Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2624522.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Shingeki_no_Kyojin_|_Attack_on_Titan
  Relationship:
      Jean_Kirstein/Erwin_Smith
  Character:
      Jean_Kirstein, Erwin_Smith, Marco_Bott, Mina_Carolina, Levi_(Shingeki_no
      Kyojin), Other_Character_Tags_to_Be_Added
  Additional Tags:
      Pederasty, Age_Difference, Canon_Compliant, Canonical_Character_Death,
      Frottage, Intercrural_Sex, Anal_Sex, Blow_Jobs, Marco_Bott_&_Jean
      Kirstein_Friendship
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-11-16 Updated: 2015-11-15 Chapters: 5/? Words: 12595
****** Something You Miss ******
by mxx
Summary
     Per an old-fashioned military custom and the wishes of his parents,
     Jean is taken into the tentative care of a young officer, Erwin
     Smith, for the duration of his training, a decision which alters his
     view of the world and himself for better or worse.
Notes
     I've been writing this as a fill for a kink meme prompt, and even
     though I'm not finished I'd like to go ahead and start cross-posting
     what I do have written here.
     Contrary to what I said on the kink meme (because I can't do math),
     I've messed with the timeline a bit so that Jean & co become trainees
     when they're fourteen and join the survey corps when they're
     seventeen. Please be aware that there will eventually be graphic
     sexual content involving Jean and Erwin, and implied sexual
     relationships between other characters.
     The title is taken from the saddest Taylor Swift song I could find.
***** Chapter 1 *****
“Hold still, Jean.”
Jean squirms anyway. It’s too hot at this time of year for his parents to
expect him to just sit still in these itchy, over-starched clothes that smell
like they came from his grandfather’s old chest of hand-me-downs. He can’t
suffer through another second of them, let alone through the remaining half
hour they have until their guest arrives.
Although he doesn’t even know who their guest is or why she’s coming to call,
it’s not that hard for him to hazard a guess. The situation being what it is in
the walls now, his family, like many, is desperate enough to do whatever it
might take to continue being able to feed his grandmother and his younger
siblings, even if it means sending him away to lessen the burden. Even if it
means setting him up in an arranged marriage with the daughter of a wealthy
family, however that would work.
Jean isn’t having any of it. He’s not a fool; he knows how to steal food and
even actual money if it should come to that. He’d much rather be a thief than a
trinket for some rich family he doesn’t know anything about to spirit away and
groom into a laughable approximation of a husband for their daughter.
He does at least hold his tongue while his mother blots the sweat from his face
with a handkerchief. She seems rather calm about the fact that she’s about to
sell her own child off like livestock. Although Jean’s mother isn’t sentimental
or sweet she loves her family in her own gruff way and has made sure they’ve
never doubted it. Jean feels more than a little miffed at her apparent lack of
remorse.
“. . . This is stupid,” he finally mumbles. His father shushes him and
continues pacing in their small sitting room while clutching his pocket watch
to his chest. He looks at Jean’s mother.
“Perhaps we should have a talk with the boy before he gets here,” he says, as
if it wasn’t already glaringly obvious they should have explained things to
Jean before now.
“. . . He?” Jean repeats, indignant.
“Yes, darling. He’s a good man,” his mother replies, looking at him
thoughtfully before producing a comb out of nowhere and tackling his sweat-
slicked hair with it. She’s never called him “darling” before and it irritates
him even more than the heat and the clothes. That settles it—he’s going to run
away as soon as the opportunity presents itself.
After what feels like an eternity there comes a sharp knock on the door that
his father hurries to answer. Jean can’t see the door from his chair. He can
hear voices though, all of them low and deep and serious. He hears “recruit”
and “your son” and then “titans” and takes in a sharp breath that does nothing
to assuage the dizzy spell that comes over him. His parents aren’t marrying him
off—they’re sending him away to military training.
He could throw a tantrum, except now that he’s fourteen-going-on-fifteen he’s a
little too proud for that, especially when two strange, imposing men step into
the room looking almost like titans themselves. One of them is balding and old,
in his fifties at least. While he’s short and thickset like Jean’s father, his
mass attests to a lifetime of hard, physical labor outdoors rather than one in
a bakery. The other man is surprisingly young to have the kind of grim, world-
weary look on his otherwise handsome face that he does. He’s the tallest person
in the room, taller even than Jean’s mother.
The balding man addresses Jean’s father. He explains everything Jean already
knows about what happens when you become a trainee. After three years you can
do the sensible thing and join the wall garrison, or do the ideal thing and
join the military police if you place high enough, or do the crazy thing and
join the survey corps and be dead within a few months.
“I think I’d rather be married off after all,” Jean mutters as he tugs at his
collar.
The balding man grimaces in an amused sort of way. “You’d rather get married at
your age than join the military?”
“Yeah, I would,” Jean says, oblivious to his parents’ frantic motions for him
to be quiet and behave himself. “You’ve never done a damn thing for us besides
waste our tax money and make it hard for civilians like us to get by. You’re
why my family is in this position.”
“I can’t say you don’t have a point there, son,” the balding man says. He
glances at his companion, who looks at Jean almost coldly. It’s not out of
malice, Jean realizes as he stares right back. The man’s eyes are a striking
shade of pale blue, a stark contrast to his dark, suntanned skin. “Erwin here
is from the survey corps. Fine soldier, sharp as a whip. You couldn’t ask for a
more capable suitor. A tad frigid, maybe, but capable.”
Suitor? Jean thinks, horrified to learn that his parents are simultaneously
marrying him off and sending him to the military.
The balding man laughs. “I’ll tell you now, son, if you aren’t careful he’ll
lead you straight to the survey corps and into an early grave.”
“That’s enough, Gerhard,” Erwin says. His expression and tone are both flat,
almost soft, and yet Jean gets worse chills down his spine than if he’d reacted
angrily. He speaks to Jean then. “I’m a friend of your parents’, Jean. If you
do decide to enlist in the military then I promise to be there with you for as
long as you need me.”
Jean is suspicious immediately. He shakes Erwin’s hand, his own small and
almost delicate in Erwin’s stronger, callused grip, and wonders how much of a
hassle it would be to steal a horse, run away to a forest down in Wall Maria,
and spend the rest of his life as a hermit.
His parents put an end to those delusions during dinner. The atmosphere is
subdued and stifling, at least for Jean and his three younger siblings, who
keep their mouths shut for once. The adults talk amongst themselves. Jean’s
grandmother in particular keeps up a lively conversation about the current
goings-on in Hermiha—she’d been born and raised there, and if she hadn’t
married Jean’s mother’s father she would never have set foot in Trost, much
less started a business and a family.
Jean doesn’t eat a bite. Now that the time has come he feels a little ill at
the prospect of leaving home, presumably for good, and not even having a decent
amount of time to get used to the idea. He’s not sure if any amount of time
would have been enough.
The only one who takes Jean’s feelings on the matter into consideration is
Erwin, and even then he doesn’t speak to Jean so much as look at him from time
to time over the course of the meal, as if sporadically remembering that Jean
exists and might be upset. For all of his talk of being there for Jean if he
needs him, it seems to Jean that Erwin is just as uneasy being in this
situation as he is.
Jean decides he’ll have to instigate things. “So am I marrying you, then?” he
asks quietly under the conversation and clatter of utensils. He’s seated right
across from Erwin. Their feet are crowded up together under the table, which
lets Jean feel the tenseness in Erwin’s legs, how his feet shuffle a bit at the
question.
Erwin’s expression is indecipherable. “Of course not,” he says, though not in a
way that insults Jean’s intelligence or, more importantly, his ego.
“He called you a suitor,” Jean says, a touch accusing.
“He didn’t mean a suitor in that sense.” Erwin pauses. “Well, no. I suppose he
did, in a way.” He pushes back from the table, taking care not to jostle Jean’s
sisters where they’ve seated themselves on either side of him, and gestures for
Jean to follow him. His family is casual about meal times, even when guests are
over; his mother catches his eye, but she doesn’t say anything to stop Erwin
from leaving. Jean gets up and hurries after Erwin to the front door.
It’s almost dusk now, the sun barely more than a hazy red-orange smear in the
gaps between the surrounding rooftops. Jean undoes the top three buttons of his
grandfather’s shirt and tugs at it again, trying to circulate some air. Erwin
looks out of place where he stands with one foot on the bottom step of the
stairs leading down from the door and one foot on the road. He’s too big, too .
. . unfamiliar. He doesn’t belong in Trost, where the houses are average and
the people as a general whole aren’t particularly poor or rich. The green
survey corps cloak stretched across his broad shoulders is an anomaly, an
emblem of something Jean has never had any use for.
Erwin looks back at him. “We have a custom in the military,” he says gently, as
if Jean is a skittish animal he doesn’t want to scare away, “where senior
officers can take recruits under their care and oversee their training. No,
it’s more complicated than that . . . it’s almost like a courtship, I suppose.
It’s supposed to build trust between our soldiers and make us a stronger
whole.”
“That’s dumb,” Jean says, huffing out a breath to push his sweat-matted bangs
away from his forehead. “I don’t know a thing about you. How’m I supposed to
trust you?”
“The same way I’m supposed to trust you. We would have to figure it out
together.”
Jean weighs his options, then shrugs. “Whatever. It’s not like I can change my
parents’ minds now, not after they’ve decided this for me like they always do.”
He can’t keep the anger out of his voice. He knows it’s childish and petty to
resent his parents for doing what parents are supposed to do. He doesn’t care.
Erwin continues to look at him. It’s starting to get on Jean’s nerves. It makes
him feel like a bug caught in a jar, something to be scrutinized without any
regard to his own feelings on the matter. He’s just opened his mouth to give
this guy a piece of his mind when Erwin says, “We feed you in the military. We
clothe you. We give you a place to stay. You earn every bit of it, of course,
and most days you’re going to resent it. You’re going to hate it and be
miserable and you’re going to wish you could come back home and be a child
again. But for two years at least I can promise that your life will be stable.
Once you pick a branch to serve in we pay you. I think your parents are trying
to provide for you, since they don’t know how long they’ll be able to provide
for the rest of your family.”
He says it as if Jean hasn’t already figured it out, which he has. And maybe
it’s ungrateful of him to still be mad at his parents despite knowing that, but
he’s not going to admit that he’s in the wrong out loud and he’s certainly not
going to do it to a stranger.
He shuts his mouth and grinds his teeth for a bit. Swallows his pride.
“Baumkuchen.”
Erwin’s eyebrows bunch together quizzically.
“I like baumkuchen,” Jean elaborates, crossing his arms. “My parents are bakers
and I like to eat their cake. Now you tell me something about yourself.”
“I see. My name is Erwin Smith,” Erwin replies in that low, unassuming voice of
his that nonetheless makes Jean feel like something’s tugging at him,
compelling him to watch every minute movement Erwin makes as he sets both feet
on the road. “I’m scared of heights.”
Jean bristles. “You’re lying. How can you be in the survey corps if you’re
scared of heights?”
When Erwin meets his gaze evenly Jean feels goose bumps prickle along the back
of his neck. “Drive, I suppose. Motivation. I have a goal for which I’m willing
to do anything to achieve. When I’m in the air I focus on it until I forget
that my feet aren’t touching the ground.”
“You’re more scared of heights than you are of titans?” Jean’s not
oblivious—Wall Maria fell almost two years ago, kicked down by a massive titan.
Even now there are still refugees from all the districts in Wall Maria pouring
into Trost and other districts in Wall Rose every day, bringing with them
little money and fewer possession but enough horrific stories, some of them
almost too horrible and outlandish to be entirely true, to last a lifetime.
They sound almost like figures from the ghost stories Jean tells his younger
siblings to scare them when they won’t behave.
Erwin nods, then glances to the side. Jean follows his gaze. His mother’s
pulled the curtains aside and is peering out at them through the window, with
that frown on her face that says it’s time for Jean to come help clean up the
aftermath of dinner and keep his siblings entertained. After she pulls the
curtains back together Jean rolls his eyes.
Erwin comes back up the steps, pausing when Jean doesn’t budge from in front of
the door. Jean bites his lip, seized with a silly idea that, once conceived,
just won’t go away no matter how hard he tries to ignore it.
“If you’re a suitor then that means you have to earn my favor, right?” he asks
cautiously as he leans back against the door and swallows once, twice. “That
means you ought to give me a gift or something, right?”
“That sounds reasonable, yes.”
“Then kiss me.”
Erwin stands there, his expression cryptic, and for a horrible moment Jean
thinks he’s either going to say no or just ignore him entirely. Then he steps
forward, almost crowding Jean against the door but not quite, and leans down.
He’s so tall that Jean’s eyes are almost level with his sternum, provided he
stretches up on his toes, which he does. He’s never kissed anyone before, not
in a way that counts, and kissing the girl down the street when they were eight
years old and pretended to be married definitely does not count. He’s seen his
parents kissing before when they thought no one was looking, and he’s curious
about why it’s such a big deal, what it feels like.
All he knows is that you’re supposed to close your eyes, so he does, and jumps
in mild fright when something that feels suspiciously like lips touches the top
of his head through his hair. He knocks right up into Erwin’s jaw. Erwin
straightens up and touches his mouth with one hand, the other one
surreptitiously slipping past Jean to the door handle.
“Wh—” Jean stammers, his pulse thudding hard in his ears, “what was that?”
“A goodnight kiss,” Erwin says, as if it should be obvious. He looks
astonishingly young when he isn’t frowning quite as hard as he was earlier.
Jean feels cheated, and starts working himself up to tell Erwin so when Erwin
continues, “You have to earn my favor too, Jean,” and opens the door. He steps
past Jean and pauses just long enough to glance back. “We’re leaving at
sunrise. Sleep well.”
He leaves the door open and is intercepted by Jean’s mother before he’s taken
more than a half dozen steps. Jean stares dumbly after him, his face hot and
his ears hotter. He can’t believe his parents are sending him off with this
guy.
Later that night, while he’s lying awake and trying to give his siblings as
wide a berth he can manage on the cramped mattress they share, he thinks that
maybe it won’t be so bad. He still doesn’t trust Erwin, isn’t sure if he even
likes him yet. But he’s intrigued. He wants desperately to know what Erwin is
like underneath that icy stare and his maddening way of tripping Jean up no
matter what he does. He’s going to find out, he resolves, and he’s going to
find out soon.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Jean’s first day with Erwin is one long, painful readjustment. He isn’t used to
being woken up before sunlight, much less by his mother setting a rucksack on
his stomach. He sits up groggily and pats the rucksack for several dazed
minutes before he even begins to process why it’s here, and then it hits him
like a slap across the face: he’s leaving home today. In the rucksack he can
feel all of the few clothes he owns, a splintery lump that must be his
brother’s little wooden horse their father carved for him, and a wrapped bundle
of leftover rolls.
After she sees that he’s up and dressed, his mother picks her way across the
room with quiet, practiced ease. Jean stumbles after her, leaving the
floorboards all groaning behind him. One of his sisters mumbles sleepily and
rolls over into his vacated part of the mattress. He doesn’t linger in the
doorway like he feels he should, just shoulders the rucksack and tries not to
yawn.
Erwin and Gerhard are already waiting outside by their horses. Jean hopes that
his hasty goodbye to his parents on the doorstop will suffice, but of course
his mother has to drag him back so she can straighten up his collar and tell
him to make sure he washes behind his ears, and then his father has to pull him
into a bone-crushing hug that squeezes the breath out of him.
Erwin helps him up on the horse, his grip strong and firm. Jean’s never ridden
a horse before, hasn’t ever even be near one before now. Horses are for mounted
members of the military police and the survey corps and farmers and travelers,
not for a son of bakers whose whole world up until today could be walked across
within the span of a few hours.
They leave Gerhard behind in the town divided from Trost by Wall Rose. He was a
member of the wall garrison, Erwin explains once he’s gone his separate way,
and had only accompanied him to Jean’s house as “dissuasion.”
“Dissuasion?” Jean repeats. As they pass through the town and reach open road
Erwin urges the horse faster. Jean holds tight around his waist, hoping he
won’t fall off or throw up or do anything equally embarrassing.
“Your parents are horrified of the possibility that you might join the survey
corps because of me,” Erwin says bluntly. “I’m sure they asked Gerhard to be
present to ridicule or scare the notion right out of you. As you’ve seen, he
doesn’t hold the survey corps in too high esteem.”
“I’ve never wanted to join the survey corps anyway!” Jean says, irritated that
his parents have to meddle even now. “I’m not an idiot.”
Erwin says nothing in response and Jean realizes a few beats too late that he’s
just insulted the man responsible for keeping him from toppling off the horse.
He feels he ought to apologize, but as the silence stretches on even further
the prospect just seems more and more awkward, so he doesn’t.
“. . . Y’know, training doesn’t even start for another few months, so how come
I have to leave with you this early?”
“Your parents and I thought it would be easier if you had some time to readjust
without having to worry about training. I’m sure it’s going to be particularly
tough now that the walls have been breached and our need for recruits is more
urgent than ever.”
“Would’ve been nice to have some time to readjust to the very idea in the first
place,” Jean says scathingly.
More silence. He wonders why that’s Erwin’s go-to response for when he’s been
insulted. Maybe it happens so often it’d be too tiring for him to reply every
single time. Jean starts talking again before his brain gets a chance to tell
his mouth to stop. “And it suuure would’ve been nice to have some time to say
goodbye to all of my friends.” It’s a lie if he’s ever told one. He doesn’t
have any friends.
“I’m sorry,” Erwin says finally, and he sounds quite sincere, which catches
Jean by surprise. “I was under the impression they were consulting you the
whole time.”
“They’ve never mentioned you, ever,” Jean mutters. “How do you know them,
anyway?”
Erwin goes silent again. If he doesn’t want to answer the least he could do is
say so, Jean thinks. Well, whatever. They’ve only been riding for an hour or so
and he can already tell it’s going to be an exhausting day. Once the sun is
fully up it gets warmer, and the horse smell starts to aggravate his allergies,
and then he remembers he didn’t eat breakfast. He’s cranky and miserable by
noon, and even though he keeps his mouth shut Erwin must notice, because when
they dismount for a break he stays as far away from Jean as possible without
overtly avoiding him. Or that’s how to looks to Jean, anyway. He’s not really
bothered by it, considering how often it happens.
“Are we there yet?” he asks between mouthfuls of roll, though it’s perfectly
obvious that they aren’t. In every direction the land stretches green and
undisturbed by houses or other travelers as far as the eye can see. The well-
worn road is the only indication that they’re still within the confines of the
walls.
“We won’t reach Ehrmich until tomorrow, so we’ll find a village along the way
to spend the night at.” Erwin faces one direction and squints. “If we go
northwest we’ll reach Hildebrand by nightfall.
Jean doesn’t know how he can tell that without looking at a map, but it’s not
like he has a better idea of where they are or where they should go, so he eats
another roll without comment.
Erwin doesn’t say much or really anything at all for the rest of the afternoon.
Neither of Jean’s parents have the most even tempers, so he isn’t sure how much
longer he can put up with this much calm and patience. Around dusk they begin
to pass farms, and then clusters of houses, until all at once they’re in the
heart of what must be Hildebrand. It’s not as cramped and busy as Trost, which
makes Jean feel almost lonely.
In comparison to the streets, the inn is relatively noisy and crowded. Most of
the low conversation turns to unsubtle, derisive comments about Erwin’s survey
corps cloak when he walks in and makes his way to the bar. Jean tries to follow
closely behind him as best he can, but there are so many people that they’re
separated. When a farmer scoots his chair back and gives him a drunken grin,
Jean realizes with a cold feeling of dread that it isn’t by accident.
“Let me by,” he says, his attempt to sound authoritative undermined by the way
his voice cracks in a way it hasn’t since he first started puberty. “Now.”
“He wants us to let him by,” the farmer says to his friends, who all laugh, as
if it’s the peak of hilarity to antagonize a flustered kid. It’s stupid, and
Jean knows it’s stupid, but something about the farmer’s sheer rudeness is
impossible for him to walk away from or ignore. He’s just opened his mouth to
let loose a blistering volley of insults that will most likely get him beaten
up when suddenly Erwin appears on the other side of the farmer. The look on his
face as he takes in the scene is flat, almost impassive, but his eyes . . .
The farmer turns his head to see what Jean’s looking at, and snorts when he
sees Erwin. He even reaches up and pushes Erwin by the shoulder, the movement
too distorted by alcohol to count as a shove but too aggressive to be a mere
thump. “Be a shame if something happened to your kid. Outta watch ‘im better.”
“I will,” Erwin says, the look in his eyes menacing, the tone of his voice
almost threatening. It shuts the entire table up. And then it’s gone, and he
looks at Jean in such a nonchalant way that it’s obvious he’s ignoring the
farmer and his buddies, like they aren’t worth another second of his
consideration. “Come along, Jean. I’ve gotten us a room.”
Jean worms his way through the mass of bodies, aware of the dead silence that’s
fallen across the entire room in their wake. He doesn’t feel safe until he
reaches the stairs, where Erwin follows rather than leads him to their room.
Erwin takes off his cloak once they’re upstairs, then shrugs out of his jacket.
The wings of the survey corps plastered all over him practically makes him a
walking target for vitriol. Jean’s heard disapproving murmurs about the survey
corps before and sometimes taken part in that kind of conversation himself, but
he’s never seen someone approach a scout with outright, physical hostility
before.
“They hate you,” Jean says as he double-checks that the door is locked. “I
mean, we aren’t exactly hospitable toward the survey corps in Trost, but they
really hate you.”
He expects to be met with silence again, but instead Erwin replies, almost off-
hand, “That was one of the milder welcomes I’ve received.” Before Jean can say
anything in response he says, “I’d rather discuss what you told me earlier.”
Jean tries to remember what exactly he’s said to Erwin over the course of the
day, most of it angry, hunger-induced nonsense. “Uh.”
“You said your parents didn’t tell you anything about this arrangement.”
“Oh, that,” Jean says. “They first brought it up last week. All they said was
that they’d decided I should go live somewhere else. I thought—I thought they’d
set me up in an arranged marriage. With a rich girl my age.” It sounds absurd
now that he’s said it out loud. At the time he didn’t know what to think; he
certainly didn’t expect an arrangement like this. All things considered it
could be worse.
Erwin frowns slightly. “I’m sure they meant well by leaving you in the dark,
but it’s not fair to you.”
“It doesn’t matter. I mean—I just like to complain a lot. It doesn’t mean
anything.” Jean shrugs. “If they’d told me ahead of time I probably would’ve
run off somewhere just to be contrary. It’s done now. I’m fine.”
Erwin regards him silently for a few moments as he takes off his necktie and
sets it on top of his cloak and jacket where he’s set them on the nightstand in
a neatly folded pile. “I’ll take you back home tomorrow if you want me to.”
Jean feels a pang of homesickness then. The room is too large and quiet, and
the view outside the window is too dark and empty, and he doesn’t belong here,
any more than Erwin belonged on his doorstep in Trost. He almost nods,
momentarily unable to speak, but then he thinks of what joining the military
will mean for him, for his family. One less mouth for them to worry about
feeding, at the least, and if he can manage to join the military police they’d
be comfortable. Not rich, of course, but better off than they are now. With
that in mind Erwin’s offer is almost insulting.
“I’m fine,” he says again, a little more testily than he intends. He begins to
unbutton his shirt, trying his hardest not to let his hands shake. There’s no
way Erwin believes him, but he at least respects Jean’s decision and drops the
issue. He undresses down to his pants and strides across the room to put out
the candle. With his back turned Jean can look at him without the risk of him
looking back. Erwin’s torso is riddled with signs of a physical toll that’s
almost nauseating to contemplate. There are scars, some of them small, some of
them quite large and ugly. One in particular curves up along his side, where a
faulty cable might have whipped back, or a blade might have snapped in half and
cut him. There are dark, blotchy bruises blossoming at the junction of his arms
and chest, and there’s a definite hobble to his gait that wasn’t there when
other people were around to judge him for it.
“. . . You aren’t fine,” Jean says before he can stop himself, “are you?”
Erwin turns around with the candle in his hand. It illuminates the hard lines
of his face and the bags under his eyes, the way for once he doesn’t meet
Jean’s gaze. “That’s irrelevant,” he says, then blows out the candle. In the
dark Jean has a hard time seeing his own hands in front of his face, much less
whether Erwin winces as he makes his way back to the bed, the creak of the
floorboards accentuating the fact that he’s limping.
Even though they share the bed it’s just as strangely empty as everything else
about Hildebrand and the journey it took to get here. Just last night Jean
might have been grateful for the lack of feet in his face or elbows in his side
and yet now he feels lost. He lies awake for what feels like the entire night,
which isn’t exactly right, because he wakes up just as dawn breaks to find
himself curled up against Erwin’s back.
It’s quiet in the room. He can’t even hear Erwin’s breathing, making it
difficult to tell if he’s awake or not. Jean hopes that he isn’t. He closes his
eyes again and figures it can’t hurt to lie here for a little while longer.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Ehrmich falls short of Jean’s grand expectations, fueled his entire childhood
by second-hand rumors and anecdotes that, in retrospect, he realized blended in
settings from more than one fairytale and fantastical bedtime story. It does
have a snobbier atmosphere than Trost for sure and as a whole its architecture
and citizens are more ostentatious and decorated than Jean is used to, but
there’s still an unpleasant smell by the sewers and there are still kids like
him running around up to no good. It’s not all that it pretends to be.
There isn’t an official survey corps headquarters here, due to a lack of funds.
Instead they’re situated in a haphazard string of buildings near the southeast
corner of the district. Being situated so close to the center of the kingdom
makes it hard for them to go on expeditions beyond the walls, Erwin tells him,
with the unspoken implication that this was purposeful on behalf of the king,
since expeditions are tremendously costly and not often, in the public’s eye,
worth a single begrudged cent. This is news to Jean. If you believed the talk
back home, then the survey corps went charging out into titan-infested land
every other week without a care in the world.
“You’ll be staying with me until your official training begins,” Erwin says
after they leave the horse at the stables. “In the meantime I’ll be . . .
tutoring you, I suppose.”
“Giving me a leg up, you mean?”
“I doubt I’ll give you any substantial advantage over the other recruits.”
Erwin leads the way out of the stables, walking slow and steady to disguise his
limp. “I can teach you about inter-wall politics and show you different
exercises to improve your coordination with the gear, but I can’t do your
actual training or earn your final evaluation for you.”
Jean cranes his neck and looks around as they walk. This section of the
district is crawling with not only members of the survey corps but
trainees—well, soon-to-be trainees—like him. A girl on the other side of the
street carrying a large crate of supplies shuffles as fast as she can manage
after an older officer. Jean’s taken off guard when a trio of boys dash out
from a nearby alley and nearly bowl him over.
“Sorry!” one of them yells over his shoulder as his companions take off without
him. “We’re late—gotta—”
He stops dead in his tracks and stares past Jean, no doubt at Erwin, and mouths
something that looks suspiciously like a swear word Jean’s parents have always
forbidden him from saying, then runs away after his friends before Jean can
grasp what the hell his problem is.
“You’ll have plenty of time to get acquainted with the other recruits tomorrow
night,” Erwin says, sounding rather far off. Jean has to dash to catch up with
him. “Right now we need to get you settled in.”
Jean glances around one last time and gets the distinct feeling that everyone
was staring at him before he noticed. He hurries up after Erwin, feeling more
and more paranoid.
Erwin has a small house that gives Jean a neglected, unused impression. The
small yard is a little overgrown and unruly, and the inside is sparse, devoid
of any kind of decoration or even furniture beyond the very basics. The only
extraneous things are the stacks of books piled up to a dozen high on the floor
and window sills.
The bed looks like the least used thing in the entire house. Its sheets and
quilt are tucked in precisely, its pillows new and undisturbed. Jean shrugs his
rucksack off and thinks idly that his lack of possessions will fit right in.
All the same, he feels a little self-conscious as he sets his clothes in the
chest underneath the window and the horse carving on the sill.
Even though it’s not all that late in the afternoon he feels exhausted. He sits
down on the bed, then flops over backward, and loses the will to budge even
another centimeter. He kind of wants to meet the other trainees, but at the
same time doesn’t really want to break his “how fast can he make everyone hate
him” record quite so soon.
“Ugh . . . . wake me up when there’s food,” he groans.
“We take our meals at the mess hall,” Erwin says, and Jean groans louder.
He nods off at some point not too long after that, his sleep permeated by
confusing, anxiety-ridden dreams that he can’t quite remember he wakes up. The
room is pitch black when he finally rouses himself, stomach aching with hunger.
For one bleary moment he thinks he’s back home in Trost, but it’s too still and
quiet for that to be possible. The only indication that there’s even anyone
else here is the faint but unmistakable smell of stew in the air.
He bumps into more than one stack of books as he tries to feel his way down the
hall. Near the end is a slice of light leading from the kitchen, where he finds
Erwin standing in front of a big pot. The table’s set with bowls, spoons, and a
large chunk of bread. Jean’s stomach growls at the sight.
“What . . . what time is it?” he asks from the doorway, confused. It’s way past
dinnertime; he can see the star-studded sky through the open window.
“Almost midnight,” Erwin says, turning to pick one of the bowls up from the
table.
Jean’s mouth falls agape in surprise. “Why did you let me—why didn’t you try to
wake me up?”
“I did. Several times.” Erwin gestures for Jean to sit. “After the fourth time
I thought it’d be best to just let you sleep.”
Jean lingers in the doorway as he tries to figure out whether Erwin is kidding
or not. It’s impossible to tell. He sits, hesitant until his hunger overrides
his uncertainty. He wolfs down two bowls of stew as Erwin leafs through one of
his books, then a second, then a third. By the time Jean’s done eating he’s
assembled another small stack of books on the table, which he pushes toward
Jean when he sets down his spoon.
“What’re these for?” Jean asks.
“Just some reading I’d like you to brush up on when you get the chance.” Erwin
pauses. “Don’t be surprised if some of what you read is different from what
you’ve been told in the past.”
The history book is the largest as well as the oldest-looking one in the stack.
Jean pries it open delicately to find writing so tiny and cramped that it’s
nearly illegible, filling the yellowed pages almost to the margins. He can’t
make any sense of it until he brings the book up to his face. “You’re mean
everything I’ve ever been told is a lie?”
“No, only that it might be just a small part of the truth. The same goes for
that book and any of the others you might read here.”
Jean shuts the book, wrinkling his nose at the ensuing cloud of dust, and picks
up a different book, this one small and leather-bound. Books were a rarity in
Trost, literacy a useful but not entirely necessary skill. He himself wouldn’t
ever have had any use for reading if his grandmother hadn’t insisted on it. For
Erwin to have such a massive quantity of old books lying around. . . . “These
books are forbidden, aren’t they?”
“Yes,” Erwin says without a trace of compunction. “So I would also advise you
to not tell anyone about whatever thoughts you formulate after you read them,
for both your sake as well as mine.”
It feels as though the book grows twice as heavy in Jean’s hand then. He sets
it down and puts his hands in his lap. “So, what, you’re some kind of
conspiracy freak like my grandfather was?”
Erwin pushes back from the table and, to Jean’s great non-surprise, dodges the
question entirely. “While you’re here you’re more than welcome to read any of
the books I have in the house, but again, only because I trust that you’ll keep
them a secret and in readable condition.”
Jean bites his lip and worries at it for a second before saying, “Of course I
will.”
He wonders what about a bunch of dusty old books could possibly be worth the
risk of imprisonment as he skims through the history book. It’s mind-numbingly
dull and nigh-incomprehensible, and by noon the next day he’s given up on it
entirely and is reluctant to even try to flip through the others. He puts them
on the bedroom windowsill next to the horse carving and instead entertains
himself by wandering the streets of Ehrmich for a few hours with his hands in
his pockets. He can’t be gone for too much longer. There’s some event going on
tonight that Erwin says they both need to attend.
What little interest he has in going dissipates when he returns to the house to
find Erwin has discarded his uniform in favor of nice clothes, a dark blue coat
with gold accents and knee-high boots over white pants that are—well—stunning
is all that comes to Jean’s mind as he stands dumbly in the doorway to the
bedroom.
“I, uh,” he manages to croak out, “I can’t go,” and tries to leave.
Erwin looks over as he finishes pulling on his gloves. “You have to, Jean,” he
says, not impatiently, but still in a quietly self-assured tone that won’t
brook the argument Jean’s trying to formulate. “It’ll do you good to get
acquainted with some people your age before training begins.”
“I . . . I don’t have anything decent to wear,” Jean says through his teeth
anyway, angry that he has to say it out loud even though Erwin already knows
the situation he’s in. “I’m not wearing my grandfather’s shirt again, it’s too
big and—and horrible.”
“No one’s expecting you or any of the other trainees to dress up.” Erwin
gestures to himself and Jean really wishes he wouldn’t, because he’s trying so
hard not to stare at the creases at his elbows, at how snug his coat fits
across his broad chest. “Truth be told, if I had the luxury of options I
wouldn’t choose to wear something like this.”
What a crying shame, Jean thinks faintly as he turns to leave. If there’s no
need for him to worry about dressing up then he’ll just go in these clothes,
crusted with dust and dried sweat from his wanderings. No doubt he’ll leave
everyone with an unflattering impression of himself, but he’d rather be seen as
someone who’s a slob by choice and not just because he can’t afford a decent
shirt and pair of pants of his own. He lags behind Erwin as they walk to the
meeting hall, hoping that no one else on the street—and there’s quite a
crowd—will see them and laugh to themselves at how differently they’re dressed.
Erwin was right, though. The closer they get to the meeting hall the bigger the
crowd is, and very few of the other up-and-coming trainees are dressed up to
the degree that Erwin and the other officers are. A few of them are downright
filthy, caked at the knees with what looks like mud but could very well be
horse shit, if the smell is anything to go by. Jean runs right into Erwin’s
side in his haste to keep away from them. It feels like running straight into a
brick wall.
“Oh, there you are,” Erwin says, looking around and then down to where Jean’s
trying to compose himself. “I have to meet with some people, but I’ll come find
you as soon as we’re finished. There’s a fountain out back that I’ll meet you
at in . . . let’s say an hour.”
A whole hour to himself—just great. He pushes his way into the meeting hall and
looks around. It’s mainly a wide, empty floor with a staircase on the far wall.
There are several long tables piled with food that he spends the next few
minutes picking through despondently. There’s meat and bread and soup, but no
cake. He considers sneaking out and just going back to Erwin’s house.
He’s so absorbed in his own thoughts that he doesn’t notice the boy next to him
until they both take a step in opposite directions and run right into each
other. Jean’s sure he’s going to have a concussions before the night is done if
this keeps up. He feels wetness seep into the front of his shirt and realizes
that he’s made the boy spill his drink.
“Watch where you’re—” he starts to say impulsively, then shuts his mouth. The
boy looks genuinely concerned as he takes off his jacket and hands it over.
“I’m really sorry,” he says, rubbing his nose as Jean scowls, pulls the jacket
on, and holds it closed at the front, hiding the stain. “I spotted my friend
and started walking without thinking. I didn’t even see you there.”
“Must be my fault for being too short,” Jean grumbles under his breath in an
attempt to be gracious. “. . . Thanks for the jacket.”
“No problem,” the boy says, beaming. He sticks out a hand. “I’m Marco, by the
way. Marco Bott.”
“Jean Kirstein,” Jean says, shaking Marco’s hand uncertainly, “from Trost.”
He regrets saying it even before the words are out of his mouth. Of course a
ragamuffin like him is from Trost, a border town that’s isolated from the thick
of things one way or the other, secluded and exclusive and more than a little
boring. Jean finds there’s not one thing he can say about the place that would
interest a non-native. Even he doesn’t think it’s interesting.
There’s a brief, awkward silence after they introduce themselves. Around them
is plenty of chatter from other trainees getting to know one another or, Jean
notices as he glances around, greeting each other like old friends. He feels so
out of place. Even Marco here has a friend he’s meeting and Jean’s been
abandoned by the only person he sort of knows. He doesn’t know what to do.
“And that’s Mina,” Marco says, moving to Jean’s side and nodding toward a short
girl who’s worming her way through the crowd toward them. “We’re cousins.”
Now that he mentions it Jean can see that they vaguely look like each other.
They’re both fair-skinned and black-haired, but beyond that and maybe the fact
that they’re both smiling there isn’t much family resemblance. Marco is taller
than Jean by a good several inches and Mina is so short she only just comes up
to Jean’s chin. They’re dressed differently, too. Mina’s wearing a plain, light
green dress that’s only just long enough to hide what looks like a pair of
scuffed up boots, whereas Marco is dressed up almost as nicely as Erwin was,
and he definitely stands out because of it. Quite a few people are looking his
way in appreciation and, when they notice that Jean’s got on his jacket,
murderous jealousy. He feels unsafe.
“Why don’t we go outside?” he says, interrupting Marco and Mina as they begin
greeting each other. “It’s hot in here.”
It’s hot outside, too, but without the crowd pressing in around them it’s a
little more tolerable. Jean sits cross-legged on the edge of the fountain and
plucks at his shirt, relieved to see that Marco had only been drinking water
and not something that’ll stain and ruin one of the few shirts he owns. Mina
sits beside him and kicks up her feet, revealing that she is indeed wearing a
pair of heavy, oversized boots. She catches him staring and lifts up a leg.
“Ms. Eva’s dogs like to paw at my feet. Oh! You wouldn’t know who she is. She’s
part of the wall garrison—I’m staying with her until training begins.” She
laughs. “She’s one of my aunt’s friends. I’ve known her for years. Sometimes
she buys me clothes, like this dress.”
She looks over at Marco with a mischievous look in her eyes. “Marco made out
like a bandit, though—he’s staying with a member of the military police. Some
guy from a rich, important family.”
Jean scrutinizes Marco again, who smiles at him almost apologetically. “I’ve
known him my whole life. He’s only a couple of years older than me so he treats
me like his younger brother.”
“He treats you like someone he’d like to marry,” Mina says, causing the tips of
Marco’s ears to flush a deep cherry red. She leans over and mutters to Jean,
“Johann spoils him. I have to clean Ms. Eva’s house and Marco has time to come
and sit around while I try to do my chores.”
It must be true, because Marco doesn’t say anything in return, just looks
mildly embarrassed. Jean doesn’t see what there’s to be embarrassed about,
considering he can’t be in want of anything basic like a good, sturdy roof, or
in fear of something like not knowing if he’ll be able to afford medicine if he
gets sick. Jean feels so jealous that it manifests as a deep, palpable ache in
his chest. He can’t keep the bitterness out of his voice when he says, “Well, I
have no idea who the hell Erwin is or what he does or why I’m stuck with him. I
guess he owes my parents a favor or something—he wouldn’t want to take me in if
he didn’t have to. There’s no way.”
He glares down at the ground for a few moments, then looks up to see why Marco
and Mina have fallen silent. They’re both staring at him in shock, Mina with
her mouth slightly agape. They look as if Jean has viciously insulted their
grandmother. “What?”
“Do you mean Erwin as in Erwin Smith?” Mina asks. In her excitement she presses
in so close that her hair tickles the side of his neck.
“Well, yeah, he, uh—he—” Jean leans away in alarm. “You know who he is?”
“You don’t?”
“Obviously not,” Jean says, impatient.
“He’s the commander of the survey corps,” Marco says, running a hand through
his hair. “He was promoted after Wall Maria fell. But, if you’re from Trost
then I guess you wouldn’t have had much need to know that. I only know because
Johann likes to stay up-to-date about that kind of thing. And Mina knows
because—”
“Ms. Eva fancies him,” she says, giggling. “Oh! Don’t tell her I told you that,
Marco, she gets so flustered . . .”
“What else do you know about him? I only met him the day before yesterday so I
have no clue what he’s like.” Well, that’s not quite true, but Jean would like
someone else’s opinion of what kind of person Erwin Smith is. Marco and Mina
both shrug and say they don’t really know, either. It’s not all that
surprising, he supposes. Of course they wouldn’t.
“I’ve heard rumors about him, though,” Mina says, pulling her knees to her
chest and resting her chin on her knees. “It’s probably a load of gossip and I
shouldn’t pass it along, but . . . oh, never mind. Forget I brought it up.” She
stares at him wide-eyed, obviously hoping he’ll prompt her to continue.
“What?” Jean demands.
“I’ve heard that he’s involved with Captain Levi,” she whispers, then pauses
dramatically as if that’s supposed to mean anything to Jean. It apparently
means something to Marco, because his mouth forms a little “o” of surprise and
his ears go red again. “. . . You don’t know who that is, do you, Jean?”
He shakes his head.
“Well, now that you’re staying with him I’m sure you’ll meet Captain Levi
eventually. If not you’ll at the very least hear about him. He’s the strongest
soldier in the survey corps—probably the strongest one they’ve ever had.”
“I’ll keep that in mind, then,” Jean says, more to be polite than anything. He
doesn’t know who this Captain Levi is and, to be quite frank, couldn’t care
less. Who cares if he’s “involved” with Erwin? It’s not really anyone’s
business, least of all his. Definitely not his. He tells himself that as he
spots a blue coat across the yard and cranes his neck. It’s Erwin. He spots
Jean and heads over, an odd expression threatening to break free from his
typical stern one. He gives Jean a small smile as he comes to a stop in front
of the fountain and looks from Mina to Marco, and Jean feels the most mortified
that he’s felt this entire evening yet; Erwin thinks he’s made friends.
“This is Marco Bott,” Jean says, pointing at Marco, who offers his hand. “And
Mina, uh . . . er—”
“Carolina,” she hisses, elbowing him in the side. “Carolina,” she repeats a
little louder for Erwin’s benefit.
They chat for a bit while Jean clutches Marco’s jacket and considers flinging
himself backward into the fountain. Erwin is surprisingly good at small talk,
as long as it never focuses on him. He doesn’t seem quite as uptight, Jean
thinks. He inquires after Ms. Eva and tells Mina to give her his regards, and
listens quietly when Marco tells him how honored he is to meet him. Erwin’s
eyes close at “honored” and don’t open again for a while, and for a minute Jean
is afraid he might have died right then and there of pure shock.
After they leave and walk back to Erwin’s house, though, he grows more somber,
and now Jean understands why, considering he’s the commander of the survey
corps.
“I, uh . . . I had fun tonight,” he says as they pass by a group of trainees,
who yell out insults so vulgar and slurred that they must be more than a little
drunk. “Even though I didn’t think I would.”
He’s not sure why he thinks Erwin would care, but Erwin looks down at him and
smiles again, more openly than he did at the fountain, so broad that Jean can
see he has a dimple. It almost stops him dead in his tracks. “That’s good. I’m
glad to hear that, Jean.”
Jean nods and walks a little faster so they’re not right by each other’s side.
He almost trips over the stack of books in the entrance hall, recovering before
Erwin steps through the door under the pretense of picking one of them up to
read. He stumbles toward the bedroom, remembering that he hasn’t slept since he
woke up before midnight the previous night. He’s so drained that he collapses
onto the bed, wet shirt and all, and stuffs the book under his pillow to look
at some other time. Erwin doesn’t come in after him. A light comes to life down
the hall—he must be in his study. Jean figures Erwin can move him around once
he gets tired enough to go to bed, and drifts off without too much more
thought.
He dreams about Trost, plain boring Trost where he knew almost everyone’s name
and almost everyone knew him as Friedrich Kirstein’s grandson, even though he
himself had never gotten the chance to meet his grandfather, didn’t even know
exactly who his grandfather was or why people used him as an insult. He
remembers the dream when he wakes up and rolls over on his back, squinting when
sunlight filters through the curtain and lands on his face.
He sits up stiffly and pulls the shirt off, tossing it aside before curling
back under the quilt. One thing about living in Trost that he doesn’t miss is
all of the chores. He knows that this is only temporary, and that once he
starts training his chores back home will seem cute in comparison, but for now
he’s able to sneak in a couple extra hours of sleep, and he does so without a
second thought.
***** Chapter 4 *****
Chapter Notes
     I apologize for the slow updates and short chapter. I can't believe
     I've been working on this story for over half a year and it only has
     four small chapters! I've said over on the kink meme that I intend
     for the story to be in three parts and we're aaaalmost done with the
     first third. Hopefully the next part will be worth the wait. Thank
     you to everyone who's read so far!
Life in Erhmich is more relaxed than how it was in Trost, which at first
surprises Jean and then, as the days drag on monotonously, stifles him. He has
to consciously remind himself that it’s only temporary on days when he feels
like tearing his hair out by the fistfuls, which is most of them. Training
starts in two months and even back in Trost he heard enough horrible stories to
have a healthy amount of sickening apprehension for it, but for the time being
he has little to occupy his time with and it’s about to drive him up Wall Sina
in frustration.
Erwin is as attentive as his duties allow him to be, which is considerably less
than what Jean is used to. He works in his study while it’s light out, only
getting up to stretch now and then. He keeps his jacket hung neatly over the
back of his chair, allowing Jean to see the flex of his muscles underneath the
tight fabric of his shirt from where he sits on the window sill. When he isn’t
trying to sneak peeks at Erwin he tries his best to read through at least one
of the books Erwin gave him. Before long he usually ends up either looking out
at the window or daydreaming.
And for the first week that’s fine. It’s enough. Jean misses his family more
than he thought he would, and he finds it’s easier to deal with by mulling it
over than by burying his stress with menial activity. But just as soon as he
gets somewhat accustomed to living here in this silent, pristine house with
nothing other than the sight of Erwin’s perfect, unfaltering posture to greet
him when he grows tired of looking out the window, everything changes again.
Erwin isn’t in his study when Jean wakes up around noon on the tenth day. Jean
settles himself on the window sill anyway and braces himself for the second
chapter of the history book. His eyes sweep mechanically across the pages
without really absorbing what’s written and what it means, and before too long
he sets it aside with a huff.
He glances around glumly. Erwin’s study is filled with even more books—when the
hell does he find time to read them? Where did he even get them?—that have the
honor of being placed on actual shelves. Jean pokes around and notices they’re
divided by subject and from there put in alphabetical order.
There are yet more history books, quite a few medical books, and a small
collection of what turns out to be journals, none of which are Erwin’s
personally. One shelf is devoted entirely to volume upon volume about
everything even remotely related to titans—first-hand accounts by scouts from
expeditions stretching back over a decade ago, outdated gear maintenance
manuals, even a single volume of what looks like a scripture for a cult of
people who worship the titans, of all things.
Jean’s heart skips a beat as he eases a volume down at random and sits cross-
legged on the floor to read it. Everyone knows that most history books are
forbidden; there are some people who crave to own and read them simply because
they’re forbidden. It’s never bothered Jean personally. He’s never had much of
a reason or desire to learn the history of the world.
What did it matter to him what life was like beyond the walls in the distant
past? Before last week all he’d needed to know was how to look after his
sisters and brother and help his parents with their work, nothing that a
moldering book about gigantic bodies of salty, undrinkable water or long-
forgotten civilizations and wars could teach him to do. Books about titans,
though . . . it didn’t have any impact on Jean before and it still doesn’t, he
thinks as he opens the book, his curiosity nonetheless getting the better of
him.
It’s filled with diagrams of the speculated anatomy and behavior of titans.
Jean has no way of knowing if the information is still current or if it was
ever factual to begin with. It doesn’t matter since he’s never going to need to
know anything about titans. To him they’re nothing more than a nasty rumor, and
he plans on letting it stay that way.
…It can’t hurt to read a little more, though.
The boards out in the hallway creak and he’s so absorbed in the book that he
doesn’t think anything of it. They can’t be footsteps, because Erwin’s
footsteps are heavy and still a little uneven. Jean sits on the floor until
he’s flipped through the whole book of diagrams. When he’s done he stretches
out his legs to shake out the numbness—and then he notices someone standing in
the doorway. He’s so startled he scuttles back into the bookshelf and knocks
down half of the section about agriculture.
There’s a boy paused in the doorway, dressed in simple clothes that are
slightly too big for his lithe, compact frame. He looks Jean over with one
cursory glance before curling his thin lip in what looks like distaste. Jean
wonders if he’s broken into Erwin’s house with the intent to kill him and is
just as disappointed to find it occupied only by Jean as Jean is, and then
thinks: what if Erwin’s taken in two recruits? What if he’s stuck with this
guy?
“Who’re you?” Jean asks suspiciously. The stranger ignores him and makes
himself at home by touching all of the papers strewn across Erwin’s desk, the
displeasure on his face intensifying tenfold. Maybe he’s trying to steal
important survey corps information and maybe Jean should try to stop him, but
Jean just clutches the book to his chest and watches, growing more and more
confused, as the other boy organizes Erwin’s desk, transforming it from a
cluttered war-zone into two neat stacks of paper and a fresh well of ink.
Without so much as a second glance in Jean’s direction, he rolls up the
voluminous sleeves of his shirt and leaves. He’s just passed through the
doorway when he says in a startlingly deep voice, “Put those back in order.”
Jean’s too intimidated to be offended at being bossed around by some jerk he’s
never met before. He scrambles to his feet and puts the books back before
hunting the other guy down. He’s surveying the bed with his hands on his hips,
back turned to Jean. He looked small from a distance, yet up close Jean can see
that’s he’s much thicker, more muscular, than he seemed at first. His head
jerks to the side, leering back at Jean from the corner of his eye, and Jean
sees that he’s also older than he first assumed—a lot older.
“Who are you?” Jean repeats, then thinks maybe this guy will be more willing to
respond if he introduces himself first. “I’m—”
“Jean Kirstein,” the man cuts him off impatiently. “Tell me, Jean, do you take
pride in being an utter slob?” He points at the tangle of covers on the bed and
cocks his head so he can look up at Jean with utmost disgust. Jean doesn’t see
what the big deal is. Back home in Trost he and his siblings had always shared
one huge blanket made by their grandmother—it isn’t his fault Erwin has more
quilts and sheets on his bed than he actually needs, considering the fact that
he never sleeps there, at least not to Jean’s knowledge. He’s come to the
conclusion that Erwin must sleep at his desk, assuming he even allows himself
to sleep at all these days.
Jean knows he has a temper, and most of the time he shoots off his mouth
anyway. Not this time. He keeps his jaw firmly clenched and strips the bed when
the man tells him to, as if he has any right to boss Jean around when he’s
sauntered into someone else’s home like he belongs here. And how the hell does
he know Jean’s name?
He can’t summon the nerve to ask such a simple thing, so he ends up relocating
all of the books in the sitting room so the man can sweep the floor, only to
tell Jean to stack all of the books back on the floor once he’s done.
“Are you kidding me?” Jean’s still en route to the kitchen table with the last
armload of books. The look on the man’s face suggests he isn’t really the type
to kid. Jean hauls all of the books back to the sitting room without another
word of protest.
Before too long the man apparently decides things would go faster if he did
whatever it is he’s doing on his own, at which point he begins to ignore Jean
and continues to work in silence, sweeping and dusting with utmost care even
though everything looks spotless, almost unnaturally so. Jean decides now is
the time to make his escape and slips out of the house without a moment’s
hesitation.
He hadn’t explored all of the district the week before and so spends the next
couple of hours wandering around again. He feels self-conscious about the fact
that he’s wearing a shirt he stole from Erwin’s closet, a too-big scrap of
heavy cloth that looks like it’s been stitched up more than once in several
different places. He needn’t have worried—the citizens of Ehrmich are far too
caught up in their own daily affairs to pay any attention to him.
“Jean!”
At the sound of his name he pauses at the street corner he’d been crossing and
backtracks a step. Jogging toward him is Marco, one arm outstretched in a wave.
He slows down and doubles over a bit once he reaches Jean, laughing
breathlessly. “Oh good . . . it is you. I told you, Mina . . . see?”
Mina grunts something in response from behind Marco. Jean hadn’t even noticed
her there. He peers around Marco to find her grimacing, constricted by a dress
with lacy frills at the collar and sleeves and small, fancy shoes that don’t
look nearly as comfortable as her boots had.
“Whew! Haven’t seen you around for a while,” Marco says once he straightens up
and pushes his bangs back from his forehead. “How have you been, Jean?”
Jean shrugs. “Could be worse.”
“Well, if you aren’t busy, Mina and I were just going back to Ms. Eva’s place,
and I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you dropped by with us.”
“I wouldn’t either,” Mina adds, grinning. “I could always use an extra pair of
hands to help me out with my chores.”
“Tempting,” Jean says dryly. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt. I don’t have anything
else to do.”
Marco claps him on the shoulder and steers him after Mina as she skips ahead
and calls back, “C’mon, slowpokes!”
***** Chapter 5 *****
Chapter Notes
See the end of the chapter for notes
The tea Marco serves him is so bitter Jean wishes he could spit it back out.
Instead he forces a smile, fakes a second slurping noise. Marco smiles, nose
wrinkling, and pushes a small container of what is thankfully sugar across the
table to Jean.
“Help yourself, Jean,” Marco says, lifting up his own tea cup and keeping the
saucer poised underneath it with practiced grace. Mina slaps his arm in
reproach, causing the tea to slosh, and they glare at each other before
descending into a fit of muffled giggles. Jean helps himself to as many sugar
cubes as he can pick up with the tiny sugar cube tong at one time. The tea
still tastes gross, so he supposes the problem must be with him.
It must also just be him that he can be sitting here in such a fancy house and
feel so suffocated, imprisoned by his own fear of breaking something valuable
or doing something rude without even realizing it. Ms. Eva has a maidservant,
an elderly woman who had only acknowledged Jean’s presence long enough to make
it obvious she didn’t think he compared to Marco, whom she was clearly fond of.
What surprised Jean was that Mina seemed subservient to her in some way,
despite not being a maid herself. Mina leaves the small room where they have
tea several times over the course of the afternoon, summoned by the distant
tinkling of a bell.
The house is not so much larger than Erwin’s modest home, and is likewise
packed and stacked with so many things that only someone as young and small as
Mina can squeeze through its labyrinth-like nooks and crannies to heed the bell
so quickly. Jean hears barking and the muffled thumping of what must be dogs
running through the house, the good wood of the floor protected from their
nails by the assortment of rugs. Jean got the impression that Ms. Eva, while
obviously of some kind of money, was not very concerned with putting on airs or
impressing anyone, as befitting someone from the wall garrison.
“I don’t understand,” Jean says to Marco after Mina leaves again, holding the
stiff hem of her dress up and scurrying off as fast as her pinchy-looking shoes
will allow. “If she’s been taken in by such a rich lady then why does she do
the housework?”
Marco sips his tea slowly and thinks. “Well, Mina’s parents aren’t—how do I put
this . . . they aren’t quite as high-standing as her aunt’s family is, which
they’re rather sensitive about it. Especially her father. So he refused to let
Mina come stay here with Eva unless Mina did some kind of work in return, even
though Eva doesn’t care about that.” Marco pours himself some more tea, keeping
the ornate pot steady in his light grip. “It’s complicated. Johann says there
aren’t really any official rules about this kind of thing we have—it’s very
personal.”
Jean turns his cup in his hands, staring down at the dredges. “Are most
trainees taken in by people they already know?”
“Usually, yes. Not always. Sometimes officers request to take in heirs to
important families for monetary reasons. And then sometimes families are the
one to offer children to prospective guardians. There are all kinds of reasons
for it—it’s not always about love.”
“You love Johann?” Jean asks.
Marco chokes on his most recent mouthful of tea. “I d-didn’t say that,” he says
hastily, pulling out a handkerchief from one of his pockets and patting at his
mouth, prim and proper. “It’s just—sometimes—it’s like marriage, but—but not
quite because we’re not, you know, married, we’re just—I—Oh Mina, there you
are!”
Mina appears, flushed red in the cheeks. Following her is a willowy woman in
uniform donned with the roses of the wall garrison. In her arms are two small,
wiry-haired dogs that tremble and growl with hostility at Jean. He leans back
in his cushy armchair, keeping his eyes on the little gray menaces as they are
handed off to Mina and Marco to hold, while the woman bends slightly at the
waist and extends a sunburned hand for Jean to shake.
“You must be Jean,” she says, her sunburned face kind behind a thin curtain of
unkempt curly hair, as golden brown as honey. The skin of her hand is almost as
rough as Erwin’s, and she looks nearly as muscular, if the tightness of her
cropped jacket is any indication. “Please, call me Eva.”
“Nice to meet you,” Jean says, watching in disbelief as Eva sits down on the
empty half of the loveseat and Mina lets go of the dog she was holding. It
snuffles over the Eva’s lap and settles there, its little stump of a tail
quivering in barely suspended aggression as it keeps its face pointed at Jean.
Eva strokes its head lovingly. “I, uh, like your dogs.”
Eva beams, tickling the dog under its chin. “So tell me, Jean, how are you
liking Ehrmich so far?”
Jean shrugs. “S’okay. I don’t really have anything to do.”
“Oh, is that so? What a shame. Though I suppose it is hard for Commander Erwin
to take up much time with you, considering his station.” It begged the question
of why Erwin agreed to take Jean in the first place.
“Yeah. It doesn’t bother me too much.” Before too long they would all begin
training, and then it would be difficult for all of them to find time to see
each other.
“Well,” Eva says, smiling, “you’re more than welcome to come keep Mina whenever
you want.”
“Mrs. Falk will just put him to work,” Mina interjects, glancing at Marco.
Marco shrugs helplessly and gulps down the rest of his tea.
Jean wonders then about the rude man who made him rearrange the books at
Erwin’s house. Perhaps he was hired help . . . except Erwin was not wealthy.
Whoever he was, Jean hoped he wouldn’t still be there by the time he returned,
and that Erwin would be there instead.
Marco walks him home after they bid Mina and Eva goodbye. The sun has begun to
go down despite the early hour, and the air is crisp and chilly. Jean will need
a new coat for the winter. He knows that Marco must notice his shivering, and
is both annoyed and a little relieved when Marco offers to bring one of his
spare jackets the next time they meet.
“Is tomorrow fine?” Marco asks when they reach Erwin’s gate. Jean nods. “Good.
I’ll see you after lunch then. Stay warm.”
Jean watches him go down the street, his hands stuck under his arms for warmth.
As they walked side by side he’d noticed, not for the first time, that Marco
was taller than he was, and broad not from baby fat but more from natural
muscle. He was terribly cute, Jean thought appraisingly. Perhaps that was why
Johann wanted to marry him, if such a thing were even possible. In Trost it
certainly wasn’t, but here within Wall Sina he felt that maybe such things
could be permissible.
He enters the house with trepidation, peering through the front hall with his
eyes narrowed and ears strained. A light is on in the bedroom, falling across
the hallway. When the door shuts behind Jean with a loud creak Erwin’s voice
calls, “Is that you, Jean?”
Jean finds him sitting on the edge of the bed, undoing the straps of his
uniform. He watches from the doorway, as genuinely curious about the process as
he is in watching the movements of Erwin’s body.
“Do you always have to wear that?” Jean asks.
“When I’m on duty, yes.”
“Why? In case the titans attack?”
There was more than a little sarcasm in his voice, which is coolly ignored.
“Yes. Though the gear itself is useless if you aren’t prepared to use it
creatively,” Erwin says, leaning forward to set the mass of straps on the
dresser, then down to pull off his boots.
“Creatively,” Jean repeats.
“Training drills will only take you so far. You will need to practice on your
own time.” Erwin looks him in the eye then, without expression. “Even then if
you don’t think of the titans as a serious threat you will never be prepared
enough.”
Jean bites down on the inside of his cheek at the unexpected reprimand, a small
part of him wary that he might have made Erwin mad. It’s so hard to tell.
But then Erwin looks away, and it becomes irrelevant. “I bought something for
you, by the way.”
“How?”
“With money.”
Jean resists the urge to roll his eyes and sits down cautiously at Erwin’s
side. Erwin lifts up his survey corps cloak to reveal a plain, single-breasted
overcoat. Jean takes it, surprised. It looks and feels new, not the slightest
bit worn or surreptitiously patched together.
“Be sure to take that with you whenever you go out,” Erwin goes on. “Winter
comes quickly here.”
Jean nods, staring down at the coat, unsure what to say. He should thank Erwin,
he knows, yet when he makes to speak for some reason he says, “It’s still not a
kiss.”
Erwin holds an arm out. Jean lets himself be pulled close, a little uncertain,
a little eager. More than anything he’s suspicious that Erwin will trip him up
again. He warms up in Erwin’s arms, leaning back against his chest, burrowing
himself in the warmth. Sure enough all Erwin does is press a kiss to the top of
his head. He doesn’t let go, however, and Jean thinks that this is almost just
as nice.
“Do you miss your family?” Erwin asks.
“A little.”
“If you write them a letter I’ll have it sent to them.”
“They haven’t written to me,” Jean mutters.
“I think they want you to have some space,” Erwin says, his voice quiet and
reassuring. “They haven’t forgotten about you.”
“If you’re so sure. I’ll write them tomorrow, then.” Jean turns his head and
cranes his neck. “Do you sleep?”
“Of course.”
“Then sleep in here. My parents won’t like it if you let me freeze to death.”
“One might think I should buy you a coat,” Erwin says, leaning back when Jean
pokes him in the ribs. “Go on to sleep, Jean. I’ll be back shortly. I have some
more things to take care of.”
Jean lies awake, glad now for the excess of blankets and the heavy coat. True
to his word Erwin comes back a couple of hours later, his feet cold as ice when
Jean stretches one of his own out under pretense of rolling over in his sleep.
Erwin laughs in a way that makes Jean feel good, not like he’s being made fun
of. “Good night, Jean.
“. . . Good night, Erwin.”
Chapter End Notes
     The fact that most of the chapters end with Jean going to sleep is
     intentional and somewhat meaningful, I swear.
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