Chapter Text
“Are you upset?” Armin asked the following day, keeping his eyes half closed to minimize the impact of the offending sunlight on his sensitive eyes.
Jean and Mikasa exchanged a look and sighed.
They were already sitting at the small circular table in the eat-in kitchen when he woke up. Waiting for him.
“Not at all,” replied the former. Yes, said his body language.
“Absolutely, nodded the latter, never the one to mince her words.
“I am sorry.”
Mikasa gave him a look that didn't fail to make him jump since they were children.
“Are you really or is this a way to try to get us off your back?” she asked.They gave him a minute, knowing he wouldn't answer.
“Are you sorry enough to stop doing that?” Jean reformulated the question.
“I can't sleep otherwise,” Armin said after a while.
“Sleep in my bed”
The statement, neither an order nor a request, came out as an outburst, and Armin -left to answer such inquiry- could only gasp in surprise. Naturally, it was uncharacteristic for Jean to propose a solution to someone else's problem that would affect him as well, even more so if it was done without any prior deliberation. That was what he came to love and accept about his individualistic friend, and, as such, having him compromise his personal space without any hesitation was too odd. Unless—
He looked at Mikasa's perfectly composed expression and then back at Jean, frowning. So it was not a sudden request, then, more of a calculated move to keep Armin from marinating his liver before he turned 30.
He scoffed dismissively
“Please! You barely sleep as it is, I would only—”
“You would be driving the nightmares away,” Jean rudely interrupted.
Armin crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows. Jean had the decency to look sheepish and scratch the back of his neck, but Mikasa didn't offer such kindness.
“We used to do that a lot,” Mikasa sighed wistfully. “That's how you and Eren used to help me when I lost my parents and later—. I'd like to think we helped each other too.”
Armin nodded. It was painful to remember after everything that happened, but he used to crawl into Eren's bed even after they became cadets. When Eren's nightmares became too much to handle, he would forsake that enormous pride of his and come to Armin as well.
Jean knew this, he used to make fun of Eren for it back then.
Mikasa grasped his shoulder, bringing him into the present, Armin clenched his teeth to avoid making a sound over her painful grip.
“I need to know you are okay. My ship is leaving in an hour and a half, but I am not going anywhere until you promise me—”
“It’s okay, Mikasa. I will take care of myself, don't w—”
“ARMIN!”
He felt her hands reach beneath his muscles, brushing against his bones like the air did with the exposed inner structures of his Colossal Titan. Definitely his imagination, but just as electrifying.
“I can't lose you too,” she was resolute.
“You won't, I promise,” Armin looked her in the eyes with as much sincerity as he could muster.
“I will hold you to it.” She got up from her seat and closed the distance to hug him.
Armin missed her so much: her sarcastic humor, earnestness, and honesty. He felt safe and loved in her arms, grateful for the warmth of her body and for her will to stay alive after everything that happened. Mikasa was still a warrior, not the shadow of herself even when she struggled to get away from the shadow of a dead man. But then again... So did he.
“Not to interrupt this touching moment, but… Mikasa?” Jean cleared his throat.
“Yes?”
Armin could almost hear her rolling her eyes at his back.
“The port is three hours away from this hotel. It is okay! You can stay with us if you w—”
“I can catch it. I could use the exercise,” Mikasa sighed, letting go of Armin. “Take care.”
She grabbed her bag, gave Jean a curt nod and bolted out the door.
“I think I fell in love again,” Jean snickered. “Sooo…”
"Stay with us, you said. I was under the impression that you were going back to Paradis alone," Armin crossed his arms.
“About that… There might have been a slight change of plans. Besides I am sure my mother and sister can handle the dinner without me for a longer time. I heard they are doing just fine.”
“I am not a child”
“Never said that”
Jean's smile didn't waver as Armin glared daggers at him.
“And I won't pay for your travelling expenses while you are stalking me”
“There is no need. Besides, can we call it that if you know I am here?”
“True… Harassment, it is” Armin grinned and Jean kicked himself for not asking Mikasa for advice before.
Everyone believed him crazy when Armin said he preferred shitty hostels or motels rather than the ostentatious buildings they were invited to settle in on their diplomatic mission.
“It feels like home” he explained then.
Jean made such a disgusted face one would think Armin just insulted his mother.
Needless to say, after Mikasa and Jean's intervention, Armin didn't feel like catering to his friend's finer taste.
“Ugh… This is lumpy as all hell” Jean grumbled, wiggling on his bed.
“You can book your own room”
“Swear sobriety on your family's grave and I will”
Armin rolled his eyes and sat beside him over the flat sheet and the worn-out mattress with a book.
Jean looked over his shoulder.
“Don Quixote”
“Not what I would call light reading before bed,” Jean said, noting its daunting size.
“I get to pick my next vice” Armin grinned, looking at Jean from the corner of his eye. “Plus, it is good ”
“What is it about?”
“It's about a rich middle-aged man so obsessed with Chivalric Romance books, that he goes mad and becomes a Knight… People humour him, most of the time. Then he leaves home, looking for adventure. He even tries to attack to attack windmills thinking they are giants”
“Man” Jean moved to lie as comfortably as he could on his side. “I wish we had had the ability to transform into windmills instead of those things, it would have saved us so much trouble.”
“Yeah,” Armin sighed with a soft smile and vacant eyes, following the words of the book absentmindedly. “I am jealous.”
“Of windmills?”
Armin shook his head.
“Don Quixote. His life is full of wonder when everyone else is down in the slumps. Life is never awful and dull when you don't go through it the way you are supposed to. The reader experiences this by looking at the bleak reality from a third-person perspective, but if it was the protagonist in his rose-tinted glasses telling us his story, this must be the beginning of the most exciting adventure. Because ignorance is bliss, when the mind bends reality it is —sometimes— a gift… Sorry, too cynical?”
Jean frowned, considering his statement for a moment because he nodded.
“It's not like you at all. Quite frankly, you are starting to sound like me, it's scary. You were always the principled one, the firm one, but I know—” Jean put his hand up as Armin opened his mouth to say something, promptly closing it to let him finish. “You can only ever be so strong. It's okay to be afraid. Fuck, I know sometimes you like to pretend it ain't so, but your survival instincts are natural. The point is! You are here with us and you are Armin —broken, clever, tired, too stubborn for his own good— Arlert. You fight to find the bitter truth, you do it and if it leads to something that needs a solution, you look for the damn thing too! Because that's what's right. It's what you do and it is wonderful.”
Armin huffed a laugh, finally quitting his poor attempt at late-night reading, putting his book down on the nightstand and hitting the lights.
“You are getting WAY ahead of yourself with all the psychoanalysis”
“What is that?”
“Oh! It is this method based on a new theory I heard from a couple of psychology students that says—” Armin shook his head as he grabbed the old blanket from the foot of the bed to drape it over Jean and himself.“You know what? Nevermind, I am probably not even using the term right. But it is getting late, so…”
Jean sighed, scooting to the side to give Armin space on the bed.
“One day you will have to stop dismissing my… Psyconalasys, or whatever. I know I am into something, you always push me away when it happens”
“And yet you never leave… How is that fair to you?”
“Do you really want me to leave?”
“I want you to hold me” Armin blurted without thinking and regretted it immediately.
Jean stiffened.
“Yeah. I-I can do that,” Jean said. Even in the dark Armin could almost see him blush.
“You don't have to, I am sorry. It's just—”
Armin felt a hand awkwardly settling over his waist.
“We both need a good night's sleep. It's better if we are transparent with what we need and try to adjust. It's just not our usual dynamic, that's all. I don't mind, I mean, we have hugged before, no big deal,” Jean rambled with just the faintest nervous tone in his voice.
Armin was used to hearing a less understated version of it whenever a beautiful university professor so much as greeted him. It was a little flattering.
“Well, I don't want to make you uncomfortable, either. If it is too much…”
“I have a little sister with night terrors, Arlert, I think I can survive a little cuddling”
Armin held up the hand over his waist, turned around giving his back to Jean and moved a little closer to let Jean's arm fall more comfortably over him.
Armin had the privilege of seeing an airplane fly once and he was pretty sure the sound of its engine paled in comparison to Jean's snoring. Armin was trapped between his friend's arms, chest and a leg draped over his own.
Jean was a furnace; he felt like an extra layer of skin, too hot for comfort, but, at the very least, too cold to compare to the Colossal Titan. His breath was somewhat steady and his mouth stinked.
It didn't matter— that was the best sleep he had in years. Armin melted in his arms, praying to whichever high power willing to listen to see the same man in the mirror his friends did, the one he was forced to become when he wrote himself into the narrative of a new world that hated him.