Jean’s face was pretty much a swollen bruise. Both eyes were blackened courtesy of a broken nose and stitches had patched his chin and cheek back together. Chunks of hair had been ripped from his skull, leaving bald and scabbing patches throughout.
TWs: Violence, implied/referenced past sexual abuse, use of knives, implied/referenced alcoholism, character injury, descriptions of scars. Please let me know if you need me to add anything else.
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It’s a game.
He knows this, and they know it too. He’s read something about this once, something about emotional labor, about selling something that you wouldn’t think money could buy. He’s seen documentaries about it too, about cabaret girls and host clubs and performances that begin when you step inside and end only when you leave.
What he does is different, but it is also the same. His role is easy: be sweet, attentive, docile, but never submit. Spin beautiful lies for them, make them feel good about themselves, and let them think that they have the upper-hand. He would cross one smooth leg over the other, flutter his eyelashes, and pull his lips into a jejune pout or a coquettish smile. They all like it when he plays hard-to-get too, pushing and pulling just enough to ensnare them in the game for however long he needs them to.
People always want what they can’t have.
And Neil is – well, he isn’t something that’s attainable. He’s fought his whole life to make sure that he doesn’t belong to anybody, shackled and tied down. Besides, there’s nothing worth attaining about him in the first place.
There are a few ground rules to this game, of course.
Nobody can touch him unless he allows it. The last person to touch him without his consent left the club with a broken wrist. It leaves the message unequivocally clear.
They can’t ask him personal questions. Things like his favorite food or favorite color can be made up on the spot, so this type of enquiries is fine. Things like his phone number or the stories behind his scars are shot down before they get a chance to form shapes and meaning in the air.
One of the most important rules is that those who come here for the entertainment should come here for the entertainment, and those who come here for business should come here for business. If they want both, then they have to come on different nights. This type is rare, though; a frosty information broker with a notorious past apparently leaves a longer impression than a kitschy show boy with fascinating scars and shapely legs.
This rule keeps everything in order, keeps things separate and easy to understand, the key ring that holds together different keys to different locks. This is important, because the rules for the other game are different.
In the second type of game, his role is much easier: be detached, professional, but never appear as a threat. Some easy rules apply to the customer: no weapons are allowed, and only a certain amount of time is allotted for each transaction, with only a certain number of people allowed to meet him face to face. He sells them whatever information they come to buy and they pay him whatever price he puts up, and both parties walk out the door satisfied. They don’t speak about anything business-related if they ever meet outside of business hours.
The rules that apply to both games are as such: never compromise, never play favorites, always be a neutral force.
I have this headcanon that for the first few years after getting out of Evermore, Jean kept constant track of time in his head, since it was almost impossible to keep track of it with the Ravens. It was a coping mechanism to be able to feel in control. He was able to tell how much time had happened between one moment and the other, and he did it so often it became almost unconscious.
Example:
“Hey Jean?”
“Yes?”
“How long since I put the pie in the oven?”
“15 minutes and 34 seconds to the moment you asked.”
“Thanks pal”
Or, in an angstier setting:
He knows it takes 5 hours, 5 minutes and 15 seconds for his body to stop aching at night the moment some random athlete walks out of his room. He knows it usually takes 2 hours, 1 minute and 22 seconds after that for it to start aching again.
He knows it took Renee 3 hours, 40 minutes, 59 seconds to get to him after Riko lost it when he heard of Kengo’s death. He knows that, if she had arrived 10 minutes, 3 seconds later, he would have died.
But it gets better when he joins the Trojans, and he keeps track of time less and less, until one day Jeremy says, “How long has the dog been lying on our bed, Jean?” and Jean replies “I don’t know, a couple of minutes maybe,” and Jeremy just stops and stares at him. When Jean looks at him, he has the heels of his hands digging into his eyes, and Jean is extremely confused for a moment, until he realizes and he says “oh,” and lets Jeremy hug the air out of him.
Nothing but My Aching Soul 