Archive of Our Own ^beta

The situation was this: Eren Yeager frequented Tumblr, belonging to a variety of popular fandoms such as Superwholock, the Avengers, and Merlin. He was known for adding comments in all caps to everything he reblogged, which was generally regarded as obnoxious, but his impassioned feelings-dumps gave enough other people feelings that he earned himself a fair amount of followers.

Eren did have a Youtube channel, which was called YeagerBomb—a clever name, if he did say so himself. He only had a few videos uploaded, from when he felt like properly recording a cover of some pop song or other. These videos had a fair amount of views because Eren could, as it turned out, sing and play guitar very well, not to mention the fact that a lot of girls (and some guys) thought he was super cute. But Eren did not often go on Youtube, except sometimes to watch funny nigahiga videos, to get homework help from Learn Shit (an amusing and vulgar but educational channel run by two friends named Erwin and Levi—and all the vulgarity of the channel came from Levi), and to gush over the short films put out by his best friend, Armin Arlert.

ArlertProd was Armin’s channel, and his beautifully edited short films were widely admired. Armin also had a Tumblr, where he mostly reblogged gifs from sitcoms like Community, Friends, and How I Met Your Mother, everything Harry Potter-related, memes, and pictures of cute animals. Unlike Eren, however, Armin spent a good deal of time on Youtube and was subscribed to many channels, such as the vlogbrothers, Wong Fu Productions, SourceFed, and minutephysics.

Despite wasting many hours on Tumblr himself, Eren was curious about his friend’s Internet habits, seemingly so different from his own.

“What do you even watch on Youtube all day?” he asked.

“Um, I don’t know,” Armin said. “A little bit of everything.”

“But like what?” Eren asked, insistent.

Armin was slightly annoyed, for his interests and the channels he subscribed to were so varied, but in the end he just said, “Here, uh, try watching some of these videos,” and gave him the link to the vlogbrothers, who were his favorite—and for a moment, he entertained the idea of Eren being a nerdfighter like him; maybe they could have matching DFTBA shirts.

He did not expect Eren to stay up all night watching vlogbrothers videos.

The next day, Eren had it in his head that he could make his own vlog. He did not want to go it alone, though, oh no. For this reason, he sought out his best friend, one Armin Arlert.

He found him at Starbucks, as he knew he would, because Armin had a horrible weakness for their Vanilla Bean frappuccinos. (Eren always said that Starbucks was ridiculously overpriced, but if he said he didn’t buy something whenever he went, he’d be lying.)

Right there, in the middle of Starbucks, Eren got down on one knee in front of Armin.

“Eren?! What are you—”

“Armin,” he interrupted. “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I’ve decided that this is something I really want to try. I know it’s a lot of commitment, and maybe it’s a little bit crazy, so of course there’s no one else I’d rather try this with than you. And so, Armin,” Eren said, taking his best friend’s hands in his own, “will you…be my vlog brother?”

A crowd had formed around them. Armin stared down at Eren for several long moments, wondering why exactly they were best friends.

“Um,” he said, “no.”

Although Armin was glad that Eren had taken an interest in Youtube, he was busy with his own personal projects and didn’t really feel like joining Eren in a whim that would last a month, if that.

“Wow,” Eren said, and left, determined to make a vlog on his own—but not before purchasing a Double Chocolaty Chip frappuccino.

“Hey guys! Eren Yeager here. No cover this time, sorry. But! You’ll be excited to know that I’ve decided to start my very own vlog! That’s right, and it’s all thanks to my best friend, Armin—who has, unfortunately, refused to be in this video. That’s okay, I don’t need him, anyway. But you should still check out his channel, ArlertProd, ‘cause he’s really good. I’ve conveniently provided a link in the description box.

“Anyway, taking inspiration from the vlogbrothers, whom Armin introduced me to last night—thank you, Armin—and who by the way are the reason I decided to start this vlog in the first place, for my first video I’m going to do a ‘Thoughts From Places’ type thing. Except I’m not anywhere particularly special right now, so… ‘Thoughts from My House’! Let’s do this.

“Okay, so, this is my bedroom, and, uh… The walls are green, as you can see, and I think that’s really representative of my growth as a person, and, uh, the way I am continuing to grow. The slightly messy state of the room, typical of a teenager—the clutter and confusion and chaos that is the transition from teenagerdom to adulthood.

“Wow, this really takes me back to senior year lit.

“Sorry, off-topic. Okay, what else is in here… Well—the window, the curtains drawn all the way back—perhaps revealing some sort of inner longing for escape—”

“Maybe the closed closet door means something.”

“Oh, heyyy, Mikasa! And this, watchers, is my next-door neighbor, Mikasa. Come say hi—hey, where are you going? Oh, never mind. You can meet her later. She’s a really good friend, and we’ve known each other since we were kids. Anyway, I’d better wrap this vid up so I can go see why she’s here. So where were we? My bedroom.

“Well, this has been my bedroom since I was still a little baby in diapers. I suppose it’s interesting to see how it’s evolved and changed with me over the years—well, not the room itself, but the contents of it, you know. The posters on the walls, and the like. Does my room mean something besides itself? Is anything simply what it is? Maybe everything is a reflection of something…or something deep like that. Yeah, maybe I’m not cut out for this analytical stuff.

“But, you know, I think that was pretty good for a first video. So, yeah. Subscribe for more stuff! And don’t forget to check out Armin’s channel! Yeager out.”

Armin thought Eren’s first video was highly embarrassing, but he was a good enough friend to (reluctantly) promote him back in the description of his next upload.

And thus began Eren’s vlogging career.

~*~

The situation was this: Jean had been trying to work his way up to Youtube fame since he was in high school. It had started with a group of him and his friends, making what they thought were the most hilarious skits and uploading them on a channel called Jean and Friends.

Jean and Friends was now simply Jean (sometimes guest-starring Marco), but the old name had stuck, because he’d continued uploading videos on that account and only later thought that he should have maybe made a new one. By then, he’d had too many subscribers (objectively not that many, but a number he was proud of nonetheless) to want to start over fresh, and so, the name Jean and Friends remained as a reminder of his shameful past (all embarrassing old videos had long since been deleted, of course).

He didn’t make any single type of video, but dabbled in everything, trying to find his forte. He thought maybe he could collaborate with friends on a video, but when he asked Connie and Sasha, they laughed him off and went back to filming their own highly successful comedy skits. Connie did, however, suggest that Jean try a gaming video—run commentary as he played, say, QWOP.

Jean had never been more frustrated with a game in his life.

Hair tutorials were a bust, too, because even though Jean thought his hair was the coolest thing to grace the planet, no one else seemed to agree. Well, it was their loss, because Jean knew his hairstyle was going to be the next big thing…soon.

Attempts at cute videos of his German Shepherd, reviewing movies, discussing theories for TV shows he watched—Jean tried them all.

It wasn’t like he was a total unknown; his videos did get views, and Jean knew he should be happy with his number of subscribers, but he wasn’t.

One reason for this was the rising popularity of one YeagerBomb. His videos, in Jean’s humble opinion, sucked: Their pacing was awkward, they were choppily edited, and he wasn’t even interesting in the first place. And yet he had gained as many subscribers as Jean had over the course of a few years in the space of a few months.

Feeling this to be completely unfair, Jean decided that it was perfectly reasonable to make a vague text post on Tumblr complaining about bad vloggers getting more attention than quality vloggers.

Merely minutes after making this post, Jean got an ask, a message from one of his followers, agreeing with him and reassuring him that he was sure that Jean’s videos were great.

Unbeknownst to Jean, this follower was Eren, who had found Jean through their mutual fandom of Supernatural, and who, though he’d never watched Jean’s videos, thought he seemed like a pretty cool person and wanted to make friends with him. Jean recognized Eren’s URL as belonging to the Tumblr user who added obnoxious caps-abusive comments to some of his edits and made the post even more popular.

Feeling encouraged and emboldened, not realizing that the person who had left a message in his askbox was the same person who made him seethe with jealousy and rage, Jean replied, “YEAH, I mean, look at this loser.”

When Eren realized that Jean had linked to his very own channel, YeagerBomb, all amiable feelings towards this person who made nice edits and gifs evaporated.

In fact, the next message he sent to Jean read, “hEY FUCK YOU THAT’S MY CHANNEL,” exactly like that.

Jean, upon reading this, had a brief oh, shit moment, but then he realized how lucky he was to have been granted this opportunity to confront his nemesis like this.

moveslikejaegger asked: hEY FUCK YOU THAT’S MY CHANNEL

wooow well you know what your videos SUCK ASS like what the hell you don’t deserve half your subscribers

moveslikejaegger asked: WTF ARE YOU JUST JEALOUS BC I HAVE MORE SUBSCRIBERS THAN YOU DICKBUTT

NOT AT ALL ASSHEAD I’M JUST SAYING YOUR VIDS ARE SO BAD AND IT’S LIKE THERE ARE OTHER PEOPLE WHO TRY REALLY HARD AND THEIR VIDS AREN’T HALF BAD AND THEY GET SOME VIEWS YEAH SURE BUT THEN DOUCHEBAGS LIKE YOU SHOW UP WITH YOUR POORLY-EDITED SHIT AND GET SO MANY VIEWS AND THAT’S JUST REALLY UNFAIR.

moveslikejaegger asked: NO I THINK YOURE JUST JEALOUS

YEAH WELL FUCK YOU TOO.

ALSO YOU KNOW IT’S NOT REALLY NICE WHEN YOU ADD YOUR LONG-ASS COMMENTS TO MY EDITS LIKE WHAT THE HELL YOU’RE JUST BEING AN ATTENTION WHORE AND DRAWING THE FOCUS FROM THE EDIT LIKE WOW WHAT A DICK MOVE.

moveslikejaegger asked: PEOPLE LIKE MY COMMENTS ASSHOLE I MAKE YOUR POSTS POPULAR

I SAID YOU’RE DRAWING ATTENTION FROM THE ORIGINAL POST MORON AND ALSO I HATE YOUR COMMENTS

Jean said that, but in all honesty, he had reblogged his own edits with added commentary from Eren on more than one occasion. He resolved not to tell Eren this. Of course, Eren already knew this, because he saw when Jean reblogged those posts, and it always gave him a fluttery feeling and made him think, Senpai noticed me!

Jean wasn’t giving him any fluttery feelings right now, though.

moveslikejaegger asked: I JUST WATCHED SOME OF YOUR VIDS AND THEYRE HORRIBLE AND NOT FUNNY NO WONDER YOU DONT HAVE MANY SUBSCRIBERS

WOW, I HAVE JUST ABOUT AS MANY AS YOU, ASSHAT.

Jean, who was looking through Eren’s Tumblr, was incensed to find that they shared many of the same fandoms. Not only that, in addition to adding comments to nearly everything he reblogged, Eren also made a lot of text posts; Jean seethed at how many notes they had. Most of the posts were so utterly ridiculous and, in Jean’s opinion, undeserving of all the attention they got.

For dubious reasons that made sense to Jean at the time—it is true that anger can cloud one’s judgment, after all—Jean clicked the ‘+’ follow button on the top right corner of the page.

everyonepronouncesmynamewrong started following you

WTF?? go away asshole

Jean replied, “YOU’RE THE ASSHOLE, ASSHOLE,” and thus began the online hate-relationship of Jean Kirschtein and Eren Yeager.

~*~

Following Eren Yeager on Tumblr undoubtedly made the life of Jean Kirschtein exponentially more stressful, and yet he couldn’t bring himself to unfollow him.

Jean realized that Eren needed someone to knock him down a few pegs. For this reason, Jean was always at the ready to reblog all of Eren’s stupid text posts so he could point out exactly why he was wrong. Eren would, of course, reblog him to cuss him out and argue why Jean was wrong, and so, you see, Jean really couldn’t just unfollow Eren and allow him to go back to his simple life of unchallenged dumbassery.

Eren hadn’t unfollowed him either, Jean noticed. But also, instead of continuing to just reblog fandom posts, he started reblogging Jean’s personal posts and selfies, too, and added insulting comments to them. It took all of Jean’s willpower to resist the urge to return the favor on Eren’s selfies, but he didn’t want to give Eren more notes, damn it.

They were both losing and gaining followers left and right, gaining people who loved to crowd around with their metaphorical popcorn and watch the drama unfold and losing the ones who were sick of that shit.

And so that was life for a while, Eren watching Jean’s videos and leaving rude comments on them and then messaging him on Tumblr about how much they sucked, because doing just one was not enough. Jean, meanwhile, watched Eren’s videos and criticized his shitty editing and awful taste in music while angrily eating cupcakes because his baking tutorials were really good, okay.

It was probably a downward spiral from the start, but it all really went to hell when Eren made a video addressed to Jean.

“Good morning, asshole. Yeah, you. I’m talking to you, Jean Kirschtein. Yes, I pronounced your name wrong on purpose. Asshole. And actually, not good morning, I take it back. I hope you have a shitty morning. Or had. Whatever.

“Anyway, I just want you to know that you’re an asshole who has no life. I mean, seriously? You make it pretty clear that you hate me, and then you just go and follow me on Tumblr. And then you start reblogging all my text posts so you can nitpick every little detail. How long does that take you, anyway, all those replies? How pathetic can you be to waste so much time on that? In-fucking-credible.

“Yeah, so, this video is basically to call you out on your shit. And you are so full of shit. I have no idea what you hope to accomplish by trying to piss me off all the time. It’s not like I ever did anything to you. Personally, I mean. Because I know you’re just jealous of my number of subscribers.

“Did you just not get enough hugs as a child? I mean, what the hell.

“Oh by the way, are you wondering why I’m saying this in a video and not a message in your inbox? IT’S BECAUSE I CAN EXPRESS MYSELF BETTER LIKE THIS, ASSHOLE. And also because Tumblr character limits are stupid shit and I’m not sending you a fanmail on principle. Because of the name of the function. But mostly because it’s a lot easier to yell at you like this, SO DON’T QUESTION ME, ASSBUTT.

“And I have a lot of yelling I want to do, okay! You’re just a really jealous and petty person! And you’re just dragging me into your stupid personal drama! See, you’re pissed ‘cause you’ve been trying to become Youtube-famous, and I did it and you couldn’t, and now you’re trying to take it out on me. God, you are so pathetic.

“But, you know, I used to be like you. Clearly I am a better person now—and, no, I don’t feel bad for publicly humiliating you like this, because you’re stupid and annoying, and this is just what you need. Trust me.

“Geez, I’m already tired of this. I have a lot more I could say, but you’re really not worth the effort. In conclusion, fuck off. Yeager out.”

Upon seeing this video, Jean, of course, could do nothing but make a video in reply.

“‘Sup, dickface. Yes, you. Eren Yeager, the biggest dickhead in the universe as we know it. I’m sorry to say I had a great morning, but I hope you have a shitty…whatever time it is where you are.

“So, anyway, Eren, who exactly is the asshole with no life? I mean, I replied to a few Tumblr posts. You made and edited a whole video addressed to me. If that’s not no-life behavior, then I don’t know what is. Come on, someone tell me, what’s no-life behavior? Maybe one of my many subscribers can help me out by leaving a comment below.

“And for the record, I’m not being a hypocrite. I’m only making this short video in response to yours to demonstrate how utterly fucking dumb it is. Also, just so you know, this video is going to fuck up the consistency of my channel, so you’d better appreciate it. This is only a one-time thing. So, bye, and have a horrible day.”

Jean was pretty satisfied with his video, but then Eren made another response to point out how Jean had blatantly avoided actually replying to anything Eren said, and Jean made an exception to the whole ‘one-time’ thing, and then another, and another, until biweekly videos addressed to Eren Yeager became an unofficial feature of Jean and Friends.

~*~

Now, obviously, Tumblr being Tumblr, shipping couldn’t stay out of the equation for long. There was just no way.

It started with joke comments from Connie and Sasha, and probably other miscellaneous Tumblr users as well. Before either of them could really process it, a community dedicated to the shipping of Eren Yeager and Jean Kirschtein had formed.

But the universe worked in funny ways, and, as it turned out, this would be the catalyst for Eren and Jean becoming friends.

Eren would message Jean: DUDE PEOPLE ARE SHIPPING US

Jean would privately reply: UGH I KNOW IT’S DISGUSTING

Eren would send another ask: DO YOU HAVE A SKYPE YOURE THE ONLY ONE I CAN COMPLAIN TO ABOUT THIS

And thus Eren and Jean exchanged Skypes.

Conversation over chat lasted for approximately two minutes before Eren gave up and declared that he’d much rather just speak to Jean, and initiated a video call.

It wasn’t as weird as Jean feared it would be, but in hindsight, a lot of their conversations were face-to-face, in a sense. Eren had taken to starting his videos with, “Good morning, asshole,” and then ending them with, “See you on Thursday, asshole,” as if they were a more vulgar vlogbrothers (they weren’t). Or were they? Jean was horrified to realize that he started many of his own response videos with, “Good morning, dickface.”

Well, he could freak out about that later. Their weird pseudo-vlogbrothers situation was the least of their worries.

“I mean, I get shipping. Hell, I have my OTPs, you know that,” Eren ranted, “but shipping real people? That’s just weird! And gross! And uncomfortable!”

“No, I get it,” Jean said, resolving not to mention the period of time when he read every Zachary Quinto/Chris Pine RPF in sight. It was a phase.

Eren, meanwhile, was deliberately repressing memories of the time he read Tyler Hoechlin/Dylan O’Brien RPF. It was only that one day, okay.

“I’m so weirded out right now,” Jean continued. “Why are people shipping us? I hate your stupid face!”

“Wow, was that really necessary? I hate you, but your face isn’t entirely disagreeable.”

“Oh,” Jean said, dumbfounded. “Really? Thanks—”

“Your hair is fucking stupid, though.”

“What the hell?” Jean was going to admit that Eren was kind of cute, but not anymore. “I think you’re just jealous of my rad ’do.”

Eren dissolved into giggles. “No. God, no. No. No. No way. Holy crap, no.”

“Okay, six ‘no’s is a little excessive,” Jean said.

“Not even. Not enough, more like,” Eren retorted. “I will never be jealous of your hair. No one will ever be jealous of your hair.”

“Why am I talking to you again?”

“Because people are shipping us! And it’s weird.”

“Oh, right. Yeah. I saw some fanart. Bad fanart,” Jean said. He shuddered at the memory.

“Dude,” Eren said, “I saw meta. Under a gifset. Meta about how we are obviously in love and probably banging despite being several states apart. Fucking ridiculous.”

“No, wait, I saw that,” Jean said. “You reblogged it and shouted at them.”

“Damn right I did! It was so wrong.”

“That was some intense meta though, holy shit. People have no lives.”

“I know, right. Do they really just spend all day analyzing other people’s relationships?”

“Well, to be fair, that’s what we do, except with fictional characters,” Jean pointed out.

“…That’s true.”

They were both silent for a moment as they contemplated their lives.

“So…does that mean people imagine us doing…you know?” Eren asked, and Jean balked.

“Okay, this is making me uncomfortable, can we talk about something else?”

“Yeah, sure, like what?”

“I dunno, Supernatural.”

“Oh my god, so that new episode—”

“Oh my god, Dean—”

“Right?! No, listen—”

Eren was very animated when he talked. Jean knew this, but it was somehow different seeing it in real time, the way he’d throw his arms up and out, and sometimes actually jump up from his chair in excitement and slam his hands onto his desk. Even when he was sitting and not gesticulating wildly, he was always shifting his position, or drumming his fingers on his desk. It was like his body always had to be in motion. Jean wondered if Eren ever calmed down. He was probably a kicker when he slept—why was he thinking about that.

“Are you even listening to me, Jean?!” Eren demanded. His feelings for fictional characters and particularly the pairing of Dean Winchester/Castiel were very important, and he didn’t like Jean spacing out while he was trying to talk about them.

“What? Totally,” Jean said. “Destiel should be canon.”

“I ship them so hard,” Eren groaned. “Just—Dean’s been through so much shit, and I just want someone to love him unconditionally, and Cas does, and Dean loves Cas, too, like, he always forgives him and he fucking prays to him all the time and ugh. Fuck. But it’s never going to be canon, fucking teasing, heteronormative—”

Eren was getting upset. Jean noticed this, and so he quickly said, “Hey, hey, it’s okay, there’s always fanfiction, right? What’s your favorite Destiel fic?”

Eren perked up, a smile tugging at his lips. “You want me to pick just one?”

And so the two talked about fanfiction, and then moved on to other topics, and before they knew it, hours had passed, and it was twelve a.m.—well, twelve a.m. Eren-time; it was three a.m. where Jean lived.

By now, Eren felt a lot nicer towards Jean than he had since the first time they had spoken to each other. Jean, too, felt that Eren wasn’t nearly so bad as he first thought.

He thought about how Eren had initially only contacted him to complain about people shipping them together, and he hoped that wouldn’t be the case in the future.

“I really need to go to bed now,” Jean said. “Talk to you tomorrow?”

He worried about how Eren would react, but he just smiled and replied easily, “Sure thing. Good night, asshole.”

Somehow, the nickname was tinged with affection this time, instead of filled with hate like it usually was.

Jean smirked at him. “Sweet dreams, dickface.”

~*~

And so Eren and Jean continued to talk to each other. They argued a lot but agreed on a surprising amount of topics. Not so surprising, however, was their firm agreement that none of Tumblr should ever know that they communicated outside of their biweekly videos to each other—the hell that would raise would be terrifying.

But on the topic of their videos, those had become a huge joke to them. They made a game out of it, seeing how much mock hate they could pour into one video, and then laughed together about it after it was uploaded. None of their watchers were the wiser.

It wasn’t like they were suddenly best friends or anything like that; they had plenty of fights. Eren thought Jean was far too quick to conform to Tumblr’s opinions on everything; Jean thought Eren was so determined to be contrary that he ignored the fact that Tumblr did make good points sometimes. They still insulted each other at every turn: Jean swore Eren had a list of insults pre-prepared for whenever Jean posted selfies, and Jean still criticized Eren’s videos, because, really, they were shitty as fuck.

“Your only good vids are your baking tutorials and song covers, poor taste in music aside,” Jean said. “You should just stick to those.”

“Baking tutorials are so much effort, though,” Eren complained. “And I’m always too lazy to record covers. It’s a lot easier to just ramble at my camera.”

“Well, your other shit isn’t even worth watching.”

“Wow, thanks, asshole. Your vids are all crap. Why do you think I have more subscribers?”

“How many times do I have to say we have about the same amount—”

“You gained a lot of subscribers from people following our video conversations, didn’t you?”

Jean seethed.

Eren felt a little bad after he said it. It was kind of a sore subject for Jean. Then an idea hit him, and he smiled at his webcam.

“Be right back,” he said.

Jean waited, confused, as Eren stood up and stepped out of sight. When he returned and sat down again, he had his guitar in his hands.

“Pick a song.”

“Huh?”

Eren rolled his eyes. “Are you deaf? I said pick a song, asshole. You’re always insulting my music taste—though I don’t know what you’ve got against Katy Perry—so I’m letting you choose. I’ve still got to know it, obviously, but if you want me to do a song I don’t know, I can learn it for you and play it later.”

“Wait, um, why?” Jean asked.

“Because I feel like it, don’t ask stupid questions.”

“Um, ah, I don’t know!” Jean said. “You can’t just spring questions like that on me!”

Truthfully, he was feeling self-conscious about his own music taste, because though he insulted Eren’s all the time, Eren didn’t even know what kind of music Jean listened to, and had no chance to retaliate.

Eren huffed in annoyance. He was just trying to be nice; why did Jean have to make it hard for him? “You are so lame,” he said. “Fine, tell me if you think of something.”

He strummed a few chords on his guitar, thoughtful, then shifted and settled into a more comfortable position before he started singing Make it Up, and, oh, Jean hadn’t known that Eren listened to Sam Tsui.

Jean liked watching Eren sing. His body still moved, swaying to the music, but he wasn’t restless; it was like he was calm for the first time in his life. Though, he thought, he didn’t mind the fidgety Eren who couldn’t sit still, either.

Jean came to the realization that he had a crush on Eren before Eren realized that he had a crush on Jean. Jean probably got the better end of the deal, having his quiet moment of realization when Eren closed his eyes and smiled as he sang, and not when…well, not the way Eren found out.

~*~

“I JUST GOT AN ANONYMOUS FIC ABOUT US IN MY ASKBOX,” Eren screeched.

“Whoa, whoa, what the hell?” Jean asked.

“It’s like six asks long,” Eren said, scrolling furiously. “About how I’m pining for you—god, what is this. In the end I post a video confessing, and then you make a video response saying you love me, what the fuck, and then we vlog off into the sunset.”

“Did you make that last part up, I can’t tell.”

“’And then they vlogged off into the sunset,’ that’s what it says, I swear, do you want me to screenshare?”

“No, I believe you, just,” Jean started laughing, “what the hell?”

“It is kind of funny,” Eren admitted. “But entirely inaccurate. I would never pine.” He stood up and started pacing. “Okay, how should I respond to this? If I play along, that’ll just encourage them. Should I be angry? Respectfully ask them to stop? Just flat-out ignore it?”

Jean watched him pace around and wished he could pull him down, preferably onto his lap, and calm him down.

“You know they won’t stop anyway, right? There are already fics about us circulating around Tumblr,” he pointed out.

This only served to make Eren more agitated. In fact, he was agitated enough that Mikasa, looking across from the window of her bedroom in the house next door, saw him and grew worried.

Thirty seconds later, she was standing by the window, holding up a sign reading EREN ARE YOU OKAY?

Eren noticed this when he made another lap around the room, and he smiled and stopped.

He dug out his own writing pad and a Sharpie and wrote YEAH, JUST GOT AN ANON FIC ABOUT ME & JEAN IN MY ASKBOX IDK IT’S WEIRD

“What are you doing?” Jean asked.

“Oh, Mikasa’s bedroom is across from mine, so we like to communicate by holding signs up to our windows.”

Jean smirked. “What, you mean like that Taylor Swift music video?”

Eren rolled his eyes, writing his response of NO IT WASN’T SMUT WHAT THE HELL MIKASA, and said, “Yes, like that Taylor Swift music video. We used tin cans on a string when we were little.”

What the hell, that’s fucking cute, Jean thought, but he said, “Careful, are you sure Mikasa doesn’t secretly have a paper that says ‘I love you’ on it?”

AND HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL? Mikasa asked, and Eren waited until he had finished writing his reply (THE FACT THAT IT’S NOT SMUT? RELIEVED WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK) before he looked at Jean, making a face at him. “Dude, no. That’s weird. Mikasa is like my sister. Also, that’d be really unfortunate for her, because she knows I’m gay.”

“You’re gay?” Jean asked, feeling simultaneously as if a rug had been pulled out from under him but also like the heavens had parted and a chorus of angels were singing.

“…Duh?” Eren said, not looking at Jean. He continued speaking as he wrote a reply to Mikasa’s I MEAN THE FIC IN GENERAL. “I mean, I’ve never explicitly said it, but it’s pretty damn obvious, isn’t it?”

“Don’t ‘duh’ me, I don’t assume these things, dickface.”

“Oh, don’t like getting your hopes up, huh?” Eren said, now holding up a sign that said I DON’T KNOW WHETHER TO LAUGH OR BE DISGUSTED TBH, and he smirked when Jean sputtered.

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

HEY I’M TALKING TO JEAN RIGHT NOW SO TTYL OK? Eren flashed the sign at Mikasa, waving his hand in dismissal when she mouthed, ‘What?’ at him. He set his pad down and turned to face Jean properly.

“Well, you see, Jean,” Eren said, “my gaydar is telling me you’re gay, and my gaydar is never wrong.”

Jean didn’t reply, and Eren, hesitant now, asked, “What, am I wrong?”

It wasn’t that he cared either way if Jean was gay, but he would feel bad about making incorrect assumptions. Jean, meanwhile, was frantically wondering if this was somehow Eren’s way of subtly saying, Hey, I dig you, is it maybe possible that you dig me?

“You’re not wrong,” he said at last, and Eren grinned.

“Never wrong,” he said sagely.

Jean waited expectantly, maybe hopefully, for Eren to say something about their mutual gayness, but the topic was done as far as Eren was concerned, and he just launched into a rant about how Merlin ended and how Merthur was so canon.

Jean’s attempt to hide his disappointment was pretty poor, but Eren was oblivious anyway, because currently, Eren was not aware that his feelings for Jean ran any deeper than a weird mix of ‘friendship’ and ‘pain in the ass.’ This would change a couple of weeks later, however, when Big Name Fanfic writer of Teen Wolf and Avatar: The Legend of Korra (mainly, though she wrote for other fandoms, too) Dancing Queen Ymir published a forty thousand word long Eren/Jean fanfiction titled The Distance to You.

Eren saw the fanfic when his Tumblr dash exploded over it. At first he didn’t realize what it was, but searched up The Distance to You to see just what everyone was screaming about, hoping it was a new fic for one of his OTPs.

When he became aware that The Distance to You was, in fact, a forty thousand word long fanfic about him and Jean written by Dancing Queen Ymir, he freaked.

Jean, as it so happened to be, wasn’t online at the moment. Actually, he was currently out of the house seeing a movie with Marco, Connie, and Sasha, happily oblivious to the shitstorm occurring on both his and Eren’s Tumblr dashboards.

When he realized that Jean was not online, Eren sent him a message for him to see later: DUDE YMIR WROTE A FIC ABOUT US. He then spent the next few minutes staring at the Skype conversation window, twiddling his thumbs. Jean did not magically log on, and Eren didn’t know what to do, so he clicked back onto the fic, and then, against his better judgment, he started reading.

Reading a fanfiction about himself was…surreal. Of course, he’d read some other fics about him and Jean (he got a few more askbox fics, some simply made their way to his dash, and once, he had gotten a submission of a fic titled ‘A Tale of Two Vloggers’), but those had all been short and nothing of this caliber. Ymir was famous.

But despite how awkward it was to read about some fake version of himself slowly falling in love with a fake version of Jean Kirschtein, Eren couldn’t seem to stop. Just like the real him and Jean, the Eren and Jean in the fanfic eventually came to converse over Skype, except their conversations were full of sexual tension and general awkwardness as they navigated their way through their strange friendship.

And then fake him was confessing and fake Jean was reciprocating and—oh.

Oh.

They were having sex over Skype.

And it was kind of hot.

Wait, what the fuck, Eren thought, feeling horribly confused and aroused as fake him got off to fake Jean talking dirty to him over Skype; the feeling only got worse when fake him returned the favor.

Despite the awkward and uncomfortable tightness in his pants, Eren kept reading. Fake them got into a relationship, had more Skype sex…and then fake Jean flew out to meet fake Eren at VidCon and they had sex in fake Eren’s car (which was much nicer than his actual car), holy shit.

Eren finished reading the fic, which ended with fake Jean going back home, but not before banging fake Eren several more times, one of those times being make-up sex because, of course, there was the Inevitable Fallout and misunderstandings. Of course, it all worked out in the end, and fake them swore they would move in together and get married one day. After fake Jean got back home, he and fake Eren had Skype sex. Again.

For a minute, Eren just stared blankly at the closing lines of the fic. Then he stood up and ran to the bathroom, where he jacked off, still feeling really, hopelessly confused.

Obviously, Eren knew he was gay. He was also aware that Jean was not unattractive. But he’d never—despite Tumblr’s insistent shipping of them—actually thought of Jean in that way before.

Except now he was considering it. Considering it a lot. He thought about Jean’s face, his lips, his hands; Jean had slender fingers, Eren realized. He’d never thought about that before.

Yeah, Jean definitely looked bangable.

But more than that, Eren thought about how Jean looked when he smiled, genuinely smiled, not his arrogant fake smile. The way Jean always leaned forward when he was paying extra attention to him. He thought about the night when Jean asked, almost shyly, if he could trust Eren. Eren had been confused, but he’d given the affirmative, and that was how they came to spend the night watching Jean and Friends original videos, no longer to be found anywhere on the internet, of Jean’s attempts at comedy skits from when he was in high school, laughing together about how awful they were.

Eren thought about all the warm and fuzzy friendship feelings he had for Jean when he wasn’t being an annoying asshole and he wondered if maybe he hadn’t been feeling just friendship for him.

Damn it, this changed everything. Eren had to reconsider everything.

Do I like Jean? wasn’t even a thing he could ask anymore; that sort of thing tended to stop being a question after masturbating to the person in question. No, the real question was, When the hell did this start, and what the hell am I supposed to do about it?

Perhaps there was no definitive starting point. Eren wasn’t even sure how he’d gone from hating Jean to being friends with him, never mind liking him in not-so platonic ways.

Jean, proving to have the worst timing in the history of ever, chose that moment to return home and come online, as if he knew Eren was having a horrible time and needed the situation made worse.

Logging on to Skype, Jean saw the message Eren had sent to him while he was offline, did a double take, and read it again.

Jean: WAIT YOU MEAN DANCING QUEEN YMIR?? THAT YMIR???

Eren, caught up in his confused feelings, didn’t even notice Jean had come online until the message popped up, and then he proceeded to freak out again (and also regret sending his initial message).

When Jean called him, he nearly went into a panic. He knew that if he didn’t answer, Jean would wonder why. The only option was to pick up, so pick up he did.

“DANCING QUEEN YMIR?!” Jean repeated.

Play it cool, Yeager. “Yeah, that one. What other Ymir is there?”

“Fuck off. I thought she only wrote femslash?”

“Mostly, but she writes het and slash sometimes, too. Haven’t you read her Sterek fics? She wrote a Destiel once, but that’s her only Supernatural fic, sadly.” Eren sighed. That had been a good fic.

“Holy shit,” Jean said, for he’d gone to Ymir’s Archive Of Our Own page while Eren was talking and was now staring at The Distance to You in amazement. “This thing’s like forty thousand words long. And look at how many hits it has.”

“I know right—hey, wait, don’t read it,” Eren said, voice bordering on plaintive.

Jean, for his part, could not see why Eren was so bothered. “Why not?” he asked.  “Freaking Ymir wrote a fic about us. Of course I’m curious!”

“But that’s weird.”

“Oh, get over yourself,” Jean said, and started reading.

Eren sat helplessly as Jean read, laughing and commenting aloud about what was happening in the story, and he cursed the fanfic for being in his third person point of view; why couldn’t it have been in Jean’s POV?

Rationally, he knew that Jean wasn’t really laughing at him pining over Jean (and why was Eren always pining in all the fics? he did not pine), but it was still embarrassing as hell.

So Eren tried to ignore Jean, and he scrolled down his Tumblr dash, but there were still people talking about The Distance to You, which was seriously weird, because Eren hadn’t realized that he and Jean were such a huge deal.

Distracted as he was contemplating this, Eren didn’t notice at first that Jean had fallen silent. When it occurred to him that he hadn’t spoken in a while, he said, “Yo, Jean?” and glanced at the video in the corner of his screen.

Jean was blushing.

“Uh,” he said. “This gets…very explicit.”

Oh, fuck, Eren thought, he reached the smut. Shit shit shit.

“Duh, it’s Ymir,” he said. “I told you not to read it.”

“Yeah, I am definitely not reading this anymore!” Jean said, a little too loudly. He coughed, awkward, and said, “So, what’s up?”

“Nothing, just sitting on Tumblr.”

“Oh, okay.”

Silence. Really awkward silence.

“Do you…want to stream a movie or something?” Eren suggested.

Even though Jean had just been out to see a movie, he shrugged and agreed, and so they watched Iron Man 3.

Eren tried to pretend nothing was wrong, but he could feel it, damn it, and it was mostly because he was ashamed that he’d read all forty thousand plus words—and then jacked off—while Jean had bailed at the first sign of smut.

What he didn’t know was that Jean was feeling the awkward as well, though he was feeling it because he knew that as soon as Eren signed off he was going to read The Distance to You again from the beginning.

And then probably masturbate, because that bit of smut he’d read before Eren had caught him had been pretty fucking hot. Damn, fake him was lucky.

~*~

The fics (and there were so many fics; they were going to overtake the number of Dan Howell/Phil Lester fics on AO3 soon) were right.

Oh, god, they were all right.

Eren pined.

~*~

Jean fucked up.

Jean completely, totally fucked up, and Tumblr was flipping its collective shit.

He didn’t know what he’d been thinking—actually, that was the problem, he hadn’t been thinking when he just casually mentioned in his latest video that Eren’s singing was nothing to swoon over, though he would admit that he sounded decent when he was covering, say, No Light, No Light, something different from his usual flavor.

Of course, it had completely slipped his mind that Eren had only sung No Light, No Light for him and hadn’t properly recorded and uploaded a cover for it. This did not, however, escape the notice of their viewers, who were always searching for fuel for the shipping flames.

Naturally, speculation ran wild. How realistic these rumors were varied, but one thing was clear: Eren Yeager and Jean Kirschtein were secretly in contact, and Eren sung for him.

When Jean realized his mistake, his stomach dropped about fifty feet.

“Oh, fuckity fuck, I fucked up,” he muttered, frantically scrolling through the comments on his video. He couldn’t just delete the video now—that would make things a hundred times worse. He just had to…play it cool. And avoid Eren. Yeah, that seemed like a good plan.

As it turned out, though, he wouldn’t have to work to avoid Eren, because Eren, who had also noticed the uproar over Jean’s new video, had his own situation to deal with.

That situation was Mikasa, who showed up at his house without warning and interrupted his greeting when he opened the door to immediately say, “You and Jean.”

“Yeah, what about that asshole?” Eren asked, feigning innocence.

Mikasa brushed past him into the house. “What’s going on between you two?”

“Uh, well, I believe we have a lovely rivalry going on,” Eren said, following her to the living room.

“Don’t try that on me, you already told me that you talk to him,” Mikasa said, pinning him with a glare. No beating around the bush, she was getting answers. “Are you in a relationship?”

“Um, no,” Eren said. “And what do you care?”

“Okay, but do you like him?” Mikasa pressed, not answering the question.

“That’s none of your business?” Eren suggested, but it came out kind of weak.

Mikasa was not impressed. “You, apparently, sing for him.”

“Yes, I know. All of Tumblr knows. I don’t see what the big deal is. Can’t a gay guy want to occasionally play guitar and sing for his friend who also happens to be a gay guy without it meaning something?”

“The fact that you’ve been quiet about the fact that you’re friends makes it more suspicious.”

Eren opened his mouth, then closed it again. “Okay, you’ve got a point there.”

“Why, though?” she asked. “Why have you been keeping it a secret?”

Eren shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s fun to pretend we hate each other’s guts? I mean, we still do piss each other off all the time, but we laugh over those videos. It’s great.”

“I am going to ask again if you like Jean,” Mikasa said.

“I am going to evade the question and offer to make you tea,” Eren replied.

“I accept your offer and assume that since you are avoiding the question you actually do like Jean.”

“Dammit, Mikasa,” Eren said, going to the kitchen; she followed him and sat down at the table. “I don’t know why you’re so interested. You never cared before.”

“It’s unexpected, that’s all,” Mikasa said casually. “I mean, I didn’t expect you to fall in love with Jean of all people, but considering how much you get out—which is not at all—I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”

“I—I don’t know which part to respond to first,” Eren said. He brought two steaming mugs of tea to the table and set one of them down in front of Mikasa. After a moment’s deliberation, he set his own mug down so he could cross his arms for effect for his next statement: “Okay, well, first of all, wow, I do go out. Sometimes. Shut up. Secondly, whoa, now I’m in love with him all of a sudden?”

“Or not so suddenly,” Mikasa said.

“…No comment,” Eren said, uncrossing his arms and sitting down.

“Are you going to confess?”

“You’re being unusually annoying about my love life,” Eren said.

“I just want to know if I can expect to be properly introduced to him sometime. You never let me over when you’re talking to him. At this rate, you’re going to meet up at VidCon and sneak off to have sex in your car.”

“Jean can’t even afford to fly out for VidCon, and—wait.” Meet up at VidCon to have sex in his car? That sounded oddly specific. And familiar. “Holy shit,” Eren said, and pointed at Mikasa. “You read The Distance to You!”

Mikasa’s face went bright red, and she stood up.

“I can’t believe it!” Eren gaped at her. “You. You!”

“I’m going now, bye,” Mikasa said, and practically ran out of the house, leaving her tea on the table, unfinished.

Eren poured the rest of her tea into his mug—no reason to waste—and carried it up to his bedroom, where he scrawled I KNOW YOUR SECRET YOU READ FANFICTION onto his writing pad. Mikasa’s curtains were drawn shut, so he just tore the page out and taped it to his window facing out so she would see it later.

Mikasa read fanfiction. About him and Jean. Wait—did she think it was hot?

Wait.

Did she ship them…?

“Oh god, what if me and Jean are her OTP?” Eren asked aloud.

He needed to talk to someone about this. But to whom? Mikasa would be his first choice, but she was out, for obvious reasons. It’d be kind of weird to talk about it with Jean…

Eren grabbed his phone and called Armin.

“Hello?”

“Armin, hey, do you have time to talk?”

“Sure,” Armin said. “What’s up?”

“Mikasa read that fic Ymir wrote about me and Jean and I’m kind of freaking out.”

“Mikasa? Really?” Armin’s interest was piqued. “I thought she didn’t read fanfiction.”

“That’s what I thought, too, but she definitely read it. Who knows if she reads other fics? Oh, god—what if she reads other fics about me and Jean? Dude, so does this mean she ships us?”

“Does that make you uncomfortable?”

“Um, I don’t know how it makes me feel,” Eren said. “It’s just kind of weird.”

“If it doesn’t make you uncomfortable, does that mean you like Jean?” Armin asked quickly.

“W-wait, what?”

Eren really hated how Armin could make questionable leaps of logic that were somehow always right. It was like his superpower.

“You do like him! Eren, I hope you confess.”

“What is with you and Mikasa—”

“Actually, I have a confession to make.”

“I can’t even keep up with anything anymore,” Eren said. “What is it?”

“You know the first anon fic you got in your askbox? And also that other fic, ‘A Tale of Two Vloggers’?”

“…Yeah?”

“I wrote those.”

Eren paused. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I heard you right, my phone is being wonky. Did you just say you wrote those fanfics about me and Jean?”

“I think you guys would be really cute together!” Armin burst out. “Also is it true that you sing for Jean? You hardly ever even sing for me—”

“Oh my god. I can’t even believe my life right now.”

“So if Mikasa ships you, do you think she would draw fanart if I asked—?”

“GOODBYE, ARMIN,” Eren said, and hung up.

From his own bedroom, Armin pouted at his phone and called Mikasa.

Eren, meanwhile, glanced out his window to see that Mikasa had taped a reply to her window: YOU READ IT TOO, JACKASS

Wow, she had to be really pissed or embarrassed (she was embarrassed) to be busting out the profanity.

But also, she had a point. Eren had read The Distance to You. This was his great shame.

Sighing, Eren went onto Tumblr. When he saw how many messages were in his inbox, he backed right the fuck out and logged onto Skype instead.

Jean was online, thank goodness, and Eren called him.

“I’M SORRY,” Jean blurted right away.

“Yeah, no, I’m already over that,” Eren said. “Except for all the anons in my askbox. Anyway, no, listen to this: My friends ship us. Like, Armin and Mikasa. Ship us.”

“Uh, yeah, I’m used to that. I mean, dude, I’m pretty sure Connie and Sasha are the captains of the ship,” Jean said. “And Marco seems to think we are an item and is very supportive.”

“But—but doesn’t it freak you out?” Eren sputtered.

“Eh, you get used to it. Even Tumblr will calm down about this in a few days. C’mon, do you need a distraction?” Jean asked, taking pity. “Let’s play Starcraft.”

“Yes,” Eren said gratefully. “Good idea.”

He didn’t know how Jean managed to calm him down so fast, but playing Starcraft with him into the late hours of the night was the most relaxing thing he could think of.

Even if it involved a lot of cursing and yelling from both sides.

~*~

It happened when they least expected it.

True to Jean’s word, Tumblr came down from their shipping high, and though there were still fics and art and meta being produced about them, they weren’t quite so crazy as they had been immediately following Jean’s blunder.

Well, Eren hadn’t been getting as many anonymous messages, at least.

Mikasa pretended the conversation between her and Eren had never happened, but Armin would often call and text, pestering Eren about confessing.

Eren became really good at ignoring him.

Somehow, life had settled into something akin to normal, which was why Eren wasn’t expecting anything to happen that night. Actually, Jean wasn’t expecting anything to happen, either.

It was a quiet night, one in the morning where Eren was and already four a.m. Jean’s time, and they weren’t even talking about anything anymore, but they both felt relaxed and content and were reluctant to end the call despite the late hour.

Jean was nodding off in front of his computer and Eren was reclining back, quietly playing guitar and murmuring the lyrics to Bring Me the Night, and somewhere between the lines so bring me the night, tell me it’s near and give me the chance to pretend that you’re here, Jean came to a realization, and he said, voice heavy with sleep, “I fucking love you, you know. Even though you’re a dickface and you can be really fucking annoying sometimes. God, I don’t even know why I love you, but I do. I love you a lot.”

Eren stopped singing and sat up, staring at his computer screen. His heart was pounding, but then he laughed, happy and relieved, and he said, “I love you, too, you asshole.”

Jean smiled. “Oh, good. Does this mean we can be canon?”

“Hell yeah we’re canon,” Eren answered.

Jean didn’t respond, and Eren realized that he had finally fallen asleep.

“What an asshole,” he said, but he finished singing Bring Me the Night for him anyway, because he was a good boyfriend, and then he ended the call, messaged Jean, good night asshole <3, and logged off.

When Jean woke up hours later, his neck hurt from sleeping in an awkward position and he had only a fuzzy recollection of the previous night. But when he remembered confessing to Eren, he jumped up and banged his leg on his desk.

The stream of fuckfuckfuck—both a reaction to his sleepy confession and hitting his leg, ow, fuck—in Jean’s mind broke off when he saw the message Eren left him.

Oh, wait. Eren had said ‘I love you’ back, hadn’t he?

Luckily, Eren was online, so Jean called him.

“Good morning, asshole,” Eren said sweetly.

“M-morning,” Jean stammered. “So, last night—did I really—are we really—”

“Hell yeah you did and hell yeah we are,” Eren said. “You got yourself a hot internet boyfriend.”

“Oh, sweet,” Jean said, relieved. “What do you want to do?”

“I want to reenact that scene from The Distance to You, that’s what I want to do.”

“Oh my god—wait, you read it?”

Eren smirked. “Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

And so Eren and Jean tried to reenact the first smut scene from The Distance to You. They expected it to be sexy, but what really happened was Jean pulled up the fic and started quoting it—failing spectacularly at keeping a straight face—and they both burst into laughter.

“Holy shit, I love you,” Eren said between chuckles.

“I want to kiss you,” Jean said.

“Me, too,” Eren sighed. “One day?”

“One day,” Jean promised.

“I want…” Eren paused to think, then grinned. “I want to tell our fangirls that their OTP just became canon.”

Jean matched his grin. “Fuck yes.”

Together, they plotted the best way to reveal to everyone that they were in a relationship.

“This is going to be fun, isn’t it?” Jean asked a while later, when there was a lull in their conversation.

He wasn’t talking about coming out to their followers. Eren knew this.

“This is going to be so much fun.”