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sunday overcast - eren yeager

pairing: eren jaeger x reader

summary: After ruining your potential dream relationship - and spring break plans - with Jean, you retreat to your hometown over break for the first time in years to lick your wounds. But you can mope around for only so long when you're strapped for cash. Luckily, the manager at your usual summer gig has an unconventional shift you can fill on short notice. The only issue - the guy you hooked up with and ghosted last winter is scheduled to work the same shift. Even worse, he's your only ride home.

rating: explicit

wc: 7.8k

read on ao3 | series nav

the chili's au/scummy line cook eren saga continues

“Hey,” you murmur, low and warm in your throat, just barely heard above the rain. “You wanna cheer me up?”

Eren really isn’t sure how the both of you ended up in this situation.

Don’t get him wrong - he had been imagining your return since the day you left. Or rather, the day he found out you left, through Sasha, who had unceremoniously handed the sweater he loaned you over to him by the next dinner shift they worked together. By then, the winter holidays had passed and you were well on your way back to your university.

At first, he figured that in time, you would text him. Your last encounter was intense, and you could hardly look in his direction the whole drive to your apartment. He couldn’t bring himself to reach out first - something told him it’d make things worse before it made anything better. He couldn’t be the only one stuck on that night. Something had to be said, right?

But right now, somehow, you’re reclining in his backseat, studying him with that alluring, low-lidded gaze that pierces through the darkness of his car. And despite all the steps it took to get to this moment, nothing between the two of you has really been properly addressed yet.

It’s this gnawing thought that causes Eren to hesitate at your invitation. Frustration burns through him at the sight of you. Wet hair pasted to the sides of your flush cheeks. Soaked polo rucked up your stomach, the bare skin shining with rainwater what little light gleans inside from the streetlights. The two of you, alone in Eren’s worn-out sedan, camped out in the middle of Pepper’s vacant parking lot, sporting matching red eyes. He observes you, observing him pretending to mull over your question. Silently pleading with him to blur the lines of whatever this was quickly devolving into just a little bit more. Just one more time.

He wonders if you’ll back down, chicken out, if he’s quiet for long enough.

“Eren,” you call for him again and he swallows, throat feeling dry and thick. There it is again. That lofty tone you often use when he fucks up an order or moves a little too slow. Sweet, pitiful, and disdainful all at once.

A joint smolders in his fingers, long forgotten after dodging to avoid the flailing mass of limbs and appendages that was your poor attempt at wiggling into the back from the passenger seat. A pleasant, lethargic fog creeps at the edges of his consciousness. Your next words seem to float through the car to bless his ears, rolling around in his mind with a warm buzz that has him leaning out of his seat before you’re even finished speaking.

“Come make me feel good.”

--

New Year’s Day came and went, and Eren figured you’d at least reach out before you left your humble hometown for the start of your last spring semester in the big city. His phone would vibrate, and he would flip it, hoping he was masking his anticipation - and then later, disappointment - well enough at the possibility of you calling. His fingers would idle on your chat messages, frowning when he had to scroll farther and farther as he accumulated others—hoping one day to catch even just those three torturous, winking dots. Any sign that you were thinking of him as much as his thoughts turned to you.

This newfound hobby, waiting for you to return, was a nuisance in every sense of the word. You had left like you had every spring, and you would return like you had every summer. This careful, meticulous dance around your academic schedule that dictated your time back home - when you would work, how long you would stay, and who you would come to see. It was the way it had always been, for the past handful of years at least. Even if you were graduating this year, you had to come back - it was the natural order of things, in Eren’s world.

What Eren hadn’t been anticipating was that you would break that routine.

He wouldn’t really consider himself a creature of habit beyond smoking, but there were people who he considered had specific roles in his everyday life. Connie was his work partner-in-crime and designated smoke buddy. Armin was his rock and moral compass. Levi was a hardass dictator moonlighting as a shift supervisor. And you were the uptight waitress girl from work who liked to boss him around and get on his ass just because you had a college degree and he didn’t.

Realistically, nothing had really shifted too far from the norm in his day-to-day. You had always been just coworkers. Now you were just a coworker whom he had eaten out from the back one time.

Eren had been working at Pepper’s for a long time. It wasn’t like it was the first time he had fucked around with one of his coworkers - that was part of the inevitable circle of life in the restaurant service industry. Work a double shift? Check. Train a newbie? Check. Fuck that one coworker who laughs a little too hard at your jokes? Check.

But then he had practically corned you at Sasha’s ugly sweater party last year, and suddenly that reality had been forced to shift.

It was the worst at work. He would receive an order he found stupid - who the fuck puts ranch on their spaghetti? - and itch to somehow poke fun at you about it. Connie would introduce the dinner crew to new music when the restaurant was closed, Levi had retired into the office for the night, and Eren would catch himself considering which tracks you would find funny and which ones you’d probably look up and save for yourself.

Standing over the hot grill, his thoughts would drift, and Eren would imagine you marching through the swinging double doors into the kitchen, busybodied and frazzled as usual, sticking your neck out under the heat lamps like Erwin hasn't already admonished you for doing before, all so Eren can more clearly hear you chide him for half-assing an appetizer. It’s not hard to envision you - tense, jaw clenched, out of breath, flush, and slightly sweaty. Top buttons of your uniform’s polo are undone so he can glimpse the expanse of your collarbones and a bit of your chest when you lean over the counter to glare at him like you could kill him with your thoughts alone. Like you hadn’t ghosted him for months.

And then Connie would hip check him, wordlessly jarring Eren back into focus as another medium-well steak overcooked beneath his spatula.

--

Never in his right mind, no matter how often he replayed that fateful night with you in his head, no matter how frequently his thoughts drifted back to that cramped bathroom, the unrestrained feeling of your hands in his hair, the rough material of your knit sweater scrunched between his fingers as he fit himself between your thighs, the taste -

Never in his right mind would he have imagined you sitting in his car, smoothing your splayed hands over the expanse of his leather backseat, drenched to the bone yet offering him a small mirthful, inviting smile despite the chill still in the air as you lean back and make yourself comfortable enough to request, “Come make me feel good.”

Fortunately for Eren, when it came to you, his train of thought had been anything but sound of mind in recent weeks.

Now, his hands are full of you. Large palms slip and slide under your wet top as he explores your back, your waist, and your arms, crushing his mouth to yours.

His hand cups your cheek, a gentle guide in contrast to the hungry exploration of his mouth against yours. Urgent fingers slide into your hair as you rake back his own from his face, a strand getting caught in the corner of his lip when you kiss him once, twice. His slides across your lower lip invitingly, and you sigh into the kiss. Let him pry your mouth open with his own. He tastes like smoke and mints. The smell of deep fryer grease clings to his hair.

When Eren turns to pepper kisses down the soft skin of your neck and collarbones, he thinks he tastes salt. Time melts away, the only constant is the frantic rhythm of your breaths and the soft moans that escape your lips. You clutch the loose knot of his hair, guide him back towards you. Your foreheads rest against each other, chests heaving.

Eren’s gaze is low and warm as he takes in your bruised lips, and the ruddiness of your cheeks. HIs fingers dig into the soft skin of your hips. You shift in his lap under the intensity of his stare, causing you both to groan, quickly reminded of your position. Eren had stepped out into the rain only to shove his way into the backseat and situate you onto his lap. Despite your layers of damp denim and cotton, you can feel him growing warm and solid beneath you.

“Is that for me?” you grind down against his hips. Grinning, teasing. He stutters upwards, gripping your waist like a lifeline.

You think he looks so pretty like this, flustered, frowning, and breathless beneath you, like you’re moving quicker than he can catch up. He wraps one arm around your waist, using his free hand to wrench the collar of your polo aside and sink his teeth into the soft juncture of your neck in retaliation. You jolt and wriggle in his hold but Eren keeps you pressed against him, vengeful.

“So full of yourself,” he mutters, pressing a wet kiss where there is surely now a bruise. “Gotta get you full of me instead.”

You sputter and tell him to shut up, but let him take off your shirt anyway.

--

The thunderstorm that rolled through your small town this morning was relentless. Eren had figured the day would be wet and dreary when it began drizzling on his way to the restaurant, the headlights on his hooptie struggling to penetrate through the early morning fog. But throughout the morning, whenever Eren got a chance to glance out of the to-go order window, it was evident that it would only grow worse.

He had already been dreading this shift all month. He had been slotted to come in on a Sunday - the one day of the week Pepper’s was closed - to deep clean the kitchen and take inventory of the walk-in fridge. This particular shift was only scheduled once a month, always on a Sunday morning, and rotated between him and Connie. The whole ordeal was a long-winded chore but thanks to Levi, the staff hierarchy was a pretty balanced ecosystem. Typically, one other waitress or front-of-house staff would be assigned randomly to help them. That way, none of the kitchen staff could claim they carried the brunt of the work.

(Even if they did.)

However, this Sunday morning was different. As he peered through the to-go order window, the storm's persistence mirrored the internal tempest he felt. The reason? Your return to staff is scheduled for this very shift.

Eren’s heart nearly fell out of his ass upon first glance at the schedule. He asked Levi if it was a typo.

“It’s spring break,” his manager deadpanned, as though this weren’t the first time you were picking up a shift in the middle of the semester. The linecook could only nod, tight-lipped. Historically, you had only worked over the summers and winters, reserving the few days of spring break for actual vacation time. Eren had figured he would have at least another month or two before you would have to confront each other, once he concluded that you wouldn’t reach out on your own.

Deep cleaning duty was always a menial and tedious task, but Eren working in enjoyed the silence of the usually chaotic kitchen. Any other Sunday, he would tie back his hair, don his apron, and steal Connie’s Bluetooth speaker from above the dishwashing sink. He’d blast his music over the chunky gurgle of the draining deep fryers, over the spray of boiling sink water. Rock, maybe R&B - stuff that wasn’t typical “family-friendly dining hours” approved. Maybe smoke a little before he came in, if he had been smart enough to think to roll something the night before.

It was easy to lose himself in the busy work. Sometimes he would exchange pleasantries with accompanying wait staff if they actually decided not to call out at the last minute. Sasha, a night shift waitress and repeat offender, was never a morning person.

You were never much of a morning person either. It’s why he had been waiting all week for you to call out. He’d like to pretend like he wasn’t anticipating your return; like he hadn’t been taking extra time to pour over the schedule for weeks once winter turned to spring, noting where your name was absent among the list of people set to clock in after 4 pm. Like he hasn’t been bugging Sasha to share the barest hint about when you might be coming back. Or stalking your Twitter to see if you’ll post your graduation photos. But that wouldn’t be entirely true.

Still, the shock of seeing you scheduled so soon before he’s prepared had haunted Eren throughout the week.

He insisted to himself he wasn’t nervous…Maybe a little anxious. The last time he had seen you, he had you bent over the toilet seat and crying into your arms at Sasha’s Christmas party before escorting you out in his garish holiday sweater. Blessedly - or dreadfully - he hadn’t heard from you since.

When you had unloaded the sweater onto Sasha, she didn’t even bother to ask why you were in possession of it in the first place - practically the whole night crew played an incredulous audience to your walk of shame. Connie wouldn’t let him hear the end of it; Jean wouldn’t look him in the eyes at their last all-staff meeting.

Eren can’t shake the feeling of expectation as he moves mechanically through the deep cleaning tasks, hoping you won’t call out and that the morning wouldn't be tainted by awkwardness. Hoping that you will call out and the both of you could remain in this silent, anxious limbo. He had been scheduled to clock in an hour before you. It crept by agonizingly slow. The memory of the holiday party, the garish holiday sweater, and the abrupt departure echo in his mind as he scrubs down the skillet of a grill.

--

You like that Eren never lets you think for too long.

You’ll slow down when you kiss him, and he’ll stuff his fingers in your mouth instead. You’ll get too quiet for his liking, and he’ll seal his lips around your nipple. Suck bruises into the undersides of your breasts. Man handle you out of your uniform. Strip out of his own when you tug on his shirt.

You grind listlessly in his lap, trying to diminish as much space between you as possible, pressed up against his chest so that his arms are forced to wrap around you. Eren’s hands brace your newly bare legs instead, sliding up your limbs with eager fingers.

You bite his ear and his fingers flex over your ass, pressing just very nearly where you want him most. “What do you want? Hm?” He’s so high, he doesn’t care that he’s whining.

You suspect that he likes that you’re bossy if the glazed look in his eyes is anything to go by. He moves to kiss you and you duck with a grimace, jerking him back by the top knot of his hair.

Your mouth is starting to feel like chalk, cotton mouth having set in. You’re afraid that you’ll croak if you try to speak.

--

As the first hour drags by, Eren’s unease grows. He’s starting to get antsy. Hadn’t even sparked up before starting to take inventory. Yet, when you finally enter the restaurant - rain-soaked, windswept, marching towards the cash register to clock in with a miserable look - the relief he feels is immediate.

So you’re not avoiding him. At least, not completely. Not enough to turn down a paycheck.

You haven’t quite spotted him yet from outside the kitchen, where he’s braced over the grill, elbow-deep in grease and fry oil grime as he scrubs the insides with a sorry excuse for a sponge, but there’s no way you don’t hear his music. The sound of something like country rock leaks from behind the squeaky metal swinging doors that separate the kitchen - so lovingly tokened “the Heart of the House” - from the front. He feels rather than hears you tentatively push through those very same doors, following the source of the noise.

Looking up to greet you, Eren falters at first. His mouth dries at the sight of you, all damp and disgruntled, shifting uncomfortably at the way your uniform polo sticks to your skin. How you managed to look pretty even in the drab waitressing attire and tacky, pepper-printed apron was beyond him.

When your eyes finally do meet his, there’s an unbearable pause as you gape at one another, both seemingly grappling for the right words. Eren waits for you to speak first - it’s only fair, after months of radio silence, but he’s mostly just afraid of scaring you off.

You look as tense as he feels, shoulder locked up to your ears as you round the corner to face him. Your lips part and Eren prays the next words that pass through them will ease the confusing ache in his chest.

“Since when’re you a Luke Bryan fan?”

Oh. Okay.

The disbelief on his face must be more blatant than he thinks because you begin to chuckle behind pursed lips, the corners of your eyes crinkled with mirth and mild embarrassment.

Deflecting. Okay. He can play along.

“Whaddya mean?” He offers an easy grin, leaning back from where he was bent over the lip of the deconstructed grill. Mentally imploring that stupid part of his brain that gets gooey when you’re around to shut the hell up. “You’re telling me this doesn’t make you wanna shake it for me, country girl?”

“Whatever,” you dismiss him not unkindly, but excuse yourself from him, all the same, to slip past him into the kitchen, grumbling something about “accidentally” placing his phone in this dishwasher if he doesn’t change the music to something else soon.

--

The way his hands look stretching out the back of your panties as he wets his digits along your soaked slit to finger you drives Eren a little insane. From where he’s got his head perched over your shoulder as you tuck into his own to hide little, shuddering sobs, he’s entranced by the sight of the fabric straining to make room for his knuckles as he dips inside where you’re molten and wanting.

He wonders if you’ll let him keep this pair, if he asks. He’ll try not to think of it like a reward.

You sigh at the welcome intrusion, one arm slung around his neck, the other hand fisting the damp hemp of his jeans. Slowly, indulgently, he presses in. And out.

“Yeah? Like that?”

He asks like he genuinely wants to know, not like he’s being cocky about how easily you’re falling apart for him, and it makes you clench a little harder around his fingers. Cry into his shoulder a little louder. You couldn’t even answer if you wanted to.

Eren refuses to be rushed. Takes his time to learn what makes you twitch and moan like you’re not camped out in the middle of a very public parking lot. You’ll have to ask him about his exhibitionist tendencies later. He picks up the pace, cranes his neck to kiss you and you struggle to kiss him back. You’re sloppy, dragging your tongue across the edge of his chin. Spit bubbles at the corner of your lip, and he bites you there.

Distantly, you hear the rain pick up.

--

Despite your seemingly easygoing demeanor and non-confrontation, the weight of your last encounter and the unspoken acknowledgment of your absence is tangible for the entire shift.

It hovers between the two of you like a dark cloud as you dance around each other throughout the morning, never offering more than a few words between tasks and weak smiles.

It shouldn’t bother him as much as it does. It should be enough that you even bothered to show up today, despite everything.

But Eren hates how polite you’re being with him. You give a little, cracking a joke here, offering a laugh there. But there’s none of your usual bite. Something passive in your gaze. Distant in an unsettling way he can’t comprehend.

You ask him where the cleaning solution is and he directs you to a recently reorganized (courtesy of Levi) storage closet instead of asking why you’ve never texted him after all that transpired. You seek out his help breaking down empty bulk-order shipping boxes and he spends the better part of an hour snapping cardboard in half instead of interrogating you about Jean, if you told him about what happened as he suspects. If you regret it, like he’s assuming.

You don’t seem to not want to be around him. Rather the opposite - you don’t want to leave him alone for too long. Asking him for help with things he knows you know - you’ve worked here nearly as long as he has. Purposefully keeping him at arm's length, but orbiting him all the same. He waits patiently for you to take that jump you seem to be building up to.

The morning wears on, the two of you working in relative silence. You pay Eren little mind, dutifully going about your tasks yet always hovering within eyesight, occasionally disappearing into the bathroom. You didn’t even reprimand him for the volume of his music like you normally would, or hound him for eating on the job when he makes a sandwich mid-shift.

In his periphery, he watches as you fuss about the kitchen, flitting between tasks, and wonders if you were waiting for him to get angry with you first before broaching the subject.

Eren takes his smoke break standing at the back door. When you notice his absence, he waits for you to admonish him for letting the draft in. Instead, you merely glower in disdain at the rainwater splattered on the tile floor, never meeting his eyes, before turning the corner with a dismissive, “ ‘S’long as you know you’re cleaning that up.”

The storm rages outside. An uneasy feeling festers inside Eren. It eats at his stomach as the end of his shift creeps near. Grits his teeth when you both clock out with little more than a half-assed, “See you later.”

Eren’s ears ring as he hangs his apron and collects his things from the back office. A notable lack of an umbrella, he fits a worn Yankees cap over his hair and fits what he can of his bun through the back, like it’ll do anything against the downpour standing between him and his car.

Say something. He should say something.

He remembers how bold he was that fateful night; teasing you on the couch, ruining your sweater, and rushing to your aid in the bathroom.

“What the hell is with you?” You had muttered, and Eren had wanted to gather your face in his palms and press his forehead to yours hard like it would make you feel all of the years’ worth of want and frustration he couldn’t put into words.

He had pressed his mouth to yours instead, intent on devouring you at the first warm, breathless sound you made. He had always been better at communicating like this.

Say something.

Eren meanders back towards the front of the restaurant, ready to lock up. To his surprise, you haven’t rushed out to greet your ride. Your lack of car ownership had been an amazing feat to watch you work around in your early days of working at Pepper’s. You had long since established a carpooling repertoire with the other wait staff. He can’t remember who usually takes you home. It’s not a parent, that much is for sure. Sasha had totted you around this past winter break due to most of your shifts lining up. And before that - his mind fogs.

The line cook spots you leaning against the glass double doors at the front, tapping idly away at your phone, and sucks his teeth - Levi was definitely going to make him go back and wipe them down tomorrow.

“You’re getting prints on my glass.”

You glance at him pointedly before breathing on the glass and smudging a heart with your thumb where the foggy imprint begins to fade.

Eren wrinkles his nose. “Amazing.”

“You’re welcome.”

Rain fills the silence as you take each other in. It's late afternoon, but from where Eren stands, the sunless weather casts the impression that it is well into the night. You look at him full-on for the first since the start of your shift, eyes unabashedly raking over his form. Save for the emergency lamps, all of the lights in the building have been shut off. The dim light casts shadows beneath your eyes - you look tired.

Eren twirls the keychain in his hands, quizzical. “You…got a ride home?”

He tries not to feel offended at the way your brows spike, unable to hide your surprise. Your reaction is quick, reflexive. Your answering “Yeah!” comes out wince-like and strangled. The forced pitch in your voice makes you both cringe. Clearing your throat to try again, softer this time. “Yeah. I’m good.”

Eren stares at you. The teeth of the key bite into the skin of his fingers in the tightness of his grip.

“Thank you for asking.” You add, a little more sincerely.

“Yeah.” He tugs the hat over his eyes. Tosses the key in your direction and tries not to take too much delight in watching you drop your cool composure to scramble and catch the metal piece. “Lock up when you’re out.”

--

You don’t know how many times you’ve come. Consciousness comes and goes in waves. Dozed off in his lap with your face tucked into his shoulder after your third orgasm to the thrum of rain and the steady rise and fall of his chest. Eren had fumbled for a condom out of his wallet and sunk into you at your first insistence. What started off as a frenzied, frustrated tangle of limbs somewhere along the way devolved into something much softer. Where you’re still rooted on his thick length becomes a slow, sloppy rut as you come down from your high.

Where you are sleepy, Eren is determined, dead set on accomplishing the task you set before him.

" Hm? Feel good?” He presses his lips to your forehead, presses his thumb to your clit in a slow grind. Grins when you twitch his hold. You gave up trying to maintain any semblance of control a long time ago, boneless and relenting when Eren strongarms you into his embrace.

“This what you wanted?” he pants, gruff and a little desperate, and you have enough energy left to nod, murmuring his name. He scoots down a little in his seat, bracing his legs in a wide stance before pistoning his hips into your warm, wet center. Any other time you would cringe at the way the skin of your bare thighs stick to the tops of his, Eren's work-issued black jeans shoved mid-way down his legs. All he can offer is a breathless moan in response when you wail and wriggle in his hold, hips reflexively jumping away.

“So hot like this,” he breathes into the space behind your ear. “So good, fuck.”

You reach one hand up to brace against the back windshield, palm slipping across the condensation. The playlist Eren put on loops again.

--

At the end of his Sunday shift, Eren finds himself sitting in his car in the back parking lot at Pepper’s, unearthing a joint from his dash drawer and digging around for his lighter, silently cursing himself.

Parked beneath the restaurant sign - Pepper’s in brilliant white script, a caricatured bell pepper hugging the ‘P’ - the neon red mascot hovers far above the hood of Eren’s hooptie. Seemingly glowering at him through his windshield with a knowing smile. He can spot the cartoonishly wide eyes from where he sits, even through the downpour of rain.

Of course, you found him fucking appalling. The last time he had seen you, he’d practically dropped to his knees at the chance to distract you from the guy you actually liked.

The ringing sound gets a little louder behind his ears. Can I really keep going like nothing happened?

From the start of your career at the restaurant Pepper’s - if you could call it that - you had made it very evident that you and Eren were of two separate worlds.

You were a college student. You had shiny friends and extravagant stories from a bigger city, a vastly different lifestyle than the quiet bubble and hum of suburbia you called home. Eren had seen the Instagram pictures. You had goals. You had ambition. Pepper’s was a pit stop for you. Although you never outright mocked him for it, he could see it in the sneer on your lip sometimes when you interrupted a smoke break or in the aggravated glint in your eye when you had to address him about a dish.

You considered him beneath you.

A gentle rap at his window pulls Eren from his thoughts, and he practically jumps out of his skin at the sight of you standing in the pouring rain, crouched over his window. Face pressed pleadingly into the cold glass. Eren freezes, and then jumps into action, fumbling his newly retrieved lighter and nearly dropping his joint in the process.

“Holy shit?”

He places his things in his pocket and rolls down the window just a crack, the wind already whipping water into the interior of his car. “You good?”

It’s a stupid question - one he expects you to reproach him for. Instead, a rare look crosses your face - you look meek, and nervous, in a way you haven’t since your first day on the job. Arms crossed, lips pursed. Like you’re about to do something you don’t normally do. The rain pelts your flimsy excuse for a rain jacket.

“Could I - Can I get a ride?” He can pick out your agitation even over the rumble of the thunderstorm. “I’ll give you gas money, I just-,”

“Money? What-,” He unlocks his car door, incredulous. “Can you just get in the fucking car please?”

You grimace at his tone when he rolls his window back up, but Eren watches you skirt around the front of his car nonetheless. You plop into the passenger seat, a puddle of rainwater. He can hear your socks squish in your shoes when you shift in your seat.

“What the hell?”

“I’m sorry,” you murmur, looking at your hands. Your jeans feel ten pounds heavier, the denim soaked all the way through. “My ride didn’t-,”

You stop and then start again, and Eren moves to interrupt you. You speak over one another.

“- No, it’s no -,”

“-I wouldn’t have bothered you if it wasn’t absolutely necessary.”

The words hang in the air, heavy with implication. Eren steals a glance at you, seeing what he hopes is just the rain streaking down the sides of your face. He fiddles with his phone and puts on a random playlist to fill the silence.

He notices the tremble in your hands, the way your usually self-assured posture has shrunk into itself. You look small in his passenger seat. At once, all of his annoyance melts away, replaced by a surge of concern.

"Hey," he starts softly, "It’s whatever. Don’t sweat it, seriously." Eren notices you shiver and reaches over to blast the heat in his dinky sedan.

“Fuck, you’re freezing, hold on.”

You watch, pressed against the passenger door to make room as your coworker reaches behind his seat, long limbs momentarily invading your space as he dregs up a dark green hoodie from the depths of his car floor with a flourish. A bright red pepper patch the size of your hand is sewn across the chest. The cartoonish mascot of your place of work smiles mockingly back at you in the dim lighting of Eren’s car with wide, unseeing eyes.

It’s your turn to wrinkle your nose at him, skeptical. “It’s clean I swear, grabbed it on my way here this morning.”

Despite your skepticism, you take it from him anyway, between two pinched fingers for dramatic effect, moaning and groaning as you pull it over your head.

“We can’t let this be a regular thing.”

It’s said so casually, but the jolt of rage and disbelief Eren feels at your reference to last December is tremendous. He scoffs, avoiding your gaze as he reveals the joint and lighter from his pockets once more.

“Oh, so we can joke about it but not talk about it?” It comes out more scathing than he intends to be.

He registers your obvious shock beside him at his words but only pauses to balance the filter of his forgotten joint between his lips, already poised to burn the rolled end with a steady hand as he flicks the lighter on. “Do you mind?”

You shake your head, sinking into his hoodie and wordlessly watching as he inhales, deeply, then exhales, indulgent. A sweet, earthly smell fills the car. “Alright.”

“What’s there to talk about?”

Eren studies you a little too hard, more clarity in his gaze than you would prefer. You don’t refuse when he passes you the roll, gently pinched between two fingers. He waits until you’ve inhaled to voice his suggestion, taking a little amusement in how you choke on the smoke. “We could talk about Jean. I think there’s definitely a lot to cover there.”

Eren waits for you to back down from the obvious challenge. He doesn’t miss the way you grimace at the sound of the dayshift manager’s name. “Is that what this is about? Is that who usually picks you up?”

“You never noticed?” You don’t sound mad, just surprised, so Eren figures it's okay to be honest.

“You…no.” He shakes his head and takes a hit. “I could give less of a fuck about what Jean gets up to in his free time, sorry.”

“Ah.”

You’re silent for a little bit after that. When he glances at you again, you’re already handing him the joint and turned to face the passenger window, gazing out at the rain. The size of Eren’s hoodie seems to swallow you.

He doesn’t press you to elaborate, but you do anyway, feeling guilty for your matter-of-fact attitude earlier, when he’s been nothing but accommodating for you so far. You decide to give a little. “We’ve been carpooling together every shift. Every year. He dropped me off today…”

“Said it would be the last time.” You peter off. "We had vacation plans together."

You had planned to go to the beach with mutual friends - Jean's parents owned a beach house on the coast. You were going to meet his parents. You can remember how light you had felt the day after the plans had been made, last summer, practically dancing into work the next shift, and then with a little more clarity, the awful pit that had formed in your stomach when he had broken the news to you on the drive to work this morning.

Eren shifts in his seat, and clears his throat, trying to quell the urge to punch Jean in his. He ashes into a little dish in his cupholder. “Figured somethin’ had happened. Been in such a shitty mood all day.”

“Me? Okay, Mr. I’m gonna mope in the kitchen until somebody notices and takes pity on me. Didn’t you ever go through a goth phase as a kid? I think know a couple of artists you could get into.”

“Tsk,” Eren brushes off your laughter with another hit of his joint, halfway smoldering between his fingertips. “You wouldn’t know a goth phase if it smacked you between the eyes.”

“Mm, no I figured you’d be an expert, with hair like that.”

“Like what?”

You dissolve into a fit of giggles behind your hand, high catching up to you, a balmy and pleasant buzz in your head. The image of Eren rocking an early 2010s-grunge fringe cut clear as day in your mind’s eye. You blame the weed for making you brave enough to lean over and reach across the console to brush the sable fringe that escapes from his bun and spills from under his baseball cap out over his eyes.

Until recently, your relationship had been largely surface-level. This prim and proper versus anything goes repertoire you had both built over the years, banter that exclusively involved work lingo and work references and work friends. You’d come back from college, and Eren was there. You’d leave for another semester, and Eren was still there.

As permanent as a fixture in your mind as the walk-in fridge or the soda dispenser. Always prepared to give you hell on a slow moving shift or crack jokes at your expense. Always there to keep your plates in order or set aside a pasta entree for you during a dinner rush despite his strict “customer-orders-before-employees” edict because he knows you won’t eat otherwise. Always there to cover for you when your bathroom breaks went a little too long.

He’ll tap dance on your last nerve all day, but you care for each other, through that vague sense of solidarity that coworkers share.

Eren blinks back at you, low and slow, eyes caught on your easy smile. The first genuine one you’ve given him all day. He’s entranced, savoring the feeling of your fingers drifting across his brow bone, tracing his jawline, and then sliding back along the nape of his neck to tuck under the strap of his hat.

For a moment, it’s all a little too much for Eren. The gentleness of your touch and tone, your full, undivided attention as you undo the strap. He quietly marvels at the ease with which you do it with one hand, slipping the knot of his hair free. The loose strands freefall over his eyes once more, but you’re quick to push them back. You shift forward further out of your seat to use both hands, and he lets you, eyes fluttering shut at the sensation of your finger raking gently across his scalp. Distantly, he admonishes himself for somehow ending up allowing you to let you pet him like a dog in his own car.

He’s supposed to be driving you home.

“Did you-,” Eren’s voice cracks, and you don’t bother hiding your laugh. “Would you feel better if you like, talked about it with someone?”

The joint is simmering down to it’s last dregs between Eren’s knuckles. He offers it to you, and you twist his wrist to direct the filter towards your mouth, inhaling with your lips pressed to his fingers.

Eren would blame the heat crawling up his chest on the AC, but it’s at that moment he notices the heater never kicked in. He frowns, turning away from you to restart the car, stomping on the break.

The vehicle lurches and makes an odd shuddering sound before hot, stale air blasts through the vents. You lean away from the one closest to you, fumbling the shutter closed. “The fuck is with your car?”

“‘S old as shit. Whole thing is on its last leg.” Eren gripes, waving off a cloud of dust that seemed to halo around his head. He tries to roll his eyes when he clocks your “no, duh” expression, but the motion feels slow and clunky behind his eyelids. “Doesn’t matter. Fixing up a new one anyway.”

It only stings a little when your brows nearly shoot up to your hairline in surprise, inhibitions lowered, no longer able to hide your indifference to him as well as usual.

“You build cars?” Your lips feel like rubber under the haze of marijuana. The words feel stupid the moment you utter them, but Eren catches what he dares to believe is a hint of awe in your tone. He ribs you for it, preening a little under your attention.

“Yeah, me build cars,” the line cook laughs and mocks you, caveman-like. “Car go fast.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

You pout, ignoring his raspy, rumbling laughter and the warm feeling blossoming in your chest. The memory of him smiling up at you, all teeth and impish in Sasha’s bathroom winks across your mind’s eye. Arms crossed, you whip around to face the window again, withdrawing before he can catch the deep color crawling across your cheeks. In all your years of working together, you’d never really considered what Eren did outside of work and hanging out with your circle of colleagues. You feel like you’ve unveiled something vast and unknown.

“That’s cool.” You offer in a whisper, awe poorly hidden in your voice, and it’s Eren’s turn to hide his face.

“Didn’t know you had a hobby.”

“Yeah, well, I do exist outside of all this, y’know,” he gestures vaguely in the direction of the restaurant and you hum, nodding. Feeling silly that this is a realization you’re only just now coming to.

A strange new calm had settled between you. The rain outside continues its relentless assault, but within the car, you feel a fragile connection form. You peek at Eren from the corner of your eye, his expression unreadable in the dim light, yet somehow comforting. Equally lax and low-lidded. He reaches for his glove box to reveal a second preroll and gets to work lighting it as you observe his side profile in silence.

You’re not too prideful to admit he looks handsome like this, hair undone and falling over his shoulders, work polo unbuttoned at the top, features lit up by the dim glow of the lighter in his fist against the overcast gloom of the afternoon.

Then he squints, face twisted like something has been bothering him. “I thought you didn’t smoke.” Or at least, he had assumed so, by how often you got on his ass about lighting up while on the clock.

“At work, dumbass.” Eren exhales, and the car gets hazy again, even with air running through the vents. He sees you twist your fingers into the hem of his hoodie and wishes they were in his hair again. “I am a college student.”

“That doesn’t mean shit.”

You reluctantly turn to face him again, if only to implore him to continue. “You can be so…I dunno.” He scrambles for the right words through the drug-induced fog in his brain, faltering a little under your scrutiny. “Uptight? Straight-edged? Can’t imagine you reaching for a blunt to wind down.”

“It’s not my first choice of coping mechanism,” you joke, plucking the newly lit roll from his grasp between careful fingers, laughing through your nose when you miss on the first try. You take the opportunity to throw his words back at him, childishly. “I do have a life outside of here, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Silence descends again, still comfortable in the haze of the car. It’s getting a little harder to breathe. You steal another glance at your colleague, noticing the way his gaze tracks the motion of the joint being brought to your lips, strands of his dark hair plastered to his forehead by the rain. That unexpected warmth grows in your chest, a feeling you can’t bring yourself to name. Not after this morning.

Eren leans closer, over the console that separates you with lidded eyes that flicker between your gaze and your mouth as you slowly expel the smoke from between your lips. Eyes set on you with an unfamiliar softness that makes your heart ache. The distance between your faces shrinks agonizingly slowly. He whispers your name, and suddenly you’re lurching backward, struggling up out of your seat to slip into the crevice that separates the front of the car from the backseat. The moment is broken.

Eren yelps, ducking in time to just nearly miss being clipped by your sneakers as you shimmy into the back seat. You peel his hoodie over your head with exasperated finality.

He twists in his seat to face you, bewildered, but you’re already settling into his back seat with a smile, still trying to keep two steps ahead of him even when you’re stoned.

Eren’s not really sure what he’s trying to prove to himself - prove to you. But that little ache in his chest gets a little gentler when you look at him like that, the confusion about whateverthisis becomes a little less profound, a little quieter.

“Come make me feel good.”

He recognizes the undertone in your voice. He doesn’t need to be told twice. The young man moves on autopilot, stepping out of the driver’s seat to slide into the backseat beside you, ignoring your indignant shriek with a grin when the rain lashes the car’s interior. Eren is dripping wet when he reaches for you, lips slips slotting against yours with an eager certainty that makes you moan.

He wouldn’t call it a crush, but if anyone could have heard the way his heart kicked up when you beckoned him into his own backseat - they might argue otherwise.

--

Once again, Eren is dropping you off while you wear something of his. He watches you fiddle with the hem of the Pepper’s hoodie as he pulls into your parents’ driveway, behind one of their cars.

The line cook thinks back to what you revealed to him earlier, how Jean had been your usual carpool to work, and gets angry all over again. “You thinking of getting one of your own?”

He means a car, but you’re too busy avoiding his eyes again, studying his hoodie a little too closely. “Yeah, do you think Erwin has any more? I think this merch is from before even I started, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the pepper drawn like this.”

You pick at the outdated mascot embroidered across the chest of the piece, the cartoon eyes glaring back at him unblinkingly, as if daring him to correct you.

The rain had subsided on the drive to your neighborhood. You look less gaunt in the sunlight. Eren remembers how you let him hold you after your spontaneous round of marathon sex. Sticky and sweaty and damp for a whole new reason. Remembers how you pressed a kiss to his forehead after the fact, how it made him feel warm with a different kind of buzz entirely independent of the bud you had smoked.

He stops you when you move to take off the hoodie again and give it back to him, halfway out of the car.

“Don’t worry about it,” he says with a lopsided smile. “You can keep this one.”