Chapter Text
A small, blond, blue-eyed boy sits, constructing a castle of wooden blocks, pausing only to look up when another boy of equally blond hair sits on the floor next to him. He looks across the room to where a woman is turning away, speaking with the teacher, then back to the other boy now sitting at his side. The boy leans over and sniffs him, then sits back, rubbing his nose with his hand.
“You smell nice.”
He blinks. “You’re weird.” He says it with the typical frankness of a small child, though he knows it’s a word he shouldn’t say (he’s been told it’s mean).
The other boy just shrugs, watching him.
Finally, he holds out the block in his hand. “Wanna help?” The other boy nods, accepting the block, careful for four years old.
“My name’s Erwin. What’s yours?”
The other boy blinks, then smiles. “I’m Mike.”
Erwin holds out his hand, because he’s seen his father do it. “Wanna be friends?”
Mike stares back, then does the same. "Okay.”
They shake on it with clumsy, awkward hands, fingers still chubby with baby fat, then return to the construction of their castle.
--
The bell is shrill as it rings, making him wince, scowling. He settles into his chair, fully prepared for another biology class of being annoyed by the immaturity of his classmates and their inability to discuss basic human anatomy and functions without giggling awkwardly like a bunch of five-year-olds, when someone drops into the chair next to him. He tenses – he doesn’t want a lab partner, and no one wants to be his, no one ever talks to him, not since he moved here last year, but when he looks over to glare at the person, something makes him pause.
A gangly girl with brown hair and thick glasses fumbles with her notebooks, dropping a pen with an “Oh, dangit!” and reaching to pick it up. When she straightens again, she finally seems to notice him, and a wide grin spreads over her face. “Hi there!”
He frowns, saying nothing, but she doesn’t seem to mind. “Sorry, can I sit here? Everywhere else seems to be taken, I just changed schools this week, my name’s Hanji!”
It’s strange, the way his lips move to tell her no, she can’t, go away, but what comes out is: “I’m—Levi.”
“Nice to meet you! Guess we'll be lab partners then, huh? Do you like biology?”
“Not—really.”
“That’s okay, it’s not for everyone!”
She’s too happy, too eager, and Levi wants nothing to do with her, he thinks, and yet—
The teacher raps on the board, and class begins.
A week later, they dissect frogs, the stench making him retch and go clammy all over. Hanji handles most of it, her cuts even and precise, pinning skin and tissue and labeling organs on their diagram with a natural ease.
They get an A on the project, and Hanji stands with him in the boy’s bathroom as he washes his hands and rinses out his mouth over and over, paler than usual as he grips the sink with white-knuckled fingers.
“Get out of here, freak, this is the boy’s bathroom!”
They look at the offending boy as a unit, Levi’s gaze a dark warning and Hanji’s grin a bit too wide, almost manic, and the boy pales slightly and hurries out.
They stand there in silence for a few moments before Hanji turns back to him, her eyes overly bright. “So!” she says, too happy, too normal, and he catches the way her chin wobbles. “Feeling any better?”
Her expression falters under his gaze when he doesn’t reply. “It’s—nothing, I get called that a lot. Well, at least, at my old school.” She looks away, smile falling flat.
A strange sort of defensiveness fills his chest.
“So what.”
She looks to him, the fake brightness sliding from her face slowly. He scowls at the sink.
“So what if they think you’re weird, or a freak, or abnormal. Who the hell wants to be normal anyways. Normal is boring. Shitty, normal, boring teenagers with their shitty, normal lives.”
When he finally looks up at the mirror, she’s smiling at him, a real, genuine smile, quiet and soft and open, then she turns to the paper towel dispenser and pulls out a few, holding them out to him.
He accepts them, drying his hands and wiping his mouth, and they exit the bathroom without another word.
--
“Alright class, today we have a new student joining us! Everyone, please say hello to—”
In the back of the room, a blond boy looks over at his best friend, who has started shaking. “What’s—?”
“That’s—” The brown-haired boy is pale and sweating.
The blond looks back to the front of the class, makes a distressed noise, then turns and throws up.
The sudden commotion draws the attention of the rest of the room, including the blonde girl in the midst of being introduced to the class. She goes still when she lays eyes on them—
Then collapses at the feet of the teacher.
“Annie!”
--
A blonde teen hides in the bathroom at school and cries, hating the world that could do something like this.
A girl with brown hair knocks carefully before pushing the door open.
“Um… Hello?”
--
“Eren, slow down.”
“You know how the lunch room gets, if we don’t hurry, we’ll—”
The pair passes another hallway when Eren stops, perking up like a dog hearing a whistle. Mikasa nearly runs into him, stepping back and frowning, mouth opening to chastise him, when she hears it too.
“Leave me alone!”
Eren suddenly takes off running down the hall, shoving people to the side, uncaring.
Mikasa is frozen.
Move.
Her eyes follow Eren as he clears a path with elbows and shoulders and arms, then past him, where two juniors have someone crowded up against a locker, and she remembers.
You’ve seen this before.
Move.
Fight.
Lightning sparks along her nerves, and she’s off, overtaking Eren, surpassing him, sneakers skidding across the linoleum, voice not even raising in a warning before her hand finds the boy’s shirt and yanks him to one side, her other hand balling into a fist and jabbing forward against his nose. He stumbles back, stunned, and she looks over he shoulder and the boy—
He stares back, wide-eyed, but then his expression shifts: “Watch out!”
She acts on instinct, dodging slightly and turning to fend off and take out the first bully’s friend. Soon he joins the first on the ground, and the hallway goes silent.
Mikassa turns back.
“Armin.”
--
“I’ll be right back. Restroom.” Rene nods and watches Nanaba go before turning back to her menu, pushing down the ever-present thread of concern. Nanaba knows how to take care of herself.
(Across the room, a man swears softly.
“Wow, that woman over there…”
“What about her?” his friend asks, not bothering to look.
“Dunno…”
His friend snorts.
“I’m gonna go talk to her.”
“Alright, good luck.”)
Rene looks at her menu for a few moments, though it’s mostly for lack of anything better to do – she and Nanaba have been coming to this restaurant at least once a month for the past year and a half.
“Hey.”
She looks up, and there’s a man with fluffy, bright blond hair standing there, a glass of amber liquid in one hand.
The faint grin on his face widens as their eyes meet.
“This, ah… this seat taken?” It’s strangely not off-putting in the least, and Rene smiles, before it turns apologetic.
“Sorry, my friend’s just in the restroom.”
“Oh, no worries at all, figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask.”
They smile at each other, then Rene tilts her head slightly. “What’s your name?”
His grin widens. “Gerger. And you’re…?” but as he says it, he looks up past her shoulder and goes still, the smile slipping from his face.
Rene frowns slightly. “Uh, I’m…”
“Nanaba,” Gerger breathes. Rene barely gets the “What?” out of her mouth, twisting in her chair to look behind her, when the glass slips from Gerger’s fingers and shatters on the floor, making her jump and yelp with surprise.
“What’s going on?” Nanaba gets back to the table, tone suspicious and guarded as she frowns at the man who is still staring at her, pale, mouth working.
He looks back down at Rene, and says her name with the same reverence, his voice cracking.
At Rene’s somewhat more concerned “What??” he suddenly looks back over his shoulder, voice rising with a note of panic. “Henning?!”
“Henning?” Nanaba repeats. The two women glance at each other, equally put-off and confused.
Nanaba looks away, towards the blond man (Gerger, was it?), and Rene does the same. He’s shaking, looking at the two of them, then he looks back over his shoulder again, and Rene follows his gaze and hears herself gasp, and the world slows down for an instant. There’s a man approaching them from behind Gerger, and his gaze slides from Nanaba to her and his face goes pale as he stops mid-stride.
“Henning…”
(She doesn’t even register Nanaba saying “What?” again this time.)
Rene stands, uncaring of the shattered glass on the floor, the way a waiter is hovering, trying to get their attention, the way the eyes of over half the restaurant are watching. She simply steps forward, wrapping an arm around Gerger and reaching for Henning, who comes to her in an instant, embracing her as well.
“You guys…” she breathes, shaking (or maybe it’s one of them, or both, or all three) “Oh my god…”
They push back, their hands running over each others shoulders, grasping at arms as they all try to talk at once.
“Shit, I didn’t—”
“Where have you—”
“We were—”
Then something clicks, and she pulls away to look back at Nanaba. They all look up as a unit, and Rene breathes in, about to speak, but—
Nanaba
Nanaba stares back at the three of them, a heavy furrow between her eyebrows as she frowns, confusion written across her face.
“What is going on?”
--
He nods as she chatters away, the pair of them stepping onto the bus. As it jolts to a start again, they file towards the back, when Gunter narrowly avoids crashing into the smaller woman.
“Woah, what—” But he cuts himself off at the sight of her expression, open-mouthed and wide-eyed as she stares out the window. “Petra?”
He follows her gaze, and the breath is driven from him all at once.
He’s frozen, but she suddenly jerks forward, reaching over the woman sitting in the seat to smack her palms against the window. “Hey! Hey!!”
It’s a miracle, he’ll think later, that they look up. The pair stops, both men’s eyes widening with shock.
The four all stand, watching each other as the bus passes by, then it turns a corner.
Gunter watches their expressions go to ones of panic, mouths opening to yell in protest. He and Petra do the same.
“H-hey!”
“Stop the—stop—!!”
Petra reaches out, fingers fumbling as she tries to press the button for the bus to stop at the next opportunity. It takes a few tries for her to get it, the chime alerting the bus to the impending stop in a few blocks, and together they force their way to the back door of the bus.
It’s an eternity before the bus stops, and they’re out the door before it even fully opens, running back to where they came from as one, needing no confirmation from the other.
Petra is quicker than he is, despite his longer legs, feet slapping against the sidewalk, and ahead down the street there are two figures running towards them and Petra lifts her arm in a wave with a yell, joyous laughter bubbling from her lips.
“Guys!!”
She tackles both of them, and he is close behind, all four of them a sudden overjoyed, laughing tangle of arms grasping for each other.
It takes several minutes for them to pull apart, and Gunter glances at Petra and there are tears running down her face.
He looks to the other two (his friends) and Auruo is trying to surreptitiously wipe his eyes and runny nose, and Eld’s grin is so wide, spread across his face, it looks as if it’s about to crack.
“You guys…”
--
Surely there must be some sort of limit to the number of books needed for a class, but she’s trying not to complain, because she is actually looking forward to Intro to Modern Literature. She puts as many of them into her bag as she can manage, hoists it on one shoulder, then gathers the rest in her arms as she adjusts her scarf and hat.
“Oh, hey, you dropped this—”
She glances back over her shoulder at the voice, and stops, blinking. “Oh!”
A broad-shouldered boy with short-cropped blond hair is holding out a book to her, staring at her with wide, amber eyes.
“Thank you!” She smiles, shifting the load in her arms to tuck a strand of hair behind one ear and accept the book. She looks back up at him (he certainly is tall), but when he says nothing further, she gives him another smile and makes to turn away.
“U-um, are you—do you need help? That’s—a lot of books, you probably didn’t need to bring them all,” he says quickly before she can walk away, and he moves to fall in step beside her.
“Oh, I know, but it’s the first day of class, I figure you don’t know what you’ll need, so it’s a good idea to be prepared!”
He grins. “Can’t argue with that, I suppose.” A beat, and then: “Here, let me help with that,” and he carefully takes the books from her arms.
“Oh, thank you, you don’t have to—”
“It’s my pleasure, where are you headed?”
“I was going to grab some lunch, would you like to join me?”
His grin hesitates before widening. “Sure.”
She smiles back. “What’s your name?”
Another pause, then: “Reiner.”
“Nice to meet you Reiner, my name’s Christa!”
--
One day in May there’s a knock on the door, and Mike looks up from his laptop screen, brow furrowing slightly before he sets his computer aside to stand and answer it.
A woman with brown hair and glasses grins up at him.
“Hiya! You Erwin Smith?” In her hand she holds a small stack of letters.
“No, that’s my roommate.” There’s something familiar about her that he can’t place.
“Ah, great! These got put in our mailbox, here ya go!” She holds out the envelopes, and when he accepts them with a quiet “Thank you,” she grins once more. “No prob! Seeya!”
--
“Hm.”
“What is it?”
“Mailman mixed up the boxes again. Gonna go run these downstairs.”
“We should probably just invite them over for coffee or something, this is what, the third time this has happened? Fourth?”
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Want me to do it this time?”
“It’s fine, I don’t mind.”
--
“Hold the elevator!” It’s the brown haired woman who lives in 7B, and she hurries on, looking back over her shoulder to laugh at her roommate as he follows, scowling.
What happens next is something Mike doesn’t fully understand. He hears a thump of something hitting the floor beside him, and when he turns his head he sees Erwin, leaning back, bracing himself against the wall of the elevator. He’s dropped his briefcase. When Mike glances at his face, he is utterly taken aback by the look of shock there, a rare expression on Erwin’s face is there ever was one, but this time around it's even deeper, somehow.
Then the woman turns back, takes one look at Erwin and promptly bursts into tears.
Her companion has stopped dead in his tracks, a foot before the elevator doors, and is staring at Erwin with impossibly wide eyes.
He looks lost. The thought flits through Mike’s mind, then the elevator doors begin to close. Mike reacts instantly, without thinking, shoving out a hand to catch the door, stumbling slightly from the sudden, unplanned movement, pressing his hand against the metal above the elevator buttons to steady himself.
The brown haired woman sobs out Erwin’s name, reaching for him, and Erwin almost absentmindedly wraps his left arm around her shoulders, moving as if in a dream. He looks down at her, briefly, blinking rapidly, and then he looks up at the man in front of the elevator, who still hasn’t moved.
“Levi,” he murmurs, voice laced with something like wonder, and Mike is startled to realize Erwin’s eyes are damp. Then Erwin glances at him and blanches, and Mike watches, amazed, as tears begin to drip slowly down his face.
Suddenly there’s a loud, shrill alarm, and the door presses against Mike’s arm, attempting to close. Again he moves without conscious thought, reaching out of the elevator and grabbing the dark-haired man’s (Levi?) arm, yanking him on before the door forces itself shut behind him.
Levi stumbles slightly before regaining his balance, glancing up at Mike and blinking rapidly, scowl deepening. He seems offended, almost, by the way Mike stares back at him, but then looks back to Erwin, who has lifted his right hand to his face, gently touching at the wetness there and staring at his fingers.
“Levi,” Erwin says again, voice tighter, more insistent as he looks back to him.
“What the fuck,” Levi whispers, trembling as he stares at Erwin, lip curled into a snarl. “What the fuck.”