berujean week has officially begun and what better way to start it than with some lowkey angst! this is unbeta’ed and barely proofread because i have v little time today oops, but i hope you guys’ll enjoy anyway!
The sky is dark, the stars covered by a thick veil of black smoke, the air filled with harsh sobs and shaking breath. It’s the night where Jean learns, for the first time, that there is nothing quite as strong as the smell of burning corpses. The fact that some of the bodies have lain in the sun for an entire day before being piled up probably doesn’t make it any better. The smell clogs up his nose, makes it impossible to think about anything else. It’s so thick he can almost feel it pressing against his skin, though that might be the heat of the fire as well.
There’s still some ash clinging to his hands, but he doesn’t want to wipe it against his trousers. It seems a little disrespectful. So he leaves it be, and wonders if this night will be something that’s going to stay with him forever, or if it will eventually just be one of many bad memories. After all, he’s sure that this won’t be the last time he will lose a friend. It’s common knowledge that on most missions the Survey Corpse returns to the walls more dead than alive. He has seen the haunted looks on their faces every time they come back. Staring at the bonfire, he can’t help but wonder if his decision to join them is suicide.
The heat of the fire on his skin suddenly feels like too much, the smell making it a little too hard to breathe, so he turns around and starts walking. It’s not very difficult to slip away; everyone is too caught up in their own grief to wonder where a skinny 15 year old might be going. He keeps his eyes cast downward, watching as the brown earth beneath his feet slowly turns into green grass covered in dew. He thinks he can still hear the crackling of the fire, but he doesn’t know for certain if it’s not just in his head. The fire is far behind him now, and when he looks up he can see the night sky again.
He jolts a little when he hears someone’s heavy breathing, realising he’s not alone here. He looks around, confused, until he spots Bertholdt lying on the ground a few metres away from him. Even though he doesn’t give any sign that he’s heard Jean, he knows he must have; it’s so quiet around here that Jean’s footsteps seem very loud.
He hesitates only for a moment, before he slowly makes his way toward him. He looks down again, noticing the tips of his boots are wet by now. Bertl looks up at him, his face a mixture of sorrow and something else.
‘Hey, Jean,’ he says after a beat of silence.
Jean gestures to the ground next to him. ‘Can I join you?’ he asks.
‘The grass is wet,’ Bertl warns him, but Jean is already kneeling down, stretching out his body next to Bertholdt. Bertl was right about the grass, and he can feel the dampness seeping into his clothes. He doesn’t mind, though. It’s almost nice after having stood in front of the fire for so long.
They’re both silent for a while, and Jean wants to ask him why he’s here, why he was lying on the ground, but he isn’t sure how to do that. The silence feels too heavy to lift on his own.
He’s still trying to figure out what to say when Bertl breaks the silence himself.
‘I’m sorry,’ is what he says, and Jean is so surprised by those words that he turns his head to the side so he can look at him. Bertholdt is still staring at the sky, a small frown pulling his eyebrows together.
‘Why?’ Jean asks, scanning Bertl’s face. Bertholdt wets his lips a little, but he doesn’t look at Jean when he speaks.
‘I know you cared for him.’
Jean turns his head away again, staring at the stars visible through wisps of black smoke. His chest feels heavy.
‘I did,’ he answers, because he isn’t sure what else he’s supposed to say. He doesn’t know why Bertl brings it up either. They are silent again, and it doesn’t feel like a comfortable one like it normally does between them. Jean is desperate to change the subject, and because his thoughts are on Marco no matter what, the only thing he can come up with is, ‘you can see Orion from here.’
He can hear Bertl turning his head towards him, but he doesn’t look. Instead he points his finger to the sky, drawing a line between the three stars shining next to each other.
‘That part is supposed to be the belt,’ he explains. ‘It’s an easy one to spot, because the four stars around it form a rectangle.’
Just when Jean thinks he isn’t listening, Bertl speaks up.
Jean can feel a weak smile tugging at the corners of his mouth, and he points out another constellation. He remembers the nights, very long ago, where he would do this with his mom. It’s why he knows so many of them; she always used to take him outside in the middle of the night to tell stories about fallen heroes and beautiful women.
He also remembers nights where he’d look for the same constellations on the skin of Marco’s back, painting freckles together with the tip of his finger. This is different, of course, because even from here they can still smell the burning, can still see some of the smoke covering up the stars above them.
But Bertl is lying next to him either way, and when Jean shifts on the grass and their shoulders touch, neither of them moves away. It’s different, but it also feels like the start of something. For the first time since this afternoon, Jean feels like maybe he can learn to live with the memories of what happened today.
