Late Night Study Sessions. Hockey Games. Frigid Parking Lots.
Grad School AU.
3676
(ao3.)
A cafe just off campus becomes my saving grace on nights like these — both a shelter from the usual cold of Montreal and the perfect place to sit down and be productive like the good little grad student I am.
Tonight's study session involves the same old things — like the cafe's usual stream of 50s-era bebop, the various other McGill students peppered around the room, and by a hot beverage that I probably paid far too much for. As the evening drags on, I switch out from my usual matcha to chamomile tea, an ill-fated attempt to maybe get some sleep tonight.
Against all odds, my aging laptop still up and running despite all the wear and tear I've put it through. It's survived four years of undergrad, one virus scare, two-ish years of grad school, and more near-fatal coffee spills than I'd like to admit, but as long as I can review my notes and go over the endless stream of e-mails filling my inbox, it'll do for now. Though as I switch tabs on my browser, I find myself pressing just a little harder on the trackpad than I'm used to, making me wonder if an inevitable new laptop is closer in the future than I thought.
As I type and try to ignore the very noticeable sound of the laptop's fans, I pray to a god I don't even believe in that my old mid-2010s Macbook Pro will at least survive the completion of my thesis.
As I stress over the same word document that I've been staring at for hours, I notice a barista walking by in the corner of my eye. I look over to see them spritzing a rag with a spray bottle before running it over a table. I look over the rest of the cafe and spot another barista doing the same at the front counter.
Looking to my wrist, my late father's old Cartier Santos tells me that it's only ten minutes past ten, twenty minutes until the cafe closes, and roughly five before the baristas begin to politely remind me of that fact.
Fortunately, I start gathering my things before they have to.
I close my laptop and finish the last bit of tea at the bottom of my mug — it's stone cold and tastes overwhelmingly sweet. I put my belongings into my backpack, like the headphones I forgot to charge and the bullet journal I've had since the start of term that I've already filled to the brim with notes and more sticky tabs than I can count.
Once everything's in my bag I stand, finally grabbing my overcoat and scarf off the back of the opposing chair. My muscles and joints feel tense after being cramped in this corner for hours, which is not at all helped by my chronically bad posture. I really should stretch, but I'm so conscious of the time that I simply pull on my outerwear and try to ignore the pestering ache in my shoulders.
By the time I bundle up I'm grabbing my backpack and leaving the corner I had called my workspace for the last few hours. As I pass by the cafe's front counter, I make sure to slip a few coins into the tip jar and say a brief thank you to the baristas, a habit of mine every time I feel like I've mooched off their wi-fi for a little too long.
To no one's surprise, Montreal is astronomically cold as I exit the cafe. I adjust my scarf so that it goes up and over my nose — it doesn't do a lot to combat the chill in the air, but it doesn't do nothing either. As I begin my routinely walk towards the Metro, I check the notifications on my phone to see if I had missed anything in the last few minutes.
I see a lot of the same old things — Instagram notifications of Sasha sending random dog videos, emails from my graduate advisor thanking me for my efforts with the usual "Good work, Ackerman, see you Monday," and promotional messages from apps I keep reminding myself to delete but never do.
I swipe through the notifications I can't be bothered to acknowledge — for now, at least — and come across one that had been hidden by the others.
It's a text from Jean, as for once he's busying himself with life beyond that of an overworked, underslept grad student.
Frankly, I still don't know too much about hockey Beer Leagues, just that Connie had roped Jean into a team called the Villeray Vipers and that apparently their games can only take place at 7PM on a weekday and beyond. He plays goalie — not because it's the position he has a particular fondness for, but because every other guy on the team demands that they be a center or defenseman or else they'll quit the team. I have yet to attend a game, but according to Jean they're rife with guys trying to live out their NHL dreams because years ago they were cut from Junior hockey or what have you and never let it go. It seems that every game involves at least one fight breaking out — at this point it's a miracle that Jean can still stroll into his next class or meeting with all his teeth in tact.
Despite all his complaints, Jean seems to enjoy the weekly hockey games, not really caring if his team wins or lose.
The message I'm currently reading had come to me just before nine o'clock.
hey we won our game, but the team going on after us needs a goalie so Im gonna do it. Dont wait up, see ya at home
🏒🥅🏒🥅🏒🥅🏒🥅
I cross the street by the time I finish reading the message, just a few more steps out of the thousands that will bring me home. The place I share with Jean keeps me closer to campus than when I first moved here, but not too much that it feels like a different commute. I've swapped the Plateau for Old Montreal with nary a regret. However, I can't deny the moments where I miss the flat I used to share with Sasha, the one just on the edge of La Fontaine Park that always felt a little too cold in the winter and a little too warm in the summer. Though thoughts like that are always balanced by the mornings where I'm able to admire the sunrise over the St. Lawrence River, the scent of freshly brewed coffee permeating the air of the kitchen, and Jean's hand over mine as we revel in the fact that this place is finally ours.
As I cross the street once more, a certain thought comes upon my mind. The fact that I'll arrive at Old Montreal to an empty apartment sits on top of my heart like a heavy stone, weighing on me more and more with every step I take.
And as I get closer and closer to the station, I find myself letting the thought linger — it remains in the front of my mind until I make the choice to ignore my usual train in favour of the one that will take me north.
…
…
…
Jean's Beer League exclusively holds games during times where youth and college teams won't be needing the ice — that being late at night.
At least the arena concourse is a lot quieter than usual, free from the typical chaos and hassle I've come to associate with hockey games of all kind. The muffled sounds of clashing sticks and skates barely seeps through the walls as I enter the building and head towards the ice.
Having finally been free from the evening chill, I feel myself getting warmer and warmer with every step I take. I fight back a yawn as I approach the door separating the concourse from the rink, the exhaustion of both the walk and the day behind me making it a little more clear why significant others rarely attend games.
At a certain point I do wonder how these guys get the energy to play so late.
I enter the rink and am greeted to the sight of numerous men in pads, helmets, and vibrant jerseys. They rapidly chase one another across a sheet of stark white ice, sticks in their hands as their skates kick up little flakes of snow with each stride.
Jean's team is dressed in green while their opponents are in a deep burgundy, the medley of colours clashing as they pursue a jet black puck across the rink, a referee watching their every move.
According to the scoreboard Team Green is winning by a single point and there's less than a minute left in the game. I don't bother sitting and walk to the boards, watching the game behind a pane of scratched-up glass.
I observe the forwards of Team Green snatching the puck and bringing it across the rink. Although they're fast, I manage to glean one of the names on the jerseys and realize it's Connie. He's quick on his feet — or rather his skates — but when he brings the puck to the opponent's net and shoots, it's intercepted by a defenseman.
The puck is passed along various players before being given to a forward on Team Burgundy, who's jersey identifies him as Porco, of all names. He proves to be just as fast as Connie as he evades the blades of opposing hockey sticks, zipping across the rink with effortless speed.
And standing in front of the net is Jean, clad in both a green jersey and far more gear than the rest of the players. His usual long and slender limbs are clad in the goalie pads I often see strewn around our apartment — big bulky bricks of leather covering his legs while a rectangular blocker, glove-like mitt, and canoe paddle of a stick occupy his hands. It looks like a lot to carry, but once he spots the puck coming his way he's quick to snap into a proper goal tending position.
Connie pursues the forward of Team Burgundy with rapid strides, the timer above them slowly inching closer to zero.
Fifteen seconds.
Porco is just a little bit faster than Connie, easily evading the defencemen of Team Green as he gets closer and closer to the net.
Ten seconds.
"Porco! Shoot!" one of the Burgundy players yells from across the ice.
He follows through and strikes puck with all his might. It soars high across the ice and heads directly towards Jean.
With rapid reflexes Jean drops to his knees, easily stopping the puck with his blocker and letting it bounce off and onto the ice. Before it can drift too far, he leaps towards it and covers the puck with his catcher.
Five seconds.
Various members of both teams rush to the net and begin crowding Jean, where he remains on the ground to shield the puck from the various sticks trying to get to it. From where I am, it almost looks like they're dog piling him.
Then suddenly the timer on the scoreboard hits zero, sending the alarm throughout every corner of the rink.
I smile as players of Team Green cheer in joy.
Connie is in the middle of the rink with a handful of players on Team Green, letting all the air out of his lungs with a mighty, triumphant yell. With the kind of excitement reminiscent of a Golden Retriever puppy, he and the others skate towards their last-minute goalie and his miraculous last-second save.
The referee clears out the now sulking members of Team Burgundy just in time for Connie to tackle Jean with a hug. For a second it's almost like they're little kids.
Jean lets out a loud "OOF!" when his friend collides into him.
The two tumble to the ground, knocking the net out of place as Connie celebrates the win, one arm wrapped around his friend with his free hand happily punching the air. Meanwhile, Jean is clearly struggling underneath Connie's weight.
The other players of Team Green approach Jean and Connie by the net, all of them cheering like they've won the Stanley Cup at Bell Centre.
On the other side of the rink the members of Team Burgundy appear to be going through the Seven Stages of Grief as they mourn their loss, all of them going still and silent as they process the last few moments.
As happy as I am for Jean's team, a part of me does empathize with Team Burgundy, especially the forward who had made the shot. Porco kneels on the ice as he peels off his helmet, letting it fall to the rink as he stares blankly at nothing in particular, paralyzed and unmoving.
It's strange that I haven't touched a soccer ball in years, yet the feeling of emptiness and despair after a lost game strikes a familiar chord within me — a kind of limbic resonance, like muscle memory.
I look to the other side of the rink to see Connie rolling off of Jean like a sack of potatoes, flopping ungracefully onto the sheet of white. For a few seconds he lies there, pulls off his helmet, then practically leaps back onto his skates with a smile plastered on his face.
Jean finally sits up as Connie skates away, removing his helmet as well and letting it clatter to the ice. His blondish-brown hair is soaked in sweat and clings to his forehead in awkward, stringy clumps. He he raises up his catcher glove and lets the protected puck fall from it, where it joins his helmet on the surface on the rink. To no one's surprised he looks exhausted, as much as anyone would be after playing two games in a single night.
Mustering up the rest of his strength, Jean gets onto his feet and joins his teammates in the center of the rink.
I watch the two teams shake each other's hands after a game well-played, though when Jean touches gloves with Porco, I can't help but sense just the slightest bit of apprehension on the shorter guy's part.
When the formalities are out of the way, the referee whistles and yells at the players to get off the damn ice already, to which everyone obeys.
And as Jean gathers his discarded helmet from the knocked-over net, he looks up and around the arena, like a mouse enjoying its last minute as a human before the spell wears off.
Against all odds, he spots me far away on my side of the rink, the only thing separating us now being the nearly empty ice and a pane of glass. When he realizes it's me, I see a smile spread across his face.
…
…
…
The concourse is quiet as the evening drags on. I remain in my own little corner, my back pressed against a cool concrete column as I watch the players slowly matriculate out of the locker room. They don't notice me, and if they do it's only a quick glance in my direction and nothing more.
In true Montreal fashion most of them are speaking French and very few of them are speaking English. My grasp on the language is still far from where I want it to be, but I'm able to listen in on a few conversations. I soon learn that the team that Team Green's official name is the Snowdon Scorpions and that Team Burgundy's are the Roxboro Raccoons. I learn that the Scorpions are sponsored by some microbrewery all the way in Laval. And I learn that they're considering stealing Jean from Villeray Vipers to have him play for the Scorpions full time, as apparently their usual goalie is getting too old for late-night puck drops.
I had no idea that Beer Leagues could be that serious.
I soon see Connie walk out of the change room. He doesn't notice me, as he's still riding the high of the win and is too busy cheering alongside the rest of the Scorpions. I smile for him as he walks past me, impressed that he can retain this kind of energy at this hour.
I check my watch again and see that it's nearly eleven, the sight of which causes a yawn to creep onto my face. Before I can remember just how tired I actually am, I see him exit the changing room.
Jean walks out into the concourse in his street clothes — clean crisp denim and the old Habs varsity jacket he wears on nights like this. His bag and goalie pads hang haphazardly off his back as he walks forward, causing his lanky frame to visibly sag under all the weight. His tawny hair still looks damp, but the kind of dampness one would attain after a quick shower in an old locker room and not after spending three hours inside a sweaty helmet.
The look on his face is blank, but once he lays eyes on me he lights up.
I leave the comfort of the column when he walks towards me. When we meet in the middle of the concourse, I see the smile now spread across his face. With his messy hair and bushy, mid-winter beard, I remark that he almost looks like a real hockey player.
He chuckles, then expresses his disbelief at seeing me here. He had expected me to be home by now, so I explain that I had gotten so wrapped up in my lasst study session that it was nearly ten by the time I finished. At that point, I didn't see the harm in making the walk from the cafe to the rink.
He laughs and jokes that the impossible happened tonight — not the win despite the last-minute goalie substitution, but a Beer Leaguer girlfriend actually attending a game.
Jean takes my hand as we leave the rink together, his skin is warm around my icy fingers.
Once we're outside the fluorescent lights of the concourse are replaced by a dark, starless sky. The cold catches up to me again, biting at my skin and making me tighten my grasp around Jean's hand. He squeezes back reassuringly as we step onto the parking lot.
While we walk I ask Jean if he's tired, and he replies that he's actually fine — no really, he is — in his usual sarcastic tone, which does its usual thing of making me roll my eyes. Knowing there's a full day of TA-ing, studying, and master-level graduate courses behind him, his reaction makes sense.
Across the lot are Jean's teammates, having gathered near Connie's old Yaris with the hatch opened up. They're currently passing around cans of Lucky Lager, clearly remembering what the "Beer" in Beer League is meant to stand for. One of the Scorpions wastes no time and strikes his can with his keys, promptly guzzling it through the hole like a college freshman.
We walk by and Connie spots Jean, soon calling out his name. He holds up a red and white can as a gift to the last-minute goalie, which Jean accepts but says he'll drink it at home. Connie tosses it his way with an overhand throw and Jean catches it with ease.
Connie then offers one to me, which I accept as well and he throws in my direction. It's cold as it lands in my ungloved hand.
As I slip both Jean's can and mine into my backpack, his Beer League buddies call out and invite him to tailgate, but Jean rejects their offer, claiming that two games is already enough action for one night. Connie is understanding, but the teammates I don't recognize comically boo him before beginning to chug their drinks.
Jean and I arrive at his old red station wagon in the corner of the lot. He fights back a yawn as he opens the back hatch and haphazardly tosses his gear inside, seemingly uncaring that his stick, pads, bag are now clumsily occupying his Volvo's back half. I offer to drive and he smiles in relief as he passes me the keys.
I climb into the driver's seat and Jean follows soon after, sliding into shotgun with a tired sigh. I eye him as I key the ignition, wondering if now is the only time of night where he can finally remove both masks — both physical and metaphorical — and become Jean again. Does this happen after every Beer League game?
The car starts up and I take a moment to run the heat, my fingers still numb from the cold.
"You looked really happy out there," I say to Jean, an attempt to fill the silence as the car warms up.
Jean leans back in the seat, his longer limbs and larger frame looking ridiculous within the confined space. On my words he sits up, smile tugging at the corner of his mouth as he looks my way. "Yeah, I must've," he replies sheepishly, running a hand through his unruly hair.
He says nothing for a few moments, looking down with his hand still caught in a knot near his nape.
"But you know…" Jean begins, and I listen to every word.
He goes silent once more, and then —
"… I think I was a lot happier when I saw you at the rink."
I don't hesitate. I lean towards him, bridging the gap between us. My hand finds the tip of his chin, the whiskers of his beard tickling my fingers as I pull him closer to me. Our lips press together for a few seconds, where I close my eyes and let the sound of staticky, midnight radio play around us.
I pull away and see the smile on his face persist.
We say nothing else as I take hold of the steering wheel and begin to drive. The lights of Montreal shine above us as we move, the only thoughts on my mind being the cold, the traffic, and all the things I've seen in winter so far.
Annie Leonhardt. Armin Arlert. Jean Kirschtein.
Small Towns. Surfing. Awkward Car Rides.
Modern AU.
9161 words.
(ao3.)
Sooke, BC.
Sooke is a town on Vancouver Island just half an hour from Victoria — a place where the rainforest meets the sea, where the weather is utterly unpredictable, and where September signals the end of the busy season. Now that the tourists have had their fill of waves, overpriced beer, and perfectly instagram-able summer vibes, they've packed their bags, returned their rentals, and started the drive back to the city and beyond.
The town gets quieter and colder as the days pass. The main summer amenities are still open until the midst of October, mostly to serve the last few stragglers hoping squeeze in more fun before normal life truly begins. But even so, the frequency of visitors at each rental shop, restaurant patio, and trendy cafe gradually decreases.
And Annie Leonhardt doesn't mind. In fact, she prefers it — not just because the lack of customers at work makes her shifts a lot easier, but because the tranquility of the town is why she came to Sooke in the first place. In contrast to the summer crowd, she's here year-round.
The morning is quieter than usual as Annie lies awake in bed, where she mindlessly scrolls through her phone until she feels more awake. Her bed is still warm, though that has less to do with the lingering heat of summer and more with the extra presence on it.
Jean Kirschtein is far from her idea of boyfriend material — but in a way, it's what makes their arrangement more palatable. He's desirable in his own ways, ticking all the boxes of tall, scruffy, and broad-shouldered. But his undeniable punchability and willingness to run his stupid mouth is enough for Annie to decide he's not her type. Nonetheless, Jean is still heat on a cold night, skilled hands and hips that bring her pleasure on lonely evenings, and the means to numb the sting of stress.
She recalls their past evening through sensations rather than memories — the creak of her bed frame, Jean's hands clasping hers, and the bead of sweat on her forehead as she laid back and enjoyed every moment of it.
And now Jean sleeps next to her, his long limbs and broad frame barely fitting on her tiny, twin-sized bed, his feet dangling off the edge. Annie remains in her space, as little of it as there is, and continues to scroll through her phone.
Although she doesn't look at him, she muses about how the Jean sleeping next to her feels far removed from the Jean she knows in the wild. Bussing tables at one of Sooke's more pricy hotel restaurants has its perks, like generous tips during the on-season and watching the tourists fawn over the tall, strapping hunk mixing their drinks. Older women and men alike seem to coo over Jean, admiring things like the breadth of his shoulders or the charm he wears when on-the-job.
As unbearable as she finds Jean's customer service persona to be, perhaps Annie should be thankful for it. Because the more guests pay attention to the handsome Sooke local tending to their every whim, the less they pay attention to her clearing tables for minimum wage.
Annie only spends a few more minutes in bed. Once the clock at the corner of her phone changes to 5:46, she's up and running.
At least Jean is understanding — not to the point where she'd want their arrangement to become more than casual, but enough that he gets why she ditches him on certain mornings.
She eats breakfast alone in a dark kitchen, nibbling on buttered bagel as the aging coffee machine whistles and whines in the corner. As she eats she answers an email on her phone, accepting the latest payment from her last shift at the surf shop, a last-minute gig she only did because her co-worker called in sick and her boss promised to pay extra. At this point in her life, anything is helpful.
Once the deposit is done, Annie pours coffee into her tumbler and gets ready. She pulls her second favourite wetsuit halfway up her body and leaves the top half undone for now. She pulls her rashguard and hoodie over her torso before grabbing her backpack, cup, and keys before heading out the door.
A rush of frigid morning air greets her as she exits her building, a two storey walk-up better suited for the town's full-time residents. The sky above her is pitch black, the light of the streetlamps illuminating the short walk to her parking spot. Annie's station wagon awaits her and has everything she needs, from a full tank of gas to the surfboard in the back.
It's 6:15 once Annie loads her gear into her car. She takes her first sip of coffee as she slips into the driver's seat, which predictably burns her tongue. She tries her best to ignore the familiar sensation as she keys the ignition. Soon the machine springs to life and she's pulling out and onto the road.
Her drive is quiet — fuzzy, radio-friendly top forty hits playing in the background as she traverses the town center and weaves through the other early risers. As of late, Sooke has been filled with construction workers of all kind, usually on their way to build expensive condos and tear down old buildings with no future. Now that the touristy crowd has mostly disappeared, it seems that labourers and contractors are the only ones who ever visit the place.
The streetlamps lining the road shine a warm, orange-tinted glow onto the pavement as Annie drives west. Soon the apartments, single family homes, and tourist trap businesses fade away, and in its place is nature. To her right are the cliffs, evergreens, and sprawling farmlands of Vancouver Island, and to her left is the Pacific Ocean.
It's the kind of thing that makes all the tourists go starry-eyed, yet Annie's grown used to it. Instead of wonder, the view brings her peace, both the kind associated with the mere sight of ocean waves and the kind drawn from familiarity. Not only has Annie made a home for herself within the sleepiness of Sooke, but she's made a place for herself in the wild as well. As she drives, sips her over-brewed coffee, and listens to the radio, an anticipatory feeling ignites within her, something that gradually grows and grows as she awaits the waves at the end of the road.
…
…
…
Jordan River.
It's nearly 7 by the time Annie arrives at Jordan River, which in contrast to its name is actually a stretch of picturesque Pacific Northwestern beach, a place frequented by locals and visitors alike.
The parking lot is empty as she pulls into it, her car being the only one in a sea of vacant concrete.
Her coffee is halfway done by the time she gets to her usual spot, which is situated as close to the beach as possible. She pulls her car to the edge of the lot in a way so that it faces the water, her preferred way of positioning it.
She exits her vehicle, the wind off the ocean immediately hitting her face. It's moments like this where she forgets how warm and dry the prior week was, typical for the late summer season. As Annie stands here now, battered by the early morning chill, it might as well be as cold as the midst of winter.
Trying not to shiver too hard, Annie clutches her coffee mug as she goes to the back of her car and continues her pre-surf prep. Between periodic sips that fill her mouth with a tar-like aftertaste, Annie removes her hoodie and pulls up her wetsuit over her rashguard, doing it up completely.
Every once in a while she looks out to the sea, where the sight of ocean waves caressing the sandy shores greets her like an old friend.
Jordan River, like the rest of the surrounding areas, is predictably devoid of visitors — not just because summer is coming to a close, but because it's Monday. However, as Annie ties her unruly blonde locks back into a bun, she notices that her old Subaru isn't the only vehicle on the lot.
About ten spaces away is an aging Toyota, which looks decidedly smaller than the typical station wagons, SUVs, or vintage Volkswagen vans utilized by beach bum types. Annie makes a cautionary glance around the area in hopes of spotting the owner — but all she sees in every direction are stretches of beach, evergreen trees, and the rocks that line the southern island's shores.
Soon Annie pulls her shortboard out of her wagon, briefly inspecting the layer of wax on the surface before locking her vehicle and heading out towards the water.
Annie observes atmosphere as she crosses the rocky beach — the sky is still decidedly overcast, but it's lighter than when she was driving, as the sun behind the clouds slowly rises higher and higher. It's not a lot, but it's enough to light up her little corner of the world — showing her both the ocean waves and the land mass across the sea that she knows for sure is Washington state.
Annie's always found it intriguing how in some parts of the Island feel like Canada and the US blending into one. Two places divided by many things, but united by the numerous little islands within the Salish Sea and Puget Sound, tiny chunks of the Pacific Northwest that all hold the same kind of charm.
Looking at the ocean now makes it hard for Annie to even imagine a border separating both countries. In fact, she's fantasized once or twice about grabbing a paddleboard and making her way across the Salish Sea, not even caring about what will meet her on the opposing land mass. And it's less because she's particularly fascinated by what's on the other side, but because a part of her just wants to know if she can make the journey. Who could stop her? Who would even want to?
Then suddenly, in the midst of going over her unrealistic fantasies — if she could even call it that — Annie spots something that breaks her out of her trance.
Further down the rocky beach, she notices an uncharacteristic spot in a stretch of shore she knows like the back of her hand. She squints to get a better look and makes out the shape of a person standing at the far end. She's presumes that it's either the owner of the other car in the lot or a person who's made one hell of a trek from the surrounding areas.
Considering how vacantly populated this part of the Island is, the latter possibility is highly unlikely.
Annie forgets about the spot the second her feet touch the water. Soon she's looking forward again, the waves caressing her shins as each step brings her deeper and deeper into the Salish Sea. She drops her shortboard and lets it float for a second before climbing on.
Resting on her stomach, Annie begins paddling forward. She ignores the way the wind whips at her hair or how ungodly cold the water is as it splashes her face. She focuses on nothing but the familiar sway of the sea and the swells awaiting her not too far away.
The further she gets away from the shore, the more everything she left there disappears. She slips away from her life as she spots the perfect swell and begins towards it, instincts guiding her. The land is very much behind her by now. Soon she turns her board around and quickly stands. Soon her thoughts are free of what awaits her on back in town — far away from musings of tourists and the on-season, of work and qualifications, of shifts at the hotel or surf shop and the useless degree that somehow got her here in the first place.
Before Annie knows it, she's gliding across the sea with ease — either cruising or cutting. Longer stretches where she seems to just float contrast those where she whips her shortboard left and right above the swelling water.
And for a moment in her hectic life, Annie feels free.
…
…
…
Post-Surf.
By the end of her surf, the sun has risen higher, the world's gotten a little bit warmer, and the remnants of coffee at the bottom of her mug have gone stone cold.
By nine o'clock she's standing behind her station wagon, the back door popped up as she leans over and pours water over her hair with a repurposed milk jug. The act is messy and undeniably frigid thanks to the wind, but Annie's determined to make the returning drive without too much salt on her scalp.
Once Annie has rinsed off as much seawater as she's willing to do, she dries her hair with a towel and shuts her wagon's back door, her board remaining safely inside. She climbs into her vehicle's backseat, spending only a few moments there to change. Soon she emerges, finally free from her wetsuit and comfortably clad in dry clothes.
The sensation of her clean hoodie against her once-damp skin still feels like heaven, even now.
As Annie ties her shoes, the chill in the air becomes a little easier to ignore. She glances to the sea again, the tranquil sound of the water against the shore doing what it's always done for the last few years.
Technically she could leave right now, as she's surfed out for the day and has a whole life to return to. But for some reason — perhaps stemming from the part of her that desires nothing more than to leave it all behind and become a real beach bum — she lets herself linger. Instead of starting her car and returning to her responsibilities, she fetches her phone from glove box and goes through her notifications as an excuse to stay a little bit longer.
With reception being quite spotty in these parts, Annie is unsurprised to have received a single message and nothing more.
JEAN: Any other surfers out there? 🏄🏄🏄
Annie is about to reply before she spots something in the corner of her eye.
She looks aside and notices a figure approaching the other car in the lot. Taking an educated guess, she assumes this to be the "spot" she had noticed on the beach just a few hours ago.
To her surprise, a rather young-looking man approaches the aging Toyota and opens the trunk. The first detail that strikes her is his mop of blond hair, windswept strands trimmed just above his ears — the second is him holding a rather large digital camera, a rugged DSLR with a comically long lens jammed into the business end.
The Stranger untangles himself from the strap and places the camera in a carrying bag. Unprompted, he looks her way and catches Annie by surprise.
Something jolts inside of her as their gazes meet in the parking lot, two pairs of blue eyes locking for half a second before she flinches, coming back to her senses. She looks down and tries to regain her composure, acutely aware that the only thing between them is the wind off the ocean and the sound of the waves lapping the shore.
Willing herself to glance over, she sees the Stranger gives a friendly wave. Unsure if she should give one back, she looks away and refocuses on her phone, where she types out a reply to Jean's message.
Annie: Nope, just some perv with a camera
She hits send, unsure if the message will reach the guy but not particularly caring if it does.
And then inevitably, Annie decides to return to her life. As much as she'd love to linger by the shore all day, she's always found comfort in knowing that the beach will still be there when she comes back.
Running a hand through her still-damp hair, she climbs back into her car and shuts the door. She spares one more longing glance at the Salish Sea before dropping her phone in the cup holder, the post-surf exhaustion finally setting in as she keys the ignition. But to her surprise, the sound that follows is not the engine starting, but rather an uncharacteristic mechanical sputtering.
Annie blinks, confused, then keys the ignition again. When the same sound follows, she glances to the dash. The sight of the unlit "Check Engine" light only intensifies the anxious knot within her stomach. Grumbling like an old man, Annie knots her eyebrow as she exits the car, popping the hood on the way out.
Despite knowing next to nothing about engines, Annie walks to the front of her car and opens the mouth of the beast. Her Subaru is over a decade old by now and has served her well from the moment they met. She had bought it second-hand during her final year of university, a testament to all the tables she had waited part-time and how the current job market would definitely require her to have a car.
To the surprise of no one, she had used her second-hand station wagon far more than the degree she wasted four years studying for. Her Subaru has survived many things — storms, flooded roads, popped tires, numerous drives up to Tofino, and one particularly stressful week where various tsunami warnings loomed over the Island like a dark cloud.
But despite the hardships that Annie and her old clunker had gone through, the engine decided that now would be the perfect time to go tits up, as if she hadn't made this particular drive dozens of times before.
Frustration festers within her as she looks at the engine, her brow furrowing as she desperately searches for some kind of answer to her problem. Her inexperience with anything automotive proves to be her undoing, as Annie eventually comes to the horrible, heartbreaking realization that she has absolutely no idea what she's supposed to be looking for.
Her anger continues to bubble, her grip on the edge of the hood tightening so hard that she swears the metal will bend.
"Fuck…" she expels in a pent-up breath.
"Hey."
The unfamiliar voice makes her flinch, as a part of her is very used to not being spoken to in these parts. Annie snaps her head to the right and sees the Stranger now standing a lot closer to her, having trekked halfway across the space between their cars.
"Sorry," the Stranger says, holding a hand up like he's in trouble. Uneasy, he sucks in a breath before stepping forward again, approaching in the way one would a frightened, injured deer.
Soon he's standing a meter away from her, as close as he needs to be in order to peer at the engine.
Annie is peeved, yet he seems to know what he's doing — a lot more than she does, at least — and doesn't stop him.
He looks no older than her, his sweet, boyish features painting a clear picture of youth. His eyes are blue and framed behind rectangular spectacles, giving him a distinct air of nerdiness. His blond hair looks a bit neater as well, though is still decidedly messy from the constant winds.
He's dressed in a well-loved raincoat and work pants tucked into a pair of wellingtons, details that say he's used to being outdoors. The practical, worn-in nature of his clothes give Annie the impression that he's far from the instagram "glampers" that come out west for the vibes and leave when it gets too cold. But she could be wrong.
"Car problems, I see," the Stranger says. There's a slight posh properness within his voice that makes Annie assumes he spends every hour with his nose in a book.
She scoffs, staring at the engine again. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
The Stranger blows some air out of his nose, making Annie wonder if he found her comment amusing, intimidating, or a little mix of both
"Uh… I'm not mechanic," the Stranger starts, rubbing the back of his neck before eyeing her again. "But what's the main issue?"
"It's not starting," Annie answers.
He takes a step closer, causing Annie to note that he's only slightly taller than her.
"Maybe you need a jump," he suggests.
"You got cables?"
"…no, but—" the Stranger replies, then reaches for his phone from his coat pocket. He holds the device towards her. "You call a tow truck. Got a few bars out here."
Annie spends a moment thinking of the logistics, then shakes her head. "I don't have time for that." She's never called one before, but she's heard second-hand accounts of people in these parts dealing with car issues and how certain services just love taking their sweet time getting to the scene of the crime.
The Stranger nods before putting his phone away. He takes in a breath and avoids her gaze for a few moments. "Is there somewhere you need to be?" he soon asks.
"Sooke," Annie tells him, though she's not entirely sure why he'd like to know.
The Stranger's cautious expression softens into something a bit more lively. "Oh uh… I'm actually heading there now," he says, a friendly smile coming onto his pretty face. "Well, technically I'm not. I'm staying in Colwood, but I gotta pass through Sooke to get there anyways, so… yeah. I could give you a ride if you'd like."
Despite his bout of boyish babbling, Annie is unconvinced on the offer and shoots him a glare. She's tempted to accept and have all her problems be solved, yet she can't help but contemplate her other options, a few as there are. The most probable plan would be to trek all the way to the sleepy, seaside coffeeshop just west of Jordan River, send a message to someone back home on this area's dreadful phone reception, and praying that Pieck or Jean or whoever could come by with jumper cables and save her from this mess.
It might not be the most convenient way out, but it's the option that lacks the roadblock inherent with the Stranger's offer.
"We barely know each other," Annie decides to answer, stating the obvious.
The Stranger nods, seemingly understanding her perspective. "Oh, well… I'm Armin." He holds a hand out to her. "And you are?"
There is a beat while Annie looks at his palm, noting the callouses and impeccably trimmed fingernails, unsure what to make of either detail.
Armin, she repeats in her mind. It suits him, though perhaps that has something to do with her never meeting someone with that name before.
Soon she reaches over and shakes his hand.
"Annie," she introduces.
"Nice to meet you, Annie," the now-named Armin says. When he lets go, his index fingers runs against the back of her hand as the smile on his face gets just a little bit wider. There's a noticeable brightness in the way he looks at her, though maybe that has more to do with his boyish face inherently giving off that kind of energy.
"Well, look at that — now we know each other!" Armin practically exclaims, speaking with all the pep of a TV host in a show that teaches kids about science. "Still need a ride?"
Once more does Annie think about it, except this time her mind only lingers on the thought for half as long.
…
…
…
The Long and Winding Road.
Armin's car is nothing special, a simple sedan with Washington plates and enough scuffs to prove its age. Judging by all the old fast food wrappers crowding his front seat, Annie guesses that he must've come fairly far from whatever part of the state he hailed from. The way he hastily grabs the trash and runs it to the nearest can amuses her — not enough to make her actually laugh, but enough to make her hum slightly louder than usual.
Annie doesn't have much to bring back to Sooke. Most of what she needs has been gathered into her backpack, whereas her shortboard and other surfing gear will remain locked in her car for the time being, just until she can strong-arm one of her friends to drive back here with jumper cables.
As Armin disposes of his trash, Annie observes the other items inside his car. In the backseat she gleans several telling details — such as old notebooks, multiple plastic waterproof cases, and a backpack with a "University of Washington" logo embroidered on the front.
Soon Armin returns, his face holding that same friendly look as he opens the door to the passenger's seat.
"Uh… go ahead," he says, gesturing for her to climb inside.
Annie rolls her eyes at his "gentlemanly" mannerisms, but enters the car without any hesitation.
A part of Annie is relieved to finally be out of the cold, even if it involves stepping into an unfamiliar vehicle. For a moment she sighs in relief, then places her backpack in front of her shins and does up her seatbelt.
Armin soon joins her, swiftly slipping into the driver's seat and buckling up. As he keys the ignition, Annie notices more things about him — like his browline eyeglasses, the empty Tim Hortons cups in the holders, and the pine tree air-freshener hanging from the rear-view window. She can't help but notice that his eyes look bluer in this light.
"Nice ride," Annie says to fill the silence.
"Thanks," Armin replies, flattered. "It's my grandfather's."
The car springs to life more loudly than Annie expects, roaring for a few seconds before simmering down to a rumbling hum. It is undoubtedly a side-effect of the vehicle's age. Despite that, Armin pulls out of the parking space with ease and begins moving across the lot.
As they go, Annie spies her currently unstartable Subaru outside the window, giving it one last longing look before it disappears from sight. Even if she knows she'll be back for it later, a part of her doesn't want to see it go.
"What's he like?" Annie asks once the car exits the lot and enters a long and winding road.
There's a beat of silence before Armin answers — "Who?"
She looks his way. "Your grandfather."
"Oh." A noticeable unease slips into his voice. "Uh… uh…"
Suddenly Annie wonders if she said something to offend him, then Armin replies —
"…he's dead."
Annie's stomach clenches in regret. She tears her eyes off of Armin, staring down at her knees for what feels like an eternity. She's not sure how much time passes before she wills herself to glance upwards. What awaits her ahead is the sight of the main road, now illuminated by sun instead of the surrounding streetlights.
"Sorry," Annie mutters, unsure what else would be more fitting.
"It's okay," Armin replies, surprisingly unfazed by the topic. "Uh… it's my fault, actually."
Raising an eyebrow, she whips her head back in his direction, shocked. "It's your fault he's dead?"
"No! I don't mean that, I mean… uh…" Armin begins, awkwardly fumbling with the car's gear shift as the vehicle's begins traversing hills. "I refer still refer to him like… like that. Present tense. Like… uh… like he's still around. It's a habit, but… uh… I see how it'd leave the wrong impression."
Annie blinks, then says — "A little bit." She takes a breath before settling back into her seat, the discomfort of the conversation still imbuing her with unease. "How long has he been…?"
"—dead?"
Annie nods.
"Two years."
Annie nods again. Not knowing what else to add to an already tumultuous conversation, she goes silent. She stares at the road for a bit, listening to nothing but the hum of the engine as the evergreens, ocean, and beachfront property she could never afford blur behind the glass. She lets herself look at the seaside more, hoping that the familiar sight will calm her nerves like it always does.
What feels like a minute of silence passes before Armin speaks up.
"I know," he says. "Been long enough, right?"
Annie looks at Armin again. His expression is neutral, though she's not sure how else she expected it to be. Perhaps two years is long enough for such a tragedy to lose its sting — not because the love for the lost person has waned, but because the survivor has gotten used to it, having processed it enough for some days to feel normal. If anything, Armin seems a lot more interested in driving his late grandfather's car than the fact that his grandfather is gone at all — at this moment, at least.
"So I assume you're from Washington?" Annie brings up instead, attempting to steer the conversation in a different direction.
Annie thinks for a second, pursing her lips. While she's never even step foot in America, she's met her fair share of Washington tourists to know a little bit about the place. Even if the old Tim Horton's cups tell her that he's far from a coffee snob, the University of Washington backpack says enough.
"Seattle," she answers, confident in her response.
Armin's smile gets a little bit wider. "Close. I'm from Everett, actually, just north of there."
Annie scoffs. Close enough, she thinks.
"It's where Boeing is," Armin continues, unprompted. "My mom worked there. She'd let me visit the Museum of Flight whenever she could. Swear I had that whole factory tour memorized by the time I was nine." He looks her way very briefly. "You ever been?"
"To Everett?"
"Well, not just there. Have you ever been to like… Seattle? Or uh… Washington?" He takes a quick breath to regain himself, then re-focuses on the road. "You might like it. Especially the coast. It's not much different from out here."
Annie shakes her head. Having become content with Island life over the years, the furthest she ever feels like going is Tofino, and that's only if the waves are particularly tempting. Satiating her surfer habit seems to be the only motivation she has to even leave Sooke, so much so that she hasn't even step foot in Victoria over the last year.
"So what brings you to Canada anyways?" Annie wonders.
"Work. I'm a grad student. I dunno if you could tell." Armin eyes the rearview mirror and nods towards the mess of notebooks in the backseat of his car. "See, I'm doing my thesis on the biochemical changes within the Puget Sound and surrounding waters. That's actually why I came out here today, had to take some samples."
"You took water samples at seven in the morning?" Annie asks, impressed, though her flat tone makes her seem anything but.
Another sheepish chuckle. "What can I say, I'm an early riser," Armin admits. "You uh… you ever study anything?"
The question makes her tense in a way she hasn't felt in years. On instinct, Annie grabs her phone from her pocket and checks it — the signal is still spotty, which gives her a few push notifications despite the lack of bars in the screen's upper right corner. She quickly runs out of things to distract herself with, causing her to sigh and realize there's on only one way out of this.
"I majored in chemistry back in uni," Annie eventually tells. "Not that I actually did anything…"
Looking down, Annie closes her eyes for a few seconds, which is just long enough for her to reminisce on her personal failures. Two years of attending UVic as an "undecided science major" has haunted her for longer than she'd like to admit, as her choice to pursue chemistry was less born out of passion and more out of the field being her strongest subject. Her uni days aren't that far behind her, chronologically speaking, but the fleeting snippets of sleepless study nights, boring parties, and smoking cigarettes on balconies to take the edge off are still ingrained in her mind.
A part of her doesn't want to deem her degree as a complete waste of time, but another part of her is still flush with memories of having no idea what do once she graduated. Accepting a summer job at a Sooke hotel wasn't her trying to kill time until she found the next step, it was the next step.
The upside to the change seemed to be developing her surfer habit. She wouldn't be here now if she hadn't searched for something to do between bussing tables and worrying about bills.
"Ever thought about grad school?" asks Armin, bringing Annie back into the conversation.
She shrugs. "Sometimes."
"What do you do now?"
"I work at a resort," Annie simplifies — she can't imagine him actually being interested in her life, from her constant table bussing and the wealthy tourists who barely tip. "And a surf shop."
To her surprise, Armin's face shifts slightly. He begins sporting a distinct, somewhat goofy smile — something about the short time she's known him tells her that it's a face he likes to sport often. A part of Annie had expected him to judge her numerous jobs, but another part of her is keenly aware of just how many people her age wear multiple hats to get by.
"Makes sense," Armin says, unbothered.
Annie shrugs, and suddenly the tension that had once grasped her by the chest and wouldn't let go begins to dissipate. "I fit better there anyways." She sighs at herself. "Not like I could fit in anywhere else."
Armin hums, unconvinced. "Don't say that. You seem like you could fit in anywhere."
Annie's first instinct is to scoff — but for a reason she doesn't quite know, she doesn't. Instead, she lies back in her seat, suddenly more comfortable within the confines of the old Toyota. She looks his way and asks —
"What makes you say that?"
The shrug of Armin's shoulders is slower than she expects, a restricted motion done in lieu of having anything else to say.
A few seconds pass where there's nothing but silence between the two strangers. With every fleeting moment, Armin starts to feel less like an intruder to her routine and more like a pleasant surprise, something she's less bothered to be around and more fortunate to have found.
"Just a feeling," Armin finally says. When he looks Annie's way once more, their gazes briefly meet again and the smile on his face brightens.
And she sees it all — his boyish grin, his baby blue eyes, and the kind of sweet earnestness that makes her forget exactly what kind of world she lives in. For once, her existence of tourists and ocean waves and bills needing to be paid doesn't cross her mind.
Instead, Annie exhales, relaxes, and reminds herself to look out the window and admire the scenery of the drive. As the blues, greys, and greens of the Pacific Northwest blend into one outside her the window, the rest of the journey to Sooke continues in silence.
…
…
…
Strangeness of the Day.
Jean's morning is typical, from waking up in a bed that isn't his to the various messages awaiting him on his phone. He's used to Annie walking out at this hour, prioritizing the waves out west once their usual activities are done. But even if their mutual sting of loneliness has become a little more numb, Jean is unable to ignore the feeling of rejection when he stretches out on the tiny bed, only to feel empty space on the other side.
With a sigh he sits up, draped in nothing the blankets as he finds his phone on the nightstand. Fighting back a yawn, he swipes through notifications and tries to read them through the cloud of sleep still plaguing his brain. He's conscious enough to notice that most texts are from his co-workers, mainly regarding their upcoming shift and how Jean's finally off probation, meaning he can finally call himself a firefighter for real.
Rubbing sleep out of his tired eyes, Jean puts down his phone, stands, and grabs his clothes off the floor.
Now dressed, Jean exits the bedroom and catches Annie's roommate near the apartment door. Pieck Finger is similar to Annie — in that she's petite, snarky, and far smarter than she seems — but differs from her in that Pieck is brunette, marginally taller, actually acknowledges his existence in the morning. Accustomed to his and Annie's arrangement, Pieck greets him cordially as she laces up her boots. She regards him with the kind of nonplussed attitude that one would show to a friend, though he's not sure if she actually considers him one. Jean only ever sees her when he comes over and doesn't even know what she does for work.
"Take care!" she says as she slips out, and before he knows it Jean is alone.
He busies himself like he always does, by snagging a cup of coffee and taking a quick shower.
Barely an hour passes before Jean leaves Annie and Pieck's apartment, his hair still wet and the bitter taste of poorly-brewed mud still lingering in his mouth. He's never been one to hold his tongue, but somehow he's never willed himself to Pieck or Annie — which ever one made the pot — that their coffee making skills leaved much to be desired.
The sun is already in the sky as Jean exits the building. Crossing the street, he makes his way to his car and tries to ignore the chilly breeze biting at him like a rabid dog. He checks his dying phone and sends a text to Annie, asking if there's anyone else out in her usual spot with the addition of numerous surfer emojis. He's wonders if she'll even get the message as he enters his old Volvo, putting his phone aside before keying the ignition.
The drive home is brisk, in which he goes little further south towards Sooke's town center. His place isn't too far from Annie's, but it's just far enough that it'd take an exceptionally nice day for him to even consider walking there.
He pulls up at his building, a slightly nicer three storey walk-up that he's called home ever since he moved to town. The place is slighter nicer than Annie and Pieck's, mainly due to it being newer, yet it's a little less shiny than all the brand new condos popping up around town — the ones that are destined to be summer homes for wealthy Victoria residents.
As he heads inside and traverses the narrow hallways, he hears his phone chime and alert him that his battery is at a mere fifteen percent. By the time he enters his ground floor unit, Jean is already wondering where the fuck he left his charger.
The apartment is currently empty, as Connie's been working earlier and earliar shifts nowadays. The space is ample for two tenants, though it's never as clean as Jean would like it to be. When he crosses the living room he nearly trips over a misplaced hard hat, causing Jean to curse and wonder just how many strikes to the head that Connie had taken at his last construction job.
Jean's phone charges in the corner as he scours the kitchen for anything to eat. When he sees that there's nothing in the fridge but a single egg, butter, and a single can of light beer, he grumbles and searches the cupboards. As much as his stomach grumbles, the sight of stale cereal and trail mix is far from appealing.
Soon Jean sighs and reach for his keys again, submitting himself to his fate of an early morning grocery run. As he pulls on his shoes again, he wonders just how long he'll have to work as a firefighter before he can start living without a roommate.
The sun hangs a little higher as Jean finds his car in the lot. He checks his slightly charged phone again and sees a reply from Annie. Apparently, there is someone in her usual surf spot, someone she describes as a "perv with a camera."
Jean scoffs, amused, then puts his phone down and starts his car.
The drive to the shopping center is even short, barely five minutes. Normally, Jean would walk there, a habit built over his childhood in the city. But this morning he's a little too tired to bother, uncaring over his contribution to the stereotype that North Americans just love driving their fat asses everywhere.
As he pulls up and parks near Sooke's second-best grocery store, Jean is unable to ignore the remnants of his morning coffee still in his mouth. No matter who had brewed the pot he had stolen from at Annie and Pieck's place, the aftertaste is enough unpleasant enough to make him alter his plans.
Instead of heading straight to the market, Jean instead crosses the lot and heads towards a different business.
The aptly named the Grind-On-Me Cafe neighbours has served the town well, a venue that fluctuates between quiet and hectic depending on the time of the year. With the summer season now approaching it's end, the regular crowds now consist of Sooke's year-round residents and the occasional construction worker. The coffee is strong and the prices are relatively close to what it had been a year ago — making the place everything Jean could ever ask for and more.
But before Jean enters the building, he spots something that makes him stop in place.
Through the cafe window he sees someone he didn't expect to hear from until later today.
Behind a pane of glass sits Annie at a cafe table, and she's not alone. She looks relaxed as she leans back in her chair, her arms crossed over her chest as she listens to a conversation like it's the easiest thing in the world. Her hair is as messy as can be after an early morning surf — the main mass tied back in a bun, the bangs falling carelessly over her forehead.
Sitting in front of her is someone Jean's never seen before.
On the other side of the table is a man with a similar head of blond hair, a pair of blocky eyeglasses, and the kind of boyish prettiness that makes Jean wonder just how old he is.
As the Pretty Boy speaks, Annie appears to nod along between sips of coffee and even interjects here and there.
Which strikes Jean as odd, as he had become accustomed to things like Annie's constant aloofness, her desire to be alone for most of her day, and her chronic inability to actually hold a conversation.
As Jean walks forward, the first two thoughts in his head are who on earth is that Pretty Boy and what the hell did he do with Annie?
Jean enters the cafe, where he is welcomed by the familiar scent of coffee beans and the whistling sound of steaming milk. Deciding to not approach Annie and the Pretty Boy for now, he instead re-focuses on what he actually came here to do.
In no time he spots Niccolo behind the cafe's counter, who is both a friend and yet another Sooke local who wears many hats. On most days and evenings, Niccolo is a sous chef at one of the town's waterfront resorts. But on this morning in particular, Niccolo will be playing the part of a barista.
Niccolo sees Jean approach the counter and greets him with a nod. With a skillful hand he pours steamed milk from a metal pitcher into a mug, effortlessly creating a leaf pattern on top of a reasonably-priced latte.
"Hey, Jean," Niccolo greets, putting the completed drink aside. "The usual?"
"Yeah," Jean answers, rubbing his tired face once more. Forcing himself to keep his eyes open, Jean looks at the array of sandwiches and baked goods inside the cafe's display refrigerator.
"And uh…"
The spread is decent, but Jean is too exhausted to be decisive. Instead he opts for a random muffin from the basket of day-olds near the cash register.
"…this, too."
Niccolo nods along before ringing up Jean's order, which is paid for with a handful of pocket change.
As the gangly blond barista assembles a double americano, Jean leans against the counter and looks towards the window.
As to be expected, Annie is still sitting and talking with the Pretty Boy. Evidently, she hadn't noticed Jean walking in, or maybe she had and is pretending she hadn't.
Sucking in a breath, Jean waits for his order and does his best attempt at looking nonchalant. But despite his efforts, he can't stop himself from listening to the only conversation happening inside a sparsely occupied cafe.
"My mom's Canadian, actually," says the Pretty Boy. "She was born in Delta."
"Was she?" Annie responds, sounding like she gives a damn for once in her life. "What'd she come down for?"
"For university, mainly. She actually went to UDub as well."
"Guess it runs in the family."
Jean's snooping is cut off by the sound of Niccolo placing a cup on the counter. After slipping his day-old muffin into his jacket pocket, Jean takes his drink. He plans his next move as he stirs splenda and oat milk into his coffee, then with long-legged strides, he hops into the belly of the beast and approaches Annie and the Pretty Boy.
As Jean gets a closer look at the stranger accompanying Annie, he tries to remember if he's ever seen the guy before. Sooke isn't exactly a small, backwater town, but the last few years have given him a pretty clear idea on who stays year-round, especially the people who are Jean's age.
By the time Jean realizes that he definitely hasn't seen the guy before, he's standing in front of the table. As to be expected, he towers over Annie in her chair, practically casting a shadow over her as she notices his presence.
Craning her head aside and upwards, Annie's eyes go wide with a subtle kind of shock. In contrast, the Pretty Boy looks over with a more neutral face, clearly confused regarding the absurdly tall stranger currently standing near him.
"Jean," Annie starts, her surprise soon shifting into her typical glare.
Something about her gives Jean the impression that she either didn't expect to see him here, or wished that she could've run into someone she had a more… chaste connection to.
Nonetheless, Jean nods along and smirks at her. "The one and only," he replies like it's a normal conversation. He very briefly considers mentioning that he missed her that morning, but decides against it. "How was your surf?"
"It was fine," Annie answers, her voice just the slightest bit stilted.
"That's good to hear," Jean says. Soon his gaze wanders and affixes itself to the person on the other side of the table.
The Pretty Boy has a friendly look on his face. He's clad in the kind of sweater that could make anyone look like a dork. The raincoat draped on the back of the chair and his well-worn wellington boots make him seem like the outdoorsy type. However, the shape of his eyeglasses exudes just enough bookishness to make Jean think otherwise. Judging by that, the university mention, and the extra large latte currently sitting on the table, Jean pegs the guy for student, but perhaps one in the later terms of schooling.
"So… who's your friend?" Jean asks Annie, getting straight to the point.
"I'm Armin," the Pretty Boy introduces before Annie gets a chance, his smile persisting. "Annie and I just met, actually."
"He gave me a ride from the beach," Annie quickly interjects. She grumbles in frustration, then shrugs in defeat. "My car fucked up."
Jean eyes her in concern. "What happened?"
Annie's glare sharpens at him. "I don't wanna talk about it."
Not willing press any further, Jean looks back to Armin. "Nice of you to give her a ride though. Good on you, Man."
Armin looks flattered, glancing down with a sheepish grin. "It was the right thing to do. And I got a free latte out of it." He taps the half-finished mug on the table to punctuate his point.
A vaguest hint of a smile comes onto Annie's face. "It's the least I can do."
"So… you and Annie know each other?" Armin asks to keep the conversation going.
In a split second Jean looks to Annie, who visibly stiffens at Armin's innocent question. Knowing full well that the last thing he should do is detail every facet of their particular arrangement, Jean decides to speak up.
"We work together," he answers.
Armin looks intrigued. "Oh, you work at the hotel, too?"
For a moment, Jean wonders what exactly Annie had told Armin about her little life in Sooke, to what extent did she detail the way she spends her days and kills time between work. He glances aside again, briefly watching Annie sigh in relief before focusing on Armin once more. As iffy as the subject is, at least Jean knows how to steer away from it.
"Guilty," he replies, jokingly putting his free hand up. "I bartend sometimes. Gotta pay for school somehow."
"What'd you study?" Armin asks.
"Paramedic school… then fire academy," Jean explains, then scoffs at himself. "I'm a firefighter. I won't bore you with the details."
Jean's instincts tell him that the little pretty blond boy isn't interested in the nitty gritty of it all, regardless to whether Armin's interest is feigned or genuine. As of now, all of Jean's past training, prepping, and bartending for tuition feels like a blur, though maybe that's less to do with the past and more to do with the lack of coffee within his sytem.
With that in mind, Jean takes the first sip of his double americano and ignores the way it burns his tongue.
Armin looks impressed while Annie looks decidedly not. Considering how many times Jean had droned on about random fire-related technobabble while Annie looked bored as balls, he doesn't blame her. It's moments like these where he understands why she prefers their arrangement to be the way it is — nothing more, nothing less.
"Holy shit, for real?" Armin asks, awestruck.
Feeling more than compliment, Jean can't help but smile. "For real."
"Wow… that's something I could never do." Armin looks Jean up and down. "Respect."
Feeling like he's soaring on cloud nine, Jean looks to Annie, knowing full well that she's hating the shit-eating grin on his face. Had they not been in public, she would've slapped him already.
"I like this guy, Annie," Jean lauds, affectionately tapping her shoulder. "You know how to pick 'em."
Unsurprisingly, Annie is stiff and unmoving underneath Jean's touch. Knowing full well that his teasing is slowly grating on her, Jean continues to smile as he looks towards both blonds.
"Well, I won't bother you guys any longer. I got a grocery run to do. You know how it is," Jean says. "It's good to meet you, Dude," he says to Armin, then looks over to Annie, who is still seemingly on the edge of delivering a solid smack across the face.
As much as he'd like to continue his little bout of teasing, Jean's instincts tell him to stop — just for now, at least.
"And… I'll see you around."
"Yeah, right back at ya," Armin says, blissfully unaware of the exact context behind Jean's playfulness.
Meanwhile, Annie does nothing but give a firm nod.
Without anymore fanfare, Jean turns around and heads to the cafe door. He steps out into the parking lot, coffee firmly in hand as the mid-morning wind greets him yet again. He takes another sip as he begins the short walk from the cafe to the grocery store.
Just as Jean begins brainstorming exactly what he needs to buy, he hears the sound of the cafe door opening again.
"Hey!" comes Annie's voice, causing him to turn around.
Jean witnesses Annie exiting the cafe with more haste in her steps than he expects. Through the window he can see Armin still sitting at the table, where he nurses a pull of his latte without a care in the world.
Jean refocuses on Annie, who's gone from utterly scowling at him to holding a more blank expression.
"Hey, do you have jumper cables?" she's quick to ask.
Jean blinks. "What?"
"Do you have jumper cables?" Annie repeats, speaking with the kind of caustic inflection that makes it clear just how stupid she thinks he is.
Jean sighs, at least finding some familiarity within the Annie he normally knows. "Yeah, why do you ask?"
"Because I was just dying to know," she replies, effortlessly imbuing sarcasm into her words.
Rubbing his face, Jean wonders just how long it'll take before the coffee finally kicks in.
"My car didn't start," Annie clarifies. "It's at the beach."
"Ah, makes sense," he replies, clicking his tongue. Suddenly a lot of pieces begin falling into place. "Yeah, I think I could drive you there later."
Annie is quick to shake her head. "No. I just need your cables. I'll pick them up later."
In no mood to argue, Jean simply nods along. With their height difference being what it is — him being on the long, leggy side and her being on the 'two shits tall' side — the experience of talking to her feels a lot like arguing with a temperamental pomeranian.
"Yeah, sure," he agrees. "Come over whenever."
For a moment they say nothing, wherein the only thing between them is the cold September air and the sound of various cars coming in and out of the shopping center parking lot. Jean takes another pull of coffee, a longer one this time, before speaking.
"He's cool, by the way. That Armin guy." Jean sucks in a breath, suddenly keen on picking his words carefully. "He seems like… your type."
"Don't even start," Annie warns, her voice low.
"Sorry, I… sorry," Jean pleads, raising his hand to placate her. He looks away for a second, gleaning the sight of the parking lot, the town, and the way the sun shines into their little corner of Vancouver Island.
"By the way, I saw the uni sticker on his phone," Jean mentions, refocusing on Annie before shrugging. "I uh… would advise you against seeing tourists, though. Makes things too complicated."
Annie rolls her eyes. "I'm not seeing him."
Jean blows more air out of his nose than usual. "If that's what you say."
Annie nods stiffly, though looks slightly relieved that he's understanding of things — not just her car troubles, but of the overall strangeness of the day and the uncertainty that comes with meeting someone new.
Too tired to press the issue any further, Jean mirrors her nod in response.
"I'll see you later then."
"Thank you."
"No problem."
Without anything else to say, the two part ways — Annie towards the little cafe and the nebbish, bespectacled nerd she left sitting at the window, and Jean to the market as his coffee finally kicks in.
Annie Leonhardt. Jean Kirschtein.
Friends with Benefits. Bathroom Sinks. Awkward Morning Afters.
3433 words.
(ao3.)
In the midst of the night, an iron vessel moves across the sea — a darkened sky above even darker waters, the hum of the engine mixing with the sound of the ocean against the hull. The world within the steamship is even quieter — the once bustling passageways now dead silent with both the crew and passengers having retired to their quarters for the evening.
In the bathroom they're alone — secluded and isolated from prying ears and eyes, removed from the rest in their own little corner of the world.
And in their shared solitude, within the confined space of the least spacious bathroom on the entire vessel, Jean has Annie on the edge of the sink — their bodies closer than ever before, their skin searing hot against the other, and every thrust sending pulses of pleasure throughout them both.
The towel that had once been wrapped around Jean's waist continues to lie on the floor, discarded and forgotten. He's completely nude and she's hiked up her nightgown just enough to get the deed done. Each kiss they share is lust-filled and fervent, teeth clashing and tongues dancing. With ardent touches he trails his lips down her face and settles onto her neck, his thick stubble scratching her skin as he greedily suckles at her flesh. Each moment is punctuated by a new push, heavy breaths dispersing into her hair each time.
In contrast, Annie's a lot more quiet as her fingernails press into his skin. Her back aches she balances on the sink, the faucet prodding her in ways that are from ideal yet she couldn't give two shits. She begins kissing his shoulder, caressing his flesh with a touch so gentle that it contrasts the rougher edge within his motions.
Soon the loudest thing between them is the sound of their slapping skin, each satisfying hit punctuating every instance of him pulling back and her yearning for him more until he returns, his hips slamming flush against hers.
His arms snake around her waist, getting a better hold on her as his motions persist. His bare torso presses against her, his chest hair rubbing irritatingly against her skin. It adds to the roughness in the way he moves, a harsher edge to how he fucks her like he hates her.
Annie takes a breath and rests her forehead on Jean's shoulder, her slowly-building delectation stirring with each thrust. Her fingernails pierce into his flesh again and for the first time in their tryst she lets out a sigh.
Too distracted by the itch he's scratching, her hands begin to roam. She glides her fingertips down his back until she's grabbing his ass, squeezing hard until the mound of muscle fills her palms. The sound of their meeting flesh continues to resonate within the space.
Then abruptly it stops, but not in a way that neither Jean nor Annie expect.
A knock is heard on the bathroom door, causing the two of them to freeze in place. For a split second their eyes open, looking at each other in mutual dread. Suddenly they become still like statues, a pit forming in Annie's stomach as she realizes exactly what's going to happen.
Soon the bathroom entrance opens and Pieck Finger — of all people — sticks her head through the door.
"Hello? Anyone in he—"
Pieck goes silent when she sees the two by the sink — Jean bare-assed and abashed, Annie looking like she'd love nothing more than to throw herself off a cliff, and their bodies connected in way meant to satisfy the more lascivious desires in life.
The moment is mercifully short. Pieck's eyes go wide in shock as she takes in the sight.
Annie's unease intensifies as she gets the feeling that Pieck is absorbing every detail — detecting everything from the discarded towel on the ground to Jean's very obvious lack of dress, from Annie's pulled up nightgown to the scratches on Jean's back.
The flabbergasted look on Pieck's face swiftly shifts into a more playful kind of surprise. A bright grin spreads across both ends of her pretty lips, something that does little to alleviate the pit in Annie's stomach.
"Oh wow," Pieck says, smirking widely.
And to Annie and Jean's surprise, Pieck says nothing else from there — not even a snarky retort or witty remark about Jean's exposed gonads as she closes the door.
Annie stares at the floor, unmoving as she and Jean wait for the sound of Pieck's gentle footfalls fading into the night.
"Fuck…" Jean curses in a quiet whisper.
Once she's sure Pieck is gone, Annie wills herself to look at him again. Mere centimeters exist between them, icy blue meeting warm hazel. The embarrassment doesn't fade as quickly as she wishes it would. In the dim light of the bathroom, Annie swears she can see a hint of a blush on Jean's scruffy face, rugged and angular features now overwrought with such a bashful demeanour.
So Annie grits her teeth again. "Keep going," she orders, plain and simple.
And Jean complies.
He drives his hips into hers, the length of him rubbing against her in a way that instigates yet another gasp. With every jut she lets go of the last few seconds, each pang of regret and tension fading away, their mutual pleasure eventually returning.
Soon she's lost again, closing her eyes and wrapping her legs taught around his waist. Jean keeps one arm snaked around the small of her back, but lets his free hand roam — she's too lost to protest. Soon fingers are running through her unruly hair before his palm cups her breast, eagerly squeezing the mound.
The rhythm of every push continues. Jean's hand eventually raises up and slams against the wall near the mirror, a mighty thump resonating throughout the bathroom. His pace picks up as he chases their rising euphoria, his face contorted in hedonistic pleasure. Her legs tighten around his waist as he goes, each one of their shared grunts getting a little louder than the last.
He pushes, he pulls, and he does it all again. She breathes, she tenses, and she relishes in a feeling that makes her toes curl. She curses a lot more loudly than she intends to, then cedes to her desires and hides her face in his neck, gnawing at his skin to stifle her screams.
Once she meets her end and and rides out her high for a few blissful seconds, she feels Jean put forth a final press and groan into her hair, loudly this time.
Then suddenly he pulls away, the warmth of his skin abruptly leaving.
With the bathroom not being particularly large, it only takes a few steps for him to remove himself from the sink and head to the shower, a structure so simple that it doesn't even have a door or curtain.
Annie catches her breath, eyes lingering on the sight of Jean still bare and exposed. With one hand he braces himself against the shower wall, with the other he runs a slick palm against the length of his cock and begins searching for his own end.
Soon a new sound enters the bathroom, that of Jean stimulating his skin and the moans of delight that follow. He jerks himself wildly, going until he's spent and shuddering, each sensation causing his body to spasm and shudder, cursing his way through his climax.
And once it's over, he goes still again.
The silence that follows feels heavy, but through it all Annie quietly slips off the edge of the sink. She's tender in some places and pained in others. That damn faucet had hurt her in ways she could have never imagined. The ache that had accumulated within her joints becomes a little harder to ignore as she adjusts her nightgown, ensuring that it keeps her covered in the way it was meant to.
She takes another moment to gather herself before glancing towards the bathroom mirror, immediately noticing things like just how unkempt her hair has become or the red marks now forming on her neck and upper shoulders. Lacking the energy to truly care, Annie sighs and deems the bites as a problem for her future self.
As she cleans the sink and washes off the sweat off her face, her eyes look back to the mirror. In the reflection she sees Jean still standing nude in the shower, motionless and spent as he leans against the wall and continues to catch his breath. She doesn't stop herself from staring. She's heard him mention once or twice that he's no longer the soldier he once was, but observing the broadness of his back and his shape of his bum tells her otherwise.
Internally, Annie wonders if it's a good thing or a bad thing that she finds him more bearable when she's not looking at his face or hearing him speak.
Soon Jean wills himself to move. Exhausted, he turns on the shower for a minute and rinses off. He pushes his tawny hair back and turns around, giving Annie one last eyeful of his cock as he grabs his towel off the floor. Mere minutes ago he had blushed hard at occurrence of her just staring at his dick and balls, but now he doesn't give a shit.
Jean dries off before wrapping his towel around his waist. He wordlessly grabs his shower kit off a nearby shelf, getting ready to leave.
Annie turns to face him. "This never happened," she ends up saying, unsure what else would be more fitting.
Jean nods in agreement. "Okay." His voice is a hushed murmur.
He walks past her, his shoulder brushing hers just before he looks her way one more time, their height difference going back to its usual ridiculous state.
Jean doesn't let another word slip as he exits the bathroom, Annie eyeing him the whole time. She waits until the door closes and the sound of his footsteps disappear into the ship's passageway.
And once she's alone she sighs, rubbing her tired eyes before removing her nightgown. She steps into the shower like she had initially planned and washes everything away.
…
…
…
Pieck is accustomed to never sleeping well, though as of lately she's not sure if she should attribute it to her usual insomnia or the stress that comes with constantly traveling.
Combined with the usual weight of her Ambassador duties, she fights back a yawn as she tops up her second cup of coffee. She puts the half-full percolator back on the stove, then crosses the mess hall and returns to the table in the middle of the room.
The space continues to be cold and silent as she sits. The morning is accompanied by nothing but the gentle hum of the ship's engines and the moving ocean just outside the nearest porthole, a constant view of the line where sky meets sea.
As Pieck props her elbow on the table and leans her face on her palm, she jadedly wonders just how she'll preoccupy herself today. Before her mind can be completely consumed by which of her books she hasn't read or who she can convince to play a game of chess, she picks up on the sound of someone walking through the nearest passageway.
A series of footfalls gradually gets louder until she's no longer alone. To her delight, it's one of the two people she had been dying to see this morning.
Annie walks in with her usual bored expression, having swapped her usual nightgown for that old white hoodie of hers. She looks across the room to see Pieck perched at the center table, then tenses in the same way she did last night, her once-stoic eyes now slightly wide.
At least this time she's a lot more dressed.
"Good morning!" Pieck greets, slipping into her typical toying nature. She knows full well that her perky mannerisms will dig into Annie in the most delightful way, which is all the motivation she needs to keep going.
Annie avoids Pieck's gaze as she walks across the mess, making her way to the stove and pouring herself a much needed cup of coffee. When she goes to table, she conveniently sits as furthest she can from her bunkmate.
The smile on Pieck's face gets just a little bit wider.
"So!" Pieck begins, speaking like it's just a normal day. "I was surprised to hear you come in last night."
Annie grumbles as she pokes at the modest spread on the table. The platter consists of simple biscuits and bread, the best the crew could provide given the circumstances. As she nibbles on a small loaf, Annie looks like she would want nothing more than to return back to her and Pieck's shared quarters and lock herself there for the rest of the day.
"I really thought you'd shack up with him," Pieck continues, blowing steam off her cup. "But I guess I was wrong."
She keeps her eyes on Annie and anticipates some kind of response, yet it never comes.
When more silence persists between the two, wherein the only thing within the air is the sound of the sea and the scent of over-brewed coffee, Pieck decides to be a lot more forward.
"So… okay, I won't keep prying, but…" she begins, straightening her back and putting down her cup. She looks to Annie with earnest eyes, gesturing as she tries to find the right words. "I just wanna how that all… happened."
Annie goes still and begins staring at the floor, her grip on cup tightening. After a few more seconds of silence, the steeliness in her expressions softens slightly, like she's aware that she probably has to explain herself eventually. Soon she sighs and puts her coffee down, taking in a breath before willing herself to speak.
"I ran into him."
"That I figured."
"In the shower."
"That I figured, too."
Annoyed, Annie shoots begins to glare. Meanwhile, Pieck thinks back to the moment and finds herself mulling over one particular detail,
"So… when you say you ran into him in the shower, do you mean like… you opened the door and he was showering?" Pieck ponders. "Or like… he just got out when you walked in?"
There is a beat while Annie continues to glower at her. "…the second one," she answers, her voice low and dangerous. She takes a breath to calm herself and tries to keep speaking. "We… it was… we got into a fight."
"Like… a physical fight?"
"An argument."
Pieck nods. "…about?"
"The hot water. I asked him if he used it all up," Annie claims. She pauses and looks to be putting effort into recalling the details. A strange kind of sheepishness suddenly affects her tone. "I… I don't remember what happened from there. But I slapped him and then—"
Pieck hums, cutting Annie off. "Ohhhh, I see," she remarks, shrugging like it really is that simple. "Yeah, that checks out."
Annie looks even more perturbed, Pieck's nonchalance clearly grating at her.
Meanwhile, Pieck feels no need to press any further, as every little tidbit of information has fallen into place. She finds her coffee and takes another sip — everything making more and more sense with each passing minute.
She can practically see it now: Annie and Jean running into one another inside one of the ship's inconveniently compressed bathrooms, the question of whether there was any hot water left becoming a point of contention between them, and the argument that followed only halting with a swift, yet solid strike to his cheek.
Pieck only briefly imagines the kind of tension that had been sparked between them from there, something that had ignited a fire within them both, undoubtedly leading to the discarded towel on the floor and the kind of kiss that eventually blossomed into… that.
Pieck notices the vaguest indications of a blush on Annie's face, which either insinuates embarrassment, agitation, or maybe a mix of both.
Before either of them can say anything else, the sound of footsteps in the passageway is heard yet again.
Soon the boys are walking into the mess — Connie, Reiner, Armin, and of course, the other person that Pieck had been hoping to see this morning.
Jean walks at the back of the herd, his hands deep in his trouser pockets as he looks to be fighting off the remnants of a sleepless night. He trails behind a similarly exhausted Armin, sticking to the shorter guy like a shadow, like a buffer between him and the rest of the group.
Pieck doesn't blame him, as she's far from the only person in this mess viewing him in a different light. The image of him and Annie using a bathroom sink in such a peculiar way has not completely erased itself from her mind, despite it being hours behind her by now. She doesn't know how long the vision will stay with her, but for now every instance of her looking at Jean will be clouded by such a distinct notion.
And truth be told, a part of Pieck is still fixating on the apparent reality that Jean's a lot hairier than she expected.
Connie and Reiner proceed to be the loudest of the bunch, mindlessly bantering as they walk to the stove. They pour each other coffee with the efficiency of an old married couple, their conversation filling most of the space.
Meanwhile, Armin and Jean go to where the girls are. As they both poke at the bread and biscuits on the platter, Pieck notices Jean standing as far as he can from Annie, as if remaining on the other end of the table will lessen whatever lingering tensions exist between them — if there are any at all.
Pieck glances to Annie again, who's back to her usual bored, detatched expression. Though she does stare at Jean's hand as he grabs a biscuit, looking as if some very particular memories are flooding back to her all at once.
Pieck and Annie are abruptly shaken from their trances when Armin speaks.
"Morning, Annie," he says like he always does. He sits directly across from her, his gentle, boyish smile coming onto his pretty face. "How'd you sleep last night?"
Pieck sees Annie's hand tense around her coffee cup once more. Her eyes move from Jean towards Armin like she's been caught doing something she shouldn't.
"Oh, like a rock," Pieck cuts in, sparing Annie from any more stress that she doesn't need.
"Same here," Jean speaks for the first time today.
In the span of a second, Pieck spots Annie eyeing Jean again. Their gazes meet as they share a mutual knowing look, a gesture that is over as soon as it begins.
In a few moments, Connie and Reiner join the rest of the Ambassadors at the table, continuing to chat about the latter's horrible snoring habit as they seamlessly slide into their group's familiar dynamic.
Soon Annie is affixed to Armin again, falling back into her more predictable state of yearning from afar — or in this case, from across the table. The way she looks at him holds enough softness to make it clear who she actually fancies — in Pieck's opinion, anyway.
Meanwhile, Jean seems content to let things be, unbothered by the reality of the situation.
Though he doesn't linger at the table for too long. Instead, he says nothing else as he heads to the stove. Pieck watches his every move, unable to stop herself from noticing his form — long limbs and shapely shoulders, attributes had once served him as a Scout remaining with him as an Ambassador, though nowadays they only ever serve to help him fill out his stuffy collared shirt.
Once Jean notices the percolator on the stove being empty, he lambasts the group for taking it all. And through the chaos Pieck looks Annie's way one more time.
She and Armin are chatting, as he's clearly the only other person on this ship who can conjure some kind of smalltalk from her. They discuss the logistics of their current mission — when the ship will get to their next location and whether their efforts at diplomacy will yield long-lasting results. Annie looks more at ease with Armin, more comfortable around a prettier face and a gentler voice.
And as adorable as it is, as sweet as it seems to see Annie so obviously maintain affection for someone she's known for years by now, Pieck can't stop herself from thinking about the plot suddenly thickening before tucking the thought away for the rest of the day.
The meeting of the Island’s potential allies had gone differently than she expected.
Suddenly she’s thinking of her mother, who all those years ago praised her for being able to receive the mark of their clan on her wrist. She thinks of the symbol appearing on a piece of clothing that the Hizuruans brought over, a sight that had agitated the sense of unease that had permeated her throughout the entire meeting. And she thinks of the shock she felt when she laid eyes on Kiyomi for the first time.
Suffice to say, there were not many highlights of the meeting — except for perhaps for the playful way Historia teased her about showing the mark to Eren and no one else.
When it all becomes too heavy to bear, Mikasa tries to occupy her mind with anything else.
She leans on her soldier duties as a distraction. For once, she wishes that things today were not so lax.
She exits the building that her squad is stationed in — a once-abandoned structure that had been repurposed for the military upon once the land was reclaimed, nestled exactly between Wall Maria and the ocean. The place is situated near a forest and a river, the latter pushing the ever-rotating waterwheel attached to the building. Despite all the repairs made to it in the last few months, it's still a bit dusty and gets uncomfortably drafty at night. However, it’s sturdy enough for the Scout’s purposes — that is, housing several dozen officers while the higher-ups continue to negotiate a deal with the Island’s allies.
Mikasa traverses the outside of the building, having shed her formal uniform for something a little more casual. Her collared shirt and trousers feel a lot more comfortable and far less constricting than what she wore in the meeting. But even now, the weight of everything still lingers on her.
Kiyomi’s words echo in her mind —
“You are Hizuru’s last hope.”
She tries not to think about it too hard as she walks.
At least the task she had been assigned is simple — an easy distraction, but a distraction nonetheless.
First she finds Connie at the stables and tells him to head inside in twenty minutes. She spots Sasha dipping her bare feet in the river and says the same. She then finds Armin sitting in the shade of a tree with a good book and says it yet again.
The final member of her squad, however, proves to be a little more difficult to track down, as Jean appears to have left the vicinity. Neither Connie or Sasha seem to know where he is, though he couldn’t have gone far on foot.
It’s only when Armin says something about Jean taking a walk downstream that Mikasa gets a clue and begins on her way.
She moves between the forest and river in the direction that it flows. As she walks her eyes drawn to things like how the greens of the trees contrast the blues of the sky or how the sound of rushing water permeates the atmosphere, which she can't deny is calming. It almost makes her forget how warm it is, though the beads of sweat on her forehead tell her otherwise.
The trek is mercifully brisk. Mikasa isn’t too far downstream when she finds him.
She spots him at a curve in the river where the water slows on its journey to the sea. Nearby is a tree providing a hefty amount of shade over the bank — sitting by the trunk of said tree is a pile of discarded clothes and a vacant pair of leather shoes.
Mikasa looks at the water and sees Jean below the shimmering surface. For a moment she watches him move, easily navigating between both sides of the river like it's what he was born to do. It's not the first time she had seen Jean swim, as he had been known to ward off the heat of summer by finding the nearest body of water. It's also not the first time she had admired his skill in the craft.
He makes everything look effortless, his longer limbs easily helping him through the water with powerful pulls and kicks. Despite their duty as soldiers never requiring them to swim, she's inclined to believe that Jean's the best at it amongst their squad.
And for a few seconds, Mikasa briefly forgets why she’s here in the first place as she continues to stare at Jean beneath the water. Perhaps in a past life he had been a fish, a river otter, or perhaps even a seal.
Eventually Jean breaks the surface, shaking the droplets out of his hair as he positions himself vertically in the river. He begins treading water as he spots her on the bank. Their gazes meet and the once placid look on his face shifts into that of surprise.
“I was looking for you,” Mikasa greets, her voice stoic, professional.
“Were you now?” Jean retorts, speaking with the kind of playfulness that contrasts her formality. “That’s nice.” He swims to the edge of the bank, reaching towards the land to pull himself up.
Without a second thought, Mikasa steps to the water and extends her hand towards him, which he takes. He’s wet and cold against her touch, but she doesn’t mind.
“Hanji needs all of us back on base,” Mikasa says as she helps him onto dry land.
Jean doesn’t reply right away. Instead he catches his breath after his little mid-afternoon swim and goes to the pile of clothes under the tree.
It’s only now when Mikasa notices his state of undress. He had shed his clothing and opted to swim in his underwear, off-white garments that cover him from his waist to his ankles. Unable to stop herself from looking him up and down, she very briefly notices things like the water droplets sliding down his skin or how he’s beginning to look taller nowadays. A lot taller — not enough to completely tower over her, but enough for her to constantly notice. His once-lanky frame has been filled out through both time and training. She can’t help but find it both admirable and infuriating.
“When?” Jean asks, keeping the conversation going.
"Now—" she answers, then suddenly stops once she catches herself staring at Jean for a little too long. She clenches her fist and faces away from him, forcing her eyes shut as her fingernails dig into her palm. "Now," she answers properly, her eyes fully averted from him.
The lull of silence that follows is longer than she expects, but soon she hears the sound of Jean moving amongst the noise of the river.
“Great,” he says.
Mikasa doesn't know how much time passes before she opens her eyes, momentarily taking in the sight of the water before glancing his way. He's a little more dressed now, having pulled on his trousers and draped his shirt over his shoulders. The latter garment hangs unbuttoned and exposes his chest as he runs a towel through his damp hair.
“How’d that meeting go?” Jean asks.
For the first time today Mikasa is relieved to talk about such matters again.
“It was… fine.”
Jean pauses his motions and eyes her in mild disbelief. “Well, it certainly doesn’t sound fine.”
Unsure what else to say, Mikasa sighs and internally bemoans Jean’s habit of reading her like a book. As he begins to button his shirt, she takes a breath and wills herself to speak.
“Apparently… I’m Hizuru’s last hope.”
His confusion persists. “And Hizuru is…?”
“It’s where my mother—” she starts, then catches herself. “My mother’s family came from. I’m Hizuru’s… heir, I think?”
Jean rolls up his sleeves as his once-befuddled expression slowly morphs into one of concern. “Heir to what now, exactly?"
“I don’t know, it’s…” Mikasa begins, then for a very brief moment lets her eyes wander across the sight of Jean’s exposed torso, noting everything from the slightest hint of chest hair to the lingering dampness from his afternoon dip. Suddenly something inside her tenses — something that feels a lot like the stress she had been holding onto all day, but not quite.
“...it’s a lot to take in,” she finally finishes, her fist clenching just a little bit more.
“I bet,” Jean replies, the heaviness of their reality finally settling into him. His hazel eyes are now wrought with worry. “Shit, do I gotta start calling you ‘My Lady’ or something?”
His words hit her differently, almost like an attack. Parts of her begin to tense even more.
“Jean, don’t,” she warns, her voice low as she stares him down.
His expression softens, but only slightly. He holds his hand up in defeat, his voice becoming playful again.
“My dearest apologies, my Lady.”
Anger flares within her and Mikasa doesn’t hesitate. She finally unclenches her hand abruptly pushes his chest, a motion so succinct yet strong enough that it easily knocks him off his feet, pushing him backwards towards the river.
“Whoa!”
He falls for half a second before hitting the water, clothes and all, and is immediately submerged.
With a huff Mikasa steps away, her frustration continuing to bubble inside of her.
"The audacity…" she thinks as she begins her journey back to base, feeling not a single regret as she walks.
The sound of the river fills her senses again, something that still manages to calm her despite the stress of the day. In the midst of it all she hears what seems to be Jean resurfacing, soon followed by what is surely his laughter.
She sighs, but realizes that despite all odds, at least someone's getting something positive out of her predicament.
She sits on the edge of the bathtub, trying not to wince too loudly as she removes her footwear and sets it aside. The damage is not as bad as it could be, yet the redness on top of both her feet hurts just a little more now than when she first noticed it. The only unburnt skin are the parts that the straps of her sandals mercifully protected, but that isn't saying much.
The bathroom floor is cold as her soles rest against it. As Mikasa brushes a strand of hair from her face, her fingers graze her forehead and feel the slightest bit of warmth. Despite having ducked indoors nearly an hour ago, the heat of the sun has yet to fade from her skin.
She glances at Jean, who is standing in front of the sink. He finds a bottle of bright green gel with words like “Aloe,” “Soothing,” or “After-Sun” printed on the label.
“You don't have to do this,” Mikasa brings up yet again, though no part of her is interested in actually telling him to stop.
Jean shakes his head and glances upwards to the mirror, their gazes meeting in the reflection.
“It's fine,” he insists as he turns around.
The space of their shared bathroom has always been tight, which can be contributed to the size of their Montreal walk-up. His broad frame looks awkward in the room from this angle, but perhaps that has to do with her having never perched on the tub's edge as Jean plays doctor.
After a few short steps he's in front of her, kneeling down to her sun burnt feet as he squirts a dollop of aloe gel onto his hands.
“Does it still hurt?” he asks.
“A little bit.”
Jean doesn't waste time from there, very briefly rubbing the gel between his fingers before applying it to her right foot.
His touch doesn't make her flinch as much as she expects, though the hands she rests on the edge of the tub tense up, squeezing the porcelain as if it were clay. He's gentle as he spreads the gel over her burn, holding her with the care he uses when handling a paintbrush or running sticks of charcoal over a sketchbook.
When Jean finishes with the right, he grabs the green bottle yet again and squeezes another dollop of gel onto his hands. As he applies it on her left foot with the same kind of sweetness, with the care and thought of any loving boyfriend who is far less prone to burning than his partner.
As he works, the tip of his thumb touches the bottom of her foot in a way that makes her gasp, her fingers grasping on the tub's edge just a little tighter.
His eyes meet hers, making Mikasa wonder if the agitation is visible on her face. She takes a breath to collect herself, internally blaming her reaction on ticklishness and nothing else, surely.
Her grip on the tub’s edge loosens as a smirk sneaks onto Jean’s face.
“Everything alright?” he asks, playful.
“I’m fine,” Mikasa insists, determined to not dignify the teasing tone in his voice with anything more than that.
Jean is unconvinced, the friskiness in his smile not entirely disappearing as he finishes his task.
July Prompts
9. Beach
ao3.
Set in a lil Modern AU because why not?
Lately their lives had been hectic — an endless cycle of work, work, and even more work. What little downtime they have is scantily sprinkled over their existence, the slightest spice of life that prevents things from becoming too monotonous.
As of now overtime hasn’t completely destroyed him, yet Porco is cognizant of the ache that accumulates within his joints after spending the week digging around the engines of vintage cars, in which he'll tinker away and curse Cadillac engineers of the 1960s for this goddamn design.
Pieck gets off easier at her office gig, a job that requires nothing more than sitting on her ass and organizing spreadsheets for eight hours straight. It’s manageable and keeps the lights in her downtown apartment on, but it’s far from perfect. There’s something about her manager’s insistence that she reach a certain quota by a certain time that grates on her, gradually manifesting in a restless feeling that clings to her being and refuses to let go.
So their little corner of the patio becomes their safe haven, a place where it’s just them, a pitcher of lager, and various other patrons. It’s a release from Pieck’s office life, a place where her stuffy old blazer can lounge carelessly on the back of her chair. It’s a reminder that there’s more colour in the world than that gnarly shade of gray reminiscent of the keyboard at her work computer.
The establishment is a local watering hole on the east side of Victoria, a place that felt new and trendy twelve years ago but has finally settled into the city. The interior is adorned with old neon signs that look older than time itself, as well as numerous framed photographs of random people that Pieck supposes are famous, but can’t recognize one bit.
But the age of the place and the price of the pints isn’t what Pieck enjoys the most. As she sips her glass of happy hour lager, she finds that what she admires about the pub is the view of Oak Bay.
With the beach in sight and the warmth of late spring lingering in the air, Pieck feels at peace. She doesn't know exactly which direction she's facing, but every glance to the line where sky meets sea makes her envision either the San Juan Islands or Port Angeles in the distance.
The contentment in heart is almost enough to distract her from just how loud the venue actually is. With Thursday apparently being the bar’s monthly karaoke night, the sound of someone earnestly attempting a rendition of a Simple Plan song flows from the open door and onto the patio, the noise only occasionally overtaking that of Porco’s talking voice.
Mid-sip Pieck hears the singer try his best at hitting a high note, yet can’t quite stick the landing. A sudden smile comes to her face, which in turn makes her nearly choke on her drink in a way that makes Porco laugh.
She doesn’t even bother rolling her eyes as she dabs her mouth with a napkin.
“Sorry it’s so loud,” Porco apologizes, managing to be heard over the dreadful singing.
“No, no, it’s alright,” Pieck insists. “I’ve been looking forward to this all week, so it’s all good.”
Porco raises an eyebrow, but in a playful kind of way reminiscent of when they were young. “Really? Got nothing else to look forward to?”
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Pieck scoffs. She takes another sip of lager. “There’s only so much office work you can do before you feel like selling everything you own and hiding in Tofino for a month.”
In the span of a second, Pieck witnesses Porco contemplate the idea before his playful expression softens.
“Not a bad place to be, actually…” he remarks, shrugging.
And for a moment, Pieck lets herself envision it — the road trip from Victoria to the west side of Vancouver Island, the drive through the evergreens and along the ocean, and the smile on her best friend’s face as he stands at the beach on the edge of the Pacific.
It’s a tantalizing dream, but it doesn’t take long for Pieck to come back to earth.
“It’s expensive as shit though,” she reminds, and to that Porco finally rolls his eyes.
He doesn’t entertain her with more of a response, instead opting to fill his pint glass with the last bits of lager at the bottom of the pitcher. As he takes another sip, Pieck’s eyes linger on him for longer than she intends.
He looks the same as she last saw him, though perhaps a little more tired. His hair is still styled in that dumb slick-back of his, tawny strands neatly gelled in place, and his face is clean shaven — details that paint a portrait of prettiness despite the slightest bits of grime clinging to his t-shirt. Sometimes it’s hard for Pieck to imagine that a man with such impeccably trimmed fingernails spends all day elbow-deep in the guts of vintage cars, vehicles that only the wealthiest of Vancouver Island residents could afford.
Pieck finishes her last sip before glancing back to the pub’s open door. She eyes the man standing atop the venue's stage, a place usually reserved for live music, but is instead bestowed to those drunk enough to belt Simple Plan at the top of their lungs. She wonders just how many drinks the burly blond fellow has had on a Thursday night, then decides that it’s funnier to imagine that he’s barely half a beer in.
She looks back to Porco and asks, “Don’t you wish you were up there?”
He immediately shakes his head, putting his glass down. “Oh, I’m not nearly drunk enough for that.”
Pieck tilts her head to the side, interpreting Porco’s words as not a refusal, but a challenge.
“Really?” she asks, the gears turning in her head.
The slightest hint of fear enters his eyes, a sight she had not seen ever since they were teenagers and she convinced him that cliff-diving at midnight was definitely a good idea.
“Yes, really,” Porco insists. Though a part of him seems to rise to challenge — his back straightens as a confident glow enters his expression.
Fortunately for her — but not for him — Pieck doesn’t back down. At least, not that easily.
She looks aside and spots a server walking by, practically beaming as she waves them down.
“Excuse me! Hi, could we get another one of these?” Pieck asks, gesturing to the empty pitcher.
Annie Leonhardt. Jean Kirschtein.
Friends With Benefits. Late-Night Meet-Ups. Early Morning Conversations.
Modern AU.
2238 words.
(ao3.)
Their arrangement is very straightforward — the only variable is usually where they spend the night.
Because Jean lives on-campus and is constantly surrounded by various other student athletes, not just members of the swim team. Meanwhile, Annie’s situated a little further west and is a twenty minute subway ride from U of T. She shares an overpriced corner of High Park North with a tennis teammate who also couldn’t stand the chaos of the athletics dorm.
Annie doesn’t know why Jean prefers reconvening at her place instead of his. Perhaps it has something to do with Annie’s housemate being gone most of the time — because in contrast to her, Hitch seems determined to enjoy all the partying that her gloomy roomie unfailingly shirks.
So on an evening like every other, Annie's phone buzzes with a text and finally gives her an excuse to stop studying. She drops her organic chemistry homework for a minute to answer a very urgent message.
Jean: u up?
Annie: yes
Jean: can i come by?
Annie: yes
Jean: are u only capable of using monosyllabic answers?
Annie: no
Jean: lol be there soon
Annie: great
And in twenty minutes he’s knocking at her door.
When she opens it Jean is standing in the hallway with a well-worn gym bag over his shoulder, the parka protecting him from cold looking just as battered. She lets him into her abode and he smiles down at her all scruffy, tawny-haired, and way too confident for his own good. She guesses that the cocky look on his face is meant to be friendly, inviting, or alluring, yet she can’t stop herself from rolling her eyes.
The apartment is as messy as always. Despite how often Jean visits, Annie instinctively tosses some old napkins and take-out containers into the trash, as a part of her is surprisingly embarrassed for him to see how she and Hitch live.
He puts his bag and jacket on a chair, his navy blue hoodie sticking out against the beige and white walls of the main space. And it's only now, as his much taller frame walks through the apartment, that Annie is reminded that the place may not feel like a shoebox to her, but does so for everyone else.
Jean makes his usual smalltalk, opting to slip into his native French like he always does, knowing that she’ll do the same. Maybe that’s another benefit of their arrangement — the ability to talk with another Quebecer, as there are surprisingly few of them on-campus. She and Jean have certainly come a long way from Laval and Trois-Rivières.
He asks how class has been and she replies that it’s always difficult juggling a biochemistry degree and tennis training. She doesn’t even bother to act interested in what he’s saying, as the life of civil engineering majors hasn’t interested her then and probably never will.
Instead she goes to the fridge as he talks about an upcoming swim meet, grabbing a beer from the back that she knows Hitch will not miss. She tosses the can his way before taking one for herself, even though a few sips of shitty Canadian lager will barely cause a buzz.
They drink for a bit, not even bothering to sit or get comfortable. Annie leans against a wall, taking slow sips of watery beer as she listens to Jean detail some nonsense about optimal backstroke technique. Meanwhile he remains standing — gesturing with his beer hand as his voice barely overshadows the sound of Toronto traffic just outside the window.
He looks unchanged from when she last saw him, though the stubble on his face looks a little closer to a full beard, adding an extra sense of ruggedness where there was plenty before. Perhaps the stress of studying and training has taken time out of his manly grooming routine.
Annie is barely halfway through her beer before she puts the can down and approaches Jean. She cuts him off by getting on her tip-toes and pressing her lips to his.
And like always, Jean kneels down and kisses her back.
They talk not with words, but through touches and caresses and the way his lips will nuzzle the perfect spot on her neck and make her toes curl. The warmth between them increases with each passing second, his fingers undoing the bun in her hair as his beard tickles her cheek. She holds him tightly, her hands roaming the breadth of his back before squeezing the material of his sweater.
Perhaps what drives her forward is not the unadulterated passion or insatiable lust she’s seen in movies, but instead a mutual feeling between them — an itch that needs to be scratched, a deed that needs to be done.
And it’s all business from there.
Wordlessly, he lifts her into his arms, an effortless action that allows her to wrap her legs around his waist as he carries her to the bedroom, their kiss unbroken.
He shuts the door with his free hand before helping her onto the bed, his face buried in her hair as his soft sighs caress her ear. Annie leans back, letting her back meet the mattress as she pulls Jean down with her.
Her hands continue to tug at his clothes, pulling his sweater and shirt over his head and letting both garments hit the floor.
And it’s only now when Jean breaks their kiss, briefly stopping to work at his pants. Annie’s eyes linger on the sight of his bare torso and shoulders — he’s as lean and well-muscled as every other varsity swimmer, long limbs and a broad chest creating a familiar shape, smooth slabs of muscle like the clay of a sculpture. She notices things like the faded scar on his collarbone or the slightest hints of hair on his chest, tiny details she’s learned to associate with him.
Jean grumbles and shuffles back until he’s standing at the foot of her bed. He undoes his belt properly and begins to inch his pants down.
“Slowly,” she suddenly speaks, like a demand.
Jean eyes her quizzically, then after a few seconds his playful smile returns to his face. He complies, now removing his clothes at a far more leisurely place.
Annie sits up and keeps watching him. He takes his sweet time moving his pants downwards, acutely aware that she’s watching his every motion. Once the garment is on the ground his briefs follow and soon he’s standing naked in her room, erect and standing at attention.
The smirk on his face doesn’t fade away as he steps forward, rejoining her on the bed and greeting her with another kiss. His beard grazes her cheek, her finger nails rake across his back and shoulders, and the weight on the mattress begins to shift.
And things continue from there.
…
…
…
There’s always a quietness whenever they spend the night together — the calm after the storm, the lows after the highs.
When she opens her eyes her limbs feel like lead, a distinct lethargy imbued within her every fiber. She doesn’t know what time it is, but a quick glance to the gap in the curtains at the window shows her a cloudy sky.
Before she gets up to face the rest of her day, Annie sucks in a breath and turns until she’s on her back. She’s accustomed to the silence of her room, to being accompanied by only the muffled sound of the city and the sight of the ceiling above her bed. But if the way Jean’s shoulder touches hers is any indication, Annie is not alone.
She looks aside to see him asleep on his stomach, his hair a dishevelled mess and his face half-pressed against a pillow. He looks peaceful as he sleeps, barely even fidgeting. His larger frame takes up more space on the queen-sized bed than she’s used to, his long limbs causing his feet to awkwardly hang off the edge of the mattress.
Annie watches him like he’ll slip through her fingers at a moment’s notice, not thinking about how long she lets herself do so. It’s not until Jean begins to stir and open his eyes that she finally says what’s on her mind.
“You don’t usually spend the night."
Their gazes meet, his eyes still heavy with sleep. “Sue me,” he retorts, his usual snark slipping back into his voice.
As satisfied as she is with their arrangement, it never takes long for Jean’s actual personality to rear its ugly head — what was once a window for passion and pleasure is now the most punchable face on U of T’s varsity swim team.
Jean sighs as he rolls onto his back, the bed shifting underneath his weight. Annie’s a little bit quicker to move, sitting up as he rubs his tired face.
The sheets fall off her, yet she is unbothered by the chill against her skin. She sits on the edge of the bed and spots Jean’s hoodie on the floor, promptly grabbing it as she stands. She pulls it on and the hem of the garment goes down to her knees, making her grumble. She doesn't know what annoys her the most — Jean's awkwardly long torso or the fact that she's never experienced a growth spurt.
Annie turns to see Jean moving as well. He slips out of the sheets, a meek, embarrassed expression very briefly coming onto his face. He quickly sits on the opposite edge of the bed, not a single stitch on him. Something catches Annie’s eye.
“Are you—”
“It’s morning,” Jean cuts her off, defensive. He puts a hand over himself. “When’s Hitch coming back?”
Annie shrugs as she puts her hair up in its usual bun. “I don’t fucking know.”
“Great,” Jean decides, standing up. “I’m using your shower.”
He exits the bedroom, not even bothering to grab his clothes off the floor. Annie watches him as he goes, her gaze lingering on him as he walks throughout her apartment in the buff. For a moment she wonders just how desensitized she’s become to looking at him naked, morning wood included.
They fall into a weird kind of routine, wherein Jean heads to the bathroom and a very groggy Annie walks out into the main living space, where the kitchen and living room meld into one.
She begins making coffee, yet can’t stop herself from watching him enter the bathroom. Through the slightly ajar door she sees him yawn as he steps into the shower.
Annie pours grounds into the machine as the sound of water against tile fills the echoes within the unit’s walls. As she works she catches sight of the gap in her curtains, making her imagine someone across the street glancing at her apartment at just the right time to see an undressed Jean exiting the bedroom — she wonders if the ensuing sight would shock or amuse them.
Once the coffee is brewing Annie heads to the bathroom.
Jean is standing underneath a stream of water behind a pane of glass, mindlessly cleaning himself as Annie looks at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair is an utter disaster and the bags underneath her baby blues tell an entire story on their own — one of all-nighters, tiring tennis sessions, and restless evenings where sleep seems to evade her at every chance.
Avoiding her gaze, she turns on the sink and washes her face with lukewarm water.
“Where does Hitch go all night?” Jean asks.
Annie finally looks aside. She notices things like the tap being set to “cold,” the droplets slowly streaming down his skin, and Jean reaching for her clearance-section body wash. As per usual, he avoids Hitch’s more pricier, floral-scented stuff.
“Probably seeing someone,” Annie answers.
Jean rubs a pump of body wash into a lather and begins running it over his skin. “The bowlcut guy?”
She shakes her head. “No, someone else.”
“Who?”
She shrugs as she pats her face dry. “Some football player.”
“What’s his name?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Because I might know him.”
Annie scoffs, wondering why Jean even bothers with small talk. “Reiner,” she eventually answers. “She has a type.”
Jean chuckles as he rinses off, soon turning off the tap and sliding back the shower door. There’s an air of playfulness as he grabs a towel off a nearby hook, which Annie must assume has to do with the fact that he’s still quite naked.
He runs the towel over his skin and steps forwards until there’s barely a foot of space between them, mere inches. The notion makes her tilt her head upwards to meet his eyes, far more than she usually needs to.
Annie always knew that she was short — five feet even on a good day, as Hitch would often say. It’s only in moments like this where Jean absolutely towers over her. That playful, cocky smirk of his returns to his handsome face. She wonders if whether it's meant to be playful or annoying in this context.
“And what type is that?” Jean asks, looking a little more gloriously punchable than he usually does.
A moment of silence passes as Annie tries not to notice the droplets moving down his broad, bare torso. Looking him in the eye becomes a struggle.
“...tall,” she eventually answers.
Jean chuckles as finally he wraps the towel around his waist. “You’re one to talk.”
Daily Routines. Typical Toronto Traffic. Skating Lessons.
Figure Skating AU.
3422 words.
(ao3.)
Things are different now. Not just because they’ve made things official — years of awkwardly circling each other finally culminating into something — but because they’re no longer juniors.
Nowadays the elements they perform have to match up to those who’ve been skating senior for years — whether it be Armin’s step sequence or Annie’s triple axel, Annie’s layback spin or Armin's signature quad toe—triple toe combination. Nowadays a popped lutz or salchow feels more heavy, more dire. Two-footed landings or spins that never seem to go beyond a level four seem to bring forth more consequences.
But nonetheless, they find a way to carry on.
Mornings are simple and straight forward — in which Annie hits the snooze button and proceeds to stare up at the ceiling thinking about how tired she is, all while Armin gently snores beside her.
Armin only wakes after Annie gets out of bed and begins making coffee. He trudges into the kitchen just as she tosses pre-ground beans into the machine because she can’t be bothered to buy an actual grinder. Armin will make breakfast out of whatever they can find in their fridge as Annie tries to rub the remnants of sleep from her eyes.
They chat as they work around each other, usually about shows they’ve watched, new restaurants they’d like to try, or whatever’s going on between the Leafs and the Canadiens now. They try not to discuss work, but on the cusp of the upcoming season the topic of their Grand Prix assignments is inevitable.
Armin’s tackling Skate America and the Grand Prix of Finland, competitions that will bring him to Lake Placid and Helsinki specifically. Meanwhile, Annie has Skate Canada and the Cup of China. While the former will only cost her a train ride to Montreal, the latter is bringing her all the way to Chongqing. As she stirs sugar into her coffee, she already dreads the inevitable plane ticket costs.
The upside is that Skate Canada will give her an excuse to visit her hometown, to hop the river to Laval and visit her old man. Maybe even stroll by her childhood rink if she has the time.
The two eat breakfast in silence before preparing for the rest of their day. Annie wonders just when she’ll find the time to clean her dirty skates as she loads them into her bag, the once white leather now covered in a medley of dark scuffs. In contrast, Armin packs a lot lighter, leaving his boots and roller bag in the closet as he slips a water bottle into his backpack.
The last thing Annie does before leaving the apartment is pour a hefty serving of coffee into her travel mug. Once that’s done she and Armin are both out the door.
Throughout the brief elevator ride she sees her and Armin’s reflections in the mirrors on the walls. She takes note of certain things like his blond bangs obscuring the deadened look in his eyes or her usual bun looking particularly unruly.
They go their separate ways once the elevator reaches the lobby. Armin kisses Annie goodbye just after the door opens, pecking her cheek.
“I’ll see you later,” he says like a promise.
And as pressed-for-time as she is, Annie lets herself watch him until he disappears out the building’s front door. Once he’s gone she presses another button and lets the lift take her to the car park below.
The drive from Scarborough to North York is uneventful, Annie periodically sipping her coffee the whole way. By now the sun is just starting to rise, bringing the Toronto skyline into view so it can greet her like an old friend.
Early-morning radio does little to keep her awake, so instead she lets her thoughts drift and ponder as to what Armin might be doing now. She can already imagine him on the crowded Toronto subway, sitting next to a stranger with his headphones jammed over his ears, listening to the music for this season’s programs. His commute to physio is accompanied by sweeter, more youthfully earnest excerpts of Mahler's Symphony No. 5.
Meanwhile she’s here, alone in her old Toyota as the sound of talk radio mixes with that of typical GTA traffic.
Things seem to change once she pulls into the rink’s parking lot. As she makes her way across the concrete, she is no longer concerned with her significant other, the ungodly hour, or just how long she’ll last until she needs more coffee. Instead her mind is preoccupied by thoughts of axels and lutzes and loops.
…
…
…
As to be expected, her session is difficult. Coach Zeke never holds back, managing to find the perfect balance between pushing her to her limits and keeping her from the point of utter exhaustion.
On top of her Grand Prix assignments, she has a few more Challenger events to attend. Third place at the Cranberry Cup is a much better result than both she and Zeke could have asked for, but even with Nebelhorn awaiting her in a week’s time there’s still plenty of work to be done.
So she works on her loop, an element that she’s struggled with ever since she began jumping triples.
At least her lutz has never let her down, even on the days where she two-foots her triple axel landing or stumbles during a step sequence. As Annie glides across the rink, the ever-present Coach Zeke in the corner, she unfailingly finds her back outside edge and drives her toe pick into the ice, effortlessly propelling herself through the air and completing all three turns before landing.
When she’s done running through all her planned jumps for both her programs, she meets Zeke at the edge of the ice and he gives his honest feedback. With him fully sold on her idea to have White Swan inspired short and a Black Swan inspired free, the biggest thing he grills her on is her combinations.
As clean as her lutz is, Zeke is dead set on using her trickier triple lutz-triple salchow combo for the short, utilizing her more consistent triple lutz-triple toe in the latter half of the free. In regards to her triple axel, he deems the hardest jump as better off uncombined.
She listens and nods along, motivated by both the faith she has in her coach and by how unwilling she is to argue at this ungodly hour.
By the end of the session Annie is exhausted and she’s not sure if it’s because her coffee hasn’t fully kicked in or because she fell on her salchow landing. She chugs what remains in her travel cup as she makes her way to the change room.
She chats with Hitch as her fellow rinkmate stretches. Sprawled on the floor in a full split, Hitch very casually discusses how Annie should really consider switching from Coach Zeke to Coach Nile — her testament to the latter’s skill being how quickly her triple flip—double toeloop combo has been improving.
Annie listens, but only half-heartedly. As she unlaces her skates and takes in the noise of Hitch’s usual smalltalk, the only thing on her mind is how quickly she can find her next source of caffeine.
She leaves the change room with her bag slung over her shoulder, passing Porco and Pieck on the way. The pairs skaters are currently using the rink’s hallway to practice one of their lifts, Porco’s hand on Pieck’s waist as he carries her into the air with one arm and effortlessly keeps her aloft.
“Morning, Annie!” Pieck greets in a chipper tone.
Annie looks up to see her rinkmate literally looking down on her, the darker haired girl smirking playfully as her partner holds her in the air.
“Morning,” Annie replies in a dull, tired voice. Even now her voice sounds gravely, as she's really had no good reason to speak until now. She continues to make her way towards the door. “See you later.”
The sun is fully in the sky by the time Annie gets back to her car. She sits in the driver’s seat as she checks her phone for the first time in a while, as Zeke’s ‘No-Phones-At-Practice’ rule has no exceptions.
As to be expected, Armin had sent her multiple pictures of his day as if to document the whole thing — pictures of his physio clinic’s waiting room captioned with a joke about the vertebrae in his lower back, his second subway ride to York University’s campus, and the coffee he picked up somewhere in between. How Armin manages to juggle training and a biology degree has always eluded Annie, but then again she has very similar thoughts as to how he manages to land the majority of his quad combinations.
Lunch at a nearby diner goes by in a flash, wherein Annie eats a chicken sandwich with small bites and scrolls aimlessly through her phone. Post-practice is usually when she browses the endless stream of brainrotting, algorithmically curated social media posts, anything to just feel something.
Annie peruses the various clips and pictures of her fellow figure skaters, not just the ones from the North York Skating Club.
The area ice dancers seem to be in good shape, judging by the clips and pictures posted by the main teams that train at her rink. On one hand, Mikasa and Jean have opted for a medley of Debussy’s works for their free dance, a perfect compliment to their more graceful and balletic way of skating. La Cathédrale Engloutie and Reflets Dans L'eau are not tunes Annie often sees in competition, but perhaps it’s fitting for such a team considering how often she’s heard commentators laud Mikasa and Jean for flowing free like water.
But on the other hand, Sasha and Connie have decided to show off clips of their campy rhythm dance as a prelude to the season, choreography Annie swears she's seen in her high school production of Grease. Apparently, this year’s theme of “50s, 60s, and 70s” felt like it was tailor made for Sasha and Connie.
The last clips Annie checks out are of Historia Reiss, whose recent coaching switch is proving to be fruitful. Her choice to move to Ottawa had shocked their little corner of Toronto, as many were convinced that training under Erwin Smith was fitting for her. But judging by the reel Historia skating in an unfamiliar rink and the ease of which she enters and exits her combined jumps, training under Nanaba Kaspar was one of the best choices she’s ever made.
Annie tries not to think too hard about it as she exits the diner and finds her car again. She tries to enjoy the sun in the sky and not let footage of Historia’s impeccable triple lutz-triple flip combo haunt her for the rest of the day.
Physio goes by quickly as well, Dr. Rheinberger poking and prodding at Annie’s aching muscles like she’s a science experiment. Despite being praised for her soft knee bend, her right one in particular has been aching her ever since she began skating senior. Perhaps it’s a testament of age, despite Annie barely being 21.
Dr. Rheinberger is a small, petite woman, just like Annie, but speaks with the attitude of someone twice her size.
She asks if Annie's been doing all her recommended stretches — to which the skater can only reply with a “Yes,” “No,” or “Kinda.”
The sternness in Dr. Rheinberger’s eyes give Annie the impression that she’s being judged, but she tries not to take it personally.
Annie leaves the clinic with just enough time to make one more stop. The cafe next door is a familiar place where speakers play a constant setlist of steel-string jazz guitar. She buys enough coffee to refill her travel cup and a donut to help her refuel, a treat she nibbles on as she drives back to the rink.
…
…
…
Not once did Annie see herself ever becoming a coach. Yet once afternoon rolls around she’s suddenly bracing herself to explain the ins and outs of crossovers, waltz jumps, and scratch spins.
The whole thing had initially been Pieck’s idea, as her and Porco’s usual teaching gig had necessitated the help of another instructor. Apparently demand for youth skating lessons were at an all time high, as every child in the city seemed keen on chasing their dreams across the ice. Porco and Pieck decided to extend the opportunity to her. For what reason she didn’t know, but perhaps every other broke skater with rent due at the end of the month had better things to do than spend an afternoon chasing children around a dingy rink.
Regardless of how she actually got the job, twice a week children from all around the GTA will file into the North York Skating Club — some excited to be here, others not so much — and Annie will assist the lesson to the best of her abilities.
It helps that Pieck and Porco do most of the talking, often greeting the parents and children with a smile and even helping the little ones pull on their rental skates. It leaves Annie free to chug the rest of her late afternoon coffee before lacing up her dirty-ass boots yet again.
Today Annie works alongside a student named Zofia Zawisza, who resembles Annie in both the shade of her eyes and the shape of her nose, of all things. She is only slightly shorter than Annie despite being half her age, a fact that Annie tries not to let bother her.
Instead she focuses on helping Zofia through her jumps — the girl has a solid single toeloop and salchow, but seems to struggle with her loop, lutz, and flip.
Annie will never admit it, but Zofia happens to be one of her favourite kids to teach, mainly because the younger girl seems genuinely interested in proper technique, as opposed to spending the afternoon causing chaos on the rink. She appears to actually listen to Annie's explanations as to why a deep lutz edge is so important.
In contrast, Porco and Pieck are preoccupied with the rest of the class. Porco makes good use of his pairs skater muscles by picking Falco Grice off the ice, dusting snow off the kid’s knees in the aftermath of yet another failed toeloop. Meanwhile, Pieck is chasing little Gabi Braun down the rink and trying to keep her with the rest of the class.
Considering that school has started up again, Annie isn’t surprised to see certain students in dire need to burn off their pent-up energy. It reminds her of how she was at that age, wherein the endless hours she’d spend at a little classroom in Laval could only be tolerated by the promise of rink time in the afternoon — back then she lived to skate slightly more than she skated to live. And even if the pain of failed toeloops were particularly gruelling, she could usually force herself to the end by the promise of a shitty, watered-down hot cocoa from the concession stand.
Memories of her past fade as Zofia attempts another jump, which she technically lands but not without touching her hand to the ice. The entrance is good with a noticeable back outside edge, but the exit could use some work. Nonetheless, Annie skates over and helps Zofia up, assuring her that she’s on her way to a solid lutz.
Before Annie knows it her ninety minutes of playing coach ends. Soon the parents of the students are either filing back into the rink or getting up from the stands after having watched the lesson from the start. Soon Gabi is leaping off the ice and Falco is awkwardly following. Soon Annie’s telling Zofia to keep practicing off-ice and that she’ll see them next week.
The instructors follow the children as they move off the rink and into the changing area, where their parents kneel on the ground to help them out of their ill-fitting rental skates or hug them after an excellent lesson.
Annie ends up sitting in a corner of the space with Pieck and Porco, who are inevitably as exhausted as she is after a long day of training, physio, and attempting to earn an honest dollar in the expensive sport of figure skating.
…
…
…
1st PASS COMPLETE
The sun begins to set as Annie drives home. Even now she can already sense the days getting shorter, a sign that the remnants of summer will soon disappear and in its place will be fall and winter. Sleep plagues her eyes as she arrives at Scarborough — passing things like the Thai restaurant she and Armin frequent and the cafe they habitually grab croissants from every weekend.
The next few moments go by in a blur, in which the most prominent thought in her mind is whether there’s still some leftover pad see ew in the fridge. She drives into her building's parking garate and pulls into a vacant spot. She grabs her needlessly heavy bag from the car and finds the elevator. The aging duffle filled with her skates and extra sweaters feels heavier than when she packed it this morning.
The elevator ride is slow and through it all Annie lacks the energy to even look at herself in the mirror on the wall. She gets to her floor and walks to her unit, the strap of her bag digging uncomfortably into her shoulder.
Upon opening the door she is greeted by many things — like the darkening Toronto skyline just outside her window, the fancy rug her father gifted her as a housewarming present, and the scent of Armin’s cooking wafting through the apartment.
As Annie sets her bag down and drops her keys in the bowl, the sound of Armin’s voice enters the space.
“Hey!”
“Hi,” she replies, not even bothering to hide her exhaustion at this point. She removes her coat, shoes, and bag and puts them all in the closet. She gets a glimpse of her dirty skates as she closes the door, promising that one day she’ll clean them even if the day is not today.
With her now-empty travel coffee cup in hand, she walks towards the kitchen.
Standing by the stove, Armin is making what appears to be shrimp scampi seasoned with garlic, parsley, and a squeeze of lemon. He seasons the meal with the same kind of dramatic flair she’s seen in the cooking shows he loves so much.
“Hungry?”
“Not really,” Annie says as she places her empty coffee cup into the dishwasher. “I’m gonna shower.”
Armin nods. “I’ll save you some.”
“Thank you.”
A hot, lengthy shower soothes her aching muscles, wherein she washes her hair and runs handfuls of suds over her body. Once she’s done she steps out, dries off, and rubs rose-scented lotion into her skin. Leaving her hair to air dry, she pulls a bathrobe over her frame and exits the bathroom. As she walks to the bedroom she sees Armin settling on the couch for the night, kicking his feet up on the ottoman as yet another cooking show plays on TV.
In the bedroom she changes into sweat pants and an old hoodie she had been gifted years ago, a garment she had picked up at her first Junior Grand Prix Final. It’s always amused her that the old bronze medal she won as a fourteen-year-old now resides in some drawer at her father’s house, yet the free sweater she’d been handed has stayed with her even to this day.
Annie yawns as she returns to the living room, making her way to the couch. She plops herself right next to Armin, easily settling her head on his shoulders as she sighs against his touch. A part of her had missed him all day, a part that only came out when she wasn’t twizzling across the ice or explaining the mechanics behind a loop jump.
On instinct Armin puts his arm around her, holding Annie even closer as he watches footage of a woman in a picturesque French country kitchen cooking pasta with an ungodly amount of olive oil.
“The shrimp’s still in the kitchen if you want it,” Armin offers, his voice a gentle whisper.
Annie shakes her head, instead opting to close her eyes and breathe out. She relaxes for what feels like the first time today.
Despite everything that lies ahead of them — more early morning sessions, more Challenger competitions, and their looming Grand Prix assignments — the rest of their evening continues in peace.
It's at this point of their career that they can both recognize and acknowledge their shortcomings. If their twizzles are out of sync, then Jean will take the blame. If one of them looks bored during the program while the other is utterly entranced by the music, then it's Mikasa who falls short.
Because as much as she tries, she knows she is not as expressive as she could be. Whether the music be a bouncy bit of 80s pop, a classical movement that demands the kind of balletic grace only seen on the most prestigious of stages, or an eloquently composed orchestral suite, more often than not Mikasa’s face will be locked in a look of utter focus.
Which is not bad in itself, as the desire to skate cleanly should take priority over everything else. But when she and Jean move across the ice hand-in-hand — carefully navigating their twizzles, step sequences, and lifts — her habit of being laser-focused on each element has the undesired effect of making her look indifferent, no matter what story is being told through the music and choreography.
So on an average day in the lives of two overworked ice dancers, Mikasa is more conscious of her face than usual.
The third floor dance studio is already hotter than she would like it, the cracked window and the fan in the corner doing little to ease the beads of sweat forming on her forehead. Outside it's a mid-September day, the warmth of summer having yet to fade into autumn. To some it's a reminder that the days of fireworks, lightning bugs, and lakeside hangouts are over, but to her it's just another sign that the competitive season is about to start.
As they practice the elements of their free dance, Mikasa leans towards her partner and Jean brings into his arms like he's been doing so for the last few years, handling her like she's made of glass until they get into position for their straight line lift. Soon she's practically sitting on his shoulder, her legs placed in a way that helps stabilize herself against his torso, like she's affixed to him. As she braces her core, she tries to adjust her facial expression like it's another part of her body.
Their music of choice plays through the studio's speaker, atmospheric strings painting an image of a coastal castle on a cliff's edge, ocean waves lapping at the rocky shore below, and the grey clouds above making the sky look endless. Even though they're not on the ice, Mikasa closes her eyes and imagines the way the wind will whip at her hair when they’re moving for real, like a widow yearning for a love that is lost. She lets herself slip into character, even if for a moment.
Then once it's over she opens her eyes and returns to her reality.
She and Jean transition to their rotational lift, an act that involves practically dropping herself into his arms and letting him catch her with all the care in the world. Jean holds her bridal style as he begins to turn, the soles of his sneakers rapidly tapping on the floor as he does his best to simulate the feeling of spinning on ice.
Once he lets her down and she's on the ground, they progress into their choreographic sequence, in which they move across all ends of the dance studio, either hand-in-hand or with their arms around the other’s shoulders. It's the part of the program where Mikasa can let herself revel in the joy of each movement. She and Jean are good at navigating the characteristics of each step, knowing which to keep balletically beautiful, which to make it seem like Jean’s the marionette and Mikasa’s the puppeteer, and which to enjoy like it’s their last hour as humans before the spell wears off.
Their eyes lock again, and as per the dramatic swelling of the score, Jean reaches to her and his fingertips graze her cheek ever so gently. Through their years of skating she's grown accustomed to the gesture, so much so that she tends to expect that every time Jean would gently stroke her face, he would do so with a loving look in his eyes no matter what the character of the piece may be — like she’s something precious, something to behold.
So the fact that Jean looks disinterested leaves her confused.
But Mikasa doesn’t let herself linger on it, because it's certainly not the strangest thing that's happened to them during a program — besides, she still has nightmares about the great wardrobe malfunction from their first Junior Worlds.
She watches Jean turn around, obscuring his bored look as they go into the next move. She steps close to him, then once she feels his arm snaking around her waist in just the right place she leans back and kicks her leg into the air, letting Jean carry her the rest of the way. The move is reminiscent of a backflip, except is technically classified as a choreo assisted jump and is thus perfectly legal and actually worth putting in their programs.
The jump is over as soon as it begins and Mikasa is on the ground again. The music of their program continues to play. On the rink they are meant to move into their sequential twizzles, an element they have done so many times over the years that they can tell when they’re in sync based on the sound of the blade on the ice.
But the limitations of the dance studio lead to Mikasa and Jean simply stopping in place, their eyes remaining connected despite him not being as expressive as he usually is.
“How’d that feel?” she asks.
Jean shrugs, tired. “Okay.”
She nods along. She’s not sure which event of their day had already drained his energy — the early morning ice session, their hour of physio, or the fact that they’re trying to squeeze in some studio time before spending the rest of their day in the gym. If anything, he's clearly not sleeping as much as he claims to be.
With that in mind, Mikasa says — “I think we should break for lunch.”
Jean looks relieved, exhaling with a smile on his face. “Good idea.” He wipes some sweat off his forehead as he walks towards the edge of the studio.
As Mikasa catches her breath and tries to ignore soreness in her muscles, her eyes are drawn to the other side of the room, where a window shows not a view of Toronto, but a view of the ice rink below. Driven by her curiosity, she walks to the glass to see who's currently having a session.
From above she watches Armin train, a process that involves cleaning up his few quads before the season starts. His lutz is executed and landed competently, but knowing Armin, Mikasa has a feeling that he won't rest until it's as clean as his toe and salchow. As Mikasa watches her old friend glide across the ice, she grows thankful that both he and her (and Jean) have been given Junior Grand Prix assignments at the same competitions. Seeing Armin perform his quads in the wild will certainly be a treat.
On the other side of the rink, Mikasa spots another male singles skater that she's fairly close to. With the help of Coach Zeke and a harness, Eren refines his own quadruple combo. But as fascinating as it is to watch someone with his larger frame launch himself into the air, the sight of Eren eating shit on the ice has unfortunately become a common occurrence.
As Mikasa watches Eren attempt and fumble what's supposed to be a quad toe-double toe, she wonders if he regrets his refusal to be her ice dance partner all those years ago.
When Mikasa hears footsteps coming her way, she turns her aside to see Jean approaching her. For a very brief moment he’s bare-chested, the slightest sheen of sweat visible on his skin. His hands are busy unfurling a cleaner shirt, a garment that had undoubtedly been stuffed to the bottom of his skating bag for god knows how long. She tries to look respectfully as Jean pulls on his clothing, yet her eyes linger on the breadth of his shoulders and chest for just a second, maybe two. He’s always been on the tall, lankier side, but as she looks at him now she notices that parts of him are more defined than she last remembers.
“Lunch is on me today,” she says before she can stare for too long. “What are you feeling?”
Jean adjusts his shirt sleeves as he shrugs. “I could really go for some tacos right now.”
“Sounds good.” Mikasa nods and walks past him, only briefly noticing the girth of his forearms before refocusing her thoughts on something more appropriate.
The two ice dancers gather up their belongings and leave the sweaty dance studio. The chill of the hallway cools their skin the second they step into it. Mikasa checks her watch and notes that they barely have two hours before they are to head to the rink’s gym. The more she thinks about it, the more she sighs and internally dreads the session. Weight room time has never been her favorite part of her craft, but at least Coach Mike is nice when he asks them to perform some kind of strange, awkward unilateral stabilization exercise.
As Mikasa and Jean walk, another duo of skaters enter the hallway from the other end. Pieck Finger and Porco Galliard, also known as the rink’s top pairs team, strut through the space like they own it. In contrast to the ice dancers who just spent the last hour practising their complicated lifts, Pieck and Porco look rather chipper, a telltale sign that they probably don’t have a conditioning session scheduled today.
As the pairs and ice dance teams pass each other in the hallway, Mikasa notices Jean and Porco’s gazes meet like two beacons across the sea. If there’s anything these snarky bastards have in common, it’s the color of their hair, similar shades of hazel eyes, and a tendency to exchange barbs the second they see each other.
“Hey, Kirschtein!” Porco says, utilizing his unique ability to make every word he says sound like an insult. “You bulking or what?”
“A little bit.” Jean smirks as he passes his rinkmate by, the teams now walking away from each other and towards opposite ends of the hallway.
But before the ice dancers can slip out of sight, Jean turns around and raises his arm up, making sure that his flexed bicep is visible for Porco’s viewing pleasure. “Creatine helps.”
Porco chuckles as Pieck rolls her eyes, a typical reaction from the two of them. Mikasa takes after her female rinkmate slightly, though has the sense to look away and make sure her partner doesn’t notice her response to his gym bro antics.
Soon the pairs team and the ice dancers leave the hallway, off to attend their own misadventures in figure skating for the rest of the day.
Mikasa remains at Jean’s side as they descend the stairs and arrive at the rink’s concourse, another space that proves to be much cooler than the studio. As they step across the checkered floor tiles and past the overpriced vending machines, Mikasa turns to her partner and speaks.
“No one ever asks me that,” she says in the voice she uses when it's only him and her.
Jean raises an eyebrow. “Ask you what?”
“If I’m bulking… or cutting,” she tells him. To spare herself her own internal musings about how her body looks during the season, she keeps talking. “Whatever you call it. Everyone talks about how you’re getting leaner... or bigger... or shredded... but never me.”
“Idiots,” Jean declares, not wasting a single second. He doesn’t hesitate to step towards his partner and put his arm over her shoulder, a gesture he’s only begun doing recently yet Mikasa has never found a reason to complain. “Let’s eat.”
Mikasa Ackerman. Jean Kirschtein.
Post-Rumbling. Train Rides. Lovesickness. Reunions.
Sequel to before the storm, after the flood.
16416 words.
(ao3.)
Then.
So I Stayed in the Darkness With You.
Like many nights before, Mikasa resides in a restless sleep. The moments where she can keep her eyes shut are merciful, but ultimately she spends most of the night staring up at the ceiling — her body unmoving, her heart heavy like a stone.
And on this night in particular, the presence of another body in the bed does nothing to quell the anxiousness in her soul.
Every once in a while she will glance aside as if Jean will suddenly disappear if she doesn’t.
Shrouded in both darkness and blankets, he is evidently experiencing a more peaceful sleep than she is, the bedding draped comfortably over his frame and his hair messily obscuring his face.
A strange sense of guilt comes upon her every time she looks over. The reality is that she only began sleeping in his space because doing so makes her feel less alone, even if she sticks to her side of the bed and he sticks to his.
For a reason she doesn't even know her heart sinks lower and lower, making her wonder if all her efforts were in vain. A pervasive sense of isolation fills her like a rising tide, reminding her that there may be no point in him being here when his presence barely comforts her.
Mikasa sighs before staring up at the ceiling yet again. She tries to think of the usual things that keep her calm — like her father’s laughter or her mother singing a lullaby on a stormy night, the scent of Auntie Carla’s cooking wafting through the household or the way Uncle Grisha would ruffle her hair whenever he passed her by.
When thoughts of Eren enter her mind, Mikasa can’t help but feel that she’s back to where she started.
She thinks of what was shared between her and Jean mere hours ago, a friendly late-night chess game turned into a tumultuous conversation by the mere mention of the guy. Even now she remembers sensations more than statements, feelings more than words. She recalls a familiar pain forming in her head as she struggled to hold back back tears, as well as an inescapable emptiness forming in her chest.
And even now the distress lingers with her.
But in the midst of her muddled memories, she remembers Jean’s voice — a soothing sound like a warm blanket on a cold night.
“He loved you, did you know that?” she recalls Jean saying, words that her instincts tell her to repeat like a mantra.
When it doesn’t work, Mikasa forces her eyes shut and hides her face on her pillow. She tries to think of anything else Jean had said and her mind settles on —
“Mikasa, I could never hate you.”
The words echo in her mind like a whisper in a cave. Curiously, she opens one eye to spy Jean across the bed — sweet Jean who is here, who is present, and all for the slightest chance that he could bring her peace on such a restless night. She envies the way that he can sleep despite everything.
As tries to breathe and bring herself back to earth, an idea creeps into her mind. It stays there for a moment, floating aimlessly in a sea of turbulent thoughts. Feeling like she’s at her wits end, she only briefly weighs the ups and downs of the notion before deciding to go forth.
Mikasa closes the space between her and Jean, shifting on the bed until her head is resting on his chest, basking in his warmth like he’s her anchor in a storm. From there on she shuts her eyes and listens to his heartbeat until she falls asleep.
…
…
…
In the morning she wakes to a quiet room. She’s still entangled with him, her legs entwined with his and her hair spilling across his torso in every direction. His heartbeat continues to soothe her like the world’s sweetest lullaby.
And the warmth between them is still there.
When Mikasa opens her eyes she wonders if Jean had awoken at any point during the night. As her eyes adjust in the dark room and the faintest hints of sunlight at the edge of the curtains, she can recall something akin to a hand on her head and fingers playing with her hair. The memories aren’t clear enough though, just fuzzy enough to be a dream.
But instead of dwelling on the thoughts for too long, she reminds herself to move.
She presses a brief kiss to Jean’s chest — just above his heart — and detangles herself from him. The air is cold against her skin the second she leaves the bed.
With haste, she leaves the bedroom before he can truly wake.
…
…
…
Breakfast isn’t as awkward as she expects.
As per usual she clings to Armin’s side, stirring milk into her tea as he rambles to his heart’s desire. He talks about things that do not pertain to the Peace Talks, recalling passages of the book he read on the ship ride here. As he speaks, the rest of the Ambassadors engage in their usual morning habits.
She hears bits of banter exchanged over pots of hot coffee, bowls of warm oatmeal, and platters of fried sausages. Pieck and Annie had evidently spent the night playing some kind of card game that led to a certain sum of money being lost, whereas Reiner and Connie had spent theirs with a wine bottle snagged from one of the palace’s kitchen. And throughout the discussion of the headache Reiner will be experiencing in their next meeting, Mikasa keeps expecting to hear a familiar voice.
But it never comes.
Once in a while she’ll glance aside and observe the rest of the table. Jean sits at the furthest end, taking slow sips of his coffee as his friends talk over him. His hair is unbrushed and unkempt, his chin resting in his hand as he tries not to look too exhausted.
Their eyes never meet when she looks his way, yet she can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking about. She guesses that he didn’t even notice her spending the night asleep on his chest, and even if he did perhaps the details were so hazy that he could deem it all a dream. The instances of his fingers playing in her hair could have easily been reflex, nothing more.
The ordeal bothers her in a way she can’t explain. She grasps her teacup hard, trying to ignore the heat in her face as the rest of the Ambassadors have a normal breakfast. Suddenly she can’t eat, the toast on her plate remaining untouched as her stomach becomes tied up in knots.
To distract herself, she tries to focus on either Armin’s voice or the many others being thrown around the dining hall. She half-listens to her beloved friend discussing his book, then half-listens to the other Ambassadors mentioning how Nora Springer and Arielle Kirschtein will be visiting the palace today. And through it all — through every look that makes her clench her hand into a fist underneath the table — she finds that no amount of glancing Jean’s way will quell the unease that plagues her from within.
…
…
…
Now.
Reunions and Departures.
Jean Kirschtein sits on a bench in the midst of a port town. The sun is shining, the air is crisp, and both the sound of the sea and citizens bustling about fills his ears.
On the ground is both a rucksack filled with enough clothes for a week-long trip and the companion he couldn’t possibly make the journey without. Hugo naps at his master’s feet while the two wait, opting to pass the time by squeezing in a few more minutes of sleep.
As per usual Jean keeps his head low, a habit he tends to rely on in public, even there's really nothing to hide from. With the hood of his field jacket over his head he balances a leather-bound sketchbook on his knee, using nothing but his trusty fountain pen to draw the town’s busiest street.
Every few seconds he glances up from the page, briefly taking in the market stands, cobblestones, and three-storey apartment buildings before looking down to ink them with strong, deliberate strokes. Pedestrians rush around him like a river, leaving him with little time to detail the few people he does include in his piece.
Every few seconds, Jean will observes his creation as he waits for the ink to dry. It’s imperfect, smudged in a few corners and messily composed in others, yet he already anticipates the moment where he can sit down with his other materials and properly colour the piece. As of now he’s still not sure if he should use his trusty old paintbox or the tin of coloured pencils at the bottom of his rucksack.
Jean is just about to check the time on his pocket watch before a familiar voice enters his atmosphere, though not the one that he had been expecting.
“Jehan?”
His stomach drops, the sound of that particular voice agitating him like a sudden ripple in a stagnant lake. He looks to Hugo, who is no longer napping and now sitting up, his tail happily moving back and forth.
Taking in a wary breath, Jean glances upwards and braces himself to acknowledge a part of his new life he thought he had left behind.
“Hi, Loena,” Jean greets.
It had been mere months since he last saw her, but that moment might as well be a lifetime ago. Her fiery hair is longer than when he last saw it, the loose strands now reaching the mid-point of her back. Her impeccably clean purple jacket neatly fits her slender frame and gives her an air of opulence that almost feels out of place so close to the sea.
The expression on her face is more neutral than he expects, almost apologetic — making him wonder how he must look on her end.
Before either of them can speak, the sound of high-pitched happy-squealing enters the space between them.
Jean glances down to Hugo, who is now very excited to be around Loena again. The occurrence is very predictable, yet Jean can’t stop himself from sighing, exasperated.
Like most human beings, the sight of the dog causes Loena to smile and kneel down, where she immediately begins petting the canine between the ears. For a dog initially bred for war, Hugo is certainly fond of getting head pets.
“Hello again, Hugo,” she says softly, gladly giving the dog all the affection he deserves.
The sight is sweet, too sweet — but it’s not enough to stop Jean from cutting to the chase.
“What are you doing here?” he asks in lieu of a proper greeting.
“I should ask you the same thing,” Loena replies, looking up to meet his eyes. “Seb said he hasn’t seen you in weeks.”
Jean lets out the kind of polite chuckle best used to mask discomfort, a staple from his Ambassador days.
“Yeah, well… I’ve been busy,” he tells her, smiling half-heartedly.
“More commissions?” Loena guesses.
“That and… other stuff.”
Jean isn’t sure how much he should tell her, as nothing he could say would make this reunion any less awkward. In an attempt to quash the tense, sickly feeling now brewing inside of him, he inhales and closes his sketchbook a little harder than he usually does.
“I’m actually waiting for someone, so…”
“It’s fine, I have to be somewhere, too,” Loena says, unbothered. She stops petting the dog and stands, her hands now clasped in front of her.
For a moment neither of them speak. With all the things that had changed in his life in the last few weeks alone, Jean can’t think of the right words. Truth be told, it had been a while since someone called him “Jehan” in such a personal way, a name he had nearly forgotten until Loena brought it back to him.
“Jehan…” Loena begins. There’s something rueful in her emerald eyes as she looks at him. “I just wanted to say that I’m trying to patch things up with my husband, and… Oh. ”
Jean sees her notice something to his left and looks in the same direction.
The sight of Mikasa standing on the cobblestones does nothing to ease the nervous knot inside of him — in fact, something about her presence intensifies it. She is bundled in Jean’s navy fisherman sweater and black overcoat, garments that are threadbare enough to make him wonder why she asked to borrow them in the first place. Her very sweet face holds a rather intense expression as she eyes Loena.
“Hello,” the redhead greets, seemingly unbothered by the look on Mikasa's face. “Are you a friend of Jehan’s?”
“I am,” the taller woman confirms, nodding.
As she steps forward she gives Jean a knowing glance, something that makes him suck in a shaky breath and squeeze his hand into a fist. In a way it’s like a collision of worlds, a part of his old life meeting a part of his new one — however, nothing about the seemingly-friendly air between two ladies can stop Jean from wishing he could dive into the ocean and never return. Perhaps he'd be better off living the rest of his days amongst the sea urchins.
“I’m Mikasa,” she introduces, keeping the conversation going. She even manages a smile as she shakes hands with the redhead. “Let me guess… you’re Loena?”
Loena grins back, looking up slightly to meet Mikasa’s eyes. “How did you know?”
“Jea—” Mikasa starts, then stops to correct herself. “Jehan… told me a lot about you. He… he said you had red hair.”
Loena lets out a laugh that sounds as light as air. “That I do.”
On instinct, Jean reaches over to pet Hugo, something that usually calms him yet his stomach still feels like a bottomless pit.
“Uh… I wish I could stay and chat, but I really have to get going,” Loena insists, her smile looking increasingly more forced. “Suppose I’ll see you two in town then.”
“We’re actually leaving,” Mikasa answers a little more quickly than Jean expects.
When he looks her way he can already tell that she didn’t intend for the words to come out so abruptly.
“On a trip,” Mikasa adds, taking a brief breath to regain herself. “Together.”
At a loss for words in a way he never thought he would be, Jean nods along and continues to pet Hugo. When he looks back to Loena he can see the revelation slowly settling into her.
“Oh,” she says, almost sounding disappointed. She looks at Jean, smiling politely once more. “And here I thought you’d be locked up in that cottage forever. I’ll let you two go then.” She glances at Mikasa, “It was nice meeting you.”
And without another word, Loena turns around and heads into the bustling crowd. In a few steps she slips into the sea of people and seamlessly disappearing like she was never there in the first place.
Once she’s completely gone, Jean lets the noise of the port town fill his senses once more. He sighs, hunching over and rubbing his tired face. He feels more exhausted than he already was.
Mikasa doesn’t say a word, prompting Jean to look her way. The friendliness she had shown in Loena’s presence has faded slightly — in its place is a pensive, contemplative look.
“How was the call?” Jean asks, running a hand through his hair. He slips his sketchbook and fountain pen into his coat pocket, then stands from the bench.
“It was good,” she responds. “Historia will try to visit when she can.”
Jean kneels to untie Hugo’s leash from the bench, chuckling warily to mask his nerves. “She doesn’t have to.”
Mikasa hums, unconvinced. “I think she’d really like to see you, Jean.”
As Jean holds his dog’s leash, he catches sight of the earnesty and warmth now filling his sweetheart’s eyes, something that had been absent barely a minute ago. As awkward as things had been with Loena, something about the way Mikasa looks at him eases the worries in his heart. His smile slowly returns as he steps forward, closing the space between them. He reaches towards her and she leans into his touch, his palm meeting her cheek.
He brings her towards him, brushing her hair from her face and planting a kiss on her forehead. “We should go,” he whispers before taking her hand.
After Jean pulls on his rucksack and Mikasa grabs her suitcase from off the ground, the two make the short walk from the bench near the telephone booth to the train station.
One hand holds Hugo’s leash while the other holds hers, their fingers interlaced with every step. The weight of his bag feels heavy on his back, the straps digging into his shoulders and reminding him that he’s no longer the soldier he once was. The rucksacks he had once carried over mountains were certainly not this weighty.
Mikasa and Jean get to the station with time to spare. In quick succession they step into the building, show their tickets to the right people, and go to the platform.
As to be expected the place is packed at this time of day. People coming in and out of the port town move around in their own rhythm, reducing the pair to just a few more faces in the crowd.
Jean can still feel the wind of the ocean on his hair, the atmosphere chilling his skin and truly testing the limits of his old field coat. As he tightens the garment around his torso, he prays that today will not be the day that it fails him.
As they wait on the platform, Jean keeps an eye on Hugo, who seems quite calm despite the chaos surrounding them, a mix of sounds and sights and smells that he rarely ever sees. Even if the trip to Shiganshina is comparatively short, Jean wonders how Hugo will take to trains. He’s always known Hugo to be a mellow dog who could adapt to anything, but he can’t stop himself from worrying.
“Is Loena always that nice?” Mikasa asks, breaking Jean out of his thoughts.
He glances aside and meets her gaze, seeing nothing but concern behind her dark, glassy eyes.
“Ninety percent of the time."
Mikasa hums, then takes another moment to think. Her vexation doesn’t fade.
“Did she really hit you?” she asks after a second of debilitation. “Last time you spoke?”
The noise of the busy train station fills the space between them. Parts of the memory she had stirred are still fresh while others are faded, fuzzy. Ultimately, he remembers things in fragments, like little pieces of time.
What Jean remembers the most is the sting in his cheek when Loena slapped it — and second to that, the way she called him a “piece of shit” as the heat of the argument burned like fire and pushed them to the point of no return.
“I don’t feel like talking about it,” he decides to tell her, ignoring the moments where he hated himself enough to believe he deserved it. Even now, a part of him is convinced that it’s what he should get for attempting to numb the sting of loneliness with the touch of (who turned out to be) a married woman — all while refusing to tell her the truth about himself.
Before Jean can dwell on the past and wonder if Loena should have hit him harder, Mikasa squeezes his hand. When Jean meets her eyes again, her concern has faded into something warmer, something soft. The worry in his heart begins to lessen — by the time their train actually pulls up to the platform, the feeling is gone completely.
The locomotive arrives and the passengers board, Mikasa and Jean included. This particular train is not too crowded, allowing the pair to shuffle through the narrow hallway and slip into the first empty compartment they can find.
Things move quickly from there. Jean shrugs off his rucksack and aging field coat, stowing them on an overhead shelf before sitting down. Upon settling on his side of the compartment, he tugs on Hugo’s leash and taps his thigh, signalling for his dog to join him. To his delight, Hugo obeys the order and hops onto the seat with him, immediately lying down and resting his head on his master’s leg.
As Mikasa finishes putting her things away, Jean pets Hugo between the ears and observes the world outside the window. The sight reminds him of his Ambassador days — his past life of getting shuffled around like cargo, where he would pass time on his travels by watching the scenery move from behind a pane of glass, or finding a comfortable spot to draw or paint because that was the only thing that kept him sane.
When Jean looks across the compartment again, he sees Mikasa finally shedding her borrowed overcoat and carelessly placing it on the seat facing his own. A part of him still adores the sight of her wearing his sweater, a garment he thinks looks much better on her than on him.
When the sound of a train whistle resonates throughout the station, Jean expects Mikasa to sit across from him. But to his surprise, she steps forward and settles in the space between him and the window. He doesn't protest as she lifts his arm and drapes it over her torso, soon resting her head on the spot between his shoulder and neck — right in the crook — and sighing blissfully as she gets comfortable. A smile creeps onto Jean’s face as she closest her eyes.
A final horn sounds throughout the station. Jean plants one more kiss on Mikasa’s forehead as the train below them begins to move. The rest of the journey continues in peace.
…
…
…
Then.
Permission.
With the Ambassadors currently resigned to their usual slew of meetings, Mikasa is left to her own devices, a fate that she deems both a blessing and a curse.
On one hand, she believes Pieck’s insistence that each day is as dreadfully boring as the last — but on the other, Mikasa is not entirely pleased to be left alone with her thoughts.
To distract herself she spends the day with the Crown Princess of Paradis — a notion that goes unquestioned, as little Val never passes up the chance to turn Auntie Mika into her playmate. The Royal Nanny even seems relieved to get some time off.
The pair spend their morning in the garden as the sun burns the sky a bright blue. They roll in the grass, chase each other amongst the flower beds, and happily use the pair of swings hanging from the center tree to their heart's content. As they move back and forth, Mikasa’s thoughts only briefly recall the time where she and Jean shared a cigarette at this very spot.
As the two move higher and higher, certain memories tug at Mikasa from within — like the heat from the burning stick warming her fingers or the smoke filling her lungs with every inhale.
And even now, she cannot completely rid her thoughts of him.
When Princess Val is too busy laughing and playing to look at her Auntie, Mikasa sighs to herself and wonders how one person can be so pathetic.
…
…
…
The Princess and her Auntie Mika finish their bout of playtime and ultimately end up in a sitting room on the palace’s third storey, a space characterized by carpeted floors, beige walls with ornate trim, and a short table covered with enough teapots and platters of biscuits to feed an army. The atmosphere quiet, tranquil, which might have something to do with the Crown Princess of Paradis being tuckered out from her romp in the garden.
Mikasa sits on the couch and stirs a sugarcube into her tea, periodically glances to the armchair across the coffee table. She observes the Princess and the Queen, the latter having shed her royal front and to spend a moment being a mother.
Historia and Val look comical when crammed into the same spot. A sleeping Val tucks her face into the crook of her mother’s neck, safe and sound. Meanwhile, Historia is leaning her head at an angle that cannot possibly be comfortable, yet she has no reason to complain and simply tugs her daughter closer to her.
As per usual, Mikasa and Historia fall into their usual routine of neither side pressing the other to talk, a habit not derived from disinterest, but rather an attempt to comfort. The silence that follows is almost sacred between them, as sometimes being the other person in the room is enough. Seeing how Mikasa and Historia have maintained some semblance of a friendship over the last few years, it’s fair to say that the tradition — to an extent — has achieved its intended purpose.
And considering that Historia mothers her child when she’s not in Queen mode, Mikasa completely understands why her old friend might appreciate some peace and quiet every once in a while.
So Mikasa sips her drink, enjoying the subtle notes of this particular blend and only slightly fearing the possibility that she’s turning into Levi.
As the taste of sweetened black tea runs over her tongue, she thinks of what the other Ambassadors must be doing at this time of day. That morning she had heard Armin mention something about strolling through the gardens with Annie, as it had been over a week into their visit and they still had yet to do so. She had even overheard Pieck and Reiner discussing their frequent visits to the library, as they both opt to spend their time between meetings perusing the books in Historia’s collection.
And of course, Connie and Jean are scheduled to meet with their mothers today, an opportunity granted to them by the Queen herself.
When Mikasa is halfway through her tea, she hears a noise coming from outside. Wanting to both stretch her legs and give the mother and daughter a moment alone, she stands from the couch and heads to the window facing the palace’s north end. She lays eyes on the property’s main entrance, where sturdy stone gates are slowly being opened.
As fast as technology is advancing on the Island, it seems that automobiles are taking their sweet time incorporating themselves into Paradisian culture. As a result, Mikasa observes a horse-drawn carriage being driven through the gates and brought towards the palace.
Before Mikasa gets lost in thoughts of automobiles versus horses, she hears a door open behind her. She turns around just in time to see the Royal Nanny entering the room as quietly as they can. They approach the Queen on the armchair, where Mikasa overhears them whispering about how Princess Maria Valeria Constantina Freida is better off napping in her room.
Nodding in agreement, Historia kisses her daughter’s temple before gently peeling the little one from her shoulder. She hands Val off to the Nanny, who promptly carries the child towards the door and out of the room.
The contented look on Historia’s face doesn’t falter, even when her daughter is gone. Mikasa watches her old friend stretch for a second before finally pouring herself some much-needed tea.
“You really tuckered her out, didn’t you?” Historia asks to fill the silence in the air.
Mikasa nods as she brings her own cup to her lips. “She had a lot of energy.”
“I’m not surprised.” Historia lets out the kind of dry, polite chuckle best used in rooms full of foreign dignitaries and politicians. “She barely slept last night.”
Mikasa hums. “She’s not the only one.”
Historia eyes her in concern. “Is that so? Is your room alright? I could get you a better one if you want.”
Mikasa shakes her head, not even bothering to turn and look at her old friend. She glances down, unable to even focus on the window in front of her.
“It’s not the room, it’s… nevermind.”
Suddenly tension surges back to her. This time it gathers in her chest, causing her to tighten her grip on her cup yet again. Sucking in a breath, she takes a second to try to ground herself, but before she knows it she hears the sound of Historia standing from the armchair.
When Mikasa opens her eyes she looks out the window again, where she spots the now-parked carriage in front of the palace’s main door. A pair of people exit the building and step onto the path, walking rather slowly as if to make the journey as long as possible. Upon closer inspection, she sees that one of them is Connie, whereas the other is a woman who shares the shade of his hair.
Nora Springer seems calm as she holds her son’s hand, savouring every moment of the visit like it’s the last they’ll ever have. When the footman of the carriage opens the door, Mikasa sees the lady turn and hug her son, taking her sweet time to enjoy every bit of his embrace.
“What’s actually keeping you up?” Historia asks, suddenly bringing her old friend back to their little part of the palace.
Mikasa glances aside, taking note of how the height difference between her and Historia is starting to feel ridiculous nowadays. She tries to ignore the prodding, mischievous smile on her old friend’s face, something the blond often holds when she feels like prying into things better left untouched.
Ultimately, Mikasa avoids her friend’s gaze and decides to not dignify the look with a response.
To distract herself, she peers out the window just in time to see the Kirschteins exiting the palace.
From where she is Mikasa can see Jean walking with his hands in his pockets. Even with the usual slump of his shoulders, he still stands a head above his mother, the looseness of his suit making him look lankier than usual. There’s a casualness to him as he moves next to Arielle — but similarly to the Springers, it seems like the Kirschteins are also taking their time walking to the carriage.
Mikasa lets her eyes settle on Jean again. Although she’s three storeys above him, she can already envision things like the confident smirk on his handsome face, the way he tilts his head downwards to look people in the eye, or the warmth in his touch when she had awoken that morning.
Once Mikasa catches herself in a certain sea of thoughts, she sighs and continues her sentiments from the garden — how could one person be so pathetic?
“Hey, don’t take this the wrong way,” Historia begins, breaking Mikasa out of her trance.
She glances aside to meet her old friend’s eyes, noticing that the initial playfulness had softened into something sweeter, something kinder.
“It’s fine to hold onto old memories…” Historia explains. “...but it’s also fine to give yourself permission to make new ones.”
A handful of years ago words like that would’ve done nothing to quell the ache in Mikasa’s heart. In fact, barely two weeks ago she had sat atop a familiar hill, looking upon a world without walls and wishing she could see him again.
But now as she stands in the palace, currently unable to get the memories of waking with her head upon the chest and heartbeat that had lulled her into a peaceful sleep, things feel different. The part of her that doesn't think she'll ever move on feels smaller than usual.
There’s still an ache in her heart, but perhaps it’s a different kind of ache — not the kind born of loss, but of longing. Not longing for what could have been, but longing for what is right in front of her yet she’s too terrified to even think of grasping it. What does it say about her now that she's beginning to feel this way? What does it say about Jean now that she's viewing him in a different light? Had he ever seen her in a similar one?
Her grip on her teacup handle loosens, but just slightly. She gives Historia a nod, who grins back with enough amiability to remind Mikasa that she means well.
As Historia turns around to return to the couch, Mikasa swears that she sees her friend’s once sweet smile morph into a smirk. She hopes the sigh she lets out isn’t too loud as she looks out the window again.
As her eyes linger on Jean, she ponders the strangeness of holding the thoughts of another man in the place where she’d usually think of Eren. It doesn’t feel the same — not bad, not wrong, but different, like a new mass in her heart that she doesn’t know what to do with.
Mikasa looks down just in time to see Jean hugging his mother, Arielle’s face resting comfortably on her son’s shoulder. When they end their embrace, the two exchange a few more words before Jean helps his mother into the carriage. Connie steps out of the way, idly jamming his hands into his pocket as he gives the Kirschteins some space.
Soon Jean steps back and lets the footman close the door, who then sends a signal to the driver. In quick succession the vehicle is moving across the gravel road, where it eventually disappears through the gates and leaves the palace entirely.
Mikasa finishes her tea as she looks back to Jean and Connie. She had always known them to be close — acting a lot more like brothers than best friends nowadays. Roughly a week ago she was witnessing Connie drunkenly retell a story that made Jean blush like a schoolboy, something that agitated him so much that even through the cloud of wine in her head, Mikasa felt the need to speak up and chastise Connie for all the teasing.
But now Connie looks even more slumped than Jean. From where she is she can’t see his face, but her instincts tell her that he misses his mother already.
She sees Jean put an arm around Connie’s shoulder and imagines him smiling as they chat, a clear attempt to reassure his old friend despite the constraining circumstances. Perhaps that’s just another role Jean had adopted in his new life, finding purpose not just as an Ambassador, but as a comforter as well. It certainly explains a lot about the last few nights.
Putting her teacup on the window sill, Mikasa sees Connie sharply push Jean’s arm off of him and begin towards the palace. Jean laughs it off as he follows his friend to the door.
Her eyes remain on him as he walks, the slight bend in his posture having disappeared for now. In its place is a strange kind of confidence and swagger, which she wouldn’t have expected considering everything.
As Mikasa watches Jean go, he pauses in his step and takes a good look at the palace, the place he’s called “home” for a little over a week. Knowing that it’s his first time here in years, she doesn’t blame him for wanting to take it all in.
Then quite abruptly, Jean glances upon the window that just so happens to be of the third floor sitting room. When he focuses on the person behind the glass, panic rushes through Mikasa like a storm.
For a second she goes still, paralyzed with no goddamn idea on what to do, then turns away just before a blush creeps onto her face.
…
…
…
Now.
A City Without Walls.
Once the train arrives, Jean waits until the car has gone completely still before hopping off. As he steps onto the platform he notices how the scent of the sea has vanished from the air, something he had grown so accustomed to over the last few years now completely gone. In the place of salt is the smell of ash and smoke coming off the locomotives pulling in and out of the station.
“Come on, Hugo!” Jean calls above the noise. With a leash in hand, he looks back to the train and whistles for his faithful companion to come out.
Hugo’s tail is wagging as he steps off the car. He has a curious look in his eyes as he takes in his surroundings, staring at every part of the station like it’s the most incredible thing he’s seen in his curiously short life. His little head darts left and right, like everyone walking by could be a new best friend.
Jean keeps a firm hold on the leash in an attempt to keep the majestic beast at bay. He sees things like wealthy men in finely-tailored suits walking with their heads held high, a family of five shuffling by and trying to keep their children in check, and a conductor on the other side of the platform whistling and gesturing for everyone to keep moving.
As he adjusts the way his rucksack hangs from his back, Jean turns just in time to see Mikasa stepping off the train, her suitcase still in hand. She seems a little more energized from her nap, having been lulled to sleep by both his embrace and the gentle hum of the engine. When their eyes meet she smiles contentedly, looking rather pleased for someone who had once told him that travelling stresses her out.
Returning her look, Jean extends his hand to her and she happily accepts it. With their fingers interlaced once more, the couple and the dog make their way across the busy platform and exit the station.
Shiganshina is a place he rarely visits, yet one filled with memories he can never forget. As he steps onto the unfamiliar streets, seeing a city without walls already strikes an uncanny chord in his heart.
The place is a lot noisier than he last remembers, with both vehicles and civilians rushing by in their own semse of haste. With technology on the Island changing at a rapid pace, Jean is unsurprised to see automobiles of all kinds moving up and down the roads. So what takes him aback is just how many there are and how loud each vehicle can be, a combination that both disorients him and makes him realize that his quiet life on the coast had left him unaccustomed to things like honking horns and revving engines.
The telephone poles are a new sight as well, structures of wood that stand along the buildings he used to soar above with his ODM gear. The metal wires travel above the city and far into the horizon, seemingly going on forever. Looking at everything now makes Jean wonder just how on earth Mikasa managed to send a call to Mitras at all.
Mikasa squeezes his hand as they walk, acting as his guide in an unfamiliar world.
As they go down the sidewalk, Jean realizes just how long it had been since he walked through a city, not just in Shiganshina. It makes him think of just how deeply he had rooted himself on the coast, embracing a quiet existence defined by long days in his backyard studio, bits of paint clinging to his clothes and skin, and the sound of the sea seeping through the walls. The port town he frequented was certainly never this hectic.
Soon the pair arrive at a line of people waiting for taxis, another novelty to Paradis. As they queue up for the next available ride, Hugo sits by his master’s legs, his goofy smile having yet to fade.
Jean scratches Hugo between the ears as they wait, then notices Mikasa spotting something down the street. Before he can even glance in the same direction, he feels her release his hand and hears her set her suitcase down on the pavement.
“Could you wait a minute?” Mikasa asks.
Jean nods and she walks off, briefly breaking from the line and making her way down the street.
Jean and Hugo hold their place as Mikasa moves forward, soon witnessing her approaching a man selling flowers from a cart on the corner. Being too far to hear them speak, the sound of various vehicles fills his ears as Mikasa points to the bouquet she wants and hands pays the seller in coins.
With a bundle of lilies now in her grasp, Mikasa weaves through civilians and rejoins Jean in line. By the time she's by his side again, the travellers in front of them have already hopped into their taxi and driven off.
“Find what you need?” Jean asks as he takes her suitcase and steps forward.
Mikasa nods as she links her arm around his, remaining close to him as they wait.
In a few moments another taxi arrives and when it does the two move efficiently. Mikasa quickly loads both her and Jean's luggage into the back and Jean helps Hugo into the vehicle. With some gesturing, the canine takes the hint and soon hops into the cab, swiftly arriving onto the middle seat.
Mikasa climbs in through the other side and sits behind the driver. Hugo wastes no time, as once she's settled he curls into a ball and rests his head on her lap, his preferred place to be. Jean climbs into the taxi and gets settled in the space that remains. After he pulls on one of those seatbelt things that are apparently so important, Mikasa acknowledges the driver.
“The tree on the hill, please. South of the city.”
…
…
…
The Line Between the Numbers.
Jean remembers being here five years ago — a day where the air was warm, the sun shone down on the city, and the threads of his Ambassador suit felt heavy on his shoulders.
Today the sun still burns bright yet the atmosphere feels cold, something he’s sure isn’t entirely because September is coming to a close. As Jean exits the taxi, he tightens his coat around his torso as he keeps a firm grasp on Hugo’s leash as the beast hops out of the vehicle. He hears Mikasa tell the driver that they’ll only be a few minutes, to which they respond by shrugging and lighting a cigarette.
The walk from the car to the tree is short, each step feeling weightier than the last. Jean glances towards the city, noting the distance beyond Shiganshina and imagining Trost in the line where the greens of the hills meet the blues of the sky. The sight feels different from when he had been commissioned to paint it years ago, when all he had been sent was a photograph of the view from Eren’s hill with the instructions that he recreate it through watercolours and gouache.
With that in mind, perhaps it’s fitting that they visit the tree together, a place of many endings and beginnings.
Jean is broken out of his thoughts when Mikasa walks past him, the daisies still in her hand. He knows she comes here often — once every few months if she can help it — and wonders if she always does so alone.
He follows her with extra haste in his steps, Hugo in tow. By the time he and the dog arrive at the tree, Mikasa is already kneeling down to the gravestone by the roots. She places the bouquet next to the marker, moving with the kind of methodicalness that helps Jean envision the dozens of times she had brought flowers here before.
He doesn’t hesitate to kneel beside her and place his hand on her shoulder.
She hums at his touch and reaches up to place her hand on his, a response that eases the worry in his heart. Taking in a breath, he lays eyes upon a stone he had not seen for half a decade.
Nothing about the place has changed — except now Jean stands a little bit taller, Mikasa’s hair is a little bit shorter, and perhaps the tree has become a little bit bigger. Jean looks at the marker and reads the words engraved in stone, his eyes being drawn to a few things in particular — the date of Eren’s birth, his death, and the line that connects them both.
He stares at the symbol between the two numbers — a mere mark etched in stone — and wonders if it’s enough to encapsulate a person’s entire life. He thinks of all the people who also visited this spot knowing who Eren was and those who come to the tree on the hill not knowing a single thing about the guy.
In a way, he envies anyone who pertains to the latter, as their mild confusion to the grave underneath the tree pales in comparison to the lump forming in Jean’s throat or the sinking sensation in his stomach.
Jean wonders what’s worse — grieving for Eren or grappling with the reality of who he really was in his relatively short life. Every fond memory he has of the guy is tainted by sights of survivors gathering at camps and struggling to keep everyone fed, or the stench of flattened land still recovering from the Rumbling, or the first-hand accounts of the fear in people’s hearts when they first felt the ground shake. Every bit of anger he wants to feel for the guy is compounded by the genuine joy he had felt teasing Eren during their training days.
Eren was the worst, yet parts of him were adored. Eren was Mikasa's first love, yet he treated her in ways that were unacceptable. Eren was humanity's only hope, yet he had brought forth unimaginable pain that the world is still recovering from. Eren was everything, now he's nothing.
A thousand words want to escape Jean at once, yet the lump in his throat only gets bigger.
Jean takes in a breath and squeezes Mikasa’s shoulder. When she turns to him he expects to see her eyes welled with tears, despair taking over once again. But instead, she surprises him by holding herself in a collected, almost steely manner — like the last few years of visits had attuned her to the feeling of standing on Eren’s hill, warts and all, wounds that were once fresh had finally begun to heal.
“Are you alright?” Mikasa asks, standing up and encouraging Jean to do the same.
“I'm fine,” Jean insists. He's not and tries to distract himself by putting his hands in his pockets and looking down to his boots. He eyes the grave and sees the line between the numbers again. It’s like the mark is taunting him.
Before he can think of something smart to say, he feels Mikasa touch his chin.
Gently, she tilts his head up until their eyes meet again. This time, the way she looks at him is a lot softer.
“I get that,” she tells him, and in a way that’s all she really needs to say. For once she's the one reading him like a book.
They don’t stay at the grave for long. She’s explained to him how she’s learned to feel less guilty for keeping her visits brief, as once she steps down from the hill she has a whole life left to live, people who will need her to do more than spend all her time underneath a tree.
Mikasa pets the dog between the ears, then holds Jean’s hand as they walk back to the cab, squeezing his fingers between hers the entire time.
…
…
…
A Little Fall of Rain.
The lingering smell of cigarette smoke accompanies their drive to the Reiss Orphanage. Jean stares out the window the whole time, watching the scenery move behind the glass like an ebbing tide. Hugo continues to sit comfortably between his master and Mikasa, his head resting comfortably on her lap.
As the car moves forward Jean notices a handful of clouds now present in the sky, blobs of white slowly migrating towards the sun. His life by the sea had attuned him to the weather in ways that the landlocked folk weren’t — and if there’s anything he had learned at his coastal home, it’s the ability to sense a precursor to rain when he sees it.
The thought doesn’t completely leave his head as the Reiss Orphanage comes into view, a place that differs from the branch in the interior, as the Shiganshina location had only been built once Wall Maria was reclaimed. The building looks comparatively pristine, standing atop of the hill like the crown on the head of the queen.
A handful of children play on the grass, kicking footballs over the ground or rolling wooden hoops down the slope. Their joy is short-lived, however, as once the clouds in the sky begin to obscure the sun, an orphanage employee steps out of the building and urges the children to come inside.
Mikasa sits up once the taxi arrives at the main gate.
“Over here is fine, thank you,” she tells the cabbie before reaching into her pocket.
She pays the driver and exits the vehicle just as quickly, Jean and the dog following her suit. He stands and stretches, easing the tightness in his shoulders as Hugo scratches his ear with his paw. With the sun now completely covered by the clouds, the wind begins to pick up and now more than ever is Jean certain on how the weather will play out.
Mikasa gathers their luggage from the trunk and thanks the driver one more time. As the cabbie turns the vehicle and leaves the orphanage’s vicinity, Jean hears Mikasa grunts softly as she hands him his rucksack, which reminds him that he’s not the only Scout now past their prime.
Instead of taking him to the main building, Mikasa leads Jean off the road and towards the woods. He lets Hugo off his leash, who happily roams about after being tethered all day.
As Jean follows Mikasa beneath the trees, he notices how the ground below his boots looks rather trodden on, then thinks of how often she must make the walk between her home and the orphanage.
The wind rustles the branches above them, soon followed by the sound of thunder resonating far in the distance, and in mere minutes the sky is now covered by a layer of grey clouds. As he walks Jean grumbles and wish that for once he wasn’t right.
Mikasa stares up at the atmosphere, her eyes wrought with worry, then continues forward in a rush, her suitcase awkwardly rattling in her grasp.
With no other choice Jean follows, trying his best to keep up with her as the thunder repeats and reverberates through the air. Soon the first droplets descend from the cloudy sky, landing on his face and gathering in his hair.
And as Jean dashes through the woods amongst a little fall of rain, a smile creeps onto his face and he doesn’t really know why.
“Well, would you look at that?” he laughs, pulling the hood of his field coat above his head. He looks down to Hugo, who is practically frolicking across the damp grass.
Mikasa pays no attention to his amusement and keeps on running. Soon the amount of trees above the path begins to dissipate and in the distance Jean sees a clearing in the woods. In the middle of it all he finally spots what they’re looking for.
Mikasa’s cabin is where she said it would be, a wooden structure just off the property of the Reiss Orphanage, her own little corner of the world much like his own.
As much as Jean would love to stop, stare, and admire the place she’s called home for almost a decade, the raindrops against his skin grow thick and heavy.
Mikasa, Jean, and Hugo are practically sprinting by the time they get to the front door. He looks upward at the darkening clouds, smiling like an idiot as his field coat falters in the conditions and easily lets him get soaked to the bone. Mikasa fares similarly, as the fibers of her scarf and borrowed clothes are now saturated with water.
“All good?” Jean asks as she rummages around her pockets in search of a key.
Mikasa nods hurriedly before unlocking the door and pushing it open.
The two rush into the cabin, then abruptly Jean turns back to take Hugo by the collar and urge him to go inside as well, as now is not the time to sit outside and play in the mud.
The main space of the cottage is unlit, only illuminated by the light of the overcast sky spilling through the windows. It’s barely been a few minutes yet the droplets might as well be pebbles pelting the roof.
All three of them have brought their fair share of water into the cabin. As Hugo shakes the droplets out of his floor, Jean wipes his forehead and already bemoans the feeling of soaked socks inside of his boots.
Mikasa wastes no time. She places her suitcase down and kicks off her shoes, not even bothering to shrug out of her overcoat as she walks barefoot across her cottage’s main space. She only spends a moment rummaging through the kitchenette drawers before procuring a box of matches. She strikes a stick and lights the lantern sitting on the dinner table, a warming glow now filling the room.
“You’re prepared,” Jean chuckles, removing his coat and hanging it on a hook near the door.
“I’m cold,” Mikasa states, blowing out the match. “I’m gonna light a fire.”
As she shuffles across the space, the beacon of light in hand, Jean takes a moment to get a better look at Mikasa’s home. The living space has all the markings of a quiet, comfortable life. On one end there’s a modest kitchenette, on the other is an unlit fireplace made of slabs of stone, and in the middle of it all is a couch placed against the wall and a coffee table so ornate that Jean swears he’s seen something similar in Historia’s palace.
The simplicity of it all feels fitting, something that reminds Jean of his own home sans the sound of the sea and the ocean breeze. Even the muffled noise of the storm feels like a familiar song and dance.
Mikasa takes off her wet overcoat and scarf, deposits both on the hook near the door, then continues towards her fireplace. She places dry logs and kindling in the hearth, then promptly strikes another match to light the flames.
The way she shivers as she works prompts Jean to remove his boots and socks, putting them both aside before he takes off his sweater, one that is thinner and not as cozy as the one he had lent to Mikasa. He ends up in his trousers and undershirt, the driest clothing on him, and even then the hems of his battered work pants are soaked.
He walks across the space, his smirk still bewitching his face as the chill does little to bother him. He approaches Mikasa, who is kneeling by the hearth and warming her hands in front of the newly-formed fire, and plants his hands on her shoulders, giving her an affectionate squeeze.
“Doing alright there?”
Mikasa makes a noise that sounds awfully close to a laugh. “I can’t feel my fingers.”
Jean chuckles before kneeling down beside her. “Here…” he says before reaching to her hands, his fingers wrapping around hers. She’s cold and clammy underneath his touch, but he doesn’t care. “Better?
Mikasa holds his hands tighter, savouring every bit of his heat.
“How do you do it?” she asks, dumbfounded.
“Do what?”
“Stay so warm.”
His smirk gets a little bit wider. “It’s my superpower.” He turns to her, admiring the way the glow of the fire highlights the darkness of her eyes, the look of mild bewilderment on her pretty face, and her sharp, yet delicate features.
Mikasa scoffs, yet holds him even harder.
As much as Jean loves moments like these — moments where Mikasa will cling to him like he’s her lifeforce and a part of him will wish that she would never let go — he’s not sure how long they can stay in their wet clothes.
“Maybe we should get changed,” he suggests as he gets up.
Mikasa agrees and does the same. Once she’s standing, she pulls Jean’s old fisherman’s sweater off of her torso, even more droplets landing on the floor. Unsurprisingly, her blouse underneath is soaked as well.
The two proceed to deal with their wet clothes, Mikasa tugging off her dripping socks and Jean heading back to where he hung his coat. In the corner of his eye, Jean spots Hugo already rubbing his damp fur against the carpet, an attempt to dry himself off and get comfortable in the new environment.
As embarrassed as Jean is to have his dog do such a thing at the home they are guests in, Mikasa doesn’t seem to mind. She even hums in amusement when the dog hops to the couch and settles there like it’s where he belongs.
The two end up laying their wet clothes on chairs near the flames. Mikasa takes extra care with both her scarf and Jean’s borrowed overcoat, all while Jean swears he can see her praying for the storm to just end already.
When all is said and done Mikasa takes her suitcase to the coffee table by the couch and opens it. She’s displeased to find that quite a few of her clothes have been soaked by the storm as well, scowling and scoffing in a manner reminiscent of Captain Levi.
Jean’s belongings fare a bit better, as the wettest things in his rucksack are a few items at the top. His sketchbooks and paintbox are miraculously dry, something that makes him sigh in relief. Once he puts his damp clothes aside and wonders just when he'll be able to wear dry socks again, he looks to Mikasa.
The frown on her face is still present, her eyebrows knitted in vexation as she sorts through her wet belongings. Even that old white nightgown of hers is soaked, causing her to sigh.
So Jean doesn’t hesitate. He takes a button-front shirt from the bottom of his rucksack, the one he used to wear with his Ambassador suit and kept with him after all these years. With the material being considerably softer and less paint-stained than his other threads, he is unsurprised that Mikasa had taken such a liking to it back at his seaside home.
“Hey,” he says to get Mikasa’s attention. When she looks up he tosses the garment her way.
It lands in her grasp with ease, causing a hint of a smile to appear on her face.
“Thanks.”
Despite becoming used to her company over the last few weeks, having grown accustomed to sharing her space for nearly hours on end, Jean's instincts tell him to look away just as she reaches for the buttons on her damp blouse, ultimately avoiding her gaze as she changes.
Tightening his hand into a fist, Jean heads back to his rucksack and tries to ignore the tension now building in his stomach. It’s such a silly feeling, to be giddy like a nervous schoolboy with Mikasa, of all people. To distract himself, he begins rummaging through the bag in search of any socks that had survived the storm.
He only turns around once he hears her footfalls on the wooden floors. When he looks her way she’s near the fire again, clad in only his shirt as she carefully lays her blouse and skirt near the flames. He doesn’t think the sight of her in his clothing will ever fail to make something inside of him stir. His eyes linger on the sight of her bare legs, to where the hem of the garment goes to the mid-point of her thighs, but only for a moment.
When the search for dry socks comes up short, he instead grabs a different garment from the depths of his rucksack. The cardigan in his hands is chunky, olive-green, and is fastened with a trio of toggles at the front. He takes the miraculously dry sweater to Mikasa by the fire, unhesitatingly draping it on her shoulders like a blanket.
She turns to face him, the once dreary expression on her pretty face is now replaced by a smile, the glow of the fire causing her eyes to shimmer.
And even now — as her damp hair sticks to her face in awkward clumps, as she still reels from the chill of the storm — Jean thinks she might be the most beautiful woman in the world.
His heart begins to race as he takes her hand again, eagerly squeezing her frigid fingers. He stands in her atmosphere, loving every part of the way she tilts her head upwards to meet his eyes.
“Feeling better?” he asks — his voice is husky, warm.
“A little bit,” she answers. Despite how the day ended, she looks elated, satisfied, like today has been everything she wanted and more. “We should warm up.”
Jean nods. “I’m all for it. What do you suggest?”
She takes a second to think. “I could run a bath.”
Her forwardness makes Jean smirk and press a kiss to the back of her hand.
“You really want me outta these clothes, don’t you?”
Mikasa hums sharply, unamused, yet doesn’t let go of his hand. “Oh, shut up.”
Perhaps in an attempt to silence his smart mouth, she closes the gap between them — her lips against his, a gesture of affection he never resists.
Outside of the cottage the rain continues to drum against the rooftop, the wind rustling the trees and causing cold air to seep in the corners of the room, and Jean wouldn’t want things any other way.
…
…
…
Then.
Restless In A Different Way.
Mikasa has dinner in one of the smaller dining halls, where enjoying Historia’s company becomes a good excuse to not see him. The wine and hunter’s stew fills her with the kind of warmth that’s meant to be comforting, but it only goes so far in halting her persistent thoughts. Ultimately, she spends most of the meal wondering what he may be up to right now. In her mind she sees him eating with the other Ambassadors or sneaking out for a smoke, perhaps joking around with Connie or pouring some wine for Armin, images that play with every bite and sip.
When the meal is over and the old friends part ways for the night, Mikasa walks through a hallway accompanied by silence.
When she finds and enters her room, she shuts the door and immediately kicks off her boots. After undoing her ponytail, she sheds her day clothes and promptly slips into her usual white nightgown. She runs a hand through her hair as she heads to the connected bathroom. As she washes her face with cold water, she avoids the gaze of the woman in the reflection.
After drying off, she takes the boar-bristle brush Historia had gifted her several birthdays ago and runs it through her hair. Each stroke is slow, steady, deliberate — just another part of her routine that brings her peace.
And yet the anxious knot in her stomach still refuses to disappear.
Holding the brush with a firm grasp, she takes a breath and wills herself to look at her reflection. The first thing she sees are her dark, sleepless eyes, and the first thing that comes to mind are Historia’s words.
“It’s fine to hold onto old memories, but it’s also fine to give yourself permission to make new ones.”
Now if only Historia had mentioned where to start…
Looking at herself now — at the underslept freak in the mirror — Mikasa can’t help but wonder what Jean even sees in her.
Amongst her muddled memories only a few moments stand out — a sorrowful look in his eyes at a late-night meeting, an insistence that there were many reasons why she shouldn’t inherit Eren’s Titan, and a young, blushing, twelve-year-old horse-faced boy stammering something about her hair looking pretty.
Even in hindsight, Mikasa can’t remember why she had only thanked him before walking away. In fact, she can’t remember a lot of things about that time in her life.
After reminding herself to breathe for what feels like the thousandth time that night, she leaves the bathroom and tries to ignore the butterflies in her stomach.
Like a moth to a flame, she falls into her and Jean’s routine, to the comfort and peace she had found in his atmosphere. Crossing the bedroom in haste, she finds the knob and pulls the door open.
To her mild surprise she sees Jean in the hall, as for whatever reason he is standing in the doorway leading to his room.
And very swiftly does Mikasa discover that he's not alone.
Her grasp on the doorknob tightens as she lays eyes on Pieck Finger, who seems as calm and collected as she always is. The shorter girl's gentle eyes and messy black hair gives her a kind of approachable charm that Mikasa feels bad for envying.
With her once fluttering stomach now restless in a different way, Mikasa is left with nothing to do but stand in place like a frightened deer and pray that it doesn't show.
Jean looks just about ready for bed, sporting an unbuttoned shirt as well as the bottoms of the sleepwear. Pieck is dressed similarly with a silken robe draped over her frame and a pair of thin, well-worn slippers on her feet.
“Hey,” Jean greets, his eyes wide in surprise.
“Hey,” Mikasa repeats back at him, then eyes Pieck. “...am I interrupting something?”
Mikasa sees Pieck glance at Jean, then back at her. In less than a second, the once befuddled look on her sweet face changes into a knowing look, like she can read both Mikasa and Jean like they’re open books. The occurrence does absolutely nothing to quell the restlessness inside of Mikasa’s heart and only serves to make her even more nervous.
Pieck gives Jean a playful smile, an expression he returns with just the slightest hint of unease. He seems as apprehensive as Mikasa feels, but appears to do a better job at hiding it.
Fortunately for the both of them, the second-shortest Ambassador manages to find her voice first.
“Not at all!” Pieck insists as she looks back to Mikasa. “I was just leaving.”
She slips her hands into the pockets of her robe and takes a few steps down the hallway, then stands at the perfect angle to face the two. Her casual, almost chipper demeanour feels like both a blessing and a curse. If anything, Pieck can clearly tell that something is going on, even if she doesn’t know what.
“I’m gonna go…” Pieck begins, then takes a second to think. “...bother Armin and Annie. Maybe they won’t kick me out of their room this time. Nightie-night!”
She turns and begins walking down the hallway, moving behind a corner and swiftly disappearing from sight.
And suddenly they’re alone again.
The next few seconds are silent as Mikasa stares at the floor, giving herself a moment before meeting Jean’s gaze again. At this angle he looks different than when she last saw him — his damp hair is tousled messily, the once playful smirk on his face now gone, and even the stubble on his face looks thicker in this light. She very briefly wonders what he’d look like with a full beard — a more rugged, manly look than his Ambassador role would ask of him — then concludes that she would not complain if Jean ever decided to grow out his facial hair.
“I didn’t know you were close,” Mikasa manages to say, reminding herself to look at his eyes and not his exposed chest.
“We’re just friends,” Jean answers abruptly, almost like he’s correcting her. He puts his hands in the pockets of his bottoms.
“Close friends?” Mikasa presses, then immediately regrets how quickly she had said it.
Against all odds, an amused smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Just friends,” he promises.
For a moment, neither of them speak as the grin on Jean’s face slowly disappears.
“...do you still want to come in?” he asks. He steps back and holds the door open for her with all the grace of a gentleman.
The more he talks, the more she’s able to remember that she has nothing to be nervous about. It’s still Jean and his long, angular face and his warm, caring eyes, and his ashy, dishevelled hair. Even she can’t deny that the familiarity of his mere presence does something to comfort her.
Although the knot in her stomach doesn’t completely fade, Mikasa finds it in herself to finally let go of the doorknob. She nods as she crosses the hallway, her shoulder brushing his as she enters his bedroom.
Although she is distracted by the way her heart hammers in her chest, Mikasa swears that she hears the sound of Jean sighing of relief just before he shuts the door.
…
…
…
Now.
Better Than He Dreamed.
In the midst of the night she’s on all fours — braced against the mattress, her fingers grasping the sheets harder with every thrust. She is illuminated by candlelight, her hair shrouding her face like a curtain. He stands at the edge of the bed, one hand at her waist while the other grabs a handful of her hair, practically tethering her to him as he bucks his hips, each collision of their skin causing a gasp to escape her mouth.
Outside the storm keeps the world cold, yet the air between them is hot. Their clothes remain discarded and forgotten on the floor, the sound of their meeting flesh resonating throughout the room with a satisfying slap. A bead of sweat falls down his forehead as his fingers dig into her skin, his face contorting in utter delectation with every jut.
And as Jean fucks her on the edge of the bed there is nothing else on his mind except for the pleasure building between them.
In the faint lighting Mikasa whimpers and heaves, indulging in the feeling of him. She’s wet and aching after every thrust, not even bothering to stifle the noises she makes every time he enters her. Every few juts he strikes his open palm on her backside, a harsh, aggressive motion that never ceases to make her moan and beg for him to do it harder.
Jean shudders and shakes, waves of delight pulsating through him. He leans forward until his nose brushes against her back, pausing his movements very briefly to press a kiss between her shoulder blades, savouring the taste of her salty skin. One arm snakes around her waist while his free hand palms her breast, running a finger across a pert, firm nipple. Her cries of pleasure return once he starts fucking her again.
He slams his eyes shut, cursing and groaning with every thrust. Mikasa bends until her face meets the sheets, shamelessly biting the fabric in a feeble attempt to silence the noise she makes at the apex of her desire.
And when she finally meets her end, her screams are barely stifled by the material of her bed.
Jean kisses her back again, suckling her skin as he eases her through her climax. He continues his motions, persisting in search of his own culmination.
“Come in my mouth,” Mikasa suddenly tells him, like a suggestion. “Come in my mouth,” she repeats, like a demand.
And Jean goes along with it — he’ll let her do what she wants to him, no questions asked.
He doesn’t protest when she shifts forward and pulls away from him. She turns around, spending a second sitting on the edge of her bed as she places a hand on his chest.
Jean catches his breath as he takes a step back, wiping more sweat off his forehead. He stands tall and stark naked, his cock still erect in anticipation. He watches as she stands, pressing a kiss to his bare torso and trailing her lips downwards until she's on her knees. The sight and feeling of her pecking his hip bone makes his stomach flutter in ways he never expected.
When she gets to his member she spends a moment running her tongue up and down his length, teasing and testing him in a way that makes him quiver.
A sigh escapes Jean when she finally brings him into her mouth. He closes his eyes and looks upwards, running a hand through his sweaty hair as he revels in the feeling — that of her warm lips around his cock and how she makes sure to moan around him, of the noises that she makes as she takes him and the way she flicks her tongue over his tip.
When he glances down again he sees his sensitive flesh moving back and forth underneath her pretty lips, a sight so obscene and lascivious yet he can’t look away.
He breathes in and out, wiping more sweat off his forehead as he feels her fingers pressing into his waist, her nails digging into his skin like he’s made of clay. Soon her hands migrate until they’re at his backside, squeezing as she bobs her head and brings him deeper into her mouth.
And it’s only now when Jean can truly feel himself reaching his end.
Shamelessly, he reaches down and sweeps her hair from her face, soon placing his hands on the back of her head and bucking his hips. He fucks her face like they’re back on the bed again, like he’s taking her from behind until she’s reduced to a pleased, sweaty heap on the mattress, like he has nothing else to do but thrust his hips flush against hers until the sound of their slapping skin resonates into every corner of the room.
And Mikasa lets him do it, her dark eyes staring up at him with the kind of allure that says she’s enjoying every part of it. With every jut of his hips and every thrust of his cock into her mouth, she grasps his ass harder, practically begging him to keep going.
He finishes with a grunt, an open-mouthed sound he does even try to stifle. She remains where she is, barely even flinching as he spills every ounce of himself into her mouth.
Moments pass before Mikasa releases him. By the time she stands he’s absolutely spent. She steps away and he moves forward, letting himself collapse on the bed — immodest and bare, a sheen of sweat covering his skin. He doesn’t even bother covering his dick as he catches his breath, staring up at the ceiling as he runs his hands through his hair. For a moment, it's almost like the world is standing still. Suddenly he’s craving a cigarette, yet he hasn’t smoked in years. Instead of falling back on old habits, he rubs his tired eyes as the sound of rain against the rooftop fills his senses again, the heat that had once formed between him and Mikasa quickly dissipating.
Moments pass before he finds the strength to look across the room, adjusting to the glow of the candlelight and the darkness outside the window. He spots Mikasa walking to the connected bathroom, where through the slightly open door he sees her running the sink and washing off.
Barely a month ago he had been living a quiet life by the sea, only ever expecting the company of his dog, the paintings in his studio, or the constant sound of ocean waves.
Now he’s hiding in a little cottage on the outskirts of Shiganshina and spending the night with the love of life.
And it’s moments like this where Jean realizes that some things in this world are even better than he dreamed.
Eventually Mikasa turns off the sink and steps through the doorway. It’s only now when Jean realizes that she’s wearing his old button-up shirt, a sight that never fails to charm him.
She strides into her bedroom, a contented look on her face as she blows out the candle on the dresser. In the darkness she crosses over and arrives at the bed, seamlessly climbing in and adjusting the blankets until they’re draped over him and her. With ease she navigates herself into Jean’s embrace again. He lets out a sigh as she begins to pepper his warm skin with kisses — her lips pecking at his chest and taking great care when she finds his beating heart.
Jean then shifts on the bed, manoeuvring him and her until he’s on all fours and hovering above her. The movement is abrupt, the room around them is dark, and the chill of the air nips at his skin, but he doesn’t care. In the dark he just barely makes out the coquettish smile on her face.
Unhesitatingly, Jean leans down and kisses her, shamelessly tasting whatever remains of himself on her lips. When they break apart their foreheads are still touching. They both go still, savouring the moment and the newfound warmth between them.
Eventually Jean rolls off her and adjusts himself until he’s on his back, Mikasa soon settling into the crook of his neck. He closes his eyes, playing with her hair as the sound of the storm outside continues to bleed through the cottage walls.
They remain still until she falls asleep in his arms yet again.
…
…
…
All That Really Matters.
In a daze Jean wakes in a dark room, enveloped in the warmth of the bed as the rain above continues to hit the roof with a gentle, soothing pitter-patter. The winds of the storm push at the cottage walls, causing them to creak in a way that’s similar, but not completely identical to how it happens in his seaside home.
In the dimness he makes out the faintest sight of her — how she's fast asleep, breathing gently, and resting across from him with mere inches between their faces.
Unable to resist, Jean reaches across the gap and touches his palm to her cheek — for once she’s warm. He leans over and presses yet another kiss to her forehead.
He expects her to say nothing, to continue her peaceful sleep and only remember the gesture as a memory or a dream, but instead she hums and stirs.
“Mmmmm…?”
He watches her every move, enjoying the serenity and quietude between them. He barely makes out the sight of her taking in a breath and opening her eyes.
“Hey,” Jean whispers.
“Hey.”
“What are you thinking about?”
She hums and Jean swears that he can see her smile.
“About how I have to be at work...” she answers, then takes a brief pause to yawn. "...in a few hours."
“Tell ‘em you're busy,” he jokes, smirking. “It's not like they could fire you.”
“They can't but…” Mikasa begins, then takes a second to think. “...I think the children miss me.” She adjusts her position underneath the blankets, closing the space between them until one of her legs is hooked around his. “Are you sure you don't wanna see them?”
“Not yet,” Jean answers, firm on his decision. “Maybe in a day or two.”
“They'd love you,” Mikasa insists, though she seems content with his choice.
Jean can't deny that stopping by the orphanage would be nice. His last visit feels like a lifetime ago, back when his beard was thinner and his ill-fitting suit was his daily armour. The fact that the Ambassadors were even able to stop by the place was rather fortunate, as if he recalls they had some time to spare before boarding a Mitras-bound train for the Peace Talks. He can still remember the way the children had clamoured around him, most of them begging to be lifted while others tried to climb him like a fancy tree. The memory still feels warm, despite the era of his life that it hails from.
“I’d hope so,” Jean soon responds. Below the blankets he finds her hands and brings them up to his face, where he kisses her fingers and palm. “I still think I need time… to adjust to things, I mean.”
Mikasa doesn't protest, as getting Jean to leave his little seaside abode is already a miracle within itself. For now, he is only a guest in her little life and not a permanent fixture — a fact that they are both content with for the time being. With many things to figure out regarding his lifestyle and hers, they don't worry themselves over the details.
For now, both are satisfied with where they are. For now, all that really matters is being together.
Once more Mikasa shifts her position in the bed, completely closing the gap between him and her. She kisses his chest before pressing her bare cheek against his sternum, basking in his warmth as the storm above them slowly descends into a tranquil thrum.
“My day off is at the end of the week,” she whispers, her voice tickling his skin. “We could take a train to Trost." Another chest kiss. "See your mother.”
Jean hums as he runs his hand through her hair. He only spends a moment thinking of the stone in the graveyard where his mother rests, where yet another line between numbers is meant to summarize an entire life, a start and an end encapsulated by a mere etch. He thinks of how little he had visited over the last few months. He thinks of how busy his commissions have kept him, nearly succumbing to a fate of paintbrushes and watercolour tubes that had been excessively compressed to get out every last drop. He thinks of how he’s failed his promise to visit his mother at least twice a year.
And he thinks of how horrible of a son he’s been.
When the ensuing guilt enters his mind, he holds Mikasa closer to him and kisses her temple.
“What do you plan to do while I'm at work?” she asks, perhaps noticing his lack of answer to her first remark. She looks up just enough for him to see her eyes in the dark. “There's a river nearby, a little into the woods. I think you'd like it. You could swim. Get your mind off things.”
Jean smiles, already pleased by the idea. “Only if you’ll join me,” he teases.
“Only if I knew how to swim.”
“I’ll teach you later."
"If we have time."
"We'll have plenty."
Mikasa nods before nuzzling up to his chest, safe and sound. “I know, but... I can't keep you from your home for too long."
Her words prompt Jean think of the cottage he left on the coast, a place that will remain empty for the next few weeks as ocean waves continue to lap the shore.
"Mikasa..." Jean begins, kissing her eyelashes. "...you're my home now."
He nuzzles her face, pressing more sweet kisses to her temple as it becomes harder and harder to stay awake. He hears her sigh against him, a sign that he too should close his eyes and at least try to get some sleep. He continues to play with her hair, slowly breathing and listening to the sound of the storm until slumber greets him like an old friend.
…
…
…
And In The Morning.
Despite the lack of ocean waves just outside his door, Jean spends the next few hours in peace. By the time he is roused awake he hasn’t the faintest idea what time it is. He remains still as the mattress around him wobbles, only attempting to open his eyes when he hears the sound of bare feet touching the floor.
He sees Mikasa making her way across the bedroom, the floorboards creaking underneath her steps before she slips into the bathroom and shuts the door. Soon the sound of a running sink is heard from behind the wall.
Jean takes it as a sign to close his eyes once more, savouring sleep while he still can. The warmth in the spot where she had just been has yet to fade away, her scent still in the sheets. He tunes into his surroundings just enough to realize that the storm has not subsided, but simply reduced itself to a little fall of rain, a much gentler noise merely caresses the roof instead of battering it.
But the peace doesn’t last forever, as before he knows it he hears the sound of little claws and paws against the door, causing him to instinctively sigh.
Fortunately, Mikasa exits the bathroom and heads to the door, where upon opening it she whispers a quick “Good morning, Hugo” and leaves the bedroom entirely.
Jean expects her to return in no time, whether to rejoin him in bed or let in the dog to wake him up for real, yet the moment never comes. Instead he drifts back to sleep, listening to things like the whistling tea kettle, Hugo skittering across the floor, and Mikasa acknowledging the dog like he an old friend.
He doesn’t know how much time passes before he hears the bedroom door open again. By then he’s mostly asleep, but not completely.
The sound of her footsteps greet him once more, as well as that of Hugo slipping into the room. Too tired to truly wake, Jean barely reacts when his dog leaps onto the mattress, only sniffing his face for a moment before curling up into a ball at his master’s feet, his preferred place to be.
“Jean… I have to go,” Mikasa says in a sotto voice — a gentle, affectionate whisper. “I’ll be back around one for lunch.”
He feels her lips press against his cheek, a gesture that is as loving as it is brief, then presses another to his eyelashes.
A lull of silence follows her words. He’s not sure what else to expect before he hears—
“I love you.”
And after that she’s gone.
Hours later Jean wakes for real. He is greeted by an empty room, a distinct floral scent still imbued within the bedding, and the morning light finally breaking through the clouds. Hugo is still asleep by his side, silently curled into a ball against his leg, the fur of the dog tickling his skin.
With Hugo by his side and memories of Mikasa’s voice still present in his head, Jean is unable to wipe the smile from his face.
So instead of leaving the bed, he remains where he is for just a bit longer, lying in a beam of light shining through the window and basking in the sunrise after the storm.
…
…
…
In Plain Sight.
Stefania Kijek — secretary to Queen Historia herself — specializes in things such as scheduling meetings, making sure the Queen has time to spend with her children, and occasionally ensuring that her majesty is able to disappear for stretches of time.
Historia doesn’t know exactly how Stefania does it, just that her loyal secretary seems to be consistently capable of convincing everyone in the palace — from the housestaff to the guards — that the Queen is dreadfully busy and cannot be distracted under any circumstances.
Today Stefania has given Historia an entire day to do as she pleases, something that leaves her majesty both tremendously grateful and deeply curious as to what power Miss Kijek truly holds.
But as her train pulls up to the platform, Historia finds herself a lot less concerned with the matters she left back at Mitras and more curious as to what lies ahead of her.
With the brim of her hat pulled over her head, she stands from her seat just as the train comes to a stop. As she hops off the car and onto the platform, the decidedly unroyal clothes on her back grant her the privilege of near-anonymity, a mask that makes her another face in the crowd. She barely earns attention from the people around her, not even the middle-aged woman she bumps into by accident or the conductor who smiles, tips his hat, and tells her to have a splendid day.
And truth be told, Historia prefers things this way.
She wastes no time as she walks down the platform and leaves the station. Shiganshina is bustling as it greets her, a city that seems to get busier and busier every time she visits, yet it barely grabs her attention. She finds the queue of people waiting for taxis and takes her place in line, avoiding eye contact as much as she can. It’s a habit she relies on when she’s incognito — as unlikely as she is to be recognized, it’s certainly the last thing she needs when she’s this far into her journey.
When Historia’s ride pulls up, she enters the taxi and avoids the gaze of the driver as she speaks.
“The Reiss Orphanage, please and thank you.”
…
…
…
The drive is as swift as it is familiar, though Historia notices how different it is to see the journey through the window of a taxi and not a carriage.
When the cabbie pulls up to the orphanage gate, Historia tells him that this is close enough and pays him immediately, not even bothering to ask for the change before exiting the vehicle. As the car turns and drives off, she spares the building on the hill a brief glance and notes the handful of children happily playing underneath the cloudless, sunny sky. She then starts down the path that leads off the property, immediately entering the woods.
Once she’s out of the orphanage’s sight she removes her flat cap, finally freeing her hair after hiding it for so long. Her current get-up makes her resemble a young boy more than Queen Historia the Magnificent, the tweed jacket and suspenders hanging loosely from her petite, short-limbed frame. It’s not exactly a flattering look, but the more layers the better, the safer she’ll feel as she gets further and further from the palace.
As she walks underneath the trees and the afternoon sun, Historia finally realizes just how far she’s come, even if her memories of escaping through the servant’s entrance before sunrise are still fresh. With every step she feels a distinct kind of ache accumulating within her body, particularly in her legs, then concludes that the stress of her journey is finally catching up to her.
Soon the cabin just off the orphanage property comes into view, a sturdy structure that looks unchanged from when she last saw it. Presumably it had remained unoccupied for the last three weeks, as its only inhabitant had spent her allotted vacation time doing god knows what in some seaside cottage on the west coast.
The details are still not one-hundred percent clear to Historia, as there was only so much that Mikasa could tell her from a phone booth on the other side of the Island. So ultimately, it’s her resolve to see certain things for herself that motivates her to keep moving forward.
As she arrives at the cottage she falls back onto old habits, opening the door without even knocking.
The interior of the home is still the cozy, welcoming space that she remembers from her last visit. The masonry of the fireplace, ornate coffee table, and meticulously organized tea shelf feel familiar and almost comforting.
She notices the signs of life within the cottage, like the kettle currently heating up on the stove, the crate of canned goods and vegetables on the table that the orphanage gives Miss Mikasa every few days, and what appears to be art supplies on the coffee table.
Intrigued by the latter, Historia hangs her hat and coat and approaches the couch. On the table is a flat, shallow tin of watercolour pans, little compressed squares of dried paint that have been arranged by shade — light to dark, warm to cold. Beside the well-worn box is an open sketchbook.
Now even more curious, Historia picks up the book and observes the current drawing, which seems to depict the cobblestone streets of a busy town and the shopfronts surrounding it on both sides. The image is lined in inks and coloured with strokes and blooms of paint, the precision of the underlying sketch contrasting messy splashes of pigment that truly bring it to life.
Before she can admire the little painting for too long she hears the sound of a door opening. Suddenly reminded of why she came all this way, she sets the sketchbook down and speaks up —
“Mikasa?!” she calls into the cottage, moving towards where the sound came from as the sound of footsteps is heard.
Historia approaches the doorway that leads to the bedroom, but once she gets there she sees that the person standing in place is not the person she expected to see — in more ways than one.
Suddenly Jean Kirschtein is in front of her, a face and a friend she has not seen in five years.
And true to Mikasa’s words, he’s changed.
As to be expected he’s still impossibly tall — or maybe she’s still impossibly short. His ashy hair is now shorter, unruly, and just the slightest bit kissed from the past summer. Instead of his beige two-piece suit, he sports a pair of battered trousers, rugged work suspenders, and a paint-splattered collared shirt — a far cry from how she last saw him. The clothing looks a size too big for him, making him look scrawnier than usual. His beard feels like a novelty as well, a layer of heavy scruff now covering his angular face and making him seem like a whole new man.
But at the end of the day, he’s still Jean Kirschtein.
As Historia looks him up and down, he runs a nervous hand through his hair.
“Hello, Jean,” she greets, finally breaking the silence.
“Hello, Historia,” he replies, and she’s thankful that he doesn’t call her ‘Your Majesty.’
For a moment it seems like neither one of them knows what to say next, the newfound tension between the two as heavy as it is wordless. Fortunately, the silence only lasts for so long before it is interrupted.
The backdoor opens, prompting both Historia and Jean to look aside.
Mikasa enters the cottage, a tranquil look on her pretty face and a freshly-picked bouquet of wildflowers in hand. Like the forest abode itself, Mikasa also seems unchanged — though her hair has been cut shorter than Historia remembers, the ends now barely grazing her shoulders. Additionally, Mikasa has swapped her usual pink cardigan in favour of a navy blue, slightly ill-fitting sweater that’s undoubtedly seen better days.
Mikasa’s expression goes from serene to surprised once she realizes that Historia is now standing in the middle of her home.
“Oh…” Mikasa begins. “You’re—”
Before she can finish the sentence, a furry blob abruptly dashes into the cottage from behind Mikasa’s legs.
The dog is of medium size, pointed ears, and has a brown coat so dark it might as well be black. It reminds Historia of the canines she had seen utilized by the Island’s armed forces, except the creature currently standing at her feet and begging to be pet has such a sweet face that she couldn’t possibly imagine it being used for war.
“Oh shit,” Jean grumbles. “Hugo! ”
“It’s okay,” a beaming Historia assures as she kneels down to greet the dog. She runs her hands through Hugo's fur, unable to wipe the smile from her face as he wags his tail so hard that his entire rear end shakes. “Hello! Yes, it’s nice to meet you!” she says with all the importance she would use to greet a guest in the palace.
As Historia gives Hugo a royal greeting, Mikasa closes the door behind her and walks across the cottage’s main space, a distinct stiffness to her movements. She goes to the kitchenette and grabs an old jar from her cupboards, then goes to the sink to fill it with water.
Historia continues to pet the dog, but in the corner of her eye observes Jean leaving the doorway and joining Mikasa. He remains close to her as she puts the flowers in her makeshift vase, practically joined to her hip as he puts an assuring hand on her waist. He moves his head close enough to Mikasa’s that Historia is sure that he’s either whispering something or kissing her cheek — maybe both.
Once Historia has finished giving Hugo all the love in the world, she stands just in time to hear the kettle on the stove whistling. Without a word Jean takes it off the heat and fills a teapot on the counter. Meanwhile, Mikasa brings the flowers to the table and places them in the center, her simplistic bouquet somehow made more charming by the vessel.
They work in the kind of unison that makes all the time they’ve spent together a little more clear, the methodicalness in the way they move showing how familiar they are with existing in each other’s space.
With her hands clasped together, Historia looks to Mikasa, who has suddenly gone still as she stands near the table, taking a moment to look downwards. A few seconds pass and their eyes finally meet. Historia holds an expectant, yet amiable expression on her face while Mikasa looks like she’s still thinking of the right words to say.
As happy as Historia is to see several old friends again, there's still a multitude of questions in her head. How did Jean get here? When did Jean get here? And why on earth was he hiding in some cottage on the coast for so long?
So Historia waits patiently, watching as Jean approaches Mikasa once more and puts an arm around her shoulder, holding her close to him like he’s her rock, her anchor in a storm. The two lovers briefly share a glance — Jean giving her an encouraging nod before Mikasa looks to Historia again.
“I suppose…” Mikasa begins, then regains herself with a quick breath. “...I suppose I have a lot to explain.”
More amused than anything else, Historia lets out a polite chuckle best suited for both royal affairs and teasing her old friend.
“You think?” she asks, unable to hide the playfulness in her voice. Historia eyes the taller man with the confidence of someone twice her size. “It’s nice to see you again, Jean.”
“You too,” he replies, looking down at her warm, friendly smile. “How about we talk over lunch?”
Pieck Finger. Jean Kirschtein.
Late Nights. Ship Rides. Bunk Beds.
Post-Rumbling. Canonverse.
1304 words.
(ao3.)
This fic was my half of an art trade with @zuzusexytiems where we agreed on the mutual theme of "sleep" to make our respective pieces. The link to their piece is here! Enjoy!
As of now, the life of Pieck Finger starts and ends with a cycle of coming and going. One minute she’ll be aboard a ship, where the constant hum of the engines will accompany a voyage across the sea — then the next she’ll be dressed in her usual beige ambassador attire and occupying the nearest boardroom, spaces that tend to look the same no matter what corner of the world she’s in. The days are long and the discussions range from heavy-hearted to mind-numbing, and most of the time it’s the latter more than the former.
As good as she is at sneaking naps between meetings, not even the most strategic moments of shut-eye can outrun the human need for sleep. As a result, she walks through the passageways of yet another ship during yet another restless night. She’s sure it has a proper name, but at this ungodly hour she can’t be bothered to remember it.
At the moment, a recent discovery has forced her to find a different place to sleep. Under normal circumstances, the revelation would make her smirk as she closed the cabin door, perhaps even making a dig about Armin and Annie suddenly deciding to appreciate each other’s company in the midst of the night. But with the exhaustion currently plaguing her system and making her limbs feel as heavy as lead, Pieck lacks the energy to care.
So she wanders the passageways in the dark, the ends of her white nightgown flowing by her legs with every step. The upside to being this fatigued is that she’s far too tired to be surprised by walking in on the couple — though at a certain point, Pieck wonders if there’s no other part of this ship where Armin and Annie could enjoy each other like a five-course meal. As limited as the space is, there’s certainly no shortage of rooms with working locks. But then again, perhaps Pieck is in no position to judge.
So she continues to walk with cat-like tread, the material of her slippers cushioning the sound of her footfalls. It isn’t long before Pieck arrives at her location, a cabin near the bow of the vessel. She wastes no time and knocks on the door. She waits a few seconds, mindlessly tapping her foot as the seconds pass, then knocks again when she realizes that the first few had heeded no results.
Before she knows it the door opens. As to be expected, Jean looks utterly exhausted at this time of night, standing bare-chested, bare-footed, and clad in only the bottoms of his sleepwear. His hair looks so dishevelled that one could never guess how much fancy pomade he slathers onto it every day. His facial hair looks rather unkempt as well, looking further from stubble and a lot closer to a short beard in this light. He seems to be fighting back a yawn just before he greets her.
“What do you want, Pieck?” asks Jean in lieu of a proper welcome.
Despite the peculiar circumstances, Pieck manages a smile just before she speaks.
“Hey, so I just walked in on Armin and Annie…” she begins, then pauses to think of a proper way to describe what she had seen. “…doing something best done in privacy.”
Normally, Jean would either laugh, roll his eyes, or do a little bit of both. Pieck would be in a similar boat, as she had become accustomed to either chuckling along or nudging him with her elbow whenever they noticed Armin and Annie going out of their way to be alone together. At this point, Annie’s usual excuse of “helping Armin with paperwork” was almost comically transparent.
But tonight, Jean lacks the energy to even smirk at the scenario. Instead, he stares at her blankly without even a hint of an understanding nod.
“Seeing as Armin won’t be needing his bunk right now…” Pieck continues. “…do you think I could take it?”
Jean shrugs nonchalantly. “It’s all yours.”
He steps out of the way and lets her into his cabin, an offer she graciously accepts.
The space consists of two bunk beds stacked on one side, a porcelain sink on the other, and nothing more. It’s identical to the room she shares with Annie, yet the presence of Jean’s larger frame makes it feel just a little bit smaller. The bed on the top is pristine and untouched, whereas the bottom looks like it had been recently used by a poor soul trying to cram all six-foot-something of himself onto the limited space.
Suddenly all of Jean’s complaints about their accommodations lacking in certain dimensions feel a lot less petty.
Jean closes the door behind them, then grabs the top off his sleepwear off a nearby hook before pulling it over his torso. He leaves it unbuttoned as he rubs his tired eyes, gracelessly climbing onto the bottom bunk and settling on his back with a hand behind his head. His casual, unfazed demeanor is much appreciated on her end — as well as his current state of undress, but it’s not like she’d let him know that. It helps that they’ve been in this position before — her looking for a new place to sleep because the resident tiny blondes decided to spend the night dancing horizontally, Jean being more than accommodating, and Pieck suddenly having a front-row view to her comrades’ chest hair.
Surprisingly, Jean is quite comfortable with a lady in his sleeping space. She’s not entirely sure why, but as Pieck kicks off her slippers she thinks of all the times she had nonchalantly hopped into Porco’s bed when he wasn’t in it (much to his annoyance), or the stories Connie had told her about this girl named Sasha that he and Jean once knew. Evidently, Jean had spent a lot of time in the presence of a female friend, falling into the kind of closeness where certain boundaries could come down. Pieck briefly muses on how their experiences on both ends had led to this — to Pieck feeling safe enough to request the spare bunk for the night and Jean as courteous as he can be about the situation.
“So… what’d you catch them doing this time?” Jean asks as he gets settled.
Pieck scoffs, reminding herself to look him in the eye. “Something that makes them legally married in at least six and a half countries.”
Her flippantness makes him raise an eyebrow. “Six and a half?”
“Don’t ask,” Pieck asks as she climbs the ladder leading to the top bunk. When she majestically flops onto the bed, she lets out a grunt that feels louder than she intended it to be.
The mattress below her feels like the dozens she had slept on before — somewhere between too firm and too soft, but never just right. She sighs as she shifts her body on the foreign surface, doing her best to get comfortable in the unfamiliar space. The scratchy ship sheets feel cold as she pulls them over her frame, a feeling that she knows will go away once she gets settled yet she can’t stop herself from ignoring it. She closes her eyes and practically wills herself to fall asleep, desiring nothing more than to just get things over with already. Even if there’s nothing important happening in the day ahead of them, the sooner she embraces slumber like an old friend the better.
Pieck doesn’t know how much time passes before she suddenly remembers that she had missed out on a vital part of her routine, something she had grown accustomed to doing nearly every night of her very unaccustomed life.
“...oh fuck,” she says once the realization settles into her.
In the bunk below, Jean hums, sounding like he’s closer to sleep than she is. “What?”
JeanAni & Love Language for the Feb Prompt~ ❤️❤️❤️
February Prompts 🌹
Annie Leonhardt. Jean Kirschtein.
Early Morning Gym-Sessions. Shared Languages. Manly Bouts of
Pull-Ups.
2038 words.
Modern AU.
(ao3.)
Every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday morning she heads to the gym two blocks from her apartment. She had picked the place due to the proximity to her home, even if it’s always dirty enough to make her wonder if the forty dollars she pays every month is actually going anywhere.
At this time of year Toronto is as cold as ever, causing her limbs to feel like lead with every step. The world around her is dark as she exits her building, the frigid air nipping at her nose as she tries to avoid slipping on any black ice.
She enters the gym still rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, acknowledging the employee at the desk with nothing more than a silent nod. According to the tag on his firmly-fitting polo shirt his name is Porco, but in the months she’s been coming here she doesn’t think she’s actually uttered a single word to him.
The digital clock in the corner barely registers that it’s seven in the morning by the time she gets changed and heads to the main floor. The feeling of her usual hoodie as it hangs off her smaller frame greets her like an old friend. The place is as empty as ever, though the first inklings of the early morning crowd are beginning to matriculate in. There’s the usual senior citizens diligently occupying some ellipticals, as well as the newbie gym rats proving that they don’t know how to perform a preacher curl.
The speakers in all corners of the main floor pump faint top forty hits into the air as she begins her warm-up. As to be expected, she practices her kicks on one of the heavy bags that hangs in the corner, a part of the gym far removed from the squat racks, free weights, and machines.
And as she unloads various roundhouse and sidekicks onto a sand-filled bag, he enters the gym.
“Good morning, Jean!” Porco greets from the front desk.
Annie turns towards the door just in time to see the evidently-named Jean smiling like a cocky bastard, a sight she swears she’s seen a thousand times before. Like a typical gym bro he exchanges a casual fist bump with Porco.
“Morning to you, too,” he says, the unmistakable sound of his Quebecois accent shaping the way his voice leaves his mouth. “How’s it been this morning?”
“Dead as fuck, but what else is new?” Porco says, then shakes his head with a laugh. “Have a good workout.”
Annie continues to kick the heavy bag as Jean proceeds through the gym. Her body begins to feel warmer with every blow.
Through the mirrors in the gym she sees Jean approach and disappear into the men’s change room. She doesn’t deny why she always notices him, as the reasons pertain to both the familiar accent leaving his lips and him being a dedicated member of the early morning crowd.
The way he speaks simply reminds her of home. Hearing it occasionally leads to her workouts being plagued by thoughts about how long it had been since she called her father, or her childhood walks along the Prairies River when she had nothing better to do. She’ll even muse on whether a ticket home would be worth the cash, all because some gym rat who sounds like the boys she got into scraps with as a kid strolled in.
Then again, Annie has to come to learn how rare it is to run into another Quebecer despite Toronto’s lofty population.
Annie finishes punishing the heavy bag and gets to the main part of her workout. She hates leg day as much as the next person, but finds the nearest squat rack and begins loading the barbell without complaint. She’s halfway through her warm-up sets when she looks into the mirror behind the contraption and sees him in the reflection.
Jean walks across the main space with his smirk now faded, his tawny hair held back by a headband that makes him look like an instructor in an 80s workout tape. The morning appears to catch up with him as he fights back a yawn. Annie watches him as he goes to a squat rack a little bit away from hers, becoming acutely aware that they’re the only people in this particular corner of the gym. The distance placed between them seems to be an intentional choice, a silent acknowledgement of how some gym-goers would be better off worrying about their gains and not warding off unwanted attention.
She looks aside to see Jean warming up his upper body with a resistance band, making her presume that he’s about to utilize the rack for his usual set of pull-ups.
Annie tries to heed no attention to him as she goes on with her lifts, a routine that is second-nature to her now. She loads her usual amount of plates on the bar and wonders if today will be the day that she finally breaks through her plateau. As of lately, a part of her had felt haunted by the thought of never squatting more than 225.
With that in mind, Annie gets under the barbell and goes on with her lift. The first working set comes and goes with ease, though by the time she’s brought the weights back up for an eighth time she can already feel her legs tingling. Annie catches her breath, eyeing the clock in the corner once more and waiting for the minutes to go by.
To pass the time she looks aside again and glances at Jean. He’s in the middle of his set at his own rack, having grasped the top of the contraption and to perform the most impeccable pull-ups Annie’s ever seen. To see him so easily lift his own weight is impressive, especially with his larger frame. The fact that he’s been known to eventually add weights to the equation makes her wonder if he’s not the regular kind of calisthenics freak.
When Jean finishes his pull-up and drops himself back down, he looks aside and spots her staring. Immediately, Annie breaks her gaze and refocuses on her own lifts. As she adds some smaller plates onto her barbell, she swears that she can hear him chuckling.
With the number now slightly higher than her usual PR, Annie gets below the bar and begins her second set. The extra weight on her back changes things very subtly, as it’s all she can feel as she steps back from the rack. She focuses on her breathing, reminding herself that she can bail if she needs to before squatting down.
She gets as low as she can, feeling the extra pressure on her spine as she pauses at the bottom. When she stares ahead into the mirror, she sees only her face contorted in concentration. She tries to ignore how the weight on her back already feels immoveable, focusing more on the air coming in and out of her lungs and the tension in her braced core.
Annie doesn’t know how long she remains at the bottom of her lift, wherein she spends more time internally hyping herself up to complete the exercise instead of actually doing it. She already contemplates bailing the barbell onto the safety rails before she hears footsteps approaching her.
She looks at the mirror again and sees Jean approaching her rack. He gets to her level and positions his hands near her shoulders in a way where he’s not touching her but could easily provide support if necessary.
“You got this,” Jean encourages. His tone is very direct, no-bullshit. “Breathe.”
Annie does so. By the grace of god, she manages to stand with the unfamiliar weight on her shoulders, thus breaking through the plateau that had been hanging over her head like a cloud. The next few reps come and go, albeit not with much ease. Jean helps her through each one like a good spotter and by the time the sixth is finished, she’s re-racking the barbell and basking in the shock of her quads not feeling like they’re on fire.
“That was all you,” Jean applauds. “Didn’t even need to touch the bar.”
Annie turns to face him, tilting her neck upwards to meet his hazel eyes. To no surprise he towers over her, a feat that tends to be exceedingly manageable.
Instead of saying thank you like a normal goddamn human being, she says —
“You didn’t need to do that.”
Jean chuckles. “Of course, I did. It’s the love language of gym rats, is it not?.”
A sense of punchable confidence enters the smirk on his face, causing Annie to fight the urge to roll her eyes.
With nothing else to do between her sets, Annie crosses her arms and leans against her rack, keeping her eyes on Jean as he goes back to his own space. He hops up and grabs the top bar of the contraption, easily performing another set of pull-ups. His form is still immaculate, a detail that she’s not sure is impressive or annoying. As she watches the way his back muscles work to bring him upwards, the sound of his accent continues to linger in her mind. Even if she’s only spoken a few words to him, she wonders if he’s picked up on hers too.
“What’s with all the pull-ups?” she asks instead of the question she’s actually pondering.
Jean hangs from the rack as he turns his head towards her. “Hmm?”
“I see you here a lot. You do these all the time.”
For reasons that she doesn’t quite know, Jean looks amused.
“I just think they’re neat,” he ultimately answers in the middle of a rep. “And they remind me of my swimming days, y’know? The better you pull, the better you get through the water.”
“What part of Quebec are you from?” she finally decides to ask, utilizing her native French after months of not doing so.
Once more Jean looks at her. After skirting around the question of whether they share a home province for long enough, her forwardness makes him seem relieved.
“Trois-Rivières, born and raised,” he explains, automatically switching into his mother tongue. After finishing his last pull-up, he lets go of the bar and lands on the floor. “And what about you?”
“Laval.”
“Ah, just north of the Island.”
“I know where it is,” Annie retorts, unable to stop herself from sounding annoyed.
A chuckle escapes Jean’s mouth. “I wasn’t implying that you didn’t.” He manages to keep his tone light as he speaks to her. “I’m Jean, by the way.”
“Annie.”
He extends his hand towards her and she accepts the gesture rather stiffly. As Annie eyes Jean at this angle her brain ponders what he does when he’s not spotting random girls in squat racks. Her instincts tell her that it’s some kind of boring office job, an immovable 9-to-5 that necessitates visiting the gym so early. However, the designs inked onto his skin are visible underneath his muscle tee, giving him a hint of artsyness far removed from the typical yuppie. Combined with the scruffy, unkempt beard on his face, her presumptions begin to hold less weight.
“Funny… I think I’ve seen you about a thousand times,” Jean admits, breaking her from her train of thought. “Kicking that bag or whatever. I didn’t think we’d actually get a chance to talk.”
“I’m not much of a talker,” Annie admits, shrugging.
Somehow, Jean continues to smile. “Oh, really? I couldn’t tell.” Clearly, sarcasm comes easily to him.
A beat of awkward silence proceeds to persist between them, wherein Annie passes the time by avoiding his gaze and Jean glances up towards the ticking clock on the wall. And it’s moments like this where Annie is swiftly reminded of how unversed she is in the art of smalltalk.
“Uh… do you…” he begins, placing his hand on the rack in lieu of not knowing what else to do with it. “...do you still need a spotter?”
Something about the way he speaks puts a strange sense of relief inside her, as focusing on her workout tends to be a lot easier than continuing… whatever this is.
For a few merciful moments, Jean stands beneath a stream of water and washes the day off of him. He listens to nothing but the sound of the droplets hitting the floor. He scrubs himself with lavender soap, the warmth of the wash soothing the ache in his muscles and alleviating all the stresses and downfalls that come with spending hours behind a drafting table.
When everything is rinsed and sent down the drain, he turns off the tap and steps out, immediately grabbing a towel off the hook to dry off.
After securing said towel around his waist, he wipes the fog from the mirror, gauges the length of his beard, then deems shaving a task that ‘Future Jean’ should handle. He’s sure his advisor could handle him looking scruffy for another day or two.
After taking a few minutes to rub shea-scented cream into his skin, he exits the bathroom as he fights back a yawn.
The walk between the bathroom and bedroom is short, as the space in their Villeray apartment often feels more constricting than liberating.
When he enters, he’s greeted by the hum of the city outside their window and Mikasa perched on the bed, exactly where he last saw her. She sits with her laptop on the mattress and her eyes affixed to the screen. She barely notices him when he walks by, focusing more on her typing speed as she adjusts the way her eyeglasses sit on the bridge of her nose.
“Okay, slight change in plans,” Mikasa says just as he gets to the dresser.
“Oh?”
“I might have to meet with my advisor on the night that Armin gets here…” she begins, looking up for a brief second. “...so do you think you could drive to the airport and—”
“Consider it done,” Jean promises as he opens a dresser drawer. He glances aside to a mounted mirror on the wall, something placed at just the right angle to allow him to see her in the reflection.
And in the mirror he sees her smile slightly, relieved.
“You’re the best,” she thanks. “And please clean out your car.”
Jean rolls his eyes, but nods along. As he rummages around the drawer, he wonders what task will be more difficult — organizing the clutter in his aging Toyota or dealing with traffic around the airport. He finds the bottoms of a flannel pyjama set his mother gifted him two birthdays ago, but not the top. He only rifles through the drawer for a few more seconds before glancing to the mirror again, where the other half of the sleepwear currently hangs off of Mikasa’s shoulders. Evidently, she’s already claimed the garment for the night no matter how awkwardly it fits her.
A smirk creeps onto Jean’s face as he closes the drawer.
“So… when do you think you’ll get off work?” he asks.
Without missing a beat, Jean drops his towel and pulls on the bottoms. He looks to the mirror again and witnesses his significant other now suddenly intrigued by the ongoings near the dresser.
Once he’s more clothed, Mikasa refocuses on her laptop and adjusts her eyeglasses, flustered but refusing to let it show. “Why do you ask?”
Jean smirks as he grabs his towel off the floor and tosses it to a nearby hamper. “I just wanna know how many hours I’ll have to entertain your friend.”
He goes to sit on the edge of the bed and grabs his phone off the nightstand, mindlessly thumbing through notifications before sparing a glance at Mikasa’s laptop screen. As to be expected, he sees her very cluttered inbox and an alarming amount of open browser tabs, a telltale sign that her TA duties are beginning to intensify.
“I should be here around seven. Seven-thirty if Dietrich’s feeling chatty that day,” she answers, then eyes him. “And if anything, Armin might nap. He’d still be on England time.”
Jean nods, adjusting his position until his back is against the headboard. “Makes sense.”
When Jean runs out of notifications to swipe through, he catches his breath and tries to visualize the week ahead of him. His usual fate of hiding in the depths of McGill’s School of Architecture comes to mind. With deadlines drawing close, he already knows he’ll spend hours hunched over his drafting table as he reaches for his third, maybe fourth cup of coffee. He can already imagine himself slouching in his chair as he files through food delivery apps in search of some kind of discount. At least on Friday he’ll have an excuse to stay off campus, even if it involves a drive to an airport and preoccupying his significant other’s childhood friend for a few hours.
At least Mikasa has explained a thing or two about Armin. He had grown up alongside her back in Vancouver, similarly moved across the country for university reasons, then moved again when given the opportunity to earn his Master’s in the UK. Apparently, his dream of studying Marine Sciences was strong enough to bring him all the way across the pond, having settled in Newcastle for the last few years.
His planned trip to Montreal will only last a night. Then after his reunion dinner with his childhood best friend, he’ll be on another plane to Vancouver to visit his grandfather. Their hours together are limited, but to Mikasa it’s more than enough after all the time they’ve spent apart.
Mikasa types for a few more seconds before glancing back at her boyfriend by the headboard. “Are you nervous?”
“A little,” Jean shrugs. “I’ve never met any of your old friends before.”
“Armin doesn’t bite.”
“I’m not implying that he does. I just… I’ve never met the guy.”
Mikasa hums. “I feel like you two would get along.”
Jean is still unconvinced, but manages a smile anyways. “And what makes you think that?”
She takes a moment to think, adjusting her glasses once more as her face remains neutral. “I just do,” she says as she turns back towards her laptop.
Jean rolls his eyes as he adjusts his position once more. He eventually lays back and stares at the ceiling above the bed. As he relaxes, he wonders if his girlfriend’s answer is partially due to the current hour or to something else. Perhaps it’s instinct — an inkling, a feeling — something she just knows for sure without knowing why.
Either way, the plans for next week are still set in stone. With that in mind, Jean finds it in himself to breathe. He closes his eyes, nestles one of his hands underneath his head, and doesn’t know how much time passes before he nods off.
