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“You hoped she’d stay out longer, huh.”
“What?” Jean swiveled sideways on his bar stool, finding himself face-to-face with Pieck. His eyes narrowed. “Where the hell did you come from?”
She was standing close beside him, tucked between his stool and Connie, who had been trying his luck with one of the locals for at least half an hour to no avail. Jean had been briefly entertained by his friend’s abysmal flirtation skills, but eventually he found himself staring into the bottom of his drink, only half aware of his surroundings. Last he'd checked—yeah, he'd checked, so what?—Pieck had been on the other side of the bar with Reiner and Armin. But now she was here, elbow resting on the bar top, those dark, sleepy eyes of hers boring into his.
“Don’t play dumb,” she said.
He could see a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips, and he scowled, turning his face forward and tapping his empty tankard on the countertop to get the barman’s attention. The man noticed and reached for it, silently refilling and handing it back, but he wasn’t looking at Jean—his eyes were focused on Pieck.
Jean felt his body grow tense in an instant, his fight-or-flight response on high alert now that they were back on Paradis. It was impossible to know what any given local might think of their group, especially the Marleyans. He knew Pieck, Annie, and Reiner didn’t necessarily define themselves that way, never considered “true” Marleyans by their government, but that was how most people on the island of Paradis saw the former warriors, and even Jean was still learning to shake that mentality. For so long, it had been ‘us versus them.’
Despite his unconscious biases and the fact that Pieck was bugging the shit out of him right now, if someone tried to hurt her… Jean’s grip tightened around the handle of his drink.
Pieck looked from Jean to the barman, tucking a wave of hair behind her ear. “I’ll have another, too,” she said, and flashed him a smile. Amazing, the things she could accomplish with that smile. The man behind the bar poured a drink for her without a moment’s hesitation, slid it across the counter with a smile of his own.
“On the house,” he said.
Pieck’s grin slowly widened, and Jean stared at her. She clearly did not need his assistance. Her dark eyes crinkled at the corners whenever she smiled, her irises taking on an almost inhuman sparkle. It completely transformed her face every time, like a magic trick. It was disarming.
And just as quickly, it fell away, the spell broken as the bartender moved on to serve someone else and Pieck returned her attention to Jean. He realized he was staring, and he cleared his throat, lifting his drink to his lips. Before he could take a sip, Pieck lifted her cup, tapping it against his so that a little of the ale sloshed over the side and onto his hand.
“Damnit, Pieck—”
“For luck,” she explained, as if it were the most logical thing in the world, and then took a gulp from her own drink.
Jean let out an exasperated sigh, wiping his hand off on his jacket.
“You’re a pain, you know that?” he said, eying her.
Pieck frowned, though Jean couldn’t tell if she was actually wounded by his comment or if she was just trying to make him feel like a jerk. “What’s your problem tonight?” she asked.
Jean tore his gaze away from hers and focused on chugging down about half of his drink in one go. He knew he was being hostile, and he wasn’t normally like this, not with her anyway. In fact, she’d become one of his closest friends. But she was right—he’d known exactly what she meant when she’d sidled up to him a few minutes before, and he was annoyed that she could read him so easily.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have teased you about Mikasa,” she said after a beat.
Jean slammed his tankard down, his face growing hot with a combination of alcohol and shame. “Would you quit it with that? There’s nothing to—I’m not—” he spluttered.
“Okay, okay!” Pieck chuckled. “I’ll stop. I should be nicer,” she offered thoughtfully. She glanced over her shoulder, where Connie had pushed himself to stand and was following after the girl he’d been talking to. The girl was leading him towards the door by the hand, laughing at something he’d said. “Looks like someone’s finally getting lucky,” Pieck mused, dropping herself into Connie’s abandoned seat.
Jean looked over in their direction, some of his agitation melting away as soon as he saw the expression on Connie’s face. He looked happy.
“Good for him,” Jean said—a little too earnestly, so he promptly added, “I mean, maybe not for her, but…”
Pieck snickered and took a long swig of her drink. Jean wondered if she was trying to catch up to him.
“I'm sorry,” he said after a moment. “I'm not trying to be an asshole, I'm just…” he faltered. The younger version of him never would have apologized for something like this in the first place, but he was trying to be better these days, to grow up a little. He knew he was lucky to have the chance. Still, he couldn't quite articulate what it was that was making him act this way.
“It's no big deal,” she replied. “Everyone's on edge today. I know it must be weird for all of you, being back here.”
Jean rubbed at the stubble on his jaw. “Tell me about it.” He took another swig from his drink, and then peered into the tankard, catching a glimpse of his own eye reflected in the surface of the ale. “When we left, I didn't really think we were leaving, you know? I didn't think about it at all, I guess. You always expect moments like that to be big and meaningful, but we were just…”
“Trying to survive,” Pieck finished for him.
Jean nodded, tipping back what was left of his drink and swallowing against the ever-present ache of sadness in his throat. If he just kept drinking, it might dissolve.
“Hey, look at us apologizing to each other,” Pieck said, leaning sideways against the bar, one elbow supporting her weight. She lifted her foot, poked the toe of her boot against his leg. “It's almost like we're friends.”
Jean eyed her, noticing the way she angled her body towards his, her legs crossed at the knee, arm dangling off the bar top. She always draped herself over and against things, cat-like and self-assured. Jean wasn’t the most touchy-feely person, but he didn’t mind it so much with Pieck. On long trips she often fell asleep—the girl was always falling asleep—and when she rested her head on his arm or stretched out with her feet in his lap, he let her. There was something so comfortable about her, her presence calming in a way he couldn’t quite explain to himself, not even after three years of time spent around her. Friendship. That was it, wasn’t it?
He reached out and tapped his knuckles against the rim of her drink, which was still half-full. “Friends don't let friends drink alone, so bottoms up,” he said.
Pieck accepted his challenge wordlessly, lifted her drink to her lips, and chugged.
Jean grinned for the first time that night and gestured to the bartender for another round.
—
Pieck knew that Jean was in love with Mikasa. Everyone knew, including Mikasa, and everyone knew that everyone knew, including Jean, but for some reason he continued to put on a performance of nonchalance. Pieck supposed Jean was trying to give Mikasa space with the hope that she would eventually come around—or perhaps he was just trying to protect himself.
Either way, it was clearly making him miserable.
Mikasa had come out to the bar with the group after their first day of “peaceful negotiations” with Paradis, which was long, challenging, and essentially fruitless. She’d stayed for less than an hour, and most of that time was spent huddled in a booth with Armin, the two of them likely waxing nostalgic about Eren and the time they’d spent here as children.
Before leaving, Mikasa approached Jean and the two interacted briefly, though Pieck couldn’t hear what they were saying. She did notice the way Jean’s body language changed when he was talking to Mikasa. He became less rigid, softer, the harshness of trauma melting from his face if only in those moments of exchange. But the second Mikasa turned away, his walls flew up again — a facade of invulnerability that Pieck found it incredibly easy to see through.
She didn’t feel bad about watching people. She’d spent much of her life watching, waiting, developing keen skills of observation that served her much differently now than they had in battle. She knew things about the others in their group that they probably didn’t even know about themselves. Especially Jean—not necessarily because he was less self-aware than the others, but because she watched him the most.
She knew that he was a good leader, even when riddled with self-doubt, and that he would gladly throw himself in harm’s way if it meant protecting someone else. She knew that he would only hesitate when it came to dealing a critical blow, that he was haunted by every death he’d ever been responsible for and plenty that he hadn’t been. She knew that he liked his coffee sweet, preferred cold weather to hot, hated being earnest and loved getting into arguments, and that his laugh was obnoxiously loud.
When he was upset, he got quiet. He’d been awfully quiet since Mikasa had left the bar.
Pieck sometimes struggled with knowing the right time to say something, or whether to say it at all. Jean was the first person she’d ever met who was like her in that way. He was honest to a fault. In that regard, the main difference between them was that Pieck was a much better liar. Still, they both had a tendency to say things that other people didn’t want or need to hear.
She’d brought up Mikasa because they ribbed each other all the time and he never seemed to mind—often encouraged it, ever fond of trading insults with the people he was closest to. But his reaction tonight let her know that there were some things she couldn’t tease him about, and his feelings for Mikasa fell into that category.
So now, like a good friend, Pieck was making up for her error. They sipped at their next drinks in near silence, sitting with their backs against the bar and people-watching. Sometimes they muttered observations or judgements to each other so that no one else could hear. He could use a haircut, or, that guy’s in for a rough morning. When Pieck spun around in her seat to face the bartender and ordered two of something stronger, Jean didn’t stop her. They drank more. She taught him a card game she’d learned from a Marleyan soldier in her youth, and Jean made her play until he beat her. Eventually they stole two cigarettes from Reiner, lit them off a candle on the bar, and then, too warm from the liquor and the crowd lingering inside, wandered out to smoke in the cool, quiet dark.
Jean only smoked when he was drunk, and Pieck took advantage of the view. There was something about the tightness in his jaw when he dragged on a cigarette that lit her chest on fire. Of course, she only ever saw it when she’d been drinking too, so maybe that was why. She tried not to overthink it, and focused instead on his face, the cigarette’s tip diffusing a soft orange glow over his sharp features and highlighting the strands of his hair that had fallen out of place.
“You were right,” he said. He wasn’t looking at her, his eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance as he blew a thin stream of smoke from the corner of his mouth. “I thought things might be different this time. I don’t know why I expected that.”
Pieck shrugged her shoulders, taking a careful draw from her own cigarette. Above them, the moon was a skinny crescent neither here nor there. They stood in silence for a few minutes, staring at it, their tendrils of smoke floating upwards to twist together before dissipating.
“It’s not like there are rules,” she said finally. “You can’t blame yourself for having hope.”
Jean hissed a laugh under his breath, dropping his gaze. He took a final crackling pull from his cigarette and flicked the stub to the ground. “I can blame myself for anything I want.”
Pieck glanced at him sidelong. “Can I blame you for anything I want?”
“Depends. Was it my fault?” He smirked at her, and she let out a full-throated laugh.
—
Pieck’s laugh was like her smile. Mesmerizing. When she really laughed, which she barely ever did, she tilted her head back and shut her eyes. Jean laughed too, satisfied that he was clever enough to amuse someone like her without having to try very hard. He felt natural with her, like he could be himself without having to worry if he was too much—or worse—not enough.
She turned to face Jean full-on, tilting her head to the side as she gazed up at him. “I’ll tell you what is your fault.” She took a final drag from her cigarette and then dropped the butt to the ground between them, taking another step closer to crush it beneath the sole of her boot. When she spoke, smoke leaked from between her lips, and Jean found himself actively trying not to look at them. “You spent all that time fixing your hair earlier, and you still managed to mess it up.”
She lifted both of her hands and raised them to Jean’s face, her fingertips brushing the loose strands back from his forehead. Her hands were cool against his heated skin, his face flushed from drinking and laughing and the adrenaline that pumped through him any time he and Pieck were standing this close together. She had elegant hands with long, tapered fingers, and when she smoothed his hair back into place with an expert’s precision, he couldn’t help but bow his head into her touch. It felt good.
Now that she was touching him, he allowed himself to take in the sight of her, her thick eyelashes and pink lips. The shadows accentuated the aquiline curve of her nose, and something about the shine of her grey eyes in the moonlight made him think of the first time he’d ever seen the sea. The way it seemed to stretch out endlessly, shimmering.
“You sure are concerned about my hair,” he murmured.
“So are you,” she countered.
“Yeah, but it’s my hair.”
“So? I’m the one who has to look at you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“What are you getting at?” she asked.
“Just admit it. You like looking at me.”
Just as Pieck dropped her hands from Jean’s hair, he reached up and caught her wrists, one in each hand. He held her there, his thumbs pressing lightly into the spot just below the heels of her palms where he could feel her pulse hammering beneath her skin. She let out a breath of surprise, but she didn’t pull away. The low din of chatter emanating from the bar barely reached their ears over the sound of frogs and crickets and, somewhere in the distance, an owl, but Jean couldn’t hear any of it, just the sound of his own heart in his ears.
He pulled her towards him.
Their lips met, and Pieck pushed herself onto her toes to make herself taller, deepening the kiss. Jean released her wrists and Pieck slipped her arms over his shoulders, pressing her body flush against his. Her lips were warm and soft and giving, and he could feel her hands at the back of his neck, her fingernails digging into his skin. His hands found her waist, palms sliding down her lower back, her ass, her thighs, and then he was lifting her off the ground, pulling her up to his chest. She was slow to react, laughing against Jean’s mouth as they lost balance and stumbled slightly, but she figured it out and knotted her legs around his hips so that he could carry her the few paces to the wall of the nearest building—the windowless side of the bar.
They made it, breathless and laughing, and he propped her back against the structure, pinning her there with his hips. She tightened her legs around him, tilted her chin towards the sky as he trailed urgent kisses along the column of her neck. But when his lips found hers again, Pieck knotted her fingers in his hair, tugging his head back so that he was forced to meet her eyes.
“Jean…”
He searched her face, trying to figure out if she was signaling for him to stop, put her down, leave her alone, get away from her—but she only smiled at him.
“I like looking at you,” she said.