Chapter Text
The plan had been as follows: fail AP Lit, get Mikasa as a tutor.
“This is very unlike you, Jean,” Mr. Smith slid the marked up essay over the desk. Angry red pen slashed through lines of neat blue. Jean had to look away. “Unorganized, half-thought out. Like you didn't even read the book, even though I know you did.”
Jean winced.
“But with the AP coming up so soon, we can't take any chances,” a peculiar light cut through Mr. Smith's eyes. Something sharp and knowing that made Jean shrink back in his seat. “Which is why I've put through a request with the counseling center to procure you a tutor for the next three weeks.”
The urge to pump his fist in the air and whoop was an intense one, but Jean settled for clearing his throat. Frowning, for good measure. And then, in his best defeated yet hopeful tone, “If you think that's for the best.”
“I do,” Mr. Smith tore away a post-it and began writing something down. “So, for the next three weeks, two or three times a week, you'll be meeting with Eren to work on novel comprehension and structuring essays—”
Jean slammed his hands against the desk. “Jeager?”
That strange gleam was back, underneath a cocked eyebrow. “Is there a problem, Jean? Eren Jeager has one of the highest GPAs in the class.”
Jean tried, “But Mikasa—”
“Mikasa Ackerman's tutoring schedule is full at the moment, as are several other perfectly suitable students. Plus, I think Eren's...unique perspective on some of the works we've read will help you gain a better understanding of literature as a whole, reaching far beyond some test,” Mr. Smith extended the note. “If you fail to meet with him, I won't drop your lowest essay grade. I understand you're attending Sina on a scholarship? It'd be a shame if they decided to take that away because you failed English your last semester of high school. I also won't hesitate to send a retraction of my recommendation letter. I've done it before, and if the situation demands, I will do it again.”
Jean scowled. He didn't even care if he looked every inch the seventeen-year-old he was—this was not how shit was meant to go down. He had the worst feeling that Smith knew that, too, something grossly smug in the gleam of his perfectly neat blond hair, the purposeful blankness in his eyes. Jean's eyes flickered over to where Mr. Smith's right arm was meant to be, the empty tapered sleeve, then snapped right back, face going hot. An accident from when he'd been in the Marines, or so the rumor went. Some fool in Jean's teen lit elective sophomore year actually asked how it happened, and while everyone else collectively cringed Mr. Smith had simply smiled and said, that Soul Surfer movie was actually about me. And everyone had laughed.
Everyone except Jean, because Mr. Smith seemed like the kind of guy who was actually secretly crazy enough to get attacked by a shark and live.
So really, Jean had no choice but to do what he said.
--
“That's what you get for trying to pull one over on Mr. Smith,” Marco said, picking distractedly at his lunch. “Plus, Eren's not such a bad guy. Loud, maybe. Super intense. But not a bad guy.”
Jean squinted. “You could stand to be a little more supportive.”
“Supportive of what?” Marco flicked a chip at him. “Your decision to bomb that essay just so you could get Mikasa as a tutor, putting your grade and your scholarship at risk? You're right—my bad, man. Try to forgive me.”
“He's crazy, Marco,” Jean leaned forward. “All that shit about his dad? Like, come on.”
Marco's glare was so severe it made Jean jump. “That's a shitty thing to say, Jean, and you know it.”
Jean flinched, then slapped on a wavering grin as he tried to joke his way out it. “Y''know, for a guy whose made me sit through Pride and Prejudice four times, you're kind of vicious.”
“For a guy that got a huge academic scholarship to Sina U, you're kind of an idiot,” Marco stood. “And it's a beautiful story, so don't even. Come and find me when you get over yourself.
--
He and Marco didn't fight often, but whenever they did Jean always took it like a wound to the chest. Suddenly he had no one to partner up with in Bio, no one to text during photo, no one to listen patiently in the hallway to his six part rage-rant how 'emo' as a genre has been completely bastardized and marginalized. Like holy shit.
Meanwhile, Marco was just fine because everyone loved Marco. Easily the most popular guy in their class, which just pissed Jean off even more. Marco could hang out with anyone he wanted, was invited to parties all the time, got asked out constantly. And Jean, who just didn't have it in him to be all outgoing and shit, was alone. Jean was alone and it echoed down to some darker place inside of him that said he would always be that way. An echo that followed him through this last four classes and stuck like glue to the walls of his mind as he doodled his way through the useless void that was ninth period Government.
Jean dropped his head against his desk—god, it was too fucking early in the week to be having an existential crisis. He needed a cigarette like friggin' air.
But no, because he still had to meet with Eren Jeager in the library in five minutes.
The final bell ran, and Jean whipped his head up. It wasn't like what he'd said about Eren wasn't true—everyone at school knew about his dad disappearing, and a lot of people talked about Dr. Jeager's apparent break down. It was gossip, it was what Trost did. Why couldn't Marco get that?
Staring into the abyss of his locker, Jean briefly considered sticking his head inside and slamming the door shut a few good times. Maybe decapitation would serve as a sufficient enough excuse for Mr. Smith, from one guy with a missing body part to another.
Probably not.
Sighing, Jean slung his bag over his shoulder and headed down the English wing with dragging feet. Prom posters covered the walls, and just added to the sinking sensation Jean had been feeling since sending out applications as he looked around and realized how excited everyone was to get out, and how much he really just did not care. Sina had seemed sweet Freshman year when his iPod was churning out a continuous loop of jaded pop-punk urging him to fucking kickflip out of Trost and never look back. Even still sophomore year, listening to oldies radio, filling out the odd ends and angles the summer had left him with, bones feeling too big for his body. Junior year had started much the same, but somewhere between 90s alternative hits and driver's ed, Jean lost something. Something he hadn't even been aware was a part of him until his insides continued to clench at the suddenly empty space there.
Senior year, and that hadn't changed much, except the Smashing Pumpkins turned to Modern Baseball, and the constant echo of what now? kept rebounding down long the halls of Jean's mind. It was like nothing inside him fit together anymore the way he'd always liked it to. Nothing felt like it was supposed to and it made it hard just to get through the day. Jean sighed, gripping at his backpack straps, halting right before the library doors.
He took a step back, then made a face—what, was he afraid of Eren Jaeger, or something?
No freakin' way.
He charged forward.
Jean didn't tend to make a habit out of staying at the library after the final bell—like most students, he hightailed it home. Then there were the stack regulars. Kids who couldn't find an extracurricular that suited them. Who for one reason or another avoided going home until the five o'clock late buses rolled around. Before he got his license he used to bus it with Marco, who liked to get the heavy homework done in the far corner table while Jean waited for him and read through most of the graphic novel section.
There was Annie from his Calc class, who tucked herself away by the windows and stared out at the football field, cutting down anyone who tried to approach her with the most severe glare possible. YmirandChrista, names always said in one breath, having a steady claim on one of the center tables where Christa was steadily reading through all of the classics (Jean remembers seeing her tearing through Atwood and Austen freshman year, and now she was all the way at Woolf). Ymir did her best to distract her. Footsie, popping gum, sliding notes, and when that didn't work she'd get very quiet, bored gaze observing everyone around her. She knew too much, and Jean avoided her like it was his job.
There was Bertolt, who liked to hide in the stacks, so quiet Jean wouldn't even know he was there until he pulled a book from the shelf and saw the kid's face peeking out over it. And more often than not Reiner wasn't too far from him, in the adjacent computer lab working on his latest mission to take down the school's proxy server and give his fellow classmates unlimited web access, usually only to get kicked out by Ms. Ral, the library aide.
And of course there was Armin, devouring the reference sections page by page. It was one of the few places he was seen without Eren or Mikasa. Mikasa was usually out on the field, dominating whatever sport was in season, and Eren...well, Eren did everything. Eren did everything, tried everything, usually for the sake of simply trying. It was gross and made Jean, who had gone out for the track team one semester and gotten bored with it almost immediately, very uncomfortable. Eren in general made him uncomfortable, which was probably part of the reason Jean had gotten into it with him so many times over the past fours years.
“You're late.”
Jean's mouth thinned. Already off to a stellar start. He turned, “By a minute.”
“Ten minutes,” Eren corrected, pulling out a chair at the nearby table. He hadn't even sat down, probably just stood by the door for the entire five minutes (because it hadn't been ten, fuck you), waiting to ambush Jean the second he walked in. Jean eyed him dubiously, like there might be some ulterior motive Eren had for picking that table in particular. Eren's eyes turned up to glare at him sharply. “You gonna stand there the entire time or what?”
Jean yanked the chair out and plopped down unceremoniously, slinking down with his limbs sprawling, face blanched into an unaffected expression he knew would eventually set Eren off, if he could keep it up. He lifted his eyebrows, a silent challenge, and he watched Eren's jaw tick.
“Look,” Eren said. “Neither of us want to be there, but we have to. So let's just focus on getting this over with.”
“Better idea,” Jean sat up, leaning forward. “You tell Smith I did everything I was supposed to do, and we both save ourselves a lot of time, stress, and headaches.”
“One, you're an idiot,” Eren counted off his fingers. Jean felt his hackles rise, face hot. “Two, Smith wants to see your progress, so regardless you're going to have to do extra work. And three, I signed up as a tutor to help people, no matter who they turned out to be.”
“How noble of you,” Jean glared. “But I don't actually need help.”
“Uh, I saw your last couple of essays,” Eren snorted. “Yeah, you do.”
Jean bristled. “I only failed the last one, and that was only because—”
“Your last essay might've been a mess, but at least you had a voice. The other two were so freakin' boring I couldn't even finish them. I've eaten cafeteria meatloaf that was less dry. Seriously.”
Jean stood, knocking his chair back as he braced his hands against the table. “Are you—”
“Here,” Eren slid a packet across the table, then took out his phone. “You've got forty minutes to rewrite this Hamlet essay. Then we'll go through it together, see what worked, what didn't.”
“What—”
“Clock starts now,” Eren tapped at his screen before leaning back, arms behind his head. He cocked an eyebrow at Jean. “Times a-wastin', Kirschtein.”
Jean fell back into his chair, seething as he snatched up a pen and sheet of paper. Jeager wanted an essay, he'd fucking give him an essay, piece of fucking shit—
He gripped the pen so hard his hand started cramping halfway, but he powered through the pain, powered through the heat in his face from having Eren just sitting there and watching him, powered through the utter humiliation of the entire situation that, admittedly, Jean had only half thought out, so convinced that for once things would go his way.
But he's Jean Kirschtein, so of course they didn't.
“Done,” Jean threw the papers at Eren, watched them scatter. “Read it and weep.”
“If your last two essays were any indication, I probably will,” Eren gathered the pages without batting an eye. Jean clenched his fists, chest flushing because there was no more room on his face. Eren wielded a red marker, circling something from time to time as Jean watched him like a hawk (it was only fair, after the way Eren had watched him). Then Eren read the essay again. And then a third time.
“Shit, how many times are you gonna read it?” Jean fell back against the chair, crossing his arms.
“As many times as it takes,” Eren shrugged, but spun the essay back around, pointing at the first paragraph. “You fixed all the grammatical and technical stuff, but you changed your thesis too much—you're playing it safe, and doing that makes the whole thing boring. Your original idea about paralleling Gertrude and Ophelia was really interesting.”
Jean couldn't even beging. “It's a high school English essay, Jeager, not a dissertation. I don't have to be interesting, I have to pass.”
“You have to have a voice if you want me to tell Smith you're doing what you're supposed to be doing,” Eren said. Jean felt his eye twitch, because was this kid for fucking real right now? Eren stood, collecting his things. “When we meet again on Friday you should bring an essay using the original thesis. I'll bring you some samples of my stuff so you can get an idea of flow, as well, because you really don't transition well from paragraph to paragraph, so learning how to rough draft each essay before the final one should help you with that.”
Jean scowled. “Test day, how the hell am I supposed to write a rough draft when we're only supposed to spend like forty minutes on each essay?”
Eren shrugged. “I always write a rough draft.”
“Let me get this straight,” Jean held up a hand. “You essentially write two essays...in forty minutes?”
“Pretty much,” Eren shrugged again. “Yeah.”
“How?” Jean stressed.
“Dunno. It's the way I've done it since middle school. I'm just used to it.”
Jean regarded Eren for a moment, in the afternoon light spilling in from the window, rising in yellow peaks and falling into long shadows over Eren's face. He felt his mouth stretch to say the words,“You're crazy.”
Then it stretched wider, into a smile.
--
“How'd it go?” Marco came up to him at his locker the next day, fight apparently behind them. Jean had honestly expected Marco to keep ignoring him for the rest of the week, but for whatever reason he was calling a truce. Not that Jean was complaining.
Jean pulled his Calc notebook out. “Exactly as I thought it would. He's crazy, Marco. Off the walls.”
Marco squinted, tilting his head. “You don't look that mad about it.”
Jean wiped a hand across his mouth, and sure enough it was turned upwards. He bit back the grin immediately. “Not gonna lie, when he's being particularly Eren-like, it's kind of funny. He's just so friggin' ridiculous, it can't not be.”
“Is that your excuse for the way you'd bait him on in lunch freshman year?” Marco snorted. Jean felt caught, the way he did now whenever someone saw through...whatever it was he'd tried so hard to project for four years. He swallowed, and Marco continued, “Because honestly, you were just as ridiculous.”
“Uh, was not.”
Marco snorted, slamming his locker. “You still are.”
“The hell is that supposed to mean?” Jean asked him, but Marco just turned and headed down the hallway with a sigh. Jean jumped, running to catch up. “Marco, what does that mean?”
--
Jean always liked Shakespeare, because he found it simple. Straightforward.
Eren made it not that way.
“He's crazy,” Jean tapped the book. “There's no getting around that.”
“I'm not saying that there is, I'm just saying it's not that simple,” Eren sighed. “There are a lot of different layers to Hamlet, and you can't just call him crazy, or a hero.”
“He can't be both,” Jean said, earning him a shush from Armin.
Eren tilted his head, intensity gone, replaced with something almost perplexed. “Of course he can.”
Jean let his forehead collide with the desk.
“Maybe it would be better for you two,” Armin slipped into the chair next to Eren, “to go do this somewhere else.”
Jean lifted his head, turning to look, and sure enough a dozen pairs of eyes met his stare. Even Annie had let a disinterested eye peek out from the sheath of her bangs.
“Why? We're not bothering anyone,” Eren said in his stupid, booming voice.
Armin smiled shakily, trying, “Eren—”
“C'mon,” Jean stood, closing his book. “I wanted to go get something from the vending machines anyway.”
--
That was when they started meeting in the cafeteria, rather than the library. The cafeteria kids were so, so incredibly difference from the stack regulars—Sasha was usually there stealing pudding cups from the kitchen while Connie stood lookout, Marlo trying to dissuade them while Hitch laughed in the corner and cleaned out the vending machines. There were candy bar pools on paper football matches, cigarettes traded for homework answers, heavy shit talking at every table. No one would care how loud they were being in the cafeteria, which was good.
Because they got pretty loud.
“I'm just saying,” Jean pointed his pen. “It doesn't make sense.”
“Except it does, and you're just dense,” Eren leaned his chin against his hand.
“The government can't control what people think, Eren. Thought police? S'ridiculous. They can't just get inside your head like that.”
“Except they can,” Eren leaned forward. “Do you honestly think this isn't happening right now? Do you think the things we're presented with in the news, in movies, everywhere we look isn't a design by the the powers that be to keep things a certain way? It may not be as blatantly totalitarian as it is in the book, but it's there. It's there, Jean.”
“I'd say you've lost it, but you've clearly never had it,” Jean sighed, leaning back with his arms crossed. “Look, I'm not saying it wasn't a good book, because it was. I just think it's reaching a bit.”
Eren rolled his eyes, popping the tab on his soda.
“Where do all great rebellions start, Eren?” Jean reached a hang out, tapping at the center of Eren's forehead. “They begin in the mind. Sure, maybe the government or the culture or whatever can control what you say and the words you say it with, and maybe everything you see, hear, taste and touch can be manipulated. But nothing can ever get rid of human feeling—the feeling of something not right. Of being trapped. So long as a person can feel...” Jean shrugged haplessly. “I don't know, I don't think you can get rid of or control something that innate, y'know?”
Eren rubbed at the place Jean had touched, eyes wide.
Jean flapped a hand. “I mean, even in the book Winston knew something wasn't right, in like, the core of his being. And I get why in the end he doesn't feel that way anymore, because of what they did to him, but if something like this happened to us, there's no was someone like you would—”
He stopped himself. He had to.
Eren tensed. “Someone like me what?”
Jean frowned, feeling challenged. “There's no way someone as hardheaded and insane as you would just sit by and not do anything when you knew in your heart that something was wrong. You wouldn't give up, ever.”
Eren blinked, slowly, deflating. “Oh.”
Jean shrugged, sitting back. It was just the truth. Eren was so strong in his conviction, in his everything, that he'd do anything in his power however limited) to help, to fix, to fight. That was the main difference between them, Jean always assumed. That Eren would give up almost everything to do what he thought was right. He was such a total Rorschach, and Jean was just a...a Winston Smith, through and through. That was what scared him, about the book, was that Jean saw himself too clearly in the pages. That if he was ever facing down something that monumental—
“You, too.”
Jean blinked. “Huh?”
“You would, too. I mean,” Eren waves a hand. “You'd grumble and drag your feet the entire way, and you'd probably have to be slapped around a bit, but in the end you'd do the right thing.”
Jean slunk further down into his seat. Eren sounded so earnest and sincere it was embarrassing. This was why he only had two friends—he was too direct. As opposed to the hoards of friends you've got? a traitorous voice asked from the depths of his brain. Jean scowled harder, and said, “C'mon, let's get this done. I want to go home.”
--
Light was fading fast by the time they pushed through the doubledoors at the back of the gym. Everyone was gone already, he realized, looking across the empty blacktop. They'd stayed later than usual.
“Check it out,” Eren pointed. “Someone left a ball.”
Jean looked, and sure enough tucked in the corner of the fence was a basketball, Eren running over to it, feeling the weight in his hand before spinning it on his finger like the gross show off that he was.
“You play?” Eren asked, bouncing it.
“Sometimes,” Jean lied. Jean hadn't played basketball since the one time he convinced Marco to shoot hoops in a park, which had ended in a badly sprained ankle with Marco carrying him all the way home on his back, resulting in a horribly awkward boner and Marco gently explaining in the way that Marco always did that it was okay, it was natural, that he understood. Somehow that'd just made it worse.
But he was almost eighteen now, and a low fire shouldn't be set in his belly because Eren Jeager smirked at him and threw the ball with all his might. It thumped against Jean's chest, echoing his heartbeat before he flailed, barely managing to catch it.
“C'mon,” Eren ran towards the hoop. “Try to get past me.”
Jean didn't know if it was normal, for Eren to be all up on him the way he was. Jean could feel the hot brush of Eren's breath on his face, smelling like syrupy sweet soda, and if Jean tried to turn away, Eren practically glued himself to Jean's back. It definitely wasn't normal that Jean found himself pushing back into it, the warmth of Eren's body, the friction between sweatshirts, wanting to feel it—
Eren knocked the ball out of his hands and took it to the hoop, chain net swishing with ease as Jean watched from the halfcourt line, breathing heavy. Eren grabbed the ball again, turning back to Jean and snorting. “You suck.”
“Yeah, well,” Jean scratched at the back of his head, more prepared when Eren launched the ball back at him.
Jean tried again—this time actually breaking away from Eren long enough to try and shoot, though he suspected Eren just did it to see Jean make a fool out of himself even further, the ball flying over the hoop entirely, crashing against the fence in a rattle that harmonized with Eren's laugh.
“Y-you looked so focused,” Eren cackled. “And then you just missed completely—I'm fucking dying.”
“Could you maybe stop screaming,” Jean grumbled. “Why the hell are you always screaming?”
“This is my normal talking voice, jackass.”
“Exactly my point.”
The ball rolled back to them, Eren stooping to pick it up. “Tell you what—sink a free throw, and you can write about Catcher in the Rye like you wanted instead of Frankenstein.”
Jean held the ball in his hands, mentally transferring every molecule of good energy through his fingertips, feeling the power manifesting before him, and—
This time the ball didn't even make it to the net, falling short by a good three feet and bouncing lamely against the blacktop in a hopeless stutter. Jean felt his body shake with rage at the sound of Eren's pfffftt of a laugh being held back. He clenched his fists. “Don't. Say. A word.”
“Jean,” Eren grabbed the ball, shoving it into Jean's stomach. “You're doing this all wrong—here. Get your feet shoulder width apart. Right, now, relax yourself.”
Eren was behind him, hands on top of Jean's as Jean gripped the ball, Eren's voice right in Jean's ear. His entire face felt like it was on fire, but he closed his eyes for a second and tried to let all the tension in his body go with one big, noisy exhale.
“Okay, now, just kind—yeah, aim and shoot. Use your wrists,” Eren's hands guided Jean's.
The next thing he knew, the ball swished through the net. Elation flooded Jean, and he pumped a fist in the air.
“This mean I can write on Salinger?” Jean asked, throwing a smile over his shoulder.
“Yeah right,” Eren snorted, dribbling the ball back.
What was maybe supposed to be a five minute thing ended up in a full on one-on-one match, heavy breaths pluming up in condensation from the cold, sun setting completely and the streetlights flickering on. Jean still missed more often than not, but he was definitely getting the hang of it. Everything echoed from footsteps to the ball bouncing, hitting the backboard, Jean's heartbeat in his own ears.
Eren's stomach growling, holy shit.
“It is pretty late,” Jean remarked, checking his phone. It was almost half past six, and sure enough his mom had tried calling him four times, sent several clunky, practically unreadable text messages that if he wasn't so used to would look like gibberish. And Jean was sure it was the rush from running around, but he suddenly felt bold, asking, “You wanna go get burgers or something?”
Eren let the ball roll into the corner of the court again, nodding. “Sounds good.”
Jean shot a text back to his mom, letting her know he'd be eating out tonight.
--
If someone had asked Jean Kirschtein freshman year if he would ever consider spending any amount of free time with Eren Jeager, he would've laughed in their face. Well, if it was Marco he'd laugh. Anyone else would warrant a bath in holy water and a lengthy, loud, four part lecture on why Eren Jeager was actually probably totally the anti-Christ.
Four years changed a lot of things, he guessed, because there they were, on the hood of Jean's car with full stomachs, looking up at the sky.
“It's getting warm,” Jean remarked.
“Yeah, that's generally what happens during the transition from winter to spring.”
Jean threw a wadded up wrapper at Eren's fat head. “Shut up, I was just saying.”
This is nice, he thought. Couldn't stop thinking. Every time he noticed how comfortable the cool air was, or how good hot food felt in his belly, or how the sky was so clear and dotted with stars Jean could never see from the city...Sina was in a metropolis area too. Lots of buildings, lots of lights. He probably wouldn't be able to see the stars from there, at least not well. His ribs gave a good squeeze.
As if Eren could tell what Jean was thinking, he asked, “You're headed to Sina in the fall, right?”
“Hm,” Jean laid back against the hood.
“Excited?”
Jean couldn't stop himself from being honest. “Not really.”
Eren nodded, like he understood. Jean liked where he was looking at Eren from, distantly realizing he'd never seen him form that angle, the underside of his jaw, the curve of his cheek muted by moonlight.
He asked. “What about you?”
“I'm,” Eren said, picking at the frayed thread on his jeans, “Not going to college.”
Jean propped himself up on his elbows, eyebrows drawn. “Wait—why the hell are you taking college credit courses then?”
“I was bored in the regular ones and I wanted Smith as a teacher.”
Jean made a face. “So what're you gonna do after graduation?”
“Travel. Work. See as much of the world as I can,” Eren stretched back, sliver of stomach peaking out from underneath his sweatshirt. A dark shock of hair riding on the elastic of his underwear, and Jean had to look away, cheeks warm. “I've never even seen the ocean before.”
There was something small sounding about Eren's voice then, in a way Jean had never heard him sound before. The Eren he knew was always bursting at the seams, ready to go, go, go—
This was like being in the eye of the storm, Jean thought. He looked down at his phone. “S'almost nine.”
“Shit,” Eren slid down off the hood. “Mom and Mikasa are probably tearing through the countryside looking for me.”
“You didn't tell them where you were?” Jean sat up. “You idiot.”
“I'm not the idiot failing English.”
“Shut up—be nice or I won't give you a ride,” Jean jumped down, motioning with his arm. “You're out in the boroughs, right? C'mon.”
Eren tried to stop him. “You don't have to—”
“Oh what, like you're gonna walk from here down to Shigan?” Jean snapped, yanking open the car door. “That's six miles, easy. Just get in the car.”
Eren stood, like he was ready to fight Jean for doubting he could make it six miles walking (six miles through the woods, because that idiot would definitely try to take the shortcut instead of walking around). But when Jean didn't back down, Eren sighed, crossing his arms. “Fine, whatever.”
--
Shiganshina was out in the flatlands, where boroughs were separated by sprawling farmlands or dense forests, and while the first borough was only about a fifteen minute drive off the parkway, it might as well have been in another world to city kids like Jean. Parked outside of the Jeager house, he waited for Eren to get to his front door, safely inside before Jean yanked the gearshift into reverse.
Jean pulled out of the driveway, thinking about Dr. Jeager. Jaeger's practice had been an extremely well reputed one—like, even Jean had gone to him when he was a kid (before he met Eren and demanded his mom start taking him somewhere else.) Then, out of nowhere, Jeager shut down his practice, and a week later he was gone. Everyone suspected breakdown, or affair, or both, because what kind of man just up and leaves his job, his family like that? Jean's stomach turned with an uneasy flop as he pulled up to a red light. Christ, he'd reveled in the gossip when it'd happened sophomore year. Listed his own theories to anyone who would listen; that Dr. Jaeger had ties to some crime rings and was selling them prescription drugs and had to leave town when a deal went bad. That he was supplying illegal steroids to high school and college athletes and was going to be found out. That he was addicted to Oxycontin and lost his mind. That Eren was probably headed down the same path.
He rubbed at his eyes eyes, and when he took his hands away he realized the light had turned green. Jean floored it.