Chapter Text
0.
August Linden was ten years old and the coolest boy Marco had ever known. He had shaggy blond hair tied back in a loose ponytail, skin worn brown by days dancing around in the sun, and a constant mischievous grin that Marco envied. He lived next door and was the only older boy to bother with him; Marco had lots of friends, but August was special.
He wrapped the sheep skin tight around wooden poles, fingers deft and quick and assured. Once the glider was finished, he offered a hand to the five-year old boy gaping at him and grinned.
“You gonna come jump with us or keep standing there looking like a doof?”
Marco closed his mouth. “I’m not a doof.”
“Then come on,” August grabbed his hand, palm warm against Marco’s littler one. “The wind’s picking up soon!”
The hills of Jinae were a wondrous sight: grass just long enough to feel nice against bare skin but short enough that running was no trouble. Green and lively and going on for—for a long while. Marco wasn’t sure exactly how long it was, but he knew it was a lot.
“Ah c’mon, August,” one of the other boys—Merten?—groaned. “You brought the baby with you?”
“Marco’s not a baby,” August shot back. He wrestled the glider down to the ground and glared at the other boys. “Besides, he’s light enough that this glider can carry us both.”
“Your fault if he breaks a bone,” Merten grumbled back. He beckoned at Marco, who walked over obediently. “If you fall, try not to land on your neck or back, alright? Don’t want your parents coming after us for that.”
“I won’t,” Marco promised. For all the older boy’s talk of babies, they never treated Marco particularly bad. The younger boy was good at acting the right way; he never complained and he never did anything that might get on their nerves. He made sure of it. “Can I really glide with you guys today?”
“How ‘bout right now?” August whooped behind him, and before Marco could react, larger hands were grabbing his waist and lifting him in the air. He let out a surprised yell as August kept sprinting forward without stopping, Marco in his grip and glider strapped to his back and then—
They were in the air.
Marco’s stomach jumped into his throat as they soared over rolling hills, sheep gathered in the distance and the village of Jinae bustling down below. It was terrifying. It was amazing. A grin broke out on his face and he joined August’s laughter, whooping and spreading his arm and feeling, in all, like a magnificent bird.
“Knew you’d like the air, kiddo,” August grinned as they descended. They’d reached past the last hill and were looking to crash into the flower beds that surrounded Jinae. Hyacinths, so thick they were sometimes used as walls to divide the village. “Let’s just hope we don’t get stung by bees.”
And then they landed with a great crash, strong flowery scent surrounding Marco’s sense of smell until he couldn’t tell which way was up and which was down. Flowers, everywhere. A tang of metal too, beneath the hyacinth smell, but Marco was used to it by now. That’s just what Jinae smelled like, even if he didn’t like it all that much.
“Let’s go again!” Marco said while August gathered up the glider in his arms.
August smiled but suddenly froze, posture going from relaxed to rigid in an instant.
“Get down,” he said, ducking to the ground himself. Marco followed and turned around, catching a glimpse of two men climbing into a wagon.
The wagon came every week, as did one of the men: Sebastian Greigrich, dressed as he always was in a green jacket, black pants, and dark-colored boots. The only alpha Marco had ever met, and one he’d been actively encouraged to avoid.
The other man Marco didn’t recognize.
“Why don’t you want them seeing you?” Marco whispered, and August made a face.
“We’re not supposed to touch the flowers.”
“But we always touch the flowers.”
“Yeah, but not when they’re looking!” August jerked his head towards the wagon, which was now being led away by horses up the street. They were leaving Jinae. “Greigrich told some kid off last week for stepping on the hyacinths and her parents got fined. And don’t get me started on Kirstein.”
“Kirstein?”
“The other man,” August said. “He doesn’t come often, but stay out of his way.”
Marco didn’t really understand, but he knew better than to push it. All he knew was that August didn’t relax until the wagon was completely gone from view, and even then waited another five minutes before nodding at Marco. They could leave.
Relieved, Marco stood up without paying attention to the flowers around him and let out a cry when hot, stinging pain coursed up his hand.
“What did I say about bees?” August groaned as he watched Marco clutch his hand to his chest. He tossed the glider haphazardly into the flowers and offered his back for the younger boy to climb onto.
“You can’t leave your glider here,” Marco said, trying very hard not to cry. He was old enough to play with the big boys, he was old enough not to cry. “I can walk.”
“No you can’t, you big baby,” August laughed. “I can make a new glider anyway. C’mon, let’s get you home.”
“Thanks,” Marco said politely and wrapped his arms around the older boy’s shoulders. He piggybacked Marco all the way home, which was a feat, and didn’t even look that tired in the end.
August was the coolest person Marco had ever met.
Which was why, when Marco heard his parents talking about the Linden family moving away, Marco couldn’t believe it.
“You can’t leave Jinae,” he burst out when he caught up to the older boy. The blond was dismantling the decorations in front of their house, and when Marco peeked inside their open front door he could see wooden crates stacked about. It certainly looked like they were leaving. “No one leaves Jinae.”
“My parents worked something out with the officials,” August said. “We’re heading closer to Wall Sina.”
“Oh.” Marco said in a quiet voice. “Do you… want to go?”
August looked a bit… sad? But not crushed. “I’ll miss you guys, really. But it’s better for… for me if I go.”
"Why?” Marco couldn’t think of a single reason August would have to leave. He had loads of friends here. He did well in school. And he’d be leaving Merten too, who was his best friend.
“You’ll understand when you’re older,” August replied, and Marco frowned up at him. That was, like, the most used grown-up excuse ever to be used ever.
“I’m not a baby.”
“No,” August said. “But this is grown-up stuff. Just. I’ll see you around, okay?”
“I told you,” Marco scuffed the dirt with his feet. “No one leaves Jinae.”
The older boy smiled sadly down at him. “A few do. People like me. Those who get buddy-buddy with Greigrich. And the soldiers.”
Marco’s eyes lit up. “Serving the king!”
“That’s right,” August said. “They sometimes let the most dedicated ones out. The most loyal ones. And you’re loyal, aren’t you? Marco.”
The younger boy blinked up at August.
“Loyal enough to leave Jinae?”
Marco furrowed his brow, “You’re leaving Jinae.”
“That’s me. I’m talking about you. It’s a whole new world out there, little guy. Really different. It’s not going to be as… easy as it is here. In some weird way, we’re kind of protected here. It’s one of the perks. But the moment you step out, there’s going to be a lot of thing you won’t understand.”
“Titans?”
“I was thinking people,” August admitted. “But I guess titans count too. Kind of extreme though, isn’t it?”
“Things can be better out there.”
“Things can be worse,” August countered.
Marco considered this. He was little, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew there were bad things out there. Poverty. War. Starvation. Jinae was a little safe haven; everyone he knew lived comfortably, with no worry about any of those things. Far enough within Wall Rose to not care about titans either.
Life was simple.
But August was leaving, which was proof right there that life existed outside of this little bubble. An entirely new world waited for him out there, and Marco wasn’t a particularly cowardly boy.
“I’ll take the chance,” he decided. “I want to see the world for myself.”
August ruffled his hair. “Then I’ll see you in a few, won’t I? Mr. Soldier to Be.”
And Marco smiled.
--
Wall Maria fell when Jean was only thirteen years old.
“They’re not staying, are they?” Jean said while pressing his face to the window. Refugees marched, shell-shocked and pale, through Trost in droves led by Garrison soldiers. Some lay in carts with their—their limbs bitten off, bleeding red into bandages and suddenly the curtains snapped shut. “Hey!”
“I don’t want you seeing this,” his mother scowled.
“I’m thirteen,” Jean couldn’t help but whine, “I’m not a baby. Are the titans going to attack us too?”
He wasn’t exactly sure what he wanted out of the question. On one hand, he was a thirteen-year-old boy with a healthy fascination in the scary gross creepy. On the other hand, titans were a lot less terrifying hidden behind two walls and a hundred years of dull monotony.
“What are you talking about, Jean? Wall Rose will hold,” his mother said, convincingly resolute if not for the telltale wringing of her apron. “Now go wash your hands, I need you to help cut some vegetables.”
“Don’t want to,” Jean said, sliding down in his chair and crossing his arms in a moody, teenage sulk.
“Well the stew’s not going to cook itself and I need to start preparing the meat. Your father’s coming home for dinner.”
Jean flinched in surprise. His father never came home for dinner.
He slipped off the chair and went.
To be honest, hearing about some huge-ass titan breaking a hole into Wall Maria sounded like something out of a bad horror story. It didn’t even sound believable, much less real. It didn’t feel real, even with the chaos around him.
Refugees out the window. Worry clutching his mother within. She spent the entire day making pies and cakes and stews and acting like such a stereotypical omega, and Jean would’ve left her to it if she hadn’t insisted he help her. Probably to avoid thinking about how devastating an impact this was going to be on them.
He should probably savor the meat stew tonight. A food shortage seemed imminent in this brave new world, and Jean had never gone hungry before in his life.
Because his brain wouldn’t allow him to forget, his father was coming home.
Of course it’d take something disastrous like a wall being breached to warrant a visit home. Of course.
His mind couldn’t process so many panicking thoughts at once, so Jean forced himself to focus on wiping his hands on a clean cloth. He glanced up into his own worn eyes in the mirror and wrinkled his nose; his cheeks were too pale, the press of his lips too purposeful. He looked scared, which both surprised and annoyed him.
He was thirteen. A teenager, just old enough to seriously consider his future dynamic. Only babies got scared.
After wetting the cloth and wiping his face furiously, Jean placed it back on the rack and slipped out of the bathroom.
Muffled voices floated past the front door. Curious, Jean glanced around before sidling up the window in the entrance hall and peering outside. His heartbeat rocketed when he saw the bulky silhouette of his father speaking to a man in a green jacket just past their small, fenced-off frontage facing the street. It was unlike his father to be so near a crowd of rundown people, but the man with the green jacket seemed important enough—and possibly a higher ranking enough alpha—for him to break habit.
If Jean pressed close enough to the glass, he could hear what they were saying.
“We’re looking to have the shipments arrive by this afternoon. Two carts at most—enough to carry the crates but not enough to draw suspicion.”
His father’s face was mostly obscured, but Jean could see enough to know the exact look of bland passivity he wore. “Easily done. I admit, I was surprised to receive your message so… late. You know I prefer to have time to prepare.”
“Wall Maria fell today,” the man in the green jacket said. “None of us had time to prepare.”
Jean’s father mulled over this, passivity melting into an unhappiness Jean was acutely familiar with. “Alright. I had to bring the shipments from the storehouse into the backyard; I can hand them over right now. Though I have to say: in the twenty years I’ve been in this business, I’ve made it a point of not bringing this shit home.”
The man in the green coat cocked his head with sudden understanding. “Ah yes. You’ve got a boy, haven’t you? Unpresented?”
“Don’t misunderstand,” his father replied while leading them away, towards the alleyway leading to the backyard. “I wouldn’t mind it so much, but Celine would never forgive me.”
“Hell hath no fury like an omega’s rage,” the other man commented before they rounded the corner and disappeared from sight.
Jean peered after the empty frontage for a moment longer, both curious and uneasy about the conversation he’d overheard. Rushing home after spending months off handling negotiations and overseeing shipments and whatever else kingdom-traveled merchants did just because a Wall collapsed and his family needed support?
No.
Jean knew his dad was here on business. That was obvious. What business he couldn’t say, because his dad had always been unwilling to teach him an iota of merchanting despite being his only son.
“This isn’t your kind of job,” he told Jean bluntly the one time he’d dared to venture close to one of the carts and press a hand to smoothed wood. It was filled to the top with thickly padded crates, and that was all Jean saw before his father dropped the canvas back down and tied it securely shut. He handed Jean a packet before he could open his mouth and confirm that yes, his father was talking about him ‘not being an alpha’. “Now go give this to your mother. Now.”
How do you know I won’t present as an alpha, Jean had wanted to say, because the one thing about unpresented limbo was that everything was possible. He could be anything.
Clearly, though, he couldn’t be good enough.
Jean slipped away from the window before enough time passed for his mother to become suspicious. Thankfully, stress cooking had taken so much of her attention that she didn’t even notice Jean letting off a bit of steam by chopping the carrots with the ferocity of a tween wronged. Just hummed to herself and bustled about before taking his finished work and dumping it into the stew.
Jean sulked his way back to his chair and waited like a criminal at the gallows.
His father appeared ten minutes late to dinner, unapologetic as usual and looking completely unruffled if not for the slight smudge on his shirt collar.
It looked like he’d been spattered with oil—oil that, when Jean made the mistake of leaning too close to him and receiving an offended glare in return, smelled kind of like hyacinth. Perfume?
No. There was a strange metallic undertone to the smell, almost like the hyacinth was trying to mask it and not quite succeeding.
Whatever it was, Jean immediately recoiled like he’d been slapped.
This caught his parents’ attention, which Jean didn’t want at all. Really.
“Finish your stew,” his father said after a long, awkward moment. “Then go to your room.”
“Frederick,” his mother said unhappily, but didn’t protest further.
Jean gulped down his stew and fled, but not before he saw his father almost sub-consciously touch the smudge on his collar with a strange, troubled expression.
--
Jean wondered if he was an omega.
The thought came while reading romance novels by candlelight in his room, sulking from yet another mortifying ordeal where his mom tutted and soaked his bruises with a warm towel even after he’d tried batting her off. He was fourteen. He got acne and awkward boners and none of his clothes fit, he was far too old to have his mommy kiss his boo-boos better.
Sure, Jean wasn’t stupid enough to think she’d missed the sheer amount of injuries he was occurring in such a short period of time. She just worried too much. He could handle it.
If only you’d kept your mouth shut, they’d told him. If only you just listened.
Firecracker omega protagonists in trashy romance novels would beat those idiots’ heads in, then go flouncing off to the one and only alpha they’d lower their head and submit to. Sickeningly romantic, but that came with the genre. Point was, they didn’t take any shit.
Like Jean.
It certainly explained why he didn’t want to take the reins so much as shove Matthias Tchuberg down a flight of stairs and find someone else worth his while.
“They’ve been bullying him,” he heard his mother whisper to his father on a rare night when he’d been home without the threat of, you know, a wall falling down. His father sighed and placed his hat on the table, obviously annoyed at being troubled with Jean’s antics so soon after arriving. Oh yes, sitting in a cart coordinating sales as a merchant was such a pain. “They’ve been following him after class, beating him up because they think he needs to be taught a lesson—”
“Well what do you want me do about it, Celine?” his father had said wearily. “Boys will be boys. They just get nastier, meaner and subtler over time. If Jean can’t handle them now, he’ll have to learn how.”
“But—“
“The Tchubergs are an important supplier of mine. Jean should learn to play nice.”
“It’s not Jean’s fault, Frederick. Can’t you just talk to Jacob Tchuberg? Please?”
“No,” his dad said, voice clipped in a tone Jean recognized as This Discussion is Over. “I’m sorry, Celine. I can’t.”
“Why not? Your son isn’t worth as much as your business contact, is that it?”
“Celine—”
“You aren’t the one who has to sit here every night patching him up and looking at every wound and going to meetings with his teachers because those boys antagonize him in class too. You aren’t here to see this,” his mother’s voice broke, and Jean became acutely aware of how his father’s absence affected her too. He hadn’t thought of it that way before, and his face flushed with shame. “So forgive me if I ask you to do one little favor before you waltz off again.”
“I do what I do to feed this family,” his dad snapped back. “You know that.”
His mother said nothing.
After an angry beat, his father picked up his hat, placed it on top of his head, and walked out the door.
Jean’s mother sat down in a kitchen chair and placed her head in her hands, looking small and alone and god. Sometimes, Jean really did wish he could pretend being an alpha was a possibility, because his father dragging his mother into this battle wasn’t fair.
Life as an omega or a beta was perfectly fine outside the Kirstein household; hell, by being a guy alone Jean had a leg up on practically half the population. Girls always had it rougher, even the alpha ones, which was bullshit because an alpha female on a rampage was so much fucking scarier than an alpha guy with muscles.
Alpha girls were just so viciously crafty.
But his dad had long made his position on omegas clear. Male omegas were a building block. A half of a whole. Coupled alpha-omega pairs were prized above everything else, but an unbonded male omega wasn’t seen useful by himself as a beta or an alpha.
Jean thought his dad was full of shit.
No one else agreed with that kind of backwards theology. Anton down the street could prove how half a person like him could still kick his dad’s sorry alpha ass halfway to Tuesday. Not that it’d change his mind. To Frederick Kirstein, his word was law—even if it meant his son fuming in the stairwell and his wife crying in the kitchen.
Jean had had fourteen years to get used to him not giving a fuck, but it still hurt.
When he couldn’t take hearing his mother’s quiet crying anymore, Jean walked upstairs to his bedroom and slipped under his covers. Rather than lighting a candle and cracking open a book as he usually did, he remained motionless in the dark.
--
When Jean Kirstein turned fifteen, he enlisted in the military.
“Are you kidding me? The military police?” Matthias Tchuberg had jeered the week before he’d left, pinning Jean down with his sheer size. “You’ll wash out in a week. I want to see your precious daddy’s face when he realizes how you’ve disappointed him. Again.”
“Shut the fuck up!” Jean had snapped before sinking his teeth into the boy’s wrist. Matthias had howled and let him go, which would have been an accomplishment if Matthias’s two friends hadn’t come barreling towards them as backup.
Jean, as usual, had fought alone.
He didn’t feel babyish when he’d crawled home and his mother washed the grime from his splotchy face with a wet cloth; in fact, Jean was far too tempted to break and cry into her shoulder right then. He held himself together with sheer pride, hissing when she bandaged the sprained wrist and wiping medicine onto his cuts.
One more week, Jean had chanted to himself like a mantra. One more week and I’m out of here.
If Matthias’s dad weren’t so chummy with Jean’s, he still would have gone over their house in the dead of night and threw the fat bastard out a window.
So it was refreshing seeing everyone stripped to its barebones in training camp. They weren’t kids with families and pasts and histories. They were soldiers.
Brutally efficient soldiers. Jean couldn’t help but gape as he was led past the enlistment booth to gather his new belongings. It was one thing to hear about how structured careers took full advantage of instinctual alpha-beta-omega dynamics to organize their squads; it was another to see it in action. To smell it.
Nothing like good old physical compatibility to tie a group together.
And if he did present as an omega, well. He didn’t need an alpha or a beta, but working in a pair seemed inevitable in such a instinct driven environment. He hated proving his father right, but he didn’t care. He was out.
Also, Jean was optimistic. Of all the whack job trainees heading into the camps every year, there had to be at least one good enough for him to want to cede control to, as impossible as that idea sounded right now.
Besides, a tiny voice whispered in the back of his mind as he slipped on the tan jacket over his shirt and stared at the image he made in the mirror, Maybe it’d be nice not to be alone for a change.
--
It was the month after his fifteenth birthday when Marco received an ostentatiously packaged letter, bright green-and-yellow wrapping paper standing out like a beacon amongst the other, more tasteful letters.
The courier smirked when she handed it to him, but didn’t say anything unfriendly; Marco got along very well with pretty much everyone in the village. He probably had an admirer, that’s all.
Marco himself didn’t think much of it, until he set the package down and realized he recognized the pattern. It was the same as the Linden’s tablecloth, back when they used to live in Jinae.
He went to his room and tore it open, revealing a letter written on thick paper and a—oh. Oh my god.
It was an acceptance letter into the military, for the enlistment of cadet Marco Bodt into the 104th Training Corps. Marco’s hands shook as he unearthed the bulk of his package: the military coat and a pair of neat, pressed pants. The boots would be given to him upon arrival.
Bundled up in the coat and pants was a silver ring, plain but for its pattern of interlocking circles.
Marco didn’t need to read the letter to know who this was from, but he was eager to read it anyway.
Hey, kid, August’s messy scrawl stated, if you still want to see the world, the door is open. There’s a price, but it’s worthwhile, I swear. Write me back. I worked real hard to convince my boss to break you out; you know as well as me how hard that is. The ring is a mark of favor from a friend of ours, and will identify you as one of us. Show it to the right people and they’ll help you. Hope to see you soon.
It was unsigned
Marco had a lot of friends in Jinae. His family bustled about easily, father working in an office by day and coming home to a warm, loving home at night. He’d be on the fast track to working alongside his dad if he stayed, which wasn’t a bad life. Not rich, but comfortable. Plenty of food, warm companionship, and security to last him until he keeled over and died.
Well, that was morbid.
It was the first time he’d heard from August in a few years, but it wasn’t like he’d forgotten him. People don’t leave Jinae—not unless someone very high up owed a favor, as the Linden’s had. Marco supposed he should be scared at having his world interrupted like this, but he wasn’t. Marco didn’t scare easily.
He put the ring onto his right middle finger and raised his brow at the fit. It was perfect. It also felt like a lock around his heart—a physical reminder of the price he was to pay. Everything had a price; the question was if one was willing to pay it. He unfolded the jacket and went into the washroom. Eyes not leaving the mirror, he carefully put it on and smiled at his reflection.