Work Text:
Jeanne swears the universe is conspiring against her.
Her son, Louis, had turned three years old a couple of months ago and had been going to the kindergarten just downstreet of her apartment building for about seven weeks now. Ever since, Jeanne had been searching for an architect’s office that would be willing to hire a twenty-four-year-old single-mother on a flexible full-time schedule.
To be fair, she had been keeping an eye out for a while now. It just hadn’t been a viable option up until this point. For the past two years, she had been working part-time at a large company two towns over while she left her son in the loving care of his grandmother, Théa.
She knew there were childcare facilities who offered programs for children under the age of three, of course. Despite her reluctance, when Louis had been a year and a half old, she had even given it a try for a week.
A week full of tears and struggles, because Louis had fought and cried every time Jeanne had tried to leave him at the centre. No, not even a week. She had called it quits on day three and they had both been happier for it.
But now that Louis no longer considered kindergarten his mortal enemy, even liked going there, Jeanne was far less restricted in the hours she could spend on work.
Within four weeks of Louis starting kindergarten, she had secured a position at a small firm whose principal architect and director had quite the easy-going attitude. She’s been signed with the rare deal of thirty-five hours per week, remote work is permitted, and it’s only a twenty-minute drive to the office.
If she did a little dance when she came home after signing the contract, then that is between her and the neighbour from the building next door who Jeanne is pretty sure had seen her through her living room windows.
Jeanne Kirstein doesn’t get lucky, alright? She earned that dance.
There’s still one issue, though, and that is the fact that she doesn’t feel comfortable just depositing Louis at the kindergarten forty hours per week. She knows about the negative effects it can have on young children and she doesn’t want him to grow up feeling like he’s unwanted or a bother to her, either.
Théa still could and wants to watch him from time to time, even if she no longer has the energy to do so every week, and Jeanne could have him home in the afternoons two days per week when she works from home, but it’s hardly an ideal solution.
Louis can be quite clingy and always wants to play with her, so Jeanne doubts she would be able to get any proper work done if he was home and not occupied by someone or something else.
Which is where Marco comes in. He had been over at her apartment for brunch last Saturday and damned her with the fateful words, “What about a babysitter?”
To say that she hadn’t exactly been fond of the idea would have been the understatement of the century. Leaving her baby boy in the capable hands of multiple trained educators is one thing. Leaving him in the care of an unlicensed stranger is something else entirely.
However, it wasn’t like Jeanne had been swimming in options either, and Marco had four younger siblings whose friends he could interrogate for someone suitable before Jeanne so much as had to consider looking up reputable websites for babysitters.
Thus, Jeanne had been introduced to one young woman by the name of Eren Jaeger over text via Marco three days ago.
They had set up a trial playdate, so to speak, for Friday afternoon. Both Marco and Eren would come over to her apartment, so that Jeanne could judge the med student for herself. She needed to see how her and Louis would interact before she could even think about leaving her son in Eren’s care.
As it turns out, Jeanne hadn’t needed to worry about anything at all.
After a short introduction over a cup of coffee (except for Louis, of course, who had had a mug of warm milk) and some sort of Turkish dessert that Eren had brought with her (one that Jeanne had never heard of before and could not repeat the name of), her and Louis had gotten down on the floor to play while Jeanne and Marco chatted and observed them from the kitchen table.
About thirty minutes later, Jeanne’s tiny living room has been monopolised by Louis’ favourite toy: an arrangement of wooden train tracks with two electric locomotives. Him and Eren have built an elaborate grid throughout the entirety of the room, with little towns at each stop and everything.
Jeanne’s used to that. Louis loves to build these things wherever and whenever he’s allowed.
What she’s not used to is her son being this sociable with a person he met less than an hour ago. Louis doesn’t like strangers. He gets shy and will stick to Jeanne like a bug for hours before he warms up to new people.
Yet here he is, playing enthusiastically with Eren, scampering over her legs and flopping down next to her so they can act out little scenes with the figurines. Jeanne knows she should be happy about that.
She likes Eren, Louis likes Eren, and her apartment is not that far away from Jeanne’s own. It’s literally perfect. She couldn’t have had more luck when it came to finding a suitable babysitter for Louis.
There’s just one teeny-tiny issue.
The reason she thinks the universe must have a personal vendetta against her.
Jeanne already likes Eren a bit too much.
It’s not her fault Eren is smoking hot, okay? Jeanne didn’t even know she had a thing for sporty med students, but apparently, she does now. Marco had sent her a picture of Eren before they met in person, of course, but the photo had not done her justice in Jeanne’s humble opinion.
In it, Eren had been wearing the usual student mid exam phase get-up: sweatpants and a hoodie with the university’s logo on it. But if the Turkish sweets Eren brought with her today are any indication, she had been determined to make a good first impression on Jeanne and had dressed up for the occasion.
The black halter top and white pleated skirt give Jeanne a perfect view of the smooth, tanned skin of Eren’s muscular body. Her shoulders are broad, completely exposed thanks to her short, boyish haircut, which has no business looking as good as it does. And whenever Eren is turned away from her, Jeanne takes the chance to eye up her bare back with a moderate amount of shame.
There are moments when Eren shuffles around and Jeanne gets to watch the tendons in her legs flex. Other times, Eren’s skirt will ride up her thighs, unveiling the shorts she wears underneath. The fabric is stretched tight around her plump thighs and Jeanne kind of wants to grab them and squeeze them and ─
Jeanne kind of wants to die.
“Why do you do these things to me?” she asks, tearing her eyes away from Eren to glare at Marco.
For a moment, Marco looks genuinely taken aback. But it only takes him a couple of seconds to read her, and then he’s covering his mouth with one hand to smother his laughter, shoulders shaking.
“Oh my god─ You─ Seriously?”
“Do you secretly hate me or something?” she continues.
“How was I supposed to know that you were going to, you know,” Marco replies, vaguely motioning with his hand towards the two people on the floor by the couch. Then he leans closer and whispers in a low voice, still grinning, “She doesn’t exactly fit your type, so that was the last thing on my mind when I first asked her.”
“I know,” Jeanne hisses back. She’s always had a thing for athletic people with nice legs, she won’t deny that. But every person she’s dated in the past had had long hair, a mild character and the fashion sense of a Devil Wears Prada character. If they hadn’t had those things, they had been men.
“She had really long hair when her and Sofia met during their first year, you know? I think I have a photo.”
“No, wait, I don’t want to see that,” she sputters, but Marco’s already pulling out his phone and scrolling through his gallery. When he turns the screen in her direction, Jeanne looks at it after only a couple of seconds of hesitation, because she has the self-control of a cat that just saw a fragile object balanced at the edge of any elevated surface.
In the photo, a person Jeanne recognises as Marco’s younger sister is standing next to three other girls and two boys. Despite how much softer the long brown strands make her face appear, Jeanne can instantly pick Eren out of the crowd.
It’s long. Like, really long. Down to her butt long. Honestly, it should be considered a crime to cut off that much beautiful hair. It’s even worse that both styles suit her. How is that fair? She wonders what it would look like if Eren still had long hair today. How it would look like if that mane was cascading over her bare back and shoulders right now.
She locks eyes with Marco again. “I hate you.”
“No, you don’t,” Marco snorts, putting his phone away. “All jokes aside, this could turn out to be really good thing for all of you, if you know what I mean. Or you can just ignore it. It’s not that dire.”
Jeanne gestures subtly towards Eren and Louis with one hand. “I can’t ignore that.”
He smiles knowingly. “Why? Is watching her play with your son doing things to you?” Jeanne would like to rescind every statement she’s ever made about Marco being an angel. He’s actually just the devil in disguise.
He yelps when she kicks his shin under the table.
“Everything alright?” Eren asks, turning towards them for a moment. Louis, entirely unbothered by Marco’s noises, is tugging on her top to regain her attention.
“Just a cramp,” Jeanne replies cheerily. Eren raises one very sceptical eyebrow, but turns back to face Louis’ insistent pout. From the corner of her eye, she sees Marco shake her head, still looking far too amused for her liking.
She’s almost disappointed when the day comes to a close. Marco’s going to stay over for a while longer, but Eren has to study for an exam on Monday morning and needs to catch the next bus back to her apartment.
“We can schedule the first time I’ll watch him when you’re working from home, if you’d like,” Eren says as she ties her shoes. “For your peace of mind, I mean. I wouldn’t want to leave my nephew with a stranger, either.”
“I must admit, I’m not all that worried anymore after today. But I’d still like to do that.” Jeanne hands Eren her sweater and bag once she’s gotten to her feet. “You can text me the days you’ll have exams and I’ll do my best to work around them.”
“Thank you, I will.” Eren cranes her head back to grin up at her. Did Jeanne mention she has a thing for pretty girls that are considerably shorter than her, too?
After bidding each other goodbye, Jeanne closes the front door and returns to the kitchen to make dinner for the three of them. Once Louis has done his duty and sulked about Eren leaving for a good five minutes, he waddles up to her, tugs on her pant leg to get her attention and says, “Can’t you marry Eren? Then she’d have to stay here and we could play longer.”
Marco bursts into laughter at the kitchen table and if Louis wasn’t present, Jeanne would curse him out in every language she knows. As it stands, she settles for chucking an empty egg carton at his head.
She’s fucking doomed.