Chapter Text
When the cat's away (the mouse will p
lay)
WARNING: This is an English translation of one of my older fanfictions. You can read the original Italian version (full story) at this link.
note: Note: This fic can be considered a sequel to my "Never Forget We Were Built to Last," but it can also be read as a stand-alone story.
Chapter 1
There's not much to say: even if he wanted to, Jean wouldn't have been able to find the right words to describe what happens inside him when, upon entering Marco's room, he finds an open window and an empty bed.
It's as if suddenly, all that symphony of sounds, smells, and dark eyelashes that flutter a couple of times at his entrance—things Jean would label as "familiar" and pin on the wall of beautiful things—suddenly, cease to exist. Suddenly, they vanish from his thoughts, as if they never even existed.
The feeling is a bit like what you experience when, walking down the stairs in the dark, after the last step, you don't find the floor where your mind mistakenly believes it to be.
It's only thanks to Lia's clumsiness that he doesn't collapse: he never would have imagined that one day, the corner of a cart against his rib would be so dear to him.
"Oh—Jean! Damn it, Jean!" she shouts, hands to her face, "What the hell are you doing here, standing at the door?!"
"Wh—where's Marco?"
Lia's scowl suddenly loses its tension; like a child, she widens her eyes, blinking in confusion.
"You don't know?"
***
Jean knows this isn't the right way to breathe while running.
In the blood pounding in his ears, he can almost hear Instructor Shadis scolding him for every wrong step and breath he takes as he sprints with his mouth wide open like a dog, covering the entire perimeter of the barracks.
He's never run like this.
He didn't do it in Trost when his ODM gear broke, forcing him to improvise a lethal game of hide and seek with those giant bastards, and he didn't do it even when Marco's body was almost mistakenly piled among the corpses retrieved from the street, yanked by someone who, screaming, tried to convince him that no, it wasn't a mistake.
Whenever he does something for Marco, Jean always hopes to do it better; to break his own personal record.
He can't exactly say why, or rather—he thinks it always comes down to that annoying little voice.
That small, pesky companion of many adventures that occasionally whispers in his ear, suggesting that if he really had done everything for Marco the way he does now, if he had really given his best for him from the beginning, then maybe things would be different.
Maybe the smell that would most remind him of Marco wouldn't be that of disinfectants and camphor; the most anticipated sound would be his cheerful voice singing Trost's folk songs after too many mugs of beer, not his name gritted through teeth, invoked in the hope of relief from a torment that only a hollow needle could end.
If he'd always given his all, if only he'd been more careful, the thick lashes that bend at his entrance would be on the other side of his face, perfect for that freckled face now adorned with black sutures—and most importantly, he wouldn't be standing here wondering how the hell he let him end up there, trembling on a dew-soaked bench in the infirmary courtyard.
"Marco!" he shouts, stumbling as he pushes through the short grass.
He can see the startle even from a distance.
"Marco—!" he calls again, this time with less urgency; because when he collapses to his knees at his feet, the same color as the grass is on his lips, on the visible creases of his bandaged forehead, on the socket of the only eye he has left; and the terror that dominates him seems to do just that: it seems to really want to blame him for every time he 'couldn't do better'.
"Jean—" it's just a breath with no sound, but for Jean, it's deafening.
"Hey, hey—I'm here,"
He touches his cheek and his good shoulder; in that touch, he finds a thousand traces of things he doesn't like.
One of them is the tremor he feels in his tense muscles. He's seen it before, but it's the first time his bruised feet really attempt a vain effort to stand.
"Huh? No—no, Marco, don't do that. Stay calm, it's too early for—"
And Jean feels a bit like a jerk. He should stop and wonder if Marco ever imagined feeling the thick, soft grass between his fingers again, the long blades brushing and wetting his ankles, but instead, he finds himself pushing him back against the bench, sabotaging any initiative.
"Easy, Marco—"
He cups his face just enough not to hurt him.
He forces his gaze into his for the few seconds he's allowed before a new pain returns to visit him. Marco holds his breath: the grimace with which he clenches his horrifically pale and horrifically scared face says everything there is to say.
"Shhh, it's all right, shhhhh—"
It's not all right at all: he has a fever again.
In the miserable hospital gown that wraps him, Marco trembles like a featherless sparrow, and Jean curses himself: someone he doesn't know took him from his bed and brought him here, to a noisy garden where a warm April sun tries to mask the morning breezes, and he wasn't with him.
But it's not the time to remind him of that; breathing through sobs is already hard enough.
"It's all right, I'm here,"
Jean can feel his breaths against his abdomen as his chest tears with little sobs that neither his fingers on his neck nor his lips in his hair can really soothe.
Apparently, even this time, he's not doing his best.
"You just got scared," he tries to smile, to ease his grip a bit; he does it because Marco doesn't need to see his nails digging into his palms or hear his nonsense and curses shouted at the air that carries the scents of a spring that's already caused enough damage.
"God, I almost had a heart attack when I didn't find you in your room, you know?"
He leans in, wearing the mask of everything's-really-alright, trying to mold it to his face so it sticks to that nervous, affable smile he forces as he wraps Marco's trembling shoulders with his coat (they were about the same size once, how come it looks so big on him now?).
"But now everything's fine, I really mean it—" he downplays it, and immediately feels guilty.
He's gotten to know his tears by now.
He knows when his cheeks glisten with pain and when they do with frustration and humiliation.
These that his knuckles are now gathering are certainly the latter. Or maybe a lethal mix of both, yes—he's more than sure of that.
And he expects his nonsense to erase the searing humiliation of being brought here without being able to do anything to stop it?
Jean sighs.
'All the senior officers and most of their squads have been sent to the castle in Trost, the old headquarters. I don't know what they're doing there. I was told to stay here and assist Doctor Hilbig with the injured,' Lia had grumbled.
'Hilbig? Team leader Dietrich Hilbig?'
'Exactly. Today, the infirmary is under his supervision. He checked on Marco, then brought him out to the garden, saying a little sun would do him good. I thought you knew…'
Of course, he didn't know, why the hell would he?
(Because Marco is the boy he loves, that's why. Because he's the one to whom he swore he would do anything to protect him—suggests that damn nagging voice in his head).
"Has anyone brought you your medicine?"
The question slips out as the soft strands he washed the day before slip through his fingers, "Marco?"
The answer is in that sigh mixed with a sob that he hears as he vaguely stares at something horrible in the distant hedges.
He assumes the worst.
"And the injection? Doctor Hilbig must have at least given you the injection before bringing you here, right?"
Marco averts his gaze, closes his eyelid.
He hasn't spoken much since the incident, Jean knows that already.
Hange always says to give him time, to discover new forms of communication together—and that's what Jean does: the way he sees him shaking his head and clutching his face with the only hand he has left is more than he could hope for.
And it's more than he can bear.
The painkiller is one of the best moments of these dreadfully identical days. It is for both of them, and now, in his mind, there's no room to process anything other than how terribly wrong all of this is.
"All right," Jean says, rising from the edge of the bench, "I think it's time to go back,"
Marco shudders. Jean finds himself doing the same before he can even question why.
"Go where?"
He doesn't even have to turn much to see him emerging from the mulberry tree behind them: Dietrich Hilbig has always been there. Always sitting on the bench opposite theirs, with a newspaper on his lap and a benign smile on his red face.
"Team leader Dietrich," Jean pounds his chest with his fist, respectful and embarrassed like a fool.
It's the only way he can avoid thinking about how such reflexes on the battlefield would have sent him to the other world in seconds, he tells himself.
But his hand quickly returns to Marco's shoulder, which is still trembling, maybe even more than before.
"Jean Kirschtein, right?"
"Yes, sir—"
"I’ve heard of you, and of your dedication to your...'comrade'—" he carefully folds the newspaper and lets it drop onto the bench with a dull, disinterested thud.
"I know that you, in every sense, traded your own safety to become a soldier in the Survey Corps so that Soldat Bodt could receive the best care in our infirmary."
Jean looks away, blushing. It’s the first time the concrete sound of such a gesture has hung in the air, devoid of any filter or bedtime story he could have concocted to make it more palatable.
“It didn’t—happen exactly like that…” he stammers. His downcast eyes and the noticeable grass and mud stains on his knees do little to instill authority.
“Don’t be embarrassed, my boy. Your spirit of sacrifice does you credit!” the man laughs, taking a few steps closer.
He stops, and Jean examines him more closely. He has a round face and the kind, coaxing eyes of a charlatan.
The doctor watches him for a couple of seconds before raising a hand to his forehead, as if shielding himself from the sun.
“It’s a truly splendid day today,” he says, peering at the clear sky through the gaps between his fingers. “More than that psychopath's chemical nonsense, what Marco needs is this.”
Stunned, Jean glances around.
He looks at the meticulously trimmed hedges, sees Marco gripping a corner of the coat draped over his shoulders. He watches Marco’s gaze return to a terrified stare, a look Jean had sworn he’d fight to ensure would never again appear on his face, and damn it – he sees Marco’s teeth chattering uncontrollably, sees Marco pulling his lower lip between his teeth.
He sees Marco.
“Don’t you agree, Jean?”
His heart skips a beat as the doctor invades the safety distance his mind had drawn.
He struggles for breath when, calmly, the man places one hand on Marco’s chest and the other on the inside of his wrist. Jean sees him open his mouth as if to scream, but the only sound that escapes is a rasping noise from his chest, and no.
No.
He forces down bile he hadn’t realised was in his throat. Intimidated, he moves closer than he already is, but it doesn’t help: even feeling the tremor of Marco’s shoulders against his legs isn’t close enough.
“Poor boy,” the man shakes his head, placing a hand under Marco’s rigid chin. “Who knows what that freaking vivisector did to you to leave you in this state.”
“Marco didn’t—” Jean stops. It comes out horribly; he really needs to do something about that tone of a child caught with their hand in the cookie jar.
“Marco hasn’t left his room since he’s been here. That’s why—”
“That’s why he’s unwell, Jean.”
Jean falls silent. He furrows his brow.
“Being outside stimulates and strengthens the immune system. The benefits of sun exposure are numerous and varied: from the heart to the bones, from muscles to infections – it even improves mood, you know?”
He smiles. He smiles at Marco, who doesn’t smile back.
“If Soldat Bodt hadn’t been cooped up indoors like an animal, poisoned by substances of dubious origin, he’d be on his feet by now—” He pauses, thinking.
“In fact, perhaps he should try to get on his fe—”
“Don’t—”
Jean can’t hold back.
To hell with insubordination, Marco’s hand is the one that has seized his chest, right where his groan had already broken something.
He hasn’t acted like this in a long time. Since the first days, perhaps. Since, at the Trost hospital, the only thing they could do was make him feel more pain, and then more, and then more, again and again – and damn it.
Before the squad leader can even touch him, Jean has already pulled Marco into his arms.
He already has his elbow in hand, against which he’s hidden his face, he’s already taken him away from anything that might hurt him.
That’s what he tells himself.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Squad Leader.”
Oh, there he is, finally, the Jean he wants to be!
“Squad Leader Hange has designed a specific treatment plan for him, sir.”
“I’ve seen the medical reports on him,” the squad leader says, unsurprised, “she’s turned him into a real lab rat.”
“He’s improved a lot since she’s been treating him, sir,” Jean insists, his voice flat.
There’s a tingling in his wrists; a pricking sensation similar to the one he feels on his abdomen where Marco’s murmurs gather, but maybe they’re just his own thoughts.
“Hmm. Are you sure about that?”
“Yes, sir.”
The condescension in that smile stretching across thin lips is deep.
If Marco’s breathing hadn’t become so rapid as to steal the scene, Jean would find it unbearable.
“Squad Leader Hange Zoë is an excellent scientist. While she can be difficult to get along with at times, I acknowledge that her studies on Titans and her strategic insights on the battlefield have often made exemplary contributions to our cause,” he pauses for a moment, sighing sympathetically. “But she isn’t a doctor.”
A gust of wind ruffles his red hair, which glows in the backlight as if he’d deliberately struck a match on straw.
“Commander Erwin may convince himself otherwise, grant her full authority over the medical and scientific sector, allow her to dissect her men and use the King’s funds for her trinkets, but the simple truth is this, my boy. Hange is not a doctor. But don’t be surprised. After all, it’s not the first time Erwin has recruited his soldiers in…unusual ways. Have they told you about Captain Levi?”
Jean doesn’t care where or how the Commander recruits his men, nor does he care about the recruitment of Captain Levi. It’s odd even to think about it.
He only wants Marco to get better. To stop trembling and mumbling pleas for help to a world where he can’t reach him.
He lowers his eyes to that grip that is slowly weakening, hesitates.
“Sir, I think it’s best to take Marco back to his room.”
“It’s still early.”
“But—”
“I said it’s still early—”
“Sir, I believe that—”
“One more word on the matter, and I’m afraid you’ll be in trouble, Soldat Kirschtein.”
He doesn’t raise his voice, but the way he enunciates each syllable leaves no room for anything other than another bile ball to swallow.
“And getting into trouble on your own is one thing, but dragging a poor wounded soldier into it…”
A gust of wind rustles the mulberry leaves, and in their shade, his stupid rosy features and rounded-off words reveal the threatening undertone present from the beginning, but masked as something else.
“Marco—” Jean takes a breath, realising he can only manage half. “—Marco has nothing to do with this…”
“I know he has nothing to do with it, my boy.” The man’s cheer returns, his face relaxing. “I’m just saying we should stop worrying so much about Squad Leader Hange, don’t you think?”
“She won’t be pleased when she returns…” Jean mumbles to himself, aware he’s still walking a fine line of irreverence.
“If she returns.”
Jean frowns, confused. “I don’t understand, why wouldn’t she return?”
“Well, she is on a mission, after all. The possibility of encountering Titans within the walls isn’t so remote these days,” he chuckles, amused, “of course, I was only joking,” he adds in response to Jean’s wounded silence.
The doctor takes a few steps back to his bench under the mulberry tree, bends down to retrieve something, probably the newspaper. Only then does Jean notice he has a stack with him, and the ones he’s handing him are just a couple from a half-column dotted with moss.
“In any case, why don’t you sit next to your friend and relax a bit too? It’s not often you get the chance to idle around here—”
Something darts behind the squad leader; a sparrow with something stuck in its beak lands on a branch. Motionless, Jean distractedly follows its hops, its uncertain movements.
His silence disarms the doctor’s gaze. When he meets it again, it’s still that of a father watching with amusement to see how far a brat’s impertinence can go, but it’s far from exploding.
He’s already realised he’s won.
And Jean has already realised there’s nothing he can do.
He places his hand on Marco’s, first just one, then brings the other over, and Marco flinches. He always flinches when someone moves their hands over his body, but this time, it’s because he understands it as a pathetic attempt to apologise in advance.
Defeated, Jean withdraws his hands and places them in his lap. Then he moves around and sits on the bench.
Hips as close to the edge as possible, his side as close as possible to Marco’s.
End first chapter