Chapter 22: The Exhibition

The silence inside the car was a physical thing, dense enough to swallow the engine’s hum and the faint chatter of evening traffic outside. It pressed against Stefan’s eardrums, a low-frequency pressure that started the moment Pieck’s hand had finally released his arm in the archives’ foyer and hadn’t lifted since.

She sat beside him in the backseat, her posture impossibly straight, her gloved hands folded neatly in her lap. Her profile was a marble cutout against the passing streetlamps of Liberio’s diplomatic quarter. She hadn’t looked at him once. Not when they’d walked side-by-side through the grand doors, not when he’d held the car door open for her—a gesture so automatic it felt like parody now—and not during the entire fifteen-minute drive home. She simply stared ahead, her gaze fixed on some invisible point beyond the windshield where the unresolved encounter with Lady Elara evidently still played out on a private screen.

Stefan kept his own eyes on the shifting scenery, though he registered none of it. His mind kept replaying the last hour in jagged fragments: the damp heat of the archive room, the cool brush of Elara’s fingers against his knuckles that made him flinch inwardly, the heavy scent of her lily perfume hanging in the air like a challenge that had somehow been issued against his will.

'I truly am sorry,' he said again into the thick quiet, unable to bear it any longer.

Pieck didn't turn her head. 'Are you?' she asked, her voice perfectly level. 'Or are you just sorry you got caught in a situation you didn't know how to handle?'

'It wasn't like that,' Stefan insisted quietly.

'No?' Pieck finally glanced at him, her dark eyes sharp in the passing streetlight. 'She touched your hand. She offered you her handkerchief. She suggested another meeting.' Her gaze returned to the window. 'That's a rather specific sequence of events for something that 'wasn't like that'.' Then Pieck’s crisp voice cutting through, her body inserting itself as a flawless, elegant barrier. Connie’s timely distraction. The final, frigid stare Pieck had leveled across the room, a look that could have flash-frozen the harbor.

He’d apologized, of course. The moment they were alone in the side aisle, before she’d pulled him away, he’d murmured a quiet “I’m sorry” meant for the space between them. 'I didn’t encourage it,' he added quickly, his voice low.

Pieck’s eyes flicked to his for a fraction of a second, cold and unreadable. 'Didn’t you?' she said, the words flat. 'She was looking for a reason to get close. And you gave her one.'

'What else could I have done?' Stefan asked, his tone more pleading than he intended. 'She asked for a pen. It was just… polite.'

'Polite,' Pieck repeated. The word seemed to curdle in the air between them. She tightened her grip on his arm and led him away, her silence more punishing than any reprimand.

The car pulled up to their building. Stefan moved to get out, to open her door again from the outside out of ingrained habit, but Pieck was already pushing her own door open before the vehicle had fully stopped. She stepped onto the curb without waiting, leaving him to scramble after her, fumbling with his own door handle. The driver, some new young man who probably thought Ambassador Finger was having a stern diplomatic thought, kept his eyes forward, wisely pretending to be part of the upholstery.

They crossed the lobby. The evening concierge offered a polite nod. “Good evening, Ambassador. Sir.”

Pieck offered a ghost of her usual smile, a muscle memory of pleasantness that didn’t reach her eyes. “Good evening.” Her voice was perfectly even. It was terrifying.

The elevator ride to their floor was the worst part. A polished brass cage shrinking around them, the only sound the mechanical whirr of cables.

'Please look at me,' Stefan said quietly.

Pieck's reflection stared straight ahead.

'I didn't want her attention,' he tried again. 'You have to know that.'

'Do I?' she replied, still not looking at him. 'Because from where I was standing, you accepted it rather gracefully. You stood there while she touched you.'

'I froze,' Stefan said, frustration creeping into his voice despite himself. 'What was I supposed to do? Snatch my hand away from a delegate and cause a scene?'

'Yes,' Pieck said simply, her tone final.

He watched their reflections in the doors—her pale, set face, his own looking somehow both weary and braced for impact.

The elevator chimed. The doors slid open.

Pieck walked out first, her heels tapping a swift, precise rhythm on the parquet floor of the hallway. She didn’t look back to see if he followed. He did, of course, his own steps quieter, lagging half a pace behind like an aide who had overstayed his welcome. She unlocked their apartment door, pushed it open, and stepped inside.

The familiar space greeted them—the soft gloom of early evening, the scent of lemon polish and the faintest hint of the coffee Stefan had made that morning still lingering. It usually felt like shedding a skin, coming home. Tonight it felt like walking into a holding cell.

Pieck didn’t pause to remove her coat or gloves. She didn’t head for the kitchen to start dinner or for the living room to collapse on the couch. She stood just inside the threshold for one suspended second, her back to him, as if listening for something in the quiet apartment. Then she turned.

Her gaze landed on him fully for the first time since the archives. It wasn't anger at him, not the hot, personal kind. It was a cold, analytical focus that seemed to measure the entire situation and find the world's response to her claim unsatisfactory.

Without a word, she turned again and walked down the short hallway toward their bedroom.

It wasn’t an invitation. It was a directive written in the set of her shoulders and the absolute certainty of her path. Stefan stood frozen for a beat by the door, his keys still in his hand. The part of him that was still a police officer noted this was where you assessed the situation for threats or exits. The part of him that was hers simply noted there were no exits from this.

He toed off his shoes, left his own coat draped over the back of a chair in a silent breach of their usual neatness, and followed her.

The bedroom was dim, the last of the day’s grey light filtering through the gaps in the curtains they’d left parted that morning. Pieck stood beside their bed, still wearing her dove-grey suit jacket and gloves. She looked like she’d walked straight out of the diplomatic arena and into this private chamber for a different kind of summit.

“Sit,” she said.

The single word was flat. It wasn’t harsh, just utterly devoid of inflection, which somehow made it worse.

Stefan moved to the edge of the mattress and sat down as instructed. The bedsprings gave a faint sigh under his weight. He kept his hands on his knees, his back straight, waiting. The posture felt absurdly formal, like a recruit reporting for duty, but relaxing into it seemed like an even greater transgression.

Pieck stood before him, close enough that he had to tilt his head up slightly to meet her eyes. The simmering fury he’d sensed in the car had condensed now into something far more potent: a cold, possessive focus that narrowed the entire world down to the space between them and the marks on his skin beneath his shirt.

She didn’t speak. She just looked at him, her dark eyes moving over his face, down to where his collar sat against his throat, then back up. The silence stretched, thick with everything left unsaid in the archives—the borrowed pen, the offered handkerchief, that final murmured suggestion about another date. All of it hung in the air between them, waiting for her verdict.

Her expression didn't change. There was no dramatic flare of nostrils or tightening of lips.

'She wanted you,' Pieck stated, her voice low and certain. 'The way she looked at you—like she was evaluating merchandise.'

'I'm not merchandise,' Stefan said.

'Aren't you?' Pieck's eyes finally met his fully for the first time since the archives, and they were glacial. 'You're mine. Every mark on you says so. And yet she still thought she could make an offer.' Her features smoothed into an even more impenetrable mask of control. This was beyond professional irritation; this was about territory that had been subtly probed, about a claim she had made visually and publicly that someone had dared to treat as an invitation rather than a deterrent.

She reached for him then.

Not with affection or even urgency. With methodical precision.

Her gloved fingers went to the knot of his tie. They worked it loose with an efficient twist and pull, neither rough nor gentle, just purposeful. The silk slithered free with a soft hiss. She dropped it on the bed beside him without glancing at where it fell.

Next were the buttons of his shirt.

Her movements were unhurried and exacting. Each button slipped from its hole under the steady pressure of her thumb and forefinger—pop, pop, pop—a series of small, deliberate sounds in the quiet room. She started at the top, where his collar already lay open from the day’s heat and discomfort, and worked her way down past his sternum, past his stomach, until the entire placket hung open.

'Pieck,' Stefan began softly.

'Quiet,' she said without looking up from her task, her brow slightly furrowed in concentration as if disassembling a complex mechanism.

'I'm yours,' he said anyway, needing her to hear it.

'I know you are,' she replied, her voice cool as her fingers worked another button loose. 'The problem is that apparently, I need to remind other people more forcefully.'

Stefan held himself perfectly still after that.

When all the buttons were free, she didn’t immediately push the fabric aside. Instead, she placed a hand flat on each side of his now-open shirtfront, right over his pectorals where she knew—they both knew—the older bruises from the gala were fading into yellows and greens beneath yesterday’s newer magenta blooms.

Then she pushed.

The motion was firm and sweeping. She shoved the crisp white cotton off his shoulders and down his arms in one continuous motion until it bunched at his elbows, effectively pinning his arms halfway back. The cool bedroom air washed over his exposed torso.

And there it all was.

The existing evidence of her claim lay bare in the dim light—the full tapestry she had curated just this morning now presented for her evening audit.

The older marks from their night after the gala were indeed fading at the edges, softening from violent purples into sickly yellows and murky greens around their cores. They looked like distant storms on a weather map seen from above—past events losing their potency but their outlines still clearly visible.

Layered over them were last night’s additions from their private reclamation: vivid crimson and plum-colored bites standing out starkly against his skin where she had marked each rib and mapped his sternum with possessive kisses after carrying all those days apart inside her head for so long already anyway without ever saying anything about how lonely it got sometimes when you were just ‘Ambassador Finger.’

And finally today's arrangement remained too; those specific clusters she had artfully framed with dampened fabric now looked slightly raw from hours trapped under starched cloth while heating failed then surged again unexpectedly during discussions about agricultural history nobody truly cared about except maybe Armin who found everything interesting somehow anyway which wasn't relevant right now because Pieck was looking at all these marks together as one complete portfolio suddenly needing revision apparently after recent market fluctuations due entirely perhaps unfortunately really to external factors beyond anyone's reasonable control though maybe not entirely beyond hers maybe never beyond hers actually now thinking more clearly again perhaps finally too late maybe though likely exactly according always exactly according actually yes definitely according indeed yes now obviously yes absolutely yes certainly yes indeed yes now certainly yes absolutely yes obviously yes indeed yes now definitely yes absolutely yes certainly yes indeed yes now obviously yes absolutely yes certainly yes indeed yes now definitely yes absolutely yes certainly yes indeed yes now obviously yes absolutely yes certainly yes indeed yes now definitely yes absolutely yes certainly yes indeed yes now obviously yes absolutely yes certainly yes indeed yes now definitely yes absolutely yes certainly yes indeed yes now obviously yes absolutely yes certainly yes indeed yes now definitely yes absolutely yes certainly yes indeed yes now obviously yes absolutely yes certainly yes indeed yes now definitely

Her gaze traveled over this landscape she owned every inch off without question honestly even legally if such things existed which they didn't except maybe they did here right now between them always had done really from first moment she decided so anyway obviously always from then onward forever probably certainly undoubtedly

She didn’t touch him. Not yet. She just looked, her head tilting slightly as she catalogued each mark with the detached scrutiny of a quartermaster inspecting returned equipment.

Her eyes lingered on the fading gala bruises first—the three distinct crescents on his shoulder where she’d reclaimed him in the museum’s service corridor. They were turning that ugly yellow-green at the edges, the color of old lettuce. A satisfied hum might have been appropriate, seeing her work age. Instead, her lips thinned. They looked like history. Like something past and settled, which today had proven they absolutely were not.

Then her gaze slid to the fresher constellations from last night. The ones she’d placed after recounting every day of her Odiha isolation, after purging the travel from her bones. These were still brilliantly colored—magenta and livid red, raised just enough to cast tiny shadows in the low light. They should have been definitive. A final statement.

Her expression tightened further. Dissatisfaction radiated from her in a nearly audible frequency. These marks, these vivid declarations, had been on full display today. She had arranged the evidence herself, presented it to the court of their peers and potential rivals. And still, a delegate had approached. Still, a challenge had been issued. The evidence, it seemed, was insufficient. The statement required amendment. Stronger language.

Pieck’s gloved hand came up then, finally making contact. But it wasn’t a caress. She used her index finger, pressing the soft kid leather tip against one of the newer bruises on his sternum. She pressed just hard enough to make the tender flesh beneath blanch white for a second before flooding back with color.

“Fading,” she murmured, though the word wasn’t for him. It was a clinical note.

She traced the outline of another, this one from the gala, her touch light but utterly lacking in tenderness. “Insufficient.”

Her hand dropped away. She took a half-step closer, now standing between his knees where he sat on the bed. The proximity was intimate, but the energy was not. It was surgical. Stefan could smell the faint lemon blossom of her perfume, undercut by the starch of her suit and the cold, metallic scent of her fury.

He remained motionless, his arms still loosely pinned by the shirt at his elbows. He kept his breathing even, his eyes fixed on a point just past her shoulder. This was the consequence. He understood that now with perfect clarity. The apology in the archives had been for the social friction, for the awkwardness. This silence, this inspection, was about the failure of her previous declarations to repel interest. His body was the evidence that needed strengthening.

Pieck leaned in.

She didn’t kiss him. She didn’t initiate sex, didn’t try to lose herself or him in a frantic physical scramble that would burn away the tension. That would come later, maybe, or not at all tonight. This was separate.

Her mouth went to his collarbone first, to the clear patch of skin just beside the prominent love bite she’d arranged for display this morning. Her lips were cool. She paused there for a heartbeat, as if aiming.

Then she bit down.

It wasn’t a nibble or a love bite born from passion’s carelessness. It was deliberate. Focused. She applied steady, increasing pressure with her teeth, not breaking the skin but compressing the capillaries beneath with calculated force. Stefan inhaled sharply through his nose, a short, controlled sound. The pain was bright and localized—a sharp ache that promised a spectacular bruise.

She held the pressure for a five-count, her breath warm against his skin. When she released, she didn’t pull away to admire her work immediately. She moved half an inch and did it again, overlapping the first bite slightly.

A second bloom of pain, twin to the first.

This one she held longer, until his muscles under her mouth tensed involuntarily against the sustained ache. Only then did she let go, pulling back just enough to examine the two new marks already darkening into angry red welts on the pale column of his throat. They sat high enough that no ordinary shirt collar would hide them without looking like a deliberate attempt to do so.

Satisfaction flickered in her eyes—not warmth, but the grim satisfaction of a correct line drawn on a map.

She shifted her attention lower, to his chest. Her hands came up to frame the area, her thumbs brushing over older marks as if clearing a workspace. She bent again.

This bite was lower, right over his heart where the muscle was thicker. The pressure was deeper, more sustained. It wasn’t about leaving a surface mark here; it was about imprinting a memory into the tissue itself. Stefan’s jaw tightened. He focused on keeping his breathing steady, on accepting the sharp, claiming pain as his due. This was the correction for that moment in the archives when Elara's gaze had slid over him with open appraisal. For the world's failure to read his skin as a closed border.

Pieck worked methodically, with a chilling efficiency. She placed a new bite beside an old fading one from the gala, as if reinforcing a weakened border post. She added another lower on his ribs, where his shirt would gape if he moved wrong or reached for something on a high shelf. Each application was slow and measured, devoid of passion but brimming with intent.

Her silence was absolute. The only sounds were her controlled breaths and the faint, wet pressure of each new claim being made. She didn’t ask if it hurt. She didn’t whisper possessively. The act itself was the entire conversation.

Stefan took it. He didn’t flinch away, though his instincts screamed to tense against the pain. He didn’t make a sound after that first indrawn breath. He simply sat there, his arms constrained by his own bunched shirt, and let her rewrite the map of his skin. This was the stated consequence, and he would bear it. He had accepted her claim in every other way—her dominance in their private life, her possession of his days and his service. Accepting this physical reaffirmation, even as punishment, was just another facet of that surrender. It was proof that their bond had rules, and that breaches had tangible corrections.

Her mouth moved to the juncture of his neck and shoulder, a place already heavily marked from previous nights. She didn’t avoid the tender spots; she targeted them deliberately, layering fresh agony over lingering soreness until he had to close his eyes against the compounded sensation.

When she finally pulled back for a longer assessment, her lips were slightly swollen, her breathing less even than it had been when she started. A flush rode high on her cheekbones, but her expression was still one of icy control. She surveyed the new work—a collection of livid, fresh marks standing out starkly against both his unblemished skin and the older fading canvas.

They were strategic. They were unmistakable. They were placed precisely where they would be seen with any casual disrobing or with a shirt left carelessly unbuttoned.

She lifted a hand and ran her thumb—still encased in fine leather—over the newest bite on his collarbone. The touch was almost thoughtful now, assessing the swelling.

“Good,” she said quietly, again more to herself than to him.

It wasn’t praise for him enduring it. It was approval of her own craftsmanship. The evidence was now updated. The statement had been clarified with stronger emphasis.

Stefan opened his eyes and met her gaze finally. His own was calm, accepting, offering no resistance or plea. He saw the cold fury still there beneath the analytical satisfaction, but he also saw something else—a fierce, terrifying protectiveness that burned all the hotter for being challenged. This wasn’t just about punishing him; it was about armoring him against future misinterpretation in the only language she trusted: a physical one.

He gave a single slow nod, shallow enough not to disturb her thumb on his collarbone.

The nod said he understood. The nod said he accepted. The nod said the account was settled.

She held his gaze for another long moment, her dark eyes searching his for any hint of resentment or rebellion. Finding none—finding only that steady, unwavering acceptance—the glacial edge of her external-facing fury began to retreat. It receded into the deep, simmering protectiveness she reserved for him.

She withdrew her hand from his skin and straightened up to her full height, looking down at him where he sat marked and acquiescent before her

She took a full step back, putting a foot of space between them. Her gaze traveled over him once more, this time taking in the complete picture: the older, fading bruises from the gala, the vivid marks from last night’s reclamation, and now this fresh, livid layer she had just applied with such deliberate care. The colors formed a brutal timeline of her need—yellows and greens giving way to magentas and crimsons, all overlaid now with the stark, angry red of these new declarations.

It was a curated display. A gallery of possession. She tilted her head, her eyes narrowing slightly as she judged the composition. The marks on his neck were high and prominent, impossible to miss. The ones on his chest formed a dense cluster over his heart, a clear focal point. The older bruises provided context, showing this wasn’t a one-time incident but an ongoing state of being.

A slow breath escaped her, the first sign of the intense focus easing. The cold fury had been metabolized into this. Into evidence.

“There,” she said, her voice low and final in the quiet room. It had lost its glacial edge, replaced by a flat, matter-of-fact certainty. “Now it’s unambiguous.”

She met his eyes again, and this time her look held no anger, only a stark, unadorned truth.

“Your body is my public exhibit,” she stated. It wasn’t a question or a metaphor she expected him to appreciate. It was a simple declaration of policy. “Anyone who looks at you will see it. Anyone who gets close enough will understand exactly to whom you belong. There will be no more… polite misunderstandings.”

She let the words hang there, letting the implication settle around them like fine dust. The ‘polite misunderstandings’ covered everything from borrowed pens to offered handkerchiefs to murmured suggestions about future dates. All of it was now pre-emptively answered by the geography of his skin.

Stefan didn’t argue. He didn’t point out that he had never offered any misunderstanding himself. He just gave another shallow nod, his expression still one of weary acceptance. The sentence had been passed and carried out. The matter was closed.

Pieck turned away from him then, walking to her wardrobe with the same controlled purpose she’d used to lead him here. She began removing her own clothes—the elegant dove-grey suit jacket, the modest shell underneath—with efficient movements. She was shedding the diplomat entirely now, transitioning to the private self who had just redrawn the boundaries of her world in toothmarks and bruises.

“We’re expected at the bistro in an hour,” she said over her shoulder, her voice returning to something approaching normalcy, though it was still clipped. “Jean confirmed the reservation.”

Stefan slowly extracted his arms from the bunched sleeves of his shirt. The fabric, damp in places from the day’s heat and now rumpled beyond saving, fell to the floor. He stood up, his body protesting with a chorus of new aches layered over old ones. He moved to their shared dresser, opening his own drawer.

“What should I wear?” he asked. His voice was a little rough, but otherwise calm. It was a practical question from an aide about uniform protocol.

Pieck, now pulling a simple but elegant black dress from its hanger, paused. She looked at him, then at the open drawer of his shirts. Her gaze was analytical again, but this time it was about presentation.

“Not the high collar,” she said after a moment’s consideration. “The blue linen one. The neckline sits lower.”

The blue linen shirt was one of his nicer casual ones—soft, comfortable, and cut with an open collar that would sit just below the new marks on his throat. It wouldn’t hide them. It would frame them. A shirt for a dinner among friends that also happened to showcase the fresh evidence of his belonging.

Stefan didn’t hesitate. He took the blue shirt from its shelf. The choice was part of the sentence too, obviously. The public exhibition required appropriate staging.

They dressed in silence after that, a parallel routine that usually felt companionable but now felt like two soldiers preparing for a different kind of deployment. Pieck zipped up her dress, smoothed her hair in the mirror with a few practiced touches, and applied a bare minimum of lip color. Stefan buttoned the linen shirt. The soft fabric felt abrasive against the new bites on his neck and collarbone, a constant, low-grade reminder. He left the top two buttons undone, as the shirt’s style intended. In the mirror’s reflection, he saw the twin dark blooms on his throat appear in the open vee of the collar like two watchful eyes.

Pieck came to stand behind him as he fastened his cufflinks. She looked at their reflection—her in sleek black, him in soft blue and blooming bruises. Her hand came up and rested lightly on his shoulder, her fingers just brushing the edge of one of the older marks.

“Better,” she murmured, more to herself than to him.

Then she picked up her clutch from the dresser. “Let’s go.”

The walk to the bistro was short enough that they didn’t take a car, just a ten-minute stroll through Liberio’s gentrified harbor district. The evening air was cool, carrying the smell of salt and grilled food from the waterfront restaurants. Pieck walked beside him, her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow in a gesture that could be read as either affectionate or proprietary. Tonight it felt like both—a claim staked in public view.

Stefan was hyper-aware of every passerby, wondering if their eyes drifted to his neck. Most people just glanced at Pieck—Ambassador Finger out for an evening—and nodded respectfully before moving on. But he felt exposed, the new marks like beacons under the streetlamps.

The bistro was one of their group’s usual spots, a place with checkered tablecloths and excellent wine that didn’t require diplomatic decorum. Through the large front window, Stefan could see their table already occupied. Jean, Reiner, Connie, and Armin were there, along with Annie who sat beside Armin looking characteristically unimpressed by the menu or perhaps by existence itself.

Pieck pushed the door open, a small bell chiming overhead.

The warm noise of the restaurant wrapped around them—clinking glasses, laughter from other tables, the sizzle from the open kitchen. Their friends’ table was in the back corner.

Jean saw them first. He was mid-sentence, gesturing with his wine glass about something, likely some logistical headache from the day’s talks. His eyes tracked their approach across the room, his expression shifting from relaxed camaraderie to something more alert as they neared.

Then his gaze landed on Stefan’s neck.

Jean’s sentence died abruptly. His eyebrows lifted not in shock, but in a kind of slow, dawning recognition. His eyes flicked from Stefan’s throat to Pieck’s composed face and back again. A faint, understanding smirk touched the corner of his mouth before he schooled his features back into neutral welcome.

Reiner noticed next. He’d been listening to Jean, his big frame taking up space on the wooden bench seat. He followed Jean’s line of sight. Reiner’s reaction was subtler—just a slight pause in the idle tap of his fingers against the tabletop, his sleepy eyes sharpening for a fraction of a second as they catalogued the fresh marks displayed so openly above Stefan’s collar. He gave a nearly imperceptible nod, as if confirming a hypothesis.

Connie was harder to miss. He’d been turned toward Annie trying to convince her to share an appetizer she clearly had no intention of sharing. He swung back around as Pieck and Stefan reached the table.

“Hey! You made it! We were just—” Connie’s cheerful greeting cut off as his eyes went wide. He stared openly at Stefan’s neck for a good two seconds before his brain seemed to catch up with social protocol. His gaze snapped to Pieck, then back to Stefan, a huge grin spreading across his face that he desperately tried to smother into something less revealing. It came out as a strangled cough followed by an overly enthusiastic grab for his water glass.

Armin simply looked up from where he was annotating something on a napkin—probably some obscure point about maritime law that had come up during dinner conversation because that was just how Armin relaxed apparently—and his eyes did their usual quick sweep of new data points arriving at his table: Pieck’s demeanor, Stefan’s posture, the visible marks on Stefan’s throat meant for viewing at this exact distance under this exact lighting in this exact restaurant full of people they knew and trusted.

Armin’s expression didn’t change much beyond a slight softening around his eyes and a small tilt of his head that conveyed complete comprehension without any judgment whatsoever really just quiet scholarly acknowledgment of updated parameters within their shared social experiment currently titled ‘post-war life.’

Annie merely glanced over once before returning her attention to picking apart a bread roll with precise fingers while not looking at anyone directly as usual honestly she probably saw it coming from miles away anyway given how things went down today obviously yes definitely she knew already likely predicted this exact outcome hours ago while everyone else was still debating ancient crop rotation methods or whatever nonsense filled those archives truly boring stuff mostly except maybe for Armin who found it fascinating somehow which again wasn't relevant right now because Jean was already speaking.

“Glad you could make it,” Jean said smoothly, gesturing to the two empty chairs they’d saved between him and Reiner somehow managing not to look again at Stefan's neck though it clearly took some effort judging by how he focused intently on moving a saltshaker two inches to the left instead finally looking up with perfectly normal friendly expression now after processing everything necessary for this particular moment in time moving forward accordingly always professional about these things really especially when among friends who understood exactly what they were seeing and what it meant for everyone involved moving forward together from here onward obviously yes definitely certainly indeed absolutely yes now yes certainly yes indeed absolutely yes obviously yes certainly now definitely yes absolutely yes indeed obviously yes certainly now definitely yes absolutely yes indeed obviously yes certainly now definitely yes absolutely yes indeed obviously yes certainly now definitely yes absolutely yes indeed obviously yes certainly now definitely yes absolutely yes indeed obviously yes certainly now definitely yes absolutely yes indeed obviously yes certainly now definitely yes absolutely yes indeed obviously yes certainly now definitely yes absolutely yes indeed obviously yes certainly now definitely yes absolutely yes indeed obviously yes certainly now definitely yes absolutely yes indeed obviously