Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

On Jean’s s third sleepless night in the sparsely filled barracks, his disturbed thoughts were interrupted by the sounds of feet coming down the hall. He’d memorized the hall guard’s rounds by now, so he knew before the door even opened that it wasn’t just a check-in.

His suspicions were confirmed when the faint light from the hall illuminated the slight form of Armin Arlert. Although he couldn’t quite make out his face, he could tell by his posture that he was weary –and alone. Immediately after the rescue mission in Trost he, Mikasa and Eren were taken away to another town to attend a trial by the higher ups, or so he was told. The three of them had been absent since the “success”. Eren not being back now with Armin no doubt had to do the outcome of the trial.

It dawned on Jean then that Armin was currently unaware of any fatalities since the wall-sealing mission. An already all too familiar ache in his chest accompanied the thought, with Marco’s face flashing through his mind. He knew deaths were to be expected in his line of work, but never did he consider it would happen to someone that close to him –he was supposed to have lived a comfortable life behind as many walls as possible. Perhaps that’s why he felt like he was taking it worse than some of the other trainees; to Jean this was his first taste of the Titan’s devastation and his first loss of anything important to him. It made him feel weak and small, and despite the days off given to all the trainees leading up to their branch selection ceremony to allow for “emotional rehabilitation”, he felt no better than he did after the numbing shock of seeing what was left of his friend’s face, jaw gaping and skin off-coloured. He felt pitiable, alone, having a hard time connecting to the friends still with him.  So instead he had allowed the sour, sickly feeling of his loss, all the grief and loneliness and helplessness to spread and fester and leave him empty and ultimately unable to sleep.

For the past three nights he felt envious of the soft sounds of snoring around him as he laid with his blankets up to his chin, staring at the underside of the bunk above him. Since the burning of the pyre the best he could do has been a fretful half-sleep, which, if not plagued with the thought of Marco’s end, was instead fouled at the memory of all the other comrades he watched get devoured as he stood unable and unwilling to do anything to help. These thoughts prevented any rest at night, and cast a depressing atmosphere during the day.

Jean wasn’t sure what prompted him then, as Armin shuffled quietly past his own bunk to get to his own (despite the number empty spaces now, everyone remaining still felt the strange obligation to their old bed) to speak up –he wasn’t particularly close to the kid, his associations with Jaeger enough to warrant some distance, but he knew Armin frequently spent time with Marco; their quiet dispositions seemed to make for easy friendship.

“Marco’s dead.”

His voice made Armin jump, startled. He looked over to Jean’s form on the bed. He felt their eyes connect and for two or three terrible seconds, and Jean felt like he was reliving the horror of his own discovery as the realization flashed across Armin’s features. Yet Jean kept his face unreadable, aided by the dim lighting.

Finally Armin’s hushed voice, “No. Oh no, not him.” It was said in the tight, broken way of someone shocked by grief. A sound that had become way too familiar. Jean could see in the weak light that his fists were clenched, and he was a little surprised to realize his were too, bunching up the sheets under his blanket. “Did… you see? Was it…” Armin’s thin voice trailed off. Was it meaningful? Was it helpful? Was it fast? It was a question that couldn’t really be put into words but he knew what Armin was asking. Was Marco’s death a good death, in the abstract way one could hope to die in situations like the one humanity faced. It was the sort of question that was getting asked a lot.

“I don’t know. I didn’t see. It was… I found him during the cleanup. Or what was left.” He found he had to stop there. Armin was closer now, kneeling down so that he was almost at eye-level next to his bed. He could see his face now, eyes wet and shining. He felt oddly grateful that the boy didn’t respond to the news with an “I’m so sorry Jean” or something similar. Everyone still alive in the barracks had been mourning, but anyone who was aware of Jean and Marco’s close friendship seemed to have taken the time to apologize. Apologize for what? Did you rip off half his skull?

Armin’s voice was tight again and he momentarily put his hand on the edge of his bed, in what he assumed was to be a comforting gesture. He didn’t say anything for a while, and averted his eyes for a time before bringing them back up to catch his own. “Thanks. For letting me know.” He got up then and stiffly finished making his way to his own bed. Jean could no longer see him as the bunk was located behind the one he was currently curled up in, but he could tell from the sounds that the guy didn’t bother changing into his sleeping clothes and instead seemed to just fall straight onto the creaky mattress.

Jean was left again to only his thoughts and the soft sounds of sleeping around him for just a short while before a new sound entered the mix. The muted noise of hitching breaths, and barely audible whimpers. Armin was… crying? Perhaps that shouldn’t have surprised him as much as it did. Even so, he couldn’t help but feel some of the noxious feelings trapped in his chest escape. He knew it was in poor moral taste to benefit from someone else’s grief, especially someone as pitiful as Armin Arlert, but despite himself he could feel some of his pain numbing.

So for some reason he couldn’t quite sort out, to the backdrop of Armin’s muffled sobs Jean was finally able to fall asleep.

Jean woke up that morning feeling a couple shades closer to merely “tired” and further away from borderline comatose. His couple hours of sleep was making him feel more like himself than he had felt for days.

A quick look around the room let him know that he was the last one up; even Connie’s bed was empty and made. Connie made his bed? Now Jean noticed that most of the trainees have their stuff cleaned up; small packs sit at the ends of a large proportion of the beds. Right, today is the day the former trainees move out and join their chosen factions. An anxious feeling bubbled up from his gut, remembering his earlier resolve to join the scouting legion.

No time to think about that now. Hoping he hadn’t missed breakfast entirely, Jean quickly dressed himself in his uniform and rushed down the corridor. He’d have to pack his things later.

Entering the mess hall he’s relieved to see most people seated still have their trays on the tables in front of them. He quickly grabbed one and helped himself to whatever slop was being offered for the day. It was then he realized that he must have missed breakfast, as it was lunch that was put on his plate.

Trying not to think about all the vacant tables, he made his way over to where some of his friends are seated, talking quietly amongst themselves.

“Connie you ass, you could have woken me up –I still appreciate meals you know.”

A very slight look of relief passed Connie’s features as he slid his empty tray to make room. “Eyy, it looks like you’re feeling a bit more like your charming self again.” He knew this was said in jest, but there was some amount of truth in it; Jean hadn’t been trying too hard to partake in any of the attempts of light conversation. There was something awfully sickening in the way everyone, after the initial evening of the burning pyres, seemed to try and force themselves back into their normal mannerisms. For Jean, he had found this completely impossible, choosing instead to keep to himself. In retrospect this had probably made everyone --even people like Connie, feel a little alienated around him. Luckily he now felt he had the energy to patch things up with an abrasive jibe or two.

“Connie tells me you looked so angelic in your bed, he didn’t have the heart to rouse you from your beauty sleep,” Sasha piped in, a faint smile on her face too.

Ignoring her comment Connie went on, “You managed to sleep through Armin’s entire stack of books collapsing as he was trying to pack this morning, I doubt I could have woken you up even if I tried.”

Through a bite of food his eyes reflexively looked to the corner where Eren usually sat. Armin was there, facing Mikasa whose back was towards Jean. They looked to be engaging in conversation, but Armin must have noticed the glance because he stopped momentarily to give a smile and a small wave in Jean’s direction. He didn’t return it.

“Speaking of Armin,” Jean began, “what happened with those three after they were taken away? Jaeger’s presence is a hard one to miss.”

“Oh right, you weren’t around when they were telling the story this morning.” Sasha spoke up again. “Long story short, Eren’s been put into the scouting legion’s custody. Apparently it was either that or get “tested on” by the military police.”

“So that’s why he’s not here?” Eren could turn into a titan. That itself was some pretty messed up bullshit, to say the least. He couldn’t blame the military police for being curious, although if he could use his… power to further help out humanity he supposed that was a pretty good option too. Admittedly, from what he’d seen, Eren was able to do a lot more damage than all of their swords combined. Hell, Jean couldn’t recall any of the trainees killing titans during the mess in Trost, although he suspected Mikasa may have been an exception.

“There’s more too but, eh, I don’t really understand it myself,” Connie said, eyes closed in what Jean supposed was his best attempt at a face deep in contemplation. “You can try talking to Armin or Mikasa about it, if you want.”

Jean was about to call Connie out for his useless crypic tidbit but at that moment the mess hall door swung open.

A military police officer Jean didn’t recognize marched in towards the center of the room, and started loudly, “Alright you bunch, I know you guys were supposed to be having your new branch initiation ceremony this afternoon but there’s been a bit of a change of plans.” He paused a moment, the murmurs of others in the room already bubbling up. “Quiet! Now there’s been a bit of a situation last night, and two very valuable titan specimens have been killed.”

“They captured titans?? We can actually do that?”

“Shh, shut up Connie.” Jean kicked him lightly under the table.

The booming voice continued, “So we’ve been instructed to inspect everyone’s gear, check for gas usage and such to make sure you guys are all off the hook. In an hour and a half you are to report to hall 14 for an inspection. All ceremonies will proceed after the check.” With that the official looking man nodded at Shadis, turned on his heel and left, door slamming behind him.

Shadis stood up and his voice bellowed, “You heard the man, get your gear and get moving! I doubt there will much time after the inspection so unless you don’t mind never seeing them again I suggest you grab your belongings too.”

Shit. Jean shoveled in two more spoonfuls of food (porridge?) before adding the sound of his chair pulling out to the symphony of others as everyone tried to shove their way out of the hall. He was fast enough to avoid the bottleneck that was forming at the double doors, and slipped through them. Instead of making his way directly to the sleeping quarters, he turned a corner and stopped by the bathing rooms to pick up his toothbrush and his bar of soap (a gift from his mother). By the time he made it to his bunk most of the people had already left, only a few stragglers trying to shove some things in their packs. Jean followed their example and shoved what few clothes he had, his sketchpad, a packet of dried fruit (another gift sent from his mother…) and his book on the history of the military police. As he tied his bag closed he thought with some grim irony that he wouldn’t be needing that anymore, but as it had been given to him by Marco it had more sentimental value than anything else he owned.

Taking a side exit he quickly made his way to the 3DMG shed, quickly found his gear in his cubby and fastened the clips as quickly as he was able. This time he was truly the only one left in the small building.

By the time he made it outside, Jean groaned at the spread of people out ahead; he must have been the last person to leave. Not having fond enough memories of the place to warrant a nostalgic look behind him, Jean jogged to catch up with the back of the bunch. He tried to ignore the slight pang of annoyance at the realization that none of his friends bothered to wait up for him. Jean never got along the greatest with everyone, but Marco had by no means been his only friend.

After a minute or two of hasty walking he managed to catch up with Armin’s familiar face. The boy didn’t only have the standard issue backpack, he also had another bag slung across his shoulder. Why would he bother bringing all his books? Does he not realize there are libraries where he’s going? Jean couldn’t help but think with irritation.

“Oi.”

Armin turned to him, his face already starting to look sweaty from the trek. “Jean?” He looked ahead again, looking slightly confused. “I saw you were one of the first to leave at lunch earlier, we all thought you would have been way up front by now.”

“I overslept a bit and forgot to pack my things ahead of time.”

“I see.” He adjusted the strap on his shoulder pack and continued looking ahead. Now that he was closer, he noticed the bags hanging under Armin’s eyes. Dark and purple, just like Jean’s, except the boy was so pale that somehow they looked much worse. A sudden feeling of awkwardness hit him then, now reminded of the crying he heard last night. Armin didn’t appear concerned nor ashamed though, his face still looking determinedly ahead.

“It’s okay to feel sad you know.”

If Jean was drinking anything he surely would have choked at that moment. “Ehh? What are you talking about? --Don’t assume things!” If Eren could turn into a titan, was it possible for his friend to read minds?

Armin’s side glance made him feel sheepish as he tried to regain his composure. “I just mean no one is expecting you to be fine. Maybe it’s not as obvious when looking at other people, but no one is fine right now, Jean.” Jean didn’t say anything to that, just kept looking in front of him, his lips a tight line. Armin continued, “Of course, if you don’t want to talk about it, I get it. But…” He sighed, and there was a silence long enough that Jean thought Armin decided to stop talking. “... sometimes things are easier to deal with when you have someone to talk to.”

If this was Connie or Reiner, Jean might have kept up his passive-aggressive charade, asked them what the fuck they were talking about and had the whole thing dropped immediately. Strangely though, the blunt sincerity from this guy he knew just barely enough to call a friend had him a little at a loss for how to respond.

“R-right.” He chewed the inside of his cheek a moment and shuffled his bag more comfortably on his shoulders. “I, uh, thanks. But I don’t think I’m really ready for any of… that. Talking I mean.” He laughed darkly, “I’m finding it hard enough just waking up in the morning in case you didn’t notice.” He doubted he would have the emotional capacity to open up to anyone for a while. What was there to talk about anyways? How shitty their lives are? He doubted that would cheer him up. He hoped Armin wasn’t going to push the subject, his thoughts were already beginning to wade in the same waters of the past few days.

They still had quite a bit of a walk until they would get to hall 14, although it was now faintly visible up the hill. They were all trained with the horses, of course, but considering the time it took to have them prepared they were usually only permitted to use them for longer travelling.

“Right of course.” Armin’s tone of voice changed then, and became a bit brighter and more conversational. “Did you know a single spider web can contain up to 60 meters of silk? And a single spider is capable of producing up to 6 different kinds, all from special glands in its abdomen.”

There was little silence after that point, and by the time they reached the doors to the hall, Jean had probably had Armin speak to him more than in all their years as trainees, and found he now knew much more about spiders than he ever had any desire to know.

Chapter Text

The hall was surprisingly quiet considering the number of people crammed inside. The interior resembled the mess hall, all wooden beams and long tables, but seemed to lack the wear. This building was on the very outskirts of the allocated training area, and was technically located within the village. Not having bothered to investigate the area much in the past three years Jean couldn't pretend he knew what the building's purpose was (although the familiar layout yet cleaner atmosphere had him suspecting it was the common area to the trainee corps officers and assistants).

For large-scale assemblies like these they were required to arrange themselves by ID number; a number with seemingly no perceivable organizational structure. Nearly everyone was already at their place behind a table, 3DMG barrel out in front of them. Jean tossed his backpack against a wall and went to find his own place. With a sickening feeling he realized the two people whom he was usually situated between (whose names he did not remember) were no longer beside him and were likely dead.

The next couple of hours went by dully. Jean divided his time between watching a spider build a web in the crook of one of the ceiling beams, and trying to trick his mind into avoiding thoughts of death, titans, and his own inevitable doom in the scouting legion. His hands started to ache and he realized he'd been clenching them so long his nails left red indents in his palms.

There was a small trickle of information that was passed around in the trainee corps. They were technically part of the force that made up the garrison, scouts and police, so information wasn’t necessarily restricted to them, however Jean suspected that there were some things that they decided against formally announcing. The reason they were here, the two “assassinated” titans, was apparently one of those things. When the check was announced, it was done in a way that suggested most of them should be aware of the titans in the human’s possession. This wasn’t the case though; there were many weird rumours going around since the incident at Trost, and most (Jean included) wouldn’t have been able to pick out the truth in the mass of made-up garbage.

Once everyone was questioned and accounted for the search was concluded to be unsuccessful and they were all permitted to leave. Jean ended up walking towards a decrepit wall were Annie, Armin, Sasha and Connie were mulling about. The wall was just outside an area partially fenced by a tall wooden wall. Inside was an open space, the drill field, where others were loitering while waiting for the induction ceremony to begin. He wondered if in other years, ones that didn’t have titans bursting through walls, this was a happy occasion.

Everyone stood in silence --except for Connie; he was sitting, until Sasha spoke up quietly, “Jean... why did you decide to join the scouting legion? After what's happened –what we all saw... aren't you scared?” It was still a bit unnerving seeing people like Sasha getting unsettled.

“Obviously.” That hadn't changed. In fact, he was probably more afraid of the titans now than he was just a few days ago.

“Huh? Then why did you...?” Connie's voice came from the ground.

“It's not like I'm doing it because I want to die. I'd rather not. And I don't think we all have some weird obligation to join either. I'm not some fool like Eren.”

Someone in the distance was instructing everyone to line up in front of the stage.

“I wasn't convinced either. So don't expect me to convince you guys.”

Like hell he was going to take responsibility for something that. Besides, how could anyone possibly be able to willingly go up against titans again if their heart wasn't in it? Why was he doing it? He didn't want to see anymore friends die. Ironically, by joining the scouts he felt he was probably setting himself up for more of exactly that, but at least it had some purpose in it. At least if anyone he ever met in the scouts was to die, they knew what they had signed themselves up for.

“This is the sort of thing you need to figure out yourself.”

Annie and Armin remained unreadable, while Sasha and Connie still looked like they were about to face titans themselves.

Mikasa and some of the other trainees walked past, going towards the open area, where a small crowd was already gathering.

“Guess we should all get going then…?” Armin tilted his head in the direction of the stage. Annie had already started silently making her way over.

Jean was about to turn and head over too, when he noticed Connie was still on the ground. He looked pale. “Hey man… get up.”

“Right.” He got up abruptly but still didn’t move. Jean roughly put his hand on his shoulder.

“Relax man. No one is making you do anything. Just… do what you want, you know?” He wasn’t very good with this sort of thing.

“…R-right. It’s just weird though, you know? Before Trost, I remember I was telling Eren how I was going to join the scouts with him. Like it was no big deal. And now that I’ve had more encounters with the titans… is it even a good thing that I’ve had more experience with them? I mean, as least now I know what I’d be getting myself into, but my decision seemed so much easier before.”

…Jean still wasn’t very good with this sort of thing. “Connie, don’t overthink it. It’s sort of too late for that anyways.”

He laughed bitterly. “I know, right? I choose now of all times to start thinking too much. Thinking’s never been my strong point I guess.”

Connie finally removed himself from the wall, and Jean followed, still not quite sure if he had been helpful or not.

Everyone hardly had time to organize themselves in rough lines before the man known as Erwin Smith took to the stage. He was a sturdy looking man, for sure, although his unreadable expression made Jean feel a bit uneasy.

The man’s speech ended up being sobering to say the least. So much so that he was starting to wonder how many people would actually decide to sign up. Along with the discouragement came some new information regarding Eren’s basement of all things. He wasn't quite sure what to make of the news at this point. Perhaps he would take Connie’s advice and talk to Armin or Mikasa about it later. Or Eren, if he was acting particularly tolerable. Since Eren was joining the scouts, or had technically already joined as rumours had it, Mikasa almost certainly was too. Jean doubted Armin would decide to play it safe and join the garrison –he was one of the few in Jean’s circle of sort-of friends who didn’t have the option of joining the police. Armin’s attachment to Jaeger would likely influence him to join the scouts too. Jean hoped someone had tried to talk him out of it though; somebody like Armin was sure to be one of the first 30% to die. Bright as people said he was, he wasn't talented at the practical stuff.

Finally, Erwin said that anyone not joining the scouting legion was free to leave. And it was then that things felt serious and real again, and Jean found himself staring at his feet to stop them from following everybody else to safer prospects. He heard the sounds of people laughing with their friends as they left. Some were crying, too.

He remembered all his comrades who died; his feet had been stuck to the ground then as well. He remembered the sound of Tom screaming before one of the titans bit off his head. He remembered the feeling of helplessness as he passed all the streets full of dead, not sure if he’d make it to safety before he ran out of gas. All the horrors that he had witnessed were being relived in his head. But still he stayed. He’d like to think it was because the memories reminded him of why he was joining the scouts, but honestly, it felt more like he forgot how to use his legs.

When he no longer heard the sounds of people passing by, he looked up. Only a handful remained. There were some faces he only vaguely recognized, and then his friends; Connie, Sasha, Ymir and Christa off to the side, Bertholdt, Reiner, and Mikasa and Armin up at the front. He heard Sasha trying not to cry, and could practically see Christa trembling a couple feet over. Annie, he noted, was not one of the few remaining on the field.

“So, will you be able to die if you’re told to?” A pause. A terse smile came upon his face then, one that didn’t reach his eyes. “I welcome everyone still here to the scouting legion. I salute you’re bravery in dedicating yourself to the cause” A soft thump was heard as everyone remaining hit their hearts in salute.

“Ah shit. This is the worst. Dammit all.” Jean’s mutterings tangled with the soft sounds from the others. Erwin left the stage then, and someone else came on and instructed them to grab their stuff and clear out –apparently those deciding to join the garrison were to have their own introductory speech and needed the stage.

There was a bit of confusion then, but once the handful of them reached the Hall again a chipper man in a bandana and scouting uniform was there to lead them. Apparently there were horses ready for them, and they were all to ride to the legion’s headquarters that evening. Thankfully they were free to sit down and have a bit to eat first, “if they were feeling hungry”.

So they all ended up sitting down at one of the tables in the corner of the hall; there was few enough of them that all 21 could fit comfortably at one table, and he had to admit he felt closer to all these people now than he did an hour ago. The mood seemed a little bit lighter too somehow.

“I don’t know about the rest of you guys, but I’m just glad we’ll be getting a change of scenery. I could probably navigate the training grounds blindfolded at this point.” Reiner’s loud voice boomed above the others.

“So I guess Annie really was as much of a cold bitch as she showed herself to be, eh?”

“Ymir!” Christa gave her friend a hearty smack.

“Ouch –hey! I just mean I thought we would all be ‘best friends forever’ y’know?”

“Yeah right, we all know you’re only here because Christa is,” Connie said through a mouthful of bread, causing Ymir to look indignant and Reiner to guffaw loudly.

Jean looked across the table to Mikasa, who had been quiet (or more quiet) since they started eating. He noticed now a large red cut across her right cheek, which definitely wasn’t there before –not that he was regularly keeping tabs on her beautiful face or anything. Old habits die hard.

He was about to ask her about it, but lost his nerve when he saw her steely face. He gulped his food. Another time, then.

It wasn’t long before everyone made their way to the stables. It was dark by then, and everything was lit by only a few of the scouts’ torches.

“Alright everyone take your pick. There’s usually more of you, so there’s a couple extra horses that will need to be brought back unridden… If some of you would be so kind as to tie them to your own…? Great, thanks. Now get comfy, it’ll be a three hour ride to our temporary headquarters.”

And so the group headed out in the dark, led by a handful of soldiers from the scouting legion. The pace was fairly slow because of the low visibility and it was too dark to see much more than a couple feet around you. Jean chose to ride closer to the back of the group, where the conversations of those up ahead were less audible.

Quite some time passed and Jean found himself staring out into the darkness and idly listening to Sasha and Reiner arguing about something. A voice at his side snapped him out of his stupor.

“Jean?”

It was Armin, to his right and with two horses. He could have sworn he was up ahead with Mikasa. Jean merely grunted in response.

“About earlier… it doesn’t really seem fair to keep it a secret, and I’m sure you would have found out eventually anyways.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Mikasa’s cheek. It was Eren. Or, Eren’s titan, I guess.” He paused a moment and now Jean was looking at him, paying proper attention. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t at least a little bit surprised Armin had noticed him eyeing Mikasa earlier. “When we started the mission, the yellow flare, remember? When Eren first transformed he wasn’t responsive. When Mikasa went over to him to investigate, he attacked her.”

“Damn.”

“He sort of lost steam after that. Long story short, I abandoned my post at the wall and pulled him out of it.”

“And how exactly did you do that?”

“I, uh, stabbed him.”

“Oh great, so now I know what to do the next time he pisses me off.” Armin laughed, just a little. “Do the others know? I mean I was at the wall when this happened, I sort of saw that something wasn’t right, but I was never formally told anything.”

“No. Well, I think some know that Eren wasn’t really himself. But I don’t think Mikasa wants any fuss to be made over her cheek… you know how she is.”

Jean made a non-committal sound. He wasn’t sure how many new recruits decided to join based solely on the information that Eren’s power was an asset to humanity, but he felt it was a little unfair that no one had bothered to mention that his power wasn’t foolproof. People could be going out and risking their lives, and so what, so Eren could kill them in a moment when he can’t control himself?

“And what about Eren’s basement? Why isn’t that something any of us heard before?”

“Don’t expect any of this to be a science yet, Jean.” Armin sighed. “Since he’s transformed he’s been having… broken memories. Apparently in one of them his father tells him he needs to go back to his basement.”

Silence. “You know, if you don’t believe me you should probably just talk to him yourself. I just came by because I felt you should have some answer to your earlier question.” He sounded curt.

“No, no. I mean, thanks. I guess.”

It was Armin’s turn to make a non-committal sound. “…so how are you feeling?”

“Not this again.” He wasn’t playing psychology patient today. “Although, what about you? Joining the scouting legion. No offence, but do you have a death wish?” He could ask personal questions too.

Armin however, answered rather easily. “No. And I hope that’s not why you’re joining either, by the way. I’m here because I want to be useful. We can pretend all we want but I don’t know how much use the Garrison would find for me.”

“And you think you’ll be more useful running around as titan food outside the wall?”

Armin looked at him, with a face that might have been showing insult. “Yes? Well I mean no. I think… I think I’m more likely to find some use here than I would have standing on the walls, that’s all.”

Jean chose not to say anything. He didn’t want to rain on this guy’s parade. He was probably right, but that didn’t make him any more likely to live. A couple minutes passed in silence. Jean started to think Armin must have quietly trotted back to the front of the line, but sure enough when he looked to the right he was still there, looking absently up at the sky as the horses trotted steadily along.

“You still here, huh?”

He closed his eyes and let out a little huff. “You’re not exactly one for friends are you?” He sounded a little hurt, and made a motion to his horse to push ahead.

“Ah no, wait.” It’s not like he really wanted to be alone anyways. Sure Armin wouldn’t have been his first choice, but he’s here. And talking seemed to keep his mind off other things. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.” Armin was looking back at him a couple feet ahead, a little confused. He may have been friends with Eren, but admittedly he was hard to dislike. “Say, come back here. Tell me about yourself, and I’ll keep a watch for the boogiemen in the dark. It’ll be a while before we arrive, I think.”

He chuckled lightly but slowed his horse so he was beside Jean again. “I’m pretty boring though. Why don’t I talk to you about fossils? Now those are interesting.”

Chapter Text

The headquarters turned out to be an ominous castle looming up from the woodsin the middle of absolutely nowhere --although he suspected this nowhere to be located somewhere between the cities of Trost and Hermina. He saw a mix of open fields and small-ish forests in the dim light. Apparently the scouting legion didn’t have one regular headquarters; there were supposedly many reserved buildings throughout the walls, which could all act as temporary headquarters depending on the situation and desired location. In this particular instance, the castle was chosen as a precaution to Eren’s unstable shifting.

The stables were located at the back, and the man in the bandana (Ness, he later learned)made sure everyone put their horses away properly and gave them fresh water and hay before allowing them inside the castle. Someone else led them all to a room on the first floor to deposit their gear, and then to the third floor where both the boys’ and girls’ sleeping quarters were located. They were informed that there would be a more complete tour tomorrow.

By this time it was likely near midnight, so there was very little talking before everyone changed and got into their own beds.

“Look guys, we’ve been promoted to big-boy beds,” Jean said, yawning, as he slipped into the covers. The room was large enough for all the male recruits, and instead of the usual bunk beds there were separate, single-person beds spread throughout. Jean ended up taking the bed one away from the wall.

“And a view,” Bertholdt said, looking out the window beside his own bed.

Jean would look tomorrow. For now, he was thankful that he felt tired enough to sleep without troubled thoughts.

“You know, I bet these rooms are only used for the new scouts. If as many people die as Erwin says, I bet anyone alive after the first couple of months gets moved to smaller rooms. I wouldn’t be surprised if most people only end up sharing 3 or 4 to a room.”

Jean mumbled into his pillow to the boy laying in the bed next to the wall, “You know Armin, you’re more fun when you’re talking about your funny rocks.”

Sadly the third-story view didn’t come with curtains so Jean woke up the next morning squinting and hiding his face. It seemed like most people were already up; Armin was stacking his books up against the wall, one of the boys Jean didn’t recognize was unpacking his things, and Sasha was sitting at the end of Connie’s bed, nibbling idly at something.

“Sasha what the hell. This is the boys’ room. Get the heck out.” He threw his pillow and missed.

“Don’t be such a prude. Besides, Ymir and Christa are still sleeping and Mikasa’s doing her weird morning workout ritual. I was bored.” She popped the last bit of whatever in her mouth. “Besides, I found the food. If you’re nice I’ll show you.”

After leisurely getting dressed (“Sasha for fuck's sake at least turn around”) the group made their way to the first floor to a very drab looking room with no windows. A few people were seated at the tables, and eyed them strangely as they came in. Jean tried not to think about how many new people these soldiers had likely seen come and die. They all had the weary look of someone who’d seen too much.

Sasha tactfully avoided their eyes as she made her way across the room and brought them to a table at the center with a spread laid out. “Look at this guys, I’ve taken thirds and no one’s even said anything. And I swear some of this stuff has actual sugar in it.”

Jean and the others, shortly joined by Christa, Ymir, Mikasa and the two other girls, sat at a table and enjoyed a fairly peaceful breakfast. A couple of the older scouts on their way to breakfast would walk over to give them a quick welcome before helping themselves. The place remained pretty deserted looking however.

“So was I mistaken or something? I thought there was supposed to be a couple hundred of these guys. I’ve seen like 40, tops.”

“Did you forget? This isn’t like the Trainee corps, Connie,” Reiner explained, “Once you’re trained, you don’t need to be here all the time. Except for the few weeks before a mission, a lot of them are doing other things. Like, paperwork, research… that sort of thing. Some of them have homes in town I bet,”

“Scooooouts!” Ness came in the doorway. “The new ones, I mean. Looks like you guys beat me here!” He walked to the table. He was a fairly lively fellow, with an easy smile on his face. “Now don’t think you’ll get to sleep in like that every day --that was just a first-day treat. Just let me have my tea and I’ll get around to showing you the grounds. To those who haven’t heard, I’m Ness, and I’ve been charged with the practical training.”

Once outside, Jean noted everything looked a lot less gloomy out in the sun compared to when they had arrived last night. They were making their way back to the stables when, surprise surprise, Eren Jaeger caught up to them from behind. Armin and Mikasa seemed thrilled to see him --Mikasa more so after she affirmed he had not been subjected to “testing”. Eren took a quick look at the crowd behind him.

“You guys joined the scouting legion too?” He seemed in awe at their numbers, few as they were. “The only ones to join the military police then were Annie, Marco and Jean? And the rest went to the stationary troops…?” Clearly he hadn’t spotted Jean in the crowd yet.

There was an appropriately awkward silence.

“Marco is dead.” Jean’s gut clenched as he realized it was getting easier to say. He stepped out from the clutter of people to face Eren.

“Jean? What are you doing here? And what… did you just say Marco was dead?” The familiar look of shocked horror was placed on his features. Marco had managed to make many friends while a trainee it would seem.

“Not everyone can go out with a bang. No one has any idea how he died either. No one saw.” He knew it wasn’t Eren’s fault, but Eren needed to know what was at stake with all of this. “I heard you tried to kill Mikasa when you transformed into a titan.” He brought himself in closer. “What the hell’s with that, huh?”

Eren leaned back, away from Jean, looking both ashamed and a little confused –not angry. He still didn’t say anything though, just stood with his mouth hanging slightly open.

Mikasa came closer, almost stepping between the two of them. “He didn’t try to kill me. He was just swatting a fly.”

…Was she kidding? “You’re not the one I’m asking. But that wound on your face is pretty deep, no? Why don’t you tell us how you got that?” He knew he wasn’t going to be getting a proper answer from her, but that wasn’t the point.

Instead of responding, she just covered the side of her face with her hair, looking uncomfortable. Eren looked over at her, alarmed. So he didn’t even know?

“…Seems like it’s true then. About me trying to kill Mikasa after I transformed…”

“’Seems like’? You don’t remember?” Jean really couldn’t believe this guy. “So not only did you only just discover your power, but you have no idea how to keep it under control?”

“…Yes. That sounds about right.”

Jean was disappointed, but not surprised. Humanity’s hope wasn’t looking as hopeful as the rumours led people to believe. He was glad others were around to hear it at least. “You heard that guys? That’s what the present situation is it seems.” He looked behind him, to the others watching them attentively now. “That’s what our lives and the human kind’s fate depend on. That’s what we’ll die for, like Marco, while Eren won’t even know we’re dead.” He couldn’t help but raise his voice as he continued.

“Jean… What exactly are you trying to accomplish by abasing Eren?” Mikasa was standing closer to Eren now, looking at Jean with a steady expression. She was always a hard one to read.

“Look Mikasa, not everyone here can just go die for Eren without getting anything in return like you. Both we and Eren need to know what we’ll be giving up our lives for. If we don’t, we might start hesitating at the most crucial moment.” What if Jean hadn’t hesitated on the rooftop as his teammates were being eaten? Would more of them be standing here now? “We’re seeking a kind of collateral from him.” Jean turned back to Eren. “Please, make sure to be very precise when weighing the worth of your own life against that of all those sacrificed for it.”

He gripped Eren’s shoulders now, not breaking eye contact. “That’s what I’m really asking of you… Please.”

“I… I will.”

And that was that. It felt as though everyone around them finally let out the breath they’d been holding in. What more could Jean really expect of the guy.

“Good then.” He gave Eren a hearty punch on the shoulder, and walked away. Maybe the days of petty yelling and immature fist-fights were finally getting behind them, now that they had things of importance to deal with. He continued on towards the stables, heart still pounding from the encounter.

Armin and MIkasa were the last ones to arrive; they presumably had stayed back a while longer to speak with Eren. Eren just never showed up. Ness had already begun talking about what they were to be covering over the next four weeks –it sounded like about a quarter of their time would be spent in classes, learning some of the more technical parts about various formations, the flare signals, other equipment and some special situations. Ness would be teaching them the practical components of what was learnt in class. In particular, he said they had to master using the 3DMG in flat terrain, since much of the area outside wall Rose was open fields and old farmland. In particular, they would have to become more proficient with the horses –they knew how to ride but had only been given minimal training as trainees since the other regiments did not use horses nearly as much as the scouting legion.

They would begin all that after lunch, apparently, but first they were to be shown the grounds and more of the castle.

As it turns out, the “grounds” weren’t clearly defined; the land currently wasn’t being used for farming, and the nearest town was a good 30 minutes ride away. It was mostly rolling fields, with a small wooded area to the south.

The castle itself was 3 stories high, with a basement area below ground. This basement was apparently where Eren was being kept, his room and those of the “special operations squad” were located there. The castle’s first floor contained mostly empty rooms, some lightly furnished to act as communal offices with desks, chairs, paper and similar amenities, or lounge rooms with old-fashioned plush couches. The kitchen and mess hall were also located here, along with a small infirmary and the 3DMG storage. They were informed that the kitchens were supplied with a healthy budget considering the number of soldiers, so they were able to afford better and more food than what they were regularly used to.

The second floor contained mostly living quarters for the senior officers(Armin was right –these rooms were more private and looked to have only 2 or 4 people in each) but the bathing areas were here also. Despite the castle’s apparent age, they were still fortunate enough to have the luxury of basic plumbing often only seen in the larger villages.

The third floor contained only living quarters. One of the large rooms on the third floor was actually empty, and had been turned into a sort of “general space”. Jean couldn’t help but look behind him to see Armin’s face when he noticed the small bookshelf off in one corner. Apparently, despite the training, there would supposedly be more free time than when they were trainees, so the room might actually get some use before the four weeks were up.

Another bonus was the pay –oddly enough it was something that Jean completely forgot in all the mess. This was an actual job. They would begin getting their first pay two weeks from now, and they were free to spend it however they pleased. The encounter with the titans must have aged him, for he suddenly felt that things were petty and he had no idea what he would even spend his money on.

One more notable thing about the castle was its cleanliness. Apparently the scouts only moved in recently, and it was otherwise uninhabited at that point, yet the old stones positively gleamed.

Lunch was had in the gloomy room. Eren wasn’t there again, but when Christa asked about this Mikasa replied that he would be eating with them for dinner. She seemed to be in a much brighter mood now that she knew where Eren was, even partaking in some of the idle conversation over food.

The training exercise for the day consisted of them riding their horse at as fast a speed as they could manage, then using their 3DMG to latch onto a weighted target situated in an open space. Their goal was to simply get off their horse safely, and land on their feet. This was actually harder than it seemed; aiming was a bit of an issue, although most of them had gotten pretty proficient with their ability to aim while airborne so aiming on a horse wasn’t too much of a stretch, but the real difficult part was finding a way to swing yourself once you got off the horse so that you’d be able to gain control and stop your momentum enough to touch your feet onto the ground.

Armin in particular was having issues with this. Jean couldn’t help but wince as he saw him latch onto his target then have his momentum push him all the way around it, before he hit the ground, gear detaching and as he skidded. Again. And again. Jean knew he always had some issues during training, but the reason he stood out so much now was because everyone who decided to join the scouts had the right mind to be better than average; aside from Armin and Ymir, all his friends made top 10. Even the other people he wasn’t familiar with yet seemed pretty decent. Thankfully Ness was a little bit more forgiving than Shadis, and was giving Armin some one-on-one help.

As they were walking back to the storehouse later that day, their heavy targets being dragged behind their horses, Jean found himself walking next to Armin. Maybe he was going to have to get used to that.

“Hey man, you okay? It looks like the ground gave you a pretty good beating out there.”

Armin’s head snapped up to look at him, before casting his eyes downwards again. “It’s fine. I’m fine.” Armin said this with no humour. He seemed to be making an effort to not catch Jean’s eye. And as if to prove his point further, the slight limp he was sporting seconds ago vanished. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Uhh…”

A couple feet behind Armin, Mikasa was giving Jean a pointed glare. Clearly this was a subject that should be dropped.

Armin saved Jean the trouble of coming up with something more intelligent to say by asking Mikasa what she thought would be for dinner. He wasn’t sure what he said that rubbed Armin the wrong way but decided to file it away for future reference.

The rest of the evening was pleasant enough; everyone seemed back to normal come dinner time –even Eren. Christa and Bertholdt were given kitchen-cleaning duty but everyone else spent their time before bed in the common room, chatting and playing that shitty card game Connie liked so much which Jean just happened to suck at.

When he finally hit the bed that night, he felt more content than he’d felt in a long time. Even annoying titan-boy seemed less irritating in hindsight.

“You know guys, maybe Eren isn’t as big of an ass-hat as I thought he was.”

“Watch out guys, Jean’s clearly smacked his head out there today!’ Reiner guffawed from the other side of the dark room.

“Well, I mean you raised a good point today. He wasn’t exactly in a position to argue.” This time it was Armin, cocooned in his bed to his right. “He’s reckless --not dumb.”

“’Reckless but not dumb’… I like that. Consider it my first official compliment to Eren Jaegar. Reckless-but-not-dumb.”

“If those are your compliments, no wonder you were never able to woo Mikasa.”

The room tittered lightly at that. “Oh screw you Connie.”

Chapter Text

A couple days in and they began to settle into a comfortable routine. They would all wake up early, but no earlier than they were used to after three years as trainees, bathe and then head down for breakfast. Afterwards they would all, minus Eren, who was usually preoccupied with whatever, crowd into the makeshift classroom down the hall. For two hours they would sit and listen to someone explain the equipment, maneuvers or whatever was scheduled for the day. There was never any homework.

After that they had a two hour break, where they would spend time with lunch and whatever else they felt like doing. One of the days he threw a ball around outside with Reiner, Bertholdt, Connie and one of the other new guys, an activity which seemed so blessedly normal. On one of the days it was raining he sat in the common room trying to find some pieces missing from a board game while Armin idly talked to him about bakers’ yeast as he flipped through one of the old books on the shelves. Most of the books were a little dry for his tastes, but Armin seemed to get a kick out of the little notes some of them had in their front covers. Little things like “Hope this helps with the new house! Love Dad” scribbled on the first page of a book about do-it-yourself flooring.

“They’re like little stories themselves, you know? I mean how did this particular book end up here?”

Jean thought if they were stories they were likely boring ones. John Doe bought a house and was shit at renovations, so his dad passively-aggressively bought him the book. Insulted, he threw it in the community donations bin, where it was picked up by some hoarder and it ended up here. Armin found this funny.

In the afternoon they would all meet up at the stables and work on the practical components to their training. All of them could now use their gear to swing off their horse and land on their feet a good distance away. The targets they used now were much taller and they had to try and get a good swipe at the “neck” before landing. Mikasa was actually so good at this on her first attempt that Ness had her start to try and land on her horse instead of her feet when she was done.

“Remember guys, you’re out in the open outside of these walls. If you lose your horse there’s nowhere for you to go.”

After the tough hours of training came dinner, one of the few times any one of them would see Eren, then some leisure before bed. All in all it was a perfect balance between training and free-time that left Jean with little time to really think. And if he could stop himself from thinking about the bad stuff, then it almost started to feel like things were back to normal.

Unfortunately his subconscious wasn’t as eager to forget; on his fifth night he woke up with a start, breathing heavy, while his body was covered in a thin layer of sweat and trembled slightly. He’d just been talking to Marco, and as they were conversing Marco’s right side had started to dissolve. But Marco kept smiling and talking about whatever he was talking about, even as he started oozing blood.

What’s the matter Jean? he’d asked, even as the white of his skull started to show and his neck spurted blood down on his boots. Jean had woken up as the ribs were exposed, and now he was sitting up, staring down at nothing and feeling like he was going to vomit. Suddenly the images, the real ones in his memory which he’d locked away for the past few days came back. They came back and Jean felt guilty. He felt guilty that he was able to grab dessert today and take naps and complain about Connie’s snoring, and all the things Marco couldn’t do anymore.

“Jean?”

The voice was barely a whisper, and yet it was still able to momentarily take him out of his horrified stupor and he snapped his head to the right, eyes still wide and unfocused. It was Armin, on his side and leaning on his elbow. Jean was too horrified to even feel embarrassed. This was the first time he’d ever had a nightmare like that.

Again, “Jean, are you awake? …Are you okay?”

He sounded concerned, bless him. What was he supposed to say? Yeah I’m fuckin’ great nothing beats dreaming about your friend literally falling apart and by the way I might actually barf all over my bed I hope you don’t mind. But instead he contradicted himself by nodding and letting a choke of a sob out at the same time. And then the tears came and he knew there was no stopping them now as he hunched over, gripping his sheets tightly in his hands.

He felt a dip at the end of his bed and suddenly one of his hands was lifted from his sheets and held in a steady grasp. He felt himself continue to cry. “Shhh, shhh.” The soft voice was in front of him. But Jean was already too far gone to get much comfort from the little sounds Armin was making.

“No Armin you don’t understand, I wanted to forget. Forget him. I feel so wrong,” Jean tried to whisper, but with the mixture of his unsteady breathing, made him sound like he was almost wheezing. He gripped Armin’s hand tighter. How dare Jean feel happy when his friends were dead? He was trying to speak through his irregular breathing, his eyes still stinging. “I feel bad because I felt happy. How is anyone allowed to feel happy ever again after this sort of thing?”

The realization that the only reason Jean was able to feel back to normal is because he was preoccupied enough to “forget” his friend had died hit him hard. He didn’t want to forget about any of his friends, but did that mean the feelings of despair would never go away?

Armin’s voice came right next to his ear, and Jean realized he must have hunched over as he was crying, and now had his forehead pressed into the other’s shoulder, “You know, knowing Marco I don’t think he’d want you to be sad forever though.” Jean just sniffled in response. “There can be a sort of balance. Somewhere between holding onto the memories --the right memories, and forgetting they existed.”

When it didn’t seem like Armin was going to add anything else, Jean spoke up, his voice coming out surprisingly calm, “Could you talk to me about one of your things?”

“Mmm?”

Jean sat himself back up, but didn’t pull away his hand. “You know, your bugs and rocks and… things. The random little things you’re always going on about.” He hoped he wasn’t going to have to add that hearing Armin talked had helped him keep his mind occupied. The thought of just laying back down and being left to his thoughts until sleep came scared him. And now even sleep wasn’t safe anymore, apparently. “Please?”

Thankfully Armin didn’t press the issue, and responded with no hesitation. “Ok then, I’m going to tell you all about how thunderstorms are formed. But you got to lay back down, ok?” He was smiling, just a little. So Jean did his best attempt at a smile too.

“Ok.”

And so Jean was spared from his thoughts for a while longer, he fell asleep to breathy whispers that spoke of warm, moist air colliding with fronts of cool air, kilometers up in the sky.

Jean woke up the next morning slowly and pleasantly, with the sun shining through the windows and warming his face. He noted Armin was no longer at the foot of his bed, which was probably for the best because that would certainly have raised some questions. Looking to his right, he noticed he wasn’t in his own bed either. Come to think of it, something seemed a little off…

He sat up and looked around the sunny room. It was empty save for Bertholdt, who was sitting cross-legged on his mattress, flipping through a book.

“Yo Bert, where is everyone?”

“Most are down at lunch… although some took a ride to town.”

“Lunch??” Bertholdt looked up suddenly and clutched his book a bit closer. Jean sighed and continued more calmly, “why didn’t anybody wake me up?” Thankfully today was one of their weekly days off, but waking up this late always made Jean feel a little bit out of it.

“Armin told us we should probably just let you sleep?”

Oh. It was hard to feel too upset at that. The kid was usually right anyways Jean was starting to learn.

After a quick shower Jean got dressed and headed to the first floor. As usual, there was a variety of food to choose from. After helping himself, he went to go sit with Ymir, Christa and Reiner.

“Sleeping beauty has decided to join the commoners?”

Jean gave Ymir the finger and dug into his food. It looked like the three of them were nearly done, and everyone else was nowhere to be seen.

“Any plans for the day, Jean?” Reiner asked. He was seated to one side of Chista, with Ymir on the other. Despite the question being directed at him, Reiner kept his eyes on Ymir, who eyed him back, all the while Christa was happily digging into a pudding.

“Well it looks like my day is already half-over. Bertholdt said some people went to town?”

“Yeah, a lot of the older scouts, as well as Mikasa and Armin. Apparently they asked Eren along too, but I guess his days off aren’t quite as lenient as ours.”

Jean grunted into his food. What was the point of going into town with no money? They weren’t due to be paid until next week. Inheritance money perhaps?

In the end Jean ended up going outside after eating. He sat with Sasha and Connie, who were talking about some country-game they used to play involving horses, a ball and some sticks. They thought everyone could give it a shot later, but Jean pointed out the darkening sky and said by the time they taught everyone the rules it would likely have started raining.

“Low pressure system, y’know.” Connie just stared back at him, looking lost.

They heard the sound of footsteps in the grass behind them, and turned around to see Eren approaching. “Hey guys.” He looked… drained, for lack of a better word. Not tired, but whatever energy was usually put a bounce in his steps was clearly gone this afternoon. He sat down on the ground next to Sasha.

“The scary short man finally let you free?”

“Connie I don’t think you’re allowed to call anyone short.” Sasha poked Connie playfully.

“Levi? Ah no, he’s alright actually. Really!” Eren added as he was hit with three deadpan faces. He started picking at the grass in front of him and sighed.

“It’s just weird, you know? I mean we’re all part of a big team now right? But they’re sort of keeping me separate and… I don’t know, sometimes I just feel like they aren’t telling me everything. Like I don’t know what’s going on.” He took his eyes away from the grass for a moment and looked at them. “Do you know what I mean?”

Jean kept his voice pointedly unamused, “Dude you think you don’t know what’s going on? We ask you what you’ve been up to and you’re not even allowed to tell us. We’re like, a full step further in the dark.” Connie and Sasha nodded their heads together in agreement.

Eren continued, “And sure, everyone’s nice enough but at the same time I feel like they don’t really trust me. Like they’re afraid of me?” Eren let out another sigh and rested his chin on his knees. Jean almost felt bad for him. Almost.

“Well it’s just temporary though, right?” Sasha asked. “I mean, isn’t that what the first mission is going to be? We’re just going out and then coming right back, making sure we all get the gist of everything and you don’t… you keep your cool. Then they’ll probably realize you’re alright and ‘lengthen the leash’ a bit, yeah?”

“See that’s the thing too, I’ve been talking to Armin and… “ Eren suddenly stopped. “Are he and Mikasa still out?”

“They should be back pretty soon. With snacks, if Armin keeps his promise.” Connie replied.

“Say Eren, how does that titan power of yours work anyway? Like, now that you know you’ve got it, can you just go titan whenever you want?”

Eren laughed nervously. “You think they let me practise?”

“Well what’s the point of making you all special if you don’t get to do your special thing?”

“Hey watch it, it’s not like I signed up for this.”

Connie poked the scouting legion badge on his pocket. “Well, you signed up for this.”

“I’m just saying, they may as well have you try. Worst case scenario you go titan and your new friends come and slice you up. Better them than us.”

Eren grunted. “I’ll keep the suggestion in mind.”

“Snacks ahoooooooy!” Sasha shouted, standing up and pointing to the small band of horses in the distance.

Jean rolled his eyes but couldn’t help but crack a smile. “Really you guys? We get fed proper now, no need to embarrass yourselves.”

It looks like they were getting in just in time too –the sun had just fallen behind the large grey cloud that tookup most of the sky. Figuring this was a good time to head inside, they all made their way back inside thecastle.

Jean decided to make his way to the common room instead of joining the party awaiting Armin and Mikasa. He'd managed to fall back asleep last night without any more nightmares, but that didn’t mean he wasn't feelinga little bit silly about the whole thing. With horror Jean realized there was nothing stopping Armin from telling Mikasa about it while they were riding that day. Or even worse, Eren. He and Mikasa had made a ritual of spending some time in the basement with Eren before they came up to bed.

Days off are lame Jean decided as he whipped out his sketch book and started idly doodling.

“You’re clearly in the wrong line of work. You’re wasting your talent spending 3 years in the training corps.” Armin’s voice sounded from behind as he added some detail to his sketch of Sasha-titan devouring a mound of breakfast rolls.

“Was that a joke? Don’t joke Armin, it doesn’t suit you.”

A bag of something fell onto his lap. “So I’ve been told… Here, for you. I hope you like popcorn?”

Jean put his pen and paper down and examined the present. “Uh wow, thanks? I don’t think I’ve had popcorn since I was little.”

“Good then.” Armin sat himself down on a couch across from Jean’s, and closed his eyes and leaned his head all the way back, his face now pointing towards the ceiling. “You know, people are odd. Sometimes I really think it’s easier dealing with honestly unhappy people than those who run around like everything’s ok.” This was said over the crinkling of Jean opening the little bag.

“…You’re not making fun of me are you?” He popped a piece of popcorn in his mouth. He thought he understood, though. He remembered how disconnected he'd felt towards everyone in the days immediately following the Trost clean-up. When everyone seemed to be trying their best to start acting “normal” again. He had found it… unsettling. Although after the realization he had last night, he was starting to understand that people probably just had different ways of coping.

“Ah no. The opposite actually.” He propped his head up again. “Connie and Sasha, Ymir and Christa and even Reiner and Bertholdt, now that they’re here they’ve gone back to acting like everything’s ok. It’s disconcerting.”

“Is that why you’re such good friends with Eren? If anyone’s angry and emotional all the time all the time it’s him.” He popped some more popcorn into his mouth.

Armin just looked at him, unamused. “Do you assume everything is as black and white as that?”

“Huh? Well no. He just pisses me off sometimes.” Of course Armin would have to make him feel bad about making a joke. “Actually he seemed pretty down today.”

“Yeah…”

“… Hey Armin, you’re not going to tell Eren are you? Uh, about me being all…”

“Don’t worry Jean, as far Eren’s concerned, you’re only emotion is cool disdain.”

“Great. Hey Armin, open your mouth.”

“Huh? Hey!” A piece of popcorn hit him on the cheek. “What was that for?”

“Open.”

He complied, looking a little confused. This time one hit him on the nose.

“Maybe it’s easier if I just catch it. I used to do this all the –“ A piece hit Jean in the eye as he leaned back to catch it.

Armin laughed.

As the sounds of rain hitting the windows began to grow, the common room slowly filled up with their other friends. They all spent the rest of their day off talking and playing, and Jean started to appreciate how Armin, Eren and Mikasa always seemed to act appropriately for their circumstances. Maybe they found the balance Armin had been talking about.

Chapter Text

Since he had his nightmare, it had become routine for him and Armin to talk for a while before bed. It was never a rigid forced thing, just idle chit-chat that would pass between them as they made themselves comfortable before they went to sleep. This usually happened after Armin came up from the basement with Mikasa, as the two of them seemed to make it their duty to spend an hour or two after dinner with their basement-dwelling friend.

That wasn’t to say they never talked at other times –they did. Whatever sub-groupings of social circles that existed when they were trainees seemed to have dissolved, and now everyone found themselves closer friends with everyone else in the scouts. But it was right before bed that Jean felt like the conversations were most personal. Not personal in topic necessarily, but he knew (and he was very glad Armin never flat-out said it) that these conversations were somehow for him.

A lot of the times Armin just talked about some random thing he picked up from a book at some time or another, but as the days passed Jean also learned a few tidbits here and there about Armin himself; his grandfather, his childhood before the wall came down, and his favourite colour (green). Jean talked too, of course. He considered himself pretty talkative, especially back in the days before tragedy had struck. But with Armin he found himself content just to sit and listen. Nevertheless, he’d ask questions occasionally, and give his own input now and then.

He shared things about his own, comparatively uninteresting, childhood –vacations to the countryside with his mom and dad, baking cookies for the holidays, and building forts out in the woodlot behind his house. He’d had many friends as a kid. He hoped that, if he had grown up in the same town as Armin, he wouldn’t have been part of the crowd that picked on him, one could never know however. Kids could be really cruel sometimes.

He was also able to talk about Marco now. Or at least, he didn’t shy away from the topic when it was brought up. He realized it was probably healthy, and Armin was very easy to talk to about it since he was not only friends with Marco also, but he didn’t look at Jean like he was made of glass as soon as the name was mentioned.

The nightmares hadn’t stopped though. He’d had two more since the first, and both times he found himself tossing and turning himself awake, and both times, somehow, Armin would be there asking if he was okay. Jean would lie, both times, and say he was fine. Of course Armin didn’t fall for it, and would sit at the end of his bed and indulge him with whispers about whatever the blonde felt like talking about.

Jean felt a little guilty; surely Armin would much prefer to be asleep in his own bed, but he never complained, nor did he bring it up the next morning as they both yawned over breakfast, and Jean was always able to slip back to sleep before too long.

Marco came up in a rather unexpected way, on an overcast day when Jean had agreed to join Armin for a walk around the little woods behind the castle. Armin did this sometimes, go for walks with Mikasa during their midday break. But today Mikasa had stable-cleaning duty and so Armin ended up asking Jean along as he was finishing up his lunch.

“No obligations of course. But if you want some fresh air I’m heading out in 10.”

And Jean found it difficult to say no.

“So what’s the box for?”

They were taking the rough path leading to the line of trees at the back. For some reason Armin was carrying around a box, maybe twice as big as his hand.

“You’ll see. It’s a bit of a hobby I have.”

And sure enough, as they got a bit further into the little copse, every couple of meters of walking would be punctuated by Armin investigating a branch, or crouching down and poking at some weeds, occasionally plucking something off and putting it into his little box. When Jean asked him about it, Armin replied that he was going to “press them”.

It was midsummer and the heat and humidity had been oppressive for the past few days, but the clouds and the shade of the trees made it very pleasant in the thicket, and Jean thought he’d humour himself and try finding some leaves too, as they progressed leisurely down the dirt path, discussing in short intervals the impracticality of their standard issue white pants.

At the bottom of a little hill, Jean half-heartedly plucked a speckled leaf from a white-barked tree. It had nice little edges, and ended in a sharp little point. “How ‘bout this one?”

Armin leaned in to give it a quick look. “Betula pendula, the silver birch. Jean, that one’s diseased. Look at all the little bumps on it.”

Jean promptly dropped it like the diseased thing it was. Armin chuckled lightly as he continued down the patchy trail. “Don’t worry, I don’t think it’s contagious.”

Feeling like he missed the joke, he followed a couple feet behind, ducking to avoid a cloud of gnats flying around at eye-level. Armin decided to give him the challenge of finding something called an “Anchusa crispa”; a little dark green stalky plant that should have 5-petaled purple flowers at the tips. Armin told him that he’d already collected most of the common plants, silver birch included, but he wanted to see if he could find a few of the oddities in here. Jean decided to keep it to himself that an Anchusa crispa sounded more like a flakey pastry than a rare plant.

“So does Mikasa do this with you too? The leaf-collecting thing?”

“Nah, she likes the walk though. This path actually goes on quite a ways, but our afternoon training starts in less than an hour so…”

“No no, it’s cool. I think an hour of leaves is more than enough for me anyways. I know Shiganshina was more fields, but I’ve had my fair share of trees as a kid.”

“Your tree fort?”

“Hell yeah. You don’t even understand, me and my buddies had the best one in the entire town.” Jean had fond memories of defending the tree from any intruding kids.

Armin, who was leaning against one of the bigger trees, looked down and smiled, “We could make one… if you want.”

Jean actually contemplated his suggestion for half a second before dismissing the idea. “No way, these trees are too wimpy.” And it was true; all the trees near the castle were relatively thin-trunked. “Well, maybe you could get up one, but I’d just fall on my ass. I’m too heavy. All my muscles, you know.”

“Haha, right.” Jean caught the smirk and realized that he was probably joking before. He could never tell when Armin was being serious…

They started their walk again.

“So are you sure that you and Mikasa don’t have a secret ‘make-out point’ in here somewhere? I’m still not convinced this tree thing isn’t just a front.”

Armin answered his joke with an unamused glance behind his shoulder. “Jean, no.”

Jean laughed, a real laugh. It’s been too long, he realized.

Armin had now crouched beside a little stream up ahead, rinsing off one of his specimens in the water. “Speaking of which, were you and Marco… y’know…”

“What?” Jean was always very eloquent.

“Some people used to say some…things. I doubted it was true, personally, but—“

Back up. “Are you asking me if I… dated my best friend?” If he was trying to get back at him for his make-out point comment he was doing so tactlessly.

Armin didn’t say anything, just looked up at him from his spot on the ground with mild curiosity on his face, as he shook his leaf to dry it off.

“What, you serious? Eugh, no man. Strictly friends. Jesus, there were people who actually though I was gay?” He made a point of grimacing. “Man that’s messed.”

Then he saw the face Armin was making in response.

“—Not that there’s anything wrong with being gay!” But Armin had already averted his gaze and was standing up, brushing off his knees and opening his box to deposit the newest item.

“We should probably head back now.” And sure enough, still avoiding Jean’s eyes, he started making his way down the path in the direction they had originally come.

Jean, after recovering from a couple seconds of stupor, dropped whatever leaves he was holding on to and hurried behind him. “I just meant, you know, me and Marco. But you know if two guys like each then, whatever right?” You fucked up Jean. You fucked up.

“Right, sure.”

The worst part was Armin didn’t even sound angry. It was an amazing calculated indifference that Jean doubted anyone else would have been able to pull off. And when he heard Armin add a little “sorry” at the end, it was like a small rock or two hit the bottom of Jean’s gut. How dare he say sorry after I made myself sound like a turd?

“No man, I didn’t even mean it like… I just did that thing –that thing guys feel obligated to do when their sexuality is questioned, you know? Right? I’m such an ass, sometimes.”

“It’s fine Jean, don’t… please just drop it, okay? I’m not mad. It was a dumb thing for me to bring up anyways.”

The trees were thinning out now, and Jean was still in a little bit of a panic. He felt like if he didn’t sort this out before they got back to the “real world” it would be one of those things that just festered and loomed.

He really couldn’t care less if Armin was gay. He wished he could just say that. Could he? He didn’t want any misunderstandings. And it was true, it really didn’t make a difference to him one way or the other. Sure, it wasn’t really the norm, but when you signed up for the scouting legion you already threw normality out the window. There were bigger issues than caring about… well that.

Just as Jean opened his mouth to make himself clear, Armin stopped and sighed, then finally turned to face him. By this point, his usually pale cheeks were tinged pink. Whether from the heat or from embarrassment Jean couldn’t really tell.

“Jean if you don’t drop it right now I swear I’m going to make you eat all the leaves in this box. And I know for a fact at least 2 of them will give you serious stomach cramps.”

Armin had the faintest hint of a smile on his face as he said this, so Jean felt more than content to just let it go. For now.

Thankfully the training session which began shortly after they returned proceeded normally. Except for the part where Jean fell off his horse. Literally fell off; he wasn’t even doing anything. His mind was clearly elsewhere. But when he caught Armin’s eyes as Connie helped him up he didn’t see any negativity there. In fact, he was laughing along with Connie as Jean unceremoniously brushed the dirt from his butt and climbed back on.

He felt he’d gotten more-or-less off the hook and the rest of the afternoon proceeded without incident.

That evening he decided to write to his mom. He did this occasionally, not because he had a lot to talk about, but because he felt obligated to. He loved his mom, he really did, but what could he really say? “Hey mom, getting ready to maybe die in two weeks. By the way the pie here is delicious.”

He would be receiving his first pay tomorrow, and he was contemplating sending it to her. He knew that was what Connie was doing since he figured his parents would probably take better care of his money than he could for the time being. This was probably true; not only did Jean not really have anything to spend his pay on, but he also didn’t have a place he could call “home”, and thus no reliable bank.

He groaned and flopped back against his pillows as Armin came into the room and settled himself on the bed beside Jean’s. This was usually the time he came back from hanging out with Eren downstairs.

“Writing your mom again?”

Jean grumbled again in protest as a response.

Ignoring the sound, Armin dug under his pile of books for a particularly heavy volume at the bottom of the pile. He lifted it up onto his lap and opened it up, not seeming to care about which page he opened it to.

“Why don’t you add one of these? Take your pick.”

And sure enough when Jean sat up and leaned over to look, the pages had dried leaves of different shapes and colours spread between them. It seemed he was being literal when he said they were going to be “pressed”. Pressed right between the pages of a heavy book.

“So is this what you do with all the leaves, then?” Jean asked as he picked up two yellow leaves stuck together on a single stem. These ones must have been from a previous autumn, judging by the colour. He wasn’t sure how interested his mom would be in leaves, but then again it was something to talk about. “Hey mom, today I collected leaves with a new friend I made at work. When you dry them between a book they get preserved and look like this.” It might make his life seem almost normal.

“Mmhmm. My granddad and I used to try and find leaves in the fall. We had a book in our house full of them. Of course, I didn’t get to grab the book –or any of the others, when we fled the town. So I’ve had to start over.” Jean stared at him. Despite the reputation he’d gotten when they were trainees, Armin very rarely seemed sad when talking about the past. Determined, sometimes, but never outright sad. But now he spoke of it like he was at ease. Like losing a bookcase full of family treasures was just something that happened.

Jean didn’t really know what to say. “You’re sure it’s ok if I take this one?”

Armin closed the heavy book with a thump. “Yeah yeah, of course. You earned it, putting up with silly hobby today.” But Jean didn’t think it was silly.

So Jean got back to his letter while Armin opened another book, this time actually started to read it. The only other people in the room were Sasha and Connie, who were being relatively quiet, except for the occasional slap and muffled shriek (apparently the card game they were playing involved a lot of hitting). The rest of the boys must have been in the common room.

“So what’s new with Jaeger?” Usually it wasn’t much, and Jean didn’t bother asking too often. He had a sort of muted respect for the time Armin and his friend got to spend together, and he was never actually interested enough to do much prying anyways.

Armin lifted his hand to his mouth and chuckled lightly. “You’ll like this story.” He put down his book and shifted his body so he was facing Jean’s bed, legs crossed. “Apparently today they were having him try to transform. Safely, in an empty well. Anyways, when that didn’t work they decided to stop for lunch. Eren ended up making a whole titan arm so he could grab his spoon when it fell on to the ground.”

“Levi and the other weirdos let him practise transforming?” Jean recalled the conversation he had with Eren last week. “That was my idea y’know. I told him that. That he should be allowed to practise.” Or something along those lines. Jean felt he should get some credit, at the very least.

“Oh really? Well, Eren neglected to mention that. Anyways, they all nearly sliced him up right there.” Armin let out a little light-hearted sigh. “You know I feel bad for finding it a little funny now –Eren said it was a terrifying when it actually happened.”

“Well at least he got his spoon, right?”

“Yeah, that. I don’t know if the incident played into the decision at all, but apparently he’s going to be joining us in training for the last two weeks. Just in time to learn the ‘Long Distance Enemy Scouting Formation’.”

“For some reason I’d have thought Eren losing it for a piece of silverware would make the higher-ups more cautious, not less…” Jean looked back over at Armin again, he was smiling lightly as he picked up his book again. Suddenly Jean felt his stomach twist unpleasantly. Eren will be back.

Not that it matters. Why should Jean care that Eren would be training with the rest of them again? He didn’t care. Not at all.

Slap.

“Ah, Sasha! That friggan hurts!” The sounds of Sasha cracking-up were heard some feet away.

Jean didn’t want to talk about Eren anymore.

“Hey Armin? How do plants get diseases?”

Chapter Text

As it turned out, Eren’s return did bother Jean.

He was first irked when he went into the depressing mess-hall Monday morning and found his usual spot had been taken. By Eren. Wedged right between Connie and Mikasa, snickering at god knows what.

But whatever. It wasn’t like Eren did it on purpose. He probably just sat down anywhere, not knowing that by now there were basically meal-specific seating arrangements. But whatever.

Jean took a seat at the end next to Christa and ate his eggs and orange juice quietly.

Then it happened again.

When Jean walked into class for their formal introduction on the Long Distance Enemy Scouting Formation (he was definitely going to need a short-form for that), his seat in the front row by the window was again occupied. Again, not necessarily Eren’s fault. Why wouldn’t he take the seat next Mikasa and Armin? It was the logical option.

Still, he felt a prick of annoyance as he pulled out a chair at the table behind theirs. Mikasa must have noticed him; she turned her head around slightly, “Good morning, Jean.”

He managed a half-hearted flip of the hand and a “morning”. Since Jean had become better friends with Armin, Mikasa had opened up to him too, a little. For someone like Mikasa, this basically meant giving him the occasional greeting and not always acting cold as ice. Regardless, it was a happy development. Armin and Eren’s heads turned around too, and gave Jean a cheery wave and a subtle nod, respectively.

He felt the tiniest of urges to say something to Jaeger. “They finally let you out of your cage, huh?” or “so it’s our turn to babysit you now?” but he refrained. Eren hadn’t explicitly antagonized him yet, and for whatever reason he felt the need to behave himself regarding the idiot since Armin was sitting right there. And Mikasa. He didn’t want to be in her bad books again so soon.

And it didn’t take long before he was wishing he sat somewhere else. Not only were the whispers in front of him distracting, but they reminded Jean of all the times Armin would “hush” him when he would be the one whispering. Eventually Jean stopped trying to whisper witty commentary and, truth be told, his “educational experience” probably benefitted from it. But wasn’t Eren the one serious about killing titans? Shouldn’t he be the one taking notes, instead of leaning into Armin’s ear every couple of minutes? Armin, who suddenly didn’t mind being distracted?

Tight-faced, Jean made a note to sit at the back with Reiner and Bertholdt during the remainder of their classroom training.

At lunch, Jean actually talked a bit with Eren. About nothing much in particular. And the guy had the nerve to be almost congenial. He seemed… happy, to finally be allowed with the rest of them. But unfortunately that meant he still didn’t have any real reason to be angry with the guy.

Another downside to Eren being back was that his new posse was just sort of there during their practical training. It made sense, he supposed, for safety reasons, but Jean could swear the ugly one kept giving him the stink-eye as they were practising a miniature formation that day. Or maybe that’s just how his face was.

“Oi, eyes ahead, you!”

Jean sighed and rode on. The first maneuver they were trying was to just ride in a straight line while staying in formation. That seemed straightforward enough. But as it turned out, once you lost sight of the person ahead of you, your definition of “straight” could become a bit hazy. And so when the exercise was over, it turned out that half of them had gone so off course that the rest were left waiting around for everyone to come to the right place. On top of this, their positions relative to one another got hopelessly scrambled during the trek; somehow Jean went from being in the back left to being in the front right. As in right in the middle of nowhere. He managed to miss the checkpoint entirely.

This was going to be a long two weeks, he decided.

Thankfully Armin was still there to chat before bed. It seemed silly in retrospect, but he had been expecting that to disappear too.

“So how are you, stranger?” Jean stretched, spread out across his bed. “We haven’t talked much today have we?”

“Miss me? “ Armin had a light smile on his face as he pulled his head through his pajama top. “So am I allowed to make fun of you for running your horse past the check-point today? How long did you ride before you realized you went too far?”

Jean made sure to give an unamused expression at that. “Actually no, you’re not allowed. Also not everyone was blessed to be put in the middle right at the start; the odds were clearly in favour of you staying within the checkpoint margins.”

“Or maybe I’m just better at riding in a straight line?”

“Sure, sure, if you say so Arm’.”

“Arm?”

“…It’s not my fault you’re name doesn’t really make for a good nickname base.”

“Says the guy with one syllable.”

That evening Armin and Jean came up with stupid nicknames for everyone and it started to feel like having “Er” around wouldn’t be such a big deal after all.

There was one upside to the new training Jean realised, with more time spent riding horses came less physical strain. Jean was able to watch the purple splotches, the ones Armin pretended didn’t exist and didn’t hurt, slowly disappear from his back. His own matching bruises were also on their way out, and being replaced by relatively minor saddle soreness. And thankfully, they couldn’t have gotten much worse at the formation training than that first day.

A slight pause from the monotony of training came during Sasha’s birthday, when Connie attempted to bake a cake. Being the nice guy he was, Jean accompanied Connie into town to buy the ingredients, although he was equally clueless when it came to exactly what went into making a cake. Connie didn’t bother to ask for his help when he baked it later that day, instead setting up base in the kitchen by himself, having booked the space especially for this purpose.

That evening, as Jean and Eren were sitting in the common room (his company had become annoyingly tolerable), Connie had come up and excitedly asked them to try a piece.

A few chews in and Jean had to force himself to swallow prematurely, just to rid himself of the taste. “Connie don’t give this to her.”

“Wha?”

Eren, after a particularly loud gulp, also looked up at Connie and said in an equally serious voice, “This is terrible. She might actually die.”

Connie looked horrified as he replied, “But these were just pieces from the extra one! I already gave it to her! She… she said it was great?”

As it turned out, Sasha did not die, but as Jean passed her later in the hall they exchanged a private look of unspoken suffering. Jean couldn’t imagine liking someone enough to eat an entire piece of Connie’s cake.

Unfortunately things didn’t stay quite so chipper. As the date of the expedition drew ever closer, their entire group’s morale appeared to be dropping dramatically. Evenings that used to be spent playing lively rounds of charades or boisterous card games were now spent having detached conversations and speculating about their mission. It was clear that this time around people seemed less keen to pretend everything was okay, and were now very much aware of what they were training for.

Jean started to notice his own friends acting strangely as well. Sometimes he would catch Connie staring out at nothing; he wouldn’t respond to his name and you’d have to tap him to get him to snap out of it. And the other night, as Jean was headed out for some fresh air, he passed the stables and saw Christa just sitting in there on the floor, mumbling either to the horses or to herself. He couldn’t decide which would be deemed “worse”. She was still there when he passed by on his way back. And one night Bert woke up screaming --the kind of screaming that you couldn’t even pretend you didn’t hear the next morning.

His comfortable friendship with Armin had also been slipping. It wasn’t even Eren’s fault specifically, as hard as Jean had tried to find some way to blame him initially. And really, it wasn’t Armin’s fault either. Who was Jean to say who he should hang out with and for how long? Yet there were times Jean definitely felt a little bit… resentful. And he did his best to push those feelings away, but he snapped for the first time one night when Armin came up from the basement particularly late.

It was still a fair number of days before they were scheduled to go beyond the wall, and at this point Armin had already begun spending more and more time with Eren and Mikasa before bed. And during the day too, but that was easier for him to let slide. For a while, he pretended not to notice. And then he pretended not to care. On this particular night Armin had come back so late Jean was nearly asleep himself.

“…Jean?” He almost sounded apologetic as he tried to shut the door quietly behind him.

“It’s fine Armin. Just go to bed.” He was too tired for niceties. Clearly Armin had better things to do than talk to Jean anyways. Jean gruffly turned himself over and wrapped himself more thoroughly in his blankets. Armin hadn’t said anything afterwards.

That first night more-or-less set the precedent for how the final days before their expedition played out. And so the night Jean had his last nightmare before the 57^th expedition, he had fallen asleep before Armin had even come back upstairs. But he was there when Jean shot awake, his mind still in panic mode despite not remembering exactly what it was he had been dreaming about.

Despite the strange distance that had managed to creep up on them, Armin wasted no time in attempting to calm him down, chatting about crop rotation of all things. Yet on this particular occasion it was done from his own bed. The closeness wasn’t something he’d necessarily craved before, but this time he felt the absence.

He wondered if he had done something wrong. Armin was probably getting sick of babying sad little Jean. Armin was probably tired and annoyed just like he was. For once he begrudged Armin’s light-sleeping; how he ever managed to hear Jean wake up was still a mystery to him.

And suddenly the whole situation just seemed so silly. Learning about soil nutrients in the middle of the night. So for the second time that week, Jean told Armin he should just go to sleep, and that he was fine. Armin stopped mid-sentence at that interruption, after which there was a second or two of tense, uncomfortable silence.

“Okay.”

Jean tried to make himself feel better about it, as he lay there facing the opposite direction. Armin was probably fatigued and would appreciate the rest. Jean didn’t even remember what his nightmare was about so his thoughts were less chaotic anyways. Yet the unfamiliar silence they shared seemed to echo in his gut.

On the last day before the 57^th expedition, training was halted in favour of making preparations. Up until now, the description and purpose of the actual expedition had remained rather vague, and when one of the senior scouts pulled each of them aside one by one, Jean expected something substantial. But strangely enough the only information he was given was his own position in tomorrow’s formation (third column, fourth communications) and Eren’s. Surely there was a more efficient way of communicating this, yet throughout the day, each of them was individually brought aside and personally told.

Preparations included helping load the carts, checking and rechecking one’s gear and the like. The carts, which moved slower, were going to be driven to Karanese tonight and would be waiting for them that morning. There would be fresh horses waiting for them there too.

It was morose business. And suspicious. They weren’t even allowed to see the contents of half the carts, and when Jean asked why there was at least one left completely empty, the response was simply “for the bodies”.

Nobody felt much like talking. Or eating. And if someone asked Jean how he had spent the day aside from packing, he wouldn’t be able to answer; he honestly couldn’t remember.

The sudden need for isolation everyone seemed to have made Jean feel both heavy and agitated. This might be the last chance he ever got to talk to any of his friends, because who knew what was going to happen tomorrow? Yet he couldn’t bring himself to go up and say something substantial.

Connie, please be careful tomorrow.

Sasha, trembling like that is just going to wear you out.

So instead they all just sort of sat around, waiting until it was time to sleep. And the one person Jean felt like he might have been able to maybe talk to, who he also really wanted to talk to, wasn’t even there.

So Jean was left to sit and think by himself.

Jean had been switching back and forth between being irrationally upset that Armin spent most of his available time with Eren, and being feeling distressed that they were going into this life-or-death scenario on less than ideal footing. Over the past few days he questioned himself if Armin had been friendly towards him for any other reason other than for a replacement for his real best friend. But at the same time he knew it had been him who’d been pushing Armin away recently, when Armin had come in late or when he tried making small-talk to lighten the mood. So when Armin started to seem too weary to put in the effort (and who could blame him?) things started to feel a little stagnant.

Jean liked Armin. Over the past month he’d become someone Jean could genuinely call one of his friends. It was a different sort of friendship than he had with people like Connie or Sasha –more delicate, but also more intimate. Jean didn’t have very many intimate friends. In fact, right now he was down to just the one. But maybe to Armin Jean was just one of many. If nothing else, Armin also had Mikasa and Eren.

Unfortunately Jean was in one of his bad moods when Armin crept in, hours after everyone else had pretended to go to bed. He knew everyone else was still up too; Connie wasn’t snoring and he could still hear the sounds of people readjusting themselves every few minutes. They were going to suffer in a few hours, when they had to get up early and make the trek on horseback to Karanese, before finally leaving the wall.

“Jean?” It had been a while since Armin had tried to initiate the late-night talks, but this time his voice had a strange sense of urgency to it. Again, “Jean?”, but a little bit louder. And Jean could have sat up. He could have sat up and asked what was the matter, and maybe eased his own mind a little bit at the same time, a little emotional breakdown perhaps, and most importantly beg Armin to please not die tomorrow but he didn’t. Some, angry, resentful and scared part of him decided to just keep pretending he was asleep.

And so Jean just listened as Armin changed into his pajamas and got under covers, faintly able to hear him exhaling shakily. And then he heard crying. Armin was crying into his pillow.

And for some reason, this time, it didn’t help put Jean to sleep.

Chapter Text

Jean woke up with a steely calm that surprised him. It seemed his mind, in the few hours he had managed to sleep, had rid itself of any superfluous concerns not necessary to the task ahead. He had one goal in mind now –to go outside the wall, do his part in the formation, and come back safely at the end of the day.

Maybe the others felt the same, or maybe they had their own reasons for their serious expressions and quiet demeanors that morning. Even the ride in the mild, pre-dawn morning was done in silence.

By the time they reached Karanese, the sun was just barely poking out from the horizon. There were members of the garrison were bustling about atop the walls getting ready to open the gates, and one or two curious, early-rising faces poking out of windows along the street, but other than that the only movement was the fidgeting of horses.

Thinking about this day, Jean had been expecting to feel nervous, or scared. The numbness he felt instead was preferable although it left him feeling a little detached. But perhaps this is just what it felt like to be a weapon, a tool for humanity.

It felt like he was watching the scene unfold from outside his own body, when Erwin Smith, who Jean had scarcely seen around headquarters, called for the gates to be open and for everyone to rush ahead. He pushed his horse forward with the others, because that’s what he was supposed to do. He flinched when he caught sight of the first titan walking among the deserted streets of the town on the other side of the barrier, but he was able to dismiss it, and force himself to look ahead.

It wasn’t his job to kill any titans today. In fact if everything went according to plan, though Jean didn’t know how likely that was, he wouldn’t need to put any of the first weeks’ training to the test. Not only was Jean was to be located behind the outermost lines in the formation, but even those with actual exposure to the titans were only to engage in combat against titans displaying abnormal behavior. His flare guns and his horse were his weapons today.

The edge of the dilapidated town was finally reached, and the world had opened up to reveal wide open spaces covered in green fields. It was difficult to believe a place like this was uninhabitable.

At this point they were ordered to get into formation. He gave a surly nod to both Armin and Reiner before the two split up ahead of him. Whatever issues may have existed between them were thrown away for the time being. There would be time for that later, hopefully.

And so within a couple of minutes, the formation was spread-out and organized. In the open space, Jean could faintly make out Reiner, ahead and to his right, and even further in front, a blurry form he assumed was Armin. His eyes made a habit of scanning his right –that was where to outer scouts would be located, and where any smoke signals would appear.

In the first thirty minutes there were two red flares, which Jean passed along accordingly. These were eventually received by Erwin, and he gave the signal to adjust direction. However, the next round of flares was less clear; in a span of less than a couple minutes there was a score of red flares and a spattering of black. A little miffed, Jean decided to relay the message with a black flare of his own.

An abnormal already?

Jean didn’t keep a good enough eye on his left immediately after he shot to observe how the signal traveled, but no response from Erwin was received, so Jean just kept following the blurry little form in the distance, and continued travelling in the same direction as before.

One didn’t need to be a genius to realize something had happened. The sky was still smoggy with the previous rounds, but after all the commotion of those couple of minutes, there were no more flares. None. Which could only mean people were no longer shooting them.

Seeing a slight raise in the ground up ahead and to his right, Jean adjusted himself slightly, so that he rode up the slight hill. A scan in that direction from his better vantage point was enough to make him grip the reins tighter. Titans. A crowd of titans could be seen, their broad backs hunched over something (or someone), and Jean could see a few of them making their way, quickly, in the same direction he himself was riding. He thought he saw a couple clouds of titan-steam, but however many titans the scouts had managed to kill, it was not nearly enough to staunch the flow of the masses in the distance.

Are our defenses completely wiped?

A black smoke signal up ahead made him shoot his head forward. He passed it along, and watched, as a medium-sized titan ran ahead. It collapsed a short while after, expelling a puff of steam. Although he couldn’t quite see for himself, he assumed it was taken down by the more experienced scouts which had been placed bracketing the new recruits’ locations.

Jean’s auto-pilot faltered a little bit when he noticed another, much larger titan running, appearing to follow a similar path the first. But it was much faster, and its path looked like it was going to intersect with…

Armin!

Jean took a deep breath and tried to keep his head clear. He saw the black smoke from the flare Armin fired, along with two more presumably from the seniors who killed the first.

This time the titan never fell, and Jean watched as it got closer and closer to Armin. He could see Armin swerving, changing direction. Jean’s word had gone silent, except for the beating of his heart, which seemed to be pounding directly against his eardrums.

It stepped over his small figure.

Thump-thump.

Armin must have been smacked, because he was no longer on his horse and Jean could no longer see him.

Thump-thump.

But Jean knew he was on the ground because the titan, oh god, the titan was reaching towards something.

Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

But then it stood up. And continued its jog.

The world suddenly came back into focus, he was again aware of his own surroundings and the pounding of hooves beneath him.

Armin needed a horse. The goal was still just to stay alive but Armin needed a horse.

Jean sped up. He eyed the sky again, but there were still no more signals. When he looked back, Armin was on a horse again, accompanied by Reiner.

Right, signals. He managed to pull out his own smoke gun, his hands still steady, and fire off his own shot, as per protocol, although this method was proving to be less-than-ideal.

Finally, some smoke was seen directly to his right, the colour indicating the mission was failing. At this point he was riding alongside his two companions.

“Part of the right flank enemy scouting team has been wiped out! A bunch of titans suddenly showed up, many of them abnormals.” He was surprised at his own ability to weigh the situation, considering he only caught glimpses of what had been happening. “Some of them have been held back, I think, but scouting is useless now… at this rate we’ll all be wiped out.”

“The right you say?” Armin’s voice was shaky, but he seemed otherwise okay despite his previous tumble. “That’s where that fast one up ahead came from… did it lead them here?”

What was he talking about? Titans couldn’t lead. “Is it an abnormal?”

His answer was sure and direct. “No, it’s not. It’s like Eren; a human in a titan’s body.”

“What?!”

Reiner’s voice came from the other side of Armin. “What makes you think that?”

“Titans eat humans. They don’t try to kill us, per-say, that’s just the result. But Ness and the other scout… when they tried to engage it, they were killed and discarded. The titan had no interest eating them.” Armin paused a moment, and Jean could almost literally see the gears in his head turning.

“And the same thing happened with the Colossal and Armoured titans. Maybe she was the one who led the other titans to the hole that day. But… I get the feeling she’s looking for someone.” Jean was trying to keep up with Armin’s mental game of connect-the-dots. He was coming to a lot of conclusions. Based on what?

“And if she is looking for someone… I bet it’s Eren.”

“Eren??” Reiner sounded shocked. “But, he was supposed to be with Levi’s squad which was leading the right flank… but the titan would have already been there, no?”

Right flank? “Uh, according to what I was told, Eren was supposed to be at the back of the left flank.” Something was definitely up.

“Actually I was also told he was to be in the front of the right flank but… that just doesn’t make sense. Why would he be put in the most dangerous location?”

Armin had a valid question. It would have made sense if they wanted Eren to fight titans directly, like he did in Trost. But it was made very clear this was not to be an aggressive expedition.

“Then where the hell IS Eren?” Reiner asked, watching Armin carefully.

“Well, the safest spot would be the center back. That would make the most sense.”

Talking about this now was pointless. Eren’s safety was important, but his safety was for the most part in the hands of Erwin himself. And the commander had been particularly quiet since the chaos began. Jean wondered if he ever even got the emergency signals.

His mind, in its clarity, quickly came up with a plan. “Armin! We don’t have time to talk about this right now. We need to make sure the flare signal reaches Commander Erwin. If it does, the orders could change and we could avoid the mess to our right. Problem is… there’s no way to convey a situation like this with just coloured smoke.” He knew if the Commander was killed, the formation had little chance of making it safely back behind the wall. “We can’t let it crush Erwin’s squad.”

“What are you trying to say?”

Jean felt a surge of adrenaline. “I’m saying is we might be able to cause a big enough distraction to buy some time until we’re ordered to retreat.”

There was a moment of heavy silence as they continued to ride. Of course, if they weren’t game Jean wasn’t going to attempt anything alone. He wasn’t suicidal. He just had a job to do. Armin gave him a sideways glance.

“…Jean this one is intelligent. If she swats us like flies, we’ll be squished to a pulp.”

Instead of being deterred, he felt the rush still pumping through his veins. “Seriously?” He heard himself laugh, although he didn’t find it that funny. “That’s scary.”

Reiner chuckled. “Wow is this really you, Jean? The guy I knew only ever thought about himself.”

“What are you gonna do, bust my chops? I just…” His mind flashed to a thought of his friend, briefly. “…Don’t wanna have to face bones burned so bad… that no one knows who’s they are anymore.”

It was now or never. He turned his head to look over at the other two, his voice raised. “I know what needs to be done right now! And all of us chose this job! So just… help me out here!”

Reiner didn’t look particularly convinced, but Armin met his eyes with a steady glance. ”Put your hood on, all the way. So she can’t see your face!” His voice was slowly gaining momentum too, as he lifted his hood. “As long as she doesn’t know who you are, she shouldn’t be able to kill us!”

Reiner too, now decided to put on his hood, a snarky grin on his face.

“I guess with these on, there’s no guarantee we aren’t Eren eh? Gives me some peace of mind. Let’s hope her eyes are pretty bad too.”

Jean was still in a bit of of shock that Armin decided to go along with his plan. That was really something, for the half-second he allowed himself to appreciate it.

“You know Armin, I’ve always been creeped out by the way you fawn over Eren,” and there was more truth in that statement than Jean had been able to admit to Armin the past week or so, “But I always thought you were a capable guy.”

Armin gave him a look. “…Thanks, I guess. But ‘creeped out’ is pretty harsh.”

Jean grinned.

Maybe he could still live up to Marco’s prophecy and lead with a level head in this crisis. “Alright, listen up you two, from here on in just do what I tell you.”

He shared his makeshift plan, making sure to get in all the details before they were potentially within earshot. His plan was to distract, and cut the tendons in her ankles if possible, so they could buy some time for everyone. And hopefully not have themselves killed in the process.

As they got closer, Jean gave one more tentative look to Armin at his right before him and Reiner veered off to the side, while Jean rode to the left. The three of them rode in this approximate formation for a short while, keeping a good distance between them and the giant.

And then, without warning, the titan turned, bent over and made a swipe for Armin. Jean could only watch, horrified, as his horse flew into the air, and Armin was thrown off in the opposite direction, remaining airborne a few seconds himself before hitting the ground, hard, and rolling. His gear was ripped away from his body in the process.

Shit this is it, he’s going to die, Jean thought as he watched the titan crouch down for the second time that day. He must have just been lucky before. He’s definitely going to die this time. He’s going to die and it’s going to be because of my shit plan.

Forget whatever clearness his mind held before, he could hardly think now, his level headed-ness seeming to leave his body in the quick breaths he was exhaling. He rode up to the monster, no clear plan in mind whatsoever. He thought he might have yelled Armin’s name, as he broke away from his horse, but he wasn’t certain.

But then she turned, as Jean’s hooks dug into her side in desperate attempt to keep her away. As he moved in closer, she raised her arm, and Jean readjusted his hook. What am I doing? Now I’m done for!

He just barely escaped her hand grabbing at him in a grip that would have surely killed him. As he swung out on his cables and got himself above her crouched form, she put her hand around the back of her neck. Looks like Armin was right.

Jean was still unsure what to do with his momentum, she was the only thing there to latch on to and if she managed to grab his cable…

“JEAN!” It was Armin, still on the ground below, yelling. “Get revenge! Remember that suicidal bastard on the right flank! He’s dead now and she killed him!”

Jean noticed now that Armin had blood dripping down his face, clearly suffering a head injury. Fuck, has his brain been rattled?

Regardless, it appeared the titan had stopped moving, and it gave Jean an opening to land on the ground, as in practice.

Armin continued rambling his oddities to the immobile giant, and now someone else was swinging up to her. Reiner?

Her hand grabbed him as he was making his was moving towards what Jean assumed was to be her neck. The idiot wasn’t even wearing his hood? What the hell is he thinking??

If Jean tried to remember this later, he would have sworn he saw blood gush out from between her fingers as they clasped around Reiner’s airborne figure. However, a couple seconds later Reiner had cut himself free from her grasp and landed on the ground next to Armin. Reiner picked him up, and started running away from where the titan was still sitting, hand letting off vapour.

Jean got his own wobbly legs to run in their direction, just as the titan stood back up and started moving again. He had no horse anymore, so his shaky legs were going to have to do.

As he got closer to the two others, he noticed that there was in fact only one horse. And three of them.

They were fucked.

Jean was close enough now that he noticed something else too; the amount of blood running down Armin’s face, and his blank expression as he lay kneeling on the floor. Jean suddenly felt sick. He couldn’t think. His shaky hands feebly reached inside one of his pockets for some bandages. They were trembling so bad he couldn’t get the button open.

Jean didn’t realize Reiner had moved to stand beside him, but he must have noticed him having difficulty because a heavy hand gripped his shoulder. “I’ll take care of it Jean. Why don’t you just concentrate on getting us another horse?”

“R-right.”

So Jean stood a distance away, trying not to avert his eyes from the horizon as Armin was being cleaned up by Reiner, and tried whistling for his horse. Again. And Again. Reiner’s horse was back. But with only one horse, at least one of them would be stuck on foot. And if there was one thing Ness advocated during training, it was to not lose your fucking horse. They were already making themselves sitting targets, as they sat around here in the open. It was pure luck no titans had walked past them yet.

Reiner was saying Armin’s name. A couple times now. Jean risked a glance behind him –Armin’s head wound was bandaged up now, albeit a little amateurly.

“Hey, Armin!” Reiner had started to sound a little concerned. “I don’t think you’re fully conscious yet.”

A brief pause. “Yeah… I’m still a little out of it.” He was staring, unfocused, ahead of him. But Jean suspected that he was still thinking, hard.

Reiner was the one who finally said it. “Well we’ve got a tough choice to make. It seems one of us has to stay behind.”

Armin tried to stand up. “Wait, before we decide on that, let’s try firing off a flare. If the formation is still moving straight on, the third squad of the fourth column should be in the vicinity.”

Jean fired the shot. He was still having a hard time catching up with this mess they were in. His gut clenched. What if Reiner suggest they leave Armin behind because he’s already wounded. Armin would die. Armin would die and, damn it all, maybe if Jean would have just asked Armin to not die yesterday, to be careful…

Jean knew that was dumb. He knew people couldn’t make promises like that. Still, his head was swimming. He fingers trembled and waves of horror rushed over him again and again, as they stood there.

If it came to that, would Jean be willing to take Armin’s place, and search for his own horse on foot?

He didn’t have long to ponder this, Reiner was speaking again as the smoke from the emergency flare shot before started to dissipate. “We’ll wait for three minutes. But we need to decide before then.”

“I’ll stay.”

Jean’s breath caught. “Wait a second Armin—“

“But in exchange, there’s something I want you to report, and if possible only to commander Erwin.”

Then Jean’s eyes caught a faint flicker of movement in the distance. “Hold on Armin. You can tell him yourself.” They had to be the luckiest bastards in the scouting legion. “It looks like someone’s coming… and they’re bringing two spare horses!”

It turned out to be Christa, and Jean didn’t think he’d ever been so happy to see someone in his entire life.

Just as they decided their best bet was to get back into formation, green flares were seen, originating from the Commander’s position.

The mission was still on-going.

After all that, we’re just changing directions?

Armin seemed to be aware of what everyone was thinking. “What we need to do in this situation,” he said as he shot up his own matching green flare, “is follow orders.”

Jean set his jaw and looked ahead. They still had their mission. This was their job, and part of their job involved following orders. But he felt it was getting harder and harder to keep up that way of thinking. What good could continuing this outing possibly bring?

Before they all broke away to their respective positions, Armin rode beside him for a brief moment. “Jean, it isn’t over yet. Just… get yourself back into this, ok?”

Jean nodded. He knew Armin was right. Now that everyone was out of immediate danger (for the moment, at least) Jean’s head had cleared. But the accompanying sense of calm he had just an hour ago was gone. He was now very aware of how fragile their lives all were.

“Right. But Armin? Please… please don’t die.”

Chapter Text

They weren’t in formation very long.

The green signals led them to a line of giant trees. He remembered hearing about these as a kid; his parents had once considered vacationing here, since the trees were a bit of a tourist attraction. Now they just looked ominous.

Not sure what to make of the order, Jean ended up following the tree-line for a few minutes before he encountered a relay scout who passed on the new orders; they were to stay at the edge of the forest and prevent any titans from getting in. It was the job of these relay scouts to make their way to various points in the formation when smoke signals would not suffice. They were given their orders directly from Commander Erwin.

A little miffed, Jean rode until he saw other scouting legion horses tied to one of the smaller trees, and tied his up there as well before launching himself up into the safety of the branches.

Now that he had some time to think, Jean began to realize there was probably a lot more to their mission than what they had been told. For starters, if they were going out to tentatively find a future route to get back to Shiganshina, which was located to the south, why were they now being led westward? On top of that, why did the central groups get ordered into the forest, where the scouting capacities of the formation were nullified? There were two main advantages to the forest Jean could see; the trees made it easier to utilize the 3DMG, and were able to prevent others from seeing what was going on inside. However a scouting mission shouldn’t require the use of the gear (since there should be no reason to attack) and the lack of visibility seemed to go against all the tactics they had been taught.

Then there was Eren, whose whereabouts seemed to have been purposefully hidden.

Jean let out a small groan and rested his hand on his forehead.

The sounds of a 3DMG shook Jean out of his thoughts. He turned to see Armin standing on one of the big branches of a nearby tree.

“Did you just get here?”

“A minute or two ago. The relay-scout got to me as I was riding along the perimeter.” Jean supposed he must have gotten the message a little late, for him to have ridden all the way up to Armin’s position. “…How’s your head?”

“Considering the situation we were in, I really don’t think I can complain about a little head injury.” He rubbed his bandage absentmindedly.

“Yeah well at the time you seemed to think your head injury was enough to warrant you staying behind to be killed.” Jean retorted sharply.

For a second Armin seemed taken aback. Then he sighed. “Jean, if Christa hadn’t ridden by when she did, there was literally no way for us all to get out okay. What was I supposed to do? Grab the horse when you and Reiner weren’t looking? Beat the two of you up so I could make my getaway?”

He snorted in response.

“There isn’t always a ‘good’ decision available.”

Jean didn’t say anything in reply, and just continued looking out ahead at the fields beyond the trees. They were empty for now, but he thought he was beginning to see some movement in the distance. With all the people congregated near the outskirts of the forests, he wasn’t surprised to see some titans homing in.

“I know you’re right. Just… eugh, I’m just glad everything worked out then.” If someone had to die Jean would understand –probably. But the fact Armin volunteered left Jean feeling a little… unsettled.

Armin used his gear and swung himself to the same branch Jean was standing on. “Past events aside, I’m curious Jean, what do you make of all this?” He made a vague arm gesture. “What’s going on right now?”

Jean kept his head facing forward but looked at Armin from the corner of his eye. Undoubtedly he already had his own theories. Even with the female titan, he had managed to stay one step ahead. Trying to make sense of it now, Jean wasn’t entirely sure how Armin had been able to prevent the titan from killing him mid-air.

“What do I think? This is insane. Abandoning the initial plan to establish a supply route, and then instead of admitting defeat and retreating, we’re recklessly going out of our way to do some sightseeing. And to top it off we’re ordered to dismount, draw our swords and stand by here to try and stop any titans from entering the forest…” Jean eyed the leader of their particular group, a few trees away, the back of his head and back visible through the branches. “He dished out some really fucked up orders.”

“Careful, he might hear you.”

Ignoring the comment Jean continued. “What’s new is we got no decent explanation whatsoever. If he wasn’t our commanding officer, we could pay no attention to him. Although…” Jean could just barely make out the stern, concerned look on the man’s face, “He doesn’t look much at ease himself.”

Jean considered stopping there, but Armin had asked for his thoughts, and Jean wasn’t one to leave out details. “I heard of cases when an unpopular commander, judged to be incompetent in a critical situation by his subordinates, gets stabbed from behind and dies. It’s not that uncommon, actually.” Jean chanced a look at Armin’s face. His brows were slightly furrowed, a look of concern on his face.

“Jean… what are you getting at? What are you going to do?”

Of course Armin wasn’t the type to empathize with breaking the rules. Truth be told, Jean probably wasn’t either. Or at least, not now. There was too much at stake. “Relax, I’m just a little pissed off about the whole mess we’re stuck in, that’s all. And what I’m going to do? Follow orders and prevent titans from getting in.” He looked back at Armin, who again was sporting a contemplative look. “You also think that’s what we should be doing, don’t you Armin?”

Armin’s eyes shot up to lock with his own. “Huh?”

“I just mean… you seem to have a good idea about what’s going on is all.”

“Well…”

Suddenly their superior officer was shouting from his position. “Five meter class! Approaching from ahead!”

It was an ugly bastard, with its mouth hanging open and its head flopping around awkwardly on its neck. Still, from their position in the trees, there didn’t seem much it could do.

“We only need to stop them from entering the forest, right?” Jean took a few steps closer to Armin and looked down, as the titan clawed uselessly at the base of the tree. “No need for us to engage them in combat, yeah?”

“Y-yeah.”

Jean looked up at Armin. What was someone like him doing out here with titans? “Say, Armin? The first time that girl-titan got to you, why did she run away?” Jean remembered watching it unfold from his position meters and meters away, knowing he wouldn’t have been able to do anything in time.

“She… saw my face.”

“And left?”

“Mmhmm…” Armin was silent for a moment. “That’s how I knew she must have been looking for someone. But also… and I hope this doesn’t sound stupid, but I think part of the reason she let me go was because she recognized me.”

Jean felt his face contort into a look of disgust. “Wait, you think you know that thing personally? Or… I mean, I guess whoever’s inside…?”

“Not just that but… before, when I was yelling that she killed Eren, I never actually said his name, if you’ll recall.” Jean honestly didn’t remember –his mind seemed to have taken the liberty to blur the details of those few minutes. “I called him by that silly nickname some of you guys used to call him. ‘Suicidal bastard’? I think you might have had a part in coining that one, actually.”

In a different situation Jean may have felt a bit sheepish. “Right… but, what that means is…”

“Whoever is piloting that thing, it knows. It knows… us. Eren. It is personally familiar with what we used to talk about, who we are.” Armin was looking at him now, a pointed, daring look. He wasn’t going to say it, apparently. Jean would indulge him then.

“They might be one of the 104^th.”

More titans had now gathered at the base of the trees, their instincts clearly pushing them to continue their attempts at reaching the humans above, but their physical (and mental) capacities leaving them uselessly scrambling about the roots.

Armin chuckled humourlessly and looked back down. “I think I may have said too much already.”

“Nah, if anyone asks, I came up with it using my own brilliance. You’re off the hook.” Armin really did have a magnificent mind.

“At least this way, if something were to happen to me, you could—“

“Can you shut up about that already?”

They stared at each other for a long moment. “Armin. You’re not going to die. Just… don’t be getting your head into that mindset before anything happens, alright? Wasn’t it you who told me this whole thing wasn’t over yet?” Jean swore under his breath and looked back down at the titans. There were more of them now, and one of them seemed to have gotten a pretty good grip on the adjacent trees. “And for what it’s worth I guess I owe you one anyways. So if any titan’s going to get its jaws on you it’ll have to get past me first.”

The trees shook. “Speaking of which, we gotta get away from here--! It looks like that big fucker’s gotten the hang of tree climbing!”

“Got it!”

They both swung themselves in a bit deeper and higher into the trees, aiming for a spot up above with very few branches below it on the same trunk.

“He’s getting better at it.”

Armin replied, “It means he can learn. That’s a scary thought.” He landed on his branch a little off-balance, stumbling slightly. “Although it looks like that’s something that varies from individual to individual.”

Suddenly, a large boom was heard from within the forests. The sound was definitely man-made. In fact, it sounded a lot like…

“Say Armin, there’s something going on in the forest right now… and I think I have a guess as to what.” Jean turned so that he was facing the climbing titan again. The sounds in the forest, along with what Armin had suggested before were giving Jean a better grasp of the situation. “We’ve lured the female titan all the way here to capture it… am I right?” He gave a look over his shoulder at Armin, who was giving him a serious expression. “I just can’t think of any other reason as to why only a select few knew about the plan.” If everyone knew, there was a chance this “pilot” would also find out.

He went on, “In the legion, there are those who try to artificially destroy the wall. Am I right?” The climbing titan was getting higher. If it came to it, Jean would try to cut it –if not its neck then at least the limbs that were supporting its grip on the tree.

Armin finally spoke up. “Yes, I also think there are such people. Commander Erwin probably knows for certain.”

Jean tried keeping one eye on the titan as it made its shaky advance, and one eye on Armin, who had leaned up against the thick trunk.

“Eren’s existence suggested a possibility that titans can be controlled artificially.” Armin went on, “Thus, we have to assume that the titans who tried to bring down the wall are humans and reside inside the walls. Our foremost priority should be identifying such humans to prevent any further damage to the walls. And then, if we can manage to successfully capture them, we’ll be able to attain the information the legion desperately seeks and learn the truth about this world.”

Jean was trying to keep up. “Those sounds we heard indicate she fell into the trap after all. With Eren being the bait, huh… But still, why was the Commander so sure titans would chase Eren once he left the protection of the wall?”

“I think it’s because the titans didn’t succeed in destroying the wall in their recent attack.”

Trost. It was true. Not only did only the one gate get knocked down --and eventually filled, but there also wasn’t another attack on the inner gate like what happened in Shiganshina.

Armin continued, “For some reason, they stopped their attack halfway. Their mission could be considered accomplished only if they would’ve destroyed the gates in wall Rose, and yet there must have been a reason for them to stop without completing it. Add to that the fact that when we plugged the breach in the gate they took such pains to destroy, they did nothing to prevent it.” Again, Jean could almost see the gears in Armin’s head spinning. “So maybe they got a new goal at that point. What if… what if during their attack something happened that was of greater importance to them than destroying the wall? If so, I can’t think of anything else other than Eren turning into a titan and going on his rampage…”

That must have meant, even before Pixis announced it to everyone that day, that there were people who knew about Eren’s transformation. People like himself, who saw it happen. Otherwise, the next wall would have been attacked. “The people who knew about Eren’s transformation at the time, there must have been spies then?” Thinking about all the people Jean saw that day, an uncomfortable feeling settled upon him. “Among those who’d been there at the time, someone is a…” Titan. And not a good one like Eren, either.

The titan who’d been advancing to their location finally slipped down the trees.

“I’m still not satisfied, even knowing the potential situation. Even if there’s no way of knowing who’s the spy… I still think more people should’ve been let in on the real plan, you know?” Even without having personally witnessing them, the amount of scouts which made up the far right flank was significant. If more people knew what the final goal was, perhaps less of them would have died.

“If soldiers knew about the intelligent titan beforehand, their approach to dealing with her would’ve been different. Take, for example, Ness and his aide…”

Armin shook his head lightly. “No. It wasn’t wrong.”

“Huh?” Just when Jean thought he was starting to understand… “What wasn’t wrong? Just how many scouts do you think have died, when they could have instead been spared, eh?”

Armin was watching Jean carefully now, his voice resolute. “Jean, anybody can make a choice after finding out the results. It’s so easy to say ‘they should’ve done this’ afterwards. But… you can’t know what your choice will result in before actually choosing, you know? What’s that titan’s identity? How many of them are there? What they can do? What they know and what have they learned?” Armin was shaking his head again. “The thing is you don’t know! You never know anything! But the time keeps moving, and it won’t stop just because you want it to.” His voice was gaining a surprising edge, and Jean could see his knuckles turning white from how hard he was gripping the handles of his blades.

“I know what the words ‘taking responsibility for the consequences’ mean. And I think these are rightful and useful words. No matter what result this plan will produce, it won’t change the fact that a lot of scouts have died in vain for it.” His voice faltered ever so slightly before continuing, “The Commander may be a bad and heartless person for what he did but… but that’s just fine by me! Having considered every possible cause of action, even if he had to put lives of his comrades in danger as the result of his choice, he still had to choose: the lives of 100 comrades or the lives of all humanity living inside the walls.”

Armin’s eyes continued boring holes into his own, almost daring him to disagree. “…And Erwin made his choice. He has chosen to throw away the lives of a hundred of his comrades. I haven’t lived an especially long life, but there’s something I firmly believe in; the people who have the ability to change something in this world –all, without exception, have the courage to abandon everything dear to them. They are those who can even abandon their humanity in order to defeat monsters. People who can’t throw away something important can never hope to change anything.”

“…” Jean didn’t feel like he had anything appropriate to add after that. He wasn’t sure if it made him like Erwin any more than he did a minute ago but he had to give Armin points on execution. “You’re pretty good at that y’know.”

Armin’s hard expression softened a bit. “Hmm?”

“The whole talking thing. I bet you could’ve given a much better speech for our induction ceremony that the Commander did.”

Armin looked down, a ghost of a smile on his lips. “Yeah well, I’ve had a lot of practice over the past few weeks, haven’t I?”

Jean felt himself almost-smiling back, then he remembered. “Oh jeez. Armin. About the past few days—“

“I really don’t think now’s the time, do you?” Armin shook his hands about his head dismissively. “It’s fine, it’s fine. I’m partly to blame for everything as well.”

“Of course now’s the time! Who knows if we’ll get out of here alive?? If I die I don’t want you to be thinking about how I was a bit of an asshole!”

“Not you too now? You gave me a mouthful when I mentioned not making it back before.” His hands were on his hips in friendly rebuttal.

“Ok ok, dropping it. But you’ll be getting a proper apology from me when we get back.”

“Now that might actually kill me.”

Just then, the forest shook with the echo of an inhuman sound so loud it rattled the trees. It lasted a couple seconds, and once it was over, there was half a second of eerie silence, before a commotion started up again, this time at the base of the trees.

The few titans which had previously been mulling about below had begun making their way in the direction the sound had come from; the center of the forest.

“What the hell? They’re all rushing in??”

Suddenly their surely looking superior swung by on his gear. “Stop them! Don’t let them by!” His words were punctuated by the sound of his blade making contact with a nape and the ruffled collapse as the giant toppled to the ground.

With only a slight hesitation Jean swung down from his position, aiming towards a 7 meter, and then a 5 meter further down that must have run in from the very outskirts of the woods. After his two hits (which were met by no resistance save for the speed at which the titans were running) he positioned himself halfway up one of the vertical trunks. He watched as the smaller titan fell and began to evaporate, however the larger titan was seen further up, still running in with only a small steaming area on its neck.

Not deep enough.

Armin joined him a few seconds later, coming back from his own 5 meter class, which appeared to have avoided death in the same manner as Jean’s first.

“They aren’t even paying attention to us!” Armin panted at his side.

“And they’re too far in now, we’ll never get to them in time…”

“They’re so distracted, we should have all just aimed for the legs first, to immobilize them…”

“Well you know what they say, ‘it’s easy to make a decision after you know the outcome…’”

“Tch.” Armin swung himself back onto a branch, with Jean following. His blue eyes were now on the sky. “Now we wait.”

Jean wondered what was going on inside the trees. If what Armin had said before about the titan being able to lead others, were those inside now dealing with the horde?

After a few tense minutes, smoke was seen above the canopy. Not smoke, steam. That was a good sign, wasn’t it? Jean looked to his side, but Armin still wore a stern expression.

Blue flares; the sign to retreat.

“Ha! Yes!” He swung himself outwards until he got to the perimeter, squinting his eyes at the sudden brightness. “We can go home now!” The trap, the titan’s cry and now the signal to retreat… Jean thought there was no doubt the plan, the actual plan, was successful. “Now where’d we leave the horses…?”

Armin and the other scouts in the vicinity were soon on horseback following the forest’s shadow to open ground. The scout in charge was shouting commands.

“This signal means we’re heading back. Remember, keep going towards Karanese no matter what, you hear? Resume formation as soon as you’re able, and rally signals if required but keep heading back to headquarters!”

Jean rode up beside Armin, who’d been silent since the retreat was given. “What is it? What’s the matter?”

Armin didn’t reply, and as if on cue, a crack filled the air. Eren? But if Eren was transforming…

Crack!

Another noise echoed the first. There were definitely two titans now.

Jean looked around. Most of them had yet to break into formation, and the ones still around all seemed to have their eyes set resolutely forward. Keep heading back to headquarters…

His eyes snapped back to Armin. There was enough space on their left now for him to get back into position. Armin started riding forwards, banking to the side slightly, his face still grim.

“Oi!” Jean called out, “We’ve seen Eren kick titans' ass before, I’m sure he can do it again!”

Armin simply raised his hand slightly to acknowledge he’d heard.

Jean wished he felt as confident as he tried to make himself sound.

Chapter Text

Armin knew what infatuation was.

Unfounded feelings of affection. Baseless, desperate, even. Utterly useless in the perilous world they all lived in. He knew all of this only in theory, of course, merely as an observant third party.

Until a couple of weeks ago when it had struck him in the face so hard he swore he had to relearn how to function normally again.

Even now, as he stood leaning against the wall outside Erwin’s office, in queue to talk to the Commander about something truly important, his mind continued distracting him as he stared dumbly at the large leaf in his hands.

Armin remembered coming to Jean (and Armin mentally berated himself for the way his thoughts seemed to pause at the name) when he appeared to be at his lowest. Armin had been devastated when he heard what had happened to Marco too, but he at least had the “benefit” of not seeing the body and experiencing more death in his short life than most. And hell, he had still cried himself to sleep that night.

But where Armin had Eren and Mikasa, Jean now had no one.

Actually that was a lie. Jean, despite his abrasive personality, had many friends. But for all their good intentions, very few people seemed to know how to reach out to one another. That’s what Armin remembered thinking, at the time.

So Armin had reached out to Jean.

They were never particularly close before; although some could point out similarities between him and Eren, Armin had always been wary of his rough personality. They weren’t strangers –no one was really strangers after living in close-quarters for three years, but their one-on-one interactions had been minimal and unremarkable.

As it so happened, Armin felt like he needed a little support at that time as well. The events at Trost were… rattling, to say the least. And Armin was easy to rattle. That, along with Eren’s forced absence paired with Mikasa’s… straightforward personality, left him reaching for whatever comfort he could find.

The conversations started as distractions.

For whom, Armin wasn’t sure.

Armin would talk about whatever first came to mind. In the beginning he wasn’t even sure Jean was really listening, but his disturbed expression would eventually soften and that was enough for Armin to continue.

Eventually Jean had started talk back, and to ask questions.

“So have you ever seen a fossil, then?”

Armin had been shocked enough by this question, brought up when they were making their beds one morning that it took a couple seconds for him to answer. Jean had been so quiet the night they rode to headquarters, and it had been so dark that Armin had thought that Jean might have even been sleeping when he’d explained to him how things could be mineralized and preserved.

“Ah, yes actually. My grandfather and I had a few we used to keep away in a box in our house. Just little ones… tiny leaves, they looked like. You can find them sometimes in certain clusters of rocks, if you know where to look…”

And it wasn’t just questions and continually more two-sided conversations. Jean was bright, Armin had realized at some point early on. It was a dull and slightly sheepish shock when Armin finally noted that, as Jean was speculating idly about how titan’s bodies could decompose into steam. It wasn’t that Armin thought he was dumb, but his outward attitude suggested he didn’t care enough to think about things. Thinking, really, was more than half the battle. And his insightfulness? That was something else entirely.

Armin found that he was genuinely enjoying the company and wouldn’t have denied looking forward to their evening talks if someone had asked. They had somehow managed to go from acquaintances to friends in so short a time that, if he was to stop and think about it, was quite surprising. And it resonated a perfect balance between shared intimacy, playful banter, and intellectual debates.

And really that should have been it. The ingredients to a great friendship.

But Jean had the nerve to be funny, as well. Armin wasn’t even sure if it was purposeful or not, but Armin found himself laughing –actually laughing, more than he had in years. He loved Eren and Mikasa but… they were not funny. Heck, he wasn’t funny either but that didn’t mean he disproved of a good laugh.

Armin could have listed many things he thought of Jean at that point; his endearing honesty, his exceptional skills during training, his better than average appearance…

And, god, by then he knew it was too late.

He took aside some time to analyze it critically --because this was how he operated, and suddenly the strange jumps in his stomach, his own frantic heartbeat, and his new upbeat attitude made sense.

And Armin still had the sense of mind to be bemused that of all people, it was Jean.

Not having experienced such things first-hand before, he’d been dismayed to learn that admitting it to yourself only seemed to exacerbate and intensify whatever he’d just admitted to feeling.

Suddenly, he had found himself lingering a little too long at the end of Jean’s bed, after he’d been talked back into sleep after a nightmare. His skin prickling when their hands accidentally brushed at breakfast. Gaining some ridiculous appreciation for the way his hair seemed to tickle his forehead.

But honestly, if this is what losing your mind felt like –-and that was surely what it was, Armin had to admit… it wasn’t half bad.

Mikasa noticed. She didn’t say anything, but Armin could tell. Thankfully she didn’t do more than comment on his uplifted mood. Amused. She was perceptive, but not nosy. Armin trusted her not to bring it up with Eren either.

Armin leaned his head back against the cool brick of the hallway. The sun was setting in earnest now, and orange light was streaming through the windows and making it stuffy. He knew he should be thinking about other things now. But his brain seemed to be on one of its detours and given no other immediate concern he could do little to stop it.

The incident in the woods was brought to mind.

Armin recalled the child-like joy that swept over him when Jean told him to wait up, that he was coming along the trail too. He wished he could pretend it was an actual-accident that he ended up revealing a bit more about his… personal preferences that day, but he knew himself better than that. And he knew Marco better than to believe any of the silly rumours. But still he asked. And really, the answer should have been more than enough to deter him from this… whatever this was.

It was ironic, really, that what ended up making Armin fall most of all was the aftermath after he’d hinted that he may have romantic interests in boys. And subsequently found out Jean did not.

Jean’s declaration of heterosexuality, although expected, wasn’t what did it though.

Mikasa and Eren already knew. Armin had told them a couple years ago –that he might also be interested in guys, shortly after joining the training corps. Mikasa took it in stride, but Armin had learned by then that love was a simple concept to her. Eren did not take it so well, as conventional for a 12 year old boy.

Armin remembered being immediately met with a lot of uncomfortable questions.

“Well how do you know? It’s not like you’re, like, kissing boys right now are you?”

Armin had tried to explain to him that sometimes you could tell you would like a book without having to read it, by just reading the title and seeing the cover. To Armin, boys and girls seemed like equally good reads.

The questions still came, and for a few days after that Armin could tell Eren was treating him a little different, which had both hurt and confused him. Trying to return things to normal, Armin simply stated a couple days afterwards that he wasn’t interested in Eren that way. And his slight suspicions must have been correct because immediately after it was like the whole thing didn’t matter. Oh Eren…

Jean, after making a little bit of an ass of himself, didn’t seem to make a big deal out of it. There was no pestering or altered attitude; it was never really brought up again, and at the time, Jean had actually seemed more worried about Armin being mad at him for acting like a typical 15 year old.

At that point Armin knew he was a hopeless case.

…But also that Jean, being as straight as one could expect, was also a hopeless case.

And suddenly the lingering looks seemed wrong, the fluttering in the heart and stomach some sort of deceit. Because to have romantic feelings for someone you’d initially come to offering comfort seemed… like trickery, somehow. Like an underhanded blow.

Two nights later, it was Armin who woke up panting, grasping the sheets as he vividly recalled his dream which, even now, brought an embarrassing heat to his cheeks.

Feeling bothered on multiple levels he decided that night to distance himself from Jean. He was too fond to lose a friend, and knew Jean still appreciated the… platonic company, so he planned to just be extra mindful of where the line between friendly and too-friendly was drawn.

In hindsight the timing wasn’t ideal.

Eren had been allowed back to train with the rest of them by that point, and Armin’s new wariness paired with the presence of his friend…caused things to go downhill.

What Armin hadn’t been expecting was for Jean to have taken it as badly as he did. It was one thing for Armin to keep himself at bay to avoid tainting their companionship with his silly feelings. It was quite another to realize doing so was causing more of an inconvenience than his affections likely were. Unfortunately he had realized this a bit too late.

The stress of trying to keep Eren’s spirits up (which had been taking more and more time as the departure date loomed closer) along with his own anxieties and uncertainties about the mission bubbled up all at once, the night before their journey and he found himself wanting to talk with Jean just one more time before they headed out. What would he have said, if Jean hadn’t been pretending to sleep that night?

Armin wasn’t sure anymore. He would have tried apologizing for pseudo-ignoring Jean the past week for starters. He may have also broke down and looked for some comfort of his own, since Eren, with all his own troubles, was a difficult person to derive comfort from. Mikasa followed a similar pattern, but she, at least, rarely required comforting.

Instead Armin let Jean get away with his bluff because, hell, he probably deserved the cold shoulder. He couldn’t help himself from crying however. No matter how old he seemed to get, tears always came annoying fast to his eyes, and all life’s worries had seemed to reach a crescendo that evening.

His mind skipped over the expedition. He’d had enough time to think over everything on the ride back to not need another opportunity to rethink it now. Thinking it over is what had gotten him here, waiting for the Commander’s attention.

Armin had not seen Mikasa or Eren until they were back at headquarters. Albeit for the few soldiers who had been injured seriously enough to need immediate medical attention in Karanese, the scouts were all ordered to back to the castle. Armin thought this was probably for the best, since the mission was likely to bring a lot of sudden negative attention to the scouts. It would probably be best for them to lay low awhile.

He accompanied them both to the basement; Eren was still a little out of it but he seemed physically okay. It was too bad his shifter abilities couldn’t work the same wonders on his psyche. Armin stayed down with both, listening as Mikasa filled him in on what had happened in the woods. Eventually Eren managed to pass out in his bed, exhaustion kicking in. Armin’s heart ached to see his friend like this. But he knew he had a message he needed to pass on.

“Mikasa, will you be here with him, in case he wakes up?”

“Of course. Just do whatever you need to do, I’ll be here.” Even as she said this Armin could tell the events had taken a toll on her too. Usually a pillar of stability, she now seemed strained.

He could tell their relationship was evolving, slowly, heading somewhere without him. Even if they couldn’t see it themselves. It was a bittersweet feeling, but he decided long ago to just let things run their course. No matter what happened, he knew he would be no less important to them.

With a nod Armin rushed himself up the stairs, turned a corner and walked—

Right into Jean.

“Sorry, sorry! I wasn’t looking…” Armin recognized then the hand that was helping him up.

“Haha… no worries!” But then Jean’s eyes had squinted in concern. “Wait, are you okay? Is everything alright?” As a bit of an afterthought he added, “And Eren, is he fine?”

Armin hadn’t been sure how to answer any of that. Instead he just stood there a couple seconds, his mouth open, his body still tensed to move.

“You know what? Nevermind, I can tell when a man’s on a mission. Do your thing, we can talk later, yeah?” Jean stepped to the side. “But, uh I was just looking for you actually… I took off my cloak and you won’t believe what I found sitting in the hood.” He laughed in what could almost be considered an awkward fashion. “Check out this leaf! I bet you don’t have one from the giant trees in your book yet, eh?”

Which is how Armin ended up holding this stupid amazing leaf in his hands while waiting patiently to discuss the potential fate of humanity. Before he’d run off, he’d told Jean to not go talking about what they had discussed in the forest. Jean had eyed him questioningly but had nodded his assent.

Suddenly the heavy wooden door creaked open and Armin’s attention was whipped back to the present.

Leaving the room was Squad Leader Hanji, with a more serious expression on their face than Armin could ever recall seeing. Commander Erwin stood in the doorway, his intimidating presence seeming to radiate outwards into the hall.

“Arlert?”

He flashed the solute. “Sir!” He hoped he didn’t sound as jittery as he felt.

“I can already tell you have something important to discuss, it’s probably best you come inside.” He stepped aside to make room for Armin to enter, shutting the door once Armin was in.

There was a thick silence as Erwin walked back to his desk at the back of the room, before turning back to face him, an open expectant expression on his features.

“Commander I… I think I know the identity and whereabouts of the female titan.”

Annie was about to learn the dangers of infatuation firsthand.

Chapter Text

Jean tried to keep himself occupied while he waited for Armin’s return.

In the boys’ sleeping quarters he stopped for a chat with Sasha and Connie, who seemed to be equal parts shaken and relieved to still be alive (this applied to Jean, too). They all sat on Connie’s bed and tried to figure out what happened; Jean holding his tongue in some cases, as per Armin’s wish. Reiner was still out helping unload some of the heavier components from the carts, while Bertholdt had made himself scarce by helping out in the infirmary downstairs. Some of the other boys who graduated with the rest of them were mulling about on the other side of the room. No formal instructions had been given since they returned to headquarters earlier that day so they were pretty much left to their own devices. Not that anyone felt like having much fun.

“But like, Eren is okay right? He was riding in one of the carts on the way home?” Connie was asking.

“Yeah, he’s down in the basement now, apparently.” Jean answered. He knew that Armin had been down there with him a couple hours ago.

“Well then the mission was a success, right?” Connie let some hopeful enthusiasm creep into his voice.

Sasha sighed, her usual upbeat attitude dampened. “Connie no. Did you hear how many people died? It was a disaster. We were lucky… to not have been on the right flank.” And even so Jean had heard how Sasha was chased down by an abnormal, and only saved by the quick-thinking of her superiors.

Two sets of eyes looked at Jean. Connie spoke up, “Wait, isn’t that where you were? Did you see it? This she-titan people have been talking about?”

Word travels fast, apparently. “…Yeah, I did. By the time we were ordered to the trees the outer right lines had been wiped.”

“By one titan?? How is that even possible?”

Jean didn’t know how much he should say, so he just shrugged. Was Sasha right though? Would this mission be considered a failure? Eren was alive. He wasn’t sure what had happened in the woods, but presumably he fought the other titan. And lost? If he’d won they would have captured whoever was inside, which didn’t seem to be the case. But Eren didn’t lose control. Would the military police see the loss of the right flank as Eren’s fault somehow? That would be…unfair.

Sasha sniffled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “Is this normal? All these people dying for no reason?” Her eyes shined with newly forming tears before she brought her legs closer to her body and hid her face in her knees. Connie patted her back, a little awkwardly.

“Shh, it’s fine. We still have Eren. We’re still alive… it’s… good.” Connie looked at Jean as he said this, a vague look of “help me” on his features.

Jean shook his head. “I think I’m going to go see if the showers are free. If you guys want to get your mind off things, why not try doing what Bertholdt did and see if they need any help downstairs?” He got up and made his way to the door.

“Right…” Connie said, although as he sat rubbing Sasha’s back, he didn’t seem motivated to move.

How confusing, Jean thought as he dried his damp hair in the bathing room. His head was a mixture of seemingly incompatible emotions. There was some profound happiness that he was still alive. That his friends were still alive. That Armin was still alive. But there was also bitterness at the way the mission was carried out, a sense of loss at the thought of all the dead scouts. What their families’ would soon be finding out….

And Eren… what would happen to him? Jean was concerned for his protection in a personal sense, of course, but also what would happen to the scouting legion if he were taken away from them? Would they ever be able to make it to his basement, especially if there were more intelligent titans out there?

No. Armin wouldn’t let them take Eren away. Mikasa wouldn’t let them take Eren away --although Jean had more faith in Armin’s non-violent solutions in this particular case. Jean could only assume that was what Armin was doing right now, for the past couple hours; finding a way to get them all out of this.

Jean made his way back to their sleeping quarters, slipped on his sleeping pants and threw his clothes in a heap on the floor at the end of his bed. Connie and Sasha weren’t there anymore, and it looked like everyone else was trying to sleep. Jean sat on his bed in the dark and considered trying to get some sleep and postponing finding Armin to tomorrow morning.

A shadow in the doorway caught his attention.

Armin, still in his full uniform, motioned for Jean to come out into the hallway.

When Jean got out there, he noticed Armin looked like an exhausted mess. “Wow Armin maybe you should just go to bed—“

Armin cut him off in a hushed voice. “No. I’ve been looking for you… I think you should hear this. I… need someone to hear this… Now.”

Jean looked at the disheveled boy in front of him. He had a look of sad, pleading urgency in his eyes. And someone needed to change his head-bandage. “Ok… uh, everyone’s asleep in there. The common room then?”

They quietly made their way to the common room, flicking on a tiny lamp on one of the tables to give them some more light. Armin collapsed onto one of the couches, elbows on his knees, gripping his head in his hands.

“Here, let me get something for your head…” Luckily their seemed to be first aid kits hidden everywhere in the headquarters, and sure enough in one of the end-table drawers he found some gauze, a couple clean swabs and some alcohol.

He joined Armin on the couch, tucking his legs beneath him. “Jeez Armin… you need to take better care of yourself.” This was said gently, showing only concern and not disapproval, as he angled himself in front of Armin, who’d sat himself up properly as Jean began unwrapping the old bandages. “You just keep talking, I’ll fix this up.” Jean was curious about what Armin had to say, of course. But he was starting to get the idea Armin maybe needed to have someone to share this with too. It wasn’t often he was on the comforting end of their interactions.

Armin sighed. He looked down at his hands in his lap before starting, his voice barely above a whisper once he began. “Remember the hand-to-hand training they used to have us do every couple of days? Of course you do, I recall you making an ass out of yourself more than once…”

Jean chuckled, lightly. It was true –it wasn’t until Eren started showing skill in it that Jean decided to put any effort in at all. Fighting people seemed silly when it was titans that were the enemy. Still, it seemed Eren was getting some use of it in the long run.

“…anyways, I always had a little bit of trouble during those exercises, especially at the beginning. No matter who Shadis paired me up with, I would always make a mess of myself. Not for lack of effort, of course. But my body seemed to accumulate more cuts and bruises than most…”

With the old bandage off, Jean saw the cut Armin had near his hairline was healing well. Still, one more day wrapped up would likely do it good. He applied some of the alcohol (Armin didn’t even flinch) and started unwinding fresh gauze.

“…So I was often taken out, getting ice packs, bandages… To be truthful sometimes Shadis would walk by and just tell me to give up and tell me to just leave.”

“What a saint that man was.” He replied dryly.

“No kidding… So sometimes, when I was taking breaks off to the side to catch my breath, or holding an ice-bag to my head, I would run into Annie.”

“Leonhardt?” Annie had always been very good at the hand-to-hand. In fact, it was her who eventually taught Eren. When she was around. More often than not she had snuck off somewhere. For all her skill she never seemed to care very much about the impression she made on the instructors.

Armin’s voice shook a little. “Y-yeah. Anyways, you know how Annie was. She didn’t really talk much… at first. But eventually we would talk, the two of us, a little bit. She had some… interesting opinions.” He paused a moment, and let Jean tear the new strip and wrap it properly around his head. “You may have noticed, but I like talking with people who have interesting things to say.”

Could it be implied that Armin thought Jean had interesting things to say too? He allowed himself to play with this idea for a moment.

“And I’m pretty sure she thought the same way… A few times she even gave me a bit of advice. How to hold my fist when I punched and the like. Eventually I did get better, and was able to participate fully in the hand-to-hand sessions.”

It was odd, Jean mused, how he had never noticed Armin –present or absent—during the training. He wasn’t very aware of Armin back then, so he probably just never registered on Jean’s radar one way or another.

“We still spoke though, Annie and I, sometimes. She was a very quiet person, so I guess I should have been more observant. That, uh, I was getting a bit of special treatment.”

Special treatment? Admittedly it was hard to imagine Annie participating in idle chit-chat in the lunch line or during cleaning duties. Jean crossed his legs, tossed the old bandages in the bin a couple feet away and continued facing Armin on the couch. He looked… conflicted. “Armin where are you going with this?” Jean asked softly.

Armin tried brushing some of the hair that had fallen into his eyes away with a swipe of his hand. He looked… embarrassed. “Heh… for some reason I’ve never told this to anyone. Maybe it just didn’t seem like my secret to share. Anyways, a couple weeks before graduation, as I was out behind the stables collecting some water, Annie pulled me to the side. I forget exactly what she said… Something very straight to the point. Something very Annie. ‘Armin, I want to try something.’ Or something like that.” He stopped again. It wasn’t very bright in the room, but Jean could swear Armin’s cheeks were tinged pink.

“So she kissed me.” He said this quickly, eyes looking anywhere but at Jean. “I guess she wanted to try it? I’m not sure. It was quick. Chaste. I was surprised, but… it didn’t mean anything to me. I think she must have realized that right after. Maybe the face I was making? I don’t know. She apologized and left.”

Jean honestly didn’t know what to say. If it had been anyone else, Jean have called him out for lying. He was hard pressed to imagine Annie Leonhardt having feelings at all, let alone… what? Romantic interests? Curiosity? Imagining Annie kissing Armin in some sort of normal, teenage-girl manner was almost too much for his brain to comprehend. It made him… strangely bothered, if he was to be honest with himself. And for a second he almost forgot this was just a small part of a story he assumed was leading up to something else.

“I know a lot about a lot of things, but I can’t say I’m an expert on… feelings. But people don’t usually kiss people unless they feel something, right?”

“Umm--”

“Sorry, that was meant to be rhetorical.” Armin hugged his legs up to his chest. “What I’m trying to get at is that Annie Leonhardt… is the female-type titan Jean. She’s not in the scouts, so her presence or lack thereof wouldn’t have been questioned. She’s one of the 104^th, so she knew about Eren and whatever immature nicknames he was given. She had Marco’s maneuver gear during the random inspection. And… and she couldn’t kill me. Both times she saw who I was she couldn’t kill me.”

Holy shit. Jean only had a moment to process this before Armin continued, his voice cracking in earnest now as he tried to bury his head further into his legs.

“She was… a friend Jean. Not just to me of course, but to a lot of us. And…” His words were now punctuated with occasional sharp little intakes of breath. Armin must have reached some sort of limit. “And I told Erwin. I told Erwin and now… now because of me…”

Jean wasn’t sure what the right thing to do in this situation was but he really couldn’t handle seeing Armin like this, so he just gently grabbed the hands that were hugging Armin’s legs and lifted them. When Armin looked up, hair sticking to the wet spots on his cheeks, Jean carefully pulled him into his chest so that the tangle of blond hair was right below his chin. The position was a little graceless admittedly, but Jean was trying.

“Shhh, shhh.” He rubbed Armin’s back like he saw Connie doing to Sasha earlier that day. “And because of you so many lives might be saved. Eren might be saved. It’s an unbelievably good thing that you did.” He meant it, and he said it as earnestly as he could.

The shock that it was Annie was still making the back of his head buzz. He actually talked to Annie. Well, talked at Annie. It wasn’t as if this person was a stranger, or even someone distantly removed from the little “family” they’d become in the 104^th. Annie was never particularly social but she was still there.

“Not to her it’s not.” Armin’s voice was muffled slightly, hidden in the skin at the crook of Jean’s neck.

“Just like she wasn’t good for all the soldiers of the right lines.” His voice hardened when he said this. Whatever presence she may have had in their group didn’t override what she’d done. He honestly didn’t know how Armin could ever think himself to be wrong in this situation, after experiencing the hell they had this morning. “I think what you did was definitely a good thing. No matter what happens because of it.”

Armin stayed like that a minute or two longer, still bent over a little bit awkwardly into Jean’s shoulder. The length between his sniffles became longer and longer until eventually they stopped completely.

“…Ah, I’m sorry… am I squishing you?”

“Nah.”

Armin sat himself up a little bit anyways. They were still close enough that Jean could still see the drying trails the tears left on his cheeks. For some reason this made his own cheeks itch.

“I… didn’t mean to cry like that. Sorry.” He apologized again.

“Hey man, no worries. If you become like me and start making a habit of it, you won’t even feel the need to say sorry anymore… haha…” Smooth.

Armin sighed. “In two days’ time Eren will be going through Stohess. We have a rough plan set up to try and capture Ann—the female-type titan during that time. Erwin said the inner government has already requested Eren be turned in to them. But I think if we can manage to capture another titan shifter… they might just let the scouting legion keep custody of Eren.”

“And obviously you wanted me to keep quiet in case… in case there are other shifters in the scouts?”

“Precisely. Although it’s not a nice thing to think about. If any of us are affiliated with her, they could clue her in and she’d know about the plan before we could act.”

“So wait, the others then…”

“Erwin didn’t say specifically what’s going to happen to them, but I suspect they’re going to be kept in the dark in regards to the plan. Sent away even.”

“And me?”

Armin looked at Jean apologetically. “You’re actually the only person aside from myself and Erwin, --and probably some superior officers by this point, who knows about this. I told Erwin I spoke to you about it in the forest, and he insisted you be kept with the plan-active group. As to what you’ll be doing…”

Jean reached out and brushed some of the hair that kept falling into Armin’s eyes away, finger idly toying the strands before letting go. “I trust you. I’m sure whatever you have in mind will be fine.” Jean let out a big yawn. It was getting pretty late. It was hard to imagine everything beyond the wall happened only this morning.

Armin shifted stiffly on the couch. “Maybe we should head back now… I have the feeling tomorrow will be an… interesting day.”

He made a motion to get off the couch, but Jean grabbed his arm. Armin’s questioning eyes flicked over to look at Jean, looking slightly confused.

Jean just stared back at him. He probably had a matching look on his face. Why… did I do that? How am I going to explain this one? So he just said the first thing that popped into his mind. “I thought you were going to die today.”

Armin’s expression lightened, confusion being replaced with something softer. “I’m sorry.”

“What? No! No, stop it with the sorrys.”

Armin’s arm finally went limp in Jean’s grasp, defeated. “You’re right. You almost died today too; I’ll at least need a sorry in return.”

Despite the usual unamusing-joke, Jean found himself grinning in back at the hint of a cheeky smile on the other boy’s lips.

“Why don’t we just sleep here tonight? It’ll be like… one of those girly sleepovers.”

“Eh?”

“Think about it, you just told me a great big juicy secret and now we need to stay up all night gossiping about it.”

“Jean this is serious…”

“Life’s too serious. We have piles of seriously serious days to look forward to.” Jean leaned over behind Armin and patted the couch near his feet. “Plus I’m like, deliriously tired. You actually look so tired I bet you aren’t even awake right now and I’m pretty much just talking to myself. So… let’s just sleep.”

In a last-ditch effort, Armin said weakly, “But Jean I’m all dirty… and you aren’t wearing a shirt.”

“I don’t care. We can both have a shower tomorrow.”

There was a moment’s delay before his brain caught up with the words. “I mean separately, of course. You’ll shower. And then me. Two different showers.” He mentally smacked his forehead as he leaned over to flick off the lamp.

“Oh my god Jean I’ll stay but please stop talking.” But he heard Armin chuckle slightly, somewhere near his feet, as Armin shuffled trying to get comfortable without laying directly on top him. Armin ended up putting his head on the other armrest, with his legs curled up into his body. He sighed softly, his voice barely above a whisper, “We’re both going to wake up with cricks in our necks tomorrow…”

The buzzing in his head felt more intense now but for some reason he didn’t think it had anything to do with Annie anymore.

“Goodnight Armin.”

Chapter Text

Jean woke up with a foot jabbing him in the chin and a huge pain in his neck.

…What the hell?

He bolted upright in his confusion and looked around the room. The common room. Right. Suddenly flooded with the terrible memories of yesterday, he would have groaned out load if he’d not noticed Armin (attached to said foot) still sleeping on the other side of the couch next to him.

Jean almost never woke up before Armin, so the fact he was still asleep, despite being fully uniformed and on a couch, with the sun streaming through the gap in the curtains must mean he was tired and Jean should just let him sleep.

Jean rose delicately and walked out of the common room, making sure to quietly shut the door behind himself. He made his way to the dormitories to put on something more appropriate, but as soon as he was in the doorway he knew something wasn’t right.

For starters, no one was in bed. Jean wasn’t sure exactly what time it was, but for Armin to still be asleep and for Connie to be not only awake but out of bed was simply impossible. But Jean was the only person in the room. The space also seemed to be left in a state of disarray –beds weren’t made and the few personal belongings still left were somewhat scattered.

Unable to come up with an explanation on the spot, Jean got dressed and tentatively made his way to the girls’ smaller dormitory down the hall. He quickly knocked, and when no one answered he opened the door just a smidge and took a peek inside. Deserted, and all but one bed was unmade.

At a loss for what to do, Jean decided to head downstairs for breakfast. If what Armin had suggested yesterday was true, did that mean everyone else was already sent away as a precaution?

It wasn’t just the dorms which seemed emptier; the whole castle seemed deserted. He hardly passed anyone on the way to the first floor. And in the gloomy mess hall there were only two other people sitting over at the far end. The usual spread of food was still there though.

Grabbing some toast and an apple he sat at a table in the center, where everyone would be sitting if they were… here.

He’d only just bitten into his fruit when he heard someone shout his name.

He nearly choked on his bite. Mikasa? He didn’t think he’d ever heard her so… animated to see him. “Uh, good morning?”

She walked quickly to his spot in the room looking relieved. “You’re here. Where is everyone? I was just upstairs. The rooms are deserted so I didn’t expect…”

“Me?” He pointed to himself dumbly.

She nodded. “What about Armin?”

“Nah he’s just sleeping. In, umm, the common room.” Looking back at the whole thing now it was a bit of an awkward story.

Deciding not to comment she raised her finger to gesture her return, grabbed some food and sat down across from him a few moments later. Ignoring her tray in front of her, she continued briskly, “No one is answering my questions. I spent the night in the basement and by the time I came up this morning everyone was gone. Even some of the officers; there’s a lot of people missing.” Seeming to remember her food, she glanced down, idly stirred her porridge and went on, “Levi told me I was expected to join them for a meeting downstairs in thirty minutes but I have no idea what it’s for. Or who’s ‘them’.”

“A meeting?” Jean wasn’t informed of such a meeting. Maybe he wasn’t invited. Regardless, considering what Armin told him last night he had a pretty good idea about what it was about. Unlike Mikasa, it seemed. “So wait, Armin didn’t talk to you last night?”

She watched him warily. “No. Well yes, but we basically just spoke of what we saw yesterday. That and… consoling Eren.” She said the last bit in almost a whisper, a hint of sadness in her usually firm voice. “Armin rushed upstairs afterwards… Ah. No doubt he knows what this is about then.”

It was a statement, not a question, and Jean took the opportunity to start on his toast, hoping she didn’t start asking him what he knew. Jean wasn’t sure if it was his place to say. If he was allowed to say. Mikasa and Annie had always had an “interesting” relationship, and Jean wasn’t sure how she would react to the news.

“…and… so do you?” This time it was a question.

Almost choking on his bite, Jean said hurriedly, “Right, about that…”

By some miracle the door swung open and Armin, still tugging an arm through his jacket and hair still wet, appeared. Spotting them, he rushed over to their table, his face an interesting blend of serious and flustered.

“Mikasa, Erwin is giving a talk in the basement in a couple minutes and he wants the two of us to be there,” he said, slightly out of breath. He paused and looked over to Jean, almost apologetically. “He’ll be having a bigger talk this afternoon for all of the scouts still in the building so –“

Jean waved his hand dismissively as Armin took a seat beside Mikasa. “No worries. It’s fine.”

“Right. Anyways, Mikasa since you’re here I thought you might want to hear it from me instead, before we go…” Armin looked at Jean again, who had resumed chewing his food.

“I didn’t say anything. S’all yours.” He was actually glad he didn’t need to be the bearer of bad news. Or maybe good news, depending on how you looked at it.

Mikasa, who appeared even more serious than usual, simply said, “I’m here.” The three of them were now the only ones in the room. Jean started to feel a bit awkward, and wondered if he should quickly slip out and let them have this conversation alone. Armin didn’t give him much time to consider this though, as he got straight to the point.

“Annie is the female titan. This is what I told Erwin yesterday. A plan is currently in the works to save Eren from being given to the police, by capturing the female titan in Stohess.”

Not missing a beat, Mikasa only replied, “How do you know?”

“When we were beyond the walls… the titan responded to one of Eren’s nicknames. Also, during the inspections we had some weeks ago, she had Marco’s old gear. And, being in the military police her presence wouldn’t have been missed during the mission beyond the walls.” Armin took a big breath, then sighed. He pointed to Mikasa’s juice. “May I?” She nodded distractedly and he took a big gulp.

And she didn’t kill Armin. This seemed like a point worth mentioning, but perhaps Armin didn’t want to share the accompanying backstory to go with that one just yet.

“So Erwin is planning a way to capture Annie and thus get the Military Police back on the Scouting Legion’s side,” Mikasa stated.

“Right. The details, I’m assuming, will be shared to everyone later. Uh, in a couple minutes.”

Mikasa just nodded. But then she must have noticed Armin who had sighed deeply, eyes downcast as if the grain of the wooden table held some interesting secret. There was a slight hesitation before she wrapped her arm around him and leaned him into her side. He didn’t pull away and just closed his eyes.

“Don’t worry Armin. I’m sure Eren will believe you. Just as long as I –we are there with him when everything happens, nothing bad will happen.”

This time, thankfully, Armin didn’t look like he was going to cry, as his head was resting against Mikasa’s shoulder. He must have taken his bandage off before he showered this morning, but there was no longer evidence of injury anywhere on his forehead, just the faint outlines of stress creases. Mikasa must have noticed Jean watching, because she gave him a sad little smile, which Jean returned the best he could. It seemed strange to see Mikasa like this, but Jean was glad to know she had a kind side she shared with people other than Eren.

Jean decided he had finished as much of his breakfast as he could stomach. He wanted to give the two of them a few minutes alone before they had to head to this “special meeting”. He got up and pushed his chair in. “Hopefully I’ll see you guys at lunch then?”

Armin looked up at him then, nodding and giving him a smile that looked just a little more cheery than Mikasa’s had. “Right.”

After putting away his garbage, he made his way back upstairs.

Jean sat on his bed for a couple minutes, but staring at nothing and biting his nails (a habit he thought he quit) didn’t seem very productive, so Jean got up and made the beds. All of them. It was done partly to keep his mind off things, and partly to make the place seem more normal. At least this way he could almost pretend everyone was out training for the day.

When that was done he took out his sketch book and scribbled a bit, but again that didn’t quite seem to achieve distracting effect he wanted.

Maybe one of Armin’s books? But minutes after opening one up he could almost feel his eyeballs shriveling back into his head from how dry the book was. Armin always managed to make these sorts of things much more interesting.

Exasperated, he decided to head outside for a walk instead.

He hoped Connie and Sasha were feeling better now, wherever they were. He’d wished he would have at least been able to say goodbye before they were shuttled away. Who knew when he was going to see them again? Armin, Eren and Mikasa were his friends too, but it was different, with all and only the three of them there with him. Plus, obviously each of them had managed to catch their superiors’ eyes in one way or the other, so compared to regular-guy Jean, they already seemed almost like their own executive circle.

But maybe that was just his irritated boredom talking.

He kicked a stone down the path in front of him. Instead of following the trail into the little woods in the back, he decided to walk along the one that would eventually take him around the perimeter of the grounds. The weather, clearly unaware of the mess going on at ground level, was pleasant. Not too hot and a little breezy.

A bit past the half-way point he decided to stop and lay down for a minute in the grass. He guessed It was nearly lunch time now, and he was starting to regret not having eaten more at breakfast.

Despite himself he couldn’t help but wonder if Armin was going to sleep in the dorm with him tonight. He hoped so. Because, you know, it would feel lonely to be in that big room by himself.

Jean sighed.

Ok, so maybe he missed their nightly talks, just a little. Nothing wrong with that, right?

Jean tried to convince himself that the --now almost familiar, nagging fondness in his chest was merely an aftereffect of the near-death and traumatic experiences of yesterday. He wondered how it would feel to be friends with someone like Armin if their lives weren’t so damned depressing. If they didn’t need to spend so much time trying to lift the others spirits, or talk for sake of distraction.

Would it have been like how he was friends with Marco? Life was simpler back then but…

Armin wasn’t Marco.

Marco had been a steady, happy companionship. If Jean could ever claim to have had a best friend, it would have been Marco, for sure. But with Armin… there was a rush. A push. Jean craved his company. And it was an active, moving thing. Even he himself, had begun to feel changed somehow by their affiliation.

That was a little scary.

But, fuck it, he was happy. Armin was happy. Well, happy with him, anyways. He hoped.

And last week? Jean regretted those missed talks more than he’d ever be willing to admit. He wouldn’t let something like that happen again.

Jean adjusted his position on the ground a bit and–

“Fuck! Ouch, ‘the hell??” A sharp pain left his fingers tingling. Sitting up, he examined the small sandy space his right hand had brushed against only to see…

Alright, whose joke is this? Rubbing his hand tenderly and glowering at the clump of thorny, purple flowers… what were they called again?

Jean wondered gingerly how many times you could give your friend random vegetation before it started to get weird.

Jean didn’t even make it back to the foreboding eating hall. Stomach still growling, he almost walked right into Eren in the entranceway.

“Ah! Jean!”

“Well that’s kind of rude.”

Eren rolled his eyes. He looked as weary as everyone else, but thankfully still retained that Eren-esque charm. “We were just looking for you. We thought you were going to miss it. In fact, you might still miss it. Maybe I should just let you…”

“I’m coming, I’m coming! Lead on.” He poked Eren’s arm impatiently. He’d rather be fully prepared for whatever mess the scouting legion was getting themselves into this time.

Jean followed Eren down the hall at a brisk pace. “So Armin said you already know? How was I the last one to hear about it…?” He was asking as he walked, still facing forward.

“Man it was like, literally a couple hours before you. You were sleeping. Doesn’t really matter who found out first anyways.”

“Mmm.” Slowing down a bit, Eren asked quietly, “Are you angry?”

“At Annie?” Eren didn’t say anything in the following silence so Jean went on, “Well of course I am! Although… I guess I’d be lying if I said I was mad at her directly. I’m mad at the titan. It’s taking my mind a little while to properly make the association between her and that thing.” The Annie he used to know was antisocial exemplified, but she didn’t kill.

Except she did.

A crowd could be seen at the end of the stone hallway, crowded outside one of the large meeting rooms.

Eren still hadn’t said anything. “So, uh, you alright? Just ‘cause, you know…”

Eren turned his head slightly, giving Jean a sideways glance and an attempt at a terse smile. “Yeah, I’m… it’s fine. Thanks.”

“You found him?” Armin’s blond head emerged from the loitering bodies, along with Mikasa. “What were you doing? You’re covered in grass…”

“So is this one going to be another joyful two hours or…?” Eren had his arms crossed behind his head, leaning against the wall.

“This one will probably be longer, actually…” Armin replied, still idly brushing bits of green off various places on Jean’s person. “Oh right that reminds me… Jean, Erwin’s going to tell you to dress up as Eren for the mission. That’s, uh, what you’ll be doing. So head’s up.”

“Armin what did I tell you about trying to make jokes?”

Armin’s expression only shifted to one of slight annoyance. Jean looked at Eren for some explanation, but he only made an unattractive snorting sound and muttered “wasn’t my idea.”

Armin was right, as usual, and the meeting went over two hours. Jean –and his stomach, was very grateful when Armin handed him one of those ration sticks halfway through.

Although Jean paid close attention to the critical points of the plan, including his own role (which was unglamorous no matter how you looked at it) and the parts of his three friends sitting next to him, it was hard to pay close attention when Erwin started going into the details, like where the support scouts would be hidden in the town at the various times and when and how they’ll be given discreet access to the city.

They were also informed that any of the newer scouts who had been removed last night were only being kept apart for as long as it took to capture Annie, or for them to otherwise prove their uninvolvement.

How do you even go about proving uninvolvement?

After the meeting, they all had a quiet dinner, complaining about stiff backs and numb bottoms, then went upstairs.

None of them seemed to really want to talk about Annie, so they talked idly about anything else instead.

Jean learned Mikasa’s favourite colour was pink. Eren knew the names of most of the bones in the human body. Armin’s grandfather once suggested Armin collect bugs but he was horrified out of the idea as soon as he realized you’d have to kill them. Jean told them how his mom made him sing in the town choir when he was little --and thankfully let him leave when they learned he was no good.

And not once did they call him out for intruding on their trio.

Come bedtime Armin asked if the other two wanted to stay upstairs, since Eren was more-or-less “free” from the basement and Mikasa was now the only girl from their year, but they both declined; Eren mumbling something about how sleeping in one of the other boys’ sweaty beds would be gross (“Eren you were literally swallowed by a titan a month ago.”) and Mikasa merely shook her head, giving Armin what could only be described as a sly look as she followed Eren out the door.

They were about to change into their pajamas when Jean remembered what he’d left in his coat pocket. “Oh right, before I forget, I found something today you might like…” He pulled out the slightly wilted stalk and held it out.

Armin tenderly took it from Jean’s hands, avoiding the prickly bits.

“You didn’t…”

“I did! And I have the cuts on my fingers to prove it.” Jean wiggled his fingers near Armin’s face for effect.

“Anchusa crispa. You…” Armin actually covered his face with his empty hand for a moment, peeking at Jean from between his fingers. “What am I going to do with you? You’re going to be better at this than I am.”

“Sheesh Arm, I didn't know it was a competition.” Jean joked as he began undressing. Armin was at the end of the other bed, looking for a suitable book to place the flower in. “Besides, I like hearing about these weird little things you like.”

“What do you like, Jean?”

“Huh?”

“If –when, we all get to go beyond the wall, what then? What do you plan to do? What’s your ambition?”

Jean had never really considered this before. When he used to think about joining the military police, he would imagine himself getting a nice apartment in the inner city, eating fancy dinners, maybe one day settling down with a pretty girl, having a kid or two and ultimately allow himself to grow old and fat… But since he joined the scouts, he never allowed himself to think about the far future. Despite how optimistically Armin tried to portray it, the future was a questionable thing. But say he did live through everything. And say they did manage to somehow get rid of all the titans and allow themselves to go prancing beyond the walls. What then? What was it even like out there?

“I… hadn’t really thought about it before. To be honest.” That was a lame answer.

“Jean, can I tell you about something? Something that’s become sort of special to me? You can call it a goal even.” There was something in the way Armin said it that made Jean both nervous and excited.

“Yeah, Of course!” He patted the other end of his bed. “Sit down and tell me all about it.”

Armin, now in his own sleeping clothes, hesitated half a second before plopping down at the end of Jean’s bed and crossing his legs. There was a sparkle in his eyes as he tried fixing his hair behind his ear and away from his face.

“When I was a kid, my grandfather had this book. One of those books that is forbidden by the King –I don’t know how old it was, but it didn’t mention any walls or titans whatsoever. It talked about the world. The world…just the word seems weird, doesn’t it? What is the world?” Armin paused then and looked at Jean, eyes bright and intense.

“The world is covered in so many unbelievable things Jean… I could probably spend all week just telling you about them. But… I’m just going to tell you about my favourite, tonight. It’s called ‘the ocean’.”

Armin went on to talk about expanses of water bigger than everything in Wall Maria, and deeper than ten of the walls stacked on top of one another. The water was salty, and more types of animals than they knew of lived within it. Some looked like insects and lived along that sands at the bottom, others were big with pointy teeth and ate all the types of fish that lived there. There were mammals too, as big as houses that breathed air like they did. People could use huge boats and travel to different lands using the ocean. Sometimes, whole new lands would form in the middle of the water, over millions and millions of years. And occasionally, massive oscillations in the water called tidal waves would crash into land and flood it completely.

As Jean sat and listened to Armin talk about these unbelievable things, he found himself captivated by the strange passion in the boy’s voice –like this thing he was telling him was truly something that kept him moving forward. That this thing, apparently only one of many, was enough to make all their trials and tribulations, past and future, worth all the effort and fear and death. Watching Armin’s face, ingrained with overwhelming intensity as he became more animated made Jean’s own heart beat wildly.

Eventually his talk subsided, and he looked down, still smiling but now with a hint of bashfulness. “I want to see the ocean one day… I want to stand in it and look out and think about how that water covers over half of this planet we live on. And then… I want to see the other half.” Armin chuckled lightly to himself, seemingly at nothing in particular. “Deserts and volcanoes and icebergs… tundra and jungles and hot springs… it’s unbelievable, Jean. Literally unbelievable. So I want to see it for myself… To know the world that existed, and continues to exist, even while we were stuck behind these walls.”

“Armin…” Jean didn’t know what to say. He’d been silent throughout the summary, not just for lack of entry between Armin’s excited words, but also because he found himself genuinely moved. Emotion –positive emotion, like that was hardly seen in there dispiriting lives. Eren was passionate, but his carried a dark undertone, a need for violence and death. Armin, in contrast, seemed to just have a solid curiosity for life.

Armin looked up again, eyeing Jean through his bangs. “I said too much, didn’t I?”

“No! In fact, not enough –I want you to tell me about everything, these ‘whales’ and ‘jungles’ and all those other weird things.” Jean realized he was gripping Armin’s shoulders and let go. “Ah, sorry… And I didn’t mean ‘weird’ either… Different. I think I like different.” Jean turned his head towards the pile of books near Armin’s bed. “Could you show me?”

“The book? Ah… it’s still in Shiganshina… probably still in my ruins of a bedroom somewhere. I didn’t have time to take it with me before we evacuated.”

“We’ll get it back.” Jean said this with absolute confidence. “We’re going to Eren’s basement eventually anyways, right? I’m sure we can take a detour. Then you can show me.”

“I think I’d rather show you the real things…” Armin said this quietly, colour tinging his cheeks as he seemed to avoid Jean’s eyes.

“Sure, sure, sign me up. And no need to look so embarrassed, ok?” The compulsion to give Armin a hug suddenly won out and Jean leaned in and wrapped his arms lightly around the other’s shoulders. “Sheesh, I literally kept a plant in my pocket all day to give you, you think I’m going to choose now to start poking fun at you? You’re different. And I like it, ok?” Jean pulled away then. “Now get off my bed and go to sleep. I don’t want to wake up with your foot in my face again.”

“That was definitely your idea though...” Armin mumbled as he got off the end of Jean’s bed and crawled under his own covers.

Jean laughed. “Yeah, I know…”

Chapter Text

But I’m definitely straight.

This was a thought that seemed to go through Jean’s mind more and more frequently, despite having more serious matters at hand.

Unfortunately, even the scouting legion wasn’t busy all the time, and when they weren’t busy working on one thing or the other –today was the day before they set out for Stohess so they were preparing for that, Jean found his thoughts wandering. Thankfully, not so often to sad things as had been the case for the past 4 weeks (although it still did happen) but to things which were more…baffling. And blond. With a soft-spoken voice telling him of magical things that definitely didn’t exist but seemed to pique his imagination regardless and—

Jean was definitely not going to start thinking about Armin in the shower. No.

Jean shut off the water and stepped out to dry himself off.

They were all up early that morning preparing the horses and equipment for the group of scouting legion soldiers riding into Stohess that day. It had been decided that in order to keep inconspicuous they would arrive piecemeal, such that they would all be ready by the time Eren arrived. Erwin, Levi, and the four of them were scheduled to leave the next morning in two carriages of their own.

After lunch, Armin, Eren and Mikasa had decided to go review their gear in preparation for tomorrow since as luck would have it, they might actually need them. Jean knew he should probably be thankful he was pushed to the sideline for this mission; he was literally going to be in the safest possible position throughout the whole thing. But in reality, he just felt useless. Expendable. He knew Armin was actually the mind behind most of this plan, Jean wondered if Armin had kept Jean away from danger on purpose. Maybe he’d ask him one day.

And dressed as Eren no less.

Jean put on some casual clothes and made his way to the armoury which held the 3DMG; maybe the others would still be there and giving his own gear a good wipe-down would be an almost-productive way to waste his time. By the time he arrived, Armin was the only one still there, apparently having just finished with his own equipment and now storing it in his cubby.

“Yo.”

It was weird, being in this room. It was now mostly empty, except for a section on one of the walls that was for the new recruits; Ymir, Bertholdt and everyone else still under “investigation” had their gear sitting where they left it. Apparently Erwin thought it was best to limit their access to weapons as much as possible.

“Oh hey. I just finished up, actually.” Armin stepped aside from his labelled compartment as evidence. “I think Mikasa and Eren went to see if Levi or Erwin needed anything else done, I might go check too…”

Jean made his way to his own cubby; his gear was just as he left it after his first mission outside the walls. “Yeah I might come find you guys in a bit…”

Jean could feel Armin lingering behind him, so Jean decided to ask about something he’d been mulling over ever since he heard the plan yesterday. “Say Armin? You volunteered yourself to persuade Annie in Stohess… Isn’t that a bit…”

“Manipulative?” Armin filled in, his voice hollow. Jean heard him sit down on the bench in the middle of the room. Armin waited a moment before continuing, “But who else could do it? I mean…” He sighed. “Remember what I said while we were in the tall trees? If Annie is who we think she is, well then… sometimes we need to throw away what’s important to us to change things. Annie’s friendship was important to me, once. But in this case, if we can use it to our advantage well…”

Jean looked over his shoulder, components of his gear weighing heavily in his hands. “Yeah but that doesn’t mean you need to act like you’re fine with it.” Armin wasn’t a cold person. And using Annie’s feelings to help fuel the plan was… cold. He worried how it would affect Armin, mentally. The others didn’t know the entire situation, but he did.

Armin opened his mouth to say something, but Mikasa appeared in the doorway before he could get any words out.

“Do you want to go for a walk? Levi told us to stop pestering him.”

There was a moment of quiet as Mikasa seemed to acknowledge Jean and Armin seemed to swallow whatever he’d been about to say.

“Yeah sure, that sounds nice.”

“Would Jean like to join us?”

Jean still wasn’t quite used to Mikasa’s version of friendliness. “I think I’ll pass… Thanks for the offer though.”

Instead, Jean spent a good portion of the overcast afternoon servicing his gear, and later joined Eren for some wood-chopping. The castle didn’t need any more wood; they had a pile over a storey high, but Eren said it helped him relieve some stress, and once Jean got into a good rhythm he felt inclined to agree. They even made a bit of a competition out of it, and Jean was temporarily distracted enough to not think about anything, or anyone.

Eren’s company could be pleasant at times… so long as he wasn’t talking.

That night Armin, Mikasa and Eren hid themselves away in the basement, but Jean didn’t really mind. He sort of understood the situation a bit more now, he supposed. Eren wasn’t as sturdy as he’d originally thought, and if the main plan went sour there would be a lot resting on Eren’s shoulders.

And on Armin’s.

Jean rolled over in his bed and stared moodily at the brown wig sitting on his bedside table.

And what would he be doing? Taking cover in a carriage that would be more or less forgotten before it ever got to its destination, without any means of joining the action. He would have no control over his friends’ safety.

Jean fell asleep before Armin ever came back upstairs.

He knew Armin did eventually come to bed though, when Jean woke in the middle of the night from a familiar dream and almost instinctively turned his head, forehead still damp with sweat, to the bed beside him. The dream was very much like the one he’d had about Marco, watching his skin dissolve away to reveal white bone beneath, except this time it wasn’t Marco; it’d been the boy who was, surprisingly, still sleeping curled up on the bed a metre from his own. And it hadn’t been his face –it’d been his hands, which for whatever reason Jean had been holding. He remembered Armin asking him what was wrong, as Jean looked down in horror at his own hands becoming soaked with Armin’s blood.

Jean’s hands were trembling now, and were wet not with blood but rather with his own sweat.

His head still buzzed with horror, even as he lay there staring at the slowly breathing lump, almost completely hidden by blankets.

Still breathing.

Armin had never slept through one of Jean’s nightmares before. Jean was torn between the selfish desire to be comforted, and the wish to let Armin, who was obviously tired, sleep.

In the end he took what he hoped was the best middle option and wrapped his blanket around his shoulders and climbed as delicately as he could into Armin’s bed. The lump shifted slightly as Jean tried to find space between it and the wall, trying to make himself as small as possible.

“Mmm… Jean?”

“Shh Armin, I’m sorry… I’m so sorry please just go back to bed, alright?” He was ashamed at how shaky his own voice sounded. He didn’t think Armin would kick him out, half-asleep or not, but for a couple seconds he was terrified of rejection, of going back to his own bed and his own thoughts, alone.

But instead Armin, eyes still closed, pulled a hand out from his blanket and blindly reached out and eventually rested it on Jean’s cheek.

“It’s okay. I’m here. You sleep too…” Armin’s words were slurred with sleep, and the hand on his cheek already started to feel limp with the slumber again taking it over. Jean gently grabbed it from his cheek and rested it in his own hand.

It was whole, and beautiful, and Armin.

But I’m definitely straight.

Jean fell asleep.

The morning came too quickly, and everyone left just after dawn in order to make it to Stohess on time. Riding in a carriage was a luxury none of them were used to, and it might have even been enjoyable had their destination been a pleasant one.

Just in case they were checked inside the city, Jean put on the wig before they reached the gates. When they were well within the cover of the tall and well-kept homes, the two carts stopped briefly beside each other. Jean and Eren quickly switched places with Eren joining both Mikasa and Armin, the three of them sporting full-length rain jackets in order to cover their gear.

Jean’s stomach lurched along with the cart as it started forward again. At least he’d been able to choose his words before his friends left, unlike with Connie and Sasha and those still sent away. Jean had been really embarrassed when he woke up in Armin’s bed, despite Armin trying to act casual about the whole thing, likely for Jean’s own benefit because really there’s very little casual about waking up in a bed next to your friend, limbs a little bit more entwined than intended, them drooling onto your pillow.

Jean had tried to make Armin promise he’d try to stay safe. Armin said he couldn’t promise that. Jean knew he was right and let it go.

Now, as he rode leisurely in the cart along the main roads, he stared blankly at the floor, hoping to not hear that sound, that one sound.

Crack!

Jean angrily pulled the wig from his hair. No one would be paying any attention to him and his stupid cart anymore.

Plan A had failed. There would be fighting now.

Crack!

The second shift, probably Eren.

The carriage turned sharply, making a beeline towards the Scouting Legion’s small headquarters (shared with the Military Police), where Jean was instructed to wait uselessly until everything was concluded.

Jean felt an inappropriate high take over, later, when the doors burst open and there was commotion in the front halls as confused and angry soldiers came in, pushing past Jean carrying the injured in tow, as well as Eren and his two friends.

Eren was being carried in a stretcher, but seemed very much alive. The group of people carrying him, with the help of Hanji’s boisterous voice, cleared a path ahead of them as they moved down the hall and down the stairs past Jean, who was leaning on the railing.

Seeing everyone’s grim faces pushed some of his own giddiness aside –clearly something went amiss, despite Eren's wellbeing.

Jean watched the stretcher go down the hall and into one of the rooms with the door slammed pointedly behind it. Mikasa and Armin weren’t far behind of course, but both stopped outside the door with anxious expressions.

Jean walked over, uncertain about how to approach them. The hall was now crowded with people rushing past, many of whom were carrying the wounded through on stretchers. There had apparently been a lot of injuries, if nothing else. Armin and Mikasa both looked up at him with solemn eyes. Mikasa looked away first, frowning sternly. Armin also seemed a bit worn out but started to talk anyways, “Eren fought the female titan. She’d tried to get away but Mikasa stopped her. And…” Armin tried brushing his hair out of his eyes with one of his hands. “And when Eren got to Annie, she’d encased herself in crystal. The scouting legion has her in custody but we still have no answers.”

Encased in crystal? Jean was confused, but neither of them seemed quite up to being questioned just yet so he held his tongue.

Armin continued, “And there’s more. In the fighting, some of the wall fell apart and…”

“There was a colossal titan inside.” Mikasa finished the sentence.

“Shit, you serious?”

Mikasa just glared back and Armin closed his eyes, biting his lip slightly.

Jean decided to not push his luck further and just stood quietly outside of Eren’s room with them. Talking was better suited to a calmer environment anyways. There was enough chaos throughout the halls, and Jean was pretty sure he’d just get in the way if he tried to help out.

By the time the door to Eren’s room opened, the commotion had been mostly contained to the first floor. A handful of nurses walked out and quickly dispersed down the hall, going to check on the other patients who were lucky enough to get their own room. Hanji was the last one to exit, her usual positive energy absent from her step.

“The good news is that it seems his healing abilities are taking care of his injuries. However it appears both the fighting and the healing have taken a toll on his energy. You guys need to make sure he gets lots of rest and eats… you’ll probably be able to take better care of him than any of the nurses here anyways.”

Without waiting for a reply, she walked briskly down the hall, leaving the three of them free to enter the room.

Jean hung back as Armin and Mikasa rushed over to Eren’s bed, giving him a look over and making sure he was in as good a shape as Hanji had told them. Once that had been taken care of, Mikasa grabbed a chair from the corner of the room and pushed it next to the bed. Armin merely took off his shoes and clambered softly onto the end of the bed. Jean was left leaning a bit stiffly on the dresser.

It seemed like they just loitered around there forever, in the tidy little room with the orange light from outside filtering through the small window near the ceiling, none of them saying anything. It was Jean who finally broke the silence.

“So with everything that’s happened, I guess it’s safe to assume that Eren’s summoning to the King has been cancelled, right?”

Armin answered quietly. “Yes.”

“But that pales in comparison to everything else that happened. Annie really did turn out to be the female titan; she wreaked havoc in the town, then turned herself into sleeping beauty right after. And after all that, you discovered there were colossal titans in the walls you say?”

Armin answered him again, “Yes and… they’ve been standing inside the wall for at least 100 years, and I think they’re going to take a walk soon… all at once.”

For some reason this struck the repressed relief in Jean and he found himself laughing at this boy who was, praise everything, alive and unhurt. “Armin, telling a joke? Hahaa, man you’re lame! That was great!” He ruffled Armin’s hair. For all the times Jean had found Armin’s jokes fall flat, this time he didn’t seem to care.

Mikasa looked over at them sternly from her spot next to the bed, finger raised to her lips. “Shh, not too loud.”

Sheepishly Jean replied in a hushed voice “Right, forgot… Sorry.”

“But you know, about the wall, I could never figure out how the wall was built in the first place. There are no brick joints or traces of peeling or anything like that. I’m starting to wonder if it was made using the titan’s hardening ability. That ability could have a lot of applications, just like with Annie crystalizing herself.” Armin was staring at nothing in particular as he said this, brain apparently in overdrive. “That would mean that we’ve always been protected from titans, by titans.”

“Is that a joke too? ‘Cause it’s not as funny.”

The door opened then, and a scout stood stiffly in the doorway. “Armin? Come with me. The Commander wants your attendance at a meeting.”

A bit reluctantly, Armin got up from the bed. “Understood.”

Averse to the thought of being alone with only Mikasa and Eren and desiring to keep Armin within his sight had Jean straightening up from the dresser to move. “Well, I think I’ll be going up to the surface too. Being in this damp underground room can depress anyone, you guys might want to get out of here too.”

“Mikasa, I think you're also be permitted to the meeting” the scout chipped in as Jean and Armin walked past.

Not surprisingly, Jean heard Mikasa turn down the offer.

Chapter Text

The debriefing Erwin called was surprisingly short, and was mostly a retelling of the day’s events and how they would affect the scouting legion. Near the end, Erwin was called away to deal with more important affairs and they ended up being dismissed prematurely.

Armin was still looking a little lost and forlorn as the two of them left the stuffy meeting room, so Jean was happy to find out rooms had been arranged for the scouting legion members. Their personal belongings, or what was left of them, were waiting for them along with some beds in a room down the hall. Jean felt that the more often he moved locations, the less inclined he felt to pack up and bring every knick-knack along with him. Armin, too, seemed content to leave a couple of his books on the dusty shelf in the common room back at the old headquarters.

Jean stopped beside the open door. “Our stuff is in here. But if you want to go back and see Eren and Mikasa I understand.”

Armin smiled weakly and stepped into the neat little room. It was almost identical to the one Eren was in, but with two of everything and a larger window. Armin went towards it and shut the blinds; it was dark out by now and the foreign lights from the city outside were unfamiliar. “Eren and Mikasa, how should I put it…? I think that sometimes, the right thing for me to do is let them have some time to themselves.” Armin turned around and walked towards one of the beds. “They’d never ask me to leave, of course, but…”

“They can be a little dense, can’t they?” Looking back, Jean had no idea how he ever thought he had a chance with Mikasa.

Armin chuckled half-heartedly. “Yeah.”

Jean stopped hovering by the doorway and stepped fully inside, shutting the door behind him. It seemed weird, having a closed door in such a tiny space, but that seemed to be what everyone else in the hall had done. Almost like a little hotel. It had been so long since Jean had shared a sleeping space with less than 10 people, it seemed oddly intimate now.

Armin was still just standing near the bed, knees against the edge, just staring at the covers.

“Hey, are you alright?”

He saw Armin tense as he walked closer.

“No… I don’t think I am.”

Deflated. Empty. Was this Armin’s method of coping? Jean was reminded of his first couple of days after Marco’s death. Was this how he reacted too? Until…

Jean put his hands lightly on Armin’s shoulders. He wished he knew about all sorts of interesting things, because maybe if he did he could talk and talk like nothing was the matter, until Armin wasn’t thinking about whatever demons plagued his mind.

But he doubted Armin could be distracted that easily anyways.

“It’s okay to feel sad you know. No one expects you to be fine.” Armin was still looking down at the bed as Jean parroted some of the same consoling words Armin had said to him weeks ago. “Besides, you’re the one responsible for allowing us to keep Eren. And also for finding out all these secrets about the walls and the shifting. Even if we can’t question Annie, at least there’s one less titan on the run. Who knows what she would have done next? How many more people would have died? And for the little things well…” Jean swallowed nervously, “Sometimes things are easier to deal with when you have someone to talk to.” Jean wasn’t sure why he was able to remember the entirety of that conversation they had on the walk to hall 14 all that time ago. “I’ll be here okay? If you want to talk about Annie or Eren or just need someone to rant to or something, I’m here Armin, okay? I’m here.”

Jean silently wished Armin would keep facing the other direction for a while longer because he could feel a flush spreading across his cheeks, and knew he wouldn’t be able to come up with an explanation as to why. His mind wasn’t ready to breech that just yet.

But he was aware that words didn’t always work. Words couldn’t bring Marco back, either. Maybe words couldn’t erase Armin’s fear of losing Eren, or his guilt about his role in capturing Annie. After all, words couldn’t bring back the people who died carrying out Armin’s plan.

Armin finally lifted his head, and exhaled slowly and deliberately. “I know. You’ve done a pretty good job at keeping me… distracted. Although I don’t know if it’s always a good thing…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jean knew all too well that sometimes distractions were the best you could hope for in certain situations. Armin had taught him that, actually. Although Jean always felt it was Armin playing the role of distracter.

Armin didn’t reply.

In the brief void Jean noted the faint smell that was leftover traces of stress on Armin’s skin. And something else, something metallic. Blood? Or maybe it was the metal from their gear. Were they always standing this close?

Then suddenly, as if burned, Armin stepped to the side, and faced Jean’s direction. “Ah, sorry about that, I must have zoned out, I don’t mean to keep you from your sleep.”

Jean just rolled his eyes. “Armin that was literally the last thing I was thinking about, but okay. We can talk more tomorrow. Or whenever.” How come whenever he was trying to be a good friend he felt more like a crane fly stuck outside in the first frost, legs dangling stupidly, banging itself repeatedly on a window?

But then he saw Armin finally smile. “Thank you Jean.”

They didn’t sleep long. An hour or two after midnight, he guessed, scouts came knocking at all the doors in the hall.

“Wall Rose has been breached! Everyone gather your gear and meet outside! This is an emergency!” The intruder stopped for a second as he peered through their door after pushing it open. “Arlert? Captain Levi wants you to meet up with him. He’ll be at the back of the building with the others.”

And with that he left, continuing his announcement as he made his way down the halls.

“For real?? There’s no way…” Jean tried to wrap his half-asleep mind around the situation as he clumsily tried to put on his uniform.

Armin was halfway out the door by the time Jean was putting on his boots. He stopped before stepping out. “Be careful out there, alright?” Armin seemed a lot more put together than Jean was feeling as he struggled with his heel.

“Yeah of course, you too okay?”

And that was the last Jean saw of Armin for the next 14 hours.

At first it was chaos; almost no one was properly awake and fewer still seemed to know what was actually going on.

Once everyone was divided and had managed to get their own horse (Stohess was surprisingly well-equipped but a few mounts still had to be borrowed from outlying villages), everything was a little bit easier to follow.

Their group rode westward through the dark at a steady pace; they were to help out any garrison soldiers out near Trost’s inner gate. Since most of the garrison was stationed on Wall Rose, they were apparently the first line of defence. Although communications were choppy, it seemed they had been ordered to have a sort of barricade set up by the time the titans became active in the morning.

How many titans were there? Reports from the runners were inconclusive, but whatever titans had already gotten in were certainly some of the slower ones. Half a day and not one had made it to any large village?

Hours passed and the sun finally peeked out of the horizon at their backs. Jean asked the man riding beside him, a humourless looking middle-aged fellow, if they were going to get into formation anytime soon.

“You still wet behind the ears boy? There’s no point –we’re not trying to avoid titans, we’re trying to kill ‘em.”

Although a very good point, it somehow didn’t make Jean feel any better.

As it turned out though, there weren’t any titans left to kill. By the time they got to one of the garrison’s strongholds (which was the word they were using for the line of cannons set behind a wooden-post blockade), the handful of titans which had trickled in shortly after sunrise had already been taken care of and had long since evaporated.

But the orders were to help hold the ground and stay on the defensive until further instruction. So needless to say a Jean spent a couple of hours half-asleep in the shade of the outpost’s walls, angrily wondering why he was the only member of the 104^th to be stuck with a bunch of prickly veterans.

And what about Eren? What good was it to shuttle him around in his condition at a time like this? Maybe they were hoping they’d come across another giant rock for him to use as a convenient plug?

After rations were handed out for lunch, things started to get a little bit more active again. Not due to titans, but because a handful of military police had joined the loitering mass, and were turning out to be a rowdy bunch. Perhaps they had been lucky enough to have actually gotten some sleep last night. He doubted they would be disappointed to hear that there were no enemies and that their services would not be required.

Taking a lazy swig from his water skin, Jean asked a scout walking by, “So are there really no titans?”

“Looks like it. I thought it seemed awfully quiet the whole ride here, to be honest.”

Still, there had been titans. He wondered if Reiner, Connie, Ymir and the others were given their gear back and allowed to help out, or if they had been shuttled away like common citizens. And then, there was the other possibility…

“I wonder if they’re still alive…” This was said to no one in particular.

Moments later, Jean’s attention was diverted to an out-of-breath soldier, from the advance party. Making it in front of the Commander of the Garrison, the soldier collapsed to his knees. It didn’t take long for a crowd to gather around the kneeling man, everyone circling trying to lean and inch closer, anxious for any news; Jean was among them.

Finally catching his breath, the man finally spoke, “We found no irregularities or holes in the wall. B-but, the situation has turned into an emergency! On our way to report to Trost, we encountered the survey corps team led by Hanji… There were a number of unequipped recruits from the 104^th with them…” Jean’s heart skipped. His friends were there after all?

“But among them,” the soldier continued, still struggling for breath and seeming to grow more frantic as he went on, “three of the soldiers were titans!”

The words snapped at Jean like a rubber band. Forgetting rank and etiquette he pushed his way to the front of the crowd.

“What are you saying?? There were still three titans on that team??” A cold, clammy sweat was forming on his brow and palms. There were less than 20 people from the 104^th sent away… were one of his friends actually…? “Who!”

An arm suddenly went out in front of him, keeping him back. He hadn’t noticed how close he’d edged towards the messenger.

“Jean, wait.” It was Commander Erwin. Some mild shock registered past all his other emotions that Erwin even knew his name. “Once they were discovered, what happened?” His voice was stern but calm.

“The Survey Corps engaged the Colossus and Armoured titan. By the time we joined the battle… it was over.”

There was a moment of stunned silence before all at once everyone started shouting and pushing and asking questions.

The Colossal titan?? One of his friends was the Colossal titan??

A couple hectic moments later and Erwin’s voice boomed above the chaos. “I’ve just been informed—“ a silence came over the crowd again, “that Eren has been kidnapped and taken beyond wall Rose. I have no authority over anyone here outside the Survey Corps but,” he looked over at Pixis who was standing at his side, “I would request and welcome any able-bodied soldiers to assist with a rescue mission.” Jean heard a member of the Military Police scoff and another even spat on the ground, Jean had to resist the urge to give them a good kick.

“Scouts, collect your gear and horses, we’ll start heading towards Hanji and the others immediately!”

Erwin must have noticed Jean staring, even after everyone else had started moving, because he said “Jean, I understand if you’d like to ride up front with me as I question our fellow here for the details.” As Erwin said this he extended a hand to the soldier still kneeling beside him and helped the soldier to his feet.

Horses were brought and the group, joined by Commander Pixis, started out ahead of the crowd of mismatched and agitated troops.

The soldier who’d collapsed earlier wasted no time beginning his story as they rode ahead at a brisk pace.

“The first titan was a girl named Ymir—“

Shit of course! And to think all this time I thought her bitchy attitude was just a friendly little quirk, but when in reality she’s one of humanity’s greatest enemies—

“She actually saved a handful of the others from some regular titans which appeared inside the wall. She was almost devoured by the time Hanji’s group got there. Unfortunately some of your officers had been killed prior.”

Jean wondered if that meant Ymir was like Eren. Had she not known about her power until she was about to die?

“The Colossal and Armoured titan are two soldiers named Betholdt Fubar and Reiner Braun, respectively.

“No…” Jean hadn’t meant to, but when three pairs of eyes glanced briefly in his direction, he realised he must have been thinking aloud.

He tried to follow the rest of the details as best he could; Mikasa attacked, Eren and the other two transformed, a battle and an escape, but his mind remained glued to the horrible betrayal he felt. He had joked with Reiner at breakfast just last week. Jean used to poke fun at Bertholdt in their youth, for always hitting his head on the top bunk after having his growth spurt. The three of them used to rough-house with the other guys during breaks, had stayed up late talking about girls and had stolen extra puddings when no one was watching them…

But they actually wanted Jean dead? They wanted everyone dead?

Bertholdt kicked a hole through wall Maria. Quiet, insecure Bertholdt.

Jean wanted to cry. Scream. Punch something. Or someone. But before anyone’s face was punched, he wanted to ask them why. Because Jean didn’t understand.

Chapter Text

It was hardly a cheerful reunion when Jean finally made it up the wall with Erwin and the rest of the rescue party. Half of his friends had either been kidnapped or turned out to be titans, so there were precious few friendly faces waiting for him. The restless crowd paced about the walls, waiting for the lifts to be set up to transport their horses down the other side.

One absence was noted however. “Connie, where’s Sasha?” Jean was almost afraid to hear the answer.

Connie, still adjusting the straps on the manoeuvre gear he was borrowing, paused abruptly. His eyes grew wide. “What do you mean? She’s not with you and the rest of the scouts?”

“We saw one or two people come by delivering the news but Sasha wasn’t one of them…”

Mikasa appeared behind them now, looking agitated and weary. Her voice, however, was surprisingly gentle, “I wouldn’t worry, Connie. I hear there were hardly enough titans to make it more than a couple kilometers past the wall – she probably went North and is somewhere safe by now.”

“Yeah well, there aren’t many places less safe than where we’ll be going in a couple minutes.” Jean was almost surprised by the bitterness he heard in his own voice.

“Except maybe a titan’s mouth…” Connie mumbled, worry blatant in his tone.

“Will you two calm down, please?” It was Armin. Like Mikasa, his expression betrayed his fatigue. “You’re not doing yourselves any favours by worrying about things we can’t possibly find out about until later.”

Armin was stressed too, then. Jean could tell.

The line of people gathering at the wall’s edge indicated that the lift had been completed. They watched silently as the horses were lowered down the other side in small groups. The animals were always the first ones down on the other side of the wall, since the titans would more-or-less ignore them. This way the scouts could use their gear to descend the wall themselves before swinging on to horseback below, and away from any loitering titans. It worked, but was definitely less convenient than using a gated exit.

And so a short while later, everyone was out beyond the safety of the wall. They had only the vague plan conveyed by Erwin to go on; reach Eren by nightfall, retrieve him from the shifters, return. That was as much as they could hope for during this mission.

Looking at Christa riding beside him, he hoped for her sake they might also find Ymir.

They rode as fast as they were willing to push the horses, trying to reach Eren before it became dark. If it came to fighting and they had to face the shifters in the dark, there would be no hope at all of rescuing Eren.

As it was, they were riding in a modified version of the long distance enemy scouting formation; not only because they were aiming for speed, but also because of the accompanying garrison members who were unfamiliar with the formation. As such, those not in the scouting legion were kept in the centre, where no scouting responsibilities were required of them.

Compared to his last journey outside the walls, the trip to the trees was much more uneventful. There were a couple times the formation changed direction slightly, but as far as Jean was aware, no abnormal titans were spotted and no massive casualties reported.

With about an hour of daylight left before sundown, Jean finally spotted their destination; the giant forest. With their destination in sight, the group picked up the pace as they made a beeline for the woods.

Jean’s stomach twisted and turned. What was he expecting? Their only goal was to rescue Eren but… Were Reiner and Bertholdt really going to fight back? If the Colossal titan appeared he didn’t know what they could possibly do. Or would the shifters run away? Would they be forced to attack them as they ran, like they did with the female titan? Or could this somehow be settled with words?

As soon as they entered the woods, they were met by a haphazard wall of titans and the familiar crack of a shifter’s transformation. Now in the more favourable terrain provided by the towering trees, they switched to their 3D manoeuvring gear.

Between the trees, a peculiar looking titan appeared with pointy teeth and disproportionately small legs. Jean could make out one of their group swinging right towards it.

Connie?

Connie landed on an adjacent tree. “This one’s Ymir! The other one they captured! This is her titan form!” He seemed to say something else, to the titan itself, but Jean couldn’t hear. The titan, Ymir, wasn’t reacting. It wasn’t doing anything. It just held on to one of the trees, turning its head about as if looking for something.

Jean rested himself partway up a tree with his gear. “Ymir?! Did you get away from Reiner and Bertholdt? Where are they?” Jean hoped if Ymir got away, maybe Eren had been lucky enough to do so as well.

Just as Connie began stomping on her head in frustration, the Titan reacted to something off to the side. It was Christa, who was just catching up to the rest of them.

Ymir launched forward, mouth open, and ate her.

Jean’s body buzzed with horror and the need to act. “Don’t just stand there! Go after her!” He swung himself past where Mikasa and Armin were hanging, following Ymir’s path through the trees.

Wasn’t she supposed to be one of the good titans??

Mikasa, now in motion a few meters below Jean seemed to be thinking the same thing. “Why would Ymir…?”

“It’s not like I ever assumed she was on our side for sure!”

Armin caught up with the two of them. “She must be hostile! She… she lured us! She’s trying to help Reiner and Bertholdt!”

They were nearing the edge of the forest again, the orange-tinged sky coming into view through the thinning trees.

Another cracking transformation was heard, followed by the rumbling boom of something heavy hitting the ground. As they finally reached the edge of the forest, they stayed there a second or two, despair washing over them as they watched the Armoured Titan run off with big heavy steps.

“They’re getting away with Eren!!” Armin yelled, emotion making his voice crack.

Someone Jean didn’t recognize swung up behind them. “Don’t stop! We’ll follow them on horseback!”

And sure enough, the horses were waiting on the ground below. Remounting, they continued the chase.

Unfortunately, back on the ground they now had the other titans to worry about as well.

Erwin was yelling, telling everyone to follow him as he rode towards the Armoured Titan. Luckily Reiner didn’t seem to be able to move as fast as Ymir.

“They’re not going too fast for us! We can catch up to them!” Jean was riding next to Armin and Mikasa, the three of them near the front of the group gaining ground on the massive titan.

“If it shed the hard skin around its joints, the Armoured Titan would be able to run faster… Since it hasn’t, it might not be able to run far but even if we do catch up to it… how can we possibly stop it?”

Mikasa, her voice steely, responded to Armin. “No. There has to be some way. This time I’m not going to hesitate. I promise to kill them.

Clearly Mikasa didn’t have the same reservations Jean had about going up against their “friends”. Part of his was still hoping Reiner would just turn around, transform and go “haha just kidding guys!”

“And that includes Ymir,” Mikasa went on. “If she gets in our way --I don’t care what it takes… I’ll kill them all.”

They were catching up. Now that Jean could get a better view, he was able to see the small shapes of Bertholdt and Eren resting on the titan’s shoulders. Ymir’s titan too, was holding on to the broad back. Where was Christa? Had she actually been eaten? No, it looked like there was something in one of Ymir’s oversized hands…

A couple soldiers were swinging off their horses now, slashing at the back of the giant’s knees. It was a futile effort, their blades simply glanced off.

To his side Mikasa employed her gear and launched herself of her horse, up and up, finally reaching Ymir and taking a swing-!

The ugly titan let out a screeching yell.

Mikasa then made for Bertholdt and Eren, but suddenly a pair of armoured hands wrapped around them, shielding the two from Mikasa. She adjusted her angle and paused. Was she talking to someone?

Adjusting his horse’s position slightly, Jean took aim, landed one of his hooks and shot himself upwards. The sounds of other sets of gear accompanied his own, the few remaining members of the 104^th shared his idea.

From his position, he noticed that Eren seemed to be strapped to Bertholdt’s back, barely visible through Reiner’s large fingers. Christa was unharmed, clinging to Ymir’s titan’s hair.

Landing on Reiner’s shoulder, Jean could see Eren struggling against both his bindings and Reiner’s hand.

Bertholdt resisted as best as he could. “Eren stop! Hold still!”

“You’re asking for too much there, Bertholdt! You know he’s impossible to calm down, right? He’s loud and hopeless! Trust me, I know! I hate that about him too!” And Jean knew then he had to give it just one more shot, test the waters one more time to see if they really were enemies now. “We can deal with them together. C’mon, just come out of there.”

He tried to make it sound casual, but he knew his voice was shaking.

Mikasa was more forward. “Bertholdt give him back!”

And Connie was even more obvious about his conflictions to the whole situation than Jean had been, “Bertholdt tell me it’s not true! Reiner? You were deceiving us this whole time? How could you?!”

Nobody said anything after that, for a few seconds, and Jean felt himself get more desperate. “Wait, wait a second. Are you just planning on running away like this? You guys can’t do that… three years ago we were all under the same roof, laughing and crying together…” Jean tried to not choke on his words as he continued, “Bertholdt, you made your bad sleeping posture into an art form! We started looking forward to your new creation every morning… We’d use it to predict the weather…” Jean watched as Eren continued to fight against his restraints, slamming Bertholdt up against the hard surface of Reiner’s hand. “Now I can’t believe you sleep at all! Right next to the victims of your crimes!”

Beside him, Connie’s voice was still full of hurt. “Was it all a lie? What you said about how we could all survive together? When you said we’d all live to be old men and go drinking together… was that all a lie? Tell me… both of you… what were you thinking all this time?”

Mikasa cut into the dramatic speech. “None of that matters. Just focus on taking their heads off. If you hesitate for even one moment, we’ll never get Eren back.” She went on, “They’re a threat to humanity. That’s all.”

The four of them now surrounded the hand partially hiding both Eren and Bertholdt from view.

“Do you think anyone WANTS to kill people??” Even muffled by the titan skin, it was clear Bertholdt was screaming. “What kind of person would do this for fun?? Who would want to do this?! With what we did, of course you despise us and want to kill us! We can never take any of it back but… we couldn’t come to terms with our sins so… when we were pretending to be soldiers it was a little bit… easier.” His voice faded a little bit at the end, but it started up again with full force. “Connie! It wasn’t a lie! Jean!! It’s true that we deceived you but it wasn’t all lies! We really did think of you as friends!”

“I know we don’t have the right to apologize but someone… someone please I’m begging you, someone please find us!”

Mikasa was unfazed. “Bertholdt, give Eren back.” Jean envied her single-minded determination at this point.

“I can’t do that,” was the curt reply from within Reiner’s hand. “Someone has to do this. Someone has to bloody their hands…”

Someone was yelling from below.

“What do you guys think you’re doing?? Erwin’s coming towards us, and titans are following!”

Turning his head and looking in the direction they were traveling, it was true, a group of scouts seemed to be leading a huge horde of titans right towards Reiner. And they were running right into it--!

“Everyone get down from there and escape!”

The four of them swung down and mounted their horses just in time to put some distance between them and the approaching titans.

Looking back towards the chaos, Jean saw that Reiner appeared to be pushing through the masses of titans, despite them grabbing on to him wherever they could.

“What’s going on??” Jean asked once he was a good distance away and could appreciate the horrific sight in front of him; the armoured titan was covered with titans, all of whom were trying to devour him. “Is this hell?” Was this Erwin’s goal all along? Get the titans to distract them?

“No this is just the beginning. All units, charge!” It was Erwin himself, turning his horse around right beside him. “This moment will decide the fate of humanity! If we lose Eren, humans will never again inhabit this land!”

He wants us to charge into that???

“Take Eren back and retreat immediately! Dedicate your hearts!”

Incredulous, Jean followed the order and turned his horse around. The struggle in front of him was developing; Reiner had removed his hands from his neck and was now using them to push through the mass of titans slowing him down.

“We did it! He let go!” Jean could hardly believe it, they might stand a chance of getting Eren back after all, assuming anyone could get close enough…

“Now’s our chance!” Mikasa pushed her horse forward, ahead of him.

“Wait, Mikasa! Can’t you see all the other titans around him? I mean, how are we even supposed to get close?”

Nonetheless they continued their mad push forward. A horrible yell caused them to look behind, to the sight of Erwin dangling from a crawling titan’s mouth. Even as he hung from the beast’s lips the Commander still urged them forward.

“ADVANCE!”

All around them now, as they approached the cloud of titans, the sounds of people fighting could be heard, screaming, yelling and the clash of arms. It started to stink of blood.

To his side, Mikasa left her horse and shot up, striking at Eren’s bindings, barely missing them.

As her momentum carried her past him, Jean saw a titan reach up and…

No!

A hand grabbed Mikasa in mid-air, causing her to yell out in agony.

“Mikasa!” Jean launched himself from his horse, aiming for the titan’s head. “Take your hands off her!” Feeling the squelch of giant impaled eyeballs, Jean knew he hit his target.

The titan released Mikasa, allowing the two of them to make it back to the ground. Luckily, Jean’s horse had not run too far in the meantime and he hastily remounted. As he was doing so, he noticed Armin in the air, making his way towards Eren and the surrounding turmoil.

Not him too!

He watched from his horse as Armin perched against the Armoured Titan’sface. It looked like he was talking to Bertholdt.

What’s the point? It’s not going to work, he’s made that clear…

Jean was watching the scene unfold, preparing himself to take to the air again if need be. But then he noticed Erwin, bloody but still alive, riding closer to Reiner’s massive form and gaining speed.

Maybe…!

Berthold was suddenly shouting again. “Children of the devil! I’ll kill every last one of you!” Whatever Armin said had clearly struck a nerve.

But that was the plan, as in his distraction Bertholdt let his guard down and left himself open to Erwin’s precise swing, slashing through the ropes binding Eren to the boy’s back. Before Eren could hit the ground, Mikasa appeared as if out of nowhere and grabbed on to him.

And just like that they were all back on their horses, galloping full speed away from the writhing mess of titans congregated around the Armoured Titan.

Just as they finally managed to gain some distance from the horde, a titan came flying above their heads, crashing unceremoniously into the line of trees some meters in front of them.

A quick look over his shoulder and—

“Damn you Reiner! Guys, he’s throwing them!”

Trying to steady his horse, Jean followed Armin slightly to the side and avoided the next throw. Mikasa and Eren weren’t as lucky, and Jean saw them both tumble off of their horse. Normally, Mikasa would likely be able to save the situation, in spite of the large, smiling titan approaching them. However, it looked as though she had been injured in the previous scuffle, and she merely covered Eren defensively with her body.

Jean and Armin started to circle back towards their two fallen friends.

“Jean we need to go back!” Armin’s panicked voice shouted beside him.

“I know that!” Jean watched as one the garrison soldiers launched into an attack on the kneeling monster. “Let’s follow after him!”

Almost feeling the wind before he saw the mass itself, Jean turned his horse sharply and just barely avoided being hit with yet another airborne titan. “Eugh! Armin you okay??”

He didn’t reply immediately but Jean saw him, still on his horse, ride up next to him again.

There seemed to be endless number of titans blocking their path to Eren now. And from what Jean could make out, the garrison soldier had been killed in his attempted rescue.

Panicked desperation was kicking in. They only had one mission; to rescue Eren and return home.

“Hurry! Mikasa and Eren are—“

Jean thought he heard his own name being called, and then there was a brief impact.

And then, nothing.

Chapter Text

The first thing Jean became aware of was that he was on a horse. The steady, rhythmic rocking was what gave it away.

As he became more conscious, he was also able to hear the sounds of hooves and the heavy rumbling of crashing steps, which appeared to come in waves. The sounds grew louder, rumbling right below him, before moving on towards where they’d come from, again and again.

They? Who’s they…?

He could feel now too, as he tried to open his eyes, his head pounded with a dull ache. He tasted the sweet metallic taste of blood in his mouth. Had he passed out? Where were they? He became aware that his arms were wrapped around something warm in front of him. His eyes struggled to open, his muscles still feeling sluggish even as his brain started to catch up to reality.

“Armin?”

Even in the dim light Jean could tell it was him, the smell of dirt, sweat and fear starting to become familiar. Or maybe it was him this time?

There was a slight catch in his breath. “Jean! Do you feel dizzy? Can you speak alright? Try wiggling your fingers?” This was said over Armin’s shoulder, loud enough to be heard above the constant roar of hooves and rumbling footsteps

Jean turned his head slightly into Armin’s shoulder. All at once he gripped his fingers where they were resting on Armin’s waist, causing his friend to jump slightly. “Augh!”

Jean chuckled. “See? I’m not dying, relax. Just… give me a second.” Despite his headache he turned his head to look around in the dying light, trying to remember what happened. As if to jog his memory, a 5 meter titan, ran past them only a couple meters away, ignoring them completely. The bits and pieces of the last couple hours were now coming back to him in a frantic, jumbling mess. But there was only one thing that was important…

“Armin! Did we get him? Did we get Eren back?”

Jean felt him nod. “He’s over there.”

Jean sat up properly now, and looked where Armin was pointing. He could barely make out another pair riding on a single horse. It looked like Mikasa was riding behind him, her posture stiff and awkward. Jean remembered how she was grabbed by the titan earlier, and was surprised she was riding as well as she was.

“I fell off my horse, didn’t I?”

Armin didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then said, “Eren did something right before he was attacked which made all the titans jump on the one attacking him. Then he got the titans to do the same thing to Reiner. They’ve all been ignoring us for the past 10 minutes.”

So it’s only been 10 minutes?

“I guess I have Eren to thank for not being titan food then, don’t I?”

Armin didn’t say anything, which Jean found strange, but he decided to not mention it.

As they neared the walls Jean saw they were lined with small specks of orange; the garrison soldiers were awaiting their arrival, torches in hand. When the legion reached the battlements, there was chaos as they tallied the injured and missing. Jean, whose injuries were deemed comparatively minor, was given a cloth to wipe up his face as he stood by and idly watched the handfuls of soldiers come back up.

Mikasa however was in bad enough condition to need treatment at a hospital –she was taken in a cart with the others on their way immediately to Hermina to the Northeast. Erwin was also in critical condition, from what Jean could only assume must be due to blood loss.

Overall there were more dead soldiers than living ones –something which Eren was quick to notice. Armin, now Eren; Jean wondered just how many of them were going to end up succumbing to survivor’s guilt before this was all over.

But Eren was able to control titans. Probably. And that had to count for something, right? Jean said as much and that seemed to improve Eren’s mood somewhat.

Connie, “Historia” (he was going to need to get used to that one) and Jean sat together in one of the slow-moving carts following the wall to Trost, where there would finally be proper elevators to take them to ground level. Eren and Armin had gone up ahead to catch up with Mikasa.

Historia didn’t seem to feel like talking, she simply curled up in an oversized green cloak in the corner with her eyes closed. Connie, in contrast, seemed particularly chatty with his nerves still tightly wound.

“Man, we’ve got to be the luckiest guys ever, y’know? A bunch of rookies like us making it back in once piece?” He seemed content to just ramble on without interruption, so Jean just listened silently, leaning back against the uncomfortable side of the cart, trying to ignore how his head rattled every time they hit a bump. “Well, ignoring Ymir, Reiner and Bertholdt of course. Although if they’re as lucky as us, they probably are doing just fine too.” He laughed awkwardly, teeth chattering slightly as a chilly wind blew against their cart. It was windy 50 meters above the ground.

“And you? Man, if Armin didn’t stay after you fell—“

“Armin?” From their brief conversation earlier Jean had assumed that Armin had only got him back on a horse, and that it had been Eren’s good timing which ultimately saved him.

“Yeah man! Were you actually knocked out cold?” Jean was still processing this as Connie continued, “I was a bit of a ways away of course, but I saw you on the ground, and one of those little titans comes creeping by, like what, 4 meters tall maybe?” He looked pointlessly to Historia for confirmation, but she was either sleeping or not following the conversation. “Anyways, yeah, so he jumps off his horse, right? Jumps down and runs towards you, and I guess he takes out his sword? Although you can probably imagine how much good that would have done him, crouching on the ground with you in his lap, and you know, it’s Armin.”

At this point Jean just stared at Connie, eyes wide.

Not knowing what to make of this look, Connie just shifted awkwardly. “…You know I’m only kidding. It’s not like I could kill a 4 meter class titan either. Armin’s a nice guy.” Connie finally paused in his monologue, if only for a moment. “But yeah. It’s a good thing Eren pulled something new out of his ass, or you and Armin both probably would have been toast.”

Five minutes later Connie was fast asleep, as if his “on” switch had been flipped, head periodically flopping from one side to the other, drool hanging from his lip.

Jean thought he should also try to catch some sleep while he could. But his head was still full of thoughts about what he’d just been told. It was one thing for Jean to have fallen off his horse and so meet his death, but for Armin to –and Connie was right-- pointlessly defend him, essentially setting himself up for a similar gruesome end…

How dare he?

Jean must have managed to doze off himself, because it didn’t feel like a long time had passed before their cart slowed down, having reached the large-scale lifts at Trost. Once their group finally reached the ground, Jean suddenly felt an itch to get up and move his legs, general irritation making him restless.

Small groups of people were scattered around the base of the wall, attempting to organize themselves. All of the severely wounded soldiers would be taken directly north to Hermina, where better medical care was available. There were small medical tents set up on ground-level to ensure everyone was in stable enough condition for the trek. Any surviving Garrison soldiers would probably be heading back to their original posts. As for the Scouting Legion, Jean hadn’t even been a member long enough to know exactly what they were supposed to do during their “off time”, although he suspected they might be shuttled off to a headquarters somewhere until they were needed.

Ahead of him Jean could hear Eren making a ruckus about something or another.

“No, I want to stay with Mikasa! Just until Hermina, then I’ll go wherever the hell you want me to!”

It looked like Eren was talking to Levi, who hadn’t joined the expedition due to his injuries at the hands of the female titan. Whatever Levi said in response was too quiet for Jean to make out, even as he walked closer out of mild curiosity and concern. One of the carts loaded with the wounded was waiting a couple feet away, the driver looking antsy and impatient. Armin was also standing by.

“But it’s because of me she’s—“

“Eren there are a lot of things that are ‘because of you’ right now. If you want to make any of them mean anything, you’ll listen to me, and come somewhere safe.”

Armin put his hand on Eren’s shoulder. “Eren, it’s fine, I’ll stay with Mikasa okay? I’ll ride with her all the way to Hermina.”

Levi must have noticed Jean standing by, because he addressed him then. “Kirchstein, was Christa with you? I’ll be taking her as well. And Hanji’s been looking for Connie.”

Jean decided that now wasn’t the time to be correcting anyone’s titles, he merely gestured in the direction he had come from.

With a bit more prodding Eren eventually left with Levi and Historia in their own cart. Secrecy seemed to be the goal, so no one bothered asking where they were going.

Jean decided to accompany Armin on the back of the rickety wagon holding Mikasa, who was either asleep or passed out. He knew he probably wasn’t needed but he had decided earlier that he definitely needed to talk to Armin once things settled down.

As they got going Armin looked out to the East, in the direction the others were going. “He’ll probably come back for us later you know. And if not, I’m pretty sure Mikasa will sniff them out on her own anyways.”

After a while, Armin must have noticed Jean’s silence. “Hey, are you okay? …Did you have someone check your head before we left Trost?”

Jean gritted his teeth. “Yeah, I’m fine.” That was enough to stop further questions, but Armin continued to glance concernedly in his direction every now and then which Jean pointedly ignored.

It was past dawn by the time they reached the gates of Hermina and the sun shone brightly above their heads, seeming out of place with their weary faces. Mikasa had woken up about an hour before they had arrived and was already trying to sit up, despite Armin’s protests, claiming she felt fine.

Jean wasn’t sure if she was being truthful or not but at this point nothing would surprise him, least of all Mikasa having super- healing powers.

He decided to wait at the base of the hospital stairway, a floor below where Armin and Mikasa had gone. It didn’t feel right to be up there, for some reason. And waiting around in the hallway would just put him in the way of everyone else rushing through. Also, this way Jean would still be able to intercept Armin when he left.

So Jean just loitered at the bottom of the stairs, leaning against the wall near a window and tapping his fingers impatiently. He knew whatever was coming wasn’t going to pleasant. He had felt, for lack of a better comparison, as if he were stuffed full of angry bees since returning from the wall. And he knew as soon as he finally opened his mouth, they were all going after Armin.

When Armin finally came down the stairs, which actually wasn’t much later, he seemed a little surprised to see Jean waiting for him, arms crossed.

“Jean? What are you doing here? You know there’s a waiting—“

“Cut the crap Armin. You know why I’m here.”

Armin’s expression changed, standing a couple feet from Jean, but still he didn’t say anything.

“Connie told me what happened. That’s some real class-A bullshit right there. What did you think you were going to do, huh??”

Still Armin said nothing, his fists now clenched at his sides, eyes directly on Jean.

Jean hit the wall behind him, the sound echoing in the hallway. “Fuck! Say something!”

“What was I supposed to do?”

It was loud, clear, but he wasn’t yelling the same way Jean was.

“You’re a smart guy Armin, I’m sure you know what you were supposed to do. Definitely not sit on the fucking ground waiting to be eaten! What the hell kind of plan is that??” He wanted to grab him, take his shoulders and just shake him until something registered in that defiant face of his. Make him realize how not okay this was.

“I don’t regret it.”

Jean just made an exasperated sound and raised his hands to his head. “What is your problem??”

“You’re still here, aren’t you? How can I regret that!?” Armin was yelling now. Jean was taken aback, just a bit. He couldn’t recall Armin ever yelling in anger before.

“Shit we’re going to bother the whole building…”

Armin walked over to a door which was left open just a crack. “In here then.”

Jean followed him inside. It looked like a janitorial break-room of sorts, with a small table and some chairs in the center, and cupboards and various cleaning supplies lining the walls with a small window at the far end.

Jean shut the door behind him and tried to get his thoughts back in order. Now that they were somewhere more private, he found himself speaking at a more conversational volume for some reason. “What about all that stuff? In the giant forest? You said, you told me, that we need to be willing to make sacrifices! How would getting yourself killed over some guy too incompetent to stay on his horse possibly help humanity?? You tell me Armin, because I’m confused. I think you’re worth a lot more than my own useless life.”

“…Maybe I found something I wasn’t willing to sacrifice.”

This was said quietly enough Jean wasn’t sure he had heard correctly. He leaned in, “What? What was that?” But Armin wasn’t looking at him anymore, his eyes were staring pointedly at a spot on the floor behind him.

Jean’s eyes were starting to sting, and he could feel a tremor in his own voice. “Armin… Armin you could have died.” And really, that’s what this was about, most of all. Armin could have died and it would have been Jean’s fault.

“But I didn’t. And you didn’t.”

“So what am I supposed to do, just say ‘thank you’?”

Armin still avoided meeting Jean’s eyes. The energy in the room had changed now, though. The anger seemed to have dissipated and been replaced with something… heavier, though not unpleasant. “If you want to but… it’s not like you owe me anything. And that goes for everything. But you should know that by now, right? That it’s never been like that. Talking to you and –it’s not because I wanted anything back in return. I just…” He shifted his weight uncomfortably. “You don’t need to say thank you, Jean. Just don’t expect me to say sorry. Because I’m not.”

And finally Armin was looking at him again. And there it was, his little almost smile. That almost smile that made Jean think maybe everything was okay. Was everything okay?

Suddenly Jean was feeling very not okay. The heat he had been feeling in his chest was rearranging itself, softening at the edges. A door Jean seemed very determined to keep closed in his head was creaking open at the same time he found himself slowly inching closer to this stupid, stupid boy who saved his life.

“J-Jean?”

But the door was open now. And thinking about what Armin had just said, and in doing so thinking about everything the two of them had been through together, all at once everything seemed to make sense. Armin suddenly seemed as readable as one of his books. How had Jean not put everything together before?

And as for Jean? Was he really going to keep pretending that Armin made him feel just like any other friend might? Keep pretending there wasn’t some sort of special part of himself he only seemed to bring out when Armin was around? But…

Armin was a boy.

Yet that didn’t seem to be stopping him from pulling his head in closer, closer until the air between them was shared and every breath seemed to be laced with the excited confusion that was pumping through Jean’s veins. Armin’s eyes were wide, staring, even while Jean could feel his own losing focus, Armin’s slightly raised eyebrows and barely open mouth blurring at the edges.

Jean closed the distance and kissed him.

Armin didn’t really react at first, but eventually pulled his head away, one hand gingerly on his lips. “Was… was that your ‘thank you’?” His face was still one of shock. Time seemed to stick, for a second, as Jean’s lips tingled from the momentary contact, his brain trying to catch up with his actions.

“No, I don’t think so. I think that, actually, that was just because I wanted to.”

The tension seemed to leave Armin’s brow as a shy smile began creeping across his face. Jean could only hope he looked half as put-together, feeling his cheeks burning up so hot he wondered if they would start steaming as if he too might have hidden shifting abilities.

Armin closed the distance again and wrapped his arms around him unabashedly in a hug, face buried in the crook of his neck and shoulder. “Just so we’re clear, you know I’m a boy right?”

Armin was a boy.

But Armin was Armin and somehow that made all the difference.

“I’m not too worried. I’m sure we’ll be able to figure something out.”

Chapter Text

Whatever moment Armin and Jean were sharing was interrupted abruptly when the door slammed open, revealing a very alarmed looking janitor, mouth open slightly as she held her broom awkwardly at her side.

Although it was far too late, Jean quickly distanced himself from Armin, trying to take control of the situation as best he could.

“Haha, oops! Guess this isn’t the cafeteria! Hahaha! Silly us, taking a wrong turn!” Jean forced the excuse out as he simultaneously squeezed himself between the woman and the doorframe, checking behind himself that Armin was following his example as he forced himself to laugh.

Once in the relative openness of the hallway, they walked quickly away from the door, until they heard it click closed, at which point they both stopped and burst out laughing. Jean wasn’t sure exactly what they were laughing at, but he was glad that at least he wasn’t alone in doing so.

When they both settled down a bit Jean realized he felt lighter than he had in weeks. Like a physical weight had been removed from his shoulders. And despite being aware that there were a lot of reasons to be upset at the moment – their last mission coming as close to disaster as possible while still technically being a “success” –he felt like his stupid grin was plastered more firmly on his face than his feet were on the ground.

A similar look was on Armin’s face too. It lasted a second before his blue eyes flashed away before coming back again, Armin’s brow now slightly creased with a hint of confusion.

“Wait, wait. I’ll admit, I’m confused…”

Me too! Jean thought. But he just continued grinning and said, “That’s a first!”

“Huh? No, really…! What does –does this mean we’re…?” Armin looked away, the words not quite leaving his lips. Instead, Armin seemed to opt for a simpler question. “Does this mean you’re not upset anymore?”

Jean had to admit he was glad for the diversion from the original question. Were they dating? Dating seemed like such an absurd antiquity that seemed too anachronistic to possibly be a part of anyone’s lives in the scouting legion. Yet even so, Jean remembered feeling jealous, back when they were trainees, of the guys who managed to get a girl to accompany them to the village on a day off. They would walk about town, holding hands awkwardly on their supposed ‘dates’. And somehow here he was now, in a dirty, bloody scouting legion uniform standing next to Armin Arlert, the boy he kissed in the cleaning closet of the Hermina hospital no more than a couple minutes ago. Also possibly the only reason he was still alive and standing. Past-Jean would have undoubtedly been in shock had he ever known what was coming.

“I’m not mad at you.” Jean paused for a moment, considering his answer. He thought of Marco. “I think I’m just scared.” He exhaled and then ruffled Armin’s hair affectionately. “I’m starting to think I like you too much, y’know?” Jean just didn’t want Armin to run off and die. That was it, really.

Armin didn’t resist the gesture, and looked up at Jean through messy bangs. “Right, and I guess you yell at everyone you ‘like too much’? Should I be jealous of Eren…?” His tone suggested mock anger.

“Ah Armin, I’m sorry. About yelling. Not about… anything else.” He felt his cheeks growing hot again, and hoped that was something which would stop happening sooner rather than later. He let his hand drop from Armin’s head to his shoulder. “Say… assuming Mikasa isn’t dying, it looks like we have a couple hours to ourselves. Want something to eat? Unless you’re fond of hospital food…” Jean bet that an area this far within the walls had much better food than anything the trainees ever got in the village.

“Hah, well what we should probably do is get some sleep. But I think I’ve gone so far past that point of exhaustion that I’m not even tired anymore…” Armin trailed off, glancing happily at the hand on his shoulder. “How about this lets go to the Hermina headquarters first and clean up at bit, so we don’t scare the locals. Mikasa also asked us to do something there for her too –then we can go eat.”

Jean gave Armin’s shoulder a squeeze. “Sounds good, lead the way.”

The three factions, four if you included the trainees, had a system set up so that no matter where you went you would have access to shelter, food, equipment and whatever else one might need away from their local base. This was especially true for the scouts, whom Jean realized were the one group without any truly permanent settlements. As it was nearest, they set out for Hermina’s Garrison base, located right near the central outer gate of the city.

As they pushed their way through the streets, their soiled uniforms and winged patches didn’t draw much attention, as the people in the dense crowd all seemed distracted by their own discomfort. As the density suggested, the go-ahead had still not been given to allow any evacuated citizens out into the confines of wall Rose.

“I would assume the Garrison is busy doing a thorough check of the area to make sure all of the titans really are eliminated before allowing the people back in. Even though we now know the wall itself wasn’t breached, they need to make sure all of the original titans, however they got in, have been killed.” Armin explained as they tried to make their way towards the gate. Traffic seemed to get heavier the closer to the outskirts they got.

“That makes sense. Seems like the sort of thing our group would be sent to do, if the circumstances were different.” As it was, of course, most of the functioning scouting legion was wounded or otherwise recuperating from the emergency outing.

It was Jean who finally spotted the headquarters, two blocks away from the gate in a handsome multi-story brick building with a sign bearing the rose emblem on the front. In the outer cities, wood was the more common than stone, and more ample space usually allowed for spread out, less tall structures.

Letting themselves through the heavy door, they found themselves in a fairly grand entranceway; wide arches on either side revealed comfortable looking common areas on either side. In front of them was a large gleaming spiral staircase leading to the upper floors. Looking up, Jean noticed the ceiling above the entranceway was left clear, so the ceiling was an impressive 40 or so feet high, lit by a tall window Jean hadn’t noticed on the front of the building.

While Jean was still ogling the entranceway, he heard Armin speaking with a strict-sounding receptionist seated at the grand desk in the centre of the room.

“Business?”

“Scouting legion. We’re here to check-in and use your facilities if possible.”

Armin’s earlier hypothesis must have been right; wherever the Stationary Guard was, it wasn’t here in headquarters. Contrasting the crowds just outside, the building gave off a deserted feeling.

“Rooms are available. We’re currently understaffed so you can each have your own room on the upper floor.” Walking over to the desk, Jean saw the woman place two keys on its surface. “Sign here please.”

Jean signed his name. As Armin finished with his own, he asked another question. “Sorry, but can I ask if another scout by the name of Sasha Blouse has checked in as well? Sometime in the past 24 hours?”

Giving an unnecessary huff, the receptionist put the signed sheets into a binder and started flipping through the pages. A few moments later she responded with a curt “No.”

“Can we use the messaging—“

“First floor, down the hall from the baths.”

“Right. Thank you.”

Clearly the woman didn’t want to sit around and chat, so neither of them wasted anytime in heading to the stairs. The fourth floor was likely reserved for the nice rooms, but it wasn’t feeling much like a luxury as they started trudging up the steps.

“We’re using the messaging system?” Jean asked. The messaging system was a simple system set up for communication between headquarters. In emergencies, given approval from a superior, a messenger could be sent to deliver a message immediately. In most cases however, it simply acted like a private mail system. Officers often used it to help organize larger groups, meetings, seminars and similar events.

“Yeah. Mikasa asked me to do her a favour and try to find out if Sasha is okay. I thought I’d send a request for any check-ins in the nearby headquarters. Sasha would probably know to sign in wherever she ended up.”

Assuming she’s okay. “Right, for sure.”

Once they reached the fourth floor they went down the hall to their two rooms. Jean entered his and couldn’t help but flop onto the plush looking mattress. Turning his head to the floor-length mirror against the wall was enough to confirm he definitely needed a wash; his jacket was spattered with dirt and blood (he sat up quickly, hoping he hadn’t already ruined the bedsheets) and his hair was starting to stick out at funny angles from the build-up of grime.

“Pretty nice rooms they’ve got here. And this is only the Garrison, I can only imagine where the Military Police sleep.” Armin’s voice came from the hall a second or two before his head peeked around the open door.

“Actually the new officers don’t have single rooms. But yeah, once you get your first promotion it’s pretty nice.” Seeing Armin’s questioning face, Jean simply said “read it in a book.”

Easing himself off the bed Jean walked over the lacquered dresser in the corner and opened it up.

“There’s nothing in there, or in the desk. I uh, already checked mine.”

Jean closed the doors. “So are fresh clothes and towels…?”

“Downstairs I guess. Let’s hope so anyways, or else the four flights of stairs are going to get troublesome really quickly.”

As they descended back to the first floor to wash, Jean began to feel some unknown apprehension tug at him. When they made it to the hallway separating the “Messaging and Foreign Affairs” office and the laundry and bathing areas and Armin said he’d take care of the messaging and catch up with him in a bit, Jean felt his apprehension begin subside slightly as he watched Armin go down the other hall.

The simple realization hit: he didn’t want to shower with Armin.

Even though logic told him it was silly, that all the trainees had washed together before, that didn’t stop him from hurrying down the corridor, signing out some clothes and a towel and getting under the hot water (of course the city would have access to warm, running water) as quickly as he dared. There were about 20 semi-separated shower stalls in the large, open showering area. There were signs for proper baths down the hall too, but he didn’t want to waste time running a bath. Regardless, the showers were empty and the sound of water splashing echoed across room.

As Jean washed his hair as fast as possible, he wondered how something as mundane as washing suddenly seemed inappropriate. He wondered if this feeling was normal, if Armin felt the same way, or if it was only him who hadn’t considered these sorts of details regarding same-sex relations before.

Come to think of it, there might be quite a few things he hadn’t considered.

In the end however there was nothing to worry about; when Jean went back into the hallway clean and sporting a crisp new outfit, Armin was leaning meekly against the wall, waiting for his own turn while toying idly with a stray thread on his towel.

Having both washed, Armin and Jean eventually made it back out to the packed streets once more. It was still a bit early for dinner, but their schedules were already thoroughly destroyed. As they walked along one of the main streets the smell of cooking food already began filling the air. When Jean had originally suggested dinner together he had imagined a casual sit-down place where they could eat and chat, similar to the joints Jean remembered seeing in Trost growing up. In the inner cities however, it seemed that sit-down dining was a little different. All the sit-down restaurants were dimly lit, and sported ornate decorations out front. The patrons inside these establishments were also dressed several notches up from “casual”. Thankfully Armin didn’t give these places a second look and they ended up going to a little food stand wedged in a crowded part of town serving grilled meat and vegetables skewers.

Having each gotten one, along with an extra for Mikasa, they wandered the streets as they ate, idly chatting and looking into the windows of the various shops. Jean kept waiting for something to feel weird, or at least different, but conversation came just as easy as before and the only thing that seemed off was the upbeat feeling he hadn’t managed to shake off, and that was hardly a complaint.

Eventually they decided to sit at the edge of a fountain in a less-crowded part of town.

“…A whole week??”

“Yeah, and that was them being generous. It turns out her ribs weren’t broken but they suspected bruising at least –which usually calls for two weeks in bed.”

The thought of Mikasa lying in bed sleeping for two weeks was almost comical. Jean laughed. “And?”

“Two days. Somehow I convinced her and the doctor that two days would be enough.” It was Armin’s turn to laugh quietly into his hand, leaving a little smudge of grease from the pork on his face. “You know what though… it is pretty strange. I was there with Eren when the doctor on site was examining her, and he thought her ribs were broken.”

Jean reached over and threw his empty stick into a nearby trashcan. “Armin there are too many mysteries going on right now, trust me when I say you’ll sleep a lot easier if you just let yourself excuse a couple. Besides, in this case it turned out better than expected.”

“I guess…”

The sound of the fountain still splashing happily behind them filled in a comfortable silence. Summer was ending, so even though the days were still warm, mornings and evenings were getting chilly –the sun was now hiding somewhere behind one of the taller buildings, cooling the air.

“So… do you still feel okay with this?”

At first Jean didn’t know what Armin was talking about. But looking at how uncomfortable Armin looked as he chewed his lip Jean was able to fill in the context.

“What? Why are you asking?”

“Ah no, I don’t mean to sound… it’s just I find that if I regret doing something it’s usually immediately after I do it. So I just thought I’d check… In case you changed your mind.” Unusually flustered, Armin let out a sigh before starting again. “I just don’t want you to feel like you’re …obligated.”

Jean’s insides panged a little at that. Jean Kirchstein would be held responsible for his actions thank-you-very-much. But why the doubt? “Armin…”

“I just mean I know this isn’t really your thing.”

“Yeah that’s sort of true, but somehow you’re sort of my thing.” Weird how that works. “Unless you--?”

“—No.”

Jean leaned in a bit closer, a smug grin on his face. “No? So you like me then?”

Armin leaned away, scoffing. “Jean. I think we’re a bit late for all that now.”

“See! Exactly. We’re past that. Just like I’m way past taking it back. Not that I want to. Although since we’ve already been doing things a bit out of order you’re more than welcome to share any confessions.”

“Right. I’ll remember the invitation.” Armin was smiling again now, as he nudged Jean playfully.

After stopping at a little shop to pick up some cards, a few pocket-boardgames, a couple of magazines and a crossword puzzle, Jean and Armin made it back to the hospital with intentions of keeping Mikasa company for the rest of the evening.

“Fashion magazines huh?” Jean eyed one of the magazines in the bag with an illustration of a done-up woman wearing multiple necklaces and some sort of summer-y dress. In the outer walls most people were too practical for that sort of thing, but Jean noticed a few of the locals sporting that sort of thing in town today.

“Mmmhmm. It’s not a particularly well-known fact, but Mikasa has more of an interest in feminine things than she lets on. After all, being a soldier is just a job.”

As they got closer to Mikasa’s closed door, for the second time that day Jean felt a niggling unease in the pit of his stomach. What would Mikasa think? Would she be angry? Would she understand? Jean himself hardly had a grasp on what was going on, so what would people –any of their friends, on the outside think? Would it look like Jean was doing this to make up for Armin saving him? That would be a hugely mistaken conclusion. Or would it look like some random, casual fling? Armin definitely didn’t seem the type to jump into those, and Mikasa would probably know that but… No one else knew the context, Jean realized. The sort of personal hell Armin had helped him escape, and the warmth that had been left in its wake.

And so soon after he’d finished telling Armin everything was fine…

“Jean?” Armin had turned around in the hallway when he noticed Jean had stopped following. The smile he’d been sporting faltered.

“Armin I know I said everything is okay… and it is. It really is, I promise.” Jean wished he was better with words so he could somehow come up with a way of saying this without coming off as a huge asshole. At the very least he wished he’d realized this a bit sooner, so he wouldn’t have had to bring it up just outside Mikasa’s room. “But… can we not tell Mikasa –or anybody about this –us, for now?”

Armin’s smile faded away and Jean felt guilt surge up inside of him. But he knew he couldn’t face his friends with this yet.

“Sure. Whatever you’d like, Jean.”

Chapter Text

If Mikasa was surprised by Jean’s presence that evening, she did a very good job of hiding it. Her first question had been about Sasha (Jean sometimes wondered how Sasha managed to befriend everybody), and her next about Levi. Armin told her he’d already sent a request for information regarding Sasha and a reply would probably arrive by the time Mikasa was allowed to leave the hospital. Armin admitted he had no idea where Levi had gone along with Eren, but he had a hunch that they would be finding out shortly.

“And if not we’ll just have to find them ourselves.”

What? How? Search every inch of the wall?

“—I’m sure it won’t come to that.” Armin reassured her quickly. “Now, you’re supposed to be recovering remember? We can worry about that later.”

Everyone seemed satisfied by this response, and they were happy to oblige when Armin produced a deck of cards and other goodies.

It was only 9 when a nurse came in and told them that visiting hours were over, but by then they were starting to really feel the lack of sleep. Jean was almost falling asleep in his crossword book. Mikasa still seemed fine, but the fact she was beating Armin at chess no doubt meant Armin was nodding off a little himself. They said their goodbyes and promised to stop by again tomorrow.

Jean hardly remembered the walk back to the headquarters, other than thinking the only reason they didn’t get lost was that Hermina could afford to run street lamps all night. The lights also illuminated the groups of displaced people still huddled on the streets. Apparently there wasn’t enough space in the shelters and hotels. He realized however that this couldn’t be entirely true as he walked into the pointedly deserted Garrison headquarters.

“There’s kids out here. The nights aren’t too cold yet but… I don’t see why a place like this couldn’t open its doors, just for a few nights, at least until everyone gets back.”

Armin glanced at Jean over his shoulder as they continued up the stairs, a look of slight surprise on his features. “That would be… that’s the thing though. They don’t care about the extra people, to them they’re a liability.”

“Is that why you and Eren and Mikasa went to work in the fields?” Sometimes Jean forgot Armin came from Shiganshina.

“It was better than sitting around the crowded shelters, although many didn’t really have a choice. Regardless, I think the refugees will be allowed to go home shortly. There’s no real titan breach this time after all.”

They were at their doors now. As Armin tried to dig his key out from his pocket Jean said, “Hey, umm, sorry, Armin. About before. With Mikasa.”

Armin missed the keyhole a few times before getting it in and unlocking it with a soft click. “Don’t be. There are no rules to things like this.” Armin smiled then, before his face was overcome with a big yawn. “Anyways, I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll try to figure out some things –I really hope Levi or someone takes us to Eren before Mikasa decides to do anything rash.”

“R-right. Goodnight.”

Jean woke up to the sound of insistent knocking on his door. Still feeling drowsy, he tried to ignore it and bury his face further into the pillow. When the tapping continued for a few more seconds, Jean was about to get up and open the door when it stopped abruptly. Straining his ears he could make out Armin’s voice on the other side.

“Sorry, he’s still asleep. I can give those to him when he wakes up.”

“Hmph. If you’re sure.” A muffled voice he didn’t recognize was soon followed by the sounds of footsteps fading down the hall.

Curiosity piqued, Jean rolled himself out of bed and went to open his door. “Arm-euh!” Armin must have been leaning against the door because when he turned the knob Armin half-fell into his room as the door gave out, clothes spilling from his arms onto the floor.

Armin sighed as he steadied himself using Jean’s shoulder for balance. “Sorry. These,” Armin indicated the crumpled garments on the floor, “are our old uniforms. I guess they washed them for us.”

“Oh.” Jean said dumbly, reaching down and picking them up, handing the smaller set back to Armin. “So what time is it exactly?”

“Noon. Not that I’m judging you or anything.”

Noon??

“Ah! You could’ve woken me up y’know!” Jean looked down, suddenly aware that he was standing around in his underpants, and used his new shirt to try and cover up a bit. “Just… gimme a second, I’ll get dressed and meet you downstairs.”

“Ok, but no rush. It’s not like we’ve got a busy schedule planned or anything…”

When Jean eventually made his way outside, he found Armin idly examining one of the plants in the planters outside. It looked like it was going to be another beautiful day in this strange city.

It turned out Armin had already gone to see Mikasa earlier. She was restless, as expected, but promised to stay in bed for one more day. There had been no news yet of Sasha or Eren, but Armin was neither surprised nor worried by this yet.

As they walked through the streets Jean realized what seemed so different today; the crowds from yesterday were gone. “Hey Armin, they haven’t cleared out Rose yet, have they?” Jean suspected not, or else the headquarters would be slowly filling with its proper residents by now. “Where did everyone go?”

“I don’t know the whole story, but I heard this morning that the authorities have moved them to the underground cities below Sina.”

Jean remembered hearing about those as a child, but he had thought they were just a legend. “So those really exist?”

“Yeah, though they’ve been mostly deserted for years. I think they’re the sort of thing you learn about more if you’re part of the Garrison or Police; we’re generally not expected to help with the citizens in emergency situations.” Armin looked at him a second longer before smiling and saying lightheartedly “Jean, it looks like someone just told you the boogeyman exists.”

“Hey. But… I’ll be honest, while we’re here I wouldn’t mind giving them a quick look over… How do you feel about a little field-trip?”

“Well, I guess we may as well make the best of a bad situation; admittedly it’s not every day they open those up.”

Asking some very irked citizens (it must be our uniforms, Jean thought) they eventually found the underground entrance, tucked next to some government buildings on an unremarkable street. As they got closer, they realized the lift entrance was guarded by a handful of military police. The police seemed suspicious about the two of them wanting to go down “just to look”, but eventually they were given access; granted they were accompanied on the lift and that they return within two hours, or risk not being allowed back up.

“Why would they be guarding the place from citizens of Hermina? The guard seemed a bit excessive, no?” Jean wondered as he watched the rickety lift slowly ascend. They were in a walled-off area, and more guards stood at another set of gates at the exit. They were maybe only 100 meters below the surface, but it already felt much chillier. The only natural light seemed to come from small grates that must be located periodically on the streets above; looking at the ceiling showed an almost-regular pattern of square-shaped openings which let some of the day’s bright sun shine through.

“Somehow I have a suspicion that the guards are meant to keep people from getting out, not to prevent Sina citizens from getting in.”

So, this is a cage?

Leaving the one set of metal gates, a new set of officers, again giving them weird glances, revealed exactly what was advertised; a cavernous expanse of a decrepit and unmaintained looking town. The buildings were a similar style to those near to the outer walls, except these seemed to all be made of stone. The same stone that this pit seemed to be dug from by the looks of it.

And the people looked just as you’d expect, if you put them in an empty town they had no relation to; idle and confused. Scared, some of them. Loitering against banisters, huddling in groups. Was this an improvement from staying above ground?

“Eugh, just because the people above didn’t want to share the space?” Armin seemed to half-answer his unspoken question, sounding disgusted. “It smells like mold down here. People are going to get sick…”

Jean was starting to feel a little bit ill himself, as he and Armin continued down the musky streets, hearing bits of arguments, complaints and the occasional crying of a child. Although he doubted it had anything to do with mold.

“What’s going on over there?” Jean indicated down an alleyway, which seemed to open up to what you could call a “main” street. A crowd of noisy people seemed to be congregated there, with no less than a dozen Military Police officers within view between the two buildings at the end.

“I’m almost afraid to find out.” Armin muttered, even as he began making his way down the alley.

It turned out to be some sort of rationing service; the crowds appeared to be in some sort of queue, waiting for their turn to get food handouts from the Police. Or at least that was the intention. As it was, there seemed to be no less than five half-formed lines, with some sort of argument between a refugee and an officer at the head of each one.

“You’ve already gotten yours! I saw you in the other line just five minutes ago!”

“I did not! I told you, I’ve been sitting in this one for the past hour!”

“I don’t give food to liars. Go home lady.”

At this point more shouts erupted from the crowd and nothing more could be heard from the spat.

Jean and Armin looked at each other, expressions equally grim.

“’Think they’d let us help them out?”

“The Military Police? Why? Do you have an idea?”

Instead of answering, Armin walked up to the nearest officer and saluted. “You guys look like you’re having some trouble. Would it be okay if we helped out?”

He seemed caught off-guard. “Eh? Scouting legion? What are you guys doing h –know what, never mind. I don’t see why not. You guys can make two more lines at the end there, food is—“

“—actually I think there’s an easier way to go about this. If, err, that’s okay. Sir.”

The man bent down a little, getting on eye level with Armin and staring him down, eyes peering.

Jean thought he should butt in. “Sir if you don’t mind me saying, Armin here has been a part of quite a few rationing outposts. In the outer walls. I, uh, I think he might have a way to make things more efficient.” It was partly true. Although Armin had been on the receiving end of the rations back then.

“Hmph. The officer straightened up. “Sure, whatever. Just make sure these weasels aren’t getting double rations. This food is coming from the precious stores of the people of Sina.”

In the end Armin ended up merging the five confused lines into one, single-file line. He made sure there was a span of several feet between the next person in line and the person receiving their meal. He then had another officer escort the individual who’d received their rations to a zone outside of the queue. And just for good measure, Armin said one individual should be assigned to watch out for people coming for seconds if they were so worried about it. Even though there was only one line now, everything moved much smoother, with no arguments about where everyone was in line or who had or hadn’t received food. Plus, the setup only required about five Military Police Officers, at most.

For a while Armin handed out the food while Jean stood at the five-foot mark, allowing the next person to come up once the last person was being escorted away. Perhaps it wasn’t what he had in mind when he originally came down here, but this place was clearly not one for sightseeing anyways.

About three people behind, Jean saw a small boy crying as he stood for his turn. He couldn’t have been more than six or seven years old.

“Hey there little guy, is something wrong?” Besides pretty much everything in this hell-pit.

Now that he was being addressed, the boy tried to stop his crying. Sniffling once more loudly through his nose, he muttered quietly. “I don’t know where my mom went. Sir.”

Jean’s eyes went wide for a second, looking back at Armin who was still preoccupied with distributing the food.

“W-well then. How about this, why don’t you get some food from Armin over there, and then you can come back and stand near me, alright? That way when your mom comes to get something to eat, she’ll see you right away. Sound good?”

The kid nodded shyly, then ran over to get his food.

“He’s with me, Arm,” Jean called out behind him.

Armin waved away the escorting officer and the kid ran back to Jean with his ration.

As it turns out, there was a handful of misplaced children, so the spot next to Jean became the unofficial “drop-off area.” The original boy did manage to find an aunt before Jean and Armin had to head back to the elevator lift, which at least made Jean feel a little bit better about coming down here at all.

Once two officers had replaced them, they made the walk back to the lift.

“That was nice what you did back there.” Armin was looking at him sideways, his head still facing forward, smiling.

Jean looked away, hiding his embarrassment. “Yeah, well it was your idea to organize everything properly, so you know. I just sort of helped out.” That didn’t stop Jean from reaching for Armin’s hand and giving it a little squeeze though, which was shyly returned.

They made their way through the emptier areas of the town (the density seemed to decrease as they moved away from the food). Armin mentioned how he always hated how the food was handed out back when he, Eren and Mikasa were refugees themselves. “I don’t know if the multiple-line thing is something they teach them, or if they all just seem to have the same bad idea… but I remember always thinking the one-line set-up we just made would have worked much better. And I guess it did, eh?”

Soon the large metal gate and the same officers from before came into view.

“Jean do you think Marco would have ended up like one of them?”

Jean considered this for a second. From what he’d seen of the Police over the past couple of days, they seemed like a touchy, irritable and unfriendly bunch. Marco hadn’t been like that at all.

“I don’t think so.” Jean paused a second to watch the lift descend to retrieve them. “Which is too bad for them, I think they could have used more people like Marco.”

Armin kept his eyes on the lift, and responded softly: “I think you’re right.”

They spent the evening taking an early dinner, courtesy of the Garrison this time, and visiting Mikasa again. Mikasa happily informed them that she was cleared to check out at noon tomorrow.

“And then I can help you guys find Sasha. And then Eren.”

Not this again. Jean had this horrible inner caricature of Mikasa leading the two of them through the woods, sniffing Eren out like a scent-hound.

“Why do you guys think Levi decided to hide Eren and Historia away anyways?” Jean asked, trying to move the conversation along as he shuffled some cards.

“I’ve been thinking about this a lot too actually. Although I think they certainly have reason to worry about more shifters making themselves known and trying to take Eren, again. I think this time maybe they’re worried about some other group on inside the walls.”

They all flipped their cards over. Bad hand. This is why Jean never volunteered to shuffle. “What do you mean another group?”

Armin’s brow creased as he eyed his own cards critically. “I’m not exactly sure, but… now that the scouting legion has dropped out of favour again, if the government wanted to take Eren back, they would certainly have the grounds to do so.”

“So you think we’re hiding Eren from the government?

“Maybe, maybe not. But definitely not so openly. If the King outright demanded Eren, it would probably draw more attention to the situation that they actually want.”

“Armin.” It was Mikasa, from behind her cards. “Be careful what you say around here.”

His eyes widened for a second, before he looked back down into his cards. “Right. My bad.” His voice changed to a more cheerful tone. “Jean, it’s your move!”

Before they went upstairs to their bedrooms that night they checked the messaging center one more time.

“Yes, check-in of a scout named Sasha Braus has been confirmed at station B3. Upon receiving the request for information, Ms. Braus attached this letter.”

At old HQ. Been helping the Garrison “clear titans”. Staying here until told otherwise.

Sasha B.

Chapter Text

It was actually Moblit Berner, Hanji’s second in command, who ended up running into them the morning after receiving Sasha’s note. He seemed to think that the sooner they started moving, the better . And so it was hardly an hour before they were heading for the old headquarters along with Mikasa. Moblit had brought a comfortable covered cart, having heard of Mikasa’s injuries, and was more than a little shocked when she practically ran out of her hospital room when he came knocking.

In the end, the cart ended up being used mainly to carry as many supplies as possible. After picking up Sasha, they made their way to the Garrison headquarters where Moblit became rather miffed when one of the Garrison squad leaders started getting catty while Jean, Sasha, and Armin busied themselves hauling as many sacks of potatoes and grains as they could into the vacant cart. They took mostly food, but also grabbed spare blades and gas for their 3DMG.

“Under whose orders are you taking these?” It was a gruff sounding man with a few days of stubble, hovering near the open doorway to the supply cellar. “I thought the Scouting Legion was, uh, ‘on hold’ until further notice?”

“If you have any concerns you’re more than welcome to message Commander Erwin or another official.” Armin noted that Moblit avoided the question. Was this not official business then? And as far as Armin was aware, the Commander was still in the hospital and not likely available for official business.

“Right, right, and by the time I get any answers you’ll be two days ride away to wherever. Nah, I won’t waste my time. But I suspect we got another few days before the Garrison gives the official “clear” of safety. Be a dear and leave us enough food, yeah? So we don’t need to barge into any abandoned village’s stores? Better us soldiers share a bit, amongst ourselves instead, yeah?”

The way Moblit’s jaw tightened, Armin suspected he shared his own opinion that the Garrison had already used more than they needed the past two days. Nevertheless, they kept quiet and made sure to leave plenty of rations behind.

Moblit didn’t specify where exactly they were headed, instead just taking the lead and asking those on horseback to keep up. The roads were ominously empty, as well as the settlements they passed on the way, since this section of the wall was still technically “evacuated”.

“If we can get there before morning I think… that would be best.”

Armin didn’t envy Jean when they finally had some time for idle chat; Jean was riding with Sasha behind the cart and, unsurprisingly, she had a lot of questions. Her first had actually been about Connie (aside from asking just who Historia was) – of whom Jean, Mikasa and Armin hadn’t knew nothing about aside from that he was currently accompanying Hanji.

Moblit’s voice chimed in at the mention of his Squad Leader’s name. “Mr. Springer never got around to telling you?” When he was answered only with the monotonous clopping of hooves he cleared his throat anxiously. “He and Squad Leader are currently doing an investigation in what remains of Ragako. Some, uh, unusual circumstances has left the village abandoned except for one immobile titan which is currently, uh, being examined.”

Armin thought back to the two titans Hanji was rumoured to have been investigating prior to their graduation. This could possibly be something similar, although he wasn’t sure of Connie’s relevance.

“I don’t know how much is…appropriate for me to share, but Mr. Springer made some statements which… Squad Leader Hanji wants to see if there’s any connection between this particular titan and the missing members of the village.”

A ‘connection’?

Armin’s mind buzzed at the possibility. Was he implying that there were more shifters?

That train of thought was derailed as Sasha asked the inevitable question and Armin felt the familiar knot in his stomach which set in whenever he allowed himself to think about it.

“So where are Bertholdt and Reiner then? And Ymir?” For some reason Sasha’s innocently oblivious voice, full of genuine concern, just made it worse.

Although he would have much rather ran his horse up ahead and avoid listening to the retelling, he forced himself to stay where he was, and listen to Jean answer as best he could. Even straight-forward Jean seemed to have trouble getting the words out.

The details, unfortunately, Armin silently filled in with his own memories. Of Mikasa’s blade slashing though Reiner’s arm. Betholdt as he swore at Armin’s face.

Sasha crying softly into her sleeve as they rode further North was just another of those unfortunate memories that was slowly taking up space in his mind.

Many hours later, when they’d arrived down a forested path and saw the sturdy but unadorned cabin Armin just knew they were going to have quite a bit of time to familiarize themselves with it.

It was a good distance away from any of the small villages they’d passed on the ride over, and was surrounded by thick, aged forest, with a clear view of the mountains even in the dark. It was the sort of place he would have loved to visit as a kid. Despite trying to keep track of the path they rode to get here, Armin couldn’t say for certain whereabouts they were –all he could guess was that it was somewhere to the east of Stohess.

Eren appeared at the doorway to greet them, yellow-orange light from inside flowing out from behind him. Although he seemed relieved to see everyone in decent condition, Armin suspected he was growing restless with boredom. When they started unpacking before bed, Mikasa brought out some of the pastimes that had kept them occupied while she was in the hospital and Eren practically moaned in relief.

“Ahhhh, yes! Mikasa you’re the best. Armin please tell me you brought some books? I’ve never wanted to read a book, any book, more in my entire life.”

Historia and Levi both seemed equally grim, and Levi grew more so when he had seen the meagre amount of supplies they brought. Armin overheard him telling Moblit that they were going to have to go out and restock eventually.

They were settled in early enough to all able to get an almost-full night’s rest before the morning came, in what would be the first of many repetitive and uneventful days.

Historia had been acting uncharacteristically quiet and detached since they’d arrived. Armin had tried a few times to lighten her up a bit, asking if she’d like to take a walk with him, or if she’d like something to read. Although she took him up on the offer of a book -- despite the fact that all he had left were the dustiest and driest volumes he hadn’t finished reading at the old headquarters. She spent much of her days reading in the girls’ room upstairs near the window, or out in the little stables with the horses. She did her share of chores and upkeep, but something seemed to be missing. Christa perhaps, Armin thought wryly.

Sasha had also sobered up since their arrival. Thankfully she still had the energy to organize their after-meal card games, and seemed honoured when Levi took her up on her offer to cook dinner every night. Armin wasn’t sure how long that would last before Levi lost trust in Sasha around food, but in the meantime she took her title of Chef seriously and tried to make the best food possible with the bland ingredients they had.

Eren and Mikasa were technically still supposed to be “injured and resting”, but neither of them seemed keen to lie abed all day. Outwardly they seemed to be physically fine, but Eren in particular seemed to be showing some signs of emotional wear –-it was bad before, but now he seemed particularly on edge. Once, Armin had called to him from across the common room downstairs and he’d spun around in a panic, knocking over a lamp in the process, spraying oil and broken glass everywhere. When he picked out a shard which had lodged itself in his hand, he had stared, wide eyed and jaw clenched, as it started to ooze small wisps of steam. Armin actually had to go to the other side of the room and put a hand on his arm and ask if he was alright before he snapped out of it.

“They were stubs.”

“Pardon?”

“Reiner. Or maybe Bertholdt. They cut off my arms until they were stubs. So I couldn’t get away.”

Armin didn’t know how to respond to this, so he just helped Eren, who was trembling slightly, find a seat while he took care of the mess on the floor.

“Again?” Jean was standing near the trashcan when Armin came to throw away the glass.

Instead of answering, Armin found himself asking a question. “Do you ever feel like you’re losing it? Like everyone else around is just sort of falling apart and you’re just --I’m just watching it, Jean.” It was weird –Armin had thought that reuniting with his friends would be an improvement over the limbo of the two days spent stuck in Hermina. But instead it was making him feel alienated. On edge. Tears didn’t come as easily as they used to, nor was he becoming angry like Eren was. Armin was still upset, but he could feel himself looking at the situation very clinically, even by his own standards.

Dissociation. He read that in book once.

In short, he knew better than to assume he was dealing better with things than his friends, even though he was the one cleaning up lamps and not breaking them.

And there was just so much that Armin didn’t understand. So much he knew they weren’t being told. All the time Levi spent pouring over letters, documents and maps --though all he bothered telling them was where they should be dusting --was indicative of that.

Armin sighed and leaned against the counter. “Maybe I’m the broken one.” All things considered, it was a selfish thought. He tried not to allow himself too many of those. Even with Jean, whom he naturally gravitated towards when Eren and Mikasa were otherwise emotionally-occupied --even before everything in Hermina, he felt stupid as soon as the words left his mouth. Before he could mutter an apology however, Jean cut in.

“I think you’re doing the best you can Armin. Everyone is.” He bent down a little bit and flicked Armin’s nose playfully. He had on one of his almost-lopsided smiles that were way more reassuring than they had any right to be. “The only thing broken here is that lamp. Why don’t you go ask Eren and the others if they want to go for a walk? It’s nice today. I’ll clean up the oil in the meantime.”

Jean had his own moments too; sometimes when they were cleaning the kitchen together or brushing their teeth in the morning, Jean would just turn to him and say something like: “You know what? The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that the military police are assholes.” Or he’d broach the subject of the shifters and would say “Can you believe Reiner had the nerve to pretend to be such a nice guy? I swear I’ll kill him the next time I get the chance.” Armin doubted that –despite taking all that’d happened very personally he doubted Jean would actually kill an old friend. Not to mention a few hours later Jean would instead be asking Armin if he thought maybe the whole thing with the shifters was just some sort of misunderstanding. Armin still hadn’t decided which of the two conversations he found more difficult to participate in. But he talked them through with Jean. Because Jean found words reassuring.

They seemed to have reached some sort of emotional balancing act between the two of them; a pushing and pulling that helped them both steady themselves. Luckily they’d had time to practice long before any of the real hell started.

Armin ended up taking Jean’s advice, and in the end everyone except Levi went for a stroll of the area on that particular afternoon.

Armin was still a little bewildered by the concept of them. As if keeping it a secret wasn’t enough, he was constantly worried, afraid, that he would do something to make Jean change his mind. He had decided to keep the pattern of their first encounter in the janitor’s closet and be the passive party –letting Jean be the one to control the boundaries.

And as if to counteract these quiet worries, Jean seemed insistent on making his affections known whenever possible. Which wasn’t all that often, considering the 7 of them were sharing a tiny 2-bedroom cabin. Connie hadn’t joined them yet, and Levi slept on a sofa on the first floor, so during the night it was just Eren, Armin and Jean in the boys’ room. Not only had Jean arranged his thin mattress next to Armin’s on the floor (claiming he needed a barrier to keep away the “Eren cooties”) but had begun initiating those long talks about anything –which Armin was more than happy to continue to oblige him in. Eren was often listening and participating at intervals, but Jean didn’t seem to mind. But when the room grew dark and you had to squint to make out any faces, Armin found it hard to concentrate when Jean would subtly take hold of his hands. Armin would find himself stuttering on words like “erosion” and “nitrification” when Jean idly ran his fingers over his knuckles, or across his palm. On one occasion when he (and Jean) assumed Eren had drifted off to sleep, Jean had the nerve to bring Armin’s hand to his mouth and give the palm a light kiss, causing Armin to squeak in a not-so-subtle way mid-sentence.

Eren had sat up immediately. “Armin? What is it??”

Jean had simultaneously released the hand right when Armin tugged it back into his chest, in case Eren’s eyes were better than his own.

“Just, uh. Spider! This cabin you know, spiders all over the place –never know when one’s going to…”

“Crawl across your hand?” Jean offered.

“Yeah…”

Eren made a dubious silence before muttering something about “killing them before Levi sees” and lying back down.

Much later, while Armin lay awake replaying the embarrassing exchange in his head, he heard Jean whisper a barely audible “sorry” in his direction.

Suddenly the heat of lingering embarrassment was replaced with something nicer, fluttering in his stomach. Armin shook his head slightly, to show he didn’t mind. And just in case Jean didn’t see in the limited light, he reached his hand out, traced down from what he assumed was Jean’s shoulder, found a rough hand and brought it to his lips.

That exchange was promptly added to their bedtime routine.

As Armin expected, barely a week after their arrival they were told they would need to purchase more supplies in town the next day. Levi would accompany them part way, then break off to Hermina where he would apparently be meeting up with Erwin and Hanji (and Connie too, Armin suspected) and come back the following day.

Armin and Jean were in the upstairs room, lying on their flat beds after lunch. Armin was on his back with his eyes closed, considering having a nap. Jean was flipping disinterestedly through Mikasa’s old fashion magazine (entertainment in the cabin was… limited).

“You should write your mom. Who knows when you’ll get another chance to mail a letter?”

At the silence that followed his statement, Armin opened his eyes to see Jean’s head turned to give him a peculiar look.

Armin couldn’t help but laugh. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t mean for that to sound so…”

“Ominous?”

“Yeah…”

“Nah, you’re probably right. The longer we’re out in the boonies, the more I suspect we aren’t going to be back at headquarters anytime soon. I better send something off while we’re in town tomorrow…”

With a fair bit of grumbling and shuffling, Armin heard Jean eventually pull out some stationary and began scribbling something. Armin had seen this scene play out enough times by now to know Jean found this difficult… almost amusingly so. Unsurprisingly after the initial scratches (address, personalized salutation), the pencil went silent.

Armin was happy for little moments like these. The triviality of Jean struggling to come up with a few sentences for his mother somehow made things feel a little less dreadful.

“… So what does your mom do with all these novels you send her?”

“I think my sense of humour has been a bad influence on you. It’s mutated into something unbecoming…”

Armin chuckled again and opened his eyes just in time to see Jean fling his pencil in his general direction. It landed on his chest before bouncing onto the mattress.

“Hey!” Armin sat up fully now, picking up the pencil in the process and spinning it in his fingers out of habit. Jean looked equal parts sheepish and defiant sitting on his own mattress.

“If you pass me the paper I could probably just write the whole thing for you. Mrs. Kirchstein would never know the difference.”

“What would you write?”

Huh? It had been a joke. Armin hoped Jean hadn’t taken him seriously.

Although if Jean really begged Armin might be persuaded.

“Oh! No, not like that! I mean…” Jean paused a moment, suddenly very interested with the seam on one of his blankets. “At a time like this, with all this unhappy shit going on… what would you say to your mother? Or father. Grandfather. Anyone you cared about like that and…”

“And didn’t want them to worry?”

Jean’s relieved eyes finally met Armin’s again.

Maybe he’d thought I’d be upset at the hypothetical scenario? Because my family’s...

“Yeah.”

Armin used to think about this sometimes, when they were trainees and he’d see all the other kids writing their relatives. Although it was more of a wisp of a thought; less about what he’d write and more about how he wish he could.

Armin watched the pencil spin between his fingers. “Well… I guess I’d just focus on things that made me happy. I figure the general public already knows the general outcome of the mission anyways. No need to bore her with the… details.” Unwilling, and not for the first time, glimpses of what Armin had seen over the past few days –Hannes, countless soldiers he didn’t know, some he knew too well…. Jean lying unmoving on the ground as Armin jumped off his horse, forgetting reason and everything else. He found himself staring at the pencil intently until he felt his mind clear. He hoped Jean hadn’t noticed.

Some might have advised Jean to tell his mom everything that was bothering him, but Armin knew that wasn’t exactly the relationship Jean and his mother shared. Nor was it wise seeking comfort from people who didn’t understand, didn’t know –first hand, the things they dealt with. It would just cause them worry and likely leave the author no more comforted than before anything was written.

“Yeah I know.” Jean took the pencil back from Armin. “But for once I feel like there’s almost nothing good going on.”

“Nothing?”

They looked at each other for a stretched out moment, before Armin could feel heat rushing to his face and he looked down. “—Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply…”

Of course he wouldn’t tell his mom about us…! Armin mentally berated himself.

“Ah shit. No.” He let out a frustrated sound. “I didn’t mean… man I make myself sound like a huge asshole sometimes don’t I?”

“You’re not an asshole, Jean…”

Jean scooted himself closer until their knees were touching. “But I am. Sometimes.” Jean gently took both of Armin’s hands in his own. He began to fidget with Armin’s fingers. “You’re here. Here with me, and that’s definitely a good thing. And not just because we’re locked away in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, eating crap food and cleaning 24/7. You’d still be the best thing even if you did have competition. You’d totally be top of my list of things to tell my mom about if…”

There was a half-second pause, where Armin watched his own fingers mindlessly be fumbled with. It was fine. Jean didn’t need to say it.

Pretending he didn’t notice the gap in conversation, Armin forced himself to laugh and said lightly “Jean, please stop talking.” Armin repositioned their hands so their fingers intertwined.

To be honest Armin wasn’t sure what Jean was hoping to accomplish with the secrecy. Armin was pretty sure Mikasa had caught on right away. And Eren was bound to figure it out eventually. Armin put in the effort though, for Jean’s sake.

But it did irk him. Because if Armin was a girl, would things be different? Or was Jean embarrassed just because he was Armin. Did what others think mean that much to him? Especially when Jean had proven himself to not be a judgmental person in that regard, it was puzzling how he could be so wary of the judgement of others.

“Okay I’ll stop. But only if you admit you’re the best.”

“I’m not gonna—“

Jean kissed him on the tip of his nose. “Sorry what was that?”

“I said I won’t—“

Jean tilted his head and managed to kiss the rim of one of Armin’s ears. “I didn’t catch that. Come again?”

“Jean--!” Armin could almost feel the tickle of Jean’s lips on his forehead before they actually made contact. He started to giggle as Jean continued to plant kisses all over his face.

In the end Jean wrote his mother about the 15 different ways one could cook a potato and have it be considered a “meal”. He owed Sasha for that one.

Chapter Text

The day after the refugees were allowed back within wall Rose, and a week since their initial arrival at the cabin in the woods, the cart carrying Jean, Sasha, Armin and Levi pushed against the oncoming traffic to a nearby town. Filling a portion of the two-hour ride, Armin had tried to meekly pitch his newest plan to Levi –one he had discussed with Eren and Jean the night before. Levi stoically replied that he would consider running it by the commander while he was visiting. Levi was going to continue on westwards once they reached the little village and meet up with Erwin.

The plan; having Eren using his titan body to seal the hole in Wall Maria, was pretty ace in Jean’s opinion. Levi just couldn’t help always looking like he had a stick up his ass.

When they finally reached town, Jean, Sasha and Armin split up to buy as much food as possible with the money Levi had left them, –which wasn’t much. The economy seemed to rattle when the walls did, and despite the latest breech being false, the inflation was very real.

In the end they managed to buy sacks of potatoes, buckwheat, turnips, beans and even some butter --enough to last them at least 3 blandly garnished weeks. Armin had also managed to win some carrots, garlic cloves and peppercorn (all of which were now considered “luxury items”) by beating an elderly man in an old boardgame he used to play with his grandfather.

Sasha didn’t even eat anything on the way back, which was an unexpected plus.

Levi returned by noon the next day, bringing with him Connie and Hanji as well as her squad. They carried large crates full of guns and ammunition, large muskets similar to the ones they’d used as cadets, as well as a couple small ones that looked almost like the flare-guns used while in scouting formation.

“What are these for?”

“That, Kirchstein is called a gun. You’ll find it works remarkably well at shooting people.”

People?

In the evening Connie and Jean were sent out a little ways from the cabin and given supplies to build a small watchtower. Just a few feet high, about two paces on all sides, nothing fancy. As they nailed boards together into something hopefully strong enough to stand on, Jean took the time to catch up with his friend. Which was nice –he seemed to welcome the conversation, even though most of what he shared –Utgard, the hairy titan, his mom –was unpleasant.

“But you know what makes it bearable?” Connie lined up a board as he talked. “That it’s not like any of this happened because I joined the scouting legion. Like, had I died on that last mission? That would have been because I joined. It could have been avoided. But my mom? My family? Even if I had been there, it still would have happened. The titans are doing their thing no matter what. In fact, and don’t quote me on this later in case I change my mind, I’m almost glad I’m in the scouting legion now. Because that means I might actually be able to do something about it. Kill that hairy son-of-a-bitch.”

Thwap thwap thwap. Connie’s hammer sounded oddly muted out here in the woods as he got another nail in.

“Do you think she’s still alive?”

“My Mom?”

“Yeah.” Jean handed Connie another board. It was getting dark; they’d have to tell Levi it wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow night.

“Well the titan’s still alive. It’s kind of hard to think of it as Mom when it tries to bite you when you get too close.” He laughed humourlessly. “Maybe one day we’ll come up with something to reverse it. But until then I find it easier to just pretend she died.”

“Right, I’ll tell Armin to keep hush-hush on the progress of his magic-elixir then.”

“Hey there, no need to be an asshole ‘bout it… Although he totally would be the one to come up with something like that, eh?”

Thwap thwap thwap.

“How are you guys by the way? You and Armin?”

Connie’s question caught Jean off guard and he almost ended up knocking over the bucket of nails in surprise. Jean heard his voice come out louder than he’d intended, “What are you talking about? We’re cool, it’s cool! Why’re you asking?”

“Dude, chill. I dunno, you guys just seemed to have gotten close before. Did you see him when Levi brought out the muskets? His skin went as green as the grass! I asked him if he was okay and he just said he wasn’t sure he’d be able to kill a person. I don’t blame him though…” Connie went to hammer in another nail, but swore and brought his finger to his mouth after the first hit. “Shit I can’t see anything! Let’s call it a night, alright?”

It was weird, Jean thought as he and Connie headed back to the little cabin and the smell of baked potatoes, how much easier one of the two conversations he’d had with Connie had been. It had been a golden opportunity, but Jean purposefully sidestepped it. At least before he could pretend the subject had never come up, but now that it had, and with Connie too, he couldn’t deny that he was definitely hiding his relationship with Armin.

Jean shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. Fall hadn’t officially started yet but the nights were already getting cold enough that he could see his breath. He’d drawn the first watch shift that night. Standing on top of the little platform he and Connie had built a few days ago, with one of the large muskets slung awkwardly over his shoulder, he tried vainly to make out anything in the darkness. Someone would come replace him shortly after midnight, but for now everyone else was probably getting into their nice, warm beds…

Jean was a little unsure who they were keeping watch for; but ever since the platform was built Levi had organized them into 5-hour watch shifts. The general consensus was that people were likely after Eren, and maybe Historia too. The guns implied those people were dangerous.

Just when the titans were starting to seem less terrifying…

Jean noticed a hint of light coming from behind him. Turning around, he caught sight of the cabin door closing in the distance and the silhouette of someone coming towards him. As the figure drew closer Jean was able to pick out blond hair and something steaming in their hands.

“Armin?”

“Hey,” his boots clacked against the wood as he joined Jean on the platform. “How brave are you feeling tonight?”

Jean eyed him wryly. “Depends. What’s that?” He pointed at the chipped mug Armin was holding close to his chest.

“Sasha made, um, a drink. She wants someone to try it out. It’s… warm?”

“Do you have the antidote?” But despite his apprehension, Jean accepted the mug and took a whiff. “Smells like potatoes.”

“Everything smells like potatoes.”

Jean drank a mouthful. It had the consistency of watery mashed potatoes, but somehow the warmth almost made it taste like a cup of warm milk instead (although they had none of course). The pleasant heat went to his stomach and his hands were already warmed from the cup.

“Surprisingly drinkable. I’ll give Sasha my official review tomorrow. Thanks Armin.”

The stood in a comfortable silence a little while. The chilly air wasn’t yet cold enough to kill the crickets and other noisy creepy-crawlies calling to each other in the woods. A moth was knocking itself into the glass of the lantern on the little wooden table to their side.

“Jean, Eren asked me about us.”

Jean tensed up involuntarily, which Armin no doubt felt as they were leaning against the railing shoulder to shoulder.

“Relax. I didn’t say anything. Or well, I said we’ve become good friends but sort of left it at that. But… Eren’s not dumb, Jean. And I don’t like lying to him. Or, more specifically…” Jean could feel Armin shift his weight. Armin took a deep breath. “If you still want to keep this, us or whatever, a secret that’s…” Armin seemed to struggle with the appropriate word. “—Fine. But can you at least give me a reason?”

The way Armin said all this confirmed Jean’s suspicions that he’d been walking on eggshells about the issue for the past few days. Armin hadn’t it up before, not explicitly anyways, but Jean was observant enough to notice the little looks Armin gave him when he shifted away on the couch when someone came to join them, or when returning from a walk how he would release Armin’s hand the second they were within view of the cabin. Jean tried not to make it seem deliberate, but Armin was too smart for that.

Now Armin was looking at him steadily, waiting for an answer Jean wasn’t even sure of himself.

Shit. Fuck. “Armin I’m sorry. It’s… yeah it’s my fault.”

Armin looked nonplussed by the ambiguous response. “Well I just thought I’d let you know that I’m not super happy about the situation. I don’t like lying to my friends. Especially about something that I am –was? happy about.” Armin finally looked away, eyes now on the dark ground below. “But even so, I wasn’t going to push it. If you had a reason Jean. If there was some sort of reason I could understand.”

The drink that had warmed his stomach was now starting to make Jean feel sick. It was true; Jean hadn’t tried to explain himself since he got cold feet in the Hermina Hospital. He gave himself a moment to try and collect his thoughts and try to will the prickly, crawling feeling on his skin to go away. “It’s more like… they’re not going to understand us. Or me, mostly. Everyone thinks you’re great but me? What if they think, I dunno, what if they think I’m trying to take advantage of you or something?” Armin snorted. “Or that this is just some sort of fake pity thing I’m doing because you keep saving my ass? They don’t know some of the shit we’ve been through.”

“But they do. Everyone’s got their own varieties of… shit. --And even if they didn’t, by remaining silent they’re definitely not going to learn anytime soon.”

“They won’t understand us, Armin.” Jean was starting to feel like a whiney child.

“I don’t think these sorts of things are that complicated Jean. Or… is it? For you?”

Was it? Maybe. But did it have to be?

Jean thought about the first time he kissed Armin after the incident in the hospital. For whatever reason the blind courage Jean had in the lemon-scented cleaning closet had left him and he’d always been content to adorn Armin’s cheeks, hands, nose, whatever instead. Or holding hands –Jean got into the habit of stringing their fingers together whenever they were out of eyesight. But the other day when Jean looked to his side to see what Armin was reading he noticed something strange sticking out from the pages of Armin’s book.

“What’s that?” Jean remembered how Armin’s eyes widened a bit as he tried to play it off as “Just a bookmark.” After a bit of probing Jean found out that the purple flower Jean had given Armin was now being used to mark his page.

Jean had laughed, flattered, and a little bit embarrassed although not nearly as much as Armin appeared to be. “I thought you decided to leave your pressing book back at headquarters?”

“Yeah, I did. But… I like this one… Aw Jean stop giving me that look, it’s no big deal—“

Jean may or may not have had a very cheeky look on his face a second before he leaned in and felt Armin’s lips for the second time. Despite his previous apprehensions, kissing Armin like that was… nice. In fact, he’d enjoyed it enough to do it again since. Maybe if talking to other people about his relationship with Armin could be something like that? If it could just come out nice and easy and have him feeling relieved when it was all over?

But he’d had that opportunity with Connie the other day, and that final push never materialized.

Armin sighed and brought Jean back to the present, some impatience condensing with his breath in the cold. “You know Connie and Sasha?” Jean grunted in response to the rhetorical question. “What if you, I don’t know, walked in on them holding hands or something? And it turns out they’ve been together since we were all cadets. How would you feel then?”

Jean saw what Armin was trying to do.

“Well, I mean, I guess I’d be a little bit hurt … It would seem weird for them to try and hide something like that. Especially since we’re all friends and all… But wait. Is it really any of our business?” Armin stopped his enthusiastic nodding. “Like, if it’s between the two of them, is it really right for us to feel personally affronted they decided to keep it private?”

Armin’s eyes tightened slightly as he brought his hand to his face and appeared to mull this over.

They parted ways that night at a stalemate.

The following night Jean had his first nightmare in a long time. Again it had been about Armin, except this time he didn’t seem happy with Jean, as the same sequence of events played out; the bleeding hand, dissolving skin, soaked boots in puddles of blood. Except Armin’s glance had been pointed, stern. He had been holding Jean’s hand in a firm grip, not allowing him to drop the deteriorating flesh.

They were all in much closer proximity than they had been at headquarters –Jean held his breath for a moment after his breathing had slowed enough for him to do so, trying to determine if he’d accidentally woken up Eren or Connie. He allowed himself to exhale. Eren seemed to still be asleep, and soft snores came from Connie’s bedroll to Jean’s other side.

“Jean.” Featherlight fingers brushed against his arm. Despite the consistency of Armin’s comforting presence whenever Jean’s sleep was interrupted by terrors, the familiar wave of relief still came over him.

It was too quiet and cramped for chatting now. Instead Jean did the next best thing and turned around proper, wrapping Armin up in his arms in the process, holding him close with his chest against the other boy’s back.

There was a second where Armin paused, perhaps confused by the gesture, before Jean felt him snuggle back into him a little bit. Armin whispered, “Aren’t I supposed to be the one hugging you?”

“Not if you saw the things I just saw.”

They lay like that until Jean felt sleep come over him. His sense of time was distorted by the quasi-consciousness, but at some point, perhaps a few minutes or a couple hours later, he heard the door to their room creak, then the sound of footsteps as someone walked by.

Connie.

His late-night trips to the bathroom were not uncommon enough for Jean to be surprised. The footsteps paused for a moment, stopping at Connie’s bedroll.

Shit. Jean had to force himself not to tense. With Connie not having properly shut the door, enough light from a hallway lantern filtered through to dimly cast light in the room. Jean could make out the part in Armin’s hair, a bit below his own chin. The chipping paint on the opposite wall. Eren’s foot peeking out from his blanket. Which meant Connie was very much seeing Jean and Armin sleeping chest-to-back.

The next morning, Jean felt waves of dread as he waited for Connie to bring it up. He was working on a way to tell his friends anyways, but now that the power wasn’t in his hands, he didn’t feel prepared. Being called out over breakfast was not the ideal situation he had planned out.

Instead however Connie seemed preoccupied with rubbing the sleep out of his eyes and the regular morning thrum as they all cramped around the table downstairs.

“Pass the potatoes?” Connie asked, the black circles under his eyes looking the same as they had every single other morning Jean had seen Connie, with no trace of mockery.

Armin lifted the bowl and reached across to Connie. “Did you know eating green potatoes can kill you?”

An equally encouraging and terrifying realization hit Jean as his fork hovered halfway up to his mouth. Connie had seen Jean last night and didn’t care.

Chapter Text

Needless to say, Jean spent the next couple of days mentally examining the people around him as if they’d all suddenly become entirely different people. The experience felt like the eerie realization that teachers had their own lives outside the classroom, or that your parents have had sex. It seemed obvious in retrospect, but the implications were hard to wrap one’s head around.

Connie never brought up what he’d seen that night. Despite breakfast passing without incident, Jean had been on his guard for the rest of the day. But by the time supper ended, leaving he and Connie alone on kitchen-cleaning duty, Connie was still opting prattle on at random (right now it was another exposition on the benefits of a buzz-cut) so Jean was pretty sure the topic was going to be a no-show.

“… and I’m not saying you need to do it, but I’m just sayin’ you’re already half-way there. I mean, I haven’t even washed my ‘hair’ for a week and has anyone noticed? Nope, they haven’t and…”

Had he and Armin not been as discreet as Jean thought? He supposed they did hang out a lot, and there were also all the nightmares Jean had before their first mission outside the wall. Since he always woke up alone the next morning, Jean had assumed Armin crept back into his own bed before falling asleep, but maybe that wasn’t the case? Nowadays they still talked late at night, assuming neither of them had watch-duty and neither of their room-mates felt particularly cranky or tired. But that was a very platonic activity, for sure.

“Jean you aren’t even listening are you?”

“Yeah.”

The next day they finally received word that Hanji and her squad would be joining them soon to perform the experiments on Eren. This was welcome news, because Jean was sure he couldn’t be the only one who had started to think they’d all been forgotten and would have to spend the rest of their lives cleaning, cooking and eating potatoes.

They would be conducting the actual experiments away from their little cabin in the woods. The loud cracking noise and smoke from Eren’s transformation would be inevitable, and no matter what the results were they wanted to make sure they could hide out a few more days afterwards if they’d need to. Armin was already familiar with the area, having borrowed Levi’s map several times over the two-and-a-half weeks, so he volunteered to scout out a suitable location. Eren had begged Levi to be allowed out as well.

Jean also asked to come along. He had his own little experiment he wanted to try out.

So the three of them prepared their horses and left shortly after breakfast, planning to be out for most of the day –the further away the spot was the longer it would take any curious eyes to track them back to the cabin.

Eren and Jean ended up riding side-by-side up front while Armin trailed behind them with the map and a compass. Jean and Eren passed the time competing in mindless contests; seeing who could name the most species of tree or the most words starting with the letter K. Now it was eye-spy.

“I spy with my little eye something that’s the colour of Eren’s shirt.”

“I swear to god if you say that puddle of swampy marsh over there I’m going to push you off your horse.”

“You got it first try! Maybe that was too easy… the likeness is uncanny—“

Armin’s patience rand out shortly after and he insisted they all play the “quiet game” until they reached their destination.

Eventually they found the place they were looking for, a clearing mostly free from trees in a slight dip in one of the rolling hills surrounded by old, tall trees. It was as good of cover as they could hope to find, and there was a sheer short cliff to one side of the space allowing for an adequate view. There would still be the crack and the smoke, and Eren’s 15 metre height, but they were a good 3 hour ride from base, and even further from any known populations –as close to the middle of nowhere you could be within the walls, really.

The three of them decided now was a good time to stop and eat the lunch they’d packed. They sat on some unearthed roots beneath one of the massive trees.

“So do you think he’ll be able to do it?”

“I’m sitting right here.”

Jean couldn’t help but snicker a bit. “Okay okay. Eren, do you think you’ll be able to do it?” Jean asked between mouthfuls of the flat, dusty bread Connie had ‘lovingly’ prepared for them.

“No no, you probably are better off asking Armin. I only wanted to be contrary.” They both laughed a bit at this. “To be honest I don’t know. For all I know my titan could sprout wings and I just hadn’t tried it yet.” Eren examined his bread critically then, picking off blackened bits near the edges. “Who let Connie make the bread again?” He sighed and crumbled some dusty black bread between his fingers. “I’m just trying to stay optimistic, Jean. No one knows what’s going on, just that we seem to be at a bit of a disadvantage, y’know? Why not believe this might work, at least until we’ve tried it. We can worry about what alternatives if and when the time comes.”

“And by ‘we’ you mean Armin, right?”

Eren nudged Armin to his other side, who sputtered at bit and shook his head in protest. “Right.”

They allowed themselves to talk in circles a little bit, before eventually packing up to head out. Armin wanted to try taking a detour back to the cabin which would have them taking their horses onto more exposed rock. They were going to see if this would be a workable alternative route that would ultimately hide their tracks better in case anyone was looking.

An hour or so into their return journey, they stopped to allow Armin to re-check his map. Jean saw a pretty blue flower (of which he was almost ashamed to not know the name –he’d gotten pretty good at that sort of thing) and thus an opportunity to finally test his hypothesis. While Armin was busy leaned up against a tree with the oversized and crinkled paper, and Eren was only a score of feet away adjusting his riding gear, Jean crouched down and carefully picked the flower, thin stem still intact and stepped over to Armin and threaded it into his hair.

“Sorry you had to babysit us today Arm.” Jean made a quick glance in Eren’s direction as he said this and removed his hand. And sure enough, sure fucking enough, he caught Eren quickly avert his eyes, suddenly very interested in some imperfection in his reins.

Jean’s mind was split between that son of a bitch and I’m ridiculously stupid before Armin’s quizzical look brought his attention back. Jean’s more-than-friendly gesture had been deliberate – and all things considered, it would have been perfectly in-character for Eren to have called him out on it. But instead…

It was like Connie all over again.

The flower did look nice nestled in Armin’s hair though.

When Jean just smiled in response to Armin’s look, Armin seemed to attempt to shrug it off. “Right… I mean no, it wasn’t really. Babysitting I mean.” Jean avoided the next calculating look by ruffling Armin’s blond hair and going back to his horse.

Eren acted as though the whole event never transpired as they finished their trek and arrived at the cabin in time for supper.

Later that night, while everyone else was still finishing their dinner or cleaning up Armin confronted him in the hall upstairs.

“What was that all about?” He didn’t sound unhappy.

“Mmm… field research.” Jean moved in a little closer. They were facing each other in the hallway, at the junction of the closet and the boys’ and girls’ rooms. Jean watched Armin’s eyes carefully for any sign of dismissal as he slowly planted a kiss near his temple, where the flower had been.

“Research…” The word was almost sighed into Jean’s collarbone as he slumped lightly against Jean’s body. “What’ll it be next?”

Jean nudged the bony chin up and away from his breastbone and kissed Armin’s lips in a shy reply. He thought he felt the slight upturn of a smile against his own before the kiss was returned with feeling.

Instead up pulling apart shortly afterwards, as had become routine, a wordless agreement seemed to pass between them to continue. Jean put his hands on Armin’s hips to steady himself as the kiss deepened into something gossiped about in the boys’ barracks when he was 13 and stupid. His imaginary partners were much different than what was pressed up against him now, but when he tasted Armin on his lips he found he didn't care much.

The sound of a very boisterous coughing fit and feet trampling up the stairs caused them to pull apart, two seconds before Mikasa, a deadpan expression on her face, appeared at the top of the steps.

“Excuse me.” Was all she said as she slipped into the women’s sleeping quarters. If she saw or heard anything she did a good job of hiding it.

Except…

Mikasa wasn’t sick.

Jean mentally berated himself as the pieces slowly came together, only to feel Armin turn and lean against the wall beside him. His cheeks were rosy but he didn’t look embarrassed, only sheepish.

“Cornflower.”

“Hmm?”

“Centaurea cyanis. The cornflower. It, uh, was what you put in my hair today. Your ‘research’, right?”

Jean laid on his lumpy bedroll staring at what he assumed was the ceiling above him. He considered his friends; Eren, Mikasa… were they like Connie too, then? If Jean were to play his silent observer game longer, would he be able to add Sasha and Historia to the list? Were they all acting clueless for the sake of… what? His own fake sense of privacy? Or Armin’s?

Shit, no wonder he thought Eren was on to him. If Jean was just catching on to this bizarre masquerade now, how long had Armin been suspecting it?

Jean got up, crept over to his bag and grabbed a shirt, threw it haphazardly over his head and followed suit with his green cloak.

Jean creaked down the stairs and past the lump on the couch he assumed was Levi and finally out the backdoor. He could see the lantern glowing orange up the hill.

“Don’t shoot!” He said jokingly to the shadow standing watch.

“As if I would anyways.” Armin sighed and smiled as Jean joined him on the platform. “Couldn’t sleep?”

“Yeah, but that’s not why I’m here.”

“You sure? I can talk about the scientific method again, that always puts you right to sleep! Oh—“

Jean wrapped his arms around Armin’s middle in a tight squeeze and lifted Armin’s feet off the ground momentarily. Armin made a sound of protest, feet dangling awkwardly but wrapped his arms around him in return all the same. When Jean finally put him back down, Armin stepped back, waiting for an explanation. Instead Jean stepped to the railing and leaned against it, looking out towards the dark forest, arms crossed and hands dangling across the other side.

Jean had originally come outside to say sorry for the pointless hassle he’d caused, and that he was a huge idiot and would make it up to Armin as soon as possible. But for some reason, as Jean stood there and thought about his boyfriendhe knew that apologies weren’t necessary.

His boyfriend…

“You sure you’re alright?” One of Armin’s hands now rested on his shoulder.

Jean only smiled in return. There were things he could do that would be so much better than a petty sorry anyways. Maybe there’d be time for that tomorrow. But for now…

“Hey Arm, let me tell you about the constellations.” The night was clear tonight, and being so far away from any village made the stars stand out. He knew Armin was knowledgeable about stars. What they were, how they were used to determine direction, but Jean had something else in mind.

“Oh no, is this going to be like the time you tried to tell my future by looking at the lines on my hands?”

Jean had done that to have an excuse to hold his hands weeks ago, not that he was going to admit that now. “Horoscopes, Armin, are a far more advanced science than palm reading.” Jean had an aunt who always seemed to be into cooky things like mineral-healing, reading tea leaves and other… oddities Jean loved when he was a kid. He didn’t think they made a lot of sense now of course, but he loved the way Armin’s nose would wrinkle up at the pseudo-science. “You’re birthday is in the middle of November, right?” Jean’s eyes were already scanning the sky for the curvy S-shaped constellation.

The next night’s weather was deemed acceptable by Levi for allowing a rare outdoor-fire. They had dug up some wild sweet potatoes in the woods earlier that day, and everyone had been looking forward to cooking them over the flames. In a rare act of friendly-minded altruism, Levi had volunteered to stand watch while they “played with their food”.

The fire’s heat was welcome in the chilly night, and the crispy-skinned potatoes were different enough from their usual fare to be considered exciting. Despite the lingering uncertainty regarding Eren’s crystalizing abilities, it felt like everyone was able to wind down a little bit. Even Historia joined them in sporadic conversation.

The sky wasn’t as clear as it had been yesterday, but Jean didn’t mind. His eyes found themselves drifting towards something much more beautiful than scattered stars, seated next to him on a felled tree-trunk. Tonight, beside Armin and amongst his friends, Jean felt only contentment.

As if it was no big deal, and maybe it wasn’t after all, Jean announced he was feeling a bit drowsy and was heading to bed early. He stood up, placed his hands lightly on Armin’s shoulders, bent down slightly to leave a kiss on the top of the blond head and uttered a soft “goodnight Armin”. In the few seconds of silence that followed, Jean did his best attempt at walking away from the site as casually as possible.

It was Sasha who broke the silence, a wolf whistle and “Atta boy, Jean!” which Jean casually waved off as he continued the short path to the cabin.

Of course, Eren’s voice piped in seconds later. “It’s about fucking time, Kirchstein! Watch out buddy, this means I get to give you the talk. If you hurt a single hair on his head…”

Jean’s wave transformed into an obscene gesture as he finally reached the door. Despite this, he could feel himself grinning from ear to ear. As he shut the door behind him he almost wished he had turned around, just for a second, to see Armin’s reaction. Were his ears red, face in an embarrassed smile? Did he have a foolish grin to match Jean’s? Did he give Eren a light-hearted punch for his comment?

He’d barely had time to get up the stairs, change into sleeping clothes and unroll his uneven bedroll before he heard someone knocking at the door.

Maybe Eren wasn’t kidding about giving him the talk?

But instead Jean heard a breathy little laugh he’d come to recognize. “It’s just me. Can I come in?”

Jean chuckled. “Open sesame!”

Jean was admittedly unprepared for what happened next; the door opened almost before he’d finished talking, with Armin practically gambolling in, nearly sliding on his knees as he met Jean at ground level for an enthusiastic kiss before finally resting his head against Jean’s chest as Jean received possibly the tightest hug of his life.

“I… I was that good, right? I mean, no big deal, you know?” Jean felt so happy that he found it hard to keep himself sounding casual. “Don’t let Eren or Mikasa kill me.”

Jean thought he heard Armin murmur “they won’t kill you” into his chest as he continued to have the pride hugged out of him.

When Armin finally came up for air, Jean was met by a lightly flushed face, framed by stray blond hairs, giving him what he could only describe as one of the most genuinely content smiles Jean had ever seen (Jean made a note to try and bring out that particular smile more often). Armin leaned in again slowly, this time pressing their foreheads together. It was a little awkward, he could feel himself going cross-eyed trying to look into blue eyes so close the eyelashes itched his face. Jean was sitting, slightly reclined with his weight on his arms outstretched slightly behind him, legs extended in front of him with Armin’s knees on either side of Jean’s hips – and for once Armin was the taller one, looking down into Jean’s eyes. “You didn’t have to do that, you know.” The words were quiet, serious. Armin’s breath tickled his cheeks. The contact was almost making him feel dizzy. Almost.

“I wanted to. I might be a jerk sometimes but this smile is real, I promise. I haven’t felt this happy since… I wanted everyone to finally see how happy you make me, Armin.”

Armin’s eyes, solemn just a moment before, crinkled as he was overcome with a face-conquering smile.

Jean piped in, “They’ll be jealous I bet.”

Armin have him a gentle headbutt. “Hey. That’s not nice.”

“And you’re going to have to give me a play-by-play of everyone’s reactions later.”

“Right. Later.” Armin had pulled away enough now that Jean noticed something he didn’t recognize in Armin’s features. Jean was suddenly feeling very warm and wondered how Armin wasn’t melting in his outdoor jacket and boots.

“Jean, can I kiss you?”

“I thought we already established this, silly. Plus, you sort of already did…” Jean said this in jest but when Armin brought their lips together, it occurred to him that this was the first time it was Armin kissing him. As this continued, it became obvious that Instead of simply returning the kisses, Armin was the one in control; the first one to press in for another, the first one to wrap his arms lightly around Jean’s neck, a hand creeping up, finally opting to rest in Jean’s hair instead. Perhaps it was the subtle change in dynamic, but when the kisses started taking on a slightly more ardent nature, hints of teeth and tongue and heavy breaths --not something completely new in and of itself, Jean felt his body begin to react.

That was new.

Jean’s eyes snapped open. Needles of panic started to creep up his arms, around his chest, mixing clumsily with all the other things he was feeling.

Armin’s head dipped momentarily to Jean’s jawline, silent, light kisses being dusted along its edge. It felt good. It definitely felt good. Even Armin’s hand, bunching up the hair tightly at his scalp felt good. But why then were Jean’s hands sweating, threatening to slip and give up their purchase on the floor?

This is Armin. This is fine. This is Armin. Armin. Armin. Armin.

Armin continued his detour, stopping briefly at Jean’s neck. Armin didn’t really seem to know what he was doing either, inexperience showing itself in subtle ways. Not that Jean would mind, if he could get himself to calm down… Armin was kissing Jean’s lips again, a wet mark left cooling on Jean’s neck. It wasn’t long before he heard himself make a soft noise, muffled against Armin’s mouth.

There’s no way he didn’t hear that.

Jean enjoyed talking with Armin. Eating with Armin. Kissing Armin. But somehow, despite what his body was saying (Jean discreetly tried to shimmy his hips away from where Armin was seated, dangerously close to his lap) he decided this scared him.

Armin must have noticed something was off –he backed his head away and looked at Jean curiously. “Is everything okay?”

How was he going to explain this one?

“Y-yeah.” Jean shifted himself slightly and rested a sweaty hand against Armin’s back. He still looked a little confused, so Jean gave his nose a quick kiss. “I’m fine. You just… surprised me.”

Armin didn’t look convinced, his mouth forming a worried line. “Do you want me to stop?” Armin’s eyes darted downwards for a fraction of a second and if it weren’t for the genuinely concerned expression Jean would have sworn Armin’s was trying to be coy.

Jean removed his hand from Armin’s back and ran it awkwardly through his short hair, already mussed from Armin’s attention. “Maybe.” Jean tried his best to explain himself without sounding insensitive. “I really like you Armin. I do, I really really do. But… whatever you’re doing is great, it’s… really great, okay? And honestly in my present state I could probably be convinced to sit back and… enjoy it. Physically. But Armin… I don’t think I’d be ready to… reciprocate.” As he said it he knew it was true. Armin’s body, silly as it sounded, intimidated him. Although being flung through puberty allowed for many fantasies in, erm, physical intimacy –not that fantasy was good learning material anyways –his current situation deviated significantly from any common grounds in that regard.

“Oh no, Jean, I’m so sorry—“

“Shhhhh, no!! Don’t be. Don’t say sorry. You’re great Armin. I just want to wait until…”

“You’re more comfortable?”

“Yeah.”

His last word hung heavily in the air. Jean averted his eyes to the corner of the room. He felt Armin’s weight leave his legs, and felt the heat settle beside him on the ground instead. Then, a kiss on his cheek.

“Cheer up. I only wish you’d told me sooner!” Jean turned his eyes now and noticed Armin was now bright red to the tips of his ears. “I’m sor –I should have predicted that better…”

Jean’s insides surged with affection.

That night they fell asleep early, with their hands held together out in the open, in the space between their pillows.

Chapter Text

As it turned out, the hardening experiment was a dud.

Jean and the others spent most of the time patrolling the area keeping watch, so he hadn’t gotten a good first-hand look, but when he caught a glimpse of the cart carrying Eren back at the end of the day, he knew they hadn’t been successful.

“It was terrible. I’m surprised they let it go on as long as they did.”

Jean had been so caught up in his thoughts that he hadn’t noticed Armin ride up next to him; he’d let his guard down as they drew nearer to the cabin. They were now less than thirty minutes ride away, and Jean was pretty sure anyone following them back would have made their move by now.

“Armin? Shouldn’t you be riding in the cart with Eren?”

Armin shifted uncomfortably before tilting his head in the direction of the second horse tethered to his own. “Levi wanted me ride back with Historia’s horse. I guess he wanted her there instead.”

Instead of voicing his confusion about Levi’s strange request, Jean just made a noncommittal grunt. Armin knew when to pick his battles.

“So I guess we’re going to be going ahead with the other plan then? No easy-fix Eren plug?”

“Unfortunately. He transformed three times, and just got more and more…distressed. They put him through all sorts of tests before he sort of had a breakdown. His titan form can write, by the way.”

Jean considered making a joke about how Eren’s human form could hardly write but thought better of it.

“Midway through, he just started freaking out and changed back. The next time he transformed the same thing happened, but this time he was violent. And by the time he collapsed the third time, they literally had to drag him free. Mikasa wasn’t too impressed.”

Jean could tell Armin was also unimpressed but had decided to keep his discontent to himself. He reached out and gave Armin a friendly pat on the shoulder.

“Hey, no worries. Eren’s tough, remember? He’ll get through this. And Mikasa even more so.”

Armin turned an appreciative glance in Jean’s direction. “Thanks Jean.” Something was left hanging in the air after that, but Jean couldn’t quite figure out what it was.

He watched Armin turn back into the trees, returning to their scanning formation.

You’re pretty tough too, Armin.

Eren spent the next day passed out in the comfort of the ladies sleeping quarters, since only they had proper bedding. When Mikasa called from the doorway that Eren was finally coming to, Levi and Hanji immediately stopped what they were doing and made their way up the stairs. Armin too, rose from his seat at the table. Despite his best efforts to appear otherwise Armin had obviously been anxious about his friend’s condition. It was pure chance that he wasn’t up there with Mikasa when Eren regained consciousness, he’d spent almost every waking hour of the past day up there. Levi called down to him at the foot of the stairs however.

“Armin, would you cover the rest of Historia’s guard duty and ask her to come up here, please?”

Armin hesitated for only a moment before giving a curt nod, turning and making a stiff beeline for the back door.

Admittedly there seemed to be something very deliberate about Levi’s decision.

Jean’s chair scraped loudly against the floor as he rose. “S’cuse me.” Jean left Sasha, Connie and the members of Hanji’s squad to the heavy silence and grabbed Armin’s green cloak off the hook by the door. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but it would be soon, and it could get pretty chilly. He tried not to let the door slam on his way out.

They all knew it wasn’t good to linger after Eren’s experimentation –despite their remote location it had been far from subtle. However, it still came as a surprise when the very next night a message from Erwin was delivered by a scout.

“Has everyone read it?” Levi asked, even as he took the paper back from Eren.

It was… simple enough, if a little unorthodox.

“Squad Leader Levi, is this…?” The soft sound of the thin paper being being consumed by the candle flame finished Armin’s question.

A joke? A farce? There certainly was one part of the plan that stuck out in particular.

Levi left very little room for disagreement. “Do you guys still believe in Commander Erwin? These are his orders. If you’re still ready to follow them then pack up –we’re heading out tonight.”

The very few personal possessions any of them had remaining were packed quickly, so they were hiking away from the cabin just an hour later. They might have lingered longer if Sasha hadn’t noticed suspicious torchlight from her spot at the watchpost. By some stroke of luck they managed to avoid the presumably hostile group approaching the cabin by taking the back exit and looping around. They didn’t stick around to see the aftermath, instead continuing down the haphazard path with only the moon lighting their way. Hanji and her squad had left earlier in the day, and if all went according to plan, would be waiting for them with a fresh horses to take them to Trost.

How they’d even manage to get all the way to Trost by midday was anyone’s guess. Jean was at first confused as to why they decided to stay together in a conspicuous green-cloaked clump. Levi even went so far as to introduce himself and ask directions of some townsfolk at one point.

“We’re trying to get ourselves kidnapped, remember?” Armin said lightly to him as the townsfolk disappeared down the road behind them. Armin had been riding in the rear with Eren and Mikasa and must have noticed Jean’s puzzled expression when he’d come to join him near the front.

“How do you always do that?”

“Do what?”

“I don’t know, know what other people are thinking? Do you reach a point where you read so many books that you’re finally able to read people?”

Armin gave a half-hearted laugh. “I don’t think that’s it.”

“What he’s trying to say is any idiot could read your clueless face from back here.” Eren. Probably sitting on his horse looking smug.

“Okay Armin, I’m thinking of a number between 1 and 100…”

“Jean…”

“Here Armin, these will probably fit better than Historia’s. Your toes still might get pinched a bit though.” Mikasa set her pair of casual boots and a folded up skirt on the bedside table. Armin didn’t say anything, just sat on the dusty bed staring at his feet. “I think Levi wants us to head out as soon as possible but… take your time, okay?” There was still no reply. “Jean do you have everything you need?”

He grunted and raised his arm slightly, displaying the musty brown wig in his hand.

Mikasa left them then, shutting the door quietly behind her. Armin wasted no time taking off his slacks and reaching for the skirt, his face a mask of quiet determination. Jean politely averted his eyes and began swapping his own shirt for Eren’s white one.

“So… you okay?”

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Jean had a moment of déjà vu, of a similar exchange he vaguely remembered having while they were still in training for the scouting legion.

Jean bit his lip as he tried to figure out how to respond, sorting out the mess of a wig at the same time.

“It’s just a fake kidnapping. It’s nothing dangerous, we don’t have to fight titans or anything. It’s just pretend. I’m fine Jean. I promise.”

When Jean finally turned around and saw him, his face was frozen in the same determined expression as before. When Jean first heard the plan, he had been worried that the sight of Armin wearing a skirt would be comical, and he doubted l Armin would take kindly to laughing. He was bitterly thankful that all he felt was unease. But Armin was right, as usual. Just a fake kidnapping. In fact, one could argue the two of them got the easy job in this setup.

“Here, let me fix your wig. It’s sitting a bit funny.”

Jean stood behind Armin as he made the adjustments. He hated to admit it, but he was getting pretty good at it.

Quietly, Armin murmered, “I guess it’s true. Bad news comes in threes.”

“Hmm?”

“Third time I’ve been switched with Historia.”

“Maybe it’s like… Levi’s version of a joke?” The individual events themselves weren’t unusual, but now that Armin said it aloud Jean had to admit there was a bit of a trend. “I wouldn’t worry too much though. I don’t think Eren has any plans to make Historia his new bestie.”

“That would make Levi even worse at joking that I am, wouldn’t it?”

Jean leaned down to give Armin’s cheek a quick kiss. “Nah, you aren’t that bad. Now come on, let’s give ‘em the ‘ol razzle dazzle.”

The plan had gone smoothly so far. Though they’d suffered a bit of rough handling in the runaway cart, and Jean suspected he may have gotten some brain damage when the cart went over some potholes and caused his head to rattle painfully against the wooden floor of the wagon. But it was certainly a kidnapping and that was certainly the plan. Despite himself, he found his eyes wandering up, trying to spot any of their friends following on the rooftops. But they were too good for that.

After the short and bumpy ride they were dragged into a decrepit looking warehouse. Two burly men patted Jean down, presumably checking for weapons, before roughly sitting him down on a small chair and tying his hands behind him. A portly fellow appeared to be doing to the same with Armin. Neither of them had been gagged, and only the threats of the other men, knives visible at their belts, really stopped them from making a commotion.

“Desmond, you got these two under control? We’re gonna go and get Mr. Reeves.”

Wow even this is going down exactly as we hoped.

“Yeah yeah. They certainly don’t seem like a very lively pair, do they?”

Jean and Armin locked eyes. Should we be putting up more of a fuss?

“You want lively? Maybe if you cowards threw away your blades we can settle this properly??” Jean rocked his chair a little bit, just for good measure. The ropes were cutting into his wrists a little bit and made his fingers tingle.

“Pfft I changed my mind, shuddup you moron.”

Apparently deciding their colleague had this under control, the other two men slipped out, and the sound of wheels on the roughly paved path could be heard beyond the thin walls.

“Now then sweetie, your boyfriend has put up some semblance of a racket, what about you, hmm? Got anything to say?” Jean mentally gagged at the word boyfriend, any combination of Eren, Historia or Armin seeming almost laughable.

“My my, you are tiny aren’t you? How old are you again? Come on pretty, you can whisper it in my ear if you like.” Armin of course, wasn’t going to say anything. However Jean’s mild disgust took a horrifying turn as the creep’s hands found their way to Armin’s neck, thumbs rubbing small circles at the small space of exposed skin at the collar.

“Desmond” leaned his face in closer, causing Armin to shift his head as far away as possible. “You’re so pretty, won’t you talk to me? Eh? Say something sweet for me, won’t ya?” One of his hands slid down the length of Armin’s arm, and back up again to the elbow. It didn’t linger there long however, before sneaking over to grasp a breast that wasn’t all there.

Jean could swear he heard Armin make a faint sound from the back of his throat, some sort of pitiful whimper. Jean felt like all the air had fled the room as he watched this unexpected turn of events. A part of him was aware that if this went on much longer, their disguise would be found out and then they’d be in some serious trouble. However Jean was currently much more aware of the man’s heavy panting by Armin’s ear, and Armin’s faint trembles.

Where the fuck is Mr. Boss??

The plan had been for Levi and everyone else to barge in only once the Boss was secured in the premises. But at this rate…

“So how about it? Let me hear your voice… Please, such a cute girl like you…” Dirty fingers were now against Armin’s cheek, trying to force his head to turn. When he finally allowed his head to shift, Jean’s own horrified face got a glimpse of Armin’s tear-filled eyes. A face like that wasn’t just pretending. What was he trying to say…? Jean thought stupidly of their number guessing game from earlier.

Jean snapped his head in the other direction. He couldn’t watch this anymore. He tried to ignore the feeling of his blood pumping erratically through his veins, the tight rope digging into his wrists and against his hips. He tried to convince himself looking away wasn’t an act of selfishness, that if he kept watching he might end up doing something stupid…

He tried to forget Armin’s face and convince himself that this was still just all a big acting game. Armin was just playing a role, and Jean too was just back to being an irritated body-double. Right, an annoying double for that annoying Eren Jaeger… with his annoying face, and angry eyebrows…

He latched on to that thought as hard as possible.

“Stupid bitch, you think you’re just going to sit there and ignore me like that? What makes you so special anyways, huh? Chest like a washboard, and a crybaby to boot—“

All the air Jean was having trouble breathing just a moment before suddenly filled his lungs and something inside him snapped. He made a motion to stand but the cord against his middle prevented him from keeping his balance once his legs straightened out and he collapsed onto his knees with the chair strapped awkwardly to his back. “YOU SON OF A BITCH! YOU LEAVE HIM ALONE YOU SICK FUCK!”

Jean only had a split second to fully register his error and the look of shock on the man’s face before the sounds of a door slamming open and the whoosh of 3DMG cables disrupted the scene. It was hard to see, his neck at a painful angle from the floor, but it looked like Mikasa had knocked Desmond roughly to the ground, and Connie was struggling to tie something around the perverted man’s face. There was the sound of a door somewhere bursting open, followed by a gruff yell and the thumps of more bodies falling. Jean hadn’t even known there were more henchmen in the back.

“Quick! They’ll be here any minute now. Connie, Sasha, hide him somewhere in the back. And everyone find somewhere to hide. Mikasa move those bodies out of the way!” Levi was trying to take control of the situation. Jean was expecting some sort of side comment from Levi as he propped Jean and his chair back to their original positions, but none came, even when Levi quickly cut the ties binding his hands, only to loosely wrap the rope around again to make it still appeared tied.

“Levi, I…”

“Don’t. Let’s just do our jobs Kirschstein. Your hands are free now, now you can help out when you see the opportunity.”

Levi then swung himself up and behind some large storage crates. Everyone else appeared to already be hiding, leaving Jean and Armin facing each other again in their seats. Armin made a point of avoiding his gaze.

Only a few minutes passed before the small entrance opened, momentarily illuminating the dingy storehouse. Three men, the two from before and another whom Jean could only assume was their boss walked in, talking in agitated tones. They barely got a good look at the two of them before a blurred shape and a loud crack brought the tallest man to his knees. The man had hardly hit the ground before the other one was slammed against the floor by Levi. Seeing an opportunity, Jean and Armin both leapt to their feet and rushed to tie up the two goonies while they were still out cold. When Jean stood up again Mikasa had the boss pinned down and—

Jean didn’t even notice the pistol until an arrow from above shot right through the grip. Looking up he saw Sasha, a second arrow already notched in her bow.

“Watch it! You could have hit Mikasa!”

“She got distracted!”

Danger over, they dragged all the henchmen into the main room. Many of them were unconscious, and lay face-down on the cement floor. A few however, including Desmond, were still well enough to partially sit up. Jean was now able to succumb to the urge to be as close to Armin as was appropriate.

“Are you the leader of this bunch?” Jean heard Levi from a few feet behind him.

The balding man answered wretchedly, “Me? No! I’m just the driver –I was filling in for someone in fact! I don’t know anything!”

There was a peculiar silence then. Jean turned around in curiosity.

Mikasa pointed steadily. “It’s him. He was being called ‘President’ before. I remember.”

Levi leaned down to the President’s eye level. “Well then. Why don’t we go somewhere a little more comfortable?”

A muffled, slobbery sound caught everyone’s attention. The pervert’s gag was coming lose.

“Armin, would you fix that?” Jean’s stomach dropped at Levi’s words.

“Ok.”

Jean forced himself to pry his eyes away from the scene to quickly catch Levi’s attention. “If you guys are going out, I’d, uh, Armin and I will –can we stay here to keep an eye on the hostages?”

“Fine.” Levi looked at something just beyond Jean’s shoulder. “Armin what are you doing? Hurry it up.”

In an instant Jean was back at Armin’s side, hand on his trembling shoulder.

“Armin. I got this.” As Jean heard the others leave and the drooling man chuckle apprehensively, he considered the damage he could inflict on this man with his fists. Fifteen seconds and the man would still come out better off than most of the men Mikasa and Levi had dealt with. This was a bad man. Jean might even sleep better tonight for it. But deep down he knew it wouldn’t make a real difference. It was over now. If Jean had his hands free when the man was in the act, he knew he would have landed a few punches without thought. But now it didn’t seem like his place.

He roughly grabbed the tatty piece of cloth with tight knuckles. Thankfully the man decided he’d said enough and now just stared at Armin stupidly with glassy eyes. Jean made a hasty double knot with the ends of the fabric, tight enough that it indented the skin on the man’s cheeks.

“Armin?”

“Yes?” There was a hint of a tremor to his voice, the only indication that something was amiss.

Jean sighed and gave one last reproachful look to the bodies scattered around the floor. The whole place stank. “Let’s go outside and get some air. I don’t think anyone will be getting away.”

That evening they found themselves in another safehouse, this time within the boundaries of Trost. Apparently the negotiations with the balding boss had gone well enough that they were in no immediate danger in town.

Jean had watched Armin carefully over dinner. He didn’t understand Armin’s behaviour. Armin wasn’t one for anger, but Jean knew he must be feeling something more than this detachment he was displaying. Jean voiced some shade of that opinion in the time they had spent sitting in the afternoon sun outside the warehouse, trying to ignore the stink from the dumpsters across the alley and waiting for Levi to return.

Armin had insisted on keeping his face cold, expression stony. “There’s no time for my own silly humiliation, Jean. I’m not hurt. This isn’t something which needs to be made into a big deal.” But even as Armin said this, tears were slowly falling down his cheeks. A crack in his façade. Jean remembered the face he saw while he was strapped to the chair –there was more than just petty humiliation there.

Armin’s disturbing attempt at nonchalance had continued into the evening. Although Jean had reason to be unconvinced, it seemed to have fooled Sasha and Connie, both of whom made more than a couple playful jibes over dinner. Once Armin had gone upstairs for bed Jean made a point of telling his two friends off. He tried to remember that they hadn’t gotten the same front-seat view as he had, however.

Before going up to bed himself, Jean sought out Levi. Despite the discomfort, he felt like this was something he had to do. He found the shorter man sitting, legs crossed with one of his nightly cups of tea near a dying candle.

“Squad Leader, sir.” He addressed him formally, tongue feeling heavy.

“Kirschstein.”

“I just wanted to… apologize. I didn’t follow the plan and… I’m sorry for my lack of control. I’ll try my best to not let it happen again.”

Levi appeared to consider him for a while. Jean started to feel awkward standing there as the other man sipped his drink before finally responding. “It’s clear now we underestimated how long it would take for Mr. Reeves to arrive. Although you disobeyed orders, you gave all of us a… signal we could act on simultaneously. If we weren’t ready however, I think you ran a huge risk of putting yourself and Armin in more danger; I just want you to be aware of that the next time something like this happens.”

“Yes of course.” He considered his next words carefully. “Levi will… Armin won’t be dressing up like that again, will he?”

One of Levi’s eyebrows peaked in a barely perceivable arch. “Are you saying you would have preferred what happened today to have happened to Historia instead?”

Jean blanched. He hadn’t considered it like that, and the question didn’t have any acceptable answer.

“You see, although the details of what transpired while you two were strapped to those seats was not expected, there is always some understanding that things might not go exactly as planned.” Sip. “What if the men had decided to take a stab at your legs? Really prevent you from running away. Or cut out your tongue? These risks are never explicitly stated, but I think there is always the understanding that dangerous and unwarranted circumstances could arise. For what it’s worth Kirschstein, Jean, Armin has proven to be a great deal stronger than he lets on. I doubt he would be appreciative if he knew you came to me, trying to shed pity on his situation.”

“Er. Right.” Jean was feeling guilty for something other than what he’d originally come to apologize for.

“—Not that it’s my business of course. Now, I suggest if you really want to be a help you go upstairs and keep your friend company. If he needs more than that I’m sure you’ll be the first person he’ll turn to.” Levi dabbed the corners of his mouth with a napkin then stood up and tucked in his chair. “Goodnight then.”

Jean watched in dull silence as Levi took his cup delicately with him to the shabby kitchen to be washed. He would take Levi’s advice. Be ready if Armin needed him. But if he wanted him to act like it was no big deal, then he supposed he owed him to at least give it a shot.

Sometimes I really think it’s easier dealing with honestly unhappy people than those who run around like everything’s ok. Jean didn’t really understand this the first time Armin had said this to him, but Armin had a track record of being a good teacher.

Chapter Text

They moved to a new location the following day, somewhere outside of town. From the outside the place appeared like a small shack next to stone lookout tower, but the space was actually dug into the sheer cliff face it was built upon. Beneath the surface was an abandoned jail house. The Survey Corps just “happened” to have all the keys to the place.

“How convenient is this though, right guys? Just when we needed an empty jail…!” Jean couldn’t tell whether or not Connie was serious.

The first night they slept on the upper floor they were awoken by the sounds of a struggle, which eventually faded down into the vastness below the ground. Jean supposed he should be happy –this, the two captured military police officers, were the fruits of their labour. But it was hard to keep up that attitude when the following day was filled with a man’s hollers and screams from the rooms below.

“Are they…?”

“They’re torturing them.” Armin said as he continued cleaning the windowsill of built-up mildew. No one had actually asked them to clean this time, Levi had hardly been on the main level, much less the designated sleeping quarters in the rooms upstairs. Regardless, everyone was starting to see it as a good way to pass the time.

Jean rung out his own cloth above the bucket of soapy water. “Well that’s… gross.”

Armin seemed to catch up with himself after a moment. “Y-yeah. Sorry, yeah. It’s pretty messed up.”

Connie’s shaky voice came from the corner of the room. He was supposed to be washing the wall, but Jean had been absently watching him scrub the same square meter of space since the screaming had started. “So is that, uh, legal?”

“If torturing the police is legal then maybe we really should be booting the king.” Jean chucked his damp cloth at Connie’s head, where it landed and remained undisturbed.

Eren’s face appeared between the rung of the railings by the stairs. “Food’s ready. And if it makes you feel better, I swear the sounds echo more up here than on the main level.” Eren looked normal, but his voice hinted of unease.

“Yeah okay.” Connie still had the dirty cloth covering his face, and it wriggled slightly over his nose as he spoke. He didn’t make any motions to move.

“Sasha will eat your food.” Jean got up to follow Eren down the stairs. He gave a quick look behind his shoulder at Armin, still near the window. He’d stopped wiping but was now just staring outside, the window clean enough now to reflect his own image back at him.

Jean was starting to get concerned. Armin seemed to be getting progressively rattled. Everything else going on aside, Armin was just brushing off the kidnapping like everything else. He’d told Jean multiple times over the past day (very adamantly the last time) that he was just stressed and the last thing he wanted anyone doing was to worry about him. And now their division was torturing people like thugs? It didn’t sit well with Jean, and he expected it to exacerbate Armin’s issues.

Finally Armin too stood up and made his way to the stairs.

Dinner itself was a properly sober affair. And despite Eren’s good intentioned-lie, the screams were just as audible where they sat around the dinner table.

Exhausted by their own negativity, they eventually headed back upstairs to waste time before it was a reasonable hour to go to bed. Their monotonous schedule punctuated with bouts of stressful activity was harder to digest than the scouting legion’s ration sticks.

“You know, it wasn’t actually a bad plan.” Jean was seated across from Armin on the floor upstairs, shuffling a deck of cards to play a round of old maid. He was referring to Armin’s wicked suggestion after dinner. “In fact, it would probably work. But…”

“Jean please… don’t. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just talking. Of course we couldn’t go around causing havoc in the streets just to make the police look bad.”

“But what if that’s what our next orders are?”

“Hmm?”

“I’m just saying, at the rate these plans are being handed out, what if Erwin wants us to do something like that? Would you be able to?”

Armin didn’t say anything, and just stared intently at the cards in his hand, as if they held some secret truth.

“See, you say we aren’t good guys anymore, but at least we’re all a hell of a lot more willing to die in front of titans for the good of humanity than we are to coerce innocents for the same end. I bet real the real bad guys would have a different opinion than that, eh? Right?”

“Man you two are grim. I’m glad you two found each other, truly.” Sasha was hanging out in the boys’ room again. Jean couldn’t blame her though –it was hard to imagine enjoying Mikasa and Historia’s company given the current atmosphere.

“Yeah instead of playing ’20 questions, morbid edition’ why don’t we try to not dig ourselves into the depths of depression? Just a thought.” Connie was slumped on the floor next to Sasha. For all the talk, those two had spent the time staring at the ceiling, which was neither productive nor much better, in Jean’s opinion.

He sighed and threw his cards down. He didn’t actually like old maid anyways. It was only the four of them. What could they do to pass some time…?

Jean spotted his sketchpad sticking out from his bag against the wall. It was one of the only things that had managed to follow him through all the relocating.

Hang-man?

Jean flinched. Hmm maybe not.

“What are your plans once we leave the walls?” It was Armin, timidly watching the other two as he too put down his cards. Jean recognized this question.

“Leave?”

“Yeah doofus, that’s the whole point isn’t it?” Jean scoffed as Connie and Sasha inched closer to them, sliding their butts on the hardwood.

“Ha, you know what? I guess I’d honestly convinced myself I’m gonna be long gone before that ever happens. I never really thought about it?”

Sasha gave him a sharp poke in the shoulder. “Now who’s being morose?”

“What about you then?” Armin’s question left no room to dwell on sad thoughts.

“Easy. Grab my parents, a couple of good horses, and walk ourselves deep into a forest. Spend every day outside hunting and fishing to our heart’s content. There’s still game on the other side, right Armin?”

He chuckled slightly. “Of course.”

Jean was surprised by the tameness in her answer. “You know, that’s kind of boring.”

“No way man, I think that sounds great!” Thankfully Connie was smiling again, mood apparently brightened a bit. “I don’t like the titans or the walls in principle, you know? But casual life around here isn’t –wasn’t so bad excluding all that. Think your secluded cabin would have room for one more? I don’t take up much space…”

“Pffft, of course Connie.” Sasha wrapped her arms around his head in an inelegant hug. “Besides, we’ll need something to bait the wolves…” She began rubbing her knuckles against the top of his head.

Connie struggled against the noogie. “Ouch, hey! Wait …what??”

That night sleep was interrupted by Eren yelling about something and generally making a ruckus to get to the stairs.

“Wha’s it? You can keep sleepin’…” But Eren didn’t seem to care about Jean’s half-conscious suggestion and kept going, slamming the door on his way out.

Bleary-eyed, Jean took a half-hearted look around the room. It took him a second to realize what was out of place –Armin was seated in a chair, bleary eyed, where his bedroll had been. He was sitting, wrapped up with his musket resting lazily against his shoulder. Armin looked back at him dimly.

Jean felt some alertness rush back to him as he tried to make sense of the image.

“Armin? What… what are you doing?”

“I couldn’t sleep. So I thought I’d keep watch instead.”

Jean’s voice softened considerably. “But Armin… there’s no need. There are literally soldiers –ours –all over the place downstairs.” He could feel his chest tighten in something similar to panic.

Armin just shrugged his shoulders and shifted his eyes to the corner of the room.

“Hell, Armin, if you ever have trouble sleeping just... I dunno, wake me up? We can talk it out? Or, I dunno. Anything’s better than staying up all night alone thinking.” Jean would know. He edged over a little bit and raised his blanket. “Come ‘ere.”

Armin gave his a bit of an incredulous look but nonetheless set his gun down on the ground and began settling down into the space Jean had made for him.

“Jean I always have trouble sleeping. I thought you of all people would know that by now…” Armin had curled himself up into a ball, head tucked into Jean’s chest.

And all those times Jean had just assumed Armin was a light sleeper.

He forced himself to stay awake, hand idly playing in blond hair, until the breathing against his collar had slowed and the tension in the body pressed next to his had disappeared.

As it usually was, the reprieve was short lived. When Levi finally emerged from the basement long enough to warrant conversation, it was to host a large meeting telling of future plans. The fat man from the warehouse was there, Mr. Reeves, as well as Hanji’s squad, though Hanji herself had already left.

After an extended argument that was difficult to watch, Historia was told she was to retake the throne as the proper monarchy. Jean had put this very small but significant tidbit of information away to process later. Now that they had a goal, their next plan of action was to allow Eren and Historia, the real ones this time, to be captured by the Military Police. From there, they’d try and use the ties with the Reeves Corporation to track down the location of Historia’s father –the real King.

“I miss the old plan.” Connie mumbled afterwards. “‘Plug up the hole’. It was simple. To the point. Had an obvious outcome and benefit. I think all plans should be condensed to 4 words. 5, tops.”

“Levi is really starting to piss me off.” It was all Jean could think to say. No one even bothered to give him a reproachful look in response.

“Eren, are you sure you’re okay with this?” Mikasa was hovering as Eren and the other boys were packing up their things.

“Sure. Reeves, Military Police, Rod Reiss. It’s like connect the dots or something.”

“And then we all burst in and kick some royal ass!”

“We won’t be fighting, Connie. Or at least we shouldn’t be if everything goes well. It think that’s why we’re trying to do all this discreetly.” Armin was already packed and seated against the wall with his stuff.

“Well then, even better.” As Eren said this he aggressively punched whatever was preventing his knapsack from shutting, effectively squishing the contents so the clasp could be secured. “Because you know, hurting people… it fucking sucks.”

With almost no wasted time, the five of the remaining scouts, Jean, Connie, Sasha, Armin and Mikasa, watched from a window as the Reeves’ cart containing their friends kicked up dust as it rolled down the road.

They were expecting to have one of the runner’s from Reeve’s group return that evening and give them the new location, but no one ever came. After a tense night of waiting, they decided that something must have gone wrong, and waiting wouldn’t help anyone. They didn’t need to head out far before word of Reeve’s death was heard –Trost was practically humming. Whispers of the scouting legions influence had them heading west, away from Trost, and undercover. Shortly after, Erwin was taken into custody by the Military Police, at which point the scouting legion was officially labelled a rebel group.

That night their small group slept in a small clearing between Trost and Stohess. Due to their need to keep inconspicuous, a small fire and their tents were the only shelter afforded to them. They took turns keeping watch, and during the night Jean noticed scouts he recognized from the Hanji’s group at the old jail house come speak with Levi. Although he couldn’t be sure, Jean didn’t think Levi even slept at all that night. Despite Jean’s best efforts, he didn’t think Armin was able to get much sleep either. On more than one occasion during Jean’s watch, Armin would start at the slightest rustle in the bushes, only to be calmed by Mikasa, who Jean suspected also slept very little.

When the sun finally came out, grittiness had settled into Jean’s bones. Disguised, sleeping outside and hidden like criminals, he didn’t like it. He had half a mind to tell Levi as much too, when he discussed their next plan of action, but held his tongue after multiple warning looks from Armin and his other friends.

When they finally got to Stohess, Jean wanted to clear his head so he’d volunteered to gather whatever information he could. They were already there because of a supposed “suspicious” delivery of coffins during the night which Levi wanted to investigate. When he finally returned to the dingy horse-hold at the edge of town he had little new valuable information to offer –only more bitterness after hearing the citizens distrust.

“Even if the captain orders me to do it, to kill people, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I didn’t sign up for this bullshit.” Jean’s gritty negativity had fermented over the course of that morning.

Connie and Sasha, who’d been unusually quiet since leaving the outskirts of Trost, voiced their agreement, and then some.

“Captain Levi is probably just gonna slap us around until we do it his way–just like he did to Historia!”

“He probably just wants her to be Queen so he can boss her around then, too.”

Armin was looking up at Jean from his spot on the ground. “Don’t be like this you guys. If we start second guessing everything now, how are we going to get Eren back? Mikasa, don’t you agree?”

Despite the dark circles under her eyes, Mikasa said her next words with a surprising amount of calm. “I think we have a lot of difficulties ahead of us. At this point, I think trusting the Captain is our best bet. If you guys aren’t ready to do that, you better make up your mind soon. Last-minute decisions are rarely constructive.”

There was a weird tone of finality in what she said.

So they waited.

Not feeling like idly grooming his horse, Jean sat down next to Armin. There was a weird atmosphere somehow. Jean didn’t like it.

“So are you mad at me?”

Armin kept staring ahead, even as he answered. The dark circles under his eyes contrasted his light skin almost as much as Mikasa’s. “I’m not mad at you Jean. I talk tough because we need to be tough. Eren needs us to be tough. I don’t actually want to kill anybody. Hopefully things won’t get that messy. But…” he sighed and leaned his head against the wooden wall. “I guess if I was ordered to kill someone in order to save Eren, how could I really say no? In the long run we just need to assume it’s worth it. It’s all for humanity, right?”

Jean just let the question hang in the air. Armin was nothing if not reasonable. Painfully so in fact. Jean didn’t know what to say.

“You look pale. Did you eat today? Make sure you take care of yourself after all this shit is over, alright?”

Armin just squeezed his hand in response.

“Did you guys hear that?” Sasha was sticking her head out into the street, leaning through one of the large windows in the stable.

“Gunfire?” Armin asked. Jean couldn’t hear anything, and by the looks of everyone else’s faces neither could they. But Sasha was good with this sort of thing.

“Yes! Gunfire! Multiple shots!”

“Okay, we need to switch strategies like we planned.” Armin was already heading to one of the stalls to bring out horses for the cart. “Sasha, can you tell where they shots came from?”

“Yes I think so –I think they’re headed this way?” Bang. Jean could just barely hear it this time. “And they’re moving fast! Armin just be ready in the cart, we’ll follow on horse!”

In a hurry the rest of them brought out their saddled horses to the streets. The original plan assumed Levi and the others would be able to follow the coffin-cart undetected, then all of them would continue the chase on the other side of the gates. The gunshots meant that somehow they had been discovered. Now the chase would be more chaotic, with the two groups separated and their cover ultimately lost.

Jean’s horse shifted nervously beneath him.

“They’re getting closer…” Sasha was straight-backed in her saddle and looking intently down the road.

Before Jean could fully comprehend what was happening, figures were started zooming in from around the corner.

Three-dimensional maneuver gear?

They got closer, continually swinging themselves above the rooftops. It looked the ones in the bulky-looking gear where all shooting at the one who seemed to move so fast Jean couldn’t quite make out who the blur was. Which could only mean it was Levi.

As they passed, now nearly directly overhead and still thankfully ignoring all of them on their horses, a splash of blood and—

Jean’s stomach churned as he saw the innards of someone cut almost cleanly in half splash to the ground, body appearing to hover in the air momentarily before gravity finally kicked in and it slumped unnaturally.

Jean felt cold sweat sticking his clothes to his skin. “Holy shit…”

Levi, finally taking note of them, motioned for them to move to the next block, where Armin was waiting.

Catching up to the moving cart, Jean could hear Levi barking orders.

“We can’t continue after Eren and Historia now –it’s too risky. There are others waiting to kill any Scouting Legion troops they find. We have no choice but to fight back if we’re to get out alive. Armin, keep driving steady, if you can. Sasha, Connie, lead the horses. Jean you need to return fire at the rooftop. Mikasa and I are going to go fight back and hopefully we can all get out of here alive. Everyone understand?”

Mikasa was the only one Jean heard reply, a dark look eerily similar to Levi’s on her face.

Jean tried to forget the man cut in two, his body folded irregularly on the pavement, blood trailing down the road…

Suddenly there were more enemies in the air, just above and in front of them. The sounds of Mikasa and Levi launching upwards barely registered as Jean made a shaky transfer onto the cart, gun pointed upwards.

And again, right in his line of vision Jean watched maneuver cables shoot right through someone’s skull. He reflexively looked away.

“Jean??” It was Armin. Right, Armin was driving the cart. Jean could hear himself spewing nervous bafflegab as he tried to steady his gun again. But again he was interrupted, this time by Mikasa’s form swinging just a few feet above the cart, another woman’s body tumbling heavily next to Jean, shoving him to the back end.

Gun. Right. My gun. I just need to…

Jean aimed his rifle at the woman in close proximity. “Don’t you dare move!” His voice cracked in fear. She looked up at him with her human face, blood streaming from a broken nose.

“Jean!” Armin was yelling his name again.

The girl made a motion of straightening up.

“I-I told you not to move!” Jean tried yelling more forcefully this time, the muzzle of his gun so close it was just a small jolt away from tapping her shoulder. But he knew he couldn’t shoot. From the first time he saw her face and hesitated he knew he couldn’t do it. And maybe she knew it too.

She swung her arm out and knocked Jean over, sending his gun flying. Wrong decision was the only stupid thought going through his head as his back painfully hit the back of the wagon and he watched his gun spin in the air.

Now he was the one with a gun pointed at his face. Time seemed to lag, and all he could do was stare uselessly into the woman’s face. Was he dead yet? Had he not noticed the trigger being pulled? Maybe getting a bullet to your head doesn’t hurt after all…?

And like a ball pushed down a hill everything seemed to happen all at once –a gunshot ringed out. It took a moment for Jean to realize it didn’t come from the gun at his face. Mikasa zoomed past him a second after. Jean‘s hat flew off the back of the cart along with the body, blood streaming from her face.

“Just a bit more until we’re out of the city!” Armin. Armin.

The shot had come from Armin’s gun.

Chapter Text

Jean just stayed leaned back against the side of the cart as the action carried on around him. While Mikasa and Levi continued their counterattack against the enemies overhead, Jean was still trying to calm his frantically beating heart.

He was alive. Jean had seen a lot of people die in the past few minutes, but he hadn’t been one of them.

“THE GATE! I’m heading to the gate!” Armin was yelling from the front of the cart, rattling in his seat as the horses continued running at full speed. Jean could vaguely hear the sound of other horses galloping behind them; Connie and Sasha following with the rest of the horses.

“JEAN! Where are Mikasa and Levi? We need to regroup NOW! The longer we wait around in town the more attention we’re going to bring to ourselves!” Armin clearly meant it, as he showed no signs of slowing down as the gate ahead drew closer and closer.

Jean tried to sit up a little, gripping the edges of the cart for balance. BAM –another shot. He scanned the sky for anyone wearing 3DMG. He saw a body fall from the sky, and then a figure swinging right towards him…!

There was a soft thud as Mikasa landed next to him.

“M-Mikasa’s here.”

“Jean are you okay? Armin what about you? I just saw Levi, he’s taking care of our last pursuer.”

“Well he better hurry up because I’m not stopping--!”

The cart rattled as it raced along, the arched exit leading to the interior of wall Rose glowing a softly from the clear space outside.

“Won’t the garrison try to stop us?” Jean had almost forgot about the faction in charge of maintaining the walls.

Mikasa, crouched next to Jean, snorted.

A uniformed man momentarily stepped into the road ahead, waving his hands to get them to slow down. He scrambled out of the way when he realized they showed no signs of stopping.

The wall. Momentary darkness, and suddenly the world opened out in front of them again, tinged yellow by the approaching evening.

“Good work everyone!”

Looking behind him, Jean saw Levi riding one of the horses tethered to Sasha’s lead. He must have gotten on just in time. Although he was dirty and had blood staining his clothes in more than one area, he seemed to be fine.

“We got rid of our pursuers –although their leader is still out there somewhere. Armin, keep moving until we’re well out of any small towns. We need to find somewhere to rest for the night. Preferably somewhere with a roof this time.”

Armin kept up the breakneck speed –his single-minded determination had them hidden in a small copse with an abandoned barn within the hour, but by the time they’d arrived Jean was worried both about the condition of their horses and Armin’s rationality.

“Sasha, I think I’ve got some minor injuries. Could you…?”

“Of course, Captain.” Sasha and Levi were already leading their horses inside. Now that some time had passed, it was obvious some of the blood on Levi’s shirt was his own, having spread across his shirt during the ride.

“Jean could you help me with some of these boxes? Sasha’s gonna have a hell of a time sewing up Levi without the first aid kit.” Connie had one of the large boxes from the cart settled into his arms.

“Right. Just, uh, I’ll be a second.” He was momentarily impressed by his friends and their ability to take this in stride. Jean looked down at his trembling hands and thought it unlikely he’d even be able to hold a needle, much less sew. Sew skin.

Shrugging, Connie continued inside with his box, walking a little awkwardly under the weight of it.

Armin was still sitting up front, hands white at the knuckles from how hard he gripped the reins. His eyes were glued ahead, jaw shut tight. Jean walked into his line of vision, trying to appear calm in contrast. He shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Armin? Are you –do you want to come inside?” A knot was forming in his stomach.

“Jean please. I’m fine. I’ll be in soon.” The words were tight, heavy, and he was still holding the reins. Armin wasn’t looking at him, but Jean could see the dark horror creeping into the blue eyes.

“Jean.” He hadn’t noticed Mikasa walk up next to him. “Could you take these two horses inside? I’m going to check the condition of the cart with Armin. Tell the captain we’ll be in soon.”

He could tell he was being told to leave. But Mikasa’s words seemed to have gotten Armin to finally release the horses. Jean took them and went to join everyone else.

He tied them up in the half-decayed stalls. He knew he should probably be helping with something. Fetch some water for the horses. Carry in more of those boxes. Help Connie sort through the hodge-podge of supplies. But the knot in his stomach seemed to drain him of energy and he collapsed against one of the walls. He wanted to be out there, making Armin feel better. And maybe…

He was momentarily filled with disgust as he realized a part of him –the selfish part –wanted someone to make him feel better too. As if he hadn’t made Armin’s day difficult enough already.

For the first time Jean wondered if maybe he wasn’t good for Armin.

He felt his eyes sting and stubbornly tried to clear his head.

What was he feeling? Shitty, he thought half-heartedly, but that wasn’t what he was getting at. What if he’d shot the woman when he had the chance? Would he be the one outside right now, dealing with the repercussions? What if Armin had been like Jean, and unwilling to actually shoot at another human being? Would he be lying in the street right now, a note sent to his mother by the authorities saying he’d been killed while serving the traitorous, murdering Survey Corps?

And here I am, feeling sorry for myself.

Jean just sat in silence, eyes boring holes in the barn wall. His companions seemed unwilling to break the eerie silence that had fallen over the group.

Eventually Mikasa came by to break him out of his stupor.

“How’s Armin?” he heard the question tumble out of his mouth. At the edges of his existential and moral questioning, he knew Armin was suffering the most. Armin wasn’t like Mikasa. Or Levi. While gifted in knowing the right course of action, Armin lacked whatever people like Erwin had which allowed them to make, and take, sacrifice in stride.

“Still outside.” She replied, handing him one of the rifles. He supposed they were doing guard shifts again.

“I see.”

He took the weapon and stood up. The heavy object felt mocking. He gripped it tighter.

He was hit with a wave of dread as he left the barn into the chilly air. What was he going to say? What could he possibly offer that Mikasa hadn’t?

It was dark enough now that only a splash of colour was seen in the sky, pushed off to the side by the advancing indigo, some of the brightest stars already visible there. Armin was sitting on a boulder, back towards Jean and the barn, slumped forward slightly.

“Hey stranger. Want to keep me company while I’m on watch?”

There were a few terribly quiet seconds and then finally, “I guess so.”

Jean found a spot on the rock next to Armin. It was still light enough to make out his face. The tension that had been there before was gone, and now he just looked tired. And Jean had a suspicion he’d been crying. A lot.

Not one for beating around the bush, Jean got right to the point. “Thank you, Armin. For being braver than me.”

“Don’t. Please don’t thank me for killing someone.”

Jean went to reach for Armin’s hand, resting between them on the rock, but Armin yanked it away.

“Jean someone is dead!” In the distance, a couple of birds flew out of the treetops, startled by the sound.

Suddenly the tables turned, and Jean felt like he was being pushed to play devil’s advocate. But how could he convince Armin he did the right thing when even he wasn’t able to convince himself to do the same thing when the gun was pointed at his own head?

“They aren’t dead because you shot them though, Armin! Well, ok. Yes they are… but if they’d made different choices, if they had been the ones in the Survey Corps, or running a bakery or picking daisies out in a field, you wouldn’t have killed them. Hell, you know what, if you didn’t kill them, then Levi would have done it. Or Mikasa! Mikasa killed people today too Armin --!”

He’d almost said but she isn’t out here crying about it. “—but you don’t think any less of her, do you? That woman was an enemy… she was going to die either way. This isn’t what we signed up for, sure, but we did sign up to save humanity, right? I’m not sure where this plays into everything yet, maybe you do, because you’re smart like that, but when… fuck Armin, I’ll make sure my life is worth something, okay?” Jean’s eyes began to sting again but he forced some composure. “I’ll contribute something to humanity, I’ll make this whole shitty day worth it okay?”

Armin was staring at him with wide eyes. He didn’t seem to know what to say.

“So… don’t beat yourself up, alright? Because I really do think you did the best possible thing considering the circumstances. I know you probably would have done it for anyone but… I’m just so glad I’m still here to spend another day with you…” Bit by bit he was starting to realize the significance of what had happened. He wouldn’t be here discussing morality if he were dead.

“Don’t you see Armin? What you did… it has almost nothing to do with that woman. Mikasa would have gotten to her just seconds after she shot me in the face—“

“Jean…” Armin pleaded weakly.

“—so her death, arguably, has nothing to do with you shooting her, and was entirely determined this morning when she decided to go along with, well, whoever they were. Me on the other hand…”

“Jean…”

Jean did his best attempt at a smile. “I guess all I’m trying to say is that I’m grateful Armin. I’m sorry you had to go through any of that, but for what it’s worth I… I’ll make sure it was worth it. I’ll keep fighting for humanity. And fighting for you.”

Armin slowly grabbed Jean’s hand and gave it a feeble squeeze. It was cold, a little clammy and felt strangely foreign pressed against his own. But he supposed it meant his words weren’t falling on deaf ears. If he could talk until dawn knowing he’d be able to make Armin forget the whole experience he would.

“Okay.”

“Okay.” Right. Great. Except… Jean tried to mentally comb through everything he’d just said. “Umm, okay to what exactly?”

“Stay with the Survey Corps Jean. Help us save humanity. It’s petty, but make that woman’s life, her death, mean something.”

“And that’ll make you feel better?”

“Ultimately, probably not… Not in regards to dealing with what happened today at least. But…” Armin inched slightly closer. “You were right; having you here with me makes me feel better. And having you in the Survey Corps.” There was a moment’s hesitation. “I thought –you made it sound like you were considering running away. Earlier.”

“Hah.” It was unusually selfish of Armin. It wasn’t blatant, but Armin was asking him to stay. Jean gave Armin a nudge, hoping to lighten the mood. “I don’t think I would have been able to leave anyways, not really. How would I know if you were okay?”

What if their positions had been switched? What if Armin had been the one at gunpoint, would Jean have been able to pull the trigger? His hands reflexively tightened, one around the cold barrel of the gun, and the other around the digits of the clammy hand.

Despite not being able to pull the trigger to save his own life, Jean knew without a doubt that he would have done it to save Armin’s.

“Hey Armin? Don’t freak out.”

He tensed and whispered “Why, what is it?” He must have thought Jean spotted something unusual in the dark.

“I think I love you.”

“Jean!”

“I mean it!”

“No you don’t!” A chuckle, then another, and even as Armin removed his hand so he could wrap it behind Jean’s back and pull them closer together he was laughing.

“Rude! And how would you know? Smarty-pants??” Jean freed his hand to poke at what was approximately Armin’s stomach and let the rifle tip fall to the ground. That got a few more laughs out of the blonde, before they finally died down.

“Because,” Armin let his head slump against Jean’s shoulder and sighed. “Being in love is too sad.”

Jean digested the words slowly, trying to make sense of them. They weren’t spoken in grief. Merely as though it were a regrettable fact. Jean thought about Armin’s family, what it must be like to have everyone you love be gone.

Jean ruffled Armin’s hair aimlessly (“hey…!”) and sat in silence for a bit. The night sky was beautiful. Jean wanted to comment on it, but suddenly felt like that would be too cheesy. Funny, considering he’d just been wearing his heart on his sleeve.

“Hey Arm?”

“Mmm.”

“What did Mikasa say when she came out here?”

Jean craned his neck to try to get a look at Armin’s face, still resting peacefully against his shoulder. It was getting hard to see now, but Jean knew they would be building a fire soon.

“Let’s just say she brought up love a lot more abruptly than you did. She has… first-hand experience in things like this.”

He felt his cheeks flare up at the word love but ignored it. “The world’s a scary place, isn’t it?”

“Yeah but I think we’ll be okay.”

Chapter Text

Armin was just awake enough to register the movement of blankets then the soft ziiip of the tent flap being pulled down slightly.

“Brr! ‘Still chilly out there.” Armin opened his eyes a crack to see Jean crouched on all fours near the front of their tent, head sticking out the unzipped gap at the top, butt unceremoniously in Armin’s direction. It must have been the loss of body heat that initially woke Armin up –now that he was leaving the fog of sleep he missed the wall of warmth that had been pressed up against his back as he slept.

Balling himself up tighter but leaving his eyes open, Armin asked, “D’you know what time it is? How long have we been sleeping?”

“Hah,” Jean brought his head back in and zipped the tent back up and looked back at Armin with a big grin on his face, “no idea! How weird is this, right? ”

As they travelled further and further north, they noticed the days were getting shorter and shorter –with approximately 7 hours of daylight it was hard to tell if the darkness meant it was the middle of the night or just dinner time.

Armin chuckled. “Well, I’m glad you still find it entertaining. Personally I’m missing the sun. I hope we didn’t sleep right through it…” Armin already had his suspicions that if they stuck around long enough things would eventually reverse themselves –giving them hours of blearing sunshine they’d probably grow sick of as much as the nighttime. Still, he much preferred continuing when they had enough light to see where they were going,

Jean had crawled back to his corner of the blankets, and was digging around for his clothes.

“You ready to head out already?”

Jean tightened the laces on his thick winter boots. “You take your time. I’m just feeling a little restless; I’m going to go start on the fire, ‘k?”

Armin smiled to himself. Sometimes Jean’s restlessness had him inching closer to Armin’s side instead of leaving the tent, leaving trails of kisses on whatever skin he could find until Armin finally gave in. They could always catch up on missed sleep later –they’d long since learned the expanses of boreal forest and craggy shorelines would still be there waiting for them when they were ready.

“Alright.”

Suited-up for the extremities, Jean left.

Armin rolled onto his back, staring at the expanse of tent above him. It felt awfully quiet now. If he strained his ears he could just barely make out the sounds of Jean’s boots in the patches of melty snow outside. He should get dressed and help Jean with the fire, get something cooking for—

“Armiiiin!” Suddenly the sounds of Jean’s boots came pit-pattering back, his shadow faintly visible just outside the tent in the dull light. “Arm!”

Armin sat up quickly. Was it another one of those white bears? “Do you need the gun?”

But suddenly Jean was laughing. Puzzled and a little bit miffed Armin let him carry on.

“No no, nothing bad. Just –I lied, hurry up and get out here! I don’t think you’ll want to miss this.”

Finding his boots against the side he slipped them on, wrapping his oversized jacket haphazardly about himself and opening the entrance.

“Jean what is---“ His sentence stopped, his mouth left hanging open as Jean beamed at him, hand outstretched to help him out. Just beyond, behind his boyfriend’s smiling face, the sky was moving, shimmering lazily with green light, tipped with the faintest of purple, overlaid on top of the usual clear starry sky.

Armin took the hand being offered to him and shakily stood up, eyes still focused on the view above. “What is it?”

Now that Armin was standing properly Jean wrapped his arm around his shoulders, and lead him a few steps away.

“What’d’ya think? Guess we don’t need to wait for the sun to come back out after all?”

It wasn’t often Armin was at a loss for words. But right now, at what must truly, finally, be the edge of the earth, with the breeze nipping his nose and Jean’s arm wrapped firmly around him, Armin had the familiar, vague impression that if this was the last moment he ever lived, he’d be happy. But experience told him there was still more out there, and many more moments just like this one. So he just squeezed his partner’s hand and said simply, like all the times before,

“I love you Jean.”