Jeanmarco Week 2015. Day 1: B
egin againorDream on
“Marco!”
If all other laws of nature crumble apart, this one will always and forever stand adamant and untouched – when Jean calls his name, loud and wild and with a smile that has his face light up in amber, Marco follows, every single time, no matter what.
Jean finds new dreams for them, and Marco takes his hand to guide him around stones that lie in their way. Together, they walk. Together, they dream on.
Levi had expected it to happen sooner or later, but he still wasn’t prepared in the least. They had come back with eight soldiers less. They had all carried their eyes low, even the horses had been quiet, shaking from fear and tiredness. Erwin had done everything as usual – cleaning his horse, feeding it, changing into a fresh uniform inside his office with Levi silently doing the same by his side.
And then, there had been a soft thump, and Erwin had slid down against the wall with his face buried in dirty hands, a dark, horrible noise rising from his chest. Levi had watched, helpless, frozen in place like a useless child that had gotten slapped for the first time. What – this – this wasn’t real. This couldn’t happen.
Levi bit his mouth and dropped the leather straps of his gear. Erwin still sat there, shaking, but when Levi knelt down and pulled his hands away oh so gently, there weren’t any tears. All he could see was the roaring pain in Erwin’s eyes, his mouth open, speechless around words he couldn’t form. And Levi understood. He leaned forward and held him. He embraced Erwin, tight and warm, nails digging into his back and Levi’s nose burying into his hair.
They didn’t speak. Minutes passed by, maybe an hour. Erwin’s body fell against Levi’s, and Levi felt him take a deep breath, warm air shivering against his neck. Then, he wrapped his arms around Levi and pulled him down, and whispered a wordless “thank you” against the crown of his sweaty hair.
“Do you think we have a chance?”
Jean’s fingertips sow embers on Marco’s skin, and he shivers when warm hands dance down his spine, tracing the vulnerable bones that protect the flesh under which his soul flows. Marco doesn’t know what to say. They are lucky, this time. This reality is free of war and blood, there’s cars and a blue sky and a warm bed that belongs just to them and nobody else. Marco knows that Jean is afraid. He knows that he jolts awake at 4 a.m., crying and shaking, a hand digging nails into Marco’s shoulder until he opens his eyes. That’s when Jean sobs “alive, you’re a-alive” and crawls into his arms as if he wants to vanish inside Marco’s thundering heart.
He turns around, catches Jean’s soft cheeks between fingers and kisses him. The tiny noise Jean makes when Marco backs away is gorgeous, and he wants it only for himself. He smiles. Jean’s eyes are gold, liquid hope.
“Yeah. I think we’ll be alright.”
His name is Levi, and Erwin finds him like a gem hidden in the underground’s dirt. He’s wearing a knife like a trophy, eyes silver and the only bright thing down here, and Erwin thinks that someone so lethal shouldn’t be allowed to be that beautiful. His name tastes like silk and thick, warm honey on Erwin’s tongue. He’s never seen stars, and when Erwin takes him up, up on the surface and to the death of his comrades, Levi’s blade slits a thin scar into his throat. He’s keeping the blood-stained shirt forever – as a reminder.
It’s a week before Levi speaks again after Isabel and Farlan are gone, and it’s Erwin’s name that he says – quiet, almost shy, with his knife tucked away but eyes as bright as stars, and Erwin can’t help but lean down and lift him up to kiss him until Levi’s light is burning him to ashes and dust.
“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.
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.
Jean’s fear bleeds through his skin, and Marco licks it up with myriads of stars tingling in his touches.
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.
Moami 