The happiness in his father’s voice as Erwin pushed a ring onto Levi’s shaking finger was the second-best thing for Eren today. He gently teased Levi as he hugged him, sniffing quietly into the shoulder of his adopted son. “Wow, didn’t think you could cry like that, Dad.”

“Shut up,” Levi returned with a shiver in his breaking voice, and wiped his face before pulling back, eyes glinting with tears of happiness. Erwin beamed by his side, smile radiant as always, and Eren pulled him into a tight embrace as well. 

“Told you he’d say yes.” 

Levi raised a brow and laced his fingers up with Erwin’s, tip-toeing up to catch his lips into a soft, shy kiss. “You asked our son if you could marry me?” 

Erwin only cupped his face and rested his forehead against Levi’s, breath still quick, nervous, from asking his boyfriend of seven years if he wanted to spend the rest of his life by Erwin’s side. 

“Of course. And technically, he’s not my…” – “You know that you’re basically his father already? Idiot. You are his dad. He’s your son.” Eren nodded. “True. You’re family, dad.”

It didn’t take much more to have Erwin’s broad shoulders tremble, and Eren rolled his eyes. “You’re both stupid. Tell me when the marriage is. I gotta go buy a proper suit for Jean so he doesn’t look like shit when we’re embarrassing you both by making out on the after-marriage-party in front of aunt Jane.” 

Levi threw something after him, and Eren fled upstairs with a grin flashing across his face, hearing Erwin’s warm laughter behind his back. Then there was silence, and a last whisper from Levi. “Yes, yes. Of course I w-want to, god. Thought you’d never ask…” 

Eren vanished inside his room. He threw himself onto the bed and dialed Jean’s number. It didn’t take long for a dark voice to echo through the speaker. 

“Yeah?”

His grin went soft, gentle. “Hey babe.” He heard Jean shuffle around a bit, and when he spoke back, his words were warm and quiet. “Hello, love.” 

Things were okay, Eren thought. Life was good. And the best thing today was when, a few hours later after talking to Jean about the world and everything and how they’d graduate college together next year – that was when they hung up, and just before their phones died, Jean whispered the softest little “I love you… idiot”. 

The best thing today. 

He started painting because it was the only outlet for his emotions. Mikasa told him that he was just feeling more than other people. Eren doesn’t believe her when he loses all his inspiration from one day to another. So many of his paintings still scream for colour, they beg him for blue and green and the hues of a fresh sunrise, for blood and thick, velvety darkness. Eren sits in front of a blank canvas and can’t find his colours again. 

Then there’s Jean. He’s all pale like snow, skin cold and scarred. The red lines run over his arms, along his thighs, and there’s a spot on his leg where a surgery left an deep crimson abyss, hairless and smooth. 

They don’t fuck. They meet in a bar, Eren’s hands grasped around a drink that’s supposed to help him find colours and lines. Jean just sits down by his side, touches his arm. Says: “Hello.” And that’s it. They talk all night. It’s four dates until Jean lets Eren kiss his cheek. It’s four more until he strips naked for him and lies down on the warm sheets of his bed, and Eren hasn’t touched him once below his thin, vulnerable throat, but he paints him. 

Jean’s skin is the canvas he’s been searching for. The colours return, and they’re brilliant on the snow-white, on the soft cold that shimmers all over Jean. Eren paints for hours and hours, every day, and Jean is patient and silent. 

One night, Eren’s emotions return, like a thunderstorm that’s been roaring on the horizon far far away and suddenly comes down with a black scream. It’s impossible to resist. He apologizes a thousand times after just kissing Jean, he pulls him close and lets him go and somewhere, somehow, the word “love” floods from his lips. 

Jean is silent. His skin is warm, for the first time ever, when he pulls Eren close and says: “Don’t you dare apologize.” And asks him to please, please – do it again. 

The night was the coldest they’d had in centuries, but Eren’s hands were spelling love on his naked skin, and it was impossible to be cold by his side. Jean had long given up to hold back his moans, his sighs that were coloured with heavy, golden desperation dripping down his lips. Eren kissed it all away, a whispered “baby, shh, I’m all yours” flooding Jean’s blood. His toes curled, legs sliding around Eren’s waist. 

“Are you scared?” Eren was looking at him as if he was a star, something to be admired. Jean’s heart felt heavy under the admiration he wasn’t used to, the one that Eren was pouring over him – as if it wasn’t worth all diamonds and happiness in the world, to be looked at by those eyes just once. 

“No. Never.” His legs tightened around Eren’s waist, Jean’s heavy breath hitching when a thick cock pressed against his hole. Eren closed his eyes and cursed quietly, then leaned over him to rest their foreheads together. His fingers found Jean’s lips and slid along them, salt and warmth and liquid love staying behind as a taste. 

“I’m all yours, baby.” Eren held him in his arms as if Jean was his own soul, and then everything became small, unimportant – blurry. Eren slid into him easily, his cock splitting Jean open so beautifully that a sob shattered in his throat and rose out of his lips. “F-fuck, Eren. Eren, Eren, I – please, oh pleaseplease – “ 

“I got you. ‘m here, shhh.” Kisses on his face, the feeling of being whole, filled up by Eren’s thick cock inside him – Jean fell into those warm arms and smiled, shudders taking over his body, lips curling around another sob. Eren’s lips found his own. “Won’t let anyone hurt you again, baby.” 

“I know. I – f-fuck, I’m – I’m not scared anymore.” 

Eren’s eyes went wide, his body almost dropping onto Jean. “You – “ But Jean pulled him down, both arms around his strong shoulders, burying his nose into the sharp ivory of his collarbone under warm flesh. “Please.” 

And Eren, with a soft smile, something wet shimmering in his eyes, obeyed. He carried Jean away that night, and Jean knew he wouldn’t forget the warmth that spread through his bones and finally, after all this shit and pain, reached his heart and the wreck that was left of his soul.