#Laila: “Jean we need to know your blood type if you're ever really hurt. Are you sure it's not Hollandaise?”

[jtl-fics]

Fluent Freshman - Part 42

PREV

There are things that change a person.

Moments where after they happen they simply cannot un-happen. Things that a person hears that they cannot un-hear. Promises that a person makes that they can’t, and perhaps even wouldn’t, un-make.

Jeremy’s moment came over winter break the previous year. Jeremy heard things that he could never un-hear in the middle of the night. Jeremy made a promise that he would never break while in the guest room of his parent’s house holding one Jean Moreau tight as he talked about the Nest.

Jeremy was different after that night.

Not wildly different. Not to most.

The only ones who knew had also had a moment, had also heard things, and had also made promises that they intended to keep.

Jeremy is on his way back from the bathroom with a freshly washed handkerchief from the Fox’s most promising Freshman when it all happens. 

He watches Richard throw a glass on the ground and go for Caleb’s throat which in all honesty he had been anticipating since he’d seen the seating arrangements. Sitting the Jackals with the Terrapins? After Caleb seduced Alyssa during the Fall Banquet? Who thought that was a good idea?

Jeremy sees FF and sees that he is alone and wonders where Michael had gone off to. He’s glad that FF has stayed put, the guys quiet but he’s not bad company. Jeremy thinks he would have gotten along pretty well with Jean if he hadn’t flubbed the recruitment.

“He just got a restraining order against that step-brother of his.” Aaron Minyard says explaining the awkward air after Jeremy had spoken. “He’s a Fox.” he adds and Jeremy had felt foolish in that moment.

It should have been obvious.

He hears a scream and sees that one of the Terrapins has joined in the brawl and he has one of the steak knives.

What was the point of that when they had pre-sliced tenderloin anyways? He looks over and sees Anita Flores watching the evening start to go down in flames and all he can think is that she’ll probably do better next time. It’s the first banquet she’s run on her own since Claire retired in the fall.

His eyes go to Jean when he hears another scream.

He can see Laila with Jean and Kevin. He can see Alvarez making her way to the two of them. The Trojans know better after last Winter Banquet. They come together and don’t make it obvious that Jean is at the center of their formation.

He sees Melissa get punched when she tries to get between Richard and Caleb. He’s sure she probably just doesn’t like having this kind of violence at her stadium but getting directly between Richard and Caleb wasn’t her smartest move.

Oh Jacob took exception to that. Well Jeremy can hardly blame the guy when his girlfriend and Captain gets punched like that. Caleb’s just lucky that she’s not dating Malcolm any-

Oh Malcolm is getting in on it. I guess he does still have feelings for Melissa. They had been real cute until he cheated on her. He thinks Melissa is better off with Jacob but who knows.

He looks to Jean again and sees that Kevin is leaving the Trojan encirclement and can see the other Foxes start to head for the exit as the fighting grows more intense. He sees Andrew holding Neil’s hand in a vice grip and-

Oh, of course they’d be anxious here. Of course the Foxes were on edge.

He looks and FF is still sat at the table seemingly unbothered by the chaos erupting around him. He watches as the Foxes make their way to the table where FF is sat. Sees them gathering their belongings and sees FF remain seated, eyes on them and then on the chaos.

Ah, the rearguard.

He nods and diverts his attention back to the mess at hand. Honestly Caleb shouldn’t bait Richard and Richard should be glad that he didn’t propose to someone who’d cheat on him. They’d talked about it and it wasn’t like he had customized the ring or anything so he got his full deposit back. He thought Richard was feeling better about the whole thing, had even been dating Erika and-

Ohh yeah there’s Erika with a Terrapin’s jacket over her shoulders and a hickey that he’s pretty sure Richard hadn’t left on her neck.

Man Caleb what the hell, what did Richard even do? Caleb you don’t even like girl-

Ohhhh.

Caleb….bro. There are better ways to handle a crush.

Now fully understanding the situation Jeremy can’t help but think that it’s actually a pretty simple solution. Well, not simple. Richard is pretty straight but like a firm talking to with Caleb will probably-

“Hey, back off!” He hears Alvarez and his head whips around back to Jean where it shouldn’t have left.

Ravens.

Those Ravens.

Jeremy made a promise.

Jeremy had taken lessons over the summer and-

God it felt good to slam his fist into Johnson’s stupid awful ugly chin. The only thing that was even sweeter was sinking his fist into Reacher’s gut.

“Knox what the fuck?!” he heard Jasmine exclaim and they’d been buddies at one point but it was hard to feel anything positive for a girl who watched.

“I warned you guys during the Fall Banquet didn’t I?” Jeremy asks with a smile as he shakes out his hand. He looks to the side and sees that the rest of the team has now fully encircled Jean. Nothing was getting through them to-

It’s too late that Jeremy sees a younger Raven meatball in hand. He tries to stop it but his arms are too short and it nails Jean right in the forehead. 

He looks at the marinara roll down Jean’s forehead as he blinks in surprise. Laila lets out a scream and has him cradled in her arms and out of sight before Jean even seems to fully understand what is going on.

“Jean, it’s going to be okay.” Jeremy hears Laila assure.

“Laila, what in the world are you freaking out about?” Jean asks. “I’m French, not Italian. I would not bleed marinara sauce.” Jeremy hears him say out of sight and if Jeremy wasn’t so mad he’d laugh.

“That’s it!” Alvarez exclaims and slugs the sophomore who had lobbed the errant meatball and from there it was an all out brawl between the Trojans and the Ravens. They were all defensive over their frenchmen especially against his old team and Jeremy thinks about the investigation he’s been pushing the ERC towards. Thinks about all the little things he has questioned and put into the heads of all of his friends throughout the Division.

He makes his way to Jean as Ned and Jim have taken on the task of handling Reacher and Johnson.

“God, first the sparse wine selection and now this.” Jean says from where Laila was trying to wipe sauce from his face.

“Here, use this.” he offers FF’s handkerchief and thinks about getting a few himself.

Laila takes the handkerchief, “I thought you said there was a lot of wine.” she says.

“No, I said Kevin was doing a lot of whining.” Jean corrects eyes closed as Laila cleans his face off. Jeremy looks towards the Fox table and wonders how he’ll get the handkerchief back to FF and sees FF rising up from the table and quickly put on his jacket before heading out the door after the rest of the Foxes.

What bothers him is the security guards following them. Everyone should know that security guards + the Foxes + Binghamton = Andrew might start stabbing people.

His concern only grows greater when he sees Michael and a few other Ravens follow.

***

There are things that change a person.

Experiences that you never want to experience again. Words that can never be spoken again. Feelings that can never be carefully locked away not that they’re out in the open and known.

Andrew’s experience happened two years ago. Andrew had heard words that he never wished to hear again in his entire life for the last time in Binghamton. Andrew had felt things staring down at a cell phone that he had never let himself feel before.

He looks at Neil safe and sound on the bus after a different fight, a different riot, in Binghamton and it’s hard to be upset. He hadn’t let his Junkie out of his sight the entire night and the moment that he saw security moving in he had grabbed Neil by the hand. His focus had narrowed down at that moment and no amount of Neil insisting that it was fine would stop Andrew’s determined march out of the stadium.

He only felt like he could breathe when he had ushered Neil into the bus and into a seat. He felt his shoulders ease but he didn’t let go of Neil’s hand, he didn’t know if he would until they were back in Palmetto.

The rest of the team filtered out of the stadium quickly and soon enough Wymack was calling out to make sure that everyone was there. “Smith?” Wymack called.

“He’s right here!” a voice calls out and Andrew thinks it’s one of the other Freshmen.

“Let’s get out of here.” Wymack says.

The team gets on the bus and soon enough they’re putting Binghamton in the rearview.

Andrew exhales.

***

He’d heard Michael call out for him and he’d stopped. With all the distraction and the upcoming loading onto the bus he hadn’t felt the need to be exceptionally low presence.

It’d been a mistake as it usually was.

FF looked at the security guard standing in front of him and out the door to the stadium where the Foxes were loading into the bus.

“Will you meet the Master now?” Michael is asking him and FF doesn’t quite get why he’s asking when it’s obvious that FF doesn’t have a choice.

“No.” he says because Michael did ask which means theoretically he could just be misreading the situation.

“You said you’d meet him if the banquet ended.” Michael says.

FF furrows his brow, “I said I’d get up.” he reminds and Michael looks nervous.

“Please?” Michael asks and FF blinks.

“I need to get on the bus.” FF points and the security guard merely steps into his line of sight as if that erased the fact that the bus was there and he was not on it.

“We’ll get you back to where you belong.” Michael promises.

“I belong on the bus that is going back to my campus where I keep all my stuff.” FF says matter of factly.

Michael looks at him utterly bewildered.

“Enough of this.” The guard says and goes to grab him.

FF moves out of the way.

The guard goes to grab him again and FF backs up and out of the way again.

The guard goes to grab him and FF steps back out of his reach again.

This process continues until they are back into the main stadium where the brawl has taken over all of the teams. FF sidesteps the security guard, and he’s near positive this isn’t a real security guard Binghamton really needs to work on their hiring practices. Only this time he side steps out of the way and the guard crashes like an enranged bull into the punch table.

FF’d feel bad about it but there was no way in the world he was going to meet someone named ‘The Master’ when he has spaghetti pants. Absolutely no chance. Whoever it was probably was important enough to deserve dry clean only pants.

“I need to go.” he says to Michael and heads back for the exit, hopeful that maybe just maybe the bus hadn’t left yet. Nicky was pretty drunk though and he knew that the rest of the team would have a singular focus on Captain Neil.

“No, wait!” Michael pleads and FF stops seeing the other player with tears in his eyes. FF stops and unzips his jacket slightly to reach in and grab the handkerchief he had refolded as his pocket square.

“Sorry, I really can’t stay.” he says and offers the handkerchief to Michael, “You can keep that one or hand it to me the next time we play against one another if you remember.” he says. “Tonight isn’t the night for me to talk with your Master.” he says.

Michael looks at him with wide eyes and accepts the handkerchief.

He walks out back into the exiting hallway and there is an older asian man there. He has a cane and he is standing between FF and the door.

He approaches quickly and the man hits his cane against the ground once, “You will join the Ravens.” he says with authority.

Oh great.

“I'd actually rather not.” Smith responds and makes sure to keep a wide berth from the crazy old guy who’s made his way into the Stadium somehow.

He gets out the stadium doors and-

The bus left.

He sighs thinks about the crazy guy right behind him and lets his presence fade into something only Jeremy Knox could see (APPARENTLY).

It’s pretty cold out as he gets as far away from the entrance to the building as possible and reaches into his pocket for his phone. He dials Nicky.

***

“COACH, YOU FORGOT SMITHY. AGAIN.” A drunken shout from the back of the bus startles Wymack as he lets out a loud string of curses before getting into a lane to make a U-turn.

MASTERPOST FOR ALL PARTS OF FLUENT FRESHMAN AU

NEXT