A/N: So I owe everyone an explanation—and an apology, but I'll leave that in the comments at the very end. In the meantime, here's some Eren POV. I listened to "Ketchum, ID" by Julien Baker, Phoebe Bridgers, and Lucy Dacus while I was writing this, if you need something to set the mood!
Eren
"What's wrong with you? My dad gets back in half an hour."
"Huh, what?" I blink. Annie's sitting in my lap with her legs wrapped around my back, giving me one of her signature glares.
"You just spaced out. Are we gonna fuck or not?"
"I'm literally in you right now," I say, annoyed.
Annie and I have been hooking up for a couple months now. She introduced herself by insulting me at one of Ymir's parties, but then an hour later, I somehow found myself flying through all the bases—first, second, third, and bam, home run. I had cashed in my V-card, and my name in her contacts had become "seni0r $lam," which is misleading because I'm only a junior, but basically, it means that I'm her last fun "huzzah" before she heads off to college next fall.
I start moving my hips, and she starts going with me, but after several minutes, I just can't freaking focus. I'm still stuck on that image of Mikasa's uncle standing in the doorway, holding a screwdriver with a fucking rubber hanging off of it. Jean and Mikasa were off to the side, doing that annoying thing couples do, where they have a whole conversation without saying a single word, using only facial expressions—all while I just stood there, clearly the odd one out. It felt like a bad prank, except that pranks are in jest, whereas this whole incident, on the other hand, was so very real. I ended up walking home like an idiot, while they went off to do God knows what. I went straight into the garage, pulled my car out into the road, and texted Annie. Within a minute, she got back to me, saying that she could pencil me in for a quickie.
But I don't even know what I'm doing in this dingy basement, on this ratty couch. I stop and ask Annie to get off.
"You suck today," Annie says, blunt as ever. Most days, I appreciate it because she cuts straight to the chase and spares me the BS.
But today, her attitude is the last thing I need. "Go screw yourself, Annie," I mutter.
As I gather my clothes off of her basement floor, she stares lasers into me. "Well, thanks for wasting my time."
"This is the last thing I need right now!" I yell at her.
Annie can get pretty mad, but she doesn't throw a gasket. She's one of those passive-aggressive types who know exactly how to grind your gears. "Are you mad about Mikasa's usual bullshit again?" she asks coolly.
"You don't know anything," I bite back.
"Oh, please." She crosses her arms over her bare chest. "It's always Mikasa this, Mikasa that. Why won't Mikasa ever open up to me? Why's she icing me out? Why does she ghost me on text messages? Why did she run away from me at her dad's funeral? Why is she soooo emotionally constipated? Dude, you vent to me about this almost every time we see each other. Do I have to remind you about the time you brought it up, while we were in the middle of boning? You're lucky we're just fucking here. God forbid you spill your guts like this to someone who actually has feelings for you. It's a turn-off, by the way."
"Not fair, I don't sound that lame," I argue. Annie usually settles for short, shippy comments, but sometimes, she does this thing where she will suddenly go off on a tirade for a good while, and it catches me completely off guard.
Wordlessly, she points at the lump of clothing in my hands. Her bra got tangled up with my pants somehow. I toss it to her, and she trades me one of my socks in return.
"Nah, it's pretty lame," she reiterates. "I pity you, almost."
We get dressed, and Annie walks me out. Before she closes the door on me, she heaves a big sigh. "Look, you're clearly hung up on Mikasa, and I don't know if I have the bandwidth to keep listening to all this and coming up with nuggets of wisdom for you—which I'm not really qualified to do, should you know—so we should call it quits with this arrangement. Go do some soul-searching or whatever."
And the door shuts before I can even respond.
I've come up with a plan, and it goes something like this. One day, after practice, I'm going to intercept Jean. I'll sidle up next to him and go, "Hey, let's take a walk."
So before we move on, a disclaimer: Jean and I don't exactly get along.
Okay, that's an understatement. To put it more accurately, if he gets hit by an asteroid and gets blown into smithereens, I would hardly bat an eye—and I bet the same would go for him, if our fates were reversed.
Coach Shadis thinks our "rivalry" has been to the "detriment of the team," but I beg to differ. First off, we need to be on equal footing if we're to be "rivals," so let's not kid ourselves, Coach.
As for the "detriment" part, I can kinda see it. Come to one of our soccer games, and you'll see what he means. On the off-chance that the match isn't going our way, you'll 200% witness him storming up to me before the beginning of the second half and pinning the blame on me. This is shitty sportsmanship at its finest, so naturally, I get pissed. However, contrary to what Coach thinks, magic happens when Jean fans the flames.
When the ref blows the whistle, signaling that it's time to play again, I imagine my cleats pounding into his stupid face with each step, and I swear to you, the burn in my muscles and lungs disappears. I feel like I'm flying across the field, breezing past everybody. Connie always calls me out for being too aggressive when this happens, worrying that I'll land myself too many yellow and red cards, but who cares when I can cut in front of the opponent and reclaim possession of the ball, turning the tide of the match? On one occasion, Jean's guilt-tripping had me so enraged that he got me to pull off a hat-trick, a.k.a. three goals, motherfuckers—in a row, may I add. Eren shoots! Eren scores (thrice)! And the stands go batshit insane!
I'm getting side-tracked, but moral of the story: Jean and I hate each other.
That being said, when Jean and I split off from the rest of the team, I'll make us walk circles around the track. He'll think something's up, given our rocky history, so by keeping our conversation fenced into the track area, that he can't make a run for it to his car.
He'll probably be like, in his snivelly voice, "What the fuck do you want, Jaeger?"
And I'll start by telling him, "If you land so much as a single finger on her, your ass is grass, you hear me?" I'll make it very clear that he doesn't deserve her, but she's chosen him, so he better treat her right. Don't dare with the snide, cocky comments that you throw around on the soccer field. I'll tell him that he needs to have her back. No matter what. Even if she shoves him aside or shrugs everything off. I'll tell Jean that she's stubborn as an ass and that she'll always say that she's fine, that she's got things under control—but I'll make sure it's hammered into his skull that he needs to be there for her.
The whole spiel should take no more than, say, the time it takes to walk a lap around the track. Ideally, I get everything out in those minutes, such that once I wrap up, we'll be near the gates leading out, and I'll peace out, right then and there, leaving a devastatingly shook Jeannie-boy behind to mull over what I said.
I run the game plan by Connie and Armin when we go for milkshakes. Armin almost chokes on his cookies-and-cream order.
"Dude, you're out of your mind," Connie says, clanging his spoon against the booth table for emphasis. "Bad. Fucking. Idea. Worst plan I've ever heard."
"Gotta say, I'm with Connie on this," Armin adds, wiping at his mouth with a napkin. "You're best leaving them be. I don't think either of them will appreciate it all that much, even though we know that you have nothing but good intentions."
"Yeah, man." Connie winces. "It's gonna be a disaster. Especially since, like, you and Jean have been sworn enemies since Day One."
"Come on," I say. I didn't expect my plan of action to be annihilated like this. In my head, I imagined Armin pulling out a notebook and scribbling out maps and diagrams, while Connie sits back, hyping us up. "What's the worst that could happen? I just wanna set things straight with him."
"I think you need to accept that Mikasa's moved on." Armin's using his "there, there, Eren" tone, which he uses whenever he's trying to let me down easy.
"If I talk to Jean and basically tell him to treat her right and not be a dick like he is to everyone else," I say, evenly, "then that's a sign I'm moving on, isn't it?"
"Nah, buddy." Connie chews on his lower lip and gives me an unconvinced look. "If anything, that gives off clingy ex-boyfriend vibes. Though you weren't her ex-boyfriend to begin with, so that won't be a good look at all, nope."
"Eren," Armin puts a hand on my shoulder. "I know it stinks, and I know you guys haven't been able to communicate that well—"
"I kept texting and texting and texting her, checking up on her, touching base and all that, but she leaves me on read," I fume, "every single time. I try to talk to her at her own dad's fucking funeral—she bolts. I'm literally the poster child of communication, Armin. I reach out like no one's ever reached out before, but she wants nothing to do with me. I don't get it, guys! It's not fair!"
A middle-aged couple several booths down twist around to stare at me. Our waiter makes his way over, but Armin throws up a shaky thumb's up and forces out an anxious smile, assuring him that everything's just peachy.
Annie ignores me at Ymir's party. So I ignore her back, leaving her to talk to Bertholdt, this awkward tall guy I vaguely know from jazz ensemble.
Connie and I zig-zag through a hallway of tipsy people, and we arrive in the kitchen, where we pour ourselves drinks. Usually, I go for something mixed because I hate the taste of hard alcohol, but I tip the handle of Smirnoff on its head and watch the liquid inside go glug, glug, glug as I fill my plastic cup.
"Hey, man. Take it easy," Connie says, swiping the handle from me. I managed to get half of the cup two-thirds of the way filled, roughly six or seven shots worth of vodka.
"I'm fine," I growl. I try to wrestle the Smirnoff back, but Connie knees me in the stomach. "The fuck, dude?" I sputter.
"Yo, you're being an idiot. Armin made me promise to keep an eye on you tonight."
"Whatever." I throw the cup back, and the vodka sizzles down my throat. I try to hold back a gag. "This shit never gets easier."
"Sure you don't want a chaser?" Connie offers me a jug of Tropicana orange juice.
I slap it away.
We cycle through drinking games. A couple rounds of beer pong against Reiner and Marco. Twenty minutes or so of Ring of Fire with Sasha and the lacrosse girls (while avoiding making eye contact with Annie).
I've only seen Mikasa come to these Saturday night ragers once. Ever since then, she's been absent, yet my eyes keep darting towards the door, as if I'm waiting for her to show up. I take another sip from my cup, hoping it'll wash out these thoughts. But I should know better. Alcohol does the exact opposite, and I can't stop thinking about her. Sometimes, I wonder if I should've interfered those years back.
Mikasa's dad was screaming at her for not giving him a chance with his girlfriends. He was yelling at her for making things so tough for him, which in turn, ticked her off because she's done nothing but sacrifice her whole life to take care of him. He flung a beer bottle right at her head. Luckily, she ducked, but the thing smashed against the wall behind her in an explosion of glass and Heinecken. I heard a yelp, and Mikasa was clutching her cheek. I could see blood dripping down her face. A shrapnel piece of glass must've ricocheted off of the wall and hit her.
Mikasa saw me jerk forward. "Don't get involved!" she hissed at me. I'd never heard her voice sound so menacing before. She tried to reason with her dad, but he was advancing forward from his seat at the dining room table, grabbing objects one-by-one—a fork, a plate, a basket of fruit—and hurling them at her with full force. He was red-faced and furious. Veins were bulging out of his forehead, and his fists were clenched. He was ready to throttle her.
He was on the verge of swinging his fist down on her when I lunged forward, sending my knuckles into his jaw. A tooth went flying, and he staggered backwards, cursing at the top of his lungs.
I turned around, just about to ask if she was okay, when she tackled me to the ground. And she socked me squarely in the face, telling me, her voice trembling with anger, "Get the fuck out of my house, Eren."
She never accepted my apology. She would always cut me off, insisting it was her fault. The more I tried to say otherwise, the angrier she'd get with me, and the more distance would grow between us.
I can taste bile rising in the back of my throat. I spring to my feet, abandoning the game of Ring of Fire, and hightail it to the bathroom—but it's locked. Clumsily, I run through the kitchen, crashing through the backdoor, and crisp air hits my face when I hunch over, puking into the grass.
"Eren?"
I look up, and my heart sinks. Mikasa is standing over me, wearing a black dress, looking horrified.
"'Sup," I manage. But then another wave of nausea hits me, and I'm vomiting out the pizza that I had for lunch, and probably breakfast too.
"Oh, geez." A shadow looms over me, and it's Jean, sneering at me with a stuck-up look on his face. "Overdid it tonight, huh?"
"Hey, go shove a cactus up your ass," I spit.
"Stop it, Jean," Mikasa says sharply. "Can you go get some water?"
As he heads towards the kitchen, I can taste the bile building up again, but this time, nothing comes out, and I'm dry-heaving. Mikasa puts a hand on my back, comforting me. "Take it easy, Eren. It's gonna be okay."
"Wanna hold my hair back for me?" I joke, after gasping for air. And she actually laughs, a light, pretty sound that I haven't heard in such a long time.
Jean returns with the water and hands me the cup. "I've got this," Mikasa tells him. "Why don't you go inside and have fun?"
"You sure?"
She takes his hand and rubs her thumb against his. Grudgingly, I try to focus on sipping at the water.
"You guys are awful to each other," she comments after Jean leaves us outside.
"He's awful to me," I correct her.
"Maybe if you take the high-road and be nice to him first, he'll come around."
I snort. "Trust me, that's not gonna do shit."
She sighs and offers me a hand. I take it, and she helps me up to my feet. She tries to withdraw, but my fingers are still holding hers. "Uh, Eren?" she says, laughing uneasily.
"S-sorry," I mumble, letting her go.
"Should I tell Annie, just so that she knows you're okay—"
"No, don't bother," I cut her off. My tone comes out harsher than I intended, and she winces. "Sorry, I didn't mean it like that," I continue quickly. "It's just that…" I rub the back of my head, scrambling for the words. "You know, it's not that serious between us—we kinda aren't on good terms right now, if you know what I mean. It's—it's basically over, our whole friends-with-benefits thing."
"I'm sorry to hear that," she says gently. She bites her bottom lip—a habit that she has when she's trying hard to think. "Do you need a lift home?"
I wait by the front door as she crosses into the living room, making her way towards Jean. He's standing with Reiner, Connie, and the rest of our soccer team, loudly telling one of his stupid, over-exaggerated stories. He cranes his head towards her as she whispers something into his ear, and she leans in to kiss him. The guys on my team obnoxiously go, "Oooooh!" Jean turns red—but in a smug way. My gut does somersaults.
Electronic music plays on her car stereo when she cranks up the ignition. I know instantly that this is something Jean rubbed off on her because he's obsessed with EDM and dubstep. But thankfully, she turns it off as she scoots her car out of her parallel park job.
We sit in silence for the first couple of minutes.
I can't see her face clearly in the dark, but as we pass street lamps, I can see the faint outline of her face. She's wearing mascara, and it makes her eyelashes look double as long as before. She smells like her favorite apple shampoo, but I can also catch hints of a familiar scent on her—Jean's infamous cologne. She's covered up her scar with makeup.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," I say, when we reach a red light.
"It's all good, Eren," she replies. "How much did you have to drink?"
"If I'm being honest with you, I have no fucking clue."
"Make sure to hydrate when you get home, okay?" It's the voice she uses when I'm procrastinating my math homework or when I'm not wearing enough layers on a chilly day. It's almost like she's nagging me, kinda how Mom does, but she's Mikasa, so I listen, even though on the surface, I shrug it aside.
"If I can sneak around without my mom getting suspicious, yeah."
"Is she okay with you going to parties and drinking?" she asks.
"I tell her I'm hanging out with Armin, and he's so clutch. He covers for me, so she thinks we watch documentaries until 2AM."
"Solid alibi. You guys always did come up with the best excuses." When I see that she smiles, as she says this, and I can't help but smile too.
"Does Levi care about you doing all this teenager stuff?"
"I don't think he realizes that the drinking age is 21 in the States. He keeps offering me beer, and I have to keep reminding him that that's illegal," she answers. "I dunno, after seeing how protective Jean's mom can be, I've kinda realized that Levi gives me so much more freedom than other legal guardians."
I wonder if she's sliding Jean's name to make a point, like she's reiterating that they're hooking up. Or if slipping his name into conversation has turned into a habit, since they've become so tied-up in each other's lives. He drives her to and from school every day. Every day after practice, he showers three times faster than he did before and rushes out of the locker rooms to meet her in the parking lot. They sit side-by-side at lunch and always break off into private side-conversations.
He asked her to prom by filling her locker full of ping-pong balls so that when she opened it, a sea of orange would spill out, bouncing everywhere. She was the center of attention that day, and I could see that she was humiliated. She shrinks when she's embarrassed. She turns super red, and her lashes hang low over her eyes, and she fidgets in her place. She hates attention. But when Jean appeared behind her with flowers and a "WILL YOU GO TO PROM WITH ME SIGN?", she hugged him and said yes.
"Does he make you happy?" I ask bluntly.
"He told me he loved me the other day," she says. "He said it's okay if I didn't have an answer to that."
"Big step," I comment. My stomach twists itself into knots.
She turns into our neighborhood. We pass her house, and as usual, I can see Jean's car parked in her driveway, which can only mean that she's playing Designated Driver tonight.
"Did you say it back?" I venture to ask.
She pulls up into my driveway. She stops the car and turns to look at me, and her eyes are glistening, like she's trying to hold back tears. "I said I didn't know. I needed more time."
"Shit, Mikasa. Are you okay—"
"I'm fine, Eren. I'm fine," she says immediately.
"If you say so…"
"I just don't want anyone to get hurt from being around me. And he looked really, really hurt."
Hearing this makes me super pissed. I have a response locked, loaded, and ready to go. You're a load of shit, Mikasa. You're a hypocrite. I'm ready to drop that bomb and get myself out of this car, pronto—but Armin's voice echoes in the back of my head, telling me to chill the fuck out.
"But he told you that it's fine if you weren't at that point yet," I tell her, as diplomatically as I can. Armin would be so proud. "Look, take it at your own pace. Do whatever makes you happy, Mikasa. Say whatever you want when the time comes. Just don't force yourself to say what you think he wants to hear."
I need to get the hell out of this car. I can't be counseling her on her relationship. I just don't have the bandwidth—is this how Annie felt when I dumped everything on her? Another wave of nausea. I need to push this passenger-side door open, but she's just looking at me with her teary eyes, like she wants to tell me something.
"I need to head back," she says finally.
"I should probably pass out."
"Good night, Eren."
"Night, Mikasa."
"Look," I look directly into Jean's beady eyes. "We need to talk."
"About what?" he says warily.
I have a script in my head. Even though Armin and Connie begged me not to carry through with it, I have final say on my actions. I've rehearsed this in my head a million times—when I'm driving, when I'm brushing my teeth, when I'm not paying attention in class.
But when we walk around the track, just me and him, something completely different comes out:
"She loves watching late-night talk shows. She's a bleeding-heart liberal. She fucking devours books. Get fluent in the New Yorker magazine. She's incredible at school, and she's always right. She's amazing at whistling. Her sense of humor is weird as fuck—it's dark and twisted—but roll with it. She—"
"Why are you telling me this, Jaeger—"
"Shut up and let me finish. She hates rom-coms, she loves biopics, if we're talking movies. Don't fuck with bouquets—get her a sunflower. She likes milkshakes and burgers. But she hates any other form of beef. She takes her coffee with almond milk. She'll always beat you at card games, but you might stand a chance in, I dunno, Yahtzee or whatever. Her favorite color is red. She hates the beach. Despises sand and salt. The ocean freaks her out, but she loves Lake Michigan. She doesn't know how pretty she is. Don't let her forget that. And she can be full of shit sometimes, so always fucking be there for her, Jean, even if she pushes and shoves you away."
A/N: Hey, guys. Gonna take a moment to address some concerns that I've received from some of you guys about the pairings in this fic. Several of you guys weren't big fans of the Jeankasa developments that have recently taken place. First off, thank you so much for leaving your honest opinions; I really, really do appreciate the time you took to share what you're thinking! I do hear you loud and clear, especially seeing that I tag this fic as EM. Also, I'm super sorry for not putting out the proper warnings in the tags. Some of you pointed out that this can be triggering, and I'd really like to apologize if the plot twist brought along any feelings of uneasiness and discomfort. I've updated the tags to better reflect the developments in the story. Please lmk if more tweaking needs to be done, and I'll do so gladly!
While I'd like to withhold spoilers, I think I do owe you all a glimpse into where I'm headed. Please rest assured that WUARD is 200% going to end EM, but the path to getting there won't be a straight shot. We're destined for EM to happen, but there will be complications that test, strain, shake, and sometimes even sever Eren and Mikasa's bond. But this is a story of how two people, in spite of these trials, re-connect and forge something even stronger. As you guys can tell, WUARD's an exceedingly slow burn.
Some of you guys offered some thoughts on the love triangles (well, it's kinda a square sorta thing, but whatever, technicalities), and I really appreciated these comments because they helped me key-in on how NOT to write this kind of storyline. It was so incredibly helpful to hear you all air your frustrations regarding how love triangles have been degraded into this hackneyed, overused plot trope, and I've decided to try to put a fresh spin on things. Ongoing feedback would be much appreciated, and please, don't hold back. I can handle negative criticism, so hit me with your best.
I hope this blurb answers some questions about the nature of this fic. I'll try to respond to your comments one-by-one as well (a little behind on this, but I'll catch up!). Always incredibly lucky to have you guys as readers! As for those of you who feel as if you can't continue reading this fic, I totally understand. Thank you for the time you took to read, regardless, and again, I'm really sorry about now putting the adequate warnings in place.
- Karsyn