just because i feel a little cuckoo crazy about Jeremy rn i want to go back to chapter 15 again because i have so much nonsensical rambling left to say
Just him. Fierce, strong, positive and powerful Jeremy. Perfect Jeremy. he who can do no fucking wrong. Perfect athlete. Star player. and a disappointing cigarette between his lips. Did he start to smoke as a rebellious teenager? and him being conscious enough so the smoke doesn’t blow back at Jean.
Redemption, perhaps. There was more to it and Jean KNEW it. He’s trying so hard to be a good person, to make up for his mistakes. His fall from grace before he’d even gotten there. This stain on his reputation that he tries so hard to be different from.
Jean didn’t elaborate and Jeremy had never liked him more. This grief is so fucking rough. It’s not like Andrew killing his mom to protect Aaron. It’s not like finding out Grayson was killed to keep Jean safe. No motive, no reason, only Jeremy’s brother being let down by him when all he needed in that moment was someone there for him. And that’s all Jeremy sees - a moment where he failed his brother. This was not supposed to happen, and this was his fault, and this is something he can never, ever change.
Not you! Not like that! Cat is so healing for Jean. Touch and love. The way she so casually kisses his palm and all he’s knows in violence but he can still say no, not you, this isn’t the life that was ever supposed to touch you. It’s all he’s known and STILL he knows it’s not what he deserved. Because he KNOWS that it never worked, it was never meant to work, it was just cruel and unjust and he could never do that to someone he loves. Someone who shows him love like she does.
Who’d question it once USC got involved? They signed you, Jeremy, the moment your brother fucking died because you were too busy getting off to save him, reduced down to you being a whore and that’s it. And look how hard he tries to be known for something different. But a whore and a slut is all he’ll be known for. It’s sex, and Fraser likes to be mean and rough, but fuck, how did he feel seeing WHORE written all over Jean’s notebooks? When Annalise said he was ending the way he started, when he read the rumours and knew to see past them because at some point in his life that’s all he was known for, too. Is he against the idea of Jean as much as Jean is, because he knows his reputation comes with their relationship as much as Jean’s does?
This hurt, this hurt a lot. Imagine having seen your friend at this low point in his life, drunk and high out of his mind, making bad decisions and becoming a bad person. And now he’s reliving trauma he hasn’t been through in four years and he leaves for a few hours and comes back smelling like alcohol and bruised up from bad decisions with a bad person. She had every right to be concerned. Not a day like today. Not after everything.
I SET THE PRECEDENT. It’s not “these rumours are incessant because people have always believed them” it’s “these rumours aren’t going away because of course they must be true. Their captain is a slut, and look at where his fucked up decisions got him. Of course they’d sign another one”. He takes so much blame and fault and so much onto his own back because he feels like he deserves it. He needs redemption, right? He needs to do something good to make up for the bad. And he can’t fight back. There’s nothing he can do except just take it.
“They are not your partners”. Because Jean was fucking betrayed and destroyed and hurt by his partner. it’s not partner meaning hook up or date, it’s partner as in protector, as in the one to keep you safe, as in the one by your side. Your failures are my failures. And Jean being so worried after seeing Jeremy in such a state earlier thinking he’s seen this before, he knows what he’s looking at. Jean, who asked “is cody safe?”. But Jeremy still lying so easily because he can’t tell Jean that the violence in sex is… acceptable to him? Normal? Is it? or is he also just used to heavy hands and finishing with bruises?
This feels like a crumbling of Jeremy’s facade, i think. Like everything he’s been portraying himself as, the person he’s been trying so hard to be, is going to be ruined for Jean in a moment because he asks him about that part of his life. About the coke. It’s easier for him to say he partied than it is to say he destroyed himself mentally and physically for the sake of what, escape? A break? And now Jean, who’s supposed to see him as this unbreakable character in his life, his unmoving and indestructible partner, is going to see through his skin and bones for what he’s always seen himself as; an addict, a slut, a disappointment. A terrible brother. A bad influence. It’s the moment his facade fucking cracks in two and it’s so necessary, it’s so fucking late for his truth to come out, and he’s laying himself bare in front of Jean who needs to see this, hear this, more than anyone else.
areudirty
snowghoul
theartofmadeline
dededos
romaincrisis
