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Ymir will always be the first to admit that, sometimes, she’s difficult to take seriously. She gets it, she really does, but this is getting entirely out of hand—she might be a bit annoying, sure, and definitely sometimes a bit of a bitch, yes, but she’s certainly no liar.
In fact, contrary to popular belief, she’s quite sweet and mild-mannered off-camera. Quiet, as their wonderful manager, Hange, would describe. Mischievous by choice but quiet by nature. And sure, maybe she really is a little bit of a menace, but her playful naughtiness is a far stretch from whatever pedestal-of-promiscuity their fans had unfortunately placed her on. Ymir isn’t some cold, licentious bitch who goes around romancing the panties off of women and then leaving them sobbing in the dust—she’s far from it, actually.
Now, don’t get Ymir wrong; she doesn’t really care all that much.
It’s just funny and amusing, the way their fans flail about every time she smirks in their direction, thinking genuinely that they have a chance. It’s an interesting social experiment to see how they interact with her, even when Ymir’s openly admitted on live television and a multitude of interviews that she’s been married for the past six years and definitely not the sleep-around type.
What’s funnier is that, within the fandom dynamics of their band, nobody actually believes Ymir’s married, and not for the lack of trying either. She wears her wedding ring every day. She talks about her wife often. She posts images of a mystery blonde in various romantic situations. But even then, it’s something of a supposed running gag, something their fans think the band keeps bringing up as a residual inside joke.
Suffice to say, neither Ymir nor any of her bandmates are joking when they mention her “mysterious” wife. Ymir really is married—it’s just that nobody believes her for reasons that are beyond her understanding.
Apparently, it’s because she’s too sexy to be loyal. Ymir tries not to dwell too much on what that says about their fans’ perception of her. It’s a bit concerning, admittedly, but she shrugs it off anyway.
“Final song in five!”
Her back aches as she lifts the guitar strap from her shoulders, bones creaking and groaning and popping like a rusty machine kicked into compliance. She’s twenty-eight and far from the agile and energetic rockstar she used to be years ago, but any complaint dies a fast death on her tongue when Annie slaps her back with a rough hand. Two decades into their friendship and Ymir still wants to strangle her every time she does that, Annie’s tough palm rattling every single vertebra sitting on her back.
“What?” She heaves, half bent over.
“Hey, playboy,” the blonde whispers with a wink. In her other hand is a bra with the four letters to Ymir’s name embroidered with gold-colored thread. Ymir cringes, rolling her eyes.
“Oh, fuck off—that was funny seven years ago, but just tonight alone I’ve already collected—” she squints at where Connie puts away all the gifts thrown onto the stage, “—about thirteen bras.”
“But this one is embroidered,” Annie emphasizes, tracing the “Y” with a nail. Ymir groans, pushing the bra away as Annie cackles in the background. She can distantly hear Mikasa whispering something stern to the blonde, something about behaving and something about being disciplined, but Ymir doesn’t have the energy to gag before Annie reigns in the worst of her laughter, if for no other reason than to avoid getting on Mikasa’s bad side.
Ymir’s guitar is placed on its designated stand by the water station backstage. She should grab a cup of water, should sit down before the final song of the evening starts, but she’s so exhausted that even the short trek to the water station feels like it’s miles away. Her feet are rooted to the spot—there’s no moving from this aching position, not with the way her exhaustion runs so bone-deep.
Annie flings the embroidered bra in her direction and the left strap falls gracelessly over Ymir’s head, looping around her neck. She looks like an idiot, no doubt, and Moblit sends her a quizzical look as he runs by.
Poor Moblit, always juggling a million and one things at once.
“Keep it, hot stuff! It’s for you anyway!” Annie shouts. She’s immediately shoved to the side by Sasha and it’s a good thing too, because if Sasha didn’t push her, Ymir herself would’ve done so with far less mercy. “Or rather your sex symbol alter ego, I should say.”
“Ignore her,” Jean says as he walks by, drumsticks in hand, and that’s the end of that. They drink their waters and run the small staircase back up to the stage, and the last song of the evening begins with a strum of Ymir’s shiny, black guitar.
It’s a relatively basic song to play on her end, so she lets her mind wander aimlessly.
Ymir the Lead Guitarist of The 104th is an established player and flirt. Ymir the Lead Guitarist apparently gets bitches on the daily. According to every twitter thread analyzing her late-night (and rather bothersome) paparazzi shoots, she sports hickies from a new girl after every event, even if the perpetrator of all of her bruises is, in reality, only one woman.
She gets it. Between her height, sharp features, and dark freckles, she’s no stranger to the effect her charm and confidence has on the masses.
Ymir knows she’s hot shit—she’s known for long enough to have made a successful career out of it.
On the polar opposite end of the spectrum, Ymir the Normal Citizen is a married mom. She has a two-year-old adopted daughter and doesn’t understand why she must wash whites and colors separately while doing the laundry but does it anyway because it’s important to her wife. Ymir the Normal Citizen likes to do the cooking in her household because she enjoys the quietness of the kitchen and knows that Historia will come home exhausted and in need of a hot meal. Ymir Langnar-Reiss likes to provide, coddle, and dote.
Ymir Langnar-Reiss has only provided, coddled, and doted on one woman romantically since she was nineteen years old—current CEO of Reiss Enterprises and her partner for the past nine years, Historia Reiss.
Ymir hums softly, sharp, golden eyes scanning the crowd. Her fingers dance across the fretboard with practiced ease. Annie keeps the rhythm going steady and strong in the background on her guitar, her head thrown back and clearly feeling herself as she plays the main beat again and then again. Ymir can already imagine what all her aimless staring will lead to by the end of the night—some TikTok analysis or Twitter thread breakdown of Annie’s subsequent wink in her direction (and Ymir’s subsequent huff to said wink, even if she’s grinning ear to ear because, unlike what she makes it out to look like, she really does love Annie) mistaking their friendship for one of tension-ridden rivalry.
Mikasa, who sings such honied notes amidst their music, doesn’t have the time to see the interaction, can’t see them wink and blow kisses at one another because her eyes are closed tightly as she hits a particularly high note. Sasha notices their shenanigans though, as she always does, and snorts, rolling her eyes.
This is how they are and how they’ve always been—Ymir and Annie flirt, Mikasa and Sasha tease, Annie and Mikasa somehow flirt even more intensely than Ymir can, and Ymir and Sasha play pranks. Jean watches all of their chaos and craziness with a mischievous grin and a mug of coffee. On a good day he’ll join the pranks she and Sasha unleash on the rest, usually accompanied by their equally excited co-producer, Connie, but he’s otherwise known as the stability rod of the group; tall, strong, and very, very exhausted.
A stability rod who now delivers the final notes to the last song of their set, his drumsticks spinning in the air as he plays around with them in the aftermath of that echoing blow to the crash cymbal.
Applause thunders through the open-air stadium; another successful show.
Ymir’s wrist hurts, but the burn and stretch feel nice, the soreness welcome and exhilarating. Her cheeks hurt from smiling, but the grin is natural and real and she’s happy, genuinely happy, just being there.
“Thank you, everyone!” Mikasa shouts into the mic. Ymir shivers as Annie’s cold fingers grab her wrist, pulling her towards the microphone stand. Annie’s other arm is already encircling Mikasa’s waist, her guitar hanging around her shoulders by its strap alone. Sasha jumps up and cheers from somewhere in the background, picked up on piggyback by Jean as he joins the rest of them at the front of the stage for their final bow.
“Thank you!” Mikasa shouts again. “We’re The 104th, and we’re lucky to have you! Thank you, Trost!”
And then it’s done, and then they’re paraded out the venue, and then Ymir’s laying down on a leather couch inside their tour bus.
“Nice job today, Freckles,” the hand that ruffles her wet head isn’t as tough as Annie’s, but it’s still taunt with muscle and callouses. Ymir looks up to see Jean handing her a bottle of cold water, his ridiculous two-toned hair sticking to his forehead and nape. She has half the mind to tease him about it, too, but she’s already done that so much today that it wouldn’t hit as hard.
She croaks and nods tiredly instead. “You’re a godsend,” she thanks, and downs the water in one swift gulp.
“Mm,” he hums in agreement, chugging his own water without regard for how it dribbles down his chin. He’s already disgustingly sweaty anyway—might as well.
—
“How’d it go?”
Ymir smiles softly, her face illuminated brightly by the sharp fluorescent lights of the bus. These post-show check-ins are the only thing that keep her awake, even though she’s beyond the frame of the word ‘exhausted,’ even if she can’t possibly fathom standing up for the next week and some change.
For Historia, though, she’d endure the worst of this planet’s terrors, worst of any storm or illness, if it only meant that she could speak to her again.
Ymir cringes inwardly at her poetics. God, Annie’s right—they are the most obnoxious couple in the band.
“Good! Really good. I always enjoy playing this set.”
Historia hums softly, bouncing Frieda softly on her lap. Historia looks exhausted too, her eyes rimmed with bags, bruised from how little she must’ve slept. Ymir frowns at the sight, wants to reprimand her for not taking better care of herself, but then Historia smiles in that don’t even get started kind of way and Ymir loses the energy to say anything. Historia must’ve been awake since the godawful hours of the early morning and yet she still sits there, their sleepy daughter content on her lap, calling Ymir when it’s well past midnight in Mitras.
“How are my girls?”
“We’re good, we miss you.” A slight pause, followed by a yawn. “I’m really sleepy, to be honest.”
“Go to bed,” Ymir says, quirking her eyebrow teasingly. “You didn’t have to call, babe. I understand that you’re busy and probably really tired.”
“And break a nine-year tradition? Over my dead body.”
Ymir snorts, running a hand through her hair. The freckles dusting her cheeks are more prominent on FaceTime than she would’ve assumed, and the way Historia’s eyes glide over the screen gives Ymir the impression that she’s counting them. It makes her feel naked and exposed—she welcomes it wholeheartedly.
“You look beautiful,” Historia states in a matter-of-fact tone, voice laced with the dissipating traces of a yawn. Ymir’s face flushes red with the attention and praise, and she would hide it behind her hand if she didn’t know that it would only make Historia tease her more.
“Thanks. You look like shit.”
Historia rolls her eyes. “Ha, ha. You’re so funny. Really.”
“I mean, that’s why you married me, right? For my unparalleled sense of humor?”
“Sure.”
“Really though, babe. Go to sleep. We can always talk tomor—wait, shit, not tomorrow. We have an interview with Paradis Cosmopolitan and then another thing with Late Night with Farlan and Isabel. We can call Sunday, though?”
Historia nods, kissing the top of Frieda’s head absentmindedly as their daughter squirms. Frieda makes a cute little noise, fluttering her tired eyes at the camera. Ymir smiles and waves back, completely and totally enamored.
“Sounds good. Are they live?”
“Late Night is. It starts at 7:00 here, so that’ll be like, what, 10:00 there? 11:00? You’ll definitely be home if you wanna watch it. Paradis Cosmo’ll probably upload the video later this week to their YouTube channel. We’re—” She pauses suddenly, mulling over her next sentence. It’s a difficult thing to say suddenly, stuck in her throat, and Historia raises an eyebrow, slightly concerned as she watches her wife fumble over her words. It isn’t until red dusts Ymir’s cheeks again and she mumbles quietly, “…we’re reading Thirst Tweets,” that understanding dawns on her wife.
The sleepy smirk that graces Historia’s lips is nothing short of sinful. “Won’t that be fun,” she purrs. “Are you excited?”
“You can fuck right off.”
“Well, I’m definitely excited to see what everyone has to say. Maybe they’ll give me some fun ideas.”
“I’m ending the call. Goodnight, Krista.”
“Ouch, pulling out the first name card, huh? All I’m doing is admiring my hot—”
“Goodbye!”
“—sexy—”
“I’ll really click end call. You know I will!”
“—promiscuous—”
“Oi! Pipe it down in there!” Annie yells, her voice followed shortly by Sasha’s laughter and Mikasa’s snort.
“—wife. Tell the girls I said hello!”
“Historia says hello,” Ymir yells down the hotel room hall. Anything to get off the topic they were previously discussing.
“Don’t get off topic!” Annie yells back. “And hey, His’! We’re very excited about tomorrow, don’t let ‘Mir’s sour attitude fool you! We’re gonna have so much fun.”
“I hate all of you so much.”
Historia would respond, but she’s too busy laughing.
—
Jean fixes Ymir’s collar once, twice, and then a third time, unbuttoning the silk dress-shirt all the way to the third button down, just enough to show the tanned and freckled field of her collarbones.
“There,” he mumbles, doing the same to his own. “Now we’re all the same.”
“Alright, alright, mom,” Ymir groans, swatting his hands away from her collar as he fidgets with it endlessly, but it’s all bark and no bite. “Sit the fuck down, we’re about to start.”
Sasha and Annie bicker quietly as they wait for the cameras to start rolling, Mikasa eyeing the Thirst Tweets bucket as wearily. Ymir snorts. She feels the same.
Jean rubs her nape from his seat next to her in a soothing gesture. She isn’t sure if it’s more for her or for himself. She doesn’t question it.
“Alright!” The cameraman shouts. The band straighten their backs, looking sharp and attractive in their matching silk white tops tucked into high-waisted black dress pants.
(“We all look like Howl from—”
“Howl’s Moving Castle, we know, Sash.” Jean had said, looking at the wardrobe that Levi, their stylist, had laid out for them. “You only talk about that movie every other hour.”
“Wow! I’m just surprised you remember how Howl looks!”
“Sash, you forced us to watch that movie every night for an entire week in college, remember?” Mikasa reminds. “You do remember, right?”
Sasha snorts. “Of course, I remember.”
Ymir doubted she remembered.)
Ymir wears her rings—her wedding band comfortable and at home on her ring finger, not hidden amongst her many other rings—and twirls them as she waits for the cue to start their band introduction.
The light blinks green, an assistant gives her a thumbs-up, and she puts on her most confident smile before speaking.
“Hey,” she waves at the camera. “Welcome to Cosmopolitan’s Paradis Edition! We’re The 104th, and we’re happy to be here. Today, we’ll be reading Thirst Tweets. I’m Ymir, resident lead guitarist and lyricist.”
“Jean, the sexiest drummer on the team,” Jean winks at the camera.
“The only drummer on the team. I’m Sasha, on bass!”
“Rhythm guitar, Annie.”
“Hey everyone,” Mikasa smiles amicably, a perfect blend of bashful and confident. “I’m Mikasa, lead vocals.”
“Please check out our latest album, Silence Calls, and make sure to shoot us a follow on our socials.” Ymir looks up at the assistant with a hesitant grin. “Should we start pulling out the tweets?”
“Yeah,” the assistant voices, and Ymir nods.
“Cool. Okay so, the first one is by @slutfortheackerman—love that username, by the way—and it reads…oh God,” Ymir chokes as Jean starts laughing uncontrollably from beside her. Annie, Sasha, and Mikasa run to her, all four of them crowding behind Ymir as she recovers, looking up for assistance again. “I—can I even say this out loud? I feel like I can’t be saying this on television.”
“Yeah,” the assistant laughs. “You can. Just read it.”
Annie takes the paper to read it out loud instead, grinning.
“@slutfortheackerman says: I swear, as God is my witness, that I would let Mikasa choke the living shit out of me with her thighs. Or hands. Or anything, really. Just kill me, honestly. Bet those gorgeous hands would look real fine as a necklace on my throat.” Annie wipes a tear from her eye. “Oh, that’s wonderful. Mikasa does have wonderful hands.”
Mikasa ignores all of them with expert precision and lets her head hang, letting Sasha and Jean rock her shoulders as they howl in amusement.
“You are all unbearable,” she mutters with a shy smile. “But thanks, I guess? I definitely won’t be choking anyone, though. Sorry everyone.”
Jean picks up the next one. “This is so fucking funny. Okay, this one is by @sashasfourthwife—”
“Fourth?” Sasha asks with a wink towards the camera. “Why not first?”
Ymir shoves her as Jean continues, nonplussed by their tussling. “@sashasfourthwife says, in all caps: if Sasha Braus kills me, do not prosecute her. She caught me slipping, that is on me.” Jean nods approvingly before passing the slip to Sasha who pockets it. “Solid thirst tweet, ten out of ten. How’re you feeling about it, Sash?”
“I’m feeling like it isn’t thirsty enough.”
“Ayo—” Ymir wiggles her eyebrows, grinning. She gets a rough hair tussle in return, leaving her looking properly disheveled. Truly and properly like Howl, what with her slender build and tousled, short hair.
Mikasa shakes her head in amusement before putting her hand into the bucket and pulling out a slip. “@jamie104mir says that—oh, this one’s for Ymir! It reads—oh my God—” She reigns in her blush before continuing with a light chuckle. “It reads: ‘I would let Ymir smash and break a laptop on my tits and then run me over with her motorcycle. The shameful list of things I would let that woman do to me is between me and God alone.’”
Ymir’s face goes slightly red, her bandmates erupting in raucous laughter behind her. Figures—‘course they’d find this amusing.
“That’s…definitely a new one,” Ymir chuckles, rubbing her nape, but her voice is tainted with an uncharacteristic shyness that she’s yet to portray on camera. “I—I feel like I draw the line at breaking a laptop on anyone’s tits. This is a pro-tip but also, like, boundaries? Kids, if anyone tells you to break a laptop on their tits, there is a correct answer, and that answer is ‘no.’”
“I’m definitely sending this one to your wife,” Annie pulls out her phone. Ymir runs a hand down her face with a groan.
“Please don’t,” she whines, but her voice is drowned out by Annie reading the next tweet.
By how her phone buzzes in her pocket, she knows that Historia’s already got the text.
When she looks at the notification later, she finds an image that she’s lucky to have opened in the privacy of her dressing room.
—
The seats in the studio room are surprisingly comfortable.
It isn’t The 104th’s first time on The Late Night Show with Farlan and Isabel—the two hosts had actually been one of the first supporters of the band in its early days—but it’s still a marvel that every single time they find themselves in this familiar formation on this familiar show, the seats are always comfortable and welcoming and warm.
They sit in the same order they had with Paradis Cosmo earlier that day, except now they’re stacked to fit all five of the members into a one-couch camera frame: Ymir and Jean sitting on high-stools behind Sasha, Annie, and Mikasa, who all sit on the couch.
The crowd’s easy-going laughter dies down in the aftermath of Sasha admitting that her only Valentine will be “any and all variations of potatoes, cooked or baked or fried.” Farlan Church, one of the show’s two hosts, chuckles kindly, and then turns to Ymir to ask the same thing he just asked the rest of them prior.
“And you, Ymir, do you have a special someone that you’ll be spending Valentine’s with this upcoming year?” He asks, and it’s done with a cheesy smile and a quirk of his eyebrow.
“Isn’t it a little early to be asking this?” Ymir asks, smooth and cocky like she always does. “It’s only December, Far’.”
Farlan leans in close, conspiratorial, winking as he does so. “Are you dodging the question?”
“Yes,” Ymir admits easily. Her leather jacket rubs against her bare shoulders in a way that feels anxiety-inducing, but the easy-going expression on her face would fool anyone to think otherwise.
“Is that a yes to dodging or yes to you having a date?”
Ymir smirks. “Yes to a date.”
The crowd ooo’s and aaa’s wildly, all of them at the edge of their seats to hear the name of the person who’s managed to tame the supposed wild beast that is Ymir Langnar.
Their reaction would be cute if it wasn’t so overdone, Ymir thinks.
“And who might this lucky person be?”
“My wife,” she says with a simple smile, completely serious, really, truly, fully deadass, and the audience erupts into laughter, good-natured, like she’s just told a good joke.
Ymir blinks.
“That’s adorable,” Isabel says, like she knows something Ymir doesn’t.
Isabel changes the topic before Ymir can say anything else, inquiring about their newest album and the message behind it. Annie explains with expert and profession, but Ymir’s not thinking about their album at all.
She tries to shrug it off, but she’d also like to be taken seriously every once in a while—it’d be nice, she thinks, to be able to say something as grand and beautiful as “my wife” without being met with incredulous laughter and disbelief.
Jean pats her shoulder and Mikasa rubs her calf. They both provide some level of comfort for the sniped-down comment she just tried to make, but it’s not enough.
—
They don’t bother with renting out a restaurant for dinner like they usually do—it’d be a waste of money, and frankly none of them care enough about potentially being bothered by fans to pool their finances into a closed-space dining experience.
It’s a local Korean BBQ place they end up choosing, a warm and welcoming little place at the center of their old university town. It’s bustling with activity and they’re lucky to have found two six-person tables that the owner kindly allows them to push together, staff and band members alike giggling like schoolchildren as they do so. They create a funny little island at the very center of the restaurant, sitting right under what feels like a spotlight, but it’s nice and feels like home.
They’ve just finished the final show of their tour before New Years, set to go home for the upcoming winter holidays after some last-minute interviews and coverages. They’re exhausted beyond words but it feels entirely intoxicating and simply good, like the kind of sweet soreness that comes after a productive workout.
“Cheers!” Armin shouts, his bottle of mineral water sloshing as he waves it in the air. “It was a good year indeed. Here’s to many more successful years together!”
“Cheers!” The rest echo, and then food is brought out and the playful chatter is immediately replaced by growling stomachs and the sizzling of meat instead.
“God,” Annie groans. Her head is resting on Mikasa’s sweater-clad shoulder. “This is so good.”
“Mhm,” Mikasa hums. She’d normally pat Annie’s head, Ymir knows, but her hands are too busy shoving a slice of bread down Sasha’s hungry throat. Jean snorts at the sight and Connie rolls his eyes. It’s a scene they’re well used to.
Ymir’s pocket buzzes once, twice, and on the third ring she jumps with the realization that it’s probably Historia that’s calling her. This is important—more than important, really. It’s their traditional post-show call.
“Hey, assholes! Shut the fuck up, my wife is calling!”
Ymir fumbles with the button a little (so sue her, she’s excited as all hell to see her wife’s face) but eventually Historia blinks into existence before her as she successfully clicks accept call. “Hello, beautiful!”
Historia quirks her eyebrow, voice sounding tinny from the weak internet in the restaurant. “Beautiful?”
“Yeah, you’re beautiful.”
“No, I know that, you remind me every day. It’s just—are you drunk?"
“Drunk off of my love for you, maybe.”
Historia rolls her eyes, but there’s a blush on her face and a smile on her lips anyway. “Whatever,” she huffs like they’re still teenagers, and Ymir turns the phone over to the rest of the table so that everyone else can say hi too. Much to Ymir’s delight, the group erupts into cheers, screaming Historia’s name loudly and asking to see baby Frieda.
“Hello everyone,” Historia waves sleepily—right, Ymir remembers again that she’s far ahead, in a completely different time zone—flipping the camera over to where Frieda rests in a cradle. “Frieda’s sleeping, so no more screaming, please.”
“Sorry,” Mika whispers, her smile splitting her face. “She’s so cute, kiss her for me?”
Ymir counts her lucky stars that her daughter’s got, like, ten frighteningly protective aunts and uncles, just judging from the sheer ferocity at which her bandmates and staff team love Frieda.
“Will do,” Historia nods. “How did the show go?”
“Awesome!” Connie’s the one to quietly exclaim, gesticulating wildly. “Killer as usual.”
They all nod in agreement.
“When are you guys coming home?”
Sasha wiggles her eyebrows at the screen, though with how everyone’s squeezed into the camera of her phone, Ymir doubts Historia can actually see Sasha’s actions. “Why, miss us too much?”
“Nah, I just have to get rid of all of my mistresses before you arrive.”
“You say that like you’re in a relationship with all of us,” Annie grins.
“At this point,” Historia sighs dramatically, “I might as well be.”
“Ymir, looks like you’ve got some competition. Think Historia will stay with your sorry ass when all of us are on the table, too?” Annie smirks, quirking her eyebrows.
Ymir rolls her eyes. “Just don’t let Reiner hear you say that,” she groans, and Historia bursts into full-bellied laughter. Sometime ago, long before Reiner figured out that he was, in fact, very much not into girls, he’d had a massive thing for Historia. They laugh about it now, but it was still the very bane of Ymir’s existence when he’d constantly bring up marrying her. Not necessarily because Ymir was jealous (though she’d be the first to admit that jealousy may potentially have had a role to play) but more so because he was so blind that he couldn’t see Bertholdt right there, standing three feet in front of him.
“Our flight gets in around five in the morning, your time,” Ymir finally says after Historia’s recovered enough from her laughter to hear. She’s just about to tell her wife not to worry about picking her up from the airport when Sasha beats her to it.
“I’ll drop her off,” she says, mouth full. “Don’t worry about it, His. You sleep—God knows you barely do anyway.”
Historia smiles, thankful.
—
Reiner is a phenomenal uncle but a decidedly terrible friend.
Ymir comes to this conclusion because now, as she balances Frieda on her hip, ice cream all over her blouse and jeans and boots, all that asshole does is chuckle at her conundrum while wiping Frieda’s face clean with a wet wipe. She’d never seen him be so gentle with kids in their entire decade of friendship, but somehow, he turns into Babysitter Supreme when it comes to anything related to Frieda.
Ergo: phenomenal uncle, terrible friend.
Ymir has half the mind to slap him but that would be setting a bad example for her daughter, and she’s nothing if not a careful parent. Especially when she’s so rarely gotten to be home in the past several months.
“You’re such an ass,” she huffs instead, and Reiner, the annoying menace that he is, clucks his tongue disapprovingly.
“Tsk, such harmful language,” he admonishes with a devilish grin, folding up the dirty wet wipe and chucking it to a nearby trash bin. “And in front of your daughter, no less.”
“Shut up before I shot-put you across the quad, Braun.”
“Sh-sho-puf,” Frieda blubbers feeling the foreign word around on her tongue. “Mama, shof-puf.”
Ymir’s eye twitches. Historia will never let this die if she hears of it, and so she shoots Reiner a debilitating glare, hoping that it comes across properly as a threat, but all the blonde does is bend over, folding in half from laughter. Ymir thinks for a moment that she sees tears in his eyes from amusement, but ignores it for his sake if only to stop herself from getting more annoyed.
“Oh my god,” she groans. Her nerves grate to the sound of Reiner’s bellowing guffaws, her blouse feels sticky from where the melted ice-cream’s seeped through and touched her skin, the sun’s too bright, and not for the first time that day, she wants to kick Reiner in the balls. “God, shut up already, you big oaf!”
“Oaf!” Frieda repeats.
“Oh, for fucks sake—just take her for a second, please. I’m all sticky and wet and not in the nice way.”
Reiner makes a face, finally sobering up enough to gently take Frieda from her arms. “Ew,” he grimaces, to which she smirks because finally it’s her turn to make his gears grind.
“Where’s your backpack?”
Reiner juts his chin to the bag hanging from the back of Frieda’s stroller, a big, cumbersome thing much like the owner himself. She rummages through it until she finds one of her favorite sweaters of his, a large black crewneck with their collegiate logo that fits snug and oversized on her but perfectly on him. She wonders for a moment why he’s packed this crewneck in particular when she knows it’s not his preferred outerwear, but doesn’t dwell on it much further.
It’s almost like he knew this would happen when she came to pick up Frieda from his care, and Ymir doesn’t know if she should gag or be overjoyed at his incredibly accurate maternal instincts.
Uncaring of all the people in the park walking around them, she takes off her stained blouse, tattoos and black bra on display for all of three seconds before she slips on Reiner’s crewneck. Most people ignore them, but there’s still the stray starer here and there, watching her overt lack of care for public decency.
But when there’s a baby and food involved, most people seem to connect the dots easily enough anyway, so Ymir really doesn’t give a shit who looks and who doesn’t.
“Thanks,” she says, and he nods, handing Frieda back to her. The girl accepts Ymir’s embrace easily, her small hands holding onto the fabric of Reiner’s crewneck.
“Shof-puf,” Frieda tries again, frowning, almost as if she knows she’s not saying it correctly. “Mama, shof-puf.”
“Sweetheart,” she tries, a nervous, placating smile on her face. “Maybe…don’t say that?”
“Shof-puf?”
“Yeah. Let’s not say that, okay?”
Frieda stays quiet for a moment, seemingly mulling the request over in her head. She’s surprisingly contemplative for a two year old, Ymir thinks.
Then, she says: “oaf?” and Ymir knows she’s never gonna hear the end of this.
Reiner howls with laughter again and she just hangs her head in defeat.
“Come on,” the blonde chuckles after he’s calmed down enough. “I’ll help you load the car.”
—
Historia’s uncharacteristically quiet when they finally come home after the whole ice-cream ordeal that happened at the pick-up. It makes Ymir stressed until she sees that Historia isn’t mad, but instead timid, evidently a mix of nervous and also amused. Ymir gets the sinking feeling that there’s something she missed, and her first instinct is to check over their anniversaries.
But they don’t have any anniversaries in the Winter—their first kiss was late in the Summer, Historia officially asked her to become her girlfriend in early Autumn, and they’d gotten married in Spring.
Ymir racks her brain for when she’d proposed, and remembers that it was during a November, which is also not a Winter month.
“What’s up?” She asks, quiet, washing her hands nervously at their kitchen sink to begin preparing dinner. “Is something wrong?”
“Did you check your phone at all since you came home?”
Ymir frowns, throwing the drying towel across her shoulder as she leans against the counter. “Uh…no?”
Historia tries to hide a smile but she’s still timid. “Do you maybe want to check that right now?”
Ymir blinks, confused. “…No?”
“I’ll rephrase,” Historia hands Ymir’s phone over to her. “I think you should check your phone. Now.”
Now Ymir’s genuinely panicking.
“Why?” She asks. “What happened?”
“Just—don’t freak out, okay? It’s genuinely alright, I really don’t care. Honestly, I actually think it’s kind of hysterical.”
“You can’t just say that and not explain!” Ymir exclaims, trying to unlock her phone but her hands are too sweaty from stress. “Historia!”
“Babe, it’s okay just—calm down! You’re freaking out already!”
“Because I don’t know what the fuck’s going on!”
Historia snorts in a way that tells Ymir that she’s trying really hard to hold in the full scope of her amusement. “You’ll see. Just call Sasha. Or Mikasa. Actually, I’m sure they’re all together coming over here right now anyway, so any one of them would pick up.”
“Why on Earth are they on their way here?” Ymir yells, panicked.
Historia laughs. “Just call them!”
Thankfully, Annie calls her first.
Before Ymir can even say anything, Annie’s laughing so loud that even on speaker, the audio crackles wildly.
“You’re gonna love this, ‘Mir,” she yells, and Ymir can distinctly hear the rest of her bandmates laughing in the background, evidently in a car, probably on their way to her house as they speak.
“You’ve all taken years from my life,” Ymir cries into the microphone. “Can someone please explain to me what the fuck is happening right now?”
“Check Twitter,” is Jean’s helpful response.
“Or anywhere online, really,” is Mikasa’s helpful tack-on.
“Or I can just tell you!” Sasha exclaims in mirth. “The internet thinks you and Reiner are dating!”
Ymir pauses, eyebrows knit in confusion, staring blankly down at Historia. “I—what?”
“Someone took pictures of you, Frieda, and Reiner at the park,” Mikasa kindly elaborates. It’s a little difficult to hear her naturally soft voice when Annie’s acting like a hooligan in the background, but Ymir manages. “Fans also may or may not be debating whether Frieda is your biological child.”
Ymir’s quiet because, frankly, she doesn’t have much to say.
“With Reiner,” Jean adds, entirely unhelpful. “You know, since Freida’s got blue eyes and tanned skin and really looks like a love child between the two of you.”
“Thanks,” Ymir deadpans. At the time, adopting a child that looked relatively like both Ymir and Historia was a selfish wish they were surprised to have granted in the form of their beautiful daughter Freida. Now, it feels just slightly like a curse. Or rather, it’s that Reiner unfortunately really does look like Historia’s cousin that is the curse. “I got as much.”
“Just making sure.”
“Lovely.”
—
Unsurprisingly but definitely unfortunately, they were all telling the truth. Ymir knows inherently that there would be no point to this entire ordeal having been a prank, but she was still hoping that maybe, just maybe, they were all fucking with her.
They weren’t, and Ymir nonchalantly swinging on Reiner’s crewneck in the middle of the park is definitely chalking up to be more and more of an annoying decision than she’d anticipated.
Even her sister Ilse—a distinguished journalist with a terrible penchant for not checking her social media—had somehow seen the drama and messaged her a slew of teasing remarks.
Professor Dumbass
I didn’t know you were dating Reiner, mir
You guys compliment each other so well awe
<3
Anyways
Kiss frieda and my brother in law for me wont you
Thnx!!
The answer Ymir shoots back is simple and to the point.
Me
You can go fuck urself bestie! </3
While waiting for her idiotic bandmates to arrive, Ymir finds herself scrolling through Twitter, slouching on their living room couch and huffing every once in a while as Historia gently applies an ice-pack to her head. She’s been prone to these stress-headaches since they were in college, and for a moment Ymir kisses the inside of her wife’s wrist in a show of thanks.
“Honey, it’s really okay, I really, truly don’t care,” Historia says for the tenth time that hour, thinking the kiss is from guilt. In part, it is.
“His, I can’t believe that they never believed that I was married even though I’ve said it multiple times but the minute they see me with a child and a man—and Reiner, of all people—suddenly all the gossip corner magazines and tabloids are on my ass! I mean, look!”
She shows Historia her phone, which is currently blowing up with notifications. The tweets on her screen read:
@chrissy8933
Out of all people Ymir settles on HIM?!? I mean he’s cute and all but still…come the fuck on, man
@Idontwanttobehere
well shit…guess Ymir’s taken, huh :/ kinda shocked to see a man but whatever makes you happy @ymirfreckles ig, idk
@104thsbiggestfan_083
YMIR HAD A CHILD?? DEADASS??? AND WITH A MAN???
@ymirsthirdguitarstring
I think they’re kind of cute together!! And their baby is so adorable omg
Historia grimaces.
“They’re all acting like this is the first time Reiner and I were photographed together. Hell, His, we were constantly papped together years ago, and nobody pulled this shit. Why now?”
“I don’t know, babe.” Historia admits. “They’re just being dumb, is all. You know how fan culture is. They’ll forget about this soon.”
“Not soon enough!” Ymir cries. “I have to do something. I can’t just say nothing! If I stay quiet, they’ll think it’s because I’m actually dating Reiner!”
“Did someone say my name?”
Ymir chucks the nearest pillow at the door with all her might without even looking up. It’s premeditated homicide at first sight and nothing less, and Reiner barely has the time to perceive the pillow flying across the living room much less dodge it.
“Reiner!” She chucks another one. This one he successfully smacks away midair. “You son of a bitch! This is all your fault!”
He sends her and Historia an incredulous, quizzical look. Historia shrugs, rolling her eyes at her wife’s antics.
“It’s not my fault you stripped in the middle of the park, you absolute dumbass,” he says, hands in the air like he’s got them raised for the police.
Ymir throws another pillow (which he dodges easily) but her willpower to fight is already fading at an alarming rate.
“Girls, girls, you’re both pretty,” Historia placates, rolling her eyes and rubbing her temples. Quietly she places the icepack that was previously on Ymir’s head on her own. Then, in the same voice she uses to talk to Freida, she says “Now sit down and stay quiet for mommy until the others come home.”
Her eyes are already closed by the time Ymir and Reiner gag at her comment.
—
For all Ymir curses the shit out of her bandmates for making fun of her at such a frustrating time, Ymir can also recognize that in a few months’ time, she’ll probably be looking back at this entire ordeal and joining in on the laughter. Now, though, she just feels shitty and tired and very, very irritated.
Which isn’t necessarily too off kilter to her normal attitude, but usually she had less reasons to be genuinely pissed—she did it mostly for show. Now, though, she’s properly annoyed. Properly angry. Rightfully so, she thinks.
But her bandmates had called their staff friends, and they had ordered and unholy amount of food from her favorite takeout on their way to Historia and Ymir’s house, so maybe it’s not such a bad idea to forgive their poor friendship etiquette. Just this once.
(“No, this is proper friendship etiquette,” Annie would probably argue if she could hear Ymir’s thoughts. “That’s what friends do, ‘Mir, they make fun of each other during the good, bad, and scandalous.”
Ymir would probably punch her arm. Ymir would also probably hug her right after, appearing begrudging but very thankful for the equally faux-begrudging return of her embrace.
Probably.)
“So, what’re we doing?” Mikasa asks once their conversations have died down and the food is close to gone. Jean hums a melody as he washes the dishes, helping Reiner dispose of their takeout containers—blue bin for the recyclables, green bin for the trash, he keeps mumbling to himself as a reminder—as Sasha brings out the ice-cream from the fridge. “What’s the game plan?”
Ymir shrugs as Sasha passes her a spoon and a tub of coffee ice-cream to share with Historia. “Fuck if I know, honestly,” she sighs.
“Just be straightforward,” Annie says. She’s serious now despite her previous teasing, Freida sleeping soundly on her lap. Leave it to Freida to choose favorites. “Start an insta live or post a video on Twitter or something. Maybe they’ll finally take you seriously if you act quickly enough.”
Ymir nods. Annie’s right—it’s definitely best that’s straightforward and quick with her response. She’s no PR specialist, but even Ymir can put two and two together quick enough to know than an immediate response is better than a delayed one.
From somewhere behind her, Hange’s voice cackles on the phone. Evidently, Jean’s called their manager.
“’Mir, pray tell how the fuck did you get yourself trending a week after we went on break?”
“Hello to you too, Hange,” she groans. “So you saw?”
“Saying that I ‘saw’ is the understatement of the year. I’ve been answering calls all afternoon.”
“Thanks a bunch, really.”
“Awe, cheer up!” Hange exclaims. They can distinctly hear the sound of Moblit yelling something to Hange, and Ymir can just imagine the scene as if it were playing out before her: Moblit running around like a chicken with its head cut off, balancing files and contracts and reports as Hange accepts call after call on their availability, interviews, the whole shebang. “I think this is a wonderful opportunity to take care of two birds with one stone, so to speak.”
“That’s what Annie said too.”
“Annie’s a smart girl,” Hange praises. Annie grins lazily from her seat on the couch at the comment. “You should do something that shows your face—your body language is critical to sell this. Not that we’re trying to sell anything; it’s not like you’ll be lying. But seeing your serious demeanor will definitely help you to dismantle this rumor and officially punch in that you’re taken, married, off the market, however you wanna phrase it.”
“I agree,” Jean nods. He sits on the armrest by Ymir. “Should we all make an appearance too, Hange? Or individually support her from our own socials?”
“That’s a good question,” Hange hums. It takes a moment before they answer. “I guess it’s up to you. If you’re all together, it could get more attention, speaking purely from a PR perspective. It’s not often the whole band posts on their social media at the same time, much less when they’re all together on their off time. Fans eat that shit right up.”
“I can tweet that we’re goin’ live on ‘Mir’s account in, what, like half an hour? An hour? That way we can get some momentum before we start,” Sasha pitches in. “I’m sure fans’ll figure out that it has something to do with what happened today.”
“Does that put too much pressure on you, Ymir?” Hange asks.
Ymir purses her lips. While it would be nice to have the chance to rehearse what she wants to say by way of uploading a video, she’d also just like to get ahead of this as soon as possible.
“I’m fine,” she announces. “Tweet away, Sash.”
“Yeehaw,” Sash deadpans, an inside joke between the lot of them, and then begins typing what Ymir assumes is the Tweet on her phone.
Somehow, those thirty minutes are the quickest and most nerve-wracking of Ymir’s life, and that’s really saying something. Because Ymir Langnar-Reiss has multiple STEM degrees from prestigious universities, has written multiple master’s theses, spoken and performed both academically and musically in front of millions of people at this point in her career. And yet this moment, for reasons beyond her understanding, has her wired like a tightrope on the brink of snapping.
It just doesn’t make sense.
“Stop bouncing your leg,” Historia whispers, putting a hand on her thigh. With how strung up she is, Ymir shutters at the contact.
“I’d advise against such actions, Mrs. Reiss-Langnar,” she whispers. “Especially right now.”
The romantic tension is dispelled immediately as Annie bonks her on the hand with a rolled-up magazine that dons her face, something that Historia had bought when she’d seen it at the bodega.
“Cut that shit out,” the blonde shutters. “We’re about to go live in T-5. Get your story straight. Or I suppose not-straight, in this instance. Ha.”
Ymir rolls her eyes. Annie looks far too proud of her joke to give Ymir’s disapproval any mind.
From the outside, they must all look positively insane. Jean and Sasha are horsing around on the phone with Connie, who sends his best wishes to Ymir’s attempt to put the whole Is The Promiscuous Beast That Is Ymir Really Tamable bullshit to rest. Ymir thanks him tiredly, he laughs at the ridiculous situation, and then they continue fooling around doing fuck knows what. Sasha’s tweeting at a pace that is frighteningly fast and impossible to follow, Mikasa’s speaking to Historia and writing notes on things Ymir should mention like the sweet friend she is, and Annie’s walking around giving random instructions like a stage mom in a theater production. And Reiner, well, he’s walking around filming it all, intent on using it for some reason or the other in the future. Ymir doesn’t even want to try and guess.
“Okay! It’s time to go live, ‘Mir,” Sasha says, leaning over her seat. Annie, Mikasa, and Jean also come into the frame, and with a deep breath and Historia’s (who’s off-camera) silent support, Ymir presses start live.
Immediately, thirty people pool into the live. It makes Ymir’s skin crawl.
“Hey everyone,” she says, and by the time she blinks there’s already a hundred new watchers. “Oh fuck, there’s so many of you,” she exclaims, unable to keep the thought inside her mind.
“Hey y’all! Hope you’re all doin’ great! It’s a shitshow here, that’s for sure.” Sasha exclaims.
Annie snorts. “That’s for sure. ‘Sup everyone.”
Jean waves, Mikasa smiles amicably.
And then, exactly a minute and thirteen seconds after pressing “start,” the comments start pooling. It’s a blessing that they come by so quickly that Ymir can’t even read most of them anyway. They try to collectively idle in some coffee table talk but it falls pretty useless and flat, and it’s five minutes and some change before Ymir sighs and just gets to the point.
“Okay, I’m not even gonna beat around the bush—this is mostly to address the pictures of me and Reiner taken this morning.”
A slew of finally’s rain into the chat.
“I don’t know if you’ve all collectively forgotten, but Reiner’s my best friend from college—I’ve already established this before, years ago.”
She pauses awkwardly, unsure of how to continue. “We’re definitely not together. And the young girl he was holding is not our daughter. He’s got a partner and, fuck, dude, I could not imagine dating that idiot,” she groans, pointing her thumb backwards, where Reiner shoots her a look and a scandalized hey! “And as I’ve mentioned many, many times before, I’m married—I have a wife.”
She raises her hand, showing off the ring Historia had so beautifully chosen for her.
“I’ve never hidden this,” Ymir shrugs. “I don’t know how many times I have to say it before it fuckin’ sticks.”
The comments, in a surprising but also unsurprising turn of events, immediately devolve into disbelief. The few that Ymir can catch in the chaos read:
@somethingsomethingusername
dude, ENOUGH with this wife stuff, if you’re not dating someone just say that jfc
@12andthe23ll
jfc this again
@104thnewsupdates
ymir are you actually married? We all joke around and shit but idk at this point tbh, like, if ur deadass say deadass or smthn idk
Ymir’s ten seconds from pulling her hair out from the roots. She decides then that she’ll go for a shaved look for their next album, if her hair follicles somehow manage to survive the rage coursing through her body.
Thankfully Historia sweeps in, but in a far less poised manner than Ymir—or anybody in the room, frankly—would’ve expected.
The kiss Ymir’s pulled into is searing, burning off every nerve on her lips and frying every nerve in her brain. There are no thoughts, no physical presence beyond where they meet, not now, not when Historia’s standing and is taller than Ymir’s sitting body, not when she has to hold Ymir by her chin, gripping tightly, tipped upwards, kissing her senseless.
It’s intoxicating and for a moment, nobody can blame Ymir for the stars she sees afterwards, printed behind her eyelids like an afterimage, all pink and red and blue. Nobody can blame Ymir for forgetting how to inhale for a good several seconds after Historia pushes her head backwards, their lips releasing with a wet pop.
As she comes back to her senses, multiple things proceed to happen seemingly at once, but Ymir’s far too slow to catch them all.
At some point after recovering from her initial shock, Mikasa jumps at lightning speed to grab the camera, obscuring the viewer’s view of most of the kiss. “Whoa!” She yelps on instinct, panicking. “Oh my god, we probably have children on here, Ymir—!"
As if Ymir is the one that had initiated the kiss.
Sasha and Annie are laughing loudly, Jean and Reiner far too stunned to do much other than blubber.
In the chaos there, somewhere, Historia grabs the phone from Mikasa hands, wiping her bottom lip with her thumb.
“Hey everyone! I’m Historia,” the blonde introduces herself, as if the whole world didn’t already know who Historia Reiss was. “Historia Reiss-Langnar, currently married to international rockstar Ymir Langnar,” then, with a quirk of her eyebrow and saccharine, she adds, “-Reiss.”
“I’m happy to answer some of your quickfire questions off the top of my head right now. Yes, this is real. No, this isn’t a PR stunt. Yes, we have photos and anniversaries and a honeymoon receipt dating back years ago that we can show as proof. We met in college, Ymir’s actually very shy, I’m the one who asked her out, she’s the one who proposed. The little girl in the pictures from today is our daughter, who you can see sleeping in Annie’s arms,” she moves the camera slightly to the side, showing Annie holding up the two-year old with one arm and waving at the camera with awe with the other. “Finally, we haven’t said anything until today because a) frankly it’s our right to have a private relationship and b) Ymir, being the kind soul that she is, didn’t want her particular prestige to influence my corporate image, even though I personally couldn’t care less. But seeing as things are bordering on cyber harassment, I thought it was a good enough time to come out. Literally.”
There’s a beat where nobody can muster up the courage to speak. It’s quiet—almost painfully so—as everyone tries to figure out how to continue from there. As the silence stretches ever so thin over their already awkward live, Historia’s cheeks blush over slightly with crimson and she looks up from the camera to where Sasha and Mikasa stand.
“Um…what else do you guys usually do on lives?”
Jean squeaks from the corner. “…sing?”
“Cool. I’ll leave that to the talents, then,” Historia nods, suddenly all formal again like she usually is with her clients. “Carry on. I have to go—read some reports.”
It’s way past midnight here in Mitras on a Saturday night; Ymir knows that Historia’s not going upstairs to read any damn reports. She barely reads reports to begin with; that’s her assistant’s job. Ymir follows her upstairs to their bedroom anyway, leaving the rest of the band—and a flustered Reiner—to try and entertain their fans in whichever way they deem best. Frankly, Ymir couldn’t give any less of a shit what they did with the rest of their time live on her Instagram.
Ymir’s trending all the way until their next show during Valentine’s Day. And with a debut tweet of Historia and Freida backstage with the band posted on the official The 104th’s Twitter, Ymir’s marriage is solidified in the fandom as something that is solid and tangible and very, very cute.
Suffice to say, Ymir’s word is always taken seriously after that.