Who painted the sky?
Chapter 31: The Extremities of Boredom
Annie’s not sure when she dozed off, but she wakes up to the sound of not one, but three alarms, all going off at the same time. The cacophony of tunes screeches her ear; yet, when she goes to prop herself up, she realises that she can’t.
She looks down, finding Armin’s arms wrapped around her middle. His face buried in her shoulderblade, his breath warm even through the fabric of her shirt.
From across the room, Hitch groans loudly. She throws her blanket to the side, still groaning and cursing under her breath, and turns off all alarms.
It’s only then that Annie takes in her surroundings. They’re in her room. She remembers they were talking about her visiting, and Armin was telling her about all the places he would take her: his favourite coffee house down the shore, the park of roses, this pastry shop he thought she’d like. She must have dozed off at some point, and they must have snuggled into each other during the night.
And Hitch must have seen them.
A wave of embarrassment washes over her then, at the mere idea of being caught in such an intimate moment.
But it’s short lived, as Hitch marches over to her side of the room and nudges Armin, roughly so. He groans, his hold on her tightening slightly.
“Come on, lover boy,” Hitch teases, nudging his shoulder again. Yet she sounds rather groggy herself. “We have work to do.”
Armin holds her a second longer, but then he peels himself away, letting out such a dragged out sigh. Annie finds she immediately misses his warmth.
He wiggles to the edge of the bed and reaches for his glasses. It’s then that Annie takes the time to fully take him in; his messed up hair, his shirt slightly lifting; his broad back.
But before she can fully bask in the sight, Armin leans down and presses a kiss to the side of her head.
“Go back to sleep,” he smiles.
“Get a room!” Hitch yells from the bathroom.
She can see her rolling her eyes in the mirror as she's putting sunscreen on, yet she’s smiling all the same.
Armin turns to her only briefly. “You're in the room!”
Hitch says something else, but she doesn’t hear her over the sound of her own laughter. Armin places another kiss to her forehead, smiling against her skin.
“Sorry we woke you up. Go back to sleep.”
She shakes her head. “I can work today.”
Armin clicks his tongue. “Bed rest for a few days,” he reminds her. But then his face softens. He brushes the hair out of her face, his fingertips grazing her skin oh so softly, eliciting a little sigh from her. “And you could use some more sleep.”
She wants to fight him, to say that she’s feeling much better and can, in fact, work, but when she tries to move her leg, a pang of pain shoots through her. She tries not to show it, but it’s probably futile with how Armin seems to winch too, his eyes traveling to her knee almost instinctively.
“Okay,” she says. “But give me a kiss before you go.”
Armin smiles so brightly then. He leans down, his face just above hers. “A sleep well kiss?”
But he doesn’t wait for an answer, closing the gap between them. His lips are soft against hers, and the kiss rather lazy, but she likes it like that. Like she had all of him, starting with his early mornings.
He's smiling when he pulls back, the sight making her heart melt in her chest. But it’s not enough.
“A good luck kiss,” Annie says.
She cups his cheeks and pulls him down, recapturing his lips. It’s a little firmer this time, but he doesn’t protest, kissing her with just the same intensity as she does him.
Armin’s a little flushed when he draws back, yet he's smiling so softly. He brushes her hair behind her ear, letting his fingers linger for a second.
“Sleep well, Annie.”
She finds herself smiling a little, too, her entire being warm. She caresses his cheek with her thumb for a second, eliciting a little sigh from him. And then she drops her hand, letting it fall next to her.
“Good luck today.”
She dozes off shortly after he leaves, sinking back into her blankets.
The sun is high in the sky when she opens her eyes again, shining so bright that it almost blinds her. Her phone is buzzing wildly somewhere near. Annie pulls the blanket over her head, shielding herself from the obnoxious light, then feels around for her phone. Once it’s safely inside of her blanket cocoon, and the screen light has been lowered comfortably enough for her eyes, she scans through the notifications. There’s a text from her father asking about her leg, four from Armin, and about a hundred on the Rice Fiasco group-chat.
She shoots her dad a text back, assuring him that everything is fine as could be, then opens Armin’s texts.
9.02 am
Armin: there’s breakfast on the kitchen table when you wake up
Armin: i wanted to bring it up to your room but hitch wouldn’t let me >:(
Armin: said i'm spoiling you too much
A little smile creeps into her lips then. Hitch is probably right. Though, and she will not admit this out loud, especially not to Armin, she likes being spoiled. It would get to his head if he knew.
11.15 am
Armin: the kids are asking about you
Annie freezes in her tracks a little, her thumb hovering over the screen. She's not seen the kids since the hike, and if her sense of the passage of time is right, they’re leaving in two days. She'd hate for that to be their last memory of her.
It’s only then that she registers her stomach grumbling, so she quickly types a reply.
Annie: thanks :)
Annie: you can bring them over later
Annie makes quick work of getting out of bed and throwing some clean clothes on– a pair of black shorts and a light-pink t-shirt, with a cat printed on the front.
Getting to the first floor, however, proves to be a quite demanding task with her fucked up knee, and she needs to sit for a minute before continuing her quest for food. Sure enough, when she enters the kitchen, there’s a plate of pastries waiting for her on the table, with a blue sticky note next to it. She recognizes the writing as Armin's.
We saved you the best ones :)
She scoffs a little, but digs in all the same, thankful for the food. It’s only when her phone pings again that she remembers her colleagues’ shenanigans and opens the group-chat, then scrolls all the way to the top.
The first text is a picture of two hair dye boxes, both purple, sent by Hitch this morning.
Jean: hell nah
Pieck: ????
Sasha: omg what is that
Hitch: we’re dyeing our hair purple
Jean: HELL NAH
Hitch: it was not a suggestion
Jean: over my dead body.
Pieck: where did you even get that
Hitch: i have my ways
Hitch: @jeanboy you have to i don’t make the rules
Connie: ykw i’m down you can do my whole head
Hitch: now THAT’S the spirit!!!
Pieck: hell yeah
Sasha: your mom will have a heart attack when she sees you
Annie snorts at only the mental image of Connie, with a full head of purple hair.
Armin: dear GOD
Jean: i’d rather ear shit than put that in my hair
Hitch: why are you such haters >:((
Sasha: it’d ruin their aesthetic
Sasha: when are we executing the plan boss?
Hitch: so glad you asked!!! i have no idea
Hitch: but hannah cannot see us until we’re all purple in the head
Reiner: i tried to stop her guys
Hitch: love you too babe
Hitch: maybe it’s best we do it after the kids leave
Pieck: we need a brush or smth too
Sasha: when are they leaving again??
Armin: saturday morning
Armin: 11am
Connie: did you check the schedule or do you just know all of that
Hitch: @piecksfingers dingus i forgot about that
Pieck: i can take care of thagt :)
Hitch: ty!!!
Hitch: so saturday afternoon. like 5pm. we’re all dyeing our hair
hitchmitch has pinned a message
Jean: i never consented to this
Hitch: well i did
Annie: you can only do my tips
Hitch: I WIN
Hitch: @jeanboy will you stop being such a grinch now
Jean: do not encourage her!!!!!!
Annie snorts. Her fingers hover over the keyboard as she thinks up an answer, but before she can, another notification comes in, this time from Armin.
Armin: are you sure?
Annie: i don’t think she’ll leave me alone until my hair is purple
Annie: and it sounds fun
Armin: oh yeah definitely
Armin: are you sure it’s okay to bring the kids over though?
A little smile pulls on her lips.
Annie: yeah
Annie: i’m bored anyway
She lingers on their conversation, waiting for him to type his reply, when she hears the door being thrown open. Annie snaps her head up and perches towards the entrance. She’s met by the tall figure of the cook, Ymir, holding a few bags of snacks under her arm.
“I heard you’re throwing a party,” Ymir grins.
Annie frowns. “I am?”
The girl drops the bags on the coffee table and throws herself on the couch. “Your friends said so.”
Ymir puts her feet up on the coffee table and reaches for the remote, turning the TV on and switching through the channels until she finds something she likes. It looks a lot like a cooking show.
Annie returns to her phone, but there’s no new text, just the blue arrows indicating that Armin’s seen her last message.
Sighing, she raises to her feet and pockets her phone. She limps towards the couch and joins Ymir, who’s already munching on some chips. She thrusts the bag towards her and Annie doesn’t turn her down, taking a handful.
She’s not sure how much time passes of them just sitting on the couch, no word exchanged between them. But before she knows it, she’s so invested in the cooking show that she finds herself even rooting for one of the contestants. Only for them to be kicked out over a way too runny panna cotta. Not that she’s had any in her life, but she figures it wasn’t supposed to be a liquid dessert.
Ymir throws her hands in the air, groaning loudly. “How can you even fuck that up so badly, it’s literally just jellied milk!”
Annie scoffs, reaching into the chips bag only to find it empty.
“What else have you got?”
Ymir groans again, but rummages through her pile of snacks all the same. She hands her a bag of popcorn just as the ads start rolling.
“Is your leg any better?”
“Yep.” Annie stuffs her mouth full of popcorn.
Ymir hums, inspecting her bandages that she’s hastily put on in the morning. She did a lousy job of it, but it covers the stitches as the doctor’s instructed. The painkillers have been helping, too.
“Good, good.”
They go back to the show without another word, but she quickly abandons it when her phone pings again.
Armin: is before lunch alright?
She shoots him an okay right back. She’s more excited about seeing him than the kids, but she won’t tell him.
A picture rolls through right when she’s about to put her phone away. When she opens it, she’s met with the smiling faces of her kids, all gathered up behind Armin. She tries not to stare at his face too much, though peeling her eyes away from him is a little hard, what with that sweet smile he’s giving.
Right next to him is Andy, giving her not one but two thumbs up. He’s smiling a little smile, though it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, like he’s been forced to be there.
For a second, Annie finds herself wondering if this whole ordeal was Armin’s idea and not the children’s.
But she doesn’t linger on the thought too long, for there is a loud knock on the door.
Ymir jumps to her feet at the same time Annie snaps her head towards it. There’s a blonde girl standing on the other side of the glass door, wearing a little frown. Annie squints at her, at her pink summer dress and luxurious hair flowing down her shoulders. She looks oddly familiar, though she cannot quite place her finger on why.
The girl gives her a little wave, and she waves back, but then Ymir opens the door and stirs her away. She doesn’t seem to mind though, for she melts into her touch. Annie narrows her eyes, following them as they disappear around the corner. For a second, she wonders if that’s the idiot girlfriend the cook has been mentioning, but she soon realises that she cares a lot more about the cooking show than some stranger’s love life.
Annie loses any sense of time as she sinks into the couch, at some point zoning out of the cooking show altogether. The cook never returns, but she’s left her bags of snacks there, so Annie takes the liberty to go through them.
It’s only when Armin rounds the corner, followed by a little marching squad of children, that she sits up straighter and attempts to clean up the mess.
“Hi, Annie,” he beams when he opens the door.
Annie’s face immediately melts into a smile. For a second, she thinks he’ll come over and kiss her– she so desperately wants him to kiss her. To feel his warmth and be engulfed in his scent and get lost in his affection.
But he doesn’t, leaving her a little disappointed. He beckons the kids inside instead, and they all gather around her, sitting wherever they find appropriate.
“How are you feeling, miss Annie?” asks a little girl with oval glasses.
But before she gets the chance to answer, another asks, “Did you see the picture? Did you see it?”
There’s so much excitement in her voice that she can only mirror it.
“I did. You guys are so pretty.”
The little girl beams, a little blush spreading on her cheeks. Annie’s smile only widens. She exchanges a look with Armin, raising an eyebrow at him. He smiles right back, sitting on the floor, a little to the side, so as to let the kids be closer to her.
“You did?”
“We won at Capture the Flag!” a boy says, his green eyes gleaming with pride.
He and his friends nod thoroughly. “Yep!”
“We paired up with Sasha and Connie’s group,” Armin explains, leaning back on his hands. “Do you guys want to tell Annie about the game?”
And so, they do. The kids dive right into the story, speaking over one another, giving her all the little details about the game and their strategy and who did what. It was Andy that won them the other flag and made a run for the finish line, although the boy says nothing about it, staring at his own shoes as his friends go on and on about the game. Annie studies him for a little while; his little blush as his friends sing him praises, the way he’s rubbing his nape and trying to argue that it was no big deal, really.
But none of his friends are having it. Armin encourages him to accept his praise, for he really did play such a big part in winning the game. Eventually, albeit sheepishly, Andy accepts the praise, and starts telling her his own version of events. How he sneaked up on the other group and hid in the bushes and took them by surprise. How he made a run for the finish line, with someone from the red team only two feet behind him.
“I didn’t think I’d make it,” he confesses, wrapping up his story.
Annie’s smile broadens. Only now does she realise that she hasn’t stopped smiling since the kids walked in, and her cheeks are starting to hurt.
“You did so well,” she says, and she means it. “Good thinking, Andy!”
The boy blushes such an intense shade of red, he looks a lot like a tomato, and she has to suppress a laugh.
“I learnt from the best,” he shrugs, rubbing his upper arm.
Armin rolls his eyes. “Oh, don’t sell yourself short,” he says, patting the boy’s shoulder. “That was all you.”
“I was talking about Annie,” Andy mumbles, his blush getting brighter.
Annie’s eyes widen slightly, and she breaks into a short laughter as Armin rolls his eyes theatrically. Yet he’s smiling all the same. Andy’s blush only deepens, and he says nothing more.
The others go on with their adventures of the day, yet Annie’s not paying much attention anymore. Her eyes zoom in on Andy, who’s sitting a little to the side, just watching the others.
Annie scoots over, leaning closer to him. It grabs his attention, and he raises his eyes to look at her.
“Are you alright?” she asks, her voice a little low.
She doesn’t want to put him in the spotlight, but something in his demeanor worries her a little. He’s never been so quiet before.
The boy nods, though it’s not very convincing. When she doesn’t back down, he sighs.
“A little spooked from… you know,” he eventually says, gesturing towards her knee.
Annie hums. She’s not sure how much the kid saw of her wound, but the way he refuses to look her in the eye tells her that it was too much.
She sighs. “Listen, I’m really sorry about the other night. It wasn’t fair of us to drag you into our mess. We were the adults in the situation and we didn’t act it one bit.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose, cringing at the mere memory of their antics. Doing all of that in front of a kid was so embarrassing.
But Andy shakes his head. “No, it was fun. It was like having a seat in the front row of a circus.”
She scoffs at that, though her face warms up. That sounds more like Andy.
“How did you know what to do?” he asks after a minute.
When she looks back at him, Andy’s already looking at her, wearing such a curious expression.
“What do you mean?”
“In the forest. You kept your cool for so long. How did you know what to do?”
Annie bites her lip, thinking it over. Snapping at her traitorous-but-not-really boyfriend-but-not-really in front of a frightened boy isn’t exactly her idea of keeping her cool.
“I didn’t,” she admits. The boy’s eyebrows shoot up. “I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew that I had to do something.”
The boy hums, though he says nothing more on the matter. Annie’s swiped away into the other kids’ conversation, and Andy soon joins in himself. She’s not sure how much time passes of them just telling her about their day and shenanigans, but her– or Ymir’s– cooking show is soon forgotten, running in the background as mere background noise. The children raid Ymir’s sweets until there’s nothing left but empty packages, though the cook never does come back. She shouldn’t have left them there if she wanted them for herself anyway.
“Guys, it’s time for lunch,” Armin says at some point.
He raises to his feet, gesturing for them to get up, too.
He’s met with a collective complaint.
“But we want to stay with Miss Annie,” the girl with oval glasses says, pouting up at Armin. And her friends soon join her in her pleas.
“Yeah, you said we could stay with Miss Annie!”
Annie’s lips pull up.
“I know,” Armin sighs. “But we need to go to lunch. And Annie needs her rest, too.”
“I could come with you,” she offers.
The kids light up at that. They look from Armin to her and then back to Armin. Armin meets her eyes then, searching them thoroughly, and she holds his gaze throughout it.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I’m a little hungry anyway.”
His brows furrow. “It’s a bit of a walk though. I could just bring you lunch here–”
“Or you could carry me.”
She’s not sure where that came from, but she delights in the way his eyes widen only slightly, only for her to notice, and the faintest blush creeps into his cheeks. He swallows, and she follows the way his Adam’s apple bobs with the motion. But he regains his composure in no time, his lips twitching up.
“Or I could carry you,” he repeats, slowly, his voice leveled.
Annie hums, her own face warming up under the intensity of his gaze.
But then one of the boys speaks up, his voice cheerful. “I can carry you, Miss Annie!”
Another joins in. “I can help too.”
Annie’s eyes widen slightly, and she has to hold back a laugh.
“How about you guys go ahead?” Armin suggests. “Annie and I will join you soon, okay?”
To her surprise, they do listen this time, and scatter outside in a hurry, leaving the door to swing behind them.
Once he makes sure they’re out of earshot and sight, Armin turns to her, wearing a teasing smile.
“Or you could carry me?” he repeats her words back to her.
Annie snorts, but she cannot meet his eye. “It sounded better in my mind.”
He clicks his tongue, but he’s smiling all the same when he sits next to her, his knee brushing against hers.
“You don’t have to carry me though,” she says, her face warming up. “I can walk.”
Armin hums. “I take your knee is better, then.”
She tries to focus on anything but the patterns he’s lightly drawing on her skin.
“It is. It doesn’t hurt as much.”
“Mhm.” There’s a teasing glint in his eyes that she doesn’t quite like. “I can still carry you.”
Annie lets out a breath of laughter. “There’s no need, really.”
Armin presses his lips together, but says nothing. He only holds her eye, continuing his caress, until his gaze gets too intense for her to hold and her face too hot to bear. A victorious smile blooms on Armin’s lips then.
He sits a little straighter, his other hand cupping her face to hold her still, and he captures her lips with his own.
It’s a soft caress, it’s everything she’s been craving all morning. And yet, as he kisses her and holds her close, as if she was everything he needed, Annie feels a pang of guilt nagging her heart much like it did the previous night.
Armin must have read her mind, for he draws back, his brows slightly furrowed.
“What is it?”
Annie bites her lower lip, looking away for a second. She can feel Armin’s eyes on her, studying her intensely as if trying to read her mind, and she knows that if she doesn’t let it out now, she never will.
Eventually, she says, “I’m really sorry about last night. That wasn’t fair of me.”
Armin’s quiet for a second, and when she faces him, his brows are shot up slightly. She sees it in his eyes when he realises what she’s talking about.
“Annie…”
“I mean, I literally blueballed you,” she hurries to add, her face heating up slightly. “It wasn’t fair and–”
Armin takes her hands between his own, tilting his head just enough to catch her eye. When she does meet his gaze, he’s smiling a little smile. “I already told you I don’t care about that.”
Her face softens, yet a part of her is still yelling that he’s lying. A strand of hair falls into her face, too soft from being freshly washed– by his hands no less– to stay where she’s placed it. But she doesn’t bother to put it away, for it hides her from his gaze. She doesn’t think she can face him right now. Not with that turmoil whirling into her heart, not with the knowledge that she’s denied him.
Yet Armin’s voice is soft when he speaks again.
“I just wanted to be close to you,” he tells her, brushing the hair out of her face. “And I don’t think I’ve ever felt closer to you than last night.”
Annie hums, for she felt the same way. It felt like they were the only people left on earth, like the rest of the world had ceased to exist, and her heart had never felt more at ease before.
Yet she still doesn’t dare meet his eyes now.
Armin gently takes her chin between his fingers and lifts her face just enough to make her face him. When she does, there’s such a gentle expression on his face that it takes her a little aback.
“That’s enough for me.”
“Is it really?”
“Yes.” He huffs out a little laugh. “And for future reference, sex is not a stepping stone for me.”
Annie snorts a little. Though she cannot ignore the way her heart melts, finally at ease again. “Noted.”
Armin smiles softly, though he’s still searching her eyes. “Is it for you?”
The question catches her a little off-guard, for she didn’t expect the conversation to shift onto her. She shakes her head.
“No.”
“Okay.”
His smile only grows, yet he holds her eye a second longer. Armin pecks her lips, short and sweet. But then he peels away, leaving her feeling rather cold.
“We should get going,” he says as he stands up, putting his hand out for her.
Sighing, knowing full well that this was her idea to join them for lunch when she could have just stayed in, Annie takes his hand and lets him help her up. But she doesn’t let him carry her, even though he offers, opting to simply hold onto his arm for support as they slowly make their way to the dining hall.
“Will you really let Hitch dye your hair?”
Annie scoffs. “Just the tips,” she says. “I doubt she’ll get off my back otherwise.”
“Yeah, fair enough.”
She looks up at him, studying his face. His relaxed smile, his sharp jawline. And his hair, having grown a little over the tips of his ears, his bangs just about covering his eyebrows.
Armin narrows his eyes. “What?”
“You could dye your tips, too.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “You’re kidding.”
“I’m not. You’d look good with purple hair.”
“I would not.”
“Oh, come on.” She rolls her eyes at him, dragging out the motion theatrically. “If I have to dye my hair, you have to dye yours, too.”
“Nobody is making you dye it.”
“Hitch is,” she argues. “And we share a room. Even if I turn her down, she could just do it in my sleep.”
Armin opens his mouth to protest, but she doesn’t give him the chance.
“Besides, you can just cut it off once camp’s over.”
“Right.”
He holds the door open, and, once inside the dining hall, she waits for him before resuming her walk.
“It could be fun,” she says.
Armin rolls his eyes playfully, though his smile doesn’t waver, but before he gets the chance to say anything else, they’re swooped into the dining hall by their campers.
Lunch, as it turns out, is a variety of weird looking soups and a hellish amount of pizza, but the kids devour it all the same. Hitch doesn’t let them sit with their group though, saying that they have important volunteer business to discuss, and drags them away towards their usual table.
The important volunteer business, as it turns out, is her masterplan of dyeing everyone’s hair.
“I don’t want to be part of this,” Floch says, scowling at Hitch.
Hitch freezes in her tracks as if faced with death itself. She slowly turns towards Floch, who’s slowly and very loudly munching on a slice of pizza.
“Well, did I ask you to?”
His scowl somehow only deepens. But Hitch doesn’t seem to care, for she turns right back to the others. Which seems to offend Floch to no limits, for his munching only gets louder.
“Why does he get to opt out and I don’t?” Jeans argues, narrowing his eyes.
“Because you’re part of the group and he isn’t,” Sasha says, shrugging indifferently.
Floch huffs, loudly so, and picks up his plate, leaving their table.
“Good riddance,” Hitch mutters.
She resumes her talking then, and somehow even manages to convince Jean to dye one strand of hair purple, as long as it’s not a very flashy shade.
“So I’ll go get a brush Saturday morning, after the kids leave,” says Pieck, her voice low so as not to attract any attention.
They’re all huddled together over the table, going over their plan one more time.
“Could you buy some food for Dexter, too?” asks Connie, his eyes suddenly going wide. “I think he’s running out.”
Pieck blinks at him, but then she shrugs. “Sure.”
Though Annie’s pretty sure they’ve just gotten the puppy some food on Monday.
“And then we’ll just do it in the common room?” Reiner asks, his eyebrows furrowed as if it made no sense to him.
Sasha waves her hand through the air. “Yeah, that’s the plan. Keep up.”
Armin’s eyes widen as if he’s just had a revelation. “Reiner’s right. What if someone passes by the glass door and sees us?”
His line is followed by collective silence. That, they haven’t thought about.
“We’ll do it in our room,” Hitch announces.
Annie’s eyes widen. “No.”
Hitch frowns, as if that was the most offensive thing she could have said. “Why not?”
“Have you seen how small that place is?”
“It’s not that small,” Hitch argues. “We’ll have enough room.”
Annie wants to argue some more, to mention the carpeted floor they could get dirty, or the white vanity they could spoil, but her colleagues soon move on to the next important volunteer business: the camp fire tomorrow night.
Which is, arguably, a more pressing matter, yet Annie cannot be bothered to participate in the conversation. As it turns out, they’ve already discussed it over breakfast, so there’s not much for her to bring to the table anyway. They fill her in on all the details, the place, the time, the diplomas they’ll be handing out to the kids– which she only now remembers Armin and her haven’t filled in.
After lunch is officially over and her colleagues take the kids canoeing, Annie decides to see to those diplomas. So she settles comfortably at one of the tables with her pens, puts on some music, and gets started.
