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Armin's house is the only one left that's safe, so that's where they gather.
The adults don't believe them; they ignore the obvious facts in favour of comfortable, rational lies. It doesn't matter much now, though, because most of them are dead.
Eren's mother was the first to die. His father, grief-stricken, dedicated himself to his work at the clinic, leaving his two children alone more often than not. In the end, despite what Eren says, Jean thinks that it isn't right to blame him - it is, after all, thanks to doctor Jaeger's research that they know how to kill /them/ at all.
After Carla, Connie's house is the next hit, starting again with his mother, and then his father not even a week later. Finding no other option, he moves in with Sasha and tries his best not to give up.
As awful as it sounds, Jean is happy that his own parents go quick. They're sick for no more than a few days before they pass, and by then the town is in a panic.
Sasha's father tries to talk her into moving to the city, but she doesn't wish to leave behind her friends and their home. When he dies, she stubbornly refuses to let the local church take the body for burial. Instead, she builds a bonfire and cremates him herself, crying the whole time. Jean, Eren, Mikasa, Armin, Connie and Marco all attend the 'funeral'. Connie is the only one who puts his hand awkwardly on her shoulder, rubbing gentle circles as she sobs openly.
It's three weeks into the epidemic and two days after Marco's passing when Jean sees Carla Jaeger loitering outside her old house while he's on his evening walk. He freezes up, thinks of calling out to her to see if this is some sort of cruel joke, but some horrible, twisted feeling in the pit of his stomach keeps him from it. Instead, he turns around, his palms slippery with sweat as he does the only thing he can think of; he goes to Armin's house and, without knocking or asking permission, opens the front door and slips inside.
He peers out the window to see Carla staring back at him, her face pale and sallow.
Jean doesn't think he's ever been more frightened in his life, and he quickly shuts the blinds. He's still shaking when Armin comes downstairs with a baseball bat, clearly not too pleased to see him ("Jean, what on earth?! It's almost midnight, what the heck are you doing?") and it takes him a long time to sort out his thoughts to the point where he's even somewhat coherent.
Armin is understandably skeptical, but Jean looks so spooked that he doesn't have the heart to throw him out. So he fetches him a blanket and lets him spend the night on the couch, hoping that he'll be more coherent in the morning.
With the morning comes the news that Eren has fallen ill, and Jean feels like what little sanity he has left is about to snap. When he sees Mikasa buying groceries from the market, her face carefully blank, he grabs her by the arm and tells her that this isn't right, that this isn't a sickness and /something/ is killing their friends.
She stares at him for a good long time, until jean starts to feel unnerved, before she tells him that she knows.
They leave the store separately, and it isn't until he's almost home that Jean finds the note telling him to meet her at Jaeger clinic.
He shows up, because there's nobody waiting for him at home anyways, and he desperately wants answers. Mikasa shows him doctor Jaeger's journals; a cold, clinical account of how he 'treated' an unwilling Mrs. Springer until her inevitable death. And then afterwards.
There are diagrams and written logs of experiments and his findings. There are videos, too, but Jean can't even watch five minutes into the first one before he's leaning over the trash can and puking. Mikasa's hand hovers over him, looking like she wants to comfort him, but she doesn't know how. Eventually she lets it drop to her side.
Nobody else knows about the videos. Mikasa told him and him alone, because she needed somebody she knew would believe her. Jean wonders why she has such faith in him, whys he would trust him of all people with this information. Sure, he had a crush on her years ago, but he can't lie and say that they're particularly close.
She looks up at him, and her hands are shaking.
"I need to kill all of them before Eren dies," is all she says, and Jean doesn't know how to reply to that, so he says nothing at all. Instead, he takes the journals, the videos, and shows up on Armin's doorstep just before sundown.
It takes all night to get through the video logs, and Jean knows he'll have nightmares for weeks. Armin is pale and his fists are clenched, but he's a lot stronger than Jean gives him credit for, because he didn't vomit once. Once everything is over, they sit together on the couch in silence for almost an hour, neither looking at the other.
Jean is the one to break the silence first, commenting that since Armin lives alone, at least he knows his house won't be compromised.
Armin turns and looks at him for a long time, teeth worrying away at his bottom lip before he says that he has a plan.
They start work in the morning; Armin goes to the grocery store to pick up on supplies, while Jean goes to fetch Sasha and Connie. Sasha believes the story far more easily than Jean expects, but then he gets a good look at the puffy bags under her eyes and the tight set of her jaw. Connie looks equally exhausted, and seeing him like that is almost alien.
The three of them pack up all of the food in Sasha's house and bring it over to Armin's, and then go back for her hunting gear. She doesn't have any guns, but her father's bow is better than nothing, even if she's the only one who can really use it.
It's almost sundown before the house is fully stocked and everything is set up for the three new occupants. Jean sees Mikasa standing outside Eren's window next door, a mallet in one hand and a piece of wood in the other. Her face is half-hidden by her scarf, but he can see her eyes, and that's enough to bring him over to gently place a hand on her shoulder. She doesn't even flinch at the contact.
"We're going to fight back," he tells her, because he doesn't bear to tell her the truth. They're not going to save Eren. It's unlikely that they're even going to survive the week, and the reality of the situation hangs over them like a dark, depressing cloud.
"Thank you," she replies, turning to face him, and Jean knows instantly that she knows. She knows she's running a fool's errand, but she has no choice but to keep with it because without it she has nothing left.
He's reminded of that time he first met her, years ago when they were in middle school. Jean was convinced that he had seen the most beautiful woman he'd ever meet in his life. He doesn't know why, but seeing her like this, full of pain and desperation but refusing to show it, refusing to give up, he feels that he must have been right all along.
She stiffens when he hugs her, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her in close, but after a moment she relaxes, her arms hanging limply at her sides. He's not her family, and he has no right to do this, he knows.
"Armin's house is safe," he says into her hair. "So... Come by when you need to rest. We'll make a room for you."
She's quiet, but then Jean can feel her relax, her muscles loosen ever so slightly as she whispers a quiet thank you. He lets go and she leaves without another word, her grip on the hammer so tight that her knuckles turn white. He doesn't tell her to be safe, because he knows it won't matter.
Armin is hovering by the door as Jean returns.
"I can't help her," he admits quietly, his head tilted forward so that his bangs cover his eyes. "I want to save Eren too, but I'm not... I'm not strong like she is."
He looks like he's about to cry, so Jean places a hand on his shoulder and shakes his head.
"You're not weak," he mumbles. "We wouldn't have a chance without you. You're just... a different kind of strong."
Armin nods his head while biting his lower lip, looking back inside to see Connie carving up stakes while Sasha chops up meat and vegetables for dinner. The portions are larger than they should be, considering their situation, but she just forces a smile onto her face and says that they need to eat well if they're going to make it through this.
**
Mikasa is strong. There's no doubt about it, in the way that she manages to take out at least five of the undead every night, sure as anything about her goal to kill them all. She always leaves the corpses in the town square, which incites panic among the few human residents left, but at least she's sending a message. When she kills Jean's parents, she covers their faces in the body pile, and while he thinks in his heart he should be angry, he knows that this is her way of doing him a kindness.
If she slays them, then he doesn't have to.
After all, even though they're in Armin's house, it doesn't mean they're safe. Old family and friends knock on the windows every night, asking to be let in. There are tears in Sasha's eyes as she shoots an arrow through Connie's father's head, and Jean waits until the smaller boy is safe and away in the back room before he goes outside to finish the job.
After three days of living at Armin's house, Marco shows up outside the picture window. The others are asleep, and Jean knows that he can't kill him by himself, so he pretends not to see him as he lays on the couch, closing his eyes and trying to go to sleep.
Marco smiles sadly and sits down under the window, resting his head against the sill. The glass is thin enough so Jean can hear him when he speaks, even though he doesn't want to.
"I'm sorry," is all he says before he goes quiet, content to sit there, and Jean tries to ignore him for an hour before he can't take it anymore and gives in.
"It's not your fault," he insists, and Marco laughs a little.
"You're really kind, Jean," he says, and Jean wants to tell him that he's wrong. A kid man doesn't kill his friend's father. A kind man doesn't let the girl he likes go about killing monsters on her own, because he's too afraid to go out and help her like he should.
A kind man doesn't let his best friend die, and then consider waking up the others so they can kill him again so Jean doesn't have to do it himself.
"I don't want you to let me in," Marco says after a lengthy silence, and Jean is both surprised and he isn't, because he knows Marco better than anybody else. "But if I don't come, they'll send somebody else. And... I don't want anybody to kill you, Jean."
Jean knows he should say something to that, but his tongue feels heavy and his brain can't seem to remember how to speak English. They spend the rest of the night in silence, until Marco leaves just before dawn without a word. Sasha wakes up shortly after, with an offhand comment that last night was unusually quiet as she makes breakfast. Jean feels his appetite leave and pushes away his meal.
Marco returns the following night, and the night after. He and Jean talk, mostly about the past and little, unimportant things. Sometimes they just sit in silence.
"They want me to kill you," Marco says on the fourth day. "You guys and Mikasa are the only ones left, so if I kill you, we win."
Jean frowns, because he doesn't want to talk about this. This is the absolute last thing he wants to talk about, and he's about to change the subject, but Marco cuts him off and continues anyways.
"Sometimes I want to kill you, too, Jean," he says, and Jean feels like he should be angry. He feels like he should be outraged that his best friend would say such a thing, or that he should be sad, upset. The only thing he feels, though, is tired. Overwhelmingly tired.
"I don't want you to die," Marco continues. "But sometimes... I feel like that's wrong. Maybe I just don't want anybody else to kill you, because I want to do it myself, so that you might come back. Sometimes I start thinking like that."
"Stop," Jean says, because he doesn't want to hear this anymore, but Marco doesn't stop.
"I'm sorry. I think... maybe I really am a monster. I tried to tell myself that I wasn't, that I wouldn't hurt you or anyone else no matter what happened, but..."
"Stop," Jean says again, and this time he does. There's a heavy silence that lasts almost ten minutes before Marco breaks it once more.
"Maybe I should go see Mikasa," he says, and Jean wants nothing more at that moment than to invite him inside and end it all.
But he doesn't. Because Sasha and Connie are relying on him. Armin needs him too, in a different sort of way. He's not suited to being a leader, but he's the closest thing to one that they have, so he can't give into something like this.
"I'm sorry," He says this time, and Marco blinks before shaking his head.
"Don't apologize, Jean. It's not your fault."
Marco leaves before waiting for dawn. Nevertheless, Jean can't sleep.
But it's not like that's anything new.