Based off a tidbit of information from the latest Bessatsu magazine article interview with Isayama.
The title comes from the idiom "A shot in the dark," meaning to take a guess at something when you don't have sufficient information to figure it out.
This fic was written for the Jearmin Secret Santa event hosted on tumblr.
"I'm telling you guys, I heard it last night!"
Sasha rolled her eyes for the second time in a minute. Jean wasn't sure if she was doing it because she didn't believe him, or if she was still bitter that he'd told Levi about her late night snack sessions.
"I'm not lying!" It was the third time he'd said the words in the same minute, and no matter how many times he said them the result remained the same. No one would believe him.
"Yeah, sure thing. There's some ghost out there in the forest just screaming for the heck of it!" Connie could barely get the words out without laughing and joining Sasha in her patronization. They were acting as if he was making a big deal out of nothing.
Sure, during their trainee days, it wasn't uncommon to hear screams coming from the training grounds. Young soldiers were busy learning how to use their gear for the first time, and for a lot of people - people who weren't Jean - that meant messing up; getting wires tangled in mid-air, ramming into trees, ramming into each other, etc.
Even during times when training wasn't occurring, the occasional voice could still be heard; a trainee who had been shocked by their comrades during a nighttime walk, or some moron who had accepted a dare to scream that the titans were coming (an action that required all of them to get up in the middle of the night and get into their gear). Regardless of their reason, the majority of them didn't last long in training.
So hearing a scream in the middle of the night had just never been something to make a big deal of.
But now that they were part of Levi's squad, whose base currently consisted of a small cabin out in the middle of a deserted forest with no humans around for kilometres, it occurred to Jean that maybe he shouldn't still be hearing them.
And these two were acting like he was insane.
"I knew I shouldn't have told you two." Jean groaned. He should have gone straight to Levi or Hange, or Mikasa. "Even Eren would take me more seriously than this."
"Take you seriously on what?" The aforementioned soldier walked into the room, heading straight for the kitchen with a bucket of water in hand. Mikasa followed behind him, carrying an additional two. Apparently Jean had opened his mouth just in time to express trust in Eren right when he walked in. Perfect.
Well, might as well let him know. "There's been noises outside in the middle of the night."
"Like what? Bugs?"
"No, more like screams."
Water sloshed onto the floor as the bucket in Eren's hands swayed from his sudden halt.
This seemed to grab Connie's attention. "What's the matter, Eren? You hear it too?"
"No, of course not!" Eren hauled the bucket back up, readjusting his grip. "Just surprised to hear you, of all people, talking about something so crazy."
"It's not crazy! There's something out there!" Jean defended. "You know I wouldn't lie about something like this."
Eren stared at him. "Listen... it's no big deal." Despite the words, Eren looked more worried about the news than anyone else in the room. Jean couldn't figure out what his deal was. "It's just-"
"It's just nothing," Mikasa finished. She walked in from the kitchen, already free of the buckets of water needed for tonight's soup and tea. She sat down at the kitchen table, next to a distracted Sasha, and kept her eyes to herself. After a moment, she started to pick away at the stray strands that littered her aging scarf. "It's your imagination."
Eren gave a smug smile.
Jean frowned.
Of course she came to Eren's rescue as soon as he started to lose the conversation. Why couldn't she ever come to his rescue? He was a logical person, at least more logical than some.
"Yeah, Jean, listen to Mikasa. You're being ridiculous, talking about some ghost haunting the forest."
"The only one talking about ghosts here is you, Connie!"
"I'm telling you, it's just the natural sounds of the forest." Sasha slouched in her chair. "Things die in there all the time, and sometimes they make loud noises when they do. You're just hearing a wolf take down a deer or something." She shrugged her shoulders as if the conversation wasn't worth her time. Jean was starting to wonder who was worse when it came to rubbing things in his face; her or Eren.
He didn't care to find out from experience, though. He'd had just about enough of this comedy roast. He'd heard something in the forest, and the only people who would even reply to him were either too bird-brained or apathetic to take him seriously.
Jean started to walk out of the room, but stopped when he realized there was one person who had never joined the conversation.
"Hey, Armin. What do you think?" If anyone out of this group was going to give him a logical answer, it would be Armin.
Jean could see Armin's body jump at the words, breaking the apparent trance he'd been in. Jean didn't understand how he could have possibly been startled when everyone else had been practically yelling for the last five minutes. Was their conversation that uninteresting to him? Or had he really just been that out of it? Jean wouldn't put the latter option past him.
"...Maybe Connie's right."
"What?" said a voice from the other side of the room. Jean was just as confused.
Armin looked up at him, locking eyes. Jean had only really known Armin for a few months, but he recognized this situation well enough: Armin was about to tell a story.
"There are legends in the southern regions of Wall Maria that talk about people who got locked outside the walls, back when the titans had first appeared on this land and everyone had fled to them for refuge. The Military Police and the Garrison didn't even exist yet, so there was no one to control the gates except the people that made it inside. Once they did, people tried to close them as soon as possible to keep the titans out. They didn't care that there were still others who had yet to make it in. So they sealed the entrance, ignoring the screams for help from the other side.
"The people outside the walls banged at the doors, but it was no use. Some realized the futility of it and chose to run, putting their hopes into there being another way to get inside.
"Perhaps some made it to the Eastern or Western districts, but the legend says that the majority of them were eaten, and now hold a grudge against the people that locked them outside, which curses them to remain on Earth.
"No longer restricted by the rules of our plane of existence, they were able to go through the walls with ease, and ended up in the inner regions of the walls. But there were no villages inside the walls yet, and the ghosts got lost in the forests that spread throughout Maria and Rose, wandering without ever seeing another human being.
Captain Levi said he chose this location for us to hide because Commander Erwin said there were no villages nearby. So maybe Connie isn't wrong. Maybe it really is a ghost wandering through the forest and looking for another human being to help them get out. And the screams are her calling out for help, or looking for the loved ones she has lost."
Silence embraced the room.
Armin's looked upon it for a moment, and his face went completely red. "...Or maybe Sasha's right and it's just an animal dying."
Jean grimaced. Now he remembered why people had stopped inviting Armin to their campfire story sessions during training. He looked around him, realizing that everyone else was probably waiting for him to speak. He had been the one to ask.
Jean tried to put his thoughts into acceptable words. "You're so morbid." It was the nicest alternative he could think of to What the fuck, Armin.
"I-" Armin cut himself off, piercing his lips together for a moment. "Connie's stories are just as morbid as mine."
"Yeah, but Connie doesn't sound nearly as believable as you do."
"Is that a good or a bad thing?" came a voice from the other side of the room.
"It's-"
"Leave it be," Mikasa said, cutting him off. "There's nothing wrong with his story."
"Yeah, Armin's always been a bit morbid."
Armin didn't look like he found Eren's words to be comforting.
"Ow!" Eren rubbed the side of his stomach. "Mikasa, what was that for!" More water sloshed to the floor. At this point the bucket could barely even be called half-full.
And of course, that second spilling of water had been Levi's cue to enter the room. "What are you kids doing?"
Jean didn't really appreciate being called a kid, but it was definitely better than his once-routine word; "brats." Levi had also started referring to them by first name, as opposed to surnames. It wasn't much improvement, but hey, it was something.
Of course, with the current situation, it was unlikely that he was going to start treating them with more respect anytime soon...
Levi took one look at the small puddle of water that sat on the floor, raising his right eyebrow the slightest bit as he looked at the group of teenagers that littered the room before him. "Eren, clean this up. I know this place is abandoned, but that's no reason to let the boards start molding."
"Yes, Captain Levi!" Eren rushed to the kitchen, not paying any attention to how the bucket he was carrying swung as he did so. If it wasn't for the fact that it was already over half-empty, more probably would have found its way to the ground.
"As for the rest of you," Levi said, surveying the group. "Isn't one of you supposed to be on watch?"
Shit. It was Jean's turn. "R-right. I'll head out right now."
Levi gave him a hard stare for a moment. It looked to Jean like he was considering if any of them were even capable of handling the task, or if he should just do it himself. But finally he walked away, leaving the room, to go back to whatever it was that he did with his free time.
Jean picked up the rifle that stood in the doorway, and his cloak that hung on the wall. Before he headed out, he turned one last time to try to reason with the people who had grouped up against him. "What if it isn't a dying animal? What if it's an enemy soldier who's making their way right to us?"
"A soldier who only moves in the middle of the night, and screams at the top of their lungs? Doesn't sound like much of a soldier to me." Connie crossed his arms.
"Exactly. Shouldn't we use this to our advantage?"
"I think, Jean," Mikasa began, "That we should keep on doing what we're told."
"Yeah, Jean. Focus more on Levi's orders, not your imagination."
Real nice, Connie. Just copy what Mikasa said, why don't you.
"Like you said. Connie is the only one here who is good at telling ghost stories, so just leave it to him."
"It's not a ghost!"
"Well, at least you acknowledge it." Sasha let out a sigh. Jean is certain now that she's just milking this for all it's worth. Like she of all people had any right to judge his sanity. "I was starting to worry that you'd finally gone rabid and I would have to shoot you."
Eren walked back into the room with a cloth just in time to hear the remark, and barked out a laugh. Jean wished right then and there that they were still on bad terms with each other, so that he'd be able to punch him without feeling guilty.
But he didn't even have enough energy to make a comeback, so he just left, leaving the clearly insane group behind to chat and laugh amongst themselves while he enjoyed some much needed time alone.
He would have never thought that being tied to a chair for two hours could be so tiring. He hadn't even done anything, except wait.
And watch.
Maybe that explained why, despite how tired he was, that he was sitting in the dining room of the shack while everyone else had gone to bed to regain the energy they had spent that day. Just a few hours ago everyone had been hanging out here, talking about how the mission had gone better than expected, and expressing their excitement about the new deals that would bring in more food. Everyone but Armin.
He'd started off alright, but after Jean had recounted what had happened between him and that old creep, Connie and Sasha had burst out laughing. Jean wanted to get angry at them, to yell you hadn't been there but that was exactly the problem. They hadn't been there, they had been on the roof of an adjacent building the entire time, seeing everything that had happened from a distance. They couldn't understand. They didn't how scared Armin had been, how he had cried, and how Jean had been equally scared in that moment. And angry - because there was nothing he could do.
He'd tried to comfort him after, but he was at a loss with what to do. He'd placed a hand on his shoulder, remembering how his mom had said that a hug or a hand were a way of telling someone that they weren't alone (and he didn't think Armin wanted a hug, not at this moment). But it barely seemed to help, and Armin left the room shortly after.
Jean had wanted to go after him, but at the same time he didn't. He wasn't good at handling other people's feelings, especially when he had to handle his own. And right then, he was angry; angry that he had even told Connie and Sasha what had happened, angry that he hadn't been able to do anything earlier, angry that he hadn't even tried, and most of all, he was angry because he knew that if he hadn't been there, he'd have laughed right with them.
So he had only watched as Armin left, walking by Mikasa, who didn't stop him, and Eren, who didn't have a single clue about anything that had happened.
Eventually he'd gone to bed too, and despite how impossible it had felt, he had ended up falling asleep.
Then the noises had started again. So here he was.
He wasn't sure what he should call these situations. Odd? Terrifying? Fucked up? Perhaps the best word was inconsiderate, seeing as they always came in the middle of the night, when he was at his worst. It was as if the universe was working against him to make sure that he would wake up on the nights when he was already getting a bad amount of sleep, and when everyone else was too tired or stressed to even consider listening to him.
Ever since his enjoyable conversation with everyone else he'd done his best to ignore the noises of the night, but this time he didn't bother. There was no way he was going to fall back asleep, not when his mind was still racing from earlier.
As such, he'd found himself in the main room, leaning back on a chair at the table and tensely staring out the window as if he'd be able to see what was happening beyond all the trees. As weird as it was, he felt comfortable out here, where he was able to pinpoint the direction that the sounds came from. It was better than being in the bedroom where the lack of windows, and the abundance of snores, muffled the noise and made it seem like it was coming from all directions.
Out here, where the view of the outside world fit within a less than one square metre space, he was able to relax. Listening to it like this, it did kind of sound like a dying deer or something. Nothing that loud and horrible could be human, right?
He hadn't heard it for a while now though, and by Sasha's logic, that probably meant that it was dead. Jean wasn't sure how he felt about that.
Jean continued gazing out the window, wondering if that light he could see on the horizon was the faint rays of the rising sun.
A shadowy figure, silhouetted by the light, passed by the window.
Jean kicked back from the table. He realized his mistake too late, and soon his entire chair was lying on the ground, with him in it.
The door opened at the same time.
"Jean?"
The named youth tilted his head backwards, narrowing his eyes as the light from a lantern struck his face. An upside-down Armin Arlert walked into view.
"Holy shit Armin, you scared the crap out of me."
"What are you doing on the floor?"
"Like I said, you scared the shit out of me!"
"Oh."
Jean wondered if he was going to do anything or just keep staring at him. He was acting as if he was the one that was being weird right now. He wasn't the one walking outside in the middle of the night! Then again, Jean couldn't blame him for it. Out of all of them, he had the most reason to be awake right now.
Jean stared up at the eyes above him, noticing that the redness still hadn't gone away since last night.
"Why are you awake?" the one above him asked.
"I heard noises outside again." Jean did his best to say it as casually as possible.
"Oh."
When it became obvious Armin didn't intend to say anything else, Jean spoke up once more.
"Sooo... you going to help me up or what?"
Armin watched for a bit longer before setting the lantern on the side table and closing the door shut, taking care to do it as quietly as possible. Jean didn't see the point in it. Anyone who hadn't woken up from his fall definitely wasn't going to wake from the door closing.
Finally his comrade extended a hand, pulling Jean up from the ground.
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, just fine."
Armin extinguished the light on his lantern. "Did you find out what it was?"
"Huh?"
"The screaming."
"Oh. Nah. I don't really care anymore." He'd given up calling it screaming ever since he'd told everyone else, in hopes of them just dropping the subject altogether. Armin wasn't going to call him crazy now too, was he?
"Probably for the better," Armin hummed. "It could be anything."
"Don't tell me you've loaded yourself with another ghost story." Jean smiled as he said it, but in all honesty he hoped not. Even though he knew he wasn't going back to sleep again tonight, there was no reason he needed to prepare nightmares for the next one.
"I can't just make up legends, Jean." Armin actually sounded offended, as if he truly believed the fable he'd told earlier. Jean could only hope that Armin knew how absurd the story was, for his sake.
And maybe a bit for his own too. He'd already been creeped out enough when he thought Armin was just trying to scare him, the last thing he needed to know was that Armin, of all people, thought they were real. He wasn't sure how easily he'd be able to deny them if he did.
"I do have other legends though, if you want to hear." Armin gazed at him intently. Jean knew that look.
"Ah- no. No, that's okay."
It didn't take a genius to see that Armin was a bit disheartened by the words. Jean wondered if he should have said yes just to make him happy. Sure, he'd get some nightmares, but Armin was probably going to have them regardless.
"Hey, Jean... I-"
"What are you two doing out here?"
Eren walked into the room. If it wasn't for him still being in his sleep clothes Jean would have thought he'd been awake for hours. He didn't get how he could wake up so easily every morning, no matter the time. During training Eren had once told him it was because he was actually fit to be a soldier, unlike him. But Jean blamed it on his titan abilities. He could heal faster than a human, so who was to say he couldn't recharge faster too? Maybe he didn't even need sleep.
"Eren." Armin sounded more startled to see his best friend awake than he had when he'd found Jean on the floor. "You should go back to sleep; you need to rest."
Rest for what? He hadn't even been on the last mission. If Armin should be telling anyone to go to sleep it should be himself. He was the one who had it the roughest yesterday.
But Jean didn't bother with any of that. He'd much rather have Eren go to sleep too. "Yeah, Yeager. Why are you even up?"
"I heard a loud noise so I came to check it out. If I'd known it was just you being an idiot I wouldn't have come out here."
Jean rolled his eyes. He couldn't be bothered to think of a comeback.
"Armin, you shouldn't be up either. Come back to the beds."
"Yeah, go to bed. You look like shit," Jean agreed. He worried that Armin's eyes would never stop looking so irritated if he didn't get any sleep soon.
"He's just messing around, come on." Eren clasped Armin's hand and tugged him back towards the bedroom.
"You coming, Jean?"
"Nah, not tonight."
"Well, good night."
Jean watched as Eren stopped at the bedroom door and turned the doorknob, even though the door was still open. Seemed waking up early did have some effect on him after all.
As soon as the door closed, Jean picked the chair up off the ground, and returned to his task of staring out the window.
But he knew there was no point. There wasn't going to be anymore screaming tonight.
He could hear Armin outside.
It didn't matter that he was indoors, away from his comrade, and surrounded by people immersed in conversation. Nothing could stop the sound of the crying and heaving that came from outside.
Armin had shot a woman to save him, and he was more upset about it than Jean was. Maybe. Jean wasn't sure what he was feeling.
All he knew was that he couldn't go out there. He could barely stand to listen to him in here, where he had other things to focus his mind on. Armin was his saviour and all he could do was hide indoors, and try to think about everything that had happened except that incident.
Historia and Eren were gone. They'd failed to follow them, and were left clueless about their location. As such, their base of operations had changed and their current home was nothing more than an abandoned stable in the woods; a waiting post for mail that would inform them as to their next destination.
Jean tried to look at the good in the situation. A new location meant a new forest, and he hadn't heard any screaming since he got here. He tried to tell himself it was because they had moved, that there were no ghosts haunting the forest in this area, or because Eren was no longer around to be a smartass. But he couldn't make himself believe either theory even when he tried.
The world still wasn't quiet, not like he had wanted. Armin's wavering voice could be heard even from inside this shed they were calling base, and Jean wanted nothing more than to be back at their old shelter, back to that damn voice that would wake him up in the middle of the night. At least he could play that screaming off as a cruel joke.
And it seemed the universe listened, because the next night it happened again.
It was louder than usual; a howl that cut through the stagnant night. Jean wondered if it would be more appropriate to call it a wail than a scream.
This time he didn't need to wonder what it was.
And this time Eren wasn't their to fix the problem.
Jean closed the stable door behind him, wishing that he still believed that it was just a ghost. Somehow that seemed like it would be easier to deal with.
It didn't take Jean long to find his way through the forest. He'd followed the path they had travelled on the way up, knowing that he - or anyone else from their squad - would get lost if they attempted to go elsewhere in the middle of the night.
He hadn't heard the yells once since he'd left base, and he was starting to wonder if he was too late. ...But wouldn't he have seen something?
All he'd seen so far were the normal sights of the forest: leaves so abundant that they prevented almost any light from seeping through from above, trunks of trees so large that it would take two people holding hands to encompass the base, and a dirt path so unused that every few steps Jean found himself tripping on a branch or small plant that had lodged itself in the middle of the route.
But there was one other thing, something that didn't fit the forest's usual scenery, that Jean soon noticed: a patch of light that radiated in the distance, making the leaves around it dance in its light.
Jean followed it.
"Armin?"
The white clothed legs, which seemed to stand detached from anything else, shook in surprise. They turned, exposing the rest of Armin Arlert's body as the green cloak that had been camouflaging his upper body disappeared behind him, into the leaves.
"Oh. Hi Jean." Armin's voice cracked slightly on the first word. He cleared his throat. "Did you hear the screaming too?"
"Give it up. I know why you're out here."
"Oh..." His voice faded into the hush stillness of the forest, and Jean wondered if it was because he was embarrassed, or if the screaming had left him unable to talk. Was this the reason why his voice was always so whispery?
Two guilty eyes, glowing in the light of the lantern, stared at him. Maybe he should have said something a bit nicer, or more understanding. Something that wouldn't have made Armin look like he'd been caught stealing by Commander Erwin himself. But what else would he say? 'Hey Armin, I heard you screaming like a psychopath out here? How's it going? Having fun scaring the living shit out of me for the last month?'
Jean looked at Armin for a moment longer, then sighed. "Relax. I've known for a while now. I figured it out when Eren and I found you last time."
Armin seemed to finally blink. He didn't say anything, but that wasn't necessary. His face said enough.
"What are you even doing out here?" Jean gestured to the surrounding forest, as if the answer lay inside of it somewhere. Maybe it did. It wasn't like anything else made any sense to him.
"You said you knew..."
Jean groaned. "No, I mean- I know what you're doing, but I want to know why. Is it your idea of a joke to come out here in the middle of the night, scream as loud as you can, and then tell me ghost stories the next day? I know Eren said that you've always been insidious, but even this seems a bit much for you."
A joke was the only logical explanation that Jean had come up within the last week. Why else would someone go out into the middle of the forest, inhabited by wild animals and who knew what other enemies, to scream and possibly alert every living thing in the surrounding area of their location unless they got some sort of kick out of doing it?
Jean had chosen to ignore the fact that he'd previously, on multiple occasions, questioned if Armin even knew the meaning of the word joke.
He could see Connie doing it, no problem. Eren maybe, but only to annoy him personally. Heck, even Historia seemed like a more practical candidate than Armin, considering just how little they apparently knew about her.
"No! It's not like that," Armin defended. "I didn't mean to lie to you, but I didn't know what else to do. So I just told a legend my father told me as a kid."
So Armin hadn't just made it up... Jean didn't know why this fact still made him feel uneasy, when he knew the real source of the screaming was standing in front of him.
"Then why?"
Startled, Armin opened his mouth two times without saying a word, before finally voicing his words: "I'm relieving stress." It sounded more like a question than a statement, but that didn't stop Jean's bafflement.
...Stress.
Relieving stress.
He couldn't believe it.
"For the last month, your stress has been giving me stress!" Jean wanted to scream it as loud as Armin had been screaming earlier, because the idea was just insane. How in the world did this relieve stress! Was this why Eren had kept interrupting his conversation with Armin anytime he got close to figuring it out? He didn't want him to see that Armin was actually insane?
Armin took a startled step backwards, stumbling slightly when a tree branch poked him in the back, causing him to step back to his original position.
Jean pressed his thumb and forefinger to his temples, squeezing them as if he could force his mind to come up with a logical explanation. "You going to explain?"
"How it relieves stress?"
"Yes."
Armin remained silent for a moment, and Jean removed his hand from his face, looking over at his comrade. The light from both of their lanterns had cast onto him, giving his facial features a double shadow. If Jean didn't know who he was, then the thought of him being a ghost would be too far-fetched.
"Do you remember back in our first year of training when you kicked one of the barracks' dining tables and broke its leg?" Armin asked.
How could he forget. Keith had yelled at him for over ten minutes, before making him fix it himself. ...And then kicking it and breaking in front of him, after he had finished telling him what a crappy job he had done. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"Well, that was your way of relieving stress after you lost that fight with Eren."
Excuse you, Armin. "It wasn't a fight, it was a sparring match. And I didn't lose. Eren cheated."
"He didn't."
"Yeah, he did. Dude's a titan, and if Hange's right he's probably been one for a long time. He's naturally stronger!"
The look on Armin's face spoke louder than any words could have. He wasn't believing any of it.
"Just continue," Jean said, pushing his argument aside.
"Well, it was stress-relieving for you to just put all of your power out there," Armin explained. "It's the same for me and screaming. I just let it all out."
That was it? That simple explanation was the cause of his stress and loss of sanity? It made a bit of sense, he guessed. He'd never seen Armin beat up anyone before, or hit anything. So he yelled instead? But how did yelling at thin air help anything? "I'm still not getting it. When I kicked that table I pretended it was Eren's leg. So unless you're imaging screaming at someone, I don't see how this helps."
"I didn't say I wasn't."
Now Jean could understand a bit. "Who?"
"No one-"
"You just said there was someone."
"No, I didn't, I said-"
"I came out here in the middle of the night, not knowing what to expect, and you're not even going to give me a proper explanation?"
Armin didn't respond.
"Is it Levi? Connie?" Jean started listing off names, paying careful attention to Armin's body language after each one to see if he could figure it out.
"Erwin? He's been making us do a lot of asinine stuff lately." Nothing.
"Eren-" Jean cut himself off too late.
"No."
He regretted saying the name before Armin had even said anything, because even though he'd love to hear that Armin was mad at Eren, he knew it couldn't be him. Eren was kidnapped right now, and Armin had been different ever since he'd been gone. Having Jean suggest that he was angry at Eren was probably the last thing he wanted to hear.
Jean waited for Armin to say something else. He wasn't sure if he should apologize or not, but he knew better than to continue suggesting names.
After what felt like a full minute, Jean decided he should just leave it. "Fine, I won't force you to tell me if you don't want to."
Time started passing slowly again, as Armin remained silent. Jean wondered if he should just leave. He didn't know how to fix this conversation, and Armin had been through enough this past week without Jean grilling him. They both had.
"We failed to get Eren back today," Armin finally said. He was looking at the ground, which was barely illuminated, even with the light of the lantern. He kicked at what Jean assumed to be a rock on the ground, knocking the object out of the source of light. He seemed to find the action worth his attention enough to keep doing it.
"I know, but we're going to try again as soon as Erwin gives us more information."
"And what if he doesn't get it!" Armin raised his head and stared Jean dead in the eyes. The flickering light made the wetness around his eyes shimmer.
"Then we'll find him. It's not like they can keep Eren hidden. He's not that quiet even when he's trying to be; no way they'll be able to keep him quiet when he's being held captive." Jean smiled when he said it, glancing over at Armin.
His attempt at cheering him up didn't have any effect.
"Do you remember what Hange said?"
"Hange said a lot of things."
Armin didn't say anything. He tore his eyes away from Jean.
Shit. "Sorry! I didn't mean anything by it. I don't remember what was said."
"Hange said that the Rod might not want to use Eren, but that he wants to eat him... If that's true, then it won't matter how loud Eren is. There won't be anything left to find."
Jean swallowed. What the hell was he supposed to say to that? Tell him 'no, Eren will be fine', even though they only just got their first lead to his location a few hours ago and wouldn't be leaving until morning? It would be a bullshit lie, and Jean couldn't bring himself to do that. He couldn't even think of anything else that could be comforting. 'Hey, I'll be here'? Yeah, that definitely didn't sound like he was trying to replace him. It would help if Jean wasn't constantly getting into fights with him. He valued Eren as a team member, he really did, but he knew better than to think that others would see it that way, not with the way they acted.
So he said the only thing he could think of, and hoped that Armin wouldn't notice how he didn't mention Eren at all. "We'll find Rod, and Kenny too. We'll figure out whatever is happening and stop them. Then you can yell at them right to their face!"
Armin wasn't at all motivated.
"I'm not angry at them. Not really."
"What? Isn't that what you're out here screaming for?"
"No, not exactly. I don't know what their intentions are, so I can't place the blame on them."
Don't know what their intentions are? What did that matter? His best friend was kidnapped and the only thing he could think of were intentions? He'd said it himself: they might be about to hurt Eren. What else mattered? "Then what's all the yelling for? Nothing?"
Armin didn't respond. He was still too busy paying attention to the ground. Jean wondered if he was ever going to lift his eyes up again, or if he was still too embarrassed. Maybe he'd avoid looking at him for a week, just like he had that one time he'd read his diary.
Jean turned his attention to the noises around him. The rustle of leaves could be heard from the tops of the trees, showing that the wind from earlier today was still blowing strong. It was barely audible down here, below the branches, but it was loud enough to cover up the silence that was floating between the two.
It was no wonder that everyone else had said he was hearing things. The sounds got distorted down here, where leaves and trees acted as barriers to what lay outside the forest.
"Myself." The word was brittle, as if it was one of the crinkling leaves from above.
Jean wondered if he'd heard him correctly. By itself, the word made little sense. "Huh?"
"I'm was yelling at myself."
Jean raised an eyebrow. "Why?"
Judging from the way that Armin looked at him, he had made the situation worse. But Jean just couldn't understand it. Sure, he knew that he was more proud of himself than most people, but that didn't make getting angry at yourself normal behaviour, did it?
"Because if I keep thinking that if I had just been a bit stronger, or quicker, or smarter then Eren would still be here. I should have known that they'd want Eren to eat him, I should have figured that out! Why would they expect him to listen to them?"
"So you're blaming yourself for what? Not being superhuman like Levi or Hange? I mean, I'm not the brightest person in this squad but you don't see me putting myself down about it."
"That's true," Armin whispered.
Jean resisted the urge to reply with a sarcastic thanks. He had been the one to say it after all, and it was true. Everyone in the squad had something they were better at than others, but that didn't mean he should put himself down about it. Just because he wasn't the smartest didn't mean he wasn't smart.
"So you think you can stop doing this now then? It's kinda been creeping me out." Jean wasn't really sure if he meant the words or not. He'd gotten so used to Armin flat-out denying any sort of insult he made that he'd gotten used to saying things like that around him. It was almost like their own way of joking with each other. But Armin's silence here showed he didn't feel the same way, not at this moment.
Honestly, Armin looked more miserable than he had since Jean had first gotten here.
Maybe this was why Eren hadn't told him what was happening. Not because Armin was being weird, but because he'd known Jean would probably tell him he was. He'd known Jean wouldn't get it.
It's not like he had the greatest track record for being 'understanding.' He'd called him gross, teased him for jumping in puddles, and even read his diary. He'd invaded his privacy more times than he could count, and now he had done it again. Jean didn't need to ask Armin to know that he was probably more stressed right now than he had been before he started screaming. Jean was starting to feel a bit stressed himself.
Well, if Armin said it was stress relieving...
Jean let out a scream, trying to make himself sound as loud as possible, letting his voice carry until he ran out of air.
Armin finally raised his head. He looked like he had just seen the ghost of the forest. His eyes were wide, and his mouth hung slightly open as if he couldn't believe what he had just seen.
And then he brought his free hand to his mouth, stifling an obvious laugh.
"Hey, I didn't laugh at you!"
And that was apparently all Armin needed to hear before he broke out into full blown laughter, causing the lantern in his left hand to swing as his body shook with amusement.
"What the hell..." Not once had Armin ever laughed at one of his jokes, or at one of Connie's pranks, or even at anything that Eren said. And now here he was, laughing at Jean as if he'd just reenacted an entire circus. The last time Jean had seen Armin laugh was weeks ago, shortly after Annie had been apprehended, and Bertolt, Reiner and Ymir had escaped. It had been unfitting for the moment, and Jean had wondered if perhaps his head injury was responsible. The thought still seemed plausible.
"I'm sorry, Jean, but that scream was pathetic."
Fine, be like that.
Jean didn't wait a second longer before taking a deep breath, not really sure how much he needed to be as loud as Armin was earlier. He let the pressure out, feeling the scream rattle his throat and invade his ears, and kept going until he was certain that his voice was going to give out and he'd never be able to talk again. Even after he stopped, he could still hear it in his ears.
"That better?" He asked, taking a deep breath of air, as if he had just won a competition with himself.
"Yeah," Armin said, but Jean could hear him holding back a snicker again.
"What was wrong with it this time!"
"Nothing!" Armin defended. "I'm just thinking of what everyone at base is going to say if they heard that. They all think the ghost is a woman."
"They're going to think that the ghost finally went through puberty."
"That's mean." Armin pouted.
"Not my fault that you said it was a woman!" Jean retorted, smiling cockily.
Jean could see that Armin wanted to reply back, but after a few seconds it became obvious that he had nothing to say, and Jean only smiled bigger. He was still the wittier one out of the two.
"So how was it?" Armin finally asked, breaking the invading silence between them.
Honestly, it had been a bit invigorating. Jean felt more energetic than he had only moments ago, but he also felt a bit relieved. It wasn't a huge difference, but he supposed he could see the appeal in it for Armin. "Not bad, but I'd still rather punch Eren."
This time Armin didn't seem upset by the remark, so Jean took it as a sign that he was feeling at least somewhat better about the situation. At least enough to not be mad at him, Jean hoped.
"What about you? You want to scream again?"
Armin furrowed his brows. "...Yes."
Jean waited for the great 'master' to show him how it was supposed to be done, but Armin just pierced his lips together, and Jean could swear that he was biting them a bit.
"Let me guess. You want me to go?"
"...Yes."
Well, at least after having made Armin uncomfortable so many times he'd been able to pick up something about his body language. It was a step forward, right? It would suck having to walk back through the forest alone, again. But at least now he could maybe grab some sleep ...assuming it was still nighttime.
"Alright, just don't get eaten by the ghost of the forest!" Jean taunted.
"She doesn't really exist." Armin's reply was dead serious, and Jean couldn't help but be amused, even though he was equally baffled at how Armin still hadn't learned to pick up on his sarcasm. At least Jean wasn't the only thick headed one in the squad.
"Don't worry, I know."
"Oh," Armin said. "Then don't get eaten either."
"I won't!" Jean yelled back. He was already making his way back towards camp, laughing to himself as he did so.
"I'm telling you! You were right, there is something out there!" Connie flailed his arms into the air as he followed Jean into the common room. He'd been talking to him ever since he got up ten minutes ago, only stopping when Jean went to the washroom - and only because he explicitly told Connie not to follow him.
His conversation had only had one topic: the ghost of the forest.
"Knock it off, Connie." Jean groaned. Now he understood why everyone had brushed him off earlier. Had he seriously been this annoying?
"I'm being serious! I heard screams from two people last night! What if it really is the ghost of the forest?"
"Well, if you heard two, then maybe the ghost has found their lost love and you won't hear from them again," Sasha butted in. She didn't seem to be at all interested in the actual topic, but she seemed to find amusement out of stirring the pot. For how nonchalant she was about it, Jean wondered if maybe she had known the truth the whole time. She was a self proclaimed 'Master' of the forest, after all.
Well, if she was having fun with it, no reason why he couldn't...
"Or maybe they're both lost and are going to haunt the forest together from now on." Jean flashed a grin at Connie, and through the side of his eyes he glanced over to Armin. Even with the report from Hange held up to his face, Jean could see the corners of his lips slightly upturned.
He couldn't wait for Armin to get stressed again.
This fic provided a lot of issues when writing. While I find the information of how Armin deals with his stress to be highly amusing, I don't see how it can really work in canon. You'd think having a person screaming in the middle of the forest would be a bit alarming? Either to your fellow soldiers, but also to enemy ones. Unless Armin has informed everyone of his habit beforehand (which seems very unlike him) then this really doesn't seem very plausible to me, at least not anytime in the recent chapters.
Eventually I cut myself some slack and forcefully told myself that it doesn't have to work perfectly in canon, and just ignored a few aspects, such as the fact that Levi only sleeps a few hours a night and thus would hear what is going on, or the fact that I don't think Armin would be clueless enough to go out alone in the middle of the forest and scream and potentially endanger himself and all of his comrades. As well I'd like to think that the others would be a bit more alarmed as to what was going on, but this is supposed to be a jearmin fic and in order to do that I had to write them off as dismissive. So while I poked fun at a few of those problems and other unrealistic aspects in this fic, I gave up trying to make it completely canon compliant and just focused more on having fun with it.
As well, I described Armin's voice as "whispery" at one part. While I don't think it's really important, I thought I should mention that this is a reference to the English dub where Armin always sounds like he's whispering (except when he screams, ofc). I think I referenced this before once in another fic, which is an odd thing for me to do considering I haven't even finished the dub yet and whenever I imagine something being said in Armin's voice it's always the Japanese voice that pops into my mind... but the thought of him always being whispery because he wastes his voice screaming was too amusing to leave out.
As always, any feedback is welcome!