Word Count: 2,739


Lillian slept like a log. Her caretakers now had a lot of time on their hands, so they spent it talking about various topics.

"Hey Jean, what color would you describe your hair?"

Jean touched his hair. "I dunno. Maybe dishwater blond. Why do you ask?"

"I dunno. I guess it's because it's a sort of mix between gray and brown that just makes it really fascinating," Armin replied.

"Why do you keep your hair so long?"

It was now Armin's turn to touch his hair. "My granddad liked it this way, and I never got around to changing it, so now it's become my style."

"You're not secretly a girl?"

"What the fuck, Jean?"

"Well, it's just that your hair's so long, and you kind of look like a girl, and you do sort of act like a wuss at times…"

"Jean, by that logic, you're one thousand percent a donkey."

"Excuse me?"

"Your facial features vaguely resemble a horse, and your personality is that of an ass," Armin shrugged.

Jean was in awe for a moment at the sass his friend had given him. "Where do all these horse-face jokes even come from? I don't look like a horse, do I?"

"To be honest, I never really saw it either. But your face is longer than average, somewhat squarish, and your eyes are a little widely set and your hair just sort of looks like a mane. Actually, now that I talk about it, you do look a bit like a horse."

"Can it, nerd."

The two fell silent. "I wonder how the others are doing," Armin said.

Jean cracked a smile. "I wonder how much trouble Eren's gotten himself into by now."

Armin laughed lightly. "Well, if Mikasa's there, I'm sure everything will be fine."

Jean blushed slightly at the mention of Mikasa.

"What? You still like her?" The blond asked, but Jean didn't respond.

"You do still like her!"

"Can it, nerd."

"There's nothing wrong with having a crush."

"I don't still like her, I moved past that ages ago; it just so happens to embarrassing to talk about, nerd," Jean scowled.

Armin thought about it for a few moments when a new thought came to him. "Doesn't she like Eren or some shit like that?"

This caught Jean slightly off guard. "No, I don't think so. What makes you think that, anyways?"

"Don't you notice it? She only ever shows emotion around him. He's the only person who's ever made her cry, or blush, or even laugh."

"Well, you'd be like that around someone who saved your life as a child, too."

"Yeah, but she's saved his ass at least five times over! Isn't this the least bit suspicious to you?" Armin challenged.

"No, it's not. Just because he saved her life when she was young doesn't mean he can be the only person she can be human around," the taller boy countered.

"Oh yeah? Betcha a sil they'll kiss someday," Armin taunted, unusually fired up.

"Betcha a sil they won't," Jean replied.

The two then had a staredown, with the entire room stone silent.

Then Jean began to laugh. He laughed for a few moments, then extended his hand, still smiling. "It's a bet then," he said as Armin took his hand and gave it a good shake before losing his composure as well.

"Kind of funny how we went from you liking Mikasa to betting on if she and Eren are ever going to kiss," he laughed, and Jean's mood swung to dark, leaving the two with an awkward silence.

"I'll, uh, put Lillian away," Armin finally said and left.

Jean simply sighed and stretched so he could take up the entire couch before falling asleep.


Armin now had an entire castle to himself. He was actually quite frightened at that prospect. He could do anything he wanted, and there wasn't anyone who could say no.

He could read without getting interrupted by another cadet every five minutes.

He could boil all the potatoes and hide them around headquarters.

He could move everything in the captain's room two centimeters to the left.

He could put socks in the most random places.

He could switch the salt and sugar.

The possibilities were endless.

Or, he could be a normal person and read.

Armin gave it some thought. He could start a prank war, probably not the best idea, or he could read.

He was feeling a little devilish at the moment, so he chose the former. Armin checked the clock for the time. Quarter to twelve. He began walking to the kitchen so he could boil all the potatoes as he switched around the salt and sugar when an extremely evil idea came to him.

What if… he switched around all the clock times? All around the castle, all with different times. It would drive everyone mad!

Armin grinned and gave himself a mental pat on the back. He really was an evil genius.

So he set out on his quest to find every single clock in the castle. Most rooms were empty or just for storage, so he ended up wasting a lot of time looking through them for functioning clocks. He made sure to change every clock by an arbitrary amount, so that everything would have maximum fucked-upness.

Finally, he finished his task. He had no idea how much time had passed, since he changed the times on all the clocks throughout an entire castle, but he figured that he'd killed about two hours.

Armin's stomach growled loudly, and he chuckled to himself, though he wasn't sure why. He began heading towards the kitchen when another idea came to him.

Had Lillian been fed yet?

He groaned, not wanting to milk Amalthea, who could get fussy at times. So he walked over to Jean and began shaking him.

"Hey, it's your turn to milk the goat."

Jean grunted and rolled over. He did not appear to wake up.

"If you don't wake up, then you'll have to make your own lunch," Armin sternly said.

"I can make my own lunch," Jean mumbled before rolling over to face Armin again. He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and checked the clock. "I've got to stop taking my three-hour naps…"

"Yeah, sure. It's your turn to milk Amalthea. I'll feed Lillian. All you have to do is milk the dumb goat."

Jean sat up and squinted. "Are the others not back yet?"

"Jean, it's been at least three hours since they left."

"I haven't been napping this whole time!"

"I changed the clocks around."

Jean looked so tired with life at that moment. He then stood up and stretched. "Why do I have to milk the goat? Why can't you do it?"

"I figured that since goats get along well with horses, you'd be a better caretaker," Armin joked.

Jean flipped him off, but Armin didn't mind. He knew he deserved it.

"Just go. I'm sure Lily's cried herself half to death by now," he chided, and before Jean could do anything, Armin had turned heel to Heichou's room.

Armin walked quickly, navigating the halls like it was the back of his hand. In truth, he had very little idea where he was. He'd only happened to have memorized one route to Levi's room, and he didn't dare try finding another should he get lost. An ancient castle was no place to get lost in.

As he rounded a corner, he heard a faint cry of a child. He was getting close to Lillian, and she didn't seem too happy about being left alone for so long. Despite it all, Armin let his mind wander over to his friends. He hoped they were okay and alive. They were probably still riding out to their destination, though he could be wrong.

He entered the captain's room, where he'd left Lily once she'd fallen asleep. Her crying was quieter than he'd anticipated. Perhaps she'd begun to stop crying on her own?

Armin picked up the child and looked out the window to estimate the time. It was maybe half past two. It was a miracle his stomach hadn't complained since his clock-changing adventure.

As though on cue, his stomach rumbled, and Lillian began to fuss a little louder. Armin sighed and began to bounce her in his arms. It was too late to get her back to sleep now, and it was well past lunchtime. He then began to walk back down to the living room, hoping that the motion of walking would calm her down.

Luckily, it did, and by the time he sat down at the dining table to wait for Jean, Lily had stopped crying, though she still didn't look happy.

Armin waited a few minutes for Jean, but when he didn't come right away, he put Lillian on the table and began to prepare for when Jean did arrive, looking through the cupboards for the clay urn thing he'd seen Hange use when feeding Lillian. It was an odd thing, somewhat resembling a teapot, but with a much more open top, and for some reason he always felt awkward around it. It was really just a weird teapot if he really thought about it, but something seemed off.

Oh well.

He looked over at Lillian, who lay on the table. Normally, there was someone holding her on their lap, but there wasn't anyone here today. Armin felt a little bad about just leaving her there, but he didn't have any other choice besides hope Jean came with milk soon. Armin started to check the clock, but then he remembered he changed the time.

He mentally cursed himself for doing that now.

Finally, he found the teapot thing and Jean arrived, lugging a half-filled bucket of milk along with him.

"I think the nanny's drying up. This looks like about a liter and a half instead of the usual two liters," Jean said.

"Well, does it matter?" Armin briskly asked, picking up the feeder, as he decided to call it. "That only means less chances of Sasha getting sick from some milk infection."

"Don't we disinfect the milk by boiling it?" Jean asked, putting the bucket on the table.

"Most of the time, yes, but sometimes, like now, we just don't have the time," Armin replied, taking the bucket and filling the feeder to a reasonable level. He then handed it to Jean. "I'll grab Lillian, you prepare yourself."

Somewhat confused, Jean picked took the milk-filled object as Armin grabbed Lillian and sat down so that he wouldn't have to waste arm strength.

"I've never fed a kid in my life, so it's up to you to make sure she doesn't die or whatever," Jean warned, then paused. "Why aren't I the one keeping her still? Why do I have to be the one to use this strangely unnerving teapot thing?"

"I don't trust you. The main responsibility that comes with holding her as she gets fed is making sure she's calm, and let's be real here, you're not really the best with kids."

Jean grunted in response as Armin continued.

"All you have to do now is put the mouthpiece in her mouth and tip it slightly, then take it out when I tell you to."

Jean sighed and put the mouthpiece of the feeder into Lily's open mouth, tilting it so that the milk would flow in.

The two teenage boys said nothing, save Armin's instructions, for what seemed like forever. Several times they had to put Lillian down and sloppily refill the feeder, wishing Hange or Christa were there to do this for them.

After a long time, Lillian was full.

Jean flopped down into a chair. "Why is this so much more mentally exhausting than it seems?"

Armin cracked a smile. "Maybe this is a test of our patience," he replied.

The other boy sighed. "Now what?"

The blond absentmindedly bounced Lillian on his lap. "I dunno, actually. I don't really pay attention to how Levi and Hange care for Lillian, I just play with her sometimes."

Lillian lightly burped, but her babysitters paid her no heed.

"How come Hange's always taking care of Lillian? She's not her mom, and there are probably other corps members more suited for this sort of thing anyways," Jean wondered aloud.

"I dunno. Maybe she feels some obligation towards Levi, or maybe she wants Lillian to have a good mother figure."

At that, Jean began to laugh. He laughed and laughed, and then took a deep breath and sighed contentedly. "That was hilarious. Hange, a mother figure? She's crazy enough as it is, we don't need her passing that onto other human beings."

Armin rolled his eyes. "Jean, how well do you even know Hange? At this point, I'm practically her protégé, helping her with analysis of data of her innumerable experiments. At times, I do more shit for her than Molbit. And you've spent like what, ten minutes with her at most? Hange's a lot more than just an eccentric titan-lover, you know. Though, considering you have the perception of a teaspoon, I'm not surprised that's all you think she is."

Jean's nostrils flared in anger. "Well, you have to admit, there are women more capable than Hange for that role anyways."

"True, true. That's why I also hypothesize she feels some degree of obligation to helping Levi with this. Maybe it has something to do with who Lily's mom is, maybe it's because they're friends. Either way, I haven't seen anyone else step up for the role, unless you count Christa, but Christa's innately like that anyway."

Silence again.

"Hey Armin, I've got a question for you. But you have to answer it honestly," Jean finally said.

"Sure?"

"Did you ever like Annie? As in, like-like Annie?"

If Armin had been drinking anything at the moment, he would have choked on it before spitting it out onto the table. But since he wasn't, he choked on air, lurching suddenly forward before regaining his composure. "What kind of question is that?" he demanded.

"Well, back at boot camp-"

"Boot camp? That was ages ago!"

"-There were rumors about you liking Annie. No one really took them seriously, but," Jean leaned closer, lowering his voice despite the fact that they were alone. "After Annie spared you when she was in her titan form, and seemingly only you, people are saying that you guys used to be, and might still be, a thing."

The blond boy buried his face in his hands to hide his scarlet cheeks. He'd had a minor crush on Annie during their final year of boot camp, but he figured it'd gone away since then. He'd never been sure about that at times, however, and now was definitely one of those times.

"Well, like I said, no one took them seriously. It was just some idle gossip," Jean told him after he noticed the lack of response..

Armin sighed, and as his blush died down, he removed his hands and began bouncing his knee. Lillian smiled and laughed.

"So… now what? Lillian's not going to fall asleep anytime soon, and it's mid-afternoon," Jean said, changing the subject.

"We should probably pasteurize the milk for later, but we should probably keep talking in front of Lillian. Hange says that babies brains are always developing and need a lot of talking-to to make sure they live up to their potential," Armin said.

"Maybe we should change the clocks back," Jean said, getting up and grabbing the bucket of milk and a teakettle so that they could pasteurize the milk.

Armin got up as well. "Hm… no. We should at least have some fun with it when everyone returns."


Author's Note xi. And forever afterwards, no one in the Survey Corps ever knew what the time really was... HehehehHEHEHheh. Did any of you notice how the punny the title is? OwO sorry-not-sorry.

Wow sassy Armin is best Armin. This chapter's super long omg o-o. My friend read my oneshots; she thinks you're all high for liking my story. I'd give her crap for that, but then I found out we have a ship in common. I can't really give her crap after that. Fangirl code. That exists now, don't question it.

Anyway, I just wanted to say a really huge thank you to all of you who've followed, favorited, or reviewed. I am not kidding you when I say every time someone does that, I squee out loud, send a screenshot to my other friend, and gush about it. You all make me so happy ahh *w*. Well, if you liked this chapter, don't forget to reviiewww and if you're new, then drop a follow, it's always appreciated! Aaaand have a great day~