There is a rock outside the school, near the playground. It's a giant boulder that's been here long before anyone's time, and will continue to be here long after they all retire and even the youngest kindergarteners have kindergarteners of their own. It's practically part of the jungle gym, big enough to comfortably support six smaller children and enough of a challenge to climb that kids, especially the younger boys, are continually trying to scale it.
However, on late-fall days when the wind is blowing, none of the kids get very interested in it at all. Probably because clinging to the side of a giant rock is too cold for them. They'd rather run around the playground and keep warm. Eren has a pair of thick wool gloves and his third coffee of the day to keep his hands warm, so that's not a problem that he has. He leans his ass against the rock, half-sitting and half-propped, and watches his mob of third-graders dominate the playground.
There is a class of younger kids on the playground that he was not previously aware of. By the looks of things they're first-graders, which would make them Jean, Marco or Sasha's responsibility. Going on the faces of the kids, it's Jean's class. He's been in there enough times to recognize them.
Sure enough, there's Jean.
"Want some company?" Jean inquires, holding his own mug of coffee or tea, Eren can't quite tell.
"From you? Always," Eren says, semi-sarcastically because it's their modus operandi for interactions. Has been ever since Eren started teaching here three years ago. All the same, he scoots his butt, numb even through his jeans, to be a little bit less centrally located.
"I'm flattered," Jean mumbles, and leans back against the rock with him. They take a few sips from their respective beverages as their eyes dart around, making sure none of the combined sixty-four students under their watch are getting in trouble.
"I've been thinking," Jean announces.
"Uh-oh."
"Fuck off," Jean snorts, and he really should not be using that language around the kids, but they're about ten yards from the nearest one and Jean has never got the hang of that whole censoring himself thing. Neither has Eren, for that matter.
Nudging their shoulders together, Eren chuckles, "Okay, what is it?"
"Well," Jean says slowly, and he's using that playful tone that he used when he asked Eren out for the first time, the same one he uses when he loops his fingers through Eren's belt loops and presses their grinning mouths together, asking where he wants to go on Saturday night. It's been a year and a half since that first date, and there's something to be said for dating someone that has the same job as yourself. Most elementary school teachers want similar things, and although there are probably endless variations, a few things are typical. They've never had to talk about wanting kids, because it's implied. They've never had to have any of those grueling conversations about what is it exactly that you do, because they do the same thing. It just makes life in general easier.
It's the most functional relationship Eren's ever had, probably the most serious one too.
"I was just thinking, you live two towns away and you have to commute an hour to get here every morning…and I have a big townhouse all to myself. And you stay there all the time, anyway."
"You asking me to move in with you?" Eren asks, fiddling with the lid of his coffee mug.
"Yeah."
Eren nods slowly, contemplatively. "Okay…I'll think about it. Give you my answer by the end of the day, yeah?"
"Alright," Jean replies, and kisses his cheek and stands up. "Alright, room six! Time to go back inside. Single file line starting here!" He gestures in front of himself like a flight attendant pointing to the emergency exits.
"Katie! Don't put that in your mouth!" Eren yells at the same time, and decides he's not going to think too hard about this.
"Mister Jaeger, do you love Mister Kirstein?"
Her name is Angelina and she's small and precocious and has a gap between her two front teeth. She's adorable and blonde, and Eren knows she's going to grow up to be someone great, but for right now she's eight years old and too inquisitive for her own good.
"Why do you ask that?" Eren asks, and he can't look at her because he's on a table hanging the kids' monthly craft project (November: hand-turkeys) from the ceiling. Somehow, though, he knows that she's smiling up at him like she has no idea of the magnitude of what she's just asked, even though Eren has always had a suspicion that kids know what more than they let on.
"Because Andy told Gabby, and Gabby told Mary that Padma saw you kiss him earlier. Is that true?"
"Um," Eren says, confused at the line of names, one of which isn't even in his class. "He kissed me on the cheek. But that can be a sign of affection between friends. Between adults," he adds, because he doesn't need to be the source of a sudden outbreak of kissing amongst the third-graders.
"So you don't love him?"
"Well…there are lots of different kinds of love," Eren says slowly, lowering himself to sit on the table because he's tired of looking so far down. "There's the love you have for your friends, there's the love that you have for your mom and dad and that they have for you, there's the love that you have for your siblings—do you have any?"
"Yes, Mister Jaeger," Angelina says, as though she's recited this many times. "Stephanie. You had her last year."
Eren tilts his head up and smiles. "Ah, yeah. Your sister was a good kid. Not that you're not. Uh, what was I saying?"
"You were saying that there are different kinds of love," Angelina says, sticking out her tongue slightly. Eren doesn't have it in him do give her the 'sticking out your tongue equals disrespect' lecture because she's really too young for it and doesn't mean anything by it. "But I know that, Mister Jaeger, and you didn't answer my question! Do you love Mister Kirstein?"
Sighing, Eren says, "Come up here on the table, Ang."
So she does, using a chair for leverage, and sits by him with her legs dangling. Eren pulls his folded legs closer to his body by his ankles, stares a the ceiling and the dangling art projects for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Right before Angelina starts to fidget impatiently, Eren says, "Sometimes, love can be complicated. There are…there are lots of different kinds and they don't all fit into one category. Two people might feel the same kind of love that your parents feel for each other, but it's not as strong because they haven't been together as long. Or a person might love someone and they…they're not sure what kind of love it is. Sometimes…love scares people. Because they've lost a lot of people they love."
"My great-great-aunt died last year," Angelina says solemnly, nodding understandingly.
"Oh, I'm sorry sweetie."
"S'okay. She was really old and I didn't know her that well. I only met her once and her who-o-ole house smelled like licorice."
"Oh." Sometimes, the things that come of out of these kids' mouths still manage to disorientate him. "Anyway, sometimes love isn't as clear-cut as you'd like it to be."
"But obviously you love him," Angelina says. "Or else you wouldn't be thinking so hard about it."
Other times, he's pleasantly surprised by the things that kids say. Probably why he got into teaching in the first place.
"Uh…yeah. I suppose so. I do love him." Glancing at the pile of turkeys he still has to hang, he adds, "So, uh, they're probably missing you in the after-school room. You should probably get back there before one of us gets in trouble."
"Mister Kirstein is running after-school today."
"I know, Angelina," Eren says, with a chuckle half out of amusement and half out of exasperation. "But you should really go."
"Oh, fine."
"Need some help?"
Lucky for Jean, Eren heard him come in the room or he'd be rescuing Eren from a fall of a table right about now. Instead, Eren just grunts the negative as he bends down to pick up another turkey and shuffles down the table to hang it from a separate ceiling tile. As he's straining towards the ceiling, he says, "One of your convicts escaped earlier. There were three of you in there, how many teachers does it take to keep twenty some-odd kids corralled?"
"Yeah, I know. Angelina, right? She's slippery." He comes around the table and props Eren up with his hands on his hips. "Careful, knowing you you'll take a header onto the corner of the table. They'll never get your blood out of the carpet."
"You care so much," Eren mutters, and hangs the last turkey, drops his arms to his sides in triumph, and groans. "I've just hung thirty-four hand turkeys. My arms are going to hurt for days." He lowers himself onto the table and folds his legs. Jean props his hips against the table and braces on his elbows, which do a really weird bending-backwards thing that makes Eren deeply uncomfortable to witness. It's not like Jean isn't aware of it, though, or even unaware that it disconcerts Eren, so he doesn't say anything. "I'm assuming all of the after-school kids are gone?"
"Yeah. Sasha and Petra left. All they talked about the entire time was pregnancy and food, so now I'm hungry and I think I'm experiencing sympathetic cravings."
Eren barks out a laugh. "And what are you craving?"
"You know that thing that you do with the strip steak and the bowtie pasta?"
"Stroganoff," Eren laughs. "The thing you're talking about is stroganoff."
"Yeah, that."
"Alright. I'll cook it tonight. But I have some papers to grade and shit before the weekend, so I might be here pretty late. Also, tomorrow we should go to my place and figure out what we want to move into your place, what we're going to sell, what we're going to store and what we're just going to trash.
"I think we should use your sofa," Jean says, before he even thinks, "and we'll throw out mine." Then realization visibly hits him, and he rears back from the table for a moment, then grins. "So is that a yes? You're moving in with me?"
"It's better than a two-hour round-trip commute," Eren says, and scoots to the edge of the table and wraps his arms around Jean's neck. The tables are short because they're obviously made for eight-year-olds to sit at, so he's quite a bit shorter than Jean, but he makes it work. "I practically live at your place now, anyway. I haven't slept more than three consecutive days at my own since August."
Jean hums and lets his poorly-suppressed grin grow until it takes up his entire face. "Is there any way you can grade those papers over the weekend?"
"Ugh. I hate bringing papers home. Your cat always tries to eat them."
"He does not. He's…he's got this compulsive suckling thing, it's weird, but he's not trying to eat them."
"Whatever," Eren laughs, amused at the idea, "but I suppose I could, yeah. Why?"
"Because I think we should celebrate by cutting ourselves some slack and going home right now. Also by doing some adult things after dinner, but that's kind of obvious."
Smirking, Eren says, "Adult things? I assume you don't mean paying taxes and buying our own groceries."
"Well, those too, but I was thinking something more along the lines of drinking wine and having sex."
"Those are good, too. Definitely good. Sometimes it feels like I've started thinking like an eight-year old, but getting fucked usually rectifies it." Eren grins at Jean's responding grimace. "Kids know way too much though. Angelina came in demanding to know if I love you."
Jean tries not to be too obvious about it, but he freezes up, and chuckles hesitantly. "She's crazy, you know?"
"Yeah, but kids are really simple, you know? Not in a bad way…in a good way. A lot of thing are black and white for them. You either love someone or you don't. And I've always thought that love was a lot more complicated than that, and it usually is. But I sort of realized that…I was thinking about it too much. You're important to me, I like having you in my life, and I'd like to spend my life with you. So yeah, I love you."
"That's great," Jean mumbles. "I'm glad. I love you too."
"Did Angelina get to you, too?"
"Yeah," Jean admits, scratching the back of his neck, "but, y'know, it was a conclusion I was working towards anyway."
"Kids, huh?" Eren says with a smile, and pulls Jean down to kiss him, and enjoys that until Levi passes and demands to know what they think they're doing macking on each other in the middle of one of his classrooms.
End
Notes: Just something I published on Tumblr a month or so ago for Challenge on Infinite Earths (AKA the 30-Day AU Challenge, AKA "Why, God, Why?") and forgot to publish anywhere else. Hope you enjoyed. (I ship Erejean now; Erejean is cool.)