A/N: Where there's a will, there's a way. I actually had this chapter half-written but it's on my PC at home, so I completely rewrote it and this is NOT the direction I anticipated it going. That love-hate relationship we have...well, the hate part is going to be explored again. I just couldn't help it...there's something about these sub-zero temperatures that I have never had before in my life that made my head all well...messed up.

I do hope that you enjoy, nonetheless. Thank you for the ongoing support, and I hope everyone is having a happy holiday season and staying safe.

Disclaimer: I do not own SnK, its characters or any other brands mentioned in this story.

The music was pounding. The bass reverberated so deeply within him that it shook his very core. It hadn't taken too long before his very heartbeat had synchronized with the rhythmic vibrations encapsulating his entirety. His lungs promptly followed suit; they found the staccato shrill of the treble and jerkily expanded and contracted to its nonsensical rhythm. He breathed in air that was thick with smoke for effect and the toxic fumes of cigarette smoke…as well as smoke from other things he dare not explore. The trifecta of smokes hung low in the air, deepening the darkness that only dare be penetrated by the sharp colorful beams of dancing lights and the blinding white flashes of strobes that could send anybody into a fit of photosensitive epilepsy at any moment. That darkness, however, was what they all wanted, what they all needed – it made it easier to turn a blind eye to the regret that would surely follow a night of unbridled indulgence like this one.

Eren, for one, wanted to keep his eyes closed to that nauseating acidity of regret.

He was not supposed to be here. He was not supposed to be drinking. Tomorrow would bring with it a splitting headache, nausea and a sore body…as well as a mountain of regret he could have avoided. However, he did not care. Right now, all he wanted to do was drink and dance.

It amazed the brunette, to some degree, how a pleasant event could usher you down the same path as a devastating one. When Jean had broken his heart, Eren wanted nothing more than to drink away the pain and dance until his feet went numb. As long as he kept his mind from thinking and kept his body moving, he could forget that Jean had ever touched him despite aching for that very caress. Now, Eren found himself once again itching to move his hips and quench an insatiable thirst, but this time it was in euphoria.

As he danced – he never thought he was a spectacular dancer, probably notably average, if even that, but he enjoyed dancing – he looked around at the small group of friends that had made this night possible: Connie and Sasha were all but fucking on the dance floor, Reiner was moving his hulking mass in an unnaturally fluid way as he danced about a pretty blonde girl, and…that was all he could see. Was it because his vision was slightly blurry or because he wasn't really looking?

Did he not want to see because he wished he could be dancing with someone like that? Someone specific.

Eren laughed at himself at how ludicrous that thought was. He would never be able to dance with Levi the way Reiner was dancing with that girl, or the way Connie and Sasha so passionately intertwined their bodies with one another. Levi was older, quiet, and Eren was willing to be his job that the man had absolutely no interest in coming to clubs filled with drunk, sweaty barely-legal teens and rowdy young adults to dance until the sun comes up. It was just one of the many things Eren would never get to experience with the man should they pursue their intended path, but would it not be worth it – would a stable, caring, satisfying and perhaps one day, loving relationship not be worth the sacrifice of going out and getting wasted?

Besides, if he really wanted to have a night like that, once in a while, he had his friends to party with.

Taking a swig of his beer, Eren sneered as two warm droplets lazily crawled into his mouth. He ripped the empty bottle from his lips and growled at it as if that action could fill it right back up. Drunk, not delusional, Eren made his way to the bar for the next round. He had known three drinks ago that he would not be driving home – and that tomorrow he would regret getting drunk – so he had thrown caution to the wind and decided to go the whole nine yards.

The bar wasn't much quieter than the dance floor. Bodies were packed together like sardines in a tin can, with drunken people shoving one another to get ahead in the mass in order to secure their next hit. Eren lithely slipped between the sweating bodies, taking advantage of the entropy, and inebriation, and quickly finding himself at the bar counter. He fished out a crumpled twenty from his pocket and settled to patiently waiting for one of the bartenders to turn their attention to him.

He watched the one barman with more interest than was courteous. The slim blonde moved fluidly behind the counter, juggling drinks and cash with impressive finesse. He had a smile stuck to his face, a slight dimple in his left cheek that Eren may have imagined, and a habit of randomly puckering his lips. That little habit had Eren's mind swimming in the gutters. The barman was attractive, but what had Eren's thoughts quickly turning to perversions was the fact that he had not enjoyed the touch of another's flesh for some time. It was probably not particularly long, but he was a young, virile male in his prime...

"Eren!"

Eren tore his gaze from the cute barman and turned to the voice that had called him. He couldn't say he was particularly surprised to find Jean standing beside him; Trost was a club that was frequented by most young people in the area. With some of the most spacious dance areas, great music and DJs, cheap entrance (with bouncers willing to accept bribes for entry) and cheap alcohol, Trost was everything the kids wanted.

Besides, Eren and Jean had come here together before.

Pun.

"Hey," Eren said, smiling.

Just then, one of the bartenders – a busty red-head – turned her attention to Jean. He leaned closer to her and spoke, affording Eren a moment to watch those mesmerizing lips move. Jean smiled and winked at the bartender before turning to Eren.

Why was Eren feeling jealous?

"I got you a drink," Jean said. He smiled; it was a smile that could charm the pants of anyone. "I hope you don't mind."

Who was Eren to say no to free alcohol? With the spike in jealousy long-forgotten, Eren smiled at Jean and gave the man a thumbs-up. When his eyes dropped to Jean's lips for the second time in under a minute, Eren shook his head; he was definitely drunk.

And horny, he thought with a sneer. Bad combination.

Jean handed Eren a beer before turning and walking away, and Eren, without thinking, followed. He watched Jean walking, eyes raking the length of his ex-lover's body not imagining what lay beneath those clothes, but knowing. Not only knowing, but wanting.

Fuck, Eren thought, shaking his head and taking a long, meaningful sip of his beer that saw him put away half the bottle. The alcohol was definitely talking now, and if he was not careful, it would not stop with mere lustful glances. Eren surveyed the dance floor and found that his friends were nowhere in sight…well, Reiner was, but he had the pretty blonde girl that he was dancing with earlier pinned to a wall and was making out with her.

Jealousy. Eren wanted to make out, too. In fact, he wanted much more.

"Wanna dance?" Jean asked.

Eren blinked his eyes back into focus and found Jean standing directly in front of him, hazel eyes expectant and focused. Something within Eren was begging to flee – could there already be a part of him that was loyal to Levi even though they had not officially declared themselves an item? – but a larger part of Eren wanted to throw caution to the wind and let himself go. He could always blame it on the alcohol.

"Sure," Eren said.

The two fell into a familiar rhythm. At first, they didn't touch one another. They danced, letting the smoke and the pounding bass fill the noticeable gap between their bodies. Their eyes barely met as they moved, each man enjoying the rhythm of the night on his own. Every now and then, one of them would take a swig of their respective drinks. As time became irrelevant and the bass pounding against their sternums became heavier than their heartbeats, that appreciable gap started to diminish. They inched closer to one another, hands tentatively falling to the others hips, later gaining confidence as they snaked around to the small of each other's backs. Eventually there was not enough space between them to even breathe, and what had been dancing moments ago had come one layer of clothing away from fucking in public.

Eren ground his hips heavily against Jean, and was not surprised that Jean reciprocated. Soon, there was nothing left to drink but his mouth was not left dry. As they danced, as Eren rubbed and swayed until he could feel his hard length brushing against Jean's, their lips met. It was fleeting, but it was enough to quench the thirst left in the beer's wake. It was enough for Eren to realize that what he was doing was not right.

But he could not stop. He had been stripped of his inhibitions.

He turned his head away, but his body could not leave. His lips refused to meet Jean's, and Jean did not chase them, content with the rest of the contact their bodies shared. Contact that was sinfully sweet, delectable, seductive, and Eren swore he would give up his spot in the competition to fuck right now.

It was so wrong, but he could not stop. He could not help himself. If regret was what he was going to feel tomorrow morning, he may as well order the dessert as well.

He let Jean lead him to the bathroom. Not a single protest was uttered as Jean relieved him of his denims, pulled his cock out from the side of his underwear and slicked it up with lube that Eren did not bother asking the origins of. His body moved on its own, responding to Jean bent over the toilet bare-bottomed with a single thrust that had him balls-deep in a familiar heat. He paid no mind to Jean, and if he closed his eyes, he could forget it was Jean entirely. All he wanted was to find relief, to get off, to ease himself of the burden of having been teased and left teetering on a precarious edge for longer than he cared to remember.

When he came, so did his sobriety.

With an angry cry, Eren shoved Jean out of the cubicle before locking the door. He could barely maneuver himself as he felt the evidence of the night rise up from deep within his belly, only just yanking the lid off the toilet before a brown acidic slush of bile, beer and a half-digested pepper-steak pie went crashing into the porcelain bowl. He could faintly hear Jean beating desperately on the cubicle door; he could make out his name being called above the disgusting splashing sounds of vomit falling into a toilet; he could even hear the laughter of other men in the bathroom and imagined that he was being ridiculed. Yet through all of that, he kept heaving, his stomach contracting so tightly he felt ready for a shirtless photo-shoot – oh, if only his abs could be this defined with less flexing. Even as there was nothing left to expel, his body kept trying, leaving him dry-heaving painfully for ten minutes before it eventually stopped.

If he could, he would just lay his head down on his arm and sleep.

"Eren?" A knock on the door followed. "Yo! Eren! You in here?"

"Yeah…" Eren replied weakly.

"Open the fuckin' door or I'm bashin' it in!" That was a different voice.

"Wait," Eren said. He sighed, and with every ounce of strength left in him, he hauled himself to his feet. Without looking at the contents of the toilet, lest he be spurred into another painful fit of dry-heaving, he closed the lid and flushed.

"You alright, mate?" The first voice. Reiner.

"Yeah," Eren said.

He tucked his cock back into his underwear, cringing slightly at the sticky feel of dried lube on his skin, and redid the zipper and the button on his denims before opening the door to the cubicle. He was greeted with a very concerned Reiner, an amused Connie – who was, bless him, bearing a bottle of water – and a curious Sasha.

"What the hell you doing in the men's bathroom, Sash?" Eren asked as he reached for the water.

"I have two guys with me, one who is big enough to take out The Rock," Sasha said, patting Reiner on the shoulder, "so I can pretty much go wherever I darn well please."

Eren couldn't help but smile. He may not have known Sasha well or spent an astounding amount of time with her, but what he did know was that she was quite a carefree spirit who enjoyed living on the edge despite frequent moments of incredible cowardice.

"Wash off your face so we can get you home, tiger," Reiner said.

Eren obliged. He was in no condition to argue or even disagree with his friends. He did not even want to know what he looked like. All he knew was that the pleasant feelings of being buzzed had left him, and in its wake was nothing more than the vile taste of vomit in his mouth and the bare feeling of having his dignity stripped away from him…again. As he washed off his face, he idly wondered if his friends knew that he had just fallen into his ex's trap, again, and fucked him, again. Although…Eren smiled a little to himself as he realized that, this time, it was he who chased Jean off once he had gotten what he wanted.

Mikasa was awake when Eren came toddling into their apartment. The only pro of having vomited his lungs out at the club was that he felt somewhat alright – not anywhere near sober, but he did not feel, look or speak like he was absolutely trashed. And with Mikasa being awake, it was a blessing.

"Eren," Mikasa said in greeting as Eren plodded into the kitchen, making a beeline for the fridge. "I made some chicken and rice. I left you a plate in the microwave."

"Thanks, Mika," Eren said as he closed the fridge. He walked up to his sister, gave her a kiss on the forehead, and then made his way to the microwave to reheat his dinner.

"Have you been drinking?" Mikasa asked.

Eren watched the numbers on the microwave countdown for a few seconds; fifty-three, fifty-two, fifty-one, fifty, forty-nine. Lying would be pointless. Not only could Mikasa tell when he was lying, but he was sure he reeked of beer. He threw Mikasa a sideways glance over his shoulder and said, "Yeah."

She sighed. He could hear the disappointment in that single, drawn-out expiration. "Why, Eren?"

He would have rolled his eyes if it would not have robbed him of his balance. Twenty-one, twenty, nineteen, eighteen, seventeen…Eren turned to his sister. "Can't a guy have fun once in a while?"

"You have a competition in a couple of weeks, Eren. You need to watch what you put into your body."

There was no denying that Mikasa was right. While it was imperative that he maintained a lean and healthy diet overall, coming closer to competition time, binges like tonight would not only weigh on his body, but also detriment his training for a couple of days…a couple of days that he could not afford to go at anything less than one hundred percent. Of course, he was not going to admit this to Mikasa.

"It's just a competition," Eren said, turning back to the microwave just in time to watch the tail end of the final countdown. "There will be more."

"You won't be saying that when Jean beats you."

The microwave beeped then. Three shrill beeps echoed through the apartment, adding finality to Mikasa's words and holding Eren in place. She was right. Instead of admit this, Eren ignored her; he grabbed his plate from the microwave and pushed past Mikasa to go and sit in the living room. There, he wolfed down his meal, wondering if it, in conjunction with the rapid expulsion of alcohol earlier, would aid in a faster recovery. Maybe he would only suffer half a day instead of a full day.

"Eren," Mikasa called quietly. Eren did not answer. "Look…I don't mean to nag you. You can have fun and stuff just…I know how much this means to you. I know that you want to beat Jean as a novice. You're only going to get one chance to do that."

Eren stopped eating then. He suddenly remembered what he had done moments before turning around to puke – he had fucked Jean. It was short-lived, dirty and raw, and right now Eren felt utterly disgusting for having stooped that low.

"I don't feel so well…" Eren said, shakily grabbing as his plate.

Mikasa was quick to respond; she dived down and grabbed Eren's plate just as he jumped to his feet, and watched as he bolted towards the bathroom. What Eren did not see, as she took the half-eaten plate of food back to the kitchen, was that her exasperation was marred by concern.

Once again, Eren had emptied the contents of his stomach, but it was not because of over-indulgence; it was pure disgust. He was mortified, to say the least, that he had done what he had done. Of course he would blame it on the alcohol, but in that same breath he wished he had drunk more so that he wouldn't have had to remember the event at all. Unfortunately, that was not how life worked. Eren had made a mistake, and his mind was going to make sure that he remembered every excruciating detail of it – from the coldness of the lube against his cock, to the warmth of Jean, to his tightness, to the mind-numbing pleasure of getting release.

Sighing, Eren scrubbed harder. He had been scrubbing at his skin for minutes already, and it showed in the deep red tint on his body. But even the abrasive scrubbing and the scalding water that could damn near melt the skin clean off his body – oh, how he wished it could – still could not cleanse him of his sin. Out of habit, he lifted a hand to punch at the wall, but stopped as a scab caught his attention in his peripherals. He glanced at his balled up fist and took in what he saw – scabs, evidence of the last tantrum he had thrown and thanks to who? None other than Jean Kirstein. Eren clenched his jaw; Jean Kirstein was going to be the reason why he would break his damn hands.

With a click of his tongue, Eren lowered his hand, straightened himself out and shut off the water. He closed his eyes for a moment, taking several deep breaths in an effort to calm himself down, and it worked. Within a minute, he was feeling better – calmer, more rational and more in control.

When he opened his eyes, his gaze immediately dropped to his hands. For how he had beaten the concrete pillar, he was surprisingly unhurt. Yes, he had bled, and those wounds had scabbed, but they weren't sore or tender in the least. The scabs were mostly healed. Some would say Eren healed quickly, but Eren knew the truth – he was just so used to it that he barely felt it anymore. Sometimes he felt blessed to be like that; it was often said that the success of a fighter was not determined by how hard he could hit, but by how hard he could get hit and stand back up. By that logic, Eren would make a fucking fantastic fighter, he reckoned.

After dressing for bed, Eren wandered back to the living room, where Mikasa was watching TV in the dark with the volume turned down low. Neither of them spoke as Eren curled up beside Mikasa, allowing her to drape an arm over him and nuzzling against her as he made himself comfortable. He let himself forget about what he'd done, forget about the regret, the disgust...he cleared his mind of everything and simply closed his eyes, treasuring this moment with his sister. And so, with an old episode of NCIS lighting up the living room, Eren fell asleep on his sister's shoulder for the first time in years.

I know, I am terrible. Please do not hate me! But that, kids, is why we do not drink (or hang out with bad exes, for that matter).

Stay safe for new years, don't drink and drive, be responsible and don't do drugs ;) May the transition into 201 be epic!

OS