Chapter Text
“Eren’s coming back.”
Ymir’s first response is overwhelming relief, because whenever Krista wants to sit down and ‘talk’ about something serious, she’s usually done something wrong, so she’d been preparing for a metaphorical castration all day. So yeah, knowing she hasn’t done something to piss the shorter woman off is enough to inspire a long sigh of relief (which Krista is not amused by).
The second is, well – “Oh shit.”
So she’s the one that gets to tell Jean, huh.
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She’s going to tell him. Really, she will. She’s just waiting for the right time. That’s what she tells Krista anyway, who is pissed off a week later when she finds out that Jean still doesn’t know. Ymir is cornered, stuck between and angry woman and the kitchen counter, Krista waving a spatula threateningly in her face as she hisses her disapproval, so when Jean calls through from the living room asking if everything’s alright with dinner, she’s only too happy to yelp a ‘yeah, fine!’ and run back to him. The burning blue-eyed gaze on her back says she’s in for it later, though.
Fuck, it was hard though.
Realistically, she should have done it over mics after they finished their latest campaign on Destiny, or when they’d taken their bikes out to the hills for a ride on Sunday morning, or called him up on Wednesday after Jean sent her a picture of a cherub statue in the park that looked exactly like Marco. But, telling Jean that his ex (sort of-)boyfriend slash ‘the one that got away’ slash the only person that ever managed to twist him inside out was apparently returning wasn’t an easy job, or one anyone else they knew was willing to do. It was enough to make even Ymir jittery and on-edge after all. Unfortunately, as Jean’s (reluctant) best friend (aside from Marco who was busy surveying marsupials in New Zealand or whatever he did there), apparently it was her duty to do it.
That night, long after Jean has left, the two women are lying in bed, and despite the fact her patrol begins at seven o’clock the next morning and Krista has rowdy eight year olds to handle when the school bell tolls at nine, Ymir is trying her hardest to make the petite woman a little less pissed at her. After five minutes of going round and round in circles with shit excuses and the occasional interjection of desperate pleas for forgiveness, she’s struck by genius.
She sits up with a gasp at the brilliance of her hair-brained plan, hitting a fist into an open palm, and that’s enough to finally make her girlfriend turn to face her, curiosity winning over frustration.
“Okay, so how about this,” she says, eyes manic in the dark bedroom as the turns to Krista, grabbing her hands earnestly. “We go out and get him really, really drunk. That way I don’t have to be tactful about it and he has an excuse if he cries.”
Krista knows it’s stupid, and an incredibly bad idea. But time is running out, Ymir’s logic is actually seems pretty sound, and she knows they don’t have another option.
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It’s a known thing in their immediate friendship group, and even somewhat of a legend among people on the ‘fringe’; people they know and are friends with that aren’t a part of the notorious and at-times impenetrable ‘inner circle’. Everyone has heard the story, and most have even told it at some point, but never in front of or around Jean. So it’s common knowledge, but it’s been retold and rehashed so many times that it has become just that - a legend - some things exaggerated and some things changed to make it a more interesting and dramatic piece of gossip.
Ymir likes to think she has the most accurate and therefore least-sensational version (from Jean’s side, anyway), because she was there for the whole damn thing. It’s still pretty dramatic, though.
So this is how the story goes:
ACT ONE
Jean and Eren (and everyone else) are high schoolers. They don’t go to the same school. In fact, the only reason they meet is because Armin and Jean are ‘mathletes’ for their respective schools, and get to know each other thanks to a friendly but no less intense rivalry between the two teams. Armin is an all-round nerd and looks it thanks to his petit form and girly hairstyle, and Jean is (a math nerd, yes, but otherwise) a generally shitty and rebellious student, as well as a member of the soccer team, and looks it. So when Armin goes to grab some extra napkins from the counter while Jean is ordering a post-match milkshake, and the taller recognises him - in true Jean style, can’t help but make some bullshit remark and a threat that next time, his team’s gonna whoop Armin’s team’s mathematical ass - something is gonna happen. Neither of their respective tables actually hears the conversation, but Eren, righteous and loud and bruised still from his latest scuffle with the assholes at his own school, sees Jean’s school soccer hoodie and Armin’s wide eyes and their long list of differences and immediately assumes the worst. A few minutes later, after the yelling and shoving has gotten both sets of teens thrown out of the diner, an explanation is given and the situation is (more or less) diffused.
Somehow, the six of them – Jean, Marco, Ymir, Eren, Mikasa, and Armin – end up hanging out with each other occasionally, when they cross paths or meet at inter-school events. Jean and Eren get on like a house on fire – but not in the ‘really well’ sense. In the ‘oh god this is going fucking terribly the whole thing’s gonna blow everyone get out NOW’ sense. They squabble and fight and quip at each other and at the end of their senior year, they exchange bust lips - the worst graduation gift ever - and ruin both of their mother’s pictures from the day.
ACT TWO: SCENE ONE
Jean and Eren are in college. So are Armin, Marco and Mikasa (only because she got a sport scholarship and her two best friends are also going), but Ymir knows she isn’t the studious type, so says bye-bye to education and decides to spend the near future working a real job for a real wage and getting her fitness up until she figures out what she wants to do. It’s not the same as high school though, because the two groups basically merge into one now five of the six attend the same school. Even so, they’re all doing their own shit, and their class schedules don’t align too well, and Ymir is living at home and working whilst the others are in dorms, so it’s not like they all hang out all the time. There’s a loud girl called Sasha in one of Jean’s classes and one morning she just turns to her left and straight-out asks Jean if he really wants that bagel or if he’d be willing to donate it to a worthy cause, ie her. Utterly baffled and secretly happy someone in his class actually spoke to him, Jean lets her have it.
So Sasha somehow worms her way into their dysfunctional little group, and with her comes Connie: her short, bald childhood friend/boyfriend who studies something to do with business and makes it onto the soccer team with Jean. Ymir only gets to meet them like two months after this all happens, at some obnoxious frat party because she finally has the weekend off. She loves the drama and ridiculousness of college, loves the two of them because they’re dumb and loud and dynamic, just loves everything because she is so fucking drunk. She’s not too drunk to notice the change between Jean and Eren though, who still bicker constantly but in a slightly different way that she can’t quite place. According to Mikasa, their schedules line up the most so they’ve actually been hanging out more (at first out of necessity and loneliness and then later out of choice because apparently they had a lot in common). She thinks that’s fine, because they really are similar, and Jean needs a new partner in crime now he and Ymir are lucky to see each other once a week instead of every day like they had in middle and high school.
Freshman year (because even though Ymir doesn’t attend college her life at this time is sorted by semesters and breaks because that’s what all her friends live by) passes by and can be summarised by the words: excited, busy, drunk, poor, tired, drunk, confused, drunk, high, poor, finals, free for summer.
ACT TWO: SCENE TWO
When school starts up for the next academic year, her friends know what to expect, and aren’t taking as many classes, so life is a little easier. Jean, Connie and Sasha manage to find a two-bedroom apartment in a building not too far from campus for a reasonable price. Marco becomes an RA and Ymir doesn’t know what the other three are doing, doesn’t ask and doesn’t particularly care, if she’s brutally honest (which she is, always). She could maybe afford her own tiny place, but the financials are too close for comfort and her dad would probably get too lonely living by himself (or so she tells herself – truth is, she just isn’t ready to leave). It’s during a mundane conversation with him over the barbeque in the backyard one evening she decides that yeah, she wants to follow his footsteps and enrol in the police academy. She needs to be twenty-one for that though, so she’ll wait and she’ll work and have fun but be careful not to add any more points to her (thanks to teenage rebellion and Jean’s egging on) rather colorful record.
February rolls around and the den of depravity that is Jean, Connie and Sasha’s apartment is open to all for a Superbowl party. The usual suspects are there, and a few other people she’s met in passing, but Ymir doesn’t care because there’s a girl making two bowls of nachos in the kitchen – and is that a tray of brownies cooling on the countertop? …No, it isn’t, it’s a tray of hash brownies cooling on the countertop, and Ymir is in love because this is one of the last chances she has to indulge and what are the odds of this happening?
She’s called Krista and she lives across the hall and she’s small and cute and is studying elementary education but she has an edge to her that confuses people but bewitches Ymir and oh holy fucking hell, this is love at first sight, isn’t it?
But anyway, this is supposed to be Eren and Jean’s story.
It’s a known fact that the Super Bowl isn’t about sports at all, just an excuse to have a party and eat too much food and get wasted, but Jean and Eren pick opposite teams to support despite not really giving a shit, just so they can have a valid(ish) reason to argue. Jean’s team loses and the other boy won’t let him forget it even two hours after the thing has finished, and he’s drunk and swanning around the living room like he’s the fucking King and Ymir watches in genuine surprise as Jean finally snaps and moves from where he was seemingly dead slumped against the couch to lunge at Eren, bringing him to the ground. They roll around and yell and rough house and it’s actually the best part of the night, everyone else jeering and laughing, more invested in the short play fight than they ever had been in the football game.
Eren gets himself a boyfriend a month later, a smooth-talking senior who works in the campus coffee shop and is involved in the campus newspaper just like Eren is. He’s a little pretentious, Ymir thinks when she meets him for the first and last time (her and Eren don’t exactly hang out and he doesn’t last long, in the end), but he’s alright, and Eren’s into him. Jean doesn’t like him though. Which admittedly isn’t unusual for someone as socially-stunted and difficult as Jean, but he really doesn’t like this guy, and for no real reason, which is a little odd to Ymir. Jean is snappy and more irritating than usual for a little while, until he realises and apologises to everyone, and cuts back on being an asshole as much as he can. Another month and Eren and his boyfriend split up, and Jean fully recovers from whatever bitch virus had bitten him in the ass, so once again, everything is fine.
What absolutely is not fine is what Ymir sees when a handful of them meet around finals. Krista, her amazing snarky girlfriend and resident domestic goddess of their group, wants to make them dinner to make sure they’ve had at least one proper meal and a chance to socialize and regroup during this crazy time, which is great, but something again is different. Ymir is quiet and analysing all through the meal, and it’s only after they’ve finished eating and Eren and Mikasa offer to take the plates back over to the kitchen, and she catches Jean watching the brunet juggle too many plates and almost drop one with a stupid expression on his face when it finally hits her.
God, they’re fucking.
Jean tries to deny it when she corners him at the end of the night, ready to explode from keeping the accusation in this whole time, but he’s always been a terrible liar and he gets flustered and can never circumvent his best friend’s doggedness. After a couple of minutes he tells Ymir its fine, they aren’t together they’ve just kind of fooled around a couple of times, no it’s not serious, and don’t tell anyone because it’s not a Big Deal.
ACT TWO: SCENE THREE
It’s not a Big Deal after all, because it doesn’t last very far into junior year. Ymir doesn’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, it’s just what happens. Classes may ease off but now half way through college, the Studious Five seem to get a little more serious, taking up opportunities that could bolster their grades and improve their resume when they get the chance, and Ymir prepares her application to the police academy. Connie and Sasha want their own place this time, which works out fine because Ymir has enough money saved to not worry about rent too much, and her dad has finally convinced her he’ll be fine alone, dammit, so her and Jean decide it’d be the best thing to be roommates. Spoiler: it is the best thing, but it’s also the worst thing. They get closer, at least, able to see a lot more of each other than they have the last two years, and finally manage to rebuild their friendship from a more superficial ‘high school’ friendship to an adult one. They learn new things about each other, things that deepen their friendship (like their worst fears and their aspirations) and things they never wanted to know but find out anyway (like what sounds each other make when they orgasm in the next bedroom, or what kind of terrible shit they’ll eat when they’re broke and have barely anything in the kitchen).
Krista is a constant all the while - becomes a sort of unofficial third resident - but a number of people come and go where Jean’s concerned, some only for one night and some a little more serious. For that whole year, Ymir never sees Jean look at one person the way he looked at Eren that night in Krista’s apartment. One girl comes close, she’s intelligent and quick-witted and gives Jean a run for his money, but then they start to argue. And not in the lively way Jean and Eren argue, in a vicious, eyes-cold-and-words-scalding kind of way that even makes Ymir uncomfortable when she hears them from her bedroom. She sleeps with some guy in her class in the end though, so she doesn’t last. They had been long over by then to be honest, and Ymir thinks the bitch wanted to go down in a blaze of glory; have her final stab at Jean and win their volatile game of one-up.
ACT TWO: SCENE FOUR
Senior year is a trip because everyone wants to do well and finish but that means everyone’s busy studying and taking those last few credits and ticking boxes to graduate. Ymir has long since completed her academy course and is in the realm of working on a ‘real’ career. She gets treated like a newbie, and gets all the shitty jobs, and all the older guys love to make a fuss of her (and not in a particularly good way) for being Enis Berker’s daughter, but she has a sharp tongue and a clever wit and an above average fitness level, so she can and does handle herself.
Jean is trying to graduate as best he can and get a good leg-up for his future career (which is something with numbers – Ymir doesn’t get it or care and she makes that clear), as are the others. Well, apart from Eren and Sasha. The former is still working on his Journalism degree, but has developed an interest in photography too, is involved in a bunch of random projects and publications already, but doesn’t seem to be interested in preparations for the future. Sasha is just going with the flow, keeping up with Jean in studies as always but being a hell of a lot more relaxed about the ‘after graduation’ thing.
Jean and Eren start hooking up again, when they aren’t too busy, and after a while, it isn’t odd or awkward for Ymir to find Eren in their kitchen on a morning or sprawled on their couch when she gets home from work. The two guys aren’t together together (in an official capacity) but they’re together and everyone knows it. The green-eyed brunet turns Jean out, and though Ymir doesn’t want to think about it or delve into her Best Bro For Life’s sexual existence, she can tell that Eren pulls him in like no one else ever has or ever will, because when they’re hooking up Jean rarely fools around with anyone else, and his hazel eyes barely leave Eren’s form when they’re in the same room together, as if he’s utterly captivated by him. To Jean, he’s the perfect partner. It should be weird but everyone silently agrees that for some reason , it works.
And it works (off and on and unexclusive) for that whole year.
Ymir and Krista watch Jean slowly fall in honest-to-God love in that period.
Eren makes socially-awkward, garbage-talking Jean gentle and caring and protective and pensive and jealous and social and happy and sad and mature without even trying. It’s messy and it’s not smooth-sailing like it always is in books but ultimately, love looks really good on Jean.
But then they graduate and everything goes to shit.
FINAL ACT THREE
Jean gets offered a job right out of college as a… Well, it’s in an office at a good firm and it’s something to do with numbers, Ymir knows that much. Armin stays on at school to do more smart academic type shit, Mikasa graduates and gets some job as a sports therapist or something, Marco gets his whatever degree and starts looking into things he can do outside of the country, Krista is working her way to being a full-fledged teacher with her own students, and Connie and Sasha manage to get jobs, much to everyone else’s relief. And Eren –
Well. Eren wants to ‘find himself’, wants to go out into the world and see things with his own eyes, learn how other people live and gain an understanding of life and the world, or some other bullshit. He’s adamant about leaving, is sorry to leave his friends but knows that it’s something he wants and has to do, and something he has to do alone. So he leaves, because there isn’t really anything holding him back (Jean and he were never an actual couple, had never made a commitment or promises to each other) and the blond-haired man is left to pine.
That’s where the story ends to everyone but Ymir. That’s because there’s a secret Ymir knows, a secret that she hasn’t told to anyone, not even Krista.
ACT THREE: SCENE TWO (SECRET SCENE)
Jean goes to Eren the night before he’s due to head out, and begs and pleads for him to stay. Gets angry and yells and actually says ‘I love you’ and means it for the first and last time in his personal history like he thought it would change things.
It didn’t.
Eren left anyway, because he needed to and this would be his only chance. It could be too late if he waited any longer. Now that would have made Eren look like a complete and utter bastard (and kind of does), but Ymir knows Eren loves Jean, too. Not because Mikasa told her so one day, not even because Eren told her one night when she found him in the kitchen making tea and looking distraught at four A.M. She knows because to her it’s fucking obvious, because at some point, Eren started looking at Jean the way Jean looked at Eren.
Not that that really matters, because Jean still gets hurt. Still gets his heart broken. Still comes back to their apartment, climbs into bed with Ymir for the first time ever and cries and tells her what happened and how much he loves Eren and asks ’what the fuck am I gonna do now, Yms?’ in a voice so fucked up that even cold-hearted, snide Ymir has to take him in her arms and shed a few tears for him when he’s too devastated himself to notice.
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Weeks, months, years pass and life continues. Jean gets a promotion because even though he’s an ass, he’s a clever and efficient and hard-working ass, and Ymir starts to get the recognition she feels she rightly deserves. Jean can afford his own place in the city, and when Krista gets a job in an elementary school in the nice suburbs just outside of that same city, her and Ymir get a small place close by. Mikasa is still working at her job, Armin finally leaves school and starts getting his clever research shit published or whatever, Connie and Sasha get engaged (Sasha proposes the moment before they step off the ledge at a couples’ bungee jump), and Marco goes to New Zealand to live in harmony with the marsupials.
Eren ‘finds’ himself, in Asia and Africa and Europe and South America, spending his trust fund and when that runs out, getting jobs that never last more than half a year but fund him enough. He never stays in one place for too long, but still manages to run a blog and write articles and pieces that get published in national magazines. He keeps in contact with them, mass-sending them email updates every now and then, replying to their individual responses and updates, because he’s still a part of their circle, a cog in their machine, and it’s not like any of them hate him or anything. Not even Jean, though he doesn’t like to discuss the other much, trying too hard to be casual and nonchalant and always switching subjects after a while. Jean has flings and has relationships and Ymir likes some and dislikes some but no one comes close to Eren or what he was to Jean, and Ymir really hopes her best friend can meet his ‘Krista’ soon so she doesn’t have to worry about him so much. She’s not a person who likes to be concerned for people.
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Back to the present, and unfortunately, concerned is exactly what she is. Their sting operation is in full swing – Ymir has even invited Connie and Sasha (“it’s a weekend, why not?”) to make it seem more natural. She is a mastermind and this is going to go well. Not really. She’s concerned because Jean is really drunk, and fuck, she’s going to actually tell him tonight and then it’s going to go to shit. But, at least the truth will be out and she won’t have this fucking looming over her anymore.
That’s the plan, anyway, until she finds the Terrible Two and Krista again after a trip to the bathroom (she broke the god damn seal too early) and Connie informs her with an ecstatic grin that the trio should be around here somewhere by now and shouldn’t they go find them? Trio? There’s only Mikasa and Armin left that she can think Connie would invite, and the only other person that would be grouped together with them to make them a ‘trio’ would be—
She finally notices Krista’s frantic blue eyes, which confirm the outrageous suspicion that oh god Eren is here already.
Eren is not only here in the city but also here in this very club and fuck Ymir hasn’t told Jean yet, he doesn’t know.
She flies into a panic, which is only exacerbated by the alcohol in her own system, and tears away from the group to Connie and Sasha’s absolute bemusement. Fuck them. They hadn’t done it on purpose, only wanted to reunite the group at last (except for Marco, bless his soul) but still, fuck them.
There’s more than one floor to this place, and Jean isn’t in the smoking area like she thought he might be, which makes her job so much harder. She’s forcing her way through the crowd, her drunkenness only fuelling her determination and her panic, but still she can’t find Jean.
It’s okay though, because Jean finds her, blurred hazel eyes catching sight of her across the room and coming forward to grab her arm and pull her away from the crowd, towards the wall. It’s loud in here and they’re both drunk and finding it a little hard to focus, but she hears him loud and clear.
“It could just be all the liquor in my body right now, or I could be going crazy, but I think I just saw Eren.”