Chapter Text
“Goddammit, Eren!” Jean slammed his palm against the steering wheel, glancing in the rear-view mirror to see the gas station shrinking in the distance. “What were you doing that was so fucking important?!”
“Fuck you, Jean, I was refilling the water jug. You know damn well we might not get another opportunity.”
Jean sighed heavily and leaned back against the seat.
“Christ.”
It was a close call. The building was well behind them now, along with the those sneaky shuffling assholes. Eren had wandered off. He almost got left behind.
“Eren! Eren where are you?!” Jean yelled. He was looking into the dead, glazed eyes of three members of the newest blight on the world. It felt like years since Patient Zero. Holding a baseball bat raised in defense, he backed swiftly towards the driver’s door of the old pickup. “EREN,” he could hear the panic creeping into his voice. Eren was nowhere to be seen. Jean climbed into the vehicle and started the engine. He saw motion near the small building, and suddenly Eren was racing towards him, legs pumping furiously, carrying a gallon of water.
“Why didn't you just take off, man?” Eren asked, his voice calmer now that the immediate threat had passed. “Nothing personal, right?” Nothing personal. That’s what they decided when they took up traveling together. If the situation is dire, self-preservation comes first.
Jean didn't look at Eren, who was staring out the window, watching the flat ground pass by. He didn't answer the question. Because I don’t want to be alone in this Hell on Earth. I can’t be alone if we make it home and…
The silence thickened as they came upon more wreckage. Cars overturned and battered, a semi-truck sideways in a ditch, a burnt husk of what it once was. Carnage strewn across the asphalt. It still made Jean sick to his stomach, worried that his loved ones were strewn across a road somewhere. One of the Affected was shuffling along the median. It saw them and moved with more urgency, but it wasn’t a runner, and it wasn't long before the macabre shuffling image was far behind them.
“Where are we?”
“Somewhere outside of Colombia, Missouri.”
They’d made great progress since they’d found the truck in a driveway in Indiana that afternoon, door wide open and key in the ignition. The find was impossibly lucky, and now they were only a few hours’ drive away from home.
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Something hit him in the face, and Jean bolted upright.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jean glowered at Eren, who was standing above him, pillow in hand. The dorm room was still a wreck from the weekend, even though it was already Wednesday.
“Your alarm’s been going off for the last five fucking minutes, and it’s 8 o’clock in the fucking morning! It’s supposed to wake your ass up, not mine!” He swung the pillow at Jean again, who blocked the assault. “If I have to listen to that godforsaken blaring one more time, I’m taking a hammer to that goddamn contraption!”
“Fuck you, Jaeger, if you weren't up all night playing Call of Duty with your dumbass friends, being woken up 2 hours early wouldn't be such a problem!” Jean and gotten out of bed and grabbed his own pillow, and now the two were squaring off in the middle of the cramped room, each poised for attack. “You come in here at 3 in the morning making a racket and waking up the whole damn dorm! Maybe if you gave a damn about my sleep for once, I’d care about yours!”
A knock on the door surprised them.
“Jean? Eren?” a small, nervous voice called from the hallway. It was the RA.
Opening the door, Jean looked at the short blonde sophomore who’d interrupted their fight.
“Hey, Armin. What’s up?” Jean inquired flatly.
“I, uh, heard yelling. I wanted to make sure everything was okay?” he said it as a question. The poor kid had only been an RA for a few months, and still seemed afraid of confrontation, especially with Jean and Eren. The two grumpiest people in the building, living in the same room.
“Same as usual.”
“Okay…well if you could keep it down, that would be great…some people are still trying to sleep.” and with that he walked back down the hall toward his room.
Jean closed the door and put the pillow back on his bed. Eren was already crawling back into his own bed.
“I feel kinda bad for him,” Eren said into his pillow.
“Why’s that?” Jean started getting dressed for class.
“He has the worst luck, getting us on his floor. I think he’s scared of us. I feel like he only took the job because he needed the free housing that comes with it.
“If you weren't such an asshole, his job wouldn't be so hard.”
“Tch, whatever. You’re the one that’s hard to live with.”
Jean tossed his pillow at the other boy’s head, and they both laughed.
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That was the last time they’d seen him alive.
“What now?” Eren’s voice brought him back to the terrible road they traveled. What now? What are you thinking about this time? Jean was still driving—it was a miracle they hadn't crashed while he was lost in thought.
“That kid RA,” he confessed, eyes glued to the road.
“Damn…”
They’d found him after the disease, or mutation, or whatever the fuck it is had started to spread on campus. That same afternoon, after classes, the screaming started. Some human, some not. They were in their room and saw some of the chaos through their window. They’d packed in a hurry and were rushing out of the building. They found Armin in the back stairwell, arm missing and throat ripped out. Jean had stopped and stared at the boy’s eyes, trained lifelessly on the ceiling, his mouth open as though in shock. He couldn't look away. The blood drenched his shirt. “Jean, we can’t hang around, we have to GO!” They left him there. That’s when they established their ‘nothing personal’ policy.
God knows how they’d survived the first two weeks on foot; sticking to less populated areas away from main roads, they were only armed with baseball bats and some rope until they hit Ohio, when they found two rifles and a handgun. Jean wasn't sure how useful they would be, since they had no backup ammunition and neither he nor Eren had any experience or knowledge of guns, but they kept them. When they found the truck earlier in the day, there was an ax in the passenger seat. The driver had tried to be prepared, but the blood stains on the exterior told Jean that whoever he or she had been, they weren't quick enough. He thought of his family and glanced at his hands on the wheel. The gold band on the left ring finger was still unmarred. Please let them all have been quick enough.
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“Why’d you get married so soon before you graduated? I didn't even know you had a girl.” Eren said when he noticed the new piece of jewelry on Jean’s left hand after they’d come back from Spring Break. They were in their respective beds, Eren laying on his back, staring at the ceiling, and Jean leaning against the wall, browsing the internet.
“It wasn't a Vegas deal, was it?”
“No, dude, don’t you know I’m a romantic?” Jean batted his eyes at his roommate. “Really though, we've been together like forever, and I didn't get married—just engaged.”
“So it’s an engagement ring? I thought that was just a girl thing.”
“It was my fiancé’s idea for me to wear one, too. That way the world knows we’re both committed.”
“Hmph, sounds like a potential Bridezilla to me.” Eren winced at the look Jean gave him.
“I mean…never mind. What is she like?”
“Out of your league.”
“Rude. Why haven’t you ever talked about her before, I’m surprised you never told me.”
“Probably because I hate you.” Jean replied, turning back to his laptop, a small smile playing on the corner of his mouth. Eren smiled back and let the subject drop.
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Please let them all be safe.