Marco’s always had enough feelings and liquid happiness and warm, soft-red love for the both of them.
Maybe that’s why Jean’s mouth is empty of any sound when the titan’s jaw closes around him, and maybe that’s why he doesn’t scream, or cry, or close his eyes.
He’s lost his heart months ago. It’s only now that it does its last beat, and stills.
Jean knows he doesn’t deserve happiness. He’s not brilliant or talented, and he certainly doesn’t do any good to the world. But Marco smiles, sun rising on his cheeks, and kisses away all doubts from his trembling mouth. “You’re always enough,” he says. Jean knows he’s telling the truth. He’s never heard a more beautiful story than the one Marco whispers to him through touches, kisses, a strong body against his own. Maybe Jean doesn’t deserve it, but god does he take all the happiness Marco radiates into his heart.
Jean teaches him the foreign language of bravery with dark promises and whispered love, with a tongue sliding along the cold of his body and lighting him on fire, with star-shining fingertips that trace all of Marco’s ugly battle scars, and with the touch of lips on his own that swear an oath of “my love, you’re the most beautiful thing I was ever allowed to love”.
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.”
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.”
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.
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.
“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.
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”.
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.
Moami 