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Jean re-corrects his stance, panting hard and glaring at his opponent. Dust covering almost every inch of his clothes and tickling his nose.
“Bring it on Jaeger” he breathes out, sounding slightly less threatening than he wanted to. Eren stares him dead in the eye and charges, the wooden sword gripped hard in his sweaty hands.
Jean gets lower to the ground, waiting for Eren to strike directly at his stomach and knock the wind from him, he crosses his own sword in front of his abdomen and gives the shorter boy a cocky smirk.
Instead of jabbing him in the stomach, Eren hits him right on the side of the neck. A sharp burst of pain ricochets through his body and without thinking he punches Eren in the face, sending the dark haired teen to the ground.
“What the hell Jean!” He nurses a now bleeding nose, getting back up again and charging at Jean, tackling him to the ground and sitting on his waist.
“Get the fuck off me!” Jean growls at him, thrashing his hips upwards in an attempt to dislodge Eren. Due to their heated argument, they fail to notice the thunderous footsteps of the instructor until Eren is picked up off Jean. Not unlike a cat being picked by scruff the way Eren curls in on himself
“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING” Jean winces at his volume, the side of his neck still slightly hurting where it was struck. Damn you Eren.
“He punched me in the face” Eren points a finger at him like a little kid snitching on him to a teacher.
“Kirstein, is Jaeger correct” Shadis glares at him with a burning fury Jean had been on the end of far too many times.
“Yes sir” he grumbles “only because Eren used a dirty trick on me”
“WHAT! No I didn’t!” Eren retorts
“YES YOU DID! Commandant clearly said no hitting above the shoulders!” Jean argues, not noticing the rising anger of their instructor.
“I DO NOT CARE ABOUT WHAT HAPPENED” Shadis yells, shutting them both up instantly. “You two are incredibly lucky there are actually no punishments left to dish out otherwise you two wouldn’t be seeing the light of day for a week”
The two teens share a quick glance of fear before looking back to Shadis. “But both of you are done sparring, sit down in this exact spot and if I find you have moved then only god can help you now” and with that, he storms off, going over to yell at Connie and Sasha for the fourth time that evening. Jean sits down with a huff, a cloud of dust flying up. thank god the day was close enough to ending.
——
Jean wakes the next morning, no pain in his neck until he pushes down on the spot where he was hit, and still the pain wasn’t even that bad, it’ll probably just bruise for a while. Curse that Eren. He starts his normal routine of stretching his arms up, his legs and going to wake Marco. Who was not in his bed.
“Hey, where’s Marco?” Jean turns waiting for someone to answer.
“He got punished the other day, remember, he’s got to clean the stables” Reiner helpfully reminds him. Jean clicks his tongue. His day had gone off to a bad start already.
Then he runs into Bertolt in the bathrooms
“Morning” he mumbles, his brain still half alseep
“Good morning je-“ Bertolt suddenly stops mid sentence, a large flush gathering in his cheeks. “Who gave you that” his voice wobbles slightly, like he was talking about some taboo topic. He then gestures to Jean’s neck right where he had been hit
“Oh that was just Eren” Jean begins slightly confused as Bertolt’s face morphs into shock “what, is it bad”
“Oh, no no, it’s just… unexpected” and the two lapse into silence. Jean not really knowing what the tall boy meant by unexpected. He notices a stall door open, he heads inside and does his business. Once he leaves, Bertolt is still looking at him. Whatever, if he had a problem, he should just tell him.
Jean quickly forgets the interaction he had with Bertolt in the bathroom and goes to breakfast. Dumping his tray down by Connie and Sasha, who’s own tray was literally piled with food.
“Hey Jean woah! Who’s that from!” Sasha jabs at his neck, Jean feels a twinge of pain from the contact.
“Eren..?” He answers slightly more hesitantly, wondering why two people had asked him about that.
“Seriously?!” Connie butts in “Sasha you owe me bread” a joyful grin spreads across his face. Of course those idiots would bet with food. Sasha grumbles before handing over her serving of bread that morning.
“What were you guys betting on anyway” Jean talks through a mouthful of bland tasteless porridge.
“Whether or not Eren would leave marks” Connie shrugs before swiping the extended bread before Sasha could change her mind.
“That’s a stupid thing to bet on” and Jean goes back to eating, trying hard not to listen to the sounds the porridge made and how porridge should definitely not be making that sound.
He brushes off the strange conversations he’s had this morning, plodding fine the hallways with no real goal in mind, he traces the wood grain with his eyes, following the swirls and streaks of darker brown. Then he walks into something hard.
“Watch where you’re going Jean” Reiner tells him in good nature.
“Oh my bad” he shrugs it off, preparing to continue with his aimless wander until Reiner grabs him by the shoulder.
“Who gave you that?” he points to the bruise left behind from yesterday's sparring.
“Eren” he replies unenthusiastically, still confused on why so many people have asked him this. Reiner lets out a loud laugh and claps Jean on the back
“You got odd taste Jean, but I can see it working out” Jean cocks his head in confusion, had he ended up in some alternate reality- was this a prank. What the actual hell was Reiner talking about. He finally lets Jean go, giving him one last piece of advice. “Don’t forget protection” and he loudly laughs again. Leaving Jean standing in the hallway, confused out of his mind.
Jean decides he wants to lie down, maybe if he went to sleep, he’d wake up back in his own reality where people didn’t ask him questions that didn’t make sense. Maybe he was having a stroke. Jean quickly winks and smiles with the left side of his face. It still works. He wasn’t having a stroke.
“You look like you're having a stroke” he recognises the voice laced with the definition of annoyingness.
“Ymir be nice” comes the second much kinder, prettier voice. Jean looks up from the floor to be greeted by the face of a goddess. Sure, he liked Mikasa the most but that didn't mean he didn’t notice how pretty the blonde was.
“Hold on second” Ymir starts, almost peering around Jean. “Who the hell is that from”
“Eren” he answers resignedly, very sick of being asked that question.
“I fucking knew it” Ymir cackles “ya hear me Krista, I told you”. The shorter blonde looked slightly surprised.
“I thought Eren and Mikasa liked each other”
“Mikasa liking Eren? Don’t know about him but Mikasa is literally the textbook definition of comphet, give it a few years and I bet she’s gonna come out” Ymir puts a hand on Krista’s shoulder.
“Why does everyone keep asking me about it?” Jean asks, sick of the confusion.
“Well I didn’t think Eren would be the type that’s all” she says with a smug grin on her face. The freckles on her cheeks bending to the will of her skin. Jean gives her a glare before she continues on her way, as she walks past, she claps him on the back “go get em champ” and she cackles again. Jean shoves her off.
He makes it back to the barracks without any further interruptions and collapses on his bed. Maybe this was some giant prank, if it was, Ymir would definitely be in on it. What a bitch.
He stares at the bottom of the top bunk, a suspicious stain on one of the wooden planks. Jean frowns before rolling over, not really wanting to acknowledge whatever that stain was. His mind is blank for once, the tiredness of being confused all day kicking in. And just as he falls asleep, he swears he sees Eren out of the corner of his eye.
Jean wakes to another freckled face, the better one in his opinion.
“Oi, Jean it’s almost lunch, how long were you sleeping for?” Marco gives him a small chuckle. As Jean sits up, he hears a muted gasp from the black haired boy
“Who’s that hickey from!” Marco exclaims
“Hickey?!?!” Jean also exclaims “Where?!” Marco pulls a small mirror from his pocket and gives it to Jean. He immediately holds it around his neck, brandishing it around to try and find this hickey. Then he spots it, it was just the mark where Eren had hit him the previous day. “Ohh, that’s just a bruise from sparring, that stupid Jaeger idiot smacked me with a wooden sword. He sees Marco visibly relax.
Then it hits him. Literally everyone else had thought it was a hickey.
And he was saying that Eren gave it to him.
Suddenly those comments from everyone made sense. He buries his face in his hands, fighting the urge to scream
“What is it?” Marco questions his sudden descent into depression
“I had no idea… it looked like a hickey… and I’ve been telling everyone that I got it from Eren…” he can barely whisper. “Now everyone’s gonna think Eren and I are fucking”
Marco laughs, then immediately covers his mouth “…sorry”. All jean can bring himself to do is glare at him.
——
“Armin” Eren finally catches the blond boy “people keep giving me weird looks and I don’t know why”. Armin cocks his head, his brain trying to sort through the multitude of reasons why Eren could be getting stared at.
“Who was looking at you?”
“Uhhh.. Reiner, Connie and Sasha” Eren tries to think of there was anyone else. He fails to notice the angry footsteps coming right towards him.
“Eren, we need to talk” and without even giving him a chance to reply, Jean grabs him by the arm and drags him into a supply closet.
——
“Dude what the hell!” Eren hisses at him, nursing his arm where Jean had grabbed it rather hard.
“I messed up” Jean runs his fingers through his hair. “You know how yesterday you hit me on the neck with the wooden sword”
“Yeah…” Eren answers, not seeing where Jean was coming from.
“Well people kept asking me about it and I said you were the one to give it to me right” Jean checks to make sure Eren is keeping up with the story. “And what I didn’t realize is that everyone thought it was a hickey”
“Okay…” Eren doesn’t really get why he needed to know.
“Eren”. He grabs the slightly shorter boy by the shoulders, looking him dead in the eye. “Everyone thinks you have me a hickey” he watches as Eren’s face morphs into shock and horror, briefly glancing down at the mark on Jean's neck.
“Oh” Eren now realizes what kind of situation he’s in.
“Oh!? That’s all you have to say! My life is basically over!” Jean groans, still grabbing onto Eren’s shoulders. He lets his head sink down, his brain racing through possibilities of ways he could fix this.
Suddenly something bangs against the closet, sending the precariously balanced brooms toppling down onto Jean’s head. Jean tries to escape them, but that also means pressing his body right against Eren’s. Jean decides that it couldn’t get much worse than this, so he grabs the shorter’s waist and pushes himself against him, making sure to leave a tiny space in between their hips. Both of them are teenage boys, anything could happen.
Then whoever was responsible for banging into the closet opens the door.
“Oops, sorry Krista, it’s already occupied” Ymir gives a small apology to the shorter girl. “Giving him another one already Jaeger, damn you’re quick” she cackles and closes the door behind her, leaving the two in much more awkwardness than before. Jean gives up and drops his head on Eren’s shoulder
“What are you doing?” Eren asks, although he still hasn’t moved.
“Just let me” Jean has had enough of a day.
And so Eren does, and the two stand in a relatively not awkward silence. Jean with his head on Eren’s shoulder and Eren staring at the wooden panels of the supply closet.
Both praying that no one opened the door.