Work Text
October 8th
Dear Floch,
Should I call you Captain Forster? I don’t remember you ever calling me Commander Kirstein, so probably not. Then again, written words are different to spoken ones. I don’t know. I’ll stick to Floch. Hope that’s OK.
It’s a whole new world over here in Marley. I don’t know if you’d like it or not. Probably not. I’ve met some people like you here, but I don’t think you’d like them. They’re way, way too stubborn too, haha!
I’m being rude, aren’t I? Sorry. I miss you really. Promise.
***
As a cadet, Floch had hated it when his fellows treated him like he was some bookish intellectual, just because he was slim and pale and had a whiny, reedy voice. As a Scout, he hated it when Hange treated him like he wasn’t any sort of bookish intellectual, just because he wasn’t.
Floch would have been annoyed if Hange had appointed him as the Scouts’ secretary in their absence. He was also annoyed that they hadn’t, so he took the work upon himself. Any letter to or from any Scout in Marley had to go via Floch’s desk, he decreed.
He started using them to practice reading. He’d spin the envelopes around on the desk to read the addresses upside down. He never knew when he might be hauled in front of some senior officer’s desk, and he wanted to know what he might see on it.
Once he could read the envelopes from any angle with ease and speed,he moved on to the letters inside. They weren’t much of a problem to open. A knife held to the fire would slide wax seals off neatly, and help press them back on when he was done. The envelopes from Liberio were trickier, since they used some sort of glue. Most of it was official correspondence that Floch had every right to open, though, so that didn’t matter. He carved himself an official looking stamp to mark out which letters he had opened and read, and he felt a secret little thrill any time he spotted his mark on other officer’s desks.
There were a few personal letters too. Never any from Eren or Mikasa, rarely any from Armin, but the others sent things home. Jean and Connie always wrote to their mothers. Hange had an exciting array of friends and penpals outside of the Survey Corps. Sasha must have written to everyone in her family, and her bundles of correspondence were often inches thick and bound with string. Why did girls always have to talk so much? If the Brauses were upset that they all got delivered torn open with a stamp mark all over them, they never said.
***
Oct 8 (cont.)
Feels like an age since I had anyone to write to, or a reason to write them. I’ve always liked doing it, but I’m never really sure what to say. You ever seen one of Sasha’s letters? Pages and pages of the stuff, every single thought down in ink. Me, though? All my thoughts are second thoughts. I just don’t want to write something you wouldn’t want to read.
***
Floch used the letters to practice writing, too.
It started with Captain Levi’s letters to himself. Floch was surprised when the first one came on the first ship back, and he’d opened it out of curiosity as much as duty. What could Levi Ackerman possibly have to say to himself?
It turned out to be some notes on a process to refine soda ash. The words were dull, but the letters were gorgeous. Levi had exceptional handwriting that made Floch trace the letters with his finger in wonder. He eventually filed it to await Levi’s return, but only after several painstaking attempts to copy Levi’s handwriting. Floch couldn’t entirely emulate it, but he kept practising just to improve his own.
***
Oct 8th (cont)
I keep all the letters from you. None of them have much detail (and believe me, I get why) but I’ve been away from home for a long time, and they remind me what it’s like.
I put them in order the other night and I noticed your handwriting gets a little neater every time. Copying Levi?! Haha. You do cross your Ts like him, actually. It’s funny how many people pick up one of Levi’s habits. Eren? Cleaning. Sasha? Tea. Did I ever tell you about this guy Oluo who was Levi Squad before we were Levi Squad? Oh boy. Think I should start wearing a cravat too?! (Don’t say I already kvetch like him.)
***
It became another little game for Floch after that, to examine other people’s handwriting closely. He quickly learned that how they wrote and what they wrote were linked. Sasha wrote in big loops, and her words bubbled along. Connie wrote short, simple words with each letter carefully printed out. Armin’s writing was frustratingly regular and readable. Floch couldn’t find a reason to hate it, so he hated it even more. Meanwhile, Floch gained a new appreciation for Jean through his letters. He had always thought Jean had a chicken scratch, but once he started looking more closely, he started to understand how Jean’s writing was both artistic and efficient.
Hange’s letters really were a chicken scratch, and they were erratic to boot. They could write one letter five ways in the same sentence, and they treated spelling as optional. Floch wondered if it was some sort of code, or if there was any method to it, but no. The way Hange wrote was as chaotic as everything else they did.
It made it very easy to forge orders from them.
No, not forge. Amend. Other military branches always ordered a surplus when they bought new uniforms or blankets or boots or anything else. Floch was just bringing the Scouts in line with everyone else when he added - no, when he corrected the numbers on Hange’s paperwork. Besides, copying out what Hange had written with the right numbers was a good training exercise for Floch to learn what was needed and where to get it from. Hange was unlikely to remember exactly what digits they wrote down anyway. And if they had been keeping records over in Liberio - well, that’s why Floch had the surplus stored elsewhere. He wasn’t stupid. He was clever.
Annoyingly though, more of the paperwork seemed to come through in Armin’s handwriting than Hange’s. Every attempt Floch made to copy Armin’s handwriting looked cheap and fake and obvious and made Floch feel inadequate. Floch struggled to recreate the way Armin wrote on the page too. He didn’t like hearing the boy’s soft, gentle voice in his head as he wrote, so he had to make up his own words. Then it always looked like a poor parody, and that wasn’t fair. Floch was good at copying other people, and he was good at faking it. Who was Armin Arlert to prove otherwise?
***
Oct 8th (cont)
I realised I’m writing on your birthday, so happy birthday. It was probably in the back of my head anyway, right? ‘Oh, write to Floch, it’s his birthday.’ Not that you’ll actually get to read it on your birthday. Honestly, I might not even finish it today. I’ll try my best though. It’s the thought that counts.
***
Letters from Jean made Floch feel much better. He didn’t have a reason to learn Jean’s handwriting, so he could just enjoy them as a treat.
Jean was generous. His chatty one-sided conversation wasn’t the only treat he sent. Jean was very concerned about keeping up morale at home, so he always put together a treasure chest for the troops.
The first crate was packed with beer and chocolate. The chocolate looked like mud and they had beer at home, so Floch didn’t care to try either. Instead, he read Jean’s letter out in the common room while his comrades feasted.
That -
that
was the real treasure.
Between the food, the drink, Jean’s words and Floch’s delivery, the mood of the common room was incredible. A few people
cheered
as Floch finished reading aloud. He hadn’t felt that since the Scouts had left Trost for Shiganshina, and even that had been a feeling to share with everyone. These hurrahs were all for Jean, but the crowd happily handed them to Floch as his proxy.
Floch snuck Jean’s letter back to his room like it was contraband, and guzzled it down, over and over. He didn’t need to learn Jean’s handwriting, but he wanted to learn Jean’s words.
Floch worked on his timing, too. He thought he’d get a bigger reaction if he delayed reading the letter out until the soldiers were already merry. He was right, but a few sharper tools found it strange. Some rolled their eyes in fond exasperation when he claimed he’d forgotten. Some clearly didn’t believe him, though they took it no further. He didn’t like either reaction.
So Floch worked on his organisation. He built the next shipment into something for the Scouts to anticipate. Normally, he just tacked memos from Hange up on the common room notice boards, but this time he gathered everyone to read them out.
While he was doing that, he let everyone help themselves to the hard cider and cookies from Jean.
By the time someone reminded Floch to read out Jean’s letter, the atmosphere was decidedly convivial. Some of the regimental musicians had brought out their fiddles by that point, and they had to be hushed so that Floch could be heard. When he was done, a couple of the lads pressed wet, happy smacks to Floch’s cheeks, and then he was hauled up on some shoulders for a parade around the room. He felt like he was still floating five feet in the air when he danced back to his office afterwards.
Jean didn’t send any booze on the next boat, so Floch bought some himself. He knew how quickly the Scouts went through the crates from Liberio, so he brought extra to make sure there was enough. Jean had good instincts, but he really should leave the planning to Floch.
***
Oct 8th (cont)
I learned to drive. Did I tell you already? It’s not as fun as ODM, but it’s more practical. Keeps me busy, anyway. I do a bit of delivery work here and there when I’m not on Scout business. It’s useful, honestly. You get to know how a place really works like that. This is the best way to get here, there’s a good shortcut over there, don’t go this place after night, there’s guards on gates at this time but not that time - all that sorta stuff. Like I said. Useful. Plus…I can’t lie. Driving isn’t as fun as ODM, but it is pretty fun. Sometimes it’s ok to have some fun on the job.
***
There was one authorisation that Floch really wanted from Hange. Guns.
Ten crates of guns.
Floch liked guns, but the Scouts never had enough.
When the authorisation finally came, it came from Armin.
Floch sat with it at his writing desk for twenty minutes, staring emptily at his inkwell, before he screwed up his attempt at a copy and threw it into the fire. It was still blank. Thinking about Armin was such anathema that it had poisoned a blank page.
Why couldn’t Hange just write their own damn orders?
Then Floch realised that they could. The orders that left Hange’s desk in Liberio came from Hange, even if they were in Armin’s writing. Those orders all had to cross Floch’s desk in Trost before they went anywhere else. What did it matter if they changed back into Hange’s writing while they were waiting?
Hange’s order went to the armoury. Fifteen crates of guns.
Armin’s version went into the fire. Half an ounce of ash.
***
Oct 8th (cont)
I reread your last letter to see if there was anything else I needed to say. I guess you figured out Eren vanished, huh? I can talk about it now. What an asshole! We were just at this conference to figure out if people would be receptive to us announcing ourselves as Eldians from Paradis, and he ups and splits! Fuckin’ great, huh? What were we supposed to do? “Hey, we’re the Eldians from Paradis. Yeah, we lost the Founder and all our leverage. Nice to meet ya!” Ah, I’m just yelling again. It’s an old grievance for me now. We got a letter from Eren even before your last letter arrived, so…yeah.
Fuckin’ Eren, man. He’ll be the death of all of us yet, I swear.
***
Floch had to stand in for Eren today. He had to stand in for so many of them so often. He had to stand in for Hange at work, he had to stand in for Jean in the common room, and he had to stand in for Eren for the sake of Eldia. It was too much, really. He worked too hard.
Yelena was especially hard work. Floch hated her, and he hated having to work with her. She was a liar. Floch was a liar too, down to his very bones, and he could spot one of his own.
She acted like she knew something Floch didn’t know, and he hated that, even though he knew what she thought he didn’t, and even though he really did know things she didn’t know.
Her superior attitude pissed him off, and it pissed him off more because he kept finding himself genuflecting to her.
She was too tall. That was it. She was too tall for a woman, and she dressed like a man, and she had that stupid hair like a man, and she spoke like a man, and she wasn’t a man but Floch kept finding himself treating her with respect like she was a man, and - ugh!
Bitch.
There was nothing he could learn from her.
Nothing
.
He had to see her because of Eren, but he quickly excused himself, saying he had a letter to deliver to a girl. Yelena smiled indulgently, and made some comment about what a rare sort of woman would turn Floch Forster’s head. It might have been a compliment. Floch took it as an insult, and he took his leave.
The letter was to Connie’s mother. Connie always sent one home. Delivering it was a solemn duty. Floch tried to avoid it when he could. Ragako village was too close to Yelena’s accommodation to get out of it this time, though.
He’d had to do it twice already. The first time, he tried to read the letter out to her. It was far too much, and he hadn’t finished. The second time, he’d respectfully tucked the letter into a box inside the Springers’ front door, where he didn’t have to look the gasping, grinning Titan in the face. This time, he scrunched the letter up into an ugly ball and threw it into her maw.
It wasn’t enough. It wasn’t anything. All Floch had wanted to do was to work out some of his anger at Yelena, but destroying Connie’s precious words hadn’t even touched it.
Floch had left Jean’s latest crate as a reward for when he got home, but he wasn’t in a good enough mood to enjoy it yet. He kicked the lid open. It bounced back and closed again, so he kicked the whole crate over. Newspapers tipped out of it. No, not newspapers - magazines. Magazines full of pictures of girls in fussy little dresses and underthings.
Obscene
!
Floch’s fury reached a boiling point. He’d had enough of women today. The cover of the magazine on top had torn a little when it caught on the lip of the box, so Floch ripped it off entirely. That felt a little better. He ripped it again across the middle, pulling the woman’s legs away from her body. That felt a little better too. So did splitting her face down the middle. Floch went on, reducing every picture on every page to scratched out scraps.
He thought he wanted to tear through everything Jean had sent, but it turned out that one issue was enough. He pawed through them all anyway, hoping to recapture his rage.
He realised they weren’t all magazines about girls in their slips. Some were about athletic boys instead. Floch sniffed, supposing they must be for the men who preferred their own company. There were others too, covering all sorts of subjects. One even had a little note tucked on to the front: “
FF - thought you might like this! - JK
.” The picture on the front was a beautiful rifle, and a peek at the pages confirmed it was indeed full of interesting articles. Floch pocketed Jean’s note, and cleared his throat as he tucked the magazine inside his jacket.
There was the letter too. Floch decided he didn’t want to read this one out to his troops. No, he’d done his duty today. He’d seen Yelena for Eren and he’d delivered that stupid letter for Connie. He deserved something just for himself tonight. He scanned it greedily, devouring the words without really reading them.
“- fashion for the girls, sports for the boys, and hobbies for everyone. I wish I knew what people would like best. No one ever writes me except you. I get it! No one wants to suck up to the CO. I just want to know how people are doing, what’s bothering them, that kinda thing. It’s tough to lead strangers, y’know? I can’t fine tune them if I don’t know what makes them tick. Oh, that reminds me! If anyone’s into clocks or watches, they do magazines about that too. I could send one next time, or even the parts…”
Floch clutched Jean’s letter to his chest, not caring for once if it got crumpled. What a gift. What a treat. What a trove of treasure. Jean was too good to him. Too, too good to him.
You can fine tune them if you know what makes them tick. That’s right. Take Samuel, for instance. When Floch explained Eldian history to him, his eyes glazed over so hard that Floch could use him as a mirror. He always got excited when there was meat on the menu though.
So promise him meat on the menu.
Floch pressed the letter to his lips. A mad giggle bubbled past them.
Jean deserved something to treasure in return. Of course he did. He’d been so good to Floch so many times; it was only fair for Floch to return the favour. He had always fretted about overstepping the line before, but he was certain he knew what Jean needed now. He’d absorbed so much of Jean through those letters that he practically was Jean. And if Floch knew what Floch wanted, then Floch knew what Jean wanted.
Right?
He put pen to paper, scratching messy lines across the page.
No, you’re right Jean, no one feels comfortable writing to their commanding officer. No one but me. Only I can look you in the eye, man to man. I can tell you anything. That means you can tell me anything too. You already do. I can tell how much you miss home, how much you hate it there, how much you want to come home. So come home. Come home to me. I know how lonely you are. You don’t need to be lonely. Not if you let me inside your head the way I let you in mine. We can use the same words, speak with the same voice, think the same thoughts. I can show you how, because I can be you, and you can be me, and there can just be us us us.
Jean
.
Floch scribbled on, covering the page in spirals and circles of the same words over and over. When he was finally done, he closed his eyes and drew a long, ragged breath. The feverish light in them was gone when he opened them again. He calmly knelt to pick up all the other magazines. They were less deviant than he had thought, now he looked at them afresh. Just girls in summer clothes and boys playing football, really. He could happily leave them all in the common room with a note, and let the rest take their pick. He dashed it out - “
JK thought you might like these! - FF”
- and put them in a neat pile by the door to take with him when he left.
He couldn’t leave his office in such a state, though. Floch tutted to himself. It was always up to Floch to clean up the mess. He fetched a brush and pan, fussily swept up the scraps, and dumped them into the now-empty crate. He smiled into it lovingly as he arranged the glossy paper ribbons into a nest for his letter to Jean.
Tomorrow, after he’d slept it off, Floch would rewrite that letter entirely, and the scraps could go in the fire where they belonged. He’d start with a polite greeting, and smoothly answer all Jean’s questions. He padded it out with all the boring details about other soldiers that Jean had tactfully asked for. He would keep the insinuation that no one else wanted to write to Jean, but he’d make it cleaner. Neater. He could fine tune every word, because now he knew what made Jean tick.
***
Oct 8th (cont.)
I wish you weren’t dead.
That’s so selfish of me, but that’s what this is for: I have to write it all out as honestly as I can, and I am selfish. I wanted you to look up to me. No, even worse: I wanted to *be* someone you would look up to. I wanted to be your role model. I know - stupid, right? I just wanted to be such a good man that you would look at me and think, wow, I want to be just like Jean Kirstein. I wanted that because I used to be a shitty little asshole just like you, but I had Marco, and that’s how I felt when I looked at Marco.
But I’m not Marco. I’m not that good. I’m selfish, and weak, and I couldn’t teach you anything, and I’m sorry. I am trying to be a better man, I promise. That must sound pretty hollow to you though. It does to me. I think about what I could have done better or differently.
Armin says I can’t blame myself for your choices, so I asked him if he ever felt guilty about showing Eren that stupid book and he shut the fuck up. I think Reiner gets it though.
Reiner suggested I write to you. He writes to people like this sometimes when it gets too much, and it seems to help him some.
I don’t know if this has helped.
I think I know why I really wanted to write to you now though. It’s not just because it’s your birthday.
I do all sorts of stuff here, not just driving. One thing I’m supposed to do is paint this mural in this park we built, like a tribute to the fallen from the Rumbling. I sketched it out, and everyone looked like you.
Makes sense, maybe. You were the last dead body I saw up close.
I can’t keep you alive like that, though. I can’t keep drawing you. It doesn’t make me feel good.
It’s not just about me either. They all look so mean and crazy. You - well, you could be mean and you could be crazy, but I know there was more to you than that. It’s just how the faces that look like you come out. I can’t paint that. If I paint a sea of people who looked like that, everyone would say they got what they deserved.
No one deserved it, Floch. Not even you. And I can’t hear someone say that about you again, Floch, I just can’t. I wish I could have been what you needed, but I couldn’t, and I’m sorry. But…please…I need something from you. Even though it’s not fair. Please.
I need you to stop being such a big part of me.
Jean.