Chapter Text
The sound of the heavy bass rumbles through Marco’s body and the smell of everything around him filters in through his nose as he stares down at the screen for all of two seconds before the sound of sweet, melodramatic words register into his space. Jean is still on him, leaning into his entire body with his own lean form as Marco smiles quietly down at the open app in front of him.
“Marco c’mon man. We need to dance before our friends realize that we’re totally not where they left us.”
Marco nods his head as his fingers swiftly glides across the plastic and metal and he turns his head just the slightest to shoot a toothy grin at Jean. He notices his eyebrows are furrowed and he giggles, like legit giggles in giddy emotions, at the sight of him upset over Marco’s slight deterrence on the their mission. Jean nudges his head like a puppy into Marco’s shoulder as he tries to hide the obvious redness fluttering up his body and turning the tips of his ears pink and Marco goes back to finishing up before he upsets the blond in any actual way.
Hitting the small send arrow at the bottom of the screen, the flash of the slightly blurry picture travels off into digital space with the small message to “take your time” attached to it. Sasha and Connie would have a riot about the whole situation and he wasn’t going to let the chance escape the record books as he made sure to hit the save button before even sending. But according to an impatient little blond, Marco’s taking way too long thumbing at his screen trying to exit out of the application and with a swift move of his hands, Marco finds his shiny android in slender, light-skinned fingers. “Hey – what are you doing?”
His hands automatically reach up to grab the phone back but a quick reactionary move and Jean’s hands shoot behind his back as he shakes his head. “You can have this back after we dance.” A second later, his hands stuff the phone down into his back pocket but Marco’s forgotten it all as the hands on his waist and warm breathe on his neck turn his mind to mush. Even without any blatant effects of alcohol, the intoxication Marco feels as he’s aware of himself being dragged deeper into the mess of heated, sweaty bodies.
The air is musty around them – the sweat on the bodies around him making it easier to glide past them as well as make the obvious grinding that more apparent. The stench of weed and beer and bad decisions lingers over the crowded lawn and the sobriety keeps Marco on his toes and aware as they walk through delirious couples unaware that they’re, in fact, not in a private space right now.
All to suddenly against Marco’s musings, Jean pulls to a halt in a certain square footage that allowed more movement that previously and he turns back around to face Marco, chin dangerously close to resting on the taller boy’s sternum. It doesn’t take any words from either to know where they need the other’s body. Their forms moving along, off of one another as they subconsciously move along to a beat that doesn’t match up to the song playing as much as the beat that they can feel through the layers of fabric covering their chests. It’s similar to breathing off of each other as they move cohesively, not giving a damn for the people that are still gyrating around them barely two feet away.
It’s a mess of limbs that Marco can feel all over him as well as his owns intertwining themselves with Jean’s. Touching each other anyway they could and savoring the small slices of skin that showed up when a shirt rode up their sliding bodies. The loud, earth-quaking boom from the speakers resound in the backs of their ears as all they focus on is the sounds of each other’s heavy breathes in their ears when the other got close enough to return any such favors. It was a good thing Marco didn’t have to worry about childhood asthma anymore because he doubted he would’ve made it off that small perimeter of groundout grass with his breathing resembling any sort of normalcy compared to the way Jean’s lean but obvious well-formed body seemed to handle the heat.
The thin layer of jackets that they’d both had on were getting to be too much as the heat between them rose over the course of the one song still playing and they both disentangled themselves just the slightest, still lost in the feeling of the other without moving as far as bringing their attention to the other’s face like how they wanted. Focus kept all along the bodies in front of them and Marco’s especially trained along the way that the shirt Jean had chosen to wear under his black, collared jacket was very well fitted – it’s sleeves the perfect length to grab Marco’s attention for longer than reasonable. They both tie the jackets off around their waists and Marco laughed for a second as he remembered his years in elementary school and the look in Jean’s eyes as they glint under the horrible ground lighting is of wonder and approval as he takes in Marco’s face.
Something seems to crack inside him and his thoughts about how Marco looks pretty good for a nerdy fanboy leave his head and he launches himself into the tall boy’s chest, dragging the freckled face down to meet his in a sloppy kiss. Their lips fumble together as they try to keep themselves locked without falling prey to the multitude of people pushing against them now. The slight tilt of their heads, noses brushing and the occasional teeth clanging against the other’s blur together as they swallow down any moans or breathes in the small space separating them that threaten to escape and vocalize in the night air.
They’re left standing there, Jean slowly grinding up and into Marco’s open thighs, lips still locked threatening asphyxiation as the crowd around them start to disperse towards the grass lots and towards the line of taxis and registered Uber vehicles across the way. They only seem to register the change in atmosphere when the music starts to dim around them and Marco feels the chill of the open air on his bare arms and in Jean who shivers slightly in his arms.
They realize that they’re very nearly alone on the floor as only around a hundred or so people still seem be lost in their own world and Jean quickly pulls at Marco’s hands that are intertwined in his. They make their way towards the edge of the grounds, close to the stage again as they both try to catch their breaths. Marco sits back down on the step he’d been at just half an hour ago and their breaths are still shallow and heavy as they stay there, silent but comfortable of the quiet. They’re only allowed the few moments where they only smile at each other, no words coherently forming enough to say them aloud, before they’re alerted of a few new stragglers tripping their way towards them.
Sasha and Connie stumble up, their eyes starstruck as they glance from a surprised Marco and a very confused Jean and they make it up to them close enough that they can hear each other over the people loitering around and Marco watches them stutter around for breath. Connie’s zipper very much still undone in his rush to find them, apparently.
“Holy shit, Connie!” comes Sasha’s high-pitched voice. “You were right! Jean fucking K is near my precious little Marco!!”
“Sasha! I’m neither precious nor little would you stop and take a breath for a second?” Marco shrieks back up at her, his cheeks flushing a bit at the unwarranted attention.
“MARCO! Please tell me you at least kissed the hunk of your dreams before we got here because if not than Connie and I can totally go on and get some of the leftover nachos and-”
“Sasha, no” Connie mutters to her. He grabs onto her hand and steers a little farther away from where she was sliding closer and closer to Jean. He hasn’t said much, mostly in shock over the loud rambling coming from Sasha and smirking at her insinuations. Marco’s now a very darker shade of pink and he covers his face in his hands as he slumps down even more in his seat on the steps of the stage.
“We actually did – Sasha, was it?” Jean laughs into his hand a bit before continuing. “Don’t worry, I kept your precious little Marco safe from the weirdos in the crowd.” He giggles a bit at the look Sasha has plastered over her face and the dumbstruck look on Connie’s before turning to sit down next to Marco.
Marco stiffens at the contact of their shoulders brushing but relaxes when Jean nudges him and directs his attention away from his relaxed face to Sasha’s that looks like she’s internally screaming and throwing a fit. Marco shoots her confused look a small smile and the excitement that he’d expected from her is shot out of her as she nods her head in approval. “Good,” she says, quietly. Her eyes bore into Marco, searching for something as they gleam and it’s almost nearing the awkward point when she decides she’s found what she’s been looking for and turns her attention back towards a smug-looking Jean. “Marco deserves only the best and if that’s you? Then good.”
Connie’s dumbstruck look swivels towards his girlfriend at that and he stares at her and back at Marco and Jean in turn as his brain tries to make sense of the situation over what’s obviously still a hard-on he’d stuffed into his pants. Sasha must’ve been the one to call it off over the chance to find Marco latched onto a sweaty Jean. They’d pulled on their jackets but it was apparent that the chill of the summer night wasn’t going to stay as comfortable as Jean shivered again next to Marco. “You cold?” he asks Jean. The blond nods his head slightly and is about to say something when Sasha’s voice rises up again. They turn their heads to the ashamed and slightly guilty look on her face. “Sasha?”
“I kinda forgot to mention this – well I purposely didn’t tell you – but we actually have shifts tomorrow morning at the café and we didn’t realize that it was getting towards 1 A.M. and that we should probably get going. I didn’t have any idea that you guys would hit it off so well but um…we need our ride home.” She trails off, her voice uncharacteristically small and quiet considering the amount of beer she’s drunk you can take a guess at with the smell rolling off of her. Both Connie and Sasha smell like they took a dunk in a pool of beer and the smell of malt and fermentation would explain their strongest personality traits shining through. Sasha was always the loud on and Connie would grow quiet and observant as he tried to sputter through words that could get him laid.
Marco huffs out a breath, finally having caught up his lungs to the rest of his body, and makes to stand, leaving Jean on the step in front of him. “And I’m guessing you didn’t tell me because I would’ve shot down the role of DD and made you two stay at home, right?” They nod their heads and Marco slumps his head down for a second. He lifts it to shoot a small grin that he hopes gives Jean enough to go by as he talks to him. “Sorry, Jean. I guess – well I guess I gotta go now. Um.” His voice drags out on the incoherent mumble and Jean stands up too, feet barely an inch from Marco’s as he looks up at the freckled boy.
“Tonight was great. I’m glad you came to be their DD.” He shifts on his feet and looks over Marco’s wide-set shoulders at the couple sheepishly watching them. “So thanks, I guess. If it wasn’t for you two dragging and then leaving this guy to fend his own, I never would’ve found him looking so grumpy on the steps.”
Marco slaps Jean’s shoulder playfully as he chuckles. “Hey! Says that guy that decided to approach a stranger that accidentally sent him an unoriginal-looking snapchat.”
“Yes. That would be me and I’m not gonna lie and say I regret it or anything so what’s your point?” He smirks up at him and Marco can feel himself drowning back down into him as he looks at him. The way his nose points out and sets into his dumb smile that compliment with the arches of his eyebrows that are multiple shades darker than the honey-like, tawny eyes looking up at him. Jean “Vine-extraordinaire” Kirschtein was looking up at him – an idiot college kid that was worried about the amount of reading he had to finish before the weekend ended.
His voice shakes the slightest as he smiles back down at Jean. The feeling of any kind of tension so expansive around them that they can’t seem to even discern it from the way the other looks just smiling at them and giving them more attention they deserved. “I have no idea but god you’re beautiful.”
Jean’s face pulls into a shocked look and Marco can see the tips of his ears turning red again and he finds them so endearing he doesn’t even realize that’s he’s held onto them and is rubbing soothing circles down Jean’s ears when he talks. “Yup. Still great.” He pulls his hands away and stuffs them into his pockets as he shrugs one shoulder and leans his head back towards the others. “I guess I’ll see you around, yeah?”
“Hell yeah you will. I’ll see you soon. I should probably do and find Eren and everyone else anyway.”
Marco turns, smiling back at Jean as he grabs onto Sasha’s free hand and drags her stiff body towards the emptying parking lot. “Bye, Jean,” he shouts back and he hears the distant sound of a sputtered “bye, Marco” but he’s too far now, more people spreading out into the distance between them, to be able to hear it clearly. He turns back around and the three of them make headway towards the old, dented, rust-mobile when the sound of Jean’s voice bounces off the lawn’s entryway.
“Marco! Uh sorry but you kinda forgot your phone.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out Marco’s recently purchased phone and hands it off between them. Marco takes it, trying to keep his speeding heart rate level and unnoticeable as their hands slide against each other’s just the slightest.
“Thanks! Don’t know what I would’ve done without that.”
“Yeah.” Marco takes a beat to look around at them and notices the looks that Sasha and Connie are shooting in their direction as Jean openly attempts at making conversation. But after a while it seems he’s way too tired for his brain to even manage words as he mutters out, “Right well Eren has his boyfriend propped up against the stage, totally wasted, so I should probably head on out and take them home.”
Marco nods his head and tilts it as he smiles at him. “Cool. See you later, Jean.”
“Yeah. Bye. Again.” Jean chuckles awkwardly, his hand going up to rub circles at where his undercut meets the rim of his snapback and Marco giggle too watching the telltale sign of red ears as he walks backwards towards the general direction Sasha and Connie had wandered off to, waving his hands in farewell.
He finds his intoxicated friends by the car, leaning against the chipping grey paint and mumbling incoherent words to each other as he gets closer, keys in hand. They seem to hear the jingling of the metal and perk up immediately and Sasha steps forward as Marco unlocks the car and heads over to the driver’s side.
“So? Did you get your goodnight kiss? I dragged Connie away because I figured you probably deserved a bit of privacy considering it’s our fault you’re here.”
Marco chuckles, shaking his head as he dives into the driver’s seat. He waits for the sound of Sasha tumbling into the backseat and Connie heading up to take his place in the passenger seat – an arrangement that’s been set since high school their first time with Marco DDing. Settling his butt into the soft cushion that was twenty times better than the deteriorating wood of the stage’s step, Marco waits for Sasha to stop fidgeting with her off-kilter shirt before giving a half-assed riposte. “There wasn’t a goodnight kiss, no. And like Jean said,” his hand fumbles for the phone stuffed in his pocket as his voice tries to come out smoother than his fluttering heart feels. “Thanks for dragging my ass out of the apartment.” His voice trails off as he clicks open the lock screen. He’d meant to check the time as his hands automatically went to turning the car on to let it heat up before making the journey back towards the university, but instead found himself staring down at a new text message from a contact he didn’t recognize. “Snapback?”
Marco slides his fingers along the screen down to get to the notifications menu. The text’s preview shows there’s a picture attached and in a split second decision he decides to click the notification and a new text conversation pops up, a picture shining back up at him in the dark car. The picture is of him glaring at a giddy Sasha and Connie – his face a light shade of red from both embarrassment and from the effort of trying to hide a stupid smile. The text under the picture is what catches Marco’s eyes as his cheeks start to emulate those in the picture. “Cute?!”
Sasha’s head pops up to rest against Marco’s shoulder and with a loud coo, she’s yelling into his ear a bunch of nonsense trying to get Connie to stay awake and listen to her. She’s garbling out a bunch of “you lucky son of a bitch” and variances of “you’re so getting into bed with pretty boy blond” before Marco gets her to quieten down as he locks his phones and belts himself in. “Sasha, shush.”
The little storm of a brunette turns to pester a sleepy Connie for a while as Marco takes his time to let the old car heat up fully. It’s a practiced game and getting stuck in the middle of the road at 1 A.M. was not anyone’s ideal situation.
His phone vibrates again in his lap, the tremor knocking him back into the car with Sasha yelling from the back about stopping at a Taco bell ten minutes out of the way. Grabbing the phone off his lap, he slides the conversation open again and finds a different staring up at him.
Eren’s eyes, one green and one golden, are staring up at him from the corner of the selfie, his face showing off a cheesy grin. The rest of the image is Jean, face pulled in annoyance as he reaches forward, towards the camera, mouth open and probably yelling obscenities. The caption reads, “Take one for the team snapchat. Make Jean less of a dick” and Marco chuckles to himself as he stares at the picture. A small blond is propped against Mikasa – who Marco recognizes from Eren’s social networks – and looks absolutely smashed and he figures that must be the boyfriend Jean was talking about Eren was with.
Another message rushes onto the screen and it’s apparent Jean’s managed to grabs reins on his phone. “Marco! Ignore Eren he’s an ass”. Marco laughs and the way that it echoes in a quiet car alerts him that it’s way too silent. He turns and finds Connie slumped onto the window gently snoring. Behind him, Sasha, buckled into the middle seat, is flopped over her chest – her seatbelt digging into her cheek – as her mouth falls open in loud snores.
He lets the phone sit in the cup holder between him and Connie and Marco starts the drive back to their place with the soft hum of the shitty pop station playing over the usual pings and vibrations interrupting the drone of some old Katy Perry song from high school days. He mouths along to the song and the following five other old hits before they finally make it to the perimeters of the University town.
Grabbing his phone off the center console he starts the process of shaking his friends awake. They murmur and groan their annoyance and discomfort against their belts and Marco reminds them of the warmish bed waiting for them upstairs if they hurry and get the hell out of his car. Their bodies stumble but soon enough they make it through the small hallway leading to the staircase that takes them up to the fourth floor home. Unlocking the big black door the building was apparently so famously known for because of its ‘designer’ appeal, he immediately pushes the half-drunk, half-delirious, bodies down towards the hall that leads to their bedrooms. They hobbles over, teetering on wobbly feet as Sasha makes straight for their room while Connie beelines it for the bathroom.
Ignoring both of them, too exhausted to care about how loud Connie’s pee flow through the cracked door is, Marco slumps into his own room and falls backwards onto his unmade bed littered with class notes, kicking the door with all the energy he can muster. His phone digs into his ass and he rolls to his side and haphazardly slips it out of his pocket and palms at the dark screen as it vibrates sharply in his hand telling hi there are old notifications that need to be read. Sliding it open, the screen still open to Jean – aka Snapback’s – number and Marco smiles at the multitude of snapshots from the last 25 minutes he’d spent driving.
- Eren and his half-sister Mikasa who only lets the smallest smile crack her super serious exterior (it must be the alcohol)
- A picture of Jean driving a car with incredible interior aesthetics flipping the bird with the hand on the wheel while his right hand reaches out at Eren. His face irritated but you could tell he didn’t find it as annoying as he could’ve
- Jean carrying a smaller than he’d expected blond that was beyond intoxicated through glass doors and passing mail boxes that looked familiar. His hands, laced around the boy’s back and thigh, still flipping off the camera
It’s the final picture that gets Marco sitting up in his seat, opening up the image in a new light, zooming in and out trying to figure it out. It’s of Jean. He’s bent over his knees trying to grab what must be his keys off the floor without dropping Armin, but even that is too off the focus of the phone’s camera and isn’t what’s got Marco breathing raggedly. It’s the blurry background of Mikasa in the back hiding a laugh or yawn behind an open hand leaning against the wall by the door. A large black door. She’s standing next to a dark green and silver number plate similar to the scratched at one Connie tapped on for good luck during exam season. The numbers were blurry but the etchings of “3-something-something” in a familiar font stuck out over the way Jean’s back looked as he bent over to pick up his keys with a boy basically in his lap.
The distant sounds of clatter from the apartment below their own – a sound he’d gotten used to since they’d moved in at the start of the semester – echoed up into Marco’s ears and he essentially launched himself out of bed, a new surge of energy pulsing through him, slipping his boots back on, shouting something about being right back as he booked it out of the room. His voice trailed in the silence as Sasha and Connie looked at each other in confusion in the dark making out the one phrase Marco was repeating as he rushed out.
“Holy shit!”