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Lovino had never seen this "Titan Attack" or whatever show, but after spending twenty goddamn minutes untangling and forcing on the weird leather leg straps, he was half convinced that it was some kind of creepy bondage shit.
He sat in the hotel room that he was sharing with his brother, and groaned as his dumb curls stuck out of the wig cap again.
"Remind me again why we're doing this? And toss me the hairspray."
"Because Kiku is our friend! The people for his panel thing ditched him and, ve, its a nice thing to do." Felicano handed his brother the canister. Lovino almost screamed because when he looked up, his brother had suddenly grown one sky blue eye.
"Oh my fuck, what the hell happened to your eye?" Lovino did not squeak, fuck you.
Feli giggled, "I just haven't put my other contact in yet. Calm down, fratello!"
"I am calm, dumbass," Lovino huffed, before the other part registered. "I don't have to put in contacts, right?"
Feliciano patted him on the back reassuringly, "Nope! You got Nonno's pretty gold-ish eyes -- and you're so lucky that you did, they're really pretty -- so your eyes match Jean's already."
Lovino didn't respond because he didn't want Feli to know that he was relieved, though he got the impression that Feliciano already knew, damn him. After it was all said and done, it had taken Lovino nearly 15 minutes, 17 bobby pins, and half a bottle of hair spray to tame his hair and get the wig on (Thank god Feliciano had had the insight to bring two bottles with them). They drove over to the convention center, Feliciano giving Lovino a quick synopsis of who this "Jean" guy was.
"... So he's really angry and mean when Eren first meets him, but they don't fight too much, ve, because Eren can totally beat him in a fight, not to mention just because the existence of Mikasa Ackerman, and Jean's best friend Marco holds him back and stuff. Oh! Marco dies at Trost -- That's the trainee's first battle -- and Jean finds his body, so they'll probably ask about that. Just say something like how you would respond in real life, ve -- not that you're an angsty teen or anything, don't look at me like that, Lovi! -- and try to avoid the weird emotional implications. After Trost, he stops being as mean and joins the Scouting Legion, and he becomes friends with Armin, that's me! I'm sure that any of us can help you through any super hard questions, so don't worry too much, okay?"
When they arrived at the convention center and met up with Kiku, who looked surprisingly pretty as a girl, he was handed a sheet of paper.
"This has pictures of all of the characters and their relationship to Jean," Kiku explained, "And I just wanted to thank you for doing this even though you had no prior knowledge of the anime, Lovino-san. I'll announcing that you are new to this at the beginning of the panel, and I will attempt to assist you any way that I can."
Lovino scanned the paper, nodding to himself, "Okay, thanks. I should be able to fake my way through this."
Kiku nodded happily, and led the Vargas' to the room he had rented, introducing them to the rest of the cosplayers.
Lovino knew most of them, if only by face -- Feliciano's best friends made up the "Shiganshina Trio," with the potato bastard as Eren (Arguing with him should be easy then, Lovino thought); Then there was Francis Bonnefoy as a chick named Annie, the terrifying Russian guy as Bertholdt, and The Albino as Reiner; Alfred F. Jones and Matthew Williams were Connie and Sasha, respectively (Though, if you asked Lovino, Alfred fit the description of Sasha that he had heard better, but if the self-proclaimed hero wanted to wear a bald cap, who was he to judge?) -- but there was apparently someone missing, if the phone that the Albino and the Wino were yelling into was any indication.
"Gott, where the hell is he? We told him the right time, didn't we?"
Almost as if on cue, the door whooshed open and in walked... someone. Their Marco, if the penciled on freckles were any indicator, and Lovino had to admit, he was really hot.
"Ah, sorry I'm late! I got super lost, ha ha."
Oh no. Lovino knew that voice. He knew that voice because it was the dumb, slightly accented voice of the guy that he had had a horribly obvious and awkward crush on for the last two years. The wig and the distinct lack of glowing green eyes had thrown him off, but now that he had realized, there was no mistaking that carefree grin. It was-
"Hola! I don't think we've met before, but I'm Antonio Fernandez, aka Marco, pleased to meet you!"
Lovino stiffly took the proffered hand, pushing away the thought of Oh my god, I'm fucking touching his hand oh my god. "Lovino Vargas. Charmed."
And if he hadn't been then, he definitely was once the actual panel started. Everyone was so good.
It honestly wasn't hard for him to bullshit his way around Jean because, despite Feli's half-hearted assurances, Lovino was an angry, angsty teen, but some of the others had to do complete personality changes and they took it in stride, as if that was how they always were. Antonio was mostly the same, but due to the slightly (incredibly) creepy nature of Lovino's crush, he was able to spot the differences. It was going surprisingly well, easy questions about Eren or Mikasa or the training day had been the only ones thrown at him, but then, as if the universe had just remembered that Lovino wasn't allowed to have things go his was, someone asked a hard question.
"Hmm, the Ymir in the back, what's your question?" Kiku asked, and the guy they were forcing to run around with the mic (Roderich Edelstein, Lovino later learned, and it was because he had been forced into cosplaying as one of the squad leaders' errand boys) went over to the girl.
"Um, well, this is more of a question that my, uh. Christa had," The girl was cut off by the crowd whistling and clapping, and her dark skin flushed slightly, "But, uh, to Jean and Marco: How would you describe your relationship?"
Lovino froze, because this was what he had been praying not to happen. He had figured out, as the questioning went on, that some of these fans obviously liked the idea of certain characters being together, but since he had been spared any of what Feli had called "Shippy" questions, he had thought that Jean was safe from it. He glanced down at the rest of the group, hoping for one of them to help him, but got only shrugs in response.
"He's, um," Lovino cleared his throat, "My best friend, obviously." When there were a few boos, (and a mutter of "More like his only friend." from the Potato bastard, and even if the Potato was acting in character, Lovino still sort of wanted to punch him) Lovino scowled, "What the fuck else am I supposed to say?"
"Now, now, Jean, I've got this," Antonio, apparently noticing the murderous intent in Lovino's glare, grabbed his shoulder to anchor him in his seat and then laughed a bit, "I guess you could even say that he's like... my other half."
There were screams of "How dare you!" and groans galore after the pun that Lovino only sort of got. Lovino rolled his eyes, but nodded once. Antonio's answer seemed to have pleased the crazy fans.
Or so he had thought before another hand raised.
"Why thank you, Moblit!" The... Woman? Maybe? whatever. The person said when Kiku called on them. "My companions and I," They gestured to the blond with huge eyebrows to their left and the short, scowling Asian man to their right, both of whom were doing their best to pretend that they weren't associated with the brunette speaking. "Were wondering if we could get a bit of JeanMarco fanservice? Our Petra is sick and we promised her that we'd find at least one JeanMarco for her, but Jeans are surprisingly hard to find today, especially if you're looking for one with a Marco."
Lovino knew what fanservice was, and he rapidly blushed and blurted "No!" at the same time that Antonio replied with a sunny "Of course!"
They stared at each other for a second.
"Come on, Jean," Antonio begged, using goddamn puppy eyes on him, "Please? For their sick friend?"
And, unfortunately, Lovino was as susceptible to Antonio as Marco as he was to normal Antonio, so he gave in. "Fine. But nothing too weird."
"Of course not!" Antonio laughed, as if he didn't know what crazy fangirls could come up with. "What do you want us to do, Hanji?"
"I suppose kissing counts as 'too weird', right?" Lovino nearly injured his neck nodding. The person -- a Hanji, apparently --laughed and thought for a moment, "Then can we just get a hug?"
Antonio nodded, and stood, making his way in front of the table so people could get better pictures, and Lovino followed his lead with his neck flushed scarlet. Antonio held out his arms, and Lovino made a show of huffing and taking forever to actually give him a hug, even if his mind wanted to do nothing more than jump right into the other teen's arms.
Antonio was warm, and his arms were well-muscled, and Lovino felt calm with his head against the others' chest. He let his eyes drift closed for a second ignoring the squeals of the crowd, and sighed happily. Then the moment was over and Lovino pasted back on his scowl and wriggled his way out of Antonio's embrace.
"That good enough?" He asked the crowd as a whole, no longer able to discern who had asked for it, and got a sea of nods back. "Great," He paused and weighed the options; he could take the fanservice further and flirt with the guy of his dreams, or he could go back to being silent again. It wasn't really a hard choice. "You better make that up to me later, Marco. How about letting me punch Jaeger?"
"I think Mikasa would kill you," Antonio chuckled, "How about something more manageable, a surprise?"
Lovino blushed in record time and looked away. "Sure, fine. Whatever."
There was more pleased squeeing, and when Lovino got his blush under control and was able to look at Antonio again, Antonio was looking back at him. He scooted a piece of paper with sloppy, spindly print on it.
I hope you don't mind that I'd rather give a surprise to Lovino than Jean.
Lovino wanted to write back, No, of course not, I have a huge crush on you please kiss me. But he exhibited a surprising amount of self-control and just wrote Depends on what it is.
Within seconds, the paper was back in front of him. Okay, this is really forward, and I don't even know if you've ever noticed me, but I've kind of liked you for a while and I think you're cute, so the surprise is my number.
He almost screamed, literally, out of pure shock and glee. Antonio liked him too. Antonio was giving Lovino his number. Antonio was basically asking Lovino out. Lovino calmed down, glanced at Antonio out of his eye -- the other was doing a fantastic job of pretending to be paying attention to anything that wasn't Lovino -- and took out his phone. Quickly entering the number into his contacts, he sent a quick text.
Surprise, I sort of like you too.