#ic replies;

[kerothi]

"What're you doing here? Shouldn't you be guarding under a bridge or something?"

[kerothi]

"Man, what a mess."

[kerothi]

@mercurialstorm | continued from x

It's dark. Disgusting. Slimy, cramped and suffocating with so many bodies squished together. Jean can feel someone's elbow or knee digging sharply into his back. Can feel himself practically crushing Lyanna into the roof of its mouth. Every jolt, nudge and shake from the Cart's sprint making it impossible for any of them readjust themselves.

They don't see the daylight again until they've finally been spat out, dumped (thankfully) straight into a river - where Jean immediately lurches forward onto his hands and knees and hurls his goddamn guts.

"Ugh... I'm not gettin' inside a titan's mouth ever again..."

Onyankopon's the first to ask questions. When did he join forces with Marley? Why, when he could've secured his place with the Jaegerists? Of course, the poor guy's got no idea what he means when he explains how those old bones now turned to ashes would never have forgiven him for burying his head in the sand. And with no desire to elaborate further, Jean dismisses him with a splash from the river and tells him to go and wash himself off, just as he very well intends to do.

The next splash is one he takes right to his own face, with another grimace muffled into the palms of his hands before he swipes the viscous layer of nasty pungent drool off his cheeks.

When he eventually looks up again, he catches eyes with Lyanna and pauses there, trying to read the expression on her equally violated face and whatever she must be wondering. He blinks blankly at her. Then quickly tethers his brow again as he says, "What? Was I jus' s'posed to leave ya there?"

[kerothi]

"How’d I miss that?"

[kerothi]

@astutior from x

Where Armin sits with his knees tucked up to his chin, there is Jean settled beside him, his back reclined to a log with his legs outstretched and his arms folded across his chest. Plenty of sore spots and aching muscles that encourage the rest his mind just won’t let him have. Just like Armin, Eren’s right back at the center of his thoughts again.

They might not have been “friends” but from what Jean had thought he learned and understood about him, he had respected. Eren might’ve been a crazy, suicidal bastard, but he was protective of the ones he cared about, and he’d always put himself in the front lines before he’d ever drag the rest of them into something like that. So it still doesn’t make sense…

A little further off, across from the fire, he can see the bundle he knows to be Connie still tossing and turning around on the floor. Jean’s worried about him, too. It feels like a part of him died with Sasha that day, and ever since then he’s been… well, he’s been angry, mostly. Unable to get to Eren and sort of looking for someone else to blame in his stead.

Jean lets out a long breath and lulls his head back against the log. He doubts he’s ever gonna understand what made him laugh that day…

“What if it is?” He eventually asks. The question no one wants to ask: “What if this is final?”

Even though it’s felt like a losing battle so far, he still can’t help but speculate and try to understand what his real motives must be. “Eren’s been backing us into a corner.” He says, “We’re running outta options here and fast — surely, he’s gotta know that as well.”

“…Would it really be such a shock, if he’s trying to force our hand again?”

[kerothi]

@mercurialstorm || continued.

"Oh, m'sorry, your highness. S'there somethin' wrong with my attitude?" He clips back, his eyes wide and incredulous as he gapes at her. "Y'don't think maybe the gash in my side might have a li'l somethin' t' do wi' that, Lyanna? Forgive me if I might seem a little blunt."

Her poking around in her inspection of the severity of that wound hadn't exactly helped, even if that is what she's doing; helping. If he would just shut his damn mouth, that is... Jean huffs, snapping his head and therefore his scowl elsewhere. There is a mist of sweat across his brow and the counter he stands beside in support has his bone-white knuckles gripped tightly around the edge. His other hand is tucked behind his back where he keeps his shirt held up and out of her way, and frankly, he is just not looking forward to getting these stitches.

And he talks a lot anyway, but he talks even more when he's anxious—it's a problem.

"Like you'd be a ray of sunshine anyways..." He mutters, stubbornly. Not that he knows that for sure, he's just pretty damn confident she'd have some of her own venom to spit were their situations reversed.

[kerothi]

@jinxcdd | o////o

"Well, no. I didn't say tha—"

"That-uhm- That..." Nope. Jean's mind has gone completely blank. He was not expecting that.

[kerothi]

sent from prompts / @viitlumi

It was something Connie said. Something really dumb—so dumb that even Connie had to stop mid-sentence with this bewildered, wide-eyed, almost owl-like look on his face and boggle back at Jean. Made a total mess of whatever he was meant to say, like his tongue was suddenly just a bit too big for his mouth or something, and it's that which prompted them both to ask in perfect unison, "What the hell was that?"

It takes something as stupid as that, as unfunny and out of pocket as one them tripping over their words and the both of them to say the same thing, at the same time, for them to finally allow themselves some levity and take the time to laugh. Really laugh. Bowed forward with tears in their eyes, clapping each other on the back while they tried and failed to catch their breaths. It wasn't funny, but that's why it was.

It's been a long time since the two of them have been able to laugh like that.

Hilda says: "I've never seen you that way..."

After Jean breaks away from Connie and goes to pass her on his way back inside the ship. He only stops after he does a double-take and realizes she is, in fact, talking to him. He reverses a couple of steps back out onto the deck and says, "What way's that?" Even if he could guess. He pockets his hands and waits for a crew mate to pass before joining beside her and the view out to sea. "Not completely miserable?" He offers, with a shoulder popped up in a shrug.

"What can I say? Full of surprises, me."