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“Bertholdt died exactly seven years ago,” Armin mentioned as he sipped his tea, offhandedly, like someone trying to make small talk with their taxi driver and going: ‘It is very cold today, huh?’
Jean simply hummed in response as he tried to style his uncooperative long hair to the side. Once upon a time, he would have looked back at Armin with shock and pain in his eyes; he would have gotten a little defensive, self-deprecating or both at the reminder.
But, then again, Armin always reminded him every year and there wasn't much Jean hadn't already said or asked about the sudden comment.
“It has been… What? Three years without the curse of Ymir,” Jean sighed and paused to sit on the table and pour some tea for himself with a light frown and a tilt on his lips, an expression indicative of him choosing his next words carefully. Armin appreciated that every time he saw it in Jean, as it gave him a couple of minutes to submerge in the musky waters of his brain.
After all, Jean's response made perfect sense for Armin, who kept counting the days, months and years like a man on death row; because, years after she was gone, a disgusting and selfish part of him still hoped Ymir could make an exception for him… That she would take him at the right time.
“You will not die. We will live long successful lives. Even if we have to do so with all those ghosts in our past haunting us. In the end—” Jean started saying.
“I know,” Armin nodded, well aware of his reproachful thought process. “We can rebuild what we took. Try to… Make things better… Coexist.”
His throat was dry and trying to clear it didn't help make the matters better. Armin idly wondered if he had finally stopped believing his own bullshit.
Jean reached out to the man in front of him, gently covering his balled fists over the table. Armin looked startled, like he hadn't noticed his own tension before and his expression helped ease Jean's mood a little.
Jean could only hope his smile came out as comforting; up until Armin's raised eyebrows told Jean that it was beneath him and he was forced to drop it.
“Is there anything good enough for you?”
“And Alexander wept for there were no more worlds to conquer?” Armin asked, quoting the last play they had watched together and shook his head. “It is nothing like that. I… I think I would have loved to see the world we would have made with our allies… The one where the hate I’d get could only be attributed to fear of my heritage… to bigotry”
“Not for your... Er... association with him?” Jean asked as Armin finally relaxed his hands underneath his. Jean held them together all the same.
The pendulum clock made its weird clicking sound four times. Both men freed one hand to grab their respective cup of tea in silence.
“Not for him” Armin finally confirmed.
They used to be friends with Jaeger the world would say and, while most of the Eldians were able to either deny or bring nuance to such an accusation, Armin and Mikasa could never refute it. Although, from some perspectives, it would be more accurate to say that they could try to distance themselves from the narrative enveloping the polarizing figure who they once called friend and family, but chose not to. Truth be told, their heart wouldn't let them do it. Mikasa shared and understood this, but Jean didn't.
There used to be a time when Armin found the hatred in his friend's eyes comforting; only for Eren to use those same attributes of his to steep onto their enemies, encasing them in amber like one of the Arlets’ preserved insect collections. The amber eyes of doom.
What a permanent way to showcase his sin! Armin knows he has tried to explain it… To excuse it for too long.
How could something that meant so much to him do such terrible things for the world?
“You look so fucking awful,” Jean mused, interlocking their fingers together.
“Says the one who skips bathing without a reason.”
“I am not the one skipping MEALS without a reason” Jean gave him a pointed look. “But I mean it… Your eyes are sunken, your posture is crap and your haircut is terrible.”
Armin looked at him… ACTUALLY looked at him and laughed.
Jean was glad.
“Captain Ackerman! I didn't know you had a penchant for spirit possession. Ah! But I was under the impression that you needed to be dead to do so—”
“Pssht! After spending so much time with those fucking brats dragging me from place to place I might as well be!” Jean clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes trying to imitate the poise of their former captain until he almost fell off the chair trying to sit like Levi used to.
Armin laughed harder at this.
“Oh, do you reckon Gabi and Falco are giving him a hard time too?”
Jean sat back on the chair normally, a little relieved that his facade fell before he got to try to grab his hot tea from somewhere else but the handle.
“Please! Those kids are worse than we used to be!” Jean puffed his chest and Armin gave him a skeptical look. “But let's not pretend you don't know that I know what you are doing.”
Armin raised a single eyebrow… The bastard.
“Can we stop avoiding the conversation? For once?” Jean sighed.
Armin's mouth thinned into a tight line as he finished his tea.
“It's getting late” he admitted “I should probably go back to my quar… Room to get ready. ”
“Of course,” Jean conceded at once.
Nothing of importance came up that night. Not even the conference. Much less the thin-veiled resentment against Eldia and Marley.
Against Eren.
Armin brought ink to paper just like he had done, oh, so many times.
To you, three years later:
He tried again thinking of the quiet resignation in Jean's face. He thought he could tell the paper what he had been dying to tell Eren all these years… What he would have told him three years ago if Eren hadn't overlapped his newfound perspective with the image of his much younger self kicking his tiny feet as they sat close to the port of the river.
He could not, because 13 years ago Eren humoured him when Armin told him about a mythical place called The Sea and then…
Armin tore yet another page to pieces and took a big swig of the bottle he hid under his desk. It was a shame that his body was building tolerance for sleeping pills because the memories of the massacre of Liberio just wouldn't lull him into sleep.
Once again he hoped booze would effectively shut them up.
He snorted bitterly at the terrible thought and drank faster.