Work Text:
Your mom told you the journey into adulthood was hard, but rewarding--and you're starting to wonder where those fucking rewards are hiding.
It wasn't very difficult finding a house to move into, since and old friend of yours let you move into the downstairs portion of hers, but actually moving into it was like challenging the Elite Four with only a half-dead Bidoof. It was hell. For starters, that friend you were talking about lived two states away, and since you were broke enough that you couldn't afford 2 plane tickets for you and Eren, you had to road-trip all the way up.
A little lesson about the lovely abomination that is Eren Jäger, he hasn't changed a whole lot since high school, in that whole he's slightly less obnoxious about it he never misses an opportunity to meme it up. The whole ride from Shiganshina to Trost was spent listening to Never Gonna Give You Up, All Star, and the like, and when he wasn't destroying your ears he was showing you Shrek memes on your own phone instead of Google Maps.
He stopped testing your sanity after almost 2AM, when you skipped sleeping in a hotel because the only reasonably-priced one was completely booked for a Shakespeare Convention or some shit. (There was another place called Shady Oaks, but the second the guy at the front desk said, "Have you ever seen Bates Motel?" you hightailed it the fuck outta there, which gave you the scared energy to keep driving.) You think he stopped pestering you because he was sleep-deprived but you thanked your stars anyways. You don't think you could have done that 24-hour long drive and come out of it still breathing.
When you get to Trost your little house is undergoing some heavy remodeling--the result of shitty past tenants--but luckily your friend Ymir and her girlfriend Christa are fine with you and Eren crashing upstairs. Construction takes nearly two weeks to finish, and a day after it's done the long-distance movers from Shiganshina come with your stuff and start unloading everything inside.
This is where you start cursing the day you stopped being a kid.
The movers seem nice enough--one is a girl with the same assholish air as you named Hitch, and the other is a tall guy with a gross bowl-cut named Marlowe. Despite their sketchy appearances, they handle everything with care, to the point of setting down your paintings in the main bedroom like they're the works of God. The only problem you and Eren really have with them is that they don't put his support beam under his bed and his mattress falls through.
That is, until you have to put your bed together. Not only is yours entirely missing the support beam, but the bag of parts needed to actually assemble the fucking thing are mysteriously nowhere to be found either, so you literally cannot not put it together. The dick who packed your stuff in Shiganshina, some guy named Boris, lost your shit and quit the next day, taking the bag with him. You actually have to go to IKEA to get more parts, but end up taking an hour longer than usual because apparently IKEA is the hottest place to be on a Sunday.
By the time you finally get your bed together as safely as you can, you're too exhausted to do any other unpacking, meaning your living room is still piled up with boxes and a few random pieces of furniture.
At around 6PM, Christa comes downstairs with a bowl of chicken wings Ymir had cooked up, saying you and Eren are probably starving from such a hectic move (which you are). You take the bowl to the table, prepared to feast on Ymir's delicious cooking, but you stop dead in your tracks as you realize something.
"We have no chairs," Eren says, voice empty. It sounds like the Fire Nation just killed his mother. "There's nowhere to sit."
You want to scream to the heavens, but you contain yourself. There is a much easier way to solve this predicament that doesn't involve spilling blood, you think.
"Let's just sit on the floor," you sigh, dropping to the carpet pretzel-style. Eren mimicks you, taking the chicken and setting it in between the both of you. Then you start eating, not speaking because you're too tired for that, and really only moving away to bring over the trash can.
It's a little sad, you think. Your first real adult situation, and it's eating greasy chicken on the floor with your boyfriend accompanied by a horde of boxes and a fucking trash can.
"So romantic--a dinner for two," you mutter, nibbling on a wing.
Eren stares directly into your eyes, a pseudo-sultry look on his face, and wiggles his eyebrows as he does what you can only describe as a "sexy chicken lick." He runs his tongue across it in a manner that's just as greasy as the actual food.
You choke on your wing very unsexily and Eren throws his head back, cackling at you.
"What the fuck was that?!" you cry, throwing away your wing.
Eren chuckles a little. "I was setting the mood, Jean," he replies, throwing you a wink. "You said this was a romantic dinner, right?"
You narrow your eyes at him, but you decide to play along with his stupid antics for once. "Oh, it is romantic," you say playfully, "but there's no need to try and set the mood...I've always found you irresistable."
Eren gasps. "Even my crusty chicken fingers?"
You smirk. "Especially your crusty chicken fingers."
He leans forward, managing not to knock the bowl over, and whispers, "Kiss me, mama."
You lean forward as well, but instead of kissing Eren's lips you kiss a bunch of hair.
"Oh, gross!" Eren groans, pulling back. Your cat, Stupid, is perched between the two of you. "Ugh, she's stealing all the chicken. Way to ruin the moment."
You laugh and pull Stupid away from the bowl, picking a wing up and holding it out to her. "She's just hungry," you say, and as you do, she starts licking it.
"Babe," Eren whines, "are you cheating on me? This was supposed to be a dinner for two…"
Stupid continues to lick the chicken. You look into Eren's hurt eyes. "She has what I need. A bad sense in timing, a disgustingly hairy body--everything."
"B-but...my crusty chicken fingers…"
You roll your eyes. "Okay, loser, the fun's over," you say, taking the chicken from Stupid and eating it yourself. "Let's get ourselves cleaned up."
You help Eren to stand and bring him to the kitchen so you can both wash the crumbs off your hands. He waits for you to wash the bowl as well before following you into the bedroom. You flop down onto your pushed-together beds, Eren doing the same.
"I'm beat," he murmurs, rolling closer to you. "That chicken did nothing to help. I'm still so tired…"
You take off his glasses and kiss his forehead, smiling. "Then let's go to bed."
You think you're starting to see some of those rewards.