Chapter Text
16.
Marco swung himself off the cliff with practiced precision, the wind whipping his hair back as he approached the wagon keeping his friends hostage. Surprise would only give him a temporary advantage, which meant that Marco would have to sacrifice safety for speed if he wanted to free Eren in time.
And then the whole world imploded.
It was like a hot white sun had just set off beside him, searing away his surprise and his mission and everything. The blast flung him into a tree with a sickening crack, and then the heat of hell descended upon him.
He screamed.
It was the worst pain he’d ever felt in his life. Pain so bad he could barely wrap his mind around it, could barely register it, and it just kept going. It tasted like ashy death, and he couldn’t die here. Not now. It would be cruel and unfair to die just after smoothing things over with Jean; when he’d finally started to feel like he was making a difference in the right way. Dying here robbed him of that chance. It'd make his life meaningless.
Marco tried to take a shuddering breath and couldn’t. Panic seized him, and his next attempt lit his throat up with such agony he ended up blinking at the charred branches above instead.
For a long, hazy moment, the world hovered above him. There was no pain. There was no sensation. Just trees and hollow-sounding voices, and then suddenly someone grabbed his limbs and moved them.
Crippling pain whited out his vision, burned through every limb, and it was as if someone was sawing them off without mercy. He screamed until he couldn’t take it anymore, until darkness finally claimed him.
--
He dreamed.
--
When Marco hurried downstairs with his sister’s backpack in hand, ready to hand it off to the demanding girl standing at the door, he found his mother waiting for him in the kitchen.
It was the day before his departure from the idyllic home he'd grown up in. He'd expected this.
The day was beautiful, at least, like the universe was smiling down upon them. Light pooled from between the window blinds, spilling onto the kitchen table and lighting up his mother’s silhouette like an angel. Marco gnawed on his lip after he shooed his sister out the door and reluctantly returned to the kitchen. He sat across from her.
“Marco, are you sure you…?” she finally broke the silence, and Marco gave her a look. Despite being a passive guy at heart, he was self-aware enough to know his own stubbornness. His mother did too. She deflated. “Of course you are. Oh, Marco… have you any idea what’s waiting for you outside?”
“Have you?” Marco said in a mild tone. As if he hadn't known that she'd been born and raised in Jinae all her life, just like his father and their grandparents.
His mother chose to ignore the jab and folded her fingers together. “Marco, listen to me. We’re… safe here. The government protects us, provides for us, and prioritizes us when it comes to deciding the good of the kingdom. We’re a wall inside a wall—protected from the Titans by Wall Rose and Wall Maria, and protected from the darker side of the world by the king.”
“But that doesn’t mean bad stuff isn’t still happening,” Marco said. “Just because we don’t see it doesn’t mean there aren't people out there needing help. The kingdom needs help. And if I can make a difference out there, I will.”
“Marco,” his mother reached out and clasped his hands in her own. Her voice came out cold and serious, and it sent a shiver up his spine. “In the long run, very few of us make a difference in this world. We're like dust in the wind, and it's foolish to waste your life trying to prove otherwise.”
Marco ducked his head, an angry retort burning on the tip of his tongue. He wanted to rail and rage, but that wasn't the kind of boy Marco Bodt was. He’d always been the good son, the perfect older brother, and he had years of experience burying down his frustrations. He squeezed her soft hands back with a forced smile instead.
“I choose to think we all make a difference,” he said. “Call me a fool, but don't you think the world's brighter that way?"
His mother actually smiled back. “I can’t decide if I’m proud or horrified that this is how you turned out.”
“Proud,” Marco declared, puffing up his chest in exaggerated pride, “Very proud. I’m the best son you’ve ever had, Mom. Say it.”
“You’re my only son,” she laughed. She opened her arms and he fell into them, squeezing her tight around the neck. She clutched him just as tightly back. Marco hadn’t realized how small his mother was compared to him, not when she'd always seemed larger than life. His mother drew back and dabbed her wet eyes. “T-The girls will miss you, you know. Who’ll take them sky gliding on the hills now?”
“They’ll be fine,” Marco said. His mother just sniffed, and he put his hands on her shoulders. “They’ll be fine, Mom. And I’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
“Oh Marco,” his mother sighed. “You have no idea at all.”
For his final night in Jinae, his mother prepared all of Marco’s favorite dishes for dinner. The girls squabbled and complained over the broiled pork—they preferred it fried, why does Marco get to decide everything—until Marco put his hands on their heads and tousled their dark hair. They shrieked indignantly because his hands were dirty, they were gross, ugh, he was the worst brother ever!
After the brats were put to bed and his mother had gone back to the master bedroom to fervently pray to the Wall Gods, Marco found himself alone with his father. It was appropriately symmetrical: here he was in the kitchen again, pale moonlight peeking out from the window and his father tapping the kitchen table with a finger. Marco shuffled his feet. His father was a good man but not particularly talkative, and he spent a good moment just puffing on his pipe.
Finally, he sat back and emptied his pipe in the bin below the table. “You'll need to be careful out there, Marco. You can’t trust everybody.”
“I know that,” Marco couldn’t help but whine, because he wasn’t five anymore.
“You don’t,” his father countered. “Marco, Hans Linden and I talked before his and his family’s departure from Jinae. I know the kind of price the Linden's influence demands, and I worry… that you will be asked to do things you don’t want to do.” A beat. “That your conscience refuses to let you do.”
“So what?” Marco walked to the table and sat in the chair opposite his father. “I just stay in Jinae then, hiding away from making decisions for the rest of my life?”
“No,” his father said. “I’m telling to put great thought in who you decide to trust. Make your decision wisely, and know when too far is far enough.”
Marco was silent as he forced himself to calm and listen. Approach the situation with rationality. By the time he processed his father’s wisdom, the man had managed to refill his pipe. Marco stood up and kissed his dad’s temple.
“Thanks dad,” he said. “Good night.”
“Good night, Marco,” his father called out as Marco carefully crept towards his room across from his sisters. His voice sounded a tad melancholy, though both of his parents had respected Marco's decision in the end. He was fifteen-years-old and old enough to make his own decisions.
He was old enough to leave.
Deciding who to trust wasn’t a hardship at all. He’d only ever considered leaving Jinae for one reason, and he didn’t see why that reason would change.
He trusted August—and he was willing to follow him for however long he could.
--
The wagons arrived in the morning. Marco had donned on his uniform and was waiting alongside one other cadet, a young girl with dirty blonde hair and a neckerchief. His gaze flickered down. She didn’t have a ring on her finger.
“Bodt, Weber,” a military officer dismounted from her horse and put her fist to her chest in a brief salute. The girl—last name Weber, possibly the oldest child, which made her Karla Weber from the other side of town—saluted back instantly. Marco clumsily followed suit and earned a judgmental glare from the officer. He tried not to wilt. “You’re to be moved to a military base alongside the east side of Wall Rose. You will undergo a month of acclimation before attending the normal trainee classes. Details about Jinae cannot be randomly let loose to the public. If you can’t promise your silence, then turn away now, soldiers.”
Neither Marco nor the girl moved, and the officer tilted her head in acknowledgement.
“Very well. Climb aboard,” she said. "We'll arrive by high noon."
Marco picked up his pack and cast one look back at his parents’ home. His mother and sisters waved at him. He smiled and waved back, and then stepped into the wagon. It was small and dark and not exactly the fanciest transportation he'd ever seen, and it should have eased his nerves to realize the military had the same shitty equipment. Instead, Marco felt apprehensive.
He’d never left Jinae before. Never. A world filled with forests and mountains and alphas and omegas—it was hard to fathom the extent Jinae had protected him. Marco wasn't a coward, but he wasn't made of stone either. He could feel a bit of healthy fear.
“Acclimation,” Weber said conversationally. “Like they think we’re going to run around like chickens with their heads cut off. We’re all people, who cares what dynamic they are.”
“You ever meet an alpha or omega?” Marco asked.
“No.”
“Then how do you know we won’t be chickens?”
“Because we’re people,” and now Weber was giving him a funny look. “We’re better than all of them; we’re not slaves to instinct. If anyone’s going to be running around like chickens, it’s them.”
“But the point is they’re used to all that, but we—woah!” Marco braced himself against the side of the wagon as it came to a sudden screeching stop. “What the…”
“The hell is wrong with you, Greigrich!” the officer stuck her head out and waved a fist. “Can’t you see we’re on a schedule?”
“Calm yourself, Blasa,” a familiar voice approached. Marco peered out of a crack between the cloth partitions along the side of the wagon, and saw the man in the green jacket puffing his pipe. Sebastian Greigrich, one of the scientists in charge of maintaining the hyacinth wall. It was downright uncanny how little the man had changed over the years. “An unexpected development occurred, but it’ll only take a few moments for it to resolve itself…”
A low guttural noise interrupted him. Marco flinched. And then he heard it again: low and pained and wretched, coming from the section Greigrich had blocked off so unapologetically.
“You knew we were collecting cadets today, you couldn’t have done your experiments some other time?” Blasa snarled back. “And what the hell did you do, soak your prisoner in—”
The guttural groan grew louder and almost monstrous, and Blasa stopped talking in favor of whipping her head towards the noise. Weber tried pulling him back, but Marco refused to simply sit there in ignorance. He edged as close to the front of the wagon as he dared, ducking his head so he could get a glimpse of what was happening.
He almost wished he hadn’t.
There, just a few stretches away past a hastily set-up fence, was a strange… thing. A flesh-colored thing twitching on the ground while it groaned and tried to move, and Marco's stomach lurched. Was that an animal? A person? Half of its body was distorted and bloated, and the flesh shifted nauseatingly the longer they watched. Its left arm suddenly ballooned out, and the creature let out a horrible cry of pain.
Greigrich cursed and tucked away his pipe.
“Kirstein!” he yelled over the thing’s noise. Marco wanted to crawl back into the safety of the wagon. It wasn’t just the noise and the limbs—it was the terrified look on the creature’s face as it changed. It was horrifically human.
“I already tried Formulas A and B,” Greigrich’s accomplice called out. He chucked the empty vials onto the floor and refitted a syringe with a third one. “Here goes C…”
“Herrr..." the creature moaned. Marco exchanged a terrified look with Weber, whose own wide-eyed glance confirmed that he wasn’t hearing things. “Herrrll...p...”
It tried crawling towards Blasa and the rest of their wagon, faster than possible—but Kirstein was faster. The man leapt onto its back and jabbed its nape with the syringe. It screeched and flailed as he pressed the pump down mercilessly until the vial emptied.
Steam began sloughing off of it in waves, and even Blasa looked discomfited as its cries sounded more and more hollow. It went on for a long, uncomfortable moment… and then stopped.
Marco blinked past the murky steam. There, in the road ,lay the limp form of a human man. His face was clearly the same as the distorted one from just a minute earlier, just… not distorted.
“Is it over?” Weber whispered from behind him.
The scientists were apparently wondering the same thing. Kirstein coughed and wiped his hands on his slacks. He approached the prone man without hesitation and pressed his fingers to his neck.
“Dead,” Kirstein declared with a frown, sounding mildly disappointed. He was clearly used to death, and Marco wasn't sure if that made everything better or worse. “It’s a bust, Sebastian. The form’s right, but the transformation’s too strenuous for the subject to survive. We’ll have to go back to the drawing board this time.”
"The formula wasn’t completely finished, Frederick,” Greigrich said. “This subject was accidental. You said he just… ran up to you and assaulted you?”
“A suppressant fanatic,” Kirstein sighed. “Took one of the canisters out of my van and drank it all down before I could stop him. We’ve told them all a hundred times that our work isn’t the work of god; it’s science.”
“Science couldn’t save him,” Greigrich said. He snapped his fingers, and a governmental underling who’d been watching from the sidelines came and hauled the corpse off to the side of the road. “Not this time.”
“Hey,” a voice said beside him. Marco jumped. It was the superior officer, looking a bit shaken but overall unimpressed. “Get back to your seat.”
“What… what was that?” Marco swallowed down his fear and asked, because he couldn't stand by and say nothing. Weber threw him a look like he’d lost his mind, and she probably wasn’t wrong. He felt like his entire world had shifted in just the last five minutes. “That man…”
“Nothing you need to know,” Blasa snapped. “Now get back to your seat.”
Marco obeyed. He crawled onto the bench and breathed through his mouth, and tried his very best not to think of the man’s pleading cries morphing into screams.
--
“Marco!” Once he'd finished placing his bag in the bunk he'd share with Weber, he'd headed out to the front courtyard and found himself instantly assaulted. Familiar lithe arms squeezed his middle. “Damn, kid, you’ve grown quite a bit, haven’t you?”
“August,” Marco broke out into a wide smile, pulling back and looking over his old friend. The boy—young man?—looked as if he'd just stepped out of his memories. Bigger and broader, sure, but there was that same, fun-loving twinkle in his eyes. But then his nose registered a new scent, and Marco’s smile dropped in surprise. “Wait…”
“Got a good whiff, didn’t you?” August spread his arms in a faux-apologetic shrug. “Now you know why my parents wanted me to leave Jinae.”
“You’re an omega,” Marco marveled. He'd never met an omega up close before. He patted the older boy’s shoulders and chest like he could find the hidden secrets of dynamics in his pocket. August put up with his pawing for a grand total of five seconds before batting his hand away. Not one to just give up, Marco sniffed his palm. It was… different. Sweet.
“Stop that,” August batted his hand again. “Stop being weird.”
“Hey, I just came out of a beta-only village,” Marco said. He put his hand to his nose again, if only to watch August roll his eyes. “I’m like a kid in a candy store, cut me some slack.”
“You’re a weird weirdo, that’s what you are,” August said, and gestured for Marco to follow home. “Now come on, we need to introduce you to the boss. Try not to look inappropriately starstruck at the next omega we see.”
"But how are you an omega?” Marco followed behind, curiosity abuzz beneath his skin. “You grew up in Jinae like me…”
“The suppressant only really affects us when we’re in that in-between state,” August answered. “It hits the hardest right when the body’s deciding whether or not to go ahead with second puberty. So as long as I was away from all that, there was a good chance I’d present normally.”
“And you did,” Marco said. August led them into a small alleyway, and then turned them around a bit before the darkness spat them out the other side. Marco hesitated when August nudged him past the line making the end of military territory, but this was August. He’d promised to trust him, and it wasn’t like his old friend had broken him out of Jinae just to string him up by the ankles and bleed him like a pig. “Well, good. I mean, you look good, August.”
“I'm going to have to stop you right there, kid,” August laughed. He ruffled Marco’s hair, leaving him feeling affronted and endeared. He wasn't a child, but he’d also missed having someone who didn’t expect him to know everything and take everything with grace. It was freeing. “’Cause if Merten hears you talking like that, he’ll probably challenge you to a duel.”
“Merten’s here?” Marco blinked in honest surprise, because the last he'd heard of him he'd been busy shuttling shipments out of Jinae and back. And then they made it to a rickety staircase leading into the basement of some nondescript house, and he saw for himself.
Merten was indeed there, playing cards with a group of military personnel on a table illuminated by a rusty lamp. The short-haired beta grinned rakishly when he slapped down a winning hand. The soldiers moaned as he collected his haul.
“Fuck, Mer, you cost me my beer money! Have you no mercy?” a dark-skinned soldier whined.
“Shouldn’t have bet with it then, Gunther,” Merten sing-songed. “Shame on you for your irresponsible behavior! Now me and my darling here, we’re going to be set on drinks for a while, aren’t we?”
“Don’t call me darling,” August said, but went over and curled an arm around Merten anyway. As if that wasn't damning enough, he placed a small kiss on his temple.
Marco froze in the doorway. He'd assumed August had meant Merten "challenging" him as a fellow brother from Jinae, because Merten's always been a bit protective. It hadn't even occurred to him that he'd meant a different protection. They were both boys, and that was...
August caught sight of him and beckoned him forward.
Marco forced himself to relax. Even if he didn’t completely understand, he couldn’t just assume every thing that offended his sensibilities were offensive in general. And this was August and Merten. If they wanted to be a couple… they could be a couple.
“Wall gods almighty, is that Marco Bodt?” Merten exclaimed, finally turning to see who August was looking at. The soldiers turned too, and suddenly Marco found himself under extreme scrutiny. Merten disentangled himself from August’s hold and drew Marco into a surprising hug. “Dammit all, I must be getting old, ‘cause it looks like little old Marco’s all grown up!”
“Merten,” Marco wheezed before pulling back in shock. Merten had hated his guts as a kid. Getting any form of affection from him clearly meant the world was ending. “You’re… out?”
“What, you saying you never noticed me missing around Jinae?” Merten said. Marco wasn't sure what he was getting at: after August had moved away, he hadn’t really hung out with the older kids anymore. The older man coughed. “Cool, cool, understandable I guess. Well, let’s just say I made real good friends with a trade partner of mine. She bailed me out, and of course the first thing I do? Is hunt down this beauty right here,” and he fearlessly pointed at August, who rolled his eyes. “Though he’s a lot less sweet than I remember.”
“When was August ever sweet,” Marco reflexively commented.
“Exactly!” August threw up his hands. “See, Marco remembers.”
“You guys are so rude ignoring us like that,” one of the soldiers at the table interrupted. She perched on the tabletop and rested her feet on a stool. “Aren’t you going to introduce us to the new kid?”
“What’s the point?” a haughty-looking soldier muttered beside her. “We’re not going to be working with him, not if he’s joining Janus’s section.”
The other soldiers immediately groaned. “Janus.”
“Hey, that’s my boss you’re dissing,” August scolded them.
“Please, if you ever worked under Erwin or Levi, you’d know Janus is shit,” the haughty soldier drawled. He leveled them a cocky grin. “Now us, we get things done. We further the Naturalist cause in ways no one else can, which is why Captain Levi—“
“Knock it off, Oluo,” the girl cut him off, and the man yelped and clutched at his mouth. She looked Marco over. “If Janus needs the new recruit more, than he can take him. Even if he’s a bit…”
“Emotional? Vengeance-crazy?” Oluo mumbled past his hand. Marco hesitantly inched forward to offer him a handkerchief, and the man blinked at him before taking it and pressing it to his mouth. “A psycho lunatic Erwin should just boot off a cliff?”
“Who’s booting who off a cliff?” a voice called out from the doorway. August and Merten both froze. The soldiers looked discomfited but not quite as scared, though Marco noticed that one put a hand on the the knife buckled to his belt. “Quite aggressive wording, Mister Bozad. Now, I understand you soldiers need to… let off steam once in a while, but I thought Levi would have trained you better than this?”
“Have you even met Levi?” Oluo muttered under his breath, and then pressed Marco’s handkerchief to his mouth when their new visitor narrowed his eyes at him.
“Janus,” August addressed him. The middle-aged man went from surveying the room like some predator to attentive leader in an instant. It was disconcerting to watch. August stood ramrod straight and cleared his throat. “Let me introduce you to our newest Naturalist recruit, Marco Bodt.”
Janus turned his gaze on Marco and smiled. Marco resisted the urge to back away as he approached, even when the man just offered him a sweeping bow and extended a hand.
“A pleasure, Mister Bodt,” he said. Marco took a deep breath—alpha, this man was an alpha, he’d never really interacted with an alpha before, what was he supposed to do?—and squared his shoulders. He grasped the man’s hand and shook it firmly. Janus smiled at him with all his teeth. “I’m 'Janus' Eckstein, and the head of the Naturalist division you’re joining.”
“A pleasure to meet you,” Marco said. After an awkward moment, he pried his hand away and tried not to wipe it against his pants.
Janus's gaze was eerie and invasive, and Marco found his unease giving way to annoyance. It shocked him. He’d spent his entire life pushing down any unsavory emotions like it was second nature, but there was something about this man that just got under his skin.
“Hm, yes,” Janus finally clucked to himself. He circled Marco. “You’re quite adaptable, aren’t you? Yes, yes, this will work.” He leaned forward. “Now, Mister Bodt, do you like watching? Playing dress-up? Let me ask: what do you think of playing spy?”
“You get that sanctioned by Erwin?” Gunther interrupted from the table. Janus cast him an annoyed look, and the soldier put his hands up. “Hey, you know the rules. Erwin gives you a lot of freedom ‘cause of that funny head of yours, but even you need to restrain yourself.”
“Enough,” Janus snarled, hair-risingly aggressive. “Erwin’s sanctioned the operation. Need I remind you how close Kirstein and Greigrich are to completing the new widespread formula. Kirstein’s boy is joining the military this year. He’s clearly the most vulnerable point we need to crack that entire operation open.”
“Oh, and what are you planning to do to that kid, Janus?” Gunther snapped. "The Naturalists aren't kidnappers or bullies.”
"Gunther, you worry too much. Marco here will mostly be observing him,” and Janus placed a cool hand on Marco’s shoulder. He flinched minutely, and then saw August shaking his head at him. Deep breaths. Calm. “You’ll keep an eye on our prize without hurting him, won’t you Mister Bodt?”
Marco said nothing. Janus’s fingers clenched his shoulder tighter, and he winced. “Y-Yes Mister Eckstein.”
“Just Janus,” the man said. “We’re on the same team, now. Now if you’ll excuse us…”
He led Marco towards the stairs, and the other Naturalist soldiers were already starting to mutter behind them:
“You really think he's going to hurt the kid?” one of them said.
“It’s Janus.”
“If Erwin forbade him…”
“He’s not going to listen to Erwin,” Gunther hissed. “The closer he gets to Greigrich, the less incentive he has to help. I can’t believe…”
“It’s rude to talk about someone behind their back,” Janus declared, and turned around in time to see the soldiers jump. “Now August, Merten. You will join us for some nice afternoon tea, too, yes?”
“Sure thing, boss,” Merten saluted. The joking grin from the card game had vanished, replaced with the serious expression Marco had been familiar with in their youth. When he and August passed Marco, August reached out a hand and squeezed Marco’s other shoulder.
Unlike the threatening grip of Janus’s hand on him, August’s was warm. Comforting. It reminded him of why Marco was still here, even when all his instincts urged him to flee from this strange man at once.
“Oh, we’ll have so much fun this month,” Janus said, eyes bright. “That Kirstein boy won’t know what’s hitting him once we get you ready.”
Marco didn’t say anything. He didn’t say anything the whole trip upstairs.
--
Lunch with Janus was strange and awkward. The man kept asking him provocative questions like he was testing him, and from his pleased expression at the end Marco seemed to have passed with flying colors.
He'd disappeared as quickly as he'd appeared afterwards, and August and Merten made it up to him by showing off the area outside the compound. Marco had expected a scene similar to his childhood, where he'd been the constantly awkward third wheel tagging along the two cool boys, and was surprised to find it was not. Clearly, living outside the hyacinth walls of Jinae had loosened Merten up.
“So the trick is,” the man was telling him while they eyed some hot sandwiches that were just out of their budget. “The trick is to use nostalgia and familiarity. People like being nice to people they know, and if you do your research beforehand, then you can figure out a lot.”
He patted Marco’s back and strolled to the stand. “Hey, Miss Reich! I’m Merten—your son and I are on the neighborhood patrol together. Neff, right? So yeah…”
August shook his head with a soft smile.
“You’re happy here, aren’t you?” Marco said after a long moment spent observing his friend. August startled and looked down at him. “I mean, even if Janus seems a bit hard to work with...”
“You have no idea,” August sighed.
“But still, you’re happier here than in Jinae. Because you’re with Merten.”
“Don’t get all sentimental on me, Marco,” August smiled. “The good and the bad come together, you know? Working with Janus is rough, but his heart’s in the right place. He wants to do right by all the victims of the kingdom’s experiments. That’s not a bad thing. And of course Merten’s the cherry on top. He better make me happy; why else would I be dating his sorry ass?”
"True," Marco cocked his head. "He's got nothing obvious to bring to the plate, huh? No money, average looks..."
"Oi!" August nudged him with an elbow, though clearly knew he'd been teasing. "That's my man you're trash-talking!"
Marco's smile morphed into a considering frown. He hadn't wanted to bring it up, but the way August had said that reminded him... “It’s just… isn’t it hard, August?”
“Sure, people disapprove,” August shrugged. “But after drowning in suppressant and government rules for your entire life, people’s opinions don’t really matter.”
“Because you’re both boys?”
“What?”
“What?” Marco blinked, not sure why August looked so confused.
“Because we’re beta and omega,” August spelled out, and Marco flushed in embarrassment. His friend graciously allowed him his faux pas and continued, “A lot of people think omegas should only be with alphas, which is bullshit. Why do people care so much about what others do in the bedroom?”
“Oh,” Marco’s cheeks warmed. He hadn’t even considered…
August had the gall to laugh. “Oh, you poor baby! Come here, let me protect you from the big bad world.”
“Aaaau-gust,” Marco whined, but didn’t struggle when the omega drew him into a hug. He’d clearly meant it as a joke, but Marco found his calm veneer beginning to crack as he pressed up against his friend,. Everything was just so new and horrible, and he’d only left Jinae today. It’d only been one day.
He bit his lip and drew back.
August tilted his head, “Oh, I know that look. You’re holding something back.”
“Nothing to hold back.”
“Liar,” August nudged him with an elbow. “Something happened, didn’t it?”
Marco closed his eyes. That was a mistake, because all he could see was that man again. That awful, screaming man in the middle of the road—grotesque and in pain and Marco hadn’t been able to do anything.
Was this how Jinae really was? Not the protected utopia Marco had been raised to think it was, but some kind of experimental testing ground?
“There was a man on the road today,” he whispered, voice low. He clenched his fists. “They—Kirstein and Greigrich, they were there, they were doing some kind of test to turn him b-back to normal. But he… they said he swallowed suppressant, and it mutated him?” He opened his eyes and was mortified to find them wet. “Is that what suppressant is? Does it—mutate people?”
August’s expression sobered. As Marco scrubbed his eyes, the omega sighed and looked out at where Merten was blatantly flirting with Miss Reich. “We don’t usually cover that until later, but… yes. The suppressant’s a poison, Marco. It’s… there’s no real reason we need it, other than people trying to control fate. But fate isn’t meant to be tampered with. And there are dire consequences for those who do.”
Marco regretted giving his handkerchief to that Oluo. It was impossible to hide his dripping nose now, and so he just sniffed and tried not look five-years-old. “And the Naturalists are trying to stop it.”
“You think I’m sticking around crazy Janus because I feel obligated?” August smiled. “No. I want to make a difference, Marco. I have to think everything we do changes the world around us. If I can help…”
“…then I should do as much as I can,” Marco finished, because this was one reason he and August had been friends. They understood each other. And then Merten finally returned with three steaming hot sandwiches in hand, beaming with pride.
“Three for the price of one!” Merten gloated, handing out their lunch. “Miss Reich is so funny—that woman deserves her own time on stage, I tell you... woah, what’s with the long faces?”
“Serious stuff,” August tried laughing off, and let out an “Oomph!” when Merten wrapped an arm around his shoulders and nuzzled his temple. “Hey! Knock it off, Mer, Marco’s watching.”
“C’mon, isn’t he, like, sixteen or something? He’s old enough.”
“Fifteen,” Marco corrected him. He drew his legs up to his chest and propped his head on his knees. “But if there’s going to be a lot of this in the real world, I should probably to become desensitized to it. Go on with this omega behavior, I’m curious.”
“That is not okay,” August kicked his shin as Marco blatantly stared.
“Voyeurism kink,” Merten mouthed, and cackled when August kicked his shin too. Seeing the two smiling at each other eased the iron-grip clenching Marco’s heart. It drove the grotesque victim of suppressant right out of Marco’s head, at least until they dropped him back off at the compound.
“You were gone for a while,” Karla Weber said when he returned to their cramped bunk in the far corner of the compound. She folded her arms and cocked her head at him. “Having a fancy lunch or something?”
“Met with a few friends,” Marco said, voice calmer than he felt. Away from August and Merten, he felt the low-key anxiety from before returning. “There wasn’t anything on the morning schedule, was there?”
“No, but that Blasa girl kept checking in and getting nervous that you were gone,” Weber lay down on her bunk. “You going to tell me where?”
“No.”
“How about what you ate for lunch.”
“No,” Marco turned away, and he heard Weber huff.
“And I heard you were the nice one,” she muttered under her breath. After an awkward silence, she said in a quiet voice, “This morning… you've ever seen anything like that before?”
Marco squeezed his eyes shut, “Never.”
“Yeah,” she sounded vulnerable, just as bit of a kid as Marco was. “Me neither.”
A soldier soon fetched them for their first session with a successful officer from Astoria, the other test village within Wall Rose. He mostly covered what information was or wasn’t allowed to pass Jinae’s hyacinth walls.
“It’s important not to draw attention to yourselves,” he said, knocking on the chalkboard behind him. “Not the government’s, and not your peers. The government allows us to leave to serve our dues, but any overt rebellion can be grounds to send you home.”
Marco felt a chill run up his spine and resisted the urge to twist his ring. This would keep him from being sent back, didn’t it? The Naturalists couldn’t ask him to work against his country only for him to be sent back so soon.
“We’ve got hands in a lot of pockets,” August assured him when Marco snuck into the attic of their meeting house. He sat cross-legged before his older friend and shared half of a loaf of bread he'd taken from the mess hall. “Don’t worry about that.”
“I’m not worried.”
“You so totally are worried,” August chewed on the loaf and waved the remainder about in the air. “Look, Marco, I know it’s all very heavy stuff, but you’re still allowed to have fun. Explore the world around you and all that. Leave all the messy stuff to me and the other adults.”
“You don't need to protect me, August,” Marco frowned. "I'm not a kid..."
“Lose your virginity first and then get back to me."
"August!" Marco yelped, and then a loud shattering sound from downstairs interrupted them. Marco jumped. August quickly leapt to his feet and went to the stairwell.
“Don’t you dare suggest we can work with that monster!” Janus’s voice bellowed. Marco snuck up behind August and huffed when the young man held out an arm and stopped him from wandering downstairs. Like Marco was that stupid.
“Janus—” someone—Merten?—pled, and another crash resounded through the base.
“Sebastian Greigrich is untrustworthy and insane,” Janus hissed. “He’s a monster that needs to be stopped, not—not negotiated with—”
“We’re not trusting him, but there’s been enough evidence that says he and Kirstein—”
“No more!” Janus stormed around the room, and then something slammed hard against the wall. August froze. That pained groan was definitely Merten. “No more, no more! That man needs to pay for what he did to me and my family, for everything he’d done to Waldniel and the people who lived there!”
“Mer,” August whispered, and rushed down the stairs before Marco could stop him. He crept down after him and hovered by the open doorway as he took in the scene before him. August crouched in front of an injured Merten while Janus paced around the room, a different creature entirely from the one he’d shared tea with that first day.
“Stand aside, August,” Janus snarled, looming over him.
“What the fuck is wrong with you,” August shot back, baring his teeth. His eyes glittered gold in the dim lantern light. “We’re all on the same side here!”
“He’s spreading lies—”
“He’s delivering a message from Erwin,” August shot back. “Erwin Smith, the leader of the Naturalists!”
Janus thrummed with anger. He growled and hissed to himself and paced the floor, over and over, as August clutched a wincing Merten to his chest.
“Tell Erwin no,” he finally grit out. He squatted before Merten, who was now rubbing his jaw. “We’re not going to be cowards, and we’re not going to back down. You got that, hm? Merten, my dear boy? Come on, that's barely a scratch.”
Merten grimaced. “Y-Yeah, sure thing boss.”
“Excellent!” Janus suddenly perked up, the perfect image of a bright-eyed scientist. The transition unsettled Marco, so much so he edged back onto the stairs and away from sight. “Now that that’s settled, how about we go through a few strategems? Franz, fetch my notepad.”
“He’s crazy,” Marco hissed after August had dragged Merten upstairs and began fussing over the bruises on his neck and jaw. “He’s crazy, why do we even listen to him?”
August's mouth became a tight line. “He was a brilliant scientist once, Marco, and he still has enough… lucid moments to help the Naturalists with their cure. We need an antidote to the suppressant's poison."
“But if he’s so brilliant, why’s he like this now?” Marco chose to ignore the antidote tidbit in favor of wrapping his head around the man he was to be assisting. “Is he sick, or…?”
“He was poisoned,” August said flatly, “by Sebastian Greigrich. I don’t blame him for not wanting anything to do with that bastard, but if there’s a chance he could help…”
“Hey, hey, no talking serious stuff with the new kid,” Merten overrode him, nudging August with an elbow. He cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulders, and then gave Marco a cool, steadfast look in complete contrast to August’s somber one. “Look, there’s a lot of bad blood between us and the Equalizers, but you gotta remember one thing, Marco. We’re here to help everyone, not go on some personal vengeance quest. We’re here to stop suppressants.”
August frowned and turned his head away.
“C’mon, August,” Merten put his head on his shoulder in a bid to lighten the mood. “Let’s not end this night on a bad note, huh? How about we show Marco the singing competitions in Furlough Alley?”
It was a strange reversal of their youthful hangouts, with Merten and not August nudging them all along. He even attempted to include Marco in every activity while staving off August’s dark mood.
It didn't work.
“Don’t worry,” he heard Merten whisper in the omega’s ear when he thought Marco wasn’t listening. “I won’t leave you alone with Janus, I promise.”
“You better not,” August said. He turned and looked at his lover with clear, serious eyes. “Or I’ll probably end up killing him myself.”
Merten laughed. Marco wasn’t sure why.
The way August held himself, the way he looked; he could see his friend was deadly serious, and it scared him.
--
By the time Marco had finally taken his place in the sea of trainees saluting their new commanding officer, he was ready. Weber had been shuffled off to the West Training Camp, where Marco would have also ended up if his“military connections” didn’t rearrange things so he ended up in the same class as his target: Jean Kirstein.
Fifteen, loyalty questionable, and young enough to be manipulated. It turned Marco’s stomach to think of it that way. He didn’t want to manipulate anyone; Janus had just asked him to watch over him. So that’s what he was going to do.
That’s what he was ready to do.
Until the trainee before him opened his mouth and introduced himself as Jean Kirstein, and Marco found himself staring his future treachery in the flesh.
I worry… that you will be asked to do things you don’t want to do, his father’s words crossed his mind. Jean was right here. He was real and breathing and young, yes, as curious and eager to please as Marco himself. Guilt flooded him.
But then Marco remembered the screeching man on the road and forced himself to focus. This was an underground war, and Marco couldn’t let everyone down over his own childish apprehensions. August and Janus and Merten and the rest of the team were depending on him to keep a close watch on this boy. He was ready.
--
And then he realized how much he liked Jean.
It wasn’t instant and it wasn’t easy, given the boy’s prickly nature and blustering overconfidence; but lying in the cot beside him one night, Marco realized he liked him. As a person. He liked Jean’s honesty. He liked Jean’s dry sense of humor, the fierce way he cared about things, and his surprising patience when the need arose.
He liked how Jean smelled: a undecipherable most of the time, but sometimes he caught a whiff of something rich and sweet like freshly brewed coffee. He liked how Jean slept, the tension around his eyes fading away so he looked his age. Young and tall and fine-featured, and he looked nothing like the Frederick Kirstein Marco had known.
And sometimes, when he softened enough to throw Marco a real smile and not a smirk, Marco felt his heart stop.
He liked that the most.
“Okay, so I know you love doing weird things for weird reasons,” Jean sighed after spitting into the sink. “But can you stop staring at me like that while I brush my teeth?”
“But I want to,” Marco leaned against the wall beside him.
“What, did you not have toothbrushes in weird hillbilly land?” Jean snarked, rinsing and gargling. He spat again and wiped his face with a hand cloth. “Because let me tell you, I’m not sleeping next to your rank breath in my face all night.”
“Let me use your toothbrush, then.”
“What? No, get your own!”
“But Jean,” and Marco made sure to widen his eyes as big and innocent as they could go, “us hillbillies ain’t got these fancy teeth-combs or whatever you call ‘em. Y’don’t want me to catch the rank, do ya?”
“Okay, no,” Jean shuddered, but handed his toothbrush over. “Don’t ever talk like that again. It’s creepy.”
“Hmm,” Marco said, and unabashedly began brushing his teeth with the borrowed toothbrush. Because this kind of inexplicable urge was getting more and more frequent, and he couldn't stop himself. He'd be compelled to do some bizarre thing, and he'd do it. Usually with Jean in the room. It was probably telling that he found using Jean’s toothbrush comforting rather than disgusting; and that he found Jean’s overall blasé attitude towards it even more heartwarming.
“Up to your standards, your highness?” he blew into Jean’s face after he finished rinsing, and Jean growled and pushed his cheek away with a hand.
“Gross, how do people think you’re a prince,” the boy complained. “You’re a creepy, invasive weirdo.”
“Thank you,” Marco grinned, and couldn’t help but laugh when an embarrassed Jean just punched him in the arm and fled.
He might have liked Jean, but he knew better than to think it could ever lead to anything. He'd accepted that. And then came Mylius, who threw a whole other wrench into Marco’s plans.
“How the hell do you even stand that loser?” Mylius sighed after unsuccessfully trying to convince Marco to make out with him in the back of the library. Marco, who liked Mylius enough as a friend but always felt a bit uneasy around him as a lover, just huffed and adjusted his collar. “I mean, he’s so—so arrogant, it drives me up the wall. Like who does he think he is?”
“Jean’s my friend, Mylius,” Marco said, voice coming out far colder than he’d intended. It wasn't the first time Mylius had bitched about Jean, but something about today made it less tolerable than usual. “And he’s a good person, and smarter than you think.”
“There you are defending him again,” Mylius rolled his eyes, too annoyed to catch Marco’s tone. “What, you think hanging out with him’s gonna pay off one day? Let me tell you, he’s probably never going to put out no matter how nice…”
He squawked when Marco suddenly slammed him against the wall. He tried prying Marco’s hand away from his collar and looked surprised when he found himself unable to.
“Enough,” Marco breathed. Mylius looked at him like he’d never seen him before. It was strange how many people forgot how highly Marco ranked amongst their classmates, especially because he wasn’t small. “Don’t talk about Jean like that. He deserves respect as much as anyone else, as does anyone else you take to bed.”
Mylius wheezed when Marco dropped him. He rubbed his collar and ducked his head in ruffled embarrassment; and for the first time since they started this whole mess, that uneasy-angry feeling inside Marco’s gut was gone.
“Which isn't me anymore, My,” Marco said. “I’m done.”
Mylius snorted incredulously, “Seriously, because of Jean?”
“Of course,” Marco said. Mylius flinched when he walked forward, and only seemed to relax minutely when Marco placed a hand on his shoulders. “Look, we work better as friends. You know that. And My… just confess to Nack already, it’s getting awkward to watch.”
Mylius flushed and batted his hand away. “Y-You’re one to talk! You going to ask Jean out anytime soon?”
Marco didn’t say anything He just walked away and tried not to clench his fists, because a single tell could give him away. Because the answer to that question was yes, he wanted to. He wanted to but he couldn’t, because Jean was his target.
Jean was meant to be a bargaining chip if need be, and Marco couldn’t forget that. He couldn’t.
--
And then his world fell apart for a second time, and Marco... Marco didn't know who to trust anymore.
--
Marco woke up and immediately wished he hadn’t.
The pain was bad. Very, very bad, enough that he felt his vision blur for a scary second before his brain begrudgingly decided to stay conscious. He tried to breathe and panicked when it felt… off.
“We had to put a breathing tube through your throat,” the familiar voice of Corporal Hanji floated above him. “So yeah, the air’s not going through your mouth. I think it’s burned on the inside, by the way. I’m not going to ask how you’re feeling, you probably feel like shit.”
Marco tried to talk and immediately discovered that yes, the insides of his mouth were burnt, that it hurt to talk, and he indeed felt like a freshly dumped pile of horse shit. Hanji fiddled with something above him and adjusted a painful object in his throat.
The breathing tube, Marco remembered, and actively fought the urge to hurl. Who the hell knows what would happen then.
“Our backup arrived and hauled us all back hours after Eren brought you here. Though these orderlies clearly don’t know what the hell they’re doing,” Hanji tore at tubes or wires or something like that in frustration. “They kept you stable enough for me to take a look at you, but come on. Harold gets the axe and they’re like chickens running about with their heads cut off.”
Marco opened his mouth. Winced. He lifted his right hand instead, the one that he could still feel. Hanji caught on quick and put her wrist within touching distance.
H…A…R…O…
“They found his body,” Hanji said before he could finish spelling. “Stabbed to death, which makes me think it was Annie. She came to me covered in blood just to tell us they were moving the boys tonight. If she hadn’t escaped…”
Annie. That reminded Marco of Jean, who’d gone to the instructor’s cabin to protect the girls. He moved his hand again, and Hanji obediently put her wrist back.
J…E…A…N…
The woman's expression froze. Marco stared at her long and hard, and then swallowed the fear in his gut.
J…E…A…N…
He wrote his name again, more forcefully this time, and Hanji just shook her head. She rolled down her sleeve and went back to fiddling with the tubes, and Marco wanted to get up and scream.
Before he could do anything he’d regret, Hanji regained her composure and leaned back in her chair.
“We saved Reiner, Bertholdt and Eren,” she said quietly. “I’ve been working with the crew to synthesize an antidote to whatever’s messing with their bodies. Their condition’s improved, but it’s not where we needed it to be.”
Marco hoped his eyes were conveying the Get on with it screaming in his head.
“We saved the boys,” she said, “but not the girls. Marco, they took them. They took the girls, and they took—they took Jean, but I swear…”
Marco’s chest heaved. No. No. He lifted his leg and almost fainted from the pain, but he didn’t care.
Hanji put a firm hand on his stomach. “…I swear, Marco, we’ll get him back.”
Marco panted for a long moment before twitching his hand again. Looking wary but defeated, Hanji let him write on her wrist.
W…H…O…
“Janus,” Hanji said immediately. She bared her teeth. “It’s Janus, he’s finally gone rogue, that bastard.”
Marco wanted to scream. Between Janus and Greigrich, for once Marco would have preferred Greigrich. The man held some sort of affection towards Jean, given that he’d helped him a few times; Janus, on the other hand, hated Jean for the same exact reason. Janus could kill Jean right now while Marco lay uselessly in a hospital bed.
He couldn’t move. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t even breathe without some tube stuck into his throat, and if that wasn’t mortifying on so many levels. Tears rose to his eyes but he refused to let them fall. There wasn’t a point.
It had already happened.
Marco could only work with what he’s got—and what he’s got right now wasn’t much.
Thankfully, he knew someone else who had more. He began writing on Hanji’s wrist again.
A…R…M…I…N…
“Armin? Armin Arlet?” Hanji looked confused. “He visited you a few times. I know he’s a friend of yours.”
Marco shook his head minutely.
B…R…I…N…
“Bring Armin here?” Hanji asked. Marco nodded. He glared when she shook her head. “Marco, no, you need to rest. You’re pushing yourself too much as it is…”
Marco tried writing on her wrist again, but she drew back. “Rest. You’ve sacrificed enough for the mission today; I’ll have Armin visit the next time you wake up, okay?”
Not okay. Jean was out there in the hands of some unstable madman, and Marco couldn’t do anything about it.
Lying in bed with nothing but the ceiling above him to keep him company, Marco wondered if this was how August had felt in the coal mine when Merten had been taken away from him. Helpless. Useless. Despairing.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
In a fit of macabre curiosity, he wondered where his friend was now.
--
“The bomb we planted on that wagon,” August Linden said quietly as he watched Janus and Franz piece together lab equipment on a rickety table. He’d been banned from assisting after the fourth flask he’d accidentally shattered against the tabletop. “We could have lost the other targets in the blast.”
“We don’t need all the targets,” Franz said tonelessly. He nodded at Janus and drew a box out from under the table. He opened it and revealed several small vials. “We just need a few. Enough to draw Greigrich out, and enough to rescue your precious Merten.”
“Merten is a valuable members of the Naturalists,” August bristled. “He’s not some useless bargaining chip…”
“He got himself captured,” Franz said unrepentantly. “He deserves whatever he gets. Just as your other boy did.”
August stepped back like he’d been slapped.
“Boys, boys,” Janus interrupted them in a mild tone before tensions could skyrocket. He carefully uncapped the vials from the box and emptied them into a flask before him. “This is a delicate operation. One wrong move, and who knows? We’ll be smoke and mirrors before we can even blink!”
“Sure boss,” Franz rolled his eyes. “Whatever you say.”
“And my darling August,” Janus said. He wrapped an arm around the omega’s waist, and August glared at him. “You ready to be a star?”
“Don’t touch me,” August wriggled away. “Just—get your formula over with, and we can start moving the prisoners. Please try not to lose it in the middle of your ‘delicate operation.’”
“You always play so hard-to-get,” Janus sighed. “I don’t blame you. My daughter had been the same way, you know.” And on that creepy note, he turned back to his experiments.
August escaped into the bathroom and slammed the door shut. He turned on the sink faucet and splashed his face with water. Then, almost hesitantly, he stared up at his dripping face in the mirror. Dirty blonde hair and deep-blue eyes, familiar features on a man who he sometimes didn’t recognize. His expression crumpled, and he wiped his eyes with the back of his hand.
It wasn’t his fault. But it was. But it wasn’t, August couldn’t blame himself for every mistake someone he cared about made, and he couldn’t have stopped the way things played out. Anger frosted over his heart, just as it'd done the last few weeks.
Except he could have stopped it. He’d known Marco had started having doubts after that fiasco in Karanese; he’d known it was a possibility that he had switched sides over Jean fucking Kirstein. He just hadn’t believed it.
August snarled at the mirror, because Merten couldn't afford him to be weak. He had to hold his head high, because no one else cared to rescue him from imprisonment.
And Marco, that goddammit stupid brat. That self-sacrificing, morally good asshole, he shouldn’t have even been near that wagon to begin with. They’d planned to take Hanji Zoe out before the rest of Erwin’s squad arrived, but instead of catching the good Corporal in the middle of the blast, it had been—
It had been—
He splashed his face with water again. He tried calming himself with deep breaths but began coughing instead. He stumbled back until he hit the opposing wall, and then he slid down to the floor.
We’re here to help everyone, not go on some personal vengeance quest, Merten had said once. August’s lip trembled. He wanted Merten desperately, needed the man by his side, but what would Mer think when he found out what he’d done?
Marco had been like his little brother, and August had let him die.
He'd let him die, and if August thought about it for too long, the guilt was going to tear him apart.