A/N: This fic is a shingeki no kyojin (snk) au, with a twist of soul mate tattoos and a reincarnation au. It's like a three-in-one deal. You don't need to be watching snk to understand stuff, btw, since snk concepts were only mentioned in passing. This focuses in the year 2016, and US is an archeaologist.

Another thing: I have this horrible habit of hating my own work 3 seconds after I finish it… I'm my own worst critic. Doesn't help that I hate myself for making this an snk au..ish. I felt like such a rip off…

This fic is beta-ed by ALittleTooMuch, also written for her.

Well, fuck me silly. It's Jones.

Alfred remembers the day when the dark scribbles of black ink located in the underside of wrist finally formed words, longer than average-his young mind had supplied him-and is written in a very fancy script that he had a hard time deciphering what the letters are. The first person aside from him who got to read them was his first grade adviser-a very kind hearted and soft-spoken woman, bless her-whose face had become several shades paler upon reading them.

When Alfred asked, excited, what the words said, his adviser merely smiled shakily down at him, a nervous twitch evident on her lips and slight tremor to her voice as she tells him, "You'll find out when you're older."

"And after you learn German."

When he went home and proudly showed them to his parents, he got the funniest reactions as well. His mother, a linguist, exploded into a burst of laughs, her fist knocking on their dining table as another hand clutches at her stomach that it left Alfred worried. Does your tummy hurt?

"No, no, sweetie, just-" She breaks into a series of snorts and laughs once again, her breath coming in short and ragged now.

He shoots his father a worried glance, hoping that maybe he knows what to do, but he only shrugged, a wry smile playing on his lips as he patted him on the head.

It took Alfred a while to realise why his mother reacted in a such a way, and once he did, the happiest day of his life was no more. He frowns not at his mother but at himself, and looking down at his wrist, the blank ink with the fancy words still evident and clear, he felt down.

"Was it really that bad?" He asks, at which his mother stops to look at him now, mirth replaced by concern at her son's dejected voice.

"Teacher said I should learn what this says when I'm older and when I asked you guys you just laughed at me. Does my soul mate's first words really that funny to you?"

At this point he was already crying, saying his inner doubts aloud, hurt more than he had initially thought and he couldn't stop himself for releasing the sadness he felt.

In the midst of his crying, he failed to hear the sound of the chair scraping on the floor until he feels his mother on him, hugging him tight to her chest and her lips pressed to his brow. "No, no, I'm sorry I made you feel bad." She shook her head.

She pulls away just enough to properly look at him in the eye, a hand wiping at his tears and the other running through his hair, entangling with his bright locks.

"Well, you're soul mate is funny, I'll give you that." At Alfred's confused look, she laughs and kisses him firmly on the cheek.

"In a good way, of course."

At age 25, Alfred remained single.

This so-called "funny" soul mate of his, as his parents never stopped calling them, has yet to show itself and reveal their first words to him.

Back when he was younger, he couldn't deny the bitter and envious feelings he had towards his peers who had managed to find and meet their soul mates so early on in life. But now that he's finally working in the field and on his very first excavation, the thought of soul mates barely crossed his mind.

If anything, he would've said he'd finally given up.

It wasn't like one's life depends on whether or not they would find theirs, and Alfred was happy with whatever he is doing now. He had always loved archaeology. It has always been his dream ever since he had seen his first Indiana Jones movie and never stopped dreaming ever since.

Now that he's literally a step away from fulfilling his lifelong dream, he's in cloud nine.

The city of Eden, as he and his team had called it.

It was a civilization built behind walls. The structures of the walls and the cities inside it says that its people have a very well-established form of government.

The walls had been recently dug out, and upon analysis, they concluded that the structures of the buildings from the outer to the innermost parts of the wall says that the civilization has a very elaborate hierarchy system. In fact, the aerial view of Eden itself reminded them of a dart board, a circle within a circle within another circle. The lands were divided based on social status, with the peasants in the outermost, the middle-class in the middle and the nobles in the innermost.

Their theory was well-backed with the number of enormous living quarters in the innermost parts of the walls, some being almost reminiscent of castles. The sophistication of the architecture decreases as it moves towards the outermost parts of the walls.

Each wall has four "entrances" where each entrance are more slightly protruding out of wall, a town in between gate that will give access to the wall's interior.

The beauty of its architecture reminded Alfred of the Indus Valley, but Eden definitely shows that it is very mindful of possible invaders. The canons located the tops of the walls says that its military could just be as well-organised just like its layout of the cities.

The canons were another thing that Alfred and his team were eager to find out more of, as in a time era as old as Eden's it shows that the civilization has great advances when it comes to technology.

It makes them think what made an apparently great civilization such as this perish. The forests and apparent rich sources of water would make it impossible to kill its people through famine, and the possibility of an invasion shouldn't just completely wipe out an entire civilization. There had to have been survivors. The Indus Valley is a clear example of that.

But where had its people gone?

They dig out a part of the outermost wall and the huge hole they saw in its gate brought about a new set of theories on how Eden had perished.

Then they dig out the outer wall that will lead to the entrance to the middle-wall. They did find a hole on its entrance, further proving that a successful invasion had taken place, but then at the sight of a large rock embedded on the gate, completely and effectively closing off the entrance for good, brought Alfred and his team to another dead end.

When Alfred had asked aloud once to his team if they will ever find an inhabitant of Eden in their excavation, he had never expected this.

They find him literally one with the wall.

The dig out further in the inner most wall and discovers the existence of an underground city. The structures are still intact, if not slightly as delicate as the ones above. The structures appeared far worse than the buildings they had seen on the outermost walls, and they had theorised that is probably the slums. The people who cannot afford to live above amongst the nobles had no choice but to live in the slums, which was located underground. Can't this get any more interesting?

It appears that they had spoken too early.

So down they go, carefully and cautiously as the ceilings could collapse on them at any given moment and they scour the area.

They ended up finding a tunnel that lead them back to the surface, hidden amongst the sewers. Not too far from their exit, they will find him. Eyes closed and most of his torso one with the wall. His body was well-preserved, making him appear to be only asleep, if not for the apparent dust and dirt covering what was exposed of his limbs.

He literally looked like he was stuck in before the…cement had time to harden.

It was eerie.

They extract who know they started calling Adam. The first man created by God to care for his garden of Eden, a fitting name, if Alfred said so himself. His team mates still laugh at his bible references, calling them silly and rather heretic, but to Alfred's defence, they used his terms anyway.

By the structure of his bone it was easy to conclude that Adam was male. Looking to be about in his early twenties. Caucasian and blond.

One of teammates who were assigned to clean off the dust and dirt on Adam remarked that the softness of Adam's skin makes it seem like he's actually alive and was just asleep. Alfred just smiles and nods at them, thinking to himself, and that was why you are cleaning him, not me.

For someone who had the fascination to look and poke at dead things, Alfred is afraid of ghosts. He had watched the Mummy as a child and knows better than to get any closer to actual bodies that can very much move, if the impossible becomes possible and Alfred at least does not want to be the first one to be attacked when the time happens.

Adam became one of their team's favourite subject regarding their study on Eden. The fear and alarm on Adam's unnatural features had soon died down as the team had gotten used to deal with him. If anything, they could say that they started getting attached to him. Like how would nurses feel towards their coma patients…kind of thing. They said it was really hard not to, when Adam actually wasn't that bad to look at.

He's quite handsome, they said.

What's strange was that Alfred had also felt the same.

There were just some nights when Alfred would find himself dragging his papers and data to where they put Adam for study and just do his work there for hours, calmed by the artefact's presence. The silence no longer spooks Alfred at nights or whenever he's left alone whenever Adam was also in the same room. It's like having another person with you.

Except they were dead and unmoving.

It didn't take long before the team talked about whether or not it's a good idea to fully extract Adam from the wall fragment.

Half of the team were reluctant to agree at first since it was possible that the extraction could damage their only remains, but when the x-ray reveals that Adam's body was whole and in-tact, the full extraction was conducted.

And so begun one of Alfred's team's encounters with the anomaly.

They had barely started with the extraction when it happened.

They were in the middle of carefully loading the remains in one of their jeeps, so they could begin in one of their make-shift labs in their main base located at the entrance of the outermost wall when suddenly they hear a cough.

The cough was dry and sounded like it came from a throat that was left unused for a long time. The heaves showed that the owner was also parched.

Then to their surprise, the entire block of wall crumbled and come stumbling out Adam, coughing and whole, standing on a pair of long shaking legs and wobbling.

He has his eyes closed, a hand they remembered was stuck in an awkward grip was now moving freely to fan out the dust in Adam's face as he continued to bark out weak dry coughs and heaves. Alfred instinctively runs towards him, catching him when he was about to fall on the ground. Alfred huffs when the body collapses on him instead, and coughs when he smells the lingering smell of dust and dirt on Adam as Adam's arms wound around his shoulders.

Adam turns a curious glance at his face, squinting. Alfred notes how unusually bright and green his eyes were, as if they were glowing.

Then, Adam says, in a deep but rather scratchy voice from years and years of disuse, "Well, fuck me silly. It's Jones."

E/N: this was currently set in Germany, and for those who are not in snk fandom, its a known fact that walled cities were based on an actual city in germany...hence the assumption (headcanon) that the place is set and germany and that people speak some kind of language that's close to german.

UK with a german accent. Just think about it

I already am

another thing: sequel (in UK's pov up to the point he becomes stuck in the wall) comes in shortly..whenever I get myself to finish it anyway...

I also have a hetalia (porn) blog...where I post nsfw art and stuff. Its nitropl0rn tumblr.