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.

His first kiss tastes like storm and rain, like the hay of the barn that he and Jean hide inside, at night, away from everyone else’s curious glances. It tastes like liquid, golden fire flooding his veins and sparking inside his head, a phoenix on Jean’s lips. And Jean is gentle and rough all together, licks open his mouth and the soft, trembling insides of his thighs, and Marco gives in with the desperate moan of a man who’s losing himself to a dark, grinning mouth around his hard cock. Jean sucks him, head going up and down with Marco’s hand curling into his soft hair, pulling, tugging roughly, his own voice a raw scream when he comes into that wet, hot mouth that licks him dry.
And his next kiss tastes salty, trickles warmly down his spine in tender shudders, Jean’s hands cupping his face and whispering “Marco, Marco. Let me – god, please, ‘m yours.” All Marco can say back, voice broken and smiling, is: “Yes.”

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.

Some days are bright and warm, taste like chocolate and the sleepy salt on Marco’s skin when Jean kisses him awake, their legs tangled into a nest of safety under damp blankets.
Other days melt into starless nights, Jean curled in a corner, whimpering and clawing at his own skin till it’s raw and open and Marco kneeling in front of him, rocking him back and forth like a child, words like “it’s okay, we’re in another life, I won’t die on you again. I love you, love you” into his ear. To Jean, Marco is the only god he’ll ever believe in. He prays to him in kisses, and when the tears are gone, Marco wipes the salt off his cheeks, praising him with a love Jean can’t ever deserve.

He lost his right arm and half of his cheek to a titan’s grinding maw. Marco’s smile went out like a candle’s fire dying in the wind’s hoarse breath. Jean finds it hidden underneath his skin when he kisses Marco’s deep scars one night, whispering liquid golden tenderness to his torn heart, patching the cracks with his hands that lace up with Marco’s. Jean finds his smile. It’s tiny and shaky, because Marco hasn’t used it in a long time, yet it’s there like a light that was buried under dirt for too long and is being discovered again.

Jean is just glad that it’s still there, and he presses a passionate kiss against it so he can lick and adore it until Marco moans softly, letting Jean know that he won’t lose it ever again.

December 23rd

It’s one day before Christmas and they’re visiting Noel’s grave. Marco leans heavily against Jean, lets him carry that burden once, the only day out of 365 where Jean is allowed to help and Marco is allowed to be weak and cry over his little brother’s death. It’s snowing when they return, and the bouquet of red roses and white lilies looks beautiful. Noel would have loved them, Marco says. Jean nods and stops, getting on his tiptoes to kiss Marco’s forehead. Then he presses a butterfly-soft kiss to his temples, trailing them down until he tastes the salt of Marco’s lips.

It’s only us left now, Jean whispers and a sob rips from Marco’s wounded chest, deep within where he carries his family and Jean’s parents and all those people they’ve lost. Their hands lace up, two golden rings gleaming in the rising winter sun’s light.

We still have us, Marco says after a long time. And her, Jean says softly and pushes his reading glasses higher on his nose. When he smiles, there’s crinkles around his eyes, laughter lines that years of happiness with his husband painted on his face like a canvas that’s only filled after it’s been through life, love, pain.

Their daughter comes running back with a collection of dirty, snow-wet stones in her tiny hands and excitedly signs some words to Marco. He replies with a loving gesture in sign language and their little girl smiles, nodding and running forward, towards the graveyard’s exit where Jean parked their car and their grown-up son is waiting with the dog excitedly tearing at its leash.

December 20th

Jean doesn’t cry when Marco’s body burns to ashes in a fire as bright as the morning sun. He doesn’t cry when he kisses his blade with lips that belong on Marco’s before battle, the hand that held Marco’s ashes and that held his soul at night. The tears come when he receives a packet from Marco’s family, and fifty letters. “To Jean” they say, and the first one starts with “If you receive this, then I’m dead. Those letters are my love to you. Burn them or keep them. I just wanted to make sure… that you never feel unloved ever again.”

It Should Be.

It should be Jean standing at the ocean, digging his bare feet into the cold sand, watching the thunderstorm rise over crashing waves, tears blown away by salty wind and dried from the fading sun. It should be Jean, clenching his hand around Eren’s little key, the one that’s always around his neck and dangling where his chest is warm, where his heart is beating softly, steadily, forever. It should always be Jean, seeing the ocean as they’d promised each other, right there when Eren had lost all his limbs from being cut out of the Titan once more, writhing and crying in pain, Jean holding his body and kissing the screaming ache in his bones better.

It shouldn’t be Eren, standing there motionlessly when the storm went down, when rain pattered on his face and carried his wild desperate scream into the skies.

It shouldn’t be Jean’s wings of freedom, the emblem from his jacket, clenched tightly in Eren’s shaking fists, dried blood splattered all over it and the white colour of the wings… gone dark.

December 15th

The blindfold is finest silk. It’s black, exquisitely soft and Jean isn’t surprised that Marco only picked the best for him. He took it willingly – lips parted in a shivering moan when Marco put it over his eyes and tied it, rough fingers sliding down Jean’s neck, stealing his breath with whispers of “so good for me, my darling. Proud of you.. Lie down for me.” Jean nods desperately, mouth falling open when Marco shifts, his knees straddling Jean’s head carefully, looming above him in darkness. Then there’s fingers in Jean’s hair, gripping it tightly, he whimpers “p-please” – and Marco’s cock slides into his mouth, thick and heavy and goddamn perfect, wet from precum dripping on Jean’s tongue, curls of dark hair against his nose when Jean mewls, muffled, and clings to him. He melts under Marco, groans when his mouth is filled and it’s good, more –
“F-fuck, god you’re… so good. Good boy, c’mon.”
Jean smiles around that mouthful of Marco’s perfect cock, swallows, hear him growl and starts to suck when fingers tighten in his hair and Marco whispers “just like that… my boy.”

Ours.

At first, he thought it’d be a catastrophe. A foolish idea. “I don’t think you understand,” he told Jean and Eren over and over again, fingers tangled tightly in his lap, knuckles white, insecure. “You don’t – I can’t. I, I love you both, f-fuck, I do – but you wouldn’t be happy – ” Jean then leaned in to kiss his mouth, gently, and Eren ran a warm hand through his hair, fingers grazing his neck. “We love you,” Jean said solemnly, and Marco wanted to object, but Eren went on “and we know what asexual means. But we love you. We do. We want you to be ours, and we’ll belong to you.” Jean kissed him again, and Marco nodded, heart aching and tears welling up in his eyes.

It isn’t a catastrophe now. It’s good, it’s warm when he’s sandwiched between their bodies at night, when Eren’s hands rest on his stomach, heavy and strong, when Jean nuzzles his nose into his chest. They’re good. Maybe he can start believing… that they do love him. Because the tenderness they have for him is all he needs, all he thought he’d never get.