Chapter Text
Nobody paid Yelena any mind when she boarded the airship with a large, carefully wrapped bundle of thick woolen fabric. A bundle she carefully placed in one of the few corners without weaponry. Nobody cared to check.
It was odd, but Yelena was odd. The roar of Liberio’s destruction was not yet sufficiently distant for her suspicious cargo to become anyone’s priority — they were more concerned with their own survival and escape, and with other crimes, more urgent and unforgivable crimes than of smuggling.
As the last of the soldiers staggered aboard, Jean shouldn’t have agreed with Connie — it was a cruel thing to say, really — but he too was happy that his people survived. Even Eren. That maniac son of a bitch. The cost of his survival was paid with thousands of lives, and yet there was a bubbling feeling of peace to know he was safe alongside everyone who mattered to Jean.
Perhaps, the only thing that brought Jean the same sense of urgency as the mass destruction of a city, was Captain Levi’s sharp voice slicing through the small, nervous talks inside the airship. It’s been a while since Jean heard Captain Levi scolding someone so passionately, and a part of Jean wanted to make himself invisible to avoid getting caught in the crossfire.
Not Eren, though. The omega’s doll eyes and pout as Levi went on and on made him look like a misbehaved pup, but Eren didn’t even try to argue back. Not in the “sorry for disappointing you, Captain” way of before, and more like a “I want to get all my laundry in before it starts raining, so speed up,” which only made Captain Levi more eager to talk.
Hange sprouted from the cockpit. Their single eye unfocused as they looked toward Eren. Jean could see as they tried to disconnect the carnage of Liberio from the — arguably, but Hange was entitled to their own misplaced opinions — sweet little omega they took under their wings a few years ago.
Eren’s gaze drifted, methodically scanning the faces of his former comrades. Levi’s rage, Hange’s disconnect. Not that much time ago, Eren’s cheek would flush when he did something reprehensible in front of them — when Eren did act like their misbehaved pup. This time, there was no sparking flush on Eren’s face, just a detached acceptance.
Then, his eyes skimmed over Mikasa and Armin rather too quickly. He paused on Connie for just a second longer, whose mouth opened and closed as, whatever he thought of saying, died the moment Eren looked somewhere else.
Eren held his gaze over Jean for longer than the others. Jean contemplated kicking him in the stomach or holding Eren’s hand — the typical feeling that Jaeger aroused in him. Finally, Eren’s eyes found Sasha before turning away, and for a single, fleeting second, something flickered within them. Sadness? Jean wondered, then dismissed it as a trick of the low light.
Captain Levi was still speaking when Eren decided he was taking too long, and just spoke over him, his buttery voice calling, “Yelena.”
Yelena, always with that infuriating placid smile untouched, moved calmly towards the forgotten bundle. She lifted it with a reverent care, carrying it to Eren as if presenting a holy relic.
“Your package, Eren,” she said, “he was fed before the festival and slept through the whole ordeal. Little one feels at home to the sound of mass destruction. Such a resilient dear.”
Everyone looked around — were they all seeing the thing, or were their eyes playing tricks on them?
Even Levi fell quiet, his lips pursed in a weirded-out expression. He shot a look at Hange, as if expecting a report — all he found was Hange with both hands on their head.
Eren, displaying an unseen gentleness, spread his arms and Yelena nestled the bundle within them. With a practised ease, Eren started to unroll the wool. As the fabric fell away, years of hardship melted from Eren’s face, leaving behind only the soft set of his exquisite features. The harsh lines had softened into a profound, unguarded tenderness. Eren approached his face to the gap of the wrappings. The sound of a kiss — a resonant “mwah!” — echoed through the entire airship.
The silence was so profound, that Onyankopon shouted a worried call from the cockpit.
A small, sleepy face peeked from the gap. Eren smiled. A real smile. A kind, dreamy and relaxed smile. Like the world around him — and the destruction he caused — was nothing but a bothersome noise.
The bundle… grunted.
Armin let out a strangled gasp.
Unfazed, Eren resumed his talk to Yelena, “he fussed about the formula?”
“A little,” she confirmed, her large hands caressing the now uncovered little head full of light ash-brown hair.
“It’s too hot. You didn’t need to cover his this much,” Eren murmured.
“Mr. Zeke worried he’d catch a cold from the night breeze.”
“Hm,” Eren simply undid the bundle, fully revealing the…
Jean pinched himself.
No.
No.
Ha! Nope!
He must’ve been hit by an enemy. A concussion, perhaps. It was a hallucination. Next thing, he’d be crowned King of the Walls. Maybe seawater had been toxic all along, it just took years to kick in. Had to be it. That couldn’t be… That wasn’t… There was no way that was…
“Oh my god!” Sasha’s voice cut the silence like a dull knife. “Is that a baby?”
Jean let go of the air he was holding. It was, indisputably, a baby.
A breathing, half-asleep, thumb-sucking little baby who hugged a stuffed monkey that looked criminally like the Beast Titan. Without the fabrics covering his entire body, the baby — more like an infant — cradled his head in Eren’s chest. Eren, for one, put his nose to the baby’s hair and inhaled deeply, the relaxed smile still lingering.
“Thanks for taking care of him, Yelena.”
“An honour.”
Armin, with wobbling legs and face a sickly green, finally found his voice. It was not exactly a clear pattern of speech, more like an over-syllabled howl.
“You kidnapped a baby?!”
Armin looked worse than the unfortunate event, back in the cadet days, when Sasha proposed humanity should strike back against the titans by eating them too. That type of existential dread in Armin’s face was only seen when something factually incorrect or utterly illogical happened. The Colossus Titan was shivering from head to toe, eyes wide, startled, and fingers writhing into strange positions that made Jean wonder if he was being possessed.
It wouldn’t be the strangest thing to happen to us.
“We kidnapped a baby…!” Armin mouthed in sheer exasperation. “Oh my god… Oh my god! We kidnapped a baby! We’re baby thieves! Just like— Just like the anti-Eldian pamphlets!”
Armin began to hyperventilate. His attempts at formulating new words dissolved in the sound of a dying animal — or a particularly upset teakettle. Something like, “haaahh shhhhrk ooooohhh.”
Not Armin’s most articulate moment, but no one was faring better.
Eren merely blinked. Before Levi could start another session of verbal massacre, Hange, with their one single eye twitching, stepped in, “Eren, for all that’s holy, where did you find this baby?”
Eren blinked, “What do you mean?”
“The baby!” Levi shrieked, jabbing a finger toward the kid, “what? Mass murder and destruction wasn’t enough? You needed a souvenir!?”
Eren blinked again, but this time at least he had the decency to frown.
“I think there’s been a mistake…” Yelena started.
“Just one?!” Levi shouted.
“Okay, let’s cool down, freaking out won’t—”
“Hrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrk!”
It was Armin, gagging. Followed by Mikasa’s soft, "Eren…” as she clutched her scarf.
“—help.” Hange took a deep breath and approached their local war criminal, carefully, “Eren, where did you find this baby?”
Jean had a few things to say. None particularly polite, but things, nonetheless. However, he was frozen in his place. He looked at Eren. Then at the half-asleep baby. Then at Eren. Then at the baby. Eren. Baby. Eren. Baby. Eren — wow, he looks so cute with long hair… FOCUS! — BABY!
Then Floch, the infuriating idiot, approached with a triumphant expression and raised a fist to the air. “A hostage! Must be the child of an ambassador! Or— A Tybur! Oh, is it a Tybur? Please, tell me it is! No, wait! Better even! A senator’s son!”
His loyalists erupted in cheers, praising Eren’s ruthless strategy. Eren, for one, blinked. Once again.
“The baby is mine.”
Silence again. Worse than before with Floch and the other fuckwit zealots melting their rally into confusion.
“You can’t—” Armin, the teakettle, held onto Hange to not fall to his knees — not the smartest choice, Hange themself looked one breeze away from passing out, but Armin’s pale face indicated a possible lack of oxygen to the brain, which would explain the lack of judgement.
Eren looked genuinely nonplussed. “Of course I can, I think everyone here can… If they try hard enough?”
“This can’t be happening! Onyankopon! Turn the airship! We need to return a baby!”
“What?!” came the distant reply.
“Eren kidnapped a baby!”
“WHAT?!”
“It is my baby, Armin!”
“It’s worse than I thought—” Armin wailed, his mind visibly fracturing. “Eren, you can’t just… take a child and claim it! That’s not… Oh… Oh, God… It’s it, isn’t it…? What they say…”
Mikasa tried to approach him, but Armin was trembling so much she seemed unsure whether it’d be smart trying to restrain him.
Eren, annoyed, tried to speak, “Armin…”
“I thought it was simple prejudice against omegas!” Armin wheezed.
“Armin,” Eren insisted.
“…the hysteria if omegas remain unbred after a certain age! Or… It must be a titan shifter thing! For omega shifters!” Horror filled Armin’s expression. He turned to Mikasa, gripping her by the shoulders and shaking her. “What if it happens to me!? You gotta lock me down! You gotta…! Oh, no… I’m the Colossus! I can’t be locked down! I will doom the world! Mikasa, you have to kill meeeeeeee—”
“ARMIN!” Eren’s shout was the first truly familiar sound he’d made — raw, impatient, the Eren of old. “I’m not hysterical! I did not kidnap a baby! He,” Eren caressed the infant’s head gently, “is my baby.”
All heads swivelled back to Eren.
Without a response, Eren bestowed them further explanation — a rare kindness, given the recent events. “I birthed him. Exactly thirteen months ago.”
In his arms, the baby, fully awake now, surveyed the room with a disgruntled, green-eyed glare that seemed far too murderous and resentful for a one-year-old.
“Aw, they ruined your nap, my nappy-nappy-baby,” Eren crooned, rubbing his cheek against the baby’s, a clear, gentle scenting motion that immediately soothed the child’s ruffled expression.
“Mamamamamama,” the kid babbled, drooling as he repeated the same syllables over and over again like it held the answer for all the secrets of the universe.
Without even being asked, Yelena produced a perfectly clean cloth she handed to Eren, who wiped the kid’s little chin and blue onesie with a focus that seemed to block out the entire world.
Armin emitted another strangled noise. The kidnapping theory was now a fond, soothing, dealable memory. Even Floch, who didn’t even try to hide how he had spent a shameful amount of time thinking of fucking Eren ever since they were all cadets, was flabbergasted by the news.
Hange was pale, leaning against the closest surface, mumbling something about never actually having “The Talk” with Eren and blaming themself for it.
Connie’s mouth fell open. Sasha covered hers with her hand. Armin was… not dealing well with it. He had found a brown paper bag — Jean had no idea where from — and was breathing into it. Levi’s eyes were about to jump out of his head if he kept staring into nothing like that… And Johan… Oh, he was fine!
Wait, Jean, his name is Jean, not Johan. Right?
…Right?
Mikasa had tears in her eyes and she… smiled? She approached Eren and the kid, gently touching the baby’s hand.
“He looks so much like you, Eren,” she said softly, and even earned a tender glance from Eren, then… “Who did this to you?”
Her tone was so sharp that Jean looked around to check nobody had been decapitated.
Jean gulped. Connie took a step back, his eyes lingering toward the open door. They exchanged a look — if you jump, I jump.
“Yeah, Eren,” it was Captain Levi’s voice, with a calmness that was scarier than a direct threat. “A baby doesn’t sprout itself, who did this to you?”
“Levi…” Hange put a hand to Levi’s shoulder, “this is not the time—”
But Captain Levi ignored them. Calmness was gone. His face was as murderous as the baby’s after being awakened.
“Someone had their filthy hands all over you, Eren! You have five seconds to tell me exactly who took the liberties!” The captain’s grip on his blade became tighter. “Was it that big blonde armoured oaf? Was it you?!”
Yelena, impassive, didn’t flinch. “It was not me.”
“I don’t believe you!” Captain Levi shrieked, restrained by a struggling Hange.
“Levi!”
“It was not Yelena,” Eren rolled his eyes.
“She is an older alpha taking advantage of a young, vulnerable and impressionable omega,” incited Mikasa, gritting her teeth and ignoring how even Eren grimaced at her choice of adjectives. Young, at least, held some accuracy. Mikasa kept screaming at Yelena, her face turning into a shade of red brighter than the scarf’s. “Did you do this to control him? To make him pliable?”
“No, I did not.”
“Liar!” Both Ackermans snarled in unison, blades half-drawn. Hange threw themself between them and Yelena.
“Everyone, let’s take a deeeeeep, deep, deep breath,” Hange commanded, “before we have a bloodbath inside the airship!”
Levi opened his mouth to protest, only to be silenced by a new arrival.
“It was not her!”
It was Zeke. He walked… Crawled… Slithered?
With no arms or legs, just pure, raw will to insert himself in a particular conversation when it was already rude enough to be breathing when anyone wanted him dead, Zeke had dragged himself out of the other cabin to reach them.
Levi inhaled, a tremor of pure fury running through him. “It was you.”
Eren stood so fast he nearly tripped, horror on his face. Zeke looked mortally offended.
“I beg your pardon?!”
“Captain, he’s my brother!”
“He is sick!” Captain spat, “he’d do it!”
“Objection!” Zeke sounded profoundly hurt.
“Who knows what else you have been doing to him, you despicable monkey—!”
“First of all, ew!” Eren shouted, “second of all, math!”
Hange’s mind clicked. “Eren just said the baby is thirteen months old! Which means he had to already be pregnant when we first left Paradis! But… Eren, how? You’d be,” they made a quick calculation in their head, given the sudden concentrated expression, “halfway through it when you left us!”
Eren shrugged and shifted the baby's weight. The kid was gnawing on the stuffed toy’s head. “I carried small. I’m tall, good core strength. First pregnancy. You know how it works, Hange.”
Jean’s blood turned to ice. His hands rose unconsciously, fingers counting. Twenty weeks. Well, at least twenty weeks, Hange had said. One finger up, one finger down… lost the counting… So he began again and… Oh, shit.
“Then it could’ve been her!” Mikasa determined matter-of-factually.
“It could’ve been anyone,” Yelena offered flatly.
“Are you accusing me?” Mikasa gasped. Armin made another weird sound from his corner.
“What about me gives off ‘sibling fucker’?” Eren groaned.
“I’m saying,” Yelena decided to explain, “that any alpha or beta who was in Paradis could’ve gotten you pregnant, Eren. If we’re talking about technicalities.”
“It wasn’t me!” Connie yelped, hands up.
“That we all know, Connie,” Levi dismissed him, turning his lethal gaze on Floch. “Was it you, vermin?”
“I did not have the honour… But I’d gladly raise the kid as my own!”
Jean simply failed to hold himself down. “The fuck you will!”
Every eye locked onto him. Jean’s hands were still raised from his aborted calculations. He shoved them behind his back, heat flooding his face. It worsened when his eyes met Eren’s, then the baby’s…
Mikasa’s face contorted in utter betrayal. Hange’s eye widened, darting from the baby’s ash-brown hair to Jean’s, then back again.
Connie, with catastrophic timing, smacked Jean’s back, a grin splitting his face. “Jean, you dog! You did it! Damn, if I had to bet all my money on someone to knock Eren up…” why couldn’t Connie just… shut up? “…I’d bet every penny on Reiner…” oh, the exquisite taste of public humiliation, “… but you won! You—”
“You…” It was Captain Levi, beginning a slow, deadly advance. Flanked by Mikasa.
“You took advantage of him…” accused Mikasa.
“I did not!”
“The lack of propriety!” Captain Levi seethed.
Oh, and you’re one to talk about propriety!
Jean deduced that was not the appropriate moment to break the news to him that the walls of late Commander Erwin’s office weren’t thick enough to keep some things… secret.
“Look, I did not get him pregnant, okay?” Jean stepped back, life flashing in front of him. He tried to hide behind Sasha, yet the two Ackermans never stopped moving after him.
He heard a loud and happy whistle. Was that… Zeke cheering for Levi?
“Captain Levi—” Jean cried, using Sasha as a human shield while she struggled, “think… think rationally! If the baby were mine, I would’ve scented him! If Eren was pregnant, we’d have scented it by the time he planned to leave us!”
“Marleyan scent blockers are very effective,” Eren commented idly.
“I—”
“So it is true!”
“Levi,” Hange shrieked, “hold back! Release the blade!”
“He laid his hand on my puppy!” Captain Levi lunged. Jean hit the deck and rolled to Armin’s side. On a cheerful note, Armin had stopped hyperventilating.
“I know, I know,” Hange gripped Levi’s arm and shot a meaningful (“STOP TRYING TO KILL YOUR COMRADES”) look at Mikasa. “I understand your feelings, Levi. It’s my pup, too!”
“And my little brother!” Zeke shouted, “slice him, Ackerman!”
Both Ackermans turned their venom on Zeke. “Shut up!”
“Jean,” Hange, much calmer (but after the “understand your feelings, Levi”, Jean wasn’t so sure what side they were), said, “did you and Eren… you know… have you… Gosh, I should’ve had the talk with him…”
“Erwin did,” Eren supplied, mercifully cutting off Hange’s struggle. “The talk, I mean. Very awkward. And unnecessary. We learn things in the barracks in the practical way.” Captain Levi and Zeke winced. “But, anyway, yes to the other thing, too.”
Levi pointed to Jean, “You fuc—”
“Language!” Eren, Yelena and Zeke all intervened in one single voice, all utterly annoyed. It was the first time Jean witnessed any expression that wasn’t that creepy smile on Yelena’s face.
“The baby is learning to talk,” Eren groaned, “Don’t use foul language around him!”
The baby might not have understood what his mom said, but with the same indignant expression and tone, he supplied, “MAMAMAMAMA!”, shaking the stuffed monkey with impressive fury. Eren beamed, bouncing the baby happily in his arms, and so the fury was converted into rich giggles.
“Awnnnn,” Sasha melted. “He’s adorable. Congratulations, Jean and Eren! He’s so cute he looks edible.”
The baby was, in fact, adorable. Chubby, rosy cheeks, doll eyes like his mother’s. But Jean couldn’t be the father, could he?
“Look, okay, I admit, Eren and I we… we did it… once!”
“Three times. And a half.”
Levi looked apoplectic.
“Fine! Three and a half! But— He was never in heat!” Jean stated the obvious. “Everyone knows an omega can only get pregnant during heat!”
Hange, who was still holding Levi, released him. To face palm. Beside Jean, Armin’s soft — and now clearer — voice spoke. “That’s a myth, actually.”
“Congratulations! The myth is a boy!” Captain Levi howled.
“But… but… but…”
“My poor brother…” cried Zeke. “What else do they teach you in that backwards island? That gravity avoids pregnancy? That pulling out works?” Jean went quiet. So did Eren. Zeke let out a pained wail. “Oooooh! My poor, poor innocent little brother.”
“I trusted you around him, Jean…” Mikasa murmured.
“Chill, Mikasa,” Eren sighed. “It’s done.”
“Oh, Eren…” Hange approached him, heartbroken. “My poor puppy. My baby Titan with a baby Titan of his own! This is all my fault!” Then, with a contemptuous tone, added, “and Erwin. He wasn’t qualified to give you The Talk. But let us not speak badly of the dead,” another, if over-dramatic, wail. “You must’ve been so scared, being all alone and pregnant out in the world…! Were you scared when you found out? You must’ve not noticed the early symptoms! How remiss we all were to you! We should’ve noticed… I should’ve—”
“Don’t worry. I knew by the seventh week.”
“WHAT?”
“Wait, wait, wait—” Connie stepped in, “you knew you were pregnant when you left us?”
“Yup,” Eren made a popping sound with his lips. Connie’s mouth fell open again.
“And you never cared to tell me?!” Suddenly, Jean felt absolutely offended by being excluded from the pregnancy.
“If I told anyone, you’d never leave me alone and I’d fail to run away,” Eren shrugged.
“No, shit?” Captain Levi barked. “Well, for a fact, I should’ve never left you alone with those… those horny dogs! I should’ve locked you up!”
“Now, I did not fu— did it with him!” Connie protested, changing his words upon the murderous glance from the Do-Not-Curse-In-Front-Of-The-Baby delegation. “I will not accept to be scrutinised for a baby I did not make!”
“He’s your best friend,” Levi accused, “am I supposed to assume you didn’t know what he was up to with Eren?”
“Yeah, dude,” Connie’s voice was tearful, “I’m feeling pretty betrayed here!”
“It was not your business!”
“Jean! You’re being mean,” Sasha patted Connie’s back. “Don’t worry, Connie. When I do it with Niccolo, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Thanks, Sasha. You’re a true friend.”
“That is not the point!” Jean stood up again and strode toward Eren and the… his baby… Oh, god. He had a baby. Out of wedlock. His mother was so going whip his ass until the skin disintegrated and the flesh was bare! “You should’ve told me!”
“I had other priorities,” Eren nuzzled the baby’s head, inhaling his scent, a gesture so inherently maternal it was disorienting. “It wasn’t important then.”
“It wasn’t important?!” Jean repeated, hysterical. “I’m the father! I had the right to know!”
“You know, now,” Eren said softly, so softly Jean almost forgot what he just did in Liberio. His face was so charming and gentle at that moment, he might as well be a dream. “Do you want to hold him?”
Jean bit his lip. His breath caught.
Hold him? His son? The idea felt so… alien.
He extended his arms either way, and carefully — with a “drop him and I’ll eat your head” stare — Eren transferred the baby to Jean. The first thing he noticed, was the scent. Almost entirely Eren and milk — and some fragrance Jean couldn’t name, probably some leftover of a Marleyan soap or something like that. Jean sniffed. That was his baby. Unexpected or not, he was his child. Wow, that was strange to say — my son, sounded quite right if a little rushed.
Jean wanted to scent him. He wasn’t sure whether Eren wanted him to. He pressed his lips, staring at the omega, hoping for him to say something — he didn’t.
The baby was soft. Like hugging a pillow, just heavier. He was sturdy. Jean remembered how his mother frequently commented about Jean being a large baby, it seemed the characteristic was passed down to his own son.
The baby didn’t seem bothered by being held by a stranger. He did grunt a little and gave a Jaeger-grade side eye, but nothing besides that.
“Hi—” Jean wasn’t sure what to say. The baby blinked, drooling. Eren stepped closer, Jean stepped back, fearing he’d take the baby from his arms. Eren shot him a nasty look, but just cleaned the drool from the baby’s face.
A knot formed in Jean’s throat. A son. He truly had a son? He pressed his lips together. He wanted to caress his son’s hair, but he didn’t feel comfortable moving his hand, fearing he’d really drop the baby.
Don’t drop the baby.
“He’s…” Jean thought about something nice to say, “heavy.”
“Eating is his favourite hobby, the other is biting, you can imagine how it goes,” Eren said, but it was… loving.
Silence.
Very, awkward, make-you-want-to-say-stupid-things type of silence. The person saying those things… in that loving, adorable tone… just levelled a city. For a sudden moment, it didn’t matter. The world had dissolved, and no one but Jean, Eren and their baby existed.
It was a perfect world.
Then… Jean’s son tried to scalp him.
“Ouch!” He cried out, “OUCH! Stop that!”
Eren sighed with a proud smile, “yes, he does that a lot, too.”
“Hey!” Jean tried again, but the baby had a tight grip on Jean’s hair and didn’t seem inclined to letting it go. “Stop, that hurts! Eren! Help!” The kid poked a finger inside one of Jean’s eyes. “He blinded me! Ereeeen!”
After a second of long consideration, Eren intervened. “What do the monkey does, baby? Show mama!”
The kid stopped the attack to raise his stuffed monkey to the air and made a cheerful, “ooh ooh aah ahh!”
Zeke cried with pride, Yelena brought a hand to her heart and opened the first human-like smile Jean had ever seen on her face — which only made it very uncanny to watch.
“I can’t believe you let him around the kid!” Levi shot a nasty look at Eren.
“Well, he’s the uncle,” Eren shrugged.
“A very proud uncle!” Zeke added.
Captain Levi didn’t say anything about it, but his expression and the clicking of his tongue supplied all anyone needed to know. He approached Jean.
“Let me hold him,” the Captain’s tone implied it was an order, not a request. However, Jean felt inclined to decline, tightening his hold on his precious son.
“I should hold him first,” declared Mikasa, arms out.
“Jean owes me for keeping secrets,” Connie argued, “so I should be the first to hold him.”
“Can I?” tried Sasha.
Before Jean could protest, someone swooped in and plucked the baby from his grasp. “Whoa—!”
Hange held the baby up in the air, studying him with the interest they used to show around their titan subjects, turning the baby around like he weighed nothing.
“Stop shaking him!” Jean squawked, remembering something he once heard about not, ever, shaking a baby.
“I’m not shaking him,” Hange rolled their eyes, “that’s not how it works. Oh, he’s so robust! Oh, Eren, you did so well—”
“A strong heir to the Jaeger line!” Floch cheered, parroted by other soldiers.
“Shut up!” Everyone else — Zeke, rather passionately, included.
Armin, finally healed from his mental breakdown, stood up again, touched Eren on his shoulder, “I’m… sorry. For accusing you of kidnapping him. And for saying it was a case of non-bred omega hysteria. And for calling you a jackass.”
“You didn’t call me a jackass.”
“I thought about it. Repeatedly.”
“It’s alright, Armin,” Eren said, “I knew you’d do that, anyway.”
Ouch.
Armin’s expression was one of absolute mortification as he mumbled more apologies, but Eren seemed not to care, approaching Levi, who had managed to secure the baby-holder position.
He seemed rather satisfied with the child, “he’s clean.”
“Why do you sound so surprised?” Eren sounded a little bit offended.
Levi turned to the other side when Mikasa tried to use that moment to steal the baby. “Have you looked at yourself?” Then slapped Mikasa’s hand, “you’re not touching him with this crusty scarf.”
Mikasa pouted.
“Yeah, sorry, I had to pick between bathing him or myself before the fight, time was short,” Eren rolled his eyes.
“Hm… You better fix that soon, brat. You look disgusting.”
“Thanks, Captain,” Eren groaned, “as if I didn’t know. I need to cut this goddamn hair…”
Jean opened his mouth to say he shouldn’t but… Didn’t feel like the time for it.
“I’m clean,” gloated Sasha, “can I hold him, Captain?”
Levi seemed to consider, but Eren stepped in the way abruptly. The moment the baby saw his mother approaching, he stretched his little arms, eager to be reunited with Eren once again.
Eren looked at the door for an instant, then at Sasha, “maybe later, he’s not used to that many people.”
Sounded like a lie. Looked like a lie. Was, by the way the baby accepted being handled by Hange and Levi, a lie.
“Oh, okay,” Sasha deflated, “he is really cute, like a pastry!”
Jean was about to protest that, considering the history of their people as titan food, he didn’t like the comparison. But, to his surprise, Eren tenderly agreed.
“So, Eren,” Armin said, still a little shaken by the last attempt of talking to his best friend, “what’s his name?”
Eren’s mouth formed a perfect ‘o’, before being pressed in a line, Eren looked toward Jean for a second, and Jean could’ve sworn he saw a bit of red on Eren’s cheeks.
“He doesn’t have one.”
“WHAT—” Armin, who noticed yet another attempt of connecting with his friend failed, started to stutter, “but-but-but-but-but-but—”
Before anyone could protest, Zeke interjected, “Zeke or Tom are perfectly respectable—”
“Nobody asked your opinion, monkey,” Levi cut through, “what do you mean he doesn’t have a name?”
“He’s one year old, Eren!” Hange cried out, “What have you been calling him?”
“Baby. Or ‘Hey you—’, ‘stop that’ is a huge one too, but mostly ‘hey! stop! that hurts!’ He’s teething, it’s been a wild ride.”
The baby giggled, showcasing his distinctive set of exact four tiny teeth.
Everyone heard the sound of a long, full of suffering and engulfed by disappointment, inhaling from Mikasa. Sasha furrowed her brows. The baby must’ve liked her face, for he smiled at her, and she smiled back. But when Sasha extended her hand to hold the baby’s, Eren strode toward Jean. He stared at the opened door of the airship, and then at Jean — but he didn’t look quite there for a second.
“I made a list,” Eren mumbled, taking a folded yellowed paper from his pocket. “It didn’t feel right to decide it without you.”
Jean thought about arguing that he should’ve had that energy during the pregnancy as a whole. He could’ve sent a letter — he did send a letter, he simply didn’t think to mention he birthed Jean’s son in the meantime he’s been a fugitive, which would’ve been very helpful. But then, the act was so thoughtful it left Jean speechless. That was the man who declared war on the world?
As Jean grabbed the list, his and Eren’s fingers brushed together. Jean bit his lower lip. Oh, he forgot how soft Eren felt.
“Thank you.”
He unfolded the paper.
Once.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five times.
“I had a lot of time thinking of these,” Eren said, full of self-pride.
“I can tell.” Jean held the comically long piece of paper.
Everyone formed a circle around him and Eren, taking a deep, expectant breath, Eren’s green eyes shining.
Jean read the first name. His breath hitched.
“Absolutely not!”