December 13th

The memories come back singing with melodies of war and tears. Jean doesn’t expect it, and neither does the stranger. They’ve never met, haven’t seen each other’s faces or watched out for a certain familiarity in people, for a faint trace of freckles on cheeks, for a sharp jaw and a loud cheerful laughter. But when Jean bumps into a man with wood-dark eyes, when their shoulders crash in the university’s corridor and all of their papers scatter on the floor, it’s like an eternal search ends. Jean feels his breath stop, heart crumble. Fingers clench, find a shirt to fist and a chest to curl himself into, and now he does believe in fate and soulmates and all that shit. Marco cries, holding him tightly and stammering “y-you remember, you know t-too – Trost, the others – we… T-titans. I shouldn’t be ali – ”

Jean kisses it all away, devours the memories from Marco’s lips and nobody understands, how they’re just standing there and kissing and crying over something they lost, somewhere, in another life.

December 11th

Erejean. sfw. sadness, death, and a sacrifice of one – to save the life of all.

A loud flourish echoes along the top of Wall Maria. The signal. Jean looks up from the piece of metal he’s been toying with. Mikasa, Armin and Levi are following behind Commander Smith, faces stony and cold, their gear still whirring from cannonballing them up the wall. Levi throws Jean a quick glance when passing by, and there’s something like pity in it. Armin doesn’t speak, neither does Mikasa. Everything’s been said between the three of them. Jean still remembers the scent of white lilies, of rain and an empty grave, three days ago. Nothing left to bury.

Eren.

They line up on the wall, and Jean stands by their side. Armin touches his shoulder, his breath hitching as tears slide down his cheeks. He’s grown up, hair cut short like Mikasa’s. Jean remembers how he used to love her, and then stopped to devote his heart to someone else.

Hanji is the last one. They come with a basket full of shimmering silver that’s moving and trying to crawl up the walls of its cage. Levi takes the basket to hold it, eyes cast away, face dark from shadows and ice-cold hate. They all sacrificed so much, but… not enough. Not as much as –

Hanji takes the weapons out one by one, setting them on the edge of the wall. They look like silver beetles, thick as a fist, with feelers and a blinking red sensor on their blunt heads. The machinery inside whirrs and moves as Hanji touches every single one, activating them. Mikasa wraps her arms around Armin and holds him when he starts to cry. Levi leans against Erwin, whispers the name they’re all thinking about. The Commander wraps his only arm around his neck, kisses his hair. Hanji’s tears are silent when they watch the bugs rise into the air, gas evaporating from their bellies and catapulting them, the sky’s the limit for humanity’s greatest invention.

The Titans they lured to Wall Maria are glaring with hollow eyes and hungry red maws, spit flying, steam erupting from where they stumble into each other. All along the wall are hundreds of soldiers, opening baskets and letting out silver bugs into the air. The rest of them is in the Forest of Giant Trees, and all over humanity’s last safe haven are clouds of shimmering beetles swarming the sky, the sun reflecting on their bodies.

The mechanism is complex and Jean doesn’t understand it, but Hanji does, and all of them remember the sacrifice that it cost one of them. “We will construct a machine that will sit on Eren’s neck. When we need him out of the titan, when he’s going wild or things get dangerous – then the beetle cuts him out precisely. He doesn’t need to lose his limbs each time,” Hanji had said. They had all agreed, had seen the demonstration on the Titan puppets they’d been training with, back in older days. The silver beetle had worked perfectly. Eren had said it was cute and at least small enough so his Titan self wouldn’t be distracted. Jean had mocked him about the silver insect sitting on the nape of his neck for days, they’d fought about it.

They’d kissed before their last mission. He can’t turn back time now. He can’t wrap Eren in his arm and rip the beetle off and –

It was quick. Blood, flesh, no screams. Eren’s heart stopped, and his death had brought humanity victory. Too many Titans attacking him on the last mission. Levi had screamed “get him out, he’ll be eaten!”, and the beetle, conditioned to his voice, obeyed. In theory, things always work. In theory, there’s negative numbers and a peaceful word, love and kindness. The silver beetle twitched once, and then its sharp claws cut.

And they didn’t stop.

There was no corpse to bury, nothing left when the Titans lashed into him. Jean watched. He screamed his heart out, his soul and his living beating heart, cursed at the broken fucking world and at the key dangling around his neck, a simple talisman Eren had given him.

“To protect you, idiot.”

Just days later, the military forced Hanji to change the beetles. A few adjustments and the weapons were programmed to react to a certain body temperature and electrical signals.

Now Jean watches them attack, and he opens his hand to look at the piece of metal he’s holding. The key’s rusty and a little skewed, and Jean gently wipes it until it’s shiny again. While the beetles exterminate, while giant bodies fall like rotten trees, and while all the other soldiers are cheering, the Survey Corps stands still.

The Commander raises his left hand. He salutes. They all follow, fingers against their foreheads. Armin’s broken sobs and Mikasa’s quiet tears travel away with the wind swirling through their capes, and Jean lets his hand sink down to look at the bitemarks they are all carrying on their palms, deep red and just days old.

“Jäger,” Levi says into the wind.

‘You always wanted to protect others,’ Jean thinks and clasps his bitten hand around the key, the talisman he got from warm lips brushing against his own, and a voice whispering.

“To protect you.”

December 10th

An anon asked for a modern fighter AU with Jean body worshipping Marco who’s crazy insecure about the burns on his right side. Bonus points for crying babies.

“Let me, please just – just let me. I promise I’ll stop if you say so. Please, darling. I love you. Let me… let me love you like nobody ever has before.”

He isn’t asking for sex. He doesn’t even want Marco to take off his pants. Jean holds him against his chest, has Marco listen to the calm steady beating of his heart, and he whispers love and gentleness to him. They’re songs, almost, little hummed melodies that Jean makes up with his musician’s brain, and there are days when he’s just playing on his guitar hours and hours until his fingers bleed a little. He’s doing it for Marco. He’s doing it for the soft brown eyes he’s fallen in love with – no, not just fallen, he shattered and bursted his shell for that man but still –

Still Marco believes that Jean can impossibly love him.

All he wants is to give him safety. All he wants is to worship him till the end of his life.

“No, I – Jean, you’ll be disgusted by me, you’ll hate me – ” Marco’s voice is tiny, wet from sobbing into Jean’s arms, from clinging to his shirt and from a past of blood, dirty rust and cracked skin. It breaks Jean’s heart.

“Don’t you dare. Don’t you dare say that I’ll find you disgusting,” Jean cups Marco’s face and he kisses him. He kisses his lips and his jaw where the burn scars are thickest, where his past marked him with fire when he wanted to escape. Jean lays him down and it’s an eternity, it’s centuries before Marco’s tears dry on Jean’s lips and then Marco nods. Okay. There’s so much doubt in his beautiful eyes, this perfect dark warmth that Jean will love until he dies.

He kisses it all away.

They stay up all night, hiding under Jean’s blanket. No light but the moon shimmering somewhere far away. Marco’s right side is a burnt labyrinth of stories, and Jean discovers, reads, adores them until Marco is curled in his embrace, and, finally – smiles.

December 4th

“La mela proibita” says the dark sign over the restaurant’s entrance. The letters are smoldering gold and gleam in the street lamp’s dim light. Inside it’s comfortable and warm, a whirl of cosiness luring Jean deeper in. He chose this place because it’s new, and all magazines are overboarding with praise for Signore Bodt’s exquisite cuisine. Jean doesn’t expect too much. His mother’s French and a fantastic cook, and he’s grown up to have such a spoiled sense of taste that nothing can ever satisfy him.

He’s roaming life full of wild thirst and hunger, and it’s not just caramel or vanilla he’s looking for, not the simple pleasures of a breathtakingly meal. People wear their aromas to the outside, all their secrets prominent and reeking from cheap flower scents. Jean misses the darkness, the deep rumbling desire of a good wine being poured into a crystal glass, the kiss of a lover who can fulfill and sate him – who takes his soul and tears him apart with skilled fingers, puts him back together in a way that has Jean gasp for air fucking perfectly, and has his heart boom in his ribcage where a heavy hand rests and holds him down.

The ancient oaken door to his right opens, a large bright kitchen flickering the gap of wood and wall for a second. Jean swallows heavily and his fingers grasp the table’s edge. Signore Bodt wears a white cook’s uniform and a star-glowing sky full of freckles all over his dark skin. His hair’s a mess of cowlicks and Jean bites back the urge to get up and grab a fist of it, to pull him down in the hope of getting a taste of smirking bold lips –

“Welcome to ‘La mela proibita’. What can I serve you to get a smile upon that pretty face of yours?” A voice like thick lavender honey, eyes darkening when they scan Jean from head down to his fingers helplessly clenching around the table. He’s gorgeous, he’s fucking perfect and Jean wants to have a taste of the hollow that sits where his collarbone shifts under warm skin.

Oh, he’s doomed.

He’s getting spaghetti carbonara when his voice is back to order, and a fine wine along with it – but Signore Bodt shakes his head and leans down, points into the menu to another wine. “This one will go much better with it. If you don’t mind, I’ll get it for you. And a few bruschetta as an entrée?” The way his tongue rolls around the Italian word has Jean lick his lips. God, he needs more, and Signore Bodt’s smile tells him enough. He turns with swift elegance and is back in the kitchen with a few steps. It’s only now that Jean realizes that he’s the only customer so far, and it’s already near midnight – fuck. He runs both hands down his face.

He’s gulping the water down and clings to the glass afterwards. It’s not long before the kitchen door swings open and Signore Bodt joins him with two small plates of bruschetta. “You came in when I was about to close,” he smiles and his fingers dance over Jean’s knuckles when he gives him the plate. Jean almost drops it, and when the cook’s hand guides a piece of bruschetta to his mouth, he closes his eyes and wraps his lips around it.

“Not very polite,” Signore Bodt says. “But it means we get to enjoy our meal together, and that’s why I’m glad that such a pretty thing like you bursted in after closing time.”

Jean chokes on the bruschetta and the cook’s hand slides on his back, patting gently until he’s caught his breath again. “It’s – I’m – sorry,” Jean croaks and for some reason, Signore Bodt’s hand suddenly wraps around his neck, and slides along his jaw. Calloused fingertips, fucking shit, Jean forgets every English word he knows and curses shakily, softly in French when a warm thumb runs over his lips.

“I rarely have any customers like you.” Signore Bodt’s eyes are charcoal darkness, and Jean’s ready to drown and give up all his self-control. “I hope we’ll… see each other again after tonight.”

They do.

Not even two days later, Jean returns. It’s midnight again, and he still feels where Marco (that’s his first name, beautiful and perfect like him) left fire engraved in his skin, warmth flooding Jean’s body whenever he licks his lips and remembers. Tonight, he’s hanging his jacket on the coat rack, turns around with a light swag to his step – but the kitchen’s dark, and his shoulders sag down in disappointment. Maybe he imagined things –

A hint of lavender honey, musk and darkly brewed coffee. Lips press to his neck, a strong hand slides over his waist. Jean’s eyes widen and he swirls around, and Marco crashes into him with a wild growl, a low rumbled curse in Italian that has Jean’s cock throb in his pants. He doesn’t know him, but it’s enough to know that Marco’s waited here for him and is fiddling with his fly, long fingers slipping inside and palming his painfully hard cock.

“Fuck,” Jean breathes when Marco bites his bottom lip, “shit” when he’s hauled up stairs and “oh God, fuck – ” once again when a mattress bounces back under his weight, and a heavy body takes his breath away, together with hands roaming under his clothes and marking his skin with nails and burning touches.

Marco’s moans are heavy with his name, and when a fucking perfect mouth hollows around his cock, sucking him, so slow and wet and goddamn heavenly, Jean curls his fingers into black hair and a tiny, broken sob comes together with him bucking his hips up, Marco grinning and swallowing his come with obscene slick noises.

Later that night, Jean learns that Marco switches back to Italian and that “mio Dio!”, along with a thick cock fucking him raw and fucking perfectly until his throat’s sore and aching from all the lewd moans he’s been spilling – that means that Jean might be eating Italian a little more often now.

December 3rd

Jean has perfected the art of forgetting. Things, people, old bruises on his heart that’s always been too loyal and good until the day he brought someone home, and their laced up fingers had his father take his half-empty bottle of booze and throw it against his head along with the word “fag”. It’s been lonely and cold since then. Scholarship, study of medicine. Honorable doctor. What a talented young man, his colleagues say. His bed’s only for him, has been ever since the laceration on his forehead healed.

It’s 3 am and a gurney is shoved into his emergency room; several bruises and slashes on a young scared face, tears in dark fearful eyes and a sky full of freckles scattered over warm cheeks. Broken arm. Jean stitches what he has to, holds a calloused hand when the man who’s almost still a boy cries all night. He hears his story, and he knows that he’ll be lost and spiralling down an abyss that he’s barely just crawled out. “Fag”, the boy sobs, he’s been called. It echoes in Jean’s head, booms and roars and fucking sings.

His shift ends, and it doesn’t. He spends nights by his side. His name’s Marco. He’s beautiful and so heartbreakingly good that Jean curses the world, and it’s weeks after Marco’s out of hospital and on his couch “for just some time” when Jean comes home at 5 am, greeted by bright eyes with hope rising in them, and he wraps his arms around Marco, lips finding his, finally, and a little whisper between gasped breaths – “stay”.

December 2nd

It’s their three month anniversary when Jean sits his parents down and explains that Marco finally wants to meet them. His father’s smile is almost contagiously bright, and he even forgets to sip his beloved coffee over the way Jean’s face blushes and he bites his lip with a shy smile. His mother stops reading the newspaper and looks over the rim of her thick glasses. “It’ll be fine, darling,” she says and squeezes his hand gently. Jean swallows and tells them about how Marco’s a little different and how much they’re in love, that Marco’s very nervous and please, please don’t bring up those embarrassing childhood stories. His mother grins and says that she won’t promise anything.

When Marco and Jean ring the doorbell a week later, his mother opens and immediately pulls Marco into a bone-crushing warm hug. Marco stares at her, wide-eyed, and their lip quivers around a watery, happy little smile when she gently asks which pronouns they’d like today and if they prefer coffee or tea along with sugar cookies. His father pats Marco’s back and has the family photo album tucked under his arm, whispering “you’ll love this” into Marco’s ear with a grin. Back home, hours later, Marco kisses his relief and happiness into Jean’s mouth and whispers thank you’s along through his fingertips dancing along Jean’s spine, lighting fire in his bones.

A broken sob shatters from Jean’s lips when Marco kisses him first, shy and gentle on the soft cupid’s bow above his shaking mouth; and when Marco backs away, eyes panicking and arms letting Jean go, Jean throws himself back into, face buried in the curve of Marco’s neck and whispers “no, no please don’t let go…”

And Marco, after he understands, doesn’t.

Eren yanks Jean around and slams him into some wall, just after Jean said goodbye in a voice wet from tears and a night of ragged sobbing in Eren’s arms, and Eren whispers the usual soft insults into his ear before he locks their lips too harshly, too gently to be enough, steals Jean’s breath and promises that he doesn’t have to go.
Please don’t.

For once in his life, Jean swallows pride and fear and gives in to the warm hand curling around his neck.

Once A Year

Jeanmarco Halloween
sfw.
mentioned suicide

The year dies in October.

Jean doesn’t know or care much about seasons or the change of colour in leaves, the wind going colder and whirling under his clothes and soul. It’s the 31st, and for some strange reason, it’s not midnight like in those horror films when he’s perched on the floor of his room and fiddling with the old wooden ouija board.

When the brim between living and dead shivers and blurs, when children scream for candy outside and loud orange and neon green screech for attention in the stores, Jean’s sitting in his room inside a chalk pentagram surrounded by candles.

It’s the third year after the incident.

He speaks the words he’s been mumbling to himself all week. Jean puts his fingers on the board, the wood warm and pulsing under his tips. The letters mean nothing, and neither does the triangle that starts moving around all by itself.

Jean smiles and blinks the tears away.

“I missed you so fuckin’ much.”

A shiver runs up and down his spine when Marco giggles, his laughter hollow and foreign.

“Missed you too, idiot.”

Jean swallows, gulps down the guilt and fear, just like every year. Marco becomes less human every time; every time Jean feels a kiss ghosting over his lips, Marco’s colder than before and his blurred spirit hovering over the board becomes thinner and so translucent that it’s almost fucking beautiful.

The hole under his chin where he fired the gun and killed himself is still there.

Marco’s mother followed him half a year later. His father’s in jail now, after three years at last. Marco’s form twitches and coils around Jean’s crossed ankles when Jean tells him how the police came, finally enough evidence. He’d dared to touch another boy, and had gotten himself caught. Finally.

Marco’s last kiss tingles on Jean’s lips, salt and sadness.

“Thank you, Jean.” No, don’t say that, Jean whimpers into his hands and tries to hold him, just fucking keep him close – you come back next year, don’t you Marco?

No. Marco doesn’t say it, but his eyes are the last part of his ghost fading into a golden gleaming light, and he leaves Jean behind with a guilt that’ll never be satisfied, never be eradicated like a vanishing form of silver soul melting with the cold night air flushing in from the window.

Every year, on the 31st of Halloween, Jean sleeps with the board under his pillow.

His fingers find the wood in the middle of the night, and he bites back all those sobs that Marco left behind when he went to peace.

Where Jean was wrath and sadness, breathing fire in his lungs destroyed from crying and ragged of screaming til his soul cracked –
there Marco was wind and water, the whisper of night in trees, the cool ice gliding down Jean’s throat and chest when hands took all his pain and fear. And his kiss left Jean struggling, writhing, breaking; and finally, with soft fingers promising healing and ease to his strained heart, he gave in.
Marco said his name like a prayer, and Jean sobbed ‘amen’ before he closed his eyes and the world melted around them.

a thing I did. inspired by the idea of waterbender Marco who can heal and firelord Jean who lost his parents in war and got on the throne with just twelve years.