Chapter Text
"You have seen the rotten streak in me
and you have come back, no matter how bad it was.
You have always come back. Can’t you see?
I mean you have taken me always the way I am, no matter what."
—Sylvia Plath, from Johnny Panic & The Bible Of Dreams: Short Stories, Prose And Diary Excerpts
***
The schedule arrives the first week of August. For the first time in his career, Erwin has a first period off.
It’s a sign of the times—of the thinning out of their humble city as parents take their kids and move out to more temperate climates, to richer suburbs and richer schools. This summer saw the biggest exodus in the last decade. That, paired with the promotion of Nile Dok to vice principal following Keith Shadis’ retirement, had sent Erwin into an apathetic downward spiral. He’d been sitting on his Master’s degree for years waiting for an opportunity like that.
And he’d been passed up for his old undergrad roommate.
He sits at his little kitchen table and idly slides the papers back and forth with his hand. Under different circumstances, a free period would be an opportunity to get more work done on the clock instead of on his couch. But this year, it feels like the beginning of the end, like his time in Trost—his hometown—is quickly drawing to a close.
Perhaps greener pastures are in his future.
Nevertheless, he sticks his schedule to the fridge and begins lesson planning.
***
School starts on the last Monday of August.
Erwin begins his day like he has for the last 11 years of his teaching career. He ties his tie, pins the cuff of his empty right shirtsleeve, drinks his coffee and makes the 20 minute commute through the historic downtown area into the mid-century concrete jungle where the high school has sat since the 60s.
The inside is nearly as grey as the outside, save for the cobalt blue paint chipping off the lockers. He ducks past the front office into the central lobby, where the mural painted in the late 80s greets all staff and students: TROST SCOUTS in shaky block letters, framed on either side by blue and white wings. He scales the stairs to the first floor and passes by the science wing on the way to the history department.
A flurry of gangly limbs interrupts his walk.
“Hey, Smithy!”
Hange, already wearing a labcoat, materializes out of one of the rooms, grips his hand with both of theirs, shakes it wildly, and pulls him into a rib-crushing embrace.
Erwin gives them a few easy pats on the back. “Hi, Doc. Don’t call me that.”
Hange giggles and lets him go, adjusting the clear goggles tangled up in their hair.
“C’mon, I need a name for you that isn’t just ‘Mr. Smith.’ Some of my seniors last year got real fresh with the first names. I didn't get a doctorate for a 17-year-old to call me Hange.”
“I don’t mind.”
They roll their eyes. “Yeah, right, big guy.” Then they clear their throat. “Um. I heard about Nile.” Oh, great. He was hoping Hange wouldn’t bring it up. “You doin’ okay?”
He waves it off. “Water under the bridge. Hey, guess who ended up with a free first period on A days?”
Hange punches his shoulder. “Shut up! I was in school for twice as long as you and I’ve never had a free first–”
The clatter of plastic hitting linoleum jolts them out of their conversation. A man Erwin doesn’t recognize, dressed in the standard slate blue custodian uniform, is setting a wet floor sign down in the center of the hallway with much more force than necessary. The students give him a wide berth as they make their way to their classes.
Erwin frowns. “What’s his deal?”
Hange hums their indifference. “He started over the summer, I think. Haven’t gotten his name yet.”
He glowers at a freshman that wanders too close to his wet floor sign. The girl grips her backpack straps tighter and hightails it around the corner.
The dull tone of the five-minute bell pierces Erwin’s skull, and Hange punches his shoulder again.
“I’ve got minds to mold, Smithy. Enjoy your free block.”
“Try not to shoot a bottle rocket through my window until at least October, okay?”
“I’m an object in motion and no opposite force is going to–”
“Alright, Doc.” Erwin weaves through the students swarming up and down the halls toward his own classroom, where he’ll go over his lesson plan for the thousandth time, past the janitor and his mop bucket. Erwin tries to shoot him an amiable smile, but receives a cold glower in return, the man’s angled black bangs framing his severe face. He glares only for a second before stuffing the mop into the suds with a wet plop and wheeling it away.
Whatever. He doesn’t have time for dealing with all... that.
Erwin takes his keys out to unlock his classroom, room 104, but finds the tumblers loose when he tries the lock. The door pushes open and perched on the corner of his desk like he owns the damn thing is Principal Pixis.
“Good morning, Erwin.”
Erwin masks his surprise by pocketing the keys. “Hi there, Dot.”
“Good summer?”
He drops his bag into his chair and pulls out his first class’ notes. “Just fine.”
“Good, good.” Pixis twists around to face him. “I’ll get straight to the point here, Erwin. There’s no hard feelings over Nile’s promotion, right?”
Bastard. Erwin puts on his gentlest smile as he shuffles papers over his desk. “Of course, not.”
“I was hoping you’d say that. But I’m sure you’ve noticed our student body has once again shrunk this year. Darius and I put our heads together in August to come up with a solution, and a solution is what I’m here to propose. We think there’s potential in you, and room in the district budget, to promote you to co-V.P. alongside Nile.”
His hand stills over his syllabus. “Really?”
“We’ve applied for a federal grant for updated technology in the classrooms. If the grant is approved, and if our test scores start rising and parents gain renewed faith in the administration, I think we can turn this school’s reputation around. And I’d like you to be working in the front office when we do.”
“Dot, I’m speechless.” Pixis had advocated for him to replace Shadis last spring, but the final decision had ultimately laid with Superintendent Zackly.
“You’re in?”
“Yes—yes, I’m in.”
“Good man, Erwin. Darius and I have high hopes. Our stipulation is we want to see a noticeable improvement in your students’ grades before the winter break.”
“Of course.”
Pixis holds out his left hand for Erwin. His overbearing grip reflects the years of military service backing his teaching style. He meets Erwin’s eyes and grins until his crow’s feet crinkle.
“Enjoy your free block.”
***
An hour later, Erwin is standing in front of his first class of the year. The juniors who are wrapping up their state-mandated American history requirement. The smaller class size is evidenced by the first row being occupied by only one student.
He picks up his clipboard, twists an empty chair around, and props a leg up to balance the class roster on. Hiding behind the desk feels cowardly; he much prefers facing his students head-on, no barriers between them. He clicks his favorite pen to life and reads off the first name.
“Mikasa Ackerman.”
The young lady with a choppy curtain of inky black hair at the back of the room. “Here.”
Erwin marks her present. “Armin Arlert.”
The boy sitting in the first row with a mop of blonde hair and a woolen periwinkle cardigan despite it being the tail-end of August. “Present.”
Reiner Braun is a brawny blonde in the back of the room. Sasha Braus is doing a bad job of hiding a bag of potato chips under her desk by the windows despite it being nine in the morning.
“Marco Bodt.”
Silence, which is odd for the first day. Erwin figures a junior wouldn’t have much trouble finding his way around the school, nor would he have the balls of a senior to skip.
“Is Marco here?”
“No,” pipes up the young man next to Mikasa. “And he never will be.”
“Shut up, Jäeger,” snaps a sour-faced boy sitting by Sasha. “He’s not dead . God, you’re annoying.”
“Am I wrong? He’s lucky he’s not coming back.”
“Whatever.”
Erwin sighs and gets the attention of the boy by the window. “What’s your name?”
“Jean Kirstein.”
“And where’s Marco?”
“He moved away last week.”
“So I should take him off the roster.”
Jean frowns into his hand and nods. Erwin crosses out Marco’s name.
“And what’s your name?” He points to the shaggy-haired boy who seems to have a flair for the dramatic.
The boy stares, eyes laser-focused on the empty space Erwin’s right arm once occupied. Mikasa elbows him. “Eren Jäeger.”
Erwin marks Eren and Jean present. Marco Bodt is the only one not in class this morning, and according to Eren and Jean, he never will be. That takes his class size to an even 20. There’s a fraught tension permeating the humid summer air in the room, hanging heavy. Supporting the tension, crackling like the static in a thunderstorm, is what Erwin can only call agitation.
“Alright then. Good morning, everyone. I’m Mr. Smith and this is US History II.” He twists around, sliding the roster onto his desk, and scribbles out two dates on the whiteboard.
1865-TODAY
“This year we’ll take a look at how a country divided by a war of ideologies rebuilt itself, admitted 14 more states to its union, volleyed back and forth between periods of indulgence and wealth, and periods of destitution and more war, and maintained its status as a global superpower with its military, its economy, and its continued democracy.”
20 blank faces gaze back at him.
Erwin presses on, never one to let some bad attitudes bring him down. “I have a short quiz here—ungraded, mind you—to gauge what you all remember from US I.”
From the back of the room, Eren’s hand lazily sticks up.
“Eren?”
“Do we have to do it if it’s not graded?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I’d like to see what you all remember so I can review some topics if necessary.”
“But they’re not graded.”
The boy next to Sasha, Connie, slumps down atop his desk as half the class groans and the other half roll their eyes. Jean, chin still in his hand, is gazing out the window. Armin in the front is red-faced, from his sweater or from secondhand embarrassment, Erwin can’t tell.
“Just try your best,” Erwin concedes, passing the stack of quizzes to Armin. While the papers are shuffling and pens are scratching, he hazards a glance at his watch. 9:12 a.m.
Erwin said the quizzes wouldn’t count toward his students’ final grades, and they won’t, but he grades them all the same during his lunch to establish a benchmark average. Eren Jäeger’s blank paper would bring that average far lower than it is, but Erwin runs the numbers without Eren’s zero and is still shocked.
He has two marking periods to impress Zackly and Pixis, and his worst class is hovering at 52%. In terms of GPA, they’re quite literally starting the way Eren started: from zero.
The week proceeds in much of the same fashion. Erwin ties his tie, pins his sleeve, drinks his coffee and makes the 20 minute commute and bullshits with Hange in their classroom; Erwin lectures to a despondent class of juniors about the political implications of the end of the Civil War and the beginnings of the Reconstruction Era; Erwin tries his best to avoid the poisonous gaze of the surly new janitor.
On the first Friday of the school year, his routine is interrupted by the surly new janitor.
Five minutes before the second period bell, he’s blocked from his classroom by the slender man atop a six-foot stepladder. He’s replacing the fluorescent ceiling light, but Erwin needs to mold some minds.
“Excuse me,” he says, “can you do this later? My students and I have class in a few minutes.”
“Won’t take that long,” the man grumbles, eyes fixed on the tube overhead.
“Even after the bell would be fine,” Erwin insists. He steps right up to the ladder and cranes his neck up, trying to make eye contact. “I need to get in and prepare my notes.”
The man no longer bothers with words, only grunting his annoyance while fixing the tube in place. Erwin is fed up—of his apathetic class, of this high-pressure year, of this inscrutable asshole.
“Look, I need to get in there now –” he says, feeling the volume of his frustration rattle around in his chest. He lifts his hand to grip the ladder, and not a second after the light is affixed with a metallic click, the janitor’s hand is locked like a vice around Erwin’s wrist. Erwin’s words die in his mouth as the other man’s cold stare bores into him and his hand burns hot against his. He hadn’t gotten a good look at him until now. The scar running down the side of his face runs right through his eye, cloudy and trained on him but unseeing, and through his thin lips which are twisted up in a bitter scowl.
Without looking, he slips the ceiling tile back into place. Then the second period bell rings.
He lets go of Erwin, folds up his ladder with a clatter, and stalks off through the swarm of students.
Erwin watches him go, flexing his hand because he can't run fingers over the reddened skin of his wrist.