Hate's a Type Of Love (Jean X Reader)

16. Plan to Retake the Supply Base

Reader POV

Staying behind was boring once I got my leg bandaged up properly. There wasn't much to do but refill a few gas canisters and then wait. The waiting was the hard part, I couldn't do anything, I should be out there helping humanity fight back despite how scared I was of the titans. It was my job as a soldier to give up my own life to save others. I sighed and paced the storage room, trying to think of something to distract myself from my wandering worries and thoughts. How many of my friends from the 104th were out there right now getting killed? Was Jean still alive? What about Marco? Armin? Mikasa? What about Eren? Nothing seemed to work to distract me from it until a loud crash startled me from the other side of the storage room. I stopped in my tracks and whipped around to look in the direction of the noise. It was quiet as the dust cleared and then the footsteps came, loud, ground shaking steps followed by a glimpse of a titan standing upright from behind the stacks of supplies as it entered the storage room. I didn't linger in horror this time, I made a straight shot for the lift and got myself right out of there. I had been the only one in the storage room at the time and nobody else knew that there had just been a breach. I had to tell someone, anyone. If I didn't... Well, I didn't want to think about how this would end if I didn't warn others. Luckily, the only way into this storage room was the lift and with it at the top of the pulleys, the titans that entered the storage room were stuck there and could only come and go from the hole in the wall they'd created.

As soon as I reached the top of the lift, I ran for the nearest set of stairs to get up to the next floor where most of the others who had stayed behind were holed up in hopes of being out of reach of the titans while we waited for reinforcements or anything resemblance of help. I turned the corner into one of the rooms and opened my mouth to shout out a warning of what I'd just seen but I froze upon seeing the state of the room. Windows were broken, Jean, Conny, and Sasha were pushing themselves up to stand from presumably crashing through the windows. Tables were flipped over with cadets cowering behind them, one had a gun barrel placed in his mouth. There was a large splattering of blood on the table behind him and it was clear by the horrified look on the girl's face beside him that he'd shot himself. And then at the far side of the long room was a large hole in the wall and two titans trying to squeeze closer together to get a look inside at us. My warning was quickly pushed aside for the moment by an overwhelming wave of relief that Jean was now standing there, alive and ininjured.

"Jean...?" I almost couldn't believe my eyes but there was no way I could be dreaming with all the hell going on around me. He looked over at me at the sound of my voice and in the next moment I stumbled back a step from the impact of his tackle hug. He squeezed me tightly and I would have hugged him back but my arms were pinned to my sides by his. "You're okay... Thank god." He muttered, lips pressed to the hair on the top of my head as I did my best to snuggle closer to him and enjoy the brief moment of closeness and tranquility. "I should say the same about you... I'm really glad you made it back in one piece..." Jean pulled away just a little, ready to say something but we were interrupted by Marco who had come from the stairs behind us. "Hate to interrupt, but has anyone seen Mikasa and Armin? They never made it back with the rest of us yet they were right behind me. Jean and I pulled apart and we all jumped a bit at the sudden sound of glass smashing. Well, that answered that question. Mikasa and Armin had just come crashing through the window and Armin was quick to start spouting something about finding an abnormal titan that fights other titans. It was hard to believe, in fact, none of us really believed them until we turned our attention to the two titans trying to get in through the hole at the other end of the room. A large fist came slamming into the side of one of their heads and in the blink of an eye they went flying away from the base and a larger titan stood there, breathing heavily with a crazed look in its eyes that was different from the other titans. So Armin hadn't been making it all up...

"We need to resupply and fall back to the inner gate to regroup with the Garrison." Jean said to change the subject and get everyone back on track and that reminded me why I came up here in such a hurry in the first place. "We can't resupply... there's titans in the storage room. I was down there when they broke through the wall and started to make their way in." I quickly cut in and everyone looked at me like I'd just singlehandedly ruined their lives. "Well, then what're we supposed to do now?" Jean said with an exasperated sigh and flung his arms in the air, a gesture of hopelessness. I frowned, feeling a bit bad but if I hadn't said anything they would have just rushed headfirst into a titan ambush. Everyone was quiet for a long moment as we all tried to think of how to get out of this predicament. Then Armin came up with a plan. "There's a lift that goes down into the storage room, right? And there's plenty of guns hanging about up there on the upper floors. Marco, Conny, go collect all the guns you can find and any extra ammo laying around too. We'll need it. Mikasa, how many pairs of blades do we have left?" I stood by and listened to the rest of the plan Armin devised, taking a gun from Marco when he and Conny came back. There was no way I could help with the other part of the plan with my injury. I simply wasn't nimble enough right now.

"Okay, after they get into position, the rest of us are going to load up into the lift with our guns ready and we'll lower ourselves down. We have limited ammo so we can't just shoot in panic. Aim for the eyes first. If we can blind them, the others can move around easier without getting spotted. The rest is up to luck I suppose... I hope this works." Armin explained one last time and a chorus of agreements went around the group before we broke up into our groups to try and execute this plan of his. As we waited for Mikasa's group to get into position, the rest of us loaded our guns and got packed into the lift. I stood beside Jean and gently nudged his arm with my elbow to get his attention focused on me for a moment. "What's up?" He asked in a hushed tone, seeing the tight frown on my face.

I looked up at him and then back down at my gun. "I'm sorry about before. I just... I thought it would be better if we went our separate ways after our time as trainees ended. You wanted to go to the MPs and I didn't have that choice. I didn't want to get in the way of your dream. But if this is the end, I want to take that all back." Jean was quiet so I chanced a look back up at him and he frowned. "Jean...?" I questioned and he sighed, closing his eyes for just a second before he looked at me once more. "I wasn't going to let you break it off anyway. I love you, alright? I know I should have said it before but I couldn't get the words out in the moment back then. If we die today, at least we'll be together." He leaned down and placed a short kiss on my forehead then got ready for when Armin would lower the lift so we could begin the plan to retake our Supply Base. I smiled just slightly and did the same. There was no more time for cutesy couples stuff like this, we had bigger things to worry about. But I was happy that at least Jean wasn't upset with me and that things were alright between us before we took this step into the flames of hell that awaited us at the bottom of this lift. There was no telling if Armin's plan would work or not, but as Jean said, at least we would die together and not apart without either knowing if the other was okay or not...