What the hell are you doing here? Don’t you live on the other side of town now?”

“We were in the area,” Kevin says. “Jean, I—”

“Save it, Kevin,” Jean says. “I don’t have time for your guilt. Tell me what fucking salad mix is the right answer or fuck off.”

“That one,” Kevin says easily, and Jean forgets that this used to be one of Kevin’s chores. Jean grabs it down quickly, but he doesn’t look at the older boy. “Show me the rest of the list.”

“I don’t need your help,” Jean says shortly, holding the soggy piece of paper out of Kevin’s reach. “Nor do I want it.” He tries to stalk away from Kevin, hoping that his growth spurt means that his long legs will carry him away faster than Kevin can follow.

But two years of three meals a day and not being worked to the bone mean that Kevin just grabs Jean’s forearm before he can. “Jean, you can’t stay there,” Kevin says quietly. “You look like a corpse.”

“You know why I can’t leave,” Jean says, trying to pull his arm away. “Fuck you, Kevin.”

“Elodie is safe,” Kevin says. “You’re not.”

“I don’t have a father to run to. I can’t risk being moved away from her,” Jean says, and then he pulls his arm out of Kevin’s grasp. “You’re the one who left. You’re the one who slit my throat on the way out. Deal with your fucking guilt without forcing me to be a part of it.”

And then Jean walks away. He ignores whatever Kevin is telling his father. He is on a timer, and he cannot afford another punishment. He needs to just keep his head down and try to fucking be good for once, and then it is survivable. If he can just minimize the Master’s rage, if he can just keep Riko happy, then he can endure.

Jean is a Moreau. Elodie is not, anymore. It’s why she isn’t subject to the same penance, nor does he want her to be. He wants her to be happy, and safe, and he’s glad that she has spent enough time away to learn to not fear every hand that approaches her.

He just needs to be able to see her, to be a small part of her life. It is enough for him. It has to be.

“You’re exuding a lethal kind of energy that makes me really want to give you a hug,” Cat says, plopping down at the desk next to him. “See, that kind of glare I don’t see very often.”

“What do you want, Catalina?” Jean asks, letting out an exaggerated sigh. He really does not have the patience for bullshit today. Riko has been in a sour mood all week, and Jean has been doing everything in his power to keep his face un-fucked and his detention sheet clean so he can go to Elodie’s school concert on Friday. But of course Riko had to start a fucking fight with the wrestling team, and so Jean had to finish it.

He hates being a disappointment.

“Oh, we’re pulling out the full names, Jean-Yves,” Cat says. “What’s got you in such a shitty mood?”

“Nothing,” Jean says, wiping at his split lip with his sweatshirt.

“I heard the wrestling team were being dicks again,” Cat says, offering Jean a napkin. “But that’s not unusual. So what gives?”

“It’s Elodie’s holiday recital at school this week,” Jean admits sullenly. “I can’t go because I got detention, and I can’t go looking like this.”

“That sucks, dude,” Cat says. “They seriously won’t let you go? Your face doesn’t look that bad.”

“Give it two days,” Jean says. “I get it. Her guardians are trying to protect her. This is my fault.”

“No offense, but they’re wasting their energy if they think they have to protect her from you,” Cat says.

“She’s young. She doesn't need to worry about me,” Jean says, before dragging his hands across his face. “I tried to not fuck this up. She’s going to be disappointed.”

“Hey, uh…” It’s clear that Cat is trying to work up the courage to say what she wants to say. “Someone’s gotta worry for you. Is shit like… okay? You’re always beat up but you rarely actually fight and you always look exhausted.”

“Shit is okay,” Jean says, because what else could he have answered. “Mind your own business.”

“You are my business now, Jean,” she says. “I’m worried about you.”

“You’re wasting your energy.” Jean doesn’t enjoy throwing her words back at her, but it’s true. No amount of worrying will change the reality of being Jean Moreau. “Cat, I’m fine. And what I really don’t want is to be moved again and be even farther from my sister.”

“See, when you say stuff like that, it makes me think shit really isn’t okay,” Cat says. “I’ll respect what you want. But we’re friends now. Can we cut the bullshit? I want to help, in whatever way you’ll let me.”

“You’re keeping me from flunking world history. That’s a small miracle already.”

Friends. Jean doesn’t think anyone has ever called him a friend before. He cannot afford to let Riko or the Master know that he has another weak spot, but he can allow himself the small scraps of conversation at school.

Jean Moreau has spent months trying to collect enough coins to save up for some kind of Christmas gift for Elodie. There has been a special kind of stuffed animal she wouldn’t stop talking about, that comes with a code for an internet game. Jean has been staring at the duckling version of this toy in the store for months, checking the price tag to see when he would have scrounged enough to buy it.

There is only one left, and Jean does not have enough money.

It does not stop him from idling by the checkout, counting and recounting his coins and hoping that, magically, the numbers will add up.

“What are you looking at?” Jean looks to the ceiling for patience as he once again has to deal with Kevin Day in the grocery store. “You want a stuffed animal?”

“Fuck off, Kevin,” Jean says tonelessly, shoving his coins back into his pocket. “Go shop far away from me.”

“Oh. You’re trying to buy it for your sister,” Kevin realizes. “I’ve got it. Which one?”

“I don’t want your fucking charity,” Jean grits out.

“It’s not charity. She’ll be sad if you don’t get her a Christmas gift,” Kevin needles, and Jean shoots him his strongest glare.

“What do you want in return?” Jean asks. “I know that nothing is free.”

“Tell me how it’s been. Like, actually,” Kevin barters, and Jean sighs. He has long since learned how to swallow his pride. Elodie deserves a Christmas present. Jean will pay for it in whatever way that he can.

“Why do you care, Kevin?” Jean asks, but he grabs the last duck and gives it to Kevin, gesturing to the checkout line. “You’re not going to like the answer.”

“I’m sorry that I left you behind,” Kevin says, and Jean feels his fraying patience snap. “I still care about you.”

“What will knowing do? I swear to God if you tell anyone and get me moved away from my sister, I will fucking murder you,” Jean says. “Do not fuck up my shit over your own guilt.”

Jean does not say another word until he has the stuffed duckling in his backpack. They walk outside, and their legs naturally carry them to the little park halfway between the store and the Moriyama’s house.

“Thank you,” Jean says, and he tries to make it sound like he isn’t swallowing nails. “I think you can guess I’ve still never managed to earn an allowance.”

“It’s hard to win a game set up for you to fail,” Kevin says easily, sticking his hands in his pockets. Jean hates how good Kevin looks—he’s taller, and he’s filled out in a way that just isn’t possible for Jean. But it’s more than that. He looks calmer, less anxious, more confident. “What’s been going on?”

“Zane aged out,” Jean says bitterly. “It’s just Riko, Grayson, and me right now. There might be someone else soon.”

“How has Riko been?” Kevin asks, and Jean knows what he’s really asking.

“As angry as ever,” Jean says, and he doesn’t elaborate. “It’s fine. It’s not that much worse than it was. Hopefully he’ll go somewhere far away for college.”

“How’s Elodie?” Kevin asks, and Jean just stares at him for a long minute.

“I’m not having this conversation again.” For a while, Kevin tried to convince Jean to tell the Millers about what actually happens at the Moriyama house. Kevin had believed that the Millers would change their mind and push to foster Jean, but Jean knew that was never going to be in the cards. All it would have done was risk moving him too far away to visit.

“She’s safe, Jean. She’s happy. What do you think would upset her more—the possibility of less frequent visits from you, or a dead older brother?” Jean had forgotten how goddamn dramatic Kevin Day could be.

“Drama queen,” Jean responds, rolling his eyes. “They’re not going to actually kill me. Even CPS would have to give a shit if that happened.”

“You’re sure of that?” Kevin asks. “You look half-dead already, Jean.” Jean refuses to engage with that kind of argument, because if he does he has to consider the possibility he’s actually going to die, and if he thinks too long about that he might just speed up the process himself. “What’s your plan, anyway? College is two years away for you.”

Jean just snorts. “It’ll be a miracle if I graduate high school and you know that.”

“You can’t just follow her through her life,” Kevin says softly. “What happens when she wants to go to college?”

“Fuck you,” Jean says. “She’s nine. That’s too young to be without any family.”

“I know that it’s getting worse, even if you won’t admit it,” Kevin says. “I know all you care about is her, but I care about you. And I’m tired of being scared that I’ll wake up to news that you’re gone.”

And then, like the drama queen he is, Kevin stalks away, leaving Jean in the cold. The same way he left Jean when he begged him to steal the letter out of the Master’s office, and then ran as soon as he saw the slightest of openings.

Both times, he knows what he is leaving Jean to face alone. But he never chooses to stay.

It is a normal day in world history class, except Cat is bullying Jean into actually doing the worksheet. Jean would rather be asleep—Grayson has gotten bolder, and so Jean has had to become even lighter of a sleeper to fend him off. But Cat is persistent, and it’s less effort to listen to her than to continue to fight her.

“So,” she says, as Jean blatantly copies the answers off of her. “What’s the deal with you and your sister? You two are, like, copy and paste, but you’ve got different last names.”

“She was adopted and they changed her name,” Jean says simply. “I was not.”

“That’s kind of shitty,” she says, leaning over to correct Jean’s work. “That must be really hard for you.” If anyone else said that to him, Jean would have walked away and never spoken to them again. But there isn’t an ounce of pity in Cat’s voice, just understanding.

Jean shrugs. “They still let me see her, and that’s all that matters. I’m glad she’s somewhere safe. I wish they would care more about her knowing French, but…” He lets out a frustrated noise. “She’s got her citizenship. I guess they want her to be more American.”

Cat looks at him for a long minute, and he can tell she’s deciding what she’s going to say to that, if anything. Finally, she takes a breath. “You’re a good big brother, Jean Moreau.” There’s a long pause. “Wait, do you not have citizenship?”

“I don’t understand all of it, but it’s complicated because we were born in France,” Jean says. “They’ll probably give me citizenship when I age out of foster care, at least that’s what every social worker has said. That’s partly why Elodie’s guardians adopted her, though, because that guarantees her citizenship, even though she loses some of the support and healthcare stuff from the state.”

“They still separated you,” Cat says, and Jean scoffs.

“Our parents died three years ago. There was no way there was going to be someone willing to take a six year old and a twelve year old,” he says plainly. “We’re lucky we’re still in the same town.”

“Still,” Cat says, but Jean just rolls his eyes, and she knows that she can’t push her luck more today. “Wait, don’t you take French here?” Jean grins, an impish thing, and Cat can’t help the big belly laugh that escapes her. “You con artist.”

“The easy A almost is not worth hearing the teacher’s awful pronunciation,” he admits, and Cat throws her head back in her laughter.

Of course, that’s when a voice crackles over the loudspeakers, summoning Jean to the office.

Jean has no idea what he has done this time, or what Riko has done that is suddenly his fault, but he’s sure that it’s only a detention at worst.

He has never been more wrong.

Jean should have known to never trust a deal with a Moriyama. He is sitting in the principal’s office, and he knows that he is astronomically, completely, unequivocally fucked. Riko is sitting on the other side of the Master.

Riko was caught with drugs. Riko is saying that he got the drugs from Jean.

Jean can do nothing to dispute him.

The Master has his hands resting on his cane, and Jean is trying to repress a flinch every single time his hand even moves a millimeter on the raven’s head. The Master is cleverly convincing the principal not to escalate this to the police, and he’s also cleverly convincing him that it all falls on Jean.

Jean’s record is bad as it is.

He can’t afford to be expelled from the one fucking public school in this shitty town.

“Please,” Jean says, at the end of it all. He has not spoken the entire meeting. “Don’t expel me.”

“This is your last chance, Jean. Any other infraction, no matter how minor, will result in expulsion.” Jean feels a hand rest on his shoulder, and he knows that it is only a matter of time. There will be something else—a fight, or another incident like this, and Jean is going to pay the price.

The three week suspension is bad enough. With the timing of holiday break, he isn’t going to be out of the house until mid-January at the earliest.

And the Master is furious, so furious that he can only contain his rage until the car, and then his cane is striking Riko’s cheek. Jean knows that after the Master is done with Riko, it will be worse for him. And then he will have to sew them both back up, just to endure whatever anger Riko will need to release.

Jean Moreau is many things, but he is rarely wrong.

It’s as bad as he expected. He thinks that the cane broke a rib or two this time, and with the suspension, Jean’s face hadn’t been spared. Riko had done some of his worst, and Jean ran out of thread before he could stitch all of the wounds. He’s still coughing up water days later from Riko’s bad first attempt at waterboarding, too. The Master will not buy more medical supplies until it is convenient for him. That won’t be for another two weeks.

And so Jean had gotten on his knees and begged Grayson to use his allowance to buy more, and he had paid dearly for it.

It was only after he had ensured that his body would continue on that his brain did what it often does during winter: it hibernates. Jean’s body continues, pushing through his chores and Riko’s and the long hours in the house with the Master overseeing Jean’s homework, but his brain is somewhere far away.

He only reconnects with his body when he realizes what day it is. Jean can feel every single ache, and he can feel that his face is still hot with swollen bruises, and the stitches aren’t ready to be removed from his jaw and his forehead.

Jean doesn’t want Elodie to see him like this. But Jean needs to see her.

It’s getting harder and harder to find reasons to force his useless body out of bed in the morning. Jean knows the feeling, unnameable and indescribable, seeping into his bones like the back of his own hand, and he knows that there’s a limited amount of time before he does something stupid to try and make it stop.

He needs to see his sister. He needs a reminder of why he has to endure.

Jean’s body protests the entire walk. He should have just given in and accepted the punishment for stealing four dollars for the bus ticket, but Jean deserves this pain. He deserves all of it. His limbs feel like ice, and if he thinks too long he can feel his head get light and start spinning around his brain. Jean needs to try to make it to the dinner table tonight. It’s been a while.

He can barely feel his toes by the time he approaches the Miller’s house. Jean can feel where some stitches have popped, but he knows his black sweatshirt is going to hide the blood, so it’s fine. He just needs to see Elodie.

Jean remembered her gift.

The Miller’s house is lit up with all sorts of Christmas lights, and Jean can see a beautiful Christmas tree and a fireplace that has a stocking with Elodie’s name on it.

But when he rings the doorbell, the Millers step out onto the porch with him and close the door behind him. Mr. Miller crosses his arms, and that’s when Jean knows.

He has truly lost everything.

“Your guardian informed us of what happened at your school, Jean,” Mr. Miller says. “I can’t let you around Elodie if you’ve been doing drugs. Or getting into fights.”

When Jean had just been thrown into the basement of the Moriyama home, after being forcibly ripped away from his only remaining family, he had been angry. He had fought the new rules, spitting and screaming and biting. He had refused to learn Japanese or English, and he refused to let the annoying little brat hit him and not be hit back. He refused to be owned by anybody.

But then they had withheld food until he could prove he could speak English.

And then they had tied him down so he couldn’t hit back.

And then they had threatened to never let him see Elodie again.

And so Jean had broken.

For the first time since he was twelve, Jean feels that anger again. He has given everything, just so that he can see his sister once a month. He has endured hundreds of stitches, dozens of broken bones, and he has ruined any fucking hope he had at a future just to keep his deal with the Master.

“I haven’t,” Jean tries. “Please. I just want to see Elodie. I brought a Christmas gift.” Jean has never been above begging. That feeling, familiar like an old friend, is snaking around his chest and squeezing so tightly that Jean knows this is his last chance before he loses hope.

“Don’t lie,” Mrs. Miller says. “Listen, Jean, we’ve given you a lot of leeway. But can’t you see that you’re hurting her?”

Any breath that was in Jean’s chest is gone. He would never hurt Elodie. He has spent his whole live ensuring that she doesn’t get hurt. How dare she think that he would hurt her?

“I’ll try to be better. But she’s my sister. I’m not leaving until I see her,” Jean says, jutting his bruised chin out defiantly. It is a lie, because he will always have to pay for Riko’s crimes.

“No,” Mr. Miller says simply. “If you see her looking like that, she’s going to be upset. I think you and I both agree that Elodie has been through enough pain in her life.”

Jean feels like the world has stopped on its axis. The whole scene unfolding is so unfathomable that it can’t be happening. Jean’s vision is swimming like he is trapped in a fun house, and he can’t make sense of anything that is happening. This can’t be happening. This cannot be happening.

“Elodie,” Jean screams, and he hears how hoarse he sounds, but she has to know he tried to see her. “Elodie, je suis là. Je ne te quitte pas. Ils ne me laisseront pas entrer. Je ne te quitte pas—”

“She’s not here, Jean,” Mr. Miller says tiredly. “She’s with her friends at the movies.”

“She is my sister,” Jean says, and he can’t help the tears that are streaming down his face. Jean’s face is so cold that he’s shocked they don’t simply freeze on his cheeks, but they roll on and on onto his sweatshirt, mixing with the blood and sweat. “You can’t do this.”

“We’ll still be in contact with your guardian. If you actually start doing better, we can rediscuss this,” Mr. Miller says. “She has been through enough, Jean. I know you know that. So do the right thing here.”

Jean thinks that there is something wrong with him, all the way down to the atomic level. He was designed incorrectly, every molecule pieced together just wrong enough that he never stood a chance. Jean Moreau is worthless because that was what he was designed to be. He was stupid to think that could ever beat the prophecy that has been encoded into his DNA since birth.

Of course he was always going to lose Elodie. She was too good to stay in Jean’s life, and the Millers are right. He can’t drag her down to hell with him.

He has to choose to believe that they’re right, that she’ll be happier without him there. Because otherwise he is going to shatter into so many pieces of glass that he will simply become sand, impossible to piece back together.

“Please give her the gift. And tell her that I love her,” Jean forces out, digging in his backpack for the stupid stuffed duckling it felt like he had paid for with his soul.

“Of course we will. She has a gift for you, too,” Mrs. Miller says, and Jean’s bruised and bloody fingers are handed a mug. A mug with blackberries painted on it. “She made it in her ceramics class just for you.”

Jean can’t hold back a sob any longer. He refuses to let these people see him break down, so he just takes off back down the street, clutching the mug like it can save him from his fate.

The seven miles back feel like nothing at all, because by the time the tears on his face have dried his stomach has become an unsolvable black hole of rage and despair.

He and Tetsuji had made a deal, and that deal has been broken.

Fuck everything. Jean is going to burn this entire fucking place to the ground around himself, and he hopes that he burns with it.

“How could you?” Jean all but screams as he enters the kitchen. The Master is sitting calmly at the table, sipping a warm mug of green tea and doing the crossword puzzle. “We had a deal. I want my fucking papers.”

Jean Moreau had given up two things to be allowed to visit Elodie. One of them was physical: Jean Moreau’s passport and immigration paperwork have been locked away in Tetsuji’s office for three long years, keeping Jean trapped in this house. The second was a gentleman’s agreement: Tetsuji Moriyama had realized by the time that Riko had turned fourteen that he was a being filled with rage, enough rage that it made him a liability. Tetsuji had asked that Jean submit himself to Riko’s rage, so that it was contained neatly within the house, instead of causing problems at school and in the community.

To see Elodie, Jean had agreed. He has effectively been Riko’s property since he was twelve years old.

“You lied,” Jean continues, his breath barely coming in ragged gasps as his anger propels him past every survival instinct screaming at him to shut up. “You lied and they won’t let me see her.”

“Everyone knows what happened at your school,” the Master says, his voice calm in the way that means unfiltered rage is going to follow. “I could not change the story for them. It would draw unwanted questions.”

“Fuck you,” Jean says, and he can hear the hollow swoop of the cane through the air before it smashes into Jean’s cheekbone. Jean just spits the blood from his mouth onto the kitchen floor. “Fuck you. If I don’t get to see her, I’m not doing this shit anymore. Give me my papers. I’m leaving. If you don’t let me leave I’m gonna talk.”

This time, the cane connects with his already-broken ribs, and Jean feels his knees crash to the floor as he desperately tries to open his lungs to draw air that just won’t come. “You belong to me. I have housed and fed you, you ungrateful mutt, for the last three years. You don’t leave until you pay it back. And who would believe you if you tried crying wolf? You are nothing.”

“Fuck you,” Jean croaks out, and the cane comes down again and again and again, until Jean’s voice abandons him in his throat.

Jean had thought the anger had been beaten from him a long time ago. But he feels its loss now, and only emptiness and darkness remain.

“What do you say?” The Master asks in Japanese, forcing Jean’s jaw up with the tip of his cane so that he must look him in the eyes.

“Thank you, Master,” Jean replies respectfully in his second tongue. This time, the cane coming down hits him hard enough to send him spiraling into blissful unconsciousness.

“Jean? Jean? Dude, holy fuck.” Jean pries his head off of his desk, only to find the concerned face of Catalina Alvarez staring at him. He doesn’t know what day it is, only that he has missed another third Thursday of the month and that he is alive because the Master refuses to let him die.

He had known after Jean’s meltdown before Christmas what would inevitably follow—there is only one way Jean Moreau will ever escape, and it is in a body bag. And like the pragmatic man that he was, the Master ensured that it would never happen. Everything that Jean could call his own, from his fucking shoelaces to his bedframe to his ceiling fan to his door to his chair, had been locked away. He has kept his eyes on Jean every waking second of the day. And when he’s finally allowed to try and sleep, his room is a mattress on the floor of a cold basement with no door. With no door, there is no point even trying to fend off Grayson.

Jean Moreau is cold, and he is tired, and there is no point if he has lost Elodie. Even in school, his limbs chafe and shiver as they search for heat that Jean’s body just can’t provide, and Jean knows that there is only so much his body can continue to endure. He hasn’t tended to his wounds in over a month. The only warm points on his body are where the infection burns.

Jean should just take one of the dull ballpoint pens out of his bag, shove it up his nostril, and be done with it all.

Instead, because he can’t bring himself to follow through in front of Cat, he drags his heavy and dizzy head off of his forearms and tries to meet her eyes. “What, Alvarez?”

“You’re finally back,” she says, and then her hands are cupping Jean’s cheeks. Despite his initial flinch, he can’t help but lean into the warmth of her palms. “You’re freezing. Are you sick?”

“It’s winter. I’m always cold,” Jean mumbles. “My suspension is finally over. Of course I’m back.”

“You look like a corpse,” she says. “What the hell happened to you over break?”

Jean will never be able to answer that question. But, that isn’t why he actually will talk to her. Cat works in her mother’s ceramics store. Cat talks to Elodie. “Have you seen Elodie in class?”

“Yeah,” she says quickly, frowning. “She’s been quieter than normal, and her mom is begging us to have her paint a design that isn’t blackberries, but she isn’t budging. What’s going on?”

Jean digs his nails into the skin of his forearm until he draws blood to keep himself from crying. “I… I am not allowed to see her anymore. Because of why I got suspended. Her adoptive parents think I am doing more harm than good.”

“Oh, fuck that,” Cat says angrily. “Everyone fucking knows that it was Riko. Do you want me to talk to her mom?”

“No, Cat, don’t,” Jean says, and he can feel the panic growing in his chest. He can’t breathe, and his ribs hurt, but if Cat tells Mrs. Miller then Tetsuji will know that he’s been talking and it’s going to get worse. He can’t endure anything more.

“Hey, easy. Breathe, Jean,” Cat says gently, as Jean sputters and struggles to draw his next breath. She wraps a hand around Jean’s wrist and taps out a rhythm. She doesn’t say anything else until he can finally breathe to the slow tapping on his wrist. “I won’t do anything that you don’t want me to. But I know something is wrong, and I want to help.”

“You can’t help,” Jean forces out. “I can’t… I have my reasons. I can’t risk something worse,” Jean says, and Cat’s eyes widen for a second before she gains control of herself.

“Do you want to write a note for Elodie? I can make sure it gets to her without her mom knowing,” Cat offers, and Jean finds himself hesitating.

“Do you think…” Jean has to force himself to continue to ask the question. “Do you think she’s right? Am I hurting her more by doing this? I know that I’m not… I know that I’m not good.”

“Jean,” Cat says seriously, and her hands are back to cupping his face, so he has to meet her dark brown eyes. “You are good. You’re one of my best friends. And you love your sister. I don’t think you have ever intentionally hurt her, nor would you.”

“I am not good,” Jean forces out. “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“Write your sister a note. I’ll make sure it gets to her,” Cat says.

“I’m writing it in French. If you try to read it, I’m never speaking to you again,” Jean says, and Cat just lets out a small, sad laugh. Jean knows that this is probably the last chance he will ever have to say anything at all to Elodie. If he’s expelled, there is no way out of the Moriyama house besides in a bodybag. And it’s not an if, but a when with Riko.

“I won’t read it, I promise,” Cat says, and she watches as Jean leans over his notebook and writes with more fervor and speed than she has ever seen in class. He folds it up himself and hands it over, and Cat just slips it into her backpack.

Jean has no idea that he has made a fatal mistake. To him, it feels like a lifeline.

Cat is grateful that she has forced Jeremy into helping with the kid’s ceramics class. Not just because he’s great with the kids, but she has time to discuss her new friend and the growing pit of dread and concern in her stomach with him while they meander through the rows of students at the wheels.

“I’m worried, Jeremy,” she says. “He looks so much worse. His skin is like… blue, and he’s even thinner than before.”

“No one saw him over break at all. Like I saw Riko and Grayson at the park or the mall a few times, but no one saw Jean,” Jeremy adds, before pausing to help a student struggling to form a bowl at the pottery wheel. “I don’t understand why he keeps taking the fall for the dumb shi—stuff Riko does.” He course corrects away from swearing at the last second, his eyes darting to the moms sitting in the front area of the store.

“I’ve got to make sure this note gets to Elodie without Mrs. Miller seeing,” Cat confesses. Elodie is at the wheel for right now, but she has already requested the same colors as always for when it’s her turn to paint, and she knows it means more blackberries are imminent. “Jean said they won’t let him see his sister. That’s super messed up.”

“We don’t know what’s all going on,” Jeremy says, always trying to see the best in people. “But I think it’s clear it’s not helping either of them. I was going to go try and talk to her, anyways. Want me to give it to her?”

“Sure,” Cat says. “I’m going to go stop the twins from making more poop brown mugs. I think their mom is running out of excuses for breaking them.”

Jeremy quietly sits down next to Elodie, who is focusing extremely hard on her task at hand, shaping a bowl. Now that Jeremy knows about the relation to the quiet and surly sophomore, it’s obvious—she has the same crease in her brow as he does when he concentrates, and both of their gazes are made of cold, gray steel when Jeremy interrupts them. “How’s it going, Elodie?”

“Bad,” she says bluntly. “I keep messing up the stupid bowl.”

“Want some help?” Jeremy offers. “What kind of shape are we trying to make?”

“Wide, like the kind for fruit,” she explains, and Jeremy knows where this is going to go. “It keeps falling down on me.”

“Wide and flat is difficult. But I’ve got some tricks,” Jeremy says, before explaining the technique. He waits until she’s got the clay spinning on the wheel again before he continues speaking. “You’ve got quite the fascination with blackberries.”

“It’s the only thing I remember with my brother, before we got separated,” she says honestly. “He would help me pick them without pricking my fingers on the bush.”

“How old is your brother? What’s he like?” Jeremy is shocked that Elodie is willing to talk to him, and so he’ll play dumb ten times over if it keeps her talking. She’s always been a sweet and quiet kid, but it’s clear that whatever is going on with Jean has her upset, too.

“He’s fifteen. His name is Jean.” It’s the only time, other than saying her own name, that Elodie allows her harsh American vowels to soften, to say her brother’s name correctly. “I haven’t seen him in two months.”

“That must be difficult,” Jeremy says, as his hands quickly move to help Elodie support the fragile clay and save another bowl from disaster.

Elodie’s eyes light up after a second, and she lets her clay fall back onto the wheel. “Wait. You’re at high school, with Catalina. Do you know him? Is he okay?”

Jeremy knows that it’s now or never. “I’d like to say that we’re friends. He did give me something for you,” Jeremy says, putting the folded notebook paper in her smock pocket so that her clay-covered hands don’t ruin it.

“I knew it,” she says quietly, her brow furrowing again as she throws the piece of clay again. “I knew they weren’t telling the truth.”

“Telling the truth about what?” Jeremy asks, but Elodie just shakes her head. She doesn’t say anything else, and so Jeremy eventually gets up and makes his way through some more students, before finding his way back to Cat.

“Mission accomplished,” he says. “She was more chatty than she has been. She figured out that we go to school with Jean, and she wanted to know more.”

“She’s a sweet kid,” Cat replies, before sighing. “Did you solve the blackberry mystery?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jeremy says. “I bet her mom knows it, too. It’s her one solid memory of Jean from before,” he explains, and Cat sighs again.

“I think we’re going to have to tell someone, if it gets worse,” she says. “I… I know that school has kind of failed him. But there’s got to be someone who can help.”

“I don’t think there’s much we can do short of, like, calling CPS or something,” Jeremy says. “Do you think it’s that bad?”

“I don’t know anymore,” Cat admits, before she’s called away to deal with another painting disaster.

Elodie still paints blackberries on her newly-fired bowl, but little ducklings make their way onto it with it this time.

Jean Moreau knows that he is going to die tonight. He can feel fever across his entire body, sending his sensation oscillating between freezing and burning, and even if he doesn’t cook his own brain in his skull, Riko is going to kill him.

He doesn’t even know why Riko is mad, at this point. It doesn’t matter what has happened to provoke his rage. It only matters that Jean is there to absorb it.

What matters is that he’s strung up by his wrists in the basement, and there is a cloth over his mouth, and he is drowning.

What matters is that he can feel his own blood running like water down the drain.

What matters is that there is no reason for him to endure, anymore. He got to tell Elodie goodbye. She will be happier in the long run, without him.

No one will mourn for Jean Moreau.

“Elodie Miller, what are you trying to hide from me?” Elodie can’t help but shrink as she tries to sneak the piece of paper out of her coat pocket and into her jeans pocket so she can take it upstairs. “Did you take something from your ceramics class?”

“No,” Elodie says quickly, hiding the paper behind her back.

“Show me what’s behind your back,” her mother presses, holding out her hand. Elodie shakes her head, and she can feel tears burning behind her eyelids. “I’m not going to ask again, Elodie.”

“Don’t take it away from me,” she blurts out, still protecting the paper against the wall. “I know you don’t like him, but please don’t take it. Please.” Her hands show the paper of their own accord, and her mother just opens the folded notebook paper and sighs.

“Who gave you this, Elodie?” she asks. “We’ve talked about this. Jean is sick, and he needs to get better before it’s safe for him to visit. He’ll be back as soon as he can.”

“You’re lying,” Elodie says, tears still streaming down her face. “I know you can’t read it. I can barely read it. So just give it back.” Elodie knows so little written French, but she knows enough to know that Jean is apologizing. And he’s saying goodbye.

“I need you to tell me what this says,” her mother says, crouching down to be at her daughter’s level. She opens her arms, and despite her anger, Elodie walks into them, still sobbing, still seeking comfort. “Elodie, it’s for your safety and Jean’s.”

“He’s not coming back,” Elodie sobs. “He said.. He said…” Elodie is crying so hard that she hiccups before she continues. “He said he’s sorry for not being here. He said that he’s trying his best. And he said goodbye.”

“What?” Josie Miller prides herself in being many things: patient, intelligent, and a good mother. She has been doing her best with a very complicated situation, but suddenly nothing makes sense. “Elodie, I need to translate this exactly. I will give it back to you after, but I need to do this now.”

By now, her husband has made his way into the tiny laundry room where they all hang their coats and this drama is unfolding, and she just hands off the note, her arms still wrapped around her daughter. “Everything is going to be okay, Elodie. But your father and I might need to make some phone calls. Are you okay to go watch tv by yourself or do you want me to come with you?”

“What’s going on?” Of course Elodie has deciphered that something about this situation has changed. “Is Jean okay?”

Josie had promised that she was never going to lie to her daughter. “Yes,” she says, and she hopes that tonight isn’t the first time she has broken that promise.

She hates having to send a sniffling Elodie to the living room by herself, but she wouldn’t be able to live with herself if this note is saying what she thinks it is and she did nothing. Mark is already typing frantically into google translate, and what’s popping up isn’t good.

“Shit,” Josie lets out. “Mark, I think we have to call 911.”

“I don’t understand,” he forces out. “I just texted Mr. Moriyama yesterday. He said that Jean was starting fights with the other boys again, and that he was lashing out and refusing to do his chores or his homework. That doesn’t make sense with this.”

Josie has a thought, one that feels like it’s been at the back of her head forever, but now that it’s at the front she can’t escape it. At the beginning, Jean had been such a sweet kid, so gentle and attentive, spending every spare minute he could get with his sister. It turns out he had been sneaking out to do it, and that’s when they actually started coordinating with Jean’s foster family. It was only then that they started hearing, from Mr. Moriyama, all of the bad things that Jean was doing. But the way that Jean acts with Elodie has never changed. He is just as kind and gentle as ever, with his little sister. So the only thing that actually changed is—

“What if we were wrong about him?” she asks quietly. “We have to call 911, Mark.”

“I’ll go outside and do it. Elodie doesn’t need to hear it,” he says, and Josie just swallows back tears. She wants to go be with her daughter, but she paces the kitchen instead, trying desperately to keep her own tears at bay. She thinks back through the years of visits, and she realizes that she has no idea how Jean gets there, because she has never seen him be dropped off or picked up. The nearest bus stop is a mile away. Based on what she knows from Mr. Moriyama, Jean hasn’t been well-behaved enough to warrant an allowance for bus tickets in a long time.

The poor kid was walking all the way across town just to see his sister, and they treated him like a stray dog that won’t stop begging for food.

Another thought sneaks its way to the front of her brain. A few months ago, Elodie had asked her why Jean always asks her if anyone has hurt her. A few months ago, Josie could chalk it up to what they know about their biological parents before their deaths, but now, she’s not so certain. What if the bruises on him were not from fights of his own making?

Josie feels sick to her stomach, and so she paces around her kitchen, trying to keep her fear contained enough to not tip off her ten-year-old daughter to the situation developing. What if she hadn’t seen the note? What if Jean hadn’t managed to deliver it?

What if it’s too late?

Miraculously, Jean Moreau returns to consciousness. It is dark, but he is still strung up from his wrists, and he can feel his blood beginning to pool beneath him. His head aches, and he has no idea if it’s a concussion or oxygen deprivation or hunger.

It takes him a few minutes to register the sirens and the flashing lights outside of the small window.

Fuck.

There’s no way the Master and Riko are home, if he is still tied up and there are actually cops about to enter the house, which means there is no way that he can free himself. If Jean is taken away without his papers, he’s fucked. Tetsuji will burn them and he’ll be shipped off somewhere far away from Elodie.

His only chance is to grab them and run.

Jean tries yelling, hoping that someone is there who understands how bad the situation is, but he’s met with silence. They must all be gone.

They’re all gone and Jean feels himself pass out when he tries to free himself.

He comes to, and he can see flashlights coming down the stairs. Jean tries not to vomit at the bright light, but he spits bile up weakly onto himself. It burns the cuts on his chest. He passes out again, right as he hears yelling.

Jean awakens, and someone has made the mistake of cutting him down. He can feel hands all over him, but Jean does not care.

He is moving before he is even fully conscious, escaping from hands that grab at him as he scrambles for the stairs. He has to move quickly, and the adrenaline is thankfully overriding whatever pain would be screaming at him, and he somehow makes it up the stairs and into Tetsuji’s office.

Someone is blocking the door by the time he pulls his file out of Tetsuji’s drawer. Jean cannot hear what they are saying over the ringing in his ears, and it does not matter.

If it’s the cops, they’re just going to put him somewhere where he’ll never get to Elodie again. If it’s the Master or Riko, there’s not much more they can do to him.

Jean waits until the figure moves to the right, and he’s darting around the Master’s desk to the left before the bulkier figure can catch up.

He sprints past more figures, dodging their hands and willing his failing body to just make it far enough away that they give up. Jean barely registers when the cold air hits him that he’s only wearing his pants, which are soggy with water and blood. His bare feet turn numb instantly upon contact with the concrete, but he can’t stop. There are way more lights and even more bodies outside, but if there’s one advantage to being thin and tall it’s that he is hard to catch.

Jean hears footsteps behind him, and he doesn’t slow down until he doesn’t hear anything at all. He needs to find a place to lay low, to make a plan, but his head is spinning and he is shivering so hard that he thinks he is going to break his teeth. Jean is familiar with the feelings of blood loss and oxygen deprivation, and he can feel them both turning the dark street into a swirling funhouse.

But he walks. He hides behind trash cans and bushes when he sees the annoyingly bright lights of cop cars, and he walks.

He’ll figure out where he’s going later.

Kevin Day’s phone goes off at the same time as his father’s, the annoying loud noise announcing some kind of alert pushed to everyone within a radius. He’s expecting a silver alert from the nursing home a few blocks away, but when he opens the notification to shut off the screeching, his face goes pale.

“Dad,” he forces out, as Wymack looks at his own phone. He can feel panic rising in his chest, constricting his lungs until Kevin doesn’t know if there’s air in the room. “We have to find him. I know where he hides. We have to—”

“Deep breaths,” Wymack says. “They’ve probably got everyone out looking for him. They’re going to find him.”

“No,” Kevin wheezes. “They don’t know him. I know where he’ll go.”

David Wymack stares at Kevin for a few seconds, before he reaches for his car keys. “Fine. Let’s go.”

All David knows is that Jean Moreau is a bruise buried deep beneath his son’s skin, one that feels like it’s never going to heal. He won’t talk about him, or the Moriyamas, but based on today, David is going to start having to ask questions.

But that can wait until they know that Jean hasn’t bled out or frozen in a ditch.

Jean realizes two things, after a while stumbling in the snow: first, his feet are trying to carry him to Elodie, and second, that he is not going to make it there.

He has finally found the end of the line.

His feet feel wet and slippery, and his limbs, forever cold, are finally warm. Jean is so tired, and the snow drift looks incredibly warm and comfortable.

Too bad Kevin Day has to fucking ruin it.

Jean knows that he’s hallucinating, but he laughs at how much even his own brain hates him. Why couldn’t he conjure Elodie in his final moments? Even Cat or Jeremy would be better than Kevin.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” fake-Kevin threatens, as Jean sinks down onto the snow. It feels so good against the burning and weeping cuts on his back. “You made a promise. You’re not lying down and dying now.”

“Fuck off, Kevin,” Jean whines. “I’m not dying talking to you.”

“Then get the fuck up,” the mirage says. “I know you hear the sirens. Let yourself be found.”

“No. ‘Cause Elodie,” Jean slurs, and he feels not-Kevin’s hands roughly grab his cheeks. “Not getting moved away from her.”

“Death is a whole lot fucking farther than a town away,” Kevin says, but Jean’s eyelids are so heavy. “No, Jean. You’re not going to sleep. Wake up. You’re not leaving me.”

“Didn’t know you cared, Kevin,” Jean mumbles. The snow feels like a warm blanket around him, and the roaring in his ears sounds so much like the Mediterranean sea against the rocks in Marseilles. Jean lets the noise lull him into sleep.

Jean’s senses return one by one. He can feel something rough around him, but it does nothing to cut into the freezing cold gluing his limbs together and making them too heavy to move. There is something burning hot on his face. He can hear shouting, but he can’t piece together what is being said. He can taste his own blood in his mouth. When he finally manages to open his eyes, he can see a blurry face he’d recognize anywhere directly above his own, their heat of their palms on his cheeks burning them.

“Fuck off, Kevin,” Jean mumbles.

“Jean? Jean, can you hear me?” Kevin asks, and Jean wants to know why his brain has conjured a mirage of a Kevin Day that looks scared. “Help is on the way. Stay awake.”

“Go away. You’re not real,” Jean whines, and he tries to roll his head so he doesn’t have to see him, but something holds his head in place. Oh. If he’s not a hallucination—

“Not hallucinating. Keep your eyes open, Jean. That is an order,” Kevin says. Kevin clearly isn’t expecting Jean to try and launch himself up to standing, because he falls backwards into the snow, and Jean is free to try and scramble away. But as soon as he’s on his hands and knees, he feels heat rush to his head and his body collapses beneath him. All Jean knows is that he cannot afford to wait for whoever else is coming. He needs to go now, and it has him trying to force uncooperative limbs to crawl through the snow.

“Dad—”

“I’ve got him,” a gruff voice says, and then there are hands on Jean’s biceps, pulling him back and re-cocooning him in whatever rough material had trapped him before. Jean struggles, but his limbs won’t cooperate, and his arms are trapped too tightly to his own chest to be effective, anyways. “Jean. You need to stop. Focus on staying awake. Can you tell me your full name?”

“I’ve gotta go,” Jean pants. “Where are my papers? Did you take them?”

“I’ve got them,” Kevin says, reappearing in Jean’s field of vision. “I’ll keep them safe.” He looks like he’s going to keep speaking, but suddenly there are lots of red and blue lights, and he just swears. “Jean, they’re going to help you. You have to let them help you. Do not fight them.”

“S’not worth it,” Jean slurs out. “M’not gonna make it. Kevin, you gotta…” Jean coughs, and he tastes iron in his mouth. He licks his lips to try and wet them enough to keep speaking. “Elodie. Take care of Elodie. Promise me.”

“I promise,” Kevin says. “But you’re going to be okay.”

Suddenly, there are a lot more people, and Kevin is finally gone. Jean lets his eyes roll back, and he is about to give in to the darkness creeping in on the edges of his vision when he feels hands all over him. As soon as he’s extracted from whatever he was wrapped in, Jean tries to roll away from them, from the pressing and the grabbing and the holding, but the moon is disappearing behind the swarm of bodies, and there is only darkness and more hands.

“Non,” Jean begs, as something is forced over his face. He turns his head away from it, but hands just grab onto his neck and hold it still. Jean still begs, but they are not listening, and his words are trapped in whatever is covering his nose and mouth. “Elodie. You gotta… Elodie.”

He just repeats her name over and over again, even as he feels himself being strapped down to something and lifted onto something else. He cannot move. He is going to die, and they are not listening.

“We hear you, Jean. We hear you,” a gentle voice says, reaching for his hand as his body is moved towards the whirlpool image of red and blue light. “Keep talking, Jean. Stay awake just a little while longer.”

“Elodie,” Jean repeats. He is so cold. His eyes are closing, and he cannot fight to reopen them anymore. He is too tired.

“Tell me about her,” the voice continues, and the pressure on his hand becomes tighter, forcing him back from the edge of unconsciousness. “Keep your eyes open, Jean. You’re doing so well. Just a little while longer.”

But Jean has been fighting for too long. He has nothing left, and he gives in to sleep. Jean Moreau’s last thought is of a dress adorned with little ducklings, a blackberry bush, and a girl with curly black hair.

Jean will only ever have flashes of the days that follow. He has images of bright lights flashing by, gloved hands holding his own, covered in wires and bandages and a large, clear, unpeelable nuisance covering an IV, blurry, masked faces, and the sensation of being unable to breathe.

The next time he truly awakens, it is sudden. There is blackness, and then he is wide awake, and he is apparently in the middle of a conversation.

Jean Moreau feels nothing except the same coldness that’s been there since November. He can’t feel his own nose on his face, much less his fingers or legs or whatever wounds he certainly possesses. Consciousness is moving slower than it should, his eyes dragging themselves across the many gloved hands and masked faces in the room slower than they should.

That’s when it hits him. Hospital. He is so fucked. He needs to go, he needs to get up. Why can’t he move?

“Jean? Are you back with us?” a gentle voice asks.

“I need to leave,” Jean croaks out, but it comes out muffled behind the mask on his face. He tries reaching a heavy arm to take it off, but his limb gives up less than halfway there, and there is a hand circling his wrist and bringing it back down to the mattress, anyway. “You need to let me go.”

“Don’t try to talk. Save your energy,” the same voice urges. “Can you squeeze my hand if you’re in pain?” No one has ever spoken to Jean Moreau like it matters if he is hurting.

Jean is not in pain. He can’t feel anything beyond the numb coldness in every single one of his bones. But he does not have time for these games. He forces his other arm to cooperate, and he drags the mask on his face down to his neck. “Elodie,” he says clearly, and then he is coughing harshly. “I need to see Elodie.” Jean cannot draw oxygen in his lungs around the coughing fit, but he keeps trying to force her name out of his mouth.

He blinks, and the mask is back over his face, and his limbs feel even heavier. “Leave it on. You’re very sick, Jean.”

That doesn’t make sense. He was hurt, not sick. Except for the infected wounds. Oh. “We’ll let you see Elodie as soon as we can. For now, try and get some rest.”

Jean feels like he blinks, and he is in a different room, and Kevin Day is staring at him from a chair down by his hip while his father reads a book on the couch a few feet back. “What the fuck are you doing here?” Jean’s voice is little more than a hoarse whisper, but it’s finally intelligible, now that there’s no oxygen mask.

“You almost died,” Kevin says, and he reaches for Jean’s hand. Jean flinches back, and Kevin doesn’t try for it again. Jean’s skin looks almost blue against the white sheets, and his arms are littered with stitches and bandages from whatever Riko did to him before he tried to drown him. “I thought you were dead.”

“It didn’t stick,” Jean says, and his eyes dart over when Wymack lets out an awkward cough clearly meant to cover a snort. “I need to go. Do you have my stuff?”

“Not happening.” That’s Wymack. “Your paperwork is safe with your social worker. Did you know you gave six cops and three EMTs the slip?”

“Is Elodie okay?” Jean asks, already irritated with this conversation. “I’m fine now. I need to know what’s happening—I can’t be moved to a different foster family.”

“You sure as hell aren’t going back to the Moriyamas,” Wymack says. “And if you leave now, you won’t see your sister. She’s here to see you.” Jean tries sitting up, but his body won’t cooperate, and he can tell from the throbbing and spinning in his head that he lost consciousness again. “I wouldn’t try that again. There’s a remote by your hand.”

Jean slowly reaches a bandaged finger to press the button and get himself as upright as he can be without his ribs revolting. “Then get out and let Elodie in here. I don’t want to talk to either of you.”

“Dad is trying to help you,” Kevin says. “He’s the one arguing with your social worker. Don’t be a dick.”

“I didn’t fucking ask for either of your help, in fact I think I explicitly told you to fuck off,” Jean wheezes. “They’ve already stitched me up. Why won’t they let me leave?”

“Because we found you bleeding and freezing to death in a snow drift, Jean,” Wymack says dryly. “You were hypothermic and fully in septic shock. Your body temperature still isn’t back to normal, and several of your wounds still need around the clock care.”

“I want to see Elodie,” Jean says stubbornly.

“We can arrange that,” Wymack says, sighing. “Full disclosure, you need an adult in here at all times. I don’t care if you don’t want it to be me, but that’s an option. With Elodie it can be one of her adoptive parents, or it can be a sitter. What’s your pick?”

Jean clenches his jaw hard enough that he hears it pop. A sitter could know French. Jean fucking hates the Millers. “You.” The word is ripped from his throat.

“Don’t sound too excited,” Wymack says without any malice in his voice. “Kevin, go let Cat and Elodie in.” Jean glares at his old friend his whole way to the door. He refuses to look at Kevin’s father, who is staring steadfastly at Jean. “Are you warm enough, kid? You can have another blanket if you want.”

“I’m fine,” Jean says, even though he can feel his shoulders starting to shake with familiar shivers. Wymack just sighs and grabs another blanket anyways.

But then the door is opening again, and Cat is holding Elodie’s hand and leading her into the room. Elodie’s eyes are wide, but she is slow and hesitant in her approach. Jean feels relief flood through his chest so strongly that it makes him dizzy. Elodie is okay. She’s healthy and warm and okay.

“Come here,” Jean beckons in French. “You’re not going to hurt me.” Elodie just looks hesitantly back at Cat, who holds onto her hand a little tighter.

“Strict orders, Moreau,” she says. “Your doctors will kill me if I let her up on your broken ribs.”

“I will be fine,” Jean says. “Why are you here?”

“It’s good to see you, too,” she says, but she just takes a seat on the couch next to David Wymack. Now isn’t the time to explain that her adoptive parents needed someone to be there for Elodie, given Jean’s barely-alive status and the scary hospital equipment, but they knew it couldn’t be them, for Jean’s sake. Cat was the perfect alternative.

Elodie continues to approach, and Jean musters all of his energy to reach his arm out and link his fingers with Elodie’s. “Mom says I’ll hurt you if I hug you,” she whispers, her face as close to Jean’s as it can be.

Jean manages a small chuckle. “You could never hurt me.” And then Elodie hesitantly wraps both of her small arms as around him as she can get, and she buries her face into his collarbone. She accidentally presses into places that hurt, but Jean doesn’t even groan. She pulls back quickly, though, but she leaves her hand holding his own. “I’m sorry that I missed my visits, Elodie.”

“I don’t care about that,” she says in English, and she looks away because she can feel tears beading up in her eyes again. “You’re hurt. And you always said you have to tell someone if you’re hurt. And you didn’t.”

“I’m okay, Elodie,” Jean says, but he is struggling to keep his own tears back. For the last two months, all he has wanted has been to see his sister. It’s like all of the fight leaves him, but it’s replaced with the heavy weight of his own failure. He can see how upset his sister is, and it’s his fault. “Elodie, look at me.” He waits until her watery gray eyes find their way back to his own. “I’ll be okay. I’m already feeling a lot better.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Cat says from the couch. “Not a single person, least of all your little sister, is going to believe that.”

“I’ve been pretty good at it for the last three years,” he says icily to Cat, but Elodie squeezes his hand, so he lets it drop. “Have you been practicing your French? Tell me all about what I’ve missed. How was your history project? What have you made at ceramics class?”

“I don’t…” Elodie takes a shaky breath. “I got your note. I thought you’d left.” A tear falls from her eyes, and Jean tries to reach enough to wipe it away with his other hand, but he has to swallow back bile at the pain of crossing his arm across his chest, and he aborts the motion and has to spend several minutes trying to regain control of his own breathing as the pain slowly recedes from agonizing to manageable.

Elodie looks like she’s seen a ghost. Jean hates himself for doing that to her.

“Elodie, I’m sorry,” Jean says, when he can breathe well enough to speak. “Come here. If you sit next to me, it won’t hurt.” And he glares at Wymack and Cat as Elodie carefully climbs onto the bed to sit next to him. Jean raises a heavy hand to gently readjust her braid, his fingers lingering on the curly ends until his arm will not stay up a second longer. “I am sorry. I am not leaving you. I promise.”

Elodie bites her lip hard, and Jean knows that she is trying her hardest not to cry, because he would do the same thing when he was younger. It hurts, but his sister needs him right now, and so he wraps his arms around her, and he lets her cry it out.

“Jean,” Cat says after a minute, her voice full of warning. Immediately, Elodie sits up, and Jean cannot hide the pain in his face. In an instant, Elodie is back next to Cat, her face terrified. Jean never wants to see her look like that again. Cat is running a soothing hand down Elodie’s back, but he can see her start to panic.

“I’m fine,” he pants. “That was my fault. Elodie, I’m okay.”

“You need to get better,” she says seriously. “You’re hurt. I don’t want to hurt you more.”

“I’m trying my best,” Jean promises. “I’ll be as good as new in a few days. And then maybe we can have another visit. We can go to the park by your house, and we’ll go sledding.” He holds out his pinky, and Elodie hesitantly approaches to complete the promise. Jean doesn’t miss the look that Cat sends him, but he meets her gaze and dares her to call him on his lie.

“I think that might be our cue,” Cat says quietly. She puts her hands on Elodie’s shoulders, but she lingers for a moment next to Jean. “You and I need to talk later.”

“Wait, don’t—” Jean is not above begging, and he wants time with Elodie. It is the one thing that he has never been allowed.

“We’ll be back later,” she promises. “Right, Elodie?”

Elodie just nods. “Feel better.”

“Be good. I love you,” Jean says in return, before he can’t suppress the shivering any longer. He would rather bite his own tongue off than ask Kevin’s father to do something about it, though.

Wymack, for his part, quietly stands just long enough to press the button to summon a nurse before retreating back to the couch. “You should lay back down. I can see your chest working to breathe from over here.”

“F… fuck off,” Jean stammers out. “If you know everything, tell me what’s happening.”

“You’re never going back to the Moriyamas,” Wymack says seriously. “Your social worker is considering a few different options right now. We’ve got the time to consider it, because you’re not going to be discharged for a while, kid.”

“I won’t be moved away from Elodie. And I’m fine now.” Even Jean can hear his own teeth chattering, and by the time that someone in scrubs is entering the room, he has curled himself up as tightly as he can, and he still can’t feel warm.

“We’re doing our best,” Wymack says. “Every option she’s considering is in town. But you have to think about yourself here, Jean.”

“I doubt anything will be worse than the Moriyamas,” Jean says. “I don’t care. Keep me close to Elodie. Anything is bound to be a step up.”

“Do you think Elodie wants to see you keep being hurt?” Wymack knows that this is a low blow, and it could backfire, but from his perspective the only thing that this kid cares about is his sister, and he’s not above using it as leverage. “If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for her.”

“I can endure,” Jean says, and he can hear his teeth chatter. The nurse is adjusting various bags hanging from the IV stand, and she frowns when she takes his temperature.

“Oh, you’ve got to be freezing, honey,” she says. “Let’s try some more warm saline and the electric blanket again.” Jean is too tired to stop her from adjusting his blankets so he is bundled up practically up to his chin.

“He’s in pain, too. He almost threw up when he tried to reach across his chest,” Wymack informs her, and she just tuts and adjusts another IV pump. Jean feels weights sit on his eyelids within seconds, but he still manages a glare at Kevin’s father.

“Go away,” Jean says, but Wymack just leans back and picks up his book again. He subtly watches as Jean’s eyes close against his will and the tension leaves his bruised face, and then he lets out the sigh he’s been holding in the entire time Jean was awake.

He doesn’t know how anyone is going to get it through that kid’s skull that he isn’t out of the woods yet, and that recovering from this is going to take months, not days. Jean Moreau is all of fifteen years old, and he looks it, pale and small and frail, buried underneath several blankets and curled into as tight of a ball as he can manage with his injuries. He has the scars of a prison camp survivor and the attitude of a dying man, and Wymack knows that his sister is the only thing that is tying him to survival. Wymack had thought that he and Kevin had found a body on the side of that road, and still Jean had fought to try and escape to get to her.

It feels wrong to continue to dangle her in front of him, like a scrap of food in front of a starving dog. But it’s the only leverage they have right now, and so if visits from her are what keeps him in bed and cooperating, they have to use it.

It’s a weird twist of fate that has Jean Moreau awaiting a knock at the door signaling Elodie’s arrival. He still doesn’t know what to make of the Rhemann’s house, nor the older couple supposedly in charge of him from now until he turns eighteen. Jean had offered to walk to the Millers, the same as always, and now it’s only about a mile away. But then there had been a lecture about healing and his energy and he had to bite his cheek to keep himself from rolling his eyes disrespectfully.

When the doorbell rings, Jean rockets to his feet, only for his arm to wrap around his ribs with a hiss. He finally was set free from the hospital a week ago, but he still has several sets of stitches and broken ribs making themselves known a lot more without the good pain medication.

“Sit down. I’ll get the door and some more ice for your ribs,” James Rhemann says, giving Jean a pointed look until he eases back onto the couch.

Jean hates how slowly Elodie approaches him still, and he has to bite his own cheek to stop himself from saying something terrible when he sees that both of the Millers have also made their way into the living room. “How many times do I have to insist that I’m better before you’ll believe me?”

Thankfully, that’s all it takes before Elodie is wrapping Jean up in a hug, practically diving onto the couch next to him. He wraps his arms around her smaller frame, but he does accept the towel-wrapped ice pack from his new guardian and stuffs it underneath his baggy sweatshirt to ease the fire building on the right side of his body. James and Lila have already made themselves scarce, but the Millers awkwardly sit down.

“Can we have a word with you?” Mrs. Miller asks. “Maybe Elodie can go put the drawings and mugs she brought in your room while we talk.”

Jean knows what this has to be—another negotiation. He wants to refuse, because these are the people who barred him from seeing his sister and believed every single lie the Master had told them, but he will not take the chance that they will take her away from him again. So he nods, and he whispers directions in French so Elodie knows where to go, and where she can find Jean’s sole possession from their childhood—a storybook in French for her to read.

“What do you want?” he asks bluntly, as soon as he is confident that Elodie is out of earshot. “Am I still allowed once a month visits? Or is that too frequent for you?”

“Jean, we want to apologize to you,” Mr. Miller says. “Our behavior was abhorrent, and we should have believed you. You have never been anything but an amazing older brother to Elodie, and we failed to see that.”

“I don’t care about that. You don’t owe me anything,” he says honestly. “I just need to know that I can see my sister.”

“Of course you can,” Mrs. Miller says quickly. “You can see each other as often as you want. Obviously, she still has class and activities and stuff. And…” She takes a steadying breath. “You have to take care of yourself. You’re still recovering, and if you’re too tired, or you’re hurting—”

“This is the healthiest I’ve been in three years,” Jean dismisses. “It isn’t an issue. I will see her as often as I am allowed.”

“That’s the problem, kid,” Mr. Miller says. “You’re important to Elodie, and we know that you have sacrificed a lot to remain in her life. And we want you in her life for a long time. So your health is important.”

Jean does not know how to explain to these people that he is inconsequential. He doesn’t know why they’re wasting their time apologizing to him, when all he needs to know is how much of Elodie’s life he is allowed to participate in. Jean would make the same choices over and over again, just to keep the memories he has, the scraps of her life that he has collected over the years.

“Elodie is happy with you,” Jean says, instead of engaging with what was said. “That’s all that matters, is her being happy and healthy. I will be as much of a part of it as I am allowed. I know that I’m not… the Master was not always lying. I am not good in school. I am not well-behaved. I’m not good, and I don’t want to ruin her.”

Josie Miller feels her heart break a thousand times over. The past month, from that terrifying night to the week of waiting that followed, hoping and praying that, somehow, Jean was going to make it, has branded one thought in her brain: it could have just as easily been Elodie. It was her only thought when her daughter would leave her brother’s hospital room in tears but begging to be let back in, because he was in pain and sick and she couldn’t make it better, but all he wanted was for her to be able to stay.

It could have been her kid on the other side of that situation.

“We want you in her life as much as you want to be,” Mr. Miller says. “You were doing your best in a terrible situation, and we are never going to fault you for that. We’d prefer if you communicated with your guardians, too, so that everyone knows that everyone else is safe. We are so sorry, Jean, for the way that we have treated you, and for any part we’ve had in making you think that way about yourself.”

Jean just nods, and he bows his head towards his clasped hands so that he can blink back his tears without the Millers seeing.

Kindness is a new thing for him. Before waking up in the hospital, no one had ever spoken to Jean like he was more than a problem or a stray dog begging to be let inside. He knows that he is worth nothing, and he has no idea how to respond when, suddenly, he is surrounded by adults speaking to him like it matters if he’s hurting or if he is treated with malice. Moreaus have always deserved the violence that they receive. It is the penance they have to pay for being born.

He doesn’t know what to do with the Miller’s words, the same way he doesn’t know what to do with the Rhemanns when they talk to him like his opinion on dinner is worth considering. Jean will eat anything that he is freely given, at this point.

Jean has never been allowed to need anything, much less want.

But then Elodie comes back down the stairs holding Le Petit Prince, and she admits her French is not good enough to read it. So Jean reads to her in French, pausing to point out certain words so she can remember the way that they look.

He is the one who runs out of energy first, and Elodie pulls back from where she has curled into his uninjured side when she hears him stifle a yawn for the third time. “Bedtime,” she orders, like it isn’t barely into the afternoon.

“It is early, little duckling,” he says, but Elodie has got the stubborn look on her face that means she will not be moved.

“You’re tired. I will see you after ceramics class. I am making you a vase,” she says decisively. “Sleep well.”

“I think Elodie is evicting herself,” Jean says to the Millers, who are sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee with his guardians. Jean is trying not to be anxious about what they could be discussing in regards to him. “Take the book with you, Elodie. You can read to me next time.”

There will be a next time.

That is all the hope that Jean needs to subsist. He has always survived on the morsels of food and warmth and affection that others would have otherwise discarded—quiet jokes with Kevin in that dismal basement, snacks and Tylenol from Cat in class, sitting in the Miller’s kitchen in winter—and he has survived despite it all.

Elodie used to love picking dandelions, even though Jean would remind her that all they are is weeds. She used to say that she loved them more because other people thought they were weeds.

Jean is a dandelion caught between the cement panels of a sidewalk. He was never supposed to survive this long, but he has turned his face to the little sunlight he could find and refused to die.

He hasn’t lost Elodie. There is enough good in him left that she still wants to see him.

That is enough reason for Jean Moreau to continue to turn his face towards the sun and soak in as much of it as he can take.

He had survived terrible things to stay in Elodie’s life.

Surviving the uncertain future, after all of that, is an easy task. And he’d do it all ten times over if it meant she would never endure any of it. He will survive this, because he wants to go to her school music concerts and take her to her ceramics class and be a part of her life like he hasn’t been in three years. He will survive this, because he wants to watch her grow up and he doesn’t want to miss another second of it. He will survive this.

For Elodie.