Chapter Text
~~
Jeremy hears the whistle first.
Oddly enough.
Its as if his body is so slow to recognize what is happening, that the shrill sound travels through time and space to before the illegal check even occurs.
And then its just pain.
Firing hot from the back of his head to his temple, as his skull collides with the ground, unprotected. He doesn't even have a moment to figure out where his helmet has gone, as the force of his impact frees his legs from between the two Binghampton players, where a fight is beginning to break out directly over top of him.
Panic fills him instantly, and he struggles to get his limbs to cooperate, to get him to a safe distance, but his muscles are sluggish and near-unresponsive, vision swimming unhelpfully as his head throbs.
Someone's foot falls a few inches from his fingertips, and Jeremy instinctively curls in on himself to avoid getting trampled, and then-
A cacophonous sound, equipment and bodies going flying, and a few tell tale thumps of bodies hitting the ground, and Jeremy chances looking back up to find Jean standing above him, apparently having hit the pack hard enough to send most of them sprawling.
Number 29, starting backliner Jean Moreau, is yelling something venomous to the fallen players, and then something worse to the ref, and from this angle looks like some kind of greek god in exy gear. Tall and imposing, muscles tense and ready for impact.
“Jean.” It is too loud for Jeremy to hear himself, so he opts to clumsily get his hand to Jean's ankle and try to get his attention, ignoring the throbbing roar of blood in his temples as he does so. “Jean.”
This time, he's met with silver eyes, as Jean turns to him and drops down to his level on one knee. “Knox, are you alright?” Its difficult to get a read on him through his helmet, but there's a bit of a wild look to his eyes, anger gone just a bit too close to deadly.
Shit.
Jeremy doesn't respond right away, trying to assess the damage himself. He brings his hand to his head, trying to feel where he had hit, but his fingers are too clumsy to get his glove off. The roar of the crowd is deafening, and it reverberates around his aching skull until he starts to feel nauseous.
And then his hand is gently pulled away, and Jeremy watchs Jean bite into the velcro of his own glove and rip it off, before running gentle fingers across the back of his head. It stings, even as soft as it is, but it does not hurt nearly as bad as the noise and bright lights of the exy court.
He can't stop the wince though, and it double folds with the worried look Jean sends him, now tangling with an obvious bit of guilt.
“Concussion. My helmet-I...” Jeremy can hear the slight slur of his own words, and tries his best to carefully speak again. “I think I'm okay.”
Jean treats him to a withering glare, unimpressed, before his expression pales slightly, and Jeremy does not have to guess as to why. The backliner pulls his hand from Jeremy's skull, holding it in front of him so he can see as well.
Red.
Slick and bright, coating Jean's fingers.
And then he is being hauled up, arms circling his shoulders and knees, as Jean hefts him easily into his hold and stands, walking briskly... somewhere.
The sudden change in position and altitude has Jeremy's blood rushing promptly to the ache at the back of his head, and the screeching pain at his temples. Vertigo sparks along him, and he closes his eyes against the swimming sea of people in the audience.
Still.
“I can walk.” Doubtful. But his pride demands it be said regardless.
Jean lets out a slew of curses in french, several that Jeremy already learned over the course of several months. Mostly 'what the fuck', and 'fucking idiot', but he gets the gist. “Incredible that you think it is up for debate, Captain. Moreso that you think I care.”
They must make it near the Trojan's bench, because they are instantly swarmed by the medical team as Jeremy is pulled gently from Jean's arms, and Jeff and Ashley get him seated to check his vitals, while Binh runs up with a stretcher. Jean moves to return to the court, but Jeremy manages to snag a hand in the grate of his helmet, pulling him weakly back down, but he comes back nonetheless.
“Do not get carded for this.” He tries his best to be intimidating, but no doubt misses the mark by a mile with how sick he feels.
Jean matches his stare intently for a moment, head cocked slightly. “Jeremy-”
“Jean.” He grimaces as he feels a gauze pack being held tight against his head, teeth gritting against the pressure. “Promise me. Please.”
Jean holds his gaze a moment longer, before blowing his breath out with aggravation. “Fine.” And then his expression shifts. Just slightly. A bit of a glint to his eyes, and a grin trying to tug at the corner of his mouth.
Jeremy knows that look well enough. Has seen it dozens of times before when he played opposite Jean on the Ravens. He knows what it means, but he can't do anything to stop it as he watches Jean striding back onto the court, leaning in to speak to Rhemann as he deals with the onslaught of penalties and referee debates.
“Jesus Christ.” He says to no one in particular as he is loaded carefully onto the stretcher. Though Jeff does catch his eye, and sends a concerned look over his shoulder to the court.
“You think he is going to hurt them?” The team medic undoes his guards and footgear, grabbing one end of the stretcher to carry him off to a waiting ambulance.
Jeremy shakes his head, and instantly regrets the movement before throwing his forearm across his eyes to block out the light. “Worse.”
“He's going to humiliate them.”
~~
He is heavily sedated for his MRI, thank god.
His claustrophobia has been written in his file in bold print, but some doctors in the past have taken that as a suggestion, and have unfortunately only found out the depths of it when he had busted out of a room at light speed with his ass hanging out of a gown.
No such trauma for either party this time.
So he remains pleasantly loopy as he is settled into a room, with lights and machine monitors turned off other than one small lamp behind a corner. Jeff and Binh are speaking with the medical team just outside, when the door opens to his room and Laila pokes her head in. “Hey Capitano. Up for some company?”
Jeremy relaxes into the bed and lifts one arm to make a grabby hand at her. “Laila.” He grins as she quietly shuts the door behind her before grabbing a chair to take a seat beside him.
His vice-captain stretches as she sits, hair a damp mess from the showers and tied haphazardly in a bun. “How's the noggin?”
He sighs, and tries not to sound like he is whining. “19 stitches, bad. Concussion, worse.” Though currently there are enough meds running through his system that he can't be bothered to even acknowledge the pain. Small miracles. “You know the drill. No screen time for 5 days. No strenuous activity. Etcetera. I'm supposed to be cleared to go home tomorrow morning, and come back if any symptoms get worse.”
She nods, leaning back and propping her feet up on his bed. “Think you can stomach watching a couple seconds from the game highlights clip? There is something you might want to see involving your backliner.”
Jeremy eyes her warily. “Dear god. Did he kill someone?” Jean promised, and he is not one to break that kind of thing but... “And he's not mine.”
“Sure, whatever you say Bossman.” Laila grins and waves her phone in his direction. “I'm sure he will tell you himself, once the coaches are done yelling at him, and he's done with the press, that is.”
“Jean is doing press?” He reaches a hand out to snag her phone, and she passes it to him with a quiet laugh. “Who let that happen?!”
“Well, after the stunt he pulled tonight, he didn't really have a choice.” Laila eyes him speculatively, “A bit of vengeance looked good on him, even I will admit.”
Jeremy ignores her in favour of pulling up the highlights reel from the game. She had already put the brightness all the way down, but even the dim phone light is enough to strain his eyes, and he blinks rapidly with a grimace.
He scrolls through the start of the game, right up until the fight, where he gets to watch himself get slammed into the floor in vivid technicolour. Its rough to see, especially from the outside, that he really does not move for several seconds after hitting the ground.
Though it is doubly impressive to watch Jean clear the court in a few strides and slam into the backliner/dealer mess standing above him. The resulting scatter stops the fight entirely, as Trojans and Bearcats alike are sent sprawling to the ground as well.
“He might be wasted on Exy, you know. Maybe he should be playing Rugby.” He knows enough about Jean to know why that is an impossibility, but still.
Laila waves a hand at him. “Like I said, nothing fuels that man quite like spite. Skip past the penalty shots and the break, that's where the fun starts.”
Jeremy does as she says, pausing to see that they had climbed to a 9-6 lead after the shots, before hitting play once more.
He cuts in as Laila cracks a poor shot back up to Jean, who passes to Alvarez and the pair of them travel the ball between them through the players right up the court. Normal play, except when Jean would normally pass to Jeremy, or, currently, Maddox who had subbed in for him, Jean keeps going instead. He ricochets the ball of the wall, weaving around the opposing striker and taking a shot nearly from half court that-
“No fucking way.”
-the goalie does not see coming, as it fires around a backliner's shoulder, and goes in. Jeremy can see the moment of confusion, as Bennett hears the buzzer, and looks down as his goal turns red, before the crowd goes absolutely insane. Jeremy can see Rhemann on the sidelines, grinning, even as he pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers, as well as the other two coaches in similar states. Especially Jimenez, who is holding his defensive play whiteboard against his forehead like he is attempting to pray to it.
“Holy shit.” Backliner goals are not unheard of, but they are usually under specific circumstances. Lines being pushed back close to their goal, injured strikers or no open passes, that sort of thing. This was not that. “That was...”
“The sexiest thing you've ever seen?” Laila smirks at the dry look Jeremy sends her way. “Look, I may not run on his side of the road, but even I have eyes. I think your gay ass would have dropped dead if you had seen that in person.”
Probably true.
The camera focuses on Jean, walking back to his normal end of the court with no obvious celebration other than to clack sticks with Alvarez and resume play.
But Jeremy knows the steely set to his eyes as does so, and the cocky satisfaction is a look that takes his breath away for a moment. It is not difficult to remember what Jean once looked like when he first arrived at USC. Hollow-eyed and full of nothing but pain and despair. But he put in the work, both for the Trojans, and for himself, and now that grayscale Jean is only a ghost, and the person standing in his place is nothing short of breathtaking.
“It is not his exy skill that I find attractive, Dermott.” Mostly. Usually. The past ten minutes notwithstanding.
She points an accusatory finger his way. “A-hah! So you do find him attractive at least.”
Jeremy is suddenly unbearably grateful for the dimly lit room, which is likely hiding the extent of the flush crawling up his neck. “It is hardly new news. The ocean is blue. Jean Moreau is a giant sexy skyscraper. Its just a fact.” Jeremy sighs, leaning his aching head back against his pillows. “I am his captain, and his roommate, he is hot like a stove with a 'do not touch' sign on it, and I am not going to cross that boundary. Besides which, aesthetic appeal is not the thing that does it for me, or I would have drowned as a freshman at USC.”
Laila stands and places her hands on her hips, broad shouldered like a bouncer. “Oh captain, my captain. I love you dearly, but sometimes you are as dumb as they come.”
Jeremy gawks at her, more than a little offended, but doesn't pull his sore brain together enough to respond before she makes it to the door.
“He is picking you up tomorrow. Godspeed trying to escape a recovery regime under Jean's care.” She turns back to him with goading look. "He did that twice, by the way. Scored again 3 seconds before the clock ran down. I thought Jimenez was going to have an aneurysm." Laila waves her phone at him with a grin, before shooting him a wink and quietly shutting the door behind her.
Jeremy hears the click of the latch, and closes his eyes in defeat.
~~