Archive of Our Own ^beta

Year 857 - Autumn

It’s been years since Sasha died, and Connie’s still terrified to go anywhere near the realm of dating.

“She’s clearly sweet on you,” Jean says, and wants to smack his own forehead into the table when Connie’s already bug-esque eyes bulge comically.

“Sweet? On me?” Connie scoffs, busying himself with the slice of cake sitting between them. The free cake, Jean might add, and the free cup of tea to accompany it. All the while Jean picks at his own (paid off in full). The tips of Connie’s ears are a florid red, made so much more obvious against the pale ash of his hair.

Jean points at the girl behind the counter, who ducks her head to hide behind the display cabinet when she spots him, “Yes, on you, you buffoon.”

It’s almost cute watching the two of them stumble over their words whenever they interact. Jean half-suspects the only reason Connie got his order for free was because the girl had simply been too nervous to tell him what he owed.

“That’s. That’s wrong, and you don’t know what you’re talking about and— Shut it. Shut up.” Scowling, Connie jams the remainder of the cake in his mouth and chews furiously at it. Then, once more for good measure, “Shu’ uh.”

There’s no way he hasn’t noticed it. You’d have to be faced away with your hands over your ears, singing, to miss it, though it looks like Connie might be seconds away from doing that.

“Here are the facts,” Jean starts, and digs in the satchel by his chair for his sketchbook and a pencil. “Number one: she gives you free food…”

Year 855 - Winter

Of course Armin, with all of his impossible wisdom and endless charm, is involved in orchestrating Marley’s rebuild. Catching up with him becomes possible only at his pace, in the few pockets between meeting after meeting.

A building’s been hastily erected to serve as a headquarters of sorts — four walls of pale wood, so freshly cut that it still smells faintly of pine. It’s shabby, built as best it could be under such time pressure, and Jean’s grown incredibly used to staring at the uneven trim on either side of the door while he waits for Armin to finish up whatever mind-numbing thing he’s dealing with at the time.

A lot of the wood they’ll eventually rebuild the city with is imported, sent over by the Alliance under the guise of lending a helping hand. Even Jean knows that everything has a motive, but he knows they’re so desperate that they’ll take what they can get and deal with the consequences later.

“Sorry, sorry!” Armin chatters, hurrying out into the street with his coat only slung onto one arm. Jean wonders whether he’ll realise his satchel is over his shoulder before he gets the other one on. “I haven’t got long! I thought we could go to that bakery that just opened up.”

“Bakery?” Expectedly, Connie’s ears prick.

Fresh bread is one of those things that Jean’s forgotten he once had regularly; he’s still used to military rations, canned goods, bland and nowhere close to being filling. While Marley’s been on the mend, meals have been taken communally, evenly measured out.

Society must be well on its way if they’re building things like bakeries — which means Armin’s time here is measured. He’ll be consulting elsewhere before long.

“Most public services we need are done,” Armin says, struggling to button his coat up with his satchel still underneath, bulging the fabric, pulling it tight around his chest. He’s too frazzled to notice the issue. “The owner offered to rebuild it entirely on his own out of his house.”

Unfinished homes stick out like seedlings around them. Jean ducks around a builder carting a load of pine planks, stumbles, catches up to the two still chatting idly.

The area of land they’ve set up Marley’s new capital is a little further inland than Liberio was. Even as an internment zone, Liberio was still larger than any city Jean had ever visited, if not for the land mass but for the amount they’d packed into the space.

It was overwhelming. Jean wasn’t used to the sheer number of people when he’d first snuck in after their first fateful passage, finding everything too loud, too much. It made him feel small. Insignificant. Even if he knew the people he was weaving between would all be dead soon.

Here, in a new, as-yet-unnamed capital, things will feel very small for a long while. It puts it into perspective just how many people Eren killed, when he knows all Marley’s survivors have congregated here, yet the streets still feel so… empty.

“—struggle seems to be settling on a new name. No one can agree,” Armin’s saying to Connie, with that wide, earnest smile that’s grown all the more rare after the horrors he’s seen and committed.

“I think a good name would be…” Connie trails off, hard in thought. “Damn it, I’m stuck too.”

“It has to be something new. Something that no one can associate with the world before — something neutral. But nothing feels neutral anymore,” Armin sighs. “Just you wait, we’ll stay stuck on this for months, even years. We’ll be setting up trade routes and will be completely unable to tell anyone where they should send their goods.”

Jean scoffs, “Are there any contenders?”

“Some—“ Armin stops himself, clearly to look for another word that isn’t idiot, “—one wants to go with ‘New Marley’, and has support from others. I don’t even need to explain to you how unhelpful that is.”

“You could ask the public?” Connie offers.

Jean rolls his eyes. “Yeah, watch Levi suggest ‘Shitsville’ and actually get the votes to pass it.”

Visibly gulping, Armin’s eyes take on this distant, haunted look, “Oh God, he would, wouldn’t he?”

Under Armin’s guidance, they turn at the next intersection, and the bakery appears in a cloud of fresh-bread scent with something sweeter on the tail end. It’s not big, essentially just an open window and two tables sitting on the street in front of it. Both tables are already occupied, and there’s a small, steady line trailing down the street.

A folding sign is propped on the curb, chalk spelling out what the bakery has to offer.

The girl at the window, kerchief keeping her hair out of her face, brightens when she spies Armin. “Hey, Armin! Come on up, I’ll serve you next!”

“He’s cutting!” someone calls, and the girl narrows her eyes at him.

“Do you know who he is?”

“I don’t mind waiting—“ Armin starts, only to be cut off.

“Nonsense, you deserve priority service for helping us open. Now get over here, what do you want?”

Sweating, Armin orders a piece of a wide, flat bread dotted with chunks of rosemary and coarse salt. When Jean turns to Connie for guidance on what to get, he finds Connie sweating too.

“Um. Hi, what—“ Connie coughs, looking up at the girl with nothing short of terror, “What do you suggest?”

The girl, about their age, with a sweet smile wholly focussed on Connie, points to the stretch of glass beneath her window. Baskets of baked goods are lined up with short, handwritten cards in front of them. “The apricot pastry is my favourite.”

“Then I’ll take one of those, please.”

Once Connie’s cradling something that’s showering flaky crumbs all over his shoes, she turns to them, ears pink, “And, er, no charge for you two. Next!”

Jean opens his mouth and finds himself looking at another customer’s back. “What about me?” he asks, to no one’s notice. “Hey, I still haven’t ordered!”

“I’m sorry, Jean.” Armin has the sympathy to look at least a little apologetic as he swallows the last bite of his bread. Of course he’d offered Jean half, but he was too busy nursing his annoyance to accept it.

“It’s fine,” Jean spits, “It’s so fine. Hey, I might be twice Connie’s height but at least I’m also invisible, right?”

They’re leant on the wall beside the bakery, but the line doesn’t seem to be going down any and he refuses to be the person who makes a scene about getting overlooked. Part of him is also concerned that if he goes back up to the window, the same thing might happen twice and then he might be forced to admit he just doesn’t draw attention like he used to.

“It’s not even that good, really,” Connie says, as if his eyes haven’t been closed in bliss with every mouthful. “That might make you feel better.”

“Oh, shut up.” Jean watches a figure step out from the line with a paper bag in hand. Maybe he could duck in between the man who’s turned around to talk to his friend and the lady busy rifling through her purse? They might not notice until it’s too late…

“Fancy seeing you all here.” The person with the paper bag approaches, and Jean’s stomach does a strange flip-flop that he ignores. With his hair slicked back with sweat and a white, grubby undershirt on, Reiner hadn’t been immediately recognisable.

But now, without a doubt, it’s him. His trousers are thick cotton and pale with wood dust, a hammer slung through the loop halfway down his thigh. He looks… good. Happy.

“Reiner!” Armin brightens, scuttling closer to clap him on the arm, “How are you?”

Jean settles back as Reiner and Armin discuss the houses Reiner’s helping build. By the end of the year they’ll be onto the next big project. He could have been involved in peace treaty talks, like Armin, Jean, and Connie have been, but he’d declined. The reason wasn’t clear — until now.

It’s done him well too; he’s built up some of that mass he’d lost since his Scout days, his eye-bags aren’t quite so livid, and his slouch is nearly entirely gone. Watching him chat to Armin and Connie, there’s genuine joy in him.

“Hey, I saw that you didn’t get a chance to buy lunch?” Reiner leans against the wall beside Jean, ducking in closer. His shoulder, hot and a little sticky with sweat, brushes against Jean’s own.

“Yeah, it was like he wasn’t even there!” Connie guffaws, and for that, Jean elects not to tell him there’s a smear of apricot jam up his cheek.

“I ran into some difficulty, yes, and also fuck you, Connie.”

“Don’t get cranky at me just because you were ignored.“

Brown paper crinkling, Reiner digs out some kind of soft bun and holds it out, “Here, I got two.”

When Jean bites into it, he can’t help but groan happily. The bun is soft and sweet and delicate, and it melts in his mouth like nothing has in years. He presses a sloppy, crumb-laden kiss to Reiner’s cheek, “You’re incredible, you know that?”

He’s expecting to be made fun of, or for Reiner to offer a you’re welcome, or anything. Anything but a bubbling, loud silence that greets him when he opens his eyes. He’s being stared at. Connie’s mouth is hanging open, his brows raised so high they’re nearly gone entirely; Armin’s visibly biting back laughter; Reiner’s shell-shocked gaze is flickering and landing like flies on the wall behind Jean’s head. “What?”

Connie snorts. “Jean, that was so—“

“—Nice,” Armin finishes, hastily. “That was really nice, Jean.”

Year 857 - Autumn

“Number two,” Jean continues, scrawling another bullet point, “She compliments you. A lot. No one should find your eyes ‘sweet.’”

As if on cue, the girl wobbles out in front of the counter and surreptitiously wipes at the glass over the display case. Every so often, she glances over her shoulder. It’s almost cute watching Connie do the same — almost, until Jean remembers how much of an insufferable shit he is.

“My eyes are lovely, asshole.” Connie frowns. “Compliments don’t mean anything. We compliment each other all the time.”

“No, you slap my ass and tell me—“

“—It’s a shame I don’t like men, yes. I don’t see how that doesn’t prove my point.”

“Connie Springer, that girl likes you and you’re being obtuse about it.”

That seems to garner a reaction beyond denial; Connie sits up properly, his wooden chair creaking in protest, “Oh, you’re calling me obtuse.”

Year 855 - Spring

Like much of their still nameless capital, the bakery expands. The owner sets to quickly making the space somewhere people can walk in and sit, drink, and talk, and Connie and Jean take full advantage of that.

Armin’s been away for weeks, off in some distant town building it from the ground up alongside a group of city planners he struggles to find nice things to say about. Connie and Jean stay, and try to hold down the fort.

Historia sends letters co-written with the Jaegerists, and Connie and Jean take those letters to the bakery to sit at a table in the back corner hoping to draft talking points for future meetings. Armin phones in occasionally, when he can, when he’s not kept busy by infrastructure and public services and other things Jean didn’t know he was qualified to oversee.

They take the letters and try to work with them, though more often than not, they end up distracted.

“Sasha would love this.” Connie digs into another free slice of cake. It’s hard to remember the last time he paid for anything here, while Jean still has to struggle to place his order before the girl forgets he’s even there. Connie’s presence seems to daze her.

It’s a soft, white cake, layered with frosting and jam. In fairness, Sasha would like it, but Jean thinks Connie’s taking too much effort to guilt himself into not chasing after someone else.

“Yeah, she would.” Then he aims for a topic change, “Have you asked her name yet?”

“Name? Whose name?” Connie feigns ignorance. Feigns — meaning it’s still obvious when he twitches in the girl’s direction before hastily dragging himself back to the letters spread out in front of him.

The port once housing the wall Marleyan soldiers threw defectors off is up for debate. Marley wants it. Paradis wants it. Connie and Jean are stuck in the middle while each side accuses the other of having ulterior motives. It’s a shitshow, frankly. Jean’s tired of meetings where his Paradisian origins become a topic of contention.

A tension headache is already starting to form, so he flips the letters over and turns back to his cup of tea. “Don’t play dumb with me,” he ignores Connie’s dumb? I’ve never played that in my life. “Does she even know your name?”

“Er, I don’t think so.” Connie shrugs, gnawing on his thumbnail. “Hey, do you think we could exchange a port on Marley for the one on Paradis?”

“Stop changing the subject.”

“This is what we need to be talking about!” Connie groans. He ducks his head when the girl looks over. “If we go back in there next week with nothing, they’ll walk all over us and just do what they want anyway.”

“We’re thinking about it too much anyway, we can come back to it when we’re fresh.” Jean waves his hand dismissively, to Connie’s apparent disgust. “I know you feel bad because of Sa—“

Connie coughs, loudly, “Well, what’s the deal with you and Reiner anyway?”

There’s no deal with Reiner, not that he knows of. Reiner’s new friendship is a pleasant, relaxed thing that Jean’s still waiting to get ripped out from under him. He waits for himself to get angry over his role in the war, and finds himself doing anything but. Fury would make sense, a need for revenge would make sense, but the sight of Reiner alone just plants a small, warm seed in his gut.

Reiner’s a good person, who’s happiest building houses for people who need them.

Jean blinks, finds Connie still staring. “I don’t know, he’s nice and I like having him around. And so do you, but I’m not harassing you about it, am I?”

“Touchy…” Connie mutters, “I’m not the one with an extra plate every time we come here ‘cause I’m hoping Reiner will show up.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

The bell over the door jingles and both their heads swivel towards it. Reiner steps in, a smear of dirt across the bridge of his nose like he’s been pinching it in frustration.

“Speak of the devil—“ Clearly thinking better of his choice of words, Connie starts again, “We saved you a seat, Reiner!”

Jean kicks Connie’s shin underneath the table. Yes, they did pick the one with three chairs around it but that didn’t have any motives, and yes, Jean bought an extra danish today but his eyes were bigger than his stomach. That’s all there is to it.

Gone is the awkward shuffle Jean had once been used to seeing on Reiner; he approaches with wide, long strides, shoulders pulled back and a comfortable smile on his face. It’s not wide, but it’s not fixed in place either, and it’s genuine. It’s a smile lined with ease.

Reiner greets them both with a hearty slap on their backs but stays stood behind Jean’s chair, leaning over his shoulder to squint at the papers strewn over the table. When he ducks closer to flip one over, his side brushes Jean’s ear. He feels heat-warmed, grimy from hard work, and Jean doesn’t even mind it. “Letters from the Queen?”

Even saying her title, his voice is gentle.

Jean quashes the curl of discontent threatening to overrun the seed in his belly, glowering into his teacup. “Yeah. We’re trying to figure out how to avoid another damn war over the tiniest port known to man.”

It isn’t about the land itself. Marley could be plenty happy with ports still on their own soil, but this was their dumping spot for refuse for so long that any surviving officials feel entitled to it. It’s been getting harder to bite back his own sourness during each mind-numbing, unproductive, ridiculous meeting. Reminders that any of them hail from Paradis is only a reminder that they shouldn’t be trusted.

They’re probably only involved to make it at least look like there are other perspectives in the room.

Reiner clucks his tongue in sympathy, likely all too aware of the frustrations of bureaucracy. Or he’s specifically dealt with the same people responsible for their migraines. Most of them are just as green as they are, only getting their legs in diplomacy due to simply surviving — it’s a bleak thought.

“Armin have any ideas?”

“Haven’t talked to him yet,” Connie sighs, pressing the heels of his palms into his eyes. They’ve been avoiding calling him, mostly because he doesn’t need that stress on top of everything else he’s dealing with. For the most part, it’s just been the two of them trying to keep their heads above water. It still doesn’t feel like they’re any good at it, but there’s no other option but to get better.

“I’ll go order and we can brainstorm, yeah?” Reiner offers, even if he doesn’t need to help. He’s just the kind of person that will. “Any ideas on what I should get today?”

When Connie shoots Jean a smarmy look and opens his mouth, Jean hastens to point to the plate at his elbow. “I ordered too much, have this if you want.”

“Ah, thanks! I’ll go order a coffee,” Reiner says. Then, casually, as if he hadn’t considered the hysterics it will induce in Connie, he adds, “By the way, Jean, the longer hair is really suiting you.”

With another pat to Jean’s shoulder, he approaches the counter.

“If you say a fucking word—“

“—Ooh, Jean, you look so handsome with your long, luscious locks—“

“—I will fucking kill you, Connie,” Jean hisses. “He’s just being nice, something a cretin like you would know nothing about.”

“Yeah, he’s being nice because no one in their right mind would think your sleazy haircut looks good. Though…” Connie props his fist under his chin in thought, “You are sleazy, so maybe it does suit you.”

“You’re insufferable.”

“You love me so much for it.”

“I really don’t,” Jean grunts, knowing they’re both aware it’s a lie. If Connie wasn’t insufferable, something would be deeply, truly wrong.

Reiner’s only at the counter for a moment before he heads back, settling into the vacant chair with a deep exhale. He slumps back, legs spread wide, his unbuttoned shirt pulling tight around his chest.

On his wanderings around town, Jean’s seen him working. He’s seen the coiled force in his biceps as he hammers away at a nail, the draw of his brows in his concentration. The other men working on the houses chatter, but Reiner’s always lost in his head, always too busy with his own thoughts to join in.

“Marley won’t want the port for any real reason — they just don’t want to give it up.” Reiner’s got his ankle propped on his other thigh to fiddle with his bootlaces now, loosening them and dragging his socks down to rub at the compression-marked expanse of his calves.

“Honestly, it’s barely even a port anymore.” The headache’s coming back in full force, not soothed by Jean rubbing at his temples. “It was trampled, so it’s really just a broken wall, but Historia wants to turn it into a new trade hub. Not to mention, they’re still having food shortages in Paradis and the ocean’s another resource to help alleviate that. It would be a good place for a fishery.”

“But?”

“But, as you said, Marley doesn’t want to give it up.” Connie shrugs, dragging crumbs around his plate with his finger. The weight of it’s coming down on him now too. There’s another reason they’re so easily distracted during these talks — it’s easier than getting stuck in and finding every avenue as hopeless as the last.

Reiner frowns, “It’s their land, isn’t it?”

“Try telling Zeihl that. As far as she’s concerned, land borders don’t mean shit if Marley’s claimed ownership over it for so long. ‘We built that wall’ and the like, as if we need yet another wall to complicate things.” Jean’s teacup clatters when he shoves it into its saucer, the dregs inside wobbling as if under the duress of giant footsteps.

“You’d think we wouldn’t want such a vile reminder of the past,” Reiner shudders, and it’s enough to have Jean’s stomach churning too. It’s unlikely they’ll ever dredge up the number of people injected, toppled over that edge, then used to torment Jean’s home. His people. The people he’s now fighting, and fighting for, all the while trying to stay impartial.

“Here’s your coffee, Reiner.” The girl approaches with a cup in hand. The smell of its fresh brew is bright and smooth, far more pleasant than the taste Jean hasn’t yet acclimated to. She places the teacup and saucer down, the floral enamel paint on each already chipped with use.

Reiner thanks her, warm as ever, before it becomes apparent she isn’t there for him. Shyly, she places another plate in front of Connie; a tart with a jewel-red, shining strawberry centred perfectly on the top of it.

“I thought you might like this,” she says, clasping and twisting her hands in her apron. “And, um, I appreciate how much you like coming here. You’re funny.”

Connie immediately flushes up to his hairline. “Thank you,” he replies, uncharacteristically quiet.

“I hope you keep coming back, um.” She ducks her head, “I never got your name.”

Connie blanches. Works his jaw. Stutters. It’s embarrassing to watch.

Jean takes the initiative to answer for him, “His name is Connie. He’s twenty-one — he likes food and long walks. He’s almost housetrained t-oo! Ow, fuck, man.”

“Connie is a nice name,” she says, hiding her smile in her hands. She turns on her heel and scurries for the counter, then disappears through the door behind it.

When the door swings shut with a thud, Connie punches Jean on the bicep a second time. Much harder than the first. “I hate you.”

There’ll be a bruise on Jean’s arm in a few hours, judging by the dull ache he feels down to the bone. Wincing, he rubs at it. “You know, that would have been the perfect opportunity to ask for her name.”

“Fuck off,” Connie whines, and wobbles down to gingerly lay his head on the table.

Year 857 - Autumn

“Stop distracting from the topic at hand,” Jean scowls, entirely aware of what Connie’s referring to. “Three: she wants to spend time with you outside this place.”

“I’m not sure what you mean.” Connie sniffs haughtily as he glances out the window. They’re sat beside it today, where the serving counter had been set up when the bakery first opened. Outside, the town bustles as if nothing had ever disrupted it. As if it’s been here for decades.

Sometimes, Jean catches his sleeve on the edge of a nail not hammered all the way into its plank, and he remembers. He’ll buy lunch and find the flavour lacking, then he’ll think of a time when he couldn’t eat anything he hadn’t caught, plucked, procured with his own two hands. It reminds him to be grateful.

“She’s told you that she’s never gone to that farmer’s market off Magath Lane only about a thousand times.”

“So? That’s not my fault.”

It’s depressing to think that Jean’s been friends with such a complete moron for nearly a decade. He levels Connie with a hard stare, “So, this is where a normal person who is interested in another normal person would offer to go together. She’s dropping hints.”

“I need to be told things directly!” Connie groans, “How many other people have flirted with me and I haven’t noticed?”

That pool might be small. Though… there was that time Jean was at the bottom of a bottle and feeling desperate…

“Just this one, don’t worry,” he says, and makes note to repress the memory further lest he let slip and have Connie ruminate too hard on his grabby hands and poorly veiled subtext. Connie shouldn’t even know the meaning of the word ‘ruminate’ — he’s certainly bad enough at putting it to practice. But that doesn’t mean he’s incapable of it.

Under his breath, Connie grumbles something Jean doesn’t catch, but it sounds suitably pissed off.

Year 856 - Summer

Reiner’s already at the bakery by the time Jean wanders down.

He’d left Connie to go to lunch alone, not quite mournful in the loss of another member of their peace division. This one had been a commander underneath Magath. He survived the Rumbling only to find these talks too exhausting, too difficult, and completely unnecessary for himself to be involved.

Jean isn’t overly concerned, but their numbers are dwindling. Connie’s off trying to recruit Pieck, who’d initially declined in order to look after her father. He was injured in the Rumbling, and she had the freedom of choice to do what was best for him for the first time in her life.

Reiner’s sat at one of their preferred tables, a book in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other, but his attention can’t have been on the words if he brightens and waves almost immediately when Jean steps inside. The doorbell jangles as he lets it fall shut behind him.

“You look exhausted,” Reiner offers in sympathy when Jean collapses into the seat opposite. It’s an unspoken request for elaboration that he desperately needs.

“Didn’t sleep last night,” Jean grunts, scrubbing his knuckles into his eyes so hard he feels them push back into their sockets. “The date for the summit is settled, and the Alliance have picked their ambassadors, but our team keeps fucking shrinking. Gonna have to work twice as hard if we want to be prepared in time.”

“Who was it this time?”

“Albrecht.”

“Ah,” Reiner nods, likely recalling the kind of man they’re talking about with more damning insight than Jean could ever get. “I can’t say you should miss him. It was a wonder he rose through the ranks the way he did at all. But in the end, his laziness was probably his saving grace.”

“You’re right,” Jean says, sucking in a breath instead of screaming before he gets to his but, “but it looks bad when people keep quitting. The Jaegerists don’t want diplomacy, they want — fuck, they want repentance. Revenge. They’ll take advantage of our poor image to get that.”

“But they won’t know people are quitting, right?” Reiner’s brows are raised.

Jean’s silence implies too much.

“How the hell have they figured that out?”

Jean’s face pinches in a kind of grief. It is a loss, after all. “My fault, it’s my— I did it. I told Historia. In our letters, I. Didn’t think it through properly. We had the official ones, and then the not-so-official ones and I was just… updating her on my life. She was doing the same. Telling me about her husband and daughter, and I didn’t have anything else to offer. I was dumb.”

“Not dumb,” Reiner says, sympathetically, pityingly. “Let’s go for a walk. It’s a bit open here, I think.”

Reiner leaves a handful of coins on the table as he stands, tucking his paperback into the back pocket of his trousers. He opens the door for Jean to duck under his arm, then heads out into the late afternoon sun with a destination in mind and Jean can only follow.

“You’re not dumb,” Reiner repeats when they’re nearing the edge of cobblestones, riverbank rising close by. “You were talking to a friend.”

“But things are different now, I was kidding myself if I thought they weren’t. I’ve been wracking my brains for anything she told me that I could use the same way, but you know what? She hasn’t. She’s been careful.” Jean frowns, kicks at a loose stone lying on the grass.

The river stretches out into the horizon, limitless, glistening, clean. They follow its steady meander. Light is fading as the day wanes, shadows cast by the banks darkening the water. The grass has had time to grow, like so much else has, and it rustles across their boots in reminder that normalcy is returning one day at a time.

Reiner waits a long moment, staring out into the water, before asking, “Does anyone else know?”

“Not yet, but they will. Everyone’s running around like headless chickens wondering how in the hell the Jeagerists figured it out. That, or they think they’re bluffing. Either way, I’ll need to come clean soon. They’ll think there’s a rat, and there’s only so many people it could be.”

“And who better than an ex-Paradisian?” Reiner comments, ducking down to swipe up a dandelion. He treats the golden flower gently, pinching the stem between his fingers so gently that the whole thing wobbles with every step he takes but doesn’t break.

“Who better than me? I’m a pain in the ass. I’m the one who just always has to suggest other options — by the way, the council took your idea of negotiating for more trade access in exchange for letting Paradis have that port surprisingly well.” He can’t help his grin. “You could still join us, if you wanted to. We have far too many empty seats.”

He knows the answer before he even hears it: a low, measured, “No. I told you, Jean—“

“You’ve found a new calling building houses, I know, I know. It’s just wishful thinking,” Jean shrugs. “But I know you’d be good at it.”

“‘Course I would be.” Seemingly bored of walking, Reiner stops and sits carefully at the top of the bank. Jean hovers, kicking at one patch of grass with a slow vengeance. “But I’m good at this too. It’s simple. I know I can’t mess it up too badly, and even if I do, it’s okay. My mistakes don’t have a body count now.”

Reiner deserves that. He does. It shouldn’t make Jean so angry, so envious. He should be able to do the same, but he’s stuck here, clinging to this sinking ship.

“After everything we fought for, are you really content to just sit there while we flounder?” Jean asks, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

“Jean, it isn’t that I’m content, trust me. But it’s better for me, and for the first time in my life, I just… I wanna figure myself out.”

Jean’s next kick sends the head of a dandelion flying into the water. “But you like this. Admit it — you can’t help yourself. You want to fix this as much as we do, but you won’t let yourself get officially involved because you’re afraid you’ll fuck it up.”

There’s a cold silence in the wake of Jean’s, admittedly poorly placed, observation. He hadn’t even known he thought it until he said it, but now it’s out, and Reiner’s stiff back says everything his mouth won’t. “You’re being an ass,” he replies, looking out across the water grimly.

“An ass that’s right. You’ve fixed half our problems vicariously because you’re the only person who could possibly have true, learned neutrality. You’ve seen both sides, and you’re smart enough to actually do something with that,” Jean says, sitting down to stretch his legs out in front of him. He watches his own boots wiggle, heels digging into the dirt.

“Can we talk about something else?” The desperation in Reiner’s voice is overwhelming. “The summit’s next year, isn’t it? Let me think about it.”

The sigh in Jean’s chest is kept at bay, no matter how much he wants to let it out to show Reiner just how supremely unsatisfied he is. It wouldn’t be fair. “Sure. What do you want to talk about instead?”

Reiner shrugs miserably, “Anything. Annie’s been writing to me.”

“Oh yeah? Is she tired of Armin’s schedule yet?”

Reiner shakes his head, his laugh still tense and tight. “Of course not, I think she’s just happy to get out and see the world at the moment. She wants to know if Connie’s seeing that girl yet.”

“How did she— Armin pretends he’s so above gossiping, that little shit. No, he’s not, and I doubt that’s going to change anytime soon.”

“You think? I think he’ll figure it out.”

Jean snorts, “Bet you he won’t without outside influence.”

It’s getting dark properly, cold settling over their exposed skin with the same prickle and itch of a mosquito bite. Jean shivers, draws his shirt around his torso to no avail.

Beside him, Reiner huddles up too. “I’ll take those odds. What’s the wager? Surely not money.”

“Hm… you got any secrets I don’t know about yet?” Jean’s got a few of his own. Namely, things to do with Reiner’s smile and the way his heart warms to see it.

It’s one of those impossible possibilities. This wager couldn’t end in anything tangible, so it’s easier to offer forbidden things that he’d shudder to think about in the cold light of day. Chances are they’ll just forget about it, and Jean can keep his feelings tucked close to his chest.

Reiner rolls it around for a little moment, mouth working over silence. Then, he takes a deep breath, “Yeah. I’ll tell you one I’d never tell you otherwise, if you’ll do the same when — when — you lose.”

It’s not like Jean’s in danger of it anyway. Connie’s so ridiculously oblivious that there’s simply no chance. “Terms?”

“You can’t immediately just go and tell him to get his shit together,” Reiner preemptively scolds, like he knows exactly what Jean’s thinking.

“What about his happiness? What if he never—“

“Amendment: The bet should end on the first day of the month of the summit. If something happens before then, I win. If not, you can tell him.”

“But you can’t interfere if someone else decides to do it. That still counts as my win.”

Reiner jostles Jean’s shoulder with his own, “Fine. These are our terms and they must be respected.”

“Shake on it?” Jean holds his hand out, fingers flat and taut. Reiner’s is warm, rough with newly formed callouses, firm when he grips Jean’s hand. Jean coughs, belatedly, when he realises he’s still holding on. “May the best man win.”

“May the— Oh, shit, look.” Reiner lets go to point down the other side of the river, where a walkway’s been cobbled. When Jean squints, he spies two wobbling shapes walking side by side. Unmistakably, one of them is Connie, with his short pale hair and lazy lope.

The other… Jean can’t quite believe his eyes. It’s the girl from the bakery, dark hair curling loose around her shoulders now that she’s no longer wearing her kerchief. They’re walking side by side, smiling and laughing, and completely oblivious to their onlookers.

It looks like a date. It looks like a date.

Jean’s chest seizes, caught in the possibility that the secret he’s holding so dear will need to be revealed so much sooner than he’d anticipated.

“That’s a friendly walk,” he manages.

“Still, the odds are in my favour,” Reiner says, smug.

Year 857 - Autumn

“What was that?” Jean leans in, hand cupped around his ear.

Connie lifts his head, pins him with a baleful glare, “I said you’re just as bad as me! I’ve seen you mooning.”

“I do not moon.”

“Oh, you moon, alright. You moon. The only reason you come here is to see Reiner. You sit there and wait for him to walk through the door, and if he doesn’t, you sulk. I’m dumb, not blind.”

How utterly disarming. Jean sniffs, looks out the window, “I don’t moon,” he reiterates, as if this will make any difference. “Number four—“

Connie waves his hand, cutting Jean off without a second thought, “No, no, no. I’m going to give you one: you would do anything to make him smile.”

“You’d do the same for her,” Jean grumbles, and knows they’re both right.

Year 856 - Autumn

The leaves are turning on the small trees that have had a chance to shoot up in the past year. They’ve been planted along streets, growing thin and wispy, with leaves that trail and drip and leave the cobbles splattered with colour.

Jean catches one of these fragments by the edge as it drops, spends his walk turning the soft, flimsy, yellow leaf over in his fingers. It bends, crushes, but he can’t seem to let it go even when he smushes it until it no longer holds its shape.

The days are speeding past unsympathetically, and he’s been swept along with them.

Reiner’s routine should see him at the bakery this time of day, but when Jean slips through the door, he finds their usual table unoccupied. There’s no empty cup or plate, not even crumbs to signify that he’s been and gone, and that — however minor it may be — has Jean’s gut roiling restlessly, uneasily.

Military training aside, Reiner is a man of habit now that he can afford to be extravagant about it. Even on days he doesn’t work, he comes for his first dark brew when the sun is still rising, then he returns at midday for his lunch.

It’s midday and Reiner is nowhere to be seen. There isn’t even a scuff of mud on the wooden floor from his work boots, no trekked-in dirt sodden with lazy rainfall.

“Ah, I’m so glad to see you!” The girl behind the counter comes bustling out, a worried crease between her brows. She shoves a parcel into his arms without waiting for him to take it. “You’ll bring this to Reiner, won’t you? I was so worried after his accident!”

“Accident? What accident?” Jean only just catches the parcel when it wobbles and topples. “Where is he?”

“They took him home, he’s—“

Jean doesn’t hear the rest, he’s already running.

The house Reiner shares with his mother, Annie, and her father, is down the further end of Smith Way. As Jean lets himself in, he realises a far more accurate assessment would be that he shares it with his mother, Annie, her father, and Armin.

The sitting room is strewn with documents, and the sleeve of one of Armin’s sweaters pokes out from the sofa cushions. There’s pieces of him all over the house, one that Reiner himself probably helped build. The kitchen is on the right, a stack of dishes left to dry on a rag.

He hasn’t been in here in a long while, long before Armin had scattered his detritus throughout, but he knows to go up the stairs and to the right, where Reiner’s room was when their little unit had gathered to welcome the house. He’d wound up there looking for the bathroom midway through their dinner, and he’d stayed in there for a long while picking through Reiner’s sparse possessions.

An old book of flowery poetry was on his bedside table, battered enough that he must have carried it with him for years. Jean read prose comparing love to daylight, to ants, to cups of tea, and he put it back as if he’d never found it, wondering who Reiner thought of when he pored over each page.

He finds Reiner sat up against his headboard. His leg is propped up on a pillow, a bandage wound around his thigh and another around his ankle, and he’s down to just his briefs. His book of flowery poetry is propped open in one hand, but when he looks up to see Jean, he closes it. Tucks it underneath his pillow.

“Jean?” Reiner’s mouth hangs open for a moment before he shakes his head, settles back more comfortably.

“I thought you’d— You’re okay. What happened?”

“Ah, I fell,” Reiner says, scratching at his neck with a bashful smile. Jean’s glad he’s bashful, if it means he isn’t crumpled under rubble somewhere. “Slipped off a roof, landed on my feet and managed to sprain my ankle for my troubles.”

“And your thigh?”

“Er, I realised I’d sprained my ankle when I tried to walk afterwards, and fell onto a plank of wood with a nail sticking out of it.” He lifts his leg, reveals the tiniest, perfect circle of blood marking the underside of the bandage, right in the centre of his flesh. “Guess I’m not so invincible anymore, huh?”

Invincible, huh. Huh. Jean… had not given that much thought until now. He hadn’t considered Reiner’s new vulnerability, and what that might mean for old habits. Whether Reiner is riddled with tiny reckless routines that he still hasn’t grown out of, whether this was a warning sign.

He wants to ask if Reiner was being careful. If he pays attention like others do, or if subconsciously he trusts a titan no longer in his blood to save him if things go wrong.

That’s too personal. So he just offers the parcel, “You had the girl at the bakery worried. She wanted me to give this to you.”

Inside the box secured with twine, there’s a thermos and a carefully wrapped scone. When Reiner unscrews the thermos, it leaks the savoury, hearty smell of chicken soup — his typical lunch. Reiner’s expression softens when he sees it, stays soft as he places the box on his bedside table.

“Must’ve given poor Eliza a bit of a scare when we burst in for bandages.” Then, he glances at the clock by his lamp and his face drops, Jean’s stomach dropping with it. “Shit, you’re usually back at headquarters by now. I’m not about to get you in trouble, am I?”

Awkwardly, Jean perches on the side of Reiner’s bed. It isn’t large enough to let him sit properly, even when Reiner shuffles himself closer to the wall. “Ah, no. I’m not going to be needed at headquarters for… a little while, I imagine.”

He doesn’t even need to say it, but Reiner knows. “They found out.”

“They found out.” Jean leans on his hand, the other picking at a loose thread on his slacks, “More accurately, I told them before they could make any more assumptions. Baltz is pissed.”

“Baltz is a halfwit,” Reiner scoffs, “He’s the only one left that didn’t fight in the war, he shouldn’t get the final say.”

“But it’s what’s fair. I’m not out forever, just until they can make a decision.”

“Bullshit. He wants you gone so he has less people to oppose him. I have half a mind to march down there and remind him just who it was that threw up and ran away the first time he went onto a battlefield.” Reiner’s genuinely angry, and it shouldn’t make Jean’s heart flutter the way it does.

He’s not used to people being angry on his behalf.

The outcome is already obvious. When the Alliance is made aware of the situation, Connie will fight for him to come back. Pieck will prefer Jean’s in the room too, and when Armin and Annie are informed, they’ll agree. It’s just Baltz. Fucking Baltz. But a traitor and a naysayer are enough to disrupt the Alliance’s trust in them, and, for that matter, their trust in one another.

This is why the Jaegerists think they’re weak. They’re unstable.

Jean pats Reiner’s shin, “It’ll be okay. To be safe, they’ll update the delegates from each nation, and then they’ll decide what to do with me. Baltz is right — my involvement needs to be disclosed. It’s my fault.”

“But still…” Reiner huffs, breathing out some of his irritation. “Well, you know what you’re doing. There’s no point me getting upset about it when I can’t do anything.”

“It’ll work out,” Jean assures him, or assures himself, and isn’t quite sure who needs it more.

Truth be told, this has brought about a quiet devastation in him that he refuses to acknowledge. A betrayal, but it’s his own, and he feels immensely stupid for it. He doesn’t want to think about it, because if he does, it will become real. Ideas are nowhere near as terrifying as something tangible.

He pats Reiner’s shin again, lets his hand rest there. “Read me your favourite poem, would you? Don’t think I didn’t see you hide your book.”

Reiner ducks his head with a wry smile, digs the book out from under his pillow again and flips it open to a dog-eared page. “Fine, as long as you keep your mouth shut about how soppy it is.”

And he reads, and Jean listens, and the thunder of his heart steadily quietens.

“When I heard at the close of the day how my name had been receiv’d with plaudits in the capitol, still it was not a happy night for me that follow’d,

And else when I carous’d, or when my plans were accomplish’d, still I was not happy…”

Now that Jean has no meetings to attend, no strategies to work himself into a frenzy over, he stops knowing what to do with himself.

He wakes in his bed, in his one bedroom affair that’s right next door to Connie’s, and listens to his friend bustle about in the morning. There’s a few other apartments in the building, but his is on the furthest end, so he often goes entire mornings without another person even coming down his end of the hall.

He doesn’t know how to fill his time. He tries to sketch and finds it unfulfilling; he goes for walks in the city and runs out of streets to cover; he goes to the bakery and sits beneath the window, reading the same line in a book he’d borrowed from Reiner, reads it over and over until the words mean nothing.

He spends days in bed, days wandering aimlessly, and eventually takes to sitting in the bakery in hopes he’ll see a familiar face.

But, no matter how long he sits there, he doesn’t see Reiner. Reiner, now that his ankle is mostly healed, should be back at work, and he’s not. Connie doesn’t walk down on his breaks either. He actually starts waiting outside Connie’s door in the evenings so they can at least have dinner together, even if it feels pathetic.

With the loneliness comes the reminder that he’s utterly to blame for it.

The letter is slid underneath his door one morning; a hearing date. He hadn’t thought it would go so far, but of course it would. This wasn’t a small slight. It was a brutally careless mistake that he’s going to have to explain, and simply saying I thought we were friends won’t be enough.

Once he’s wrangled his breathing back into some semblance of order, he thinks about seeking out Connie. For Connie’s sake, he decides not to.

The day of his hearing comes, and Jean walks into the embassy only to find the room occupied by unfamiliar faces.

Barely, he resists the urge to swear, or possibly to punch a wall until his knuckles shatter. With a smile so taut it could burst at any second, he stands to attention. Sweat beads at his temple.

“Take a seat, Jean,” a woman Jean vaguely recognises offers, hand splayed toward an open chair. “Ex-commander Baltz suggested this be handled externally.”

Fucking Baltz.

He’s one of those older men, the ones with beer-moulded bellies and moustaches they’d like to believe aren’t speckled with white. The ones who’ve decided their experience gives them the right to bark first and bark loudest.

If Jean learned anything in the Scouts, it was that age meant one of two things. Either you were a skilled survivor, someone who’d seen horrors and come out scarred, but infinitely wiser for it; or, you were a coward who’d throw a green recruit in a titan’s path if it gave you the extra second to escape. Jean knows which kind Baltz is.

The table offers up names. The woman’s name is Eris, and she’s stern and pulled taut like a stitch. To her right is a squat-statured, grim-looking man named Omar, and… of course, there’s Armin. Jean hasn’t even had the opportunity to explain himself to Armin, yet here he is, elbows on the table and fingers steepled gravely before his face. It bears striking resemblance to Commander Erwin, blond hair aside.

“Before we begin,” Omar starts, “we want to make it clear that, at this stage, this is just an inquiry.”

“Yes, sir.” Jean folds his hands neatly in his lap, his palms already damp with sweat.

“We’ll be hearing testimony from a variety of sources, after that, we will make a decision on how we should proceed,” Eris continues, smoothing her neatly-manicured fingers over the sheaf of paper before her.

“Yes, ma’am,” Jean replies, worrying over the appropriate amount of eye contact he should be holding.

Too much and he might be trying too hard, too little and he could be seen as disrespectful. Looking at Armin could suggest he’s trying to take advantage of the oldest friendship he has, but looking away could mean he’s pretending it doesn’t exist. He settles on looking them all over slowly, flicking between each impassive face in ice-stone bursts.

“Tell us exactly what you told the Jaegerists.”

Jean begins.

Armin hardly looks at him as he emotionlessly details his correspondence with Historia. He hands over her letters, bound in a neat, impersonal stack, and explains to the best of his memory just what he had offered in exchange. They poke. They prod. They outright pry. And Jean lets them.

“You say in your most recent letter, you updated Paradis’ Queen on the activities of,“ Eris consults her notes, “Connie Springer, Levi Ackerman, and Reiner Braun. Please detail, to the best of your ability, exactly what you said.”

“Erm—“ Jean cuts himself off. Hemming and hawing does nothing to aid his case. “I told her that Connie was, in my exact words, “being a moron” in his romantic endeavours. I explained his courtship, or lack thereof, of a girl.”

It’s humiliating. He’s omitted his brief update on Annie and Armin, out of respect, but having to recite his own words is… awful. He’s a scolded child all over again.

“I told her that Levi is doing well. I mentioned only his recovery,” he says, pulling a thin strip of skin away from his cuticles. It pulls too far, stings, bringing pinpricks of blood.

“And Reiner Braun?” she prods, and Jean cringes.

“I told her that Reiner was building houses, and that he seemed happy doing it.”

“You mentioned that this update spanned a page and a half, surely all of this could only have taken a few lines at most.”

Jean’s gaze drops to the table.

“I. Well. I was…” He pulls at another cuticle, hoping for blood this time. “I was asking her for advice.”

“On?”

“Personal matters.”

“Nothing is personal here, you do understand that, yes?”

“Understood, ma’am.” Jean sucks in a deep breath, lets it sit in his lungs until he grows lightheaded. It’s better than yelling. “I was asking her about my feelings. For Reiner Braun.”

He’d spent a good few paragraphs waxing poetic about the specific shade Reiner’s hair was when illuminated in sunlight, and how he’d gained weight that made him seem cheerier, and the moments of joy Jean cherishes in making Reiner laugh. It was embarrassing enough at the time, but he’d thought she might understand.

When Jean chances a glance at Armin, he finds him bent over his notes, expression indecipherable.

“Did you reveal to her that you asked Reiner Braun to volunteer as an ambassador?” Omar asks, bored.

Huh? “Huh?” Even if Jean had mentioned it Reiner, there’s no way anyone else should know about that. “Sorry, sir, I don’t know what you mean.”

“We’ll move on,” Omar breezes past the question easily, leaving Jean festering in a thousand unanswered ones. “Please specify what you were asking her, regarding your romantic inclinations—”

“That line of questioning is irrelevant,” Armin cuts in, meeting Jean’s eye only for a barest flicker.

“Given we don’t have the documents in question, I believe it pertinent. Your personal relationship with Mr Kirschtein could have kept you from the room and you will do well to remember that.”

And Jean sees this for what it is. Thinly veiled as it is, it is a scolding. Another indignation to bring him to his knees, to remind him exactly of his place as an ambassador. No matter where he is, politics is a hand around his throat, a demand for him to give everything he has. Despite every instinct telling him to keep this close, Jean obeys.

At midday, there is a brief intermission. Armin flutters from the room and down the hall before Jean can say a word, and then he’s gone. Jean sits against the wall and buries his face in his knees.

He wishes he didn’t exist. Wishes he had never accepted the Alliance’s doomed invitation, wishes he’d never caught Reiner when he fell off Eren’s back. Wishes he had taken advantage of the hellscape the world became immediately after the Rumbling and disappeared into the packed-tight expanse of land around them. He wishes he’d never considered Historia his friend. He wishes, above all else, that he had done something to change his life so he would have had something other than the state of their peace division to report back to her.

He wishes he had kissed Reiner the moment he realised he wanted to.

Self-flagellation will have to wait until this is over.

Through the suck and pull of his own horror, he catches the click of a door shutting down the furthest end of the hall. The embassy only has two conference rooms — the larger one they’re using now, and had used for their strategy meetings, and a second, smaller one down the end that functions more as a storage cupboard.

The march of many pairs of shoes grows louder, a group of legs descending like a titan’s maw, and when Jean looks up, he freezes. Pieck, Annie, Connie, Baltz (who steadfastly refuses to meet his eye), and Reiner walk past.

Connie shoots him an apologetic glance.

Jean’s too busy watching Reiner. Reiner, who still has the unevenness of a limp in his step, and who plasters on a glassy smile to murmur soundless words to Annie. When they’re gone from the hall, silence seems to echo. It bounces around Jean’s skull, rattles his brain.

He’s called back in at some stage and forced to answer more degrading questions. He sweats a lake into his seat and pretends that it’s only strangers listening to him debase himself over and over and over, until all he has left is daydreams of running home to his Mama and letting her fold him into her arms.

When he’s done, he drags himself home and buries his head under his pillow.

Year 857 - Autumn

When Reiner walks through the door, Jean doesn’t let him so much as go near the counter before he beckons him over. He’s fizzing with the knowledge that he’s right, that he’s won.

“It’s the last day of our wager,” he says, and nods at Connie meaningfully. It’ll be better to draw this out. He’ll leave it long enough that Reiner might begin to feel hope, and then he’ll pull the curtain aside to reveal his victory with a dramatic, delicious flourish.

But, if anything, Reiner looks decidedly queasy. He’s visibly finding it difficult to share in Jean’s cheer over it. “Yeah, uh,” he forces a laugh, “It sure is.”

“What’s got you so bothered?” Jean asks, kicking out Reiner’s chair for him. Reiner doesn’t take it.

“Don’t worry about it, it’s— it’s nothing,” Reiner answers, and heads for the counter with a frown.

Connie’s head tilts to the side, “Wager? What wager? Are you betting money and not including me? I thought we were better friends than that.”

“No, I didn’t, because it’s a wager about you, man. We were waiting to see if you’d figure out your crush on that girl all by yourself,” Jean smirks, “We had until today, and if you hadn’t, I got to tell you.”

“How much are we splitting then?” Seemingly excited by the prospect, Connie leans closer, puts his head on Jean’s shoulder in that overexcited puppy-dog way.

“It wasn’t about money,” Jean’s face is suddenly hot, excuses coming rapidly even if he’s not sure why. “I don’t know, it-it was a stupid game we were playing. Whoever loses has to tell a secret.”

All of Connie’s glee comes showering off him to splat on the floor, and then it’s just his dead weight on Jean’s arm and his exasperated grumbling to himself.

“What?”

“That’s just— You’re so dumb,” Connie grunts, “So, so, so, so dumb. Holy shit, dude, you’re—“

“Glass houses. Remember that.”

“You’re dumb,” Connie repeats, “Were you going to tell Reiner you’re disgustingly in love with him if he won then? This is the worst wooing attempt I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Jean stiffens, a cold trickle of sweat running down his temple. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Year 856 - Autumn

The committee interviews the other members of their unit, but they don’t tell Jean what was said.

Based on the letters from Historia, and these testimonies, and Jean’s own testimony, they make their judgement. He supposes his saving grace must have been that Historia never asked further questions. She never wrote as if she particularly wanted to know anything about their goal, and they have nothing to prove what Jean said.

Nothing, except threats from the Jeagerists, who truly could just be casting grand accusations in every direction hoping one will land.

A week after Jean’s hearing, he slinks back into the same room it was held in to find a table that looks nearly identical to the one he’d left.

The same number of chairs are occupied — Connie is still sat beside the one left open for Jean, and Pieck is still nudged in beside Annie in the new camaraderie they’ve found. Armin is still seated furthest from the door, a makeshift head of a round table. This is all much the same, but it’s the chair Baltz usually occupies that sees the drastic shift.

“Baltz running late?” Jean asks, perching himself by Connie with a nervous twitch for the door. He’s been dreading that particular run-in since he was told he was getting off with a slap on the wrist.

“Baltz won’t be joining us today,” Armin says, in a tone that Jean knows well enough to hear that he is pleased and trying very hard to hide it. “He has resigned, effective immediately. I believe he mentioned moving his wife to the seaside.”

In Baltz’s stead is Reiner.

Armin continues onwards, already scratching notes with his pencil, “Given the Jaegerists are aware of our… changes in personnel, we’ll have to prepare a response for if — when — we’re asked about it in the autumn summit.”

As if he’s been involved since the very beginning, Reiner jumps in slickly, “It would make sense if we’d simply had a ‘vetting process’ during the past year. We were finding the best fit for our cause. Can’t have a cohesive negotiation if we don’t have a cohesive team first.”

“Jean, Reiner, I’d like you both to get in contact with those who left us to make sure they’re on the same page, as a precaution. I’ll handle Baltz,” Armin directs, and Reiner’s ankle brushes Jean’s under the table.

When he chances a look, he can’t help but smile. Reiner grins back.

It’s extra work. It’s a brick-load of extra work, when only months ago they’d been ironing out talking points. Now they have to factor in essentially bribing the people who’d helped draft those talking points into keeping their mouths shut.

The two Jean and Reiner have spoken to thus far have been more than happy to shift their narrative — they didn’t leave over disagreements, after all.

Renate Zeihl is another beast entirely.

Zeihl will take strategy. She’ll take guts and preparation. Too much damn preparation.

Jean’s camped out on the green velvet sofa in Reiner’s living room, waiting for Reiner to return from the kitchen. It feels domestic. Sweet. He remembers his hearing and shuts that thought down entirely.

“I’m glad you decided to join us,” Jean mumbles when Reiner comes back with a cup of coffee for himself, and a cup of tea for Jean. He suspects it’s Armin’s, knowing Reiner’s propensity for dark brews that’ll burn the hairs from your nostrils. “I know that can’t have been an easy choice.”

“Not as hard as I thought it would be, honestly.” Reiner squashes up against Jean’s side when he sits on the tiny sofa, cradling a cup and saucer that look ridiculously small in his hands. He’s shorter than Jean by only a little, but large, which achieves an effect Jean struggles to replicate with his thin, bird-bone hands, his lankiness he’s stopped believing he’ll ever grow out of.

The house is still largely bare. People have only now started to recover and dive back into their trades, but as it turns out, they’re generous with people like Armin. He’d come to Jean in a fit of guilt over accepting the sofa, saying others could use it more and it wasn’t fair that someone would gift it to him over someone else.

Why should I have this when other people don’t even have homes? he’d asked, eyes brimmed with grief.

Because, Jean had said, they wouldn’t have anywhere to put a sofa yet. Let people thank you, for fuck’s sake.

“But you liked building houses, and I’m sorry you can’t do that anymore.” He sips at his tea, noting the fragrance of one of Armin’s preferred blends. Reiner has never brewed tea like a natural. The water he uses is too hot and he steeps the leaves for too long, but Jean doesn’t mind it.

Drinking Reiner’s bitter, strong tea is drinking in something personal. It’s being privileged to sit in his house and learn something about him.

“I had my time there, just like I have my time here,” Reiner says, sombre in that way that says he’s trying to be sager than he is.

“And how could you resist the call of such a thing? Paying off wankers who used to work for you and hoping they like us more than they like the Jaegerists.” It reminds Jean just what they’re here for; his visit isn’t a social one, though he wishes like hell it was.

Reiner wrinkles his nose, “It’s not bribery, remember? It’s ‘gently nudging them in the right direction.’”

“With money.”

“Not always money — Prince just wanted a street named after him.”

“Should’ve bargained for a town, the dumb fuck.”

“Hey, you liked Prince,” Reiner laughs, jostling into Jean.

Jean jostles him back, “I liked him because he has pretty eyes, personality has nothing to do with it.” Shit. He freezes, clears his throat. “Zeihl’s more likely to want a town anyway.”

Reiner regards him for a moment, then cautiously continues, though his cheer comes slightly forced. “Yeah. Or two. We should recruit Levi to deal with her. He might talk some sense into her.”

“Are you kidding? We want her to like us, not send her right into the Jeagerists’ arms.” Jean puts his cup of tea down, nudging the papers on the table in front of them out of the way to make room for it. He leans back into the back of the sofa, legs splayed wide to let his knee brush against Reiner’s thigh.

Reiner’s gaze flickers towards their legs, then back to Jean’s face. “When do you wanna do this?” he asks, voice low.

Unbidden, Jean thinks of another context in which Reiner might say those words to him and flushes. Wet, barbed heat curls in his belly, and his only saving grace is that he’s so damn unsure about whether Reiner is capable of reciprocating.

He and Bertholdt seemed awfully close, but he’d also been lovesick over Historia for nigh on a decade. Jean himself had figured out his interests after his fantasies about Mikasa had started incorporating Eren too, and it didn’t take much to come to terms with. It expanded the dating pool, after all.

Misreading anything wouldn’t just lead to their newer, strengthened friendship dissolving, but it’d risk their summit preparations. Now that they’re finally back on track, he couldn’t do that to the others. To Armin, who’s so stressed already that he hardly sleeps.

“Jean?”

He snaps out of his stupor, blinking. “Huh? Yeah, uh, tomorrow? Let’s take her for lunch.”

Lunch with Zeihl goes poorly from the moment they knock on her door.

She opens the door in her house clothes, blonde curls loose around her neck, and when she catches sight of Reiner she scowls, “Oh, you sack of shit.”

“Good morning, Renate,” Reiner replies, ears a faint pink. “Jean and I would like to have a chat with you. Lunch?”

Arms folded over her chest, Zeihl sighs long-sufferingly, then nods, “Let me get changed first.” She shuts the door in their faces.

Once it’s just the two of them on her doorstep, Jean slowly turns to fix Reiner with a look. “Oh, you sack of shit?” he asks incredulously, “Mind telling me what the hell that was all about?”

Though an answer is already festering in the back of Jean’s head. Zeihl is a gorgeous woman, after all, tall and curvy with a penchant for dark red lipstick and perfectly coifed hair. She’s loud, opinionated, and completely unyielding. Jean’s had more than one ‘disagreement’ with her that led to him stalking from the room before he could throw a tantrum like a child.

If history is anything to go on, Reiner tastes lie in feisty blondes.

Scratching the back of his head, Reiner turns to look down the street. “Er, well, Renate and I…”

Fucked. Dated. Had an affair. Jean’s waiting for any of it, waiting to have some new reason to find Zeihl unbearable.

“Worked together,” Reiner finishes. “Quite closely, in fact.”

“Is that an innuendo or…?” He doesn’t want to know.

Reiner shakes his head quickly. “No, no, absolutely not. She worked under Magath; we didn’t exactly get along.”

“And you were going to tell me this, when?”

“Never? I thought— I didn’t want to disrupt anything. I thought she might have forgotten by now.”

“That might have been important to know before we got to her fucking door, man.” Jean squats down to press his knuckles to his eyes, rubs them until they smart and burst stars over the surface of his eyelids. “Fuck.”

Still, try as he might, he can’t help the cool rush of absolute relief that spills inside him. They might’ve screwed up the summit but Reiner was never in love with this woman, this perfect, beautiful woman, who could stand next to him and complement him so perfectly.

They’d make a good couple, with perfect, beautiful, rosy-cheeked children, and then they’d sit next to each other in matching rocker chairs to watch their lives end. She could cling to his shoulders, and he would cling to her waist, and they’d look infinitely better together than he would with Jean’s lanky, bony, abrasive self.

“Are you okay?” Reiner’s hand comes down on Jean’s shoulder, thumb massaging a small circle over the join between it and his neck. “I should’ve said something.”

“It’s fine,” Jean grits, and takes a deep breath before he stands again. He feels stiff, taut, like he’s been crying. “Seriously, it’s fine. At least I know now instead of in the middle of negotiating.”

After Ziehl comes back out, pinned neatly together in a navy skirt suit and a long coat, they head for the restaurant. Now that the (still fucking unnamed) capital has settled in earnest, indulgences have sprung up and the city has truly spread. It spiderwebbed out before Jean could realise it. He’s even started finding it inconvenient to get from one side to the other.

They dodge an automobile as they cross the street, Jean poked in the middle of the two who seem completely unwilling to speak to each other at present.

“How have you been keeping busy?” Jean asks Zeihl on their way into the semi-packed interior.

“My garden,” she says, blunt as ever, and signals for a server to seat them. She nods to him, just a scrappy kid of eighteen, “We won’t need your table for too long.”

Jean knows Zeihl, and he knows Reiner does too — she’s making it clear, albeit indirectly, that they’ll need to be quick and to the point.

They’re seated at the back end of the restaurant where it’s quieter, with few other customers seated nearby. Zeihl doesn’t even take off her coat.

“Let’s not pretend there isn’t a motive here,” she starts, pinning Jean with a look that manages to be both bored and flaying all at once, “What do you want?”

It’s hard to tell whether she’s ignoring Reiner in an attempt to degrade him, or because she simply despises him so much. Reiner disregards it entirely, leaning forward to fold his hands on the table. “The Jaegerists intend to leverage our shift in personnel against us.”

Zeihl directs her answer at Jean, “I’d heard you royally fucked up.” The royally can’t be there unintentionally.

Jean squirms, but holds his ground. “I made a mistake, but we’re adjusting for it. The Alliance still trusts me to do my job, at any rate.”

“Or they’re desperate enough to keep you around. Vermin traps will only do so much, but a trained rat leads by example.” Her smile is nasty.

“Renate,” Reiner says, a quiet severity about him.

“I suppose this is all to test my allegiances. It’s offensive you’d think I’d sell my home out like that, though I suppose having so many traitor Warriors in your ranks will inspire suspicion. Especially now that you have the biggest traitor of them all.”

“Renate,” Reiner repeats sternly, “Our personal matters have nothing to do with this.”

Finally, she turns to face Reiner, “They have everything to do with this, Braun. How can you be trusted to remain objective if you’re clearly weak to Paridisians? You might have pretended to be loyal to us but your mind certainly wasn’t.”

“That is no longer an issue.” Reiner’s calm, reaching to pour them all glasses of water. Polite, even as Zeihl’s face grows thunderous.

“No longer an issue? Like hell it is.”

“Renate, believe me, the issue is resolved.”

“How?” she snarks, “Explain to me why it’s never going to be a problem again, when you were about two seconds from selling us down the river a few fucking years ago.”

“Because my loyalties lie here.” Reiner’s teeth grind before he closes his eyes and visibly forces himself to relax. He digs in his pocket and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. “This still your brand? Come outside with me for a moment.”

Jean shunts his chair out from under the table with an audible screech, “Mind if I—“

“No,” Reiner snaps, then startles at his own outburst. “Sorry, Jean, can you order our drinks? We won’t be long.”

Eyeing Reiner suspiciously, Zeihl follows.

Jean does his best not to wonder. Through the window, he watches them both light up, taking deep drags before Zeihl folds her arms and says something he can’t work out. Reiner rolls his eyes, then replies.

They speak for a long moment, and Zeihl’s face goes through several changes. She starts off irritated, then shifts to something that looks like shock, then resignation. One of her sharp, tall heels comes up to kick Reiner in the ankle, but she has a tight smile on her face. Imagine that, Zeihl smiling — and Reiner is smiling back, ducking his head to hide it.

Not knowing what they’re talking about is raising Jean’s hackles. Reiner has no right to look so happy with someone he’d only just been fighting with, who he’d just admitted he held resentment for.

When she nudges his shoulder, Jean decides he can’t watch any more of this. He gets up and goes to stand in the restroom, fiddling with his hair until he has to give up. Now that it brushes his shoulders, it’s grown unruly. When it was short, he’d wake up with it flicking up in a thousand directions, but he always knew how to fix it. Now, he just doesn’t know what to do with it but tuck it behind his ears.

Maybe she was smiling because Reiner confessed his love for her. Maybe they couldn’t stand each other because they’d never known they could have each other, and Jean’s just some jackass cursed to eternally watch the people he cares about care about each other more than they do him.

When Jean comes out of the restroom, he’s forced to sit there, waiting for them to flick their cigarette butts away in unison and head back inside.

There’s a new understanding between them. Zeihl’s still grim, but she sits and glances over them both before she continues. “Okay. Okay, I’m happy to talk about this without biting your heads off, but I’m hungry, so one of you had better be paying.”

And Jean tries not to crack a tooth clenching his jaw when Reiner offers to cover her meal.

“What did you talk about when you went outside?” Jean interrogates when it’s just the two of them again, Reiner walking Jean back to his apartment even though he doesn’t need to. His hands are stuck in his pockets, his jovial whistle cut short when he turns his head to meet Jean’s eye.

“Nothing important,” he answers, mouth twitching as if it isn’t sure whether to smile. “We had some misunderstandings, I think.”

“Misunderstandings?”

“Misunderstandings that meant she didn’t want a bar of what I had to say, until we talked about it. Now she knows.” Reiner shrugs, “Hey, I’m glad we got all this worked out, yeah? I wonder if Armin had much luck with Baltz."

They’re due to reconvene tomorrow to report back their respective tasks’ success. Supposing all has gone well, they can alter their game plans to fit.

“Baltz is an asshole but he isn’t unreasonable. He was involved in the first place because of that, he just wanted what was best for the new Marley.”

“Oh, but I wouldn’t…” Reiner trails off, working something over in his head. “I mean, did you find out why he left?”

“No, I didn’t, actually.” He’s asked and Armin refuses to say, but Reiner might not divulge it if he knows this.

After a cursory glance around them, Reiner takes Jean by the elbow and pulls him into an alley. He checks it over, eyeing windows and doors to ensure they’re shut before leaning in. With his back against the wall and Reiner’s toes brushing his own, Jean’s mouth dries up.

“Jean,” Reiner murmurs, “It wasn’t you. Not entirely, anyway. Baltz contacted the Jaegerists about getting himself and his family to Paradis. You weren’t the leak, it was that snivelling rat — he wanted you to be his scapegoat.”

“Me? Why the fuck was it me?” Jean’s voice raises despite himself, even as he tries to control his breathing.

“Because you were supposed to be the first one to go. He was trying to plant dissent within us and what better person to use than you?” He grimaces, “Everyone trusts you, and Armin was too risky of a target. It was either you or Connie, and no offence, Connie’s not smart enough for that to work.”

Jean wants to punch something. Anger rises in a hot burble of bile, tearing through reason. He wants to track Baltz down and make him eat his own traitorous fucking tongue, he wants— “But he quit on his own for a life by the seaside.”

“He was told to, if he wanted to keep his reputation intact. It’s been kept under wraps by the Alliance because they don’t want it getting out and— well, because they know you’re well-regarded and they don’t want anyone to seek revenge on your behalf. It’s probably for the best, I mean, I was tempted.”

“Aw, you’d avenge little old me?” Jean bats his eyelashes, feigning a swoon that feels forced. “Who else knows?”

Reiner glances over his shoulder again, “Only the people who were in the room when they figured it out. And me, but that’s only because they asked me for a character reference. The idiot didn’t keep track of his intel and knew too much when they were interviewing him about you.”

“Shit,” Jean says, “Then why tell me at all?”

Breath shuddering out of him, Reiner leans back. Takes a decent step away. “You don’t deserve to be eaten by guilt when it isn’t your fault, and it’s obvious that you’re still blaming yourself. They only found out he was the leak after you confessed to it first, so… really they should be thanking you.”

Jean’s still reeling. Still caught in his shock, his mind somewhere distant while his body tries to stay upright. “So…” he says, voice coming out high and wavering, unfamiliar. He hears himself speak as if someone else is making his mouth move, “So Historia… she didn’t…”

“We can’t say she didn’t,” Reiner answers, knowing what Jean’s about to say before he can get it out. “We don’t know she didn’t. But, just between us, I don’t know that she would.”

Unable to keep to himself, Jean hides his wet eyes by dragging Reiner into a hug that lasts longer than it should. He doesn’t thank him, but he’s sure Reiner knows anyway.

Year 857 - Autumn

“Attention, Captain Moron, if you aren’t in love with him, then what are these?” With a flourish, Connie flicks over pages in Jean’s sketchbook, landing on a series of studies of the side of Reiner’s face. He flips over to another that could just be a series of posed arms, but there’s only one person they know with such defined biceps.

Another, the back of Reiner’s head, doodled during a meeting Jean had long since pretending he wasn’t bored by.

The next boasts just Reiner’s nose, the unmistakeable bump in the bridge and the downward point at the tip.

“He just— He has very distinct features that are good for practice!” Jean squawks and rips the book out of Connie’s prying hands. “This doesn’t mean anything, shut up!”

When Reiner comes back, Jean’s mood has drastically gone downhill.

Of course he was going to tell him he’s in love with him. That’s the only possible option he had and yet he hadn’t actually, truly considered it. He hadn’t planned to win, or to lose, and now it’s real. And it had taken Connie, of all people, to point that out.

Though his victory is ensured — he doesn’t have to tell Reiner anything.

He should be able to sit back and let Reiner stew in his apparent nervousness, revel in his own win. Reiner must have some hideous secret to dread the outcome so much, and Jean bets it would be quite the bit of gossip to have in his arsenal. Besides, the alternative is so, so much worse.

“Well, well, it’s nearly time to pay up.” Jean sits back, rolling his shoulders.

“Yep, sure is.” Is Reiner’s face looking a little green?

“I hate to break it to you, Braun, but…” Jean grins, really forcing his muscles into place. The end result might sit closer to manic than triumphant, “You win. Connie figured it out last night.”

There’s a duet of incredulous what’s on either side of him. Jean, heart pounding, feels inclined to join in. He really had intended to tell Reiner his efforts were in vain, and yet, when it came down to it, he was a coward. He just couldn’t deepen Reiner’s frown.

In the past, Jean has been more than happy to let friends take the fall over trivial things — a stolen apple he’d let his squad leader think was Sasha’s fault; a chore he’d half-assed, then deflected the fault towards Eren. He’s never thrown a bet either — he’s competitive like that.

Here, in a bet he has technically won, he wants only to ease Reiner’s stress, like he had that night after Commander Erwin died, and he took the blame for a chair Mikasa had intentionally broken. She was already on thin ice as it was. He didn’t know why he’d done it, perhaps hoping that she would think kindly of him, but she didn’t have room for that. Never had room for anything in her heart but Eren and Armin.

This is a sickening reminder that Connie was right: Jean’s in love.

Jean doesn’t tell Reiner.

He pretends as though he’s forgotten, skipping out on lunch before the topic can reemerge, even if they have bullet-points for the summit to go over. When Connie stood to ask the bakery girl, in his awkward, fumbling way what her name was (Eliza) and if she would like to have dinner with him when he returned from their journey (yes), Jean snuck out in the pocket of distraction it opened.

Then he just… keeps at it. They have a final meeting to run through their plans, and when they’re released, Jean slips out beside Annie and Pieck, desperately slotting into their exchange to avoid having to speak to anyone else. It must be obvious, for the way Annie stares hard at him before he breaks off for his own apartment.

In the morning, they meet at the train station. The railway isn’t fully completed, but there’ll be automobiles waiting on the other end to take them all the way to the sea. Levi is waiting to see them off, Gabi and Falco faithfully flanking him, and he grouses about how old they’re all getting, that he’s sick of cricking his neck to make eye contact, and that he hopes they don’t get killed on their journey.

It’s surprisingly heartfelt.

Jean surreptitiously swipes a tear from his cheek as he takes one of the sandwiches Gabi and Falco are handing out. Somewhere to his right, there’s a crinkle of paper unwrapping and he knows Connie’s already descended on his with the vigour of a wild beast, and will undoubtedly try to steal Jean’s at some point on their train ride.

“He woke up early to make them,” Falco mutters, flicking his head at Levi while his back is turned, “Even made us swear we wouldn’t tell any of you.”

On the train, it becomes clear that while their new capital was expanding, so was everything else. They pass tiny towns still working hard to put up buildings, new farmlands bright with ripening produce, houses settled in the middle of nowhere for those who’d rather have the freedom of it.

He hasn’t had the chance to see it, until now.

Grass is regrowing in old footprints. New trees have been planted in droves, saplings springing out from the ground to reach for the sun. There’s a book in Jean’s bag, but he doesn’t even get as far as taking it out — not when there’s so much unseen life on the other side of the glass, but he isn’t alone in that. They’re all uncharacteristically silent as they watch the earth bloom, grow, thrive.

The train gets to the end of its tracks after sundown, and, all yawning, they scurry into the inn beside the station. This place was once lodgings for the tradesmen who’d been building the homes around it, the innkeeper tells them as she shows them to their rooms. Jean leaps to share with Connie, leaving Armin with Reiner, and Annie and Pieck in a room down the hall.

Once they’ve dumped their belongings, they head down to the mess to eat before bed. Jean finds himself less than expertly flitting between separate conversations only so he won’t have to speak to Reiner, who’s sat across from him, forlornly pushing his spoon around his bowl of stew.

“They’ll let me visit Ma, right?” Connie’s busy asking Armin, “She’ll have my head if I don’t see her at least once.”

Connie’s mother is set up comfortably alongside Jean’s on the Braus’ farm. The two of them seem to prefer this quiet, subdued life, from what he remembers of Historia’s letters. He doubts he’ll get those back, so memory will have to do.

For the first time in what feels like forever, Armin doesn’t seem to have an answer.

“They will, won’t they?” There’s desperation in the way Connie tugs on Armin’s sleeve.

“I… we’ll have to discuss it,” he says in lieu of anything set in stone, but Jean doubts they will. They’ll be kept under lock and key, and isn’t that laughable to be treated like an invader in the very place they were born?

They all flag quickly. Jean finds himself dozing in his chair and shakes himself awake to find himself in a predicament he’d been hoping to avoid until he had a chance to strategise: he and Reiner are the only ones in the room. Reiner has clearly been waiting, sat in one of the armchairs before the hearth to stare into the snap and crackle of embers like they might have some solution in them.

“Time’sit?” Jean yawns, draping himself over the back of his chair to stretch his aching neck.

“Too early for you to be falling asleep at dinner, old man.” There’s no bite to it, so Jean doesn’t bother feigning offence.

“You’re older than me, so what does that make you?” he shoots back, shuffling across the room to slump into the armchair opposite Reiner’s. He supposes it must be time to take this by the horns, grapple with it. He just hopes this isn’t the last time they can do this — be alone in the same room together.

“Ancient, yeah.” Reiner’s eyes dance with flame, shimmering like raindrops on pavement. “They might kill us over there, you know?”

Jean knows. Historia sent a final letter before they left to warn them, and it was enough to have him cowering in guilt for not sending her a single reply since Baltz betrayed them. He hasn’t trusted himself, more so than he hasn’t trusted her, but that doesn’t mean he hasn’t catastrophised — he’s always been good at that.

“We’re prepared. We’ve had nothing but time for it.”

“If they try anything, it’ll be my first battle on my own.” Without my titan, he doesn’t say. His first battle where he can’t rely on anything else to save him. Jean wonders if that has him scared — whether it has the others scared too. He, on the other hand, has always had to leap into a fight knowing that he could really die at any second.

“You can trust Connie and me to have your back. We had to learn how to avoid getting our heads blown off rather than survive it.” It’s a sobering thought. “Don’t do anything risky, you hear me?”

Reiner scoffs drily, “I don’t always have a death wish. Not anymore, at least.”

And still, despite this, Jean convinces himself something will go wrong. Their ship could be bombed tomorrow, or they could find assassins waiting underneath their beds tonight, or he could wake up and find that the last three years of his life have been some wicked dream. It should be enough to spur him into action.

Mikasa was different. Jean was a teenager hopped up on hormones and jealousy, and it was impossible to hold back his deadly, sickly sweet affection. He was fuelled by hope, that one day Mikasa would turn her sights on someone other than Eren, and that could be him if he just tried hard enough.

Teenagers think all kinds of stupid, unrealistic things, and Mikasa was blunt but she was never so cruel to deny him his feelings. She never reciprocated them, but she never told him he wasn’t allowed to have them.

Jean’s older now and both more and less aware of his limitations.

And Mikasa wasn’t his friend in the same way Reiner is his friend. She was something held just out of his reach for him to grasp at clumsily. Reiner is right here, right in front of him.

“I haven’t delivered on my end of the bargain yet, and that’s stingy of me.” Jean’s fingers interlace in his lap, casting shadows where they block the firelight. His thumbs twiddle. He tries to be brave in a moment where he feels utterly cowardly.

Reiner looks up, face softening in his shock. “I thought you’d forgotten, or maybe just backed out. I don’t mind if you did, really, you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t—“

“I do. Want to, that is. I just don’t know if I’m ready yet? It might change the way you see me.”

“Hey.” Reiner kicks his leg out gently, the toe of his boot brushing against Jean’s, “Nothing could make me change the way I see you. My picture of you is… ah, well, it’s very set in stone, no matter how hard I’ve tried to change that. ’s kinda annoying, actually, trying to change your… opinion of someone once you’ve decided on it.”

“So you’ve tried to hate me?”

The answering smile makes Jean feel all at once ridiculous. Of course Reiner has, once upon a time. He’s confessed to as much before. “Something like that. My feelings are always very, er, large. With Historia—“

“I get it.” Jean doesn’t really want to hear about that when he’s trying to think of the best way to confess to Reiner. Hearing about his undying love for Historia might just push Jean’s words down so far he can’t reach them again. “I’ll tell you my secret later, yeah? When I’ve found the right way to say it.”

“O-oh, sure. If you don’t want to though, I won’t bring it up unless you do. Take the escape if you need it.”

Jean kicks back, then rolls to his feet with a cacophony of clicks and clunks from every joint, “Shit. Okay, well, we have to be up early, so don’t stay down here too long.”

“I won’t,” Reiner says, sounding — unless Jean is mistaken — fond. “Good night, Jean. Sleep well.”

“You too.” Jean leaves before he does something dumb, like kiss Reiner goodbye.

“Have you told Reiner you love him yet?” Connie asks, irritatingly awake when Jean shuts the door to their room. He’d been hoping to avoid this conversation, especially since Connie is now arguably better at love and romance and all that disgusting, sappy shit.

“Mind your own fucking business.” Jean yanks Connie’s sheets over his face and leaves him to splutter.

It hits Jean as they board the ship that once he wouldn’t have even dreamed of crossing the ocean. During every other ship journey, he’d been busy with other priorities. First it was about what they might find on the other side, then it was stopping Eren, and now…

Now he stands at the bow watching waves part and thinks of how small his worldview once was, and just how enormous it has grown. As a child he couldn’t even imagine what might’ve lain outside the walls, and he didn’t want to, because those were risky thoughts that led to trouble.

He’s been the trouble. He’s seen what the world is capable of, and now he’s shaping it.

It gets him strangely misty-eyed.

The boat is a big, white, officious thing with a series of bunkbeds in the two rooms it boasts. Connie takes the bottom bunk in their room citing his inevitable seasickness, so Jean slides his bags onto the top. Across the room, Reiner and Armin are in discussions of their own.

“I get seasick too,” Armin’s saying, complaining, really.

“So do I.” Reiner’s got his hand firmly planted on the bottom bunk, almost daring Armin to take it anyway.

Jean’s already dreading this journey. When Armin breaks out his best negotiating speech intended to empower Reiner into taking the top bunk, Jean leaves them to it and goes in search of the girls.

“Are you sure I can’t sleep in here? Connie snores like a damn foghorn,” he complains, watching them both set up their respective bottom bunks. Given that both of the rooms were built to the same specifications, Annie and Pieck both have a top bunk to store their belongings and it feels unfair. Supremely unfair.

Annie regards him blankly over her shoulder. “And you think you don’t?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Pieck smiles placidly, “But Annie snores too.”

Annie shoots her a glare that she either doesn’t see or chooses to ignore.

“I’ll be too sleep deprived to be of any use in negotiations if I have to bunk with Connie!” Jean slumps against the wall, tossing up whether it will be more peaceful to just set up a bedroll on the deck.

Annie mutters something to Pieck that Jean doesn’t catch, but Pieck barks out a laugh in response and whispers back. In creepy unison, they glance over at him, then back to each other. They devolve into what can only be described as ominous mutters, clearly gossiping about Jean.

Finally, Annie rolls her eyes. “Have you talked to Reiner?”

There’s only one thing she can be referring to; Connie’s a hopeless gossip too. All of them fucking are. Jean levels her with a glare, “Is nothing sacred with you all?”

“No,” Annie replies, “We’ve been placing bets. Armin seems to think Reiner will break before we get off the boat but I’m not so sure. I think it’ll happen on one of your deathbed’s, whoever’s first.”

With every ounce of earnestness he can muster, Jean tells her, “I wish you had stayed in that crystal,” and goes in search of buckets in anticipation of a restless night. While he does, he tries not to feel like he’s been left out of some inside joke.

Later that night, Jean’s suspicions are confirmed.

In tandem, Connie and Reiner conspire to snore so loudly there’s no room for any other sound. He can’t hear the waves breaking, the whisper of the wind past their porthole. He can hardly even hear himself breathe.

Jean stills finds it hard to sleep, even this long after active war. Soldiers develop ways of making it possible even when rest is the last thing on your mind. Tips and tricks were passed down by those who’d survived long enough to see their dead comrades on the inside of their eyelids every time they closed them. The first time a scout complained of being unable to sleep through the night, they were met with congratulations. They’d finally joined the ranks. It was a coming of age.

Connie found his saviour in breathing exercises, Armin lies on the floor and stretches before bed to clear his mind, and Jean has no idea what Reiner does but it seems to work. The three of them had drifted off (true to form, Reiner on the top bunk) while Jean was still running through tomorrow’s to do list.

He can’t shut off. Distractions all lead to the same place. Jean has never been able to breathe or stretch well enough to quieten his mind. The ones who couldn’t usually turned to drink, but that has an ugliness to it that he’s never been able to reconcile. The ones who couldn’t breathe, or stretch, or drink, survived on snatches they caught in downtime when the exhaustion became too much to bear.

After Commander Erwin died, Levi nearly stopped entirely. He tried to emulate the comfort of Erwin’s office, sitting in Hange’s while they ran through experiment after experiment, but apparently the smell had him bustling around after their mess instead.

Jean found Levi in the early morning more than once carting some dead thing or decayed remnant of food through the halls with a look of abject horror.

When you get your own office, he’d said one morning, balancing a mummified rodent on a sheet of newsprint, if I catch a single paper out of place, I will kill you. He’d said when, because that was the kind of belief he had in his soldiers. Then, he disappeared outside where Jean could still hear him gagging.

He never did get his own office.

If they’d still been living in blissful ignorance now, he might have had it.

Jean must doze in the cacophony, buzzing around weightlessly from thought to thought, because a particularly loud snort from Connie jerks him awake. He can’t have been under for longer than an hour, but he’s blaringly alert, aware that it’s unlikely he’ll fall asleep again. At least, not for a while.

Careful not to shake Connie’s bunk below him, he climbs down the ladder at the foot of his bed, tiptoes across the floor, wood hard and cold beneath his bare feet. He manages to avoid creaking until he hits the floorboard just before the door, but no one stirs, so he sneaks out without complaint.

When he reaches the deck, his first thought is how much he wishes he’d brought his coat with him. In the night’s chill, the salt spray is stinging when it rises above the rail. He shivers, holds his sleep shirt around his body in hopes of trapping some of his body heat before it can escape.

He hears the night crew working, creeps up toward the hull and leans right up against the railing where he shouldn’t be bothered. In front of them, the ocean churns white in the moonlight, splitting and tearing against the front of the boat. They’re still making progress quickly — this crew is experienced, even if they haven’t often bridged the channel.

Before they’d even been on the open water for an hour, he’d overheard them discussing it. The current is different from what they’re used to, and the winds are tricky to navigate, but they don’t want to worry their passengers by telling them so. Naturally, Jean has indeed spent a good portion of his night, well, worrying over it.

Catastrophising is what he’s so good at, after all. If he didn’t have something to splinter in his bare hands and pick through until his fingertips bled, he wouldn’t be himself.

Further back along the ship, the door swings open, bumping against the wall when the wind rips it out of the person’s hand. He hears a muttered curse, waits for his peace to be invaded and finds himself not really minding it.

“I’d ask if you couldn’t sleep but I know for a fact that isn’t true,” He calls over his shoulder, hardly surprised when Reiner settles against the railing beside him. He can blame it on the cold when Reiner knocks their arms together, almost leaning into his side.

“I woke up and you were gone, just wanted to see if you were alright.” Reiner yawns, raises his arms above his head to stretch. “So, are you?”

The universe couldn’t have handed Jean a better opportunity if it took the time to put it on a silver platter. “Yeah, just had a lot on my mind.”

“You can talk to me about it, if you want. Troubles shared are troubles halved, and all that.” How could Reiner suspect even for a second just what Jean is grappling with? He might not want to take this burden, but… if Jean doesn’t do it now, he might not ever.

There’s a safety net here. A promise that he’s only saying something because he has to, and he understands that Reiner doesn’t reciprocate, but he can get over it. He’s a grown adult, he can ignore his feelings so, so well. Their friendship might change but it’ll still exist. That’s the only outcome he could wish for.

“I think I’ve figured out the best way to tell you. It’s time for me to pay up,” Jean says, and keeps his gaze on the ocean’s swell. “So I’m going to. Right now.”

“Oh, okay,” Reiner replies, and when Jean stays quiet, he adds, “When you say right now… do you mean—“

“I mean right now. I’m going to say it, I promise. I just kinda want to, uh, soak in this moment before everything changes.” His nails dig into the wooden railing. He can’t see his knuckles beyond their vague outline, but he’s sure they’re a taut white, bloodless.

Reiner’s palm slips over his knuckles, somehow still warm and slightly sticky from sleep. “I’m ready whenever you are.”

And it’s this that gives Jean the final boost of courage he needs. The hopeless hope that rises behind his ribs when it seems like Reiner could know how he feels, even for a second. He takes a deep, shuddering breath, sucks in the last moment before it’s out in the open.

“I’m in love with you,” Reiner says.

It takes Jean embarrassingly long to realise the words didn’t leave his own mouth. “Whuh?”

“I am in love with you.” It’s carefully enunciated this time, spoken slowly like Jean’s suffering from a head injury. For the second time that day, Jean thinks he must have missed something.

“But I was about to say that,” he replies, a little shell-shocked. “That was my line.”

“Er, I know.”

“What the fuck do you mean you know?” Even to his own ears, he sounds reedy. Close to petulant.

Reiner grips Jean’s hand tighter, takes a step closer until his hip is nestled right up against Jean’s own. “I know — though I guess you want to know how. Um, the council told me. When you were being investigated, they asked if I could corroborate your story that you’d asked Historia for romantic advice about me.”

Jean’s cheeks get dangerously hot, “You’re pulling my leg, aren't you?”

“No. I told them that line of questioning was irrelevant and inappropriate, then refused to say anything else on the matter but…” Reiner smiles softly, “I couldn’t stop thinking about it afterwards.”

“But you never said anything—“

“I couldn’t. I wanted to wait for you first; it’d be wrong to use that when you hadn’t even told me of your own volition. And just then I-I couldn’t help it, and I should’ve, but I’ve been wanting to tell you that for years.”

Reiner’s hand is so incredibly warm over top of Jean’s, his thumb rubbing small, soothing circles like he can’t help it. Like this is all he can do not to drag Jean closer.

“I feel kinda stupid saying it first when I swore I wouldn’t,” Reiner mumbles, “Let’s pretend I didn’t, yeah? Hold up your end of the bargain.”

“I…” Jean turns now, facing Reiner properly. In the moonlight, with the wind whipping through his hair, his edges are smoothed. He takes a step forward to brush their chests together with each careful breath. “I threw the bet. I was right, there was no way Connie was going to figure that out on his own.”

Unexpectedly, Reiner’s face falls. His grip on Jean’s hand loosens. “Oh,” is all he says at first, soft and sad and sick. “So you…”

“I threw the bet because you make me dumb. Because I was selfish. I didn’t want to force you to tell me something you wouldn’t have said otherwise, but I wanted to force myself to do exactly that.” There’s an odd lump in Jean’s throat. “Otherwise this would’ve kept eating me up, and I never would have had the guts to do anything about it.”

“How do you know it’s love?” Reiner asks, with shudder that betrays his nerves, “I mean, you were obsessed with Mikasa for so long.”

Jean shakes his head, “I didn’t feel like this about Mikasa — or I did, but it wasn’t…” He wouldn’t have known what to do with Mikasa if he’d had her. She could’ve turned around and told him she wanted a family together, and Jean would have been over the moon but it was a fantasy life. “Besides, after all your pining for Historia, how do you know?”

Reiner shrugs, plucking Jean’s hand off the railing to clasp it tightly between both of his own, holding it to his own chest. Through his knuckles, he feels Reiner’s heart pounding furiously, can see it in the delicate flutter in the hollow between his collarbones. “Because the best part of my day is sitting in the bakery with you. I think I could do that for the rest of my life and die happy.”

That’s a future Jean could imagine. It pushes out every other idealised version of his life in an instant, leaving nothing but lazy mornings and cups of tea beside cups of coffee, poetry collections nudged in between sketchbooks. He’s a hopeless romantic after all; he loves with a consumption. He loves with everything he has.

“You’re such a sap,” Jean grins and drags Reiner in to kiss him squarely on the mouth.